Authors: Dani Wyatt
Promise (48 page)
I pull out a large manila envelope at the bottom of the stack. The return address is from 5 District Probate Court. I filed my Dad’s death certificate and the forms required showing he had no will, no assets and there was no property, so I imagine it is just the registered copy of the death certificate and final disposition from the court.
I wiggle my finger under the flap and tear it open. I pull out a copy of a letter with another page stapled behind. I scan it, something about unclaimed property, and then there is an attorney’s name and address. A second page is a form from the court, showing me as next of kin and the certified death certificate.
I don’t have time for this shit today; it will have to wait until after the honeymoon. What could it be anyway? Dad had nothing, so I dismiss it for now. There are too many more important, happy plans on my agenda than to get caught up in something I might lose my mojo over.
I look up when I hear Promise start chattering away. She’s talking to no one, but I listen because her voice is my own personal music.
“Why do none of my socks ever match?
Ugggg
, it’s so annoying. Oh, wait—” Her hair is flying back and forth as her head practically spins around, frantically looking over the chaos on the bed. “Where’s my phone? Beckett, have you seen my phone? I just had it . . .”
She proceeds to start throwing everything out of the suitcase.
“
Okay, that’s enough
. Stop. I’ll call your phone . . . Stop throwing stuff on the floor.” I can’t help that I want to lay her out on top of all the little heaps of clothes and put my tongue inside her so deep that it makes her forget all about this packing bullshit.
I dial her number, and her phone starts to ring.
“Oh, here it is.” She reaches around toward the back pocket of her jeans, grinning at me with feigned surprise.
“Oh my god, you are
killing
me.” I break into a run and grab her around the waist, lifting her up and flopping her down onto the bed, pinning her wrists above her head.
“Hey! I need to finish packing; we don’t have time . . .”
“Sure we do.” I’m on her neck in a second.
“How many times can—”
She’s cut short by a loud banging on the thick, metal, loft door.
“What the
fuck
. . .” I groan and roll off of her. “Put that shit back in the suitcase, Promise.” I point from the mess to the open bag. “The limo will be here in ten minutes. And, you’re not going to need all that bullshit anyway, I told you—
naked
. That’s the deal. If you need to wear anything, it will be provided by me.”
She’s muttering to herself, completely ignoring me, and I see she’s going to need a few more turns over my knee in the next fifty years. Thank Christ, because I love that shit.
I slam back the security bar and jerk the door open. I immediately recognize the face, but it takes me a moment to place the forty-something comb-over wearing a black, leather jacket and polyester pants.
“Mr. Fitzgerald?”
My spidey sense is prickling.
“Yeah.”
Fuck, it’s the detective from Jeremy’s case. This is not the face I want to see right now.
“Can I come in? I’m looking for Promise Henderson.” He’s straining to look over my shoulder because her voice is clearly bouncing around behind me.
“It’s Promise Fitzgerald. Why? What’s this about? We’re getting ready to leave.”
“We’ve let Jeremy Rendall go.”
My world explodes, and he said it plenty loud enough that I can hear Promise’s childlike chatter stop dead. The silence is a vacuum.
Then I hear her. “Beck?”
“The surveillance footage was tampered with. That wasn’t Jeremy entering the apartment the night of the fire. He didn’t have an alibi, and forensics had gone off the footage. But, it’s not him. It’s not even from that night. The fire might have been an accident after all. We’re not sure.”
Promise steps next to me, and I pull her under my arm.
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“Well, I’m saying Mr. Rendall may be an asshole, but he’s not a killer.” Detective Northrup chuckles. I’m not fucking laughing.
“Who doctored it?” I don’t want the answer.
“We are looking into that.”
He’s gone professional on me, but Louis provided them the tape which started the investigation. That’s when they searched Jeremy’s house and found all the other notebooks, his logs about Promise, detailing all the years he’s obsessed about her. Plus there was proof he showed her how to start the fires.
“There’s more.” He looks at Promise, and I want to tear his fucking throat out. “Jordan’s mother is at the station.” He nods toward Promise. “Your mother, ma’am.”
I hear Promise gasp, and I have to reach out to grab her before she falls.
