What Are You Afraid Of?

  Her mouth went dry. That didn’t sound good.

  “Is that why you kidnapped me?” She pressed against the wall, prepared to try to scramble away. “To punish my father?”

  Without warning he chuckled with genuine amusement. Like she’d just told a funny joke.

  “You don’t know anything,” he mocked.

  “I already told you that.”

  “Stupid girl.”

  Carmen braced herself. Ronnie was becoming increasingly agitated. It was obvious in the jerky motions of his body and the muscle twitching beside his eye. She sensed he was ready and eager to hit her again.

  Perhaps worse.

  “How did you punish my father?” she asked, hoping to keep him distracted.

  He hunched his shoulders, looking oddly vulnerable before he was deliberately stiffening his spine.

  “I shot him.”

  The words left his mouth and for a second Carmen thought it was the sort of delusional boast that a man would make who wanted people to believe he wasn’t a spineless coward. He could say he’d hidden in the bushes and used his BB gun to take a potshot at the lord of the manor. It wasn’t like her father was around to deny the lie.

  Then the world tilted, and she was plummeting through darkness. Images streaked past her. Silvery threads of memory. A young girl crawling out of her bed and slipping through the shadowed house in search of her parents. Of that same girl fleeing in terror at the deafening blast of a shotgun.

  Then the images shifted. Now she was in the kitchen where two broken bodies were crumpled on the tiled floor. A teenage Ronnie was standing in the center of the room with a shotgun in his hand, his grinning face splattered with blood.

  The image began to crack. And then it shattered. Returning her to the chilled warehouse and the brutal awareness that everything she believed about her past was a lie.

  And alone with the monster who was responsible for destroying her life.

  “Are you saying that my father didn’t commit suicide?” she breathed, struggling to accept his words.

  “Of course he didn’t.” Ronnie shoved his hands into his front pockets. “He was too arrogant to take his own life.”

  “God.” She pressed a hand to her throat. Her heart was doing something weird in her chest. Beating too fast, and then forgetting to beat at all. It made it hard to breathe. “You killed him.”

  Ronnie scowled, looking like a petulant child. “It’s not what I wanted.”

  She studied him in horror. “Are you trying to claim it was an accident?”

  “I wanted him to speak the truth.”

  She shuddered. He was truly insane.

  “Where did you get the gun?”

  He shrugged. “I found it while I was cleaning the garage. It was in a cabinet with a box of shells.”

  She slowly nodded. She had a vague memory of her father warning her never to play around the wooden cabinet. The gun had belonged to her grandfather, who’d been an avid hunter.

  “How did you get into the cabinet?” she demanded. “It was always locked.”

  “I found the key,” he said with a vague shrug, although it didn’t take much effort to figure out the young Ronnie had been snooping around the house until he found it. “As soon as I had it in my hands I knew I finally had the means to force him to acknowledge me as his son.”

  She scowled. “By killing him?”

  The twitching next to Ronnie’s eye accelerated as he gave a wave of his arms.

  “No,” he sharply denied. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  A mixture of pain and fury erupted through Carmen, briefly muting her fear.

  She wanted to tilt back her head and scream. Or better yet, leap to her feet and pound her fists into Ronnie’s face. She wanted him to hurt. To bleed like he’d made her parents bleed.

  “What did you think?” she asked in harsh tones. “That my father would be overjoyed to confirm the fact that you were his son while you were pointing a gun to his head?”

  His jaw jutted. “I wanted him to say the words, but he refused. He even denied that my mother had been his lover.” His voice didn’t hold one ounce of regret. Or guilt. Just an annoying whine, like he was the victim. “I hated him in that moment.”

  She glared at him in disgust. “So you killed him.”

  “I told you it wasn’t my fault,” Ronnie insisted. “He tried to grab the gun out of my hands. My finger squeezed the trigger in the struggle.”

  Carmen’s hand moved up to touch her damp cheek. She hadn’t even realized that she was crying.

