Evidence of Desire

by Lexi Blake

  Miranda easily fit in the space.

  “Call the police and then stay as quiet as possible.” Isla gasped as there was a loud banging sound from the other room. She shoved the drawer closed, praying Miranda could stay silent. The best plan she had would be distracting Paloma so he didn’t go looking for Miranda.

  She ran through the next door and into the nanny’s room, leaving the doors open to lead him where she wanted him to go. She nearly tripped opening the door that led back to the main hall. Paloma was coming up behind her and she would bet he’d taken the safety off now.

  “Keep running!” she yelled even though no one was in front of her. She had to keep him on the hook, had to make him think Miranda was ahead of her.

  There was a blast behind her and she felt something skim her shoulder, licking fire along her skin.

  She had to make it to the gym. There was a whole room in this section of the penthouse dedicated to fitness and filled with stuff she could potentially defend herself with.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, thudding like a hummingbird’s wings.

  “Isla!”

  She stopped at the sound of a familiar voice screaming her name.

  David was here.

  “If you move an inch, I’ll shoot, bitch.” Unfortunately, Paloma was here, too, and he wasn’t going away.

  She held her hands up and prayed for a miracle.

  * * *

  • • •

  David glanced down at his phone as he started to worry. He’d called twice now and she hadn’t responded. After he’d texted her, he thought about the best way to break the news that he thought the killer was one of two women—Miranda or Amber Kendrick. Either name would likely upset her. Then there was the fact that Trey Adams might never see the outside of a mental hospital again. Any way he looked at it, he was going to disappoint her.

  And Trey’s words wouldn’t leave him alone. No matter how hard he tried to forget them, they crept back into his consciousness, nudging and poking at him. Did he have any right to bring Isla into his life when he couldn’t be sure he would be sane ten years from now? Did he have any right to bring children into a life where their father might not recognize them one day?

  “Good evening, Mr. Cormack.” The doorman opened the gorgeous glass doors, welcoming him inside.

  They would have to leave here soon. They would go back to their own places and get lost in the minutiae of normal days if they didn’t actively try to stay together. If she was any other woman in her position, all he would have to do was forget to call. Ignore a couple of texts. What was the current term? Ghost. He could ghost on her and she would move on. Not Isla. Isla would show up on his doorstep and demand an explanation, not because she was selfish, but because she would be worried about him. She would need to know.

  How could he tell her he wanted her but couldn’t allow himself to have her?

  Or he could stay quiet and offer himself up to medical science. There was talk of a test that might be able to diagnose CTE in living patients. It was in the early stages and more likely to miss the disease than catch it, but he could try to test and see if he had the protein markers that could lead to CTE.

  It wouldn’t be enough. Even if they weren’t there now, he could develop them.

  All you’ll do is bring her pain.

  “Good evening, Ed.” He nodded to the doorman. It wasn’t his fault David was having a terrible day. It wasn’t the doorman’s fault David’s past was going to wipe out any hope for a future.

  “I’ll make sure to send those deliveries up as soon as they get here,” Ed said with a smile. “Could you let Ms. Shayne know that I don’t mind vetting everyone who goes up there? I think she’s worried it’s too much work and that’s why she took the code off the elevator, but I’m used to Mr. Lawless. Even when he and the missus have playdates over, I make sure they’re exactly who they say they are.”

  “She turned off the security code to the elevator?”

  “Yeah, she asked me to do it. She’s got a couple of deliveries coming up and she didn’t want to have to give them the code, but I’m more than happy to accept the delivery and take it up to her myself. It’s why there are always two of us on duty,” Ed explained. “She doesn’t ever have to give out that code. Please let her know I appreciate what she’s trying to do, but I know Mr. Lawless would prefer I vet anyone going up there.”

  “I agree. I’ll have a talk with her. While we’re here, that code needs to stay on. Have the deliveries been made?” It was exactly like Isla to try to spare the doorman extra work, but she wasn’t thinking straight.

  “Not yet.” He nodded toward the door. “Ah, it looks like the liquor store delivery is here. A few of the guests have already arrived.”

  “Guests?” He wasn’t aware they were having guests. He knew where Noah, Margarita, and Henry were. They were in the office. Erin and Liam wouldn’t be back for days. Henry was probably telling them about the new evidence even as he stood here.

  Ed buzzed in the deliveryman, taking the bag out of his hand. David fished into his pockets, pulling out a tip and thanking him.

  “Yes, one of her clients showed up. That poor girl. I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” Ed said, handing over the brown paper bag.

  A chill went through him. “Are you saying Miranda Adams is up there?”

  The phone rang on Ed’s desk. He started moving toward it as he nodded. “Yeah, she was crying, too. Not that I blame her. The other one, the wife of that crazy guy who owns the Guardians, she wasn’t crying. And I personally think Kendrick should watch his wife, if you know what I mean. I didn’t like the looks of that man with her.”

  Ed picked up the phone but David was already jogging to the elevator. They were both up there. Isla had let the wolves in.

