Outside, there was a late-autumn thunderstorm rolling in. Or so Nick said. Kelly hadn’t actually been able to see the approaching storm for herself, since Greta, the babies and she had been moved to the panic room an hour and a half earlier.
It was only the beginning of the wait.
This was the moment that Kelly had been dreading since she’d first heard mention of the party. There was nothing she could do to stop Nick’s plan. Nor was she certain that stopping it would be the right thing. Something had to be done about Eric. Joseph and William had to be safe.
But that didn’t make this goodbye to Nick any easier.
He was already dressed in his tux, and she knew that the guests were arriving. Everything was a “go.” And that meant Nick had to leave her and head upstairs to the party.
Nick glanced around the panic room as if checking to make sure that all was secure.
He pointed to the stairs and the door that led to the main house. “The two guards will be posted out there. One inside the closet just outside the internal door. The other will be in the hall.”
Kelly nodded. “You trust these men?”
“I’ve checked their backgrounds and references multiple times. I trust them as much as I trust anyone at this point.”
She understood that and prayed that these men would do what they’d been hired to do.
Nick crossed the room, gave Greta a reassuring pat on the hand and leaned down and kissed both boys, who were on the carpeted floor playing with the massive selection of toys. In addition to the toys, they had food, water, extra diapers and beds, everything they needed to make it through the night.
“You can use the surveillance monitor to watch what’s going on at the party.” Nick checked the monitor on the dressing table to make sure it worked. “But I want you to stay put here.”
Kelly had expected him to insist on that. In fact, there was little else she could do. There were two guards, yes, but she was still the last line of defense between Eric and the babies.
Nick caught onto her arm and pulled her away from the others. “I don’t think you’ll need it, but there’s a gun in the safe behind the teddy bear picture,” he whispered. He took a tiny cell phone from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Call me if there’s an emergency. The number is already programmed in. If you need me, I’ll be here as fast as humanly possible.”
She knew he would be. Because she couldn’t gather enough breath to speak, Kelly simply nodded again.
“Everything will be okay,” Nick assured her, and he sealed it with a kiss.
And that was it. No long, lingering looks. No extended farewells. It was too painful for Nick to do those things. He simply turned, walked up the stairs and disappeared.
Just like that, he was gone, and Kelly immediately thought of a dozen things that she should have said to him. Like “Be careful.” Or “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?” Or the ultimate P.S.—“I’m falling in love with you.”
Okay. It was a good thing she hadn’t made that particular confession. Nick already had too much on his mind without her adding the emotional stuff.
“You should try to relax,” Greta suggested.
That was impossible, but Kelly knew she had to do something or she’d explode. So she laid the phone on the changing table and sank down on the floor next to the babies. Both immediately made their way toward her with Joseph walking and William crawling. They climbed into her lap, and even Kelly’s dark mood couldn’t stop her from smiling.
She took the opportunity to read them
Green Eggs and Ham.
Well, parts of it anyway. Her sons had very short attention spans so the reading session turned into a play session and then into wrestling match.
The minutes still crawled by.
While she played with the boys, she continued to glance at the clock and the monitor. She saw the guests meander into the great room. She even spotted Nick. But she couldn’t find the guest of honor or Eric.
On the screen she could see one of the newly hired guns standing at the back of the room. He was easy to notice because he was the only male in the room who wasn’t wearing a tux. He had a black baseball cap slung low over his face. While Kelly watched, she saw the man slide his hand inside his jacket. He took out his gun.
And then the screen went blank.
Greta must have noticed it as well because both of them got to their feet and went to the portable surveillance unit. Kelly pressed the buttons to change the camera angle.
Still blank.
Just a screen filled with fog-gray static.
“You think everything’s all right?” Greta asked.
No, she didn’t, especially since she’d seen the guard take out his gun. But Kelly kept that info to herself. She grabbed the cell phone that Nick had given her and pressed the button to call the number that he’d programmed in.
