Chapter 35
Luke parked the Volvo sedan on the side
of the road, about a hundred yards down from the driveway leading
up to the rental house. When he had driven by, he hadn’t seen any
sign of a vehicle. More than likely the black Mercedes was parked
behind the cottage. He opened the driver’s door, got out, leaned
over and looked back at Meredith.
“Stay put.”
She nodded.
He rounded the side of the car, popped
open the trunk, and retrieved his MK23 OWSH, a .45 caliber pistol,
a laser aiming module, and a sound and flash
suppressor.
Meredith opened the passenger door.
Damn it, what part of “stay put” hadn’t she understood? He reached
the open door before she had a chance to move.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he
demanded.
“I’m not getting out,” she told him. “I
just want to tell you . . . to say . . . please be
careful.”
Shit! Bringing her along had been a
huge mistake, a real lapse of judgment on his part. But in his own
defense, he had given in to her pleading to avoid having to knock
her out and tie her up. He had known some stubborn women in his
life, but none as obstinately bullheaded as Meredith
Sinclair.
“Close the door and lock it. And
whatever you do, don’t leave the car while I’m gone.”
“Where did you get the gun?” she
asked.
“Good God, woman, what a question. I
brought it with me. Now close the damn door.”
He couldn’t worry about Meredith and do
his job. If she followed orders, she should be safe.
Creating a path through the wooded area
to the left of the cottage, he made his way toward the backyard.
Just as he had thought, the black Mercedes was parked at the back
of the house and couldn’t be seen from the road. The cottage doors
and windows would be locked, but with no security system, breaking
and entering would be a piece of cake. However, if Linden was
expecting him, he could easily be opening a door to his own death.
There was a root cellar which could be booby trapped, just as the
doors and windows might be.
With weapon drawn, Luke circled the
cottage. He peered into the windows, one by one, and found every
room as dark as pitch, except what appeared to be a bedroom at the
back of the house. A dim light glowed softly on one wall, probably
a nightlight plugged into a wall outlet.
Luke swallowed.
This would be the child’s
bedroom.
If he could get her out of the house
first . . .
Not an option. Too risky.
Keeping the child safe was his number
one priority.
He woke with a start, his heart
pounding and a rush of adrenaline pumping through his body at
breakneck speed. Sitting up in bed, the lightweight cover falling
to his hips, he listened for any sound that might have caused him
to wake so suddenly.
Silence.
The only sound he heard was his own
breathing.
He shoved back the covers, got up,
slipped his bare feet into his Italian leather loafers, and reached
for his SIG on the bedside table. Not taking time to put on his
pajama top, he walked quietly out of his bedroom and moved
carefully down the narrow hall to the child’s room. She lay curled
in a fetal ball, the sheet and blanket kicked to the foot of the
bed. He scanned the room, from wall to wall and from floor to
ceiling. The old house had no closets and the wardrobe in that room
was too small to provide a hiding place for an adult.
The room was clear.
Vigilant to any sound or movement, he
walked into the room and over to the bed, and then reached down and
gently shook the child.
“Wake up,” he whispered.
Her eyes flew open. She stared up at
him. When she opened her mouth, he knew she was going to scream. He
clamped his hand over her face, covering her mouth and
chin.
“Be quiet and I won’t hurt you,” he
told her. “I’m going to take you out of bed now and carry you with
me. Be good. Don’t fight me. If you’re not a good girl, you will be
very sorry.”
He snatched her up and out of the bed.
While keeping a tight grip on his pistol, he maneuvered her to his
left side and balanced her with one arm.
Pausing for a moment, he heard nothing,
saw nothing. And yet he knew someone was in the house. Years of
training had honed his senses.
He couldn’t understand how someone had
managed to find them. An alias had been used at Heathrow. Zachary
Fairweather. His employer had rented the Mercedes and the cottage
under that name. How had someone connected Anthony Linden to
Zachary Fairweather?
It wasn’t possible.
And yet someone had tracked
him.
Someone had been sent to rescue the
child.
Who was the only person who knew where
the child was being held?
Malcolm York!
The son of a bitch had set him up. But
why?
Regardless of his employer’s reasons
for betrayal, he had no intention of dying tonight. Survival first
He would use the child as a bargaining chip or if necessary a
shield. He’d take care of York later.
When he walked toward the open bedroom
door, intending to close it, he sensed danger all around him. But
he could not pinpoint the presence of another person other than the
trembling child he held against his body. He would wait there, in
the bedroom, for his attacker to strike. Depending on the other
man’s skills, he should have a fifty/fifty chance of survival. Just
as he reached out to close the bedroom door, a bullet zipped
through the darkness and entered the front of his
head.
