Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2)

by Vickie McKeehan

  Collin fidgeted from the line of coke he had consumed along with several of the pain killers the doctor had given him. “And you and Cade were supposed to get there in time to finish off Auslo and Taft.”

  “And you were supposed to wait until it was dark. Going off trying to act like Mr. Tough Guy almost got you killed. Now if they compare bullet wounds…”

  “Believe me, I provided the good doctor with enough financial incentive, he’s already lost my chart.”

  “Next time, follow the plan. This guy has to be a pro.”

  “That’s an understatement. One good thing though, he took care of our problem for us. Taft and Auslo won’t be offering us up and turning state’s evidence.”

  At that moment, Cade stormed outside through the terrace doors in a huff, obviously angry, headed straight for the bar, and poured a generous glass of whiskey. “If you guys are talking about our killer, you might want to take a look at this.” He shoved a folded sheet of paper into Conner’s chest. “I found that inside my locker this afternoon at the country club.”

  “Shit,” Connor uttered, as he rubbed his forehead.

  The note read: I know about the Parkers.

  “He must have followed me to the club.”

  “Or hired someone to put it there.”

  “Either way, he’s too close, sticking too goddamned close for comfort. I don’t like it, Connor. This guy is playing for real. I don’t think he plans on stopping with mom and pop either, not when that note was shoved in my face.”

  He turned to Frank. “You, my friend, are in serious shit. If I were you I’d get out of the country, take that lovely new wife that’s thirty years your junior, and get out of Dodge before she’s collecting your life insurance. Although, now that I think about it, knowing Charlise, she probably won’t shed too many tears over you, just cash the insurance check and start perusing the clubs for your replacement. Just so you know this guy is quick and deadly. He doesn’t mess around. Collin here was damn lucky he missed.”

  “The hell you say. Why does everyone keep saying that? Hello. Shot here, bullet taken out of my goddamned chest. The son of a bitch did not miss me.”

  Frank ignored Collin. “So far, he hasn’t gone after Eva’s kids. I know Adam and Jacob and Elle are taking precautions. As soon as I was apprised of the situation, I alerted my kids to do the same thing. Garrett, Scott, and Taylor are heightening their personal security. But I must say, for now, the man seems to be content with just you three.”

  Connor’s brow tightened. “So you’re throwing us to the wolves, is that it, Frank? Think again, pal. You think it will end with us. Well, don’t count on it, buddy. I think you’re full of shit. Let’s count the ways, exactly what we know.” He held up his fingers and ticked off the points. “First, he must have been especially pissed at Alana. I mean, twenty-one fucking stab wounds says, ‘I’ll show you bitch.’ And don’t forget, for the first few weeks he had the police convinced Kit offed her own mother. That was pretty fucking clever of him if you ask me.

  “Then, right after Alana, he takes care of Mother in the middle of the damned street, makes it look like a suicide. Then let’s see, he takes Eva’s body all the way out to a fucking abandoned strip shopping center which we know has a history, kills her there to make a point. And then, not a hundred yards from this very spot where we’re sitting, he takes out Dad on his own damn stretch of sand. I’d say, since you weren’t around so he’s pushing us up to priority one, going after Generation Number Two. I don’t think he’s gotten around to our cousins yet. But it’s only a matter of time before he does. Why you say? Because I don’t think he plans on stopping with us three.”

  Frank’s face showed Connor’s words had hit home. He looked pale and worried. “Maybe we should get everyone together, have a little family meeting.”

  “You think? Dumbass. Of course we get everyone together, apprise them of the situation. We’re in serious shit here, Frank. Either get with the program or, like Cade said, get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  Frank started to pace back and forth. “If all this comes out, the scandal would ruin us. The legacy we’ve worked so hard for over the years would be destroyed. If this guy knows about the Parker murders it stands to reason he’s out for revenge. It won’t stop with just me or you three.”

