by Lisa Childs
Those shards of broken glass sparkled in the rays of dying sunshine, the light bouncing back at her. She had to find a way out of here. But if she walked outside, she would have no protection. Her cheek pressing deep into the soft carpet, she turned her head and stared into the open, dead eyes of Franklin Eberhardt.
Like her, he lay on his side on the carpet but on the other side of the couch. The tall legs of the sofa held it high enough off the ground that she could see all of the dead man as well as the blood pooled around him. A bullet hole had broken the skin between those sightless eyes.
Someone out there was determined to do the same thing to her.
And she had no idea how to save herself.
Chapter Six
“You didn’t miss anything,” Vicky’s assuring voice came over her cell phone. “Nothing happened tonight.”
No one, including her, had reported what had happened at Eberhardt’s house. The police hadn’t been thrilled by her not so veiled innuendoes that they were working for St. John, and they would probably arrest her for Eberhardt’s murder, instead of protecting her.
Did she need protection? Had someone really been trying to kill her?
She couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering, couldn’t stop shaking in reaction. She’d lain there a long time, staring into the eyes of the dead man, until she’d thought it safe—and dark enough—to come out of the house. And when she’d finally risen to her shaking legs, she’d crouched low, and prayed and run for her car. But even now, blocks from the murder scene, she couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t slow her heart rate from its fast and furious pace.
“Jillian?” Vicky called through the cell phone. “You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah…” But she could barely believe it herself. Someone had been shooting at her. Had the shots been a murder attempt or just a warning?
“I thought the signal got lost for a minute there,” the young producer commented.
“No, I’m here.” But was she? As she drove, she peered through the windshield, looking for the right street. Although the man she’d hoped to interview had been dead, she hadn’t left Eberhardt’s house empty-handed. As she’d lain there, across from his body, she’d noticed the scrap of paper clasped tight in his fingers. And she’d eased under the couch and pried the paper from his cold, dead hand.
She glanced down at it now. The glow from the dash illuminated the few letters and numbers left on the torn scrap of what might have been a property deed. This industrial section of River City was filled with factories and warehouses; every other one burned out and boarded up. Maybe those picketers with the end-is-near signs were right. At least, they nearly had been in her case.
“Jillian? Are you okay?”
No. She was as crazy as those picketers for following up the dead man’s lead all by herself. Tears stung her eyes, but she couldn’t share her fears with her young friend. She couldn’t put Vicky and Charlie in danger, too. And she damn well couldn’t trust the police. That was why she’d had to come alone. “Fine. I’m fine…”
“Can I ask you something, then?”
“Yeah…” But she probably wouldn’t reply; she much preferred asking the questions to answering them.
“Did you really see him last night?”
“What?”
“The man with no face? Was it really him? Is he really still alive?”
Maybe the girl had a future in front of the camera, asking the hard questions. “Why would you ask that?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Vicky hastily assured her. “It’s just that nothing happened tonight. And for the past two weeks something has every night—sometimes twice a night. It’s just weird.”
But something had happened. Instead of blowing up buildings, he’d started shooting people? She couldn’t believe that—or she didn’t want to—until she had proof of his guilt.
“Are you sure he was real? What you saw last night?” Vicky persisted. “Maybe he was just a ghost.”
“Everybody’s been calling him a ghost—a phantom—these weeks, and that hasn’t stopped him from attacking St. John’s businesses,” she reminded her friend.
But he’d only ever attacked St. John. So why would he have switched to Eberhardt? And forgone explosives for bullets? Except for the torn deed, she hadn’t noticed anything missing. While the picture concealing the safe behind the couch had been removed, the safe door had been closed and locked.
“Vicky, I need to tell you something,” she said, because she needed another opinion, someone to help her figure out what the hell was going on, to continue the investigation in case something happened to her.
“Jill—” Vicky’s voice broke off to a rush of static in the cell.
Hell! She glanced down at the phone’s LCD screen, which displayed a no-signal message. She had lost it now, along with any hope of getting help if her little lead led her into danger again.
She fought back the panic that had her breathing faster. All she had to do was turn around and drive back to the spot where she’d had a connection. Then she would stop being foolhardy and call for help. Steadied with resolve, she pressed on the accelerator and headed toward an alley where she could turn around. But before she’d passed many of those abandoned-looking warehouses, a loud crack startled her into cringing and ducking.
God, had the shooter followed her? She’d been careful to watch the rearview mirror and hadn’t noticed any cars behind her. No other cars were on the road at all, not this late past curfew.
The steering wheel jerked to the left. Then rubber slapped against asphalt. The tire had blown. Her breath shuddered out in a relieved sigh. But then she tightened her hands around the wheel, fighting to keep the car from jumping onto the curb. The headlights glinted on the blackened walls of a burned-out metal warehouse, and yellow crime-scene tape fluttered free from a lamppost.
She’d been a fool for coming here alone, and she’d played the fool too many times already. But this time was worse; tonight it had been her choice.
“This is crazy,” she murmured.
