Jeffry (Members From Money Book 3)

by Katie Dowe

  Christina felt like she had been punched. Leo's words sucked the air out of her. She'd had her suspicions that Nathan was a womanizer but to hear it laid out like that brought reality back even harder.

  She had been played. Played beautifully and Nathan had got what he wanted. She had stupidly fallen for a man who, not only blamed her for his son's disappearance, but who would only add her at another notch to his bedpost.

  Christina had never felt so foolish in her life.

  "That's not true." She whispered.

  "I'm sorry but it is." Leo looked pained. "He's my friend but you're not the first to fall for him and you certainly won't be the last. Get out of it while you still can."

  He turned and left the room. Christina put her face in her hands, trying not to cry. Leo's words had hurt but they didn't hurt as much as Nathan's reaction towards her. She felt like a wreck.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  "Ignore him." Clive said gently. "Leo is a stickler for the rules."

  "I know." Christina sniffed.

  "And ignore Nathan. He's only upset because someone got to his son a second time when the people looking after him were distracted. He's angry at himself, not at you."

  Christina wanted to believe that. She really did. But she knew she would still be forced to walk away from Nathan, whether she liked it or not.

  "Clive." Leo appeared in the doorway. He didn't look at Christina. "Jane was seen just outside the main gates. The guard's holding her and Joe's calling the FBI. Get the car."

  "Right."

  With a final squeeze to her shoulder, Clive left the room. Christina took a few deep breaths and picked up her glasses, still on the desk. Slipping them on, she ran her program. The least she could do was find out who had sent the email. Then she would slip away while people were busy. She didn't want a long, awkward goodbye with Nathan. That would break her heart all over again.

  The search didn't last long, popping up with an IP address and the owner. Christina couldn't believe it. She ran it twice but it came up with the same answer.

  No. It couldn't be. That wasn't right.

  Christina sat back and stared at the result. Something had gone seriously wrong somewhere if this one was behind everything directed at Nathan and the one who had Jack. Now he was demanding Nathan and Nathan's money to let the boy go.

  Chances were he wouldn't be letting Nathan go alive.

  Christina knew what she had to do. She reached for the phone and dialed a number she had embedded in her memory.

  "This is Chris Maudsley. No, I haven't got the money. But I have a different trade you'll like. Trade me for the boy."

  Chapter 8

  It took a lot of arguing and a visit from the chief of police and the FBI agent-in-charge but Nathan got permission to go into the interview room and talk to Jane alone. He figured he would be able to get Jane to talk better than anyone else. His sister was a stubborn little bitch but he knew which buttons to press. When they fought, the pair knew how to rub each other the wrong way.

  Nathan entered the room and found Jane sitting primly at the table, her back to the two-way mirror. Her hair was down about her shoulders and she was wearing pale pink sweats and sneakers. She looked like she had been out for a run. Her face registered surprise when she saw her brother.

  "Nate. What are you doing here?"

  "I asked a few favors so I could have a few minutes with you." Nathan put the file he had been given on the table and sat across from her. He gave his little sister and incredulous look. "What the hell are you doing hanging around my house, Jane? Are you stalking me?"

  "No! I've been trying to get in all day but my code doesn't work and the guard wouldn't let me in."

  "That's the idea when you leave a job. You don't get the same privileges."

  Jane's bottom lip trembled, tears in her eyes.

  "But I'm your sister!"

  "And you were making insulting comments to the woman I love."

  That surprised Nathan as much as Jane. He hadn't said it out loud since Katie was alive. But thinking about it, Nathan realized he did mean it.

  He loved Christina.

  Jane's eyes narrowed.

  "You love her." She sneered. "She really did get under your skin. I hope she fucks well."

  Nathan slapped his hand on the table, making her jump.

  "That is none of your business." He leaned forward with a dark scowl focused on his sister. "What I want to know is where is Jack?"

  "Jack? What's going on?"

