ChasingShadows (28 page)

Nicholas halted at the hedge and uttered unintelligible
words. He thrust the gun at Jasmine. “Hold them here.” He sprinted back toward
the house.

Jasmine took the gun without batting an eyelash. She backed
up a couple of paces and held the nine-millimeter steady on Juliana, her eyes
gleaming triumphantly.

“Cut your losses now, Jasmine,” Juliana said in a low voice.
“I can convince the police to go easy on you if you help us escape. Free me and
give me the gun.”

Jasmine laughed, a tinkling, crystal sound. “Why should I?
So you can have him?”

“Don’t be insane. If you help me now, things will go easier
on you.” Lisette hugged the back of Juliana’s legs. Juliana blocked her small
body completely. “I’ll tell the police you were also held captive. That you
helped us escape.”

“They won’t believe you once they find out I’m his wife.”
She flashed a large diamond ring on her ring finger. It glittered as it caught
the bright sun.

Stunned, Juliana had never noticed the ring. God help the
poor girl.

“Did he talk you into this, or did you go along willingly?”
Juliana stood her ground. Wariness settling over Jasmine’s face gave her away.
“He said he’d marry you if you helped, didn’t he?”

“So what if he did?” Jasmine’s upraised arm dipped. She
quickly steadied it with her free hand. “He loves me.”

“He’s not going to take you with him.” Juliana looked
askance at the idiot girl. “You know I can read his mind, right?” She’d destroy
Jasmine’s faith in Nicholas by the time she was done with her.

Jasmine laughed. “He’d never leave me behind. Not even for
you.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Jasmine.” The duct tape pinched her
skin. She fought the urge to raise her wrists to her mouth and chew off the
tape. “He’s a handsome man; he can have any woman he wants. Why should he
settle for you?”

Anger and jealousy flickered in Jasmine’s misty eyes.
Juliana had hit a tender mark.

The breeze kicked up and Jasmine’s blonde hair fluttered
across her face. She cleared her vision with her free hand. Juliana looked
around her. The only weapon available was the pea gravel covering the dry
ground.

There was no further time to work on her as Nicholas jogged
back, a small nylon backpack slung over his shoulder.

“Move through the hedge!” He yanked another gun from the
waistband of his pants. “You first, Jasmine. Then Juliana, and keep Lisette
quiet.”

As Jasmine disappeared through the thick hedge, Lisette’s
whimpers intensified.

“No, I can’t go through there,” Lisette cried, clutching
Juliana’s legs as she dropped her bunny on the ground. Fear emanated from her
tiny arms.

“Honey, it’s okay.” Juliana crouched down and smiled into
Lisette’s face. “Pretend it’s a tunnel to a magical place. I’ll be with you,
okay?”

Lisette gave Juliana a look of complete trust, then nodded.
She led Lisette through the wall of leaves and pink flowers. Nicholas brought
up the rear. Once on the other side, Lisette tried to pull away from Juliana.

“Fluffy!” she cried. “Uncle Nick, I need my bunny,” she
wailed, renewed tears spilled from her eyes.

“Shut her up!” Nicholas waved the gun at Juliana, glowering.

Uncle? Suddenly, Juliana recalled where she’d heard the
reference to Monte Carlo. It was where Grantham Chamber’s oldest son lived.
Shock and confusion streamed through her blood. Things began to fall into
place. The ostracized oldest son, seeking revenge against his parents. A sick
feeling of déjà vu quickened her heart.

No time to think further, as Nicholas prodded her toward the
car. Jasmine already sat in the front passenger seat. He thrust Juliana and
Lisette into the cramped backseat and he clambered into the driver’s seat.

Jasmine turned to face the backseat. Her arm bobbed as she
aimed the gun at Juliana’s heart. Juliana maneuvered Lisette to her left, away
from direct sight of the gun. Lisette lay partially on Juliana’s lap, covering
her bound hands.

