Keeping Watch (9781460341285)

by Choate, Jane M.

  She wouldn’t beg for herself, but she would for Jake. “Please. Jake’s done nothing to you.”

  “He took you from me! He made you fall in love with him.” Outrage rimmed Victor’s voice, and he rubbed his hands together, as if wiping away something particularly foul. She could actually feel the waves of rage he was emitting.

  Was it so obvious? Did Jake know of her feelings for him?

  A sound at the door filled her with hope, and her heart leaped. Jake. Somehow, he’d found her. She knew he would come.

  When Clariss walked in, Dani could only stare. “Clariss? How did you know where I was?” Relief filled her, then terror. Now Victor had two hostages.

  It was only then that she understood. If she hadn’t been so muddled from whatever drug Victor had given her, she’d have already put it together. Clariss had relayed the supposed message from Jake.

  Panic.

  She did her best to will it back, but her heart was pounding painfully. She could feel her breathing starting to seize, with the accompanying chill and nausea.

  Her secretary walked right up to Victor and put her arms around his neck. “Why, Victor told me, of course.”

  When Clariss had walked in, Dani believed she was going to be rescued. Now she realized there was no hope of rescue. Jake had no idea where she was. She had to save herself. She had to take what she’d been given and make the best of it.

  She had a hysterical desire to laugh. She was bound to a chair, growing weaker by the moment. All she could do was keep Victor and Clariss talking.

  “You were part of this?” she asked, directing the question to Clariss.

  “From the beginning,” Clariss said proudly, a cool glaze of contempt hardening her eyes.

  Dani looked from one to the other. Victor was the boyfriend Clariss had mentioned but never brought around the office? It made a strange kind of sense. In the past, Clariss had always talked about her boyfriends, bragging about them, blushing when the occasional bouquet of flowers was delivered. With her latest, she had been oddly reluctant to share details.

  “I thought we were friends.” Clariss’s betrayal cut deep.

  Clariss stared at Dani, her gaze suddenly, shockingly, poisonous. “Friends? Give me a break. You, with your fancy clothes and fancy ways, were always holding your status over me, making me feel inferior.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “How do you think that dead fish got on your desk without anyone being the wiser? And those letters that arrived without any postmark? It was me. All me.” Clariss preened a bit and gave Dani a nasty smile. “You never even thought that your dowdy little secretary was doing it, did you? You were always such a fool. You believed everything I said. You never did give me enough credit. Like how I knew the code word you and your bodyguard devised.”

  “You were eavesdropping.”

  “Of course.” Clariss sounded smugly proud of herself.

  “I did everything I could to help you.”

  “Like when you refused to write that letter of recommendation I needed to apply to law school?”

  “I couldn’t lie.”

  “So holier-than-thou. Well, Dani, how do you feel about me now? Am I good enough for you?” Clariss laughed gaily.

  “You were always good enough. It was you who never gave yourself enough credit. You would have gotten into law school eventually. Without lying.”

  Victor sliced a hand through the air. “Both of you, shut up.”

  Clariss slanted a sly smile Dani’s way. “How’re you going to feel when I have your job someday? After Victor helps me get into law school and I graduate, I’m going to be the type of lawyer you never had the guts to be.” She pressed against Victor’s side. “Isn’t that right?”

  An uncomfortable look crossed Victor’s face. “You don’t need to go to law school, baby. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “You promised you’d help me once this—” she gestured toward Dani “—was finished and done with.” An edge of doubt had crept into her voice.

  “And I will. I’m going to give you the life you always dreamed of.”

  Dani felt a niggle of hope. Victor was reverting to old patterns, treating Clariss the same way he had treated her, trying to control her. If she could drive a wedge between them, maybe she had a chance of escaping.

  “You see, Clariss? Victor doesn’t really want to help you. He wants to help himself. And only himself.”

