by Julie Miller
But maybe that need for an evening of independence to figure out her future had been a mistake.
She hurried past Ebenezer Scrooge himself, knowing there would be no other actors behind him. The crew members thought Tyler was onstage or had made an emergency run to the bathroom and forgotten he had to go back out.
She found Tyler’s street clothes still on the hanger in the men’s dressing room, although his coat was gone.
Katie quickly slipped into her own coat and pulled out her phone. He wouldn’t have been so foolish as to go out and play in the snow, would he? Just in case, she hurried across the backstage area and stepped outside. “Tyler?”
Not trusting her son’s safety to anyone else, Katie punched in Trent’s number and lifted the phone to her ear. It rang once before she saw the silver car, just like the night before, waiting in the crowded parking lot. She saw Leland Asher nod to her before climbing into the backseat. “Oh, no. Tyler!”
She started to run. But strong arms locked around her from behind, knocking her phone into the snow and lifting her off the ground. A rough hand and a pungent cloth muffled her scream, and within seconds, her knees grew weak and the world faded into black.
* * *
THE NIGHTMARE DIDN’T go away when Katie awoke.
It had just taken on warmer temps and a posher backdrop.
She was still a prisoner, like she’d been at seventeen. And her beloved little boy was once again in harm’s way.
Instead of being handcuffed to a bed in a makeshift hospital ward, waiting to deliver a baby, she was seated at Leland Asher’s ornate walnut desk in the study of his mansion, hacking into a computer system for him. She didn’t need to be drugged or kept in chains in order to cooperate. The two thugs who’d kidnapped her and Tyler had already shown her Matt Asher’s dead body and promised to do the same to her nine-year-old son if she didn’t do their boss’s bidding.
There was something seriously twisted inside Leland Asher’s head to make him order his bodyguards to lure Tyler outside the theater with a story about her getting hurt in the parking lot. Now he had them tie Beverly Eisenbach to a brocaded Queen Anne chair before thanking them for their years of service and dismissing them, promising each a healthy bonus in their bank accounts. Then he’d kissed his longtime girlfriend and stuffed his wadded-up handkerchief into her mouth to muffle her protests and pleas for mercy. With Matt Asher dead, Leland weakened by his illness and the hired help dismissed for the night, Katie even briefly considered standing up to Leland herself, maybe shoving the desk chair at him and making a run for it with Tyler, or whacking him over the head with this computer.
But as if sensing her tendency to tempt fate, he used the one thing she cared about most to force her to unlock code and break through firewalls and search through servers to access the information he wanted—he stood in the center of the room framed by windows and floor-to-ceiling curtains and simply rested one hand over the shoulder of her son and held a gun in the other.
Her sinuses reeled with a headache from the knockout chemical they’d used on her, but her synapses were firing on all cylinders. She’d been at the computer for about an hour since getting her instructions, but in reality, she’d gained access to Beverly’s medical files within the first fifteen minutes. She’d spent the rest of the time fighting for survival in the best way she knew how. She prayed her desperate plan had worked and that it had worked quickly enough for her and Tyler to have a chance to escape.
She rested her fingers for a moment before looking up at the gray-haired man. “I’m in.”
“I want you to access her private files.”
Beverly screamed through her gag, rocking back and forth in her chair, pulling at the ropes that bound her.
“I need a warrant to do that,” Katie explained.
Leland put the gun to Tyler’s head and Katie bit her lip to stop from crying out. “Here’s your warrant. Now do it.”
Katie’s fingers sailed over the keyboard again. “You keep looking at me, Tyler. Think about Padre. He’s going to need you to give him some extra exercise tonight because we’ll be getting home so late.” She locked her gaze on to Tyler’s red-rimmed eyes and smiled. “You focus right here, sweetie. I love you. Don’t ever forget that, not for one second.” He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his costume and nodded, trying so hard to be brave and remain calm for her.
She glanced down at her work, wanting to do everything she could to maintain Tyler’s focus on her and keep him from witnessing a gruesome crime or becoming a victim himself.
Don’t make a mistake. Don’t make a mistake.
Since Leland hadn’t questioned anything she’d done so far, Katie pretended the extra commands she typed in were necessary to retrieve the sensitive information that the law and a stubborn girlfriend wouldn’t give him. The counseling office’s patient list was already on her screen. But with her fingers flying over the keyboard, she embedded a message and sent it to Trent’s phone. The message was sent and gone by the time she’d reached Bev Eisenbach’s confidential files.
“Have you finished yet?” Leland was growing impatient.
She couldn’t push her luck too much further. “Just about.”
Leland kept his grip on Tyler but switched the gun back to Beverly as tears smeared her mascara and she whimpered for forgiveness. “Miss Rinaldi, I remind you that I’m a dying man.”
“I’m in the system.” Find us, Trent. Find us. “I’m pulling up the patient files now. What do you want me to look for?”
Leland smiled, pleased with her success. Keeping a grip on Tyler’s arm, he walked over to Beverly and pulled the gag from her mouth. “It was quite a clever plan all those years ago that you came up with, darling. Care to explain yourself?”
