Dying for Love (32 page)

“Helen,” he said in a low voice. “It’s John.”

She breathed deeply as if still in the throes of the anesthesia, so he claimed one of the chairs beside the bed, sat down, and took her hand in his. Amelia settled beside him, silent, watchful, tense.

An hour bled into two as they waited, and neither spoke, both lost in fear and desperation. The Commander had their little boys. No telling what he’d done to them.

Finally Helen opened her eyes. She blinked several times, trying to focus, her breathing slightly labored. “John?”

“Yes,” he said gruffly.

She squinted, then smiled when she saw Amelia beside him.

“You saved her,” she murmured. “Thank God.”

“Yes, but the Commander got away. And we still don’t know where he took the boys.”

Regret, grief . . . guilt clouded her face. Then a flicker of surprise. “Boys?”

“There were twins,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head, her voice strangled. “I ran out after the first baby was born. Arthur threatened me, and I knew I had to leave town, to get away from him.”

“Do you have any idea what he’d do with them?”

The color faded from her cheeks. “No . . . I . . . don’t know.”

“You were working with him back then, weren’t you?” he said harshly. “You must know something more.”

Helen opened her eyes, a deep sadness permeating the depths. “I wasn’t working with him, John.”

“But you were there when he took the babies.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was there because of you.”

John’s heart thundered. “I don’t understand.”

She squeezed his hand, her voice a raspy whisper. “I was married to him, John. Before I knew what was he was doing. What he was.” Her breath stalled. “I’m your mother.”

Amelia saw the shock on John’s face at Helen’s statement.

“You’re my mother?” John said in a pained voice.

She nodded. “After you tried to help Amelia escape, Arthur took you away. He faked that car accident and brainwashed you so you wouldn’t remember anything. Including me.”

“You came to Slaughter Creek to look for our baby, didn’t you, Helen?” Amelia asked.

“Yes, I knew Arthur sent him somewhere, but I didn’t know where. Just that your son was my grandbaby and I loved him.” Helen’s lip quivered, and Amelia took her hand in hers. Then Helen looked at John. “I also wanted to see you, John. I hoped that once we met and you talked to me, it might trigger your memories.”

John stood, obviously confused by the revelations. “I need some air.” He looked back at Helen from the doorway. “Call me if you think of someplace he might have taken the boys.”

Amelia squeezed Helen’s hand. “Give him time.”

“I don’t blame him if he hates me. I should have gotten him away from Arthur years ago.”

“We’ll be back,” Amelia said, then ran from the room to find John.

He was standing by the elevator, his body rigid, his mouth a straight line. Emotions warred in his eyes.

She reached up to comfort him, but he squared his shoulders and pulled away. “I’ll drive you home now.”

She decided to give him some time to process all he’d learned, and followed him to his SUV. They drove back to her studio house in complete silence, the sound of the wind and more sleet battering the road and vehicle.

When they entered her house, she froze at the sight of the blood on the floor from Helen’s gunshot wound.

“John, Blackwood said my therapist Dr. Clover was working with him. Either she or the Commander put that bear in my house and tore up my journals and wrote on my mirror. They were trying to drive me crazy.”

“Son of a bitch.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll have her arrested and charged. Maybe she knows where the Commander is.”

Amelia walked toward the sink. She had to clean up the blood.

But John caught her hand. “I’ll clean up. Go ahead to bed, Amelia.”

She started to argue, but the sight of the blood resurrected memories of being held by Arthur again, and she started shaking, so she ducked into the bathroom to wash the stench of his hands off of her.

By the time she emerged, John’s expression looked even bleaker. “He must have warned Dr. Clover. Jake said she cleaned out her office and house and she’s gone.”

Disappointment and fatigue weighed on Amelia. She wanted John to wrap his arms around her, and for the two of them to make love again.

But so much had happened between them . . .

He looked even more distant than when they’d first met. So she retreated to her room to give him some time to come to terms with the truth about who he was.

An hour later she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering what would happen, if they’d ever find the twins. She’d accused John of helping his father and obviously he had at some point.

