Authors: Liz Talley
Nate pulled into the graveled parking lot next to the horseshoe drive, shut off the engine, took a deep breath.
Picou appeared like an eagle swooping upon prey. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve called half a dozen times. You know I waited to hear from you. A text that says ‘everything is okay’ is all I get? It’s been hours. Hours, son.”
Annie climbed out and watched as Nate took his mother by the shoulders and gave her a smile.
Picou lay her hands on her son’s forearms as if she might not be able to stand. Her eyes filled with something Annie could only describe as wonderful. “Really?”
Nate smiled wider.
Annie felt her heart flutter, and thanked the good Lord she got to witness this moment. She knew she’d replay it in her mind over and over for years to come.
“Oh, my,” Picou clasped her hands to her face. “I can’t— Truly? You’re sure?”
Nate nodded. “I didn’t believe, Mom. I never believed.”
Tears coursed down the cheeks of the older woman. She shook her head, but didn’t say a word. Her violet-blue eyes said it all.
Annie swallowed the emotion clogging her throat as Spencer whined and struggled with the seat belt strapping him in his seat.
“You were right, Mama. All this time. You knew.”
Picou smiled. “Oh, my sweet Jesus, Della is alive.”
“She is.”
Picou slapped Nate in the head. “Next time you find my daughter alive, you better damn well call me!”
Nate ducked, but laughed.
“I’m serious. I’m mad as hell at— Aah!” Picou shrieked as Nate lifted her in a bear hug. She smacked his back before wrapping both her arms around him.
“Thank you,” Annie heard her whisper.
ANNIE SHOULD HAVE SLEPT soundly because the day had been exhausting, but sleep wouldn’t come. Too much on her mind. Not to mention Spencer had crawled into the bed with her around one o’clock and started practicing for the World Cup while drooling on her pillow.
The shadows stretched long against the frostinglike molding edging the room and she watched them, begging for the monotony to lull her to sleep.
Didn’t work.
Maybe it was the fact she’d had three messages waiting on her when she’d finally chanced a look at her phone. The first one had been from Seth reminding her that her half of the mortgage was due by the end of the week and suggesting they once again lower the price of the condo they’d unwisely bought together. The second had been from her father’s nursing home seeking new insurance info, and the third call had been from Jimmy, who’d stayed buried within the catering company. He’d been cryptic but said he’d found out some info on Jane McEvoy that might be worth checking in to.
Though those things were certainly enough to keep her from dreamland, she knew the main reason had to do with the way Nate made her feel.
Like none other.
Surely she had lost her mind. No one fell for a guy she’d known for such a short time. Especially not Anna Mendes. She didn’t have a romantic bone in her body. Okay, well, maybe one or two romantic bones, but she couldn’t believe what she felt for Nate was love. More of a fascination. Or a gravitational pull. But she really should stop thinking—
Something bumped downstairs.
Annie tensed before dismissing the noise as someone in the house in the same predicament as she. Failure to sleep. Most likely Picou. The woman had been ecstatic upon learning her daughter was alive. Nate had to do some fancy talking to keep her from loading up and heading south. Once he’d convinced her to give Sally some time, Picou had focused her pent-up energy on cooking a Louisiana feast of epic proportions. Fried meat pies, crawfish étouffée, and decadent French bread had filled their bellies as Picou regaled them with tales of her children. Annie was certain nothing could diminish the spark burning in the woman’s eyes.
So it could be a too-happy-to-sleep Picou.
But Annie had not heard anyone on the stairs. There was a certain step that creaked no matter where one tread.
No one had gone downstairs.
Annie cast a glance at Spencer. He lay flat on his back, mouth open, tummy rising with each breath. She slid out of bed and soundlessly padded across the room to her closet, hoping the hinges didn’t protest when she opened it. They didn’t. She rose to her toes, searched with her hand for the gun hidden in a small handbag beneath a stack of linen and pulled it down, automatically double-checking the safety latch.
She crossed the room and inched open the door, praying for the same soundlessness as the closet. Luck smiled on her. She crept down the hallway toward the stairs where she descended, pausing midway to check her surroundings and listen for any sound to give away the position of the person below her.