Having had her fill of crime scenes for the night, she pressed down on the accelerator, ignoring the flat. The wheel shuddered beneath her hands as the car fought her efforts. Yet she stopped only when the bare rim ground against the road, sparks igniting off the metal striking the asphalt.
Streetlamps were broken out and glass littered around the bases of the iron poles. She had no light but for the dim glow from the dash. She checked the door locks, then reached for her phone again. But the cell still got no reception. Tears of frustration stung her eyes. “What the hell am I going to do…?”
Impatient with her momentary weakness, she blinked back the moisture. Growing up the way she had, she’d learned young how to protect herself, or she wouldn’t have survived. She could damn well change her own tire. She reached for the trunk button on the car’s key less remote and clicked it. Then, her hand trembling slightly, she unlocked her door and stepped onto the dark, deserted street.
She’d proved long ago—as well as just hours before—that she was a survivor.
Armageddon wasn’t coming for her….
“FIND THAT LITTLE BITCH and bring her to me!” St. John demanded, slamming his fist onto the desk in the den.
Morris gestured for other guards to carry out the order while he remained behind, standing near the open door. “We’ll find her.”
“She lied,” St. John said, fury boiling inside him. “She must have lied….”
“So you think he’s dead now?”
“Nothing happened tonight. He must be dead.” But that niggling doubt remained, twisting his guts into knots, pounding with the tension at his temples.
Morris nodded. “Sure…”
The doubt was in the security chief’s voice.
“What do you think?” St. John asked now, caring for the first time about the other man’s opinion.
Morris shrugged. “He could be dead…or he could be planning somethin
g big.”
And St. John had just sent off the majority of his guards to find Jillian Drake. Had she become a distraction?
BEFORE LEANING into her open trunk, Jillian nervously glanced around the deserted street. If someone shot at her now, using that gun with a silencer, she would never notice the bullets coming until it was too late. She shook her head, thoroughly disgusted with herself. She’d been crazy to come out alone to an address she’d found in a dead man’s hand.
But then her judgment hadn’t always been the best. Case in point: her cheating ex-husband. With a sigh, she heaved the spare tire from her trunk and fumbled for the jack beneath it. She dropped it onto the street next to the spare, then grabbed the tire iron—just as someone grabbed her.
Big arms wrapped tight around her, pinning her arms to her sides. She kicked out, but he lifted her feet above the ground. Her heels connected with shins as hard as cement columns. The man holding her didn’t even grunt, just as he hadn’t when he’d carried her to safety two nights ago. It had to be Dante. He was so big, so strong, and still that faint odor of smoke clung to him along with another musky scent that was his alone.
She didn’t trust that he intended to carry her to safety this time. Even without St. John’s warning ringing in her ears, she would have been afraid of him. Because he’d found her here, where a dead man had led her.
He’d rescued her that first night they’d met, so she’d painted him in the same romantic light some of the witnesses had. But he wasn’t some well-intentioned robber, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Nor was he some misunderstood, gentle monster.
Eberhardt’s face flashed through her mind. After staring at it for hours, she wasn’t likely to ever forget the look in those dead eyes. The surprise and the fear.
This man really was a monster; he was a killer.
She kicked harder and screamed, straining her throat with her efforts to attract attention. But not a single shadow stirred but him. “Let me go!”
“Shh,” he advised her in that familiar, raspy whisper. “You have to get out of here!”
“So let me go!” She drew up her knee, so she could kick him where it would count. But he shifted his stance and caught her leg between his thighs. She wriggled, loosening his arms enough that she was able to swing the tire iron in her hand and connect with his ribs.
This time he grunted, his breath stirring her hair. But instead of letting her go, he tightened his hold and moved toward the center of the street.
She hadn’t noticed any cars following hers. She had seen no other vehicle on the road at all. Where was he taking her? Into one of the buildings? They were all deserted at this hour of night. Metal clanged as he kicked aside a manhole cover. Then, with her still clasped tight against him, he stepped inside the hole.
Jillian closed her eyes and tensed, expecting a fall, waiting for their bodies to hit either sewage or cement. But his boots struck each rung of the ladder leading down into the underground tunnels. He removed one arm from around her so that his gloved hand could hold the side of the ladder, guiding them down into the torch-lit tunnel.
If he only wanted to talk to her, as he had those other times before, he would have left her on the street. He wouldn’t drag her down into the sewer.
Jillian took advantage of his loosened hold to fight again. She kicked, but she didn’t have her heels as weapons now. They’d dropped either onto the street or into the sewer. Her ankle struck the steel ladder. Pain radiated up her leg and down to her toes, the intensity of it bringing tears to her eyes. But she blinked away the stinging moisture and swung the tire iron again, hoping this time to connect with his head. Instead, she struck his shoulder, which was strong and broad.
No wonder so many witnesses had described him as a monster; he was so big. Tall and muscular. His boots kicked up water as he jumped from the last rung onto the tunnel floor. Jillian, desperate to escape before he took her any deeper underground, wriggled and kicked, fighting with all the strength she had.
His hold finally loosened enough that she broke free, falling onto her knees in the water. Before he could reach for her again, she spun around, with the tire iron raised to defend herself.
