Last Chance (Second Chance Book 3)

by Michelle St. James

  “How did you find him?” Kate asked.

  “I went back through all the times he’d said things that might point to a hiding place — old friends he’d talked about, people he’d mentioned working with who might have property where he could hide out. It took a long time to make the list and even longer to start checking out the possibilities. Then I got to Gunnar Ármannsson, and that led me to that assistant of his.”

  “Jóhanna Leifsson?” Kate couldn’t hide her disbelief. Beth had done a lot of legwork while she’d been in hiding.

  “Yeah. And it turned out Jóhanna Leifsson had a relative with a rental house in Iceland, which also happened to be a place Neil said he loved during one of our conversations,” Beth said.

  “The house where Neil was hiding was owned by the family of Jóhanna Leifsson? How on earth did you find that out?” It was something even MIS hadn’t known.

  Beth lifted one of her shoulders like it was no big deal. “A lot of phone calls and emails mostly. It’s not like I didn’t have the time to run down leads.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed,” Kate said. It was the kind of investigative work that was usually outside the scope of MIS.

  “Don’t be. I was alone and scared. I got pretty good at digging for information, good at lying to people about who I was and why I needed to know things. And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure I was right, wasn’t even sure Neil would be here.”

  “Did you know we were here?” Kate asked.

  “Not at first. But I saw Declan putting a camera in the trees one day when I was casing the house. I was on foot, so it was easy to stay hidden,” she said. “I figured he was here with Ronan and Nick, and I figured that meant I was right, that Neil was in the house owned by the family of Jóhanna Leifsson. I waited for them to pave the way.”

  “And you killed him,” Kate said. “You killed Neil.”

  Beth nodded, her eyes haunted. “I didn’t plan it.”

  Kate came to sit next to her on the bed. “I wish you hadn’t, not because he didn’t deserve it but because Declan didn’t get a chance to find out what Neil had planned for WMG, which of the shareholders had been amenable to a sale, if he was working for someone else to initiate a hostile takeover or if it was just him.”

  Beth looked confused. “I thought you already knew he was working with Connor Ferguson.”

  Shock rang through Kate’s body. “Connor Ferguson? Are you sure?”

  She thought back to the beginning, right after her father had died, and Aiden’s insistence that Connor Ferguson was behind their father’s death. It was why Aiden had gone to MIS in the first place — not to investigate their dad’s death but to punish Ferguson for killing him.

  The only reason MIS had connected Neil to it at all was because they’d insisted on investigating Ferguson before killing him. No one had been more surprised than Kate when the trail had led not to Ferguson but to Neil, a trail that she now saw had been designed to shield Ferguson from view.

  “I’m sure,” Beth said firmly. “After I talked to the shareholders, I kept digging into the company that had approached them. They were right: it was pretty secretive. Then I met this hacker in Portugal and — ”

  “A hacker? In Portugal?” Kate felt stupid repeating Beth’s words, but this was a side of Beth she’d never seen. The little sister who skulked around the house on Marblehead and could hardly hold down a job had clearly found her calling, and it looked a lot like what Clay Reddy did for MIS, minus the computer training.

  “You’d be surprised the people you meet when you’re in hiding,” Beth said.

  “Like the hacker in Portugal?”

  “Like other people in hiding,” Beth said. “Anyway, she helped me dig deeper, taught me where to look, how to find stuff people tried to keep hidden. It’s not all code like they show in movies. A lot of it is just knowing where to find stuff, who to ask, how to ask, that kind of thing. Anyway, Nika — that’s the friend I met in Portugal — she helped me with the computer stuff.”

  “And that’s how you found out Ferguson was connected to the company trying to steal WMG,” Kate said.

  Beth nodded. “It took a few months, but yeah.”

  Kate stood, pacing the floor. “Ferguson knew none of us — none of the family — would sell to an outside party. So he tapped Neil.”

  “And Neil tapped me,” Beth said bitterly.

