Touch of Betrayal, A (9 page)

“I’m sorry, Everly.”

Shock collided with fear and I went limp. Pierce rarely called me Everly, and he’d never apologized…that I could remember. Of course, he’d never kidnapped me before. That was it. Had to be.

“You coming in?” My words wobbled.

He grunted. I’d learned to speak Pierce grunts fairly well, and that one meant: “Not unless someone holds a loaded weapon to my head.” I considered it, but leveraging his clutch piece from his ankle holster would undoubtedly result in me being the injured party.

No matter. I had to get inside before my bladder popped. I swung out of the Jeep, hung on to the door long enough to wake up my muscles, and then trudged forward. The circular driveway bordered an entryway paved with the same tiles as the pool enclosure, and the front door was a true dark cherry—
feng shui
at its best.

Even though I’d visited several times, the beauty and peace surrounding Annie’s home still held me captive. Sean, one of the most unassuming guys I knew, came from money and didn’t hesitate to spend it when it came to protecting his wife and daughter. Their house was an elegant, multi-million-dollar fortress that boasted a top-of-the-line security system. It was something Annie insisted on, considering her former occupation as a sniper. There was no doubt our approach had been monitored from the moment Pierce turned onto their driveway, so there was no reason for me to knock.

Annie swung the door open, Madigan in her arms, and a stiff smile on her lips. Not exactly the warm welcome I expected. She usually ran toward me, hugged me, and carried on like we hadn’t seen each other in years. Her lack of enthusiasm, combined with Pierce’s apology, scared me more than when Mitch was late checking in from one of his military assignments.

“Hey,” she said, her voice strained. “Glad you’re here, El. Really relieved. Pierce filled me in on Millie and Harlan being in trouble and you being drugged.”

Another blast of fear started in my toes and threaded through me. “Yeah. The logistics have been insane, but all’s good.”

Only it wasn’t. Dead giveaway: The air positively vibrated with a silent conversation between my best friend and Tynan Pierce—and he hadn’t even left the Jeep yet. Amazing what eye contact could convey, and there was no way I could ignore it. “What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “I have to put Maddie down for her nap before we talk.”

One look at the child’s droopy eyelids temporarily squelched my curiosity. I gave Annie a one-armed hug—careful not to touch her with my fingertips—and tousled her daughter’s fine white hair. “Hey, sweet baby. Good to see you.”

“Oooh. You need a shower,” Annie said, turning away from me. “You know where your room is, and I made a quick run to Ala Moana, so you’ll have enough clothes for a few days.”

Good friends were better than absolutely anything. “Thanks. Really. Just thanks. Oh, can I borrow your phone charger? As you know, Pierce neglected to give me a heads-up on this impromptu visit, so I didn’t grab mine before I left the house.” A sulky undertone laced my words.

Annie’s eyebrows arched.

“I’ve earned a bit of a sulk,” I snapped, turning on my heel and heading down the long hallway leading to the guest room. I made it about halfway before her words sank in. Shopping? Ala Moana? There wasn’t time for her to have done it this morning. They’d just opened and it was a solid forty-five minutes away on a good traffic day. So that meant… I braced myself against the wall, my heart thudding double time. Annie knew Pierce had kidnapped me, maybe even helped him plan it.

Where the hell was Mitch? I fumbled in my handbag for my iPad. At least Annie had wireless access so I could check my email. No message. Damn, but I wished there was a way to reach him and run this situation by him for a different perspective. Why didn’t Pierce and Annie just ask me to get on the next flight?

The perfection of Annie’s house suddenly felt claustrophobic.

Shower, Everly. It’ll help clear your head, and God knows you’ll feel better when you wash off the grime and sour sweat from being drugged.

Two walls of the guest room were glass, with sliders that faced a private patio. I opened both of them, stripped out of my filthy clothes, and wandered into the bathroom. The tub was huge, and the Jacuzzi held the promise of instant relaxation, but I opted for the shower. I wanted to wash the sweaty residue from my skin down the drain, not sit in it.

