She shoved upright and moved into the kitchen, opening cabinets at random until she found a glass. She filled it with tap water and moved back into the living room, the dim light making it seem gloomier, darker than it really was. Kevin was curled up the corner of the couch, staring at nothing.
“Here.”
He looked at the water and shook his head.
“Take it,” she ordered. “You should drink it.”
“What? Oh. Yeah. I got a drink. Fan … thanks.” He blinked as if having trouble focusing. At the same time, he took another drink. Half of it spilled, but he managed to get the rest of it down his throat.
In the next moment, the glass fell from his hand.
She tried to catch it and couldn’t.
Kevin blinked, three times. And each time, his lashes lingered down a little bit longer.
When he slumped forward, she tried to catch him.
Gideon knocked her aside just in time.
Moira jumped as she bumped into the glass of scotch Kevin had given her. It hit the hardwood floors and shattered, shards of glass and droplets of Macallan 25 spraying across the floor.
Gideon caught Kevin, eased him down.
By the time Gideon had the younger man on the floor, Kevin’s face had gone slack.
But his eyes were still open.
Open and staring straight ahead.
“Shit,” Moira whispered, staring at his lax face. “Is he…”
“No.” Gideon pressed two fingers to his neck, then tore at his collar. “Get to the car, Moira. Now.”
“But—”
“Now!” Gideon whipped his head around and shouted at her. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
* * *
It was somewhat problematic.
Studying the feed streaming live to his computer, he stared at Moira’s face. He poured the Macallan from the decanter into a crystal highball and toasted the screen.
“Run, run as fast as you can,” he taunted the screen as Gideon Marshall hefted Kevin Towers’ inert body into a fireman’s hold.
It was a pity, but Kevin had proven to be a hindrance. That meant he had to go.
He’d be dead soon.
That was what happened when people talked.
They could try to get to the hospital all they wanted, but he’d perfected this particular little blend and he knew almost to the milligram how much time Kevin had.
Judging by how quickly he’d been tossing back the scotch, it was probably under ten minutes. The nearest hospital was a good twenty minutes away and it was a miserable little county affair. Not the nicely outfitted one all fixed up with McKay money, but a broke little place, scraping by on what the government could spare and what little people sent their way.
Marshall would never get him there in time.
Assuming by some chance he did, by the time the local idiots even have a chance to look him over? Well, Kevin would be dead.
It was a pity, but a necessity, too.
Kevin knew too much. When people knew too much, they became a liability.
The man watching the monitor stood.
He’d get over there. Clean up. Dump the rest of the tainted scotch.
But the door swung back open and Moira came striding back in, pausing to look back over her shoulder. She made a face and nodded.
Her unseen audience began to swear as she paused and tugged something on. Gloves. Marshall had given her a pair of gloves.
The son of a bitch knew.
She hurried into the kitchen, throwing cabinets open, and he almost grabbed the monitor and ripped it out of the wall when she pulled a jar out. One of those stupid mason jars—the previous owner had kept them all over the place.
She poured the liquor into it. Every last drop.
Then she grabbed something he hadn’t seen.
A box.
He recognized it now.
It was the box Kevin had used the last time he brought Chinese food out to the place. She put the bottle and the mason jar and the glass Towers had used inside it.
Then she headed for the door.
“What the fuck is…”
There was a dog.
When had she gotten a dog? He leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the screen, eying the big, pale dog. He punched a control on the computer, zooming in.
And the dog’s pale head swung around, its eyes zeroing in exactly on where the camera was hidden.
“Fuck me.”
It was like that dog was staring straight at him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You realize this looks really bad.”
Gideon thought if the man wearing the county sheriff’s badge pointed that out one more time, he just might rip off the badge and use it to gag him.
“Yes, sheriff. I realize it looks really bad,” he said, parroting the words back. Maybe saying exactly what the other man was saying would make the guy get the point.
Gideon was a fucking cop. This looked bad—yeah, he got the point.
“You say you were just coming out here to look around and your girlfriend knew he was here, but she didn’t tell you?”
Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose.
He’d gone through this three times already. Logically, he knew what the law enforcement officer was doing. Repetition was everything. There was no telling how many times a suspect had slipped up over the stupidest little detail. Those details got lost in the telling—hard to keep your story straight when you made it up and pulled it out of your ass.
But Gideon was a cop and he knew how all of this went down. On top of that, he was tired and fed up with all of this bullshit.
Spreading his hands out wide, he said, “I’m going to go through this again.”
So he did.
The sheriff nodded slowly and took notes.
Gideon didn’t think the man learned anything new.
Gideon told the story over anyway.
And all the while, Moira sat huddled on a chair, staring outside while Frost curled around her in a big, canine hug. Every now and then, the dog would nudge her and Moira would respond by stroking a hand down the dog’s back. Then the woman would go back to staring outside. Frost would patiently wait. Then after about ten or twenty minutes, Frost would nudge her again.