  Connor finally stood up, pointed a finger at Frank. “You stupid son of a bitch, fuck the scandal. If he’s successful, there won’t be anyone left to run the damned empire. Don’t you get it? He’s exterminating each of us one by one, the whole damned family. Kill the legacy.”

  Frank pulled out his cell phone and punched in a phone number. “I think we could use Jankovic on this. He owes me a favor. Let’s see how our nutcase likes going up against a real professional killer.”

  “That’s fine, Frank, but first he has to find the son of a bitch. And if you don’t think this guy’s real. Think again.”

  Collin calmly pointed out, “I hate to add to the pot, but Kit and Boston will have to go. They can’t be around to testify against me. That Holloway detective didn’t look as if he bought my side of the story. I’m not spending the next twenty years in San Quentin for kidnapping that bitch. Can this guy, this Jankovic, take care of Boston and Kit, too?”

  Cade shook his head. “If you had stuck with the plan, your beloved Kit would be history by now anyway. We can handle her and Boston.” Cade studied Collin. “You wouldn’t have done it anyway, Collin. You aren’t fooling anyone. You’re still too much in love with her to do it yourself.”

  Collin bristled at the accusation. But he didn’t deny it. He should have offed her when he had the chance last night. That would’ve shown Cade the way things were with Kit.

  Cade laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Leave it to me. I’ll take care of Kit.”

  Frank looked around the terrace at his three nephews. Thank goodness his own sons weren’t like these three.

  When he noticed Connor had walked to the railing, had distanced himself from the others, and was once again staring out into the horizon, Frank shuddered at what the man might be contemplating. He walked over to where he stood. The last thing he needed was to be on the outs with this one.

  He started to lift a hand to Connor’s shoulder and knew better. He let his hand drop away in mid-air. “It’ll all work out. You’ll see. We’ll get Jankovic out here and take care of the situation. Cade won’t have to lift a finger toward Kit and Boston. Jankovic will take care of them too.”

  Connor wasn’t really listening to anything Frank had so say. His father had been right. The man was an idiot. But he realized now, he’d have to take care of Baylee. He turned back to the group, thoughtful. “I have a personal problem, a loose end that needs handling as well. But I’ll take care of it myself.”

  Curiosity peaked, Cade asked, “What loose end?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “It’s all for one here. Remember?” Collin threw in.

  “I’ll see to the matter my own way,” Connor said with finality, which meant the subject was closed. But he realized that after today, Baylee might go on the run again. For all he knew she could be gone at this very moment. So he’d have to find the cunt first. And if she was on the run, he’d track her down. He couldn’t leave that particular loose end around to talk just as Collin couldn’t leave Kit around to testify. He had no wish to spend jail time over something that amounted to a one night stand. He should have taken care of it before now anyway. He’d taken matters into his own hands before. He could damn well do it again. Women were nothing but trouble, couldn’t be trusted no matter who they were. Hadn’t his father taught him that?

  When he noticed all eyes were on him, he looked over at Frank. With a cold, hard glare, he reminded him, “You just make sure Jankovic knows the extent of the problem. If he can’t handle the job, make sure you find someone who can. I don’t want any fuckups. Is that clear?”

  Frank nodded, knowing full well he’d
better see to it that Jankovic succeeded or suffer the consequences.

  Trevor Dane listened in fascination.

  Installing the bug in Connor’s house hadn’t been easy, but it had been necessary. He couldn’t be in three damned places at one time, could he? The listening device leveled the playing field somewhat. Plus, he’d installed a GPS tracking device on each of their vehicles to keep track of the bastards. Knowing what they were up to beforehand would give him the edge he needed.

  So it was Jankovic, was it?

  He shook his head. Leave it to them to bring in a classless, bumbling goon. It made him wonder how these people had gotten so much in life with so little sense for so long. And then he remembered exactly how. Killing an old couple in their beds in the middle of the night might have seemed easy enough back in 1969, kind of like ducks on a pond, but Trevor didn’t plan on making it easy for them now to get to anyone. Not if they were going after Kit. Not if Connor were going after Baylee. And right now he could only surmise that she was the loose end Connor had mentioned.

