“I can imagine,” Naomi murmured, a niggling sense of unease creeping over her. “Have you tried to reach Michael?”
“Yes. We’ve called him several times, but his phone goes straight to voice mail.”
“Okay.” Naomi pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, I’ll try him too. I’m not in the city right now, but I can get there in about an hour. Can Tyler wait there for a while longer?”
“He’s welcome to stay as long as needed,” the assistant said. “I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hear that we were able to get a hold of someone.”
“Of course. Please, tell him not to worry.”
As she ended the call, Asher appeared in the open doorway of the bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel like nothing to me.”
She knew what he was referring to—the blood bond that had evidently alerted him to the concern that was forming into a cold ball in her stomach. “One of the boys, Tyler, is waiting at the medical clinic in the city for Michael to pick him up. He’s been sitting there for more than an hour.”
Asher frowned. “It doesn’t seem like Michael to leave a kid stranded like that.”
“No. It doesn’t. He told Tyler he had some banking to take care of and run some errands.” She tapped Michael’s number on her phone and shook her head when the call went directly to messages. “Asher, I need to use the truck.”
A dark look came over his features. “Not a good idea, Naomi. Not when I can’t be there with you. I don’t like it.”
She strode up to him and pressed her palm to the side of his tense jaw. “I know you don’t, but I can’t leave that little boy waiting all alone. He’s been abandoned by people he’s trusted all of his short life. I’m not going to be one of them.”
She didn’t need the benefit of a blood bond to know that Asher was two seconds from refusing. Not that he had much choice. The truck was his, but she knew he couldn’t deny her the use of it when it came to one of the kids.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” she promised him. “Michael gets distracted sometimes. He’s probably trying to do ten things at once and will fly into the clinic parking lot around the same time I get there. Anyway, it’s not like it’s the middle of the night—”
“No,” Asher muttered. “It’s the middle of the morning, when I can’t spend more than ten minutes outside these four walls without incinerating.”
“I’ll be fine.” She went up on her toes and kissed him, holding his dubious gaze. “I’ll call you along the way, and as soon as I hear from Michael and make sure Tyler’s home safe I’ll come right back home.”
The light in his eyes changed as she said that word, home. His stern face softened, if only marginally. He speared his fingers into her hair and brought her back to his mouth and kissed her, unrushed and deep. “You call as soon as you reach the city.”
“I will.”
She gathered her phone and the keys to the old Chevy and raced out the door.
Several times on the hour-long drive up to Vegas she called Michael’s phone but only got his voice mail. Each unanswered call made her concern grow colder, edging toward real worry that something had gone wrong with the payment from Moda.
Or, worse, that Michael ran into trouble.
There was no sign of his van in the clinic parking lot when she pulled in. Once inside, she was greeted by a distressed Tyler, slumped into one of the waiting room chairs with tears streaking down his freckled cheeks.
“Hey, buddy,” she said, hurrying over to him and hunkering down in front of him to ruffle his shock of red hair. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. You okay?”
His sweet little face was pinched, nose swollen from crying. “Where’s Michael?”
“He probably got stuck somewhere running errands. I’m not sure, but we’ll find him.”
Tyler frowned. “I thought you guys forgot about me.”
“Never,” she assured him earnestly, shaking her head. “Never, ever. You hear me?”
He nodded stiffly and she took his hand as he got to his feet. With a wave to Sheila behind the glass reception window, she collected her sniffling charge and escorted him out to the nearly empty parking lot.
“Isn’t this Asher’s truck?” Tyler asked as she helped him into the passenger side.
“Yes, it is.”
“Where is he?”
“Back at the ranch, sweetie. He wanted to come with me to get you, but he had to stay inside.”
“Because he’s Breed, right?”
She nodded, struck by how easily the boy had accepted Asher as a part of their makeshift tribe. Seeing everyone together at Michael’s house had given her a glimpse of what a true family felt like. Her family—the one she hadn’t been born into, but wanted desperately to have for the rest of her life.
She stroked her hand over the little boy’s head. “Buckle in, okay? Let’s get you home now.”
As discreetly as she could, she tried Michael’s number again as she got settled behind the wheel. No luck.
Dammit, where was he?
She took another second to check in with Asher, careful to keep the concern out of her voice so that Tyler didn’t detect the panic that was beginning to slither through her veins. But Asher knew. His voice was gentle and reassuring, telling her he’d checked the news for reports of accidents and traffic problems, but found no cause for worry.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “I’ll call you when I get to the house.”
For the duration of the drive to the other side of town, she kept Tyler occupied with questions about school and homework and what he might want for dinner. They fell into a familiar, easy chatter until they rounded the corner onto the street leading to Michael’s house.
And then Naomi’s heart clenched behind her sternum.
Michael’s van was parked in the driveway. Which on any other day might seem normal, but at this moment felt very, very wrong.
“What the heck?” Tyler blurted, sending her a confused look. “You mean he’s been home the whole time?”
