Phoenix Legacy

by Corrina Lawson

“Do you plan to drive me over in your car?”

  “Only if you want me to. I thought you’d rather follow me.” He spread his hands apart. “It’s urgent that you hear what I have to say.”

  “For all I know, you caused my problems a few months back. You could be my attacker.”

  “No.” He frowned. “But it’s possible you’re in this mess because of me.”

  “You’re not doing a good job of making me trust you.”

  “I know, but someone’s already died today. I’m in a hurry,” Drake said, voice low. He’d changed from merely annoying to dangerous in a heartbeat.

  “Someone died today because of my pregnancy?”

  “Exactly.”

  She took a step away from him and almost backed into the fridge behind her.

  “Wrong thing to say,” he muttered. “I’m still screwing this up. Sorry. Think, Del. Besides Genet, who you’ve obviously met, have you had anything else unusual happen since you became pregnant? Anything that was out of the ordinary, weird, or alarmed you?”

  “You showing up in my bar.”

  But that wasn’t completely true. Before Drake had arrived, there had been the accident with the minivan when her purse had been stolen. Hell, start with the way she’d gotten pregnant. She didn’t remember who’d grabbed her or drugged her or if she’d spent the night in the bar on the floor or somewhere else.

  “If you tell me nothing strange or odd has happened, that there’s no real mystery behind the child’s conception besides that you want to keep it private, I will leave right now and not bother you again,” Drake said.

  She couldn’t. She wasn’t that good a liar. That was two bets he’d won. “You must win a lot at poker, Drake.”

  “I can tell something has scared you. Besides me, I mean.”

  “I could be paranoid.”

  “It’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you.”

  She smiled. “You said you’re investigating the circumstances of my pregnancy.”

  He nodded. “Those responsible for what happened to you want to come back and finish the work. I’m here to prevent that from happening.”

  She frowned. “And you really can’t tell me about all this here?”

  He shook his head. “Too many listeners, as I said. I’m only asking for an hour, in a public place. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I can imagine all sorts of things.”

  He could have an ambush set up. He could try to drug her food or her drink. He could—

  Damn, she was paranoid.

  She also wanted answers. She just hadn’t had a way to find them until now. Maybe Philip Drake was her rapist. If so, if he was toying with her to make her feel vulnerable, he had another thing coming.

  There was always the shotgun in her trunk.

  “All right. You leave, and I’ll follow you in fifteen minutes.”

  “No, follow me right away. You shouldn’t be driving around unprotected.”

  She rolled her eyes. That sounded like something her father would have said when he was alive. She had a feeling she had just stepped into a mess like the ones he used to create.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Chapter Eight

  Del let Tammy know she was going out for an early dinner. Tammy flat-out snickered.

  “I saw you out on the deck with Dodge Charger man,” Tammy said. “You’re having dinner with him, right?”

  Del shrugged. “He said he might let me drive the car. And what’s the worst that can happen? I get pregnant?”

  “You don’t know him,” Tammy said.

  “Which is why I’m driving over to the diner myself.”

  “Smart. Well, go have fun. I’ll cover. It’s not like you’ll be able to do this after the baby is born.”

  Del stuck out her tongue at Tammy and headed to the parking lot. Drake was leaning against his car, arms crossed over his chest, wearing his sunglasses, waiting for her.

  Yum. He matched the car perfectly. If only this was a real date. It had felt good, natural, to dance with him. He’d even picked one of her favorite songs. Stupid illusion. She could have dismissed his whole crazy story if he hadn’t known about Genet and hadn’t hit a nerve by asking her if she even knew how the kid had been conceived.

  His story might be bullshit, but he knew something. Too many odd things had happened in the last few months for her to believe they were coincidences.

  She started her car and pulled out of the lot. Drake followed close behind. She climbed the packed dirt driveway up to the intersection with Lake Road, darting glances at her rearview mirror. Drake stayed about two car lengths behind.

