Jagged Hearts (14 page)

The phone slipped unanswered from her fingers to land with a thud on the carpet as she lunged for him.

“You killed them!” she screamed and charged him, catching him off-guard.

It was as if he’d expected her to docilely go along with whatever he wanted. Rage consumed her, negating the gun as images of Lance filled her head. Their child, the one she’d lost to this man’s blade. The one’s she’d never have because of the damage he’d left behind. She wanted him dead. Better yet, she wanted him bleeding out on the ground, suffering.

He struck back, gun clipping her on the side of the skull as he swung his arm. She fell back, catching herself against a table and shaking her head to clear the ringing. She had every intention of attacking him again, and he must have known it. His next words stopped her cold.

“Restrain yourself if you ever want to see your mother again,” he told her coldly.

“What have you done with her?”

“She’s alive,” he said. “For now. Whether she remains that way is entirely up to you.”

“What do you want?”

“To finish what I started,” he declared. “Move.”

Her phone began ringing again, but it was left behind as he forced her through the house and into an attached garage. He popped the trunk of the car.

“Get in.”

She balked but really had no choice. Her mother might not be her favorite person, but Paisley wouldn’t be the reason Vivian died. Taking a deep breath, Paisley climbed in.

“Turn around. Hands behind your back.”

She bit her lip as he wrapped her wrists together with duct tape and wasn’t surprised when he did the same to her ankles. The next thing she knew, he clamped a rag over her face. She knew what it was by the smell but was unable to turn her face before inhaling. Her last thought was of Bare, and the hope he’d somehow manage to find her before her attacker killed her.

* * * *

Bare walked out of the meeting and headed back down to the security checkpoint to pick up his personal items. He hated meeting with government officials, usually leaving them to Jamison or Tuck, but this time, it had fallen to him.

Knight’s Watch was being requested for a recovery. It didn’t look pretty, and from what had been disclosed, Bare had the distinct feeling they’d bring back nothing more than a corpse to bury. That was only if they were lucky enough to find her. The complete file would be dropped off at Knight’s later today, and Bare would go over it with Jamison before officially accepting the case.

He grabbed his stuff from the guard station and powered his phone back on as he exited the building. He’d run a bit later than he’d expected. He’d call Paisley and see if she wanted to grab lunch before heading back to Knight’s with him. His pulse kicked up when he saw he had two missed calls from her. He immediately pulled up voicemail.

Hey, Bare. I know you told me to stay put, but my mother was involved in a car wreck. I’m headed over to the house she rented to check on her now. Give me a call when you get this. I miss you.

Bare gritted his teeth and called. It went to voicemail. He hung up and called again. He kept calling, and every time, it went to voicemail. Something was off. No one else had left a message for him about Vivian being in a car wreck, and he had no doubt they would have. He wished Paisley had said how she knew her mother was in a wreck. Who had contacted her?

He called Levi as he jumped into his truck.

Levi answered immediately, and the tone of his voice made Bare even more anxious.

“Bare, I’ve been waiting for your phone to turn back on. I was just getting ready to call you.”

“What’s going on?”

“Jamison caught a piece on one of the local stations saying Vivian was in a car wreck. He had me check into it, but I can’t find a police report or even any evidence the accident happened. The local station said it was an anonymous tip.”

“Paisley called while I was in the meeting,” Bare said. “Left me a message saying she was going to check on Vivian. This sounds like a setup.”

“Yeah,” Levi agreed. “Seth went to check on her when Jamison saw he had a missed call from her. He’d put his phone on silent while the doctor was there checking on Tuck.”

“Where’s Seth now?”

“I don’t… Wait, that’s him calling in now. Just a sec.”

Bare heard a click then Seth’s voice filled the line.

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but my senses are going crazy,” Seth said.

“Where are you?” Bare demanded.

“In my car. I arrived at your house just in time to see Paisley get into a cab. I followed her, hanging back. She went to the house her mom stayed in while she was here. Man answered the door, and the two exchanged words. He waved the taxi on and they went inside. I haven’t seen anything since. Wait a sec.”

“What is it?” Bare demanded when Seth didn’t continue right away.

“There’s a car leaving. The man’s driving. Paisley isn’t with him. This feels wrong, Bare.”

