Reckonings

by Cynthia Eden

  She heard a faint squeak, and then the trunk’s lid began to open.

  “Oh, Jamie...” Henry murmured, and his voice was from her nightmares. “I’ve missed you so.”

  The truck’s lid lifted, lifted—

  Jamie could see Henry. The ski mask was gone, and he was smiling down at her as the sun hit his brown hair. His bright blue eyes seemed to be lit with madness. He reached out to her.

  Jamie drove her feet into his stomach. She hit him as hard as she could, and he stumbled back. Jamie flopped out of the trunk, hauling herself up and then plummeting face-first onto the ground. She wiggled until she got on her feet, and she tried to jump her way to freedom. She’d get to—

  His laughter filled the air.

  “God, I’ve missed you.”

  Then he slammed his hand into her back and Jamie hit the ground once again. She rolled over and found a knife pressed to her throat.

  He smiled down at her. Henry. The boy she’d thought she loved, a lifetime ago. Still handsome.

  Still insane.

  “Just like old times, isn’t it?” He moved the knife down to her side. “Old...times...”

  Jamie screamed.

  * * *

  POLICE CARS WERE at Jamie’s clinic.

  Mac braked, then jumped out of his vehicle. Oh, hell, no. This couldn’t be good. He ran forward and saw Sylvia. She was crying as she talked with two uniformed cops. Where was Jamie? Inside?

  “Sylvia!”

  Her head whipped up at his shout. When she saw him, she seemed to cry harder.

  “Sylvia, where’s Jamie? Davis needs her!”

  She shook her head, and the cops turned toward him.

  His gut clenched. “What happened?” I left, running blindly to get to Davis. But he’d told me to stay with Jamie. To protect her.

  Mac advanced slowly now, not wanting to hear what Sylvia was about to say because he knew, he knew Davis would never forgive him.

  My brother loves her. I know it, even if he hasn’t realized it yet. He’d seen it, in the way Davis looked at Jamie. In the way he talked about her.

  “A—a man in a ski mask took her,” Sylvia said.

  Mac felt his world stop.

  “I was screaming for her, running to help, but he drove away.” Sylvia’s hands clenched in front of her. “He put a needle in her neck—I saw him—and he just...” Her voice became hushed. “He drove away with Jamie.”

  Davis would go insane.

  My fault.

  “We have an APB out for the vehicle,” one of the cops told him. “The driver is unknown so—”

  No, he wasn’t unknown. “The driver is a man named Henry Westport, and if we don’t find him and Jamie soon, he will kill her.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m leaving,” Davis said as he glared at his doctor. Yes, his head still hurt like hell, but they’d stitched him up. He didn’t intend to stay in some hospital bed for the next twenty-four hours while the doctors and nurses poked and prodded him. He wanted to be out there, hunting Henry Westport.

  “Sir,” the doctor—a woman with warm caramel skin and dark, intense eyes—shook her head. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness of your situation. You’ve sustained a traumatic brain injury. Concussions aren’t just simple matters to shrug off.”

  “Yeah, well...” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and made sure to show no signs of the dizziness he felt. “I didn’t ‘sustain’ it so much as have one serious SOB hit me over the head with a chair so that he could escape from a murder scene.” Only Sean had still been alive then...if I hadn’t gotten knocked out, maybe he could have received help in time.

  “Your symptoms can include dizziness...”

  Check, he had that.

  “Slurred speech...”

  Right, he’d been plenty slurred in the ambulance.

  “You could black out again.”

  He hoped to hell not. He had work to do. I’ve got to find Henry. But first, he needed to see Jamie. There were some things he had to tell her before anything else happened.

  Like... I love you. Scary words. Words he’d never said to another lover, but words he was determined to say to her.

  When you woke up in a pool of your own blood...with a dead man just a few feet away...well, a guy’s priorities could line up, real fast.

  Priority number one for him was telling Jamie exactly how he felt about her.

  He reached for his clothes. If necessary, he’d walk out of there with his butt bare and that hospital gown flapping around him, but he’d prefer to be—

  “You could have a seizure!” Her voice had sharpened. “This isn’t some game, sir! It’s your life.”

  He thought of the battles he’d faced. The wounds that still marked him.

  And he thought of Jamie.

  She’s my life.

  The door to his room flew open. Grant was there, his eyes a bit wild, and Mac was right behind him.

  Some of the tension eased from Davis’s shoulders. Mac had gone to get Jamie. “Is she outside?” Davis asked. “Tell her to come in.” I need to see her. I need to touch Jamie. I have to make sure she’s all right.

  But Mac paled.

  Grant cleared his throat and stepped into the room. “Doctor, would you give us a minute alone?”

  “Fine,” the doctor snapped. She pointed toward Davis. “Maybe during that minute, you can talk some sense into this man. The last thing he needs to do is leave the hospital now.” She bustled out of the room.

  Davis pulled on his clothes. He ignored the dizziness and nausea. Jamie’s close. Jamie is—

  “Davis, I’m going to need you to stay calm,” Grant said, his words slow and quiet. “You know we’ll have your back. We’ll find her.”

  Find...her? Davis turned his head and focused on Mac. “Jamie’s outside. She’s in the waiting room.”

