by Amy Vansant
Shee sat in the waiting area, her knee bouncing, certain she’d never see Mason again. She looked up to find a tan, fit, middle-aged man wearing a guayabera shirt staring at her. He looked away.
Not in the mood, buddy.
He seemed out of place wearing his Cuban-style short-sleeve shirt, but the plane was headed to Florida.
Maybe he had the right idea.
She removed her puffy vest and folded it in her lap.
Think warm thoughts.
It was hard to think of anything except the pain she’d caused Mason. There was no reason he should ever forgive her. She knew that. But he had to go back to Jupiter Beach, right? Had to pick up his dog, his truck... It would be crazy for him to take a later flight just to avoid her, wouldn’t it?
She was shuffling one step at a time up the boarding line when he appeared. He slid into the queue beside her without a word. Both nerves and relief flooded her body.
Hi. Good morning. You almost missed it—
Every line sounded wrong. She remained silent.
As did he.
Shee handed her boarding pass to the check-in attendant and picked a middle seat on the plane. She could feel Mason’s presence behind her.
Please sit on the aisle beside me. Please sit—
He sat beside her.
More relief. More nerves.
He remained quiet as the rest of the passengers found their seats. The plane taxied and took off.
Still nothing.
Her heartbeat thrummed in her temple, though she knew that was more about the wine than her nerves. The steaks had shown up not long after Mason left the room, but she hadn’t been able to eat. Instead she sipped the spare bottle of wine until she found it empty.
Drinking on an empty stomach had always been a punishable offense.
She let the silence brew until she couldn’t stand it any longer.
“You’re here,” she said.
“My stuff, my dog and my truck are in Florida,” he said flatly.
Yep. I’ve been clinging to that fact for hours.
Silence fell again like a heavy cloak around her shoulders.
“I’m surprised you sat—”
She winced. Dumb thing to say.
She was begging him to get up and move with lines like that.
He looked at her, deadpan. “I’m not five years old. I’m not going to pretend I don’t know you just because I’m—”
Angry? Furious? Livid?
He didn’t finish.
She nodded. “Right. No. Of course not.” She traced a figure eight on her leg with her index finger for several minutes before looking at him again.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
The muscle in his jaw bulged. His head dropped and he stared at his lap.
“There are some things I want to know,” he said.
“Great. Go. Ask me anything.”
Another stupid thing to say.
He looked at her. “Is she safe?”
Shee perked.
That’s an easy one.
“Yes. Safest place on earth.”
“Disney World?”
“That’s the Happiest Place on Earth. No, she’s at a fifty-five-plus community called Pineapple Port outside of Tampa.”
“Fifty—?” Mason’s brow knit. “If she’s over fifty-five, I hate to tell you, but she’s not our daughter.”
“She was cared for there after my sister died. It’s a long story.”
“Isn’t everything?” Mason squinted and looked away. She could tell he couldn’t decide if he wanted to hear more.
After a moment he started again. “Does she know about us at all?”
She frowned. “I thought it would only mess her up if she knew. And it was too dangerous—”
He dismissed her with a wave. “Right, right. You were on the run from the one-armed man or whatever.”
“I was.”
He stared at his lap again.
“I mean, not from a one-armed man. But someone,” she added, quietly.
“Someone only Mick knows.”
“Maybe.”
The plane took off and they fell silent again as the roar of the engines grew louder.
“We could go visit her,” she offered, after the plane leveled off and the captain announced cruising altitude or read a poem by Shelley—the voice was so garbled Shee couldn’t tell.
Mason looked at her. Taking it as a hopeful sign, she continued, “I mean, when we’re done with the current mess...”
Mason sighed. “You understand you stole any chance of me knowing my daughter from me, right?”
She nodded. “I know.”
He paused, chewing on his lip. “I don’t know how to forgive you for that.”
Shee’s eyes teared and she sucked in a breath.
“I know.”
Mason stared at the pocket of reading material in front of him, while she tried to avoid melting to the floor in a puddle of tears and regret.
It seemed he’d finished talking.
Even through her stuffed nose she could smell on his skin the same soap she’d used that morning. She guessed after he’d left the night before, he’d gone downstairs and booked another room. She’d had visions of him sleeping in the lobby or walking the streets all night. That seemed silly, now that she thought about it.
Shee felt eyes on her. She turned to find the thin, older man in the window seat beside her, staring.
She wiped her eyes again and faced forward.
The airlines should pay us for entertainment.
An hour into the flight, Mason shifted from his position staring a hole through the seat in front of him. Though busy mentally torturing herself, on some subconscious level, Shee registered her seat shift as he moved and looked at her.
“You said it was a long story,” he said. “How your sister died and Charlotte ended up in a retirement community.”
“Yes.”
Mason took a beat. “We have time.”
Shee offered a tight-lipped smile.
The highs, the lows...
She took a deep breath.
He wasn’t going to like this story, either.
&&&
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sixteen Years Ago. Cocoa Beach, Florida.
