“We need to talk,” Jonas stated firmly.
“No, we need to spank her,” Nash said and then he blinked. “Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad in a kinky sort of way.”
“Shut up, McKnight,” Jonas told him. “Let us in, Charlotte.”
She gave a huff and stood back, gesturing with a swipe of her arm to bid them enter. Jonas entered first but as Nash walked by her he swiped a finger over her cheek, leaving behind a trail of sensation that shot straight through right to her, leaving her panties a little damp with anticipation.
Oh, God. One touch and she became all gooey inside. She was in big trouble.
“Hello,” Holly came forward with her hand held out to Jonas. “I’m Holly Perth-Hawke. Over there is my husband, Alastair. You must be Jonas. So nice to finally meet you.”
She practically dragged him by the hand, clearly forestalling any confrontation, which was probably a good thing. One, Charlotte did not want witnesses around when she finally hashed it out with her sister, and two, she had no intention of offering her family front row seats to her talk with both men.
Jonas shook both their hands. “I’ve heard so much about you,” he said, shooting a pointed look at Charlotte. “And you as well, Mr. Hawke, although more in a professional manner.”
“Please, call me Alastair.”
“Or Al,” Charlotte interjected.
“Or not,” her brother-in-law stated firmly.
“And this is our sister, Delia,” Holly said, pulling Delia forward and curbing Charlotte’s come back.
“Doctor Delia, right?” Jonas replied, shaking her hand.
Delia flushed and batted her eyelashes. Charlotte did a double take, frowning at her. Never in all her life had she seen Delia flirt with a man. She didn’t even know her sister knew how to flirt.
“Delia,” she said, trying to hold back the bite of jealousy that pinched at her. “Why don’t you tell Mom and Kira we have guests?”
“Why don’t you?” her sister countered. “I’m sure Mr. Daire—”
“Detective Daire,” Holly interrupted. “He’s a homicide detective in Washington state.”
“Really?” Delia murmured in awe. “How fascinating. Well, I bet you are mighty thirsty after your long flight. Can I get you coffee, tea…me?”
Jonas laughed.
“Oh my god,” Charlotte fumed. “Who are you and what did you do with my sister?” She grabbed Delia’s shoulders and turned her, pointing to the French doors. “Get. Now. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Okay, okay,” Delia huffed. “I thought Nash was your boyfriend.”
“I am,” Nash stated.
Charlotte felt the air swoosh out of her lungs.
Delia blinked, her eyes darting back and forth between the two men, and Charlotte just buried her face in her hands. “Oh,” Delia finally said. “I see. Well, this is going to be an interesting visit.”
And then she turned and headed out toward the backyard, no doubt ready to spill everything, leaving a very charged atmosphere behind.
“What the hell, Holly?”
“Don’t yell at her,” Jonas told her. “I was going to follow you anyway.”
“We were going to follow,” Nash pointed out in a tight voice. “You keep forgetting the we part.”
“There’s no we yet!” Jonas snapped at him.
“Oh, there’s a we, Daire,” Nash retorted. “There was a we when we agreed for her.”
Charlotte felt her eyes stretching so big she wondered if they resembled dinner plates. She shot a look at Holly and Al and then began to wave her arms in the air.
“So not the time for this conversation,” she told them.
“Oh no, you forfeited the right to decide a time for conversation when you ran away,” Jonas told her.
“I did not run. My heels are too high to run in.”
He leveled a glower on her and she flinched at the exasperation she saw in his face. Just then the French doors opened. Annie and Kira stood wrapped in beach towels, hair plastered to their heads and three pairs of curious eyes zeroing on the two hunky men currently driving Charlotte out of her mind. She wondered if she wished hard enough a hole would magically open up and swallow her.
“Ah, Charlotte’s two boyfriends!” Kira gushed, smiling widely. “At last!”
* * * *
Charlotte sat in the backseat, between Jonas and Nash. The irony did not escape her. They were in Alastair’s rental, heading toward the swim club, although she had assured them they could easily walk the five blocks. But Holly had been adamant about not ruining her shoes on the concrete, so they all piled into the sedan. Of course, Holly called shotgun.
Annie had played off Kira’s comment and Delia didn’t say anything, so Charlotte was left hoping Kira would stop her teasing. She had too much to deal with at the moment to worry about how far Kira would take her humor.
“We have to talk later,” Jonas murmured in her ear.
“Yes.”
“I like your family,” he said.
“I like your family, too,” Nash whispered in her other ear. “I’m going to enjoy being part of the family.”
She shot him a dark look. “What?”
“Daire and I have been talking.”
She shot a quick glance at Jonas but didn’t get much from his stoic expression. “About what?”
“Our arrangement,” Nash said.
“An arrangement,” Jonas stressed.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” she said. “This really is not—”
“I’m not really into that kind of thing,” Nash interrupted with a frown. “Waste management and what not.”
“Shut up, McKnight,” Jonas said, just about growling at the other man.
Her neck was starting to strain from the whiplash of going back and forth between them. “Listen, I hurt Jonas because of you, Nash.”
“So you’re still punishing yourself?” Jonas asked. “Is that why you fled?”
