Everything She Wanted (4 page)

“Evan! I’m talking to you.”

“It’s done. What more do you want?” he snapped.

“I want to know what happened, so I’m prepared for when the police show up to inform me of my husband’s death.”

Evan hung his head and stared at his bare feet on the hardwood floor. He sat on the stone hearth in nothing but his boxer briefs. Bloody bandages,
gauze, cotton pads, and medical tape lay scattered at his feet. He pressed his hand to his bandaged and wrapped thigh, remembering the deep gash he’d cleaned and dressed when he got home. He picked up the glass of Scotch off the floor and drank deep, hoping the burn would wake him up and make him feel again. Nothing.

Evan gave his mother the bare bones version of what happened, refusing to
elaborate as she tried to ask questions.

“I’m not sure how long it will take the cops to find them. I imagine they’ve got a maid and gardening ser­vice. Someone from Dad’s work will wonder where he is when he doesn’t show up to work. It might take a few days.”

“Plenty of time for you to shake this off.”

Like his mother did so easily. She sat there like he’d just told her nothing more
serious than he’d gone out to run some errands.

“We’ll act surprised and horrified by what’s happened. I’ll tell the police that your father and I had quietly decided on a separation. We’ll keep it simple. I’ll be your alibi. You’ll be mine. We had dinner here together. You stayed the night as you often do. It’s that simple and straightforward. We don’t know who that woman was. Your father
kept her a secret from both of us.”

“Who she was,” he repeated. “I still don’t know who she was.” Except the woman his father looked at with something in his eyes he’d never seen there when he looked at Evan’s mother.

“She doesn’t matter. She can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Are you sure about that?” He’d gotten lucky when she attacked him. If he hadn’t gotten her in that choke hold, she’d
have kicked his ass. “He cared about her. I think he really loved her. Somehow, that makes this worse.”

“It would have been worse, because she’d have taken everything. You think she’d have put up with you always asking him for money to bail you out of one jam after the next, not to mention jail? She’d have influenced him and made sure he drew further and further away from us. All she wanted
was his money. She wanted it all for herself, so don’t grow a conscience on me now. It’s done. End of story. From here, we put this behind us and move on. Nothing and no one will get in our way.”

Chapter Five

T
HE DARK WINDOWS
loomed like evil eyes in the big house. Not a single light welcomed her, setting off another round of chills up her spine. She’d left several messages for her sister this evening. Concerned by her silence, Kate packed up Alex in his car seat and drove back here to check on Margo and Donald. Something about the look in Donald’s eyes when she left hours
ago, and the way he secretly handed her that key, disturbed her on a deep level. That deep dark place inside everyone where monsters exist and evil is a presence that makes your bones go cold.

Kate parked in the driveway behind Donald’s BMW. The quiet wrapped around her. She didn’t like it.

She pulled Alex from the backseat and carried him by the car seat handle around the car to the walkway.
Two steps toward the front door, the garden lights went on, along with the motion lights by the front door. Donald must not have reset them for the earlier sunsets this time of year. Nearly eight o’clock, she wondered for the hundredth time if Donald and Margo took her Mercedes and went out to enjoy a quiet dinner at a local restaurant and spend some quality time alone together. She hoped
that’s what they were doing. A romantic evening out that would make her sour gut seem ridiculous. Margo would chastise her for being overprotective. Like always.

She unlocked the door, walked into the dark foyer, and flipped the switch on the wall, lighting up the entry and part of the living room. Something alerted her to danger, but she couldn’t say what. Maybe it was the quiet, or the darkness
that kept everything beyond the overhead light masked in shadows.

She closed the door behind her and called out, “Margo, Donald, are you home?”

No answer. Not even a surprised, “We’ll be down in a minute,” from her sister as she lay locked in Donald’s arms in a rumpled bed upstairs. She didn’t really expect an answer, but not getting one set off another round of alarms in her head.

Alex whimpered and sucked harder on his pacifier. Even he sensed something wasn’t right. Afraid to leave him alone by the door, she grabbed the car seat handle and carried Alex with her through the living room toward the dark kitchen. Some kind of sixth sense drew her in that direction. She stopped short before crossing the dining room when the scent registered and her mind filled with past images
of her mother, bruised and bloody, on the floor at her father’s feet. The unique metallic scent would never be forgotten. Imprinted on her soul, she’d recognize the smell of blood anywhere.

