Текст книги "Wicked for You"
Автор книги: Shayla Black
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
“I won’t leave you unprotected. Don’t ask that of me.” Heath crossed his beefy arms over his chest.
“I wouldn’t.” Mystery shook her head. “I want you here.”
She kind of wished Axel was here, too, but refused to dwell on what wasn’t and might never be again. Then she took a deep breath, wondering if she could ever really be ready to face whatever her mom had safeguarded for her, shut the door to the private room, and lifted the box’s lid.
Inside, she found some jewelry, including some diamond earrings that had once belonged to her maternal grandmother. Julia had worn them on her wedding day, and they’d become a gift, as Mystery had heard the story. She also found a gorgeous cross made of rose and yellow gold entwined with lovely flourishes and embellishments. The center sparkled with a diamond that had to be at least a carat. Where had that come from? She didn’t remember her mom wearing it.
Mystery also found what looked like some letters to her mom from her dad. Instantly, she recognized her father’s handwriting on the yellowed envelopes. Based on the postmark of the first few, they had been written during their courtship and the early days of their marriage.
Despite their ill-fated union, these notes had been valuable to her mother. Mystery already knew that her father kept some from his late wife locked in his desk, along with a collection of her pictures. They’d loved each other completely and passionately once. Why had her father never tried to be a better husband? They’d both been human, filled with insecurity and capable of stupid mistakes. Had her mother somehow failed to understand that?
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Mystery sniffed them away. Now wasn’t the time to get philosophical. She had to carry on.
She didn’t see anything else at the bottom of the box. So odd . . . It didn’t seem possible that these few pieces of jewelry or the dozen love notes would really be worth killing or dying for.
“That’s it?” Heath looked over her shoulder. He sounded as puzzled as she felt.
“I guess.”
Mystery lifted the earrings out of the box, wondering what her mother had been thinking when she’d placed them here for the last time. Had she known she’d never wear them again?
Swallowing back a lump of grief and loss, she tucked the diamond drops in her ears and closed her eyes. The earrings weren’t heavy. In fact, she barely felt them, but wearing the gorgeous glittery things made her feel somehow closer to her mom.
She touched the cross with a reverent finger, tracing the lines, before picking it up and fastening it around her neck. The cross fell just below the hollow of her throat and felt shockingly cold against her skin. Then again, the necklace had been sitting untouched by human warmth for sixteen years.
“Let me look.” Heath took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him, studying her with intent, dark eyes that missed nothing. “It’s brilliant, but it isn’t you.”
“The earrings or the cross?”
“The cross. It’s too ornate compared to your usual jewelry. The earrings look perfect, simple but elegant.”
Mystery didn’t have a mirror so she couldn’t comment. Heath was probably right, but she wanted to wear the cross. It made her feel as if death, along with nearly a decade and a half, didn’t separate her from her mom.
She lifted the stack of notes to open the first one and peek at the contents. As she did, she noticed something totally new underneath.
A little electronic disc of some sort, small and almost square. The kind capable of holding a tell-all book that might have gotten her mother killed?
Mystery’s blood turned to ice.
Heath took the disc from her numb fingers. “It’s an SD card. We need to read this quickly and decide on our best course of action.”
She knew that, even if everything inside her violently disagreed. “How?”
“My laptop is in the car. It will read this disc.”
Just like that, he’d open his trunk, and inside two minutes she would be reading whatever secrets her mother had kept until the day she died. Was she really ready for this?
Did she have a choice?
“I’ll read on the drive back to Aunt Gail’s farm,” she murmured.
He gave her back a soothing pat. She may have insulted or upset him at the café today, but he’d put all that aside to comfort her because she needed it. Mystery wished she could have loved him in return. Heath would be a devoted protector and lover. He could be serious or funny. He was highly intelligent and had a great sense of adventure. Unfortunately, kissing him hadn’t given her a fraction of the giddy, heart-beating thrill that simply being in the same room with Axel did.
She shoved the letters and the SD card in her purse, leaving the jewelry on. She signaled to the bank manager that she was done. Once the empty safe-deposit box was locked up, she signed the paperwork necessary to terminate the box, then left with Heath and Osborne, the attorney mentioning just a few more papers she needed to sign in his office.
