Right Before His Eyes

by Wendy Etherington

  “Where will you go?”

  Her gaze skittered from his. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You can’t just take off without knowing. I won’t let you.”

  “You can’t stop me. Look, I know where I’m going, but I can’t—I didn’t want to tell you…” She began shaking again. “Please, Bart, just leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Didn’t want to tell me what?” He had to know.

  Her face was a study in pure misery. “I’m sorry—for everything. I didn’t know, I swear it, and I couldn’t tell you because it would hurt you, and I thought they were gone, but—” Her eyes darted around the room. “I have to go to Texas. He has to help.”

  “To…Texas? Why? Who has to help?” But the pieces were assembling into a picture that was a punch in the gut. She was barely in her twenties.

  “Where are you going, Mellie?” he asked when she remained silent, his voice deceptively soft. “Tell me. Don’t lie to me anymore.”

  Mellie’s shattered gaze rose to his, tears dripping from her eyes and guilt all over that delicate face. “I knew him as Hal.”

  No. Bart wanted to howl. “You are her. Amelia. And Lily, she’s…” With a dull thud, his heart dropped to his feet.

  He let go of Mellie and stepped back from her. “What a joke, huh? You must have laughed your head off.” He uttered a hollow chuckle. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and you were right under my nose all the time.” He loomed over her. “Lying to me every day since we met. Lying to all of us, everyone who’s tried to help you.”

  But she was staring at him in total bewilderment. “You were looking for me? But how could you know? How did you find out about us? I…Bart, I didn’t tell you for your sake. I was trying to protect you. Hal—Hilton, I mean—he’s hurt you so much. I didn’t know he was your father, I swear, not until—”

  “Protect me? Or look out for yourself?” His laughter was bitter. “Honey, if Hilton Branch is who you’re expecting help from, prepare to be disappointed. That SOB has never helped anyone but himself in his entire life.” His eyes went to slits. “He says he doesn’t know where the money is, but how do I know you’re not in this with him somehow? Maybe he’s lying, as usual, and he does know where the money is. Are you partners? You retrieve the money, since he’s in jail and can’t do so?” Bart shook his head. “It would be just like him to take advantage of someone so young in order to keep Biscayne Bay from laying hands on the money.”

  “What money?” She frowned. “What’s Biscayne Bay?”

  “Don’t play coy with me now. It’s too late for that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear it.”

  Bart gestured at the wreckage around them. “That’s who did this, a group of international criminals who had the poor judgment to loan my father millions. Now dear old Dad says he had a friend stash some of it for the second family he neglected to tell anyone about, and they believe you know where it is.”

  Mellie sank to the mattress as though her legs wouldn’t hold her. “I’ve never heard a word about any money. I came to North Carolina looking for Hal because of something my mother said before she died. I just needed him to help take care of Lily.”

  “So why’d you stay around when you didn’t find him here? Did you think you’d sucker me into taking care of you, since Hilton wouldn’t?”

  She reacted as if he’d struck her. “How could you think that?”

  “How could I not?” Suddenly all the pressures he’d been under for weeks and the kick in the teeth of knowing she had indeed been playing him snapped something inside him. “Never mind. At least now I can call off the private investigator I’ve had looking for you out of some misguided notion my family has about finding two helpless girls in trouble.” He moved toward the door.

  “Bart, I…please believe me that I never—”

  He whirled on her. “Never what? Lied to me with every breath? Pretended to care about me? Let me, for God’s sake, take you to bed without knowing your real name?” And made me want to believe in love when I knew better? “I can’t talk about this. Stay where you are. I’m calling the police and then Sheila. You’ve put her livelihood in jeopardy, when she bent over backward to help you.”

  “I never wanted to hurt anyone. Bart, just let me go. I’ll leave and everyone will be fine.”

  His head was spinning. There was too much to be sorted out, and he was exhausted. He didn’t want her hurt, either. But knowing she’d lied to him changed everything. Lies had done too much damage to his family. Bart didn’t have many absolutes in his life, but he could not tolerate deception.