Bev coughed for a few seconds before she could speak. “Leland, dearest, you know I’ve always had your best interests at heart. Look at all I’ve done for you. I convinced that tweaking drug addict to kill that reporter who was going to expose your connections to the senator. I did the world a service by having your men kill Lloyd Endicott so that Dr. Wells would murder that horrible Richard Bratcher. I found out Francisco Dona was still alive. I found out he was working as a private detective.”
“No. No, dear. You kept that from me.” He drew the gun across Beverly’s forehead, and Katie nearly screamed at the horrible images he was exposing her son to. “All these years I thought I’d avenged Isabel’s death, only to find out that my nephew—her own son—knew he still breathed air, and you two hadn’t done a damn thing about it. I had to have my men take care of it.”
Katie was a bit of a brilliant geek herself. She’d already tapped into her KCPD account and was mirroring everything that she was doing here on the department server. She’d pinged Trent’s phone—Max’s, Olivia’s and Jim’s, as well. Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor received a notification of the new files uploading. Katie had even copied a notice to her surrogate father, the DA.
Look at Miss Katie Lee Rinaldi—taking a huge risk, bending the rules, doing whatever was necessary to protect the people she loved. She was charging into battle, taking on a known criminal to save her son and her own life one more time.
Read between the lines, Trent. Find us.
She’d always been able to get herself into trouble, but Trent would always be there to help her get out of it—to catch her when she fell, when she was frightened, when she was terrified her next mistake might cost her everything she held dear.
Be patient with me a little longer, babe. I love you. I need you. I’m in love with you.
A loud crash at the front door shook through the house. “KCPD! We’re coming in!”
Tyler cried out with a startled yelp.
“It’s okay, Ty,” she reassured him. “They’re using a battering ram to break down the door.”
“At last.” Leland
smiled from ear to ear. “I wondered how long it would take the police to find you.”
“Asher!” A deep, familiar voice echoed through the house.
“Mom!” Tyler recognized Trent’s voice, too. She saw him pull from Leland Asher’s grasp.
She put up her hand, cautioning him to obey. “Shh, sweetie. Remember you’re playing a part. You’re the good little boy who does whatever Mr. Asher says, right?”
Tyler’s frightened eyes locked on to hers again and he nodded.
The next voice Katie heard was Ginny Rafferty-Taylor’s. “Leland Asher. Your house is surrounded. Your chauffeur and bodyguards have been neutralized. It’s just you and me and a lot of very angry cops.”
“I’d be happy to talk with you, Lieutenant.”
The team must be working its way through the mansion while the lieutenant stalled Asher. “I need to talk to the hostages first. I need to know they’re okay.”
“Are you?” Leland tightened his grip on Tyler’s collar and Katie nodded. “Answer her.”
“It’s Katie, Lieutenant. Tyler and I are both fine. But Mr. Asher has a gun.”
Leland laughed. “Of course I have a gun. All your police friends have guns—it’s only fair. Please. Welcome to my home, Lieutenant.”
Oh, God. Now his bizarre actions made sense. “He wants you to come in. He wants... Oh, God, please don’t hurt my son.”
“Did you find the evidence I requested, Miss Rinaldi?” Tears stung her eyes and she reached out for Tyler. “Miss Rinaldi.”
She forced her attention back to the computer. “Yes. Dr. Eisenbach has notations in her patient files. Those with secrets she can use to blackmail them, those who need a favor and will do something in exchange for that favor.” What more did the man want from her? “Could I please have my son?”
The lieutenant’s voice sounded closer when she spoke again. “Are you sure everyone is okay? Your nephew is here. He’s been shot, Mr. Asher. He’s dead.”
“Yes, I did that.”
He was confessing to murder with dozens of cops swarming the estate? With three witnesses who could testify against him right here?
Katie was more certain than ever that this monster intended to commit suicide by cop. He was a dying man, determined to set his affairs in order—to eliminate those who’d betrayed him and then die instantly himself, avoiding a lingering death.
But with her innocent boy smack-dab in the middle of all those guns? She couldn’t let that happen.
“Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot! There’s an innocent child here.” Katie reached out again. “Please, Mr. Asher. May I have my son?”
“Soon, Miss Rinaldi.” He turned his attention to Tyler. “Would you like to go over and sit with your mother?”
“Yes, please.”
“When she’s done working. She’s proven more loyal to her loved ones than my family has been to me.” Leland looked around the room, perhaps seeing the movement of SWAT cops taking position outside the windows. “Did you find the information I was looking for, Miss Rinaldi? Has my beloved Beverly betrayed me?”
Katie looked at the incriminating evidence she’d pulled off Dr. Eisenbach’s computer records. The notations Leland Asher had asked her to find were right there.
Francisco Dona, aka John Smith, is alive. Can use him to eliminate threats and provide surveillance to ensure jobs are completed as ordered in exchange for keeping his identity from Leland.
Matt Asher’s hatred for his uncle can be used to my advantage. String him along with promise of helping him take over the business. He can do the dirty work and I can reap the profit. (I’ve earned it.)
