The ten minutes Reece spent with a deranged woman who thought he was going to marry her were eleven minutes too many. His only solace was that they’d paid off.
Sitting in his car as he left the city, he thought about the pool at the house. He wanted to get in it, needing to feel washed clean of the crazy that had rained down on him in that interview room. He wanted Jessica in there with him so he could hold her close and promise never to expose her to anyone like that again.
After a briefing with the detectives handling the case, Reece had gone into the interview room with three goals: getting Maisy Cullinan to confess to the shooting at the gallery, the murder of Sid Loman, and the fire at his house. He’d succeeded with two of those goals almost immediately. When she saw him, she’d begun to weep, begging him to forgive her for firing the shot at him through the gallery window.
Check. One down.
“I would never—ever hurt you, darling! I was just so mad,” she’d exclaimed as she wiped her tears and her nose on her arm. “I can’t control myself when I get mad. Why did you make me mad?”
She hadn’t expressed any remorse at all when talking about Jessica, Sid Loman, or the woman she’d killed in Brentwood. She only feared he would believe she had intended to hurt him.
He had remained silent throughout most of the visit, letting her talk, plead, cry, and tell him all about her plans for their future. The recorded conversation had given the police enough details to charge her with a number of crimes.
Reece pitied her for her illness and her delusions. But maintaining that pity had been damned hard when she asked how much skin and hair Jess had lost because of the bleach attack.
“Her house. She wants to give me her house?” he muttered, shaking his head and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Her “gift” was the other reason she’d demanded to see him.
I bought it for us to live in together.
He’d remained silent throughout most of the visit, but at that, he hadn’t been able to refrain from snapping, “Is that why you burned down mine?”
Her response had surprised him, and he couldn’t help going over it in his mind. I didn’t do that. I would never do that! You lost all your things, all the awards and statues that would have looked so beautiful in our home.
Her denial still bothered him. She’d confessed to everything else—including killing Sid Loman because she thought he had seen her shoot at the gallery window. So why not throw a little arson in the confession soup?
About to get off the highway, he suddenly remembered he had promised his dad he would come by to pick up Cecil B. today. He almost turned around to do it, but something made him keep heading toward home. He wanted—no, right now he needed—to see Jessica.
Reece had done what he had to do. Maisy had agreed to plead guilty to many of the charges, meaning Jessica wouldn’t have to testify. Knowing what a relief it would be to her, he didn’t want to delay telling her it was really over.
There was one more thing he needed to tell her…that he loved her. Having realized it at some point during the past couple of days, he knew he had to say the words out loud.
He didn’t deserve her, for any number of reasons. One was that he was still keeping secrets from her, for the sake of his brothers.
No. Not just them. You too. Coward. It was a bitter truth. He feared he would lose her if she found out what else he was guilty of.
“She could do so much better,” he told himself as he reached the driveway and waited for the gate to open. But he was a selfish enough bastard that he wanted her anyway. He wanted her in his life, in his future, and he envisioned making her his wife.
That meant she had to know everything. She couldn’t become part of his family without being told what that family was capable of.
For the first time in six years, he was going to have to revisit the memories of that night, and admit what he and his brothers had done. What happened between them afterward would be in her hands. He would have to hope she understood, and that she stayed.
Spotting a strange car parked in the driveway, he figured Liza had decided to pay her promised visit. Although glad Jess had company, he couldn’t help being disappointed they wouldn’t be alone for a while. Now that he was in the confession zone, he wanted to get it over with so he could proceed into the I love you scene, and then the black moment where he would wait and hope she wasn’t so disgusted by him that she took off.
He wanted it over with, but he was also dreading it. He’d never been a procrastinator, but suddenly thought Liza’s visit wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Delay of execution.
Entering the house, he looked around and called, “Jess? Where are you guys?”
No answer. He headed for the kitchen. Figuring they were probably sitting by the pool, he dropped his keys and phone onto the counter and went to the sliding glass doors.
What he saw through them stopped his heart, until adrenaline surged and sent it racing. In a lifetime that passed in one endless second, he let what he was seeing soak in.
A large man was kneeling over a prone form on the far side of the pool. It was Jessica, limp and unmoving, the ends of her wet hair dangling in the pool.
Blood was running from her temple down into her hair.
Steve Baker’s hands were on her shoulders, close to her neck.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” he shouted as he threw the door open and ran outside, rage and fear warring to control him.
Steve jerked his head up, his eyes widening in shock. Looking terrified, he reacted in an instant, far faster than Reece ever imagined possible for such a big man. He yanked Jessica up, wrapping one beefy arm around her middle and one around her throat, clutching her back against his chest as if she were a rag doll.
“Stay back,” he called. “She’s barely breathing. She almost drowned. Come any closer and I’ll finish her off.”
Reece froze, wondering what in the name of God was going on here. This couldn’t have been an accident; he wouldn’t be threatening her if it were. Had Steve tried to assault her? Had he tried to cover up his crime by staging a drowning, leaving the woman Reece loved dead in the pool, a horrible gift for him to find when he came home?
