Kiss (43 page)

“Patrice!” Landon shouted, directing his booming voice to the upper level. He turned back to the man he had called
friend
for so many years. “What’s wrong with you that you can’t keep your hands off her?”

“Oh, I think it was the other way around.”

“Do not underestimate me!”

Trent raised both hands and took a step back, the gesture of mock surrender taunting Landon.

He brought his fist up into Trent’s jaw with such speed that the man’s fuzzy head snapped back and cracked the glass of the door’s sidelight. He blinked and leaned heavily against the door frame, dazed.

“Now, now.” Patrice appeared at the top of the stairs in a blue silk robe. “That kind of behavior is not very fitting of a future president.”

“Really? Let’s talk about
fitting
behavior.”

She began to descend the steps.

“You have used me for your own gain from day one,” Landon said to Patrice. “You’ve manipulated and lied. You’ve even destroyed my relationships with my own children, and for what? A lying backstabber like him?” He glared at Trent.

Patrice joined the men on the tiled floor, eyes locked on Landon.

“What do you think this does for us?” he continued. “A sexual scandal before I even set foot in the White House? What happens if the story breaks before the election?”

Trent had righted himself and now rubbed the back of his head. “It’s gone on under your nose for eight years, Landon. What makes you think anyone will find out about it now, unless you’re the one who tells them?”

Landon was unwilling to bear the depth of this humiliation alone. He threw his hands up. “All of us will pay!”

“No, we won’t,” Trent said. “Isn’t that why you came here by yourself, at this hour? So no one would know? So we can still finish what we started out to do, no matter what?”

Landon shook his head and started to pace. The clicking of his heels on the tile echoed off the atrium ceiling. “What have you done?”

“Ask me that in two weeks and I’ll say, ‘I put Landon McAllister in the White House.’”

Landon stared at Trent. “What is my nomination built on?” he asked.

“Money.” He shrugged. “Aren’t they all?”

“Not principles, idealism? Hope? Workable solutions?
Morals
?”

“The American dream? You always were the romantic, McAllister. It’s why people like you get elected. Otherwise I would have run for office myself and convinced Patrice to divorce you. But it’s good for a presidential candidate to be married.”

Landon grunted, disgusted. “Is the money dirty?”

Patrice laughed low and moved to stand between Landon and Trent. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say your daughter has gotten under your skin with her ideas.”

“I have a brain of my own, woman.”

“Landon,” said Trent, “there’s nothing illegal going on. Just great business in an economically friendly time for the medical industry. I swear to you, every dime is legit.”

“Why should I believe anything you say to me, Trent? My employees took a cut in their profit-sharing benefits to put me here. Is that legit?”

“It’s certainly not a crime.”

“
Convince me!
Convince me that if I go on, I won’t be tainted forever. Convince me that I can trust you, because I’m sure you can see that I have every reason in the world not to.”

Patrice answered for Trent. “Shauna is the only one who doesn’t trust us.”

He sneered at her, tempted to make her feel the same pain he felt at her betrayal. Instead he managed to grind out his anger through clenched teeth.

“Not anymore.”

Trent took a step toward the kitchen, eyes on Landon. “Come sit for a minute. Have a cup of coffee. I’ll answer all your questions, but really, they’re all going to boil down to one, Landon. Will you withdraw from the race or not? I’m pretty sure you’ll see that you’re all worked up over nothing more than an open relationship. Let’s get this worked out now, so we can get on with it.”

The headlight beams of a car in the circular drive penetrated the window, crossing the faces of all three adults. Patrice peeked out through the sidelight.

“Wayne’s here,” she said.

“Good. I’ll have him join us then. One more voice of reason that will put this insanity behind us.”

41

Shauna sat in Wayne’s truck for a whole minute before deciding to get out. Worse than the possibility that Trent would not negotiate with her was the possibility that Wayne’s men would arrive with Miguel before she had tried to secure Trent’s help.

Shaking, she plodded up the brick steps and rang the bell.

She’d expected to face Trent and his hideous betrayal. But it was Patrice who opened the door.

Patrice.