  Kate looked at her, surprised by the protectiveness that flared inside her. “No. You were right the first time. Neil used you. He must have been promised a huge payoff by Ferguson.”

  “I think it was more about sticking it to Dad,” Beth said. “I didn’t see it at first, but looking back it was pretty obvious there was a lot of bitterness between them.”

  “Dad played nice for us.” Kate suddenly saw it all clearly. “And for you.”

  “Probably.” Beth looked miserable. “But listen, there’s something you need to know about Connor Ferguson. He’s not who he seems, not the upstanding young philanthropist the magazines and newspapers paint him out to be. He’s more than ambitious — he’s vicious. And he’s into some bad shit. Some bad people.”

  “What kind of bad shit?” Kate had barely gotten the question out when a knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”

  The door opened and Kate knew immediately that something was wrong. Declan stood in its frame, his features pinched, his eyes a little wild.

  Kate closed the distance between them, her thoughts going to Griffin. “What is it?”

  “It’s Jimmy Ryan,” he said. “He’s dead. Killed in a mugging downtown.”

  “Oh no…” Kate’s mind was turning, trying to connect everything Beth had told her with the news about Jimmy.

  “Who’s Jimmy Ryan?” Beth asked.

  “The guy Neil hired to mess with Dad’s plane,” Kate said.

  Beth stood. “We have to go home. He’s tying up loose ends.”

  “Who?” Declan asked.

  Beth looked at him. “Connor Ferguson.”

  Kate’s ears were ringing, thinking of Griffin and her mother alone at the house in Marblehead. And then Beth’s words, spoken only a minute before.

  He’s vicious… And he’s into some bad shit. Some bad people.

  14

  Declan held Kate’s hand as they walked the beach in the cove below the house in Marblehead, the tide rushing around their bare feet. They’d been home from Iceland for two days, and Declan had spent the whole time trying to figure out how to convince Kate to leave Boston.

  The sun was just beginning to set, and he looked out over the flinty water where a band of clouds clung to the horizon.

  “Feels like a storm,” Kate said.

  Declan nodded. “The first nor’easter of the season, I heard.”

  She kicked the sand. “Great.”

  Declan drew in a breath. The last thing he wanted was to deliver yet more bad news, but there was no help for it. “You have to leave town with Griff and your mom.”

  “I’m not leaving town.” She didn’t sound surprised by the suggestion. “I’m not running.”

  “It’s not running. It’s being smart, being safe. Ferguson is in town, and he’s obviously preparing to make his move.”

  It was impossible to know if Ferguson had enough shares lined up to initiate a hostile takeover of WMG, especially without Beth’s shares. If he did, he’d wait until the last minute to initiate the buy, not wanting to alert stock watchers that something was up with WMG’s stock. If he didn’t, he’d be ready to call his bid to takeover WMG a loss.

  Either way, he was moving to eliminate any evidence connecting him to the death of Mac Walsh and the financial anomalies that had prompted the FBI investigation into Neil Curran. That’s how those kinds of investigations worked: once the first domino fell, the rest were doomed.

  “Doing anything I don’t want to do because of that… monster, is running,” Kate said. “Besides where would I go?”

  “We have a house in the mountains,” Declan said
. “We never use it, but it’s nice. You’ll be safe there while we deal with Ferguson.”

  They hadn’t figured out what dealing with Ferguson would entail, but one way or another, it would end in death. It wasn’t about the takeover. That was business, something even Kate had acknowledged. It was about the way he’d done it, about the fact that he’d orchestrated Mac Walsh’s death, that he hadn’t played by the rules.

  Even more than that, he was and would forever remain a danger to Kate and Griffin, to the entire Walsh family, and now the Murphy family too. As long as Connor Ferguson was out there, they would all be in danger.

  Maybe they’d get lucky and he wouldn’t come for them now. Maybe he wouldn’t come for them at all. But the possibility would always exist, and that was something Declan couldn’t live with.

