by Ana Barrons
That ought to get her off her ass. Santini was ambitious and wouldn’t want to miss out on an arrest like this. He ran up the steps to the teachers’ lounge and stopped dead at the back door of the kitchen. Squatting down, he noticed spots of blood on the floor, and the small braided rug in front of the sink was messed up.
Oh, Jesus, Hannah.
He ran through the room, across the foyer, where the large oriental carpet was also askew, then took the steps three at a time up to Hannah’s office. He kicked open the door, leading with his gun, and instantly saw the overturned lamp and papers that had fallen to the floor. Hannah and Philip must have struggled—a glance at the fireplace told him the poker was missing—and Philip had chased her down through the foyer and in through the lounge to the kitchen. The spots of blood probably came from someone’s nose or a small cut of some kind. He swallowed and clenched his fist. If Hannah was hurt…
He raced down the steps and through the lounge and the kitchen to the back door, which was closed but not locked. In the dark with no flashlight, he couldn’t see much, but clearly Philip had taken her out this way.
How did you leave, Hannah? Was he carrying you or could you still walk?
Then he spotted a large lump in the bushes beside the back steps. A body. His chest seized and for a few seconds he couldn’t move. He forced himself to stay to the sides of the steps, to walk deliberately so as not to destroy evidence, as he made his way around to the bushes. It was definitely a body, but it was too big to be a woman’s. The relief was so great he closed his eyes for a moment and sent up a prayer of thanks. He squatted beside the body…and felt cold steel at the back of his neck at the same time he heard the click of the gun. Damn, in his panic he hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
“Don’t you move, you bastard.” The voice was gruff and unfamiliar, with a hint of a New York accent. Little Italy. Another set of footsteps told him this guy wasn’t alone.
“Are you one of the deputies?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’m Wyatt Fuckin’ Earp,” the man said. “Drop your gun. And stand up real slow, put your hands out to the sides and spread your legs.”
John did as he was told.
“Wyatt” picked up the gun and tossed it to someone, then reached into John’s pockets, pulled out his wallet, keys and credentials, and tossed them over as well.
“I had nothing to do with this,” John said, nodding toward the body in the bushes. “I just found—”
“Aw, fuck,” the other man said. “He’s a fed.”
Metal struck John’s skull, and then everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-One
When John came around, he felt the leather seat beneath him and realized he was in a vehicle. It was very dark, too dark to identify the man sitting across from him. It was a big car, maybe even a limo. His head throbbed and his hands were tied behind his back.
“I don’t have time for this,” he murmured, and was surprised at how weak his voice sounded.
“Really?” a familiar voice said. “Got an important date, Dr. Emerson? Or is it Dr. Daly?”
“Bradshaw?”
“I would have expected Hannah to have better sense than to allow a so-called writer into the school without checking him out. As soon as I see her, I’ll have to chide her for that.” His voice grew harsh. “Among other things. Like working with the feds.”
“It wasn’t her fault.” How to play this? How much did Bradshaw know about the FBI investigation and Hannah’s role in it? And what had gone down since that night? “Nothing’s been her fault. The bureau used her.”
Bradshaw leaned forward. “And what about you, Special Agent John Emerson Daly? Did you use her too?” There was a dangerous edge to his voice.
“I used her more than anyone.”
The slap in the face shocked him and caught him so off guard he slid onto the floor. At least now he understood what he was dealing with. Jealousy, pure and simple. Or maybe more complicated, depending on how much Bradshaw knew.
“If you care about her,” John said, “you’ll let me go so I can find her before it’s too late.”
“Do you take me for a fool, Daly? You tell me where she is right now.”
John grunted in pain as Bradshaw’s foot smashed into his ribs. Damn, the man had to understand. “He’s got your son too,” he rasped. “Philip. He’s been stalking Hannah. Ty was helping him so he wouldn’t tell you the truth about—”
Bradshaw grabbed John by the front of his shirt, lifting him off the floor, then leaned into his face. “Philip? What are you talking about?”
“Do you know where your son is right now?”
“Home,” Bradshaw said, but his tone betrayed his doubt.
“No. He left me messages on my cell, and a note…it’s in my jacket. See for yourself. Philip has him, and Hannah. They’re both in danger.”
Bradshaw let go of John’s shirt and spoke over his shoulder to a man in the front seat, “Give me his phone. And what about a note? Did you find a note?”
“No, sir,” the man said. Little Italy. “Maybe it’s still on him.”
“You were supposed to get everything he had on him, you moron,” Bradshaw snapped. “Call the house and tell Sal to find Philip. Tell him to check out the pool house.”
“Right away, Mr. Bradshaw.”
“It’s in the breast pocket of my jacket,” John said. “The note. Unless your friend dropped it on the ground.” Bradshaw reached inside John’s jacket and pulled out the folded-up note.
“Is it one of your guys lying in the bushes?” John asked. “Did he see Hannah and Ty at the school?”
Bradshaw was reading and didn’t answer. “Holy Mother of God!” he growled, laying Ty’s note on his knees. “You think that psycho has Hannah too?”
