He stuffed the phone into his back pocket, pulled the door open, and moved into the dark kitchen. With a few key clicks, he rearmed the security system, breathing easier with every passing second. In the morning, when the storm had passed, he’d check in on Princess and his neighbors and make sure they were okay. They would be, though. He had no doubt Trey Foster just wanted to scare them. And hopefully by now Brunelli was already being questioned abou—
His phone buzzed. He reached back and pulled it out as he headed for the stairs that led down to where Kelsey was waiting. “Hey, Brett. Did Davies get to you with everything he found?”
“Yeah. I’ve relayed everything to the Feds, and Beverly Hills cops should be on their way to see her.”
“Good.”
“Thought you’d want to know I just got off with the Palm Desert Police Department. Hikers stumbled across Graham Foster’s body in a ravine about five miles from his house. Looks like he’s been dead at least a week.”
Just as he thought. “They ID’d him already?”
“His vehicle was found a few miles away. Official ID will take a few days, but it looks like a match.”
“Shit. They set him up to look like the bomber. He already had an unstable background.”
“That’s the way it’s looking. Nice kid, huh?”
Yeah, really nice kid. Who’d told Hunt and Kelsey to their faces that he didn’t like his father.
“We’ve been checking PDX cameras for any sign Trey Foster came through the airport in the last day or two. So far nothing, but we’ll keep on it.”
“Thanks. He’s here somewhere. If he isn’t here already, he’s on his way. I know it.” Hunt’s phone buzzed. “Hold on, I’m getting a text.”
Callahan muttered something about needing to get back to work, but Hunt ignored him and pulled the phone away from his ear, then froze when he read the words on his screen.
Thanks for bringing her right to me. This was way easier than I ever planned. Don’t you know how easy it is to fool a fingerprint analysis with some glue, a digital camera, and a glass? Thankfully I had plenty of time while I was hanging out here waiting for you to do just that. Ready or not, here I come.
His heart stuttered, then felt as if it completely stopped. And in a rush of understanding, he realized his security system had never tripped because he’d told Kelsey how to arm and disarm it when she’d been here just a few days before. Each time he’d given her instructions, she’d had her phone on her. Her phone that had already been hacked by Trey Foster and had been relaying their conversations like a microphone. And the fucker was right. The fingerprint analysis on his safe room was a minor security measure any person could bypass by creating a fake fingerprint with dried glue, a digital camera, and his own fucking fingerprints he’d left on a coffee mug in the kitchen before they’d left for California. All someone had to do was have access to those things and already be in the house.
He sprinted for the stairs, only one thought in his mind. “Brent? Get a unit to my beach house as fast as you can.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“He’s here.” Fear wrapped like a boa constrictor around his chest and squeezed until all he knew was pain. “He’s here, and he’s got Kelsey.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kelsey flipped the controls on another camera, this one outside the kitchen door overlooking the porch, as she sat in front of the bank of screens in the safe room.
The porch was dark and empty. Since Hunt had just been there, and she’d looked away when he moved, she had no idea if he’d gone into the house or was at another location somewhere outside.
Sighing, she flipped to the kitchen camera, only it was dark too.
Impatience warred inside her. This was taking entirely too long. She’d tracked him through the house as best she could with the cameras, but he moved too quickly for her to completely follow him, and she didn’t know the system well enough to know which camera to access next. He hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary, though, which was a good sign. Hopefully, he’d be back in a matter of minutes and they could climb back in that big bed of his and forget that text had ever happened.
She moved to the living room camera and spotted him. “There you are.”
He was standing in the middle of the room staring down at his new cell phone. Because he’d kept the lights off—she was sure just to be safe—the room was dark, and his face was illuminated by the eerie blue-white light from his screen. She couldn’t see what was so engrossing on his phone, but her irritation kicked up even more because he was wasting time when she was stuck in this claustrophobic room.
She sighed as he lifted his head and pressed his phone to his ear. And something in his expression caused her stomach to tighten.
She sat up straighter. Narrowed her eyes. But he rushed toward the stairs and disappeared out of the camera’s line of sight before she could figure out what had happened.
Her pulse turned to a whir in her ears. Swallowing hard, she pushed to her feet, told herself everything was fine, she’d probably misinterpreted that look, and frantically hit buttons with shaky fingers as she pulled up cameras in the upstairs hall and lower levels, searching for him.
He wasn’t on the stairs. He wasn’t in the weight room. She flipped again and again and finally spotted him when the camera right outside the safe room door came into focus.
The shelving unit was pulled back, but the steel door wasn’t opening on her side. Squinting to see better, she realized he was banging on the door from the outside, but she couldn’t hear a single thing where she stood. She looked toward the door just as the two-way radio on the counter squawked, jerking her back toward the screens.
“Kelsey,” Hunt said in a frantic voice. “Kelsey, answer me.”
She fumbled for the second radio and pulled it close. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Kelsey, dammit, answer me!”
Panic tightened her throat. She looked down at the radio, wondering why it wasn’t working, then realized she needed to push the button for him to hear her. “I’m here,” she said again, this time with the button depressed. She rushed toward the door to let him in. “What’s going on?”