Her breath left her lungs in a rush. He was even bigger than she had remembered. His shoulders were impossibly broad, making her wonder how he’d managed to get them through the manhole opening. His chest was muscular, so much that his black wool trench coat didn’t close over it. The torches in the tunnel illuminated the mask she’d only glimpsed in the dark the night before. The supple black leather molded to his face as if a part of it. Except for holes through which his dark eyes glittered, the leather covered from his forehead to the curve of his upper lip.
Her fingers trembled around the tire iron she clenched. If he really was what all those witnesses claimed—inhuman—how could she hope to defend herself with just a metal rod?
“I did what you asked of me,” Jillian reminded him. “I reported that you’re still alive. What do you want with me now?”
“Nothing.”
She swallowed the gasp of surprise and fear. St. John had been right. Now that she was no longer of use to this man, he intended to get rid of her. She tightened her grasp on her weapon. Unlike Franklin Eberhardt who’d looked so surprised, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
JILLIAN DRAKE, her famous face smeared with grease from the tire iron she held, stood ankle deep in the sewer water. She had made a career of going anywhere for a story, but even she would not have voluntarily come down here. To hell.
But she had left him no choice. He couldn’t leave her up there, interfering with his plan. But down here—with him—she was still interfering. With his head.
She was so damned beautiful with her porcelain skin and long, wavy red hair. And those eyes, those heavily lashed green eyes that stared out of the television screen every night, stared at him now—wide with fear. While he’d grown used to people being afraid of him, her fear struck him like a hard slap to his face. If he still had a face…
But he had lost that along with his identity. And maybe his humanity. No matter how afraid she was, he could not let her go.
She backed toward the ladder to the street, but he followed her, matching her step for step. “Stay away from me!” she shrieked, waving the tire iron in the air between them. “Don’t touch me!”
He waited until she was backed against the ladder, and reached for her again. Screaming, she swung the tire iron toward his head. He caught the heavy metal in his gloved hand and jerked her forward, into his arms.
The softness and warmth of her wriggling body touched him, thawing the ice that had encased him for so long. As his pulse leaped in reaction to her closeness, he felt, if not entirely human, at least like a man for the first time in a long while.
“Let me go!” she yelled as she wrestled him for the tire iron.
“I can’t.” Dante effortlessly pulled the metal tool from her grasp and dropped it onto the tunnel floor, splashing them both with dirty water. Only rain runoff from the streets above fell into these sewers, and with rainfall low for the season, the water was shallow.
She lifted her gaze to his face—what she could see of his face. Her mouth had fallen open, as if she was shocked that he had taken her weapon. Like him, she wasn’t used to people taking things away from her. Like him, she would probably never stop fighting to get back what was hers.
Her freedom. But that was the one thing he could not give her. It would cost them both too much. He grimaced as she shifted in his arms, nudging against his ribs, which were bruised from the explosion the night before and from her connecting with the tire iron. Grunting with pain, he loosened his hold and she pulled away from him.
“Don’t hurt me,” she said, more command than plea. Even afraid, the woman refused to betray any weakness.
The sleeve of her blouse was torn, and blood oozed from a scratch on her shoulder. “You’re already hurt.”
She glanced at her wound. “Did yo
u do this?”
Regret clenched the muscles in his stomach. Had he scraped her shoulder when he’d carried her through the manhole? But if he’d left her up on the street—that street—she would have been hurt worse.
Her voice cracked now with the fear she’d only previously betrayed with the vulnerability in her eyes. “Why do you want me dead?”
It was almost the last thing he wanted. That was why he’d grabbed her. And he reached out, intending to grab her again.
But she jerked away from him…just as the world shuddered. The explosives he’d set went off above them, the blast so powerful that the tunnels shook, knocking loose pieces of concrete and showering them with dust and debris. He dove for her, trying to shield her, but it was too late.
A chunk of rock struck her, knocking her back. He caught her before she hit the ground and swung her up in his arms. But she didn’t fight him as she had before. She lay lifelessly, her head lolling back and her lids closed over those vibrant eyes.
Had he failed? Instead of protecting her life, had he taken it?
Chapter Seven
“He’s not my daddy…” The little girl’s voice, tremulous with fear, echoed inside Jillian’s head.
Those eerily beautiful pale eyes desperately pleaded with her, as the child mouthed the words, Help me…
But Jillian hadn’t helped Tabitha St. John. She’d put the child’s fears from her mind and focused instead on the girl’s father and on the man who’d targeted his empire. What about Tabitha? Who would protect the child?
Jillian, herself, had once been like that little girl, silently pleading that someone—anyone—would see the pain she was in and come to her aid. But no one had helped her. Just as she had not helped Tabitha St. John. Guilt pounded at her now, reverberating inside her skull.
Help me…
A scream tearing from her throat, Jillian jerked awake. Blinking in confusion, she glanced at her surroundings once her eyes adjusted to the faint glow from a wall sconce. She lay on a brass bed in some strange, windowless, concrete room. Fresh air pumped through vents in the ceiling so Jillian could breathe. But her lungs strained with the effort, panic pressing on them.
