A Killing Kind of Love: A Dark, Standalone Romantic Suspense

by EC Sheedy

  The front door creaked open behind Gina.

  “No one asks to die, mother dearest,” Sebastian, Gina’s brother, said from the doorway. “Except maybe you, by being your constantly sweet and endearing self.” He turned to Gina. “Who’s she talking about?”

  Delores didn’t give her time to answer. “What are you doing here?” She curled her lip. “That tramp you’re living with turn you out? You should start having them take a number, boy, or you’re going to lose track.” She sneered. “Why don’t you come back here, sponge off me? I could vet your lady friends. Save you a lot of false starts. Be like old times.”

  “I’d rather chew live snakes, Delores.”

  “My, my, we’re sharp today, aren’t we? Make another million on the market yesterday, did we? While your sister and I live here in abject poverty.”

  Sebastian snorted, looked as though he’d laugh in her face, but said nothing. Thank God! Gina hated when they went at it. Her stomach was a stone for a week after one of their arguments. And while Sebastian did manage to make a living as a day trader, Gina knew right now things weren’t going well. But that was something he’d never tell Delores.

  “Gina needed some things,” he said, turning away from his mother. “I brought them.”

  “Gina, Gina, Gina. What about me? I’m the one in the goddamned wheelchair.”

  He set the bags he’d carried in on a side table near the entryway to the kitchen, then walked over to Gina and kissed her cheek. “Another day in paradise?” he whispered in her ear. She sensed his grim smile and felt his hair, as usual an inch or so too long, brush over her cheek. Their coloring—olive skin and deep black hair—was a gift from their Italian grandparents. Delores’s hair was equally as dark, although now shot with gray.

  “Not so bad,” she whispered back. She squeezed his strong arm, had the urge to not let go, hold him here with her. She knew he only came because she was here, but even so, Sebastian never stayed long. If anything his relationship with Delores was more circuitous and confusing than her own. And while he said he hated her—even more than Gina did—she never quite believed him. There was something of the faithful dog about Sebastian, both to Gina and Delores.

  “I’m not deaf, you two,” Delores muttered, rolling herself toward the table with the groceries. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t give a shit what either of you say. So have at me.” She dug into a bag, pulled out an apple, and took a bite, eyeing them over the top of her reading glasses. “Jesus, what a pair. A daughter who shot her own mother—”

  “I didn’t—” Gina started.

  “And a son who spends his life fucking stupid women. When he should be here helping his crippled mother.” She shook her head in disgust, spun the chair, and headed into the cluttered room at the front of the house she insisted on calling the parlor. Gina thought of it as the smoking room because it was there, during the day, where Delores spent her time, dragging on cigarettes while she read endless biographies and listened to long-dead composers. Delores hated television and refused to have one in the house.

  She was halfway to the parlor when Sebastian said, “You’re as crippled as you want to be, Delores, so why not get out of that chair? Give Gina her life back.” His words were as soft as the disturbed dust swirling in the light coming from the stained-glass window above the front door. Gina knew the restraint was costing him. “You could at least try,” he urged.

  Delores acknowledged his statement with a dismissive wave of her hand before she disappeared into the parlor and slammed the door. Sebastian moved to follow her.

  “Sebastian, don’t.” Gina grabbed his arm. “You know it won’t do any good.”

  He turned on her, his eyes fiery. “You’re not a cripple either, Gina, so why the hell don’t you walk out of here? Today. My car is outside.”

  Gina looked at the doorway her mother had rolled through. “I owe her. You know that.” And I have no place to go and no will to find one.

  He snorted. “You saved her life—such as it is. She’s the one who owes.”

  “If I hadn’t picked up that gun—”

  “That loser boyfriend of hers would’ve shot her in the heart. She’d be dead, and so would you, and you damn well know that. I can’t believe you’ve bought her crap about it being your fault.” His strikingly handsome face was a study in disapproval.

  Oh, Sebastian, if you only knew . . .

  When she didn’t answer, he turned abruptly, grabbed the sacks of groceries, and headed for the kitchen.

