“She would have been. She’d have been running scared for her life.”
“These guys,” Keegan said suddenly. “These pricks in the video. You can see their faces?”
“No, they made sure of that. They wore masks. Cowards.”
“Any way to tell who they are? Scars or marks?” Keegan leaned forward as he remembered the dragon ink. “Tattoos?”
“Uhhh. I don’t know. I mean, I saw less than thirty seconds of the damn thing, and I didn’t take a good, hard look at the asshole rapists.”
“You were too busy starin’ at her, huh?” Keegan’s voice hardened. “Gettin’ an eyeful?”
“Are you being serious right now, Sinclair?” Dalton asked him, incredulous. “Listen, I get that you and your girl broke up two days ago for reasons that I don’t understand. Something about you walking in on a porn shoot, or whatever, and so she’s gone from your life. That sucks and I’m sorry, but don’t you fucking take it out on me, man. I saw that video less than an hour ago, and I took one look at what was clearly a crime, and I hauled ass over here to check in on you.”
“Yeah,” Keegan said, determined to take all this rage out on someone and why not Dalton? “And why is that?”
“What?”
“Why did you haul ass to check on me? We ain’t best buddies, not even close. Never been for a beer or nothin’ like that. We can barely get through a group meetin’ without bein’ at each other’s throats. So what’s with the warm fuzzies and sudden concern?”
“I think that you’re focusing on all the wrong stuff here, Keegan.” Dalton shifted his massive body back and forth. “Accusing me of ogling your ex while she’s being hurt and recorded against her will, asking what the hell I’m doing here giving you a heads-up, wondering if you can see the faces of the guys who attacked and beat her. I mean…” He stared at Keegan hard. “Aren’t you worried about her? About Trish? Shouldn’t you call her?”
“I –” Keegan slumped in his chair, as if he’d just been shot. “I can’t.”
“What, because you broke up?” Dalton huffed. “Screw that! She’s got to be horrified and distressed about what’s happening. She’d probably appreciate a friend now. Call her.”
“I can’t because she’s gone.”
“Gone?” Dalton said, that weirdly gentle voice back, unnerving Keegan all the more. “Gone where?”
“I don’t know. Yesterday, I had a few too many beers way too early in the evenin’ and tried Trish’s cell and nothin’, so then I called Meredith, the woman that Trish lived with and took care of. Got one of her sons on the phone instead and that wasn’t pleasant. He was fuckin’ furious that Trish had just up and quit, left Meredith in the lurch with barely three hours' notice.”
“She quit yesterday? The day that the video went live? You think that she saw it was up and ran before Meredith could get wind of it?”
“No,” Keegan said. “She quit within an hour of me dumpin’ her and walkin’ off the porn movie set two days ago. My guess is that she left that warehouse right after I did, drove to Meredith’s, quit her job and packed up and left the place that she called home.”
Dalton was quiet for a few seconds, then he said: “You think there’s a connection?”
“Between?”
“Her walking off a porn shoot two days ago, and a video of her being brutally raped from years ago going live the very next day?”
“I –” Keegan stopped as the wheels started to turn and new puzzle pieces clicked into place. “Maybe. Just maybe. She did say… she said somethin’.”
He shut his eyes to really concentrate on the memory, but it was a struggle: she was standing in front of him talking, and all he saw was cameras and two sleazy guys and BDSM props. He blocked out the porn shit, the anger and shock that he felt all over again, and just listened to the Trish in his mind. What was it that she’d said? Something about how she had to go out to that abandoned warehouse, that those two guys had been texting her for two years. Something about them making demands and if she didn’t comply with what they wanted , then they’d – but then Keegan had cut her off, he hadn’t let her finish that sentence. What had she been about to tell him?
Maybe… maybe she would have told him exactly this situation: that those guys were holding something over her head, something huge. That they’d been using that huge something to get her to do things for them, though God knows what those things might be. Not porn, because no way Thalia Flame could have resurfaced without causing some kind of major ripple, so major that even Keegan would almost certainly have heard about this girlfriend’s return to porn somehow and somewhere. So, money demands, maybe? Blackmail?