“I don’t know, honey.” Naomi parked beside the vehicle, unable to shake the bone-deep chill that was spreading over her. “Why don’t you stay out here and let me go talk to him first, okay?”
To her relief, the boy didn’t argue. Naomi climbed out of the truck and let the rusted door close behind her with a groan.
As she entered through the unlocked front door, she dimly remembered that she had promised to call Asher when she arrived. But her feet were moving of their own accord, carrying her inside the quiet house. God, it was too quiet by far.
“Hello? Michael? Anyone home?”
It wasn’t unusual for the kids to be scattered and off doing their own thing during the day. There was school for some, while others were either too young or too rebellious to attend with the kind of regularity they needed. Part of the deal with the kids who filtered in and out of their house was that they stayed only because they wanted to. To most that meant having someplace to go when night fell or when the desert got too cold, or too hot, to survive long outside. Letting them have their freedom was part of that equation, no matter how hard it was for Michael and her to adhere to the agreement sometimes.
Right now, Naomi couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to hear a herd of young teens and other kids come tearing through the house, preferably with Michael rolling right behind them, or summoning them all into the kitchen for a meal.
Anything but the tomblike quiet that surrounded her as she stepped farther inside.
“Michael?”
She drifted toward the bedroom at the end of the hallway. The door was partially open—only wide enough for her to see his empty wheelchair just inside.
“Michael . . .”
Her steps slowed as she approached, her mind reluctant to process what every instinct in her body was trying to tell her. Something bad had happened. Something horrific.
&
nbsp; She entered the room and glanced toward the floor next to his bed. His legs were sticking out at an odd angle as if he’d fallen out of his chair and into the open closet. Then she saw his blue, lifeless face . . . and the taut leather belt fastened tightly around his neck.
Her heart plummeted.
No. Oh God, no.
She stumbled back a step.
And she screamed.
CHAPTER 20
The idle waiting and wondering had been driving him insane, so in a fit of activity Asher had installed his new headboard in the master bedroom. It wasn’t ever going to be finished to his liking, and since he needed something to do with his hands, he’d impulsively decided to put the damned thing to use.
He had just stepped back to look at the hand-carved piece when an invisible blade plunged into his chest. He staggered back on his heels, bewildered for a moment, uncertain where the attack had come from.
And then he knew.
With a shredding certainty, he realized the pain he was feeling was hers.
Naomi.
“No.” A jagged cry rose up to strangle him. “No!”
The shock and grief she was experiencing tore through him like serrated steel, so agonizing it nearly took him down to his knees. But she was alive. Thank God for that, she was still living and breathing.
He could feel her energy in his veins, telling him their connection hadn’t been severed by anything as unthinkable as her death. But she was hurting deeply. Not because of physical wounds but with a loss she could hardly bear.
She should have called by now. She should have been at Michael’s house several minutes ago by Asher’s estimate.
His body still gripped in her anguish, he fumbled for his phone and called her.
“Asher.” Her voice was wooden, barely a whisper. A sob choked out of her. “Oh, my God . . . Asher, he’s dead. Michael’s dead.”
“Ah, Christ.” He swallowed hard, hating that he wasn’t there with her. “Are you all right? Tell me what happened.”
She explained how she found him a few moments ago, dead of an apparent suicide. She told him that she was outside the house waiting for the police, whom she’d just hung up with in the second before he called.
“He didn’t kill himself, Asher. Slater’s behind this.”
“Yes.” He glanced at the time on his phone and wanted to roar his fury.
It would be several hours before sundown. The woman he adored was eighty miles away and he could do nothing to help her. Nothing to save her, if the danger that found Michael were to lock its sights on her next.
At least he could be assured it wasn’t Cain who harmed her friend. That lethal bastard would be as hampered by the UV light as Asher was.
But without Asher to level the odds, even a human coming after Naomi was a risk he couldn’t take.
“You have to get out of there, sweetheart. Right now. Come home, Naomi.”
“I-I will as soon as I can,” she said, her voice nearly drowned out by the rising wail of sirens. “I told Tyler what happened and he’s afraid the police are going to take him and the other kids away to an orphanage.”
“Jesus,” Asher hissed. “Let him know we’ll never let that happen.”
He heard the small catch in her voice. “I will. I’ll tell him that, Asher. Okay, that’s the police coming now. They’re pulling up to the driveway, and Tyler’s waiting in the—” Her voice cut short on a gasp. “Oh, no. Tyler just saw the cops and ran off. Tyler!”
“Naomi, tell me what’s going on there.”
He heard her breath change as she began walking briskly to meet law enforcement. “I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
He heard the thump of car doors closing and officers speaking to her in the second before she ended the call.
He drew the phone away from his ear and stared at it with blazing eyes. Fear clawed at him, but this time it wasn’t Naomi’s emotion—it was his own.
He’d never felt so powerless, he the unstoppable killer who had feared nothing, lost nothing—loved nothing—for the entire beginning of his brutal existence.
