Beastly (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #3)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Still no word?” He didn’t need to elaborate. There was only one thing we spoke about. Only one thing that mattered.

  “They’ve swept his property, but they’ve come up empty.” I led him to the car as I spoke.

  “Bastard. If he’s been locked up, has she been left to starve or something? God, even if she had her medication with her, it’d be running low. She never usually has more than twelve weeks’ supply at any one time.” We climbed into the car and were on the road back to Phoebe’s place.

  “They’ve got him in custody now. Surely he’ll break before long and tell ’em where she is.” It was a statement neither of us could put any faith in, but one I needed to make anyway. The weeks had chipped away at the walls of hope around my heart, and what was left needed to be strengthened through false promises and reassurin’ phrases.

  As we drove, I admitted I’d been stayin’ at Phoebe’s place as much as I could. Sleepin’ in her bed. It hadn’t been a conscious choice at first. I’d fallen asleep while starin’ at her photo one night. It was the first night I’d slept for more than three hours in a stretch. I hadn’t wanted to mention it to Declan, but it was gonna be clear as soon as we arrived anyway. I’d already learned it was better to be up-front with him. If he was surprised by my admission, he didn’t show it. Instead, he asked if I was still talkin’ with Angel, and he explained she’d taken to spendin’ a few nights a week in Phoebe’s room back home when she wasn’t on the road.

  The rest of the trip passed in much the same fashion, with us talkin’ ’round the one subject we both wanted to discuss but had already exhausted long ago.

  Just as I was pullin’ into the parking garage, a message flashed up on my screen. Declan’s cell chimed at the same time.

  “What?” The word left me in horror as I read the message.

  Declan focused on his cell, no doubt readin’ the same message as me.

  “They let him go?” he snarled. “What the fuck?”

  He was on the phone first, demandin’ answers about why the charges were bein’ dropped against Jase. Even as he spoke, we headed toward the elevator.

  “I see. Uh-uh.” His side of the conversation continued in the same way, filled with no information. Just a serious of noises and two word phrases that told me nothin’. He hung up the phone. “Apparently they brought the delivery driver in to identify Jase, and he says it’s not him. The guy he dealt with was older, apparently around his midforties. Tall and thin, and had dark features.” His brow dipped as though what he’d said meant somethin’ to him, but he shook it off moments later.

  An early suspect I’d had—one I’d dismissed because there was nothin’ to suggest he mighta been involved—came back to me.

  “Bee,” I murmured as I unlocked Phoebe’s door.

  “What?” Declan followed me into the apartment.

  “That description. It fits Bee. Dale’s brother-in-law, and Xavier’s stepdaddy.”

  “His name is Bee?”

  I shook my head. “That’s just his nickname ’round the team. Has been since he moved here from Australia and started with Richards Racing when they used to have trucks. His was yellow and black.”

  Declan froze midstep. “Trucks?”

  “Yeah, it’s a class—”

  He held up his hand. “I know what it is,” he snapped. “Are you sure it was trucks he raced?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure. It was when he was drivin’ ’em that he met Cora. It’s one o’ those stories that gets round the office.” As well as the rumors about his off-track behavior before and after he married her.

  “What’s his real name?” The question seemed a li’l reluctant, and yet there was an urgency buried beneath too.

  “Hunter.”

  “No, it can’t be . . .” Declan’s voice was almost silent. “Wh-What’s his last name?”

  “Blake.” I frowned as he paled.

  “Hunter Blake?” He doubled over as if breathless.

  “Yeah. What’s goin’ on?”

  “Fuck!” He panted. “Fuck!” Kicked the floor. “Oh God!”

  Watchin’ him melt down in front of me made my own heart race.

  “What is it?” My voice was ice, risin’ from the depths and scrapin’ through vocal cords that didn’t wanna move.

  “Hunter fucking Blake was the bane of my existence when I was young. If he’s here . . . If he was leaving gifts for Phoebe . . . Oh God, what if he has her?” Each time he trailed off, his breath grew more erratic. He clutched at his hair and his eyes flashed with madness.

