“That’s probably a good idea,” Abigail agreed. “But I’m not the one who just got beaten into the ground.”
Looking out into the distance, Ryan said, “Just a couple of cuts and bruises. I’m a survivor. I can take care of myself, Abigail.”
Abigail swallowed and looked up as she realized someone was coming toward them. Her chest tightened when she realized who it was.
“Abigail, thank God you’re okay!” Kimberly exclaimed.
“I’m fine. How did you know I was—”
“Kim saw Becker take you. She called the police,” Ryan explained. Looking at Kimberly, his eyes full of deep gratitude, he said, “If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have known where Becker had taken you.”
Abigail was at a loss for words. The woman who’d tried to destroy her life had saved it. No wonder Ryan thought she was a hero.
“Thank you,” she said uneasily.
Kim smiled. “Thank God Ryan got to you in time.”
“I’m not entirely sure he did.” Abigail gestured to the patch of grass where Shane was being treated.
“Oh, God. Oh God, Shane!” Kimberly cried as she raced down the hill. She hurried to where Shane was lying on the ground, only to be stopped by one of the EMTs who told her she needed to stay back while they worked.
So Julia had been right about Kimberly and Shane. In a strange way that made Abigail feel better. Because it meant the chances that Ryan and Kimberly would ever get back together were slim. Though, she didn’t suppose that mattered one way or the other.
Even if Ryan and Kimberly really were a thing of the past, there was still a world of barriers keeping her and Ryan apart. Close as she’d come to having the fairy tale, Abigail would have almost preferred if she’d never come close to having it at all.
She was undyingly grateful to Ryan Newberry for saving her life. But as far as breaking her heart was concerned, she wasn’t sure that was something she could ever forgive him for.
Chapter 31
“And how long will you be staying at the Washington Valley Hotel, Mr. Waterman?” Ryan asked, looking at the gray-haired gentleman from over the computer screen.
“One week, son,” Mr. Waterman replied.
Ryan fought back a yawn as he finished entering the couple’s information, praying the Watermans couldn’t tell how many sleepless nights he’d recently had. As he coded their key, he instructed the bell hop to help the couple with their luggage.
It was a mystery how the elderly duo intended to make it up the stairs, but they had insisted they wanted a balcony viewing of the mountains. Seeing the way Mrs. Waterman walked, very slowly and with a slight limp, Ryan wished he could persuade them to take a room on the ground floor. An idea coming to his mind, he called out to the couple.
“You know, there might be a room available on the second level of the east wing. It’s closer to the lobby and you wouldn’t have to travel as far to get to breakfast in the morning.”
“Does it have a nice view?” Mrs. Waterman looked back over her shoulder.
“Spectacular,” Ryan answered. He made a few changes in the computer and, several minutes later, sent the Waterman’s on their way.
Abigail had been right about helping people, about how good it felt. This was something he’d heard her say to several of the staff members on more than one occasion. The thought had never really occurred to him before, but now he realized that that was exactly what he wanted to do with his life. He still wanted to protect people, but he’d accepted that doing so wasn’t always possible. Bearing that thought in mind, he might even be able to forgive himself for Rachel’s death someday.
Ryan was even more determined than ever to finish medical school. But he wasn’t looking at it in the same way. He would work hard at whatever challenges he faced, but not at the expense of losing his identity. He would help people who were powerless, but he didn’t have to be all-powerful himself to do it. Though, never again was he going to allow himself to be someone else’s victim. He couldn’t help anyone when he was in that position.
More than anything else, Ryan wished he could help Abigail leave the guilt she felt about her father in the past. It was what she needed to do in order to live the rich, vibrant life that she deserved. But how could he help her let go of her demons, when he couldn’t completely do it himself?
Realizing he could probably purchase half a semester’s worth of textbooks with the tip he’d just been handed, Ryan smiled to himself. Aside from his continued concern for Abigail, he was starting to feel a bit like he could breathe again. Becker getting arrested, and the fact that Dempsey would be following him to jail just as soon as he was out of the hospital didn’t hurt matters any.
