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

  And right on the eve of Adele’s wedding.

  His jaw tensed. “You’re saying your mother was pregnant with Aaron Hart’s kid.”

  “That’s what the ultrasound says.”

  Rio tapped the pen on the legal pad and scowled. “You got the printout handy?”

  She unzipped the middle pocket of the red purse sitting in her lap and pulled out a folded square of paper. She spread the paper out and slid it across the table toward him.

  Rio studied the faded image. The curled form of a fetus was plainly identifiable within the black-and-white haze, as was the date stamp in the right corner. There was no patient name, just a file number. But if this was Rachel Blaine’s ultrasound, the clinic could have removed the patient name in the interest of privacy. If the press had gotten wind of another Rachel Blaine pregnancy, life would have quickly become unbearable for the woman.

  He glanced at the date stamp again. He didn’t remember when Rachel Blaine had died, but the DOD would be in the autopsy report. It would be easy enough to compare the dates. He turned the printout over to study the faded letters scrawled across the back. Aaron Robert.

  Rio looked back up and shrugged. “There’s no proof the ultrasound was your mother’s.”

  Her dark eyebrows knit. “The name—”

  “Is not proof. It could have been added by anyone. All this proves is someone was pregnant at the time it was taken. It doesn’t prove that person was your mother.”

  “I found it in my mother’s journal. It’s dated the day of her death. It carries the name my mother would have named a boy. And the handwriting on the back is my mom’s. None of that is relevant?” Becca asked, her face still and watchful.

  Shrugging, he gave the ultrasound a push and sent it sliding across the table toward her. “None of it is proof. At least not strong enough evidence to reopen your mother’s case.”

  She stared at him for a moment, that flat look harder than ever in her eyes. Dropping her gaze, she carefully picked the printout up and slipped it back into her purse. Zipping the pocket, she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet.

  “I was surprised when I heard you made detective.” She lifted the strap of her purse over her shoulder and stared down at him. The flatness of her face gave way to contempt.

  Don’t ask. Let it go. Let her go.

  “A detective? Really? You? Really?” Pure sarcasm radiated in her voice. “The man always so willing to take other people’s opinions and accept them as his own. Why bother investigating and drawing your own conclusions when you can just sit back and let people tell you what to think?” Disgust sharpened her eyes. “But think about this. If I’m right and Mom was pregnant when she died, then she didn’t kill herself. And considering she was found hanging by rope twelve feet from the ceiling, it’s impossible to claim her death was an accident, which means someone murdered her.” She caught and held his gaze, her eyes full of fury and disgust… and perhaps a hint of disappointment. “But go ahead. Parrot the status quo. I’ll find someone else, someone willing to put some actual effort into finding out what happened to my mother.”

  With her eyes flashing and her body crackling with intensity, for the first time he saw the old Becca emerge.

  Keeping his face blank, even though irritation tightened his skin, he watched her march to the door. Her gray slacks cupped the swell of her ass, proving that some of her curves were still on display.

  She didn’t wait around to see his reaction to her attack, another change from the girl he’d once known. In the past, she would have kept her eyes on his face to judge the effectiveness of her barbs.

  Once the door closed behind her rigid spine, he swore softly and scrubbed a hand down his face. He’d know soon enough whether there was anything to this claim of hers. Rachel Blaine’s autopsy report would indicate whether she’d been pregnant.

  If she had been pregnant, DNA would have been taken from the fetus. Considering his prior relationship with the deceased, Aaron Hart would have been interviewed extensively. His DNA would have been tested against the child’s. If he’d been the father, the investigating officers would have checked his alibi, motives, financial records, dug into every aspect of his life. The fact Rachel Blaine’s death had been ruled a suicide meant they hadn’t found any evidence to support foul play.

  But it wouldn’t take long to pull the file and do a quick assessment. He doubted there was anything concrete to Rebecca’s claim. But if there was, he’d find evidence of it. Because she was wrong.