The bullet had severed his brainstem,
killing him immediately. Luke came out of the shadowy hallway,
grabbed the screaming child as Linden slumped down onto the floor.
He hoisted the little girl up and onto his hip.
“It’s all right, honey. You’re safe.
Nobody is going to hurt you. I’m taking you home to your mommy and
daddy.”
She stopped screaming and stared at
Luke with a pair of huge blue eyes.
He carried her out of the bedroom, down
the hall and straight through the front door. “There’s a very nice
lady waiting in my car. I’ll take you to her, okay? She will look
after you while I make a couple of phone calls, and then you and I
and the nice lady are going to leave here and we’ll take you home
as soon as we can.”
As if instinctively believing she could
trust Luke, she wrapped her little arm around his neck and held on
tightly as he rushed across the front lawn and down the road to the
Volvo. The minute Meredith saw him coming, she opened the car door
and jumped out.
Damn it. What did I
tell her? Stay in the car.
He and Meredith exchanged glances as
she held out her arms to the little girl. “Come here,
sweetie.”
The child went to Meredith somewhat
reluctantly.
Luke turned and walked away several
feet.
Before Meredith closed the car door,
she spoke to the child again. “I’m Meredith Sinclair. Who are
you?”
Too far away to hear the child’s
whispered response, Luke immediately contacted Mitchum, who told
him he already had a cleanup crew en route and they would take care
of everything there at the cottage. Luke’s second phone call would
be to Griff. He checked his watch, an MTM Black Patriot, noted it
was ten till one and calculated the time difference.
Just as he started to make the call,
Meredith opened the car door and called his name.
“Luke?”
“What?”
“Please come here. There’s something
you need to hear.”
Luke stomped over to the side of the
Volvo. The child sitting in Meredith’s lap looked up at
him.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Luke is one of the
good guys. Tell him what you told me. Tell him your
name.”
“My name is Jaelyn,” she said. “Jaelyn
Allen.”
The name reverberated inside Luke’s
head. Allen. Allen. Allen.
“Good God.” Luke knelt down in front of
Jaelyn and forced a fake smile. “Do you know someone named Michelle
Allen?”
The child’s face lit up the moment he
mentioned the trusted Powell agent’s name. “That’s my aunt
Chelle.”
Derek shared after-dinner drinks with
Griff and Sanders in Griff’s study. Dinner had been sandwiches and
chips served in the kitchen, which had given them all a chance to
wind down as much as possible after a grueling day. For the past
half hour, ever since the men had left the ladies in the kitchen,
their conversation had been limited, as if they didn’t know what
else there was to say. Sanders had poured their drinks and although
he had not told Griff that one drink should be his limit tonight,
he had given Griff a stern look as he handed him a second glass of
Scotch whisky. Derek had noticed that, like him and Sanders, Griff
had leisurely sipped on his first drink.
“Our not talking about the situation
won’t change it,” Griff finally said, breaking the strained
silence.
“No, of course not,” Sanders agreed.
“But perhaps any more discussion should be postponed until
tomorrow. It has been a very long and trying day for all of
us.”
“Before we call it a night, I’d like to
run a thought or two by y’all,” Derek said.
Griff eyed him, curiosity in his hard
gaze. “A thought about what?”
“About who may have killed Shiloh,”
Derek replied.
Sanders squinted his almond-shaped eyes
and focused directly on Derek. “You think you know who the murderer
is?”
“No, I can’t name the killer, but I
believe there is only one reason either a guard here at Griffin’s
Rest or one of the Powell agents would kill Shiloh
Whitman.”
“I think we all agree that it had to be
someone inside Griffin’s Rest, someone we trusted.” Griff heaved a
heavy, labored groan. “I’ve tried to fight accepting the truth, but
that one thought has been in the back of my mind all
day.”
“Maleah and I discussed the possibility
that the person who calls himself Malcolm York is the mastermind
behind all the murders. And this man found a way to force a Powell
guard or an agent to kill Shiloh. He’s using some type of blackmail
to—”
Griff’s cell phone rang. He let out a
few choice curse words.
“It’s probably Sheriff Fulton.” Griff
got up and walked across the room to where his phone lay atop his
desk. He picked up the phone, glanced at it, and said, “It’s not
Fulton.” And then he answered the call. “Luke?”
Derek watched as Griff listened, his
face growing darker with each second and his body visibly
tensing.
“Charter a jet,” Griff said. “You and
Meredith bring the child back to the U.S. as soon as possible. I’ll
call her parents in Paducah to let them know their child is safe.