A warm breeze brushed her face and the late afternoon sun blinded her as she walked between them back to the office building. The attorney led the way, while Heath watched her back. Heart pumping, Mystery kept vigilant, almost expecting someone to jump out at her and demand she turn over her mother’s effects.
Inside the office building again, the air was almost too still. The carpenters renovating the empty suites on the lower floors were either packing up for the day or already gone.
Finally, they reached the fourth floor and Osborne’s office again. Inside, they found Aunt Gail reading a paperback she’d likely pulled from her purse, and sipping coffee. She’d poured several other cups and left them on the corner of the desk.
As soon as they entered, she jumped out of her seat. “Were you successful?”
Mystery didn’t really want to talk about it, but of course her aunt wanted to know what her only sister had left behind before her death. “Yeah. I found letters and jewelry.” She showed off the earrings and the cross. “And some other stuff. We’ll look at it more carefully in the car.”
“Excellent. Coffee?” Aunt Gail asked her.
“Sure.” Mystery didn’t actually want any, but as evidenced by the cookies and lemonade, the woman liked to feed others. She didn’t want to refuse, so she set it on the desk in front of her.
“No, thank you,” Osborne murmured as he retrieved some papers in a folder. “At my age, caffeine past noon keeps me awake half the night.”
“Luckily, I haven’t run into that yet.” Her aunt took another sip. “I sleep like a baby. Heath?” She all but pressed the cup into his hand. “It’s really delicious. I noticed you drank nearly a whole pot this morning. You’ll appreciate this brew.” She turned to the attorney. “What sort of beans are these, Mr. Osborne?”
He smiled almost smugly. “It took me over a decade to find the perfect coffee. It’s a Kona-Colombian blend. I have it specially roasted in Mexico, but it’s about the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
“Wonderful.” Her aunt all but moaned around the lip of her Styrofoam cup, then turned to Heath. “Cream or sugar?”
“Black is fine.” He sniffed the brew, then sipped it. “It’s strong, the way I like it.”
Her aunt smiled, then settled back into her chair, shoving the book in her purse as Mystery and Osborne got down to business.
Several conversations and a handful of forms later, she stood and shook the attorney’s hand. Her aunt did the same. Heath nodded. As Mystery looked his way, she noticed he was slow to push away from the wall.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure.”
He looked pale. His lids drooped tiredly. His mouth looked a bit slack. Mystery didn’t think he felt all right. But she knew the stubborn man. He could have a limb hanging off or be dying of a hemorrhagic fever and he’d still insist that he felt fine.
With a sigh at his stubbornness, they made their way out the office. Heath stopped at the receptionist’s desk. “Can you show me where to find your loo?”
At the slur of his words, Mystery frowned and wrapped a hand around his arm.
The woman barely peeked over her magazine to send him a confused stare. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “Loo? I’ve never heard it called that, but no way am I lifting my skirt for a total stranger—I don’t care how hot you are—and showing you my—”
“He means the bathroom,” Mystery clarified for the clueless receptionist.
She had the good grace to turn pink. “Sorry. Across the hall, to the right of the elevator. Second door.”
Heath nodded. “Thanks.”
When he tripped over his own two feet heading across the open space, Mystery tugged on his arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
His expression looked a tad unfocused until he blinked and spent some effort focusing on her. “I’ll be all right. The jet lag and lack of sleep lately just have me a bit knackered.”
While his answer made sense, his words sounded even more slurred than before. Mystery didn’t like it.
“You want more coffee?” she asked.
“No. I’ll step in there and splash some cold water on my face.”
“We’ll wait in the car,” her aunt said, tottering on her feet. “I’m afraid I find myself a bit dizzy, too.”
As the woman put a hand to her head, Mystery watched them both, wondering if someone had slipped something in their coffee. After all, she and Mr. Osborne had been the only ones not to drink it.
With a nod, Heath shoved the car keys in her hand, then pushed into the restroom, not quite steady on his feet. As she watched him with a concerned frown, her aunt nearly lost her balance while standing perfectly still. Mystery cursed. She didn’t want to leave either of them alone.
