Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vickie McKeehan

  The three of them left Sarah in the capable hands of Tanya and sidled over to join the conversation with Jake and Kit just in time to hear the last of Dan’s assessment. “That third body may be difficult to ID. Right now, those remains belong to someone not on our radar, another missing person, maybe, we just don’t know.”

  “Probably another poor soul who no doubt happened to have the misfortune of crossing paths with Jessica and Alana,” Baylee offered. “After all, those two decided to end my mother’s life out of spite, out of jealousy, out of revenge. No one may ever know what exactly the motivation was to kill her or anyone else who happened to cross their paths for that matter.”

  “A deadly attraction if there was one,” Quinn agreed. She turned to eye St. John. “Doesn’t finding all this out make both of them a pair of female serial killers? I mean first there are the Parkers, then Baylee’s mother, the tennis player, and some poor unidentified person as yet unnamed.”

  “It’s chilling,” Reese agreed. “They got away with five murders for an awfully long time without anyone ever questioning them.”

  “Well, someone has taken exception to their murderous ways and decided to exact his revenge, enough to wipe out the entire founding members of Boyd Boyd Geller & Gatz while managing to play rescue again. That makes twice now he’s saved the day for our side,” Quinn threw in.

  “It sounds to me like our Mr. X is set on ending the evil once and for all, making sure it stops with generation number two,” Reese decided. When they all turned to stare at him, his lips curved in a slight smile.

  For two months now, he’d been a reluctant passenger on their mystery train. They’d been trying to prove their revenge theory all that time. In fact, he could admit he’d been the last one to board, skeptic to the very end, convinced all of his friends were overreacting.

  But after Collin had kidnapped Kit, after he’d learned the gun found in Alana’s attic had been used in the Parker murders, he’d started to suspect his friends were onto something. Then they had discovered three bodies buried at the Enclave. After what Connor had done to Baylee and Sarah, after listening to Cade downstairs threatening Quinn not more than fifteen minutes earlier, it was time to board that train for good, maybe ride it to the next stop, see if he could prevent it from touching any more of his friends and destroying more lives in the process.

  Jake slapped him on the back. “It took you long enough.”

  When Quinn aimed that hundred-watt smile in his direction and moved a little closer, Reese stuck out his hand. “What do you say to a truce, Tyler?”

  “Sure, I suppose that stubborn nature of yours is what keeps your clients off death row. But it’s about time you used some common sense where these guys are concerned,” Quinn reasoned as she placed her hand into his. She would simply ignore the little vibe she got skin to skin, just like she intended to do with that searing tongue-tag in the elevator.

  But when she left her hand in his, Reese simply tugged on her fingers until hers were entwined with his.

  Max, however, was in no mood to hear them wax poetic about the professional killer he knew was stalking BBG&G’s law firm under the guise of meting out justice or what he considered justice. And it didn’t sit right with him, none of it.

  “The guy’s a cold-blooded killer, no better than Alana and Jessica. Talk about serial killers, he might be one for the record books. You shouldn’t dismiss that one critical point.”

  “I’m not,” Baylee said. “But I want you to understand the man has my undying gratitude and respect. What he did today to get Sarah away from Connor and back to me is nothing short of a miracle in my book.”

  Looking into Dylan’s eyes, she corrected, “Back to us.” She slid her hand neatly into his. “Some good the restraining order did. Connor waltzed in here and just snatched her out of my arms.”

  “I’ve come to realize that with the Boyds restraining orders are useless,” Quinn acknowledged. “Nothing but a worthless piece of paper that seems to piss them off even more, gives them another excuse to ramp up, to take even more drastic measures. And I’m with Baylee on this. No one’s saying he’s a hero. But he prevented Collin from killing Kit. And now, he’s prevented Baylee from losing Sarah…”

  “To a fucking monster,” Dylan finished. “I don’t care who the hell he is. If he were standing in front of me this minute, I’d throw my arms around his neck and kiss him on the mouth. He saved Sarah. That’s all that matters to me. He didn’t let Connor make it to his car with her. If he’d driven off…”

  Baylee agreed, “God only knows what Connor would have done, where he would have taken her. I don’t even want to think about it. Fucking rapist.”

