Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy Book 6) (18 page)

“I understand. I have nothing to hide, so watch me all you want.”

“Your DNA is in the system from your time in the military – I’m sure we’ll match it to any trace evidence found under Ms. Conrad’s nails and then our case won’t be quite so circumstantial. It’ll directly tie you to the victim.”

“I already told you that she scratched me, I’m not hiding that fact. I imagine you’ll find my DNA on her, but I
also
imagine you’ll find someone else’s. The killer’s.”

“Don’t leave the city,” she snapped.

“I won’t.”

“And stay away from Ms. Perez.”

That
stopped him. “Why?”

“Because she asked me to tell you that.”

“She did?”

“Yep.” Gia shrugged. “She said that she didn’t want you anywhere near her.”

Luke spun on his heel. “I’ll need to hear that from her myself. Is she still here?”

“No. We let her go more than two hours ago.”

“
Fuck
.” Luke shot out of the room, down the hall, out the door. He could only imagine what Selena must be thinking right now and he decided to just show up at her place, to hell with calling ahead. He didn’t want her to have the chance to tell him not to come over.

And if truth be told, he was afraid of what
else
she might tell him… namely that she never wanted to see him again. That he’d fucked this up so bad, she hated him.

That he’d lost her.

Chapter Seventeen

The knock at Selena’s door wasn’t a surprise. Yeah, she’d asked Detective Yates to tell Luke to stay away – but she knew the man. Or, at least, she’d
thought
that she knew him. Right this second, she wasn’t sure at all just who he was.

She opened the door and stared up at him. He looked awful: panicked and worried. She narrowed her eyes, determined to not care how he was feeling. He could just go right on ahead and feel bad because God knows, she wasn’t feeling particularly awesome.

“Selena.” That rough voice caressed her name and she stiffened her resolve. “You OK?”

“I passed on a message for you to stay away from me.” Thank Christ her tone was cold and distant. “Should I have sent up smoke signals, too? Tapped it out in Morse Code, maybe? Attempted telepathy?”

He ignored her jibe and the sarcasm, ploughed on ahead to the important shit.

“I know you did,” he said urgently. “She told me what you said, but that’s not the right thing to do here, Selena. We need to talk.”

“Oh,” she said. “So
now
you’re all for talking and openness and honesty?”

He flinched. “OK. I deserved that.”

“
So
glad we can agree on what you deserve.” She backed up and sat down on the sofa, her arms crossed. “So. You were seeing Natalie the whole time we were together. In fact, according to her phone records, you were in touch
before
we even started anything. What were you two up to?”

“Babe.” He stepped in to her apartment and shut the door, shook his head at her words. “I wasn’t
seeing
her, OK, not the way you’re implying.”

“First up, don’t fucking call me ‘babe’. Second, I’m not
implying
jack-shit. I’m simply repeating what I was told by a quite aggressive cop this afternoon… I saw the phone records and the texts and the lovely pictures, Luke. I saw the witness statements that you met her at Curves the night before we fucked for the first time."

Luke flinched again. "Don't call it that, babe, please. It was
never
that."

Selena ignored him, carried on. "And you saw her
again
last night.” She felt the anger rising in her body and she fought to stay calm. “You
lied
to me, Luke. Over and over again.”

“I know… I know.”

“Why?” As much as Selena wanted to thunder out the question, it came out in a little voice, a hopeless, hurt voice. “
Why
, Luke? Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”

“Because Natalie wasn’t important to me, and I ignored her, and then that night at Curves I told her in no uncertain terms to back off and leave me alone. I hoped that
that
would be the time that she’d get the message, but from the beginning, it just… escalated. And fast.”

“And how does this explain why you didn’t tell me?” she asked. “I mean, if it was escalating, then you
had
to have known that she’d do something to come to my attention sooner or later.”

“I was a fucking idiot,” Luke said. “I just kept hoping that she’d take ‘no’ for an answer and go away.”

“Well.” Selena shrugged. “She
has
gone away. Permanently.”

“I had nothing to do with that.” Luke almost fell to his knees in front of her. “Selena. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t hurt her.”