Confusion washed away the words she’d rehearsed for Trent. And then she saw past her stepmother to the foyer, where her uncle looked at her with deadpan eyes. Shauna’s last hope fell away in a landslide of understanding. Her knees smacked the textured concrete of the porch as she collapsed, exhausted from chasing this carrot of possibility only to find, at every bend in the road, more horrible news.

They were working together.

She and Miguel would both die.

Patrice scowled. “Where’s Wayne?”

Landon shoved Patrice aside and stood in the doorway, looking down at Shauna with round eyes.

So he was in on it too.

The pain of the revelation brought a tremble to her arms. She stared up at Landon’s form, backlit in the door frame and blurred by fresh tears. “Why are you doing this?”

The confused expression on his face told her that he didn’t understand what she meant.

“Why would you want to hurt me? And Rudy? Why would you let them do this to him?”

Landon looked over his shoulder toward Trent, who joined Landon. “Shauna, where is Wayne?” Trent asked.

Shauna couldn’t speak past the knot in her throat. Landon’s features set in their hard lines. He was impatient with her again. “Stop this, now. Why are you here?”

“Miguel,” she managed, then swallowed to clear her throat. “You have Miguel . . .”

“Who’s Miguel?”

Patrice spun on her heel, pulled Trent out of the entry, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. She stalked off toward the kitchen.

Trent returned to the door and put a hand on Landon’s back. “Let’s bring her inside,” he said to Landon.

Inside? Panic seized her. They would take her inside and she would never come out alive!

Shauna grew hysterical. She dropped her weight against Landon’s efforts to pull her up.

“No! You can’t kill me!”

Landon’s mouth slackened. “
Kill
you? Shauna, I would never—”

“You would do anything! Look at what the drug trial did to me. The drug trial was all you—you told them to drug me!”

Landon shot a look to Trent. “The drug trial? What did you give her?”

“You approved it because you knew it was best.”

“For who, Trent? I wanted what was best for
her.
”

“Really, Landon. You knew there was a risk.”

“Is this kind of behavior a side effect?”

“Possibly.” Trent looked back toward the kitchen.

“Shauna, listen. I want to talk with you, but you’re not making any sense. You can come in and we can all sort this out together, or you can stay out here in the cold. I don’t really care what you choose.”

Shauna’s tears dried up. There was nothing more to cry about. Nothing mattered anymore. There was no way they would let her live through the day now that she knew. She’d been a fool to cling to any hope that she could save Miguel from these monsters.

She set her jaw and let Landon pull her up. Followed him like lamb to the slaughter, through the doorway, into the marble-floored foyer.

Odd how warm his hand felt on her cold fingers. She stood under a huge crystal chandelier, numb, as Trent closed the door.

“In here,” he said, and walked toward the hall.

Landon glanced at her, released her hand, and stepped after Trent. But Shauna didn’t follow them. Couldn’t follow them. She felt suffocated.

“Did you know he’s trafficking children, Landon?”

The question came out softly, but it stopped Landon before he entered the other room.

“Black-market babies are funding your campaign,” she said. “And other children. Girls.”

Landon slowly turned around. Trent had stopped and now turned as well. He walked back into the round foyer, eyes expressionless again.

“Wayne defected from the Marines during the Iraq war,” Shauna said, eager to say it all even if they knew it already. “He spent a year hiding in Thailand, established black-market connections while he was there. He met Trent on a flight to Canada, bartered his liaisons in exchange for Trent’s political access. Trent pulled strings to wipe Wayne’s military record.”

Her father looked at Trent. “You told me you recruited him from Global Wellness, that he could give us a competitive edge over them.”

Trent didn’t bother responding. His dark gaze drilled Shauna’s.

“I put my career on the line for that,” Landon said. “You used
my
connections to expunge his record.”

“Yes,” Trent said without looking at Landon. “I did.”

“Wayne’s only real role at MMV was to launder funds,” Shauna said, returning Trent’s glare with her own. “He brought in kids from Thailand, then later from Cambodia and Indonesia. The children passed through Houston and Florida and went to American families and . . . and other parties.”

“They paid MMV?” Landon’s question pleaded for a denial.

