Loyalty Under Fire (Operation: Hot Spot Book 3) Read online

  Flipping back to the beginning of the book, she began leafing through the pages. Maybe the answer to why her mother had killed herself was finally at hand.

  With each flip of her wrist and rustled page, her mother’s dynamic personality sprang to life. The writing was vibrant, full of descriptions and textures and humor, liberally laced with love. That was the one thing Becca still remembered vividly about her mother—the one thing that hadn’t been grotesquely skewed—how full of love she’d been, how full of life. The writing and sketches emphasized that memory. She could almost hear her mother’s thick Irish brogue whispering from the pages. The brogue that her father’s family had found so abhorrent, at least when it came to the unwelcome youngest addition to their family.

  Sketches and whimsical stories littered the pages, most of them about Becca. Drawings of Becca sleeping, picking flowers, skipping across the marble foyer with a rosebud crown askew atop her head. The entire journal was an illustrated love letter… to her—Rebecca Blaine—from her mother.

  She stared at the happiness on her young face, at the loving stroke of her mother’s pencil, at the lilting, lyrical stories and poems cascading across the parchment. She hadn’t imagined those early years. Her mother had loved her, well and truly loved her, and she’d known it back then. Contentment and happiness radiated from her young face.

  But that realization just led to more questions. If her mother had loved her as much as this journal indicated, why had she killed herself? Why abandon her only child in such a cruel fashion? She must have known Becca would be the one to find her body. The one to walk in on her writhing…

  She blocked the image from her mind and focused single-mindedly on the pages beneath her fingers, turning and turning until she’d reached the last few entries in the journal. But the diary’s tone never changed. Her mother’s stories and poems didn’t darken. A shadowy stain never spread across the parchment. If anything, her mother’s words sounded more vibrant, full of happiness and hope, certainly not the desperate wretchedness of someone in the throes of deep depression.

  As she turned the last page, a thin, smooth rectangular piece of paper slipped out of the diary and onto her lap. She picked it up. The paper was faded, but she clearly saw a curled form within the black and gray static. It didn’t surprise her that her mother had kept an ultrasound printout of when she’d been pregnant with Becca. Rachel Blaine had been unabashedly sentimental.

  Letting the printout fall back onto her lap, she shook her head in frustration. Apparently her questions would remain unanswered. There was nothing between these pages to indicate why her mother had killed herself.

  The final page, dated the morning of her mother’s death, held the sketch of a necklace. How strange. Her mother hadn’t shown much interest in jewelry. She’d been just as happy wearing a chain of daisies as a chain of diamonds.

  Although… the necklace was quite lovely. On a lacy bed of webbed filaments floated a multifaceted, octagon-shaped stone. Since the drawing was in pencil, she couldn’t tell the color of the centerpiece, but it looked like a gemstone. And its backing, well that looked almost like a miniature dream catcher with its delicate, webbed netting.

  Her mother had collected dream catchers. Had the design been hers? It certainly looked like something she would have created. Becca ran a finger down the sketch. It wouldn’t be difficult to bring the necklace to life. She could take the sketch to a jeweler and have them create the pendant using a sapphire. Her mother’s favorite color had been blue.

  With one last look at the drawing, she picked up the ultrasound. Wouldn’t you know it? Invading her mother’s privacy had just brought more questions. As she started to slip the printout back into the diary, the date stamp caught her eye. She froze, her hands suddenly cold and clammy.

  The paper was dated the day of her mother’s death.

  Which meant this ultrasound wasn’t a keepsake of her mother’s pregnancy with Becca.

  Her fingers trembling, she turned the paper over and found a name scrawled in bleached blue ink across the back.

  Aaron Robert.

  Aaron had been Becca’s father’s name. Robert had been her mother’s father’s name. The cold in her hands spread up her arms and into her chest.

  Aaron Robert…

  Her mother had been pregnant. Becca had had a baby brother on the way.

  She sat there, her chest tight and aching, as grim conviction hardened inside her.

  Her mother had been pregnant the day of her death.