The dog shouldn’t be in here. So far though, nobody had pointed that out.
“And you’re thinking the alcohol was poisoned?”
Gideon shifted his attention back to Sheriff Herron. “I’m not thinking anything. I’m just offering it up as a possibility. Towers acted like the bottle wasn’t his—said something about how this cousin of his had excellent taste in scotch. It’s expensive—a brand called Macallan.” He paused, red flushing up the back of his neck as he tried to figure out the right way to say this. “I’m familiar with the brand. A friend drinks it. It comes sealed. Most alcohol does these days. But it wasn’t sealed when I saw it. I don’t know if it was a gift or what. I’m just speculating.”
Dutifully, the sheriff nodded and made notes. “Okay, Chief Marshall. I think that will do it. I might have to call, touch base.” He paused and then looked over at Moira. “I’ll give her a day or two before I do any more follow-ups. She looks a bit shaken.”
“Thanks.” Gideon nodded, appreciating the courtesy. The sheriff had kept his questions for Moira short and sweet, so despite Gideon’s irritation, he owed the county sheriff a debt for his kindness to Moira.
Gideon went back to look at Moira, his gut clenching at the thought of her holding the glass in her hand. If he was right about the scotch being poisoned, then he had been that close to losing her.
That close.
It had been so hard all this time never really having her, but for her to be gone—
Abruptly, he spun around and strode down the hall, away from the lounge. He kept right on going until he was in the parking lot of the small hospital, right next to the emergency room.
The sheriff’s car was parked there, along with ano
ther deputy’s car.
The sheriff had told him he had a couple of people out at the house, processing the scene.
That was all well and good.
Gideon didn’t know if they’d find shit.
Somebody had been fucking around with Moira—with all of them—for weeks. Months.
It’s all about you …
He hates you.
That’s what Kevin had been saying. He’d known who it was.
“White,” Gideon muttered. “What did he mean by that?”
“Whitehall.”
At the sound of Moira’s soft voice, he stiffened.
He wasn’t certain if it was wise to be around her right now. All he wanted to do was grab her, hold her, never let go. But they weren’t exactly in the right place for him to touch her, kiss her, reassure himself of all the things he needed to be reassured of.
He was so on edge, and the thought of just how close he’d come to losing her …
Gravel crunched under her feet as she drew closer, and he also heard the click-click-click of the dog’s claws on the ground. He focused on the dog and turned, looking at Frost as the big dog observed their surroundings, her eyes alert, head cocked.
“Whitehall,” Gideon prodded when Moira didn’t elaborate. Focus on the job. Don’t think about what could have happened. Not here. Not yet.
“He was … well, George Whitehall.”
Gideon shot a look at her. She had folded her arms over her belly and was staring at nothing. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s the man who turned Patrick McKay in—”
“Shit, I know who he was,” Gideon said, cutting a hand through the air. “He’s also been dead … what a hundred years now?”
“I don’t know. Neve could tell you—to the day. She’s been following the family histories online.” Moira’s smile was cynical. “I do know he married, had one legitimate son, possibly several illegitimate ones, and his wife died not long after he went back to England.”
The smile on her mouth, cynical or not, struck him in the heart and he reached up, cupped her cheek. “If that scotch was poisoned…”
“I’m fine,” she said, closing her hand around his wrist and squeezing. “I was too nervous, too pissed to drink anything anyway.”
He went to tug her in close. “Never thought I’d be grateful for your…” He stopped mid-sentence as something she’d said finally connected. “Whitehall had illegitimate children?”
She pursed her lips. “That’s what you’re thankful for?”
“Moira…”
She rolled her eyes at him. Rising up on her toes, she pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Yeah. That’s the rumor at least.” She rolled her eyes and reached down to scratch Frost’s ears as the dog sat by her feet.
Kevin had mentioned a cousin.
Eyes locked on the pocked, pitted mess of the parking lot, he asked, “Any chance Kevin might be a descendant of one of them?”
The kid had died under his hands as Moira powered the truck down the county road toward the hospital. She’d done an admirable job of driving and talking to the local dispatch. Halfway there, emergency medical personnel had met them and she’d practically collapsed into a boneless pile of female flesh as he helped her out of the cab, but she’d rallied once he told her they had to get to the hospital.
She hadn’t known Kevin was already gone.
He hadn’t known how to tell her.
They’d still been doing CPR when they rolled him away.
But they had stopped en route.
Moira had found out at the hospital.
Her fingers stroked Frost’s neck in a soothing rhythm, and Gideon found his eyes following them as he played back her words.
Cousins.
Illegitimate children.
The McKays.
It was all about them.
He’d thought that for a while.
Nothing had seemed like it was flowing in a way that made sense.
“Gideon?”
He shook his head, feeling like he’d come out of a daze and looked up at her, realizing he’d been just standing there, staring at her for some time.
Frost’s mouth gaped open in a doggy smile, and Gideon scowled at her.