Grim satisfaction zipped through her. She had banged a
sizeable dent in Jasmine’s trust. Jasmine’s face was a palette of jealousy,
suspicion and anger.

Nicholas drove at a turtle’s pace to avoid kicking up too
much tell-tale dust. He focused on the road, paying Juliana no heed. She
scanned the orchard, but row upon row of thick, leafy trees met her gaze.
Dipping her head, she whispered in Lisette’s ear, “When I tell you to get on
the floor, can you move really fast?” Juliana pointed to the cramped floor
behind the front passenger seat.

Lisette gazed into Juliana’s face, unshed tears glistening
in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

“What are you two whispering about?” Jasmine adjusted her
grip on the gun.

“I’m trying to calm her down.” Juliana batted down the panic
rioting inside.
No time to fall apart now. It’s not the first time you’ve
had a gun pointed at you.

Jasmine’s gaze flitted from side to side. “Can we get out of
here?” she asked with a trace of distress in her voice.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Nicholas replied angrily.

Well, if the nickname fits.
Juliana quickly quashed
her inner voice.

Was the car visible from the air through the dense canopy of
trees? Where were those damn helicopters?

She studied Nicholas’ profile in the rearview mirror without
catching his attention. The similarities to the Chambers were visible; she’d
simply never synced up the resemblance. He possessed Grantham’s hawk-like nose
and square profile and Samantha’s full-lipped mouth. The eyes could only belong
to the spawn of the devil.

Juliana bowed her head and whispered in Lisette’s ear again.
Lisette glanced into her eyes. Hidden behind the driver’s seat, her small body
shielding Juliana’s hands, Lisette proceeded to peel off the tape binding
Juliana’s wrists.

“Juliana, what do the cops know?” Nicholas glared at her in
the rearview mirror. He paid no attention to Lisette.

“I don’t know.” Her face remained as impassive as a rock,
even though her insides rebelled.

“Don’t lie to me.” He sneered. “You saw things in your
dreams. What did you see?”

“You two, going at it constantly.” She censored her words
for Lisette’s sake. “The kidnapping.”

Nicholas hesitated as if in thought. “You saw me by the car
in the garage, didn’t you?”

Juliana debated lying to Nicholas, but feared his
retribution. He possessed his own breed of psychic intuition, and until she
knew what it was, she had to play it safe. Her mind swirled in different
directions, but at that moment, she could only think of the truth.

“Yes.”

“You knew Jasmine was involved?”

She cleared her throat in distaste. “Plain as day, since you
couldn’t keep your hands off her.”

Jasmine squealed and wriggled her body suggestively, the gun
dipping and swaying with each movement.

The oleanders veered to the right and Nicholas made a sharp
turn. The swerve thrust Juliana against the door. She grabbed at Lisette’s arm
to keep her from rolling off her lap.

“I know you never saw me. I doubt you have that much psychic
power. But you saw the car, didn’t you?”

You have no inkling what power I have, asshole.
“I
saw a black convertible.”

The car reached the end of the copse. They appeared to have
dead-ended at a small hillside. But Nicholas made a sharp left turn and drove a
short distance over an uneven plowed field parallel to the hillside. He
approached a hidden ravine that split the hillside in half. The car crawled
over small rocks and sparse undergrowth of summer-brittle weeds.

The trail was marked, used by others as evidenced by assorted
tire tracks. Nicholas obviously knew the route or he wouldn’t attempt to drive
a low-slung car over the uncertain terrain.

“Where are we going?” Juliana chanced the question. Lisette
continued to pry at the tape on her wrists.

Nicholas smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “My Plan B.”

His leer sent snakes slithering down her back. Could he read
her mind? No, no, she denied the possibility as she beat down her escalating
fear.

The doors in her mind shut tight and safely shielded her
thoughts.

* * * * *

“The last team’s moving into place on the other side of the
hedge. Let’s do it!” The call from the SWAT leader blasted through Alex’s
earpiece.

“You don’t have to do this.” James turned to study Alex.

