Midnight Kiss

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Do you want to stop, pick this up later?”

  “God, no.” Hope sat up straighter. “No. Whatever Frank Glass has to tell me, I have to know. None of this feels real, but it is real. Real enough to get someone killed. Data is life.”

  Luke nodded and pressed play again.

  Data is life. Hope was right. Only he called it intel. And intel saved lives, he knew that from painful personal experience. Someone was after Hope. Or Cathy, or whatever the fuck she was called. He didn’t care what her real name was. All he cared about was that she be kept safe. And to keep

  her safe he needed intel this crazy dead genius, Frank Glass, was providing.

  Glass’s head had been bowed. He lifted it slowly, in jerks, as if it hurt to move. “My dearest Cathy — I can’t think of you as Hope — I’ve been waiting so long to tell you the truth. And now I can’t wait any longer because I’m out of time. My doctors say I’ll be lucky to last another three months, but no guarantees. I must do this now or you will never know the truth. It all goes back to the summer Lucy, your mother, was 22. She’d just gotten her bachelor’s degree and was applying to graduate schools. We saw each other maybe once a month, once every two months. One day she took the bus to Mountain View to spend the weekend with me and she had stars in her eyes. Almost literally. She … shone. I knew she was too pretty and too bright not to have boyfriends but she never let them slow her down, or knock her off her course. But this guy … she met a young soldier who was between deployments and he just knocked her sideways. I met him. He was knocked sideways too. Seemed nice enough, though really grim, for someone as sunny-natured as Lucy. He’d just qualified as a Navy SEAL. At the time I didn’t really know what that was, but I’m good at research. Everyone nowadays knows about SEALs, the tip of the spear and all that, but I didn’t then. He scared me. Lucy was head over heels in love with a man who ran into danger for a living. With a gun. And something else scared me. He was Bard Redfield, Court Redfield’s only child. Court Redfield was a state representative at the time, a man on the rise and burning with ambition. He went on to become California’s governor, Deputy Director of the CIA, currently a Senator. They say that eventually he wants to run for President. And he is a cold-hearted ruthless son of a bitch.”

  This time Hope pressed pause. She kept her finger on the button, frozen.

  She was still for so long Luke started worrying. “Hope? Honey?”

  She didn’t answer. Just drew in a deep breath and pressed the pause button again.

  On screen, Frank Glass unfroze.

  “Court Redfield had no intention of letting his only child marry ‘trailer park trash’.” Glass’s hands rose, trembling, as he made air quotes. The video glitched. It had been edited. He reappeared, sitting down as before, but with a sweater on.

  “Sorry,” he wheezed. “Had to stop to catch my breath. It’s getting harder and harder. Okay. To pick up where I left off, in April of 1990, Bard disappeared on a mission and Lucy heard nothing from him. Then his father showed up.” His face tightened, grooves running down his cheeks. “Lucy said he scared her. Showed up in this huge black SUV, with two bodyguards, armed and standing at attention outside. He came in, didn’t sit down, told her Bard had been killed in action. He never wanted to see Lucy again. Told her never to contact him.” He sighed, bowed his head. “Two days later she found out she was pregnant.”

  Luke looked sharply at Hope. She was still, barely breathing. There it was. The reason for everything that had happened to her. And he saw, with a sudden uncomfortable flash, that it was going to end in heartbreak.

  The monitor showed a different image. Hope drew in a shocked breath.

  “There he is. Hubbard Redfield. Known as Bard,” came Glass’s voice offscreen.

  Up on the screen was a photograph of a young man in dress whites. Luke could read his uniform like a book. He was a SEAL, which meant he had discipline and smarts. Among the many medals decorating his chest was a Navy Cross and a Silver Star. The man was brave and had seen combat. He had that young/old look of men who’d been in combat while young. Their bodies were still supple and able and they were at their physical peak but something inside them would never be young again.

  He was compelling — grimly handsome with a narrow face, dark hair, green eyes.

  He looked exactly like Hope, down to the slightly uptilted eyes, narrow nose, well-defined mouth. There could be no doubt at all they were related.

