In Destiny’s Shadow

by Ingrid Weaver

  She pressed her lips closed to keep her sob inside. Was she going to lie to herself? She hadn’t done this only to save him. Her motives weren’t that noble. She had made love with Anthony because she had wanted to. She wasn’t going to make excuses.

  He stirred in his sleep, his fingers spreading over her pillow. His mouth curved in a sleepy smile.

  Concentrate! she ordered herself. She looked away and picked up her shoes. She knew if she didn’t leave now, she wouldn’t leave at all. Taking care to avoid the floorboard that creaked, she tiptoed to the door. She made her way downstairs, through the darkened house to the guest dining room at the back, unlocked the terrace door and stepped outside.

  The temperature had dropped rapidly with nightfall. The brick patio was slick with a thin layer of frost. Melina turned up the collar of her jacket and walked through the gate to the parking area.

  Anthony’s Jeep was parked at the far end of the gravel lot, almost out of range of the light on the side of the house. She hurried past the pair of other cars, wincing at the noise her shoes made on the gravel, but she didn’t want to slow down now. Any minute Anthony might wake up. He would be furious when he learned what she had done.

  She knelt beside the front tire of the Jeep, unscrewed the cap over the air valve and depressed the pin in the center. A stream of cold air hissed past her hand. The front fender sagged lower as the tire began to deflate. She looked over her shoulder, her heart pounding. This wouldn’t stop him, but it would slow him down and buy more time. With her free hand she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

  Naturally, Liam Brooks wasn’t answering.

  Melina moved to the rear tire, opened its air valve and dialed again. As she had explained to Anthony earlier, she had to be cautious about whom to trust, but she couldn’t afford to waste time, either. If she couldn’t reach Liam within the next minute, she was going to take her chances with the state troopers. She would work her way up the chain of command from there.

  Just as she was about to give up on Liam, she heard a series of clicks as if the call had been transferred. The ringing started up once more with a different tone.

  A woman’s voice came on the line. “H’lo?”

  Melina was surprised to hear the receptionist at this time of night. She brought the phone close to her lips. “Harriet?”

  “No.” There was a sigh and the rustle of fabric. “Who’s this?”

  “Melina Becker from the Daily Journal. I’m calling for Agent Brooks.”

  Bedsprings creaked. “Hang on, I’ll see if he’s available.”

  “No!” Melina said as loudly as she dared. “This is an emergency. Don’t put me on hold—”

  Too late. The line went silent. Melina kept the phone pressed to her ear and moved around to the far side of the Jeep. Where was Liam? Who was answering his phone now? If she didn’t know better, she would think he had a girlfriend, but Liam hadn’t been interested in any woman since his wife had died. He was a by-the-book agent with the personality of a rock. Like Melina, he lived for his job.

  The cold was numbing her fingers. She fumbled for a minute before she got the next valve cap off and depressed the release pin. A frigid stream of air hissed into her face. She jerked back just as the phone clicked.

  “Brooks here.”

  At the deep, calm tone, Melina sat down hard on the ground, her eyes once more filling with tears. Liam Brooks might have the personality of a rock, but he also had its strength. Just hearing his voice steadied her. “Liam, thank God!”

  “Melina? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Dani said it was an emergency. You’re lucky she decided to connect my phone.”

  Who was Dani? Melina didn’t want to take the time to ask. She might only have a matter of seconds to get her message across. “Liam, I need your help.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Send in everything you’ve got. Helicopters, SWAT teams, the army if you can swing it, but—”

  “Melina, you don’t sound like yourself. Take a deep breath. You’re not making sense.”

  No, she didn’t sound like herself at all. There was no professional detachment here. She was teetering on the edge of panic.

  She checked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the house from this side of the Jeep, only the overgrown yew hedge that surrounded the property. Were those footsteps she heard on the patio? She wouldn’t be able to hear Anthony coming over the hissing noise from the deflating tire. She slid along the gravel, pulling herself deeper into the shadows. “I know where he is.”