Now he could do nothing but wait.
And worry.
And pray that the woman he loved wasn’t ripped away from him before he had the chance to tell her how much she meant to him.
He gripped his phone in a crushing grasp, but knew he couldn’t sever the only line of communication he had with Naomi.
So, on a bellow that shook the four walls of his daytime prison, Asher brought his fist back and drove it into the center of the headboard he’d made, splintering the wood into a thousand jagged shards.
# # #
Naomi leaned against Asher’s truck and answered all of the questions the police and first responders asked her.
No, she wasn’t in the house when the deceased took his life.
No, she had no knowledge of drug abuse, financial problems, or any other cause that might have driven her best friend and roommate to tighten a belt around his neck and slowly strangle himself with it.
No, she didn’t know of any other family members who should be contacted about Michael’s death.
There was only her. And the group of parentless kids who were going to be as destroyed as she was to learn that one of the kindest, most compassionate people on Earth was suddenly, inconceivably, gone.
“How many children came and went from Mr. Carson’s home on a regular basis, Ms. Fallon, and what would you estimate their ages to be?”
“Excuse me?”
The female officer from JUSTIS, the law enforcement department comprised of both human and Breed officers, gave her an apologetic look. “I know some of these questions are difficult, but I’m just trying to establish the possible mental state of Mr. Carson in his final hours. Could he have been harboring any secrets or possible guilt pertaining to any of the kids he invited to stay in his house?”
“You can’t be serious.” Naomi gaped, fuming. “No. Of course, not. Michael was the one good thing to happen in any of these kids’ shitty lives.”
The officer lifted her shoulder. “Just trying to cover the bases.”
“Well, consider them covered,” Naomi snapped. “We’re done here.”
Her gaze drifted to the curb where the black zippered bag holding her friend’s body was being loaded off a gurney and into a waiting ambulance.
“Here’s my number,” the JUSTIS officer said, handing her a card with her name on it. “If you think of anything else we should know, just give me a call.”
Naomi stuffed Officer Rachel Reynolds’ card into her pocket without looking at it. She was never going to use it.
She hadn’t told the officer that she already knew what happened to her friend. That Slater or his henchmen had gone after Michael and staged his murder to look like a suicide. She didn’t know the how of it, but she knew the why.
If anyone was harboring unbearable guilt or secrets, it was her.
And now, because of her, her best friend was dead.
Why had she let Michael convince her to let him be part of that last job? He’d been so adamant, but she could have refused him. Dammit, she should have.
As for sharing what she knew about his death with law enforcement, while it might spark an investigation into Slater’s criminal activities, she had zero confidence he would be made to pay for what he’d done to Michael.
Just like he’d never paid for what he did to her mother, either.
Men like Slater were untouchable.
Why she hadn’t come to terms with that fact before it cost Michael his life was a burden she would never be able to put down.
Naomi got in the truck and started the engine. As she backed out of the driveway and onto the street, grief swamped her. It was too deep for tears, the shock wrapping her in a cocoon that seemed to numb her from the inside out. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry for a week, but she had things she needed to do. Priority One was locating Tyler and the other kids before they scattered t
o the wind in fear of being taken away somewhere by strangers.
And then she needed to get back to the ranch.
Back home with Asher.
He would know what to do. He would be able to help her find the kids. They could come back to the city tonight as soon as it was dark and start searching until they found them all.
She hadn’t driven two blocks before her phone chimed with a familiar ringtone.
Michael’s ringtone.
For an instant, as she hurried to retrieve the device from her back pocket and saw his number on the screen, she thought she had imagined this whole horrific day. But the icy reality settled in just as quickly when she brought the phone to her ear and heard an airless, menacing voice on the other end of the line.
One she’d heard only in her nightmares since the time she was eight years old.
“Hello, Naomi. Or should I say Narumi?” She felt the blood drain from her face the way he spoke her given name, full of dark amusement. “Pity about your friend. Suicide is such an ugly thing.”
“You did this.” No need to pretend she wasn’t aware of Leo Slater’s evilness. “You sadistic bastard, you killed him.”
A low chuckle sent a shudder through her bones. “No, my dear. You did.”
She could hardly deny her part in all of this. The guilt washed over her in a black tide, and it was all she could do to keep her sob from choking her. “Keep talking, Slater. I’m going to take everything I know about you straight to the police. Including what you did to my mother.”
“No, Narumi, you won’t.” He sounded so confident, she wanted to scream. “You won’t, because if you intended to do that, you’d still be talking to those officers parked in your crippled friend’s driveway right now.”
She sucked in a shallow gasp. He’d been close enough to see her? Was he still lurking somewhere on the road with her? Her gaze darted to the rearview and side mirrors, taking note of the scores of vehicles that surrounded her. He could be anywhere, following her by himself or accompanied by any number of his gangster lackeys.
“What do you want?” she demanded, knowing there was nothing he could take from her now that meant more than what she’d already lost.