  Hope was staring, hand over mouth, frozen. Luke reached out and pulled her gently toward him. She was stiff, unyielding, more like a life-sized doll than a person. Shock had hollowed her out. It was awkward holding on to her like that but he didn’t yield. She needed to feel human contact. He held her less like a woman he cared for and more like a wounded comrade. She’d been hit, was bleeding, even if it didn’t show.

  He held the back of her head, giving her the comfort of his body heat. One hand shielding her head, one hand against her back, protecting the head and the torso. She lay her forehead against his shoulder and shuddered out a breath.

  Fuck it. Luke opened his arms, picked her up out of the chair and settled her onto his lap.

  He held her tightly, tucking her head in under his chin. Making her warm, making her feel safe.

  Shock — even psychological trauma — could be deadly. Her blood would have rushed to the core vital organs, leaving her dazed and confused. He gently held her hand, which was icy, and surreptitiously took her pulse. Fifty beats per second.

  Acute stress disorder it was called, and it wasn’t fun.

  “I look just like him,” she whispered, her breath puffing against the skin of his neck. “I’ve never looked like anyone.”

  “Ah, honey.” Luke’s heart broke, just a little. She’d been so alone all her life, essentially without any kind of family. Luke resembled his father, but he was the spitting image of his paternal grandfather. It had been a family joke. He also looked like his cousin Brian, except Brian had dark hair. Everywhere Luke looked in his family, he could see bits of himself. Cousin Roger, who’d joined the Marines and was almost as good a shot as he was, had the same build. Cousin Mary, who had the same color hair he had, was as tone deaf as he was. At big family gatherings, Aunt Emily, who played the piano really badly, would accompany him and Mary as they sang classic rock. It sounded like a tortured cats convention and everyone loved it.

  Hope was shaking.

  A slow burn was taking place inside him. A terrible wrong had been done to this beautiful young woman who didn’t have any meanness in her. Someone had played with her life, tossing her around like some doll to be manipulated to satisfy someone’s agenda. Careless people had wounded her grievously. Maybe her own blood.

  This was exactly the opposite of Luke’s experience, where the people closest to him loved him and cared for him. The ones who meant him harm had nothing to do with him. He tried his best to shoot their faces off.

  A low whimpering sound came from her and it broke his heart just a little more. It was the sound of extreme pain, from someone who was used to hiding pain because there was no one to care.

  Well, he cared. He fucking cared. A lot.

  “Hey,” he said, voice low. He held her more tightly against him, trying to quell the trembling, trying to warm her up. Her narrow torso was tight, unmoving. “Breathe,” he whispered against her ear. “In and out.” Air exploded out of her and she drew in a great shuddering breath. “That’s my girl. Breathe deeply. You’re in shock. Do you want me to turn the video off? We could have something to eat, you can let some of this settle. It’s a lot to take in.”

  “No.” Hope placed her hands on his chest as she sat up, shook her dark hair out of her eyes. Her eyes were bright but she hadn’t shed tears. “No, I need to listen to it all. Data —”

  “Is life,” he finished for her and smiled as he laid his hand against her face. She looked so delicate and yet was so strong. Her world had just been upended, everything she knew about herself was a lie. Yet s
he wasn’t losing it.

  Luke remembered Ross Stuart, his team’s corpsman, who got word while on a training mission that his wife had left him. He went on a four day bender and his teammates had to cover for him. And take his guns away.

  “Let’s finish this.”

  She moved to get off his lap but Luke tightened his hold. It made him feel better when she was in his arms. “Stay.”

  She nodded, shifted until she was watching the screen. He reached out to click play but she stopped his hand and clicked it herself.

  At that moment, Luke knew she’d be okay. More was in store, probably all of it bad, but she was strong enough to bear it. One thing was for sure. She wasn’t alone any more. She had him.

  The face of Frank Glass filled the screen again, looking even worse than before, if that was possible.

  “I have to be honest with you, my dear. I urged your mother to terminate the pregnancy. Lucy was trying so hard but she already had so many counts against her and was just starting courses to get her MBA. Becoming a single mother so young was … unfortunate.”

