Dangerous Temptation (42 page)

"I said, let him go, Jake."

Jake eased his hold slightly, and Nathan was able to take his first deep breath since his brother had slammed him against the wall. Jake turned towards the stooped, but composed, figure of their father almost too obediently, and Nathan had a chance to see what was going on.

Shit! The breath left his lungs in a rush. The old man was holding a gun. It looked like his old service pistol, but it was obvious that Jake thought it might still be in working order. The fool! Didn't he realise that old Colt hadn't been fired for years?

Still, he was grateful for small mercies. Jake wasn't likely to argue with his father in the present circumstances, and a moment later, Nathan found himself free. Christ! He flexed his aching arm, silently congratulating the old man on his achievement. He even allowed himself an inward chuckle. He'd been half-convinced that Jacob would take Jake's side as he'd done before.

"D'you want to tell me what's going on?"

Jacob looked at Nathan, and realising it wasn't over yet, Nathan ran a soothing hand over his raw throat. "Thank God you've come down, Pa," he said. "I think Jake's taken leave of his senses. He's practically accusing me of double-crossing him, when what he really wants is a cut."

"Why, you—"

Jake would have lunged for him then, but Jacob raised the gun warningly towards his older son. "Let him go on," he said, and somehow Jake obeyed him. "You'll have your chance to tell me your story when Nathan is done."

Nathan glanced at both of them then, disconcerted by his sudden change of status. What was going on here? he wondered. Why was his father defending him? He should be feeling peeved that he'd disappeared without telling him where he'd gone.

"It's true," he muttered now, keeping a weather eye on his brother as he spoke. "I warned you Jake wasn't the innocent bystander you seemed to think."

Jacob frowned. "You're saying Jake was a willing partner?"

Nathan shrugged. "Yes." And at Jake's growl of anger, "I don't expect you to believe me. Jake always was the apple of your eye."

"And that's why you've come back, is it?" Jacob prompted. "Because you knew Jake was here?"

"Well—I hoped he might be," lied Nathan, gaining confidence from his father's apparent willingness to believe him. He cast another glance at his brother's baleful face and adopted an indignant posture. "I was trying to tell him I always pay my debts."

"And so do I," said Jake, but once again Jacob intervened.

"So your story is that you planned the whole thing between you?" he asked, and Nathan gave a rueful sigh.

"Something like that," he said. "That's why I tried to keep it from you. I just wish you could get Jake to listen to reason."

Jacob's lips twisted. "Oh, Nathan," he said, and suddenly he looked very old. "When Jake told me what he believes you'd planned, I couldn't take it in. That a son of mine should sink so low as to try and destroy his own brother's life. No—" This as Nathan began to speak again. "I listened to you, boy, and now you'll listen to me. You're a liar, and I know it. And you've not come back here to help anyone but yourself."

Nathan stared at him. "Oh, I see. He's got to you, has he? He's poisoned your mind against me, and you're prepared to believe him before me. That's great, isn't it? My own father won't listen to me. You'd turn against me, the son you raised yourself."

"Yes, I raised you," said Jacob steadily. "And I'm ashamed to say it, Nathan. Deeply ashamed. Oh, I knew you were a selfish boy. I saw you turn into a selfish man. But you're right—I haven't been a good father or I'd have recognised you for what you are before now."

"And what am I?"

"Greedy, weak, irresponsible." Jacob's voice was cold. "What I find so hard to believe is that you could think you might get away with it. For pity's sake, Nathan, were you so desperate that you'd consign your own brother to jail to escape what you deserved?"

"To jail?"

"What do you mean?"

The two brothers spoke simultaneously, but Jacob fixed his gaze upon his younger son. "Since you went away, I've had time to think, Nathan. I'd already surmised that you must have stashed the drugs Jake was supposed to be carrying somewhere. Is that where you've been? To collect them?" He moved his hand dismissingly. "It doesn't matter now. Where the drugs are at this precise moment isn't important. What is important is how you hoped to implicate your brother, and I think I've come up with an explanation."

He paused, but before Nathan could attempt any defence, he continued, "Jake has told me there was no cocaine in the suitcase he was transporting, but I think there was."

"Are you sure?" That was Jake, and Nathan threw him a nervous look.

