by Diana Palmer
“Watch your mouth,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.
“Oh, whatever! I’ll get my things. You can call a cab to take me to the airport, and you can buy me a ticket to New York,” she said spitefully.
“You’re damned lucky I don’t press charges,” he said in a voice teeming with fury. “You had no authority to destroy my house and fire my staff.”
She smoothed back her hair. “Press charges,” she said haughtily. “And I’ll tell the tabloids your shameful family secret!” she raged without thinking.
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning. “What family secret?” He took a step toward her. The look in his black eyes was dangerous.
She backed down. “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she tossed back.
She turned and ran back upstairs. Jason stared after her with a hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. He looked around at the ruins of his once tasteful and immaculate home and cursed himself for his own stupidity.
TWO HOURS LATER, Kittie and her newly hired staff were all on the way off the property. Kittie was en route to the airport. She informed Jason that she’d had a spending spree at Neiman Marcus, which was sending him the bill, and she wasn’t giving anything back. He told her to keep it all and good riddance. She hurled herself into the limo Jason had ordered to carry her to catch her flight without another word.
The so-called staff were headed back to San Antonio in their own cars and the unemployment line. Jason had a headache the likes of which he’d never known.
He waited until the unwelcome guests had gone before he phoned Barbara. He needed a cool head to deal with Gracie. Barbara would know where Gracie was. He didn’t know how to start making amends for what Kittie had done. There was also the anguish of trying to track down Mrs. Harcourt, that sweet and loving woman who’d been tossed out like an old shoe, not to mention John and Dilly. The only good thing was that Kittie hadn’t had access to the ranch, or he might be replacing cowboys, as well.
The phone rang at Barbara’s Café again and again. He’d almost given up hope of an answer when Barbara’s strained voice came on the line.
“Where’s Gracie?” he asked curtly.
“I’m not the person to ask,” she said miserably. “I don’t know where she is, Jason. Neither does anybody else.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, with fear spiraling through him.
“That idiot fiancée of yours phoned and said she wanted your Thunderbird returned tonight because you were coming home and she didn’t want to get in trouble for lending it to Gracie. I was going to drive up to San Antonio and give her a ride back. So Gracie started that way, but she never arrived.”
His heart froze in his chest. “What?”
Barbara sighed miserably. “I found the Thunderbird on the side of the road with her purse and cell phone still in it, just about an hour ago, when I closed the restaurant and drove toward San Antonio to get her.” She hesitated. “I called in law enforcement. Sheriff Hayes thinks she’s been kidnapped.”
He sat down. “Kidnapped?”
“Yes. You’ve been out of the country so maybe you’re out of the loop. Anyway, there have been a lot of kidnappings around here lately. There’s a South American dictator hiding out in Mexico, just across the border. Hayes thinks he may be in with the Fuentes drug bunch, but he’s not pushing drugs. He’s using kidnappings to help fund a future coup to depose his rival and get his country back. So far he hasn’t actually killed anybody, but he did leave a pretty young Mexican socialite in a…well…in a damaged way.”
“Dear God!” Jason groaned, running a hand through his hair. He’d known about the kidnappings while he’d been overseas, but had been too preoccupied with business to focus on current events back home. Still, he should have kept his guard up. After all, he’d had a vice president who’d been kidnapped in Mexico last year and returned barely alive. “Are they at least looking for Gracie? If it hasn’t been twenty-four hours, they won’t file a missing person report.”
“Hayes Carson did,” Barbara replied curtly. “He put out a BOLO on the cars. One of Cy Parks’s cowboys spotted a truck and a car speeding down the road before he knew what had happened. He stopped when he saw me standing beside the Thunderbird.”
“Thank God! Maybe they can catch them before they get over the border.” He let out a harsh breath. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked angrily.
“I called the house, but that butler or whatever he was said you weren’t there and he didn’t know how to reach you. I didn’t have your cell phone number. Where are you? Are you still overseas?” she asked.