Alex sat iron-rod straight in the passenger seat, checking
his gun for the third time. “That’s my family.”

James knew better than to argue with him any further, and he
nodded.

Two choppers waited in the air a short distance away. Three
minutes after the ground team arrived at Hastings’ front door, the choppers
would conduct a crisscross fly-by.

The driveway was a quarter-mile long, surrounded on both
sides by meticulous rows of fruit trees. The driveway ended in a large
clearing. A couple hundred feet from where the line of trees ended, a long
ranch house stood, flanked by several old oaks.

James drove as close to the house as the front yard allowed.
They stopped and jumped out with guns drawn, seeking cover behind the open
vehicle doors. The ranch appeared deserted. A blackbird’s raucous cawing
slashed the eerie hush that stole the air from Alex’s lungs.

Adrenaline pumped through him while anxiety sought a
foothold. “Watch my back.” He dashed onto the porch. Vibrating with tension, he
kicked in the front door and entered. The SWAT team immediately stormed the house
behind him.

The house was too static. Alex knew at once.

They were too late.

James covered him while he moved from room to room. He
reached the end of the hallway and entered a child’s bedroom. Juliana’s
description fit to a tee. A sick thud resounded in his gut as he took in the
small, familiar room.

He picked up the pillow from the top bunk, breathing in
Juliana’s faint scent. The same scent that had lingered on his skin for the
last two days.

“He held them here.” Alex tossed the pillow aside.

“Looks like it.” James yanked back the pink curtain to
reveal the windowless wall. “Well-planned, with the walled off window and
deadbolt on the door,” James added as an afterthought.

Alex crossed the room and picked up Lisette’s pajamas—the
set he gave her for Easter. A vein of cold rage throbbed on his forehead.

“Lieutenant!” The SWAT leader ran into the house as the
choppers descended upon the scene. “The place is cleared out. The Jag’s in the
garage.”

“Shit!” Alex slammed his fist against the wall.

Sterling darted into the house, shouting. Alex spun on his
heels, his eyes captivated by the familiar white object in Sterling’s tan grip.

“Found this out by the flower bushes in back.” Sterling held
the toy out to Alex.

Alex grabbed the bunny and shook off the dust. It came clean
easily. “He’s on the run. Lisette would never leave without this unless she was
under pressure.” He jogged past the group and out of the abandoned house.

“Where’d you find it?” he asked the officer closest to the
pink and green leafy wall. The officer pointed out the area under the bushes
where the stuffed animal had been found.

Several black-uniformed men scrambled back through the
hedge. “Fresh tire marks on the other side.”

Alex sprinted toward the driveway. “O’Malley!”

He reached the truck the same time James sprinted off the
porch. As James’ feet touched the ground, an explosion rocked the world around
him. The house flared up in a solid wall of flames.

Screams rent the air. Bodies flew. Heat vapors and debris
struck the truck, slamming Alex’s forehead into the steering wheel. The force
bounced him back against the open door. Pain blasted through his head as an
inferno swept over his body.

The last thing Alex saw as he slid to the ground was James’
flying body hitting the ground face-first. Everything else vanished into a
swirling abyss.

Chapter Sixteen

“What was that?” Juliana jerked as thunder boomed in the
distance. Except it couldn’t be thunder in a cloudless sky. She craned her neck
to peer out the back window, but the hillside blocked her view.

She twisted forward. The smile that crept across Nicholas’
face in the rearview mirror stunned her.

“I just destroyed every trace of my existence, like my
family always wanted,” he said. “If I was lucky, I took out a couple of your
cop friends too.” Nicholas gazed at Juliana in the mirror.

Jasmine gasped, her hand trembling under the weight of the
gun, as if the weapon weighed thirty pounds. “What?” she cried. “Where are we
going to live?” Her hand dipped precariously.

Nicholas maneuvered the car onto another dirt road, leaving
the hillside and shallow valley behind.

