Authors: Blush
Sleeping Beauty, he thought. She was straight out of one of Bridget's ballets. The claw-hammer twisted in his chest, defying his attempt to keep the pain at bay. He'd bought some time. The guards and the cops would be busy with the horses he'd let loose from the stables and stampeded toward the guard gate. What he had to do next might be the hardest thing of all. He had to wake Gus and talk to her. He would know if she was lying the moment he looked in her eyes.
As he approached the bed and got a closer look at her, his heart wrenched. She was frighteningly still and gaunt. Her breasts swelled against the ribbed tank top that had driven him crazy a time or two, and his eyes flicked there in- voluntarily, but the thought that struck him was that she was barely breathing.
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and get her out of there. Instead, he sat down beside her and touched her pale face. She felt feverish and cold at the same time, clearly in need of medical attention. She began to stir under his touch, and as her lashes fluttered and lifted, he shushed her gently and told her that everything was all right. But it wasn't.
Her grief-stricken expression answered all his questions, even the ones he'd barely allowed himself to ask. If this was a setup, she had nothing to do with it.
"The baby," she said, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry."
Tears welled in her eyes and something closed off in Jack's throat, a constriction he knew would be with him as long as he lived. Part of the price of loving her would be remembering this moment. "It's all right, " he promised. "There will be lots of babies if that's what you want, Gus, as many as you want. "
She reached out to him, and he gathered her into his arms, needing to hold her, afraid he would hurt her. He would wait to let her tell him how it had happened. This wasn't the time. She was still grieving, and his heart felt as if it were cracking open, rupturing from its center, as he rocked her in his arms. He was sure he was dying, and yet somehow he knew that this was the opposite of dying. He was coming alive, perhaps for the first time ever.
"Those agents from the Treasury Department—" She struggled to explain. "They were going to take me in for questioning, but I couldn't go, I was too ill... and then the bleeding started."
"Shhh," he said quickly, wishing he could stop her. "Don't talk now, rest."
"I thought you'd run away." She buried her face in his fleece jacket. "When I woke up, and you were gone, I wasn't even surprised. Everyone I love runs away. I know it's my fault. I push people away, I won't let them love me, but you—" Her voice caught on a heartbroken sob, and her body shook. "You, I wanted to stay."
There was nothing he could do to ease her misery. It was too close to the surface. It was a thorn in her flesh, and she had to get it out. But she wasn't lashing out as she'd always done before. Instead she seemed driven by the impulse to reach out to another human heart, to heal herself, the way blood rushes to a new wound. And God, he wanted desperately to help her heal.
"Look at me, " she said, clinging fast to his shoulders. "Look at what you've done to me. "
His heart went cold and still. Did she hold him responsible for losing the baby? What was she saying? That this was the second child he'd caused to be sacrificed through some well-intentioned blunder?
"You made me believe, " she croaked.
"Made you believe?"
"In Cinderella, in that stupid fairy tale. You made me believe in love when I knew—when I've always known—that love hurts, it destroys. "
"No—" Much as he wanted to deny her assertion, he knew that love did hurt, it could destroy.
"Yes, " she insisted, "you pried me open like a shell and forced me to feel everything I was terrified of. I felt it all, Jack. I felt it all with you, even the pain. I thought I was going to break in two when I found you gone. "
"I came back, Gus. I'm here."
She shuddered and clung to him. "You made me believe, " she whispered. "You made me believe in love. "
He didn't know if holding her tight would stave off the agony that was welling in his chest, but he couldn't help himself. Gently he kissed her temple. "Don't stop believing now, " he said. "You have to believe, Gus... because I do love you. "
Her chin trembled and the lips that had so much trouble forming words failed her. She looked up at him, tears glittering like stars. Their brightness ripped through him.
Nothing she said could have touched him the way her forlorn, searching gaze did. The physical beauty people talked about was insignificant compared to this. There was real beauty in her now, the kind that came from courage and burned bright and hot. She was risking everything to trust him. She did believe. And he couldn't let her down. He would die first.
