Grace Anne (19 page)

Like she cared, but nodded all the
same. Verrie hated kids. They were messy, loud, and couldn’t have a single
function that she could think of that made them worth nine months of being a
cow and then years of putting up with their shit. Then to have them turn on
you…well, that shit was going to be laid to rest right now. They were pulling
off the main road when she thought of how much fun she was going to have.

~~~

Grace was exhausted. After talking
with her family for over three hours and then the tense fight she’d had with
Trace she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep for several days. The frantic
call from her employees made her grind her teeth. The nerve of the man moving
her offices into his building and not telling her. They were going to have a
nice long…conversation when he got back.

Margo had called to say that her
office wasn’t set up and the redecorators weren’t listening to her. They were
hanging the pictures in the wrong order and the mural she’d made wasn’t among
the things they’d packed up.

“What decorator and what office? Take
a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.” Grace had closed the door to Cain’s
office to speak to her in private. “What do you mean my mural isn’t among the
packed things? Who is packing things and why?”

“Michael came by with some guy the
other day. He said that we were moving to another building and he said you
knew.”

She knew she was moving, but
thought it was to a storage shed, not to some place that had an office.

“The place is awesome, by the way.
We even have off street parking and there’s a cafeteria on the second floor
that—”

“Focus, Margo. What is going on? Why
are our things being put away in a building?” Grace’s head hurt even after an
hour of talking to her. “Tell me where we’re moved to.”

An hour later, she still didn’t
have a clue where her mural was because Margo had gone back to the warehouse to
look for it. It had been sandblasted off the walls, she’d said. As was, she
went on to tell her, most of the floors on the main level. The men had gotten
to work on the building the moment the last piece of her business had been
moved out.

Grace pulled out the sheet of
paper of things she was going to talk to Michael about and the first was doing
things without her being aware of them. She might have had some say in the move
if for no other reason than to tell him she appreciated it. The limo driving
over a particularly hard bump had her bumping her head on the window she was
next to. Grace looked out the window and her skin dampened with terror.

They were no longer on the highway
on their way to the airport. She had no idea where they were, but she was now
sure that something was wrong. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Michael’s
number when the window between her and the driver slid down and a gun appeared.

“Hello, Grace. I’m Verrie, and you
and I are going to have a bit of a talk and then I’m going to kill you.”

Grace slid her cell phone to the
seat as soon as the window whined as it rolled down. She didn’t even look to
see if anyone answered, but hoped that someone had. “I know who you are. You
and the others are about to get your asses handed to you.” Verrie waved the gun
and Grace moved to the middle of the seat as indicated before continuing. “My
brother is looking for you right now with a bunch of agents and cops. You won’t
get away—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Verrie
snapped. “You have no idea what you’ve done. And even if they did know about
where we were you’re still gonna be dead. And at the lovely funeral, your poor
mother won’t be able to attend because she’ll be so heartbroken that she’ll be
in the hospital when the entire entourage is killed in a massive explosion. All
of you will be dead and we’ll have it all as sole survivors.”

Grace threw back her head and
laughed. “You think it’s going to be that easy to kill me? Think again, bitch.
I’m armed too.” The gun slide out of her purse and was in her hand in seconds. She
was glad to see the shocked look on her face. “Now put down the gun, Verrie,
before I have to kill the lot of you. Not that anyone will miss you all, but I
really would like for you to stand trial.”

The gun went off, narrowly missing
Grace. She felt the wind shear her cheek as it whizzed by. Then, for only a
second, Verrie froze. That was when Grace knew she was looking at someone else.

“Run,” the voice said. “Hurry,
run.”

Grace knew who it was before she
moved to the door to go. Guinnie was helping her escape. Grace was glad; she
really wasn’t sure she could have killed the woman who was basically her mother,
but she would if she had to. She was out of the car and running for her life
when she felt the first bullet tear through her arm. The laughter coming from
behind her made the hair on her neck rise, and her to stumble from terror. She’d
forgotten her phone too.

