One Secret Night (21 page)

A knock at the door interrupted. Raith stood and went to open it. Tipping the server, Raith brought the tray to Autumn.

She ate a cookie and watched Raith drift off into more deep thought.

“What are you thinking about?”

He turned to her. “Nothing.”

She couldn’t stop herself from digging anymore. “You and your dad had a long conversation.”

He didn’t respond, only looked unresolved on the matter. Autumn could guess what Leonardo had said to him. She’d gotten to know him pretty well in the short time he’d been here.

“What would you have done with your life if your dad hadn’t drunk and your mother hadn’t died?”

“Autumn...”

“Would you have still chosen politics?” she asked.

He leaned back in his chair and thought a moment. “Yeah. I think I would have.”

“You could have still been a tough guy, you just would have been a tough senator or something. A Charlie Wilson. He made a difference and some could argue that he never followed the rules.” He didn’t have to work outside of politics to be a rebel.

“Maybe. Why is that important to you?”

She ate a bite of cookie and then a potato chip followed by a sip of milk. “Charlie Wilson had a legitimate, law-abiding job.”

After a moment, Raith responded. “My dad says I should give up what I do, that I do it because of the way I was raised.”

“Do you agree with him?”

“He also pushed me to be with you and raise a family.”

“Oh.” That was bold of Leonardo. “How do you feel about that?” And that was bold of her to ask....

She ate another bite of cookie and chip.

“It’s a lot to take in.”

She seconded that. He still seemed reluctant to embrace that he’d be a father soon.

“But I think my dad was right about one thing,” he said.

She looked up from dipping the last of her cookie into the milk.

“I did like superheroes when I was a kid.”

What did he mean? Something that put mischief in him, playful mischief. Her heart did a ticklish flop just before he sat forward and reached over to wipe milk off the corner of her mouth. Then he took the cookie she still held and bit off the part she’d dunked in the milk. Chewing and swallowing, he put down the cookie and then kissed her, sharing a sweet taste.

What began as fun and games ignited that mystical passion they had. He opened his eyes and she melted inside just looking into them, watching desire flare and trigger a deeper kiss. Putting her hands on each side of his face, she kissed him and moved off the chair and over to his.

He pushed his chair back and she sat on his lap, uncertainty over how far this would go lingering. He didn’t seem as uncertain. He brushed her hair back and trailed warm kisses along her jaw and neck, pushing the soft black material of her shirt out of the way to continue on to her shoulder.

When he lifted the shirt over her head, she didn’t protest. As he kissed his way down to her breasts, plumped within her front-clip bra, his hands glided along her bare back to her waist. Her uncertainty began to drown in the pleasure he elicited. None remained when his fingers released her bra and his eyes met hers as he pushed the straps off her shoulders and the bra dropped to the floor.

He toyed with her breasts awhile, kissing her nipples and wetting them with his tongue, puckering them into hard, sensitive raspberries. His breath cooled what his tongue warmed. Autumn stood up and began to remove her pants, watching Raith lift off his shirt, kick off his shoes and slide his pants down his hips and legs. Having left her panties on, she let Raith do the honors of removing them.

His fingers left a trail of fire on her skin as he pulled them slowly down her body, until they dropped around her feet. Stepping out of them, she moved closer.

Raith put his hands on her hips and parted her with his tongue. She raked her fingers through his hair while he found her hard nub that yearned for his attention and worked his magic there. Autumn tipped her head back, eyes closed to sheer ecstasy. She gripped her fingers in his hair as sensation drove her wild. He stopped just before she burst.

Lowering her head, she straddled the chair, loving how he took in her body from her legs to her breasts and finally her face. She bent to kiss him. His hand held the back of her neck and head and the other went to her rear.

She lowered herself down on top of him. He guided her until he entered her. It was the same as the first time. Three, two, one, liftoff.

Holding on with her hands anchored to his neck, she began to move on him. He grunted and helped her with his hands on her hips. The ride lasted several reverent moments before Autumn lost control and gave in to a powerful release. Only as she came down from the high did she realize he’d climaxed with her.

She kissed him softly, basking in the afterglow. He returned the caress. Then she looked into his eyes, still warm but fading in intensity. She needed to ask him what he was thinking. What did this all mean? Were they satisfying lust or was there more to it? It meant something to her.

Holding her, Raith stood and carried her into the bedroom. He lay her down. Getting in with her, he opened his arm for her and she snuggled next to him.