“My God, Luke… do you think I don’t know that?”

He paused. “You – you don’t think that I had anything to do with her murder?”

“Of
course
I don’t. Jesus.”

“Oh, thank God, babe.” He wanted to touch her right now, but he suspected she’d bite him if he tried. “I’m sorry. Selena, I’m so, so sorry.”

“For what, specifically?” she asked.

“For not talking to you. For lying to you.”

She waited. “That’s it?”

Luke gave her a puzzled look. “That’s not enough?”

“Oh, hell, no. It’s not
nearly
enough.” She got to her feet and stuck her hands on her hips. “Did you know that Detective Yates accused
me
of killing Natalie?”

“
What
?” Luke exploded. “What the fuck –”

“Yeah. She found it very hard to believe that a woman who’s a professional bodyguard and ex-military wouldn’t notice that her boyfriend was lying to her for weeks and weeks on end. She asked me when I figured out that you were cheating on me, and what I did about it.”

“Oh, shit.” Luke was torn between fury and empathy. “Selena…”

“She implied that I got rid of my competition,” Selena continued on. “I had to work very,
very
hard to convince her that, in actual fact, you were such a fucking accomplished liar, I had no idea that Natalie was back in the picture.” She paused. “Needless to say, that didn’t help
your
cause.”

“What?” Luke wasn’t normally this slow, but he was reeling. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Luke, that everything that I said to defend myself hurt you!” Her dark eyes blazed up at him. “I showed you up conniving and manipulative, didn’t I? Worse, I exposed your lie about where you were last night
and
I couldn’t provide you with an alibi. Every single thing that I said made you look more and more guilty… and how the hell do you think that made me feel?”

Luke was stricken: he hadn’t thought about it this way, at all.

“I know you didn’t kill Natalie,” Selena said. “I know that damn good and well, but nothing that I said or did today helped prove that. Look at the position you put me in, Luke. I had no choice – none at all! – but to throw you under the bus. You think I enjoyed that?”

He felt like he’d just been punched in the head. “No.”

“No.” She snapped out the word. “You’re not a killer, Luke, but you
are
a man who withheld important information from me and then flat-out lied to me more than once. That makes you an untrustworthy bastard.” She paused to let the words sink in. “That means
I
can’t trust you.”

“Oh, babe… wait.” Luke suddenly couldn’t suck in enough air. “Just wait.”

“You told me that I was yours, Luke.” She spoke quietly now, every word breaking his heart a little bit more. “You said that meant that I had to trust you and confide in you. Talk to you about everything. And I
did
, Luke, I was totally open with you. I let you see me when I was vulnerable and scared and felt ugly… I
trusted
you with all of that. I thought that you were doing the same thing with me, being just as real and honest.” She stared at his ashen face. “But I guess that was all a one-way street, huh?
I
was expected to be honest and open, but
you
got to keep your little secrets?”

“Selena,” he whispered, but he knew that it was all just too late.

“I want you to leave now. Get out of my home.”

“No, please. Let’s talk –”

“No. You
had
your chance to talk to me, Luke. You had about a hundred chances over the past month… and you blew every single one of them off. Now I’m not interested in anything you have to say to me.”

“Hey. Hey, beautiful –”

He’d gone too far now, he saw instantly. She stiffened and a look of pain and rage flashed across her face.

“Don’t you
dare
.” Her voice was hard, emotionless. “Just fucking don’t. Not ever again.”

Luke’s throat closed up. She meant it, he saw; she fucking
meant
it.

“Get out.”

This time, he did as she said.

**

Luke sat in his truck, staring at the door to Selena’s building. Everything in his huge body was straining to go back inside to her, to reason with her, to hold her close and comfort her, to beg her for forgiveness. But she’d been clear: she didn’t trust him. She probably never would again.

And no goddamn wonder, man. You screwed this up far, far beyond the point of any forgiveness.

His cell phone rang and he glanced at the number. He hesitated, just for a few seconds, then he answered.

“Hi, Griff.”

“Luke.” His friend’s voice was angry and worried. “What the ever-loving
fuck
, man?”

Luke sighed. “You talked to Selena, huh?”

