Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vickie McKeehan

  She chuckled, sucked the sweat off his neck. “Okay. I’ll let you sleep.”

  “I slept late this morning, thanks to you. How about we talk about what Kit believes happened that night, her vision, for lack of a better word?”

  She sighed. “It’s possible, I guess. She’s seeing what I see in my dream. And we know those two killed the Parkers. So there’s that. But I’m having a tough time with my father’s part in all of it.”

  “It must have been difficult for all of you growing up with parents, you know, like that, so cold and calculating.”

  “I don’t want you pitying me, Dylan.”

  “It isn’t pity exactly. It’s―”

  “Sure it is. You can’t help it. It’s human nature to feel sorry for someone who had the kind of childhood the three of us had. But why is it that a lot of people would rather believe child abuse occurs only in the lower economic echelon and doesn’t think it happens in places like Beverly Hills? If you have money, live in a big house, you couldn’t possibly abuse a child, right? If you think about it, the opposite is true. A person with money can hide it better, lie with conviction, make people believe what isn’t true and then go to great expense to cover it up.

  “I mean, just look at the school nurse, Mrs. Abbott. The woman knew every time I showed up at school with black and blue marks on my face. She’d ask what happened, all concerned. I’d tell her and yet when Dad showed up at school he had a good story at the ready like I’d run into the door or something. And then the same thing happened when Kit would come to school with bruises. Alana would show up at school; she’d tell her version, put on a stellar performance, something like, ‘Oh, my little Kit is so uncoordinated. She’s just the clumsiest little thing on two feet.’ And yet, Mrs. Abbott must have believed my Dad and Alana rather than us because not once did the woman report the abuse to the authorities. Mrs. Abbott had to know the truth. She did the exact same thing with Quinn, too. Ask yourself why the woman wouldn’t just make a call to Protective Services? The three of us decided that the only reason Mrs. Abbott would call home instead of the authorities is that they had to be giving her money, money to keep quiet. And if Dad paid her that meant Alana and Quinn’s stepfather did too. But then what’s a little blackmail in Beverly Hills between parents and the school nurse just to keep a little thing like child abuse a secret from Child Protective Services?”

  Dylan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The school nurse knew and did nothing? My God, how could she violate the law like that, live with the fact, sleep at night? How’d you guys get through all of it?”

  “We tried not to go home, only when we had to.”

  “Oh, Baylee.”

  “And once we got out on our own, we eventually got the help we needed. For three years, sometimes twice a week, we’d meet for group therapy. Group therapy was cheaper for us than individual treatment, and we were on a tight budget back then. But that isn’t the only reason group worked. Initially, we went together because, let’s face it, we were our own support system. And we just didn’t think anyone would believe us. Mrs. Abbott hadn’t, so why would anyone else? Our parents had money. My father the well-known director, Quinn’s stepfather, an influential man in the music industry, and of course, there was Alana, a successful businesswoman with Sumner and Jessica Boyd for friends, very powerful friends. But after our first couple of visits together as a group, Dr. Strasburg gave us a validation we’d never had, accepted what we had to say as fact. Except for the three of us, no one had ever done that before.”

  He stared at her angelic face, looked deep into those aqua eyes, saw the pain there. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say. But he knew what would get her mind off the door he’d unintentionally thrust open. He moved to her mouth, began to leisurely run his hands down her body.

  Sure enough, he discovered he had more energy than he thought.

  The sun filtering in through the window had her squinting into the morning light. Without moving her sore body too much, she reached an arm out to feel the other side of the bed. Empty. So he couldn’t even bother to stay and snuggle, she thought lazily as she rolled to glance at the clock. 6:50.

  My God had she really slept that late? She yawned and stretched. Her body felt thoroughly used. Dylan’s lovemaking had her feeling more relaxed than she had in a year.

  Sliding out of bed, she grabbed for her robe and smiled as she thought back to the kind of night they’d had. Marathon sex could be draining. She needed coffee. But as she tied the belt on the robe, she wondered why the house was so quiet.