Her mouth worked to speak, or perhaps to smile, but she couldn't manage either. He felt as if he were watching her be born, a brittle shell crumbling away, a naked, wondrous thing emerging. Her face was suffused with color. Her eyes quivered with life. But a moment later those beautiful violet eyes had clouded over with fear.
"What is it?" he asked.
The energy seemed to drain out of her. "I went to Webb Calderon for money."
"I know, Gus. It's all right."
"No, it isn't. He knew about the kidnapping, and he asked me questions about you. He wanted to know where you took me, where your hideout was. He said you were someone called The Magician—"
Her voice cracked and gave out. Jack tried to quiet her, but her agitation was too great.
"It's not safe here," she told him. "There are police everywhere. They're looking for you—"
Jack's senses picked up a soft but deadly click. It had come from behind, from the doorway. "Quiet, " he whispered to Gus. "Don't move or scream. Don't do anything. "
The sense of separation was almost a physical thing as he settled her in the ruffled chintz pillows. It was like ripping off an arm, but he had no choice. If he was right, their lives were at stake. In order to protect her, he had to cut himself off from her, from the tenderness he felt for her.
He touched her mouth, signaling her to be silent, and then he rose from the bed and turned. "What took you so long?" he asked the woman who had entered the room.
Lily Featherstone was standing in the bedroom doorway, a small revolver in her hand. Jack recognized it as a. 38 Special, a gun made especially for women. He wasn't in any way surprised to see it. Or her. During their one brief encounter in the stairway, he'd sensed an explosive quality to Lily, something roiling beneath the surface ice. She'd impressed him as the type who would be capable of almost anything under the right circumstances, including this.
"She was waiting for me. "
Ward McHenry materialized in the doorway, and Jack found himself searching the man's craggy features and lofty demeanor in mild disbelief. This time he
was
surprised. He'd been expecting Lake, not the Featherstone chairman. Perhaps this family drama was not going to play out quite the way he'd anticipated.
Jack raised his hands in the traditional gesture of surrender and prayed Gus wouldn't do anything foolish. She'd seemed too emotionally and physically spent for heroics. He hoped that was true. "Just for the record, " he said, asking the question of Lily. "Who framed me for the theft of the Picasso? Because if it was the two of you, I'd like to extend my compliments. "
Lily smiled faintly. "Frame you? Why would we do that? It's Gus we intend to frame, for your murder. "
The bed creaked softly behind him, and Jack realized that Gus was reacting to Lily's pronouncement. It had rocked him, too, particularly the eerie calm with which she'd said it. "So it was you who rigged the weight room? And the hit-and-run?"
Neither Lily nor McHenry answered him, but the glittery quiver of triumph in Lily's eyes told him that she was instrumental in all of it, perhaps even the instigator. The woman was anything but calm. She was dangerously wired, probably from the rush of her newfound power. Jack realized. It might as well have been a drug she was so high.
"Isn't that a pretty extreme way to reassume control of Gus's trust money?" he asked, hazarding a guess at their motives.
"It would be," McHenry said, "if that's what we wanted. Gus's trust is only a small part of the prize. Her voting stock, combined with mine and Lily's, will give us the majority share. "
And kick Lake totally out of the picture, Jack thought. Apparently Lily's twin wasn't in on this. "And my death is going to help you accomplish that?" he asked. It was more than curiosity on Jack's part. He needed to keep them talking.
"Precisely." Lily's tone was soft, scathing.
McHenry gave her a quelling look, and she quieted, but for a moment Jack had thought she was going to turn the gun on him. Lily Featherstone had been surrounded by powerful men all her life, Jack realized, and quite possibly she had let them control her. Now she was grabbing some power for herself. Jack guessed before she was through, she would have total control. She would be running everything, even McHenry.
"You're going to shoot me?" Jack pressed, again to Lily. He was hoping to provoke an argument, but McHenry seemed more than willing to clear up his confusion.
