by Karen Rose
She thought about what he’d said the night before, about wanting to be his own man. Of getting into the Academy on his own. ‘You didn’t tell anyone about your family.’
‘No. I wanted people to respect me . . . to like me for myself. Not because I was my father’s son. But it turned out quite a few people on the ship knew I was my father’s son, that I had millions at my disposal. One of them, an ensign, wanted a few of those millions. He knew I was going on leave because he worked in the admin office, processing the requests. He knew Jo was too.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Hired some pals from the States to be there when we got to Paris. We had three days together and it was . . . beautiful. I’d hired a car to take us back to the airport and that’s where everything unraveled. The ensign had a driver waiting in the lobby. He’d canceled the reservation I’d made weeks earlier. So the car that picked us up at the hotel pulled off an exit halfway to the airport, overpowered us, drugged us, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the dark. Jo was in another room, screaming. Begging for help. For me. But I was tied up and couldn’t get to her. I have never felt so helpless.’
‘I know.’ She had to force the words from her throat.
‘I know you do. One of the kidnappers shoved a phone to my ear, told me to talk to my father, tell him to get the money to them fast and not to contact the police. Dad got on a plane with the cash. He also contacted the Parisian police. One of the kidnappers went to get the money, the other stayed to guard us. I’d been working the rope they used to tie me ever since I’d woken up and had made a little progress, when the one who’d stayed behind got a call. When he hung up he told Jo that they’d gotten their money, but that he’d have “one last go” for the road. He started again and I . . . lost it. Just raw rage.’
She didn’t know what to say. What to do for him. She’d been a terrified child. He been an adult, Jo the woman he’d loved. ‘What did you do?’ she whispered, horrified.
‘I clawed at the rope until finally I could rip my hands free. It took the top layers of skin off my hands, but I didn’t even feel it. Not then anyway. I got the ropes off my ankles and charged. But I was too late. He’d . . . finished and was dressed. I don’t know if he’d ever gotten completely undressed. He hadn’t completely undressed Jo. She was still wearing her blouse, but that was all. I remember that. It was white, or it had started out that way. When I got to him, he had his gun pointed at her. He saw me and went pale. I threw myself at her, over her, but he’d hurried up and pulled the trigger, trying to kill her first. I guess he didn’t want to fight us both at the same time. He shot her in the chest.’
She remembered his panic on the courthouse steps. He thought she’d been shot, had been on the verge of ripping her shirt off to get to her wounds before Grayson had made him understand that she was wearing Kevlar, that the blood on her white blouse hadn’t been her own.
He’d been reliving that moment with Jo. Oh, Joseph. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He held her tight, so tight she could barely breathe. ‘She was bleeding, a lot. And then he shot me. I barely felt it. I was . . . beyond pain. I surged up, grabbed him and took the gun.’
The air seemed to seep from his lungs and he lay there, very still. And something changed. His arms still wrapped around her, but all the previous need was gone. She felt him pulling away from her, even though he never physically moved an inch.
She remembered the commander’s conference room when she’d thought Ford was dead. She’d asked him if the men who’d taken his wife were alive and he’d said no. So coldly. She lifted her head, resting her forearms on his chest. His expression was shuttered. Wherever he’d gone, he didn’t want her there with him.
Which was too damn bad.
‘What did you do to him?’ she asked, her voice low.
He closed his eyes. ‘I’m tired. Let’s go to sleep.’
‘Pffft.’ The sound she made was one of derision. ‘I don’t think so, sugar.’
His jaw tightened. ‘Please.’ His voice was even. Reasonable. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘Joseph, I’m not getting any younger, so I’ll be blunt. You said you wanted a relationship. And so do I. But I don’t do threesomes.’
His eyes flew open, brows knitting. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Right now there are three people in this bed. You, me, and whoever the sonofabitch was that you killed that day. If you shut me out now ...’ She trailed off, knowing a threat would damage what they hadn’t even started to build.
