Tell me to Forget (Crawford Legacy #2)

Chapter 1- JADE

The older detective has kind eyes. That's the first thing I notice about him, standing there in Phoenix's doorway with his badge catching the light from the foyer.

He looks like someone's grandfather, the type who coaches Little League and knows all his neighbors' names.

The type who believes in justice and due process and the American way.

The younger one is different. His eyes are sharp, calculating, taking in every detail of the entryway behind us. He looks at the original artwork on the walls and the marble floors that probably cost more than my old apartment. Phoenix’s hand is on the small of my back.

"Mr. Crawford?" The older detective, who introduced himself as Warren Reeves, consults a small notebook. "I'm sorry to bother you at home. This shouldn't take long."

"Of course." Phoenix's voice is steady, controlled, revealing nothing.

He's still wearing the charcoal suit he put on for his parents' dinner party, the one that makes his shoulders look impossibly broad and his waist narrow.

His dark hair is slightly disheveled from running his fingers through it. "Please, come in."

He steps aside, and the detectives enter. I can smell the salt air drifting in from the ocean beyond the windows, mixing with the expensive cologne Phoenix wears and something else underneath, something metallic and sharp. Fear, maybe. My own or his? I can't tell anymore.

The younger detective introduces himself as Tomasz Nowak.

He has short brown hair and a face that gives away nothing.

I watch him study the living room as we all settle onto the furniture, his gaze lingering on the photographs on the mantle and then shift to the view of the Pacific Ocean through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Phoenix and I sit close together on the sofa without quite touching.

"We're investigating a missing persons case," Detective Reeves begins. He pulls out his notebook again, even though I suspect he already knows everything he's about to ask. "Marcus Webb. Do you know him?"

My heart stops. Actually stops, for one terrible moment, before it lurches back into a rhythm that feels too fast and too loud. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears as heat crawls up my neck toward my face.

Phoenix doesn't flinch. His expression remains politely concerned, nothing more. "Marcus is my business partner. Or was, I suppose. We recently dissolved our partnership."

"When did you last see Mr. Webb?"

"About two weeks ago. We had a business dinner at Nobu in Malibu. There was a professional disagreement about the direction of the company." Phoenix pauses, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. "It got heated. We decided to part ways."

Detective Nowak writes something in his own notebook. The scratch of his pen against paper sounds impossibly loud in the quiet room. "What was the nature of this disagreement?"

"Financial. Marcus wanted to take the company in a direction I wasn't comfortable with. Cutting corners, questionable contracts." Phoenix shrugs, the gesture elegant and dismissive. "I have a reputation to maintain. So does my family. I wasn't willing to compromise that."

"And you haven't seen or spoken to him since?"

"No."

The lie slides out so smoothly I almost believe it myself.

I sit very still, my hands folded in my lap, trying to control my breathing.

The last time we saw Marcus Webb, he was lying on the floor of a cabin in the mountains with his skull caved in and his blood pooling across the hardwood.

Phoenix had just beaten him to death with a fire poker while I watched, while I felt nothing but relief that the man who tried to rape me would never touch anyone again.

Three days ago. It feels like three years. It feels like three seconds.

"Ms. Catalano." Detective Reeves turns to me, and I feel my whole body tense. "How do you know Mr. Webb?"

I force myself to meet his eyes. Kind eyes, I remind myself. Grandfather eyes. He's not a threat. He's just doing his job.

"We met once," I say. My voice sounds strange to my own ears, too high and too thin. I clear my throat and try again. "Briefly. At a dinner party."

"When was this?"

"A few weeks ago. It was a business function. Phoenix introduced us." I can feel Phoenix's attention on me like a physical weight, but I don't look at him. If I look at him, I'll fall apart. "We spoke for maybe five minutes. That was it."

"And you haven't had any contact with him since?"

"No."

Another lie. Another smooth denial that tastes like ash in my mouth.

Because the truth is that Marcus Webb showed up at our cabin unannounced. He watched us through the windows while Phoenix was gone. He broke in while I was alone. He pushed me against the wall with his hand around my throat and told me all the things he was going to do to me before he killed me.

The truth is that Phoenix found us just in time. He beat Marcus until he was dead, buried the body somewhere, and we drove home pretending everything was fine.

The truth is something we can never, ever tell.

"Mr. Webb's family reported him missing yesterday," Detective Reeves continues. His tone is conversational, almost friendly. "His car was found abandoned on a remote mountain road about an hour outside of LA in Angeles National Forest."

I feel the blood drain from my face. That’s where the cabin is and where Marcus died.

"That's unfortunate," Phoenix says. His voice betrays nothing. "I hope you find him."

"The car is being processed by forensics now." Detective Nowak looks up from his notebook, and his sharp eyes land on me. I feel pinned, exposed, like a butterfly mounted on a board. "The area is pretty remote. Lots of hiking trails. Dangerous terrain if you don't know what you're doing."

"Marcus wasn't much of an outdoorsman," Phoenix offers. "He preferred city life. I'm surprised he was up there at all."

"Do you have any idea what he might have been doing in that area?"

"None."

The questioning continues for another twenty minutes.

