by Addison Fox
* * *
“You found it here?” Knox paced the small area beside the path between the tent and the house, his gaze focused on the ground where Hawk had recovered the spool of thread. Mac had quickly rounded up Knox and Joshua and the four of them were even now trying to understand what was going on without causing too much alarm inside the wedding.
“Thorne’ll want to know,” Joshua said.
“Not yet.” Hawk shook his head. “Not now. It’s his wedding.”
“And this is his sister,” Knox pointed out.
Hawk knew it was a fair point, but he didn’t want to panic anyone. Didn’t want to put into words what was rapidly becoming very real.
“Who was even here to do this?” Joshua scanned the area, his gaze doing a slow roll from the house to the parking lot to the horse corral. “There are people everywhere.”
“Not since we moved into the tent.” Hawk’s gaze followed Joshua’s, his mind racing through the same information he’d already assembled.
There was actually little foot traffic other than the waitstaff. And it would be easy enough, if one bided their time, to lure someone away.
The damn question, to his mind, was why Claudia was lured. Why hadn’t she run?
Images of Jennifer haunted him, racing through his mind as if they’d only just happened. He’d asked the same questions then. Why had she been lured away?
What had possibly made her think going with her killer was a better choice than trying to run for it?
Forcing his focus back to the moment, Hawk tried desperately to shake off the ghosts. This wasn’t Jennifer. The situation wasn’t the same.
So why the hell did it feel like his life was on repeat?
“Is it Livia? Is it possible she’s here?” Mac asked the question, his agitation only growing by the moment. “Hasn’t that damn woman made enough trouble? Why is she so intent on ruining this family?”
“I might know.”
The small voice trembled behind them, coming from the direction of the paddock.
Cody?
Knox moved first, racing toward his son where the boy stood in the shadows thrown off by the corral lights.
“Cody! What are you doing over here?”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” Tears glinted in the boy’s eyes, spilling over as his bottom lip trembled. “Mom told me to stay in the tent.”
Knox pulled Cody close, lifting him in his arms. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”
Hawk had seen the boy’s horse mania earlier and his longing glances toward the corral as they set up the bunting and put the two ideas together. “Were you out here looking at the horses?”
“Uh-huh.” His eyes still glistened, but he seemed to come to some resolution in his mind, straightening in his father’s arms. “I know Mom didn’t want me out here but I wanted to make a quick visit to see Bunny and make sure she didn’t need any grooming or anything. I took some sugar cubes off the table and wanted to give them to her.”
Whatever fear the boy had about his eventual punishment, it didn’t stop him from telling his story. And in his mind, Hawk praised the stubborn will of nine-year-old boys.
“I’m not mad, Cody.” Knox’s voice was gentle. “But you need to tell us what you saw.”
“A lady. She was dressed like the servers but she ran after Aunt Claudia. Got up in her face.” Cody swallowed. “I think she had a gun. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t do anything.”
Hawk’s heart clenched, a crazy beating fist that slammed against the wall of his chest.
Why had she gone with the woman? Why not make some sort of noise or try to get away?
Knox kept his hand on Cody’s shoulder, but his hand shook at the mention of a gun. Joshua stepped in, his focus on the boy. “You did the right thing, Cody. You never run at someone with a gun. But you paid attention and you got us the important details we need to find Aunt Claudia.”
“What did the lady look like?” With the time to gather himself, Knox kept his voice calm, the urgency banked as he sought information from the boy. “Did the lady look like your grandmother?”
“That blonde lady from the TV pictures?”
“Yes, that’s who I mean.”
“No. It wasn’t her.”
“Are you sure?” Joshua probed.
“Positive. That lady was blonde and tall. This lady was short. She had dark hair.”
So not Livia.
Hawk wasn’t sure why that thought comforted, but for some reason it did.
“Cody,” Hawk asked, “can you remember what she looked like? Any detail you can tell us would be good.”
The boy nodded and began to describe what he remembered.
* * *
“What do you want from me?” Claudia sat in a chair, her hands bound against a wooden captain’s chair that had seen better days. Whatever light sedative had been used on her was fading, and Claudia had reclaimed her mind and her voice. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, but thought it was a small caretaker’s cabin on the edge of the La Bonne Vie property.
While her mother had employed relatively few employees to avoid too many people prying into her affairs, she’d built La Bonne Vie to look lavish to outsiders. The caretaker’s cottage was one more outward example of that, the dwelling more for show than anything useful.
A distant memory rose up of another use for it. She’d been too young to fully understand the connotation, but Knox had bragged to a friend that it was a great place to take a girl to make out.
Simpler days. Easier times.
Claudia hadn’t believed it then, but things had been simple. Back before they knew what their mother was capable of. Long before she’d been carted away in handcuffs.
Was Livia part of this?
The silence in the bumpy car ride over had nothing on the weird muttering the woman kept doing now that she had Claudia in the cabin. She’d stomped around, lost somewhere in her mind, and Claudia desperately hunted for some key to unlock whatever hatred and anger seethed beneath the surface.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m the Forgotten One.”
