by Amelia Autin
“Please don’t hesitate to ask any of our staff should you need anything. Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience.”
Dirk hung up the phone and told everyone, “The typhoon has been upgraded from a T8 to a T9, and the hotel wants us all downstairs before the winds get any worse.” He moved purposely toward the windows, saying as he did so, “Those shades come down. They won’t protect us if the windows shatter and there’s flying glass, but it could minimize any damage if the windows break while we’re gone.” He started rolling the shades down, and Patrick began to help him, but Dirk said, “I’ve got this. Get the ones in the other rooms, will you?”
Patrick left and Dirk turned to Vanessa. “Better pack at least one change of clothes for yourself. You don’t want to have to trek up all those stairs if the elevators aren’t working. And grab the blanket and pillows from your bed—we’ll need them.” She left quietly, and Dirk said to Chet, “Your hotel’s a few blocks away, isn’t it?”
Chet nodded. “Just up Nathan Road.” His mouth twisted in a grimace. “But I don’t think I want to try to get there tonight,” he said, indicating the rain they could hear thrumming against the windows. “Not even in a cab.”
“I wasn’t suggesting it. I’ve got clothes to spare. Might not be a perfect fit, but in a situation like this I don’t think that matters.” Dirk turned his attention to Mei-li. “Sorry, my mind’s not working properly. Vanessa should be able to lend you a change of clothes. Let me go ask her—”
Mei-li shook her head and indicated the large purse she’d set down beside the sofa. “I came prepared,” she told him in her calm voice. “When Patrick called, I threw a few things in there, just in case. Don’t worry about me. But Patrick will probably need to borrow some clothes.” She smiled slightly, as if the thought of five-foot-nine Patrick wearing six-foot-two Dirk’s clothes amused her. But then her smile faded, and her eyes sent a message Dirk had no difficulty interpreting—she wanted to speak with him privately.
“Patrick’s welcome to whatever I have,” Dirk said deliberately. Then he looked at Chet. “Why don’t you get what you need from my bedroom and tell Patrick to do the same. I’ll grab a few things after you’re done. Oh, and Chet,” he added as the other man started to leave the room. “Call Rafe and Mike, would you?” he said, referring to the other two bodyguards he’d brought from the US, who weren’t on duty today. “Let them know what’s happened, but tell them to stay put until after the typhoon. I don’t want them trying to get here when there’s nothing they can do.”
As soon as they were alone Mei-li said in an urgent undertone. “I’ll make this quick. Don’t say anything in front of Vanessa or Chet. I’ll explain later, but Vanessa isn’t telling the truth. Not all the truth. I don’t know why—not yet. She might just be feeling guilty about something—perhaps that she didn’t do more to stop the kidnappers—that’s one possibility. But there are other possibilities. Until we know, it’s better to keep our conjectures and plans to ourselves. Because if she’s lying, it’s possible Chet is lying, too.”
Dirk’s brows drew together in a sudden frown. “Why do you say that? That’s not a fake contusion on his forehead—I’ve seen enough in my business to know the difference.”
“Shh,” she replied as Vanessa came back into the room, a small overnight case in her hand. Mei-li picked up her handbag from the floor, tucked her notepad and pen away, and hooked the strap over her shoulder. “I’m ready to go down as soon as you are, Mr. DeWinter.”
Dirk was perturbed by Mei-li’s statement that Vanessa was lying, and possibly Chet, as well. But he was too good an actor not to be able to hide what he was thinking when he wanted to. He glanced at Vanessa, then away. And in that brief instant he knew Mei-li was right—Vanessa was concealing something. What, he had no idea...but something.
* * *
The five of them had dinner in the Spring Moon Restaurant on the first floor while the storm raged outside. They could hear the howling wind and the slashing rain as the outer wall of Typhoon De-De came ashore, but the Peninsula Hotel had withstood typhoons before, and the staff carried on as if nothing were amiss. As long as they had power, guests were guests and needed to be fed.
