Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (5 page)

Genie opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly felt a prickle down her spine…and sensed the growing presence of something that didn’t belong in this sleepy neighborhood—besides the helo perched on the lawn. She whirled, stepped back out the door, and saw a black SUV speeding toward them down the street.

“Damn!”

Already in motion, Kyle jumped down from the cockpit and bolted toward her. “Get Cat!” he ordered. He swooped down and picked up Annie who had drifted to the edge of the lawn and thrust her under his arm like an oversized curly football, then grabbed for Mark.

“Daddy!” Annie screamed, tears instantly crumpling her little face.

Mark tried to pull away, but Kyle lifted him up by one arm and swung him up under his arm, then ran for the copter.

“Cat!” Genie shouted back through the doorway. This was going from bad to worse.

“Hey!” Cat’s husband rushed past Genie after his children, wielding his golf club like a battle ax. “Let go of my kids!”

Johnny was standing in the open bay of the copter, his attention switching back and forth between Kyle and the black SUV barreling toward them. “Any time now, bro!”

“Daddy!” Mark cried as he bounced in Kyle’s grasp. The little girl was still screaming, her arms stretching outward under Kyle’s arm toward her dad.

“Cat! Where the hell are you?” What could she be doing that she didn’t hear all that racket? Genie slammed and bolted the front door. As she ran through the living room, she glanced out the window and saw Kyle shove the kids at Johnny who buckled them into their seats. Kyle climbed up behind them and slipped into the cockpit.

Cat’s husband was still yelling, still brandishing the golf club as he jumped up inside after them. As soon as he was in, the helicopter started to rise and Johnny slammed shut the bay door.

Genie winced. Cat was never going to forgive her.

The SUV screeched to a stop outside the house, jerking her attention back to the ground.

“Dammit, Cat!”

“What is it?” her sister yelled as she ran down the hall, buckling her jeans, her hair wrapped in a towel.

“Come on! We’ve got to go.”

Cat stopped dead in her tracks. “Genie? What on earth are you doing here?” She looked around her, panic crossing her face. “Where are Tom and the kids?”

“They’re okay. I’ll explain later. We have to go. Now!”

Cat’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “No, you’ll explain now.”

Something hard slammed against the front door. The wooden frame cracked.

“Where’s your car?” Genie demanded, pulling the Glock out of her ankle holster.

Wide-eyed, Cat yanked the towel off her wet head and tossed it. “This way.” She ran past her toward the kitchen, grabbing the keys off the wall and opening another door that led inside the dark, cool garage. She jumped behind the wheel of a large white Expedition.

“This better be good, Genie!” Cat said, as Genie dove into the passenger seat. “And my kids sure as hell better be safe.”

“They are,” Genie insisted. “Now get us out of here.”

Cat hit the button to lift the garage door then let out a cry as the helicopter zipped up and banked away from her house. “Is that how you got here?”

Before Genie could answer a second black SUV skidded onto the sidewalk in front of them. Men in combat gear poured out and rushed toward the garage.

“Go!” Genie yelled.

Not waiting for the door finish lifting, Cat dropped the gearshift into reverse. The vehicle lurched backward, tearing through the wooden door. The sound was deafening as it cracked and broke into a shower of splinters around them.

“Good thing it wasn’t bolted,” Genie said as they barreled backward down the driveway and then careened across the grass as Cat yanked hard on the wheel to avoid hitting the SUV.

“Lucky for you I’ve been wanting to replace that old door,” Cat muttered as she charged onto the street, dropped into drive and sped past the SUV and the men scattering to get out of their way. “Where to now?”

“I guess the airport until we hear differently.” Genie couldn’t help a shaky smile of relief as they left Emerich’s men behind, scrambling for their vehicle.

“Tell me where Tom and the twins are,” Cat demanded.

“Right above us,” Genie said, looking out the windshield and pointing toward the copter in the sky.

Cat narrowed her eyes. “You want to tell me what they’re doing up there? And how in the world you got Tom to go with you?”

Before Genie could answer, the SUV came roaring up behind them. “Any chance you can lose them?” Genie asked, counting the heads inside. Four. She and Cat could probably take four. If they had to.

“Perhaps,” Cat mumbled.

“That’s not a great answer.”

“How about you tell me who the hell they are, and why you’ve flown in to make scrambled eggs out of my life?”

“Do I have to have a reason to visit my baby sister?”

“We’re the same age,” Cat said evenly.

“I’m still older.”

“By six minutes,” Cat gritted out. She gripped the wheel, making a sharp right then a sharp left. “Obviously, I’m more mature. Otherwise I’d still be playing war games like you. Now spill.”

Genie swallowed. “In a nutshell? Dad is missing, and nine goons in black SUVs carrying some heavy artillery came after me this morning.”

“Seriously?” Cat looked at her, her gaze sweeping over Genie’s body as if looking for bullet holes.

“I’m fine. Too fine, really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they could have shot me. They had a golden opportunity and they didn’t take it.”

“And you’re complaining?”

“No. It’s just…”

“What?” Cat swerved down one street after another, managing to stay ahead of them.

“It just seems a bit of an overkill. Nine guys. Huge guns. No bullets.”

“Kind of like now?” Cat looked behind her at the two SUV’s full of men chasing them through suburbia.

“Exactly. Why aren’t they firing at us? Even at our tires?”

“Let’s just be thankful they’re not.”

“It’s just weird. Don’t you think?” Genie studied them for a moment, wishing she could get a real reading on them other than a sharp sense of being their target. “If they don’t want to kill us, then what to do they want?”