  Max cocked a brow in her direction. “Rapist?”

  Baylee’s lips tightened, but it was too late. She’d carelessly tossed out the word. But it didn’t mean she had to explain a thing unless Max forced her. “Rapist,” she said quietly, jutting out her chin, daring Max to ask. “I’m thinking I’d like to pin a medal on our mysterious stranger.”

  When Max didn’t pursue the subject, Dylan picked up Baylee’s sympathetic attitude. “Right there with you on that score. Merely thanking the man isn’t nearly enough.”

  Reese weighed in with his take. “I’d say, whatever he is, we are all grateful to a man we wouldn’t recognize if we passed on the street.”

  At Reese’s comment, Kit turned to lock eyes with Jake. Picking up on the group’s mindset, she wanted them all to know, “Hey, no one’s more grateful than I am. As one who got rescued, I’d have to vote ‘yes’ with the big kiss on the mouth thing.”

  Not one cop in the room suspected that the knowing look between Jake and Kit masked a deliberate agenda. As far as Kit was concerned, she had no responsibility whatsoever to tell the police she might know exactly what their Mr. X looked like.

  He had, after all, come in to the Book & Bean. She’d had a conversation with him about a painting he believed resembled his late wife. Since he’d saved them from some guy the Boyds had hired to blow up the coffee shop, she decided to keep her mouth shut. No matter what he’d done in the name of a body count on his own, Kit felt she owed the man something for having saved her—twice.

  And when Jake gave a curt shake to his head, he seemed to be telling her he agreed with her silence. To her, the man’s description wasn’t important anyway. Coming clean now with what he looked like would help no one.

  But they all politely listened as Max St. John continued to make his feelings known. “Oh, for god’s sake, I don’t believe you people. This man is a professional killer.”

  “Don’t doubt that,” Jake agreed, never taking his eyes off Kit. “But because of him, I have Kit standing here with me now and a six-month-old baby is back with her mother. I’d say, Max, I’m officially signed on to the guy’s fan club. Hell, I might even be president.”

  “Remember, every single thing he’s done up to this point has been self-serving. Every step he’s taken, his body count goes up. Nine by my count, and those are the ones we know about,” Max grumbled.

  Fed up listening to such talk, Max turned to leave. “This investigation will move forward. I’m headed out now to review surveillance cameras from the garage. This time your mystery hero made a mistake—a big one. In fact, that shirt the baby was wrapped in is headed to the lab. Connor Boyd’s blood isn’t the only DNA we hope to find there.”

  When Jake and Reese followed him to the elevator, Max simply waved them back and said, “I’m on it already. I’ll see to it that Connor’s DNA is taken at the morgue and sent to the lab for testing before we release it to the funeral home. As soon as the coroner gets me a swab, I’ll send it off for comparison to the samples we took at your wife’s crime scene. I’ve talked to the forensics people, already given them a heads-up.”

  Jake slapped Max on the back. “That’s all I ever wanted, Max. I need to know who killed Claire. If that was Connor Boyd I can put this to rest.”

  When the elevator dinged and the doo
rs opened, Max strolled inside, pushed the button. “You will, Boston. We both will. You have my word.”

  CHAPTER 3 Book 3

  Not five miles away at the Malibu Terrace Resort, a distraught Cade Boyd sat in his room at his laptop and plotted his own course for revenge.

  While Collin sat on the leather sofa in the two-bedroom suite the brothers were sharing, drinking and doing lines of cocaine, Cade was stone cold sober, and―seething.

  He had another goddamn funeral to plan.

  The son of a bitch had gotten to Connor, taken his beloved older brother so quickly there hadn’t been time to get to him to help, to save him. And that bitch had hovered over him in the ER pretending to be a doctor, pretending to help him.

