Almost Home (32 page)

“Are you crazy? You’re wanted for embezzling millions of dollars in Texas, I have copies of the books you cooked, the police have all the records, and you—”

“I don’t think you’re going to be calling the police, Wade.”

“What’s going to stop me?”

“The DNA test I’m going to ask the courts to order to prove that the boy is my natural son. I never signed away my parental rights, Wade.”

“Because you left Robin as soon as you finished stealing from her. You never even knew she was pregnant. If you’d stuck around—”

“I would have been arrested.” He shrugged. “Still might be in danger there, to hear you tell it, but even
so, first-time offender, with a good lawyer, most I’ll get might be a couple of years. In the meantime, my mama will be raising her grandson. And when I get out of prison, I’ll still be his father. And you?” He chuckled. “You’ll be nothing to him.” He leaned forward. “By then, he won’t even remember you.”

Wade fought to keep a tight rein on his emotions. The last thing he wanted was a fistfight that could demolish all of Steffie’s pretty chairs and tables, and would accomplish nothing more than to scare Austin. Though, he had to admit, there would be a certain amount of satisfaction on oh so many levels in beating the crap out of Hugh. Still, it wasn’t the time and it wasn’t the place to exact retribution for everything the man had done.

Patience, grasshopper
.

“So what it is you really want?” Wade asked with outward calm. “Because we both know you don’t really want a child.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Maybe I spent foolishly and need a big infusion of cash.”

“Seriously? After you cleaned me out down in Texas, what do you think I have left?”

“Seriously?” Hugh parroted. “Don’t insult me with that crap. Start with your sister, why don’t you? How much do you think her ‘nephew’ is worth to her? I’m willing to bet she’s just dotty over the kid. As a matter of fact, I’m betting she’s gotta be, oh, I don’t know, five million dollars’ worth of dotty.”

“There’s no way in hell I’m going to—”

“Of course you are. This is where free choice comes in. You get the money, or you can wave bye-bye to … what’s his name?” He glanced at the paper
before refolding it and putting it back in his pocket. “Austin. Did Robin pick that out?”

When Wade didn’t respond, Hugh pushed up from the chair. “So how ’bout we get back together right here in about”—he paused to look at his watch—“oh, let’s make it around seven tonight. We can make this little transaction smooth and easy. Or I can have the state’s child services down here to look into this little mess.” Hugh looked toward the back room. “Take good care of my son for me. And tell pretty Steffie I’ll see her later.”

Hugh got to the door and stopped. “Oh, and don’t even think about leaving town with him, MacGregor, because I
will
go to the police and tell them you kidnapped him. Can you imagine how embarrassing that’s going to be for Dallas? Can you imagine the scene, cop cars screaming all around you, the boy being wrenched from your hands? That’d be enough to scar that kid for life, don’t you think?” He shook his head as if genuinely concerned about Austin.

“What a dilemma to be in, right? On the one hand, I can tell that you’d like nothing more than to kill me right here and now and just dump my body in that Bay out there. I can’t say that I blame you, all things considered. But the way I see it, you’re going to have to decide what means more to you. Revenge could be very sweet, I know. On the other hand, I figure you have to have grown attached to the boy. You can’t have both, Wade. You can pay the money and keep him, or you can blow the whistle on me and spend the rest of your life wishing you hadn’t.”

Hugh went out and quietly closed the door behind him.

Wade sat at the table for a moment, trying to push through the cloud of anger that completely filled every cell of his body and consumed him until he literally saw red.

“Wade?” Steffie stepped out from the back room, Austin in her arms.

“You heard?” he asked without turning around.

“Yes. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at the opposite wall, trying to gain control.

Stef sat next to him, Austin on her lap playing with an empty ice-cream bowl and two spoons.

“Daddy, eem.” Austin leaned over to offer his father an imaginary treat and Wade almost lost it. There was no way in hell he was going to hand over this child to Hugh Weston or whoever he was. There was no power on earth strong enough to take him away. And yes, Wade acknowledged, he could have killed Hugh this morning. Clay had a boat; they could take him far out into the Bay and toss his evil body overboard.

But that would, of course, lead to other problems.

“I have an idea …” Stef told him. “Let’s see if Dallas can keep Austin company for a while. Then we’re going to take a walk.”

Thirty minutes later, Wade and Steffie were sitting in Jesse Enright’s office.

“Start from the beginning,” Jesse told him.

Wade told him everything.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this right: this guy embezzled your company into bankruptcy and stole personal funds from your partner, and now he’s back
here to extort money from you to keep quiet about Austin’s paternity.” Jesse tapped a pen on his desktop.

“That sums it up.” Wade nodded.

“Is there any chance that he is not Austin’s father?”

Wade shook his head. “None.”

“This is a really tough place to be in,” Jesse told him. “I’m assuming he never signed away his parental rights.”

“He didn’t know about Austin, never knew that Robin was pregnant. He still wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for those damned photographs.” Wade ran an anxious hand through his hair. “Doesn’t it matter that he robbed Austin’s mother blind, destroyed her company, and then bolted out of town without looking back?”

“Not as far as establishing paternity is concerned. There’s no way anyone could predict the outcome of a case like this. A lot will depend on the judge.” Jesse was clearly giving the problem some thought. “Though I’m not sure if the law is more favorable in Maryland or in Texas. I’m going to have to research that in case we need to file some quick motions. Unfortunately, he didn’t give us much time.”

Jesse opened his laptop. “I’ll see if I can get my sister, Sophie, to work on that.” He typed for a moment, then turned back to Wade. He was about to speak when his intercom buzzed.

