Surrender to Love

by Adrianne Byrd

  “It’s six-thirty,” Virginia announced, looking at her watch; then she glanced over at Tony. “If we’re going to get our guys in position, we need to get them in there now, before the kidnappers get here.”

  Tony nodded and prayed that they would have enough time to set up. “Okay, get everyone into position.”

  “Are we sure that we’re dealing with just two of them?” Virginia asked as an afterthought.

  “That’s what the boss says.” He took in Virginia’s troubled expression. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “It just seems a little too easy, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t like easy?”

  “Easy makes me nervous,” she admitted.

  “That makes two of us.”

  Henry and Connie were surprised and elated when Bobbi and Robin showed up at their back door. Henry rushed to call Carson while his wife busied herself trying to get the girls something to eat.

  Lilly answered the phone at the Georgia Inn, then cried in relief when he told her that Bobbi and her friend were safe and sound at their house. Since Carson wasn’t at the inn, Henry quickly called the shop. He was disappointed when no one answered the phone.

  “I guess we’ll just sit tight until we can find him,” Henry concluded, then joined his wife in helping the girls get comfortable until their parents arrived to pick them up.

  Paul hung up from his call to the New York field office, pleased with the news of Vinny Montello’s arrest. Of course, Montello was a long way from confessing his involvement, but Paul had satisfaction in making some headway on the case.

  His cell phone rang again, and this time it was Tony on the other end. “Please tell me some good news.”

  “We have everyone in position. There’s no sign of either the Montellos or Dr. Kelley and the mechanic. But we have time before the exchange.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “We haven’t been able to catch up with Dr. Kelley just yet. I have a funny feeling that she and this Webber fella are trying to take matters into their own hands on retrieving the children.”

  “Okay, that definitely qualifies as bad news. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I just finished reading the faxed copy of the statement Dr. Kelley gave to Sheriff Benton down here. She supports Frankie’s claim that one of our guys killed David Mercer.”

  Paul closed his eyes and clenched his jaw while he counted to ten. “Do you suspect anyone on your team?” he finally asked when he gained some control over his emotions.

  “No, but hey, anything is possible.”

  “I’m on my way down there. My cell phone should be out of range soon, so use the dispatch if you need to contact me again. You, on the other hand, watch your back.”

  “Consider it done.” Tony ended the call and glanced casually over at Agent Virginia Jacobson across the way. He wondered absently if she could be the leak. Her wish to be a part of the team after Agent Newman’s death had seemed real enough.

  But just as quickly, he forced the thought out of his mind.

  Carson and Julia tried to devise a plan to get the girls back. Their best solution was to drop Carson off at a side road near the back of the warehouse to let him find a good hiding place somewhere within the building. If either of the kidnappers tried anything funny, he’d use the .38 he’d retrieved from his shop to protect them.

  Both admitted it was a lousy plan, but it was the best they could do on such short notice.

  “Having second thoughts about not involving the FBI or Sheriff Benton on this?” Carson asked.

  “Second, third, a million—take your pick,” Julia replied with nervous humor.

  Carson leaned over the seat of his truck and kissed her. “This is going to work,” he reassured her, then got out.

  Julia slid behind the steering wheel while he shut the door. “Good luck,” she said.

  He leaned through the open window and kissed her again. “You make sure that you come back to me.”

  She smiled into his kind eyes. “I will. You do the same.”

  They kissed again, then Carson turned away from the truck to trek up the back road.

  At seven o’clock Frankie and Nicholas pulled into the parking lot at the side of the old warehouse.

  “I don’t think that we’re going to be able to pull this off,” Frankie said with a firm shake of his head.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Nicholas said, getting out of the car. “All we have to do is to make sure that she has the diamonds.” He looked up at the building. “Do you think that she’ll show up with the police?”

  “I think she’s too scared to involved the police,” Frankie guessed, then glanced over at his cousin. “Are you ready to do this?”

  “My father is going to be real pleased when we get those diamonds back. I bet the rest of the family will be ecstatic to welcome you back after this.”

  Frankie gave him a half smile. “Yeah. I just bet they will.”

  Nicholas opened his car door. “I’m going to go on inside and find a good hiding place inside the warehouse while you handle the exchange.”

  “Are you forgetting that I don’t have anything to exchange?”

  “Improvise.” Nicholas winked at him, then rushed into the building.

  “Boss, someone just entered the warehouse,” Virginia said into her headpiece.

  Tony nodded at the transmission he heard in the small earpiece he wore. “Did you get a good look at who it is?”

  “Negative.”

  Tony frowned. “I’ll get Pittman to go check it out.”

  No sooner had Nicholas entered the warehouse than a stranger in the dark disarmed him, but his surprise faded at the sound of the stranger’s voice.

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” the man said in a gruff voice. “This place is swarming with agents.”

  “What? How did they know about the exchange?”

  “An anonymous tip.”

  “That’s bull. I picked this place out myself not more than a few hours ago. Did that doctor—”

  “Shut up and listen. You need to walk out of here now and tell Frankie to call this whole thing off. Once the doctor gets here it’ll be too late.”

