Half pulling and half carrying Beth, Jenny struggled through the snow. Beyond the tree, a car door shut. Why had gravity suddenly doubled its grip and the wind turned against her?
“Jenny!” A wonderfully familiar baritone voice roared above the wind and the thundering of her heart. “Are you there?”
“It’s Zod!” Beth wriggled with joy. “Mommy, it’s Zod!”
Tears misted Jenny’s eyes and threatened to freeze on her lashes. He’d come back. Her sheikh had returned to protect her.
She didn’t want to need him or anyone. But right now, she did, desperately.
“We’re here.” Her voice caught, and she had to repeat the words louder.
“Are you hurt?” He was moving toward them.
“No,” she called. “But we’ve got to get out of here.”
He made his way around the tree, his strong, solid shape a refuge in the midst of chaos. Jenny and Beth headed toward him.
“I tried to call you from the airport.” Reaching them, Zahad wrapped them in his arms. Jenny pressed close, her heart lifting. “The line kept ringing with no answer,” he said. “When your cell phone was busy, I began to fear something might be wrong.”
“The regular phone’s dead. I was calling the police because I heard someone outside,” Jenny explained. “But they’re tied up with emergencies.” She remembered suddenly how urgently he needed to make his flight. “How could you come back? You might not get home before Saturday.”
“I will take my chances.” Zahad’s dark eyes shone with worry. “Why are you outside?”
“We must leave. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Let’s go, then.” He didn’t question her, she noted gratefully.
En route to his car, she outlined what Bill had said. She tried to soften the words for Beth’s sake, but she had to share this information with Zahad.
“It is fortunate that I returned.” He fitted the booster seat, which he’d taken from her SUV, into the back of his car. “I am only sorry I did not become suspicious of the right person sooner. She fooled me, also.”
When they were all inside, the sheikh eased the car toward the street. Although they weren’t yet out of danger, Jenny’s anxiety lessened. As it did, the events of the past half hour began to replay through her mind.
The metallic thud outside. Her futile attempt to summon the police. The warning call that had saved her life. That reminded her of a point she hadn’t mentioned.
“Dolly may be poisoning Bill,” Jenny said. “He believes she might have poisoned her first two husbands as well.”
“I was told she had divorced the second one. No one mentioned that he had died.” Zahad stared through the windshield into the snow falling so thickly he had difficulty making out where to turn onto the road.
“Don’t cut too sharply,” Jenny advised. “There’s a drainage ditch.”
“I am aware of that, but thank you,” he replied, and pulled cautiously onto the street. “She told me her second husband bought her a television set when he won the lottery. It seems they were on good terms.”
“That’s strange.” The discrepancy troubled Jenny. Perhaps it simply underlined Bill’s increasingly confused mental state.
“What is that?” Zahad indicated a flare of reds and yellows coming into view off to their right. Blurred by the storm, it billowed upward with a surreal, hellish quality.
“It looks like a fire,” Jenny said, puzzled.
“It is a fire.” Zahad’s nostrils flared as if smelling smoke. “It is a house burning.”
“It’s Ellen’s house!” What on earth was going on? Had the women accidentally lit the gasoline in the wrong place?
“It burns very intensely.” Zahad halted in the entrance to Dolly’s driveway. “This is no accident. There is a ring of fire around the house.”
“It looks pretty,” Beth remarked innocently.
“Oh, honey!” Anyone inside would be trapped, Jenny realized. “Cindy! She might be in there.”
She and Zahad exchanged looks. It took him less than a second to respond. “I will get her out.” He left the key in the ignition. “Lock the doors after me. Call the fire department.”
“Yes,” she said. “Be careful.” She didn’t know what had happened except that they couldn’t save themselves at the expense of a little girl.
He brushed a kiss across Jenny’s mouth, his lips cool but his breath warm with promise. She wanted more but there was no time. He had to go.
There might be a world of differences between them, but she and her sheikh had one thing in common. Neither of them would risk leaving a child in a blazing building even to save themselves.
