House of Paine - (A Romantic Suspense - Book 1) Read online

  HOUSE OF PAINE

  Book 1

  By:

  Kylie Walker

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2015 By: Kylie Walker

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Kylie Walker holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Thank You

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  Chapter 1

  The brilliant glare of the sun and the vivid colors of the spring day were offensive to Paige. It was as if there was a conspiracy to show her how the world would go on without him. It made Paige angry. The world shouldn’t still be spinning on its axis while her brother lay in a box that currently perched on the shoulders of his comrades as they carried it towards the freshly dug hole in the ground. Paige thought that everything should be as grey and ugly as her emotions. Funerals should never take place in the spring. The air should at least be cold and damp...or foggy. The singing birds and blooming flowers made her angrier than she already was and as she walked through the churchyard like a silhouette of herself she wished that she was as insubstantial as the shadows. Perhaps then her insides wouldn’t be tangled into painful knots. Her mother clutched onto her hand...looking for support Paige felt too weak to give her as the honor guard designee escorted them to the staging area. He turned and saluted them, and then he saluted the casket as the rest of the honor guard carried it towards them. She despised the casket. It was the symbol of why they were here and because she needed something to focus her angst upon, she chose to focus it on the wooden box that cocooned what was left of her brother.

  Greg is gone.

  The light he brought to the world had been extinguished forever she thought quietly to herself as the tears gently rolled down her cheeks.

  They took their seats in one of the white chairs in the front row...the ones that were reserved for family. She could hear her mother’s soft sobs and she could feel her trembling. Paige sat in silent grief and waited for her brother’s funeral service to begin. She was no stranger to grief. She’d only been ten years old when she lost her father. But the grief was buffered back then by the fact that she not only still had her mother...but she had Greg. This felt different. It was stronger...deeper, more painful. She and her brother were always close but the tragedy of losing their father at such a young age forged an even stronger bond between them...one that couldn’t be broken by anything...not even death. Paige lifted her head and watched as the casket was placed in its place of honor.

  Then the chief of police said, “Will everyone please rise for the presentation of colors by the New York Police Department Honor Guard. The singing of the National Anthem will be performed by Officer Hayley Barrett.”

  Paige gripped her mother’s hand and helped her to her feet. She glanced at her face. She was almost unrecognizable to her daughter. Greg’s death had aged her beyond her forty-five years. She looked sixty-five today at least. Her face was gray and drawn and no trace of the mother Paige knew lived in her eyes at that moment. Paige had a good idea that part of her mother’s grief was also regret. She had never been as close to either of the kids as their father was. His death, instead of bringing them closer to her had pushed them even further apart emotionally. Nevertheless, a parent should never have to bury their child.

  It’s unnatural.

  Thoughts were swirling so rapidly through Paige’s head that the sound of the National Anthem was like background noise to her. She barely heard it when they were asked to take a seat. Her mother tugged at her hand and she sat down. As the priest was giving the invocation and then the prayer, Paige let her mind wander into the past.

  Paige was in her fourth year of medical school at Princeton. She lived with her mother simply because financially while she was in school, it was easier on them both. Greg was in New York. After graduating from the police academy in New Jersey he had worked patrol for about a year before taking the test for detective. Paige knew that her brother had one goal in mind and that was to bring down some of New York’s most notorious drug lords. That was an obsession that had taken root in his mind as a teenager when they had found out the man their mother married controlled most of New York’s drug traffic.

  When Greg was twenty-five he got a job with the NYPD in their Vice squad. Within six months he was working undercover. He didn’t give his sister and his mother any details but he sent Paige a text once a month to let them know he was okay. During that first year, she went to New York three or four times and they would spend the weekend hanging out and just having a good time like they did when they were kids. He seemed happy and as long as she saw him happy and healthy and she got his text each month, her world was okay. It was on her last visit to Greg that the bad feeling crept into her soul and took up residence there. She somehow knew instinctively that things were about to change, dramatically.

  She arrived on a Saturday morning like she always did and let herself into his apartment with her key. She was met with a shirtless, sweaty, shaky Greg...cocking his gun.

  “What the fuck Greg!”

  “Shit! Paige, what are you doing here?”

  “What are you talking about? I just talked to you three days ago. I told you I was coming. Put that gun the fuck down, will you?”

  Greg looked at the gun in his hand like he just realized it was there. Paige was suddenly feeling sick. His hair was greasy and long and he had at least three days growth of hair on his face. He looked like he’d lost twenty pounds since the last time she saw him and along with the shaking and sweating, his pupils were as large as saucers, taking up nearly his entire iris and making his usually pretty eyes look scary.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled and went over to the desk in the corner of the room. He sat the gun down and ran a trembling hand through his matted hair.

