a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures (2 page)

My condo was several blocks from the beach, but when it was quiet I could hear the waves, sometimes crashing, sometimes gently lapping against the shoreline. The sound of the ocean briefly flooded my senses, and then the thudding of my heart took over and filled my ears with the sudden rush of blood through my veins.

Ever so slowly rage cracked through the outer shell of my heart. “Who killed them?” I demanded again, my words stilted, stiff.

Pierce altered his stance and balanced his weight, ready to fight. My anger evaporated, shifting to confusion. Tynan thought
I
was going to attack
him
? Only if I had a death wish. The man was lethal.

“The kill was ordered by a South American official in the Ministry of Security, long since dead. He’d learned about Loyria Gray’s magic formula through a double agent, wanted it for his own use.” The mellow tone of his Irish brogue stroked my nerves, soothing.

“All right. But that’s only half the information. Who actually killed them?”

He angled his stance again. “A scientist who worked with Loyria Gray.”

I grabbed for the back of my favorite oversized chair, the leather cool against my palm. “Someone who knew my mother murdered her. That’s not possible. Everyone loved Mom. Everyone.”

Pierce shuffled his gaze toward the sliders that framed a picture-perfect view of the distant shoreline. He didn’t smile. “Greed. It’ll fuck up a friendship every time.”

A blitz of memories assaulted me: my mother smiling, hugging me, working in her garden. My knees wobbled, and I tightened my thigh muscles. No way was I going to collapse in front of Pierce. “Okay. I get that. What do you know about this scientist and how do we find him?”

His gaze swung back to me. “Eamon Grady. Fifty-eight, has multiple sclerosis, lives in a wheelchair.” Pierce shuffled his feet, glanced away. Muttered, “Towel’s slipping.”

An invalid. Maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him, just torture him with questions. I caught the knot in my towel a scant second before it loosened, and then tucked it up tight. “Why, exactly, did he murder my parents? They had healthy incomes and invested wisely, but weren’t wealthy enough to spark that kind of greed.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t take much to flip normal people into crazy, but this wasn’t about money, Belisama. Grady wanted Loyria’s formula.”

Multiple sclerosis. Healing formula. “Oh. Yeah. Was he diagnosed before the…assassination? And why both my parents? My father didn’t work with plants or forensics.”

Pierce studied my ceiling. What the heck was the matter with him? “You’re avoiding me. Not looking at me. Why are you standing in my living room if you don’t want to talk to me, answer my questions?” Should I touch him? My ESP fingers tingled with anticipation. No. Definitely not. I hadn’t
touched
anyone since Mitch. When he’d been lying in the funeral home. The emptiness had…

Azure eyes drilled into me. “Towel,” he growled.

“Shit.” I huffed under my breath, turned my back to him, and rewrapped the terrycloth so snugly the fabric abraded my skin. “Fine,” I said, whirling to face him. “All decent. And what is it with you? You’re all about chasing the female of the species. Granted you limit those connections to a few never-repeated-with-the-same-woman liaisons, but seriously, it’s not like a naked woman is a big deal to—”

“You’re not…” He flapped a hand in my direction.

Appealing. My heart finished his sentence, and it
hurt
. I’d been thinking about Pierce for a while, about being one of his flash-in-the-bed buddies. I hadn’t made all that much progress moving on with my life in the nine months since Mitch died…and I’d…considered that maybe a no-strings, no-emotion connection with someone safe might help me heal. Stupid idea. But Pierce was a friend and…no. I just wasn’t ready, but I still needed to feel attractive. And then maybe someday…

Pierce scowled.

Or maybe no sex ever again. If I couldn’t break through my pain with someone as noncommittally safe as Tynan Pierce, I’d probably never be ready for another relationship. No children like Annie and Sean’s sweet little Madigan would be a part of my life. Tears burned.

“Everly. What the hell are you thinking? You’re so damn pale I can see freckles, and you don’t have any.”

Red hair and no freckles. He was right about that. Usually. But my daily run in the Hawaiian sun had brought out a few light brown spots across the bridge of my nose. And he’d noticed them? The mass of wet hair I’d knotted at my nape spilled down my back. Cold. Shivery.

