Landon: Justice Series ― Erotica Paranormal Romance (10 page)

“I’ve come to bring my daughter home.” Landon and Steele both laughed. “She’s mine, and I’ll do and say what is best for her.”

“She’s my wife.” Allister felt his balls tighten to his body so tightly he was having difficulty swallowing. He’d never realized that the two things were even closely related. His cock, if he had to piss, would be difficult to find. He knew that it had crawled up into his body so high that he’d have to wait until he was relaxed to see it. “And as for you owning her or whatever it is you think you have over her, I don’t think she sees it that way. Dillon is pretty strong-minded when that sort of stuff is brought to her.”

“You can’t have married her. I would have heard about it.” The man, Landon, didn’t comment, but only cocked a brow at him. “You think you just get away with this? How dare you. I’m in charge of what—”

“How dare I what, Allister? Marry the woman that I love? It’s been done before, let me tell you. Do it without you knowing? Well, that was a bonus for us both. We kept it quiet because we wanted to. Now, as for your plans for her now that you know where she is, if I were you, I’d think about your next move and leave while I could. You never know what might happen to you should you fall in with the wrong people.” Allister asked him what he was talking about. “Landon Logan…he’s my father.”

“No.” Landon nodded and smiled. Allister had all sorts of things he’d like to say to this man, but all he could think about was that his daughter was with a family that had caused him nothing but issues for decades. But he could not believe that for all the planning that he and the Logan’s had done, his daughter was married to a Logan anyway. “You married her to blackmail me. Well I won’t have it. I did exactly what your father wanted and got the two of you together, and he is going to pay up, or so help me I will ruin you all.”

“You think so? I don’t. You’d have to get by me to get to Dillon. Not that I don’t think she could take care of herself, but if you do tangle with her, you might be surprised to know that she’s not the kid you ran off when you murdered those people. Oh, and you might want to consider that she still has the murder weapon. What do you suppose she should do with that?” Allister knew she had it still. He’d just be too lucky for her to just have left it somewhere. “Ah, here is my lovely wife now.”

Allister turned. The woman coming toward him was not the teenager he’d seen all those years ago. Pictures, the few that he’d been able to get of her, did not do her justice. Christ, she looked just like her mother, including the glint of hatred that was shining in her eyes.

“Father.” He nodded, not even sure how to address this person she’d become. He knew that it was stupid to have thought of her as his child, weak with her love for him. But now he could see that not only had he been mistaken about how she’d matured over the years, but the love that she’d had for him was completely gone from her heart. “I see you’ve been getting to know my husband. It’s really too bad that you’re not going to be around long enough to get to really know him. But you should know that he’s nothing like you. Which I must say I find to be very refreshing.”

“You’re coming home with me, Dillon. I don’t care what you think you’ve been up to, but I want you home. I told you when you were younger that I owned you and you were mine. See that you don’t forget that.” She laughed, and Allister had had enough. He drew back his hand to hit her when his arm was suddenly behind his back and up near his shoulders. He heard his wrist break just before the pain took his breath away.

“Touch her and I will kill you.” Not a threat. This was a full promise from the man that held him. And Allister knew that Landon would do just what he said. “I’m going to let you go now, and you’re going to tell her you’re sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” His arm was jerked up higher and Allister wanted to puke, the pain was so bad. “Christ, you motherfucker…yes, I’m sorry. Sorry I ever had her.”

Allister never knew what happened after that, the pain took him away. Not only that, but he was pretty sure that he pissed himself while he was at it. The darkness just reached up and bitch slapped him into another realm.

When he woke up, he was in the emergency room at a hospital, and he was strapped to the bed. He was afraid it was a handcuff, but it was only a leather strap and his relief was profound. He had an IV in the back of his other hand that didn’t bother him overly much, as he knew how to deal with that as well. A man was sitting in the chair next to his bed, and he watched him as he looked at the file on his lap. When he looked up, Allister knew the real meaning of fear.

“Allister Payton Malone?” Allister nodded before he could think that he shouldn’t. “I’m Agent Theodore Drake of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. I’m here to speak to you about some unsolved murders.”

“I want my lawyer.” Drake nodded and stood up. That was when Allister noticed that there were others in the room with them. Men in suits as well as uniforms. And those men had on bullet proof vests, all of them strapped tightly to their chests. But it was the guns across their chests that had him swallowing hard and thinking harder. “What’s this really about? Did someone turn me in for something I didn’t do?”

