She had to tell him. He had to know now.
She stilled with him deep inside her body. Alarmed, he took her head between his hands.
"Kirsten, what is it?"
She cupped his face in her hands.
"It's Christo."
Chapter Twelve
But even then, she couldn't catch a break. Matt rapped on her bedroom door.
"Garrett, man, I've got to talk to you."
"No, Garrett!" she pleaded turning his face, so filled with frustration, back to her.
"Wait. Please. One-" Guiliani's strained voice came equally imperative.
"I'm not fooling around. This cannot wait."
"Kirsten, I'll be right back, I promise you" -- "Garrett-" He looked straight into her eyes.
"I promise you." He pulled away from her and jerked on his jeans, then went to the door. She covered herself with the sheet as he opened it.
"What?"
Matt's hands balled into fists. Rage or tears glittered in his dark eyes.
"Garrett... Kirsten" -- "Spit it out, Matt."
His jaw cocked sideways.
"They've got Christo, Garrett. The bastards have snatched your son... Christo from the Wilders."
Garrett turned away, a physical pain racking his body, to Kirsten, whose tears and cry of anguish ripped a hole in his suddenly alert, suddenly stone cold heart.
"My son?"
"Garrett" -Matt tried to get his attention.
"My son? Kirsten?"
Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she cried, "I tried to tell you... so many times, Garrett, but" -Matt interrupted her, his voice low, urgent.
"Loehman's waiting on the phone."
Garrett turned on him.
"You knew Christo was mine? She told you" -Matt swore harshly, toe to toe with him.
"No one told me, Weisz. What did you want? A diagram? A calendar tattooed on your eyelids? Baby makes three, pais an in nine, and if you didn't have your head up your" -- "Matt, don't!" Kirsten cried, scrambling off the bed, dragging the sheet along to cover herself. She touched his bare shoulder, pleading with him, stroking his stub bled implacable jaw.
"Garrett" -He turned to her. His lips and chin trembled. Her heart cleaved in two.
"I'm sorry. I should have told you days ago. I'm sorry."
And he knew he should have known, but he couldn't make his heart feel any less betrayed. He cupped the nape of her neck and drew her to him, cradling her to his so recently fevered body, her head to his chest, and prayed that he'd get over it.
he pulled his shirt on over his head as he flew down the stairs, about to do what he had to do in a fog of elation corrupted by a terrible anger at himself.
Unlike his father before him, he was not so harsh a man, but his judgment fell hard. Not on Kirsten for the secret she'd kept from him, so much as against himself for the truth he'd failed to discern.
He had a son. A child of his loins in the hands of his enemy. He didn't blame Kirsten for her silence but he couldn't tell her that or tell her why.
He hurt too much.
He believed, like his father, that a man's life always reflected back at him exactly what he deserved, nothing less, nothing more. Kryztov Weisz, dinosaur and Hungarian freedom fighter that he was, had taught his son that lesson as well, for it may have been the Soviet boot crushing his family, but it was a nation cowering too long.
A people who went along like lambs to the slaughter refusing to see the danger until it was too late became lambs to the slaughter.
Just so. A thing was what it was. The truth couldn't be any plainer, or the consequences of hiding from it any more devastating.
And when a man became a father in doing what Garrett had done, who would take a woman to bed and refuse to look back when he knew better, when in his soul he had recognized her for the woman he would want for the mother of his children, when a man so dishonored a woman, he had no recourse with her, no right to rant and rave about the lost years of his baby's life.
Just so.
But he drew the line at the kidnapping of his innocent son, so he got on the speakerphone with the man he wanted to strangle with his bare hands and began bargaining.
"This is Garrett Weisz."
"Mr. Weisz. A pleasure. My regards to the lovely Kirsten."
Sitting on the landing of the staircase listening to Loehman on the speaker, Kirsten clenched her teeth.
Garrett all but snarled.
"Where is Christo McCourt?"
"I understand that the child is safe. I sympathize with his mother's concern, but you understand, what happens now is in your hands." He made no overt threats, no claim of possession, no admission, hardly a veiled warning.
Nevertheless, both sides knew Christo was not where he should be.
Temporarily distracted as Ross Vorees came through the front door, Garrett looked long at Kirsten as she sat on the stairs. What stood between them paled in comparison to what he must accomplish now.
"What do you want?"
Loehman's voice took an unpleasant turn.
"You know what I want."
"We don't have the tapes."
"Well, you see, that's the point."
"Of Rawlings's murder?"
Kirsten gasped at Garrett's tone with Loehman, the depth of his anger.
There was no other way she could come to have the tapes in her possession save by Burton Rawlings's death. Loehman must have clearly understood that it would all be very much out of her hands should the tapes go into evidence via court-ordered subpoena.
