by Nora Roberts
She pulled out her cell, called Jerry.
“I’m heading down now. You need to get the hostages ready. Three hostages, Jerry, that was the deal.”
“I know what the damn deal was. I see you, I see it, before anybody gets out.”
“You see me, but you won’t see Angela’s diary until three people are out. You have to work with me, Jerry. You’ll still have fourteen. You didn’t know how many people would be in there when you planned this. There might only have been fourteen to begin with. You’re not losing anything, and you’re proving to me you keep a deal. I show it to you for three, and I’ll read you a page for three more. Then we’ll talk about the trade. That’s a fair deal, Jerry.”
Lies, she thought, she was full of lies now. Did he hear them?
If she failed, could she live with it? Could Duncan?
She heard the chatter through her earpiece. The rear rig was booby-trapped and set with an alarm. It would take time she wasn’t sure she had to bypass and defuse.
Work with what you’ve got, she reminded herself.
“Tactical needs to see the three hostages, Jerry. They’ve got me blocked; they won’t let me through until they seem them.”
Movement. Three females…moving toward the front.
She got the nod, stepped out from cover. In the swampy heat, her flesh goosebumped with ice. “I’m here, Jerry. First part of the deal. Now your part. Let them go.”
“I don’t see you.”
“If I come any closer, Tactical’s going to swarm me and push me back. I’m at the southwest of the building. I can see the display window, and make out one—no, two people standing just to the right of it.”
“Stupid to wear a vest, Phoebe, when I’d put one in your head.”
The awful amusement in his voice stripped all the moisture from her throat. “I know, but rules are rules. Let them out, Jerry.”
“I want to see the diary.”
She kept her hand behind her back. “I kept my word, time to keep yours. Then it’ll be my turn again.”
The locks clicked, the door flew open. People ran or stumbled out, weeping, shouting, “Don’t shoot!” Cops in body armor rushed to pull and drag them to cover.
Out of the corner of her eye, Phoebe saw Ma Bee, and sent up a quick prayer of thanks.
Duncan’s mother was safe.
“My girl’s still in there,” Ma shouted. “He’s hiding behind her, hiding behind the others. He’s got the detonators. He’s got two of them.”
The prayer died in her throat. She watched a wild-eyed woman come forward and shut the door again.
“That’s three. Show me the book.”
“All right, Jerry. Tactical needs to clear the civilians out of the inner perimeter. That’s a clear.” She brought the book from behind her back. “I have Angela’s diary.”
“Open it. Open it and read. That could be any damn thing.”
“I need three more hostages.” And though it went against her heart, she followed training. “I need the injured man with this group, Jerry.”
“Fuck him. He stays, just like the rest. Want to see him, Phoebe?”
She saw the movement, and Arnie stumbling forward as if he’d been shoved. His face was gray, the blood on it dried to black. As Roy’s had been, his torso was imprisoned with the bomb.
Through the barred glass, his bruised eyes met Phoebe’s.
“You read, or I blow him. Going to take a few other people out and bring serious hurt to the others. But what the hell, I’ll blow the big one, too, and that takes it all. You readnow or it’s done. No more negotiating.”
She opened the book, stared at the blank pages. Women in love, she thought, spoke the same language. So she read from her own heart.
“I know what love is now. How could I have thought I knew before him? Everything before is pale and soft and foolish. Now, now that I know love, the world’s bright and strong and real. He makes me real.” She closed the book. “Send three people out, Jerry, and I’ll read more.”
“No more out! No more. You read what she wrote. I want the cameras on you while you read what she wrote.”
“Jerry—”
“Fuck you!” He screamed it out so all his rage seemed to fill Phoebe’s head. “You read what she wrote, then you’re going to give the statement. You do it now, you start it now, or I pick one and take her out.”
Phoebe stepped a little closer, got the sharp order through her earpiece to stop. Looking past Arnie, she could see part of the line of hostages. And she saw Loo. So tall, Phoebe thought. All that gorgeous hair. Such a good shield.
“I’ll read it, Jerry.”
