“That’s my wife, you insolent little pissant—”
Murray pulled Frank off of Mick, hesitating just long enough to allow the outraged husband to land a solid one to the insolent little pissant’s jaw. Mick stumbled into an ottoman and back-flipped with Olympic flair.
“That’s enough, Frank.” Murray escorted him to the door. “Nice meeting you, Lucy.”
“Same here, Murray. Give my best to Anne Marie.”
“Will do.”
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Frank howled as Murray propelled him out of the house and down the porch steps. “Insolent little—”
Lucy collapsed against the closed door. A few moments later she heard their car pull away. “They’re gone,” she told the dining-room drapes.
Hal emerged from behind the drapes and stalked into the greatroom, his vulpine gaze fixed on Mick, now sitting on the carpet rubbing his face. With icy deliberation he strode to Mick and straightened his gun arm, the barrel mere inches from his oblivious son’s temple.
Lucy’s heartbeat faltered. “Don’t.”
“Huh?” Mick looked at her. “Where is he? Where’s the fucker that sucker-punched me?”
The look in Hal’s eyes. She’d never seen that kind of icy, single-minded fury, as if he were more animal than human.
“Turn around, Lucy.” Hal never took his eyes off his target.
She wanted to turn around. She couldn’t bear to watch him do it. But she stood her ground and said, again, “Don’t.”
Mick now stared slack-jawed at the gun barrel almost touching his face. Hal’s trigger finger began to move.
“He’s your son,” Lucy said, prompting a bark of derisive laughter from Hal. She added, “You’ll never forgive yourself.”
She doubted that was true. This man was unlike anyone she’d ever known. He was missing some part of his essential makeup, some part that separated men from beasts. The part, perhaps, that kept human fathers from killing their young. Still, she had to try to get through to him. Mick sat paralyzed by fear, blubbering like an infant.
“Hal,” Lucy said. “That man in the park lived. You haven’t killed anyone. Don’t do it now.”
He swiveled, and Lucy found herself staring down the barrel of the gun. She hadn’t even realized she’d taken a step toward him. “I’ve killed someone,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “You paid for that murder. It’s in the past. You wounded a man today. That’s all they can get you for.”
“It’s called attempted murder,” Hal clarified. “And then there’s kidnapping.”
“No.” Lucy shook her head. “I won’t say a word, I swear. It’s not even really, you know, kidnapping, is it, if you invite someone to your house and make them dinner?”
Something in Hal’s taunting smile made her shiver. “How about if I cut off your pinky finger, too?” he asked. “Would you call it kidnapping then?”
Lucy couldn’t get oxygen, no matter how hard her lungs heaved. It took all her concentration just to remain upright.
His smile broadened. “Ricky screamed and screamed when he saw what I was about to do. He begged me not to. Pissed his pants. But hey, he was just a kid, right? He had more balls then than this one has now.” He jerked his head toward his son but didn’t glance at him. If he had, he would have known what Lucy did, that Mick had slunk out of the room the instant Hal’s back was turned. She’d listened for, and heard, the faint click of the back door closing behind him.
“I didn’t know.” Her voice sounded disembodied to her own ears. “I didn’t know it was you. Does . . . does Will know?”
“Nope.” Still grinning. “It’s our little secret, Lucy. Well, and his.” Hal glanced over his shoulder, cursed, and sprinted toward the kitchen.
Lucy shot to the front door, yanked it open, and took off toward the driveway, reaching it just as her Volvo careened around the side of the house. She threw herself at the car, scrabbling for the back-door handle, as Mick stomped the accelerator. She landed hard on the cobblestones, rolled and went with the roll, springing to her feet and running full tilt for the inky woods, practically begging for a bullet in the back.
She made it past the tree line, stumbling blindly through brush, whipped by branches, deaf to everything but her own rasping breaths.
Then he was on her, bringing her down with a predator’s easy grace, pinning her, his breath hot in her ear. He wasn’t even winded. “You’re worth nothing to me dead, Lucy. But I can make you wish you were. Never forget that.” He hauled her up. She spat dirt and decayed leaves as he shoved her back the way she’d come.
