by Docter, K. L
She’d never questioned her decision to use the FBI to rescue Amanda…until now. So much could go wrong. She didn’t know what kind of shape Amanda was in. Had Greg hurt her? Was her spleen injury aggravated when he kidnapped her from the hospital? Security tapes showed him entering her emergency room like he belonged there; he wore the missing nurse’s uniform after knocking the poor man out and stashing him in a closet. Greg might have been stopped if he’d tried to take Amanda out the ER entrance, but he’d used a wheelchair to take her deeper into the hospital, like he was moving her to her room. Instead, he simply wheeled her out a main entrance unchallenged.
The man seemed to have a plan for everything. It was one of the reasons it had taken so long to figure out a way to escape him the first time. They’d succeeded temporarily, but at what cost? Her traumatized little girl had crawled into a silent hole where no one could reach her. And Greg? Greg had found them again.
How would she get her daughter away from him this time? What was she going to have to do to get him to spill his guts so that the FBI could put him away forever? So they’d be free of him? Her mind swam with questions she couldn’t answer.
Concentrate on the prize, little chickadee, her father’s voice whispered in her head. His words smothered the anxiety chewing on her composure. Amanda was all that was important. Amanda.
After fourteen hours of worry, fear, and worst case scenarios running through her head, she was going to see her little girl again. Her little girl. She was confident the DNA tests she’d requested before leaving the hospital would reveal the truth, a truth she knew in her heart. Whatever else happened after she confronted Greg, she’d make sure he couldn’t take Amanda away from her in a court of law. Greg wouldn’t walk out of the zoo today. The FBI, Jack and Patrick would see to that.
Heavens, but she wished Patrick was holding her again, making her believe this was all going to work out. Telling her he wanted her to stay when it was finished.
“You ready, Ms. James?” The agent driving the cab looked at her in the rearview mirror as he pulled up to the curb at the main entrance to the Denver Zoo.
“I’m ready,” she said with a decisive nod.
Unbuckling her seatbelt, she eased Patrick’s pack over her bruised back and shoulders. Hands freed, she opened the cab door, got out, and tucked her crutch under her left arm. Her muscles screamed in protest despite the three over-the-counter pain pills she’d taken an hour ago.
She resisted the impulse to scan the parking lot behind her and locate the van where she knew Agent Sommerfield, Jack, and Patrick were hidden. Just knowing that they watched and listened helped her to take the first step toward the line of people handing over their entry passes and tickets. Despite the fact the zoo had been open less than an hour, she could see the grounds beyond the gates had already filled with a number of summer visitors.
It promised to be another scorcher of a day. There were pockets of kids in similarly marked summer camp T-shirts dashing around parents and their families, all out for a full day of fun and animal viewing. Jack suggested that Greg picked this public place knowing he wouldn’t look out of place with a four-year-old at his side. Greg most likely believed the number of people would allow him to get lost in the crowd should it become necessary for him to disappear. She preferred to believe numbers worked more in her favor, allowing the undercover agents to hang closer without being spotted.
When she got to the employee at the gate, she reached into the breast pocket of her cotton blouse—a bright neon-green to make her more visible—and presented the member pass the FBI had provided. The man smiled, glanced at the crutch and walking cast the doctor gave her to better support her sprained ankle, and invited her to go through the swinging gate meant for those with wheelchairs and carriages.
Show time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aware Greg could be watching, she followed his instructions and aimed right along the main walkway she’d seen on the zoo map the FBI pulled up on the internet. With the aid of her crutch, she made her way past a group of snack shops, skirted the enclosures that made up Predator Ridge, and passed the Wild Encounters Amphitheatre. She tried to spot the undercover agents she knew were tracking her. There were so many people wandering the grounds she couldn’t pick out specific individuals.
