by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees
“Lynnette, your uncle Jonas has been betrayed by his contact. He’s in hiding here in Miami and plans to fly to Puerto Isla as soon as possible. He wants you to go with him. I can take you to him right now.”
It would have been easy for her to take his words at face value. The old Lynn would have accepted Richard’s explanation without question. But in the past twenty-four hours, Lynn had undergone a transformation of growth and inner strength.
She now saw the cold calculation in Richard’s gaze. She also realized from his words that Jonas wasn’t out of the country as she had believed the night before. He was right here in Miami.
“Go to Puerto Isla?” She feigned confusion. “I can’t make a decision about going anywhere unless I talk to Uncle Jonas,” she said.
“You don’t have many choices. You’re a fugitive, Lynn. The best thing for both you and Jonas is to get out of the country, and Puerto Isla has no extradition laws.”
“I still need some time to think,” she said firmly. “So much has happened.”
“Lynnette, I don’t know what the police might have told you, but whatever it was you can be certain it was lies. I certainly hope you didn’t talk to them about your special talents or your work with Jonas.”
“I refused to speak to them at all,” she replied.
“Good. Jonas loves you and he’s quite impressed with the way you got away from the jail.”
A cold hard knot formed in her chest. What kind of man was impressed when somebody he loved broke out of jail and became a fugitive from justice? Certainly not a man who valued the difference between right and wrong. Certainly not a man who was innocent of doing anything illegal.
Richard stood once again. “I can take you to him right now, Lynnette. We can be out of the country in a matter of hours.”
“I want to talk to him first. Give me a phone number where I can reach him,” she said.
Richard’s eyes flashed darkly, although his masklike features betrayed nothing of his emotions. He grabbed a scrap of paper from the desk and scribbled down a number, then held it out to her. “You’d better call him soon. He can’t wait around for you forever. It’s imperative that he leave the country as soon as possible.”
Minutes later, as she drove Dawn’s car back toward the motel room, she once again thought of all the information she’d seen about Jonas in the file Nick had given her to read.
All they needed to arrest Jonas was her telling them that Jonas had been the mastermind behind the thefts. If she gave them his financial records she had no doubt that they would be able to link him to any number of crimes. In all probability he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Even if Jonas deserved whatever the judicial system handed him, that didn’t make betraying him any easier.
Dawn waited for her at the motel. “How did it go?” she asked when Lynn walked through the door.
“Okay. I got a number for Jonas from Dunst.” Lynn handed the car keys to Dawn. “It was so hard to look at him and know that he was the one who stole me from Cleo Patra. I always thought Richard was creepy, but now I know he’s evil.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Dawn replied. “I don’t think any of us knows the extent of Richard Dunst’s evilness. So, are you ready to come with me?”
“I can’t, Dawn. At least, not right now.” Lynn sat on the edge of the bed and realized that at some point on the drive back to the motel room she’d come to a decision. “I want to clear my name before I do anything else. I need to get in touch with the authorities and take care of some unfinished business.”
She could tell that her words disappointed Dawn, but this was something she had to do.
“You’ll come with me when you’re finished with your business?” Dawn asked.
Lynn saw the need in Dawn’s eyes and realized she wasn’t the only one who had hungered for family.
“And you have my phone number.”
Lynn nodded.
“Then I’m going to head out and take care of some business of my own. This room is rented for the next couple of days. You should be safe here as long as you don’t venture out where somebody could recognize you. I’m just a phone call away, Lynn.”
Lynn stood and walked her sister to the door. “I still can’t believe everything that’s happened, everything you’ve told me.”
“I know, but trust me, it’s all real.”
“A couple of days, that’s all I need,” Lynn replied.
The two embraced, and then Dawn was gone, leaving Lynn alone with her thoughts in the silence of the motel room.
She sank down on the edge of one of the two beds. For all intents and purposes, she’d lost her past. Everything she’d believed in had been stripped away from her.
Jonas had wanted her because he’d known about the gene enhancement. He’d masterminded her kidnapping because he’d wanted a superbaby he could raise into a superthief. And he’d succeeded. Oh, how he had succeeded.
She’d been trained by the best that money could buy, her abilities had been honed to perfection, and she’d used them for Jonas.
What would her life have been like if Dunst hadn’t kidnapped her? She’d have been raised with Dawn, in a lab, she supposed. Would Rainy Carrington have eventually found her? Would she have been reunited with the woman who’d given her life? She would never know the answer to these particular questions. She would only know the sadness of what might have been.
Her past was disintegrating into the dust of lies, but her future loomed ahead, a future she now controlled. But she couldn’t go forward with that future until she cleaned up what was left of her past.
Where to begin that job? Nick. She had to deal with him. Even though her heart rebelled at the thought of having anything more to do with him, she knew he was her ticket to cleaning up the mess she was in.
With this thought in mind, she went to the phone and dialed in his cell phone number. He answered on the second ring.
“Nick. It’s me.”
