The Deadly Series Boxed Set

by Jaycee Clark

  “No.”

  They all stumbled into the harsh light.

  “But you don’t need her,” Ryan tried again. “She’s just scared. Leave her here.”

  The man picked him up. “Be quiet, kid.”

  A van waited out by the curb, the back door open.

  Where were the cops? Why wasn’t anyone helping them?

  “Goddamn it, Rod, move your ass!”

  Ryan was tossed into the van and Tori was thrown in after him.

  “Down. Get down on the fucking floor, now!” Nina hopped in after them, aiming the gun in their direction and sliding the door shut.

  Tori crawled to him, wrapping her arms around him. He held her and prayed that they’d both be safe.

  He’d been right all along, happy endings never happened.

  • • •

  Someone kept screaming. Why wouldn’t they stop?

  “Ryan?” Taylor croaked out. “Gavin?”

  Someone had lit a fire in her chest. Taylor licked the side of her mouth, the coppery taste of blood thick on her tongue.

  Someone was screaming. Weren’t they?

  What was she doing down here? She didn’t remember falling, didn’t remember tumbling down the steps.

  The world grayed around her.

  Nina!

  No. The kids. Oh, God, please protect the children.

  Gavin?

  Taylor lay on the floor. She could feel the blood seeping out of her, could see the smear of it across the wall above her.

  Her chest no longer burned. It was cold, so cold. As though death breathed over her and sat waiting in her living room.

  Ryan. Her poor little boy. She didn’t protect him, and Tori. Oh, God.

  She turned her head. Gavin. No. His eyes were closed and blood slithered down from his hairline. Please, God, let him be alive. Please.

  Something . . . she had to help. Help. Get help. Taylor tried to move her hand. Tried to move . . .

  The ceiling pitched and rolled above her, the walls tilted.

  Someone help. Please, God help my child, protect them both . . .

  The world went black.

  • • •

  Gavin heard voices.

  “Check out back. Where the hell’s the goddamn ambulance?”

  He opened his eyes. A cold fire burned across his arm, and it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to his . . .

  The kids!

  Gavin rolled over to his knees.

  “Mr. Kinncaid?” Someone squatted down beside him.

  He tried to focus on them as nausea rolled up his throat. Gavin swallowed, shut his eyes, then opened them, trying to ignore the pain screaming through his head.

  Him. Morris.

  Taylor! Gavin pushed himself to his feet and stumbled to his wife. Oh, Christ.

  No. He shook his head, clearing his vision, shoving the nausea down. “Taylor?”

  Gavin fell to his knees beside her, and her blood soaked into his trousers. He searched for a pulse, and held her hand, noting her fingers were like ice.

  “Kinncaid? The ambulance is on the way.”

  Please, by the grace of God, please. Her head lolled as he tried again to find a heartbeat, the flesh of her neck warm. Barely, it was barely there, and too damn fast. Blood loss. “Hang on, baby. Just hang on.” A gurgling sound came from Taylor. He ripped her shirt open. Damn it. She caught a bullet in the lung.

  Think, he had to think. Gavin stood and stumbled to the kitchen, tearing a drawer open, jerking out the Saran wrap. His fingers left a trail of blood on the door frame as he hurried back to Taylor. On a muttered oath, he fumbled and ripped a long sheet of the clear plastic and covered the wound to keep the air from escaping.

  “Give me your phone,” he told Morris. He grabbed it and dialed, his hand shaking so bad he could barely punch the damn buttons.

  “This is Dr. Kinncaid. I’ve got a sucking chest wound from a gunshot at . . .” He rattled off the address. Pain shot through his head. Morris had told him the EMTs were on their way. Think, he had to think, for Taylor. “Ambulance is en route. She’s got a pulse, low BP. I need a crash cart and at least four units of blood ready at Sibly. And make damn certain there’s a vascular surgeon standing by ready to take her to the OR or I’ll have someone’s fucking head.” He threw the phone to Morris. People moved and rushed around him.

  Looking up, he saw Morris’s serious face. Oh, God, the kids. “Ryan?” he croaked out. “Tori?” What if they were dead upstairs? He froze, everything in him tightening.

