Born in Danger

by Susan Kearney

  Lindsay was the obvious suspect. His bride was in charge of the wedding. She had the phone numbers of guests, caterers and flower shops, but he couldn’t picture her canceling the wedding. She had nothing to gain from his kidnapping.

  When his kidnapper drove past the New Orleans airport toward the private planes, his eyebrows rose a notch. A commercial flight with other passengers offered opportunities for escape, but now that chance would be denied him. However, there would be other chances—even if he had to create them. He’d survived tighter spots than this one, and he wouldn’t remain the victim for long or his name wasn’t Ford Braddack.

  Biding his time, he took in the deserted private fields. Few pilots would choose to depart in this thunderstorm. Unfortunately, if she gassed him, no one would witness his body being carried aboard a plane.

  He refocused his attention on the driver and used the direct approach to learn more about his abduction. “Why are you kidnapping me?”

  “For the money,” she told him without a trace of shame.

  “I’ll double your fee to let me go.”

  She pulled off her cap and shook her head. Curly golden hair streaked with blond and honey cascaded past her shoulders. “I can’t accept.”

  “Why not?” he pressed, curious what she wanted from him. She’d captured his attention, and it wasn’t just her brazen attitude or the defiant tilt of her head. There was something about her he should remember . . .

  “I gave my word,” she explained. “To change sides would be dishonorable.”

  He groaned. Lord save him from an honorable kidnapper. “At least tell me who hired you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What!”

  The woman wasn’t just a little unhinged, she was certifiable. Or she’d reached the limit of information she was willing to share. Or she was lying.

  She drove slowly to the electric gate of the Executive Center, for a moment cutting off his ability to speak through the intercom. She spoke crisply and confidently to the guard, “NC33NI. I’ve baggage to unload.”

  He recognized the tail number of his Gulf Stream Five. The woman intended to kidnap him with his own plane.

  Ford slammed his fist into the glass and waved, but the guard didn’t appear to notice him through the darkly tinted windows.

  At the same time he spoke to the driver, unable to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “You don’t know who you work for?”

  She drove through the gate and glanced at him in the mirror, her eyes wary but determined. “My assignments from this client come by mail, my fee paid in cash and delivered by messenger.”

  “Where was the letter postmarked?”

  “New Orleans.” She held up her hand to forestall his next question. “I tried to trace the messenger, but his boss had taken a cash order with no name or return address.”

  He couldn’t think of a way to shake her story or bribe her and wished that didn’t impress him. Now was not the time to concede admiration for the enemy, but as a businessman, he knew the rarity of employee loyalty. He also appreciated the difficulty in carrying out a complex plan with such military precision.

  He thumped his fingers on the armrest. “You’d risk jail time?”

  “I don’t think you’ll report me.”

  She said the words with such confidence, he could only conclude her employer meant to kill him—especially since she hadn’t concealed her face. Or maybe his foe wanted something from him before killing him.

  His companies had many classified government contracts. Hiding his latest alarming thoughts behind a stoic expression, he vowed to react to the slightest opportunity for escape.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” Her soft question broke into his gloomy thoughts.

  She tilted the mirror to reflect her face back at him. Her hair, a rich, glowing bronze-gold, tumbled carelessly down her back. Wispy bangs caressed her forehead. Tawny skin showed off generously curved lips, a straight nose and arched golden eyebrows. The defiant line of her jaw contrasted with the momentary hint of vulnerability flickering in topaz eyes emboldened with a dash of gold. Then her lids lowered, and he questioned whether the vulnerability had been there at all. He must have been mistaken.

  “Have we met?” he asked, confounded by the disappointment in her expression.

  “Once. At your wedding.”

  He shrugged. Why was his failed memory of a brief encounter five years ago important to her? Now he must really be imagining things. “I’m afraid that was a long time ago.” Since then, he’d loved and lost Rhonda, had to go on alone and had to bear the knowledge that she’d been murdered without ever knowing she had a daughter. “Since then. I’ve met many people . . .”

  “I thought I’d renew our acquaintance at Rhonda’s funeral. But you never showed.” Her eyes gleamed with an accusatory shimmer.

  He kept his tone calm. “I was in a coma.”

  “Don’t joke. There’s nothing funny about missing your wife’s funeral,” she said angrily.

  “I’m telling the truth. I almost died in the avalanche.” Suddenly he wanted her to believe him, although he wasn’t sure why. “A rock hit me in the head. I spent several months recuperating in a hospital.”

  “Odd how your family claimed you were in Europe—grieving.”

  The driver knew a lot about his past, and that should be a clue to her identity, but he still couldn’t place her. She was the kind of woman he tended to notice. With her striking skin and hair, those topaz eyes and full lips, he failed to see how he could have forgotten her.

  Was she a friend of Rhonda’s?

  If she was out for revenge, setting her straight had to be his first priority. Only his parents, brothers and sister-in-law knew the truth, and they’d all lied to the press.

  Ford kept his voice as reasonable as possible under the circumstances. “My family put out false information to protect me.”

  “Protect you?”

