Found Wanting

by Joyce Lamb

  "Fine," he said. "Room 916." Flipping the phone closed, he slipped it back into his inside jacket pocket.

  "Who's coming up?" Alaina asked.

  "Just sit tight."

  A few minutes later, a knock came at the door. Potter when to it and, gun drawn, checked the peephole. When he eased the door open, and Alaina saw who stood there, she couldn't breathe.

  * * *

  Addison stepped into the hotel room, ignoring Norm Potter and seeking her sister. Alaina stood with the window at her back, the afternoon light behind her casting her face in shadow. But Addison saw her stiffen, and her pulse took off at a trot. She'd known this would be hard, but she hadn't anticipated how unsteady she'd feel.

  "Hello, Alaina."

  Alaina took a step toward her. "Is Jonah with you?"

  The quaver in her voice broke Addison's heart. "No."

  Her shoulders sagging, Alaina strode past her to where Norm hovered near the door. Addison watched her, noting that in new blue jeans and a white long-sleeved T-shirt, Alaina looked trim, with the same graceful curves that Addison had envied when they were younger.

  "I didn't agree to this," Alaina said to Norm.

  "I requested it," Addison said. The light hit her sister full in the face now, and Addison registered Alaina's thinner, more mature features. Even so, she still looked far too young to have a teenage child. Her dark hair was longer than it had been the last time Addison had seen her, its color rich with subtle auburn tones that no hair dye could imitate. Her gray-green eyes, still her most striking feature, seemed to have aged thirty years in fourteen.

  Those haunting eyes brimmed with mistrust. "You requested this meeting?" Alaina asked. "Why would you do that?"

  Norm said, "I'll wait in the hall."

  But Alaina grasped his arm a little too desperately. "No."

  When Norm cast a glance at Addison, she nodded for him to leave them alone.

  Alaina watched him go, her back to Addison. After a long moment, she faced her sister, her gaze veiled. "So I take it you're in charge here."

  Addison clasped her hands, at a loss. This wasn't going well, and yet, she hadn't expected it to. It was just something she had to do. "Mr. Potter is humoring me, yes."

  "Humoring you. That's an interesting way of putting it. He's humoring your desire to look me in the eye and tell me you and Layton have finally won?"

  Her sister's animosity was a little too much for Addison, and she glanced away, her gaze catching on the minibar. She crossed to it, set her purse aside and helped herself to a single-serve bottle of merlot. "Drink?"

  Alaina laughed, and the sound carried no humor. "Are you kidding me?"

  Addison didn't respond, willing her hand to steady as she poured the wine into a glass. She drank without tasting it, then lowered the glass. "Don't you want to know how he is?"

  Silence answered her, and Addison turned to see Alaina grasping the back of a wing-backed chair so hard the tips of her fingers had turned white. "Don't taunt me."

  Addison's heart squeezed, and she gulped down a generous amount of merlot. She was realizing how severely unprepared she was for this. It would take more than one impromptu meeting to heal more than a decade of damage. "He saw a man get shot," she said.

  "Oh, God." Alaina edged around the chair and sank onto it. Rocking forward, she wrapped an arm around her midsection as if she might be sick. "No."

  The sorrow in that one word tore at Addison, and she grappled for something to say. "He wanted you to know that he's fine."

  Alaina raised her head, and tears streamed down her cheeks. "He can't possibly be fine. Are you still so blind?"

  Addison drained the wine and immediately wished for more. Resisting, she moved to sit in the chair across from her sister. "I made a deal with the FBI."

  Alaina's reddened eyes narrowed. "To do what?"

  "To spare you this." Spreading her hands, Addison gave a bitter laugh. "Like everything else in my life, it's fallen well short of my expectations."

  "I don't understand. What kind of deal?"

  "I asked the feds to protect you and Jonah, and in exchange, I'm helping them gather evidence for a case against Layton."

  "Why would you do that?"

  Addison yearned for more anesthetizing wine. Instead of satisfying that longing, she said, "I was wrong, Alaina."