  "He's been snatched from the house. A ransom note was emailed to me, wanting my money and me to trade for Jack." Nathan swallowed back as much anger as he could without choking on it. "What were you going to do? Kill me and Jack and keep the money?"

  The gravity of the situation suddenly appeared to settle on Jane. Her face went white and she began to tremble.

  "I didn't kidnap Jack!" She cried. She looked terrified. "Despite everything I adore that boy. I wouldn't hurt him."

  "Then how do you explain your name coming up every time we checking into the death threats?"

  "Nothing to do with me."

  Nathan's partial bluff hadn't worked. Trying another tack, he opened the file and took out Wong's picture. He laid it on the table and pushed it across.

  "Recognize this man? His name is Alan Wong. You hire him to do some freelancing for us. You sent him emails with instructions to send me death threats using several email addresses. That was clever not to use the same address. But neither of you were clever enough to change the IP address each time. Otherwise we'd be none the wiser."

  Jane didn't seem to have heard him. She was staring at Wong's picture.

  "I know Alan." She said quietly. "But I didn't tell him to do that."

  Nathan wanted to believe her. He really did. There were things between them that needed to be resolved but through it all Jane was his sister. That was a bond that could never be broken. He swallowed and clenched his hands on the table, trying to sound calmer.

  "Suppose I believe you and it wasn't you who told Alan to do what he did. Who do you think did it?"

  "You won't like the answer."

  "Try me, Jane."

  Jane looked up at him, biting her lip. Tears glistened in her eyes.

  "I'm sorry, Nate. I think it was Josh."

  "Josh?" Nathan felt like he had misheard. "Why would he do that?"

  "Haven't you guessed? He's always been second-best to you." Jane shrugged. "I guess he thought it was time to take you out of the running and if you were alive he'd still be second-best."

  His little brother Josh. The baby he had held hours after he was born. The child he had taught to ride a bike, learn the alphabet and to read. The boy he had played football and baseball with. The young man who had followed him into the family business and become his trusted second. Nathan was reeling. He couldn't believe that Josh would do that.

  He shook his head, his head trying to deny it but his logic was piecing things together and the picture didn't look good.

  "I don't believe you." He said weakly.

  "Then believe me when I saw him talking to the waiter who blew up the garden party last week about half an hour before the explosion. I saw money change hands."

  "What? Why didn't you say anything?"

  "It didn't click until just now." Jane closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks as she also realized the betrayal. "And I saw him with Alan several times over the last few months. I thought he had hired Alan personally for some extra work. But when I asked him about it he bit my head off."

  "And now he's got Jack."

  Nathan felt helpless. He felt like he was floundering in water and no one was there to help him. Now he knew how someone had managed to take a picture of Jack and attack Christina. The perpetrator had been in the house all the time. And none of the alarms had been set off when Josh left with Jack because he knew the codes.

  The door opened and Leo came in. His expression was grim.


  "Sorry, Nate, but I thought you needed to know. Chris has gone."

  Nathan's heart dropped.

  "What?"

  "Chris hightailed it out of your place shortly after we left. Clive is following her right now and she was picked up by the car your brother drives outside that place where you had the garden party."

  Nathan didn't need three guesses as to what Christina had done. She had gone after Josh herself and sacrificed herself for Jack. But he had a feeling Josh wasn't going to let her go.

  There was no way he was going to lose the two people he loved most in the same night.

  *****

  Christina winced as Josh made a sharp maneuver around another car that dawdled in the outside lane and passed it, putting his foot to the floor. They had been driving for the past twenty minutes and she had no idea where they were going.

  When she had made the call for the trade she had hoped they would meet and Jack could be let go and she would go with Josh for the ransom. But Josh had pointed a gun at her head and told her to get inside. Then he had driven off like a madman, heading straight for the freeway.

