“I have to admit,” he went on, “I was a little surprised myself when I got here. I mean, there’s Wolf...excuse me, there’s Connor,” he corrected, giving the name an exaggeratedly formal accent, “frolicking in the water with Toby and I find my fiancée, who I fully expect to be deep in contemplation of whatever it was you needed time to think about, chatting away on the phone.”
Gaby remained silent, fear coiling inside her.
“Who were you talking with, Gabrielle?”
“Who? Oh, you mean on the phone,” she said, stupidly pointing to it.
“Yes, darling, on the phone.”
“My mother.”
“I see. I thought I heard you mention my name.”
“Did I?” Her puzzled frown gave way to a brittle smile. “I was just telling her that I had given everything a great deal of thought this week and that I would be talking things over with you very soon...and that I was anxious to apologize to you for everything I put you through.”
His teeth flashed inside a deadly smile. “And now you have your chance.”
His arm snaked out and snagged her around her waist, pulling her against him.
Gaby stiffened, the self-preservation instinct kicking in hard and fast. The urge to shove him away, to scream and bite and do whatever she had to do to get free of him was held in check only by the slim hope that by playing along she could better protect Connor and Toby. She didn’t care what Adam did to her. There was nothing she wasn’t willing to face, no risk she wouldn’t take to keep them safe.
“Skip the apology,” he told her, his arm tightening even more, drawing her up until their faces were only inches apart. He smelled as he always did, of breath mints and expensive salon hair gel.
“I’ve been a most patient bridegroom, Gabrielle. I’ve waited and made excuses for your behavior to all our friends and guests, and given you time to...think. Now I want to hear you say that it’s over, that you’ve come to your senses and you’re ready to become my wife.”
Gaby still hadn’t come back out.
Connor had been checking every couple of minutes, telling himself there were plenty of things that could have detained her inside and that she had obviously seen Toby and him together and knew Toby was safe enough. Maybe she’d even gone inside to put on her suit and join them. Maybe. The thought alone was enticing. He would relish the opportunity to brush his legs against hers underwater. Maybe he would even get a chance to ask her the important question that had been on his mind ever since his little talk with Toby.
He glanced again at the deck and the empty chair where she’d been sitting. He could go on making up reasons why she could be taking so long, but he couldn’t ignore that feeling at the back of his neck that told him something was wrong.
“Okay, partner,” he said to Toby as he swung him in the air, “last toss of the day.”
“Aw, Wolf.”
“I think maybe your mother could use some help with lunch.”
“Okay. But throw me real high this time.”
“Real high? You’ve got it. See that tree?”
He pointed to the highest pine tree in sight.
“I see it,” Toby said.
“Good. Don’t bump your head on it on the way down.”
Toby giggled wildly as Connor began the now-familiar count. “One, two, ready, set, three.”
As soon as he emerged, Connor was rushing him out of the water, hurriedly drying him off with his shirt.
“There,” he said, “that ought to hold you until we can grab a towel on the deck. And don’t let your teeth chatter like that when we get to the house, or else your mother will think I let you stay in too long. I can’t afford to lose any brownie points.”
“What are—?”
“I’ll explain later,” Connor said, cutting him off. “Now, let’s move it.”
He yanked his jeans on over his wet suit and shoved his feet into his sneakers. Edgy without knowing exactly why, he ended up carrying Toby most of the way rather than having to wait for him to keep up. The instant he stepped over the threshold, the flesh at the back of his neck tightened like a hand was grabbing him there.
He stopped so abruptly Toby bumped into the back of his legs. A quick look around without moving from his position by the door told him that if Gaby was in there, she wasn’t on the first floor. He considered calling to her and decided against it. No particular reason. Just instinct.
Turning, he took Toby by the shoulders and hustled him back onto the deck.
“Wait here,” he told him, “and don’t ask any questions.” He looked around and grabbed a towel that had been drying in the sun. “Here. Wrap this around you to stay warm.”
“But...”
