Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vickie McKeehan

  Not two seconds later another explosion shredded the pieces that remained into nothing more than loose debris.

  At the sound of the explosion on the bay, Reese uncurled his frame, searching for Quinn’s position near the pylon. But she was no longer there.

  He squinted into the night, scanning the dimly lit marina for any sign of her. When he located the Emerald Isle at the other end, he made out Quinn standing on the deck, clutching something in her hand.

  He took off at a fast clip.

  With Jake and Dylan on his heels, he hurried up the ramp to the sloop, vaulting onto the starboard bow.

  “You knew about this?” Reese said as he glared over at Trevor. “You might have shared this bit of information with the rest of us.”

  “Sorry mate, when I give my word to a lady, I try to keep it.” Trevor nodded his head in the direction of Quinn. “She made me promise not to say anything.”

  Quinn locked eyes with Reese. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I didn’t want you risking your law career on something like this. I didn’t count on Cade opening fire on all of you, though. I know the plan was to have the Nutty Brothers give up and I thought they might do the right thing for once, throw down their weapons and surrender without a fight. That’s what you planned, right? But I should’ve known better. It needed ending and I’m fully prepared to accept the consequences.”

  Before Kit and Baylee could point out that they had all three been a party to pressing the detonator, Reese grabbed Quinn and pulled her into his chest. “From now on, we do everything as a team, you got that? And if there are any consequences to this then we share and share alike.”

  “I told you I was prepared to pull the trigger and end this. My career’s just getting started while yours is…”

  But he didn’t let her finish. “And I told you I’d do anything to keep you safe. I meant that.”

  “You did, Reese. You kept me safer than anyone ever has in my entire life.”

  He crushed his mouth to hers. “And my career means nothing to me if you aren’t in my life. In fact, yours is more important than mine.”

  She lifted her hand to his cheek. “That’s exactly what I thought you’d say.”

  Jake came up behind Kit, draped his arms around her shoulders, and stared hard at the device Quinn still held in her hand before turning to Trevor. “How’d you manage that?”

  “You might want to ask the ladies that question,” he answered, gripping Gloria’s hand.

  But when they all heard the first police cars screech to a halt in the parking lot, Trevor looked out to the fireball still burning in the water. “If I were you, though, I’d do that later after we explain to the cops how Cade and Collin snuck on board the Sea Warrior to steal her, carrying enough explosives to blow up the entire town. But novices that they were blew themselves to kingdom come in the process instead.”

  Reese eyed Jake and Dylan. “I believe they were trying to kidnap either Quinn or Kit or Baylee, don’t you?”

  Jake nodded. “After we prevented that from happening, we did our best to stop them from getting on the boat.”

  “And when we were fired upon, we were forced to defend ourselves,” Dylan added.

  “Damn straight we were,” Baylee said to Dylan, who in turn whispered, “I just want to know one thing, who is watching our daughter?”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Mr. Tyler agreed to stay behind for diaper duty.”

  Baylee glanced over at Reese and Quinn, who were wrapped up in each other. “I think his plan is to try and nudge those two toward grandchildren as soon as Quinn starts her clinic.”

  “He’s taking a lot for granted.”

  “I don’t think so. From what he tells me, Tyler’s agreed to foot the bill for the clinic.”

  Several hours later after dealing with the contingent of police officers and detectives and crime scene investigators, they gathered back at Crandall House.

  In the kitchen around the table, eating sub sandwiches, Reese explained what their plan had covered. “Part of the idea was to have Dylan provide the cops with altered surveillance video showing the Boyd brothers boarding the Sea Warrior.”

  “The Nutty Brothers didn’t let us down there. If I do say so myself, I think it’s some of my best work,” Dylan bragged. “I had to set the camera up to focus on the Sea Warrior. That was two days ago. Now I hand over a doctored tape that clearly shows their attempt to escape by jumping on the boat. We hit the bonus round when Collin took out his illegal assault weapon, which we knew he had from the two earlier drive-by shootings, and opened fire in the direction of shore, where we were conveniently out of camera range.”