Chapter 30
JUDITH ACCEPTED A ride home from Fergus on the condition he make no conversational overtures. She’d managed to pull herself together, but her composure was a fragile thing, and all she wanted now was to lock herself in her bedroom and have a nice, private breakdown. Fergus steered his 1957 black-and-white Chevy Bel Air past the unmarked police vehicle stationed across the street and pulled into the driveway behind her Acura. He killed the engine.
“No.” She opened her door. “You’re not coming in. Good night, Fergus. Thanks for the ride.” Wordlessly he accompanied her to her front door. “I mean it. Please respect me this much. I need to be alone.”
He framed her face in his big hands, there under her porch light, a show for the watchful cops and her nosy neighbors. Mick’s name had been kept out of the news, but it was a temporary reprieve. Sooner or later the whole ugly story would be fodder for gossip on her block, at her club, everywhere.
Judith didn’t care. For the first time since becoming a card-carrying member of the upright citizenry, she didn’t give a rat’s ass what they all thought of her. She cared only about Mick’s safety, and Will, and Tom, and the god-awful mess she’d made of everything.
“Judith,” he said, so tenderly she very nearly lost it right there, “don’t you know how much I respect you?”
His expression was so candid, so sincere, it hurt to look at him. Judith closed her eyes. Tears trembled on her lashes. He kissed them before they could fall.
“Call me ‘lass,’” she whispered into the cool breeze.
“Lass.” He planted a warm, healing kiss on her cheek. “My lass.” He smoothed back her hair, kissed her temple. “My beautiful, fine, strong lass.” His mouth found hers and she clung to him, kissed him shamelessly there in the spotlight on her doorstep for all the world to see.
When at last they separated, he took the keys from her fingers, opened the door, and ushered her inside, turning on lights as he made his way through the house. “I’ll leave you alone as you wish. Only humor me—I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“There are two cops sitting outside waiting for my son to do something outrageously stupid like come home.” Judith collapsed heavily onto her sofa, leaned back, and shut her eyes. “I’ve never been safer.” She listened to Fergus move from room to room. After a couple of minutes she heard muted voices from the back of the house.
Judith opened her eyes and listened hard. She heard the word “fuck” in an unmistakable voice and sprang to her feet. She found them in the den. Mick was sitting on the daybed rubbing his eyes. It looked like someone had knocked him around; her money was on Hal. Her son was alive, though. Her greatest fear had been averted.
Judith didn’t throw her arms around him—not that he would have let her. She didn’t kiss him or coddle him or tell him everything was going to be all right. Everything was not going to be all right. Her son was no longer a child. He was an adult who’d squandered every opportunity presented to him and made uniformly self-destructive choices.
Mick was Judith’s son and she would always harbor a mother’s unconditional love for him. But it was past time for him to accept the consequences of his behavior. At this point she hadn’t the desire, much less the power, to prevent that.
“I found him sleepin’ here,” Fergus said.
“Mick, there are police parked outside,” Judith said. “How did yo
u get past them?”
“You think I don’t know what an unmarked car looks like?” He jerked his head toward the back of the house. “Parked over on Harrison. Snuck through yards and slipped into the sunroom.”
Fergus towered over him. “Where’s Hal Lynch?”
He snorted. “Like I’m gonna tell you.”
“Mick.” Judith took a step toward him. “This isn’t a game. People have gotten hurt. You don’t know this man like I do.”
“Just ‘cause you fucked a guy all those years ago doesn’t mean you know him. Any more than you know this dickwad.”
Fergus didn’t rise to the bait. “Lynch is a dangerous man,” he said.
“No shit.” Mick picked dried snot and blood from his nose and flicked it onto the carpet. “He’s my dad, though, you know? Like, my flesh and blood? Which you’ll never be, no matter how many times you bone my mom.”
“All right, lad.” Fergus lifted Mick by his shirt and slammed him against the adjacent wall, just hard enough to secure his attention. Judith jerked in alarm but restrained her maternal protectiveness. Mick was wrong. She knew Fergus better than he thought, had verbally sparred with her brother’s best friend for sixteen years. No goading on Mick’s part would make him turn violent.
