His Secret

  His Secret

  The Hunter Brothers Book 4

  M. S. Parker

  Belmonte Publishing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Contents

  Reading Order

  Prologue

  1. Blake

  2. Brea

  3. Blake

  4. Brea

  5. Blake

  6. Brea

  7. Blake

  8. Brea

  9. Blake

  10. Brea

  11. Blake

  12. Brea

  13. Blake

  14. Brea

  15. Blake

  16. Brea

  17. Blake

  18. Brea

  19. Blake

  20. Brea

  21. Blake

  22. Brea

  23. Blake

  24. Blake

  25. Blake

  26. Brea

  27. Blake

  28. Brea

  29. Blake

  30. Brea

  31. Blake

  32. Brea

  33. Blake

  34. Blake

  35. Brea

  Preview: New Pleasures

  Also by M. S. Parker

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Order

  Thank you so much for reading His Secret, the last book in the Hunter Brothers series. All books in the series can be read stand-alone, but if you’d like to read the complete series, I recommend reading them in this order:

  1. His Obsession

  2. His Control

  3. His Hunger

  4. His Secret

  Prologue

  Manfred

  I took my seat behind my desk and waited for Bartholomew Constantine to get settled. We met two weeks ago when I’d originally gone to him about investigating what had happened to my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, but for this meeting, I’d asked him to come here. Olive had gone shopping with her sister, and I didn’t quite trust our new nanny to keep my grandsons out of trouble all on her own. She was sweet, but those four could rattle anyone.

  Maybe I should have hired someone like Bartholomew. He was ex-military, getting a medical discharge after six years of service. Even if I hadn’t done a thorough background check, the left sleeve hanging empty below the elbow would’ve told me the reason. My contacts had given me the details. He’d taken a sniper’s bullet, the shot shattering his left elbow and nearly tearing the bottom of his arm off. Because he’d been rescuing another soldier at the time, he was given a medal, but he didn’t talk about it.

  “Mr. Hunter,” Bartholomew began, “I brought some papers with me.”

  He pushed a manila envelope across the table, and I picked it up. As I opened it and began looking through the contents, he explained what I was seeing.

  “I managed to get a copy of the accident report,” he said. “There were no skid marks.”

  I was an intelligent person, but I wasn’t going to make assumptions about what something did or didn’t mean. I needed facts. Solid facts that I could take to a prosecutor. I wasn’t going to bring this all up again after things were just starting to settle down. The boys still missed their parents and sister, of course, but I’d begun to see moments where they reminded me of the grandsons I’d known before.

  “What does that mean?” I asked as I skimmed the paper in my hand. “No skid marks.”

  “It means your son either didn’t attempt to stop the car when it went off the road, or he couldn’t stop.”

  I looked up, eyes narrowing. “Are you suggesting that my son intentionally didn’t stop the car? That he wanted to crash?”

  “I’m saying what the possible interpretations of the facts could be,” he said mildly.

  I had to hand it to him. I’d been dealing with people my whole life. Politicians. Other businessmen. I was known for having a steel spine and an iron will. People didn’t push me around. They did what I told them to do. And they sure as hell didn’t stand there, with passive looks on their faces while they told me what I didn’t want to hear.

  But just because I respected it didn’t mean I liked it.

  “My son wouldn’t do that,” I said, the bitter words tearing from my throat.

  Bartholomew held up a hand. “I tend to believe that too. I’m just telling you all the ways the evidence can be interpreted.”

  “You said it could also mean that he wasn’t able to stop.” I went back to the explanation I could handle, no matter how horrible that option was.

  Bartholomew nodded. “The two most likely scenarios are that either his brakes failed, or something happened to him that kept him from being able to do it.”

  “Either of those could be benign or malicious, correct?” I was starting to see where he was going with this.

  “Right. The brakes could have malfunctioned, either from normal wear and tear or from something faulty.”

  “Or someone could have cut the lines.”

  Bartholomew’s grim expression told me I was right. “Same with him not being able to stop. He could have passed out, had a seizure, a heart attack. Any number of things.”

  “But he could’ve been drugged too.”

  The PI sighed. “Yes. And now you see my problem.”

  I did. “A lot of possible reasons to chase down.”

  He shifted in his seat and pulled on his jacket. “A lot of possibilities, and not enough answers.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  “The car was too damaged for the police to determine if there were any issues with the brake lines.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Which means we can’t know if the brakes failed, or for what reason.”