Loehman was obviously unwilling to depend on Grenallo's intervention again. Rawlings had to die for the evidence to fall to Kirsten. And Christo was not only Loehman's ace in the hole, but insurance against the FBI being called in. Loehman knew whom he was dealing with in Garrett, thanks to Grenallo, who must also have given him the location where Christo had been taken for safety's sake.
Swallowing hard, huddled on the stairs in leggings and a sweater, Kirsten fought off the tremble, the overwhelming pall on her spirit, the desperation. Her faith, her only hope, resided with Garrett, whose stake was now so personal.
Loehman's silence grew overly long, ominous at Garrett's reference to Rawlings.
"You should really avoid inflammatory statements like that, Mr. Weisz."
"I repeat," he snapped, "we don't have the tapes. You have my word" "Your word. I am impressed, I must say, but unmoved. I want those tapes."
"Look, Loehman. They're booby-trapped. They'll self-destruct. They're useless to anyone. Montgomery was the only one who could access them-" "For the time being, perhaps. But you see, I've no doubt technology will overcome those problems. I want them before that becomes a possibility."
"You don't have to do this, Loehman. Turn Christo McCourt back to the Wilders. Let this be over."
Loehman wasn't dealing.
"You have eighteen hours."
"That's not nearly enough time to" -- "It's the only time you're getting. As it is, I have to trust that you will have no time to tamper with the tapes."
Garrett exhaled.
"All right. On the other hand," he bargained, "you'll be there to take possession of the tapes, or it won't happen."
"Don't dictate to me, Weisz. You will turn the tapes over to whomever I choose..."
"No."
"We? Have you lost your ever-loving mind? I just told you" -- "I heard you," Garrett interrupted.
"Now you listen to me. You may have half of law enforcement up to and including the U.S. attorney in your back pocket, but there are traitors at the heart of your operation itching for the chance to leverage you out of control. I'm not going to risk the safety of that child by handing the tapes over to anyone but you. No one, Loch- man. Rely on it," he commanded, echoing Loehman's own words.
"Fine. I'll be there."
"Where?"
"Get to Jackson. We'll talk then."
J. D. indicated he had a fix from the satellite tracking on Loehman's current location wit
hin a hundred- mile radius of Kalispell, Montana.
"Neutral ground, then," Garrett asked, to confirm that Christo had not been taken several hundred miles back up into Montana as well.
"Neutral ground," Loehman agreed.
"The clock is ticking. Your time remaining is seventeen hours, fifty- seven minutes. We all know exactly what is at stake on both sides. Please do not make the idiotic mistake of calling in the FBI. Goodbye."
"Before I move," Garrett asked before Loehman could hang up and kill the connection, "tell me how Kirsten can talk to her son."
All they heard was a cold, distant laugh and the click of a disconnect.
J. D. stabbed buttons on his monitoring equipment, calling for confirmation of his fix on Loehman's location.
Vorees was already on his cell phone, calling in sick to the detective bureau and arranging the rental of a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
"Somebody should go on ahead. I think it should be me. To be honest, I'm the only one they really don't know. With a little luck on the roads, I'll be a few hours ahead of you to scope things out."
Nodding his approval, Garrett rattled off several things for Vorees to check out when he got near the Wyoming border.
"Keep a low profile."
Vorees left. Kirsten rose from the spot where Christo launched his Indian raids and went down the stairs. Her face was still tear-stained, tight with strain. She went to her dark kitchen for a modicum of privacy with Garrett. He followed.
She stood with him in the dark, unable to see his eyes, making no excuses, dealing with the moment.
"Garrett... I don't like this. Why won't he let me talk to Christo?"
He made himself face her, look at her, see the woman he had left with child.
"He's still in Montana. Nowhere near Christo, and even if he were, he really doesn't give a damn if you get to talk to Christo or not."
Her eyes were dry, her tears spent. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to get a death certificate" -- "But Burton is hanging on! We can't" -- "I can. I will." He looked at her. He would do what he had to do. A bogus death certificate wasn't a big deal.
"It won't be the first time, Kirsten."
"What about the FBI? Aren't you supposed to alert them?"
"Yeah. And I would, if I thought it wouldn't get right back to Grenallo. He's dirty, and" -He didn't have to tell her that. He broke off, dragging a hand through his hair, frustration coursing through him on so many levels.
"What can I do?"
Tell me why, he thought. Tell me why. But what he said was, "Pack some warm clothes. Get some sleep."
She nodded.
"I want to bring my camera. I need to go by my school and get my laptop with the right enhancement software" -- "Forget it, Kirsten." It wasn't for the sake of posterity that she wanted her camera, which meant she thought she was somehow going to be in on Christo's rescue, snapping off shots of the bad guys in action at the same time.