She gave up that pointless exercise when she approached the pachyderm enclosures and her gaze zeroed in on Greg and Amanda. Her pulse leapt when she saw them standing at a bar fence in front of a pair of rhinos. Greg dressed deceptively casual in jeans and a polo shirt while Amanda wore a sundress, lace-trimmed socks and shiny dress shoes. It matched Greg’s standard photo shoot look of the perfect family on an outing.
The picture, however, was marred when Rachel got close enough to see her little girl wince as Greg pinched her tender arm in his big paw. Infuriated by his cruelty, Rachel’s gaze skimmed over Amanda looking for injuries. Her poor baby had obviously been crying awhile, her eyes red and swollen. She looked so pale in the sunlight, so shell-shocked, Rachel believed she’d fall over if Greg let go of her arm. Who knew what was going on inside her small frame? Her spleen was already bruised.
“Let her go,” she said harshly, stopping directly in front of Greg.
“I don’t think so, darlin’.” He sneered. “She’s my insurance policy.” He scanned the walkway over her shoulder.
Rachel was grateful she’d been unable to identify any agents because that meant he couldn’t spot them either. “I wasn’t followed.”
“You’d say that even if you were.” He yanked Amanda closer to his side. Amanda cried out.
“For God’s sake, Greg, can’t you see she’s going to fall over? Let go!” Not thinking about it first, she punched him hard in the solar plexus with the heel of her open right hand.
Rachel wasn’t sure if Greg was shocked by the punch itself or her temerity, but he grunted, released Amanda’s arm, and staggered back a step.
She snatched her little girl out of his reach. She had Amanda! Holding her close, she was tempted to run in the opposite direction and call it a day. But, she wasn’t moving particularly well on her crutch and she suspected Amanda wasn’t in any condition to run either. Besides—Rachel’s gaze tangled with a steely-eyed woman’s as she settled on an empty bench next to a baby carriage five feet away—this would never be over until the FBI had something concrete to put Greg away permanently.
Praying her instincts were right and the woman was FBI, she turned to Greg who’d recovered his wits. “Amanda can sit over there,” she said before he could act on any retaliatory impulses he was considering, “while we talk.”
His lips thinned with displeasure. “Don’t bother. We’re leaving.”
No way was she going anywhere with him, especially now that Amanda was no longer in his clutches. “If you want my cooperation, Greg, we have to talk first.”
His icy blue eyes blazed in his too handsome face for several long moments. Rachel began to think he’d flat out refuse, but then with a snort of disgust and another scan of the area, he made a sharp motion toward the bench. “I won’t have to listen to her sniveling if she’s over there.”
Rachel didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. “Come on, baby,” she said to Amanda, who looked up at her with trusting brown eyes.
Disturbingly aware Greg watched her, she escorted Amanda to the shaded alcove. She lifted her onto the bench next to the woman, farthest from danger. “Is it all right if my daughter sits here with you?” she asked loud enough for Greg to hear. “She’s tired and I have to talk to…her daddy.”
“Of course,” the brunette said with a nod and smile. The woman patted the pile of empty blankets in the carriage. “My little one’s sleeping, so I’m going to sit here in the shade awhile. I have some cookies if your daughter’s hungry.”
Rachel smiled at Amanda. “Baby, this nice lady will keep you safe until mama comes back. I’ll be right over there where you can see me,” she said with a nod in Greg’s direction.
She lowered her voice. “When I’m done we’re going home with Mr. Patrick, okay?”
Her heart cracked a little when she saw the way Amanda’s eyes lit up at Patrick’s name. She’d fallen for the man as hard as her mama had. Rachel didn’t want to think about how difficult it was going to be for them both to walk away from him when this was over. Just knowing he was in the zoo parking lot listening to everything made the time they had left with him feel too short. Once Greg was in custody, her reason for staying in Denver was gone. Baby or no baby.
Crushing the painful thought, she caressed tears off Amanda’s face. “Stay here,” she said. “You can have two cookies while I’m gone. Be good for this nice lady, okay?”
