by Naima Simone
“Thanks, Rafe.” He absently turned the mail over, noticing his name in bold, black marker. No return address, though. He frowned, smoothed a hand over the top, and cautiously handled the package. Paper. Thick paper, like maybe a small stack of documents. Nothing else seemed to be enclosed. Leaning forward, he grabbed the letter opener off the desk, opened the flap, and removed the contents.
A letter—with photos. The paper crinkled in his fist, but he could still read the words. “She’s mine. You can’t stop me from taking what’s mine.” Dread curdled in his veins as he shifted the sheet of paper. Then wished he hadn’t. Jesus Christ. More photos of Aslyn. In her bedroom, coming out of the shower, preparing coffee in the kitchen, and reading in the living room. But in each picture, her eyes had been gouged out with some kind of instrument. Red ink was slashed across her throat, imitating bleeding gashes.
“Rafe,” he rasped. In seconds, his friend stood beside him.
“Fuck,” Rafe growled. “Are you kidding me?” He picked up the pictures and shuffled through them, his mouth firmed in a grim line as he studied the images. His eyes narrowed. “Something’s off with these…” He rubbed a knuckle over the scar bisecting his eyebrow, the habitual gesture telegraphing his quick mind was running. “I remember the other pictures she received. These,” he tapped the top photo, “aren’t the same. Just from scale and perspective distortion, I would say those first images were shot with a long-focus lens. But if these were also taken from outside of the house with a telephoto lens, the angles, view, and lighting would’ve been different. Instead, the perspective and angles are high, as if shot from above. Like a shelf or even the ceiling in some of them. I could be wrong, but the pictures seemed to be taken from inside the house. Maybe by a web or spy cam.”
Chay straightened, reeling back against his chair. ”That’s impossible. We swept the place when you installed the alarm system.”
Rafe nodded. “I know. Which means at some point this guy was in the house afterward. Maybe when Aslyn left the house for an errand or a jog. Riley and Jared would’ve tailed her, and the stalker could’ve entered then.”
“That means he had access,” Chay murmured. A terrible seed took root and niggled at his brain…
“Yeah,” Rafe agreed. “And it would also explain how her stalker knew she hadn’t returned to the house after he’d tried to kidnap her. The first call to her phone demanding to know where she was came Friday morning, because he knew she wasn’t there.”
Aslyn had told him her attacker had called her a whore, said she’d “whored” for him. The night before the attempted kidnapping, he’d gone down on her on the piano…
“Son of a bitch,” he growled. It made sense. It made a horrible kind of sense.
Rafe rounded his desk, plucked up his cell. “Let me call Riley and see if Aslyn forgot to set the alarm at any time after we installed the system.” While his friend placed the call to the bodyguard, a violent need to return to the safe house surged within him. Unease had settled in his heart like a boulder that refused to be moved. The need to see Aslyn, touch her, reassure himself she was okay rode him hard.
“Okay, thanks. Stay near your phone.” Rafe dropped the cell on his desk and shot forward in his seat, gaze focused on the computer monitor. “Aslyn thinks she didn’t set the alarm Wednesday morning. So that gives us a time frame to work within.” His fingers flew over the keyboard.
Chay strode around Rafe’s desk and paused next to his friend’s chair. “You’re pulling up the backup video to see if you can catch whoever installed the cameras?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, and an instant later, the video feed appeared on the screen. Several minutes passed as Rafe fast-forwarded to Wednesday morning. They watched Aslyn leave the house and descend the front steps. The timer in the corner of the footage showed a half hour had elapsed before a tall, narrow-shouldered figure entered the camera’s range.
Shock echoed through Chay.
“That’s Liam.” Aslyn’s manager paused at the front door, glanced around, then cautiously turned a key in the front door and entered the house.
“What the hell?” His fingers curled into the leather back of Rafe’s chair. “I thought Liam hadn’t arrived in Boston until Monday morning. When he came to the office, he acted as if he’d just arrived from Los Angeles.”