  “That’s not true.” The younger woman wound her arm through Victor’s, snuggled close to him, oblivious to the distaste on his face. “He’s going to help me be a lawyer. Like you. Only better.” Her plain face lit with a kind of inner joy.

  Despite what the woman had done, Dani felt sorry for her. Clariss was a victim as much as Dani; she just didn’t know it. “Victor doesn’t like the woman in his life to succeed at anything. He wants to be her rescuer, her controller. That’s not love. That’s sickness.”

  Clariss shot her a look of such loathing that Dani wondered why she had never seen the woman’s true feelings before. How could she have been so blind? She had seen only what she’d wanted to see. More, she’d seen what Clariss wanted her to see.

  “You’re being incredibly naive if you believe Victor’s going to do anything to get you into law school.” Deliberately cruel, Dani added, “You’re not his type.” She didn’t want to hurt the woman, but she had to get through to her.

  Dani paused, letting Clariss absorb everything. “As soon as you’ve outlived your usefulness to him, he’ll get rid of you. He has no reason to keep you around. Think on that.”

  Uncertainty flickered in Clariss’s eyes.

  Dani seized the opportunity. “Think. Did he ever take you out where you’d be seen together? Or did you always meet in out-of-the-way places? Did he ever introduce you to any of his friends? Did he ever let you talk about him with your girlfriends or were you supposed to keep quiet about your relationship?”

  “Victor said it was more romantic if we kept our relationship a secret.”

  Behind Clariss’s back, Victor rolled his eyes, his contempt plain.

  “Because it was romantic or because it made it easier for him to get rid of you when he didn’t need you anymore?”

  Clariss turned to Victor, her eyes pleading with him to deny Dani’s charges. “It’s not true, is it? Once this is over, we’ll be together.”

  “Of course we will. She’s only trying to drive us apart.” He skimmed a caressing hand down Clariss’s cheek. “She’s jealous of you, baby. That’s all. She’s jealous because you’re everything she’s not. Ambitious. Smart. Beautiful.”

  Her face filled with bliss, Clariss leaned into his touch. “But you will help me—”

  “Didn’t I say I’d help you? I’ll put in a good word for you with the dean of the law school.” Impatience colored his voice before he tempered it. “After we see to her.” The last word was uttered with such hatred that Dani tried to shrink away from him.

  She felt herself growing weaker with every breath. The inhaler lay on the floor, not far from where she was tied to the chair, but it might as well have been miles away, for all the good it did her.

  Clariss drew herself up, her face set in resolute lines. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Untie her. We’re all going to take a walk outside.”

  As Clariss worked to undo the knots, Dani whispered, “Victor’s a dangerous and cruel man. The only future you have with such a man is more danger and more cruelty. Open your eyes. It’s not too late for you.”

  “You’d say anything to save yourself.” But Clariss didn’t sound as sure of herself as she had minutes earlier. Her voice quavered, making her sound even younger than Dani knew her to be.

  “I’m trying to save you, as well,” Dani said and realized that it was
true. Clariss could still be saved. It wasn’t too late. It wasn’t too late for either of them.

  “I love him.”

  With those words, Clariss had sealed her fate. The look in Victor’s eyes confirmed it. He had used the young woman’s feelings for him even as he was repelled by her.

  Dani knew it, just as she knew that Victor would discard the naive secretary. She also knew that it was up to her to save herself. She pretended to faint, slumping forward.

  Clariss knelt beside her, shook her.

  Dani remained unresponsive.

  “She’s faking.” Victor kicked her, and she couldn’t hold back the cry of pain. He kicked her again.

  It was no effort to assume the fetal position, the universal pose of the frightened and defeated. Let Victor see what he wanted: a woman who had given up, a woman who would give him no trouble, a woman who was resigned to dying.

  When he reared back to kick her a third time, she rolled to the side. Caught by his own momentum, Victor stumbled.

  Dani seized her chance and ran to the door. As she started to yank it open, a hard hand grabbed her ankle.