The normalcy of it all seemed bizarre to Dirk, despite the bundles of pillows and blankets the restaurant patrons had stashed next to their tables. But it wasn’t just the preparations for a night to be spent in the hotel lobby that had him on edge, and at first he thought he couldn’t possibly eat—not when he was desperate to do something about finding his daughters. But Mei-li murmured for his ears only, “There is nothing we can do until the typhoon has passed—it would be suicide to go outside now.”
“I know.” His voice was rough with suppressed emotion.
When she added, “Refusing to eat accomplishes nothing, Mr. DeWinter,” and ordered the crispy rice with lobster in lobster bisque, he realized she was right.
The lobster sounded particularly good, especially with the lobster soup as a sauce, and he told the waiter, “I’ll have the same,” without even looking at the menu. He needed to keep up his strength, if for no other reason than to tear his daughters’ kidnappers apart when they were found. When, he reiterated to himself with grim determination. Not if. Because he would never rest until his daughters were found. Would never know a moment’s peace until their kidnappers—including Terrell Blackwood—were brought to justice...a father’s justice.
That thought reminded him he needed to talk privately with Mei-li, needed to tell her what had happened nearly twenty years ago and why Terrell Blackwood would have engineered this kidnapping. And why ransom might not be the reason behind it.
* * *
The disposable cell phone Terrell Blackwood kept by his bed when he was sleeping and in his pocket when he was awake rang once, twice, three times before he managed to shake off the dregs of a dream and answer it. He squinted at the clock and saw by the glowing red numbers on the clock that it was just past 5:00 a.m. “Yes?”
“We have your packages,” a cold voice informed him, and his heart leaped. The code phrases had all been worked out in advance, so he knew what the voice was referring to—Derek Summers’s daughters were now in his agents’ custody. “But there’s a problem.”
“Problem?”
“Nothing major, but we were unable to ship them as originally planned. Hong Kong is shut down tight because of an unseasonal typhoon. All flights are grounded.”
Hurricane, Terrell translated in his mind. Shipping the packages—that meant transferring custody of Summers’s daughters to the pilots who were supposed to whisk them out of Hong Kong in a private plane and take them to Manila in the Philippines, then to Jakarta in Indonesia, to Perth, Australia, and finally—the trickiest part of the plan—back to the United States. There the little girls would be sold for adoption on the black market. The income the sales would bring was a pittance compared to what this entire project was costing Terrell, but the money was meaningless. Revenge was all he cared about.
Terrell had tried to kill Derek Summers all those years ago...and had failed. And every day he’d spent in prison he’d dreamed of the revenge that would be his eventually, how he would kill Summers with his own hands...once he was free.
Until Summers’s daughters were born.
That’s when he’d had an epiphany. A revelation. That’s when he’d realized he could visit upon Summers the agony he’d experienced at the loss of his only child. And Summers would finally pay...endlessly...for what he’d done.
Terrell had originally thought to kill the little girls the way Summers had murdered Lyon—an eye for an eye. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He could kill Summers himself because that would be justice. Killing Summers’s daughters would be...well...it wouldn’t be justice.
Besides, horrible as their deaths would be to Derek Summers, their lifeless bodies would bring closure of sorts
, the way the death of Sabrina Weston had done. And from the moment he’d conceived of his plan, that’s what Terrell had sworn Summers would never have.
No, this way was better. Far better. No bodies, no closure. Terrell could twist the knife endlessly, torturing Summers day in and day out, because he would never know. Summers could tear Hong Kong apart...to no avail. He could pay the ransom the kidnappers demanded—and he would pay, that was a given. But he would never have closure. And he would never see his twin daughters again...alive or dead.
* * *
Dirk put his fork down in the middle of his meal, then stood and excused himself. “Sorry,” he apologized to the rest of the table. “I need to call my housekeeper back in Hollywood, let her know what’s happening while my cell phone still works. If it still works.” He glanced at his phone and was reassured.
“You really think that’s a good idea?” Vanessa blurted out. “What if the news gets out? I thought you wanted to keep this a secret.”
