Brooklyn Rockstar (Kendall Family #1) (25 page)

What kind of answers could Charlie have that would make her go off the deep end?

“I don’t understand,” I say, trying to make the pieces of her fucked-up puzzle fit. “What does this have to do with Danny?”

“Stop trying to make sense of this, love,” Sharlo tells me. “You won't understand a thing that comes out of this nutter.”

“I said shut
the fuck
up!” Gwen bellows. When she raises the gun, I cry out and reach for her, but in the blink of an eye she’s cracked Sharlo in the head. I catch my roommate as she slumps to the side like a rag doll. Blood seeps from a gash in her forehead, instantly soaking her hair.

Please tell me she isn’t dead!

“What have you done?”
I yell over my shoulder. “Shar!” I cry, pressing my fingers against her neck. When I find a heartbeat I carefully set her head on the floor and jump to my feet, turning my back on the psycho.

A metallic click stops me from moving any further. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I have to get something to stop the bleeding!”

When I hear her shoes lightly pad against the floor, I whirl around. An excruciating amount of pain shoots through my skull, and the room becomes black as night.

B
y the time
we get to Sharlo and Evelyn’s place, night has settled over the neighborhood, and it’s equally as dark inside the house. I won’t fucking leave until I know for damn sure that no one is home. After a solid minute of banging on their door without an answer, I grab a large rock from the landscaping and chuck it through one of the windows on the side of the building. Dogs somewhere close by yip with the loud crash.

“Someone’s going to see us breaking in, bro,” Lorenzo says behind me as I’m swinging one leg inside. “Maybe we should call the cops. Let
them
handle this.”

I shine my phone’s flashlight inside. My heart roars to a stop with the sight of a woman’s legs sticking out from behind the kitchen counter, her ankles wrapped with silver tape. “Call an ambulance!” I holler at Lorenzo.

I dive the rest of the way in, hissing through my teeth when a piece of broken glass cuts into my arm. Until I’ve found a light-switch and I’m down at the woman’s side, staring into Sharlo’s bloodied face as her eyes flutter open, my brain refuses to accept that it’s not Evelyn. If she’s not here and someone knocked Sharlo unconscious, it can only mean one thing.

Gwen has Evelyn.

“Hey,” I greet her with a grimace since my lips refuse to smile. Lorenzo appears to hand me a kitchen towel. I press it to her head, checking for new blood. At least it appears to have stopped before she bled out. “You’re going to be okay. We called an ambulance.”

“Either I’m having a wicked dream about a rock god coming to my rescue, or I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Her blue eyes dart around us as she moves upright. “Where’s Ev?”

I support the back of her head until she’s sitting tall. “I don’t know. What do you remember?”

“There was a blonde twat—”

“Gwen,”
I snarl, giving Lorenzo room to work on removing the tape from her hands with a knife. Once I get my hands on that bitch, I’ll rip her goddamned throat out for doing this. “What’d she say? What’d she do?”

“She held a gun to my head, made Evelyn bind my hands and feet.”

Growling, a rush of blood pounds inside my head, burning through my ears. Gwen has
a gun
.
This fucking mess is becoming more dire by the moment. If anything happens to Evelyn…

“Bitch is crazier than we thought,” Lorenzo comments, catching my eye.

Sharlo nods in agreement. “She was prattling on about how she knew the women you slept with last weekend.” Her face pinches with a scowl. “I should string your arse up to the rafters for what you did to our girl. She was a complete wreck last night. Took her hours to settle down.”

On instinct I want to correct her by saying Evelyn is mine not ours, though I’m not about to challenge anyone with that menacing of a stare. “Everything they’re saying is bullshit.” I say. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“You didn’t run after her either, now did you?” After Lorenzo tears the remaining tape off her wrists, she rubs them a few times before grabbing the kitchen towel. Sighing, her little fingers go to work wrapping the clean portion of the towel around my bleeding arm. “We wouldn’t be having this bloody discussion if you had simply grown a pair and gone after her.”

“She told me you called for the car,” I growl.

Her eyes flicker to the ceiling. “Yes but it was your
job as her man to stop her from getting into it.”

The distant sound of sirens drift through the broken window. I tense even more, knowing the police will want to hold us for questioning.

“Would you two quit bickering?” Lorenzo scolds, releasing the tape from her ankles. “We have to find Evelyn before Gwen does something stupid!”