Images of that scenario flooded his mind, but he forced them out. If he envisioned them too long, he would lose control. Jess needed him. Whatever he did now could mean the difference between her life and her death.
The thirty-meter-long pool separated him from Jess and Steve. He could run around it, or dive in and swim its length, but in the long seconds it would take to reach them, Steve might be able to tighten his grip and finish what he’d started.
He had to keep the man calm and wait for a better opportunity.
“You’re sure she’s alive?” he called, the words hard to push out. Even as he asked the question, he saw her move, lifting a weak arm. He exhaled slowly. “It’s okay, Jess. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“That depends on what you do, Reece.”
“Baker, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
Steve was shaking, crying, his face red, his thick neck corded with straining muscles. He looked like a bull about to gore. “I know what you did. Admit what you did to my father.”
The whole story changed in an instant, an unscripted moment striking the set like a lightning bolt.
A slow-motion shot.
Camera right.
Zoom in on the face.
Tight close-up to catch the director’s expression as fear turns to remorse. Guilt.
And, cut!
“Steve,” he called. He extended a supplicating hand and began to walk around the pool. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Stop right there!”
The arm tightened. Jessica whimpered. Reece froze.
The other man’s eyes were wild; so was his voice. “You pick up the phone and call the cops to confess to what you did.” He backed up, crossing the far end of the pool deck, closing the distance to the open space behind it.
“You don’t understand,” Reece said.
Steve took two more steps back. “How would you feel about losing someone you love?”
I already have. More than once.
He didn’t say the words, not wanting to inflame the man further. Not when Steve had Jessica in his grasp. Not when he was backing slowly toward a sharp, rocky cliff, a mere fifty paces from the pool.
The jagged cliffs plunging to the valley below were stark, dramatic, and beautiful.
They were also deadly.
“She’s got nothing to do with this. Please, let her go.”
A step.
He threw a hand up, palm out. “I’ll make the call. Just stay right there.”
The crazed man kept going, dragging Jess through a rock-filled garden. Her heels scraped stone, but she put up no resistance. If she were fully conscious and coherent, he knew she would be struggling. But she was weak, probably finding it hard to breathe. He suspected powerful hands had been around her neck, choking her right before he arrived. Jesus. Once again, she was being robbed of oxygen because she’d been in the path of someone wanting to get at him.
“Steve, let’s talk about this.” He started walking again, slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. He had rounded the end of the pool and was moving up the long side, getting to within about twenty feet of them. Steve was perhaps another twenty-five feet from the edge of the sheer, rocky cliff. “I’ll confess to everything. Just let her go. She’s innocent, and she needs help.”
The other man laughed, sounding almost happy. “You love her. You really do. The famous Reece Winchester, Mr. Cool, Mr. Aloof, has fallen in love at last.”
“You’re not thinking straight. You don’t want to do this.”
He took another cautious step. Steve seemed beyond noticing for the moment.
“Of course I do. My life is ruined. Why shouldn’t yours be?” He laughed again, the laughter shifting into a crazed wounded animal sound.
Cursing the fact that he’d dropped his cell phone on the counter as he’d walked through the kitchen, Reece begged the man. “Bring her back. Please. I’ll call the police right this minute and you can watch them take me into custody.”
Another step for both of them. Knowing he wasn’t getting through, he went over his options. He couldn’t risk going for the phone to prove he meant what he said. Honestly, he wasn’t sure a confession would stop the man. Now that Steve had realized how terrified Reece was for Jess, he might have only murderous revenge on his mind.
Reece moved again—slow motion, drag the shot, zoom in on the upper body, don’t show the feet. The actor draws closer, the audience barely noticing.
He was playing a deadly game of chicken with the man, but he had no other choice.
Steve didn’t take his eyes off Reece’s face, too lost to anger and grief to notice he was getting closer. Not close enough to charge him, but almost. If they got to within ten feet of the edge, Reece would make a break for it. Now, it seemed wiser to continue to try to reason with him.
“Do you know why, Steve? Why your father died?”
“Because you and your brothers murdered him.”
Jessica stiffened in Steve’s arms. She was aware and listening. He hoped she was waiting for her chance to escape, and not so shocked by the ugly truths she was hearing that she hesitated.
“It wasn’t murder, it was an accident. Raine was just a teenager. They fought.”
“I know. I talked to the girl.”
Reece sucked in a surprised breath. The girl…the missing girl?
“You didn’t expect that, did you? She came to see me a couple of months ago, when I first got back. I gave her money, and she told me everything.”
Not everything. They’d looked for her over the years, trying to find out what had gone on that night in Harry Baker’s house. Raine’s recollection was hazy. He’d been drunk, and a little insane, as all his repressed memories from childhood exploded into his brain like a bullet. All because of the nameless girl, who he hadn’t even known was in the house until he heard her scream.
“If you found her, you know what really happened. You know why Raine snapped. Your father was raping her, Steve. He was raping a girl who looked no more than thirteen.”
“That’s a lie,” he shouted.
“You know it’s true.” Another step. “I’ve heard the rumors about what was found on Harry’s computer after he died…rumors you paid to keep quiet.”