“They paid artificial overseas subsidiaries of MMV,” Shauna told him. “Shell companies. The company pocketed net amounts at a 75 percent rate.”

“This can’t be true.”

“She does have some imagination, doesn’t she?” Trent said.

Shauna looked at her father. His frown was so perplexed that she almost believed he hadn’t known any of it. But she didn’t have the stomach to embrace such a futile hope.

“I think you should go home, Shauna,” Trent said. “And you, Landon, use your head. Does this sound reasonable to you?”

Landon looked at Trent, then back at Shauna. The color had drained from his face.

“Landon . . .” Sweat beaded Trent’s forehead. “You can’t possibly believe her.”

The words reached into Shauna’s chest and squeezed her heart.
No, Landon,
you will never believe me, will you? Not when Patrice is burning my skin, not when
I’m the target of a murder, not when I am telling you the truth.

Landon took his daughter’s hand. There was that warmth again. His eyes watered. “How many children?” Landon asked.

“Three hundred fifty a year for seven years,” Shauna said. “Sixty million dollars net, nine million a year for the company. For your profit-sharing plan.”

Her father’s features seemed to age in seconds.

Was it possible that he . . . ?

“Patrice coordinated the placement of the infants,” Shauna said.

Landon studied her with a look of such confusion and despair that Shauna wondered if she could hope in him after all. That somehow he would return to her, that he would believe her.

“Please. You have to believe me. You have to. Just this one thing.” Her words came out too fast, running into each other, but she couldn’t slow them down. “It’s so important. I didn’t make up any of it. Miguel and I found out . . . Tell me you weren’t a part of this. Please. Daddy, please tell me you believe me.”

Trent laid a hand on Landon’s arm. “She’s delusional, Landon. Send her home before this gets ugly.”

“No,” Landon said, shrugging Trent off.

“She’s going to bungle everything.”

“Shut up, Trent.”

Patrice appeared and gave an object to Trent.

“Please,” Shauna whispered. She squeezed Landon’s hands, and his fingers brushed Miguel’s ring. She saw him register it, then nudge it with his thumb.

“Miguel,” she whispered. “They’re going to kill Miguel. He knows everything.”

“Stop,” Trent said. “She’s full of lies!”

“And you aren’t?” Landon snapped. “Shauna may be the only one in this room who is telling the truth!”

“You’ll lose everything, you fool.”

“I’ve already lost everything. But maybe it’s not too late to get my daughter back.”

Shauna’s eyes registered the gun in Trent’s hand as it slashed through the air and crashed into Landon’s temple.

“Dad!”

Her father staggered.

Trent leveled the gun at Shauna’s ear. Landon shouted something.

Shauna dropped to her knees and threw her arms over her head. The gun-shot filled the room.

But the detonation came from behind her, from the door. And she was not dead, not hit, not even touched.

She turned and saw two black-suited men gliding through the open door, sidearms raised.

“No one moves.”

She tried to get up, but Landon’s security detail would have none of it.

“Down!”

“Leave my daughter. Take
her
.”

Shauna saw that her father had regained his feet and was pointing at Patrice.

The men glanced at each other.

“She’s at the heart of this mess.”

Trent lay prone in a pool of blood on the marble floor, gun still in his out-stretched hand. He’d been hit by one of Landon’s men. He did not move.

Patrice was fixated on the still body. Slowly her eyes lifted, shifted to Landon, then over to the agents. “Don’t be ridiculous. He was trying to—”

“Get her out of my sight!” Landon thundered.

The closest agent nodded. “If you’ll come with me, ma’am.”

“No.”

The other agent crossed to her, grabbed her arm, and jerked her across the foyer toward the hallway. “Politeness doesn’t work on this one,” he said to his partner.

She went unwillingly, uttering a string of vile protests.

“You okay, sir?”

“I’m fine. Help Joe, and get the authorities out here.”

The agent nodded and followed the other toward the kitchen, phone already in hand.

For a moment they faced each other, father and daughter, unsure. Then Landon extended his hand to Shauna and helped her up. Through the door-way, Shauna saw a brown SUV appear at the end of the drive, creeping toward Wayne’s Chevy.