by Joyce Lamb
Not until Grant Maxwell had been shot and Lucas hurt had the realization struck her that Layton's intentions had turned deadly. So while knowing her had most certainly placed Emma and the Maxwells in peril, she had put them there unwittingly.
She started to cry again, for what knowing her had cost them. And Mitch's arms never left her, nor did his hand ever stop its soothing caress against her back.
Sniffling, she tilted her head back to meet his worried gaze. "I've cried on you more than anyone I've ever known. If it keeps up, you might need to invest in flippers and nose plugs."
Smiling, he pressed his lips to her temple. "You can cry on me anytime."
"Just so you know, I don't make it a habit."
"Maybe you should," he said. "Holding all those feelings inside isn't good for you."
Stroking a hand over his chest, she said, "Emma would have liked you."
"Emma?"
"The woman I told Addison about. She would have approved."
"Thank God."
Sobering, she savored the scrape of stubble on his jaw against her fingertips. "He might go after your son," she said.
"He doesn't know anything about Tyler."
"He'll find out."
"You're not going to frighten me away, Alaina. So give it a rest." With that, he placed a quick, hard kiss on her lips. "Do you want to shower first or shall I?"
* * *
Dressed in jeans, T-shirt and one of Mitch's flannel shirts, Alaina was sitting on the bed, brushing out her wet hair, listening to the shower running in the other room, when Mitch's cellphone rang. Picking it up, she flipped it open. "Hello?"
Silence answered her.
"Hello?" she said again. "Is someone there?"
"Alaina."
She flinched, the brush slipping out of her fingers and landing with a hollow thunk on the floor. She'd know that voice anywhere.
"I know it's you, Alaina. I hear you breathing."
"What do you want?" she asked.
"So Mitch was telling the truth. He really does have you in his possession."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ah, this is rich. You really have no idea, do you?"
"Make your point, Layton."
He chuckled. "So tough. So unsuspecting. He said he's been pretending to protect you until he could bring you to me. Tonight, in fact. Did he tell you about our meeting later?"
She didn't believe him for an instant. "You're lying."
"That was always your problem, wasn't it? You trusted too easily. You always believed in the good in people. But some people have only as much good in them as you pay them to have."
"Goodbye, Layton."
Quickly, he said, "Addison won't be showing up with Jonah like the two of you agreed."
Her heart dropped as if he'd just kicked it off the roof of a skyscraper.
"Are you still there?" The bastard sounded playful.
"Yes."
"I'm taking him away, Ali. Out of the country. You'll never see him again."
Pain knifed into her. "No."
"Perhaps you'd like to come say goodbye."
Shaking, she gripped the phone so tight her wrist ached. "Where?"
He gave her an address. "Take a cab. I'll buzz you in at the gate. And Ali?"
She held her breath.
"Come alone. Anyone who shows up with you I'll consider a threat and I might take it out on the kid. Got it?"
She bit into her bottom lip. "Yes."
* * *
Mitch strode out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair dripping. He wondered if there was time to make love to Alaina one more time before they left. He couldn't seem to get enough of her.
Near the bed, though, he paused, confusion giving way to alarm as he realized that she was not in the room. He started to turn when something on top of the sheets caught his attention. His cellphone.
He snatched it up, opened it. Caller ID told him the name of the last person to call his number, and his blood went icy.
Throwing off the towel, he pulled on his clothes with shaking hands.
What was she doing? Had she gone after Keller? Why would she do that without telling him?
Oh, Jesus, Keller would kill her.
He reached for his holster and froze.
His gun was gone.
Chapter 35
Alaina sat in the cab, trying to be patient with the traffic jam, but her pulse was racing.
Layton's words haunted her. "Some people have only as much good in them as you pay them to have."
Did that mean he had paid Mitch to set her up?
"He's been pretending to protect you until he could bring you to me."
"That was always your problem, wasn't it? You trusted too easily."
Her heart told her Layton was lying, but her head told her she couldn't afford to take a chance. Her head was also telling her that she was being foolish for going to Layton like this when she knew he wanted her dead. But she couldn't not go. Not when Jonah's well-being -- his life -- were at stake.
She looked down at Mitch's backpack on her lap. His gun was inside, so she wouldn't be confronting Layton unarmed. She only hoped she would be able to pull the trigger this time.
* * *
"Chuck, we've got a problem."
"Slow down. What is it?"
"Alaina has gone to confront Keller."
"How the hell did she get away from you?"
"It doesn't matter. You've got agents watching Keller's house?"
"Yes."
"Tell them to intercept her." Seeing the traffic jam ahead, he slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. Fuck.
"How do you know she's gone to his house?" Chuck asked.
"Keller wants to be in control, and the only place he can be completely in control is on his own turf." He thought of his missing gun, and his insides lurched. While he had seen firsthand Alaina's inability to shoot someone to protect herself, he didn't doubt for a second that she wouldn't hesitate to take out anyone who stood between her and Jonah.
"Dammit, Chuck, tell them she's armed."
