by Jaycee Clark
He wasn’t stupid, he’d been the target, but the bastard could have killed her or Tori.
God. Pulling back, he leaned her against the wall.
“I could have lost you today,” he said.
She shook her head. “I could have lost you.”
Their mouths were hot and fast, demanding and giving in turn. His teeth skimmed over her as quickly as hers did him. Mouths met and fought for control. Water slicked over them, heated the air around them as the blood, the need to appease roared through him.
He slid his hands down her body, pulled her nipples between his fingers. Grabbing the soap, he lathered them both up, until they slid and moved against each other in a glide.
Her nails bit into his shoulders as he lifted her, bracing her against the tiled wall. He kissed her breast.
“I can’t take much more of this,” he muttered against her.
The fear and anger clawed and taunted the lust in him.
He spread her with his fingers, flicked his thumb back and forth until her eyes clouded and she moaned.
“Please, Bray.” She wrapped her legs and arms around him.
Brayden surged into her, their mutters and pleas mixing in the steam. She vined around him, vised all of him, until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel the tight pulsing of her inner muscles. He groaned and emptied himself into her, bracing one hand on the wall and praying they wouldn’t fall to the floor.
Under the heated spray of water, they washed away the horrors of the day.
• • •
That had been too damn close.
Richard pulled his car up in front of the garage door.
How in the hell . . .
He leaned his head on the steering wheel. She could have died today. His Josephine could have been killed because she’d been with that man.
And Ivan.
Where the hell was the bastard? Stupidity was not a reason. Richard accepted no excuses, only results. He’d yet to get hold of the Lithuanian, but he would find him. The idiot was probably hiding. Smart, now that he thought of it. With his present frame of mind, Richard would probably kill the incompetent fool if he saw Ivan.
And Ivan would damn well do the job again—right this time—without a penny more.
Richard had paid him enough the last time, and for what?
A mistake. A costly, almost deadly mistake.
It would not happen again. Perhaps it was time to find a new tiger. A new man he could use. Someone with a bit more stomach for things that needed doing.
Richard wasn’t a fool, he knew Ivan did not like the jobs he did. It was that fearing stupidity again. If the man had only stepped back enough to question, he could have easily seen the lies.
Idiot.
Carefully, Richard let go of the steering wheel, his fingers cramped from holding it so tightly.
Everything had gone wrong today. First the son, then the father.
Jock should be dead. He’d planned it all so damn perfectly. He should have anticipated the fact Kaitlyn would have extra nitroglycerin pills. The woman was a retired doctor, after all.
Sighing, he got out of the car. The cold air held a tint of wood smoke. Lights blinked from inside the windows. He called and let Estella know what was going on and where he was going.
She was worried about whether or not the party was still on tomorrow night. Shallow woman. If she only knew . . .
Not that she didn’t care about the Kinncaids. However, if the party were canceled, there were more career-promoting events to attend. Ones for which she needed to inform the hostesses they would be attending.
His career.
Richard ran a hand through his hair. Perhaps it would have been better if Josephine had died today. The thought pierced his heart.
When she’d walked into the room tonight, he’d wanted to take her away with him and take care of her. Clean her up, fix her. She looked sad and tired. Not at all like Josephine was supposed to look.
But even exhausted, she hated him. He could see the fire of it in her eyes, burning the smoky color to pure mercury. There had been no fear. No fear until the end when she’d learned about Jock.
She knew. She knew. Josephine wasn’t stupid. She knew him and the lengths he’d go to for her.
His love, his light, his reason . . . dead?
No, no, regardless of the threat to his career, he couldn’t kill her.
He couldn’t, at least not yet. She was simply too precious to him.
Mr. Brayden Kinncaid, or any of the Kinncaids, however, was another matter entirely. Checking his watch, he took out his phone and dialed the number he’d gotten from a contact. It was time to find a man who would do what he wanted, when he wanted, and one who would do whatever job right.
