Rake: Wolfes of Manhattan Four

by HELEN HARDT

She closed her eyes a moment, as if trying to recall something important. Then she opened them. “I think I found it in the rose garden. Behind St. Andrew’s.”

  I took the crumpled card from her and straightened it. Then I widened my eyes. “You found this on church property?”

  “I guess so. If the rose garden is church property.”

  It was a business card—a business card that had clearly been in the rose garden for a while. It was weathered, had probably been rained on. But the printing was still intact.

  Lacey Ward.

  It was Lacey’s business card for her former law firm.

  Either Lacey had been in that rose garden…

  Or someone wanted us to think she had been.

  35

  Zee

  Reid didn’t look happy.

  Finally, my mind seemed to be returning to normal. I remembered now. I’d knelt down to pick up the piece of paper and then I became lightheaded. I’d stumbled and fallen.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He didn’t meet my gaze. “Just an old business card.”

  “Whose business card?”

  “No one’s. Come on.” He led me to the car and then slid in beside me.

  Reid stared at the card for another few seconds before placing it in his wallet.

  He’d said it was “no one’s.” If that were the case, though, why didn’t he just toss it in the trash can at the Starbucks?

  I let out a sigh.

  My mind was back to normal, but I was on my way to meet with a police detective. A police detective to whom I had to tell my story.

  “Reid?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Does this detective know what I’m going to say? I mean, have you told him about the stuff you’ve found out about your father?”

  “We have. Roy has told his story, but because it came up during a session of guided hypnosis, the police are skeptical. Your story will corroborate his, and then they’ll be able to investigate Father Jim.”

  “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  I cleared my throat. “There were others. The person who brought me food. Others I saw in the hallways…”

  “Can you describe these others?”

  “Not really. Sometimes they were masked, other times they weren’t, but I didn’t get a good look at any of them. When you’re locked up and scared to death, or when you’re running for your life in the dark, you don’t really stop and take notice.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Just tell the detective everything you remember, Zee. In fact, if you’ve held back anything up to this point, now is the time to let it out.”

  I hadn’t held anything back. Not really. I just hadn’t gone into specific detail. That was difficult. The stuff my blurred nightmares were made of.

  But I’d be strong. For Reid. For Riley and the others. I had to get the focus off of them. I felt strongly that none of them had killed Derek Wolfe.

  Plus…at this point I’d do anything to protect Reid.

  I’d fallen hard.

  Too hard. It made no sense, and part of me was fighting it as if I were in a gladiator arena, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  I’d never felt these emotions. Their purity and their strength. They made me brave.

  For the first time, I would tell my story to someone who might be able to get justice for me and the countless others who hadn’t made it out of that hunting compound alive.

  Reid’s phone buzzed. “Yeah?”

  His face went pale as he listened to whoever was on the other side of his phone.

  I ached to touch him, to give him some sort of comfort, as he was obviously distressed.

  But I didn’t. I sat, staying still. Gathering all my courage for what I must do when we returned to the Wolfe building.

  After nearly a half hour in stop-and-go traffic, Reid’s driver pulled in front of the building. Reid was still on the phone and hadn’t said anything other than a few “mmm hmms.”

  The driver, Wayne, opened the door and Reid slid out. Normally he offered me a hand, but not this time.

  He was distracted, and not in a good way.

  I walked with him—his phone still glued to his ear. Finally, he said, “We’re here. We’ll talk in a minute.” Then he ended the call and slid the phone into his pocket.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said absently.

  I didn’t believe him. Not for a minute.

  We headed for the elevator…and my breath caught.

  The elevator. Which one did I run out of? I couldn’t remember. Not quite. But it was one of the elevators facing the lobby, because I ran straight to the lobby, to the revolving doors. Someone gave me a blazer—I have no idea who—and offered to help me.

  I took the blazer but I didn’t stay for the help. I ran.

  I ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.

  Then blackness.

  Nothing else.

  Not until I woke up in a hospital ER, with stitching and bandaging over the wounds at the top of my breasts.

  I held my own and walked into the elevator with Reid.

  I wanted to help him. Wanted to get the focus off him. But how could I, when there was so much I still didn’t recall?

  Whether I’d blocked it out or whether I’d fainted, as I must have done in the streets of Manhattan wearing nothing.

  Had I been in the news?

  No, or I would have read it or heard about it.

  How could that happen? Why wouldn’t some paper or network pick up a story about a woman running through the streets of New York clad in only a blazer?

  I shook my head.

  I had as many questions for the detective as he had for me.

  36

  Reid

  My body still felt like ice from the news I’d just gotten.

  Our architects and elevator mechanics had finished their investigation into the building where I was now ascending with Zee.

  No floor existed below the bottom mechanical floor.

  However, they hadn’t ruled out that such a floor had existed and had been filled in. The concrete beneath the building’s foundation was suspect, and they were continuing their investigation.