Blackmailed with what?
The video, of course.
That was it; suddenly it was all crystal clear.
Trish had walked away from L.A., but those two assholes hadn’t let her get away free. They had that video – and Keegan would have bet the café’s next five years’ earnings that he’d met at least one of Trish’s two rapists face-to-face in that warehouse – and they’d used it as a gun to her head. She did what they wanted, or they released the rape tape. Trish had said that they’d been making demands for going on two years. Well, that timeline worked with what Dalton had just said, no doubt about that.
So – what had happened to lead to the video being leaked online? Maybe they had stepped up the blackmail, put on some added pressure, and sprung the porno on her two days ago? Maybe they’d just expected her to go along with it and she’d said no, knowing full well the repercussions?
Why would she say no?
And just like that, Keegan knew:
Me. She was tryin’ to make a go of it with me, away from the life.
That guy with the dragon tattoo, that dark-eyed one who’d done most of the talking: he’d been at the café the day before the warehouse encounter. Keegan had known that he looked vaguely familiar but in the shock and stress of the confrontation at the warehouse, and by being so totally focused on Trish only, he’d not been able to fully place that face. Not until this exact second.
So. Trish’s maybe-rapist and almost-definitely-blackmailer had been to check out Keegan at his place of work, lurked in the back booth and kept his hat low, never said a word, was in and out in less than three minutes. Why would he do any of that, unless it was to give the prick added leverage over Trish?
He knew about us, about our relationship. He used it against her to get her to that warehouse. To get her naked. To get her back in the life.
And I fuckin’ dumped her without listenin’ or lettin’ her tell me the whole truth.
What else had she said to him in those horrible last moments, what had been that last thing that she’d uttered in a heartbroken little voice?
It came to him now, so close and clear that he started because it seemed that she was in the office with him:
“Keegan, I’m just asking you to please remember two things when it all comes out into the light: remember that I love you and that I’m sorry.”
And then I just walked away from her.
Holy shit.
“Keegan?” Dalton said, alarmed at the look on the other man’s face. “You OK?”
Keegan leapt to his feet now, so fast that Dalton actually took a startled step back. “Jesus! Don’t do that, man!”
“I have to find her,” Keegan said, ignoring Dalton completely. “I screwed up, big-time. I got it all wrong, from beginnin’ to end, and then I fuckin’ abandoned her. I just walked away without lettin’ her explain – and I’m a real prick for doin’ that.”
“Well, yeah,” Dalton said agreeably. “You can be a prick and no doubt, but this whole thing is a clusterfuck of a mess. It’s way out of the usual realm of a couple’s disagreement. Like, this is not in the same league as ‘put down the damn toilet seat’ and ‘you forgot my birthday’. This is… well. This is awful. This is sick.”
“I have to find her,” Keegan repeated, tearing off the apron. “I need to see if she’s OK. Fo
r all I know, those guys are following her right now, maybe hurtin’ her again –”
“You need some help?”
Keegan stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the guy who looked like Dalton McGregor, and sounded like him, but who was definitely not being him. Dalton had never even so much as poured a coffee for a guy at the group meetings even when asked, and now here he was offering to help?
“What’s the deal, man?” Keegan asked. “Comin’ over here to see if I’m OK, bein’ understandin’ about Trish, offerin’ personal info and now volunteerin’ assistance? What have you done with Dalton?”
“If you want to do this all on your lonesome, be my guest, Sinclair.” Dalton shrugged, his arm muscles straining against his t-shirt even with that small, casual movement. “But if I were you, I’d take the offer made by the only other trained military guy standing in the damn room. It’s on the table for a limited time and frankly, you’ve been kind of an ungrateful dick about me going out of my way to check in on you. I could have just watched the video and shut my laptop, then had a cup of joe at home on my damn sofa, where it’s free and I don’t have to put on pants to drink it.”
