“Hold on,” Sassy said, frowning and hitting the power locks.
Shoving the door open, Klaudya scrambled out of the car, dropping pages from her stuffed notebook onto the wet sidewalk.
“Nooo!” She lunged and snatched them back. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
After watching Klaudya lose her shit for a few seconds, Sass offered, “K, you don’t have to walk in this shit storm. I can take you home.”
“Thanks. But—”
“I can even keep my mouth shut if you want.”
The offer was tempting. “I got it.”
Sassy tossed up her hands. “Fine. I’m not begging a bitch to help her ass out.”
Klaudya slammed the door.
Sassy rolled down the passenger’s-side window. “Good luck putting your shitty life back together. Call me when you’re ready to be a real bitch again.” Sassy peeled from the curb and sent another mini tidal wave of pooling rainwater to drench Klaudya’s ass again.
“Fuck!” Klaudya sputtered. A few self-pitying tears mingled with the sharp rain pelting her face. It was all right, though. She was still at least a foot from rock bottom. It was progress.
The pity party lasted a full thirty seconds before she shut that shit off and sloshed one foot in front of the other to her final destination: Home . . .
“And that’s it. That was the last time I saw her,” Sassy finished.
Lieutenant Armstrong frowned. “Where did she go?”
Sassy shrugged. “I don’t babysit grown women. She wanted to walk in the rain like an idiot, so I let her walk. End of story.”
Armstrong stared at Sassy until she erupted into another coughing fit, after which Erik dropped his gaze and sighed. He’d hoped this visit wouldn’t lead to another brick wall—but it had. “All right.” He removed a business card from his pocket. “If you remember anything else or . . . if you hear from Klaudya again, give me a call.”
Sassy stared at the card.
Armstrong lifted a brow. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” She snatched the card from the lieutenant’s fingertips. “If I hear from her, you’ll be the first person I call.” She tossed the card to the side.
It was a lie, but Armstrong let it slide. “I’ll see myself out.”
Sassy rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you can manage?”
Back at the car, Lieutenant Armstrong climbed in behind the wheel.
“Well?” Schneider asked.
“Nothing. Sassy picked Klaudya up and dropped her off in the middle of downtown.”
“She didn’t say where?”
“Nope.”
Schneider sighed while Armstrong started the car. “Where did you go, Klaudya? More importantly, what in the hell did you do?”
CHAPTER 5
The storm
Lightning flashed across the night sky, illuminating the Ramseys’ haunted Calabasas house.
At least it was haunted to Javid. There wasn’t a single nook or cranny in the estate that didn’t stir old memories. Happy memories—like the day he and his wife, Klaudya, had completed building the home after two years and a dozen divorce threats. Strange how once they finished the project, they’d forgotten about all the pain and stress with lying contractors, greedy inspectors, and lazy laborers who believed budgets were guidelines and that money grew on trees.
However, christening the house had been fun.
Lots of fun.
It was the second-best week of their marriage, next to the honeymoon. Javid had been convinced the twins, Mya and Mykell, were conceived in the custom-made sauna room, but Klaudya insisted it had been on the chaise longue in her queen bedroom walk-in closet. Her confidence and certainty eventually convinced Javid as well. One doesn’t argue with a woman’s intuition . . . or more accurately, one didn’t argue with Klaudya—period.
Javid turned away from the living room’s bow window. A smile ghosted Javid’s lips as his green gaze drifted toward his wife’s picture, hanging from the opposing wall. A familiar ache throbbed in his chest and in his groin.
Klaudya’s angelic face smiled back from a black-and-white portrait. She sat on a gold-toned Calacatta marble floor, swallowed in one of his white business shirts. Her long, tousled, black hair and sly Colgate smile completed her sexy, just-been-fucked look. If her smile and penetrating dark gaze didn’t steal a man’s heart, her long legs were guaranteed to quick-start every straight hot-blooded male’s imagination. Javid’s churned right now.