“Lynn, where are you? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in now? How in the hell did you manage to rig explosives at the station?” His voice held a strained intensity.
“None of that is important now. I need to talk to you.”
“Then turn yourself in,” he replied. “We’ll sort things out here.”
“No. I’m not coming in there.” She couldn’t be in control if they were at the police station, and Lynn would never again place herself in a spot where she wasn’t in control.
She frowned thoughtfully. “Does that cottage of yours have a telephone?”
“Yes…why?”
“Be there in half an hour and I’ll call you there and tell you where I’ll meet you.” She could tell he didn’t like the plan, that he’d much prefer she turn herself in and go through the appropriate channels. But he acquiesced. She carefully memorized the number he gave her to the phone at his beachfront hideaway, then disconnected the call.
The last time she’d been at that cottage she’d had no idea that Nick was an FBI agent. She’d only known him as the man who excited her, fascinated her, drew her like none other.
It was just after eleven when the cab Lynn rode in let her out several blocks from the road that led to Nick’s cottage.
Seeing him again would be difficult. The taste of his betrayal still lingered in her mouth, still burned in her heart. There was a part of her that desperately wanted to believe what he’d said to her, that getting close to her had begun as a job but had become something far more. But she was afraid to believe in anything at this moment.
She crept up on the cottage, checking the area to make certain Nick hadn’t arranged some sort of trap for her. She’d told him she’d call to set up a meeting with him, hoping that she would catch him here alone.
There was no indication that a trap had been set. Nick’s car was in the driveway, and the night was silent except for the distant roar of waves to shore. The briny scent of the salt water was thick in the hu
midity of the night, and she remembered that night when she had Nick had walked on the beach at Smokey’s. She hardened her heart against those memories.
She sneaked up to the porch and peered into the front window. Although a lamp was on, nobody was in the living room. Soundlessly she went around the cottage, peeking into windows to make certain there weren’t agents waiting to pounce out and slap handcuffs on her.
Each room that she looked into appeared empty, except the kitchen. There she saw Nick seated at the table, the telephone at his elbow.
For a long moment she merely looked at him through the window, drinking in the masculine features that had become so familiar to her over the past couple of weeks.
He looked tired and worried and yet still so handsome that her heartache grew in intensity. She drew in a deep breath, refusing to become an emotional mess. She had things to take care of, and Nick could help her straighten them out.
She knocked on the kitchen window. His gaze shot to her, surprise lifting his dark brows. He got up from the table and unlocked the back door to let her in.
For a moment neither of them said anything. The past twenty-four hours and everything that had happened in that time hung between them along with a barrier of distrust.
“I thought you were going to call and arrange a meeting place,” he finally said to break the silence.
“I didn’t want to give you a chance to have a bunch of men there to arrest me.” She pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “I want to deal.”
She hoped they could keep this on a purely professional level and not discuss or delve into anything personal that had happened between the two of them.
“There’s only one thing you have to deal with,” he replied, and sat across from her at the table.
She nodded. “I know…Jonas.”
“And you’re willing to give him up to us?”
There was a part of her that wanted to tell him no, a part of her that yearned to hold on to the fantasy of Jonas’s goodness and love. But that was a child’s desire, and over the past twenty-four hours Lynn had been thrust into an adulthood where there was no space for childish whims and hanging on to what had never been.
Had she been a beloved goddaughter to Jonas, or just an asset he’d stolen, a tool to be used? Things would be easier to understand if she could believe that, but the situation wasn’t so black and white. Yes, Jonas had used her, molded her into his own personal thief, but that didn’t mean he didn’t also care about her. He’d given her everything she could need growing up. And deep in her heart, she still loved him—which made what she was about to do horribly difficult.
“Since I called you, I’ve given this a lot of thought,” she began slowly. “I met with Richard Dunst and I now know that Jonas is someplace here in the city. He’s preparing to fly out of the country as soon as he hears from me.”
Nick’s jaw muscles tightened. “If he gets out of the country, we’ll probably never catch him.” He gazed at her for a long moment.
She held his gaze, refusing to look away. “I have a number to reach him and I can set up a meeting. You and your men can be there to arrest him. But before I do that, I have to know that my name will be cleared, just like we discussed before.”
“What if he doesn’t agree to meet you?” he asked.
“Oh, he will.” She looked away from Nick and instead focused her gaze out the back door where the deepest night shadows hung heavy.
She sighed, a touch of thick emotion creeping up her throat. “I always thought of myself as Rapunzel, a princess so beloved that her godfather kept her locked up and protected from the world.” Her heart swelled with grief as she mourned all that she’d lost, all that she now knew had never been. “Now I realize I wasn’t like Rapunzel at all. I was the golden goose, kept in a cage until it was time to produce more wealth.”
“Lynnette.” His voice was so soft she wanted to fall into it, let it carry her away to a place where there wasn’t so much pain.
Instead she drew a deep breath and looked at him once again. “Trust me. He’ll meet me. He’ll want a chance to talk me into going with him. He won’t want to lose his golden goose.”
