by Karen Rose
Lucy made a strangled sound. ‘Thorne,’ she murmured, as if the man were in the room with her. ‘What was he thinking?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Which was what made this so hard. She’d been shocked within an inch of her life. ‘What did he say to you?’
‘That it wasn’t any of my business.’
‘The fucking hell it’s not! Wait, you’re not on speaker, are you?’
Lucy chuckled. ‘Never when I’m talking to you, sugar-lips. Look . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Ask him. But . . .’
Gwyn was almost at Thorne’s house. ‘But what?’
‘God.’ Lucy drew in an audible breath. ‘Gwyn, have you ever thought about Thorne . . . you know. Like that?’
Gwyn blinked. ‘Like what?’ And then she understood. ‘Like that? Like . . . romantically?’
‘Or just physically, even.’ Lucy’s voice held a wince.
No, Gwyn started to say, but stopped herself. Because it would be a lie. A vicious, hateful lie.
‘Oh,’ Lucy whispered into the quiet. ‘Good to know.’
‘Only once or twice.’ Liar. ‘A long time ago.’ Dirty liar. ‘We’re co-workers.’ That at least was true. ‘It . . . it never would have worked out.’ But her protest sounded weak, even to her own ears.
‘Okay.’ Lucy drew the word out, then cleared her throat. ‘Well, you might not have been alone in . . . you know, whatever it was that you did or didn’t feel, once or twice, a long time ago.’
The thought rocked Gwyn soundly. ‘Really?’
‘Maybe. Just . . . stay calm. Hear him out. Then if you still want to kill him, call me and I’ll come get you. You can work it out on JD’s punching bag in the basement.’
Gwyn shuddered out a breath. ‘Deal.’ She ended the call as she pulled into Thorne’s driveway. Cutting the engine, she fished his house keys from her purse. She’d had keys to Thorne’s house for as long as she could remember. They watered each other’s plants when they traveled, picked up each other’s mail, and fed the other’s pets.
She looked in her rear-view mirror at Tweety, who was strapped in his harness in the backseat. ‘You know where you gotta go, dude.’ Thorne had a special area set aside for Tweety in his yard, because his cat tended to hide whenever they came over.
She’d named the yellow Dane Tweety because Thorne’s cat was a tiny tuxedo named Sylvester and it had seemed cute at the time. Ironically enough, Tweety loved Sylvester, but because the feeling was not mutual, they had to keep the animals separated.
Yet another reason it would never have worked.
Except . . . Gwyn closed her eyes, thinking of Thomas Thorne, all six feet six lickable inches of him. Dark hair, square jaw, just the right amount of stubble all the time. Muscles. Acres of muscles. He was like a god. Seriously. The man could have been a Hollywood star. Women swooned after him wherever he went. But he generally didn’t date.
Not recently, anyway.
Not in four and a half years. Gwyn swallowed hard as the realization hit. Not since . . . Evan. The killer she’d taken into her bed. The man who’d had an obsession with Lucy. Who’d killed so many people, who’d . . . used me. He used me to lure Lucy. So that he could kill her. After he killed me.
Which would have been bad enough. Except he’d done more than lure Gwyn. He’d . . .
Her eyes flew open and she blinked rapidly, trying to banish the pictures in her mind. Images that still had the power to freeze the blood in her veins.
He’d done a lot more. Things she’d never shared with a living soul – not even Lucy. And especially not Thorne. In the aftermath, there hadn’t seemed to be any point.
Evan was dead. He’d lied for months, tricking her into believing he could be ‘the one’. Telling me that he loved me. Just so that he could get close to Lucy. Everyone who had an Internet connection knew that she’d been humiliated.
But that she was a victim of rape? No, she didn’t want anyone looking at her with even more pity. So she’d kept that ordeal to herself. Until sixteen months ago, when she’d finally found a therapist who’d helped her begin her recovery.
She could hear her therapist’s voice in her mind. It’s not happening now. Repeat after me, Gwyn. Gwyn had obeyed, saying that phrase over and over. It’s not happening now. And after months of repetition, she’d finally started to believe it was true.