Steve’s head swung back and forth violently, whether in denial, or in an effort to shake the memories out, Reece didn’t know. He only knew the man was listening. More importantly, he’d stopped backing up.
“Your dad…” Good old Uncle Harry, they’d called him throughout the years when he’d been their agent. Family friend. Jolly business partner. High-functioning alcoholic. Life of the party. Fucking sick rapist. “He invited Raine over that night so they could say goodbye before my brother left for boot camp. He gave him alcohol.”
Raine had been well under the legal age in California. That alone showed the kind of man “Uncle” Harry had been.
“They had a few drinks, and Raine was too drunk to drive home. He decided to crash at the house.”
The youngest Winchester kid, cereal commercial star, had been seventeen years old, turning eighteen and leaving for the military the very next day. Before he got on the plane, he took a detour to hell.
“He woke up in the middle of the night hearing a girl crying for help and went out to investigate. He saw your father holding her down.”
He didn’t add that the moment had made all the horrific, repressed memories his kid brother had kept hidden from everyone—even himself—rupture inside his brain.
“He snapped, Steve. He went a little crazy, and the two of them fought. What happened was a fight. Raine wasn’t trying to kill Harry.”
Steve had been quietly listening, not appearing convinced, but at least paying attention. Now, though, his banked fury roared into flame again. “Liar—you liar! After the girl hid outside, she saw my father on the porch, screaming at Raine as he ran away. He was fine. And then she saw you and your other brother come back a little while later. After you left, my father was dead on the floor with a bullet in his head. You and Rowan did it. Don’t try to pass this off on Raine. It was you.”
Barely listening to the man’s slurred raving, Reece shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong. Jesus, Steve, you don’t understand what happened. You don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get? Cold-blooded murder?”
Reece swept both hands through his hair, feeling weary and heartsick. He took a step forward, but Steve warned him with a glare not to do it again. Still, they were closer than they’d been since the standoff had started. Close enough for Reece to lower his voice. He wanted Steve to have to really pay attention to what he was going to say next. He needed him to hear.
“Didn’t you ever wonder?”
“Wonder what, why you killed my father?”
“About Rachel. Didn’t you wonder why she changed so much?”
Steve’s suddenly grieved expression told him what he needed to know. He still had feelings for Reece’s sister. They were the key to getting through to him.
“You must have asked yourself why she went from a cheerful, happy girl into someone so moody and depressed. Why she wanted to quit acting, why she stopped wearing makeup and pretty clothes. Why she broke up with you, why she started taking pills and doing coke.”
“Her new friends…”
“There were no new friends. I was there. I saw her at home every night, saying nothing, turning into a pale shadow, afraid to leave the house. Don’t you think if she really was with a new crowd, pictures would have shown up in a tabloid, especially after she died?”
Steve looked as if someone had punched him in the gut. He groaned and leaned forward a little, though he didn’t drop his hostage.
Reece suddenly realized Jess was watching him closely. Her eyes looked clearer, more focused. She stared into his, letting him know she was feeling better, able to help in her own rescue. But he didn’t want to risk rushing them, not when they were so close to the cliff, and Steve was so strong. He much preferred to convince the man to let her go of his own free will, and believed he might be getting somewhere.
“Why are you telling me all this?” Steve mumbled. “She’s been dead for eighteen years.”
“Because you need to know the truth.” He put into words something he’d never said out loud to anyone other than his two brothers. “She had all the classic signs of molestation.”
Steve’s turned apoplectic. “I never touched her! We never…”
“I know.” He moved in—within ten feet now. “I know you didn’t. She told me she wanted to wait until you two got married. You really were the sweetest teenagers in Hollywood.”
They had been. Remembering the way his only sister had laughed at being called a prissy virgin, how she’d been proud of it, he wanted to scream at the injustice. She’d been too good for the world they’d grown up in. Much too good. And it had killed her.
Steve was heaving in deep breaths. His grip on Jessica might have loosened a bit, and his attention had definitely refocused. “You really think someone hurt her?”
“I know it. It started when she was fifteen and continued until the night she died.”
Looking stunned, Steve stumbled backward, causing Reece’s heart to lurch. But he quickly steadied himself, and Jess, barking, “Who? Who was it?”
Was it really so hard for him to understand? Couldn’t he connect the dots?
Maybe not. Jess hadn’t wanted to believe her teacher intended to steal her work. So a man refusing to accept his own father had raped his teenage girlfriend probably made sense.
Reece knew better than to just say it; he had to take Steve back in time. Right to the night when Reece’s entire life had changed direction, setting him on a completely new course. “The night Rachel died…”
Steve flinched.
“You know she was in a hotel suite in Atlanta, babysitting Raine.”
“She called me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I was still mad at her for breaking up with me and I didn’t answer.”
Reece knew that. It was part of the legend, one of the reasons the fans had blamed him.
“She and Raine were watching a rerun of Dear Family—the episode she guest starred in.”
“Season four, episode seven. That’s when we met.” His voice cracked. “She played the new girl in school who I was crazy about.”
“I know. I think that’s why she called.”
“Oh, God…if I’d answered…”
“Don’t do that to yourself. I really don’t think it would have changed anything. Not once he showed up.”