More static.
Kelly tried again, and again, frantically stabbing the buttons and praying that the call would connect.
It didn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Greta asked.
“Someone has jammed the cell phone and the security system. Or maybe it’s just some sort of temporary glitch.”
Greta put her fingers to her mouth to suppress what would no doubt have been a gasp. Kelly knew she was terrified. My God. What was going on up there? She didn’t know, but it couldn’t be good.
“Nick could be in danger,” Kelly mumbled.
She didn’t waste any time. She hurried toward the safe behind the teddy bear picture and retrieved the Glock that Nick had said would be there.
“You can’t leave,” Greta insisted. “Mr. Lattimer said to stay here.”
True. But Kelly couldn’t have stayed put even if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t want to do that at all. She wanted to check on Nick. Correction: she
had
to check on him. A dozen deadly things could be happening in that great room.
“I’m only going to the top of the stairs to speak to the guard,” she explained to Greta. “Maybe he knows what’s going on.”
With luck, the guard would have a simple explanation and an assurance that all was well.
Greta automatically gathered up the boys, and she took them into the large bathroom that was just off the main area. Kelly waited until the bathroom door was shut before she barreled up the stairs.
When she reached the top, she knocked on the door to alert the guard that she was about to open it. Kelly didn’t wait for him to respond, she opened the double set of locks and peered out.
It was pitch-black. All the lights were off, and the guard was there, taking up practically the entire doorway.
“There might be trouble,” Kelly informed him. “Something’s wrong with the phone line and the surveillance system.”
He didn’t respond, but she figured he was probably wearing some kind of communicator fitted into his ear. She tapped his shoulder.
He still didn’t answer.
But he did move. He fell forward and crumpled into a heap on the floor.
Kelly didn’t have time to react. She certainly didn’t have time to turn and run back into the panic room so she could lock the door. Someone knocked the Glock from her hand, and she felt the cold hard steel jam against the side of her head.
And Kelly knew she was in serious trouble.
N
ICK CHECKED HIS WATCH
again and cursed under his breath.
Where the hell was his brother?
Everything was in place, including the bait, Marcus Durham, who had just arrived with his fiancée. But there was no sign of Eric. Maybe Eric had decided this was too risky after all.
And if so, all of this had been for nothing.
Outside, there was a storm brewing, and Nick could hear the occasional rumble of thunder. It sounded minor compared to the storm inside his body. This had to be over, soon, because he couldn’t put Kelly and their sons through another night of danger.
Nick forced himself to look pleasant and greet his guests, but he tried to keep a vigilant watch on everything going on around him. He noticed the guard in the corner. The man drew his weapon, and that had Nick dropping the pleasant pretense. He slipped his hand in his tux jacket so he could have easy access to his own gun, and he crossed the room and approached the guard.
“Problem?” Nick asked.
“The guards at the gate said there’s been some kind of glitch with the exterior surveillance cameras. They’re not working, and it’s possible they haven’t been fully operational all night.”
Nick didn’t even try to muffle his profanity. “How did that happen?”
“They’re trying to figure that out. There were recorded images being relayed onto the screens so the men didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary.”
Nick was about to call those men at the front gate, but the guard tipped his head toward the adjacent entry where another guest had made his entrance.
Eric.
His brother, however, didn’t come into the great room. He walked right past the butler, another security guard in disguise, turned and headed down the hall.
“Your brother said he’s going to the bathroom,” the guard relayed through the tiny communicator in Nick’s left ear.
“Watch him carefully,” Nick insisted.
He took out his cell phone and punched in the numbers to call Kelly just to make sure that everything was okay.
All he heard was static.
Hell.
Nick hurried across the great room so he could go through the back hall to the panic room. He didn’t make it far. The housekeeper stepped out from the kitchen and practically ran right into him.
“You have a call, sir,” she said.
Praying it was Kelly, he snatched the phone from her. But it wasn’t Kelly’s voice that greeted him.