There it was again. The same things she’d muttered in the car. Forgotten.
She didn’t want to feel sympathy. This woman had held a gun on her and kidnapped her from Thorne’s wedding and it would be a mistake to let her guard down.
But there was something buried in that sad statement. Something dark and deeply damaged.
“Why do you think that?”
“You don’t speak to me!”
The scream echoed off the walls, the fearful agony of an animal in pain. Claudia’s stomach clenched at the pain—an animal was never more dangerous than when it was wounded—yet she knew she needed to probe harder.
The answers were there, buried deep inside that pain.
“What’s your real name?”
* * *
Cody’s description of the woman who took his Aunt Claudia had proven more helpful than he ever could have realized. As the boy described the small woman in the waitstaff uniform, Hawk’s mind reeled through why the description nagged at him.
The woman. The one from catering he’d tripped into.
Her hateful gaze, so jarring at the time, had been forgotten in the rush of the wedding festivities, but Hawk pulled it back now. And dug into his back pocket for his phone.
The camera had clicked over and over as he’d accidentally pressed the shutter button. It was a long shot that he got anything useful, but he had to try. He flipped through the shaky images before catching one. He kneeled down by the boy. “Is this the woman you saw?”
“That’s her! That’s the lady.”
Knox pulled his son close for a tight hug. “Good job.”
Allison had s
lipped out of the tent, looking for her son, and Mac had brought her up to speed during Cody’s story. The moment he finished recounting what he knew, Allison had leaped forward, dragging him close as she kissed his head.
“Mom.” He hugged her back before squirming. “I’m sorry about going to see Bunny.”
“Shh. Just hush, sweetie. It’s okay.”
It was more than okay, Hawk thought. The boy was the reason they had any idea of what happened. But it was Mac who made the connection.
He pointed toward a small road just visible through the trees. “Cody. What way did the car go?”
“Over there, Grandpa Mac. Through the trees.”
“That’s the way to La Bonne Vie.” Knox made the connection first.
Mac nodded his agreement. “That’s where she has her.”
* * *
“I don’t have a name.”
“Of course you do.” Claudia kept her voice gentle. “What is it? I’m Claudia.”
“I know who you are.”
“Then you have me at a disadvantage.”
“About damn time.” The woman’s eyes were narrow, but she seemed to make a decision as she stood there. “Maria. My name is Maria.”
“Hello, Maria.” Claudia had no idea if it was true, but she’d read long ago that using someone’s name created a connection. She’d read it in a sales manual but figured it couldn’t hurt.
“Why are you doing this?”
“It’s her. It’s all her.”
Those edges of madness blotted out the moment of lucidity and Claudia tried again. “It’s all who, Maria?”
“Your mother. Livia.”
“Did you know her?”
“She made me work for her. She told me I’d have a better life here. She took me from my home.”
The haunting quiet vanished as Maria began to speak, a flood of emotion embedded in a torrent of words. Claudia let it flow, Maria’s description forming a picture in her mind.
“You worked for her?”
“I was her slave! She smuggled me out of Mexico like a criminal, then told me I had to work for her.”
“Livia was the criminal. You must understand that.”
The madness broke for a moment. “Livia? You call her that?”
The question opened the door Claudia needed. “She’s not my mother.”
“Yes, she is.”
Claudia held her chin high. “My mother was Annalise Krupid. Another woman like you. Another woman Livia betrayed.”
“Annalise?”
Claudia’s intention was to remove Maria’s focus off of using her as a conduit to Livia. She had no idea Maria might be a conduit to her mother.
Her real mother.
“You knew Annalise?”
“She was one of the mail-orders. That’s what they were called. Tall and pretty, Annalise had hair just like yours.” Maria’s eyes narrowed, her gaze steady. For the first time, Claudia felt like the woman saw her.
“I’m sorry for this. For all the pain Livia caused.”
“I remember Annalise. She was so scared. Kept talking about her parents and how sorry she was. How much she just wanted to go home.”
The picture Maria painted—of a sad, lonely young woman aching for home—had tears pricking the backs of Claudia’s eyes.
“Why do you call yourself forgotten?”
Maria stilled, the gun she’d held since they walked into the cottage shaking. “I was forgotten. By my family. By everyone who knew me. I was spirited away in the night and they never knew where I went.”
“Couldn’t you go home? After Livia was arrested? Your family would have wanted you back. They’d be overjoyed to know you were okay.”
“Home?” Maria barked the question, the gun shaking once more. “Would you go home a whore?”
“But you’re not—” Claudia stopped as the gun steadied once more, Maria’s eyes blazing with a white-hot hatred.
With startling clarity, Claudia understood the situation. Whatever she believed didn’t matter. All that did matter was the pain that had haunted Maria.
Pain that had twisted her mind beyond comprehension.