Axel would really have come in handy right now, a voice whispered in her head. Yes, he would, but she needed him for far more than helping her ailing traveling party. Her heart needed him. As soon as Heath reached the car, she’d return to the café and hunt her man down. They had to talk. She just couldn’t believe that today’s lunch was the end of them. It couldn’t be. Mystery didn’t think she could live without him. She didn’t really want to try.
Was this why her mother had taken so long to work up the gumption to leave her father? Had she known it was in her best interest but she just hadn’t been able to break away from the charismatic man she’d fallen for?
Disquieted by the parallel between her life and her mom’s, she turned to Aunt Gail, firmly focusing on the present. “I’ll help you to the car.”
The older woman gave her a shaky nod, then grabbed her arm to steady herself. “Thank you.”
“One second.” Mystery leaned her aunt against the railing, then pressed against the door to the men’s room. “I’ll be back to help you as soon as I can.”
She heard water splashing, heard him grunt out an answer. He didn’t sound good, and she wondered what the hell was going on.
As Mystery raced back to her aunt’s side, foreboding gonged through her belly. Everyone around her today seemed afflicted by some ailment. Had someone concocted a ploy to get her alone? But who could have tampered with Axel’s bladder, as well as Heath’s and Aunt Gail’s equilibrium? She would have suspected the attorney, but he hadn’t been at the café. She’d love to blame Patrice, but shouldn’t any drug the skanky waitress put in their food have taken effect within thirty minutes?
Thankfully, Mystery guided her aunt down the stairs, and she seemed to recover a bit with the exertion. Outside, the brisk wind in her face revived her a bit, too.
She helped Aunt Gail around to the passenger’s door and opened it for her. “There you go. Get settled, and I’ll be back with Heath in a moment.”
“I don’t think so.” The older woman reached into her purse with a tight smile. When she withdrew her hand, she pointed a small gun right a Mystery’s heart. “Give me the keys and get in. Where you’re going, Heath will only be in my way.”
Chapter Eighteen
WHEN the taxi rolled up to the attorney’s building, Axel didn’t see Heath’s car parked along the street or in the adjoining lot. He cursed. He’d waited nearly twenty minutes for the shuffling old driver to show up in the first place. Thanks to the delay, he had no idea where to find Mystery, Heath, or her aunt now.
He pulled out his phone again and tried to dial the bodyguard. Nothing.
“Can you wait here? I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Axel didn’t even hang around for the taxi driver to acknowledge him. In less than an instant, he slammed the door and ran into the building, pausing to look at the directory to find the attorney before he darted up the stairs, taking two at a time until he reached the lawyer’s office.
At his approach, the receptionist sighed as she lowered her magazine, then blinked, gave him a once-over, and smiled sweet as pie. Axel didn’t have time for her games.
“Mystery Mullins and her party, how long ago did they leave?”
The fortyish woman with her teased highlights gaped at him. “Just a few minutes.”
“Did they say where they were headed?
She shook her head. “Not to me. Wait one second.” She picked up the office phone and presumably called Mystery’s mother’s attorney. A moment later, she hung up. “Ms. Mullins didn’t say anything to Mr. Osborne, either. The man with her asked me for the loo. That’s British for the restroom.” She acted as if the knowledge made her superior. “I directed him across the hall, and they left.”
Another freaking dead end, damn it. But Axel could stand to hit the head again, so he jogged in the direction the receptionist had gestured. As he walked in, he spotted Heath coming out of a stall, looking paler than a sheet.
“You’re here. Thank God. What the hell happened to you?” Axel asked.
“I think I was drugged. It was the coffee in the lawyer’s office.” He grimaced. “I nearly passed out, then realized what had happened. I made myself vomit. It’s still in my system, but I don’t think I absorbed all of the sedative.”
Maybe not, but he still looked damn weak. With a grudging sigh, Axel tugged down his zipper and used the urinal. “Where’s Mystery?”
“Why do you care?” Heath shot back. “You all but shagged that waitress at the café. Did you finish that, get bored, and decide to follow Mystery again?”
“No. Fuck off. The waitress admitted that she’s an actress and was paid to come on to me.”