I grabbed for it.

The towel hit the floor at my feet.

“Fuck.” Tynan marched toward me, scooped the damp terrycloth off the floor, and draped it over me. “Go. Get. Dressed.”

Heat flamed in my cheeks, worked its way down my body. I hugged the towel so tight I couldn’t get a breath. Forced myself to look at him. Really look. His eyes had dilated to almost black with only a tiny rim of blue showing.

“You’re not ready, but, damn, that diamond in your navel is…” His words were clipped, his hands clenched.

No freaking kidding. So. Absolutely. Not. Ready. “Turn around.”

He swiveled on one foot, and I made a dash for the bedroom. What had just happened? First he slams me with a “you’re not my type” comment, and then he gets a look at my feminine assets and shifts into hormone overdrive. Maybe I wasn’t so bad. And Pierce liked the diamond he’d given me so long ago. A tiny skitter of happiness softened around my heart. At least I had one good thing from before I’d lost Mitch. Guilt flooded me.

I stepped into a pair of plain, white cotton panties, yanked on a tank that flattened my breasts, and covered the dried-up-prune underwear with a baggy pair of shorts and one of Mitch’s old t-shirts. I missed him so damn bad. Sobs spasmed in my chest. I made a dash for the bathroom and splashed icy water on my face until I could control the pain. It didn’t take long. I’d been working on it for almost a year.

The worst part: I owed Pierce an apology for even thinking of using him to break through the wall of pain that was sucking the life out of me. A guy, any guy, obviously wasn’t the answer, and risking my friendship with Pierce was even less of one.

I dried my face and stared at the stranger in the mirror. It had been a long time since I’d liked her even a little bit, and I had to find a way out this sticky morass of guilt, anger, and pain. Maybe an apology to Pierce would be the first step.

Squaring my shoulders, I strolled to the kitchen without so much as a glance into the living room. Difficult to pull off since the two rooms were connected, but I clung to those few remaining seconds before I had to embarrass the hell out of myself. The refrigerator opened with its usual sticky-hiss sound and cold air blasted me in the face. I closed my eyes and breathed it in, praying it would give me some semblance of fake calm. My fingers hooked around the tops of two bottles of water, I hip-shot the refrigerator closed, and faced one of the two men I considered my friends.

“Sorry. I’ve been having a hard time with losing Mitch, and, as you probably noticed, it’s made me crazy. Water?”

Pierce accepted the bottle, and then ran the back of his hand over my cheek. “When you’re ready I’ll be there. I’ve waited a long time, Everly, and I’m not fucking this up.”

Shock exploded with a single bolt of electricity that zapped my brain cells. The water slipped from my fingers, landing on the floor with a thud and a bounce.

And the doorbell shattered the silence between us.

TWO

I SHOT A LOOK AT
the microwave clock. Eight. In the freaking morning. And everyone I knew, except Aukele, was still on the Big Island hiking the volcanoes.

Pierce’s forehead wrinkled, his version of a shoulder shrug—only not.

A fist banged on the door. Or maybe it was a battering ram, considering the blows nearly shook the walls. “Open up Everly Gray Hunt. Parker and I aren’t going away until we’ve had our say.”

The wobble lurking in my knees hit full force, and I clutched Pierce’s arm to steady myself. “Jayne. And Parker. Why would Mitch’s sister be here?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Want me to—?”

“No.” Whatever Tynan Pierce was considering would be a bad plan. “I want you to leave.” I pointed at the slider. “Whatever Jayne has to say is private. Between us.”

Pierce leaned in and kissed my cheek. Very chaste. “Later, Belisama.” He disappeared, leaving the faint memory of a slippery crackle in the room. Surely he didn’t wear those cargoes when he was chasing bad guys. They’d announce his whereabouts. Well, damn. He’d worn them for me. So I’d know he’d invaded my space. So I’d know exactly where he was. It was sweet in a Pierce sort of way. And it totally screwed with my mind.