  I’d talk to my brother in a few minutes—and I wasn’t looking forward to telling him that Zee had found his wife’s business card on St. Andrew’s property—but first I had to see to Zee.

  She stood rigid beside me.

  She was frightened, for sure, but I had the feeling something else was bothering her as well. I decided not to press her, though. I couldn’t take the chance that she’d change her mind about talking to Hank Morgan.

  I just hoped like hell Morgan didn’t freak her out. He was an asshole, to be sure, and bound and determined to pin this on one of us.

  Zee was the one who could clear our names. Well, not technically, but she could make the case that there were a lot more people out there with motives to off Derek Wolfe. People other than disgruntled colleagues who he’d fucked over in business, although there were hundreds of them as well.

  I grabbed Zee’s hand. It was cold as a winter day. “Hey,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  She nodded, though I wasn’t convinced.

  We walked through the reception area and down a long hallway to the small conference room where Morgan was doing the questioning. Moira Bancroft and Zach Hayes, two of our attorneys, sat across the table from Morgan.

  I cleared my throat. “Zee, this is Moira Bancroft. She’ll be acting as your attorney during the questioning. And Zach Hayes, he’ll be acting as the attorney for Wolfe Enterprises.

  Moira and Zach both rose.

  “Nice to meet you.” Moira smiled. She was an older woman with silver hair and warm brown eyes. Very motherly, which was why we’d chosen her to represent Zee’s interests. She’d help put Zee at ease.

  “Thank you,” Zee said.

  “We’re glad you decided to talk to us toda
y.” Zach held out a chair for Zee. “Moira and I are here to make sure you’re comfortable.”

  Zee nodded and took the chair he offered. “Can’t Reid stay?”

  I glared at Morgan. I’d had every intention of staying, but he wouldn’t hear of it, no matter how I balked. I’d be suing his ass later, but for now, I wanted Zee to tell her story, so I made sure she had an attorney like Moira who could make her feel comfortable.

  “I’m afraid not,” Moira said, “but we’ll take good care of you.”

  Detective Morgan stood then. “I’m Hank Morgan, NYPD.”

  Zee simply nodded.

  Morgan sat back down. “We’ll get right to it as soon as you go, Mr. Wolfe.”

  My feet seemed to be glued to the carpet. I had some kind of alpha wolf instinct to protect my mate.

  Zee wasn’t my mate, of course, but…

  Damn. I had feelings for her that I didn’t want to have.

  She deserved far better than me.

  “Mr. Wolfe…” Morgan said again.

  “Yeah. I’m going.” Asshole. I turned to Zee. “Moira and Zach will take good care of you, but if you need me, I’m only a text away.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “You just tell Moira you need to see me, and she’ll make it happen. Right, Moira?”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Wolfe.”

  Zee nodded again. “I’m all right.”

  “Okay.” I forced my feet to move from their glued spot. “Take it easy on her,” I said to Morgan. Then I left.

  Rock was waiting for me outside the door. “We need to talk.”

  “We do,” I concurred. However Rock wasn’t going to want to hear what I had to say.

  “This hunting ground thing,” Rock said. “Lace and I think he must have gotten rid of it after Zee escaped.”

  “Probably.”

  “Which means he either stopped his little game, or—”

  “He just started doing it somewhere else,” I finished for him.

  “Right. That’s my bet.”

  “Mine as well. Such a narcissist wouldn’t let the potential of being caught stop him. He’d continue his power-trip games. Just in a different place.”

  “Has the report come in from the guys who searched St. Andrew’s? That’s my best bet for where it continued.”

  “Mine too. That building is old and no doubt has crevices no one even knows about.”

  “Definitely. And even if it doesn’t, Dad could have built a new playground.”

  Rock shook his head. “Could he have? People are in and out of that church every day. I doubt he could have built anything. But it’s likely a place could already be there.”

  “Maybe. When do you expect to hear from them?”

  “Any time now.”

  I cleared my throat. “Zee went to St. Andrew’s today.”

  Rock’s eyebrows rose. “Why the hell would she do that?”

  “I’m not quite clear on that one. Jim did her first communion, but then she said she used to talk to a pastor when she was a teen. Why go to St. Andrew’s when she knows what Father Jim did to her?”

  Rock didn’t reply.

  Fuck. Now or never. I pulled out my wallet and removed Lacey’s business card. I handed it to him.

  Rock regarded it. “Lacey’s old card.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why are you giving me this?”

  “Zee found it,” I said. “In the rose garden behind St. Andrew’s.”

  Rock’s face went pale. “Could mean nothing.”

  “I know that. In fact, no one even needs to know I found it.”

  “I’ll ask Lace about it. Care if I keep this?”

  “Speak of the devil…” I said.

  Lacey turned the corner and came toward us. “Good, there you are,” she said to Rock. “I need your signature on a few things. Charlie couldn’t find you and Jarrod and Carla didn’t know where you went off to. I figured you’d be down here keeping an eye on the detective.”

  “We need to go to my office,” Rock said. “Now.”

