by LENA DIAZ,
Her voice broke and she closed her eyes, drawing in deep breaths.
Chris hurried to her, crouching in front of her. He wanted to draw her into his arms, hold her. But her stiff posture and the expression on her face told him she wouldn’t welcome his touch right now. She needed time to work it through. He would wait all day if he had to. And when she needed him, he would be here.
She sat there, her back ramrod straight, for several minutes, before finally opening her eyes. She blinked at him, her eyes dry, her look determined.
“I need to hear you say it,” she said. “Tell me I’m right, or tell me I’m wrong. Just say it.”
“I’m sorry, Julie. But I think you’re absolutely right. The finance guys are trying to contact your grandmother and representatives at Victoria and Edward Corporation to get more details. But it might take a while to get that information. On this side of the pond, they’ve confirmed the amounts of the payments, when they began, when they stopped, the financial troubles at Webb Enterprises, which is again having trouble, by the way. They haven’t been able to make payroll this past month. The company is again in jeopardy of going bankrupt.”
Her lips curled with disdain. “Because, for some reason, the payments Alan was getting stopped on my birthday. Now his company, his parents’ company, doesn’t have that cash cushion every month so they’re failing again.”
“Seems like it, yes. The question of course is why the payments were made in the first place. What triggered them to start if your grandmother had disowned your mother? Somehow she or her lawyers must have found out about you and Naomi and she decided to send you money. Maybe the payments were contingent on college graduation, or getting married.” He shrugged. “If the payments were meant for you, why did someone set them up to go to Alan? And, more importantly, why did they stop on your birthday? If we can answers to those questions, we’ll understand why Alan tried to kill you after you turned twenty-five.”
“And why someone is still trying to kill me,” she finished. “Alan’s not the only partner in this endeavor. You’ve been saying all along that he had to be working with someone else. That would explain why those men tried to kill us at Cooper’s farm. They have to finish what Alan started. And if it’s been about the money all this time, I have to think their goal is to get the payments going again.”
“I doubt that’s their goal.”
She crossed her arms, resting them on the table in front of her. “I thought we agreed this is all about money.”
“Oh, absolutely. It’s definitely about money, even if some other motivations are coming into play. But if you’ve been—pardon my analogy—a cash cow all this time, why kill you if it’s about the monthly payments? They’ve stopped already, and yet your life is still in danger. That has to mean some kind of cash payout. Maybe the monthly payments were part of a trust, and you’re to get the full lump sum at age twenty-five.”
She nodded. “Okay, okay. That could make sense. If there’s a trust and I’m the sole heir, when I turn twenty-five I have to...do something? To get the lump-sum payout? But since I don’t know, or didn’t know, about the trust, Alan had to do something else.” Her eyes widened. “He would be my heir. If I died, he would get the lump sum. Isn’t that how these things work?”
Again, Chris shook his head. “In general, yes. But I don’t see that as the explanation here. If it were as simple as killing you and making Alan the heir, he—”
“Would have killed me right after we got married,” she finished.
He nodded. “Yes. I think he would have.”
She got up and began pacing back and forth. “Alan needed me alive to get the original payments. That implies proof of life to the trustees. How would he do that without me knowing about it?”
“I think we’re back to the partner theory again. Someone, perhaps working with the trust, had to be working with Alan. Maybe he provided proof to that person and they claimed to have seen you in person. Here, take a look at this.”
He shuffled through a stack of papers and pulled one of them out. “I printed this from an email this morning. Randy drove to Nashville last night and worked with the local PD there to search your house. He brought a locksmith, too, who opened the safe. And this paper shows the contents.”
She read the paper. “Birth certificates, for my parents, my sister, me.” She pressed a hand against her throat. “Death certificates for my family. My marriage license?”
“I imagine these are what he used to get the payments started. But he wouldn’t need them after that. So I doubt this is what he wanted when he came to Destiny looking for you.”
“No, probably not,” she agreed. She swallowed hard. “I’m not an expert on trusts. But I’m thinking they can be written up any way the maker of the trust wants. If my grandmother was holding wealth for my mother’s heir, these birth and death certificates prove that I’m the heir. And the marriage license proves that Alan was my husband. Since my grandmother never made any attempt to see me or my family in person, she was probably perfectly willing to accept that I would feel the same way. Her trustees, or perhaps the partner we keep theorizing about, were fine accepting Alan as their surrogate. Pay Alan, they were paying me. The requirements of the trust are satisfied without any messy family reunions.”
The bitterness in her voice had Chris pulling her into his arms without thinking. Instead of stopping him, she sank against him, holding on to him as he rocked her and stroked her hair. They sat that way for a long time, until she let out a shuddering breath and pulled back.
She kissed him, a sweet, soft kiss that rocked him to his soul.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think I could get through this without you. It’s a heavy burden, a lot to take in. If it weren’t for you, I probably would have curled up in a fetal position long ago and given up.”
