“I wonder how much more she’d hate you if she knew you were pregnant with Gage’s child.”
Veda frowned into the distance, trying to wrap her mind around it, trying to make the pieces of the puzzle Linc was trying to build, fit, but she couldn’t quite get there.
“Celeste isn’t my favorite person by a long shot,” she said. “But I don’t think she’s capable of that.”
Linc sighed, as if disappointed at the rose-colored glasses Veda insisted on wearing. “Gage was the last person you contacted before you went missing. He’s the one who called to tell me you weren’t home.”
“So he was protecting me,” Veda said. “If he hadn’t come to see me, no one would’ve even known I was gone.”
“Unless he had a hand in it.”
Veda’s mouth dropped. “I know the two of you hate each other but, Jesus, Linc.”
“You’re broken up. He’s dating someone else. Moving on. Doesn’t sound like a man who’d be over the moon about his ex-girlfriend’s surprise baby.”
“Gage would never do this.”
“If I had a penny for every time a wife or girlfriend insisted their significant other would ‘never do this’…” Linc chuckled. “Did you know that whenever a woman dies or comes up missing, the first person we look at is always, always, always the boyfriend or husband? And that, nine times out of ten, we have to look no further?”
Her breathing picked up with each word Linc said, feeling her mind begin to actually consider…
“No,” was all she could say, though it came out weak as a house mouse.
Linc waited for her troubled eyes to meet his once more before he whispered. “Whoever it was… I won’t sleep until they pay.”
Veda’s eyes searched his face. “I know.”
“I’d like you to stay with me.”
“Linc…”
“Just until I find out who did this. Until I have proof who didn’t. We found you in the trunk of a car with an underage hooker in the backseat. The driver is still at large. Got away on foot. God only knows where he is. Where he planned on taking you. You’re not safe. You can’t even take out the goddamn garbage.”
“You do realize you’re actually… inviting me into your life right now? Who are you?”
His nostrils spread almost as wide as his eyes. He motioned to her with the pad he’d yet to take a single note on. “You scared the hell out of me tonight.”
Veda faltered.
He cleared his throat, covering his lips with a fist. “Out of us,” he added. “Me and Gage.”
Her voice came dry, devoid of feeling. “Finally, the two of you agree on something. Shame I was too incapacitated to witness it.”
His hands fell to his side. “Look. My building’s right across the street from the precinct. 40% of the residents are Shadow Rock PD. Nobody will come for you there.”
Veda gave him an exasperated look. Their eyes tangled together and danced for several long moments.
Then, it hit her. Somewhere in the last few minutes, she’d allowed herself to forget why she was in that bed. It hit her like a tornado, and the tears that tried to wet her eyes were ten times harder to fight back. She’d once believed the pain her enemies had caused could never be outdone. So strong it was damn near debilitating.
But this pain…
The kind that started at her heart and slowly burned its way across every inch of her skin until she was sure she was seconds from being reduced to a pile of ash. This was a pain she wasn’t sure she’d survive. A pain she couldn’t blame on the ten men who’d raped her.
No.
This time, she had no one to blame but herself.
“I’m tired,” she whispered, drawing in a deep breath that only made the flames that had been setting her heart on fire since the moment she’d woken up go into a full alarm blaze. “I’m really tired.”
Linc seemed in the midst of pushing for more, but another part of him pulled back, slapping his notepad against the back of his hand. “A’ight. But when you wake up…” He held up the pen and pad.
Veda nodded.
As he was moving around the bed, he hesitated at the foot, taking hold of the bed bar and leaning into it. “Need me to call anybody for you? Your parents? Your grandma?”
“No,” she said, instantly. “They’ll overreact. They’ll come down.”
“Even if they did come down…” He shrugged. “I don’t think it’d be an overreaction. You almost died. Don’t you think they’d want to know about it?”
Veda’s eyes blazed across the room at him. “Don’t call.”
Linc took a moment when his eyes lived on hers as if he’d climbed inside her head and could read her mind. One moment became several before he pressed his lips together, patted the bar, hesitated once more, and then finally broke their gaze, making his way toward the door.
Veda waited until he’d left the room to bury her face in her hands.
6
Approaching the nurse’s station on a slow foot, with his hands deep in the pockets of his slacks, Gage eyed Nurse Latika, who sat behind the main station at Shadow Rock Hospital. Behind him, the lobby was in full swing, as busy as would be expected in the evening. The music of ambulance sirens always came more frequently at night, and that night was no exception as they blared by on the streets outside the sliding doors of the lobby.
Gage made it to the nurses’ stand. Taking hold of the edge, he eyed his head nurse with desperate orbs.
Latika, tapping away at her computer, surrounded by piles of medical charts that seemed to get taller every day, didn’t even look up at her boss. The shift of her brown irises to the corners of her glasses, however, indicated she knew perfectly well he was standing there watching her.
Gage cleared his throat, and she was kind enough to act surprised at his presence, swirling in her rolly chair and raising her eyebrows at him, peering from over the rims of her rectangular glasses.
“Now?” Gage asked softly.