  “Hey, Mr. Cormack, I need you to stop,” Ed shouted across the lobby. “Mr. Jacobsen just heard screaming above him. Lots of it. The only thing above him is the penthouse. I’ve called the cops, but they said they’re already on their way.”

  The words didn’t make him stop. “Isla’s up there.”

  He rushed into the elevator, Ed running behind him. The security guard pulled the Taser out of the holster on his belt. “Take this. I have to stay down here to let the cops in. We’ll be up in minutes. Be careful.”

  David took the Taser, letting everything else drop. The elevator doors closed and the longest ride of his life began.

  He couldn’t breathe. Was she already dead? Had she been murdered over that damn will? Or because she might have found out about Amber’s affair? His mind played through every terrible scenario as the elevator rose. He had a Taser against a gun. Paloma would probably have a gun. Hell, he’d never even used a damn Taser.

  Please let her be alive. Please let her be alive.

  The doors opened and he heard a shot and a scream. He stepped out into the foyer. The scream had come from close by; the shot he thought was somewhere deeper in the penthouse. The doors closed behind him, and he prayed the cops would be hard on his heels, but he couldn’t wait for them.

  “Isla!”

  The first thing he saw was a woman hunched over the couch. She’d curled into herself and sobbed into the pillow, her hair wild all around her.

  Amber.

  Her head came up at the sound of his steps on the marble, eyes going wide. “He made me do it. You have to believe me. I never wanted any of this. I wanted to protect my husband and his legacy. No one can know. It would ruin everything. Can you understand?”

  He didn’t care. Only one thing mattered. “Where’s Isla?”

  She shook her head, waving toward a hallway. “She ran.”

  He took off down the hallway she’d suggested he try. Time was running out and that was when Paloma would get dangerous. The doors to the kids’ rooms were open, but he stopped and started down the hallway as q
uietly as he could. He could hear a deep voice talking and it sounded as though it floated in from around the corner.

  “I didn’t kill Portia. I was merely there,” Paloma said, his accent thick.

  “I know, but you won’t be able to say the same of this,” Isla replied. She sounded calmer than he would expect, but then that was kind of who she was. Unflappable. Stalwart. The kind of woman any man would want watching his back. “Look, your best bet at this point is to put down that gun and blame everything, and I mean everything, on Amber. She was the one who killed Portia, am I right?”

  “She went crazy when Portia wouldn’t give her what we asked for. I only went with her in case we had to pry the evidence out of her, but she wouldn’t even tell us where it was.” Paloma’s voice went soft. “Amber . . . it was terrible. I’ve never seen anything like it. She became unhinged. One minute she was crying and the next that knife was in her hand and she’d stabbed Portia with it.”

  And Portia had run. She’d fled trying to find the safety of her bedroom. David crept along the wall. He needed to take out Paloma before the cops got here and he decided to take a hostage.

  “Amber followed her and when I got there, she had Portia on the floor and she was like an animal. A trapped animal. I had to clean her up. We left her shoes behind but no one would notice one pair of shoes with all the others. Amber wouldn’t let me take anything. The stupid bitch was upset and not thinking. It would have looked better if we’d taken something other than her laptop and phone. I still think we could have gotten away with it if she hadn’t been so paranoid.”

  “You can mitigate the damage,” Isla offered. “Like I said, you haven’t hurt anyone. Not yet.”

  “I need you to get out of here,” he said, his voice shaking a little now. “The girl will have called the police. Come here and I promise, once I get free of this building, I’ll let you go.”

  That wasn’t about to happen. He stepped out and Paloma’s back was to him. Isla was so pale. God, he hoped he did this right. He had to take the focus off her.

  “Paloma,” he said as he lifted the Taser. The big guy began to turn, the gun coming David’s way. He’d never fired a Taser before, but it was as easy as pulling the trigger.

  The darts flashed out from the Taser, burying themselves in the right side of Paloma’s chest. His body jerked and the gun went off.

  Fire blazed through his brain and he was thrown back.

  Hit. He’d been hit. His vision started to go fuzzy.

  Someone screamed out his name and then he saw Isla’s face looming over him. How had he gotten to the floor?

  She was crying. His head ached as he reached up to brush those tears from her face. He hated to see her cry.

  She was saying something, but it sounded so far away.

  Her face was the last thing he saw before the darkness encroached and the world faded away.

  SIXTEEN

  “I don’t understand.” Isla stood outside the hospital room door. She’d rushed over as soon as she was able, ready to see David, to hold him again. She’d been met by his best friend standing in the doorway and blocking her path. “I thought he was awake.”

  “He is.” Henry Garrison towered over her, a grim look on his face. “Come with me. We need to talk.”

  She took a deep breath and followed him down the hallway to the waiting room. At this time of day there were only a few people sitting in chairs and sleeping on sofas, waiting for word of their loved ones. The smell of stale coffee permeated the air as she squared off with Henry. It had been a crazy couple of hours. Maybe she needed to go over it all again. She was obviously missing something important. “What’s going on?”

  Henry scrubbed a hand over his head, his weariness a palpable thing. “I suck at this. I have no idea what to say. Maybe you could wait until Noah or Margarita gets here and talks to him.”