“What are you guys talking about?” Holly asked, half turning in her seat to look at them.
“Nothing,” Charlotte said quickly, feeling like a teenager caught doing something naughty.
“We’re here,” Alastair stated.
And just like that, Charlotte forgot about the conversation. She forgot about sitting between Jonas and Nash. She forgot everything, because just seeing the swim club brought it all back. That night. How the feeling of the water on her skin, caressing, felt like an attentive lover. How she had pulled the cap off her hair and it floated like tentacles around her. There hadn’t been any sound except the gentle lapping against the side of the pool as she scissored her legs back and forth. Her mind had drifted as she thought about the Olympic trials, exactly one week away. She’d been working her whole life for them, having been just a few months too young to qualify. Nothing was going to stop her, nothing was going to hold her back.
And then the hand tangled in her hair, and her whole life suddenly stopped.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jonas murmured and he put his arm around her, pulling her into his shoulder. She felt him wince a little and realized she leaned against his bullet wound, so she pulled back, unable to stop her chin from quivering.
“I’m okay,” she said.
Nash snorted but didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to park at this meter instead of going in the garage,” Alastair stated. He didn’t add the words just in case, but they hung in the air anyway. Once he’d pulled into the parking space and turned off the car, he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I…need to do this?” She hadn’t meant for that come out as a question but being confident was beyond her ability at the moment.
“Why don’t we take it in stages?” Holly suggested.
“Right,” Jonas added. “Let’s just go the lobby. If you feel comfortable, we’ll take the next step.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep gulp of air, hoping it would steady her nerves.
But, nope. No such luck. Her heart hammered like a race horse running in the Kentucky Derby.
As she exited the car, she studied the building. The swim club consisted of three indoor lanes, an indoor kiddie pool and ten lanes outside. The indoor lanes were only for older folks who did their water aquatics and for those days too chilly or too rainy, but thankfully Southern California didn’t have that many bad weathered days.
Holly slipped her hand in Charlotte’s, squeezing for support, and Charlotte flashed her a grateful smile. With Alastair leading the way, Jonas and Nash behind her, she felt as fortified as she was going to be. It warmed her heart to have her loved ones around her.
As soon as she walked inside the club, however, the smell of chlorine made her knees buckle. Nash grabbed her arm to steady her while Jonas slipped an arm around her waist.
“Are you all right?” Nash murmured in her ear.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I think I might want to puke.”
It was as if twelve years had never passed. The same old reception counter where people signed in, the same old logo on the wall. Even the same damn mat on the floor. She never thought she’d be here again and the memories almost brought tears to her eyes.
“Can you feel anything?” Alastair asked.
With a Herculean effort, Charlotte pushed away her emotions. Emotions only hindered her ability to concentrate and she desperately needed to get this over with because the sound, the smell and yes, even the taste in the air began to break down her tenuous hold on her composure.
After a minute, she turned her head and stared down the hallway that would take visitors to the changing rooms. “Yes,” she said. “There’s a pull toward the locker room.”
“All right,” Alastair said. “That’s good enough for me, let’s go.”
Suddenly, ice coursed through Charlotte’s body and she shivered. Vaguely she heard Nash mutter, “What the hell?” as the temperature around them dropped several degrees. She closed her eyes because she knew what this meant, had felt it once before, and when she gathered her courage to open her eyes she saw a dead girl. The ghost’s body wasn’t transparent as one would expect. She stood as solid and real as anyone else around her, except, of course, no one else could see her.
She wore a bathing suit, sleek and black, and her hair was stuffed under a rubber cap. Water dripped off the ends of her lashes. The girl’s blue eyes were clouded over with the stare of death and red pinpricks of blood swam in them. She was still wet in the afterlife and though Charlotte couldn’t hear the water drip to the tile floor, she imagined they sounded like staccato flares of gunfire as they dropped.
“Who did this to you?” Charlotte whispered to the spirit.
But the spirit didn’t answer, of course. She simply stared at Charlotte with angry, accusing eyes. Did the spirit know that she was dead because of Charlotte? That Charlotte had had a chance to bring a murderer to justice and because of her immature decision this girl had paid the price?
Charlotte blinked and then the girl was standing directly in front of her, so close that their noses practically touched.
“I’m sorry,” she told the girl. She reached out her hand although she didn’t know why. Maybe to give her condolences. Or to ask for forgiveness. But none was to be granted as the ghost opened her mouth, screaming silently in purgatory, her breath a forceful shove of anger into Charlotte’s mouth. The light above them exploded, sparks raining down. Vaguely she heard someone cursing and felt herself being herded back out the door and the connection with the ghost ended. Outside, the patch of cold air disappeared, the ice in her chest melted, and four people stood around her in a circle, staring at her as if she’d grown a second head.
“What have I done?” she whispered.
Chapter Four
“What the hell was that?” Jonas demanded as Alastair drove back to the Perth House.
“That was her ghost,” Charlotte answered calmly.
He shot her an incredulous look. How the hell could she sit there so nonchalantly and announce that she’d just had a ghostly visitor?
“She was there?” Nash questioned sharply. “Is she just hanging out, haunting people?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. “I think she came out because I was there.”