  “Correct,” he said. “I did check with the car manufacturer, and there’ve been no recalls, no reports of brake issues with that make and model.” He gestured toward the envelope. “I have an official letter from them.”

  I pulled it out and skimmed it. My company didn’t make cars, but I knew a form letter when I saw one. It was put together well, though, providing the specific information that Bartholomew needed. Unfortunately, it didn’t help me know what happened to my son.

  “I have a paper in there for you to sign,” he said. “It’ll release your son’s medical records.”

  “Why do you need those?”

  “To determine if he had any pre-existing conditions that might have caused him to pass out.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I knew my son’s medical history, but then I remembered that Chester had been thirty-one when he died. By the time I’d been thirty, my father hadn’t known much about what was going on with my health. I liked to think that I paid more attention to my son than my father had to me, but Chester had been an adult, with his own family and his own life.

  “All right.” I flipped through the papers and pulled out the release form. “And if there’s nothing in his files?”

  For the first time, he looked nervous, like there was something he had to say but didn’t want to say it.

  “Just say it,” I said mildly.

  “There was no autopsy…” he paused, letting that settle in, “which means there’s no way to do a drug test or check to see if anything physical happened to him.”

  It was my fault. I’d been the one who’d pushed for no autopsy. Olive had been frantic when she’d realized what they wanted to do, and I hadn’t been able to bear upsetting her
even more. I’d thought I was doing the right thing.

  One thing I had to ask, even without the ability to back it up with physical evidence.

  “Do you think my son used drugs?”

  If Chester’s name was smeared because of what I’d done, I’d never forgive myself.

  “No,” Bartholomew said. “I don’t. But it would’ve been better if we had a toxicology report to back me up. If legal action needs to be taken, any decent defense attorney will come up with a dozen different ways to put the blame on your son.”

  “His medical records can help with that, right?”

  “Some,” Bartholomew said. “Without a history of drug and alcohol abuse, getting a jury to believe that a good family man with a solid job completely changed his behavior in the middle of the day with his family in the car would be difficult.” He paused for a moment, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Without an autopsy, it also becomes difficult to prove that someone else may have given him something that caused him to crash.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What does this mean as a whole? Where do things stand?”

  “Honestly, Mr. Hunter, we’re at a bit of a dead end. No one saw the actual wreck, but evidence supports that they were the only car on the road. I’ll look at the medical records and talk to his doctor, but after that, I don’t have any other leads.”

  I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands in front of me. “Nothing?”

  “There’s only one other thing I can think of, but you’re not going to like it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  “The kids,” he said. “Your grandsons might have heard things at home that they don’t even realize could be important. They might know if their father was arguing with someone, or if he was worried.”

  I was shaking my head before he’d even finished. “They’re just starting to get back some sort of normalcy. They don’t need to be thinking about what happened.”

  “The thing is,” he said quietly. “Blake was there. He saw everything. He’s the only eyewitness we have.”

  I stood. “He’s four years old. I’m not going to let you ask him if he saw his parents and sister die.”

  Bartholomew stood as well and held out a hand. “I’ll continue to pursue whatever leads I can find, and if you change your mind about allowing me to talk to the boys, please give me a call.”

  I shook his hand and thanked him, but as he left, I knew it was over.

  I’d keep him on the case, no matter the cost, but I had to put this behind me. I needed to find my own closure and not let it rely on whether the PI was able to find definitive answers. Besides, I had a family to take care of.

  “Grandfather!” Jax came running into the office. “Blake’s trying to break his cast again!”

  Case in point. I had a feeling my youngest grandson was going to continue to be difficult, no matter how old he was.

  One

  Blake

  Twenty-Four Years Later…

  I hated people.

  Not really. I just hated having to deal with them. Like the woman on the other end of the phone who was insisting that I owed money for a physical therapy session I’d had two years ago after I’d strained my shoulder.

  “Mr. Hunter, I’m looking at your account right now.”

  Her voice had that sort of sickly-sweet tone that reminded me of the girls back in Boston who used to follow my brothers around. They thought all they had to do was bat their lashes and toss their hair, and guys would do whatever they wanted.

  “I understand that,” I said, gritting my teeth. “But I’m looking at my paperwork right now, and it says that I’d already paid my deductible in its entirety.”

  “It doesn’t matter what some papers say,” she countered. “It matters what your account shows.”

  “Because computers never make errors.”

  Unless I was working on making something, I wasn’t a patient person, but I tried to be reasonable when it came to dealing with people…until they said or did something stupid. Then, all bets were off.