“I’m sorry, Lynn.” He reached across the table, but stopped when his hand was mere inches from hers. “I know you loved him and I can only imagine what must be going through your head, through your heart right now.”
She suddenly remembered him telling her that there were some people who shouldn’t be parents, that there were people who didn’t make the best of parents. She’d thought he’d been talking about his own situation at the time. Now she realized he might have been warning her about what lay ahead.
“Tell me something, Nick, were the things you told me about your family true, or was that something made up to get closer to me?”
His hand that had been close but not touching hers, touched her then. Just a light touch to the back of her hand, but it was a touch that sent a wave of emotion through her. “I never lied to you, Lynnette. Everything I said to you was always the truth. I’m guilty of not telling you everything, but what I did tell you was always the truth.”
She moved her hand away from his. She couldn’t stand his touch, because she wanted it so badly, because it reminded her of all she’d believed they’d shared. “Did you go see your father? Were fences mended?” she asked.
His eyes, already such a dark brown, deepened in hue to almost black. At the same time a furrow formed in the center of his forehead as he frowned. “No, fences weren’t mended. My father wanted to tell me one last time what a disappointment I was, that he would curse me with his dying breath. It was one more kick in my face after too many years of kicks.”
Even though she still harbored bitterness in her heart toward Nick and she wanted to maintain that anger to keep the pain at bay, she couldn’t help but be touched by his words.
“I’m sorry, Nick.”
“Don’t be.” He shook his head. “I made peace with my family and my choices a long time ago. I hoped that you’d never have to face the same kind of thing, but here we are.”
Lynn reached into her pocket and pulled out the slip of paper that had Jonas’s phone number on it. She placed it on the table between them. “And now it’s time I make peace, as well. I’ll set up a meeting for sometime in the morning.”
“Where?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “He’ll never return to the mansion so it can’t be there. What about here? I can even tell him the truth, that it’s a place you own and that sometime last week you gave me the key. There would be no reason for him to be suspicious about this place.”
Nick leaned back in his chair, obviously contemplating her suggestion. “I guess this would be as good a place as anywhere. At least here we don’t have to worry about civilians getting in the way.” He nodded. “Yeah, we can make it work here if he agrees to show up.”
“He’ll agree, and if he doesn’t I can make certain he’ll agree to meet me before he leaves the country.”
“How can you do that?” Nick asked curiously.
“If you can get me into the mansion and to Jonas’s computer, then I can freeze all of his banking accounts.”
“We’ve already done that,” Nick replied. “I had them frozen about an hour ago.”
“You might think you froze all of Jonas’s accounts, but I’m sure he has accounts you don’t know about. He has accounts in banks all over the world, in places there would be no records of here.”
“Then we’ll get you to that computer to freeze the rest of them. Even if he agrees to meet with you, I’d like to make sure he can’t get to his accounts.”
She reached for the phone, surprised to see her fingers trembling slightly. Before she grabbed the receiver she paused and looked at Nick once again. “Even though I have absolutely no reason to trust you, I am trusting that you aren’t lying to me, that all charges against me will be dropped and I can walk away from all this unscathed.”
“I swear,” he said sole
mnly.
She had to believe him. She picked up the receiver and dialed the number Dunst had given her. Jonas answered it on the second ring.
“Uncle Jonas,” she said.
“Lynn, baby, where are you? Why didn’t you come with Richard to meet me? I’ve been anxiously waiting for you from the minute I heard about your escape.”
“I needed to think, Uncle Jonas. I’m so confused by everything. I was so scared in jail.”
“I know, honey. I’m sorry you had to go through that all alone.” There was a long pause. “Lynn, baby, I tried desperately to get you out of there, but I’ve been betrayed by our government contact.”
“Yes, Richard told me,” she replied. “But how? What happened?”
“I can’t tell you how upset I am. I’ve been handing over to him the precious things you’ve been retrieving, but he’s been selling them, Lynn. He’s as crooked as they come and now he’s trying to destroy me. He has position and power and he will make things difficult for us.”
Lynn listened dispassionately, surprised to discover that she was already moving away from Jonas, that the seedling of strength she’d felt growing over the past couple of days had bloomed. She could give him up and she could walk away.
“Lynn, it’s vital we go away. This contact, he won’t stop until he sees us both in jail. While you were in police custody…you didn’t say anything about our work, did you?”
“I refused to speak to any of the officers who tried to talk to me,” she replied, repeating what she’d told Dunst.
“Good, good. We can continue our work elsewhere…in another country.”
Bitterness swelled up inside her at his words. It was just as she’d thought. He didn’t want her, but he needed her. He needed her unique skills, her unusual abilities, to carry out his own plots and pillaging.
“I want to see you,” she said. “I need some time to think. I’m exhausted, Uncle Jonas. Can we wait until morning to leave? Can we meet in the morning someplace and talk? Please, Uncle Jonas.”