Weak fluorescent light from the kitchen sink made a beam on the wooden floor below. There was no other light on anywhere else in the house. A shadow broke across the light, making it evident that person was in the kitchen.
Annie slipped as quickly as she could down the remainder of the polished steps of the main stairway, wincing when the creaky step groaned with her weight. She wondered briefly if she should have stayed with Spencer, protecting him. But if she’d done so, she’d be defensive rather than offensive. No sense in second-guessing herself.
Act with force. Without doubt.
She swung around and tiptoed toward the swinging door leading into the kitchen. She dropped the gun to her side, but flipped the safety latch. She knew a round was in the chamber.
Annie was locked and loaded.
She raised her hand and pressed it against the kitchen door, but she felt the movement too late. The door flew open with intentional force and smacked her in the head, driving her backward and down. Her bare feet fought for traction, but didn’t find it.
She fell backward, cracking her head on the antique sideboard behind her, hitting hard. Something fell and broke as she fell. Her elbow hit a knob on the drawer and her gun flew from her fingers. She heard it clatter to the floor and slide away from her as she hit the hard oak.
She registered a blur above her as darkness crept into her vision. She tried to move, to reach toward the shadowy figure moving toward her, but she couldn’t manage to fight the dark circles widening, sucking her into them.
Her last conscious thought was that she’d left Spencer alone in her bed.
Then darkness claimed her.
* * *
NATE DIDN’T FEAR MUCH in life. Nothing outside of his family ever held much weight with him. Possessions could be replaced. Careers rebuilt. Reputations righted and restored. But when he’d seen Annie lying on the stretcher in the foyer of his childhood home, he’d felt the same cold fingers of fear he’d felt some many years ago on the night Della had disappeared. He remembered that feeling of hopelessness well, lying in the bed one floor above him, scared witless at faceless people who could do horrific things to people he loved.
Feeling that way about Annie should have sent a lesser man packing, heading for the hills, afraid of losing once again. But Nate wasn’t the sort of man to tuck tail and run, even if he didn’t understand exactly what it was he felt.
Annie lay still on the stretcher as the paramedics took vitals and tapped data into their handheld computers, but her eyes shone with fury. They reminded him of a stormy sea, promising vengeance on whoever stood in her way.
A goose egg popped out above her right eye and the gash on the back of her head likely needed stitches. Blood matted the dark tresses surrounding the cut and some still smeared her neck.
He glanced over to the floor. A pool of blood lay at the clawed foot of the sideboard, peppered with the crystal slivers of the decanter that had plunged to the floor and shattered.
“Don’t ask,” she said, waving a hand at him. “I didn’t get a look at the guy.”
“Nothing?”
She closed her eyes, before opening them again. She glanced around, at Picou nervously twisting the belt of her robe and Carter hulking near the stairs, before glancing back at him. Her eyes told him she had something to say that could not be said in front of those present.
“Her vitals are good,” the paramedic said, still tapping into his handheld. Nate knew Ross Sandifer well, but the female partnering with him was new. “She needs a couple of stitches, so we’ll transport her to Lafayette. Needs a CT scan, too.”
“No,” Annie said, sitting up. She swayed slightly before swinging her feet around and setting them on the floor. “I’ll be fine.
Can you do the stitches here? Or use liquid bandage to bind it?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the female paramedic said, trying to press Annie back onto the stretcher. “You need to be checked by a doctor.”
Annie looked up at him. “He’s a doctor. Sort of.”
Nate shook his head. “Not technically. I passed med school and boards, but I never completed my residency, which was in pathology, by the way. No live patients.”
“But you—”
“I have to agree with Ms.—” he glanced at the paramedic’s name tag “—Brunet here. You need to get checked out.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t hit my head that hard.”
She was being stubborn, but he wasn’t going to argue. He had no right to demand anything from her. She was a grown woman and if she wanted to disregard common sense, then she damn well could. “Fine.”