  There was a beep in the agent’s ear, then he emitted a low curse. “Damn it, it’s too late. The doctor just pulled up.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to get out there and stop Frankie before it’s too late.” Agent Walt Pittman handed back Nicholas’s weapon, then watched as he raced back toward the warehouse’s side door.

  When he turned to head in the opposite direction, he came face-to-face with Agent Tony Iaanelli.

  Chapter 33

  Tony and Walt drew their weapons at the same time and quickly developed a stalemate.

  “So you’re the leak in the agency,” Tony said with a sad shake of his head.

  Walt’s face flushed a bright red. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You killed David and Eric Mercer?”

  Walt allowed himself to smile. “It seemed like easy money. I just didn’t think it would get this complicated.”

  “Was that what Agent Newman was—a complication?”

  For a fleeting moment, regret flashed across Walt’s face. “Yes. We both responded to Dr. Kelley’s call. She had seen her husband’s face on some wanted poster and called in. It was Rodney’s idea to rendezvous at the mall. To tell you the truth, neither of us expected it to really be him, or for him to show at all. But instead Eric Mercer was there. Then I guess you can say I had an epiphany. I was well aware of the price Montello had on the Mercer brothers—dead or alive.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Yes, but as you know, Eric got one good shot off. It was just unfortunate that Rodney was his victim. And since I had Dr. Kelley’s information, I decided to see if good old David was home. And he was.”

  “So what the hell is all this about?”

  “Montello still wanted the merchandise the brothers stol
e, so he sent some family members to retrieve it. He promised me a cut of the action. I took one look at my approaching pension and knew that it was the deal of a lifetime.”

  Carson crept low as he listened to the two men’s exchange. Julia had been right about it being a crooked FBI agent who had murdered her husband. He reached a rickety crate and tried to get a good look at the two men. When he saw the men’s standoff position, he aimed his gun at the agent with the smug smile.

  Tony shook his head. “You’re pathetic.”

  “No. I’m rich—and you’re a dead man.” Walt fired his gun.

  Tony dived, squeezing off a shot that he knew had missed its mark, but Walt’s bullet hit him solidly in his side and slammed him back against the wall. When he looked up, he saw Walt slumped against a steel pole with his hand pressed against his neck, trying in vain to stanch the blood gushing from it.

  Julia had barely managed to get out of the truck when the sound of gunshots rattled her. “Carson,” she whispered, and her hand fluttered to her throat.

  An Italian man who was just walking toward her from the other car jumped and glanced up at the warehouse, then rushed back to his car.

  “Wait,” she shouted, clutching the sack of diamonds. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Another Italian-looking man bolted from the warehouse door, and when his eyes fell on her, Julia saw, in what seemed like slow motion, his gun being raised toward her.

  Instinctively, she turned back and dived for cover behind the truck. The sack she carried hit the pavement hard, and the diamonds burst from their confinement and scattered everywhere.

  Bullets slammed into the truck, and with lightning speed, Julia retrieved her gun from her hip. She could hear the man cursing. He’d undoubtedly seen his precious diamonds everywhere now.

  Suddenly it seemed as if there was gunfire everywhere, and Julia was too afraid to move from her hiding spot, but she swore that the first man who came around the truck would feel the sting of her Magnum.

  As quickly as the gunfire had begun, it ended, and when she finally chanced a peek around the truck, she saw the Italian who had fired at her sprawled a few feet from the truck, the other Italian standing over him with a smug smile.

  Shortly after that, a small team of men wearing jackets with large lettering identifying them as FBI agents surrounded the man still on his feet and led him away in handcuffs.

  “Wait.” She stood from behind the truck. “What about my daughter?” she hollered out to him, but she received no answer.

  “Are you Dr. Julia Kelley?”

  Julia turned toward the feminine voice. A kind-faced female agent smiled at her. “Yes.”

  “Hello, I’m Agent Virginia Jacobson. Can you come with me? We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “But that man has my daughter.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We know. Can you come with me?”

  Julia glanced around, wanting desperately to get over to the Italian and demand Robin and Bobbi.

  “Please,” the woman added gently.

  Julia hesitated a moment longer, then allowed the agent to steer her into the warehouse. The moment she entered the building she saw Carson talking to another agent.

  She pulled away from Agent Jacobson and rushed over to Carson with tears streaming down her face.

  Carson opened his arms and Julia buried her head against his chest. “Our babies,” she murmured repeatedly. Her grief swept through her like a wildfire, and her tears drowned out all words of comfort that Carson mumbled against her ear.

  When Lilly received Henry’s call about the girls, she’d quickly called Sheriff Benton. Sheriff Benton had then called the FBI’s Atlanta field office and talked to the agent in charge, Jonathan Mason. Mason had then reached Regis through dispatch.

  Paul, startled by the turn of events, made sure his first stop in Shiloh was Henry and Connie Wilkins’ home. Once there, he retrieved the two girls and headed over to the warehouse, where the sting operation should have now been over.

  But when he caught sight of the paramedics, Paul’s heart dropped a few notches.