Hands shaking, she unlocked her phone and swiped through her photos, replacing the nightmare in her mind with real faces, just as her therapist had taught her to do. Real people. Real people who loved her.
Lucy, JD. Their babies, Jeremiah and Bronwynne. Named after me. Little Wynnie had Gwyn’s middle name. A different kind of hurt squeezed at her heart, just as it did every time she looked at Lucy’s children. She loved them like they were her own, but they weren’t her own. Yet she’d had her own child. Once.
She studied Jeremiah’s photo, feeling the old yearning descend, suffocating her. Allowing her son to be adopted was still the hardest choice she’d ever made in her life. It had been the right choice for him, though. She knew that. She’d been alone and too young to care for a child then. She’d finally stopped second-guessing herself after a decade, but it had re-emerged the first time she’d held Lucy’s son in her arms.
She’d never told Lucy. Never told Thorne. It was too personal. And although she knew she’d done the right thing, the fact that she’d given her child away . . . It shamed her.
Anxiety began to build and her heart began to race and . . . I’m not going there. Not today. Redoubling her focus on her phone’s screen, she looked at picture after picture. Her friends, her dog, the publicity shots she’d taken of the dancing crowd at the club . . . She studied each one for a second or two, until she came to Thorne’s photo.
Everything inside her relaxed. He was real. And he did love her. Even if it was only in friendship.
Except . . . what if it wasn’t only in friendship? She’d taken this photo last week, wanting to capture the look on his face when he saw the gift she’d left in his desk at Sheidalin. The coloring book. The Kama Sutra coloring book, actually.
Which she’d given him after he’d left a Kama Sutra playing card on her desk, his way of teasing her about her ability to twist her body into positions no other performer could achieve. She’d thought it a little risqué at the time, even for Thorne, but she’d laughed it off.
He’d followed that first card with fifty-one more, because it had been a set. One or two a week. She’d started looking forward to them. And when she’d stumbled on the coloring book, it had seemed the perfect gift.
Except she hadn’t really stumbled on it so much as typed the phrase ‘Kama Sutra products’ into her browser. She’d been flirting back, she admitted, ever since she’d started performing again a year ago, beginning with the aerial silks on Sheidalin’s stage.
It had been out of expediency at first. Lucy had been out on this latest maternity leave, creating holes in their schedule that Gwyn had been unable to fill with reliable bands. But after some initial nerves, hitting the stage again had felt right. It had been time. And Thorne had been delighted to see her come back to them.
It had been years since Gwyn had last performed. Not since him.
And she was not going there. Not right now. Not ever, she wanted to promise, but she knew that was a promise she couldn’t keep. Her therapist had assured her that would be the case, and the woman had been correct.
I wonder what she’d say about Thorne. About him threatening my date. Maybe all of my dates.
What if Lucy was right? What if Thorne had feelings? For me? She looked at the photo on her phone once again. His face had gone slack with shock when he’d found her gift, but then he’d turned a look on her. A smolder.
She hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, but now . . . Yeah. It was there.
And it scared her senseless.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, making her jump. A text from Lucy.
Well?
Gwyn sighed. Still sitting in my car, she typed back. She’d been sitting there for a long time, she realized. Thinking. Wishing.
GET IN THERE, Lucy replied.
‘Fine, fine,’ Gwyn grumbled aloud, then typed I will and hit SEND.
After putting Tweety in the backyard and making sure he had water, she gathered her courage and as much dignity as she could muster and opened Thorne’s front door. ‘Thorne?’ she called. ‘You here?’
She stepped into the living room, then frowned. Thorne’s dining room was a mess. Chip bags and half-eaten bowls of dip covered the table, along with empty beer bottles and Coke cans. The dip had hardened, the melted cheese on the nachos congealed.
In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him leave a mess. Never.
Maybe he’s sick. Frowning now with worry, she went to his bedroom and knocked lightly. ‘Thorne? It’s me. You okay?’
Silence. Quietly she opened the door, complete darkness meeting her eyes despite the rising sun. Thorne had blackout shades because he sometimes slept late after a long night at the club. Occasionally he got migraines and the light pained him.