It had been more than a year since Klaudya had slept under this roof, and Javid doubted she would ever again. After all that time, he still didn’t know how everything had gone off the rails. They were happy once—weren’t they?
Javid stared into his wife’s eyes until he saw shadows he’d never seen before: hints of a troubled soul. He edged closer and gazed beyond the reflected lights hitting the glass. It was there. Faint. But it was there. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?
Thunder boomed.
“Aaaargh,” six-year-old Mya and Mykell Ramsey screamed and raced into the living room.
Javid collapsed to the floor and shoved his fingers into his ears. “Ah. Ah. My ears!”
The children’s squeals of fear morphed into peals of laughter at his shenanigans. It was a much better sound and warmed his heart, especially from Mya. She had a machine-gun laugh much like her mother’s. It was as loud as it was infectious.
Noticing her father was wide open on the floor, Mya sprinted forward and was airborne when Javid saw he was in trouble. He’d barely gotten his fingers out of his ears before Mya finished her somersault and stuck the landing in the center of his softening abs.
“Oomph!” Air whooshed out of Javid’s lungs. A second later, pain, from the sixty-pound cannonball of a child, made stars and tweeting birds rotate his head like in a cartoon.
The twins were hysterical.
When Javid could breathe again, he sought revenge and transformed into the all-feared Tickle Monster. He attacked their bellies for all he was worth and until the children forgot about the brewing storm and filled the house with more laughter. Father, goofball, warrior, and hero, Javid was all the twins had left of their crumbling life foundation.
“Who wants cookies?” Nichelle sang, entering the room.
Almost all they have left, Javid corrected himself.
Beaming from ear-to-ear, Nichelle Mathis entered the family room with a smile the size of California.
“Me! Me! Me!” The twins bounced and waved their hands, hoping to be the first to receive their grandmother’s delicious white chocolate cookies.
Even Javid’s mouth watered for one. He’d developed a sugar addiction since his mother-in-law had moved in and taken the reins of running the house in Klaudya’s absence. Often their housekeeper, Ruthie, complained of not having anything to do.
“Oooh. Look at those grubby hands,” Nichelle chastised, smiling. “I know you guys aren’t going to put those dirty hands on my nice tray of cookies without washing them first.”
Disappointment rippled across the children’s faces for a nanosecond before they bolted out of the living room, shoving each other out of the way to get to the downstairs half bathroom.
Laughing, Javid climbed to his feet. “Those cookies are like magic. I suspect they’re how you get them to clean their rooms, too.”
“I plead the fifth,” Nichelle said, eyes sparkling.
Javid’s chest ached. Klaudya’s eyes used to sparkle the same way when she flirted with him. His cock throbbed at the memory, and the jovial mood shifted into awkward territory.
Nichelle moved into his personal space and gazed at him. “Is everything all right?”
Javid smiled, still uneasy about their new dynamic. He hadn’t meant to stumble onto this forbidden path, but he’d be damned if he knew how to get out of it now. Nichelle was a warm and shapely body at a time when he needed comfort. Nichelle had only been sixteen when she had Klaudya, which made her only six years older than him. It was well within societ
al norms for them to hook up. But it was only physical for Javid. Klaudya had his heart. He hadn’t meant for one night of pleasure to turn into a permanent thing, but Nichelle Mathis wasn’t the type of woman who a man could refuse. And now with Klaudya getting out of jail any day now, he was in one hell of a fix. Javid wanted his wife back, but Nichelle expected him to serve Klaudya with divorce papers.
This mess was his fault.
“Javid?” Balancing the cookie tray with one hand, Nichelle cupped his right cheek in the palm of her left. “Are you all right? You look tired.”
At her touch, he jolted back and shook the wild thoughts out of his head. “Um, yeah. I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should hit the sack early? Hmm? I can handle the kids for the rest of the evening.”
The static from her touch still burned his cheek. The earnestness in her eyes, the sexiness of her smile, and the “fuck-me-now” perfume she wore fogged his brain and restarted the triple-X reel in his head.