  I felt the color drain from my face. A flurry of thoughts rained over me, soon becomin’ a deluge. He was an Aussie and had shown an interest in Phoebe. If he was leavin’ her the gifts, his interest was stronger than I’d suspected. Then there were the rumors that circulated about the way he’d treated some of the girls when he was on the team, years before I started with Richards Racing. The persistent stories about his penchant for BDSM and beyond. The reported cover-ups and hush money he’d paid to Dale. Money that kept the team funded durin’ some lean times. I’d thought most of it had to be fabrication, but maybe it wasn’t. What I didn’t know is what any of that had to do with Phoebe’s daddy.

  “No. No, no, no, no.” Declan repeated the word over and over again until one ran into the next. “No. It can’t be him. He can’t have my baby. He can’t.” His breath was growin’ shorter with each word until he was hyperventilatin’.

  “Are ya all right, sir?”

  His gaze was unfocused when he lifted his head and stared at me. “Fuck!” He sank to the floor and clasped his hair in his hands before rockin’ back and forth.

  I had no idea what to do. I’d never witnessed anythin’ like it before. His lips moved as he said somethin’ under his breath, too quiet for me to make out.

  “What d’ya need?” I asked, tryin’ to draw his attention.

  He climbed to one knee and stared at me. “Why didn’t you tell me his goddamned name?” As he shouted the sentence, he climbed to his feet. “Fucking hell! It’s been more than twelve weeks. Twelve weeks! If Hunter has her . . . He . . . he . . . Oh God!” He turned and rushed from the room. Another door crashed open and then the sound of hurlin’ filled the space between us.

  His panic was real. Obvious. What the heck did Bee do to him to inspire such a reaction? Was Bee the person Declan had talked about? The one who’d set him up? The words Declan had used to describe his nemesis months earlier refused to give up their foothold in my mind.

  Sadistic. Son of a bitch. Living hell.

  They were the only thoughts I could cling to as I tried to comprehend the connection and the possible implications.

  Were the stories about Bee true? I needed to know what had happened before, and what danger Phoebe might be in if she was with him.

  When Declan staggered out a few minutes later, he was still pale but at least he was coherent. “I have to call the police. I need to call Lys. Fuck. I need—I need . . .”

  “Ya need to calm down.” I tried to infuse as much patience and calmness in my voice as I could. “Phoebe’s relyin’ on ya ta keep calm.”

  “Me being calm will do nothing to stop that arsehole from hurting her. He’s probably loving this. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a fucking camera trained on me the whole time I was here so he could get his fucking jollies watching me suffer and slowly give up on her. God, I should’ve fucking left his hubs loose during a race or two and let the track sort him out.”

  “I think ya need to tell me what he did to ya, and why you’re so certain he’d want to hurt Phoebe.”

  “It’s a long story, but the condensed version is he is an arsehole who can’t take responsibility for anything. He blamed me for his own idiotic mistakes. It started when his team owner courted me before, well, before I let my career go in the shitter. When that happened, he took my position on my team as vengeance. When I was assigned to his pit crew, he set me up to fail time and time again. He twisted everything to look l
ike it was my fault. He forced Morgan, my teammate, into a wall because Morgan stopped him from assaulting Alyssa. And he tried to knock me off the track during a race too before being kicked off the team. The last I heard he’d tucked tail and ran stateside to race trucks.” His words all mashed together, as though he was tryin’ ta tell the whole story at once.

  Panic rose in me. There seemed to be a very clear hatred between the pair. Had Phoebe been caught in the middle of that time bomb? I thought about the way Dale had learned of Emmanuel Racing’s interest in hirin’ a car from an established team. It’d been Bee who’d suggested it, even as he’d warned he’d have to withdraw his share of the team fundin’ because of renovations to his bodywork business. Had Bee planned his revenge against Declan usin’ Phoebe right back then? Had the cards just fallen in his favor with Xavier and Phoebe comin’ together?

