by Karen Harper
“Nicky,” Ames said in his most taunting tone, “you’re together again with Uncle Clay, but you can consider this a farewell visit. I thought my plan to send you all down in that FBI plane would work. My, but that cost me a lot of money in bribes to have you followed to Key West and have the plane tampered with. I was hoping an accidental, watery crash would end your conspiracy against me, but then you turn up nearly on my doorstep in Havana!”
“How did you find us there?” Claire demanded when Nick looked, for once, too stunned to speak. She could only hope that he was thinking of a way out of this, planning something. If she could somehow keep Ames talking, maybe that would help. At least he seemed in a boastful, almost jovial mood—and more dangerous than ever.
Ames went on, ignoring her, still talking to Nick, “One of my men spotted you at the Hotel Nacional, where I sometimes do business. I put a tail on you, but it was your friends who found my hacienda,” he said with a nod at Heck and Gina. “We almost snagged you that day but you disappeared from the hotel and then Havana. Learning things from your uncle Clay, aren’t you? Like a cat, you seem to have nine lives. Sadly, you’re all out of them now.”
The color drained from Nick’s face. He blinked, shook his head as if he could erase it all.
“You’ve betrayed me, Nicky, and now everyone will have to pay. You and your lovely bride have made my Grand Cayman home off-limits to me, watched by the US feds, and you’ve even screwed up my Cuban retreat by tipping them off—the FBI, no less. So let’s just end this all now and be done with it.”
To Claire’s amazement, Nick merely dropped the piece of pizza on his plate, shrugged and said, “The FBI has so much on you that you’d have to get a mansion on Mars to escape them. Trying to stop me won’t stop them.” He looked shocked and shaken, but his voice was lawyer-steady.
“Well, aren’t they clever to stash you here in a Northern never-never land? Hello, little Lexi,” he said and dared to smile at the child as she clung to Nita. “Your uncle Clay is here.”
“My name is Meggie, but you are not my uncle. And Lily’s upstairs calling the police because we are friends with them.”
Ames jerked his head to the side. “You said from who was here they are all accounted for,” he barked at the ugly man. No doubt he was the one with the mask who hit them on the snowy trail. Claire recalled a woman who stopped after their accident had said she’d seen an ugly man before he put on that mask.
As if Nick was thinking the same thing—or wanted to get Ames’s focus off Lexi—he said, “That always was your philosophy, wasn’t it? Torment not only the person in your crosshairs but someone closest to them? Kidnap Lexi? Terrify Claire?”
“Shut up,” Ames said, dropping the fake friendly tone. “Tom, go check the rooms upstairs for this Lily. The child must have told the truth, and now Nick’s trying to get us off track.”
“Sure, boss. I’ll check right now.”
Claire was shocked again. This Tom had a Southern accent. He had yelled at Wade to let her go. But he must have only done that to save her so that they could torment her and Nick. As Nick had said, it was always Ames’s MO to attack those his real target loved.
But what terrified her now was that he’d said final and farewell. He was here not only to terrify them but to end it all.
The man he’d called Tom took the pistol away from Heck’s head and ducked out. They heard him take the stairs up two at a time. For once, Claire thought, Lily might serve some purpose. One fewer man with a gun in the room. If she could only get Ames’s gun off her back, that left only one gun here.
For the first time, her eyes met Bronco’s. He looked shocked, but he was furious too. He’d slowly inched sideways to stand between Nita, Lexi and the third gun. The big man looked coiled to strike. And with a sudden shout—“Hide up there, Lily! Hide!”—Bronco leaped into action.
In one quick move, he threw Nita down with Lexi under her and rolled low into the third man’s legs to send him flying. That gun flew across the floor and skidded way under the old-fashioned chest freezer.
In the chaos, Claire jumped aside, elbowed Ames, caught him in the stomach and tried to grab his gun but couldn’t. Nick leaped up from behind the table and slammed a fist into his face. Ames went down to the floor but still had the gun. Nick stepped on it and his hand, and ripped the gun away, then pulled the tablecloth off the table, sending everything flying, and rolled Ames up in it.
