Bridal Reconnaissance (14 page)

The older boy blushed, a tide of red rising into his fair skin to the roots of his golden-blond hair. “I didn’t do anything. My dad and Evan—”

She shook her head. “No, you did.”

The woman reappeared in the hall, almost as if she were a red-haired apparition, her movements were so fluid. “He’s coming. They’ll be fine. Let’s go into the kitchen. I think I have some of those cookies left from yesterday unless you boys ate them all.”

“We left some for this morning, Mom.” The boy
forced a grin and winked at Christopher. “You up for some more chocolate chips, little buddy?”

Christopher nodded. “Uh-huh. Those are good.” Then he glanced guiltily into Amanda’s face. “Yours are, too, Mommy.” His little voice broke. “I missed you last night.” He pressed a quick kiss against her cheek. “But I had fun.”

He scrambled down from her arms and tugged on Jeremy’s hand, heading farther into the house, undoubtedly to those cookies.

Amanda’s arms hung at her sides, limp without the weight of her boy. Empty. Her guilt clawed its way free and poured out of her. “He was right outside your house. I’m so sorry. So sorry. I should have stayed in River City. I never should have come here. I put you and your family in danger. I’m so sorry.”

A silk-covered arm wrapped around her shuddering shoulders. “You haven’t put anyone in danger. This is not your fault, Amanda. You’re the victim.”

She cringed, hating that term, hating how helpless she felt again because of William Weering III.

“I’m Sarah,” the woman said. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

But she knew who Amanda was, probably knew more than Amanda did about Mrs. Evan Quade.

“Thank you for taking care of my son last night,” Amanda said.

Sarah’s laugh rang out like the tinkling music of wind chimes. “He’s a delight.”

“He’s a very busy little boy.”

“I understand—I raised one myself.” The woman
sighed and her arm lightly squeezed Amanda’s shoulders. “For a while all by myself.”

“Royce—” She stopped herself from a probing question that she had no right to ask. These people were Evan’s friends, not hers.

Sarah’s smile flowed into her words, “Royce adopted Jeremy when we got married last summer.”

Newlyweds. And she’d let him go off chasing a killer, all the while maintaining her elegant poise. Meanwhile Amanda fell apart inside with worry for Evan.

But then Sarah didn’t know William Weering III, didn’t know evil as intimately as Amanda did.

“Come with me, Amanda. We’ll see if those boys saved us some cookies and brew some coffee to go along…”

Not wanting to be rude, Amanda nevertheless shifted from under the woman’s arm and turned toward the front door. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, splashing puddles of color onto the hardwood floor. “I—I need to know that they’re all right.”

That Evan was all right.

“They’ll be fine.” The woman’s voice didn’t shake when she repeated her son’s words. She brooked no argument, would allow nothing less than the well-being of their men.

Their men? Was Evan hers?

When he had expertly maneuvered the car around those hairpin turns the night before, she’d noted more than his grip on the steering wheel. She’d noted that
he still wore his wedding ring. The ring one of those photos in the album had showed her placing on his finger. Her ring.

Despite the warmth of the sunlight she shivered in her Thinsulate jacket. “Before Royce headed out, Evan was out there with that killer. Alone. No weapon.”

He hadn’t had Royce’s gun. Hadn’t had the safety of a faster car and knowledge of the road.

She had missed the pad of the teenager’s bare feet on the floor, so his snort startled her as it announced his presence. “
Evan
is a weapon, Mrs. Quade.”

Mrs. Quade. After nearly six years of being Amanda Smith, she doubted she would ever get used to being called another name, a stranger’s name.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a ninth-degree black belt. Don’t you remember?”

“Jeremy.” Sarah’s voice censored without the lecture.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not a bit sheepishly, with more directness than she had seen in most adults. “I didn’t think.”

How many didn’t think, or doubted her amnesia? How many thought she’d kept Evan’s son from him by choice rather than ignorance of the boy’s father’s existence?

These were his friends. Wouldn’t they rally around him and look on her with suspicion and resentment?

But she could still feel the weight of Sarah’s supportive arm around her shoulders. Could feel the
warmth of Jeremy’s reassurance. These were good people. And she’d brought them nothing but trouble.