Despite the dread seeping into Juliana, she forced herself
to focus on Jasmine’s unraveling.

Lisette had managed to free enough tape on Juliana’s wrist
to enable her to pull the rest off without catching Nicholas’ or Jasmine’s
attention.

Jasmine shifted wounded eyes onto him. “You said we weren’t
leaving the country.”

He laughed, eerily at ease with the situation. “No, I said
you
weren’t.”

“What?” Jasmine’s wounded look turned incredulous and she
sagged in the front seat.

The opportunity Juliana had waited for arose, and she
motioned to Lisette. Without hesitation, Lisette sank to the floor, curling
into a tight ball.

Nicholas steered the car toward a tarmac road less than a
hundred feet ahead.

Jasmine’s face paled. The hand gripping the gun sagged to
her side. “But I’m your wife. You can’t leave me here!” she screamed.

Seizing the moment, Juliana lunged between the front bucket
seats, aiming for Jasmine’s neglected gun.

Nicholas roared like a lion pouncing on his kill. The car
swerved sharply. He slammed the brakes so hard, the vehicle spun a one-eighty,
billowing thick dust around them.

Juliana flew forward between the front bucket seats. Her
shoulder smashed against the dashboard. Her hip ground painfully on top of the
gearshift, but she managed to get a grip on Jasmine’s gun.

Nicholas grabbed Juliana’s arm while she wrangled with
Jasmine for possession of the weapon. He slammed Juliana’s wrist down on the
gearshift. A bone cracked, audible in the frenzied din. Excruciating pain shot
up her arm, and she lost her grip on the gun.

For a brief moment, Nicholas’ thoughts clouded her mind, his
mental block tossed aside. Juliana’s eyes watered, stung. Dizziness overcame
her, and she couldn’t focus on her own thoughts, let alone Nicholas’ thoughts
leaking into her mind.

“Let go of the gun, Jasmine!” he snapped, his hand covering
hers on the weapon’s grip.

Juliana finally raised her head and found herself eye-to-eye
with the barrel of the gun. Nicholas shoved her backward, and she sprawled in a
heap on the rear seat. Dazed with pain, she clutched her left wrist to her
chest. The blood drained from her face as she fought the nausea spinning her
world out of orbit.

With every once of effort, Juliana thrust her thoughts away
from the pain and focused on the need to keep Lisette safe. The little girl
still crouched on the floor, eyes round, terrified.

Jasmine cried hysterically in the front seat.

“You try that again and I
will
kill you!” Nicholas
yelled, his face a scarlet mask of fury.

* * * * *

Alex lay flat on his back on pebbled ground. His eyelashes
felt like they’d been singed off. Every inch of him burned, as though he had
walked naked in the desert sun for days. A warm, sticky substance dripped from
his temple above his left eye. He raised a shaky hand and touched his forehead.
Through hazy eyes, he saw blood on his fingertips.

Did a stray bullet hit him? It took him a moment to collar
his memory. No bullet. He remembered the heat blast that careened into him and
slid him down the side of the truck as if his body had been liquefied.

Voices peppered the air around him. Alex tried to decipher
the words, but it felt as if cotton plugged his ears. He attempted to sit, but
his head spun.

A voice eventually penetrated the mist in his head.
“Lieutenant, don’t move.”

Ignoring the command and his aching body, Alex managed to
sit up. His head pounded as he scanned the grounds. Flames engulfed the ranch
house, shooting from the roof.

The acrid stench of scorched wood, tarred roof shingles and
smoldering electrical wires permeated the air as black smoke drifted skyward.
Heat from the burning building raised perspiration on Alex’s skin. He longed
for the cool Pacific Ocean to quell the agony inside and outside his body.

His gazed landed on James, perched on the truck’s tailgate,
fighting the hands pushing against him.

Relief rippled through Alex. “James, you okay?” Alex
blanched as pain shot through his head. Blood trickled onto his left eyelid,
and he smeared it off before it dripped into his eye.