  As she turned right onto Lake Road, a van cut in front of her. She slammed on the brakes, her tires squealed, and she barely missed T-boning it.

  Fucking idiot! Her heart was beating so fast she could hear pounding in her ears. If not for her seatbelt, she’d have been thrown against the steering wheel.

  She took a deep breath and looked closer at the van. Wait, it was the same style as the one that had caused the accident at the Ledgewood Circle. Though this van was white and the other one had been blue.

  She opened up her glove box, groping for her hammer, then remembered she hadn’t replaced it yet.

  A man wearing a watch cap and dark clothes slipped out of the passenger door and pointed a gun at her. “Get out of the car! Now!”

  She practically fell out of the car, her keys clutched in her hand. She could press the panic button. That might draw attention.

  “Don’t make a noise, don’t say a fucking word,” the gunman said.

  Scratch that.

  A hand snaked around from behind her and a dirty, smelly palm covered her mouth. Another guy must have circled around while she was staring at the gunman. She tried to scream, but it was muffled by the hand. She kicked for the man’s instep but didn’t connect. The gunman ran forward, grabbed her keys from her fingers and tossed them aside. The one who had her captive from behind started to drag her to the van. She tried to dig in her heels, but all they did on the blacktop was slide.

  “Inside, fast,” the first attacker said, lowering the gun.

  Screw you.

  She reached up, grabbed the thumb of the hand around her neck and yanked it backward, hard. Her captor yelped and loosened his grip enough for her to sidestep out of his hold. She screamed, long and loud, hoping to attract attention.

  The first man aimed his gun at her again.

  She heard a popping sound, saw a red mark appear on the gunman’s chest, and the gunman crumpled to the road.

  She turned and saw Drake tackling the second man, knocking her would-be kidnapper onto the ground. Drake bashed the man’s head into the pavement.

  “Run!” Drake yelled. “Keys are still in my car! Get the hell out of here.”

  Two more men were scrambling out from the van.

  Del did what Drake asked. She turned around and ran like hell for the Charger. She saw the front bumper poking out at the entrance from the driveway to Lake Road.

  The engine was idling. Drake had left it running.

  She slid inside, released the emergency brake, pushed down on the clutch and the brake and shifted into first gear. Dad had had a lot of faults but he’d made sure she could drive a stick.

  She let off on the brake and pushed down on the accelerator while letting go of the clutch. The Charger nearly flew onto the road.

  She caught a glimpse of Drake, locked in a fight with two men. His face was covered with blood. She turned and hit reverse, tires squealing, back to him. The edge of the back bumper caught one attacker.

  “Get in!”

  Drake kicked the knees of the man holding him, breaking them apart. He sprinted to the passenger side of the Charger and tumbled into passenger seat. She hit the gas again.

  In the rearview mirror, she saw her attackers scramble into the van. They were going to chase her. Oh, yeah? Let’s see what you got.

  She shifted up to fourth ge
ar, praying no one was trying to pull onto Lake Road or walking their dog or jogging or doing anything in the road. The engine roared. The speedometer quickly climbed to eighty.

  “What the hell kind of engine is this?”

  “A 426 Hemi,” Drake answered, buckling in.

  The way was clear, no traffic. She pressed down harder on the gas. She could still see the van behind her. They had a big engine too, but that van couldn’t be as good as the Charger around these turns. And she knew the roads around here a hell of a lot better than they did. She hoped.

  Her hands dripped with sweat. She reminded herself to keep them on the wheel and not wipe them off on her pants. Her luck held as the light at the bottom of the hill was green and she didn’t have to slow down.

  The Charger’s speedometer hit ninety. She downshifted as they roared up a hill. There was a wicked curve coming up. She knew it was there. She hoped to hell the van driver didn’t.

  Drake mumbled something that sounded like a prayer. She could use one of those. She could use some cops too. Where the hell were the authorities when you really needed them?