She furiously blinked back tears.

“I started the coffee, Mom,” Jeremy said. “Rich like you like it.”

“Did you sneak some?” she teased.

He laughed with unabashed guilt. “Oh, yeah.”

“It’ll stunt your growth.”

Their lighthearted banter grated on Amanda’s over-wrought nerves, inducing a scream that she swallowed hard. But she couldn’t stop the flow of her fear.

“I don’t care what he knows about martial arts. That skill won’t help him against a knife.”

Behind her eyes flashed the image of Snake lying on the floor of his apartment, bleeding out of his empty eye sockets. Her knees trembled, threatening to give. But she wouldn’t faint. She wouldn’t even acknowledge the throb at her temples and the base of her once-broken skull.

Jeremy’s fingers closed over her hand, squeezing. “Yes, it will, Mrs. Quade. He can disarm a man with a knife with little or no effort.”

No effort.

She flashed back to Snake’s apartment again, to the scene on the fire escape where the black-clothed figure had swung the knife at him and Evan had kicked it away.

Hope flickered to life, dispelling some of the chilling fear. “You’re right. I saw him do that.”

“You did?” Awe deepened the teenager’s voice.
“Evan’s gotta help me get up to my purple belt. He’s so good.”

Good at driving. Good at fighting off knife-wielding killers. But there was one weapon that Amanda didn’t think he could fight off.

A gun.

She had no more than formed the thought when a shot rang out, rattling the windows of the house and the people waiting inside for news of the well-being of their loved ones.

Did she love Evan? Had she remembered that? Too late?

Chapter Eight

Evan brushed brambles from the legs of his pants while he kept his gaze trained on where Amanda stood inside the gate. He and Royce had just emerged from the woods after hearing Dylan’s gunshots when Amanda erupted from the house with Jeremy and Sarah, all frenzied.

He understood Jeremy’s and Sarah’s concern for Royce—they loved him. But why had Amanda been so worried? Had she remembered anything? Did she care about him?

Reaching through the wrought-iron spires, Sarah slapped Dylan’s shoulder before turning for the house. She’d already sent Jeremy back inside to make sure Christopher had not engorged himself with cookies. “You scared us half to death!” she admonished him over her shoulder.

Us?

Dylan defended his actions, shouting after her, “I wanted these headstrong fools out of the woods, and I knew gunfire would send them running…straight to it. Damn it! I’m the sheriff. This is my job. Neither of you should have gone after him alone!”

“Dylan.” Royce tucked his weapon back into the waistband of his jeans and opened the gate with a few strokes on the security pad. “I was prepared.”

That left just him.

Evan and the sheriff followed the ex-agent onto his estate, closing the gate behind them. Glancing across the street, Evan scanned the woods again, searching for any movement.

Anything.

Dylan cleared his throat, his blue gaze boring into Evan. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He hadn’t been thinking. He’d acted in defense of his family, and he’d do it again in a minute. “What progress are you making on finding this killer?”

Even though she had turned away from them, Evan caught Amanda’s flinch. He wanted to drag her under his arm, offer her comfort, but he didn’t know if she wanted that now. She had turned toward the garage in the rear of the house, where a member of Murphy Security had parked her van.

Was she thinking of leaving? That she’d be safer on her own than with him?

Dylan sighed. “No trace, Evan. Nobody’s seen the truck you described. Nobody’s seen a man fitting that pretty unique description anywhere around Winter Falls.”

“I saw him!” Amanda’s voice quivered with fear.

Dylan turned toward her, his eyes narrowed. “What did you see, Mrs. Quade?”

“I—I saw his hair.”

“Hair?”

“In the trees, he might have been hiding behind one, but I saw the sun shine off his hair.”

Dylan nodded and turned to Evan, a question in his eyes. “Did you see him?”

Evan shook his head and Amanda gasped.

“You didn’t see him?” she asked.

He fought a frustrated sigh as anger and helplessness churned in his gut. “He had time to get ahead of me. He could have been deeper in the woods when you saw him, and by the time I got over there, he was gone.”

“What about you, Royce?” Dylan asked.

Royce shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s dense undergrowth over there. Evan and I were like rats in a maze chasing the scent of cheese.”