Steve stepped toward him, bringing Jess along. She stumbled, but he kept her against his chest. “Who? Who showed up?”
Reece moved in. Eight steps. “Raine was sick. He had caught a cold when they were on set. Rachel gave him cough medicine and put him to bed.”
“Get on with it.” Steve looked like a man possessed.
“You have to understand how I know what happened. Raine woke up later, wanting a glass of water. He heard Rachel crying out, saying the word stop over and over.”
“Oh, God.” Steve lifted a shoulder and bent his face to it, trying to wipe away tears.
“He went into the living room of the suite and saw her. Her clothes were torn, and she was being held down by a man. A man Raine recognized. A man he called Uncle.”
Steve gasped, at last understanding. “No. Don’t you dare say that.”
“It was your father. Good old Uncle Harry. Life of every party.”
“You’re lying.” Steve puffed up again, all anger, vengeance, and disbelief. “That’s not true. My father was a great man.”
“Don’t you fucking dare defend him to me,” Reece roared, his own fury rolling over him. Eighteen years’ worth of it. “That man destroyed my family.”
“It couldn’t have been him. He wouldn’t…”
“Raine saw him raping her. He was six years old. He didn’t understand what he was seeing then, but he remembers now and understands everything.”
Jessica tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes shining. She was probably seeing the scene as he did whenever his worst dreams taunted him, and it had brought her to tears. Not unexpectedly, she was focused on his drama, not on her own dangerous situation.
“When Rachel realized he was up, she hissed at Raine to go back to bed.”
The brothers had wondered, over the years, what would have happened if Harry had been less focused on assault and more on her words. If he’d known Raine had seen him, might two of the Winchester siblings have gone over the railing that night?
“Go on, don’t stop now,” Steve snapped.
“Raine hid but watched from a dark hallway. She pushed Harry off her and ran to the balcony. Your father followed her, trying to get her to stop screaming. Only one of them came back in alive. You tell me why.”
They stared at each other, both of them breathing heavily, both strained, tense, full of pain and anger. Both of them had loved the same lost girl. Both of them had once considered Harry Baker a good guy. Both of them had seen their lives, dreams, and families torn apart.
Both of them now knew the truth.
Steve’s face crumpled. “Do you really think he…he killed her?”
Reece had wondered that same thing for years. “I don’t know.”
No one ever would.
Maybe his sister had turned the wrong way while trying to escape and fell by accident. Maybe she’d intentionally jumped, unable to stand another minute of what was happening to her. Or maybe the man who’d been attacking her pushed her over so he could keep her quiet.
Raine hadn’t witnessed their sister’s final seconds. A terrified, sick little boy, he had crawled back into his bed, certain he’d been dreaming. Even when he found out Rachel was gone, he didn’t let himself remember, blocking the whole thing out of his mind for years.
Rachel’s death would always remain an unknowable secret, a Hollywood mystery that would never be solved.
“Finish it, Reece. Please,” said Steve.
Yes. Time to finish.
“Raine was traumatized. For his own sanity, his subconscious made him forget,” he said, feeling completely exhausted and beaten down. “Six years ago, when he saw your father attacking that girl, he said it was like somebody had taken a big needle and injected all the memories back into his head. He lost it. He just went mad with grief and rage.”
Steve slowly nodded. “Raine attacked him. The girl ran. They fought. That’s why the house was all torn up but nothing was stolen.”
“Yes.”
Reece had come to the last moments of the story, the final confession. He had to admit to the part he had played on that awful night, when he at last learned the truth about his sister and had gone to confront the man responsible. Now was when Jessica would find out who he really was. He wondered if she would even be able to look at him again.
“Raine called me after he left the house. He was still half-drunk, beaten up, bloody, and wandering the streets. We went and found him and took him back to my place. He was just coherent enough to tell us everything, including his memories from the night Rachel…died.”
“Rachel, oh God,” Steve moaned, his mind clearly still on her more than everything else.
Reece plowed on, back in control of his emotions, wanting the telling over with. “Rowan and I went to Harry’s house. I don’t know what we were planning to do. Maybe kill him. Maybe continue to beat the shit out of him. Maybe call the cops. But it was too late. Whatever happened during the fight, Harry had been badly hurt. We found him dead on the living room floor.”
Steve was still whispering Rachel’s name, barely paying attention. He’d loosened his grip on Jess, almost enough for her to slip free. She hadn’t done it, though. Instead, she was watching Reece, more interested in the ugly story than in dashing to safety. She appeared not only sad, but also a little puzzled, confused by something he had said.
“For what it’s worth, I would have called 911 if he were still alive. He wasn’t. You have to know, though, that Raine did not murder him. It was a fair fight. My brother was young and strong, but your dad was a big guy. It could have gone either way.”
Steve whispered something. Then he repeated it. “Yes, he was. Very big. So big.”
At that moment, Reece wasn’t entirely sure what Steve was thinking. About his father fighting with Raine…or attacking Rachel.
“She was so tiny, so vulnerable.”
Rachel. The man was tormenting himself with visions of what his father had done. Reece knew from experience that he would do that for a long time to come. Reece and his brothers certainly had.
