by K. L. Kreig
Found Underneath
Finding Me Duet #2
K.L. Kreig
Contents
Copyright
Preface
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Babbles…
Also by K.L. Kreig
Musical Inspiration
About the Author
Copyright
Found Underneath
Copyright © 2017 by K. L. Kreig
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Published by K. L. Kreig
ePub: ISBN-13: 978-1-943443-24-6 ISBN-10: 1943443246
mobi: ISBN-13: 978-1-943443-25-3 ISBN-10: 1943443254
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author.
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Art by Kellie Dennis of Book Cover By Design
Editing by Nikki Busch Editing
Cover Model: Assad-Lawrence Hadi Shalhoub
Cover Photographer: Christopher John
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Published in the United States of America.
Preface
Found.
Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere and sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find yourself. ~ Unknown
Author’s Note
This is NOT a standalone. If you haven’t read LOST IN BETWEEN yet, close this book immediately and read that one first. FOUND UNDERNEATH is the conclusion of the Finding Me duet and must be read in order to understand and enjoy the entire story. If you’ve read LOST IN BETWEEN, then I suggest you grab a few tissues and buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride! (Insert evil author laugh here.)
Prologue
One day before meeting Willow Blackwell
Regardless of what the female population thinks, simply because a man chooses to remain single does not mean there is something wrong with him.
Take me for example.
I am not broken.
I am not damaged.
I’m not a sociopath, a narcissist, or a recluse.
I don’t have a black soul or a shattered heart.
Life hasn’t beaten me down to the point where I don’t think I’ll make a sufficient mate.
I haven’t had a bad relationship or met a woman who “ruined me” for all others. I am not pining for the “one that got away.”
I’m a normal, down-to-earth guy who has made a conscious choice not to be tied to one woman for life.
From the time I was four and the smell of success pulled me under her seductive influence, I knew having a wife and family would only interfere with my life, not enhance it.
And I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but why settle for a single entree when a whole buffet is at my disposal?
I work hard. I play harder. And I like the little gig I’ve set up for myself. It works well, and you know what they say about things that aren’t broken.
No, I’m happy just the way I am.
Free and unattached.
A self-proclaimed bachelor for life.
My life is perfect the way it is, and there is no woman I will ever meet who could possibly change that.
Chapter 1
Present Day
My hands are trembling. My stomach is a wreck…knotted and churning. Acid made purely of anxiety eats me raw. It keeps crawling its way up my esophagus and I keep shoving it back down.
I’m trying not to overreact. I want to give Annabelle the benefit of the doubt, but…should I? She’s not exactly Snow fucking White and four years ago, she was as far from a Disney princess as a girl could get.
Drug abuse strung her out, changed her, almost stole her from us. If I hadn’t saved her when I did, if she hadn’t decided she’d reached rock bottom, I’ve no doubt she’d be long gone. Living in a crack house or resting peacefully beside my younger brother who died two days after birth.
I replay words over and over from an asshole who wants my woman, wishing they were different. Praying they’re wrong.
“Am I playing, Shaw?” he sneers. “You picked up your sister that night from the police station. Miraculously got her off on coke possession charges. Wasn’t she soaked to the bone? Distraught? What bullshit story did your drug addict sister feed you that you bought with the gullibility of a five-year-old?”
A loud horn to my right jolts me. I yank the wheel to the left, realizing that I’ve drifted into the right lane.
“Watch what you’re fucking doing,” a woman with three kids lined in the back seat yells out the window she’s rolled down specifically to berate me. She flips me the finger before tearing off through a yellow light that turns red halfway through, while I stop.
Good role model, that. Don’t follow in her footsteps, kids.
While the engine idles, my mind drifts, and I reluctantly remember the night that’s etched in my memory forever.
“Merc, you need to get down here.”
“What is it?” My stomach churns. I already know the answer.
“It’s your sister. And she’s pretty out of it.”
Fuck. Annabelle, what have you done now? The second I hear Bull’s words, I grab my keys and head out the door. I slide into the driver’s seat and start the car, the engine quiet. The Bluetooth kicks in. “Did you call my parents?”
“I should have but…” Bull hedges, his throaty voice ringing through my speakers.
Relief swarms me. “Thanks, man. Be there shortly.”
I immediately call Noah and we arrive at the Seattle PD half an hour later. When we step inside, soaked due to the downpour, we’re greeted by Captain Ryan. Captain Cade Ryan, or Bull, as we affectionately referred to our best defensive linebacker in high school, also happens to be a good friend of Noah’s and mine.
“What’s going on, Bull?” I ask, trying to keep my shit together.
