by MJ Rodgers
“Where’s the boy?”
“He’s safe. I called Kay at her nearby condo and she came over immediately and took Nicholas home with her.”
“Why didn’t you call Remy’s sister?”
“The press knows where Phillida Moore lives now. Besides, she must have unplugged her phone after so many nuisance calls. We couldn’t even reach her to tell her what happened.”
“What in the hell did happen?”
“Just before two this morning, the elderly woman who lives in the condo next to the firm’s was sitting up reading when she heard a scream. She rushed to her balcony, opened it and saw Dr. Westbrook in pajamas draped around the balcony railing and a figure all in black wearing a ski mask standing over her.
“The elderly woman yelled out. The figure in black disappeared into the condo. The elderly woman called the police. They broke in the door to the condo about ten minutes later and found Dr. Westbrook unconscious on the balcony. Nicholas was unharmed, asleep in the bedroom.”
“How did someone get into the condo? I thought the lock was foolproof?”
“The police had to use a pickax to get through the door. They think she let her attacker in.”
“No, she would only let in someone she knew, and I very much doubt she’d be doing that at two in the morning in her pajamas. Was anything taken?”
“No. And there was no evidence that it was an attempt to sexually assault, either.”
Marc began to pace, forcing his mind to steer away from the awful images that A.J.’s casual comment had suggested. “Someone finds out that we have Remy stashed at the condo, breaks in and attacks her. How? Why? Because she was trying to protect her son? No. If the intruder was after the boy, he had plenty of time to take him. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“But it starts to put that crane incident in a whole new light, doesn’t it? Marc, if she makes it, we’ve got to move her. This hospital is too big and too wide open.”
Marc stiffened at the message in both of A.J.’s statements. He made the only decision he knew would calm the roiling emotions within him. He dug into his pocket and came out with a key.
“Ask Kay to take Nicholas to my place and stay with him. Make sure no one sees them.”
“Your place?” A.J. said as she took the key. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Its previous owner was a rock star, who strongly believed in security systems. Right now my place is the only one I know is safe. They need safety, A.J.”
“They? You plan to move her there, too?”
“When she’s well enough,” he said, not allowing himself to contemplate any other possibility.
He began to pace again. “I thought when we found Neville Smith, we’d solved the problem. But whoever broke in tonight wasn’t some bumbling P.I. screwing up his surveillance.”
“No, it wasn’t,” A.J. agreed, standing in the middle of the waiting room, letting him pace around her.
“Her attacker obviously intended to throw her off that balcony, A.J.”
“Trying to make it look like an accident or suicide,” she added matter-of-factly.
“Just like the crane would have looked like an accident if it had worked.”
“Yes,” A.J. agreed again.
Marc stopped his pacing. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Nicholas is the one who’s inheriting a billion dollars. Why kill Remy? Damn it, A.J., what’s going on?”
* * *
REMY SMELLED THE medicinal air of the hospital room even before she could get her eyes opened sufficiently to see it. When she did, it was all whirling bright lights and chattering noises, as though she were surrounded by a troop of excited chimps. She tried to move her head to get a better look, and then she felt the pain.
Memory flooded back. The attack. The balcony.
Someone very far away was calling her name. She opened her eyes, trying to see, but the pain bled all the colors and shapes into meaningless, pulsing blobs. She closed her eyes again. The soft, quiet darkness crept in to cover the bright lights and noise. She relaxed back into it with a grateful sigh.
When next she opened her eyes, the pain was much less, and she was able to focus on two faces framing her bed like bookends—a woman in a white coat and Marc Truesdale.
Her immediate question was for him. “Nicholas?”
Marc took one of her hands into both of his and smiled. “Nicholas is fine. This is Dr. Quaffe. We’ve been quite worried about you.”
“How are you feeling, Remy?” Dr. Quaffe asked as she lifted her patient’s free hand to take her pulse.
“All right. Marc, are you sure Nicholas is okay?”
“He’s untouched, Remy. And safe.”
Dr. Quaffe finished taking Remy’s pulse and leaned over to look into her eyes. “Now, let’s talk about you. You’ve suffered a nasty blow to the back of the head. Is your vision blurry?”
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes, I woke up to find someone in the condo. He grabbed me and was going to throw me off the balcony.”
Marc’s hands tightened around hers. “Did you see who it was?”
“No. It was dark. He was wearing a ski mask. He grabbed me from behind.”
“You’re sure it was a he?”
“I can’t be sure. How long have I been out?”
“Almost fourteen hours,” Marc said. “We were beginning to get pretty worried.”
For the first time Remy noticed that the impeccable Marc Truesdale’s hair was tousled, his face unshaven, and he was wearing sweatpants and a cotton pajama top. She glanced down at his feet. They were sockless and shoved into bedroom slippers.
Surprise sprinkled her voice as she looked at the worry lines around his eyes. “You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Your fiancé refused to leave your side,” Dr. Quaffe said with a smile.