“Later. And don’t move off this deck until I come back for you. Okay?”
“Okay, Wolf.”
Inside he went straight to the locked cabinet where he’d put his gun, loaded it and stuck it inside the waist of his jeans in back.
He’d brought the gun along as a precaution, not because he thought he would need it. There had been no reason to believe that Gaby or Toby was in any imminent danger from either Adam or whomever he was involved with. If not for the fact that she’d been about to marry Ressler and he had wanted to stop her from making what could prove to be a huge mistake, she wouldn’t even be there now. The police investigation would simply have proceeded without Gaby even being aware of it until they showed up to arrest her new husband.
He told himself the odds were that he still wouldn’t need the gun, that his uneasy feeling was just the result of the week’s accumulated tensions. In fact, he thought, Gaby was probably going to be mad as hell at him for taking the gun from the cabinet and loading it with Toby around. He might even end up losing ground with her when he desperately needed to regain it.
He still liked the feel of having it tucked back there. He buttoned his shirt over it as he headed for the stairs and started up. Slowly. Keeping his weight on the balls of his feet and listening intently as he moved. Not that it did him much good. The interior walls of the cabin were also made of solid wood logs, and he didn’t hear anything until he turned at the top of the stairs.
“...a real lying bitch, you know it?”
He froze in his tracks at the angry sound of a man’s voice coming from his room.
Adam?
It had been a while and he hadn’t heard enough to absolutely identify the voice as that of his supposed friend, but in his gut he knew it had to be. Damn it, how had Adam gotten in here without his seeing him? Had he been that engrossed in teaching Toby to swim?
Seething at his own ineptitude, he recalled the walk back to the house from the lake and the fact that he’d only passed one car in the driveway. Gaby’s car. Which meant that whoever was in there with her had arrived on foot so his approach wouldn’t be detected. Understanding how it happened didn’t make him feel any better about it.
Something in the man’s tone made him reach for his gun, moving as quickly as he dared along the hallway, staying close to the wall and taking pains not to make a sound. If he had his way, the next surprise was going to be his to deliver.
When he drew next to the open door of the bedroom, he brought the gun up so he was holding it in front of him with two hands, the safety off. He braced himself, then lunged forward and sideways onto his right foot, a stance he’d taken hundreds of time in his years on the force. This was the first time when what he saw as he rounded the corner made everything inside him go cold.
It was Adam, all right. He had Gaby cradled against him, twisted at an awkward angle so that her back was to him, her head wrenched back by his grip on her hair. In his other hand he held a small-caliber pistol with its barrel positioned just under her jawline.
Connor’s sudden appearance caught Adam by surprise. For a few seconds, no more, all three of them remained absolutely motionless. And silent. It felt like forever. More than long enough for hundreds of disjointed images and impressions to streak through Connor’s head.
; He had a flash of a long-ago memory of Adam viciously kicking a dog that had done nothing but come begging for some of the sandwich he was eating. Then came the much more recent and crushing memory of how soft the skin on Gaby’s throat was at that spot where he held the gun. Then he was hit by the alarming realization that the sense of disconnection that had always given him his reckless edge, allowing him to think with absolute clarity in situations like this one, wasn’t with him now.
He felt the antithesis of disconnected. Or clearheaded. He felt more connected to the woman standing across the room—looking to him with her eyes full of fear—than he’d ever felt to anyone. He could feel her fear. Smell it. Taste it at the back of his throat. Or maybe that was his own fear he tasted, because this time, for the first time, he was the one who was afraid. He was the one who was desperate.
It took every ounce of training and self-control he possessed to force the fear back down and keep his hands from trembling as he held the gun pointed at Adam’s head.
“Hello, Adam,” he said, managing to sound as if they’d just bumped into each other on the street. “How’ve you been?”
“Just fine and dandy, Wolf,” Adam replied. “You?”
“Never better. Now that the formalities are out of the way, why don’t you let her go?”