“I want to see the rose, the rose she put in it.” He was weeping. He was lost. “Ask for a goddamn hostage, I do one. You understand me? Ask for another, I pick one and put one in the back of their head. You show it, you read it, you tell the goddamn world how you killed my angel. Then it’s done. Then this is done.”
Death, his longing for it as much as his lover, vibrated in his voice. And he would take, she knew, fourteen people with him.
With her gaze steady, she turned the book, flipped pages. “She saved your rose.”
“I can’t see it.”
“I’m holding it up. I’m doing what you want. I can’t come closer, they’re holding me back.”
“Two steps forward. Everybody, two steps! Hold it up! Goddamn it.”
She shifted, turned the book only a fraction. In her mind she saw the red X’s on the sketch. She saw him shove Loo’s head to the left so he could get a better view. And meeting his eyes, just for an instant, she said,“It’s all I can do, Jerry.”
Go!
The sound of the shot cut straight through her. She barely heard the screams, the shouts, the running feet that followed it.
She watched Loo run out, on her own, and straight for her. The force of the embrace knocked Phoebe back two steps. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. I thought I was going to die. I thought he’d kill us all.”
“You have to get clear now, Loo. You have to move out of this area.”
“You saved my life.” She drew back, gripped Phoebe’s face in her hands. “You saved us all.”
“Ma Bee’s over that way. You need to get clear, go to Ma Bee.”
“You saved us all,” Loo repeated as cops hustled up to pull her away.
Phoebe dropped the book, turned. And there was Duncan pushing his way toward her. “How did you get through?”
He held up a laminated ID. “I stole it.” His arms came around her. “I love you. Still a bomb in there, right? Let’s get the hell out of here, let’s go home, let’s go to Acapulco.”
“Yeah, but for now, let’s just move far away from the building with the bomb inside.”
“Your hand’s shaking.”
“Yours, too.”
“Not just my hand.”
“I have to sit down, Duncan. I have to find a quiet—quieter—place to sit down for a minute.”
She moved through the aftermath with him, nodding, acknowledging those who congratulated her. Good job, nice work. Then she stopped short when Sergeant Meeks stepped into her path.
He said nothing, simply looked at her. Then he inclined his head and strode away.
“He ought to be on his knees to you,” Duncan muttered.
“Not his style, and I don’t give a damn anyway.”
Duncan led her back to the boutique, nudged her into a chair.
She breathed out. “Can you give me five here?” she asked the rest of the team still inside. “Five to clear my head, then we’ll finish this up.”
“No problem, LT.” Sykes jerked a thumb toward the door, paused on his way out. “Hell of a job.”
“Yeah.” And in the relative quiet, she breathed in again as Duncan crouched in front of her.
“Honey, you look like you could use a drink.”
“I could use several.”
“I happen to know an excellent pub.” He lifted her hands, kissed them, then just buried his face in
them. “Phoebe.”
“I was never in any real danger. Not me.”
“Tell that to my guts.”
It was so cold in here, she thought. How had it gotten so cold? Only her hands were warm, where he’d kissed them. “Duncan, I’ve never discharged my weapon. I told you that. But I killed a man today.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I did. I gave the go on the kill shot. Not officially. But everyone involved knows I maneuvered him into position and gave the go. No choice. He was going to—”
“I know.” He kept her hands gripped in his. “I know.”
“I couldn’t find another way, so I’ll live with it. I used the love he had for Angela to manipulate him. And I’ll live with that.”
He picked her up out of the chair, then sat with her cradled in his lap. “It wasn’t love. It was too selfish, too self-serving for that. And you know it. You were smarter than he was, that’s what it comes down to. And you were braver at the heart of it. You stood out there, and he hid inside, behind innocent people.”
He turned his face into her hair, pressed his lips to her temple. “Don’t you sit here and feel sorry for him, or sorry for your damn self either.”
“That’s telling me.”
“I got a hell of a woman here.” He sat, wrapped around her, stroking the cold from her arms. “When Mark D’s back in business, we’re going in there and picking out a ring.”