  The Charger flew faster up the road, despite being in lower gear. I love you, car. The van became a smaller speck in the rearview mirror.

  Hah. No way would they catch her, not in this.

  “Excellent driving.”

  With that dry tone, she couldn’t tell if Drake was insulting or complimenting her. “Screw you. Who are those guys?”

  “At a guess, they work for Genet.”

  She hit the top of the hill. The van was still behind them. Persistent bastards. She started to turn right before she even saw the curve. The Charger fishtailed. The tires burned rubber. But they negotiated the turn.

  “Nice handling.”

  “Screw you,” she said again.

  She gunned the Charger, only to be confronted with a sharp curve to the left. She turned the steering wheel with one hand, shifted with the left, and the Charger turned neatly this time.

  Drake gripped the dashboard tight, but he seemed to be grinning. Or grimacing. Hard to tell given the blood streaming down his face.

  The Charger straightened, and she sped up again. “I love this car.”

  Drake grunted. She glanced behind, just in time to see the van spin out into the dirt and hit a stump on the side of the road. She grinned.

  The road twisted, and she lost sight of them, which meant they couldn’t see her either. She turned right at the third fork in the road, drove up another hill, past a new housing development onto a dirt road, and navigated a narrow bridge that took her to one of the many fingers of Lake Hopatcong.

  She slowed, downshifting, and pulled into a space off the side of the road, hiding the car completely behind a grove of trees. She turned the engine off and let her head rest on the steering wheel.

  She couldn’t tell if she was excited or terrified. She thought of the blood that spurted from the chest of the man Drake had shot. Dead. She’d just seen somebody die.

  Like she had when she was a child.

  Her fingers started shaking.

  Drake got out of the car, gun drawn, looking behind them.

  “We’re hidden here.” She raised her head from the steering wheel.

  “Maybe.” He holstered the gun at his waist and walked to the back. “Open the trunk.”

  You’d never know he just killed somebody. He acted as if this stuff happened every day. She fumbled around with her hand until she found the trunk release and pulled. The trunk popped open. Her legs felt like jelly. Her arms weren’t much better.

  But she wiped the sweat off her hands and got out of the car.

  Drake was leaning over the trunk.

  “Who the hell were those guys?” she asked.

  “At a guess, Genet’s goons, as I said.”

  Drake removed a sawed-off shotgun from the trunk.

  So she wasn’t the only one who carried weapons in her trunk. But she hadn’t killed anyone with hers.

  He cocked his head to the side. Listening.

  “I think you’re right. You lost them,” he said.

  “So why did you pull out the shotgun?”

  “Just in case.” He lowered the trunk lid but didn’t close it. “The Charger left tracks in the dirt. They could find us. And there could be more of them. Are you armed?”

  “No.” He has to have been a soldier, she thought. He also had to be someone who’d killed before or he wouldn’t be this calm after doing so. The sexiest man to walk into her bar in a long time, and he was certifiable too. Fuck.

  He reached down to his ankle, pushed up his jeans and pulled a handgun from a hidden holster. “Take this.”

  “Am I going to have to kill someone too?”

  His face lost all expression. “I don’t know. But they will be after you again.”

  “Why didn’t they just shoot me?”

  “They want you alive and well. More specifically, they want your baby alive and well. They’re the same thing right now. If you want to protect yourself, take the gun.”

  She held out her palm flat. The gun fit perfectly in there. The last thing she wanted.

  “Don’t you feel anything about killing that man?” she asked.

  “Relief that he didn’t kill me or hurt you.”

  Ducks quacked on the lake. Such a normal sound. The ducks didn’t know it was an abnormal day where people were shot and killed in front of her.

  Drake opened his coat, revealing the handgun he’d used earlier.

  “Just how many guns do you have, Drake?”

  “Enough.” He focused on her. “Are you all right?”

  “I should ask you that. That’s blood on your face.”

