Secrets and Sins: Raphael: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite) (22 page)

The call had come in at ten o’clock. So Greer had been alone all morning. Frowning, he moved to the next message.

“I’m headed to the hospital. I’ve started cramping and bleeding,” Greer’s husky, trembling voice had Rafe stiffening, his grip tightening on the phone.
What did she say? Meet her there?
“Damn it.” His fingers went numb as he fumbled to replay the message. Greer. Oh, Jesus. The baby. She must be so scared.

“Rafe.” Chay surged from his chair. “What’s wrong?”

“Wait.” He listened to the message again, and the fear and alarm in her voice twisted his gut in knots, sent him to his feet. “It’s Greer,” he said to Chay, redialing her number. “She’s having cramps, bleeding. I need to meet her at the hospital.”

Her phone rang, went to voicemail. He tried again. Nothing.

“Fuck,” he growled. “She’s not answering.”

“Maybe she’s already at the hospital,” Chay said.

“No.” He shook his head, dialed again. “This call came in nine minutes ago. She wouldn’t have had time to make it to the hospital. Shit,” he snapped as once more the computerized voice let him know the person he was calling wasn’t available. What if she was hurrying and crashed? What if she was in a ditch somewhere hurt?

“Calm down, Rafe,” Chay murmured, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “She’s fine. She probably just can’t answer the phone right now.”

“The GPS.” He dropped down in his chair, spun around to the monitor. “I can pull up the GPS tracker on the car.” He scrolled through his files, pulled up the tracker program, and with a few clicks, had the information he sought. “What the fuck?”

Greer’s address. Her old Beacon Hill address. Why the hell would his car be parked there?

“Wait, wait, wait,” he mumbled, minimizing one program and pulling up his email.

Aubrey Chandler.

How did he and Noah meet? What’s the connection?

Greer’s questions ricocheted off the walls of his skull. Last night he hadn’t dwelled on them, but now…

He shot from his chair again, bounding around the desk. Chay followed hot on his heels.

“What’s up, Rafe? What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, grabbing his jacket from Sara’s desk. “But I’m going to find out.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Greer slipped her key into the lock of her front door, a silly, sappy smile curving her mouth.
I’m a slut. A backseat slut. Oh, my God, I’m a backseat slut who has sex in public places.
Her smile broadened into a grin.
You’re damn right I am.

Sex with Rafe had been amazing. Mind-blowing. For the first time in her life, she’d been a woman desired strictly for her body. Not because of her connections, her family, or her hostess skills. Just wanted for her body, for the pleasure he could give her and she could give him.

It’d been…freeing.

And he’d given that gift to her. This day had started out like, well, shit. But it’d ended with sex in the backseat of an SUV with the hottest man she’d ever met, giving her the best orgasms she’d ever experienced. Gifting her with a femininity and sensuality she’d never known she possessed.

Twisting the key, she opened the door and entered her apartment. And tried to pretend she wasn’t wishing like hell she’d stayed in the truck, stayed with Rafe. Too late now. And probably for the best, she mused, tossing her keys on the mantel. Hell, what kind of couple would they—?

She jerked to a halt. A body. On her apartment floor. Blood. So much blood. Like crimson paint, it splattered his back, the wall behind him, pooled under his body. Jesus, so much blood…

Gavin. Oh, God, Gavin…

“She doesn’t love you like I do. She never did. You said you knew that. You said we would be together. So why did you go back on your word? I couldn’t let her have you, I couldn’t. Not after you promised. You promised, Gavin! She doesn’t deserve you. You’re mine. Mine.”

Aubrey perched on the chair of Greer’s dining room set, a blood-covered butcher knife clutched in her hand. The woman who’d slept with her ex rocked back and forth, red gore dotting her cheeks, matting her hair, and coating the front of her dress. An image of Carrie in her white slip of a prom dress flashed across Greer’s mind.

She shuffled backward, her heart lodged in her throat. Aubrey’s head jerked up, alerted as if scenting prey. Real terror swelled inside Greer, and she whirled on her heels, running for the door.

Pain. Blinding pain.

She cried out, grabbed the back of her head.