And we’ll handle things here at Griffin’s Rest.”
Griff laid the phone on the desk. He
looked at Derek and then at Sanders. “Linden is dead.” He paused
for a moment. “Linden kidnapped Michelle Allen’s
niece.
He had the child with him when Luke arrived.
She’s safe.”
“We have to find Michelle,” Derek said.
“She needs to know that her niece is all right.”
“Yes, and after that, we will have to
deal with what Michelle has done,” Griff told them.
When Nic came out of the bathroom, the
test stick in her hand, Maleah rose from where she sat on the edge
of Nic’s bed.
“Well, are you or aren’t
you?”
Nic hurried toward Maleah, tears in her
eyes, and held out the stick to show her. “It’s positive. I’m
pregnant.” She grabbed Maleah and hugged her. “I’m really pregnant.
I had just about given up hope of our having a baby.”
Maleah grasped Nic’s trembling hands,
took the test stick from her and laid it on the nightstand. “Have
you been experiencing any symptoms? Didn’t you suspect you might be
pregnant?”
Nic shook her head. “I guess I’ve
ignored the symptoms and chalked them up to nerves, which is
understandable considering the stress we’ve been under for several
months now. But when I missed my period again, I began to
wonder.”
“Good thing you already had a test
kit.”
“Yes, it was, wasn’t it. Remember I
bought several of them about six months ago when I thought I might
be pregnant. But it turned out that I wasn’t pregnant
then.”
“But you are now.” Maleah grabbed Nic’s
hands again and squeezed. “You’ve got to tell Griff as soon as
possible. He’ll be thrilled.”
“We both want a child so very much.”
Nic swiped the teardrops from beneath her eyes. “But dear God, what
bad timing.”
Maleah hugged Nic again. “Maybe it was
simply meant to be. We could all use a little good news about
now.”
“I feel as if I’ve been given a
miracle.”
When they pulled apart, Maleah said,
“You should take a nice, long bubble bath, put on your sexiest
lingerie, and call downstairs to tell your husband that he’s needed
upstairs immediately.”
“I like your suggestion.”
“I’ll bet Griff will like it, too. And,
Nic, just for tonight, forget about everything else and concentrate
on you and Griff and your baby.”
Maleah kissed Nic’s cheek. “I think
I’ll go back to my room, grab a shower, and see if I can find
something sexy to slip into before Derek stops by to say
goodnight.”
Nic laughed. “Can you believe it? In
the midst of all this chaos, you fall in love and I find out I’m
pregnant.”
Maleah waved at Shaughnessy Hood, who
stood guard outside Nic’s bedroom. The big bear of a man smiled and
nodded. She took her time meandering along to the other side of the
house where the guest rooms were located. It seemed wrong somehow
to be so happy. But Nic was pregnant. Her best friend, who had been
trying to get pregnant for several years, was at long last going to
have a baby. And Maleah having fallen head over heels in love was
as much of a miracle as Nic being pregnant.
She was in love with Derek Lawrence of
all people.
Laughing softly to herself, savoring
Nic’s secret and thinking about the night ahead with Derek, Maleah
opened her bedroom door and flipped on the light switch to turn on
the bedside lamp. The low-watt bulb gave off a dim radiance,
creating a romantic glow similar to candlelight. She took off her
jacket, tossed it onto a nearby chair, and then removed her holster
and slipped it into the right-side nightstand drawer. She kicked
off her shoes and waltzed barefoot across the floor to the
bathroom. After turning on the shower, she adjusted the water to a
toasty warm. Then she stripped off her clothes, tossed them into
the laundry hamper and grabbed a washcloth from the stack on the
vanity. After lathering her hair with the floral scented shampoo
and following with a silky conditioner, she shaved her legs and
under her arms.
If only she had something really sexy
to slip into after her shower. Although she owned several nice sets
of lacy panties and bras, she didn’t have any sexy sleepwear.
Considering the fact that her sex life had been pretty much
non-existent for a number of years, she hadn’t needed anything
other than cotton sleep shirts for summer and wintertime flannel
pajamas.
After she stepped out of the shower and
wrapped a towel around her wet hair, she ran a second towel over
her arms and legs.
Suddenly Maleah heard a noise outside
in her bedroom. “Derek?”
No response.
“Derek, is that you?”
Silence.
Odd, she could have sworn she heard
something that sounded like a door opening and
closing.
“Cully says that Michelle has been
staying in her room a lot since her stomach virus, which we now
know she faked,” Griff told them. “Them” being Sanders, BJ, and
Derek. “But she’s not in her room now and when he checked, Cully
found her window wide open.”