“If I do not come back quickly, drive away,” he advised. Before she could respond, he opened the door and vanished into the white fury of the storm.
Jenny tried to imagine what had happened at Ellen’s house. Had Dolly gone so insane that she’d tried to kill her own daughter and granddaughter? Had the women entered into some kind of suicide pact?
None of it made sense. The only thing she could deal with right now was the fact that Zahad was risking his life. Taking out her cell phone, she dialed 911, and this time she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
THE SHEIKH FOUGHT his way up the driveway through the driving snow. The flames hadn’t yet engulfed the house, he saw as he neared it. They were following the lines of some accelerant—gasoline, by the smell of it—poured around the foundation. The fire must have started only moments earlier or it would have spread.
He heard no screech of a smoke alarm from within. Perhaps it had been deactivated, or maybe they didn’t have one. Whoever was inside might be sleeping, oblivious to the peril.
He saw no sign of a rampaging Dolly. But she would hardly stand here waiting for him, would she?
In a planter box, he spotted a loose brick. Seizing it, Zahad circled into the unfenced backyard. To rouse the occupants, he needed to target one of the bedroom windows.
Fire licked up the wooden siding, hindered slightly by the patches of stonework that decorated the exterior. In only a matter of minutes, however, it would reach the eaves and explode through the house.
Anyone who’d set a blaze like this wouldn’t leave without seeing it to its conclusion. Again, Zahad looked around, but still saw no sign of the madwoman.
At the far end of the house, two windows flanked a smaller, rippled one that denoted a bathroom. Guessing that the corner room belonged to Ellen, he braced himself and heaved the brick.
It crashed into the glass. Through the gale, he heard the pane break, but no one responded. Were the people inside unconscious or had they left?
Zahad considered it unlikely that this was a setup. Dolly wouldn’t expect Jenny to rush into a burning building and she hadn’t known of his return.
He had to brave the flames. Zahad crouched, meaning to roll in the snow to armor himself against the heat. As he did, a loud crack reverberated in his ears and a hot streak seared his right shoulder.
Startled, he lost his balance and jolted to his knees. When he put his hand down for support, pain wrenched through him.
He’d been shot. He knew that searing sensation all too well.
Out of the blizzard, a thin form materialized. Riveted by the gun pointed at him, Zahad took a moment to realize that the person behind it wasn’t Dolly.
A hunting cap and a shock of white hair topped a narrow face contorted by fury. “If it wasn’t for you, it’d be over by now!” Bill didn’t look fragile now. He looked maniacal. “You’re too damn nosey. You can thank yourself for getting Ray killed!”
“I don’t understand,” the sheikh said. “Why did you kill him? What about my brother?” He gauged the distance between them and the possibility of dodging the next bullet. The odds weren’t close to zero.
“Your damn brother came sniffing around looking for sex. He shoulda minded his own business.” Despite his rambling, the man kept one finger firmly on the trigger. “You think I married that witc
h so I could end up with nothing? More than two million dollars, that’s what I got and I ain’t giving it up. Goodbye, Mr. Sheikh.”
A sudden movement registered on the edge of Zahad’s consciousness and he began to turn. So did Bill just as a hard white ball smacked into his temple. His hand flew up and the gun roared into the air. A few yards away, Jenny ducked for cover.
Zahad launched himself onto the old man, his hand closing around the bony wrist. Bill held on, apparently powered by a combination of adrenaline and rage. Twisting harder than the sheikh would have thought possible, he brought up his legs and kicked out.
Battered full in the midsection, Zahad loosened his grip. In that instant, the gun swung back toward him. He barely had time to thrust at Bill’s wrist with the heel of one hand before a blast slammed into him.
He landed on his back on the frozen earth, the breath knocked out of him and his ears throbbing. He knew he had to get up. He had to stop this viperish old man from killing anyone else. But his muscles refused to respond.
