* * *
Mac sighed. Though he’d debated honoring Joe’s request, he couldn’t risk leaving Emily alone much longer—not with the stalker about to show up at any moment. Luckily, he’d called Ed, and he’d agreed to go help Joe. Now Mac was on his way to Emily’s. He’d already been gone longer than he deemed feasible.
Pushing the accelerator to the floor, he sped toward Emily’s house, praying he wasn’t too late.
He got there in less than ten minutes, noting the unfamiliar car parked in her driveway. The maroon sedan looked vaguely familiar, despite its spectacular ordinariness.
He parked in front of a house two doors over. He approached on foot, with his service pistol drawn.
Instead of going to the front door, he ran to the side. Keeping close to the building, he rushed around to the back. Of course, being prudent and careful, Emily had locked the door. However, he was willing to bet she was like thousands of other people and kept a spare key stashed somewhere nearby.
He found it inside a fake rock she’d evidently purchased for that purpose. Quietly, he unlocked the back door and slipped inside.
From the other room, he could hear voices. A man stood with his back to him, and it appeared Emily was seated on the couch.
Not taking the time to consider, he rushed across the kitchen into the den, weapon raised.
“Sheriff’s department. Hands where I can see them,” he ordered, adrenaline pumping so hard it took him a second to recognize the man with a gun pointed at Emily.
“Joe?” Despite his shocked disbelief, Mac kept his best friend in his sights. “I thought you’d run out of gas on the other side of town.”
Joe’s mouth twisted. “I thought you would be on your way to help me.”
Mac frowned. “I sent Ed. What the hell is going on?”
Before he’d finished speaking, Franco rushed out of the bedroom, gun drawn. “Drop it, cop.”
“Or I shoot Emily,” Joe said.
Because he had no choice, Mac dropped his gun.
Moving quickly, Joe kicked it aside.
“I found it!” a familiar feminine voice trilled. Desiree tripped into the living room, grinning. She held a battered cigar box in her hands. “It was in the kid’s room, in a toy box, under a bunch of stuffed animals. He never even woke up.”
“Open it,” Franco commanded, keeping his weapon trained on Mac.
Slowly, she did, licking her brightly painted lips as she displayed the stunning diamond jewelry inside. “There’s even more,” she breathed. “I’ll bet there’s a million bucks worth of stuff in here. Maybe more.”
“Perfect.” Franco smiled back. “Now we’ll be leaving. Go, honey. Go.”
Desiree headed toward the door, Franco right behind her, gun still drawn. “Are you coming, Joe?”
Joe shook his head. “Hold on,” he barked. “We’re not done here. I want the kid.”
Mouth open, Franco stared. “Why? We’ve got what we want. Let’s go.”
“No,” Joe snarled, his gaze flicking from Emily to Mac and back to Franco. “We’re not leaving until I get what I want. I need you to back me up. I came here for Ryan. I want my son.”
“Your son?” Both Mac and Franco spoke at the same time. Mac kept his gaze trained on Joe, who had his pistol pointed at Emily. Franco still stood near the doorway next to Desiree, weapon raised.
Joe’s expression of fury warred with the sadness in his blue eyes as he nodded. “I know you thought he was yours. But he’s not. He’s mine. Sarah was going to tell you—actually, we both were going to tell you that night at dinner. But then she had the accident and...”
Mac could only stare. “Are you insane? Sarah wouldn’t have cheated on me. And not with you. You were—are—like a brother to me. To both of us.”
Joe laughed. And then Mac knew.
A tumble of confused images ran through his mind. None of them made sense. “How could you? You’re my best friend. I trusted you like a brother.”
For an instant, regret darkened Joe’s chiseled features. “I’m sorry. We never meant for anything to happen. But we grew so close....”
Keeping his eyes trained on the man he’d believed was his best friend, Mac tried to understand. Inside, something clicked, an answer finally sliding into place.