“I doubt very much you really expect me to answer that, do you? You’ve already lawyered up, right? And even if I were inclined to do so, you’d not like the answer any more than I would.” At his nod, two men came up and read him his rights as they cuffed not only his hand to the bed, but both his ankles as well. He was well and truly fucked right now. “Mr. Malone, until such time that you can be moved to a facility to keep you safe, you will have guards on you at all times. And if you should decide to talk, these gentlemen here know how to reach me.”

The man was leaving him. “Hey? Wait a minute. You can’t do this. Whatever you think you have on me, you’re dead wrong. I’m here visiting my daughter. And her new husband. Landon Logan.”

“Yeah? I heard about that visit too. Didn’t go as well as you hoped, did it?” Drake smiled at him. “I’ll be around if you want to talk, Malone. But if I were you, I’d get my ducks all lined up first. I don’t think this is going to go any better than it did at the antique shop.”

Allister lay there for a good hour trying to think what the fuck just happened to him. He’d been on a mission, yes, but for it to end up where he was in trouble with the Feds was not something that would have ever have occurred to him. His daughter was going to have to pay for this shit. He didn’t have time for her stupidity. Allister asked for and received a phone.

After talking to his attorney for ten minutes, telling him he was being held, the man said he’d take care of things on this end. It was what he paid the man for so he’d better, Allister told him. As he made arrangements to come to him, Allister thought of the plan that he’d set up all those years ago with the man, and told him that it was time. Nothing more, just that it was time.

There was a long pause. Both of them knew that the line was being listened in on before Garrett finally spoke. “I’ll have it taken care of as well. I will see you in the morning. In the meantime, please keep your mouth shut and don’t ask them questions. Anything and everything will be recorded.”

“Yes. I’m aware of that.” After he handed the phone back to one of the men guarding him, he lay back. Things were about to get very bad for his daughter. He knew that she’d be dead before Garrett landed in this godforsaken shit hole.

It was, as far as Allister was concerned, no less than she deserved after all the misery she’d put him through.

Chapter 9

Dillon was stunned. Not just that, but she was pretty sure that this was all a joke. A terrible one, but a joke all the same. She looked at Landon when he said her name, she was sure for the second or third time.

“Are you all right?” She nodded, then shook her head. “Yeah, I’m right there with you. I had Hugh check it three times and for Billy to go and see as well. It’s all true.”

“But why?” He shrugged and told her that someone else was looking into everything that might give them solid answers. “I need to...I have to say this out loud. I think...I need to say it so I can believe this. That day…you went to your parents’ that day to find out what they wanted, and found out that they wanted you to marry some woman. A woman that would seal the deal on something that they had set up before you got there. You met me and we married. Now we find out that it was their plan all along. That your parents and my father had worked it out that we’d marry. And that a merger, I think you called it, would make their lives a good deal better. And in the end, we’d be dead.”

“Yeah. All that in just six months after the wedding too. They had it planned, right to the second, that while honeymooning in some other country, our plane would go down making both of them very rich. The policy that Grandda found has you listed as my wife, and that my parents and your father are sole benefactors. The date of our wedding, however, is two months from now; the plane tickets already bought, and have been for several weeks. According to the wedding invitations that are being put together right now, your father is giving you away and my parents are having this huge fucking dinner party the night before. They can plan, I’ll give them that. Oh, and Mother has an entire staff working on the invitations to get them ready to go out on Friday.”

“This is insane.” He agreed with her. “How the fuck do they even know each other? And worse yet, how the hell did they think they were going to pull this off if neither of us knew each other?”

Hugh sat down at the table with them and handed her a sheet of paper. She laid it down without reading it. Hugh looked at him and explained. This was becoming more and more surreal with each minute.

“The two of you don’t have to be present to make this look good. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what they planned too. No one has seen either of you for years, and from what I’ve heard, most people had no idea that Dillon was even a female. The invitations are going out now, and as soon as your
pictures
hit the papers, everyone will think that the couple that was paid to do this is actually you guys.” Landon picked up the paper and read it to her. “Yeah, I thought the fact that you two met years ago was stretching it a little, but who knows what the hell these people are capable of?”

“Murder. And apparently insurance fraud. Who would sell them a policy on two people that aren’t married? Not to mention, why do they get to do this anyway? Shouldn’t we have some say in who gets our money when we die?” Hugh told her that he could take out a policy on them and they’d never know. “So just anyone can collect on perfect strangers?”