“I have others coming,” he gritted out. “They’re already here on the island. I called them before we came in. You’re all dead. The game is over, and I win.”
Claire grabbed a dish towel and gagged Ames, then untied Gina’s and Heck’s hands. Bronco stopped beating the third man’s head against the floor to stuff one of his own gloves in his mouth, then bound his wrists behind his back with his belt. But the guy upstairs still had a gun—and a lot of rooms and an attic to search to give them some time.
“We’ve got to run,” Nick said. “Snowmobiles. Grab coats on the way to the carriage house.”
“Jace is tied there,” Claire said. “The sheriff’s off island but are we calling Officer McCallum or taking these guys to him?”
Nick ignored all that. “Out! Out!” he ordered and swung Lexi up into his arms. “Bronco, drag Ames. We can’t take a chance on staying here, even on the island, since he said others may be coming.”
Those who weren’t in their coats ripped them off the pegs by the side door and tore into the carriage house, where Nick turned on the light. Jace was conscious but woozy, gagged, tied hand and foot, lying beside one of their three snowmobiles. Nick grabbed the hedge clippers off the wall and cut Jace’s wrist and ankle bonds.
“Bronco, dump Ames in the sled box,” Nick ordered. “Then help Jace in with him. Glad we learned to leave the keys and hope we have enough gas. Everybody on now. We’re going toward Lake Shore Drive and over the ice bridge to safety, and we’ll get law enforcement there.”
His gaze snagged Claire’s. He sounded strong but he was still shocked and scared. And so was she.
36
Their three snowmobiles roared out of the carriage house. They heard shots—at least the two men left behind didn’t hit anyone. Nick feared pursuit, but they kept going away from their lit house that was to have been their refuge. If they got enough of a head start, pursuit might be futile.
Without a look back, he led them along the curving shoreside road into the teeth of the wind. They had to go slower than he wanted because of the fog, though, thank God, it seemed to be lifting.
Nick and Claire rode on the first snowmobile with Lexi between them. Bronco and Nita came second, pulling the supply sled with Jace and Ames. Heck and Gina brought up the rear.
They found the entrance to the ice bridge, the only nonflight exit from the island now. It was clearly marked. Nick’s heart pounded so loud he wasn’t sure what was the engine and what was him. Claire held to him hard. Was this attempted escape over the ice insane? But, especially if Ames had others coming to kidnap or kill them, this was saving lives, not hazarding them. If it was the last thing he ever did, he was handing Ames over to Rob for trial.
He braced his feet on the running boards. He’d been told riding on ice was different, more risky. Hell, he was risking all their lives, but escape was the best way for now. With the airport closed for the night, what else could they do?
He knew to stick to the marked trail to avoid spots of thin ice. Electric lanterns and fir branches marked the way. He could only hope the wind had not shifted some of them. At least, out here, the fog was blowing away. He saw in the fading winter light that it was true what they said about the ice. It was glass-like, so clear he could see through it to the water. Beautiful, but scary. It seemed deserted out here, but in this weather, normal, sane people were home.
“We’ve stopped Ames and we’ve got him now!” Cl
aire shouted over the roar of the engine. “Nick, this is my fault! He saw Lexi and me on TV in Mexico and traced us that way, sent that Tom guy here to watch us and scare us!”
“None of this is your fault,” he shouted back. “It’s mine, and we’re going to begin to live the way we should as soon as...”
He stopped in midthought when he heard shouts from behind—Bronco, Heck—a woman’s scream. Fearing they were being followed, he leaned out to look back.
Bronco must have steered or slid off the path. He’d either made or hit a hole in the ice, which Heck had bypassed. But the second snowmobile pulling Jace and Ames was tilted hood up with its red tail brake lights sinking into the jagged, widening hole.
Nita had scrambled away, but Bronco was trying to reach the wooden supply box sled they’d towed. It was not floating but was being sucked into the lake by its heavy metal runners. Beside it, in the water, Jace floundered in the frigid water, trying to hold Ames’s head up.