  He couldn’t discuss this any more right now, but neither would he leave her vulnerable. “You can’t go anywhere, Mellie—or should I call you Amelia?” At her stricken look, he forced his voice to gentle. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that these guys are bad news. You need help from the experts.”

  “But I don’t understand. I really don’t know about any money, I swear it. Or why someone did this.”

  Maybe she didn’t. But he’d lost faith in his judgment. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Just please…stay right there.” He started for the door.

  “Bart…I’m sorry.”

  He closed his eyes but didn’t turn. “Me, too. I knew better.”

  At the broken door, he paused and glanced back. She looked too vulnerable perched there on the ruined bed, her small shoulders bowed. He wouldn’t leave her alone until help had arrived, but he had to get away from her. To think.

  He went down the stairs outside and began punching in numbers.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “THERE WAS NOTHING, BOSS. Not one trace that the girl knows about the money.” The ex-con braced himself for Kell Saunders’s reaction to the news. “But at least we found her. Thought we’d never get a chance to search the place, though. All she does is work and take care of her sister.”

  “Then it’s time to have a chat with her.”

  “Not easy to do with cops crawling around. All I can do now is keep my eyes on her. Just got to be patient.”

  “I’m running out of patience. Hilton Branch has screwed with me for the last time.” Saunders sighed.

  “The girl’s been there for months, you say? Why hang around so long? The money’s got to be in North Carolina, from what Clifton said when I questioned him.”

  Questioned him, the man thought. A polite term. “Saw something interesting while I was watching, Boss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Branch’s son, one of the twins. He showed up after she did.”

  “How was he behaving? Think he knows who she is?”

  “Can’t tell. He was there for a while, then waited on the cops and split. Didn’t look happy.”

  “I don’t need this complication. Get to her, get the information from her, then get out. Pronto.”

  The man shook his head. Saunders acted as if he was king of the planet, but this whole venture wasn’t simple. He didn’t know all the details, but he couldn’t understand why a guy like Saunders, who was rolling in dough, got so worked up over a lousy million bucks or so. Somehow, though, this had become personal.

  The man flinched. Kell Saunders was not someone you wanted to have focused on you. Whoever this Branch guy was, he’d regret crossing Saunders.

  Prison walls were made strong in order to keep the bad guys inside, but they provided no protection at all for those on the inside when someone as powerful and connected as Kell Saunders was out for revenge.

  “Will do, Boss,” he said, glad as hell Saunders didn’t want to teach him a lesson.

  MELLIE DIDN’T WANT TO WATCH the race at Phoenix.

  But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  Anyway, it was impossible to avoid the coverage in the hub of NASCAR, especially at Sheila’s. And truth to tell, however stupid it was to want to catch a glimpse of Bart, to wish with all her heart that she hadn’t made his championship hunt more diffi
cult, she was in his corner, even if his abandonment had hurt.

  She hadn’t seen or heard from him since the breakin, and she didn’t expect to. He was right, however good her intentions, she’d lied to him again and again, for months now. At first she hadn’t known that Hal Walker, the man she was trying to find, was actually Bart’s father, Hilton Branch. Then she’d been struggling to protect him from that knowledge.

  Some good that had done.

  But she really couldn’t blame Bart. The timing couldn’t be worse for a bomb like that to be dropped on him.

  Never mind that the aftermath wasn’t easy on her, either. She’d gone from the heights of glory one night, to the depths of despair the next morning.

  In between, she’d let herself spin all manner of fantasies about being with Bart, about finding a family, about a future where she wasn’t so alone and frightened.

  More the fool, me.

  She hadn’t asked for this misery, any of it. She’d lost a mother and a home, and she’d been doing her best to cope while caring for her little sister.

  But all Bart had seen were the lies. Oh, sure, he’d hired a security company to watch over her until the cops could locate the people responsible for the breakin. But she was as dead to him as if she’d never existed.

