Colder Than Ice (13 page)

“Then Mordecai resurfaced, a year ago,” Beth went on. “Up until then, we all thought he had died in that raid, but he was still alive. He kidnapped Dawn. And I remembered how he used to talk about raising her in this mansion in Virginia. So I went there to get her out.”

“How?” he asked, staring down at her with a brand-new kind of awe.

“Walked right up to the front door.”

“And he let you in?”

“He thought I'd been killed in the raid, too,” she said. “I convinced him I was still in love with him. Told him I'd thought he was dead and was so glad to see him alive, and that I wanted to pick up where we'd left off, with our plan to raise our baby girl together there in that mansion in the sky.”

“And he bought it?”

She nodded. “He bought it. The police arrived, surrounded the place. I talked Mordecai into giving me a gun so we could go down fighting together, the way it was supposed to have been the first time. Then I threw myself into his arms for one
last kiss, and I pressed the barrel to his chest. And I pulled the trigger.”

Josh lowered his head, closed his eyes, a full body shudder working through him.

“The cops came in about then, Lieutenant Jackson—Jax, to her friends—leading the way. Julie's husband Sean at her side, wounded and ready to fight. They were all so heroic. So brave.”

She was the brave one, Joshua thought.

“Jewel and Dawn and I went back outside with the police. I thought the nightmare was over. But when the cops went back inside for his body, Mordecai was gone. He'd been wearing a bulletproof vest. I didn't kill him after all. Just made him angry.”

“I'll bet you did. So then what happened? You changed your name and moved away?”

“The government changed my name and moved me away. I'd have stayed, except my presence put Dawn at risk. Mordecai has given up on her. When Julie and Sean got married, one of their gifts was a document, signed by Mordecai, surrendering his parental rights. No one knew how it got there.” She shivered a little. Josh rubbed her arms. “I signed away my parental rights, as well, so Jewel and her husband Sean could adopt her. She's legally theirs now. But I knew Mordecai would still come after me, and she could get caught in the cross fire, so I agreed to the relocation.”

“And to do that, you had to give up all contact with your daughter.”

“Those were my orders.” She shrugged. “But I've never been big on following orders. Dawn and I keep in touch. She knows who I am. We've become…close. Well, as close as two people who live miles apart can be.”

“I understand that part of it, believe me.”

“I know you do.”

“But couldn't Mordecai track you down through your contact with Dawn?”

“Maybe he could.” She shrugged. “The thing is, he's going to track me down anyway, sooner or later. I'm not willing to cut her out of my life just to put off the inevitable.” She drew a breath, sighed. “That's all of it, Joshua. I've been living here in Blackberry for a year, preparing for the day he would find me. I had just about decided that I wasn't going to run again. This time, I was going to face him, end this thing, one way or another. But I can't stay here and confront my past if it's going to put you or your son at risk. So I'll go. And I'll wait for Mordecai in some other town, using some other name.”

He shook his head slowly. “You don't know that he's found you. You can't be sure of anything. All of this might be coincidence. Maude's death could have been a simple heart attack. The explosion could have been caused by a gas leak.”

“And the tooth fairy could pay me a visit before sunrise, Josh, but I'm not counting on it.” She sighed, softened her tone. “I wish I could believe you. I wish I could—but it's just not worth the risk.”

He nodded. “I wouldn't put Bryan at risk for the world,” he said. “But I don't want to lose you. At least, not without a reason. Just let me do some checking into things. The cause of Maude's death, the fire inspector's report on your house. Let's make sure, just in case.”

“But, Josh, even if he hasn't found me yet, that doesn't mean he won't. He will. Sooner or later, he will.” She leaned against him to hide her face.

“And we'll deal with that when the time comes. I don't want
you to leave. Not yet, Beth. Bryan and I were a mess until you came into our lives. He's finally starting to come alive again, and I know it's largely because of you. Jesus, I won't make it through Maude's funeral, and I doubt Bryan will, either. Not without your help. Please…”

She lifted her head from where it rested on his chest, searched his eyes.

“Please,” he whispered again, and this time, he added a gentle kiss to the word.

He felt her shiver, then respond, then capitulate. “All right,” she breathed. “I'll stay…for the funeral. But I can't promise anything beyond that.”

“That's good, Beth. That's very good.” He turned her in his arms, pulled her closer, stared into her eyes.

“I said I would stay for now, Josh. Nothing else.”

He blinked, nodded once. “I guess that's my cue to get my ass out of your bed, huh?”

She smiled just a little. “I'm afraid so. I'm just…not ready for anything more. But it feels good to have finally gotten all that stuff off my chest. Thank you, Josh.”

He stroked a hand over her hair. “Don't thank me. I'm the one who should be thanking you.”

“Good night, Josh.”

“Night.” He left the bedroom, closed the door behind him, wiped the dazed expression off his face and scrunched it up instead. “What the hell am I doing with her?”

“Now there's a question for you,” Bryan said.

Josh looked up fast. His son stood in his open bedroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest, looking for all the world as if
he
were the parent.

“What
are
you doing, Dad? You can't put the moves on this
woman. Come on, after what you did to her? And with her not even knowing?”

He held up a hand for silence and strode forward, nudging Bryan back into his room and closing the door behind them both. “You wanna keep it down to a dull roar, son?”

“Hell, no. I'm beginning to think it might be better all around to just tell her the truth. I mean, better than messing with her feelings like that.”

