by Alice Sharpe
And she knew if she looked up at him all teary-eyed, he’d kiss her. How she longed to do just that. But a kiss wasn’t enough, either. And he’d made it clear a kiss was all he would offer.
And factored into this was the memory of what Carson had said about Nick’s wife’s death. Was it really not an accident? Had the car been aimed at Nick’s father? It could explain why Bill had left the “accident” scene so abruptly. If Bill had seen Carson behind the wheel and realized his presence in Nick’s life had just resulted in Patricia’s injury, Bill might have reacted with a sort of valor: get out of town before Nick and Lily were the next to be hurt.
Or maybe Carson had said all that to terrorize Katie. It had worked. She’d frozen. Maybe it wasn’t true.
She couldn’t bring this up with Nick right that moment, not out here in a foggy parking lot. He’d need time to consider this and think and mourn again. She couldn’t ask him to toss off this startling news without privacy. They had a job to do.
She disentangled herself from his embrace. “Let’s get this over with,” she said.
He nodded, but his attention stayed on her face longer than necessary, and she fancied she could feel heat rising up her neck. It was as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. All of it. The evasions, the longing…everything.
From his wallet, he extracted the scrap of paper he’d taken from his father’s pocket just a day or so before. He turned on the phone and punched in the numbers, then looked at Katie as he hit Send.
Katie paced up and down the weed-infested asphalt, staring at Nick as he waited for someone to answer the phone. She stopped breathing when he finally said, “Yes. It’s Bill Thurman. I have what you want. How’s my wife?”
Nick had pitched his voice deeper and somehow sounded as though he had a head cold. He was portraying himself as his father…
He listened for a second before saying, “With all due respect, Benito, I don’t trust you any more than you trust me. You’re not getting anything until I see my wife, until I take her hand. I’ll hand over the ledger then and there, but not the money. Sure, I still have your money, what did you think, I’d spend it? The money is my way out of this. You’ll get it when I get my wife back and not a second before.”
What were the chances Benito would agree to that? Katie opened her mouth to protest and closed it without speaking. She’d given the job of contacting this man to Nick. When had she seen him ever do anything he hadn’t thought out?
Nick said, “I can find it. Sure. Okay. Bring a computer.” He listened for another minute or two and said, “I understand. Midnight. Before any of this happens, though, I need to know she’s okay. Let me talk to her.” More waiting, and then he hung up the phone.
“Did they let you talk to her?” Katie demanded.
“No. They said she’s not with them.” He took a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled a list of directions on the paper with the phone number. “We have eight hours to get back to Seattle and arrange things,” he said, approaching her.
“Arrange what?”
“I’ll tell you in the car. It’s time we got some help. There’s just one thing I want you to keep in mind. This is organized crime we’re talking about. If Benito or any of his buddies ever find out who we are, we’re dead meat.”
“That’s why you used your father’s name.”
“Exactly. They already know about him. Carson is dead, so we’re safe there. If we can pull this off, my father and your mother can disappear into a witness-protection program.”
Katie said, “Disappear—”
“They’ll have to, honey.”
Tears burned behind Katie’s nose. Was he telling her that her mother was going to be whisked away the moment they found her? What about Tess? Tess needed to see her mother. Needed to hold her and be comforted and introduce her fiancé, Ryan Hill, and make wedding plans… What about Tess?
What about me? Katie admitted to herself. After all this, am I never going to have the chance for a heart-to-heart talk? I need to understand how she could leave me. Will I be denied that in the rush?
“There’s no other way,” Nick said. “It’s not just Benito—you know, it’s the organization that stands behind him as well. From the way he talked just now, Benito didn’t seem to know Carson had followed your father to Alaska, maybe even that he took him there himself to retrieve the money. Benito seemed surprised my father still had the money. Maybe Carson was supposed to trail my dad and keep an eye on him, but maybe in the end he got excited about recovering the money for himself, never planning on telling Benito anything about it. At any rate, we can’t be sure Benito isn’t expecting Carson to contact him. When he doesn’t, they may come looking for him and that might lead him to us. I don’t want to disappear forever, do you?”
She blinked back the tears, figuratively squared her shoulders and abandoned self-pity. “No, I don’t want to disappear forever.” Unless it’s with you and Lily was her next, unspoken thought, but it wasn’t true. She liked her life. She had plans! She had no desire to become someone else. She’d done that for a few weeks after her father died, before a hit-and-run driver put her in the hospital. It had been lonely and scary and she didn’t want to do it again.
“I’m going to make sure we have a life-insurance policy,” Nick added.
“Just like your dad,” she said.
He stared at her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made a comparison. Listen, Nick. There’s something I need to tell you—”
“Can it wait?” he whispered, his face so close she could almost taste him.
She stared at his well-formed lips. “Yes,” she finally said. “It can wait.”
But she couldn’t.
She’d take what she could get. She closed the gap between them, touching his lips with hers, a surge of pure molten lava pulsing through her body, heating her mouth, her touch, crying out to him silently, praying he could hear her.
Praying he wanted to.
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline heard the noise in her sleep.
