Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  “The broken heart you’re wearing on your face.” Mal put an arm around Ava and held her when the woman started to shake. “Okay, we’re going to walk down the street here so that we don’t give anyone a free show. I’ll call Alex to come pick us up.”

  Mal one-handedly speed-dialed her husband. “Can you come get me and Ava?”

  “The baby?” he asked.

  “No, Ava is having a problem with a certain hostage negotiator and needs to get out of here fast.” Mal hung up and slipped the phone in her pocket.

  Ava straightened and used both hands to wipe at the makeup around her eyes. “Not an agent any longer. The director fired me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He caught me and Dominic kissing.”

  “What about Dominic? Did he get fired?” asked Mal.

  “No.” Ava’s lips trembled.

  “What did Dominic say?” Heat rose through Mal. A wave of sensation ran over her skin.

  “Nothing much. He just stood there looking pissed.” Ava shook her head. “I couldn’t stay. I had to get out of there.”

  Mal ran her hand over Ava’s back. “I’m so sorry. I am sure Dominic will not let this stand.”

  Ava didn’t look convinced. At all. And then two things happened at once. Mal felt a rush of liquid burst down her legs, and a car pulled up beside them.

  “Oh, hell. Here we go.”

  “What?” Ava frowned and then looked down at the puddle around Mal’s legs. “Uh oh.”

  Uh oh, indeed. Suddenly the long hours of back ache made a lot more sense. She’d probably been in pre-labor the whole time.

  The car window rolled down, and a woman’s voice called out, “Can I offer you a ride?”

  Mal leaned into the open window. “My waters broke. Can you give me a ride to the hospital, please?” She’d text Alex to meet her there.

  “Of course, get in.”

  Mal turned and gave Ava a squeeze, recognizing the misery in her pinched features.

  “Do you love him?” she asked.

  Ava blinked like she hadn’t known the answer to that question until Mal had voiced it, then nodded despondently.

  “Then go back in there and fight for him.”

  Ava closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. “I can’t chase him, Mallory. I can’t be another of those women throwing themselves at him. If he wants me, he’s going to have to fight for me. Come on, you have a baby to deliver. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “Call him? At least give him a chance.”

  Ava squeezed her hand. “I’ll call him.” But her sad eyes conveyed she didn’t think there was much point.

  Mallory nodded. Right now, she had another priority so she slid awkwardly into the passenger seat and held her breath as the pain intensified.

  * * *

  “Suzanna. What are you doing here?” Ava recognized the woman as soon as she got into the car. “This is Dominic’s neighbor,” she told Mallory.

  Suzanna checked her shoulder, flipped her signal, and pulled smoothly away from the curb.

  “I’m one of the governor’s donors so I was invited to the party.” Her bony fingers clenched and unclenched around the wheel. “To be honest, I’d hoped to talk to Dominic alone, but when he showed up with you, I figured I’d better get out of there before he spotted me. No one wants to look pathetic.”

  Ava agreed. She took her cell from her borrowed, glittery purse and stared at the screen. She knew she should text the guy so he didn’t wonder where she was or waste time looking for her, but emotionally she was still reeling. He’d defended her honor with his brother but hadn’t been willing to do the same with the director.

  Why was that? Because he believed in her as a woman but not as an agent? Or was too chicken to stand up to the boss? Either way his silence had felt like a betrayal.

  She looked at her phone, fingers poised over the text window, but hesitated. She needed time before she contacted the man who’d come to mean so much to her. Time to put up her defenses and shore up her smile, time to figure out what to do with the rest of her life without him or the FBI in it.

  She didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt her.

  She shouldn’t have run out of there, she realized. She was supposed to be watching his back, protecting him, but once again her feelings had guided her actions. Van had tried to get her to slow down, to think rather than react. She was working on it, but obviously not fast enough. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

  Suzanna caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “You look upset?”

  Ava pressed her lips together and hoped she didn’t start bawling. She sniffed. “It’s nothing.”

  “I saw him kiss you.”

  Ava pulled a face. “Yes, well, as you are aware, Dominic is a very good kisser.”

