She nodded. “I know. And I’ll admit part of me would feel guilty, but I’ve learned to live with guilt.”
“Have you considered that your father might not let you leave?”
Her expression clouded. Clearly, she hadn’t thought about this possibility. “He couldn’t keep me prisoner,” she said.
“I think he has the manpower and the resources to do whatever he wants,” Jake said. “Including keeping his beloved daughter by his side forever—whether she wants to stay there or not.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t stay. I could never live like that again. He’d have to see—”
“I think your father has made a life out of seeing what he wants to see.”
Her eyes met his, filled with sadness, but also determination. “You’re probably right. If he tries to keep me with him, you should contact Patrick.”
“I’d do that. But I wouldn’t leave rescuing you up to the Marshals. I’d have to do what I could to save you.”
“I’d be counting on it.” She lay back down, nestled against him once more, and he held her closely, wishing that was enough to protect her, to truly keep her safe.
He never heard her crying, but he felt the tears, hot and damp on his chest. He lifted her chin and his anxiety rose at the sight of wet tracks down her cheeks. “Why are you crying?”
She shook her head, smiling through the tears. “It’s just... Why does the world have to be so screwed up?”
Why, indeed? He lay back, and cradled her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Don’t think about that now,” he said. Soon enough, they’d have to face the future, a future that didn’t hold any promise that they could be together. But worrying wouldn’t change anything that was to come. Better to hold on to the present for a little bit longer.
Chapter Seventeen
Sammy called as Anne and Jake were finishing breakfast. She’d spent the night in his room, doing her best to savor the moments and not worry about the future. She could admit now—if only to herself—that she still loved Jake. But how could she ask him to give up everything to join her in hiding in witness protection? And if she left WitSec she doubted she’d fit into his life. Though he hadn’t said, she suspected he had hopes of returning to a career in law enforcement; being linked to the daughter of a mafia don would make that ambition impossible to realize.
So it was with a heavy heart that she answered the phone and heard her brother’s voice on the other end. “I’ll pick you up in front of your hotel at ten-thirty,” he said, then hung up before she could ask any questions.
“That was Sammy,” she said as she replaced the phone in the cradle. “He says he’ll be here at ten-thirty.”
“Did he give you any idea of what your father thinks of this reunion?”
“No. He didn’t say anything else.” She studied the silent phone. “Maybe we should call Patrick.”
“Maybe we should. He’ll tell you the same thing I did—don’t go. Will you listen to him?”
“If I don’t go, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I had.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine.
Courage
. “Besides, this is our best chance to pin down Sam’s location. This is the closest anyone has come to him in a year.” She forced a smile. “Once I’ve left the house, you’ll be able to get him.” They’d already discussed the possibility that her father might not allow her to leave. No sense bringing that up again. She’d deal with that problem if it presented itself.
“I know I said that’s what I wanted,” Jake said. “But it’s not worth risking your life over.”
“If I don’t confront him I could lose my life anyway. He’s either responsible for sending those men to kill me, or he knows who is.”
Worry made Jake look ten years older. “I wish you’d let me come with you.”
“You’d never even get into the car. I don’t trust Sammy not to shoot you on sight.”
She expected him to argue more, but he only nodded. “I’ll be waiting for your calls. Every half hour or I’ll send in the cavalry.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll call.” Just hearing his voice would give her the courage she’d need to get through this. She and Jake had both purchased new phones yesterday—cheap pay-as-you-go models that would allow them to keep in touch today. She stood. “I’d better get ready.”
She took her time with her hair and makeup. Her father appreciated glamour in a woman, and though she didn’t like to admit it, Sammy’s comment yesterday about her looking like a schoolteacher had stung.
When she emerged from the bathroom shortly after ten, Jake let out a low whistle. “You look gorgeous,” he said, and pulled her to him.
“Don’t smudge the makeup,” she said, and offered her cheek for a kiss.
He squeezed her waist, and brushed his lips against one cheek. “You’d better go down,” he said. “I’m going to watch from the lobby, just in case.”
Promptly at ten-thirty, the black SUV pulled under the portico. Anne was surprised to see Sammy driving. People in her family seldom ventured out without a bodyguard. She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.
“I see you didn’t chicken out,” he said as she fastened her seat belt.
“Did you think I would?”
“You never would have before, but it’s been a year. No telling what kind of brainwashing the feds have been doing.”
There was no right answer to an accusation like that, so she chose to ignore it.