Instead of anger or grief, he felt only...bitterness. He would have thought learning such an awful truth about his wife and the man he’d called his friend would rip his heart out. But in the past five years, he’d done a lot of questioning. In hindsight, a lot of things about his marriage hadn’t added up.
And now Mac had to face the fact that the baby he’d believed to be his might in reality be Joe’s.
That hurt more than he would have believed possible. “Mac,” Joe said, “you’ve got to understand. Sarah and I truly loved each other. She was going to ask you for a divorce so we could marry and raise our child together.”
Our child... The baby Mac had always believed was his.
Now Joe’s beyond-the-pale assistance in the search for Ryan all made sense.
Even so, it took every ounce of willpower Mac possessed to keep from staggering under the impact of Joe’s words. Now that they’d been spoken, looking back, he wondered how he hadn’t seen something, guessed anything. Had he really been so blind?
“You had no reason to doubt her,” Emily said, almost as if she read his mind. “Or him.”
Mac kept his gaze trained on Joe. “Now I understand why you were so fanatical about locating the baby. You kept on even when every lead seemed to be a dead end. But not because you were so desperately trying to help a man who’d lost everything. You did it because you had a vested interest.”
“I lost everything, too,” Joe cried, pain flashing in his blue eyes.
“Maybe you have, but that doesn’t explain how we’ve ended up with this. Both of us armed and against each other.”
Franco cleared his throat, drawing their attention.
“Look,” he said, reaching for the front door. “This is all very touching and all that, but I got what I came for.”
Brandishing the cigar box like a weapon, Desiree grinned. “Me, too. Looks like sending you all those letters finally paid off.”
“Letters?” Emily asked. “Those were from you?”
“Yep,” Desiree said proudly. “You took what was mine. I wanted it back. Now, I’ve got it. I hope it works out for you with all this.” She gestured at Joe and Mac. “But Franco and me, we gotta run.”
“Don’t move,” Joe ordered. Then, when Franco ignored him, Joe shot him in the back.
Chapter 13
Emily gasped as Franco fell, a bloodstain spreading over his upper shoulder.
“You shot him.” Desiree’s voice echoed Emily’s disbelief. “Oh. My. God.”
Blue eyes narrowed, Joe looked from Desiree to Mac to Emily. “So what? Consider this proof that I’ll do what I have to do to take back what’s mine.”
Sobbing, Desiree sank to the floor alongside Franco, still clutching the all-but-forgotten cigar box.
Heart pounding, Emily flinched as Joe took a step toward her. She prayed the loud gunshot hadn’t awakened Ryan.
“Go get the boy,” Joe ordered again, this time through clenched teeth.
Emily shook her head, breathing in quick, shallow gasps. “No.”
“Put the gun down,” Mac ordered. “Come on, Joe. There’s no way you’ll get away with this. It’s over.”
Joe didn’t move, the barrel of his gun never wavering from Emily. “It’s not over. Either I get my son or I’ll shoot Emily.”
“That makes no sense,” Mac growled.
Joe glared at him. “It makes just as much sense as what you did. You befriended her, all so you could take what you thought was yours. We’re not so different, you and I. I want what’s mine.”
Shaking his head, Mac took a step closer to Joe. “Without a DNA test, we have no way to know for sure that you’re the father.”
Afraid to breathe,
Emily watched as Joe eyed Mac.
Then, apparently seeing a hint of uncertainty in Joe’s expression, Mac kept talking. “Sarah and I were still intimate right up until she died,” he said. “I could just as easily be Ryan’s biological father as you.”
Face mottling with rage, Joe’s jaw worked. “You’re lying,” he sputtered, waving the gun in the air between Emily and Mac. “Sarah told me she wasn’t—”
Behind Joe, Desiree slowly got to her feet. Mascara had made black streaks run down her cheeks. Moving slowly, she raised the cigar box and slammed it in the back of Joe’s head.
Joe staggered, clearly stunned.
“Get down!” Mac dove for him. Out of reflex, Joe squeezed off a shot. It went into the roof above Emily’s head, sending plaster raining down on her.