“I can’t afford Mark D.” But she managed a smile. “I never thought about why they were in there, Ma Bee and Loo. I never thought about the why—I couldn’t let it in. Oh Duncan, you were meeting them so they’d help you pick out a ring for me. If you’d gotten there before—”
“Not thinking about that. I didn’t, and everyone’s out. Safe. That’s the priority, isn’t it, in your line of work?”
“It is. And I have to do the rest of my job now.”
“I’ll wait. After you do that job, make sure you tell whoever you need to tell that you’re taking the next three or four days off.”
“Why?”
“My woman just saved the lives of seventeen people, so what are we going to do next? We’re going to Disney World.”
She didn’t smile. She let out a quick, shocked sound that became a rolling laugh. “Oh God, thankGod I found you.”
“I found you,” he corrected. “I’m a lucky guy.”
She put her arms around him, put her head on his shoulder. He gave her peace, and solid ground, and that shoulder to lean on.
She was damn lucky herself.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author presents her latest blockbuster novel, the story of a big-screen legend, a small-town scandal and a young woman caught up in the secrets and shadows of both.
Cilla McGowan, a former child star, has found a more satisfying life restoring homes. So she comes to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to save the dilapidated farmhouse that once belonged to her grandmother—a legendary actress who died of an overdose more than thirty years ago.
Plunging into the project with gusto, Cilla’s almost too busy and exhausted to notice her neighbor, graphic novelist Ford Sawyer. Determined not to carry on the family tradition of ill-fated romances, Cilla steels herself against Ford’s quirky charm, though she can’t help indulging in a little fantasy.
But it’s reality that holds its share of dangers for Cilla. A cache of unsigned letters found in the attic points to a mysterious romance in her grandmother’s life—and may be the catalyst for a frightening, violent assault. And if Cilla and Ford are unable to sort out who is targeting her and why, she may, like her world-famous grandmother, be cut down in the prime of her life.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2008 by Nora Roberts.
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For Jason and Kat, As you start your life together.
May the garden you plant root strong,
blossom with the colors And shapes each of you brings,
And both of you tend, so the blooms flourish.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part One - DEMO
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
Part Two - REHAB
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
Part Three - FINISH TRIM
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
Part One
DEMO
The past cannot be presented;
we cannot know what we are not.
But one veil hangs over the past,
present, and future.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
ONE
According to legend, Steve McQueen once swam buck-naked among the cattails and lily pads in the pond at the Little Farm. If true, and Cilla liked to think it was, the King of Cool had stripped off and dived in post The Magnificent Seven and prior to The Great Escape.
In some versions of the legend, Steve had done more tha
n cool off on that muggy summer night in Virginia—and he’d done the more with Cilla’s grandmother. Though they’d both been married to other people at the time, the legend carried more cheer than disdain. And since both parties were long dead, neither could confirm or deny.
Then again, Cilla thought as she studied the murky water of the lily-choked pond, neither had bothered—as far as she could ascertain—to confirm or deny while they’d had the chance.
True or false, she imagined Janet Hardy, the glamorous, the tragic, the brilliant, the troubled, had enjoyed the buzz. Even icons had to get their kicks somewhere.
Standing in the yellow glare of sun with the dulling bite of March chilling her face, Cilla could see it perfectly. The steamy summer night, the blue wash from the spotlight moon. The gardens would’ve been at their magnificent peak and stunning the air with fragrance. The water would’ve been so cool and silky on the skin, and the color of chamomile tea with pink and white blossoms strung over it like glossy pearls.
Janet would have been at her stunning peak as well, Cilla mused. The spun-gold of her hair tumbling free, spilling over white shoulders . . . No, those would have been spun-gold, too, from her summer tan. Gilded shoulders in the tea-colored water, and her Arctic-blue eyes bright with laughter—and most likely a heroic consumption of liquor.
Music darting and sparkling through the dark, like the fireflies that flashed over the fertile fields, the velvet lawns, Cilla imagined. The voices from the weekend guests who wandered over the lawns, the porches and patios as bright as the music. Stars as luminous as the ones that gleamed overhead like little jewels scattered away from that spotlight moon.
Dark pockets of shadows, streaming colored lights from lanterns.
Yes, it would’ve been like that. Janet’s world had been one of brilliant light and utter dark. Always.