  But he knew better. She might fool those assholes at the hospital, but she couldn’t fool him. Quinn didn’t know shit about being a doctor.

  It was no comfort knowing at this very moment a contingent of police and forensics investigators were stationed at the Enclave, destroying everything, tearing up what belonged to him and his family, digging up the beautiful grounds, ruining everything his parents had worked so hard for over four decades.

  “Maybe we should leave the country, get the hell out of town, Cade. You know and I know the guy’s coming for us. We’re next. It’s just a matter of time before he finds us. How about we go down to Tahiti?”

  Cade thumped his brother on the head, a little side slap much like he’d seen Connor give him in the past. “Stop the drugs, Collin! Get a grip! Grow up! You aren’t thinking straight. I need you sober. I need you off the booze and drugs—now. Connor isn’t here to take care of everything like he always did. We have to do this for him. We aren’t running anywhere.”

  “I know, I know,” Collin agreed, as he rocked back and forth trying to convince himself there was truth in his brother’s words. “But I’m scared. He’s out there, waiting, watching. He seems to know our every move.”

  “Yeah, probably tracking us some way. I think that’s how he got to Connor. Jacob says the cops want to get a court order and confiscate our vehicles, all of them. They’ve already got Connor’s Hummer. I’m thinking it’s not such a bad deal to let them have our cars. We get new ones, ones without GPS. That way we know for sure there are no devices in them to give away our location.”

  Cade took a deep breath, eyeing the fear in Collin’s eyes before admitting, “You think I’m not scared. I am. But we can’t let this all go down without putting the fear of god into Kit and Quinn. I have it all planned. And we start with the bitch that let Connor die in the ER.”

  When he noticed the terrible physical shape Collin was in because of the drugs he’d snorted, he decided to level with him. “You gotta stop shaking so hard, bro, clean up your act. I’m depending on you for backup.” He gripped his brother’s shoulders. “Connor needs you. I need you. We’re both counting on you. It’s now or never.”

  “What about Baylee? What if the baby is our niece?”

  “I don’t give a damn about that squalling brat. That was Connor’s deal, not mine. I’ve got too much other stuff going on now to worry about some little bitch of a bastard that may or may not belong to our dead brother. And Dylan Burke keeps insisting the kid’s his. I saw the birth certificate. Yeah, the document was amended, but that means nothing these days. For all I know, Burke could’ve had a change of heart, decided to own up to his own kid. Either way, it isn’t worth my time.”

  He shook Collin’s shoulders. “Come on, bro, snap out of it!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go shower. I won’t let you down, Cade. You’ll see I can carry my own weight in this.”

  Cade’s rage had him plotting the demise of the woman who six years earlier had promised she loved him—for about six weeks. He sneered at that. He’d made her pay even back then for laughing at him. Since the day she’d had him arrested, he’d vowed to get his hands, once again, around her throat.

  No Hollywood slut would get the better of him. Trash like Quinn had to be dealt with and disposed of in the proper manner. She’d never appreciated the fact he was practically L.A. royalty. Hadn’t she known he’d had dreams of running for political office one day? His parents had assured him it was a done deal after he got a couple of more years at the firm under his belt. He had been so close to getting what he wanted, and now…

  Quinn Tyler had ruined everything. She’d even let his brother die.

  He thought back to how his life had gone downhill after the arrest for domestic violence. Even though his father had convinced Quinn to drop the charges, he’d been disappointed in him. His mother had simply slapped him across the face for his stupidity at not finishing the job and leaving Quinn alive to file charges.

  He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  He didn’t know how he could have been so wrong in thinking Quinn cared about him. But it was a miscalculation he had not made since.

  He would take care of her now, though, once and for all. He just needed to look up what he needed to know on the Internet.

  He should have finished her years ago when he’d had the chance. Recalling what it had felt like to be inside her, what it felt like to have his hands around her throat, he went hard.

  Like the other ones, he thought now.

  The ones no one knew about.

