He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Sure. Sit.” He patted the wide leather seat beside him.
“You were thinking about Nic, weren’t you?”
“I was remembering how we detested each other in the beginning. God, she was magnificent. Not like any woman I’d ever known.”
“You’ll get her back.” Offering him a sympathetic glance, she sat beside him.
“Will I?”
“There has to be a happy ending for one of us. I would say you and Nicole have the best chance for that happening.”
Griff stared across the aisle at Sanders, sitting alone, his eyes open but unfocused, his body as rigid as a marble statue. Only God knew what was going on inside the man’s head.
“He’s not going to let either of us in, is he?”
“Not yet. But eventually, he will turn to us. And hopefully, he will allow Barbara Jean to help him. She can be his salvation, if only he will let her.”
“Nic was my salvation,” Griff said. “She’s everything to me.”
“York is not going to win. We will not let him take any more from us. Nicole is going to live and the two of you will be together again.”
Griff prayed that Yvette was right. “You deserve to be happy, too. You need someone.” Without thinking, he reached over and clasped her hand.
She shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he withdrew his hand.
“Nothing. I’m all right.”
“You were thinking about Rafe, weren’t you?”
Yvette gasped. “God, no. What made you think such a thing?”
“Because I was there on Amara with the two of you, remember. I know how you felt about Rafe and I know how much he loved you.”
“That sweet, wonderful boy named Raphael died on Amara,” Yvette said. “Rafe Byrne is as much a monster as Malcolm York.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No, perhaps I don’t believe him to be the kind of monster York was, the monster this resurrected York is. But Rafe is cruel and heartless. There is no love or compassion in him. And ... he hates me.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned his name. I didn’t realize ...” Griff groaned. “I’ll shut up now. Why don’t you go lie down on the sofa and try to take a nap?”
She patted his hand as she got up, a faraway look in her eyes. “Wherever she is, whatever she is going through, Nicole loves you, too, just as much as you love her.”
“I know,” Griff said. “I know.”
Nic couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but her gut instinct told her that she was finally back in the United States, somewhere in the northwest. Colorado or Montana or Idaho or Wyoming. The magnificent view she saw through the windows of her room all but screamed Rocky Mountains. She had accompanied Griff on a fishing trip to Montana the first year of their marriage and had marveled at the majestic beauty of the region. The Rocky Mountains were different from her beloved Smoky Mountains, but each was equally magnificent.
If she was right about her location, she couldn’t help wondering why York had brought her here. This was the United States of America, with laws to protect its citizens against people who trafficked in drugs and humans. Slavery had been abolished in this country a century and a half ago. But as a former FBI special agent, she knew that some of the darkest, most heinous crimes occurred in civilized countries. Criminals existed just below the radar, part of an underground society that protected its own.
Nic forced herself to sit in the comfy chair by the double windows overlooking a nearby mountain stream, the semi-barren mountains a backdrop to endless rows of evergreen trees. The day before yesterday, she had almost lost her baby. Only by the grace of God had the bleeding stopped, but she lived in fear that it might start again. She had to stay as calm as possible and take every available opportunity to rest. Controlling the restless need to pace back and forth in her rather comfortable cage, Nic concentrated on her breathing. Yoga deep breathing. Soothing. Peaceful.
Anthony Linden had accompanied her and Jonas on the trip here, but there had been no sign of York. The jet had landed in the early morning hours and they had been transferred to waiting SUVs. Linden had taken her with him and Jonas had been shoved into another vehicle. After their arrival at the sprawling, log cabin–style lodge set in the middle of the back-of-the-beyond, Linden had deposited her in a rustically upscale room on the second floor. By her calculations, that had been approximately two hours ago.
Since being locked away, she hadn’t bothered to explore her jail. She was tired and weak and frightened. She feared for her child’s life. She felt like screaming. But what good would that do? She needed to vent her frustration, to beat on the walls, to stomp her feet, to break out a window. But instead, she sat curled up in the big easy chair and stared out the window.
Where was Jonas? What had Linden done with him?
Why had York separated them again? Or had keeping them apart been Linden’s idea?
She wanted Jonas with her ... needed him.
Oh, Griff, my wanting Jonas, my needing him so desperately, isn’t a betrayal of my love for you. I swear ...
Had this been the way Yvette had felt about Griff? Not love. Not sexual desire. But the need for human companionship. A man she could trust to help her and not to hurt her. Someone who understood the hopelessness she felt.
Every muscle in her badly bruised body ached. Her swollen jaw had turned purple and was sore to the touch. Her arm and shoulder sported jagged pink bite marks inflected by the White Witch during their battle in The Ring. Misery settled inside her like a lead weight.
She could not—would not—give in to the abject despair that threatened her sanity. Tears choked her as she fought the melancholy wrapping seductively around her.
And then, like a flickering light in the darkness, her baby kicked. Just a teeny-tiny little punch, as if saying to her, “Hey, Mom, I’m okay.”
“Hello, right back at you.” Nic rubbed her belly, caressing the gentle slope of her abdomen that cradled her unborn child. “I’m okay, too, sweetheart. Just missing your daddy and wishing we were back home in Tennessee with him.”