“Knock, knock.” Shee peered through the screen as her sister, Grace, turned to look from her reading spot at the kitchen table.
“Hey, come in.”
To the sound of creaking hinges, Shee entered the colorful cottage located outside Cocoa Beach and submitted to a hug from her half-sister. She’d met her half a dozen times, but it never felt less awkward visiting the woman raising her child. The familiar, strange mixture of resentment and gratitude churned inside her, each taking turns ebbing and flowing as the visit played out.
Charlotte walked around the corner and stopped.
Shee gasped.
The girl was gorgeous, long dark hair, big eyes—granted, the teeth were pretty funky at this stage, but still—
“I swear, she looks a foot taller every time I see her,” she said, aware she sounded like some corny old grandmother.
Grace shrugged, looking morose. “That’s probably true.”
Shee grimaced. She only stopped by when she and Mick were in the area. Everyone had wanted it that way. Grace didn’t want the girl to know she was adopted because she wasn’t—not officially. She and her husband had moved with the baby and there was no reason for anyone to ever question if the child was theirs. It wasn’t like it was hard for Mick to get his hands on a forged birth certificate.
“You remember your Aunt Shee, don’t you?” asked Grace.
Charlotte offered a half-nod, half-shrug that said, maybe, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.
“Hi,” said Shee.
Charlotte paused for a moment and then disappeared back into the house like a shy cat.
Okay. There’s the visit.
Shee smiled. The girl had always reminded her of Mason,
but maybe now she could see her own features in that face. Grace and she didn’t look anything alike, but now that Grace’s husband was dead, people would assume the girl favored her missing father.
Speaking of which...
“Sorry to hear about Luke. It was a work accident?” Shee remembered he’d been in some kind of construction.
Grace nodded.
“You doing okay? Is she?”
“Well, yes, as can be expected. She’s been really strong.”
Pride washed over Shee.
Just like her daddy.
Grace glanced toward the back of the house, stood and brushed past Shee to step outside on the porch. Shee followed.
“She hears everything,” said Grace, shutting the door behind them.
“Kids.” Shee wasn’t sure why she said it. She didn’t know kids from iguanas. “Do you need anything? Are you getting the checks?”
Grace leaned her butt against the front porch railing, arms crossed against her chest. “I work. Between that and Luke’s insurance—what you send is more than generous. Charlotte doesn’t want for anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Grace’s tone took a shift toward snotty.
Shee frowned. “Why do you sound angry?”
Grace picked a piece of lint off her arm. “I don’t know. I guess I sort of resent it when you show up.”
Shee’s eyes widened. “You do?” She’d thought she was the seething one.
“Yes. Every time you stop by it reminds me I’m not her mother by blood. It reminds me Luke and I were never able to have our own child.”
“I didn’t know you felt that way.”
Grace put a hand on Shee’s arm. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. Everything you went through with Charlotte’s birth...I’m more grateful than I could ever—”
Somewhere behind Shee a sharp pop! echoed. Something moved past her cheek, so close and hot it burned. She raised a hand and recoiled, thinking a wasp had stung her, even as her mind screamed that wasn’t the case. Grace’s expression froze, her eyes wide and her jaw slack, as if someone had ripped the batteries out of her back. Her sister’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground, clipping the back of her head on the porch railing as she fell.
A red mist hung in the air.
Sniper.
“Grace!”
Shee dropped to a squat to feel her sister’s throat for a pulse, but Grace was dead. There was no question. She’d seen the back of her sister’s head explode into a halo of blood. She shifted the body aside and scrambled into the house as another explosion sent a sliver of wood spinning from the porch railing.
The bullets weren’t meant for Grace.
“Charlotte!” Shee called as she closed and locked the front door.
Whoever shot her sister would be arriving soon to finish the job he’d botched. She had to find the girl and get her to safety.
“Charlotte?” Shee ran from room to room, poking her head in each before moving to the next. She opened the back door and scanned the yard as best she could without sticking her noggin out like a shooting gallery duck.
The girl was gone.
Down the street she heard the sound of kids calling to each other, playing.
There she is.
She had to be playing with the other kids.
Did the assassin know about Charlotte? Would he hunt her down?
She heard the front door rattle and reached for a gun that wasn’t there.
Shit.
She’d left it in the car. Grace had scolded her once before for bringing it into the house.
She slid her phone out of her pocket and called Mick, pleased to hear him answer. She hadn’t been sure he would. He hadn’t totally warmed up to cell phones yet.
“Hey, you done already?” Mick sounded relaxed. Other voices chatted and laughed in the background. She guessed he’d stopped at some tiki bar to wait for her.
“Someone shot Grace.”
“What?”
“Someone shot her. I think they were aiming at me.” She touched her cheek remembering the heat of the bullet tearing past. She looked at her fingertips and found them red with blood. The bullet had grazed her.
“I’m on my way.”
Shee dropped the phone as the glass in the front door shattered.