* * *
The cab dropped Alaina in front of Layton Keller's palatial home in an old neighborhood that overlooked a golf course and the Potomac River. The area was quiet and regal, the houses few and far between, odd for the D.C. suburbs, where such acreage was rare and so expensive that only the truly rich could afford it.
She approached the gate, noting the camera positioned at the top of the gate, aimed at an intercom where visitors could announce their arrival. Before she could approach the device, a black sedan rolled into the short driveway in front of the gate. Two men were in the car, but only one got out and walked toward her. He looked like an FBI agent, dressed in a dark suit, white dress shirt, tie with diagonal, alternating red and navy stripes, and shiny black shoes. He struck her as a little gawky, so thin and youthful that he might have been a teen without the pimples.
"Ms. Chancellor?" he called.
Alaina shifted her weight from one foot to the other, telling herself to be patient even though every cell in her body was screaming at her to get to Jonah. She was so close. "Yes?"
Holding the inside of his wrist near his lips, he spoke softly into what she assumed was a microphone. A white, curly cord dangled behind one ear. Pausing before her, he flashed a badge. "Special Agent Bristol, FBI. Will you come with me, ma'am?"
She hesitated, casting a glance at the camera above the gate. If she went with the agent, she would blow her one and only chance of seeing Jonah, of getting him away from Layton. Casually, she slipped her hand into Mitch's backpack and closed her fingers around the cool butt of his gun. She had no intention of firing it, of course. All she had to do was point it at the guy and force him to back off until Layton buzzed her in. But the thought of pointing a gun at this man, this federal agent who looked not that much older than her own son, made her shudder. What if he pulled his own weapon?
"Ma'am?"
She let the backpack drop to the ground.
The agent focused on the pistol in her hand, but his expression didn't change. "You don't need that, Ms. Chancellor."
"I'm going to go in to see Mr. Keller," she said. "All you have to do is let me go."
He nodded. "All right."
"I'm going to --"
He attacked so fast, he had her on the ground and pinned on her back, the air gone from her lungs, before she could blink. He easily plucked Mitch's gun away from her.
A car door slammed, followed by running feet. "What the hell's going on?"
Agent Bristol got up. "Bitch pulled a gun on me."
"You're kidding! You oughta make her pay for that."
"I like the sound of that."
The tone of the exchange set off alarms in Alaina's head as she wheezed in her first breath since he'd taken her down. Would FBI agents speak that way? Then she remembered Mitch's fear that Layton might have a source inside the Bureau. Apparently, he had two.
"Go get us buzzed in while I take care of her," Bristol said.
"Okay. Oh, and after you got out of the car, he called to say one of us should stay and watch the gate. Guess he's expecting some uninvited guests."
"You stay. I want to play delivery man."
"You got it."
As his partner jogged back toward the car, Bristol nudged Alaina with his foot, Mitch's gun still in his hand. "Get up."
"Give me a minute," she gasped, exaggerating distress that had already eased. She glanced toward the car, saw the other man was on the other side of it, a good twenty feet away. She might have just enough time --
Bristol hooked a hand under her arm. "We don't have all fucking day, lady."
She launched herself up at him, hitting him at the waist with desperate force that tumbled the slight man backward. She landed on top of him, nailing him in the gut with her elbow before scrambling up his body as if it were a jungle gym. Her fingers had just clamped over Mitch's gun when someone grabbed her from behind and lifted her up.
Twisting violently in strong arms, she drove her heel into her captor's shin, heard him grunt. His grip loosened, and she squirmed, thinking she was almost free, almost --
He pivoted, swinging her around, and she glimpsed Bristol's face before something hard and warm smashed into her jaw.
* * *
Addison sat on the floor of the bathroom, a bottle of tranquilizers clutched in her hand. She wondered how many it would take. Ten? Twenty?
She held up the bottle, studied the label. It had originally held thirty. She was sure she'd taken no more than five in the few days since she'd had the prescription filled.
Her cheek throbbed where Layton had struck her. But it was difficult to tell which pain was more intense -- where he had hit her or shame at how she had spilled her guts after only one blow. Such weakness shouldn't have been a surprise, she thought. She had been weak her entire life. Weak and stupid.
The guilt seemed to thrum in the bruise on her face. She had betrayed Alaina, forcing her only sister into a life of unimaginable hardship and fear. A fresh flood of shame went the guilt. What kind of person could blindly let Layton do what he'd done? She had failed in every way possible. As a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a human being. Perhaps it was best that Layton had denied her the chance to be a mother, because she no doubt would have screwed that up, too.
Plus, once the feds exposed Layton's transgressions with PCware, whatever they were, their image as the perfect couple with the perfect life would be shattered. Everyone would know, and if their friends didn't shun her, they would pity her. She couldn't bear the thought of it.
Her only consolation at this point was that once someone found her body, her bruised face would raise questions, as would the lengthy letter she had written, stuffed in an envelope and slid under the mattress she had shared with her sister's rapist for more than a decade.
Rising up to her knees, her hands shaking, she filled a glass with water.
