Текст книги "Twisted Bond"

Автор книги: Emma Hart

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

My conversation with Ryan went about as well as the winter Olympics in Australia. It occurred to me on the way back from Houston that I needed a copy of Lena and Dr. Gentry’s marriage certificate as proof for when I told Ryan. Dr. Gentry willingly scanned it and e-mailed it to me without asking why I needed it, and the printout I gave Ryan lasted all of ten minutes before he angrily tore it up.

Long story short, he had a police escort out of my office, and I’m now fired.

Which was happening anyway. Let’s be honest. The woman lied to him. To all of us—but to him the worst.

Briefly, I wonder if Julia will ever forgive him.

Probably not when it gets out that Penny’s baby is Ryan’s and his penis is a rogue animal incapable of staying inside its cage.

I sigh and stop into Rosie’s Café on my way home. Right now, I need a big ol’ vanilla latte and perhaps a slice of pie…or ten. That’s equivalent to one Gigi’s cupcake, right? To me, it is.

“Goodness, Noelle! Did you hear?” Rosie gasps as soon as the door shuts behind me.

“Hear what?”

“Lena! Married. With a baby!” She shakes her head and pushes some stray hair from her face. “Why, I can’t believe it. How did she keep that secret?”

“I don’t quite know,” I say quietly. “Can I get a low-fat vanilla frap and two slices of your cherry pie?”

“Sure thing, sugar.” She busies herself with my order. “I’m so darn confused. And Ryan—that poor boy! How’d he cope with the news?”

“Not well,” I admit. Although “not well” is somewhat of an understatement.

“And the case? He hired you?”

“Hired me, fired me.” I shrug and hand her a twenty.

She clutches a hand to her chest and leans forward. “But you are still investigating?”

I take the box containing my pie and bring my coffee to my mouth, my lips slowly curving at the sides. “Now, Rosie,” I say, heading for the door. “I never outstep my bounds. I’m surely sittin’ by and lettin’ the police finish out the investigation.”

Rosie shakes her head, grinning. “Surely, Noelle. I believe you, sugar.”

With a wink, I push my way outside, the bell over the door tinkling. Back at my car, I nestle my pie box onto the passenger’s seat and deposit my coffee cup in the cup holder in the center console. As I drive home, my mind wanders.

How did Lena keep her other life a secret?

And how does Daniel fit into all of these things?

It crosses my mind that I haven’t spoken to Claire Santiago, the woman whose toyboy he was. Of course, I know that their relationship disintegrated when I informed her husband. She groveled—a.k.a. gave him a ton of blow jobs and participated in his dream of a threesome with a woman from out of town—and their marriage is back on track.

There are some damn weirdos in this town, I tell you.

But, still, if Claire and Daniel had any semblance of a relationship left…

I pull up in my driveway and text Bekah before I get out of the car, telling her to call Claire and see if she saw Daniel before he died. That done, I tuck my phone between my boobs, balance my coffee on top of my pie box, and walk to my house.

I’ve barely opened the door when I get the sense that something is wrong.

I carefully set the box and coffee down on the hall table, looking through the house. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

Silence answers me.

Clearly, I’m working too much right now. I need a day off. If only the murderer could come clean.

Shaking my head, I grab my treat and coffee and take them into my front room. I pull my boots off and remove my gun from its holder around my ankle, setting the bright-pink weapon down on my coffee table.

And I wonder why people underestimate me.

A pink 9mm tucked into six-hundred-dollar cowboy boots.

I have to be the girliest badass in Texas.

The thought brings a smile to my face as I head into my kitchen and grab a fork from the drawer to eat my pie. I’ll also be the biggest girliest badass in Texas if I keep up this cake addiction I have going on, especially if my caseload means I can’t get my ass to the gym.

Mind you, this case has me running around so much that it doesn’t matter.

Ah—the old case. Lena’s murder is no longer my case. Officially. I’m in way too deep to get out. Although using my common sense and stepping away from this investigation like everyone is telling me to will mean I don’t have to see Detective Dreamy.

Detective Dreamy?

Holy shit. I glare at the pie.

“How much damn sugar is Rosie putting in you? I’m freakin’ hallucinating now.”

Or not.

Drake is kinda dreamy. And then, of course, he opens his mouth and ruins the whole thing.

I sigh, digging my fork into the sticky cherry goodness. Typical of most males, though. They’re real pretty till they talk to you.

After one slice of pie, I’m definitely full. I close the box and set the fork down, grabbing the notebook I always keep in the drawer of my coffee table. I unclick my pen, and leaning back on the sofa, I call forward every fact I know about this case.

Two people I know have been murdered, possibly connected via me, possibly not. Both in the same brutal way, both deliberately positioned on property I own. Both once busted for being bits on the side.