“What did you do after you found him?” asked Jess, more interested in old history than in her current situation.
“Well, we weren’t about to let our kid brother get locked up for killing the man who destroyed our sister—and our entire family.”
Silence. And then she softly gasped. “You cleaned it up.” She shook her head, deep in thought. “Just like your mother’s car.”
Nodding, he set up the final scene and ran down the verbal storyboard quickly, moment by moment. “We made the bed in the guest room. Washed every dish. Wiped down every counter and every piece of furniture he might have touched. We deleted the call records on the house phone and took the cell with us. We removed every trace of Raine’s presence—and ours—from the house. We even raked the gravel driveway so there was no evidence of my car being there. Then we left and never looked back.”
Steve had finally started paying close attention again. He didn’t say a word, but he did drop his arms, easily and without fanfare. After all that had happened, Jessica merely walked away from the man.
Reece started breathing normally again.
She didn’t come to him, didn’t fly into his arms. She had to know this wasn’t over, so she went to the side, the three of them forming an odd, emotional triangle.
“I’d like to say I’m sorry, Steve. It isn’t entirely a lie. I am sorry your life was ruined.”
The other man, so still, so silent, just continued to stare.
“Reece,” Jessica murmured.
Not wanting her to draw Steve’s attention again, he didn’t respond. “If it helps, Rowan and I never got over that night. Raine left town not even knowing Harry was dead, or that we’d covered it up. Soon after that, I quit acting. Rowan dropped out of law school and joined the LAPD. I think we were both doing penance, giving up something we had once wanted more than anything.”
Small comfort, not much punishment, but it was all he had to offer.
The moment stretched on. He saw a dullness in Baker’s eyes, as if he had accepted everything he’d been told but still couldn’t wrap his brain around it. Well, that wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t every day you learned your father had been a monster and had died because he was trying to hurt another young girl.
“Reece, listen,” she said.
“I’ll confess,” Reece said, meaning it. “I’ll take the blame for everything. But please, leave my brothers out of it.”
“Reece, please!”
He finally looked at her, seeing what looked like shock on her face. “Did you hear what he said before?”
“What?”
“The girl. That night. She saw Harry on the porch—just fine—yelling threats after Raine as he took off into the night.”
Steve didn’t react. In fact, he looked like he was in a daze, hearing only the echoes of long-dead voices in his head. But Jess’s intensity caught Reece’s attention. He tried to remember exactly what the other man had said.
“Everybody knows Harry Baker was shot in the head,” she snapped. “Jesus, somebody leaked the crime scene pictures on the internet.”
He swallowed hard. He hadn’t needed to see the pictures. He’d seen the gruesome reality.
“Where did the gun come from? And if Raine shot him in the head, how the hell could Baker have gone out onto the porch and yelled at your brother as he ran away?”
“We didn’t know he’d gone outside until today,” he murmured as the dots tried to connect in his mind, a new picture trying to form where the old one had scarred his memories. “Raine remembered a gun. Harry pulled it on him. We thought they’d struggled over it and Harry had been shot in that struggle.”
“Now you know that didn’t happen. A man with a bullet in his head would not have been capable of walking, of going outside, of yelling threats. Come on, Reece. Think about it,” she urged. “They fought. Raine staggered down the lawn. Harry was fine, up and yelling threats after him. And when you came back later…”
“He was dead. Shot in the head.” Reece took a step back as the ground beneath his feet seemed to spin, his head along with it. Could this be true? God, had all of them been completely wrong about what had happened that night six years ago?
If Harry had been well enough to walk outside when Raine left, but so gruesomely shot dead when Reece and Rowan came back later, that meant something had happened in between. Something none of them had ever even suspected.
Someone else must have been there. That someone must have killed Harry Baker.
The implication made him stagger back two steps.
Jesus Christ. He and Rowan had cleaned up the scene to protect Raine. And in doing so, they’d helped a murderer escape justice.
“Steve, you have to give me the name,” he urged. “Please, tell me how to find her.”
Steve still looked almost catatonic, physically there, but his mind far, far away. Maybe he was envisioning an alternate timeline, where none of this had happened, and the teenage Tiger Beat supercouple had married and lived happily ever after, starring in their own TV show, bouncing babies on their knees. No drugs. No rape. No suicide…or murder.
It was a nice fantasy. God, how he wish they had gotten to live it.
“Please, Steve, help me. Rowan and I fucked this up, and we have to try to make it right.”
The man finally reacted, sounding almost uninterested. “Maybe it was the father of one of the girls he raped.”
Maybe. That didn’t, however, stop the mental voice screaming, You helped a murderer go free.
“Suppose it was. Don’t you think the truth needs to come out at last?”
Even if it meant Reece went to prison for accessory after the fact.
Steve shrugged. It was as if he’d already moved on from all of this and didn’t really care about anything else. “The girl found me. She’s a prostitute. I gave her cash. Don’t even know her last name.”
“What was her first one?”
His face twisted in concentration, and finally he said, “Marley. That was it. Marley.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
His brow scrunched. “She was pale, had blond hair, and a long scar down her right cheek. I wonder if my father put it there.”
