He’d been born under this star. He’d been destined for police work. He’d always known that he would follow in his father’s footsteps. But Grace hadn’t been born to this. Nor had Jack’s mother, and it had damn near destroyed her.
One day, after a particularly stressful week, Jack’s mother had quietly suffered a breakdown. And it had scared Jack to death. His dad retired after that. He sat Jack down and told him that being a police officer’s wife was too hard on a fragile woman. That it was his job that had driven Mom over the edge, and that he wouldn’t let that happen again.
Jack’s mother had spent a month in a hospital. His father had taken a job as a night watchman. But the trauma of that time had stayed with him.
Damn, he didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Grace. But it wouldn’t. Because this sham of a marriage wouldn’t last that long. Maybe Jack had fooled her into thinking he was up to her standards for a little while, and it had been a beautiful fantasy. But it was over. She had seen the truth. There was no more to be said.
Once Jack got his wife’s sister and her best friend back home, safe and sound, he would more than likely have to pack up his fake possessions and head back to his real life. His apartment over the bar. His crass friends and their poker nights and football games and pizza and beer.
He wouldn’t miss the spit polish all that much.
But damn, he was sure going to miss Grace.
They skirted the swamp as they headed back to the highway, but despite Grace’s efforts with the light, they saw nothing. Then they waited in a turnaround for the troops to arrive. And they did, by the dozens. Carloads of them, with spotlights and motorboats. JW filled them in, and Jack was left without much to do but wait for the information to come in on their felon. That and…talk to his wife.
“We’re going to need to tell your parents what’s happened,” he told her as men scurried around like ants, talked into radios and leaned over maps.
She lowered her head at once. “They’ll blame me.” Then, shaking it slowly, “Hell, they should. It was all my fault.”
Jack cupped her chin, made her look up at him. That face of hers, tilted up toward his like that, made him shiver. “You never told me,” he said. “Why did you follow me out here tonight?”
She closed her eyes. “You got a phone call in the middle of the night,” she said.
“So?”
“So…you whispered, ‘Why are you calling me here?’ And then you sneaked downstairs to call them back. It was pretty obvious you didn’t want me hearing that conversation.”
“Well, I didn’t. But I still don’t see what…” Jack stopped there, and his stomach lurched. “You thought it was a woman, didn’t you? My God, Grace, you thought I was sneaking off to meet some woman?”
She pulled away from him. “Well, what was I supposed to think? It was so obvious you were keeping secrets, Jack. And there were all those late nights. And the way you are with me when we…” She bit off the rest, but Jack saw it, saw it clear in her eyes.
“Damn,” he whispered. “Baby, if you only knew.” He shook his head slowly.
“McCain?” JW called.
Jack turned, hating like hell to leave things that way with Grace right now, but knowing he had no choice. Hell, it was starting to rain. A fine mist, coming down, gently coating them without them even noticing or feeling the drops. JW handed him a cell phone, and Jack snatched a notepad out of his pocket as the female officer on the other end read him off a list of names, addresses and other pertinent information that might help in tracking Hope and Charlie’s kidnapper. Jack wrote quickly, filling two pages, top to bottom.
Then he flipped the phone shut and took his wife’s hand. “Now we can get to work. We’ll call your parents on the way.”
She nodded, started to pull free of him, to head to her side of the car, but on impulse, Jack held on. When she turned to ask why, he pulled her close. “I never cheated on you, Grace. Never even thought about it.”
The mist on her face made her skin shiny and moist. “Do you believe me?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“No, you don’t. And I know why.” Jack let his hands slip lower, cupping her rounded backside, and pulling her tight to him. Then he arched against her just a little, leaned down and kissed her, briefly, quickly, and not nearly the way he wanted to. But even then, he tasted her lips, closing his around them, and suckling just a little. She went stiff with shock. He’d never kissed her like that. Not even on their wedding night. When Jack let her go, she just stood there, staring at him, blinking in the misty rain.
“It’s my fault you felt neglected. I just…I thought I was being careful with you. Maybe I was too careful.”
“Maybe you were,” she said.
“Maybe you should have said something.”
She shrugged. “I guess I should have.”
He let his eyes roam her face, thinking of all the wasted time. Damn, damn, damn. Too late now, but he wished to God it wasn’t. That he would have one more chance with her.
He let her go, because he had to. She walked around the car and got in, and Jack slid behind the wheel.
Chapter 8
“Daddy?” she said when she heard her father’s voice on the other end of the cell phone.
“Gracie? For God’s sake, what time is it, girl?” She heard the covers rustle as her father turned in bed to eye the clock’s luminous dial. She could picture it clearly when his face paled and his eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”
“Daddy…it’s a long story, but…but it’s Hope.”
“Is she all right?” her father demanded. “Are you?”
Grace could hear her mother now, sleepy and distant. “What’s going on, Harry?”
“Daddy, Hope and Charlie are…they’re missing.”
“Missing? What do you mean, missing?”