  Pregnant.

  Which meant there was no way… absolutely no way her death had been a suicide.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey, Addario,” Danny Fresno called out in his husky, two-pack-a-day voice.

  Rio lifted his head from the crime scene photos spread across the scuffed surface of his gray metal desk and watched Fresno lumber down the center aisle of the bull pen.

  “What’s up?” Rio asked as Danny closed on him.

  “You got time to look into a cold case? I’d do it myself, but I’m due in court.” Danny lurched to a halt next to Rio’s chair.

  “What case?” He had enough on his docket to keep him busy for the next hundred years—give or take—but there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put off for a few hours or even a day or two.

  “Suicide from sixteen years ago. The vic’s daughter claims she’s found new evidence proving the woman didn’t kill herself.”

  Rio pushed back his desk chair and paused to stretch his aching back. Hunched over that desk all day played hell with his muscles. “Who’s on the jacket?”

  “Rachel Blaine. You gonna check into it? The daughter is waiting at the front desk.”

  Rachel Blaine… Blaine…

  The last name jolted through Rio like an electrical shock from a live wire. Becca’s last name had been Blaine, and her mother had committed suicide. Could it be? He did the math. Becca had been living with Adam’s family for four years by that summer, which would put her mother’s death around sixteen years ago.

  So yeah, this could be her mother’s case.

  “What’s the name of the daughter?” His muscles so tight they burned, Rio forced a casual tone.

  “Rebecca Blaine. From Olympia. She found her mother’s diary and says that based on the entries, there’s no way the woman killed herself.”

  It was Becca. And she was down the hall and around the corner. Rio sat perfectly still, his pulse and breathing accelerating as images flashed through his mind.

  Dark, slightly tilted eyes… pouty lips… lush breasts… a narrow waist that perfectly fit the curve of his hands… sleek, smooth legs wrapped around his hips as she arched into his thrusts…

  Heat exploded, which infuriated him. Dammit, he was not still hung up on the woman. That entire fuckup had happened a long time ago. He’d shaken that itch way before he’d left SEAL Team 7 and joined the San Diego Police Department.

  This jolt to his nervous system was curiosity, that’s all. At one point, back in his twenties, Becca Blaine had been an obsession, a craving that had fucked with his head. It was natural to wonder how time had treated her.

  It was also natural, considering what a little troublemaker she’d been, for suspicion to rise. What was she up to? Knowing Becca, there was some deeper manipulation at work.

  Maybe her sudden return had something to do with Adele’s upcoming wedding. It would be just like the selfish little witch to stir the pot on the eve of her sister’s nuptials. There was nothing the goddamn woman had enjoyed more than embroiling everyone surrounding her in mind-numbing drama.

  At least he could put a stop to her interference this time. “She at the front desk?”

  Danny took that to mean he’d stepped into the case. “Yep. You gonna talk to her?”

  “I’ll look into it,” Rio said, frustration rising as his heart went into jackrabbit mode. What the fuck…

  This unexpected and unwelcome reaction did not bode well for their looming reunion. Anger sti
rred. He wasn’t going through this again—no way in hell. He wasn’t letting her dig her claws into him for a second time. But first things first, he’d listen to what she had to say and then send her packing.

  “Show her to interview one. I’ll talk to her there.” Rio turned back to his desk.

  Normally, he’d interview her here. But he wanted a good look at her before they talked. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to let her cool her heels a bit.

  “Interview one?” There was a question in Danny’s voice, but he shrugged and turned away, lumbering back down the aisle, his heavy body framed on either side by scarred, metal desks.

  Rio took a few seconds to gather the crime scene photos into a tidy stack. Once they were collected, he shoved them back into their manila envelope. A minute ticked by. He tidied up the loose reports, stacking them neatly beside the file folders. At the five-minute mark, he picked up a yellow legal pad and clipped a pen to it. She’d be in interview one by now. He’d give her some time in there alone, long enough to set her nerves on edge… long enough to lock his reactions down tight.

