by Lexi Blake
“And I’m telling you to back off if you want to live,” he practically snarled. The only reason he responded at all was the movement of Carly’s chest. She was breathing. She was alive. Now he had to hope she hadn’t been down long enough to cause real damage. “There was a gas leak in your precious gallery that damn near killed two of your employees, so you need to back off or I swear I’ll go to the television cameras that will inevitably show up and explain to them that all you gave a damn about was your clothing. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes flared, but she backed off.
“Was trying to not get it wrinkled,” Carly said, her voice a bit shaky. “Fabric like this wrinkles in the heat and you wouldn’t have liked that.” Her eyes fluttered open and she gave him the sweetest half smile. “You knew chemistry.”
Relief swept through him and he held her to him. “I suck at chemistry but luckily Mike doesn’t. You gave me a scare.”
“We should move everyone farther away,” Patricia muttered, seeming to finally give a damn about something. “There could be a fire. We should all get to a safe distance until the fire department can sort it out. Carly, you should go to the hospital.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Bran vowed. If anyone thought they were separating him from her, they needed to think again.
Patricia nodded, though she wasn’t looking at them anymore. Her eyes were wandering, as though looking for something she couldn’t find. “All right. I’ll see to getting everyone out of here. Brandon, I believe we should have a talk when things are calmer. Perhaps you could put me in touch with your employer.”
He simply nodded, but a sick feeling had started in his gut again, and this time it had nothing to do with the gas.
This was the chaos his brother had promised.
He and Drew were about to have a long, maybe bloody talk.
—
Bran tucked her into bed hours later. It wasn’t long before dawn, but he thought it would be a miracle if he got any sleep at all. He hadn’t talked to his brother. Even as he’d carried her in, he hadn’t said a word to his brother.
“Where am I?” Her eyes opened, but he didn’t see any fear in them. Merely curiosity. “This is not my bedroom, Brandon Lawless.” Her eyes widened in obvious panic. “Oh, God. I called you by your name.”
“Hush, it’s all right.” He sat down beside her and smoothed back her hair. “We’re safe and you’re fine and everything is all right. I brought you home with me. We’re at the condo in Palm Coast, where you will be recovering for a few days while I ensure that everything is safe and sound at your place.”
“You think this was DiLuca? I thought you paid him this afternoon. God, I still feel so bad about that.”
He thought it was something else entirely, but he wasn’t sure he would ever tell Carly what he thought had really happened. “He has been paid off. I wired him the money before dinner. I got confirmation that he has it and he’s cleared the debt so he’s got no reason to come after you. And I doubt this would be his style. I think I’m going to find out what’s going on before I let you out in the open again. I already have someone working on it. Now, you rest and relax and I’ll handle everything.”
“I’m the world’s worst spy partner,” she said with a frown. “I cause more problems than I solve.”
“Nonsense. I already learned more at that single party than we could have in a year’s worth of research. Now go to sleep.”
She sighed as she laid back. He’d managed to get her into scrubs at the hospital, and they would have to serve as pajamas this evening. She looked soft and sweet all cuddled up in the bed. “Where are you going to be?”
“I’ve got some issues to clear up and then I’ll be right outside on the couch.” The way he had been for a solid week. His back ached at the thought but at least the couch here was bigger than the one at her place.
She reached out, her hand finding his arm. “Don’t sleep out there. When you’re done, come to bed with me. Just to sleep. I won’t attack you. I’m feeling a little weak so you’re safe from me. I can’t stand the thought of you on the couch. Please sleep with me.”
After what she’d been through, could he tell her no? Could he explain that sleeping next to her and not taking her would be way more uncomfortable than the couch? Naturally not. He would do whatever it took to make her feel safe again. Especially since it had been his own brother’s fucked-up-all-to-hell plan that had nearly killed her. “I’ll be back in a while. You get some sleep. The doctor said you would be fine, but you’re supposed to rest for a few days. I’ve already told Patricia you won’t be back until Monday.”
“I can’t miss work.” She shook her head. “You can’t tell Patricia stuff like that. She doesn’t take orders.”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Yes, I can. It’s all arranged. Like I said, you rest and leave everything else to me.”
He stood and walked to the door.
“Bran?”
“Yes?”
“Did it work?”
He closed his eyes for a second, the question threatening to make him lose it. She didn’t ask it in an angry fashion. She was merely checking to see if they’d done their job. “It worked. She wants a meeting with Taggart. I think it scared her for some reason. It definitely threw her off balance.”
“Good.” Her eyes closed again.
He stalked out of the room, managing to close the door behind him quietly when what he wanted to do was slam it as hard as he could. He strode down the hall, searching for his brother. It was time to have it out. Naturally his brother was waiting for him.
“Why don’t you explain what happened and why you haven’t answered my calls or texts for the last five hours, Bran. All I got was one snippy text explaining that you were coming out here and I should vacate the master bedroom. Did you think that was acceptable?” Drew was standing in the living room. Only Hatch was present at this late-night meeting. Ellie and Riley had flown back to New York the previous morning and Case and Mia had left for Dallas hours before. “Do you have any idea what you put us through?”
