by Lisa Childs
There would have been no way to save Pop. Not from that.
The coroner had quickly adjusted the sheet and murmured, “Sorry.”
But it was too late.
That image was forever burned in his mind, a nightmare that would never end. He’d had to clear his throat before turning to the sergeant who’d stood beside him. Then he’d answered the man’s silent question. “That’s my father.”
The coroner had lifted the sheet on the second body then, and Heath had flinched. “That’s my uncle.”
“They look so much alike,” the younger officer had murmured.
Almost exactly. Even in death.
They’d died the same way, at the same time.
Or maybe Alfie had gone first, just like he’d been first to come into the world and had never let his younger twin forget it. Heath’s eyes burned with tears as he remembered the camaraderie and the love between the two men.
The men he’d idolized and tried to emulate from the day he’d been born. With his thick dark-blond hair and dark blue eyes, he looked the most like them. For a moment he imagined himself on those morgue slabs.
But why?
He wasn’t in danger. He hadn’t known that his dad and uncle were in any danger either. Everybody had always loved them—would always love them.
He blinked and focused on unlocking his door. When he pushed it open, light enveloped him. He must have left the lights on because it wasn’t dawn yet; it wasn’t even quite midnight, which would mark the end of the longest, most horrific day of his life.
He should go to the house, go to his mother and aunt. But he wasn’t even sure they were home yet. They’d been out of town—at that decorating show. He would wait a bit, give himself a little while to try to get those images out of his head, the horrific images of what had been done to the men he’d loved.
Why would someone do that?
He could sooner imagine someone wanting him dead than either of them. But both...
He swallowed hard, choking on the emotion strangling him. He’d tried to be stoic in front of those policemen, and fortunately the shock had numbed him. It was wearing off now.
The pain was starting to grip him.
He shoved the door closed behind him and leaned back against it. He was just about to slide down it to the floor when a metallic clang broke the silence of his penthouse, like something clattering onto the hardwood. He couldn’t see anything that had fallen in the living room, but the kitchen was around the corner, out of his line of sight.
Someone was in there, moving around...waiting for him, like the killer must have waited in the parking lot for his dad and his uncle to leave the building. Why the clatter? Was he looking for a weapon? A knife?
Hadn’t he brought the gun he had used to kill Heath’s heroes?
A gun.
For the first time in his life, Heath wished he had one. That he had more than his fists and his smart mouth to defend himself now. Because just as his dad and his uncle hadn’t survived the bullets fired into them, Heath knew he wouldn’t survive either.
He needed to open the door and run back into the hall, into the elevator, to try to escape...
But something stronger than fear gripped him now. Rage. If the person who’d killed his dad and uncle had come for him, Heath was going to give him a hell of fight.
Chapter 2
Soothing harp music emanated from her earbuds, drowning out all sound for Kylie but not all thought. No matter how loud she turned up the music, the reporter’s words still rang louder inside her head. Two casualties...
Shooting...
Why?
Why would someone hurt the two kindest, most brilliant men Kylie had ever known? The casualties must have been them. Who else, besides she and Heath, would have been leaving the building at this late hour? The other businesses, on the other floors, worked more regular hours than Colton Connections did.
Tears rushed to her eyes, so she squeezed them closed, holding them back. She’d come to the penthouse to be supportive of Heath, not to bring him down even further than he was. Would he even come home, though?
No. He would go to be with his family. They were all so close. A pang of envy struck her heart over that closeness, over the very size of his family. After those police officers had dragged away her mother, all she’d had was Baba. Losing her a few years ago had been devastating, but at least she had died peacefully, of old age.
Ernie and Alfie hadn’t been old. And they hadn’t died peacefully.
Why had someone shot them?
It made no sense. Crime rarely did, though. Especially the crime perpetrated against her mother, who’d been wrongly accused of being a criminal. Her only real crime had been that she’d loved too easily and so unwisely.
Poor Mama...
Poor Alfie and Ernie...
And Heath.
Kylie had been a fool to come here, expecting him to return to his penthouse. She would have been smarter staying home. But in case he had come back to his place, she hadn’t wanted him to be alone. She also hadn’t wanted to be alone.
Seeing that yellow crime-scene tape fluttering around the parking lot that she walked through at least twice a day nearly every day had unnerved her. Scared her.
A strong hand gripped her shoulder, whirling her away from the counter where she’d been cutting up vegetables, and she screamed and raised the knife in instinctive self-defense.
Heath pulled his hand away and held it and his other one up, and his lips moved as if he was speaking. Remembering the earbuds, she pulled them out, and simultaneously they said, “You scared the hell out of me!”
“I’m sorry,” she said. And not just about scaring him. She dropped the knife and wound her arms around his waist, offering him comfort, maybe seeking comfort, as well. Laying her head against his chest, she murmured, “I’m so sorry.”
