“All’s going according to plan,” Boyd said. Though Angelo was a Phoenix hot shot, the Tucson detective appeared to be running this show. “Another couple of hours and we’ll be done. We’ve got confessions from three quarters of the brotherhood. As soon as we get the rest, Donahue’s turning himself in. I’ve got men on him in the meantime. All the files he sent over have been verified. Guys are on their way to his house to pick up the computer now.”
“What about Amanda Blake?” Angelo was like a dog gnawing a beef carcass. He wasn’t going to let a single bone go unchewed.
“Once again she slipped the noose,” Boyd said, sounding almost more impressed than frustrated. “By the time we got to where Donahue said she was, she was gone. The woman is a gifted escape artist—and with a child, no less. I just got off the phone with Simon Green. He’s ex-FBI in Flagstaff. He and Amanda had a special bond. If anyone can bring her in, he will.”
“She’s not much of a danger, is she?” Brian asked. “Am I wrong in thinking that all she’s ever wanted is to raise her son in peace and safety?” Like someone else he knew. For the first time in days, he thought about Cynthia—his time with her seemed so long ago.
“She’s an accessory to the deaths of six infants, Doctor,” Angelo said. “Last year she fed a woman back to her rapist without batting an eye. You tell me if she’s a danger to society or not. I’m sorry for what she’s been through, but it’s twisted her brain.”
“So once you get her, bring in Donahue, this is all over, right?”
He had to talk to Hannah. She’d been kept informed. The call had come over Angelo’s radio when Hannah’s knowledge of the morning’s events had been confirmed. But Brian had yet to speak to her personally.
And he badly needed to. Needed to reassure her. And himself as well. All he could think about was getting home. Getting her home.
And then he had to find a way to wipe the last hours from his mind, to forget who he’d been this day, what he’d heard and seen.
He had to forget….
And then, just like that, everything fell into place. He put two and two together.
Cynthia and Joseph. Amanda and Luke.
Woman and child on the run.
Cynthia in his office at night. Amanda in his office…
“Detective?”
The shack wasn’t hard to find. No harder than it was to shake the cops Boyd had tailing him. Were they really that naive? They thought Bobby was going to give them Amanda when she was his? They thought he was going to spend another minute locked in a cage like an animal? Sharing air with the men who’d not only betrayed him, but God as well?
A jail full of Judases. If that wasn’t hell on earth nothing was.
Bobby wasn’t going back to hell. He had his Father’s promise on that one.
Lying on the hard and occasionally sharp desert floor, Bobby moved like a snake, weaving in and out of desert brush, standing occasionally when a saguaro presented itself as an opportunity for stretching, finding ocotillo and prickly pear to hide behind as often as possible.
He slithered up to the dilapidated building, his body hugging the hot, splintery wood and crouched beneath the glassless window.
“That’s great, Joseph!”
Amanda’s voice!
But who was Joseph?
She’s calling my son Joseph?
“Maybe you should add some color to that white building? What do you say we put a little blue there, like this…”
“No!” The squeal nearly tore Bobby apart. Luke! His son. God’s son. It had been a long, grueling year.
As he waited there, tears pouring down his cheeks, Bobby didn’t know how he’d had the strength to endure the past twelve months without his boy. How he’d endured a day without him.
“Daddy says white is pure and good and my house is always to stay white.”
Daddy says. Bobby silently thanked God that his boy still remembered their lessons. He still knew what mattered most.
“Daddy’s gone, Joseph. And he wasn’t always right, you know…”
Blasphemy!
With the animal-like grace he’d been born with, Bobby was on his feet and through the window, an arm around Amanda’s throat, ready to choke the life out of her, until he saw the terrified expression on his son’s face.
He had to kill her away from the boy. No matter that he and Luke were leaving this earth within minutes. Their arrival at the pearly gates wasn’t going to be tarnished with his son’s fear.
Or pain.
This was a joyous occasion.
“Daddy?”
Amanda jerked against him as Luke said his name. “Bobby?” At least she had the sense to fear him.
“I like that, Mandy,” he whispered, his nose to her ear. “I always liked it when you were just that little bit afraid. Turned me on, you know?”
And that was something God hadn’t warned him about.
Being with Amanda again, holding the body he knew as well as he knew his own, the body God had given him all those years ago, Bobby hardened until the ache was more than he could bear.
God had asked for his celibacy in honor of his love for Amanda. He’d asked Bobby to bed no one but Amanda. And he hadn’t.
But she was here now.
He had to fuck her.
And then they’d go. The three of them. A family. Two to heaven. One to hell.
And while he’d never let Luke see him hurt his mother, there was no harm in the boy watching a man love his woman.
That was a language all men, no matter what age, could understand.
“Take your clothes off, Mandy,” he said, the small knife he’d carried with him at her back.
“No.”
“Take them off or I’ll cut them off,” he said, his tone pleasant though he spoke through gritted teeth. “You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“Mama?” Luke’s eyes were large, swimming with tears. “Daddy, don’t hurt my mama.”