CRASH!
Javid and Nichelle jumped.
“What the hell?” Javid swore.
The tray of cookies wobbled, but Nichelle’s waitressing game was no joke as she claimed her balance before a cookie could hit the polished floor.
Javid stepped around Nichelle, breaking her spell, to go and investigate.
The twins raced into the living room the same way they left, shoving and arguing.
“Daddy, did you hear?” Mya asked.
“Yeah, sweetheart. You and your brother stay with your grandmother.”
“What was it?” Nichelle lowered her tray for the children to grab as many cookies as they wanted.
Javid stepped over broken glass and crept toward a broken window. Among the shards of glass lay a tennis ball–sized river rock, like the ones lining the dry creek bed in the backyard. He peered out of the unbroken panels in the window and into the night where silver sheets of rain fell at a forty-degree angle. The howling wind made his heart race, his skin pimple with goose bumps, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. Was he being watched?
Calabasas wasn’t the type of place where people made a habit of locking their doors but, tonight, danger thickened the air.
“What’s the matter?” Nichelle persisted. “What are you looking at?”
Javid strained his eyes for a second sweep of the backyard and shook his head.
“Nothing.” But his gut told him he was wrong. He picked up the rock. At its weight, there was no way it could have possibly sailed through the window without a considerable amount of heft, and it wasn’t exactly tornado weather raging outside.
“I thought I saw . . .” Javid’s gaze scanned the vast backyard of the estate during the next flash of light, but he wasn’t quick enough to cover it all. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.
“You thought you saw what?” Nichelle asked, stopping to stand next to him before the bow window to inspect the darkness herself.
Javid forced a laugh out his dry throat. “I’m tired. That’s all.” Again, he turned away from the window as another lightning flash illuminated the sky.
A lone figure among the silver, slanted sheets of rain and tucked beneath a tall tree caught Nichelle’s eye. She gasped.
“What is it?” Javid spun back around.
She shook her head and slapped on a plastic smile before pulling him away from the window. “Nothing. It’s . . . getting crazy out there. Maybe we should check the Weather Channel?”
Bang!
The children screamed as the entire house pitched into darkness.
“It’s okay,” Javid said, racing to the children and wrapping his arms around them. “I’m here.” Confused, he added, “The backup generator should have kicked on.”
The hairs on the back of Nichelle’s neck rose. She’s here. “Fuck.”
“Oooh. Grandma said a bad word,” Mya tattled.
Grandma. Nichelle took advantage of the dark and rolled her eyes. She was too damn young to be a goddamn grandmother. Carefully, she inched her way to the coffee table and set down the rest of the cookies. “We should light some candles or find a couple of flashlights.”
“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” Javid stood only for the twins to cling to his legs.
“Daddy, don’t go. I’m scared,” Mya whined.
Nichelle rolled her eyes again and mumbled, “Such crybabies.”
“There’s no need to be scared,” Javid said. “You’re safe. Lights go out during storms all the time, sweetie. It’s no big deal. You two stay here with granny and help her light candles while I go and check the fuse box.”
Javid pried Mya’s arms from around his leg while she cried. Nichelle swallowed her annoyance before she inched around the room in search of the long matches kept by the fireplace.
Javid quieted Mya’s tears as Nichelle bumped into a large vase, causing it to crash to the floor . . . on top of her foot.
“Goddamn it!”
The children gasped.
“Nichelle!”
But the pain was too great for Nichelle to give a shit about her language or her perfected Mary Poppins bullshit. For thirty seconds, her inner hood-rat-slash-convict tumbled out in front of her shocked grandchildren. When the pain receded, she explained, “I think it’s broken.”
Javid huffed and crossed the room to offer assistance. It surprised her when he swept her into his arms.
“Oh, my,” she laughed, wrapping an arm around his neck. “Look how strong you are.”
“Please. You weigh close to nothing, and you know it.” Javid carried her over to the over-pillowed sofa.
