Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3) (5 page)

Then I remembered I didn’t have to because he
was marrying Anastasia in June.

He held my face in his hands and kissed me. We
were the same, he and I. I could criticize him all I liked for going to
extremes to protect Joel. I would have burned the fucking mansion down to play
the violin.

But Razor mansion had survived fire,
earthquake and Charlotte Dawson. Razor had defeated me. He was ruthless about
getting what he wanted and I hadn’t been.

But I was learning.

I lifted my mouth to his ear and whispered. “I’m
pregnant.”

♫

HE STEPPED back and peered at me as though
he didn’t hear correctly. Then his eyes darkened and his mouth set. “Don’t. Not
you. Christ, I couldn’t stand it.”

“You couldn’t stand a baby?”

“I couldn’t stand it if you tried to
manipulate me too. Fuck. Everyone plays that game with me. It’s childish and it
won’t work. If you want something, just ask. I promised you I’d never leave
you. You don’t have to fake a pregnancy to make me help you. I have no desire
to be a father. I’m not going to marry you. I’m marrying Anastasia.”

“You’re not the father.”

The look on his face ... stunned,
distrustful and then there was a flash of pain.

“You’re not kidding,” he said finally.

“No. I’m pregnant. Almost twelve weeks.
It’s Joel’s.”

I thought he’d fall apart or walk away in
disgust or demand proof. But he just stood there, not moving. His expression
was the softest I’d ever seen on him and I had a glimpse of what he must have
been like as a boy before his dad was killed.
Before he had
to grow up in a hurry.

He looked like a regular guy getting the
news that his wife or girlfriend was going to have a baby. But I wasn’t his
wife and I wasn’t his girlfriend and it wasn’t his baby I was having.

He kissed me, and not like he would kiss
his future sister-in-law.

“You’re not angry?”

“I’m not angry.” He laughed. “I’m amazed.
And glad. I’m going to be an uncle.”

That’s not what I wanted to hear. But it
made me more attractive to him. The look Daniel gave me was warmer than I’d
ever had from him and I’m only human—I responded.

He kissed me like it was our baby I was
having. And for this little bit of time I had with him, I pretended it was our
baby.

Daniel made love to me on the rug in front
of the fire. He was ecstatic, hard, but also shy, asking me if penetration was
okay, which made me crazy in love with him. I remembered an article Susan had
found online about sex during pregnancy.

“It’s definitely okay,” I gasped. My libido
was surging from the pregnancy hormones. They also made me vomit so there was a
flip side. My breasts tingled when he kissed them.

But for all my magical thinking about us
being a couple, there were three of us in the room—me, Daniel and Joel. Daniel
could only love me through his brother. He did love me; his feelings were clear
in every touch. This was not just sex. He was in love with me but only because
Joel was his medium. Like a mirror image of himself or a portrait in his soul, Joel
was Daniel’s alter ego. Joel Razor contained the feeling, emotion, love and
torment that Daniel could not express. Maybe that’s why Daniel needed Joel.
Joel expressed what his brother was feeling like an emotional proxy.

Daniel’s feelings for me were being
channelled through an agoraphobic missing man. Without Joel, they could not be
sustained.

“I’m glad it’s you he’s going to marry,” he
said. His voice was thick.

“Why?”

His eyes were impossible to read.

“You made me promise not to leave you and I
warned you, Charlotte, I’m not a good genie. I can make things happen but at a
cost.” He moved between my legs, parting them. “The cost is that now you are
tied to us forever. And I’m glad ... because I want you too.”

I lifted my hips and Daniel plunged his
cock inside me.

*

I DON’T know what time it was when I was
awakened by a noise outside Joel’s bedroom. I had left Daniel asleep in his bed
after we moved from the library to his room to have sex a third time. We were
insatiable. Sex was one thing. Spending the night with him was another. I
wasn’t ready to take it all in—whatever
this
was between us.

I was thinking clearly on one point at
least—Daniel Razor wasn’t going to get custody of the baby. We felt something
for each other but it wasn’t enough to surrender my flesh and blood to him. I
was going to study the violin one way or another and the baby was coming with
me. I needed time alone after spending the evening with him to process.

