by Jenna Ryan
Chapter Sixteen
“We can’t stay here.” Haden’s fingers were cutting off the circulation in Isabella’s arm. “We can’t leave.” His head swiveled every which way. “We have to do something.”
“I know.” But all she could think about right then was Donovan. “He gave me a gun,” she recalled as they backtracked to the entry hall. “It’s in my car.”
“We can lock ourselves inside, wait for the paramedics.”
Or the deputies, Isabella thought. One of them, an older man, was slow but efficient. He might be willing to help them find Donovan. As for Orry…
The lights around them, already dim, began to flicker and fade. They retreated into the storm and finally reached her car. Isabella scrabbled through the glove box until she found Donovan’s backup gun.
“Should we go and meet whoever’s first on the road?” Haden sounded frantic. He rubbed his palms on the legs of his pants. “Don’t wanna leave Donovan, but he’s had a lot of training, and we haven’t. What do you think?”
The sound of cracking wood prevented Isabella from answering. Grabbing Haden’s arm, she stared in fascinated horror as a large tree started to list.
“Out, out, out,” Haden yelled, and plunged from his seat to the puddled ground.
Isabella did the same, then scrambled to her feet and ran.
Behind them, the tree gave a drunken lurch. When the wind swooped down again, the trunk broke in two.
The base didn’t hit her car, but the outermost branches hit on the roof as the behemoth pine landed, bounced and eventually settled.
“Back inside,” she shouted to Haden, who gaped at the destruction. She tugged on his arm. “We can’t stay out here.”
Huge gusts of wind buffeted them. Even Haden with his bulk made little headway against it. Planting both hands on her back, he shoved until they were inside, panting and rattled and no safer in Isabella’s opinion then if they’d been standing under the felled pine.
The racket of the storm diminished once they wrestled the door closed. Isabella pushed wet strands of hair from her face and ordered herself to think. Donovan was here somewhere. So were a dead man and a murderer.
Gordie Tallahassee had been Darlene’s partner, one she’d come to view as dangerous. So who’d killed him, and why? And where was Donovan?
Pressing her fingers to her temples, she lowered herself onto a broad tread at the base of the staircase.
Haden sat with her for a moment, then pulled a large handkerchief from his jacket pocket and stood to pace. The Dark family tree he’d stuffed in with it landed on the stairs next to her hip.
Overhead, the light shivered and danced. Isabella lowered her hands and adjusted her grip on Donovan’s gun.
Orry had come here with him today. Not willingly, but he’d come. Was that a good or bad thing? Was there more to the acting sheriff than anyone knew?
She didn’t realize she was staring at the light until her vision began to go spotty.
“Stop it,” she said out loud and wrenched her gaze from the trembling bulb. “Donovan’s fine. He’ll be fine. Maybe he’s already caught the person who killed Gordie.”
More big branches thudded against the roof and walls. Thunder crashed directly over the peak.
The scream in Isabella’s head returned. She closed her eyes, fought it. Opened them, breathed in, then out. Skimmed over a name on the paper beside her and looked away.
Lightning shot through the blackened sky. With it, as if jolted from some dusty corner of her mind, a memory shimmered to life.
“Morris.” She repeated the surname she’d just glimpsed. Wanted to shake it off, but couldn’t. Picking up the family tree, she read the name again and felt her blood turn to ice water.
The lines of descent went up, down and sideways. To the left, she saw the name Georgina—George—Solomon Calvert. To the right, in a line that came down from Aaron and on through his niece Elspeth, a woman called Davina Morris.
“Oh—my—God!” A thud reached her as she stood in slow motion, paper in hand. “Haden, I know one of the people on this tree. Davina Morris was married for eighteen months. She and her husband had a son called Da—” Her eyes came up. The name stuck briefly then slipped out in a shocked whisper “—vid.”
“HELLO, ISABELLA.” A grin of delight stretched her ex-boyfriend’s mouth like a rubber band. It widened the longer she stared. But what else could she do? She was having a nightmare. No, worse, a night terror.
David Morris Gimbel was dead. She’d seen the death certificate. She’d gone to the funeral, to the reading of his will. She’d put flowers on his grave.