  “Would you like to make the payment by credit or debit card?”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m not paying it because I don’t owe it.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  That was it. She was talking to me like I was a child or an idiot, and if there was one thing I hated worse than people, it was people who patronized me.

  “I’d like to speak to your supervisor.”

  I could almost hear her smile. “My supervisor’s not available right now.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Sir, if you’re going to use that sort of language–”

  And I was done.

  “I’ll be handing my paperwork over to my lawyer. Your supervisor can call him.” I rattled off a number and then ended the call.

  Was it rude of me to hang up on her? Maybe. Did I care? No.

  I had more important things to do.

  I pulled on my coat and stepped outside. Mid-March outside of Rawlins, Wyoming, was always cold and dry. This morning, it was also sunny, and I tipped my head back, closing my eyes and simply enjoying the warmth. I didn’t hate everything in the world, even though it seemed like it a lot of the time. I loved this. Being outside. Alone.

  When I was a teenager, I’d heard once that there were more cows in Wyoming than there were people. From that moment, I’d had a goal in mind. A place of my own in Wyoming.

  I breathed in the fresh air and then let it out slowly…then frowned.

  I wasn’t a happy person. I knew that. But here, on my ranch, doing what I loved doing, without anyone telling me how I should be or act, I’d been more or less content. Then Grandfather died, and I’d gone back to Boston for the first time in three years. Something about being there again had left me restless.

  “Dammit,” I muttered as I set off on my usual morning walk.

  I needed to get back to normal. My normal. That meant checking my property as I did every morning, rain or shine, sun or snow. Once I was done with that, I’d get some lunch, then head to my workshop. I was behind thanks to the time I’d wasted back East.

  I felt a stab of guilt at the thought. Grandfather and I had butted heads constantly, and my brothers pissed me off to no end, but me not wanting to spend time with them didn’t translate to wanting them dead. It was one thing to choose not to talk to them. It was something else entirely to know that choice wasn’t there anymore.

  A gust of wind sent dirt against my face, and I wiped at my eyes, blinking away grit and tears. Tears from the dirt, not from emotions. I didn’t cry. Not because I hadn’t loved my grandfather, but because I didn’t cry. I hadn’t since I was little.

  Both of my horses neighed at me when I walked into the barn, and the sound helped me push back the thoughts of the past. I’d thought I had put all of that behind me years ago, but Grandfather’s funeral and those stupid rules he’d made about my brothers and I reconciling had brought everything back to the surface.

  I’d taken Shane out yesterday, so I passed by his stall and went into Annie’s. She was a gorgeous roan, large for a mare, which was good since I wasn’t exactly a small guy. I planned on breeding her and Shane in another year. They didn’t have the sort of pedigrees that won awards or races, but I was confident that they’d produce a beautiful colt.

  “Hey, girl,” I said softly as I moved around her.

  I didn’t talk much to people, but I liked talking to the horses. They didn’t talk back, and they didn’t care what I said. I could tell them everything and anything and nothing. And if I didn’t want to speak, I didn’t have to.

  She danced a bit, like she always did when she first got outside, but she settled after a few minutes, and I swung myself up into the saddle. “All right, Annie, let’s get started.”

  I went down the drive first, swinging around when I got to the road. One of the things that’d attracted me to this place was that it was on a dirt road off a paved road and off
a highway. I couldn’t see a single building from any of the property lines. I didn’t know who owned the land bordering mine on any side, and that was fine with me. I didn’t care who they were, as long as they left me alone.

  I let myself fall into the familiar rhythm of riding, let my mind wander as I scanned the perimeter. I didn’t raise animals, so I didn’t really need to check fences and that sort of thing, but I did it anyway. Maintenance was always better than having to rebuild something.

  Besides, this entire place was mine. I’d bought it myself, with money I’d earned. I hadn’t touched my trust fund or anything else that had come from my family. Even during high school, I’d done apprenticeships with the best tradesmen in both woodworking and blacksmithing. By the time I was twenty, I’d started taking on jobs of my own. By twenty-two, I’d been making a decent living. Now, at twenty-eight, I owned a multi-million-dollar ranch and had enough in my bank account that I could probably go a decade without working if I didn’t spend crazy.

  It didn’t matter if no one else came here to see what I’d accomplished. I knew, and I was damn proud of it.

  “Hello, there!”

  The shout caught me off-guard, and Annie reared, throwing me back in the saddle.

  Shit.

  Two

  Brea