* * *
Mac’s SUV flew over the property as the boundary of his ranch morphed at the border into La Bonne Vie. He’d driven the roads his entire life and Hawk saw that surety as Mac navigated the land.
“It’s one of two places. It has to be.”
Mac had already told them of his suspicions where Claudia may have been taken—an old grain elevator or a small caretaker’s cottage—and he’d chosen the cottage.
They’d quickly told Thorne what was happening, mobilizing him back at the ranch and instructing him to call for police backup, while Hawk, Mac, Joshua and Knox fanned out over the property. Joshua and Knox headed for the grain elevator while he and Mac raced toward the cottage.
Over and over, Hawk fought the pernicious thoughts that threatened to pull him under. The whispers he’d be too late. The nasty taunts that she’d already been killed. Pushing them back by sheer force of will, he focused on the goal.
This wasn’t Jennifer.
It wasn’t the same.
God, how he wanted to believe that.
A lone light burned in the cottage window in the distance as Mac bumped over the property. He’d turned off some ways back, heading toward the small structure from the grounds instead of the dirt path that lead to the property to avoid detection.
The phone in his lap rang and Hawk took point.
“She’s not in the grain elevator. Place is empty.” Knox barked out the details.
“Come to the cottage.” Hawk said the words, his focus already toward the small building that beckoned him and Mac. “Lights are on inside.”
Mac had already slowed and crept forward as far as he dared. He’d cut his lights before turning off the dirt path and finally came to a stop. “This is open ground. I can’t risk having her hear the engine.”
Hawk nodded, already climbing out of the car. Both men were careful to avoid the noise of door closures and that went double for the trunk. Mac lifted out the shotguns they’d carefully packed earlier, then handed Hawk one of the four handguns he’d retrieved from his case.
One for each of them.
The weight was familiar in Hawk’s hand, his days on the force rushing back with the sense memory. He’d been on ops before. He’d been trained to handle a hostage situation.
But he’d never faced off with a killer, holding someone he loved.
“You ready, son?” Mac had his own gun held firmly in his grip. When Hawk only nodded, Mac pointed toward the softly glowing light. “I’ll follow your lead.”
From Mac’s earlier description of the location of the grain elevator, Knox and Joshua weren’t that far away, but they couldn’t risk waiting any longer.
The rain that had threatened the night before had never come, but the storm appeared ready to make its presence now. Clouds covered the sky, obscuring the stars and, as they drifted, the moon. That worked in their favor and Hawk and Mac gestured to each other on their approach.
They came at the house from the back, their focus the darkened windows on the opposite end of the one that was lit. Hawk’s mind whirled as they skirted the edge of the dwelling, their footfalls gentle as they worked to cover the ground quickly.
Conversation filtered from the window, a screaming voice heartrending for its brokenness. “Would you go home a whore?”
He knew every step counted—knew with the deepest certainty he had one shot—but the agony in that voice was one he knew.
He’d lived the life of the hopeless. Had believed there was no light left in the world and it had colored every choice he made. But he’d never taken that last step. Whether it was the memori
es of Jennifer’s love or his own stubborn will, Hawk had never taken the last step into despair.
But the voice who screamed inside the cottage had long since passed that barrier.
He couldn’t wait and risk Claudia’s survival for another moment.
With the sharp skills he’d honed in his years with the Houston PD, Hawk moved. He had the gun firmly in hand, the safety off, ready to fire. He stood, assessed the scene through the window and lined up his shot.
The small woman who he’d nearly run over at the house stood there, an avenging angel hovering over the woman he loved.
Hawk didn’t wait.
Didn’t consider or check himself.
He lined up the shot and fired.
* * *
One moment she sat there, the recipient of Maria’s agony and pain, and the next the woman was falling in front of her eyes on a hard scream.
Mac slammed through the door, Hawk on his heels, their heavy shouts echoing off the walls of the sparse room.
They were here? Mac? Hawk?
They’d come?
Mac ran to Maria, kicking her gun that still hung from her hand across the room before kneeling down beside the woman. He gently lifted her head into his lap, his movements tender.
Hawk raced to her side, dragging at the ropes that bound her to the seat.
“Claudia.” He whispered her name over and over, his movements frantic as he worked to free her.
“I’m okay. We’re okay.” She said the words, the adrenaline mixing with the drugs that were still residual in her system. “It’s okay, Hawk.”
But it wasn’t until he pulled her up out of the chair, his arms wrapping around her, that she gave in to the fear that had been her steady companion since being dragged from Mac’s.
Would they find her? If they did, would they be in time? And worst of all, would she die without seeing all of them one last time?
Gratitude filled her and spilled over in a hard sob. They were okay. And the sight of Hawk and Mac, and then Knox and Joshua as they barreled into the cabin, were the solid proof that she’d survived.
She had her family. And she had the man she loved.
“You’re okay? She didn’t hurt you?” Hawk whispered against her head before stepping back to look at her for himself.
