Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3) Read online

  RAZOR EDGE

  A Thriller Romance Trilogy

  Novella Three

  NADINE DOOLITTLE

  Copyright 2015 Nadine Doolittle

  Electronic Edition 2015

  Writewood Creations

  261 Lac Bernard Road

  Alcove, Quebec

  Canada J0X 1A0

  [email protected]

  ISBN 978-0-9938963-8-5

  All rights reserved.

  This publication remains the copyrighted property

  of the author and may not be redistributed for commercial

  or non-commercial purposes.

  Cover design by Writewood Creations

  Image provided by iStock Photos/travenian

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  RAZOR EDGE is the third novella-length installment in a steamy three-part romance-thriller series. The story contains scenes and language written for a mature audience.

  A 22-year-old violinist and a driven, enigmatic billionaire butt heads as they try to find an agoraphobic young man who has gone missing. Charlotte Dawson is drawn into the Razor family secrets, becoming Daniel Razor’s adversary, as well as his ally, in the hunt to find his stepbrother. She needs his money and he needs her resourcefulness but that doesn’t make them friends. As the investigation deepens, Charlotte begins to wonder if the man she is working for is the man she should be running from.

  Set in fog-shrouded San Francisco, The Razor Serial Trilogy is gothic noir romance in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock. Written in three novellas, the final book, RAZOR EDGE wraps up the mystery but the series will continue in December 2015.

  Also by Nadine Doolittle

  Gatineau Hills Mystery Trilogy

  Iced Under

  The Grey Lady

  The River Bride

  Razor Novella Trilogy

  Razor Wire

  Razor Blade

  Razor Edge

  RAZOR EDGE

  chapter one

  ♫

  DANIEL RAZOR shaved very carefully; steam rising up from the sink and fogging the bathroom mirror as he lathered his face and dragged the blade over his jaw.

  He glanced at his reflection and his stomach clenched. His hand shook but he managed to pull off a close shave without nicking himself. Nerves, he thought, about seeing her again. Charlotte Dawson had questions and he didn’t have answers. Carefully formulated responses were not answers. She was smart and perhaps as amoral as he was; she would see through any smoke screen he tried to throw up. Charlotte was alive but only by the skin of her teeth. A few minutes more and he’d have found her body smashed on the pavement. That was too close. No room for error. Reasonable questions called for reasonable answers and Daniel couldn’t give her any. There was nothing reasonable about what happened to her on the roof.

  Daniel pulled the blade over his throat. It struck him as ironic that his past mistakes had come back to bite him in the ass just when he was finally ready to commit to Anastasia. Even more ironically, that it was Anastasia doing the biting. After three years of looking the other way, his fiancée had finally decided to take her revenge. This is the first one she’s tried to kill, he thought with a grimace.

  Daniel didn’t lie to Charlotte; he didn’t see a woman when he came up in the elevator. He smelled her. Anastasia’s perfume was one of a kind, blended exclusively for her. Daniel guessed why she was there and why she did what she did. She must have found out Charlotte Dawson had spent the night in the mansion from one of the staff. Marshall always informed Joyce, Wilma and Jackson when there were overnight guests. Her jealousy went into overdrive after being suppressed for so long. His fiancée had been burned before by his infidelity.

  What she did to Charlotte was on him. He’d created that rage in Tasha. Charlotte was right about one thing—someone always gets hurt.

  Daniel caught his reflection staring back at him, wryly accusatory. The man in the mirror was still the bad boy who took what he wanted. Why did he take his brother’s girlfriend to bed? Why did he feel the compulsion to throw a grenade into every good part of his life?

  First Joel and now Anastasia. Charlotte was caught in the middle.

  Daniel snatched up a towel and dried his face on it vigorously, rubbing out the image. Don’t grow a conscience now, Razor. There was no proof Anastasia tried to kill Charlotte. It could have been an accident. Tasha was trapped on the roof; she panicked and pushed past Charlotte to make her escape and Charlotte lost her balance.

  Daniel avoided his eyes in the mirror. He was spinning the truth but he had no choice. Tasha could not be charged with attempted murder. She knew too much. Anastasia must’ve come to the house looking for him and one of the staff told her Charlotte had spent the night. When he found out who it was, he’d fire their ass. Rule number one for continued employment in Razor mansion was learn to keep your mouth shut.

  Charlotte said the woman she saw was wearing a blue raincoat. Anastasia probably has a coat similar in color to this mysterious woman in blue. Daniel still didn’t believe there was any such person, though why Charlotte would make her up was unclear.

  Charlotte worried him. He thought he knew women, he thought he’d seen it all ... but Charlotte Dawson was an enigma. She could be bought—but that meant nothing. In business, the guy who writes the checks is usually confident of getting what he paid for. In Charlotte Dawson’s convoluted moral order, the guy who writes the checks gets what she decides he gets. Daniel couldn’t control her and he didn’t know what she would do next. The violin was her Achilles heel which gave him some measure of power over her for the time being.

  But he was worried. What happened between her and Joel would take them all down if he didn’t get her firmly under control. She was keeping a journal of some sort. He had to get his hands on it before she left for Switzerland and was beyond his reach.

