Ellen cradled her daughter’s face in her palms and brushed away the tears. “I appreciate your concern,” she said. “But somehow I don’t think all these tears are for me.”
“I’m tired. I’m confused. I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now,” Riane told her.
Her mother smiled sympathetically. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Riane hadn’t even wanted to admit the truth to herself, to acknowledge that she’d fallen in love with a man who’d used and betrayed her. But she couldn’t lie to her mother; she didn’t want to. “Yes,” she admitted.
“How does he feel about you?”
Riane laughed, bitterly. “I have no idea. He says he cares about me.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“He wouldn’t be doing this if he really cared.”
“Love isn’t always that simple,” Ellen told her.
“It should be,” Riane said, then sighed. “Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with Stuart?”
“Do you think that would have been easier?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. All I want is someone to share my life and my dreams. Someone with whom I can share the kind of connection that you and Daddy have.”
Ellen smiled. “Do you think it was love at first sight for your father and me?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t even like him when I first met him.”
“Why not?” Riane felt strangely insulted on her father’s behalf.
“Because he was arrogant and rude and much too sexy for his own good.”
The explanation appeased Riane somewhat. “What changed your mind?”
Ellen considered. “It wasn’t any one thing, really. But we were at law school together—we had classes in common and group assignments to complete, so we were forced to spend a fair amount of time together. And eventually I realized that there was more to him—more substance, more heart—than I’d wanted to believe. And when he first kissed me,” she smiled a little at the memory, “I felt as though the ground was actually trembling beneath my feet.”
Riane sighed. She knew that feeling all too well. “Is that when you knew you were in love?”
“No, that’s when she decided not to speak to me for the next six months.”
Riane turned to see her father leaning nonchalantly against the door frame. “I didn’t realize you were up, too.”
“I didn’t want to miss out on all the girl talk,” he said, moving into the room to brush a kiss on Riane’s temple.
“When did you get home?”
“Just a little while ago.” But Riane didn’t want to rehash her reasons yet again. “Why didn’t Mom talk to you for six months?”
“Because as soon as he stopped kissing me, he opened his mouth and reminded me what an arrogant ass he was,” Ellen told her.
“Because I told her I was going to marry her,” Ryan offered an alternate explanation.
“After that very first kiss?” Riane asked.
“I knew even before then,” Ryan admitted. “For me, it was love at first sight.”
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” Ellen chided, but she was smiling with genuine love and affection at the man who’d been her husband for thirty-five years.
“And you’re practical enough for the both of us,” Ryan told her.
And in that moment, Riane realized that her mother was right. Love wasn’t easy—it wasn’t supposed to be. It was about affection and caring and compromise. And although the realization didn’t ease her own heartache, her parents’ relationship affirmed for her the power and endurance of love.
“Go back to bed,” she told them. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Are you going to get some sleep?” Ellen asked.
Riane didn’t know if she could with the jumble of chaotic thoughts swirling around in her mind, but she nodded and feigned a yawn to appease her mother. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ryan kissed her again. “I love you, baby.”
She blinked away the moisture behind her eyes. “I love you, too. Both of you.”
Ellen squeezed her daughter’s hand in a silent show of support before letting her husband drag her out of the room.
Riane didn’t sleep much, but she felt somewhat better in the morning. Her late-night conversation with her parents the previous evening had reassured her of the constancy of their love despite the uncertainty of everything else at this point in her life. And it had alleviated the strain they’d all been living under since she’d learned of her adoption. Life was pretty much back to normal in the Quinlan household, which allowed Riane to focus her attention on her other concern—the camp.
It was her work at the camp that gave her life direction and purpose, and she desperately needed both right now. So, after a quick breakfast with Sophie, she headed over to the site.
She wandered through the drizzle, mindless of the cold and wet, inspecting the progress on the new cabins. She was excited about the program that already existed and her short-and long-term plans for the camp, and she was proud that her fund-raising efforts had made this current expansion possible. If the progress continued on schedule, and she had every reason to believe that it would, the Quinlan Camp for Underprivileged Children would double its capacity within the next three years.
Why had she felt so compelled to focus on the needs of underprivileged children? It was a question that had been asked of her numerous times over the past few years. Her explanation had always been the same as the one she’d given Joel: that witnessing the plight of impoverished children through her parents’ work in the foreign service had motivated her to find a way to help. While she still believed there was validity in that response, she wondered if there wasn’t more to it.
Was it possible that her own experiences as a child, experiences that she couldn’t even recollect—the neglect by her biological parents, the trauma of being separated from her sister—had subconsciously instilled in her an empathy for children in similar situations? And if there was any truth at all in that supposition, maybe she and Joel had more in common than she’d realized.
She shook her head. Regardless of their similarities or differences, she couldn’t get past the fact that she’d been so wrong about him. She’d thought he cared about her. Damn it, he’d made her believe he cared. But it had all been a facade. The whole time he’d been luring her toward his bed, he’d been digging for dirt on her family.