Bran had known this was a conversation best had in person. And with a minimum of words. Drew was worried about what he’d been put through?
He walked right up to his asshole brother and popped him in the face. His hand felt like it cracked with pain, but that was just one more ache the night had brought. “You’re a fucking asshole, Drew, and I swear if you ever put her in that kind of danger again, I will walk right into Patricia Cain’s office and I’ll give her everything. Do you understand me?”
Drew backed off, his hand going to his face, eyes flaring. “What the fuck are you talking about, Bran?”
Hatch got right in the middle, his hands coming out to keep them apart. “Everyone calm down. There has obviously been a misunderstanding here.”
Naturally Hatch would take Drew’s side. “There’s no misunderstanding. Carly nearly died tonight. I had to break down that door, Drew. How could you? How could you possibly think that was all right? You didn’t tell me because you wanted me to have an honest reaction? Here it is, brother. I’m taking her out of this and if you try to stop me, I’ll make good on my threat.”
Drew stared at him as if trying to process. “You think I did that? You think I started a gas leak in a building where my brother was? Where you could have gotten hurt? Do you even know me? Do you know what I went through to make sure you were safe?”
Safe? Drew thought he’d been safe? The impulse to hit his brother again rose like a giant hammer, straightening his spine, making his fists pulse. His mind raced with images of some of the safety he’d been given in his childhood.
Hiding in a dirty closet for two days because his foster father was drunk and threatened to beat him to death. Two days without food or water. Two days without a bathroom.
Safe? He’d never once been fucking saf
e. Not since the night Riley had awakened him and the monster had started his chase.
Hatch stepped in front of him. “Bran, don’t do this right now. You look at me. You’re here with me. Do you understand?”
Only the feel of Hatch’s hands on his face, his voice calling him back, made him stand down. He hated this weakness, hated that it welled up so unexpectedly at times. He wasn’t a child anymore, but he seemed forever stuck in that nasty house. No matter how much money Drew tossed his way, he would always be the kid no one wanted. He shoved it all aside. This wasn’t a therapy session. This was about Carly. “I understand my brother is a ruthless bastard who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
Hatch stepped back, all tenderness gone from his expression. “You stop right now and explain yourself. Are you trying to say you think Drew had anything to do with that gas leak?”
“How do you know there was a gas leak if you didn’t do it? You wanted to cause some chaos. You got it.” But even as he said the words, he was coming down from his volcanic rage.
“I was there, Bran. I was across the street waiting to send in the agent I hired to protest against Cain Corp’s history of animal abuse. She was going to rush Patricia and scare the crap out of her and make a scene. I wanted to wait until the end of the night for Carly’s sake. I thought it would be easier on her. That was the chaos I was going to cause,” Drew said, striding into the kitchen and opening the freezer. “Instead I had to stay away and flip the hell out when I realized that building could explode and my baby brother was still in it.”
“I had to hold him back,” Hatch said with a shake of his head.
“If you ever do that to me again, I swear I’ll cut you off from everything,” Drew vowed, pointing at Hatch.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that all night long.” A long huff issued from Hatch and he stalked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. “What the hell were you going to do besides screw up everything? Did you honestly think he would have left with you? He wasn’t going to do anything until he got that girl out.”
“I wasn’t planning on giving him a choice,” Drew shot back.
Shit. Ever since that moment that he’d realized Carly was in danger, all he could think about was making someone pay. He’d meant every word he’d said. He’d intended to pull Carly out and damn the consequences. Not that he’d talked to her about the decision, and she’d probably want to have a say.
“I’m sorry.” Why had he gone to the worst possible place? Was he always going to do that? It seemed to be his way. The minute something bad happened he went to the darkest explanation possible. “I thought it was you. Hell, Carly asked me if it worked. Which it did. Patricia requested a meeting with my boss.”
“Carly thinks I put her in that kind of danger?” Drew asked, his voice tight.
“No.” He wasn’t going to let Drew think that. Carly had been smarter than him, it seemed. Or perhaps she simply had less history and a more optimistic outlook. “She thinks it has something to do with her mob debt, but she was smart enough to know that it could have sent Patricia right over the edge.”
Drew slapped an ice pack over the left side of his face. “At least one of you has faith in me.”
“Again with the sorry. It’s been a rough night.”
Hatch slumped down on the couch, Scotch in hand. “Is she really all right? How was she the only one who had to go to the hospital? I don’t think we understand what happened.”
“I would have understood a hell of a lot more if you’d let me go in,” Drew complained.
That would have been real chaos. “Hatch was right to hold you back. We needed people out of the building, not rushing in. And she wasn’t the only one who felt the effects. The cameraman had been in there for a few minutes and he came out complaining about a headache.”
“Go back to the beginning.” Drew sat down beside Hatch. “Why on earth was the gas on? It’s not cold at all.”
