Jana gave her a sideways glance. “But I’ll have the proof with me that my intentions are good.”
Liz looked at her. “Why would anyone doubt that? Who are you?”
Jana gave her a pained look. “I’m Tucker’s fiancée and I love him enough to die for him.”
Liz sighed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that. I’m not real happy at the thought of dying just yet.”
After that attempt, Jana remained stubbornly silent. When Jana stopped for gas, Liz had time to take out her phone and answer the several anxious texts that Will had sent. All she could do was confirm that she was with Jana, she hadn’t been kidnapped, she was okay, for now, and hadn’t a clue where they were going but, yes, I-65 north through Alabama. A breath of relief escaped her at the knowledge that Will was somewhere behind her and hopefully narrowing the gap but Jana was driving fairly fast herself. She put her phone away before Jana finished pumping gas. Maybe Jana did or didn’t realize it was possible for Will to be tracking them but she wasn’t taking any chances.
Liz wasn’t afraid of Jana but she was definitely afraid that Jana was driving them straight into danger of some sort. Her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel for the last two hours was a dead giveaway.
* * *
“Boss,” Carson sounded elated and something else.
“What have you got?”
“A probable match. You’re going to want to look at this for yourself. It could be a false positive but—”
“Did you send it?”
“I did moments ago. Check your email. I forwarded the photo of the girl and the match that popped up.”
Glancing at Tucker whose expression was both hopeful and anxious at the same time, Will eased the truck to the shoulder and put his flashers on. “Stay on the line,” he told Carson. “I’m stopping to look now.”
Will opened Carson’s email on his phone while Trouble peered over his shoulder from the console. He wished he’d thought to bring his laptop but enlarged the photo Tucker had sent Carson as much as he could. The picture was one of the couple together but Tucker’s back was to the camera and the focus was on Jana as she looked over his shoulder. She had her hand lifted to show off an engagement ring that didn’t have half the sparkle Will could see in her eyes. The news clipping was of an older man looking up at a girl on a horse. Will focused on the girl. She was, he thought, a few years younger than Jana was now with her hair hidden by a riding helmet but the facial resemblance was strong.
Trouble hissed in his ear and batted at the phone. Will shifted his focus to the man and tensed. “Who are Jana’s parents?” he asked Tucker.
Tucker’s look turned to confusion. “Her mother died several years back. Her father lives in Brazil. She rarely talks about him. Why?”
Will turned the screen of the news clipping toward him and waited. “That’s Vincente,” Tucker said at last.
“And the girl on the horse?”
“Jana,” Tucker confirmed what Will and Carson saw, sounding gut shot.
Will felt the band around his forehead tighten as he returned to his phone call with Carson. “I’m getting back on the road. What is the gist of the clipping?”
“Wealthy Brazilian, Barros Vicente, reunited with US Olympic hopeful daughter.”
“How long ago was that piece?”
“Two years—no, three.”
“Thanks. I need an address for Harrison Vincente. It will be some place in Tennessee. Text me when you have it, then call and tell me the nearest city.”
Five minutes later, Carson called back. “You have the address. Head for Nashville then you’ll be going east on I-40. Your destination is between Nashville and Knoxville.”
“Thanks, Carson, I’ll head in that direction. Meanwhile, I need the very fastest way to get there once I leave the interstate and I need to come in at the back of the property. I can go off-road if I need to. If there’s a security system, it may be triggered at the main gate.” Will broke the connection with Carson and relayed the information to Jonas while Tucker sat in grim silence in the passenger seat.
“I’m sorry,” Will said finally. It was true. He did feel sorry for the vet but his overwhelming emotion was dread. He couldn’t ignore the possibility that all of this was tied back to the stolen Italian horses. Liz could very well be headed straight into the grip of a man who had killed without hesitation, perhaps for no other reason than expedience.
Tucker didn’t answer, just continued to stare through the windshield at the highway ahead.