  “What about school for Griff? What about my job? I can’t just pick up and leave indefinitely,” Kate said.

  “You worked from Iceland,” Declan pointed out. “And Griff is seven. He can miss a little school, especially if we get his work in advance.”

  “Exactly. I’ve already been away from the office for almost ten days. I need to go back to work, and I doubt Aiden will want to take an extended vacation in the Berkshires either.”

  “That’s his risk to take, but he is sending Miguel away for a couple of weeks,” Declan said.

  Kate looked up at him in surprise. “What? When did he make that decision?”

  “I spoke to him last night,” Declan said. “He agreed the risk was too great.”

  She kicked at the water rushing over her feet. “Well, that’s fine for Aiden. I’m not sending Griff away and I’m not going either.” She didn’t look at him but when she spoke again her voice shook. “Connor Ferguson has already taken too much from me, Dec. I’m not letting him take my home, my freedom, my sense of safety.”

  Declan stopped at one of their favorite sitting rocks, a giant boulder with a large flat surface that had just enough room for the two of them and Griffin, if he sat on one of their laps.

  He pulled Kate down next to him and rubbed her cold hand between his. He had to check his instinct to pressure her to see things his way. If he wanted her to honor their agreement, to meet him in the middle, he had to do the same.

  Besides, the best way to make sure Kate Walsh didn’t do what you wanted was to try and bully her into it.

  “Can we compromise on this one?” he asked gently. “Because we have to deal with Ferguson, and I’m going to be worried sick about you if you’re out in the open.”

  She drew in a breath and he knew she was thinking about their conversation in Iceland under the Northern Lights. She looked out over the water. “The mountains seem like a bad idea,” she said. “We’d be isolated, and maybe that makes it easier to post security, but it also means it’s easier for someone to breach it. No neighbors, no one to call if we get into trouble, free rein if someone decides to come for us there.”

  He checked his impulse to argue the point. She wasn’t entirely wrong, although in the mountains he could go crazy with security, post twice as many men as they needed, just to be safe, without raising any alarm bells.

  “I see your point.” He wondered if compromise was supposed to feel so painful, like a chess match where every square held a stick of dynamite with the fuse already lit. “Another location then? Someplace you don’t mind being for a couple of weeks. Someplace I can still post security but that isn’t as isolated as the mountains.”

  Kate looked at him and bit her lip. “How about here?” She hurried to continue, obviously anticipating his objections. “Not the guest house — the big house. Griff and I can move in there with my mom. Beth too, even Aiden if he wants. You can add to the security at the gate, post some men on the grounds. It would be harder for Ferguson to come for us here.”

  “It’s not exactly suburbia.” Declan picked up a shell resting near his feet and rubbed the pearlescent surface between his fingers. “It’s not like you can run next door if there’s a problem. Not easily anyway.”

  “No, but it’s not as isolated as the mountains either.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Declan would be busy until MIS removed Ferguson from the board. They didn’t know yet where he was or how well protected. Clay was running it all down, along with more on the rumors surrounding Ferguson’s shady connections.

  Did Declan really want Kate and Griff two hours away in the mountains?

  It was a tough call. On the one hand, he wanted them as far from Ferguson as he could get them, and Ferguson was in the city.

  But that meant farther from Declan too.

  “It could work,” Declan said.

  “And Alexa, Julia, and Elise are staying at the house in Back Bay right?” He looked over at her and she shrugged. “I talked to Alexa.”

  He swallowed his annoyance. He was glad Kate and Griff had blended so seamlessly with his family, but at times like this a little distance wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  “Then you already know the answer to that question,” Declan said.

  “If the city is safe enough for them, for John Thomas, Griff and I should be okay out here.”

  Declan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jimmy’s murder has me spooked.”

  She reached for his hand. “I know. It sucks. I keep thinking about his daughter.”

  Declan had been thinking about the little girl too. He’d even talked to Ronan and Nick about setting up an account for her college expenses. It wasn’t their fault Jimmy was dead. No one had made him take the job tampering with Mac’s plane, a move that had guaranteed Mac’s death.

