Bound by Deception

by Trish McCallan

  “When did you hear from her last?” Rio asked.

  “Sixteen years ago, when she walked out the door. And good riddance, I say. The girl was nothing but trouble from the moment Aaron installed her in our home.”

  He wanted to ask her if they’d ever bothered to get Becca some counseling to combat the trauma of her mother’s death. But it wasn’t his business and it was ancient history.

  “And now if that’s all—” Lena gestured toward the door.

  “It’s not.” Rio didn’t budge. “Was Adam with you last night?”

  “No.” Adele’s voice caught on a nervous quake. “Adam is out of town on business. He’s not due back until Friday morning.”

  “Adele!” Lena’s voice snapped out like a whip. “Stop catering to him. Adam’s business dealings are none of his business.”

  “Actually, they are.” Rio’s voice chilled. “Until we find out who decided it was open season on Rebecca Blaine, everything your family does is my business.”

  Lena’s face froze. “We’ll see if Chief Moyer feels the same.”

  “Moyer doesn’t run SDPD anymore,” Rio reminded her, his tone flat. But her comment reminded him of why Becca had returned to San Diego in the first place. Had Moyer’s connection to the Harts been strong enough to convince him to misplace evidence? Lena Hart certainly seemed to think she could count on him to put the kibosh on this current investigation. He looked back at Adele, whose fingers were twisting and turning anxiously. “When did Adam leave and where did he go?”

  Adele glanced at her mother, her throat trembling as she swallowed. “He left Sunday evening for Miami. I’m certain you can get his itinerary from his secretary at Fontaine Holdings.”

  Rio nodded absently. He’d check with Fontaine Properties as soon as he got Becca settled. Adam’s alibi should be easy enough to check out. If he was staying at a hotel, the room’s keycard would give them a timeline for Adam’s presence in the room.

  “If that’s all then.” Lena’s tone held a mandate that he leave immediately.

  He ignored the demand. “Are you aware that Becca was in town requesting her mother’s case be reopened based off new evidence?” He glanced between Lena and Adele as he spoke. Lena’s eyes widened slightly, only to narrow.

  “No. I was not.” Lena pushed the denial through tight lips.

  Rio glanced toward Adele, who simply shook her head. But her fingers were laced so tightly her knuckles were white. He frowned slightly as he scanned her face. While he’d received an invitation to her wedding, he hadn’t seen Adele in person in years. He didn’t remember her being so thin, or anxious or subservient to her mother. But then Adele had barely registered back then. Every nerve in his body had been focused exclusively on Becca.

  “What’s this new evidence she claims to have found?” Lena asked suddenly, her face tense, a furious glitter in her pale blue eyes.

  She knew. There was no doubt of that in Rio’s mind. And she was pissed that he’d had the gall to bring it up.

  “She found a fetal ultrasound in her mom’s diary. She believes her mother was pregnant and would never have committed suicide.” He paused before cocking an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Rachel Blaine’s pregnancy, I mean.”

  Lena’s face froze. The muscles so tight it looked like she’d recently received a bad batch of Botox. “Maria?” Her voice emerged raw and hoarse, vibrating with rage. She waited until the woman with the graying hair appeared in the doorway. “Show Mr. Addario out.”

  “Detective Addario,” Rio reminded her flatly. “And you didn’t answer my question. Did you know Rachel Blaine was pregnant?”

  “No.” She clipped the word out and turned from him, her shoulders rigid. “Any other questions can be handled through my attorney. Please go. You’re no longer welcome in this house.”

  Just to be a jackass, he almost asked if he’d been uninvited from the wedding. But hell, he could at least pretend to be a professional, no matter how much he wanted to punish the old witch for her verbal attacks on her stepdaughter.

  Rio closed the back door of Trammel’s Jeep Renegade. The clipped crack as Tag and Tram followed suit, hung in the hushed air. He scanned the street intently, before focusing on the shrubbery surrounding the tiny, Craftsman style house perched on the hill above them.

