Delicious (36 page)

performing?” a reporter shouted.

The press. God, didn‟t these leeches ever get tired of hounding people

for nonexistent stories?

No. But in this case, he could give them a
real
one. “Yes. She‟s

devoting more of herself to the restaurant business, with my blessing.

We‟re excited about the next chapter of our life. But last night, someone

broke into our house and vandalized it. Terrorized my wife. She‟s now

missing, and I need your help to find her.”

“You suspect foul play?” shouted another reporter.

“It‟s a very real possibility.” As Luc said the words, he tried not to think

about what he‟d do if they were true, if some maniac had actually killed her.

It was all he could do now to keep his composure and not panic.

The press asked a few more questions, and Luc provided details about

when and where Alyssa was last seen.

Satisfied he‟d made the best of a bad situation, Luc turned and stalked

toward the door. Again, the councilman blocked his way.

Primpton sniffed and whispered for Luc only, “If someone returned her

to her maker, it‟s no more than she deserves.”

Luc fisted his hands. It was all he could do not to strangle the shithead.

The fact he felt that way made Luc wonder if Primpton‟s involvement was

more than judgmental gloating.

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“If I find out you had anything to do with the break-in at our house and

my wife‟s disappearance—”

“Me?” The older man had a shocked look on his face, yes. But he

looked eerily excited, too.

Luc‟s skin crawled.

“If you thought hurting Alyssa would further your narrow agenda, I

know you wouldn‟t hesitate. You‟d say God told you to do it or some such

crap. If I find out you‟ve been responsible for harming or terrorizing her in

any way, I‟ll—”

“What?” Primpton barked smugly. “What will you do to me?”

The asshole wanted Luc to threaten him. Luc refused to rise to the

bait, no matter how badly he wanted to tell the bastard he‟d love to rip him

limb from limb and describe it in agonizingly gory detail. But he refused to

give the bastard ammunition, especially because he might have Alyssa.

“I‟ll make sure you‟re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if I

can prove you were involved, you
will
need God‟s help to save you.”

The reporters out front left, and Jack called one of his buddies to follow

Primpton and see if he knew anything about Alyssa‟s whereabouts. The

guy was on it . . . but who knew how long before he had any answers?

Luc tried not to be disheartened, but worry was an ever-constant drag,

gnawing at his stomach, hollow and knotted. What if . . . he didn‟t find her

alive?

Shortly after they left, Remy called to say they‟d released the crime

scene. Analysis was under way, and Luc could enter the house. Jack made

a phone call and arranged for the cleaning service he knew well to meet

them at the house in thirty minutes.

Then Deke called. He‟d found a contact who might be able to help

them locate Tyler. He refused to say much since he needed a few hours to

work it.

Fidgeting in the passenger‟s seat, Luc felt ready to explode.

“I know what you‟re going through,” Jack said quietly.

Luc snapped his gaze around. “Because you fucked my wife once

upon a time?”

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As soon as the words were out, Luc wished he could take them back.

Whatever was between them was ancient history, and Jack had been

nothing but helpful today.

“Don‟t be a dumb ass,” Hunter drawled from the backseat of the SUV.

“Jack is totally devoted to Morgan.”

“It‟s okay.” Jack gripped the steering wheel, then visibly relaxed.

“Alyssa was mostly for show on cases.”

Mostly, but not completely. Luc didn‟t miss that distinction.

“It didn‟t occur to me that you‟d worry for a second about shit that went

down years ago. Sorry,” Jack said. “I‟m totally married, man. Shooting

straight? You know about me.”

The fact Jack Cole was a well-known Dominant, who had bondage

down to a fine art? “Yeah.”

“Alyssa and I weren‟t . . . compatible. We figured out very quickly that

we were better friends than lovers.”

Jack couldn‟t be any more honest, and Luc knew he needed to get

over whatever Alyssa had done with the other man before he‟d met her.

