by Linda Ladd
The guy's eyes were on Booker now, crawling all over him, more than skeptically, downright suspiciously, but Kate's words had obviously given him pause. He was no doubt having vivid mental pictures of what Vince'd do to him if he passed up a lead about his baby boy.
“Okay, I guess it'd be all right to call up to the house and see if she's still awake."
“Yeah, buddy, you do that,” Booker said, tired of being eyeballed. He rubbed his chest, thinking how close he'd come to death, glad they both still had on the vests. At least they had a little protection.
Kate and Booker sat silently, watching him walk back inside his hut and lift the receiver to his ear. He punched in a few numbers and waited.
“If we get inside, you're going to have to get rid of your gun,” Kate told him. “Put it under the seat now before they frisk you."
“I'm not going inside without my gun."
“Then I guess you'll have to stay out here."
Booker grimaced, thinking things were getting a bit too far out of his control. It was crazy what they were doing. They were putting themselves in Vince's hands like coins tossed into an offering plate. They'd just seen what fate Vince and his goon, Dmitri, had in store for them, lots of pain with dying hard at the end. “How do you plan to get Joey inside without anybody seeing him and taking him away from you?"
“In the cooler, I guess."
“You think they're not going to look inside the goddamn cooler, Kate?” Booker broke off their conversation as the man came up to the window again. He held a portable phone in one hand. His other hand was on the butt of the .38 snub-nosed revolver encased in a black leather holster attached to his belt.
“She wants to talk to you."
Kate took the phone, then waited while Booker put his finger on the button and watched his window roll up in the guard's face.
“Hello, Mrs. Saracino?"
“Yes."
Kate thought Anna's voice sounded weak and tired, maybe even a little frightened. That's why she'd agreed to pick it up. She was as desperate to get her baby back as Kate was to keep him. But she couldn't let herself think that way.
“Please, just hear me out, Mrs. Saracino. I want to talk to you. I know where your baby is. I know everything that's happened. Please, just let me come in and talk to you. Please."
Anna's hesitation lengthened until Kate's nerves began to dance.
“Who is this?"
Kate hesitated, knowing full well what a chance she'd be taking if she told her the truth. “My name is Kate Reed.” She heard the woman's gasp and hurried on before Anna could sic the guards on them. “Please don't hang up! I didn't kidnap your baby. He's safe, he's just fine, I swear he is. He's a wonderful little baby.” Her voice left her, emotions going ragged, and she felt Booker put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He's out here in the car with me, Mrs. Saracino. Let me bring him inside. I want to give him back to you. This has all been a big mistake, I swear to God it has."
Anna Saracino began to sob at the other end, quickly dissolving into a full-fledged fit of weeping that took several moments to subside. Then her voice came again, choked, more heavily accented than before. “He's out there with you?"
“Yes. He's perfectly all right, I promise. I've taken good care of him for you. I didn't know who he was, Anna. You've got to believe me. Michael, that's my husband, told me we could adopt him, told me everything was legal and above-board. I had no idea he'd been taken from his family. I swear that to you."
“Oh, my God, oh, my God, I can't believe this."
“It's true.” Kate could see that the two guards standing on the other side of the gate now had their guns out. So did the guy beside the car. “I beg you to just listen to me. Call off the guards, Mrs. Saracino. They've got their guns pointed at us out here. Let me and my friend come in with your baby. We've come in good faith, I swear to God, we have."
“All right. I'll tell them to let you come in. My son's there with you? Now? You got him there, he safe?"
“Yes. He's fine. You'll see."
“Let me talk to Tommy."
“And, Mrs. Saracino, your husband's got a friend of ours. A man named Mac Sharp. Promise me you won't let Vince hurt him. Or us, either. Can you promise me that?"
“I don't know. I can try."
“Please try. Mac's innocent. He was just trying to help us get your baby back to you. We're all innocent, you've got to believe me."
“Let me talk to Tommy,” Anna Saracino said again.
Kate assumed Tommy was the guard with his gun pressed up against Booker's profile. “Roll down the window,” she said to Booker. As the glass slid down, she said, “Are you Tommy?"