A thousand thoughts raced through her head.
He’d knocked Haden out. That was the thump she’d heard a moment ago. He’d undoubtedly murdered Gordie Tallahassee as well.
What else might he have done?
Keeping her eyes on his face, she raised her gun to his chest. “Where’s Donovan?” she demanded and watched humor descend into disappointment.
“Is that all you have to say? I return from the dead—oh, the miracle of it—and you ask me about a man who’s as good as dead himself?”
She understood enough about the situation and David not to let him see the relief that swamped her. “You’re a Dark,” she stated without inflection. “That’s why you bought the manor.”
He wagged a finger. “No, no, no, that’s how I was able to fast-talk the coot who owned it into selling me the manor. Oh, I laid it on thick, Isabella. I believe at one point I actually welled up. As for the actual purchase, I did that for an entirely different reason.”
She could see Haden breathing, but again let nothing show. Wasn’t sure what to show in any case. Fear might excite David. Anger might send him right over the slippery edge.
When he made a move toward her, she straight-armed the gun.
The smile returned to his lips. “Sweet Isabella…” Tutting, he extended his hands, palms up. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.”
“Where’s Donovan, David? Where’s Katie? Why the elaborate charade?”
“All good questions. Lower the gun, and I’ll give you some good answers.”
“Move away from Haden first.”
He set a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded, truly wounded. You think I’d kick a man when he’s down? Or no, wait.” Altering the position of his upturned palms, he twirled in a slow circle. “You must be thinking I’d—” he whipped out a nine-millimeter Glock, aimed it at Haden’s head “—kill him.”
David’s dark eyes glittered with an intensity that sent needles of fear through every part of Isabella’s body.
“Since I’m the one who toppled him, you’d be right about that. Drop the gun, Bella, or Uncle Bear becomes part of the dust he’s laying in.”
He’d do it, she realized, in a heartbeat. Absorbing his fierce stare, she lowered her arms.
“Pretty sure I said drop it, sweetheart.”
She glanced at Haden and complied.
A lopsided grin crooked David’s mouth. “She always was a smart cookie,” he said with a wink for the unconscious man at his feet. “That’s why I chose her to be my forever paramour. I’d say wife, but the connotations aren’t as glamorous, are they, or as intriguing? That was Aaron’s mistake. He married Sybil and in so doing took the edge off their romance. She was forced to seek her titillation elsewhere. Like Isabella did when she thought I was dead.” His eyes hardened to stone. “You can imagine how peeved I was to discover that she had feelings for your soon-to-be departed nephew. But of course those feelings were false.” He half squeezed the trigger of his gun, smiled with his teeth only. “Weren’t they, darling?”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Completely false. Donovan’s not… He means nothing to me.”
The smile spread, but still didn’t touch his eyes. “Did I say smart cookie? I meant brilliant cookie. Tell me you love me, Bella.”
She struggled to keep her fingers from balling into fists. “Tell me where Kat
ie is first. And Don—Haden’s nephew.”
“Brilliant,” David repeated and gave Haden’s leg a none-too-gentle kick. “Oops, said I wouldn’t do that, didn’t I?”
“Please, David, where are they?”
He set a sneakered foot on the big man’s back, released a gusty breath. “So stubborn… Whoa!” He glanced at the trembling ceiling. “That was some peal of thunder. Think my gun might make a bigger boom?”
Before she could respond, he snapped the barrel sideways and blasted out one of the windows.
“Oh, damn, now this beautiful entryway’s going to get all wet. We’ll have to relocate, Bella. Question is…” Crouching, he stuck the smoking barrel into Haden’s temple. “Do we leave Uncle Bear alive, or as dead as the brainless moron in the other room?” He cupped a palm to his ear. “I believe I hear the sound of approaching sirens. Your choice, my darling. You’ve got five seconds.” He put visible pressure on the trigger. “Now you’ve got four…three…two…”
DISCOVERING THAT SOMEONE wanted him dead came as no surprise to Donovan. It wasn’t the first time, and it wasn’t important. Only Isabella’s safety mattered.