“There are signs of a struggle in the administration building and her office. And just so you know how sick this guy is, he butchered a doe, dragged it into Hannah’s bed, and covered it up to make me think it was your son. Now untie me and let me go look for them.”
Bradshaw leaned forward. “I don’t need you, Daly. We’ll take it from here. Just tell me where—”
“No, goddamn it!” John shouted. “What, are you going to send your boys out into the woods in business suits, shooting up the place and maybe killing Ty? Is that really what you want?”
“I want to know what’s going on between you and Hannah, and I want to know why an FBI agent is posing as a writer. That’s what I want.”
Frustration was eating a hole in John’s gut. “Okay, look, I’ll tell you the whole story, but just you. Alone. And hurry up, because we’re fucking wasting time.”
John’s eyes had adjusted enough so he could see Bradshaw staring at him in the darkness. Weighing his options. John knew Bradshaw could kill him right now and get away with it—the mob had been getting away with murder for decades. The question was, how much of a player was Bradshaw, really?
Bradshaw knocked on the window behind him and waited until it was lowered a bit. “Vinnie, leave us alone.”
“Sure, Mr. Bradshaw. Oh, and Sal said there’s no sign of Philip and all his stuff’s gone from the pool house. And the car’s gone.”
“Well go find it!” Bradshaw shouted. “Bring that son of a bitch back to me, you hear me?”
Seconds after Vinnie got out, another car sped off, throwing up dirt that rattled against the door. Bradshaw pulled out a gun, pointed it at John’s head and let the safety off. “I want answers, Special Agent Daly. I’ll give you two minutes to tell me what you’re doing here, because I have a strong suspicion that you came to the school because of me.”
John shook his head. “I don’t give a shit about you, Bradshaw. I came here to get close to Hannah.”
“Why? Other than the obvious.”
“My father’s been in prison for twenty-three years for murdering her mother.”
Silence.
“Except he didn’t do it,” John went on, pleased that h
e’d shocked Bradshaw speechless. “This guy, Philip Krantz, was—”
“Kellerman.”
“Krantz. He was stalking her—Sharon Duncan, Hannah’s mother—and he killed her when she rejected him. Now he’s stalking the daughter, who looks exactly like her mother. I took Hannah up to Marblehead to the house where her mother was murdered when she was six. She was the only witness.”
Bradshaw’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Go on.”
“I don’t know how he found her. Maybe a picture in the newspaper or something.” Bradshaw said nothing. “Can you just untie me? How the hell long was I out?”
“About an hour.”
“Shit! Do you know what he could have done to them in an hour?”
Bradshaw leaned forward. “So, when Hannah came to my house the other night she was setting me up for the feds, is that it? I want to know the truth, Daly, or I’ll shoot you right here, right now.”
“And let Philip murder your son and your lover?” John chose his words carefully. “That wouldn’t be a wise choice.”
“Just tell me. Was she working for you?”
“Not for me. I needed Hannah to help me get my father out of jail. But she didn’t know that. Did the FBI want to use her? Hell, yes, but if I’d known I wouldn’t have let that happen. The other agents knew that and got me out of the way that night.”
“Who approached her?”
“They sent a female agent to talk her into cooperating. They knew she’d balk at setting you up. You know her. You think she would have done anything to hurt Ty? Like get his father sent to prison?”
“So why’d she come to see me?”
“Knowing her? Probably to warn you. Why else?”
“She told you that?”
“No, she didn’t tell me that, but—for Christ’s sake, untie me and let me go find her!”
“Just call one of the other agents,” Bradshaw said. “I’m sure you’re not the only person who can track her down.” He stuck the barrel of the gun to John’s temple. “Give me the number and I’ll hold the phone to your ear.”
“You don’t get it. Her mother’s murder was never a federal case, and it hasn’t been reopened yet by the local police up there. The only way the FBI will get involved in the case is if I can convince them that, A, a stalker murdered Sharon Duncan, and B, the same man, Philip Krantz, has been stalking Hannah—and at this very minute is, at best, holding both Hannah and Ty.”
“You’re telling me that one FBI agent can’t call another one and ask him to investigate a disappearance?”
“I interfered in the operation at your place the other night once I figured out that Hannah had gone in. They deliberately didn’t tell me what was going down—in fact they sent me out of town—because they decided I would try to stop her, which I would have. So I’m on the bureau’s shitlist at the very least. More likely I’m on their former-agent list. But I don’t know for sure because I haven’t bothered to listen to their messages.” He lowered his head. “And I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pick up Ty’s messages until a little while ago.”
Bradshaw pulled the gun away from John’s head. “Why did they think you’d try to stop her?”
John looked the other man in the eye. “One of the agents spotted me at the school. They figured I had gotten too close to her, and they didn’t trust me to put her into a potentially dangerous situation.”
“I wouldn’t have let anyone hurt her,” Bradshaw said, obviously insulted.
“Yeah, that’s what she told me. She still believes that. Can she still believe that, after everything I just told you?”
