Mystery Lover

by Lisa Childs

  “He won’t be able to leave.”

  “He’ll come back when he finds out he can’t get away.

  And Tabitha will definitely be in danger.” She stepped closer to him and clutched his arm. “Let me help you.

  I can get onto the estate. I can get Tabitha into that room.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “But those men who were going to kill me, they’re dead. They can’t hurt me.”

  “Nick won’t be there to protect you. And neither will I. I have to go to the meeting place.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to get there before he does.” If he does…

  “He won’t be at the house, then. I’ll be safe,” she said. “I can get Tabitha to safety.”

  Tobias shook his head. “I can’t risk it.” I can’t risk you. He touched her face, cupping her cheek in his palm while he ran his thumb along her full bottom lip. She was so beautiful, but even more attractive than her beauty was her courage and strength. And he knew she was a survivor. Could he trust that she would survive this?

  “Tobias.” She said his name for the first time.

  The first time anyone had called him by his name in a long while. He closed his eyes on a rush of emotion and relief. He hadn’t entirely lost the man he’d once been. But if he let her do this, if he let her risk her life for him…

  “She asked me for help,” Jillian said. “That was days ago. And I didn’t help her. I need to help her.”

  Because no one had helped the child she had once been? He suspected that she identified with his daughter. “If something happens to you…”

  He would never forgive himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Smoke darkened the sky as flames rose, lapping up metal and wood. Sparks shimmered as liquid and gas exploded. Shattered glass glistened like diamonds on the pavement of the airstrip. The planes, helicopter and hangar smoldered, blackened skeletons of metal.

  “Stop the car,” Edward directed the driver. He didn’t want to get any closer to the fire. With the back window down, he could already feel the heat. And that was as close as he intended to get.

  “Yes, sir,” the chauffeur murmured, glancing fearfully into the rearview mirror before returning his attention to the burning hangar in front of them. “Do you think it was him?”

  “Him?” Had people begun to suspect who was really behind the attacks on the city?

  “The phantom?”

  “Yeah. It was definitely him.” The monster. The beast. His brother had been called many things over the past two weeks, but never his own name. Along with the little girl, it was the last thing Tobias had yet to steal back from him.

  Son of a bitch…

  He’d taken everything Edward had wanted, including an escape route, which he needed right now. He didn’t trust Morris to keep his mouth shut about how those men had died. His hand shook as he pulled the note from his pocket. I have what you want….

  What he wanted had to include a plane or a helicopter—some way out of this damn city. Underneath that ominous message was the time and place for the exchange.

  His mouth slid into a smirk. Soon he’d have nothing to exchange, though. He’d offered his own deal to the nanny. He would take her along with him when he left but only if she got rid of the kid.

  She was too smart and too in love with him to fail him. Hell, the little girl was probably already dead.

  AS SHE HAD JUST a few nights before, Jillian stood outside the gates of Tobias St. John’s estate. Before she’d left the underground tunnels, one of Tobias’s men had brought her a change of clothes, so she was warm in jeans, a sweater and tennis shoes. They’d bought the things so she’d be comfortable as she’d traveled through the tunnels to a manhole outside the estate. But still, she shivered.

  She stepped from the shadows into the glow of a streetlamp. She didn’t have to worry about reporters camped across from the estate. A new barricade kept the media down the block, out of view of the house. No one could see her. For all intents and purposes, she was still missing. And if this went as badly as the muscles clenching in her stomach warned her, she could remain missing forever.

  “Hello?”

  No guards hovered behind the gates like they had a few nights ago. Hardly anyone walked near the cement fence inside the gates; she saw only a couple of hulking shadows near the house. Maybe the guards had figured out Edward wasn’t Tobias. Maybe they’d realized he wouldn’t be able to pay them. Or that he’d killed two of their colleagues. And so they’d quit. Or maybe he’d killed more than the two men whose bodies Morris had been caught disposing of.

  “Hello?” she called out again.