“So what have you been up to for the past year?” Sammy asked. “The old man spent a fortune trying to track you down and came up with zilch.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t after me.” Renewed fear that she was, in fact, on the way to her execution, rose up to paralyze her.
“He didn’t want to kill you—he wanted to bring you home. Where he thought you belonged.”
“Oh.” She forced herself to look more relaxed, though her heart still pounded.
“So where have you been?” he asked. “Did they really give you a new name and everything?”
“Yes, they gave me a new name. And a new job and a house and car. It’s a very well-organized program.”
“I’ll bet. But you’re not going to share any details.”
“I really don’t think I should.” She looked out the window, at the crowds moving toward the ski gondola or filling the shops along the town’s main street. “How far is it to the house where you all are staying?”
“Not far.” He hunched over the steering wheel, tapping out a jerky rhythm with his fingers as they inched through morning traffic. When a car somewhere behind them backfired, he jumped and swore.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”
“I don’t know. You seem nervous.”
“You’re the one who should be nervous. Pop isn’t going to be happy when he finds out you’re still with Jake.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already told him.”
“I haven’t told him anything. I told him I was bringing someone to see him this morning who he needed to talk to.”
“So he doesn’t know it’s me.”
Sammy grimaced. “I wanted it to be a surprise. One he’d remember me for.”
A shiver went through her. Was Sammy intent on making a good memory, or a bad one?
“He won’t like knowing about Jake, though,” Sammy continued. “He’ll probably send someone to take him out.”
“I’m not ‘with’ Jake,” she said. “I didn’t even really want to come here with him, but he didn’t give me much choice. I’ll probably never see him again after this.” The lies rolled off her tongue, but she couldn’t tell if Sammy believed her.
“Pop will be glad to hear it,” he said. “Maybe with you back in the fold, he’ll get off my back—though I doubt it. He always had a double standard where the two of us were concerned.”
“You know I always took your side against him.”
“You did. And he’d listen to you, when he wouldn’t listen to me.” He looked thoughtful, less agitated. Though she struggled to remain outwardly calm, her insides were roiling, heart pounding with fear—fear for her physical safety, yes. But also fear of being disappointed, of seeing her father look at her once more with hatred instead of love.
They left behind the last buildings of Telluride and turned onto a gravel county road that climbed into the mountains, past clusters of small houses and abandoned mine machinery. After a few more miles they turned onto a paved road that wound through acres of carefully positioned trees and miles of five-rail wooden fencing. She might have been looking at a painting entitled “A Colorado Estate in Winter.”
In the distance, Anne spotted what appeared to be a gray stone castle set on a rise overlooking a broad valley. Twin turrets flanked a facade of glass and stone blocks that rose three stories, with two-story wings sprawling on either side of the main house. A separate three-car garage and various other outbuildings in matching stone dotted the grounds around the house. “Who owns this place?” she asked. “It’s gorgeous.”
“It belongs to a friend of Pop’s. Somebody who wants him to partner in some business ventures.”
Business ventures. It sounded so prosperous and legitimate. Just another American capitalist doing his part to build a vital economy. Except that the Giardino family “businesses” always had the taint of the shady and illegal. Everything was shiny and respectable on the outside, but underneath was a layer of filth, too often tainted by blood.
They stopped at a stone guardhouse. A man dressed in black and openly cradling a semiautomatic rifle stooped to peer into the vehicle, then pressed a keypad to open the iron gate and waved them through.
A second armed man met them in front of the house and opened Anne’s door. “Mr. Giardino is waiting for you,” he said.
She smoothed the front of her coat, wishing she could as easily smooth down the butterflies in her stomach, and studied the entrance to the house, buying time. Stone columns rose three stories, supporting an arching portico in front of a fortune in stone and plate glass. She’d seen hotels that were less lavish. A massive chandelier made of hundreds of antlers strung with lights glowed from the top of the portico. A ten-foot oak-and-iron door stood open, providing a glimpse into a stone-floored foyer and more antler lighting.
Sammy moved up beside her and took her arm. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to keep Pop waiting.”
“Of course not.” In some ways, they’d both been waiting for this moment for the past year. There was no going back now, only forward. “Take no prisoners,” she whispered to herself as she let her brother lead her into the house, and into her future.
* * *
“T
HEY
’
VE
JUST
TURNED
onto a paved drive. The number on a post says five-twenty-four.” Jake spoke softly into his phone, as if someone might overhear, though he was sitting in the battered Subaru alone, parked between a rusting ore cart and a leaning spruce, a quarter mile before the estate where Sammy had turned in.
