by Lucy Leroux
Ethan sighed. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Not enough blood on you. Which means twin two did it. Now, he’s got plenty of blood on him, but that’s mostly because I shot him. He was coming at you with a knife.”
“Oh.” Tahlia gripped his hand. She looked as confused as he felt. “What about my uncle Lucas? I was kind of out of it when I woke up here, but he was in the room. He didn’t stay, though. After that, I lost track of…well, everything.”
“That would have been the incense. I got a blast of it, too, when the door opened. It nearly knocked me on my ass. I needed to open the window just to see straight. I can’t believe those two psycho cousins of yours could even walk in there, but they did have some weird cowl-mask thing over their mouths. Still…that shit was fucked up.”
He reached over to pat Tahlia on the shoulder. “I don’t think you have to worry about those a-holes anymore.”
“Except for Uncle Lucas,” she pointed out.
“We’ll find him,” Ethan assured her. “I’ve got local agents scouring the place. And Jason and Liam are ten minutes out.”
An agent wearing one of those blue windbreakers with the yellow letters hailed him from the door of the mansion. They met halfway up the drive and had a hurried convo.
Ethan jogged back to them. “Tahlia, do you have the code for the panic room?”
She stared at him blankly. “There’s a panic room? Where is it?”
“It’s behind the library, in the room next to your father’s office. I think your uncle is hiding there. We’ve searched everywhere else, and the garage is full. Every car registered to this address is there.”
Trick squeezed Tahlia, pressing her closer to him. Once they were done here, he was going to burn this place to the ground.
“I’m sure the code is written down somewhere. Or we can guess it,” he said, rubbing Tahlia’s back. “She’s pretty good with numbers.”
Ethan smiled. “We can try that. Just stay out of creep central, aka your father’s office.”
They followed him inside, giving the office a wide berth.
The library was crowded. One shelf was on hinges. It was pulled away from the wall, exposing a thick steel door with a dated electronic keypad.
“The shelf was open a crack,” Ethan said. “That’s the only reason we found it so soon.”
A technician was standing in front of the keypad while a few agents poked around the library, searching for papers with the code.
Eventually, they asked Tahlia for help.
“Don’t worry if you can’t guess it,” Ethan told her before taking out his service piece. “But if you can and he’s in there, we’re ready.”
Tahlia glanced at him. “I can’t believe this has been here the whole time.”
“At least ten years,” Ethan confirmed.
“So my father put it in. Maybe it’s his birthday.” She leaned over the technician and punched in a series of numbers. It buzzed negatively. She tried a few more combinations, none of which worked either.
“Maybe it’s your birthday,” Trick suggested.
Tahlia rolled her eyes, her lips turned down, but she put in the numbers anyway. A green LED lit, and the door swung open with a click.
Trick pulled Tahlia behind him. Another agent pulled out their weapon. He and Ethan nodded at each other, before they yanked the door wide, their guns drawn.
“What the fuck is this?” Ethan snapped, putting away his gun. He and the backup agent stepped inside, lowering their weapons.
Once they moved, Trick saw Lucas—or what was left of him.
A florid middle-aged man sat in an office chair behind a small mahogany desk, head still attached to his body. But he was dead, the cause the large bullet hole in the middle of this forehead.
The corpse was holding a pen as if he were writing a letter. There was a piece of paper in front of him.
Behind him, Tahlia gasped. He turned in time to see her hands fly to her mouth.
“Uncle Lucas!”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t look baby.”
“Who shot him?” she asked, throwing her hands up to cover her face.
Ethan walked out of the panic room, holding the paper from the desk. “I think this may explain that. Who’s Killian?”
“What?” Tahlia raised her head and snatched the sheet from his hands. Trick read over her shoulder.
* * *
Tahlia,
Forgive me for taking my leave before the authorities arrived. After you protested your innocence so succinctly, I decided to study your father’s death in greater detail. I soon learned Lucas hired me under false pretenses, so I decided to take care of him for you. Consider it an early wedding present. Also, he refused to pay me.