• • •
A man, brown-haired, brown-eyed, with a neatly trimmed goatee, shifted through some of the rubble at the shop.
He’d asked questions of the firemen, the chief, the police and the medics. Everyone was all right, for the most part, if not a little shaken.
His insurance company needed all the pertinent facts for the report, he’d told them, flashing his ID, which sat beside the picture of a woman and a smiling child.
Yes, Robert Royson, representative of Oakly, Danze, and Rife Insurance, carefully jotted down things on his clipboard. For all those present, he was as he should be. An insurance man, checking out a claim. A calm, quiet man, who was shaken at what he was seeing and wishing he were at home with the woman and child that several had glimpsed beside the perfect credentials.
But then, that was what they were supposed to see.
Brayden’s Hummer was still too hot to get close to, but he knew enough already that he didn’t need a firsthand look.
Oh, he’d like one, to see the handiwork, the switch used, the placement of wires, what type of materials were used. Each of those things told him a bit more and a bit more. Altogether, they were as telling as a person’s handwriting. If he saw the layout, the arrangement, he might know the man.
Those things would, at the very least, lead him to the bastard who dared to plant a damn bomb on this car.
With his head bent to the clipboard, he carefully scanned the crowd. No one seemed out of place.
His contacts told him little more than he already knew and suspected.
Miss Christian Bills was not all she appeared to be, but then he already knew that, too.
It was by absolute chance he was here at all. He’d planned to come next week. But plans change, and he ended up having an appointment earlier today.
The news blurb on the radio, as he’d made his way to his hotel, was enough to draw his attention. The address had him pulling his car off at the nearest exit and thumping away information into his laptop.
Brayden Kinncaid and Christian Bills were lucky to be alive.
His pager vibrated.
He glanced down at the numbers. Well, they would just have to wait. He’d get back to them.
“Find everything you need?” a plainclothes cop asked.
He knew this one, remembered him from a few months back when Ryan and Tori had been kidnapped.
In a truly wonderful Southern drawl, if he said so himself, he replied, “Why, yes, yes, thank you.” He scanned the mess around him. “It is amazing what some people will do, isn’t it?” He held out his hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Lieutenant Morris, of the DCPD.”
Shrewd dark eyes assessed him and saw only what they were meant to see; at least, he hoped so.
“Robert Royson.”
They shook hands.
“Lieutenant!” a uniform shouted, drawing Morris’s attention.
“If you’re done here . . .” Morris let the sentence hang.
“Oh, I think I have enough for the report. If my superiors have a problem with it, I’m sure they’ll let me know.” He clipped his pen to the clipboard. “Do you have a number I can call you at? In case of questions or something?”
Morris pulled out a card and gave it to him, before turning to see what the beat cop wanted.
With another scan of the crowd, Ian Kinncaid walked across the street and disappeared into the crowd. He had a meeting to get to.
• • •
Gabe Morris turned from the sergeant working the case. The night wind cut through his coat. He wanted to be at home, warm and relaxing.
Instead, he’d spent the last ten minutes convincing Sergeant Mifflin that he wasn’t going to try and take over the case. Gabe knew, knew the stalking and sexual assault case were linked to this one. No doubt in his mind. But Mr. I-Wanna-Impress-My-Captain did not believe any such thing.
However, the guy finally agreed to share whatever his findings were. Since the sergeant was acting all territorial, Gabe didn’t feel the need to share the information that he knew what the probable bomber looked like.
Gabe turned to see what that insurance man was doing. Claimer—what the hell were those guys called? Probably had some neat little title, but as far as he was concerned, insurance man covered it.
The man was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t be done already.
Gabe scanned the crowd again looking for the brown hair and goatee.
A familiar face stood out.
Looking quickly away, he felt his heart slam in his chest.
Criminals could be so damn stupid.
“Emma!”
His partner hurried over to him. “What?”
“Suspect, three o’clock. Blue coat, toboggan cap.”