“How do I know you told me the truth?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t have made that whole story up. It’s too bizarre. Am I right?”
Bradshaw ignored the question. “How do I know you won’t earn your way back into your boss’s good graces by giving them this incident as a way to nail me?”
“Easy,” John said. “You promise to leave Hannah out of whatever goes down—none of your friends ever know what I told you tonight. As long as you can guarantee her safety, I’ll never say a word about this little meeting we’re having. Like I said, I don’t give a shit about your operation or who you do business with. All I care about is finding her and Ty.”
“And springing your old man from jail.”
“Right. But right now I’d settle for getting those two back in one piece. Which grows more and more unlikely the longer we sit here chatting, goddamn it.”
Bradshaw bent forward and untied John’s wrists. They ached from being bound, but he didn’t waste time rubbing them.
“Just get me back to the school,” John said.
“You’re driving.”
When John was settled in the driver’s seat, Bradshaw said, “Are you finished with Hannah, then?”
John swallowed. Hannah had promised him nothing. “I don’t know.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I lied to her, and I don’t know whether she’ll ever really trust me.”
“So you’ve been sleeping together.”
John had been expecting this, so he didn’t hesitate. “I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t try my damnedest. She’s gorgeous.”
Bradshaw was silent for several moments. “See, that’s how I know you were telling the truth before.”
John glanced at the other man. In the dim light he could see his cold expression. “Because I have an honest face?”
“Because you were lying just then. You son of a bitch.”
John didn’t answer.
“Why else would Philip have lured you to Hannah’s bedroom to look for Ty?” Bradshaw said angrily. “He must have seen you there. How many nights did you stay over with her?”
“Christ, Bradshaw,” John said quietly. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
Bradshaw turned away and said nothing for a couple of minutes. Tension shimmered in the air between them. “I could have given her everything. She would have been the perfect stepmother for Ty.”
“Yeah, well, if I were you,” John said, “instead of trying to pick a stepmother for Ty, I’d start working real hard to keep my ass out of prison. Take it from someone who knows. Growing up with your father in prison really sucks.”
Hannah was shivering, both from fear and from the cold dampness of the ground seeping through her clothes. Her arms were tied behind her back and her ankles were bound. Oh God, she couldn’t be helpless! Philip was convinced she was Belle—the part her mother had played in high school. She had to use that to her advantage. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time until he killed her. Like he’d killed her mother.
Rage was the only thing keeping her sane.
The handkerchief was still stuffed in her mouth, so she couldn’t talk to him. Her grunts had been ignored. Maybe if she cried…but she couldn’t. Her grief was enormous—grief for her mother, and for the little girl who’d had everything taken away from her by this monster sitting over there somewhere in the dark. It was the anger that got in the way. She didn’t want to cry—she wanted to scream and curse and roar at the injustice of what he had done to her. If she could just get her hands on him, she’d take great pleasure in tearing his eyes out, stabbing him over and over…
You’re losing it.
The waiting was killing her. John might not know she was gone yet. He’d been exhausted last night, even before they made love. She’d been able to sneak back in and get her clothes without him waking up. Tears clogged her throat, thinking about how happy she’d been just a few hours ago. John had told her he loved her, over and over. Even in the midst of all this insanity, she’d been happier than she could ever remember being.
“Are you sad, Belle?”
Hannah froze. It wasn’t a normal voice—it was an evil voice, emerging from a twisted reality. He’d asked if she was sad. Had she been crying, then? She sniffled.
He was moving along the ground, coming closer. Every nerve ending in her body longed to shrink a
way, but she forced herself to stay where she was. There was no one around to rescue her, so she had to figure a way out of this on her own. And then his hand was on her belly, touching her skin, and it felt like a snake slithering across her. She couldn’t contain a shudder of revulsion.
“Don’t be afraid, Belle,” he said, too close to her ear. She jerked away instinctively, but he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into him. “It will better with me than it’s ever been with another man.”
A small sound, a whimper, rose from her involuntarily. She couldn’t let him rape her.
No, no, no, not that. Please God, not that.
He ran a hand over her hair, then twisted a lock of it around his fingers. “I’ve dreamed of doing this for so long,” he said. “Of touching you, wrapping your hair around my hand like this.” As he spoke he was wrapping her hair tighter and tighter until she grunted in pain. He didn’t stop until she whimpered again.
He bent over and kissed her cheek. She sucked in a breath. The spot where he’d touched his lips to her felt wet and sticky. She wanted desperately to rub her face in the dirt or stick it in a bucket of water—anything to get his saliva off her. But it would be a mistake to let him know how much he disgusted her. Could she actually go through with it, if it was a choice between being disgusted and being dead? The thought made her whimper again. This time he pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth.
“Please,” she whispered. “Water.” His grip on her hair tightened, but she forced herself not to make a sound.
“What I can’t understand, Belle, is why you let that man do those things to you.”
“What…what things?” The pain in her scalp, the sour smell of his breath and the rot that stuck to his skin, his repulsive closeness, all were making it impossible to think.