Fear stole her breath. She set Alex down on the floor, not wanting to take him with her into the kitchen to discover whatever lay beyond the darkness. She turned on a lamp by a side chair to keep him in
the light, though it wouldn’t change the nightmare of what she suspected she’d find in the kitchen.

Alex reached for her hand. She gave him her finger. He squeezed tight, like even he didn’t want her to go in there. She didn’t want to either, but had to know what happened to her sister and Donald. She didn’t want to believe what her senses told her.

“I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

Kate dropped her purse beside Alex, dug out her cell phone and the switch blade she kept for protection when she met clients in a bad neighborhood. She flipped open the knife, leaned down, and kissed Alex on the forehead, took a deep breath to muster her courage, and stood and walked through the dining room.

Donald’s feet were highlighted just inside the kitchen entrance in the soft light barely
making it this far into the house. She stopped and gave herself a moment to take it in. Dead. Lying on the kitchen floor. She couldn’t help him. No one could. But she’d make the bastard responsible pay.

Her heart pounded against her ribs. She continued on and stood at Donald’s feet. She spotted her sister, lying dead on the floor in front of Donald in the dark. She reached for the light switch,
stalling for only a second before she turned it on and illuminated the gruesome scene in front of her.

Her heart stopped and a scream rose to her throat, but got choked off by the gush of tears that ran down her cheeks in a torrent. No sound escaped her lips, but the scream of outrage and grief rang out in her head. The depth of her grief squeezed her heart until it shattered, tore her insides
to shreds, and she couldn’t breathe.

The scene didn’t seem real. The blood a mocking kind of horror to her mind’s denial of what lay before her. She swiped the tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands. Noting the knife and phone in her hands, she closed the knife and stuffed it in her pocket. The phone she held on to until she could collect herself. She sucked in a ragged breath and
tried to think through her pain and see what really happened here, because what it looked like couldn’t be the truth. The gun near her sister’s hand lied about the sweet, gentle sister she knew and loved. Margo would never shoot Donald. She detested guns. She loved Donald.

The scattered and broken dishes on the counter and floor told her there’d been a struggle. She and Margo were expert kickboxers.
They’d studied together for the last ten years. Kate taught classes, so a struggle seemed normal if someone tried to hurt her sister. Margo wouldn’t hesitate to fight back.

Soup smeared down the cabinet and puddled on the floor. Apple slices lay scattered around both bodies. A bloody steak knife lay just under the cabinet lip on the tile. She studied Donald’s face and body. No slice marks
that she could see. Unless Margo stabbed him in the gut, he hadn’t defended himself and gotten sliced on the hands or arms. Blood pooled at his middle, making it more likely Margo shot him. But why? How did she get the gun? Where did she get the gun? Did Donald try to shoot her and she took it from him? Not possible.

She hated to look at Margo with her head a bloody mess, her skull blasted
open. No way Margo shot herself. She wouldn’t do that. She loved Donald. She loved Alex. She had every reason to live, especially now that Donald had left his wife and they were going to be married and be a real family.

Something nagged at Kate. She made herself look, think, find the things that lay beyond the obvious picture. Margo’s knuckles were red and swollen. She’d gotten in a few punches.
Donald’s face didn’t show any bruising or swelling. She hadn’t hit him. She’d go for the face, the ribs.

Kate’s eyes settled on the bloody knife again. Away and across from Margo, someone must have knocked it from her hand and it skittered across the floor. The small splatters of blood led back toward Margo and the counter where she’d been making the food. Someone surprised her. Kate scanned
the floor and spotted it. Small drops of blood on the other side of Margo, a splatter on the drawers, another on the refrigerator. Cast off from the knife after Margo sliced someone open.

Satisfied she’d seen everything, she turned her back and called the police.

“Nine-­one-­one. What is your emergency?”

“My sister and her fiancé are dead. They . . . they’re d-­dead,” she rambled.
“Someone shot them.”

“What is the address?”

Kate absently rattled off the address, her eyes glued to Alex in the other room. His mother and father were dead. Everything they’d tried so hard to build together gone in the blink of an eye. He’d never remember them.

“Ma’am, what is your name?” the operator asked, like she’d had to repeat the question several times.

