One Secret Night, page 23
part #3 of Ivy Avengers Series
Lifting the laser pointer, he turned it on and held it steady as he aimed at the camera. When he was sure the sensor was burned out, he advanced and made his way to the side of the house. Disabling another camera, he crept up onto a large stone deck with a built-in grill. Crouching low and using the stone construction of the grill to block him from sight, he came around that and then took two steps to the wall beside the double glass doors. The glass was broken and the door partially ajar. Someone else had broken into the house.
Peering inside with only his night-vision device, he caught movement. There were no lights on, but he could see someone moving toward him. Pulling back, he ran and ducked behind the built-in grill, listening as the person’s feet crunched over broken glass, discovering as he had that the door had been breached.
Sneaking a peek around the stone, Raith saw that the person, probably India, had retreated. He went back to the door, staying out of sight. She hadn’t touched the door. India may be a killer but she was no professional. Silently, he avoided the broken glass as he entered a large kitchen with two islands and moved to the other side of the room. His soft-soled shoes were soundless as he moved to the interior kitchen entrance and spotted the form of a woman standing with her back to him on the other side of the living room. She was searching out the front window. For him? Who did she think had broken into the house? Who had broken into the house?
He’d take care of her later. Right now he had to find Autumn. If there was someone else in the house, he had to reach her fast.
There were two wide stairways, one leading up and the other leading down. He heard something fall over downstairs. India may have heard it, as well. He hurried down the stairs before she reached them. At the bottom, the landing turned in the opposite direction. There was light on down here, so he switched off his optics and moved the device out of the way of his eye. As soon as he followed the landing and faced the open space of the basement, he saw Garvin untying Autumn. India had put her on a dining chair on the other side of a seating area. A man was in a chair beside her. Both of their backs were turned.
Assured Autumn was all right and that Garvin, at least for now, was on their side, he waited for India. She came down the stairs slowly. Raith hung back in the shadows of a bedroom door.
As soon as she appeared on the landing and headed for the others, she raised a small handgun.
Raith stepped behind her and put his pistol to her head. “Drop it.”
India froze.
“Drop it now or I’ll shoot.” She had to know he would.
She dropped the gun.
“Now walk forward nice and easy.” Ahead, he saw Garvin move back from Autumn, and the other man turn his head. Raith saw that it was Ralston.
Autumn finished untying herself and then hurried to untie Ralston, who ushered her to the side of the room, away from Garvin and Raith and India.
Raith watched Garvin closely. The man was too unpredictable.
Garvin lifted the chair Autumn had vacated and faced it toward Raith and India. Raith would have done it, anyway, so he pushed India to the chair.
“Have a seat,” Garvin said.
She looked back at Raith, whose aim hadn’t altered, and then at Garvin, who opened his palm and gestured in invitation over the chair.
In defeat, she sat, glaring up at Raith while Garvin tied her wrists behind her and her ankles to the legs of the chair. When she was secured, Raith put his gun away.
Garvin moved so that he stood in front of India, but far enough away from Raith to indicate his distrust. Autumn stood beside Ralston, he with his arm around her. It was an uncharacteristically protective gesture on his part and Raith wondered if this ordeal would humble him.
“I thought you were on my side,” India said to Garvin. “I thought we were friends.”
“We were up until the point that you asked Leaman to kill your husband.”
“I don’t see why you’d have an issue with that. It’s what he did for a living.”
“He would have done anything for you. You took advantage of him. You made him love you and then you married another man.”
While Raith picked up on that telling detail, India’s face showed no empathy; she was so beautiful and yet so evil. “Leaman and I were good together and we remained friends even after I married Kai.”
“You married Kai for his money.” All of Garvin’s pent-up resentment poured out of him.
“I didn’t see a way to live a normal life with Leaman. I did love him, Garvin, I just couldn’t marry him.”
“He must have jumped at the opportunity to kill the man who stole you from him. Did you pay him?”
Garvin hadn’t known India had hired Leaman until after he was killed.
“I insisted. He wasn’t going to take any money.”
“Did he know you were setting me up?” Ralston moved away from Autumn a few steps.
India smiled wickedly. “That’s why he drove by the house instead of sniping him.”
“You slept with me to make it look like I wanted to get rid of him so I could have you?”
“You had motive, Nash. Didn’t you think Kai talked about your exports to Singapore?” She gave a quick laugh. “Don’t look so injured. A man like you doesn’t give much respect to women. You were perfect for what I needed. Easily manipulated because you made the mistake of thinking I was stupid.”
Ralston didn’t respect certain women. Not women like her. Smart or not, she was still a trophy. And what she needed was revenge. All of this was because Kai had cheated on her. Probably there was more that drove her, like her upbringing. Raith saw Autumn watching India in an assessing way and wondered if she thought the same.