Remy’s head lifted off the pillow. “Fiancé? But we’re not—”
“Supposed to have told anyone,” Marc interrupted smoothly as he pressed her back onto the pillow. “Don’t worry. Dr. Quaffe has promised, on her doctor-patient oath, not to tell. I’m so glad you’re all right, my love.”
Marc’s lips then covered Remy’s in a warm kiss that silenced all further words of protest.
She brought her hands up to his chest, fully intending to push him away. But his mouth was warm and gentle and tasted of coffee and worry and relief. And Remy knew she did not want to push him away. She wanted to kiss him back.
My love. The incredible sound of those words echoed in her ears as her mouth melted into his. A warmth crept through her body—an enticing warmth that curled her toes and stole the very breath from her lungs. Her palms absorbed the healing heat of his chest and glided appreciatively over robust shoulders to circle his neck. His kiss deepened into a very tender, thorough examination of her mouth.
Remy forgot where she was and why, and, what’s more, she didn’t care. She was totally absorbed in this kiss—this amazing, sweetly passionate kiss that she never expected from him...or from her.
When it finally ended, Remy’s whole body felt flushed, and her heart was skipping happily.
Marc leaned slightly back. He wore a devoted lover’s smile, and Remy’s spinning world tilted on its axis.
Marc stole a look around to see that the doctor had left. The lover’s smile was immediately replaced by a congratulatory grin. He flashed Remy a thumbs-up sign.
“Nice cooperation. You catch on fast.”
She hadn’t caught on at all. Until now. So it was all for show. She swallowed a heartful of disappointment and chastised herself. Well, what had she expected? A real pledge of love? How badly had she been hit on the head, anyway?
“Why the fiancé charade?” she managed to ask in an almost mellow tone.
“Dr. Quaffe recognized me from the news coverage of the Bio-Sperm trial. She was determined to kick your lawyer out of the room. But as
soon as I became your fiancé, she was much more sympathetic to my remaining by your side.”
“I see. And why was staying by my side so important?”
“Remy, you have to ask? Someone deliberately broke into the condo to get at you. I wasn’t taking any chances on someone pretending to be hospital staff and trying to finish the job. A.J. tells me this place is wide open.”
Remy heard the worry and genuine concern in his voice. She forgot her pique. “You really don’t think someone might—”
“No, but I’m not giving anyone a chance. A.J. and I both suspect that the crane accident probably was no accident at all.”
Remy’s eyes darted around the private hospital room and stopped on the IV dripping glucose into her arm. Shadows of dangers suddenly seemed to collect around her as vivid flashes of that awful ski-masked face flipped back into her mind’s eye.
She fought down the rising fright. She firmly reminded herself she was a scientist. She aggressively faced the facts; she did not lie shrinking from formless fears.
And she did not lie complacently back while others decided her fate, either. She had to regain control over her life and that of her son. Now. Before it was too late.
She looked directly into Marc’s eyes. “You know why someone is after me, don’t you?”
“How could I—”
“It has something to do with Nicholas being David Demerchant’s child, doesn’t it?”
He exhaled heavily. “That would seem the most likely explanation.”
“Not the most likely explanation,” she corrected him, “the only explanation. And since it is, you also know you can stop this.”
An uncomfortable look flashed onto his face. “Remy—”
“Listen to me, Marc. Everything started to go wrong in my life the day Nicholas was linked with David Demerchant. All it will take to end this madness is for you to go on TV and tell the world that he isn’t David’s son. The societies will withdraw their suit. Colin and Heddy Demerchant will no longer want custody of him. It will be over.”
He retreated to the bottom of the bed and grasped its metal frame so tightly his knuckles turned white. She watched his face as he stood perfectly still before her. Its finely chiseled features had turned to stone, his cobalt eyes to glaciers. The very air seemed to freeze between them.
“Remy, you’re asking me to cheat my friend’s son out of his rightful inheritance. You’re asking me to go back on my word. I can’t do these things.”
“And I can’t live this way anymore. I’ve given up my home, my profession. I will not give up my life. Nicholas needs me. I’m his mother. We love each other. I’m the one he comes to when he cries. I’m the one who cares for him when he’s sick. Do you really think he would be better off with David’s money than with me?”
“Remy, you’re being grossly unfair trying to make this into an either-or proposition. I know Nicholas needs you. But that doesn’t mean he has to lose his father’s legacy. By fighting for him to keep you both, I’m doing what’s right.”
“Is it right for you to endanger my life?”
Somehow, his face and voice got even colder, even stonier. “I am not the one endangering your life. I did not try to hit you with a metal beam or throw you off a balcony.”
“Yet you admit that whoever is after me is only after me because you keep insisting Nicholas is David’s child.”
“You mean because I keep insisting on the truth.”
“You can’t know what the truth is!”
“I can and do. And whether you believe that or not, believe this, Remy. I will move heaven and earth to protect you. But I will not budge an inch from the pledge I gave my friend.”
His words were so crisp and icy. Their meaning was so clearly imprinted in the defiant stance of that hard, lean body, so deeply impressed in those stone-cold eyes. She turned her head away.
