by Sylvie Kurtz
And even though she’d just stolen his most precious possession, his heart suddenly ached for the tenderness she’d once showed him, for her seductive kisses, for the softness of her body moving in rhythm to his. Sliding cheek against wet cheek, he moved his head until their lips met. He tasted the saltiness of her tears, the anguish in her sobs, and desperately tried to alchemize both into the trusting bond they’d once shared.
She gulped and gave a small cry that could have been regret or longing, but she remained unyielding. Maybe there had never been as much between them as he’d believed. The thought saddened him, but the tenderness remained. Juliana was no thief. She had a reason for her unlikely action, and he would get to the bottom of it.
He stared into her eyes, now more gray than blue. They reminded him irrationally of thunder on a stormy day. He should have fought for what was his, shouldn’t have let her walk away just to save his male pride. He caressed her cheek with his own, gentled his voice. “Why are you running? What are you afraid of?”
She closed her eyes. Torment etched into her features, distorting them. Her chest heaved beneath his.
“Talk to me, Jewel.”
“Let me go.”
“I can help you.”
She shook her head.
“We can work this out. Let me help you.”
“Please, Lucas.”
“I can’t. There’s too much at stake. I know you didn’t steal the Nadyenka Sapphire for yourself. Who did you steal it for?”
Her eyes opened wide. “How—”
“It’s not your style. Who coerced you into this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“What’s he holding against you?”
She turned her face away from his and struggled once more. He absorbed her blows, letting her tire herself out. Sensing he was on the right track, he kept up the pressure of questions drilled with precision.
“What’s he holding against you, Jewel?”
“Nothing. He’s holding nothing. Now let me go!”
“Blackmail? Is that it?”
“No!”
“He has pictures of you in a compromising position with some public official, and you’re terrified he’ll publish them?”
“No!”
“You cheated him on an original piece, on an appraisal, and now he’s buying your silence with this theft?”
“No!”
“You fenced some of the other pieces he’s stolen, now he’s threatening to expose you?”
“No!”
A car whizzed by, shivering the grass above them in its backwash.
“Then what, Juliana? You’re not the sort of woman who’d compromise her ethics for a stone, no matter how big or how valuable the damned sapphire is. What does he have on you that would make you break the law, make you take the chance of spending time in prison, make you run the risk of destroying your career? It has to be something big, something priceless. For the life of me, I can’t think of anything you’d be willing to give up your precious lifestyle for. You certainly weren’t willing for me.”
Pain twisted in her eyes. He’d pushed too far, made his point too personal. But hell, this was personal. He’d lost her six years ago and still didn’t know why. If he didn’t catch the Phantom, he stood to lose the only proof to his lineage to Dunavia. He stood to lose all the hard gains he’d made in his career. Old Rules-and-Regs, his squad supervisor, wasn’t going to give him many more chances to botch this case before passing it on to “abler” hands.
And now that he’d found Juliana again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her go.
“What’s he holding against you, Juliana?”
She whispered something.
“What?” he asked, bending his head closer to catch her response.
“My daughter.”
The words came out on a thin thread of voice. He thought he’d misunderstood them, but the truth was wide and frank in her eyes, which shifted from gray to deep blue. He stared down at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Juliana had a child? His heart contracted with pain. Juliana with another man? His mind couldn’t quite click the picture in place. Ridiculous as it sounded, he hadn’t thought another man could tame her. He’d unconsciously waited for her to realize the fact and come back to him.
“What?” he asked again, more to jump start his stalled brain than because he wanted her to repeat her unexpected blow.
She cried harder now, and her sobs resonated inside him, making him share her torture. “He’s got my baby. I have to get home before he calls. I have to give him the Sapphire, or he’ll hurt my daughter. Please, Lucas, let me go.”
Kidnapped. Her child had been kidnapped. Now everything made sense. To save his baby, he would have given up the sun and the moon, stolen the Seven Wonders of the World—he’d have done anything.
He’d worked on a kidnapping case once early in his career, and he knew the odds weren’t good. More often than not, the families lost the ransom and their loved ones. But a baby couldn’t describe her captor, couldn’t point to a picture. There was still a slight chance this could have a happy ending.
If they worked it right.
He lightened his weight on her, but didn’t set her free. “You need me.”
“No, no police. He made me promise no police. Definitely no FBI.”
With a curved finger, he wiped the tears from below her eyes. “Me, Lucas, your friend. I’ll help you. Not Special Agent Vassilovich.”
The color of her eyes shifted to cloudy gray once more, swirled with pain and something else he couldn’t quite describe.
“He won’t care,” she said, her voice so lifeless it chilled him. This wasn’t the Juliana he’d known and loved. “He won’t know the difference. He knows what you are.”
The Phantom had done his homework well. Not that Lucas expected anything less from such a foe. Now the prey was playing games with its predator. Knowing this gave Lucas a slight advantage. One he would press to its full measure.
