by Alice Sharpe
“I would never do that,” she said hotly. “And I would never walk out on my kids. Never.”
“But he insists you did.”
“So what? He’s lying.”
“Exactly. He maintains that you got mad at him and left the house and that sometime after that, you ran into someone you used to know who caused your trouble. You say you went into that house and woke up in Indiana.”
“I still don’t—”
“Honey, I might have worried that your memory of events was fuzzy or that you kept things from me, but I never doubted that you told the truth as you knew it. I think you would recall if you intended on blackmailing your in-laws for immediate cash. That would take some forethought. If you don’t remember having that kind of intent, then you didn’t ask for money, which casts every other thing he says into doubt. It means you very well might not have left that house on your own, and frankly, from something Elvis said earlier, I don’t think you did.”
Her eyes grew big. “You talked to Elvis? Today?”
“Yes.”
“Then you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m ashamed I ever doubted you.”
“But you did, Mac. I’m glad you believe me now, but it still hurts that you tried so hard not to.”
“I tried hard not to?” he echoed, a hollow feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you wanted to believe the worst of me so you could walk away from me before I walked away from you.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it?” she said.
“We don’t have time for this,” he grumbled, chancing a look into her blue eyes, determined to tell her she was full of it. Something he saw in the brilliant irises stopped him, though, something he couldn’t fight.
The next thing he knew, he was pulling her into his arms. She came willingly, meeting his kisses with kisses of her own, kisses that said everything and solved nothing. When they were in each other’s arms, everything was as it should be.
Couldn’t they just stay that way forever?
A movement behind one of windows that flanked the front door caught his attention and he reluctantly drew away from Kate.
“I think we’re scandalizing Nellie,” he said, smoothing the short blond hair away from her tear-stained face.
“She scandalizes easily. She thinks of me as a grieving widow. What I am is a terrified mother.”
“I want you to know I’ll help you any way I can to get Charlie and Harry back. When I saw you holding them today…when I saw how you loved them and how they needed you…I don’t know, I guess I’m not making any sense—”
She studied him a moment before whispering, “Yes, you are. You finally are.” She ran one of her smooth hands down his stubbled cheek. “Thank you, Mac. We’ll have to wait until this is over to figure out if you and I can ever really trust each other.”
“I do trust you—”
“No you don’t, Mac. You don’t trust me in the important ways. There will be time to talk about this later. What matters right this minute is getting my boys back, but I don’t want to ask you to do something illegal that will ruin your life. I don’t want to make things harder for you than they already are.”
“The only thing that will make things harder for me is losing you,” he told her and he meant it with all of his heart. The thing was, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t already lost her.
As for Bill Confit and his job offer? If he participated in abducting these children, he and Kate and the kids would have to disappear forever. He felt a twinge, but pushed it aside. He’d always attempted to do what was right and his gut was telling him that reuniting Kate and those little boys was what was right.
Even if the law disagreed.
“At least you now know what my father-in-law is capable of,” she said. “Now we have to concentrate on figuring out some legal way to get my kids back home.”
“Things have just been happening to us,” he mused. “We’ve been followed, you’ve been threatened. Elvis comes and goes at his leisure…it’s time to take control.”
She said, “You really saw Elvis again? Did he tell you what he meant when he said B.O. wanted me to go home? Did he explain why he saved me from the guy with the knife?”
“Yes, yes and yes,” Mac said. “I’ll tell you about it later. We might as well face Nellie now.”
“Poor Nellie,” Kate said as she searched the SUV key ring for the house key. “You know, Mac, it’s just my word against Dr. Priestly’s. I don’t stand a chance with his buddy, the judge. No one in this town is going to take me seriously.”
“That’s why we need a new plan. The knife wielder is our ace in the hole. All we have to do is get him to talk. Plot a trap. Listen to me, I’m beginning to sound like you.” Mac noticed the door was unlatched. He pointed it out to Kate.
