Vow to Protect (4 page)

A pair of black swim shorts with orange flames licking up the sides caught her attention.

Ethan.
He stood on the other side of the pirate ship, just behind one of the smaller slides.

Her knees flagged with relief. Willing her trembling legs to carry her, she started across the pool area toward him. “Ethan?”

He was too far away and the pool area was too loud. He would never be able to hear her. He stepped away from the slide, toward a group of tables and chairs gathered around the entrance to the hotel lobby and atrium. Nodding his head, he seemed deep in conversation with a redheaded man.

A man who looked strangely familiar.

Panic rose in her throat like bile. She tried to control herself, tried to get a grip. The man talking to Ethan had red hair and a beard. There was no reason for her to be afraid. No reason for her to panic.

“Ethan!” Her shriek mixed in with the laughs and yells of children and disappeared in the constant roar of fountains. She started running, dodging scampering children, circling the first pool.

The man looked up, focusing on her with blue eyes. Eyes so much like Ethan's. Eyes so much like Cord's. Yet eyes that glinted cold and hard and emotionless.

Dryden Kane put his hand on Ethan's arm.

A scream rose in her throat. Surfaced to her lips. She had to reach Ethan. She had to save her son. Her baby.

The water park stretched forever, an obstacle course of pools and children and concrete jungle plants. She was so far away. Too far away.

“Kane!” A voice boomed through the room. Not hers. Not the cop's.

Cord's.

He burst into the water park through one of the lobby doors and stormed past Melanie. He raced for Ethan, raced for Kane. “Get away from him, you bastard!”

Cord raced across the pool deck, circling tables and dodging children. He'd never seen Kane in person before, but he had no doubt the man with the cropped red hair and beard was him. Even from across the indoor water park, the bastard's eyes shone with an icy light. Inhuman.

Kane gripped Ethan's arm. Speaking in the boy's ear, he pulled him back from the kiddie pool, back toward the door to the hotel atrium.

Cord ran faster, skirting the center pool.

A little girl darted in front of him.

He slammed on the brakes and ducked to the side. Scrambling, he kept his feet under him and pushed on.

A scream rose from behind him over the din. Melanie. He couldn't make out what she was yelling, but he only hoped she was calling for a cop.

He kept running. He couldn't look back. If he
took his eyes from Ethan, he might not see which door Kane exited. He might lose his son.

Kane ducked behind a group of fake palms. Light reflected off glass. A door opening.

Cord dodged around the edge of the kiddie pool and made for the door Kane and Ethan had exited. He yanked it open and raced into the hotel.

The center atrium rose a dozen stories in the air. Each floor opened to a balcony rimming the circumference of the hotel. The center separated into restaurant, bar and seating areas. And in the far corner a waterfall cascaded down several yards and tumbled over a silver sculpture.

Cord spotted Kane.

The killer pulled Ethan across the center of the floor and ducked behind a half wall of potted ferns.

Cord went after him. When he reached the ferns, Kane and Ethan were halfway across the span of the atrium.

Closing in on the elevators.

“Stop that man!” His voice echoed through the gaping space.

Several people turned curious faces his way, but no one moved to help.

Not that he'd expected it. He could only hope Melanie could get the cop's attention. He could only pray he could stay on Kane's trail. If the monster slipped away, Ethan was gone.

The distance between them closed. Now that Cord had room to run, he was gaining. Dragging a struggling Ethan, Kane couldn't move as fast.

Kane threaded a gap between a seating area and fake palms and circled the two glass elevators.

Right behind them, Cord reached the elevator just as the doors closed. He jammed his fingers between the panels and pulled. Inch by inch they parted. The empty elevator shaft.

He'd lost them.

No. He couldn't lose them. He wouldn't let Kane take Ethan.

Cord let go of the doors. He raced around to the other side of the elevator bank. Through the column of glass, he could see the elevator car rising. He could take the other elevator, follow them, but first he had to see what floor they stopped on.

The back of Ethan's head pressed against the glass. Still clutching the boy's arm, Kane turned to look out the glass elevator and over the atrium. His eyes met Cord's. The bastard's lips thinned into a smile.

“Where is he?” Melanie raced toward him.

Cord didn't wait for her to reach him. He took off for the other elevator. He'd give Kane something to smile about. “In the elevator. Tell me which floor they get off on.”

She looked up to the glass elevator and clasped her hand to her mouth. “Hurry.”

