Taking a deep breath, I walked back out into the driveway and told myself that I was going to discover once and for all what was going on. Something was drawing me to the house, an irrepressible magnetism that willed me closer, closer still until my hand were pressed up against the cold windows and I was staring at the masked faces of a hundred men and women as they surrounded an altar. It looked like meat was splayed across the top of it with viscous, crimson liquid falling to the ground. They were all tearing into it, their robes darkening with blood as they leaned in, fighting like wild animals to get a piece. I was mesmerized and horrified, unable to look away but too scared to watch.
"What the hell?" I whispered to myself.
"What the hell indeed?" a voice came from behind me.
I spun and saw her spiteful face.
"Ophelia!"
Her arm twitched. Looking down, I saw she had something in her hand, a hammer.
"You bitch, you stupid bitch!" she yelled as she reached up and smacked it into the side of my head.
Blood dripped down my face, hot and wet as it ran down my body and pooled into my boots. Then blackness.
~
When I opened my eyes there was something cold against my temple. As I turned by head slowly, I saw the barrel of a gun.
“You didn’t take the hint did you?” Ophelia spat.
“Wh-what are you doing? This is crazy.”
“Be quiet.”
“Where’s my brother?”
In front of me there was a dusty floor, the dirt twitching at my nostrils. In the distance I could see the base of a water heater, old wine bottles that were stacked up in crumbling shelves and some rusty pipes. I was in the basement, my body lying in the dust and debris and my arms tied up behind my back.
“It hurts,” I cried. “The ropes are burning me.”
“I said be quiet!”
She slapped me hard across the face, my cheeks burning with pain.
“Bitch,” she said. “I tried to warn you to stay away but you just had to get involved with my brother.”
“You’re insane. You can’t do this to every girl who falls for him.”
“Oh… but you’re not every girl are you? You’re his special, golden girl, the little princess that looks just like her.”
Dried blood was crusting down the side of my face. It was in my hair, gluing my eyelids together and in my mouth. I could taste the coppery filth, taste the grit of the dirt between my teeth.
“You can’t keep me away from him,” I said.
She laughed.
“It’s true and you know it. You can’t keep me away!”
“Be quiet!”
She slapped me again.
“I love him!” I screamed. “I’m going to make sure that with every fiber of my being he will find out about what a psycho you are.”
A cackle escaped her red mouth and she flung her head back, toying with the gun as she swung her hips from side to side.
“And how are you going to do that?”
I didn’t have an answer. She eyed me suspiciously and sat down on the floor beside me, her long, lacy dress becoming soiled as it rubbed against the floor.
“You know, I just don’t get why he’s so obsessed with you. I mean, sure, you’re pretty, but pretty is easy to find. You can buy it from a surgeon, paint it on your face and adjust it with a camera. You must have a real hold on him. Of course, people have been talking, saying you look just like Susana, the woman we all call our savior.”
She flipped the gun around her forefinger like a glamorous, though psychotic, cowboy.
“I suppose you do look a lot like her. It’s in the eyes especially.”
“She was my great-grandmother,” I struggled to say through my pain.
The gun fell from her hand and landed on the ground. Instinctively, I kicked out a foot in an attempt to snatch it but she smacked me away and retrieved it, holding it close to her chest. She was glaring at me, trying to maintain her aloofness but I could see she was troubled by the news.
“Are you a witch as well?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. “I always knew I had the gift.”
It sounded so stupid coming out my mouth but she was falling for it, her hands trembling as she held the pistol.
“But I didn’t come here to talk about that. I came here to find Delores. You hurt her, didn’t you?
Her eyes began to shine again. She pointed upstairs, and turned to me.
“Who do you think that was up there on the altar?”
The bile rose in my gut.
“No!” I cried.
“She was our full moon sacrifice,” she explained.
“Don’t lie to me!”
She leaned in close to me and patted me on the head as though I was an insolent child.
“Why are you so upset? I thought you were a witch? A member of the Hades Society? A descendant of the great and mysterious Susana? You should be in your element…”
I heaved and vomited at her feet, the tears running down my face as they mixed with the dried blood.
“You’re a fucking lunatic!” I screamed. “Why are you keeping me here?”
She dusted down her dress and sauntered over to a small window that was barely the size of her head.
“The moon, don’t you think it looks beautiful?”
“I think you’re crazy! I think you should let me go and I think you should tell me where Stephen is?”
“Oh… Your partner in crime. He’s ok. I’m keeping him safe for you.”
“Bitch!” I yelled, yanking at the ropes on my wrists.
