Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2)

by Halliday, Suzanne

  Toeing off her Uggs, she did an exaggerated jig when her feet touched the ice-cold floor.

  Hurrying to the wall thermostat so she could get some damn heat pumping, she hesitated a second when seeing the lever was pushed to OFF. Really? Had she done that before she skipped town? Seemed a bit odd seeing how it was the end of December and snow was on the ground. Well, after all, she had been distracted before she left. Shrugging, Rhi pushed the dial to a reasonable temperature, kept her coat buttoned up, and went in search of some socks.

  Half an hour and some sweet heat relief later, she was on the sofa with her hands wrapped around a ginormous coffee cup. Ignoring the stack of crap still cluttered by the door was easy enough. She’d get to it when she got to it.

  Swinging her head side-to-side and back-to-front, Rhi closed her eyes and chased the tension from her upper body. If not for the fact that she had to go to work tomorrow, she would have seriously contemplated taking a nap.

  After an extra-long week of family togetherness, all the hoopla surrounding Brynn’s wedding, and spending Christmas day at home with her folks, she was well and truly knackered.

  Bet Mr. Three-Piece would love that word. . . . knackered.

  Aw, shit. Delete—delete—delete. All thoughts of her globe-hopping boss were officially off-limits. She didn’t have time for such nonsense with so much on her plate. Just like her bags, she’d deal with him when she dealt with him. Period. And since he was gallivanting around merry old England until who knew when, it didn’t seem like she’d be dealing anytime soon.

  Reaching for the TV remote, Rhi clicked on a news channel for background noise. She’d watched A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation so many times in the last week that her brain eventually melted.

  Of course, she and her sisters had also crowded around the TV to sniffle and laugh over the original Father of the Bride movie starring Spencer Tracy and a glowing Elizabeth Taylor. Seemed apropos for the occasion.

  Thinking of glowing led her untethered thoughts to her big sister and with it a deep sigh. Brynn had truly been a most beautiful bride. And the glow? Well, that had been equal parts love-struck newlywed and baby-on-board. Seeing her big sister’s exuberant joy had been well worth the price of admission.

  So had reuniting with Charlize, who, as promised, had flown in from halfway across the world for the weeklong family celebration. When Rhi had arrived at the Wilde House, practically the first thing that happened once she was through the door was Charlie launching into her arms for a sisterly embrace that quickly dissolved into happy tears.

  The sisters had but one uninterrupted evening together before the hoopla exploded and they’d made good use of it. If she looked at her phone, she’d find a picture Jax had surreptitiously snapped of the three of them—Brynn, Rhiann, and Charlize—as they cuddled on a bed with Brynn sandwiched between her and Charlie as they rested their hands on the radiant bride’s tiny baby bump.

  But, all that was behind her now. She didn’t have the luxury of downtime following the whirlwind week and knew that shifting gears back to work mode was essential with all she had to do in the next few days.

  Thankfully, while she’d been gone, no earth-shattering crisis had taken place where the New Year’s Eve shoot was concerned. That one small mercy would make picking up the threads and jumping right back into things a lot easier.

  Speaking of picking up threads, she thought, I have to dig out that antique hourglass Nana gave me years ago from the back of the closet. Rhi figured the big, ornate brass object would make a fantastic prop for the studio portion of the shoot so she’d promised it to the artistic director who all but salivated at the offer.

  Her closet, like the closet of every girl living in cramped quarters in the big city, was a world unto itself. Going through it was a little like journeying to Narnia because it was so full of amazing and sometimes forgotten shit. Like the still-new roller skates from her five-second fascination with roller derby that she pushed aside as she separated the mass of clothes hanging in the too small space.

  Behind the clothes, the closet sloped downward to a deep shelf where all manner of boxes and bins were stacked. Peering into the space, she searched for the box with the hourglass and pulled up short when she noticed the sleeve from a blouse caught under the lid of a hatbox.