Reece closed his eyes for a second, trying to focus. “Is that all?”
After a long moment, Steve nodded. “That’s all.”
Reece’s hands fisted. It was a start, but he needed more to go on than a scarred, blond prostitute named Marley. So did his brothers. Damn it, now that he knew there might be another explanation for Harry’s death, he had to know the truth. More: he had to make it right.
For six years, he and Rowan had believed their kid brother had killed a man, and that they’d helped cover it up. But they’d never actually asked him. Raine had been out of it, drunk, rambling, and confused that night. The next morning he’d left. He hadn’t come back to California for several years. And the three of them, trapped in secrets of their own making, had never mentioned Harry Baker’s name again.
If they had…might they have learned long ago that they’d all made some very wrong assumptions?
“Just don’t know anything else,” Steve mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Steve, never mind,” said Jessica, her voice once again sounding husky, like it had last week. “You know the truth about what happened. You understand, and maybe you can even forgive. Can’t we all let the secrets lie in the past and not drag everyone involved—dead and alive—through the mud?”
Reece frowned, staring at the dried blood on the side of her face. He might feel sympathy for the guy, but there was no way he would forgive and forget that he’d tried to kill Jessica.
She saw his reaction and quickly shook her head. “No, it wasn’t him! I fell, I swear it. I slipped and hit my head on the concrete. Steve saved my life by pulling me out of the pool. If he hadn’t, I would have drowned.”
Although Steve didn’t even respond, looking almost catatonic, Jessica’s eyes convinced Reece she was telling the truth, not just trying to cover for the other man. Reece let out a slow breath, still angry she had been threatened and dragged out here, but a little more certain Baker wouldn’t actually have hurt her.
Finally, Steve cleared his throat and lifted his head. His eyes had gained some clarity, though there were still tears on his cheeks. But his voice was steady as he said, “No police. I don’t want anyone to find out the truth.”
He supposed it was natural not to want the world to know your father had been a monster.
“I don’t want anybody to ever know what happened to her.”
Rachel. Reece felt moisture prick his own eyes as understanding washed over him.
His sister’s teenage sweetheart wanted to protect Rachel’s legacy, not her attacker’s. Steve wanted the world to remember her as a pretty, talented girl who’d made a serious mistake. Not a victim of her own boyfriend’s father.
“All right,” Reece said. “Thank you.” He wasn’t sure if he was thanking the man on behalf of his brothers, or his sister, or his father, or himself. Probably all of the above.
Steve shrugged, the same boyish, self-deprecating motion he used to make on Dear Family, when he’d been a goofy, wisecracking teenager who’d asked in every episode if he was adopted, and who had gone gaga over the cute new girl in school in season four, episode seven.
“Reece?”
“Yeah?”
“I loved her, you know. I never stopped.”
A lump thickened in his throat. “I know, man.”
Steve had one more thing to say. “I’m sorry I burned down your house.”
Reece thought he’d misheard. He opened his mouth to ask Steve to repeat himself, but before he could say a word, he realized the other man was gone. He had disappeared in one blink of an eye.
Oh, God, Steve, no.
He knew where he had gone, what he had done. Having found out the truth about what had happened so many years ago, Steve Baker had left the scene for good.
Cut. That’s a wrap.
“No!” Jessica cried, running to where he had been standing just seconds ago. She leaned over to look down, and Reece grabbed her around the waist to keep her from slipping on loose rocks and plunging a few hundred feet straight down.
Whatever she saw made her spin around and bury her face in his shirt. She cried and cried, probably for Steve, but, he suspected, also for Rachel.
They were who Reece cried for, too.
* * *
Aaaand…she was back in the hospital.
Jessica hadn’t wanted to be taken to the emergency room by ambulance, but she knew she had to go. She’d been knocked unconscious and had nearly drowned. A lump the size of a duck egg was growing out of the side of her temple. She probably had a concussion. And Reece couldn’t drive her in.
He was too busy explaining to the police why Steve Baker was lying dead far below them, unable to be reached until specialists came with rappelling equipment.
It was awful, so awful. She had hated being taken away, leaving him there to deal with everything, and was very glad when Rowan showed up. The brothers always stuck together, the twins especially. Rowan was a cop. He knew the entire history. He would help Reece through it.
“Don’t you have a life?”
Jess managed a weak smile as Alice, the brassy nurse she’d liked when she was here last week, walked into her room to check on her. When the ER doctor found out she’d just been released after another incident last week, he had insisted on admitting her for observation. She was now lying in a room not far from the one she’d vacated on Thursday, being observed.
It was like the world’s worst case of déjà vu.
“I guess I’m just accident prone.”
The nurse turned her head to check the bulky bandage on her temple, and whistled. “Nobody did that with a bottle of bleach. I heard you almost drowned, too. You’re just determined to fill your lungs with the wrong element—liquid instead of air!”
“Believe me, it’s not intentional.”
Alice nodded as she changed the bandage, whistling again when she saw the actual wound. “That’s not a lump, it’s a bowling ball.”
“That could be why I have a headache the size of Wisconsin.”
