Hereafter [McKnight, Perth & Daire 2] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Beth D. Carter

  She bypassed rows of books, ignoring the slightly musky smell that old libraries tended to accumulate over time, her attention riveted on the third computer on the left. It was the computer where Candace had sat in the vision.

  Charlotte ran her fingers lightly over the monitor, trying to recreate what she’d seen, only, the past was dead and gone and trying to bring Candace back to the world of the living wasn’t going to happen. The pull Charlotte was feeling didn’t have anything to do with the computer.

  “Is this where the book is?” Jonas asked, and she jumped, her hand falling away.

  “You scared me!” she scolded.

  “Sorry.” He held up his hands. “You had that look again.”

  “My constipated look?”

  “How would I know?” he murmured with a wink. “Didn’t you say our relationship was too new for that bathroom kind of intimacy?”

  Charlotte wrinkled her nose at him.

  “I found a book!” Melody squealed as she walked into the computer room. She held a large hardback book in her hands.

  “You found a book in a library? Good for you,” Charlotte said blandly.

  “Silly. I found the last book Candace Hyslip checked out.”

  Charlotte’s eyebrows shot up. “Let me see.”

  Melody turned and put the book on the counter, moving away some papers that rested on the top. “It’s a genealogy book. Mainly a how to get started guide, but there’s one website that’s underlined.”

  She pointed to it.

  “You don’t even know if Candace was the one who underlined that website,” Jonas pointed out logically.

  “I have my tablet,” Charlotte said and pulled it out of her purse. She typed in the web address.

  Melody looked over her shoulder. “This isn’t a site for marriage information. This is a paternity website.”

  “Paternity for whom?”

  “Well, we find that book, we might find the answer,” Melody replied.

  “Is this a good time to say there’s a pull here?”

  Jonas’s brows shot up. “Where?”

  “Between this counter and the window.”

  Both he and Melody turned to look at the window.

  “She was working on the computer when someone interrupted her,” Charlotte went on to explain. “She dropped it there to hide it as she left the computer lab.”

  “Because the killer found her?”

  “Maybe. Maybe because of information she uncovered.”

  Jonas rubbed his forehead. “What does this have to do with Kendra?”

  “I haven’t a clue. But let’s get that book.”

  Melody and Jonas helped clear away the papers on top of the counter, and then Charlotte jumped and settled her rump on the top. She turned onto her stomach to look at the small area behind the counter, the pull whipping ice through her body. She spied it resting on the floor, collecting a layer of dust. She stretched her hand down and managed to grab it with her fingers.

  “Okay, pull me back,” she called out and felt a hand scrunch her shirt and pull. Once she could put her arm on the table, she was able to push herself up, the little black book clutched tightly in her hand.

  Without looking at Jonas or Melody, she opened it and flipped through the pages. “Look, here’s that CD married JD, and if we go by that code then all of it is in abbreviations. It’s going to take a while to decipher. The last entry is DMEW dash U slash F. What the hell? Why isn’t this ever easy?”

  Jonas helped her as she scooted off the table. He and Melody crowded next to her as she began skimming through the book.

  “Look!” Melody suddenly cried. “That page says cover up.”

  “It also says codominance, blood, and allele,” Charlotte murmured as she read. “What does allele mean?”

  Jonas’s brow furrowed. “I’ve heard of it, but I’m not entirely sure.”

  Charlotte looked at him, surprised. “You don’t know what a word means?”

  “There are a lot of words, Charlotte. Even I don’t know all of them,” he said dryly.

  She shoved the book in his hands and turned back to her tablet. “According to the online dictionary, allele means one of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome,” she replied. “Which leads us back to the paternity site. It was Candace who underlined it.”

  “So she was investigating someone’s son or daughter,” Melody said.

  “Son,” Jonas answered and held up the book, pointing to a notation. “XY.”

  Charlotte pointed to another notation. “She also wrote ‘red hair,’ and the only person I know with red hair is Danny McCoin. Why does it always come back to him?”