He shook his head and squeezed her shoulders. “No. You wouldn’t have done that. You’re far too strong. Alan used you, he destroyed your family. Now he’s dead. And I’m not going to apologize for saying that I’m glad he’s dead.”
She smiled. “I think I’m kind of glad he’s dead, too, even though that sounds terrible.” Her smile faded. “Where do we go from here? I still don’t understand why someone else is after me or how Alan got this started without someone verifying it with me.”
“That’s definitely a piece we need to figure out. Plus we need to find out what’s required by the trust once you attained age twenty-five to get the lump sum payout, which is the only thing that makes sense to me. Alan wanted you alive to get payments, but once you reached twenty-five, something changed and the payments stopped. At that point, he was still trying to get something from you. So that implies you have something he needed in order to get the lump sum.”
She nodded. “But now that he’s dead, his partner needs me dead. Why?”
“To cover their tracks I’m guessing. Since they’re trying to kill you, not talk to you like Alan tried, then they’ve either found another way to get the money or they’ve given up on that and just want to ensure you can’t lead anyone to them. Did your husband have your power of attorney? That could help explain how he got the trust to give him the payments in the first place.”
“I never gave him a power of attorney. He never even asked.”
Chris nodded. “It probably would have raised red flags to you if he’d asked right after you got married. I’m guessing he already had that part covered. Maybe he had a forger produce one for him. As much diabolical planning as he did in regards to your family, a simple power of attorney couldn’t have been more than a blip on his radar.”
She sighed. “True.”
“When our finance guys cut through the red tape and get a copy of the trust document, that should clear up a lot of our questions and hopefully will point us in the right direction to figure out who was Alan’s partner.”
> “One of the main things bugging me,” Julie said, “is Harry Abbott. It can’t be a coincidence that he shares my last name. Have you found anything else about him?”
“He appears to be your distant cousin, on your mother’s side obviously, hence his last name. The team is still working on how that might figure on the case. Brian Henson, the one driving the black Charger, has to be another hit man your husband hired. Which means this still all seems to tie into the ADA somehow since Henson was her assistant. The team will need to look into Bolton, too, the other admin assistant, just in case he’s part of this. If Nelson was Alan’s partner, she may be tying up loose ends to make sure none of this comes back to bite her, especially given her political aspirations. Maybe she’s the one who hired the hit men instead of your husband. Maybe she’s protecting herself.”
He gently lifted her off his lap and set her on her feet. “I’m going to talk all this through with Max. He’s managed to cull some amazing contacts by networking at seminars and conferences. Maybe one of those contacts can put some pressure on your grandmother or the attorney’s running the trust to get the information that we need. Maybe she can answer questions about Harry Abbott, too. Plus, we need to look into Kathy Nelson, see if we can tie her to any of this.”
She nodded and moved to stand by one of the windows, looking out onto the mountains.
Chris called Max and brought him up to speed.
“Hold on,” Max said through the phone. “The chief wants to tell me something.”
Chris shoved back from the table and meandered around the furniture to Julie’s side. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him as they looked at the achingly beautiful day, how the sun shone down onto the trees and mountains.
He was glad that he’d brought her here. He’d never intended to talk shop in the cabin, but they’d made a lot of progress. They could sit back now, enjoy the seclusion, enjoy each other and let her continue the healing process while his team caught up to Henson and looked into Nelson’s dealings. A few days in the mountains without any other cabins for miles around could be exactly what Julie needed. Chris too. Because he was finding out that she was exactly what he needed.
As soon as Max came back on the phone and told him what the chief had said, Chris swore and grabbed Julie’s hand.
“We’re leaving—now,” he told Julie and Max at the same time. He pulled Julie toward the bedroom while he worked out the planned route with Max. “That’s right, we’ll head down now and meet you in—Max? Max? You still there?”
He pulled the phone away from his ear. The signal still showed strong, but the phone had only static. He swore again, shoved the phone into the holder on his belt and grabbed the duffel from beside the bed.
“What’s going on?”
The fear in Julie’s voice made him hesitate. “A state cop was killed a few minutes ago after pulling over a speeder at the bottom of this mountain. Another cop saw the patrol car on the side of the road and found the dead trooper. When he viewed the dash cam he saw that the cop had pulled over a black Camaro. As he was walking up to the driver’s window, a black Charger raced past and the driver shot the officer. The Camaro pulled out behind the Charger and they both took off down the road. It was Henson and Bolton. And the road they were on is the only one up this mountain.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Put your shoes on. We’re leaving.” After double-checking the guns and ammo in the duffel bag, he zipped it up and slung it over his shoulders like a backpack. He tightened the straps so it was snug and secure.
Julie had just put on her second shoe when the throaty roar of a powerful engine sounded from outside, then abruptly shut off.
Chris raced to the window.
The Charger was in the driveway. The Camaro was parked a little farther down the road.