Chet nodded his agreement. “Not that Hannah would deliberately say anything, I’m sure, but she might let something slip, and then—”
“Hannah has worked for me for a lot of years.” A lot longer than either of you, he thought, and his voice hardened. “In all that time she’s never—not once—leaked anything to the press, deliberately or otherwise. She loves Linden and Laurel as if she were really their grandmother, and there’s no way I’m not taking her into my confidence.”
Mei-li wiped her lips with her napkin and stood. “I need to use the ladies’ room,” she murmured, gathering up her purse. “Might as well go now.” Her emotive eyes sent Dirk a message that this was merely an excuse, that here was their opportunity to talk in private, outside the hearing of Chet and Vanessa. She smiled at Vanessa. “Don’t let them clear away our plates, please—we won’t be gone long.”
* * *
Dirk pulled out his phone the minute they walked out of the restaurant, but Mei-li shook her head. “Not here. Let’s go down to the lobby,” she said as she led him to a stairwell. When they walked out on the ground floor she glanced around quickly, then pointed to a quiet corner near one of the boarded-up, arched picture windows in the gilded, high-ceilinged lobby. “Over there.”
What Dirk had to say only took a minute, but the call took a lot longer than that because not only did transmission keep breaking up and they had to repeat themselves several times, but Hannah burst into tears as soon as she heard. “Oh, Mr. DeWinter,” she sobbed. “If only I had been there.”
He tried to reassure her. “What could you have done that Vanessa and Chet didn’t do?” Hannah started to respond, but her voice cut out, and Dirk said, “I didn’t hear that.”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, “but something more than just letting kidnappers take the babies without a fight!” Hannah was unforgiving of both herself for not being there and of Vanessa, whom Dirk knew she thought was too young. But Vanessa had come with stellar recommendations, and Dirk had been desperate at the time. She seemed honestly fond of her little charges—and they of her. Linden and Laurel weren’t as attached to Vanessa as they were to Hannah, but still...a bond existed.
“If only I hadn’t broken my leg!” Hannah bemoaned. “If only—”
“Accidents happen to the best of us,” he reminded her. “And old bones break easily, you know that.” He’d often teased a young-at-heart Hannah about not wanting to accept the limitations age was beginning to place on her, and he was hoping to distract her from blaming herself for not being there. Again Hannah’s initial response was staticky, and Dirk had to ask her to repeat it.
“I said, yes, but I’m not usually that clumsy,” she insisted. “I know old bones break easily, which is why I’m always so careful. I just don’t understand how I could have tripped and fallen down the stairs like that.” She didn’t stay distracted for long. “And the way this has turned out, you’d almost think I was deliberately gotten out of the way, although how that could have happened I can’t begin to imagine.” Then she returned to the news Dirk had just conveyed to her. “Oh, Mr. DeWinter, what are you going to do?”
Determination swept through him. “Whatever I have to.”
Dirk thought briefly about sharing with Hannah his fear that ransom wasn’t the motive, but then decided against it. There would be time to tell Hannah when he was certain. And besides, he wasn’t sure how long he would still have cell phone coverage—just their brief conversation had taken far too long and they’d had to repeat themselves several times. So all he said was, “The kidnappers already called me once, but they didn’t make a ransom demand...yet. And this damned typhoon—that’s why I called you now instead of waiting for the girls’ bedtime to call you, when you’d be expecting it. I know it’s super early there, but this typhoon could shut everything down soon, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to reach you until tomorrow or the next day. Assuming service can be restored quickly and doesn’t take days or weeks.”
“I know you’ll do whatever you have to do, Mr. DeWinter,” Hannah said stoutly. “I have confidence in you. If anyone can bring Linden and Laurel home safely, it’s you.” Then her voice broke and she pleaded, “Oh, please bring them home safely, sir, and soon. Please! I don’t even want to think about what they’re going through right now.”