“And if he’d been in town since Wednesday, why didn’t he let Aslyn know? What would a couple of days matter? And why wouldn’t he have stayed at the rental house since it’s his property? Doesn’t make sense. But I’ll call the detective so they can do a sweep of the house and find out if those cameras are still there. If so, they might be able to collect some trace evidence.” Rafe fast-forwarded through the remaining hours. They saw Liam exit and Aslyn arrive back at the house. No one else entered the home. Rafe’s fingers flew across the computer’s keyboard, and soon another shot of the porch appeared. “Okay, here’s this morning.”
All of Chay’s attention focused on the monitor, he studied it, silent. Seconds passed with no activity except an empty stoop. Then a man with a page-boy cap and a suit jacket appeared at the door. He rang the bell, and before long, Liam answered.
“They seem to know one another,” Rafe remarked as the two men shook hands and disappeared inside the house.
Chay grunted. Rafe zipped forward, and when he clicked play again, thirty minutes had passed on the counter in the corner of the monitor. The man who’d arrived on the doorstep now exited the house.
“We caught the murderer on camera,” Rafe breathed.
“Damn.” Chay scrubbed a hand over the nape of his neck. “Damn.” He stared at the screen, which Rafe had paused. The back of Liam’s killer filled the screen. He peered harder, squinted. “Something’s not right,” he whispered. Again, that small voice nagged him, insisted he missed a detail, some clue. And it was right there. So close… “Shit,” he snapped. “Rafe, go back to when the guy first arrived at the door.”
Rafe didn’t question him, just rewound the video.
“Stop. Look.” Chay’s heart pounded in his chest like a hammer against an anvil. “Under his hat.” He pointed at the man’s curly, dark hair that brushed his collar. “Now go ahead to when he leaves.” After Rafe paused again on that shot, Chay tapped the screen. “Look at his hair.”
Rafe leaned forward, studied the screen. “Oh fuck me. Are you kidding?”
“No,” Chay said, voice grim as the truth yawned before them like a horrible, terrifying chasm. His gaze didn’t move from the monitor. The same page-boy cap, the same jacket. But the short, conservatively cut hair under the hat did not belong to the man who’d entered the home a half hour earlier.
“Liam,” Rafe snarled.
Chay met Rafe’s stunned, furious eyes. “He’s Aslyn’s stalker.” He reached in his pocket for his cell. “I have to call Riley.” He patted his pants pocket, then remembered the phone was in his jacket pocket. Swearing under his breath, he strode from the room and recovered his cell. “Shit,” he snapped, glancing down at the screen as he reentered Rafe’s office. “I missed a call from him. Why the hell didn’t he call here?” he murmured as he retrieved his messages. The bodyguard’s deep voice came over the line. Seconds later, he lowered the cell, dread and panic churning in his gut.
“What?” Rafe demanded.
“The UNSUB called Aslyn and told her he had Mom. Aslyn insisted on going to meet him at her house.” He quickly dialed the bodyguard’s number, waited. “Damn it,” Chay hissed when an electronic voice asked him to leave a message. He pressed the end call button. “I can’t get Riley. He doesn’t answer. It just rings and then goes to voicemail.”
The terror grew, expanded, its tentacles wrapping around his heart and organs. Deliberately, he thrust the fear down, smothered it. He couldn’t afford to give in to emotion now. Not when his mother’s and Aslyn’s lives could be in danger. Later—once she was in his arms again—would he surrender to the panic and terror of almost losing her and the only family member he
had left.
Because she would be in his arms again.
“We need to find out every move Liam has made since he arrived in Boston. Even a couple of days before,” Chay said, his mind racing. Where was Liam? If cornered, where would he go? “Can you pull his credit card history, rental car records? Let’s see if he has other rental properties. We know he can’t take her back to the house in Canton, because it’s now a crime scene and the first place we’d look. If he planned to snatch Aslyn, he must have had a contingency plan in place. We have to find out that plan.”
“On it.” Rafe’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Experience assured Chay that Rafe wouldn’t take long to unearth the information. He was the absolute best at what he did—which included hacking systems and locating back doors into programs. Still, with Aslyn’s and his mother’s lives possibly in the balance, the minutes seemed to crawl by.