At last the ringing in his head diminished enough for him to hear sirens in the driveway. Help had arrived. He hoped it wasn’t too late to save Jenny, because he had failed her.
“TWO MILLION DOLLARS,” Dolly said hours later as they sat in the lobby of the police station. “I can’t believe he sacrificed two lives out of pure greed. Heck, I’d have given him the money just to save Ray. Or Fario, either.”
It was nearly daylight. Mrs. Welford had taken Cindy and Beth to her home, but no one else had slept. At least the storm had passed more quickly than expected, allowing the police to conduct their searches.
“You didn’t even know your ex-husband was dead, let alone that he’d left you his lottery winnings. You couldn’t have done anything.” Jenny stretched her cramped legs. Except for giving her statement, she’d spent most of the night waiting, first in the hospital while Zahad’s wound was treated, then here at Parker’s request in case he needed more information. They’d nearly emptied the coffeepot provided for them and had consumed half a box of doughnuts.
Surreptitiously, she studied the sheikh, who’d refused to stay in the hospital for observation. Across the room, he sat talking on his cell phone, his sweater bulging over the bandage on his shoulder.
Mercifully, the bullet wound was superficial. He didn’t appear to have suffered a head injury when the gun’s recoil knocked him flat. Even so, he’d retreated into his own world.
He’d scarcely reacted on learning that Bill had died in the gun blast or that the brick he’d thrown had awakened Dolly, Ellen and Cindy just in time. Although he seemed relieved by the outcome, she sensed that in his mind he was already halfway back to Alqedar.
“I feel like an idiot,” Dolly said. “I married a man who only wanted my money. I got suspicious a couple of years ago when he kept wanting me to put the property and my savings in both our names. When I announced that I was leaving everything to Ellen, we had a big fight. I told him I wanted a divorce.”
“What changed your mind?”
“He got sick. I figured he was just playing on my sympathy until the doctor diagnosed fibromyalgia. I guess I’m a soft touch, because I hated to kick him out.”
Judging by Bill’s conduct last night, he must have been exaggerating the symptoms, Jenny thought. If she hadn’t distracted him with that snowball, he’d have killed Zahad.
“About a year ago, he started acting nicer,” Dolly continued. “I figured it was a sign I’d made the right choice. I had no idea Manley had died and Bill had intercepted the lawyer’s letter.”
A police search of Dolly’s house in the past few hours had turned up papers forged with her name, claiming the inheritance. There was also a bankbook with a very large balance in the First National Bank of Crystal Point.
Apparently Bill had then set out to get rid of Dolly in a way that wouldn’t cast suspicion on him. He’d played on Ellen’s jealousy to turn her into a cyber-stalker and tried to take advantage of the situation to make it appear that Dolly had died as an innocent bystander.
Fario had simply wandered onto the scene at the wrong time. If he hadn’t showed up, Dolly would have taken that bullet. Bill must have assumed the police would blame Jenny for rigging the gun as a form of protection.
Now Ellen was in jail facing stalking charges. After evidence turned up on her computer, she’d admitted that Bill claimed to have seen Ray and Jenny embracing. He’d talked her into the cyber-stalking, making it sound like justifiable revenge. She’d agreed—until Fario got killed.
Ray had died because Bill feared he’d come across the large amount of money in his account, although he’d already invested some of his ill-gotten funds in stocks and bonds. Jenny doubted they’d ever learn who had dropped that slip of paper with the bank logo in her house. However it had landed there, it had set off a lethal chain of events.
Based on what the police had found in Dolly’s computer, Bill had continued the cyber-stalking for a few days, still hoping to set up some kind of smoke screen. When that didn’t pan out, he’d made another attempt to kill his wife and frame Jenny. He’d spooked her into fleeing to make her look guilty, or at least, that was what she surmised, and a gasoline can stolen from her shed had been discovered at the scene.
Despite all that she’d been through, Jenny hoped Ellen would get off with probation. Losing her husband and her home seemed like more than enough punishment, and Cindy needed her mother.
