Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3) (3 page)

I pounded the back of the sofa. “That’s it
then!
Carsten
is behind Joel’s disappearance!” And
then I saw he was not in the least surprised. “Wait—you knew all along, didn’t
you? Why did you involve
me
if you
knew all you had to do was confront
Carsten
?”

“I don’t think that’s all I have to do.” Daniel’s
eyes fixed on mine. “You’ve been both an employee at Razor Industries and an
employee in my house. It’s hard to believe you’re not up to your neck in this
somehow. Every time I think I’m getting close, I find you at the end of the
road. I go to the SFPD and find out you were already there. You knew about
Tallulah. You claim you want to find Joel but you still haven’t told me why.
Why is it so important to you to find my stepbrother?”

Involuntarily, I covered my stomach.
Nothing to see yet but I couldn’t help it. Daniel noticed the gesture.

“What’s going on? Do you still feel sick?”

“Don’t try and change the subject. Why is
so important to
you
to have me here?
You asked me to stay and help you find Joel. To be blunt, the only reason I’m
here is because you said you would pay me to snoop on your friends at your
engagement party. I needed the money. I’ll put up with being locked in the
attic every night like some kind of criminal but I won’t put up with veiled
accusations. Either you trust me or you don’t.”

“I don’t trust you. Something is going on
with you, I can feel it. You know something you aren’t telling me. I’ve shown
you my hand, now show me yours. Lewis said you’ve been keeping a journal. If
you have nothing to hide, then show it to me. Where is it?”

“Are you insane? I’m not showing you my
journal. What’s in there is none of your business. Don’t insult me. You still
haven’t explained why
Carsten
is walking around free
when he’s a menace. There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”

He looked for a moment like he was going to
share and then a cloud crossed his face and his dark eyes went blank. Whatever
it was, Daniel was committed to keeping it to himself. “I’ve told you as much
as I can trust you with. When you show me your journal, I’ll trust you with
more.”

I turned away from him in disgust. “Okay,
new question—why was Joel’s closet ransacked on the day he went missing? Wilma
said it was like that when she came to make the bed and Joel had done it, but
that doesn’t sound like Joel. Why would he ransack his own closet?”

“He wouldn’t.” His expression was solemn.
“What else can you remember about the Tallulah emails?”

“Not much. They were mostly reports from
contractors, shareholder queries, that kind of thing. I forwarded them to
Carsten’s
secretary. She might still have them on file.”

“I’ll get Rita on it.” Daniel nodded to the
jeans I was wearing. “Where did you get those?”

“I found them in Joel’s closet. Jackson
delivered my suitcases but I only have designer clothes and I want to keep
those in good condition for Europe. I will not crawl around secret passageways
in
Prada
. I borrowed some of Joel’s things.”

Daniel looked me over. “The jeans look good
on you. Have your breasts always been that big?”

I was wearing a white tee-shirt, short-sleeved,
and very tight. “Stop it.” My face was hot.

All of a sudden, I wasn’t conscious of
anything except Daniel standing right behind me. It was like he absorbed me
into his blood system whenever he looked at me with his dark eyes. I found him
really hard to resist.

“Have dinner with me tonight.” His deep
voice rumbled through me.

“I have to rehearse.”

“Rehearse and then have dinner with me.
What time do you finish?”

“The group is meeting here at seven.”

The smile he gave me was slow and a little
worrying. “Great. I’ll see tonight in the main dining room after your
rehearsal.”

♫

CARSTEN SHOOK his head in disgust.

“How could you let this happen? I thought
you said moving into the mansion was a lock. The situation we have now is
nowhere near a lock. You have no access to the
very
person I need to control. The board meets in less than two days
and I find you in a hotel room, throwing a snit and pouting. How useful do you
think you are to me right now?”

“You were there,” Anastasia said. Her
color
rose and her voice shook. “You saw what he was like!
What was I supposed to do—
beg
him to
let me stay? He was drunk and obnoxious. I did what anyone would have done—I
left.”

“All right, all right,” said
Carsten
. “Calm down. Has he been in touch since then?”

“No. When I heard the knock at the door, I
thought it was him.”

“My source tells me the violinist is still
living there. Daniel didn’t spend the night in the loft but he was up there
with her for a long time.”
Carsten
eyed her. “Apparently,
there was an incident on the roof yesterday. The girl almost fell. According to
my source, this morning she visited the police station but no further action
has been taken. I’m guessing you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“It’s news to me.” Anastasia moved to the
window. “I imagine Charlotte Dawson will be packing her violin case and moving
out before the end of the day. These are dangerous times to be a friend to Daniel
Razor.”

“On the contrary, according to my source the
girl is having dinner with your fiancé tonight. Her friends have been invited
to rehearse at the mansion. If anything, Daniel and the violinist are getting
closer. So I hope you’re getting a lot of satisfaction out of this battle
you’ve picked because you are losing the war.”