  I knew it was too much to hope for.

  She hadn’t been able to stop herself from hoping, however.

  The crowd at the diner gasped, and Mellie’s attention returned to the screen. Mellie couldn’t breathe as she watched Bart evade a multicar collision by the skin of his teeth. When he was safe, she checked the standings and the lap count, her heart sinking. If she understood the points system, he was barely hanging on to second place and the gap between him and the points leader had increased.

  Oh, Bart, I am so very sorry. This is my fault. A heartbroken Mellie turned away and busied herself bussing tables. Maybe if she didn’t watch, he’d do better.

  Maybe if she were gone altogether from his life and his town, she couldn’t do him any more harm.

  She would call the police detective handling her breakin and promise to stay in touch after she left. He hadn’t been optimistic that the culprits would be caught anyway. He’d explained to her all he’d learned from Bart about the money meant for Mama and Lily, the price of Hilton Branch’s guilty conscience for the lie he’d perpetrated on her beautiful mother.

  But the detective had admitted that the chances of tracing the funds were slim to none, that over time the criminals looking for it would be forced to give up, since she clearly knew nothing about it.

  There was no reason she had to stay in the area and so many reasons to go…if only she knew where.

  She’d promised Bart not to try to leave until the bad guys were caught, but that would likely never happen, and meanwhile, all she did was complicate life for Bart and his family.

  Worse than that, she’d received a call last night from Bart’s sister, Penny, telling her that the Branches wanted to meet Lily, that they were eager to welcome her into the family.

  A family with a lot of money and power. Mellie hadn’t slept a wink since the call, not after she realized that the Branches could stake as much claim to Lily as she herself could. What court wouldn’t compare how much better they could support Lily and give her everything Mellie could not?

  For a second, Mellie wished for that stash of money to be real so she could use it to defend her right to keep her little sister with her. But even if it existed, spending any of it would only alert the bad guys and they’d be right back after her.

  The thought of losing Lily—however many times Mellie had prayed to be relieved of the heavy responsibility—stabbed terror deep into Mellie’s breastbone. Her hands began shaking, and her mind darted like a terrified minnow with a shark in hot pursuit. She barely heard the groan of disappointment in the crowd when Bart couldn’t quite pull off the win. Her mind was fully occupied with one thought and one alone:

  She had to disappear again or she would lose Lily.

  In that moment, she made up her mind to slip away as soon as possible. She and Lily had been staying with Louise and Al since the breakin while Mellie spent off hours cleaning up the damage to the apartment, the least she could do to repay Sheila’s kindness.

  She would finish up tonight, then tomorrow when she was off for the day she would take Lily and leave Mooresville for good.

  MOST OF THOSE ON THE PLANE with Bart wisely left him alone on the plane ride home.

  But not his crew chief, Philip Whalen. “Where the devil is your head, Bart? There is nothing else you should be focusing on but your driving. What’s the matter with you? I’ve never seen you so distracted. Whatever’s bugging you, get it squared away. We can still win this thing, but only if we’re all in it one hundred percent.”

  Bart itched to expend some of his filthy mood in a rousing argument, but Philip was right. What was wrong with him was Mellie and his sense of being duped yet again by someone he’d thought he could trust.

  As Penny had reminded him last night, however, Mellie had done nothing wrong except be very young and scared half to death, shouldering a backbreaking responsibility. Even Bart’s mother had called him to say that she welcomed Mellie—he should call her Amelia, he guessed, but he couldn’t—and the innocent child of his worthless father.

  If his mother, who’d been so deeply betrayed by Hilton, could hold Mellie blameless, why couldn’t he?

  Ignoring her wasn’t helping. She was on his mind constantly. He was afraid for her, even though he’d hired a highly reputable security company to watch over her. And, blast it, he missed her.

  He’d been her first. That thought never left him for long, how passionately she’d responded to him, how sweet and vulnerable she’d been in his arms, how no one had ever touched him so deeply before.

