Two (Count to Ten Book 2)

by Jane Blythe

  As soon as she had gotten off the phone with her sister, she had jumped in the car and insisted that Edmund drive her to the police station so she could confront Ryan. Ryan was a liar. He had promised he’d be there with her, but he had left. He’d promised that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. But instead he had been the one to hurt her.

  Sofia was angry. Angrier than she had ever been. Angry with Ryan for lying to her, angry with herself for believing him, angry with Edmund for conspiring with Ryan against her, angry at everyone and everything.

  “Cup—Sofia, why don’t you come and sit down,” Ryan gestured at the nearest chair.

  Ryan’s apparent concern only added fuel to the raging fire burning inside her. “I don’t want to sit down.”

  “Sofia, maybe Ryan’s right, maybe you should sit,” Edmund took her arm.

  “After last night, I think you really need to take it easy,” Ryan tried to soothe her.

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” she shrieked, aware that she was sounding hysterical. She jerked her arm free so she could glower at Ryan. “Don’t you know by now that I hate for people to make decisions for me? I told you how much I hated my illness for making it easier for people to try and control me.”

  “I'm sorry,” Ryan looked distressed. “I'm just trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to protect me. And how could you do it?” she demanded. “How could you arrest my father?”

  “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” Ryan looked devastated that he had upset her. “The DNA test we ran showed he was Brooke’s baby’s father.”

  “I know,” she snapped, ignoring Ryan’s sad blue eyes. “Isabella told me. Even though you should have been the one to do it.”

  “You were sleeping,” he protested weakly.

  “And you couldn’t have woken me up?”

  “You needed the rest. You’ve been through hell the last few days.”

  “Yes I have, so thank you, thank you for making things worse.” Battling to keep her anger afloat, the screaming agony in her head was making it difficult to concentrate. “Just because my father was the father of Brooke’s baby doesn’t mean he’s a killer; it just means he’s a cheater. Which I already knew.”

  “This is the man who just forty-eight hours ago drugged you and locked you up in his house. If he’d had his way, you’d still be there,” Ryan reminded her gently.

  Sofia didn’t want Ryan to be gentle with her. She wanted him to be as angry as she was feeling. “That still doesn’t mean he’s a killer,” she pouted sullenly.

  “You told me you were scared of him,” Ryan added. “You said you were afraid your father could be the murderer.”

  Not really sure why she was so angry with Ryan, but right now that fury was the only thing keeping her on her feet. “I was in shock when I said that. I'd just found out that my brother had been killed. I never really believed that the man who’s my father, the only parent I have, is some sort of deranged serial killer.”

  “I'm sorry, cupcake,” Ryan was looking at her helplessly.

  “I told you not to call me that,” she said, but the anger was gone from her voice. Now she was simply tired and in pain and scared. And desperately wanting Ryan to hold her tightly in his arms and tell her that everything could be okay. But that was done and over with. He’d lied to her. And she was so sick of lies. Her whole life had been full of them and she wasn’t going to have them as part of her future.

  Ignoring her wishes, Ryan grabbed her arms and gently pushed her down to the floor. “You need to sit,” he said softly as he crouched beside her.

  Taking a moment to gather herself, she allowed her long red hair to form a curtain around her face so the others couldn’t see the tears brimming in her eyes. “No, I need to go,” she said, pushing wearily to her feet.

  “Okay, maybe it would be a good idea for Edmund to take you back home so you can get some rest,” Ryan agreed warily. “Maybe I could stop by and see you later?”

  “Actually, I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Sofia planned to crawl into bed as soon as she got home and stay there. She didn’t want visitors.

  “All right.” Ryan replied, looking distressed. “I’ll make sure that we keep some officers on you until this case is solved. Make sure you don’t go anywhere alone. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Knowing that that was true, Sofia softened her tone, “I know, and I’ll be careful, I promise.” Then she turned and fled from the police station as fast as her wobbly legs would let her.

  * * * * *

  11:01 A.M.

