Michael: The Defender

by JoAnn Ross

  “I’m a woman,” she murmured, just a little bit coyly. “You know how curious we are.”

  He smiled at that. “I also know what a slut you are.”

  The word, calmly spoken, was like a stone striking her heart. “Brian, you’re mistaken. If you’d just unfasten me, we could talk about this and—”

  “No.” He hit her with the back of his hand. Hard. Another slap to her other cheek made her face burn. “I’m not stupid, Lorelei. There’s no way I’m going to let you talk your way out of the punishment you deserve.” He frowned as he reached out a fingertip and traced the cut his gold-and-agate signet ring had made on her cheekbone.

  “I didn’t plan for it to be this way,” he murmured, as much to himself as to her. “When I found this plantation house while researching locations for my screenplay, I envisioned us living here together.

  “I was going to worship you, as I’ve always done. I was going to initiate you into the wonders of love.... I knew, since you were so innocent, that you’d be frightened—”

  “I am,” she admitted, jumping on the idea that if he’d taken her to a plantation house, they must be somewhere out along the river. Or, perhaps. in the bayou. That was not an encouraging thought. There were miles of swampland surrounding New Orleans. How would Michael ever find her in time?

  He couldn’t, Lorelei decided. Which meant she was on her own. Suddenly a horrifying memory swam into focus.

  “You shot Shayne.” Tears stung her eyes. Grief was a fist twisting her heart.

  “He deserved to die. After what he’d done with you.”

  “He never did anything. Except be a friend.”

  “That’s my point.” Brian’s laugh was dry and lacked humor. “The bastard was entirely too friendly, if you get my drift” He leered at her as he ran his hand over her supine body. The slow, threatening caress made her tremble.

  “Do you want me?” he asked idly, as his fingers painfully closed over her breast. “Or are you shivering because you’re afraid of me?”

  Lorelei prayed she could pull off the most important role in her life. “I think both,” she murmured, allowing her fear to remain in her eyes as she struggled to portray unwilling desire as well. “I’m afraid you’re going to hurt me—”

  “Oh, I am.” When his wicked fingers moved to her other breast, she bit her lip rather than cry out.

  “But I’m also afraid I’m going to like it,” she said, forcing herself to look right into those eyes where madness swirled.

  It was obvious that the lie—the biggest, baldest one she’d ever told in her life—caught him by surprise. He studied her for what seemed an eternity.

  “You’ve been screwing that detective. O’Malley.”

  She thought about denying it, remembered the camera that had been installed in her bedroom in Malibu and feared that perhaps Brian had proof of his accusation. Although she hated the idea that he might have watched her making love with Michael, she managed, just barely, to keep the distaste from her expression.

  “It didn’t mean anything.” She tried to shrug, but was prevented by the way her arms had been pulled so tightly above her head. “I thought, perhaps if I allowed Michael to make love to me, it would get my mind off the man I really wanted.” She paused, slowly licking her dry lips as she managed to hold his gaze. “It didn’t.”

  “Are you talking about me?”

  Lorelei thought he suddenly seemed unsure of himself. And, perhaps, a bit hopeful. Remembering how the first letters had professed undying devotion—the veiled threats had come later—she tried to coax Brian back to that initial emotional mind-set.

  “The chemistry has always been there between us, Brian. If we didn’t feel it, we couldn’t work so well together. If you didn’t understand me so well, you could never write such marvelous scripts for me.”

  “I did, you know. Write them just for you.” His hand moved down her torso, following the curve of her waist, the flare of her hip. “No one else.”

  “I know.” His touch was making her skin crawl. In the early days of her career, Lorelei had played a woman trapped in a well, covered with cockroaches. The experience had been horrifying, but at that moment if she’d had a choice between cockroaches and Brian’s hands, she would have taken the roaches.

  Keep him talking, she reminded herself. It’s your only chance.

  His fingers tightened on her thigh, digging into her skin in a way she knew would leave bruises.

