Fatal Attraction (Love Kills Duet #2)

8. Eight

Eight

Charlotte

I t was around 10pm when several hard knocks rapping against my front door jerked me awake, forcing me to jump out of bed half-asleep and search half-blind for my phone, which must have somehow gotten tangled up in the sheets. When I couldn’t find it, I cursed and made a play for my gun.

“ Charlotte ,” wailed Spike’s distressed voice, the pounding on my door more aggressive now.

“Hang on a minute!”

My shoulders sagged in relief as I put the gun in the drawer and closed it. Expelling an ugly yawn, I dragged ass down the stairs and disarmed the security system.

“Are you okay?” Phoenix asked when I opened the door.

“I was sleeping.” I reached up to rub the dreaded sleep crust out of my eyes. “Today was…rough.”

Spike pressed a kiss to my head as Phoenix closed the door. Phoenix scooped me up in his arms and then kissed me deeply, murmuring how sorry he was in my ear.

“How did it go?” I asked when we parted, veering back to rearm the system while Spike departed for the kitchen and Phoenix found salvation on the couch.

“Dr. Rayford completed Blaire’s autopsy,” said Phoenix.

“And?”

He shook his head, his focus locked on his fidgeting hands in his lap. “It’s not good, Charlotte. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes,” I told him, scoffing as I rounded the furniture and plopped down beside him, grabbing his face and forcing him to look at me. “Tell me.”

“She was pregnant, Charlotte.”

My face fell, and my mouth dropped. “Blaire was what? ”

“Pregnant,” Spike repeated from the kitchen, as he helped himself to the booze stashed away in one of my cabinets, drinking it straight from the bottles’ mouth. He let out a troublesome sigh before he turned, his green eyes sweeping over me. “10 weeks to be exact.”

“But-but that’s not possible,” I stammered, my breath hitching. “Blaire would never —”

“Well, she did,” Phoenix hoarsely cut in. “Which is a problem because now Harley, Chief, and Captain Burgess are under the impression Blaire’s murder isn’t linked to our other cases.”

“It’s bullshit.” Spike made his way over to us, bottle in hand, and sank down in the open seat next to me. “But we’ll discuss that more in a minute.”

He handed the booze off to Phoenix who tipped the bottle back to his lips with zero reluctance. Spike slightly lifted up to fumble inside his back pocket. He pulled out a pad and then handed it over to me.

“This is all the information Dr. Rayford gave us about Blaire.”

Dread ran over me as my grip tightened around the pad. And when I opened it, reading over the first few lines, it was hard not to burst into tears all over again. As speculated, Blaire was brutally raped and beaten, and there were bruises and ligature marks wrapped along her wrists and ankles, with a little note in parenthesis stating Blaire had been physically restrained, unable to properly defend herself against the assailant. The COD was determined as severe blunt force trauma to multiple areas of her head, and my hand shot to my mouth when I read that the left side of Blaire’s skull had been crushed. I couldn’t stomach reading the rest about the pregnancy, or all the areas of Blaire’s body that had been eaten away thanks to the bugs.

“Please tell me there’s DNA,” I rasped, looking up and gaping hopefully between them, failing to stop my jaw from trembling.

“We won’t know until the lab reaches out. It’ll be a few days before the results are in but we’re trying to remain optimistic.”

“I… I just can’t believe she was pregnant.” I leaned back and rubbed the heels of my palms against my eyes and blew out a hoarse breath. “Blaire never told me she was seeing anyone outside of Carter.”

Just thinking about it made my heartache worsen. Carter and Blaire had been married just over six years, and although I really didn’t know much about their relationship, what I did know was that Carter was gone all the time, shipped off from one deployment after another. I couldn’t exactly recall his MOS—Blaire never really talked about Carter’s job with me—but if it required having to stay gone all the damn time, then yeah, I suppose it made sense why she’d fallen into another lover’s arms. That still didn’t make it right though, and I frankly couldn’t believe she hadn’t told me about the affair.

Then again, I thought quickly. Why would she?

After what Karl did to me, Blaire knew exactly how I’d have reacted.

“Yeah, well, that’s the least of our problems at the moment,” said Spike.

“What do you mean?”

“We spent hours going through Blaire’s calls, texts, and bank statements. There’s nothing. No evidence of the affair or anything that validates she’d been talking to someone.”

“Which leads us to believe Blaire may have had another phone,” muttered Phoenix.

“You mean like a burner?” I asked dumbly. Obviously, it had to be a burner. What else could it have been?

Phoenix nodded, his frown deepening. “Problem is, the CSU never found any additional devices in the house, just the one in her purse. ”

“It’s just a theory,” Spike quickly pitched in. “Without proof, we have no real way of knowing if she did, but it’s the best guess we could think of that would explain why Blaire was so careful with hiding the affair.”

“Well, what did Harley have to say about it?” I asked.

Spike angrily scoffed and shook his head. “It’s like Phoenix said, with Blaire popping up pregnant, Harley, Cap, and Chief are convinced this is a separate case with an entirely different perp.”

“They think the father of the baby killed her,” I muttered, my eyes widening once I realized they may have been right about Blaire and the phone thing.

The more I thought about it, the more it began making sense. If Blaire had a second phone, then it was possible her new lover had gotten it for her. Hell, he very well could have murdered Blaire and had taken the phone with him to cover his tracks.

But the baby…

My heart sank, hating myself for even considering it.

This guy wouldn’t have murdered Blaire because she was pregnant…

Would he?

“Yes,” Spike answered. “Unless proven otherwise, that is their beliefs.”

“What bugs me is the scene.” Phoenix took another swig of booze before he leaned over and passed the bottle back to Spike. “It was too clean. Blaire was covered in blood, and yet there was no splatter or droplets found anywhere throughout the whole house.”

“And since there were no signs of a break-in,” added Spike.

“Then that means Blaire was killed somewhere else,” I finished. “And the guy had access to her house. But then again, he did have Blaire, so that would also mean he had access to her keys.”

I paused then, cursing heavily as I rushed to my feet, my eyes wide.

“Carter! Oh, fuck . What time is it? He’s on a plane back home and his flight should be—”

“Spike and I are picking him up from the airport. His plane lands in two hours.”

“Then I’m coming with you. If anyone should break the news to him, it should be me.”

“Charlotte, you can’t. Harley will—”

“Do not fucking argue with me, Phoenix. Like it or not, I’m coming. I don’t give a flying fuck what Harley has to say about it.”

His green eyes grew dark, tightening as they gave me a long, head-to-toe sweep. “Spike?”

“Normally, I’d disagree. BUT… After what’s happened to Blaire, it’s not safe for her to be alone, Phoenix. She’s fine now, but what if something were to happen while we’re gone? She may have the security cameras back up and running, but she still doesn’t know how to protect herself.”

“I just don’t want her to get into any more trouble than she’s already in with Harley,” he muttered softly.

“Harley doesn’t have to know,” countered Spike.

Phoenix sighed, and despite the protest stamped around every crease of his face, he leaned back deeper in his seat and pulled out his phone, surveying the screen.

Without breathing another word, I marched upstairs, took a scalding hot shower, and then met them downstairs thirty minutes later, ready to go.