  “Sheriff Ratcliff has red hair,” Melody reminded her.

  “Well, yeah, but they’re related. So is this book about investigating Danny’s parents? Why? And again, what the hell does this have to do with Kendra?”

  Just then his phone rang. Jonas pulled it from his pocket and frowned as he glanced at the screen. “It’s Nash,” he told her and moved away to talk.

  “Let’s touch the book,” Melody urged. “Let’s get the vision.”

  Charlotte threw a concerned glance at the door. “I don’t like going into a vision in a public place.”

  “This library is practically deserted. I think we’ll be okay.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath and looked at Jonas, who was still talking to Nash. Her mind tried to go on a Nash tangent, but with steel determination she brought it back to the book she held in her hands. “All right,” she murmured. A vision was one sure way of not thinking about Nash McKnight and what happened last night.

  So she and Melody touched the book.

  It took her a moment to realize…there wasn’t a vision. She remained in the dark. No sound, no light, absolutely nothing to guide her forward or back. Charlotte dropped the book, and the odd connection was broken.

  “What the hell?” Charlotte muttered.

  “Why didn’t I get to see?” Melody asked, a little whine in her voice.

  Charlotte shook her head. “I didn’t see anything either. But I always get a vision off a pull.”

  “Maybe the darkness was the vision,” Melody said. “Maybe it was trying to tell us that she was just as in the dark.”

  “But there’s so much information in here,” Charlotte stated, pointing at the book. “There should have been something.”

  “Hey,” Jonas said as he walked back to them. “Nash has some stuff to tell us. He wants to meet at the Oakley’s house.”

  “Good,” Charlotte stated. “Time to figure out how Kendra fits into all this.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Oakley’s house was in the part of town that wasn’t upscale, but for the small population of Rock Ridge, that pretty much included everyone. The houses were small and looked like they were built fifty years ago. Most needed a new paint job and some had peeling shudders barely hanging on, but all had yards full of crap, from toys to car parts. And there was a distinct, unpleasant odor lingering in the air. Charlotte wrinkled her nose.

  Jonas brought the car to a stop. “A chicken factory is nearby. Look, there’s Nash.”

  Charlotte couldn’t help but think of the two messed-up birds she tried fixing for Jonas back at his house. She got out of the car, looking at Kendra Oakley’s home. It was painted off-white, and a layer of greenish moss clung around the steps leading up to an aluminum screen door. A waist-high chain-link fence surrounded the yard, and a small dog yapped at them.

  As she took a step forward, her heel fell into the storm drain and snapped.

  “Crap! I like these boots,” she said with a groan and bent to wiggle her heel out of the metal grate, just as the crack of a gun being shot reverberated through the quiet streets.

  Charlotte heard a whining sound and felt the air compression blowing out her hair as the bullet slid past her to lodge into the car’s frame. At first she was confused, but a secon
d later, Nash’s body slammed into her just as the sound of another shot broke. She landed with a thud, the air squishing out of her lungs with a forceful grunt. Nash’s body completely covered hers. He even used his arms to shield her head and face from the falling glass the second bullet had caused as it shattered the side window.

  “Charlotte!” she heard Jonas shouting, as if from miles away. Her vision darkened around the edges as she tried like mad to get air into her starving lungs. It felt like she was drowning all over again.

  “I’ve got her!” Nash yelled back. “Do you see the shooter?”

  “No! Stay down. I’m coming. I’m not wearing my gun.”

  She felt Nash move off her as he reached for his gun, and a second later, Jonas was there, shielding her body with his as Nash rolled to one knee, aiming his gun in the direction the shots came from.

  “Get her and Melody inside,” Nash ordered. And then he was off, running toward a grove of trees. Charlotte wanted to call him back, but it was all she could do to breathe.

