See Me in Your Dreams (27 page)

How could she
have trusted a stranger over her dad?

"Remember,
there'll be a gun aimed at your father. You do exactly as you've been
instructed if you want him to stay alive."

Afraid she
might screw up again, Cheryl wanted to cry. "I trusted you. I wanted to be
with you. Why did you have to turn out so awful?"

Through her
tear-filled eyes, Cheryl thought the woman actually looked like she might be
sorry...but, as she was roughly shoved inside when she resisted going through
the doorway leading into the garden, she figured that had to be her
imagination, too.

TYLER'S NERVES WERE ON EDGE waiting for
what felt like forever. He sat at the base of a palm tree, the backpack nonchalantly
dropped at his feet. The Crystal Gardens had emptied out in anticipation of the
coming fireworks. A glance at his watch told him it was nearly quarter past
ten. Only another few minutes, then.

He'd figured
on them being exactly on schedule, and so he was looking directly at the girl
who stood at the other end of the garden for several seconds before realizing
he was staring at his own daughter.

"Cheryl!"

He bounded up
and took a few steps toward her before caution intervened. Her eyes were wide
and she was visibly shaking, obviously scared and nearly in tears. His gaze
flew over the few people who were not already outside for the fireworks. No one
he recognized except his own private investigator, who was now on the alert.

"It's all
right, Cheryl. Come to me, baby," Tyler urged, spreading his arms. His
heart was in his throat.

He started
toward her until her gaze shifted to somewhere over his shoulder. She

pressed her
fist into her mouth as if stopping herself from crying out. Tyler slowed and glanced
over his shoulder to see a fair-haired woman pick up the backpack.

But it wasn't
Vivian who straightened and looked him straight in the eye.

"You
should have called me like I wanted, Tyler," his ex-wife said. "If
you would have been reasonable, adjusted our monetary arrangement like I asked,
this
wouldn't've
happened."

Not having the
slightest idea of what she was talking about, Tyler was stunned. Then his mind
raced. She hadn't done this alone. She'd had a male accomplice. Feldman or
Brock?

"Take the
money and run," he told her, turning back to his daughter.

But Jack
Weaver was already jumping up from his table and grabbing Cheryl.

"Weaver,
what the hell are you doing?" Tyler yelled as he started toward them.

The
investigator whipped out the handgun he'd assured Tyler he owned. "I'd
stay right there if I were you."

Realizing how
stupid he'd been – he'd played right into their hands by believing Weaver
really was Jeremy Bryant's replacement – Tyler stopped in his tracks, half the
width of the garden still between him and his daughter. He felt sick inside.

"No,
Jack, let her go!" Helen yelled from behind him. "Cheryl wasn't
supposed to get hurt!"

"She
won't if your ex-husband co-operates." To Tyler, Weaver said, "We're
going to use your daughter as insurance that we get out of here alive and with
the money."

From the
corner of his eye, Tyler saw a bystander move toward the main pavilion door. To
get help, he hoped.

"Jack,
leave her be!"

"Helen,
get out of here now with the backpack or I swear I'll shoot the kid!"
Weaver threatened.

"I'm
going." Helen's voice was shaky. "Don't hurt her, please."

Tyler heard
her retreat even as his attention was distracted by a door opening behind the
bastard. His heart lurched as a woman slipped through and slid back into the
shadows.

Keelin!

"Leave
Cheryl," Tyler told the so-called private investigator. "All I want
is my daughter. I promise I won't come after you." Though he'd use all his
clout to get the authorities to do so later.

"No deal,
Leighton. I don't believe you."

Tyler felt
impotent as Weaver backed up toward the door, Cheryl in tow. This couldn't be
happening! But what could he do without endangering his daughter's very life?

Suddenly
Keelin made her move, closing the gap between her and them. Before a frantic
Tyler could think of a way to stop her from doing anything foolish, a burst of
sound reverberated through the building, an explosion of red and blue light
reflected in the transparent panels all around them.

The fireworks
seemed to fill the hall, effectively distracting Weaver. His gun hand swung out
as he turned toward the source of the threat.

And Keelin
lunged forward, grabbing his wrist.

"Get
away, Cheryl!" she screamed. "Now!"

Tyler was already
running as Cheryl screeched and struggled and somehow loosened Weaver's grip on
her. And then she was flying toward him blindly, tears pouring from her eyes,
her flight backed by a series of green flashes that built one upon the other.

"Dad, oh,
Dad, I'm sorry."

Throwing his
arms around his daughter, Tyler hugged her tight. He was speechless with
gratitude. His thankfulness was tempered by the scenario before him, however –
Weaver freeing his gun hand and striking out, clipping Keelin in the chin with
the muzzle. Dazed from the hit, she tottered. And the bastard took the
advantage, replacing one hostage for the other. Before Tyler could free himself
from his daughter's tight grip, Weaver had hooked an arm around Keelin's neck.

"Stay
right where you are, Leighton, or she dies." The muzzle of the gun was
snugged in the halo of her hair.

"Let her
go when you get outside." Tyler's order was backed by the blasts of a
series of rockets that trailed white against the dark sky.

"I'll let
her go when I'm damn well ready!"

"I shall
be fine, Tyler," Keelin assured him, though she didn't sound convinced of
it. "See to your daughter."

Weaver changed
direction, heading for a north door. Keelin stumbled and was jerked hard for
her clumsiness.

Tyler sweated
inside his suit and tightened his grip on his daughter. If anything happened to
the woman he loved, it would be on his conscience. He'd trusted the wrong
person to help him. He'd excluded Keelin. No. The problem was including her in
the first place. If he hadn't, this wouldn't be happening now. Self-deprecating
thoughts raced through his mind as fast as the fireworks burst in the sky.