A strong hand closed over Grace’s on the cell phone and gently tugged it away. A second later she managed to brush enough of the tears from her eyes to see Jack’s face, to watch him watching her as he drove and spoke calmly and clearly to her father, explaining what had happened. He didn’t pull punches, but he didn’t sound worried, either. His voice carried confidence and authority when he told Grace’s father it was only a matter of time before he had both his daughters home again.
The rain smacked against the windshield, and the wipers slapped it back and forth. It would be light in a few hours. But right now it was black as pitch.
“Yes,” Jack said. “She knows the truth now.”
Grace glanced at him, met his eyes.
“No, she hasn’t asked for a divorce yet. But your wife will probably demand one.” He pretended to smile at whatever her father said. “Maybe it’s time you told her, Harry. Mitsy would hate being the last to know. And don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
When he disconnected, Grace said, “My father knew? The whole time, he knew you were a cop?”
“He knew.”
She blinked, thinking back to the night she’d met Jack—the night her father had been mugged and nearly had a heart attack. The hero he’d made out of Jack. “What really happened that day?”
“Does it matter?”
She pressed her brows together. “You said you were going to tell me the truth from now on. It seems like as good a place to start as any.”
Licking his lips, he said, “I suppose it does.” He turned off the highway and headed back into the city. “The day I met your father, I was sitting across the street from a crack house, waiting for this Darius character to show up.”
She blinked and tipped her head sideways. “The same guy who just kidnapped my sister?”
“The same. I’d been watching the place for quite a while, but then your father came along. Some punks decided to roll him, and when one of them pulled a knife, I had to step in.” He shrugged. “And that’s about it.”
“How many of them were there?” she asked, suppressing a shiver.
“Five.”
> “And they had a knife?”
Jack’s mouth pulled into a crooked smile. “I had a gun.”
“Oh.” She looked at her hands in her lap, trying not to envision the scene. It was basically just the way her father had described it, except for Jack’s gun. “What the hell was he doing in a neighborhood like that?”
Jack glanced at her. “He never did tell me that.”
“He’ll tell me.”
“Don’t be angry with him, Grace.” Jack’s hand covered hers. “If he hadn’t been there…we might never have met. And…hell, no matter what happens now…I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.”
“Jack,” she said, then the lights caught her eye and she turned fast. “Jack, look out!”
He saw it at the same instant she did—a shiny wet car, tipped onto its side. Vehicles with flashing lights. Flares in the road and yellow slickers with men underneath.
Jack hit the breaks and jerked the wheel, and the car skidded to a sideways stop in the road. He gave his head a shake. “You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She gave her seat belt a tug and a grateful look. “What the hell is this?”
Jack glanced again at the car, lying just off the edge of the road, tipped onto its side. She followed his gaze but didn’t feel the cold breath of fear whisper over her nape until she heard Jack murmur, “Oh, no.”
She blinked, looked at Jack, looked at the car again. It was deep blue. She’d thought black at first, but she saw now that it was dark blue. Four-door. She couldn’t tell the make without seeing the little nameplate tacked on the tail end by the manufacturer, but she was betting Jack could. She was betting it was a Ford Fairlane. And she was betting the plates matched the numbers and letters Jack had scrawled down on his notepad. Grace strained to remember that plate number as she squinted through the rain at the rectangle on the front of that car. Blue letters and numbers on a white background. Lady Liberty outlined in red, standing to the left. D-R-N-7-6-9.
“Jack…? Is that…?”
“Stay here.” His voice was taut, tense. He opened the door and was halfway out of the car before she could move again. She got her seat belt off, opened her own door and started to follow.
One of the troopers in his yellow slicker, with a matching plastic rain cover stretched over his wide-brimmed hat, stepped in front of Jack and held up a hand. But Jack already had his badge out of his pocket, and he held it up in front of him now. The trooper nodded and stepped aside, and Jack hurried closer.
Grace tried to follow. The rain was coming down so hard by now that her hair was plastered to her head and streams kept flooding her eyes. The trooper caught her shoulders and said, “Ma’am, it would be best if you stayed away.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. My sister was in that car!” She pulled free of him, but he didn’t let her pass. He just calmly blocked her path again.
They were pulling someone out of the wreckage now: through the smashed windshield, all trussed up in a neck brace, coming out stiff as a board. Grace strained to see as they moved the victim onto a waiting stretcher and began moving toward the ambulance. Grace pushed against the trooper’s arm, which had lowered like a railroad crossing barricade, but it didn’t give. She could have forced the issue, but thought better of that. “Jack!” she yelled instead.
Jack turned, caught her eye then nodded at the cop. “It’s all right. Let her through.”
The trooper nodded and let his arm fall to his side, and Grace rushed forward just as the men paused near the back of the waiting ambulance.
But it wasn’t Hope lying there. It was Charlie. And she was trembling, and soaking wet.
Grace leaned over her, gently moving the hair off her forehead, careful not to move her. “Charlie? Honey, are you okay?”
Wet eyes blinked open. “Hope,” she whispered. “That bastard…took Hope.” She swallowed, licked her lips, and it was plain that speaking was an effort. “He got out of the car…he took Hope.”