Elbow to the throat, Mac knocked the pistol away from Joe. Emily scrambled to retrieve it. Desiree stood nearby, shaking.
Mac grimly cuffed his best friend and began reading him his rights. “You have the right to remain silent—”
“Mom?” Ryan said, sleepy-eyed and standing in the doorway closest to Joe. “What’s going on?”
Emily’s heart stuttered. “Ryan, go back to your room,” she told him, breathless and shaky but stern. “I’ll be in there in a minute. I promise.”
To her relief, the little boy turned immediately and disappeared around the corner.
“Wait up, Ryan.” Handcuffed and subdued, Joe stared in the direction the boy had gone. “Please, let me see him. Just once more.”
“No.” Emily lifted her chin and glared at him. “If you’d gone about this in a different way, I might have considered it. But you’ve not only endangered me but him. You have no rights, as far as I’m concerned.”
Then she looked at Mac, shaking with the aftereffects of shock and a sudden, furious rage. “Do I need to call 911?”
“I can call it in,” he said quietly. “Go tend to Ryan.”
“What about Franco?” a clearly shaken Desiree asked. “We need an ambulance. He’s still alive.”
“We’ll get him some help,” Mac promised. “Please, sit down before you fall and hurt yourself.”
Though she nodded, Desiree sank to the ground alongside Franco, who still hadn’t moved. Emily noticed the other woman continued to cradle her box of precious jewels as though they were a lifeline. Personally, she was surprised that Desiree hadn’t fled when she had the opportunity. She must really have cared for Franco.
Shaking her head, Emily hurried out of the room. The last thing she heard was Mac calling dispatch.
When she reached Ryan’s room, her little boy launched himself at her. She held him and attempted to calm him. Though half-asleep, he’d seen the strange man and the guns. She’d explained things simply, by saying Joe had been a bad man and since Mac was a policeman he’d arrested him. Luckily, Ryan didn’t appear to have seen Franco lying on the floor.
Downplaying any danger, including the gunshot that had awakened him, she smoothed his dark hair away from his perfect little face and kissed his forehead.
“Do you think you can try and go back to sleep?” she murmured. “It’s a school day tomorrow, and I know you don’t want to miss kindergarten.”
He clung tightly to her and shook his head violently. “That man was going to shoot you, wasn’t he?”
“It’s all right, sweetheart. Mac saved us.”
Her little boy raised his head and met her gaze, looking much older than his five years. “I want to tell him thank you,” he said.
“You can, later. I promise.” She kissed him again, love making her chest tight. “He has to get that man to jail and then there’s paperwork and all kinds of boring stuff. You can thank him in the morning.”
Rather than arguing, he nodded, eyes already half closing. She continued to hold him, rocking softly and murmuring in a soothing voice.
When his even breathing revealed he’d fallen back asleep, she eased her arms out from under him. Once his head was on the pillow, she covered him and got up. About to leave, she stopped, unable to keep from standing near the side of his bed and gazing down at him with her heart full of wonder and love.
He was her baby...her son. No matter what the DNA test proved, nothing would ever change the relationship she had with him.
She closed Ryan’s door behind her and prayed the wail of the approaching sirens didn’t awaken him again. She went to rejoin Mac and Desiree.
Later that night, after the ambulance had taken Franco to the hospital, Emily answered a barrage of questions. Renee handled the investigation herself, despite her bandages and the obvious pain her shoulder wound caused her. Desiree had to hand over the jewels and was arrested on charges of breaking and entering. She was bundled into the sheriff’s car, along with Joe, who faced a barrage of charges.
Mac insisted on escorting Joe downtown himself. He left without even a backward glance at Emily. She supposed he was still stunned over Joe’s revelations. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of woman Mac’s wife had been to have an affair with her husband’s best friend.
Though Mac had clearly not believed her when she said she hadn’t known about the diamonds, she’d only told the truth. The one area she’d never thought to search was her son’s toy box.