  His head rose and his exhausted eyes stared right into the camera. It was like he was looking right at them.

  “But Cathy — Hope — if you’re listening to this, know that your mother loved you from the instant she found out she was expecting you. She loved you wholly and fiercely. She wouldn’t hear of terminating the pregnancy and for the short time she was able to mother you, she was a fabulous mother. She loved you with all her heart.”

  Luke angled his head sideways to look Hope in the face. Those words had cracked her open. Silent tears were tracking down her cheeks. She looked over her shoulder at him then back at the screen. He had to work not to react to the sadness in her eyes.

  He didn’t try to comfort her or console her. Those tears and that sadness were real and were justified. Nothing he could say would make it all untrue. Her entire life had been a lie and she had somehow understood that without understanding why.

  The why was still a mystery but the rest wasn’t.

  Frank Glass continued. “It wasn’t easy, being a single mother and trying to get a degree. I helped as much as I could, though I was struggling too. You were a charming child, my dear. Sunny and easy-going and very, very bright. It was — it was working. Lucy got her MBA. You’re in tech, so you know my story. By the time you were nearly five, I’d had my IPO and was going to move you two out of the trailer park. But then Lucy saw a newspaper article about Court Redfield. Pictured with his son, who’d been wounded in war.

  “It electrified Lucy. She realized Bard was alive. She wrote to him, c/o an FPO address. She wrote letter after letter after letter. She wrote to the Navy. She sent endless photos of you. When she received no answers, I tried to get her to stop writing and sending snapshots because it was breaking her heart. And mine. But she was absolutely sure that if he knew about you, he’d come back to her and to you. And then —” His voice cracked.

  He drew in a deep wheezing breath, covered his face with a trembling hand.

  “And then you and your mother were run off the road by a truck.”

  Luke tightened his arms around Hope at the shocking words. Her hands were so cold he curled her fists into his. Looked like the next part of the story was going to be even worse than the beginning.

  “The state trooper who found the car called me in. We went to high school together. He said it was vehicular manslaughter, the car was T-boned. The truck that ran into you was parked on a side street and accelerated into Lucy’s car. It was a devastating impact and Lucy was killed immediately. But then my friend told me you were still breathing. I begged him with everything in me to hide you until I arrived. To this day I am grateful to him, and have put his two kids through college. Because if he hadn’t —” Glass stared hard into the camera lens. “If he hadn’t, you’d be dead.”

  Luke reached out his hand again. “Do you want to stop? Digest what you’ve heard?” How could she not want to stop? Right now, it looked like her father had killed her mother and had tried to kill her. Of all the terrible things Luke had seen in combat, this was the worst thing he could think of. The man tasked with loving you trying cold-heartedly to kill you. Every cell in his body was repulsed by the idea.

  “No.” Hope’s voice was quiet. “No, I need to hear the rest.”

  Luke’s hand hovered over the keyboard. “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Luke clicked and Glass lived and breathed again on the screen, though he was in the ground these past five years.

  “I knew if you were to live, I had to do something and do it fast. My state trooper friend took you to a hospital two hundred miles away. He took a big risk because you were badly concussed. You could have died on the way. But someone wanted you dead, and would have gotten to you if they knew you’d survived. I bribed the coroner and the mortuary company and anyone else that was necessary to say that there were two deaths. At the funeral there were two coffins, one a tiny white one. If you go to the St. Ursula Cemetery in Sacramento you’ll see two small marble tombstones in the ground. One for Lucy Benson and one for Catherine Benson. You were in a coma under another name in a hospital far away while the funeral was held. I paid cash for treatment. You were in a coma for a long time and in that time I was really busy. I made mistakes, but I was young and this was all brand new to me.”

  He broke away, coughing.

  Luke put his head next to hers. “Do you remember any of this?” he asked quietly. He felt it against his skin when she shook her head. But he was also feeling her sorrow and pain. This story was devastating to him. He couldn’t imagine the earthquake going on inside her.