Bran quickly described the art exhibit and the signature piece. He managed to get through it with a minimum of snark, which he thought was very professional of him. “At some point in time, a leak must have started. Carly and I had been in the room earlier in the evening and we didn’t have any trouble. Then later Mike went in to set up his camera and that was when he walked out complaining of a headache. Carly had gone in to make all the final preparations with Tim.”
Who he hadn’t seen at all. If Tim had been in that room, why had he found Carly in there alone? Why hadn’t he seen Tim running down the hall or milling around afterward? He’d talked to Mike and several of the other employees, but he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Tim.
“So this was some kind of accident?” Hatch asked. “Do you think they screwed something up with the stove thing when they were messing with all those cameras?”
No, he was starting to think something much more sinister was going on. It made some sense when he’d thought it was his brother. Though even in that case he hadn’t been thinking clearly. Now that he was out of the situation, he had a few questions. “She was locked in.”
Drew sat up, his jaw tightening. “Locked in the room with the gas leak?”
He could still remember the terror he’d felt when he couldn’t get that door open. “Yes, it was locked, but I didn’t have time to figure out how. I broke it open and got her out of there. She was locked in from the outside. I can assure you she tried to get out. When she came to she told me she’d tried to get the door open and then she’d gotten too dizzy to walk. She barely managed to text me a message.”
If she hadn’t, he would have stood there talking to Mike while she was breathing in poison. She would have died while he joked about football or something else inane. He would have found her on the floor. Another girl he couldn’t save.
“Hey, she did and she’s fine,” Drew said. “Are you sure the door couldn’t have simply been stuck? That gallery is in one of the older buildings in the city. Sometimes doors stick.”
He thought back, trying to remember every detail. “I tried the doorknob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t open. So I threw my body at it and managed to get through. The question is why was the door closed at all? The camera was still set up, but Carly was the only one in the room. Tim, the junior cameraman, was supposed to be there waiting for the last shot, but he was nowhere to be found.”
“All right. We need more than a first name.” Hatch pulled out his phone and started typing. “I’ll fill in Case on everything that went down. Would this Tim person be an employee?”
“I think so. Carly will know more.” He wasn’t going to wake her up now, but in the morning they could all sit down and go over the events of the evening. “Tell Case we need a meeting with his brother. I don’t think Patricia will accept talking to anyone but Ian. And I want to see all the reports on the gas leak as soon as they’re available.”
“I’ve already got a friend working that angle. The fire department will be investigating. As soon as they know anything, we should have some information, too.” Drew looked back at the bedroom. “Is she really all right? She didn’t look good when you carried her out.”
“The EMTs got her oxygen. She wasn’t in there for more than a few minutes.” His brain was whirling. “What if someone screwed up? What if that was meant to be a slow leak? Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless. Carly survived because it got to her fast and she hit the floor.”
“With a slow leak, sometimes no one even realizes they’re being poisoned.” Hatch took up his thinking. “If they’d closed the door during that filming, it could have gone poorly. Especially if it was locked from the outside. They would have done their work and then found themselves getting sick but with no explanation or real capacity to understand. And with more people in the room there would be less oxygen.”
“The filming was supposed to be private. No one would have gone back there for twenty or thirty minutes.” Now that
he was thinking about it, all kinds of dark theories made sense. “It’s more than enough time to kill a bunch of people. All our friend Tim would have to do was open the door again and the whole thing would be viewed as a horrible accident.”
“That’s pure supposition,” Drew replied. “You can’t know that. It was very likely an accident. Otherwise, why would Carly have been the one locked inside? Who would want to hurt her?”
There was something about the way Patricia had acted afterward that made Bran think. “I don’t think it was Carly. She was wearing something of Patricia’s. A distinct cape that everyone saw her wearing in and that was supposed to be featured in the final shot of the night. Carly had talked about it on our way there. I was asking her about what she had to do tonight and one of the things she joked about was making sure the lighting worked to take ten years off her boss’s face and that the silly designer cape looked white and not cream on film. The cameramen would have known about it.”
“You think this Tim person was trying to kill Patricia?” Hatch asked with a whistle. “Well, I wouldn’t blame him. I wanted to kill her several times over the years.”
“We also need to look into a woman named Francine Wells.” The night hadn’t been a complete clusterfuck. He had found a few things out. “Do you know that name, Hatch?”
Hatch nodded after a moment. “She worked for the company back in the day. Is she involved with Patty?”
Well, that answered one question. “According to Patricia’s stepson, Francine was Patricia’s first Carly.”
Hatch nodded. “Yeah, I always wondered about that. The Patty I knew could barely boil water. Oh, she was always interested in making everything as fancy as possible, but she wasn’t what I would call a homemaker. She hired decorators and caterers. I’m not surprised to hear there was someone else behind her.”
“Apparently Francine died a few years back or they had some kind of falling out,” Bran explained. “Since then she’s used Carly to prop her up idea-wise. It’s why she went to such careful lengths to force Carly to keep working for her, and it’s why I fear if we don’t do something, in a couple of years, she’ll do something worse to maintain the status quo.”