Okay, if she was honest, she had to admit he hadn’t lured her into his bed. She’d wanted to be there. In fact, she’d practically pushed him there. But that didn’t make his betrayal hurt any less.
“Ms. Quinlan?”
Riane started at the sound of the unfamiliar masculine voice close behind her and hastily wiped the tears from her cheeks. She’d been certain she was alone, that all the workers had left the site for the day because of the inclement weather. Obviously she was wrong. She blinked the remaining traces of moisture out of her eyes before she turned.
And found herself staring into the snub-nosed barrel of a gun.
Chapter 16
I t wasn’t in Riane’s nature to give in to a bully, and she couldn’t think of any better way to describe the man who was holding her at gunpoint. Still, she kept her chin up and her resolve firm.
Her resolve faltered just a little when he directed her to his car and ordered her to get in. Even with her rudimentary knowledge of self-defense, Riane knew a victim was never supposed to get into an assailant’s vehicle. But he’d seemed ready, even eager, to use the gun he’d waved in her face, and she hated to think that her blood could be spilled on the grounds of her camp. She wouldn’t let some madman tarnish the project she’d put so much of her heart and soul into.
So she’d ignored her self-preservation instincts and gone with him. She wasn’t exactly sure where, since he’d tied her hands behind her back and blindfolded her when they got to his car. A green midsize vehicle with Michigan plates, she noted. She knew
it would be important to give as much information as she could to the police, if she managed to get out of this in one piece.
Her abductor removed the blindfold when they arrived at their destination. It was, Riane realized with a bizarre sense of irony, the same motel where she and Joel had stayed the night she’d run out of gas on Highway 27. It had to be the same motel. She couldn’t imagine two different establishments choosing the same horrid shade of orange for their decor.
Still, it didn’t do her any good to know where she was unless he let her use the phone to call someone. And she didn’t think that was likely.
So she was surprised when he pushed her onto one of the twin beds and said, “I want you to make a phone call.
“You’re not going to talk,” he continued, eliminating her quick burst of hope. “You’re just going to dial. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Who am I supposed to call?” she asked, forcing her voice to remain level. His request had calmed some of the panic that had been escalating inside her. Whatever this man wanted, it wasn’t sexual in nature, and for that she was infinitely grateful.
“You’re supposed to be a smart woman,” the man taunted. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” she suggested, unaccountably angered by his smug tone.
“I’m the kidnapper, you’re the hostage. The only thing you need to know is that if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’m going to put a bullet through you.”
She was helpless to prevent the instinctive shudder that rippled through her at the threat. He seemed to look forward to the possibility of doing just that.
“If I’m a hostage, it means you think someone is willing to give you something you want in exchange for me. I won’t be much good as a bargaining chip if I’m dead,” she pointed out.
He smiled menacingly. “Only if they know you’re dead.”
Okay, he had a point there. “What do you want?”
“Money.”
“Why?”
“Why?” He laughed. “Because money makes the world go round.”
“Why me?” she asked. “What makes you think anyone would be willing to pay anything for me?”
“I’ve seen that fancy house on the hill you live in, the car you drive, the jewels you wear.” He flicked a grimy finger against the sapphire stud in her ear. “And I figured if they were willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars for you before, who knows how much they’ll pay now?”
His lips curved in a sick smile. “I think I’ll ask for a million. Yes, that’s a nice round number. It’ll be enough to get me out of this hick town, out of this stinking country.”
Riane was no longer paying attention to his tirade. “What do you mean—they paid before?”
“Your parents,” he said. “I don’t imagine a hotshot senator will have any trouble finding a lousy million bucks.”
“Who did they pay? Why?” She didn’t know why she felt compelled to ask the questions; she was certain she wouldn’t want to know the answers.
“They paid me,” he told her, and the slow, obscene curving of his lips made her skin crawl. “Because I’m your father.”
Joel’s attention was riveted on the side of Felicia Reynolds’s face, on the menacing-looking bruise visible just beneath the peak of her baseball cap. “What happened to you?”
She dropped her gaze again and folded her trembling fingers together. “I fell.”
He’d heard it before—he’d heard all the excuses before. “He found you, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But her response was belied by the tremor in her voice.
Joel swore viciously under his breath, and Felicia flinched as if struck by a physical blow. He forced himself to rein in his anger. She’d obviously seen enough evidence of temper recently. “Have you been to the hospital?” he asked more gently.
She nodded and pushed her hat back slightly, revealing a neat little row of stitches that disappeared into her hairline.
“How about the police?”
She pulled the cap back down, her eyes wide, terrified.
“The cops don’t need to know that I’m clumsy.”
“They need to know if Elliott was here.”
“He wasn’t,” she insisted.