Incensed at the favoritism, Bobby tightened his hold on his woman. “What have you done to him?” he growled.
And then, with a loving smile said, “Son, go on outside for a couple of minutes. Your mother and I have a surprise for you and we need to wrap it first. And then the three of us are going to go away on a long trip to paradise.”
“To Disneyland?”
“Yes, son, and beyond.”
Luke stood his ground, staring at Bobby. “You promise?”
“Yes, son, I do.”
With a last long, assessing stare, Luke nodded and, taking his paper and crayons, moved slowly outside.
One slice and Amanda’s top was off. Another and her bra fell away from her breasts. Bobby was so hard he had to fight not to come.
“Take off those pants or I’ll cut them off, and cut you in the process,” he spat at her.
“Show me your dick first, Bobby. Show me how hard you are. Let me taste you. Remember what my tongue can do?”
When she licked her lips, Bobby knew he would oblige her. It had always been this way. They could fight until he believed there was nothing but hate, but as soon as they were together, their bodies spoke a language of love that only God could have given them.
Undoing his jeans, Bobby wrapped a hand in Amanda’s hair, keeping a firm hold as he pushed her head down to his straining shaft.
“You bite and you die,” he said, pricking the back of her neck with the blade he still held.
And then, unable to help himself, he thrust upward, into those sweet lips and out, squirting her face with his instant orgasm.
As the last of the liquid seeped out of him, Bobby’s ecstasy didn’t die. He was suffused with love greater than he’d ever known before.
He could see brightness. And hear singing.
And, too late, he saw the knife in Amanda’s hand. He saw the blood.
His blood.
By the time Hannah left work Monday afternoon, it was all over. Bobby Donahue was in the morgue. Every known member of
the Ivory Nation was behind bars, with many, many frightened associates tying up telephone lines with offers to testify against the brutal brotherhood. Dr. Brian Hampton was a hero.
Only Amanda Blake was still free, and while Angelo was adamant about finding her, getting her son away from her, and bringing her to justice, Hannah was happy to have the constant threat of death and destruction gone.
Amanda Blake was a murderer, no matter her motives. She had to pay. But she was no longer a threat.
William, having seen the news, called late that afternoon, asking her if they could meet for drinks. He had to see her, he said. Now that the Ivory Nation was off her back, he wanted to talk about their future.
Hannah agreed to meet him. But only to tell him that they were through. William was a weak man. He didn’t know the meaning of courage.
Brian had shown her that today.
And then she would go to Brian. To see if what they’d found the night before had been real.
To see if there would be life after death.
William had asked her to meet him at an out-of-the-way Mexican diner known for its Margaritas a couple of miles from the courthouse. Somewhere she wouldn’t be recognized. Pete and a couple of his deputy buddies walked her out through the throng of press to her car and a police escort got her safely into traffic.
Taking an indirect route just to be sure there were no Ivory Nation laggers left, she made it only five minutes late. And took another two minutes to call Brian to tell him where she was and that she’d be stopping by her place to feed Taybee before coming to his house.
They had to talk, she told his voice mail.
Hannah put her cell phone meticulously back in her purse and hung the bag on her shoulder before unlocking the door of the Lexus. Though William wasn’t the man for her, ending a relationship was still hard “Oh!” Something hit her head. And then sliced her arm. Dizzy, nauseous, Hannah was only slightly aware that she was being put into the back of her car. And that, unbelievably, a child was there, too, a seat belt fastened around him.
“I…”
She tried to speak. To find her purse. But they were moving out of the parking lot and into the dusk that was falling around them.
She had no idea what time it was. Dark. Night. She was thirsty. And something was pounding her head from the inside out.
“She’s awake, Mama.”
Hannah recognized the voice. But that couldn’t be. Joseph was long gone. Left Brian. Left with his mama.
Joseph was too young to kidnap anyone.
“Is she sick?”
Movement made it impossible for her to keep her eyes open long, but when she managed to get a peek, all she could see was darkness and a tiny hand on the seat beside her.
She was in a car. Her car. Still moving.
“No, baby, she’s just sleepy.”
Cynthia! Cynthia? “Cyn-cyn-cyn-thi-a?” She finally managed to force the word through the vibrations in her head.
“Don’t try anything crazy and you won’t get hurt.” Cynthia sounded different. Harder.
Hannah tried to move. And realized that her hands were tied together in front of her. Her ankles were equally strapped.
“We’re playing cops and robbers but you got tired.” It was the longest sentence she’d ever heard Joseph say.
Hannah focused on that voice. And on the child sitting so innocently next to her. If she thought about Joseph she could stay awake.
“Why?” It took her at least five minutes to get the word out.
“You’re my insurance policy until I get over the border. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to kill you first. Besides, Joseph likes you.”
“Why do you need insurance?”
“You think they were just going to let me go?”
She was missing something. If only she could think clearly.
“I…” Confused, Hannah shook her head, and then wretched. All over herself. The seat. The floor.
“She was sick, Mama.”