She’d been dreaming of the day she left Matt. Of Katie sitting up in her crib, innocently watching her mother and sister getting ready for a trip.
Of the last kiss and the tears that had slipped from Caroline’s eyes and fallen on Katie’s round, pink cheeks.
Her car was in the driveway. Matt was warming up the engine. It was old, he said. You had to warm it up before you drove it. Pretty soon she’d be gone and she wouldn’t warm it up if she didn’t want to.
He’d taken Tess from her for a moment, kissed her forehead, handed her back, watched as Caroline buckled the baby in her car seat.
Katie inside the house, behind the door. Tess in a car seat, bound for…
Caroline didn’t know where. She didn’t care.
She and Matt had looked at each other then. Maybe for the first time in weeks, they’d studied each other’s faces, looking perhaps for a sign of weakness, waiting for one of them to cry foul and call it all off, put their family back together again, ready to limp along into the future.
Neither of them blinked. Caroline had put the car in gear and driven away.
The car sounded funny. There was something wrong with the engine. She wouldn’t be able to leave if the old wreck broke down now, and her heart started hammering.
She cried out and woke suddenly.
The engine noise came from outside, the first noise she’d heard in days.
Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs, rattling in her shell of a body. She coughed into her hand and shivered.
She heard voices. Someone was coming.
More noise and she shielded her eyes as her roof suddenly disappeared. Three men stood above her, their faces obscured by the bright lights they shone in her eyes. She threw up an arm to protect her vision. She saw guns. One man said something and the others laughed and she knew it was because it looked as though she’d turned into a wild animal in that hole.
She didn
’t bow her head. When they yelled at her to stand up, she stood, without help, wavering on her feet, faint headed, the cough rattling her chest. But she stood and breathed in the fresh, cold, wet air.
And scanning the men until she could finally see a face.
Her voice hoarse, she demanded, “Where in the hell is Bill? What have you done with my husband?”
THE DRIVING INSTRUCTIONS Nick was given over the phone led to an abandoned construction site out in the middle of nowhere. He drove along a dirt road, lights jouncing and car lurching as it dipped into potholes and rattled across abandoned odds and ends.
The road didn’t look as though it had been traveled in years, but of course there could be half a dozen ways in and out. It was too dark to tell if anyone else was already there.
He had a bad feeling about this. It didn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out Benito wasn’t going to let anyone walk who might be able to finger him. Frankly, he was doubtful that Caroline was still alive, though he hadn’t shared that insight with Katie. The fact that Benito hadn’t allowed her to talk to him was worrisome, as was the fact that his father had seen and talked with Benito and his associates. If Caroline had seen their faces, too, she was dead.
He’d kept the money out of the exchange in the feeble hope that getting that back would delay any retaliation against him. It was his one slim chance.
There could very well be a shallow grave already dug out in this mess. There could be another one, wide open and waiting—for him. His headlights picked out deep depressions in the distance, foundation footings no doubt. Stacks of rusting rebar, scattered lumber and piles of bricks also sculpted the landscape. What little breeze there was ruffled battered lengths of ghostly plastic sheeting. At least it wasn’t foggy this far inland.
The last several hours had seen a flurry of activity. The drive to Seattle, a meeting, phone calls, talking, shopping. They were here now, though Nick would have given a great deal to be alone, to know that Katie was safe somewhere behind him. She’d argued that since no one was expecting her, she’d be perfect to cover his back. This was crazy, of course, but he wasn’t her keeper. He had no right to tell her how much or how little she should be involved in rescuing her mother.
Hell, she hadn’t seen the woman since she was a few months old. He sensed there was more going on here for Katie than a rescue attempt.
They only had one gun, the one Carson had dropped as he fell overboard. Katie had a license to carry, thanks to her late father’s urging, and she knew how to protect herself, but she refused to even hold it. He knew she was still hurting over killing Carson, but he hated leaving her unarmed. The gun was in his jacket pocket. It would be his job to make sure no one got past him to harm her. Period. And to him that meant he’d sacrifice her mother if he had to. Katie would never forgive him if it came to that, but he’d just have to go through the rest of his life knowing she was alive to hate him.
“Stay down,” he warned her. She’d consented to keep her head low, her profile invisible. So everything was as ready as it could get considering how foolhardy it suddenly seemed.
Beside him, Katie, reading his mind again, mused, “Funny how sensible this all seemed a couple of hours ago, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at her delicate face. “Get lower,” he demanded. “All the way on the floor. Please.”
She slid her seat way back and curled herself up on the passenger-side floor as he’d asked. It was a tight fit, even for someone as petite as she. And for some reason, staring down at her, his mind flashed to Lily.
But he couldn’t think of Lily. He’d done what he could to protect her and provide for her and he would do everything in his power to return to her. But thinking about her tore his heart out of his chest, so he carefully put thoughts of her away in a private place. Katie was in there, too. At least she would be when this was over and she’d moved on with her life.
“The last two days have been so focused on finding the information your father hid,” she mused. “Now that we have the ledger and the money, I have a terrible feeling it won’t do us much good.”