James’ rough voice drifted to him. “Man, I thought you were
a goner.”

Sterling appeared at Alex’s side and pressed a cool cloth to
his head. The pressure on the gash exacerbated the throbbing.

He winced but held steady. “Did everyone get out?”

“We lost one SWAT member on the ground, and there are a few
with injuries. Fire and EMTs have been dispatched,” Sterling replied.

“Help me up.” Alex pulled his knees up.

Sterling laid a heavy hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You should
wait until the paramedics—”

“I’m going after that SOB.” Alex clutched the bottom of the
truck and pulled himself upright. Sterling reluctantly assisted from the other
side. He held onto Alex’s arm as Alex gained his balance. Alex felt as if a
bulldozer had thumped him into the dirt. Even his hair seemed to hurt, and he
resisted the urge to drag his fingers over his scalp.

He ignored Sterling’s protests. “James, you with me?”

James came to his feet in an ungainly lurch. “Don’t have to
ask me twice.”

James appeared in better shape than Alex, so Alex let him
take the driver’s seat. Alex’s overwhelming need to find Lisette and Juliana
battled against his aching body. His adrenaline slowly began to resurface.

Sterling called for backup while Alex crawled into the
passenger seat. He surveyed the scene of destruction with dismay. James
maneuvered the truck around debris and police officers, locating a route
through the oleanders. A patrol car followed behind. The faint wail of sirens
pierced the air.

Nicholas Hastings, aka Grant Chamber III, had just turned
the corner into a murder one charge with special circumstances. He’d never see
freedom’s light—if he lived another hour.

Would they be in time to save Lisette and Juliana? Alex
opened the block in his mind and searched for Juliana. He found emptiness, but
he could feel her presence like a cool salve on his flushed body. She was
nearby.

The tire tracks were easy to follow. James’ four-wheel drive
pickup sped through the tilled terrain effortlessly. Two hillsides formed a
mini valley at the orchard’s end. A faint dust cloud dissipated beyond the
hill. The truck sped toward the base of the hill, unmarked cars fast on their
tail.

It must be them. Alex’s skin tingled from Juliana’s
presence. It was as if the bomb blast had unlocked his mind and forged an
unconscious connection to her. Alex cautioned James to a stop before giving up
the shield of the hillside.

One of the SWAT members who followed them jogged over to the
parked truck. He pushed a map through the window.

“A road parallels the hill on the other side,” the officer
said. “We’ve blocked it at both ends.”

Alex’s eyes blurred as he focused on the map. Ignoring his
aching head, he asked, “What’s on the other side of the road?”

“Another fenced-in orchard.” The officer pointed at the map.
“Unless there’s off-road access, he’s trapped. No one has come out at either
end of the blockade.”

“He could scale the fence and take off on foot.” Alex threw
the map on the seat and pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster.

“Possibly.” The SWAT officer raised his hand to chest
height. “It’s cross-fenced, four feet tall. He can’t drive a car through it.”

“We’ll drive out of this valley. Back us up.” Alex pointed
his gun out the windshield as a signal to James. “I know Hastings is out
there.”

James slammed the vehicle in gear and inched forward.

Alex pushed the connection in his mind.
Juliana, it’s
Alex
, he tried telling her telepathically.
Stall him.

“Alex, he might be long gone,” James said as he drove closer
to the tiny valley’s exit.

Alex sensed another wave of Juliana’s nearness. “It’s them.”

We’re right behind you,
Alex told Juliana in his
mind.

James looked at him as if he had lost his marbles in the
bomb blast, then shrugged stiffly. “You’re the boss.”

* * * * *

Juliana, it’s Alex. Stall him.

The thought startled Juliana. She quickly masked her
surprise, lest Nicholas suspect anything unusual.

We’re right behind you.

Thank God, the cavalry had arrived. Her injured wrist had
put a crimp in her escape plans.

Nicholas attempted to resettle Jasmine with the gun in her
hands, but she resisted. Her sobbing sent shudders through Juliana, but Juliana
had her own worries.