  How in the hell did that happen? Contemplating the large hatbox, something she’d finagled out of Nana years ago because who else but an aging theater actress would even have a fucking hatbox, she paused.

  The only way for that sleeve to be under the lid was for someone to have opened the box. Thing was, Rhi knew with one hundred percent certainty that she hadn’t opened that box recently and probably not for years.

  Knowing what was inside made surprise mixed with foreboding tingle along her nerves. It was where she kept the memories and mementos of her youth. Random stuff like her Girl Scout sash covered with badges and the mortarboard cap and tassel she wore for graduation.

  With hands starting to tremble, she removed the snagged sleeve and pulled the heavy hatbox off the shelf. Setting it on her bed, she heard rather than felt the deep inhale she took as fingers going numb with the heebie-jeebies lifted the box’s lid.

  Rhi knew she wasn’t nearly as organized or OCD-ish as Brynn could sometimes be, but that didn’t mean she was careless or a slob. Expecting to find the contents of the box in some sort of reasonable order, she was shocked to find everything thrown together in a jumbled mess.

  Unease slithered up her spine and took residence in her neck. Without any sort of outward reaction, she calmly walked to the door of her apartment, located her purse, reached inside and deftly removed a small can of pepper spray she kept close by—just in case—and concealed it in the palm of her hand.

  The reflex to protect herself was probably the result of watching too many episodes of Criminal Minds. It always made her crazy when a character on the show would walk right into a problem without some protective forethought. She might be just a girl, but she knew how to take care of herself. Hopefully.

  Her eyes moved methodically around the small living room noting the placement of every single object, looking for anything that might be out of place. She noted the locks were in place on all the windows and even glanced into a small trash can looking for clues, anything.

  Satisfied that the room was as it should be, she moved cautiously into the kitchen. The window in there was also locked, but the narrow, awkwardly placed door that led to the fire escape wasn’t dead-bolted. Only the doorknob lock was pressed, something that very much set off alarms in her head. Had she been that careless? She didn’t think so, but the adrenaline rush of fear and caution sweeping through Rhi made it hard to remember.

  Quietly turning the deadbolt, she studied everything—the spice rack, the bowl overflowing with vitamin containers that sat on the small counter, her stacks of vintage cookbooks. It all looked fine. Or did it?

  Looking closer at the books, which Rhi was absolutely certain she had not touched or wiped off in ages, she noticed the absence of dust on the top ones and felt the distinct clutching of her stomach as though she might be sick.

  Saving the bedroom for last, she moved into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. By now, her hands were visibly shaking and she had to calm herself before she accidentally released the pepper spray.

  Peering behind the mirrored medicine cabinet door, she did a quick inventory of what she knew would be on the shelves. Satisfied that everything was in place, she started to close the door but paused at the last second and looked back at the two prescription bottles on the middle shelf.

  A creature of habit, Rhi was something of a stickler for always placing her prescriptions with the label and doctor’s instructions facing out. She’d picked up that odd habit back in the day, after her college roommate Shelby had accidentally dosed herself with one of Rhi’s prescription antihistamines. Thinking she was taking her ADD meds, she’d freaked at her mis
take, and from then on, they’d practiced the routine of always facing the labels to the front.

  Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Rhiann could feel her heart rate increase when she eyed the two containers, side by side. Her bottle of allergy tablets appeared untouched, but a brownish prescription bottle of Xanax was out of place, turned more to the side than to the front and pushed further back than anything else on the shelf.

  Something definitely wasn’t right. Even though she rarely, if ever, took one of the anti-anxiety pills—they were mostly kept around just in case—that didn’t mean she would have been absentminded about their position in the cabinet.

  Closing the medicine cabinet, Rhiann saw her reflection in the mirror and shook her head. Her eyes were so wide that she looked like an Anime version of herself. There was no fucking way that she’d forgotten about rifling through her memory box, left the kitchen door unlocked, and been careless with medication. One of those things—maybe yes. But all three?

  Was the thermostat turned to OFF also a signal?

