She ran her fingers through her hair. “Like I care about those piddly charges, when you want me dead. Why? Why did you have them do this and then order a hit on me?”
“Oh, no. We’re not going down that road again. I haven’t done anything to you—especially get you pregnant and order a hit on you. Now let’s go back to the part about me asking the questions and you answering them. For starters, exactly who the heck are you?”
“Jessie—”
She boldly met his gaze. Her eyes were the color of a gun barrel. Steely gray and just as hard.
“But you already know that.”
“Uh-uh. Don’t start that again. If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked. What’s your full name?”
“Jessie…Smith.”
He made an annoying sound like the buzzer on a game show. “Wrong answer. Try again.”
A muscle flickered in her sleek jaw. “Briggs.”
He didn’t believe her, but at least he had something to work with. It was certainly better than calling her lady. She was anything but a lady. “All right, Jessie Briggs, tell me why you think I’m trying to kill you.”
“I don’t know why, but you ordered those people to kidnap me.”
“People,” Jake flatly repeated. “The three men and the woman you mentioned? The ones who held you for three months?”
She nodded. “But you’re the one who hired them to take me to that warehouse. You had them use me, and—”
“Hold it right there. That’s the part I want to talk about now. Exactly how did they use you?”
She made a sound of outrage and bolted to her feet as if ready to tear out of the room. But she didn’t go anywhere. She pressed both hands to the sides of her head and sagged back down to the sofa.
“Dizzy?” he asked.
She tossed him a you think? look. “I guess it’s just one of the little joys of my condition.”
“Well, I suppose it’s time we broached that subject. Would you like to explain exactly how you think I got you pregnant? Afterward, I can blow anything you say right out of the water.”
“They inseminated me.” She didn’t even hesitate. “On your orders, I’m sure.”
Jake froze. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. All right, so he couldn’t blow anything out of the water just yet. He had to think about that for a moment. Then he discounted it. “That’s impossible.”
“No, it’s not. I’ll spare you the exact details of how they did it, but I know what happened to me. And so do you.”
He paused, reconsidered it. But discounted it again just as fast. There were holes a mile wide in her story. “Let’s suppose for a minute that someone did inseminate you. What makes you think I was involved in any way?”
Again, she didn’t hesitate. “Your name was on the vial they took out of that weird bucket. I saw it. I don’t think they meant for me to, but I did. They’d given me a drug, and I guess they thought I was unconscious. I wasn’t. Plus, I heard them mention your name.”
Yes, in her dreams she’d probably heard someone mention his name. “This is a real cartload of bull you’re telling me, Miss Briggs. What I can’t believe is that you had the nerve to come here with it.”
“Are you saying you don’t have semen stored somewhere?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“At Cryogen Labs right here in San Antonio,” she clarified. “That’s what it said on the vial, along with your name and the numbers 6837. I’m not an idiot, Mr. McClendon. I’ve read about your Hodgkin’s disease. I know you stored semen before you went into therapy. Do you deny that?”
So, she did know about his illness six years ago. It didn’t make him believe her story. It just meant she’d done her homework. “I don’t deny it, but what you couldn’t have read in the newspaper was that my vials were accidentally destroyed nearly four months ago. Only a handful of people know that.” He paused so she could grasp that. “Would you like to leave on your own, or do I need to toss you out of here myself?”
Her eyes widened for a second, and then narrowed just as quickly. “The number on the vial was 6837. Call Cryogen Labs and see if that matches what they say was destroyed.”
Oh, she was good. Really good. Coming up with the number of the vial was a nice touch, but it wouldn’t make him believe her. “I’ll call them in a minute—but first I have another question. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say someone did inseminate you. You’re sure you became pregnant?”
“I heard them say so, yes. I didn’t see the test results, but I’m having some symptoms that make me think they succeeded in what you wanted them to do.”
“You said they drugged you. Your symptoms could be from that.”
Her eyebrow rose sharply. “Not these symptoms. And they didn’t keep me drugged all the time, just locked up. They only drugged me when they did those, uh, procedures on me.”
He didn’t want to delve into that any further, not when he had so many other things to discuss. “Another hypothetical question, then. Why would anyone want to do this?”
“That’s what I want you to answer. Trust me, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. Maybe you wanted some surrogate mother and you didn’t want to go through the hassle of doing it the legal way.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you didn’t want the publicity because of your campaign. Some people are opposed to surrogate pregnancies. You probably didn’t want to risk offending any ultra-conservative voters. This way, you could adopt the child and pretend you’re still a good guy who’s giving some orphan a chance to be raised by a millionaire rancher-turned-congressman. You’re the winner all the way around.”
Jake still didn’t believe her story, and that theory was just plain asinine, but he could definitely see this from a different angle. A much different angle. If, and that was a Texas-sized if, there was any truth to what this woman said, it could be a plot by someone out to get him. Suppose someone wanted to use the child to embarrass him or to hurt his campaign? Even in this day and age, conservative voters wouldn’t care much for a future congressman having an illegitimate child.