  “You’re right,” he said to his crew chief, whose eyebrows flew upward as he’d obviously expected a much different response. “It’s something personal, and I thought I had it tucked away, but…” He sighed. “I’ll get it taken care of, I swear.” He hoped, anyway. That is, if Mellie was still speaking to him. He would head over to Louise’s the second the plane touched down, and he’d make this right.

  He leaned forward in his seat. “Okay, let’s talk about Homestead. I’m going to win that sucker, come hell or high water. I let you all down today, but it won’t happen again, I swear it.”

  Relief flashed over Philip’s features. “Okay,” he said, and began the postmortem of the Phoenix race.

  MELLIE HALTED AT THE BOTTOM of the staircase leading to the apartment. It didn’t matter that she’d already cleared out a lot of the damage, the first image was always of what she’d stumbled onto only days ago, and a shiver of fear still accompanied that memory of feeling so violated and so helpless.

  That she now understood what had happened in Idaho and had pursued her across the country didn’t help. She glanced around for her shadow, the omnipresent anonymous vehicle that changed from day to day, making it as hard for her to spot as they all hoped would be the case for the bad guys she hoped had given up and left. If it would help, she’d gladly take out a newspaper ad or post a big sign that said Mellie Knows Nothing About Any Money. Please Leave Her Alone.

  She’d seriously proposed that approach to the police and the security company agent who’d arrived before Bart would leave her alone, but all had said it would do no good. The agent had told her not to worry and had given her a necklace with an alarm button on it that would allow them to stay back out of sight but ensure she could summon help anytime she was worried.

  She fingered that necklace now. Don’t be a goose, she chided herself. You’re safe.

  She took a deep breath and mounted the stairs, glad that this would be her last night to enter the place that had once been her haven but now represented a nightmare she was eager to leave.

  She stuck a key in the lock and turned it, then opened the door and reached for the light switch to set the place ablaze
—

  A hand caught her wrist and stopped her, grabbing for the other hand instinctively going for the alarm button. “Your guardian is having a little nap,” said a harsh, triumphant voice. “While he’s sleeping,” the man snickered, “you and I are going to have a little chat.”

  “COME ON OVER TO THE HOUSE,” Will urged Bart at the terminal parking lot. “Don’t go back to your place alone. You know you’ll just chew over this all night.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Bart said.

  “Why don’t you go with him, Will?” Zoe suggested as she and Will each tucked a baby into a car seat. “It’s not like I’ve never put the kids to bed by myself.”

  “I’ll help Mom, Uncle Bart,” Sam said.

  “There’s no need for all this trouble,” Bart protested. “I might go by Louise’s first and talk to Mellie a minute.” He carefully kept his tone casual, but he and Will hadn’t shared a womb for nothing.

  “Let me just follow you, in case…”

  Bart couldn’t help but grin. “In case what, she pulls out a shotgun on me?” The very image of tiny, dainty Mellie brandishing a weapon was too incongruous not to laugh about.

  But Will wasn’t laughing. “I’m following you. If you trip over your tongue with her, I’ll be the Mounties and rescue you from screwing up. Seriously, Bart, maybe it would help her to know that the whole family’s behind her.”

  “Pen already called her, right?” But abruptly Bart stopped arguing because the fact was that he wouldn’t mind the company if Mellie either wasn’t available or wouldn’t speak to him. “Okay, but just for a little while, then you need to go home to your beautiful wife.”

  “You think I want to look at your ugly mug any longer than I have to when I could be in bed with Zoe?” Will’s sarcasm did a poor job of veiling his concern over Bart’s state of mind. “Get real, dude.” He saluted and unlocked his own truck, then waited for Bart to start his.

  Bart drove to Louise and Al’s, trying to figure out how best to tell Mellie what a jerk he’d been and how to get her to forgive him, but as he rolled to a stop in front of their house, he gave up. He would have to simply wing it and hope that her kind heart would relent. He walked up their sidewalk and waited for them to answer.