Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's Son\The Brother's Wife\The Long-Lost Heir (42 page)

“The place where it all began? What the hell did he mean by that?” Northrup demanded.

“I thought he was just yanking McClain’s chain, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I should go look for him.”

“No.” Northrup’s voice was firm and decisive. “You stay here and take care of McClain. Carol and I will go find…Adam.”

There was a momentary flurry of activity while Northrup and Carol climbed into his silver Rolls-
Royce, and he issued last-
minute instructions to Thorpe. Then the engine started up, the car lights came on, and Jake slid back down in the seat.

As the sound of the motor faded away, he expected to see Thorpe at the window at any moment. Jake continued to work at the lock, keeping his fingers as steady as possible while his heart pounded inside him. He knew he only had seconds….

The lock sprang open, and Jake pulled his hand free. He glanced out the window, trying to locate Thorpe. Another car engine roared to life, and Jake jerked around toward the sound. In the darkness, he could see a vehicle moving up behind his Blazer. Thorpe meant to ram him off the cliff.

Jake’s fist shot up and shattered the interior light. He closed his hand over the door handle as he felt the jarring impact of the collision. In a moment, the front wheels of the Blazer would go over the cliff. Jake’s timing had to be exact.

As the truck tilted sharply forward, Jake opened the door and tumbled out. There was a small patch of bushes near the edge of the cliff, and he rolled toward it for cover.

Behind him, he heard the sound of the Blazer going over the bluff and then a brief moment of silence before he heard the hard splash below.

The smashed light hadn’t come on in the Blazer when he’d opened the door, and he wasn’t sure if Thorpe had seen him leap from the truck or not. Thorpe backed his own vehicle from the edge of the cliff and turned toward the road. The lights were still off, but he left the motor idling as he opened the door and climbed out.

The gun in Thorpe’s hand gleamed in the moonlight as he slowly walked back toward the bluff. The small clump of bushes was Jake’s only cover, so it wouldn’t take long for Thorpe to find him. Jake crouched, ready to spring, as Thorpe neared the edge of the cliff and stood looking down at the water. And then he laughed—a deep, satisfied sound, which Jake took as his cue.

He lunged from the bushes and grabbed Thorpe’s legs, jerking him downward with all his strength. He heard Thorpe’s grunt of surprise just before he fell with a thud to the ground. His gun sprang free, and he scrambled toward it, but Jake grabbed him again. Thorpe kicked him in the face, and Jake fell back toward the edge of the cliff.

In a flash, Thorpe was on him, pressing his advantage, pushing Jake closer and closer to the edge. Jake managed to get his hands around Thorpe’s neck, and as Thorpe tried to free himself, they both slid over the cliff, crashing into a jagged ledge five feet from the top.

Jake grabbed for a purchase, and his fingers closed around a sharp, jutting rock. He clung to the rock, looking around wildly in the darkness for Thorpe. He had also found a handhold, but it looked more precarious than Jake’s. As Jake watched, the bit of rock Thorpe hung from crumbled away from the ledge, and he fell into the river thirty feet below.

Jake didn’t think the fall would have killed Thorpe, but he didn’t have time to find out. He pulled himself back up to the ledge, then climbed to the top of the bluff. Picking up Thorpe’s gun from the ground, he ran toward Thorpe’s truck.

A cell phone lay in the passenger seat, and as Jake tore down the dirt road toward the city lights, he
dialed Brant Colter’s home number.

“I need you to put out an APB on a silver Rolls-
Royce registered to Victor Northrup.”

There was a pause, then Brant’s sleep-
slurred voice said, “Who the hell is this?”

“It’s Jake. Jake McClain. I don’t have time to explain, but I need you to have Northrup and his blond companion picked up and brought in for questioning. They may be armed and dangerous.”

“What are we supposed to question them about?” Brant demanded.

“The murder of Andrew Kingsley, for starters.” Jake cut off Brant’s explosive string of questions and said, “I don’t have time to explain it all now. I need you to issue another APB on a red Dodge Viper with Texas plates, registered to a Michael Eldridge. He may be armed and dangerous, too, and he’s got Hope.”

