by Lisa Childs
But who would protect her from them?
The thought slipped unbidden into her mind, making her realize why her pulse hadn’t slowed. She didn’t feel safe yet.
Not with them.
Balancing CJ on her hip and holding him with just one arm, she reached for the panel of buttons. But one of the men stepped in front of it, blocking her from the lobby or the emergency call button. Then the other man stepped closer to her, trapping her and CJ between them.
She clutched her son more closely to her chest and glanced up at the illuminated numbers above the doors. They were heading toward the roof. Why hadn’t they pushed other buttons to send the car back down? These men would have no patients to treat up there. But then, just because they wore scrubs didn’t mean that they actually worked at the hospital.
When Charlotte had relocated her more than three years ago, she’d taught Josie to trust no one but her. And her own instincts. She should have heeded that warning before she’d stepped inside the elevator with these men. She should have heeded that warning before she’d driven back to Chicago.
“My son and I need to leave,” she said, wishing now that she had never left her safe little home in Michigan. But she’d been so worried about her father that she’d listened to her heart instead of her head.
“That’s the plan, Miss Jessup,” the one standing in front of the elevator panel replied. “To get you out of here.”
Somehow she suspected he wasn’t talking about just getting her out of the hospital. And, like Brendan, he had easily recognized her.
She should have heeded Charlotte’s other advice all those years ago to have more plastic surgery. But Josie had stopped when she’d struggled to recognize her own face in the mirror. She hadn’t wanted to forget who she was. But maybe she should have taken that risk. It was definitely safer than the risk she’d taken in coming to see her father.
She feared that risk was going to wind up costing her everything.
*
“COME ON, GUY, just walk away,” the pseudo-orderly advised Brendan.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” Brendan warned, stepping closer to the man instead of walking away. That had always been his problem. Once he got out of trouble, the way he had when he’d run away nearly twenty years ago, he turned around and headed right back into it—even deeper than before.
The other man shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. The security cameras are not functioning up here.”
Brendan suspected that had been intentional. While he had been completely shocked to see Josie, these men had been expecting her. They had actually been waiting for her…with disabled security cameras and weapons.
So Stanley Jessup’s assault hadn’t been such a random act of violence. It was the trap that had been used to draw Josie out of hiding.
Was he the only one who hadn’t known that she was really alive?
“And Jessup, who’s heavily drugged, is the only patient in a room near here. So by the time someone responds to the sound of the shot,” the man brazenly bragged, “I’ll be gone. We planned our escape route.”
Brendan needed to plan his, too. But he didn’t intend to escape danger. He planned to confront it head-on and eliminate the threat.
“In fact,” the man continued, his ruddy face contorting with a smirk, “it would be better to kill you than leave you behind as a potential witness.” He lifted the gun, so there was no way the bullet would miss. Then he cocked the trigger.
Brendan had a gun, too, holstered under his arm. And another at his back. And one strapped to his ankle. But before he could pull any of them, he would have a bullet in his head. So instead of fighting with a weapon, he used his words.
“I’m Brendan O’Hannigan,” he said, “and that’s why you don’t want to shoot me.”
First the man snorted derisively as if the name meant nothing to him. Then he repeated it, “O’Hannigan,” as if trying to place where he’d heard it before. Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped open as recognition struck him with the same force as if Brendan had swung his fist at him. “Oh, shit.”
That was how people usually reacted when they learned his identity—except for Josie. She had acted as if she’d known nothing of his family or their dubious family business. And she had gotten close to him, with her impromptu visits to the tavern and her persistent flirting, before he’d realized that she had been doing just that: acting.
She had known exactly who he was or she would have never sought him out. She’d been after a scoop for her father’s media outlets. Even after all those other stories she’d brought to him, she’d still been trying to prove herself to Daddy.
Brendan had devoted himself to just the opposite, trying to prove himself as unlike his father as possible. Until the old man had died, drawing Brendan back into a life that he had been unable to run far enough away from when he was a kid.
“Yeah, if you shoot me, you better hope the police find you before any of my family does,” Brendan warned the man. But it was a bluff.
He really had no idea what his “family” would do or if they would even care. He was the only one who cared about his father’s murder—enough to risk everything for justice. Hell, his “family,” given the way they’d resented his return and his inheritance, would probably be relieved if he died, especially if they knew the truth about him.
The man stepped back and lifted his gun so that the barrel pointed toward the ceiling, waving it around as if there were a white flag of surrender tied to the end of it. “I don’t want any trouble—any of your kind of trouble.”
Brendan didn’t want that kind of trouble, either. But it was too late. He was in too deep now—so deep that he hadn’t been able to get out even after he’d thought Josie had been killed. But then her death had made him even more determined to pursue justice.
“If you didn’t want trouble,” Brendan said, “then you shouldn’t have messed with my son and his mother.” Now he swung his fist into the man’s face.
The guy fell back, but before he went down, Brendan snapped the gun from his grasp and turned it on him. There was no greater power play than turning a man’s own gun on him. His father had taught him that, starting his lessons when Brendan was only a few years older than his son was now.