Crawling to the fallen tree, she
could hear someone running up behind her quickly. She wasn’t sure she could
make it, but when the person went by her she felt she might be safe long enough
to catch her breath and to look at her arm. It was throbbing like a toothache
and she wanted to scream every time she touched it.

It wasn’t until she was sure she
wasn’t going to bleed to death that she started to sit up. She was glad she’d
worn her dark pants and jacket, because the moon was nearly nonexistent and she
didn’t want to die out here in the middle of nowhere. She could make out the
shiny car from the stars and decided that if she could get to her phone she
might be able to call for help. Her gun had dropped when she’d gotten shot and
even if she had a way to find it she was right-handed and had never been able
to make her left shoot worth a damn. Closing her eyes, she decided that if she
lived through this, she was going to make Sin teach her how to shoot the sucker
with her toes if she thought she could learn it. The slight noise to her left
had her opening her eyes and straining hard to see who was there.

Verrie walked by her without a
sound. Grace might have been impressed if she wasn’t so terrified. The woman
didn’t make a single sound that would have let her know who was coming. Then
another voice, this one chilling, made her nearly whimper.

“Did you find her yet? You said I
could fuck her when you brought her here. What the fuck happened?” Thomas was
here as well.

“Shhhh, you fucking moron. I’m
still looking for her. And when I find her I’m going to fucking empty my clip
in her. Fucking bitch was a lot faster than I thought she’d be.”

She didn’t know, was Grace’s first
thought. She either didn’t know about Guinnie at all or just that she’d helped
Grace escape. She thought it highly unlikely that she didn’t know about Guinnie
when Grace knew about them, but she was glad for the younger girl’s help.

Chapter 19

Michael collapsed. He’d heard the
voices seconds before he’d answered her then, while he was trying to motion for
someone to come and help him, he’d heard the gunshot. He held the phone to his
ear, trying to hear anything as his father came toward him.

“Someone has Grace. I think it
might be Verrie. I have to…call the house. Tell them everything I say.” Michael
tried to work around the lump in his throat. “Ask them if Trace is there or if he
is with Grace and to come and get me.”

He heard his father talking, but
was trying hard to hear anything going on at the other end of Grace’s phone. There
was another shot, this one farther away, but nothing more. Then, as his father
turned to him, he thought he heard Thomas.

“It’s Cain. He wants to know if
she has the same cell phone as before. He said that Shamus has a tracker on it
and that they’re headed to it now. And Trace is with someone named Alyssa.”

Michael nodded.

“The cops are on their—”

Michael held up his hand when he
heard something and his father closed his mouth with a snap.

“…care what you think. You fucking
moron. If you want to fuck her, you’ll have to do it after I kill her. She’s
caused me enough fucking problems to last four lifetimes.”

“I’m not fucking her dead. And I
want her awake when it happens. If you so much as put another bullet in her
before I get my chance then I’ll…I’ll kill you.”

Michael looked at his dad as he
stood in front of him as Thomas spoke. He covered the mouth piece and took a
pen from his pocket as he pinched the phone between his shoulder and chin. He
wrote the word “Thomas” on his hand, and nodded when Lucas looked up at him
sharply.

He heard something thud, then more
cussing. He heard someone moan and knew it was Grace. At least she was still
alive was all he could think about. Then more doors slamming before the car
started. This time when someone spoke it was muffled. He couldn’t make out much,
only an occasional word here and there, but not enough to figure out who the
woman was and what she was doing with Grace. He had a pretty good idea, but
nothing concrete.

When Lucas handed him his cell
phone and his mom and he walked away Michael held the phone to his other ear
and said hello.

“We’ve pinpointed the area where
she is by less than ten feet. It would be better if she hadn’t taken her out in
the middle of nowhere, but we know close enough…fuck,” Payton snapped. “They’re
on the move. Could be better this way. They might move into somewhere we can
get a better bead on them.”

