For the space of a breath, he could see Lydia, eyes wide and terrified, her mouth working silently, her words both prayer and plea.
Remember your promise…
“Your daughter was a job, Alberto—nothing more,” he said and for just a moment, he actually believed it.
“And what of my wife, Cartero?” Reyes voice whipped out, edged in ice. “Was she just a job as well?”
Lydia, sitting beside him on the beach, dark hair lifted away from her face by the light coastal breeze. Bare toes dug into the sand. Brown eyes, alive and happy as she watched her daughter build a sand castle. “I barely remember her.”
“I think she would be hurt to hear you say that,” Reyes chided gently. “She cared deeply for you, right until the very end.”
“The Maddox boy. He’s the job now. All I care about.” The lie came out smoother than he thought it would.
“That’s not exactly true, is it, Cartero?” Reyes said, his words barely above a whisper. “She’s not beautiful in the traditional sense but there is something about her I find intriguing, your Sabrina. She’s a warrior. A fighter. Is that what drew you to her? Her will to live.” Now his voice hardened, truth ringing in every word. “You kill everything you touch. Everything you love but she’s different, isn’t she? She’s strong—seemingly invincible. She has survived so much. Maybe she can survive you… but do you really think she can survive us both?”
Sabrina.
“Don’t.” The word was spoke calmly, even pleasantly. A warning more deadly than any he had ever delivered.
“Amazing… after all these years, it looks as if an attachment has finally been made. I’ll hurt her and her family in ways even you can’t imagine…” Reyes said. “You took my Lydia from me. It’s only fair that I return the favor, don’t you think?”
He looked at her. She was still sleeping. Had turned onto her stomach, hands tucked beneath her chin. Her lips slightly parted, long lashes casting dark shadows across her cheeks. She looked soft and warm. Like every good thing he’d ever wished for but had never deserved.
“I’m coming for you. Do you hear me?” He felt something cold and heavy wrap around his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. “I’m coming and there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
Reyes chuckled. “Stop you? Now why would I want to do that? In fact, I’m counting on it, Cartero. Hurry, little Leo and I will be waiting.”
49
Michael moved quickly and quietly, straight for the door at the end of the hall. He passed an open door and looked inside to find the baby’s nursery—Avasa stretched out on the rug beside the crib. She lifted her head, ears pricked forward just as he pulled the door closed, shutting her inside the room with the baby… Lucy. They’d named her Lucy. Somehow, knowing that bolstered his resolve.
He reached the end of the hall, the door to the master bedroom open just a crack. He pushed it wider and stepped inside, pulling it closed behind him. Standing at the foot of the bed he could see them, sleeping comfortably.
The cop slept on the side closest to the door—instinctively placed himself between his wife and whatever might come through it to harm her. That’s the kind of thing a husband would do. Protect. Love. Provide. Michael felt another stab of guilt, made heavy and bitter by regret.
He clapped a hand over the cop’s mouth and he jerked awake in an instant—eyes wide and alert but he didn’t make a sound. Didn’t want to alarm his wife.
Michael waited for his vision to adjust, for Nickels to see him clearly before he backed away from the bed and cocked his head toward the door, giving the other man room to stand and follow him out into the hall. He checked his watch while Nickels pulled the door to his bedroom shut with a quiet click, shooting him a guarded look.
“That’s an excellent way to get yourself shot, asshole,” Nickels said, his tone low and even. Michael ignored the obvious—while the cop was no doubt able to handle himself, if he’d been so inclined, he’d have murdered him with ease.
The cop seemed to realize this too because he let the fact that he’d just snuck into his bedroom slide. “What the fuck are you doing…” his question trailed off as he took in Michael’s bare feet and chest. “Oh.” Nickels rubbed a rough hand over the back of his neck, averting his gaze to the spot just over his shoulder. “Okay… what do you want?”
“I want you to leave.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small manila envelope. “This is a key to a storage unit in Oakland—the address unit number are on the keychain. Inside you’ll find everything you need to get your family as far away from here as possible.”
Nickels looked down at the envelope in his hand before bouncing that disbelieving look back to his face. “Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not.” Michael ran a hand over his hair, blowing out a frustrated breath. “You’ll have to get Riley and Jason. Strickland too. Don’t call them—just show up. Pick a place none of you have ever been. A place as far away from friends and family as you can get. There’ll be a car—use it. Stay away from airports and train stations—ditch your cells and identification—”
Nickels laughed out loud. “If you think I’m gonna be able to get Strickland to leave her, you’re friggin’ delusional.”
Like he didn’t know that. He’d considered the old duct tape/trunk routine but Sabrina’s partner hated him enough already. “You’re going to have to try.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” Nickels said, his tone edged with distrust.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
The cop narrowed his eyes. “I’ll send Val and Lucy. She’ll get the twins but I’m not leaving.” His tone said he thought he was closing the subject.
Michael shook his head. “They won’t make it a day without you. Val’s tough but she’ll get scared. She’ll reach out to someone she trusts, maybe her mother or a cousin and it’ll be over. They’ll all be dead—or worse. Much, much worse.”
