by Jane Godman
She took a hasty step toward him. “If you have hurt them—”
Walter’s face hardened and, for a moment, Steffi was swept back to the night she looked down on him as he turned away after killing her father. Even through her fear, she refused to back down. Maintaining eye contact, she injected as much menace as she could muster into her gaze. She doubted Walter would feel intimidated, but it made her feel better as he stared back at her.
“Don’t push me, Stefanya.” His voice was low.
“Then don’t threaten my parents. They are good people.”
“I know that.” I know that? The words sent a chill down her spine. How could Walter know anything about her parents? How much pressure had he put on them during this search? “It was clear June and Todd knew nothing of your whereabouts. I’m not sure the police have made that connection, even now, that they should be searching for Steffi Grantham instead of Anya Moretti.”
“Tracking me down must have been difficult.” Steffi couldn’t imagine how he had done it.
“You made it so much easier by choosing to come to Stillwater. Even so, finding you was a lucky coincidence.” Walter dabbed his lips again and rose from the table. “My men came here ahead of me when I was preparing to return. I have a rally in Cheyenne next week, but my campaign bus broke down. They called ahead to see if Yuri could organize a replacement. He went into Stillwater and stopped by at the offices of Delaney Transportation to see what they could do. Guess whose name he saw on the wall with the list of other drivers?”
Steffi sensed, rather than saw, the slight movement from Bryce at the mention of his firm. She was surprised that he had so far remained completely quiet, but she guessed there was a reason for his silence. During the time she had known him, she had come to trust his judgment. Her instincts told her now that she could count on him in this situation, and that he was waiting for the right moment to make a move.
“Now, it could have been coincidence, of course. I have no way of knowing how many Steffi Granthams there are in America, or even in Wyoming. But Stillwater is a small city. It also happens to be my hometown. It seemed like something that was worth checking out. It didn’t take Yuri long to discover that the Steffi Grantham who worked at Delaney Transportation showed up in town around the same time Anya Moretti went missing. So he and Erik went to your place this morning to talk to you.”
Walter’s expression darkened again as he turned to Bryce. “Which is where your friend here entered the equation.”
Chapter 6
“Who are you, and why the hell are you sticking your nose into my business?”
Keeping quiet during Steffi’s exchange with Walter had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, but Bryce had been biding his time, doing what he did best, processing every bit of information available to him while sizing up the opposition. He knew the moment would arrive eventually when Walter Sullivan would turn his scrutiny from Steffi to him. He was just grateful the change in focus hadn’t come in the form of a bullet to the head. At least he’d had enough time to think up a story. Would it hold up? He was about to find out.
“My name is John Andover.” He felt Steffi’s eyes probing his profile, but to his relief, she showed no surprise at his use of the fake name. Johnny Andover had been killed by the same roadside bomb that had injured Bryce. He had also been one of Bryce’s best friends. Johnny wouldn’t have objected to Bryce using his name this way. Hell, no. He’d have wished Bryce luck and just been sorry he couldn’t be here to help when he wiped that smug smile off Walter Sullivan’s face. “I work with Steffi. I stayed the night at her place.”
Bryce heard Steffi’s sharp inhalation. Thankfully, Walter was farther away and seemed not to notice. “So this is the new boyfriend?”
“Not exactly. It was just a one-night stand.” Even in a situation where she was in extreme danger, Steffi achieved a note of indifference. Bryce reminded himself that she was an actress and this was an imaginary situation. It wasn’t a comment on his bedroom skills. They had never been called into question... Focus, Delaney.
“For a casual lay, you did a pretty good job of taking out two of my guys.” Walter sounded suspicious.
Bryce knew this was going to be the tricky part. By bringing him here, Walter had made a loud, clear announcement. Bryce was disposable. Once he had seen the face of the man behind the operation responsible for killing Greg Spence and the girl he was with, Bryce was never going to be allowed to live. It wasn’t a question of if Walter decided to give the order to kill him; it was a question of when. That decision about timing would influence Bryce’s own actions.
Right now he only had Erik and Walter to deal with. He figured Erik was his biggest problem. Walter Sullivan might be known as the “Big Guy,” but that was a reference to his status rather than his muscle. Although Walter was tall and heavyset, he clearly lived an easy life. He didn’t have the same toned physique as his bodyguards. Bryce had taken Erik out once today and, although his ribs cringed at the prospect of a rematch, he knew he could do it again. It was probably a good idea to provoke Walter into making a move now, before Sergei or Alexei came back into the room and his chances grew slimmer.
“I’m ex-military. Some instincts never die. Like squashing a cockroach.” Bryce maintained eye contact. “Although I prefer cockroaches to some people.”
This time Steffi’s indrawn breath was loud enough to be heard. Walter gave a short, disbelieving laugh before nodding to Erik. “I’ve heard enough. You can get rid of him...any way you choose. Just make sure the body can’t be found.”
Before Erik could move, Bryce took a step closer to Walter and hit him just below his left ear with the full force of his right hand. The blow had exactly the effect he had hoped for. Walter’s head snapped sharply to one side and he instantly dropped to the floor.