While Rafe worked, Chay tried calling Riley again. No answer. He tried calling the landline in the condominium. No answer. Damn. The bodyguard would never have his phone off or out of his reach. Not while on a job. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
“Got it.” Rafe shot to his feet, his office chair rolling back and slapping the wall. “He hasn’t used his credit card since buying a one-way ticket to Boston—nearly two weeks ago—so he’s deliberately staying off the grid. But he has two more rental properties here. One in Dorchester and the other in Brighton. My bet is on Brighton. More privacy, less densely populated.”
“We’ll take the Brighton house, and I’ll have Leah and Xavier check out the Dorchester residence. We can send Shane and Niall to your mother’s house in Randolph just in case.” Chay punched a number into the cell’s keypad as he and Rafe stalked from the office. “Can you call the Charlestown building and ask them to check the condo and parking deck? See if Riley and Aslyn are there or—” Just as his thumb hovered over the call button, the cell rang.
Jared.
Thank Christ.
“Jared,” Chay barked, fear sharpening his voice. “I’ve been trying to call Riley—”
“Chay.” He could barely hear the bodyguard’s low rasp. Alarm set his heart pounding. “Me and Riley… We’ve been shot.” A wet cough filled his ear. “Aslyn. He’s got her. She’s gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Aslyn stared into the stygian darkness and breathed deeply.
In. Out. In. Out.
She wasn’t suffocating.
She wasn’t going to die in the tiny closet where unseen things scratched and scurried behind the walls.
Shit. Don’t think of that. She wasn’t prone to panic attacks or frenzied fits over crawly things, but with her hands and feet bound, she couldn’t slap them away or stomp them out of existence. She closed her eyes, preferring to stare at the back of her eyelids then straining her sight trying to see something in the blackness.
The back of her head tapped the wall of the closet.
Liam.
Oh God. Liam was alive. And he’d shot—possibly killed—Riley and Jared right in front of her. The man who’d been in her life for ten years as her manager, big brother, and best friend was a killer. And her stalker.
She coughed, the sound caught somewhere between a sob and a harsh bark of laughter. Reason argued murder trumped stalking. Obviously, Liam hadn’t been the man lying on her living room floor under a sheet, even though Liam’s ring had adorned the man’s finger. For some reason, her manager had killed a man in order to fool people into thinking he was dead. That man—whoever he was—had probably left family and friends behind. His life had been taken as part of a scheme known only to Liam.
She, on the other hand, still lived. For now.
But the man she’d called friend, the man she’d trusted above all others, had waged a war of terror against her. Liam had been beside her when she suffered through the nightmare with Quinton Lakes, and yet he’d adopted those same tactics to make her life hell. He’d betrayed her, sought to harm her for reasons she couldn’t fathom. What had she done to him to incite the kind of hatred required to frighten and hunt her down like an animal?
How had she spent year after year with him and not recognize the evil simmering below the surface of his handsomeness, his smile and kindness?
Grief swelled inside her, different but as powerful and consuming as her sorrow the day before when she believed he’d been murdered. Yesterday she’d mourned because she’d believed he was dead, forever lost to her. Today she mourned because the friend she depended on, loved, didn’t exist—possibly never existed.
And he was as forever lost to her today as he’d been the day before.
She sucked in a breath, slowly exhaled.
Think. You have to think.
He was returning for her. The promise, stated with a grim smile and steely glint in his familiar blue eyes, had sent shivers creeping over her skin. Those had been the only words he’d uttered to her since forcing her into his car after shooting Riley and Jared. The I’ll be back for you had seemed even more ominous on the heels of the absolute silence. He hadn’t mentioned Chay’s mother, nor had Aslyn seen her.
So she had to be prepared to fight, to run, to do anything to survive—for both her and the other woman to survive. Bile roiled in her belly and scalded her chest as visions of what “anything” might entail.