  “I thought you were pure.”

  Bruises would fade, Lorelei reminded herself. Unfortunately, death was permanent. “I realize that now.” She managed, just barely, to make her tone both apologetic and conciliatory. “I also realize that I betrayed you. Betrayed our relationship. But the truth is, Brian, I never realized how you felt about me....

  “I mean, I knew that I loved you. I dreamed about you, fantasized about you. But you never said anything. How was I to know that you felt the same way?”

  It was, she thought, a good point. A logical point. Unfortunately, there was nothing logical about either this man or her situation.

  “You should have read my mind,” he scolded. “The way I can read yours.”

  “Perhaps I’m not as clever as you. Or as intuitive. You’re the writer, Brian. Creating characters and stories must take a great deal of imagination and intuition. I’m merely the actress, reciting the wonderful words you’ve written.”

  She was laying it on with a trowel, she knew and groaned inwardly, certain that she’d gone too far with such false flattery. Fortunately, Brian seemed to grow in stature at the idea of her merely being a piece of malleable clay for him to mold as he liked.

  “I suppose you have a point,” he murmured. He leaned forward and ran his hand down her cheek. “Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the situation.”

  Before she could assure him that he had, and implore him to unfasten her restraints so she could show him how much she cared for him, a sound suddenly shattered the silence.

  “A boat!” He jumped up, went over to the window, and flung open the shutters. The predicted storm was almost upon them, coloring the evening air a strange, eerie hue of yellow; Lorelei saw a sulfurous flash of lighting on the horizon.

  “It’s probably just a fisherman,” she said reassuringly. Damn. He was tense again, nervousness radiating from every pore like a deadly aura.

  “Or it could be O’Malley.” He slammed the shutters closed and took the gun—the same gun he’d used to shoot Shayne, Lorelei realized—from his belt. “One brother down.” He actually laughed. “One more to go.”

  He paused in the doorway. “I’ll be back.”

  Under any other conditions, it could have been a promise. But as she heard his footfalls clattering on the wooden stairs, Lorelei knew his words were a deadly threat.

  “Damn!” She yanked against the chains with all her might, determined to take advantage of Brian’s absence to free herself. Although the abrupt gesture caused the metal of the handcuffs to dig even more deeply into her wrists, Lorelei considered the abrasions a small price to pay for freedom.

  She thought she felt the left hand give. Just a little. More determined, she tugged harder, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, putting her entire body into the effort. Finally, she was rewarded when the mortar surrounding one of the bricks crumbled and she was able to pull her hand free. She twisted around, got up on her knees, and used the spike that had been imbedded in the wall as a chisel.

  The effort was not silent. As she banged the iron spike against the stone wall, digging out the two-hundred-year-old mortar, Lorelei feared that Brian would be able to hear her all the way downstairs.

  But it didn’t really matter, because he had every intention of killing her. If she was going to die, at least this way she’d die fighting for her life.

  THERE WERE No WORDS for how Michael felt when he burst into the emergency room and found his brother sitting up on a metal gurney, grimacing as a nurse swabbed antiseptic over the torn flesh of his
shoulder. Relief didn’t even come close.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “There was a moment I thought so, too,” Shayne said grimly, cursing beneath his breath as the nurse hit a particularly sensitive spot. “He obviously nicked an artery when he got off that first shot. My shoulder started bleeding like a stuck pig. But thank God for Kevlar body vests.”

  “Yeah.” Michael looked at the ugly, darkening bruise on Shayne’s chest, just over his heart, and realized how close he’d come to losing his brother.

  “Mike, I feel horrible about Lorelei.”

  “We’ll find her.” Michael could not allow himself to think otherwise.”

  “If I’d only been more careful. If I’d only checked out the warehouse myself, first—”

  “Don’t second-guess yourself. If you’d gone in first, you would have had to leave her in the car. You had no idea you were being set up, Shayne. Hell, I’m the one who let her go in the first place. If anything happens to her, it’ll be my fault.”