  He’d thought about her off and on since he’d walked away, something he’d long since accepted. She’d affected him like no woman had before or since, which wasn’t something a man forgot.

  Even now, unbidden, his muscles were a little too tight, and his breath came a little too fast. It had been over a decade since he’d walked away from her, but a piece of her had stuck—burrowed into his subconscious like a porcupine quill into tender flesh.

  But then she’d known how to play him back then, known what one sorrowful look from those huge, doe-vulnerable eyes had done to his heart and brain. Known that with the right expression and the right set of words, she could wrap him around those long pink fingernails of hers. Leash him. Override his common sense.

  Hell, he’d almost fallen for that haunted, poor-little-me routine of hers too, almost believed in her integrity and soul. She’d come so damn close to blinding and cuffing him.

  Thank Christ for Adam. If Adam hadn’t finally shown him what a two-timing little witch she’d been, he might have slipped his ring on her finger and walked away from ST7. He owed his childhood best friend a debt of gratitude he could never repay for opening his eyes before it had been too late.

  A memory exploded in his mind, going off like a flash bomb.

  The strobe of party lights. The jumbled roar of dozens of voices raised in conversation and laughter. A snug little corner. Black corkscrew curls cascading down a pair of broad shoulders. Another guy’s shoulders. Another guy’s arms around her.

  Rage stirred; he beat it back.

  That betrayal had happened a long time ago.

  At the seven-minute mark, he headed across the worn wood floor toward interview one.

  Between interview one and two was a viewing room. He opened its door and stepped inside. To the right and left, one-way windows allowed the person occupying the room a discreet view of the subject behind the glass. In this case, Rebecca Blaine.

  He studied the slender, dark-haired woman sitting so still at the table, and an odd moment of familiar unfamiliarity gripped him. He could almost see the teenager superimposed upon this tranquil stranger, but there was so much about this woman that was… just… wrong.

  The curves were gone or at least no longer on display. The lush breasts that had short-circuited his brain and breathing were buried beneath a creamy blouse that buttoned all the way up to the hollow of her throat. Such a departure from the low-cut, thin shirts she’d worn back in the day. Her hair was still black but short and straight, hitting just below her chin. Her face was thinner. Her dark eyes flat and somber. But the biggest change, by far, was her stillness.

  In her youth, she’d vibrated with intensity, as though her life force flowed so strong skin and bone could barely contain it. That passion was gone. She looked muted, colorless.

  Frozen.

  Regret tightened his throat. He rubbed his aching chest and frowned. Why the hell did the changes in her bother him so much? She’d grown up, that was all. It happened to everyone. Adulthood, along with the responsibilities it carried, tended to burn away youthful passion.

  His gaze tracked back to her composed face and lingered on her sleek, midnight hair. The ache in his chest intensified. Her wild mess of black curls was gone.

  Inky-black curls bouncing against a slender straight spine—lifting and falling with a rebellious flounce.

  He’d been able to judge her mood by the lift and fall of those curls. A slow, sensual shimmy or a sharp flip and fling. Those curls had broadcasted her emotions.

  Scowling, he swept her face again. It was odd how familiar yet unfamiliar she looked. He could see the old Becca in the contours of her face and the exotic tilt to her eyes, even in the way she tilted her head just slightly to the left.

  To his frustration his skin tightened. His heart and respiration kicked up too, and an all-too-familiar pressure built below his belt.

  Fuck.

  The attraction was still there. His libido still liked what it saw. He turned and headed across to the room next door. As he walked, he locked down the rev of his heart and surge of his blood. He wasn’t the easily manipulated, hormone-driven boy he’d been back when they’d hooked up. He had some fucking self-control now.

  She glanced up as he entered the interview room and studied him. No sudden recognition or surprise on her face, even though he hadn’t changed that much from the twenty-three-year-old boy he’d been back when they’d hooked up. She had to have recognized him, which meant she’d already known he’d be the one taking her statement.

