In the Shadow of Vengeance

by Nancy C. Weeks

  Her face brightened with a smile as her gaze settled on her son. Then she glanced at Noah. Her facial expression changed so quickly, it was as if she shoved a lemon half into her mouth.

  “Detective McNeil. What are you doing here?”

  “It’s Noah, remember? Nice to see you again, Elizabeth.” He could almost hear her teeth grinding.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Danny, where have you been? You were supposed to come home right after school. Erin waited for you. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I …”

  “Elizabeth, we need to have this discussion inside.”

  It must have been his tone because for the first time, she stepped aside and nodded for him to enter.

  The townhouse opened into a cool, narrow living room. An oak stairway to the left of the room led to the upstairs. Beyond the living space was a small dining area where Danny’s older sister, Erin, appeared to be doing homework. Like the owner, the room had a classic beauty about it, comfortable.

  Danny again tried to nudge past Noah. He grabbed a chunk of the boy’s sweatshirt and tugged him against his side just as Erin gave him a quick hug.

  “Detective McNeil. Long time, no see.”

  “Good to see you, too, Erin.”

  At fourteen, Erin was turning into a beauty like her mother. She moved with grace like a dancer and spent most of her free hours at the neighborhood dance studio.

  “Okay, what’s going on, Detective McNeil?” Elizabeth said directly behind him.

  Her tone and the way she spit out his title ate at the thin layer on his temper. He turned and offered a smile he knew didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Noah, easy name to say. No and then just add an ah. Go on, give it a try.”

  “How about you just tell me why you’re here?”

  “Mom!” Erin stepped between them. “Would you like to sit?” she said, and indicated the love seat a few feet away.

  “It’s okay, Erin. This really isn’t a social visit, is it, Danny?”

  “I’m going to my room. Stay, go, I don’t care.”

  This time when Danny shoved past him, Noah let him go but yanked the backpack off his shoulder. “Not with this, you’re not.” He handed it to Elizabeth. “I watched Danny buy something off a ganger in the alley behind the arcade.”

  Danny reached for the strap, but his mother jerked it away from him. “He did what?”

  “He wouldn’t hand it over when I asked. I have a real good idea what he purchased, but I don’t want this to become a police matter. You need to check his pack.”

  The color slowly drained from Elizabeth’s cheeks as she eyed her son. “Danny Merlot, what did you do?”

  “Never knew you were a rat, detective.”

  “Danny,” Erin hissed through her teeth. “Shut up and stop being so rude.”

  At least Noah had one person in the room on his side. Elizabeth shot a glance at her son. “Couch, now!”

  Danny didn’t argue but moved over and dropped onto the cushion, his hands fisted on his knees. Elizabeth sat on the coffee table, facing her son. “Open it,” she said, handing him his pack.

  Danny unzipped the front pouch and pulled out the brown paper bag.

  “Now the bag,” she ordered.

  Noah wouldn’t have argued with that tone either. Elizabeth Merlot may have loved and protected her children with the fieriness of a mother lion, but she was a firm, no-nonsense mother.

  He edged around the coffee table and gripped Danny’s wrist. “Don’t touch it. Right now, that man’s prints are on it. Let’s not add yours.”

  “Here, take it,” he spit out. The anger drained from his narrow shoulders as he stared at his feet. A thick wave of hopelessness seemed to swallow him whole. Noah wanted nothing more than to place a hand on Danny’s shoulder and make his world bright again. But whatever drove Danny to that alley today wasn’t going to be fixed with a hug and a few words of encouragement.

  He took the bag and gently dumped the contents. The black revolver clattered on the wooden tabletop. Elizabeth and Erin let out identical moans.

  “You bought a gun? Danny, what the hell were you thinking?”

  Noah cleared his throat. “Elizabeth, maybe what you need to ask is why.”

