Nanny 911

by Julie Miller

  A stampede of footsteps charged up the stairs from the lower level behind them.

  “Keep moving,” she ordered, pushing Quinn up the stairs. Miranda whirled around, her Glock gripped between her hands, and changed course to meet the approaching threat head-on.

  She saw the end of a rifle first, appearing around the corner. She ducked into the nearest doorway and shouted, “KCPD! Halt right there!”

  “Whoa!” A man in a dark uniform threw up his hands before he ever reached the hallway.

  A second man stumbled into him. He pointed his gun up into the air and raised his hands, as well. “Murdock?”

  “Holmes? Rowley?” These two bozos were running through the house, armed with assault rifles? She lowered her gun to a less lethal angle, but refused to lower her guard. “What’s going on?”

  “The black Beemer’s here again,” Holmes reported. “Three men inside.”

  “Here?”

  “Two of your SWAT guys caught them at the gate and are bringing them in.”

  All at once the alarm stopped and David Damiani came up the stairs, speaking into his walkie-talkie. “Make sure you disarm them. Check for ankle holsters, knives and any other easy-to-hide weapons.”

  “Roger that.” She recognized Sergeant Delgado’s voice on the radio.

  “Quinn!” Ignoring her gun and her authority and shouting for the boss, David pushed Rowley aside and glared down at her as he walked past. “Loose cannon,” he muttered, signaling his men to fall in behind them. Then, in a louder voice, he announced, “Dirty Harriet here almost shot my boys.”

  “What?” She spun around to find Quinn standing on the bottom step. Wasn’t this her op? Wasn’t she the one charged with keeping Fiona Gallagher safe? Wasn’t she good enough to get the job done without Damiani’s interference?

  “It’s all right, Miranda. I know who the three men in the black car are now.” Fiona had a white-knuckled grip around his neck, but her sobs had quieted to deep, stuttering whimpers. “Tell your men to put their guns away around my daughter, Damiani.”

  David pointed a finger and the two men complied.

  Quinn stepped down to the main floor and stood nose to nose with the big man. “And if you ever speak to Miranda in that tone again, you’ll answer to me.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she argued weakly, heartened by his defense of her, yet a little ticked that he thought she couldn’t stand up for herself.

  “This is my fault,” Quinn apologized. “I shouldn’t have expected them to simply go away.”

  Sergeant Delgado’s voice buzzed over the radio again. “We’re ready to come in.”

  “Get the door,” David told his men.

  “What is going on?” she demanded. “We have intruders and nobody’s getting you and Fiona out of here?”

  “Holster your weapon,” Quinn ordered.

  Miranda opened her mouth to protest being spoken to with the same superior disdain that he’d addressed David with. But she snapped her lips shut. Right. Make-out session in the kitchen didn’t happen. Tender looks and cuddling in bed meant nothing. She was the hired help. The nanny. She took orders from Quinn Gallagher just like everyone else around here.

  Fine. If he wanted a cop, she could be a cop. She secured her gun at the back of her waist. “I’m still waiting for an explanation about the alarm.”

  “Take Fiona upstairs.”

  That was his answer? She willingly took Fiona’s slight weight when he placed her in Miranda’s arms. “Quinn?”

  “I didn’t think he’d come to the house when I called.”

  “Who?”

  “They’re here, sir,” Holmes reported.

  “Open the door.” David pulled the front of his jacket back behind the grip of his Beretta and let his hand rest on the weapon holstered on his belt. “Slowly.”

  Resigned to the role of protecting the daughter, even though the father was making that difficult to do, Miranda carried Fiona up the stairs. She stopped halfway up when the front door opened at her feet and Rafe Delgado stepped in. He had a hodgepodge of confiscated weapons tucked into his flak vest and utility belt.

  Two men in suits and coats walked in behind him with their hands folded on top of their heads. One of them was limping. Holden Kincaid came in, his hand beneath the elbow of a frail gray-haired gentleman.