  Branches rustled. Loose asphalt crunched beneath feet as a dark shadow neared the gates. She swallowed hard, choking on her fear. She didn’t have to do this.

  Even Tobias had told her that, had assured her that she didn’t have to, that he really didn’t want her to risk her life for his plan.

  For his daughter.

  Neither Tobias nor Tabitha meant anything to her.

  She barely knew them. But when she squeezed her eyes shut, she saw the little girl’s face—her eyes wide with fear as she mouthed the words Help me…

  “Ms. Drake?”

  She opened her eyes to see a young guard. He peered through the gate, his brows arched with surprise at the sight of her. She smiled. “Yes, it’s me.”

  He shook his head. “Everybody thinks you’re dead.”

  Not yet. She swallowed a smart-ass comeback and held on to her friendly smile. “I’m very much alive. And I’d like to come inside.”

  “He’s not here. He left a while ago.”

  “Mr. St. John?”

  He hesitated slightly, as if he had begun to doubt the man’s identity, and then nodded. “He’s not here.”

  And that was the only reason she was. If the cameras hadn’t caught him leaving, Tobias never would have let her out of the underground tunnels. “Let me wait for him inside.”

  The young guard shook his head.

  “Come on,” she cajoled him. “You know he wants to see me. If I leave, he won’t be happy.”

  “I’m not sure he’s coming back,” he admitted.

  “He’s coming back,” she assured him. But the only reason he’d return to the estate was because Tobias had blocked his every escape route.

  “That’s what she thinks, too.”

  “Tabitha?”

  “Who? Oh, the little girl,” he said. “No, the nanny. She’s the one who’s saying he’s coming back. Lucky she didn’t tell the police that, or they would have staked out the place.”

  “The police were here?” Had Morris told them the truth about the imposter? No, he wouldn’t have risked Tabitha’s life. They must have finally gotten suspicious on their own.

  “Yeah. But they didn’t have a search warrant, so I couldn’t let them in. Why should I let you in, Ms. Drake?”

  “Because you know he’s going to be pissed if I just walk away.” She turned from the gate and walked across the sidewalk. She slowed her steps, hoping he’d call her bluff. She couldn’t just leave. What if Tabitha watched her from a window? What if she saw Jillian walk away again without trying to help her?

  “Wait,” the young man called out.

  She expelled a quiet breath of relief before turning around. “Yes?”

  Metal creaked and shuddered as the gates slid open.

  Her heart pounding hard, she walked through them and entered the estate. As the wrought-iron slid closed again, her breath burned in her lungs.

  “You’ll have to show yourself inside the house,” the guard warned her. “Security is short-staffed right now.

  A lot of the guys are…gone.” The young man’s voice cracked with fear. “They’re just…gone.”

  And she suspected that soon he would be, too, that he’d realized he was in as much danger as she’d just put herself in by walking through those gates.

  This is crazy….

  But she continued down
the drive, to that imposing granite-and-glass structure. Either Edward or one of the guards had left in such a hurry that the front door swung open, blowing back and forth in the brisk breeze shaking the limbs of the overhanging trees.

  She heard Tobias’s voice in her head. “If anything feels off, get out.”

  The only thing about it that felt off was that it was too damn easy. It couldn’t be this easy. Could it?

  She stepped inside the house just as the lights flickered out. Tobias’s men had blown the power plant. But the house must have a generator; the chandelier lit up again, casting an eerie glow onto the black marble foyer.

  Dragging in a bracing breath, she headed up the stairwell toward the second story. Tabitha would be up there, but she wouldn’t be alone. Jillian stepped from the landing into a wide hall lined with six-paneled doors.

  Tobias had told her which one was his daughter’s. Third door down. On the right or left? She couldn’t remember, but she had to hurry—Edward was headed back right now. Her hand shaking with nerves, she reached for the black onyx knob of the door on the left. And Tobias’s voice echoed inside her head with the instructions he’d given her before she’d left the underground. “Go straight to Tabitha’s room. Get into the safe room with her and hit the alarm. Then no one can get in that room but me.”