He shakes his head and starts down the hall to our left. We silently follow corridor after corridor until we stop at a closed wooden door. Only then does Bull address us. Well, me.
“Your sister needs serious help, Merc. Professional therapy. Detox. I could book her on Schedule 1 CDS possession right now and get it to stick. That’s up to five years if convicted.”
My eyes close as despair makes it impossible to hold my head up. “What did she have?” I
ask, glaring at the matted carpet flooring that probably used to be light brown twenty years ago. Now it’s just a snarled sea of mud, bad decisions, and ruined lives.
“Cocaine.”
“Fuck,” Noah and I curse loudly at the same time.
“Look, I’m not even sure it was hers. She says it wasn’t, of course. A baggie was in the bushes beside the vehicle, and there were three other girls inside, but it’s obvious she’s been using something.”
“Where did you find her?”
“Holsteen Road. She and three other girls. She wasn’t driving but it was her car. They were picked up for speeding and erratic driving.”
I pin him with a desperate look. Annabelle is just shy of her seventeenth birthday, and a conviction will ruin her future. Kiss scholarships and college good-bye. Generally, a drug possession charge would only result in probation…if it was your first run-in with the law, especially with the best lawyers, which I happen to have access to. But this isn’t her first. And this is a hell of a lot worse than a few dime bags of weed. She could be in real trouble here.
“What now?”
The air is weighty with indecision at my unspoken and unfair request of a fucking police captain. How do I make this shit go away?
After making me wait what seems like an agonizing amount of time, he finally offers, “She goes right from here into inpatient rehab. No less than thirty days.”
“I can do that.” I almost weep at this gift Annabelle’s being given, but she probably won’t see it that way. She’ll see it as worse than a prison sentence.
“Get her help, Merc. I see her in here again and there’s nothing I can do. And any of you breathe a word of this to anyone, it’s my badge.”
Emotion clogs my throat. I nod but can’t respond. Noah does instead. “We understand. Thanks, Bull. We got you covered.”
When Bull opens the door, I’m momentarily frozen at the tiny, fragile thing sitting in a metal chair at a matching shiny oblong table. Cheeks streaked with tears and mascara. Red-rimmed, haunted eyes. Disheveled blond hair. A swollen cut on one side of her lip. Her clothes are askew, her top ripped. She has scratches up and down one arm. All one hundred pounds of her is soaked to the bone.
She looks like she could shatter with a simple breath.
“Bluebelle, what have you done to yourself?” I choke, unable to keep a tear from leaking.
In slow motion, she looks up. My breath catches at deadened icy blue eyes that latch on to mine. It takes her several seconds to realize it’s me and when she does, she launches herself from the table and runs into my arms like she used to when she was a little girl. Every limb winds around me and she sobs uncontrollably.
“What happened, Belle?”
She won’t answer. Her tiny body silently shudders against mine.
I distinctly remember it took me half an hour to calm her enough to remove her from the PD without bringing attention to ourselves. While I worked to pacify Annabelle, Noah worked on finding a place to take her. When we left, he had everything arranged for a small, boutique facility in Portland. The last thing we needed was to keep her in the city and have the press find out.
Annabelle never told me much about that night, and even to this day, I don’t know the particulars. Whenever I pushed she withdrew, so I decided it wasn’t worth rehashing because for quite a while there she was on the brink and I didn’t want to throw her over it with the third degree. She relapsed once in the middle of treatment. Left, then came back. She pulled through, though. Managed to stay clean until last year when she slipped and returned to rehab on her own.
Drug addiction is a soul-sucking experience for everyone involved, including the addict. Hope disintegrates, faith is destroyed, trust erodes to nothing. Less than nothing. It takes a lifetime to earn those back once they’re gone if it’s even possible. And one mistake…one mistake can have everyone backtracking to square one on the game board, aggravated at having to start over.
Even though she’s been doing well, I have no shame admitting I’ve never made it much past square one with her. As I now stand at the mouth of Allen Library, watching my sister with her nose tucked in a book, looking all scholarly and happy and youthful, I freeze.
Can I trust a word out of her mouth?
Will I find answers to questions I don’t even know if I want?
My entire future rests on my baby sister and isn’t that fucking ironic? Her entire future rested on me only a few years ago. For once in my life, I need something from someone else and I feel as if I’m going to be hung out to dry. My chest physically constricts at the thought of not having Willow in my life.
Maybe I should be knocking on Bull’s doorstep instead to see how the hell Reid “fuckface” Mergen even knows about a case where the paperwork was supposedly “misplaced.” Perhaps I should be attacking this problem from an entirely different direction, burying Reid Mergen so far underground in the process he’ll never again see the light of day. Slander his reputation so no one believes a venomous word he drips.