  He was a damn good detective.

  Chapter Three

  Frustrated rage fired Becca’s muscles and lengthened her stride as she shoved open the police department’s door and stepped into the warm, Southern California sunshine. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. Rio’s apathy wasn’t squashing the investigation into her mother’s murder. Because that’s what it had been—murder.

  Her mother had been a staunch Catholic. Suicide was a sin. So was abortion. There was no way her mother had committed suicide when she was pregnant, not when taking her own life meant taking her infant’s as well.

  Since Rio refused to look into her mother’s death, she’d hire someone who would. She had the resources. She’d use every penny of Harold’s bequest, if that’s what it took, to find out how her mother had ended up with that rope wrapped around her neck.

  The impatient rap of her heels against the concrete caught her attention. She slowed her pace until the sharp crack was less staccato, less demanding. Until her sensible black pumps didn’t broadcast her frustration and fury quite so loudly.

  Part of the annoyance seething inside her was directed at herself, rather than Rio. Butterflies still fluttered in her belly, chills feathered her spine, her skin had tightened and alternated between hot and cold. All signs of sexual arousal.

  Why oh why couldn’t the man have gone to seed? Why couldn’t he be overweight and balding? Why couldn’t those rock-hard muscles have disintegrated into flab?

  But no, he hadn’t lost one ounce of that early gorgeousness. If anything, maturity had made him even more attractive. His hair was thicker, jet black with the hint of a wave, a departure from the buzz cut he’d worn back that summer. His shoulders and chest had broadened. Although a disturbing chill glossed his eyes, they were still that stunning shade of blue-gray she remembered so clearly. Even the dark shadow of stubble looked damn sexy on his face.

  And dammit, he still turned her on, cranked her engine, got her all revved up—or whatever the metaphor was these days. It didn’t matter that he’d betrayed her or that they’d spent the past twelve years apart. It didn’t even matter that he’d ignored everything she’d just told him. Regardless of everything, her body was still fixated on his.

  It was the last thing she’d expected. How the hell could she still be attracted to that asshole?

  She remembered in vivid detail her reaction to him twelve years earlier when he’d walked into the living room of her father’s mansion. She’d taken one look, and her heart had leaped from her chest and thumped its way over to his side. She’d forgotten how to breathe, how to think, that anyone else was even in the room. One look from those arresting eyes and she’d been possessed.

  He’d been her first love… her first lover. Maybe that was why she’d never been able to completely banish him from her mind.

  Breath by breath she wrestled the anger, frustration, and attraction back, sought to absorb them, calm them, flush them from her system. Strong emotions carried consequences. They blinded you, fooled you, left you vulnerable.

  Rio’s rejection during her eighteenth summer was a perfect example of the deception inherent in strong feelings. If she hadn’t been so wildly in love with him, she would have realized sooner that he hadn’t felt the same way about her. If she’d known beforehand that he hadn’t loved her, his abandonment wouldn’t have hit her so hard and left her vulnerable to Adam and Adele’s manipulation.

  Breathe, Becca, just breathe. Let it go.

>   Taking her own advice, she washed the anger away until nothing but numb disappointment remained.

  As she crossed into the parking lot and closed on her car, her cell phone buzzed. Without stopping, she fished it out of the side pocket of her purse. Maybe the call was from Rio. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Granted, that hope was a long shot, mixed with a heaping dose of wishful thinking. But at heart, she was an optimist. She glanced down at the screen and stopped cold.

  Slowly she raised the phone closer to her eyes, as though seeing it more clearly would alter the name and number blazed across the screen.

  Adele Hart.

  How in the world did she get my phone number?

  She flashed back to Rio jotting down her cell number. Well that explained how Adele had gotten it. Rio must have reached for his phone the second Becca stepped out of the police station.

  She shook her head, still staring in surprise. It had been years since she’d talked to her half sister. Twelve years. Another hundred years of silence between them wouldn’t be long enough. She jabbed the Call Reject button with her thumb. Straightening her shoulders, Becca started walking again. For her own mental health, she needed to avoid contact with her dysfunctional family.