“Fuck!” Bare exploded, feeling helpless and not liking it one bit.

“What do you want me to do?” Seth asked. “Follow the car or check the house?”

Bare gritted his teeth. “Follow the car,” he ordered.

“Jagger and Sterling are already headed to the house,” Levi said. “They’re only about five minutes out.”

“Keep the line open, Seth,” Bare said. “Keep Levi up on exactly where you’re headed. Levi, patch it through to me. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t lose that car, Seth.”

“I won’t,” he replied.

“If she’s in that car…” Bare couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I’ll protect her with my life,” Seth said.

“Thank you,” Bare said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Levi.”

“Already on it,” Levi said. “Everyone I can pull, I will. We’ll find Paisley.”

Bare just prayed they’d find her before it was too late.

Chapter Thirteen

Paisley woke with a pounding headache, most likely from the chloroform her assailant had used on her. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but she was no longer in the trunk. She was lying on a couch. She blinked her eyes, doing her best not to moan at the burns on her wrists where the tape had been ripped off. At least, her jeans had protected her ankles.

She tried to look around without moving her head, but there was little to see from where she was. She needed to find her mother and figure out how to get in touch with Bare.

“I know you’re awake, Paisley.”

Her mother’s voice had her jerking her head to look over her right shoulder toward the foot of the couch. Vivian looked her normal, regal self. There was no sign she was even worried about their captor.

“Mother,” Paisley whispered. “Do you know where he is? Is he still here?”

“He’s securing the house, making sure no one knows we’re here.”

“Where’s a phone? I need to call Bare or dad. Someone. They’ll come get us.”

“Don’t be silly, Paisley. No one knows where we are.”

“That’s why I need the phone.”

“It won’t matter,” her mother said. “You’ll be dead before anyone gets here.”

Paisley sat up, openly scanning the room now. “No,” she said. “I won’t let him kill me. Not without one hell of a fight.”

“Really, Paisley, can’t you ever do anything right?”

It was the tone of her mother’s voice that pulled her gaze back and had her focusing on Vivian.

“What are you talking about?” Paisley asked softly, almost afraid that if she spoke too loudly it would spook her mother.

“Do you know how angry I was when I found out you were buying pregnancy tests? I mean a pregnancy? Really? And you weren’t even married yet! Making us look like common trash. Painting yourself as a whore.”

“Mother, Lance and I were engaged to be married.”

“I wouldn’t have it,” Vivian yelled. “Do you hear me? I wouldn’t have it.”

Paisley shook her head. “No.”

Her mother smiled, and there was no missing the taint of madness surrounding it. “Everything I did was for you. My whole life, I’ve devoted everything to you, making you a star.”

“I never wanted—”

“You were too young and stupid to know what you wanted!” Vivian screamed. “But I knew, and you listened to me until you got caught up with that man.”

“Tell me you didn’t do this?” Paisley begged, swiping at the tears falling down her cheeks. It was too much. If Vivian had been the one, it was all Paisley’s fault. All of it.

“You weren’t supposed to be there, you know?” her mother continued. “If you’d just been the dutiful daughter and visited like you always did, all this mess could have been avoided. Lance would have been gone, and the two of us could have moved on. I could have slipped you something to force a miscarriage and not had to worry about getting a plastic surgeon to fix the mess. God knows you wouldn’t have needed to come to this godforsaken place to heal. I mean, really, Paisley. Oklahoma?”

“Why?” Paisley said. “Why would you do that? Lance? For what? To control me?”

“You were listening to him. I felt you pulling away. I gave you my whole life, and you were just going to leave me, for some man. For sex and a few words? They never last, Paisley. He would have moved on and left you shattered. They always do.”

“You had Lance killed,” Paisley whispered, fighting the urge to curl into herself and hide from the pain. Her mother had done this. She’d teased and joked with Bare about her mother, but not once had she actually believed Vivian capable of having someone killed. She’d thought she’d known the lengths her mother would go to, but she’d never anticipated this… Never murder.

“I go to the effort of saving you from the biggest mistake of your life, and you run away. Then you have the audacity to shun me from the press? Me! I made you! You’d be nothing without me, just as you have been for the last five years.”