He must have sensed that she needed consoling as well because his hands touched her back, gently patting it. Even through her sweater and tank top, her skin tingled from that contact. She was probably just overly sensitive right now—with everything that had happened and with all the memories it had invoked for her. But this wasn’t about her. It was about him.
She leaned back and looked up at his face—which was surprisingly stoic for him. Usually his handsome features played out every emotion he felt. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded and now he pulled away from her, as if trying to shield his pain. She knew he had to be in pain. He’d been hoping so much that the police had been wrong.
But after seeing the news, she believed it must have been the twins leaving the office late as they so often did, as she and Heath so often did. “It was Alfie and Ernie?” she asked, just to confirm.
He nodded again, and a muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again as she moved back into his arms. “So sorry that they’re gone and so very sorry that you had to identify them.”
A shudder moved through his big body and into hers, and he clasped her tightly now. “It was so...” His deep voice cracked with his grief as his body shook again.
She couldn’t imagine how it must have been, what he must have seen. “Oh, Heath, that’s why I didn’t want you to be alone,” she said. “I’m sorry that my letting myself in alarmed you, though.” He’d given her a key some years ago in case she needed something he’d left at his penthouse while he was out of town.
“I heard you moving around in here, and my first thought was that maybe the killer came for me. Maybe I was the one he really wanted to take out. Because why would anyone want to hurt Uncle Alfie and Pop?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It makes no sense.”
He cursed. “No damn sense at all. Why? Why?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I don’t know
. What did the police say?”
His broad shoulders moved in a big shrug. “Nothing really. They said a detective had been assigned the case and would talk to me when they were ready to question me.”
She tensed with alarm and drew back in his embrace. “Question you about what?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. I certainly have no idea why someone would have done this to them—of all people.”
“How’re your mom and your aunt?” she asked. “Are they holding up?”
“I—I talked to my mom on the phone,” he said. “She’s devastated. So is Aunt Farrah. And Grandma...” His voice cracked again. “I feel like a creep for not going over to Aunt Farrah’s house, but I couldn’t see them right now—not after what I just saw in the morgue.” He shuddered again. “I can’t get it out of my head.”
Tears burned in her eyes, tears for him. She’d worried about that—when he’d said where he was going, what he was doing...
Identifying the bodies.
The bodies of his own father and uncle, of the men he’d grown up idolizing. She couldn’t imagine his pain, but she wanted to help him through it. “That’s why I came over here,” she said, “I didn’t want you coming home to an empty place.”
He shook his head. “Sweet but unnecessary,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
He chuckled. “Okay, I’m not fine. I probably won’t ever be fine again.”
“You will,” she said. “It’s just going to take time.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been through something like this?”
“No.” She shuddered. “Not like this...but...” She shook her head. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you—about whatever you want to talk about.”
She gestured at the granite island, where she’d cut up all those vegetables. “And you should eat. I’m sure you probably forgot to today.” Like he usually did. Forgot to eat. To shave. To get his hair cut.
His dark golden hair was a little shaggy now and dark gold stubble clung to his strong jaw.
He looked at the food and shook his head. “I—I can’t eat right now.”
“Then how about some tea?” she asked. “Something to soothe your nerves.”
He chuckled and pointed to the knife on the counter. “After finding you in here wielding that, yeah, I could use something to soothe my nerves, but not tea.”
She pointed at the earbuds she’d dropped next to the knife. “I didn’t hear you. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” Heath said, as his hands gripped her shoulders slightly. “I appreciate that you’re worried about me, but you don’t need to take care of me.”
She smiled. “Someone has to. You rarely take care of yourself.”
“I took care of them,” he said, his voice cracking. “That was my job, making sure they had everything they needed. I should have been there.” He swallowed hard, as if choking on emotion. “I need a drink.”
He headed back into the living room and straight to his mahogany bar cart. Kylie followed him. Just a couple hours earlier, they had been about to have a toast when his doorbell had rung. How everything had changed...
She shivered and pulled her grandmother’s sweater tighter around herself. With it, she wore only the camisole and the leggings she’d been wearing when he’d called. She usually wore the camisole with boxer shorts to bed. She could have taken the time to change before driving over, but she’d wanted to make sure she got to the penthouse before him. Not that she’d offered him much in the way of comfort or support yet.
“You need food and rest,” she told him as he splashed some whiskey into a glass.
He took a sip and shuddered again. Then he cursed. “I don’t think I could get drunk enough to get those images out of my mind.”
That was why she didn’t drink very much or very often. She never wanted to use it as a crutch to make her feel better, like her mother had used the attention of men who’d only been using her.
