Page 35 of Operation Annulment (Silent Phoenix MC)

twenty-nine

Nate

I can’t believe I ever trusted her.

I was sick when the police showed me the emails. They dated back to August. Days after we met, she emailed Jess cryptic messages and veiled threats. Jess was no peach to be married to, but having her beaten and raped?

That’s beyond anything I would ever wish upon another human being, regardless of what that person did to me.

And then she stood there and lied to my fucking face, acting like she was completely innocent of wrongdoing. God, the worst part is that I almost believed her.

She was so damn convincing that I considered staying.

What does that say about me?

“I didn’t think you were on the schedule for today.”

I look up from my lukewarm cup of coffee to find my surgical nurse coordinator frowning at me. “I was on call last night and didn’t have anything better to do, so I just stayed here.”

Truthfully, I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting in the physician’s lounge. The days are all blurring together. I’ve been sleeping in my car or here. I keep telling myself I’m doing it to avoid an awkward run-in with Kate, but the reality is that I’m not ready to go home to an empty house.

Eventually, I’ll have to, but not today.

“Are you feeling okay?” Monica asks, peering into my eyes. “Flu’s going around right now.”

I shake my head. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Because you look like shit,” she says bluntly before taking the chair across from me. “I’m guessing you witnessed the drama downstairs firsthand since you were here all night.”

“What drama?” I ask before taking another drink of coffee, praying the caffeine will snap me out of this fog.

Monica leans forward conspiratorially. “Remember the female that was brought in Monday afternoon? The one that seemed to point to a ‘for-hire’ attack?”

“Jessica Davis?”

Her eyes widen. “Yeah, I’m surprised you remember. Then how do you not know?—”

“That a woman named Mary Katherine Quinn set the whole thing up?”

Monica’s brows furrow. “What? The police obtained a warrant to search Jessica’s house.

They haven’t said specifically what was found, but it must have been incriminating enough for them to arrest her.

I’m just upset that I wasn’t downstairs when it happened.

I always miss the good stuff and had to hear all about it from one of the residents. ”

My heart sinks even as my mind races through the last seventy-two hours. “That’s impossible. She was beaten and raped—no one in their right mind would do that to themselves.”

“No one in their right mind would, but from everything I heard, I’m not so sure she is,” she says, circling a finger near her temple.

Jess is a lot of things, but crazy is not one of them.

Right?

“Yeah, I’m here to see an inmate—Jessica Davis,” I say, tapping my fingers impatiently against the laminate counter.

“Nate?”

My shoulders drop at the sound of the voice. Of all the fucking people to be here right now, it had to be him.

I turn around and paste a fake smile on my face. “Detective Do-Right, what a surprise.”

His eyes narrow at the nickname. “What are you doing here? We released Kate yesterday morning.”

I knew they would arrest her, but hearing it from Mike is like a knife to my heart. If anyone’s crazy, out of the three of us, it’s bound to be me.

“I’m here to see Jess. I think you’ve got the wrong girl.”

Mike waves his hand at the woman behind the counter. “Hey, Sierra, I’ll take it from here. Come on, Nate. Let’s talk.”

I should tell him to go fuck himself, but I’m desperate for answers. So, with my head held high, I follow the son-of-a-bitch into his office.

He gestures toward a chair and shuts the door behind me. “You want coffee or water?”

“Yeah, I’d like a latte and maybe a scone to go with it,” I mutter dryly. “Is this the police station or a fucking Starbucks ?”

He lowers himself into his chair with a murderous glare. “Still defending her after all this time, I see. Were the bitch not fucking up the lives of nearly everyone I know and care about, I might find it adorable.”

“I don’t have time for this shit?—”

“Sit the fuck down!” Mike barks, slamming his hand down on his desk. “You don’t know shit about fuck?—”

“Really? I saw the emails. They came from Kate.”

He shakes his head. “Only, they didn’t. We obtained a search warrant for Jess’s apartment.