  Morris shook his buzzed head. “No one else is here, Mr. Kinncaid.” He pointed to Taylor. “Is she alive?”

  “Barely.” Sirens blared.

  “Gavin?” Christian stood in the doorway, with another policeman, her face stark white. “Oh, God. Oh, my God.” Her eyes flew up to catch his.

  “She’s alive for now, and by Christ, she’s staying that way.”

  “The kids?” Christian asked.

  “Kids? Plural?” Morris asked, grabbing his phone back.

  “Yeah, my son, Ryan Kinncaid, and my niece, Victoria Kinncaid.” He wiped blood out of his eye. “She took them.”

  • • •

  Please, God, just don’t let her die. Just don’t let her die.

  They pulled up at the hospital and the sirens pierced the air. Gavin ran beside the gurney, latched on to it near the head. Taylor was lost beneath a mound of blankets and machines. The hose leading into her mouth obscene to him, even as he knew the intubation helped save her life.

  She’d probably need a chest tube, and if the bleeding didn’t stop . . . He couldn’t think of that. Gently he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry.”

  One of the EMTs put her hand on his arm.

  “BP’s dropping.” Machines whined and blipped. They raced her through the ER doors and down a hallway.

  “She’s coding,” someone said.

  Damned if she would. “You are not going to die on me. We’ve got to get our son back and you’ve got to help me. Don’t you dare die on me.”

  “BP’s fifty over forty. Gave her two units of O-neg, one unit saline . . .” The shouted words stabbed at him.

  “Trauma one,” another voice yelled.

  Gavin started to follow them into the crash room, but a nurse shot an arm up to stop him. “You can’t go in there.”

  “The hell I can’t. That’s my wife. I’m a doctor.”

  “Be that as it may, you know the rules.”

  “Fuck the rules.”

  “Gavin.”

  He turned at the new voice. Dr. Joseph Ellis stood there in scrubs. Gavin fisted his hands.

  “Look, I won’t say I know what you’re going through, but we’ve got to stabilize her and get her into surgery. You’ll do us no good in there.” He laid a hand on Gavin’s shoulder and it was all Gavin could do not to throw him off. “You’ll be more help to her, to us, if you stay out here, answer questions and talk to the cops.”

  Through the glass panels he could see them working on her, her head lolling on the gurney, blood soaking her bra. Sweet Jesus Christ. Gavin knew the man was right. But he felt so helpless. Closing his eyes, he nodded.

  “Fine, I’ll stay out of your way. But I’m not moving from here. I’ve a right to stand here.” He opened his eyes, daring the other doctor to argue.

  Ellis didn’t. “I’ll hold you to that and keep you updated. I’ll let you know when we take her up to surgery. Get someone to look at that laceration on your arm and head. You look like you have a concussion.” The door swung shut behind the doctor.

  Gavin didn’t give a damn about his arm or his head. All he cared about was his wife.

  Masks moved as orders were barked, instruments used, people in green and blue scrubs hurrying around.

  He had no idea how long he stood there, how much time passed. All he saw, all he thought about was Taylor, her pale bleeding body lying on that table, as he trusted others to save her.

 
• • •

  Nina grinned over at Rod as they drove down the highway. “Fucking-A we pulled it off.” She glanced in the back and saw the kids holding on to each other. This was something she hadn’t expected.

  “Why in the hell did you bring the girl? We’re kidnapping. That’s a serious crime. And at gunpoint. Shit.”

  Rod could be as dumb as a box of damn rocks. Like kidnapping was a major thing to worry about. He’d better worry a bit more about being an accomplice to murder.

  “You’d rather I put a bullet in her?” Nina asked him sweetly.

  His glare told her what he thought of that. “You could have left her there.”

  “I could have, but it was easier to get Ryan to go with us if I used her. Want the kid to do anything, just use the girl. Don’t know where he gets it.” Soft hearts got you nowhere. Blood and adrenaline raced through her system.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Neen.” Traffic whizzed by them as he kept to the speed limit. “I was reading the paper while you went to the house. These Kinncaids are rich and powerful. I don’t think we should have nabbed their kids.”

