Between Darkness and Daylight (36 page)

It was the waiting part that had Nova on edge.

What was he waiting for, and would she be able to head him off at the pass before he made his move? It would help if she knew exactly what his plans were for the woman and children, when he was going to make a move, and how Zane and Ransom were involved. She hadn't seen or felt either of them in any of her latest visions, but she knew they were involved.

She needed to understand him, not that she wanted to get any closer to his mind than she already had. The man was a murderer, had killed more than once and would probably kill again. Just brushing his thoughts left 250

Gracie C. McKeever

her cold. But she
needed
to know him, his history, the physical hurts and emotional indignities he'd suffered, and at whose hands.

Before tonight, she had never known vengeance could be so powerful an emotion. His was overpowering,
overwhelming
in its depth, and God help his enemies or anyone else who dared to cross him or thwart his mission. God help her.

Nova got up to put a couple of miniature marshmallows in her cup, munching on a few straight from the bag as she mulled over her dream, trying to retrieve the gist.

Preparing herself for the brutality and turmoil, she closed her eyes and reached for his mind with her own, the first time she'd ever attempted to induce a vision. Hoping for both failure and success, she was surprised when she secured the latter so easily.

It took her a moment to acclimate, to realize that he was no longer flashing back to the log attack on his father. Nor was he simmering outside the house looking in at the party. He was somewhere else, indoors, perhaps in his own apartment.

Nova looked around the room. It was framed in dark shadows, as if she were watching it on TV, in letterbox, only the picture was more compressed. She tried to make out something that would give her a clue as to who and where he was.

An up-to-date glossy dog calendar and a clock hung on the wall to his right as he opened the fridge to retrieve a cold beer. Magnets proliferated on the refrigerator door—big ones, small ones, colorful ones, magnets shaped like food and miniature kitchen gadgets. Everything but little family messages. No childhood drawings and scrawls stuck to the refrigerator.

There were framed pictures on the walls in the living room and knick-knacks scattered here and there on the entertainment center and end tables.

Surrounded by mundane comforts of home, he sat in the corner of his sofa and threw his legs up on the coffee table. She was surprised that his place had so many touches of domesticity; he didn't particularly seem like the type. But then that was the problem. He wanted to be, wanted to recapture what had been taken from him. His family, his home. Domesticity.

He popped the tab on his beer and put it in a homemade ashtray on one of the end tables, a colorful piece of clay that a child’s hand had surely
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shaped. Ah, there it was, a framed family photo sitting on the end table beside the ashtray.

Nova homed in, peering with her mind's eye, seeing the woman from her most recent visions, posing for a portrait with her husband and their two children. They were an attractive couple, an attractive family, all dark-haired, with varying degrees of tan and copper in their unblemished complexions.

The woman was beautiful, with strong features; her chin jutted out slightly as if in defiance, and her angular jaw and high cheekbones were framed by long black hair. Her almond-shaped brown eyes stared into the camera, and beyond the smile on her full lips, Nova sensed deep sadness and regret. And the fear hovering over her like a long-suffering saint's halo.

The children were the man and woman in miniature, polished to a high gloss and dressed in their Sunday finest. Nova felt herself smiling at how long it must have taken to get them into the pressed and starched clothes, how hard it must have been to make them sit still long enough for the portrait to be taken.

The man had typical dark Latin looks, with smoldering long-lashed black eyes. Neatly trimmed black hair curled around his ears, stopping just above his shirt collar, and he wore a cocky charmer's grin, tilted just so.

He was clean-cut and would have seemed handsome, except that Nova had seen his insides and knew that the look on his face was more a sneer than a smile. She knew how his elegant hands looked clutching a hunting knife as he wielded it on a woman's torso, rather than the gentle way they now rested on the shoulders of each small child.

She looked around, trying to familiarize herself with his surroundings, searching for more details and clues to who the man was, but from her location on the sofa, Nova couldn't get past his sight and hers. Unless he moved, she wouldn't be able to get a view of the rest of the house, maybe see something personal, something with his name on it. Perhaps if he stepped in front of a mirror, she could be sure he was the same man in the picture. But he seemed perfectly comfortable staying put on the sofa.