  The neighborhood was an older one. It was hilly, but well maintained, with small houses and large yards full of lush, mature vegetation. From experience, he knew the street lamps were close enough together to light the entire street when the sun went down. The residents, for the most part, were retired and enjoyed the age-old hobby of spying on their neighbors. Their rubbernecking would come in handy over the next few days.

  He shook his head wryly as one of the curtains on the boxy blue house across the street twitched. It seemed like just last week that he’d responded to Emma’s—Lucas’s fiancée’s—911 call, although it had been over a year, now. Hell, he was pretty sure he’d even parked his cruiser in the exact same spot Tram had just parked his Jeep.

  “Looks like we’re good to go,” Tag said from across the Jeep. His attention shifted from their surroundings to Rio’s face and back out to the street.

  “Agreed. Let’s get her out and into the house,” Lucas said from beside the driver’s door.

  “I’ll grab her suitcases.” Tag headed to the back of the Jeep,

  “Are you sure about this?” Rio asked Trammel as they walked around the hood of the black Renegade toward the passenger seat where Becca sat waiting. “We don’t have to bring her here. I can find another safe house.”

  “I’m sure.” Lucas surveyed the closest yards, before turning back to Rio. “This place is perfect. No one will tie it to you. Hell, I’ve made damn sure it can’t be tied to me.”

  Rio agreed with the assessment, but he was still surprised. Tram was fanatical about his fiancée’s safety. Obsessed with it. Fuck, he still paid rent at Tag’s condo, so he could claim the place as his permanent address. Only a handful of people knew he lived with Emma. For Tram to bring someone with a target on their back into Emma’s house, while she was living there, well that just didn’t fit with the guy’s protective streak.

  So why had he made the offer?

  His buddy was right, though. Both women would be safe here. Since Tram had kept his relationship with Emma secret, nobody would trace Rio to Trammel and from there to Emma and Becca.

  And they could rule out any possibility that they’d been followed from the ER to Emma’s house. They’d picked up Becca in Rio’s pickup, driven to Tram’s Renegade and swapped vehicles in case someone has slapped a tracker on Rio’s truck. From there, they’d backtracked and randomly drove around, while Russo and Milly, who were following a couple of cars back, kept their eyes peeled for third party interest.

  Rio was confident they hadn’t been followed.

  “Plus,” Lucas paused to gaze affectionally at the smoke colored dollhouse up on the hill, “this place is perfect. It’s so small we can watch every window and entrance from the living room couch.”

  Rio stopped with his hand on the passenger door handle. “Emma’s good with this?”

  Tram nodded, his gaze drifting over the neighborhood again. “She’s the one who suggested it. Said Becca would be more comfortable with another woman in the house, considering she doesn’t know me or Tag. Hell, with what happened—” He broke off, frowning heavily, his gaze shifting to Rio’s face.

  “Happened?” Rio prompted.

  “Look, you need to talk to Becca about—”

  The passenger door suddenly jolted open beneath Rio’s hand and Tram stopped talking.

  “Were we followed?” Becca asked. “Is that why you’re not letting me out of the car?”

  “Nope.” Rio pulled the door all the way open. “Just going over specifics.”

  “Specifics?” She snorted beneath her breath and swung her feet to the right. “Like I’m to remain within sight of Tag or Tram at all times. I�
��m to stay away from windows. I’m not to go outside or answer the door. I’m not to make or accept any phone calls.” She eased her feet to the pavement and stood, then stopped to scowl. “Which is easy to promise since you took my phone.”

  “You’ll get it back when this is over.” He’d stashed her cell at his apartment. “If your attacker has the right contacts, he can track you through the GPS on your cell.”

  Since there was a chance her attacker was connected to someone in the SDPD, the ability to find her through the phone was potentially there. Better safe than sorry.

  Rio hovered, worry mounting as Becca stepped onto the sidewalk. She looked so pale. Exhausted too, although she’d slept huge swaths of the night away.

  “Are you sure this poor woman wants me here?” Becca cast an anxious glance up the hill toward the house.

  “Emma suggested it,” Tram assured her, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I’m under strict orders to bring you back here.”

