“Dylan, I hate to wake you. But you need to get Baylee here fast. There’s no good time for this. I don’t think William has much longer. He’s in a bad way. You’d better prepare Baylee for the worst. And Dylan, Connor came to the house. He’s going crazy trying to find out where she is. He was furious when William wouldn’t tell him anything. William made him leave the house. Connor went into a rage.”
Dylan blew out a breath. “We’re on our way.” He looked at Baylee’s face and sighed. “We need to go. I’m sorry Baylee. It doesn’t look good.”
For the next twenty minutes, Dylan put his exit strategy into play, which really amounted to nothing more than calling in a favor from a friend. Thanks to a surfing buddy he knew who flew helicopters for one of the major corporations in Los Angeles, Dylan and Baylee and Sarah were airborne within forty-five minutes after Tanya’s phone call.
Thirty minutes after that, a taxi picked them up from Santa Monica Airport and took them to the Medical Center. With Sarah still tucked into the infant carrier fast asleep, Baylee and Dylan walked into the hospital a little before dawn. They took the elevator up to the twelfth floor where Tanya was waiting for them in the hallway. She ushered them in the direction of William’s room.
“How bad is it?”
“He’s been asking for you. There’s something troubling him, has been for months now, Baylee. He needs to unburden himself. I want you to keep an open mind.”
“You know, don’t you, Tanya? It’s about my mother, isn’t it?”
“I don’t have the answers, child. But he does.”
“Will you keep an eye on Sarah for us? I need Dylan to come with me. I don’t want to do this alone.”
But as soon as Baylee and Dylan pushed open the door, they saw bedlam. Doctors and nurses surrounded William’s hospital bed, a crash cart to one side. One doctor worked frantically on him, paddles still in hand. Baylee heard the loud bleep of a heart monitor. She felt Dylan’s arms go around her. She stood back watching, wondering if her father would make it. Suddenly she was torn, filled with concern about her father but upset that she’d come so close to finding out the truth about her mother only to be denied yet again.
It seemed like an eternity before the team got him stabilized, got him breathing on his own. The lead doctor took one look at the visitors and motioned them back out into the corridor.
William fought for his life. He stared down a bluish white light shining brightly from a dark, elongated tunnel.
He remembered a wild night of sex, the booze and cocaine flowing plentiful. Not a party exactly, but he couldn’t get rid of the image of a hotel room with a king-sized bed where he lay naked with two gorgeous females, one stunningly blonde and the other equally beautiful with silky black hair down to her ass.
The three of them were wrapped up in each other, enjoying each other. They had been at it for hours. He remembered the two women bickering, gossiping, both trying to one-up the other with how much they’d spent on jewels, clothes, cars. The list was endless, the competition between the two always fierce. But he recalled how the talk always returned to their two favorite subjects, sex and money.
As they all three lay sprawled among the sheets, the conversation came back to William in sickening clarity.
“What did I tell you? Didn’t I say he was worth it?”
“I had to try him out for myself, didn’t I? He has terrific stamina.”
“Now that he’s single again, we can do this as often as we like.” Alana turned to William. “I told you the little prude was no good for you. I’m the only one you need, William, the only one who knows what you like. You know that.”
The black-haired beauty laughed at that as she moved out of bed, naked. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We both can make William happy. Three is a lot more fun than two; two’s boring. Alana and I know how to do all kinds of things much better than the little wife ever could.”
“Let’s have some more champagne and celebrate William’s newfound freedom.” Alana crawled out of bed to pour the wine and picked up an overturned glass off the floor in the process. Stumbling in the direction of the bottle of champagne still on the room service cart, she bumped into the wall. “The way Jess and I took care of things, you won’t even have to get a divorce.”
“Why’s that?” William asked, still dazed from the sex and the lines of blow he’d inhaled.
Jess staggered over to where Alana stood, tried to help her with the pouring. “Because, you idiot, you can’t divorce her when she’s dead.”