  “Ryan is mine. MINE! He’s not a fucking Kinncaid!”

  Rod took a deep breath. “Fine, I don’t think we should have taken the girl.”

  “Well, you’re not along to think, are you?” she spat at him. Idiot, damned idiot! But something he said clicked. “Look, we knew the doc was loaded.”

  Rod shook his head. “No, I mean more than loaded.”

  “Rich? How rich?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, they own a hotel here in D.C. or something.”

  Nina turned in her seat to look at the kids. “Is this true?” Neither of them answered her.

  “Is this true?” she shouted.

  Ryan nodded, and the girl followed, jerking her head up and down.

  Rich, huh? Hot damn.

  “This might just work even better.” She had been thinking she could knock the girl out and just leave her somewhere and take Ryan with her. After all, she knew Mr. Doctor would probably pay to think he was getting the boy back. But lots of money changed things. Money with a capital M changed everything. If these were really wealthy people, they’d pay to have both kids back. And probably meet any price she asked for. Yeah, for enough dough, Nina would happily hand Ryan over. Not that she cared either way. Nina didn’t think she had the stomach to kill her own flesh and blood, if it ever came to that . . . But she could sure as hell use him to get ahead in this world. Fucking-A right, she could. She might just let the doc pay to have the little shit back for real.

  “You talking a flea trap, regular motels, or a bona fide, ritzy thing?”

  Rod looked into the mirror. “I don’t know, ask them.”

  “Your family own, like, Holiday Inn, or Motel 6?” she asked.

  The girl raised one brow. “Hardly.” And that was all she said in her perfectly cultured young voice that pissed the hell out of Nina.

  Feeling daring, she grabbed Ryan and hauled him to her to get the girl to answer. “Hardly what?”

  The girl’s chin trembled. “We own five-star hotels and resorts.”

  “So, your family is really rich, kid?”

  The girl looked away and shrugged. “I guess so, I don’t really know.”

  Well, there was a way to find out. How did a kid know how much they had if they’d been spoiled all their little pampered lives?

  “What kind of house do you live in? Is it big?”

  “Yes, I live with my grandparents, unless I stay at the hotel with Daddy.”

  “Don’t tell her another thing, Tori,” Ryan said.

  “Shut the hell up, brat.” Nina hit him upside the head with the gun. It was time he remembered who his mother was.

  “Lots of cars? Been many places?” she fished.

  Looking at Ryan, then back at her, the girl told Nina she could use Ryan as a lever just like she used the girl. “Yes.”

  Hot damn.

  “Your daddy would pay lots of money to get a pretty little thing like you back, wouldn’t he?” Nina asked. She wouldn’t say she’d kill the girl in the ransom note, or call. No, she had something better. Sure to make any daddy’s heart fill with terror and rage at the very idea.

  Nina had a plan.

  Chapter 19

  Gavin moved to the side, clearing the hallway. The familiar hospital noises around him were now foreign, piercing his soul with every squeak, clatter, yell or cry.

  A nurse had finally pulled him away long enough to stitch his arm where the bullet had grazed him, give him a dose of antibiotics, and put a butterfly bandage on his head. He’d declined the pain meds. She’d wanted him to stay in bed, he had a concussion. Gavin couldn’t have cared less. Someone had come in to try and ask them questions and he’d answered what he could.

  He turned back to look in the trauma room. The doctors and nurses worked furiously on Taylor, their hands covered with her blood. He couldn’t leave. God, he couldn’t leave. His eyes stung and he swiped viciously at them.

  When he spotted the saw, he knew what was coming and God, there was just no way he could watch that. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back against the wall, as another useless tear slid down his cheek.

  God forgive him, he hadn’t kept her safe, didn’t protect her like he was supposed to. Didn’t protect Ryan or Tori. Shit. It felt as if someone reached in his chest and squeezed his heart until he couldn’t breathe.

  “Gavin?”

  He opened his eyes to see Brayden standing there. His brother’s face was pulled pale and taut. Oh, shit. The kids.