  “Greg? What’s going on?”

  She saw his shoulders rise and fall. He was taking a deep breath before he turned around to face her. “Nothing is going on. I was startled, that’s all; Stop being so fucking paranoid. I’m a cop...I own a gun.”

  “Yeah, I know. Usually seeing you takes care of that...but you look like shit, Greg. Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m just tired. I’m not sleeping well.”

  “You’re skinny. Are you eating?”

  “I eat. Jeez Paige what’s with the fucking inquisition?”

  “I just want to know you’re okay. Look at yourself.”

  She looked around the apartment. All of the blinds were drawn but even in the semi-dark she could see that the place was a pig-sty and it had a funny smell.

  “Look at this place. What’s going on Greg?”

  He looked around the room wi
th a confused look on his face like he had no idea what she was talking about before saying, “I work a lot. I don’t have much time for housekeeping. Let’s go out. Let’s go have a drink.”

  “Greg it’s ten a.m.”

  “So now you’re the fucking drink police too? That medical school bullshit is going to your head.”

  “Greg...”

  “You know what Paige? It’s just been a fucked up week, okay? I’ve had a bad week, I’m taking the weekend off and I’d like to relax and not have to explain myself to anyone, let alone my little sister. Maybe we could do this another time.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “Yeah, I think that would be best. I’m sorry; I just need to get some sleep before I have to go back out there. I need to be alert....”

  “Go ahead and sleep. I won’t bother you. I’ll clean up while you...”

  “No! No, Paige. You’re not my housekeeper. Please...just go home. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “That’s not what the ladies say,” he said with a grin and a wink. He was trying to pacify her...make her feel better so she would leave. That bad feeling was telling her not to go. If she didn’t know better she might think he was on drugs. He looked like a junkie that was just about to go out looking for a fix. Greg would never use drugs though. He hated them and anyone involved with them. But she had to ask...

  “Greg...are you taking something?”

  “Taking something?” he said, like he didn’t understand the question.

  “Are you using drugs?”

  “Fuck Paige! No! I’m a fucking undercover cop.”

  “You’re human...you’re around them all the time...”

  “Go home, Paige.”

  “Greg...”

  “No! Go home. I’m fine and I’m not a fucking junkie, okay? Go home and worry about your own life. Mine is fine.”

  Nothing about her brother was fine that day. When he was a kid his room was so clean you could have literally eaten off the floors. He always had that kind of obsessive compulsive component to his personality that made him do just about everything with a sort of military precision. He would have never lived in the sty that his apartment had become. He also took a lot of care with his appearance. His dark hair was always styled, his face cleanly shaved unless he happened to be wearing a goatee and then he kept that neatly trimmed. He was always clean...always well-dressed. Everything she had seen that day was contrary to what she knew about her brother. That person was not Greg...she wasn’t going to leave him until she had some answers.

  “Let’s just go get something to eat...then if you still want me to go home, I will.” She had to find out what was going on or she’d go back to Jersey and worry herself to death. Greg’s face visibly softened.

  “Okay, give me a minute to clean up.”

  She forced a smile at him and he disappeared into the bedroom. While he was gone, she’d cleaned up his living room as much as she could. She was on her way to do the kitchen when he came out. He had put on an NYU hat and washed his face. He had on a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of jeans...but most notably, he wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t sweating and his whole persona seemed to change. She hated herself for it, but she had to wonder if he’d taken something else while he was in the room...something to take the edge off.

  He grabbed her up into a bear hug and said, “I’m really sorry about my attitude. It was a long week and I am wiped out...but I’m always happy to see you. Let’s go eat.”

  They went to a nearby diner and although Greg ordered a big breakfast, he didn’t eat much of it. He seemed to be constantly looking around the room, over his shoulder and towards the door. He jumped every time someone dropped so much as a spoon. He went out of his way for the rest of that day to prove to his sister that he was okay but she could see that he was visibly nervous or worried about something.

  After breakfast they went to the Bronx zoo and walked around for hours looking at the animals and talking about her classes at Princeton. He was always interested in how she was doing, but that visit was almost as if he were desperate to keep her talking about anything that had nothing to do with him. After the zoo they went to a movie and then had dinner. Throughout the day Greg took about ten phone calls, each time walking as far away from her as he could. He usually looked even more nervous after one of those calls. Paige asked him a few times if he was okay and who was on the phone. He would say he was fine and the phone calls were “work related.”