Adam grinned at him, and a hundred reasons why Connor had never really liked the guy came back to him.
“Get real,” he said. “That isn’t going to happen. Now let me make a counter suggestion, one that at least falls within the realm of possibility. Drop the gun and kick it over here to me.”
Connor glared at him without moving a muscle.
“Oh, that’s good,” Adam said, laughing. “You’ve still got that cop look down perfect. I’ll bet a lot of sixteen-year-old punks have wet their pants when you give them that look, right, Wolf? Only I’m not sixteen anymore. Still, if you want to play, we’ll play, and we’ll just see who blinks first. Who really has the nerves of steel around here.” He cocked his gun.
“Of course,” he continued, his eyes on Connor, “I’ve always thought the key to picking the winner in any game of chicken was to ask yourself who’s got the most to lose.”
He yanked hard on Gaby’s hair, forcing her head back even farther. Connor gritted his teeth against the small yelp of pain that the action wrung from her.
Adam’s gaze never wavered, remaining as cool and steady as his tone. “Ask yourself that, Wolf,” he suggested. “Ask yourself who’s got the most to lose here?”
“Seems to me you do,” Connor told him, willing to play any angle available to him. “After all, she’s your fiancée.”
“Not anymore, I’m afraid. Gabrielle just gave me the bad news. The wedding is off permanently.”
“Is that what this is all about?”
“Is that what this is all about?” Adam mimicked, then laughed smoothly. “You mean, am I holding a gun to her head because she won’t have me? Come on, Wolf, you’re the crazy one here, not me.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I don’t know. Exactly. I was trying to convince Gabrielle to tell me that very thing when you interrupted. All I know is my bride disappears from the steps of the church, and the next thing I know I’ve got state investigators crawling all over my life, checking into every move I’ve ever made...and every move Joel made, too, it seems. They’re even tapping into the computers at that firm he worked for. Now I find all that is more than just a coincidence. I find it fascinating. Don’t you, Wolf?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’m not as easily fascinated as you, Ressler.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I guarantee you that before this is over I will have captured your complete and undivided attention.”
The muscles in Connor’s belly clenched at the panic that surged in Gaby’s eyes. It was a struggle not to go to her in spite of Adam and his gun.
“Don’t put yourself out on my account,” he told Adam with a laconic smile.
“I won’t. It’s Gabrielle who’s going to provide the entertainment. Isn’t that right, darling?” He caressed her cheek with the tip of the gun, and Connor tasted blood. “She’s going to start by telling us who she was on the phone with when I walked in and what the important message she promised to give you right away might be.”
“Sounds good to me,” Connor responded. “Why don’t we all go downstairs and sit down and—”
“No,” Adam said, cutting him off, his smile gone. “Right here. Right now.”
“Tell him, Gaby,” Connor urged softly. “Tell him whatever he wants to know.”
Connor’s sudden show of quiet cooperation drew a wary look from Adam.
“First the gun,” he ordered. “Now, Connor. Kick it over here, or I really will shoot her and turn this quaint, rustic setting into a scene from a Schwarzenegger movie.” He tilted his head close to Gaby’s. “Tell me, Gabrielle, does Toby like action films?”
“No,” she whimpered. “Please don’t do this, Adam.”
“I told you before. Don’t beg. Talk. Tell me what I want to know...after I get the gun.”
Connor’s gaze shifted from Adam to the silent plea in Gaby’s eyes. She nodded, a slight, pitiful gesture that was all she could manage with Adam’s hand wrapped tightly in her hair. Please, she seemed to be saying, please do as he says.
Never give up your gun. The words rang in Connor’s head. It was a creed he’d lived by and had always been prepared to die by, as well. Always before, he had been able to rationalize his inflexibility on that issue by telling himself that a hostage’s fate was directly linked to his own, and that they both stood a better chance of surviving if he remained armed.