Yeah. New plan.
I’m halfway to my car when Annabelle’s melodic voice floats from behind, “Hey, where are you going?”
For a split second, I consider pretending not to hear her. Just get in my car, drive to the PD, and ferret out who Bull’s rat is. If I turn around and acknowledge her, if I let the accusation settle hard between us, I can’t take it back. Once the cat is out of the bag, I’ll never be able to shove that hairy monster back inside.
Maybe this is exactly what Mergen is after? Fracture trust. Weave doubt. Set the trap, letting me set myself on fire while he stands on with a fire extinguisher he has no intention of using.
But I think back to his taunt, and I know there was something there I didn’t want to acknowledge when I was contemplating choking the life from him.
Confidence.
He was so goddamned certain what he was saying was the truth.
Stop being a pussy, Merc. Even if I want to run from this, I can’t. I need to know what happened that night, now more than ever. And if something did…figure out how the fuck I’m going to mitigate the fallout without losing anyone I love in the process.
Chapter 2
“Yeah. Just forgot something. It can wait,” I answer when I turn back around.
“You sure? You look”—her eyes narrow and she cocks her head, scrutinizing me a little too closely—“weird.”
What? The panic swelling inside me like high tide is seeping out of my pores? Tightening my cheeks? Tingeing my eyes wild with fear? Imagine that.
“Always looking for something that’s not there, Bluebelle.”
Her lips thin. My diversion falls flat. Once again, I briefly contemplate making a run for it, but fuck it. Delaying this conversation isn’t going to make it any easier. And it’s certainly not going to make this shit go away.
Grabbing her gently by the arm, I direct us to an unoccupied park bench underneath a large oak alongside the sidewalk. Fall is finally upon us and nature is helpless to resist. Leaves are already turning shades of copper and yellow. A few have dried and fallen early. They crunch beneath our feet as we silently walk.
I take a seat, relishing in the warmth of the metal seeping through my suit pants. In a mere moment, I’m afraid my entire body will feel as cold as dry ice instead.
“What’s up, Shawshank?”
I let her irritating childhood nickname roll off. Staring ahead, I watch the flurry of life on campus. I remember camping out like this between classes, watching the freshmen skitter by virtuous and unaware. Easily weeding through them to find the shameless so Noah and I could play with them later.
Back then had Willow walked by, she would have immediately been rejected. Too sweet, too tame. Far too innocent. And what a shame that would have been. To never touch her supple curves or her silky hair. To never feel her melt under the touch of my hand or hear the hitch of her breath when she’s coming undone under the weight of my body. Jesus, the thought of never hearing her
whisper or moan my name is unfathomable. She’s twisted me in ways I didn’t know I could bend. She’s apparently the one I’ve been waiting for and I would have discarded her with a passing glance for the very thing that draws me to her today.
“What were you doing the night you got picked up for coke possession? And I need the truth this time, Bluebelle.”
I didn’t even look at her when I blurted out a question that slammed into her from behind with the force of a Mack truck. I know it did because I heard the breath whoosh from her lungs right before the sharp intake of air to refill them.
I turn my head to gaze hard at my sister. She’s staring at me with this shocked look on her face. I know why. This is a taboo subject between us. Hell, with the whole damn family. We all walk on eggshells, hoping they don’t crack beneath the weight of our steps. Never discuss how Annabelle spiraled out of control. It may upset her. It’s as if we’re all supposed to forget she is a recovering addict. Will always be a recovering addict.
But I’ve never forgotten. Neither should she. Neither should anyone who cares about her. And apparently neither has an outsider who is now hell-bent on taking what’s mine by using my love for my family against me. Little does he know it’s exactly my love for my family—and that now includes Willow—that will fuel me to steamroll right over him.
“Answer the question, Bluebelle.” I soften my tone only marginally, but the hoarse rasp in it gives away exactly how wound up I am. She’s keeping something from me. I see the secrets plain as day in her striking blues. They’re trying to dive below the surface, remain hidden.
Well, I’m dragging them back up to the top. It’s time to unearth old ghosts no matter how loud they howl.
“Why…?” She stops to swallow, and that guilt I always feel for upsetting my baby sister swells when her eyes gloss over. I fight my instincts to give her an out. I need this fucking answer. For me, for Willow, but honestly…mostly for her. That campaign asshole has something on her, and I need to find out what it is and make it go away. Maybe I can even bury it before Willow ever needs to know.