Shelby's Secret (Once a Marine, Always a Marine Book 4) Read online

  “Did you read it?” He was genuinely curious if she’d wondered enough to look.

  Shelby shook her head. “Madge rattled off the highlights, but looking into your life that way isn’t fair.”

  “The way the entertainment field looks into yours?”

  She raised her eyebrows slightly.

  The look in her eyes was more innocent than he could believe, considering that she was a world famous singer.

  Then she slowly nodded. “I’m not sure how I feel about you reading me that easily, even after all these years. You were doing that back at the station, too.”

  “It’s not really reading you, Shel. Anyone not living under a rock has been bombarded with your life, your success, and your love life. You’ve been on the covers of magazines and splashed all over TV for years now.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What love life?”

  “You were engaged—what was it—five years ago?”

  She snorted. Probably the most unladylike thing she’d done since becoming a superstar. The sound made Mike grin. It was such a normal little thing, something she used to do when they were younger.

  “That was a train wreck from the beginning, and I never actually told the jerk I’d marry him.”

  Mike half sat on the plush arm of the couch, at the other end from Shelby, who was still curled up in the corner. She hadn’t moved an inch since they started talking. She was holding a little too still. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but her gaze was clear and steady. And she looked amazing. No make-up on, hair in a haphazard bun—she was stunning. “Well, his career took off for about six months after the story broke.”

  “And that’s what the ass was after all along anyway. I was just a means to get him noticed.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. The guy was a bum and his career tanked as soon as the news came out that Shelby was no longer seeing him. Mike saw the cell phone on the table in front of her. Face down. He pointed at it because talking about Shelby’s ex-lover was starting a slow, angry sizzle somewhere near his heart. Time to get back to business. “Can I take a look?”

  Her voice wavered a tiny bit. “It’s really bad.”

  Mike had the absurd urge to scoop her up, blanket and all, and put her in his lap. She looked so sad and small, all bundled up and shut away from everything. One touch might shatter her hard-won composure, though, and he didn’t want to do that to her. Instead, he grabbed the phone from the table. The video was loaded and ready for viewing.

  And she was right. The images were worse than the original crime scene.

  Shelby’s hand had obviously started shaking during the recording, but the footage was steady enough to get the gist. Another warehouse, but he couldn’t determine the actual size from the small screen. The focal point was a bed. And the woman lying there.

  She was naked, with a black satin sheet covering her breasts and genitals. The full-sized bed had splashes of red covering the edges of the mattress that had clearly dripped down to pool on the concrete floor. The illusion was a bed floating on a red pond.

  The victim’s eyes were gone. Removed cleanly displaying little blood or damage to the orbital sockets. Her lips were bright red, matching the color of the substance pooled beneath the bed.

  And her throat had been cut all the way across. Mike could see the white bone of her spine. Curly blond hair completed the picture and then the music started. Shelby’s third song off her first album. That album had gone platinum. And if he remembered correctly, the video had taken place on water, with Shelby rolling around on a bed singing about her lover being away.

  “Can you tell where she is?” she asked.

  Mike played it again, focusing on the background this time and not the body at the center of the shot. Finally, he shook his head. “Could be any of a hundred different places downtown. He could have even moved to one of the surrounding cities like Glendale or Peoria.”

  “That poor woman,” she whispered.

  “I’m forwarding what you have to one of my detectives. They’ll go over the video frame by frame to determine a possible location.”

  “What about the first one? Do you know who she is yet?”

  “We’re waiting for the autopsy. We’ve got the prints done and dentals, but it’s a matter of matching them up to missing persons. And if she was someone he grabbed from the street, then identification might take longer if she doesn’t have a record.”

  “Why is someone doing this?”

  “To get your attention. Something set this guy off. What’s changed in your routine lately? Or in your life?” He saw her glance away and stare out the window. “This guy thinks he knows you, intimately. He’s playing back your love songs and setting up his own sick little video homage to you. He’s been watching you, Shelby. Fantasizing about you. He wants something from you that only he knows about. We can only guess. So the question is, why now? What happened to make him snap?”

  Shelby pushed off the blanket and stood abruptly. She swayed but steadied herself. “I’m not sure, but I need to show you something. It might or might not be relevant. I have a secret of sorts.”

  ***

  “Is that even possible?” Mike asked.

  Shelby smiled grimly, knowing he was trying to lighten the mood. “I’ve found that if you have enough money, almost anything is possible.”

  When she was sure her legs were steady, she moved toward the French doors that led back into the interior of the house. “House” was a silly word to describe the place. Showpiece was more apt. Filled with artwork and marble and elegant furniture, it lacked the warmth that made a home. The structure was someplace big enough to house her security team and Madge comfortably. As for Shelby, she could have done with a bit less extravagance.

  “Come with me.” She looked over her shoulder at the man sitting on the arm of the couch. He should have looked out of place in his jeans and rumpled t-shirt. The band named on the front of his shirt was Rage Against the Machine, which was ironic since Mike worked in one of the industries that particular band railed against lyrically.