Kindest Regards,
Killian
Trick held Tahlia’s hand as the authorities wrapped up. All the bodies—and the pieces of bodies—had been carted away by the authorities.
Ethan and the other agents took his statement twice. They’d wanted to talk to Tahlia alone to take hers, but he put his foot down. He refused to let her out his sight…at least until she excused herself to go to the bathroom.
Liam was in deep discussion with their family’s lawyers despite the fact Ethan assured them no charges would be filed against them. But Liam wasn’t taking any chances. He’d seen the headless corpse of Tahlia’s cousin and called the cavalry in.
Meanwhile, Trick was waiting in the hall with his hands in his pockets He wanted nothing more than to leave this place, but Jason had a point. They needed to dot their I’s and cross their T’s so they would never have to come back here again.
The door to the office was open a crack. Unable to resist, he walked over to it, checking for stray agents before slipping inside.
It was safe to breathe in there now. Ethan had opened the windows and doused the incense burners right after he’d shot Cain.
The agents had been busy. Little yellow flags surrounded the partially demolished pentagram and the various pools of blood. The biggest of those was right next to the break in the line Tahlia made when she’d crawled toward him.
A little dizzy, Trick covered his eyes and spun around. He opened his eyes to see himself. There was a large antique mirror hanging next to the door.
Trick stared at his own reflection. There were a million thoughts running through his head, but he couldn’t grab hold of one long enough to examine it. It was as if the part of his mind capable of reason and logic was wrapped in a thick layer of spun wool.
Movement in the mirror caught his eye. He swiveled, but no one was there.
Trick’s reflection grinned at him. Startled, he blinked and rubbed his eyes.
His stomach twisted, and a cold chill ran down his spine.
“This is crazy,” he muttered.
His reflection didn’t follow suit. It just kept grinning.
Trick pointed a shaky finger at the mirror. “You can’t have her,” he hissed. “She’s mine.”
The demon in the mirror smiled at him. It did a little gesture with its hand as if to say we’ll see.
“Patrick?”
Trick jumped about a foot. In the mirror, his reflection did, too.
Tahlia was peeking around the door, her eyes studiously avoiding the bloodstains in front of her. “Ethan says we can leave now.”
He almost ran toward her. Her eyes widened as he hugged her to him, squeezing far too hard. He pulled her away from the door, dragging her away from that foul room as fast as her feet could carry her.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, throwing open the front door.
His heart didn’t stop racing until they were all the way down the drive on their way to the airport.
Chapter 32
Tahlia leaned against the back of the sofa, wrapping her arms around Patrick’s neck from behind.
They were in his office at the Caislean, sharing a lunch with Ethan as the latter went over the bureau’s official findings on what happened at her f
amily’s estate in Florida.
“Of course you were hallucinating,” Ethan said. “Do you know how much opium smoke you inhaled?”
He waved the folder at them before dropping it to finish plowing through the Caislean’s signature tri-tip sandwich.
Patrick’s sandwich sat untouched in front of him.
She rubbed his shoulders. “Don’t make me feed you by hand,” she teased before coming around to sit next to him. “You’ve lost too much weight since we got back from Florida.”
He sighed and snaked a hand around her waist. “I’m not hungry. Why don’t you have some? You finished yours so quickly.”
Tahlia blushed. It was true. She’d been starving lately. And sometimes, she still got dizzy. It happened often enough she’d asked the hotel’s concierge doctor for a checkup. Given the number of times she’d been drugged with unknown substances, he’d been concerned enough to conduct a battery of tests. She was meeting him soon to get the results.
Tahlia refused to be afraid. Whatever was going on with her physically was a blip compared to what she’d been through. Her uncle and cousins were gone. She was finally free, and nothing was going to stop her from getting her happily ever after.
