“Don’t do that, Cade. We’ve got to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
14
THROUGH INFORMATION Cade had extracted from Fontaine during interrogations, the victims were found on Thursday morning at an isolated beach house on Florida’s west coast, alive and seemingly unharmed.
That evening, at the height of the media frenzy, Cade escaped a scourge of reporters in Athens, drove two hours through traffic to Atlanta and checked into a high-rise hotel near Hartsfield International Airport.
His job here was done. The perp had been apprehended, the victims had been rescued and evidence linked Fontaine to each of them, with crates of his belongings from his residence in Atlanta yet to be examined.
Even so, conviction wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The admittedly odd circumstances under which the victims had been held presented another unique challenge. John Sutherland and the district attorney would take on that challenge. Cade would not. His role in the Pied Piper case was over.
He would leave for Colorado on an early flight tomorrow.
Settling into an armchair in the Atlanta hotel suite, he toasted to himself with a double bourbon on the rocks. After three nights at the Top Dawg Motor Lodge near the Athens police station, he felt as if he’d fallen into the lap of luxury—a shower that actually got hot, a television with remote control and bourbon delivered by room service.
Now all he had to do was make it through another night. He wasn’t looking forward to lying down and turning out the lights. That was when thoughts of Brynn tormented him most.
But he refused to think about her. To resist the onslaught of unwelcome thoughts, Cade turned on the television. John’s rescue of the abduction victims was, of course, the lead story on the eleven o’clock news, not only because of the case’s notoriety, but also because of the surprising twist it had taken.
“The three missing women who had been linked to the Pied Piper abductions were found today, alive and well,” the anchorwoman announced. “Surprisingly well.” The rueful note in her voice grated on Cade’s nerves. “Police tracked them to an isolated Florida beach house, where they were found sunning on lounge chairs and sipping margaritas.”
News footage showed the police escorting the three pretty young women, clad in short shorts and summer tops, to a patrol car. “None of them was bound or physically restrained, which has left the district attorney asking were they, in fact, abducted or, as the man who calls himself the Pied Piper claims, were they lured by his promise to paint their portraits?”
Doyle Fontaine’s face then appeared in the upper corner of the television screen while a reporter interviewed the three women. “Did he use force to bring you here, or keep you here?”
Two began talking at once. A stern-faced blonde with a ponytail then commandeered the microphone. “He promised to paint our pictures. Other than that, we have no comment.”
A redhead with long, corkscrew curls grabbed the mike. “You might have no comment, Jo, but I do. He promised I’d get twenty-five percent from the sale of my portrait, and that it would go for big bucks. But he hasn’t finished it. I’d better get the—‘beep’—money he promised, or I’ll kick his—‘beep, beep, beep.’”
“I just want my parents to know,” broke in a soft-spoken woman with dark brown skin and dreadlocks, “that I’m fine, and I’m sorry for how worried they must have been. I’ll explain everything, Daddy, when I—”
“There’s nothing to explain, Kayla,” the ponytailed blonde interrupted. “We wanted our pictures painted, period.” To the redhead, she said, “And I’m sure he’ll finish your picture, Viv…if you just keep your mouth shut.”
Cade leaned forward in his armchair, his attention caught. They were keeping some secret. The blonde was especially nervous about that secret getting out.
“I’m tired of you telling me what do,” snapped the redhead, “and I’m tired of Antoine’s lies, too.” To the reporter, she grumbled, “He said he’d bring us movies, but did he? Nooo. And there’s no television reception here. He didn’t bring the Cosmo magazines, either.”
“Or the diet protein bars,” Kayla with the dreadlocks added.
“And he insisted I pose in yellow,” Viv the redhead complained. “Buttercup at the Beach, he’s calling my painting. But yellow is not my color. Why couldn’t it be Bluebell at the Beach?”
The scene then shifted to the reporter, who faced the cameras and mused, “Were these wives and daughters of Atlanta cops bribed with promises? Or were they brainwashed into cooperating with their captor? Police have yet to determine a motive, since ransom was never demanded….”
