by Jenna Mills
“No!” Jarred awake, Liam sat bolt upright, the sound of a single gunshot echoing insidiously through his mind. Breathing hard, his naked body hot and clammy, he stared across the room, lit by the gauzy light of the moon. The bottle sat where it hadevening, on the sidebar, sleek and tempting, but he refused to move.
Refused to indulge.
Kelly had been wrong. Dead wrong. Her death had changed his life, brutally and irrevocably. And he couldn’t let it happen again. Titan would not win. No matter the cost, Liam would not let Titan destroy another woman, another family.
“Where’s your shoe?”
The little boy with the messy hair and brave eyes glanced down at his feet. A dirty tennis shoe covered one, but on the other there was only a sock. “They took it.”
“Took it?” Frowning, she looked at her pink fuzzy slippers and curled her toes against them. “Why?”
“Dunno,” he said. “They just did.”
She shivered. The room was the same as the night before, still and dark and cold, icky smelling. But the boy no longer lay on the cot. He was sitting on the edge, swinging his legs. He didn’t look scared anymore. Now he just looked mad.
“How did I get here?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
She didn’t, either. She remembered the night before, when they’d first started speaking in their minds, but she had no memory of the day. And surely there had to have been a day. There was always a day.
But she only remembered the night, the darkness. The boy.
“Does anyone know we’re here?” she asked, trying to keep her bottom lip from trembling. If her daddy knew, he’d come get her. Maybe she should scream, she thought, cry out. Her daddy always came running when she had a bad dream, always slipped in bed beside her and held her until she fell back asleep.
But when she opened her mouth, no sound came forth.
“They won’t hear you,” the boy said. Alex, she remembered. His name was Alex. “I’ve already tried.”
“What about your daddy?” she asked, shuffling closer to the bed. “Daddys always hear.”
Alex’s eyes, so calm minutes before, filled with sudden moisture. “I don’t have a daddy.”
She stared at him. “Everybody has a daddy.”
His bottom lip trembled. “Mine went to heaven.”
That stopped her. Heaven. She knew about heaven. Heaven was where her goldfish went. It was also where her grandma Violet went a long time ago. She’d cried over her goldfish, even though her mom had bought her a new one. She’d never met her grandma, but she’d heard her mommy cry, sometimes when she was alone in her bedroom.
“Then we’ll just have to count on my daddy,” she said. “He’ll help us.”
Alex’s mouth twisted. He balled his hands in his Spider-Man T-shirt, looked at her real weird. “Your daddy can’t help me.”
“Yes, he can,” she said, her little heart pound. “He’s a pwivate inwestigator.” If only she knew how to reach him. How to tell him. Chewing on her lip, she turned around, saw the table, the one that looked exactly like the one in her bedroom. And she remembered. The crayons were still there. So was the paper.
“Just watch,” she said, scampering to the small chair. She picked up a black crayon and started to draw. “You’ll see.”
Chapter 7
Art Dealer on Parole.
Dragging her third cup of coffee to her mouth, Danielle stared at the small news story she’d found on the Internet. Adrenaline pumped dizzily. Her heart raced. Finally, after hours of bleary-eyed searching, she’d hit pay dirt.
Sal D’Ambroni. He’d been one of Chicago’s most prominent art dealers, traveling in exclusive circles, living high above Michigan Avenue in a gleaming penthouse, never giving a second thought to all those he’d cheated. Antiquities, he’d called his merchandise. From the holy land. Rare, priceless relics.
Oh, but he’d charged for them, all right. Extraordinary, mind-boggling, fraudulent prices. Because that was what his merchandise had been. Fraudulent. Cheap replicas made in Taiwan.
But no one had known. No one had suspected. He’d played a good game, until one of his clients had grown suspicious. The authorities, even the insurance company, had turned up nothing, but one client, Margaret Wentworth, had been relentless—and furious. She’d contacted Jeremy, desperate for help. And help Jeremy had.
