“And what about Jason?”
“She has no idea that he’s really working for my brother. She hired him because of Paul’s recommendations. My brother wanted him for the position as her assistant. The man’s brilliant at eliminating paper trails.”
“So no one would guess he used bogus vendors to steal from mother’s campaign funds.” Katherine didn’t even try to camouflage the disgust and bitterness from her voice. Even so, it didn’t seem to bother her father.
“You don’t understand. There wasn’t enough money. Not Miltronic’s liquid assets or all of Paul’s private contributors were enough. We had no choice but to look somewhere else. This project’s been like some sick black hole, sucking every available dollar.”
“Eventually she’ll figure out what you’re doing,” Katherine insisted.
“Don’t hold your breath. She can be so damn clueless at times.” His voice turned snide. “Just like those kids.”
“‘Those kids didn’t deserve to die.”
“Come off it. They were felons, taking up space. I did the world a favor.”
At his complete disregard, Katherine felt her chest swell with outrage. “How can you say that? They were kids in need of a guiding hand—someone who cared. They were beautiful, living, breathing beings. And that “shelter” was a place they could stay to feel safe. And you ruined it all. For what? Some genetic experiment?”
“It’s more than that. You can’t imagine the amount of power and wealth I’d have with a monopoly on such a discovery. I’ve had enough of living in Sharon’s shadow day in and day out. Without this, I’ll always be ‘Senator Spalding’s husband’, a lackey and nothing more.”
Katherine couldn’t believe how blind he was. With Paul, he’d still be in someone else’s shadow. He was too weak to be anything more. God. She’d grown up with a man she’d never known, a man she couldn’t even stomach looking at.
The door silently eased open from behind Alex. Katherine fought to keep her face expressionless. Please. Please let it be John.
A man slipped into the room. Katherine’s hope shattered. She should have expected this.
Paul stood mere feet from behind her father. His features devoid of expression, his silence, more threatening than any words, sent Katherine’s pulse crashing.
“And Uncle Paul?” Katherine managed to ask without her voice cracking. “Is he in it for the power?”
“Hell, no. Paul’s off his rocker. He’s hoping the money on this human enhancement drug will fund his immortality project. God knows, the outlay’s astronomical. But he doesn’t see the complete waste. Oh, no. He’s too obsessed—has been since Jennifer’s death. And you know what? I don’t know what the attraction was, because I never particularly liked her.”
A soft bark of sound punctuated her father’s last words. Blood and brain matter splattered into her face and hair. She saw the frayed hole in her father’s forehead and his eyes, blind and frozen, as he tumbled toward her. Her uncle had shot him in the head. Without warning, without hesitation.
“The son-of-a-bitch. I knew I couldn’t trust him.”
Her father’s body struck her shoulder on the way down, and she stumbled against the car. A wild keening cry erupted from her throat as Alex thudded to the cement, brushing against her legs, staining the folds of her dress. Almost climbing the hood of the car in her hurry to get away, she hysterically wiped at the blood from her face and hair.
Another shot cracked inside the garage, hitting the wall by her head. Ducking, she hunched behind the passenger side of the car. Paul stepped over Alex’s body and held a gun in each hand. She backed up along the side of the car. Paul followed.
“You’re crazy. You can’t get away with this.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. Two guns. One from your father, and one from the burglar he interrupted. You both were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a tragedy that the thief got away.” Katherine watched in horror as Paul rounded the side of the car, lifted the gun he’d shot Alex with and aimed it at her chest. “I’ve never liked you, so I’m actually going to enjoy this.”
Moments earlier, Katherine had cheated death, but this time she knew she’d not only lost the deal but the game. She turned and ran, waiting for the bullet in her back.
Chapter 33
The last person John expected to see was the security guard he’d punched. He suspected the feeling was mutual by the shock and anger on the man’s flat face.
Grunting, the guard reached for the gun strapped to his waist. “You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t think so. I’m—”
The loud crack of a gun went off, stuffing the words back in John’s throat. The guard hadn’t cleared his gun from its holster. No, the shot had come from somewhere on the ground floor in the direction of the east wing.
Which meant— Panic caught at John’s chest. “No...”
“What’s your problem!” The guard grabbed for his arm.
John dodged his hand just as a woman’s cry cut across the distance. Katherine. Of course the guard hadn’t heard. He didn’t have the capacity to hear like John. “Move! I’ve got to get to Katherine. She’s in danger!”
“You’re not going anywhere!”
The guard snapped the gun from its leather case. John lost patience. Before the gun cleared its holder, he rushed forward and shoved a shoulder into the other man. The guard went flying and hit the wall with a loud thud. John winced but didn’t stop. He raced from the foyer, past several startled individuals in the hall and into the kitchen crowded with a half-dozen catering employees.
As John stumbled to a halt, he hit a platter on the edge of a counter. The metal disk launched into the air, flinging lettuce and chunks of fish onto the floor, countertops and into the face of a gap-mouthed caterer.
Over the shouts of the workers, John heard another gunshot. His stomach knotted and twisted. Panic swelled inside his chest. If he lost Katherine—
Think. Wrap your mind around the noise.