Which was exactly what Joseph would be doing with his silence.
She kissed his mouth, felt him stiffen in surprise and realized he’d hoped to make her so angry that she’d roll over and go to sleep. He didn’t know her very well. Yet.
‘Joseph, I’ve told you my worst secrets. If you shut me out now, you’ll hold power over me, and I’ll have none over you. I lived that life for twelve years as Mrs Travis Elkhart. I am so not going down that road with you.’
He met her eyes, then, and she saw misery. ‘How do you know I killed him?’
‘Because you told me the men who took your wife were no longer alive.’
‘I have a big mouth,’ he said grimly.
She kissed that mouth, traced his lower lip with her fingertip. ‘What did you do?’
His shoulders tensed. All of him tensed, the façade of calm he’d projected suddenly gone. ‘We fought. He was strong. But I was . . . wild. I broke his neck. Snapped it. Like a twig. I can still hear that sound to this day.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It still brings me satisfaction.’
His eyes grew piercing and he seemed to hover over the statement, waiting.
She cupped his tight jaw, felt the muscle twitch under her palm. ‘If he’d overpowered you, what would he have done?’
‘The same damn thing.’
‘Then there you go. Eat or be eaten. I, for one, am very glad you won. You survived.’
He stilled once again. ‘I didn’t even care about survival at that moment, Daphne. I just wanted him dead.’
He’d used her name for the first time since starting his story. He was back with her. Re-engaged. Relief shivered down her back. She considered her answer carefully, knowing it was an important one. And that he held his breath, waiting for it.
‘Joseph, if you’re waiting for me to condemn you for wanting him dead, you’ll be waiting a long time. If you’re waiting for me to be horrified that hearing that snap still brings you satisfaction, you’ll be waiting even longer. He hurt your wife in unspeakable ways. He killed her. For money. That he paid for his evil with his life . . . that’s justice.’
His eyes flickered, his throat worked as he swallowed, but he said nothing.
‘The satisfaction . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I’d label it “comfort”. I envy you, in a way. You got the closure most victims can only dream about. And whether you accept it or not, you were fighting to survive. It’s a basic instinct. It’s only after the fact that we question our motives. You killed him before he killed you. End of story. If I were in your shoes, I’d consider the satisfaction at the neck-snapping memory as a gift.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I never thought about it that way.’
‘Well, you should. What happened after that?’
‘I found a phone. Called for help, hoped the police could trace our location, because I didn’t know where we were. I went back to Jo, tried to stop her bleeding but I couldn’t, so I just held her. She stopped breathing, but I couldn’t let her go. I just held her as her blood drained away and there wasn’t anything I could do.’
‘Oh, Joseph.’ Her lips trembled.
‘I don’t know how long I sat there, but I heard a noise. The second guy had come back for the first, taken one look at the scene and charged me, his gun drawn. He fired, twice. Hit me once. I tackled him before he could fire again and we fought for his gun. I grabbed his hand, got control of the gun.’ He paused. And sighed. ‘I could have thrown the gun away but I didn’t. I forced his hand so t
hat he jammed the barrel into his own gut. And I made him squeeze the trigger. Just as the cops burst in.’
‘What did they see?’
‘Me, fighting for my life.’
‘Which you were, Joseph.’
‘Not really.’
‘I’ll ask again. If he’d won the fight, what would he have done? Left you alive to identify him?’
‘No.’
‘Then you did what you had to.’
‘I could have held him off till the cops came.’
‘Did you know they were coming at that moment?’
His eyes flickered. The notion surprised him. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t.’
‘You were wounded too. Bleeding, right?’
Again the flicker. ‘Yes.’
‘How long were you in the hospital afterward?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘Because your injuries were that bad. So could you really have held him off for long? And if he wrested control, what would he have done to you?’ She gave him a moment to consider it before answering the question herself. ‘He would have grabbed the gun and finished the job. You’d seen him. He had the money with him. He wasn’t going to let you live from the beginning, Joseph.’
‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘Because it is. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.’
His brow furrowed slightly. ‘Someone else said that to me recently. Someone smarter than me.’ He reached up, smoothed the hair away from her face. ‘I wasn’t fighting for my life that day, Daphne, no matter what you think. I was fighting for their deaths, because at that moment my life was gone. Holding Jo as she died . . . It was like my life drained away with hers. I didn’t care about living for a long, long time after that. Everything was dark. All the color was gone. If I hadn’t had my family and my job . . .’
‘Finding other people’s missing loved ones?’
‘It gave me a reason to want to wake up in the morning. And little by little the darkness faded.’ One side of his mouth lifted. ‘To sepia, maybe. But there was never color. Until one day . . .’
His eyes were on hers and she knew this was one of those moments she’d carry with her always. She held her breath, waiting for it. ‘One day?’ she whispered.
‘One day I looked up and saw this . . . goddess walking up to my brother’s front door in a lime green suit and legs up to her shoulders. And it was like I’d just been dropped from Kansas into Oz. Brilliant, bold color where there had been none. Warmth when I’d been so cold. My heart . . . started beating again.’
Her heart stuttered, her eyes filling. ‘Joseph.’
He tugged her head down until she covered his mouth with hers. The kiss was lush and utterly lovely. ‘How many people are in this bed now, Daphne?’
‘Just you and me.’
‘Good. Then let’s go to sleep. Just you and me. No more nightmares tonight.’
Baltimore, Maryland, Thursday, December 5, 6.00 A.M.
Cole woke slowly, his neck so stiff that he winced. The floor was hard and cold and he hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time all night because Kimberly wouldn’t shut the hell up. Finally, out of self-preservation, he’d duct-taped her mouth shut.
He sat up, rubbing his neck. Checked his cell phone for the time. School started in an hour and a half. The cops would probably be waiting at the school for him to show up so they could arrest him. When he didn’t show up, they’d come back here.
He couldn’t wait on Matt’s all-clear any longer. He forced himself to stand up, then looked around for a toilet. Damn, but if the shelter didn’t have one. He found it in the back corner behind a curtain – a camping toilet that looked brand new. Mitch would have thought of this. His oldest brother had a plan for everything.
When he came out, Kimberly was giving him the evil eye. He removed the tape from her mouth, careful to keep his fingers away from her teeth.
‘Water.’ She was croaky again and he felt a little bad that he’d made her go without water all night. He gave her a few sips, then pulled the blanket off her.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I need to go too. Really bad.’
Cole hesitated. ‘I’m not untying your hands.’
She gave him a weary look. ‘I weigh a hundred five pounds, probably less since your asshole brother’s been starving me to death. You’re what, like two hundred? Like I can be a threat to you.’
One-sixty-five actually, but hearing he looked bigger was nice for his ego. ‘I don’t know . . .’
She huffed angrily. ‘Come on, kid. Use your brain. I can’t take you. Let me pee and then tie me back up if you want. I just want to get to my sister.’
Cole didn’t want her sister to die. And she couldn’t take him. She was too tiny. ‘Okay, fine. But when you’re done, I tie you back up.’
‘Whatever.’
He untied her, taking care to stay away from her feet. ‘Hurry up.’ He watched her limp to the toilet, dragging her hurt leg behind her. His brother had done that to her. He still didn’t believe it.
Mitch, what the hell are you doing? And where are you? For that matter, where was Matt? It wasn’t like Matt to just not show up.
This was really bad. He’d taken a stolen gun to school. Stolen from a cop, if Kimberly was telling the truth. If it gets traced back to me . . . The cops would never believe he wasn’t part of whatever Mitch had going. Whatever the hell that was.
I am so tired of this family. I wish I were adopted.
Kimberly came out of the toilet, her limp more pronounced. ‘I need to re-bandage my leg. It started bleeding again while I was in there.’