“Battleground jitters,” he said, trying to make out her features in the dim light. He smiled broadly to boost her morale and added, “Remember. Don’t let them see your face. Put on that mask we bought and keep it on. Your future depends on them not knowing who you are. No matter what happens, stay incognito.”
“I got you,” she said, slipping on the Snow White mask they’d purchased earlier that day. He leaned down to straighten it for her and she reached up and dabbed at the dark greasepaint she’d helped smear on his jaw, hoping to give the impression of an unshaved, older, at-the-end-of-his-rope husband.
He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. When he glanced out the windshield again, he saw a flashing light a few hundred yards away.
“There’s my cue. Please, Katie, stay in the car,” he said softly. “If you hear any shooting, for God’s sake stay hidden till the smoke clears.”
“I will.”
He didn’t believe her for a moment. She’d come running and get herself caught in the crossfire. “I mean it,” he said seriously.
“Just go.”
He got out of the car. No interior light went on because he’d taken the precaution of removing the bulb. He tugged on the cowboy hat he’d bought that afternoon and pulled it low, covering his hair and the upper part of his face. He zipped the coat that looked like the one his father had been wearing. When he walked, he tried to affect an anxious, shuffling manner, like a man twenty-five years older, a man worried sick about his wife. A stumble here and there, a swearword when he hit a rock. He pitched his voice lower to match the voice he’d used earlier that day on the phone and added the nasal quality.
“Stop shining that damn light in my face!” he yelled when he was almost there. He had one arm up and he slouched a little. Another fear was that if Caroline was still alive she’d realize Nick wasn’t her husband and say something that would give him away.
The light lowered. He could see three men standing by a car. A smaller figure seemed to be tied up on the ground behind them, bent over in a sitting position, head bowed and resting on bent knees. His heart raced. That had to be Caroline and he’d just seen her head turn when he spoke.
“Where are my books?” one of the men called.
“That you, Benito?”
“Yeah, it’s me, you dirty thief. I have half a mind to blow your brains out right this moment. You and the little woman.”
Nick’s grip on the automatic in his pocket tightened. “Come on now, Benito, no hard feelings, huh? I got your ledger right here.”
“How about my money, you slimeball?”
Nick imitated a nervous chuckle. “I ain’t that stupid. I don’t have your money on me. You want your money, you give me my wife.”
“Hand over the books, you crook,” Benito said.
Nick said, “Catch,” and threw the flash drive at the group of men. It pinged when it hit something on the ground. One man swept his flashlight until he found it. He seemed to be the brains of the outfit, as it was he who picked up the drive and took it to a laptop set up on the hood of the car, inserted it and clicked a few keys.
“It’s not here, boss,” he said. “It’s all gobbledygook.”
“It’s a code, you moron. How about the pictures of me and Ciddici?”
“Yeah, they’re here.”
“Now I want my wife,” Nick said.
“You come and get her.”
“No, no. You send her to me.”
“She’s a little weak in the knees.”
Nick’s stomach turned over. He didn’t try to keep his voice from reflecting his revulsion as he said, “Listen, you scumbag. If you hurt her—”
“What are you gonna do?” Benito called. “Come after me?”
“Just send her over here with one of your boys. He can walk us back to the car. I’ll tell him where to find the money. We go our way, you go yours.”
/> “Now you trust me?” Benito said.
“No way. Have your guy strip down to his skivvies. I’ll keep him covered, you keep me covered.”
“Mutual respect, I like that,” Benito crowed with a belly laugh. He added, “Kenny. You been working out, you strip.”
“It’s cold out here. I don’t—”
“Now.” There was more bellyaching, but eventually Kenny stripped down to shoes, socks, boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Even in the indirect light, the man looked like a gigantic muscle.
With one hand, he grabbed Caroline’s arm and pulled her to her feet. She cried out.
“Hey! Watch it!” Nick called. “Shine a light on her.”
Kenny did. Dressed in flimsy pajamas, streaked with mud, she looked filthy, cold, frightened and sick. They’d gagged her. Nick could tell from her expression she had no idea who he was. If they’d left that gag out of her mouth, she would have given him away.
But she also looked as though she was in one piece, and there was little more he could do for her at the moment than get her out of there.
“Come on, Carrie,” he said fondly. “We’ll get you home.”
Kenny started walking toward Nick, supporting Caroline’s weight. Nick thought things would probably go okay until they got close to the rental car and then the fun would begin. The thing about a thumbnail drive no one had mentioned was the ease with which it could be copied. Nick hadn’t mentioned it just to see if Benito would. Benito hadn’t. There was no way Benito would ever let Nick and Caroline walk away that night when a dozen copies could be floating around in a dozen computers, even if it was doubtful anyone could read the code.
There would be gunfire; there would be a battle. He’d arranged it; he expected it. Nick’s main goal was to keep Katie and her mother safe.
He leaned down to Caroline and whispered, “Can you run?”
She shook her head. The whites of her eyes were huge in the reflected light, communicating quite clearly, I can barely walk and you want me to run?