“How the hell do you know that's what I was doing?”

“What, you gonna tell me you're really falling for her? That all that chivalrous bullshit and whatever else happened in that bedroom wasn't just part of your precious cover, Dad?”

Josh lowered his head. “Nothing happened in that bedroom.”

“Nothing? Not even a few kisses?”

“Look, Bryan, whether or not I kissed her isn't relevant here.”

“You did. You kissed her. I knew it! And it was part of your act. Part of your job.”

“It wasn't—” Josh blurted. Then he cut himself off and pushed a hand through his hair.

Bryan said, “What do you mean, it wasn't?”

“Maybe not…one hundred percent.”

Bryan gaped at him. He gave his head a shake and stared hard at his father. “Then it's even
more
important to tell her the truth!”

“No. No, Bry, I don't want to hear one more word about it. She's in danger, and I can't protect her if you blow my cover. I mean it. You keep your promise to me and keep our job to yourself.”

Bryan rolled his eyes and turned away from his father. “Fine. Just freaking fine. You're one cold SOB, you know that?”

“I have to be. And one more thing.”

“What?” Bryan turned to face him again, his eyes hostile.

Josh took a breath. “I've been thinking, and…I made a mistake, yanking you out of your home the way I did.”

“Gee, you think?”

“Give me a break, Bryan. I'm new at this fatherhood game. It's gonna take some time to pick up all the nuances, okay?”

Bryan frowned, tipped his head a little to one side. “So what are you saying?”

“I'm saying that when this case is over and Beth is safe, we'll go back to California, if that's what you still want. I'll find us a place—in Marin County, even—and we'll live there at least six months out of the year. And you can go to college out there if you want, and still have a home off campus and a connection to your old neighborhood. Okay?”

Bryan blinked as if Josh had started speaking in tongues. “But your job, the business—”

“We'll find a way to make it work.”

Nodding slowly, Bryan seemed to be probing his father's soul. “Are you just bribing me to keep me quiet?”

“Do I need to?”

Bryan shrugged.

“Take it however you want, Bry. I'm just trying to fix what I screwed up. Now I'm going to go try to get some sleep, and I suggest you do the same. Okay?”

His son held his gaze for a long moment, then finally nodded once. “Okay.”

 

Bryan took his father's advice and got some sleep. A good solid two hours of it—before something woke him. Frowning, he opened his eyes, blinking in the dim bedroom. Then he went rigid when something hit the window from the out
side. Even as he scrambled out of bed, the sound was repeated. Rapid-fire taps, as if someone were throwing pebbles.

His heart jumped, and he thought about everything that had happened. Maude's death, the cottage blowing up. Was the bad guy here? Was this the beginning of the big showdown?

He went to the window, standing to one side of it and peeking out. The sun wasn't up yet, or if it was it was hiding behind the overcast sky, which was a dull, cold, predawn gray. He spotted a girl standing on the back lawn. She wore a brown corduroy jacket with white fleece at the collar and cuffs, and had long blond hair that hung perfectly straight from beneath a knitted cap.

“Bryan?” she called in a stage whisper.

He opened his window, leaned out. “Depends who's asking.” He couldn't see her face in the darkness.

“Duh. It's Dawn. Let me in, will you? It's freezing out, and I have to pee. I've been driving like five hours—ever since we got offline.”

Dawn? What the hell was she doing here?

“I'll be right down,” he told her. “Back door.” He closed the window and looked down at himself. Jockey shorts and a T-shirt were probably not going to cut it. He yanked his jeans off the back of a chair, pulled them on and was fastening them up even as he slipped out of his bedroom. He paused in the hall, listening, but didn't hear a thing from his father's room, or from Beth's. It occurred to him that this whole thing might be some kind of a trick to get him to unlock the house. Still, he didn't see how he would ever know that until he did it.

He'd told her to go to the back door because it was farthest from the bedrooms. It opened from the kitchen onto the back
lawn, and he took a moment to look out the window before unlocking it.

The face looking back at him was so beautiful it sort of knocked the wind out of him. She was way better looking in person than in her photograph. He had to force himself to look beyond her, to see if anyone else was waiting to jump out. Not that he cared—he was going to let her in either way.

He opened the door.

“Are you alone?” she whispered.

He waited until she was all the way inside to close the door behind her and reengage the locks. “My father and Beth are sleeping upstairs.”

Her brows went up. “Together?”

“No. Not yet, anyway, but I wouldn't rule it out.” She smiled a little at that, and it made her even prettier. He had to fight to keep his mind on the million and one questions circling around it. “What are you doing here, Dawn?”

“I think Beth's in trouble,” she whispered. “And I think you and your dad might be, too—at least, if you don't know what to look out for. I
do
know what to look out for, so I came to help. Where's the bathroom?”

“This way.” He led her through the old house, wincing with every creak of a floorboard, to the downstairs bathroom. He hoped to God the flush wouldn't be audible upstairs.

He didn't hear anyone stir, so he assumed it hadn't been.

“Where can we talk?” she asked. “Where we won't wake them, I mean.”

“Why don't we want to wake them?”

She frowned. “You don't think I have my parents' permission to be here, do you?”

Oh, hell, he didn't like the sound of this. “Won't they notice you're missing when they wake up?”

“They got sent out of town on assignment yesterday. They're press.”

“Oh.”

“And we can't let Beth know I'm here, either. She'd rat me out so fast it would make your head spin.”