Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy Book 6)

by James, Marysol

  “Mr. Rhodes?” Gia tapped her fingers on the table. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that you need to look in to Brad Ellison. Natalie told me straight-up that she was afraid of him and last night, she was begging me to let her hide at my place. She begged me to keep her safe, Detective Yates, and I failed her completely. Now, suspect me all you want, but I know who Natalie was scared of and it wasn’t me.”

  “We only have your word on that, Mr. Rhodes.”

  “Sure, I get that. But ask the other diners or the waitstaff if they overheard any of our conversation. See if they back me up.”

  She shrugged. “That’s hearsay. At best.”

  “And what you’ve got on me is circumstantial. At best.” He stared back, his face hard. “All you can prove is that I’m a fucking lousy boyfriend, and I don’t need to explain that to you any more than I already have… if you had enough to charge me with murder, you’d have done it by now. But you’re not, so that means I’m free to walk.” He stood up. “I’ve told you everything I know, Detective Yates. I’ve given you a strong suspect, one with real motive. Stop wasting time with me and start looking in to Brad.”

  “Oh, we will.” She stood up too and pinned him with a glare. “But we’re not going to stop watching you.”

  “I understand. I have nothing to hide, so watch me all you want.”

  “Your DNA is in the system from your time in the military – I’m sure we’ll match it to any trace evidence found under Ms. Conrad’s nails and then our case won’t be quite so circumstantial. It’ll directly tie you to the victim.”

  “I already told you that she scratched me, I’m not hiding that fact. I imagine you’ll find my DNA on her, but I also imagine you’ll find someone else’s. The killer’s.”

  “Don’t leave the city,” she snapped.

  “I won’t.”

  “And stay away from Ms. Perez.”

  That stopped him. “Why?”

  “Because she asked me to tell you that.”

  “She did?”

  “Yep.” Gia shrugged. “She said that she didn’t want you anywhere near her.”

  Luke spun on his heel. “I’ll need to hear that from her myself. Is she still here?”

  “No. We let her go more than two hours ago.”

  “Fuck.” Luke shot out of the room, down the hall, out the door. He could only imagine what Selena must be thinking right now and he decided to just show up at her place, to hell with calling ahead. He didn’t want her to have the chance to tell him not to come over.

  And if truth be told, he was afraid of what else she might tell him… namely that she never wanted to see him again. That he’d fucked this up so bad, she hated him.

  That he’d lost her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The knock at Selena’s door wasn’t a surprise. Yeah, she’d asked Detective Yates to tell Luke to stay away – but she knew the man. Or, at least, she’d thought that she knew him. Right this second, she wasn’t sure at all just who he was.

  She opened the door and stared up at him. He looked awful: panicked and worried. She narrowed her eyes, determined to not care how he was feeling. He could just go right on ahead and feel bad because God knows, she wasn’t feeling particularly awesome.

  “Selena.” That rough voice caressed her name and she stiffened her resolve. “You OK?”

  “I passed on a message for you to stay away from me.” Thank Christ her tone was cold and distant. “Should I have sent up smoke signals, too? Tapped it out in Morse Code, maybe? Attempted telepathy?”

  He ignored her jibe and the sarcasm, ploughed on ahead to the important shit.

  “I know you did,” he said urgently. “She told me what you said, but that’s not the right thing to do here, Selena. We need to talk.”

  “Oh,” she said. “So now you’re all for talking and openness and honesty?”

  He flinched. “OK. I deserved that.”

  “So glad we can agree on what you deserve.” She backed up and sat down on the sofa, her arms crossed. “So. You were seeing Natalie the whole time we were together. In fact, according to her phone records, you were in touch before we even started anything. What were you two up to?”

  “Babe.” He stepped in to her apartment and shut the door, shook his head at her words. “I wasn’t seeing her, OK, not the way you’re implying.”

  “First up, don’t fucking call me ‘babe’. Second, I’m not implying jack-shit. I’m simply repeating what I was told by a quite aggressive cop this afternoon… I saw the phone records and the texts and the lovely pictures, Luke. I saw the witness statements that you met her at Curves the night before we fucked for the first time."

  Luke flinched again. "Don't call it that, babe, please. It was never that."

  Selena ignored him, carried on. "And you saw her again last night.” She felt the anger rising in her body and she fought to stay calm. “You lied to me, Luke. Over and over again.”

  “I know… I know.”

  “Why?” As much as Selena wanted to thunder out the question, it came out in a little voice, a hopeless, hurt voice. “Why, Luke? Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”

  “Because Natalie wasn’t important to me, and I ignored her, and then that night at Curves I told her in no uncertain terms to back off and leave me alone. I hoped that that would be the time that she’d get the message, but from the beginning, it just… escalated. And fast.”

  “And how does this explain why you didn’t tell me?” she asked. “I mean, if it was escalating, then you had to have known that she’d do something to come to my attention sooner or later.”

  “I was a fucking idiot,” Luke said. “I just kept hoping that she’d take ‘no’ for an answer and go away.”

  “Well.” Selena shrugged. “She has gone away. Permanently.”