The hairs on the back of William’s neck stood up as he stared at the two women. But it wasn’t their nakedness that had his attention. “Alana, what the fuck is she talking about? What did you do?”
“Oh, William, don’t be so dense. Jessica and I took care of your whining little problem, that’s all. Well, our problem, really. No more bitchy little wife to nag you. It’s as simple as that.” Alana giggled. “You won’t have to worry about a custody battle or paying that bitch any kind of alimony, no settlement. She’s gone. And she isn’t coming back.” Alana laughed at her own joke.
“What did you do? You told me she was having an affair with Luc. That she ran off to Europe with the tennis pro and left Baylee alone in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, William, how stupid you are. You told me you wanted out of your marriage. You’ve been telling me that for years. What did you expect me to do? I got impatient. Jess and I made that whole story up. We’re the ones who started the rumor at the country club.” She giggled again, which set Jessica into full-blown laughter. “We got rid of Sarah and Luc in one fell swoop.”
Lana waved her arms in the air in an exaggerated fashion. “We had to start the rumor about the affair. Little goody two-shoes Sarah was too tight-assed to ever cheat on you. Don’t you know that? She was too concerned about spending time with her little brat to spend any time with Luc. So we got creative.”
“We’re an amazing team, aren’t we? Lana and I make sure we get what we want.” Jess put her arm around Lana and they did a little dance, giving each other high-fives.
William had a sick look on his face. The blow was already starting to wear off. Were they joking? Alana was always kidding around about all kinds of stuff. That was it. They were just kidding him, trying to get a reaction. It was a bad joke; that’s all it was. Suddenly, he was aware of the pounding in his head. He slowly got up out of bed, reached for his robe. “What did you do to Sarah?” he asked, half expecting them to confess they weren’t serious.
“Jess pushed her down the stairs.”
William staggered back against the wall.
“Yeah, but not before Lana here gave her a wicked right cross that sent her reeling. That gave me the chance to finish her off.”
“Hey, she was no match for me, petite little bitch.” Alana flexed her arms in a power stance that had William feeling like he was about to throw up. He took a step toward the bathroom, away from the faces of evil. He had to know, had to ask. “What about Luc?”
Jess tossed back her hair. “Oh, Luc was easy. We lured him back to Alana’s place, offered him a sample of our best disco biscuits—and boom! Next thing you know, he’s sprawled on the floor, dead as a doornail.”
“Okay, so I gave him a little too much shit.” Alana laughed wickedly. “Since we were on a roll, we went over to your house, paid a visit to your darling little Sarah. The little woman had the nerve to get all indignant, had the audacity to ask us to leave, threatened to call the police if you can believe that. Jess here took it personally.”
Stunned, William wanted to know all of it. “Where are they?”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re dead and buried. No one will ever find them. Trust me.”
William threw off the robe and started putting on his pants.
“Where do you think you’re going? We aren’t finished with you yet.”
“I need to go check on Baylee.”
But Jessica sensed something was up. She narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t even think about it, William.”
In the blink of an eye, Jess turned on her best friend. “You just had to open your big fucking mouth, didn’t you? He’s going to blab first chance he gets.”
Jessica whirled around to William. “You say anything to anyone, anything at all, you so much as breathe a word of what we said here tonight and I’ll make sure the police know it was your idea. They go really hard in this state on husbands who solicit murder for hire. Oh, yes, Alana and I will simply tell them you wanted your wife out of the picture. We’ll both testify against you.”
Alana grabbed Jess’s arm. “But he won’t do that, will you, William? We’re in this together. You’ll keep our little secret because if you don’t, you know you might be next. Isn’t that right, William, my love? You say anything to anyone and that daughter of yours might suffer a terrible, unfortunate accident.”
The memory came to him in clarifying detail how he’d run into the bathroom just in time to throw up.