Nick killed the motor of his machine. “Get off and stay away!” he shouted at Claire. “Move Lexi back.”
“Bronco, you’re too heavy!” he yelled at the big man. “Back off! Heck, see if your cell works out here to call for help.”
Nick crawled toward the hole, then slid closer on his belly, using the toes of his shoes to propel himself along. If Ames’s men were trailing them, they were sitting ducks now, but Ames usually lied. Nick had always known that he had killed his father and staged his suicide.
Jace was trying to hold Ames’s head above water, since he was still wrapped in the tablecloth. Both were gasping for air and kept going under in their heavy, soaked winter coats. If Jace was lost here, Claire would be his alone, because he knew she still cared for Jace. Lexi would really need a new dad then. But he meant to save Jace over Ames, if it came to that. He owed Jace, and his girls loved him.
“Jace, take my hand to keep your head up!” he yelled.
“He’s too heavy,” Jace gasped out. “We’re going under. I know you want him to stand trial—all that work...”
“Shut up and take my hand before you go numb. If you have to, let him go, and we’ll fish him out later. Do it, Jace!”
Jace’s hand was slippery, so cold. They locked wrists.
“I can’t hold him! I can’t boost him up,” Jace cried as the snowmobile shifted lower.
“He doomed himself years ago. If we can get him out, we will. You first. Heck!” Nick shouted when he realized he had no traction to haul Jace out. “Lie down and hold my legs! Pull my legs! Bronco’s too heavy!”
Heck did, and Gina held his legs. Slowly, they pulled Jace out, head, shoulders, onto his stomach. The ice began to crack around him again.
“Pull now!” Nick yelled and they did, dragging Jace out where Heck could get to him and tug him back.
Nick, on his belly on the ice, inched closer to the hole, wondering if Ames might surface again. But he only stared at empty, choppy water where the snowmobile and Ames had been. He’d slipped under and—God help them all—was staring wide-eyed and very dead with his mouth and eyes open, gazing up at Nick through the glassy ice.
Nick saw again his father’s dead gaze when he’d found him so many years ago. Finally, justice. Salvation. It was over, and a new, safe life for him, his little family and their friends had just begun.
37
Three months later in Naples, Florida
With Ames dead and the henchmen who had been with him under arrest, there was no need for a trial, or for Nick and Claire to testify more than they already had privately to Rob Patterson and an FBI panel. Dangerous WITSEC and lovely Mackinac Island were in the past, although Claire still grieved Julia’s death. If this baby she carried was a girl, she and Nick had decided that Julia would be her middle name.
So much had happened since they’d left the island. Nick sometimes had nightmares of Clayton Ames climbing out of that hole in the ice of Lake Huron, shaking off the frozen tablecloth and coming after them. Wade Buxton had been set to go on trial for Julia’s murder, though no doubt, he was responsible for others. Rob had assured them Wade would get a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But months before his trial, it appeared that Wade had hanged himself in his jail cell with a window blind cord someone must have smuggled to him. Nick figured whoever was afraid Wade might name them in the trial—from petty hoods to powerful politicians—just might have arranged that murder/suicide too. “And that is one,” he’d vowed to Claire, “you and I are not going to investigate.”
So at last, they felt safe and free. They were living in Nick’s house, but they were looking for a newer, larger home, one not too far from Claire’s sister, Darcy. Nita was living in a nearby rented condo with Bronco, who was job hunting, and they were planning a wedding. Nick was helping Heck pay for Gina’s medical school in Miami, and Heck was burning up his tires visiting her whenever she had a few hours off.
Best of all, Lexi was once again best friends with her cousin Jilly, and there was no hint of Lily.
“But if Lily ever does appear again,” Nick whispered to Claire as they sat on the back patio overlooking the canal, “I’m giving her a pass to live with us since she hid out from Ames’s hit man upstairs at Widow’s Watch to give us time to escape.”