  The glare she shot his way made him straighten his stance. Noah reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a pair of purple latex gloves left over from the crime scene he’d worked a few hours earlier. After slipping them on, he lifted the gun and set the safety. Hitting the magazine release button, the clip dropped into his hand. “Why, Danny?”

  A dead silence settled over the room. Erin joined her brother on the sofa, resting her hand on his arm. He didn’t jerk away. Instead, he raised his tear-filled eyes and studied Noah.

  “Mr. Ibarra says that it’s a man’s responsibility to take care his family. It’s my job to protect my mom and Erin.”

  “Danny, that’s my job as your mother. I don’t doubt that Mr. Ibarra said that, but you misunderstood what he meant. He would have never suggested this,” she choked out as she nodded at the weapon.

  “No, I didn’t misunderstand. I asked him if he would use his gun to protect his family.”

  Elizabeth moved to sit next to her son. “Mr. Ibarra is a federal agent, not a thirteen-year-old kid.”

  Those words seem to draw Danny further into himself. Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip. It was the wrong thing to say and she knew it. “Just who do you think you need to protect us from?”

  Danny swallowed a sob. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Of course I will believe you. I’m your mother.” She hugged him close to her. “I’ll always believe you.”

  He wiped the tears with his sleeve. “The man in the subway wanted to hurt you.”

  Anger cut through Noah. “What man?”

  “It was nothing,” she said. “Three weeks ago on the subway home, a crazy guy on drugs tried to steal my purse, but the passengers pulled him off me. At the stop, he broke away before the police could catch him.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “No, just a scratch on my arm and a few bruises.”

  Her eyes softened just a little, and a glimpse of a different Elizabeth shimmered to the surface, easing Noah’s anger.

  Danny shot up. “You’re wrong. It was something. He was there to hurt you, and he and others will be back.” This time when Elizabeth placed a hand on his shoulder, he jerked free and rushed toward the stairs. “See? You don’t believe me.”

  Noah stepped in his path. “Wait, Danny. Why do you think this guy targeted your mother?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it.”

  “How?”

  His voice dropped so low, Noah barely heard his reply.

  “The man … in my room last night told me the jerk on the subway and the other man who tried to hurt my mom will keep coming back unless I stop him.”

  Elizabeth rushed around the sofa. “What man? Damn it, what man has been in your room?”

  Anger drained from Noah’s body and a heavy sense of dread consumed him. “What’s his name, Danny?”

  Elizabeth pushed Noah to the side and reached for her son. Without breaking eye contact with the kid, Noah lifted Elizabeth out of his way. “What’s this man’s name?”

  Danny inhaled deeply then swallowed. “Evan. He said he’s a cop.”

  “What else do you remember about this man?” Noah clenched his fist. Evan McKenzie couldn’t be back.

  “It’s really weird. You will never believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “One minute he’s there and then …”

  “And what?” Noah choked on the words.

  “He’s not.”

  Chapter Three

  Elizabeth edged around Noah and raced up the stairs after Danny. The flat of her hand hit his bedroom door, slamming it against the wall just as he tried to shut it in her face. She pulled him into her arms. He squirmed, trying to break free. That hurt. She should be used to his reacti
on by now. Her sweet boy was disappearing from her daily, and she didn’t know how to reach him.

  “No hiding behind a closed door this time. We need to talk.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I’m too scared about what you said not to believe you, Danny. I need to understand. Where did this man come from?”

  The words came out in a weak whisper. She was supposed to be the parent, the strong one. Her kids should be able to rely on her strength. At the moment, the staggering fear she thought she left back in a cornfield in Nebraska consumed her. Taking her son’s hand in hers, she charged toward the window. The locks were secure.

  “Did you unlock this window and forget to relock it?”

  “I never open that window.”

  “I secured the downstairs myself and set the alarm. If he didn’t come and leave through the front door, then he had to come—”

  “Elizabeth, stand back and let me look at that,” Noah said from behind her.