‘Thorne?’ She stepped into the room and stumbled. Over a shoe. A woman’s shoe.
She bent down to scoop it up, checking it in the dim light from the hallway. An expensive shoe. Louboutin, about seven hundred retail. And not mine.
Fury began to bubble inside her once again. ‘Sonofabitch,’ she muttered. Having a woman here? After sabotaging my dates?
She shone the light from her phone on the floor, noting the discarded little black cocktail dress, the black thong and matching frothy bra. Probably a push-up, she thought scornfully. She herself had never needed one of those.
Picking it up gingerly, she smelled a woman’s perfume. Again, expensive. Again, not mine. She tossed the bra back to the floor.
Because there in the bed was the master of the house himself. Thorne lay on his stomach, one huge arm hanging off the side of the bed, his knuckles dragging on the floor.
Gwyn snarled. ‘Son-of-a-fucking-bitch.’ She crossed the room, making sure to grind her shoe into the woman’s pricey lingerie as she walked. ‘Wake up, Thorne.’ She poked his hard biceps with her forefinger, her fury boiling over at the lump under the sheet beside him. Fucking bitch. ‘Wake the fuck up.’
Neither he nor the woman stirred. Gwyn balled up her fist and slugged him hard. ‘Wake up.’
But . . . nothing. Except now that she was closer, she caught the iron tang of blood in the air.
Dread filling her, she switched on the light. And screamed.
Thorne lay utterly still, his face slack.
The woman beside him . . . had no face at all. Not anymore. And the sheet was covered in blood.
Gwyn glanced down at the floor, because there was something hard under her shoe. A knife. A butcher knife. Covered in blood.
‘Oh God. Oh God.’ She was panting, hyperventilating. Frozen. ‘Thorne? Oh God. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.’ She chanted the words aloud, the sound of her own voice jarring her into action. She pressed her fingers to his throat, relieved when she felt a pulse. But it was weak. Damned weak.
She closed her eyes, drew a breath. Lifted her phone to her ear. ‘Call Lucy, mobile,’ she whispered.
Lucy picked up on the first ring. ‘Well?’ she demanded, the sound of the road in the background.
Gwyn tried to breathe. ‘Lucy, come. Please. It’s Thorne.’
A beat of silence, followed by a horrified whisper. ‘Gwyn, what did you do?’
‘Not me. I found him. He’s still alive. But unconscious, I think.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s blood, and a knife.’ Her voice rose, hysteria gripping her throat in a vise. ‘Please come,’ she whispered. ‘Please hurry.’
‘I’m almost there.’ Lucy’s voice had taken on the calm that she drew on like a cape during times of stress. ‘I want you out of his house. Walk backward the way you came.’
‘No. I’m not leaving him.’
‘Gwyn, listen to me. Whoever hurt him might still be in the house. Get out. Now.’
Gwyn hadn’t thought of that. ‘I have Mace. I’m staying here.’
‘Did you call 911?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll call them.’
‘Lucy, wait. There’s someone else here. In his bed. I think she’s dead.’
‘Holy shit.’ Lucy swore on an exhale. ‘All right. I’m pulling into his driveway.’
‘How? How are you here?’
‘I thought I might be needed to referee, so I left Clay and Stevie’s house as soon as we hung up,’ Lucy said grimly. ‘I’m going to call 911 now.’
Gwyn heard brakes squealing outside, then the slam of a car door, followed by the sound of the front door opening.
‘Gwyn?’ Lucy was in the house. It would be okay. Lucy would know what to do. Lucy always knew what to do.
‘I’m . . . I’m back here. In his bedroom.’
Lucy ran to her, phone in hand. ‘Oh my God. Thorne.’ She handed Gwyn the phone, putting in her earpiece. ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she said to whoever was on the line. She looked over her shoulder at Gwyn. ‘I called JD. He’s on his way.’