"It won't be Lily who pulls the trigger as far as the police are concerned, " the older man explained. "It will be your wife. Gus has been trying to kill you off since the day you coerced her into marrying you. Today she's going to succeed with a gun she took from Lily's drawer. "
Jack knew it wouldn't be difficult to establish that Gus had shot and killed him, especially after the car accident. He hadn't reported that it was a car with her plates, but Lily could easily come forward during the investigation with information that would implicate Gus.
Jack curled his fingers into the strip of tape that was stuck to his palm, just one of the surprises he had planned for this family get-together. He'd wired a remote that was hidden in the lining of his workout jacket. "I still don't see how my death will give you control of anything. "
"Not your death," McHenry said,
"hers.
Sadly, Gus is going to crack under the emotional strain and have an accident. As trust officer, I'll be required to reassume control of the trust, as well as her voting shares. The board isn't likely to object, especially when Lily and I present a united front. "
"Ward," Lily warned. "He's up to something!"
Every good magician has something up his sleeve,
Jack thought as he stabbed the trigger. An explosion rocked the grounds outside. It lit up the room like a signal flare. Windows rattled and shook with the concussion.
Startled, Lily reared backward. Her hand flew up, and
McHenry shouted at her to give him the gun. When she wouldn't, he tried to wrestle it away from her. A shot rang out, blasting a hole in the ceiling. Fortunately, Jack was on top of the man before either he or Lily could do any more damage.
Jack made quick work of subduing and disposing of both of them. Gus was sitting up by now, and though her wan features still concerned him, he tossed her the. 38 with instructions to keep them at gunpoint while he bound, gagged and stashed the "united front" in the bathroom for safekeeping. Once he had that accomplished, he gave Gus a crash course on the gun's use, cautioning her at length about being careful.
"Stay here," he told her, gently but emphatically. He wanted to say a great deal more, but the constriction in his throat made that impossible as he bent to kiss her lips. Tenderness flowed through him. "I'll come back for you, " he promised. "I'm going to get Bridget."
"Please," she whispered as he slipped out the door. "Don't d-die. "
Jack found Bridget hiding in her closet, frightened by the explosion. The noise had drawn the housekeeper outside with everyone else, so he took a moment to calm the child. She was hidden amidst a profusion of toys and ballet gear, and as he coaxed her out, he noticed the trail of white footprints she left on the shiny hardwood floor.
"It's flour," she explained, obviously pleased with herself. "Remember how you told me that I should powder around the outside of the room to see if Frances was sneaking in through some hidden passage? Well, I did? Look, I powdered the whole room! I used Frances's sifter from the kitchen. "
The evidence of her handiwork was everywhere. There was a path of pale dust decorating the perimeter of the entire place, except for the doorways. She'd done it exactly the way he'd described, too, sprinkling a thin film that resembled house dust more than flour. Unless you were looking for it, you'd never notice it. "Did you catch her?" he asked.
She scratched her nose with her knuckle as if she were about to sneeze. "Not exactly. But I powdered the linen closet and then I did the storage room in the basement, too, because she uses those rooms alot, and guess what?" She scrunched her face, then beamed at him.
"You found something?" Jack remembered telling her that footprints leading to a solid wall could indicate a secret passageway, but his only thought had been to entertain her.
"In the storage room! Cool, huh? I spotted footprints in the flour by the back wall, so that proves it. She
is
spying on me. She's coming up from the basement. I just haven't figured out how she gets in here yet. "
A surge of adrenaline nearly took off the top of Jack's head. "Bridge, can you keep a promise?" At her eager nod, he knelt and caught hold of her arm. "Promise me you'll stay right here until I get back. Can you do that? If you get scared, go back in the closet, and I'll find you, but stay here, all right?"
"Are you going to find the passageway for me?" Her eyes bugged with excitement as he nodded.
"I'm going to try," he said.
The storage room did have a secret panel, but it didn't lead to the passageway that Bridget had hoped for. The panel opened onto a vaultlike room with a door that Jack scanned with a metal detector from his bag of tricks. A pinging noise told him there was a magnetic device within the door. From his experience that kind of device kept a metal lever from depressing the alarm switch until the door was opened. It was a relatively simple concept as intrusion detectors went, and he quickly defeated it with a powerful magnet of his own.