Dirk couldn’t speak for a moment. “Me, neither,” he said finally, then disconnected the call. His eyes closed and he breathed deeply for several seconds, images of his daughters helpless in the clutches of heartless men who could do something like this to innocent little girls flashing through his mind in an endless filmstrip.
A soft hand touched his arm. “Are you okay?” Mei-li asked.
Dirk ran one hand over his face while the other tucked his phone back in his jeans pocket. “Oh, hell, yeah,” he told her roughly. “I’m just fine. My daughters have been kidnapped by a man who wants me dead, my housekeeper thinks I can pull off miracles and you tell me my daughter’s nanny just might be lying about exactly what happened.” He laughed without humor. “Oh, yeah, and I can’t get help from the US consulate or search for my daughters because a Cat-5 hurricane—excuse me, typhoon—has decided to hit Hong Kong a month too early in the season. Have I left anything out?”
Mei-li’s face held nothing but compassion. “I think that encompasses it.”
The backs of his eyes ached suddenly, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold his emotions at bay. But when he opened his eyes again he knew everything he was feeling was right there on the surface. “They’re not even two years old,” he whispered as despair swamped him. “What kind of monster takes his revenge on little girls?”
Mei-li looked around, then dragged Dirk to a couple of unoccupied chairs a short distance away. She pushed him into the first one, and Dirk let her. Then she pulled the other chair closer to his and sat down. “There’s a story here you haven’t told me,” she said firmly. “You’ve dropped hints, but I need to know everything.”
After a moment Dirk nodded. “Yeah, you do.” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, holding her gaze with his. “I killed a man.”
Chapter 4
Mei-li didn’t allow herself to gasp, even though she’d never imagined this was the secret Dirk was keeping. But after the first shock passed, she accepted it with nothing more than a blink. It made sense. It had to be something momentous. Something life altering. While she’d never killed anyone herself, she knew those who had. Sometimes killing was justified, and until she knew more...she wasn’t going to judge.
* * *
Dirk considered what to add to the bald statement that he’d killed a man. “Nearly twenty years ago now. I was sixteen. He was a year older. We had a...a history of animosity.” That statement didn’t even come close to describing the hostile emotions on both sides that had led to their final confrontation.
“What happened?” The quiet, nonjudg
mental way she asked the question immediately reminded him of his court-appointed defense attorney from twenty years ago. And it allowed him to answer with a semblance of detachment.
“Bree was fifteen. We were... I guess you could say we were in love, as much as teenagers understand love.” Words couldn’t begin to encompass what he and Bree had felt at the time, so he didn’t even try. “Lyon Blackwood was...” A spoiled rich kid who thought he was entitled to take whatever he wanted.
“We’d had confrontations before,” he continued after a few seconds. “But what really started the whole thing was I caught him sexually assaulting a friend of Bree’s. The girl didn’t want to press charges, even though Bree and I begged her to—she didn’t want the stigma that would have accompanied it. Minnetonka—Minnetonka, Minnesota, where we lived—isn’t a small town, but something like that gets around. And high school kids can be particularly cruel when a not-very-popular girl accuses the star of the football team of sexual assault.” He grimaced. “The general consensus would have been that she only cried rape because I discovered them together.”
“That’s not unusual,” Mei-li said. “One of the many reasons women the world over don’t report sexual assault.”
“Yeah, well, she didn’t report it, but Lyon didn’t get off scot-free. I beat the crap out of him the next day. He was a couple of inches taller and a few pounds heavier, but I...I wasn’t about to let him get away with what he’d done and brag about it, as he was already starting to do with some of the guys on the football team. It wasn’t anywhere near what he deserved, but...” He clenched his jaw. “That’s when Lyon decided to get his revenge on me...by assaulting Bree.”
He stopped abruptly, because recounting this ancient history was a lot tougher than he’d imagined it would be. Mei-li waited silently, and Dirk realized she was using the same tactic on him she’d used on Vanessa that afternoon...waiting for him to become uncomfortable with the silence. And he mentally gave her bonus points as an interrogator.