“He’s in the house.” His frantic voice crackled from the radio. “Let me in. We have to get the hell out of here.”
Her heart seized. “Oh my God, what do you mean, he’s in the hou—”
“Busted,” a voice said at her back. A familiar voice. A voice that should not be in the room with her. “Guess the gig is finally up, and my hiding spot’s been found.”
Terror streaked down Kelsey’s spine, chilling every inch of her skin. Slowly, she turned in a circle and stared in horror at Trey Foster standing in the middle of the safe room, watching her with icy-blue eyes that weren’t the least bit friendly. Not at all as they’d been in that coffee shop in California.
“Kelsey!” Hunt screamed across the radio.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her breaths grew fast and shallow. Before she could even lift the radio to respond to Hunt, Foster swiped the unit from her hand and hurled it across the room. It smacked the wall and clattered to the ground. “I don’t think we need that anymore.”
Kelsey jerked to the side, her adrenaline soaring. “Y-you. B-but why?”
He didn’t make any move toward her, just tracked her like a lion tracks it prey, putting himself between her and the door. “Why? Simple. Money. Money I deserve after all the shit years I spent with that man.”
Kelsey didn’t know what he meant, but she knew she had to keep him talking and distracted so she could figure out a way to open the door and let Hunt in.
Her mind raced. She fought the panic threatening to consume her. Hunt had said everything was controlled by the keyboard. Inching back toward the counter, she tried to remember what he’d showed her before he’d left the room. All she remembered was an intercom, but she couldn’t remember what button triggered it. Reaching behind her, she searched for a button—an
y button.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Foster tipped his head and glared at her.
“N-nothing.” She tapped as many keys blindly as she could, hoping one would do something.
“Get away from that.” He jerked toward her. His hand landed hard against her shoulder and flung her to the side.
Kelsey stumbled and hit the wall hard, lifting her hands at the last second so she didn’t smack into it face-first.
Palms stinging, she gasped and braced herself, then shifted around to face him. Her legs shook. Her breath caught. Too late she spotted the gun sitting on the counter right where Hunt had left it. The gun she hadn’t even thought to grab for.
She had to get that gun. It was her only chance.
She swallowed hard. Keep it together. Stay strong. You can get through this. Her old mantra raced through her mind, and she seized on it even as her arms and legs trembled with blinding fear.
“W-why are you doing this, Trey? What do you want? Whatever it is, you can have it.”
He let out a malicious grunt. “What I want is my life back. Can you give me that?”
His eyes were no longer icy but filled with a fury that told her he wasn’t just a murderer but a sociopath.
“I-I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered, sliding down the wall away from him.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you? Because you’re just like her. Selfish and spoiled rotten.” He raked a hand through his hair and laughed, but the sound held no humor. “I read up on you, you know. After you were adopted, you had it easy. I saw that fancy house your adoptive family lives in on that lake. Pretty snazzy. Know where I grew up? That dump of a shack you and your boyfriend broke into. Wanna know what my childhood was like?” He swiped at a lamp on the table beside the couch, sending it shattering it against the floor. “It was fucking torture. My old man spent every miserable second whining about how she left him. And when he wasn’t whining, he was bitching about the government for taking his money, bitching about her for being a whore, or shit-faced drunk and pounding on me for being the reason she left.”
Kelsey was having trouble following him but one thing got through. One sickening comment that she didn’t want to believe. “She . . . Vivienne was your mother?”
Disgust filled his features. “Now you’ve figured it out. Why the hell did you think they had to get married? Because of me. Only she quickly realized a husband and a baby and a shit life in a trailer wasn’t going to win her any Academy Awards. So she ditched us and ran off to the glitz and glam of Hollywood. Oh, but when you came along . . . oh, she changed her tune about wanting to be a mother then, didn’t she? The whole world knows how she changed her tune. Until that asshole producer who knocked her up wouldn’t leave his wife and marry her.”
“I-I didn’t know her.” Kelsey knew she should feel something, anything for what Trey had been through, but all she could think was that this man could not be related to her. “I never met her. I don’t even know if I’m related to her.”
“You are. Cat figured it out. She saw your picture in the media. Ironic that your fame is what tipped us off to you, huh?”
Cat? He wasn’t talking about Catarina Brunelli, was he? Kelsey’s eyes flew wide with shock and disbelief.
He exhaled a pathetic laugh. “If anyone should know who you’re related to, I guess it’d be her. Seeing as how she was fucking your father too. Worked out good for us, though. Set up the perfect plan. You all were running around like crazies, looking for my dad. That was entertaining, I have to admit.”
Kelsey didn’t completely understand what he was saying, but she did understand that he and Catarina Brunelli had been behind the bombing and everything that had happened to her, and they’d done it all to get Vivienne Armstrong’s money.
“I-I don’t want her money.” She frantically scanned the room for anything she could use as a weapon. Dammit, why hadn’t she tucked that gun in her waistband? Why was this room so clean? “I never did.”