“Grace is still alive. I can hear
them. Thomas is with them. He’s…he wants her. The woman she’s with is saying
things that… From what Grace has told me, it could be Verrie, the one who
killed the man in her parents’ house when she was a kid.”

Payton would know better than
anyone not to give him platitudes or soft words. Like his business dealings, he
was more of a “give it to me straight” kind of guy. So he was very grateful for
Payton in his next words.

“She can hold her own, but this
woman is beyond nuts. We’ve been doing some investigating since you and I’ve
talked and we’re reasonably sure she’s responsible for nearly all the killings
that have been associated with the family. And I’ve had a buddy of mine doing
some looking around on the family property, both here and in California.” Payton
paused just enough that Michael knew he wasn’t going to like what he said next.
“They’ve been able to uncover at least four bodies here and one in Cali. Two of
those here haven’t been in the ground long, the other as recent as the last
year. The one they’ve been able to see has been mutilated. We’re waiting on
word to see if it was post or during.”

Michael had a feeling that they
would find she’d done it while the guy was still living. He shuddered when he
thought of what could happen to Grace. The limo pulled up in front of him and
slid to a soft stop. He turned his back to it and spoke to Payton again. “Did
you send us a car?” Payton said he had and gave him the driver information. “All
right. My parents and I are coming there. Tell Trace…tell him we’ll get her
back and that I’ll be there soon.”

“Will do,” Payton said. “And
Michael, when this is over, I’d like to talk to you about moving here permanently.
You and the new family can build and we’ll be all one big, happy clan.”

Michael didn’t say anything. His
throat had closed up on the emotion he felt about having a family of his own.
He sat in the limo across from the only father he’d ever known and didn’t know
what to say to him. He was glad that the man seemed to know this and didn’t
speak either for a long time.

“It’s entirely my fault,” Lucas
said and before Michael could tell him he was full of shit he raised his hand
to stop him. “Just after his mother died I sort of went into a deep sort of
depression. He was hurting too, I guess. Though to be honest, I never really
thought that Thomas knew his mother all that well. He’d been in trouble a great
deal as a child and we ended up having him put…away, I guess. He’d had this…he
would kill the neighbor’s animals. Just for fun, he’d told us. It was just a
way to pass the time.”

“How old was he?” Joey asked
softly. “How old was he when it started and then when he was let go?”

They both looked at Lucas as he
shifted on his seat. “Five. His mother died when he was seven so he was in the
home for just under two years. And when he came home he was so different. And
as long as he took his medications he was the same as every other little boy.”

Michael waited and when Lucas didn’t
speak for a while he reached over and took his hand. “What happened to make you
not want to be with him anymore? What made you turn from him?”

Lucas turned and looked at him with
tears in his eyes. Michael could see the pain there. It was raw and open,
nearly as messy as a real wound and no less painful.

“I fell in love with your mother
and you. You were the kind of son I wanted. Normal and smart. You seemed to
have it all together and knew just what you wanted, what you needed. And then
when you signed up for the service I realized that I loved you more than I ever
had Thomas and would never feel…I’m such a horrible man.”

The sobs tore through Michael. He
didn’t know what to do about what Lucas had just said, so he looked to his
mother. She, too, was crying, but her tears were silent. She held onto her
husband and said soft words, but nothing that Michael could understand.

“You’re not a horrible man. And I’ll
kill anyone who tries to say differently.” Michael looked away as he began
telling his parents something he’d never told anyone before. “Thomas was…he’s
evil. He’s always been that way, even when we were children. I knew about
things, things that I’d never talked about with you, but I learned to watch out
for. Things like people around him. He always acted, no matter who they were,
that he was above them. And the drugs didn’t help him either.”

“Drugs?” Lucas asked. “I never… Well,
I suppose that’s not true either. He seemed to be fine for long periods and,
though I should have questioned him, to be honest I was just glad he wasn’t
bothering me. And the evil part, I agree. As much as it pains me to say it, he
should never have been released from that home. None of this would have
happened if I had just—”