  Goon or not, he decided he wouldn’t let his guard down. He couldn’t get lazy at this point. There was still too much to do.

  He had a purpose, a reason to put one foot in front of the other, a reason to get up in the morning. It could be nothing more than feeling his years a little too often, for a little too long. But whatever the reason, he only knew he didn’t want to lose this natural high. It was better than drugs, better than booze.

  A new feeling for an old sniper.

  It was true he’d been a busy boy the last few weeks. He’d personally put an end to four of the five people responsible for the senseless murders of Pete and Mary Parker back in 1969.

  Knowing how losing his parents had haunted his mentor Noah, the man who’d befriended him during the darkest days of his own life, made Trevor even more determined.

  Suddenly he remembered the terror on Alana’s face as he’d driven the knife into her heart. He recalled how frightened Jessica Boyd had been just before he’d put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger. It had been the same with Eva Geller Gatz, Jessica’s sister. And he would cherish the smug look on Sumner Boyd’s face and the fact that it had vanished the moment the man realized the bill had come due for a long-forgotten debt.

  Yes, Trevor had been a busy boy. He’d made them all pay the piper and in his own way. They thought they’d gotten away with cold-blooded murder. But they hadn’t counted on Noah Parker surviving his captivity in a Viet Cong hell-hole prison camp and coming back six years later.

  Trevor might be the only one on the planet who knew Noah’s story, the only one who cared, the only one who was committed to seeing that Noah found justice for the murders of his parents—forty years after the fact.

  At the close of the war, Noah had made his way back home to L.A., back to the Sundown Ranch high in the Hollywood Hills, looking to take his life back. But the man had found nothing. Everything had been gone, wiped away as if it had never existed. His parents, their beloved ranch, their home, the land, the cattle, the horses had all just disappeared. Where horses had once roamed and fat cattle had grazed on sweet grass, a developer had put up an ugly strip shopping mall.

  After serving his country, Noah had wanted nothing more than answers.

  It took him a week to track down what had happened to his parents, to discover they had been brutally slain in their beds one hot summer August night, leaving a macabre death scene to tell the tale of a violent, senseless crime with no obvious suspects.

  One detective had even suggested that the crime scene looked eerily similar to several other murders that had taken place during the same hellish week back in August 1969. The cop had believed the deaths might have been part of the Manson family crime spree. And since they were already locked up in jail, what was the point?

  After spending months hounding detectives at several different jurisdictions, one sheriff’s deputy finally suggested he learn to deal with the fact that the killers were already sitting in a jail cell serving time. Case closed. But without positive proof, Noah had refused to accept that, refused to let go.

  But what he came to know as fact was that no one seemed to care about a double homicide that had happened six years earlier to his parents. No one but him.

  After wandering aimlessly around L.A. for months flat broke, he had re-upped in the army. The military had used the rage burning inside him over the deaths of his parents to make him the best the army had ever seen, the best he could be, the best sniper, and later, the best soldier of fortune money could buy.

  Over the next twenty years, Noah would play amateur detective on his own time, never able to let the murders of his parents rest for long.

  But it wasn’t until he retired that he began to camp out at the county court house, began searching through old court records, poring over old probate documents, old archives that he found the answers, answers that had eluded him for two decades. Noah had discovered through court records that the law firm of Boyd Boyd Geller & Gatz had basically inherited everything his parents had ever owned through a trust set up three months before their deaths to the tune of some fifteen million dollars. Turns out, the trustee had been Jessica Geller, and she had been married to her law partner husband, Sumner Boyd.

  His naive parents had trusted the wrong attorneys.

  His parents been elated when BBG&G had won them a settlement in excess of fifteen million dollars paid out over three years. Noah had known about the court victory, had been happy for his parents. But it had been the partners in the law firm that had betrayed them.