Surprise rolled across Heath’s face, then suspicion took over again. “Why should I believe you? Why should Mystery?”
“If I have to lie to a woman to keep her, then I don’t deserve her. Seriously, someone staged the whole scene with Patrice at the café to separate me from Mystery. I’d suspect good ol’ Aunt Gail, but she has no money.”
Heath frowned. “If she intended to sell her sister’s secrets, she may have borrowed the funds against her forthcoming payday. Or perhaps she’s blackmailed someone into murdering Mystery.”
Axel hadn’t considered that previously—and didn’t want to now. “Where are Mystery and Gail?”
“They should be waiting in the car.”
“Where is it parked?” He hoped like hell he simply hadn’t seen where Heath had parked it.
“Out front.”
As he raised his zipper, foreboding rolled through his gut. “Not anymore. It’s gone.”
Heath’s eyes flared wide as he soaped his hands in the sink. “I can’t think of a single reason they’d move the car elsewhere. We weren’t in a no-parking zone.”
Quickly, Axel washed up, too. “Then she’s in danger. I’m beginning to suspect that her aunt sold her out.”
After a considering pause, Heath nodded. “She made coffee for everyone while we were at the bank. She was the only one who could have doctored the brew.”
“I’m convinced she gave me something that’s made me need to pee every ten damn minutes, probably in that lemonade I drank as we left the farm.”
“It’s possible she’s been waiting all these years for Mystery to claim her mother’s articles so she could gain control of whatever bloody secrets Mrs. Mullins held.”
“Or she may be guiltier than that. Maybe she’s looking to cover up her own crimes,” Axel grated out.
Together, they pushed out of the bathroom, Heath wearing a frown. They hit the stairs and began running down. So many possibilities. So little time to save the woman he loved.
“We have to find them. Any idea where to start?”
Heath still looked weak, like he wanted to puke again, but he sucked in a breath and grinned. “She’s got my key fob.” He reached for his phone. “I’m forever losing my keys, so I made sure I can track them.”
* * *
WITH her free hand, Aunt Gail snatched Heath’s keys from Mystery and shoved them in her purse. The woman was all business as she fished out a pair of handcuffs and, with an awkward one-handed maneuver, used them to restrain her niece to the car door.
Mystery would have fought back, but the barrel of the firearm hovered barely a foot away from her face.
Her aunt wore a ladylike little smile as she clicked the cuffs into place. “You couldn’t have been polite and simply drank your coffee. It contained a little something to keep you compliant. After so many years as a nurse, I know my controlled substances. I had a lovely Schedule Four waiting in your coffee, but you had to be difficult.” She heaved a sigh of annoyance. “Stay put.”
When her aunt would have shut the door, Mystery worked her way past the shock and stuck her foot out to block her. “No. Stop! What are you doing?”
Her aunt thrust the gun closer to her face, then glanced at her watch. “Shut up. I’ll explain on the drive. We’re running late.”
“For what?”
Aunt Gail just kicked her leg out of the way, her practical shoes surprisingly mean, then shut the door and bustled behind the car. The older woman climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot sedately, as if refusing to attract attention. “I had a car like this once, a nice big sedan. My father gave it to me as an engagement present.”
Engagement? Mystery thought her aunt had never been married—not that it mattered right now. Figuring out what the heck was going on and escaping did.
“Where are we going?” she demanded. “You can’t shoot me. I’m your niece. You’re—”
“Prepared to do what I must,” she snapped. “You’ve asked questions, and I’m trying to explain, so pay attention.
“When my engagement fell apart, I decided to move to Hollywood and try my hand at acting. I’d been in a few school plays. I could sing and dance reasonably well. I’d been told I was pretty. So I saved some money and packed my bags. Julia had graduated from high school the year before and didn’t want to live on the farm any more than I did.” Aunt Gail gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why I let her wheedle her way into driving to California with me, I’ll never know.”
“I’d appreciate it if you stopped pointing the gun at me and let me go.” Mystery could barely concentrate on her aunt’s words. Her stare locked with the semiautomatic in the older woman’s hand, nestled against her torso.