“What? No. I got dragged down to the police station this afternoon and asked a million questions about you and Natalie. They think you killed her, you know.”

“Oh, Christ.” Luke just wanted to lie down and die on the spot. “I’m sorry.”

“And what about Selena?”

“They questioned her, too. In fact, they accused her of offing Natalie herself, to keep her away from me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. That’s ludicrous.”

“Yeah, I know. It was just a fishing expedition, though, a way to get Selena to offer up the goods on me.”

“And did she?”

“She did, but she had no choice. All she did was tell the truth and frankly, the truth makes me look pretty damn bad.”

“Yeah. I figured that out for myself.”

The men fell silent for a few seconds. Then Griff spoke.

“How’s Selena doing?”

“Not good, man. I just came to her place to talk to her and she booted me out.”

“Well,
that
can’t be a big shock.”

“It’s not.”

“She OK?”

“I don’t think so.” Luke took a deep breath. “Can you give her a call? Check in?”

“Yeah. She was my next call, anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.” Griff shook his head. “And what about Natalie? Any suspects besides you?”

“Yeah, I have one. Can we meet for a beer and talk?”

“Yeah.” Griff glanced at his watch. “Gimme a few hours. Is nine o’clock OK? At Curves?”

“Not at Curves. I don’t want anyone else to know yet.”

“Fuck, Luke. You think they
don’t
know? Jax was at the police station at the same time that I was and Dallas was there too, being asked about Selena.”

“Oh, no.” Luke held the phone under his chin and covered his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh,
man
.”

“Right. No secrets here, not anymore.”

“No. Not anymore.”

Chapter Eighteen

By the time Dallas arrived at Curves, Luke was teetering on the edge of depression. God, how had it all gone so
wrong
? Natalie murdered, Luke the prime suspect, Selena dumping him, Luke’s friends and employer and Selena’s employer getting dragged in for questioning and everyone being told about his deception. Talk about a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

He was sitting in Jax’s office with Jax and Griff, silent and unmoving. When Dallas appeared clutching a beer, Luke got to his feet.

“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” Luke said. He’d already apologized a hundred times, but it looked like there was no end in sight to his being sorry. “Selena had nothing to do with any of this, Dallas, I promise you.”

“Well, of
course
she didn’t.” The other man was totally relaxed, and that confused Luke. “And neither did you.”

“I know that.” Luke blinked. “But how do
you
know that?”

“I called in a favor.” Dallas took a sip of his beer. “Got my hands on the coroner’s report.”

The other men stared at him, dumbfounded.

“You – you
what
?” Jax asked. “How’d you pull that off, man?”

Dallas shrugged. “Never you mind. The point is, I saw the report and Luke, you’re off the hook. I don’t know why they haven’t informed you that you’re no longer a viable suspect, but no way you did this to that poor woman.”

“How do you know?” Luke asked again. “What evidence clears me?”

“The finger marks around her throat.”

Luke’s forehead furrowed as he thought about the picture of Natalie. “I didn’t see any finger marks in the photo Detective Yates showed me.”

“That picture was taken in the alley where her body was discovered and before she got to the morgue, so the marks were hidden by the stab wounds and the bruising from the beating. But once the coroner cleaned her up and got her under the lights, the finger marks appeared, clear as day. And they go all around her throat… up and down both sides.”

The men froze as the implication fully hit them.

“So whoever beat and stabbed her also strangled her,” Griff said slowly. “He got both hands around her neck…”

“Yep.” Dallas’ blue eyes were hard. “
Both
hands. The finger marks are from a right hand
and
a left hand, no doubt.”

Every eye in the room went to the end of Luke’s left arm and he tried to smile.

“Yeah, I’d say I’m definitely off the suspect list.”

“For sure.” Jax was hugely relieved. “So who’s left? On the suspect list?”

“Brad,” Luke said. “Her abusive boyfriend.”

“Yeah, my source inside told me that they’re trying to poke holes in his alibi,” Dallas said. “But so far, no go. It seems that he’s been in New York this whole time – has the receipts and witnesses and hotel footage to prove it.”