Yet even with all of that going on, and a job he didn’t have to work to hold onto with every fiber of his being, something was eating at Ryan. He felt lost, and empty inside. He didn’t have to ask himself why that was.
Entering the file room, he put away Mr. Waterman’s paperwork. He filed the credit card receipt, then, walking back the way he’d come, came past the open closet in the corner. The day he and Abigail had hidden there, when he’d held her back against the wall and kissed her for the first time, still burned in his mind like a hot flame. Knowing what a bad idea it was, he had kissed her anyway. He couldn’t control his instincts when he was around her. That was never going to change.
Abigail MacKenzie wasn’t like any woman he’d ever known. She challenged him, and in a strange way she made him a better person. He knew he was braver because of her, and she’d made him realize that loving someone wasn’t a sign of weakness. It terrified him to admit it, but he loved her. He wasn’t sure he’d known what love was before he’d met her.
But Abigail didn’t need a guy like him. She deserved a man whose future was certain, a man who wasn’t at all afraid, and could safeguard her from danger before it struck. She ought to be with someone who could give her heaven and earth. Clearly, he wasn’t that man.
“Did you get the mail this afternoon, Sheldon?” Ryan asked, turning at the sound of footsteps. He did a double take as Alec—who looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week—poked his head inside the room.
“Walking into your father’s hotel without a key now, I see.” Getting a better look at the circles beneath Alec’s eyes, he said, “Were you up all night cramming for an exam again? You know, your patterns of late certainly seem strange for the medical student who knows more than the professor.”
Alec didn’t answer. Lowering his voice, he said, “Can we talk outside?”
“I’m supervising the desk. Can this wait?”
“No,” Alec said. “It can’t.”
Ryan asked Sheldon to man the front office. He led Alec to a secluded area behind the east wing building, which was surrounded by trees on all sides. It was after nine, and the property was dark, short of a few lights around the walkways. Only one small bulb could be seen from where they were standing.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asked. “You look like you have the hangover from hell.”
Alec looked around, as if to be sure that absolutely no one else was around before answering. “How’s Abigail?”
“She’s fine. The doctor insisted she stay in the hospital and rest for a few days, but he says she’s otherwise in good shape. What is this about, Alec?”
Alec stared at his shoes. He hesitated a long moment. “I’m glad to hear that Abigail’s all right. Very glad—it’s never a laughing matter when someone’s knocked unconscious. That guy who kidnapped her…”
“Becker,” Ryan supplied.
“I ran a check on him. I didn’t find much, which tells me that someone worked overtime to cover up his past. But one thing that’s for sure is he didn’t set foot in North Conway until four months ago.”
“When he came to work at the hotel.” Ryan eyed his friend carefully. “Not that I’m especially surprised, or that I’m not grateful, but what exactly made you decide to run a check on Mark Becker?”
Ale
c slipped his hands into his pockets. His eyes were tense, and they seemed to be focused on nothing but the surrounding air. “We’ve been friends for several years. In some ways, I’m closer to you than I am my own brother. But”—he swallowed visibly—“there are things you don’t about me.”
Ryan took a step forward. “What kind of things?”
“The ledger you mentioned, the one with the symbol that reminded you of a mountain lion? It’s a cougar. I’ve seen it before.”
“How is that possible?”
Alec blew out a breath. He opened his wallet and took something from it, placing it into Ryan’s hand. “When I was a teenager, my father purchased an apartment for me to use when I was in the City. Colin and I used to stay there and go to this club where they didn’t check IDs. One night I got really drunk, and I overheard these men talking. They were managing something—a project. Something very hush-hush and with a great deal of money involved. They had a problem. And they were looking for someone to help them out with it.”
Afraid but too curious not to ask, Ryan said, “What exactly do you mean by help them out with it?”