Cade turned off the television. The son-of-a-bitch was after notoriety and the sick thrill of controlling others. He’d forced those women to cooperate—with threats against them or their loved ones, probably. Or blackmail.
Cade’s gut was telling him blackmail. He’d bet that somewhere in the crates of belongings taken from Fontaine’s apartment in Atlanta, John would find dirt of some kind against the victims. Viv, Jo and Kayla were clearly afraid to cross Fontaine, afraid to accuse him of wrongdoing. Fontaine was holding something over their heads.
Cade suddenly remembered how Brynn had withheld a secret from him, and his stomach clenched. Was there something in her past that Fontaine had intended to use to coerce her into cooperation? Cade found that hard to believe. He couldn’t imagine Brynn having a secret serious enough to use as blackmail material.
But he would call John, first thing tomorrow, and mention the likelihood of blackmail. He hated the thought that Brynn might be vulnerable to exploitation of that kind. He also couldn’t accept the possibility that Doyle Fontaine might get off on minor charges. He wouldn’t get much time for using false identification, and they hadn’t conclusively linked him to the stolen car outside the diner.
It’s not your concern, Cade told himself, and neither is Brynn.
That didn’t stop him from thinking about her, though. Continuously, at every unguarded moment.
The memories were the worst—of holding her while she slept, and waking with her pressed against him. Making the sweetest, hottest love. Playing their sex games. Kissing, laughing, talking.
Promise you’ll trust me not to hurt you, he’d said. And she’d promised. I love you, she’d said, and though it had only been part of their game and he’d insisted she say it, he’d believed her.
Obviously, he’d been wrong. The very next morning, she’d been ready to believe he was a deranged abductor taunting her brother with notes signed “The Pied Piper,” scheming to do God knows what to her.
After learning of her suspicions, he shouldn’t have blinked an eye to discover she’d assumed all these years that he’d impregnated Rhiannon, then abandoned her and the baby.
Other people in his life had held low opinions of him, but never that low. And nobody’s lack of faith had ever hurt as much. He felt as if a hole had been blown through his chest, and the essence of his life was seeping steadily out.
He needed another bourbon.
As Cade rose from the armchair to ring for room service, a knock sounded at his door. Pulling a robe on over his briefs, he looked through the peephole into the hotel corridor.
Trish and Lexi stood there.
Annoyed by their presence, but too curious to ignore them, he swung open the door. “How did you know I was here?”
“John told us.” Lexi walked past him uninvited into the room, her step not as perky as usual, her platinum hair not as spiky and her ears surprisingly devoid of studs and hoops.
“We’ve got to talk, Cade,” Trish insisted, looking elegant as always in a classic skirt and sweater, though her eyes were noticeably puffy and red. “About Brynn.”
The mention of her name sent little daggers through his heart. “She’s no longer my concern.” He turned his back on them and retreated to the armchair.
As he sank down into it with deliberate nonchalance, Lexi said, “She quit as manager of the inn.”
“What?” He gaped at her, too astounded to remain unaffected. He couldn’t imagine Brynn quitting the business she’d worked so hard to build. Her future as an entrepreneur had always been her top priority.
“And she’s leaving for Barbados,” Trish said.
“Barbados?” She’d never said a word about Barbados. Why the hell was she going there?
“Oh, Cade, it’s terrible,” Lexi cried, sinking heavily onto the bed. “She’s selling us her stock in the business. Says she’s going to find work at some resort.”
“Why?”
“She said she can’t run a business with…with—” Lexi’s voice broke. Trish finished for her. “With partners who don’t trust her judgment.”
“What brought this on?”
“You,” Trish said.
Lexi quickly amended. “Us. When we figured out you weren’t a writer, and Mrs. Hornsby found those photos in your room, we tried to tell Brynn you were the Piper. She refused to even consider the possibility. She called John to ease our minds, but when he laughed at us, we thought he was blinded by his friendship with you.”
