Page 108 of When He Defends
Maxine’s hand covered her mouth. A brief expression of deliberate shock before her fingers dropped. “I am stunned. Horrified. Your own lover…?”
Yes, like that didn’t make her stomach churn.
But her mother seemed to rally quickly as she noted, “Well, you did pick him. We all make mistakes with our partners.” A telling glance at Gray and a bit too much emphasis onpartners.
“Yes,” Emerson agreed. “We do.”
Gray was right at her side. “We know who ordered Nathaniel to terrorize Emerson.”
“Ordered?” Maxine frowned.
“Nathaniel was on your payroll,” Gray continued in a voice that seethed with tension and fury. “You funded his research. You wanted him to keep tabs on Emerson and report back to you. Just like you wanted Rylan Tate to tell you everything that’s happening at the Bureau.”
Maxine reached for her pearls. “Rylan? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It should. Right before he was hauled away in an ambulance tonight, he was talking plenty about you and how you paid him to give every secret he could discover toyou,” Gray snapped.
Her hand fisted around the pearls. “What ambulance?”
“It was a big night,” Emerson revealed. Big and exhausting, and it wasn’t even close to being over. “Rylan was shot.” Multiple times. “Nathaniel tried to attack Gray with a knife. Nathaniel confessed that he really enjoyed the stalking job he’d been hired to do on me…”
Maxine paled.
“And he liked it so much, in fact, that he was planning to kill Gray. Then I suspect he would have killed me. He loved being immersed in the criminal world. Wanted to see what it was like to actually take a life.”
“Emerson!” Maxine leapt to her feet. “I had no idea—he planned to kill you?” She seemed genuinely shocked. And her hand still fisted around the pearls.
“He was told how to terrify me.” Emerson was surprised her voice came out so steady. “He was given the alarm code to myhome—an alarm system that Owen installed. Nathaniel was told to break mirrors. To write messages. He was told my schedule, so he’d know when to follow me. Exactly where to go.”
Maxine shook her head. “Emerson…”
“Nathaniel was intent on hurting me, but hecouldn’thave been the person who sliced my neck when I was seventeen. He wasn’t even in the country back then. That attacker had to be someone else. And, the more I thought about it, I realized that Nathaniel couldn’t have been the one who broke into my dorm in college. Or who terrorized me in med school. He was far away in those instances. Gray checked. Wedouble-checked. Nathaniel is making my life hell now, but someone else had to do it before.” Just saying the words hurt so much.
She’d been terrorized for so long.
Gray’s arm brushed against her. She pulled in a breath. Steadied herself.
“Someone else had to do it before.” Emerson was amazed that her voice came out so level. “Someone who wanted me to be afraid. Someone who wanted me controlled. Someone who wanted me always looking for threats. Being paranoid. Telling others that I was being hunted…hunted.” She nodded. “That’s what you told me that my father used to say, remember? That he felthunted.”
“Your father was a-a disturbed individual, Emerson. Deeply disturbed.”
Her hands curled into fists. Her nails bit into her palms. “But what if he wasn’t?”
Maxine’s lips quivered. “What?”
“She said…” Gray’s voice. Angry. “What if he wasn’t?What if someone was playing fucking mind games with him? Making her father believe he was seeing things that weren’t there? Pushing him to the edge? Making his own family members doubt him? Sothat when he died, there wouldn’t be so many questions. So that a murder could look just like a suicide.”
Maxine’s hand jerked. The strand of pearls snapped. Some flew into the air. Some hit the floor. Rolled. Maxine shook her head. Over and over and over. “No, no, no. That’s not what happened.” Then her head whipped toward the door on the right. The closed, white door. The bedroom door. “Tell them!” Maxine’s voice rose. “Tell them that’s not what happened!”
Gray tensed, and from the corner of her eye, Emerson saw him pull out his gun.
The bedroom door opened. Slowly. Creaking.
Owen Porter stood there, clad in a white robe. Hair wet. Face grim. Sad. He stared straight at Maxine. “I’m sorry.”
Maxine fell. Her knees seemed to give way, and she hit the floor.
Emerson and Gray had known that Owen was in the suite. After all, her mother’s lover was always close.