  “Speak up, Melina. I can hardly hear you.”

  “Titan. We found his stronghold.”

  “Titan’s stronghold? Is that what you said?”

  “Yes. Titan.” While she spoke, she let go of the air valve and shifted to one knee so she could dig into her pocket. “His real name is Benedict Payne. Anthony told me—”

  “Did you say Anthony?” Liam interrupted.

  She withdrew the paper Anthony had given her with the GPS coordinates. “Yes, I’m with a man named Anthony Caldwell. He’s in terrible danger, Liam. So is his entire family. You have to arrest Benedict. Whatever it takes, don’t let him get away. He’s worse than any of us could have imagined.”

  The woman who had answered the phone was speaking excitedly in the background, saying something about Anthony. Liam’s voice overrode hers. “Melina, you have to focus,” he said firmly. “First priority, tell me where you are.”

  Her hands were shaking too hard to unfold the paper. She tossed it aside. “I’m in New Mexico, Liam. In a small town called—”

  A hand slammed across her mouth, muffling her words. Melina struck out with her arm, only to have both of her arms seized from behind.

  She threw back her head but couldn’t loosen the grip over her mouth. From the corner of her eye she saw two men looming behind her, one holding her arms, the other lifting a gun while he squeezed her jaw. She tried to scream but the sound didn’t get past her throat.

  Liam’s voice, tinny and distant, floated through the air. “Melina! Are you there? What’s happening?”

  Her phone was snatched from her fingers. There was a sudden crunch of breaking plastic and Liam’s voice cut out.

  Melina twisted to kick out just as the gun arced downward. Pain burst across the back of her skull. By the time her head hit the gravel, Melina felt nothing at all.

  Chapter 11

  Anthony came awake with a start, his heart pounding so hard he was out of breath. How long had he been asleep? He moved his hand across the sheet beside him. His fingers found a trace of Melina’s warmth and stirred a hint of her scent, but the place where she had been lying was empty.

  He jackknifed up. “Melina?”

  His voice sounded strange to him. Hoarse and needy. He never fell asleep with a woman. And he sure didn’t wake up and think only about wanting her back in his arms.

  He raked his hair off his face and scanned the room. The shadows were empty, but then, he had already sensed that he was alone.

  Anthony jerked his hand toward the lamp, flooding the room with light. He looked at the clothes on the floor. He could see at a glance that Melina’s were gone. He looked at the wooden chest where she had dropped her phone. Her purse was still there, as was her green carry-on bag. Only her cell phone was missing.

  It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.

  But he didn’t want to believe it. Not after what they had shared. She wouldn’t have done this to him. Not Melina.

  Hadn’t she felt the power between them? Hadn’t she realized how rare their connection was? She had writhed in his arms and had moaned his name. She had stroked his face so gently and had whispered that she understood….

  How could she have betrayed him?

  He slammed his fist into the bed. “Damn you, Melina.”

  Yet even as he cursed her, he realized his anger was for himself. He knew Melina wouldn’t have bac
ked down. That was the way she was. He had known that making love to her was only postponing the argument.

  He never should have let his guard down, no matter how warm her smile had made him feel, no matter how much he had wished that the world could have stopped and the night could have gone on and just for a while longer, he could put his obligations aside and forget about his destiny.

  He rolled to his feet and yanked on his clothes. He didn’t have time to indulge in regrets. Chances were good that Melina had gone outside to make her call. The sheet hadn’t cooled down completely, so she could only have a few minutes’ head start. It might not be too late to stop her.

  Anthony followed a set of small footprints across the frost-covered patio. They must be Melina’s. Who else would have come out here? He shut out the discomfort from the cold that stole through his ripped shirt, and opened his mind, scanning for a phone signal.