  “Sure, what’s up?” Lacey asked.

  “Not here,” Rock said. “Reid, you come too.”

  I followed my brother and his wife through the twists of the hallway to his corner office—the one that had been my father’s.

  “You ever have this place checked for wires? Cameras?” Rock asked me.

  “This was Dad’s office, so no, I didn’t.”

  “Fuck. We’re going downstairs, then. Outside.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Rock whisked past me, taking Lacey’s hand and dragging her along with him. I had no choice but to follow.

  Ten minutes later, after a silent elevator ride and a brisk walk about a block away to an outdoor café where we got a table far away from any prying ears, I finally had the chance to speak.

  “Dad wouldn’t be surveilling himself,” I said.

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t have equipment installed. I wouldn’t put it past the fucker to have it all ready and an order to turn it on if anything happened to him.”

  I couldn’t fault my big brother’s logic. For someone who hadn’t been around for the last two decades, Rock seemed to know our father as well as or better than any of the rest of us.

  “What’s going on, Rock?” Lacey asked, her lips trembling slightly.

  “Lace, have you ever been in the rose garden in back of St. Andrew’s?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she said. “I’d never even been to St. Andrew’s until the funeral.”

  “Fuck.” Rock shoved the weather-beaten business card across the table to his wife. “Zee found this in the rose garden. Today.”

  Lace picked up the card. “I didn’t put it there. Looks like it’s been there a while, though. This has been stepped on and rained on.”

  “Which means it could have been there before Dad’s death,” Rock said.

  “Circumstantial,” Lacey said. “Just because it’s my business card doesn’t mean I put it there. Also, as far as anyone else knows, the church and Father Jim have nothing to do with the murder.”

  Rock raked his fingers through his hair. “I still don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I.” Lacey let go of the card as if it were burning her.

  I picked it up and stuck it in my wallet. “No reason anyone needs to know about this.”

  “Give it back to me,” Rock demanded.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to fucking destroy it.”

  I looked to Lacey. She was an attorney, and she knew destroying potential evidence was not a good idea.

  Still, she nodded at me slightly.

  Good enough. My sister-in-law had not killed my father, and if this card could tie her to the murder, I was fine with getting rid of it. I took it out of my wallet and handed it back to my brother. He tore it in two. Then four.

  “I need to get back,” I said. “They’re questioning Zee and I don’t want to be too far away in case she needs me.”

  Rock nodded. “Go ahead. Lace and I have got this.”

  I stood and walked back to the building. Though the day was clear, a cloud hovered over me, invisible but dense. Something was brewing.

  Something bad.

  37

  Zee

  I really wanted to throw up.

  Detective Morgan creeped me out with his bad blond comb over and polyester tie, but he was nice, sort of. He didn’t ask a lot of questions at first, and he let me go at my own pace. In a voice that didn’t seem quite like my own, I told the story.

  The story of how I’d woken up in that dark and windowless room. How I’d received good and hearty meals. How my clothes, my purse, my ID were all gone.

  How one day, a masked man came for me.

  How someone cut the tops of my breasts with a sharp blade.

  The pain of the incision came back to me with a vengeance, and I had to stop talking.

  “Do you need a break?” Moira asked me gentl
y.

  I shook my head. “I need to keep going. If I leave this room, I may never return.”

  She nodded. “All right. Just take your time, Zee.”

  “They cut me,” I said. “They said it was to lessen my advantage. They considered me worthy prey. Those were the exact words they used.”

  “When you say ‘they,’” Detective Morgan interrupted, “who do you mean?”

  “Derek Wolfe and the other one. The priest.”

  “And by priest you mean Father James Wilkins?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why else would they have both forced me to sign a non-disclosure agreement when they paid me off?”

  “As I understand it, none of this story is stated in the agreement.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Derek Wolfe would have been pretty stupid to spell out what he had done to you in any written agreement,” Morgan said. “But tell me. Why did you sign it?”

  “It was the only way he’d give me the money I needed.”

  “Why not go to him before then? You went five years after the incident took place.”

  A lump lodged in my throat. Now his not-so-nice side was showing. His “I’m determined to pin this on one of you” side.

  “Detective,” Moira said, “Ms. Jones is here of her own volition to tell you her story. This isn’t an interrogation.”

  “Noted,” the detective said. “Ms. Jones?”

  “What?”

  “Could you answer my question, please?”

  “Don’t answer,” Moira said. “It’s irrelevant.”

  “It’s very relevant,” Morgan countered. “I need to make sure Ms. Jones didn’t make up this story and then threaten to go public with false allegations as a way to blackmail Mr. Wolfe into giving her money.”

  Zach stood, his eyes fiery and angry. “Are you serious?”

  “Calm down, Hayes,” Morgan said. “We both know it wouldn’t be the first time that a money-hungry young woman blackmailed an older man with money for her own gain. The allegations are usually false.”

  Tears threatened, but I inhaled, willing them away. No way was this guy going to make me cry.