She pressed her lips together, giving him a gentle eye that was rare in their relationship. “Still doesn’t want to see anyone, sweetness. Last update said she just fell fast asleep.”
“You’ll tell me the moment—”
“The moment I hear different.” Latika nodded. She looked in the midst of telling Gage how sorry she was for the millionth time that night, but the words got caught in her throat as her gaze shifted to something over his shoulder.
He followed her gaze, straightening when he caught sight of Lincoln Hill approaching them, coming to a stop next to Gage.
“How is she?” Gage asked.
Linc nodded. “Tired. Trying to get some sleep.” He motioned to Gage. “And while she’s out, I need to ask you a few questions.”
Gage let his gaze linger on Linc’s for a long moment before moving his eyes to Latika, who eyed the two of them back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. Not so long ago, Gage and Linc had been on the verge of killing each other just five floors up. Judging by the look on Latika’s face—as well as every other employee pretending not to stare as they passed by—everyone was waiting with bated breath for round two.
Gage had a feeling they might just get it.
He faced Linc with a frown. “Why on Earth would you need to question me? If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have never known she was missing.”
“Blackwater.” Linc smiled. “You didn’t even have the presence of mind to notice the lid was off her trashcan. Without me, she’d be long gone.”
“Perhaps everyone can agree that this was a team effort tonight,” Latika jumped in, even though Gage knew every fiber of her being loved a show, and was surely aching for fistfight number two between the men before her. “Thanks to both of you, Veda’s safe. Let’s try not to forget that, okay?”
“I need to ask you some questions,” Linc said again.
Gage took a deep breath, squinting at him before nodding toward the elevator. “Fine. Let’s take it up to my office.”
&nb
sp; “Lobby’s good,” Linc countered, nodding toward a quiet sitting nook that had gone largely ignored by the patients milling around the waiting room.
Gage raised his eyebrows, tightened his jaw, and then looked at Latika from the corner of his eyes.
Latika shared his look but said nothing.
Without another word, Gage turned toward the waiting area, silently motioning for Linc to lead the way.
He did, and moments later they sat alongside each other in the quiet waiting nook. They didn’t face each other in their seats, opting instead to look out into the lobby, leaning forward on their knees, avoiding each other’s gazes by any means necessary.
“Veda says she called you tonight.” Linc primed a pen over his notepad.
Gage’s voice rang out, tight. “That’s right.”
“Did you pick up?”
“No. She left a message. Asked me to meet her at her place.”
“Where were you when you heard the message?”
Gage took a deep breath. “I was with my… with my…”
Linc cut his eyes at him.
Gage’s cheeks reddened. “With a girl I’ve been seeing.”
“New girlfriend?”
“No. Just a new girl I’ve been seeing,” Gage said, again, a new clip in his voice.
“Who?”
“Stephanie Cochran. She’s a doctor in pediatrics.”
“How long have you been seeing her?”
“Not long.”
“Ballpark.”
Gage clenched his teeth. “I don’t know… a little over a month? Maybe two?”
Linc nodded, scribbling notes. “And what were the two of you doing when you received Veda’s call?”
“Not sure why that matters.”
“Let me worry about what matters.” Linc met his gaze.
They held each other’s heated eyes for a long moment, their breathing picking up in time. Gage was the first to break the stare.
“I was at Stephanie’s place,” he answered.
“So Veda interrupted an intimate moment?”
“Please don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Am I wrong?”
Gage drew in a rapid breath, frowning at Linc, voice rising. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“I don’t know.” Linc showed no outward response. “Do you?”
Gage snatched his eyes away, leaning forward on his knees, jaw tight, brows pulled together. A long moment of silence passed, and as he clutched his hands together, his hold grew tighter every second.
“Look. I’ve just lost a baby,” Gage said, voice worlds softer, with a slight shake that hadn’t been present a moment before. “I have a girlfriend who doesn’t even… who won’t even see me—”
“Ex-girlfriend—”
“On top of all that…” Gage carried on as if he hadn’t heard the correction. “I’ve got a misguided detective who’s honestly attempting to make me his prime suspect, even though he wouldn’t even have known something was off tonight if it hadn’t been for me.” He incinerated Linc with his eyes. “Your incredible desperation really knows no bounds.”
Linc held his hands out, a pen in one and his pad in the other. “All I want to know is what happened tonight. Nobody’s being accused. Nobody’s been charged. Just asking questions.”
“And in your deepest heart of hearts, you’re praying…” Gage clenched his hands tighter, digging his nails into his skin. “Praying that I pushed her… so that you’ll finally have your window to move in. Well, I hope you’re prepared for disappointment, Detective, because I didn’t do this. I would never hurt Veda. I would never hurt her.”
“Look, all I know is I walked into an apartment tonight with no sign of forced entry, two plates of uneaten food, a bottle of uncorked sparkling cider with two glasses, and your fingerprints all over the place.”
Gage licked his top teeth, his eyes searing forward as he shook his head.
“Whether you like it or not, Blackwater, I’ve got a few questions about that, and the sooner you give me your alibi, the sooner I can get to work clearing it, and the sooner we never have to see or speak to one another again. So let’s just get through this shit, a’ight? I’m doing my job.”