“Yeah."
“Mrs. Saracino wants to talk to you."
The guard took the gun and the phone and wandered off a couple of steps, no doubt wanting some privacy. Kate had a feeling he was arguing with his employer's wife because several minutes passed before he came back and leaned down to the window.
“Okay, we're gonna let you go in but I'm warning you people. One wrong move and believe me, I'll be happy to put a bullet in your head."
“Yeah, join the crowd, Tommy. We just left a couple of your friends who felt the same way,” Booker said sourly, shirting the car into gear as the gates began to roll open with a soft electronic whir. They drove through them and up a dark, winding driveway lit on each side with small lights hidden in the shrubbery. Near the front of the house they were redirected by another pair of guards, these two carrying automatic rifles, to a curve that led underneath a side portico supported by big white pillars. Light blazed inside it, and Booker pulled up out of the darkness where three more guards were waiting to escort them inside.
“Get rid of your gun now before we get out,” Kate told Booker.
“I don't think so."
“They'll shoot you down the minute they get a glimpse of it. Do you want that to happen?"
Booker looked outside into the barrels of three M-16's and decided Kate might be right. “Okay."
Booker slid it out from the back of his waistband and held it up, dangling the trigger guard off his left thumb. All three guards zeroed in on him as he slowly laid the .45 up on the dashboard. He was glad he still had on the bulletproof vest. “Put the cover on the cooler,” he told Kate as he opened his door.
Kate did so, watching Booker get out. He was immediately swarmed and slammed up against the hood of the car. They frisked him roughly, holding his arms behind his back while one of them kept a gun at his head. Fear came slithering up into her throat, but she opened her door. She sat still for a moment, afraid to get out.
“Let him up."
The soft words came from Anna, Kate recognized the Russian accent at once. The woman was standing at the top of a flight of marble steps. Kate peered into the shadows that half hid the woman and watched Joey's mother descend toward them.
“Wait a minute, Mrs. Saracino,” one of the men called out. “We've got to make sure the woman isn't carrying a weapon. Vince's orders."
Anna stopped halfway down and waited, apparently unwilling to overrule her husband's commands. That was not a good sign, Kate feared. She climbed out of the car, leaving Joey asleep in the cooler on the floor of the passenger's seat. One of the men grabbed her, made a quick search of her clothing, then released her.
“She's clean, ma'am, but they're both wearing vests."
Kate watched Anna walk the rest of the way down, her hand trailing along the smooth marble balustrade. As she stepped from the shadows into the light, Kate realized how young she was. She looked little more than twenty. She wore a long white robe, shimmering satin, belted tightly around her waist, with matching high-heeled slippers. Up close and despite skin blotchy from crying, Kate thought she might possibly be the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, but she looked as scared as Kate felt. She was trying to see around Kate, see inside the car. She was looking for her son.
“Inside the cooler,” Kate said softly.
Th
e man pushed Kate back against the fender with his gun barrel as Anna bent and leaned into the car. Everyone watched silently as she lifted a corner of the lid off the small red cooler. She made a strangled, muffled sound, then picked up the cooler and held it tightly against her chest, the same way Kate had been carrying it.
“Won't you please come inside?” she murmured, not bothering to wipe away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “It's all right, Sammy. You can let them come with me."
“That's right, Sammy boy, back off,” Booker said, jerking his arm loose from the man holding him.
Kate looked at Booker as Anna started up the steps. Two guards came with them, still toting their guns. Anna ignored them all. They entered the house into a wide hallway, painted beige with white trim, a beautiful modern house with expensive furniture and damask draperies. Ornate sconces lined the walls, flickering crystal fire as they walked across the shiny black marble floor.
They followed Anna to an absolutely gigantic interior staircase that wound up in twin spirals from a front foyer with the same polished marble floor and a matching black marble fireplace beside the front door. Vince had spared no expense in making a home for his lovely bride. The young woman went up to the second floor, cradling the cooler, her unlikely retinue following in her wake. At the top of the steps she turned down another impressive corridor that ended in front of two double French doors with mirrored insets. She opened one of them and turned to her overly attentive guards.