Listen to me, baby. No matter what happens to me, you have to hang in there. You hear me. You have to fight for life. You are Griffin Powell’s son or daughter. You are strong and brave. You are a survivor.
And you are a precious gift from God.
Chapter 35
They had returned to Griffin’s Rest a week ago, all of them mentally and emotionally drained, but Sanders most of all. He had gone back to work immediately, as if nothing had happened, taking charge of his professional responsibilities and refusing to discuss what had taken place on Amara, not even with Griff or Yvette. His relationship with Barbara Jean had been irrevocably altered by their experience on the beach. He had left their shared bedroom suite on the first floor and moved into an upstairs bedroom. No one had questioned either of them. And the entire household had been tiptoeing around Sanders as if he were a bomb set to explode with the least provocation.
Charles David had returned to San Francisco while Griff had been in Amara. Maleah had persuaded him to go home. After all, he hadn’t been helping Nic by staying at Griffin’s Rest and at least at home he would have his work to keep him occupied.
Each day Griff expected to hear from York. A phone call. A special delivery package. A fax or e-mail message. But apparently, they were back to playing the waiting game. Nic had been kidnapped nearly three months ago. He could count the days, the hours, and the minutes since he had last seen her driving away, leaving him and all the lies she couldn’t forgive far behind her. Griff tried not to think about what Nic had been enduring these past three months, but he couldn’t continuously fight his own nightmarish thoughts. Awake or asleep, Nic was always on his mind.
As he stepped out of the shower, he heard his phone ringing. He grabbed a towel off the rack, draped it around his hips, and opened the door to his bedroom. His heartbeat accelerated. Wa
s York calling him with instructions for a new and even more deadly game?
Mitchum’s name showed up on the caller ID.
Griff answered. “What do you have for me, good news or bad news?”
“Information,” Mitchum replied. “We have the DNA test results on the woman from the Amara beach.”
“And?”
“And we have dug up some interesting info about the young lady.”
Half an hour later, Griff met with Sanders, Yvette, and Barbara Jean in his study. He had debated about whether or not to meet privately with Sanders and had decided that they each had a vested interest in the information Thorndike Mitchum had relayed to him.
“The DNA results came in on the Elora look-alike,” Griff said, his gaze focused on Sanders, who showed no emotion whatsoever.
No one said a word.
“The young woman was not your daughter,” Griff told Sanders.
Sanders did not react in any way.
Barbara Jean gasped.
“Thank goodness,” Yvette said.
“Her real name was Alisa Mistretta. She was born and grew up in London, was in trouble with the law from the age of twelve and was arrested for prostitution the first time when she was fourteen. Mitchum wasn’t able to locate the surgeon who altered her face to resemble Elora’s, but the photos of her presurgery show a rather pretty girl who bore little resemblance to Elora. Even her hair was dyed that particular shade of reddish blond. Alisa had brown hair.”
“I think we all knew that she was simply another of York’s diabolical tricks.” Yvette said, and then turned to Sanders. “You must have known in your heart that she wasn’t your child.”
Sanders did not respond.
“That’s all the info Mitchum had,” Griff said. “Now we all know the truth.”
“If you will excuse me, I have work to do.” Without another word to anyone, Sanders walked out of the study.
“He just needs time,” Yvette said.
“I’m not sure that’s all he needs,” Barbara Jean said. “Neither Sanders nor either of you has been able to completely let go of the past. You’re all bound to it by some invisible cord that you refuse to cut. God knows I can’t begin to understand what y’all went through on Amara, but I do know that until you cut that cord, all three of you are doomed.”
Stunned by Barbara Jean’s vehement outburst, Yvette and Griff stared speechlessly at her as she wheeled herself out of the study.
Another damn costume!
Nic stared at the Annie Oakley outfit hanging in her closet. In the week since her arrival at the hunting lodge, she hadn’t seen either Linden or York. Her day-to-day needs had been taken care of by closemouthed, obedient servants who provided her with decent food, clean clothes, and escorted her for an afternoon walk outside every day.
The costume had been delivered this morning, along with a note: “Proper attire for your performance at The Execution is essential.”
When someone knocked on the closed bedroom door, Nic nearly jumped out of her skin. The servants didn’t knock. Linden certainly didn’t.
“Nicole, it’s me, Jonas,” the voice on the other side of the door called to her.
As Nic rushed to the door, it opened. And there stood Jonas, in jeans and plaid shirt and sporting a short beard and mustache just beginning to form on his handsome face. Behind him stood two armed guards.
“May I come in?” Jonas asked.
“Yes, of course.”
When he entered, the guards closed and locked the door.
“I am so glad to see you,” Nic told him. “I had no idea what had happened to you.”
Jonas looked her over from head to toe. “You’re looking healthy. How are you?”
She patted her tummy, which seemed to be enlarging a little every day. “We’re fine.”
“No more problems?”
She reached out and grasped Jonas’s hand. “Come sit down and tell me everything you know about where we are, why we’re here, and what’s going on. And I need to know more about this upcoming event that York calls The Execution.”
“I don’t know much,” he said. “But what I know isn’t good for either of us.”