“You say anything to anyone and that daughter of yours might suffer a terrible unfortunate accident.” For years those words had haunted him. It played over and over again like a bad movie, his worst.
Even now lying on his deathbed, William still heard those words, those shrill, harsh words he would never forget no matter how long he lived. It came to William then. He didn’t have all that much longer. Life for him was almost done.
Baylee touched her father’s cheek. His eyes flew open. “Daddy, I’m here now. It’s okay; don’t worry, I’m here now. Daddy, look at me. Do you hear me?”
When his eyes settled on his daughter’s face, it took him a few seconds to come back to the present. His body felt like he was still in that hotel bathroom after a night of drugs and booze. His gut burned; his chest hurt. He still remembered the way he’d thrown up. His eyes glanced around the room. He remembered then that he was hooked up to machines in a hospital room.
Things were as bad as they could get.
“Baylee,” he croaked out. He tried to remove the oxygen tube from around his nose. “There’s something I have to say, to tell you…before I leave. It’s hard to tell.” He wheezed, his air closing up. “But you need to know the truth about your mother, hear the truth from me.” The words were raspy. “Sarah never left, at least not the way I led you to believe.”
God help her, she knew what he was about to say and couldn’t hear this from him by herself. She started backing toward the door. Dylan had gone to find Tanya, tell her what was happening. But now, she had to find him. She couldn’t travel down this path without him.
“Dylan, get in here,” she yelled frantically, keeping her eyes glued to her father. She watched as William tried to sit up in bed. She went to him then, attempted to get him to lie back down. It wasn’t difficult to do. One push and he was flat on his back again.
Dylan came into the room on the run. He took one look at Baylee’s struggle and then stared at her father. Noting the alarm on William’s face, Dylan went to help. “Has he said anything?”
William motioned for them both to come closer. “I can’t…talk so loud.” His rheumy eyes searched Dylan’s. “She’s…upset with me. She has a right to be. I’ve been a lousy father. And I’m about to upset her even more. It’s about her mother, my lovely, gentle Sarah. She died, Baylee. Your mother never walked out on you.”
No matter how much she’d talked about it with Dylan and Kit and Jake, she wasn’t prepared to hear the words. Her knees locked. She felt weak and sick to her stomach. “What are you saying, Daddy? I want to know all of it.”
Whispering the worst of it now, he rasped on. “I’m saying…Alana and Jessica…they killed your mother. Alana wanted us to be together. She took it upon herself…” He saw the doubt in Baylee’s eyes. “You have to believe me. I had no idea she would hurt Sarah, let alone… It’s the last thing I wanted. It happened while I was out of town. While I was in San Francisco, Alana and Jessica went to the house…they confronted Sarah. There was a struggle. Jessica pushed her down the stairs. Before, before Sarah, they lured her friend, that tennis pro, back to their house, gave him enough drugs to make sure he OD’d. I’m not sure of all the details. All I know is they killed Sarah; they got rid of Luc. Sarah and Luc were never a couple. They’re both…dead.”
“Daddy, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you go to the police? Why did you allow them to get away with doing something like that? Why?”
Breathing labored, William winced, “They said if I told anyone, they’d see to it that the police would think I was in on it. They threatened you.” William started to sob. “If I said anything, Alana assured me she’d see to it that you had an accident. I made a mistake, Baylee, a big one. Alana and I had known each other for years, for years, Baylee; we had a history. After I married your mother, I kept the affair going with Alana.” If it were possible, the shame and guilt had William’s voice growing weaker. “The woman wouldn’t leave me alone. I’m not making excuses. But she was…relentless. Alana was my weakness. Alana and Jessica were my weaknesses. I’m sorry, Baylee. They took Sarah away from both of us.”
Baylee felt numb. She’d already known most everything he’d admitted. Thanks to Kit, thanks to Dylan, she’d been prepared for the fact that her mother was dead. But it didn’t make hearing the words out of her father’s own mouth any less horrendous. Validation after all these years seemed rather pointless, anti-climactic even.
