Secrets and Sins:Raphael(50)

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."