"Yes," their father went on. "It's the only explanation. It was hidden, of course, so that if the plan backfired, you wouldn't suspect Nathan had been trying to double-cross you. But there must have been enough cocaine in the case to ensure you at least being arrested at Heathrow."

Jake gasped. "I don't believe it."

"Nor do I," cried Nathan, looking to his brother for his support. "You're going senile, old man. What would be the point of that?"

"I couldn't work that out at first," said Jacob quietly. "And then it dawned on me that the authorities would find it hard to believe that Jake wasn't who his passport said he was. I mean, who's going to believe a drug smuggler? And when he did eventually succeed in convincing them that he was Jake Connor and not Nathan Wolfe, they'd think he was using your passport because of his own record."

"What record?" exclaimed Nathan contemptuously, but he already knew. It was one of the things he'd banked on. The fact that Jake had been a junkie when he got back from Vietnam.

"You bastard!"

They were both glaring at him now, and Nathan realised he wasn't going to gain any advantage by continuing to lie. "All right," he said, "I'd stashed a few ounces of cocaine in one of the paperbacks in the case. I'd hollowed it out."

"So, you had no intention of meeting me in London," Jake said accusingly. "You expected me to be detained in England and, under cover of this smokescreen, you'd escape from your mess of a life no matter what disasters you'd bring on me, or pain to your father—and wife."

"Pretty clever, huh? So what are you going to do about it? We're all in this together. We're family, remember?"

"You wish."

Jacob's response was harsh with loathing, and even Nathan felt a twinge of regret for the relationship they had once had. Okay, so they'd had their problems; so did lots of other people. But he'd always believed his father loved him, no matter what.

"I need a drink," he said, wiping his hand across his parched lips. He saw to his dismay that his hand was trembling, and he thrust it in his pocket. Then he looked at his brother. "You can join me if you like. It might help us all to think—"

"Stay where you are."

To his astonishment, Jacob had turned the gun on him now, and Nathan stared at him with disbelieving eyes. Christ, he thought, the old guy really was losing it. He might be able to intimidate Jake with that old gun, but as far as he was concerned, it was a joke.

To prove it, he pushed past the old man and sauntered along the hall towards his father's study. "Has he told you he doesn't drink?" he addressed Jake, aware that he didn't feel quite so confident with the gun pointing at his back. "Well, don't you believe it. He's got a bottle in his desk drawer. He's just an old hypocrite. I should know."

The bullet that whistled past his shoulder had him diving into the study doorway. The light was on, and as he groped to turn off the switch with sweating fingers, he found his father was right behind him, with Jake at his heels.

He thought Jake looked a little stunned that the old man had actually fired the gun in anger. Like him, he apparently hadn't expected the gun to be loaded, let alone that it was capable of firing a shot. The realisation of how close to death he'd come made Nathan reckless, and he stared at them both with wide, accusing eyes.

"Are you crazy?" he choked, forgetting for the moment that only seconds before he had been disparaging his father for being senile. "What the hell's got into you, old man? If you want some—some target practice, go aim someplace else."

Jacob didn't say anything. He simply raised the gun again and a bullet ricocheted harmlessly into the woodwork just inches from Nathan's ear. The noise it made was terrifying, splintering the wood and sending fragments flying in all directions. One dug into the back of Nathan's neck and he screamed, believing for one awful moment that he had been shot after all.

"You're mad!" he cried when a tentative exploration discovered the sliver of wood that had grazed his neck. But there was blood on his hands and on his collar, and he gazed at it with disbelieving eyes.

"I was just proving I don't need any target practice," replied his father evenly, showing no remorse for his behaviour. "You shouldn't have tried to make a fool of me, Nathan. I can be ruthless, too—if I have a mind."

"Jake, for God's sake!" Nathan appealed to his brother. "Do something, can't you? Or are you going to let him kill me? Is that what you want?"

Jake hesitated. Nathan could see the uncertainty in his brother's eyes. Christ, what more did he need? A written confession? The old man was crazy. Couldn't he see it? He'd totally flipped his lid.