  Returning to her bedroom, she performed a thorough security check—looking under the bed, checking the window lock, even scoping out the closet for real this time to make extra sure there wasn’t a boogeyman hiding in the shadows.

  Satisfied that she was in the clear, Rhi set the pepper spray aside and went back to concentrating on the hatbox. It took quite a while because she had to take everything out and lay it on the bed as she did a mental inventory. She had no real idea if anything was missing since keeping a list of what was supposed to be in there wasn’t her style.

  Everything seemed okay, even though a jumbled mess, and then it hit her. Rifling through some papers and a mish-mosh of pictures in a plastic bag, she frantically searched for two things; a sterling silver chain with a tiny floating heart and an old memory stick, a flash drive that was full of pictures. Both were in an envelope marked Liam. The necklace and those pictures were the only tangible proof she had that she was in any way, shape, or form connected to him, and in all honestly—they’d been buried deep within the hatbox.

  Tears welled unexpectedly in her eyes, clouding her vision, when she found the no-frills necklace all tangled up and wedged in an old art project that had been folded in half. A single tear escaped the corner of her eye, running down her cheek and under her chin.

  Overcome with emotions she couldn’t block, Rhiann deftly untangled the delicate chain and held the necklace up so the simple heart could swing free. Liam had given it to her on her twentieth birthday. At the time, it was more precious to her than a mountain of diamonds.

  Memories engulfed her. They’d been together for about six weeks when her birthday rolled around. Thinking her lover a coolly, sophisticated adult, she’d had her first glimpse into the nerves and uncertainty he’d recently admitted to when he’d produced a grocery store bouquet of cheap flowers and a little white box with a stick-on red bow.

  At the time, she’d been swept away by love and thought his gesture was adorable. Now, she saw it through different eyes.

  When he’d told her that he couldn’t remember giving a present to anyone but his mother in a long, long time, she’d pushed this particular memory back into the safety of the shadows in her heart.

  Liam didn’t make grand gestures. Wasn’t his style and public displays of affection? Well, so far—she’d be the last to know anything about that. Served her right, she thought, for allowing their relationship to exist solely on the sly.

  But this necklace? More tears made their way down her cheeks.

  Her memory offered up the moment when, crushed by his dismissal, she’d removed the little heart with shaking hands after he’d broken her actual heart. Now, though she knew she shouldn’t, Rhi secured it once again around her neck with the same shaking hands.

  Reaching for a handful of tissues, she blew her nose with a loud honk and wiped away the cascade of tears that didn’t seem to want to let up.

  Digging around the hatbox and carefully picking everything apart, she finally came to the realization that the memory stick and all the photos on it were missing.

  Was she just being paranoid for thinking that someone had a field day going through her personal belongings? Suddenly, Rhiann didn’t feel safe. No amount of pepper spray, dead bolts, or window locks could change that fact.

  IT WAS TWO DAYS BEFORE the New Year and with things at work moving along at high speed, Rhiann had little time to worry about her personal life. That didn’t mean, however, that she’d gotten very much sleep since she’d returned home.

  She’d decided not to make a big deal of what might or might not have happened at her apartment because, in the end, she just wasn’t sure. That was until on a two AM bathroom run, a stray thought popped into her head that had her scrambling for the living room. She peeked under a side table for the cast-aside Christmas gift she’d foolishly gotten for Liam. It wasn’t there.

  After that startling discovery, sleep or anything that resembled relaxation was off the menu.

  Not sure what to do, she struck up a conversation with the security guard who worked in the office building where the Passion offices were located and asked for his opinion.

  Retired from the NYPD, Mr. Cormack or Mac as those who took the time to befriend him knew him as, was a no-nonsense guy who ran the building’s security office with an iron fist and didn’t take shit from anyone.

  He’d been a real sweetie, solemnly listening to her story and asking a slew of relevant questions such as . . .

  How long was the apartment empty?

  Did anyone else have a key?