“I suspected as much.” Nic nodded toward the closet. “I have a costume for the event. A cowgirl outfit—fringed leather skirt and vest, western-style boots, and the cutest little wool felt cowgirl hat you’ve ever seen.”
“The Execution is similar to The Ring in that it’s a show for an audience, only not in a ring. From what I understand, there is always a theme to The Execution. The one I participated in had a Civil War theme. I was decked out in a Johnny Reb costume and the man I killed was in Yankee blue.”
“Then it’s like a play that ends in death. Real death.”
“Pretty much.” As they sat down on the edge of the bed, Jonas took both of her hands in his. “There were three acts to the play, with three people killed. Two opening acts and then the main event. My guess is that you’ll be the main event.”
“And it’s kill or be killed just like in The Ring.”
“These things go on all the time, around the world,” Jonas told her. “Most people never know anything about them. There is an underground society of really sick, twisted wealthy people who get their kicks in the most perverted ways possible. Human bondage. Men and women, boys and girls being bought and sold as sex slaves. Hunters tracking and killing other human beings. Watching opponents fight to the death. Having a front-row seat to the murder of one person by another.”
Nic squeezed Jonas’s hand. “You’re going to be one of the acts in this Execution play, too, aren’t you? You’ll be expected to kill again.”
“So will you.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed each. “You have to do it, Nic. You’ll have no choice. If you don’t kill the condemned person, they will do it for you and then either kill you or punish you in some horrible way.”
“I don’t know if I can—”
Jonas grabbed her by the shoulders. “You can and you will.” He glanced down at her stomach. “You’ll do it, if not for yourself, for your baby.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hide the fact that I’m pregnant, and I have no idea what York will do when he finds out.”
“He’ll use your pregnancy to his advantage, to control you and to torment your husband.”
“But Griff doesn’t know.”
Jonas looked at her questioningly, then asked, “When York finds out, how long do you think it will be before he tells your husband?”
Griff took the call from Rafe Byrne that evening while he was standing on the patio. He had eaten dinner alone in the kitchen, a plate left by Mattie before she’d gone home for the day. Both Sanders and Barbara Jean had been conspicuously absent, as had Derek and Maleah.
“I was beginning to wonder if I’d paid you a million dollars for nothing,” Griff said when he answered his phone.
“There was no point in contacting you until I had some useful information.”
“And you have some now?”
“Sir Harlan has invited me to fly over to the States with him in a couple of weeks. He’s taking part in what he refers to as a marvelously unique hunt. He didn’t come right out and say it, but he didn’t leave much doubt as to what we will be hunting.”
“Did he say where this hunt is taking place?”
“No, but he did tell me that each of the chosen quarry is very special to our host. Two males and two females. And he’s invited Bouchard. There will be just the four of us so it’ll be one-on-one in the hunt, or so Sir Harlan says.”
“Two males and two females. And Nic will be one of the two females.”
“That’s my guess.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Nothing more that the old bastard shared with me,” Rafe said. “Just a gut feeling I have.”
“Tell me.”
“I think the prey we’ll be hunting is a select group—maybe you and Sanders and Yvette and Nicole.”
Chapter 36
By her calculations, Nic was six months pregnant on the day of The Execution ceremonies. Her fringed A-line skirt fit loosely and her leather vest and billowy gingham blouse adequately camouflaged her pregnancy. She was afraid that if either Linden or York looked at her closely today, they would notice the slight fullness of her face and the increase in her breast size. If it happened, it happened. She had known all along that it would be only a matter of time before she could no longer hide her condition. But she had hoped beyond hope that before that happened, Griff would have found her.
Traveling by horse-drawn wagons, she and five others, including Jonas, sat huddled together in the wagon bed, with an armed guard riding shotgun and two guards, on horseback, flanking the wagon. Not only were she and the other participants in today’s exhibition dressed in costume, but so were their guards. They all looked as if they had stepped off a western movie set. The five men wore decorative leather chaps over their pants, Stetson hats on their heads, and their belts sported big silver buckles. And they had beards and mustaches in varying degrees of growth. Nic and the one other woman had been decked out to resemble the Queen of the Cowgirls, Dale Evans, in fancy attire more suitable for the silver screen than the real old west.
Nic understood why no one felt chatty on the ride from the hunting lodge. Three people were doomed to execution today and three assigned the role of true life executioner. It was better not to know one another, not to share any personal information with the person you would have to kill. Or with the person who would kill you.
They arrived at their destination thirty or so minutes after leaving the hunting lodge. Without a watch, Nic guessed at the time by checking the position of the sun. She figured it was mid-to-late morning. The bumpy road, more dirt than gravel, led directly into the little town, but not just any town—a ghost town. The main street consisted of six dilapidated buildings on one side and three on the other. All except two were wooden structures weathered to gray over the years and in various states of ruin. One was a two-story brick with boarded arched windows, and the other a one-story brick with a ramshackle wooden porch. In the distance on a nearby hillside, a couple of other old buildings, possibly once a schoolhouse and a church, nestled snugly beneath towering evergreens, a weed-infested cemetery planted halfway between them.
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