She raked her tongue over her bottom lip. “But something must have gone wrong, because I heard them say they were going to kill me. Thank God I was able to escape before they could get around to doing that.”
“They said they were going to kill you?” Jake repeated. “Well, that shoots holes in your surrogate mom theory, huh? Why would I go through all that trouble to inseminate you, and then kill you before I even knew for sure if you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t know. I told you, that’s why I’m here. I need answers.”
“Well, you came to the wrong place, lady. Let me correct that, you came to the wrong man. I’m not buying any of this, so why don’t we just cut to the chase and you spit out exactly what you want. Money up front? Or are you doing this for blackmail so you can drag out the payments for years? Because either way I don’t intend to give you a dime.”
She tipped her head to the phone. “Make the call to Cryogen Labs. Vial number 6837.”
Jake looked at the phone, and then her. “All right, I will.” It was about time he called her bluff. He walked across the room, using the mirror to keep an eye on her. “I don’t suppose you know their phone number?”
“No.”
“No,” he mimicked sarcastically under his breath.
Jake didn’t know what to make of that. A con artist would have known the number. A victim of the crime she’d just described wouldn’t. Of course, she could be a very good con artist who was pretending she didn’t know. There was only one way to find out.
He got the number from directory assistance and called the lab. Jake wasn’t even sure the place would be open, but someone picked up on the third ring.
“This is Jake McClendon. I wanted to verify some information about specimens I had stored there.” The woman who answered the call asked him to provide some identifying data. Once that was
out of the way, he got down to business. “I need to know about the six vials I had in Cryogen Labs. I want to make sure they were indeed destroyed.”
“Oh, yes, they were, Mr. McClendon. Didn’t someone contact you about it?”
“They did.” He glanced at Jessie. She stepped closer and stared at him. Her eyes darkened like storm clouds. “Equipment failure, the person said.”
“I’m afraid all the samples in that particular tank were destroyed. You are eligible for compensation from our insurance carrier.”
He wasn’t interested in insurance. In fact, before today Jake hadn’t been interested in the vials at all. He’d stored them at Cryogen in case the treatment for his Hodgkin’s Disease left him sterile. Since it hadn’t, he had forgotten they even existed. Until he got that call four months ago.
“I need the vial numbers,” he explained to the woman.
“Certainly. I have that right here in the computer.”
He heard the clicking of her fingers on the keys, and made another spot-check on Jessie. Now she was looking around the room. For her gun, no doubt. She wouldn’t find it. Jake had wrapped it in a plastic dry cleaner’s bag and put it in the closet in the bedroom. Later, he wanted someone to check the weapon for fingerprints. That was probably the only way he would find out who she really was.
“Okay, here we are,” the woman finally said. “The vials were numbered consecutively from 6851 through 6855. As I said, they were all destroyed.”
So, there was no 6837. But Jessie Briggs had been damn close. Jake was about to end the call and confront his visitor, when he realized the numbers that the woman gave him only accounted for five vials.
“There were six specimens,” he pointed out.
“Oh, yes. I see what happened. The first vial was the one you originally gave us. The other five were collected later at your physician’s office and then transferred here.”
“And the number on that first vial?”
“Let’s see. That would have been 6837.”
The muscles tightened in his chest. Jake refused to allow himself to react beyond that. This meant nothing. There was a reasonable explanation. All he had to do was find it. “And where is that vial?” he asked.
“I’m afraid it was destroyed also.”
Not according to the woman in his hotel suite. But then, she was obviously a liar. Her story didn’t make a lick of sense. Nobody in his or her right mind would kidnap a woman, inseminate her and then try to kill her. Would they?
No. They wouldn’t.
He hung up the phone to confront his lying visitor. There was just one problem.
She wasn’t there.
And the door to his suite was wide open.
Chapter Two
Adjusting the plastic bag of groceries, Jessie cradled the phone against her shoulder and pushed the coins into the slot. Someone had scratched crude profanity into the black plastic box, and the mouthpiece smelled like dog’s breath. The phone company would not have been pleased. It didn’t exactly please her, either. She tried not to breathe too deeply, knowing the smell would turn her stomach.
She entered the numbers and waited. Not long. As she’d expected, he answered almost immediately. “Detective DuCiel.”
“Byron, it’s me.” Jessie tried to keep her vigilant gaze on everything going on around her. It was rush hour. A little past five o’clock. The traffic crawled down St. Mary’s Street. Horns honked. People hurried on the sidewalk. There was enough activity for her to get lost in the crowd, and she counted heavily on it. Getting lost was the only thing that made sense right now.
“Well, it’s about time you called. You said I might not hear from you for months, but I didn’t believe it.” The relief in Byron’s voice soon turned to a bark. “Where the heck are you, anyway? What happened? I was ready to—”
“I only have a few seconds. It isn’t safe to talk here.” It probably wasn’t safe anywhere, but Jessie didn’t say that.
“Where are you? I’ll come right now.”