  The older man glanced up as soon as the door was closed and locked behind him, giving her a glimpse of pale gray eyes. Recognition jolted through her. Instinctively, she turned Fiona away from the captured intruders. But Miranda couldn’t take her eyes off the haunted paleness of an obviously ill man. “That’s him. That’s the man I saw in the black BMW out front.”

  Vasily Gordeeva.

  “May I see her?” he asked, his voice thickly accented and sad. “May I see my granddaughter?”

  Chapter Twelve

  1 Day until Midnight, New Year’s Eve

  “Why would you threaten her? She’s your own flesh and blood.”

  Quinn had sat up most of the night in his office study, getting to know Vasily Gordeeva, learning a lesson in Lukinburg history and avoiding the occasional accusatory glare from Miranda. She sat on one of the black leather couches with Fiona and Petra wrapped up in a throw blanket and sleeping in her lap. Vasily’s two “extended family” members had agreed to retire to the kitchen where they shared coffee, a snack and a lack of scintillating conversation with David Damiani and the two other men assigned to guard them. Rafe Delgado and Holden Kincaid stood in the hallway, waiting to escort Vasily and his associates straight to the airport to put them on a plane back to Lukinburg.

  Quinn adjusted the pictures of Val and Fiona and himself on the mantel, then moved each frame back into its original place before turning to his father-in-law. “I can understand you having a vendetta against me, because my wealth made Val a target, and that got her killed. But Fiona—”

  “I would never harm my granddaughter. I came to America specifically to see her, to perhaps spend a few hours with her—my last remaining blood relative—before I die of this cancer.” Vasily sat at the opposite end of the sofa from Miranda, his fingertips touching the edge of the blanket that covered Fiona. He barely looked strong enough to sit upright, much less strike fear into the heart of the Lukinburg government and its citizens after spending nearly two decades in prison. “I am sad, yes, that Valeska did not live long enough to see me out of prison. And I read the papers. I know about the Rich Girl Killer and that he blamed my daughter—your wife—for his failures. I do not hold you responsible.” He stroked the fringe on the blanket without ever once touching or disturbing Fiona. “But I am gravely concerned that you believe I would harm the child.”

  “Somebody wants to.”

  Vasily stroked his thinning beard, thinking for a moment. “Nikolai.”

  “Nikolai Titov? Why? I do business with him. There’s nothing personal between us.”

  “This could be my fault,” Vasily admitted. “When I was released from prison, I asked my associates to find out all they could about you and my daughter in the States. Choices I made as a young man took the people I loved from me. I had money, power. But after so many years alone in a cell, I realized I had nothing. In these last days, I wanted to find my family again.”

  “I’m sorry you’re dying, Vasily. But you and your associates aren’t exactly people I want around my daughter.” Quinn sat in the wing chair across from the couch. “But tell me about Nikolai.”

  “My inquiries may have, as you say, put you on his radar.”

  “I’ve made millions of dollars for that man. How can he have a grudge against me that would justify threatening Fiona?”

  Vasily shook his head sadly. “There are other things in this world of far more value than money, Quinn. Family. Freedom.”

  “Nikolai,” Quinn prompted. If Vasily had answers, he needed them. “Why would I be on his radar?”

  Vasily stroked the blanket again, his gaze lingering over his sleeping granddaughter. W
hen he looked at Quinn again, there was nothing wistful nor ailing in those sharp gray eyes. “You do not know about Nikolai’s son?”

  “I didn’t know he had a son.”

  “I do not suppose our newspapers are as common reading across the ocean as yours are for us.” The old man slowly pushed to his feet. He buttoned his suit coat and straightened his tie before crossing to the mantel to see the pictures of the family he barely knew. “I have heard from a reliable source that Nikolai Titov used your plant in St. Feodor for more than the production of the munitions you created there.”

  “I suspected as much. The shipping numbers never did add up for a facility that size. That’s one reason I closed the plant, though we could never prove anything. What was he funneling through there—drugs?”

  “He contracted with arms dealers to move their illegal arms along with your shipments. Very easy to get through customs with your clearance.”

