Gerald Horner leaned on a gold-handled cane as he sipped from a fluted glass. He had always been a slight man, and his stature had diminished over time, leaving him resembling a lad sporting a tuxedo at a junior high party...until one saw his deeply lined face and the shrewd eyes he now turned on his granddaughter and her friend. One hand lifted in acknowledgment of their attention, then he turned toward someone who was speaking to him.
“Where are Nate and Noah, Am and Ava?” Felicity reclaimed Daci’s focus.
Daci could hardly say she’d forbidden her brothers and sisters from attending the auction for their own safety, but she’d prepared a little speech. “Their lives are so busy. I don’t think they’ll be able to—”
“There they are!” Felicity flapped a hand toward the ballroom entrance.
Stomach clenching, Daci turned to find her siblings parading into the party in full dress regalia. Her heart swelled even as it sank. They looked so good, she had to be proud; they’d disobeyed her wishes, and she had to be mad. As if they’d felt her laser vision zeroed in on them—which, from long experience, they probably had—their heads turned toward her almost as one. She glared, but they all grinned and fluttered their fingers at her.
Felicity gripped Daci’s arm. “Nate and Noah have grown into absolute dishes! They were only four years younger than us, right? I’m going to go renew acquaintance. Talk to you later, Dace.”
The woman swept off toward her prey. Daci hid a shark smile. Over the years, her twin brothers had grown expert at foiling the wiles of man-eaters far more cunning than Fliss. They’d be fine. They’d also be distracted from watchdogging their older sister, which suited Daci perfectly.
A throat clearing behind her brought Daci’s attention around to find Felicity’s grandfather smiling up at her. “Wonderful idea—this auction. Excellent turnout.” His gaze swept the room, then returned to her. “I was wondering if I might speak to you privately in the small library before the auction begins.”
Daci’s pulse sped up. Was this the moment they’d prepared for, when someone would try to get her alone? But this was Gerald Horner, the grand old man her parents had always called “stuffy and boring.” She couldn’t fathom the idea of him overseeing a chain of chop shops to line his pockets. But forget indulging in amazement. It was time to play along. Maybe—finally—find out what the attempts on her life had been all about.
“Certainly.” Daci nodded.
“After you.” He gestured toward the main doors with his cane.
Skin prickling, Daci preceded her guest out of the cavernous ballroom, hyperaware of the many pairs of guardian eyes that were watching. The microphone embedded in the sapphire-and-diamond necklace at her throat suddenly seemed hot against her skin, and the small pistol strapped to her calf managed to abruptly grow pounds heavier. But despite the tension, she also felt alert, primed for danger.
She was ready. Let the show begin.
Out of the press of guests, Daci waited for Gerald to come up beside her at the top of the stairs. She preferred them to descend in tandem. Being pushed down the steps by someone behind her didn’t sound appealing, though such a blatant ploy seemed unlikely.
The older man joined her with a smile that appeared anything but sinister. All of her seeing-behind-the-outward-expression experience read genuine warmth. Maybe this wasn’t a trick with deadly motive. If not, she still needed to be ultracareful, because whoever wanted her dead might take advantage of her time away from the crowd. Fliss’s grandfather may have unwittingly put himself in danger as collateral damage.
Great! Now she needed to protect him as well as herself.
The older man took each stair slowly, gripping the railing with one hand and using his cane to support his other side. Daci resisted the urge to offer her arm. She had the sense her guest would be insulted. Besides, physical contact with someone who might want to kill her didn’t seem wise.
Eventually, they reached the second floor, and Daci guided Gerald up the hallway to the small study/library that was adjacent to what had been her parents’ master bedroom. Ever since she was a child, Daci had loved to come here, surrounded by the smell of books, and nestle onto the seat set into the bay window with a mug of cocoa and a novel. When she needed a haven away from rowdy siblings or arguing parents, she could pull the thick, velvet curtains closed over the window seat and feel safe from the world. The safety was an illusion, of course, but a handy one for preserving sanity at the time.
Daci crossed the room and took a position behind the desk only a few feet from her favorite spot. Gerald stopped in front of the desk.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
The man’s gaze lowered toward his feet, and he seemed to shrink smaller. “Please forgive us.”
“Forgive you for what?” Daci’s skin crawled.
Her mind’s eye played with a scenario where he yanked a pistol from his waistband and said, For killing you, as he pulled the trigger. Daci scolded her ripe imagination as the older man wrung his hands together and refused to meet her gaze.
“Before Griffin left for Europe, he shared some disturbing information with me about his youthful escapades, and I must apologize for our part in—”
At the sound of a soft swish like a curtain parting, Gerald’s head jerked up. His eyes flew wide on a spot beyond Daci’s shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” he cried as Daci whirled toward the window seat.
* * *
A startled cry came from within the library, and Jax left off lurking outside the door and charged into the room. Daci struggled with a tuxedo-clad male attempting to plunge the needle of a syringe into her neck. Jax sprang toward the fray, but the small man in front of the desk thrust his stick in front of his legs, tripping him to the floor. Nose burning from carpet contact, Jax rolled onto his back and barely got an arm in front of his face as the stick whipped down.