But in Razor mansion, one is never alone.

I lay very still under the duvet and
listened. The sound was coming from the dumbwaiter shaft. The sound of the
motor had awakened me. Someone had activated the mechanical lift from the
kitchen.

Not a natural sound that could be chalked
up to Old House Noise (thank you, Detective Lewis) but definitely a manmade
sound. A whirring sound, moving steadily up the shaft until it arrived at the
loft and was inside the apartment. The door slid open.

I hunched under the covers like a coward
instead of finding a weapon.

Joel’s closet.
I could hide there.

Fully awake and sitting up in bed, I stared
at the closet door. It was the first place the intruder would look and I’d be
trapped.

Joel’s room was spacious. An entire wall
was taken up by a bank of windows that looked out toward the Bay, flooding the
room with natural sunlight during the day. At night, the glow from glittering
San Francisco at the foot of
Nob
Hill cast the room
in dull yellow but enough to make out shapes in the room.
 
Joel designed the room to offer maximum
interaction with the outdoors without actually having to go outside. There was
enough light in the room to see the outline of the closet. I debated making a
run for it when I heard a noise and turned to look at the door.

The door knob was slowly turning.

Then silence.
A beating
heart kind of silence.
Someone was waiting on the other side of the
door, stopped.
Frozen, waiting, wondering if they had awakened
me.

I pressed my face against the pillow and
held my breath. The door swung open wide enough to admit a faceless person.

Terrified, my breath came in shallow, short
gasps.

He or she wore a headband with an LED
light; the blue beam shone in my eyes. I couldn’t see who it was behind the
light but rage overcame my fear and that helped. I would beat whoever it was to
a pulp if they tried anything.

The shape came toward me, stood at the side
of the bed and looked down. My eyes squeezed shut. I tried very hard to control
my breathing to appear as if I were asleep.

“Charley?
Are you asleep?”

Joel.

My heart was in my throat as I bolted
upright. “Joel!
Oh my God.”
I caught his hand and
yanked him down to me. “Are you all right? Where have you been? Daniel and I have
been worried sick!”

“I’m sorry, Charley. I came up through the
dumbwaiter. It was a tight squeeze but worth it just to see you again. I only
have a few minutes. Listen, please listen, I have to explain and there’s not
much time.”

“No, there’s time—there is! Now that you’re
here—you’re back! You don’t have to explain. Daniel told me about the girl—the
friend of Anastasia’s. Joel, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to call
the police so you don’t need to hide anymore. Listen, we found your journal so
we know why you’re running. But what happened between Daniel and me was a
mistake. It’s you I want.”

He switched off the light on his headband
and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark. “I love you,
Charley. But I don’t think what happened between you and Daniel was a mistake.
It’s something you both wanted from the beginning. My brother thinks he owes
me. He thinks he doesn’t have a right to be happy because I’m not. Seriously,
he’s better off without me. I’m a fuck-up.”

I shook my head vehemently and pulled him
into my arms. “You are not,” I whispered, trying to make him understand. “You
are a gentle, sweet man. Your brother loves you. He doesn’t care about the rest
of it. He would rather have you back—social anxiety, agoraphobic, all your
quirks and oddities—your brother would rather have you back with him then go
through life without you. Daniel needs you, Joel.”

“And what about you?
How do you feel about my quirks and oddities?” He pressed his
fingers to his eyes, a signal that he was distressed. “That girl you mentioned.
She wasn’t the only one. I hurt you too and I don’t even remember doing it.”

His anxiety levels were the highest I’d
ever seen them. I couldn’t even imagine the courage it must have taken him to
come back to his apartment and see me.

“I know, honey, I know. These past few
months we had together, playing music and working—I know you. You wouldn’t hurt
anyone intentionally. There’s an answer and we can fix it. Please, give me a
chance to help you.”

He was already pulling away, preparing to
disappear from my life.

“Joel, wait!” I commanded. “If you don’t
remember doing it, then how do you know it happened?”

He stopped. His grey-green eyes were
puzzled. “I’m not sure. It felt like I was dreaming it and then someone told me
it was real. It was like the hypnotherapy sessions I used to have with Dr.
Welland
. Charley, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you.
I’m sorry.”