“Good, because you’re not getting it. With you dead, it’ll either go to me or Cat. Just depends on how the court rules on her estate.”
Her eyes snapped his way. “What about your father?”
“Oh, did I forget that part? He’s already dead.” He moved closer toward her, boxing her in between him and the small kitchen counter. He tugged a rope and a hypodermic needle from the pocket of his jacket. “Now, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. One is going to hurt. I don’t care which you choose, but you need to know right now that the outcome will still be the same. Overdose is easier.” His lips twisted in a malicious smile. “The rope’s a whole lot more fun.”
Kelsey focused on the objects in his hands, and her whole body shook. In that moment, she knew Vivienne Armstrong’s death had not been an accidental overdose.
From the corner of her vision, Kelsey spotted Hunt frantically pounding on the door, trying to find a way in. But this time, on the far right screen, she also spotted police in tactical gear slinking along the side of the house with weapons already drawn.
Her heart raced. Her palms were slick from fear. She was out of time. If she didn’t try now, she’d never have another chance.
“I love you because even though you think you’re weak, you’re not. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”
Hunt’s words gave her strength. Filled her with courage. With hope.
She lurched toward the keyboard. Her body smacked hard into the counter. She hit multiple buttons to open the door, praying one would be the right one before he killed her.
“You bitch!” Foster slammed into her back. The counter dug deep into her belly. She gasped as the air rushed out of her lungs. He shoved her sideways along the counter, and she grunted and threw out her hands, trying to stop her momentum. Her shoulder rammed into the cabinet on the far side of the counter. Pain spiraled through her arm and down into her chest. She cried out, ground her teeth, and tried to shove Foster’s weight off her so she could breathe, but he was too heavy. Her muscles too weak. A click echoed through the room. Something sharp stabbed into her neck.
She screamed again and struggled against his hold. Something hard slammed into the back of her skull. Her forehead smashed against a computer screen. “You fucking bitch! It’s definitely going to hurt now.”
Blinding pain ricocheted through her head, slowing her fight. She groaned but barely had time to push away from the screen. She cried out as Foster grasped her by the back of the hair and threw her to the ground.
She hit the cement floor on her back. Pain spiraled through her head and shoulder and stomach and back, so much she could barely move. She groaned. Blinked through wavering vision. And looked up to see Trey Foster breathing heavily as he held the gun Hunt had given her in one hand and stared down at her with a malevolent rage.
Her adrenaline wavered. He was going to shoot her. She tried to roll to her side. Tried to get up. Couldn’t seem to make her muscles work. He lifted the gun. She tensed, bracing herself for the bullet. But behind him, something moved. It was the door. No, it wasn’t the door. The door was already open. It was . . . Hunt.
She wasn’t sure what happened next. She jerked at the gunshot. Jerked again when Foster whipped around, lifted his gun toward the door, and another shot rang out. Jerked a third time when the final shot echoed through the room.
Gasping, hands shaking in front of her, she stared wide-eyed at the place where Foster had been standing only seconds before, ready to shoot her. The place that was now empty because he was lying motionless on the floor.
“Kels? Oh shit.” Hands grasped her face, turning her from looking at Foster. “Look at me, Baby. Stay with me.”
She blinked up at Hunt, kneeling over her, trying to see him better, but her vision was water. Turning black at the edges. He brushed a hand against her cheek, and she felt something warm and wet and sticky on her skin where he touched her. “I’m right here, Kels. Stay with me. You’re okay.”
She didn’t feel okay. Had she been shot? She tried to figure out what was going on. Couldn’t. She didn’t feel any pain. Didn’t remember being struck by a bullet. Even the pain in her head from hitting that computer screen was gone.
“We’re down here!” Hunt screamed, looking away from her.
She didn’t know who he was yelling at, but she suddenly remembered someone else was in the house.
Foster.
Panic seized her chest all over again. She opened her mouth. Tried to scream. Only managed to croak, “Fos-ter.”
“He’s dead.” Hunt’s sticky finger stroked her cheek again. “He can’t hurt you anymore. Don’t try to talk. Just keep your eyes on me. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay. Just keep breathing, baby.”
She was trying to. But the panic in his voice wasn’t making her feel like everything was going to be okay. And her vision was growing darker by the second.
She fought it. Tried to stay awake. Muffled voices echoed somewhere close. Someone was talking to Hunt, but she didn’t know who.
“No, I’m fine,” he said. “It’s not bad. Take care of her first.”
She reached for his hand, not understanding what was happening. His sticky fingers closed around hers. She squeezed tight, holding on to him. Not wanting to let go like he’d said he wouldn’t ever let go of her.
“Dammit. Stay with me, Kels.”
She tried to. She wanted to. But the darkness circled in before she could stop it. And the last thought she had was that she’d been right. Something terrible had been looming all along.
And neither of them had been able to stop it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kelsey woke to a bright light and the sound of voices.
Rolling to her back, she blinked several times and squinted to see who was mumbling. Her mother’s familiar face registered, followed by her brother Rusty just past her. “Mom?”