Swinging around, Bryce saw Erik reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. Deciding he didn’t have enough time to grab the other man’s arm before Erik drew his gun, Bryce moved so he was at a forty-five-degree angle to him and delivered a kick to the meaty part of Erik’s thigh. Erik gave a grunt of pain and went down on one knee. Offering up thanks for the years he had spent in illicit mixed martial arts fights while he was in the army, Bryce tackled him from behind. Grabbing him by the hair, he smashed Erik’s face into the polished rosewood floor several times. It wasn’t a pretty or sporting move, and he could tell from the look of shock on Steffi’s face it wasn’t doing much to enhance Erik’s looks, but it had the desired effect. When Bryce let Erik go, the Russian wasn’t getting up again anytime soon.
Rummaging in Erik’s pockets, Bryce found his gun and car keys. He turned to Steffi, who was regarding him with an expression of astonishment. “Can you walk?”
“I might be able to hobble.” She sounded doubtful.
“No time to find out.” Pocketing the car keys and tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans, he scooped her up into his arms. “Hold on tight.”
In the three months since he had met her, Steffi had never followed an instruction from him without question. Bryce was glad she chose this as the time to change. Placing her arms around his neck, she clung on to him as though her life depended on it. Technically, he supposed it did. She was also uncharacteristically silent. So that was all it took. Sideswipe one bad guy and pound another into the floor. With those actions he had not only reduced Steffi to sweet docility, he had also gotten rid of any trace of his own demons.
While he was pleased to wave his monsters goodbye—even if it was a temporary arrangement—it sure as hell was a strange time to discover he wasn’t happy about submissive Steffi. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want her fired up and fighting right now. But this quiet, passive version isn’t the Steffi I... He paused. What had he been about to say? It’s not the Steffi I know. I prefer the firebrand.
Bryce had a basic mental map of the f
irst floor of the house in his head, which he had gleaned upon their arrival. What he had seen wasn’t helpful to a getaway. Too many rooms opened off that central hall. All it needed was for someone to exit one of those doors as they were leaving the house and they would be right back to where they started. The room they were in was at the side of the house, so he figured the best exit route would be through one of its full-length windows.
He kept hold of Steffi with one hand under her thighs, relying on her to keep herself anchored with her arms around his neck. With his other hand, Bryce pulled aside the heavy velvet drapes.
The window had an old-fashioned sash mechanism that initially resisted his efforts to push it up with one hand. Bryce used brute force to push harder and the wood gave a weary creak. Slowly, the lower part of the window rose.
He ducked down, checking what was outside. On this side of the house there was a quiet garden area. There was no one around. Underneath the window was a pretty flower bed, useful for a silent exit. Bryce lowered Steffi through the window, carefully setting her on her feet before following her.
Okay. He allowed himself a momentary feeling of relief. They were free of the house, but there was no time for whooping and hollering. Although this part of the garden was secluded, they were out in the open and vulnerable. Some fast thinking was necessary.
His ideal escape would have been on foot, using the mountainous terrain he had hiked for years, and knew so well, as cover. Reluctantly, Bryce dismissed that option. Steffi was injured, meaning she just wasn’t up to that sort of exertion. He pursed his lips, aware of Steffi’s eyes on his face. With her vivid, golden gaze came the full force of his responsibility to her. He had seconds to get this right. If he screwed up, he risked her life as well as his own.
A shiver of anticipation ran down his spine as he expected the thought to be accompanied by the doubt and fear that had stalked him for the past two years. It wasn’t. All he felt was the same steely determination that had gripped him before a mission in Afghanistan. Before the explosion that had changed his life.
“We have to get back around to the front.” He drew the car keys from his pocket and handed them to Steffi. “I’ll get you as close as I can to the car we were brought here in, then I’m going to create a diversion. When I give you a signal, I want you to get across and unlock the car. I know you can barely walk, but I need you to do this for me, even if you have to crawl on your belly.”
Steffi’s expression was determined as she nodded her understanding. “I’ll do it.” From the look in her eye, Bryce didn’t doubt for a second that she would give it 100 percent.
“Once you get into the car, put the keys in the ignition. Then get down in the footwell of the passenger seat. Stay there, even when I get in and start driving.”
“What will you do to create a diversion?” Those mesmerizing eyes were huge, dominating her face as she gazed up at him.
He grinned, a surge of energy and something suspiciously like the old pre-mission excitement powering through him. “I’ll think of something.”
* * *
Steffi barely had time to register what Bryce was doing when he indicated for her to duck behind a clump of finely cut gray-green ferns. Peeping out from behind the aromatic fronds, she watched in surprise as he doubled back the way they had come and climbed into the room they had just left.
What the hell was he thinking? Having just escaped the lion’s den, he was now deliberately returning to place his head in the big cat’s jaws one more time. The only consolation was that Walter and Erik were both unconscious. Since they wouldn’t remain that way forever, Steffi was strongly of the opinion that she and Bryce should be making the most of that situation by moving rapidly in the opposite direction.
