by Mary Stone
Linc groaned, slapping a hand over his face. He turned on his heel and headed back toward the house. He knew exactly where the phone was.
Faith followed him into the kitchen and went straight to the sink. She had a disgusted look on her face as she washed her hands, then tore off a wad of paper towels to get the spit off her dress.
He went straight to Vader’s bed, and sure enough, there was his phone. It was caked in dried slobber and didn’t power on when he hit the button. Shit. Back in the kitchen, he tore his own wad of paper towels off and began working on the device.
As he worked, Faith looked at him expectantly. What had they been talking about? The gang?
The “old gang” she was referring to was their classmates at Duke Law. He never liked going out with them—she was the social one—so he’d lost track of them the second he dropped out and enlisted. He had taken her out to the movies in Asheville a few times with Jacob and his flavor of the week, though. She’d always liked Jacob. “Don’t know. Jacob’s still around.”
“Really?” Her face brightened. “What’s he up to?”
“Detective with the Asheville County Sheriff’s Department,” he said, opening the screen door and turning on the porch light. Now that he’d found his phone, Faith needed to go. “Been nice seeing ya. Take care.”
Get the hell out.
Hurt flashed across her face, and he took a deep breath. “Listen, Faith…”
She held up a hand. “You know what? I can tell that you’re busy. I just wanted to let you know I’m back in town. So, if you ever want to grab some coffee or…?”
No way in hell.
“Yeah. Sounds good. I’ll see you.”
She didn’t come in for another hug. She waved goodbye, and he watched her get into her Rav4 and drive away. He felt nothing toward her, aside from the anger at her bad timing. They were just different, although he’d been crazy about her once.
He’d hated everything about law school, but she’d made it tolerable, with her easy sense of humor and the way that she made every professor love her, so that those who were in her circle were favored by association. She’d loved the law and had been due to graduate at the top of their class. Wanted to go into the federal government or possibly do something with criminal law.
She’d told him he was crazy for wanting to drop out of school and enlist. He’d only realized how crazy she thought he was when he got that Dear John letter a couple weeks after making it to Syria for his first tour.
In her letter, she’d said something about their lives going in different directions. Back then, he’d been upset. More than upset. He’d spent a good two to three months moping around, wondering if he’d made a big mistake by stepping off the path he knew he’d been born to take, sending his career off on such a wild, uncertain trajectory.
She’d been right. Their lives had gone in separate directions, and he was happy with what he had.
He was happy with Kylie.
Tossing his phone into a bag of rice, he considered just jumping into his truck and heading to her apartment. Then he hesitated, and with that hesitation, a new emotion bloomed.
Anger.
Just that morning, Kylie had told him that she loved him, and he’d said the same in return. Did she really think he’d…what? Cheat on her, just hours after making such a verbal commitment?
Was that how highly she thought of him?
Linc sat down on his steps. He had a great deal to think about.
12
William Hatfield arrived at his penthouse on the Upper West Side later that evening, feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.
The doorman opened the door for him and greeted him as he always did, with a reverent, “Good evening, Mr. Hatfield.”
He nodded to him, strode through the opulent lobby, and waved at security as he pressed the button for the elevator. When he stepped inside, he willed the numbers over the door to climb much more slowly.
Christina would be there, and who knew what would be on her bitch-list this evening. He hoped he’d be able to make it into his study, his domain, and swallow down a few stiff scotches before she realized he was home.
Looking at his reflection in the mirrored doors, he adjusted his tie, thinking of what his first-born child must’ve thought about him. Certainly, she must’ve seen how successful he’d become over the years. That was obvious to anyone, especially since the company bore his name. He hadn’t aged too awfully, either.
But could she have seen the other things? The misery? The feeling of having a noose around his neck, twenty-four-seven? All of this world he’d built for himself was a sham. It’d been that way for twenty-five years.
There was a time, not very long ago, that he’d thought this kind of life—being waited on hand and foot, eating at the choicest restaurants in the city without a reservation, heading off to the islands whenever he wished, having limos deliver him wherever he liked—would be the ultimate.
He used to lie in bed with Rhonda, his hand on her stomach, feeling for the baby’s kick, and he’d tell her that one day, he’d have this. They’d have this.
He didn’t care what he had to do. He’d make it.
And he had. He’d done precisely what he intended to do.
But he hadn’t done it for them. He’d done nothing for them but provide them with misery. And now, twenty-four years later, he questioned everything he’d once valued.
The doors to the elevator slid open, and he strode into the foyer, bracing himself for Tina’s appearance. Gripping the handle of his briefcase in sweaty hands, he crossed his sprawling penthouse home, past the kitchen, into the living room with a sweeping view of Central Park, and into the hallway. Why did everything have to be so sparkling white? Not a thing was out of place in this house; it could’ve been a museum. Sometimes he wished for a little bit of mess, a little bit of imperfection.
He’d almost made it to the double doors of his study when he heard her heels clicking on those sparkling polished tiles behind him.
“Forget something?” she said sweetly, her voice echoing through their cavern of a foyer.