“She’s going to kill someone else
tonight,” BJ said. “But who? Her target could be any one of the
other students or one of the agents or a guard or . . . or even one
of us.”
Sanders clamped his broad hand down on
BJ’s shoulder. She glanced up at him and they exchanged looks of
care and concern.
“I’ve filled Cully in on the
situation,” Griff said. “Sanders, please contact the guards and
tell them to be on the lookout for Michelle. Derek, you speak to
Brendan and I’ll let Shaughnessy know what’s happened when I go
upstairs to check on Nic. I’ll alert Nic. You—” he looked at Derek
“—let Maleah know what’s going on and ask her to join us. I want an
all-out manhunt underway immediately. We have to find Michelle
before she kills again.”
Maleah yanked her knee-length cotton
robe off the hanger on the back of the bathroom door, slipped into
it, and took a tentative step over the threshold, one foot in the
bedroom and one still in the bathroom.
“Derek?”
Maleah heard only an eerie silence in
the semidark bedroom.
She didn’t like this one little bit.
Her stomach churned with uneasiness. A sense of foreboding spread
through her as she took another step into the bedroom. Something
was wrong. She felt it in her bones.
Damn it, she had put her holstered
pistol inside the nightstand drawer.
“Derek, if you’re trying to surprise
me, please don’t. I’m warning you that if you grab me, I’m going to
clobber you. I’m pretty sure I can adequately kick your
butt.”
With her breath caught in her throat,
Maleah took another step before halting and scanning the room. Her
gaze paused on the sitting room, where she noticed a slender
silhouette near the windows.
“Who’s there?” Maleah
asked.
Not Derek.
The silhouette moved out of the shadows
and revealed herself.
“Michelle? What’s wrong? Has something
happened?”
For a few seconds, Maleah felt a huge
sense of relief, thinking perhaps Griff had sent Michelle. But when
Michelle didn’t respond, only stood there staring at Maleah, her
eyes wide and glazed as if she were in a trance, Maleah knew
something wasn’t right.
“What are you doing in my room? Did
Griff send you?”
As Michelle walked toward Maleah, she
brought the hand she held behind her back to her side. She lifted
the gun she was tightly clutching. And then she pointed the 9mm at
Maleah.
“I’m sorry, Maleah,” Michelle said.
“I’m so very sorry, but I have no other choice. I have to kill
you.”
Derek explained the situation to
Brendan Richter and then headed upstairs only minutes behind Griff.
He hated having to tell Maleah that Michelle Allen was the one who
had killed Shiloh, that she had been forced to kill in order to
save her seven-year-old niece’s life. Apparently Anthony Linden had
kidnapped Jaelyn Allen and held her hostage in order to force
Michelle into killing for his employer. Derek didn’t know all the
particulars of course, but he couldn’t understand why Michelle
hadn’t come to Griff and Nic and explained what had happened. He
felt certain that Griff could have figured out a way to help her
convince Linden that she was following his instructions without her
actually having had to kill anyone. But it was impossible to truly
put himself in Michelle’s shoes. No two people reacted the same way
to similar events. He and Michelle were two very different people
who had come from vastly different backgrounds and had different
life experiences. Not that he thought a man would have handled the
situation differently or better than a woman or that a privileged
background made him superior in any way. All he meant was that he
knew he shouldn’t judge another person’s reasoning simply because
they chose a different solution than he would have
chosen.
As Derek approached Maleah’s bedroom,
he stopped and thought about what he was going to say to her.
Maleah and Michelle weren’t close friends, but they were friends
nevertheless. Michelle had been Maleah’s martial arts instructor
and had been the one who had encouraged Maleah to work toward
perfecting her skills.
He knew his Blondie. She presented a
hard-as-nails façade to the world, but inside, she had a
marshmallow center. She would take the news about Michelle
hard.
If only they could find Michelle
quickly—before she killed again.
Maleah stared at Michelle—her friend
Michelle—who held a gun on her and obviously intended to kill
her.
“Why?” Maleah asked. “I don’t
understand.”
“He has my niece, Jaelyn.”
“Who has your niece?” Maleah took a
hesitant step toward Michelle. If she could get close enough, she
had a reasonable chance of overpowering her.
“Stop right there. Don’t come any
closer.”
Maleah stopped. “Michelle, we can work
this out. Whatever you need—”
“I need for you to shut up.” Tears
glistened in Michelle’s eyes.
Keep her talking. Find
a way to move in closer.
“I knew I would have to shoot you,”
Michelle said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to overpower and subdue
you the way I did Shiloh.”