From her fragrant vantage point, Steffi kept her gaze fastened on the windows of the dining room. It didn’t take long before Bryce’s intentions became clear. Pulling back the drapes and hoisting up the other three windows, he disappeared briefly from view. From then on, she caught disjointed glimpses of him as he moved around inside the room. As he drew close to the windows again, he was carrying a lit taper. Fascinated, Steffi watched as he proceeded to set light to the drapes at each of the windows except one.
Having assured himself that the drapes were fully alight, Bryce climbed back out of the only window that wasn’t surrounded by a ring of fire. Throwing the taper back into the room, he joined Steffi behind the fern bush.
“Walter has got himself a sophisticated sprinkler system, so the bad guys won’t be barbecued while they are out cold. I give the smoke detectors another minute.” He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her upright and against his side. “Time to get moving.”
Although it was painful, Steffi found she could walk with his assistance. She had no idea where they were in relation to the front of the house. The contours of the quirky building seemed almost to have been designed to throw her into confusion, but Bryce had no such problem. As he followed the outer wall of the house, keeping Steffi pinned tight against his side, he navigated the twists and turns as if he had an internal GPS system.
She marveled at his ability to have assimilated so much detail while under pressure. He must have known that Walter had brought him here with the intention of killing him, yet he had taken the time to notice the fire safety features, storing the information up, finding a way to make it all work for him. It even looked like he’d factored the flammability content of the drapes into his plan.
And it was working. Alarms were already screeching out a warning inside the house, and, as they reached a corner from which they could view the front of the house, Steffi could hear shouts and running footsteps.
Looking up at the man at her side, she encountered an unaccustomed feeling. As she observed the total concentration on Bryce’s face, she realized that, for the first time ever, she was placing all her reliance on another person. It had never happened before. Not once throughout her life with her adoptive parents. Not even when she had encountered Greg again after all those years. So this was what trust felt like. This warm, pleasant, scary as hell emotion must be what having confidence in another human being felt like. Steffi took a moment to examine it and decided she didn’t like it. She might have to tolerate it for now, but she wouldn’t be doing it again.
Hand control of my life over to someone else? No, thank you.
Even as that thought kicked in, she had to admit that Bryce had done a pretty good job so far of keeping her safe. She felt secure with him, like he knew what he was doing. The knowledge that he would get them out of this wrapped itself around her like someone draping a warm blanket around her shoulders on a cold day. For someone who had spent her whole life keeping the world at a distance—usually relegating it to the other side of a camera lens—it delivered a powerful jolt to her system.
Bryce was doing this for no other reason than that was who he was. Okay, now it was about saving his own life as well as hers, but prior to Walter’s involvement, Bryce could have just walked away and left her to sort out this mess on her own. He didn’t know her well enough to get involved, didn’t owe her anything. It occurred to Steffi that she didn’t know many people who were genuinely good. There was no one in her life on whom she could rely totally the way she was doing with Bryce right now. I don’t know many people. Anyone examining her Hollywood life under a microscope would believe it was filled with friends. The truth? People had drifted in and out of her world without making any real impression. It suited Steffi because she didn’t do closeness. The reality was that her perfect Hollywood life was lonely as hell.
Those thoughts flashed through her mind in the seconds before Bryce gave her a quick push toward the car Erik had left out front when he brought them to the house. “Go.” His voice was low and urgent, but also encouraging.
As Steffi, biting her lip against the pain that flared through her injured ankle, crouched low and m
oved at a midspeed hobble to the car, part of her mind acknowledged the chaos unfolding around her. Although she didn’t dare risk a glance back at the house, she was aware of people—two, possibly three?—spilling out from the front door onto the drive.
“They can’t have gone far. Split up and find them.” The order was barked out, and Steffi recognized the voice. It was Alexei, the leader of the group who had burst into the lake house. “When you find the guy, kill him.”
Those words caused a little whimper to escape Steffi’s lips as she reached the car. Her fingers felt numb as she fumbled with the key to press the button for the central locking system. After several attempts, she heard the click of the door. It was the sweetest sound she had ever heard. Keeping her head down, she opened the passenger door and, remembering Bryce’s instructions, slid into the footwell.
Her heart was pounding in her ears as she felt her way around the steering column and slid the key into the ignition. The action seemed to be the trigger for a hail of gunfire. Like firecrackers going off in a constant, deadly stream, the shots were coming from the direction of the house. Steffi gnawed at her lip. Bryce had told her to keep down, but surely he didn’t mean for her to ignore something like this? He should have given her options for different scenarios. What about if the shooting got too bad and he couldn’t get to the car? If Bryce got shot, what was she meant to do? How was she supposed to help him?
Easing herself into a reclining position in the passenger seat, she peered over the edge of the dashboard. The scene that met her eyes was confusing. There was no sign of Bryce, and Walter’s men appeared to be shooting randomly in the direction of the house. Angry orange flames had begun to blaze from the lower floor and clouds of acrid smoke poured out, filling the air with the bitter scent of destruction. As she watched, she saw Sergei, who was stalking across the lawn in front of the house, turn sharply as if in response to a prompt behind him. As he did, Bryce darted out from behind a row of bushes to Sergei’s left and, keeping low, made his way toward the car. With a sigh of relief, Steffi dropped back down into the footwell.