“That wouldn’t be smart, for either of us. I just wanted you to know that I’m—” What? Not all right. She wasn’t all right by a long shot. “Alive,” she finished. “I’m alive.” And terrified. She wouldn’t mention that, either, even though Byron would almost certainly hear it in her voice.
“That, I can figure out myself. Why the heck haven’t you called me before now? Jess, it’s been three months.”
“It’s a long story. Too long to get into here. I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“It’s about Christy, isn’t it.”
Just the mention of her friend’s name made Jessie’s heart feel tight and heavy. It was as if a fist had gripped it and wouldn’t let go. Christy had been dead eight months, and the pain was still just as fresh, just as raw as it had been when Byron had come by the apartment to tell her the news. The news that Christy wouldn’t be coming home, ever.
It was so strange. Even though she’d seen her friend’s body, it was still hard to believe Christy was dead. It was hard to believe Jessie would never again hear the laughter that had come so easily to the fun-loving woman that she considered a sister in every way that counted.
“You were asking too many questions about Christy’s death,” Byron concluded. “And someone didn’t like it.”
Maybe. And maybe it had nothing to do with Christy. Jessie just didn’t know. She didn’t have time to speculate out here in the open, where she was a sitting duck. That didn’t mean she was giving up on finding the person responsible for Christy’s death. She would never do that. One way or another, she would get to the bottom of it. It was a promise she’d sworn to Christy, and herself, the day of the funeral.
She pushed the painful memories away, knowing she couldn’t deal with them at the moment. “Listen, Byron, I can’t talk much longer. I need some money, but I’m afraid I’ll be spotted. I want you to do it the way we talked about before I left Austin. Transfer all of it.”
“All of it? Jess, what’s wrong? Let me come and get you right now. Or better yet, go to the nearest police station.”
Jessie ignored that advice. “Please do the money transfer and work out some travel arrangements. I need to disappear for a while. It’ll take—what? Two days? Three?”
“If I do it the way you wanted, it’ll take three. I’ll have to cover my tracks.”
She didn’t tell him how much that scared her. Three days of hiding out. Three days of praying they wouldn’t find her again. “I’ll pick up the money at the location we discussed. I also need you to check out a warehouse here in San Antonio. And be careful. I don’t know the exact address, but it’s on Isom Road, near the airport. It’s sandwiched between two old brownstone buildings.”
“What happened there?” he asked. “Why do you want me to check it out?”
“Just see if you find anything unusual—but don’t go in there alone, Byron. It might not be safe. Also, I’d like for you to lean a little on my former employer, Ray Galindo. See if anyone was asking about me at the cantina before I disappeared. I’ll call you again when I can.”
“No!” Byron shouted. “Talk to me now. Go to the local cops—”
“I can’t do that. If I tell them everything, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
“To heck with that. You go to the cops. You get yourself some protection.”
“Maybe—”
“There are no ‘maybes’ about it.”
Jessie took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll go to the San Antonio police, just as soon as I have the money.” And maybe during those three days, she could figure out exactly why someone wanted her dead. “I don’t want to put my neck out that far unless I have some way to hide afterward.”
She hung up the phone, ignoring the shouts and profanity from the one person she considered her friend.
Jessie didn’t know what was going on, but she wouldn’t bring Byron into this. Not yet. It definitely wasn’t the right time to tell the San Antonio police, either. She didn’t bel
ieve they could stop what Jake McClendon and his hired help had already put into motion. They couldn’t save her. She was on somebody’s hit list, and all the cops in the state of Texas probably couldn’t stop it.
Jessie pulled the black Spurs cap lower on her forehead and started toward the motel. Such as it was. She had been able to retrieve some money—the cash from a locker she’d rented at a bowling alley. But staying at a more comfortable place might put the wrong people back on her trail. That’s why she’d chosen the downtown area, and not the north side where the kidnappers had originally found her. Maybe, just maybe, the change of location would help keep her alive.
The accommodations didn’t matter much to her, anyway, and they were temporary. In three days she would have to leave San Antonio. No doubt about it. Staying would be a mistake, and she’d made too many of those already.
One of the biggest mistakes had been going to Jake McClendon’s hotel. Now that she’d shaken off some of the effects of the fatigue and adrenaline, she wondered what had possessed her to do something that incredibly stupid. Breaking into a suite in one of the ritziest hotels on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Holding a gun on a man like him. And with all those risks, she hadn’t accomplished a darn thing—something she should have realized in advance.
What had she expected him to do? Admit to everything? Yeah, right.
Instead, she should have spent that time trying to figure out why all of this had happened to her. Of course, two days of thinking about it hadn’t produced any answers—but eventually something had to make sense. The surrogate pregnancy plot was still her first bet, if she could just figure out why McClendon had changed his mind and decided to kill her, instead.
She checked for the small dot of lipstick on the doorknob of her motel room. Still there, and in the same spot, to indicate the knob hadn’t been touched. It was an inexpensive way to detect intruders, but it wasn’t the only thing she’d added. The small door alarm she had purchased from a discount store hadn’t been tripped. Once inside, she closed the door and quickly reset the alarm.
His Child Page 2