“So who then?” Luke asked.

“Detective Yates found a bank account that Brad tried pretty damn hard to hide,” Dallas said. “Contains quite a lot of cash. Or at least it
did…
until first thing this morning.”

“What happened first thing this morning?” Griff said, though he – and every other man in the room – knew
exactly
what had happened that morning.

“Why, bright and early, Brad made a sizeable transfer out of the account,” Dallas said. “Fifteen thousand dollars, actually.”

“Huh,” Luke said. “Interesting.”

“
Isn’t
it?” Dallas replied.

“And where’d the money go?” Luke said.

“That I don’t know… but my source
did
say that it was to a local account.” Dallas drank some more beer. “And it seems that the account owner is well-known to police. He’s a quite-recent parolee, actually, with a history of contract killing for our favorite asshole criminal, Kirk Jensen.”

“Fuck,” Luke gritted out. “A goddamn hitman?”

“It appears so,” Dallas said gently. “And it just strengthens the argument in your favor, you know.”

“Yeah.” Luke slumped in relief. “Yeah, it does.”

“So,” Dallas said. “I’d imagine that soon enough, you’ll get called back to the police station for a final round of questions, but they’ll be routine and designed to just shut the file on you as a suspect. Then you’ll be free and clear and happy.”

Luke nodded, automatically raised his own beer as the other men toasted him. Yeah, he’d be free… but no goddamn way he’d be anything even approaching happy. Not without Selena.

He wondered if she’d be there when he was declared an innocent man. But then it occurred to him: he
wasn’t
really innocent of any wrongdoing. Not even goddamn close.

**

The next afternoon, Luke walked out of police station with Jax and Dallas, looked around. When he spotted Griff leaning against his work SUV, his heart leapt in his chest; when he saw that Griff was alone, it sank again.

Jax saw the look on his face. “Go talk to him, man. Ask about her. Let me know when you’re ready to come back to work.”

Luke nodded. “Thanks for everything, guys. I’ll never forget any if it, I swear.”

Dallas waved his massive hand. “It was no problem and you know it. Now, go find out about your girl.”

Luke walked over to Griff now, thinking about Dallas’ words:
was
Selena his girl? Based on their last conversation, he’d say no fucking way, but maybe Griff came bearing good news?

Griff watched Luke approach, took in the other man’s exhaustion. Yeah, he’d been through it – and nothing that Griff had to say was going to make Luke’s mental state any better. He took a breath, braced himself for what was sure to be an awkward conversation.

Luke stopped right in front of Griff. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Despite the crappy circumstances, Griff grinned at his friend, relieved that he was free and his name was cleared. “How you doing?”

“OK.” Luke shrugged. “Being falsely accused of a crime sucks, man.”

“I just bet.”

They regarded each other now, saw both questions and answers there. Luke’s stomach clenched up tight at what Griff was saying without uttering a word.

“She’s not here, is she?” Luke asked softly.

Griff shook his head. “No.”

“And she’s not coming?”

Griff paused. “No.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s gone.”

Luke stared, horror-struck. “
Gone
? Gone where?”

“I don’t know. She told me that she needed some time.”

“How much time?” Luke held his breath, praying for something that he wasn’t sure he had any right to want. God knows he didn’t
deserve
it… but that wasn’t going to stop him from hoping for it anyway.

“She said at least a month.” Griff held out his hands, palms up. It was a gesture of both supplication and hopelessness. “Probably closer to two.”

“Where’d she go?” Luke asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“If Selena said not to tell you, I wouldn’t, no matter how fucking hard you begged.” Griff’s green eyes were unusually cold as he looked at Luke. “You messed up, man.
Bad
.”

“I know.”

“But she didn’t tell me, so it’s a moot point.”

“Got it.” Luke struggled with himself for a few seconds. “Did she leave me anything? A note? A message?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Luke’s heart plummeted to his stomach. “Right.”

Griff stared at his friend, decided to just go ahead and ask the question that he’d been stomping down on through this whole mess. “What the fuck were you
thinking
, Luke?”