  “No.” Mac stared at Davis, still pale, his eyes tormented. “I’m sorry.”

  Davis took a staggering step toward him. “Where’s Jamie?” His voice came out rusty, rough. Lost.

  Because he felt lost right then. Lost and confused. Angry and afraid. He could feel something clawing at him from the inside, sharp and hard, clawing to get out.

  “Where. Is. Jamie?”

  Mac shook his head. “I don’t know. He...he took her.”

  A ringing filled Davis’s ears. That clawing inside got even worse, and he knew what it was—fear and fury were fighting to get out. To break loose. “No.”

  “I left her. When I found out that you were hurt at that motel, I raced away. I thought she was safe at her clinic. Sylvia was there. Patients were scheduled and I—” He broke off. “No, I didn’t think. I just reacted. You’re my brother, and you were all I thought about.”

  “Jamie.”

  “Sylvia said he took her. That he...” Mac’s gaze cut to a grim-looking Grant. “He injected her with something and tossed her into your rental car. They raced away, and the cops—the cops have an APB out now. I gave them Henry’s description. They’re searching all the roads. They will find her.”

  But would she still be alive then? Was she even alive now?

  “I am so sorry,” Mac said. “I’ll make this right. I swear.”

  The fury kept clawing at him. So did the fear. “I love her.” He needed to tell Jamie.

  “I know,” Mac said, his voice roughening even more. “I will make this right.”

  Jamie. Have to find Jamie.

  But where would Henry take her?

  He walked toward the door. His steps were too slow, and he hated that. His body wasn’t quite listening to him, not yet. But it would. He grabbed for the door and wrenched it open. The doctor was still in the hallway, and she spun towa
rd him.

  “No!” Her gaze slid over his shoulder, to Grant and Mac. “You two were supposed to talk sense into him. He shouldn’t go anywhere.”

  Henry has Jamie.

  “Sorry, doctor,” Grant said. “But I don’t think anything can keep him here now.”

  Davis stalked toward the elevator. Is this why you left me alive, you jerk? Because you knew it would tear out my heart when I discovered that you’d taken Jamie? You wanted me to suffer, so you left me alive in that motel room?

  His brothers followed him into the elevator. Davis jabbed the button for the ground floor.

  “Henry called her,” Mac said, his voice still too rough. “He said that you and Sean were in the motel room. That you’d been hurt, and—”

  “I was bait.” Henry had been watching him. Had been watching Sean. He beat me to the motel room. “He used me so that she’d be vulnerable.” He knows my family. Knows all of our weaknesses.

  “According to Sullivan,” Grant said as the elevator doors opened, “Henry has been missing from the psychiatric facility in Connecticut for at least a month. He’s got some actor up there that he hired as his double, a guy that he’s been using on and off for years to play him.”

  While he slips way...and does what? Searches for Jamie?

  “If he’s been gone a month, then he could have been down here that whole time. Watching her.” Waiting for his moment to close in. “He’d need a place to stay for that long.” It was so hard to think with the constant throbbing of his head, but he pushed that pain aside. “He’d want to be somewhere close to Jamie.” Close to Jamie’s property?

  And he remembered the motorcycle. The night her house had burned, the motorcycle and its rider had been hidden behind the trees near her house.

  Were you that close all along? Was it even possible? “Get...get property maps,” he said slowly. “Call local Realtors... I want to know the closest homes to Jamie’s property. I don’t care if they are one-room cabins...if something is out there, I want to know.”

  Grant immediately pulled out his phone. “You really think he’d just take her right back to that place? I mean, if he has a place that close? Shouldn’t he run away with her?”

  “The goal isn’t to run.” That was the part that scared him the most. “The goal is for him to never let her go.”

  Henry wouldn’t want to run. He’d just want to be alone with Jamie. And, when he was ready, Henry would want to kill her.

  Davis strode forward.

  But Mac caught his arm. “I’m sorry. You asked me for one thing...just to keep her safe...”

  Mac. He was called the wildest of the bunch for a reason. Emotion and impulse had always ruled him.

  “I should have taken her with me,” Mac whispered. “I was just so worried about getting to you, I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t want to lose another member of my family.” Pain twisted his face. “But now—”

  “I’m not going to lose her,” Davis said. “I can’t.” Fury and fear...they’d battled within him. One had finally pierced to freedom. Fury. Because the fear couldn’t win. If it did, he’d be helpless. But the fury, oh, it gave him strength. Power. “I am going to find Jamie. I am going to take her away from Henry, and I will make sure that he never hurts anyone else again.” Henry was about to see just how dark and deadly the McGuires could be.

  You hurt one of us, and we all come down on you in a fury.

  A damn fury.

  “Now let’s find out which houses are close to Jamie’s place. I don’t care if ten miles is the closest one... I want the listings. And we are going to search every single place. We are going to keep searching until we find her.” They would find her.

  Because if they didn’t...

  No. “We will find her.”

  * * *

  HENRY HADN’T STABBED HER.

  He’d hauled Jamie inside the old house. She’d had a fast, fleeting impression of wood painted white, a slanting roof, a place that looked as if time had forgotten it...