Pushing down the urge to tear apart the room and break something more significant than a window, I gently take Sharlo’s arm. “Did she say anything else? Anything that would help us understand what she’s planning to do with Evelyn?”

Her blue eyes narrow. “She spoke of your bandmate, Danny. Said something about making it right and demanding answers. Told us we were going on some road trip to the docks. She’s a complete nutter, really. I had a hard time following her random thoughts.”

The room spins at a sickening slant. Gwen was involved with Danny. They were together the night he disappeared. She set me up with Madison and Christine. Now she’s taking Evelyn to the docks.

Holy shit.
She
knows.

I move toward the door so fast that my feet can’t keep up. I stumble several times like I’m drunk, grabbing onto furniture and walls for support.

“Off you go then,” Sharlo calls behind me. “No worries, love, I’ll take care of the policemen. Just don’t forget about me once you’ve saved her. They’ll likely take me to Mount Sinai to check my noggin.”

“What’s your number?” I hear Lorenzo ask.

I don’t wait for him. As she’s rattling off numbers, I’m already out the door. I know exactly where Gwen took Evelyn. I just pray I’m not too late.

T
he quiet docks
are every bit as fucking menacing in the dark as I remember them being as a kid. Not even the awe-inspiring view of the Manhattan skyscrapers can ward off the chill that follows me as I roll Lorenzo’s classic Camaro to a stop beside a row of boxcars. Distorted memories of the last time I saw Danny flicker through my mind as I make my way over to the edge of the wooden plank, inhaling the sickly odors of the East River.

Congratulations, pussy,
Danny taunts.
You finally grew a big enough pair to come back to the scene of the crime! What’s next, a training bra?

The darkness stirs, spitting Gwen and Evelyn out from its depths. Gwen’s lips bend with a morbid smile. “Glad I finally got your attention. Leaking your girlfriend’s name and where she works certainly didn’t rattle your cage enough. Didn’t take you long to figure out where to find me.”

A violent vibration rattles me to the core. I hear my trainer’s voice telling me to breathe and count to ten as I study Evelyn’s panicked expression.

One. Breathe in.

Her eyes are as wide as I’ve ever seen them.

Two. Breathe out.

Even with the crappy lighting over our heads I can see she’s completely pale.

Three. Breathe in.

She’s gagged with a piece of dark cloth.

Four. Breathe out.

Gwen has one arm hooked around her throat.

Five
.
Breathe in.

She’s also holding a small handgun to Evelyn’s head.

Six
.
Breathe in some more.

Evelyn’s beautiful eyes, glistening with tears underneath the lights, throw me a look of desperation that rips me to shreds.

Fuck this.

“I’m only going to say this once,” I snarl, slowly stalking toward them. “Let. Her.
Go.”

“I didn’t start to suspect you were involved until I heard you were going out on your own, without the band. Then I started poking around, trying to figure out what was going on in your head.”

My nostrils flare. “I’m not talking until you let her go.”

“Not until you tell me what happened!” Gwen snaps in a strangled voice. “I
loved
him, you bastard! We were talking about getting married in Vegas! I know he probably didn’t give two shits about me and saw me as nothing more than a good time, but he was going to boost my career!” The arm around Evelyn’s neck tightens. “I
know
you were here with him that night because he sent me a picture of you two together on this same fucking dock! What’d you
do
to him?
Where’s Danny?”

Evelyn’s muffled whimper steals all the air from my chest. Does she think I killed him?

Gwen digs the muzzle into Evelyn’s temple. “Tell me, Charlie, or so help me God I’ll put a fuckin’ bullet in her head!”

Evelyn whimpers louder with tears rolling over her delicate freckles.

“You don’t have to do this to her!” I plead, the palms of my hands held out. I step a little closer, intending on grabbing her if she doesn’t listen.
“Please,
she has nothing to do with this!”

Gwen shakes her head with black makeup spreading down her cheeks. “Don’t fuck with me, Charlie! I
have to
know!”

Then I hear the small metallic click of the safety and my heart clenches. Sobbing into the cloth, Evelyn’s eyes close, her freckles scrunched and shoulders shaking.

“Please, stop!” I roar.

Gwen yells my name in a plea and Evelyn’s cries become desperate.

My entire world is at the mercy of a trigger.