“What the hell do you want with her?” he demanded.
“I just got paid to do a job, man,” the man in scrubs said, cringing away from the barrel pointed in his face.
“What’s the job?”
The man opened his mouth but hesitated before speaking, until Brendan cocked the trigger. Then he blurted out, “To kill Josie Jessup!”
“Damn it!” he cursed at having his suspicions confirmed.
He had only just discovered that she was alive and that she’d given birth to his son. He didn’t want to lose the boy before he’d gotten the chance to claim him. And he didn’t want Josie to die again. He glanced back at the elevator, at the numbers above the doors that indicated it had stopped—on the top floor.
“You’re not going to make it,” the man advised. “You’re not going to be able to save her.”
Brendan cursed again because the guy was probably right. But still he had to try. He turned the gun and swung the handle at the man’s head.
One down. Two to go…
*
THE WIND ON the roof was cold, whipping through Josie’s light jacket and jeans. She slipped the side of her unzipped jacket over CJ’s back to shield him from the cold bite of the breeze. He snuggled against her, his face pressed into her neck. Her skin was damp from the quiet tears he surreptitiously shed. He must have felt the fear and panic that clutched at her, and he trembled with it while she tensely held herself together.
She had to do something. She had to make certain these men didn’t hurt her son. But since she hadn’t reached Charlotte, earlier, the former U.S. marshal couldn’t come to her rescue as she had last time. Josie had only herself—and the instincts she’d previously ignored—to help her now.
/> The two men were huddled together just a few feet away from them, between her and CJ and the elevator. There was no way to reach it without going through them. And with the bulges of weapons at their backs, she didn’t dare try to go through them. Nor did she want to risk turning her back on them to run, for fear that they would shoot. And since they were on the roof, where could she go? How far could she run without falling over the side?
One of the men spoke into a cell phone about the change in plans: CJ.
While they had somehow discovered that she was really alive, they must not have been aware that she was pregnant when she’d gone into hiding.
Despite the fact that he’d lowered his voice, it carried on the wind, bringing the horrifying words to her.
“…never agreed to do a kid.”
“…someone else knows she’s alive and hassled her in the hall.”
Because Brendan wasn’t any happier she was alive than these men apparently were. Of course he hadn’t seemed as eager to rectify that as they were.
“Okay, I understand,” said the man holding the phone before he clicked it off and slid it back into his pocket. Then he turned to his co-conspirator and nodded. “We have to eliminate them both.”
A shudder of fear and revulsion rippled through Josie. Thankfully CJ wouldn’t understand what they meant by “eliminate.” But eventually he would figure it out, when he stared down the barrel of a gun.
“I don’t know what you’re getting paid to do this,” she addressed the men as they turned toward her. “But I have money. Lots of money. I can pay you more than you’re getting now.”
The man who’d been on the phone chuckled bitterly. “We were warned you might make that offer. But you forfeited your access to that money when you faked your death, lady.”
They were right. Josie Jessup’s bank accounts and trust fund had closed when she’d died. And JJ Brandt’s salary from the community college was barely enough to cover her rent, utilities and groceries. She had nothing in her savings account to offer them.
“My father would pay you,” she said, “whatever you ask.” But first they would have to prove to him that she was really alive. She hadn’t dared step inside his room. What would happen if gunmen burst inside with her? The shock would surely bring on another heart attack—maybe a fatal one.
The men shared a glance, obviously debating her offer. But then one of them shook his head. “This is about more than money, lady.”
“What is it about?” she asked.
As far she knew, Brendan was the only one with any reason to want her dead. If these men worked for him, they wouldn’t have held him back from boarding the elevator with her. If they worked for him, they wouldn’t have dared to touch him at all. She still couldn’t believe that she had dared to touch him, that she’d dared to go near him even to pursue her story. The police had been unable to determine who had killed his father, the legendary crime boss, so she had vowed to find out if there was any truth to the rumors that Dennis O’Hannigan’s runaway son had killed him out of revenge and greed.
She had found something else entirely. More than the story, she had been attracted to the man—the complex man who had been grieving the death of his estranged father while trying to take over his illicit empire. She had never found evidence proving Brendan was the killer, but he must have been worried that she’d discovered something. Why else would he have tried to kill her?
Just because he’d learned she’d been lying to him about what she really was? Maybe. He’d been furious with her—furious enough to want revenge. But if he wasn’t behind this attempt to eliminate her, had he been behind that bomb planted more than three years ago?
Could she have been wrong about him?
“I have a right to know,” she prodded, wanting the truth. That was her problem—she always wanted the truth. It was what had made her such a great reporter before she’d been forced to give it all up to save her life. But since it was probably her last chance to learn it, she wanted this truth more than she’d ever wanted any other. If not Brendan, who wanted her dead?
“It doesn’t matter what it’s about,” one of the men replied.
She suspected he had no idea, either, that he was just doing what he had been paid to do.
“It’s not going to change the outcome for you and your son,” the fake orderly continued as he reached behind him and drew out his gun.