  Quinn gripped the arms of the chair and channeled his rage into the leather upholstery. Fiona’s life was in danger because of some greedy bastard in a foreign country? And he had the nerve to show up in his office? To wine and dine his assistant? “The clock is ticking, Vasily,” Quinn urged. “Whatever it is, get to the point. Why would Nikolai Titov want to play this crazy game of ‘make it right’ with me? What do I have to make right?”

  Vasily traced his finger along a photograph of Valeska holding their infant daughter. “The men Nikolai worked with blamed him for the five million dollars they lost when the plant closed. They kidnapped his son and demanded he repay them.”

  “Five million dollars?” The extortion numbers added up. Quinn rose and joined him at the fireplace. “So Titov takes my five million and gets his son back.”

  “Not exactly.”

  A softer voice entered the conversation, the voice of a woman who seemed able to figure out the pieces to a puzzle when Quinn could not. “What happened to Nikolai’s son?” Miranda asked.

  Vasily nodded at her perception. “Your plant closed more than a year ago, Quinn. Nikolai could not make the restitution they wanted. So, after seven days…they killed his son.”

  Miranda’s gaze shifted to Quinn. The fear he read there matched his own. “There are seven days from Christmas to New Year’s. This game, these threats…he’s making everything match the same time line he went through with his son. Maybe the bomb, the threats he’s sending, are the same things he went through.”

  “And Ozzie Chang was the inside man he used to get the access to me and GSS he needed.”

  Miranda scooted out from beneath Fiona’s sleeping head and pulled out her cell after carefully tucking the blanket around her again. “We need to get on the phone with KCPD or the FBI. They need to find Titov and arrest him or deport him.”

  “That son of a bitch.” Quinn hurried to his phone to place a call that would wake up Elise Brown. She was the last person he knew to see Titov in Kansas City. He had twenty-four hours to track him down and stop him before he did to Fiona what he’d done to Ozzie Chang and those guards at the Kalahari plant. “I ran a legal business there. He used my company for his illegal activities, but he blames me for his son’s murder?”

  Vasily Gordeeva might be the only person in the room who truly understood that kind of retribution. “An eye for an eye. A child for a child.”

  THE SNOW WAS BLINDING IN THE afternoon sun as Quinn stood in the concourse at the Kansas City International Airport and watched the plane carrying Vasily and his associates back to Lukinburg take off. The FBI agents who’d processed them and put the three men on the plane were talking on their phones while Quinn watched, until it was just a speck in the clear blue sky.

  Taking pity on a dying man, he’d given Vasily the picture of Valeska and Fiona from the mantel. The old man had kissed him on each cheek, and promised that the hours he’d spent with his granddaughter in Kansas City were a true gift that would not be forgotten.

  Fine. Quinn could use the good karma, judging by the icy looks he’d gotten from Miranda since the security alarms had cut short that fiery encounter in the kitchen. What a hell of a time for his emotions and libido to take over his rational thinking. As much as they both seemed to be willing to explore whatever was happening between them, it wouldn’t have been fair to her to have let it go all the way. Quinn’s emotions were a jumble right now, and the fear he felt for Fiona’s safety was as potent as the need he felt for Miranda. His anger at Nikolai Titov and his resentment of Vasily for asking questions about Fiona that had given Titov this sick idea of payback in the first place were mixed in there, too. How was that fair to make love to a woman, to think about having a real relationship with someone besides his wife, when Quinn wasn’t sure what he was feeling at any given moment?

  He needed Miranda to focus on protecting Fiona just as much as he did. Any hurt feelings or misunderstandings or errant hormones sparking between them didn’t matter—couldn’t matter—until this nightmarish game was over and he knew his daughter was safe.

  He’d given a picture and been given a promise in return.

  He’d met a unique, fascinating, wonderful woman who just might be crazy enough to feel something for him, too—and he had to let her go. He had to put his daughter first and ignore the ache in his chest and the hurt in her beautiful green eyes.

  One threat down. Vasily’s spying explained the recurring appearance of the BMWs. His former father-in-law had apologized profusely for drugging the guards in an attempt to get inside the gates, and he had promised Miranda that his men would be severely chastised for shooting at her and running her down with the car. Apparently, he’d had nothing to do with the mysterious package and the bloody doll and the bomb. His search into locating his granddaughter had caught the attention of the man who did, though.

