Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3)

by Nadine Doolittle

  Carsten almost smiled recalling those terrifying days. The more Daniel poked into Tallulah, the more questions he had about the acquisition. The situation was increasingly precarious. And then Carsten was presented with a chink in the Razor armor.

  Sex.

  A young man’s poison. The socially anxious and backward Joel still had a libido. When Carsten learned Daniel’s way of helping his brother was to bring girls to the mansion for Joel, he knew he had won.

  Anastasia told him everything, probably unaware of how he would use the information against her boyfriend one day.

  Gain control of Joel and Carsten would have control of his voting shares. The idea to have Anastasia pose as Joel’s dead mother came to him one day when he noticed the resemblance. He struck a deal with her; you help me and I’ll get Joel out of Daniel’s life for good. From there, it was supposed to be a simple matter of swinging the vote and if that didn’t work, get Joel to sign off his proxy to Carsten.

  How did it go so wrong? He climbed out of the Mercedes and walked to the front door. Anastasia played her role. She produced the note and the envelope for Daniel that stated Joel’s life was in danger. She fed the paranoia and encouraged secrecy which was important because Daniel couldn’t go the police and he wouldn’t if he believed it would keep Joel safe.

  But somehow, the less complicated plan of manipulating Joel to give Carsten his proxy was undermined by a force that Carsten couldn’t see. It couldn’t be Charlotte Dawson. Though her daily visits to the mansion had definitely put a crimp in his plan. The violinist was much more tenacious than Carsten thought she’d be. He’d done everything in his power to scare her out of Joel’s loft and she was still there. The only use he could make of her now was to keep Anastasia in line when she started mewling about her guilty conscience. Anastasia was supposed to control Daniel and the maid vowed she had control of Joel.

  This was supposed to be a slam dunk. It was anything but.

  It was a risk coming here but Carsten couldn’t afford to wait for Anastasia to get him that proxy. The situation he was in with these investors was life and death. Gamble all, risk all. Only it wasn’t his money he was risking. These were not a handful of pensioners in Ohio he was ruining this time. These boys played for keeps.

  Carsten turned into the circular drive and saw the police cars blocking the entrance to the parking area. “Son of a bitch,” he swore under his breath. “What now?”

  He parked the Mercedes and walked to the front door. Marshall answered the door as usual. The household behind him was in an uproar.

  “Wilma has managed to get herself murdered.” Marshall all but yelled the news.

  Carsten carefully composed his expression. He had never heard Marshall raise his voice before. The man was red in the face, angry and probably in shock.

  “Surely not,” Carsten said smoothly. His heart was thudding hard in his throat. Wilma had finally managed to get the proxy off Joel. She had sent him a text to meet her at the mansion first thing in the morning where she’d hand it off to him in time for the meeting.

  “I’m afraid so, sir. The police have commandeered the kitchen. You’ll find Mr. Razor in the library with Miss Dawson.”

  Carsten entered the library with the bravado of a man on the Titanic.

  “Daniel! My god, man, you shouldn’t have tried to deal with this on your own. That’s what I’m here for. I’m supposed to help you. You ought to have called me after you called the police.”

  Daniel rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Carsten. Everything moved so fast. I reported a murder and the SFPD took it from there. Detective Lewis will be speaking to everyone who was here last night. Including me.”

  Carsten frowned. “I see Miss Dawson is still on the scene. She’s always around when there’s trouble. Has she been interviewed yet?”

  “She had nothing to do with this. I asked her to stay. She’s been working with me to find Joel.”

  Carsten ducked his face. “So Joel still hasn’t turned up?”

  “No sign of him. Thank God, with this mess going on. Lewis thinks it was a jealous ex-boyfriend who did it. Wilma has a past it seems. So much for security checks. The guy has served time for assault. They’ve sealed off her room to search for evidence.”

  “Oh, well that is good to hear. Tragic for the maid but I’m glad they don’t consider Joel a suspect. Or you or Miss Dawson.”

