Where was Jonas? What had Linden done with him?
Why had York separated them again? Or had keeping them apart been Linden’s idea?
She wanted Jonas with her ... needed him.
Oh, Griff, my wanting Jonas, my needing him so desperately, isn’t a betrayal of my love for you. I swear ...
Had this been the way Yvette had felt about Griff? Not love. Not sexual desire. But the need for human companionship. A man she could trust to help her and not to hurt her. Someone who understood the hopelessness she felt.
Every muscle in her badly bruised body ached. Her swollen jaw had turned purple and was sore to the touch. Her arm and shoulder sported jagged pink bite marks inflected by the White Witch during their battle in The Ring. Misery settled inside her like a lead weight.
She could not—would not—give in to the abject despair that threatened her sanity. Tears choked her as she fought the melancholy wrapping seductively around her.
And then, like a flickering light in the darkness, her baby kicked. Just a teeny-tiny little punch, as if saying to her, “Hey, Mom, I’m okay.”
“Hello, right back at you.” Nic rubbed her belly, caressing the gentle slope of her abdomen that cradled her unborn child. “I’m okay, too, sweetheart. Just missing your daddy and wishing we were back home in Tennessee with him.”
Listen to me, baby. No matter what happens to me, you have to hang in there. You hear me. You have to fight for life. You are Griffin Powell’s son or daughter. You are strong and brave. You are a survivor.
And you are a precious gift from God.
Chapter 35
They had returned to Griffin’s Rest a week ago, all of them mentally and emotionally drained, but Sanders most of all. He had gone back to work immediately, as if nothing had happened, taking charge of his professional responsibilities and refusing to discuss what had taken place on Amara, not even with Griff or Yvette. His relationship with Barbara Jean had been irrevocably altered by their experience on the beach. He had left their shared bedroom suite on the first floor and moved into an upstairs bedroom. No one had questioned either of them. And the entire household had been tiptoeing around Sanders as if he were a bomb set to explode with the least provocation.
Charles David had returned to San Francisco while Griff had been in Amara. Maleah had persuaded him to go home. After all, he hadn’t been helping Nic by staying at Griffin’s Rest and at least at home he would have his work to keep him occupied.
Each day Griff expected to hear from York. A phone call. A special delivery package. A fax or e-mail message. But apparently, they were back to playing the waiting game. Nic had been kidnapped nearly three months ago. He could count the days, the hours, and the minutes since he had last seen her driving away, leaving him and all the lies she couldn’t forgive far behind her. Griff tried not to think about what Nic had been enduring these past three months, but he couldn’t continuously fight his own nightmarish thoughts. Awake or asleep, Nic was always on his mind.
As he stepped out of the shower, he heard his phone ringing. He grabbed a towel off the rack, draped it around his hips, and opened the door to his bedroom. His heartbeat accelerated. Was York calling him with instructions for a new and even more deadly game?
Mitchum’s name showed up on the caller ID.
Griff answered. “What do you have for me, good news or bad news?”
“Information,” Mitchum replied. “We have the DNA test results on the woman from the Amara beach.”
“And?”
“And we have dug up some interesting info about the young lady.”
Half an hour later, Griff met with Sanders, Yvette, and Barbara Jean in his study. He had debated about whether or not to meet privately with Sanders and had decided that they each had a vested interest in the information Thorndike Mitchum had relayed to him.
“The DNA results came in on the Elora look-alike,” Griff said, his gaze focused on Sanders, who showed no emotion whatsoever.
No one said a word.
“The young woman was not your daughter,” Griff told Sanders.
Sanders did not react in any way.
Barbara Jean gasped.
“Thank goodness,” Yvette said.
“Her real name was Alisa Mistretta. She was born and grew up in London, was in trouble with the law from the age of twelve and was arrested for prostitution the first time when she was fourteen. Mitchum wasn’t able to locate the surgeon who altered her face to resemble Elora’s, but the photos of her presurgery show a rather pretty girl who bore little resemblance to Elora. Even her hair was dyed that particular shade of reddish blond. Alisa had brown hair.”
“I think we all knew that she was simply another of York’s diabolical tricks.” Yvette said, and then turned to Sanders. “You must have known in your heart that she wasn’t your child.”
Sanders did not respond.
“That’s all the info Mitchum had,” Griff said. “Now we all know the truth.”
“If you will excuse me, I have work to do.” Without another word to anyone, Sanders walked out of the study.
“He just needs time,” Yvette said.