  “As long as it looks like they stole the boat and took off under their own power, and the boat explodes, which it did, that’s all we’re concerned with,” Trevor pointed out. “The cops already suspect they’re responsible for blowing up Quinn’s building. This way, it simply looks like they got sloppy with explosives.”

  Reese turned to Quinn. “When did you put the bomb on board?”

  “Once I found out what you guys were planning, to lure them onto the boat, hoping they’d give up, I asked Trevor what exactly to do if it didn’t go down like we thought. Kit, Baylee, and I talked it over and decided if you guys got them on the boat, we couldn’t just stand by and allow them to escape. They’d come back. They’d always come back.”

  Kit picked up the story. “So we snuck out of the house last night, planted the C4. With a walkie-talkie Trevor led us through the steps as to exactly what we needed to do.”

  Baylee finished up. “We put the C4 next to the fuel tanks. Set up a remote detonator. While you guys kept them busy under fire, we slipped onboard Trevor’s boat, hoping one of us could get lucky and take at least one of them down, maybe lower the odds.”

  “It might’ve worked if we’d been better shots, but I’m not sure any of us ever hit either one of them.”

  Reese rubbed the side of his chin and looked at Trevor. “I guess that’s what you were trying to tell us. We aren’t expert marksmen.”

  “Your hearts were in the right place for all the right reasons, but your aim was off. You did more damage than I thought you’d do.”

  Kit turned to Jake, put her arms around him. “Sorry about your beautiful boat.”

  “Hey, if it got rid of scum, it was for a good cause.”

  From there, Reese went on to spell out the other facets of the plan. “What makes the story pop even better is the fact that Jake sent a ton of files to the DEA showing BBG&G laundered money for a Mexican drug cartel over a period of several years beginning as far back as the ’80s.”

  “Icing on the cake,” Jake concluded.

  “In turn, the DEA will assure the cops the info came from an agent deep undercover, and that during his stint undercover he learned the drug cartel put out a hit on the firm’s entire top tier because, let’s face it, old Jessica and Sumner, Frank and Eva, too, for that matter, were known far and wide for their greed.”

  “So when the top tier burned the drug cartel, bang-bang, unknown hit man takes them all out,” Jake finished.

  Trevor smiled. “I like it.”

  Dylan added, “And I tipped off the IRS to the fact that the firm filed false tax returns. Actually, it was more like pretty Donna Fontaine did. She’ll also get credit and the reward that goes with it for blowing the whistle on corporate tax cheaters. I discovered she could use the money, single mom with two kids who works her ass off sixty hours a week for that damn place. She deserves the reward money.”

  “You’ve got a soft heart, Dylan Burke,” Baylee said.

  Jake went on to describe the rest. “Then we completed the hat trick by sending files to the FBI and the SEC to let them know all about the insider trading the firm managed to do over the last two decades. I don’t think we missed an agency or a detail.”

  But Dylan’s brow creased with interest. “Well, there is something I’ve been curious about, though.” He turned to Trevor. �
�How did you do it? How did you leave Jessica’s car in the middle of Cross Creek Road and Eva Geller Gatz’s car in the middle of a shopping center? How did you leave the scene?”

  Trevor shook his head. “Come on, guys, a professional never reveals his tricks of the trade.” He glanced over at Gloria, picked up her hand, kissed the palm. “Besides, I think those days are behind me. I’ve decided it’s time to retire.”

  Kit blinked in surprise. “Wait, the two of you?” Her brow furrowed. “That’s why you’ve been spending so much time in his room.”

  “You aren’t upset, are you, honey?” Gloria asked, still gripping Trevor’s good hand.

  “Of course not, but…for God’s sake…uh, my own mother is having…having…”

  Quinn laughed at her attempt to find the right word and finished for her. “Is having a mutually satisfying consensual adult relationship.”

  Kit huffed out a breath. “Right. It’s just that…”

  Feeling sorry for her, Ben walked up and put a hand on her shoulder. “She looks happy to me. I think I approve.”