“Aw, shit,” Keegan muttered. “Now I’m bein’ schooled in manners by Dalton McGregor. Jesus.” He shook his head, then somehow managed to see the irony and gave a tiny grin. “Thanks, man. For real. You’re right: you didn’t have to come over here and say anythin’, especially if you thought that Trish was just some whore who had it all comin’ or you hated my guts enough to let me twist. You did me a solid, and I owe you. If you could stick around, have my back and help me out a bit more, I’d be very grateful.”
“There we go!” Dalton exclaimed. “And I haven’t got any plans this afternoon, so I’m free to play wing-man.”
Keegan stuck out his hand and Dalton grasped it. The two men shook hands, then stared at each other, eye-to-eye.
“You really in?” Keegan said abruptly. “All the way and until I can find my girl?” His silver eyes hardened as did his voice. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t mind havin’ a chat with those two guys from the warehouse. I ain’t got no proof, but my gut’s tellin’ me that they’re the ones in that sick video that you had the non-pleasure of seein’ today.”
“Yeah. I’m in all the way, until you get the girl and the assholes get a beat-down. After all and believe it or not…” Dalton’s hard, uncompromising face broke into a sunny grin, and Keegan blinked in utter shock. He’d had no idea that Dalton could look like this: handsome and warm and approachable. “…I’m a total sucker for a happy ending.”
**
“Well. You certainly took your sweet time getting here, Mr. Sinclair.”
Keegan had called Meredith from his office to ask if he could come over to talk, and had noticed right away that he was ‘Mr. Sinclair’ once more; that definitely made her ‘ma’am’ or ‘Mrs. Carmichael’ again. He also noticed that Nora was glaring daggers at him, as was a tall, muscular guy who looked vaguely familiar. A quick once-over told Keegan that the guy was armed, his gun snug and close under his suit jacket.
Meredith saw him glancing at the man and said, with a regal wave of her hand, “Mr. Jackson Taylor.”
“Ah. Of course.” Keegan nodded over at Jack, his radar pinging at code red. Jack Taylor worked with Matt ‘King’ Kingston and was one of the infamous King’s Men. Those boys and girls did not mess around, they worked with the law sometimes and outside of it others, and they answered to nobody but their clients. “We’ve met once before, just quickly. Our mutual friend Texas Donovan introduced us at The Cave, maybe two years ago. You and Tex both work for King, right?”
“Yes.” The clipped tones didn’t invite further discussion, not that Keegan was feeling all that chatty anyway. “I’m on duty now.”
“I guessed that.” Keegan didn’t ask anything more; if one of King’s boys was here on bodyguard duty, it was for a very good damn reason. Clearly Trish had told Meredith enough to raise the alarm about her safety, so Keegan saw no real need to play dumb or coy about that. “So you know about Thalia Flame, ma’am?”
Meredith’s face didn’t change expression. “I always knew about Thalia Flame, Mr. Sinclair.”
“You – what?” He hadn’t expected that. “You did?”
“I did.” Meredith smoothed the fabric of her dress over one knee in a refined, practiced movement. “I commissioned Mr. Kingston’s firm to do a background check on Trish before I decided to hire her to live with me.” She gave Keegan a long, cold stare. “Does that surprise you?”
“No,” he said; he’d never doubted that there was a spine of steel beneath that genteel surface. “So your sons knew too?”
“No.”
“How’s that possible?”
“It’s possible because my two sons are lazy and selfish man-children who are waiting for me to pop my clogs so they can inherit this house and the money. There are issues with that situation, of course, but the definite positive thing about having children like that is that whenever one wishes to do something without interference, all one has to do is threaten to take away the money. Selfish, weak people tend to fall into line quite quickly then.”
“So…” Keegan was trying to catch up. “So, you did your own due diligence and – what? Told your sons to keep their noses out of it?”
“Precisely. I told them that if they insisted on investigating Trish or questioning my decision or second-guessing me, they could expect to hear from my lawyers and receive an updated will. They’d find themselves notably absent from said version, naturally.” She shrugged, an elegant little gesture in her cashmere cardigan. “They dropped it, as I knew they would, and that was that. Their love for my money is far, far greater than their concern for my life. I knew that Trish wouldn’t be found out.”
“And you didn’t care about her past?”