Hell, Luc himself had fucked Kimber after spending an incredible night with

Alyssa, so if anyone had done wrong, it was him.

“Thanks. Sorry.”

“I understand.” Jack smiled ruefully. “I always want to rip the balls off

of any man who even looks at my wife. I meant that I understood your

concern about her safety. After Morgan was shot, I thought I was going to

die. Literally, like someone had opened up a hole in my chest and torn out

my guts.”

That described Luc‟s state well. He rubbed a hand across his face.

Closing in on three in the afternoon, and he feared information would start

to dry up. Now what?

They arrived at the house, and Luc vaulted up the stairs, despite

Jack‟s renewed warnings. The destruction he saw in the master bedroom

made him see more red than the paint covering the walls and floors. Alyssa

had walked into
this
?

Slowly, he wandered around the room, blinking, hardly able to take it

all in. His clothes and the bedsheets were negligible, easily replaced. The

damage to the walls and carpet was also fixable. But the rest . . . Alyssa‟s

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lacy, racy underthings all piled on the bed with some scumbag‟s come on

them sent a fresh blade of panic through Luc. His wedding gift to her

destroyed. The beautiful picture of her in her wedding dress, looking

elegant and wearing a Mona Lisa smile, desecrated with the bright red

threat was another punch to the stomach.

Whoever had done this was serious. And he might have Alyssa in his

clutches.

Luc didn‟t know if this bastard had also written her the WHORE notes

with the knives weeks ago. Possible, though this felt far more angry and

serious. Either way, whenever Luc found his wife and whoever was

responsible for the violation of their home, he hoped he got ten minutes of

quality time with this asshole.

“I didn‟t think you should see this. You look somewhere between ready

to puke and ready to commit murder.”

“Bingo.”

“We‟ll find Alyssa and get this motherfucker.”

Not trusting himself to speak, he sent Jack a hard nod.

A moment later, the doorbell rang. Within a few minutes, they‟d

escorted the cleanup crew to the master bedroom and instructed them to

toss everything. Luc didn‟t want any trace of the crime to remind Alyssa in

case he got to bring her home safely.

“In two hours, you‟ll have no idea this happened,” a salty older woman

with peroxided hair assured. “If you‟ve got some touch-up paint, we‟ll be in

business. Fresh sheets, a little bit of treatment on the carpets . . . good as

new.”

After showing the crew where to find what they needed, Luc followed

Jack downstairs. Hunter awaited them, pacing the kitchen.

“I made a few phone calls to some friends,” Kimber‟s brother said.

“They‟re working on a psych profile of the perp. But at a glance, I‟d say

you‟re dealing with someone who‟s obsessed with your wife. Your wedding

seems to have infuriated him, since he stepped up his game shortly

thereafter.”

Someone like Primpton? Or Tyler, who had a real reason to be

jealous?

“If it‟s the same guy as before.”

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Hunter raised a tawny brow. “How many stalkers can she have?”

“You ever seen my wife onstage?”

Hunter hesitated, then grimaced. “Good point.”

Pushing aside the thought that yet another male had seen his wife

close to naked, he focused instead on what to do next. “I can‟t sit here. I

need to exhaust all possibilities, and that means finding Tyler.”

But where was the bastard?

Into the pensive silence, his phone rang. Deke. “Find something?”

“I‟ve got a buddy who knows a guy who works for the electric company

there in Lafayette. He‟s done a cross-reference of the name Tyler Murphy

to coincide with an initial service date between May and July. We have

three possibilities. There‟s a Murphy Taylor, a T. Patrick Murphy, and a T.

S. Murphy. I‟m e-mailing a list of their addresses to your BlackBerry right

now.”

Thank God. Maybe they were getting somewhere. Luc prayed to God

he‟d find his wife soon. He hoped she‟d simply been scared and gone to

the closest person who made her feel safe. That, he understood.

Reluctantly, yes, but . . . If she had simply been shaken, why hadn‟t she

called in all these hours?