Stephen March, Hillary Wells, Doug Price and many more—their names were all there. The psychologist had counseled all of them, forced them to do her bidding, first to please Leland—to become an indispensable ally with hopes of eventually becoming his wife or business partner—and later to eliminate Leland himself when his promises of power and position turned out to be lies.
But once Katie gave Leland the information he wanted, the bullets would start to fly. And Tyler—her son, her angel—would be caught in the crossfire.
“Miss Rinaldi. My time is running short. I’m sure your compatriots are closing in on my position and lining up kill shots even as we speak. Is the information there? Did my love betray me?”
Beverly wept in her bonds, begging to make amends. “Leland, please.”
“Miss Rinaldi?”
Katie pointed to her face, silently telling Tyler not to look anywhere else, to hold fast to the love in his mother’s eyes.
“Miss Rinaldi?”
“Yes. It’s all here. Beverly and Matt have betrayed you.”
“Thank you.”
Without missing a beat, Leland shoved Tyler toward Katie. Beverly screamed as he turned and fired a bullet right into the middle of her forehead.
Katie lunged for her son and wrapped him in her arms, dragging him beneath the sturdy walnut desk as a pair of smoke grenades crashed through the side windows, filling the room with a stinging gas.
“Close your eyes, Tyler. Hold tight to me.” Oh, thank God, thank God. But Leland still had a gun. A lot of people still had guns.
“No!” Leland shouted in a rage. “Shoot me! Shoot me!”
“Drop your weapon, Asher!” That was Trent. His voice was muffled by the mask he wore, but there was no mistaking the deadly authority in his tone.
“Drop it!” Max was in the room, too.
“This one’s dead,” Olivia announced, moving away from Dr. Eisenbach’s slumped body.
Jim Parker was there. Even Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor had a bead on the man her team had finally brought down. “Drop it, Mr. Asher. You’re surrounded. We have oxygen masks. You do not.”
“No! You have to shoot me!”
Katie hugged her body around Tyler’s as tightly as she could when she felt the barrel of Asher’s recently fired gun singe the nape of her neck. “Don’t hurt my son!”
Leland yanked on the collar of her blouse to pull her from beneath the desk. But six feet five inches of defensive tackle slammed into the older man and flattened him on the floor.
“It’s over, Asher. You’re done.” She could hear him kicking Leland’s gun away and pulling the handcuffs from his belt. “Sunshine, you all right?”
“Yes.” The lieutenant helped her crawl out from under the desk and stand.
“Tyler?”
“I’m okay.” Katie hugged her son tightly to her chest, assuring her boss with a nod as Max, Olivia and Jim circled around the imported rug where Trent was handcuffing a winded Leland Asher. “Mom, my eyes hurt.”
“Keep them closed, sweetie. It’s the cloud in the air. It’s making Mr. Asher cry, too.”
Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor radioed backup that it was clear to enter and that they’d need two extra oxygen masks.
“Is Trent okay, too?” Tyler asked, hugging his arms tightly around her waist.
Trent Dixon, Katie Rinaldi’s best friend, the man she loved—the man who didn’t yet know how much she loved him—hauled Leland Asher to his feet and handed him off to Max and Jim. He peeled off his gas mask as the smoke in the air began to dissipate. “Read him his rights and arrest him for everything in the book.”
Leland sneered at the much bigger man. “You’re wasting your time, Detective. I told you I was dying. I was simply setting my affairs in order.”
Trent leaned in. “You don’t get to take the easy way out, Asher. You just confessed to two murders, and I bet we can close out a dozen more because of the evidence Katie sent us. More important, you threatened the lives of the two most important people in the world to me. Now, whether you have a year or a month or they find a cure for cancer and you live to a ripe old age, you are spending the rest of your days in p
rison.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The cold case squad and their loved ones filled up an entire row of the theater. Ginny Rafferty-Taylor and her husband, Brett, flanked the son and daughter who sat between them. Katie suspected they had a young starlet in the making with their daughter sitting on the edge of her seat for the entire show.
Uncle Dwight slipped his handkerchief behind Tyler’s cousin Jack and poked Aunt Maddie, who wept silent tears at every poignant moment of the show.
Jim Parker and his very pregnant wife, Natalie, sat on the aisle so she could sneak out to use the restroom at several private intermissions. He wore a red tie and she had on a green maternity dress, adding a festive color to the group who’d all come to see Tyler in his debut role onstage.
Reporter Gabe Knight nodded sagely at several of the show’s classic scenes, all the while holding hands with his fiancée. Olivia Watson might be a tough chick on the outside, but she was all smiles and thumbs-up to Katie as Tyler uttered the last line of the play.
Even Max Krolikowski, as gruff and Scrooge-ish as they came, draped his arm around the shoulders of his wife, Rosie. He nodded at something she whispered in his ear and pressed a kiss to her curly red hair.
They’d all been focused so long on closing KCPD’s unsolvable crimes that it seemed odd to see this group of friends coming together to celebrate the holiday and show their support for a brave little boy who’d nailed every line and entrance, and whose very life was the best present a mother could ever have. Katie was grateful for her family and friends. They’d had each other’s backs and saved each other’s lives.