“Kate Morrison.
I . . . I’m Margo’s sister.”

“The police are on the way. Please stay on the line and . . .”

Kate dropped the phone, unable to do this. She’d wait for the police, but right now, she needed to sit and hold Alex. He needed her. He’d keep the grief from sucking her under. Margo dead. It couldn’t be real. She didn’t know how to live without her sister. They’d seen each other through so many
bad times. They’d made each other better, competing to always be better than the other. They’d promised each other they’d never be alone.

Alex stared up at her. It hit her hard. Margo kept her promise. Kate wasn’t alone. She had Alex. He needed her. He was hers. She’d make sure he got everything coming to him, and the man who did this to her beautiful sister and Alex’s father would pay.

Chapter Six

B
EN THOUGHT ABOUT
what Sam said about settling down. He never minded sharing his bed. In fact, he’d gone too long sleeping alone. The thing was, he enjoyed the sex, but not the sleepover. He had no trouble connecting with a woman on a sexual level. He went out of his way to treat them right, because his dad had been a prick to his mother, degrading everything she did
from her cooking to her looks, even though she didn’t deserve a single insult. He made sure the women who came into his life had nothing to complain about his behavior. Except one thing. The distance he kept emotionally.

J.T. seemed content to eat his dinner from Ben’s lap, so Ben grabbed his fork and took a bite of his favorite fettuccini Alfredo with spinach and broccoli. J.T. stole a long
noodle and sucked it into his mouth, a huge smile on his sauce-­covered mouth.

J.T. ate half of Ben’s dinner, ignoring his own chicken nuggets and fruit. Ben ate half the apples and coaxed J.T. to eat more of them. He only wanted the noodles. At least he ate a bunch of spinach drenched in the sauce without even knowing it.

“I can’t believe you got him to eat that,” Elizabeth whispered
across Sam.

“Got him? Who could stop him?” Ben laughed with Elizabeth and gave J.T. a hug. He liked the little boy and couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have his own son. He didn’t really have to think too hard. All he had to do was look at the other men around the table sitting with their kids. Tyler would find out soon enough when Noah came into the world.

Waiters cleared
the dinner dishes and Morgan opened her presents with a lot of help from Emma. As the oldest child in the group, she took charge, holding up each present for everyone to see and repacking it for Morgan, so she could open more gifts.

Morgan opened his gift last.

“Ben, I love the books. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. No one should trust me to buy baby clothes. Books seemed an easy alternative
choice.”

“And the spa day?” Morgan asked.

“After what you’re about to go through, you deserve a spa day. I’ll even come over and hang out with Tyler and help take care of Noah while you get your facial, mani, pedi, and massage.”

“You’re on,” Tyler said, raising his beer in salute.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Morgan said.

“It’s a promise.”

Grace, Sam and Elizabeth’s daughter,
didn’t want to be outdone by her little brother and climbed into Ben’s lap for dessert. Sam tried to pluck J.T. out of his lap, but J.T. whined and struggled to stay put.

“Leave him, Sam. I’ve got them.”

“Dog pile on Ben,” Jack teased.

“At least let him have some dessert,” Jenna said, a laugh in her voice.

“My hands are too full of kids. It’s cool, let them eat.”

“I helped
Aunt Elizabeth frost the cake,” Emma announced.

“You did a great job, Sugar Bug,” Marti praised her daughter.

As much as Ben liked being with the family, the large group overwhelmed him. The noise, the comradery, and the laughs made all the things he’d longed for as a kid surface along with the bad memories.

Family get-­togethers were a time to fear and endure. His uncles drank as
much as his father. Seemed that their fun lay in one-­upping the other in how mean they could be to each other, the women, and even the children. His older cousins joined in, having learned it’s better to be a part of their so-­called fun than to be on the receiving end of their sharp tongues and backhanded smacks on the shoulder or cracks to the head that only elicited more laughs. His mother and
aunts either joined in the drinking, or ended up trying to reason with unreasonable drunks until the inevitable fight broke out. Someone always left bloody, whether it be man, woman, or child. It never ended well. The end of the party was never the end of the fight. No, his father would pick and pick at his mother, him, until his father lost his temper and hit one or both of them. The good nights
were when he passed out. Ben thanked God every day he didn’t inherit his father’s addictions. To booze. To drugs. To hurting others for sport, thinking it made him feel better when all it really did was prove he was a colossal heartless asshole.

