by Irene Hannon
She tried to coax her sluggish brain into action. If Sanders didn’t know who Connor was, he wouldn’t know the man was a PI, either. That should work to her advantage.
“A friend.”
“Why would he call you in the middle of the night?”
“He knows I . . . haven’t been sleeping. He might think . . . I’m still awake.”
Sanders didn’t move for several heartbeats.
At last he grabbed her arm and propelled her into the hall, pausing for a moment outside the door of the bedroom she’d decorated for Kevin. His nostrils flared as he glared into the shadows, as they had when he’d first noticed it. Then he towed her the rest of the way down the hall, into the bathroom.
“You’re going to get some rest tonight, Kate. The eternal kind. But we’re done waiting for the Valium to knock you out. I’d give you more, but I want this to look accidental.” He lowered her beside the tub. “Put in the stopper and turn on the water.”
She blinked up at him. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
Moving even more slowly than her drugged state dictated, she dragged out the task as long as possible. As water at last began to fill the tub, he waited in silence.
She wasn’t as far gone as he thought, but she was slipping. Badly. Her vision was going in and out of focus, her balance was evaporating, and the weakness in her limbs was bordering on debilitating.
From her spot beside the tub, she watched Sanders spread a few Valium tablets on the vanity next to the water glass he’d told her to bring up, trying to figure out what was going on. And praying Connor would realize there was a problem sooner rather than later.
Once the water in the tub reached the halfway point, he backed into the doorway and looked at her. “Take off your clothes.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“It’s bath time, Kate. As soon as the water gets deep enough.”
And then she knew.
He was going to drown her, just as he’d drowned John, and make it seem like another accident. A poor, grieving woman who’d leaned on the crutch of drugs again and slipped under the water when she’d fallen into a stupor after taking one too many pills.
Kate stared at the rising water—her nemesis since childhood. Even after all these years, she could recall with heart-thudding intensity the feeling of slipping beneath the waves as the sailboat her father had rented on a family vacation capsized, of sucking in a lungful of salty sea, of blackness and suffocation and choking.
No!
She wouldn’t die that way. He’d have to shoot her first.
And as she looked into his hate-filled eyes, she had a feeling that was a distinct possibility.
She still wasn’t answering.
Connor punched the end button on his cell, his attention focused on the illuminated window on the second floor.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He could feel it in his gut.
Time to arrange for backup—and take action.
After tapping in Dev’s speed dial number, he pulled out his compact Sig and moved toward the back of Kate’s condo, staying in the shadows of the trees and bushes that bordered the front yard.
“This better be important. You’re interrupting my beauty sleep.”
At Dev’s mumbled greeting, he cupped a hand around his phone. “I need you on standby.”
Three seconds passed—and when Dev spoke again, no vestige of sleep remained in his voice. The man’s ability to go from cutup to über professional in the blink of an eye never failed to impress. “What’s up?”
He gave his partner a rapid-fire debrief. “She told me once she kept an extra key on her deck. I’m heading that direction now. If you don’t hear back from me in fifteen, get 911 here.”
“You want them now?”
“No. If something is going on in there, I’d rather take them by surprise.” He stopped next to the small deck and gave it a quick inspection. There were several potential hiding places for a key.
“You think this involves Sanders?”
“I don’t know how it could. His car is still at his house.”
“Okay. I’m on standby, and the clock is ticking.”
Tucking the phone back into its holster, Connor searched the most likely places for a hidden key.
He hit pay dirt with the water-filled plastic dog bowl beside the back door, stenciled with the name Rocky. The key was taped underneath Kate’s frugal security system. Probably effective, though. How many thieves would want to risk tangling with a canine named after a famous boxer?
Except he had a feeling it hadn’t worked tonight.
Sig at the ready, he fitted the key in the back door. Turned it. Twisted the handle.
Nothing.
There must be a dead bolt.
The key probably worked only on the front door.
Uttering a word he seldom used, Connor circled back to the front at a trot and tried again.
This time the door opened.
No lights were lit on the first floor—but faint illumination shone on the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms.
He moved toward them, his rubber-soled sport shoes silent on the hardwood floor.
“No!”
At Kate’s sudden, panicked cry, a surge of adrenaline catapulted him up the stairs two at a time.
On the top step, however, he stopped, pressed himself against the wall, and looked around the corner, down the hall.
Light spilled from two rooms—and the sounds of a scuffle emerged from one of them, along with darting shadows.
“You want your son to live? Do it!”
The bottom dropped out of Connor’s stomach. That had to be Sanders. But how had he gotten away from the house undetected—on his watch?
A sob tore through the silence—and through Connor’s heart. “How do I know you won’t kill him too? That you won’t use your gun on him after you’re finished with me?”
Sanders had a gun.
Bad news.
And Kate’s words were slurred, as if she was barely conscious.
More bad news.
Crouching, Connor hugged the wall in the hall and crept closer.