“I'll be all right now. Please wait here while I talk with these people."
“But Mrs. Saracino, your husband said not to..."
“Please, do as I say. You've found no weapons on them. I be all right. Call my husband and tell him he must come to home at once. Tell him I need him, that Kate Reed has come to bring our son home to us. And Sammy, tell him I say he is not to harm man named Mac."
Her voice had not changed a bit, was just as soft and agreeable as ever. Sammy looked at her, mouth agape, as Anna invited Kate and Booker to come inside, then drew the doors together behind the three of them. She said nothing but walked across the spacious bedroom to a large four-poster bed draped in some kind of filmy white fabric. She laid the cooler atop the white satin comforter, took off the lid and then very, very gently lifted Joey into her arms. She looked at him a long moment before bringing him tenderly against her breast. When she turned around, her cheeks were wet with tears.
Kate clenched her jaw until it ached, struggling not to fall apart now, not with so much at stake, but God help her, she wasn't sure she could bear this, just handing Joey over to Anna as if he meant nothing to her. There was no doubt the woman in front of them loved the child she now cuddled and wept over, but that didn't make it any easier for Kate to lose him. She felt her own tears coming on, fought to control them, looked at Booker who looked sorry for her, but apprehensive, too, very apprehensive indeed. She had a feeling he was casing ways out of the room.
“Will your husband kill us?” Kate asked, bringing the most pertinent concern out into the open.
“He'll want to,” Anna replied, as if that was an everyday question around the happy Saracino household, “but I think I can make him not do it."
"You think?" Booker said. “That's not very reassuring, Mrs. Saracino. I don't know if you know it or not, but your husband's not exactly the most stable guy around."
Anna looked up from Joey's face, the warmth of her smile slowly fading away. Her pale blue eyes turned hard. “I know what my husband is. He is a filthy, murdering animal. I loathe every single thing about him."
Thirty-Three
BOOKER STARED at Vince Saracino's wife, shocked by her admission, then slowly slid his eyes to Kate, who looked as stupefied as he felt. Anna Saracino sat down on a tufted pink satin rocker beside the white marble fireplace.
“Is he not the most beautiful baby?” she murmured, rocking Joey and speaking to them as if they were old school chums come to admire her newborn. “It was most difficult decision of my life to give him to Michael but I knew I had to. I didn't have choice, none at all, you do understand that, don't you?” Suddenly she bit her lip, lapsed into silence, her vivid blue eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Surely you know how I feel, don't you, Kate? How hard it is to give up beloved child?"
Speechless, Kate and Booker stared at her. Bewilderment written all over her face, Kate shook her head, trying to make sense of what Anna was saying. “I don't understand. What do you mean? Why would you give him to Michael?"
Anna contemplated her for a few moments in silence, then admitted, very low, eyes downcast. “I gave him to Michael because Michael is his real father."
Kate jerked physically as if she'd been slapped and staggered back a step. Booker steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.
“What?” Kate finally breathed out. “What are you saying?"
Joey began to fuss, squirming in her arms, and Anna crooned softly to him while Kate and Booker stood frozen in disbelief. “I know Michael's dead. Vince had him murdered,” she said in a hollow voice. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away with her fingertips. “I loved him, and he loved me."
Booker scowled, not liking the way this was going. Kate stood shock still, blood draining from her face. She looked as white as Anna Saracino's satin canopied bed.
“I'm sorry, Kate, so sorry you had to find out truth like this. We never want to hurt you, never meant for these terrible things to happen. It just did, is all. It just did.” She stopped, and put her hand against her mouth as if she felt sick. “Michael cared about you, respected you, he really did, but he said you'd grown apart. He said you didn't love him anymore, not like I loved him."
“You and Michael?” was obviously all the response Kate could manage.
