Killing Secrets (38 page)

Running out of time to stop the plan Rachel had set in motion, he glared across his parents’ living room at the FBI tech clipping a mic to her lacy bra, as if the two women were alone in the room and not within viewing range of half a dozen male agents. Patrick’s fingers twitched to pull the edges of Rachel’s blouse together, so they couldn’t ogle his woman.

Get a grip. No one’s looking, but you and the female agent…and Rachel isn’t yours. You threw away that opportunity when you revealed her secret and broke her trust.

He straightened away from his position leaning against his dad’s easy chair as the agent fiddled with the microphone one last time and walked to the end table where her equipment case rested. With her out of the way, he approached the one woman who’d turned his world upside down and made him crazy in a couple of short weeks.

Rachel’s shuttered expression stopped him, but he was close enough his lungs filled with the luscious scent of lilacs and warm woman. Ignoring the “hands off” message in her eyes, he reached out and gently traced his thumb over one of the dark circles that testified to her sleepless night, a bruise from the accident stark marring her pale cheek.

His gaze traced the wide black and blue line that started at the top of her left shoulder, ran over her collarbone across her chest to disappear behind her blouse over her ribs, where the truck seatbelt had caught her in the rollover. He examined her arms below the short sleeves, the bruises and scratches from her attempts to save herself when she was pushed into the empty elevator shaft at Southgate.

She looked so fragile after the trauma of these past few days, he was afraid a puff of air would break her into a million pieces. He’d learned she was stronger than she looked. That didn’t mean he wanted her to confront her brutal ex-husband like this. It was insanity.

When she swayed without her crutch to support her, he put his hands on her arms to steady her. “You can’t do this, Rachel,” he said, his voice low, insistent. “There has to be another way.”

“Greg’s instructions were specific. I show up at the zoo or I’ll never see Amanda again,” she said, straightening her spine. “I don’t care what I have to do. I’m getting her back.”

That’s what concerned him. Her ex-husband wanted both Amanda and Rachel, so what was to stop him from forcing her to go with him when he had them together? “Honey,” he said, aiming for a more measured tone. “Think about it. He has no reason to return Amanda. She’s his ticket to your great-aunt’s estate, and his one bargaining chip to control you. You can’t just hand yourself over to him.”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of everything that can go wrong? It’s all I’ve thought about every waking moment since he kidnapped my baby from the hospital,” she cried, her voice cracking. “I have to do this if we’re ever to be free of him. Don’t you see that? I trust the FBI and Jack,” she laid a slim hand flat over his heart, “and you to keep us safe.”

Despite yesterday, she still trusted him?

Something loosened inside Patrick. He couldn’t stop what he did next if his life depended on it. He pulled Rachel into his arms and kissed her like they were alone in the room. He poured everything into the caress, his regret for what he’d done to hurt her, the feelings for her he could no longer deny, and his desire to claim her as his own.

When Rachel moaned in response and her tongue darted into his mouth, the tenor of their kiss changed. It became carnal, passionate. Their tongues met, retreated, promising seductive delights he didn’t dare explore without a bedroom door between them and the world. It had been too long since he had her beneath him crying out his name as she…a cough behind him reminded him the world wouldn’t wait.

He reluctantly lifted his head. “We’ll pick this up later,” he promised as he dug deep for control. He tugged her gaping blouse closed over her breasts and began to button it.

The simple action helped him to focus on the task at hand. If Rachel was going to do this he had to treat this like a mission, put away his reservations, and show his confidence that everything would turn out. “Stick to the plan, Rach,” he said, his voice rough as he tucked her blouse into the waistband of her flower-covered skirt. “Concentrate on getting Amanda away from Bishop as fast as you can.” He glanced over her shoulder at the agents watching them. “I don’t care what the FBI wants you to do beyond that.”

“They only want what I want, Patrick. My freedom. Amanda’s freedom. She comes first.” She jockeyed her single crutch under her left arm before she reached up to drag her fingers over his taut jaw. “I promise, the moment I get what we need or it looks like I can’t do it, I’ll grab Amanda and run in the opposite direction.”

