by Lisa Jackson
Nausea roiled up her throat. “You tried to kill me. You jumped in front of Pam’s car on Highway 17 and then you were in the hospital and in my room. You put some kind of poison in my juice.”
“That was tricky. I had to sneak into your room, but I’d done it before. See, honey, you’re smarter than you look.”
She remembered the figure she’d seen in her window. “You failed,” she threw back at him, refusing to be intimidated
“Not for long.” He turned to the baby. “Shut up, kid. Shut the fuck up!”
“He’s just a baby!”
“Not just a baby. Conrad Amhurst’s damned grandson. Shit.” He spat out the words as the car jolted to a stop.
Kylie’s head was spinning, her brain trying to come up with some means of escape as he prodded her out the door and into the basement parking garage that smelled of grease and exhaust. “Here,” he said, nudging her up a single, concrete flight of stairs and onto the street where the wind ripped around the buildings and the sky was dark as night. She thought of Marla and Alex, Eugenia and Phil Robertson, Cherise and Donald Favier. How many people were in on this deadly plot? How many people had died, all for the sake of Conrad Amhurst’s money? Pam Delacroix. Charles Biggs. And now Nick. Precious Nick.
Because of her.
Because of greed.
Because she’d always wanted to be another woman.
Now, as she walked through the blustery morning, she had one eye on the gun Montgomery concealed in his parka, the other on her child. Could she risk screaming for help, snatching her baby away and damning the consequences? No . . . there wasn’t enough time.
“Promise me you won’t hurt the baby,” she begged. “You can take him back to the apartment and leave him there or take a cab and offer to pay the driver to take him and—”
“Shut up!” Monty exploded, his eyes snapping fire. “The kid stays with me.”
“But—”
“Get in,” he growled as they reached a dark blue Jeep. The vehicle Nick had thought was following them, the one at the church where Donald Favier was a preacher. She had no options. With a sinking sensation, she climbed inside the dirty interior. The stale scent of cigarette smoke mingled with the odor of grease. Old taco wrappers and beer bottles were strewn across the floor of the back seat. “Put your seat belt on,” he ordered as he settled behind the steering wheel, holding the squirming, crying baby on his lap. Kylie reached for her child and was rewarded with a smart crack on the wrist with the butt of his pistol.
“No tricks,” Monty warned. “Don’t try to pull a fast one.” He twisted on the ignition with one hand, held the squirming baby in his other. “If I slam on the brakes, the kid is either killed by the air bag or goes through the windshield. Like Pam.”
Terror drove a stake in Kylie’s heart. She didn’t dare move, did everything he said as the engine sparked and James started to cry in earnest. Monty pulled away from the curb and stepped on the gas. The Jeep roared up the hill. The baby wailed and Kylie was helpless to do anything. She thought of Nick. He was probably already dead and soon, soon, her baby would be too. Unless she complied. Or . . . Oh, God, could she go through with it—sleep with this vile killer? Could she pretend to be a woman she was not, just as she’d pretended confusion the night before with Alex? She nearly retched. Nausea roiled up her throat but she knew deep in her heart that she’d do anything to save her son.
Even if it meant seducing the bastard who held James’s fate in his filthy, cruel hands.
“What the hell happened here?” Paterno yelled. “Call 911. Get an ambulance!” Paterno was on his knees, feeling for a pulse, sensing that Nick Cahill was about to die in the hallway outside Kylie Paris’ apartment. “Hang in there,” he said and the guy’s eyes fluttered open. Doors opened to the corridor. Janet Quinn was already on her cell phone.
“Kylie,” Nick said, reaching up with effort, grabbing Paterno’s shirt front and tie in his fist.
“I know about her. Don’t talk.” The detective opened Cahill’s jacket and shirt, saw the dark ring of the bullet hole and the blood still pouring out Cahill’s wound. Gunshot. “Who did this to you?” He whipped out his handkerchief and ignoring all those warnings about gloves, tried to staunch the flow of blood.