  Had Adam told her he’d made detective in the San Diego Police Department? Until they’d drifted apart, the asshole had kept him updated about Becca’s life, whether he’d wanted the info or not.

  “Rebecca.” He forced neutrality into his voice. Dropping his notepad onto the table, he pulled out one of the chairs opposite her.

  “Rio.” Her tone was just as flat and polite as his.

  Another surprise. Not only the tone but the lack of accent. Back then, her voice had been thick with an Irish drawl, full of vibrancy, life, and temper. This new Becca’s voice was flat, controlled, lifeless. He buried a kick of surprise and banished the questions. If he started digging into these changes in her, he’d find himself dragged back into her favorite hobby—fucking with people’s minds.

  “You knew I’d be looking into your request?” Rio asked, aware his voice had turned cold and hard. He made no effort to soften it.

  “I suspected. The earlier detective mentioned he was passing Mom’s case onto Dante Addario. There can’t be too many Dante Addarios in San Diego.” Her voice, in contrast to his, remained flat, polite.

  She didn’t ask how he’d ended up in the SDPD. Last time she’d seen him, he’d been on a month’s leave and four years into his first tour with SEAL Team 7. Maybe she already knew his life story thanks to the grapevine known as Adam Hart. After all, he’d known via her brother that she’d slept her way through a variety of professors and TAs while at the university, graduating with a suspicious 4.0 GPA. He might have been her first lover, but she’d sure as hell made up for lost time once she’d settled into Seattle.

  A flush of anger heated him. Not your business. Let it go. He pushed the emotion down and sat across from her, pulling the pen free from the paper.

  “What’s your contact number in case we need to reach you?” He wrote down the number she recited, dropped the pen on the pad, and sat back in his chair. “You told Detective Fresno you had new information regarding your mother’s suicide?”

  “That’s right. I found her journal.”

  “You found her journal,” he repeated, allowing disbelief to flatten his tone. “Now? After what? Sixteen years?”

  What the fuck was her game? Rebecca Blaine always had an ulterior motive. A lesson burned into his memory all too clearly.

  She pulled back slightly. Yep, she’d definitely picked up on his tone. And then
she cocked her head and stared at him. For a moment something lit up those dark, flat eyes. Something brittle and bitter.

  “I found it two weeks ago in an antique desk I inherited from Harold Hopewell. The desk had been in the housekeeper’s quarters of his La Jolla Farms mansion back when my mother worked for him. She hid her diary in one of the secret compartments. I found it after the desk was delivered to my house.”

  “You have proof of this?”

  “Of course,” she said, her voice as controlled as her face.

  An inheritance from Harold Hopewell would be easy to verify. “What exactly did you find in the diary to make you question your mother’s suicide?”

  “A fetal ultrasound dated the morning of my mother’s death. She was pregnant. Which means there’s no way she would have killed herself.” Becca straightened slightly and held his gaze without looking away.

  Rio leaned back in his chair with a frown. He knew Rachel Blaine had committed suicide. Such incidents never stayed hidden for long. Not when the woman in question had been the ex-mistress of Aaron Hart, the mayor of San Diego. The fact Rachel had borne him an illegitimate child, which had been foisted on his wife and legitimate children after Rachel’s death, had added to the ferocity of gossip. But he hadn’t heard anything about Rachel Blaine being pregnant when she’d died. Christ knows the rumor mill wouldn’t have left that scandalous detail out of the news feed.

  “Are you certain the ultrasound belonged to your mother?”

  Her gaze held his. “I’m certain. There was a name on the back in Mom’s handwriting. Aaron Robert. Robert was Mom’s dad’s name.” She paused a beat, before adding with slow deliberation. “As you know, Aaron was Dad’s name.”

  Rio tensed. Aaron Hart had been Adam’s and Adele’s father as well. Disgust crested. For the first time he could see the destructive bomb she was about to drop on her half-siblings and stepmother.

  Finding out that Aaron’s old mistress had been pregnant with his child again, after he’d sworn that he’d broken off the affair—yeah, that was certain to stir up a barrage of ugly emotions and memories.