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
More sounds of struggle. Fabric ripping. And then Kate burst through the door, her ripped blouse flapping about her, Sanders on her heels.
They both saw him at the same time.
But Kate was directly in front of Sanders, giving the other man a human shield.
He took advantage of it.
Throwing one arm around Kate’s neck, he pulled her back against his chest and aimed a Colt .45 at her head.
“Drop your gun.” Sanders’s voice was curt, but his hand was shaking. Whatever his plan had been, it was disintegrating—and he knew it.
But that didn’t help their situation. Desperate people were inclined to do desperate things.
Slowly Connor lowered his weapon to the floor.
“Move back.”
He retreated a few steps.
Sanders closed the gap between them, pushing Kate ahead of him until he was beside the gun. Then he kicked it behind him.
Connor did a quick assessment of Kate. Her pupils were dilated, and she seemed to be having trouble focusing and standing.
What had Sanders done to her?
“Go downstairs.” Sanders motioned for him to precede them down the steps.
Turning his back on a gun-toting maniac wasn’t his first choice, but when the man tightened his grip on Kate and she gasped, he didn’t have much choice.
No reason to tarry, however. He went down as fast as he’d come up and swung back toward Sanders, who was having difficulty maneuvering his human shield down the staircase.
While he was off balance and paying attention to his footing would be the best opportunity to take him down. The gun jiggled every time they descended a step, and a well-timed lunge for his arm to shove it toward the ceiling was their best hope.
Sanders could go ballistic any moment.
Two steps from the bottom, as Sanders jockeyed Kate down ahead of him, Connor made his move. Grabbing Kate with one hand, he jerked her out of Sanders’s grasp and pushed up the elbow of the man’s gun-toting arm with the other.
The pistol exploded, the silencer only marginally effective in the closed space.
Behind him, Connor heard Kate crash to the floor and moan. But the gun hadn’t been aimed her way. He’d attend to her once he dealt with Sanders.
Sanders was strong, though, with powerful arms and a solid midsection—and his strength was amplified by anger or fear . . . or both. His adversary also had a death grip on the weapon in his hand. If he hadn’t maintained both the firearm skills and fitness regime of his Secret Service days, he’d be in big trouble.
As they wrestled for control, Connor caught sight of Kate crawling toward them. Aiming for Sanders’s legs. Trying to help.
The distraction was only momentary; no more than a blip in his focus—but it was sufficient to give Sanders a very slight opening.
The man swung at him, and the side of the revolver scored a hard direct hit on his left temple.
Pain exploded in his head, and he staggered. Flashes of white obscured his vision. He fought for balance. Stabilized.
Too late.
Sanders had backed away and was holding the gun with both hands, straight out in front of him. He swung it between Kate, who was sitting on the floor near the bottom of the stairs, and him. His eyes were crazed, and his hands were shaking.
One twitch of his trigger finger, and someone would die.
Adrenaline pumping, Connor kept his posture relaxed through sheer force of will and shifted into Secret Service mode. Calm. Cool. In control.
“Greg . . . it’s over.” He kept his tone placid but firm. “The police are on the way. This will go much easier for you if you just give me the gun.”
“No.” The man shook his head. “You can’t take away my son. Not again. I won’t—”
The sound of breaking glass burst from the living room.
Sanders swung toward the noise.
A stumbling figure emerged from the shadows.
Sanders fired.
And as Connor watched in shock and horror, a little blond boy crumpled to the floor.
27
As her son collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut, Kate screamed and scrabbled toward him on her hands and knees.
“No!” The thunderous masculine bellow reverberated through the room, and someone tried to rush past her—only to disappear an instant later.
She heard the sounds of a scuffle, accompanied by guttural grunts and the dull thud of flesh hitting flesh. Felt the vibrating crash of her front door, as if someone had slammed it back with superhuman force. Swallowed past the bitter aftertaste of Valium on her tongue.
But her focus was riveted on the pool of blood forming under her son’s right thigh.
She moved beside him, desperately trying to coerce her brain to engage, to call up what she knew about first-aid basics. Apply pressure to stop bleeding. Yes. That sounded right.
Ignoring the shards of glass cutting into her knee, she managed to balance herself without listing too much to either side, then pressed her palms to the wound and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Please, God, let him keep breathing!
Moments later, a blaze of light erupted in the room, and she blinked against the glare. Voices spoke behind her. Deep. Male. She couldn’t make out the words. Didn’t try. Didn’t care about anything except keeping her son alive until help arrived.
Someone knelt on Kevin’s other side. She lifted her gaze, trying to clear her vision. Connor. And he was injured. Blood was seeping out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve got him, Kate.” He pried her hands off Kevin’s leg and pressed a towel against her son’s blood-soaked shorts. “An ambulance is on the way.”
Behind her, a man sobbed. She pivoted toward the sound. Sanders sat on the floor in the foyer, hands restrained behind him, head slumped. An armed man with dark red hair stood over him as the distant, faint wail of sirens pierced the night.