He hung up the phone and tossed it back to the seat. Ahead of him, the lights of the Memphis-
Arkansas bridge arced across the river, and beyond, the glow of Riverside Drive and downtown Memphis. As he raced across the bridge, something in the skyline caught his eye. The lighted spires of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, where Hope and Andrew had been married.

The place where it had all begun.

Hope opened her eyes on a wave of nausea and fear. She lay still, trying to quiet her rolling stomach. After a few moments, she sat up and glanced around. Terror washed over as she slowly took in her surroundings.

She was in the candlelit bell tower of a church. A three-
foot wooden wall enclosed the tower, while an opening in the floor near where she sat led down to a steep set of stairs.

The bell loomed over her, gleaming in the candlelight. As she struggled to her feet, a voice from the other side of the enclosure said, “You’ve been out for a long time. I’d begun to wonder if you were ever coming to.”

He came out of the shadows then and walked slowly toward her. Reflected candlelight flickered in his eyes, giving them a strange, glowing quality that frightened Hope even more.

“Where are we?” she asked, trying to suppress her terror. If this man was really Andrew, surely she could reason with him. He’d once loved her, hadn’t he?

He stopped before her, smiling down at her. “You know where we are, Hope. I told you I was taking you to the place where it all began for us. Don’t you remember?”

Saint Mary’s, she thought. She pictured the structure in her mind, the magnificent stained-
glass windows, the lighted spires, and the bell tower a good fifty feet above the ground. How had he gotten her up here? And what did he plan to do with her?

As if he’d read her mind, his smile deepened. “I thought we might renew our vows, Hope. I want to hear you say that you’ll love, honor and cherish me until death do us part.”

All hope of reasoning with him fled. She could see the madness in his eyes. “Don’t do this,” she begged.

He grabbed her arms and hauled her toward him. “Say it, damn you! Say it! Until death do us part!” He walked her backward, until she was bent over the wall that overlooked the street far below. “Say it!”

Hope grabbed for the wall. She could feel her feet lifting from the floor. Another few inches and she would fall backward over the wall, to the ground far below. Jake would be next. She wouldn’t be able to warn him, and Andrew would have his revenge.

“I’ll say it,” she said, glancing downward. Her head swam dizzily. She squeezed her eyes closed. “Let me up and I’ll say whatever you want me to.”

He hesitated, then pulled her up to face him. His smile grew triumphant. “Till death do us part, Hope.”

She opened her mouth to say the words, but before she could utter a sound, another voice spoke from the trap door. “You forgot to ask if anyone objects to this union,” Jake said.

He emerged from the opening and stood facing them. Hope’s heart pounded in terror, not just for herself, but for Jake. Andrew would kill him. She had no doubt about that.

Andrew grabbed Hope and jerked her up against him. “You shouldn’t have come here, Jake. You don’t belong here.”

Jake walked slowly toward them. “Let her go. This is between you and me.”

Andrew’s arm tightened around Hope’s throat. “Where’s your gun? I know you didn’t come here empty-
handed.” When Jake didn’t respond, he shoved Hope toward the wall again. “Get rid of the gun, Jake, or she and I both go over the wall.”

Jake’s gaze flashed to Hope, then back to Andrew. He reached around and drew his gun from the back of his belt, then knelt and slid it across the floor. Andrew kicked the weapon aside, and drew his own gun, leveling it at Jake.

“You’re a fool, McClain. Pining after her all these years when all along, she was meant for me.”

As he spoke, his arm loosened around Hope’s throat. She saw his finger tighten on the trigger, and instinctively, she shoved her elbow into his stomach as hard as she could. The gun went off, and she saw Jake fall to the floor.

Since Andrew was caught by surprise, his arm slipped from Hope’s throat. She jerked away from him and lunged for the gun on the floor just as Jake came crashing into Andrew. The momentum flung them against the wooden wall, and in horror, Hope heard the crack of a board as it gave way.

Her breath in her throat, she watched helplessly as the two men struggled for a moment, and then Jake lost his footing and plunged through the opening in the wall.

Hope screamed, leaping forward to try and save him. To her relief, she saw that he’d managed to cling to the wooden floorboards, but he was dangling in midair fifty feet above the ground.

She started toward him, but Andrew whirled, the gun still in his hand. Hope had a weapon, too, and she leveled it at him. The two of them faced off, and then Andrew grinned. “You can’t kill me, Hope. You and I are meant to be together.”