  If John Razor was alive, he would advise his son to withhold the money. Make it impossible for the girl to leave the mansion until he had possession of that journal. If she didn’t write about the incident—no harm, no foul—pay her off and send her on her way.

  And if she did?

  Daniel forced his eyes to the mirror. Charlotte had made him promise he would never leave her. He warned her she would regret it one day.

  Daniel smoothed his hands over his hair and examined his reflection. He was beginning to look more like John Razor every day. Beginning to think like him too.

  Protect the family. Protect the family name at all costs.

  *

  “TELL ME about this woman in blue,” said Detective Lewis.

  “What more do you need to know?” I was getting impatient with the endless questions that were getting us nowhere. “She was in the house, I chased her and she pushed me off the roof. Daniel Razor rescued me before I fell. He’ll tell you all about it. We found the cell where they were holding Joel, and then last night I heard him banging on a pipe. It was a message. He’s still in the house! I’ve told you the whole story twice now. Didn’t Daniel show you the journal we found? Joel’s notebook—he said he was going to show it to you.”

  Lewis grunted, frowned and shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to Mr. Razor today. But getting back to this mysterious woman. So far you’re the only one who claims to have seen her. No one in the Razor household believes she exists.”

  “Joel believes she exists. Joel saw her too.”

  “The missing man saw the woman in blue from the attic window,” he said with a deadpan look on his face. “Do you hear how that sounds?”

  “It so
unds like something you should investigate!” I pushed away from the desk. “Look, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not writing down everything that happens if you’re not going to believe me. And I’m not coming to you guys with what I find out if you’re not going to follow up on it.”

  “Why were you in the mansion in the first place?”

  “Daniel Razor asked me to help him find Joel.”

  Detective Lewis leaned back in his chair, bemused. “After firing you with cause, Mr. Razor asks you to do him a favor and you drop everything to answer the call.”

  “I was already looking for Joel on my own. I agreed to help out because I wanted to find him too.”

  “Are you sure Mr. Razor didn’t offer you money or some other perk for volunteering your time?”

  “He said he’d pay me, yes. Is that a problem?” I was confused. What was Lewis getting at?

  The detective shook his head and grinned like he knew it all along. “Yeah, it’s a problem because now you have a vested interest in keeping this case alive. The longer this goes on, the more lucrative it is for you. How many years of experience in private investigation have you logged, Miss Dawson?”

  My face was red. I could feel the heat in my hair. I was embarrassed but I was also angry. “I have a vested interest in finding Joel Razor for personal reasons. His brother’s money isn’t the issue.”

  “Well, that would be a first for the Razor boys, I’m sure. A girl who isn’t interested in their money.” Lewis slapped his hands on the table, palms down. “However, the SFPD can’t help you in your ‘investigation.’ If Daniel Razor calls me, I’ll order a team to search the mansion with sniffer dogs and get a forensic unit to check out this cell you mentioned. If Joel is still in the mansion, we’ll find him. But I don’t think he is. You said the tunnel leads to the redwood forest. Whoever was holding him—if someone was holding him—they likely made their escape through the tunnels to the forest as soon as they heard you coming. Joel Razor is long gone by now.”

  “But what about the sounds I heard—the banging on the pipe?”

  “It is a very old mansion, Miss Dawson,” Lewis said wearily. “Old plumbing makes noise.”

  I slumped in my chair. “I know what I heard. It was a rhythm like a metronome. The sound travelled through the dumbwaiter. I play the violin; I recognized the tune. The composition was one Joel and I had played together a couple of times. He was sending me a message that he has forgiven me.”

  “Forgiven you for what?”

  I looked at my hands. “I told myself I was doing it for the music. But this deal between the three of us became far more complicated than I ever imagined. I hurt Joel. The only person he trusted was Daniel and I screwed that up for him. I just wish we knew what they wanted so Daniel could give it to them and Joel could come home.”

  Lewis seemed to thaw a little. “Joel Razor is a billionaire. If he’s been abducted, they can get everything they want from Joel. He’s their cash cow. They’re not going to kill him but they’re not going to give him up either. We’re tracking his bank accounts, credit cards and financial records. So far, no money has been withdrawn. Maybe when the pressure is off, we’ll see some movement on his accounts and we’ll be able to take action. But to be honest, I don’t believe this is an abduction or hostage-taking situation. We thought it might me a domestic matter so we tracked down his birth father. Richard Dolman hasn’t seen his son since Joel was born. Alexandra Dolman wanted it that way in the divorce and Dolman wasn’t about to argue. It might help you to know we also spoke with a behavioral therapist who was working with Joel using hypnosis to manage his anxiety. Dr. Welland indicated Joel Razor was prone to erratic behavior and anything could have triggered his disappearance.”

  “Like seeing a woman dressed exactly like his mother was the day before she died?”

  Lewis scratched his balding scalp. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you, Miss Dawson. This is not your standard missing person situation. Joel Razor is a mature adult male, twenty-six years old. He doesn’t appear to be in distress if what you’ve told me about the entry in his notebook is accurate. Look, he’s worried about his love life—not his life. There’s been no ransom demand and no threat has been made so there’s no crime here. It’s not against the law to leave home.”