“What? That can’t be; she’s dead. I thought she was dead . . .”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. She showed up at CPS this morning, demanding to stop the adoption. Apparently, the court tried to contact her one last time before the final adoption to Mr. Spicer went through. She didn’t get the notice in time. She doesn’t seem to have a permanent address. But, when she found out who was adopting her son, she showed up trying to stop it.”
Nothing is making sense. Promise is shivering, and I want to hurt a lot of people.
“Why?”
“She alleges Mr. Spicer raped her. There was no consensual relationship. She made some other allegations. We are looking into them.”
The detective clears his throat.
Promise is staring straight ahead.
“Beck? You told me I could trust him. You told me to sign.” Her eyes well and run over, and I hear the crack in her voice. She looks at the detective. “Where’s my brother?”
The detective takes a deep breath. “On a plane.”
“To Florida? Right?” Promise’s voice holds onto the shred of hope that this is all some sort of crazy misunderstanding because it has to be.
“No, ma’am. Their plane took off an hour ago.” His eyes meet mine. “To Cairo.”
She pushes away from me, her ice-blue eyes coming up slowly to mine.
“Beck . . .”
Promise and Beckett's story will continue!
The next book will be available May/June 2016.
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Dani Wyatt used to feel bad about having such dirty thoughts. Luckily, one day she decided to starting writing them down. Her uber alpha heros have a wicked possessive streak and an insatiable libido. Her heroines are intelligent, quirky and worry about having too much muffin top. With her books, you can count on a heaping helping of HOT, a dash of rough and always a happily ever after.
When she's not writing (which is not often) she is probably laughing about some irony (like A-1 Steak Sauce is vegan), riding her horse, wondering why The Walking Dead can't have a new episode every night, or looking cross-eyed at some piece of technology sent to ruin her day.
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Chapter One
If she woke, she would scream, and Flynn would be dead.
Still, the only thing he could think of was how he wished he could touch her hair.
Even in the darkness he knew the color of that hair, with its waves and curls the color of a bright copper penny. One mile long spiral tumbled across the sky blue and white lace of the pillow cover, falling almost to the tips of her fingers where her arm hung like a lazy branch off the edge of the mattress.
He wanted to tangle his fingers in her hair’s softness and pull her face to his.
Behind her closed lids, her eyes could light the midnight sky in a glow of green and gold like a field of fresh grass and wild Daisies. But, she refused to open them, refused to let him see them one last time before he died. So, here he sat, waiting, hoping for just one more look.
Minutes earlier, her unmistakable scent hit him as he’d wiggled and strained to crawl through the window. Her floral sweetness tightened around his throat, reminding him that there was only one soul in this entire fucked up world that existed just for you. Only one.
The oak branch outside her window laughed as it’d held his 235 pounds of trained, fighting muscle thirty feet off the ground. The less-than-solid wood had mocked and squeaked as it held his fate.
The gargantuan century old Tudor that held her prisoner stood in its own grand darkness against the onyx sky. Tired grey clouds covering the sliver of silver moon light which fought to reveal his entry.
Below him, windows cut with diamond-shaped, beveled glass still glowed from the first floor where legions of evil plans were laid for both strangers and family alike.
Inside, shadows moved, stepping then stalling, turning toward the world outside while Flynn felt his warm blood trickle down his bicep—the cut inflicted by a rusty wire that had caught him on the back fence around the historic estate.
Lilly, I’m here. I might die tonight. I don’t give a shit. I’ll die and your face will be the last thing I see. I’ll go knowing I was this close to touching you again. Nothing else in this fucking life matters anymore, so what the fuck do I care. Live. Die. I’m not even sure I know the difference anymore.
Rubbing his hands over his face, Flynn sat in the chair, watching. The dull throbbing from his swollen, purple left eye did not register as pain. Last night’s fight an easy mark, a quick $500 to keep him hidden for another night until he could come here and say goodbye.
Wake up. Wake the hell up so that they can kill me. If they do, I won’t have to look at you for another day. When I die, we die . . . or the beautiful disaster we could have been will die. For one fucking moment, the empty space in my chest felt a beat—a warmth—and now it’s ice again. But, that’s for the best. I was never cut out for this. For you.