  Before Paige left the next day she made sure her brother’s apartment was clean. She talked him into showering and shaving and she went grocery shopping and filled his refrigerator and pantry. It was the first time she ever had to take care of her older brother. It was also the last time she would ever see him alive

  Chapter 2

  The mayor gave his speech and talked about all of Greg’s arrests and commendations. Then the Chiefs of Police from both Princeton, where Greg worked as a patrol cop, and New York where he’d been for the past two years, gave their speeches. They both held him up as one of their best. When it was time for the eulogy, Greg’s partner Tommy stepped up to the podium. Paige had passed on saying anything. She knew how she felt about her brother and anyone who knew them, knew that as well. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold it together long enough to make a speech. When she looked at Tommy, she had to wonder if he could either. She could tell that he’d already been crying.

  She’d met Tommy more than once on her trips to New York. He seemed like a really good man to her and Greg thought the world of him. Tommy cleared his throat and said, “Monsignor Byrne, Monsignor Romano. Mayor Todd. To Greg’s mother Crystal and his sister Paige and any members of his extended family, the New York City Police Department and I extend our deepest condolences to you.

  Today, as we honor the memory of Detective Greg Acosta. I’d like us to recall the words that stand forever engraved on the national law enforcement memorial in Washington D.C.: “it was not how these officers died that made them heroes; it is how they lived.”

  Today, we remember how Greg Acosta lived. He lived large. He was full of life. He loved his family and his friends. He cared deeply about the lives of his fellow officers. Greg was the guy who would always defend the weak against the strong and fight for what was right. He didn’t become a cop for the paycheck. He did it because he firmly believed that good should triumph over evil. His life was dedicated to making it so, and each day that I showed up for work and saw him there beside me, I felt safer.

  Greg was the guy you wanted to show up if one of your family members ever needed help. His devotion to his own family was legendary. His father was a cop. Greg lost him too young, but he never forgot him. Bruce Acosta was a legend in his own right. He was a cop for almost twenty years before cancer took his life too soon. His son thought he walked on water and from what I hear from the cops that worked with Bruce, that wasn’t far from the truth.

  Greg’s locker at the 102nd precinct is covered with pictures of his father and mother and his sister, Paige. Those of you who have eyes know that Paige is a beautiful girl. Those of you who wanted to retain your balls took care how you mentioned it to Greg.”

  There was a rumble of laughter through the crowd. Tommy took a drink of his water and went on. “His family meant everything to him. He fought crime because he wanted his family to have a safer world to live in. If Greg had lived long enough to find his soulmate, she would have been one lucky lady. As it is, the world will be a sadder place not only without him, but without the lives he could have brought into it and nurtured and cherished.

  Like most cops, Greg hated for his family to worry. He didn’t share any of the details of his day to day life on the job with them. When Paige would come to visit and we’d all go out, she would ask him how his day was and what happened...Greg would smile and say, “It was a slow day, Sis. Tommy and I sat on our asses and drank coffee.” In the two years Greg and I were partners, I can count on one hand the t
imes we sat on our asses. Greg was extremely active and he spent the last two years of his life working deep undercover. For those of you who have never done it, I will tell you this: It’s like being in hell. Some mornings you wake up and forget who you are and where you’re at. You live in a constant state of fear that you’re going to forget at the wrong time and they’re going to make you for a cop...Greg didn’t have an easy life, but he thought what he was doing was important enough to make sacrifices for.

  The mayor gave his speech and I’m sure you all heard this but I will repeat it, this year alone, Greg and I made over fifty arrests. We took hard core drug pushers off the streets. We broke up a sex-trafficking ring and we closed down more than one meth lab. We didn’t sit on our asses, and that was how Greg liked it. The first call I ever took with Greg was on his first night as a vice cop. I was skeptical when they put me with the rookie...I always am. Every time we step out of the house, we’re in the line of fire. You have to know you can trust your back-up, and I didn’t know that about Greg...yet.

  We responded to a call at a strip club. The reason vice went in was because this was a place we’d been watching for a while in the hopes of establishing that they were selling drugs out of this establishment. One of the girls made the call. She was the suspect’s girlfriend and he actually shot her while she was on the phone with 911. When we got there, he was barricaded in a room upstairs and as soon as we got out of our cars, he started shooting from the windows. We found out later that he had an arsenal of weapons up there. We exchanged fire with him and when the shooting stopped and it was time for someone to go in and get this guy, Greg’s hand was up first.

  I’m going to make this sound easy...Greg apprehended him. That took over an hour and a flesh wound to his shoulder. There was a lot of talking and a lot of bleeding. Greg saved a lot of lives that day, mine included. That rookie earned my respect and the respect of at least ten other officers at the scene. He was awarded a Medal for Exceptional Merit. It’s an award that some thirty year officers have never received. During that award ceremony every officer that was on the scene that day spoke about him and they all said basically the same thing. He was calm under pressure. He had an easy way with people. He was patient and didn’t rush in trying to be the hero...he just wanted everyone to be safe.