Anna nodded, stricken eyes latched on Kate's face. “He was one of Vince's lawyers, but you know that. He spent time here at house, joined us for dinner. Vince has been under indictment in New York last few years and had to go back and forth for court hearings. Michael and I fell in love; he was so kind to me, so thoughtful of my feelings. We had to be very careful but we became lovers. It was foolish, madness, but we truly loved each other."
“Oh, my God, I can't believe this.” Kate sank down in an upholstered wing chair beside the door.
“It's true, every word of it. Then I know I was pregnant and was absolutely frantic. I did not know what to do. I did not know if it was of Michael or my husband. I was terrified Vince would find out. Vince would kill me if he ever found out I'd been with another man. He'd kill Michael and me both. He'd even kill the baby, if he knew for sure it wasn't his. I know him, he would've killed my baby if he'd found out."
Anna's words had spilled out faster and faster, her accent growing thicker, but she saw the revulsion on Kate's face. “You must believe me. He'd do something that horrible in blink of eye. He's a terrible man, a devil. I didn't know until after we married. He courted me in Moscow, was kind, always kind, bought me fine presents and treated me like queen. My father is Ilie Kafelnikov, very powerful man in Russia but also into criminal affairs like Vince. They are partners in illegal activities, here and in Moscow, and when Vince showed interest in me, I became my father's bargaining chip. But we had no idea the kind of man Vince was. He's crazy, he kills people for any little thing."
Anna gazed down at Joey, who sputtered until she stopped rocking and laid him on his back atop her knees. Her voice was threaded with horror when she spoke again. “I saw him kill man who'd crossed him, shoot him in head out on lawn below my balcony.” She gestured at a pair of French doors that led to an upstairs porch. “He was dressed for dinner, in formal evening clothes, and afterward he came upstairs for me, as if nothing happen, and took me out to eat. There was spatter of blood on his sleeve. I never forget that drop of blood, how red it looked against his crisp white cuff. I can see it now. I see it all the time. It haunts me.” She screwed her eyes shut and shook with a delicate shiver.
“So you were in on this all along,” Booker
said. “You planned for Michael to steal your own child?"
“Yes, yes, but I had to! Don't you understand this?” The young woman rose and began to pace, cradling Joey against her chest and growing more agitated and upset. “My son has Michael's blood type. That's the first thing we checked when he was born. It was only matter of time before Vince realized he was not his. We thought of running away together, far away where he could not find us. But we knew he could, he would, he'd never stop until he find us. He's obsessed with me, treats me like prized possession.” She stood still and looked at Kate, as if begging her understanding. “He calls me that, his trophy, his little Russian prize."
“How in God's name did you pull this off? Without your husband finding out?” Kate asked, her face now uphill from incredulous.
“We were lucky that Vince was in New York for court when I went into labor. He was not here, and we had to figure way to get baby away before he found out truth. It was Michael's idea to take our son to you.” Her fear-shadowed eyes returned to Kate. “He said you wanted baby, that you could not conceive and would jump at chance to adopt. He said you'd never guess truth. You see how perfect it seemed? Michael would raise our son with you, and Vince would never find out. He was going to move to those Ozark hills where you live. He was going to tell everyone, how do you say? That he wanted his roots back? That he wanted his marriage to grow strong. He was going to let me see the baby when he could. It almost worked but then everything went all wrong."
“How did your husband find out about Reed?” Booker heard a car outside and had a feeling by the way the tires screeched to a stop on the driveway that it was Vince Saracino come home to kill them.
“Somebody on street, you know, the ones they call snitch, told Vince he saw Michael with baby and Vince sent Dmitri after Michael. You were not supposed to be hurt. Michael never wanted to hurt you. We were desperate."
Kate and Anna stared at each other silently until the bedroom door was thrown open and Vince Saracino burst into the room. Dmitri was right behind him, and a couple of Vince's goons dragging Mac between them. Mac had been pistol-whipped. Beaten badly. His nose was bleeding, one eye nearly swollen shut, but he was walking on his own two feet, and that was a hell of a good sign around this murderous bunch. Booker breathed easier until he saw the look on Vince's face. His eyes looked black, black and deranged. Dmitri was staring at Kate, a triumphant smile on his face.