Patrick crushed the mental image of the two of them running for their lives before it could threaten his self-control. He fell back on repeating the points she already knew. “I’ll be in the FBI van in the parking lot,” he said, “but, if you get into trouble, yell bloody murder. The zoo’s been open half an hour, so undercover agents are already in place around the rhino enclosure.”

He hated that he couldn’t personally keep Rachel under surveillance within the zoo grounds. Jack convinced him that they couldn’t take the chance. Bishop might recognize him. So, he was stuck in the van listening to everything go down. He was sure to go out of his mind until he had Rachel and Amanda back in sight again.

“It’s going to be fine,” Rachel said in a low voice he knew only he could hear. “I, we, there’s something I have to tell—”

She shook her head. An odd expression flickered across her face. “We’ll talk when this is all over. Okay?”

He nodded to reassure her. His hand cradling the back of her neck, he pulled her in for another soul-destroying kiss.

“Patrick?” Jack called over his shoulder. “It’s time to go.”

Releasing Rachel’s mouth, he watched her lick her lips, sigh, and then bend down to pick up Amanda’s doll—the only thing her ex-husband demanded Rachel bring with her—from the sofa cushion. As she stuffed the doll into Patrick’s old backpack, he hoped Bishop didn’t notice the fresh stitching in the fabric around the porcelain neck, wrists, and feet where the FBI had repaired the doll after discovering what the con man had hidden inside.

When Rachel straightened, she gave everyone in the room a brave smile that made Patrick’s lips thin. He knew by the tremble of the free hand she placed over her stomach that she was terrified, rightly so considering the man she was confronting.