Blinking in confusion, Grace looked up when a strong presence warmed her, just by standing close. Jack nodded to the men, who lifted the gurney into the ambulance. Then he reached past them to yank a blanket off a shelf, and shoved it at one of them. “Cover her up, for crying out loud. She’s freezing.”
The guy nodded, even as Grace searched Jack’s face. “Charlie’s right,” he said. “Hope isn’t in the car, and neither is Paulo Darius.”
“What about the other one?” Grace asked. “There were three men in that cabin…two of whom left on that boat with Hope and Charlie. So what happened to the other…” She stopped there, because she saw her answer. Another gurney was being carried from the overturned car even now. But the person on this one was covered in a white sheet, with dark stains already spreading. Grace looked away quickly.
“Gracie?” Charlie called, her voice raspy.
Grace stiffened her spine and climbed up into the ambulance. She crouched beside Charlie, reaching down to hold her hand. “You’re going to the hospital now, Charlie, and you’re going to be fine. I don’t want you to worry. We’ll get Hope back.”
“Gracie…” Charlie licked her lips. “Hope…”
“Hope what?”
“She’s hurt,” Charlie blurted. “I don’t know how badly, but she…she was hurt.”
A cold steel rod seemed to slip between the discs of Grace’s spine…one of fury, one of rage…it straightened her back and lifted her head. That animal had pulled her injured sister from the car he’d wrecked, and was making her walk, through the rain, in the dark. Her jaw set, her teeth clenched, she turned and stalked away from the ambulance.
Chapter 9
Jack had never seen her the way he saw her then. The way her face changed. The look—yeah, that he recognized. He’d seen that look before—outrage, fury, righteous indignation. A man wrongly accused would get that look. A rape victim’s father or husband would get it. But Jack had never in all his years seen that kind of rage cross the face of an angel.
It made him shiver, way down deep inside.
He leaned into the ambulance just long enough to tell Charlie everything was going to be fine, that he would take care of things, and then he went after his wife.
Her walk was even different. Stride, longer. Footfalls, almost stomping. She walked right up to a volunteer fireman and tugged the flashlight from his hand. The man swung his head around, mouth open, took one look at her face and snapped it shut again.
Jack thought that was probably a wise decision on his part.
Grace went to the overturned car, to the muddy roadside around it, and she shone that light on the ground. This way, that way, the light beam moved. But it only illuminated the tracks of a dozen rescue workers.
“Damn! How the hell are we supposed to find which way he took her!” She flung the light to the ground, arms raising outward in frustration.
Jack took her shoulders, held on hard. “Take a breath, Grace. Come on, do it.”
She did, but he could see the tears of frustration and fury standing in her eyes. He bent to pick up the flashlight. “The rescuers were walking all around the car. They had no choice. So was Paulo, when he first got out with Hope. But he would have kept on going. Away from the car. Away from all these other tracks.”
“If he kept to the pavement…”
“He didn’t,” Jack said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Trust me, hmm? Come on.” Jack took her hand and pulled her along the shoulder of the road, about ten feet from the car. “Now we just make a circle.” He climbed over the guard rail, held out his hand, and helped her over it. Then he aimed the light’s beam at the ground and they walked down the steep, muddy slope, and around the car at a distance of about ten feet, all the way.
Not a footprint in sight.
Jack shook his head. “Damn. He’s smarter than I thought.”
“I told you,” Grace said. “He walked on the road.”
“No. He just crossed it.” Again, t
hey climbed over the guard rail and crossed the street in the pouring rain. Grace looked at Jack with doubt in her eyes, but as soon as they got to the far side of the road and he began shining the light around, he found the tracks. Two sets of them, clear as hell, in the mud. Just until the spot where the grass grew thickly and the ground was harder.
Jack signaled the nearest body—a cop standing on the yellow center line. The trooper came over and Jack pointed in the direction the tracks headed. “What’s that way?” Jack asked him.
He bit his lower lip in thought. “Let’s see…there used to be a trucking company off that way. Out of business now. Yeah, yeah, just beyond that hill there, and then there’s a diner, I think, and maybe the animal shelter just past that.”
Jack ignored him, flipping through the soggy pages of his notepad. “D & D Trucking?” he asked.
“Yeah—yeah, that’s the name.”
Jack nodded, looked at Grace. “Darius’s father owned it. That’s where he’ll be holing up, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he has help.”
“He’s gonna need it,” Grace said, that look still in place.
“Grace.” Jack caught her wrist when she would have walked past him into the darkness, across untended lots that ran between side streets and the urban area beyond. “We can get there faster by car. I’ll call for backup and…”
She shook her head rapidly, her gaze flying to Jack’s. Then she glanced at the cop and pulled Jack aside. “We have to slip in there unseen, and quietly.”
“The place could be guarded.”
“Right. And if the cops come charging in, sirens blaring, what’s going to happen?” She shook her head. “She’s hurt, Jack. We don’t know how badly. We don’t have time for a standoff.”
“It won’t turn into that.”
“Are you sure? Can you promise me that? Can you stand there and say you know without a doubt that my sister isn’t going to bleed to death while some negotiator plays psychological chess with this idiot?”
Jack licked his lips. She had a point, and a damned good one.
Who Do You Love? Page 7