  One threat to go.

  Quinn’s security team was on full alert. Every system had been checked and rechecked. Michael’s SWAT team was positioned around the outside walls of the estate. And Miranda was with Fiona.

  No one on the planet was safer than his daughter.

  He was going to have to disappoint his enemy. Titov could drain Quinn’s bank account if he wanted. But no way was he going to make things right by tomorrow. Or ever. No way was he sacrificing Fiona to assuage another man’s grief and rage for his murdered son.

  Now he had to get home and hold his daughter in his arms until the danger outside their home had passed.

  Both the FBI agents paused in their conversations on their phones. “Are you sure?” one asked.

  “There’s no record of him getting on a plane or a boat? Or slipping over one of the borders?”

  Feeling a dread as cold as the marble floor beneath his feet, Quinn demanded answers from the two men. “You don’t know where Titov is?”

  The first one disconnected his call. “If he left the country, he was using an alias. We haven’t been able to track him.”

  The second agent took Quinn by the arm and led him toward their car, parked outside on the circular curb. “We need to get you to a secure location, Mr. Gallagher.”

  “You need to get me home.”

  As soon as they were on their way, Quinn called the house.

  David Damiani answered. “Sir?”

  “You keep eyes on my daughter at all times. Tell Miranda and Michael Cutler and your men. The Feds can’t find Nikolai. He could be anywhere.”

  24 Minutes until Midnight, New Year’s Eve

  THE FIRST POP SOUNDED LIKE the illegal fireworks the neighbors down the block were setting off to celebrate the coming New Year. Miranda blinked her eyes open to make sure Fiona was still sleeping soundly and checked the time. She wondered if the game would truly end in twenty-four minutes—or, if Nikolai Titov’s idea of making things right wasn’t met, the New Year was when the real nightmare would begin.

  Miranda shifted in the rocking chair, crossed her booted feet and pulled the afghan up around her neck before dozing off again. Why was she so sleepy? Sure, she’d had some late ni
ghts this week, and some emotional ups and downs that had drained her. But she was the last line of defense between Fiona and the horrible thing Titov wanted to do to her. She needed to get on her feet and shake off this terrible fatigue.

  Miranda sat bolt upright at the second pop and immediately paid the price for the rapid movement with the pinball machine playing inside her skull. “What the hell?”

  She could smell it now—the faint tinge of something sulfuric in the air. She squinted at the yellowish mist swirling beneath the hallway door. Oh, my God. This was some kind of gas attack, an airborne sleeping drug that was slowly stealing her consciousness from her.

  “Miranda?”

  She heard Quinn’s voice calling from the hallway. Then she heard a couple of thumps before something big crashed onto the carpet outside the door.

  “Quinn?” She pushed to her feet and stumbled to the bed to hold her hand beneath Fiona’s nose. Good. She was still breathing. So far it was just a sleeping gas and not something more deadly.

  Her legs felt like putty, her feet like lead weights as she grabbed on to the bedposts and pulled herself around the bed. Quinn was in trouble out there, but they all would be if she passed out, too. She changed direction and headed toward the windows on either side of the bookshelf.

  “Miranda?” The door swung open and Quinn collapsed to the floor. He was wearing nothing but his glasses and the sweatpants he slept in. He pushed the door shut and stuffed his robe into the opening at the base of the door. “Gas…coming…from downstairs. Is she…okay?”

  “We need air.” She fell against the bookshelf, hitting her injured arm. The sting of pain shooting up her arm and down into her fingers revived her for a moment. “We need to get a window open.”

  “Fiona?” Quinn was crawling across the carpet now, pulling himself toward his daughter.

  Miranda unlatched the first window and tried to raise it. But she was so weak. Her knees buckled before she could reach the second window. They were all alone. She was alone. Always alone.

  As the blackness threatened to overtake her, she heard a sharp voice. “Miranda!” Quinn’s voice. Quinn needed her. “You can do this, sweetheart. Save her.”