“I got in a short while ago,” he said tersely. “I had a whole new staff that I didn’t hire, not to mention a wrecked house. It looked as if some bordello owner remade it for business purposes,” he added. “Gracie was gone. So was everybody else. Kittie said she’d asked them to leave.” His voice was ice-cold. “I threw her crew out and broke off the engagement. I want my people back, but I don’t know where to look.”
“I’ve got two of them working for me,” Barbara said. “I don’t know where John is. Mrs. Harcourt couldn’t get in touch with him.”
“What a hell of a mess!” he raged.
“Yes, Jason, dear, and whose fault is that?” Barbara added with pure malice in her voice.
“Mine,” he said in a subdued tone. “I’ve ruined everything.”
Barbara relented. He did sound as if a house had landed on him. “Most disasters yield some opportunities.”
“Not around here, they don’t.” He drew in a long breath. “I’ll phone some people I know. We’ll wait for a ransom call. I imagine it will come here, if she was snatched because of who she is.”
“You don’t know who she is, really,” Barbara replied quietly. “You never wanted to know.”
“Kittie was mumbling about some family secret. She threatened to make it public.”
“I’m not surprised. Gracie wouldn’t tell me what it was, but she was terrified because of the threat.”
“What’s going on, Barbara?”
“That’s for Gracie to say. It’s her business.” There was a pause. “Hayes Carson just walked in. He says they lost the trail at the border.”
He cursed. “Let me talk to him.”
Barbara handed him the phone, mouthing, “Jason Pendleton.”
“Hi, Jason,” Sheriff Hayes said quietly. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. They got Gracie. I’m sure there will be a ransom demand. I’ve called in Garon Grier and Jon Blackhawk over at the San Antonio FBI field office. They’re on their way down here to investigate. Well, Garon is. Jon said he’s going to come to your house with a team and set up surveillance and wiretaps.”
“Tell him to come ahead,” he replied. “I’ll have the gates open. God, what a shock!”
“She should never have been on that road alone in a car that was known to belong to you, with kidnappers running around locally,” Hayes said shortly. “She had no defenses at all. She wouldn’t even own a handgun. She was an easy mark. Why couldn’t you send someone to pick up the car?”
“I was out of the country,” he said curtly. “My ex-fiancée asked Gracie to bring it back before I got home, so I wouldn’t know she let Gracie borrow it.”
“Sweet girl.”
He drew in a harsh breath. “I could wring her neck! But it’s all my fault. Gracie walked out because of all the changes. So did the rest of my staff. I’m sitting up here all by myself, just off an international flight with a ruined house and I’m half-starved. I don’t even know where to find the coffeepot or the coffee.”
“Jon will find them. He can cook,” Hayes said. “He’ll feed you and make coffee.” He paused. “Maybe I should send his half brother up. He’s a Fed, too, even if he’s working undercover down here as a Jacobsville cop.”
“I won’t let Kilraven in the front door, so save your breath,” Jason said curtly. “I know him too well. He’s headstrong and he won’t follow orders. I do
n’t want Gracie killed.” The word hit him right in the heart. Gracie could be tortured or raped or murdered, and he sat here without the means to save her. He felt a wave of utter helplessness that filled him with fury. “Could you talk to Cy Parks and see if he and Eb Scott could get a team together for me, just in case? Money’s no object. You don’t need to tell the Bureau about it, either.”
“I’ll do that,” Hayes said quietly. “I have great respect for the FBI, but sometimes they move more slowly than I like. Gracie will be taken to one of the roughest areas across the border. A sheltered, gentle girl like her…it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I know.” The words were like spikes, digging into his heart. “We have to get her out quickly.”
“I’ll talk to Parks and get back to you.”
“I’ll have the cell with me constantly. Here’s the number.” He paused for the sheriff to write it down. “I don’t care what time you call.”
“I know that. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up.