  “They questioned Charlotte and me but Joel is missing so he was never a suspect. And Charlotte and I were together at the time of Wilma’s murder. We didn’t hear a thing. Neither did Marshall. The killer must have got her to open the kitchen door for him.”

  Carsten mopped his brow. His ulcer flared; a boil of acid shot up his gut. Wilma had the proxy—it could still be in her room. No hope of looking for it with the police standing guard.

  “I can’t stay Daniel. I wish I could but I have some pressing business at the office. I’ll let Rita know that you are tied up for the day and have her reschedule your appointments. This is crazy.” Carsten shook his head. “Will you call Anastasia to let her know before this news hits the wire, or do you want me to do it?”

  “Yes, call her if you don’t mind, Carsten. I can’t talk to her right now.”

  Carsten placed the call from the Mercedes. Anastasia had been getting cold feet. Well, this should light a fire under them—Charlotte Dawson had spent the night with Daniel. Carsten was offering her a chance for revenge and to get rid of the violinist once and for all.

  Anastasia agreed to do what he asked. He didn’t even have to sell her on it.

  At last, something was going right for a change.

  chapter seven

  ♫

  “JOEL RAZOR didn’t need to be locked in his apartment,” Dr. Welland said. “Joel was already a prisoner—he was trapped inside that apartment in his mind.”

  We were gathered in the library to give our statements. Dr. Welland had been called in to discuss Joel’s mental state. Although he was not considered a suspect, Detective Lewis wanted to know more about hypnotic suggestion and how it could have worked to lure him out of the apartment.

  “Joel had reached a point where he genuinely wanted to free of his phobias. He recognized there was a great deal of life he was missing on the outside. The biggest concern for him was the inability to see buildings in their natural space, three dimensional, and this had become important to him in his work. I used hypnotherapy and found him to be very susceptible. It was not difficult to bring him into it deep state of relaxation. In this state, I experimented with certain phrases that would trigger the desire to leave the apartment and give him a sense of ease and safety when he did.”

  “What were these triggers?” asked Lewis.

  “Well, that was the difficulty. In Joel’s environment, he wouldn’t necessarily hear the phrases that I intended, and then there was the risk that he would hear a certain phrase and it would happen at an inappropriate time such as the middle of the night. However, I was aware that during the day after he had finished his work at the drafting table, he relaxed by playing the cello. So I chose a phrase of music. When he played this music, he would have a sense of peace and safety about the outside.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Joel is a deeply regulated young man. I put him under hypnosis and played the music, reinforcing the subconscious message that he was safe, he was calm and he felt confident to leave the apartment. Joel got up from the chair, still in a state of hypnosis, crossed the room to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. At this point, I counted him out of the hypnotic state and when he returned to his conscious self, he saw where he was, standing in the hallway, which for him was a tremendous breakthrough. We were both very pleased with results of the experiment.”

  “So you’re telling us Joel has been leaving the apartment every afternoon during his practicing of the cello to wander the halls of the mansion.” Detective Lewis appeared interested.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. A lot would depe
nd on his desire to stay in the room at the time,” Dr. Wendell replied. “Please remember, that in a hypnotic state, a person can not be manipulated to do something that is not a subconscious desire.”

  “Did you ever see a violent side to Joel?”

  Everyone turned to look at me, except Daniel.

  The doctor considered my question carefully. “No, but I did see expressions of repressed rage toward his mother. When I brought the subject up, the patient was unwilling to discuss it. In fact, he denied having any such feelings at all. If we had more time, I believe we would have got the source of his anger and given a safe environment to express it, he might have made fast progress. It is possible that his anger was simply due to the fact that she died. It’s not uncommon for young children to be furious with parents who die and then suffer tremendous guilt. We’ll never know because my treatment of Joel was terminated soon after.”

  “What?” Daniel raised his head.