“I swear,” the man he was holding insisted, “I didn’t get a good look at the guy. Only people I bother to notice are women.”
Donovan regarded him for a long moment, decided he was probably telling the truth and released him with a shove. “Go on, beat it. Don’t let me see you again.”
The man, who claimed his name was Smith, started off. After ten yards, however, he turned back. “The lady you’re worried about took the heat off me for a while. She’s pretty and my cat liked her, so I’ll tell you this before I disappear. The guy who wants you dead left something hanging outside the ballroom the day before your girlfriend got caught in that foot trap. I took it because I thought the stone in the center might be a diamond.” He fished in a grubby pocket. “You can decide if it helps.”
He handed Donovan a key ring with a heavy silver fob, an empty spot where a gemstone might have been mounted, and three carved initials.
DMG.
IF HE’D HAD A MOMENT to spare, it might have surprised Donovan that Orry kept pace with him in the tunnels. As it was, all he could think about was Isabella and the danger she’d be in if DMG—David Morris Gimbel—got hold of her.
“I don’t understand,” Orry panted in his wake. “You say Gimbel’s after her, but he’s dead. I was at the accident site with Sheriff Crookshank. Car was there, body was there and your own uncle was talking to him when he flew over the cliff. The first mate on Milt Walker’s fishing boat saw a red Corvette go up in flames.”
“The car crashed and burned, Orry, and someone’s body with it. But it wasn’t David Gimbel’s.”
“That’s crazy. Are you sure this Smith character wasn’t just spinning a convenient yarn?”
“I’d say the odds are in his favor.” He just hoped like hell they were in Isabella’s as well.
“So Gimbel’s alive and…what? I assume there’s a point to everything he’s done. I mean, other than he’s a loon and needs a long rest in a rubber room. Why the elaborate charade?”
It was a question Donovan had been asking himself for several hundred yards now, with no satisfactory answers.
Gimbel obviously had an agenda, one that was unlikely to involve the local twosome Smith had also spotted slinking around the manor, planting ankle traps and ball bearings and arrows in front doors.
Orry’s breathing became a wheeze, but that didn’t stop him from puffing out another question. “Why did he—shoot at us—on the cliff?”
Donovan veered left at the fork. “I don’t think he did. I’ll explain that part of it later. Right now, we need to get back into the manor.”
“Ho, wait, what?” Orry grabbed his arm and dragged him to a halt. “In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a nutcase wandering around that house. Call me a bad sport, but I’d rather not wind up on a slab in the town morgue.”
Bending at the waist, Donovan took a precious moment to breathe. “Gimbel didn’t set those traps in the ballroom, Orry. He didn’t shoot at us, and he isn’t responsible for that wail we’ve been hearing.”
“But…”
“I don’t have time for this, okay? I have to trust the caveman, and you have to trust me. Gimbel wants Isabella. I’m guessing alive, but I have no idea why or how long he intends to keep her that way. What I do know is that I’m going to stop him. Now, you can either come along and help, or get yourself out of here. One way or another, I’m going up. Savvy?”
The deputy stared and finally nodded. “Yeah, okay, I’m in. I’ll—” Exhausted, he motioned forward. “Go.”
It took them an eternity, and a number of wrong turns to backtrack to the ballroom entrance. The hidden door, Donovan noticed, was closed. Exchanging gun for light, he angled his beam upward.
Orry opted not to wait. He brushed past and mounted the stone stairs. He was banging on the stuck frame when Donovan spied the trip wire. Swearing, he took the stairs two at a time. “Orry, don’t! There’s a—”
It was all he got out. A second later, the wire snapped, the door exploded and both the deputy and Donovan were flung to the rocky ground below.
SOMETHING—NOT THUNDER—blasted through the passageway with enough force to make the battery lamps David had wedged into the stone walls quiver.
Steps in front of him, Isabella spun. She saw the bottled amusement on his face and fought to contain her panic. “What have you done?”
“With any luck, Bella, dear, I’ve annihilated the competition.”
An iron band tightened around her lungs. He nodded enthusiastically at the horror she couldn’t mask.