Shit. The sweetness made his heart begin to pound. With his wife, he’d learned the more pleasant she sounded, the more trouble he was in. And judging from the way the honey practically dripped from her tongue, he was in some serious trouble. He turned, plastering a smile on his face. “Hello, dear. Nice to see you.”
She walked toward him, her hands on her hips, which swung back and forth with a bit of sass. Since he’d seen her last, she must’ve had her hair done—she’d always worn it short and boyish, but in her younger days, it had been a cute pixie cut. As she’d aged, it became more severe and spikier. Now, she reminded him of a dominatrix. “Don’t hello me. You should have said hello to your son…at his basketball game. Remember?”
Damnation. He knew he’d forgotten something. But seeing Kylie had upended everything. He could barely remember his own name. All he kept thinking of was memories of the past, of those early days in Brooklyn. Funny, he’d thought those days were so shitty, compared to what he had now. Always scrimping, saving, having their electricity cut off every other month because they couldn’t pay the bills.
But if those days were so bad, then why did he keep thinking of them so fondly? Why would he have given anything to be back there again?
“Jesus,” he said.
Poor Tyler. Their youngest. William had set out wanting to be such a good dad, but the fact was, he’d been absent for all of his kids. Work always took precedence. Tyler had made varsity as a sophomore, which was a huge honor, but William hadn’t made it to any of his games last year. Then he’d been chosen as a captain his junior year, and William had promised to do better. So far, he’d missed every one of those games too.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to Tyler next week. Did they win?”
She sniffed. “Do you care? It’s hard to believe you care about anyone in this family but yourself.”
He scrubbed a han
d over his tired face. “Sorry, Tina. It’s just been a really tough day,” he said, turning and opening the door to his office. He went inside and poured himself that drink he so desperately needed, hoping against hope that she’d leave him alone. But she didn’t. When he turned around, she was standing in the doorway, drumming her fingers on the wall. He slumped into his chair and took the first calming sip of his scotch.
“What’s the problem?” she asked him, sugar dripping from the words in spite of her obvious irritation. “You seem like you’re dealing with an awful lot. Is it about that woman today? You seemed rattled, even then.”
He waved it away, and quickly came up with an excuse. “The financing for that place in Brooklyn. The bank’s giving us trouble again.”
She came up behind him and started to massage his shoulders. “That’s nothing the great William Hatfield can’t handle.”
It was true. He wasn’t worried about it at all. He always dealt with financing issues but managed to get them worked out. No, the tension she was feeling in his back had nothing to do with the company. He forced himself to take a small sip of his drink instead of downing it like he wanted to. “Yeah. I’ll get it sorted out.”
She kissed him on the top of his graying head. “I know you will. I’m sorry for barging in on you today when you obviously had a lot on your mind. And missing the game isn’t the end of the world. I’m sure you’ll make the next game.”
The look she gave him was a challenge. I dare you to miss the next game.
He managed a smile. “Don’t worry about it. Is Tyler awake?”
She shook her head. “It’s after eleven. He was exhausted. He went to sleep an hour ago.”
“All right. I will make it up to him,” he stressed again.
“You’d better,” she said, sweet as could be, her hips swaying as she sashayed to the door. In the doorway, she stopped. She lowered her voice an octave and purred sexily, “Come to bed soon, okay? I bought a new negligee I want to test out.”
His balls practically crawled inside his body, but he forced a grin. “Yeah. That sounds good. Just got a couple emails to send.”
When she’d left, he powered up his computer. Bringing up the search engine, he went into incognito mode, and typed Rhonda Hatfield into the search bar.
He wasn’t surprised to discover she lived in the same house he’d bought for her all those years ago, with the money he’d gotten from his first big job. He was surprised that she apparently kept his name. She was living down there and had worked as an administrative assistant for a small manufacturing company. From her Facebook profile, she seemed to be happy. Had a lot of friends, a quiet life. There were dozens of pictures of her, and in each one, she was smiling that infectious, bright smile that had caught his eye the first time he’d gone into the diner.
He leaned closer. No significant other in sight. That was interesting.
And she was still a beautiful woman. His heart whirred in his chest. If things had been different…
Shaking his head, he noticed the pictures of the girl who’d come to visit him earlier today. His firstborn child. Rhonda had tagged her in a few pictures, so he easily found her profile. Though it was set to private, some photos came up. She was indeed beautiful, with his dark hair and her mother’s pretty features, including those sparkling green eyes and that infectious smile. He paged through it, noting she had quite a few real-life friends. Her profile listed her occupation as Assistant Private Investigator at Starr Investigations.
Holy shit. His little girl was a private investigator? He smiled, wondering if they taught bad cockney accents in PI school.
The memory almost made him laugh. She’d probably just been nervous. He knew he’d been the moment he learned who the badly dressed woman in front of him was.
Nervous and excited.
He’d thought of his baby girl many times over the years but hadn’t allowed himself to search for her.
He couldn’t.