“Marla . . . Kylie . . . Montgomery,” Nick rasped.
“Hell, he’s out of it.”
“Monty,” Nick repeated, his eyes glassing over. “He’s got her.”
“Who? Where are they? Where’s Marla?”
“The ranch . . . Cahill . . . ranch . . . but Kylie . . . you’ve got to find . . .” Nick passed out.
“The ambulance is on its way,” Janet said as she leaned down, felt for a pulse on the hand that had dropped away from Paterno’s shirt.
“It had better get here fast.” Paterno didn’t think Nick would survive. Chalk one more up to the killer.
“Jesus,” Janet whispered, more as a prayer than a curse as she saw the wound and Paterno’s blood-soaked handkerchief. “He’s not gonna make it.”
“You’re never gonna get away with this,” Kylie said as Montgomery reached into the glove box and pulled out an electronic garage door opener that not only opened the gate of the Cahill estate to swing open but also caused the garage door to crank up. “The house is filled with servants.”
“Is it? Well, the old lady is down at Cahill House making plans for the annual holiday party, Lars has been deployed to drive her wherever she needs to go, the teenager’s at school, Alex is making arrangements for your father’s funeral and the servants that were left were given the day off—because the old man died.”
Alone? She was going to be alone with him?
“This is how you got into the house,” she said, eyeing the garage door opener. “Alex—did he give it to you?”
“Smart girl,” Monty said, juggling James. “We’ll go in.”
“And do what?” she asked. “What is it you want?”
“Money.”
“I don’t have any.”
“But you have access . . . through the computer. All you have to do is make a few transfers.” He sent her a glance. “What’s a few hundred grand for your kid’s life?”
“I can’t even log onto the damned thing,” she argued. “I . . . I don’t know the codes.”
“Sure you do. You’ve done it hundreds of times. I’ve seen you.”
“No, I can’t. I’m not Marla.”
“Yeah, right. I heard you the first time.”
“But it’s true. We switched places—”
“Shut up, bitch!”
Desperation tore at her soul. There was no way out of this mess. Monty was certain she was Marla. There was nothing she could do to dissuade him. He assumed she could give him money from her accounts with Alex, but that was impossible. Oh, Lord, what could she do? “But I can’t remember,” she said.
His hard eyes slitted behind his sunglasses. “I know enough of the code. You’ll remember. Now,” he said as he parked his Jeep in the spot once reserved for Marla Cahill’s Porsche, “let’s go.” He forced her out of the rig and while he carried the baby, he kept his gun in his pocket, but trained on Marla. She thought of flinging herself at him, but that would accomplish nothing and he would certainly kill her son. She looked for a weapon, but other than a few old hubcaps on the wall, a vise mounted on a workbench, and a tire iron that she had no chance of reaching, there was nothing.
She was doomed. When she couldn’t access the files, he’d get angry and . . . and . . . oh, God, she couldn’t think what might happen to James. The elevator door opened and he halfshoved her inside. James was fussing loudly now and Monty was getting irritated. “Shut up,” he growled at the baby.
“He’s tired.”
“Tough. Shut him up.”
“Here, let me have him.” She reached forward and Monty slammed her back against the wall of the car, then punched the bedroom floor with the muzzle of his silencer.
“Keep away.”
Maybe a
servant would be in the hallway. Maybe Monty didn’t know what was going on in the house, she thought desperately, grasping at any little straw she could find. Fiona might still be around and Rosa could be vacuuming or dusting. Carmen . . . where was Carmen, surely she wouldn’t have left the premises . . . oh, please God, let someone be here to help me. The elevator door opened into an empty hallway. “Let’s go,” Montgomery growled as the baby quieted. The corridor was empty. Lit by a few lamps. No sounds of rattling dishes, muted conversation or footsteps disturbed the deathly silence.
Monty pushed her into the suite, then locked the door behind him. “Well, well, well,” he said, glancing around. “This place hasn’t changed much, has it?” His smile was brutal. Dirty. Filled with horrifying promise. “You and me, we spent some time here. A lot of it.”
