Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 (19 page)

He wanted straightforward? “Did you murder Francisco Dona last night in retaliation for your sister's death? Or hire someone to murder him?”

“So he is dead.” Asher leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I'm a dying man. Whether it was ten years ago or yesterday, knowing he died before me makes me very happy.”

Leland checked his watch and glanced at his attorney. “Will there be anything else, Detective Dixon? I have a dinner engagement I don't want to miss.”

“Just one last question and then I can let you go.”

“What's that?”

“Did you know that your girlfriend, Beverly Eisenbach, and your nephew, Matt, have been having an affair while you've been incarcerated in Jefferson City?”

Leland leaned over to whisper something with his attorney before answering.

“Yes.”

* * *

K
ATIE
KNEW
SOMETHING
was terribly wrong when the cast came out for curtain call at the final dress rehearsal. There were only five Cratchit children crossing to center stage. Where was Tiny Tim? “Where's Tyler?”

She ran down to the stage and straight up the stairs, pushing aside actors while the music was playing and they were still taking their bows. She wasn't going to lose him again.

“Wyatt? Kayla? Have you seen Tyler?”

The other children seemed startled to realize one of them was missing.

“No, ma'am.”

“We were playing cards backstage at intermission. He said his last line, didn't he?”

Yes, her son had the last line of the entire show. Then the actors had all exited backstage to line up for bows, and now... “Francis.” She caught the tall actor by the sleeve of his robe before he went back onstage. “Have you seen my son?”

She heard him snorting beneath his mask. “No director. Missing actors. Crazy costume ladies dashing across the stage. You know what they say—a bad dress rehearsal means we'll have a stellar opening night.”

“Stuff it, Francis. Have you seen Tyler?” He tugged his robe from her grasp and ignored her question. “Then is Trent here yet?”

Francis snickered from behind his mask. “It's not my job to keep track of your child or that bruiser boyfriend of yours.”

“Francis, please.”

“That's my cue.”

Trent had promised to be here by the end of the rehearsal. Maybe Trent had arrived early and he and Tyler had gotten to talking backstage and her son had simply missed his cue. Katie hurried back to the greenroom.

He'd had to stay late at the precinct office, walking Doug Price through booking, writing up reports on his interviews with Leland and Matt Asher and Beverly Eisenbach, and sitting down with the rest of the team to determine whether they had enough circumstantial evidence for arrest warrants yet. Normally, Katie would have been part of such a meeting, but Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor had excused her for Tyler's benefit. With the threat of John Smith no longer in the picture, Katie had figured she could go to the final dress rehearsal without the benefit of a 24/7 bodyguard. Even so, Trent had insisted a uniformed officer accompany them, and he'd promised to join them at the theater as soon as he could get away from work. After all, Tyler still wanted him to be a part of his life, even if Katie needed time to decide how to respond to Trent's ultimatum.

But maybe that need for an evening of independence to figure out her future had been a mistake.

She hurried past Ebenezer Scrooge himself, knowing there would be no other actors behind him. The crew members thought Tyler was onstage or had made an emergency run to the bathroom and forgotten he had to go back out.

She found Tyler's street clothes still on the hanger in the men's dressing room, although his coat was gone.

Katie quickly slipped into her own coat and pulled out her phone. He wouldn't have been so foolish as to go out and play in the snow, would he? Just in case, she hurried across the backstage area and stepped outside. “Tyler?”

Not trusting her son's safety to anyone else, Katie punched in Trent's number and lifted the phone to her ear. It rang once before she saw the silver car, just like the night before, waiting in the crowded parking lot. She saw Leland Asher nod to her before climbing into the backseat. “Oh, no. Tyler!”

She started to run. But strong arms locked around her from behind, knocking her phone into the snow and lifting her off the ground. A rough hand and a pungent cloth muffled her scream, and within seconds, her knees grew weak and the world faded into black.

* * *

T
HE
NIGHTMARE
DIDN
'
T
go away when Katie awoke.

It had just taken on warmer temps and a posher backdrop.