“I – I don’t really know now.” Luke rubbed his eyes. “At the time, it made sense to not say anything to anyone, and most especially not Selena. I mean, me and Natalie were so fucking
over
… she’d kicked me in the balls by cheating, then by leaving when I needed her the most, and there was exactly
zero
chance of ever getting back together with her. Her calls were annoyances and I just ignored her, but when she showed up at Curves, I set her straight. Or so I thought. The night she – she died, she begged me to forgive her and give her another chance. She practically got on her goddamn
knees
in that diner, just lost her ever-loving
mind
. But no fucking dice, man.”

“I get all that, OK? I do. But why not tell Selena? You really think she’s the jealous, insecure type? If you think that, man, then you never knew your own girlfriend.”

“No. No, I don’t think that, but –”

“But what?” Griff prompted.

“But she was still working through some things… some things about her body. Things that I was worried about getting derailed if Natalie came up on her radar.”

“OK. Go on.”

“Well, you remember Natalie, yeah? A Barbie doll come-to-life and fuck knows, she played that up.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So. Look at it from Selena’s perspective. We were together and I told her that I loved her body… but she was struggling a bit sometimes. She just didn’t see herself the way that I did, and I’d catch her looking at other women when we were out. She’d just stare at their chests and get this look on her face – this weird and heartbreaking combination of envy and sadness. She’d get quiet and I’d try to reassure her that she was gorgeous and sexy, but she’d take some convincing. I mean, she was seriously thinking about working through it all with a therapist, but she wasn’t ready to commit to therapy. Not yet.”

“Aw, shit,” Griff muttered. “I had no idea.”

“So how would she react to Natalie throwing herself at me, in her crotch-high skirts and nipple-grazing shirts? Selena would have compared herself to Nat, and she’d have found herself lacking in every way. She’d have been fucking
wrong
, of course, ‘cause Nat didn’t have one one-thousandth of Selena’s appeal for me… but she’d have been hurt, hurt by a woman that I didn’t care if I never saw again. If I’d told her that Nat had shown up at Curves half-naked and flirted with me and got all up in my personal space, Selena would have tried to be cool with it, but she’d have been deeply wounded and worried. I believed it then, and I still believe it.”

“Yeah.” Griff sighed heavily. “Yeah, I see. You were trying to stop her from going to a bad place in her head over nothing at all.”

“I was. I really was.” Luke stared at the ground. “But now I look like an untrustworthy asshole, keeping all my contact with my ex-fiancée from the woman that I care about. I straight-up lied to her, and I withheld crucial information, and I made decisions for her without discussing a single goddamn thing. She said that she didn’t believe for one second that I was killer – but she
did
believe that I was a lying bastard and that was bad enough.
That
was why she walked away from me, man… because she said she couldn’t trust me.”

“She told you that?”

“Yeah.” Luke gave him a bleak, little smile. “Word for word, pretty much.”

“Shit.”

“So.” Luke shook himself a bit. “I’ve been cleared of Natalie’s murder and they’re hauling in this hitman and Brad right now, but I’ve lost Selena. I know I should be happy to be free and clear and for justice to be served eventually – but I’m fucking miserable.”

“Well.” Griff pushed himself off the SUV. “Give it some time, yeah? Maybe she’ll get away and think things through.”

“Could
you
forgive a woman who did this to you?” Luke asked him, point-blank. “A woman who was seeing her ex-fiancé without your knowledge? A woman who neglected to mention that that ex-fiancé was spending all his time throwing himself at her, trying to get her back? A woman who cancelled plans with you at the last fucking minute, said that she was with a friend in crisis, but was
really
meeting her ex… her ex who then fucking turned up dead in an alley? Could
you
forgive being humiliated by the cops, and accused of killing off your competition, and finding out the truth about your girlfriend’s whereabouts from strangers? Could you forgive any of
that
?”

Griff paused, really, truly seeing it from Selena’s side for the first time. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure at all that things were going to be OK between two of the people that he cared about most in the world. He froze up, realizing that he didn’t have a clue what to tell Luke.

But Luke knew exactly what he was thinking: he saw the look on Griff’s face and he smiled grimly.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “I couldn’t either.”