* * *
Mitch pulled into Layton Keller's driveway and stared at the tall front gate. Alaina should have been here by now. Where were the federal agents Chuck had summoned to intercept her?
He'd just flipped out his phone to call Chuck when he saw a man he pegged as a fed walking toward him. He looked familiar, and Mitch remembered him from the ER waiting room right after the shootout at Rachel's. He was one half of the two-member newbie brigade. Itchy and Scratchy, he'd nicknamed them. As young and inexperienced as this guy was, Mitch was still glad to see him and got out of the car.
"Where is she?" he asked, too anxious to see Alaina to bother with a greeting or even an introduction.
The newbie agent responded by going for his gun. His first shot slammed into the driver's side door of Mitch's rental car.
Mitch dropped to one knee and, in an instant, had in his hand the gun he kept strapped to his ankle. He nailed the rookie in the shoulder with the first bullet, but not before the guy got off another shot.
Mitch's head snapped back as a searing pain flashed along the side of his head, and the day went black.
Chapter 36
The throb of her pulse in her jaw brought Alaina awake, and she lay still, disoriented, taking in white and black furnishings, a high ceiling, marble floors. Glass and chrome accents gave everything a sterile gleam.
"She joins us at last."
She turned her head, wincing at the answering ache, and saw Layton sitting across from her on a plush, black overstuffed chair, a complement to the white sofa beneath her.
His legs were crossed, his posture relaxed, maybe even amused. He wore an impeccable black suit with a yellow silk shirt and blue tie. He had changed little in fourteen years, his blond hair curly and thick, his waist lean, his clothes corporate, if a good bit more expensive. He was still a very attractive man. On the outside.
Pushing herself up, she put her feet on the floor. Her head spun, but she shoved the weakness away. "Where's Jonah?"
Layton waved an elegant hand, a subtle ring of gold and diamonds winking on his left ring finger. "We'll get to that in a minute."
"I want to see him now."
He sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "I may be way off on this, Alaina, but it appears to me that I am the one holding the cards here."
Taking a moment to get oriented, she glanced around the large living room, seeking possible escape routes and potential weapons. She ordered herself to remain calm. Jonah was depending on her to keep her cool.
A set of double doors was to her right, probably leading to a kitchen or perhaps a library. Behind the sofa where she sat, a wide, arched doorway looked like it might lead to a front entryway. To the left, a bar stocked with liquor, a large mirror behind it. As for potential weapons, a hefty-looking crystal vase on the glass-and-chrome coffee table before the sofa looked promising.
"Don't even think about it," Layton said. "You bean me with that, and you'll never find out where he is, let alone ever see him again."
She focused on him, her eyes narrowing. Her muscles twitched with the need to lunge at him. "Is that how this is going to go? You're going to taunt me to death?"
Amusement quirked at the corners of his mouth. "Ah, here's the bravado. As usual, it's stunning on you."
Unable to sit still and let him goad her, she shoved to her feet. Only to sway.
Layton rose, too, reaching out to steady her. "Perhaps you should stay seated."
She slapped his hand away. "You got me here. Now what do you want?"
His eyes glittered like blue diamonds. "There's only been one thing I've ever wanted from you, Alaina."
A noise above them, as if someone had thrown a heavy object at a wall or a door, brought Alaina's head up. But then Layton stepped around the table between them. Startled by his sudden move, she jerked back. The backs of her knees hit the
edge of the sofa, and off-balanced, she toppled backward onto the cushions. Before she could scramble away, Layton came down on top of her. In one smooth motion, he trapped her hands above her head and clamped her thighs between his. Then he started to chuckle.
"Getting you under me again wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it'd be," he said, nuzzling his nose just under her ear.
Alaina struggled to think above the fear that rammed into high gear. She couldn't breathe, his weight crushing on her chest as memories erupted, nearly stalling her brain. Don't lose it. Make him talk. Let him gloat. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, annoyed at the strangled sound of her voice.
"Isn't simple revenge enough? You took my son away from me."
She held off the fierce need to thrash, to try to squirm away from him. But doing so would only enflame him, and as far as she could tell, he was already enflamed. She concentrated on being still, on breathing shallowly, focused on surviving. It was the only way she would be able to walk out of there with Jonah. "How can you want revenge for that when you didn't even want him?" she asked.
"You're right," he said with a sigh. "I didn't want some snot-nosed kid anywhere near me. You see, your father was crazy about me. That kid would have been deadly competition for everything I wanted. I was glad when you took off with him. That solved lots of my problems. The daily reminder of my transgression with you would have eventually eroded my relationships with your sister and father. They couldn't have stayed mad at you forever, and they no doubt would have fallen in love with an adorable helpless little baby. Their allegiances might have shifted to you and the kid, and I would have been left in the dirt. I couldn't afford for that to happen." He eased back some, clamping one hand around both her wrists, then leisurely trailing his free hand down her torso. His fingertips glided over a breast, taunting, teasing. "Ah, Alaina, every time I see you, you're more lovely."