She was still a prisoner, like she'd been at seventeen. And her beloved little boy was once again in harm's way.

Instead of being handcuffed to a bed in a makeshift hospital ward, waiting to deliver a baby, she was seated at Leland Asher's ornate walnut desk in the study of his mansion, hacking into a computer system for him. She didn't need to be drugged or kept in chains in order to cooperate. The two thugs who'd kidnapped her and Tyler had already shown her Matt Asher's dead body and promised to do the same to her nine-year-old son if she didn't do their boss's bidding.

There was something seriously twisted inside Leland Asher's head to make him order his bodyguards to lure Tyler outside the theater with a story about her getting hurt in the parking lot. Now he had them tie Beverly Eisenbach to a brocaded Queen Anne chair before thanking them for their years of service and dismissing them, promising each a healthy bonus in their bank accounts. Then he'd kissed his longtime girlfriend and stuffed his wadded-up handkerchief into her mouth to muffle her protests and pleas for mercy. With Matt Asher dead, Leland weakened by his illness and the hired help dismissed for the night, Katie even briefly considered standing up to Leland herself, maybe shoving the desk chair at him and making a run for it with Tyler, or whacking him over the head with this computer.

But as if sensing her tendency to tempt fate, he used the one thing she cared about most to force her to unlock code and break through firewalls and search through servers to access the information he wanted—he stood in the center of the room framed by windows and floor-to-ceiling curtains and simply rested one hand over the shoulder of her son and held a gun in the other.

Her sinuses reeled with a headache from the knockout chemical they'd used on her, but her synapses were firing on all cylinders. She'd been at the computer for about an hour since getting her instructions, but in reality, she'd gained access to Beverly's medical files within the first fifteen minutes. She'd spent the rest of the time fighting for survival in the best way she knew how. She prayed her desperate plan had worked and that it had worked quickly enough for her and Tyler to have a chance to escape.

She rested her fingers for a moment before looking up at the gray-haired man. “I'm in.”

“I want you to access her private files.”

Beverly screamed through her gag, rocking back and forth in her chair, pulling at the ropes that bound her.

“I need a warrant to do that,” Katie explained.

Leland put the gun to Tyler's head and Katie bit her lip to stop from crying out. “Here's your warrant. Now do it.”

Katie's fingers sailed over the keyboard again. “You keep looking at me, Tyler. Think about Padre. He's going to need you to give him some extra exercise tonight because we'll be getting home so late.” She locked her gaze on to Tyler's red-rimmed eyes and smiled. “You focus right here, sweetie. I love you. Don't ever forget that, not for one second.” He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his costume and nodded, trying so hard to be brave and remain calm for her.

She glanced down at her work, wanting to do everything she could to maintain Tyler's focus on her and keep him from witnessing a gruesome crime or becoming a victim himself.

Don't make a mistake. Don't make a mistake.

Since Leland hadn't questioned anything she'd done so far, Katie pretended the extra commands she typed in were necessary to retrieve the sensitive information that the law and a stubborn girlfriend wouldn't give him. The counseling office's patient list was already on her screen. But with her fingers flying over the keyboard, she embedded a message and sent it to Trent's phone. The message was sent and gone by the time she'd reached Bev Eisenbach's confidential files.

“Have you finished yet?” Leland was growing impatient.

She couldn't push her luck too much further. “Just about.”

Leland kept his grip on Tyler but switched the gun back to Beverly as tears smeared her mascara and she whimpered for forgiveness. “Miss Rinaldi, I remind you that I'm a dying man.”

“I'm in the system.”
Find us, Trent. Find us.
“I'm pulling up the patient files now. What do you want me to look for?”

Leland smiled, pleased with her success. Keeping a grip on Tyler's arm, he walked over to Beverly and pulled the gag from her mouth. “It was quite a clever plan all those years ago that you came up with, darling. Care to explain yourself?”