  “He didn’t commit suicide,” she whispered, feeling something shift deep inside her. A fundamental truth that determined who she was and who she was yet to become. Then she drew in a shuddering breath, staring at Ronnie with an accusing gaze. “Why did you hurt my mother? She had nothing to do with you.”

  “She must have been on the back terrace when the gun went off. I didn’t even have a chance to try to help our father before she ran through the back door and started yelling at me.”

  Once again there was no guilt. In fact, he looked aggravated. As if her mother had been an annoying pest that he’d had to eliminate.

  She curled her hands into tight fists. “You bastard.”

  With a blur of motion, Ronnie surged forward, an ugly expression twisting his features.

  “I’m not a bastard.” He grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the wall. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  * * *

  Griff held his Glock in his hand as Matthew swerved his car to a halt on a quiet side street. He’d grabbed the weapon before they’d left his house. He had a license to carry a gun, but he rarely had it out unless it was to take target practice with Rylan.

  Now he kept it pointed toward the younger man.

  Not because he intended to shoot Matthew. At least not yet. But if the idiot was plotting to lead him into a trap, then he wanted him to know he was going to take a bullet to the head.

  At the same time, Griff ’s gaze skimmed their surroundings, taking a full inventory of any potential dangers.

  It looked harmless enough. The area was dominated by square buildings with large windows covered by steel bars and flat roofs. He assumed they were mainly warehouses and small factories. There weren’t any local stores or residences. A stroke of luck that kept the midmorning traffic to a mere trickle.

  Matthew pointed toward the two-story building across the street.

  “That’s our warehouse.”

  Griff frowned, studying darkened windows and the empty parking lot. “Where is everyone?”

  “We close down our warehouses between Christmas and New Year’s Day.” Matthew shrugged. “Dad claims it saves us a bundle in salaries.”

  The casual indifference in the man’s voice made Griff roll his eyes. Griff had built his own empire without any help from his father. Nothing had been handed to him on a silver platter.

  Thank God. Clearly, being a pampered rich boy did nothing to encourage ambition.

  “You don’t handle the budget?” he asked in mocking tones.

  Matthew sent Griff a humorless smile. “Numbers give me a brain cramp.”

  With a shake of his head, Griff turned his attention to the warehouse.

  It was a two-story structure, built with red bricks and steel doors. It was old, but it looked as if it’d been kept in good repair. Meaning it wouldn’t be easy to enter without alerting whoever was inside.

  His attention turned to the cement parking lot, which was surrounded by a six-foot chain-link fence.

  “There’s a truck parked at the end of the lot,” he said, trying to make out the gold emblem painted on the door of the vehicle.

  “Probably the guard,” Matthew said. “We rent them from a local security firm.”

  It made sense. The truck looked like a company vehicle. His gaze scanned the street, searching for any sign that he was on the right track.

  “No van,” he finally muttered.

&nbs
p; Matthew sent him a confused frown. “Were you expecting one?”

  Ignoring his companion, Griff pulled out his phone. He kept the gun pointed toward Matthew as he hit his top speed-dial number. Seconds later Rylan was answering.

  “Hey, Rylan, I have a change of plans,” Griff said. “I’m at a warehouse owned by Lawrence Jacobs. I’ll text you the address.” He grimaced as Rylan spent the next minute questioning Griff ’s sanity in a voice loud enough to wake the dead. “I’m not alone,” Griff grimly assured his friend. “I’m with Matthew Jacobs. He made an unexpected visit to my house. He claims he’s here to track down Ronnie Hyde. I’ll explain when you get here.” There was another furious tirade where Rylan promised to kick Griff ’s ass as soon as he arrived at the warehouse. Waiting until his friend had to take a breath, Griff intruded into his tirade. “Did you manage to find out anything?”

