Hunted (21 page)

J.D.’s icy gaze locked with hers, and without breaking contact, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Blade, for seeing our sister home. We were very worried.”

Still he stared at her and Morgan couldn’t look away. The lump in her throat grew, the tightness in her chest pressing her breath out. She looked at them in turn and wondered if she should have come here. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe she should have disappeared.

“Yes, I’m certain you were very worried,” Lincoln answered.

She rubbed her forehead. God, she couldn’t think. Lincoln’s cup clicked onto the countertop. He walked past her brothers and stopped in front of her. “I’m going to the car to get our bags. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Morgan nodded, swallowed and watched him walk out through the dining room.

No one in the kitchen said a word. A headache throbbed at the base of her skull and she rubbed her forehead again.

J.D. watched his sister struggle with whatever plagued her mind.

He glanced at the clock and saw it was almost six. “You should go up and get ready. Shower.” The others had missed her and she was going to at least say hi. He had no idea what the hell was going on. She showed up out of the blue looking sick and weary and not herself. But he couldn’t change the fact that the house would be filled with family tonight.

Her eyes met his, then slid away. For a moment, she stiffened, but shrugged. “Whatever.”

He watched her lick her lips, swallow and walk out the kitchen.

Gideon took a deep breath. “What the hell happened to her?”

J.D. watched her disappear around the corner. “I don’t know.”

Suzy slammed the oven shut, shoved her red sweater sleeves up to her elbows. “Girl should be in bed. She looks half dead. Not entertaining that nosy-ass aunt of yours and the other poachers. Not Eve, of course. Only decent one out of the entire bunch.”

Suzy had firm ideas on everything. One of them was the extended Gaelord family, of which she could mumble about all day if she were so inclined. Thankfully, she rarely was.

She turned on him, and the small bells at her ears jingled. “You go easy on her, J.D. Someone’s hurt her and hurt her bad.” The wooden spoon she waved at him slung brown mixture at his white shirt.

J.D. sighed and scraped it off with his finger, licking it off. “You’re making brownies.”

“Don’t you try and change the subject. Go talk to her. See if she needs anything. And you,” she said, turning to Gideon, “you go see if that Mr. Blade needs help carrying their stuff in.”

“Yes, ma’am,” both he and his brother answered. How was it he rarely felt as if he had control over his own house?

Gideon followed him out of the kitchen, into the dining room and back into the foyer.

Morgan was walking up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing. She did look ill. She was too damn skinny.

“Are you sick?” he asked, more gruffly than he’d intended.

She stopped, slowly turning back to him. “Sick is as sick does.”

Fear slid through him. “Don’t play those damn word games with me, Morg.” He walked to the base of the stairs, she several above him. “Answer me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t think so.”

Well, they’d damn well find out. “You’re seeing a doctor first chance after the holidays.”

Her eyes seemed almost hollow now. She opened her mouth, then shut it.

What was with her?

He started to ask her that very question, but the door shut behind him. He didn’t miss Morgan’s startle at the sound.

“We’re not finished with this discussion.” He turned and saw their guest standing with three bags. The coat had shifted and J.D. caught the glimpse of a shoulder holster.

What the hell?

His gaze rose to Mr. Blade, who stared back at him.

“Jack,” Morgan said, “I’m tired.”

A cell phone chirped out and Mr. Blade set the bags down, reached into his pocket and grabbed the phone out before it rang again.

“Yes?”

They watched as his face hardened.

“When?” he snapped out, jerking his wrist to check the time on a sleek black Movado watch. “How long ago? Any word yet?” Those intense eyes rose and collided with Morgan’s.

J.D. looked from one to the other.

Morgan was pale, sinking slowly down to sit on the steps, her eyes locked on Blade’s.

“Description?” Blade asked, drawing J.D.’s attention back to him.

If possible the man’s features hardened even more, the skin pulling tight over his bones, his mouth thinning, his eyes narrowing. “Bugger it.” He sighed, raked a hand over his face and shook his head. “I don’t fucking know a bloody damn thing anymore. I’ll get back with you.”

With that he hung up.

“What?” Morgan asked softly.