  He shrugged and wiped most of it off with his sleeve. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  That struck her as the strangest thing he’d said so far.

  Here she was, standing on a hidden fishing spot on Lake Hopatcong with a handsome stranger who carried guns in his trunk, killed a man and didn’t seem concerned about it and didn’t care about blood all over his face. And they were on the run from guys who wanted to kidnap her. Or something.

  “Fuck nothing,” she said. “Who the hell are you and what the hell is going on?”

  “I told you, you’re in danger because of your baby. My apologies for that ambush back there. I should’ve scouted ahead.” He wiped the remainder of the blood off his face. Oddly, she couldn’t see the cut responsible for all that blood. Maybe it was covered by his hair.

  “You saved my life,” she said.

  “You returned the favor, coming back for me. I didn’t expect that. And you lost the van. When you said you could drive a stick, you meant it.”

  Drake had such an odd expression on his face. Almost amused. Definitely admiring. The same expression as when he’d taken her into his arms for their dance. The man switched from dangerous to charming to infuriating without any effort.

  “Do you think something is funny about all this?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I imagine those who want your baby realize now they underestimated you. That’s a comforting thought.”

  “To you, maybe.” She blinked, then kept her eyes closed for a few seconds. When she opened them, Drake was still there. Nope, she wasn’t dreaming. “Stop avoiding the subject and start telling me what’s going on.”

  “You won’t believe me if I give you the truth flat-out. Let’s just say someone’s badly used you and they want to keep doing that.”

  “Let’s not say that. Let’s talk about what’s really going on. You said they wanted my baby.” She stuffed the car keys in her pocket. Likely, he could take them from her. He was a killer.

  Though he had given her a weapon too. She felt the weight of it in her palm. She set it down on the hood of the car and absently rubbed her neck where the driver had grabbed her. Okay, she trusted Drake a little more than those guys. He’d been willing to take a beating or worse to cover her escape.

 
He’d also trusted her to drive his car.

  “We need to get going,” he said.

  “Like hell we do.” She flung the keys into the water below. “Looks like we’re here for a while. So talk.”

  He stared at the circles made in the water by the keys for a few seconds. “Huh. Remind me not to underestimate you.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Yes.” He leaned against the hood, staring through the woods, watching the approach to their parking spot. He held the shotgun loosely in his hand. “I’m not the only one hiding secrets. You still haven’t told me how you became pregnant.”

  “You seemed to have worked that out all by yourself.”

  He shrugged. “I’d rather hear it from you, Ms. Sefton. For all I know, you’re somehow in on this.”

  “That’s me, a criminal mastermind. And, hey, call me Del. We just got shot at together. Ms. Sefton seems stupidly formal.”

  He snorted. “You have the smarts and the physical courage for a criminal mastermind, you know that?” He sighed. “You’re right, you deserve the full story.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you were picked to be the mother of a genetically engineered baby. The scientists who developed the gene-gineered sperm that resulted in your pregnancy kidnapped you with the help of hired thugs, artificially inseminated you and then let you go.”

  She laughed. “Funny guy. Okay what’s the real story? The rapist who left me pregnant is a mobster or something and now he wants the kid?”

  “I wish I’d thought of that as a cover story, but no.”

  “Genetic engineering? Altered sperm? Artificial insemination? That cannot be what’s going on.”

  “Afraid so. It’s your fault. You wanted the truth. But give me a few minutes. I can come up with a good, logical lie instead.”

  She shook her head. “Not only is your story crazy, but it makes no sense. Why pick me as the mother? And, say if these crazy people exist and want the baby, why pick me and then let me go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’ve only been on the job since this morning. Give me time to find definitive answers.”

  That almost pulled a smile from her. What a screwed-up sense of humor Drake had.

  “But how could these mystery scientists know I wanted to be pregnant? For all they knew, I could want an abortion. I almost had one, you know. I was raped. I had every right to have an abortion.”