Authors: Blush
The small room he found himself in was a storage area for fine art, and the first painting that caught his eye was the one he'd recently been searching for. Blush looked as if she'd been hastily propped against the shelves and abandoned. Jack felt another slam-dunk of adrenaline. His heart jerked hard, and his skull throbbed with it as he crouched beside her and picked her up, cradling the frame in his palms.
He didn't have time to admire her. He had to find what she was concealing, if anything. A damp finger rubbed over a corner of her skirt revealed no signs of another artist's work painted underneath, but the loose grips on the back of the frame made him think that she might have been stretched over another canvas. If that was the case, the other painting had already been removed, he realized. He was too late.
Despair washed over him, sapping him of strength for a moment. His skull was still throbbing hotly, but now it was the pain of an incipient headache. It was even an effort to push to his feet. Christ, was this
never
to end? He felt as if he'd had the sealed book of Fate in his hands, and it had been snatched away from him again.
A faint scuffing behind him alerted him that he wasn't alone. The sound was so slight it registered on his nerves more than his conscious mind, but when he turned, it was to one of the most confounding sights he'd ever seen.
Lake and Bridget had entered the room behind him, and the child looked as if she were about to cry. It took Jack another moment to register that Lake was holding a gun to the child's head. He had a Walther. 380 pressed to her temple.
"Bridget told me you might be down here, " Lake explained. "I found her in her closet. She said the explosion had frightened her, and you'd told her to stay there. "
The little girl hadn't realized what she was doing by telling Lake, Jack knew. She had simply responded to her uncle's questions. His heart went out to her now. She was terrified and bewildered, perhaps even thinking she'd caused this nightmare. He tried to reassure her with a silent nod, and then his gaze flicked to her captor, murderously. If he could have gotten his hands on the man without endangering Bridget, Lake would have had the gun rammed down his sick throat.
Jack no longer needed to find the Van Gogh. "It was you, wasn't it, " he said, searching Lake's fine-boned features for the signs of depravity he knew must be hidden there. "You sent the thugs who terrorized my family. You had my child kidnapped and killed. "
"Your child wasn't killed." Lake's thumb dragged down the hammer, forcing a sharp click out of the gun. It echoed like a rifle blast in the small room. "But this time she
will
be. "
Bridget whimpered with fear, and Jack stared at the five-year-old, his heart freezing. His brain could barely make sense of what was happening, but some instinctive part of him knew the moment he began to search her imploring blue eyes and her round, tear-stained features. In that one life-turning moment he understood that she was the infant who'd been taken five years ago. His child.
He said her name. "Haley...?"
"I had nothing to do with the kidnapping—"
It was Lake who spoke, but Jack barely heard the man other than to register that he was apparently making a feeble attempt to disassociate himself from the crime.
"The men who approached you did work for me," Lake went on, seemingly determined to explain. "But I had no idea they would resort to anything as desperate as kidnapping. Their instructions were to persuade you to cooperate, nothing more. I was horrified when I found out what they'd done. And when I learned that they were planning to sell the baby on the black market, I had to intervene—"
Jack tore his gaze from Bridget, enraged as he thought about the devastation that Lake's "instructions" had brought about. "Horrified? If your conscience was bothering you that badly, why didn't you give her back to me?"
"I couldn't," Lake averred softly. "My younger sister, Jillian, was dying of anorexia. We'd done everything we could—doctors, clinics, but nothing helped. She admitted to me once that she'd always wanted a baby and regretted terribly that the anorexia had made her sterile. I urged her to get well so that she could have a child of her own, but by that time it was too late. Her sterility couldn't be reversed. "
Jack stared at him, disbelieving. "And you thought that gave you the right to steal someone else's child?"
Lake's shoulders lifted. An expiration seemed to weaken his voice. "Jillian believed it would save her life. She actually believed she couldn't die if she had something important to live for, something as precious as a baby. So I had some adoption papers falsified, and I gave her Bridget. "
Jack's hand formed a fist. Unfortunately he didn't have another trick up his sleeve, nothing taped to his palm. It was just him against this demented man, who clearly thought that his name and his privileged existence put him at the front of the line where human needs were concerned.
"She was my sister." Lake's voice dropped to a softness that asked, even begged, Jack to understand. "She was
dying.
Bridget was her last chance. I had to give her that. "
"My
wife
died. She killed herself because of what you did. Or they killed her, I don't know which. It hardly matters now. "
Lake seized upon that. "But it does matter! It's all that matters, don't you see? They were the ones who came up with the plan and executed it. They were—they
are
—the kidnappers, the murderers, not me. I can supply you with their names, " he offered. "I can tell you how to find them. "
Rage shook through Jack—black, blinding rage that he had to strangle off before it could find its way into his reflexes. He wanted to kill the bastard, crush him where he stood. It would be easy enough to do. Lake had no resources but a gun that he might not have the courage to use, and the odds were that Jack could take him down before he got a shot off.
But the five-year-old child who was watching Jack's every move had terror rising in her eyes, and Jack would not let himself contribute to that. He'd already lost her once trying to be a hero. Now he was sworn to protect her no matter what that required him to do, even if it meant bargaining with a moral monster like Lake Featherstone.
He pulled a breath, aware that he had to have some answers before he could do anything else. "How much did Gus know about this? Did she know Bridget was mine?"
Lake used the question to further justify what he'd done. "She knew Bridget was adopted and that it wasn't done through the normal channels, but that was all. She didn't speak of it, none of us did. We were a family, trying to save one of our own. Can't you understand that?"
Gus didn't know.