  Kit sent a sideways glance his way. “She does, doesn’t she? If Ben approves, then I guess I do, too.”

  Dylan grumbled at the change of subject but stared at Trevor as if he were still trying to figure something out. “Okay, just tell us the significance of those gold cowboys then.”

  “Now that I can do,” Trevor said, picking up his empty glass with his good hand and holding it out. “But first you break out the good Irish whiskey. It’s for medicinal purposes. My shoulder’s killing me and I’m tired of relying on anymore of the doc’s drugs.”

  Dylan rose from the table, went to the cabinet, brought out a vintage, dated bottle of Knappogue Castle.

  Trevor’s eyes widened. “Now that’s a drink, mate.” He handed Dylan his glass.

  “I’ll pour all night, but I’m still trying to figure out how you left the scene. You had to have been inside the cars of both women. Before that, you must’ve left your vehicle near Cross Creek, doubled back some way using either mass transit or took a cab, blending into the crowd near the scene of where the two women had their cars parked.”

  Trevor grunted as he took his first swig of the whiskey. “This one thinks he’s a criminalist.”

  “I nailed it, didn’t I?” Dylan prompted, pumping his fist in the air. “I knew it!”

  Trevor snorted and said, “You want to hear the story about the gold cowboys or not?”

  “By all means.”

  “They belonged to Pete Parker, a minted set of twenty-four solid gold miniatures of himself sitting on his favorite horse that the studio gave him as a parting gift when he retired from acting. The set, one for each year Pete spent at the studio, was the only thing his son, Noah, had left that belonged to his father. It seems the old man gave him the set still in the box before he left for basic training. Noah locked it away in a safety deposit box. Good thing, too, since Jessica and Alana got every single thing the Parkers owned and then either sold it at auction or kept whatever they wanted for themselves.”

  Kit shook her head. “Alana keep anything around that came from a western-style ranch? No way. She and Jessica would have disposed of everything like garbage.”

  Trevor nodded. “I’m sure that’s true. Did you know that after they sold the ranch off to a developer, Jessica had the house bulldozed down to the ground and sold off the livestock to a slaughterhouse? Noah found out the information buried in public records.”

  John Griffin shook his head. “I met Pete Parker a couple of times, nice guy. I remember he and his wife had a little boy, must be the Noah you mentioned. Even after old Pete stopped acting, he used to come around the back lot, bring the boy with him. Now that I think about it, the boy was a good rider, loved horses and seemed to worship his dad.

  “You know I’ve had a couple of days to digest all of this. There were a few times I remember Alana and Jessica talked openly about how they’d like to have the Parker ranch and the land. I knew those two women were evil personified but I had no idea they’d actually go out there and murder that nice old couple.”

  “Yeah, well, they did,” Trevor said matter-of-factly. “And I’m fairly certain the entire law firm was in on it from day one. But because Alana is the one who bought the gun, Noah was fairly certain she was there that night and in on the planning.”

  “Oh, she was more than there that night. She’s the one who pulled the trigger,” Kit said.

  It was Quinn who went on to explain. “Our Kit here had a—dream, for lack of a better word, about that particular night.”

  He took in the look on Kit’s face. “Really? Gloria said you were a bit psychic. I didn’t believe it, though.” He couldn’t wrap his mind around that sort of thing. “Anyway, after Noah found out all the partners had shared the millions from the trust and the sale of the land…he was convinced they’d murdered his parents.”

  Jake nodded. “I can indeed confirm the money trail. It must have been what he discovered in county tax records because once Dylan got us inside the network we found evidence in databases where they all took a share from the sale of the Sundown Ranch. With the money, the partners purchased more land adjacent to what they had already started building on in Malibu, some additional twenty acres at a cost of about five-point-seven million. It later became known as The Enclave. From there, they added another series of homes until the compound itself consisted of ten in all, along with the guest cottages.”