  Gina trailed after him. She didn’t want to talk about the shooting again, but she did want him to stay. He never stayed. No one ever stayed. Except Delores. Day by day, this horrid old house, all thirty thousand musty square feet of it, tightened around her like a dying fist. “How about a cup of coffee?” she said.

  “Can we have it outside on the porch?” He shot her a challenging glance.

  She glanced toward the window above the stained porcelain sink. The pale gray day and the lake beyond were obscured by the silver curtain of rain coursing down the window. “It’s not very nice out there.”

  He watched her, his brow furrowed with half concern, half frustration. “It’s warm enough, and I suggested the porch, remember? It’s covered. You can at least do that, can’t you?”

  “Of course I can,” she said, careful not to snap. “But not in this weather.” She could go outside . . . if she wanted to.

  “Are you still seeing Doctor Ren?” His question was blunt.

  Doctor Ren was a psychiatrist, and a friend of Sebastian’s. “Yes, we’ve had three sessions.” She tried to sound serious, committed. Rational. And it was true enough. She was holding her own, and would as long as she kept her world tight and close. “I like him, Sebastian,” she lied. Well, almost lied. She didn’t dislike him exactly, just viewed him as a waste of her time. But if talking to Dr. Ren made Sebastian feel better, she’d go along with it.

  “What did he say?”

  “He says I’m a bit depressed.” More than a bit, and not exactly breaking news. But who cared? What difference did it make if she’d rather stay in than go out? There was nothing out there she needed. “He gave me some pills. And he’s coming again next week.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “Yes.” She got lost for a moment, trying to think where she’d left the pills. “Everything’s good.”

  “And what about Mother? How’s she taking your seeing a ‘nut doctor’? Isn’t that what she called him?”

  “The first day he came she cursed him from the top of the stairs, called him a two-bit quack—among other things—and told him to get out of her house.”

  “But she didn’t come down.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think she would. Probably afraid he’d reserve her a padded room somewhere.” He didn’t smile.

  Gina did, briefly. “Ever since that first day, if she knows he’s coming, she doesn’t come near the stairs. Just stays in her room.”

  “I’m telling you, she’s afraid of him.”

  “Maybe.” Gina had a hard time seeing Delores afraid of anything.

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you keep seeing him. Promise? Because whatever the hell is going on with you, it isn’t right.”

  Her stomach knotted. She didn’t like him saying she wasn’t “right.”

  “I said I’d see him, Seb, and I will.”

  “Good.” He studied her a moment longer, then started digging into the bags. In minutes he’d be gone.

  She hurried to the cupboard. “I’ve got cake. I made it yesterday. Chocolate. Your favorite.”

  “Okay,” he muttered without enthusiasm. “Coffee and cake, then I’m out of here.”

  Gina started to make the coffee, then she remembered . . . Her heart missed a couple of beats. She hadn’t told Sebastian about Holly. Oh God! Poor Sebastian. He’d feel everything she didn’t. Damn you, Holly. Damn you! Something hot and hard settled in her stomach, and she worked
to steady her hands, pick up the knife to cut the cake.

  Seb sat at the table, drumming his fingers, a nervous cat, ready to spring for the nearest exit.

  “Seb, what Mother and I were talking about . . . when you walked in?” She hesitated. “It was about Holly.”

  His eyes, until now dull with boredom, shot to hers, brightening with interest, then quickly darkening. “What about Holly?”

  “She’s dead, Sebastian. Someone killed her.”

  He gaped at her, his face a blank. Then he frowned and looked away. Either he couldn’t take it in or had no idea what to say.

  She left him to a long silence.

  He got to his feet, looking stunned and awkward. Seb was never awkward; he was innately graceful, like a shiny black panther. Gina was the awkward one.

  “I spoke to her a couple of weeks before she left for Boston,” he said. “We made arrangements to meet there, have dinner.”

  “You flew to Boston? To have dinner with Holly?” She barely masked her surprise. Seb hated flying.

  He nodded. “She asked me to, but—”

  “She didn’t show.”

  He dropped his eyes, shrugged.