“I’m not sure that’s all he needs,” Barbara Jean said. “Neither Sanders nor either of you has been able to completely let go of the past. You’re all bound to it by some invisible cord that you refuse to cut. God knows I can’t begin to understand what y’all went through on Amara, but I do know that until you cut that cord, all three of you are doomed.”
Stunned by Barbara Jean’s vehement outburst, Yvette and Griff stared speechlessly at her as she wheeled herself out of the study.
Another damn costume!
Nic stared at the Annie Oakley outfit hanging in her closet. In the week since her arrival at the hunting lodge, she hadn’t seen either Linden or York. Her day-to-day needs had been taken care of by closemouthed, obedient servants who provided her with decent food, clean clothes, and escorted her for an afternoon walk outside every day.
The costume had been delivered this morning, along with a note:
“Proper attire for your performance at The Execution is essential.”
When someone knocked on the closed bedroom door, Nic nearly jumped out of her skin. The servants didn’t knock. Linden certainly didn’t.
“Nicole, it’s me, Jonas,” the voice on the other side of the door called to her.
As Nic rushed to the door, it opened. And there stood Jonas, in jeans and plaid shirt and sporting a short beard and mustache just beginning to form on his handsome face. Behind him stood two armed guards.
“May I come in?” Jonas asked.
“Yes, of course.”
When he entered, the guards closed and locked the door.
“I am so glad to see you,” Nic told him. “I had no idea what had happened to you.”
Jonas looked her over from head to toe. “You’re looking healthy. How are you?”
She patted her tummy, which seemed to be enlarging a little every day. “We’re fine.”
“No more problems?”
She reached out and grasped Jonas’s hand. “Come sit down and tell me everything you know about where we are, why we’re here, and what’s going on. And I need to know more about this upcoming event that York calls The Execution.”
“I don’t know much,” he said. “But what I know isn’t good for either of us.”
“I suspected as much.” Nic nodded toward the closet. “I have a costume for the event. A cowgirl outfit—fringed leather skirt and vest, western-style boots, and the cutest little wool felt cowgirl hat you’ve ever seen.”
“The Execution is similar to The Ring in that it’s a show for an audience, only not in a ring. From what I understand, there is always a theme to The Execution. The one I participated in had a Civil War theme. I was decked out in a Johnny Reb costume and the man I killed was in Yankee blue.”
“Then it’s like a play that ends in death. Real death.”
“Pretty much.” As they sat down on the edge of the bed, Jonas took both of her hands in his. “There were three acts to the play, with three people killed. Two opening acts and then the main event. My guess is that you’ll be the main event.”
“And it’s kill or be killed just like in The Ring.”
“These things go on all the time, around the world,” Jonas told her. “Most people never know anything about them. There is an underground society of really sick, twisted wealthy people who get their kicks in the most perverted ways possible. Human bondage. Men and women, boys and girls being bought and sold as sex slaves. Hunters tracking and killing other human beings. Watching opponents fight to the death. Having a front-row seat to the murder of one person by another.”
Nic squeezed Jonas’s hand. “You’re going to be one of the acts in this Execution play, too, aren’t you? You’ll be expected to kill again.”
“So will you.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed each. “You have to do it, Nic. You’ll have no choice. If you don’t kill the condemned person, they will do it for you and then either kill you or punish you in some horrible way.”
“I don’t know if I can—”
Jonas grabbed her by the shoulders. “You can and you will.” He glanced down at her stomach. “You’ll do it, if not for yourself, for your baby.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hide the fact that I’m pregnant, and I have no idea what York will do when he finds out.”
“He’ll use your pregnancy to his advantage, to control you and to torment your husband.”
“But Griff doesn’t know.”
Jonas looked at her questioningly, then asked, “When York finds out, how long do you think it will be before he tells your husband?”
Griff took the call from Rafe Byrne that evening while he was standing on the patio. He had eaten dinner alone in the kitchen, a plate left by Mattie before she’d gone home for the day. Both Sanders and Barbara Jean had been conspicuously absent, as had Derek and Maleah.
“I was beginning to wonder if I’d paid you a million dollars for nothing,” Griff said when he answered his phone.
“There was no point in contacting you until I had some useful information.”
“And you have some now?”
“Sir Harlan has invited me to fly over to the States with him in a couple of weeks. He’s taking part in what he refers to as a marvelously unique hunt. He didn’t come right out and say it, but he didn’t leave much doubt as to what we will be hunting.”