  Jack was in the back, on the floor between the seats. He was trussed up like a chicken, a blindfold over his eyes and a gag over his mouth, leaving his nose free for him to breathe. Christina had wanted to undo the bindings and let Jack sit up but Josh had warned her he wouldn't hesitate to shoot her prematurely if she even tried.

  Christina glanced at Josh, who was staring out the front windshield.

  "What are you going to do now?" She whispered.

  Josh snorted. He looked completely different. Christina was used to seeing him calm and collected, nothing out of place. In short, a younger version of Nathan. But now his hair was a mess, his tie was askew with his collar undone, and his eyes were wild. Whatever had happened had tipped Josh over the edge. He looked like he was losing the last shred of his sanity.

  "You are really stupid if you don't know that by now, Maudsley." He sneered.

  "I know what's going to happen to me. I meant when are you going to let Jack go? That was the trade agreed."

  "I'll trade him when I get my money as intended." Josh glanced at her. "You I'll keep hold of. I want to see what fascinated Nathan before I kill you. I've never had a black woman."

  Christina would rather had a bullet in the head before she let Josh touch her like that. In the back Jack whimpered. She leaned between the seats and touched his cheek.

  "It's okay, Jack. Chrissie's here. It's okay."

  "You really don't care if you live or die, do you?"

  Christina looked up. Josh was looking between her and the road, a curious expression on his face. She sat up, putting her hands in her lap.

  "Not really." She admitted. She might have said otherwise a few hours before but not now. "My husband and son are dead. I have no one."

  "What about my brother?"

  Christina snorted, pushing back her misery at Nathan's cold shoulder.

  "Nathan doesn't love me." She said bitterly. "I'm just another woman."

  Josh laughed humorlessly.

  "It's always the way. Nathan had to have all the women. They queued up to have him fuck them every way to heaven. But with me they looked the other way. Whoever did sleep with me did it for my money, not for me."

  Christina felt sorry for him. Josh had been living in his brother's shadow all his life. He got Nathan's cast-offs and wasn't able to compete with him.

  "You're a handsome man, Josh. You would have found someone soon."

  "Don't patronize me." Josh growled. Then his voice softened. "I did find someone, if you must know. Katie was sweet, pure and beautiful. We clicked straightaway. She was my world." His lip curled. "Then Nathan waltzed in and took her away from me. She married him and got pregnant." He slapped the steering wheel with the gun. "Jack should have been my child! Nathan didn't deserve her." Then he smirked. "He doesn't have her now, though, does he?"

  Christina began to have an awful feeling she knew something was wrong here. She remembered reading an internet article that Katie Gilmore had been killed in a hit-and-run the year before. The driver had never been caught.

  Realization dawned and she shook her head as she stared in horror at Josh.

  "No. Not you. You didn't run her over?"

  "She refused to come back to me." Josh said bitterly. "Even laughed in my face, saying if she was going to be married to money at least she should be married to the better-looking brother." He snarled. "I was apparently a stepping stone to getting Nathan Gilmore. The best at everything. If I can't have Katie then Nathan is certainly not having her."

  Christina's heart was pounding. She had originally thought Josh didn't have the ability to kill anyone. He might hire someone else to commit that crime but he wouldn't get his hands dirty. Her estimation of him was well off the mark.

  "What about Jack?" She asked quietly. "What will you do with us?"

  "I was having a thought just now. Maybe I shouldn't let the boy go. He's a good kid but he's also Katie's kid." He glanced at her, distaste in his face. "And Nathan has a genuine attachment to you. You had to be blind to see it when he looked at you. I might just kill the pair of you and dump your bodies for Nathan to find. He loves the pair of you and that will hit him hard."

  Christina eyed the gun nervously. She toyed with the idea of taking the gun off him and forcing him to stop but she didn't want to risk Jack's life. It was too dangerous.

  "What will that achieve?"

