by Herron, Rita
“She ruined everything,” the Commander said. “Now it’s finally going to end.”
He cocked the gun at her temple, and John jumped him, tearing him away from Amelia. The gun went off, fired into the air, pinging off the ceiling. It was so damn dark John couldn’t see if she’d been hit.
Then he felt blood seeping down his arm. He’d been shot.
The Commander slammed the butt of his gun against the side of John’s face, but John fought back. He lost his Sig in the tumble, and heard it slide across the concrete.
A sob tore from Amelia’s throat. “John!”
John cursed himself. He’d been trained well as a sniper. He should have fired a bullet into his father’s head.
The Commander jerked him by the neck and slammed his gun against his face again. John tasted blood, pain shooting through his eye and temple.
He shoved his fist into his father’s stomach, causing him to cough, then tried to shove him off of him. But his father fought back, and they rolled on the floor, trading punches.
John managed to jab a hard knock to his father’s throat, causing him to fall backward. He pounced then, and clawed for his gun. But the Commander kicked him in the gut and John doubled over.
The Commander lurched to his feet, swinging the gun at John, then ran toward Amelia. He untied her feet, keeping the gun trained on John, then took Amelia’s arm and dragged her from the chair.
She cried out, and John rolled toward his gun. His fingers connected just as the Commander fired again. John rolled sideways to dodge the bullet, snagged his gun, and let off a round.
Bullets pinged off the floor and walls as the Commander ran for the steps. He was pushing Amelia up the stairs when John tackled them. He knocked the Commander off balance, away from Amelia. She fell down the steps, and he rushed to see if she was okay.
In that split second, the Commander disappeared through a back door that John hadn’t even known existed.
“Amelia.” John knelt to see if she was okay. He could hear her breathing. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she cried. “Go after him, John. Don’t let him escape.”
John helped her sit up, then jogged toward the corner where the Commander had disappeared.
But just as he stepped outside into the frigid air, the sound of a helicopter roared in the night. He looked up and saw its lights flashing as it soared above the treetops and whirled away.
Amelia doubled over to catch her breath and crawled to the steps to wait on John. He had to catch the Commander. Make him tell them where her sons were.
But seconds later, John ran back into the basement. “Amelia?”
“I’m here. On the steps.”
His footsteps clattered on the concrete as he strode toward her. She reached for him in the dark, and he slid his arms around her.
“Dammit, he got away,” John said in a gruff voice.
Amelia collapsed into tears against him. If he was gone, they might never find her little boys.
Her heart squeezed. Their little boys.
John stroked her back, rubbing her hair, soothing her. “It’s okay. I’ll find the bastard and kill him.”
“John, he said there were twins. I had two baby boys, not just one.”
John’s pulse jumped. “Twins? Dear God . . . ”
Tears blurred her eyes. “I remember more now, John. Everything.” Amelia cupped his face between her hands. “The twins are yours. You’re the father of my babies.”
Even in the dark, she saw a tear roll down his cheek.
“You were right,” he said gruffly. “I wasn’t just working for him. I remembered that day, you going into labor. I tried to get you away, but he attacked me.”
“I know.”
John’s voice choked. “I . . . I’m his son, Amelia. I’m the bastard’s son.”
Despair threatened to overpower her. The details were blurry, but he had held a gun on her once.
He’d also tried to help her escape. “He caused your memory loss,” she whispered. “He wanted you to forget me.”
“And I did for a while. I forgot everything.” His voice rattled with self-recriminations. “I should have tried harder to remember.”
“It wasn’t your fault, John.” Through the haze of her fear, she felt something damp against her. John’s shirt. Blood.
“You’ve been shot.” Sticky blood oozed from his arm. “We have to get you to a doctor.”
“I’m fine, it’s just a flesh wound.” He searched her face. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
She nodded again, her heart in her throat. John had tried to save her and the babies years ago. And he’d saved her that night.
But now the Commander was on the run, and he might do something drastic to her little boys.
“I need to call Jake and Nick,” John said. “Tell them what happened.”
She clutched his arms as he helped her to stand, and they climbed the steps to the first floor together. Amelia waved a nurse over to bandage John’s arm, and he relented, but urged the nurse to hurry.
“We need to talk to Helen,” Amelia said as the nurse finished taking care of John’s wound. “John, she might know where the Commander is going.”
John phoned Nick and Jake on the way to the hospital to see Helen.
“The Commander got away,” John said. “Left the sanitarium in a chopper.”
“We’ve got all the authorities looking for him,” Nick said.
“Any idea where he was going?” Jake asked.
“No, I’m hoping Helen Gray might know.”
“Who is Helen Gray?” Nick asked.
“A social worker,” John explained. “She was at the hospital back when Amelia gave birth. Just let me know if Blackwood is spotted anywhere.”
He ended the call, debating whether or not he should have told them they were related.
But he was still trying to get used to that realization himself.