Ralston knelt and picked up the gun Raith had made India drop. “And this?” As he straightened, he gestured with the gun and his free hand to the rest of them in the room. “Was I supposed to be the one who killed Autumn and Raith?”
India didn’t say anything, only wore a smug grin.
“Put the gun down, Nash,” Raith said.
“She was setting me up. And she would have succeeded if Garvin hadn’t intervened.” He turned to that man. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were sleeping with her,” Garvin said.
“I wouldn’t have if I’d have known she was setting me up. I should kill you now.” He aimed the gun at India, who stared at the barrel, some of her smugness fading.
“If you do that, you’ll be charged with murder,” Raith said. “Don’t take the law into your own hands.”
Raith caught the way Autumn looked at him after that last comment. Raith always took the law into his own hands. Was that why she’d left him at the hotel?
“I called the police before I came down here,” Garvin said to him, and then to India he continued, “I told them everything, including that I thought you are the one who killed Kai.”
Ralston hadn’t lowered the gun.
“They would have figured that out on their own,” Raith said. “She shot him six times.” He looked at her sobering face.
“Why did you do it, India?” Garvin asked, a longtime friend struggling to come to terms with how corrupt she’d become. “Because of you, Leaman is dead.”
All of her bravado gone, India’s eyes began to tear up. “No one ever loved me. All I ever wanted was for someone to hold me dearer than all else in their life. I thought I had that with Kai.”
Raith used India’s emotional exchange with Garvin to move closer to Ralston.
“You had it with Leaman.”
She shook her head. “No. He was incapable of loving anyone.”
Leaman was an assassin. It would be difficult to kill for a living with a soft heart.
Raith stopped beside Ralston, who looked from him to India.
“We all had a rough childhood,” Garvin said, regret and disappointment in his tone, “but I never thought you’d go to this extreme. Now, instead of losing one of my closest friends, I’ve lost both of them.”
Reaching over, Raith gripped Ralston’s wrist with one hand and took the gun with the other. Ralston met his eyes and didn’t fight him.
Looking back at Garvin, he said, “I’m overdressed for police.”
Garvin took in his vest and the straps around his thighs before meeting his eyes again. “I won’t lie for you.”
What did Garvin know about him? Not much. Not enough. And he couldn’t reveal too much about Leaman’s involvement without attracting attention to his illegal gun sales.
“I wouldn’t ask you to.” Raith went to Autumn and reached for her hand. “You have to come with me or this doesn’t work.”
“Do you mean taking the law into your own hands?”
She was mad about last night. Mad because she’d let it happen? Or mad because she felt too much?
“We can talk about that on the way to the car.”
Chapter 19
This was the kind of life she’d have with Raith. Sneaking through the woods with an armed man while police cars with flashing lights rushed up to Kai and India’s second home. Big and all in black, decked out in all his gear, he strode ahead of her, unknowingly taunting her with his fit rear, keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings to make sure they weren’t followed and irritating her more because he felt the need to.
“Why did you leave?” Raith asked, looking back at her.
“I thought I was doing you a favor.” Leaving just the way he’d left the last time they’d had sex.
He faced forward. “That was different than the first time.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you in the morning.”
“Probably not, but now that India is being arrested, there’s nothing to stop you.” If they’d have had sex tonight instead of last night, he’d have disappeared again.
He didn’t respond right away, which only confirmed her assumption.
“We do have a lot to work out,” he finally said.
“We can do that over the phone.” Autumn felt a lump grow in her throat.
He stopped abruptly and turned.
She nearly ran into him.
“I’m not going to leave you.”
He wasn’t? She fought the flare of hope and it died all on its own with his next announcement.
“We have to figure out what we’re going to do. How we’re going to handle...”
The baby. How they were going to handle their baby. He still wasn’t sure. Oh, that hurt so much more than it would have if she’d have just kept her pants on last night.
“Are you saying you intend to be part of this baby’s life?” she asked, forcing detachment. She’d used this instead of our.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
Because he felt obligated? She so hadn’t pictured her life taking this direction. She looked away from his beautiful green eyes. It hurt looking at him.
“We haven’t known each other long, Autumn. If you’re expecting me to ask you to marry me, I can’t. Not yet. But I can promise to be there for you and the child.”
She became embarrassed over the realization that she had, on some level, expected that. Maybe she even felt enough for him to wish for that.
“Is that what you meant by liking superheroes when you were a kid?” she asked.
And he actually grinned. She was crumbling on the inside and he thought that was funny.
“Yes.”
He thought he was being a superhero by standing by her with no other promises other than to be there for her and the baby? He could end up marrying someone else and still be there for them.