The assassin would be in the house any second.
I should have grabbed a knife.
She’d run right past a butcher block of knives and hadn’t taken one.
Why bring a knife to a gunfight? Mick liked to say.
Now she had an answer.
Because you left your frickin’ gun in the car.
No time to go back.
She hovered at the back door for a moment and then thought better of escaping. There could be another shooter waiting to pick her off. And the kids playing down the street with Charlotte—she didn’t want to endanger them.
Footsteps creaked in the kitchen and Shee dove for the master bedroom. She left the door open behind her. She’d lose any chance of surprising the shooter if she barricaded herself inside.
Slipping into the en-suite bathroom, she scanned the small, beige-tiled room for a weapon, settling upon a toilet bowl brush and a spray bottle of tile cleaner. As she weighed the pros and cons of swapping the toilet brush for the oversized hair dryer, the floorboards in the hall outside the bedroom creaked.
She threw her back against the closet door that was located in the hall between the entrance to the bath and the bedroom. She took deeper breaths, hoping to slow her pounding heart.
She heard steady footsteps move past the room.
Heavy. Probably a man.
Statistically, the odds favored the assassin being a man. She didn’t subscribe to Assassin Stats Weekly, but knew assassins were often retired military. The male-to-female soldier ratio heavily favored men, and it hadn’t taken the shooter long to reach the front door, so it probably wasn’t an oversized woman—
Stop it. Assume it’s a man. Avoid contests of strength.
She searched for some reflective surface to offer a glimpse of the bedroom entrance, but found nothing.
Is he coming with a rifle or did he switch out for a handgun?
She hoped he’d stuck with the rifle. In close quarters it would be less effective.
The back door creaked and then slammed.
Charlotte.
Shee didn’t know how much the gunman knew. Had he followed her to Grace’s house? Had he been to Grace’s before? Did he know to grab Charlotte and use her as leverage to draw her out of her hiding?
She was about to reel from the closet in the bedroom when a floorboard creaked.
Still here.
He’d pretended to leave out the back to see if she’d pop from her hiding place.
It had almost worked.
Hopefully, that meant he didn’t know about Charlotte.
Footsteps moved toward the bedroom until she could feel his presence in the room. She heard him take another cautious step forward.
Holding the tile cleaner high, she reached around the corner and sprayed where she thought his eyes would be.
He roared.
Shee cracked the toilet brush across the hand holding what she could now see was a pistol. He’d come prepared for close quarters.
The gun went off as it fell from his hand, the bullet embedding in the floor boards not far from Shee’s feet. He smacked the spray bottle from her hand. She kicked him hard against the side of his knee.
Another yelp. He grabbed at her shirt as he started to topple, his leg collapsing under his weight.
Shee jerked forward and fell on top of him. He grappled to hold her there.
“Shee!”
A voice called her name from somewhere in the house.
Mick.
The assassin heard, too. Shee grabbed for the gun now lying on the floor by the nightstand as he scrambled to get out from under her and flee the bedroom. Springing to his feet, he bolted for the hall. She f
ired as he turned the corner toward the back door. Blood splattered against the white wall. The bullet continued into the dining room to strike a lamp. She heard Mick swear.
“Shit, Shee, you almost shot me.”
“Sorry.” She raised a hand of apology and leapt to her feet to give chase.
Wherever she’d hit her foe, her bullet didn’t slow him down. Shee pursued as far as the back porch, choosing not to fire as she watched the man limping and gripping his upper arm and running in the opposite direction to the children playing down the street.
She’d be lucky if the neighbors hadn’t already called the police.
Mick appeared behind her.
“He got away?”
She nodded. “I think I caught him through the arm.”
“Yeah, I know. You almost caught me through the head.”
“Sorry about that.” She looked back in the house. “Grace is—”
“Dead.”
She nodded, finding it hard to look him in the eye.
Mick moved into the bedroom to yank a pile of blankets from the top of Grace’s closet.
“Help me get her to the car.”
“Charlotte?”
“No, Grace. I can’t leave her here.”
Shee gaped. “You can’t just drive off with her.”
“If they find her with a bullet in her head there are going to be questions.”
“The kind of questions that might find her killer?”
“No, the kind of questions that don’t end well for Charlotte. Grace’s death will be in the paper. The people after you will find out about her.”
“The people...?” Shee’s head felt as if it might spin off her neck. “Who’s after me? How could they know Charlotte is mine?”
“I don’t know. But normal people don’t have snipers shooting at them. Someone wants you. We have to assume they know everything.”
Shee glanced toward the back door.
“What about Charlotte? She can’t come with us if it’s as dangerous as you say. What are we going to tell her about Grace?”
Mick spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know yet. Come on. Help me get Grace wrapped up.”
Mick pulled Grace inside the house and together they wrapped her in the blankets. He hoisted her to his shoulder and when he felt comfortable with the weight, he nodded down the hall.
“Clean the blood off there and the front porch.”