  Her phone buzzed again. She glanced down… Adele Hart… and kept walking. She dug into her purse for her keys and beeped the locks on the Corolla as her cell went quiet. But by the time she’d slid into the driver’s seat and cinched her seat belt, the buzzing had started up again.

  Adele was determined. She’d give her that. But Becca was even more resolute. The Hart family dynamic was pure poison. She wasn’t about to get sucked back into it.

  By the time she’d reached her hotel room, the buzzing had stopped. Hopefully Adele had gotten the message and given up. She ordered room service, pushed back the drapes so she could look out over the bay, and settled in the plush armchair next to the window with her laptop. Time to check out private investigators.

  She’d narrowed her search down to one agency and was on the phone with the receptionist when a knock hit her door. Room service had arrived. With the phone plugged to her ear while she waited for the receptionist to check her appointment book, she opened the door and froze.

  Her visitor was not room service.

  Becca’s fingers clenched around the phone as tension knotted the muscles at the base of her neck.

  The tall, stick-thin, bottle blonde standing before her shuffled her weight from side to side—a nervous tic recognizable from way back when Becca had shared a room with her.

  Apparently Adele hadn’t gotten the message after all.

  “Thank you for getting me in so quickly,” Becca said into her phone, her gaze fixed on the tight, nervous face of her half sister. “Right. I’ll see you then.”

  With the appointment made, she disconnected the call and slowly lowered her arm. Adele was barely a year older than her, but she hadn’t aged well. Her skin was sallow and dry. She was thinner, neurotically thin. She’d changed her hairstyle too. Rather than fat, sassy curls, her hair fell limply from her scalp, lightly brushing her drawn cheeks. Her eyes, though, they were the same, faded blue and full of anxiety.

  “Adele,” she said without stepping aside. “This is a surprise.”

  “I called, but you didn’t answer.” Adele looked away, shifting her weight between her spiky red heels. The hand she lifted to push the hair back from her cheek trembled. “Can I come in? I need to speak with you.”

  Becca’s fingers tightened around the edge of the door. She wanted to slam the damn thing in Adele’s face. But the entreaty in the pale blue eyes stopped her. It was so much easier to ignore someone when they were just a buzzing on the phone.

  “Please?” Adele said, her voice thin. The knuckles on the hand she had wrapped around the strap of her oversized purse turned white.

  Silently Becca stepped back and retreated to the window, seizing on the calming view of San Diego Bay spread out in the distance. After closing the door behind her, Adele followed her into the room.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Becca turned slightly to keep her unwelcome visitor in sight.

  At one time she’d trusted this woman implicitly. In the early days, after she’d moved into her father’s mansion, the two of them had been inseparable. Heck, they’d begged their father for the chance to share a room, even though there had been plenty of empty bedrooms available.

  They’d been best friends, guarding each other’s back against their nasty big brother. Before Becca’s arrival, Adam’s favorite pastime had been tormenting his little sister. His focus had shifted to Becca after she’d joined the family. Only with Becca, his hazing had turned darker… uglier.

  Adele had been the only good thing that had come out of her mother’s death. At least until that last summer, when Rio had returned to town and jealousy had ripped their sisterhood to shreds.

  “Mother told me you were staying here.” Adele’s gaze skittered to Becca’s face and then back to the window.

  Well, that was a surprise. How had Lena known where she was staying? Sure, Rio could have blabbed about her return to town to Adam, who could have passed the information on to Lena, but Rio didn’t know where she was staying, so how had her location made it onto the gossip train?

  “What do you want?” Becca asked when the silence between them carried on too long.

  Adele flinched at the question. With an internal sigh, Becca ran her fingers through her hair. Her question hadn’t been sharp or angry. A bit brusque, perhaps, but surely that was expected? This was the first time they’d spoken since Adele had betrayed her.

