Mine to Take

Page 12

Alex’s fingers tapped against the chair. “You think he’s the same man who caused your accident in New York?” Then he reached forward and opened a manila folder that was on the table. He shoved some stark, black and white photos across the table.
Photos of a totaled vehicle. Skye’s car.
She was trapped there.
He looked up from those photos and found the detective’s gaze on him. “While you were away on your little trip, I did some more digging,” the detective said.
Good. I’m glad you’re doing your job.
“I talked with a detective Fuller in New York.” The detective glanced over at Skye. “He said you were sure someone had forced you off the road.”
Skye nodded.
Trace pushed the photos back toward the detective. “We just talked to Fuller, too. The guy didn’t buy Skye’s story—”
“Because there was no evidence of anyone else at the crash scene. No paint from another car. No sign of a rear impact.”
“My car…” Her voice was too cold for Trace as Skye said, “Rolled four times. It was smashed like a damn can. There were signs of impact all over the place.”
“Fuller thought it was a one-vehicle accident,” Alex continued. His gaze had locked on Skye’s face. “I’m not Fuller. I know you’re scared, and it sure looks to me like you have a reason to be.”
It should look that way to fucking everyone.
“I’m guessing Weston took you to New York because he thought it might be one of your ex’s, huh?” Now Alex’s gaze swung back to him. “How’d that work out for you?”
“I’m running their alibis.” And so far, turning up jack. So…no, it hadn’t fucking worked out for him.
Alex pursed his lips and nodded. “Running their alibis…that’s good.” He put the photos of Skye’s wrecked vehicle back inside the folder. “But what about your own alibi?” He pushed another sheet of paper toward Trace.
Trace stared down at a picture of himself. An image from a New York newspaper.
“You tend to catch attention when you go places,” Alex murmured. “Guess that’s the price of being so rich, huh? When you went to New York to see the ballet…Sleeping Beauty, right? Well, you were caught leaving the show early that night.” Alex paused. “The date on the image…that would be the same day that Skye here had her wreck.”
Skye’s hand reached for that newspaper clipping. She pulled it toward her. “You were in New York? At my show?” Her head turned toward him. A faint furrow appeared between her brows. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, this isn’t the first show he’s caught.” Again, Alex reached into that folder. “Seems that when you were performing, Trace here made a point of coming to see you dance. At least once, sometimes twice a month. He was always there for opening night, but he’d go back, to catch other performances, too.”
Sonofabitch. The detective had been busy.
“You…you saw me dance?”
“He saw you, quite a lot.” Now Alex seemed musing. “He liked to stay at the same hotel every time he went to see you…that posh place right off Fifth Avenue. I believe you both stayed there on your recent trip?”
“Who did you talk to?” Trace demanded. Because someone had been talking too fucking much. This kind of personal leak wasn’t allowed in his organization. An assistant, an agent—someone was about to get his or her ass fired.
“I grew up in New York,” Alex said with a shrug. “I’ve still got some friends there, and they helped me with my digging.” His lips pursed. “Skye, you mean to tell me that you didn’t know he was there, any of those times? With the two of you being such old…friends…I thought you’d—”
“I didn’t know.” Her voice was even colder now. Her eyes were on Trace. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dammit. He didn’t want to have this conversation with the detective’s watchful stare on them. “Because we were over.”
She flinched.
Hell. He was fucking this up. We were over. You’d moved on. I just needed to see you.
“He wasn’t just at your dances, though.” And, again, the cop pushed clippings aside. He extracted a final photo from that file. Another photo from the crash scene. Only this time, the wreckage was in the background. Skye was strapped in a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance.
“A reporter on the scene that night caught this shot, but his bosses were…persuaded not to run it.”
She’d stilled.
“That man, right beside the EMTs, that’s you, isn’t it, Weston?”
Skye’s breath rushed out. “You were there the night of my crash?”
Shit. He had to tread very, very carefully now. “I found your car. I called for help.”
Skye shook her head. “Why were you there?”
“I think he was following you,” Alex murmured as his brows lowered. “He’d been watching you for some time. I suspect he left that ballet early, and he waited for you to leave, too. Then he followed you.”
“That’s not what happened!” Trace snapped. He should have told her. Dammit, the minute she’d walked back into his life, he should have told her that he’d been there.
As if he could forget those moments. The pelting rain. The lightning that flew across the night sky.
The blood.
The sick, twisting fear because he could not get her out of the mangled mess that had been her car.
“You were the hero who saved her from death,” Alex said as he gave a nod. “Both in New York, then here, in Chicago. You’ve saved her…what, two times in the last few days?”
Skye wasn’t speaking. Her eyes were so big and wide and lost.
“Someone broke into her studio, slammed her head into the glass…then you appeared, just in time to play her white knight.” Alex’s voice was grim.
“I had a guard on her, I had—”
“Someone set her studio on fire tonight. Before the flames could get to her, you appeared again.”
Skye jumped to her feet.
Trace didn’t move. His hands had fisted. “You think I’m her stalker.”
Did Skye think that, too?
“I think…” Alex began slowly as his face tensed in hard, tight lines, “that you’ve been obsessed with Skye Sullivan for a very long time. Since you were kids, right? That was when you put Parker Jacobs in the hospital. According to him, you did it just because you caught the two of them kissing.”
Don’t! Help me!
Trace forced his hands to unclench. “Parker is a fucking liar. You’d be wise not to believe a word he says.”
Skye had backed away from the table. From me.