Claire had to laugh at that. Now she too lowered her voice since Lexi and Jilly were playing nearby with their Barbie dolls and plastic Saddle ’N Ride Horses. “I hated to praise Lexi for invoking Lily, but she probably saved us from him. Rob got a good laugh out of that when we told him. Have you heard anything else from him lately?”
“No, but I take it Jace has and will start on those South Florida spy-fly missions soon to track cell phones of criminals from the air. He’s like a fish out of water without flying. I don’t even think he’ll mind being away from that friends-of-the-animals, friend-of-your-sister he’s been dating.”
“I’m glad to think he might have found someone, even if she does have to play second fiddle to an airplane. Speaking of Rob getting Jace that job, I still can’t figure out why, when Rob debriefed us on Mackinac before he sent us home, he was so emotional about Julia’s coded WITSEC diary.”
“Claire, sweetheart,” he said, leaning sideways and taking her hand, “I didn’t tell you before because I thought it would upset you to know another sad thing about Julia.”
“Tell me what? Wasn’t she allowed to keep a WITSEC diary, even in code?”
“It wasn’t about that. There was info in there on Michael and his wife embezzling from her business. But a couple years before, she and Rob had an intense but short affair, and she’d written her feelings in that book, including love letters she never sent him. In short, she never got over him, even when he went back to his wife.”
“Oh. Oh, my,” she said, blinking back tears. “Her loss was doubly sad for him, then. He held all that in when he met us on the island after her death because he was mourning for more than her being a good agent and WITSEC handler. I wonder what happened to that picture of them together that was in the back of her locker. Liz had no idea who it was, and—and I didn’t tell her. But I suppose I should.”
“I’m sure he has pictures of his own—if only in his head and heart. So you’ll tell Liz about Rob when she gets here?”
“I don’t think so. Obviously, Julia didn’t want her to know, and I should honor that. Secrets—family secrets, especially—can be bad.”
“Did you say Liz’s name?” Lexi said, coming over with the horse and cowgirl Barbie in her hand. “Only two more weeks, and she’ll be here with Scout.”
Although Liz had wanted to move to New York City, three things had changed her mind. She’d become good friends with Claire, she finally admitted Manhattan rents were too high and Wade’s passion for New York had turned her off it. She was already advertising Naples as a great place for her wealth
y and celebrity clients to visit while she did their corset fittings.
“Yes, and your dad is going to fly Gina up there so she can drive back with Liz, pulling that trailer with all her house goods and clothes—and Scout for you. Then Mr. Logan’s friend Doug is going to fly with him to a new kind of retirement place here where he can have his cowboy things and we’ll all go visit him with Liz someday.”
“I hope Liz and Gina bring those pretty clothes we wore on TV,” Lexi said, bouncing her horse across Claire’s knees.
“Well, they have an awful lot to bring, but maybe those will be in the boxes Liz is mailing us.”
Claire’s mind skipped to Gina’s confession last week that she’d torn one of the dresses when she’d had Heck take her picture up on the walkway the day they’d dressed up in grand style. Her hem had snagged and she’d torn a piece off the gown. So another fear and ghost for Claire was laid to rest. Oh, well, with Ames gone now, things would be so calm and tame.
“Wish we could keep Scout in the garage,” Lexi said for the fifteen hundredth time.
“No,” Claire said, “Scout needs to be at a stable where you and Jilly can visit him.”
“Now listen,” Nick put in, raising his voice. “Stop asking your mother that over and over. Scout will be happier with other horses, just like you are happier to be back with Jilly, okay?”
Lexi’s eyes widened at his stern tone. “Okay,” she said. “Jilly, it’s just like those Florida panthers your mommy tries to help. They need other panthers with them, but they are hard to find. And in danger.”
“It’s called endangered,” Jilly said as Lexi went back to her. “Because they might get extinct, which means all gone. And we’re all going to visit that place soon where they keep them, a wildlife ranch, but there are still ones hiding and sneaking around at night if they didn’t get killed by a car.”
“Our environmental lesson for the day,” Nick whispered as he began to stroke the soft inside of Claire’s wrist with his thumb. She smiled at him as he moved both their hands to rest on her growing belly.