That went against her will in such a strong, potent way that she had to start walking again. They had to get out of here, anyway. Why was it so important that Raith give her more than that? She wanted his heart, that’s why. And he wasn’t giving it.
They had met recently. They didn’t know each other enough to get married. That made sense to her brain, but her heart had other ideas. She was falling in love with him and he hadn’t even mentioned his feelings to her once. Not once. What did the baby mean to him? What did she mean to him? She contemplated asking him but refused to appear needy and desperate. She felt desperate. Never had she felt this way. A baby would change her life so much, she was lost.
She had to get away from here. But more importantly, she had to get away from him.
* * *
Raith took her to the cab, which miraculously was still there and unlocked, and retrieved her luggage. The sun was beginning to come up. After removing all of his gear in the vacant parking lot, he drove back to the hotel and handed the keys to a valet driver.
She hadn’t spoken all the way back here.
“What’s wrong?” he asked for the fourth time.
And for the fourth time he received the same stiff answer. “Nothing.”
Had her hormones already started to go wild? He was aware that wasn’t the cause of her mood. What had she expected him to say back there in the trees? That he loved her? Let’s get married?
While a deeper part of him urged for exactly that, he hesitated. He could love her. Maybe he already did on some level. But how much would it cost him? What he hadn’t said to her was what he’d been thinking when he’d made that superhero remark. He’d been thinking he could grow into marriage with her. He hadn’t quite jumped off the fence. He was still so mixed up over what to do with his life. Would he change his profession? And if so, for whom? For himself or for Autumn?
She lifted her arm as a taxi approached. The car slowed to a stop in front of her.
“Where are you going?”
“Milan,” she said.
Before he had a chance to react, a reporter started taking pictures of them. Raith found himself looking right at the camera as Autumn got into the back to the cab.
She looked at the photographer and then him, unconcerned regarding what this could do to him. Conflict churned in him. A powerful instinct to get into the cab with her clashed with anger over being caught—again—on camera.
His feet stayed where they were as the taxi drove away. Autumn stopped looking at him, but he watched the taxi vanish down the street. After a moment, he turned to the photographer and the man bombarding him with questions. Had Autumn just broken up with him? He felt like responding with “Had she?”
* * *
Raith went to the hospital that afternoon and berated himself for looking for Autumn. As if she’d change her mind and rush back into his arms.
What was the matter with him? Entering his dad’s room, he noticed how much better the older man looked.
“Tough night?” his dad asked, lifting his attention from a magazine. It was an entertainment magazine.
“Why do you read that stuff?” he asked as he sat down on the chair.
“It’s better than regular news. Where’s Autumn?”
“She left.”
“For Dallas?”
“Actually, she said she was going to Milan.” A sure sign that she was getting rid of him. They’d have to see each other because of the baby. How would she manage that? Drop the child off with him every time she decided to fly off somewhere?
As he imagined having such a dysfunctional relationship with her, something gouged him through the heart. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d made a mistake letting Autumn go.
“She left you?”
Raith just looked at his dad.
“Why? What did you say to her?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you ask her to marry you?”
“No,” he retorted, indignant.
“Why not? I mean, you don’t have a gentleman’s job, but I thought you were a gentleman at heart.”
“This isn’t the fifties, Dad. People don’t marry because of pregnancy. They marry for love.”
“You don’t love her?”
Again, Raith just looked at his dad.
“At all? Not even a flicker of emotion toward her?”
Still, he couldn’t find any words to say.
“What did you tell her, that you’d give her child support?” His dad sure did have a lot of energy today. He was clearly appalled by his son’s behavior.
“No...not like that.” But in retrospect, he may as well have said it like that. Something began to shift in him. He felt bad for the way he’d spoken to Autumn. There was more he should have said.
“Why are you running away from her?”
He gave his dad the standard answer. “She has reporters following her around all the time.”
“Is it really the media that you’re so afraid of?” His dad asked derisively.
“Well...yeah.”
“You don’t think you’d find a way to keep them away? And would they camp out in your driveway the rest of your life? Isn’t it just Autumn’s skittishness with men that captures their interest?” When Raith remained silent, his dad went on. “She is incapable of commitment and yet she would have committed to you.”
Raith felt his entire body recoil. His hands tightened on the arm of the chair. His legs went rigid. He stopped breathing for a second. She would commit to him. He’d felt it last night. And instinctively he’d avoided acknowledging it.
“Son,” his dad said, much more gently. “It isn’t the media. It’s the way your mother died. You have abandonment issues. Don’t let a good woman get away because of that. Build a life with her that’s better than the one I gave your mother. It wouldn’t be only the baby that would bring the two of you together. I’ve seen you with her. You both are falling in love. You already have a good foundation, a good head start. It doesn’t matter how fast it happened. The important thing is that it has.”