  “Well, you must know. The order came from you. My receptionist took the message; she has it in her file. Everything is recorded now. She has a digital voice recording of the phone call. It came from your office. I was told that Joel’s treatment was being discontinued. My services were no longer needed.”

  Lewis broke in, impatient with us hijacking his interview. “So we have a piece of music that acts as a trigger for Joel to leave the apartment. Who besides yourself knew that by playing this music they could have access to Joel, possibly even use it to control him?”

  “No one. My files are kept confidential.”

  I sat up. “They didn’t have to have access to the file. They just had to be in the house to hear the music and see what happened next. Who was in the house at the time the doctor was with Joel?” I looked at Marshall.

  “Of the regular staff, there was myself, Jackson, Joyce and Wilma. Of the four of us, Jackson has the least access. It would be very difficult for him to move about the upper rooms without attracting attention. So that would leave me, Joyce and Wilma. Joyce is partially deaf; I doubt she would be able to hear music and furthermore her work was the other side of the house. My work keeps me downstairs during the day. Which leaves Wilma.”

  Lewis nodded, satisfied. “I think we have a winner.”

  “What was the name of the music?” I asked.

  “It was a mournful piece,” said the psychiatrist. “I believe it was an adagio. Rather a sad composition. It seemed to mean that a lot to Joel, though he would not say why. He was secretive. I did my best to encourage his trust but it was difficult. It was difficult to break through his barriers.”

  I knew the piece. Adagio for Strings, op 11. Wilma had manipulated him using the music played after 9/11.

  *

  THE POLICE didn’t leave the mansion until dusk. Daniel paced, answering half-a-dozen questions and generally looked anxious to have them away from the house.

  I knew why.

  He was going to find Joel and try to get him out of the country before Lewis figured out Wilma’s boyfriend wasn’t the murderer. I thought the detective would pick up on the raincoat she was wearing and her blonde hair and put two and two together. He didn’t.

  We wanted to believe Joel was innocent. In a way, he was. Wilma had been tormenting him for weeks, posing as his dead mother. He finally snapped. I tried to remember what he told me about the proxy, but my brain was fogged from lack of sleep and stress. Daniel and I both knew Wilma was working with Carsten. How it must have scared the shit out of him to discover his accomplice was dead.

  It was over now. Daniel had Joel’s proxy; the deal would be killed and Joel...?

  I couldn’t feel anything for Joel in that moment. I could only seen Wilma, her blonde hair, the blue raincoat and a knife stuck in her chest. Whatever I wanted to believe about the father of my baby, it was becoming harder and harder to sustain.

  As for me, I would finally leave Razor mansion and Daniel behind. I didn’t know where I would go or how I would live but I couldn’t live here. He would never separate himself from Joel and I discovered I didn’t like being a third wheel.

  Me, the baby and the violin would ride off into the sunset.

  I stood at the window in Joel’s apartment musing over my future. Night had fallen over the redwood forest. A thin mist was curling at the base of the trees.

  Incredibly, as I watched, a blonde wearing an electric blue raincoat emerged from the forest, stopped and then stared up at the window.

  My hair stood on the back of my neck. Wilma was only a decoy.

  I was looking at her killer.

  I took the private elevator downstairs and exited the mansion through the side door, moving noiselessly around the house to the low stone wall. The woman in blue was there, waiting for me. She turned and walked away with a slow deliberate step as though she expected to be caught. I dropped back, adjusting my pace, and followed her as she disappeared into the wood.

  I was deep in the forest, shrouded in mist, when I realized I was stupid not to have told Daniel where I was going. I didn’t hear the person behind me until it was too late.

  The blow struck the back of my head. The force was not heavy enough to knock me senseless but it was enough to knock me off my feet. I never got a look at my attacker. I was gagged, bound and a blindfold placed over my eyes before I had a chance to fight back.

  And then someone was carrying me through the forest. I was dumped into a panel van and the door slammed closed. Seconds later, we were moving through traffic, further and further away from Daniel.

  They had killed Wilma. Whoever had taken me was going to kill me too.