“Move back,” she said. “Get away from him.”

Slowly, very deliberately, Andrew turned and pointed his gun downward at Jake.

Without hesitating, Hope squeezed the trigger on Jake’s gun, and the report inside the bell tower almost deafened her. Andrew gazed down at the red bloom on his shirt, then back up at her. He looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t quite figure out what had gone wrong. Then, almost in slow motion, he crashed through the splintered wood and fell with a horrified scream to the street below.

Hope went to help Jake, but he’d already hitched himself up to the floor of the bell tower. They sat quietly for a moment, Jake breathing deeply from the exertion and Hope in shock. She began to tremble all over.

“I killed him,” she finally said, rubbing the back of her hand across the moisture on her face. “I killed Andrew.”

“Hope, listen to me.” Jake took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “He wasn’t Andrew. Andrew died in that car crash. He was murdered.”

She glanced up at him. “Then who—?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Jake said. “I’m hoping once the police pick up Victor Northrup, we’ll have our answers, but for right now—” he brushed the hair from her face and gazed down at her “—I just want to hold you.”

“I want that, too,” she whispered. “More than you’ll ever know.”

* * *

B
RANT
C
OLTER STEPPED
out of the interrogation room and walked over to where Jake and Hope sat waiting.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

Jake removed his arm from Hope’s shoulder and stood. “After tonight, I’ll believe anything.”

“Northrup’s willing to talk. He’s ready to finger the Grayson Commission in return for a deal.”

Jake’s jaw tightened. “There’s no way he can walk.”

“Hell, no,” Brant agreed. “The D.A. might consider a reduced sentence, though, depending on what he gives us. But you know what the real kicker is? He wants to talk to you. In fact, he won’t talk to anyone else.”

“You’re kidding. What do the brass have to say about that?”

Brant grinned. “They’re pissed, but Northrup’s adamant. It’s you or no one. I’d say this is a little payback, wouldn’t you?”

Jake shrugged. He no longer cared about getting back at the department. He just wanted the truth. And he wanted Hope.

He glanced down at her. She’d had a rough night, and it was likely to get worse. Once they finished here, they would have to go tell Iris.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told her. “You want me to get someone to take you home?”

She shook her head. “No way. I’ll wait for you.”

He nodded. Their gazes clung for a moment, and then he turned and followed Brant down the hallway to the interrogation room.

* * *

N
ORTHRUP LOOKED UP
as Jake entered. Impatience flickered across his arrogant features. “None of this would have been necessary if you’d taken the case from me, you know.”

“So it’s all my fault,” Jake said, sitting down across the table from him.

Northrup shrugged. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I would have steered you in the direction I wanted you to go, alleviating any suspicion from me in the process, but Hope came along, and you had to do her bidding, didn’t you? A pity for all of us.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Jake suggested. “Who was Michael Eldridge?”

Not even a flicker of emotion crossed Northrup’s features at Jake’s use of the past tense. He smoothed back his hair with the palm of his hand, as if grooming himself for an important meeting. “He was exactly who he claimed to be—a stockbroker from Houston leading a life that was carefully orchestrated for him from the time he was fifteen years old, when I first met him.” Northrup paused, glancing at Jake. “You found out about his police record, and from that you’ve probably deduced I learned about him through his lawyer. I was in Houston twenty years ago trying to convince a young attorney named Charles McGee to join our firm here in Memphis when our meeting was interrupted by one of his clients, a juvenile delinquent named Michael Eldridge. When he burst into McGee’s office, I very nearly had a heart attack. Even then, he looked a great deal like Andrew, but of course, years of training and a dozen plastic surgeries have refined his appearance. Not to mention his manners.”

“How did you manage to convince a fifteen-
year-
old delinquent to join an underground political movement?” Jake asked.

Northrup smiled. “It wasn’t hard to convince Michael to help us out once he understood the stakes involved. And, of course, the rewards. The difficult part was keeping him on the straight and narrow all these years. He has…had a tendency to be impulsive, shall we say, and except for that one unfortunate incident that brought him into our organization, we couldn’t afford to have even a breath of scandal attached to his name. His background had to check out, his slate had to be clean in order for our plan to work.”