  “I had nothing to do with that.” Luke almost fell to his knees in front of her. “Selena. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t hurt her.”

  “My God, Luke… do you think I don’t know that?”

  He paused. “You – you don’t think that I had anything to do with her murder?”

  “Of course I don’t. Jesus.”

  “Oh, thank God, babe.” He wanted to touch her right now, but he suspected she’d bite him if he tried. “I’m sorry. Selena, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “For what, specifically?” she asked.

  “For not talking to you. For lying to you.”

  She waited. “That’s it?”

  Luke gave her a puzzled look. “That’s not enough?”

  “Oh, hell, no. It’s not nearly enough.” She got to her feet and stuck her hands on her hips. “Did you know that Detective Yates accused me of killing Natalie?”

  “What?” Luke exploded. “What the fuck –”

  “Yeah. She found it very hard to believe that a woman who’s a professional bodyguard and ex-military wouldn’t notice that her boyfriend was lying to her for weeks and weeks on end. She asked me when I figured out that you were cheating on me, and what I did about it.”

  “Oh, shit.” Luke was torn between fury and empathy. “Selena…”

  “She implied that I got rid of my competition,” Selena continued on. “I had to work very, very hard to convince her that, in actual fact, you were such a fucking accomplished liar, I had no idea that Natalie was back in the picture.” She paused. “Needless to say, that didn’t help your cause.”

  “What?” Luke wasn’t normally this slow, but he was reeling. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Luke, that everything that I said to defend myself hurt you!” Her dark eyes blazed up at him. “I showed you up conniving and manipulative, didn’t I? Worse, I exposed your lie about where you were last night and I couldn’t provide you with an alibi. Every single thing that I said made you look more and more guilty… and
how the hell do you think that made me feel?”

  Luke was stricken: he hadn’t thought about it this way, at all.

  “I know you didn’t kill Natalie,” Selena said. “I know that damn good and well, but nothing that I said or did today helped prove that. Look at the position you put me in, Luke. I had no choice – none at all! – but to throw you under the bus. You think I enjoyed that?”

  He felt like he’d just been punched in the head. “No.”

  “No.” She snapped out the word. “You’re not a killer, Luke, but you are a man who withheld important information from me and then flat-out lied to me more than once. That makes you an untrustworthy bastard.” She paused to let the words sink in. “That means I can’t trust you.”

  “Oh, babe… wait.” Luke suddenly couldn’t suck in enough air. “Just wait.”

  “You told me that I was yours, Luke.” She spoke quietly now, every word breaking his heart a little bit more. “You said that meant that I had to trust you and confide in you. Talk to you about everything. And I did, Luke, I was totally open with you. I let you see me when I was vulnerable and scared and felt ugly… I trusted you with all of that. I thought that you were doing the same thing with me, being just as real and honest.” She stared at his ashen face. “But I guess that was all a one-way street, huh? I was expected to be honest and open, but you got to keep your little secrets?”

  “Selena,” he whispered, but he knew that it was all just too late.

  “I want you to leave now. Get out of my home.”

  “No, please. Let’s talk –”

  “No. You had your chance to talk to me, Luke. You had about a hundred chances over the past month… and you blew every single one of them off. Now I’m not interested in anything you have to say to me.”

  “Hey. Hey, beautiful –”

  He’d gone too far now, he saw instantly. She stiffened and a look of pain and rage flashed across her face.

  “Don’t you dare.” Her voice was hard, emotionless. “Just fucking don’t. Not ever again.”

  Luke’s throat closed up. She meant it, he saw; she fucking meant it.

  “Get out.”

  This time, he did as she said.

  **

  Luke sat in his truck, staring at the door to Selena’s building. Everything in his huge body was straining to go back inside to her, to reason with her, to hold her close and comfort her, to beg her for forgiveness. But she’d been clear: she didn’t trust him. She probably never would again.

  And no goddamn wonder, man. You screwed this up far, far beyond the point of any forgiveness.

  His cell phone rang and he glanced at the number. He hesitated, just for a few seconds, then he answered.

  “Hi, Griff.”

  “Luke.” His friend’s voice was angry and worried. “What the ever-loving fuck, man?”

  Luke sighed. “You talked to Selena, huh?”

  “What? No. I got dragged down to the police station this afternoon and asked a million questions about you and Natalie. They think you killed her, you know.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Luke just wanted to lie down and die on the spot. “I’m sorry.”

  “And what about Selena?”

  “They questioned her, too. In fact, they accused her of offing Natalie herself, to keep her away from me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. That’s ludicrous.”

  “Yeah, I know. It was just a fishing expedition, though, a way to get Selena to offer up the goods on me.”

  “And did she?”

  “She did, but she had no choice. All she did was tell the truth and frankly, the truth makes me look pretty damn bad.”

  “Yeah. I figured that out for myself.”

  The men fell silent for a few seconds. Then Griff spoke.

  “How’s Selena doing?”

  “Not good, man. I just came to her place to talk to her and she booted me out.”

  “Well, that can’t be a big shock.”

  “It’s not.”