She knew that nothing she could say would make Marc Truesdale back down. She also knew it was that infuriating stubbornness to keep his word that was at the core of what excited her so damn much about him.
She didn’t know when she had become aware of that. She suspected it began happening on that first day she walked into the Bio-Sperm trial and he lovingly caressed her with his eyes while he ruthlessly challenged her with his words. Or it might have been at the moment her body came apart beneath the heat and tenderness of his kisses.
He must have read something in her face. His voice softened. “Remy? Are you all right?”
She sighed. No, she wasn’t all right. Her heart felt red and terribly sore. She reached down deep, desperately searching for all that discipline that had once been so easy to reach. When she finally gathered the few scraps that remained, her eyes drew back to his face.
“You once told me that the provisions of a living trust were a lot harder for someone to challenge than a will. Is that really true?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I want you to draw up a living trust for me and frame its provisions so tightly that no one will be able to challenge Phil’s custody of Nicholas should something happen to me.”
“Remy, I won’t let anything happen to you. I—”
“Spare me the empty assurances. Just tell me you’ll do it.”
His jaw set in anger at her words. His tone grew cold once more. “All right. Anything else?”
“Yes. I want Nicholas with me.”
“He will be, just as soon as we get you out of here. And the sooner we do that, the better. Dr. Quaffe was given instructions by the police to call them when you regained consciousness. I’m sure she’s doing that now. They’ll be here soon to take your statement. I’ll sneak you out as soon after that as possible.”
“Sneak me out?”
“The reporters are neck-deep in the waiting room. The attack against you has been the lead story on every newsbreak this morning. There’s nothing the doctor can do for you here. Do you think you can walk?”
In answer, Remy grabbed the bed’s safety rail and pulled herself up. The dizziness assaulted her immediately. She closed her eyes and held on. Marc moved swiftly back to her side. She felt his warm hands on her arms, gently urging her to lie back down.
“It’s obviously too soon,” he said, the ice thawing in his voice, the tenderness returning. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked it of you. I’ll think of another way.”
Remy sank gratefully back onto the pillow. She opened her eyes again, encouraged to find the room had stopped spinning. “Where are my clothes?”
“The police took your pajamas for forensic evaluation.”
Probably just as well. She was feeling as weak as a newborn kitten after that one simple attempt to sit up.
“Maybe the police will post a guard outside the room, you can bring Nicholas to me, and I won’t have to leave.”
“A police guard would mean very little in the way of real protection, Remy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because a policeman won’t know the hospital staff. He’d be inclined to let in anyone wearing a medical uniform. Those uniforms are too easy to get. Even if we put one of A.J.’s people outside, he or she could be fooled, as well. No, getting you out of here to a safe place is the only answer. And I think I have an idea of how we can do that. After the police are gone, we’ll move.”
“Move where? How?”
“You let me worry about that.”
His tone had that intimidating quality of a male taking charge. Remy’s frustration over her feelings of helplessness rose to even greater heights.
“Marc, it’s my body that’s currently incapacitated, not my mind. I want to know where I’m going.”
“I’m taking you to my place.”
“Your place? You mean, your home?”
“The press would never suspect that a lawyer would take his client into his home, which is why I believe it will be the best safe haven for you, Remy. And I mean that in all respects. I know what you think of me. I will keep my distance. I give you my
word.”
His word. The definitive statement. The period at the end of any argument.
He thought he knew what she thought of him. She doubted he had even the barest clue. She hoped he didn’t.
“How are you going to get me there?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Of course I want to know.”
He smiled for the first time in several long minutes. “All right, I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to like it.”
Marc was right. Remy didn’t like it.
A half hour after the police left, she found herself on a stretcher, being wheeled into a mortuary van that had pulled up to the back exit of the hospital. At least that’s what she’d been told A.J. and her people were doing. In truth, she couldn’t see a thing through the small holes they had made to let her breathe through the sealed black body bag.
* * *
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE brought them here, Marc,” Adam said as he poured himself some orange juice and replaced the container in Marc’s refrigerator. “If the press ever finds out you have Dr. Westbrook and the boy living in your home—”
“It will never occur to them. We got her out clean. A.J. has one of her operatives in Remy’s hospital bed and a toddler-size doll in a playpen nearby. Dr. Quaffe is cooperating by giving the press periodic reports on her ‘improving’ condition. Outside of our people at Justice Inc., only the police know where she and the boy are.”
“Then why is it that when I drove up to your security gate a few moments ago, the place was swamped by newspeople?”
“It’s not because they know she’s here. They’re just trying to catch me coming in or out to get a quote about the attack and upcoming trials. Remy is hot news, and they’re salivating for any little nibble they can get.”
“How did you get her past them?”
“I flew her in by seaplane. They don’t even know I’m here.”
Adam paused to take a sip of his orange juice. As usual, he had refused anything alcoholic in it. Marc knew Adam never allowed himself anything that could interfere with his cool, clear thinking. At the moment, Marc was following his example.
“I asked A.J. to dedicate her team’s energies to protecting Dr. Westbrook and her son full-time, and to get to the bottom of this attempt on her life.”