It was closer. Beyond the kitchen and still further east on the estate. There was also an oddness to it, almost a hollow sound following the initial shot. But that didn’t make sense. Unless—
Then he had it. Of course. The garage. She’d been there the entire time. If he’d just—
No. There wasn’t time for suppositions. John launched himself across the room. The garage had to be down this way. If not, he’d tear the wall apart to get it.
In her hurry to get out of his way, a woman stumbled into his path. Inches before colliding, John pivoted, caught the kitchen island with one hand and swiveled up and around the counter. He knocked silverware, glasses and utensils with his feet and legs as he brought his body up, over and down on the other side of the island.
When he ran down another hall, past several closed interior doors, he heard Katherine’s voice.
“You’re crazy. You can’t get away with this.”
Relief hit John, warming and heating his body, easing the suffocating terror that gripped his mind. She was okay. All she had to do was keep on talking.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” Spalding words carried through the brick, mortar and drywall to John. “Two guns—
Shit. She was with Spalding. Rage spiked savagely into his fear and propelled him down another hallway. He saw the door at its end. Finally. The garage.
“—a tragedy that the thief got away.”
Like hell. Spalding wasn’t getting away with anything.
“—I’m actually going to enjoy this—˝
“No!” John launched himself at the garage door. He felt his body hit the barrier, felt the door’s brief protest, and then heard the groan of metal, the shriek of cracking wood.
The door crashed open. John burst into the garage. He stumbled over the body on the ground. Pulling back in shock, John stared down at Katherine’s father flat on his stomach and with a pool of blood by his head. Dead. After hearing Alex on the other end of the cell at Sharon’s office, he’d known about
the man’s involvement, but he hadn’t expected this.
Jerking his gaze away from the lifeless body, John spotted Spalding standing by the hood of a car and Katherine fleeing in the opposite direction. More importantly, John saw the gun aimed at Katherine’s back.
“Spalding! You pull that trigger—I’ll kill you!”
Spalding turned. For a brief pulse point, their gazes collided across the car. John saw the alarm then the fear flash in his eyes, but that was only a token of what John wanted. He wanted to rip Spalding’s face off. He wanted Spalding to experience the same terror and horror of John’s co-workers and the kids at the shelter. Spalding not only shattered Katherine’s innocence but murdered so many others. All for—
Nothing.
He didn’t give Spalding a chance to react. He leaped over the hood of the car and tackled him. Cloth tore. A whoosh of breath. A cry of pain. Chips of drywall flew into the air as they hit the wall. They landed with John on top. Scrambling up, John wedged a knee into the back of Spalding, who lay limply beneath him with an arm twisted at an odd angle. He pressed his hands around the base of the other man’s neck.
Spalding had been about to kill her. His Katherine. The woman he adored, the only person who’d always believed in him. One moment later, and John might not have been able to save her. His hands tightened around the collar of Spalding’s jacket.
John wanted to kill him. Easy enough. One twist of the neck. No one would ask questions. After all, the assailant had a gun. Simple self-defense.
~~*~~
“Don’t!”
Katherine stood with a hip and a hand against the side of the car. She wouldn’t let John ruin his future. Not after all he’d been through.
“Please, John. You’ll live to regret it.” She lifted a trembling hand. “Come here. I need you. I need to hold you—know you’re real and not going away.”
After a long, torturous moment, John looked up and seemed to hesitate. Then he slowly rose and stepped away from her uncle. Katherine sagged against the car. For a wild moment, she’d thought John might actually kill him, and she thanked God he hadn’t. Not because her uncle didn’t deserve it. No, she was thankful because she knew how much it would hurt John. Being responsible for someone’s death—no matter how fitting—would have eaten at his soul. She didn’t want that for John. He was far too special, and not because she loved him, but because he was what he was. Strong, solid, steadfast, filled with principles and strong convictions. A good man.
Voices carried from inside the house, and a security guard stepped from the mutilated doorway and into the garage. She caught the man’s stunned expressed before John strode over and caught her up against his chest.
“I’m here, Katherine. Right here. I’m not going anywhere.” John clutched her tighter as the sound of a siren in the distance steadily increased in volume. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll let the police take care of him and his bony little henchman. But they’re probably going to have to get your uncle to a hospital. I think I broke his arm,” he whispered the last against her temple.
Half-laughing, half-crying, Katherine wrapped her arms around John’s middle, feeling the heat of his body beneath her hands, the whisper of his breath across her brow. She loved the clean, woodsy, thoroughly male scent of him. She loved everything about him.
Over John’s shoulder, she saw her mother stumble into the garage with several other people. The unguarded look of horror, fear and shock that flashed across Sharon’s features confirmed that her mother hadn’t known about her husband, Mitlronics, or the shelter. She met her mother’s gaze across the distance and felt a deep, aching sadness for a lost relationship and a childhood she’d never had. She didn’t know if this tragedy would bring them together, or forever tear them apart.
But either way, she’d be fine. Because there was John. There would always be John.