He didn’t say anything. Autumn wondered where this would leave her in the morning. She had just fallen deeper toward love with him and didn’t think he felt the same. He was too withdrawn right now. He held her, but she sensed it was because he felt he had to.

He was undecided. Still. After what had just happened. How could he not embrace what they had together?

A familiar trapped feeling came over her, only different than anything she’d ever experienced. She had invested her heart in him and he wouldn’t invest his.

Men before him had zealously tried to possess her for her wealth and name. Others had genuine feelings for her. Either instinct had led her to run the other way. Instinct led her to do the same now, but she’d do it to protect her heart, not her independence. No. Her individuality.

A need for individuality had driven her before. Pregnant and falling in love, she didn’t need individuality. She needed unity. Family. Raith might not be able to give her that, and she had to protect herself. The baby. She wouldn’t raise a child if she had to lie about what his or her father did for a living. And if she left now, she could spare herself a worse heartbreak.

She waited for him to fall asleep then eased away from him. When she was sure he was sound asleep, she got off the bed and quietly packed.

Chapter 18

A
utumn called the Ivy travel coordinator. The woman was in California, so at least it wasn’t too terribly late there, only two hours behind Houston time. She looked around for anything or anyone suspicious before waving for a cab. One pulled out from a parking space and stopped in front of her. She climbed in after the driver put her luggage in the back.

Just as she closed the door and the driver got behind the wheel, she heard a shout. A man ran toward them yelling, “Stop!”

The cab driver pulled away from the hotel, driving fast and swerving onto the street.

“Hey!” Autumn exclaimed.

The driver didn’t acknowledge her. At that moment she noticed the hat and mustache and bulky sweatshirt. It was the same man who’d chased her after meeting Kai.

“Stop this car.” Autumn dug into her purse for her cell phone.

The driver turned a corner so sharply that Autumn had to hang on to the back of the front passenger seat. Racing down the road, the driver lifted a gun and aimed it into the backseat, glancing from the road to her repeatedly.

“Give me the phone.”

That voice...

Autumn looked closer at the man. His eyes were feminine and familiar. Not a man. This was a woman dressed up as a man, and Autumn had met her before.

India Whittaker.

While she recovered from her shock, India pulled into the parking lot of an office building.

“Phone. Give it to me.”

Autumn looked at the steady barrel of the gun and decided to comply. She handed over the phone.

“Now get out.”

Her chances of escape were better outside this car. Autumn got out and searched for possible routes. The parking lot was vacant except for three cars, one of them parked next to the cab.

“Get in that car,” India ordered.

“Why did you try to kill Kai?” Autumn asked. “Did you kill him yourself?”

“Stop talking and get in or I’ll kill you right now.”

Right now? So, she planned to kill her at some point. Believing she’d pull the trigger, seeing it in the crazed gleam of her eyes, Autumn got into the car.

Autumn started the car while India kept the gun aimed at her as she walked around the rear of the car. Autumn contemplated driving off. But India opened the passenger door and it was too late.

“Drive.”

Autumn didn’t move. She listened for sirens. That man who’d run after them must have been the real driver of the taxi. He’d call the police and they’d start searching. The more time that passed—

“I said drive!” India shouted in a high-pitched tone. “I’ve had all I can take of you two. You’ve caused me too much trouble.”

“Why are you doing this?”

India hit her alongside the head with the gun. “Drive, damn it! I won’t ask again.”

Smothering a cry of pain, Autumn put her hand on her head and checked for blood. Finding nothing but a sore spot with a lump forming, she put the car into gear and drove as slowly as she could out of the parking lot.

India kept the gun low and pointed at her. Autumn drove out onto the main street. India wouldn’t shoot her in such a public setting, would she?

A police car went racing by in the opposite direction, toward the hotel, followed by two more. Of course, they weren’t looking for this car. Only a cab may have stood out, or not. Maybe they’d go to the scene and question people first. No one would know where she was taken, or by whom.

Raith thought it was Nash Ralston who’d hired Leaman. And although India’s costume didn’t resemble Ralston, he wouldn’t know it was Kai’s wife behind everything. The only uncertainty Autumn had now was how Garvin was involved.

“Turn here. Go left,” India said.

The road led into the neighborhood where India lived. She was actually taking her to her own home?