Another burst of hot agony.

Then nothing.

Her head ached.

As if Thor had taken a hammer and was striking away inside her skull. Relentlessly. She raised her arms—

No, she didn’t. Couldn’t.

Greer lifted her arms again, but…what the hell? Prying her eyes open, she peered down. Her sweater, jeans. Where were her arms? And why was she staring at the floor? Hell, lying on the floor. She groaned, wriggled her hands. Her wrists brushed her lower back. Strange. She tugged her arms forward, but they didn’t move. Her hands…

She rolled to her back, and pain lanced up her arms, pulsing like an open wound in her shoulders.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.”

Aubrey
. Her voice brought all the memories pouring into her head like a flood. The cramping and bleeding. Hospital. Aubrey. Gun. The terrible, crimson-drenched memories of that night Gavin died.

Moaning, she moved back to her side, and curling her legs under her hips, pushed to a sitting position. Instantly, her head protested. But that pain had been relegated to negligible. Desperate, she took inventory of herself. She scanned her jeans—the inner thighs, the crotch. Relief doused her. No blood. Her stomach, though tender, wasn’t cramping. For now. But she needed to get to a hospital. To make sure—

“Sorry I had to knock you out…again.” Aubrey rose from her sitting position across the empty room. “But I think it’s fitting we end it here where it all began.”

Here. For the first time, Greer scanned the place that had become her prison. Bare walls and floors greeted her, but the space was oddly familiar.

Her old apartment. Where she’d found Gavin’s body. Where Aubrey had knocked Greer out, leaving her there to take the blame for a murder Aubrey had committed.

“Aubrey,” Greer said, voice hoarse. She swallowed, moistening her mouth. “Aubrey, why—?”

“Why?” Aubrey laughed. “You already know why. Your mother told Karen you were having headaches, your memories were coming back.”

Oh, God. “I don’t know what—”

Crack
. The slap across her face echoed in the room. Fire blazed in her cheek.

“Don’t you lie to me,” Aubrey snarled, grabbed Greer’s chin in a bruising grip. “Damn! You just ruin everything!”

She squeezed hard, then jerked her hand away. With another of those brittle cackles she stalked across the floor.

“You had everything; you always did. The perfect family, money, privilege. Everybody loves Greer. She’s so nice, pretty, and smart. Have you ever had to worry about will you have a home to go to at night? If there will be food on the table or money to buy new school clothes? You have no idea what it’s like to be teased because of the hole in your shirt or for being the scholarship girl. You didn’t even have to worry about a job because
Daddy
did that for you, too,” she sneered. “But now, now I have everything you had. Parents who worship the ground I walk on, because I made their son happy in his last days. And they think I’m carrying their beloved grandchild. I live in a home that’s ten times the size of the crappy apartments my mother moved us to every damn year. Finally, I’m loved, and you’re hated. I have the life I’ve always dreamed of.”

Greer tracked her every move. Her breath chafed her throat, fear like sandpaper in her lungs, her chest. She dropped her gaze, just for a second, to the big, ugly gun on the floor where Aubrey had been sitting. She wanted to close her eyes, block out the sight of it, but she couldn’t afford to. Her life depended on focusing every cell and neuron on the jittery, pacing woman in front of her.

“They
think
you’re carrying their grandchild,” she murmured, the phrasing snatching her attention.

Aubrey cupped her stomach. “It doesn’t matter. They want a grandchild, and I’m pregnant. They’re too desperate and happy to have a piece of Gavin to question anything.” She smiled. “Gavin didn’t need much convincing to come to me. You didn’t appreciate him, damn sure weren’t satisfying him. That’s why he came to me, and he would’ve stayed with me if not for the money and promise of running the Addison empire your father dangled in front of him. How fucking pathetic is that? Your father had to buy Gavin away from me! But I couldn’t let him do that. I was so close to having it all. And now I do. His death gave me everything I wanted.” She bent down, shoved her face into Greer’s, an ugly sneer twisting her mouth, and an almost fanatical gleam glittering in her eyes. “They should’ve arrested you, locked you up. And your damn memory. For months, you didn’t remember anything. I was safe—my future was safe. But here you go screwing it up again. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let you take it away.”