Even now he had a perfect bead on Adam’s temple. He was an excellent marksman, utterly nerveless. And experienced, which Adam wasn’t. The odds were greater than fifty-fifty that he could take the other man out before he got a shot off. There was at least a fifty percent chance that Gaby would walk away unharmed and a lesser one that Adam would fire as he fell and inflict no more than a flesh wound, or a more serious but still nonlife-threatening injury. Or the bullet could strike her carotid artery on an upward trajectory, and she would be dead before she hit the ground.
He slowly bent his knees and lowered the gun to the floor at his feet, then kicked it across the room. It landed close to Gaby.
“Perfect,” Adam declared. “Now, Gabrielle, you and I are going to play a game of pick up the gun. We go down together, you pick it up and hand it back to me. Nicely, or else I see a trip to the orphanage in Toby’s immediate future.”
“Do exactly as he says, Gaby,” Connor told her softly, torn apart inside by the sight of her trembling as she followed Adam’s orders, bending her knees slowly, her fingers fumbling for the gun. When she finally got a grip on it, she slowly held it up for Adam to take.
Connor was encouraged by the indecision that caused Adam to frown as he tried to determine how to take possession of the second gun without putting down his own or relinquishing his hold on Gaby. He really was a novice, he thought contemptuously. Caught up in something way over his head. If not for Gaby and for Toby outside on the deck, Connor would tackle him right now. Years of instinct told him to do just that, that he could easily overpower Adam Ressler. It was something else, something brand-new and much more powerful that held him back, putting his concern for Gaby and Toby above all else, even his own pride.
“Don’t hand it to me,” he snapped at Gaby finally. “Reach around and put it in my pocket.”
He thrust his right hip forward, indicating the pocket of the tan linen jacket he was wearing. Gaby hurriedly did as he directed, shoving the pistol into his pocket. Barrel first, Connor noted approvingly. It would be simple enough to grab if he could get close enough.
“Now we can go down,” Adam announced. “I don’t want Toby to feel left out.”
“No, Adam, please,” Gabrielle said, trying to turn to him and being brought in line by another hard jerk on her hair. “Ohhh. Ple
ase. Leave Toby out of this. He has no idea that any of this is going on or why Connor even brought us here. I’ll tell you what you want to know, but please leave Toby alone.”
“Where is he?” Adam demanded of Connor.
“He’s still outside. On the deck. He’s got some toys out there. The kid isn’t going to cause you any trouble, Adam. Let him be.”
Adam thought it over.
Another mistake a pro would never make, thought Connor.
Then Adam shook his head, improving his score marginally. “No. I want everyone where I can see them. Now let’s go. You first, Wolf...or would you prefer that I call you Connor, too?” he asked, giving the name a sarcastic emphasis.
“Suit yourself,” Connor replied.
“Trust me, I intend to,” said Adam. “Now move. Real slow. Downstairs.”
Chapter 13
Connor led the way down the stairs, following Adam’s instructions to go on to the living room and have a seat on the sofa. Adam pushed Gaby down on the opposite end and stepped back so that he was standing midway in front of them, the gun still trained on Gaby.
“Now call Toby,” he told her. “Tell him you want him in here right away.”
She clasped her hands into a tight knot in her lap. “Adam, please...”
“Do it,” he snapped. He lifted the gun, his eyes darting back and forth nervously. between her and Connor. “Or I’ll go get him myself.”
Yeah, do that, thought Connor, ready to pounce if Adam made the slightest misstep. He groaned inside as Gaby caved in to the ridiculous threat.
“No, I’ll call him.” She swallowed hard and leaned forward on the sofa. “Toby,” she called, her voice strained and weak. “Toby,” she repeated, more loudly this time. “Come on in here, honey.”
The back door cracked open. “But, Mommy, Wolf said...”
“It’s all right, partner,” Connor called to him. “Come on in.”
He ran into the room, trailing the towel behind him, and stopped short at the sight of Adam. He took in the gun in his hand with an aplomb unique to five-year-olds.
“Hi, Uncle Adam. Can I hold that?”
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