The Wharf (17 page)

She brushed her hands together. Ryan didn’t ever have to know about that.

She crawled back into bed and snuggled against his warm body, running her hand up his muscular thigh before draping her leg over his.

This was going to work out. She’d make sure of it.

* * *

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Kacie opened one eye and groaned.

Ryan looked up from the table by the window, fully dressed. “I think it’s best if you hit the ibuprofen as soon as possible. I’m just beginning to be able to move my limbs without hissing in pain.”

She smacked her lips and croaked. “Good idea.”

“I put a couple of gel tabs and a glass of water on the nightstand for you.”

“Thanks.” She popped the pills and gulped down the water. “What are you working on so early?”

“I’m contacting my department to see if they can request a trace on that blocked phone number on Cookie’s phone. It might lead to nothing, but then, that’s why they’re called leads.”

“Glad someone’s thinking clearly this morning.”

He tapped some keys on the keyboard. “I need Cookie’s number and the times of the calls. You still have her phone, right?”

“Uh-huh.” She yawned.

“You put it in your purse before the accident last night.”

Her heart slammed against her rib cage. “Yeah, it’s still in my purse. I’ll get it.” She yelped as she scrambled to a sitting position.

“That’s how I felt this morning. Let the meds take effect before you start moving around. I’ll get the phone.”

With her muscles screaming at her almost as loudly as the voice screaming in her head, Kacie clenched her teeth and sat up, flinging the covers from her body. “That’s okay. I’ll get it.”

Too late. Ryan had her purse in his hands, spreading it open. “I’ll find it.”

“My purse is a mess. Toss it over here. I’ll dump it out on the bed.”

“I can do that here.” Before she could say another word, he dumped the contents of her purse onto the table.

With wide eyes, she watched the folded photo drift to the floor. Maybe he’d leave it there.

He plucked Cookie’s phone from the table. “Got it. That wasn’t so bad.”

He began to gather the rest of her items and shove them back into her purse.

“That’s okay, Ryan. I’ll do that.”

“Sorry. Something fell on the floor.” He crouched down and pinched the corner of the photo between two fingers.

Kacie held her breath, her heart pounding.

He couldn’t have picked up the picture in a worse way. It flipped on its side as he dropped it onto the table, the stamp from the SFPD clearly visible.

He tapped Cookie’s phone and Kacie’s breath came back in short spurts. She eased from the bed. No sense in tempting fate. She had to get that photo back into her purse.

She made it halfway to the table when Ryan’s gaze shifted from the phone’s display to the photo on the table.

“What is this? It looks like a piece of evidence, a photo.” He squinted at the stamp on the white background. “It’s a photo of a victim.”

Kacie reached out one hand. “I-it’s...it’s...”

Ryan unfolded the picture and smoothed it out on the table, his eyebrows colliding over his nose. “I know this picture.”

Kacie crossed her arms over her belly, her nails digging into the flesh of her upper arms.

Ryan’s head jerked up as he stabbed the photo with his index finger. “This is the same picture you have in your wallet. What the hell are you doing with a picture of one of the Phone Book Killer’s victims in your wallet? Who is she?”

She dragged in a shaky breath and closed her eyes. “She’s my mother.”

Chapter Twelve

Ryan blinked. Her mother. Her mother was that cool blonde on her laptop. She’d told him this woman was her grandmother. He grabbed the picture and held it close to his face.

Grandmother? How could he be so stupid? Judging by the woman’s hair and clothing, this photo belonged to the eighties. This woman was too young to be Kacie’s grandmother—but not too young to be her mother.

He reread the label in the corner of the picture, the label that tagged this woman as a homicide victim.

The Phone Book Killer had murdered Kacie’s mother twenty years before. The reality of it slammed against his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs.

He hunched over the table, flattening his hands against the surface on either side of the picture. The aches and pains of the car accident flooded his body until he became a single ball of hurt.

“Ryan.”