Both cars were empty.
Chapter Twenty-One
Julie was shaking so hard she could barely keep her balance on the balcony stairs. Chris was right behind her, pistol in his right hand, left hand gripping the waistband on the back of her pants like a lifeline in case she lost her footing.
The front door to the cabin had burst open right after Chris had looked out the bedroom window. He’d fired several shots through the bedroom doorway and thought he might have nicked Henson on the shoulder. Chris had slammed the door shut and shoved the nightstand against it. Then he was urging Julie through the back hallway to the balcony.
It was bad enough knowing two hit men were looking for them and could suddenly appear from out of nowhere. Worse was trying not to panic at what waited for them down below. Julie tried to keep her eyes on the stairs, not the stilts under the house to her left that kept it from plunging down the side of the mountain. And certainly not on the fact that the stairs appeared to end several feet above the ground—ground that was steep and littered with razor-sharp-looking rocks. One wrong move and both of them would be killed.
“Stop,” Chris ordered, jerking her back toward him.
She froze, her foot suspended in the air above the last step. He eased down to the stair beside her, then slammed his shoe against the step she’d been about to use. It exploded in a rain of sawdust and splintered wood.
“Dry rot,” he whispered.
She shivered, wondering what would have happened if she’d been standing on that step when it collapsed. Since the pieces of wood from it were still bouncing down the side of the mountain, she really didn’t have to wonder all that much. She swallowed, hard.
“Why do they even have these stairs if they don’t reach all the way to the ground anyway?” She knew she sounded like a petulant child, but she was so tired of running and being shot at and having the constant threat of death hanging over her head. Surely she was allowed to complain every once in a while.
“There were probably another half-dozen stairs at one time. It’s to provide access for examining the structure beneath the house and the foundation, to make sure it’s secure.”
He looked up behind them. Julie didn’t see any signs of a gunman, but Chris’s jaw tightened and he looked around, back toward the stilts, as if time was running out. One last glance down the mountain, then back to the stilts.
“Hold on to the railing,” he whispered. “Don’t move.” He lifted his leg and grabbed a gun from his ankle holster, then shoved it into her front left pants pocket. “Just in case.”
She made a choking sound in her throat. “In case of what?”
He looked back at the stilts again.
“Wait,” she called out. “That’s a six-foot leap, at least. And if you miss the tiny strip of land below us, you’ll plunge off the side of the mountain. Please tell me you aren’t going to try to—”
He jumped from the stairs, pushing off so hard the entire staircase wobbled.
Julie sucked in a breath and clung to the railing, staring in horror as Chris clung to the bottom stilt, trying to pull himself up on a crossbar. Dots swam in her vision and she realized she was still holding her breath. She forced herself to draw in some air while she sent up an anxious prayer for his safety.
He managed to get his fingertips around the crossbar, then pulled himself up to standing. He was about a foot above her now, but still a good six feet away. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon.
“Keep an eye out,” he warned as he began unfastening his belt.
She looked at the balcony above them. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Good. Slide over to this side of the stairs. Hurry.” He yanked out his belt and threaded the end through the buckle, then looped the other end of the belt around his wrist and back on itself, grasping the end in his palm.
She did as he’d asked and looked down. “The ground isn’t too far away. Maybe I can jump.”
“No. It’s too rocky, too steep. Your momentum will throw
you right off the cliff.”
“Cliff?” She leaned over, then jerked back. “Oh. Yeah. The cliff. This is why I love Nashville and don’t live in the country. I remember now.”
He grinned. “You might have a point. It’s not really a cliff. More like a really steep hill with lots of rocks. Still, taking a ride down there wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“Or mine.”
After another quick glance up, he looked over his shoulder toward the house where the stilts were cut into the side of the mountain, essentially bolting the house in place. What was Chris’s plan, for them to both cling to the stilts until help arrived? That might be great for him, but she’d never make it. Her legs were too short.
“You can make it,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts. “I’m going to swing my belt toward you. Catch it and slide your hand in the loop. Then tighten it back until it hurts. I’m serious. Make it as tight as you can. I don’t want your hand falling through.”
“Maybe I could just go up the stairs and take my chances inside. They might not expect me to have a gun.”
“They’re hit men, Julie. They kill people for a living. They’re probably better shots than I am. You really want to take that chance?”
She clutched the railing and looked down again. “Not really. But I don’t want to become a human pancake, either.”
He laughed. “You’re adorable, you know that?”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the women you drop down the sides of mountains.”
“Counting you? You’re right.” He shrugged, then winked. “Come on. The only reason Henson hasn’t come out that door with guns blazing already is he’s giving me more credit than I deserve. He probably thinks I’m waiting on the balcony with a plan to ambush him.”
“That might work.”
“If it was just me, that’s what I’d do. But there’s no cover. You’d end up shot in the cross fire. Come on, Julie. Grab the belt.”