“Ms. Reynolds, any contact with you is a violation of his parole—he would go back to jail and you’d be safe.”
“Only until he got out again,” she said bitterly.
“You need to go to the po—”
“No,” she interrupted, no longer denying Elliott’s involvement. “I’m safe now.”
“How can you be sure?”
She hesitated, folding her fingers together again so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “B-because…because Gavin thinks…I’m dead.”
“You could have been,” Joel agreed, studying the swelling and discoloration on the side of her face more carefully.
“If he goes back to prison, I will be.”
“You can’t let him get away with this.”
“I thought you came here to talk about Rheanne,” she reminded him.
Joel nodded. He had, and he knew better than to insist on helping someone who didn’t want help.
“Your ex-husband told me the adoptive parents paid for your child,” he said at last.
She hesitated for a second, then nodded.
“How much?” The amount didn’t matter nearly so much as Felicia Reynolds’s admission that she and her husband had signed away their rights to their child in exchange for a sum of money, but he’d gone too far to turn back now.
She didn’t look up. “A hundred thousand dollars.”
He’d seen and heard a lot in his thirty-three years, but he was still shocked. Not by the figure she’d recited but by the fact that this woman had, without any indication of regret or remorse, sold her two-year-old child. “Whose idea was it to sell her?”
“We didn’t sell the kid,” she denied. “That’s illegal.”
Not to mention immoral and unethical and abhorrent.
“What would you call it when you give up your child in exchange for a sum of money?” he challenged, unable to mask his disgust.
She looked up now, lifting her chin in a gesture of defiance. “We were entitled to be, um, reimbursed, Mr. Rutherford said, for our expenses.”
He had the truth now, but he still didn’t know what he was going to do with it. Mike had been right when he’d accused Joel of using the connection in Arden’s sister’s case to pursue a more personal agenda. When Judge Rutherford had destroyed his career, Joel had vowed that he would someday have his revenge against the privileged classes who thought their money could buy them anything.
Now he knew without a doubt that Ellen Rutherford-Quinlan had used her money to buy a child, and it was within his power to reveal the truth and bring her down. After five seemingly endless years, revenge was finally within his grasp. He should have been ecstatic. Instead, he felt only growing despair and aching emptiness, because every step he took closer to exposing the secret was a step further away from Riane. There was no way she’d ever forgive him if he used this information against her mother.
He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter. Riane had already walked out of his life, just as he’d known she would. She was a woman, after all, and every woman he’d ever cared about had abandoned him.
Why, then, did her leaving hurt so much? And why did finding a way to win her back suddenly seem so much more important than the revenge he’d sought for so long? So much more important than anything else?
As he reached for his cell phone to call Riane, it started to ring.
Both Ellen and Ryan Quinlan were in the living room when Joel arrived. Ryan sat on the edge of the couch, his concentration focused intently on the phone, as if he might will it to ring. The senator was pacing. Her usually immaculate hair looked as though she’d repeatedly run her fingers through it, her face was bare of makeup, her eyes red rimmed and
filled with anxiety.
Until that moment Joel hadn’t been convinced of the gravity of the situation. All Ellen Rutherford-Quinlan had said on the phone was that she needed him to come to the house right away. Joel had sensed the urgency and hadn’t asked any questions.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Logan.” It was Ryan who spoke to him, his voice shaky, as if he was holding on to the little control he had by a fraying thread.
It was Joel’s first meeting with Riane’s father, and not at all the circumstances under which he might have wished the introduction to take place.
“Our daughter’s been kidnapped,” the older man continued.
Joel felt his heart drop like a stone into the bottom of an empty well. But he shook his head, refusing to believe it. She’d probably just gone for a drive. Or maybe she’d gone to the camp. There were a million possibilities, but kidnapped was not one of them.
“We got a telephone call,” Ryan told him. “Just before we called you, from the man who’s taken her.”
Joel had come right away. Still, the drive from the diner had taken more than an hour, and every minute of it seemed interminable. “You haven’t heard anything since then?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who’s taken her? Why?”
Ryan just shook his head. “He only told us that he has Riane.”
“Did you speak to Riane at all?”
“He wouldn’t let me.”
“Then maybe he doesn’t have her,” Joel suggested, wanting desperately to believe it himself. “Maybe this is some kind of hoax.”
That was a better alternative than to believe some nut really had Riane, because even in the movies kidnappers made their hostages say a few words. Proof of life, it was called. If the kidnapper wouldn’t give it, the hostage was as good as dead. He shook off the thought. Riane was going to be fine. She had to be.
“We wouldn’t have bothered you if we thought this was a hoax, Mr. Logan.” The senator’s voice whipped across the room like a physical slap. “My daughter is missing. She went to the camp this morning. Her car is still there. She isn’t.”
“The grounds are pretty extensive,” Joel reminded her.
Some Kind of Hero Page 21