  There was a long pause before Rylan revealed what he’d learned. Griff grimaced at the description of the three women and one man who’d been burned to a crisp, even as he accepted that the deaths were a copy of the Morning Star. The killers were here. And it was very possible that they had stolen Carmen from his bed.

  His gaze locked on Matthew’s stiff profile. One way or another, Griff was going to find her. Or die trying.

  “Do they have any leads?” he demanded into the phone. He hissed as Rylan shared what a witness had claimed to see pulling out of a parking lot near the bluff where the bodies were found. “A white van? Did she get a license plate number? Damn.”

  Dread crawled through him like a living force. He could almost feel Carmen’s fear. As if she was reaching out to him, urging him to hurry. “Where are you now?” he demanded, his jaw tightening with frustration when Rylan revealed that he was headed to Los Angeles to meet with a contact who had access to a satellite. He hoped they might get lucky enough to have captured a picture of the van leaving the area. A fine idea, but Griff needed him at the warehouse.

  “Join me here as soon as you can,” he said, ending the connection.

  He didn’t doubt that Rylan was already leaping into his car and heading his way at breakneck speed. But he wasn’t sure that would be fast enough.

  “Get out,” he commanded, crawling out of the car. He kept the gun at his side, his finger on the trigger. He didn’t want some nosy passerby calling the cops because a madman was walking around the streets waving a gun.

  He quickly moved around the hood of the car, standing close beside Matthew as the younger man stepped out of the car and slammed shut the door.

  “You haven’t told me why you think Ronnie would take Carrie,” Matthew complained.

  Griff ignored the question, his gaze searching the warehouse for the best way to sneak inside.

  “Is there a back entrance?” he demanded.

  “Through the loading docks,” Matthew said.

  Griff hesitated. It could easily be a trap. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t wait for Rylan. And he certainly had no intention of waiting for the cops.

  “Tell me about the security.”

  “We have basic fire alarms, motion sensors, keypad locks, and we have guards on duty twenty-four seven,” Matthew said.

  Griff ’s gaze traced the fence with professional attention. This stuff he understood.

  “What about surveillance cameras?”

  Matthew lifted his hands in a helpless motion. “I know they’re inside. There might be a few in the parking lot. I’m not sure.”

  Griff made a sound of disgust. Did this man know anything about the Jacobs business?

  “What is it that you do for your father?” he demanded.

  Matthew arched a brow, a hint of condescension in his expression. “I charm investors and grease wheels when necessary.”

  Griff ’s lips twisted. It was easy to imagine Matthew schmoozing with the local authorities, trying to ensure they gave out extra tax breaks and turned a blind eye to any zoning codes that might be inconvenient for the company.

  “Yeah, I can imagine you’re good at greasing wheels,” he muttered, moving so he could press the gun against Matthew’s lower back. “We’re going to circle the block and enter the warehouse from the loading dock. One wrong move from you and I’ll shoot a hole in your kidney,” he warned. “Got it?”

  “Christ, I should have made Baylor come out here to take care of Ronnie,” Matthew groused. “No one would care if you put a hole in his kidney. Or anywhere else.”

  Assuming that the younger man understood that he was deadly serious, Griff jerked his head toward the corner. He intended to avoid the front of the warehouse and the parking lot. If someone was inside watching the security cameras, he didn’t want to alert them that he was there.

  They headed casually along the sidewalk, just two men out for a stroll. It wasn’t until they’d reached the empty lot at the back of the warehouse that Griff crossed the street to halt behind a stack of wooden pallets.

  From his position he could study the two large loading docks. They were tightly closed, but there was a steel door between them. He leaned around the edge of the pallets, searching for any sign of the white van.

  Nothing.

  So what did that mean? His earlier fear that Matthew had been cleverly leading him on a wild-goose chase while Carmen was being taken far away returned with a vengeance. His fingers tightened on the gun.

  If he’d been played, he really was going to shoot the bastard.