“Did you know the man you hired was going to stab me?” Paisley asked, rising from the couch. Her entire focus was on Vivian. She tried hard not to think of Vivian as her mother any longer. No mother did what she had done. As for the man who’d brought her here, the one who’d done her mother’s dirty work back then and seemed more than willing to do it again, he wasn’t anywhere she could see him right now. So she kept her attention on Vivian. She’d worry about him when she had to.

“Did you?” she asked her mother again when Vivian didn’t answer. “Did you tell him to stab me?”

“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Vivian replied sharply.

“But I was there,” Paisley yelled. “I was there, and he came up those stairs after me. He threw me to the ground and stabbed me, repeatedly. Did you fucking know he was going to? Did you order him to kill me, too?”

Her mother glared at her. “Coarse language is unnecessary.”

“Did you fucking order him to kill me?” Paisley roared.

“No!” Vivian screamed. “I ordered him to stab you precisely where I wanted him to. No Lance. No baby. You’d come right back to me. I’d help you pick up the pieces, and in the aftermath, we’d make your career even more successful. Then that idiot father of yours stepped in and decided to play daddy after all this time.”

“He was always willing to play daddy,” Paisley said. “You were the one who wouldn’t let him.”

“Jamison Knight didn’t deserve you. If things had gone right at that little press conference, he’d be dead now, and you’d have no choice but to come to me and beg for my forgiveness. I should have known his lover would protect him. He always does. Really, you’ve all left me with no other choice.”

Paisley blinked. Her mother thought Tuck was Jamison’s lover? No way. Yeah they often bickered and fought like an old married couple, but there was nothing sexual to it. She wouldn’t have missed that. Leave it to Vivian to find the concept of friendship so foreign that she had to warp it into something else. Paisley shook those thoughts away. She didn’t care what her mother believed. Rage and pain boiled through her, and there was only one outlet for them. Vivian.

Paisley slowly stalked toward her. “And what now? You’ve come back to finish the job? I believe that’s what your lackey said. Things didn’t go as planned, so you decided to force my hand? You thought I’d just cave like I always did and let you have your way? Well, the joke’s on you, you selfish bitch. I didn’t cave. I finally did what I should have done a long time ago. I kicked the extra baggage to the curb and moved on. Because that’s all you’ve ever been, Vivian. Extra baggage for me to carry and support.”

“You ungrateful whelp!” Vivian snarled and slapped out, catching Paisley across the face with her hand.

Paisley attacked back, knocking Vivian against the wall before they went to the floor. Her mother was stronger than Paisley had thought and not afraid to fight dirty. Paisley saw stars when her mother slammed her head into the floor. She gritted her teeth then turned them, returning the favor before Vivian caught her in the stomach with a knee and sent her reeling back. She launched herself back at Vivian before she could move away, and they continued exchanging blows as they rolled across the floor. Vivian managed to jam Paisley against a table leg, grabbing her hair and jerking her head into it several times until Paisley felt her grip on Vivian slipping.

She struggled to catch her mother as the woman crawled away. The chloroform had taken a toll Paisley hadn’t recovered from yet, making her slower, weaker, and Vivian took full advantage of it. Paisley caught her mother’s ankle and gave it a jerk that had Vivian screaming as she kicked back toward Paisley. Paisley dodged the attack, catching the other foot and using her hold on them to pull herself onto her mother’s legs, pinning her to the floor beneath her.

“I should have let you die,” Vivian screamed, rocking and doing her best to jar Paisley’s hold.

“You should have,” Paisley agreed as she straddled her mother’s hips and grabbed handfuls of her hair. “You should have told him to make sure I was dead.”

“I should have aborted you before you were ever born,” her mother spit out, and the words struck deep, temporarily paralyzing Paisley.

Her mother jerked and rolled, catching Paisley by surprise with a hard hit to the head with something she must have grabbed from in front of her. Stars exploded, and Paisley fell back hard, slamming the back of her head into the floor. She cried out from the explosion of pain. Blackness was closing in. She blinked her eyes, struggling to stay conscious, knowing her life depended on it. Wetness stung her eyes, and she managed to lift a hand to wipe at it. Her fingers came back tinged red. She was bleeding.