The Mortimers’ great room had quickly transformed into GI Joe Central. She’d never seen so many well-built, massive men in one place. Despite their rugged physiques and obvious alert statures, Zack snagged Jimmy and settled into the nearest rocking chair, while Maverick and Gabe dropped to their hands and knees on the floor to play with Georgie and Little Alex. Mark came in from the front porch talking football with a couple more guys.
“Are all these guys coming with us?”
“Hell, no. They’re staying here. Judy made tacos.” Adam was angry with her, but he’d still made her laugh.
“You’re kidding. They came for dinner? Dressed like that?”
“Sure. They’re men. What’d you expect?” He’d pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. “Only you, me, and Alex will meet with your father. Connor, Rory, and Harley will stick close for backup, but these guys will make damned sure nothing happens while we’re gone.”
“I have to do this,” she’d said quietly, her back to Adam’s front and his arms around her. “He has to know.”
“Yeah. I get it. I know.” Adam wasn’t happy. He wanted her safe, and honestly, Shannon understood, but if she didn’t face her father tonight, he’d think he’d won. After what he’d put her through these past months, that galled her the most. Paul Reagan had to understand he could never use Jimmy against her again. That she’d had enough.
But she also wanted to know why he’d badgered her to take over the company to the point of extortion in the first place. Why he seemed intent on grinding her into the ground at all cost. What was so important that he felt the need to treat his only daughter so shabbily? Was it because he sensed he didn’t have much time left to live, that he was dying? For that matter, was he? She didn’t know if she cared.
Adam and Alex were accompanying her as bodyguards. Adam had fixed her up with a wire to relay all conversation with her father back to Connor, Rory, and Harley who would be standing by on the premises. CIA Agent Atchison had secured court-ordered authority for the wiretap. If things turned hostile, Adam’s guys could be inside Reagan Manor as quickly as CIA backup. It sounded scary, but foolproof, and Shannon felt good for a change. This was one confrontation with Paul Reagan she intended to win.
Because of Adam’s faith in her, she’d turned a corner. Her life was back on track. She could breathe full, deep breaths without hyperventilating, and she wasn’t afraid. Her father was nothing more than a bump in the glorious road to her future, because she, Shannon Reagan, was on her way to the altar with the real love of her life.
Adam’s warm hand slid over her kneecap, squeezing firmly. “I can still call this off,” he offered quietly.
Shannon jerked out of her reverie to face him. Smiling, she covered his hand with hers, interlocking their fingers. Adam’s grip tightened, curling her fingers into his. He lifted her knuckles to his mouth, his gaze soft and heated. “Just say the word.”
“We’re here,” Connor advised, and the chance to turn tail was gone.
“I can do this,” Shannon said calmly.
Adam’s lips thinned, but he nodded. “Just don’t say a word about the drones. Let Alex bring them up once you’ve had your say. If their whereabouts comes out while you’re resigning, fine. If not, let it go. I know you’re angry, and you have a right to be, but don’t egg him on too much. You really don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Do you?” She had to ask. A shadow had darkened Adam’s brave features. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He placed a kiss to her first knuckle. “Do you know how your mother died, Shannon? Do you know anything about her death at all?”
Shannon released her seat belt and moved into Adam’s side. “I know that she drowned in the bathtub. She’d been depressed and she slipped on the tile and hit her head. My father said she didn’t suffer. She just slipped away. Why are you asking me this now? Did he…?” Her mouth went dry. God, no. “Did he kill my mother?”
Adam shook his head slowly. “I honestly don’t know, but be damned careful in there. Don’t let him talk you into staying. Don’t get too close.” His lips skimmed another knuckle, the moist heat of his mouth lifting goosebumps up from her skin. “Come back to me, Shannon.”
She lunged at him, her arms around his head and that handsome face to her breasts. “I can’t come back, because I haven’t left you, and I never will.”
“Gear up,” Alex said quietly from the front seat. “Stay sharp.”
Ducking into Adam’s face, she planted a quick, wet kiss on his mouth. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Trust me.”