Every word he spoke drained more and more color from the cop’s face until he was bloodless ghost. Nickels glanced down at the space where they were connected as if he wondered if his touch would infect him with some disease. “What the fuck did you do? What the fuck did you bring to my doorstep?”
He could deny it. Pass the blame on to Ben or even Sabrina herself. Hadn’t Ben been the one to recruit her? Hadn’t Sabrina been the one to lead herself to Livingston Shaw like some sort of suicidal lamb to slaughter? He hadn’t caused this. He wasn’t at fault.
Like most lies, it sounded good. It even sounded true.
“I think it’s best you don’t stick around to find out.” Michael blew out a hard breath, scrubbed a rough hand over his face. “Look… I know you care about her but this isn’t your fight.” He reached behind him and opened the door to the nursery; let the door swing open so Nickels could see the crib where his daughter was sleeping peacefully. “This is your fight—a wife and child who depend on you, so take the key and leave. Sooner, rather than later,” Michael said, playing the one card he knew the cop wouldn’t be able to deny.
Nickels blew out a disgusted breath as he shook his head. “You dirty, cheating son-of-a-bitch,” he growled, swiping the envelope from his hand. “You want to explain to me how I’m supposed to get my very opinionated, very uncooperative wife on board with your little escape plan. Especially without letting her say goodbye to Sabrina?”
“That’s your problem, not mine.” Michael cracked a cold smile as he backed himself down the hall. “But however you do it; I suggest you do it quickly. You don’t have much time.”
50
Cofre del Tesoro, Columbia
March ~ 2011
Michael took a quick look around, glancing down the hall, both left and right, before rapping light knuckles against Lydia’s bedroom door. Reyes hadn’t been on the island for weeks, his visits becoming even less frequent, more sporadic—but that didn’t mean he didn’t know everything that went on here.
Between the house
hold staff and the recent, unwelcomed addition of his son, Estefan, Michael had no doubt that Reyes knew everything that happened on Cofre del Tesoro. Standing here, in front of his wife’s bedroom, waiting for her to open the door was dangerous and stupid—for both of them.
But this was worth it the risk.
He lifted his hand again but the door opened before it made contact. Lydia stood on the other side, hand on the knob, managing to look both excited and apprehensive at the same time. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said, her hand falling off the knob to lace fingers with its partner. “Maybe you should just go without me. I can watch from one of the upstairs—”
“No. You get to have this and so does she.” He reached for her hand, pulling her across the threshold and into the deserted hallway. “It’s Sunday—everyone is off island for the day. It’s just us.”
He’d been trying to coax her out of her room for months now, to see Christina but whatever threats Reyes had levied against her had kept her firmly in place. Until today.
“What about… him?” Lydia said, pulling her hand from him. “Is he gone?”
She was talking about Estefan and he shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in days.” It was the truth but saying it did little to calm the niggle of doubt that worried at him. He hadn’t seen Estefan but that meant nothing. He could be anywhere. Watching and waiting for his opportunity to glean a bit of juicy information to feed to his father. It wasn’t a question of if Estefan found them out. It was question of what Michael was willing to do to keep him quiet when he did.
“Do you trust me?” he said. A memory, fast and bright, of asking Christina the exact same thing almost a year ago. The same day he’d met her mother and went tumbling, head-long, down the slippery slope he’d been treading since he first laid eyes on her daughter.
Lydia nodded and pulled her bedroom door shut. “Yes,” she said, giving him a smile.
The worry nested in the back of his brain no longer niggled. Now it poked and pushed but he ignored it. Christina deserved this and he was going to make sure she got it.
“Then let’s get this show on the road.” He cocked his head toward the stairs. “Meet you outside in ten minutes.”
He took the stairs to the second-floor, winding this way and that until he stood in front of a door as familiar to him as his own. Knocking again, this time he opened the door without waiting for an invitation. Christina sat in the pink chair but the window, only it wasn’t pink anymore. She’d found a sheet somewhere, probably in one of the half dozen laundry rooms, and spread its sunny yellow expanse across the chair, covering the color she’d come to hate over the last year. She could do little about the drapes and walls but the chair, she made her own.
“Hey, you want to go for a walk or something?” he said, fighting to keep his tone flat. It was her birthday and she was sure he’d forgotten.
Christina looked up from the book in her lap. “On the beach?”
He pulled a face. “I was thinking maybe the garden.”
She sighed, moving her bookmark so it could keep her place before standing. “Okay,” she said, stopping to slip her shoes on before stepping into the hall. “I’m tired of the beach anyway.”
They walked in silence toward the back of the house and he had to curb the urge to hurry her plodding pace. When they reached the bank of French doors, covered with heavy drapes, that lined the rear wall of the huge formal living room, he rushed ahead and stood in front of one of them. “Knock, knock,” he said and she rolled her eyes at him.
“Who’s there?” she mumbled.
“Happy birthday.”
