Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3) (6 page)

At last, something was going right for a
change.

♫

“JOEL RAZOR didn’t need to be locked in his
apartment,” Dr.
Welland
said. “Joel was already a
prisoner—he was trapped inside that apartment in his mind.”

We were gathered in the library to give our
statements. Dr.
Welland
had been called in to discuss
Joel’s mental state. Although he was not considered a suspect, Detective Lewis
wanted to know more about hypnotic suggestion and how it could have worked to
lure him out of the apartment.

“Joel had reached a point where he
genuinely wanted to free of his phobias. He recognized there was a great deal
of life he was missing on the outside. The biggest concern for him was the inability
to see buildings in their natural space, three dimensional, and this had become
important to him in his work. I used hypnotherapy and found him to be very
susceptible. It was not difficult to bring him into it deep state of
relaxation. In this state, I experimented with certain phrases that would
trigger the desire to leave the apartment and give him a sense of ease and
safety when he did.”

“What were these triggers?” asked Lewis.

“Well, that was the difficulty. In Joel’s
environment, he wouldn’t necessarily hear the phrases that I intended, and then
there was the risk that he would hear a certain phrase and it would happen at
an inappropriate time such as the middle of the night. However, I was aware
that during the day after he had finished his work at the drafting table, he
relaxed by playing the cello. So I chose a phrase of music. When he played this
music, he would have a sense of peace and safety about the outside.”

“How does it work?”

“Joel is a deeply regulated young man. I
put him under hypnosis and played the music, reinforcing the subconscious
message that he was safe, he was calm and he felt confident to leave the
apartment. Joel got up from the chair, still in a state of hypnosis, crossed
the room to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. At this point, I counted
him out of the hypnotic state and when he returned to his conscious self, he
saw where he was, standing in the hallway, which for him was a tremendous
breakthrough. We were both very pleased with results of the experiment.”

“So you’re telling us Joel has been leaving
the apartment every afternoon during his practicing of the cello to wander the
halls of the mansion.” Detective Lewis appeared interested.

“I wouldn’t go that far. A lot would depend
on his desire to stay in the room at the time,” Dr. Wendell replied. “Please
remember, that in a hypnotic state, a person can not be manipulated to do
something that is not a subconscious desire.”

“Did you ever see a violent side to Joel?”

Everyone turned to look at me, except
Daniel.

The doctor considered my question
carefully. “No, but I did see expressions of repressed rage toward his mother.
When I brought the subject up, the patient was unwilling to discuss it. In
fact, he denied having any such feelings at all. If we had more time, I believe
we would have got the source of his anger and given a safe environment to
express it, he might have made fast progress. It is possible that his anger was
simply due to the fact that she died. It’s not uncommon for young children to
be furious with parents who die and then suffer tremendous guilt. We’ll never
know because my treatment of Joel was terminated soon after.”

“What?” Daniel raised his head.

“Well, you must know. The order came from
you. My receptionist took the message; she has it in her file. Everything is
recorded now. She has a digital voice recording of the phone call. It came from
your office. I was told that Joel’s treatment was being discontinued. My
services were no longer needed.”

Lewis broke in, impatient with us hijacking
his interview. “So we have a piece of music that acts as a trigger for Joel to
leave the apartment. Who besides yourself knew that by playing this music they
could have access to Joel, possibly even use it to control him?”

“No one.
My files are kept confidential.”

I sat up. “They didn’t have to have access
to the file. They just had to be in the house to hear the music and see what
happened next. Who was in the house at the time the doctor was with Joel?” I
looked at Marshall.

“Of the regular staff, there was myself,
Jackson, Joyce and Wilma. Of the four of us, Jackson has the least access. It
would be very difficult for him to move about the upper rooms without
attracting attention. So that would leave me, Joyce and Wilma. Joyce is
partially deaf; I doubt she would be able to hear music and furthermore her
work was the other side of the house. My work keeps me downstairs during the
day.
Which leaves Wilma.
”

Lewis nodded, satisfied. “I think we have a
winner.”

“What was the name of the music?” I asked.

“It was a mournful piece,” said the
psychiatrist. “I believe it was an adagio. Rather a sad composition. It seemed
to mean that a lot to Joel, though he would not say why. He was secretive. I
did my best to encourage his trust but it was difficult. It was difficult to
break through his barriers.”

I knew the piece.
Adagio for Strings, op 11.
Wilma had manipulated him using the
music played after 9/11.

*

THE POLICE didn’t leave the mansion until
dusk. Daniel paced, answering half-a-dozen questions and generally looked
anxious to have them away from the house.

I knew why.

He was going to find Joel and try to get
him out of the country before Lewis figured out Wilma’s boyfriend wasn’t the
murderer. I thought the detective would pick up on the raincoat she was wearing
and her blonde hair and put two and two together. He didn’t.

We wanted to believe Joel was innocent. In
a way, he was. Wilma had been tormenting him for weeks, posing as his dead
mother. He finally snapped. I tried to remember what he told me about the
proxy, but my brain was fogged from lack of sleep and stress. Daniel and I both
knew Wilma was working with
Carsten
. How it must have
scared the shit out of him to discover his accomplice was dead.

It was over now. Daniel had Joel’s proxy;
the deal would be killed and Joel...?

I couldn’t feel anything for Joel in that
moment. I could only seen Wilma, her blonde hair, the blue raincoat and a knife
stuck in her chest. Whatever I wanted to believe about the father of my baby,
it was becoming harder and harder to sustain.