“Quiet! You’re just like your mother. You think you’re special and deserve more than everyone else. You want everyone to cater to you. You’re certainly a whore, like her. I heard you and that . . . man early this morning. But the fact that you’re a promiscuous slut doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Was this woman even the same Aunt Gail she’d known all her life? She seemed unhinged and bitter, not to mention violent.
“What do you want? The things I picked up from my mother’s safe-deposit box?” Mystery offered. “I’ll give them to you. You can let me go.”
“That’s not for me to decide. I’m telling you what you want to know, jezebel. What I’ve been dying to tell you. Now close your mouth and listen.” She cleared her throat, obviously incensed. “When Julia and I reached Hollywood, we both found agents quickly and started auditioning. Julia landed a few roles, nothing major. She was wholly unremarkable but somehow managed to catch your father’s eye. I’d met Marshall first at a party and we dated a bit. Then he hired my sister for a bit part. That was the last movie he made before that silly action film that launched him wide.” She scoffed as she stopped at a red light. “Next thing I knew, he and Julia were an item. I couldn’t believe when he proposed to her.”
Mystery blinked. Her aunt’s words registered but . . . She’d had no idea that Gail had ever dated her father. She also knew her father too well. “You had sex with my dad?”
“Yes and no.” She giggled, then sobered. “You keep interrupting. Stop that!” She waved the gun again.
The thought that her father had taken her aunt to bed before marrying her mom made her ill. Yeah, what about after?
Honestly, if they’d continued screwing after his wedding to her mother, Mystery didn’t want to know.
“None of this should have surprised me. Julia had always been the devil’s mistress. Everyone thought she was so beautiful and sultry—like you. She seduced your father into forgetting I existed. But after they married, his career took off. It wasn’t long before your mother heard rumors of his infidelity.” Her aunt sneered, then sped away when the light turned green, heading toward the edge of town. “She said she needed spiritual solace, and she sought it from a man of God, one of the most esteemed I’ve ever had the honor of meeting. But could she respect his pious service to the Lord? No, not your mother. She lured him like a serpent in the garden, coaxing him to eat the forbidden fruit. She coerced him to immorality and rendered him temporarily wicked. From that unholy alliance, you were conceived.”
“What?” Mystery breathed but she couldn’t possibly have heard that right. No way had Aunt Gail just told her that Marshall Mullins wasn’t her biological father.
“So you didn’t know.” She smiled with malicious glee, picking up speed as they approached the outskirts of the downtown area. “I don’t even think you suspected. Julia hid the truth from Marshall and gave you that silly name to disarm his suspicions.”
Mystery wondered how she could ever live with this secret. If, by some miracle, she didn’t die today, what would she tell her dad?
“As the years went on, Julia began insisting that she intended to divorce her husband,” her aunt continued. “She told me that she intended to write a tell-all book, telling all.” She scoffed. “I applauded her desire to drag Marshall through the mud. He deserved it, always thinking with his instrument of lust. But your mother could not be allowed to shame and stain such a beacon of light—of God himself—because Satan’s mistress had weakened him in one terrible moment. She had to be silenced.”
Mystery gaped at her aunt, a million thoughts racing through her brain so quickly she couldn’t grasp onto or give voice to just one. The implications just zoomed through her head. She blinked, gaped, jaw hanging as her aunt pulled up to an abandoned building with a rusty metal ladder leading up to the roof and a FOR RENT sign inside its lone, dark-tinted window. The rest of the building had been boarded up. On one side, she saw a dirt lot where someone’s antique shop had been torn down and the rubble remained. On the other side sat shabby storage facilities. Why would Aunt Gail bring her here?
“You had something to do with my mother’s murder?” Mystery finally voiced the thought that had been buzzing the fastest and loudest in her head.
“Everything. Your biological father can’t have his life’s work destroyed by one stupid whore. He’s destined for much greater things, and when I told him about Julia’s plans, we worked together to send my sister to the light. He assures me I’ve helped him achieve God’s will and that she’s at peace now.”
Mystery stared, blinked, shook her head. It occurred to her that she had to get over her shock and fight back, but Gail just kept dropping bombshells, one after the other. “I—I don’t understand. She was your only sister.”