  She had to relax her hand before she crushed her son’s fingers. Noah McNeil had no right following her up the stairs. She didn’t know him nor did she trust him, and this was her problem. Fighting for some level of control, she rounded on him. “I got this, detective. Thanks for bringing Danny home, but please see yourself out.”

  “Mom, rude,” Erin said from the doorway.

  Noah’s striking, deep blue irises turned almost black as the vein at his neck throbbed. The man was pissed, and at her. At the moment, she didn’t care. She had only one man in her life who mattered, and he was yanking his hand out of hers while his tear-filled eyes shot daggers at her.

  “Let him look at the window, Mom,” Danny said. “He’s not going to find anything wrong with it.”

  “Fine.” She took a step back but kept Danny’s hand in hers while she wrapped her other arm around her waist. “Look.”

  Noah first checked the lock, then unlocked the window. Opening it all the way, he twisted his body, and using the window sill for balance, he eased half his body outside. After running his hand over the frame, he came back inside. “I see no signs of forced entry.”

  “Because there wasn’t any,” Danny said and pulled his hand free. He dropped onto his bed.

  “Danny, that doesn’t make any sense. If there were a man in here, he had to come in some way, unless he really wasn’t here. Sometimes our minds play funny tricks when we are dreaming.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t help the noisy sigh that escaped her lips. Of course. Danny must have dreamed the man.

  “I wasn’t dreaming, Mom.”

  “That’s the only explanation. People don’t just appear and disappear.”

  “And I don’t fall asleep sitting up. I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  Elizabeth raised her hands but dropped them to her side. She didn’t have any answers. What Danny was saying was impossible.

  “It’s not about not believing you. I’m trying to understand. But for now, let’s talk about the gun.”

  Danny turned in the bed and buried his faced in his pillow. His tone was muffled, but she didn’t have any problem hearing him. “Just leave me alone.”

  Every cuss word in her vocabulary came to the surface. Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip and shut her eyes tightly. Counting to ten wasn’t going to help. Leave him alone. No way was that going to happen.

  Her warmhearted thirteen-year-old son actually bought a weapon and was going to sneak it into the house because a man who disappeared in front of him told him to.

  There were times when being a single mother really sucked. More than anything, she wanted to pick up the phone and call home. She tried so hard to model her child-rearing practices after her mother, who rarely raised her voice or lost her temper. And Elizabeth couldn’t remember one time when her mother let loose a string of cuss words. While Elizabeth clung to a strict no-cussing role, damns and shits lived in her head all the time. If she didn’t get some answers soon, she was going to come unglued.

  She missed her family every day. After thirteen years, the pain of walking away to keep them safe had never eased, not even a little.

  A memory so horrific she buried in the deepest crevices of her heart boiled up and almost choked her. She jerked her head, trying to send the memory of that day back where it belonged. She didn’t have the strength to deal with it on top of this. She eased down on the bed and rubbed her hand over Danny’s back. “I need you to look at me.”

  He turned but said nothing.

  “We both need a timeout. Here is what’s going to happen. I’m going to finish dinner. You get two hours. We’ll eat as a family, work on your homework if you have any, but then,” she glanced down at the thin, gold band at her wrist, “at eight o’clock, either I’m up here or you’re downstairs. Since I picked the time, you pick the place.”

  “It doesn’t matter because I don’t have anything else to say.”

  Before he could turn back around, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I do. Pick or we have this out here and now.”

  “Downstairs.”

  Elizabeth rose and headed toward the door. She drew Erin into her arms for a quick hug. “Dinner is at six.”

  As she headed to the kitchen, she could hear Danny and Noah exchange words. His voice was gentle, caring. That was how he always spoke to Danny.

  There was a bond between them that Elizabeth didn’t understand. They’d shared a nightmare. Instead of that nightmare placing a barrier between them, pulling them as far away from each other as they could get, it acted like two ends of a magnet pulling them together.

