Beautifully Forgotten (49 page)

Her voice was hoarse and hardly over a whisper when she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Seeing inside you.” His hand wasn’t steady when he brushed a lock of hair from her face. “I almost lost you. I can’t even begin to tell you what that feels like.”

“I—”

But Trace wouldn’t let her speak. “I need to say this. I was so afraid that I was going to lose you, that without you I would become the horrible guy I used to be. But you changed me, you’re inside me, and I can’t find the words to tell you just what that means to me except to say thank you.” His finger brushed over her lips. “Thanks for not letting go.”

He wiped the tears that rolled down her cheeks before he kissed her, her salty tears lingering on his lips.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Love, sweetheart, is not strong enough a word.”

She turned her head and pressed a kiss to his palm. Her eyes were sad when she looked back at him.

“I can’t have any more children, can I?”

“We have a child.”

The sight of her heartache ripped at him as silent tears streamed down her face. Somehow she managed to ask through her tears, “Have you seen her?”

“She looks just like you.”

“Have you named her?”

“I was waiting for you, but I do have a name, if it’s all right with you.”

“What?”

He touched her face. “Everyone said I needed to have faith that you would come back to me and so it seems fitting that our daughter should be called Faith.”

“There’s someone here to see you.” Ember looked past Trace to see her dad in the doorway, and in his arms was a small bundle. Behind her dad was her uncle, Chelsea, Lucien and Darcy, Rafe and Kyle, and even Brandon and Seth were there.

Shawn walked across the floor and lowered the baby into Ember’s arms. Trace watched Ember’s face as she looked at her daughter for the first time. Her pain was still there, but a radiance covered her expression, and he knew what she was feeling because he had felt it too. He brushed his finger across his daughter’s cheek. He hadn’t thought there was room, but his heart swelled looking at his daughter.
His daughter
. He had feared he’d become his dad, but looking into her sweet, innocent face, he knew he was nothing like him. He would fight all the world’s armies for her; he would walk right into hell and take on the devil himself for his daughter.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Ember said softly.

“She looks like her mom.”

Tears that were still fresh in her eyes began to well up and over, trailing lines down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Her eyes looked up into his. “Our daughter.”

“What’s her name?” Brandon asked.

She reached for Trace’s hand and they shared a moment before she said, “Faith Amanda Montgomery.”

D
arcy sat in her office, but her thoughts were on Trace and Ember. Ember was growing stronger every day and, though Darcy knew her friend was heartbroken that she would never have another child, she had Faith and Trace. It was a beautiful sight, seeing the three of them together, knowing how close Trace had come to losing her.

Her thoughts turned to her son. It was just another twist to the tale that they’d only met him because he’d worked with Ember. It was amazing to her how so many lives could be entwined, especially in a place as large as Manhattan. Thinking about that, she wondered: Had it been a coincidence that Brandon worked at the Michaels campaign headquarters?

She had thought about it a lot during the weeks since her reunion with Brandon, and finally her curiosity over whether Charles intentionally brought Brandon into their lives made her want to talk with him. If he had, she needed to thank him, because he had ultimately brought them together. Ember had said that he was still maintaining the headquarters while he tied up a few last things. Darcy had called and explained who she was, and he was very amenable to talking to her that same day. She was supposed to meet Lucien and Brandon at Clover, but she didn’t have to be there for an hour.

The headquarters were empty. Apparently everyone had been let go the same time as Ember and Brandon. There was a light in the back where she assumed Charles’s office was.

“Hello. Is anyone here?”

She walked toward the office and heard what sounded like a scuffle, but before she could react in any way, the door opened and out walked a woman dressed to the nines. She pointed a gun at Darcy.

Part of Darcy was convinced that she was imagining the bizarre scene she found herself in. Her gaze moved behind the woman to see Charles Michaels out cold on the floor, and immediately she feared the worst. Her first instinct was to run, but the woman looked out of control, her hands shaking as she held the gun on Darcy. Darcy feared if she startled the woman, sheer terror would make her squeeze the trigger.

She asked, afraid to hear the answer, “Is he dead?”

“No.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Just knocked him in the head.”

She sounded awfully calm for someone who had just rendered a man unconscious and was now holding a gun on a complete stranger. Darcy’s fear kicked up a notch and her words were tainted with it when she asked, “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. Hi, I’m Vivian. His wife.”

She looked like a PTA mom, so why the hell did she have a gun?

“You do know that you have a gun on me, right?”

“Yeah, sorry. Dreadful things, aren’t they?”

“Why don’t you put it down?”

“Not sure who I can trust.”

“Maybe you should start from the beginning?” Darcy suggested.

“Good idea. Heidi . . . Do you know Heidi?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Heidi got pregnant with his child.”

“And she started blackmailing you,” Darcy offered.