  Inexorably, Victor pulled her to him. Dani fought to free herself, using the defensive techniques Shelley and Jake had taught her. With a strength fueled by rage and terror, she kicked out at him.

  She was no warrior like Jake and Sal or Shelley, but anyone could be a warrior if the stakes were high enough. She was fighting not only for her life but for Jake’s, as well. She would not, could not, let Victor defeat her.

  Her blow caught him in the chest. She took advantage of the seconds when he was off balance, pulled herself up, then, throwing all her force into her elbow, caught him on the side of the temple. She twisted sideways, pivoted and landed a heel in his solar plexus.

  The stunned look in his eyes told her she’d gotten in a good blow and done some damage. She wasn’t given time to gloat over her victory, for with the fury of retribution darkening his eyes, he backhanded her, sending her to the floor.

  “You should have stayed down. It would have been easier.” He picked her up as he would a rag doll and carried her outside, Clariss in his wake.

  Dani bit his shoulder. Other than a muttered word, he gave no evidence she’d really hurt him.

  Hold on to faith. The words echoed in her mind with increased fervency. Hold on to faith.

  Dani did just that.

  Until she saw the grave.

  Freshly dug dirt lay beside the yawning hole in the ground. Cold fear squeezed the breath from her, and she turned pleading eyes to Victor.

  “Go ahead. Beg. I’d like to hear it.” His laugh was a harsh slash in the night. “Your mother denied me even that.”

  She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. The breath she struggled to take caught in her throat, searing and terrifying.

  Dani called upon every ounce of courage she possessed, though her knees were shaking. At eight, she’d had a severe asthma attack, so bad that she couldn’t breathe. She’d felt as if she were being smothered and ever since then had an intense fear of suffocating.

  Victor tossed her into the grave, then climbed into a backhoe and fired it up.

  Dani’s asthma kicked in, winding her. Though she tried to climb out of the grave, she lacked the strength. Dirt cascaded onto her, clogging her nose, stinging her eyes. She struggled to her knees, but the heaping shovels of dirt kept knocking her back down.

  Blinking again and again, she worked to clear the grit from her eyes. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the clumps of dirt that clung to her face. “Please, Lord,” she prayed. “Help me remain strong.”

  “Victor, do you have to...?” Clariss’s words went unheeded.

  Dani rolled onto her stomach to protect her face from the rain of dirt. It didn’t help.

  The earthen walls seemed to close in around her as the dirt piled on top of her. Darkness. Nightmare. Nothingness.

  * * *

  “How do you know where he’s taken her?”

  The Jeep sped through the darkening twilight.

  “After talking with the senator, I went to the hall of records and found the paperwork where he’d changed his name. I had to go back a long way, but I found it.” Grim satisfaction hardened Jake’s voice. “It seems Victor Wingate never existed. But a Mick Devane did. He was born not far from Atlanta, in a town called Misty Springs.”

  “So, why the name change?”

  “Mick Devane was born on the wrong side of the tracks. It seems that he always wanted more. So when he came of age, he changed his name. He falsified records to get into Harvard. Wingate even passed the bar and practiced in Massachusetts for a while before returning to Georgia.”

  “Even when he wanted to erase his roots, he couldn’t stay away,” Sal mused aloud.

  “That’s my thinking. You can’t deny your roots. Anyway, Mick/Victor settled in Atlanta, fabricated a family background that allowed him to fit into the upper crust of society. He got himself a job at a high-priced firm and joined the movers and shakers. He met Dani at some social event and became fixated on her.”

  “Can you say psycho?” Sal murmured.

  Jake nodded. “He’s a sociopath. Dani ruined his plan to make her turn to him as she did four years ago. That makes him more dangerous than ever.”

  “How do you know where he’s taken her?” Sal asked again.

  “I don’t. Not for certain. But I’ve got a pretty good idea. Hold on.” Jake pressed down on the accelerator.

  Something called out in his soul at that moment, something deeper than he’d ever experienced before, and he felt God stirring within him.