“Let’s put other images in your mind instead,” she suggested. “Let’s talk about happy memories.”
He snorted. “What did you put in your tea earlier? You don’t sound like yourself at all.”
Heath did not know her nearly as well as he thought he did. But that was good. Kylie didn’t like people knowing her too well. She didn’t like being that vulnerable with anyone.
“You weren’t like this when I talked about my breakup with Gina,” he said. “You weren’t looking for anything positive then.”
“Because the positive was you breaking up with her,” she said. “You two weren’t right for each other.”
He uttered a weary-sounding sigh. “She’s beautiful and smart. How is that not right for me?”
“You weren’t right for her,” she said. “She wanted more than you could give her.”
He chuckled. “Some time and attention?”
“You’re busy running a business,” she said. “And she couldn’t understand that.” Gina Hogan especially hadn’t been able to understand the long hours Heath had worked with Kylie.
“She just wanted to know that I cared. She wanted a commitment from me,” Heath said.
“Do you regret not giving her one?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t really given it much thought. I’ve been too busy. And now...”
“When I said let’s talk about happy things, I didn’t mean Gina.” She hadn’t liked the clingy, possessive young woman at all. Gina had actually been jealous of her, as if there had ever been or would ever be anything between her and Heath but work and friendship.
“The patent?” he asked with a heavy sigh.
He’d been so excited about it earlier, but now he just sounded exhausted. Understandably so. What had happened must have taken such an emotional toll on him that it had physically affected him, as well.
“Come on,” she said as she closed her hand over his forearm. “Let’s go lie down.” She glanced at the black leather couch, which was narrow and hard, and dismissed it as a comfortable option. “In your bedroom...”
“Maybe Gina was right about you,” he said with a teasing grin. “Maybe you are after my body.”
So he had been aware of his girlfriend’s accusations. She glared at him but playfully. She couldn’t be mad at him now—not over anything. She felt too bad for him, for his family, for herself...
She chuckled. “You wish...”
He managed a half-hearted grin. “I wish you weren’t so worried about me. Go home, Kylie. I’ll be fine. You don’t need to babysit me. I’m a big kid.”
A kid who’d lost his dad. He’d suffered such a loss tonight and had seen something so horrible that she didn’t want to leave him all alone, like her mother had been in that jail cell.
She didn’t want to lose him like she had Mama.
* * *
Fallon Colton sliced the knife through a carrot; the pendant light dangling over the island reflected off the blade—reflecting her own image back at her.
“It’s after midnight,” her sister Farrah said. “Why are you cooking?”
Her hand trembled and she grasped the knife handle tighter. “I won’t be able to sleep. Will you?” she asked her twin who reflected her own image back at her, too.
Farrah shook her head, tumbling her short brown curls around her face. Fallon’s hair was curly, too, but long. She’d pulled it up in a clip to keep it from falling into the food, though. Like their husbands, Fallon’s husband Ernie and Farrah’s husband Alfie, she and Farrah were identical twins.
Late husbands...
A sob bubbled up the back of Fallon’s throat, but she struggled to choke it down and keep it there. If she started crying again, she wouldn’t be able to stop. That was why she needed to cook. Maybe she should have gone home to do that, but she hadn’t wanted to be alone in that bi
g house without Ernie. The sob rose up again, but she swallowed harder, refusing to give in to the threatening tears.
“I can’t eat either,” Farrah remarked as she grabbed the bowl that had been full of cake batter and plunged it into a sink full of sudsy water.
Fallon glanced at her twin who was a little heavier than she was because she usually enjoyed the food Fallon made more than Fallon did. Farrah’s green eyes were swollen and as red as Fallon’s probably were, as they would be if she kept crying. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deep, willing away another flood of tears.
“What are you two doing up yet?”
The voice startled Fallon so much that she dropped the knife, which clattered onto the counter. “Mom, you scared me,” she said.
“I think we’re all scared,” Abigail Jones remarked in her usual no-nonsense manner.
“Is that why you aren’t sleeping, Mom?” Farrah asked their mother. Abigail lived with Farrah in a mother-in-law apartment she’d moved into shortly after the stroke that had left her a bit wobbly.
She seemed even more fragile now, even older than her seventy-eight years as she stood in the arched doorway to the Tuscan-style kitchen. Her shoulders were bowed, her short silver hair a bit mussed, as if she’d tried sleeping but hadn’t been able to get comfortable.
Fallon knew better than to even try. To even step foot in the bedroom she’d shared every night with her husband.
She started shaking, and Mom joined her at the counter, wrapping her slender arm around Fallon’s waist. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said, knowing she should have been holding it together better, like her mother had when Daddy died.
Mom had been alone tonight—when the police officers had come to make the notification. She’d even been asked to identify the bodies.