  “From Rhonda’s killer. My parents feared Rhonda’s murderer would return to kill me as I lay unconscious. So while I was in a coma in a New Orleans private hospital, they’d put out the word that I was still in Europe.”

  “No one ever found your wife’s killer, did they?”

  At the reminder of his failure, acid burned his stomach. “I spent a fortune on private investigators. None of them turned up a clue. It was as if her assassin vanished.”

  “Those investigators you hired didn’t look hard enough.”

  The driver sounded as if she’d had a personal stake in Rhonda’s death, a fact that contradicted his image of a hired kidnapper.

  More confused than ever, he closed his eyes. Suddenly the pieces clicked.

  “You’re Devin—Rhonda’s cousin.”

  “Bingo.”

  No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. Although roommates in college, Devin had never been around when he picked up Rhonda. After their wedding, he hadn’t seen Devin, although his wife had often spoken to her cousin on the phone. That’s why he recognized the voice; he’d taken messages.

  He vaguely recalled the woman had majored in criminal justice and owned a P.I. firm. She’d never married—no wonder. He was beginning to think she had gone off the deep end.

  “Just where in hell do you think you’re taking me?”

  “I heard you once swore to track down Rhonda’s killer.”

  He had, but how had she come by the information? His brothers wouldn’t repeat such a private confession, and he didn’t think Max’s wife, Brooke, would either.

  When he remained silent, she stared at him accusingly. “I thought you might help me.”

  According to Rhonda, Devin was a real loner. But his wife had never mentioned mental instability or a life of crime. At the time, he hadn’t pressed the issue, letting Rhonda deal with her
relatives as she thought best.

  Now he wished he knew more. He forced himself to focus on the present and put the past aside. “Help you how?”

  “Find Rhonda’s killer,” she said as if he were denser than a pet rock. “My normal P.I. skills usually involve tracking cheating husbands and divorcees who avoid meeting their financial obligations to their ex-wives and children, not going after killers. Besides, I don’t know my way around Europe—”

  “Hire a guide.”

  “I don’t have your business or social connections.”

  A lot of good his money and networking had done him when he’d tried to find the killer. “I told you already,” he repeated as if she were denser than wood. “I hired the best private investigators. None of them turned up a clue.”

  Pride and a hint of challenge entered her tone. “You should have hired me.”

  Chapter Two

  FORD LEANED FORWARD in the seat, his eyes glinting with a savage inner chill. “You’ve found something?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Black Rose?” Devin asked, dreading the consequences if she couldn’t win him to her cause. Not even the cancellation of his wedding and kidnapping him had shaken his infamous control.

  “Is the Black Rose your employer?”

  She shook her head, his suggestion enough to make her eyes sting. “I loved Rhonda, and I wouldn’t work for her killer. In fact, my client hired me to find the Black Rose. These past six months I’ve kept searching for clues concerning Rhonda’s death.”

  While the police may have forgotten the murder, Devin hadn’t. The unsolved crime gnawed at her like an aching tooth.

  “If you’ve found something, why didn’t you pick up the phone and tell the police?”

  “They weren’t interested.”

  “You could have spoken to me.”

  “I was going to, but you didn’t show at Rhonda’s funeral.”

  “So you thought I didn’t care,” he guessed.

  “I thought you might have hired someone to kill her.”

  At her words, his eyes narrowed with rage. His lips tightened, and if a stare could kill, she’d be dead meat.

  “Look you have the means. You were right there.”

  “I almost died, too. But I also had no motive.”

  “Maybe. It’s my job to consider every option. At the moment, I’m inclined to believe you. My employee said you had nothing to do with Rhonda’s death, and I believe it.”

  “How very good of you,” he spat sarcasm at her.

  “After I heard you’d hired three different investigating teams, naturally, the best money could buy, I investigated on my own, but . . . I ran out of funds to pursue a European investigation. Then my client hired me to solve the murder and kidnap you.”

  “And?”

  “Now I have the means to go after the killer. If I have to, I’ll work alone, but your assistance will increase my chance of success.”

  “You think I’m going to help you? Are you always this insane or just off your meds?”

  Devin sighed. “Obviously winning your trust would have been easier if I could have openly approached you with the clues I’ve found and asked for your help.”

  “You think?”

  “But my client forbid that tactic, insisting that I kidnap you from your wedding before revealing what my investigation has uncovered.”

  Ford rolled his eyes. “And why should I believe you?”

  “Look, not everyone has your kind of money. I needed funding to go after Rhonda’s killer, so I have to follow my client’s wishes.”

  As Devin stepped on the brake, parking inside Norton Industries’ hangar, she glanced back at Ford. He wasn’t buying her story. On first glance he appeared stoic. But a closer look revealed that his fingers bit into the soft leather seat, a muscle pulsed in his jaw and a lethal iciness frosted his eyes. His awesome control reminded her of the power he wielded, the respect he commanded in the financial world and how very much he had loved her cousin.

  “So what’s this clue you’ve found that my experts missed?” he prodded.

  “According to a maid at your Swiss hotel, a black rose was left on your wife’s pillow. The maid threw it away without mentioning it to the gendarmes during their investigation.”

