She slipped into the house, using skills she’d learned over the summer in Madrid. And she was quite proud of what she’d learned as well. She managed to sneak right into the senator’s house without tripping alarms or alerting security. Just as her trainers had taught her to do.
God, she just loved the CIA. They rocked.
What didn’t rock was the past months of unreturned calls and messages she’d sent to her only and best friend, Alyssa. Summer owed Alyssa and her parents more than her life. But to Alyssa she owed a debt that could never be repaid. One she’d sworn she would at least pay the interest on by ensuring her friend’s protection.
They’d lost touch after Alyssa’s visit to Madrid, though. It was partly her own fault, Summer knew. Her training had been hell. The limited amount of time she had to put into it without alerting her brothers to her new vocation had required more hours in the day than she’d had.
When she’d pulled her head out of her ass a month ago to realize Alyssa hadn’t called, texted, or attempted to get hold of her in any way, she’d begun calling. To no avail. Then she’d begun texting. When Alyssa hadn’t answered the texts Summer had come straight to D.C., once she’d landed in the States again.
She’d learned immediately that Alyssa had married.
Married. Without letting her best friend know? Oh, the girl was going to pay for that one. Summer was supposed to be her maid of honor, no matter what.
Moving quietly through the house and up the servants’ stairs to the second floor, she paused at the doorway that led to the long open hall where the family suites were located. As she tilted her head, the sound of sobs barely drifting from the master suite caused Summer’s heart to clench with dread.
That was Margot crying. The woman titled the Ice Bitch because of her supposed lack of emotion? Crying?
Of course Summer knew the title was undeserved, but still, Margot never had cried. Not in all the years Summer had known her.
Senator Hampstead was out of town, which meant Alyssa’s mother should be alone. She’d better be alone anyway.
Moving to the door, Summer frowned. It was partially open, as though Margot was expecting someone, or listening for someone. Stepping inside, she paused, staring at Margot as suspicion began to rise inside her.
“Tears?” she asked softly as Margot moved quickly to her feet, attempting to dry her soaked face. “What did you do to Alyssa? She hasn’t answered my calls or texts, so you must be involved. What the fuck did you do to her, Margot?”
The woman was a robot, Summer sometimes thought. Oh, Margot loved Alyssa, but she simply had no idea how to be a mother, even after all these years.
Or did she?
Grief twisted Margot’s face.
“What’s happened to Alyssa?” The demand came as ice began to fill Summer’s veins. The deep southern accent she’d been trying to smooth slipped free as did the rein she kept on her temper. Alyssa was the only person in the world she totally trusted. If she was hurt …
“Oh, Summer,” Margot whispered, her breath hitching. “If only Alyssa had your courage.”
If she had what? Alyssa had immeasurably more courage than any of them. She put up with Margot’s ice, Summer’s antics, and still loved them all.
“This isn’t courage, Margot,” Summer assured her, the heavy drawl accompanied by a hard smile. “It’s straight up fuckin’ don’t give a shit. Alyssa’s the one with courage, because she dares to love you, you mean old hag. I’d have sliced your skinny neck by now. So why don’t you tell me what you did to Alyssa before I go find out for myself.”
“It wasn’t me.” Margot’s choked voice and tears caused fear to tighten Summer’s chest. “I’ve hurt her in the past, Summer; I know that. But she’s not hurt this time, she’s dead inside, and I would never do that to her. I would never do that to my baby…”
Summer didn’t make another demand or wait for an explanation. Turning, she moved quickly from Margot’s room and rushed to Alyssa’s. What had happened to her? She was fine in Madrid.…
She’d been quiet, though, very thoughtful. She’d ignored several calls and texts, and when Summer had asked about them Alyssa had just said she’d wanted to spend time with her. Summer had assumed it was Margot.
Stepping into Alyssa’s suite, she moved quickly through the sitting area and entered the bedroom before coming to a hard stop.
God, it was three in the morning and Alyssa was awake?
“Aly?” she whispered, moving closer as Alyssa’s gray eyes moved to her.
She could barely hold back the shock that filled her. This wasn’t her friend. Where was the laughter, the amazement that Summer was there? Where was the life?
“Darlin’,” she said softly, kneeling next to Alyssa’s bed and staring at her with rising fear. “What did you let happen to you?”
There was no laughter in Alyssa’s eyes. They were dull, the gray color so still and dark.
“I’m fine, Summer,” she said, her voice even and with little inflection. “You didn’t have to come here.”
She didn’t have to come there?
“Alyssa, do you want me to go completely postal here, darlin’?” she asked, the fear building inside her. “Tell me what happened to you, sweetie. And do it now, or you know how I can get.”
Alyssa looked so tired, so blank, as though she really didn’t care how Summer could get.
“I finally loved,” Alyssa stated as though she’d done no more than awakened that day. “I loved too deep and I lost too much.” Slicing agony flashed in her eyes as she focused on Summer. “I lost my baby, Summer. I lost my last hope.”
Her baby?
“Harvey’s baby?” How had that happened? She’d only married the bastard a few months before.
“Not Harvey’s,” Alyssa assured her.
“Whose?” Summer demanded.
“Go home, Summer,” Alyssa whispered, her eyes closing as though she were going to sleep. “I promise you, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Summer protested. “What happened to you, Alyssa? You have to tell me.”
But Alyssa wasn’t talking. She lay there, eyes closed, her breathing light, her eyes so shadowed they looked bruised.
“Summer,” Margot said her name softly.
Turning to her, seeing the motion Alyssa’s mother made for her to follow her, Summer moved quickly to her feet and into the hall. Closing the door softly behind her, she faced Margot, her fists clenched, fear for Alyssa raging through her.
“Whose baby?” she snapped.
And those tears fell from light green eyes that had once been icy, cold. They weren’t cold anymore.
Keeping her voice low, Margot told her what had happened. From the arrival of the pictures to the loss of the baby Alyssa had carried. A baby she’d been forced to bury before she’d ever heard his first cry or seen him open his eyes. A little boy with black hair tipped in blond. “A headful of it,” Margot sobbed at the mention of it.
“Who?” Summer asked again. “Who did this to her?”
Margot shook her head. “She made me swear, Summer. I swore I wouldn’t tell you. I swore I wouldn’t allow them to be harmed. Then she slipped and married Harvey Stanhope to make certain no one else suspected who the child belonged to.”
Summer stepped closer, her eyes narrowing. “Who?”
Margot should know the lengths she’d go to in protecting Alyssa.
“She has the pictures hidden in her bedroom,” Margot revealed. “Probably in that fucking hole in her closet that she called a wish box when she was a child. Look there first.”
Summer looked there.
As she drew the pictures free her eyes widened in shock.
They had done this to Alyssa? Shane Connor and Sebastian De Loren? But that made no sense.
The pictures didn’t lie, though. Alyssa’s face was suffused in pleasure and love, and their faces, their expressions, were cut in the same emotions. What Summer saw in their eyes wasn’t the cold calculation of the men that Margot had seen. These were men who had loved.
Replacing the pictures, she sat back on her heels, her eyes narrowed. She’d overheard something at the De La Cruz home she’d stayed in. Something about the two CIA couriers and a loss that had destroyed them.
What the hell was going on?
What had they done to her friend to steal the life, the love that had shone so bright in clear eyes that were now dull and all but dead? What had they done, and how did she find a way to kill them for it?