She pressed her fingers to Thorne’s neck. ‘His pulse is thready, irregular. God. Maybe fifty?’ She frowned. ‘Yes, I am a doctor,’ she snapped. ‘I told you. My name is Dr Lucy Fitzpatrick. I’m with the medical examiner’s office.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I can still work on live people. Have you sent the ambulances?’ She drew a breath, nodding. ‘Good. We have one live and one dead.’
Again she looked over her shoulder. ‘Do you know who the woman is?’
Gwyn shook her head. ‘No.’ Then she sprang into motion, snapping photos of the room with her phone. ‘The EMTs will take him to the hospital and destroy the scene. I’m going to get as many pictures as I can.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Lucy, the praise in her voice helping to calm Gwyn further.
‘My best friends are a defense attorney and an ME who’s married to a homicide cop,’ Gwyn said grimly. ‘I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way.’
Two
Annapolis, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 2.20 P.M.
‘He’s not dead.’
He breathed a silent sigh of relief at Margo’s words. The men he’d sent had given Thorne enough GHB to take down an elephant. Idiots. ‘Is he awake?’
‘Not yet,’ she answered, the sound of a car starting in the background, ‘but he’s stabilized. I had to wait to call you until I was alone.’
‘Thank you, my dear. I appreciate the update.’ He also appreciated the risk she was taking. For me. For Colin.
‘Any time, Papa,’ she said warmly, and the constriction in his chest relaxed just a little. His daughter-in-law was one of the few bright spots in his life. Her baby was the other.
‘Are you bringing Benny to dinner with you tonight?’
‘I’ve hired a sitter because I thought we were talking business, but I can bring him if you want to see him.’
He could respect Margo not wanting her son to hear any of what they were going to discuss. He’d kept Colin from the darker aspects of his business until his son had been sixteen. But Colin had always known.
‘I’d really like to see him,’ he murmured. ‘I’m missing Colin today.’
A sigh. ‘Me too, Papa. I’ll bring Benny. Once he’s had his evening bottle, I’ll put him in his crib in the nursery, and then we can talk.’
The
nursery. The room on the upper floor of his home that had been painstakingly decorated by Margo. And Madeline. The thought of his late wife had his chest constricting again, and he had to concentrate to take a simple breath. I miss you, mi alma. My soul. ‘Thank you. I’ll leave the gate open for you.’
‘Thank you, Papa. Te amo.’
‘Te amo, Margo.’
He hung up the phone and walked to the office he used for disciplinary procedures. Closing the door behind him, he looked at the two men chained to chairs in the middle of the room. Idiots. Soon they’d be dead idiots. ‘He’s not dead.’
Both visibly relaxed.
The one on the left swallowed hard. ‘So . . . you’re letting us go, right? I mean, he’s gonna be fine.’
He rolled his eyes. God. I should have done it myself. And he would have, if Thomas Thorne weren’t a damn behemoth. He could never have gotten the man into his house.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
The one on the right’s nostrils flared. He looked a little green. Some of that might be the slight rolling of the vessel, which, anchored far out in the bay, was as private and soundproof as a vault. But most of the man’s distress appeared to be fear. ‘You wouldn’t say what?’
He let his mouth quirk up. The one on the right wasn’t quite as stupid as the one on the left. ‘Either. Both.’ He began removing his clothing, hanging each piece carefully in the antique wardrobe adorning the far wall. Suit coat, trousers, silk shirt, tie. His shoes and socks went on the wardrobe shelf. He shucked off his boxers, folded them neatly and placed them on top of his shoes.
Hesitating, he gripped the small vial, then lifted it over his head and carefully tucked it into the pocket of his trousers.
He closed the wardrobe and turned to face the two bound men, who stared at him in horror. Good. They should be afraid. They could have spoiled everything before it had even begun.
The one on the left’s eyes dropped to his groin, widening comically. ‘What the fuck are you going to do?’ he whispered hoarsely.
He rolled his eyes again. ‘For heaven’s sake, get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not going to sexually molest you. I’m just going to kill you.’ He indicated the wardrobe with a nod of his head. ‘That’s a two-thousand-dollar suit, and blood is a bitch to explain to the dry-cleaner.’