  But Ryan had been a gambling addict, in debt up to his eyeballs. Neil had taken advantage of his desperation by offering him a lot of money. MIS had tried to keep him safe in a rental in the Berkshires when they’d hoped to use him as a witness against Neil, but after months in isolation, Jimmy had called an end to it.

  They’d explained the risks to him, but they’d been his risks to take.

  “I just…” Declan shook his head, his throat clogging with emotion. "I can't let anything happen to you and Griff. I can’t.”

  She took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. “Nothing is going to happen to us, Dec. We’re going to be right here.” She kissed him. “Don’t send us away when we need each other most.”

  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll work it out. I’ll come up with a security plan for the property. But you and Griff have to stay in the big house. Beth too if she wants protection. And you can’t go into the office until we have a handle on Ferguson. I’m sorry, but it’s too hard to protect you when you’re moving around.”

  She wouldn’t like missing work, but she’d wanted compromise, and this was what it looked like. At least she’d be close to the office, and Aiden could come and go with paperwork if he refused to stay home, as Declan suspected he might.

  “Deal.”

  He put his arm around her and drew her close, her words echoing in his mind.

  Don’t send us away when we need each other most.

  He did need her, probably a hell of a lot more than she needed him, which was why he would make sure she was safe and kill Connor Ferguson, last in the line of people who had hurt her, who would still hurt her if Declan allowed it.

  He wouldn’t. He would set up security for Kate and Griff. Then he would end Connor Ferguson, end the turmoil in their lives, once and for all.

  15

  Kate carried two glasses of iced tea through the open doors leading from the kitchen to the terrace. A gusty breeze blew off the water, and she looked at the sky, almost surprised to see that it was only partly cloudy. Across the lawn, her mom was bent over one of the flower beds near the edge of the cliff, a straw hat blocking her face from view.

  Kate watched as her mom took handfuls of mulch and patted them around the rose bushes that lined the flower beds. Frank, the landscape manager for the property, would have done it, but her mom enjoyed puttering outside and Frank had learned to work around her
.

  Kate stepped off the terrace and onto the grass, springy under her bare feet. She’d spent the morning on a video meeting with her staff, honoring her promise to Declan to work from home. Upstairs, Griffin was taking a break from the worksheets his teacher had sent home so he wouldn’t get too far behind.

  It was a strange kind of isolation, the real world receding as she prepared to hunker down with her mom, Griff, and Beth, who’d moved back into the big house, while Declan dealt with Connor Ferguson.

  Aiden had refused to leave the home he shared with Miguel even as Miguel left to visit family in Cuba for a couple of weeks. He’d also refused protection from MIS, something that hadn’t stopped Declan from putting an undercover guard on him just in case.

  With any luck, Aiden wouldn’t even know the guy was there unless he needed him.

  Her mom looked up, squinting against the sun, when Kate reached her. Her red hair, threaded with silver, was ablaze in the afternoon light. “Hello, there.”

  “Hey.” Kate studied the rose bushes, cut back for winter. “I thought you could use something to drink. You’ve been out here all morning.”

  “How nice.” Her mom took off her gardening gloves and reached for one of the glasses.

  “I can’t believe summer’s over.”

  “It goes faster every year.” Her mom sat back on her heels to look at the plants, naked without their blooms, and took a long drink of the iced tea. “It’s sure nice while it lasts though.”

  Kate nodded, still holding her own glass, wishing she hadn’t bothered to bring it. “I wanted to talk to you. About… everything.”

  Her mom smiled and patted the grass next to her. “Late notice for a talk about everything. Sounds like it might take awhile.”

  Kate rolled her eyes at the mom joke and lowered herself to the ground. She took a drink of the tea and her stomach turned, nervousness rearing its ugly head. She set down the glass, nestling it in the grass so it wouldn’t tip. “I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”