For all she knew, he could have been someone else entirely, a jilted boyfriend, another family member. And who knew how old the picture was? The kids seemed much younger than they had in her visions. He 252

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might appear completely different, a little older,
if
he was her man at all.

Who knew anything?

At least now she had a face to attach to the menace, an
idea
of what he might look like.

But unless he surfaced, she'd never have a chance to see him outside of her visions. And if he surfaced, well then, it would probably be too late for all of them—her, Zane, Ransom and the woman and her children—

because that meant the wait was over.

* * * *

Zane arrived back from lunch eager to get down to business with his next student. He'd spent most of the forty-five minute period going over the case file to prepare. First meetings were always difficult, especially with a kid who had a history like his latest student—alcohol and drug abuse, parental neglect and abuse, being shuffled through several different foster homes from the age of six to his current fourteen. The kid had been through a lot.

He took a deep breath and opened his office door, prepared for just about anything.

Except seeing Trevor Cross sitting in the swivel chair behind his desk.

"What the f—?"

Ransom’s no-good father grinned and threw up his hands as Zane stalked across the floor towards him. "Whoa, whoa, take it easy, Youngblood."

"How the hell did you get in here?"

"Your assistant let me come in to wait for you. She understands family ties."

Zane couldn't believe his eyes or his ears. Family ties? The bastard had none, wouldn't know a family tie if it wrapped around his neck to choke him, and he absolutely had no right to come in and make himself comfortable in Zane's office, especially when Ransom often dropped by.

Too late, he remembered the open door and walked back to close it.

Ransom stood in the doorway, staring at the man behind the desk with a vague expression of recognition on his young face.

"Ransom, what are you doing here?"

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"I came by to see if you'd come with me Christmas shopping after school."

"Sure thing." He'd agreed too fast and realized his mistake as soon as the words were out. Usually, he would have given his nephew a half-assed

"maybe" or remarked on Ransom's wanting to hang out and be seen in public with an uncool old adult.

He had to get Ransom out of here before recollection set in and he got the wrong idea about what was going on. Questions were already burgeoning behind his large amber eyes. "Ran, do me a favor and get to your next class. I'll catch up with you later and we'll do all the shopping you want."

"Why send him away? I'm here to see the both of you."

"I don't want him to see you."

"Too late, Youngblood."

Zane stalked across the room again, went behind the desk and grabbed Trevor by the back of the collar. He jerked him out of the chair and dragged him from behind the desk.

"Uncle Zane!"

"Okay, okay, you got it." Trevor shrugged off Zane's hand and smoothed a palm down his suit front, then over his already slicked hair.

"No need to get so touchy."

"Ran, go to class. Please."

"But he's my fath—"

"Ransom."

"Tell your Uncle Zane to chill out, Ranny."

Ransom frowned. "Ranny?"

"Yeah, that's what I used to call you when you were a little tyke."

"I'm not a little tyke anymore."

Zane had to restrain himself from applauding the kid's bluntness. He settled for pushing Trevor into the low seat in front of his desk.

"Just give me one good reason not to have you arrested for being within a fifty mile radius of my nephew."

"You don't want to get the police involved in this, Zane, not in a family matter. Besides, he's
my son
."

Zane gritted his teeth, glancing over his shoulder at Ransom to make another entreaty and hoping that earnestness would work where parental 254

Gracie C. McKeever

tyranny hadn't. "Ransom, please go to class. I need to talk to your…father in private." Saying the word aloud almost choked him.

Ransom stared at him, obviously uncertain whether it was safe to leave him alone with Trevor.

Zane could see the doubt and anxiety in his eyes and tried coaxing his nephew with one last assurance. "Ran, we’ll be fine. I just want to talk to him."

"It'll be okay, Ranny. Listen to your uncle."

"I intend to." Ransom rolled his eyes as he turned to go, then had a second thought and turned back. "And please don't call me Ranny."