They ask about Marcus's business dealings, his personal life, whether he had any enemies.

Phoenix answers everything calmly, painting a picture of a man who was difficult but harmless, ambitious but not dangerous.

A man who simply disappeared one day without explanation.

He doesn't mention that Marcus was a predator. That he'd been watching me for who knows how long and that he broke into our cabin with intent to hurt and destroy me.

He doesn't mention the blood on the floor or the body in the ground or the nightmares that wake me screaming in the middle of the night.

Finally, the detectives stand to leave. Detective Reeves hands each of us a business card, the cheap card stock rough against my fingers.

"We may want you to come down to the station for a formal interview," he says. "Just to get everything on the record. Standard procedure in cases like this."

"Of course." Phoenix walks them to the door, his hand brushing mine as he passes. A brief touch, a reassurance. We're in this together. "Whatever we can do to help."

"One more thing." Detective Nowak pauses in the doorway, turning back to look at us. His eyes move between Phoenix and me, and I can see him taking everything in. What does he think of us? Of this house? Of what we might have done. "Don't leave town. Either of you."

"We have plans to visit my parents tonight," Phoenix says smoothly. "A dinner party at their estate in Pacific Palisades."

"That should be fine. Just don't take any trips out of the area until we get this sorted."

"Understood."

The door closes behind them. The sound of their car starting and pulling away fades into silence. The house feels too quiet without them, too empty, like all the air has been sucked out of the room.

Phoenix turns to look at me. His dark eyes are unreadable in the fading light.

"They know," I whisper. The words feel like broken glass in my throat. "They know something."

"They don't know anything." He crosses the room and takes my face in his hands.

His palms are warm against my cheeks. His fingers are gentle despite the tension I can feel radiating through his body.

"They're fishing. That's what cops do. They ask questions and watch reactions and hope someone slips up. "

"What if I slipped up? What if I said something wrong?"

"You didn't. You were perfect."

"I was terrified."

"So was I." He presses his forehead against mine, and for a moment we just breathe together. "But we can't let them see that. We can't give them anything to work with."

I pull back to look at him, really look at him.

Days ago, this man killed someone for me.

Beat him to death with his bare hands and a metal poker and never hesitated, never flinched, never looked back.

He drove the body up into the mountains and buried it in frozen ground while I slept in his bed and pretended the world hadn't just changed forever.

I should be horrified by him. I should be running, screaming, calling the police myself.

Instead, I love him more than I've ever loved anyone.

"What about the dinner party?" I ask. "Your parents are expecting us."

Phoenix glances at his watch. We're already late.

"I'll call them," he says. "Tell them something came up.”

"Won't that look suspicious? If the police are watching us?"

"It's a large party. Dozens of guests." He pulls out his phone and types a quick message. "No one will notice if we're not there. My mother might be annoyed, but she'll survive.”

I think about Olive Crawford, Phoenix's mother.

We were supposed to meet tonight for the first time.

She doesn't know I'm Sydney Catalano's daughter, that my mother was her best friend before something happened to destroy their relationship forever.

Phoenix wants to let his parents meet me first. When they find out, everything will get more complicated.

But that's a problem for another day. Right now, the only thing that matters is that we're alone and the police are gone and we survived the first test.

Phoenix sets his phone down and pulls me into his arms. I bury my face against his chest, breathing in his scent.

Clean cotton and warm skin and something darker, something that reminds me of the cabin and the blood and the way he looked at me after it was over, like I was the only thing in the world worth living for.

"It's going to be okay," he murmurs into my hair. His hands move up and down my back, soothing, calming. "We're going to get through this."

"How do you know?"

"Because I won't let anything happen to you." His voice drops lower, rougher. "I killed for you, Jade. I'd do it again. I'd do worse. Whatever it takes to keep you safe."

I believe him. That's the terrifying part.

"What if they find the body?" I ask the question I've been too afraid to voice since the moment the doorbell rang. "What if forensics finds something in Marcus's car? DNA or fingerprints or evidence that leads back to us?"

Phoenix is quiet for a long moment. Outside, the waves crash against the shore, steady and relentless. The sun has set completely now, and the living room is full of shadows. Neither of us moves to turn on the lights.

"They won't find the body," he says finally. "I made sure of that."

"But his car. They found his car near the cabin."

"Near the cabin. Not at it." His arms tighten around me. "There's nothing connecting us to anything. No witnesses, no evidence, nothing."

I want to believe him. I want to trust that he covered our tracks, that we're safe, that this nightmare will eventually fade into something we never speak of again.

But I can't stop thinking about the detectives' faces. The way Nowak looked at me, like he could see right through my careful lies. The way Reeves consulted his notebook, writing down every word we said.

They're going to keep digging. That's what cops do. They dig and dig until they find something, and then they dig some more.

And we're standing on very thin ice.

"Come here," Phoenix whispers, and I let him pull me closer, let him wrap me up in his arms and his warmth and his promises. We stand there in the dark for a long time, holding each other like the world might end if we let go.

Maybe it will.

Maybe it already has.

The waves keep crashing outside. The shadows keep deepening around us. And somewhere in the mountains, buried in frozen ground, Marcus Webb waits to be found.