  As things wound down in the waiting room, as cops began to find better places to go than hassling a beaten-up single mother, Baylee got everyone’s attention. “Okay, Tanya is willing to sit with Dad for a while. I’m taking Sarah and going back to Dylan’s, getting something to eat, and then sleeping for about twelve hours. You’re all welcome to follow us home for food.”

  Dylan wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “But don’t. We’ll let you know when we’re in the mood for company, say, maybe in a couple of months, around August.”

  Reese smiled affably at his friend. Dylan had blood on his shirt, no doubt Connor’s blood. No one deserved a breather from all of this more than Dylan and Baylee did.

  “Understandable, but just remember, Dylan, there are two more Boyds out there who have it in for all of us.” He thought again about Cade’s threat.

  “So don’t drop your guard,” Reese reminded as he watched Quinn say goodbye to little Sarah and realized that in another two years or so, the woman would make a helluva pediatrician.

  And Jake tossed in for good measure, “Kit and I are still scheduled to testify against Collin on kidnapping charges. He’ll do his best to make sure that doesn’t happen. He may not be very bright, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. They hired someone to try and blow up the Book & Bean. That person could still be out there…waiting to make his move.”

  “I know, I know. But is it too much to ask for one damn night where Baylee isn’t scared out of her mind.” With that, Dylan winked. “She doesn’t know it yet,” he said as he shot a glance toward Baylee saying her goodbyes to Tanya. “But I am taking her to an undisclosed location where we plan to get all the sleep she wants and some much needed downtime. How about we meet up tomorrow and take a look at this whole mess with fresh eyes?”

  “Sounds good,” Reese agreed as he realized it was time for him to make his move toward the doctor. She faced three weeks of suspension. Did the others know about that yet? They didn’t act like they had a clue, mainly because with everything else going on Quinn hadn’t seen fit to come clean and disclose the seriousness of what had happened downstairs with Cade.

  Odd, he thought now. But then he’d spent more than a few conflicting moments over the last months mulling over why she seemed so unwilling to share any personal tidbits about herself to anyone, least of all to him.

  But not letting her friends in on the scene in the ER seemed—off.

  He knew one thing, though. The woman would surely go crazy with that much time on her hands. Reese knew exactly which buttons to push where Quinn was concerned. He hadn’t been studying her for the past two months to go brain dead now.

  He decided to take on the doctor, one
on one.

  When she ambled back over to where he stood, he told her simply, “You look wiped, Tyler. Why don’t we go get some dinner? Celebrate our truce.”

  “Why?”

  Skeptical to the very end, Reese decided. “Because I have an angle on how to get you reinstated. Did they mention taking you before the review board?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to answer a bunch of stupid questions. And won’t that be a delightful way for them to grill me—about nothing!” Even she recognized when she was backed into a corner and needed all the support she could muster. Wasn’t it good to show the review board she had a lawyer on her side?

  She sighed in frustration. “All right, it’s about time one of your kind did something constructive instead of wreak havoc on the public filing useless restraining orders and petitions.”

  With that, she gave him her sweetest smile and headed to the elevators.

  As he watched her walk away, Reese decided he could get used to that hundred-watt smile when she decided to send it his way, even if it had been totally insincere. He reminded himself he wasn’t completely without appeal to the opposite sex. In fact, most women found him easy to talk to, a good dancer, generous to a fault on a date, an all-around engaging guy.

  So why did he have to work his ass off to get Quinn Tyler to give him a break?

  At a restaurant in Marina Del Rey over pan-seared salmon, Reese and Quinn took their newfound accord and sat outside on the patio under a patch of stars with a night view of the moon glistening on the water. Sharing a bottle of merlot they chatted, all the while listening to gentle waves slap against the concrete pilings below them near the waterfront.

  It wasn’t the first meal they’d shared, but it might have been the first solid hour they hadn’t spent sniping at one another.

  “There’s a better chance of fighting your suspension if they think you’ve hired a lawyer.” His eyes twinkled with amusement and his grin spread. He almost loved yanking her chain as much as she did his.