“Please, let me help you. Is someone trying
to hurt you? Is that why you ran away?”

“There’s no time to explain it all. Tell
Daniel they used your phone to call me. I went downstairs to let you in but it
wasn’t you at the door. I don’t know what happened after that. I woke up in a
hidden room under the house. The rest of it isn’t important. Listen,
Carsten
wants my proxy vote and Wilma is helping him. He’s
threatened to do something to Daniel if I don’t hand it over. I hid the proxy
in the cello; without it, they’re powerless. Tell Daniel I’m signing it over to
him. He’ll understand what I mean. They can hypnotize me this time and it won’t
work. They can’t make me do something I know is wrong.”

“What do you mean they can hypnotize you?
Joel, who is the woman in blue?”

“Talk to Dr.
Welland
;
he’ll tell you. There is no woman in blue. We imagined her, Charley. We dreamt
the whole thing. Remember that.”

His handsome surfer-boy face clouded with
remorse. “I’m not a good guy for you. I wanted to be. I like you better than
anyone I know, aside from Daniel. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I liked our duets.”

And then he was gone.

I should’ve tackled him, hog-tied him. I
know that now. I didn’t then. I thought I had found the answer to how
Carsten
lured Joel out of the apartment. Blonde-haired
Wilma was
Carsten’s
accomplice on the inside. It was
all beginning to make sense. I thought I had it all figured out.

I couldn’t see the real danger staring me
right in the face.

♫

“HE’S IN THE mansion. Joel is here. I just
saw him. Daniel, wake up! He was in my room. He came up through the dumbwaiter.
He said to tell you he has the proxy and he’s signing it over to you.”

Daniel sat up in bed as naked as I left
him. He was half-asleep, his dark hair tousled over his brow making him look about
nineteen.
“How long ago?”

“Less than two minutes ago. He was standing
in my room. I don’t know how he got out. He was gone before I reached the door.”

Daniel threw on some clothes. Neither of us
was in the mood to talk about what happened between us. Or why we fall into bed
whenever we’re together. This wasn’t the time to talk about my pregnancy or his
demons. He gripped my hand tightly and we raced down the stairs to foyer at the
main entrance.

“Where are we going?”

“The kitchen before he escapes. You said he
came up through the dumbwaiter? That’s the way he’ll get out. Tell me
everything. Tell me everything he said to you.” Daniel’s face was set, worried.

I repeated everything Joel had told me
about Wilma, the proxy and the cryptic message about his being hypnotized.

“Do you think that’s how they got Joel to
open the front door? You said you locked it; only Joel and Marshall had the
alarm code. Marshall couldn’t be recruited to open the door—it
had
to be Joel. Wilma stole my cell
phone from the hallway, used it to call Joel and then returned the phone to the
hall bowl where I found it an hour later. Joel said he didn’t remember anything
after he opened the door. Hypnotic suggestion—how else could
Carsten
lure an agoraphobic guy out of his apartment?”

We had reached the kitchen. Daniel entered
it first. It was a spacious Victorian kitchen, very much unchanged from when
the mansion was built in the 1800s. White tiles covered the walls and there
were no cupboards, only shelves that were lined with serving platters and
cooking implements. The appliances were new, a state-of-the-art stainless steel
gas range and restaurant-sized stainless steel fridge.

In the middle of the kitchen was a large
butcher block work island where the chef and kitchen staff prepared meals for
family, dinner parties, and functions.

It wasn’t dinner that Daniel and I saw
lying prone on the butcher block with a carving knife stuck through her chest.

I crowded behind him in the doorway but he
wouldn’t let me enter. My hand pressed to my mouth. I felt my eyes stretch wide
when I saw the body.

A pool of fresh blood stained her maid’s
uniform. Her blonde hair was loose about her face and her eyes were fixed open,
staring at the ceiling. The
color
of her skin was a
ghastly muddy grey.

Daniel sprang forward. He gently pressed
his fingers to her neck though she was clearly dead, and then turned away and
reached for the house phone to call the police. “Stay out, Charlotte. Don’t
touch anything. I don’t want you caught up in this. We’ll both be suspects; I
don’t want to give them any ammunition to charge us. Wake up Marshall. Let him
know what’s happened but don’t tell him about Joel. I’m not telling Lewis
anything about my brother either.
As far as everyone knows,
he’s missing—a long way away from here.
I would like to keep it that
way.”