The paramedics looked at one another. Ross shrugged. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do with the back of her head. Get the forms, Tina, and make sure she signs them. I ain’t losing my job over this.”
Fifteen minutes later, Annie was sutured and sitting on a wingback chair in the study. He’d persuaded his mother into going back to bed, and Carter disappeared back up the stairs with a promise to move Spencer to his bed so Annie could get some rest. His bodyguard rumbled behind him.
Annie glanced up as he closed the library door. “The bastard got my gun.”
“You have a gun?”
“Had a gun.”
“Hell.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Not good. If the perp wasn’t armed before, now he was. “You didn’t see anything? No impressions of the person who did this?”
“No, but the way whoever it was came out of that kitchen, he or she knew I was there. It was intentional. Damn, I should have known.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s that step, eleven down from the top.”
Of course. That eleventh step had gotten him punished many a time. No way to sneak up and down past curfew without a telltale squeak. “So what did this person want?”
Annie shrugged. “Pretty bold to waltz in and take a kid from his bed.”
“Been done plenty times before, though,” he said, mulling over the possibilities. It would be audacious, but perhaps the perp hadn’t wanted to take Spencer. Maybe this was about another threat. “Did anyone check the kitchen? Look for a note or message?”
Annie nodded. “Carter looked around after Picou called you. He said he didn’t see anything.”
“I’m going to take a look. Will you be okay?”
She nodded. The knot on her forehead had subsided a bit, though it was still an angry red, and her eyes clouded with fatigue and pain. He hated seeing his feisty Annie so vulnerable.
Nate left the library wondering when in the hell he’d started thinking of Annie as his.
He flipping the switch and the huge fluorescent lights flickered before casting steadfast light onto the counters and tiled floor below. He took a stroll around the room that still smelled of seafood and fried meat pies. The back door had been jimmied open.
White splinters of wood littered the swept floor right at the jamb. It hadn’t taken much effort to force the old lock to give.
Guilt socked him. He should have seen to reoutfitting the old house long ago. With his mother living so far out with only Lucille as an infrequent companion, the place needed to be shored up security-wise. Locks should work correctly, fire alarms tested and safeguards put into place. His mother wasn’t getting any younger and he hadn’t done a good enough job at looking after her.
Maybe he should list his small cottage in town and move back to Beau Soleil.
That would really put him full circle.
Living with his mother.
He shoved that thought away, unable and unwilling to even think about giving up what little he still had left of himself, and examined the lock and door facing. It was unlikely there would be any fingerprints. The lab report he’d found in his in-box that evening had revealed no trace evidence on the previous note nor on the dead bird. Another big, fat dead end.
He’d need to check for prints anyway, but first he wanted to figure out the motive for breaking into the house. What was the purpose? It could be to take Spencer with Annie foiling the attempt, causing the perp to flee out the front door. But that didn’t seem logical unless whoever had broken into the house had intimate knowledge of the surroundings and the occupants within. Otherwise, grabbing a kid, not knowing the configuration of the darkened house or the location of the subject, would be dog-assed stupid.
He didn’t feel as though the perpetrator was stupid.
So either the perp knew the layout well enough to feel secure or there was another reason.
Nate stood at the door, staring into the bowels of the kitchen. The new granite his mother had installed gleamed as did the black-and-white old-timey tiled floor. The new stainless-steel Sub-Zero drew his eye. He walked to the appliance, grabbed a paper towel and opened the door.
Bingo.
Sitting on the shelf in the middle of storage containers and yogurt cups was a chicken carcass with a note attached.
You want what you want
Throw away what you don’t
selfish bitches don’t get
to keep what they don’t deserve.
Nate closed the door, careful to maintain the paper towel between his naked hand and the steel door handle.
The kitchen door swung open and Annie walked in. “You found something?”
He nodded. “A note and a chicken carcass. Whoever is doing this is done with rhyming.”
Annie hugged herself. “Crap, we need to catch a break.”
He looked at his watch. 3:19 a.m. “But not now. I’ll get my bag out of the car and give Wynn a call. I know you want to help, but this is official and I need to treat it as such.”