  “So what?”

  “This is just a guess, but I think the killer left the flower as a calling card. There were two of them, by the way. One on each of your pillows.”

  “So you don’t think I killed my wife, because there were two black roses?” His gaze pierced her with bold frankness.

  “Yes. I think both of you were supposed to die in that avalanche.”

  The American papers had lacked details on the skiing accident that had claimed Rhonda’s life. From the reports she’d read, the couple had been skiing the same Swiss slope. Was it simply fate that Ford had survived and her cousin had not?

  Devin had a hunch Ford was telling the truth when he’d claimed he’d been in a coma. Oddly, the Swiss police report was just as deficient in facts as the news stories in the States. She softened her tone. “You were skiing together. How did you survive the avalanche?”

  In the rearview mirror, she caught the taut look of horror on Ford’s rugged face and flinched. His eyelids compressed into a hard-bitten anger.

  Sitting back, he crossed his arms over his broad chest. Fury and pain lurked in his eyes, and his lips tightened with disapproval. “Why did you cancel my wedding? What did you tell my family?”

  His harsh questions rolled off her like rainwater on the limo’s hood. Clients often vented their fury on her, but never did a client draw her as he did. She made herself look at him. In his hot rage, he was compelling, and her blood thrummed at the sight of all that contained power. His dark hair emphasized the grim line of his square jaw, while the muscles flexing in his neck warned her to be careful. As his searing glare struck her like a thunderbolt, she realized she’d caused that smoldering hostility.

  She fiddled with the gas switch, wondering if handcuffs would be enough protection from him. Even now, kidnapped and caged, he refused to answer her questions and instead, demanded answers. Feeling as if she held a predator at bay, she attempted to calm her jittery nerves by taking a deep breath.

  “Why don’t we discuss our plans on the plane?” she said.

  “My plans don’t include you. I’m not going anywhere until you supply answers.”

  His voice was so shivery-cold that despite the protective glass between them, Devin recoiled. For a moment, she saw herself through his eyes. An unprincipled private investigator. A liar. A kidnapper. But no matter his opinion, she would never forget that Rhonda had been like a sister, and she owed her, bigtime.

  So did Ford. Her cousin had loved him enough to risk her health to try and bear his child. Rhonda had thought Ford could walk on water. Years ago, for two college semesters, Devin had listened to her cousin sing Ford’s praises, but she’d never begrudged her the happiness she’d found.

  Especially since she and Ford had never really met. Devin had liked seeing her cousin so happy. She hadn’t wanted to meet the man her cousin thought was perfect. It had been so much more fun imagining the dreamy, perfect man that her cousin loved than confronting the reality. Because from Devin’s perspective—the reality of a real man always disappointed.

  So when Ford had called Rhonda from the phone in the lobby of the all-female dorm, she’d always gone downstairs to meet him, flying out of the room with a smile on her face.

  Devin had stayed behind, dreaming how there must be someone out there for her. But it didn’t happen. So she’d had a secret fantasy life about Ford, the man she didn’t want to meet. Why spoil the image of perfection?

  Even then Devin had known that no man could live up to the romantic perfection Rhonda had spoken about�
�not even Ford. So what if he was hot? And rich? And had the sexiest deep voice she’d ever heard?

  Damn it! Devin admonished herself. She was supposed to be on a job—not on a trip down memory lane. She had no doubt meeting the real life Ford would reveal his flaws and banish all her silly fantasies about him, as well as lead them to Rhonda’s killer.

  As she drove into the hangar, she reached forward, her fingers on the switch that would release the gas into the passenger compartment. Hoping he wouldn’t see through her bluff, she hardened her tone, “You prefer to sleep through the transfer to the plane?”

  As if the gesture meant nothing, he plucked the handcuffs from the seat pocket and snapped the metal over his wrists. He moved so quickly, she lost the chance to demand he place his hands behind his back. Now it was too late.

  Gulping air, she exited the car. When she opened the door, she half expected him to lunge and tackle her. A muscle pulsed in his jaw, the cords in his neck tightened above his loosened shirt collar, and there could be no mistaking the formidable menace in his stare. To her relief, he didn’t attack—for which she offered a silent prayer of thanks.

  He held up his manacled wrists, a patronizing curl on his lips. “You do have a key to these?”

  “On the plane,” she hedged, lying through omission since she had no intention of unlocking the cuffs until the plane flew past the turning-back point.

  “Let’s go.” One step at a time. Get him on the plane. Then deal with the consequences.

  He strode toward the plane, no doubt hoping the pilot might come to his rescue, but the man was procuring a last-minute weather report in the Executive Center.

  “Wait a sec.” From the rear seat of the limo, she removed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, leaving her hand free for his luggage—packed for his honeymoon. Thankful for the wheels that made towing the bag effortless, she followed him into the plane, leaving the baggage by the door for the pilot to stow.

  “This way.” She led him to a padded leather chair. “Have a seat.”

  When she pulled another pair of handcuffs from her pocket along with a syringe, he went still. She could see him half crouched, probably debating whether to tackle her.