  Nick Tyler put his arms around his daughter’s shoulders. “Years later after I became somewhat well known, I remember being invited to that place for a party they called the Boyd Bash. My manager gave me a hard time because I turned down the invite. Think about it, celebrities stayed there from all over the world that weekend, right there on the grounds, sleeping near the bones of those that were sacrificed on their personal altar of greed. Your mother one of those entombed there, Quinn.”

  “Unfortunately I can top that. Kit, Baylee, and I were dragged there on numerous occasions for birthday or graduation parties.”

  Kit raised her hand. “My fault,” she admitted. “I did the dragging because I didn’t want to end up there by myself with those people. Alana allowed it because I refused to go otherwise. And sometimes Baylee’s father didn’t even know we’d gone there because we lied and told him we were going somewhere else.”

  “How could we have possibly known what was there on the grounds,” Baylee pointed out. “We were naïve kids, who might have nicknamed the brothers, The Unholy Three, but had no idea how depraved they would eventually turn out to be. And we stopped attending events there when we were sixteen. All the while, the remains of my mother and that of Quinn’s were a short walk away, down by the pool, a pool I might add we all personally swam in at some point. Makes you wonder if the authorities turned up all the bodies.”

  “That’s a creepy thought,” Dylan said. “Maybe after the cops get done doing their thing, we could hire a private company using ground penetrating sonar, more cadaver dogs, go in and do another sweep, maybe take a look at any other property they own within let’s say a fifty mile radius.”

  “It’ll take some time, but it would probably make us all feel better,” Jake reasoned.

  “Good idea,” Reese stated. “Hard to believe Alana and Jessica stopped killing at, what’s the last count? Six, or is it seven? They got away with all of these murders for a very long time. That has to increase the chance that there are more bodies out there they might not have pinpointed yet.”

  “And don’t forget Cade’s missing hookers. With Cade gone, you do realize we’ll probably never know for certain what happened to all those women, don’t you?” Quinn threw in.

  “Not unless someone stumbles across the bodies, we won’t. We don’t even know for a fact they’re dead.”

  “They’re dead,” Kit stressed, fighting that feeling she always got now that she could “see” things that had happened in the past. It didn’t happen with everything. After
all, she hadn’t expected her father to show up. That had come out of the blue. But she had staunchly held on to the belief over the years that he’d never died. Scanning all those eyes directed at her she quickly added, “Don’t ask.”

  While Jake kept his arms around Kit, Gloria stood up, went to her daughter. “You and I both know those girls are in the woods, buried somewhere on property Cade owns.”

  Kit simply nodded.

  Trevor cocked his head, stared at both women. “You’re kidding? You said Kit was the psychic one, you didn’t say a thing about you.”

  But Ben suddenly hugged Gloria and revealed, “Make it three. I’ve always had an intuitive side to me, saw things I didn’t understand at the time. All my life it felt like a part of me was missing. Now, I’m thinking that ability might run in the family—through my mother.” He leaned in and kissed Gloria’s cheek.

  “Some psychic I turned out to be, though. I didn’t know about my own beautiful boy here.” Gloria dabbed at a few tears that wanted to spill over and run down her cheeks. She laid her head on Ben’s shoulders. “I hope you stay on for a while and let me get to know you better before heading back home to Ireland. This little bit of time we’ve had, isn’t nearly enough for me.”

  Gloria wrestled with something else. “It’s sad that Jake won’t get a resolution to Claire’s murder. It will remain open on the books, unsolved, without knowing it was Cade.”

  Reese frowned. “Even though he’s dead, we could still try to find something with his DNA on it. Submit it for a comparison with what St. John has.”

  “That’s an idea,” Jake said. “I’d like to go that route. I want it solved to Max’s satisfaction and off the books for good.”

  Trevor shook his head, and stared at Gloria. “You really are psychic?”

  “Intuitive might be a better word for it. Kit’s ability is much stronger than mine ever was. It was Kit who had the vivid dream about the Parkers, the dream Quinn mentioned.” She tilted her head to study him. “That dream about the Parkers led us to know for certain Alana and Jessica were involved.”