  “I’m the one who took the case,” Shayne argued.

  “You boys are wasting time,” Patrick, who’d managed to smooth-talk the dragon guarding the ER into letting him into the treatment room, said. “One thing I’ve learned is once a thing is done, there’s no looking back. You’ve got to move on. And find that little girl.”

  “Pop?” Shayne looked at his brother. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “It’s a long story. And one I don’t have time for. I’ve got to call Roarke.”

  “Tell him I’ve come home for his nuptials,” Patrick instructed.

  “I’ll leave that bit of news for you to tell him,” Michael replied over his shoulder as he left the room.

  Five minutes later, he’d learned the name of the real estate agent who’d sold Brian Wilder the crumbling plantation along the Great River Road and gotten the location of the house. Then he arranged to have Daria Shea, Roarke’s fiancee, go to the shop to wait for Bliss’s return, in case Bliss heard the news about Shayne being shot on the news. He also placed a call to the parish sheriff, asking that he get as many men as he could—including a SWAT team—to the plantation as soon as possible.

  Roarke agreed to call their mother, tell her about Shayne, and assure her that her youngest son would survive with nothing more than a sore shoulder and bruised ribs. Michael thought about having Roarke warn their mother about Patrick’s return, but since she hadn’t let her sons in on the little fact that she’d kept in touch with her husband all these years, he decided to stay out of the marriage he’d never been able to understand.

  Leaving Shayne to deal with the immediate problem of their father, Michael left the hospital and headed for the river. And Lorelei.

  LORELEI TENSED as she heard Brian’s roar. “It’s the damn sheriff!” Her spirits soared when, at that same moment, she managed to pull herself loose.

  Which was only the first step, she reminded herself, swallowing the desire to shout out her victory. She still had to figure out a way to get out of the house. Away from Brian.

  Although the shutters were closed, she could hear the tap tap tap of the rain on the roof. The howl of the wind blowing over the river sounded like the lonely wail of lost souls. She opened the shutters, discouraged to see that even if she did manage to break out the glass, she was at least three stories above the marshy ground.

  There was no way she could escape by jumping. She’d have to try to slip down the stairs. Then find her way to the door, without getting shot Like Shayne.

  Tears flooded her eyes as she remembered Michael’s brother lying in that pool of blood on the concrete floor. So much blood. And Brian had shot him again, in the chest, at such close range.... How could he have possibly survived?

  Swiping at the tears that had begun to stream down her cheeks, she blinked furiously, reminding herself that there would be time to grieve for Shayne after she’d escaped. He’d given his life for her. She owed it to him to make such a valiant sacrifice worthwhile.

  She considered calling out to the men on the boat that was coming into view, but was afraid that they’d never be able to hear her over the sound of the motor and the roar of the wind. Perhaps she could wave the lantern....

  She’d turned away from the window when a gunshot rang out from inside the house. A moment later, answering shots came from the river. She held her breath, wondering if they’d killed Brian. Unfortunately, the sound of his boots pounding on the stairs told her otherwise.

  He stopped in the open doorway, his eyes looking like burning coals in the ashen hue of his complexion. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He was still holding the gun. Lorelei tensed, waiting for the explosion, the inevitable pain. But instead of shooting, he lunged at her, giving her a chance to dodge out of the way. Just barely.

  His fingers grabbed hold of her blouse. Over his curses and her screams, the sound of fabric ripping was barely noticeable. She pulled free again and swung her right arm, catching him across the face with the heavy chain that was still attached to the handcuff locked around her wrist.

  There was the sound of bone breaking. It was his turn to scream as blood began pouring from his nose. Taking advantage of the distraction, Lorelei tore out of the room, headed for the stairs. She heard him stumbling after her, heard the crash of the stone pillar he tipped over in his pain and haste, heard the footfalls just behind her on the stairs.