  * * *

  Alaina stared at her sister, uncomprehending. "You were wrong?"

  Addison's gray-streaked black hair fell into eyes that were gray and as lifeless, and she smoothed it back with a hand that trembled. "Yes."

  Alaina pushed out of the chair. She didn't know where she was going, but she couldn't sit across from her sister any longer without lunging at her. At the window, she gazed out at the blossom-filled spring day. Fluffy white clouds crowded the sky, momentarily blocking the sun.

  Bracing her hands on the window sill, she focused on taking deep, calming breaths. Confronting her sister had been the central theme in many a daydream over the years. Alaina had imagined telling Addison how stupid she was for being so easily tricked by a man, which led to Addison in a puddle of tears at her feet, sobbing and begging for forgiveness. But now that the opportunity to let it all out was here, words failed her.

  She heard Addison get up, heard her twist the cap off a glass bottle and splash liquid into a glass. "I know there's nothing I can say ..." Addison trailed off. "God, this is tough."

  Alaina turned. "Innocent people have been hurt because you were wrong."

  Addison pressed a glass half-filled with red wine against her pale cheek, as if it offered a comforting chill. "I know."

  The softly whispered words only infuriated Alaina more. Remorse was there, but it wasn't nearly enough. "Our mother is dead because you were wrong."

  Addison lowered the glass, confused. "What are you talking about?"

  "Your husband killed her."

  "Her car slid off a road in Colorado --"

  "Where she had come to see me. Layton followed her. She finally saw him for what he is, and he had to keep her quiet."

  Addison, her face growing paler by the minute, shook her head in disbelief. "No, it's not possible. She went to Colorado for a fundraising conference. She had a car accident."

  The sharp edge of memory sliced through Alaina. She'd heard that line -- "it's not possible" -- before. Right after she'd told her sister that Layton had raped her. And again after she'd told her father. It astonished her how much it still hurt. After all this time. Frustration and betrayal raged anew, but Alaina blocked them out. There was no point revisiting what was said and done. It wouldn't help her get Jonah back.

  She squared her shoulders. "Why are you here?"

  Addison didn't respond for a long time, and Alaina watched myriad emotions flicker over her face -- anger, resentment, hurt and, finally, shame. Addison's chin quivered, and she pivoted away, draining the wine in one furious gulp. At the minibar, she slammed the glass down. When she spoke, her voice was low, controlled. "I'm here because he wants you dead, Alaina. Believe it or not, I want you to stay alive. You and Jonah are all the family I have left."

  Alaina focused on her sister, noticing that lines in her face -- especially those etched like parentheses on either side of her too-generous mouth -- made her look years older than thirty-nine. She had the face and demeanor of a desperately unhappy woman.

  Alaina realized that the recent death of their father had to have been especially hard on Addison. He and Addison had adored each other. On top of that, she'd also recently discovered the ugly truth about her husband. Moments before, she'd gotten the shock that her mother had fallen victim to her husband, too.

  Alaina massaged her temples, where the roots of a headache were burrowing in. She didn't want to feel sorry for her sister. She didn't want to feel anything for her.

  Ice clinked against glass, and a moment later, Addison stood beside her, offering a tumbler of amber liquid. Alaina's stomach turned at the thought of alcohol, and she shook her head.
"It'll make you feel better," Addison said. "Trust me."

  Alaina glanced up at her. "What does he want with my son, Addison?"

  Addison chewed her bottom lip. "I think Layton has changed his mind about Jonah."

  "In what way?"

  "He never wanted him before, and now he does."

  "What?" Alaina was sure she had heard her wrong.

  Addison set the glass on the table beside Alaina and took the chair across from her. "After you took off with Jonah, Layton hired private detectives, but it was a ruse to make Daddy think people were looking for you. Layton paid the detectives to file fake reports about all the ways they tried to find you and couldn't."

  Alaina absorbed that, tried to make sense of it. "But one of them did find me. He wanted me to pay him not to tell Layton where we were."

  "He wasn't paid to find you, Alaina. He was paid to pretend to search."