For a moment neither one of them said anything as they raced through the streets of Reno.

“Let’s not stop to find out. Now tell me about Dad. What exactly did you mean by missing?” Cat turned right then left as she tried desperately to lose the black Suburban that just wouldn’t let up.

“He didn’t answer at the island estate. And he sent me this.” She pulled their mother’s heirloom necklace out from around her neck.

Cat whistled, and then made another quick maneuver down a side street. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that.”

Genie pulled it from around her neck and handed it to her sister. “Do me a favor and hold this in your hand. Tell me what you see.”

“While I’m driving?”

“I got you covered.” Genie got ready to grab the wheel as Cat took the necklace. With one hand, she held it for a brief moment, then handed it back.

“Sorry. Nothing. Why?”

“It arrived this morning with no note, no phone call, no nothing. Return address Dad’s house.”

“That’s not good.”

“Nope.”

“But when I touched the stone, I thought…I saw Becca.”

“What do you think that means?” Cat asked without questioning the vision.

Before Genie could answer, the cell phone Kyle had given her rang. “I’m heading for the El Dorado casino. Meet me on the roof,” Kyle bellowed after Genie connected the call.

Genie repeated the order to Cat. “You better not let anything happen to my niece and nephew,” she insisted when she heard Annie screaming for her mommy in the background.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, babe.”

“And don’t call me, babe.”

“Please tell me that’s Kyle,” Cat said, as Genie slammed shut the phone.

“The one and only,” she grumbled.

“Good, that makes me feel better.”

Genie scowled at her. “Why would that make you feel better? You’ve never even met him. Why do you think he can protect you better than I can?”

“Genie, how can you protect my kids? You’re with me. Besides, Daddy wouldn’t have made Kyle your partner if he weren’t the best. And right now I want the best with my kids.”

“Yeah. He’s good,” Genie agreed with a grimace. “Too good.”

Cat’s brow lifted. “Sounds like you’re still not over him.”

“Of course I’m over him.”

“Yep.”

“Stop it.”

“What?” Cat glanced at her with a knowing smile on her face.

“Stop reading me.”

“I’m not reading your emotions. I’m reading your body language. So what’s the deal?”

Genie gave a mental sigh, and thought about all the issues and problems the relationship had caused in the past, and what she’d have to do to salvage it to have a future. There was just too much in the way. “I can’t be with him. It just won’t work.”

“Because you don’t trust him?”

Among other things
. “How can I? We can’t trust each other.”

“That’s Dad talking. Forget Dad. How do
you
feel?”

She slammed the door on those emotions before they could sabotage her resolve. “My feelings no longer matter.”

“Of course they do. Are you going to make me have to read you?” She reached a hand toward Genie, waggling her fingers in the air.

“Stop it!” Genie batted her hand away.

“Well?”

They took a corner on two wheels.

“Once Becca got involved, things got real complicated. I guess I’m not that great at keeping secrets. Kyle always suspected I was hiding something from him and it bothered him. He kept telling me to trust him. But how could I? And then there was the Emerich case.”

“Sean Emerich? The guy Becca was seeing?”

Genie nodded as they sped down an alley. “The CTA was investigating him and getting nowhere. Let’s just chalk it up to bad timing, bad luck, and Becca’s interference.”

Just saying her sister’s name sent a wave of angst pulsing through her. Why had Becca wanted to meet her at that warehouse? Why had she been involved with a scumbag like Emerich to begin with?

Cat frowned as she sent the Expedition sailing over a dip in the road. “Becca. I should have known. I told you to be careful of her. I know she’s our sister, but she is always up to no good, and honestly I hate the way she talks down to you.”

“
Was
our sister,” Genie corrected.

Cat was silent for a moment.

“Did you go to the funeral?” Genie asked with a spurt of guilt, still wishing she could have found a way to be there.

“No,” Cat said. “Couldn’t take the chance my mother-in-law or Tom would find out I was there. They’d both have asked questions I couldn’t answer. Besides, honestly? Something doesn’t feel right about Becca’s so-called death.”

Genie’s head bumped against the ceiling as Cat tore through another elevated intersection without hitting the brakes. “What do you mean so-called?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes…sometimes I could swear I feel her. And unless I can suddenly sense ghosts, I just don’t believe she’s dead.”

For a stunned moment, Genie digested that. “I’ve felt the same way,” she finally admitted. “But I’ve never said anything. I thought it was just the guilt speaking. That what happened…”

“That what happened was your fault?”

The way her father blamed himself for her mother’s death.

Genie nodded. “I should have gone after her sooner. I should have tried harder to make Becca understand how dangerous Emerich was.
Is
. Hell, I don’t know.”

Cat shook her head. “There was no making Becca believe anything. Nothing you said would have made any difference.”

“Maybe.” Genie grabbed the armrest as they took another turn, the SUV still right behind them. “With Becca’s death, everything just became so complicated. Dad said I needed to hide from Emerich. And he said I couldn’t tell Kyle. About anything.”

Cat darted her an incredulous look. “And you did it? Genie, you’ve got to stop jumping every time Dad snaps his fingers. You need to live your own life!”

“But Becca was dead.
Is
dead. I think. Really, I honestly don’t know—especially after the vision I got off the necklace. In any case, it’s just that Kyle…” Her words trailed off.

“Kyle?” her sister prompted.

“He just wanted more than I can give.”

“Like what?”

“He wants what you have. The picket fence. Kids. A happily-ever-after.”

Cat’s brows rose again. “And that’s so bad?”