“And I’m supposed to believe you?” Alex’s question mocked him. “I tried to get access to your military service records, but Uncle Sam has those sealed tight.”
“That’s the way they should be.” He needed to talk to Skye. Alone. He’d get her to understand what he’d been doing.
“You’re a dangerous man, Trace Weston. You went black ops within months of your deployment. Vanished during your service for nearly four years, then you burst back on the scene with connections to some of the most powerful players in the world.”
He didn’t talk about his service time. Never had. Never would.
“You came back, then you fixated on the one thing that had always mattered most to you.” Alex’s gaze cut to Skye. “You watched her, you wanted her, and you couldn’t stand for anyone else to have her.”
“Trace?” She barely breathed his name. “Tell me…tell me you weren’t at the crash.”
He didn’t want to lie to her anymore.
“She wasn’t hung up on you. Skye had other lovers, so you had to put a plan in place. You needed to get her vulnerable. She was the celebrity in New York, surrounded by too many people. So you took that celebrity status away—you took her dancing away. You caused that wreck.”
“What the fuck!” Trace leapt to his feet. His chair slammed down on the floor behind him.
“She was so hurt in the crash that she had to give up dancing, and that was exactly what you wanted.”
Trace stalked around the table, heading right for that bastard.
Alex shoved away from his chair and stood up, fists clenched.
“You took away the dancing because that is what originally took her away from you, right? That’s what Parker said. Skye left to follow her dreams in New York. She left you.”
“No!” Skye’s denial. That sound halted Trace before he could drive his fist into the cop’s face. “It wasn’t like that. Trace was joining the military. He…he’s the one who left me. He told me to go.” Her hair brushed over her shoulders as she shook her head. “He rejected me, not the other way around.”
“Then maybe he changed his mind.” Alex didn’t glance her way. “Maybe he saw so much blood and death during his deployment that it made him want life again. Want you. But he had to come up with a way of getting you back…and he did. He made you afraid. So afraid that the only person you could turn to for help would be—”
Trace grabbed the guy and shoved him back against the wall. “You don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”
“And you just assaulted an officer.” Alex smiled at him even as the door to the interrogation room flew open. Two uniformed cops rushed in and grabbed Trace’s arms. “I don’t care how damn rich you are, Weston, you’re under arrest.”
He could have broken free from the cops. Could have gone right after the detective again. Instead, Trace offered the cop his own, grim smile. “You’ve made a mistake, detective. A very, very serious one.”
Alex straightened his shirt. “I don’t think so. What I’ve done is keep her—” He jerked his thumb toward Skye. “Safe. I’ve shown her just what you really are.”
The uniformed cops pulled Trace toward the door. He glanced over at Skye. “She already knows just what I am.” She was the only one who knew what he was really like, deep inside.
He hated the pain he could see on her face.
The detective’s fault. His gaze cut back to Alex. “Soon enough, you’ll see, too.”
“Is that a threat?” Alex demanded.
“More of a promise…” Then the cops forced him from the room. You should know, detective, I always keep my promises.
***
Her knees felt like rubber.
“You need to sit down, Skye,” Alex said, speaking in a soft, soothing voice to her as he pulled out her chair once more.
“I don’t want to sit down.” She wanted him to stop treating her like some kind of broken bird. Skye raked a hand over her face. “It’s not Trace.”
“I know you don’t want to believe that—”
“He saved me!”
Alex walked closer to her. Stopped less than a foot away. “That’s what he wants you to believe. Are you so sure he wasn’t at your studio before the fire started?”
“He wasn’t! I was there, Reese was there—”
“Reese is a trained agent, yet it looks like someone got the drop on him. Someone snuck up and knocked the guy out. I’m guessing not many folks could do that, but Trace Weston, he could.”
Trace could do anything.
He was at the wreck?
“You’ve got to stop seeing him with some freakin’ rose colored glasses. He wanted you back, so he got you. He set up everything so that you had to return to him. Don’t you see? He makes the threats, then he saves you from them.”
This couldn’t be happening. “I need to talk to him.” She took a fast step toward the door.
Alex moved and blocked her path. “He’s headed to booking. You can’t talk to him now.”
“You’re not really going to arrest him!”
“Yes, I am.” His lips tightened. “And I figure he’ll have some fancy-ass lawyer who comes in and gets him out by morning, but you know what? That gives you tonight. A night to be safe. A night to think about Weston. Every moment you’ve spent with him. Realize who the hell he really is, and get smart. Get away from him. And you can stay alive.” His fingers lifted and curled around her shoulders. “I’m trying to help you. You—dammit, you remind me of my sister. She was like you. Trusting the wrong man. So sure he was right.” His eyes glinted with a wild intensity.
“Alex—”
“She was eighteen when that right man beat her to death because he didn’t want any other man getting close to her. Eighteen. He thought Susan was his, and he wasn’t going to let her go.” He gave a rough shake of his head, but his hands were light on her shoulders. “I’ve seen the way Weston looks at you. You think that man’s not obsessed? He is. And I believe he would do anything to have you.”
I would kill for you. In an instant, with no hesitation. Her lips felt numb as she said, “He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“That’s what Susan used to say, too. No matter how many times I told her otherwise…”
The interrogation room door opened again. “Captain wants to see you, Griffin,” the female officer said as she stood on the threshold. “Wants you now.”
Alex dropped his hold on Skye. “Make sure she gets home safely, will you, Carol?”
“Of course.”