  Rio cocked his head, eying Tram with curiosity. His buddy’s attitude toward Becca had changed during the past twelve hours. He’d shifted from coldly distant to considerate. Hell, almost personable. He suspected the change had something to do with what Lucas had been about to tell him before Becca had interrupted them. He’d have to pull Tram aside once she was settled and find out what Lucas had been leading up to.

  “You never mentioned what you found on the roof where the shooter was,” Becca reminded him as they followed Trammel up the cement sidewalk to the diminutive house above.

  “Because we didn’t find anything useful.”

  They’d found a couple of .22LR casings. Which meant the bastard wasn’t a professional, otherwise he’d have picked the shells up and taken them with him. But since .22LRs were the most popular rifle cartridge around, it made tracking the guy who’d wielded the weapon close to impossible.

  “What about the truck that tried to hit me?” Becca looked up at his face fleetingly before dropping her gaze to the concrete beneath her sneakers.

  “It’s been recovered and dusted, but so far all the finger prints we’ve pulled have been cleared.”

  Becca’s forehead creased. “He was wearing gloves.”

  Rio simply nodded. The gloves had been mentioned in several witness accounts —including Becca’s.

  The way things currently stood, they were looking at jackshit when it came to evidence and suspects. He needed to investigate from a different angle. “Did you tell anyone why you were coming to San Diego?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming to San Diego, let alone why.” But then she frowned and shook her head. “Well, that’s not quite true. I did tell my assistant the dates I’d be gone and gave her my hotel information. But she wouldn’t give that info out. And Detective Sheridan from the Olympia Police Department knew I was coming down and why. She’s the one who suggested I come down to San Diego personally and re-request my mom’s case be opened again.”

  “Re-request?” Rio repeated, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “You made a request previously?

  “Not me personally, but Detective Sheridan did. After I found the ultrasound, I went to the Olympia Police department and showed it to Detective Sheridan. She felt the ultrasound provided enough new evidence to reopen mom’s case.” She paused, directing a pointed glance at Rio. “But she couldn’t do it personally, since the original case wasn’t within her jurisdiction. So, she reached out to the San Diego Police through the interdepartmental liaison, but San Diego refused.” Becca paused to shrug. “Detective Sheridan said that while the refusal was unusual, it wasn’t unheard of.”

  This was news to him. Hell, if someone from the precinct was on the take, they could have picked up on the reopen request from Olympia and grabbed the case boxes then. Or…the evidence could have been taken sixteen years ago. There was no way to tell when it had gone missing.

  “When did Sheridan contact SDPD?” Rio asked, as they climbed the stairs to the front porch.

  “Two weeks ago. Your precinct rejected the request a week ago yesterday.”

  He mentally filed that info away. He needed to check with Fuentes and find out who’d handled the interdepartmental request.

  They paused behind Tram at the front entrance. He must have told Emma to remain inside, since the door didn’t budge. Rio listened, but no barking came from within. Hell, even now, after what? A year? Emma’s dog still hadn’t learned to bark. Some watchdog she’d turned out to be. Not that Emma or Tram seemed to mind—but then the dog had been instrumental in saving Emma’s life. Even Lucas gave the scruffy creature plenty of slack these days, along with some choice cuts of steak, which had to be blended, thanks to the little rat’s missing teeth. He shook his head in disgust.

  What a waste of good meat.

  Tram inserted his key into the lock and pushed the door open. “Babe, we’re here.”

  “Lucas, thank God,” a throaty feminine voice said from beyond Tram’s thick shoulders. “You’re later than I expected. I was worried something had happened.”

  Tram stepped aside, gesturing Becca and Rio forward. “Evasive maneuvers take time. We had to make sure we weren’t followed.”

  Rio ushered Becca through the door with a hand to the small of her back. Her tension vibrated against his palm, drawing her spine rigid, and her muscles tight.

  “You must be Becca!” Tram’s blond fiancée exclaimed from just past the tiny foyer. Cuddles, her rat of a dog, was tucked beneath her right arm. “I bet you’re exhausted.”