  “Tell me what the doctors said first. We’ll get to the crappy part in a minute. I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night. You have to know I tried to come to the hospital with him. They wouldn’t let me. Is that why he won’t see me? Is he angry I left him?”

  “It’s not that.” Henry paced over the carpet of the waiting room. “You had to deal with the police. He knows that. It’s only been a couple of hours since he woke up. He’s not thinking straight.”

  She was worried about how stubborn the man she loved might prove to be. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when he woke up. Did I thank you for sending Margarita down to the station? She was lovely.”

  “I know you were only there for questioning about what happened, but I don’t like any of my clients talking to the police without a lawyer,” Henry said. “It’s best to always be represented. Is Miranda all right? Did she get home okay?”

  Miranda was forever changed by the experience, but she was safe. “Well, I think she’s claustrophobic now, but Noah was kind to her. He convinced the police to let her leave long before I got out of there. He made sure she got home, and he’s picking up Oscar as we speak. I think they’ll go out to their aunt’s place for a while and try to avoid the press. Thanks for getting that done so quickly.”

  Henry held up a hand. “Oh, thank that idiot Royce. He was thrilled to expedite the process. He thinks arresting Amber Kendrick is going to make him look even better than Oscar. Paloma is already talking about how she killed Portia. Well, after he stopped shaking. David had that sucker on full power. It took a while before that asshole could talk again.”

  “Do we know what he’s saying? Besides pointing the finger at Amber?” From what she could tell, Amber had gone quietly with the police. Not that she saw it happen. She’d been far too busy trying to figure out if David was even alive.

  She would never forget that horrible moment when she realized David had been shot. One minute she’d been certain she would be used as a human shield, and the next she heard the sound of the Taser firing and then Paloma’s gun had gone off. It was like time had slowed down as she tried to get to him before he hit the floor. She’d seen the blood and called to anyone who would listen to save him.

  In that moment she knew she loved him. It couldn’t be anything else. She’d also known that she might never get over losing him. Austin had been her first love, but David was her soul mate, her other half.

  The cops had found her there in the hallway, crying over his body. Begging him to come back to her.

  And now he didn’t want to see her.

  “I don’t know a lot. I’ve been here waiting for news on David and then making sure he’s got everything he needs.”

  It was so obvious it had been a long night for Henry, too. “I thank you for that. I wish I’d been here. I hated not knowing what was going on, but the police were insistent.”

  “The good news is I can’t represent Amber Kendrick, so don’t even ask.” He said it with a sigh of relief. “Since David is going to end up being a material witness, I can happily step back from this clusterfuck of a case.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to rep her. I will happily send her to jail. Though I can’t imagine what Carey’s going through.” She’d tried to call him, but he wasn’t answering either of his phones. The news cycle was in full frenzy, with every single station talking about the scandalous details. But she was curious. In the long hours she’d been at the police station, a couple of questions had run through her brain, loose ends she felt the need to tie up. “If this was all about an affair, what proof do you think Portia had?”

  Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she took pictures. Or had some video.”

  “But the affair happened in Europe and, according to the McKay-Taggart investigators, Paloma hadn’t been here in the States for very long. I think Erin had them track him to the city the day before Portia’s death. So those photos couldn’t have been new. Why would Portia have sat on them for so long? The last time Amber had been physical with Paloma was months befor
e on the London trip. The Paris trip was the year before.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know what she had until she started putting together the memorial video,” Henry mused. “There might have been something there she hadn’t noticed before and she went to Amber about it.”

  “Why not go directly to Carey?”

  Henry crossed his arms over his chest as he thought the problem through. “She probably didn’t want to cause trouble if she didn’t have to. She might have thought she misunderstood. When Amber couldn’t explain it away, Portia decided to tell. She must have had enough evidence to convince Carey. I know they’ve found the phone and laptop, but the DA’s not going to give me anything. I wouldn’t either. Not when he knows damn well I’m probably going to sue the city. Lots of false arrests on this one. It’s going to be fun.”

  He had that predatory grin on his face that reminded her this was a man who loved the fight.

  Still, he didn’t know everything she did. “And why would Paloma have searched my house? I didn’t normally store photographs for Portia. If this was a completely personal thing, why bring me into it? There was something. Something about you. Before Amber showed up this afternoon, I found your name written in Portia’s day planner.”

  His eyes widened. “You did?”

  “I did. She had the phone number to Garrison, Cormack, and Lawless and your name underlined.”

  “I never met with her,” Henry admitted. “If she called and made an appointment, she did it under another name and never showed up. The firm couldn’t have taken Trey’s case if we had Portia as a client.”

  That was what she’d thought. “She had a couple of aliases she used when she didn’t want the press to know what she was doing. If she called, she likely used one of them. I can give them to your admin to see if she had an appointment. There was also a code written in the planner. I haven’t figured out what that is yet, but it’s too odd to be pure coincidence. It was on the same page as your name. It’s got to have something to do with all of this. I want to know what they were looking for.”