  Gina sealed her lips before she said more and cut into the cake with more force than necessary. No point in reminding him that not showing up was a habit of Holly’s. That, and telling people what they wanted to hear, then blowing them off—everyone except Adam. There was a bond between Holly and Adam. Always had been. She remembered Holly telling her years ago how they fought, how they made love, how their “bodies and souls” had a “devil’s craving” for each other.

  Gina wanted to throw up. She swallowed her bile.

  Seb didn’t need to hear any of this. He’d been in love with Holly since he was sixteen years old; nothing she said would make him stop now. She wiped the cake crumbs from the knife, kept wiping until its sharp edge gleamed under the harsh kitchen light.

  “Who told you?”

  “Camryn. She’s going to the funeral.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “Tell me exactly what she said. Everything you know.”

  She told him what Camryn had told her, which wasn’t much.

  “Running alone in a park? That’s Holly, all right, but Jesus! Where the hell was her damn husband?”

  “I don’t know.” She went to touch him, but he pulled away.

  He gave her his back for moment. When he looked at her next, his deep brown eyes were black. “She was seeing Dunn again, Did you know that?”

  He knew! Barely hiding her shock, Gina hesitated. “I knew he was back, but I don’t think she was seeing him.” She managed the lie, though it burned her mouth. She watched his face, saw his desire to believe her, saw it fail.

  He cursed then let out a harsh breath.

  “She was over him, Seb. Through,” she added. ‘Absolutely and once and for all,’ those were her very words.” The trouble was that Holly’s pronouncements on her chaotic on-again, off-again relationship with Adam were notoriously unreliable.

  “And you believed her.” He shook his head, cursed again. “Not that any of it matters now. She wanted Dunn. She got him. Her choice. Hell, you all wanted him. None of you could see what an opportunistic bastard he was.” Irritation surged in Gina, along with her pain. “Nor could you see Holly for what she was.”

  “Which was?” His face was tight.

  “A . . . dream, Seb, a terrible, terrible dream.” Like Adam was for me. “And a married woman, whose husband’s name was Dan—not Sebastian and not Adam. Dan!” She wrestled with her anger, tempered it, and added, “Whatever your imagination conjured, Sebastian, she wasn’t yours, she was never yours.”

  And Adam was never mine.

  “That was going to change. We talked. Made plans. If that asshole Dunn had stayed away …”

  It struck Gina how inane this conversation was. Holly was dead. Holly wasn’t going to be any man’s, ever again. Not her husband’s, not Sebastian’s, and not Adam’s. “Let it go. Holly’s gone. Nothing will change that.” Relief hovered over the thought, making her breathing quiet, as if Holly not being alive would make her life—and Sebastian’s—less troubled.

  He lifted a hand. “I’m leaving.” He stopped at the door, and when he looked back at her, his eyes were moist, ruined. “I loved her, Gina. I always loved her. If I could change that I would—God knows it’s done nothing but screw up my life—but I can’t.”

  He couldn’t see, wouldn’t see Holly for what she was. He needed to understand. “She played with you. Then she broke your heart, Sebastian—and you let her.”

  He said nothing, shook his head, and walked out the door.

  Breaking hearts. With her lustrous deep red hair, heart-shaped face, tall, athletic body, and bottomless bank account, breaking hearts was what Holly did best.

  It’s what Adam did, too. Break hearts. Camryn’s, hers—even Holly’s. They’d all been drawn to his flame, and Adam had burned them all, screwed them all, literally and figuratively. He was handsome, charming, intelligent, smooth, and despicable.

  And utterly faithless. Exactly like Holly.

  Yet Gina craved him with every beat of her traitorous heart.

  Bitterness, hot and acidic, rose in her throat and was instantly displaced by a sick self-loathing. Every woman craved Adam—even Camryn. It was Camryn the bastard started with. Then he met Holly. Adam Dunn was hazardous to her mental health, Holly had said once. In Gina’s case he was fatal.

  Adam wasn’t only a home-wrecker, he was a life- wrecker.

  She had the torn womb to prove it.

  Chapter 5

  Dan watched Paul Grantman pace the luxuriously appointed study from fireplace to window and back again. Window to fireplace . . .

