by Неизвестный
Dillon wanted to introduce Kate, the woman he loved, to his parents. It surprised him how quickly it had happened, but he was nearly thirty-nine years old. He hadn’t been in love since med school when he dated the same woman for three years. That time, it had taken him months to realize that he was in love. Now, he knew it without reservation. Dillon loved Kate Donovan. She was just going to have to get used to it.
He turned the corner and saw his small, comfortable bungalow. Kate would fit in here, with his family, but she also might want her old life back. Maybe move back to Virginia and reclaim her job. He would support her in whatever she decided, but more important, he would be there with her.
He walked up the porch stairs, unlocked his door. It didn’t budge. “Damn,” he muttered. He always bolted the front door when he was home, primarily using the kitchen door as his entrance and exit since it was closer to the garage. When he left on Thursday, he must have gone out the back door.
He strolled down his driveway. The small rose garden he cultivated along the drive needed pruning. He might need to hire a gardener to tend to the landscaping, especially since he planned on spending a lot of time on the opposite coast. Frankly, he’d been too worried about Lucy to remember anything that day. He took the steps two at a time to his kitchen door. Unlocked it, entered, bolted it.
A smell hit him. Food. Had he left garbage in the house? He wouldn’t be surprised; he had left in a hurry and it had been four days.
He crossed the kitchen and opened the cabinet door beneath the sink and pulled out the small, lined trashcan he used. He was about to pull out the garbage bag to take it outside when he saw an empty can of chili on top.
He hadn’t eaten chili in ages. Someone had been in his house.
Quietly, he put the trash back under the sink. Every nerve was on alert and he listened to the sounds of his house. The silence. A creak.
The sound of someone breathing behind him.
Dillon slowly turned around. He didn’t see anyone.
Then Adam Scott stepped into the kitchen from the dining room.
He had a gun.
“Adam.”
“Trask to you.”
Dillon couldn’t get out the door; he’d bolted it when he entered. Out of habit. For security.
But that didn’t help when the killer was already inside.
“What do you want?” Dillon asked. He gave his kitchen a quick once-over. Nothing was out of place.
Except that his butcher block of knives was no longer on the counter next to the stove. Scott must have been here a while. Not just in Dillon’s house, but watching the Kincaid family. Anger ran through Dillon’s veins. The arrogance of this bastard! But that also told Dillon that Scott had another flaw, one he planned to exploit.
“Not you. You’re a means to an end. Thank you for being so predictable.”
Dillon dug deep into his training and well-honed instincts. Adam Scott was here for one thing: Lucy. Because Lucy was bait. For Kate. “You’ll never get to Lucy.”
Scott laughed. “You don’t know women very well, do you?”
Dillon knew exactly what Scott meant and he fumed. Lucy was intensely loyal, and an unscrupulous person could easily manipulate her guilt and fear. Scott would certainly not be above inducing a damaged woman to make a dangerous choice. He made his life out of it. Dillon wanted to believe Lucy was stronger than that, but right now she was too vulnerable.
“But you don’t really want Lucy,” Dillon said.
“Think again.”
“You want to bring Monique back from the dead.”
Scott’s face twisted in shocked frustration. “I knew that backstabbing asshole would talk.”
“I saw a picture of Monique, back when she went missing. She was beautiful. She looks very much like Lucy.
“How long did it take you surfing the Internet, manipulating teenagers, getting them to send their picture, before you found Lucy?”
“I’m not stupid, Dr. Kincaid. I know exactly what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. You’ve never met anyone like me, so your machinations won’t work. I enjoy what I do. But it’s all about the money.”
“I agree, money motivates you. Probably because your father disowned you and took everything that was rightfully yours. You were an only child, you wouldn’t have had to share with anyone, but—” Dillon recalled the notes Quinn had on the Scott family, “—he left his sizable estate to a museum.”
Scott scowled. “You’ve been working with the feds. They’re probably having a field day trying to figure out where I’m going.”
“They believe you were coming here to San Diego. You know you’ll never get to Lucy, even if there was some way you could contact her. She’s protected by a bodyguard, and the police are patrolling the house regularly.”
“But they weren’t watching your house, were they?” Scott snickered.
“But you really don’t want Lucy.”
“Right, right, I want the fictional Monique.” Scott attempted to look bored and amused, but failed. In his cold eyes, Dillon saw the truth.
“You want Kate.”
Scott laughed, but his hand tightened around the gun. “Kate. She’ll come to me on my terms.” He cocked an eyebrow at Dillon. “And how well do you know Kate? Hmm? I noticed you just came back from Seattle. Didn’t come back with your poor little sister. Screwing around with Kate, perhaps?”
Dillon would not allow Scott to bait him. “You want Kate because she outsmarted you.”
“Kate is alive by accident. I would have had her five years ago if that guy hadn’t run in and distracted me.”
Dillon shook his head. “Kate is smart. She took down your legitimate business. Forced you into hiding. Cost you money. But that’s not the real reason you hate her.”
“Really?” Scott tried to look nonchalant, but his complexion had reddened.
“You hate her because she reminds you of a woman who humiliated and demeaned you.” Dillon was taking a gamble, but he was ninety percent confident he was right about Adam Scott.