When they arrived, he checked in with the nurse’s desk. “We need to see Helen Gray. She was brought in for surgery earlier. How is she?”
“Let me get her doctor.” She punched a button and paged the doctor, who appeared five minutes later. He introduced himself and shook John’s hand.
“We just moved her to a room from recovery. She’s going to be all right, but she’ll be weak and sore for a while.”
“Can we see her?” Amelia asked.
“Just for a few minutes,” the doctor said. “Try not to upset her. The gunshot wound and stress of surgery took its toll.”
John paused to study the woman’s face as they entered her room. He’d been talking with her about the case for days now, but hadn’t remembered knowing her years ago. Although if she was at the mental hospital, he must have known her.
He walked over to her bed, and Amelia followed him. The beep of the machines hooked to Helen sounded in the quiet.
Amelia squeezed his hand, and he swallowed hard. After all Amelia had been through, she seemed worried about him. She was amazing. No wonder he’d fallen in love with her years before.
And again these last few weeks.
“Helen,” he said in a low voice. “It’s John.”
She breathed deeply as if still in the throes of the anesthesia, so he claimed one of the chairs beside the bed, sat down, and took her hand in his. Amelia settled beside him, silent, watchful, tense.
An hour bled into two as they waited, and neither spoke, both lost in fear and desperation. The Commander had their little boys. No telling what he’d done to them.
Finally Helen opened her eyes. She blinked several times, trying to focus, her breathing slightly labored. “John?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly.
She squinted, then smiled when she saw Amelia beside him.
“You saved her,” she murmured. “Thank God
.”
“Yes, but the Commander got away. And we still don’t know where he took the boys.”
Regret, grief . . . guilt clouded her face. Then a flicker of surprise. “Boys?”
“There were twins,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head, her voice strangled. “I ran out after the first baby was born. Arthur threatened me, and I knew I had to leave town, to get away from him.”
“Do you have any idea what he’d do with them?”
The color faded from her cheeks. “No . . . I . . . don’t know.”
“You were working with him back then, weren’t you?” he said harshly. “You must know something more.”
Helen opened her eyes, a deep sadness permeating the depths. “I wasn’t working with him, John.”
“But you were there when he took the babies.”
“Yes,” she said. “I was there because of you.”
John’s heart thundered. “I don’t understand.”
She squeezed his hand, her voice a raspy whisper. “I was married to him, John. Before I knew what was he was doing. What he was.” Her breath stalled. “I’m your mother.”
Amelia saw the shock on John’s face at Helen’s statement.
“You’re my mother?” John said in a pained voice.
She nodded. “After you tried to help Amelia escape, Arthur took you away. He faked that car accident and brainwashed you so you wouldn’t remember anything. Including me.”
“You came to Slaughter Creek to look for our baby, didn’t you, Helen?” Amelia asked.
“Yes, I knew Arthur sent him somewhere, but I didn’t know where. Just that your son was my grandbaby and I loved him.” Helen’s lip quivered, and Amelia took her hand in hers. Then Helen looked at John. “I also wanted to see you, John. I hoped that once we met and you talked to me, it might trigger your memories.”
John stood, obviously confused by the revelations. “I need some air.” He looked back at Helen from the doorway. “Call me if you think of someplace he might have taken the boys.”
Amelia squeezed Helen’s hand. “Give him time.”
“I don’t blame him if he hates me. I should have gotten him away from Arthur years ago.”
“We’ll be back,” Amelia said, then ran from the room to find John.
He was standing by the elevator, his body rigid, his mouth a straight line. Emotions warred in his eyes.
She reached up to comfort him, but he squared his shoulders and pulled away. “I’ll drive you home now.”
She decided to give him some time to process all he’d learned, and followed him to his SUV. They drove back to her studio house in complete silence, the sound of the wind and more sleet battering the road and vehicle.
When they entered her house, she froze at the sight of the blood on the floor from Helen’s gunshot wound.
“John, Blackwood said my therapist Dr. Clover was working with him. Either she or the Commander put that bear in my house and tore up my journals and wrote on my mirror. They were trying to drive me crazy.”
“Son of a bitch.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll have her arrested and charged. Maybe she knows where the Commander is.”
Amelia walked toward the sink. She had to clean up the blood.
But John caught her hand. “I’ll clean up. Go ahead to bed, Amelia.”
She started to argue, but the sight of the blood resurrected memories of being held by Arthur again, and she started shaking, so she ducked into the bathroom to wash the stench of his hands off of her.
By the time she emerged, John’s expression looked even bleaker. “He must have warned Dr. Clover. Jake said she cleaned out her office and house and she’s gone.”
Disappointment and fatigue weighed on Amelia. She wanted John to wrap his arms around her, and for the two of them to make love again.
But so much had happened between them . . .
He looked even more distant than when they’d first met. So she retreated to her room to give him some time to come to terms with the truth about who he was.