“Pretty much. Haven’t you heard of those funding sites were someone will set one up for this needy person for one reason or another and collect on it when the goal is hit? Happens more than people realize.” Hugh told her he was sorry about this. “But on the other side of this, if something does happen to you, they get double the insurance money.”

“Not funny, jerk off.” Hugh left them after Landon cuffed him hard on the shoulder. This really wasn’t funny. None of it was. “Honey, we’ll be all right. I have my attorney looking into some things too. Your father and my parents are going to be in deep shit when this hits the fan.”

“You said that before. All I can see is that they’re profiting off of things that they have no rights to, making our lives a living hell, and all they’re doing is sitting in their nice comfy home with dead bodies floating around. Did I miss something?” Landon answered her. “Oh, yeah, let us not forget that my father is going to prison for a very long time if not forever, yet he looks and acts like a man without a care in the world.”

“He won’t last a week in prison.” She shivered when she realized what he meant. Her father had made some very big enemies, both on this side of the living and the other. She wondered how they would make it work, him being on the inside and them...well, ghosts. She looked up at Landon when he said that Billy wanted to ask her some things.

“He said that there is a friend of his that needs your help. The little girl has been taken from her mother and he knows that she’s still alive and well, but the father is a known drug addict, and while he wouldn’t hurt the child normally, he might get high and forget about her.” Nodding, she asked him who it was. “He said to tell you that she’ll be here soon. Teddy has told her of us.”

“I see. And this mom, is she any better than the man that took her?” Dillon told Billy she was sorry. “I have a very jaded view of people right now. I mean, who does this to a child that they created?”

“He said that she’s a good woman, her mother is...living with her to keep her safe, and Billy and she have been friends for some time. He said that he wouldn’t ask, but he can’t stand to see either of them hurting like this.” The doorbell sounded just as she was going to tell him she would do it. And before she could remember that there was someone in the house to answer the door, she stood up. Something touched her just as she was taking a step.

“Landon?” He said he was there. “Something...someone is here. With me. I can feel them but...but I can’t see them.”

“I’ve never seen her before either. She’s nodding to me. I don’t think she can speak to us.” Dillon nodded, but knew that the woman, like the things she touched to find someone, could tell her in ways that others might not know. “She’s been killed.”

“Yes. I know.” The touch moved over her face, like fingers running down her cheek. While she couldn’t actually see her, she could see her memories like her own. “She’s been killed by my father. He murdered her three months ago when he found her spying on him. She works for the police...no, not the police, but the Feds.”

“Does she know that she’s dead?” Dillon didn’t know how to ask her questions, but she seemed to understand Landon. She told him that she did. “Does she know where she is? Buried, I mean?”

“Yes. She is in a landfill about four miles from my father’s home. A man by the name of Jamie Winter took her there. He was on her list of known suspects when she was put undercover in the house. She wants you to call her handler and let him know where she is.” Landon asked her for that name. “I’m sorry, she doesn’t remember. Her name either. Is that right?”

“Sometimes. There have been times when we’ve been on cases where the people had no idea they were gone, only that they were lost. Others can tell you everything about themselves, but not their name. It’s sad.” The woman agreed with him. “Ask her if I may contact Teddy Drake?”

“She said to tell you that you can talk to her, but she cannot answer you for some reason. Can you...is it possible that you can see why she can’t answer on her own?” He said that he could, but didn’t elaborate. “I see. I don’t want to know, do I?”

“No, sweetheart, you don’t.” He asked her two more questions just as Moses, husband to their cook Alice Walker, and a cook too, came into the room telling them that they had a visitor. Landon asked to have her put in the other room and Moses just stood there. “Is there something wrong?”

“I can see the light, sir. I could always see some people’s life force if it was strong, but right now, Mrs. Landon is glowing with it. Is she like you and the others?”

“Something like us, but she can do things we can’t.” Moses nodded. “Can you speak or see the dead, Moses?”

“No sir. I can see the light, that’s all. And not on the dead. If I could, I’d have me a conversation with a few of them. But just the living.” Landon laughed when Moses did. “I’ll have tea brought in too. Alice told me how to do it. The young miss looks all done in. And if you want to know, her light is blue, sad blue.”

After giving Landon as much information as she could get from the woman, including where she thought her apartment was, Dillon went to the parlor just as Moses was rolling in a tea cart. Dillon asked Moses if it was part of the house or did they buy it the other day. She’d gotten so many things that she couldn’t remember any more.