Cade stared at them as the significance slowly sank in. Brynn had left her business—the one she had worked so long and hard to build. For as long as he had known her, the focus of her life had been to build a flourishing, successful business that would ensure her economic independence and stature in the community. Nothing had been more important to her.
Yet Brynn had abandoned that business, that hard-won security, because of him. Because her partners had refused to trust him.
Which left him with only one logical conclusion. She had trusted him. She had disregarded their evidence and blindly trusted him.
He hadn’t believed her when she’d told him so. He’d regarded her declarations of faith as nothing but empty words. But he couldn’t dismiss her actions.
“So now she thinks we don’t value her judgment,” Trish lamented. “But the only reason we didn’t was because we knew she was too crazy in love with you to think straight.”
Too crazy in love with him.
“I’ve never seen her so unhappy.” Lexi blinked back the tears in her wide dark eyes.
“If I’d known how she felt about you,” said Trish, her blue eyes growing shiny, too, “I never would have interfered. And I’m so sorry I jumped to conclusions about Rhiannon. Please don’t blame Brynn for that.”
“Brynn jumped to the same conclusions.”
“When she was eighteen,” Lexi said. “Do you really think she would have gotten involved with you if she still believed you’d fathered Rhiannon’s baby and left her without support?”
Like light flooding a dark room, the truth hit him. Brynn would never ignore a sin of that magnitude.
His throat muscles contracted and his heart surged into a heavier beat. “Where is she?”
“Room 371,” Lexi said.
Cade frowned and blinked. “In this hotel?”
“The room next to yours, actually.”
“She’s here? Now?” He could barely comprehend it. He’d been feeling a million miles away from her, in every sense. “But how—?”
“John,” Lexi said by way of explanation. “When she told him she was leaving for Barbados in the morning, and asked to spend the night at his apartment, he gave her some excuse why she couldn’t and made a reservation for her here. So she’d be close to the airport, he said.”
“John did that?” Another shock. Although John had asked for his help in keeping Brynn safe, it had been only because of his expertise as a U.S. marshal and the fact that he knew Brynn—a vital advantage in the undercover work needed. But John had never been especially in favor of an intimate relationship between Cade and Brynn. Yet he’d known Cade was staying here. In fact, John’s assistant had booked the reservation.
“John wants Brynn to be happy, too,” Lexi said. She then stood and offered him a tentative, apologetic smile. “We’re sorry, Cade. For everything.”
Trish nodded in white-faced agreement.
Cade stood and pulled Lexi into a hug. “All you were trying to do was protect Brynn,” he murmured against her stiff platinum hair. He released Lexi and hugged Trish. “I’d never hold that against anyone.”
Both women shed a few tears, patted his back and encouraged him to go talk to Brynn.
Cade remained where he stood, though, long after they’d left. He felt caught in an emotional crosscurrent. Hope flowed like a warm, wild river through the frozen regions of his heart. It seemed possible that Brynn just might love him, after all.
But cold fear flowed with equal force. He had believed the same many times before—whenever he’d kissed her, held her, loved her. And he’d been grievously hurt by that belief.
For the first time ever, he understood why she hadn’t given him a second chance during their college days.
TALK ABOUT IRONY. For years she’d doubted her own judgment, living in fear of making another catastrophic mistake like the one she’d made in Daytona Beach with the Firebird. Then finally, she’d taken a stand and refused to be swayed from her convictions…only to realize that no one else trusted her, either. Not her business partners, obviously. And not the man who’d claimed to love her.
He’d immediately believed the worst, and turned off his warmth as if from a spigot. Trust me not to hurt you, he’d said. She’d trusted him. And he’d crushed her like a bug. Don’t touch me, Brynn.
The cop who drove Trish and Lexi home after their release from jail had picked up Cade’s luggage from the inn. Cade hadn’t bothered to contact her, then or later.