  “What was that all about?” Paige asked, coming up beside him.

  Staring after Sofia and Edmund’s retreating backs, Edmund turned and gave him an apologetic wave. “I’m not really sure,” Ryan murmured. “She totally freaked out about us arresting her father.” He turned to look at Paige, “You were right; I should have been the one to tell her.”

  “She’s in shock right now, just give her some time.”

  “She asked me not to go and see her later,” Ryan added, wondering how things could have gone downhill with Sofia so quickly. Just hours ago she was asking him to hold her and make her feel safe, and now she wanted nothing to do with him.

  “She’ll get over it,” Paige assured him. “But right now you need to forget about her. You need to focus on work. We have to go and interview Judge Everette; that needs to be your priority. There’ll be time to fix things up with Sofia later.”

  “I know that,” he snapped, glaring at his partner. “I'm not stupid.”

  “I never said you were,” Paige replied mildly.

  Rolling his eyes, Ryan was annoyed that his partner wasn’t going to be drawn into an argument. He wanted to let out some of his frustration, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it with Sofia. Maybe she was right, maybe he was afraid of her. But he’d watched her for so long now, and dreamt so many times about what it would be like to actually be with her, that he just couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. He focused himself. Paige was right. At the moment his priority had to be the case. There was no point in sorting things out with Sofia if he was only going to lose her to this killer.

  “Ready?” Paige asked, watching him carefully with her calm brown eyes.

  “Ready,” he nodded, heading for the interview room where Logan Everette II was waiting for them.

  The judge’s head snapped toward them as they opened the door. His gray eyes practically shot arrows at them.

  “You’ve chosen to speak to us without a lawyer, is that correct?” Paige asked.

  “I am a lawyer,” Logan growled. Jingling his still handcuffed wrists at them, “Why am I still cuffed?” he demanded.

  “You’ve been arrested for murder,” Ryan reminded him.

  “You can't honestly believe that I am a killer,” Logan shot them an incredulous frown.

  “I can and I do,” Ryan told him, taking a seat.

  Logan turned to Paige. “What about you? Do you think I'm a cold-blooded killer too?”

  Paige eyed him shrewdly as she joined them at the table, “I think you could be.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Logan looked honestly frustrated. “No one thinks that I am a killer.”

  “Well, that’s not quite true,” Ryan began.

  “What do you mean?” Logan asked, his brow furrowing.

  “It turns out that someone very close to you has always suspected you of being a killer.”

  The judge rolled his eyes, “Sofia again? When are you going to accept the fact that she has a very vivid imagination and is unwell? Nothing she says should be taken too seriously. And if you persist in listening to her delusional ramblings, then I’ll simply have to get her doctors to write a report detailing her poor health and fragile grip on reality,” Logan finished with a smirk.

  Ryan bit his tongue to keep his fury in check. “You’d really do that?” he asked calmly. “You'd really have your own daughter declared incompetent?”

  “
I'd have her locked up in a secure psychiatric facility if it keeps her away from you,” the judge said malevolently.

  Breathing deeply, he had to focus. “Actually,” Ryan told the judge, “we didn’t hear it from Sofia; it was Gloria.”

  Surprise flashed across Logan’s face before he could contain it. “My wife thought I was a killer?”

  “Apparently, she thought it for quite some time,” Ryan was enjoying seeing the judge’s smug smirk wiped off his face.

  “Why would Gloria think that I had committed murder?”

  “Her son,” Ryan answered simply.

  He paled, “Which one?”

  “I think you know,” Paige raised an eyebrow. “The only one that was really hers.”

  “He died in an accident, fell through the ice,” Logan spluttered.

  “Or so the story went, anyway,” Ryan couldn’t quite keep the snarl out of his voice. If little Logan Everette III had been murdered, then he deserved justice.

  “Why would Gloria have thought that the child was murdered?”

  “She thought that you figured out that he wasn’t yours,” Ryan watched closely for the judge’s reaction.