"I think you ought to put the gun down," Jake conceded at last, not without some reluctance, and in the second it took for Jacob to turn and look at him, Nathan took his chance. He wasn't fit, but he was younger and stronger and heavier than the old man, and when he lunged at him, Jacob fell heavily to the floor.

But he didn't let go of the gun.

Although Nathan had no choice but to follow him down, Jacob hung on to the gun as if for grim death. His bony fingers were glued to the butt, his forefinger hooked relentlessly round the trigger.

Another shot rattled ominously into the smouldering grate behind him, and Nathan knew that the next one might be for him. But it was impossible to extricate himself without running the risk of taking a bullet, and he could only struggle to stay out of the line of fire.

Jake's arm coming between them was another small miracle. His sainted brother was actually risking his life for him, he realised, scrambling for cover. As Jake grasped his father's wrist, Nathan scuttled behind the desk, so that when the gun was fired again, he was safely out of harm's way.

The silence that followed was horribly ominous. For a moment, he wondered if he had been shot after all, and that the reason he couldn't hear anything was because he was dead. But then someone howled, a terrible sound that turned his blood to ice in his veins, and he heard his father sobbing his brother's name.

Panic gripped him again. Oh, God! The old man had killed Jake, he thought wildly. Jacob would kill him now, for sure. Christ, what was he going to do? The world had gone mad around him. Was he the only sane one in this fucking place?

Quivering with terror, aware that it wasn't just sweat that had dampened his trousers, Nathan risked a swift glance round the corner of the desk. He drew back almost at once, his worst fears realised. He was right: Jake had been shot. He was lying, motionless, on the floor, with Jacob on his knees beside him, keening like a banshee.

He swallowed, the dry convulsion of his throat muscles sounding loudly in his ears. His hands conversely were so wet he had to dry them on his jacket, the blood smearing his lapel, reminding him of what had so nearly happened before.

This couldn't be real, he told himself unsteadily. It was all just a crazy dream. If he pinched himself, he'd wake up in his own bed back in London. But when he squeezed an inch of the midriff that hid his waistband, he almost gagged with the pain.

The sobbing continued on and on, until Nathan had to put his hands over his ears to block out the awful sound his father was making. It's no good crying, old man, he thought, despising his father, even at this time, for his weakness. If you hadn't intended to shoot anyone, you shouldn't have been carrying a gun.

The gun.

Nathan pressed his shoulders back against the side of the desk. Where was the gun? That was what he ought to be thinking now. It had to be here somewhere. He sensed Jacob would have thrown it aside when he realised he'd shot Jake. Nathan hadn't heard it fall, but then, he'd hardly been in any state to listen for it. If he could find the gun, he'd be all right, he thought urgently. Jacob wouldn't touch him if he was armed.

Licking his dry lips, he inched his way along the back of the desk. He would look through the knee-hole, he decided. Just in case his father was still holding the gun. He wouldn't present such an obvious target from that angle. Jacob might not even know where he was.

His luck held. As he'd hoped, the gun was lying just inches beyond the edge of the desk. His father actually had his back to it as he leant over his innocent victim. If Nathan could just ease himself though the knee-hole, he'd reach it easily.

Every sound he made seemed magnified in the awful aftermath of the killing. Even though his father was still moaning over the body, Nathan's efforts to reach the gun seemed certain to reach his ears. Nathan wished he was thinner; he wished he'd paid more attention to his diet while he'd had the chance. He could smell the fear that soaked his body. He prayed that Jacob wouldn't smell it, too.

His fingers touched the barrel only seconds later. But for a few minutes, his hands were so slippery, he couldn't get a grip. Looping one finger inside the trigger guard, he drew the gun towards him. Then, after smoothing his damp palm against the carpet, he lifted the gun and cradled it against his chest.

He'd done it!

Relief washed over him, and not caring if he made any noise now, he scrambled to his feet. God, he needed a drink, he thought, remembering the whisky. He deserved one for what he'd suffered. Then he'd decide how he was going to deal with the old man.

It was the noise of the desk drawer being opened that alerted Jacob to his other son's sudden revival. But although Nathan expected him to reach for the weapon, the old man seemed incapable of coherent thought. Nathan was almost disappointed when all his father did was watch him remove the cap from the whisky and drink thirstily from the bottle, his expression pale and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed with grief.