  “Oh,” Suzanna gave a fluttery, little laugh. “We never kissed.”

  Ava blinked. What? “That’s not what Dominic thinks.”

  Suzanna laughed. “Oh, that’s adorable. I didn’t realize he thought that we… Well, we were both very drunk. I did have the pleasure of seeing his teeny, tiny penis.” Her lips spread in a wide smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “We didn’t have sex though as he couldn’t get it up.”

  Ava raised one brow. This was a weird-ass conversation, not least as Dominic’s penis was not tiny. Ava wasn’t about to argue the point.

  Something felt wrong.

  Mallory was sitting very still in the front seat. Eyes closed. Breathing in a measured way.

  A car horn honked. The streets whizzed by. Ava leaned forward between the seats. “You missed the turn to the hospital.”

  Mallory’s face was screwed up in pain, and Suzanna was driving too fast.

  “Slow down, Suzanna. Turn around. You missed it.”

  The woman looked over her shoulder but didn’t take her foot off the accelerator. Instead, she pulled a P320 Compact Carry Nitron 9mm out of the side pocket of the door and pointed at Mallory’s stomach. “Back off, bitch, or your friend and her baby die.”

  Shit. Ava had made a classic error in judgment. She’d judged the woman with empathy and pity because she remembered what it felt like to wake up with a guy who wanted you gone. Suzanna was not what she’d pretended to be.

  Mallory made a keening noise in the back of her throat, a sound torn from her very soul as the reality of what was happening and a labor contraction hit simultaneously.

  Ava sat back, pulling the seatbelt across her body.

  She texted Dominic the word “help” and then speed-dialed his number, praying he picked up. She hid the cell beneath the material of her skirt.

  While their relationship might be in shreds, this threat wasn’t over yet. He needed to know that. He needed to help get Mallory the hell out of danger.

  Suzanna hadn’t noticed the cell phone or maybe didn’t realize it was a threat. The woman was off her rocker—insane or a psychopath. Neither was great when she had a gun and the wheel.

  “Did you kill Van?” Ava asked.

  Suzanna spat out a laugh. “That old fool.”

  Ava flinched.

  “Thought he knew every goddamn thing. He was easy to kill. Caroline softened him up with a roofie in his beer, and I helped him home like a drunken bum. Killed him with his own gun.”

  The constricting band of grief around Ava’s heart made it hard to breathe. She’d been right about Van’s death, but it didn’t make her feel good, especially when she and Mallory were stuck in a speeding vehicle with the person responsible.

  “Did you rape him?” Ava asked. The idea horrified her. Had Van known what was happening? Had he any inkling of the danger he was in amongst the fog of the sedative?

  Suzanna sneered. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just wanted him to be humiliated in death.”

  “And you shot Mortimer at the funeral?”

  Suzanna’s lips pinched. “I should have bought an assault rifle and killed more of you FBI scum. Toss me your weapon,” she said sharply. “Quickly bef
ore I put a bullet in her.”

  Ava tried to dislodge the anger and fear that threatened to overwhelm her. “The FBI director fired me because that asshole Sheridan kissed me in front of everyone. He took my weapon and creds. That’s why I was upset.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Ava opened her purse and flashed the insides which held a lonely credit card. She pulled her skirts all the way up to flash her panties. “I am not carrying a handgun, lady.” She wished she were, although they were traveling so fast Ava wouldn’t risk shooting the driver. She was terrified what might happen to Mallory and the baby if they crashed.

  “What about you?” Suzanna asked Mallory.

  Mallory stared at the driver in disbelief. Sweat stuck strands of hair to her face. “Do I look like a federal agent?”

  Even Ava was convinced, but unfortunately, she didn’t think Mal was armed.

  They were already on the outskirts of town, speeding through the Palisades, skirting the Potomac.

  “Let the pregnant woman go. She has nothing to do with this situation. I happened upon her when her waters broke. Pull over and let her have her baby in peace—”

  “Why? Why should I? What did the Feds care about my baby?”