But, miracle of miracles, she’d survived. The worst had happened, and though she had been crushed, she knew that when the heart-piercing pain of Cade’s abandonment eventually wore itself out, she would be okay.
She also realized that mistakes would always be made, by her and others. The important thing was to believe in herself, and in her own wisdom. Which, at long last, she did. By God, she did.
From now on, she would live life on her own terms. No more kowtowing to Trish, or struggling to guard her deepest secret from Lexi, or striving to be an urban adventuress with multiple notches on her bedpost. She’d had her sexual adventures with a red-hot lover, thank you very much, and if the day ever came when she was able to think of those adventures without crying, she’d probably treasure them.
Until then, she’d expend all her time and energy in starting over someplace new, far away from Athens, which would always remind her too much of Cade. She would save her money, build her credit and open her very own inn.
With that solemn vow, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and tossed the crumpled tissue into the over-flowing wastebasket beside the desk in her hotel room. She then whipped back the bedcovers, settled beneath them and reached to set the alarm clock for tomorrow’s early flight to Barbados—a trip that she should, by all rights, be looking forward to.
The message light on the telephone caught her eye. She must have missed a call while she was bathing. With a hit of a button, she lay back against the pillows and put the receiver to her ear.
“Hey there, Sis-boom-bah.” John, of course. “Just thought you should know that Cade has a room at the same hotel.” Brynn shot up from the pillows. “So if you see him in the hall or on an elevator, don’t think he’s stalking you.” She bit her lip, mortified. John wasn’t letting her forget her call to him about Cade. “He’s got a flight home to Colorado tomorrow, so my assistant booked a room for him. If you happen to run into him, go easy on the guy, okay?”
Go easy on him. As if she might leap onto his back and blast him in the face with hair spray.
Those despicable tears blurred her vision again, and longing gripped her—to see him, talk to him. But what good would that do? He hadn’t cared enough to listen to her explanations, and he would never believe she had trusted him.
But had you really? asked a doubting inner voice.
Yes! Entirely. With a sinking sensation in her chest, though, she realiz
ed it wasn’t quite true. She had known he wasn’t the Piper, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him her darkest secret.
Which was just as well. Now that she’d experienced his icy disdain, she could easily imagine how he might have reacted.
Assaulted by fresh pain, she switched off the light and lay down. It took awhile, but she drifted into a restless, uneasy slumber.
And the seriousness of the situation struck her. Cade couldn’t leave! They had to finish their therapy! He needed it badly. So did she. She couldn’t remember exactly why—her thoughts were too tumultuous—but urgency pumped through her veins, pounded through her head.
“Cade!” she cried. “Cade, Cade, don’t leave!” Tossing the covers aside, she leaped from the bed and dashed to the door. Unlocked it. Threw back the safety latch.
And stopped with her hand on the knob. With a violent start, she realized she couldn’t walk out that door. She was in a hotel—a huge, unfamiliar, luxury hotel—in only her nightshirt. The door would have locked behind her…with her key, money, credit card and identification inside.
Leaning her forehead against the door, she gave fervent thanks for her self-preservation instincts.
A loud, hard knock startled her into a backward step.
“Brynn? Brynn, open up.”
She recognized the voice, and with a rush of jumbled emotions, she opened the door. Cade.
It really was him. She could barely fathom it. One moment she’d been chasing him in a dream, and the next he stood before her, not a phantom, but a solid, well-muscled man, his thick ebony hair mussed and falling across his forehead, his powerful chest exposed in a loosely sashed plaid robe, his legs and feet bare. He looked as if he, too, had just leaped out of bed. He also looked tense, and serious, and so breathtakingly gorgeous that her heart ached.
She stared at him in astonishment.
He was the first to break the silence. “I thought I heard you calling me.”
Her hand rose to her heart. He’d heard her. He’d materialized out of the night in response to her cry. It seemed impossible, yet so like him. And what could she say about calling out his name? That thoughts of him had tormented her since he’d been gone?
Sex and the Sleepwalker Page 19