He said softly, “You were raped. Tied down and raped by a woman. The weaker sex. But you were weak. You couldn’t fight back. Maybe you didn’t want to. Maybe you liked it, and you hate that you liked it.”
“Shut up!”
Scott lunged for him. Dillon dove right, toward the breakfast nook. He fell over the table, but tripped Scott. The killer stumbled, but stayed upright. Worse, he kept hold of the gun.
Dillon turned and, using all his strength, pushed the table across the nook and into Scott’s body. Scott grunted, wedged between the table and the wall. Dillon jumped on the table and grabbed Scott’s wrist, slamming it on the table to loosen his hold on the gun.
He didn’t see the knife in Scott’s left hand.
Dillon screamed at the searing pain in his thigh and grabbed at the wound. Scott pulled out the knife, pushed Dillon off the table, and hit him across the face with his gun.
Dillon rolled over, panting, trying to assess whether the knife wound was serious. Hot blood coated his fingers. He tried to force his mind away from the pain and think like a doctor. He didn’t think it was deep.
He got up on all fours and Scott kicked him in the kidney. His vision blurred.
“You fucking shrinks know nothing about me. Nothing. You got that?”
Scott grabbed Dillon by his shirt collar and pulled him up, the gun cocked and touching the back of his head.
Dillon had no choice but to go where Scott led him, through his house and into his bedroom. He pushed him onto the bed and clicked a handcuff onto one wrist. The other end was hooked onto the headboard.
Scott smiled, but there was only sick humor in his face. “We have a call to make.”
“Don’t hang up or your brother dies.”
Lucy started shaking uncontrollably. Trevor Conrad was calling her. Why? Hadn’t he hurt her enough?
“Wh-what?”
“Listen. You have thirty minutes. Leave your house alone. W
alk directly to your brother’s house.”
“Which brother?” Dillon, Patrick, and Connor all lived within walking distance.
“The shrink!”
Trevor had Dillon? That wasn’t possible. Why did he want her to come? To rape her? To kill her? She couldn’t do it.
What if Dillon was already dead?
“What do you want?” she asked, stalling.
“That’s none of your business, Lucy. But if you’re not here in thirty minutes, your brother will be dead. And if you tell anyone, he’ll die in extreme pain.”
“Let me talk to him. Please!”
He hung up.
She stared at her phone. What was she going to do?
There was a knock on her door and she stifled a scream. “Come in,” she called.
Jack walked in. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” she lied. Could he tell something was wrong? She almost laughed at the absurdity of that thought. Wrong? Everything was wrong and had been for days. No one would know why. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay.” He paused, looked around the room, and left.
Her phone beeped and she opened it.
New pix message.
She retrieved it.
“Oh, dear God, why are you doing this to me?”
Dillon was handcuffed to his bed, blood on his lip and streaked over his shirt. The message read: Come alone, he lives. Tell anyone, he dies. Could you live with yourself knowing you killed the man who risked his life to save you?
* * *
THIRTY-FOUR
QUINN STARED AT KATE across the table of the task force office that had been set up four days ago when the FBI had first learned that Trask had kidnapped Lucy Kincaid.
“Earth to Kate.”
“Sorry. Daydreaming.”
“About?”
“Dillon.”
“Why didn’t you go to his house with him?”
She sighed. “I made a mistake. You have enough people here to go over these records. You don’t need me, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
She gave him a mock frown. “I should be hurt by that.”
“Go see Dillon. It’ll make you feel better. I’ll call you if we learn anything about Scott.”
“Thanks.” She paused.
“What?”
“Can I borrow a car?”
Dillon tore a wide strip off his shirt and, using his free hand and teeth, tied a tourniquet around the knife wound in his thigh. He assessed the damage. Not deep, but it still hurt like hell.
Scott had left as soon as he sent Lucy a picture of Dillon. Dillon wished he could have communicated something to Lucy to keep her safe, but he feared she would walk right over out of guilt. All he could hope for was Jack keeping her under lock and key. He wouldn’t let her just leave the house alone.
Scott came back into the bedroom.
“Leave Lucy out of this,” Dillon told Adam Scott.
“She only has ten more minutes. She didn’t send anyone over. No patrols out front. No one lurking in the bushes. Smart kid. But nowhere near as smart as me.”
“What do you really want?” Dillon asked. It wasn’t money. While money was vitally important to Scott, he wouldn’t risk being caught for it. He had lost a lot to the FBI, but he still had millions squirreled away. Enough to buy a new identity and disappear.
This wasn’t about money. It wasn’t just about the humiliation he’d suffered by having his sick webcam shut down, or even about his father disowning him. In fact, Dillon didn’t think it was about Lucy.
It was about Monique—bringing her back from the dead—and it was about Kate. Lucy was a tool. A trap.
“You really do want Kate.”
Scott stared at him, his hard face unmoving. Shrugged.
“You don’t need Lucy.”
“I need to give Kate proper incentive. And I like Lucy. She’ll be properly submissive once I train her.”
“We’ll never stop looking for her. You know that.”