Six weeks later, Sal had been arrested.
Six months later, on trial.
Seven months later, in the state penitentiary.
Except, now he was a free man and again living in Chicago.
Danielle closed her eyes and saw the man as he’d been that last day in court, after the jury had rendered the verdict and the bailiff was leading him away. He was a distinguished man, with a mane of long silvery hair that he wore in an elegant ponytail. He’d glared at Danielle, the woman who’d posed as his assistant, but who instead had been digging through his files and uncovering his dirty little secrets.
“You’ll pay,” he’d sneered. “You’ll all pay.”
She opened her eyes to the bright light of early morning and stared at the small set of wind chimes outside the breakfast window. They tinkled with the breeze, a soft melody that should have brought a smile to her face but didn’t.
Within her, determination surged. Fury chased close behind. She pushed to her feet and ran to her bedroom, slipped out of her robe and reached for a pair of jeans.
Lost in anticipation, she just barely heard the ringing of the phone. Pulling on the jeans, she hobbled across the room. “Hello,” she answered breathlessly.
“Danielle.”
Just his voice, low and hoarse and uncomfortably intimate, that was all it took to stop her wriggling into the faded black jeans. It stopped her breath, her heartbeat. Ten hours had elapsed since his last call, ten long hours when she’d roamed the dark house, searched the Internet, tossed and turned in her bed, determined to prove he was wrong. Her son had not been kidnapped by a European criminal. There was no reason the FBI needed to be involved. No reason he needed to be involved. She did not need the tall man with the dark, haunted eyes.
“Nothing has changed,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could. “There’s been no further contact.”
A rough breath scratched across the phone line and sent a shiver down her spine. “I’m on my way over—”
“No.” The word shot out like a sharp gust of wind off the lake. “I—” Her mind raced for a suitable excuse. Work would have been nice, but he was staying at the hotel and could easily verify she’d secured some time off when she’d called yesterday. “I just need to be alone right now.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But I do,” she said, even as some place deep inside protested. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Neither did I.”
The image formed by itself—Liam’s big nude body twisting restlessly in the hotel’s fine, Egyptian cotton sheets. She looked down at her own unmade bed and suddenly wished she’d pulled on a shirt before answering the phone.
Questions slinked in next, questions whose answers she was better off not knowing. Why hadn’t he slept well? What demons chased him through the darkness? What pain had caused the aura of shadows to form around him?
What would it take to make him sleep through the night?
Her chest tightened with a compassion she didn’t want to feel. “Then neither of us will do the other much good, will we?” The remark came out sharper than she’d intended, and despite the quick sting of remorse, she went with it. “There’s no reason for you to be here,” she said. “Not unless something changes.”
“You really believe that?” he asked quietly.
Her pulse skittered. “Please,” she said, and this time her voice softened. She moved away from the bed, away from images she didn’t want to see. “Just give me a few hours.” She reached for a black scoop-necked T-shirt. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“Sure you will,
” he muttered, and then the line went dead and she was left standing in the dim recesses of her closet, in only her jeans and a bra, wondering why it felt as if she’d just failed a pivotal test.
The gallery was small and nondescript, nothing compared to the discreet establishment that had once dominated a corner of Michigan Avenue. A single brass sign hung out front, a simple plaque that paled in comparison to the exclusive sign that had once greeted customers from all over the world. Treasures, it said. That was all.
Anticipation quickened through Danielle. So did a vein of unease. She’d felt it from the moment she’d stepped from her car, the forgotten echo of awareness. The same low hum she’d felt a few days ago in the lobby of the Stirling, mere hours before she’d learned Alex was missing. The unnerving hazy insight into the future that had once ruled her life.