Grace pulled him out of his dark thoughts, leaning up and holding his neck and kissing the side of his face. “Want some?” She held up a bite of cake
at the ends of her fingers, poised to fall in his lap at any second. Chocolate frosting covered her tiny fingers.

He smiled, knowing this was going to make a mess and not caring one bit. He couldn’t resist the girl. “Gimme.” He opened his mouth and she crammed the piece of cake in and against his lips.

She smiled and licked her fingers. “You have chocolate on your face.”

He tickled
her ribs and made her giggle. “You have chocolate everywhere.”

Sam grabbed Grace under the arms, avoiding letting her put her hands on him, and handed her to Elizabeth. “You take care of her. I’ve got the boy.” Sam plucked J.T. from Ben’s lap and set him on the empty chair beside him.

“Thanks,” Ben said, wiping his face with a napkin.

“You’ve got more chocolate on you than in you,”
Sam teased. “Thanks for distracting them. They love playing with you.”

“I like them. They’re good kids.”

“Despite the chocolate on your dress shirt?”

Ben looked down at his chest and the perfect imprint of Grace’s hand in smudged chocolate against the white with navy blue pinstripe fabric.

“Yes, despite that.”

“I’ll buy you a new shirt,” Sam offered.

“Don’t worry about
it. No big deal.”

“You’re going to make a really great father someday,” Marti said from across Cameron on his other side.

“Well, if I keep hanging out with you guys, I’ll get a lot of practice.”

“That’s for sure,” Cameron said, scanning the table and all the small faces staring back at them.

Four ­couples had produced eight kids, counting Noah, who would be a welcome addition to
this bunch of fun-­loving kids. They really did seem happy and carefree. So unlike how he felt growing up. Maybe that was why he liked playing with kids so much.

Ben wiped the worst of Grace’s sticky handprint from his chest, knowing he’d never get the stain out and not caring one bit. He tossed the napkin on the dessert the kids ate the majority of without him and stood.

“Thanks, everyone,
for a great night, but I’ve got work to do on a pending case.”

It took him five minutes to say goodbye, shake hands with the guys, and hug the ladies. The kids gave him hugs too. Grace gave him another kiss on the cheek. He loved that little angel. J.T. gave him a high five.

“Good luck and be well,” he said to Morgan, hugging her goodbye.

Morgan held him close and whispered, “I know
what it feels like to want to be a part of a family like this. All you have to do is accept this is your family too. When you need help, come to us. We’ll always be here.”

He didn’t know what to say, so held her away and stared into her eyes, knowing she spoke the truth, but unable to accept it and take it in.

He walked away, but Jenna caught up to him by the door. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Fine. I really do have work to do.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“So am I.” He meant it. “I’ll see you soon, Rabbit.” He hugged her close and held on longer than normal because they shared a special bond. He needed her warmth and friendship.

He let her go and ducked out the door quicker than needed, but he had to get away from the things she made him want and the feelings he didn’t want
to feel. He loved Jenna, but not in that way for all the joking and razzing he gave Jack about stealing her away. He and Jenna would always be friends. But he saw all too clearly what she’d overcome to find the love and happiness she had with Jack and their kids. It was possible to be happy. He didn’t know how she did it. Maybe all it took was finding the right person. So much harder than it sounded.

He drove home with one nagging thought that refused to leave his mind.
Is Morgan right? Is the woman meant for me about to crash into my life? Does she even exist?
He hoped so, but was he ready? Did he have it in him to be a friend, lover, partner to a woman like he’d never been to anyone else?

Would his worst fear come to pass and he’d end up being his father’s son?

He swore it would
never happen, which is why he’d never allowed himself to forge a deep and lasting relationship with anyone. All it got him was lonely and alone in his quiet apartment, staring at a stack of endless work. Work he used to fill his time and the hole inside of him he never filled.

His phone rang. He checked caller ID and hit the button on his steering wheel to accept the call. Detective Raynott’s
voice replaced Bruno Mars singing “Uptown Funk” coming through the speakers.

“Guess who’s in trouble again?”

“Evan Faraday.” Easy guess. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Get here as fast as you can.” The detective rattled off the address and hung up.