He turned his head, and his eyes flicked over the naked woman standing before him, her arms crossed over her perfect body. Her delectable breasts heaving with every harsh breath. Her lush, lying lips parted and moist.

His hands bunched into fists on the table and a muscle in his jaw ticked wildly. He swallowed the rage at how she could keep something like this from him that threatened to overtake all his senses.

He cleared his throat to make sure he could speak. “Why did you want to write this book about my father?”

She brushed a hand across her face and trailed unsteady fingers through the tangles of her hair. “It’s a good story, Ryan.”

“Don’t—” he held up his hand “—lie. And for God’s sake, put some clothes on.”

She pivoted and scooped up the pajama bottoms he’d removed from her body, inch by seductive inch, a million years before. She stepped into them and dug through the covers to pull out her pajama top. She pulled it over her head and sank to the edge of the bed.

“I wanted to write this book to get to the truth, to exact justice for my mother.”

“I said, stop lying.” He smacked his open hand against the desk, and the photo of the beautiful dead woman floated to the floor once again. “You thought you already had the truth, and you came here to crucify my father. Why else would you be lying to me all this time about your mother? You came here to put the nail in the coffin of his reputation. You came here to trick me, to use me.”

She pinned her hands between her bouncing knees. “You’re right. I thought your father was guilty of murdering my mother, but it wasn’t my plan to trick you.”

“But you did.” He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand, welcoming the pain. “The night before last and last night, too, you came on to me. You did it to get access to my room and this box.”

He gave the box a vicious kick, and it flew in the air a foot before landing on its side, spilling its guts.

He laughed and the sound grated against his throat. “You were sloppy. When you filched the photo from the box, you should’ve run into the hallway and buried it in the trash can by the elevator. Flushed it down the toilet. Ripped it into small pieces and swallowed it. Instead, you put it in your purse.”

“I wanted to tell you about my mother, Ryan, because I’d changed my mind. I realized that your father wasn’t the Phone Book Killer.”

“You wanted to tell me, so you stole the picture from the file and hid it in your purse? Uh-huh.”

“I was going to tell you later.”

He snorted. “You mean after you got me in bed a few more times and had me so crazy in lo...lust I wouldn’t care that you lied to me from the start?”

She covered her face with both hands and her shoulders shook. He ground his back teeth as his natural instinct to comfort her flooded his chest.

Her muffled words came out on a sob. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. It seemed the damage had already been done.”

“You’re right. You should’ve been straight with me from the beginning. You could’ve come to me with the truth. I would’ve understood.”

She hopped up from the bed. “You never would’ve agreed to work with me, and I didn’t know you, didn’t know anything about you. You were the enemy. Do you know how many years the name Brody filled me with rage? I thought your father had killed my mother. Everything I read about the case pointed to him. I wanted to be the one to prove it once and for all and bring some peace to my mother and the other victims of the Phone Book Killer.”

She folded her hands behind her back and leaned against the wall, looking small and defenseless in her pajamas and bedhead hair.

She’d lost her mother as a child in the vilest way. The Phone Book Killer had turned her world upside down and decimated the only family she had. She must’ve been adopted soon after that and taken away from her home and everything she knew. No wonder she hated the name Brody.

She must’ve read his softened expression because she stretched her hand out to him. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. I know now I never should’ve kept my identity a secret from you. And last night, the night before...there was no pretense. I could’ve found a million different ways to get into that box.”

His jaw tensed. She’d crept around his room not once, but twice while he’d lain sleeping, naked, totally at her mercy in every way.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I need to be alone right now. This association, this project—it’s over.”

She sagged against the wall.

He turned his back on her. “If you need some kind of protection, I can call hotel security to check on you.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine in the hotel.”

She moved stiffly toward the desk and grabbed her purse. She left the photo of her mother on the floor.

When the door closed behind her, Ryan reached for the phone. He punched in the extension for the front desk and requested some security for Kacie’s room. He explained how she’d been the guest locked in the sauna earlier in the week. Still fearing some kind of legal action, the manager agreed readily.