She looked up at him, a smile teasing the corners of her tiny mouth, at last. “You remembered.” Tears sparkled, caught in her lashes and she blinked them away. She was only eight—barely more than a baby. She had no idea what waited for her on the other side of the door but he could see she didn’t care. Someone remembered her birthday. That was all that mattered. He’d never celebrated his own birthday. Not until he was twelve. The first birthday after he’d been placed with Sean and Sophia. He remembered the cake and candles. The two of them, singing to him as if they were actually happy he’d been born.
He cleared his throat. “Seriously? Like I could forget. You’ve been jabbering about it for weeks now.”
Her smile widened into a grin. “I didn’t think you cared.”
For a moment he grappled with his emotions, dangerous and slippery, before he was able to force them back into the vice grip he usually kept them in. “Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I’m just tired of the moping,” he said with a shrug, pretending to himself that he’d managed to fool her. “Now, close your eyes.”
She obeyed instantly, bouncing on her tip-toes, her dark corkscrew curls buoyant around a face that was suddenly lit with joy. He reached for her hand. “Keep ‘em closed.”
Christina nodded, giggling as her fingers closed around his, gripping him tight. “Thank you.”
Those emotions slipped loose again and he tried to pull his hand from hers. “You don’t even know what it is.”
Her hand flexed in his, holding him where he was, surprisingly strong for a little girl. “It doesn’t matter.”
He pushed the drapes aside to get at the doorknob. He unlocked the door and pulled her onto the veranda. “You can look now,” he said quietly.
She didn’t move, she simply stood there for a moment with her eyes closed, face turned up to the sun, enjoying the anticipation of what waited for her. He was about to prod her when she finally opened her eyes, a soft fluttering sigh escaping her.
Lydia stood on the flagstone path at the foot of the stairs that led to the garden, a bright blue BMX racer leaning on its kickstand beside her. “I feel the need to point out that this house is a four-story building the size of a Holiday Inn,” he said looking down at her. “You may not, under any circumstance, ride it off the roof.”
She launched herself at him, arms and legs scrambling to hug him and for once, he didn’t fight her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” she said it over and over, through the tears before pressing softly pursed lips to his cheek. “I love you too.” She whispered it a split second before she was down the stairs, streaking past the bike and into her mother’s arms. That was the real gift. They hadn’t seen each other in ten months.
“You live dangerously for a nanny.”
His shoulders instantly stiffened but he turned to give Estefan an indifferent shrug. “She’d been crying for months, whining about seeing her mother,” he said fighting to keep his tone even. “I got tired of listening to it.”
The younger man pushed himself away from the doorway he slouched against. “Yes… I’m sure that was it,” Estefan said, his words dripping with sarcasm, while he watched the scene between mother and daughter play out in front of him, barely disguised lust plastered across his face. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
For a second Michael was unsure which girl he was referring to and that uncertainty clenched at his gut. “She’s a child.” He turned to face Estefan head-on. “They both are,” he said, his tone heavy with warning.
“Mmm…” Estefan shrugged. “Who are you reminding, Cartero? Me or yourself?”
He took a quick glance at the two girls behind him, they were lost in each other, paying no attention to what was going on between him and Reyes’ son but he took a few steps forward to close the gap between them, just in case. “So there’s absolutely no confusion—I’m not warning you. I’m telling you very plainly. If you touch either one of them, I will lay you open and watch you bleed.”
Estefan laughed, retreating into the shadows of the house. “So protective of things that don’t belong to you, Cartero… what would my father say?” he said before he walked away.
It was a threat, veiled and vague but then again, the most deadly of threats usually were.
51
He knew the second she woke up. Could almost feel her breath catch in her chest, as her hand skated along the cold
stretch of bed beside her to find him gone. She thought he’d left and for a moment he wished he had.
“I’m here.” He spoke from the window, where he stood, fully clothed, watching a lone hummingbird bump along the fence line, its wings tipped in gold from the rising sun. Nickels had left shortly after their conversation without any indication of where he were going or when he would be back. He’d tried—he couldn’t be blamed for what happened to them now.
She relaxed, turned toward his voice. The rustle of sheets behind him, a whispered invitation to come back to bed. Forget what’s right. Take what you want. He had to ground his boots into the hard planks of the floor to keep from falling apart.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, her sleepy tone edged with worry.
“Why didn’t you read the file on me that Croft gave you?” he said quietly.
“What?” Confusion but also something else. Something wary, like even half asleep, she knew she’d been dropped into a minefield. “That was a year ago. What does it matter now?”
“It matters. It’s all that matters.” He pushed forward. Ignored the part of him that wanted to protect her. The part that loved her. “Was it because you wanted to keep lying to yourself about the kind of man I am?”
She sighed. “I thought we were past this.”
He shot her a cold smile over his shoulder without turning fully to face her. “Why? Because I finally broke down and fucked you?”
She went rigid, breath caught in her lungs for a moment before she released it slowly on a shaky laugh. “Is that all you’ve got, O’Shea? Slut-shaming? Lame.”
Not the response he’d expected. “You should be ashamed,” he ground out, his jaw trying to lock itself around words his mouth didn’t want to form.
“You seem to forget I wrote the playbook on emotional withdrawal.” She sat up, sheet clutched to her chest. “If you want to get rid of me you’re going to have to do better than that.”
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Page 19