Zahad flipped his phone shut and looked up. “My flight was canceled because of the weather. I can catch the same plane that will carry Fario’s remains this morning if Sergeant Finley allows me to go.”
“I suggested he write a letter of commendation for use in your homeland,” Dolly said. “If it weren’t for you, my family and I would have died.”
“Thank you,” the sheikh replied. “I am glad you escaped safely.”
When Finley joined them a few minutes later, it turned out he had followed Dolly’s advice. Producing an envelope, he told Zahad, “It’s addressed To Whom It May Concern and says you aren’t a suspect in your brother’s death and have cooperated in my investigation. I hope that helps you.”
“Thank you. I would shake your hand if it were not too painful.”
“Understood.” The sergeant looked a trifle sheepish but Jenny had to admire his good sportsmanship.
“I know there are many loose ends, but I must leave now,” the sheikh told him. “If it is acceptable to you, I will catch a flight this morning.”
As Parker weighed his request, Jenny noticed pronounced pouches under his eyes. “Ordinarily, I’d ask you to stick around,” he said at last. “However, I know you’ve got your brother’s body to bury. And I understand there are some serious issues at stake in your homeland.”
“Very serious,” Zahad agreed. “You have my phone number and e-mail address. I will be happy to answer any further questions.”
“Good luck to you,” Parker told him. “As for everybody else, you can all go home. We’re done for tonight. I mean, this morning.”
“I’d like to see my daughter,” Dolly said.
“Her lawyer just showed up. You can talk to her when he leaves,” Parker replied.
She nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Zahad couldn’t drive in his condition, Jenny realized. “I’ll take you to the airport,” she offered. “I can turn your rental in and catch a cab home.”
“Thank you.” To Parker, the sheikh said, “Please have the bomb squad check out Jenny’s SUV, just in case.”
“We already did. It’s clean,” the sergeant explained. “We removed the tree, too, so we could access the toolshed.”
The men regarded each other with grudging appreciation. “Perhaps we are more alike than either of us wished to believe,” Zahad said.
“I’ll grant you that.” With a rueful smile, the detective held the door. “Have a safe trip.”
Outside, dawn light was breaking over a storybook scene of snow-laden buildings and cars.
The mounds of white added an authentic note to the Christmas decorations.
Jenny appreciated the chance to spend a little more time with the sheikh. But despite his affability at the police station, he made no move to touch her as they walked to his car.
His thoughts must be flying ahead to what awaited him in Alqedar. Jenny wished they could hold on a little while longer to the magic they’d created amid tragedy this past week. Unfortunately, the bright light of day was dissolving the dream along with the nightmare.
HE HAD NEARLY FAILED Jenny. Lying powerless on the snow after the gun went off, Zahad had realized that nothing in his life mattered as much as keeping her safe.
He had never felt so helpless. Because once he admitted to himself that he loved her, he also had to face the fact that he desperately feared losing her to fate.
While fighting a revolution, the sheikh had never worried about danger. If he lost a battle, he could always regroup and fight again another day. If he died in a just cause, he would go to heaven.
Love was different. It made him vulnerable. A man could not always be there to protect the woman and child without whom his existence had no meaning.
Riding in the car as Jenny negotiated the freshly cleared road around the lake, Zahad collected his thoughts. For hours, he had been stunned by the shock of his wound, by the sudden turn of events at the Rivases’ house and by being rendered defenseless, before he discovered the deflected shot had killed Bill.
His cousin Sharif had loved this deeply and his first wife had died. Years later, Sharif had been fortunate enough to love again, but Zahad knew that he would not. He did not form attachments as easily as his cousin. Jenny was his first love and she would be the last.
How much did he have the right to ask of her? Was she not better off staying here, now that her enemies had been routed, rather than coming to a land where his own rivals still flourished?
Beside him, she broke the silence. “I never thought I’d be so grateful that my father made me play softball. You probably didn’t notice what good aim I had when I smacked Bill with my snowball.”
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