“Nellie must have left it open for me,” she said, reaching out to push it open.
Mac caught her hand. Lowering his voice, he said, “Would she do that?”
“I don’t know. She never has before—”
“Follow me. Stay close.”
From reconnoitering the house the day before, he knew the laundry room door opened off the breezeway connecting the garage with the side of the house. He found the door shut tight and tried turning the knob. It was locked.
“Do you have a key?” he whispered, peering down at Kate.
“It’s the same as for the front. Mac, what’s going on?”
“Probably nothing. Slip off the house key and give it to me,” he whispered, as he pulled his gun from the concealed holster against his back. He’d reclaimed it earlier, after Elvis left his room, better late than never. “I’m just being paranoid,” he added. “Stay close.”
The key slipped into the lock. Mac soundlessly nudged the door open. He stepped inside, aware of Kate behind him, worrying that he should have left her outside but more worried that she would be vulnerable out there alone.
No doubt Nellie had opened the front door, seen them kissing, and left it ajar as she retreated in titillated horror. No doubt his current caution was not only unnecessary but ridiculous.
The laundry room was narrow and windowless. Mac gestured at Kate to stay back as he peeked through the doorway into the kitchen.
The first thing he saw was Nellie, sprawled on the floor, sightless eyes open, laying in a pool of blood.
The second thing he saw was a tall, thin man standing at the far end of the kitchen, poised and waiting, his left arm suspended in a black sling, a scabbard cinched to his right thigh. Mac knew that from that vantage point the killer had a clear view of the front door. If Kate had walked through that door, he would undoubtedly have leaped upon her and slit her throat.
It bothered Mac that he couldn’t see the man’s right hand or whether or not anything was in the scabbard. Reason said the killer held a knife but Mac couldn’t take it for granted. He raised his gun, aiming.
At that moment, Kate must have seen Nellie, for she gasped, and in that still, quiet house, her gasp was as loud as a scream. The man by the refrigerator twirled instantly, firing a gun as he spun.
The bullet splintered the wood next to Mac’s head. Mac pushed Kate to the floor and fired his .38.
Kate screamed.
The gunman fired again as he disappeared around the refrigerator. Mac fired off another shot. “Stay right here,” he told Kate. “I mean it, Kate. Don’t move.”
“Nellie needs me,” she mumbled, trying to stand, her face so white Mac was afraid she was going into shock.
“Nellie is dead. Stay here.”
Skirting Nellie’s body, Mac crossed the kitchen. A shot whizzed past his head. He craned his neck and glimpsed the sling. He fired.
In the foyer, he half expected to find the front door wide-open and the killer gone. But it was still just barely ajar as it had been when they first approached the house. He closed and locked it, made a quick search of the open living a
rea to his left, then continued down the hall. Another bullet hit the wall to his right; a shower of plaster fell on Mac’s shoulder. Mac darted around the corner and got off a couple of rounds as the killer disappeared into the twins’ room. He heard a crash that sounded like shattered glass and ran down the hall, stopping in front of the twins’ doorway.
A glance inside revealed an impromptu exit had been created by shattering the window located near a bright yellow toy chest on the east side of the house. Looking through the window, he saw glass sparkling on the broken branches of the bushes outside. The killer was nowhere in sight.
To make sure the broken window wasn’t a ruse, Mac tore open the closet door and the connecting door to the bathroom. Then he hurried back to the kitchen, growing worried that the killer could have doubled back outside and entered the house again through the kitchen.
Nellie was still there, but Kate was gone.
He ran to the Coopers’ car, gun still in hand, digging in his pocket for the keys. The big SUV was missing. He didn’t know if that portended good or bad. Did the killer force Kate into her late husband’s vehicle or had she left under her own steam?
If she had left of her own accord, there was only one place he could think of that she would go and that was the Priestly house.
MAC FOUND Daniel Priestly standing at the foot of the stairs as though he hadn’t moved since they’d left a half hour before. The doctor jumped when he heard Mac slam the door behind him.