Her wrist swelled. A drum beat in her head. Close to passing
out, the surging in her stomach gave her the perfect excuse for a delaying
tactic.

“I’m going to be sick,” she croaked. “I need to get out.”

“Try again.” The look on Nicholas’ face could have frozen
water.

“Please.” She sensed her face was whiter than white. It must
have caused him concern, because he stopped and opened the car door. He peeled
himself out of the front seat and yanked it forward.

Pain tore through her as he tugged her from the backseat.
Seizing her right arm in a brutal grip, he led her away from the car. She sank
to her knees at a patch of dying tumbleweeds and emptied her stomach.

Nicholas waited patiently and handed her a mint when she
finished. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Are you? Why?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her
good hand.

“You weren’t part of my plan.” The shadows from a nearby oak
tree darkened his face as he stood over her.

“Some plan,” she retorted. “You hurt everyone else. Jasmine
and Lisette.” She tilted her head to peer into his face. “Her mother, her
uncle. You hurt your parents,
Grant
. And yourself.”

The words didn’t appear to sting. It was as if he expected
them. His eyes emptied of expression. “How long have you known?”

“Since we left the house,
Uncle Nick
.” Sorrow
shadowed his face. “What did they do to you?”

“My father never loved me. He never accepted me for who I
was, who I wanted to be,” he said without emotion as he examined the ground.
“Ethan was his pride and joy. I was a nobody who did nothing right.”

The words dipped into her battered heart. She couldn’t argue
with them. She’d spent a large portion of her own life living in misery, not
unlike him.

His eyes looked through her. “We’re a lot alike, you and me.
Both orphans. Abandoned by family, never part of one. And we’ll always be that
way.”

Juliana didn’t plan to waste one more second of her life
thinking she’d always be alone.

Not any longer.

“You have a family.” Juliana’s gaze met his troubled gray
eyes. “How can you deny them?” She held her swollen left wrist in her lap.

“It doesn’t matter.” He pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

Swaying, her head burst with the renewed agony in her wrist.
Nicholas caught her in his arms and anchored her against his chest. She felt
the repressed pain in his taut body—the grievous injury caused by a childhood
perceived without love.

For an instant, she experienced a bone-chilling grief for
childhoods that could have been.

For him.

For her.

Nicholas released Juliana and helped her crawl into the
tight backseat. A spot of silver out the window caught Juliana’s eye as she
straightened in the seat. With a subtle turn of her head, she spied a truck
crawling around the hillside the Firebird had just left behind. James’ truck.
Relief swamped her. She wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, but Alex’s timing
was perfect. Even though it was no time to relax, Juliana let a fraction of her
terror and anxiety fly away on the breeze.

Nicholas leaned down to climb back into the driver’s seat,
giving no indication that he’d seen or heard the truck.

Juliana watched Alex slide out of the vehicle before the
wheels stopped rolling. The door shielded him while he shot at the muscle car’s
back tires, flattening them. The sound reverberated inside the old car,
shattering the blanket of terror.

Enraged, Nicholas screamed, pulled the gun from his
waistband and began shooting blindly from his crouch in the car doorway. He
reached in and ripped Juliana from the backseat, cushioning her in front of
him. Juliana gasped as he wound a crushing arm around her rib cage. His taut
body trembled in fury.

The faint sound of helicopters grew louder.

“Hold your fire!” Alex bellowed.

“Lisette, don’t move!” Juliana yelled at the terrified child
crouched on the floor of the car. A petrified Jasmine crumpled low in the front
seat, relatively safe.

Nicholas held her left arm against her stomach. Pain raged
like a wildfire within her. Once again, she forced her mind to leap beyond the
bodily pain and concentrate on the scene unfolding around her. It took all the
physical and mental energy she possessed.

Sounds of patrol cars clogged the air as they raced in from
both directions on the country road. The whirling of approaching helicopters
charged the air.