“Got him,” she said, nodding to him and walking away.
He saw her unclip her gun as she made her way around the crowd and toward the back of it.
Gabe headed straight for the guy.
Ivan Ristovolich was perhaps five feet eleven inches of muscle, graying hair, wide-set cheekbones, and a bladed nose. The man turned to look to his right, his profile harsh.
Hurrying forward, while the man’s attention was diverted, Gabe stopped right beside him, his hand on his gun, and said, “Mr. Ristovolich?”
Ivan turned, his eyes rounding, then he darted through the crowd, shoving people out of the way.
“Stop, police!” Gabe shouted.
Ivan ran, finally clearing the crowd.
Gabe saw the top of Emma’s head. Then Ivan fell to the sidewalk.
When he got there, Ivan was cussing in another language. Well, maybe not, but the man sounded like he was cussing.
“Need some help?” Gabe asked his partner.
Her look said the question was insulting. One brow cocked. “I brought him down.” Then she leaned over and said, “Mr. Ristovolich, we just wanted to talk to you.” Emma straddled the guy, cuffing him.
For a little lady, Gabe knew she could handle herself.
“What do you want?” Ivan asked, his accent heavy.
“We just wanna talk to you.” Gabe reached down and hauled the guy to his feet.
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
Gabe sighed as he led the guy to their car. “No, you don’t. But then it would be easier on you, and Josephine seems to think that you might actually help her.” At the car door, he stopped and looked Mr. Ristovolich in the eye. Gabe shrugged. “I think she’s wrong.”
For one long moment they stared at each other. Like the guy would say a word. Mumbling to himself, he put his hand to the top of Ivan’s head as the guy got in the car.
Slamming the door, he wondered if Ivan would cooperate. Like life would be that easy.
• • •
Brayden could no more stop asking her if she was all right than he could quit breathing.
“Brayden, I’m fine. Just a bit sore is all.” They were on the way into the police station.
She stopped, stood on her toes, and kissed him. “I’m fine.”
He kissed her back, ran his hands down her arms, her chenille sweater soft as down under his fingers. Aside from the knot on the back of her head and little cuts on her face, she looked fine, just as she said.
Sighing deeply, he laced his fingers through hers and followed her up the stairs of the noisy cop shop.
A cop leading a handcuffed man down the steps staggered toward him as his prisoner shifted and tried to run.
Brayden jerked Christian back out of the way.
“Schupit, pigs. Don’t know shit,” the dirty, probably homeless, drunk said.
Leaning up, he whispered in her ear, “Why did you want to do this here?”
“Because I don’t want this filth in our home any more than it already is.” She straightened and walked up the rest of the stairs. At the top she waited.
She licked her lips. “When we do this . . .”
“Yes?”
“I need you here, but please don’t . . . Don’t . . .”
“What?” he asked her, cupping her face.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be mad at me.”
He laughed. “Hell, woman, I’m pissed at you half the time. If you’re worried that anything you say will change how I feel about you, that will piss me off.” He studied her eyes. “That wasn’t what you were thinking, was it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Just today with the explosion, and then . . .” She stopped.
“And then?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Brayden sighed. “What, Christian, tell me now.”
“Your dad. He had a bad time of it on the way here and couldn’t find his pills. I think . . . I think . . .”
“Dad’s fine. I know about that. I talked to Mom while you were getting ready.” He threw his arm around her, seeing Gabe coming down the hallway. “Let’s get this over with so I can take you home, okay?”
She took a deep breath and let it out on a huff. “Okay.”
• • •
Christian sat in the chair and held the cup of water between her hands. Brayden’s arm around her shoulders anchored her.
“I don’t know where to start. It all began so long ago.” She looked down at the scarred wooden tabletop. At least she wasn’t in some interrogation room. Gabe had known this was not going to be easy so he found them someone’s meeting room or something. At least it was private.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “It began in New Orleans, when a thirteen-year-old daughter sang her father a birthday song . . .”