  “You were pregnant?” Ava finally figured it out. “With Peter Galveston’s child?”

  Suzanna whizzed through a gap with oncoming traffic honking at her. “That’s why I wasn’t with him when Sheridan murdered him. I had a scare and had to stay in bed for months at the end. That’s why I wasn’t with Peter that weekend. That’s why he fell for that stupid con.”

  “You knew what he did to women?” Ava asked, incredulous.

  Suzanna snorted. “Of course, I knew. He was a brilliant and fascinating man. Jesus, you are all so stupid.”

  Better than insane, lady.

  Mallory cried out again then seemed to manage to somehow breathe through the pain.

  “What happened to your child?” Ava asked.

  The wild light was back in Suzanna’s eyes, and her throat worked visibly. “He was beautiful and wondrous, but his heart didn’t work properly. He died two years ago.”

  He was the skeleton they’d dug up with Peter Galveston at the cabin. That had to have been the trigger for this woman’s appalling actions.

  “So, you dug Peter up so they could be together?” Ava asked.

  Suzanna nodded. “So, I could keep them both close to me.”

  “You lived in the cabin?”

  Suzanna jerked her chin. “It went up for sale about five years ago, and I moved in with little Pete. I couldn’t stop thinking about them all, what they’d done to him. What they’d stolen from us.”

  “The FBI?”

  Another sharp nod. “I collected information on them all and started tracking them down. I’ve been planning my revenge from the day they killed Peter, but I waited because I didn’t want to lose my son. When he died from a heart attack, I didn’t have any reason left not to kill them.”

  Ava shuddered. This woman had hunted those law enforcement officials like dogs for doing their jobs and keeping civilians safe.

  “I found out where Sheridan lived in Virginia. I drove by one day about eighteen months ago, trying to figure out the best way to get to him. Then I spotted the house across the road for sale.” She cackled. “It seemed like fate.”

  Where the hell did she get all her money from? Ava wanted to know but figured there were more important questions.

  “Why not kill Dominic when you had the chance? He was unconscious in his bed that night, right?” She must have drugged him too. Obviously, it was a technique that had worked for her and her accomplice, Caroline Perry, on more than one occasion.

  Suzanna took a turn so fast Ava and Mallory were both pressed against their doors.

  “I almost did,” Suzanna confessed. “I slipped a knife against his ribs and felt for the space between them, ready to slide it deep into his heart.” She came out of the curve, and Ava sat up straight. “It was too easy. I wasn’t ready for him to die yet. He needed to understand who was doing this and why he deserved everything that was coming to him.”

  “You enjoyed torturing him.”

  “I did.” Suzanna’s smiling face met hers in the mirror. “I snooped through his house and all his photo albums. I spat in his milk. I stripped him bare and pressed myself against his naked body when he started to rouse. I touched him intimately. I watched his confusion turn to horror, but it was never quite enough. He never had quite enough to lose. Until he met you.”

  Ava watched Mallory’s fingers clench over her abdomen. This was serious. Stalling for time was fine when someone wasn’t giving birth. Ava had to get her medical help, but how?

  “Let her go. Take me as a hostage, and let her go. She has nothing to do with any of this.”

  “No.” The wild eyes gleamed. “This is perfect. A sign.”

  A fucking sign?

  Mallory was writhing in pain in the front seat, her feet straining against the floor.

  “I’m getting a new baby. A gift from Peter.” Suzanna smiled like the psycho she was and terror invaded every single cell of Ava’s body. There was no way this bitch was getting hold of that baby.

  They’d crossed the river and were heading along a quiet road. Ava saw signs to a private airstrip. “You’ve been planning this for a long time.”

  “This I didn’t plan at all. I’d decided to walk away for a little while. To let Sheridan drop his guard. Maybe kill him with another poisoned casserole.”

  Ava gaped. If Dominic hadn’t have tripped over his dog, he and Mallory and her baby might already be dead…and Ava had never suspected a thing. The woman was a hell of an actress.

