Shelby's Secret (Once a Marine, Always a Marine Book 4) (6 page)

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 opened 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.”

She splayed her hands out with a little shrug, as if questioning the Universe about how this could be.
 

And then with a shake of her head she continued. “I met Abby about a year after I got to Nashville. She and I shared a tiny studio apartment and waitressed during the day for money.”

Her eyes took on a soft glow, and Shelby had ceased to be in the room with him. She was somewhere in the past, seeing her friend.

Shelby reached up and snagged one of her curls, pulling it down. Stretched out to full length it was long, reaching past her breasts. But when she let it go, it sprung back into place. A perfect corkscrew that only hung past her collarbone.

“We had the same hair, even though I was short and she was tall. It’s what made us instant friends. We could talk for hours about the problems of trying to straighten it, and what the humidity did to it. You know—girl stuff.”

“And Rebecca has the same hair.”

Shelby focused on him again and the nostalgic smile faded. “Same color, same texture. Abby could have been my older sister, we were that close.”

“How did you get a music contract?”

“Madge,” she said. “Her dad was a career Army Ranger, and she’d been all over the world by the time she was a teenager. She became a talent agent in her thirties and made a name for herself by the time she turned forty. She heard me singing one day on a street corner.”

“And signed you on the spot?”

Shelby chuckled. “Well, not on the spot. She took Abby and I under her wing, and a few weeks later, I was sitting with a professional voice coach singing scales, and Abby was enrolled in a cosmetology school, learning how to do hair and make-up. Madge says she just knew I would be someone special, and she knew I wasn’t leaving Abby behind.”

Mike was impressed. But then, Shelby had always been special. Whether she was on stage or sitting with no make-up in a padded lounge chair, she exuded charm. She’d been that way her entire life and, if he was honest with himself, he’d always known she needed to share that charisma with the world. He’d just thought he’d be with her when it happened. He gave himself a mental kick to stop the mopey thoughts. “What happened then?”

“I worked my ass off for a year before I got that first contract. My single came out, and six months later, my life was a rollercoaster ride.”

“And what happened to Abby?”

Shelby played with another curl. “She came with me. As my personal hair dresser and make-up artist. She was brilliant, and we were like kids playing dress up. All the gorgeous clothes and top-of-the-line cosmetics. The food was expensive and tasted better than anything either of us had ever experienced.”

“But?”

“But Abby was lonely.” Shelby let go of the curl and stood. She walked to the rail and leaned out.

For someone so famous, Mike thought Shelby was the lonely one. The way she held herself and the way she sank into the furniture, as if she were trying to disappear completely.
 

Shelby turned and crossed her arms. The night was still hot, but she rubbed goose bumps away as she stared back at him.

“I was always busy and didn’t notice it when she started disappearing at concerts, or during the tour. She got secretive, and that just wasn’t the girl I knew.”

“She started seeing someone?”

Shelby nodded. “Abby wouldn’t tell me who, but she seemed so happy, and I couldn’t blame her. I just didn’t have time for dating or anything besides my career and all the appearances and studio time. I barely had time to write my songs, and when I’d get off stage, I was dead to the world for the next twelve hours. I should have made more time for her. For us.”

“So it was easy for Abby to have a secret affair without anyone knowing.” Mike figured Abby enjoyed the secret, something to keep away from a friend that was having so much success. It was human nature to try and take something for herself.

“I think Madge knew there was a relationship, but even she didn’t know who it was, and we both worried about it. And then Abby started smiling less. Her fun, short, summer dresses turned into a long drab skirts, and she started jumping every time the door opened or closed.”

“Long sleeve shirts and heavy make-up as well?” He knew where this was going.

Again she nodded. “And stories about sudden clumsiness when she was one of the most graceful people I knew. I begged her to tell me who he was, because he had to be someone on the tour. But she wouldn’t. And by that time, she was pregnant.”

“Did he kill her?”

A tear slipped down her face as she flinched and took a small step back. “I honestly don’t know. She had Rebecca, and the secret meetings stopped. No more bruises, and she seemed so happy. That lasted for six years. Rebecca made Abby complete, and they made everyone smile just to see them together.” Shelby started to pace.

“Then one year ago, Abby left Rebecca with Madge, saying she had some errands to run. She never came back. I called the police, but they found no evidence of foul play. She simply disappeared, and they said it happens like that with some people. They just get up and leave their families and friends with no word. But they’re wrong. If they’d ever seen Abby with Rebecca, they would’ve known she’d never willingly leave her daughter. There’s just no way.”

“What happened then?”

“I hired a private investigator to look into her disappearance.” She hugged herself and turned back toward the mountain. “He couldn’t find anything either. Like a black hole, one day she was here, and the next day, she just ceased to exist.”

Mike could hear the frustration and hopelessness in her voice. “Did your manager run background checks on everyone connected to the tour?”

“Of course,” she said, turning back to face him again. “And nothing came up. No huge red flag with a previous assault or a history of being an abusive asshole around any of my people. But at the time, we were touring with a couple of other bands and were headquartered in Nashville. We didn’t have access to the names of everyone around, and then there was the possibility that the boyfriend was some local guy who followed the tour.”

“You get that often? Folks following the tour?”

“Oh yes, and most of the time they’re harmless. It’s not that cliché female rock groupie that you see in the movies either. I have everything from older couples to bikers and college kids following my concerts from state to state.”

“And no one stood out to either you or Madge?” Shelby’s face was a mask of misery.

“I was too busy to notice.”

Mike resisted the tug he felt. He refused to go and give her the comfort she so clearly needed. But denying himself was hard. Instead, he stayed in character and asked questions. From his seat. “Did you question Rebecca? Ask her if she’d seen anything or heard anything her mother said before she left?” A quiet sob escaped the woman standing so rigidly in front of him.

Another tear took the same path as the first one, and she crumbled.

Mike’s resolve left him in an instant, and he couldn’t keep away from her, from the heartbreak written all over her.

And then she was in his arms.

He swept her up and carried her back inside. Her whole body shook, but she stayed quiet, holding in the tears and trying not to touch him, even though her body was plastered against his. He carried her to her bed and sat with her still in his lap. Just like he’d wanted to do earlier. “I’m sorry about your friend, Shelby.”