“I asked you a question.” Fergus tightened his grip. “I’m still waitin’ on an answer.”
Mick peered around the big man. “Get him off me, Mom.”
Fergus addressed Judith over his shoulder. “I’m goin’ to ask you to leave us alone now, darlin’. Mick and I have a couple of things to discuss. Man to man. You understand.”
Judith exited the room, closing the door behind her.
______
A ROUGH HAND shook Will’s shoulder, dragging him out of a deep sleep. “Leave me alone.” He didn’t open his eyes, simply turned over in bed, giving his back to the intruder.
“Get up, Will.” It was Fergus. “Lucy’s in trouble.”
Will bolted upright so fast, his head throbbed. He threw off the covers. “What happened?”
“Lynch has her.” It was Wesley, still in the brown friar’s robe, the only outfit in the place that fit him. He’d stuck around in case they got word about Lynch. Apparently they had.
Fergus and Wesley filled Will in as he snatched up his jeans from the floor. According to Mick, Lucy had shown up at the Goo and Lynch had talked his way into her car. He was holding her at gunpoint at her house.
Will didn’t need to be told why. “He wants his money. It’s what he’s been after all along.”
“In his eyes, you stole it from him.” Fergus wore a faded dark green sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off, black jeans, and the heavy, scuffed motorcycle boots Will called his “hippie stompers.”
“It’ll take time to get the cash together—it’s sunk into this place.” Will zipped his fly and grabbed his shirt. “It’ll need to borrow against the equity. The banks open at, what, ten?”
“I’ve got to tell you, lad, the bloke’s wired, gettin’ reckless—that’s what I got from Mick.” Fergus shook his head. “If it were just the money, Lucy’s got family, too, but we’ve no time for that. And even if he gets his two million, that doesn’t mean he’s going to let her go.”
Wesley agreed. “Anything could set him off. Guy’s got nothing to lose at this point. Cullen’s kept his name outta the news so far, but Lynch is no dummy. He’s gotta know the cops are on to him.”
“Cullen,” Will muttered as he shoved his sockless feet into sneakers. “I hate to think of how that bastard is handling this.”
Wesley and Fergus exchanged a glance. “We haven’t called him,” Wesley said.
“Yet,” Fergus added. “We’re leavin’ that decision to you.”
Will turned back from the doorway and stared at the two men, at their sober expressions. Both were clearly aware of something it had taken Will until this moment to admit to himself—that his feelings for Lucy Narby ran deep. He couldn’t recall ever feeling this strongly about a woman. Which astounded him considering he’d known her for less than two weeks and had yet to talk his way into her bed.
And now Lucy was at the mercy of a monster, a desperate man with no conscience, as Will knew from firsthand experience.
“I worked with Paulie Cullen for years,” Wesley said. “I can just see that puffed-up bully negotiating with Lynch. He’ll bark some threats into a bullhorn and follow it up with firepower. You want your Lucy to walk out of there alive, that’s not the way to go about it, is all I’m saying.”
“From what I could tell about the man when he was here,” Fergus said, “I’ve got to agree.”
Will’s insides roiled. He had to stay focused, for Lucy’s sake. If only it were as simple as handing over a truckload of cash. He’d gladly beggar himself if it meant he’d get her back in one piece.
“We need a plan,” said Wesley, the Voice of Reason, filling out the voluminous monk’s habit and carrying, Will now saw, an antique but fully functional crossbow—from Fergus’s personal cabinet of curiosities, no doubt. Will could only imagine what weird and wonderful implements the big Irishman had secreted on his person. A high-velocity slingshot, perhaps? A Taser? A handful of those scary-as-hell throwing stars?
Will headed for the door. “We’ll figure out a plan on the way. I just have to run upstairs for—”
“Got it.” Fergus handed him the SIG, along with 9-millimeter ammo from the office safe.
Will rammed the magazine into the pistol’s grip. “All right, let’s do it.”
______
JUDITH’S HANDS SHOOK, but she managed to give Lucy Narby’s front doorbell a few more stabs, followed by some vigorous thumping. “I know you’re in there, Hal. Open up.” She heard voices on the other side: fierce, muted conversation.