* * *
With headlights turned off, Jana eased the truck through two stone pillars and followed a winding drive past an impressive looking chalet-style cabin.
Liz watched as the young woman glanced anxiously from one side of the drive to the other. “Have you been here before?”
“No, but the barns must be here somewhere.”
And then they were, two of them, looming in the dark. Jana stopped the truck in the drive between them. “Where are we?” Liz insisted. “Other than somewhere past Nashville?”
“The less you know the better. You aren’t supposed to be here with me, remember? I didn’t invite you. Stay in the truck. I’m going to look through the barns. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Why don’t you look through one and I’ll look through the other. We’ll meet back here.” Jana looked torn. “In the interest of speed,” Liz pushed.
“Okay but there may be trip wires or cameras or some such.”
After Italy, Liz suspected she had a better than average grasp of what they might be up against. “Is anyone living on the property.”
“I—I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Liz rolled her eyes and thought it was as well the cab of the truck was dark. Jana was not prepared for a life of crime even if the ultimate deed was for good. “Turn off your overhead light before we climb out.”
Jana fumbled with the overhead switches. “I think I’ve got it,” she said at last.
Liz wished Jana sounded a little more sure but took a breath and opened the door. The cab stayed dark as they climbed out and Liz gave thanks for small favors.
The barn on her side of the truck proved empty save for a few mice that rustled in the nooks and crannies. Despite the feeling that she was walking into a trap, her greatest fear was walking into a spider web. She moved with caution but heard nothing and saw nothing.
When she stepped out of the barn, her heart sank. Jana was already back at the truck with a gun held to her head. Jana’s frightened gaze flickered to Liz, then dropped. The man had his back to Liz and, with a quick prayer, she stepped back into the barn, as she heard him ask, “Where’s your friend?”
“I’m alone.”
Liz heard the chuckle behind her just as she felt the nose of the pistol press firmly between her shoulder blades. “Nope,” Liz was nudged back through the opening of the barn, “she ain’t alone.”
She heard the crunch of gravel beneath boots as someone walked down the drive toward them from the cabin.
“William, the lights, please.”
The pressure of the snub nose eased somewhat as the man behind her shifted positions.
A flood of lights came from the barn and Harrison Vincente walked out of the shadows.
Vincente’s gaze traveled between them and settled on Jana. “I’m not often surprised but you’ve caught me off guard. When I set my trap, I didn’t expect to catch my own daughter.”
Liz’s heart sank at his words. Jana looked only at Vincente. “Everything you told me was a lie.”
“Not everything.” His tone was casual, careless.
“You lied. You stole those horses. They never belonged to you nor were they stolen from you.”
“Much more than horses was stolen from me.” He let his anger show, let it rip through his voice.
His calm, Liz realized, was a façade and he could and would turn deadly without warning. She wanted to warn Jana to speak with caution.
“An
d you killed,” Jana said passionately. “Will you kill me, too, Papa?”
“I hope not,” Vincente said lightly. “I need a moment to think as you are an unforeseen complication.”
He turned to look at Liz and her heart sank. “But your friend...” he shrugged.
“You will not harm her!” Jana spat at him.
“I may let her travel with you to Brazil. Provided you are cooperative along the way.”
And, once there, Liz knew she would be expendable. Besides she had no plans to visit Brazil. Ireland, yes, but not Brazil. Before she could formulate her next move, a flicker of movement caught her eyes and a large, sleek black cat strolled from the stand of pine trees beyond Jana and the man holding a gun on her.
Liz froze, held her breath as the cat sat and blinked at her. Vincente’s attention had shifted back to his daughter but Liz didn’t dare make a move, didn’t want Jana to see and react. If Trouble was here—and her eyes told her he was—then Will was here, as well. She sensed more than felt movement behind her before the hard nose of the gun against her back was gone.