Jason dropped into the ultramodern armchair that was as uncomfortable as hell, even without armrests, and cursed himself for his lack of foresight. He’d been so wrapped up in business and revenge that he hadn’t given a thought to Gracie’s well-being. She was his life, and he’d put her at risk. His eyes closed. All he could do right now was pray. And he did.
JON BLACKHAWK WAS AS tall as his older half brother, Kilraven. They shared the same pale silver eyes and jet-black hair, except that Jon wore his in a long ponytail down his back. He was dressed in a vested gray suit and he looked as elegant as a duke. Rumor had it that the half brothers, between them, owned half a county back in Oklahoma.
He lifted a black eyebrow when Jason answered the door himself. “A house this size, and you open doors?”
“I just fired the staff,” Jason muttered. “Come on in.”
Jon looked around and winced. “Good God!”
“That’s what I said when I saw it. My ex-fiancée took it upon herself to remodel the whole damned place. I’m looking at a small fortune to put everything back the way it was.” He led the way to the kitchen. “I learned to cook in the army, but mostly it was snake or lizard or various bugs, and I’m too tired to go hunting any,” he added facetiously. “Hayes Carson says you can cook. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and that was in Amsterdam where I was attending an economic conference.”
Blackhawk laughed amusedly. He took off his jacket and vest and looked for an apron. He whipped one of Mrs. Harcourt’s around his elegant, lithe body and proceeded to search out food, coffee and equipment. He pulled out a frying pan. “I do a mean omelet. Coffee?”
“Please,” Jason said heavily. “I’d rather get drunk, but it really wouldn’t help.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Blackhawk agreed. “Problems only get bigger when you try to avoid them. If it’s any consolation, this man, Emilio Machado, has great respect for women. One of his men raped a hostage. Machado had him shot dead on the spot.”
Jason relaxed, just a little. “That’s something, I guess. Gracie is…well, she’s no party girl. She’s been sheltered and is rather naive.”
“My kind of girl,” Blackhawk said gently. “I hate these brassy, pushy modern women who think nothing of propositioning a man minutes after they meet him.”
“Throwback,” Jason mused.
“Count on it,” the younger man agreed curtly. “Actually I come from a unique moral culture.”
“Do tell,” Jason said, intrigued.
“My father was full-blooded Lakota Sioux. He inherited a fortune in oil shares from his father, who owned land in Oklahoma. My mother, however, is Cherokee mixed with Irish.” He shook his head. “Part of me would love to drink. The other part reminds me constantly that I could become an alcoholic with almost no trouble at all.”
“Warring inner cultures.”
“Yes, like my half brother.”
“And his mother?”
“His mother was white. She’s dead now,” he added quietly and in a tone that didn’t invite speculation.
“You shared a father?” Jason asked, confused.
“Yes. Our father was an FBI agent who worked out of San Antonio. Kilraven’s mother had married the FBI agent first and had Kilraven. He’s two years older than I am. Then his father married my mother. We’re both technically Blackhawks, but Kilraven took his mother’s last name when he started doing undercover work. We’re only half brothers, but we look alike.”
“Yes, you do.”
The doorbell rang just as Jon was getting eggs out of the refrigerator. Jason answered the door. Three men in suits stood there. One was all too familiar.
“Kilraven…” Jason began curtly.
Kilraven held up a big hand. “Your brother-in-law, Ramirez, has already read me the riot act about not following orders,” he interrupted. “He plays chess with my boss. I can’t really afford to antagonize him.”
Jason groaned. “Rodrigo and Glory. I haven’t called them.”
“No need. Ramirez already knows. He said to keep them posted.” He lifted his head and sniffed. “Omelets?” He looked hungry. “I haven’t had any supper. They—” he pointed at the two somber, older agents beside him “—wouldn’t stop by a fast food joint on the way here.”
“We were told to hurry,” the oldest said.
Jason chuckled. “All right, come on in. Your brother’s cooking,” he told Kilraven.
“This will be a feast,” Kilraven commented. “He actually took a cordon bleu cooking course. My mouth is already watering.”