  She had just reached the first landing, when there was another sound. A sudden swoosh. Then a blinding flash. Lorelei couldn’t resist looking back. The kerosene must have spilled from the lantern when he’d knocked over the pillar. The aged and rotted wood had gone up like dry tinder.

  Flames were roaring down the stairs behind her. Just ahead of them she could see Brian, his face covered with blood.

  She kept running. Faster. She tripped over the chain dangling from her wrist and was suddenly tumbling, terrifyingly out of control, head over heels, until coming to an abrupt stop on another landing. As she pushed herself to her feet again, ignoring the pain shooting up her ankle, Lorelei realized that the frightening fall had gotten her downstairs faster than she could have run. For the first time, Brian was no longer in sight.

  With her heart pounding deafeningly in her ears, she clattered down the last ten steps, and cried with relief when she discovered the stairs ended only a few feet from the front door. She raced across the rotten mahogany floorboards, refusing to obey Brian’s shouted instructions to stop, scarcely noticing the bullet that whizzed past her head and imbedded itself in the door frame.

  She reached for the handle. One more second, she assured herself. Then she’d be free.

  DRIVING LIKE A MANIAC, Michael arrived minutes after the sheriff. The sight of the flames shooting out of the windows was not an encouraging one.

  “The guy’s already shot at us once,” the lawman informed him. “Then he disappeared inside the house. A couple minutes later, we saw the flames. Then heard another shot.”

  “From inside?”

  “Yeah.”

  Michael refused to allow himself to believe that he was too late. He knew he’d never forgive himself if Wilder had killed Lorelei.

  “I’m going in.”

  The sheriff caught his arm. “You can’t do that.”

  “The place is nothing but dry rot. It’s a tinderbox. There’s no way I’m leaving her in there to be burned to death.”

  “You might have been a hotshot cop, O’Malley,” the sheriff argued, “but this here is my jurisdiction. And I’m saying that I want you to get behind the damn police line.”

  “I’m going in there, Sheriff.” Michael pulled out his gun. “And the only way you’re going to stop me is to have your men shoot me in the back.”

  That said, he started running toward the house.

  “Hold your fire,” the sheriff called out to his men, his voice thick with disgust. And frustration.

  Opting for speed over caution, Michael threw himself against the heavy
oak front door just as Lorelei reached for it. The wood slammed against her, knocking her to the floor, but before she could realize what was happening, Michael had scooped her up and was carrying her out of the house even as another bullet crashed into the door frame.

  The rain was pelting down on them like stinging needles as he carried her to safety. Thunder rolled like caisson fire; lightning lit up the sky.

  “Michael?” She couldn’t believe he’d come. Then again, another part of her knew that she’d always believed he would.

  “It’s okay.” Only a minute ago, he’d wanted to kill Wilder for what the son of a bitch had done to two of the people he cared most about in the world. Two people he loved. Now, as he held Lorelei close, and buried his face in her wet hair, Michael could only thank God that she was alive.

  “It’s okay.” He said the words over and over again, like a mantra. “You’re okay.” He kissed her face and tasted both tears and rain.

  She was trembling like a willow in a Gulf Coast hurricane.

  “But Shayne—”

  “Is okay, too.”

  Surely that was impossible! “But I saw him—”

  “He was wearing a bulletproof vest. And the shoulder wound isn’t as bad as it looked.”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  Lorelei clung to him, laughing and crying all at the same time. There was another stuttering flash of light-ning and then she saw Brian engulfed in flames like some villain from a horror movie, stagger out the door, the gun still in his hand.

  Amazingly, even as he was about to die, the screenwriter she’d once thought was her friend, raised the gun as if to shoot. The reckless gesture earned a barrage of bullets from the members of the SWAT team.

  “It’s over,” Michael promised her, holding her close, pressing her face against his chest to keep her from having to look at the dead man.

  As horrifying as the events of this day she knew she’d never forget had been, Lorelei felt her terror giving way to a much deeper emotion.