Wandering into the kitchen, she poured a glass of white wine and drifted back into the living room. More than exhausted, she felt drained. As she collapsed on the sofa, she knew her life was about to change. She couldn’t put it off, couldn’t run and hide. She had to face her future—Ryan’s future—straight on, with her head held high.
After all, she’d done nothing wrong and everything right.
Sipping her wine, she reflected on Mac’s promise not to take her son away if he was the father. With those words, he’d managed to erase all the shadows over her heart.
Except what would happen if Joe was Ryan’s biological father, rather than Mac? She supposed it wouldn’t matter now. It looked like Joe would be going away to prison for a long, long time.
She carried her half-finished glass to the sink, rinsed it out and went to bed. Everything could be dealt with in the morning. What she needed now was sleep.
* * *
Once all the necessary paperwork had been completed and with Joe and Desiree safely in custody and Franco recuperating in the hospital, Mac finally headed home as dawn began to lighten the eastern horizon.
Joe’s revelations had stunned him. But now, while he hated learning he’d been played for a fool by his wife and his best friend, he’d found a sort of acceptance. All that was ancient history and completely insignificant compared to what really mattered to him now.
All that mattered was Emily and Ryan...Ryan and Emily. When he crawled into bed as the sun came up, their names were the last two things on his mind.
Later that morning, a ringing telephone jarred him out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Instantly alert, he answered.
“Did I wake you?” Emily asked, her husky voice sending a thunderbolt of desire straight through his groin.
“I’m okay,” he managed to say, rubbing his eyes and squinting at the clock, trying to read the time. “How about you?”
“Last night was tough, but it’s a new day.”
“And Ryan?” he asked.
“Ryan was a little upset last night, but this morning he seems fine. I just dropped him off at school.” She took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk.”
He couldn’t squelch the warm glow that spread through him. “Would you like to have breakfast?”
“Thanks, but I’ve already had it several hours ago.” A thread of nervous determination ran through her voice. “Could you meet me at the sheriff’s department in, say, thirty minutes?”
He frowned but kept his tone light. “Sure. Would you mind telling me why?”
“I’d rather not. See you there.” She disconnected the call.
Now what? Refusing to speculate, he took a quick shower, towel dried his hair and g
ot dressed. Since it was nearly one, he skipped his normal coffee and snagged a stale, leftover doughnut on the way out.
Driving the speed limit, he arrived at the same time as Emily. He turned in just as she pulled up into the parking lot.
Though she had to have noticed his car, she continued on inside without even glancing at him, her back ramrod straight.
A kernel of worry lodged in his stomach. What was going on? He parked and went inside.
Emily waited for him inside Renee’s office. He raised a brow at her as he walked in. “What’s up?” he asked.
She motioned to a box in the middle of Renee’s desk—the DNA kit. “We need your sample. I’ve already gotten Ryan’s, and Renee is going to get Joe’s.”
Renee handed him a swab. “Go ahead and swab the inside of your cheek and place that inside this bag.”
Again he looked at Emily, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He did as Renee had requested. When he’d finished, he turned the bag around but didn’t hand it to Renee—not yet.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” He laid a gentle hand on Emily’s arm. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Yes, I do.” Though she met his gaze bravely and spoke in a calm voice, he could see the worry in her caramel eyes. “You were right, what you said before. I have to know the truth. And Ryan should know who his father is.”
He nodded, feeling a sense of finality as he accepted her decision. His life—everything leading up to this point—clicked into place as he handed the sealed bag to Renee. Unable to resist, he glanced at Emily, only to find she was intently watching Renee.
“I’ll hand carry this to the lab we use for crime scenes,” Renee said. “They’re in Dallas, and they promised to get the results as quickly as possible. We’ll include not only yours and Joe’s samples but one from Carlos, as well,” Renee told them.
Emily started at that. “How is that possible? Carlos has been dead five years.”
“NYPD has some on file. I pulled a few strings, and I’ll need you to sign some forms. Since Carlos’s widow is the one requesting it, I’m confident they’ll meet our request. We should know in three days tops,” Renee said.
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