  What was actually missing as opposed to what was moved?

  and

  Did she have any friends or acquaintances who were into drugs or stuff like that?

  The questions rattled her cage just a bit, but she managed to provide succinct answers that seemed to satisfy the older cop. In the end, he suggested that perhaps someone in her building or a neighbor who was aware of her out-of-town travel had managed to get in through the unlocked fire escape door. He thought that since the apartment hadn’t been torn to shreds, which was the usual modus operandi for a break-in. The person or persons involved knew they had all the time in the world to carefully go through her home while also covering their tracks.

  Life in the big city, right?

  Mac told her to change out her locks and offered to send one of his old policeman buddies to her apartment to do a quick security assessment and make suggestions to help her feel safer. Unfortunately, this type of under-the-radar crime rarely was reported because there was truly so little to go on.

  So, she fretted when she was home and got up every hour or two during the night to make sure everything was locked tight. No sleep plus the non-stop stress of a huge work assignment was making her a little off.

  Today, she was in full-tilt-boogie mode, with the big New Year’s Eve event looming large in her thoughts. Rhiann and her team had been in the studio all day with a handful of models posing for the staged photos that would accompany the outdoor shots.

  As usual, Katherine Martin was proving to be a royal pain in the tochus. She liked to trot around with her iPhone and look important while snapping pics of everything and texting non-stop. It was like having an evil shadow lying in wait to pounce and fuck shit up for the sheer pleasure of being a cunt. She was, without a doubt, Kim Walsh Jr.

  Had thinking about her nemesis invited interaction? Rhiann rolled her eyes when she heard the fake dulcet tone of Junior’s Northern twang calling out her name.

  “Wilde,” Katherine snapped.

  She saw her assistant look up with interest and groaned inwardly. Juan might be doubly good at what he did, but the man was a bitchy gossip who loved to dish the dirt.

  Refusing to snap to attention if for no other reason than because she felt it rude to be addressed by her last name, Rhi counted out a couple of beats then calmly spun around and met Katherine’s dismissive gaze with one of her own.

  “Yes?”<
br />
  Hearing Juan snicker softly at the tone Rhi used almost made her laugh, but she kept it together and managed to look somewhat bored by the woman’s interruption.

  “How much longer will this go on?” she asked, waving her hand dismissively at the studio filled with people.

  Oh, for god’s sake. What was the real question, she wondered. She was busy, dammit, and would appreciate a bit of directness rather than . . . whatever this was.

  Shooting Juan a caustic glare of warning, she half ignored Katherine, answering smoothly, “Until it’s finished,” as she used a couple of hand signals to get someone’s attention.

  “Are you always this rude?” Katherine griped. “I’m talking to you, Wilde. The least you could do is look at me.”

  Two could play this verbal game.

  Quickly scribbling on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard that one of her team shoved under her nose, Rhi offered a malevolent smirk to her adversary when she put the pen down, cocking her head to one side to look the woman up and down. Dismissively.

  “I hear you talking, Katherine,” she remarked snidely. “You see that we’re busy here so dropping everything to look at you only takes me away from the important stuff.”

  She saw the woman’s eyes flare with fury at the obvious implication that she wasn’t important. Immediately coming back with the second part of a verbal one-two, she added, “And where I come from, addressing a professional by their last name is considered the height of rude.”

  Boom! Nothing worked faster at putting an idiot in their place than inferring that they lacked manners.

  The expression, Paybacks are a bitch, rang in Rhiann’s mind as she deflected Katherine’s dirty look. She didn’t doubt that Kim Walsh’s unctuous toady was going to make her regret this confrontation, er . . . conversation.

  Through eyes narrowed with clear dislike, the bootlicker who was hell-bent on raining on Rhiann’s parade, sniped, “Yes, well . . . feel free to take that up with Mrs. Walsh.”

  The unspoken, if you dare, hung in the air between them, which was positively pulsing with animosity. Juan was all but taking notes as he watched their interaction with avid interest.