She stood, whirled around, and strode to the gun. Panic clawed at Greer.

“Aubrey, please, you don’t have to do this.”

The other woman snatched the weapon up, stared down at it. “Yes, I do. You’re the last loose end. Noah worked nicely. Not my first option, but he worked.”

Greer blinked, momentarily stunned. “Noah? What are you talking about? What did you do?”

Aubrey’s head jerked up, and she looked at her as if she’d forgotten Greer still sat there. “My ram in the bush.” She smiled, the gesture obscene as she talked so casually about murder. “Originally, I sent the letters out of fun. Just to know you were scared and looking over your shoulder made me feel good. Made me laugh. But then Karen told me about you going to the hospital and your memories possibly coming back. That’s when I called my brother in a panic. I couldn’t let you remember and tell what happened that night. So Aaron helped me.” She snorted. “Not out of brotherly affection, but because I promised him ten thousand dollars. He trashed your car, left the doll, hired that junkie to drop off the dud one of his low-life friends built. But he botched the kidnapping and the shooting of your boyfriend. He was becoming a liability I couldn’t risk. And after I saw Noah again in the restaurant, I realized I had the perfect solution right there. I told Aaron we were going to take care of Noah. We strung him up, and then I shot Aaron.”

Greer whimpered, and a corner of Aubrey’s mouth kicked up.

“Yeah, Noah flopped like a fish, gasping your name right up to the end.”

“Stop it.” The image she described taunted her, tormented her. Hate streamed through her, and she was ablaze with it. The liquid fire burned away the pain in her shoulders, the fear in her heart. For the first time, she understood the desire to kill a person.

Aubrey chuckled. “You’re not in the position to give orders. In the next few minutes you’re not going to be able to give or say anything, because you are going to kill yourself. Shoot yourself in the head. And when they find your body, a note will be next to you explaining how you couldn’t live with the guilt of Noah’s and Gavin’s deaths, since your friend killed on your behalf. You came back here to die, yada yada yada. It’s all pretty melodramatic, but hey.” She shrugged. “It’s what I can come up with on short notice.”

“No one’s going to believe it,” Greer stammered. “No one will believe I killed myself and my child. They’ll come looking for me.”

“Maybe. But it’ll be too late by then. And it doesn’t matter what your boyfriend accepts. As long as the police do.”

Aubrey started for her, and Greer scooted backward until her arms hit the wall.
Think. Think, damn it!
Raphael, the baby…she had to fight for them, not lie here like a dog about to be put out of its misery. There was a future for her. With a man she adored. Fight. She had to fight. Nodding, she drew her knees to her chest.

“Where exactly do you plan to hide? There’s nowhere—”

Greer shot her legs out with all her strength, her feet connecting with Aubrey’s knee. The other woman screamed as her joint bowed backward with a sickening crunch. She buckled, hitting the floor, and the gun in her hand tumbled to the ground. Desperate, Greer scrambled to her feet and scooted up the wall. The agony in her wrists, arms, and shoulders disappeared under the deluge of adrenaline and desperation crashing over her, through her. She darted for the door. One step. Two. Three.

She screamed as she plummeted, twisting at the last instant so she landed on her shoulder and hip instead of her stomach. Hoarse whimpers tore at her throat, the wind punched from her.

“Bitch,” Aubrey snarled, releasing the ankle she’d grasped. She crawled to the gun, her knee jutting at an odd angle. Wheezing, Greer pushed to her knees, fire blazing in every part of her body. But she had to make it. A loud, ominous click popped behind her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, not stopping. She had to get to…

The door of her apartment crashed against the wall.

“Greer!” Raphael filled the doorway, and she rasped his name.

A shot blasted. She screamed.

Then nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Disinfectant. Floor wax. Ammonia. The scents hit her right before the pain. The god-awful pain. As though her joints were being pulled in four different directions and she had rug burn over her whole body.

What the—?

Oh, right. She’d been kidnapped, cuffed, held at gunpoint, and almost killed by Aubrey.
Oh, no…

“Shh.” A gentle hand smoothed over her forehead. “You’re safe, baby. You’re safe.”