  Pink stained his pale cheeks. “That witch knew how much I wanted children and she went and got herself knocked up by that doctor.”

  “You knew he wasn’t your son?” Ryan was surprised, not that the judge had known but that he had admitted it so freely. Perhaps Logan was more worried about being arrested than he had anticipated.

  “I knew,” he confirmed. “I made sure that the doctor got sent far away so he wouldn’t know that he had a child.”

  “Did you kill him, Logan?” Paige asked softly.

  “I was so desperate for a child,” the judge answered, his grey eyes going vacant, reminding Ryan of a shark. “She had miscarriage after miscarriage. She thought it didn’t affect me. But each time she lost another baby it was like a piece of my heart died along with it. Then she tried to kill herself and came back from the hospital pregnant. Talk about adding insult to injury. But I was prepared to play her game. I let her child live with us, let him take my name, treated him like my own son.”

  That the judge had had numerous affairs of his own didn’t seem to enter his mind. However, Ryan reluctantly noted, he did seem genuinely upset about the many miscarriages his wife had suffered. “Did you kill Gloria’s son, Logan?”

  His eyes cleared, “No. I am not a killer. I love my children. Yes, I love to control them, but I would never hurt them,” he said emphatically.

  “I believe you on that,” Ryan conceded. “Which is why when you killed Brooke, you had to save your baby.”

  Logan just glowered.

  “You must have hated Brooke, though,” Paige added. “To rip out her baby before you killed her. Did you want her to know that she wasn’t going to use your child to blackmail you?”

  He gave a resigned sigh, “I didn’t kill Brooke, and I can prove it.”

  Ryan and Paige exchanged a suspicious glance. “Yeah? How?”

  “I was with a woman.”

  “You know we’re going to need more information than that,” Paige reminded him when he didn’t add more.

  “She’s one of my...friends...”

  “You mean one of your mistresses?” Ryan wanted him to admit out loud that he was a cheater.

  He frowned, “Yes. We were in one of the bedrooms...” He paused as he obviously chose his words carefully. “Enjoying each other’s company.”

  “You mean having sex?” Ryan pressed, annoyed that the judge was deliberately being vague when he was supposedly giving them his alibi to prove he hadn’t committed murder.

  The frown deepened, “Yes.”

  “No offense, Judge,” Ryan wasn’t completely buying this yet, “but I’m sure you could pay off any number of your mistresses to lie for you and give you an alibi.”

  He sighed again. “We got a little creative,” his cheeks heated, this time with embarrassment. “Decided we would record ourselves.” Lowering his head to his hands, “This is so humiliating,” Logan muttered.

  “We’re going to need the name of your mistress, and some contact information for her,” Ryan told him, reaching over to unlock the handcuffs.

  “Yes, I know.” Logan took the piece of paper and pen Paige offered and scribbled down a name and phone number.

  “And we’re going to need a copy of that recording,” Ryan added.

  “Mary-Anne will be able to give it to you,” Logan handed them the paper with Mary-Anne’s name and number on it.

  “You won't be able to leave until we verify the recording hasn’t been doctored,” Ryan warned him, feeling let down. If Logan hadn't killed Brooke, then they were right back where they started.

  “Yes, I am aware of that,” Logan bit out.

  “All right then, we’ll be back once we’ve either confirmed or denied your alibi,” Ryan was ready to be away from the judge, it looked unlikely that he was a killer, but he was still the man who, among other things, had drugged and imprisoned Sofia.

  “Well, hurry up about it,” the judge said haughtily.

  Ignoring him, Ryan headed for the door, Paige at his heels. Once outside he turned to his partner, “Do you believe him?”

  “Yeah,” Paige said dismally. “Unfortunately, I do. On the bright side, that will make Sofia happy.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Ryan replied, wondering whether it really would. The way Sofia had looked at him earlier had made him feel like whatever they might have had was over before it had even begun. “Let’s go call this Mary-Anne and see what she has to say.”