“Yes, that’s it. Kaboom. Bye-bye fed. Of course, I’ll have to make sure he’s dead, but it’s an excellent bet. I probably should have offed his Bigfoot uncle, too. You like him, though, and he didn’t see me, and I wanted to throw you a bone since I’ll have to do something rather dastardly before I’m done here.”
Isabella’s mind reeled, but she held fast to her conviction. David Gimbel wasn’t clever enough to kill Donovan.
Because she knew he wanted her to react, she turned and continued walking. “You’re despicable, David. But you needn’t have gone to such extremes. I told you, I wasn’t in love with Donovan.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’d say I wasted a perfectly good bomb, but the thing is, no matter how you felt about him, the late Agent Black was in love with you.”
“What is it you want from me?”
“Nothing from you, darling.” He enunciated the words. “I simply want you. Your affection would be nice, but your physical presence will do if that’s all you’ve got to give.”
“Is that supposed to be an answer?”
“It’s a very precise answer.” Zipping up close behind her, he used his gun to play with her hair. “You see, my pretty, you left me. Decided I wasn’t the man for you and walked away. Just like Sybil walked away from Aaron.”
“Sybil had a lover. And she didn’t walk, she ran.”
“Minor difference. One day she belonged to Aaron, the next she didn’t, or claimed she didn’t. So he hunted her down, killed her lover and imprisoned her. We’ll set aside the fact that she was pregnant with lover boy’s child, because I’m certain it doesn’t apply insofar as our parallel story is concerned. The point is, he meant to keep her locked up for life, and that’s precisely the plan I have for you.” His tone took on a mirthful edge. “Too bad about the dastardly part.”
Isabella wondered how she managed to stay on her feet when her legs had turned to rubber. Somehow she cast him an unperturbed look. “There’s worse you can do than plot a lifelong abduction and commit multiple acts of murder?”
He rocked his head back and forth. “Maybe not in the grand scheme. But on a personal level—aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“I told you, David, I didn’t love…” She caught back a sudden breath. “Katie!”
The gun stroked her cheek. “I
nteresting that your cousin seems to have slipped to the perimeter of your mind. I mean, with you two being so close and all, and Donovan meaning less than nothing to you.”
Isabella’s temper sparked to life. “Must be the shock of seeing you again. And maybe having your gun in my face.”
“Oh, come now, Bella, you can’t really expect me to trust you. I might be a Dark by birth, but I’m also an attorney with a cynical side to my personality. By the way, do you still like squab?”
“I never liked squab.”
His jaw dropped. “You mean you lied?”
Too late, she spied the trap. “I was being polite,” she told him. “I didn’t want to hurt your sister’s feelings.”
“Stepsister. One you referred to more than once as Cruella DeVillain.” He jabbed the underside of her chin with his Glock. “You love him, don’t you?”
She strove for a calm tone. “Does it matter?”
“I’ll let you know. Go on, keep walking. We’re almost there.” Before she could, however, he set his mouth next to her ear, blew lightly at her hair. When he didn’t draw the expected shiver, he sighed. “So stubborn.” He gave her a shove. “Okay, move. I’ve hung around this town too long as it is. Planted an earring for you. That was finally discovered. Left a rather distinctive calling card with my initials on it as well. Unfortunately, someone got there before you and stole it. You just can’t trust anyone these days, can you, babe? And we both know how our outing in the van went thanks to your dead fed.” He blew in her ear, then gave her another shove. “Stop dragging your feet, Isabella. Revised or not, I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“A sched—” She stopped the question when he giggled. Giggled?
He crawled his fingers up and over her shoulder. “You want to punch me, don’t you, Bella? You’re hoping, praying that the fed’s not dead, and the Dark knight will rush in to thwart the Dark prince.” His voice softened to an eerie whisper. “Don’t hold your breath, sweetheart. I used a heavy hand when wiring my explosive device.” He hooked his gun arm around Isabella’s neck. “You’re it for getting yourself out of here.” Keeping his voice genial, he gave her throat a squeeze. “Meantime, would you care to hear my plan?”