“Not as much as one might think,” Meredith said crisply. “I am too rich and too old to care even slightly what others might think of me. I liked Trish on sight and I knew that she’d work hard. Those were my main criteria for a live-in helper and companion.”
“But –” Keegan cleared this throat. “And the porn stuff?”
“I have no love for the pornography industry, believe me, nor do I think that Trish should have ever set foot near the ugly sleaze of a film set. I find that whole world distasteful and abhorrent in general, to be frank with you, as well as being exploitative and demeaning to women in particular.” She shrugged again. “But everyone has a past and a history, and nobody’s life is without mistakes or shadows. Trish was clearly trying to start again and she is bright, sweet and motivated. I wasn’t much interested in who she’d been and where she’d come from; I cared only about who she was now and where she wanted to go. I never doubted her sincerity and commitment, and I enjoyed watching her slowly find herself. She’s a diamond of a person, Mr. Sinclair, and all I saw was the light at her center.”
“That’s… incredible,” Keegan said slowly. “I’d never have expected it.”
“Because I’m a rich snob?” Meredith said with exactly zero rancor. “Who unabashedly votes conservative?”
“Because you’re a rich, conservative snob who quotes the Bible,” Keegan said, holding her blue stare. “I know you’re good-hearted and have a generous spirit, but forgive me for pointin’ out that your kind ain’t always known for bein’ open-minded or tolerant to people deemed ‘fallen’. No love lost between me and your God, Mrs. Carmichael. I’ve seen too much war and human ugliness to have much faith in your faith.”
“That’s fair enough,” she said, almost amused, then narrowed her bright gaze as if she was taking aim. “Now tell me something, Mr. Sinclair: just why on earth didn’t you listen to Trish two days ago when she was begging for you to let her explain?”
“Yeah.” Keegan sighed, wondering if he was going to have to regret that decision for the rest of his life. “I should have, I know. I think I’ve finally figured out what’s been goin’ on with her, though.
”
“You’re quite easy on the eyes but not always a shining star in the brains department, as recent events have shown,” Meredith observed. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what you think has been going on?”
He sat and then hesitated, thinking about the video that Dalton had seen, trying to think how to ask Meredith about it. What if she had no clue? How the hell would he ever explain it?
“Do you know everythin’?” he said at last. “Like – what happened just yesterday?”
“If by ‘everything’ you mean the repulsive and sickening video that is currently making the rounds of the internet,” Meredith said, biting off each word with precision. “Then yes, I know everything.” She nodded at Jack. “Mr. Taylor’s colleagues informed me about the video’s contents yesterday afternoon.”
“Have you seen it?” Keegan asked Jack. “The video?”
“Yes. Some of it.” Keegan heard real anger beneath Jack’s professional, disinterested demeanor. “Enough to know to stop watching.”
“Have you?” Meredith asked Keegan. “Have you watched it?”
“No. God, no.” Keegan shook his head and exhaled hard. “I didn’t even know about its existence until thirty minutes ago, when a guy that I know came to the café and told me. He – he said that Trish hadn’t – that it wasn’t consensual. That she got filmed bein’ badly hurt.”
“That’s my understanding as well, Mr. Sinclair,” Meredith said in a soft voice.
Silence fell as they all stared at each other. Nora looked near tears, Keegan saw now, and he gave her a tiny smile of reassurance. He looked at Jack again, then back at Meredith.
“Is that why you hired one of King’s security guys?” he asked her. “Because of what happened to Trish in that video?”
“I’m not saying one more word until you answer my question,” Meredith said tartly. “What do you think you’ve figured out about this whole sordid mess?”
So Keegan told her about Trish receiving a text and bolting from his house after telling him a blatant lie; he told her about following Trish to the warehouse and what he found there. He confessed to being so enraged and shocked, that he didn’t listen to Trish as she begged and pleaded for him to let her explain. Then he told her about Dalton and what he saw in the video, and the connection that the men had made between Trish not going along with the warehouse filming and the video being released the day before. He added that he had no proof, but he suspected that Trish had been blackmailed and the video of her attack being released now meant that she’d finally stopped playing along.
Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1) Page 26