Worse, though, was the heartache. The look on Reece’s face as he revealed what had to be the deepest, darkest secrets of his life, all to save hers, wouldn’t leave her mind. Her heart had broken, bit by bit, as he’d bared himself, and his family, opening himself up to prosecution, scandal, and condemnation. For her, just to get her out of harm’s way.
She’d known there were things in his past Reece had not told her about. She’d even known they probably had something to do with his sister. The rest had shocked her completely.
Alice checked her temperature, her pulse, and her blood pressure, working quickly and efficiently. When she finished, she glanced at the door. “So where’s Mr. Hot Stuff? Why isn’t he here with you?” She smoothed her hair. “Is he coming soon?”
Knowing that if she was going to be a part of Reece’s life, she would have to get used to women always being interested in him, she shrugged. “He had some things to deal with. I’m sure he’ll be here later.”
“Great. I’ll change into my blue scrubs. They flatter my eyes.”
Winking, the woman exited, leaving Jess to go back to fretting and watching the door.
“Oh, baby, oh sweet, sad man,” she whispered, desperate for news. She hadn’t heard a word from him, and the paramedics hadn’t let her bring her cell phone in the ambulance. So she had no idea what was going on up at the house.
There was only one thing she knew: Reece was going to have a hard time facing her.
It hadn’t been difficult to see and understand the shame he felt about the secrets he’d been keeping. He had looked at her as if he thought she would judge him or be repulsed by what he’d done in his past. As if she could ever look at the man she adored and hate him for doing whatever it took to protect his loved ones.
She’d been shocked, yes. More than anything else, though, she had wanted to cry for him and his brothers, who had endured so much. And for Rachel. Poor lost Rachel.
The door opened. She sighed, wondering if Alice was back to ask about Reece’s favorite color so she could find the right earrings.
“Can I come in?”
She swung her head around—oh, God, that hurts—and lurched up in the bed. “Reece, oh my God, are you all right?”
He entered slowly, his steps almost tentative, a word she would never have used to describe him. “I’m fine. How are you? They admitted you?”
She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “They’re overreacting. I’m fine. I think I’ll check out against medical advice; this bed is so uncomfortable.”
“Like hell you will.” He strode over, his movements much more Reece-like, because she’d gotten him worked up. “You’re staying here until the doctors say you are one hundred percent okay to leave.”
“Oh, all right.” She scooted over on the bed and patted the spot beside her. Reece looked down at it and frowned, but did not sit.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, suddenly afraid. “They’re not going to arrest you, are they? They believe Steve committed suicide, right?” She pushed the covers off her legs, struggling to get out of the bed. “I’ll tell them everything; they can’t blame you.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back. “Would you stay still?” Tugging the covers up and tucking them around her, he added, “Everything is fine.”
“The police…”
“You know the house has exterior security cameras. It was all right there on tape.”
“Oh,” she whispered. She thought of those last painful moments. “I hope they won’t release the video of him taking me out there. Poor Steve…he doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a monster.” That was his late father’s department.
Reece crossed his arms and leaned against the high back of an uncomfortable-looking wooden visitor’s chair, remaining a few feet away. “They won’t. Rowan has a lot of friends in the department. He’ll call in every favor he can get to make sure the details are kept quiet.”
“Good,” she said, wondering what he wasn’t saying. She knew there was more.
If that were all, if everything were really fine, he would be on the bed beside her, taking her in his arms, telling her how glad he was that she was okay, and that he never wanted anything bad to happen to her ever again. Or something along those lines. So why wasn’t he?
“Talk to me,” she demanded.
A beat. Then, “Jesus, Jess, I thought you were dead when I saw him kneeling over you.” He dropped his head forward, covering his eyes with one hand. “I thought he’d killed you, and I wanted to die myself.”
Her heart clenching, she murmured, “It was just a fall, sweetheart. Just me being clumsy and falling. I’m so sorry I scared you.”
He lifted his head and looked at her face, his mouth tightening as his gaze rested on her bandaged temple, but softening when he finally stared directly into her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate this time.
“I love you.”
She sucked in a shocked, pleased little breath, a warm, happy thrill coursing through her. He’d said the words as simply and easily as if saying hello. Like it was natural, something he could say every day for the rest of his life. That would be just fine with her.
“I love you, too.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t come over and take her in his arms. He stayed five feet away from the bed, his expression strained, his body tense.
“I can’t believe you almost died because of me.”
“I told you it was an accident.”
“I don’t mean just the pool. You were shot at. You were attacked with chemicals. You were dragged to a cliff…”
“Don’t overreact. He wouldn’t have thrown me off,” she said, waving an airy hand.
“Damn it, Jess, it’s not funny.”
“I know,” she murmured, chastened. “But I’m fine. I’m here, telling you I love you. Nothing really bad happened.”
“Nothing bad?” He straightened, shoving the chair back, and stalked across the room, pacing like a caged animal. “Nothing bad?”
She didn’t say anything. She could almost feel his anger, a living presence in the room. But she already knew it wasn’t directed at her. He was furious at himself.