Ben punched it into his GPS at a red light, gripped the steering wheel tighter, and looked forward to finally getting
another chance to take Evan down.

B
EN PULLED IN
behind several police cars nearly thirty minutes later, their red and blue lights flashing. He turned off the car’s engine and sat staring up at the massive house. Morgan’s prediction played in his mind. This late at night, the woman meant for him had to be in that house. He hoped she wasn’t the dead woman Detective Raynott called him about.

Evan Faraday hit Ben’s radar when Detective Raynott caught the case of a man found beaten to death in an alley after gambling with some guys in the bar, including Evan. That man was the son of one of his Haven House clients. Ben stepped in as a legal advocate for the family. The guy was only trying to scrape together extra money for his mother and sister. Evan played cards with the guy, but
Raynott couldn’t link him to the murder. Not with any actual evidence, but the circumstantial kind added up to Evan drunk and pissed off about losing to the guy. Evan killed him; they just couldn’t prove it.

More recently, Evan got into another bar fight. Donald Faraday paid off the guy with a heavy heart. He knew what and who his son was, but that didn’t stop him from getting Evan out of
trouble. Again.

Detective Raynott caught that case too. Ben asked the detective to call him if Evan got in trouble again. Ben wanted to take the selfish, smart-­mouthed prick down. Then came the DUI arrest. Now he’d killed again.

Ben got out of the car, tucked in his shirt, and straightened his tie.

“What am I doing?” He was at a murder scene, not meeting a date for drinks and dinner.

But she was in there. He knew it. Anticipated it. And hoped he wasn’t a fool for believing in Morgan.

The anticipation and hope swamping his system surprised him more than a little. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted a woman in his life. Not just any woman, but the right woman.

“I’m sorry, sir, this is an active crime scene. Law enforcement only,” the officer guarding the police
line said. Ben noted the neighbors’ interest. They lined the street, whispering to each other and staring at him. Some in their bathrobes, others in lounge clothes. This late at night the sirens got most of them up out of their beds. In this neighborhood, a murder was the last thing they expected.

“My name is Ben Knight. Detective Raynott called and asked me to come.”

The officer held
the tape up for him to pass. “He’s in the living room. Give your name to the officer at the door.”

Ben did and stepped into the elegant home and surveyed the officers and crime scene techs working the scene at the back of the house and what looked like the entrance to the kitchen. He spotted Detective Raynott standing over a woman with long brown wavy hair, a baby sleeping in a car seat at
her feet. With her back to him, he couldn’t see her face, but something about her seemed familiar. A strange tug pulled him toward her.

“Ben, you made it. Thanks for coming,” Detective Raynott said, waving him forward.

“Anything to nail Evan Faraday and see him behind bars.”

The woman turned and raised her face to look up at him. He stopped midstride and stared into her beautiful blue
eyes. Like a deep lake the soft outer color darkened toward the center. “Kate?”

He never expected her. Morgan had been right though—­they’d shared a moment at a wedding reception for a mutual friend and colleague. That had been more than a year ago now. They sat at the same table and talked, mostly about work and how out of place they felt at the event, made even more uncomfortable when they
realized they were seated at a table full of singles and the bride had arranged them as ­couples, playing matchmaker. They shared some laughs and danced, deciding to make the awkward situation fun. They fell under the spell—­the music, champagne, the celebration of love—­and Ben enjoyed himself more that night than any other date. He kissed her right there on the dance floor during a particularly
slow, sweet song. He remembered it perfectly. The way she stared up at him with those blue eyes. The way her mouth parted slightly as she exhaled and he leaned in. The softness of her lips against his. The way she gave in to the kiss with a soft sigh. The tremble that rocked his body and hers when the sparks flew and sizzled through his system.

The startled look on her face when he pulled
back just enough to see the desire flaming in her eyes. A split second later she bolted for the door.

He went after her, but didn’t find her. She didn’t answer his calls over the next two days. He still didn’t know if he’d overstepped, done something wrong, or simply scared her.

“Ben.” Her soft voice, filled with surprise, startled him out of his thoughts. “What are you doing here?” Her
sad eyes narrowed on him.

“I called him,” Detective Raynott said. “If this is Evan’s doing, there’s no one besides yourself who wants to take that man down more than Ben.”

“Why?”

“I hate assholes who think they can get away with hurting ­people for no other reason than they can.”