  Cuddles’s wiry head, with that ridiculous pom-pom bobbing like some freakish Doctor Seuss creature, locked its misaligned, mismatched eyes on Rio and curled her lips. After a long moment of animosity, the animal’s attention turned toward Lucas and she wiggled in apparent welcome.

  “I’m so sorry about the imposition. I promise I won’t be in your way for long,” Becca said, her eyes briefly touching Emma’s face, before settling on Cuddles. “What a cute little dog.”

  Cute?

  Rio shook his head in disbelief. She had to be playing the polite guest card, like one did with ugly babies. Not one scruffy patch of that damn thing could be labeled cute. And damned if the scruffy creature didn’t read his mind, because that disheveled head swiveled back in his direction with another toothless snarl.

  Apparently Becca had known the perfect thing to say though, because Emma beamed back a billion-watt smile. “She is! Isn’t she?” She shot Lucas an I-told-you-so look. “Her name’s Cuddles.”

  Becca laughed, and the curve of her spine softened. “I bet she gets lots of those. Cuddles,” she added at Rio’s blank look.

  “Let me show you to your room,” Emma said, her smile still in the billion-watt range. “I imagine you’ll want a nap, and then I’ll make us some lunch.”

  “Oh, please.” Becca followed Emma down the short hall and around the corner to the left. “Don’t worry about lunch. I hate being an imposition. But Rio wouldn’t let me go back to my hotel.” She shot Rio a disgusted look over her shoulder. “And Lucas insisted on bringing me here.”

  “Oh, see, that’s my fault. I’m the one who told them to bring you here,” Emma confided in a cheery tone, before dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This way I’ll get to see Lucas all weekend, instead of him taking off with his buddies to go hunting, or fishing, or hitting the shooting range.” She glanced at Tram, her eyes sparkling. “Plus, it will be nice to have another woman in the house for a change. To have an actual adult conversation about shoes, and hairstyles, or romantic movies without eyerolling and long-suffering expressions.”

  Emma led the way along the wall to the third door on the left. One of the bedrooms, if Rio remembered correctly. A very small bedroom. He followed the two women into the room—which meant one person too many. He had to squeeze past Becca and Emma on his way to the window. Cramped was an understatement.

  The room barely fit a double bed, and two bedside tables. But the furniture wasn’t what interested him. Knowing Tram,
he doubted the window was a security hazard, but there was no way he was letting Becca sleep in this room, alone, without checking it out for himself. A quick jerk of the blue window covering exposed thick black bars. They weren’t decorative either. He let the curtains fall back into place, noting the material was thick enough to completely obscure the view from outside.

  Nobody was accessing the room through that window or lining up a shot through those curtains.

  “Every window has identical treatment.” Tram leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and looked pleased with himself.

  “Which gives the place such soothing ambience.” Emma directed a scathing glance at her fiancée.

  Tram straightened to roll his shoulders. “Sue me. I find it soothing knowing you’re safe when I’m not home.”

  Emma scoffed beneath her breath, but her face softened. After a moment, she flapped her hands toward the door in a shooing gesture. “Alright, everyone clear out so Becca can take a nap.”

  Becca sighed and looked longingly toward the bed. “A nap does sound wonderful.”

  Trammel stepped back from the doorjamb, giving Rio space to exit the room. Emma shut the door behind them. Tag joined them, setting down the two suitcases he’d carried up from the Jeep. While his two buddies ambled toward the kitchen, Rio hesitated near the door. Becca might need help getting into bed. Or she might need a change of clothes, or…

  Inside the bedroom, easy conversation flowed, as though the women had been friends forever.

  “While it might not be the biggest bed, it’s quite comfortable. Here, let me help you get settled. It must be difficult to maneuver yourself with your arm bound like that.” Emma’s voice drifted through the closed door.

  There was the sound of springs squeaking, and raw, pained breathing. Maybe a muffled groan. Rio tensed in concern.

  Suddenly the door opened, and Emma appeared, her brown eyes worried. “Did anyone stop by a pharmacy and pick up Becca’s pain pills and antibiotics?”

  “Yeah. Here.” Rio dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a narrow white pharmacy bag. The bag rattled as he handed it off to Emma. “I’ll get a glass of water.”