Anastasia slightly panicked at this news.
“What am I supposed to do? You tell me—what am I supposed to do with a man like
that? I have no influence over him.”

“Well then, get some. I want you in that house
and I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen. If this deal doesn’t
go through, some powerful people are going to lose money and powerful people
don’t like to lose money. You said you would help me with my problem if I
helped you with yours. I’ve done my part—you’ve got an engagement ring on your
finger and Joel Razor is out of your boyfriend’s life. So don’t fuck with me,
sweetheart. Get Danny on board with Tallulah, keep that freak of a brother of
his in line and get me that proxy before Thursday or I will blow you out of the
water. Are we clear?”

Anastasia nodded but her eyes had filled with
tears. “I’m doing the best I can. Abducting Joel was more than I bargained for.
You never warned me it would go this far. I agreed to play my part, but I didn’t
expect to be taking these risks. Kidnapping is a Federal
offense
.”

“What kidnapping?”
Carsten
shrugged his shoulders. “No one’s been kidnapped. There’s been no ransom
demand. Joel has had a breakdown, that’s all. He’s always been a bit strange
and now he’s seeing things. He ran away, so what? We don’t control that.”

“You can’t keep Joel hidden in the mansion
forever.”

“I don’t have to. He just has to stay out of
sight until the board votes and we acquire Tallulah. His proxy is hidden
somewhere in his apartment. Joel can be induced to sign it if we can find it.
The person I have working on the inside needs to get into the loft uninterrupted
to do a search and apparently Daniel keeps the door locked. If there’s another
way in, I want you to find it.”

“How is
this my
problem? The whole point to luring Joel out of the apartment was to get the
proxy. It’s your
end that’s screwed up—not mine
. Your
handler, or whoever this person is, let him get away.”

“All right, all right.
You let me worry about Joel and you worry about getting into the
loft. Daniel has the key so it shouldn’t be a problem. Call him, make up and
move into the mansion. Let me know when you have it all worked out. You have
twenty-four hours and then I tell Daniel everything.”

Carsten
Pullman did not get to where he was in life by letting people off
the hook for what they owed him.

After he left, Anastasia circled the room,
thinking.

How bad was his threat, really? What did
Carsten
have on her that he could take to Daniel? There was
the letter threatening Joel’s life, but what other hard evidence did he have?
Everything she did—posing as Alexandra, distracting Daniel, convincing him not
to go to the police—
Carsten
couldn’t prove she was
involved. She didn’t care if the board accepted or rejected Tallulah. Anastasia
wasn’t interested in Razor Industries.

She was interested in Charlotte Dawson.

Instead pushing her off the roof, Anastasia
should’ve offered her money to get her out of their lives. Seriously, with Joel
out of the picture, why was she still there? What did Daniel want with
Charlotte Dawson? Was something going on between them that was more than just sex?

*

“I DON’T want to talk
about it.” I eyed Phil, Susan and Myles. We were camped out in the library,
taking a break. I couldn’t stop thinking about dinner with Daniel and they just
wanted to talk about the case. Phil, as my de-facto lawyer, wanted details.

“Someone pushed you
off the roof. I think we’d better talk about it.”

I regretted ever
telling them about the attempt on my life—my friends had too many questions.
Mainly, why did I come back to the mansion after seeing the police? A normal
person would’ve gotten the hell out of there. There was not a lot ‘normal’ about
my thinking anymore. I was beginning to understand agoraphobic Joel Razor a lot
better. I only had to stick it out a little while longer. That’s what I told
myself.
Don’t choke now, not when you’re
so close to getting everything you wanted.

“I’m not sure what
happened on the roof,” I lied, avoiding their eyes. “It felt like a push, but
now that I think about it, I might’ve just lost my footing. I had no business
being up there. I thought I saw someone in the hall and I chased him or her to
the roof.”

“Daniel Razor put you
in the firing line,” Myles said. “You’re just the wage slave he’s using to flush
out witnesses so he can eliminate them one at a time. What does he care if you
have to take a bullet for him?”

“Nobody
shot
at me. I’ve evaluated the risk and
I’ve decided it’s worth it to find Joel.”

Phil hunched forward,
resting his elbows on his knees. “Let’s go over the evidence. What do we know
so far?”

“Daniel Razor said he
went to the office,” Susan said thoughtfully. “That could be a lie. He was
probably in the house all the time. I bet he has a panic room, or a bomb
shelter. You name it—he had means and opportunity. We can’t eliminate him as a
suspect.”

As my friends hashed
over possible suspects, I snuck another admiring look at the dress I was
wearing. Alexander McQueen.
Red.
Short flared skirt.
Fitted bodice.
Two thousand dollars.
Daniel had it sent over from Saks this afternoon with a note attached: “Don’t
wear the jeans to dinner.” I added a touch of my own to the outfit—combat
boots. Just so he’d know where we stood.

Susan was watching me.
“A new dress?” she whispered. “Charlotte, in a few months you’re not going to
be where able to wear that. It’s a waste of money and you don’t have any money.”