  And her question rang in her mind. “What if some thing happens to you…?”

  “Nothing will happen to me.”

  “He wants you dead,” she’d reminded him. “He wouldn’t have stolen your life if that wasn’t what he wanted.”

  “No, he wants me to suffer.” And hurting his little girl was the way to make Tobias suffer the most.

  Thinking about it made Jillian shudder. She turned the knob and pushed open the door, but the room was empty of all but a made-up bed and dresser. She turned around just as a scream rang out. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she recognized the child’s cry of terror.

  She crossed the hall and flung open the door. Two figures struggled on the bed. Susan was pressing a pillow over Tabitha’s face, but the child squirmed beneath her. Tabitha kicked out and flailed her arms, but the nanny was bigger. Stronger. The child’s struggles already began to weaken as Jillian ran across the room.

  She wrapped her arm around Susan’s neck and jerked, trying to drag her off. The nanny screamed and thrashed her head, hitting Jillian’s jaw. She stumbled back, but she took Susan with her. Her breath escaped her lungs as the nanny landed on top of her, jabbing her elbow in Jillian’s ribs.

  Jillian tightened her arm around the woman’s neck, pressing on her throat. Susan clutched at the sleeve of Jillian’s sweater, her nails tearing through the thick knit and cutting into Jillian’s skin. She swung her head again, knocking her skull against Jillian’s mouth.

  Pain radiated from Jillian’s lips and teeth all along her jaw. Blood trickled into her mouth, metallic and sweet, and ran down her chin. “You bitch,” she murmured.

  But she’d taken harder hits in her life. Some fake nanny wasn’t going to get the best of her. Not when there was more than her life depending on her winning this fight.

  Susan tugged free and scrambled up. But Jillian vaulted to her feet and grabbed her. The woman kicked her and swung her fist, but her blow glanced off Jillian’s shoulder.

  Jillian struck back, her fist connecting with the blonde’s jaw. The woman’s eyes rolled back, and she dropped to the floor. Jillian ignored the stinging in her knuckles. Her pulse racing with adrenaline and fear, she turned back to the bed, which was empty. Then blue eyes peered just above the mattress.

  “Are you okay, honey?” she asked the little girl.

  Tabitha nodded. “Is—is she dead?” she asked, her voice as raspy as her father’s.

  Jillian scrambled around the bed and held out her arms for the child. “She’s not dead. But you’re safe.” For now.

  Tabitha shook her head even as she crawled onto Jillian’s lap. “It’s not safe. Not here.”

  Jillian rested her chin onto the top of the dark curls and sighed. The little girl was right. It wasn’t safe in this house—not even in that special room, especially if the only one who could free them was meeting with a killer. She needed to get her out of there, off the damn estate entirely.

  The nanny lay on the floor, unconscious. The guards might have all left by now. No one would stop her from just walking through the gates.

  “We’re going to leave,” she agreed with the child. “Let’s go…”

  “You’re hurt,” Tabitha said, her fingertip gently touching Jillian’s lip.

  “It’ll be fine,” she assured the little girl. “We have to get out of here.”

  She lifted up the little girl, balancing her slight weight on her hip. Tabitha’s arms wrapped tightly around her. Jillian’s heart pounded as she hurried out the bedroom door and down the hall toward the stairs.

  The lights flickered again. The generator was losing power. Had Tobias’s men tampered with it? Had that been part of their mission?

  Jillian realized she didn’t know everything about the plan, only her part in it. To get Tabitha to safety. But as she started down the stairs, headlights penetrated the leaded glass of the front door and glinted off the dimming chandelier.

  “It’s him,” Tabitha said, her voice quavering with fear. “He’s back.” She locked her arms around Jillian’s neck in a stranglehold.

  “It could be your dad.”

  “My dad?” the child asked, her eyes wide with hope. “He’s alive?”