For a moment Blade just stared at her, then said, “They found another. Near Prague. Three weeks old from preliminary tests.”

J.D. looked from one to the other, lost.

“Another?” Gideon asked.

Blade didn’t answer them; instead, his gaze on Morgan, he said, “She rather looked a bit like you.”

* * *

Lincoln saw Morgan to her room, dropped her bag and purse just inside the door. He glanced around. A white iron bed frame, a quilt in yellows and lavender. Sheer curtains, books on a shelf, some photos on the dresser. He didn’t cross the threshold.

She stood just inside, her arms crossed over her chest, slightly bent, as if she might bow at any time.

Without turning, she said, “They want me to go downstairs to play nice with the family tonight.”

The hell she would. “You’re not.”

She turned and smiled at him. “You tell that to my brother. I’m too tired to argue with him. When one argues with Jackson, you have to explain . . . ” Her jaw moved out then back in. “I can’t. I just can’t explain all . . . all . . . ” She shook her head. “Did I make a mistake coming here?”

He leaned against the door frame. “I don’t think so. You need them, and they need you and you will all get through this.”

She took a deep breath and nodded once, then again. “Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ll go talk to your brothers.”

She shrugged and he opened his mouth to say more, then shut it, changing his mind. Instead he merely said, “Get some rest, Morgan.” He pulled her door closed.

For a moment, he stood in the dimly lit hallway, the smell of dinner below filling the house. Smells of roasted meat, spices, sweets, vanilla and cinnamon.

The door behind him opened and he felt her, knew she was there.

Without turning, he said, “You should rest.”

“She looked like me?” Her voice, the pain in it, washed over him.

Instead of answering her, he walked down the stairs, glad when she didn’t follow him.
Did she look like me?

He shook his head. One dead body found on the outskirts of Prague. The woman had been dead since the time he’d taken Dusk. Long dark hair, pale eyes, beaten and strangled. Anger beat in him. Lincoln wasn’t stupid. He didn’t believe in coincidences either.

Jezek was not one who would have taken lightly to being fooled. Berlin proved that, as did the dead in Amsterdam. He sighed and shoved the macabre thoughts away. As cold as it was, he was damn glad it was another dead woman in Prague and not Morgan.

At least her brothers would be here to help her. Jackson Gaelord might be a problem on the finer points, but to give the man some slight credit, he didn’t know the whole story. Unfortunately, that could be dangerous. One, her return needed to be quiet. Two, if the brothers didn’t have the whole story, or at least enough, they wouldn’t know what they were dealing with, when or if she needed help. And that was the surface.

She’d had nightmares with him. He didn’t think it would be any different now that she was home. He remembered her eyes, those haunted eyes, long-lashed and pale as a frozen December.

He’d seen pictures of one Morgan Gaelord before her fall from grace. She’d been a model, clothing and lingerie, more of the latter from what he’d seen. Designers from L.A. to Paris had wanted her to strut their articles of merchandise down the aisle.

Then she’d met a Simon Dixon in Martinique. The rest, as the saying went, was history. Whirlwind romance and the slimeball whisked her half a world away from her family, and straight into the world of gamblers, black markets and prostitution.

Bastard. Too bad the bleeding sod wasn’t still alive. Linc would have liked to have paid him a visit.

But all that was beside the point. Right now his main concern was for Morgan. The rest would come later.

The entryway was empty, and he followed the voices back to the kitchen.

“She looks sick,” Jackson Gaelord said.

“So lay off her, J.D. I know you want her to be there tonight, but for God’s sake . . . ”

Lincoln turned the corner and said into the silence, “Morgan isn’t coming down to entertain any guests this evening.”

For a minute no one said a word. Then Suzy looked at him and said, “Is she resting?”

“She’s upstairs. I hope she’s resting.”

Suzy nodded and picked up a cup. “I made her some cider. She always liked my cider. I’ll take it up to her.” To J.D. she glared, then glanced back at Lincoln. “We really are happy she’s home, Mr. Blade, we’re just very curious.”

“Thank you, Suzy, though I have a favor to ask. Please don’t mention the fact she’s here to anyone tonight.” He kept his gaze on the housekeeper, who was more the mother hen.