As kids, Liz and Anthony had called it her lucky sense, but Jeremy had insisted her ability to sense events before they happened was far more than luck. Skill, he’d said. A gift. Just like her knack for seeing, for reading the auras of color that surrounded all living creatures. Liz and Anthony had gifts, as well, uncanny, unusual abilities that had frightened their foster parents and helped the triplets survive on the streets. Abilities Jeremy had fine-tuned and honed, taught them to use, to trust.
Now she glanced around, taking in the run-down buildings lining the street. They were all crammed together, some of them occupied, all of them in disrepair. The one in front of which she stood looked as if it was ready to be condemned. The siding desperately needed paint. The windows were grimy, cloudy, letting little light squeeze out from inside. And the steps, three small stairs leading to the weathered front door, reeked of termites.
How far we fall…
She blocked the thought, the quick stab of unease, and hurried up the steps, turned the knob and pushed inside. It was broad daylight and she had her mobile phone and her gun. She wasn’t afraid. She’d undertaken far more dangerous missions than this in the not-so-distant past, when Ty had been alive and her family had been whole. If her heart raced a little too fast, that was only the rush of adrenaline. And if one man’s name kept echoing through her mind, louder and fiercer with each beat of her heart, that was only because—
She blocked that thought, as well.
A single bell dinged when she entered the dimly lit room, and she drew up short.
Old warped shelves lined the walls, as desperately in need of paint as the siding outside. A threadbare replica of a Persian rug sprawled across the dirty, scarred hardwood flooring. And the dust, it was everywhere.
So was the junk.
And that was what it was. No glistening replicas of fine artwork, no gleaming urns, no parchment-thin textiles. No display of intricately carved crosses. No arrangements of jeweled goblets. Just junk.
Slowly she moved toward the nearest shelf, ran her hand along an old, tarnished toaster. Next to it sat a tattered teddy bear, dirty mason jars and a stack of old yellowed paperbacks.
Junk.
“Can I help ya?” came a tired voice from behind her, and even as her heart thumped hard against her ribs, she spun around and saw him. Sal D’Ambroni. Or at least a man who’d once been Sal D’Ambroni.
Shuffling from behind a counter, the old man limped toward her. His face, once a study of elegant lines and refinement, was haggard and worn, tired. And his eyes, once sharp and gleaming, looked dull. “Do I know ya?” he asked.
Danielle took an instinctive step back. She’d known the trial had broken him. She’d known he’d lost everything—his fortune, his dignity. Even his family had abandoned him. But nothing had prepared her for the man she now faced.“I—” she started, but then hesitated. She’d ignored the niggle that insisted this was a dead end and charged south of town, clenching the forced hope that she’d found the man who’d taken her son. Now, staring at this broken old man, doubt became certainty. “I was just…looking for someone I used to know.”
“No one here but me,” he said with a tired smile, but then his face went hard, and she saw the gleam of recognition. And contempt. “You.”
She swallowed hard. “Hello, Sal.”
“You got a lot of nerve showing up here, girlie,” he snarled, moving toward her.
She went to step back again, but her heels bumped against the wall of cluttered shelves.
“Does this make you happy?” he sneered, stepping so deep into her personal space that she could smell the day-old sweat on his body. “This what you came to see?”
“No,” she said, holding up a hand. “It’s not like that. I—”
“Then what?”
The quick slice of guilt made no sense. This man had made his own bed. He’d cheated countless people out of large sums of money. And yet, seeing him like this, she couldn’t help but think he’d paid for his crimes.
She knew what it was like to lose everything.
“Git out,” he said, and his hand clamped down around her wrist. His arms looked like little more than toothpicks, but they were surprisingly strong as he dragged her toward the door.
“Take your hands off her.”
The voice, low and hard and deathly quiet, reverberated through the small shop. A sound broke from Danielle’s throat as she swung around to see Liam, a tall, dark-eyed man all in black striding through the door he’d thrown open.
“I mean it,” he snarled in a voice so deadly quiet it chilled her blood. “Take your filthy hands off the lady, and do it now.” He slid a hand inside his sport coat, retrieved a sleek pewter handgun. “Don’t make me say it again.”