“Nothing but bad things have happened to you since you met me. You’ve gone through hell for someone who isn’t worth a hair on your head.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished. “Don’t say these things.”
“I have to.” He stopped pacing and looked down at her.
She saw the way he squared his shoulders, and his spine was as stiff as a board. Reece was steeling himself up for something. She had a dark suspicion about what it was.
“Everything you heard—everything I said out on that cliff—was entirely true.”
“I know.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “My life has been one nightmare after another. I’ve done awful things. Illegal, unforgivable things. I’ve lied about them. I’ve covered them up.”
Swallowing, he came closer. His hand lifted slowly, reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to touch her but could not help himself. He eased his fingers into her hair and slid them down a long strand. She suspected he thought he was touching it for the last time. But oh, did he have another thing coming.
“I’m not a good man, Jessica. You deserve to be with a good man.”
She grabbed his hand before he could remove his fingers from her hair. Her grip tight, she refused to let him budge. “Don’t you ever say that to me again,” she snapped, hearing her own anger. “You might not be the textbook definition of good, Reece Winchester, but you are so much more.”
He eyed her cautiously, probably wondering if she was finished.
She wasn’t.
“Okay, you say you can’t call yourself good. So what? Who cares about good? Call yourself noble instead. How about loyal. Strong. What about decent—where does decency rate when it comes to a person’s character?”
“Jess…”
“Frankly, given the choice between ‘goodness’ and any of those other things, I say goodness can take a flying leap.”
“Don’t make me into something I’m not.”
Jess knew where this was coming from. She knew shame when she heard it.
Reece was haunted not only by what had happened to people he loved, but also by the things he’d done in response. His guilt had made him give up something he had really cared about—his acting career. His early retirement made so much sense now that she knew it had been about punishing himself.
Now he was trying to give up something else. But she wasn’t a job. She would fight to hold on to what they had.
“You are decent, Reece. You are noble. You did things other people would never have the strength or courage to do. Maybe they weren’t always the right things, but you did them because you need to protect the people you love. You don’t need my approval, you don’t need my forgiveness, but I’m telling you, I loved you before I heard what you said out there. And I love you even more now.”
He finally looked at her, studying her face, his golden eyes darkening to the amber shade she loved so much. His expression was filled with emotion—want, regret, tenderness. Maybe a little bit of hope.
And then, just when she thought she had gotten through, she saw self-recrimination.
“You get hurt around me,” he said. “People have hurt you, and that’s my fault.”
Still holding his hand tightly, she shoved the bedding away, rising to her knees.
“Do you think I’m weak?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then stop acting like I am.” A jaded laugh escaped her lips. “My life hasn’t much resembled a TV family sitcom either, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m not going to play a game of ‘let’s compare childhood trauma’ with you, but you do realize you don’t have a monopoly on shitty memories, right?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
She finally released his hand, only to slide her own up his arm. Lifting the other, she cupped his face, holding him still, and making him look at her. Making him listen.
“Bad things can happen. People can be hateful. Parents can die. Buildings can burn. Ex-boyfriends can terrorize. Madwomen can throw bleach.”
She brushed her thumbs over his mouth and stroked his jaw, feeling the five o’clock shadow that emphasized his face, a face she now saw as so much more than just handsome. It was simply a cover, the surface of a man so deep, so wounded, but always able to rise.
God, she was crazy about that man. Head over heels for him. She never wanted to let him go.
“Nobody can ever predict when life will throw something awful at you—be it a disease or the death of someone you love. So all you can do is live it and trust that the happiness you find each and every day is worth the risk.”
For an agonizingly long moment, he remained silent, looking at her, searching her eyes to make sure she meant what she said.
Silly man. Of course she did.
He was on the verge, but there was one more thing to say, and it didn’t come as a surprise.
“I have to find out the truth.”
“About Steve’s father?”
He nodded.
“Of course you do.”
“It might get ugly. I might be in legal trouble.”
She didn’t make light of it or toss off a joke. She had watched enough episodes of Law & Order to know he was probably right. He and his twin brother had broken the law. Perhaps it had been for reasons they had been able to justify to themselves, but the court rarely saw it that way. She didn’t even want to think of the headlines, the speculation about his sister, and Harry Baker, and all the awful things that had happened to the Winchesters. She already ached for him, and for his family, knowing the pain they faced.
But he wouldn’t be facing it alone.
“I’m there, Reece. Whatever happens, I am there.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. You’re keeping me. And I’m keeping you. Even if I have to bake a file in a cake and go on the run with you, I am keeping you.”
“So you’d break me out of jail?”
“Or I’ll break in. As long as we’re together, I won’t be too picky.”
Finally she saw it. It came slowly, but grew, that crooked, only-real-for-her smile.
She smiled back.
He leaned down, and she leaned up, and their mouths met in a kiss as soft and lovely as the brush of a cool breeze on a warm afternoon.
“Every day of my life,” he murmured. “Every day I have you, I swear I will make you happy, Jess.”
She drew him down to the bed, wanting to curl up beside him and hold him close until she could get out of this place and go home with him. Home…wherever that was.
“No, Reece. We will make each other happy.”
For as long as life let them.