He met my eyes and the message was clear. I
nodded. “I won’t say anything. Joel didn’t do this.”

“Tell Marshall to wait for me in the
library. You go too. I’ll be there soon.”

Daniel’s gaze
traveled
to the murdered woman. I know he was thinking the same thing I was thinking,
despite our brave words.

Wilma was wearing an electric blue trench
coat.
The woman in blue.

We
imagined her, Charley. We dreamt the whole thing. Remember that.

Joel had murdered the woman who had been
posing as his mother.

*

CARSTEN TURNED the Mercedes onto the long
sweeping gravel drive to the mansion. The soaring redwoods bordered the drive
and shaded the car. It was Wednesday, less than twenty-four hours from the
meeting of the board. If his insider had done what he paid her to do, he
wouldn’t be cutting it this close. As long as he left the mansion with Joel’s
proxy—that’s all he gave a shit about. If Daniel was able to get to the meeting
and vote his share as well as Joel’s,
Carsten
was in
a world of hurt.

The whole point of this exercise was to
keep both Razor brothers away from the stockholders meeting.
Carsten’s
larger goal was to keep them as impotent in the
business as they were before they came of age.

The Razor brothers made it easy.

First Joel with his social anxiety and
phobias dropped out of the scene. And then Daniel became too much of a playboy
to take seriously—although many of the stockholders did take him seriously as
John Razor’s son. On one hand,
Carsten
had a
fundamentally useless CEO and on the other, he had a fundamentally reckless
CEO. With careful manipulation, he managed to ease them out of the boardroom.

And then Daniel woke up one day, suddenly interested
in learning the family business. What a job
Carsten
had to control him then, especially as Daniel didn’t share his vision for Razor
Industries. The playboy who was best known for skydiving, white water rafting
and society parties was suddenly being taken seriously. Young Daniel Razor was
going to take Razor Industries into the future. This was a young man’s world,
especially in San Francisco with tech start-ups mushrooming all around them. It
was Daniel’s opinion the board was interested in, Daniel’s ideas they were
writing down. It was Daniel’s vision they wanted to implement.

He approached the board with plans to build
a new office in Seattle and that’s when
Carsten
became alarmed.
Carsten
advised against expansion for
the sake of the shareholders’ dividends.

Daniel’s response was that the shareholders
had invested in the company and they would be remiss not to increase that
investment through periodically expanding and testing new markets.

It came to a showdown. The board sided with
Daniel and
Carsten
was put out to pasture. Not
literally, but in the decision-making process, his opinion no longer counted.
Carsten
Pullman had become very, very wealthy off Razor
Industries; he had no intention of tolerating dismal dividends so Daniel could
play at being a businessman.

Tallulah Cement was the answer until Joel
Razor was given the task of designing the new building and balked at the
takeover. Now
Carsten
had a new brother to contend
with and this one was a recluse. He couldn’t gain access long enough to
influence Joel.

Carsten
almost smiled recalling those terrifying days. The more Daniel
poked into Tallulah, the more questions he had about the acquisition. The
situation was increasingly precarious. And then
Carsten
was presented with a chink in the Razor
armor
.

Sex.

A young man’s poison.
The socially anxious and backward Joel still had a libido. When
Carsten
learned Daniel’s way of helping his brother was to
bring girls to the mansion for Joel, he knew he had won.

Anastasia told him everything, probably
unaware of how he would use the information against her boyfriend one day.

Gain control of Joel and
Carsten
would have control of his voting shares. The idea
to have Anastasia pose as Joel’s dead mother came to him one day when he
noticed the resemblance. He struck a deal with her; you help me and I’ll get
Joel out of Daniel’s life for good. From there, it was supposed to be a simple
matter of swinging the vote and if that didn’t work, get Joel to sign off his
proxy to
Carsten
.