Zane released a sigh once he heard the door shut behind him and knew his nephew was out of eye- and earshot. He gathered himself before walking behind his desk and taking a seat.

Trevor got cozy in the chair across from his, crossing an ankle over a thigh and looking supremely self-assured.

He couldn't believe the cocky bastard had had the nerve to show his face around here, at Ransom's school! But then that had always been Trevor Cross's forte—his supreme arrogance, self-confidence, an innate ability to keep everyone off-balance with his boyish good looks and unpredictable charm. Zane had run up against the stone wall of charm more than once trying to reason with Sage and make her see that the guy was no good for her, and definitely no good for her son.

Never mind that Trevor's blood ran through Ransom's veins. Paternity did not a father make. But convincing Sage that the guy was bad news had been a losing proposition until proof that Trevor was abusing his own child reared its ugly head.

Sage had blamed herself once she found out the truth, had wondered how she could have let the man in her life near Ransom, why she hadn't seen the signs.

To this day, Zane could still see her tears of regret, feel her body trembling in his embrace as she sobbed and flagellated herself for her blindness and stupidity, for putting her child's safety and her custody of him at risk by trusting a player and ne'er-do-well like Trevor Cross.

"Thinking about how best to dispose of my body while Ransom's not here?"

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"You've got the balls to make jokes like that around me? You're stupider than I always thought you were, Cross."

"Hey, hey, no need to be unpleasant. 'Tis the season to be jolly."

Zane just stared, taking great satisfaction in watching Trevor fidget in his seat.

"Kid's got quite a mouth on him. Your doing?"

"I guess so, if you call speaking one's mind 'a mouth.'" For once, Zane was thankful for his nephew's freshness. Maybe it would be enough to turn his father off, give him second thoughts and make him leave once and for all. "What do you want, Trevor?"

"I would think that was fairly obvious."

Zane grimaced, then his eyes slowly widened as he looked at the smarmy grin spreading across Trevor's face. "I take it back. You're not stupid—you've just plain lost your mind."

"One would think that I've found it and come to my senses."

"Because you crawled out of whatever hole you were in long enough to come see your son? What makes you think he wants you in his life now? What makes you think he even needs you?" A familiar twinge of cold doubt crept in and took up residence in Zane's heart as he said the words. He wasn’t altogether sure of his footing where Ransom was concerned.

From the beginning, the boy hadn't made it any secret that he didn't want to live with him. Zane had always put down his sudden hostility and resistance to the kid's grief, the cruel circumstances that had led to him having to move in with him when all he'd wanted to do was crawl up into a ball and mourn. But what if there was more to the kid's belligerence than he thought. What if Ran really wanted to be with his father?

Hell, for all he knew, the boy might be better off with Trevor.

Over my dead body!

Ransom would just have to suffer along as he'd been doing, because Zane wasn't letting him go, not to Trevor Cross anyway.

Trevor leaned forward in his chair, as if following Zane's train of thought and wanting to press his edge of paternity. "Tell me, Youngblood, what son doesn't want his father in his life?"

"He's got me, Trevor."

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"That's all well and good. But when you're through with soothing your ruffled uncle's feathers, I'm still the kid's father."

Zane clenched a fist, slammed it on the desk, surprising himself but taking extreme pleasure in seeing Trevor flinch and sit up straight as if steeling himself for a punch. "No court in its right mind would ever grant you custody of Ransom. You'd be lucky to get visitation."

"You're sure about that?"

"Ransom belongs with me and this is where he's going to stay. Sage took steps against something like this happening, so you can hawk your I'm-his-father line somewhere else."

He wanted to wipe that smarmy grin right off Trevor's face, but consoled himself with the knowledge that Sage had, as soon as she discovered she was ill, set the wheels in motion to make him Ransom's legal guardian. When she'd suggested Zane adopt Ransom as his own, he hadn't been able to appreciate her foresight, hadn't wanted to discuss her mortality in terms of what she would eventually be leaving behind, even if it was her son. Now he was thankful.