As for me, I would finally leave Razor
mansion and Daniel behind. I didn’t know where I would go or how I would live
but I couldn’t live here. He would never separate himself from Joel and I
discovered I didn’t like being a third wheel.

Me
, the baby and the violin would ride off into the sunset.

I stood at the window in Joel’s apartment
musing over my future. Night had fallen over the redwood forest. A thin mist
was curling at the base of the trees.

Incredibly, as I watched, a blonde wearing
an electric blue raincoat emerged from the forest, stopped and then stared up
at the window.

My hair stood on the back of my neck. Wilma
was only a decoy.

I was looking at her killer.

I took the private elevator downstairs and
exited the mansion through the side door, moving noiselessly around the house
to the low stone wall. The woman in blue was there, waiting for me. She turned
and walked away with a slow deliberate step as though she expected to be
caught. I dropped back, adjusting my pace, and followed her as she disappeared
into the wood.

I was deep in the forest, shrouded in mist,
when I realized I was stupid not to have told Daniel where I was going. I
didn’t hear the person behind me until it was too late.

The blow struck the back of my head. The
force was not heavy enough to knock me senseless but it was enough to knock me
off my feet. I never got a look at my attacker. I was gagged, bound and a
blindfold placed over my eyes before I had a chance to fight back.

And then someone was carrying me through the
forest. I was dumped into a panel van and the door slammed closed. Seconds
later, we were moving through traffic, further and further away from Daniel.

They had killed Wilma. Whoever had taken me
was going to kill me too.

*

DANIEL FOLLOWED the passageway, listening
for Joel’s footsteps in the shadows. First he checked out the cell where his
brother had been held but there was no sign of him.

He had left the flashlight behind in the
kitchen. Joel didn’t need a light shining in his eyes when he found him. The
tunnel was dark but light spilled from the exit at the far end. His father had
told him it led to the coach house.

“Danny?”

His skin prickled and his brain swam with
relief. “Yes Joel, I’m here. It’s safe to come out now.”

Joel emerged from the shadows, covered in
blood.

Daniel held up his hands so as not to
frighten him. “Everything is going to be okay. I’m going to take care of this.
You have to tell me what happened.
The truth.
All of
it.”

His stepbrother’s expression was odd, his
movements trancelike. He blinked as though coming out of a fugue state. Daniel
had seen this before but never so severe.

Joel looked at his hands and broke down,
crying. “She’s dead. Alexandra killed her.”

“No, buddy, your mom died in 2001. It was
only Wilma. She was posing as Alex to get to you. You acted in self-
defense
.”

“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t. She told me I
did, but I know I didn’t. Danny, I’ve got the proxy here in my pocket. I’ve
signed it. It’s yours. I can’t live like this anymore. She wanted me to leave
with her and I almost did. I was going to meet her in the kitchen and when I
got there—she was dead. She lied to me again—I told her I would go with her.
Nobody had to get hurt.”

“You’re not making any sense. You were
going to go where with who?”

“Alexandra. She asked me to fetch the proxy
and we would run away. She said she would help us fight
Carsten
.”

Daniel shook his head, trying to get
through to his brother. “You were tricked into believing Wilma was your mother.
Alexandra wouldn’t help us cross the street. They used post-hypnotic
suggestion. Wilma eavesdropped on your sessions with Dr.
Welland
.
She knew what triggers to use. You were had, duped—Joel it was a con.”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot. She wants
you to think I’m having some sort of breakdown. Daniel, you have to listen to
me. I know what I saw.”

“
Carsten
is
behind this,
goddamnit
! He was working with Wilma to
get to you.”

“That’s what she wants you to believe—that this
is all
Carsten’s
doing. It wasn’t—it was her. She’s
back and this won’t end with
Carsten
Pullman. I
wanted to believe her this time but then she tried to kill Charley. I’m all she
has. If I’m dead, she loses her power and she can’t hurt anyone anymore. But
Danny, as long as I’m alive she won’t stop until she has complete control of
me.”

Daniel gripped his brother’s shoulders. “Joel,
I know who pushed Charlotte. It was
Tash
. She’s messed
up about what’s been going on here—she lost it. It could’ve been an accident.
Maybe she just meant to scare her. I haven’t told anyone. My attention has been
on finding you first.
One fire at a time, right?
That’s
all there is to the story. Your mom has been dead for fourteen years.”

Joel blinked, bewildered. “If that’s true,
then who has been stalking me? Who has been visiting me down here, trying to
convince me I’m going mad. She was there, in the kitchen. Wilma was dead and
she was there. Danny, am I losing my mind?”

“No, you’re as sane as I am. But we’re both
fucking nuts so take that as you will.” He tried to smile. “I don’t know who
killed Wilma but we’ll figure it out. None of this is your fault, buddy. Don’t
say anything more. I’ll deal with it. Just come with me and I’ll make it okay.
Please, Joel, I’m not leaving this place without you.”

His cell phone vibrated with an incoming
text from Anastasia.

Joel
is with me on the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s ready to turn himself in. Meet us
here ASAP
.
BTW,
Charlotte is here. I love you.

Daniel read the text a second time and then
punched in the phone number for Joel’s apartment. It rang five times before he
hung up.

Cold, creeping fear coiled in his belly. It
was
Tasha’s
sign off—
I love you
—that scared the hell out of him more than the lie about
being with Joel. They were on the bridge, she had Charlotte and she was sending
him a message.
Love me or else.

Somehow, he had to get his agoraphobic
brother in the car. He wasn’t leaving Joel behind.