An hour later she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering what would happen, if they’d ever find the twins. She’d accused John of helping his father and obviously he had at some point.
But he’d lost his memory because he’d tried to save her.
Still, Arthur Blackwood’s blood flowed through his veins.
But he loved you and risked his life to save you and his sons.
And she had loved him.
She knew it in her heart.
Chapter Thirty-One
John sipped coffee while he stared at the woods behind Amelia’s as morning light broke through the dark clouds. The forests looked ominous, the trees dripping with ice. When he was a kid, he thought monsters lived in the trees.
But the real monster had lived with him. His father.
And now he’d escaped.
Again.
He had to find him. The bastard might come back to hurt Amelia if he didn’t.
Damn. He’d wanted to join Amelia in bed when they’d gotten back that night, to hold her and love her all night, to assure her he’d bring their sons back to her.
It was difficult to fathom. The entire time he’d been helping her, they’d been looking for their sons.
But he’d failed them all.
He poured himself some more coffee, then stood outside and watched the morning come to life. Deer scurried about. Squirrels foraged for food. The wind shook sleet from the tree limbs, scattering twigs across the white ground. Icicles broke off, cracking and shattering like glass.
Helen was his mother. She should have told him sooner.
Then again, she’d probably been terrified of his father. With good reason, too. Still, she’d risked her life to help him and Amelia find their children.
Could Amelia ever forgive him for what his father had done to her? For his part in keeping her a prisoner?
His phone buzzed. Coulter. “Yeah?”
“John, Lieutenant Maddison wants us to meet him. He has news about the case.”
“I’ll be right there.” He took his coffee mug inside, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher, then glanced at Amelia’s bedroom door.
More than anything he wanted to tell her he loved her. That in spite of his amnesia, they’d found their way back to each other.
But how could Amelia love him when the Commander’s bad blood pumped inside him?
He yanked on his coat, grabbed his keys, and headed outside. He wouldn’t stop looking for the twins. If he found them, maybe he could beg her forgiveness.
John was gone.
He hadn’t even said good-bye.
Amelia sipped her coffee, then made a decision.
She was going to talk to a therapist about the RMT. She’d put it off, too terrified to revisit that time in her past or subject herself to drug therapy, but if it meant possibly finding the twins, she’d do it.
Dr. Clover’s face teased her. The idea that she’d trusted the therapist who’d worked for Arthur Blackwood was more than she could bear.
She called Sadie and told her everything. The two of them cried together.
“We won’t give up until we find your little boys,” Sadie assured her.
“I want to try RMT,” Amelia said. “Can you refer me to a therapist?”
“Sure. There’s a woman I worked with in California who recently moved here. Let me make a call.”
Amelia ended the call and paced the studio, the portrait of Sadie and Ben haunting her. What did her boys look like? Did they have John’s dark hair and eyes? Were they identical like her and Sadie?
A few minutes later, Sadie texted her the new therapist’s number. Sadie had set an appointment up for her.
Amelia dressed in warm clothes, the
n drove to the therapist’s office. Dr. Marley was a young woman in her early thirties with a tender smile. And she’d agreed to do the treatment in her office, not the sanitarium.
“Sadie filled me in on your history, Amelia. Are you sure you’re up to this?” Dr. Marley asked.
Amelia took a deep breath. “Yes.” Nerves made her voice quiver. “You’re going to put me in a hypnotic trance?”
“Something like that, yes,” Dr. Marley said.
“But you will bring me out of it?”
The doctor rubbed Amelia’s arms. “Yes. You do trust me, don’t you?”
Amelia debated on an answer. Trust was difficult for her. But finding her children meant everything.
So she nodded and sank onto the couch. The doctor prepared a hypodermic needle, and Amelia prayed she would get answers.
“What’s this about?” John asked Lieutenant Maddison as he met the man at the facility where they were holding the boys who’d been found at the compound.
The ones with family had been reunited with them, although ongoing therapy and in-house treatment was mandatory.
It was too early to tell if the effects of the brainwashing could be reversed or if one of them might try to carry through with a bombing.
“We have DNA results back,” Maddison said. “Considering the circumstances, I called in some favors and put a rush job on the tests.”
John narrowed his eyes. “And?”
“The Bayler boy shares the same DNA as Amelia Nettleton.”
John’s heart jumped. If Mark Bayler was Amelia’s son, that meant the little boy was his.
God . . . Emotions he thought he’d never feel surfaced, throwing him off balance.
“Did you hear me?” Maddison asked.
He nodded slowly, adrenaline making him feel antsy. “Can I see him?”
“Of course,” Maddison said. “But he’s confused, John. Upset. His parents are dead.”
Except they weren’t. At least not his birth parents. They were very much alive.
Only how could he explain that to Mark?
His hands were sweating as he followed Maddison to the playroom, where several of the boys had gathered. One look across the room, and the gravity of the situation hit him.