It burned, it stung, it felt as though I was breaking my own hands but at last, the ropes began to give way. I struggled some more, fell onto my side as I looked at the ethereal vision of Ophelia with her eyes stuck on the moon. Then I felt the rope fall away, and my hands were free, the blood rushing back to my fingers with a surge of pins and needles.
I jumped up and leapt on her. She screamed and grabbed me. We hit the floor hard, the dust billowing up around us as we kicked and pulled at each other. Her hands were around my throat, icy and nimble while I tangled her long hair around my fingers. I yanked as hard as I could and she screeched in agony, punching me in the side of the head. The gun was nearby. I could hear it scraping along the floor as we struggled. I reached out for it but she beat me to it. Lunging at her, I pushed her back down to the ground but she wasn’t letting go. I was dizzy from the head injury, barely able to see straight as I staggered over to her. The gun was in her perfectly manicured fingers, her jagged, black nails tapping along the handle.
“I’ll kill you,” she seethed.
Above me there was the creak of a door. A voice called down to us. Then gunfire, the spark of the bullet leaving the barrel, the sound of my body hitting the floor.
Chapter Ten
There was the beep of machinery, the smell of disinfectant in the air. I woke up and saw a police officer in the hall, a cup of coffee in his hands as he yawned and looked at his watch. There was a numbness to my body, the sensation that I couldn’t move my right side. I looked down and saw the plaster cast around my arm.
"She shot you in the shoulder."
"Trevor?"
He was sat to my left with dark circles beneath his eyes.
"I came as soon as I heard."
"What happened?"
He hung his head and ran his hands through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I should have believed you."
"I... I don't understand."
"Ophelia... She's not well, Tammy. It was always the family's worst kept secret but she has problems, mental ones. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager, given the best treatment available but she never got better. It's why I always looked out for her. She was vulnerable, capable of getting herself into trouble in the blink of an eye. People were quick to dismiss her, signed her off as being a common lunatic but I was always there for her. It's why she was so protective of me. She hated you from the moment she
saw you, thought you’d taken her place in the family. And when people started noticing you look like Susana Beckons…”
“She was my great-grandmother.”
“I know.”
“How did you know? I only just found out!”
I struggled to sit up and he eased me back down.
“Shhh… Calm down. I know because your brother told me.”
“Stephen? Where is he?”
“Getting a soda,” Trevor smiled. “He’ll be back in a moment.”
“But I lost him, he disappeared. I thought he’d been taken. Oh, Trevor, I saw these terrible things, people were devouring Delores. She was on an altar!”
My voice caught the attention of the officer outside and he glanced over, noticed Trevor looking at him, then averted his gaze.
“That bizarre spectacle you witnessed was nothing more than pomp and ceremony masquerading as the real thing. If you must know it was chicken livers. Of course, in the ancient days, a real body was used for the ceremony, but we like to think we’re more evolved now. Delores is in Cancun right now, completely unaware that her dress was stolen and none the wiser that it was dipped in fake blood and sent to your office. As for Stephen, he was hiding in the trees shaking like a leaf when the police found him.”
The relief was overwhelming. I cried until my throat burned, sobbed tears of happiness and gratitude now it was all over.
“Promise me you won’t run off like that again,” he said as he leaned over to hold me.
“If you promise to believe everything I say.”
“I promise.”
He kissed my parched lips and squeezed my hand.
“We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?” he said. “And I’ve not known you long, but I certainly know one thing. I love you, Tammy.”
“I love you too.”
I kissed him as hard as I could with my aching body. There was a knock on the door and we pulled apart. A nurse was standing in the doorway with a clipboard.
“Sorry to bother you guys,” she smiled. “Just here to check your vitals.”
As she entered, I noticed the television on in the corner of the room with the volume off. A reporter was standing in front of a police station. There was a forensic unit behind her processing the scene. I recognized the building immediately and squinted to see the subtitles clearly. The nurse noticed and grabbed the remote.
“Oh sorry, honey. These things shouldn’t be on silent but some of the patients like the peace and quiet.”
The sound came on gradually, the reporter’s voice filling the room.
“…Officer Aiden Brown was gunned down as he exited the station last night. Married with two children, the motive is currently unknown…”
I turned to Trevor but he was still smiling, looking at me as though everything was perfectly fine.
Too Perfect
An Alpha Billionaire Romance Series
Book Five
Brooke Kinsley
© 2016 All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses per law
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."-dr. seuss
Contents
Description
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Bonus Chapters
About The Author
Description
After Trevor takes Tammy down to Florida to recover from her ordeal, she thinks she’s finally in paradise. With nothing in their way, the couple fall even deeper in love and find it impossible to keep their hands off each other, spending night and day doing everything to please one another. Even an outing to an exclusive country club can’t stop them.