“This man—a cop”—Alec shifted his lips—“someone thought to have been their ally was about to expose their organized activities to the police. They needed to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“Meaning they needed someone to kill him.” Ryan stared at his friend as though he was seeing him for the very first time. “But you said no, right?”
When Alec didn’t answer, Ryan looked at what had been placed in his hands—a card containing the symbol from the ledgers.
“You unconscionable bastard.” He grabbed Alec by the collar. Holding him by the throat against the brick wall behind them, he shouted, “You went through with it, didn’t you? You murdered Abigail’s father!”
Alec choked out, “The man’s name…was…Dexter Scott.”
“Scott?”
“And I didn’t kill him,” Alec said, looking dead into Ryan’s eyes. “But I thought I could. I accepted the assignment, believing that I had every intention of committing murder in cold blood.”
Ryan’s hands were shaking. Alec had said he hadn’t killed Abigail’s father, but a dark feeling of rage like nothing he’d ever known still threatened to consume him. Wondering whether he’d have actually strangled Alec just now if he’d done what he had accused him of, he said as he released him, “Maybe ‘Dexter Scott’ was only an assumed name. Because Abigail’s father was murdered six years ago. And the only man to witness his death was also recently killed. He was the first victim at the hotel, and his wife was the second. Becker confirmed the connection between the Barrowses and MacKenzie”—Ryan looked at Alec—“when I held him at gunpoint.”
“Then it must be true. Except ‘Dexter Scott’ was fifty five years old. An undercover cop, stationed in the City. It doesn’t make any sense for him to have been Abigail’s father.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that there’d have been more than one untimely death on these men’s watches. Although, I suppose there’s no guarantee that ‘Scott,’ whoever he is, isn’t still alive somewhere.” Relatively convinced that Alec wouldn’t have said so much if it wasn’t the truth, that his intended hit wasn’t Abigail’s father, Ryan released a breath. “All right. So you were a teenager and you were drunk. What happened next? You came to your senses the next morning?”
“Not exactly. It wasn’t until I had the gun in my hand that I cracked. I ran down the street, never looking back.”
“Goddamn you, Alec!” No longer caring whether anyone was walking around, Ryan shouted, “You knew about this the entire time and still you kept quiet? Abigail almost died because of you!”
Alec looked as though he’d been plowed over by a truck. “Believe me when I tell you that I had no idea you were dealing with the same people. I figured that the men I got involved with were based out of New York and that the cops had caught up with them years ago. I can only think of one reason they might be in North Conway. And the thought of that is positively terrifying.”
“Considering they’ve been working out of your backyard for over four months and they haven’t touched so much as a hair on your head, I’d be a little less concerned about you and a lot more concerned about everyone else.”
“I never told them my name,” Alec said, speaking more to himself than Ryan. “But as much as I’d like to believe this is all some big coincidence, I can’t think of any other reason why they would be here other than the obvious.”
“Well you might want to figure it out soon, before anyone else winds up in a hospital bed!”
Picturing Abigail tied to that tree, Becker’s gun pointed at her chest, Ryan wanted to tear every limb from Alec’s body. Alec had known about these men all along. And ever since Ryan had mentioned the symbol, he’d known there was a connection between the past and the present. He’d said nothing. His doing so had almost cost Abigail her life.
But by some miracle, Abigail had survived the ordeal in the woods. And bad as it all was, Ryan knew his friend was only partially to blame. Alec’s father was the only man he knew who was even more overbearing than his own. Alec had been manipulated by a group of criminals during a very impressionable time in his life. It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but there were much bigger things at work than his friend’s teenage naiveté. Ryan only hoped that Alec’s past actions wouldn’t be something they all lived to regret.
Calling after him as Alec began making his way back toward the parking lot, he said, “You’re not alone, Alec.”
Alec shot him a brief smile before disappearing up the hill.