“Trick, you have to get over this thing. You were high,” Ethan said in between bites.
Always a big eater, he was starting to eye Patrick’s untouched meal. Tahlia nabbed it before he could claim it.
“I know what I saw.”
“I’m not saying you didn’t see it. I did shrooms once. I saw lots of weird shit, too. But none of it was real.”
Tahlia sighed and kept eating. This was an old argument with Ethan. He kept bringing up the hallucination. Her soon-to-be husband didn’t like to talk about it. It took a few weeks for him to even tell her about it. In fact, she’d been forced to threaten breaking off the engagement before he finally told her about his experience.
Ethan nudged the report across the coffee table. “This is your copy of the bureau’s final report. They’re pretty interested in this Killian character. They were able to match the bullet in your uncle to two other high-profile deaths, and he’s suspected in dozens more.”
She shifted in her seat uncomfortably and put the sandwich down. Wiping her hands, she leaned closer to Patrick.
“I’m not surprised. He seemed so calm and controlled the whole time. The only thing that got his attention was when I told him how my dad really died. I guess it was shocking enough for a facilitator, or whatever he wanted to call himself, to sit up and take notice.”
“Facilitator, my ass. He’s a contract killer who does a little transporting on the side for the right price.” Patrick rubbed her back before putting a possessive hand around her waist. “We’re lucky he left you alone after double-crossing your uncle—although I hate the idea of someone like this even knowing your name, let alone doing you a favor.”
Ethan tsked and shook his head. “That’s not it. If Lucas thought he could get away with not paying someone like that, he was crazier than I thought. If this guy is who we think he is, then he’s been responsible for regime-changing assassinations. I honestly don’t know why he would do something like this. It must have been small potatoes compared to his usual jobs.”
Tahlia opened the report to the sketch they’d made of the man who called himself Killian. It wasn’t a perfect likeness, but she supposed it was close enough.
“What if he comes after me because I can recognize him? I bet the only reason he let me see his face was because he thought I was going to die.”
Patrick frowned, his face pale, but Ethan just shrugged. “If he was going to kill you, he would have done it before he left the estate. My guess is he wore some prosthetics to change his appearance—nothing major, just enough to make it hard to identify him later. Kind of like we did for Trick that one time.”
“When was that?” Tahlia twisted to look at Patrick. He’d never mentioned wearing prosthetic makeup.
“It’s a long story,” he told her. He turned to Ethan. “Are you sure about this? It says here Killian decapitated the cousin, too.”
“Well, it wasn’t either of you,” Ethan grumbled. “For one, the blood splatter on your clothes didn’t match. And you’d probably faint if you got one of those tailored shirts that dirty.”
Patrick glared at the agent. “Fuck you.”
“Whenever I’m at loose ends, I’ll think of you first,” Ethan promised before gesturing at Tahlia. “But this one might object…unless, of course, you guys decide to spice things up with a threes—”
Ethan was hit simultaneously. Patrick’s pillow hit him on the left side of his head and hers on the right. Ethan shut his mouth after that, but the wicked grin he threw her might have done some damage if she wasn’t madly in love with someone else.
Patrick picked at the salad garnish on his plate. “I still don’t think this Killian character killed the cousin. He would have used a gun like he did on the uncle.”
Personally, Tahlia agreed, but so many things about that day were a mess in her mind. She couldn’t be sure what really happened. She might never know.
Ethan sniffed. “If I wasn’t him, then it was the other cousin—the one I shot. Because there was no trace of anyone else in that room.”
Patrick opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but he pressed his lips shut. “Yeah, I know. Anyone else would have been passed out on the floor. You needed a gas mask in that room.”
“My point exactly. You had a drug-fueled delusion. Happens to the best of us. As for the freak cousins, maybe they were used to that stuff—up to a point. Some people build up a tolerance, but it’s possible they overestimated in their rush to conduct their ritual.”