Surprise covered Vivian’s face. “Yes. For almost two years we were being held hostage by her greed. I wanted to get out from under her control, but I didn’t know how to make her stop. And then one day I get approached by someone who offers me a solution.”

Sarcasm dripped from Darcy’s words. “Let me guess. Kidnap a baby?”

“Exactly. Looking back on it now, it was beyond stupid of me to agree to such a plan, but I wasn’t thinking clearly: fear and my own greed clouded my judgment.”

“It was Jonathan Carmichael who approached you, wasn’t it?”

Darcy didn’t miss the look of suspicion on Vivian’s face. “How do you know that?”

“It was my baby he took.”

“Oh my God. I wanted to return him to you, but I was afraid I would go to jail. I didn’t understand why he did it, but he took great joy in separating you from your baby. He never intended to take Heidi’s baby; he lied to me and made me his accomplice and then threatened me to keep my silence about the kidnapping or he’d leak it to the press, which would have destroyed Charles’s political career.” Tears filled Vivian’s eyes. “I tried not to think of you and how what we’d done had changed all of your lives. I’m so sorry.”

Darcy wasn’t about to absolve the woman. Instead she asked, “How is Heidi tied to this?”

“I think it was Jonathan who told Heidi of the botched kidnapping, but I don’t think it was to keep me in line. I had the sense he was distracting her. My guess is that she was getting close to finding out something he didn’t want discovered, so he set me up and gave Heidi more leverage over Charles and me.”

Well, that was certainly true. Heidi must have learned about Jonathan and Elizabeth and somehow put it together that Jonathan was her murderer.

Vivian continued, “The night Heidi died I went to see her. I called her and demanded a meeting. We fought. I didn’t mean to kill her. I wanted to kill her, but I didn’t think I’d hit her hard enough, and then I heard on the news that she was dead. I panicked; I mean, Charles was trying to run for the senate and here I’m plotting kidnappings and getting myself caught up in a murder. I thought about turning myself in, but then that would still have reflected poorly on Charles. And that’s when he called me.”

“Who called you?”

“I don’t know. He said he’d clean up my mess, but it was going to cost me. Ten thousand a month. I mean, I don’t have that kind of money and I couldn’t take that amount from our account without Charles knowing about it.”

“So you told Charles everything,” Darcy finished.

“Heidi had been to Charles’s office a few times to taunt him about my indiscretions, including my botched kidnapping attempt, but I shared with him my part in her murder. He’s been trying to make it right ever since. Months of fixing what took me years to so royally screw up.”

“So, him bringing Brandon here was intentional.”

Vivian looked confused. “Brandon, is that your son?”

“Yes.”

“So you found him?”

“Only because your husband put Brandon in the same social circle as Lucien.” Charles Michaels seemed like a decent man. “Why did you knock him unconscious then?”

“Oh, that. I didn’t know it was him. I thought it was the blackmailer. He called me and told me to meet him here.”

Dread slithered down Darcy’s spine just as a voice spoke up from the shadows. “You shouldn’t have done that, Vivian, because now I’m going to have to kill her too.”

It was a completely inappropriate emotion to be feeling, but in that moment Darcy was furious. She turned her eyes on the man and asked, “And just who in the hell are you?”

“I’m a friend of the family.” He moved closer so that Darcy could see his hazel-green eyes. “I’m Todd.”

Lucien checked his watch for the sixth time. Darcy was almost an hour late.

“Where do you think she is?” Brandon asked.

“I don’t know. She would have called if she was going to be late.”

He reached for his phone and called her, but it went immediately to voice mail, so he called Allegro. Tara answered.

“Tara, have you seen you Darcy?”

“Hey, Lucien. Not for a while. She left here about two hours ago.”

“Did she mention where she was going?”

“Yeah, she said she was meeting up with you and your son. That’s really cool, boss, that you found him and you’re all together now.”

He didn’t mean to be curt, but with each minute that passed, he was getting more and more worried.

“Anywhere else?”

“Oh, wait. She did ask if I knew where that senator dude’s office was located. You know, the one who dropped out of the race?”

“Thanks.” Lucien hung up. “Do you know the number to Charles’s office?” he asked Brandon.

“No, but we could google it.”

Lucien called the number, but there was a busy signal. Who had busy signals anymore? He looked over at Brandon. “You know how to get to this office, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go.”

Darcy stood in what felt like a bad horror movie scene. She wanted the director to call cut and for them to reshoot the scene. She’d forgo being thoughtful and instead head directly to where she wanted to be.

Lucien and Brandon were waiting for her. Would he come looking for her or would he just get pissed and assume the worst because she was late again?

At the shock of seeing Todd, Vivian had dropped her gun, which was bad, but it was made worse when Darcy realized Todd was carrying.

Vivian was crying softly, but without tears, probably because it would ruin her perfectly applied makeup. Todd was pacing as if he hadn’t really thought through the rest of his plan.