  “She OK?”

  “I don’t think so.” Luke took a deep breath. “Can you give her a call? Check in?”

  “Yeah. She was my next call, anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” Griff shook his head. “And what about Natalie? Any suspects besides you?”

  “Yeah, I have one. Can we meet for a beer and talk?”

  “Yeah.” Griff glanced at his watch. “Gimme a few hours. Is nine o’clock OK? At Curves?”

  “Not at Curves. I don’t want anyone else to know yet.”

  “Fuck, Luke. You think they don’t know? Jax was at the police station at the same time that I was and Dallas was there too, being asked about Selena.”

  “Oh, no.” Luke held the phone under his chin and covered his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, man.”

  “Right. No secrets here, not anymore.”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time Dallas arrived at Curves, Luke was teetering on the edge of depression. God, how had it all gone so wrong? Natalie murdered, Luke the prime suspect, Selena dumping him, Luke’s friends and employer and Selena’s employer getting dragged in for questioning and everyone being told about his deception. Talk about a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

  He was sitting in Jax’s office with Jax and Griff, silent and unmoving. When Dallas appeared clutching a beer, Luke got to his feet.

  “I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” Luke said. He’d already apologized a hundred times, but it looked like there was no end in sight to his being sorry. “Selena had nothing to do with any of this, Dallas, I promise you.”

  “Well, of course she didn’t.” The other man was totally relaxed, and that confused Luke. “And neither did you.”

  “I know that.” Luke blinked. “But how do you know that?”

  “I called in a favor.” Dallas took a sip of his beer. “Got my hands on the coroner’s report.”

  The other men stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “You – you what?” Jax asked. “How’d you pull that off, man?”

  Dallas shrugged. “Never you mind. The point is, I saw the report and Luke, you’re off the hook. I don’t know why they haven’t informed you that you’re no longer a viable suspect, but no way you did this to that poor woman.”

  “How do you know?” Luke asked again. “What evidence clears me?”

  “The finger marks around her throat.”

  Luke’s forehead furrowed as he thought about the picture of Natalie. “I didn’t see any finger marks in the photo Detective Yates showed me.”

  “That picture was taken in the alley where her body was discovered and before she got to the morgue, so the marks were hidden by the stab wounds and the bruising from the beating. But once the coroner cleaned her up and got her under the lights, the finger marks appeared, clear as day. And they go all around her throat… up and down both sides.”

  The men froze as the implication fully hit them.

  “So whoever beat and stabbed her also strangled her,” Griff said slowly. “He got both hands around her neck…”

  “Yep.” Dallas’ blue eyes were hard. “Both hands. The finger marks are from a right hand and a left hand, no doubt.”

  Every eye in the room went to the end of Luke’s left arm and he tried to smile.

  “Yeah, I’d say I’m definitely off the suspect list.”

  “For sure.” Jax was hugely relieved. “So who’s left? On the suspect list?”

  “Brad,” Luke said. “Her abusive boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, my source inside told me that they’re trying to poke holes in his alibi,” Dallas said. “But so far, no go. It seems that he’s been in New York this whole time – has the receipts and witnesses and hotel footage to prove it.”

&n
bsp; “So who then?” Luke asked.

  “Detective Yates found a bank account that Brad tried pretty damn hard to hide,” Dallas said. “Contains quite a lot of cash. Or at least it did… until first thing this morning.”

  “What happened first thing this morning?” Griff said, though he – and every other man in the room – knew exactly what had happened that morning.

  “Why, bright and early, Brad made a sizeable transfer out of the account,” Dallas said. “Fifteen thousand dollars, actually.”

  “Huh,” Luke said. “Interesting.”

  “Isn’t it?” Dallas replied.

  “And where’d the money go?” Luke said.

  “That I don’t know… but my source did say that it was to a local account.” Dallas drank some more beer. “And it seems that the account owner is well-known to police. He’s a quite-recent parolee, actually, with a history of contract killing for our favorite asshole criminal, Kirk Jensen.”

  “Fuck,” Luke gritted out. “A goddamn hitman?”

  “It appears so,” Dallas said gently. “And it just strengthens the argument in your favor, you know.”

  “Yeah.” Luke slumped in relief. “Yeah, it does.”

  “So,” Dallas said. “I’d imagine that soon enough, you’ll get called back to the police station for a final round of questions, but they’ll be routine and designed to just shut the file on you as a suspect. Then you’ll be free and clear and happy.”

  Luke nodded, automatically raised his own beer as the other men toasted him. Yeah, he’d be free… but no goddamn way he’d be anything even approaching happy. Not without Selena.

  He wondered if she’d be there when he was declared an innocent man. But then it occurred to him: he wasn’t really innocent of any wrongdoing. Not even goddamn close.

  **

  The next afternoon, Luke walked out of police station with Jax and Dallas, looked around. When he spotted Griff leaning against his work SUV, his heart leapt in his chest; when he saw that Griff was alone, it sank again.

  Jax saw the look on his face. “Go talk to him, man. Ask about her. Let me know when you’re ready to come back to work.”