  Then his gaze caught sight of something near the steps that led to the back entrance. It was long and dark, and at first Griff assumed that someone had thrown out a rolled-up carpet. The longer he studied the object, however, the more he began to suspect that it was something far more sinister than an old rug.

  Beside him, Matthew heaved a sigh. As if he found being held at gunpoint a tedious way to spend his morning. Certainly not as exciting as lying beside a pool with half-naked models.

  “Are we going in, or what?” the man demanded.

  Griff frowned. “Do you see something next to the loading dock?”

  Matthew glanced across the empty lot before giving a small shrug. “It looks like a pile of trash.”

  “No.” Griff gave a shake of his head. “It looks like a person. Come on.”

  Motioning Matthew forward, Griff used his companion as a shield as they slowly crossed the lot. If someone was going to get shot, it wasn’t going to be him.

  As they neared the building, however, Matthew’s pace slowed as the younger man realized that Griff had been right. It wasn’t trash that had been tossed out the back door. Instead, a man in a dark uniform was sprawled at an awkward angle on the hard pavement.

  “That’s one of the guards,” Matthew whispered, as if abruptly recognizing that this wasn’t some strange California game that Griff was playing. “Look at his head. It’s bleeding.”

  Griff had already crouched down to inspect the man.

  The dark uniform easily identified him as a rent-a-cop. He was middle-aged with thick streaks of gray in his dark hair and a flabbiness that might once have been muscle. His square face was unnaturally pale, emphasizing the nasty gash that split open his forehead.

  It looked as if he’d been struck with something narrow. Like a steel pipe. Or a crowbar. Whatever it was, it’d done enough damage to fracture the poor man’s skull.

  Reaching out, he touched the man’s neck. No pulse.

  “He’s dead,” he said in a bleak voice.

  “Dead?” Matthew stumbled back, nearly falling on his ass. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough.” Griff straightened, urgency pounding through him. The guard’s skin had still been warm. Which meant he hadn’t been dead for long. There was still a chance that if Carmen was inside he could save her. “I need you to put your code into the keypad.”

  Matthew was shaking his head, his eyes rolling like a horse who was about to bolt.

  “Hell, no. I’m not going in there,” he rasped. “We need to call the cops.”

  ??
?There’s no time,” Griff snapped. “Carmen could be inside.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this,” Matthew whined.

  Griff stepped forward, placing the gun against the man’s forehead.

  “Consider yourself signed up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Carmen didn’t black out this time, but she wished she had. The pain was so sharp she feared that Ronnie had broken her jaw. At the very least he’d knocked a tooth loose.

  Not that the physical pain could come close to the ache of her broken heart.

  Cupping her chin, which was covered in blood from her busted lip, Carmen glared at the man who was jerkily pacing from one end of the bay to the other.

  “You killed them,” she spat out. “I lost everything because of you.”

  Ronnie gave a dismissive wave of his hand, his previous fury replaced by a weird calm.

  “I told you, it was their fault,” he said.

  Carmen cautiously began to inch her way upright. Her skin prickled with a sense of danger. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  She needed to be up and ready to run.

  “If you truly believed you were innocent, then you wouldn’t have gone to such an effort to cover up your crime,” she said, still hoping to prolong whatever fate was awaiting her.

  “I didn’t try to cover it up,” he denied, glancing over his shoulder with a scowl. “That was my mother’s decision.”

  Carmen leaned heavily against the wall. She was upright, but her knees felt like rubber.

  “Ellen knew what you did?” She didn’t bother to hide her surprise.

  She’d thought Ellen was devoted to her parents. How could the housekeeper have concealed her son’s cold-blooded murder?

  “She came in just a few minutes later,” he said. “She made it look like my father killed your mother and then himself.”

  Carmen opened her mouth to protest. Even if Ellen was willing to stage the gruesome scene, why hadn’t the cops realized that something was wrong? They had to have done a thorough investigation, right?

  Then her lips snapped together. Lawrence Jacobs.