It’s standard procedure—we were looking for any evidence that could help us locate the suspects.

All those emails originated from her laptop, and upon taking a closer look at the address, he points to the discrepancy, and I don’t know how I didn’t catch it before.

“That’s not your wife’s email address, correct? ”

“No,” I’m forced to admit. “It’s not. The grammatical errors are consistent with Jess’s writing, too.”

Mike continues, “Kate pointed that out as well. There were photographs of her and several of you on Jess’s computer. I don’t know how far back they go, but I think it’s safe to say she’s been stalking you both for a while.”

My head drops down, and I brace my arms on my thighs. “So, Jess is responsible—not Kate? How? She admitted she gave her a warning.”

“We videotaped Kate’s statement of her interaction with Jessica Davis on Monday, along with her whereabouts during the time Jessica claims she was assaulted,” he says, turning his laptop toward me. “As part of this investigation concerns you, I think it’s only fair that you see it.”

Seeing a pale-faced, trembling Kate is enough to pull my breath from my lungs, but hearing the way she defended me to my ex-wife is like a battering ram to my heart.

I told her that the queen protects the king.

My brain decides that now is an excellent time to remind me of everything I said to Kate in anger and the look of devastation on her face.

“Jess violated the terms of her parole. She’s being charged with damn near everything: perjury, forgery, making a false report, attempted murder?—”

“Attempted murder? Who did she try to kill?”

“She poisoned Dakota Quinn,” he says, his lips flattening into a thin line.

My pulse picks up. “What—when?”

He taps several keys, and there it is, in grainy black and white: my ex-wife at a gym she doesn’t belong to, slipping something into Dakota’s smoothie .

“October thirty-first. The gym released this to us after we found some disturbing searches on Jess’s laptop.”

Halloween.

The same fucking day that Dakota came stumbling out of the locker room, collapsing in my arms. The thought of her losing the baby leaves me feeling sick.

Mike taps the screen with his knuckle. “You know, if we hadn’t had a hunch that something was off with Jess’s story, Kate would be going to prison. We’d have nothing right now if she’d wiped the hard drive. Side note: you might be interested in researching the soap opera character Carla Snyder.”

My brows lift. “Soap opera character? How is that related to this?”

“It’s ridiculous, but we had an anonymous tip, and it checks out. Fake pregnancies, drugging men and telling them they slept with her, brain lesions—you name it, and the character’s done it. So has Jess, for that matter, if the evidence is any indicator.”

I stumble out of the station in a daze, feeling like I’ve been hit by a semi-truck. Kate’s only crime was falling in love with me, and I was too much of an asshole to hear her out when she tried to tell me the truth.

She must have been so scared.

The only woman who’s ever truly loved me for me, and I pushed her away, telling her she meant nothing.

My phone rings. Garrett, of course. His timing is impeccable.

“Hey, it’s not?—”

“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” he crows. “What did I tell you about karma, huh? I knew something was off with that girl, and I was right. Are you and Kate celebrating?”

“Garrett—” I swallow hard. “I fucked it all up.”

“Fucking hell, Nate! No, Dad, they’re not celebrating. Why? Because Nate did what Nate does—he Nates everything up. Yeah, I just might,” he mutters with a chuckle that raises the hair on my neck.

“What? What did he say, Garrett?”

“Our father thinks it might be time for Kate to get herself a real man, like myself. So, can I get her number? ”

“Not if my fucking life depends on it,” I force out through clenched teeth.

He laughs like everything’s one big joke. “Oh, look, Dad. Right here. Kate Quinn-Davis. You bet your ass I’m going to call her. She won’t even have to change her last name when I go and marry the shit out of her.”

“Garrett,” I warn.

“I’m going to have to let you go. I’ve got a hot date later.” He ends the call before I can say another word.

I’m going to kick his ass.

I have to find her. I’ll get down on my knees if I need to, but I can’t accept losing her.

I can fix this, can’t I?