“I’ve found it on our map.” Patrick’s voice was a low growl in Jake’s ear. “Property belongs to a developer out of Denver, Jason Castle. Our friends at the ATF have had him on their radar for a while now, though they’ve never been able to make anything stick.”
“I don’t care about him,” Jake said. “Can you get up there to look after Anne?”
“The place is guarded like a fortress. No way can we come in from the front.”
“What about the back?”
“It’s rugged country. You’d have to come in over the top of a mountain.”
“What about a helicopter?”
“You obviously think I have a bigger budget than I do.”
“Don’t tell me the government wouldn’t pull out all the stops to nail Sam Giardino.”
“We still don’t know for sure that he’s there,” Patrick pointed out.
“We know Anne’s there. And she could be in danger.”
“Then why did you let her go?”
“I had no right to stop her. Besides, what was I going to do—tie her up? Lock her in her room?”
“You could have tried harder to talk her out of going. You could have called me.”
“I did call you. I’m talking to you now.”
“Now that she’s gone, there’s not a lot I can do. You should have called me before.”
“And you really think you could have talked Anne out of doing something she’d made up her mind to do?”
Thompson didn’t answer. “What do you want me to do now?” he asked.
“I thought that was obvious. I want you to get a team in there to protect her.”
“I’ll see what I can do. It’s going to take a little time to pull things together. Meanwhile, you stay put. I’ll be in touch.” He broke the connection.
Jake set his phone on vibrate, then took an extra ammunition magazine from the glove box and shoved it into the pocket of his ski jacket. He stowed his gun in the other pocket, pulled on a stocking cap and gloves, and climbed out of the car. He could just make out the snow-covered ridge of rock that rose up behind the massive stone house. Giardino and his men would never expect someone to come at them from that direction. Nothing but a mountain goat was likely to traverse that approach and live to tell about it.
He leaned back into the car and retrieved a county map he’d purchased from a local outdoor adventure supplier. In addition to roads, it showed all the Jeep trails, cross-country ski routes and hiking paths in the area. Jake traced the broken line of a path that led to the top of the peak behind the house. There was no corresponding trail down the other side, so he’d have to make his own. He glanced toward the house again. Anne’s first call was due any minute now; he’d wait for it, then head for the mountains. One man against all of Giardino’s thugs wasn’t the best odds, but he’d have surprise on his side. And he’d promised Anne he’d protect her. It wasn’t a promise he could afford to break.
* * *
S
AMMY
LED
A
NNE
into the house, past more guards, who stood like armed statues on either side of the door leading into a great room with a twenty-foot ceiling and three stories of glass that looked out onto soaring mountain peaks. Two more guards waited inside the room, and regarded Anne and Sammy with blank expressions.
Patrick and his men would never get in here, she thought. Even if they found this place, they’d never get past her father’s troops—not without an army of their own. She pushed aside her nervousness. She had to stay calm and keep thinking clearly. “Where’s Pop?” she asked, looking around the room.
“He’ll be here in a minute,” Sammy said.
The alarm on her phone chimed. “I need to call Jake,” she said. “If I don’t check in, he’ll be worried.”
“Go ahead.” Sammy nodded to her phone.
She hit the speed dial for Jake’s new cell. He picked up on the first ring. “I’m here and I’m fine,” she said. “This place is amazing.” That was the code phrase they’d settled on to reassure him that everything was, in fact, okay.
“Have you see your father?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Say goodbye now.” Sammy moved over to her—close enough to snatch the phone away.
She fought the urge to stick her tongue out and turn her back on her brother, the way she would have when they were both teenagers. But she and Sammy weren’t teenagers anymore, and as a grown man, second in command in the Giardino family, he had the power to do her real harm. “I’d better go now,” she told Jake. “I’ll call you again in half an hour.”
She slid the phone back into her pocket. Sammy sank into an oversize leather chair and motioned for her to sit also. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Isn’t this a fantastic place?”
“Very nice.” She perched on the edge of a sofa that matched the chair. The room was full of overstuffed, oversize pieces, as if a race of giants lived here.
“Sammy! Do you have the lift tickets? I put them on the dresser and they’re not there.” An elfin woman with a cap of white-blond hair hurried into the room. She was dressed in a Nordic sweater, black leggings and short leather boots and was pulling on a pair of gloves as she spoke.