“Okay, baby.” Hannah heard the words as if from afar. “Here, do Mama a favor and pass these to her. And plug your nose so you don’t get sick, too.”
With one eye open, Hannah saw the packet of wet wipes the little hand held.
Ten minutes later, Hannah used the last cloth, as clean as she could get herself while tied up in the dark.
One question ran through her mind. Again and again. A clue, if only she could get her brain to focus.
Why did a woman have to cross the border because she left her lover?
“I…” And then, as though in a horrible nightmare, she realized something.
“Your name isn’t Cynthia, is it?”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“Come on, Judge.” The voice would’ve been almost cajoling, if not for the inhuman hardness lacing through it. “You’re a smart woman, you figure it out.”
And as fantastical as it seemed, when the truth dawned, Hannah felt no shock at all. She was being held hostage by a cold-blooded murderer.
“You’re Amanda Blake.”
The woman up front didn’t respond. Hannah had to fight for rational thought through the pounding in her head.
“You used Brian,” she said. “From the very beginning.”
Still nothing.
“You never loved him. You were there to keep tabs on him. You had him watch your son while you fed his patient information to Steven Brown.”
And then the rest came crashing in.
“And William. He’s the one—”
“The poor sap,” Amanda Blake finally said. “He was such an easy win. One threat to that son of his and he was whisking you off to Vegas.”
William had taken her away, made love to her, so villains could break into her house?
And the scorpion. The photo. William had planted those, too.
“All he had to do was convince you to give up the case, but he wasn’t man enough to pull that off,” Amanda said as the car raced along a deserted highway into the night.
“My cat. The key to my house.” Hannah’s tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. “He gave that to you.”
“Wrong.” Amanda almost chuckled. “I don’t work for the Ivory Nation. I work for me. And I keep myself informed. He let the cat out himself.”
And then Amanda and her son went with Brian to choose a new one for her.
Inconceivable.
Hannah had to sleep. To escape. Give up.
Brian. Oh, my God. She couldn’t let this happen. He’d never forgive himself. His lover killing his lover. He’d barely survived Cara’s death. He’d never survive this.
Hannah sat quietly. Conserving her strength. Forcing herself to think. To figure out a plan.
Focusing on the child beside her kept her awake.
It was the longest night of his life.
Sitting next to Angelo in the unmarked car, Brian stared off into the darkness, his eyes stinging as he searched for the Lexus. Any sign of Hannah, or her clothing. Or of a young boy—Joseph.
He’d talked Angelo into letting him come along partially because of his rapport with the troubled boy. And because of his rapport with the boy’s mother, as well. Because he was a doctor. And probably because the detective knew that if he didn’t keep Brian next to him, Brian would be out there searching on his own.
According to the emergency GPS on Hannah’s cell phone, until the phone had died or lost reception, they’d been heading south. In the desert. Where darkness was so thick any light at all blinded you. Where there was miles and miles of undeveloped, cactus-and-coyote-infested wild land in which to disappear. Hannah could be standing two feet from the side of the road and he wouldn’t see her.
Which was why everyone was searching for the car. The chrome and metal would be easier to spot.
Cynthia…Amanda had to stop sometime. For gas if nothing else.
Mexico was not quite four hours from Mesa. Hannah had been gone two and a half.
“W
e’ll catch them at the border,” Brian said for the third time.
And for the third time, Angelo said, “I hope so, but we have to be prepared. Amanda Blake is an escape artist unlike any I’ve ever seen. She’s not going to try to get through border patrol. She’ll have a plan, but it won’t be that.”
The phone rang and Brian tensed. Daniel Boyd was a few miles ahead of them. Most of the Tucson police department, as well as officers and deputies from other parts of the state, were on the manhunt.
A superior court judge’s life was at stake.
“Boyd’s got the car in sight,” Angelo reported, hanging up the phone. “It’s about twenty minutes from Nogales.”
A border town.
“How far are we from there?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Turn on your lights, man.” Brian didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Get there.”
For once Angelo did as Brian wanted, worked for Brian instead of against him. When six marked cars caught up to the Lexus, Brian was there, too, ready to step in front of any bullet aimed at the love of his life.
Armed officers wearing bulletproof garments, accompanied by an equal number of men holding powerful flashlights, approached the car, calling out orders of surrender. They waited, briefly. Four of them opened the doors of the car, guns drawn, then lowered their weapons.
“It’s empty.”
Angelo flung out one arm but Brian didn’t let that slow his progress toward the car. “Check the trunk,” he said, reaching for the lever to pop the hatch. Officers were waiting, and a quick search turned up no bodies. Nothing seemingly out of place.
Seeing Hannah’s car, touching it, both panicked and comforted him.
“Someone threw up,” he said to no one in particular. Three or four officers, Angelo among them, swarmed around the car and the surrounding area. The others dispersed to comb the desert.
“There’s blood back here,” another man reported from just behind the driver’s seat.
Brian was nearly sick himself.
Chances were that was Hannah’s blood. Chances were Amanda wasn’t the one who was hurt. And pray God it wasn’t Joseph, either.
At Close Range Page 26