How did it go so wrong? He climbed out of
the Mercedes and walked to the front door. Anastasia played her role. She
produced the note and the envelope for Daniel that stated Joel’s life was in
danger. She fed the paranoia and encouraged secrecy which was important because
Daniel couldn’t go the police and he wouldn’t if he believed it would keep Joel
safe.

But somehow, the less complicated plan of
manipulating Joel to give
Carsten
his proxy was
undermined by a force that
Carsten
couldn’t see. It
couldn’t be Charlotte Dawson. Though her daily visits to the mansion had
definitely put a crimp in his plan. The violinist was much more tenacious than
Carsten
thought she’d be. He’d done everything in his power
to scare her out of Joel’s loft and she was still there. The only use he could
make of her now was to keep Anastasia in line when she started mewling about
her guilty conscience. Anastasia was supposed to control Daniel and the maid
vowed she had control of Joel.

This was
supposed
to be a slam dunk. It was anything but.

It was a risk coming here but
Carsten
couldn’t afford to wait for Anastasia to get him
that proxy. The situation he was in with these investors was life and death. Gamble
all, risk all. Only it wasn’t his money he was risking. These were not a
handful of pensioners in Ohio he was ruining this time. These boys played for
keeps.

Carsten
turned into the circular drive and saw the police cars blocking the
entrance to the parking area. “Son of a bitch,” he swore under his breath.
“What now?”

He parked the Mercedes and walked to the
front door. Marshall answered the door as usual. The household behind him was
in an uproar.

“Wilma has managed to get herself
murdered.” Marshall all but yelled the news.

Carsten
carefully composed his expression. He had never heard Marshall
raise his voice before. The man was red in the face, angry and probably in
shock.

“Surely not,”
Carsten
said smoothly. His heart was thudding hard in his throat. Wilma had finally managed
to get the proxy off Joel. She had sent him a text to meet her at the mansion
first thing in the morning where she’d hand it off to him in time for the
meeting.

“I’m afraid so, sir. The police have
commandeered the kitchen. You’ll find Mr. Razor in the library with Miss
Dawson.”

Carsten
entered the library with the bravado of a man on the Titanic.

“Daniel! My god, man, you shouldn’t have
tried to deal with this on your own. That’s what I’m here for. I’m supposed to
help you. You ought to have called me after you called the police.”

Daniel rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry,
Carsten
. Everything moved so fast. I reported a murder and
the SFPD took it from there. Detective Lewis will be speaking to everyone who
was here last night.
Including me.”

Carsten
frowned. “I see Miss Dawson is still on the scene. She’s always
around when there’s trouble. Has she been interviewed yet?”

“She had nothing to do with this. I asked
her to stay. She’s been working with me to find Joel.”

Carsten
ducked his face. “So Joel still hasn’t turned up?”

“No sign of him. Thank God, with this mess
going on. Lewis thinks it was a jealous ex-boyfriend who did it. Wilma has a
past it seems.
So much for security checks.
The guy
has served time for assault. They’ve sealed off her room to search for
evidence.”

“Oh, well that is good to hear. Tragic for
the maid but I’m glad they don’t consider Joel a suspect. Or you or Miss
Dawson.”

“They questioned Charlotte and me but Joel
is missing so he was never a suspect. And Charlotte and I were together at the
time of Wilma’s murder. We didn’t hear a thing. Neither did Marshall. The
killer must have got her to open the kitchen door for him.”

Carsten
mopped his brow. His ulcer flared; a boil of acid shot up his gut.
Wilma had the proxy—it could still be in her room. No hope of looking for it with
the police standing guard.

“I can’t stay Daniel. I wish I could but I
have some pressing business at the office. I’ll let Rita know that you are tied
up for the day and have her reschedule your appointments. This is crazy.”
Carsten
shook his head. “Will you call Anastasia to let her
know before this news hits the wire, or do you want me to do it?”

“Yes, call her if you don’t mind,
Carsten
. I can’t talk to her right now.”

Carsten
placed the call from the Mercedes. Anastasia had been getting cold
feet. Well, this should light a fire under them—Charlotte Dawson had spent the
night with Daniel.
Carsten
was offering her a chance
for revenge and to get rid of the violinist once and for all.

Anastasia agreed to do what he asked. He
didn’t even have to sell her on it.