The deep breath of a worried male warmed her heart. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
Shannon climbed out of the safety of Connor’s SUV and into the night. Adam came quickly around the vehicle to her side. Ambient lighting illuminated the way forward. How long Connor would stay there or if the other guys would join him, she didn’t know. She hadn’t been part of that short but terse conversation between Adam and his guys before they’d rolled out.
The manor’s high-tech security cameras swiveled as she approached with her vanguard, Adam at her right, Alex at her left. She drew in a deep breath and rolled the tension off her shoulders. In an hour, maybe less, Paul Reagan would be history.
But when she reached for the doorknob, the entry swung open. Hubbard blocked her way, stiff, formal, and as condescending as ever. “Is Mr. Reagan expecting you?” he asked haughtily. How he could look down at her and still keep that snooty nose in the air used to amaze her. Not tonight.
The nastiness she’d washed down the shower drain bubbled to the surface with a vengeance. Like it or not, she was Paul Reagan’s only living heir, and unless he’d changed his will in the last few hours, she was a force to be reckoned with. She honestly didn’t mind if he had changed his will. The Reagan inheritance came with too many chains and strings. Who needed an anchor?
“You’re still here after you let Jimmy get kidnapped?” she asked, infusing her tone with as much bitchiness as she could. “My father wants to see me, so move out of the way, Hubbard. I can still fire your ass.” Pushing past him, Shannon glanced over her shoulder at Adam. “He’s usually in his study. This way.”
“Miss Reagan, stop!” Hubbard scurried to head her off. “He’s not to be disturbed. He’s in a meeting.”
“When isn’t he?” Shannon kept on going. “He’s always in a meeting. Who with this time, his lawyer? Is he already changing the will? Good.”
“Take it easy,” Adam muttered.
Defiantly, Shannon marched to the solid oak study door, her steps fast and sure.
Hubbard grasped the sleeve to her flannel shirt; the one she’d borrowed from Judy because she hadn’t packed anything casual for her business trip to Texas. “Miss Reagan. Please! I must insist—”
She turned on him, ready to bite his head off if he said another word, her hand already turning the knob that secreted her father’s deceit from the world. “Get out of my way. This is my house. Not yours.”
She caught Adam’s amused smirk. Hubbard stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the hall, but was obviously having a hard time maintaining his normal imperious stance. Adam kept edging over, taking more and more of his personal space. Every fraction Hubbard relinquished, Adam took. And more. He winked, and her confidence soared.
She pushed the door open. This might be fun after all.
“Shannon!” Paul Reagan looked up from his desk and smiled that sickly smile that twisted his mouth. God, it had to hurt. “How nice to see you. And you brought the men I wanted to talk with. My, my, and just in time, too. It’s okay, Hubbard. I’ll see her now. Carry on with what we discussed earlier.”
This man would lie when the truth sounded better. He wasn’t happy to see her, not the way his eyes shifted from her to his butler and back to her again.
“Father, she said curtly. “I’d say it was good to see you, but it isn’t, is it?”
Shannon strode in with her back strai
ght and her mind made up. This was the end.
He offered his gnarled hand like she was a stranger instead of family. He coughed and covered his nose and mouth with the handkerchief in his other hand. She took hold of his hand and found it cold and clammy. Was he really that sick? Gray snake eyes slithered over her face, giving her the urge to wipe the slimy feeling of his touch away.
Only when she released that treacherous hand did she spy the guy in the corner behind her. The guy hiding in the shadows of the leather wingback chair. The bastard covering his nose and mouth with a cloth just like Paul Reagan was doing. His lying eyes gave him away.
She had to look twice. “Brit? What are you…?”
The room tilted. Her vision blurred. The walls wavered beyond the wingback, then melted into pastel watercolors. She reached for the edge of her father’s massive desk, but missed. Two loud thumps sounded somewhere behind her.
“I’m... falling,” her mouth said while the floor pulled her down. Down. Down...
Chapter Thirty-Five
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“We’re in a damned basement,” Adam growled as the fog in his head lifted. “Where the hell is Shannon?”
Whatever gas clever Hubbard had sprayed into his face stung like a hive of angry hornets. Adam blinked, unable to wipe the crap out of his eyes with his hands tied behind his back. No wonder old man Reagan had his nose covered. He wasn’t sick, just a sneaky bastard.