“Did he say where this hunt is taking place?”
“No, but he did tell me that each of the chosen quarry is very special to our host. Two males and two females. And he’s invited Bouchard. There will be just the four of us so it’ll be one-on-one in the hunt, or so Sir Harlan says.”
“Two males and two females. And Nic will be one of the two females.”
“That’s my guess.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Nothing more that the old bastard shared with me,” Rafe said. “Just a gut feeling I have.”
“Tell me.”
“I think the prey we’ll be hunting is a select group—maybe you and Sanders and Yvette and Nicole.”
Chapter 36
By her calculations, Nic was six months pregnant on the day of The Execution ceremonies. Her fringed A-line skirt fit loosely and her leather vest and billowy gingham blouse adequately camouflaged her pregnancy. She was afraid that if either Linden or York looked at her closely today, they would notice the slight fullness of her face and the increase in her breast size. If it happened, it happened. She had known all along that it would be only a matter of time before she could no longer hide her condition. But she had hoped beyond hope that before that happened, Griff would have found her.
Traveling by horse-drawn wagons, she and five others, including Jonas, sat huddled together in the wagon bed, with an armed guard riding shotgun and two guards, on horseback, flanking the wagon. Not only were she and the other participants in today’s exhibition dressed in costume, but so were their guards. They all looked as if they had stepped off a western movie set. The five men wore decorative leather chaps over their pants, Stetson hats on their heads, and their belts sported big silver buckles. And they had beards and mustaches in varying degrees of growth. Nic and the one other woman had been decked out to resemble the Queen of the Cowgirls, Dale Evans, in fancy attire more suitable for the silver screen than the real old west.
Nic understood why no one felt chatty on the ride from the hunting lodge. Three people were doomed to execution today and three assigned the role of true life executioner. It was better not to know one another, not to share any personal information with the person you would have to kill. Or with the person who would kill you.
They arrived at their destination thirty or so minutes after leaving the hunting lodge. Without a watch, Nic guessed at the time by checking the position of the sun. She figured it was mid-to-late morning. The bumpy road, more dirt than gravel, led directly into the little town, but not just any town—a ghost town. The main street consisted of six dilapidated buildings on one side and three on the other. All except two were wooden structures weathered to gray over the years and in various states of ruin. One was a two-story brick with boarded arched windows, and the other a one-story brick with a ramshackle wooden porch. In the distance on a nearby hillside, a couple of other old buildings, possibly once a schoolhouse and a church, nestled snugly beneath towering evergreens, a weed-infested cemetery planted halfway between them.
The entire town was alive with costumed people: cowpokes, saloon girls, gunslingers, sheriffs, schoolmarms, and gamblers. Nic counted the townsfolk as the wagon rolled along Main Street. By the time the driver stopped the wagon on the outskirts of town, she had counted more than twenty people. Who were they? Surely they weren’t all York’s captives.
The guards lowered the back of the wagon, ordered them to get out, and quickly divided the men from the two women. She and Jonas exchanged hasty good-bye glances before she and the other woman, a raw-boned brunette only a couple of inches shorter than Nic, were escorted to a nearby shade tree. Their hands were cuffed behind them and attached to shackles hanging from the side of the tree. From where she stood manacled to the tree trunk, she had only a partial view of Main Street, but she could hear the jubilant celebration taking place in the old ghost town.
She glanced at the woman beside her and wondered if she should say something to her. But before she had a chance to decide, one of the guards came for the woman. Nic watched as he released the brunette from the cuffs and dragged her away, forcing her to march in front of him.
A few minutes later, a riotous roar rumbled down the street from the little godforsaken town. Cheers and shouts preceded what sounded like a loud drumroll. And then the crowd quieted. The eerie sound of someone whistling sent shivers through Nic. She didn’t recognize the tune, something chillingly melancholy.
Time seemed to stand still.
The sun warmed the earth.
The autumn breeze cooled the air.
A gunshot rang out. And then another.
Boisterous shouts and delirious whoops followed.
Every muscle in Nic’s body stiffened. She knew the first execution had taken place. One down and two to go. Jonas would be the next executioner and then it would be her turn. How long would it be before they came for her? How long before she would have to commit murder?
“You’ll do it, if not for yourself, for your baby,” Jonas had told her.
The second execution had taken place a good while ago, the noise from the townsfolk, York’s honored guests, quieted now to a low rumble.
What are they waiting for?
With each passing moment, Nic became more nervous and less certain that she could actually kill another human being in cold blood.