That sounded plausible to Tahlia. Killian certainly hadn’t killed her father, and she didn’t think there were two killers running around cutting people’s heads off in this affair.
Patrick looked unconvinced, but he gave her a bracing smile. She checked her watch.
Shoot. It was almost time for her appointment with the doctor.
“What about the rest of the relatives?” she asked. “Have any of them come forward to accuse me of somehow orchestrating these deaths, too?”
“Nope. No one has made a peep about that. I was, however, contacted by that asshole law firm in Manhattan. Unfortunately, your uncle Lucas inherited your father’s estate, at least according to them. And you are specifically excluded from Lucas’ will. I’m afraid you don’t a share of the family fortune.”
He cleared his throat and straightened as if bracing himself. “Also, when the agents gave them the opportunity, none of them wanted to send a message to you.”
There was a tiny tremor in her lip. “So it’s official. I don’t have a family.”
She held up her hands. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want that lot either. And I definitely don’t want any of that money. They can keep the house, too, and everything in it. It can go to whatever relative wants it. As long as they don’t ever contact me again, they are welcome to it.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ethan asked. “It’s a buttload of money. You could always fight the will in court. Any jury with a half a brain cell to share between them would side with you.”
Tahlia shook her head vehemently. “Not a penny.”
“She doesn’t need their money.” Patrick was just as adamant. “And you do have family. You have me.”
Ethan shrugged as Tahlia sighed and cuddled closer to her fiancé. “If you insist. Seems a pity. It would really stick it to them if you sued for the cash. But if Trick wants to do the what’s-mine-is yours-thing after you get married, more power to you. It’s not like he can’t afford it.”
Tahlia’s smile was smug. “Patrick knows I don’t need his money. And if I do someday, I’ll win it off him fair and square.”
Both men laughed, and she stood with a decent approximation of regret. “I have to run. I’m meeting the girls for coffee,” she lied.
Tahlia hadn’t told Pat
rick about her doctor’s appointment. She didn’t want to needlessly worry him.
“Oh…I could use a cup before I drive back.” Ethan jumped up.
Damn it. She should have said something else. Ethan was always ready for an excuse to see Peyton. “Sorry, it’s going to be the final reveal of my wedding dress. Girls only.”
Ethan wasn’t deterred. “Isn’t it only bad luck if it’s the groom? I promise I won’t tell anyone what it looks like.”
Trick stood and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Let the ladies do their thing. How can they talk about us if we’re there?” He walked over to the bar. “Come on. I’ll make you a coffee from the pod machine here.”
Ethan followed him and she snuck out of the room, hurrying down to the hotel’s medical office.
Tahlia stared at Eric Tam, the head of the concierge medical team that worked for the hotel.
“I’m what?”
“Pregnant.” He glanced at his chart. “And quite a bit farther along than I would have guessed looking at you. But there is some firmness in your stomach now. I’m guessing you’re not going to show until you pop.”
Tahlia’s hand flew to her middle. It was true. Her stomach was harder than she remembered.
“But I haven’t been sick.” She hadn’t experienced any nausea…just a little dizziness.
Oh, crap.
“Have your breasts been more sensitive than normal?”
Her eyes flew up to meet Dr. Tam’s. “Maybe a little.” Her blush was a fiery red.
“What about the baby?” she asked, her stomach fluttering. “Is it okay? Will the drugs I was given affect it?”
“My educated guess would be no, but technically there is a risk. I’m more concerned with the opium smoke you were exposed to, although honestly, Trick had more in his system. Since you were on the ground most of the time, you escaped getting the bulk of the effect. Trick breathed in more because he was standing and fighting, exerting himself.”
He leaned forward. “I can’t say with certainty there will be no adverse effects to the baby, but I have seen infants born under far more difficult circumstances. Children of drug addicts or women undergoing treatment for cancer or on anti-psychotic medication for example. Some of those children did have problems in the beginning, but most of them went on to have happy and productive lives with a little TLC.”