  "He'll withdraw into himself. He'll be so overcome with depression that he'll step down as CEO. Then I, as natural successor, will step in and take over." Josh smirked. "If Nathan gives me any trouble, I could easily leave a lot of pills nearby. Or maybe a gun. Make it messier. Then everything Dad built for us will be mine and Nathan will have nothing."

  Christina was expecting a maniacal laugh to emanate from his mouth. It didn't but it didn't stop Christina from feeling cold all over. She had to find a way to get out. Jack's life was at stake. She had to figure out how she was going to get him away from his uncle, who seemed to be slipping deeper into insanity.

  Then she heard sirens. They were coming from behind. Looking around, Christina saw what seemed to be a fleet of cars coming towards them, scooting in between the other cars. She allowed some hope to take hold.

  They were going to be safe after all.

  If only Josh would stop.

  *****

  Nathan grabbed hold of the back of the driver's seat as Clive swerved the SUV in and out the non-police cars. He growled as they straightened up.

  "Can't you get this to go any faster?" He snapped.

  "We're not a law enforcement vehicle, Nathan." Clive responded. "We're lucky we were allowed to be at the back as it is. You just need to be patient."

  "How can I be patient when my brother has Jack and Chris?"

  Knowing there was a tracker in his brother's car, as there were in all their vehicles, had given them vital seconds. When they saw his car on the freeway on its way out of the state the police and FBI had stormed out to their cars and taken off, sirens blaring. Clive was managing to keep up with them but Nathan wanted them to go faster. He needed to be ahead so he could get to Josh first and throttle the life out of him.

  He couldn't believe it of his little brother. He had loved him, cared for him and made sure he wanted for nothing. And this was how he repaid him.

  "Clive's right, Nate." Leo said from the front passenger seat. "Let him drive and let the law do their job."

  Nathan didn't like it. He wanted to be more productive. Instead he was sitting there like an impotent part. Jack needed him. Christina needed him.

  But deep down he knew Leo and Clive were right. They weren't the law; capturing Josh and recovering Jack and Christina was their priority. Leo and Clive were there to make sure Nathan kept out of it and was there when his son and his woman saw him.

  He felt bad for the way he had treated Christina. She hadn't deserved that but Nathan had lashed o
ut. He needed her to know that. The moment he was allowed he was going to tell her how he felt.

  Then he was going to make sure Christina never left him again.

  He saw Josh's car suddenly swerve and his back end began to jack-knife. Nathan leaned forward.

  "What's happening? His driving's all over the place."

  Then he watched in horror as the car began to spin, sliding across the tarmac and tipping over onto its side. It skidded towards the central barrier and smacked its roof hard, metal flying everywhere.

  "No!"

  Clive pulled the car up on the grass. Nathan was out before it had stopped and he was running across the freeway. Several police officers were getting into the car through the windows, the car now having settled on its roof. There were shouts but with the blood pounding in his ears Nathan couldn't understand what they were saying.

  "Nate!"

  Leo and Clive grabbed him before he got too close and pulled him back. Nathan struggled, desperate to get to the wreckage. The car was a write-off. There were going to be serious injuries, maybe even a fatality.

  Nathan didn't want to believe he had just lost the two most precious people in his life.

  Leo held him as he sagged to his knees and let the tears fall.

  *****

  "Knock, knock."

  Christina looked up, her heart pitter-pattering when she saw Nathan in the doorway. Even with stubble dusting his cheeks, hair standing up on end and clothes dusty and slept in he was the most delicious sight she had ever seen.

  "Nathan." She sat up, wincing as her back complained. "What are you doing here?"

  "I went to see Jack and I thought I'd come and see you."

  Christina was confused.

  "But I'm right at the other end of the hospital to the children's ward."

  Nathan smiled and entered her room.

  "The walk was worth it." He took his arm around behind his back and revealed the huge bouquet of flowers. "These are for you."

  "Oh, Nate, they're beautiful."

  Christina took the flowers and took a sniff. There was a smattering of everything in there, creating a beautiful collection of smells. Nathan had chosen well with his collection.