One by one, I write down every last piece of information until I have nothing more than what I started with twenty minutes ago.

“Ugh!” I throw the notepad and pen to the floor and drop my head back. I rest my arm over my eyes and take a deep breath.

This is entirely useless. There are so many questions I have yet to answer. Did Lena and Daniel have a relationship past friendship? Did he see more than he should have that night he died—more than just being the guy her dinner was taken from? What’s the real connection between them? Why did Lena lead a second life in Houston? Why didn’t Daniel turn up until a few days after Lena if he was killed the same night? Where were they killed? Why were they killed? What’s the motive for it? Was it truly Ryan Perkins feeling unhappy about their relationship? Was it Penny, wanting to have a life with Ryan but couldn’t see one unless Lena was dead? Was it Lena’s husband, Dr. Gentry, sick of her screwing around with him? Was it one of Lena’s debtors?

But poison… That’s a woman’s weapon. Simple yet deadly and incredibly easy to administer. You can kill someone over weeks or months, even years, or you can have them dead in seconds. You can kill slowly or quickly, painfully or painlessly.

Which pins the head on Penny again.

As her assistant manager, she would have had more than enough chances to kill Lena. But if that were true, why not kill her over time? Get her coffee and poison it? It would be easy to lace a coffee jar with poison and only use that for one person by means of hiding it between cups.

Then there’s Mallory—she’s inheriting the life insurance policy. The substantial one, too. That’s a great motive. A lot of money. Enough for her to step out from beneath her father’s shadow. But again—why a quick-acting poison and not a long one?

Or maybe there’s someone in Dr. Gentry’s life. Someone who’s mad that Lena won’t divorce him and let him be happy despite his protestations that he always hoped she’d go back to him and Melly.

These thoughts whirl aimlessly around my head, one after another, colliding but never separating. They’re almost suffocating in their intensity, their confusing and nonsensical jigsaw-shaped pieces never quite fitting together.

Whatever it is, something in this case just isn’t adding up. Everyone has motive and means—until you bring in Daniel.

Why kill him, too?

Why not let him live?

I ponder these last two questions for an endless amount of time before, finally, I grab my gun, check that my alarm is set, and go to bed.

In my dream, I’ve solved a murder, eaten Gigi’s, and had another serious lapse of judgment with Drake Nash. Several lapses, actually. And one was very, very fucking serious. Sweat and hair-pulling and naked-body-and-orgasm kind of serious.

In reality, there’s a bang from inside my house, and I jolt awake. The hairs on my arms stand on end, shivers cascading across my skin with lightning speed. I grab my gun from the nightstand and hold it in front of me, ready to shoot any fucker who gets in my way.

My heart pounds ferociously as I quietly step off the final stair and look around. The house is deathly silent as I move into the living room. I turn the light on. Empty—if you ignore the mess. DVDs removed from their cases, paper strewn everywhere, and when I move into my office, it’s much the same. The contents of my desk are covering the chair and the floor. Some of the sheets are crumpled, others simply thrown carelessly, and there are files and folders brightly decorating the sea of white.

“Motherfucker!” I whisper, clenching my jaw and walking out of the room.

In the kitchen, moonlight illuminates the scene through the large window over the sink. A chair has been knocked over—that was the bang I heard. Several kitchen drawers are also opened, their contents spilled onto the countertop. Moving into the utility, I see what I was looking for.

The door leading into my yard is slightly ajar, and instinct tells me to check the lock. There are scratches on the plating around the keyhole, just like there are on my office door handle.

Anger filters through me like nothing I’ve ever felt. This shit is fucking personal now. When I find who did this, I’m going to put a bullet through their head so they can’t damn well do it again.

My house. My space. My sanctuary.

Completely violated.

I take a deep breath to rein my emotions in and look at the clock on the kitchen wall. Three thirty in the morning. Keeping my gun close to me, I turn on the yard light and make sure I really am alone before I head upstairs for my phone. The deck is clear, and so is the grassy area just beyond it. The shed though…

Barefoot, I slide through the gap between the door and the frame and pad across my yard. The shed is completely untouched from what I can see.

Happy there’s no one here—sad there’s no one for me to shoot at—I run back into the house and up the stairs. I grab my phone from under my pillow and dial Trent’s number, slowly moving through upstairs, which is, thankfully, untouched.

“Noelle?” he answers groggily. “What—what time is it?”

“Th-three-something,” I answer, my jaw chattering. The adrenaline is rushing out of my body at a speed faster than I can deal with, and the reality of what’s happened sinks in.

Someone broke into my house.

Oh God.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is clearer, stronger, more demanding. His cop-mode.

“Someone just broke in,” I whisper, feeling my throat clog. “To my house.”

“Grab your gun. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Noelle!” Dad yells, my front door slamming open.

“I’m here,” I reply.