Will! Because he hadn’t spoken, she couldn’t be sure, so she was careful not to move or speak. Her eyes widened as Jonas slipped from the trees in the same place Trouble had emerged. By the time Vincente realized he was there, Jonas’s rifle was aimed at his forehead.
That left a gun pointed at Jana’s head and Liz felt nauseous at the thought of what could happen if anyone made a wrong move.
Will’s arm slipped around her and her knees nearly gave way, then he was easing her behind him. She glanced across the aisle where Tucker stood beside a man lying face down, arms pulled up behind him and secured with what looked like a belt. Her heart broke for the look on Tucker’s face but she couldn’t deal with that now.
* * *
I watch for my opening, trusting these men not at all. Will sends me a glance as he walks out of the barn after ensuring Liz’s safety.
“Vincente, tell your guy to put the gun down.”
Vincente turns to face him then glances back at his daughter. “She betrayed me. She is nothing to me.”
“You’d better decide what your life is to you. If she dies, you die. Here and now.”
“I don’t believe you. You are too honorable.”
“Want to put me to the test?” Will’s tone is without braggadocio but Vincente’s lips tighten in fury. His response cannot be trusted.
Will lifts the nose of his pistol toward Vincente and gives me a nod. We’ve both seen that the gun held at Jana’s head is not cocked and dare not wait until it becomes so. I spring forward, my claws engaging the man’s neck and face. He whirls but cannot dislodge me. He stumbles and falls and the gun slips from his grasp. Liz darts forward and retrieves the gun. Only then do I leap free. My work is done.
To my surprise, Will does not move toward Vincente but when I look, I understand why. Vincente turns, perhaps hoping to flee, but finds himself staring into the face of the man his daughter loves. Tucker is not large but his strength has never been in question. He puts one hand on Vincente’s shoulder and drives the other, curled into a fist, straight into the man’s nose. I hear the crunch of bone a heartbeat before Vincente’s howl of pain cuts through the night. The coward drops and writhes on the ground.
Tucker looks across him to Jana and her face crumples as he turns and walks away. Oh, dear. The anguish of a broken heart. Two hearts, if I don’t miss my guess.
* * *
It is daylight before the feds sweep in and replace belts and ropes with handcuffs. The local sheriff arrived sooner but Vincente is an international criminal and the local boys deferred to the powers that be. Nor do they seem to mind the fact.
Vincente has one last question for his daughter as he is pulled to his feet. “Where did you hide the Monterufolino?”
“In plain sight.” She has nothing more to add and her father has nothing more to ask as he is led away.
I ponder her answer and think of the twin horses content in their pasture, the rescues Jana went time and again to visit. Just as I suspected, not twins at all, but the camouflage was Jana’s, not any of the previous owners.
Nothing is said to the officials of Jana’s relationship to Vincente. I suppose it will eventually be a known fact but I doubt there will be many questions for her as she was on the right side of this ‘bust’.
Bits and pieces had come to us through the night as Carson continued his research, each new fact bolstered by the one before. Vincente managed two separate identities with an amazing degree of success. One as a billionaire in Brazil. One as a millionaire in the States.
Vincente is certainly brilliant and driven and covered his tracks well but what he lacks is knowledge of a true criminal element of society. He hired bumblers and it cost him dearly.
What fascinates me most in his history was that as Vincente, he never left the States. As Vicente, he traveled back and forth between countries, staying under the radar of both by abiding strictly by their rules and keeping a low profile.
The theft of his own stallion, found safe in Brazil, was his practice run.
Trailers, courtesy of Stack and his team, arrive for the horses soon after the human riffraff is loaded up and removed. The Pentro, Ventasso, and Giara all are here and safe and soon to be returned home along with the Monterufolino. Arrangements are made for Vincente’s hunter-jumpers. I can see from her expression that Jana longs to take them to the safety of Summer Valley Ranch but is uncertain, now, of her standing there. Tucker has not returned and no one mentions him.