Annie had stocked the shower with natural essence Hawaiian soaps and shampoos that smelled almost as fresh as the breeze from the patio. I sniffed both the Pikake and the Pineapple Passion before I decided on the Jasmine. Millie’s favorite fragrance might give me some magical insight as to what was going on with her and Harlan. They disappeared. My parents’ house was torched. By some weird, freaky association, both incidents had to be connected to whoever murdered my parents. Didn’t they?

It took three lathers and rinses before I pronounced myself clean. Limbs limp with fresh-washed pleasure, I stood in the bathroom, letting the fragrant steam swirl around me. My attempt at using scent to trigger insight had failed, so maybe procrastination would keep my head from exploding with a mess of facts I couldn’t connect. Not that my curiosity wasn’t harassing me to get a move on. It was. But whatever had pushed Annie and Pierce into weird, aberrant behavior patterns couldn’t be good. Well, damn it all to bloody, blue blazes, I was hiding and I knew it.

I ran a comb through my hair and headed for the patio. Before I faced the pending crisis, I planned to be as calm and balanced as possible. The trade winds would dry my hair and brush the panic from my mind. I inhaled the sweetness from the flowers blooming in Annie’s garden, and moved through a series of yoga postures as I prepared to deal with…whatever.

Calm spread through my psyche, and for the first time since finding the corpse, I inhaled a full breath that reached all the way to my toes. It was time to face Annie and find out why she abetted in my kidnapping.

I rummaged through the dresser, found a stack of shorts and t-shirts with coordinating lingerie. Annie liked things to match. I went with white everything. Because—hey—I needed a sense of purity, false though it might be. There were three pairs of Hawaiian slippahs in the closet, but I bypassed them, wending my way to the kitchen on bare feet.

The
fragrance of rich Kona coffee
and cinnamon
met me as I wandered into the great room, my head still muddled with the chaos of misinformation, or maybe it was lack of information. Coffee would be good. I made an attempt at normal conversation when I found Annie standing in the kitchen. “Were you generous with the cinnamon?”

She didn’t smile, just tilted her head in agreement.

It was as bad as I feared, then. I grabbed for the kitchen table, missed, and landed hard in one of Annie’s pale beech chairs. Still shooting for normalcy I tried another question. “Sean at work?”

She nodded again.

“Did he pick up that suspected arson on the Big Island?”

“Yeah. He’ll be gone all week. I miss him, but we Skype every evening so he can have some time with Maddie and tell her good night.”

Annie’s life was in order, and my patience had worn thin. “What is it? What’s going on?” Only six simple words, and they about choked me.

Annie held up her index finger, turned and checked the baby monitor mounted under the kitchen cabinets.

My stomach traveled toward my neck at breakneck speed, leaving an empty space in my abdomen. It was that horrible moment when I realized whatever was coming wasn’t going to be just bad; it was going to toss me right into hell.

My inner wisdom had known—probably since Pierce kidnapped me—which is why it pushed me into taking the time for a short yoga session.

“We talk, we text, we instant message, and we email every damn week. Why the sudden lack of words?” I sounded like a snotty brat, and worse, I didn’t care.

Annie turned up the sound on the monitor and a soft lullaby drifted into the kitchen, mingling with the scent of the freshly brewed coffee. From the stack of dishes on the kitchen counter, it looked like this was Annie’s second pot of coffee today, another portent that something was beyond wrong, because since her pregnancy she’d limited herself to one cup in the morning. That we were going to need more…damn, but it scared me.

She wandered toward the table, bare feet dragging over the bamboo floor. And she wouldn’t look at me. Her expression held the blank façade of an over-medicated mental patient.

“Talk to me. It’s only going to get worse if you put it off.” The words escaped before I could stop them. Much as I wanted to hold them in, the whole deal with the corpse on my property and Pierce kidnapping me
with
her knowledge had taken on the devastating force of a category five hurricane.

Annie slowly set two ceramic mugs on the table, blew out a shuddering sigh, and reached for my hands. Stopped herself. “No, I have to talk to you first. You can touch me after to verify.”