It was all Patrick could do not to put his fist through the nearest wall as he followed Rachel and the roomful of agents out the front door.

~~~

Rachel sat in the back seat of the cab—Patrick’s backpack clutched in both hands—and swallowed the gorge rising in her throat. She glanced at the undercover agent driving her to her destination and wished she dared tell him to turn around. The only reason she didn’t run straight back into Patrick’s arms where she felt safest was because the two people she loved were in front of her.

She watched the dark SUV Patrick, Jack, and two FBI agents rode in turn the next corner as they sped to get into place in the surveillance van already parked in the zoo lot. She would arrive at the front entrance by taxi. If everything went according to plan, she would have Amanda in sight within the next ten minutes.

Her pulse raced as she thought of the events of the last twenty-four hours, the roller coaster ride of emotions that had torn at her since Jane revealed her secret in Patrick’s office. Rachel’s anger with him. Their kiss. The attack on the road that killed Cook, and put her and Amanda in the hospital. Discovering she was pregnant with Patrick’s child. His revelation of her secret. Amanda’s kidnapping.

Her nerves jumped as she remembered Greg’s call on her cell at the hospital. “I’ve got the brat,” he’d spat in her ear. “If you ever want to see her again, you’ll do exactly what I say.
Exactly
. And I’d better not see any cops or that asshole boyfriend of yours, either. If I do, Amanda pays. You hear me, bitch?”

She’d heard him all right. She heard the brutality, no longer masked in his voice. The edge of desperation underlying his frustration and anger at being denied what he desired. Listening to his instructions, she knew she wouldn’t walk away from him with her daughter unless she obliterated his threat from their lives once and for all.

The moment her ex-husband hung up, she called Jason Sommerfield, the FBI agent that she’d dealt with in California, the man she’d given the evidence they used to arrest Greg the first time. Once she explained what she wanted to do, Sommerfield coordinated with agents in the Denver office to set up this morning’s sting. He’d flown in to assist and was in the SUV with Patrick and Jack.

She’d never questioned her decision to use the FBI to rescue Amanda…until now. So much could go wrong. She didn’t know what kind of shape Amanda was in. Had Greg hurt her? Was her spleen injury aggravated when he kidnapped her from the hospital? Security tapes showed him entering her emergency room like he belonged there; he wore the missing nurse’s uniform after knocking the poor man out and stashing him in a closet. Greg might have been stopped if he’d tried to take Amanda out the ER entrance, but he’d used a wheelchair to take her deeper into the hospital, like he was moving her to her room. Instead, he simply wheeled her out a main entrance unchallenged.

The man seemed to have a plan for everything. It was one of the reasons it had taken so long to figure out a way to escape him the first time. They’d succeeded temporarily, but at what cost? Her traumatized little girl had crawled into a silent hole where no one could reach her. And Greg? Greg had found them again.

How would she get her daughter away from him this time? What was she going to have to do to get him to spill his guts so that the FBI could put him away forever? So they’d be free of him? Her mind swam with questions she couldn’t answer.

Concentrate on the prize, little chickadee,
her father’s voice whispered in her head. His words smothered the anxiety chewing on her composure. Amanda was all that was important. Amanda.

After fourteen hours of worry, fear, and worst case scenarios running through her head, she was going to see her little girl again.
Her
little girl. She was confident the DNA tests she’d requested before leaving the hospital would reveal the truth, a truth she knew in her heart. Whatever else happened after she confronted Greg, she’d make sure he couldn’t take Amanda away from her in a court of law. Greg wouldn’t walk out of the zoo today. The FBI, Jack and Patrick would see to that.

Heavens, but she wished Patrick was holding her again, making her believe this was all going to work out. Telling her he wanted her to stay when it was finished.

“You ready, Ms. James?” The agent driving the cab looked at her in the rearview mirror as he pulled up to the curb at the main entrance to the Denver Zoo.

“I’m ready,” she said with a decisive nod.

Unbuckling her seatbelt, she eased Patrick’s pack over her bruised back and shoulders. Hands freed, she opened the cab door, got out, and tucked her crutch under her left arm. Her muscles screamed in protest despite the three over-the-counter pain pills she’d taken an hour ago.

She resisted the impulse to scan the parking lot behind her and locate the van where she knew Agent Sommerfield, Jack, and Patrick were hidden. Just knowing that they watched and listened helped her to take the first step toward the line of people handing over their entry passes and tickets. Despite the fact the zoo had been open less than an hour, she could see the grounds beyond the gates had already filled with a number of summer visitors.

It promised to be another scorcher of a day. There were pockets of kids in similarly marked summer camp T-shirts dashing around parents and their families, all out for a full day of fun and animal viewing. Jack suggested that Greg picked this public place knowing he wouldn’t look out of place with a four-year-old at his side. Greg most likely believed the number of people would allow him to get lost in the crowd should it become necessary for him to disappear. She preferred to believe numbers worked more in her favor, allowing the undercover agents to hang closer without being spotted.

When she got to the employee at the gate, she reached into the breast pocket of her cotton blouse—a bright neon-green to make her more visible—and presented the member pass the FBI had provided. The man smiled, glanced at the crutch and walking cast the doctor gave her to better support her sprained ankle, and invited her to go through the swinging gate meant for those with wheelchairs and carriages.

Show time.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Aware Greg could be watching, she followed his instructions and aimed right along the main walkway she’d seen on the zoo map the FBI pulled up on the internet. With the aid of her crutch, she made her way past a group of snack shops, skirted the enclosures that made up Predator Ridge, and passed the Wild Encounters Amphitheatre. She tried to spot the undercover agents she knew were tracking her. There were so many people wandering the grounds she couldn’t pick out specific individuals.

She gave up that pointless exercise when she approached the pachyderm enclosures and her gaze zeroed in on Greg and Amanda. Her pulse leapt when she saw them standing at a bar fence in front of a pair of rhinos. Greg dressed deceptively casual in jeans and a polo shirt while Amanda wore a sundress, lace-trimmed socks and shiny dress shoes. It matched Greg’s standard photo shoot look of the perfect family on an outing.