She nodded and left the kitchen through a back door that he now saw hid a staircase. There was another entrance into the kitchen from the side—an outer hallway.

No one spoke for a minute. Then Jackson asked, “What’s wrong with our sister and what the hell is going on?”

Cheery carols floated from hidden speakers that he felt like hurling through the blasted windows.

Lincoln thought about how much he could tell them. Instead of answering the question, he inquired about where to park the car so no one would ask to whom it belonged.

Gideon Gaelord answered him and said he’d take care of it.

Again silence settled around them. Lincoln decided on another cup of coffee, and since no one offered it to him, he picked up his earlier cup, dumped the dregs and refilled it.

Jackson cleared his throat. “Why can’t Morgan come down? We’re not the only ones that have missed her. Her entire family has worried and wondered.”

“They’ll just have to wonder a bit longer, then.”

“Look. Morgan used to pull stunts like this to get out of things she didn’t want to do. And I can’t help wondering if this is some ruse for Morgan to get out of—”

“Ruse?” The tight hold he’d had on his tempter snapped and he slammed his mug down on the counter, stepping closer to Jackson. “This is no
ruse,
mate. Your sister is damn lucky to even be alive and I’ll not allow anyone, family, brother or no,
anyone
, to shove her over the edge.” He took another step closer and Jackson held his ground. “You love her, you’re happy she’s home. I get that. But she’s not up to some grand celebration. She needs peace, quiet, and a haven.” He dropped his voice. “If you cannot provide it for her, then I’ll take her somewhere where she’ll obtain it. Do I make myself clear?”

The man’s eyes, pale as his sister’s, narrowed. “Just who the hell are you?”

“Do I make myself clear?” Lincoln bit out, tired of sitting back watching Morgan struggle to keep her secrets, struggle from their questions while still wanting to please them.

“Yes,” Gideon answered from the doorway. “Something happened to her, didn’t it?”

Finally, he looked away from Jackson and to the other brother. For one long moment he said nothing. Then he said, “Yes, something happened to her, though I’m not at liberty to say what. Just be bloody thankful she’s safe and at home, and that I’m not contacting you because
her
body was the one found outside of Prague. That is, if the authorities were lucky enough to find a body at all.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the kitchen.

* * *

Jackson paced in the kitchen while Gideon rinsed the dirty dishes in the sink.

“I mean it, Jack. You give her tonight,” Gid said, drying the bowl Suzy had used to mix the brownies. He set it aside and opened the oven door before shutting it again. “You can ask your questions either after everyone leaves or save them for tomorrow. I want to know what the hell is going on just as badly as you do.”

A
but
hung in the air.

 . . .
be bloody thankful she’s safe and at home, and that I’m not contacting you because her body was the one found outside of Prague . . .
Blade’s words poked the terror J.D. had kept buried for months. That one day, someone would call or show up saying their sister was dead.

What the hell had happened? He nodded and rubbed his hands over his face. “I will. I should have. I saw she didn’t look the same, but I guess I just got lost in the old Morgan antics.”

Which didn’t say much for him.

“Yeah, well, I sure as hell didn’t see any of the old Morgan in that scared girl tonight.” Gideon pointed toward the foyer, his eyes narrowed and hard.

It was rare Gideon was upset. Jackson’s younger brother had always been even-keeled, go with the flow, slow down and enjoy. Whereas J.D. had been more an activist.

The sound of someone coming down the back stairs into the kitchen had both men looking toward the breakfast nook in front of the bay window.

Suzy walked in, her normally smiling face furrowed deep with worry. She shook her head. “Something
bad
happened to our girl.”

“Did she talk to you at all?” J.D. asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.

“No,” she said, walking to the center island and taking the turkey out of the roasting pan. “Girl never had a modest bone in her body.” The carving knife scraped along the sharpening wand. “Don’t know how many times she’s stripped in front of me, or anyone else for that matter. I asked if she wanted me to wash her hair while she took a nice hot bath, like I used to, and she said no. Turned on the shower and I was getting towels out and her robe, expecting her to get in like she always did, slinging clothes this way and that, jabbering about whatever boy or trivial problem she has . . . ”