Crack! Pain burst through his wrist.
A scream from Daci energized him, and with his right hand he caught the cane that was again descending toward him and shoved. The man he recognized as Gerald Horner from the reports he and Daci had studied prior to this event tottered backward and plopped down onto his backside.
Jax surged to his feet, holding his injured left arm close to his body, and rammed his shoulder into Daci’s assailant. The man staggered sideways. In one graceful movement, Daci bent, swept her gown away from her leg and pulled out a .22 pistol.
She pointed it at the man with the syringe. “Stop right there.”
By the “I mean business” tone in her voice and the look in her eyes, if Jax had been standing in front of that pistol, he’d have frozen on the spot. But desperation twisted the stranger’s doughy face, and he lifted the syringe as if he would throw it at her like a dart. The .22 spoke, the syringe shattered, and the man screamed.
“You have to die!” he wailed, clutching a bleeding hand to his chest. “You can’t live, or our family is ruined!”
“Griffin Horner, why are you trying to kill me?” Daci asked.
“Yes, Griff, what do you think you’re doing?” snapped Gerald. He sat in a heap on the floor, staring toward Daci’s assailant.
“We all want answers to those questions,” said Rey as he led a group of deputy marshals into the room.
“This is your fault, Dad,” Griffin spit out as a deputy cuffed him.
“My fault!” the father protested as he was helped to his feet by a pair of deputies. “Have you gone insane? Think what your behavior is going to do to our reputation. I was more than happy to do as you asked and invite Candace into the small library to apologize on behalf of our family for your poor choices that contributed to Candace’s parents’ profligate lifestyle, but I had no idea you were setting up an ambush.”
“Hold it!” Jax interrupted. “Why did you hit me with your cane if you weren’t in on the murder plot?”
>
The elderly man lifted his chin and sniffed. “You were about to attack my son. I did what any father would do.”
“Even if that son was trying to kill someone?”
“Horners stick together.” He straightened his suit jacket. “We have our honor to think about.”
Griffin snorted. “You can stop blathering about family honor. You trashed that long ago, Dad.” He pronounced the title with a sneer. “Your nose is stuck so high in the air you have no idea what your old indiscretions have produced. We’re reaping the consequences of one of them today. We are ruined in Boston society as soon as people find out.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gerald said, but his tone was less than certain.
“Me, either,” Daci said.
Griffin glared at Daci. “Don’t play innocent with me, missy. He told me you knew about the connection between him and us. He said your uncle tried to use that to get out of being shot, claiming that if he turned up dead, you’d know where to find his killer.”
Daci looked blank, but a bunch of tumblers clicked into place for Jax.
“You’re talking about Liggett Naylor.”
The younger Horner’s mouth pursed like he’d sucked on a dill pickle, but he said nothing.
Daci crossed her arms. “Uncle Conrad never mentioned to me any connection between your family and Liggett Naylor. However, you’re too late if you were trying to stop me from finding out that Naylor was my baby brother’s father. What in the world would that have to do with you?”
“This isn’t about your brother—it’s about mine. The one Dad never knew about or acknowledged.”
Jax’s gut went hollow. “Liggett Naylor is your brother?”
“Half, if you don’t mind. I’m the one who introduced him to Daci’s mother. I was young. Wild. Stupid. At first, Naylor was just the lowlife who hooked us up with the best hooch for the parties. It wasn’t until we were deep into that sort of business relationship that he informed me we were related. Had proof even. He got my DNA at one of our parties and had it compared to his. Remember Vivian Naylor, Dad? The fling you had so long ago?”
The older man turned red and began spluttering and protesting.
Rey hushed him up with a word, then turned toward Griffin. “I get the idea you know where Naylor is. Spit it out.”
The man wriggled, clearly torn. He was probably scared of what his half brother would do to him in retaliation. On the other hand, the dark looks all the law enforcement officers were giving him had Griffin visibly nervous. “You have to understand. He’s been holding the past over my head for years. What would people say when they found out my father sired a mass murderer? When he escaped, he made me provide him a safe house.”
Jax stepped squarely into Griffin’s personal space. “Where—is—he?”
For a bare second, the man glared at Jax, then he wilted. “My pool house.”
“Are a young woman and a baby with him?” Daci asked.
Griffin blinked at her. “No. He’s alone with his remote control...except when he’s out and about in one of my vehicles killing people like your uncle who was trying to shake him down and some guy he said panicked and attempted a clumsy hit-and-run. He called them both ‘liabilities who knew too much,’ so they had to go.”
“I think Naylor is the one who killed my parents, not the man serving life without parole,” Daci said.
“I think he did, too,” Griffin agreed. “He saw your mom’s sketchbook one day. That was the first he realized he’d fathered your youngest brother—the one who had been born not right and got shunted off to some institution. He was furious!”
Daci gasped. “Niall’s not dead? Are you sure? Do you know where he is?”
Griffin shook his head. “Sorry.”