Cord circled back to the elevator doors and jammed the button with a fist. The door of the other elevator slid open. Jumping on, he hit the button for the top floor. The elevator closed and started its climb. He looked out the glass, the lobby falling away beneath him. Focusing on Mel, he waited for her signal.

She met his eyes and held up nine fingers.

He hit the button for the ninth floor.

Each floor ticked by, one after another. Slowly. Too slowly. This damn elevator was taking too long. Kane could have taken Ethan anywhere by now.

Finally the elevator slowed to a stop. The floor number flashed on the digital screen, then held.

The eighth floor.

The door furled open. A smiling older couple stepped forward to board.

“You can't get on.” Cord jammed the ninth-floor button. The last thing he needed were innocent bystanders in the way when he confronted Kane.

“I beg your pardon?”

Cord offered his best
Murder One
glare. If there was ever a time to look like a crazy and dangerous ex-con, this was it. “Get the hell back. This elevator is mine.”

Identical expressions of horror streaked across their faces. They recoiled just as the door closed.

The elevator car resumed its climb. The door opened, this time on the ninth floor.

Cord lunged out of the elevator, fists up and ready.

The hall was empty in either direction. He circled the elevator bank and looked over the balcony.

Mel stood just where he'd left her. She pointed to the left.

Cord ran in the direction she'd indicated. His pulse throbbed in his ears. He reached the corner of the rectangular atrium.

“Cord!” Melanie's scream rose above the din below. He located her racing across the lobby below, pointing back in the direction of the elevator.

Damn. Kane had taken the stairs to the floor above and doubled back.

Cord did a 180. If he could reach the elevator in time, he might be able to force the car to stop on his floor.

Lungs screaming for breath, he raced to the doors and hit the button. The light above the door lit. The bell dinged. The elevator slid open.

Cord met the eyes of Dryden Kane.

The monster stood behind Ethan. One hand gripped the boy's shoulder, the other held a knife
to his throat. One sharp move and Ethan was dead. “Hello, son.”

Cord looked at his own son. Ethan's eyes puddled with tears, but his cheeks were dry. Teeth clenched, he thrust his chin forward like a little soldier.

“Let him go,” Cord said.

“I'm glad you could make it, Cordell.” Low as a whisper, Kane's voice rang emotionless, flat. As if threatening to slit his grandson's throat was as significant to him as swatting a mosquito.

Cord jammed his foot in the corner of the elevator door track, preventing the door from closing. “The cops are here. The building is sealed off. There's no way out.”

“Sealed off? By the time this place is sealed off, I'll be long gone.” He tilted his head. “I just wanted to talk to the boy. I didn't count on you being here. But since you are, this gives us a nice opportunity to chat. An opportunity no father should pass up.”

Cord studied the killer's face. The eyes so much like his. The slightly weaker jaw. The sharp cheekbones. He didn't want to chat with this man. He wanted to take that knife from his hand and jam it between his ribs. He wanted to remove him from the face of the earth and erase all evidence he ever existed. He wanted to forget this monster's blood flowed in his veins.

If only he could.

“The cops will be on this floor any second.” At least he hoped they would be. He prayed.

“You're too smart for this, Cordell. Helping the cops?” Kane shook his head, as if sorely disappointed. “They sure as hell aren't going to help you. They'd just as soon see you back in the penitentiary.”

Cord couldn't argue with that. He didn't even try. “There's no way out, Kane.”

“There's always a way out.”

“Not this time.”

“Why do you listen to them, Cordell?”

Cord shook his head. He didn't listen to the cops. At least he didn't believe them. But he sure as hell wasn't going to believe anything Kane said, either.

“They tell you that you're scum. Dirt. They tell you that you're nothing. Why do you listen?”

“Let the boy go.”

“I understand you, Cordell. Not the cops. Not Melanie Frist.
Me.
Do you know why?”

He didn't want to hear this. His hands ached to wrap around Kane's throat, to choke the life out of him. Whatever it took to shut him up.

The blade glistened hard and lethal against the tender skin of Ethan's throat.

“You're like me, Cordell. You share my blood.” He looked down at Ethan and smiled. “Strong blood.”

Cord ground his teeth together.

The smile widened. “But more than blood, you have tasted my power. The power over life and death.”

Cord gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. As much as he didn't want to acknowledge he was anything like his father, Kane was right. They shared the same blood. And they were both killers.

“Why fight it? Others are weak.
They
are the ones who are nothing. Not us, Cordell. Not us.”

Cord couldn't listen to this. “Let him go.”