“We need to go back to Treasure,” he said, looking back at her. He had to start digging around and he thought it might take some time. He only had to go back, oh, say … a hundred fifty, a hundred sixty years. Somehow, he didn’t think those records were going to be quite so easily accessed.
* * *
“It’s gotta be nice, using that badge to make things happen,” Moira said, striving to keep her voice light as they barreled down the road in Gideon’s truck.
She didn’t think she was fooling Gideon, though. He shot her a narrow look that lasted less than a second.
He’d also put his lights on—the lights, no siren, thankfully. She wasn’t sure her aching head could take the noise. Her gut was in knots. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed a boulder.
She kept seeing Kevin …
Stop it, Mac. Just stop.
Pasting a smile on her face, she swung her head around and concentrated on Gideon’s hard profile. “The badge, the lights. I mean, you were there when somebody…”
Her voice cracked.
“Moira…” Gideon reached over and cupped the back of her neck.
“No!” Damn it. She smacked at his hand, but he wouldn’t budge. “I’m fine.”
From the backseat, Frost poked at her with a wet nose. That only made it harder to keep steady, but Moira kept trying. She didn’t need to break down.
She didn’t need to break down.
She didn’t need to—
“Oh, fuck!” She clamped a hand to her mouth and tried to swallow the sob. It wouldn’t be stopped, though. It tore out of her like it had claws, followed by another and another.
She didn’t even notice Gideon pulling the truck off the narrow, two-lane highway. Didn’t notice him turning off the flashing lights or hitting the emergency blinkers on the dash. But when he pulled her into his arms, she noticed that.
“It’s okay, Mac,” he whispered against her temple. “You don’t have to be so tough around me. Just get it out.”
She shuddered and curled her arms around him, half-choking on the sob.
The sight of Kevin swaying, then collapsing, the look on his face.
And Gideon, when he’d told her that Kevin was dead, that the EMTs hadn’t been able to save him.
It’s about you …
“Who is doing this to us, Gideon?” she choked out between sobs.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his lips against her cheek, kissed away a tear, then another. “But I’ll find out. I’ll figure this out, Mac.”
She turned her face to his, intent on asking him something. How, maybe. How did he plan to figure it out.
But he was so close.
And his mouth was right there.
The terror and frustration inside her gave way to something else—need was better than fear, wasn’t it?
But when she leaned into kiss him, he angled his head back. “Not now, Moira. I’m on edge.”
“Gideon…”
“No!” He shoved a hand into her hair and tangled it, holding her still when she would have kissed him again. “If I touch you now, I’ll bruise you. You don’t know what it did to me inside once I figured out what had happened—you had that glass in your hand, Moira. One sip and it might have been you I was trying to save.”
His voice cracked. “It might have been you.”
The hand in her hair loosened slightly.
She leaned in. “I want your hands on me right now. I need them on me, Gideon. Please. Make the shadows go away. Make the last eighteen years go away.”
* * *
Make the last eighteen years go away …
He could hear the threads of his control snapping—only these weren’t threads. They were tension wires, holding back the weight of his need a
nd hunger, one that had been building for years.
He’d been holding back all this time, afraid to really give into it for fear of what little might be left of him if—when—she changed her mind again. For him, it wasn’t even a question.
He’d stopped believing in her.
In them.
But she’d just destroyed his final attempts at self-preservation and he damned them both.
He yanked her against him, cursing them both.
Behind them, Frost made a low noise in her throat. He barely had the presence of mind to give her the command to stay before he closed his mouth over Moira’s.
The steering wheel pinned them and he couldn’t get his hands on her the way he needed. Swearing, he fumbled them both out of the truck while she scraped her teeth down his neck. In one final, clear-headed moment, he grabbed his keys and shoved them into his pocket and then instinct took over.
He hauled her into the trees along the side of the road, just out of sight.
If he’d had the sense, he would have backed the truck up more to give them some cover, but he hadn’t just lost control of his senses—he’d lost his fucking mind.
Moira sank her teeth into his lip and he felt the nerve endings start to sizzle, then explode, one by one. Spinning her around, he fumbled with her jeans, shoving them down to just below her hips. “Gideon,” she whimpered, trying to turn back to him.
“Too cold,” he muttered. He wanted her naked, but the chill in the air sort of removed that possibility from the equation.
There was nothing cold about her, though.
After a quick fumble with his own jeans, he had freed himself and without waiting another moment, Gideon lifted her up. She strained to spread her thighs more and he caught her hands, guiding them upward one at a time, leading them to a sturdy limb just above her. “Hold on,” he muttered against her ear. With her weight partially supporting by the tree branch overhead, he lifted her, angling her hips so he could slide in. The wet glove of her sex closed around him as he lowered her back down, anchoring her rump against him with one arm around her waist.
He drove up into her, bracing his other hand against the rough bark of the tree.
Moira cried out, shuddering on his cock as he impaled her over and over.
She squeezed down on him and he thought he just might die from the pleasure.
The Right Kind of Trouble Page 18