  Through persistence, he discovered that Jessica Boyd had not been the only one to benefit from the deaths of Pete and Mary Parker. No, it had been a family affair, a conspiracy between all of the law partners, which included Jessica’s husband Sumner, her sister Eva Geller Gatz, and their brother Frank Geller.

  A mere four months after the deaths, the Parker Estate increased in value to the tune of fifty million dollars when the law firm had sold off the Sundown Ranch and the surrounding land to a local developer named Carlton, who happened to be the new husband of Alana Stevens. Then, nine months after the murders, in May of 1970, the four conspirators had formed a partnership and using a portion of the trust to purchase a sizeable chunk of Malibu real estate, which they immediately developed into a compound of family-owned mansions clustered together. They called this compound The Enclave.

  As Noah finally unraveled the mystery, he had to admit sixty-five million dollars wasn’t a bad take for a night’s work murdering two defenseless old people in their sleep. He just couldn’t be certain which of the five had been the ones to pull the trigger.

  But then, one day, to test his theory, he decided to make an unannounced visit to the law offices of Boyd Boyd Geller & Gatz. And suddenly the rest of the tumblers had fallen into place.

  None of the partners had been happy to see him. In fact, they had put up roadblocks at every question, refusing to answer the most basic of questions about the Parker Trust. They had threatened to call the police on him. It was clear to Noah then that they simply thought themselves invincible, beyond reproach where the murders of his parents were concerned.

  They’d gone on with their lives thanks to every asset that had belonged to his parents.

  From there it had been simple really. Noah had followed the proverbial money trail, followed the lawsuit his parents had won two years before their deaths, a lawsuit the firm had handled from the onset, followed the disbursement of the three year court settlement, the fifteen million dollars that led straight back to BBG&G.

  All of the original partners had profited. Over the years they’d gotten richer and fatter, the same years he’d struggled to survive in a prison camp, barely eating, barely living, and barely getting by. Then to get out at war’s end, hoping to come back to his life on his father’s ranch, to pick up some semblance of his old world, only to discover that greed had obliterated his old world and he’d never be able to get it ba
ck again.

  In retirement Noah had time to keep watch, tally his evidence, and make sure his theory made sense. Knowing the ranch land had been sold a mere four months after the murders and that Jessica’s best friend, Alana Stevens, had brokered the deal, there was yet another money trail to follow. And this time he dug deep, bribed a few bank officials, and documented every aspect of how the money led not only to every member of the law firm but to the Stevens woman as well.

  Going over the police reports, which he’d obtained through a series of bribes to a county sheriff’s deputy, he’d discovered the murder weapon had been a .357 magnum. He’d taken that information to every gun dealer in L.A. and found that two days before the murders Alana Stevens had purchased that particular caliber weapon from a pawn shop in the San Fernando Valley. He didn’t think she’d bought it for protection.

  Believing he’d solved the murder of his parents, Noah had taken what he had to the authorities, document by document, piece by piece. They’d listened—politely. Called his evidence, his theories mere coincidence, and in the end they’d been less than interested in pursuing the bad guys, especially when these particular bad guys were now movers and shakers all over Beverly Hills, all over the state.

  Just when Noah had been about to take things into his own hands, mete out justice the only way he knew how, the way he’d been trained, he had discovered he had pancreatic cancer.

  Noah had turned to his old friend Trevor Dane to pick up the task at hand.

  And Trevor had no intentions of letting him down, especially now that he knew the evil ran so much deeper.

  CHAPTER 4

  Baylee heard Sarah begin to fuss through the baby monitor, rolled over in bed, blinked through a fog of sleep, and stared at the clock, 5:45. Her body felt like it was five-forty-five.

  After waking up around midnight Sarah had stayed awake for almost an hour playing, until her bleary-eyed mother had finally gotten her to go back down again. At this point, she wondered if her daughter would ever sleep through the night. Baylee slid out of bed and grabbed for her robe. As she did she caught her reflection in the mirror hanging over the dresser. She paused long enough to stare at her mousy brown hair. For months now, ever since coming back to L.A., she’d dyed her damned hair and for what?