That brought Jack a moment of relief, the first he'd had in days. Now he was free to believe, just as she was, except there was a man holding a gun on him, a man holding his heart hostage. "What about Calderon?" he asked. "How is he involved?"
"Calderon?" Lake seemed genuinely startled at the question. "Calderon is involved in
everything,
but don't ask me how. The man is a total enigma. The art world calls him a dealer and a buying agent, but he's a great deal more than that. He wields enormous power, frightening power. It wouldn't surprise me if he were running the black market in art—"
It was all Jack could do not to spin and kick the bastard's head off. "Save the tribute, " he bit out. "I want to know whether he was behind any of this. "
Lake's crooked smile turned into laughter—weak, cracked laughter. "I couldn't possibly tell you. I imagine he's in on everything in one way or another. He came to my aid once years ago when I found myself in possession of stolen artifacts and was in danger of being prosecuted. He took the merchandise off my hands. He handled everything. "
"Did he take the Van Gogh off your hands?"
"No! Oh, no, I wouldn't part with the still life, not for any price. My father wanted it, you see. All his life he coveted that painting. He actually told me once that nothing he'd accomplished mattered because he'd never been able to acquire the Van Gogh for his collection. He'd had his chance, too. He was in the bidding at Christie's, but he lost his nerve. I didn't—"
Lake indicated a hastily rolled canvas lying on a storage shelf near him. The Van Gogh, Jack realized.
Lake's mouth shook as he spoke.
"I
didn't lose my nerve."
Jack could see the signs. The man was on the edge. It wouldn't take much to push him over, but Jack would have to be careful. Push too hard and Bridget went with him.
He softened his voice. "Your sister's been trying her damndest to kill me, but I guess you know all about that, don't you, Lake. I guess you know about her and McHenry. "
Lake's head lifted. His eyes narrowed, glinting. "What do you mean? Lily? McHenry? What are you saying?" Jack merely smiled.
"Tell me, godammit!" Lake lurched forward, jerking the child with him. "What
about
Lily and Ward?"
"They didn't share their grand plan with you?"
"What grand plan?"
"They were going to get rid of me and Gus, assume control of Gus's voting stock, and take over the company. Interesting that they didn't tell you, Lake. I wonder why? Maybe because you were going to be next?"
"Lily?" he breathed his sister's name as if it were part of a religious litany, something mystical. His expression took on a desperate, bewildered quality, as if he couldn't possibly assimilate what Jack had told him. "Lily with Ward McHenry? I don't believe you. "
The twins both harbored a fatal flaw, Jack realized, but that was where the similarity ended. Lily coveted power, while her brother coveted Lily. He was obsessed with her.
"You don't believe me?" Jack said softly. "Go upstairs and check Gus's bathroom. Your sister and Ward McHenry are tied up there.
Together. "
Fury shook Lake's body. The gun jerked in his hand.
Bridget made a strange sound and shrank away, and as Lake yanked her back, Jack knew terror beyond his darkest nightmares, terror beyond all reason. Lake was losing it. He was even crazy enough to pull a trigger without even realizing it. The man holding his daughter hostage was having a nervous breakdown, and there was nothing Jack could do. Nothing he dared do.
"Let her go, " Jack said.
Rage flared, and with it came Webb Calderon's voice.
Virtu spirituale.
It stormed Jack's senses with deafening chaos, but in the eerie silence at the back of his mind, he heard a dream-like sound—the scrape of footsteps in the hallway.
Lake heard them, too, and whirled. "You?" he cried softly. He stumbled back, revealing the figure who'd crept up behind him. It was Gus and she had the gun. Jack doubted she had the strength to use it, but her presence alone gave him what he needed, an opening.
"Gus, watch out!" Bridget cried. She twisted out of Lake's hold and ducked down, scrambling toward her aunt.
In the confusion Jack lunged for Lake and caught him by the head and shoulders. The two men crashed to the ground and rolled, the Walther firing repeatedly, wildly, as if Lake's finger was convulsing on the trigger.
The gun was frozen in Lake's fist, and Jack knew he had a madman on his hands. Gus or Bridget could have been hit by a stray bullet! Fury made him violent. He slammed Lake's arm to the ground with a force that shook the small room. The weapon flew free, but Lake reared up in a frenzy, swinging and slashing with the strength of the possessed.
Jack blocked the wild blows and connected with a single savage uppercut that knocked Lake cold and sprawled him out on the floor. Half-hoping he'd killed him, Jack sprang up and searched the room.
Gus and Bridget were in a heap by the door. Something near terror gripped him, but by the time he got to them, Jack realized they weren't hit, just badly frightened. He scooped Gus into his arms, then reached out for Bridget, and the three of them clung to each other, heads bowed, hearts flooding out their fear and relief. It was probably only moments, but it seemed a very long time before Jack began to feel himself calming. Still, he didn't know if he could ever let go of them, either one of them.
"Thank you," Gus whispered.
"For what?" he asked.
"For not dying."
He wanted to laugh, but all he could do was shake his head.
Finally Bridget roused and peered at him searchingly. Her eyes were full of fear and wonder. "Who's Haley?" she asked.
Jack's throat seized painfully. Now he had to laugh or he would have cried. "Haley is someone I loved very much, " he told her. "Someone I thought I'd lost. "
He drew her back, melded by the sudden, fierce love that flooded him. It
was
love, Jack realized, pure and undiluted, and he had never known anything its equal in his life. The kiss he pressed to his wife's tear-soaked face whispered of feelings that were shouting to the heavens. The staggering relief he felt trembled in his soul. But as he gave up thanks, he was aware of the profound silence all around them, as if the gods were listening, as if the gods were pleased.
A mere mortal had stolen their fire and used it well.