“The shop, mistress. Mrs. Vinnie said it would be proper to have it. It’s very nice not to have to carry a tray, I’ll have to say.” She agreed with him and stood by the door with him until he smiled at her. “You can’t help her if you don’t go in. My missus said to tell you that she’ll bake you a bunch of those chocolate chip cookies if you do this.”

Nodding and asking him to please call the police for her, she moved into the room. The woman standing there was distraught, and if the tissue in her hand, torn and shredded, was any indication, she was crying a good deal as well. Dillon introduced herself to her as Kerrie, the only name she used when she was working.

“I just don’t know what to do now. He has taken her before, but the police were able to get him before he got too far. This time I think he had help. Benny doesn’t drive, you see, and had...he actually took my daughter and tried to escape with a bike the last time. He’s not overly bright.” Dillon nodded and handed her a box of tissues. “He was a stalker, you see. Followed me everywhere all the time. Then one night he...he took me in the parking lot where I worked. Raped me and left me there for anyone to come along and kill me. But by the grace of God, someone took me to the hospital. It wasn’t until weeks later that I found out that I had conceived. It was a hard decision to make to keep her, but she’s the best thing that has ever happened to me in all my life. I love her so much.”

“I’m going to ask you not to mention names. Not yours or his. And please not the child’s.” The woman nodded. “The police are coming. I try very hard to work with them when there is a kidnapping. But we have another matter going on as well, and a man you know, Teddy Drake, is coming by. He has agreed to listen to us and get you the help you need.”

“Thank you. I don’t know how to repay you for this, but I will.” Dillon told her just not to tell anyone who had helped or where she’d come to get it. “I understand. I do. People would be lined up to the street if they knew what you might be able to do for them.”

As soon as Teddy arrived the woman was calmer, and she was as well. Landon came in with the agent and as a recorder was brought out, just so there would be no details missed, the woman handed her a shoe. She explained that her daughter had lost it when her father had snatched her from the playground at the daycare.

“She knows the driver but not his name. She’s seen him before. A lot.” The feeling of terror was immediate, but Dillon didn’t tell the mother. “She’s been hurt. Not by him but on the playground. She fell, and that is how she was separated from the class. He...drugs; he drugged her. They’re moving now, going down the road, and she’s in the back seat, covered up with a smelly blanket. It smells like the place where you got your car fixed last week.”

“Can you see anything? Perhaps something along the road where she’s going?” The child was terrified, Dillon told Teddy, but she could see. “Tell me what you can see from her view point. Don’t worry if it might seem wrong to you.”

“A road sign. They’re going too fast for me to read it. She can smell things too. Beer, like the man down the street from you that drinks. There are other odors as well, but she doesn’t know them.” Squeezing the shoe tighter, Dillon concentrated on the sounds around her. “The man in the other seat, I’m assuming it’s her father, he’s yelling again. The driver is lost. Angry that this man with him has so little knowledge as to where they’re going. They’re arguing again, over some place to eat, where they can take the child with them without getting into trouble. They’re slowing down, turning right. No left; she’s not sure of her right or left, but I can see the shift in the car.”

“I’ve been trying to teach her. Can you tell her that I love her?” Dillon didn’t answer the woman. She was deep in the mind of the child.

“It’s a chicken place.” Dillon told them the name of it. “She’s very smart, looking around for someone to help her. There are gas pumps here. Lots of people, but they’re not paying attention to her. They’re in the restaurant now.”

The child was being very calm, not screaming or yelling that she was kidnapped. When she had a child, adopted or otherwise, she was going to teach them that from the very first. Then Dillon had a thought and looked at Landon.

“Can Billy go to her? Or maybe Aster? You said they can see the ghosts. Can she see them enough for them to talk to her? Help her?” Landon nodded. “Tell her to do whatever she can to get help. Scream at the top of her lungs. I can’t help her if she’s not helping herself. Tell her...there is a cruiser in the lot, it was just pulling in as they entered. Tell her to get their attention by having her scream she’s been kidnapped.”

Within moments she could feel the child’s fear. Not only fear, but her determination as well. And when the two men tried to quiet her, the little girl snapped into anger like a switch had gone on. It was over in seconds. The girl was safe. Dillon turned to the girl’s mother with a smile.

“The police are with her. The two men are being questioned as we speak, but your little girl is telling them what she knows, such as they took her off the playground and put a rag on her mouth that made her sleepy.” The mother started crying, and when her cell phone rang ten minutes later, it was the police telling her that they had her daughter.