What about her father? Had he only been attacked to lure her out of hiding? Was he safe now?
If only her son was safe, too…
She covered the side of CJ’s cold, damp face with her hand so that he wouldn’t see the weapon. Then she turned, putting her body between the boy and the men. Her body wouldn’t be enough to protect her son, though. Nothing could protect him now. “Please…”
But if the men wouldn’t respond to bribes, they would have no use for begging, either. So she just closed her eyes and prayed as the first shot rang out.
Chapter Four
Was he too late?
As the elevator doors slid open, a shot rang out. But the bullet ricocheted off the back of the car near his head. Both men faced him with their guns raised. Maybe this had nothing to do with Josie.
Maybe the woman wasn’t even really her and the boy not really even his son. Maybe it had all been an elaborate trap to lure him here—to his death. Plenty of people wanted him dead. That was why he usually had backup within gunshot range. But he hadn’t wanted anyone to be aware of his visit to the bedside of a man he didn’t really know but with whom he’d thought he’d shared a tragedy: Josie’s death.
So nobody had known he was coming here. These men weren’t after him, because the suspects he knew wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to take him out; they wouldn’t have had to. Whenever they dared to try to take him out, as they had his father, they knew where to find him—at O’Hannigan’s. Inside the family tavern was where Josie had found him. He’d thought the little rich girl had just wandered into the wrong place with the wrong clientele, and he’d rescued her before any of his rough customers could accost her.
Just as he had intended to rescue her now. But both times he was the one who wound up needing to be rescued. Maybe he should have had backup even for this uncomfortable visit. With the elevator doors wide open, Brendan was a damn sitting duck, more so even than the woman and the boy. They might be able to escape. Seeing the fear on their faces, pale and stark in the light spilling out of the elevator, it was clear that they were in real danger and they knew it.
“Run!” he yelled at them.
She sprinted away, either in reaction to his command or in fear of him as well as the armed men. With her and the kid out of the line of fire, he raised the gun he’d taken off their co-conspirator.
But the men had divided their attention now. Standing back-to-back, one fired at him while the other turned his gun toward Josie.
The boy clutched tightly in her arms, she ran, disappearing into the shadows before any bullets struck her. But maybe running wasn’t a good thing, given that the farther away she went, the thicker the shadows grew. The light from the elevator illuminated only a small circle of the rooftop around the open doors. The farther she ran, the harder it would be for her to see where the roof ended and the black abyss twenty stories above the ground began.
He ducked back into the elevator and flattened himself against the panel beside the doors. He could have closed those doors to protect himself. But then he couldn’t protect Josie and the child. His son…
These men weren’t just trying to kill the woman who was supposed to already be dead. They were trying to kill a helpless child.
An O’Hannigan.
His father would be turning over in his grave.
Despite his occasional violent behavior toward them, Dennis O’Hannigan had never really wanted his family harmed—at least not by anyone but him. Brendan didn’t want his family harmed at all. He kept one finger on the button to hold open the doors. Then he leaned out and aim
ed the gun. And squeezed the trigger.
His shots drew all the attention to him. Bullets pinged off the brass handrail and shattered the smoky glass of the elevator car. The glass splintered and ricocheted like the bullets, biting into his skin like a swarm of bees.
His finger jerked off the button, and the doors began to close. But he couldn’t leave Josie and the child alone up here with no protection. Despite the other man’s warning, he had to play the hero. But it had been nearly four years since he’d been anything but the villain.
Had he gotten rusty? Would he be able to protect them? Or had his arrival put them in even more danger?
*
“THEY’RE ALL BAD men,” CJ said, his voice high and squeaky with fear and panic. “They’re bad! Bad!”
He was too young to have learned just how evil some people were. As his mother, Josie was supposed to protect him, but she’d endangered his life and his innocence. She had to do her best to keep her little boy a little boy until he had the time to grow into a man.
“Shh…” Josie cautioned him. “We need to be very quiet.”
“So they don’t find us?”
“First we have to find a hiding place.” Which wouldn’t be easy in a darkness so enveloping she could barely see the child she held tightly against her.
She had been able to see the shots—those brief flashes of gunpowder. She’d run from those flashes, desperate to keep her son safe. But now those shots were redirected toward Brendan, and running wouldn’t keep CJ safe since she couldn’t see where she was going. She moved quickly but carefully, testing her footing before she stepped forward.
“Are they shooting real bullets?” he asked.
To preserve that innocence she was afraid he was losing, she could have lied. But that lie could risk his life.
“They’re real,” she replied, aware that they’d come all too close to her and CJ. “That’s why we need to find a place to hide until the police come.”
Someone must have heard the shots and reported them by now. Help had to be on the way. Hopefully it would arrive in time to save her and her son. But what about Brendan? He had stepped into the middle of an attempted murder—a double homicide, actually. And he hadn’t done it accidentally. He had tracked her to the roof, maybe to kill her himself. But perhaps he’d be the one to lose his life, since the men were now entirely focused on him.