  “I mean, that’s just the shit he did to me personally. When I first got into racing, we were at a club together and he tried to drug two women. There’s no doubt in my mind that he would have raped them if he’d been the one to take them home. Who knows how many other women he took home when his plans weren’t interrupted? He’s a clever son of a bitch though, and he always, always has an escape plan. He’ll manipulate any situation to his benefit.”

  It was too easy to picture it. The way he’d been with Phoebe durin’ the first meet and greet. That confidence and charm woulda easily lulled most women into a false sense of security. They woulda let their guard down and allowed the Bee to strike.

  One thing was clear: if Declan was right, and Bee was involved, we needed to figure out what he wanted and where Phoebe might be. If we went in guns blazin’, we’d risk her gettin’ hurt in the crossfire.

  “I think we need to plan about what we do next. The last thing ya want is for Phoebe to be hurt if we don’t know where she is.”

  He growled at me. “If he has my baby, he’s going to pay.”

  “Trust me, sir, ya got no idea how much I wanna get my hands on him too, but not till we know where Phoebe is and that we can get to her if somethin’ happens to him.” Even as I spoke, somethin’ I’d overheard Xavier say months earlier struck me.

  “Give her my love and tell her I’ll be home soon.”

  I’d dismissed it at the time, thinkin’ he musta been talkin’ about his mama, but had he been talking about Phoebe?

  The possessiveness he’d shown around both Angel and me raised the question of whether he could’ve been involved too. Maybe they’d planned it together. If that was the case, maybe there was a chance Bee wouldn’t have hurt Phoebe beyond what we’d already seen.

  One thing was clear. If they had her, we’d have to step carefully to avoid settin’ off any trip wires that might send Bee or Xavier into a panic.

  AFTER THE INFORMATION had sunk in to us both, including the fact that we had no definitive proof either way, Declan called Darnell and then the police. Darnell promised to do a thorough background search into the family and get back to us as fast as he could. He cautioned against confrontation, worried about the same thing that concerned me. If we were right, and we tipped either Xavier or Bee off about our knowledge, they could make a rash decision.

  For the rest of the day, all night, and even into the followin’ mornin’, Declan and I barely said a word to each other. We both danced ’round the issue and sat waitin’ for the call that could confirm our suspicions. The potential for Phoebe to be home soon teased at my tongue, coatin’ it with all the words I wanted to say to her. The apologies I needed to issue and the declarations I needed to make. I’d long decided that if she’d have me, I wanted to marry her. I mightn’ta known her all that well, but I knew her strength. Her love. The way she made me feel. The rest would work itself out as it needed to.

  It was almost nine the followin’ evenin’ when Darnell came callin’ at Phoebe’s apartment. When he came inside, he had a yellow envelope clutched firmly in his grasp. It was the first time I’d met him face-to-face, but he was exactly what I’d expected. Just like TV had taught me to expect, his clothing was a suit, but everythin’ was slightly disheveled and crumpled—as though he’d been hunched over a desk or in a car for the better part of the day.

  “I thought you’d want to see this in person, Mr. Reede,” he said, tappin’ his dark fingers against the envelope.

  “Of course,” Declan said.

  He pulled out a chair at Phoebe’s table before movin’ a couple of piles of documents away.

  “I did some deeper digging on Bee and his family like you asked, and I turned up some interesting things.”

  “Like?” Declan asked.

  I let him lead but sat at the table with the pair, determined not to miss anythin’.

  “This is Daisy. Xavier’s high school girlfriend.” Darnell scattered a couple of photos on the table.

  The girl in the photos was vaguely like Phoebe; the same color hair, a similar build. Course her eyes weren’t nearly as stunnin’.

  “And this is Daisy the day after senior prom.”

  The next photos he slid across the table were of the same girl in a hospital bed. Red welts covered one side of her face, her lip was swollen and bloodied, and bruises bloomed across her cheek.

  “What happened?” I didn’t mean to ask the question, but it slipped out.