Her stomach recoiled at the thought.
“I don’t remember.”
“No?” That stopped him. Beneath his thin moustache, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “Well, that just won’t do, now will it? Maybe I should find a way to remind you.”
Oh, God, this was her chance. If she could find the nerve. Dig deep. Remember the old Kylie, the one with brass balls, the woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. “And just how do you propose to do that?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.
“I’ve got my ways.”
“All talk, Monty,” she said, and he hesitated, obviously didn’t believe her ploy.
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “You just wait here.” Slowly he placed James on the carpet.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
“Please, please don’t hurt him.”
“I won’t. Not if you do what I want.”
“Promise me you won’t hurt him,” she pleaded, terrified to her bones.
“Okay, I promise.” His eyes glinted malevolently.
She didn’t trust him. She was trembling inside, aching to be with her child who was lying by the coffee table. “Now, you, in here.” He waved his gun toward her bedroom. “Come on, Marla.”
Just do what he says. James is safe in here. Maybe someone in the house will come by . . . if anyone was around. Heart in her throat, she walked through the open door and Monty followed inside, to Marla Cahill’s bedroom with its perfectly coordinated drapes and bedspread. He glanced at the canopied bed and a slow smile curved over his lips. “Okay, bitch, this is where it all started between you and me. Maybe it’s time to end it here.”
She swallowed her fear and stared at him. “If you think it would be a good idea.”
“I think it would be a helluva idea,” he said, then, with the gun pointed at her temple, he grabbed her with his free hand, dragged her close and kissed her hard on the lips. He tasted of old smoke and coffee and she wanted to throw up but she closed her eyes and her mind, knowing that if she just got him into the bed, in a compromising situation, she could grab his gun or . . . or reach under the mattress and pull out Alex’s pistol.
His hand was rough over her clothes, pawing at her breasts, groping lower. “Come on, baby,” he said inching her toward the bed. The back of her knees hit the mattress. “Let’s see what you can do. I remember you gave the best head I’ve ever had.”
She moaned though her insides curdled and they tumbled on the bed together. In that moment, she flung one arm out and arched against him. He kissed her hard on the lips and she flipped on the control of the intercom, then held him tight, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. Never releasing the gun, he ripped open her shirt with his free hand and rubbed her breasts, pinching her nipples through her bra. She pretended a fever she didn’t feel and stripped him of his parka and sweatshirt, running her hands up his ribs to tangle in the springing hairs guarding a thin chest.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” he murmured, his eyelids lowering to half-mast, his fingers still tight on the pistol, its nose digging into her throat.
She moved lower and her fingers slid his zipper down over a hard, anxious erection.
I can’t do this, she thought wildly, but touched him with her fingers, stroking gently then harder as she heard him groan deep in his throat. Dear God, help me. With her free hand she reached over the edge of the mattress, her fingers searching between mattress and box springs, stretching to find the cold metal.
“That’s it baby, now suck me,” he said and she thought she’d puke all over him.
“Take off your pants,” she ordered though her voice shook.
“You do it.”
Forcing herself she complied, using both hands. The muzzle of his gun slipped a little. She wiggled, as if really getting into stripping him and as she lowered his jeans, let her fingers trail over the inside of his thigh.
“That’s it, that’s it,” he growled. She slid one hand to the edge of the bed again, found the gun, and, sweating, certain he would figure out what she was doing, worked hard, inching it toward the edge of the mattress until she was able to pry it free. His fingers loosened over his own pistol, though he still held it. But no longer was it pressed to her throat. She said something dirty against his thigh. “You know I want it,” she rasped. “No one was ever as good as you, Monty. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Prove it. Suck me.”
Help me, she silently prayed, adjusting herself and using all the energy she could muster, drew her knee up swiftly. Hard. Connected with his testicles.
He bellowed in pain and curled into a ball. His gun fell off the bed. “You fucking bitch!” he gasped, scrabbling for his weapon.
Kylie yanked Alex’s pistol free and clicked off the safety.