  “He hasn’t left home! Joel isn’t like other twenty-six-year old men. He can’t cope.”

  Lewis heaved a sigh. “Until I get something that says he’s been taken against his will, or that his life is in danger; that there’s been an extortion demand or a demand for ransom, there’s nothing I can do. As long as he isn’t a danger to himself or to anyone else, he can do as he pleases. Look,” Lewis said sympathetically, “you did your best. You’ve gone as far as you can go to get him back. Don’t let it consume your life. Your friend left on his own free will. He may come back on his own or he may not. It’ll drive you crazy trying to control what other people do.”

  Good advice, except it wasn’t me who was trying to control Joel. It was the woman in blue. I remembered the expression on his face at the window. Joel did not leave home of his free will.

  chapter two

  ♫

  ANASTASIA PACED her hotel room, planning what to say when Daniel showed up to accuse her of trying to kill Charlotte.

  Deny being there. Deny knowing anything about it. Make him prove it.

  He’ll say Joel saw her from the window.

  So what? Joel is missing. He’s not a witness. Blame it on the woman in the blue.

  Anastasia giggled hysterically.

  Would Daniel even try to understand why she did it? Would he see how he had pushed her to the breaking point by inviting that girl to spend the night, only minutes after he had trashed their engagement party? How much humiliation was she supposed to take?

  Anastasia wrung her hands. He wanted to get rid of her and he succeeded.

  Why? Why?

  Because your boyfriend wanted to fuck Charlotte Dawson and you left the door wide open for him to do just that.

  She screwed up—she knew that now. She should’ve insisted on staying. But he pretty much made it impossible for her to stay. Daniel Razor knew how to make a scene. Burn the house down. Annihilate anyone who gets in his way. He’s always been like that. She couldn’t stand by and let him pull that shit with her or she would have lost all credibility. Anastasia Redman does not make empty threats. One day, Daniel will realize that.

  Humiliated. In front of all of their friends. Of course she walked out.

  He’s going to be furious. He’s going to freak out that she tried to hurt Charlotte. He might even break off the engagement.

  Let him try. Daniel Razor isn’t the only one who knows how to burn a house down.

  Razor and Redman and their friends in New York and Los Angeles—they weren’t like ordinary people. The youth of privilege lived life at a hotter pace. When you have everything, you always want more. Joel and Daniel Razor could get as much as they wanted. Anastasia knew about the threesomes in Joel’s apartment. She didn’t object as long as their addiction didn’t affect her. Everyone in their crowd had something they were hooked on back then—drugs, sex, fast cars—but they were all grown up now and it was time to put the toys away.

  It was Joel Razor who refused to grow up.

  Joel.

  He was such a freak, he couldn’t go out and get his own pussy; he needed his brother to do it for him. Anastasia hated her future brother-in-law with a white-hot passion. What began as repugnance had grown to a full-blown hate. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, hugging herself to calm down. Let Daniel dare accuse her of pushing Charlotte off the roof. Bring it. As far as she was concerned, Charlotte and Joel got what they deserved. She wasn’t going to apologize for taking steps to get her fiancé out of that ménage. She had a right to do what she did.

  Anastasia paced the room in a tight, little circle. Daniel would’ve done anything for Joel. Anything. If Joel wanted Daniel to watch while he fucked the hire
d help, Daniel would’ve done it. Anastasia wasn’t a complete idiot; she knew Daniel enjoyed his brother’s kink. That’s why he never put a stop to it. Even after it got dangerous and she had to run interference, charming her ass off to keep Joel out of jail—even then Daniel didn’t stop. He liked watching.

  What if one of the girls decided to sell her story to the media?

  Jesus. Did he even think about that? Did he give Anastasia’s reputation any thought at all?

  Razor Industries might survive the blowback, but Redman Foundation wouldn’t. Anastasia couldn’t afford to put her family’s name under that kind of scrutiny. She was just beginning to become a powerhouse in philanthropic circles. She would not have her private life dragged into the gutter by a perverted, weak little boy. Daniel would cater to his brother’s issues until the end of time.

  Joel Razor had to go. Charlotte Dawson happened to be in the way.

  Daniel claimed he hired her to be Joel’s companion/girlfriend/fuck-buddy—whatever the twisted freak needed her to be. But Anastasia knew Daniel was in the room while Joel was banging Charlotte. He didn’t cop to it and she decided not to press the point because they had an engagement party to plan. She was beginning to believe he had actually changed.

  Until she walked in on them.

  How did she know they were together in the loft? After three years, she had developed a sixth sense when it came to Daniel’s roving eye. Charlotte was lying on Joel’s bed and her fiancé was holding the bitch’s hand. No matter what excuses he made, Anastasia realized she would spend her entire married life being forced to look the other way. So she pushed Charlotte off the roof and if she’d do it again if she had to. No regrets. Anastasia honestly couldn’t see the problem. Skanks like Charlotte Dawson were always circling and they always would be if she didn’t send Daniel a clear message. She will retaliate. You’ve been warned.