But Officer Brown’s death is constantly in the news and Tammy finds it hard to escape the story, or her guilty conscience. With her mind in turmoil, she doesn’t know what to think and worries that Trevor had something to do with his death. And things go from bad to worse when the police come to their own conclusions and she suddenly finds herself embroiled in the center of a murder investigation.
Will Tammy get her happy ever after? Or will the cops have other ideas?
Chapter One
"Another mojito, miss?"
"No thank you. Actually, maybe just one more."
I took the glass from the silver tray and smiled at the servant with his boyish, blonde hair slicked across his forehead.
"Sir?"
"I'd love one," Trevor grinned as he picked up a glass. "Also, Tony, would you mind going inside to get some more ice? It's sweltering out here."
"Of course, sir."
We both watched as he walked around the edge of the pool and sauntered indoors with a girlish swing of the hips.
"I could get used to this," I sighed.
Resting back on the sun lounger, I looked up at the sky and wondered if Florida had ever seen a cloud.
"Well, you can stay here as long as you want. The most important thing is that you recover."
He leaned over and kissed me.
"I wish I could go in the pool," I moaned. "It's calling to me. I swear to God last night I thought I heard it whisper my name."
Trevor laughed as he sipped on his drink.
"Your cast is coming off soon, isn't it? What day did you make the appointment for?"
"Thursday," I said. "It'll be weird seeing my arm all normal again. I've almost forgotten what it looks like."
I remembered breaking my leg when I was eight after falling off my bike. My leg had been in a cast for six weeks then and I remember the day it had been sawn off. My leg looked pale and shriveled, as though it was somehow not attached to me. No doubt my arm would look the same.
"Do you think it'll scar?" I asked.
"Uh?"
"The bullet wound. Will it scar?"
He pursed his lips as he thought.
"I suppose it will, but it won't be big. If anything it'll be the same size as the scar you gave me."
He winked and lifted up his shirt so I could see where I'd stubbed out the cigarette on his chest.
"I still think that was quite cruel of you."
I giggled as I remembered that night.
"You seemed to get a pretty sweet deal out of it, though, didn't you? Remember the lashes?"
A boyish look came over him. He looked into the distance as he swirled his drink around his glass, the ice cubes tinkling at the bottom. His eyes were glossing over as he cast his mind back to that night, to the very moment he doled out his punishment.
"At least your marks from that faded. I'll always have this," he pointed to his chest.
"Think of it as a beauty mark," I laughed.
We watched as Tony came back out the house, his tight, black waistcoat looking exceptionally dapper on his svelte figure.
"He likes boys," Trevor said as he nudged me in the side. "So your devilish ogling and lip licking are in vain."
"I was doing no such thing!" I protested.
We stifled our laughter as he approached.
"Here's your ice, sir? May I be of any further assistance?"
"No that'll be all. Thank you, Tony."
The young man gave a little bow and departed, his polished, leather shoes squ
eaking as he walked.
"Did you spend every summer here?" I asked Trevor.
"Almost. It's been in my family for almost a hundred years but no one has ever lived here permanently. We obviously love the cold too much to live in Florida.
"It's beautiful."
"It's like a sauna," he said.
Although it was almost Christmas, my body hadn't felt the inside of a sweater for weeks. There had been bright, blue skies and sunshine since we touched down in Miami. It was like a paradise with just the two of us in the enormous Wylde Mansion, an art-deco building with its terracotta roof and high-ceilinged rooms. I couldn't ask for a better place to recuperate but as much as Trevor spoiled me, held me and told me he loved me, I still couldn't rid my mind of all the thoughts that plagued me at night.
I'd hardly slept in since I left the hospital and had sat up most nights on the balcony with a carton of cigarettes as I doodled on my plaster cast. Looking down at it now, it was covered in blue and red ink and adorned with a multitude of hearts and animal faces.
"How come you haven't signed my cast yet?"
Trevor was staring at his phone, his eyes scanning over the essential details of an email from his accountant.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"How come you haven't signed my cast?"
He looked at it and the little set of whiskers that were drawn at the elbow.
"I'll do it right now," he said. "In fact, let's go one better, how about you pick a celebrity and I'll get them to sign it for you."
"What? Really? You could do that?"
"I can do anything."
In shock, I started running names over in my head of every celebrity I'd ever seen on television. There were too many to choose from and I struggled to speak.
"Erm... Oh my, God. I have no idea. I don't know."
Too Curious Complete Series (Books 1-5) Box Set Romance Series: (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Series) Page 20