“Do you have a garage?” he asked, forming plans, calculating odds, adding and discarding options as he spoke. He would get Juliana’s child back, and he would put the Phantom behind bars.
“Lucas—”
“Do you have a garage?” he insisted.
“Yes.”
“Is it attached to the house?”
“Lu—”
He gave her a stern look.
“Yes.”
“Then, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll hide in the back of your car. You’ll go home as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You’ll drive into the garage and shut the door—”
“He’s close enough to watch. He knows things—”
“Once we’re inside, you’ll shut all the blinds and curtains and we can start planning—”
“It won’t work. I can’t take a chance—”
“I know him. I know how he thinks.”
Her eyes pleaded understanding. “She’s all I have, Lucas.”
“I’m your best chance of getting your daughter back alive and healthy.”
“I can’t—”
“You’re taking me with you,” he said, giving her an option she couldn’t reject. “Or you’ll be late for your appointment.”
* * *
They sat in her kitchen, the curtains drawn tight against prying eyes. Even at midday a gloom permeated the ordinarily cheery yellow of the cupboard doors. While Lucas had remained in the garage, Juliana had insisted Albert and Ella go home. Now she wished she had them around for moral support. With Ella there, the silence wouldn’t feel so thick, so frosty. With Albert there, she might feel a little stronger. As it was, only she and Lucas shared the strained atmosphere of the kitchen—their past a wide chasm better left unbreached.
“When the phone rings,” Lucas said. “Give me a chance to get to the wall extension before you pick up. Press the record button like you did last time. T
hat was smart.”
She picked up the phone, familiarized herself with the buttons she already knew by heart. Recording her conversation hadn’t felt smart, just desperate—some way to hang on to Briana. “What if he hears you?”
“He won’t.”
Lucas pressed the recorder’s play button. He sat at the head of the table, she at the foot—as far from each other as they politely could. But even the six feet of table weren’t enough to keep the awareness of him from touching her. She hated the betrayal of her body to his presence. It hadn’t forgotten anything. She shoved the errant thought out of her mind.
No matter what the outcome, Lucas’s return into her life would destroy the safe world she’d worked so hard to create for herself and Briana.
Like a trail of crumbs, the portable phone, the brown envelope, the Nadyenka Sapphire, and the purple iPod scattered across the table top connected her to Lucas. Toying with the edge of the lemon-slice placemat, she concentrated on blanking her mind. But he sat there, larger than life and twice as confident. She could no more shut him out of her perception than she could stop breathing.
She wasn’t ready to talk. She wasn’t ready to explain. She didn’t know if she even could. Lucas had possessed something vitally instinctual. Asked to explain why he did certain things, he looked blankly at his questioner, as if they were dense or missing some basic common sense. Because, he’d say—as if that explained everything. That instinct had driven his superiors crazy then; probably still did.
This knowing, this fundamental instinct of his made him good at his job. She could appreciate that. She could look at a stone and see how it would appear set to show it off at its best. Lucas could view a clue, jump two steps ahead, and stand waiting for the bad guy before the thief himself knew his own plan. She feared this natural ability of his to hopscotch and connect unrelated dots into a logical line.
He had always known when to push her and when to draw back, showing her with his understanding parts of herself she hadn’t known existed. Being touched and kissed and loved by this man had seemed a natural thing.
But Lucas also possessed a ruthless side. He fought fiercely against dishonesty, betrayal, and theft every day of his life. He showed no mercy in his pursuits. And she’d lied to him, betrayed him, stolen from him. She’d kept from him a secret he had every right to know. She saw that now in a way she hadn’t then when the doctor had handed her a death sentence.
She searched his rough-hewn features as he listened to the recording she’d made of her second conversation with the kidnapper. His dark eyes focused, hard and unyielding. Even though she understood he concentrated on the voice, analyzing the background noises, and was not specifically looking at her with his intense gaze, it took everything she had not to squirm.
The slow ticking of the clock on the wall drove her crazy. Why hadn’t the kidnapper called? Did he know about Lucas’s presence in her home? Her pulse jumped and launched into a ragged race. She curled her fingers into the lemon-slice placemat. Would his presence in her house cause the kidnapper to panic and react in a rash way? Please, please, keep her safe.
How was she going to get her daughter back?
And once she did, how was she going to explain her secret to Lucas? To Briana?
Lucas put down the earpieces and stared at her, dark eyes revealing nothing. Would he guess? Would he know? What was going through his mind?
“So?” she asked, lubricating her dry throat with a hard swallow.
“From the noise, it sounds like he called from a phone booth.”
“The Caller ID was blocked. I tried the star, six, nine, but the phone just rang and rang and no one answered.” The fact she hadn’t thought of that option until the middle of the night probably might have something to do with the lack of response. “Why isn’t he calling?”
“Maybe he’s giving you plenty of time to get home.”
“Maybe he knows you’re here.”
He studied her for a moment. Her stomach did flip flops. What if she didn’t get Briana back? She went numb, couldn’t feel her feet, her hands. Don’t go there. You can’t go there.