  But terror gripped her. Not for herself but for the man disappearing from her line of vision. What if he never returned? What if the shooter now had his aim on Nash, waiting to ambush him? He could die this very moment, and she’d not have told him everything that was in her heart. Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes.

  John Oakley ran out of his house and grabbed Melody, shielding her as they hurried back to the protective haven. Jonas wrapped his arms around her and all but ran with her into the house. She saw Kate huddling behind the couch.

  “I’ve called the cops,” John Oakley told Jonas. “I heard the shots. I think one hit my house. Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonas replied as he started searching Charlotte’s body. “Charlotte, are you hit?”

  “No,” she said, gasping. “What do you mean you don’t have a gun? And what about Nash? Where is he?”

  “I can’t shoot left handed, so I don’t have my gun.” Jonas gave her a long, enigmatic look that she had no idea how to interpret before heading to the window. He kept himself low as he peeked out. “Here he comes.”

  A second later, Nash walked into the house. He was on his cell phone, his gun held tightly in one hand hanging by his side. His eyes met hers, and he immediately slipped his gun into its holster and laid his phone on side table as he knelt in front of her. He cupped her face.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry I body slammed you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m fine. Oh, Nash, you shouldn’t have run after whoever it was. You could have been killed!”

  She began to shake.

  “Shh,” he murmured and pulled her into his arms. He held her as she cried, running his hand over her hair as he rocked her. When a noise came from his phone, he picked it up and brought it to his ear. “Yes. I understand.”

  He closed his phone just as sirens were heard approaching. Jonas went out to meet them, but Nash didn’t move and Charlotte was grateful. It was taking a little longer to assure herself that they were both okay, that they were both alive and unhurt.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” he whispered in her ear. “I know you’re with Jonas, but I needed to tell you that.”

  In case something should happen. The words lingered unspoken between them. She pulled her head off his chest and looked up at him. Slowly, she reached up and kissed his mouth gently. And then she stood, moving away as Sheriff Ratcliff entered the Oakleys’ house. His eyes locked with hers.

  “Are you all right, Miss Perth?” the sheriff asked, and she remembered the conversation they had just last night.

  Seemed like he’d been right about her safety.

  She nodded and hobbled to a chair, her broken heel a reminder that it had saved her life. For the next several hours she sat in the chair, watching the hustle and bustle as not only the Rock Ridge sheriff’s office collected evidence, but also the FBI. The Feds were treating this as a connection to the girls’ murders since she was the one who had found the bodies.

  She gave statement after statement, and she waited for someone to tell her that it was all a mistake, that she wasn’t the intended victim. But no one told her anything. There were so many people, all blending together, just like the night of her accident. She tuned them out and focused on Kendra, who seemed to be all around. She didn’t need to feel the pull to know her spirit lingered.

  Charlotte had to get away. She rose and slipped by Melody, who sat with Kate, no doubt talking about Kendra, and into the hallway to look at the framed pictures decorating the old paneled wall. Kendra stared back at her, at various ages through her short life, frozen through the lens of a camera. Looking at them made her sad, so she turned to leave when her gaze fell upon a little plaque on the farthest door, decorated with hearts and rainbows twining around Kendra’s name.

  Charlotte felt invited, felt herself urged to turn the knob and enter. It was a very girly room, painted pale pink with darker-pink curtains. The carpet was an awful shade of grape. The bed frame was white cast iron and contained about a hundred stuffed animals, sitting as if waiting to be played with again. The furniture looked like it had been repainted white, the grain of wood muted through many layers of paint. A bookcase had been shoved in the corner and dripped with thumbed-through paperbacks.

  She could feel Kendra here, the personal items a beacon in the dark. One only had to take a look at the corner of the world the young girl had carved out for herself to know she was not the person Sheriff Ratcliff had claimed. Charlotte sat at the foot of the bed and ran her hand over the pink-and-white comforter, opening her mind and letting Kendra’s memories wash over her.