“Did she show you a vision?” Alastair asked, glancing at her through the rearview mirror.
“No,” she answered, shaking her head, “not because of that. I think…I think she blames me.”
“Blames you?” Holly probed sharply, turning to look at her.
“Because I never told anyone about what happened,” she whispered.
She looked like she was about to cry and Jonas felt his heart break for her. He grabbed her hand and squeezed tight, wishing there was a way to lessen the guilt she felt. When she’d first told him about what had happened to her, he hadn’t fully envisioned what it would entail to apprehend the person who’d hurt her. He’d expected…well hell. Truthfully he hadn’t known what to expect, but it sure wasn’t an angry spirit from the great beyond holding onto a grudge.
“Listen,” Alastair said with a hard edge in his voice. “Don’t play the what-if game, Charlotte. Yes, you should have reported what happened but then I should have as well, as soon as you told me. As a law enforcer it’s my responsibility to report a crime and I failed, so if you’re going to shell out responsibility, then you have to give me a heaping.”
Charlotte bit her lower lip. “I’m ready to face it, Al, whatever consequences should arise from this.”
“Me too,” he told her, a bit more softly. “If the media catches wind they’ll have a field day with this.”
“I don’t want them to know about, you know, how I got my gift.”
Jonas saw their eyes meet through the rearview mirror. Alastair didn’t say anything about that but then he didn’t need to. They all could only guess what the media could find by just digging a little. Instead, Alastair said, “I started compiling a folder on this swim club the day of your accident. Over the years I’ve tried to probe without giving away too much.”
“Have you interviewed people?” Nash asked.
“Only a couple first responders,” Alastair reported. “Not much to go on. To them it was exactly how Charlotte described, an accident.”
“So you’re saying, without me telling the truth, no one would have figured out the truth.” Charlotte stated. Her fingers gripped his back. “How am I supposed to live with that?”
“By catching the killer,” Alastair told her.
She winced at his bluntness.
“What are you going to tell LAPD?” Jonas asked.
“Nothing right now,” Alastair replied. “I’ll wait for the autopsy to come in. Technically, Brandy Hamlet’s death is listed as on ongoing investigation. They dragged the pool filters but nothing showed. She had no enemies, wasn’t into drugs and didn’t hang with the wrong crowd. We wouldn’t think twice about her death at all if it wasn’t for the fact that this had happened to Charlotte.”
“That was her name?” Charlotte asked softly.
“We should reinterview the staff from then,” Jonas said. “I gather you have the police report.”
“In the folder,” Alastair informed.
“The first person we need to talk to is Tucker Martell,” Nash added. “See what he remembers, if anything suspicious happened that night. Sometimes time can allow the mind to relax enough for a memory to resurface.”
“What do you remember, Lottie?” Holly asked quietly.
“I remember…everything,” Charlotte answered softly, staring at her hand clasped in his. “I saw a shadow. I was at the bottom of the pool and I could see his shadow.”
“His?” Nash asked sharply.
She glanced at him and nodded. “The hand that had wrapped in my hair and held me under had been thicker fingers, blunt without nails. And the wrist…it hadn’t been delicate or soft. The person had had strength, masculine strength strong enough to—”
> “To what?” Jonas asked softly. His heart thundered at her painful words.
“I tried to fight back,” she answered, continuing her train of thought. “But he was stronger. I actually never thought about the hand until now but it wasn’t a female holding me under the water.”
“Good,” Alastair said. “That narrowed the field. Somewhat.”
Jonas wanted to take her into his arms and hold her, comfort her. He also wanted to find the son-of-a-bitch and beat him senseless.
“I want to find that son-of-a-bitch and turn him into a pretzel,” Nash muttered from Charlotte’s other side.
“I was just thinking that,” Jonas said, flashing him a knowing look. Then he looked at Charlotte. “What about the pool itself? Can anyone access it?”
“Twelve years ago only a chain fence surrounded the back,” Charlotte told him. “Anyone could have jumped it. It’s how I got in each night.”
“And no security cameras back then,” Alastair added.
“Well, then let’s look at the evidence and see what we have,” Nash said, picking up Charlotte’s other hand and twining their fingers. Jonas stared at that, trying to tell if he was jealous.
Nash caught and held his gaze and he felt that he and Nash McKnight were on the same page, that they would kill the bastard together if they ever caught him.
The unexpected solidarity washed over him, making him feel a little lighter.
* * * *
Alastair pulled into the driveway. As everyone exited the car he gave a silent signal to Nash and Jonas to wait. He watched as Holly and Charlotte moved into the house, chatting, feeling as if the past twelve years had been building to this moment.
“What’s wrong?” Nash asked.
“You two need to make sure Charlotte doesn’t internalize this too much,” Alastair said.
“What do you mean?” Jonas questioned him, raising one brow.
“Her way of dealing with things is to walk away,” Alastair told them. “She walked away from swimming, she walked away from Nash and she’s always walked away from a case, at least she did until she helped with Zach. Be careful she doesn’t slip back into the flight mode.”
Breathless [McKnight, Perth & Daire 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3