“Why are you doing this?” Autumn tried again. “Is it because of your husband’s affair?” She’d acted as though she was shocked to learn of his betrayal, but maybe she was just a good actress. In the rearview mirror, Autumn saw her face turn into a scowl.

“That imbecile thought I was too stupid to figure out what he was doing,” she hissed. “I followed him many times.”

“So you hired a hit man?”

“He was going to keep it from me forever. He never planned to tell me.”

The betrayal had built up in India. And Kai deciding not to confess his sin had hurt her more.

“And so you went to Garvin Reeves and asked him to help you. Isn’t that how you found Leaman Marshall?”

“How do you know Garvin?”

“We questioned him trying to find out who hired Leaman. Leaman’s sister told us about him.”

“I’ve known Garvin since we were kids. He and Leaman were close friends of mine. We grew up in the same neighborhood in run-down houses with low-life parents.”

That explained why Leaman had agreed to do a drive-by shooting. He may have even done it free or for a discounted fee.

“Was it Garvin who put the bomb in our car?” Autumn asked.

“Stop asking questions.”

Autumn drove into the long driveway and up to India’s house.

“Get out.”

Autumn didn’t see any other way out of doing what India asked. Not yet.

She got out of the car and India jabbed the gun into her back as they began walking toward the door.

“How did you know I’d come out of the hotel so late?” Autumn asked.

“I didn’t. I was about to leave when you showed up.”

“Must be your lucky day.”

India opened the front door and shoved her. Autumn stumbled inside and faced her.

“Go through that door.” India gestured to a door in the hallway that must lead to the garage.

“You should think about what you’re doing. Murder is a serious crime. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“I have thought of this. Go through that door.”

Autumn opened the door. Wide stairs lowered into a finished basement.

“Down.” India jabbed her again.

Autumn stepped down the stairs. At the bottom, she saw a man tied to a chair.

It was Ralston...

* * *

Raith woke to his ringing cell phone. Groggily he sat up, looked beside him and immediately felt a chill. Where was Autumn? Reaching for his phone, he recognized her number.

“Autumn? Where are you?” Why had she left?

And once again, he’d slept through her getting out of bed. He’d fallen into such a relaxed sleep.

“Mr. De Matteis,” a female voice said. It wasn’t Autumn.

“Who is this?” And what had she done with Autumn? She hadn’t taken her from their room. Autumn must have left on her own. The woman’s voice sounded familiar.

“I have something you want,” the woman said.

India.

“Mrs. Whittaker?” he asked, incredulous.

“Raith?” Autumn’s voice came onto the line.

“Autumn...”

“Come to my house outside the city.” India came back on the phone. “Come alone, and be here within thirty minutes or she dies.”

The call ended.

Cursing, Raith jumped off the bed and dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt. He ran out the door and onto the elevator, the ride down excruciatingly slow.

Out in front of the hotel, he spotted police cars and an officer questioning a cabdriver.

There was a throng of onlookers. He stopped next to one.

“What happened?”

“Someone stole a cab and took off with a woman in the back.”

India had disguised herself in a cab this time. She’d also disguised herself as a man. She’d set everything up. It hadn’t been Ralston who’d hired Leaman. It had been India. But she and Ralston were lovers. Were they working together?

Kai was worth a lot of money. How much would she have gotten if Kai had died?

Morbidly he realized Kai was probably already dead. Where was Ralston? Had she killed him, too?

When he thought of all the clues that pointed to Ralston, he answered his own questions. India had set Ralston up. She’d known about the blackmail. She must have also known about the affair long before she’d overheard Rylie at the coffee shop. That had been a show to cover her guilt. But if she’d set the bomb in his and Autumn’s rental car, why had Garvin been there?

As a valet driver brought his car, he called Mayo. Mayo answered as Raith got into the vehicle.

“I need you to look something up for me and I need you to do it now.”

“Is it that urgent? It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s more than urgent. It’s life or death. I don’t have much time.”

With a sigh, Mayo said, “Hang on.”

Raith heard him getting out of bed. A few seconds later, he must have reached his office. “All right, what have you got?”

“I need to look up everything you can find about India Whittaker.”

“India Whittaker...”

Raith heard him typing on his computer. One of the reasons Raith had chosen this man was that he wasn’t shy about tapping into government networks.

“Married to Kai Whittaker, who seems to have disappeared.”

“Yeah, yeah, go deeper.”

More typing...