  Which meant the man she'd killed in Emma's kitchen probably had had no intention of telling Layton where she and Jonah were. And if he had, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because Layton hadn't wanted to know. Nausea twisted through her as she saw Emma on the floor, her eyes open and staring. She forced her brain away from the memory. "Have you known this all along?"

  "No. I gave the detective reports to the feds, and they determined they were bogus."

  "But the feds have been looking for me."

  "Before now, the feds weren't involved." The alcohol apparently was working on her system, because the disgust Addison surely would have hidden showed clearly on her face. "Daddy and Layton wanted to keep the problem in the family."

  "So all the time I spent running, terrified we'd be found and Jonah would be taken away from me ..." Alaina's voice faded, her head spinning with the implications. Their lives could have been so different. Jonah's life could have been so different.

  "No one was even looking for you."

  "Mom was," Alaina said. "She told me she'd hired a private detective herself." Lowering her head, she rubbed the middle of her throbbing forehead. "She was so happy to see me, and all I could think was that Layton couldn't be far behind. I was so angry with her." Tears burned in her throat. "She died because of me."

  Addison sat forward, grasping Alaina's hand. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for so many things."

  Drawing away, Alaina got up and retreated to the window, where the sun was breaking through the clouds. Her emotions swirled as if caught in a twister, jerked from disbelief to anger to grief back to disbelief. All the time she'd spent looking over her shoulder ...

  "The FBI agents who came to the newspaper yesterday ..." She trailed off, almost choking on the words.

  "They were there to take you and Jonah into protective custody."

  Despair dropped Alaina's shoulders. "And I ran." Which set off a chain reaction that led to Grant Maxwell being shot and Jonah being taken by Layton's people.

  But who was to say whether Grant would have been shot if she had shown up at his home before Layton's men? Perhaps she would have been shot, too. In fact, she realized, it was probably their intent to kill her at the same time that they grabbed Jonah. A computer glitch at work had thrown off her routine yesterday. Otherwise, she would have been at Grant's picking up Jonah when the hit men stormed in.

  She faced Addison, wanting more answers. "If Layton never wanted Jonah to begin with, why did he file for custody?"

  "Daddy wanted him to. I remember them fighting about it. Daddy was adamant that you weren't ready to be a mother, and he said that if Layton didn't file for custody, then Daddy would. Remember how eager Layton was to please Daddy? Daddy'd say jump, and Layton would ask which bridge." Grimacing, Addison picked up the drink she'd made for Alaina and drained it. Her eyes were glazed from the alcohol, her smile sad. "Would it help to know that Daddy might have felt guilty about what happened?"

  Ridiculously, it mattered. "Did he tell you that?"

  "No, but when he died, he left you and Jonah a third of everything."

  For a moment, shock held Alaina rigid. "He what?"

  Addison laughed, waving the glass. "Layton was crushed. He thought he'd get it all. PCware is worth millions, you know."

  Alaina pushed away from the window sill. "If Jonah owns a third of PCware, and Layton wants it all ... it seems pretty obvious he wants Jonah to sign over his third."

  But Addison shook her head. "You both own the third, and Jonah can't sign over his part of it until he turns twenty-one. That's a stipulation in Daddy's will. The only way Layton would get it now is if you and Jonah were dead, and he could have done that with some paperwork without having to actually kill you. I checked."

  "Then what does he want with Jonah?"

  "I've gotten the impression that Layton wants to make a go of it as Jonah's father. You, on the other hand ... you, he wants dead. I heard him tell someone on the phone to kill you."

  Alaina shuddered, wondering whether that someone had been Mitch Kane. But when he'd found her, he hadn't tried to hurt her, let alone murder her. In fact, he'd protected her from a hit man, had even killed him. Which didn't make any sense. Weren't Mitch and the hit man on the same team? And why the hell did Layton suddenly want to be a father to Jonah when he'd never even wanted him in the first place?

  The questions made Alaina's head hurt all the more.

  "I'm sorry," Addison whispered. "For everything."