  *

  DANIEL FOLLOWED the passageway, listening for Joel’s footsteps in the shadows. First he checked out the cell where his brother had been held but there was no sign of him.

  He had left the flashlight behind in the kitchen. Joel didn’t need a light shining in his eyes when he found him. The tunnel was dark but light spilled from the exit at the far end. His father had told him it led to the coach house.

  “Danny?”

  His skin prickled and his brain swam with relief. “Yes Joel, I’m here. It’s safe to come out now.”

  Joel emerged from the shadows, covered in blood.

  Daniel held up his hands so as not to frighten him. “Everything is going to be okay. I’m going to take care of this. You have to tell me what happened. The truth. All of it.”

  His stepbrother’s expression was odd, his movements trancelike. He blinked as though coming out of a fugue state. Daniel had seen this before but never so severe.

  Joel looked at his hands and broke down, crying. “She’s dead. Alexandra killed her.”

  “No, buddy, your mom died in 2001. It was only Wilma. She was posing as Alex to get to you. You acted in self-defense.”

  “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t. She told me I did, but I know I didn’t. Danny, I’ve got the proxy here in my pocket. I’ve signed it. It’s yours. I can’t live like this anymore. She wanted me to leave with her and I almost did. I was going to meet her in the kitchen and when I got there—she was dead. She lied to me again—I told her I would go with her. Nobody had to get hurt.”

  “You’re not making any sense. You were going to go where with who?”

  “Alexandra. She asked me to fetch the proxy and we would run away. She said she would help us fight Carsten.”

  Daniel shook his head, trying to get through to his brother. “You were tricked into believing Wilma was your mother. Alexandra wouldn’t help us cross the street. They used post-hypnotic suggestion. Wilma eavesdropped on your sessions with Dr. Welland. She knew what triggers to use. You were had, duped—Joel it was a con.”

  “Don’t treat me like an idiot. She wants you to think I’m having some sort of breakdown. Daniel, you have to listen to me. I know what I saw.”

  “Carsten is behind this, goddamnit! He was working with Wilma to get to you.”

  “That’s what she wants you to believe—that this is all Carsten’s doing. It w
asn’t—it was her. She’s back and this won’t end with Carsten Pullman. I wanted to believe her this time but then she tried to kill Charley. I’m all she has. If I’m dead, she loses her power and she can’t hurt anyone anymore. But Danny, as long as I’m alive she won’t stop until she has complete control of me.”

  Daniel gripped his brother’s shoulders. “Joel, I know who pushed Charlotte. It was Tash. She’s messed up about what’s been going on here—she lost it. It could’ve been an accident. Maybe she just meant to scare her. I haven’t told anyone. My attention has been on finding you first. One fire at a time, right? That’s all there is to the story. Your mom has been dead for fourteen years.”

  Joel blinked, bewildered. “If that’s true, then who has been stalking me? Who has been visiting me down here, trying to convince me I’m going mad. She was there, in the kitchen. Wilma was dead and she was there. Danny, am I losing my mind?”

  “No, you’re as sane as I am. But we’re both fucking nuts so take that as you will.” He tried to smile. “I don’t know who killed Wilma but we’ll figure it out. None of this is your fault, buddy. Don’t say anything more. I’ll deal with it. Just come with me and I’ll make it okay. Please, Joel, I’m not leaving this place without you.”

  His cell phone vibrated with an incoming text from Anastasia.

  Joel is with me on the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s ready to turn himself in. Meet us here ASAP. BTW, Charlotte is here. I love you.

  Daniel read the text a second time and then punched in the phone number for Joel’s apartment. It rang five times before he hung up.

  Cold, creeping fear coiled in his belly. It was Tasha’s sign off—I love you—that scared the hell out of him more than the lie about being with Joel. They were on the bridge, she had Charlotte and she was sending him a message. Love me or else.

  Somehow, he had to get his agoraphobic brother in the car. He wasn’t leaving Joel behind.