No. Nononono. Can’t go there. Prepare.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
How many times had Liam repeated his favorite Benjamin Franklin quote? Ironic that even now when he represented the threat to her life, she was still heeding his advice.
She tugged on the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. A futile struggle, but at least he’d imprisoned her hands in front of her instead of behind. She had to buy time. Give Chay as much time as possible to find her. Because she didn’t doubt he would. He was a hero—it’s what he did.
Besides, she had to tell him she loved him. She wasn’t leaving this earth until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone—she—adored him, wanted him, accepted him.
Liam would not steal that away from Chay or her.
A slight shuffle reached her from the other side of the closet door. Her heart leaped to her throat and pounded there, deafening her to everything but the deep, resonant beats. Curling her legs under her hips, she planted her palms on the floor and pushed to her feet.
Damn if she would face him cowering on the floor.
The door creaked open reminding her of a crypt. Shit. Wrong thought. That would make her the dead person inside the tomb.
Light flooded the small, dark space. She blinked, desperate to adjust her vision as soon as possible to the abrupt brightness. Before the spots cleared from her eyes, Liam knelt and cut the tie around her ankles. Then hard hands gripped her wrists and dragged her forward out of the closet. She stumbled, but quickly recovered her footing.
“Careful, Aslyn,” Liam cautioned. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Another punch of pain and rage socked her in the chest. His smiling face, his patient voice… It was like Halloween had arrived early, and a stranger wore the mask of a friend.
“Follow me.”
He didn’t give her time to obey but tugged her behind him out of one vacant room, into a corridor, and into another room empty of furniture, pictures, or knickknacks. Only a folding chair, fireplace, and a wood mantel provided decoration in the barren space.
And the big knife he set on top of it.
“Please.” He led her to the folding chair and lowered her to it with a firm hand to her shoulder. “Have a seat. I know it’s not comfortable, but we won’t be here long.”
Fear squeezed her heart. She refused to dwell on what that could mean.
She glanced around. “Where’s Chay’s mother? Is she okay?”
“Oh right.” He smiled, reached into his pocket, and removed a small, handheld digital recorder. A second later a woman’s voice filled the empty room. “Hello? Hello? Is someone there?” H
is grin widened. “I did a little digging, found Evelyn Sheldon’s number, and called her. I didn’t have to say a word. Just let her do all the talking.”
He’d tricked her.
“Liam,” she whispered, staring into his loved face. “Why?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific, love.” The familiar endearment ate at her like acid. “Why did I shoot your bodyguard and bring you here? Why did I kill a man to make you think I was dead? Or why have I been keeping tabs on you, following you, and watching you whore yourself out for a complete stranger?”
Jesus. “Uh, take your pick?”
Liam stared at her, then chuckled. “Always the wisecracker, eh, Aslyn?” He knelt down in front of her and cocked his head. “Well, I want you to know. I want you to know why I’m going to kill you.”
She fought not to flinch, not to reveal her terror. “Kill me, Liam? You’re my friend. My best friend.”
“Friend?” He laughed and rose to his feet. “Don’t I know it, love. All I’ve ever been to you is the person to oversee your career and a good friend. Never mind that I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. That I’ve given you everything. I’m still your friend.”
“Liam,” she breathed. He’d never betrayed any indication that he’d felt anything more than familial love for her.
“I’ve sacrificed clients, made you the center of my life and my career. Every move I’ve made in the last ten years has been with you in mind, as my priority,” he growled, pacing several feet away in front of her. “And how do you repay me? By trying to get rid of me. Push me out of your life.”
“What are you talking about?” She shook her head. “I would never—”
“Jeremy Sutter,” he spat. “All you’ve talked about even before Lakes attacked you was bringing in Sutter to replace me.”
“No, Liam. No,” she repeated, leaning forward in her chair. “That’s not true. I wanted to ease the load off you, that’s all. Since Mom and Dad died, you’ve been my manager and agent. I thought if we brought Sutter on board to take the agent role, it would free up your time, allow you to have more of a life that didn’t revolve completely around me. I didn’t want to get rid of you. I couldn’t have made it this far without you.”