  She headed down the hall toward Sarah’s room. Before she ever reached the open doorway, she heard the giggling first, then a genuine belly laugh from her six-month-old daughter. Her baby sounded happy, babbling in the way of all infants, content.

  She pushed open the door wider and there, lying on the floor, was Dylan, stretched out on his stomach, stacking wooden blocks into a tall tower while Sarah sat in front of him taking delight in knocking them all down then clapping her little hands together.

  She watched them from the doorway for a moment, the scene tugging at her heartstrings. Dylan looked like a proud father, spending precious alone time playing on the floor with his little girl. Could she pretend and make it true? Or was it a ridiculous fantasy she needed to stop weaving?

  When Sarah spotted her mom, she began clapping her hands together. Dylan turned to catch her gaze. They stared at each other as desire sprang up between them in spite of the baby.

  Sarah reached over, put both of her small hands on Dylan’s cheeks, trying to get his attention, trying to get him to play with the blocks again.

  Baylee watched as Dylan took the hint, slowly turning his face toward Sarah’s. With his long frame, he playfully rolled into the blocks, knocking them all down for her benefit.

  He scooped up the infant, the movement causing Sarah to giggle with glee. “I let you sleep in, thought you could use the extra hour after―the big night we had.”

  “Thank you. The extra sleep was appreciated. You changed her diaper.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Piece of cake. No poop, just dripping wet. Took me a while to get it taped together with her squirming around, though, but then I’d watched you enough, thought I could handle it.”

  Baylee grinned. “Looks like you did an excellent job. She’s gotta be hungry by now.”

  “Probably. But she’s been a doll since we got up.”

  “I need coffee. Want me to bring you a cup when I come back up?”

  “I’d love a cup.”

  “Breakfast in twenty minutes,” she said as she turned to go and head downstairs, her heart feeling lighter than it had in months.

  As she rounded the door in the kitchen, Baylee smelled freshly-brewed coffee and knew Kit was already there whipping up something tasty for breakfast. When Baylee walked in, sure enough, Kit stood at the counter, stirring batter in a bowl. She stopped long enough to look up at Baylee. “Well, don’t you look…rested.” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

  “What we did didn’t exactly resemble rest,” Baylee confided, as she took down a cup from the cupboard and walked to the coffeemaker. “You do get up early, don’t you? Couldn’t you at least sleep in today, let me take care of breakfast, while you take care of Jake?”

  “Habit. And just so you know, I took care of him…twice. I took the initiative and threw together some pancake batter.”

  “By all means, your pancake batter is legendary. Believe me, Dylan will appreciate it. Where’s Jake?”

  “On the phone to Ireland again. He’s relentless in trying to find Ben.”

  When Baylee turned around from the coffeemaker, Kit was grinning at her. Baylee went over and promptly wrapped her arms around her waist.

  Kit reciprocated, leaning her head down on the top of Baylee’s head. “It’s about time you had sex. Just be careful. Don’t get in over your head.”

  “Okay, Mom. I promise I’ll be careful.”

  “Don’t look
at me like that. You know what I mean. That man’s a player, Baylee. But God, he is a hunk. Besides, I wanted to talk to you. Alone. Without the guys. We didn’t get much of a chance to hash out my…”

  “Vision?”

  “No. Yes. I need to explain a few things. First, it was different somehow when the people I saw Alana and Jessica murder were…strangers. I had never met the Parkers. That didn’t come out right. But you know what I mean. I care that the Parkers were murdered, of course. But…well, this is after all, your mother I saw…pushed down the stairs…killed…murdered. Somehow, this seems more personal, even though I didn’t know her I’ve seen pictures you’ve shown me from the time you were very small. These images in my head are―disturbing. The Parker murders haunted me for weeks, still do, but now...”

