Killing Secrets (9 page)

She wished she could hear the animated conversation taking place several feet away between Patrick and his brother, especially when the detective lost his temper. “For God’s sake, Patrick, why didn’t you…?”

His voice lowered, the rest of his words were lost. But he glanced at Rachel and she had no doubts they were discussing her and the problem she’d brought to their door. She’d stupidly thrown Patrick in Greg’s face. She might as well have painted a target on the poor man.

It didn’t help he’d provoked Greg further by threatening to have him arrested. Now the authorities were involved. What a disaster! They might as well have kicked up a nest of rattlesnakes between them because it was a sure bet Greg was going react. And it wouldn’t be pretty. He was at his worst when deprived of something he felt entitled to and, God knows, she and Amanda were property in his eyes.

Property he was determined to reclaim.

“I’d rather be thrown buck naked into a snake pit,” she murmured. The urge to put the entire country between her and her ex-husband pushed her to her feet. Her knees felt like bread pudding. They refused to hold her up. She sat back down with a plop, white shards of light flashing behind her eyes.

“If you can sit tight a few more minutes, ma’am,” the first paramedic said quickly, “we’re not quite finished here.”

The buzzing in her head gained strength. “Y-yes, you are.”

The man exchanged a look with his partner. “Ma’am,” he said in a reasonable tone, “you should go to the hospital for x-rays. You lost consciousness for several minutes. With that contusion behind your ear, a concussion is not out of the question.”

“I’ll sign whatever waivers you—”

“What are you doing?” Patrick’s sharp question hit a second before Rachel registered that he and his brother had rejoined them on the porch. Jack hung back, while Patrick loomed over her like some kind of dark avenging warrior.

Over six feet tall, he easily had thirty pounds on her ex-husband so the man’s sheer size should have intimidated her. Yet all she could think about was how safe she’d felt tucked under his arm when he confronted Greg on her behalf. Another, saner voice in her head reminded her she’d thought to find safe haven with Greg at one time, too. She didn’t give in to such self-delusions anymore. “I’m leaving.”

“You mean you’re going to the hospital to get checked out.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, just as soon as I’m packed I’ll come get Amanda and we’re gone.”

“Ma’am, please reconsider,” the paramedic tried again. “A head injury’s nothing to play around with.”

“I know you’re only trying to do your job.” Her voice rose alongside her growing anxiety. “But you don’t understand. There’s no time!”

“Shh, Rachel, I’m sure we can work this out,” Jack said before addressing the paramedic. “Just tell my brother what to do, what to watch for and, if she decides later to go to the hospital for x-rays, he’ll take her.”

“I don’t think—” Patrick began.

“I don’t want—” she sputtered at the same time.

“If you’re dead set against going to the hospital, Rachel, they need to make sure someone’s taking care of you.” Jack scowled at his brother. “And Patrick’s not going anywhere.”

Patrick’s jaw flexed. He clearly wasn’t any happier than she was to have decisions made for him. However, he didn’t argue and, in a matter of minutes, the two paramedics shot a flurry of instructions at him, packed their equipment and left the scene.

The moment she was left alone with the two brothers, Rachel summoned a weak smile she was afraid conned no one. “I want to thank you both for your help, but I’ve got to go. You can’t keep me here.”

“No one’s keeping you against your will—” Patrick started.

Jack quelled him with a look. “I get that you’re scared,” he said to Rachel. “But you can’t keep running. You and Amanda are better off here than anywhere else.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “You…know everything?”

He nodded, then glanced at his brother. “Well, I do. No matter how generous Mom is with her assistance, neither Dad nor I could allow her to invite a complete stranger into their home unless we’d confirmed your story with Katy Kolthern and the authorities in San Francisco.”

Rachel hated to think about what they’d learned. She relaxed when she realized they couldn’t possibly know everything.

They didn’t know about Amanda.