‘Fine, just hurry.’
She hobbled back to the bed and grabbed the roll of gauze that sat on the floor beside it. She started to unbutton her jeans, then stopped, glaring. ‘Do you mind?’
Rolling his eyes, he turned his back. He needed to get out of here and to the bus station. He’d call Rico in Miami and tell him he’d be a little late, and—
Cole groaned, the pain in his head worse than anything he’d ever felt. He sat up, the room doing a slow spin that left him nauseated. The bitch. She’d hit him with something. He blinked hard until the room came back into focus. A fire extinguisher lay on the floor on its side and Cole vaguely remembered seeing it on the wall by the toilet.
I’m a stupid idiot. He staggered to his feet, wondering how long he’d been out. He patted his pockets for his cell to check the time – and found his pockets empty. She’d cleaned him out. And stolen his backpack.
He ran for the stairs and sighed with relief when he got to the garage. The van was still here. She had to be on foot and she couldn’t go far with her leg messed up. He thought of the little room in the basement. Her sister was probably in there.
He looked around the garage for a weapon, because a hundred-five-pounds or not, the girl was fucking dangerous. I shouldn’t have listened to a word she said.
Weapon, weapon, what can I use? He scanned the shelves, everything neat as a pin, the way Mitch demanded. Shovel. I’ll use a shovel. He ran to the wall where all the garden tools were arranged on a pegboard.
The big empty space where the shovel had been registered in his mind a second before he heard the grunt behind him, then felt the second blow crash into his head. He turned, his legs weak and the room spinning. He felt himself falling, his knees cracking as they hit the concrete floor.
The sight of the shovel coming at his face was the last thing he saw before everything went dark.
Wheeling, West Virginia, Thursday, December 5, 6.00 A.M.
Joseph inhaled deeply as he came awake in stages.
Peaches. Warm body curled against him. Mmm. Curvy warm body. Pretty hand resting over his heart. Long leg buttressing his hip. Curls tickling his jaw.
He’d always felt envious of men who woke with soft women in their arms who were meant for only them. Now he didn’t have to. Because I’ve got one.
He hadn’t wanted
to tell her about Jo. About what he’d done. But he was glad that he had. Many people knew the play-by-play of his story. Anyone who was fluent in French could read the police report, he supposed. His family knew, even Holly. And he knew they’d been afraid for his sanity those first few years. He knew they worried about his temper sometimes.
He’d never told anyone that he still heard the snap of that man’s neck. That it still brought him . . . comfort. He liked that word a lot better. He kissed the top of her head and slid from the bed, reluctantly. He wished he could stay. Wake her with slow kisses and make love to her for hours.
But he had a job to do and so did she. He needed to find three still-missing girls – Kimberly, her sister, and Heather Lipton, assuming any of them were still alive. He needed to bring Doug and Beckett to justice. But he had to find them first.
She needed to confront a past over which she’d had no control. When they found Beckett’s cabin – and Joseph had no doubt that they would because Doug was driving them in that direction – she’d insist on being there, no matter how much it hurt her. And even though every bit of him screamed in protest at the very idea of letting her go there, he knew he couldn’t keep her from doing so. Nor should he.
She was a grown woman, smart and logical, and the decisions she made would be wise ones. Necessary ones. He just needed to keep her safe through the process.
He wasn’t sure which of them had the harder job.
Joseph snapped a leash on Tasha, then left Daphne’s room, quietly pulling the door closed behind him. And then he froze as Simone came out her own door, across the hall. Their eyes collided and Joseph felt his cheeks heat. Busted, was his first thought.
‘Good morning,’ he said quietly.
She studied him for a long moment. ‘Good morning, Joseph. Is she all right?’
‘Yes.’ She’s more than all right. She’s amazing. ‘Yesterday was a hard day.’
‘For all of us,’ Simone said and he could see she was still angry. On one hand, he didn’t blame her. But as Daphne’s . . .