But he’d lost his memory because he’d tried to save her.

Still, Arthur Blackwood’s blood flowed through his veins.

But he loved you and risked his life to save you and his sons.

And she had loved him.

She knew it in her heart.

Chapter Thirty-One

J
ohn sipped coffee while he stared at the woods behind Amelia’s as morning light broke through the dark clouds. The forests looked ominous, the trees dripping with ice. When he was a kid, he thought monsters lived in the trees.

But the real monster had lived with him. His father.

And now he’d escaped.

Again.

He had to find him. The bastard might come back to hurt Amelia if he didn’t.

Damn. He’d wanted to join Amelia in bed when they’d gotten back that night, to hold her and love her all night, to assure her he’d bring their sons back to her.

It was difficult to fathom. The entire time he’d been helping her, they’d been looking for
their
sons.

But he’d failed them all.

He poured himself some more coffee, then stood outside and watched the morning come to life. Deer scurried about. Squirrels foraged for food. The wind shook sleet from the tree limbs, scattering twigs across the white ground. Icicles broke off, cracking and shattering like glass.

Helen was his mother. She should have told him sooner.

Then again, she’d probably been terrified of his father. With good reason, too. Still, she’d risked her life to help him and Amelia find their children.

Could Amelia ever forgive him for what his father had done to her? For his part in keeping her a prisoner?

His phone buzzed. Coulter. “Yeah?”

“John, Lieutenant Maddison wants us to meet him. He has news about the case.”

“I’ll be right there.” He took his coffee mug inside, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher, then glanced at Amelia’s bedroom door.

More than anything he wanted to tell her he loved her. That in spite of his amnesia, they’d found their way back to each other.

But how could Amelia love him when the Commander’s bad blood pumped inside him?

He yanked on his coat, grabbed his keys, and headed outside. He wouldn’t stop looking for the twins. If he found them, maybe he could beg her forgiveness.

John was gone.

He hadn’t even said good-bye.

Amelia sipped her coffee, then made a decision.

She was going to talk to a therapist about the RMT. She’d put it off, too terrified to revisit that time in her past or subject herself to drug therapy, but if it meant possibly finding the twins, she’d do it.

Dr. Clover’s face teased her. The idea that she’d trusted the therapist who’d worked for Arthur Blackwood was more than she could bear.

She called Sadie and told her everything. The two of them cried together.

“We won’t give up until we find your little boys,” Sadie assured her.

“I want to try RMT,” Amelia said. “Can you refer me to a therapist?”

“Sure. There’s a woman I worked with in California who recently moved here. Let me make a call.”

Amelia ended the call and paced the studio, the portrait of Sadie and Ben haunting her. What did her boys look like? Did they have John’s dark hair and eyes? Were they identical like her and Sadie?

A few minutes later, Sadie texted her the new therapist’s number. Sadie had set an appointment up for her.

Amelia dressed in warm clothes, then drove to the therapist’s office. Dr. Marley was a young woman in her early thirties with a tender smile. And she’d agreed to do the treatment in her office, not the sanitarium.

“Sadie filled me in on your history, Amelia. Are you sure you’re up to this?” Dr. Marley asked.

Amelia took a deep breath. “Yes.” Nerves made her voice quiver. “You’re going to put me in a hypnotic trance?”

“Something like that, yes,” Dr. Marley said.

“But you will bring me out of it?”

The doctor rubbed Amelia’s arms. “Yes. You do trust me, don’t you?”

Amelia debated on an answer. Trust was difficult for her. But finding her children meant everything.

So she nodded and sank onto the couch. The doctor prepared a hypodermic needle, and Amelia prayed she would get answers.

“What’s this about?” John asked Lieutenant Maddison as he met the man at the facility where they were holding the boys who’d been found at the compound.

The ones with family had been reunited with them, although ongoing therapy and in-house treatment was mandatory.

It was too early to tell if the effects of the brainwashing could be reversed or if one of them might try to carry through with a bombing.

“We have DNA results back,” Maddison said. “Considering the circumstances, I called in some favors and put a rush job on the tests.”