It’s time to tell the truth.

“It was a fucking
accident!”
I blurt.
“
He was drunk and pissed off because our father wouldn’t give him the time of day! He brought the goddamned gun, said he was going to end his misery once and for all! I called our father to talk him down and Danny tried to shoot him! I tried stopping him and the gun went off!”

“I don’t believe you!” Gwen screams, shaking her head harder. “Danny was never suicidal!”

“Then you didn’t know
shit
about him! Danny was one of the most depressed guys I’d ever met! He tried to numb the pain with booze and drugs and sex! He probably treated you like shit because he hated life and himself and wanted to make everyone else pay for his misery!”

Releasing my secret after all this time creates a sudden, overwhelming feeling of closure. My chest stutters as I pull in a deep breath, holding in the need to cry.

It’s my fault my brother is dead.

Gwen blanches with the harsh truth, her wet eyelashes fluttering. Finally she relaxes, loosening her grip on Evelyn and lowering the gun. Shoulders slumped forward, Gwen bows her head. “Why should I believe you?” she mutters, still crying. Her tear-streaked face tilts upward and she pins me down with a hateful stare. “How do I know you
didn’t kill him on purpose?”

“Because he was my brother and I loved him.”

I meet Evelyn’s gaze to find her calm, though still pleading for me with her eyes. A sharp pang pierces my heart when I remember the first time our eyes met at Leona’s. The urge to take her in my arms creates a tight band inside my chest. Satisfied that she’s at least no longer in imminent danger, I flex the muscles in my jaw and take a deep breath before swinging my gaze back to Gwen.

“I shouldn’t have tried stopping him. Danny would still be alive if I had just let him kill our father. He was already sick with cancer by that point. The cold son of a bitch deserved to die. I had to fucking beg him to help me come here to talk Danny down.”

Still scowling, Gwen nods. “He told me the truth about you two not long before he disappeared. He was jealous you were the one his dad chose to raise while he pretended like Danny didn’t exist.”

“He didn’t miss out on anything,” I growl. “Our father was a Grade A asshole. The world’s a better place without him.”

“I don’t believe you,” she says, her voice becoming tense once again. “If it was an accident, why didn’t you tell anyone? Why keep his death a secret?”

“Because our father was worried the cops would launch this big investigation or that there’d even be a trial. He knew the truth would come out one way or another that Danny was his. He’s the one that decided to throw Danny’s body in the river. He was a selfish son of a bitch, only worried about saving his own ass even though he claimed it was because my mom wasn’t strong enough to survive the truth. He told me a thousand times, ‘
trust me
, Charlie, it’s better this way for everyone.’ The word ‘trust’ stopped meaning anything to me until after he died. I vowed I’d never make that kind of a mistake again.” My fingers rub at the word inked beneath my shirt. “I was a coward. I never should’ve listened to him. I wanted to tell everyone the truth after my father died but I knew it would break my mom’s heart.”

Locking my eyes on Evelyn's, I’m all at once filled with immeasurable shame. “Ever since I met you, I’ve tried like hell to prove to myself that I’m nothing like either one of them. They both used women for a good time. Danny hated the world and my father was a self-centered asshole. Being with you has made me realize how much I want to change so I don’t end up like either one of them. They both made me think love wasn’t real. That’s why I’ve had such a hard time saying it to you even though I knew it was true. If what I feel for you isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

Eyes blinking rapidly, Evelyn makes a strangled noise and the ends of her mouth curl with a smile behind the gag.

“I love you, baby,” I say, my voice thick with emotion. “And I always will.”

Gwen releases a low, unamused growl. “This is all fucking sweet, but you still killed him! He was the
father of the child I
lost
two months after Danny went missing! The doctor said my body was under too much distress to carry it to full term! If you hadn’t fought Danny for the gun that night, he’d still be here to take care of me and I wouldn’t have lost our baby! I have to make things right for both of them!”

Everything plays in slow motion, stopping my heart and making it seem like a really bad dream.

Gwen violently jerks Evelyn back up tight against her.

Evelyn makes a horrifying noise behind the gag.

Gwen raises the gun at her side.

I throw myself at Gwen, knocking them both down to the ground.

I fight Gwen for the gun.

A loud shot pierces the quiet night sky.

Then another.

Evelyn’s desperate screams are the last thing I hear.