Her daughter nodded, as did the FBI agent. “We’ll be fine,” she said in a quiet voice. “Take your time.”
Relieved Amanda was secure, she forced herself to walk back to her ex-husband where he stood next to the rhino enclosure. With any luck, he hadn’t seen anything that would alert him to the fact that he’d just lost his only bargaining chip.
“Okay, the brat’s sitting,” he said, a curl in his lip. “Talk. We have an appointment in,” he glanced at his watch, “an hour, and we have to get across town.”
“Appointment with whom?”
His face tightened, as it always did when she’d questioned him during their marriage, so she backpedaled quickly. “You said you have a plan, but you haven’t shared it with me. Where you’re taking us.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” When she simply stared at him with a carefully blank expression, he snapped. “We’re updating our passports. We’re getting new photos.” He stared with disgust at the bruise she carried on her face from the truck accident. “We’ll pick up makeup.”
Dear God, he planned to drag them out of the country? “Where are we going?”
“Dubais.”
“Why?”
He frowned. “What’s with the twenty questions?”
She didn’t want to alert him to her real motives, but she had to tell him something to deflect his suspicions. “I may have rolled over for your demands when we were married, but I sure don’t intend to live in the dark anymore.”
His right hand fisted, but he didn’t strike her. “That’s the second thing we have to fix today.”
A frisson of anxiety ran through her at his calm conversational tone. “What?”
“A judge is marrying us at five o’clock.”
Over her dead body! She’d marry the man she loved in a heartbeat…if he asked her. Well, maybe not even then. No way would she trap Patrick in marriage to provide her baby with a father. “Sounds like you have it all planned out,” she said. “So we’re going to Dubais for a honeymoon…with a four-year-old.”
Greg looked at her like she was completely witless. “If you must know, I’m picking up some things.”
Bingo. That’s where he’d hidden the money he’d conned. The FBI techs had discovered a plastic bag with a piece of paper with several account numbers and two safety deposit keys inside the doll cavities when they’d carefully ripped the porcelain doll apart last night. But there was nothing to indicate where the accounts might be located. She was betting the FBI would find them in Dubais.
“Did you bring the doll like I told you?”
Biting her lip over a surge of insecurity, Rachel struggled to peel the backpack off her sweaty back without jogging the wire under her shirt. She unzipped it and pulled the doll into the sunlight. “I’ll go give Becca to Amanda.” She didn’t want him to look too closely at it. “She’s probably miss—”
He snatched the toy from her hand. “You’re an idiot, Felicia,” he said sharply. “The brat’s smarter than you.” He began to pull the porcelain head off the cloth torso.
Stop him!
“My name’s not Felicia anymore, Greg,” she said. “And, I’m not going to stand here and take your abuse.”
Distracted, the hand holding the doll dropped to his side. “You’ll take whatever I say you’ll take,” he said. He yanked her several feet down the paddock fence where he backed her into a huge flowering bush.
With nowhere to retreat, her ankle on fire from several missteps, she was suddenly back at their ranch in California, staring into the cruel blue eyes of the monster she’d married. The zoo crowd over his shoulder disappeared from her senses as the smell of his cologne drowned her in a sea of bad memories that ended with their last brutal night together.
A flicker of movement over his left shoulder drew her gaze to the FBI agent protecting Amanda. She’d stood and was staring at them. Her hand motioned quickly toward what Rachel suspected was another agent for assistance.
Swallowing her flash of alarm—Greg couldn’t hurt her…much…with FBI agents this close—she shook her head slightly at the female agent. Rachel hadn’t accomplished everything she’d set out to do yet.
The agent held up her hand in a halting motion to her fellow agent, and then slowly reclaimed her seat beside Amanda, never taking her eyes off Rachel.
Reassured she’d regained control of the situation, Rachel belligerently confronted Greg. “Or else what? You’ll attack me like you did Simon?”
Greg took the bait. “Your knight in shining armor double-crossed me. He got the fiery death that he deserved.” His smile was nasty.