She turned back to Connor and cradled Kevin’s limp hand in hers. “He’s not going to d-die . . . is he?”
“Not if I can help it.”
That wasn’t the definitive reassurance she’d hoped for.
The sirens grew louder.
“Kate . . . what did he do to you?” Connor’s eyes were hard, a simmering rage banked in their depths.
She tried to articulate clearly, even though her mouth felt like mush. “Valium. Kevin too.”
“How much?”
“Me, about four 5 mg tabs. Kevin . . . don’t know.”
Connor shifted toward the red-haired man. “Dev . . . find out how much Valium he gave the boy.”
The sirens intensified, drowning out the conversation taking place in the foyer—but in less than thirty seconds, the other man called back. “Two.”
After that, Kate had difficulty keeping track of what was happening. The condo was suddenly overrun with people and lights and noise. A paramedic tried to separate her from her son, but she tightened her grip—until Connor dropped down beside her with some wet wipes.
“Why don’t you let me clean up your hands? We’ll stay close by while the man does his job.”
She looked down at her blood-covered fingers—and lost the remains of her dinner.
Connor cleaned that up too.
As he finished, another paramedic knelt beside her and slapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm.
“I’m fine.”
“Let’s make sure of that.” Connor entwined his fingers with hers and gave them a slight squeeze.
“Your knee is bleeding.” The paramedic leaned close to examine it.
“Glass.” She swept a hand toward the remains of the Waterford vase that had stood on her end table. “Just a cut.”
The man put a dressing on it anyway.
Kate fell silent. It was too much effort to speak. Let Connor talk to the man. She was more interested in tuning in to the conversation between the two paramedics treating her son. Nothing ominous jumped out at her—but neither did she understand half their terminology.
When the rumble of male voices beside her stopped, Connor touched her shoulder. “Did Sanders do anything else to you, Kate?”
She shook her head.
The paramedic examined her fingernails and her lips, flashed a light in her eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt to pay a quick visit to the ER.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” One of the paramedics treating her son rose, and she looked up at him. “How is he?”
“Bleeding’s under control. No evidence of arterial damage. We’re getting ready to transport.”
She attempted to stand, but without Connor’s assistance, she’d never have made it to her feet.
“If you’re the mother, you can ride with us.” The paramedic slung a medical bag over his shoulder. “Might not be a bad idea for him to see a familiar face if he happens to wake up.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Spilled out.
She was as much a stranger to her son as the paramedics.
He would see no familiar face.
Apparently recognizing she was on the verge of a meltdown, Connor stepped in. “We’ll follow you to the hospital.”
She didn’t argue. The first time she spoke with her son, she wanted not just her heart but her brain to be functioning at full capacity.
Keeping one arm around her, Connor steered her toward the door. He paused en route to say a few words to the man with auburn hair, who handed over a sweater. Only when Connor guided her arms into the sleeves did she realize her blouse was hanging off. After a short exchange with one of the police officers, Connor continued toward the exit.
As they passed Sanders, he turned red-rimmed eyes her direction. Connor angl
ed his body to block her view of the man who’d killed her husband and stolen her son—but he couldn’t shield her from the man’s choked, grief-laced words.
“I love him as much as I loved my own son—and I always will. Tell him that . . . please.”
She stumbled as they exited, and Connor tightened his grip as he looked down at her. “Would you like me to carry you to the van?”
Yeah, she would. She wanted him to lift her off her feet and sweep her into his arms and make all the problems in her life go away. But no one could do that. So she settled for second choice.
“No, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to lean on you.”
“For as long as you want to.”
How about forever?
He tucked her closer—making her wonder if she’d actually spoken those words.
No matter. They were true.
And once she knew Kevin was out of danger, she was going to focus on creating a forever that included both of the special men in her life.
Giving in to a yawn as the first faint streaks of dawn lit the sky outside the windows of the deserted surgical waiting room, Connor studied Kate as she slept on the couch across from him. She’d hardly stirred since she’d let herself fold after the doctor relayed the good news about Kevin—no major veins or arteries had been damaged, nor had Sanders’s bullet nicked a bone. They ought to be getting a summons to the recovery room any time.
He could use a few minutes in a recovery room himself—an emotional recovery room. His adrenaline was still pinging from their close brush with death. Any of them could have been killed last night.
Ruthlessly he shut off that line of thought. Better not to dwell on that while it was fresh enough to spike his blood pressure and twist his gut.
But if he’d had any doubts about whether Kate was the one, they’d evaporated when Sanders had pressed the barrel of his gun against her head. Because all at once he’d realized he couldn’t imagine a future without her. He’d tell her that too—after he gave her some space with Kevin. The two of them needed time to reconnect; that had to be the first priority.
But while they were doing that, he intended to stick close.
“Connor.”
At the soft summons from the doorway, he glanced over. Dev motioned him into the hall.