The doorbell rang relentlessly. I cautiously made my way across the living room, stopped at the halfway point. Jayne had delivered a son several months after Mitch stepped in front of the bullet meant for me. They’d named him Mitchell Hunt Steele. What was she doing here when she should be on mommy duty?

“Everly?” Parker this time.

“Coming.” No point in putting this off. I certainly couldn’t send them away when they’d traveled from North Carolina to see me. No matter the reason. Heart jumping, I practiced smiling, and then swung the door open.

“
Jayne. parker. I’m stunned.
Why didn’t you let me—?”

Jayne marched in, her khaki slacks and white blouse so crisp they crackled. Her left hand was firmly wrapped around the handle of the carry-on suitcase trailing behind her. “Because you would have insisted we not leave little Mitchell to make the trip. And because…” She looked me up and down, then sighed. “We might have waited too long, Parker.”

He leaned around his wife, and kissed my cheek in the exact same spot Pierce had a minute earlier. Talk about incongruity. “How are you, Everly?” The genuine concern in his whiskey-smooth voice slipped under my protective walls.

Jayne didn’t give me time to answer. “Harrummmph.” No one could harrumph like Jayne Hunt Steele. I was in for a time of it.

She strolled into the kitchen with a definite wiggle of the post-partum baby fat that had settled on her derriere. Her gaze swung back to me. “Look at her, Parker. She’s skin clinging to bones and muscle. There’s no life in her eyes, and she’s hiding in one of Mitchell’s tattered t-shirts.”

Parker winked at me, shot the cuffs of his starched shirt, and settled into my oversized chair.

Jayne opened the refrigerator, took out two bottles of water, tossed one to Parker, and then zeroed in on me. “We’re here to do an intervention.”

My stomach settled somewhere around my wobbly knees. What the hell? “That’s what they do for alcoholics. I’m not that into drink—”

Jayne cut me off with the flat of her hand. “A grief intervention. Now, let’s sit down and discuss this rationally, as there are a few things I need to go over with you before we leave.”

They were leaving. The infamous light at the end of the tunnel clicked on and I blew out a premature sigh. It would be over soon, and there really was no force in the Universe like Jayne Hunt, so there was no point arguing with her. Mitch had been able to slide through her analyses and organizational rampages unscathed, but not me. I’d had a rocky beginning with my sister-in-law before we’d settled into a friendship, and her love for Mitch was so strong, so devoted, that she’d never completely accepted me as his wife. As friends we did well most of the time, although friendship with Jayne was a lot of work. Still, this impromptu visit had me baffled. I scooped up the bottle of water I’d dropped earlier, settled into a corner of the sofa, and tucked my legs under me. “I’m not getting it.”

“Precisely why we’re here.” She leaned over and patted my knee. It started wobbling again.

I uncapped the water, drank, and concentrated on the cool liquid bathing my throat. Anything would be better than Jayne’s voice.

“Think about the view from Mitchell’s back deck, Everly—the vast open space, the peace that pours from the hills and grassland. My brother designed that scene just like he framed all of the photographs he created. He rarely took a snapshot. It was always living art. That man, the artist, would be appalled to see you slumped here with your heart oozing grief. The only thing left alive in you is that new smattering of freckles on your nose, and that is totally unacceptable, Everly Gray Hunt.”

The world had moved into a time warp that battered me with painful memories. Jayne had been devastated at Mitch’s funeral. A complete, incoherent basket case. We’d traveled with his body from Hawaii to North Carolina and she—we—sat with the casket for the entire trip. We’d both been submerged in pain so acute it had numbed us to everything except the physical labor of moving Jayne and Parker into Mitch’s house. The one Mitch and I had lived in as husband and wife.

Unbeknownst to me, he’d given the house and land to his sister and her husband when I’d left him to move to Hawaii. Jayne was pregnant, and Parker wanted to raise their family in the country. And Mitch had hoped to save our marriage by moving across the Pacific to be with me. An act of faith, or so he’d said. I rubbed at the pain in my chest. Where was she going with this? Cracking open old wounds that were still deep enough to bleed was bad form, even for Jayne.

She chugged her water. “All right. Hydrated, so can we make some coffee? Something decadent with cream and flavorings?”