He swooped down and snatched up the photo. He fell across the bed on his back, holding the picture of Kacie’s mother in front of his face. She smiled at him with Kacie’s lips and reproached him with Kacie’s eyes.

He tossed the picture onto the floor and rolled onto his stomach, scrunching a pillow into his face.

His hand skimmed a bit of lacy material and he pulled it from under the pillow. Kacie’s silky thong tangled around his fingers, tying him up, binding her to him. He pressed it to his face and inhaled her scent.

He might be mad as hell about her deception, but it didn’t make him want her any less.

* * *

T
HE TEARS BURNED
hot trails down her face, stinging the abrasion on her cheek. On the floor of her hotel room, Kacie leaned her forehead on her knees, which were pulled to her chest, and her tears dripped off the end of her nose.

As soon as she’d gained a measure of Ryan Brody, the man, she should’ve told him the truth. Even when she still believed Joseph Brody was the Phone Book Killer and her mother’s murderer, she should’ve come clean to Ryan. He might’ve ended the project then, but anything would’ve been better than the look on his face when he realized the truth. He actually believed she’d used him sexually to get to the folder in his room. She’d been speaking the truth, for once, when she’d told him that there were a million different ways she could’ve gotten her hands on her mother’s picture.

She didn’t need to land him in bed to do that. She’d
wanted
to land him in bed. If he really thought she’d been faking it with him, he must think she deserved an Academy Award.

She rubbed her hand beneath her runny nose and fell to her side. What did it matter now? She’d blown it. She’d blown the book. She’d blown any chance of discovering her mother’s real killer. She’d blown a budding relationship with a decent man.

All because she hadn’t trusted that man with the truth. Mom, her adoptive mom, had told her she’d regret not learning to open up more. When her parents had first adopted her, they’d sent her to a child therapist. She’d attended almost a year’s worth of sessions before she began to feel comfortable with her new family. Then when she’d hit adolescence, her parents had sent her for another round of head shrinking when it became apparent she was playing fast and loose with the truth when she thought the truth would expose her to someone’s displeasure.

Her therapist had diagnosed her with abandonment issues, and she’d been able to work through most of those feelings, but she’d never completely resolved them.

Now it had cost her—big-time.

She curled tighter into her fetal position and allowed the tears to flow unabated.

Someone tapped on the door and she rolled to her back, her pulse jumping in her throat. Had Ryan forgiven her? Was he going to give her a second chance?

She sprang to her feet and peered through the peephole. The disappointment at seeing a room-service waiter punched her in the gut.

“I didn’t order any room service.”

“I know, ma’am. Mr. Ryan Brody in room 582 ordered it for you.”

“He did?” Her voice squeaked like a schoolgirl’s. He did care. Maybe he was coming up to join her now.

She pulled open the door, smiling through her tears at the uniformed hotel employee in the hallway. A dark shape lunged from the side, and with a sickening thud, the waiter dropped to the ground.

Kacie choked out a scream and took a backward step into the room. Then she felt a prick on the inside of her wrist and she descended into blackness.

* * *

R
YAN PACED THE FLOOR,
tapping his phone against his palm. Why wouldn’t Kacie be answering her hotel phone or her cell phone?

When she’d left his room, she’d been shaken up—not even dressed.

Once she was out of his sight, his worries began to build up. When the hospital called to tell him Cynthia Phelps was still in a coma, he couldn’t shake off his concerns, no matter how infuriated he was at Kacie. He’d decided to at least check in by phone.

But she wouldn’t answer her phone. It would be one thing if she was just ignoring his number on her cell, but he’d called her from his room phone, too, just in case. And it was highly unlikely she’d ignore a call from a number she didn’t recognize. Not with her many true-crime contacts out there.

He shoved his key card in his back pocket and headed for the door. He jogged down the steps of the stairwell to the next floor and pushed through the fire door.

Adrenaline crashed through his body when he saw the crumpled body of a waiter in front of Kacie’s hotel door.