He takes one look at me sitting on the stairs, my knees to my chest with my arms wrapped around me, and sits next to me, his arms wrapping around me. “Bella ragazzo,” he murmurs, pulling me into his chest. “You’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

I nod. “They knocked over one of the chairs in the kitchen. They must have panicked and ran. They didn’t come upstairs.”

“Noelle!” Trent’s voice thunders through my hallway.

“Jesus, I’m right here,” I say, standing up and going right down. “And yellin’ at me ain’t gonna make me appear any faster if I weren’t.”

My big brother looks at me. Then, in one swift movement, he pulls me into him. He squeezes me tight, and we repeat the conversation I just had with Dad.

Seconds later, Brody and Devin appear and I have the conversation again, and then my house is swarmed by cops. They ask questions and take photos and explore my house. I stand quietly near my family, still wearing my Snoopy shortie pajamas. At least I kept my bra on last night.

Sometimes, you just have to think of things other than the tragedy unfolding before your eyes.

Round and round the HWPD go. More questions, more photos, and fingerprint sweeping until there’s layers of fine, black dust across my house.

“Y’all are gettin’ that cleaned, right?” I give the lead guy, Detective Rory Spencer, a hard look.

“Yes, ma’am.” His lips twitch up. “Someone will be by this mornin’ to see to it.”

“Good.”

Dad laughs and rubs my back. “Why didn’t your alarm go off?”

Holy crap. My alarm!

I rush over to the main box by the front door. It’s completely disabled.

“Noelle!” Devin snaps. “Did you forget to set it?”

“No!” I turn to look at him. “I set it every night. And I know I definitely did last night.”

“Maybe there was a delay—the guy got there before it went off,” Brody suggests.

“What kind of alarm has a delay?” Dad asks, coming to look at me.

“Not mine,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around my waist. “But it was definitely set. I’m more likely to forget to turn it off, not turn it on.”

A shadow falls over me from the doorway. “Just can’t help gettin’ into trouble, can you?”

“Vaffanculo,” I snap, turning to Drake.

His hair is messed right up, and the jeans he’s wearing have a tear in the thigh, his T-shirt crinkled and his underwear band just showing above the waistband of those torn jeans, which are oddly sexy. Memories of my dream flood back, and I fight the blush wanting to color my cheeks bright pink.

“What are you doin’ here?”

He nods toward Trent. “He called me. Told me you were in trouble. Again.”

“If you’re gonna start givin’ me shit, Detective, take a fuckin’ number because someone already beat you to it. I can only take so much crap, and my quota for today is already overflowing.”

“Then I’ll make sure I hold in my crap until tomorrow morning.”

“Please do.” I turn away from him as Detective Spencer comes back and tells me that they’re done and someone will be over to clean my house up of the awful powder by lunchtime. I hand him a spare key from the kitchen drawer and watch as everyone trails out.

My father and brothers all check another ten times that I’m okay, that my guns are loaded, and that I’m not going to have a serious mental breakdown if they leave.

“You’re stayin’ at home tonight,” Dad orders, standing in the doorway. “Home, home.”

My worst nightmare, but it’s useless to fight him on this. “Okay, Daddy.”

He steps forward to kiss my forehead, shakes Drake’s hand, and then leaves, closing the door behind him. I take a deep breath and look around the mess that is my house. I don’t even need to ask who did this. It was the murderer—or whoever’s been cleaning my files out.

And I know exactly what they were looking for.

“You all right?”

I shake my head. No. No, I’m not fucking all right. I’m as far from all right as I can possibly be right now.

“They take anything?”

I shake my head again. I’m not sure I can speak right now. The tightness of my throat combined with the rolling of my stomach has me desperate for oxygen. I take another deep breath in, but it’s not enough, and it leaves me too quickly, and I need more—more air, more air, more air.

The room. It’s spinning. My lungs burn. My mouth is dry. My eyes are wet. My cheeks are hot.

I can’t—

“Noelle.” Two large, rough hands frame my face for a second. “Breathe.”

I fall against Drake’s chest, hot tears spilling from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. My breaths are giant, harsh gulps that have me trembling against the warmth of his body.

He gently wraps his arms around me, but his hold is anything but. It’s tight, and the safety that quickly engulfs me slows my breathing just a little. It’s like everything else but his embrace blurs slightly, and the feeling of being entirely cocooned by his anchoring hold is overwhelming in the best kind of way.

“Hey,” he says once my breathing has returned to normal and my crying has slowed. “Better?”

Oh, good grief. I just sobbed all over Drake Nash.

“Yes. Thank you.” I straighten and step back.

He loosens his arms around me but doesn’t let go. “Are you sure?” His eyes search my face, glowing with concern.

“Yeah. I just…” I sigh heavily and wipe at my cheeks.