John narrowed his eyes. “And?”

“The Bayler boy shares the same DNA as Amelia Nettleton.”

John’s heart jumped. If Mark Bayler was Amelia’s son, that meant the little boy was
his
.

God . . . Emotions he thought he’d never feel surfaced, throwing him off balance.

“Did you hear me?” Maddison asked.

He nodded slowly, adrenaline making him feel antsy. “Can I see him?”

“Of course,” Maddison said. “But he’s confused, John. Upset. His parents are dead.”

Except they weren’t. At least not his birth parents. They were very much alive.

Only how could he explain that to Mark?

His hands were sweating as he followed Maddison to the playroom, where several of the boys had gathered. One look across the room, and the gravity of the situation hit him.

All these kids had been traumatized. Reuniting with their families and helping them become emotionally stable would take time.

Gaining their trust would be complicated.

He spotted Mark Bayler in the corner at a table where he was drawing. He looked solemn, sad, haunted. How could he not be? He’d witnessed his parents’ murder.

Except this little boy wasn’t alone anymore. He was
his
.

He studied his facial features, and realized he should have seen it sooner. Mark had his dark hair, his wide cheekbones, and square jaw. And his eyes were just as dark as John’s.

Damn his father. He had betrayed him by robbing him of his own child. Of the twins. By depriving him of a life with Amelia.

Tamping down his anger, he slowly approached the boy. “Mark?”

Mark looked up at him with big brown eyes that mirrored his own. Sad eyes, confused and scared.

“Hi,” he said in a low voice. “Mind if I sit down? I have a story to tell you.”

The boy shrugged, but stopped his drawing. John glanced at it, troubled by the images.

Mark had drawn a picture of the ocean with an island in the middle, the waves choppy, the sky bleak. In the middle of the island, he’d drawn a castle that looked dark and haunted.

“Who are you?” Mark asked.

“Mark, did your parents tell you that you’re adopted?”

Mark nodded. “Do you know where my other parents are?”

John smiled at the kid and began to tell him.

Amelia came to, slightly dizzy and disoriented.

Immediately she knew that the therapy had worked, because she remembered everything. Dr. Marley handed her a tissue, and she wiped at her eyes, aware she’d been crying at times, begging for help at others.

“Are you all right?” Dr. Marley asked gently.

“I will be,” Amelia said. “But I have to call John.”

“Who is John?”

“The agent I’ve been working with to locate my son. I mean, our sons. John is the boys’ father.”

She thanked the doctor, then retrieved her phone from her purse and rushed out the door. She pressed John’s number, anxious to talk to him.

“Amelia?”

“I think I know where the Commander took the boys.”

“Where?”

“The same place he took the CHIMES when we were little. An island off the coast of Georgia.”

John made a low sound in his throat. “I’m going to text you an address. Meet me there.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He hung up, leaving her wondering.

Wasting no time, she rushed to her car and fought the storm as she drove to the facility. John met her outside and escorted her into the building and through security.

“What’s going on?” Amelia asked.

“There’s someone here you need to meet.”

Her heart stuttered as he led her into a small playroom, then over to a little dark-haired boy sitting at a table. The moment he looked up at her, tears burned her eyes.

It was her son.

He looked just like a miniature version of John. Same dark hair. Same dark eyes. Same sharp cheekbones and chin.

She sank onto the small chair beside him, aching to pull him into her arms.

“This is Mark,” John said with a lopsided grin. “Mark, this is your mother.”

John barely managed to maintain his calm as he watched Amelia reunite with their child.

“You gave me away?” Mark asked in a low voice.

Amelia shook her head. “No, sweetie. It’s a long story, but someone took you from me. I’ve been looking for you though because I love you and want to be with you.”

He studied her for a long moment with a childlike innocence, yet a world-weariness also lingered on his face. No telling what kind of life he’d led.

Although at least he’d been with the Baylers, not with the Commander.

Mark’s twin might not have been so lucky.

“I know this is a lot to understand,” Amelia told Mark. “And we can take it as slow as you want, Mark. But I want us to be together as a family.”