“Who spread her legs often to tempt men to sin.” Gail scoffed. “She’d stepped off the righteous path long ago. I insisted that she be blessed just before her death, and the blessed man assures me that she was. So we can rest easy that we saved the reputation of a man of God and my sister’s soul the morning she went to heaven.”
Every word out of her mouth sounded twisted, and Mystery cringed. “My biological father was the man in that picture snapped by the hikers just before Mom’s death? He killed her?”
“You’re missing the point; he sent her to God, who is glorious and will forgive all. He will remake her soul into something worthy.”
And Aunt Gail sounded one hundred percent whackadoodle crazy.
As they pulled around to the back of the building, Mystery spotted another sleek black car empty and waiting. Someone else was here. It was finally hitting her that her aunt meant her harm and may have called for some help.
“After Julia was gone, things were lovely and quiet. Then you turned eighteen and were legally able to collect your mother’s effects. You didn’t seem to want them at first, so all was well. But then you mentioned coming to get them during your second semester of college and . . . something had to be done.”
Mystery absolutely didn’t recall that, but she always got sentimental about her mother and their last trip to Kansas before her death. Maybe she had mentioned it. “Something?”
“Your abduction and the DNA test. Did you remember someone taking your blood?”
Shock drilled through her composure. “That’s why?”
“We had to know for certain that you were the out-of-wedlock spawn of sin. And you were. But Marshall had you rescued before you could be eliminated.”
Eliminated? “You and my biological father—who is he?—planned to kill me?”
Gail looked her way as if speaking to a simpleton. “We didn’t silence Julia only to have this secret revealed by a silly girl. Thankfully, the abduction seemed to put some fear into you. Then you moved to the UK and seemed to lose all interest in anything associated with your ‘misfortune’ or your mother. We breathed easier, at least until you insisted on coming back to the States. And you know the rest.” Her aunt waved her away. “I drove to Dallas and left you the picture in your hotel room, hoping you would take the hint and leave the country again. But you proved stubborn, like your mother. You brought the one Neanderthal, Heath, with you. Thankfully, drugging his coffee took care of him. But the other one, the man you fornicated with in my house . . . Getting rid of him was fun. I overheard you two talking in my kitchen. Poor little girl scarred by her cheating ‘daddy.’” She sneered. “And him, all damaged by his mother’s abandonment.” She rolled her eyes. “It was pitifully easy to orchestrate your breakup. My messiah, the man who gave his seed for you, knew just how to hire an actress capable of causing a fight between you two. I slipped a diuretic in Axel’s lemonade, and when he went to the restroom, she moved in. Then you saw what you expected and walked out on him. It was perfect. Of course, I suspect Axel may already be looking for you. He’s not one who will give up easily, so let’s hurry inside, shall we?”
So Axel hadn’t given in to a moment’s lust in the café and betrayed her? He hadn’t come on to that waitress? Mystery tried to piece it all together in her head. The details slipped through her fingers, but the big picture was frightfully clear. Her aunt had conspired with her mother’s lover—her biological father—to split her apart from Axel and Heath. Her aunt had gone to so much effort to get her alone because she’d be more vulnerable. Mystery wondered what the hell she was going to do now.
No phone, no ally, no friends in this town, no police nearby. The only person perhaps capable of finding her was Axel, and he’d sworn that if she walked out on him he’d consider them done forever.
Still, some part of her hoped, wanted to have faith—not in the warped version of God her aunt had clutched to her bitter, dried-up heart and twisted to fill the emptiness inside, but in the love that she and Axel had shared, however briefly.
“I won’t go in that building.”
“You will,” her aunt insisted, grabbing Mystery’s purse from the floorboard. “If you refuse, I will shoot you right here.”
It sucked, and Mystery was terrified, shocked, and beyond furious. But right now, cuffed to the car door, she didn’t see any way to escape. She’d have to watch for opportunities. After all, her aunt was older, presumably not as strong. If she played this right, she might be able to overpower the woman on the way to the door and scream for help. “Looks like I don’t have a choice.”
Gail sent her an acid smile. “Exactly. Now, it’s time you met your true father.”