  The man was giving him whiplash.

  Dan hadn’t seen Grantman in over a year, damn near enough time to forget how much he disliked him. He cut him slack because he was grieving, and because he agreed with him about finding out who killed Holly and hanging the bastard by his balls. Dan had his problems with Holly, but her senseless death, both ugly and cruel, made his stomach hard and his brain mean.

  Paul finally stopped pacing. Hands clasped behind him, he said, “We need to talk about Kylie.” He met Dan’s eyes, his own fixed in a hard stare. “I don’t want you to see her. I’ll be keeping her here with Erin and me, and as I expect you’ll be gone right after the funeral, I think seeing her now would only upset her.”

  Dan’s gut twisted, but he wasn’t surprised. He’d expected a fight over Kylie. It was a fight he’d win.

  “That so?” he said, careful to keep his voice low. He set his drink on the polished cherry wood surface of the coffee table and straightened. Paul Grantman stood maybe five-ten, giving Dan a height advantage of three inches. And with Grantman, he needed it. The man hadn’t made mega billions by being anyone’s pussy. Holly’s father hated to lose. A trait he shared with Dan. When Grantman wanted something, he generally got it, using cash or coercion. Charm wasn’t in his arsenal.

  And now he wanted Kylie.

  “She’s my granddaughter, Lambert. My blood. You didn’t think for a moment I’d let her go with you, did you? A stepfather—of little more than two years.” He came close to spitting out the last words.

  “Yes, I’m her stepfather, but I’m also her daddy, the only one she’s ever known. Holly and I talked about it and agreed on it. It’s what she wanted.” And it’s what I want.

  Grantman gave him a half-smile. “Then you’re in for a surprise,” Grantman said. “Because when Kylie was three months old, I insisted Holly make out a proper will and organize guardianship. I put her in touch with Bernes, Wallace, and Freed, and she named me—and Erin—as Kylie’s guardians in the event of her . . .” He stopped, tensed up, as though the reality of Holly’s murder had just leapfrogged the easy legal steps of years ago. He went doggedly on. “We talked about it again when she arrived in Boston a couple of weeks ago. I’d made some new financial arrangements for
her and Kylie involving a considerable sum of money, and Jason Wallace suggested Holly review and update her will and the necessary guardianship documents. I set up the appointment myself. She made no mention of a change in her preference.”

  Dan kept his mouth shut. He was tired, and now he was pissed off. Both good reasons not to argue with Paul Grantman. If he did that, they’d both lose. And with Holly’s service in a couple of days—if the coroner released the body as scheduled—it wasn’t the time to lock horns over who would make the best father to Kylie. Dan knew one truth: the last thing Holly had wanted for Kylie was for her to be “owned by her father and mothered by his loser wife.” Her words, not his. Finally, he said, as evenly as he could, “You got a copy of that new will?”

  “No, but—”

  Dan stood, cut him off. “Then it looks like it’ll be dueling lawyers at sunrise.” His bet? Holly never kept that appointment with her father’s lawyer. He knew how she operated. She never confronted her father, just agreed with him, then did whatever the hell she wanted—her way of driving him crazy. Right now it seemed to be working. “Holly was specific about what she wanted, Grantman. And like it or not, she wanted me to be Kylie’s dad.” He paused. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s a responsibility I’m proud to take on. Kylie’s been my daughter from day one, and I’m happy to keep it that way.”

  Paul snorted, took a step closer to Dan. “Holly was never ‘specific’ about anything. I loved her, but you and I both know she was both capricious and careless about details—”

  “Except when it came to Kylie,” Dan interrupted. “But I’ll leave the proof of that to Holly’s lawyer.”

  Paul ignored him. “Kylie is my granddaughter and my responsibility, so don’t try anything with me, Lambert. You’ll lose.”

  “I’m not ‘trying anything,’ I’m telling you what your daughter wanted. I don’t give a damn whether you agree or not.” He rubbed at his bristled jaw. He not only needed sleep, he needed a shave. “So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take my daughter and go.”

  “You’ll go, but without Kylie.”