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His jaw flexes, his expression hard lines and shadows, unreadable, but torment radiates off of him. And this is just his reaction to the topic of his mother. He doesn’t even know the rest of the story yet. “Jax,” I whisper urgently.
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his phone, punching a number, and placing his cell to his ear. Almost immediately he says, “I need to know if there’s a woman in a red dress who was near my castle tower or on the beach.” He listens for a moment and eyes me. “How many women in red dresses?” His expression tightens. “Find out if they were there and look at the security feed. We’ll be at the house. No. Emma is wet and do not, and I meando not, make a smart-ass remark about that statement, Savage, or I will hurt you.” He hangs up and slides his phone into his pocket. “Four women in red dresses. He’s locating each of them. Now. Let’s go to the house.”
My feet are still set solid in the sand. “What if they find her? We need to be here.”
“You’re soaked, Emma. You’re shivering.”
I drop my shoes. “I’m not shivering, and it’s just my hose that are soaked.” I yank up my dress to mid-thigh and start peeling down the hose on one side.
“What are you doing?”
I toss the one hose away and start on dragging down the other. “Warming up and making myself acceptable again.” I toss the second hose. “Let’s go inside and wait on Savage’s update. And you need to finish attending to business.” I grab his arm and start walking, trying to drag this six-foot-two and two-hundred-plus-pound man with me.
It doesn’t work.
He catches my forearm and turns me to him, and now he’s dragging me to him. “What is going on, Emma?” he demands, his voice low, and yet, it radiates with tension. He knows there’s a real problem. He knows I’m rattled, and underneath all that cool, calm masculinity, he’s rattled, too. That DNA test has opened up more than one grave tonight and yanked out more than ghosts. It’s brought forth demons, his demons, and it scaresme. For him. For my brother. For all of us. But there is no turning back now.
“Someone left me a note,” I confess, and I do so without hesitation. There is no part of me that doubts this man. I trust Jax. I need to protect him. “It wasn’t a good note. And then that woman was watching me from the edge of the beach by the castle. She was watching me, and I think that she left me that note.”
“And what did this note say?”
“Not here. Not now. I’ll tell you about it when we’re alone.”
He seems to let that go quite easily, instead asking, “Why were you on the beach, Emma? What was this woman watching you do?”
“I tore up the note and threw it in the water.”
His eyes darken and narrow. “Why, Emma?Whatdid the note say?”
I can’t wait to tell hm. He needs to understand why the woman in red is important. “It seemed to suggest that your brother was not only murdered, but it named two people who had a motive for killing him. You were one of those two people, Jax.”
He gives me a deadpan stare. “And who was the second?”
No denial when most people would scream, “I didn’t do it!” Just “who was the second,” but I don’t see this as guilt, but rather the opposite. He’s not the one that matters in his mind. He’s not important. The real killer, who he desperately wants to locate, is important. Knowing this, knowing he sees the other name as his target, my brother’s name does not want to leave my lips.
Footsteps sound, with Savage charging toward us, and he has something in his hand that I can’t make out. Jax turns back to me, focused on that name, I have yet to offer up to him. “Who, Emma?” he demands softly.
“When we’re alone,” I insist, my resistance made easier as Savage nears and then joins us. “It wasn’t a dress,” Savage says, showing us the garment in his hand. “It was a red rain jacket that was left behind.”
Chapter eighty-two
Emma
“What the hell is going on, Savage?” Jax demands.
Aside from my throat closing up right now, there are obvious implications to that coat being left behind. It shows planning, even malice.
And it’s that malice that has me hugging myself against a chill that reaches straight to my bone. Whoever wore that coat, not only intended to freak me out, but they knew it was significant to Jax. That means that only a handful of people, all close to Jax, could be responsible.
“No one saw anything?” I query, praying for good news.
“We were looking for a red dress,” Savage says, eyeing Jax. “I’m back to what the hell is going on?”
“Obviously, someone knows the property well enough to move right under your noses and not be seen,” Jax says. “Is the power still out on one side of the castle”
“It is now,” Savage says. “It’s like that damn tower has ghosts, like Casper is here, strumming the wiring like it’s a damn guitar and fucking with us.”
“More like the woman in red,” I say. “She knew your blind spots.” I look at Jax. “She knows the house.”