“Hello, Nick,” the person said. The caller was obviously speaking through a voice scrambler, making it impossible to recognize who was on the other end of the line.
“Where’s Kelly?” Nick immediately asked.
“She’s safe. For now. She won’t be, though, if you don’t come to the stables, the one where you have that new palomino quarantined. Come alone. Oh, and Nick, you’d better hurry. Because if you don’t, Kelly, the nanny, William and Joseph will be dead within the next three minutes.”
K
ELLY WAS SHIVERING
. Cold rain soaked every inch of her jeans and sweater, but she didn’t care. She had only one thought on her mind—protect Joseph and William from this ski-mask-wearing kidnapper who’d forced them at gunpoint from the panic room and had “ushered” them to the stables.
Both William and Joseph were crying, but thankfully both had been semisheltered with blankets so they weren’t wet and cold. Unlike Greta and her. Greta was shivering, as well, while she tried to comfort William. Kelly tried to do the same for Joseph.
But it was impossible.
The babies could no doubt sense danger. Kelly certainly could. The sounds of the rain and thunder blended with the sound of her own pulse crashing in her ears. She was terrified for the boys, but she couldn’t let that immobilize her. She had to do something to keep them all alive.
The kidnapper motioned for them to move to the corner of the stables, right next to a stall with an enormous palomino. A horse she’d heard Nick say was in “quarantine” because it had some aggressive behavior and needed to be temporarily separated from the other animals. Kelly hadn’t needed anything else to raise her adrenaline level, but that did it.
So did the call that the kidnapper made.
The kidnapper wore some kind of device around his or her throat, and that device made it impossible to identify the person speaking. The person told Nick to come to the stables or they’d all die within three minutes.
Kelly wouldn’t let that happen.
But now, unfortunately, Nick was walking straight into the line of fire. Because this person likely would try to kill them as soon as Nick arrived. And that wasn’t all.
There was a gas can and a lighter in the center of the stable floor.
This person probably intended to burn down the place so there wouldn’t be any incriminating evidence left behind.
Kelly gave Joseph what she hoped was a reassuring kiss and pat on the back, but she didn’t take her attention off the kidnapper. In addition to the ski mask and voice device, the person wore a bulky parka, making it impossible to tell if this was a man or woman. He or she was average height—probably around five-ten. But other than Cooper, that description fit any and all of their suspects.
Including Eric.
God, was it possible that he was behind that mask?
Or was this someone on his payroll. Todd Burgess, maybe? Or Paula Barker? Of course, it could also be Rosalinda McMillan, Eric’s former secretary. Or, heaven forbid, even Denny. It sickened her that she couldn’t rule him out.
Greta sank down on the hay-strewn floor and moved Joseph to her side so she could try to shield him from the gun that their kidnapper had aimed at them. Kelly did the same, but she crouched down instead of sitting so she could launch herself at their attacker if it became necessary.
“Why are you doing this?” Kelly asked.
The person didn’t answer, shifting attention between them and the stable door.
Where Nick would come through any second.
Kelly figured the kidnapper would try to shoot Nick first and then would turn that gun on them. Since Kelly couldn’t let that happen, she eased Joseph closer to Greta so that the nanny could hold on to both boys. Then, Kelly frantically looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. There was nothing.
Except the stable gate.
Kelly was right next to the lever that would open the gate. It wasn’t much protection, since a bullet could easily go through the openings in the metal. Plus, there was the horse. If she opened the gate, it might bolt and do heaven knew what. Still, it was a risk she had to take to save the babies and Nick.
Even over the sounds of the storm, Kelly heard footsteps. Someone was running. Nick, probably. That garnered the kidnapper’s attention, and Kelly used that opportunity to slide her hand over the gate lever.
She didn’t open the gate. Not yet. But she crouched there with her heart pounding and her breath racing out of control. Waiting for the right moment.