  She was part of that nightmare, too, but she was alone. Danny wouldn’t talk to her about the days he was held by that bastard, Mendoza. Just the name sent a chill through her. Up to that day, she lived under the illusion that the sacrifice she’d made, leaving everything about her life before the tornado behind, was for the best because it gave her children a safe environment to grow up in. The moment Mendoza’s enforcer took her son out of his elementary school in the middle of the day, that illusion blew up in her face.

  She clamped her hands in front of her as she stepped into the living room. What she should have done the instant she got Danny back was pack everything and leave Baltimore. If she had listened to that inner voice that made her run from Spencer, the ugly, cold, evil pieces of black iron Noah spread over her coffee table wouldn’t exist. Her son spent his Christmas and birthday money on a handgun because he was scared. It made her want to curl into a ball, allowing the dam of insecurity, doubt, and heartache she held back to break wide open.

  She needed to call Derek Ramon. He would know what to do. He had been part of the team that escorted her from the FBI building in Omaha and had been assigned to her ever since. He would need to know about this new development, if only to keep Danny out of the system.

  Elizabeth raked a shaky hand through her hair. How many laws did Danny break buying a gun off the street? How in the hell did this happen?

  She couldn’t help seeing her son as that amazing five-year-old who thought the best thing in the world was being a superhero and digging for dinosaur bones in the small patch of dirt that was her backyard. That boy was still in that angry, hurt, depressed thirteen-year-old upstairs somewhere. She gave up everything for him once, she could do it again.

  A hand touched her shoulder, and she bit down on her lip to keep the shriek in her throat. Damn man; how did someone so tall move so quietly?

  “Sorry, Elizabeth. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Tucking in her shoulder, she moved out of Noah’s reach. Glancing back, she didn’t miss the hurt in his eyes. Before she could deal with how his expression affected her, another thought slammed into her head. “Why were you in that alley?”

  “Excuse me?” He took a step back.

  “You heard me. Why were you in the alley?”

  “I followed Danny.”

  “Why?”

  He broke eye contact and glanced at his boots. Every nerve tightened ag
ainst the lie coming at her.

  “I stopped by Raúl’s, and TJ mentioned Danny was meeting with some guy after school. It didn’t sound right so I went looking for him.”

  “So you passed right by my door and didn’t bother to let me know?”

  His eyes narrowed and that same pulse at his neck began to throb. He seemed to take a moment to pull in his temper.

  “It wasn’t exactly the time for a social visit. Would you rather that I allowed Danny to go off alone with the guy?”

  Something didn’t mesh, but she was too drained to connect the dots. He was lying to her—or at least, he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Elizabeth didn’t know the man well enough to read him.

  After the abduction, every other word out of Danny’s mouth was Noah said this, Noah did that. Since Danny refused to talk to her about Mendoza, she put up with the glories that were Noah McNeil because at least Danny was talking to him. Sometimes, Noah would even share tidbits with her, easing her mind. He became her connection to her own son.

  Then Mr. Super-Cop-Extraordinaire disappeared out of their lives on an undercover assignment. Her Danny never returned. He sunk deeper into himself, closing off almost all communication with her and his sister.

  Elizabeth didn’t hate Noah for leaving. Danny wasn’t his problem or his life. The problem she had with Noah was the same problem she had with all men. She didn’t trust them—the side effect of falling in love and marrying a murderer. She trusted herself, her kids, and her family, even though they were out of her life forever. Everyone else, she kept at arm’s length. Two feet from her stood one of the best-looking men she had ever met: imposingly tall, broad shoulders, muscular body. His most striking feature were his eyes, deep blue, intelligent, but with a hint of humor and an inner strength that seemed to give him the ability to see right through a person.

  He made her damn uncomfortable and set her on the defensive. Today’s chance meeting was no exception, even though this time around she owed him something, at the bare minimum an apology. If he hadn’t followed Danny, her son would have carried a loaded weapon into her home. The outcome was unthinkable.