  “You see my mother dead and it wasn’t an accident. Alana and Jessica were involved. What no one’s talking about, what you didn’t mention, what none of us mentioned last night is why my father didn’t do anything about it? I thought about this. He had to play some role in it. It’s the only thing that explains why he ignores those women murdering his wife and doesn’t bother reporting it to the police. But then he takes it a step further and makes up a story to cover for them.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know right away.”

  “Oh, come on, Kit. You don’t really believe that do you? Even though in my dream or memory or whatever the hell it is, I didn’t see him when it happened. Do you really believe those two women didn’t gloat at some point, didn’t brag about what they’d done? Do you think for a minute they kept their secret from him? I don’t believe that and neither do you.”

  “No. But I had to give it a shot. He might have found out after the fact. How long, I’m not sure.” Kit frowned. “Maybe I’ll work on that angle, see what I can…you know, see.”

  Baylee tilted her head to study Kit’s face. “That is so weird, the way you do that I mean. Last night you went dead pale when it… Does it just pop into your head like that or what?”

  “I think there has to be some motivation to go back into the past and see, back in time to view what happened. Alana’s murder triggered the Parker dream. Once that surfaced it sort of opened a door. And I guess talking about your mother prompted this particular door to pop open.” Kit shrugged. “Hey, I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  Baylee heard footsteps overhead. “Do you know he let me sleep in this morning while he got up with Sarah?”

  Kit smiled. “Not only a hottie but thoughtful.”

  “He is.” And wasn’t that a surprise. “You guys going back today?”

  “Got to,” she said, grinning. “I left the shop in Gloria’s care. She says everything’s running smoothly, but the truth is, I have a business to run. I won’t let the Boyds ruin something I’ve put my life savings into.”

  “Just be careful, Kit. Collin is too much like Connor. And they’re both like their mother.”

  “Insane,” Kit agreed as she poured another cup of coffee.

  By the time Dylan walked into the kitchen with the baby on his hip, Sarah was ready for her own breakfast. He took a long look at Baylee standing at the stove pouring pancake batter onto a griddle. He could get used to this. That brought him up short. When had he come to feel like that?

  She turned and saw Dylan holding Sarah. Her breath backed up. He looked so natural with her, the resemblance between the two uncanny. Their same coloring made them look like father and daughter. Caught off guard by those thoughts, she simply waved Dylan into a chair until she could find her voice. Knowing his love for food, she finally squeaked out, “How many pancakes for starters?”

  “Forget about me. I’ve got a hungry baby here. She’s getting fussy, wants her momma.”

  Kit stepped to the stove to take over as Baylee took Sarah out of Dylan’s arms. She immediately went to the kitchen table and sat down.

  As Sarah began to nurse, Baylee’s eyes drifted to Dylan’s. Their eyes locked, held.

  Dylan’s mouth went dry. He forgot about everything else and saw only Baylee, the way the sun filtered through the kitchen window and fell on her golden hair.

  Baylee saw him swallow, saw him move toward her, and felt him plant a gentle kiss on her forehead before moving to cover her mouth.

  Dylan heard Kit clear her throat, heard the clang of a plate on the table. In spite of the distraction, he found it difficult to pull his eyes away from Baylee and the baby. When had they both snuck into his heart like this and taken over? Had he ever felt this kind of punch to the gut? Certainly not that he could remember. Understanding came slowly, like measuring the fierceness of an initial wave, before bracing for it to bash your head and take you under.

  He heard Kit saying something.

  “Go ahead and eat, Dylan, while they’re hot. I’ll go remind Jake that he wanted to leave this morning. He’s probably forgotten all about the time.”

  But she might as well have been talking to herself for all the good it did. Kit left the kitchen wondering if that talk she’d had with Baylee might have come just a little too late. It looked as though her friend had already gone down for the third time.