“Just the scent?” Amanda asked this question, the fear turning to self-doubt as her pretty face flushed with bright color.

“Amanda…” Evan stepped closer, closing a hand over her shoulder as she trembled.

She lifted her tear-washed green gaze. “I was sure…so sure…”

“I don’t doubt you, Amanda. I believe you saw him. I believe he was here.” He wasn’t trying to soothe her, he really didn’t doubt her. “This is exactly what Weering’s trying to do. Scare you, make you doubt yourself.”

Break her.
And she was already too fragile from her first encounter with the madman. Would she survive another?

The cold early-spring breeze flirted with the short tresses of her hair, lifting the scent of peaches and cream to his nostrils as he dragged in a quick breath. He’d just found her after six years. He couldn’t lose her again. Not until he chose to let her go.

Over her head he glared at his brother-in-law, the sheriff. Usually he loved to razz this man, but his sense of humor had left him that day in River City when he had found out what had happened to his missing wife.

“Dylan, you’ve got to get on this. Royce, have you found out anything?”

“I sent Murphy to town and it probably gave that bastard Weering an opportunity to sneak over here when I did, but he’s checking around, too.”

Dylan grumbled, “I have good deputies.”

Evan managed a short chuckle. “Maybe we should put Lindsey on it. She could track him down.”

His sister’s investigative reporting had brought her together with the sheriff, the object of her teenage crush. Her investigation had nearly killed them both and had taken some years off Evan’s life, as well. And that was before he’d even known how important she would become to him.

Evan’s chuckle turned to a groan. “You haven’t told her, have you?”

Joking—and infant daughter—aside, Lindsey would throw herself into the midst of the danger. Anything in pursuit of a story.

Although wind chapped, Dylan’s face paled. “God, no!”

Amanda shuddered. “No, please, don’t involve anyone else. I don’t want anyone else hurt!”

“You’re sure Weering killed this guy in River City?” Dylan asked, ever the lawman.

Evan nodded. “I doubt the investigating officers found any evidence. But I know he did it.”

“That’s good enough for me. And since you think
he ran those people off the road last night, I’ve already put an APB out on him. We’ll get him, Evan.” Dylan squeezed his shoulder.

A tear slid down Amanda’s cheek, the wind smearing it across her face. “Don’t you all understand? He’s too smart. He’s going to always be ahead. He was here, ahead of us, Evan. He knew where my son was before I did. He was here! Across the street from my son!”

Evan pulled her trembling body into his arms, holding her close to his chest while he stroked her hair. His fingers slid over the ridge of the scar on the back of her head, and anger and compassion swirled in his chest.

She was on the verge of dropping, exhausted no doubt from their endless night, and from her paleness he imagined she had another migraine. He cursed himself for pushing her too hard last night, for shoving those albums on her in the vain attempt that she would remember.

That she would remember
him.

“He won’t hurt our son, Amanda,” Evan reassured her.

Royce spoke softly as he would to one of the frightened children he rescued, “Amanda, Christopher was safe. This place has a top-notch security system. And there’s no way in hell that bastard would have gotten him, not under my protection. I swear that to you.”

Evan absorbed her trembling as nothing they said calmed her fears. “Amanda, we’ll find him. We will.”

Her fingers grasped the lapels of his coat as she lifted her head from his chest. “No! I don’t want you
to find him. I don’t want him to do to you what he did to…Snake. I can’t stand the thought of him hurting anyone else because of me. But most especially not…” Her voice trailed off.

Who?

Him?

She never finished her thought as she collapsed in his arms.

Too fragile.

And William Weering was winning.

E
VAN BRUSHED A HAND
over his hair, not surprised to dislodge a dead leaf that disintegrated on the floor of the hospital corridor, leaving only dust.

Sarah walked up, heels tapping on the linoleum, and held out a paper cup of coffee. A smile tipped up a corner of her mouth. “Never thought I’d see Evan Quade so disheveled.”

He glanced around her to where Christopher and Jeremy lingered at the vending machine, Christopher’s high voice reciting the letters and numbers on the keys. He couldn’t let the boy out of his sight. It was killing him that Amanda was. But she was just inside the door at his back, the doctor examining her.