  But he didn’t look out of place. He moved silently, his face set in hard planes. He towered over her, causing a delicious little shiver. He could have been a millionaire playboy for all the notice he gave of his surroundings. As if he’d been raised with that kind of wealth—but he hadn’t been. He wasn’t impressed, and he never would be. Mike didn’t care about money. He cared about right and wrong.

  “Tell me about this secret, Shel.”

  She shook her head. “It’s better if I show you.” So she led the way to the staircase and went up to the second floor. Mike was right behind her when she stopped in front of a door. The lights were off in this part of the house, so the hallway was dark, but when she opened the door the room glowed inside.

  The glow came from all the stars hanging from the ceiling, as well as the nightlight. Shelby didn’t look back at Mike, not sure what his expression would say. Instead, she walked toward the bed and the little figure sprawled out on top of the covers. Wearing the latest Pixar characters, the little girl had kinky-curly blond hair, pink lips that looked like cotton candy, and when her lids were open, sky blue eyes.

  “This is my daughter.”

  Chapter 5

  “Can you focus on that back corner?” Daniel asked.

  When the call had come, Daniel hadn’t been asleep, and he hadn’t been alone. The woman in question was a friend with fantastic benefits. They met from time to time to scratch the itch—an arrangement that worked well for two career-driven workaholics not willing to devote time or energy to an actual relationship.

  Now he was in the office with one of the lab techs who hadn’t been asleep either. Lance Avery was one of those guys interested in all things techie. He played with the video Mike forwarded, enhancing as much as he could.

  Daniel had already watched the video several times, each time searching for something new. Now he focused on everything about the space the girl was in, but
the walls were bare. Nothing about the architecture stood out. The warehouse was likely just as generic as the first crime scene. “Damn, I was hoping for something useful.”

  Lance shrugged, still playing with his system. “Give me a couple minutes. I want to zoom in on the right side. Something over there is blurry.”

  Daniel saw the dark blur. About six feet high, it could have been a stack of barrels. Or crates. Smack in the middle of the blur was a white strip. Daniel moved closer to the screen. They had a still image from the video projected onto a wall in one of the bigger offices.

  “Could be a label,” Lance said, squinting up from his computer.

  Damn, it could be. Daniel tried to quell the excitement. He still couldn’t read it. “Any way to enhance the shot further?”

  “Hey, this isn’t CSI—that computer shit they do isn’t even real. I can only focus so much before I lose everything and it becomes one big pixel nightmare.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Daniel nodded. “I know, man. But something’s got to give. We have to find the crime scene before the fucking rats get there.”

  “Rats nothing. Have you seen what those feral cats can do?”

  Daniel grinned. “Dog person, huh?”

  “Hell yeah. If I die, I don’t want my pet eating off my face, and those cats will. Dude, the moment you die, you’re nothing but kibble to them.”

  The image cleared a bit more and it was a stack of crates. The thick white stripe was still blurry, but Daniel could make out a logo of some kind. “What is that?”

  Avery had a magnifying glass over the screen of his computer. “Maybe a crown or hat of some kind? I can’t make it any bigger, or we lose the image altogether.” He held out the magnifier to Daniel as he scooted back to make more room.

  Skirting the desk, Daniel moved closer to Avery’s screen. With the image magnified, it did look like a crown, but with three lines to the right and some letters that were too close together to make sense of. “Can you screen shot this? I’ll probably go blind looking at logos, but I know I’ve seen this somewhere.”

  Hearing Avery busy tapping on keys, Daniel wandered back to the larger image. Who are you?

  But the victim couldn’t tell them anything, except who she was . . . eventually. Maybe that would help, maybe it wouldn’t. If she was indigent, then she was a random target that fit the killer’s needs. But if she wasn’t, then tracking her movements in the days before she was taken might provide useful leads.

  “Oh shit.”

  Daniel turned at the exclamation, eyebrow raised, armed crossed. “What?”

  Avery was almost vibrating with triumph. Still tapping away on his computer, he turned his monitor and pointed. “I know what that symbol is.”

  ***

  Tara Shumway was finally off shift.

  He was waiting. He watched as she pulled the tie from her hair, letting the red corkscrew curls loose and running both hands through her head. He thought he could hear her moan at the release of all that hair.

  Leaving the lobby of the emergency room, Tara glanced around before heading into the parking garage. The night had been busy, and that she was looking forward to getting out of her scrubs and into a bubble bath. He’d heard her conversation with a co-worker while they were on a break.

  It was two a.m., and a good time to hunt. The voice was quiet, and he could focus and maintain the control he needed to use his disguise.

  She held her purse close, keys in hand, like she did every night—keeping her head up and her body alert. Tara’s daddy had taught her well, and she was always vigilant. He knew all about her, and she talked about her Daddy often. But his warnings wouldn’t help her. Not tonight.

  “Excuse me?” His voice startled her into a little jump.

  She turned, wide blue eyes blinking into focus. She’d been deep in thought and not paying attention.

  Daddy would be disappointed. So careless.