You can do it. You have to in order to save your life and your child’s life.
The sun hung high in the sky, directly overhead. Midday.
She saw the guards approaching and knew the time had finally come. One man removed her cuffs, pulled her away from the sheltering tree, and the other man strapped a gun belt around her lower waist. Inserted in the single holster now strapped to her leg rested what Nic suspected was a .45 Colt revolver. My God, was it an authentic weapon or a reproduction? She had handled one of the big old revolvers a few times, a weapon effective for power and control by the user.
As the two guards led her into what she figured had once been a bustling mining town, another drumroll resonated loud and strong, announcing the main event for today’s execution ceremonies. When they were able to see her, the onlookers, a dozen or so on each side of the street, cheered her slow, dramatic march up the street to face her opponent.
Whoever the poor man was, would he have a fighting chance? Would he have a gun? And if he did, would it actually be loaded?
When she had gone a third of the way into the center of town, one of the guards stopped her, and then both moved away from her, leaving her alone in the street. Her heart raced like mad, booming in her ears. She felt hot. Sweat dotted her brow despite the mild temperature. Her hands grew moist with sweat.
Nic looked right and left, searching the crowd for any sign of York. The damn egotistical son of a bitch, decked out in cowboy finery, stood front and center, a big smile plastered on his face. He looked right at her, threw up his hand, and waved. Could she draw the revolver and shoot York before the guards either tackled her or shot her? If only ...
Suddenly the whistler trilled another tune, one Nic immediately recognized. The theme song from the old movie
High Noon
.
You’ve got to be kidding.
Like the exciting hunts for humans and the bloody fights in The Ring, today’s reenactment of an old west gunfight possessed all the pomp and ceremony York’s rich clients expected.
As the whistler completed his rendition of “Do Not Forsake Me, My Darling,” two guards escorted Nic’s challenger down the street from the other side of town.
She squinted as they approached, trying to see the face of the man she was expected to kill. Just as the guards moved away and left the gunslinger alone, Nic got a clear view of his face.
No! It can’t be. Please, God, no.
The man standing less than fifteen feet from her was Jonas MacColl.
This was York’s doing, just another sadistically cruel maneuver in his game of revenge. He knew she wasn’t a killer, knew how difficult it would be for her to execute an innocent person. And now he was making it impossible for her.
She couldn’t shoot Jonas.
She glanced away, staring into the crowd at York. The son of a bitch laughed when their gazes met.
Her hand hovered over the holster flap, itching to undo it, and then pull the revolver and aim it at York.
She looked straight at Jonas.
I can’t do this,
she wanted to shout. But the look in his eyes told her that he expected her to kill him.
Fear and frustration induced a strong rush of adrenaline that flooded through her system. Her gaze momentarily settled on Jonas’s holster. He had a gun. He could shoot her. But he wouldn’t.
And then suddenly, before she realized what was happening, Jonas pulled his revolver from the holster. It was in that moment when she reacted by mimicking his actions, their guns then pointed at each other, that Nic knew without a doubt that Jonas’s gun was not loaded.
She knew then what she had to do, regardless of the consequences. She did not want to make the ultimate sacrifice, but she could see no other way to end this.
Asking God and Griff and her unborn child to forgive her, Nic whirled around, aimed, and fired.
The crowd gasped in shock. Jonas ran toward her as the four guards took aim straight at Nic. He lunged toward her as the guards opened fire, their bullets riddling his back when he protected her from their attack.
Jonas took her down to the dusty ground with him and covered her body with his. “Why did you do it?” he asked her.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Jonas? Oh, Jonas.”
He lay on top of her, his body a heavy, protective weight.
Nic closed her eyes.
And then the weight of Jonas’s dead body disappeared. Nic opened her eyes to see a man standing over her. He reached down and dragged her up and onto her knees.
“No!” she screamed.
“You thought you killed me, didn’t you?” Malcolm York said. “I’m afraid you shot my bodyguard. Poor fellow is dead. He died to save me just as Jonas died to save you.”
York tucked his index finger under her chin. “What’s different about you, Nicole?” He grabbed her and dragged her to her feet, then whipped apart her vest and ran his gaze over her body. “You’re getting fat.” And then as if suddenly realizing the truth, he laughed. “You’re pregnant. What a delightful turn of events. Is MacColl the father or dare I hope you’re carrying Griffin Powell’s child?”
Looking right at him, Nic spit in York’s face.