"I'm not even thinking beyond getting Christo back, and then, the FBI can have it. I'm not going to have you" -- "Don't go there," she warned fiercely.
"Don't even think of telling me I can't be a part of this."
"Kirsten, I don't want to argue with you."
"Then don't. Christo is my son, and this is what I do. It's all I can do." She bit her lip, her voice wavered.
"Please don't shut me out.
Don't take that away from me, Garrett. "
Swearing an oath, his voice went gravel-like so he couldn't utter what was in his heart, couldn't correct her. Our son, Kirsten.
Ours.
His throat felt as thick as the worst of the channel fog.
"I'm not trying to punish you, Kirsten."
"Aren't you?"
Was he? Didn't he want to know, didn't he want his answers, didn't he resent her as much as himself?
"I'm sorry. Maybe someday we can forgive each other." He touched her cheek. An awkwardness sprang up between them, a keen memory of what'd they'd been to each other less than an hour before, what powerful emotions, what intimacy, what she'd been about to say to him. How much was left unsaid, how much must be put aside until Christo was rescued.
He swallowed. Looking at her, he knew he could not explain himself, not in ten minutes, not in as many hours. He blamed them both, and loved her more, but in the dark of her kitchen with the scent of lovemaking lingering on them still, he knew that what he had missed of Christo's life was what made him want to lash out at her.
He didn't have ten hours, didn't have one to spare. He wanted to reassure her that he would get over wanting in some dank corner of his soul to punish her, but he didn't know if that was true and didn't know what else to say.
He told her to bring whatever she wanted and left her standing in the dark because he couldn't touch her either. Not and still keep to the shadow of a prayer that he would be able to return his son to his mother.
by 5:00 a. m. " four hours into their allotted eighteen, he had called in every favor ever owed him to get them onto a private plane that would make a landing near the Idaho-Wyoming border if it had to be made on an iced-over stretch of deserted highway.
By six-thirty J. D. had secured the cooperation of the hospital in releasing to the press the death notification of the shooting victim, one Burton Raw- lings. Rawlings was not readmitted under an alias, but stashed instead in a private V. I. P suite.
At 8:00 a. m. " Kirsten walked into the InterBank revolving door, through the lobby to the vault area where she presented the clerk with Rawlings's notarized death certificate, and the box, inside the vault lined with locked boxes, was opened to her. She removed all five tapes, which bore the identifying labels and codes Lane Montgomery had printed on them himself.
And at 9:00 a. m. " Kirsten boarded the Gulfstream ahead of Garrett, J.D." Matt and Ann Calder, who'd called in to the detective bureau, like Vorees, and taken a three-day personal leave.
Two hours into the flight, curled up in her seat, Kirsten gave up trying to sleep. For several hours she'd had no time to think or worry, but now she couldn't stop imagining what terrors Christo must be enduring while the hours and minutes of her life marched relentlessly on in so ordinary a fashion.
She still breathed. Her heart still beat. Her thoughts still strayed to things like leaving a note for the milkman and putting out the trash. Things like needing desperately to know what Garrett meant by "someday," and what he needed her forgiveness for.
Christo was missing, stolen from Ginny and Sam with such apparent ease that Kirsten would never feel completely safe again, even if his rescue or ransom or return went without flaw.
Ann Calder appeared and sat down beside her.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded wearily. Everyone aboard knew that this mission was personal now for Garrett as well as for her, but from Ann she felt none of the tension radiating off the men, only a quiet empathy she couldn't explain.
"What about you?"
She stared out the window, at sunlight glinting off the clouds at thirty- some thousand feet.
"I had a son, too, Kirsten." Her eyes glittered.
"A baby born out of wedlock. I haven't seen him since the hour he was born."
"Oh, Ann. I'm sorry. What happened?"
"I had to walk away from him."
"My God, why?"
Ann let go a shaky breath.
"It's a long story. When this is all over" -She broke off.
"I don't know why I thought it would help to tell you that. It's just that from the first time we met, I've had this feeling that my life is on the brink of the same kind of collision course as yours."
She couldn't imagine what circumstances had made Ann Calder leave a child behind, but in some indefinable sense, having another woman around who knew what it was to grieve a child unnaturally missing from her life brought Kirsten the comfort of being less alone.
"Ann, I'm so sorry." She looked at the woman who had so quickly become a friend. She'd watch
ed J. D. when he spoke with Ann on the phone, watched Ann watching him in the few times over the course of the last three days when they happened to be together under her roof. She thought there was something happening between them.
Carly Bishop - No Baby But Mine Page 18