She went on from there, telling him how a man in the audience heard her and simply wanted. There was her father’s death shortly thereafter—killed in a mugging supposedly gone bad.
She told him everything she told Brayden, and then some.
“He swore he’d never let me go, and I was too scared after no one believed me the first time to try and say anything again.” The room smelled of cigarette smoke. “That’s not exactly true. One cop and his partner believed me, but . . .” She shook her head. “I’m getting ahead of myself.
“First off, I did try and report what was going on, but it didn’t matter, he just bought them off. One day, a friend of mine, and I didn’t have many, noticed a bruise on my wrist.” Danny Williamson . . .
“For some stupid reason that I still can’t fathom, I didn’t deny it when Danny asked me right off if it was my stepfather who gave me the bruise.” If she had . . . That didn’t matter.
Christian ran a hand through her hair.
“Anyway, Danny apparently lost control of his motorcycle about a mile from the house.”
“He’s dead?” Gabe asked.
She could only nod. “Seventeen.” A wasted life, all because he’d wanted to do the right thing. “At first I tried to believe it was an accident.” Richard’s voice slithered through her memory.
“Such a sad thing, accidents. They silence people forever, don’t they, Josephine? You should have kept our little secret. Though I must give the boy credit for courage if nothing else.” He’d laughed.
“Who’s Josephine?” Brayden asked, speaking for the first time.
“What?”
“You said Josephine.
Who did he mean?”
She’d spoken aloud. Licking her lips, she stared at the tabletop. “Me.” She took a deep breath, then turned to look at Brayden. “My name is Josephine Christian Clara Montreaux. My father was Phillip Montreaux of New Orleans, Louisiana. We own banks. Or my brother does, now.”
That was the first time she’d said those words in years. Montreaux. Brayden’s eyes narrowed, but the hand on her shoulder gently caressed.
“So this man killed your friend?” Emma asked.
“He said he did, but he’s never dirtied his hands with anything other than the times he beat me. Always had Ivan do his dirty work.”
“How do you know this?” Gabe asked, the corners of his mouth tight.
“Because he told me, and he wrote it all down.” She shrugged.
“Wrote it all down?”
She thought about what to say. “Yes, he wrote it all down. Did he kill Danny Williamson? Probably. All because Danny knew the truth and wouldn’t listen to my stepfather’s lies. All because he tried to help me.”
Poor Danny.
She jumped ahead. “He raped me in July when I was fifteen. Though he was so drunk . . . That’s the San Francisco case.”
“But it was filed . . .” Gave checked his notes.
“Buddy Michaels filed it, though he may have used another name. He was a cop, maybe he still is. His partner was Frank Smith, my friend, Susan’s, father.”
“Was?” Emma and Gabe asked.
She nodded. “When I turned sixteen, he raped me again. On the night of my birthday. That had been the plan all along. Make me a woman on my sixteenth birthday. He’d just ‘lost control’ before. But once done it can’t be undone and it’s easier to ‘lose control’ again after that. But after the party he was so angry because I had talked to my brother. Joshua had wanted me to spend the night at the hotel with him and God, I wanted to go,” she finished on a broken whisper.
Taking a fortifying breath, she squeezed Brayden’s hand, which at some point he’d laced with hers. “They didn’t let me go. Joshua didn’t want to cause problems, so he didn’t push it. But I’d made a big enough deal that . . . That night when he . . . It wasn’t . . . He was angry,” she finished. Tears welled in her eyes, stupid as that was. They didn’t do any good now. Brayden’s arm tightened around her and she took strength from him. “The next day I could barely move. Someone, Maria, our maid, I think, called my friend, or it could have been Ivan. Susan and her mom came and got me out of that house and into their car. I do remember Ivan carrying me. Then Frank, Susan’s father, rode a bus or train with me. I can’t remember for sure. I woke up in the hospital with a letter from him not to tell anyone where I was, not to call home. He left me some money. It was November.”