“Who was that with Reagan?” Alex asked hoarsely from nearby.
“Looked like Brit Paxton, her ex, but it can’t be. I shot that son-of-a-bitch back on the island. I know damned well I did.” His mouth was on overload, and he was mad as hell. Being tied to a heavy wooden chair in a cold, dank basement with a dripping faucet nearby didn’t help. “He’s got Shannon, damn him! He’ll kill her just like he did her mother!”
“You think we’re still at the manor?” Alex sounded eerily calm. Had to be the effects of the knockout gas or whatever Hubbard had doused them with.
“Hell, we could be in Paris for all I know, Boss.” All Adam wanted was that hoity-toity butler’s neck in his hands so he could hear the bastard’s bones crunch when he choked the shit out of him. There was no stretch to these restraints. Leaning hard from right to left, he meant to rock the chair until it broke or tipped over. No go. The heavy thing wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. It had to be bolted to the floor. Rage rankled all the way to his gut. He wanted out. He had to get to Shannon. Now!
“Do you think they’ll eat all the tacos before we get back?”
Adam stopped moving not sure he’d heard right. Tacos? Really? Alex was hungry at a time like this? For a smart man, he’d suddenly gotten dumber than shit. “You know what, Boss, stop talking.” You’re pissing the hell out of me.
“Just asking.”
Adam jumped, startled when fingers brushed over his knee down to his ankles. “Damn. Is that you?”
It had to be Alex, but why hadn’t he answered? Two snaps and Adam’s feet were freed. Someone patted his shoulder before he freed Adam’s wrists. “Why aren’t you talking?”
“You told me to keep quiet,” Alex answered, as calm as could be, the smart ass. “Didn’t want to rock the boat.”
Adam rubbed his sore wrists. “What do you have, a pocket knife?”
“Never leave home without one. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Adam stood and flexed, thankful to be free. He’d have been a lot more thankful if his boots didn’t land in a puddle of water. “Son-of-a-bitch. Where’d that come from?” He noticed something else. The temperature in the pitch-black room had changed. The dripping sound turned to a trickle. Then a roar.
A deluge hit him in the face.
“Wake her up. I want her to see this,” a man muttered from out of the murky fog.
Shannon could barely lift her head. She breathed heavily. One moment she was awake, the next groggy. Dopey. Drugged.
“Snap out of it,” another person ordered, just before he stuck his thumb in her eye socket and peeled one eyelid open. The walls spun as the light poured in. She seemed to be stuck on an evil merry-go-round. At least she wouldn’t fall off of this wild ride. The rope biting at her arms made sure of that.
Some guy stuck his face into hers, but too close. His nose looked bigger than his eyes. He looked familiar in a nauseous way. Looks like Brit, but he’s dead. Isn’t he?
Words about drones and Koreans and an offshore account filled her ears, buzzing like little bees that didn’t make sense. Dillon’s smiling face flashed into her head. Why not? Everything else had. Connor’s surfer-blue eyes. Harley kept falling out of the sky. A big red dog swirled around with her in the cyclone of powder-blue baby pelicans she was caught up in. Nothing. Made. Sense.
“We don’t have all night. Wake her up.”
That voice she knew. Definitely dear old Dad. A hand appeared out of nowhere. The darn thing slapped her face to the left. Ouch! Then to the right. “Stop hitting me!”
“Then wake up, my stupid little ex-wife.”
It was—Brit?
“What… what are you doing here?” she asked, still trying really hard to figure things out. “You’re dead. Adam shot you. I saw him do it. You’re brains were everywhere.”
“Well, thanks for being so blunt. Now I know how my brother died.”
Paul Reagan sat beside her in a wheelchair. His unknown condition must’ve deteriorated since he’d lost control of his precious legacy. At her other side? Yes. Brit Paxton. Her undead ex-husband. His perfectly tweezed eyebrows lifted. “You never saw the big picture, did you?”
She grimaced as two of him multiplied into four, then became just one again. “The what?”
“The big picture, Shannon. Come on. Wake your dumbass up.” Brit leaned in, his face too close and his head cocked, like he was trying to unravel a riddle. He pushed the heel of his hand against her forehead. For an instant, he morphed into her father, the same I-can’t-figure-you-out disgust in his eyes. “That guy on the island killed Bart, you simpleton. Bart. My twin brother. Not me.”