  “When I saw you on the sidewalk it was like all my prayers were answered.” Suzanna looked at her with eerily empty eyes. “Peter even gifted me another baby.”

  Over Ava’s dead body.

  Mallory was resolutely silent, concentrating on the internal battle she was fighting.

  “What about Caroline Perry and Robin Elgin? What was their connection?” Ava needed to distract her. To make a plan. That’s what Dominic would do. She slipped the phone into her purse. She hoped he could still hear them talking. That he understood the conversation and what it meant. Record it for criminal proceedings.

  Suzanna shrugged. “Caroline was someone I brought home once. She proved useful, especially when she told me that the bar where she worked was run by drug dealers. I kept her around for a while. Then she almost killed Sheridan—without my permission. That would never do.”

  So, Suzanna had drowned her in the tub. “And Robin Elgin?” Ava pushed.

  Suzanna sighed. “Robin was a dear friend. He was involved in our…activities. Peter used to like to watch him with me.” Suzanna sobbed and covered her mouth with the back of her gun hand as if overcome with emotion. Ava braced herself. She fought the urge to grab the wheel. If they crashed it might hurt the baby. Ava had to protect Mallory and the baby at all costs.

  “With you?” Ava said uncertainly. This was what Dominic and other negotiators did to get people talking—mirror key words or phrases. It felt obvious and stupid. And she must be stupid to have gotten in this goddamn car when she’d known the threat wasn’t over. But she’d never expected the threat to come at her. Nor at Mallory.

  “When we had sex.” Suzanna waved the pistol airily like that was a common occurrence. “Peter would have us role playing.” The bony fingers that gripped the steering wheel so fiercely had knuckles standing out like a mountain ridge. “It was Robin’s idea to take someone that no one cared about to play with for a while. To ‘ramp things up.’”

  To demean and debase. To torture and kill.

  And on the surface Robin had seemed like such a nice guy.

  “Although I don’t think he realized we’d have to kill her. Not at first anyway.”

  They were passing through woods now on flat land close to the river. Still following signs to the airport.

&n
bsp; “You didn’t mind Peter watching?” Ava had no clue how to talk to this woman, and Mallory was busy internalizing her pain.

  “Why else would I have sex with Robin?” Suzanna asked as if Ava was the idiot. “You think me having sex with Robin made Peter love me less? Au contraire. He knew what he meant to me. He knew I’d die for him. He knew I’d kill for him too.”

  The vehemence of the words made the hair on Ava’s neck stand on end.

  She thought about Dominic and what this woman wanted to do to him. She was supposed to be his bodyguard, and here she was luring him into danger. She’d abandoned him when she was supposed to be protecting him, all because of her hurt feelings. The FBI director wasn’t the reason she’d been watching his back. Investigating Van’s death was the initial reason, and then realizing Dominic himself was a target had given her another reason to stick close. He wasn’t just a way of keeping her job.

  Maybe she really was a terrible FBI agent who deserved to be fired. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one in jeopardy or else she’d tackle Suzanna for the gun.

  Ava prayed Dominic would figure out some way to find them without putting himself in the crosshairs. She felt so helpless hurtling to her doom this way, and the last thing she wanted was for him to be hurt. He might not love her, but he didn’t deserve any of this.

  “I’m going to be sick.” Mallory held her hand over her mouth, and then she let go and vomited all over Suzanna’s lap.

  “Oh, my god, oh, my god!” Suzanna careened onto the side of the road, brakes squealing, car fishtailing. She held her now sodden sequined gown away from her skin. “That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.” The smell was rank and bilious.

  Ava wished she’d thought of it.

  The bush was thick here. They just needed a chance, and they might be able to get away.

  “I’m going to be sick again,” Mallory warned, grabbing her mouth and heaving. There was no way they could afford to get on a plane with this woman, so this was genius.

  Or maybe Mallory was genuinely ill, probably because during what should be the most difficult experience of her life, she was being kidnapped by a mad woman who wanted to steal her child.

  Suzanna popped the door locks, and Mallory stumbled out of the car and bent over as if she was going to be sick. But she didn’t stop moving. She ran.