“Please, talk to me. Let me help you. I
know you don’t want to do this.”
“Can’t you see that I don’t have any
other choice? If I don’t kill you, he will kill
Jaelyn.”
As Derek reached for the doorknob, he
heard voices inside Maleah’s room. Two female voices. Maleah
and—?
He pressed his ear to the door and
listened.
“I’ll make it quick and painless, I
promise,” Michelle Allen said.
Derek’s heart stopped.
Michelle was in Maleah’s
room.
His first instinct was to draw his gun
and burst into the room. He had been wearing his holster at
Griffin’s Rest since Shiloh’s murder last night. But if he burst
into the room, he might spook Michelle and she might fire her
weapon instantly. On the other hand, if he didn’t act immediately,
she would shoot Maleah anyway.
He reached under his jacket, flipped
open the holster, and removed his 45 Colt XSE. Praying with every
breath he took, Derek turned the handle and eased open the door,
inch by inch. He stepped inside the bedroom, gun in hand, and as
soon as he saw both women, he aimed his weapon directly at
Michelle.
“Drop your gun,” he told Michelle in a
deceptively calm voice. He was anything but calm.
In that split second when Derek’s
command distracted Michelle, Maleah made her move. Before either
Derek or Michelle realized what was happening, Maleah sent her arms
and legs into deadly motion, ironically enough, using the skilled
maneuvers Michelle had taught her. The student against the teacher.
Maleah’s foot struck Michelle’s hand and sent the gun she held
flying. Realizing her weapon of choice was no longer an option,
Michelle instinctively retaliated.
With his pistol aimed and ready to
fire, Derek held back and watched while Maleah and Michelle engaged
in hand-to-hand combat. This was Maleah’s fight. She wouldn’t
appreciate him interfering unless it was to save her
life.
Back and forth, Michelle attacked and
Maleah counterattacked. Both women were skilled warriors, pretty
much evenly matched, every move each made a combination of reflex
and training. Repeated force-against-force blocks took a toll on
both of them. With each kick, each painful blow, each woman
weakened, but neither gave an inch. Maleah punched harder and
faster, using the front two knuckles of her fist to strike at her
opponent, and then successfully blocking each blow Michelle aimed
at her.
By the time Maleah pinned Michelle to
the floor, both women were bloody and breathless. Sweat glistened
on their skin.
“Oh, God, please,” Michelle whimpered.
“Jaelyn . . .”
Griff, Nic, and Shaughnessy rushed into
the room and halted abruptly behind Derek. They looked past him to
where Maleah straddled a defeated Michelle.
Derek holstered his weapon and with the
others at his back, he rushed over to Maleah, yanked down her robe
that had hiked up to the edge of her buttocks, and then pulled her
off Michelle and into his arms. Breathing heavily, she put one arm
around him as she looked down at her opponent.
Griff and Shaughnessy lifted a bruised
and battered Michelle to her feet. Shaughnessy quickly yanked her
arms behind her, shoved her in front of him and held her
securely.
“She kept saying that Linden had her
niece and he would kill her if she didn’t do what he told her to
do,” Maleah explained. “She admitted that she killed
Shiloh.”
“Luke called. He found Linden,” Griff
said. “Apparently Linden had been ordered to abduct Jaelyn Allen
and hold her captive as a way to control Michelle and force her to
kill for him.”
“Jaelyn?” Michelle asked pleadingly.
“Is she all right?”
“Your niece is fine,” Griff told her.
“Luke and Meredith are bringing her back to the U.S. as soon as
possible. They’ll take her home to your brother and his
wife.”
Moments after hearing the good news
about Jaelyn, Michelle fell apart emotionally, weeping, shaking her
head, and muttering incoherently. Shaughnessy gently led her from
the room.
Nic grabbed Maleah out of Derek’s arms
and hugged her. Then she stepped back and wiped the tears from her
cheeks. “Thank God you’re all right.”
Griff put his arm around Nic’s
shoulders.
Maleah looked at Derek. He reached out
and swiped away the smear of blood from her mouth. “Blondie, don’t
you ever scare me like that again. When I saw Michelle holding a
gun on you . . . Maleah Perdue, if anything had happened to you . .
.”
She offered him a fragile smile.
“You’re my hero, you know.”
“Who, me?” He pointed to his
chest.
“Yes, you. If you hadn’t startled
Michelle, I might not have gotten the opportunity to catch her off
guard the way I did.” She lifted her arms and wrapped them around
his neck. “And you’re my hero because once you saw I could handle
the situation without your help, you let me fight my own
battle.”