“Right. You’re such a professional.” Gage smiled. “So professional that… when I called you tonight, you knew Veda’s address without ever having asked for it.”
It was Linc’s turn to laugh, looking away from him while massaging his jaw.
Gage continued. “So professional that you once hid in her bathroom so I wouldn’t know you were in her apartment.”
Linc’s eyes fell, and the skin under his lower lip protruded as he licked his bottom teeth.
“So professional you’ve already invited her to stay with you, even though I’m sure there’s a statute in the SRPD code of ethics that expressly forbids it.”
Linc looked at him. “She’s staying with me.”
“Over my dead body.”
Linc sighed, apparently realizing this could go on all day, and getting back on track with his questioning. “Did your family approve of your relationship with Veda?”
Gage’s voice rang out with a hint of defeat lingering under the surface, topped off with an aggravated amusement. “No, Detective, they didn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
Gage shrugged. “Haven’t the slightest. I loved her from the moment I saw her. Anyone who can’t see in her what I see… is someone I will never understand. Someone I don’t want to understand.”
“Could your family’s distaste for Veda have anything to do with the major investment deal they lost out on when you ended your engagement to Scarlett Covington? How much was it? A five hundred million dollar hit to Blackwater Cruises?” Linc offered. “Maybe Veda and her baby found themselves on the receiving end of a five hundred million dollar push?”
Gage’s eyes fluttered closed, but even as his lips fell open to spew a rebuttal, nothing came. In the next instant, his eyes opened, and he was staring ahead. The movement of his brown orbs, back and forth, showed that his mind was going a mile a minute.
He leaned forward on his knees, brought his fisted hands up to his lips and let his eyes slam shut again when the thoughts blasting through his head made his stomach go sick, unable to handle for another moment the implication behind Linc’s questions.
Unable to handle how hard it was for the glimmer of legitimacy behind those questions to exorcize itself from his body.
——
“Good morning, Mr. Blackwater.” Irma Delgado, the Blackwater’s head maid, gave Gage a gleaming smile as she stepped away from the double doors of the Blackwater mansion the following morning. Sun spilled into the estate the moment she opened the door, casting a deep spotlight down the cherry wood floors and the floor to ceiling-white marble columns. A crystal chandelier glimmered from the grand foyer, making Irma’s eyes gleam even more than they already did by nature at the sight of the boy she’d watched grow into a man over the years.
For the first time in his life, Gage didn’t have a gleaming smile to return to Irma. Instead, he breezed past her without a word, his eyes and jaw both set as he boomed through the expansive foyer, past the grand staircase and the family room. The heels of his brown Italian dress shoes clicked as he moved.
Those clicks came to a rapid stop when Gage caught sight of his father, David Blackwater, behind his desk in the study. The double doors of the study had been left open, revealing a deep line between David’s eyes as he frowned at the screen of his computer. David’s shock-white hair had been freshly trimmed and that morning was one of the few he’d gone without his jacket. The steel gray jacket hung on the back of the tall leather desk chair behind him, letting his sea green button-down shirt and navy tie take center stage.
David didn’t even notice the heated glare his son shot him from the hallway, too taken with his work, but when the click of another pair of shoes—the unmistakable music of stiletto heels this time—filled the halls, David’s eyes did
shoot up. His gray orbs lit up at the sight of Gage. He went to stand but stopped halfway when Gage snapped his gaze in the direction of the clicking stilettos.
Gage caught sight of his mother, Celeste Blackwater, sauntering down the long hall that led to the East wing with the smooth, nowhere-to-be, nothing-to-do, moneyed strut she always adopted. Her svelte figure fought for air in a skin-tight black bandage dress, the dark tone making her pale skin glow. Her long black hair blew behind her with ease, taking on a life of its own, and her green eyes lit up at the sight of Gage in much the same way his father’s just had.
But her smile only made Gage’s frown deepen. Holding her eyes, he jammed his pointer finger toward the study. “I need to speak to you and Dad privately.”
Celeste came to an instant stop, the click of her heels halting, looking bewildered at Gage’s tone. She seemed in the midst of laughing.
This reddened Gage’s cheeks, and he jammed his finger toward the study again. “In the study—”
Celeste released a breathy chuckle.
And Gage broke. “Now!”
She jolted, the smile vanishing from her face. For a moment she seemed on the verge of exploding right back at him, reminding him that just because he was twenty-six-years-old didn’t mean she wasn’t still his mother. As she searched Gage’s eyes, however, something in them caused her to clap her mouth shut and lift her chin high, tossing her long hair over her squared shoulders before sauntering into the study with a huff.
Gage kept his arm outstretched, finger primed toward the study, until his mother was well past him, his chest heaving as he finally dropped his arm to his side and followed, stomping in after her and slamming both double doors behind him, drowning out the equally confused and curious stares of the family’s staff.
For several moments Gage faced the closed doors of the study with his hands in the pockets of his black slacks. He dropped his head and tried to wait for his breathing to regain control, but it didn’t. Realizing it never would—he swiveled on his heel and faced his parents, both of whom were watching him as if he’d grown a second head overnight.
Pulse (Revenge Book 5) Page 5