God help her if Greg used his ace card and demanded his child back. These people could simply wrest Amanda from her, and Rachel would be helpless to stop them. Only one thing kept her ex-husband from doing just that. He needed Rachel, too. She and Amanda really were a package deal…more so today than he knew.

She refused to look the detective in the eye, afraid he’d uncover the one secret only she and two others knew. “Greg’s here in Denver. We’re leaving.”

In the quiet after her definitive statement, the ring of a cell phone sounded loud and strident. Excusing himself, Jack pulled the phone out of his suit jacket pocket and walked out of earshot to a corner of the yard. She forced herself not to look at Patrick propped against a porch pillar, still silently watching the proceedings. Still looking tense with some strong emotion she couldn’t decipher.

A sliver of uneasiness crawled up Rachel’s spine as she watched a myriad of expressions chase across Jack’s face at whatever the caller was telling him. When he hung up, he stared across the yard at her. He dragged a hand across the back of his neck, turned away and made a phone call with a single push of a button. Evidently, the call didn’t go through to whomever he wanted because he hung up quickly after speaking to someone. Then he squared his shoulders and strode across the yard to the porch.

Uh-oh. Something was terribly wrong. The man’s official demeanor scared the daylights out of her, but it was the authoritative words that made the blood rush from her head.

“I can’t let you leave, Rachel,” he said.

“You can’t force me to stay here!” she retorted. She winced at the pain in her head, her next words quieter. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Patrick, silent until then, stepped away from the pillar and inserted himself into the discussion. “What’s going on?”

Jack studied his brother for a long moment. Then, he heaved a heavy sigh and motioned him to one of the wicker chairs before he took the one closest to where she sat on the couch. He leaned toward her, his expression grave. “I can’t let you leave, Rachel. It’s too dangerous,” he waved his hand toward the street, “out there. In fact, we must get you and Amanda under a 24-hour watch until we can locate your ex-husband.”

He thought it was dangerous
out there
? She bit back a hysterical laugh. “I told Patrick he didn’t hit me. I’m not pressing charges so—”
Jack didn’t want to find Greg for what he’d just done.
Her eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”

Jack answered her question with one of his own. “Do you know a man by the name of Vanhouten?”

She leaned back on the couch, bewildered by the abrupt change of subject. “Simon?”

The detective’s head tilted, reminiscent of a predator that just caught the scent of its prey. “Dr. Simon Vanhouten. You do know him then.”

Of course, she knew Simon. He’d given her Amanda.

Dear God, he wouldn’t, didn’t—

Her heart a chunk of ice, she fought for calm. “Yes. He’s a friend of the family.”

An exaggeration. He’d been one of Greg’s cronies. Yet, after all Simon had done for her, she owed him so much. Their friendship was forged the day he planted the seed of her child in her womb. Greg’s child, with another woman’s ovum, but still her child. At least, in her mind. Simon had been the only person she could call, the only one she could trust to help her that awful night….

“Look, I don’t know what all of this has to do with Simon. I haven’t talked to him in months. But—” She lunged to her feet despite the fact the motion made her stomach flip-flop like a dying carp. A mistake. “But,” she gulped the bile rising in her throat and tried again, “if I-I don’t…put a hundred miles between me and, and….” Her head spun. She swayed under the onslaught.

“Whoa there, sweetheart!” Patrick’s voice sounded urgent, hollow, in her ear when he wrapped his arms around her. “Better sit down before you fall down.”

She locked her knees, wondering how he’d gotten to her so fast. “I-I can’t—I won’t—” She could hardly think with Patrick this close. “Please,” her hand, trapped between them, pushed at his warm bulk, “let me go.”

He stared down at her a long moment, the concern in his eyes making her feel dizzier. Then he allowed her to sink back to the cushions on the couch. “Rachel,” he said, his hands slowly releasing her upper arms, “Jack wouldn’t say you can’t leave unless there was a very good reason.” He looked over his shoulder. “Jack?”

His brother nodded.