“I didn’t buy it.”

“Oh fuck.
He
bought it for you.” Susan rolled her
eyes. “That’s not going to end well,” she added ominously. “This came for you
today.” She reached into the black handbag at her feet and pulled out an
envelope. Susan handed it to me.

It was from the Geneva
Conservatory. I tore it open and withdrew the letter inside. My name was at the
top, a friendly greeting, but the rest of it was very dry, very formal—they
were cutting me from the program. I still hadn’t come up with my last
installment and they had no choice but to give my seat away to another
violinist.

My eyes filled with tears
and my hand shook.

“What is it?” Phil
asked.

I tried to pull myself
together. “I’ve lost my place in Geneva. I was kind of expecting it, so it’s
not big news. I guess I was hoping they’d give me more time to come up with the
money.” My voice broke a little. “I was so close.”

“Shit, honey … I’m
sorry.”

I tried to shrug it
off. “Maybe it’s a sign I’m supposed to be working and not training. The BSO is
auditioning this fall. I’m not giving up, guys. Temporary setback—that’s all
this is.”

“The Boston Symphony
Orchestra is probably more difficult to get into than Geneva,” Myles said.
“You’re technically proficient; but you lack heart, guts and soul. Your focus
is too one note, too singular. Like, you’re all foreplay and no intercourse.
You’re driven and it shows in your music. But you haven’t picked up your cross,
that’s your whole problem.”

“What the hell is that
supposed to mean?” I was hurt and angry. I didn’t ask for sympathy but I wasn’t
prepared to be criticized.

“You haven’t accepted
suffering as your natural fate for being a violinist. We’re not just the
background music at swanky tech mole parties. We are classical musicians.
There’s a cost playing this music. You have to inhabit it and that’s something
you resist doing.
Feeling pain.”

“What a load of bull,”
Phil exclaimed. “Charlotte has incredible depth in her musicianship. You’re
jealous because she
is
technically
proficient and she can build on that. Try playing without technique and see how
far you get. She can build on her discipline. The rest will come.”

“I’m a cellist. I
don’t give a shit how good she is on the violin. She’s perfect, is all I’m
saying. She plays perfectly. But if she’s going to impress the BSO, she’s going
to have to deliver a lot more than perfection. And you’re doing her a
disservice by constantly puffing up her ego with flattery and telling her how
brilliant she is. I’m a better friend to her than that because I’m telling her
the truth. They didn’t hold her place in Geneva because she’s good enough to
get in but not good enough to bend the rules to keep her.”

“What are you
saying—Phil?
Myles?
Do I produce cold soulless notes?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Phil and Myles spoke
the same time.

Susan interrupted.
“It’s like Phil said—it’s easier to get hired with sound discipline and
technique than it is to be all art and no craft. Charlotte’s life is about to
change and she’ll have more than enough heart to put into her music. No worries,
boys.”

A shiver of alarm ran
through me. “Susan,” I said warningly.

“I only meant the
Geneva thing—your life is about to change because you didn’t get into Geneva.
That’s all I meant.” Susan clamped her mouth shut, blazing red.

Myles looked from me
to Susan and back again. “No you didn’t. Susie, how is Charlotte’s life about
to change?”

“You’ll have to ask
Charlotte,” Susan said, with meaning.

Myles and Phil looked
at me, interested. “What’s going on?” asked Myles. “You two have been
whispering together off and on for weeks. Phil and I have been too polite to
ask. This isn’t idle curiosity. If it affects the group we should know.”

“It’s none of your
business,” I said.

“Of course it’s none
of our business,” Phil said. “That’s why we’re asking. Although, as your lawyer
I should know everything so technically, it is my business.”

I felt my face go hot
which was really galling because now Phil and Myles would know for sure I was
covering up something. “It’s nothing, Phil. This has nothing to do with any of
you. If I wanted to tell you I would tell you, but there’s nothing to say, nothing
to see here—so get off my back.”

“Sorry, man,” Myles
whined. “We wouldn’t have asked if wasn’t important.”

“It isn’t,” Susan said
quickly. “I mean, it isn’t important to the quartet. There was an attempt on
Charlotte’s life and she lost her place with Geneva. At the moment, Myles,
those two things are far more important. I mean, if you want my honest opinion,
you behaving like a shit, bullying Charlotte to talk when she said she doesn’t
want to talk about it.”

She glared at Myles.
The air in the room crackled with hostility and mistrust.

“All right, guys,
let’s get on with it,” Phil said to break the tension. “We need to rehearse and
Daniel Razor isn’t going to let us stay here all night.
Beethoven’s
violin concerto in D major.
”

I set my violin under
my chin and bent over, almost hugging the instrument. Phil would criticize my
posture later but I didn’t care. If I didn’t hold onto the music, I’d lose it.

The full skirt of the
stupid dress swam before my eyes. I wanted to blame Daniel Razor for losing the
one chance I had to become a professional concert violinist.