Danielle’s heart staggered. The room, dirty and small to begin with, started to spin. She reached for balance, grabbed Liam’s arm. “It’s not what you think,” she said.
But he wasn’t paying attention to her. His eyes were dark, furious, focused only on Sal. “No?” There was a harsh clip to his voice. “I walk into this shop and find this man with his hands all over you, dragging you against your will, and you tell me this isn’t what I think?”
“I wasn’t gonna hurt her,” Sal said, and when Danielle glanced back at him, she saw that his grizzled face had lost all color. “I just wanted her gone.”
“It’s true,” she said, looking back at Liam. “The mistake was mine.” And it had been. She should have listened to the voice she’d once trusted with the lives of those she loved, the one that had insisted Sal had nothing to do with Alex’s disappearance.
Finally Liam looked at her, and when he did, when his eyes met he breath abandoned her body on one sharp swoosh. In the short time she’d known this man, she’d seen more facets to his personality than a prism had colors. She’d seen him remain calm when she pulled a gun on him, seen him fiercely protective when he found her on the windswept beach at midnight, seen him in agent mode as he questioned her about drugs and Europe. She’d seen him alert and edgy when they’d found the box on her doorstep, oddly comforting when she’d fallen apart at the sight of Alex lying so still on that dirty little cot. She’d seen him cook breakfast and drink orange juice, she’d seen him by her bed, his eyes dark as he looked at the rumpled covers.
She’d seen him in her dreams.
But she’d never seen him like this, with the lines of his face all tight, the glint in his eyes like shrapnel. Cold fury radiated from him in a dark toxic cloud, and it sent her pulse into a low, deep thrum.
“Liam, please,” she said, and only then did she realize Sal had released her and was shuffling back. She took Liam’s hands in her own, indulging only briefly in their solid warmth, and stared into his eyes. “Let’s just go.”
“Not until you tell me what the hell was going on here.”
“I already told you,” she said, hating the edge of desperation to her voice. She was the one who should be furious with him. He’d followed her, after all. He’d followed her after she’d told him to leave her alone.
But now here he was, and no matter how hard she fought it, she couldn’t silence the fierce song in her blood. “I
made a mistake.”
“Is this the man?” he asked in a voice stripped of all the warmth, all the tenderness and emotion he’d given her earlier. “The man from the hotel?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I ain’t been to no hotel,” Sal put in.
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
She tugged Liam toward the door. “I’ll explain later.” And she would have to, she realized. She’d have to tell him about her past, about Jeremy, about the assignments he’d taken, shadowy assignments the police had turned their backs on.
Assignments Liz and Anthony still worked.
Assignments that had gotten Ty killed.
“I promise,” she said, letting her voice go soft.
Debate darkened his eyes. Doubt. She’d already lied to him once, after all, and while she’d felt justified at the time, now regret nagged at her.
“Don’t let her fool you,” Sal snarled from behind her. “She’ll tell you whatever she thinks you want to hear, if she thinks it will get her what she wants.”
Her heart oddly heavy, Danielle swung around and saw the way he was looking at her, like a malnourished dog who’d just been kicked. “Sal…” She started but didn’t know what to say.
“Come on.” She wasn’t quite sure how it happened. One minute she’d been holding on to Liam, her hands curled around his forearms, but then his hand was closed around hers, and he was dragging her toward the door.
She hurried to keep up with him, his angry footsteps thudding loudly against the old wood floor. And when the door opened and they stepped into the muggy air of midafternoon, when the sun cut down on them from a dizzingly blue sky dotted by wispy clouds, she knew there’d be no retreating to the shadows. Not this time. Not with this man.
His hand curled tightly around hers, he led her down the rickety stairs to the sidewalk, where he didn’t stop walking. He just kept right on going, leading her to where she’d parked her car several buildings away.