Brit. Bart. Bart. Brit. The drug whirled the names around her pounding head like an olive at the bottom of an endless and very dirty martini. Shit. Shart. Brit. Bart. All the same to me...
He slapped her again. “Will you wake the hell up?”
“I’m awake!” she mumbled as loudly as she could. Damn his ass. He kept hurting her! A second of clarity burst through the dizziness, though. She just needed a few more seconds to be back to normal, and she could figure this puzzle out. Twins? Really? The fog lifted a little more. Oh, yeah. This guy had facial hair, a goatee like the guy Adam killed. Brit didn’t. But doesn’t that make this guy—Bart?
“It’s running, Mr. Reagan. The chamber will be filled to capacity in six minutes.”
Oh, great. Hubbard is here, too. Figures. Wait. What chamber? What’s running?
“Are the new guards standing by for transport?”
She nearly chuckled, but only because she knew what happened to the old guards. Alex scared them off, and he’d scare these off just as fast. Ha.
“Yes, Mr. Reagan. They’ve been informed to go as far out to sea as possible. Just like last time.”
“Then let’s get this over with.”
“Wait.” Shannon stiffened in her chair, arching away from Brit or Bart or whoever he was, and fighting to come to her senses. A soft rope bound her hands, but her feet and legs weren’t restrained. She planted both feet and pushed up straighter in the chair. “What’s going on?”
“Put her over here,” her father ordered. “Damn it. I don’t have all night.”
“Who are you?” she asked as someone shoved her chair to a big-screen television. Too close. The programming had more snow and fuzz than the inside of her doped-up head. Her bleary eyes could barely make out the dark waterfall on the screen. It could’ve been sewer pipes. Looked like it. Maybe an irrigation ditch? Who cared? Not her. She let her heavy head drop to her shoulder for a few
more ZZZs.
“Who am I?” The Brit look alike jerked her head up. “Why, I’m the man who’s been taking care of your sorry rich ass, and how do you repay me? You become a writer. A publisher. A nothing. Bart and I should’ve dispensed with you years ago.”
Anger dispatched what was left of her confusion. She eyed this imposter through hooded brows. “You’re Bart?”
“No. I’m Brit. Get it straight. Your boyfriend killed Bart. He was the one on the island with that cheap little Korean trick, Tia Mia, remember her? You can’t have forgotten how she seduced who you thought was your husband. You’re not that dumb, are you?”
I might be. Brit never had facial hair, but you do. Doesn’t that make you—Bart? Why do you keep telling me you’re Brit? He’s dead.
He crouched directly in front of her chair and thumped her forehead with the heel of his hand again. “Look at me. I’ll explain it one more time.”
She squinted, not sure why facial hair made a difference. Any guy could grow a goatee as flimsy as the peach fuzz on his chin.
“Shit, it’s not rocket science. Bart and I were identical twins, look-alikes, right down to our johnsons.”
“Why?” She had to know. “What could you possibly get out of lying to me? By pretending you loved me? By marrying me?”
“Closer to your old man, for one thing. Closer to your inheritance for another.” He peered into her face. “For a gal with your education, you’ve always been dumb as hell.”
Shannon blinked. He was definitely Brit. He’d told her how dumb she was enough during their short marriage. “But my father never liked you.”
“Not true. Your father never liked Bart, at least not until the whole drone fiasco. Then he came in rather handy, didn’t he, Paul?”
“That’s true, he finally served a higher purpose,” her father muttered.
“Drone fiasco?” Shannon asked, still not getting the connection.
Brit nodded. “Haven’t you figured that out, either? They don’t work. The photovoltaic cells in the solar panels can’t hold the charge we anticipated they’d be capable of. We oversold them. By the time Paul and I figured that out, Uncle Sam had us on the hook for a couple thousand. What the hell were we supposed to do? Go public with this kind of a miscalculation? I don’t think so. We, shall we say, encouraged Bart to hook up with that Korean operative. He never knew he’d been set up, the dumb bastard. He was as trusting as you. He really thought he was some kind of a super spy.”
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