“I think he does,” Lucas said. “I think he wants me here.”
Her mouth dropped open, her hands flattened against the table top. “Are you mad? He said no police, and if you’ve been after him for this rash of thefts, then he certainly doesn’t want you around. He called you a bastard.”
“Maybe, but he also likes to think of himself as highly intelligent. He loves to play. He has a game of some sort in mind.”
“Game? What kind of person plays games using defenseless children as pawns?”
“A deranged one.”
On that, at least, they could agree. “Lucas, I’m scared. I’m petrified something will happen to Briana.” Her throat thickened, choking her voice. “If something happens to her…”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
He had an air of granite-hard solidity about him. His shoulders seemed wide enough to bear more than his share of problems, his lean, muscled strength powerful enough to overcome any foe. Confidence exuded from him in a scent more palpable than any aftershave. She had once given him her love—something she didn’t do lightly—but she hadn’t been able to trust him with her secret and her fears. Could she put her faith in him now when every wrong move could have a disastrous effect? She didn’t know. Helplessness trickled through her sour and stale. “Why hasn’t he called?”
“He’ll call. He wants that piece of jewelry too much not to.”
“What if he’s—”
“Stop torturing yourself. You’re not helping Briana by going to pieces.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t let her down.”
“We’ll get her back. I promise.”
His voice was rough, yet warm, making her want to believe his promise. But he couldn’t make it with a money-back guarantee. In situations like these, there were no sure things.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. She rubbed her chilled arms. The damned clock would drive her completely batty. Then Lucas would have the perfect excuse to take Briana away from her.
Her gaze jerked up to watch him scrutinizing her. Would he? Once he found out, would he do something cruel like that? Realizing she didn’t know him well enough to be sure, she bit her lower lip to stop the trembling that threatened to tear her apart. Stay in control.
“What now?” she snapped, desperately trying to hang on to her sanity.
“We wait for his call.”
“I can’t stand this.” She got up and paced the room, hating Lucas for his unruffled calm.
“So let’s pass the time by talking.”
She stopped, clenched her crossed arms tightly to herself. “Talking?”
He tipped his head to one side, catching the spoke of sun shining through the drawn kitchen curtains, making the red highlights in his dark brown hair gleam. “Yeah, you know, I say something, then you say something.”
“I know what talking is.” She resumed her pacing with feverish determination. “About what?”
“Anything. Everything. It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because we didn’t before.”
He was right. The one thing they hadn’t done much of was talk. Until that night when she’d found out about the hyperstormic atrophy gene. Then the results had been a nightmare. Her “what-if” game had shown her that he would have a hard time dealing with a less-than-perfect child. So she’d taken the coward’s way out and ran, protecting her secret.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll start. Where did you get that wig?”
She blinked at him. “I-I was Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. For a Halloween party on the town green.”
“Can’t quite get the picture to work.” He smiled.
She said nothing, simply stared at him. Every feature of his face was so familiar, yet so new.
“Tell me about the kidnapping. I get the
feeling you’re leaving something out.”
She went to the coffeepot, planning to make a fresh pot, but couldn’t remember how to do the simple task. “I’ve told you everything I can.” Given you everything I dare.
He leaned back against his chair, appraising her with new curiosity. He saw too much, knew her too well. Fear propelled her forward again.
“This is a woman’s house,” Lucas said. “No man lives here with you. Where’s your husband?”
The floor needed cleaning. A slosh of dried coffee from the cup she’d overfilled this morning stained a yellow tile. “I don’t have one.”
“Divorced?”
Crumbs littered the counter from the toast she’d tried to eat, but choked on, and fed to the birds instead. Absently she swiped at them. “You heard the tape. You know this isn’t a case of parental dispute.”
“Why isn’t he by your side at a time like this?”
She remained silent, not trusting her voice, pacing twelve tiles up, twelve tiles down. He was FBI. She couldn’t let him get involved, so she couldn’t let him know the truth.
“Come on, Jewel, you’re missing the point here. I say something, then you say something—”
“I really don’t want to talk about this.” She spotted the box of Cheerios she’d taken out of the pantry out of habit and her heart grew heavier. Had Briana had breakfast? Was she all right? Tears brimmed. She sniffed them back.
“Okay, then let’s change the subject. Let’s talk about why you dumped me six years ago.”
Oh God, he was rushing her. She wasn’t ready for this. She wanted her baby safe in her arms before she faced them both with her lies, with her fears. “I can’t, Lucas. Not now. Not with this going on.”
“Let’s talk about your daughter, then.”
“She’s my life. I need her back.”
“Why won’t you let me talk to your caretakers?”
Because it’s too dangerous for me. His resemblance to Briana would have Ella spilling her observations with the flow of Niagara Falls. Briana’s parentage had been a strictly taboo subject. Juliana couldn’t stop the questions on either side. “Because Ella’s been traumatized enough.”