“There’s plenty, if one of you can cook bacon.”
Kilraven raised his hand. “I know how to cook it over a campfire. I’ll improvise,” he added, brushing past Jason. “Who can do cinnamon toast?”
Jason let the other agents in and closed the door. They all headed for the kitchen. “I can, if your brother can find the bread and butter and cinnamon. The house was wrecked while I was away.”
Kilraven made a face as they passed the living room. “Something that ugly could get you arrested for maintaining an eyesore.”
“Tell me about it,” Jason returned. “Come on in. Jon, can we feed three more?”
Jon looked up and grinned. “Sure. I’ll add more eggs.” He glanced at his brother and chuckled. “Did I hear you offering to cook the bacon?”
Kilraven rolled up his sleeves. “You bet. Where is it?”
“We need bread, butter and cinnamon, too. And plates.”
“And forks,” one of the other agents suggested.
“And I thought omelets were finger food,” Kilraven scoffed.
“While we’re working in here, you two get things set up in the living room,” Jon told the older agents. “We’re expecting a call pretty soon.”
They nodded. One of them was carrying what looked like a suitcase full of electronic equipment. They went to the living room and started unpacking.
The other three men worked companionably in the kitchen and served up a filling meal. They were just finishing second cups of coffee when the phone suddenly rang.
THEY HURRIED TOWARD THE living room. Two of Jon’s fellow agents sat down at a table loaded with high-tech equipment. Jon nodded to the agent who was monitoring the second line he’d placed there on his arrival and motioned to Jason to pick up the receiver.
“Pendleton,” Jason said curtly.
“We have your sister,” an accented voice replied. “We will call you back in a few days to negotiate the ransom. Do not involve the FBI. We will be watching. If they interfere, she will die and we will not call back.” He hung up.
Jon was watching Jason’s face. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” he said quietly. “We know what we’re doing.”
So did he. He knew that if they didn’t retrieve Gracie within twenty-four hours, it was likely that they wouldn’t retrieve her at all. The kidnappers had said it would be days before they called back. He was worried out of his mind. He hoped that Cy Parks could put togeth
er a team and go after her. This high-tech equipment was very good, but the kidnappers were in no hurry and what they needed was fast action, before Gracie became a statistic.
GRACIE CAME TO IN a shack, to the sound of a guitar playing some soulful melody nearby. It was beautiful, like a one-instrument symphony of harmony and poignant reverie. She wondered who was playing it.
She sat up. She was handcuffed, with her hands behind her, but she was no longer hooded. She felt very groggy. She recalled, vaguely, a needle being pressed into her arm when she was run off the road and snatched out of Jason’s car by two short, stocky men. Nearby, a small boy in ragged clothing was sitting at the door, watching her. He had huge, soulful brown eyes.
“¿Como se llama?” she asked softly.
He stared at her, blinking. It was a surprise to see the lack of comprehension in his eyes. He didn’t understand Spanish. She wondered if he was Mayan. And then she wondered where she was. The Mayan people lived in the Yucatan. Was that where she was?
“¡Honee bot may!” she greeted phonetically, using the little bit of Mayan dialect she’d picked up from one of Barbara’s acquaintances. There were many dialects of Mayan. In this one, the phrase meant hello. Assuming that she wasn’t murdering the pronunciation.
The boy suddenly grinned from ear to ear. “Honee bot may,” he replied shyly. He said something else, but she didn’t understand. He darted out the door. Seconds later, the guitar went silent. The cloth flap that served as a door was pushed aside and a tall, large, man in jeans and a blue silk shirt came inside, smiling at her.
He was very handsome. He had large, deep-set brown eyes in a square face, with an unruly mop of curling black hair on his head. He had a straight nose and high cheekbones, a square chin, and a very wide, sensuous mouth. He was broad-shouldered and husky, more like a wrestler than a horseman. His complexion was light olive-brown. He had a regal bearing.