Judith prayed she was doing the right thing. She’d never met Lucy, but she knew how her brother felt about her; Fergus had filled her in on all that. Will’s clueless ardor was a source of amusement to everyone who knew him.
Judith had no idea what rescue plot Will and Fergus were at this very moment concocting, but the fact was, only she knew Hal, knew the real him and what made him tick, despite the passage of years. No one else stood as great a chance of freeing Lucy. She had to try, whatever the consequences to herself. She owed her brother that much.
Judith’s fist pounded the door in a bruising staccato. “I’m not armed, I swear. What are you afraid of, Hal?” This, she knew, would tweak his male pride.
Moments later, the deadbolt slid and the door swung open, and Hal Lynch fixed her with his startling ice-gray gaze. The face had aged, he had more muscle and less hair, and he looked like he’d recently gone one-on-one with a wood chipper. But those eyes.
Judith forced starch into her wobbly spine and returned his stare. Hal held a woman—it had to be Lucy—in a headlock, a gun pressed to her temple. Lucy was an attractive brunette with dark, intelligent-looking eyes. Judith swallowed hard. “Let me in, Hal.”
“You’ve gotten stupider with age.” His gaze darted around the grounds. He peered down the shadowy driveway, squinted into the distant black-on-black woods. His entire body radiated tension. Mick was right: Hal was wound tight. “Did our darling little boy blab to anyone else,” he asked, “or just you?”
“Just me—I’m the only one who knows you’re here.”
“Bullshit. Where are they, Judith?”
“Where are who?”
“The cops, who do you think?” He jerked his arm tighter around Lucy’s throat; she emitted a strangled sound. “Don’t lie to me. Do not fucking lie to me.”
“I didn’t call the cops, Hal, I swear. It’s just me.”
“Throw that inside.” Hal nodded toward Judith’s Burberry plaid shoulder bag.
“I’m not armed, I told y—”
“Do it.” Hal grimaced for an instant, making Judith wonder if his injuries were more serious than they looked. She tossed her purse into the foyer.
Hal kicked it into the greatroom,
scanned the grounds once more, then jerked his head, wordlessly ordering her into the house. He slid the deadbolt home, made Lucy sit on the mushroom-colored carpet, and treated Judith to a rough, sexless pat-down. Then he backhanded her hard across the face, leaving her sprawled next to Lucy.
Hal towered over her, gesticulating with the pistol. “Sit up.”
She did, with Lucy’s help. Her cheek was on fire; the room spun.
“What was that for?” Lucy glared up at him. “She didn’t do anything to you.”
“You’re wrong there, Lucy.” Hal’s hard gaze never left Judith. “Your boyfriend’s sister here? She stole twenty-five years of my life. Just like that, with one little anonymous phone call. That’s what she does to the father of her child. Isn’t that right, Judith? Look at me.” He grasped her throbbing jaw, forcing her face up. “I said look at me. I was a young man when I went into the joint. Thinking about what I’d do to you when I got out kept me sane all those years. That and the money.” He shoved her away and wiped the blood from her split lip on his jeans.
Lucy looked from Hal to Judith, no doubt wondering about their connection.
He peered around the window drapes, then returned to stand over them. “Here’s how it works, ladies. The cops show up, you die. Either of you tries anything, you die. I don’t like the way you look at me, you die.” He stiffened, sucking in a quick breath, but recovered quickly. “Got it?”
Yes—Judith and Lucy nodded in unison—they got it.
Judith wiped blood from her mouth. “I brought something for you. It’s in my purse.”
Hal’s eyes narrowed.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I try anything, I die. Go ahead. It won’t explode.”
He knelt by Judith’s purse, unlatched it, and dumped the contents onto the glass table. There were the usual items, and then there was the not-so-usual one. “What’s in that?” he asked.
“Open it and see,” Judith said.
Hal released the ties on the burgundy velvet roll and unfurled it to reveal a satin interior of zippered pouches. He unzipped the first one and pulled out a four-foot strand of plump pink pearls. He brushed a pearl against his tooth. “They’re real.”
Snatched Page 32