“Makes it more of a challenge. Of course, I could just kill you all, then no one would be looking for her. In fact, she wouldn’t even try to escape.” Scott seemed to seriously ponder this option.
“Lucy won’t come.”
But Dillon knew she would. The guilt over Patrick’s condition would compel her to make sure the same thing didn’t happen to him. Dillon wished he could have talked to her, but Scott had left the room while making the call, after taking his picture as proof of his words.
“Yes, she will. I’ve been watching your family for the last twenty-four hours. I know she spent hours at the hospital with your younger brother. With your commando brother around her all the time, I couldn’t get her out of the house on my own. I used to have plenty of men who would have stormed the house and taken her for me, but Kate killed them all.” He smiled oddly at Dillon. “You killed one of them, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You shot an unarmed man. How does that make you feel, Doctor?”
“I have no feelings on the matter. He was raping my sister.” He did have feelings, strong feelings. He would have done anything, killed anyone, to spare Lucy.
Scott just nodded thoughtfully. “How did you hook up with Kate Donovan in the first place?”
“Mutual friend,” Dillon answered cryptically.
Scott didn’t like that answer. “How does it feel to have sent your brothers into a trap?”
“Trap?”
Scott was jumping around, trying to keep Dillon off-guard.
“In Baja California. They walked right into it. Boom. Noble of you, to let them take the lead. Poor Patrick.”
Dillon didn’t fall for the bait. “This is between you and Kate. Leave Lucy out of it.”
“You don’t get it. Monique and I will disappear as soon as I kill Kate.” Scott frowned rubbed his eyes. “Lucy and I will disappear.”
“How did Monique die? Were you having sex and just got carried away?”
“It was an accident.”
“You couldn’t get hard, could you? So you had to play games.”
“Shut up.”
“You were soft. Maybe she teased you. You hit her. Saw her scared. Scared of you. That turned you on, didn’t it?”
“Women like it rough. Monique loved our games.”
“You got turned on when she was scared, were able to finally get it up and into her, then what happened? Your dick grow limp again? Couldn’t climax?”
“I said to shut up.” Scott was pacing.
Dillon knew he had him. He kept pushing, biding time. Jack would begin to get suspicious when Dillon didn’t show up with the food he’d promised to bring for dinner. Jack would come check on him, see the blood and disarray in the kitchen.
Dillon just had to keep Adam Scott focused on him, not Lucy.
“So you put your hands around her neck. Squeezed. She was terrified. She would have begged you to stop, but she couldn’t talk. You loved that. Finally you could have an orgasm. You achieved what seems so effortless for normal men. Victory, right? You were in charge, on top of the world. But you held on too long. Squeezed too tight. Monique was dead.
“How did you feel? Knowing you killed her for your own short-lived sexual pleasure?”
Scott backhanded him. “You know nothing about my relationship with Monique. I loved her.”
“Funny way to show it.”
“I’ve learned a lot in the last twenty years. I don’t kill anyone by accident.”
“What about April Klinger?”
“You’re not going to get me spouting off about April. That’s Kate’s game. She’s got that bee in her bonnet. If it weren’t for that bitch April, no one would have investigated Trask Enterprises.”
“Adam, I think—”
He hit him again. Dillon swallowed blood, coughed.
“Call me Trask!”
Scott shook his head, started pacing again. “You people and your ethics. It’s so easy to be me. I
’m not encumbered by rules and morals. Morals are for idiots. Lucy is going to walk right into your house because she thinks she can save you. The only reason you’re not dead now is for insurance.” He took out a knife, stepped closer to Dillon. His purpose was to terrify and demoralize. Dillon kept his face blank.
Scott pushed back the rage that had coated his face while Dillon had pushed him about Monique. He said in a low voice. “As soon as I have Lucy, I don’t need you.”
“I know that. Lucy knows that, too. She’s not going to walk into a trap.”
Scott laughed. “You don’t know women very well. They are, by and large, stupid creatures. They have all these feelings and fears running around in those insipid brains of theirs. I know exactly what she’s thinking. She’s blaming herself for everything that’s happened, probably thinks she’s stupid. She’ll do anything to make it up to her parents and that brother of yours in the coma. She’s not going to think anything through. Women are incapable of reason. Even Kate, who I’ll admit is smarter than most, doesn’t always think logically. I mean, she was so devastated by that bitch Paige’s death that she ran away!” He frowned. “Made it a little harder to find her.”
“You never knew where she was. You bluffed.”
Scott smiled. “You’ll never know, will you? Kate was pretty good with the computer. Even I began to admire her savvy. But I’m better. I’ve always been better. Kate leads with her heart, thinking she can save the world when she should be more concerned about saving herself.”
Dillon’s jaw clenched involuntarily, and Scott noticed.
“You like her, don’t you?”
“I love my sister.”
“Kate.”
“I barely know her.”
Scott shook his head, smiled. “Interesting.” He took out his cell phone, pressed a few buttons.
Suddenly, the knife came down hard on Dillon’s free hand. He screamed out of pain and surprise, his arm jerking in response. The knife pierced both sides, then Scott pulled it out and Dillon tried, and failed, to bite back a second scream.