  Nothing. The footprints continued through the gate to the parking lot. At his first glimpse of his Jeep, Anthony broke into a run. Damn the woman, she had guaranteed he wouldn’t be going anywhere fast. She had let the air out of his tires. “Melina!” he shouted.

  A dog somewhere down the block started to bark. Anthony rounded the front of the Jeep. Only the rear tire on the passenger side was flat. The gravel beside it was scuffed, as if someone had struggled—

  Anthony stopped dead, every sense on alert. He probed the space around him. Still nothing. He widened his scan, checking for anything that didn’t belong, but he sensed only emptiness. He walked around the other cars and searched the shadows at the edges of the yard, then ran past the house to the street. It was deserted. The houses were dark. It was a quiet neighborhood, which was why he’d chosen it. Few passersby. No witnesses.

  A breeze stirred the branches of the tree overhead, clattering them together like bones. Dried leaves whispered past his feet. A hollowness settled in Anthony’s gut. Melina wouldn’t have gone this far. She didn’t have her purse. She hadn’t packed her things. She had only come outside on her own because she’d wanted to make a phone call. A phone call she hadn’t wanted him to hear.

  He should have been more careful to protect her. He shouldn’t have indulged himself with her when he knew they were this close to Benedict and this close to the end. And he damn well shouldn’t have fallen asleep.

  He returned to do another search of the yard, then retraced Melina’s steps to the Jeep. He knelt beside the rear tire, running his fingers over the scuffed gravel. His gaze was caught by a white square that was wedged in front of the wheel. He picked it up, recognizing the paper he’d given Melina with the coordinates of Benedict’s stronghold. She would have taken it from her pocket so she could tell the authorities where to go, but she hadn’t unfolded it.

  Why not? And why hadn’t she finished sabotaging his Jeep? The hollowness spread. He looked at the gravel again. A few of the pebbles were smeared with something dark—

  No. Oh, God, no!

  He touched a fingertip to one of the smears. It was sticky. It smelled like blood.

  He keeled over, bracing his hands on the ground, fighting for breath. For an instant his mind refused to function. His senses rebelled. He couldn’t take this in.

  No. Not Melina. He couldn’t lose her, too. There had to be some other explanation.

  Farther in the shadows beneath the body of the Jeep, he spotted her phone. Or what was left of it. Pieces of plastic and circuit board lay on top of a small, pale rectangle that was the size and shape of a…postcard.

  Anthony threw himself flat and reached beneath the vehicle. He knocked the broken phone aside, grasped a corner of the postcard and drew it out.

  The picture on the front was familiar. It was a thatched cottage against a backdrop of green countryside. This was Benedict’s calling card. The other time Anthony had seen one of these it had been on Fredo’s body. That card had been blank. It hadn’t needed words. The dead body it had rested on had been message enough.

  No. No!

  He got to his knees. His hands were shaking so badly, it took precious seconds to turn the card over.

  This one wasn’t blank.

  We have the reporter. If you want her to live, come and get her. You know where we are.

  Anthony’s chest heaved as air rushed back into his lungs. She wasn’t dead, he told himself. She wasn’t dead. All right. They hadn’t killed her yet. That wasn’t what they wanted.

  Then what did they want? Why had they abducted Melina instead of simply killing her?

  Come and get her.

  The answer was obvious. Benedict didn’t want her, he wanted him.

  A red haze descended over Anthony’s vision. He hadn’t thought it was possible to hate Benedict more than he already did, yet the fury that tore through him was unlike anything he had known before.

  Benedict had issued a direct challenge. Nothing on this earth was going to stop Anthony from accepting. The game would end tonight. It was the only way to stop the evil. He was going to find and destroy the man he’d once called father, no matter how deep a hole the bastard was hiding in.

  He was sorry Benedict Payne would only be able to die once.

  Anthony shoved the postcard into his pocket and lurched to his feet.

  “You appear to need help.”

  At the woman’s voice, Anthony jerked. He looked past the Jeep to the house.