“No one understands that power until they've felt it. Until it burns inside. Until it consumes everything else. We know what it's like to hold life and death in our hands. We know what it's like to be God.”

“Go to hell, Kane.”

Shouts sounded from the first floor of the atrium.

The cops. It was about damn time.

Kane tilted his head, hearing the shouts, too. “I'll be in touch.” He reached out with his knife hand to hit a button on the elevator panel.

Cord lunged forward. Grabbing Ethan's arm with one hand, he chopped down on Kane's with the other, breaking his grip. Cord enveloped the boy in his arms. He pulled Ethan away from Kane, out of the elevator.

To safety.

The elevator door slid shut.

 

S
HOUTS AND FOOTFALLS
echoed in the back of Melanie's mind like sounds from another world, another life. Her vision narrowed. All she could focus on was the glass elevator. All she could see was Kane's dyed hair. All she could think about was Ethan.

Her baby.

She didn't know what had happened to Cord. She hadn't seen him since she'd directed him back to the elevator. Now the elevator hung on the ninth floor.

“Ma'am? You have to leave this area. You have to come with me.”

Her mind registered the officer's voice, the dark blue of his uniform. She shook her head. “My son is up there. You have to save my son.”

“We will. But you have to clear out of here. It's for your own safety.”

She glanced around the atrium. Officers scrambled into place. The SWAT team in their protective gear, snipers, all of them aiming to take Kane down. “You can't shoot him. My son is up there. You might hit my son.” And Cord. What had happened to Cord?

He grasped her elbow in one hand and her fingers in the other. He started walking her away from the elevator.

She tried to pull back, to break away. She
couldn't. The more she fought, the greater pressure seized her arm.

“You have to move out of the way. You have to let us do our jobs. We won't hurt your son. Don't worry.”

How could he tell her not to worry? How could he force her to leave when Ethan needed her?

Above their heads, the elevator car started descending. She could no longer see Kane inside. The car looked empty.

“He's not there! What happened?”

The officer increased his pace, forcing her to move with him, to walk farther and farther from her son. He half dragged her behind a planter on the edge of the atrium. SWAT officers moved into place, surrounding the doors.

The elevator passed the third floor. The second. It reached the lobby. Kane nowhere to be seen. It kept going, sinking to the lower level until nothing but its ornate copper roof showed above the lobby's tile.

Shouts rang out around her. “He went to the parking level! Are they set up yet?”

“No time!”

“How the hell did he bypass this floor?”

“Seal off the garage from the outside!”

The shouts and movement washed over her, blending with the thunder of her pulse in her ears,
the fear buzzing in her blood. Above, the second car started its descent.

“The other one's coming down! Get into position!”

Blue uniforms surrounded the elevator doors.

The glass car lowered. Broad shoulders filled the clear upper half of the elevator. Sandy-brown hair. Tattooed arms.

Cord.

Melanie struggled to break free from the officer holding her arm. She had to reach Cord. She had to know what happened to Ethan.

The elevator came to a halt on the lobby level.

The chime rang. Weapons leveled on the car. The doors slid open.

Melanie's breath seized in her throat.

Cord stepped out. And in front of him, shoulders braced by his father's hands, was Ethan.

Melanie broke free. Racing to the elevator, she fell to her knees and gathered her baby in her arms. He felt so solid, so warm, so alive. She scooped in breath after breath of his chlorine-scented hair. Her vision blurred, turning the world into a mosaic of watery color.

Through her tears, she looked up and into Cord's eyes—the eyes of the boy she'd once known. The boy she'd once loved. The man who'd
saved her son. A cold shiver started in the pit of her stomach and spread over her.

 

“H
E WAS IN THAT
first elevator. So how in the hell did he get away?” Cord eyed Officer Herns, the cop assigned to protect Melanie and Ethan in the first place. The cop who was conveniently missing when Kane showed.

The cop avoided his gaze.

McCaskey cleared his throat, bringing Cord's attention to him. “SWAT didn't have time to set up. Probably the way Kane planned it.”

“No ‘probably' about it.” He'd told Cord he'd be gone before the hotel was sealed. He hadn't been lying. “Why didn't the elevator stop at the lobby? Didn't anyone think to push the button?”

“He stole a key from an open maid closet. The key was still in the control panel.”

Detective Valducci nodded like a bobble-head doll. “Kane is meticulous in his planning. He doesn't mess around.”

“That's right.” Detective Perreth lounged on the hotel room bed flipping an unlit cigarette in his fingers. “But the bottom line is that if you had held him up a little longer, we could have stopped him.”