The three hopped back in Jack‟s SUV, agreeing to hit Murphy Taylor‟s

house first, since it was less than a mile away. Luc darted out of the vehicle

as they rolled to a stop in the man‟s driveway and pounded on the door. A

pretty brunette answered. After they identified themselves, she said that

her husband was in the UK on business. Her pretty brown eyes soft with

sympathy, she showed them a picture of her husband, just to be certain.

Definitely not the Tyler they were looking for.

Cursing, his stomach twisting, they pulled out and headed to T. Patrick

Murphy‟s residence. It was an apartment on the northwest edge of town.

Again, Luc knocked impatiently on the door. A moment later a young man

answered, maybe all of twenty. Tall, lanky, and exhausted.

After blessing them out for waking someone in the middle of his sleep

who worked graveyard shifts, the men muttered their apologies and left.

Luc‟s stomach sank. One more possibility. Luc didn‟t want to think about

what he was going to do if the last lead was a dead end. It almost certainly

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meant she‟d been abducted, and he couldn‟t think about Alyssa being

afraid or in pain at the hands of a madman. Or dead.

In grim silence, the trio made their way to the southwestern edge of

town, to an upscale apartment building. It looked new, gleaming. They

drove past a sleek new swimming pool that looked more like a tropical

oasis than a man-made water hole. Multiple spas, jogging trail, Wi-Fi

included. Definitely more upscale than Tyler could afford on a bouncer‟s

salary.

Luc‟s heart sank, and given Jack‟s and Hunter‟s grim faces, they had

done the math as well. But they continued on until they reached apartment

314 and knocked.

A scuffle and a grunt and a long minute later, the door opened. Tyler

stood there. Shock transformed his square face. “What the hell are you

doing here?”

“Do you know where my wife is?”

Tyler raised a brow, then smiled. “Follow me.”

Relief crashed Luc‟s system. “She‟s here? Is she all right?”

The big tawny bouncer threw a glance over his shoulder, his

expression somewhere between confused and annoyed. “Of course.”

Biting back his impatience, Luc trailed Tyler, then registered the fact

the other man was walking down the hall of a designer-decorated

apartment . . . to the bedroom.

At the end of the hall, Luc came to a stomach-lurching stop. There,

Alyssa lay sprawled out across the man‟s bed, curled up with his pillow,

wearing one of his T-shirts that rode up around her waist, a thong, and

nothing else. She was out cold.

Was this really what it looked like?

What else could it be, idiot?
If she‟d simply been scared, why hadn‟t

she called to tell him where she was and that she was safe? Why did she

need to get undressed and into Tyler‟s bed?

Betrayal slammed him, so deep he almost couldn‟t breathe. The sight

of her so relaxed and tangled in another man‟s sheets gouged his heart out

of his chest. For a fleeting moment, he acknowledged that her infidelity was

better than her death. But they‟d been married less than two weeks. What

the fuck did he do now?

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“You look like I took a battering ram to your stomach.”

Luc whipped a glare around to the other man. “Didn‟t you? How did

this work? She came home to find the house vandalized, and called you to

protect her, giving you the perfect opportunity to help her out of her

clothes? Or did you hit the house to scare her and hope she‟d call you,

then let you fuck her again?”

“Man, you just don‟t get it.”

What is there to “get” except the fact my wife is fucking another man?

Tyler shook his head. “Take her home; make sure she rests. And get

the hell out of my face.”

His words were dismissive, as if . . . well, as if Tyler knew he‟d see

Alyssa—and have her—again. Whenever he pleased. Luc gritted his teeth.

He ought to leave her here with her lover. He‟d been stupid enough to fall

for her—hard—and now he was going to pay the price. He‟d married her

because she carried this man‟s child. Now he was getting an inside look at

what it had taken for these two to conceive. And didn‟t it hurt like a bitch?

But if he‟d married Alyssa for this baby, then by damned, he was going

to take her home for this baby. She might share her body with Tyler, but