  Alaina met her sister's liquor-glazed eyes. She didn't know what to say, how to react. The apology, after so many years, seemed too easy. But what else did she want? That answer was easy: "I want my son."

  Tears spilled down Addison's cheeks, and she sniffled as she swiped them away. "That's Mr. Potter's domain."

  "Then let's get him back in here." Purposefully, Alaina strode to the room door.

  "Ali."

  She paused but didn't turn, her hand on the knob. She didn't know why hearing the old nickname should cause such a surge of emotion, but it did. "What?"

  "Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive me?"

  Alaina closed her eyes. What could she say? "I don't know, Addison." She looked at her sister, dug deep for some feeling other than bitter anger and found nothing. "I don't know."

  "I understand," Addison said, and her voice had gone flat, hopeless.

  Chapter 19

  Mitch was standing at the gate, the only passenger to have not boarded Delta Air Lines Flight 839. A gate agent had informed him that if he didn't get on the plane in the next five minutes, he wouldn't be allowed to. The woman was beginning to glare when his cellphone rang. He gave her a winning smile, then turned his back to answer it.

  "Talk to me, Jules."

  "It's Chuck."

  Mitch told himself to get over the renewed surge of betrayal. A woman's life was at stake. "Chuck. Hello."

  "Your secretary told me it's urgent."

  "She's not my secretary --" He broke off, took a breath. "I need a favor."

  "Of course you do."

  Mitch ignored the sarcasm in his former partner's voice. "I don't have time to give you details, but the feds took a woman to a safe house in the D.C. area. I need to know where."

  "You know I can't --"

  "She's dead, Chuck, if you don't help me with this. You know I wouldn't have called you for help unless I was desperate."

  "I haven't talked to you or seen you in years. I don't know who you are anymore."

  "We used to be partners," Mitch said. "You know who I am."

  "I know who you were."

  "I took a bullet for you. You still owe me for that."

  After a brief silence, Chuck said, "I'm not promising anything."

  "I need the address in two hours."

  "That'll be tight."

  "That's all the time I have," Mitch said.

  "What's the woman's name?"

  "Alaina Chancellor. They might have her under the name Alex Myers."

  "I'll get back to you."

  "Chuck, I probably don't have to tell you to keep it under the radar. I'l
l explain later, but I think there might be an information leak in the Bureau."

  "Maybe you'd better explain that now."

  "I don't have time. Just trust me." Snapping the phone closed, Mitch handed the impatient airline worker his boarding pass.

  * * *

  "I'm not going to a safe house. I want to see my son."

  FBI Assistant Director Norm Potter, having just arranged for a car to pick them up in the alley behind the hotel, pocketed his cellphone and gave Alaina an unperturbed look. "I'm sorry, Ms. Chancellor, but that's not possible at this time. But rest assured, Mrs. Keller has promised us that your son will be fine."

  Alaina wanted to strangle him. "My sister isn't the best judge of what her husband is capable of."

  "No, but Layton Keller has given no indication that he plans to hurt the boy in any way."

  "I don't care. I'm his mother, and I want him out of there. I don't give a shit about your investigation."

  Potter's cheeks flushed. "I'm afraid your rights are limited, Ms. Chancellor. A judge granted Layton Keller custody of Jonah."

  "That was fourteen years ago. That's no longer enforceable --"

  "That would have to be decided in a court of law. Which would take time. Which means your son probably would either stay where he is or go into foster care until a decision is made. Which option would you prefer? Your sister or the unknown of foster care?"

  Desperate frustration made Alaina's ears ring. Suddenly, she was eighteen again. Layton had stripped her of innocence, her sense of security and control. Now, he was taking all she had left. Jonah. "Then let me go to him," she said.

  Surprise arched Potter's brows. "There's a contract on your life. The risks --"

  "I need to see my son." Her voice cracked.

  Potter's face softened. "You need to stay alive. Which is what you'll do at a safe house."

  "You can't force me to go."

  "I'm afraid I can."

  "Then I'm under arrest?"

  "I'd prefer to call it what it is: protective custody," he said.