  CHAPTER 20 Book 2

  On his fourth day back at work in his Beverly Hills fifteenth-story corner office, Frank Geller sat at his desk trying to catch up on his month-old messages. Despite the early hour, despite the pot of coffee he’d already had, his mind was not on the job. At sixty-seven, Frank was more than ready to move on to retirement. He was tired of the daily grind, weary of the constant arguments with his law partners. Jessica and Sumner might have been dead, but they lived on in their three callous, cold sons.

  Disgusted with his heavy caseload, litigations that had been stalling even before he’d taken time off, he wanted nothing more these days than to have some free time to spend with his new thirty-year-old bride, the woman who made him feel twenty years younger.

  He wanted that simple life he’d been promised back in 1969. The life they’d lied and cheated and killed to get. The life he believed he would have had when he went along with what his two sisters, Jessica and Eva, and his brother-in-law had so meticulously planned out. And no one could forget the role Alana played in the whole thing. It had been a stroke of genius how she’d manipulated that poor sap, Forrester, into unwittingly providing those all-important documents they’d needed during the Parker’s lawsuit. Who could have predicted McKetrick would have agreed to fork over fifteen million to those cattle-raising hicks?

  Lady Luck had been on their side and continued to be when the Parker’s son, Noah, went missing in Vietnam. That had been opportunity. And a Geller never let opportunity knock without answering.

  They’d plotted and planned and stolen until even more millions had fallen into their laps. If those plans happened to include murdering said hicks, so be it. He’d been in on the strategy, the calculation, had even contributed his share to how it would all go down.

  But he hadn’t murdered anyone. At least, not that night.

  The old couple had been distraught over their missing son in Vietnam, probably wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. They were old, at death’s door. They’d have been dead inside of a year, Frank reasoned now.

  The couple’s trust fund had certainly provided all of them with a nice tidy life. You couldn’t deny luck like that, or how all the stars had lined up, how everything had so neatly fallen into place. When it was meant to be, it was meant to be.

  Certainly, none of them could have predicted the firm’s overnight success from that moment forward over winning one little lawsuit. If it had brought fame and fortune to their door, they had gleefully reaped the rewards. When opportunity knocked, you certainly didn’t tell it to go away.

  Of course, along with all that fame and fortune, along with all that money, had come a heavier caseload, a lot of pressure, a great deal of stress. It had not been easy dealing with his overbearing sisters, Jessica and Eva, and Sumner, his controlling brother-in-law, on a daily basis. Every one
of them could be pains in the ass and that was on a good day.

  But that was in the past.

  Frank had no doubt the firm was about to take a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, a new direction under the leadership of his three brash nephews, Connor, Cade, and Collin. He winced at the thought of his sons, Garrett, Scott, and Taylor having to deal with those three on a daily basis. The very thought made him break out in a cold sweat.

  The Boyd sons were too hot-tempered and unpredictable to lead. Not to mention, they lacked that essential innate drive and ambition you couldn’t teach, something that came from knowing lean, hungry years. Neither Connor nor Cade nor Collin knew anything about lean years. Their parents had seen to that. Now, they’d inherited the firm. With Sumner and Jessica no longer around to reel them in every now and again, there was no telling how far off the deep end they’d dive.

  But it was no longer his problem. It was time to escape. No question, he deserved that simple life he’d been promised so very long ago.

  As he shook himself back to the present, he was glad he’d taken his nephews’ warning to heart. Frank wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances. He’d hired two of the best rent-a-cops he could get to watch his back, accompany him to and from work, stand guard at the door, make sure he was never alone. Even now as he sat here trying to get into the groove of work, he felt fairly safe.

  It wasn’t even seven-thirty yet. Trevor’s plan couldn’t have been simpler in its approach. If it all went the way he thought, there would be that certain element of surprise that always gave him that extra boost of adrenaline. The bodyguards Frank had hired weren’t the brightest. They weren’t in shape. They weren’t even real bodyguards but rather glorified security guards used to walking around a parking lot marking tires. And that, of course, was a plus on his side.

  But a true professional never took anything for granted or left anything to chance.