  Carson led Julia’s pliant body out of the warehouse and ignored all the agents who tried to interview him or Julia. They needed a moment alone to try to regroup. The fact that their daughters hadn’t been brought there by the kidnappers didn’t necessarily mean bad news, he kept saying. And he fought like hell to believe his own words.

  Robin grabbed Bobbi’s hand. “Look, there are our parents.”

  They turned excitedly toward the agent who had brought them. “Can we get out of the car?”

  He smiled. “Of course you can.” He quickly got out and walked around the car to open their door.

  “Mommy,” Robin shouted.

  “Daddy,” Bobbi shouted in unison.

  Julia’s and Carson’s heads snapped up and turned in the direction of their daughters.

  “Oh, my God,” Julia murmured, then clasped her hand over her mouth.

  Robin and Bobbi ran toward them while Carson and Julia sprinted to meet them halfway.

  Each of the parents accepted their child into their arms and then switched to hug the other. Tears flowed freely, kisses were spread abundantly, and love bonded them together.

  “It’s over,” Julia murmured against Robin’s hair. “It’s finally over.”

  Epilogue

  The morning of his daughter’s wedding, Paul fretted over his appearance in the mirror. “I hate this darn thing,” he exclaimed. He wrestled with his tie with trembling hands, convinced that, no matter what, it remained crooked.

  Through it all, he tried not to think about the hundred and fifty-plus guests he had to receive in less than—he looked at his watch—twenty minutes. A fresh line of sweat dotted along his brow. Where had the morning gone?

  “I’d better get going,” he mumbled in frustration. After another quick glance in the mirror, he decided he still didn’t like the way his tuxedo fit—it was a bit too snug around his arms.

  Disgusted, he rushed out of his room. The church was at least thirty minutes away, and here he was pussyfooting around.

  “Where are my keys?” he muttered, checking the pockets of his suit with no luck. He made a quick, mad search around the house and grew even more frustrated.

  He searched his pockets again and they miraculously materialized with a jingle. He swore under his breath, then raced out of the house.

  Another miracle occurred when he actually made the thirty-minute drive in fifteen. He made it to the doors of the church in time to receive the first guest, and he actually had to blink in surprise. “Virginia?”

  Virginia smiled, then fixed his errant tie with the ease of an expert.

  Paul blushed. “Th-thank you. I guess I was in a little bit of a hurry.”

  “No need to thank me.” Her smile widened. “You know, had I not been here to witness this for myself, I would never have believed that the calm, cool and collected Agent Regis could be nervous about anything.”

  “I’ve been nervous about plenty of things before now.”

  “So the rumor is true. You’re human after all.” She winked, then moved along into the church, with Penny following demurely after her.

  His gaze trailed after her. She was something else. They had shared lunch twice in the past week, and he was thrilled that she’d accepted an invitation to dinner in the coming week.

  He turned at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. An older Italian gentleman with similar features to Tony climbed the stairs and extended his hand.

  “You must be the father of the bride,” the man said with a widening smile.

  “That would be me,” Paul answered good-naturedly.

  “Name is Antonio Iaanelli, Senior. Tony’s father.”

  “Nice to finally meet you.” He gave the man’s hand one good pump.

  “Likewise. My wife and I flew in from New York last night. I believe she’s still somewhere helping your daughter get ready. Maybe I’ll get the chance to in
troduce you to her after the ceremony.”

  “I look forward to it.” They stood facing each other during an awkward silence before Antonio said. “Nervous?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Afraid so. But I understand. I gave away my only daughter, Danielle, last year. The experience nearly killed me.”

  “It’s hard letting little girls go.”

  “Yes, it is. But that wasn’t what nearly killed me.”

  Paul’s face split with a knowing smile “The bills.”

  Antonio bobbed his head. “Weddings nowadays are highway robbery. Why, my wife and I spent less than three hundred dollars on our wedding. And mind you, that included the ring.”

  The men laughed.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you. Welcome to the Iaanelli family. Hopefully I’ll catch up with you at the reception.”

  Paul nodded enthusiastically. “I hope so.”

  A few minutes later Tony arrived and helped welcome more of the guests.

  Paul noticed how stiff and mechanical Tony appeared next to him. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Wonderful. I’m just glad this day has finally arrived.”

  “You almost missed it.”

  “I almost missed a lot of things. Thank God for bulletproof vests.”

  “And Carson Webber,” Paul added.

  “Definitely Carson Webber.”

  Paul smiled. “At least we finally have Vinny Montello off the streets. Frankie is in protective custody until the trial, then we’ll look to place him somewhere permanently.”

  “Think he’ll stay retired this time?”

  “I don’t think he really has a choice.”

  They shared a brief laugh.

  “You know what is still bothering me? How do you suppose that David Mercer knew his wife would take the ’62 Impala with the diamonds?”

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t think he did. I think he was just telling Pittman that his ex-wife had the diamonds as a way to stall for more time. It was probably just a coincidence that she actually drove off with the Montellos prized diamonds.” He shrugged. “So, are you nervous?”