As if he understood, it was Dylan who carefully framed his words. “Where are they, William? What did Alana and Jessica do with the bodies?”
“I…I…I’m not sure exactly, buried them…somewhere.”
Dylan knew he was lying. His disgust came out in his tone. “William, you were married to the woman; she was the mother of your only child and you didn’t bother to find out what those women did with Sarah’s body? I’m not buying it.”
“Don’t judge me. I…I…I was weak. I know that. I let Alana and Jessica get away with murder. They were evil. I didn’t want any harm to come to Baylee. Don’t you understand that?”
He turned his head to look at Baylee. “That’s why I never trusted her whenever you went down to Kit’s. Within the year, we stopped seeing each other. It was over, done. I stayed away from her; she stayed away from me. That was the deal.”
All of a sudden fury ran through Baylee like a blazing, out-of-control wildfire. “My God, all this and you could have just gotten a divorce. You bastard. I found her journals. She hid them away. She tried to make the marriage work from day one, but you never did. Her journals paint a very disgusting picture of what she endured during her marriage. You didn’t deserve her. You didn’t even want me.”
William’s eyes went wide with shock. Rasping he explained, “That was a gut reaction. After you…were born, after…I held you for the first time…I changed.”
“Obviously, you didn’t change…at all…you continued seeing that evil bitch the entire time you were married. She and Jessica killed my mother. I hope it was worth it, Daddy. I hope every time you fucked her it was worth my mother’s life.” With that, Baylee turned and flew out of the room, away from William’s bedside.
But Dylan stayed rooted to the spot, boring holes through the man until finally William felt his stare and reluctantly looked away. But Dylan was determined. He took William’s face and turned it back to force the man to look at him. Certain Dylan had his attention, he leaned in, and whispered, “Where are the bodies, William? What did Alana and Jessica do with Sarah and Luc?”
Dylan saw William swallow hard before the man started to sob again. But Dylan refused to be moved by the man’s display of emotion. He thought of Baylee. Another wave of disgust hit him. Making sure his tone was more forceful this time, Dylan met the old man’s eyes. “It’s just the two of us here now, William. Tell me where they buried the bodies.”
Dylan went in search of Baylee. There was no doubt in his mind it would fall to him to tell her what he’d learned from William. He needed to make
a couple of calls first, one to Reese to make sure they had the legal aspects covered, and then he’d have to make the necessary calls to the authorities, make them aware of the situation. If that meant a phone call to Max St. John or to Dan Holloway, then maybe he’d have Reese take care of that chore as well.
What arrangements did one make in order to begin the process of digging up bodies buried on the sprawling grounds of a private residence in Malibu? How many acres did the Boyd compound cover anyway? Would they be able to rely on William’s description of where the bodies of Sarah Moreland and Luc Delaine had ended up? No, they’d probably use cadaver dogs for that job, thought Dylan, as he added another call to his mental checklist.
Dylan shook his head thinking about his conversation with William. He’d practically had to force the old man into spilling what he knew. As he walked toward the waiting room, hoping Baylee had sought out Tanya for comfort there and hadn’t gone farther, he realized it was a shame William couldn’t have been a little bit more specific. But so help him God, Dylan knew one thing, if it took days or weeks or months, he would not rest until he found the remains of Baylee’s mother. Sarah Moreland deserved a proper burial. Luc, too, for that matter. But more than that, Baylee deserved to find her mother, to know where she was once and for all, and if possible, put all of this behind her so they could move forward to a future together.
When Dylan spotted Baylee wrapped up in Tanya’s embrace in the waiting room, he breathed a sigh of relief. Approaching the two of them with caution, he waited for a sign that it was okay to intrude upon their moment. He didn’t have to wait long. The second Baylee spotted him, she all but melted into his arms.
Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set Page 71