  “The official records state that no charges were filed, but I’ve spoken with Daisy’s parents today and they confirmed—off the record of course—that it was Xavier who did that. Apparently he didn’t take her breaking up with him before prom very well.”

  Declan stared at the photos with his hands clasped into fists in his hair. “I did background checks. I thought she was safe.”

  “No charges were ever pressed, so he doesn’t have a criminal record. I haven’t been able to confirm it yet, but I believe there might’ve been a settlement involved.”

  “What the fuck is the point of background checks if they don’t reveal the fact that someone is a fucking psychopath?” Declan fumed.

  “There’s more. I gathered a little information about Hunter Blake. He’s got a nasty trail behind him. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t had more trouble. He’s clearly got friends in high places.”

  “He’s a goddamn snake that knows how to slither away is what he is. I mean, his name wasn’t even on the staff list. There was no mention of anything to do with Hunter fucking Blake on any of the paperwork we saw. Why? How can that be possible?”

  “He was an employee up until around ten years back. All of his investment in the business was pulled before the finances were drawn up for you. And even before then, he’s done everything through shell companies and in a variety of names. It’s like you said, he’s obviously been covering his tracks for a number of years now. He could never have anticipated that your daughter would walk into his lap the way she did, but it’s clear he was ready to take full advantage of that. I think he was biding his time, and Xavier’s interest in her just sped up the time frame.”

  My heart pounded as I listened to them. All I could hear was that she’d been in danger from the moment she’d stepped foot off the plane to live in North Carolina, and that was my fault. Even if I hadn’t driven her into Xavier’s arms, she mighta been taken anyway. I said a silent prayer that Xavier’s obsession with her would make him intervene if she was in mortal danger.

  “I’ll still be having a word with my lawyers to sack the fucking idiots who compiled the information for us. What now though? How do we get my daughter back?”

  “I have to caution you, there still isn’t any evidence that either of these two have anything to do with your daughter’s disappearance. I’ll pass the information I’ve found across to the police and to your lawyer, Mr. Miller,” he added, lookin’ at me, “but I don’t think it’s going to change anything in the short term.”

  So close, but possibly still so far. We bid him farewell and sat for the rest of the evenin’ makin’ plans for a rescue mission. It was impossible though. We didn’t kn
ow anythin’ about where she might be or what condition her health might be in. Who knew what might happen if we went to Bee’s place and warned him of our assumption? That didn’t stop us from plannin’ for what happened next. We didn’t talk about the big issue, the one thing that was impossible to acknowledge but just as difficult to ignore—what she mighta been through in the last twelve weeks.

  If she was still alive—and we only had hope as proof that she was—she’d been kept captive for almost three months. That wasn’t the sort of thing someone just got over. Although it killed me to think of her leavin’, I had to agree with Declan’s assessment that if—when—we found her again, it’d be best for her to head straight home to Australia at the first opportunity. I had no idea where it would leave her and me, but that was a bridge to cross when the time came.

  After talkin’ around for hours, we agreed I’d try to get any information I could outta Xavier. He had genuine feelin’s for Phoebe—I still believed that—and was the softer of the two. Declan was certain Bee was manipulatin’ Xavier for his own sick benefit.

  At the very least, I didn’t think it would hurt to ask a couple questions in light of the new information.

  THE NEXT day, I headed into the office—somethin’ I’d been remiss in doin’ lately—and studied Xavier. There were little things I’d never noticed before, nervous tics that could either indicate his involvement or mighta just been part of his makeup.

  He glanced down at his cell at least once every fifteen minutes before liftin’ his head and scannin’ the area ’round him. At least twice, he disappeared into a dark corner and spoke on the phone.

  Around nine, Declan called me to inform me the police were on their way to Bee’s house. Apparently the delivery driver had successfully ID’d Bee as the one who’d organized the flowers. Between that, Declan’s history with him, and the information Darnell had provided, it was enough to get a search warrant on his home and business.

  My heart inflated as hope grew that maybe this time, somethin’ would finally happen. Phoebe might finally come back to me.