Tossing back the rest of his drink, he knew he shouldn’t even be looking at her profile now.
Even in incognito mode, he wondered if Christina would see his search history. Hell, he had little doubt that she’d installed some type of key tracking software so she could see his every move.
Searching her had been stupid.
Clicking out of the browser, he cleared his search history—just in case—before sending those emails he told her he was going to send.
Pouring himself a second drink, he sipped it slowly as he trudged down the opulent hallway and toward the master suite. He needed the fortification before facing his wife and her new negligee.
He’d never felt more like he was heading off to a dungeon than he did at that moment.
William Hatfield wasn’t quite as bright as he thought he was.
He was leaving a little trail of breadcrumbs to his old life, and all I needed to do was to follow him around. He was making this all too easy. First, having that mid-day meeting with his little whore, and acting all day like he’d gone and lost his head.
The phone buzzed while I was getting ready for bed. Nico. At this time of night?
I hurried into the bathroom to avoid prying ears and took the call. “Talk to me,” I said. “And this better be good, you disturbing me here.”
“Oh, it is,” Nico said. “You’re gonna be thanking me. He’s on the computer right now, looking them up.”
I raised an eyebrow. Nico had told me he had “ways” of finding things out, but I’d been skeptical that he could hack into William Hatfield’s computer so easily. After all, the company was a billion-dollar enterprise. Hadn’t their IT department set up a firewall to deal with such things? I was used to dealing with computer nerds. They were all talk, little action. But apparently, Nico was right, D & H Construction’s IT department needed to be canned.
“Tell me what you see.”
“Uh-huh. He just typed in Rhonda Hatfield.”
I scowled. Hatfield? Who the hell was she? And why was he searching for her? “And?”
“And she lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Now, he’s searching Kylie Hatfield. From the pictures he’s bringing up, it’s a match to the woman you sent me pictures of today. She’s the woman he saw in his office this afternoon.”
I gritted my teeth. The girl in his office was a Hatfield? “Are you sure?”
“Definitely. I followed her all the way to Newark International this afternoon, watched her walk through security. She’s gone.”
“Obviously.”
“Hatfield,” the guy breathed in my ear. “You know. From what he’s bringing up, it looks like this Kylie Hatfield is Rhonda’s daughter. They look a little alike, and they’re friends on Facebook.”
What did that all mean? And what other secrets was he keeping?
“It jives with what I learned earlier when I accessed the recording from William’s office. This girl believes that he is her father and called Rhonda Whitman Hatfield his wife.”
I tapped on the edge of the sink, staring at myself in the mirror, thinking hard. Could this be true? “Find out everything you can about them.”
“Then what?”
My reflection in the mirror blurred, then cleared. “Kill them.”
Nico didn’t even question the order. Didn’t even ask me if I was sure.
I had a bad feeling about all this. The more I thought about the girl, the more certain I was becoming.
I quickly ended the call and went back to my room. Setting my phone on the nightstand, I poured myself a drink. Actually, this wasn’t a problem. This would work just fine for my purposes. William just needed to remember who was in charge.
In this life, playing games would get you nowhere.
In this life, games were deadly.
William Hatfield would be reminded of that when his wife and daughter ended up dead.
13
It was nearly impossible for Kylie to wake up the next morning. She rolled around in bed, writhing in pain that wasn’t just phys
ical.
She’d gotten practically no sleep, staring at the ceiling. Her mattress had felt weird and lumpy, not the nice soft one that Linc had. She hadn’t even had Vader to cuddle with. As the light filtered in through the closed shades, she wanted to burrow deeper into her mattress and never come out.
When she had slept for about twenty minutes at around four o’clock in the morning, she’d had weird dreams. Linc was holding the blonde bimbo’s hand, and they were running away from her. When they turned toward her and started to make out, she realized that it wasn’t Linc at all.
It was her father, and he was with that horrible woman with the short platinum hair.
She’d woken up with a start, her night clothes damp with sweat, thinking the world was coming to an end.
Rubbing her eyes, she climbed out of bed and trudged toward the bathroom. She took a shower, dressed without looking into a mirror, then drove herself to Starr Investigations.
The second she walked in, Greg looked at her, his brow furrowed in concern. “Uh, what gives, short stuff?”
She trudged to her desk and sat down, powering up her computer. Maybe, just maybe, a juicy case would be waiting for her, demanding all her time and attention. “What do you mean?”
He laughed. “You wanted to take a vacation. You were gone one day. That’s not a vacation. That’s not even a breather. What’s the deal?”
She looked at him, her eyes drooping. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He bent forward and looked at her feet. “Wait…where’s Vader?”
“He chose a new best friend,” she grumbled.
He held his hands up. “Oh, god. That ain’t good. Trouble in paradise?”
“There is no paradise. Paradise is an illusion,” she muttered, her eyes shifting toward her screen. She was ready to do all the work. Be the best damn investigator North Carolina had ever seen. But when the computer finally finished puttering and showed her the home screen, she realized something: She didn’t have any pending cases. Not a single one to get herself lost in.