When Patrick took a step back and resumed his seat a couple feet away, she settled back in her chair to clear her head. She might as well listen to what the detective had to say. “What does any of this have to do with Simon?”

“Your friend’s in the hospital.” Jack frowned. “He’s in a coma. It doesn’t look good.”

“How—I mean, God, what happened?”

“Someone tried to kill him on Monday.”

She could barely process what the man was saying.
Simon, dear Simon with his cold hands, dry wit, and warm heart might die?

Jack cursed. “Rachel, listen. Can you think of a reason why your ex-husband might want to murder Vanhouten and burn his clinic to the ground, almost before the ink is dry on his prison release papers?”

Could she think of a reason? Even dazed and confused, she could think of several hundred million reasons. And they all led to little Amanda.

A band of terror tightened around her lungs and squeezed. She shook her head. The buzzing noise grew ever louder in her ears until the rush of blood in her veins dragged her down into blessed darkness.

Chapter Seven

He should have stayed on his own side of the fence, not run straight into the dangerous territory he instinctively knew surrounded Rachel James
.

Thunk! Patrick punched the nail home with a satisfying bang, having ditched the nail gun more than an hour ago in favor of a good, old-fashioned hammer. He had to hit something to beat yesterday’s confrontation out of his head.

Patrick’s my boyfriend, Greg.

Thunk, thunk!

I have to tell you, pal, Felicia’s quite a con artist.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk!

The woman certainly hadn’t felt like a con artist. Patrick still remembered the way her full breasts felt grazing his chest, the tremble of her slender fingertips buried in the folds of his work shirt, the heady scent of lilacs on her sun-warmed hair weaving through his senses. He groaned at the memory of her silky skin beneath his calloused fingertips. Was she that silky smooth all over? She’d felt like pure sin in his arms.

No. She’d felt like trouble.

Why hadn’t he heeded his own advice? When he’d agreed to keep an eye on Rachel and her daughter, the plan was simple. Watch. From a distance. It hadn’t seemed much of a challenge with Amanda trailing in and out of his home and office as Suze’s shadow. The little blond cutie from next door was so quiet, he hardly noticed she was there unless she inadvertently got close enough for him to get sucked into her wary brown-eyed gaze.

Just as he’d gotten sucked in by the little girl’s mother. From his office window Rachel James was a delectable temptation Patrick could resist,
had
resisted for two entire days. He’d been unaware of the haunted look in her soft brown eyes, the smudges beneath her lashes that spoke of too many anxious days and sleepless nights. He hadn’t realized her willowy frame would feel so fragile and so right, beneath his big hands.

One minute, he was maintaining his distance from a woman in trouble. The next he’d stepped, no, he’d run between Rachel and her ex-husband, crossing a line he’d promised never to bridge again. He could hardly stand by and allow Rachel to be abused. Yet it wasn’t until he’d gotten up close and personal he realized her pull on his protective instincts might actually be as strong as his physical desire for the woman. He could fight the latter, maybe the former, but both at the same time? He didn’t rescue needy women anymore!

He couldn’t retreat back to his side of the cranberry hedge fast enough last night after driving her to the emergency room and leaving her in the hands of his capable brother, Sam. Yet he’d dragged her dilemma home with him, unable to forget the way she trembled when her ex-husband threatened to take Amanda. The look of devastation on her face when Jack hit her with the news about the attack on her doctor friend. How agitated she’d become when Sam admitted her to the hospital so he could monitor her concussion and the altitude sickness no one knew she’d been fighting since her arrival in Denver.

All Patrick could think about was that he would see her again in less than two hours when she was released from the hospital and he picked her up to bring her home.

Home?

Thwack.

Listening to the sharp tap-tap-tap of the nail gun in use one floor above him, he wiped the sweat off his forehead before he examined the hole he’d inadvertently hammered into the new sheet rock he’d been hanging since dawn. Between yesterday’s incident with Rachel, all of the gouged drywall he had to replace, and a shade temperature hovering in the upper nineties, he was ready to tear a strip off someone.