He should have
known Keelin would find a way to put herself in the middle of things. But how
to get her out? He didn't trust Weaver to allow her to live when he was done
with her. But how could he go after her without leaving Cheryl alone?

Before he
could think of what to do, yet another person burst into the garden, backed by
the sound of whining rockets.

Wild-eyed, the
disheveled man took in the scene. "Leighton, where's Keelin?"

Tyler took a
breath of relief. "You must be Skelly."

"Forget
the introductions. Where is she?"

"In big
trouble. Stay with my daughter while I go after her."

Cheryl clung
to him. "Dad, don't leave me!"

"You'll be
safe with Skelly," Tyler assured his daughter, pushing her toward the
other man. "Keelin trusts him and that's good enough for me."

He started
off.

"But,
Dad, wait!" Cheryl wailed.

Tearing
another hole in Tyler's heart. He stopped and faced his daughter. "I can't
let anything happen to the woman I love any more than I could to you," he
said, praying she would understand.

Cheryl
hesitated only a second. She sniffed and dashed a tear from her cheek.
"They have a boat. It's tied up on the north side of the pier. Hurry
before they hurt her!"

Like they'd
hurt Cheryl? Tyler thought grimly.

Wondering that
a fourteen year old could be worried about someone else after what she'd been
through, he ran out to the open upper deck under a canopy of blurred color,
half-blind for the emotions affecting his vision.

"SHE'S THE ONE, ISN'T SHE?"
Cheryl asked, wiping away her tears as her father disappeared.

She didn't
like his going after her mother and her awful boyfriend, but she didn't want the
woman who'd helped her to be hurt, either. Somehow she just knew her dad would
make everything all right.

"Keelin's
the one what?" Skelly asked against another series of explosions.

Embarrassed,
she couldn't quite meet the handsome man's eyes. "Um, you wouldn't
understand."

Skelly lifted
her chin. "Women usually find it pretty easy to talk to me."

Cheryl bit her
lip. "She was...at least I...you'll think I'm crazy.

"Try
me."

"I swear
someone was inside my head." The words spilled out so fast they were nearly
one. "
Her
."

Skelly smiled.
"My cousin Keelin is an unusual woman. You're not crazy," he assured
her as four uniformed police burst into the garden from the main hall.

"Hands up
and get away from the kid," one of them yelled.

Skelly
immediately complied. "I'm afraid we have a lot of explaining to do,"
he told Cheryl. And in a lower voice, added, "Uh, I'd suggest we keep what
you just told me between us, though."

"Right.
They'd
think I was nuts for sure."
Though she'd never been so happy to see cops in her entire life.

"Are you
all right?" a fatherly type asked her.

Cheryl nodded.
"He's okay," she said of Skelly, who still had his hands raised.
"But his cousin and my dad..." She nearly choked saying, "They
could be hurt bad. Help them, please. The people who were holding me are real
dangerous." She couldn't call Helen Dunn her mother. "Their boat is
tied up on the north side of the pier."

"Giordano,
stay with these two and get the whole story," the fatherly type said. He
motioned the other two uniforms to follow him and raced for a door.

Giordano was a
pretty dark-haired woman with sympathetic brown eyes. "If the kid thinks
you're okay, you can lower your hands," she told Skelly. She pulled out a
notebook and indicated they should both sit. "Now, about that story."

Cheryl began
with her finding the note and deciding to meet the mother she'd been told was
dead.

KEELIN TRIED TO KEEP HER HEAD, but
under the circumstances, doing so wasn't easy. His gun pressed into her side,
his other arm around her as if they were lovers – no doubt in case anyone
noticed them – Weaver had hauled her around the back end of the stalled Ferris
wheel. Nothing was moving during the fireworks display. And since everyone's
attention was glued to the south lakefront, no one paid them any mind when he
forced her down the ramp toward the dock level.

"Did
Jeremy Bryant put you up to this?" she asked, pushing the question past
the lump lodged in her throat.

"The
geezer doesn't have a clue. Cheryl's grieving mother sent Bryant on a wild goose
chase to Indianapolis to get him out of the way."

The sky lit
with a myriad of trembling colors, and Weaver popped her inside the dock-level
building, this time to cross through the car park. The explosives rang hollowly
through the poorly lit, dank garage. Keelin thought fast, wanting to get as
much information as possible out of the man. Helen's taking Cheryl at the same
time Feldman was trying to ruin Tyler was too convenient to be mere
coincidence.

"Were you
working with
Nate
Feldman all along?" she asked,
as they dodged a couple of cars parked too close together and hurried through
an empty slot.

Weaver seemed
surprised at her acuity. "Feldman sent me to find Leighton's ex."

Eureka!
Gathering her courage – she would rather think of anything but the gun he held
– Keelin doggedly kept on in the belief that Weaver would want someone to
realize how clever he'd been.

"How
could Feldman know Helen Dunn was alive?"

"That
blonde broad he's been showing around, she found Helen's demand for more money to
keep playing dead. It didn't take much to seduce Leighton's ex," he
bragged. "Not that I'm complaining. Didn't take much to get Helen to spill
her guts about her ex and what he owed her. Took even less to convince her that
if we snatched the brat, Leighton would pay anything to get the kid back."

So Vivian had
only a minor role in the drama, and Helen had been duped, probably didn't even
know anything beyond her own involvement.

As Weaver
shoved her through a door to the north side of the pier, Keelin asked,
"How did you hook up with
Nate
Feldman in the
first place?"

"Did some
work for him on one of Leighton's buildings. Feldman didn't want it to meet
city inspection."