Bev coughed for a few seconds before she could speak. “Leland, dearest, you know I've always had your best interests at heart. Look at all I've done for you. I convinced that tweaking drug addict to kill that reporter who was going to expose your connections to the senator. I did the world a service by having your men kill Lloyd Endicott so that Dr. Wells would murder that horrible Richard Bratcher. I found out Francisco Dona was still alive. I found out he was working as a private detective.”

“No. No, dear. You kept that from me.” He drew the gun across Beverly's forehead, and Katie nearly screamed at the horrible images he was exposing her son to. “All these years I thought I'd avenged Isabel's death, only to find out that my nephew—her own son—knew he still breathed air, and you two hadn't done a damn thing about it. I had to have my men take care of it.”

Katie was a bit of a brilliant geek herself. She'd already tapped into her KCPD account and was mirroring everything that she was doing here on the department server. She'd pinged Trent's phone—Max's, Olivia's and Jim's, as well. Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor received a notification of the new files uploading. Katie had even copied a notice to her surrogate father, the DA.

Look at Miss Katie Lee Rinaldi—taking a huge risk, bending the rules, doing whatever was necessary to protect the people she loved. She was charging into battle, taking on a known criminal to save her son and her own life one more time.

Read between the lines, Trent. Find us.

She'd always been able to get herself into trouble, but Trent would always be there to help her get out of it—to catch her when she fell, when she was frightened, when she was terrified her next mistake might cost her everything she held dear.

Be patient with me a little longer, babe. I love you. I need you. I'm in love with you.

A loud crash at the front door shook through the house. “KCPD! We're coming in!”

Tyler cried out with a startled yelp.

“It's okay, Ty,” she reassured him. “They're using a battering ram to break down the door.”

“At last.” Leland smiled from ear to ear. “I wondered how long it would take the police to find you.”

“Asher!” A deep, familiar voice echoed through the house.

“Mom!” Tyler recognized Trent's voice, too. She saw him pull from Leland Asher's grasp.

She put up her hand, cautioning him to obey. “Shh, sweetie. Remember you're playing a part. You're the good little boy who does whatever Mr. Asher says, right?”

Tyler's frightened eyes locked on to hers again and he nodded.

The next voice Katie heard was Ginny Rafferty-Taylor's. “Leland Asher. Your house is surrounded. Your chauffeur and bodyguards have been neutralized. It's just you and me and a lot of very angry cops.”

“I'd be happy to talk with you, Lieutenant.”

The team must be working its way through the mansion while the lieutenant stalled Asher. “I need to talk to the hostages first. I need to know they're okay.”

“Are you?” Leland tightened his grip on Tyler's collar and Katie nodded. “Answer her.”

“It's Katie, Lieutenant. Tyler and I are both fine. But Mr. Asher has a gun.”

Leland laughed. “Of course I have a gun. All your police friends have guns—it's only fair. Please. Welcome to my home, Lieutenant.”

Oh, God. Now his bizarre actions made sense. “He wants you to come in. He wants... Oh, God, please don't hurt my son.”

“Did you find the evidence I requested, Miss Rinaldi?” Tears stung her eyes and she reached out for Tyler. “Miss Rinaldi.”

She forced her attention back to the computer. “Yes. Dr. Eisenbach has notations in her patient files. Those with secrets she can use to blackmail them, those who need a favor and will do something in exchange for that favor.” What more did the man want from her? “Could I please have my son?”

The lieutenant's voice sounded closer when she spoke again. “Are you sure everyone is okay? Your nephew is here. He's been shot, Mr. Asher. He's dead.”

“Yes, I did that.”

He was confessing to murder with dozens of cops swarming the estate? With three witnesses who could testify against him right here?

Katie was more certain than ever that this monster intended to commit suicide by cop. He was a dying man, determined to set his affairs in order—to eliminate those who'd betrayed him and then die instantly himself, avoiding a lingering death.

But with her innocent boy smack-dab in the middle of all those guns? She couldn't let that happen.

“Don't shoot! Please don't shoot! There's an innocent child here.” Katie reached out again. “Please, Mr. Asher. May I have my son?”