Raphael
.

She lifted her lashes, met the most beautiful navy-blue eyes she’d ever seen.

“Raphael.”

“Hey, baby.” He smiled, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “About time you woke up.” His grin widened but she caught the worry in his gaze, the strain around his lips. “Don’t try to move too much. They could only give you so much medicine for the pain, so moving? Bad idea.”

“What happened? Aubrey?”

“Aubrey is currently cuffed to a hospital bed. Thank God she’s a bad shot. I had to wrestle the gun away from her, but she’ll be fine. Locked up for the foreseeable future for attempted murder, but fine.”

“She killed Gavin. And Adam Morgan. He was her brother. They killed Noah… He didn’t kill himself, Raphael,” she babbled, suddenly in a rush to get it out, almost as if she feared Aubrey would get away with her heinous crimes if she didn’t speak now.

“She’ll pay, baby. She will. And she’s not going anywhere. We have to concentrate on you.”

She nodded. He was right; it was okay. Wait.
Could only give her so much medicine? Did that mean…? Please…
“The baby? Is the baby…?”

“Is fine,” Rafe said, enfolding her hand in his and lifting it to his mouth. He touched each knuckle with his lips, then pressed another kiss to her palm. “The baby is fine. They did an ultrasound, and the doctor said the cramping you experienced earlier was most likely ligament pain. And the spotting isn’t unusual. You’re going to be fine, and our little girl is perfect.”

“Our little girl… Oh my God,” she breathed.
A girl.
The smile started in her belly, swelled up her chest, and bloomed across her face. She’d known. Somehow she’d known the baby was a girl. Greer laughed, and then groaned as her shoulders and back flamed. Raphael’s loud laughter joined hers.

“Yeah, a girl. Chay, Mal, and Gabe are already cracking jokes and pointing out the hell she’s going to put me through.”

Her joy lessened the pain, making it negligible. Then his words penetrated.
Our little girl. The hell she’s going to put me through.

“You believe me?” she asked softly, hesitantly…fearfully. If he said no, it just might break her heart. Just tear it in two.

Raphael sank onto the bed, his hip notched next to hers. Gently, as if afraid he might hurt her, he cupped her face between his big palms. Touched his forehead to hers. “Yes, princess, yes. I believed you almost from the first. I was just too much of an asshole to accept that you wouldn’t leave me. That’s on me, my fucked hang-ups, my fears. And I’m sorry I hurt you with them.” He swept his lips over hers, once, twice. “But I know with a certainty that baby is my little girl.
Our
little girl.”

She closed her eyes, covered his hands with hers. Hope, the capricious bastard, rose inside her. Teased her with its presence.

“I love you, princess. I. Love. You,” he whispered. “You make what I believed was love a joke. Because it was nothing like this feeling of flying and falling at the same time. You fill me so much I don’t have room left for myself. Look at me, baby. Look at me.” He waited until her lashes lifted, and he kissed her forehead, her nose, her eyelids, her mouth. “I told you once, looking at your paintings was like dreaming with my eyes open. I was wrong. Finding you again, waking up to you…loving you…is like dreaming with my eyes wide-open. And I don’t ever want to close them.”

The tears spilled over, as did hope, and joy, and peace, and the sense of
belonging
. She belonged to him. And he was hers.

“I love you, too.” She crushed her mouth to his. “I don’t have the pretty words you have, but God, I love you.”

“Good.” Raphael grinned. “I was going to bribe you with a ready-made family in Gabe, Mal, Chay, my mother, aunts, and sisters. Then I thought that might be a little scary. But since you already love me, it’s too late to back out.”

A man she loved beyond reason.

A baby girl she already planned on buying a shotgun to threaten horny boys with.

A family of love instead of blood.

She smoothed her thumbs over his cheekbones, caressed his beautiful mouth that could curse worse than a sailor, utter the loveliest words, and give her the sweetest pleasure.

“It’s too late?” she whispered.

“Like four months too late.”

“Good.”

“You’re stuck with me.”

She kissed him, long, tender, deep.

“Good.”