I think back to Vincente’s last exchange with Jana and see things far more clearly in retrospect. Yes, yes, I assumed too much but we were all taken in by the girl who was taken in by her father. Her fear of him was real. And I know, now, why she was so quick to conclude that the lovely Ariadne was not her father’s daughter. That is something an only child would know for certain. She isn’t a bad sort and will find her way with Tucker at some point, I do believe. At least, I hope.
After a less than sumptuous meal and a few hours’ sleep in a local motel, we make our weary way home.
Chapter Twenty-One
Things always look better in the morning. The errant thought crossed Liz’s mind as Tucker’s truck pulled up in front of the vet clinic and parked beside Jana’s. She knew Will had arranged with Stack for Tucker’s truck to be taken to him but even Will wasn’t sure where he’d gone after the night’s events unfolded. As Tucker stepped out, the door to the apartment above opened and Jana, suitcase in hand, stood looking down at him. Even from Avery’s garden swing, Liz could see the stricken look on the young woman’s face. No doubt, Jana had thought to be gone before Tucker returned.
“Oh, Trouble,” Liz murmured to the cat curled beside her. “I don’t blame Tucker for feeling betrayed but Jana was betrayed as well.” And love with the right person could be hard to find.
Without a doubt, Jana would always feel guilty for being an unsuspecting catalyst in Nadine Dane’s murder. At Vincente’s directions, Jana had reached out to Nadine through the vet in Florida and talked the veterinary intern into bringing Milo to Summer Valley Ranch. Jana had promised the ranch would be a safe haven for the stallion where they would heal him and place him in their therapeutic riding program. Natalie, as she was calling herself, could choose to remain at the ranch or find another place to stay. Natalie had agreed, never dreaming that the man who had taken the stallion and put him at risk was behind the invitation.
Natalie had been an unwelcome stowaway when the stallion was taken but the thieves had found her useful until she had fled with him once in America. Had he not become sick, she might have disappeared with him into some rural area and made a life for herself. Instead, her effort to protect him had cost her life.
And Jana would be forced to live with her part in that forever. Her expression made clear she didn’t expect her fiancé to be willing to live with it as well.
Tucker walked slowly up the steps and Liz’s heart c
lenched. Were all these things, all these wrongs running through his mind? Surely, Tucker didn’t have it in him to be deliberately cruel to the woman he’d once loved even if that love was now destroyed. Liz knew she should look away but she couldn’t make herself. She felt as if her own heart were breaking.
Tucker took the suitcase from Jana’s hand. Liz couldn’t see their faces but she found she was holding her breath. Hoping. When Tucker set the suitcase at his feet and pulled Jana against him, Liz felt tears sting her eyes.
“I wasn’t sure.”
Her heart leaped and she turned to look at Will. She hadn’t heard him walk up. “I wasn’t either,” she admitted. “I was hoping but…”
She glanced back but Tucker and Jana and the suitcase had disappeared.
Will walked closer to the swing. “May I?”
Liz put Trouble in her lap and scooted to one side. “Of course.”
“Cervelli’s happy.”
“I’m sure that’s an understatement. The last four stolen horses delivered in one fell swoop.”
“He was also able to provide at least what he thinks was Vincente’s motive for the thefts. His family was originally from Italy and heavily involved in horse racing.”
“Let me guess. There was wrong-doing involved.”
Will smiled. “Funny girl, but, yes, wrong-doing of some kind and, I’m supposing, in a big way. As a result, the family moved to America and from there to Brazil, changing their name to Vicente. Vincente, it seems, had some grandiose thought of rebuilding the family legacy. He spent a couple decades crossing several rare Italian breeds to produce what he was certain was a superior strain. He presented it to the Italian Equine Registry, planning to return to Italy and stand the stud as a recognized new breed. His request was denied.”
“I’m sure that went over well,” Liz murmured, picturing the man as she’d seen him last. Filled with such hatred.
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