“Here’s something. Grew up in a bad part of Dallas. Her FaceShare page shows her with Leaman Marshall and another guy.”

“Garvin Reeves?”

Mayo did some more searching. “Yeah, looks like he shared the photo.”

Mayo did more typing. “No police record.”

“Have you seen the news this morning?” Mayo asked.

“No.”

“Kai Whittaker’s body was found in a remote area under an overpass about halfway to Galveston.”

The news didn’t surprise Raith, but it was never easy hearing about the murder of an acquaintance.

“He was shot six times in the chest,” Mayo said.

“Crime of passion.”

“Poor son of a bitch.”

A sense of foreboding kept him from joining in on that comment. All he could see was Autumn lying dead under an overpass and it made him sick. And then it made him furious.

Raith drove up to the Whittaker’s second home outside Houston but didn’t park in the open. He turned off the headlights and parked on the side of the road, out of sight of any security cameras. Getting out of the car, he opened the back door and retrieved a combat vest from his duffel bag. He’d stocked it full of ammunition as soon as they’d arrived in Houston. Luckily, he hadn’t had it in the car that exploded. But he’d moved it to this one after that so he could be prepared for exactly this type of situation.

Checking his gun, he slid the clip back in and inserted it into his holster. Next, he dug out the thigh straps he’d also packed and fastened them to his legs. They held knives and more ammo. He had another knife strapped to his ankle, hidden by his pant leg. Then he retrieved a powerful infrared laser pointer. Last came the small night-vision goggles attached to a durable headband. Marveling at the irony of using a night-vision device, he positioned the single optics component over his left eye.

Closing the car door, he took out his pistol and kept the weapon ready in his hand as he jogged into the trees in the direction of the house. He stopped where the trees cleared and searched for any surprises, closing his right eye to see in the darkness. He spotted two cameras, one on each opposing corner of the roofline.

Lifting the laser pointer, he turned it on and held it steady as he aimed at the camera. When he was sure the sensor was burned out, he advanced and made his way to the side of the house. Disabling another camera, he crept up onto a large stone deck with a built-in grill. Crouching low and using the stone construction of the grill to block him from sight, he came around that and then took two steps to the wall beside the double glass doors. The glass was broken and the door partially ajar. Someone else had broken into the house.

Peering inside with only his night-vision device, he caught movement. There were no lights on, but he could see someone moving toward him. Pulling back, he ran and ducked behind the built-in grill, listening as the person’s feet crunched over broken glass, discovering as he had that the door had been breached.

Sneaking a peek around the stone, Raith saw that the person, probably India, had retreated. He went back to the door, staying out of sight. She hadn’t touched the door. India may be a killer but she was no professional. Silently, he avoided the broken glass as he entered a large kitchen with two islands and moved to the other side of the room. His soft-soled shoes were soundless as he moved to the interior kitchen entrance and spotted the form of a woman standing with her back to him on the other side of the living room. She was searching out the front window. For him? Who did she think had broken into the house? Who had broken into the house?

He’d take care of her later. Right now he had to find Autumn. If there was someone else in the house, he had to reach her fast.

There were two wide stairways, one leading up and the other leading down. He heard something fall over downstairs. India may have heard it, as well. He hurried down the stairs before she reached them. At the bottom, the landing turned in the opposite direction. There was light on down here, so he switched off his optics and moved the device out of the way of his eye. As soon as he followed the landing and faced the open space of the basement, he saw Garvin untying Autumn. India had put her on a dining chair on the other side of a seating area. A man was in a chair beside her. Both of their backs were turned.

Assured Autumn was all right and that Garvin, at least for now, was on their side, he waited for India. She came down the stairs slowly. Raith hung back in the shadows of a bedroom door.

As soon as she appeared on the landing and headed for the others, she raised a small handgun.

Raith stepped behind her and put his pistol to her head. “Drop it.”

India froze.

“Drop it now or I’ll shoot.” She had to know he would.

She dropped the gun.

“Now walk forward nice and easy.” Ahead, he saw Garvin move back from Autumn, and the other man turn his head. Raith saw that it was Ralston.

Autumn finished untying herself and then hurried to untie Ralston, who ushered her to the side of the room, away from Garvin and Raith and India.

Raith watched Garvin closely. The man was too unpredictable.

Garvin lifted the chair Autumn had vacated and faced it toward Raith and India. Raith would have done it, anyway, so he pushed India to the chair.