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“Surely there are security tapes for this place,” I said.
“There are. But we all have the money to hire an expert, so the security tapes mean nothing.”
I nodded. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right.” She sighed. “My dad was into some nasty stuff.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you really can’t.”
“Riley, I know what some fathers do to their little girls. I can imagine, even though I don’t want to. If he walked through that door right now, I’d fucking kill him myself.”
“You’re not wrong in your assumptions.” She gulped. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Rage unfurled at the back of my neck, surging through the rest of my body like a river of boiling blood.
I’d already guessed, but to hear her say it…
Good thing the derelict was already in his grave.
Finally, I gained my composure, tamping down the anger that threatened to overtake me. Riley didn’t need that right now. She needed me whole and unyielding. She needed my strength.
“Not your brothers?” I asked.
“He beat the shit out of them, but no, he didn’t abuse them sexually.”
“Then what? What the hell is worse than what he did to you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t even bring myself to say the words.”
“Please. I want to help.”
“Apparently, he…” She swallowed, closing her eyes. “He killed women. Hunted them, and killed them.”
I stared into space, almost seeing right through Riley next to me.
Hunted women.
Killed them.
The words became jumbled in my head.
It was too much. Too much just to know what the psycho had done to the woman I loved. But now? To know he played fucked-up hunting games with others? With fellow human beings?
“H-How…” The words caught in my throat.
“Roy. He saw it once. He… It was a memory he’d buried inside his mind. He underwent guided hypnosis last week and uncovered it.”
“Did any… Fuck. Did any of the women…”
“As far as we know, one might have survived. We have a name. Just a first name. Zinnia. It’s an uncommon name, but still, what are the chances we can find her? And even if we do find her, we don’t know that she’s behind the murder. And if she is, I kind of want to let her go.”
“I understand, but you have to save yourself, baby.”
“I know.”
“They’re going to look at your phone records. Your emails. Will they find anything suspicious?”
“You mean will they find emails and payments to a hired killer? Of course not.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I heard that.”
“Baby…”
“Part of you wonders if I did it.”
I cupped her cheek, hoping she felt the love through my fingertips. “No, it’s not that. I’m just concerned. We have to get you out of this.”
“We have to get us all out of this. We need to find this Zinnia and uncover all my father’s secrets. Only then will we be able to move forward.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to suggest this, but…”
“What?”
“Can your family pay off the authorities. Get the case closed?”
She closed her eyes and exhaled. “I can’t lie to you. I’ve thought about it.”
“And your brothers?”
She opened her eyes. “They haven’t brought it up. But there’s this detective, Hank Morgan, who seems bent on finding a culprit. I don’t know why. My father was no paragon of virtue.”
“Then we figure out this detective’s angle.”
“We already have the best PIs in the business on this. They’re looking for Zinnia. They’re looking into Morgan. They’re doing all they can.”
“Are they loyal?”
“I assume so. They’re getting paid a boatload of money.”
“Are they the same PIs your father used?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Reid, but probably.”
“Then they owe their loyalty to your father. Not to you.”
“Except my father’s dead.”
“He is. But his money isn’t. There might be a stream somewhere that you and your brothers don’t know about.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t trust your father,” I said. “You have to consider that this is all a setup.”39RileyA setup.
We’d considered that, and we decided that our father was too much of an egomaniac to orchestrate his own death.
I should tell Matt this.
I should tell Matt a lot of things.
But right now…
Right now I wanted—needed—something else from him.
I turned to him and crawled into his arms.
He held me tightly, and my body responded instantly. My nipples hardened and I ached between my legs.
How could this be?
How, when I was just thinking about all the horrid things my father used to do to me?
Still, I yearned for Matt’s lips on mine. Yearned for him to undress me, kiss me all over, take me to that amazing place I’ve only been once.
I kissed his neck and inhaled his crisp, masculine scent.
Intoxicating.
Then I trailed kisses to his mouth and pressed my lips against his, parting my own slightly, letting my tongue touch his firm lips.
But they remained closed.
“Kiss me. Please,” I whispered.
He parted his lips and I slid my tongue between them. But his tongue didn’t meet mine. I searched for it, found it, twirled my own around it.