  A small, dark-haired woman was walking toward him from the direction of the patio. Slippered feet poked at the hem of a long, black robe. A blue plaid blanket was draped around her shoulders like an oversize shawl. She held it closed at her throat.

  Anthony clenched his fists and strode toward her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  The woman stopped and took a step back. “Do not spend your anger on me,” she said, freeing one hand from the blanket to wave toward the house. Light shone from a window over the terrace doors. “I was asleep until I heard your cry.”

  Anthony forced himself to take a calming breath. He looked more closely at the woman. With the light from the house at her back, he couldn’t see her face clearly, but he still saw enough. Blanket. Slippers. Hair flattened on one side of her head. She must be Mrs. Rodriguez’s other guest. He glanced at the lighted window. “Did you see what happened?” he demanded.

  “Your rage is dulling your senses. I have just told you that your shout woke me.”

  Her words were tinged with an accent—Melina had mentioned last week that the other guest had a foreign accent. He scanned the edges of the yard again, then gestured toward the house with his palm. “Sorry I disturbed you, but you should go back inside.”

  She didn’t move. “You are distressed. Perhaps it would help you to talk about it?”

  He shook his head, muttered another apology and returned to the Jeep. He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t need her help, or anyone else’s. He had to fix the tires and get to the stronghold. He opened the tailgate, dug through his tools until he found the emergency air pump, then set it up beside the front tire and crouched to affix the nozzle to the air valve.

  The woman’s slippers scuffed across the gravel. Her shadow fell over the flat tire. “How did this happen?”

  He strove to control his temper. She likely meant well. But his mind was too full of his need for vengeance for him to have patience for idle conversation. “It’s cold. You’ll be warmer if you go back in the house.”

  “People often tell me their troubles. They come to me for answers.”

  He stepped around her and yanked open the driver’s door. He started the Jeep’s engine, plugged the pump into the cigarette lighter, then went back to watch as the tire began to inflate. It was too slow. He sent a shaft of energy to the pump to give it an extra boost.

  The woman tapped him on the shoulder. “This is not the way to get her back.”

  Anthony turned. Her face was still in shadow, yet there was no threat in her tone or her body language. She had already been at the bed-and-breakfast when he and Melina
had arrived last week, so logic dictated that she couldn’t be one of Benedict’s operatives. Yet that comment hit too close to the mark. “Would you explain that?”

  “It is your lady friend with the sunset hair that you seek, is it not?”

  “How do you know?”

  “It is her name you shouted. And who else would cause such distress in the middle of the night? The disagreement must have been serious for her to do such damage.” She tilted her head, looking at the tire. “But your anger will not win her for you. It will push her farther away.”

  Anthony ran his hand through his hair. This woman probably thought he and Melina had had a lovers’ spat. If only it had been that simple. He glanced behind him at the tire. It looked full enough, so he shut off the pump. “Excuse me, ma’am, but—”

  “Yes, I see you are impatient, young man. Your worry is not misplaced. But before I go, I will give you one piece of advice. Heed it well.” The woman drew herself up. She extended her finger to point at his chest. “Those who walk alone are the first to fall.”

  An odd silence followed her words. Anthony thought he heard an echo of her voice in his mind, but it was from a different time and a different place, with the noise of a carnival drifting on the spring air….

  A carnival? No, there was just a barking dog down the block and a cold November breeze.

  Yet those words seemed significant. Why?

  She turned and started back toward the house, the edge of the blanket trailing behind her like a cloak.

  “Wait,” Anthony called after her. “What did you mean by that?”

  The woman paused and looked over her shoulder. “Always full of questions. The answers are already in your heart if you but stop to listen.”

  The terrace door clicked shut behind her. A puff of cold air swirled from the shadows, seeping through his ripped shirt to his chest. To his heart?

  Anthony shook his head and turned back to the Jeep. It was nonsense, he told himself. Just the musings of an eccentric and probably sleep-addled stranger. He didn’t have time to worry about it.