  Dear Lord, please keep Dani safe until I get there. With a start, he realized that, for the first time in over a year, he was praying. The words felt right in his mind, in his heart. How had he ever thought he had given up believing? He’d been only fooling himself.

  He’d been fooling himself about Dani, as well. He loved her. It was that simple and that complicated. The idea that he might lose her filled him with such dread that he felt paralyzed. Nothing that had ever happened to him before, nothing that could ever happen in the future would be more devastating than losing her.

  They arrived in Misty Springs in less than half the time the drive should have taken. Using the map he’d downloaded from the internet, he followed the directions to the house where Mick Devane had grown up.

  The neighborhood where the small frame house stood may have been respectable at one time, but it was clearly on the wrong side of the tracks now. Tufts of grass fought against hard-packed dirt. Apparently the rich fertile soil of Georgia had forgotten this sad piece of land.

  Ancient appliances littered the front yard—what there was of it. A picket fence marched drunkenly down the borders of the property. A clothesline drooped between two rusted poles.

  More than the hardscrabble poor appearance, though, was the smell of despair that clung to the house. Had it always been so? Jake wondered. Had the house ever burst with energy and happiness? Somehow, he doubted it.

  He pulled the Jeep into a rutted lane a short distance from the house and motioned to Sal to proceed quietly. The two men instantly slipped into a routine born of long practice. Jake took point, while Sal flanked him.

  They moved silently through the dark where amethyst shadows dimpled the ground in uneven patterns. Evening noises of nocturnal animals making their nighttime appearance were the only sound. The air, heavy with humidity, smelled of wild honeysuckle.

  A silver-gray BMW was parked in the front drive. Sal gestured to a compact car parked at its side.

  Jake tested the door, found it unlocked. He shone his pen flashlight on the car’s registration and wasn’t surprised to find that it belonged to Clariss.

  He realized the woman had been working with Wingate the entir
e time. No wonder the letters and packages had been able to be delivered to Dani’s office without being detected.

  He showed the registration to Sal, who nodded his understanding. In the next moment, Jake spotted Clariss trying to make a run for it. “Get her,” he whispered to Sal, who took off after Clariss.

  The growl of a backhoe alerted Jake. He ran and stopped when he saw Wingate operating it, systematically covering what appeared to be a freshly dug grave with dirt.

  Faint cries cut through the waning light.

  Riding on fury, Jake headed to the backhoe. Wingate turned the machine on him, attempting to run Jake over. His Delta training went into high gear. Jake sidestepped and yanked the man from the seat, then aimed a high kick to his chest.

  Victor deflected the blow so that Jake’s kick only glanced off his shoulder. He grunted but didn’t go down. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  Jake didn’t bother with an answer. He swung his leg around, hooking it behind Victor’s.

  The man stumbled but kept to his feet. He head-butted Jake in the stomach, then reached up to try to gouge his fingers in Jake’s eyes. Jake caught Victor by the wrist and bent his arm backward. The bone snapped.

  Despite his injuries, Victor sneaked out with his good arm and slammed Jake’s head against the side of the backhoe.

  Pain.

  Blood.

  He forced himself to ignore it. To block everything else out but protecting Dani and himself and defeating the enemy.

  Jake shot his fist beneath Victor’s nose, sending the man sprawling. Jake didn’t give Victor a chance to get up but jumped on top of him, straddling him.

  Even with a broken arm, Victor fought with ferocious strength. With a mighty effort, he bucked Jake off.

  Twisting, turning, rolling...

  Finally, Jake delivered a bone-jarring punch to the man’s jaw.

  With a wet, gurgling sound, Wingate collapsed. After one futile effort to get up, he stayed down.

  Jake yanked him to his feet, handed him over to Sal, who bound his hands with a pair of Flex-Cuffs, having already done the same with a sobbing Clariss. Jake jumped into the would-be grave, dug with his battered hands to uncover the dirt that had piled on top of Dani and pulled her into his arms.