  “Yes,” Jillian replied, hoping she told the child the truth. “This whole time he’s been gone, he’s been working on a plan to rescue you. He’s coming home.”

  “But—but what if that’s not Daddy?” Tabitha asked.

  Then she would have failed her part of the plan. Goose bumps lifted on Jillian’s skin, and she turned on the stairs, running back up them. “I won’t let him hurt you,” she promised the child. “I won’t…”

  Jostling the little girl in her arms, she ran down the hall toward Tabitha’s bedroom. The nanny still lay on the floor, unmoving. Jillian slammed the door with her back, then fumbled for a lock.

  “He took it off,” the little girl said, wriggling out of Jillian’s arms. “We can hide under the bed…”

  “No. Your daddy made a better hiding spot for you,” she said. First, using her hip, she shoved a dresser in front of the door. Then she caught the little girl’s hand and tugged her toward the closet. She pulled the doors open, then shoved the clothes aside.

  “He wants us to hide in here?” Tabitha asked doubtfully. “He’ll find us in here….”

  “No, there’s a secret room.” But as she pounded against the wall, she couldn’t find the switch that would slide the panel open. Footfalls on the stairs echoed her pounding, and then grew louder as he neared the door.

  “Daddy’s home,” the man called out. “Come here.” The knob rattled as he turned it.

  A cry slipped through Tabitha’s lips. “It’s not Daddy….”

  The tingling on Jillian’s nape told her the same thing. She pounded hard, striking her palms against the wood until finally something clicked. It slid open just as the lights flickered off.

  “Get inside,” she said, hoping the power outage wouldn’t render the safe room useless. But it must have had its own generator, for a light illuminated the small space. Tobias might not have had time to stock the tiny kitchenette, but he’d furnished the room with a bed, a couch and television.

  As the door to the hall opened and struck against the dresser, Jillian urged the frightened little girl inside the secret room. The dresser teetered, then fell over with a crash of splintering wood and shattering glass. Jillian had just stepped inside the room when a big hand closed around her arm, jerking her back.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  It was too late for her. He was too strong for her to fight like she had the nanny. But she could keep her promise to Tabitha. Fumbling for the control pane
l on the wall just inside the room, she pushed the button that activated the door. Then she summoned all her strength and shoved her shoulder into Edward St. John’s chest. He stumbled backward, dragging her with him.

  Tabitha screamed, her voice pitched high with fear. But the panel slid closed, locking the little girl safely inside where her deranged uncle couldn’t hurt her.

  “Open the door!” he yelled at Jillian, shaking her arm so roughly her shoulder popped.

  “No.”

  Despite the utter blackness in the closet, his fist still connected with her face, knocking her against the panel. “Open it!”

  Tears of pain stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She hadn’t been much older than Tabitha when she’d learned she couldn’t betray any weakness to a bully and a coward. And that was all Edward St. John was.

  “I can’t open it,” she replied in all honesty. Once the inside lock was engaged, a code had to be entered into a hidden control panel in order to deactivate the safe room door. “Only Tobias can.”

  He sucked in a breath. “He told you?”

  Her cheek throbbing, she managed a nod. “I know you’re an imposter.”

  “So he’s coming here?” he asked, twisting her arm as he dragged her from the closet.

  “Not until after his meeting with you,” she said, trying to wrestle free of his punishing grip. “He’s coming here after the exchange.”

  “Exchange?” Edward snorted. “You mean my murder? That’s what he’s planning—to lure me to one of those warehouses and blow me up.”

  A gasp of shock and realization slipped out of her swollen lips. Was part of Tobias’s plan…murder?

  “You didn’t realize that when you signed on to help him?” he asked, astutely reading her even in the dark. “You didn’t understand that you were going to become an accomplice to murder?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she denied, despite her doubts. “He’s not going to kill you.”

  “You are so naive,” the madman scoffed. “You think he’s going to let me live after I stole his life from him? You don’t think he’s going to take mine out of vengeance?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know him at all, Miss Drake.”