Dread slithered down my spine. “It’s Mitch, isn’t it? Something’s happened to him?”

She nodded, and finally held my gaze. “Yes, it’s Mitch, but not…he’s not who we thought he was. He’s not who
you
think he is.”

NINE

The morning clouds parted just enough
to let a shaft of warm sunlight into Annie’s kitchen—a stark contrast to the threat behind her comment about Mitch being…someone else. She wasn’t making sense, but the warning under her words made my stomach lurch.

I jumped up, desperate to escape Annie’s words, and began pacing as soon as my feet hit the bamboo. Maybe something solid under me would help control the shakes taking over my body. “What does ‘not who we think he is’ mean, Annie? He’s exactly what I think—kind, gentle, loving. He’s been so protective of me that it’s about driven me to start planting a garden. And you know how much I hate any kind of yard work.”

She let out a deep sigh. “Yes, I know. But it’s the reason behind the increased level of protectiveness that triggered Pierce’s radar, and mine. He’s been against you visiting me for the few trips we’ve tried to plan, and then your parents’ home was blown up. Coupled together, it was enough to trigger major alarms for both Pierce and me, so we’ve checked into some things.”

I whirled to face her. “You what? How dare you trespass into our lives like that? You’ve always known how much that would irritate the bison chips out of me.”

Annie cracked a genuine smile. “Bison chips?”

“Shit sounds all wrong, and cows are mundane. Could we get back on track here?”

“Right.” She rubbed her teeth over her bottom lip, stalling. “Your reaction is exactly why we didn’t mention it to you until we had so much proof we couldn’t ignore it any longer. I hate that we had to do it, and I’m sorry we invaded your privacy. But more than that, I’m glad you’re here. Safe. Where we can protect you.”

Unshed tears pressed for release. How could they? I swallowed, the ache of forcing down my tears a dull throb in my upper chest. “More protection? What is it with you people? I don’t need protection. Not from Mitch, and not from you.”

The space between us was clogged with sticky desperation. Or maybe it was my own despair that made it difficult to breathe.

Annie closed her eyes and dragged in a shattered breath. It sounded painful, and a petty, ugly part of me was glad she hurt. I dropped into the chair across from her, planted my elbows on the table, and held my head. She was my best friend. We’d saved each other’s lives, and now I had to listen to her, no matter how badly I didn’t want to hear anything negative about Mitch. And I sure as all hell couldn’t fight what I didn’t know. “Okay, start at the beginning.”

She shoved her chair back, stood, and made her way across the kitchen, where she stretched on tiptoes to reach the cupboard above her refrigerator. It gave me a glimpse of the pink stretch marks that spread across her abdomen, and I shuffled through my hurt and anger to find the love I had for my best friend. Whatever Annie’d learned, truth or not, I had to be sure
she
stayed safe. Madigan deserved no less.

Annie bounced once, grabbed a green bottle and set it on the table. Jameson Irish whiskey. I recognized the cream label, because I recently developed a taste for it, and had shared my discovery with Annie in a phone conversation a couple weeks back.

It was ten-ish in the morning, and Annie had gone straight for the Jameson’s.

A blast of panic shot through me. This wasn’t just friendship gone awry, it was bone-wringing bad news.

She placed two glasses on the table next to our barely touched coffee mugs. “What I have to say will go down better with some help.”

Hands shaking, I opened the bottle and poured both of us an inch or so, then went back and added another splash because my teeth had started to chatter. “Procrastination isn’t going to make this any easier, Annie.”

“I know, but it’s my fault. I should have done the due diligence on that first day when we met Hunt at the beach. I knew better than to blindly accept his credentials just because I recognized him. This would never have happened if I didn’t respect his photojournalist work, and actually owned a couple of his books. Stupid of me, and I knew better, but I didn’t want to believe anyone who created such poignant photographs, ones that graced the coffee tables of millions of homes, could be bad for you. And you were so happy. I just couldn’t…”