  * * * * *

  11:43 P.M.

  What a long and tedious evening it had been.

  Logan Everette IV hated having to attend social functions as his family’s representative.

  It was his stupid father’s fault.

  Going and getting himself arrested.

  And his father had the gall to call him stupid.

  Logan wasn’t as stupid as his family believed. But he had found over the years that it was quite a convenient role to play. And he was very good at playing roles.

  Very few people knew the real Logan Everette IV.

  The real Logan was cold and calculating. He didn’t care about others. As far as he was concerned, people were there simply to comply with his whim. Especially women. And there had been a lot of women in his past. In his present, too, he chuckled.

  Casting a glance at his wife, Simone was sitting quietly in the passenger seat of the car. His father had done a good job with her. Picked him a woman who was one hundred percent completely subservient to him. If anyone knew the real Logan, Simone certainly did. She was the one who took the brunt of his anger. He’d learned early on how to hurt her without leaving a mark. Bruises led to questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer. He had too many secrets to have people buzzing around him.

  His anger was burning brightly tonight.

  He was looking forward to getting his wife up to their room. They basically had the house to themselves tonight, which meant he didn’t need to take things easy. With his father in jail, Sofia back at her house, and both his brothers dead, which Logan supposed he ought to be sad about but wasn’t in the least, the only one he had to worry about was Isabella. She was a weird one, that girl. But she was likely to be so caught up in whatever she was doing that she wouldn’t hear Simone’s screams.

  Pulling the car into the garage, he was so preoccupied with thoughts of what he would get up to with Simone, that he didn’t notice the figure waiting for him.

  Before he had a chance to roll the window back up someone pressed a gun to his temple.

  “No, no,” said a voice. “Leave the car engine on.”

  Shocked, he turned his head to confirm that the face matched the voice. “You? It’s you? You're the killer?”

  “Uh huh,” Isabella nodded, her face filled with a huge grin. It was the first time he could recall seeing the girl smile.

  “Ar
e you insane?” Logan demanded.

  “Probably,” Isabella nodded agreeably.

  “You killed them all?”

  “Yep. Brooke, and Lewis and Samantha, Gloria, and Lincoln.”

  “Brooke was your mother. You killed your own mother.”

  “I know,” the smile was still on her face, making her look near psychotic.

  “Why?” he asked, hoping to keep her talking long enough to get her gun.

  “Because they all deserved to die,” she said simply. “You all do. And that’s enough chitchatting.” She tossed him a role of duct tape. “Use this to secure Simone to the seat.” When he didn’t move fast enough, she shoved the gun harder against his temple. “Tick tock, this place is crawling with security, which means we have a time limit. Not usually how I like to do things, but we must work within the parameters we are given.”

  Reluctantly, Logan took the duct tape and turned to his wife, wishing for the first time in their marriage that she wasn’t so pathetically weak and had been able to help him fight back. Logan wanted to make a move. Try to get away. But he could see the pure insanity brimming in Isabella’s eyes. She would most definitely shoot him. And Logan had a feeling that she would make sure his suffering was maximized. Defeated, he prepared the tape. Simone didn’t open her eyes to look at him as he wound the duct tape across her chest and around her seat, pinning her in place.

  “Your turn,” Isabella singsonged. “Cross your arms across your chest please.” Taking the tape with one hand, her other kept the gun pointed squarely at his head, and awkwardly wrapped layer after layer of tape around his body and the car seat until he was pinned in place, his arms trapped against his chest. Then she ripped off a piece and slapped it over his mouth.

  “Now it’s sleepy time,” Isabella closed the garage door, and put on an oxygen mask. “Any last words? Nope? Well good, because I wouldn’t believe a single lying word that fell out of your mouth.”

  As carbon monoxide from the running car began to fill the small garage, and he realized that death was about to come crashing down upon him, Logan started to panic. He struggled wildly against the tape, even though he knew it was fruitless. He tried to force a scream past the tape, but nothing more than a squeaking moan emerged.