“Your badass gene calmed down.”

I glare at him—or try to. His fingers twitch at my sides just before he drops his arms, and the way his lips pull up makes me smile a little, too.

“I think most people refer to it as adrenaline,” I comment.

“But not many single women check out their own house during a burglary when there’s a chance the suspect is still there.”

“I had my gun.” I chew the inside of my cheek and look away.

“Precisely. Your adrenaline is a badass gene that flares the fuck up every now and then.”

Moving toward the desk and gathering some papers up, I smile a little again. “I’m surprised you’re not yellin’ at me for not calling someone right away.”

“Noelle, sweetheart, if I thought tearin’ you a new one would make the slightest bit of damn difference, I would. I didn’t come over when Trent called because I was angry. I came ’cause I was worried about you.”

“Right.”

An awkward silence hangs between us for a long moment before Drake comes up beside me with a stack of papers. “Anything missing?”

I shake my head. “Not that I know of.”

“Do you know what they could have been looking for?”

“I have a damn good idea.”

When I don’t speak for a moment, he asks, “And that is?”

“Wait here.” I close one of the drawers. Fisting the bottom of my pajama top, I turn and walk out of the room. I’m totally aware of the fact that his eyes are firmly on me as I walk away from him—just like I am about the fact that my butt cheeks are possibly creeping out from beneath the bottom hem of my shorts.

But hey. I wasn’t exactly expecting company in the middle of the night.

In my room, I crawl up onto my bed and bend over, grabbing the pillow from the side I don’t sleep on. Then, without a care, I shove my hand inside it and pull out the flash drives I’ve had hidden there ever since I bought them.

The sound of a throat clearing behind me has me jerking to the side and sitting up straight.

“What are those?” Drake asks, pretending to look at my hand. Instead, his eyes are focused on my chest.

“Flash sticks,” I answer, centering myself and standing up in front of him. “Here.” I put the drives in his hand with enough force that his eyes quickly pull themselves upward to meet mine.

“And why would they be looking for these?”

“Because,” I say, walking back downstairs. “Those drives have every Bond P.I. case on them.”

“And by every, you mean…”

“I mean I turned off my surveillance camera in my office, copied everything over in private, then brought them home with me,” I tell him as we enter the kitchen. “If another murder happens, I don’t want to be running around like a headless warthog on steroids looking for a goddamned file. I want to know I can pull it and all its details in seconds.”

“I’m impressed.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I reply dryly, shoving cutlery back into its drawer so there’s enough space for me to clean out the coffee machine and make two cups. “Take them. Keep them at the station.”

“Are you admitting that I’m right?”

“That I’m not safe?” I pause in my cleaning of the machine and glance at the glacier-eyed detective with a stance so powerful that he fills the room with just his charisma. “Absolutely. You are right. I’m not safe—but I never claimed I was. I claimed I was strong enough to protect myself. And I would have if the assdouche had hung around for long enough.”

He laughs, sitting at the table in the center of the room. “Not doubtin’ that for a second. Your badass gene sure knows when to come to life.”

“Badass gene or not, I’m an Italian-Texan woman in a family full of cops. I’m passionate and shoot before I think. You only fuck with me if you’re stupid.”

“Some would call that ‘passion’ anger or attitude.”

“No, I don’t get angry, or mad, or pissed. I get passionate.” I glare at him and put a mug of coffee in front of him. “Capisce?”

“Capisce,” Drake replies with a grin. He tucks the flash drives into the pocket of his jeans and picks his cup up. “You realize it’s five thirty?”

“Really?” A glance at the clock confirms the time. “Crap. The cops were here for ages.”

He nods solemnly and drinks slowly. Tension settles between us, lingering in the air, its threads pulled so tight that just one breath a little too harsh would break it. My eyes flick around the room as I will myself to look anywhere other than at him. The wall, the trash can, yesterday’s water glass next to the sink, the crack on the cabinet door I really need to replace.

Avoidance. Like the tension will dissipate of its own accord if we simply ignore the fact that it’s there.

Drake’s fingers slowly wrap around the mug, each long, roughened digit easily curving without so much as a twitch about the heat.

I blink harshly and look away from his hands. Jesus.

“I assume you’re still refusing to step away from this case.”

I inhale slowly through my nose. “The fact that you question that shows how badly you underestimate me.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Noelle! You were crying in my damn arms not thirty minutes ago!”

“And?” I glare at him. “We’re closer than ever to finding this killer.”

“How the hell have you worked that out?”

“Because every time someone has been killed, my files have gone missing!” I yell. I rub my hand down my face and take a deep breath. “And now, someone has just broken into my house to steal copies of my files. Files no one knew about. Which means I’m being watched.”

“And they’re going to kill again.”

I lift my mug to my mouth. “Bingo.”