“Where is she?” Mac demanded. “There’s a killer loose. Where’s Kate? What have you done with her?”
“She ran in here a few moments ago,” Dr. Priestly said. “She’s upstairs with the twins.”
“Was she alone?”
“Of course.”
As Mac caught his breath, he said, “You’re not going to get away with this. You may not know it yet, but the man who abducted Kate ten days ago just killed her housekeeper.”
Dr. Priestly’s tanned face seemed to blanch right in front of Mac’s eyes. “Nellie? Dead?”
“Nellie. The woman who damn near worshipped you. That psycho you hired to kill Kate stabbed her. The police will find him, Doctor, I guarantee you. And the first thing he’ll do is plea-bargain to save his own skin.”
“I didn’t hire a killer,” the doctor protested. “I’d never do such a thing. A doctor saves lives, he doesn’t take them.”
Damn if the man didn’t sound sincere. Mac said, “You’re lying.”
“No, no,” the doctor said, spreading his hands as though trying to illustrate his innocence.
“You wanted Kate out of the way. You wanted her babies,” Mac said. “You hit her over the head and drugged her and had her driven away from here. I don’t know why you didn’t just kill her outright, unless the plan was to get her so far away her death wouldn’t throw suspicion on you. The police will investigate. Trust me, they will find out how you did it and why. And they’ll find a way to connect you and your henchman to a harmless old bum who wound up with a knife in his back.” Leveling his gaze, lowering his voice, he added, “And if they don’t, I will.”
“You have it all wrong,” Dr. Priestly insisted, taking a step or two toward Mac, coming to a standstill when Mac raised the gun he still gripped in his right hand to warn him off. “That’s not the way it happened. I did drug Kate, I admit it, but she was already injured. I did it to save her life.”
“You did it to save her life?” Mac repeated dryly.
“Yes, yes,” the doctor said, furtively looking up the stairs, his voice a hiss. Mac began to wonder if the guy was nuts. “It was the only way. I never intended for anyone to die, least of all poor Nellie.”
“Wait a moment,” Mac said. “You say Kate was already injured. If you didn’t hurt her, then who did?”
The doctor looked up the stairs again, and this time a look of fear skittered across his eyes.
Mac turned, expecting to find that Nellie’s killer had come in the kitchen door and made his way up the back stairs.
Kate stood there, both hands on the balustrade, Paula Priestly behind her. Mac felt his heart thump double time. “Kate! Are you okay?”
“I—”
“Kate thinks she’s remembered what happened right before she forgot everything,” Paula Priestly interrupted. “I could tell by the expression on her face when I walked into the twins’ suite just now. She was standing by the boys’ cribs, but she looked at me and I knew.”
“It all came back to me when I saw…when I saw Nellie,” Kate said through trembling lips.
“Only you can’t really trust your memory, can you, dear? Even your boyfriend knows it’s undependable.”
“He’s not my—”
“Of course he is. I saw the way he looked at you. Our boy dead only two months and you’re already in bed with another man. But that’s the kind of woman you are, isn’t it? That’s the kind of woman who trapped our poor boy and then had the audacity to think she could waltz away with control over my son’s trust fund and his children.”
“No. It’s not like that.”
Mac had had enough. “We’re leaving,” he said, starting up the stairs to help Kate retrieve her kids, aware that in so doing, he was drawing a line in the sand and stepping over it. This was where his career in law enforcement ended. He didn’t give one single damn.
Those kids were Kate’s, and hence, they were his. All four of them were going to leave this house together or not at all.
“I can’t move,” the love of his life whispered.
That’s when Mac saw the tiny silver gun Paula Priestly held pressed against the back of Kate’s head.
“I BOUGHT THIS GUN for my protection,” Paula said. “Officer Dryer suggested it after we had a break-in a few months ago. You remember, Daniel, you were away at one of your conferences and I was here alone.”