  The first showed Kendra as a little girl, lying in the bed as her mother read a story. Next, Kendra sat beside to the bookcase, trying to organize it except she kept getting distracted by rereading parts of each book. She saw Kendra brushing her hair, trying to decide what outfit to wear, and drawing, and finally, she saw Kendra praying.

  It made Charlotte’s heart ache.

  And then the vision changed completely, and she watched Kendra at the club, looking at Candace and Janie’s pictures clutched in her hand, glancing around as if trying to find them. And suddenly Charlotte knew why Kendra had been in the graves next to them.

  She let go of the comforter, and the bedroom came back into focus. She wiped away the tears that trailed down her cheeks. Jonas stood in front of her, watching her.

  He held out his hand. “Come. Let’s get some rest.”

  She didn’t answer. She rose and took his hand, letting him lead her out of the room. Words were not needed. Not now. Kendra’s last secret had been discovered.

  Chapter Twenty

  They had no sooner made it into their room when Jonas took her in his arms, covering her mouth with his with fierce desperation. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing into him as tightly as she could.

  “You scared the fuck out of me, Miss Perth,” he whispered in her ear. “All I kept thinking about was that I could have lost you.”

  “I felt like I was drowning all over again,” she admitted.

  He shuddered at her words, as if the visual was too much for him to bear. Jonas reached with one hand and quickly started unbuttoning her shirt, working his way down her chest with each inch revealed. She let him. She simply leaned back and let him feast upon her flesh. The material was pulled aside, and her bra melted off. He took one darkened nipple into his mouth, causing Charlotte to arch her back with a mewling sound. As he sucked and tugged, kneading with one hand, his other hand started to tease its way down her backside, over her ass.

  He began walking her back toward the bed. Her knees hit, and she fell backward, taking him with her. She worked impatiently at the buttons on his shirt, both their efforts becoming frantic. Her fingers flickered over his nipples, pinching them and bringing forth a moan from deep in his chest. Her hands ran down his muscular chest and washboard abs to find the band of his jeans. She undid the button and pulled
down the zipper, slipping her hands inside and pushing the material off his perfect rear.

  His tongue slipped deep into her mouth as he started to unbutton her jeans. He slipped his fingers inside, finding the nub drenched in moisture. With alternating sweeps of pressure he rubbed her clit, making her gasp and clench as desire pulsed through her.

  “You’re so wet,” he muttered. They finished undressing, tossing garments aside in haste. Jonas then settled between her thighs, rocking, banging his hard cock against her clit. His hands moved down her body, caressing her leg, until he grabbed her knee and brought her leg up to grip him around his hip. Then he moved his hand inward, grasping her thighs.

  “Open for me,” he whispered demandingly, pushing her legs open wide. As she lay there, staring at him through half-closed eyes, Jonas trailed his middle finger toward her, past the dark curls to slide over her wetness and sink into the plump folds of her pussy. Charlotte arched her back with a gasp, her eyes flying open to meet his.

  “Ah,” he murmured. “Do you know how tight you are? You’re so beautiful, so sexy.”

  Featherlight caresses, faster, harder, over and over. Her body coiled and wound tight, and all she could do was balance for a moment on the precipice and then fall.

  “Unhh,” she moaned as the orgasm crashed over her.

  Jonas moved up as she rode the crest, lifting her head with one hand to kiss her. His other hand eased out of her as he settled in between her still-open thighs. His fingers held open her lips as he guided himself right up to her, his cock giving one nudge as if it found its home. Unable to hold back, he thrust forward, burying himself completely.

  He moaned and paused, dropping his head and resting it on her shoulder. “Ah,” he rasped. “You’re so fucking perfect, Charlotte. So incredible.”

  She curved her body up, lifting her legs to hug around him as she crushed herself fully against him. She felt his heart thunder next to her own, her nipples digging like pebbles. She squeezed him with her walls gently, letting him know she felt him deep inside. He moaned again and gave a fluid jerk with his hips.