  Then they were inside. Only the inside wasn’t dusty and empty. There was furniture. New furniture that smelled of leather. Lights. A TV. Computers.

  He’s been living here?

  “I know, I know...” Henry said, glancing around. “It’s an extreme fixer-upper, but we’re really not going to be here long enough for a complete overhaul. So I just brought in the comforts of home. I mean, I needed a few things while I waited for you.”

  “Waited for me?”

  He shoved her down on the couch. Her hands and feet were still bound, and the rough rope had made her wrists start to bleed. Well, they’d bled when she pulled and pulled, desperate to escape her restraints.

  He paced in front of her. “I wasn’t sure how to approach you at first. Did I want to go to the clinic? Come see you at home?” He sighed. “So at first, I just watched...”

  And she remembered the strange awareness she’d felt for the past few weeks. The nervousness. He was there and I didn’t realize it.

  “I was coming to talk to you... I was ready for you again...” His face hardened. He had changed so little in the passing years. She could see flashes of the boy she’d known, but then, the terrifying man he’d become would push through. “And you brought him home with you.”

  Davis. “Did you kill him?” That was what mattered to her. Was Davis alive or was he dead?

  “One lover was dead when I left.” He smiled. “But don’t worry. I planned well. Sean was the one I gutted.”

  She flinched. Her scars seemed to burn. Will he be gutting me soon, too?

  “Don’t you think he deserved it?” Henry asked, voice almost musing. “I mean, for all that he did to you. He betrayed you, Jamie. Lied to you. Lied about you. All for money.”

  She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t think he deserved it.” Who deserved that?

  “I know what Davis deserves.” Now his face hardened even more. His eyes blazed. “Pain. So much pain. He’ll have my life. The life I knew when you were gone. No matter how hard he searches, he won’t find you. He’ll know that he lost you. That you slipped right through his fingers. You didn’t want him. You wanted me.”

  She stared up at him. “You aren’t serious.” Davis is alive! He’s alive! And she wasn’t going down without a fight. “I don’t want you, Henry.”

  A furrow appeared between his brows.

  She held up her bound hands. “Have you lost touch with reality that much? You drugged me. You kidnapped me. I don’t want to be with you. I hate you.”

  “No, no, you loved me once—”

  “I was seventeen. You were my first—”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “Your first. Should have been only.”

  “My first serious boyfriend.” She made her voice ice cold. “But I didn’t love you. Not even then. I knew the truth. Why do you think I broke up with you?” You were scaring me. You were too controlling.

  “You loved me then.” He seemed utterly confident. “You’ll love me again. We’ll have so much time together. I’ll make you love me.”

  Goose bumps rose on her arms. He sounded as if he had some very long-term plans happening. “Davis will look for me.”

  “Yes. Look but never find. It took me all these years to find you. Searching. You vanished, and I hurt.”

  Good. He’d hurt her plenty, too. “You killed my brother. You tried to kill me. What did you expect me to do? Marry you?”

  He blinked. “I—I was only punishing you.” He looked down at the knife in his hand. “You had to see that you were mine. So I marked you, so that you’d always know.”

  She nearly vomited right then. “Marked me? I was in the hospital for three days. You attacked me! And my brother—”

  “He shouldn’t have gotten in the way. If he’d stayed back, he would be
alive. It’s his fault.”

  A chill enveloped her. “I loved my brother.”

  He shrugged.

  “I didn’t love you.”

  In a flash, he’d lunged across the room. He put the knife at her throat, and the blade nicked her skin. She could feel a drop of blood sliding down her neck. “Don’t say that.”

  She didn’t say anything at all.

  “You did love me once. You will love me again.”

  No.

  “It’s just us now, Jamie. Always...us.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek but didn’t move the blade from her throat. “Before you know it, you won’t even be able to imagine a life without me in it.”

  She was afraid to swallow, because she didn’t want that knife to slice her.

  “He won’t find you.” His smile held a touch of pity. “So you should give up that hope.”

  No, she shouldn’t. Because Davis wasn’t Henry. Davis was a professional investigator, and she knew with utter certainty that he wouldn’t give up on her.

  She just had to stay alive long enough for Davis to find them.

  Just stay alive...

  Easier said than done.

  “You don’t love him,” Henry said. “I know you don’t. Tell me you don’t love him.”

  The blade dug into her skin. “Does your father know what you’re doing?” Jamie asked, trying to distract him.

  “My father?” His lips twisted. “He’s a fool. Too tied up with his business and his image to know anything. He wanted me to stay away from you. I’d hire PIs to find you, and then he’d fire them. Always in my business. Always watching me. But I found a way around him...”

  He crouched down in front of her.

  She pushed back on the couch, trying to put distance between them.

  “Want to know my secret?”

  She really didn’t want to know anything about him.

  “I’ve got a twin.” He put his index finger to his lips and gave a low, “Shhh...”

  He didn’t have a twin. He—

  “I pay him to be me. To pretend. No one gets close. No one knows. So I was able to slip away. To find you.” The knife had moved away, and she could actually breathe again. “No one even knows that I’m here. They’ll never be able to pin Sean’s murder on me.”