“You bitch! You’re gonna pay!” he cried as he reached over the edge of the bed and his fingers curled over his gun.
Kylie didn’t wait. At point blank range, she pulled the trigger.
Crack!
The gun went off. Monty’s arm exploded. He shrieked in pain. Blood and bits of bone sprayed over the bed, over Kylie, onto the wall and on the lacy canopy. Monty rolled away from her, blood pouring from the wound in his arm.
Somewhere nearby the baby screamed and there were footsteps racing, thundering through the house. Finally, help was on the way.
Sobbing, gasping, forcing herself from the horrid bed, Kylie trained her weapon on Monty. Naked, he managed to get to his feet, then as he took a step, the jeans bunching at his ankles, acting like shackles, held him fast. “Don’t even think about it,” she ordered, ready to fire again though the gun wobbled in her hand. He sank to the floor, dragging in breaths and moaning in pain.
“Don’t move.”
With a groan he passed out.
Her feet landed on the carpet as the door burst open.
Then all her bravado fled.
She was standing, half naked, face to face with her half sister, the woman she’d envied all her life. And Marla wasn’t alone. In her arms, blinking and crying, was Kylie’s son, James.
“Wha—what are you doing here?” she asked.
“This is my house.”
“But—”
“I came for my son, Kylie.”
“Don’t take him away from me,” she begged as Alex slipped through the door.
“Too late, Kylie.” His smile was cold as ice, the shotgun in his hand deadly as he lifted it to his shoulder and sighted on Kylie. “The way I see this scenario is your lover, Montgomery over there, and you tried to steal our son, to kidnap and ransom him. Everything went wrong. Montgomery tried to double-cross you and you killed each other.”
Kylie turned her gun toward Alex, who laughed.
“That’s it, go ahead, try to shoot me or Marla . . . it’ll only add credence to my story that I had to kill you to protect my home and family. And remember, the baby might get hurt with all the bullets flying. I don’t think that’s a chance you’re willing to take.”
“Why did you do all this?” she asked, anger and fear raging inside her.
“Did you ever really think I’d give this baby to you?”
Marla asked.
“I figured you were in on this.”
“From the start. You’ve always been a thorn in my side. It killed me to have to ask you to conceive my baby.” Marla had cut her hair to the same length as Kylie’s and they looked enough alike that few people could tell them apart. It was all so sick.
“How did you know where I was going that night . . . after we had the fight in the foyer?” Kylie asked, trying to stall, to come up with some plan to wrest her child from Marla and break free.
“Don’t you think we knew you’d take the bait and drive down to Monterey?” Alex asked. “Jesus, we set that up, too. I made it look like Marla called me. I knew you’d figure it out, that you over heard the conversation—at least half of it—and that you’d call the automatic callback service and find out that the call had been from the bed and breakfast.”
“But you weren’t there, were you?” Kylie asked, her gaze turning to Marla, as she remembered the call.
“No. Montgomery did the honors. The minute you left Alex called him back and he took up his position on Highway 17.” Marla’s eyes gleamed as if she’d just won a very important game.
“But I could have taken another route,” Kylie argued.
“But we followed,” Marla said. “Alex, James and me. In a rental car. We followed you down to Haight Street and saw you get into Pam’s Mercedes. From there it was easy—just call Monty and get him into position. Pam was a bonus. We were going to have to deal with her, too, since she was your attorney of choice and was not only going to help you in court but write the damned book. Even though you didn’t die in the accident, at least we got her out of the way.”
Kylie’s fingers curled on the bloody bedspread. Was there no way out of this mess. Think, Kylie. Think! “Why would Monty want to kill me?”
“Not you,” Alex said. “Marla. He wanted to kill Marla for betraying him and he needed money. Monty had himself a pretty expensive cocaine habit.”
Kylie dropped her head in her hands, but again, she knew she couldn’t give up, couldn’t let them win. She was thinking fast, trying to come up with a way to snatch the gun from Alex and still save James. “And Cherise was in on this?”