Epilogue
Standing on the balcony, Katherine looked over the shore from their villa in Cabo San Lucas. The sun had dipped into the ocean, staining the water with fingers of orange and gold. She wrapped both hands around the baluster and leaned forward as a cool breeze, scented of sea and sand, stroked her skin and ruffled the silk hem of her skirt.
She smiled. Life was a beautiful. This day, this moment would become a memory of pleasure and wonder, while the future, well, the future held so much more promise.
Two strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her up against a hard chest. John. Sighing with happiness, she clasped his arms and sank deeper in the circle of his embrace.
“Any regrets?” he murmured, resting his chin on the crown of her head.
“Never.”
“Even with the risk of bodily injury from a guy who has this terrible habit of breaking things?” His breath whispered against her hair. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to lose these powers any time soon.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to carry around some super glue for my super man,” she teased, glancing down at her left hand and the large diamond ring and matching band.
John had insisted they wait several months to get married until Katherine’s pain had eased from the trauma of her father’s death and her family’s betrayal. With John’s full cooperation, the police compiled enough evidence to keep her uncle, Jason and several others behind bars for life. Even with John cleared of all wrongdoing, Katherine still knew guilt plagued his thoughts from so many needless deaths. They did make a small atonement by ensuring Luke, the boy who died in the car accident in Arizona, receive a proper burial. The small ceremony consisted of just the two of them and the kids from the Morning Dove.
The public outrage over Miltronic’s experiments and her father—she still had a hard time thinking of him differently—and uncle’s involvement eventually died down and was replaced with another more tantalizing scandal, and life went on. John’s physical abilities hadn’t diminished in time, and they stayed a secret, one which they intended to keep.
Sadly, her relationship with her mother, already filled with too many years of neglect and secrets, continued its downward spiral. It hadn’t helped when Sharon sabotaged the shelter with the misguided belief that once the Morning Dove closed her daughter would pursue a career more appropriate to her education and social status. And her mother’s continued refusal to talk about Katherine’s natural father further disintegrated what little bond remained between them. Katherine only managed to get her father’s name and find out that he died years ago.
There’d been talk of impeachment for her mother, but it had died down, and she would complete her term in office. But it was a good guess her career as a Senator or, for that matter, a position in any political office was dead.
The Morning Dove hadn’t changed. Katherine would never give up on the lost, battered and troubled teenagers who sought a haven within the shelter’s walls. The case of Tracy’s situation was encouragement enough that she was doing the right thing. She’d managed to get Tracy’s sister out from under their father and into a foster home after charges of abuse were filed.
“I have something for you.”
Smiling, she squeezed his arms tighter around her middle and snuggled her bottom against his hips. “I thought you already give me that “something” numerous times over the last twenty-four hours.”
“You wicked, wicked woman. I’m talking about your wedding gift.”
Turning, she looked up into his eyes and her chest expanded at the love that glittered in his slate eyes.
“It’s on the bed.” He tugged her away from the balcony.
“Oh...really. On the bed, did you say?”
John laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that Katherine absolutely adored.
“There you go again—getting those naughty thoughts.” He nudged her into the bedroom. “I promise a little later I’ll get very wicked. So wicked, that I’ll curl those delectable toes of yours.”
That “something” turned out to be a large box wrapped in silver and white. A huge jaunty bow sa
t on top of it. Sinking down on the edge of the bed, Katherine took the package and looked up at John. She hadn’t a clue what it was.
“Go on,” he urged, looking eager yet nervous.
Carefully, she peeled off the wrapping to find a plain brown box. She pulled the lid off and found a framed photo of a man. Her heart skipped a beat, and the box trembled from hands that couldn’t stop shaking. She was afraid to ask.
“Your father,” John whispered. “Inside are also several news clippings from his hometown. I even uncovered a yearbook from his high school. He was on the basketball team.”
Katherine brushed a tear on her cheek with the back of her hand. “I don’t know what to say.”
She eased the picture from the box and looked at the photo of a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. Under the shade of a big, oak tree, her father grinned back at the camera. Her gaze slowly ran over the blond hair cropped close to his head, the strong jaw and brow, the confident stance. He had an open, honest looking face.
“Terry Burke,” Katherine murmured, running a reverent finger along the silver frame.
“I think you’ll get some idea of what type of man he was. After his stint in the Army in the Middle East, he’d planned on going back to school for a degree in psychology, but he never made it back. When I was compiling his background, I realized the similarities. You’re very much your father’s daughter. He really cared for and about people.”
Easing down on the bed beside her, John slid a gentle hand down the length of her back. “Are you upset with me? I’d thought you’d want to know something about your father.”
With trembling hands, she placed the box and frame on the other side of her, turned to John and pressed a palm against his cheek. Tears flowed unheeded down her face. She blinked until his beloved face reappeared.
“Now I know why I fell in love with you,” Katherine said, her voice husky with wonder, love and humility. “No one’s ever given me something so beautiful. I—” She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t have asked for a better wedding present. I’ll cherish it. Always.”
Duplicity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance Page 27