  “Look—I don’t mean to sound unkind, but I don’t have time to talk right now. Besides, there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind, so you may as well go home.” Becca kept her tone even and polite.

  Another recoil rolled through Adele’s reedy frame. Briefly she closed her eyes, but then she squared her shoulders and turned to Becca, resolution shining in the pale depths of her eyes.

  “I just… I just need to apologize. I should have done this years ago, but you were gone.” Adele drew a deep, shuddering breath. “What I did to you”—her face twisting, she broke off, her gaze jerking away from Becca’s face again—“was unforgivable, and I need you to know how much I regret my role in what happened that night.”

  Becca frowned, suspicion stirring as she studied her half sister’s face. “This visit isn’t about my mother? About reopening her case?”

  She wouldn’t put it past Adele to attempt to reforge their earlier friendship and then try to change Becca’s mind. Although why she thought Becca would ever trust her again after that damn party…

  “No.” Confusion flashed across Adele’s face. “I’m here to apologize.” She paused a beat, cocking her head, her limp, pale hair brushing her cheek. “What about your mother’s case?”

  Becca debated telling her. But… why not? Adele was bound to find out eventually anyway.

  “I found Mom’s journal, along with an ultrasound. She was pregnant. Which means there’s no way she killed herself.”

  “Your mom was pregnant when she died?” Surprise widened Adele’s eyes. “Do you know who the father was?”

  Since Adele’s expression of shock had shifted to foreboding, Becca was certain she’d already figured that out for herself.

  “I’m pretty sure it was Dad. There was writing on the back of the printout. Aaron Robert.” Becca steadied her voice and watched her half sister’s face. Adele would know the significance of the name.

  “Aaron was Dad’s name.” Adele’s voice dropped to a whisper. But rather than anger or betrayal, wistfulness touched her face. “We would have had a baby brother?”

  Becca nodded slowly. This was not at all how she had expected Adele to handle the news. She’d expected hysterics, not sorrow.

  Adele’s brows suddenly knit. “If your mom didn’t commit suicide, then…” She trailed off as though she hated to put the alternative into words. />
  “She was murdered.” Becca filled in for her.

  Sympathy softened Adele’s face. “I’m so sorry. This must be awful for you. It must be opening all sorts of wounds. Although…” She frowned. “If someone killed her, it means she didn’t abandon you, right? I know how much that used to hurt you. That she cared so little she could kill herself like that and leave you all alone.” She took a step in Becca’s direction, her hand rising. When Becca stepped back, she dropped it again. “I don’t know which would be worse. Thinking she abandoned you or knowing that someone stole her from you.”

  Becca wasn’t sure which was worse either.

  The manner of her mom’s death had haunted her. Which Adele knew. Becca had cried herself to sleep in the bed beside Adele’s more nights than not in those early days.

  “If you’re reopening your mom’s case…” Adele went very still, her forehead creasing. “News will get out about your mom’s pregnancy and the fact Dad was the father. Everyone will know he was still having an affair with your mother.”

  “Yes.” Becca braced herself, waiting for the pleas to cease and desist to hit the air.

  “Mother is not going to like that,” Adele murmured, a slight upward tilt tugging at her lips. And then the strangest expression spread across her face. Satisfaction maybe… or even enjoyment.

  What the heck?

  Adele drew back her shoulders, and the expression faded. “You should get ahold of Rio. He’s a detective with the San Diego police now. He can help you get your mom’s case reopened.”

  Becca grimaced. “I’ve already spoken with him. He won’t get involved. I’m hiring a private detective instead.”

  “Oh.” Adele’s voice rose in surprise. “Really? That doesn’t sound like Rio at all. He takes his police work seriously.”

  “Well, he isn’t taking my request seriously. But it doesn’t matter. I can go around him.”

  Adele nodded absently. “Did you actually see him?”

  From the facial tic that accompanied Adele’s question, she knew what her half sister was wondering.