Nichelle smiled while she enjoyed his sinewy muscles and intoxicating male scent. All her hard work was paying off. She’d been wiggling her ass in front of her son-in-law since she’d gotten out of prison and shown up uninvited at the front door. In all honesty, she was stunned at how well her daughter was living. Klaudya had shown signs of becoming a stunner in her earlier years, but there were never guarantees in life. Never in Nichelle’s wildest dreams did she envision for one second that her daughter would land herself a white millionaire and be living like a fucking queen in Calabasas.
Nichelle’s pride in her daughter only lasted a few minutes. Jealousy reared its head and overrode everything. She could admit it now. As the days and months passed, Nichelle justified her emotion. After all, she had lost twenty years of her life because of Klaudya.
“Mya and Mykell, you two come away from the broken glass,” Nichelle snapped.
Javid’s parental alarm bells went off at seeing how close the twins were to injuring themselves. “Whoa, whoa. Back it up,” he instructed and ushered them out of the room to the dining room to finish with their late-night snack. When he returned to the living room, it was with a broom and a dustpan.
BOOM!
The twins squealed again as the entire property shook. Earthquake?
Klaudya’s picture fell off the wall. The edge of the frame clipped the side of Javid’s head and smashed his big toe, exposed in his Adilette slides. He jumped as if Freddie Kruger had leaped out of a nightmare. While his heart rammed against his chest, Javid swore his wife’s picture now held a look of amusement. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him. Right?
Javid grabbed a flashlight and slipped out of the downstairs backdoor. Immediately, he regretted not stopping an extra two minutes to grab a jacket or at least better shoes. Drenched within seconds, Javid may as well have been naked the way the wind sliced through him. He sloshed through the soggy grass, telling himself it would only take a few minutes to fix whatever was wrong with the backup generator and he’d be back inside his warm house. The only problem was Javid wasn’t much of an electrician. He centered his flashlight over the generator’s box. Was there a wire out of place or a particular switch he was supposed to push? Suddenly, Javid’s man card was on the line. Men were supposed to be able to protect and fix things around the house. Javid Ramsey, a trust fund kid from Bel Air, wasn’t exactly raised doing alp
ha male things. If something broke, you called a repairman. He didn’t hunt, and the only thing he knew about cars was how good they looked and how much the best ones cost. So why in the hell was he out there acting like he knew what the fuck he was doing?
“C’mon, baby. Tell Daddy what’s wrong with you.” Javid scrambled around the unit, wishing he’d paid more attention to the technician who installed the unit. But he knew why he hadn’t. Klaudya was the jack-of-all-trades in the family. In truth, he’d learned there wasn’t much she didn’t know how to do. The rare times when she didn’t, she made sure to find out and master it.
“Goddamn it!” Javid’s patience snapped. Nothing stood out as being obviously wrong with the unit. He was at a loss. The freezing temperature made its way into his marrow while his back teeth clacked together. “Fuck it.” He closed the unit and stood. Whatever the hell was wrong with the damn thing would just have to wait until he could get a repairman out there. Everyone could just camp out by the fireplace and light candles. They could make a game of it—make it fun.
Snap!
Javid froze and swung his flashlight further into the backyard. Thunder rolled while he narrowed his gaze to search whether he was alone. “Now you’re hearing shit.” At the next flash of lightning, Javid quit and sloshed toward the house. As he neared the house, Javid, again, sensed he was being watched.
After opening the back door, Javid made another cursory glance around the yard. His attention focused on the woods. Hell, it could be anything from coyotes to bears out there. His nerves jumbled into a knot.
He dismissed the ominous feeling and stepped into the house. As he closed the door, he scanned the woods again. Something was out there.
Minutes later, he returned to the upstairs family room. Nichelle and the children had already lit every candle in the room.
“Well?” Nichelle asked.
“No luck.” He shook his wet hair. “Maybe the power company will get the main power restored soon. I’ll get someone out here tomorrow to take a look at the backup generator. I couldn’t see what the hell was wrong.”
No Loyalty Page 3