Daci’s shoulders slumped, and Jax put his good arm around her. She leaned into him, exactly the response he craved. Who was he fooling with his reasons for holding her at arm’s length? The Lord had preserved her through so much. He needed to trust her life to Him, not his own feeble efforts. This woman was a treasure, and he’d be a prize idiot not to take a chance on love again. There was only one hitch—persuading her to feel the same way.
Twelve
Saturday afternoon, a week after the Horner family’s world imploded, Daci ran her fingers down the sleeve of the deputy marshal’s uniform hanging in the closet of her duplex in Springfield. The doctor had cleared her to return to work on Monday. She grinned, but then her smile faded. Jax wouldn’t be there. Her hand fell to her side.
Now that Naylor was in custody, their job together was over, their partnership ended. By now, Jax would be back fully into the groove of his chosen profession—protecting helpless innocents in the courtroom. She hadn’t seen him since they’d wrapped up their final reports together a couple of days after the auction. He’d been in a cast from a cracked wrist.
“For a little old guy, Horner packed a wallop,” Jax had told her with a grin.
He’d also sported a fresh scab on the end of his nose from a rug burn. It had taken all of Daci’s self-control not to throw her arms around him and kiss the injured beak. But that would have been unprofessional. He’d made it clear any number of times that their relationship needed to remain at friendly colleague level. She had to respect his wishes, but—oh!—she wanted more.
“Stop pining for what isn’t to be,” she lectured herself out loud. “At least no one is still trying to kill you. Be thankful!”
Griffin Horner was being charged with harboring a fugitive, as well as conspiracy to commit murder, along with every suspected hitman in custody in connection with him posting a bounty on her life. Gerald faced charges of assaulting a deputy marshal.
Daci had tried to contact Felicity to say how sorry she was about this tragedy in her family, but Fliss wouldn’t take her call. Probably for the best. She wasn’t sure the Marshals Service would approve of the contact, and their friendship had been dead for years anyway. Whatever happened to the hopes and dreams Fliss had talked about when they were young? How terminally sad!
One very bright spot in the whole mess had put a figurative gold star in her service jacket—her contribution to the apprehension of Liggett Naylor. For all the blood and grief Naylor’s escape from custody had caused, his return to custody went without incident. While Daci was being debriefed by DC Reynolds, and her siblings were representing the family at the auction that continued uninterrupted, and Jax was being treated at the hospital ER, a team from the Boston office of the Marshals Service burst in on the escaped felon watching TV in Griffin Horner’s pool house. Not a shot was fired.
Professionally, the only piece of the case that continued unsolved was the whereabouts of Serena and her baby. Daci would work on that when she returned to the office. Personally, two mysteries remained—who had left the basket of spoiled baby items on her front porch and the whereabouts of her brother, Niall. Both of those mysteries looked like they might never be solved.
The chime of her front doorbell shook Daci from her thoughts. She went to the door and checked the peephole. Her heart leaped, and she flung the door wide.
“Jaxon Williams! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Hopefully, her jaunty greeting hid the longing she felt in every cell of her being.
Since this was a weekend, he was clad in jeans and a polo shirt. His arm wore a cast, but he must have tossed his sling aside. She bit back a mamasis-style scold. At least the rug burn on his nose had faded significantly.
With an answering grin, he stepped inside. “I thought you might want to know Serena and Chase turned up this morning. They’re both fine.”
“What?” Daci pressed a hand to her chest. “Where have they been?”
A part of her did a happy dance that the pair were okay. Another part withered a little that Jax’s visit was only on account of unfinished business. Or was it? If he had no intere
st in her beyond their temporary partnership, he could have phoned with the news. A tiny bud of hope began to unfurl in her heart.
“New York,” he answered. “Apparently, she has a cousin in the Bronx no one knew about. That shooting incident at the park was the last straw for her after the attempted abduction. She called the cousin, and he was willing to take them in until it was safe to come home.”
“What a relief they’re all right!” Daci led her guest into the living room, and they took seats on easy chairs adjacent to each other. “Last Wednesday, I observed a police interview with Naylor through the two-way glass, and he continued to deny any involvement with their disappearance. I believed him, but that left us at square one in finding her and the baby. How is the little guy, by the way?”
“I have to admit I’m amazed at how well he’s doing.” Jax laughed. “I was called in this morning to attend the medical assessment, and he appears to be thriving and has clearly attached to his mother. Since that fact was so evident, and since his FAS condition makes him particularly fragile, the social worker reluctantly fell in with my recommendation that he remain with her until any consequences for her disappearance are determined. The danger to her and her child was so compelling that I believe the judge will be lenient. Especially since she had good reason not to turn to law enforcement—she knew better than anyone that the mole could lead Naylor straight to her.”
Daci pursed her lips then nodded. “I’ll be praying for them. In the meantime, maybe you can refer her to one of the Uniquely Made groups that are being formed. I wouldn’t be surprised if she finds among them the wholesome, supportive friendships she needs.”
“Good idea. I heard through the grapevine that the auction was a tremendous success. Congratulations! Your foundation will be able to fund a lot of new groups.” Jax’s expression sobered. “Did Naylor say anything about your parents?”
Emotion choked her, and she looked away. “He admitted to killing them,” she finally managed.
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