“Now, Paula—” Dr. Priestly began, but his wife ignored him.
“Our daughter-in-law keeps breaking into our home, threatening to take the children.”
With the muzzle jammed against the back of her skull and the stranglehold Paula had on her upper arm, Kate knew she was trapped. Behind her lay her sleeping babies. In front of her, down that graceful flight of stairs, stood Mac, holding a gun, his gaze unwavering. Mac…
He was as trapped as she was.
And it was her fault. She shouldn’t have come back here. And then she thought of the twins sleeping just a few feet away and knew she’d had no choice—she’d had to come. Her fault was in leaving without them the first time.
“There’s not a court in the world that would blame me for shooting her and you, too, Mr. MacBeth,” Paula said. “Especially since I called the police soon after your first visit and expressed my concern that you might come again. Look at the way you’re waving that gun at my poor husband.”
“Why don’t we both just put our guns away,” Mac said calmly.
But he didn’t know what Kate knew. It had all come back to her as she crouched in her laundry room, staring into Nellie’s dead eyes. The interlude with Paula that Kate had recalled as merely unpleasant, had actually been horrific, laced with scathing vitriol and threats of violence. Not from Dr. Priestly, but from Paula. Kate had reacted to Paula’s unexpected rage by announcing she was taking her babies far away. She’d turned to go collect them.
And then came the shove, from right here atop the stairs, the tumble down to the bottom, the pain and confusion when she opened her eyes and wasn’t sure where she was or at whom she was gazing, until a man with gray eyes approached her with a needle and she was powerless to resist…
“I would be a fool to unarm myself with a man like you in my house,” Paula said.
“Gloria and Eduardo will be back soon,” Kate said.
“Don’t you wish!” Paula scoffed. “No, dear, they just left and the market is up in Key Largo.” She jabbed the gun hard into Kate’s head and added, “Tell your boyfriend to put his gun on the third step and move away, Kate. Go on, tell him. You kn
ow I’ll do what I must to protect my family.”
And with that, she shoved Kate. Too scared to scream, Kate felt herself falling. Memories of the last fall came back with blinding clarity. At the last moment, Paula grabbed her by the collar and hauled her back. Kate grabbed her throat as her gaze met Mac’s. She pleaded silently with him to hold on to his gun, to protect himself and save her children from these fiends.
He stepped forward and set his gun on the third step.
“That’s better,” Paula said. As she forced Kate ahead of her, she added, “Kate has an ornery streak. I believe it’s inevitable for a woman with her distasteful background. Wouldn’t you agree, Daniel?”
“My dear,” Dr. Priestly said softly. “There’s no need for a gun. There’s been enough violence. We can talk or…something.”
“Dr. Priestly is a mild-tempered man,” Paula said proudly. “Ask anyone.” She rested the muzzle against the top of Kate’s spine and added, “You don’t want Charlie and Harry to wake up to the sound of gunfire, do you Kate? Daniel, pick up Mr. MacBeth’s gun.”
Kate made a steady but slow descent of the stairs as Daniel Priestly picked up Mac’s gun and held it like he might hold a ticking bomb.
“My dear husband doesn’t like firearms,” Paula said.
“They don’t seem to bother you,” Mac said.
“A good wife knows how to make up for her husband’s shortcomings. I know it sounds old-fashioned nowadays, but trust me, the power in a family is always the woman. Always.”
“She has been manipulating all of us for years,” Kate said as she took the stairs one at a time, her gaze glued to Mac’s, watching for some sign that he had a plan. “She told Danny I cheated on him. She told Dr. Priestly that I made Danny’s life miserable. She told me that Dr. Priestly hated me. She’s been like some Machiavellian puppeteer, hiding behind counterfeit smiles, pulling strings to make all of us jump. She’s the one who disapproved of Danny to the point he married just to spite her. She’s the one who wanted to kill me.”
“Don’t give me all the credit,” Paula said. “Daniel came up with the idea of a hired gun.”