  Glass continued. “Your mother was friends with a brother and sister living at Happy Trails. They weren’t too good at holding jobs but they weren’t bad people either. I gave them a lot of money and promised them a very healthy income for life if they would take you far, far away, to the other side of the continent, and pretend to be your parents. You weren’t ever to come to California. I procured some fake ID for all three. The fake ID improved over the years until the backstory for all three of you was perfect.

  “Bob and Rachel Sanderson left Sacramento with you on a private jet and set up in Boston as Neil and Sandra Ellis with their daughter, Hope.” His mouth turned down. “I need to apologize to you, Cathy. I suspect Bob and Rachel didn’t make good parents. I kept tabs on them and it was clear they weren’t doing much parenting. I told them to put you in a good boarding school when you were ten. I think everyone was relieved and I know you thrived there. I got regular reports. You have no idea how hard it was for me to stay away from you. You are my only living relative. I never married. When I die, I’ll leave you a very nice sum but not my whole fortune. I need to make sure my company survives my death, to safeguard my employees. I would have traded all my money to be with you as you grew up. But it was too dangerous. Whoever tried to kill you — whether Bard or his father Court — will still want you dead.” He shrugged, clearly exhausted. “I hate them both because they deprived me of your mother and of watching you grow up. Of being your uncle, a part of your life. The best I could do for you was the Sandersons, secrecy and the money. But you’ve done just fine on your own. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. But I have to warn you — never let your guard down, ever. Keep this knowledge to yourself. Court Redfield is a Senator now and though I’m not political, I’ve heard that in a couple of years he wants to run for President. An illegitimate child in the family could ruin those chances. I don’t know how Bard turned out. He was a hard man when I met him, and he’s spent his entire life in combat. Court Redfield is coldly ambitious and his hero warrior son is part of his legend. Someone killed once and he’d kill again, certainly if your existence threatens a run for the presidency. I won’t live to see whether he wins the presidency or not, but the danger you were in as a little girl is more acute now. Court Redfield is ruthless, honey. And Bard probably is too. You do not want them as enemies.


  “I wish —” The video glitched then came back on. The backdrop was different and Frank Glass had on a gray sweater instead of a black one. There was no way to tell how much time had gone by. Glass looked a little worse. Maybe he’d waited 24 hours. Maybe he’d waited a week. There was no way to tell. “I wish I could stay alive to help you. But I can’t. I have all the money in the world and I won’t outlast the year. All I can do is point you in a useful direction. I have sources who told me that in his time at the CIA, Court Redfield set up what could be considered a private army, made up of ruthless former Special Operations soldiers. Those sources said that they were a kill team and eliminated some inconvenient people. Senator Deaver of Montana, Marcy Lamott, an investigative journalist. I heard that he had a brutal run in with Black Inc last year. Jacob Black hates Court Redfield’s guts. If you are ever cornered, turn to Jacob Black. Tell him you are my niece. Tell him this story.”

  The video glitched again and when Glass came back on the monitor he was wearing a green hoodie that hung off him. His eyes were deeply sunk in his head and he looked exhausted. Almost unable to keep his head up. He reached out to the camera lens.

  “Sorry. Had some internal bleeding. Oh God, how I wish I could see you, hug you, my miracle of a niece. So beautiful and so smart. An evil man changed the course of our lives forever years ago. And now,” he sighed, “I fear at some point you’re going to have to go on the run again. Use the money I left you. Remember that I love you and your mother loved you. You don’t deserve anything that has happened to you. You don’t deserve any of this. But my one word to you, if Court Redfield or Bard Redfield find you, is —” his bruised-looking eyes burned into the camera. “Run.”

  Hope wanted to stay forever just the way she was. Wrapped in Luke Reynolds’ strong arms, feeling his heat and strength penetrate down to her bones. Chills were running through her body. Frank Glass’s words left her feeling raw, like the words had flayed skin away from her body. Oh how she’d love to stay right here, burrowed against Luke’s chest. She’d crawl right inside him if she could. Just crack his chest open and find refuge inside him.