  “Bray . . . I’m—I’m sorry. I’m so damn—”

  “Don’t.” The word lashed out. His brother stood with his hands on his hips. “Just don’t.”

  He couldn’t very well blame his brother. Brayden looked past him into the trauma room. Taking two steps, he looked through the glass, and what color was left in his face fled. “Christ.”

  Gavin glanced into the room to see someone straddling his wife, using the rib spreader to crack her chest open. Bile burned the back of his throat.

  They had to stop the bleeding. They had to stop the bleeding. In order to save her life, they had to stop the bleeding.

  Knowing the medical reason for what they were doing was completely different when it was someone you loved in there. Moaning a curse, he wiped his eyes again and forced himself to look back at his brother.

  Bray turned on him. “How in the ever living hell can you stand here and watch that?”

  Gavin bit down till pain radiated up his jaw. “I can’t leave. I just can’t leave her,” he finally managed.

  Something shifted in his twin’s face. Bray reached up and grabbed his arm. “Come on.”

  With one look over his shoulder, Gavin followed his brother around the corner and into the waiting room. Christian sat crying in one of the chairs, Morris sitting beside her, while other uniformed and plainclothes policemen stood by talking quietly.

  Before they reached the group, Gavin slowed. “I know you’re pissed at me. I don’t blame you.”

  Brayden stopped, his arm dropping to his side, and his chin hitting his chest. When he looked back up, fury shot from his eyes. “It would be easy to blame you, or to blame Christian for dropping Tori off. But it could have been any of us. Any of us. What if the kids had been with Mom and Dad? What if they had been with me? My God, you both could have been killed. You’re my damn brother, I don’t . . .” Bray’s voice trailed off.

  When he continued, it was softer. “It’s bad enough that we have to tell Mom and Dad about the kids. I’m just glad I don’t have to tell them their son is fighting for his life, along with his new wife. You could easily be in there too!” His hand jabbed at the air in the direction of the trauma room.

  “None of it makes a shit, Gav. The point is the woman who put your wife in that trauma room is the same one who has our kids. Don’t blame yourself, not right now. We’ve got to think, to call everyone, fi
gure out what the hell to do. Besides, Christian is blaming herself enough for the both of us.”

  Bray’s gaze studied him. “What the hell happened to you? You really look like you should be in one of those rooms.”

  “I’m fine,” Gavin brushed his brother off. He rubbed his hands over his face, and the coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils. His hands were streaked rust, and he realized his clothes were bloody. “Oh, God.”

  For the first time since med school he felt lightheaded at the sight of blood. Taylor’s blood—his head swam and his knees weakened. He didn’t have time for this. Clamping down, he swallowed past the knot in his throat. Taking a deep breath, he asked, “How did you get here so quick?”

  “Broke several speeding laws.” Bray looked at him again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “A bullet grazed my arm. Something hit my head. Someone else must have been with her.”

  He tried to remember exactly what happened.

  “Come on, let’s talk to Morris.”

  Bray led him over to the chairs and the cops. Gavin couldn’t sit. He paced.

  Morris cleared his throat. “I can’t imagine what all you are going through, but I need your help right now. First off, I need a picture of both the kids.”

  “Fine,” both he and Brayden answered.

  Then something that had been bothering him registered. “Where in the hell was the guy who was supposed to be watching our house?” Gavin asked, furious the police hadn’t done their jobs. Raging at himself for failing to protect his own damn family.

  Morris’s dark eyes sharpened. “Sergeant Rivers is dead, Mr. Kinncaid. Murdered while sitting in the car. After I finish here, I get to go tell his wife that he’s not coming home.”

  Shit.

  Morris’s phone rang. “Excuse me.”

  When he walked away, Gavin turned to Brayden. “Have you called Mom and Dad yet?”

  Bray shook his head. “No, but Quinlan’s at home. I’ll give him a call and tell him to go out to the country club and get them.”

  Gavin said, “Tell him—tell him not to tell them until they get here, or . . . Hell, I don’t know. This could easily send Dad back into the hospital.”