  He stood a couple feet away with a smile and a confused look on his face. Women always thought he looked harmless. Like a lost puppy in need of looking after. The blue scrubs he’d worn, plus the sling on his right arm, completed his masquerade. At medium height with medium brown hair and medium brown eyes, he blended in. Average is what someone would say.

  That was his biggest disguise, because when he looked in the mirror, he saw something else. Something darker than mere flesh. It scared him, but he was accepting it. And he could even forget about that reflection when he was working. Like he was now. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Tara shook her head, eyeing his scrubs. “My fault, I was lost in thought. Do you work here?”

  He nodded. “It’s actually my very first shift, and I’m not sure where to go. You look like you know your way around, so I was hoping you could point me in the right direction?”

  Smiling, Tara relaxed her shoulders and let her hand with the keys fall to her side.

  He wasn’t a threat in her mind.

  “I got lost my first day, too. What department are you working in?”

  “I’m assigned to the burn unit. For whatever good I am.” He smiled, pointing to his injured arm. “Can you believe I slipped and fell right after I got hired?”

  “That bites. But there’s always a ton of filing to do, so I’m sure they’ll still put you right to work.” She wrinkled her nose. “I did a turn in that unit and was glad to get out. That smell really never leaves your clothes.” Stopping, she grimaced. “But I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He shook his head and moved closer. “Thanks for the warning. Getting advice is good. My name is Bobby, by the way,” he said, holding out his left hand awkwardly.

  “Tara,” she replied, shuffling her keys to her other hand so she could shake his. “Nice to meet you. Is this your internship? You look a bit young to be an R.N. yet.”

  Her eyes widened and she took a step back. He couldn’t help it, he was happy and his face must have changed. Grabbing her hand, he jerked her off balance and into his body, right over his sling. He slammed the hypodermic needle into her shoulder, and he could tell she hadn’t made sense of what was happening yet. Her legs wobbled and when she tried to ask what he was doing, nothing came out. She stumbled backward against her car.

  “Don’t worry, Tara. I’ll take good care of you. Just because I look young doesn’t mean I don’t have experience. I’m going to make you famous. Won’t that be fun?”

  Legs giving way, Tara’s eyes crossed as she slid down, landing on her butt—hard. She finally realized what the sting was, he could tell. Plus he held the needle up so she could see it. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing happened. No movement and no sound. Then her eyes slid closed.

  Bobby easily lifted the woman and hefted her over his shoulder. He had his place set up with his favorite toys, just waiting for her. He hummed a song by Shelby Lynn and set off toward his Camry. The trunk was fitted for these little adventures. “I’m going to have so much fun with you, Shelby.”

  Tara made the tiniest sound before her body went limp, and she lost consciousness.

  ***

  “She looks just like you,” Mike whispered. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “That’s one helluva secret to keep from so many of your adoring fans, for what five years?”

  “Seven. Rebecca just had her seventh birthday last month.” Shelby fussed over the little girl for a moment before ushering them both back out and into the hallway.

  Mike wasn’t sure what to say next, and he wondered how she could have done it. Hide a pregnancy and delivery. But he stayed quiet and followed Shelby into another bedroom. This one was hers. He could tell instantly. The room smelled like her and the clothes lying in haphazard piles all over the furniture were all classic Shelby. “I see fame hasn’t changed you all that much either.”

  She shrugged, unselfconscious about the clutter. “One of the reasons I wanted to be rich and famous, remember? So I wouldn’t have to clean up after myself.” She smiled and opene
d the door that lead out onto the balcony. “I still suck at all the domestic goddess stuff.”

  “Not everyone is cut out for it.”

  The balcony was at the back of the house and gave a close-up view of Camelback Mountain. Not the view he would have guessed she’d pick. Especially since she’d seemed transfixed on the city lights while she was on the couch in the den.

  “I feel safer here with the mountain at our back. An illusion, I realize, but it makes me feel better.” She took a seat in a padded lounge chair and waved Mike to the one next to it. “And don’t worry, the security team patrols the area here as well.”

  “She’s not your daughter, is she?” Shelby didn’t look surprised that he’d guessed.

  “She looks like she could be mine. And now she is.”

  “Is she adopted?”

  “Not yet, but after this tour is done, I’ll file the paperwork.”

  “You didn’t kidnap her, did you?” His tone was only half joking. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and cold-blooded kidnapping was something she just wasn’t capable of. At least the Shelby he used to know wouldn’t have been able to. This Shelby was stronger, more capable than the young girl who’d left Arizona, and him, behind.

  She looked up at him with a sad little smile and shook her head. “Oh, I’m her legal guardian. And her godmother as well. I was there the moment she took her first breath.”

  He sat down opposite her chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Something tells me there’s a story there. She’s a cute kid.” Then he settled in to wait. Mike was curious about how Shelby, with all her fame, could have actually hidden the child from the public.

  “I’ve always said that I’ve led a charmed life. Nothing too bad has ever happened to me, not really. But some people have nothing but back luck and trouble. My friend Abby was one of those.”