Simon might never come out of his coma and she felt compelled to wipe the gloating smile off Greg’s face. “It’s a good thing he didn’t die, then,” she retorted, “because no one deserves to die that way.”
He snorted with derision. “He’s dead,” he said. “I made sure of that when I blew up his clinic. No one fucks with me and gets away with it. You should remember what I’m capable of.”
He’d admitted it out loud. He had tried to kill Simon, blown up the clinic. One more item ticked off the FBI’s “want” list. She could stop right now and they’d have enough to put him away where he couldn’t touch her or Amanda again. Her hand on her stomach, she took courage from the tiny life resting beneath her scars. “I remember everything.”
“Few people know me like you do,” he said. “But even you don’t know everything.”
Revulsion ripped through her at his expression of superiority. “I get that,” she said in a conciliatory voice. “The FBI must have been really surprised when they had to let you go.”
It still stung that they hadn’t warned her of his release. She suspected they’d used her as bait, and that she’d been left in the dark because they knew Greg would make a beeline straight to her. She knew how desperate they were to find the money he’d conned, especially after their evidence disappeared.
Greg smirked. “Those morons couldn’t find their ass with both hands.”
The ever-stoic Agent Sommerfield, from the San Francisco office, must be cursing Greg in the parking lot. However, she also knew the agent was aware someone in his office was responsible for the loss of the evidence they had against Greg. “How did you ‘disappear’ their evidence?”
“Why do you care?” He paused. “Son-of-a-bitch! You really didn’t come alone, did you?” He scowled and searched the walkways around them. “Where are they, your rescuers?”
“I followed your instructions,” she assured him, sweat trickling between her breasts at the lie. “No one followed me. I’m not—”
“Don’t bother.” He grabbed her wrist in a painful grip. “I should have known you’d stab me in the back, you bitch,” he gritted out. “We’re out of here.” He dragged her down the pachyderm fence toward Amanda’s bench.
The female agent rose and Rachel waved her off again. She didn’t want her to leave Amanda’s side. “No!” She tore out of Greg’s hold so he was forced to stop and face her. “You can’t have Amanda and you can’t have me.”
“You’re my wife. I’ll do whatever the hell I want with you. The brat, too,” he said, his expression thunderous. “I’m not letting either of you go, and if that means beating you again, beating the brat—”
His unfini
shed threat would have made a difference six months ago when she believed he was Amanda’s biological father and she had to take whatever he dished out to protect her innocent daughter. Not now. Anger ripped through her. “You aren’t touching either of us ever again,” she said.
“You can’t stop me.” He sneered. “You won’t walk away without the kid, and she’s mine. Do I have to remind you of my promise our last night together?”
“I remember every last word you beat into me,” she said, fighting down nausea. “It doesn’t matter. I know your secret.”
An odd expression crossed his face. “What secret?”
“You lied. I don’t know what you had on Simon to force him to help you with your con, but I know Amanda’s mine. Not yours.”
“You’re out of your mind,” he said, less confidently. “You can’t have childr—”
“I’m pregnant, Greg,” she said, thrilled to say it out loud. She was having Patrick’s baby! “Tell me again that I can’t have children, you pathetic liar. Even if it were true, I told Great-Aunt Amanda to change her will before she died. You can’t access any of her estate through Amanda because she’s not getting a dime. So, we’re finished here.”
Greg blanched. Then, his face suffused with rage. “You bitch! That money is mine. Mi—”
He wrapped his large hands around her neck before she could react. She felt his hot, angry breath wash her face, the spit of raging words she couldn’t hear through the sudden rush of blood in her ears. The sunlight around her dimmed as she scraped at his grip with her right hand. His fingers tightened further and black spots winked in front of her eyes.
Her lungs burned. She felt herself fall toward a black abyss. A wild thought tumbled through her mind. I was wrong. He can kill me before help comes.
“Mamaaaaaaa!”