* * * *
Staring at the surrounding cement walls, Mark kicked the post of his bed. Thinking about the fact that he probably wouldn’t be getting out of this cell until he was ready to enter a nursing home, he kicked it again, almost succeeding in knocking the bed over. He barely heard the guard shouting, or telling him that someone was there to see him.
Mark was breathing heavily as a man dressed in a long black trench coat approached him from the opposite side of the steel bars. It was the first person he’d seen all day with the exception of the guard, as he had been put in isolation. He met his boss’s hard-edged gaze as he came face-to-face with the bastard. The urge to spit in his eye was strong, almost overpowering. “It’s about damn time.”
The well-dressed man said nothing and rage swelled within Mark. Ever since they were boys growing up in the slums of Baton Rouge, this man had had the ability to push his buttons with a simple condescending look. He thought himself superior to him and their other childhood friends—Shane and Brent. The bond they’d formed at the most vulnerable time in their lives wouldn’t allow even the coldest man to exclude his friends from his success.
“Apparently I’m the last to hear that you took Abigail MacKenzie hostage in the woods and almost shot her.”
Mark grunted. “The bitch knew too much.”
“And that gives you the right to kill an innocent young woman?”
“I never wanted to kill her, dammit!”
A shadow cast itself over the boss’s pale face. “I sent you to North Conway to keep an eye on my partner. Because you understand as well as I do that the man can’t be trusted. He may have placed you in your job, but I didn’t exactly give him a choice. Your predecessor thought it was all right to start shooting people, too. As you’re well aware, he was in the midst of attempting to assassinate my partner on his own misguided whim someone saw him. He responded by putting three bullets in the man’s chest.”
“John MacKenzie. That’s the person Lombardi shot, isn’t it?” Mark pressed.
The boss’s cold face answered him without words.
“Lombardi was going to shoot your partner because he saw him as competition, isn’t that right? A threat to his sacred position near the top of the ladder? Of course, the guy did come into this game late, so who could blame Lombardi for wanting to get the bastard out of his way? I guess Lombardi didn’t do a very
good job of following his target, though, considering John MacKenzie saw him that night, and he wound up having to shoot the man to cover his tracks.”
“It’s never a good thing when a misguided lunatic decides to get trigger-happy.
Realizing that comment had actually been directed at him, Mark shouted, “Dammit, you should be thanking me! I did everything you asked, including pick up the slack for Lombardi’s mistakes. I took Newberry under my watch, and after we discovered who she was, I kept MacKenzie’s daughter from getting the same wild ideas Jill Barrows did.”
“You murdered Jill Barrows’s husband in cold blood after you and Dempsey made the astronomical mistake of getting drunk in his bar and talking shop right under his nose.”
“Dempsey’s the one who decided to get between his wife’s legs, not me!”
“Then instead of telling me what’s going on,” the boss continued, “you decide to take matters into your own hands, committing the second murder that I had to have my cop make look like a suicide. Jill Barrows figured out you murdered her husband because you were careless, and you were just as careless again, leaving her body on the hotel premises. You would have done the same thing to Abigail MacKenzie if the authorities hadn’t arrived when they did.”
“I did it for you!” Mark slammed the cell bars. “For our organization! As if diamond smuggling is somehow easy to conceal. Someone needed to take charge. Jill Barrows took me off guard. So did MacKenzie’s daughter. Someone needed to ensure that our secret stayed protected, something Shane Dempsey sure as hell wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about.”
“Yet, you asked that he be stationed with you.” But the boss seemed to consider what he’d said. Stroking his chin, he continued. “Abigail MacKenzie isn’t a complication I was anticipating. But the girl knows nothing. Neither does Ryan Newberry, thanks to Lombardi’s terminating him and then conveniently stationing the bastard in your location just before our fallout. I may not be able to keep them under my nose anymore, but I intend to make sure they never learn more than what they already know.”
Dangerous Secret [The Pinnacles of Power Prequel] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 25