“Jesse, Chief Beck and Mr. Shields are here to see you and Mr. MacGregor.”

Jesse looked across the desk at Wade. “Were you expecting …?”

Wade shook his head no.

“Send them in, Liz.” Jesse shrugged. “Let’s see what’s up.”

Beck and Grady Shields came through the door as it opened, and immediately pulled up chairs to join the conversation.

“How can we help?” Grady asked.

“Officially or unofficially, whatever it takes, Wade,” Beck assured him.

“How did you …?”

“I called Vanessa while you were dropping off Austin at Berry’s,” Stef admitted. “I knew she’d call Beck, and when we were talking, Grady walked into Bling. We thought it was a sign.” She paused. “Well, Ness thought it was a sign.”

“It was the right thing to do, Wade,” Beck told him. “From the little my sister told me—damn, but that woman can talk fast when she’s revved up—there’s a lot at stake here, and you’re only going to get one chance with this guy. Once he goes for the DNA test, that part is over. If he can prove he’s Austin’s father, things are going to get real complicated real fast. Let us help you.”

“I appreciate the thought, guys, but I don’t know what either of you can do.”

“Start by filling in some blanks for me,” Grady said. “When I was in the Bureau, I was real good at working my way around tough situations. Let’s see if I’ve lost my touch …”

“I feel like we’re in a remake of
High Noon
,” Steffie told Wade as she watched out the window. “Like we’re waiting for the gunslinger to show up.”

Moments later, the doorknob turned and Steffie
cleared her throat, then stepped back as the bell rang and Hugh entered. When he smiled at Stef, she pretended not to have seen him. She turned the
OPEN
sign to
CLOSED
and locked the door.

“Maybe you should leave,” Wade said to her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she replied.

“Well, suit yourself.” Hugh sat opposite Wade and smirked. “Hey, maybe I’ll walk out of here with your girl and the five million.”

“What makes you so sure I’m going to pay up?” Wade asked.

“Well”—Hugh looked around the shop—“I don’t see the kid.”

“You don’t have any interest in Austin and you know it.”

“Not beyond the pleasure I’ll take in knowing how much it’s going to hurt you every day for the rest of your life not to know where he is. How he is. Is he still alive, even. You never know what can happen to a kid these days. I don’t live in the best of neighborhoods.”

“I’d think you’d be able to afford a great neighborhood. You stole what, two million dollars from KenneMac? Plus whatever you stole from Robin.”

“The easiest three and a half million I ever made—plus what I got from Robin—but who’s counting.” Hugh laughed.

Grady and Beck came out of the back room.

Pointing to Grady, Beck said, “He’s counting.”

“Who the hell are you?” Hugh demanded.

“Some interested friends.” Beck sat on one side of Hugh. “Interested in that three and a half million dollars
you stole from Wade’s company. Plus the money from Robin’s personal account.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hugh shook his head.

“You got that little recorder I gave you?” Grady asked as he sat on Hugh’s other side.

Wade nodded and took it from his pocket, sat it on the table, and pushed play.

“
You stole what, two million dollars from KenneMac? Plus whatever you stole from Robin.
”

“
The easiest three and a half million I ever made—plus what I got from Robin—but who’s counting.
”

“You think blackmail is going to work?” Hugh turned to Wade. “Like I said, you can send me to prison for that one job in Texas; first offense, I won’t spend much time there. I don’t really care how many people know that Austin is my son, but I’d have thought you’d have wanted to keep it quiet.” He looked first at Beck, then at Grady. “And I’m not impressed with your posse.”

“Maybe you’ll be impressed with this.” Grady opened his briefcase, took out a folder, and began to read. “ ‘Hugh Weston. Aka Henry Willis. Aka Harry West. Wanted in four states—’ ” Grady looked across the table at Wade. “I guess that’s five now—for embezzlement. He’s made a career of ingratiating himself with women who have come into large sums of money and finding ways to separate them from their cash.” Grady turned to Hugh. “That ‘first offense’ was long ago and far away, my friend.” He went back to his file. “All those nasty little embezzlement charges pile up, you know? Enough to put you away
for a good long time. But you know what’s going to do you in, Hugh?”

Grady slid a piece of paper from the bottom of the pile.

“There’s this assault case up in Maine that’s been hanging around for the past five years. You picked up a woman in a bar—Christine Davenport; let’s not be cavalier and forget who she was. You smacked her around in the parking lot, drove her to New Hampshire, where you kept her in a motel for three days. I don’t suppose there’s any doubt as to what you were doing with her for those three days, right?”

Hugh sat back in the chair, his arms folded over his chest, his expression lethal.

“Now, here’s the thing. You take someone anywhere against their will and hold them—again, against their will—and that’s pretty much the definition of kidnapping. You take them across state lines, and it becomes a federal case. Add in the fact that she was coerced at gunpoint, and we’re looking at … well, shall we add it all up?”

“Who is this guy?” Hugh pointed to Grady and tried to look amused.

“Sorry. I forgot my manners. Meet former FBI Special Agent Grady Shields,” Wade told him, then pointed to Beck. “Our chief of police here in St. Dennis, Gabriel Beck.”

Hugh tried to look indifferent, but Wade knew the exact moment that he began to realize that the sand might be shifting.

Grady took his iPhone out of his pocket. “I love these gadgets that multitask, don’t you?”

He whistled. “Wow, that many?” He turned the
iPhone in his hand to show Hugh the number on the screen.

“I don’t know what kind of a clever game you guys are playing here, but I’m done with it.” Hugh looked across the table. “You know what the deal was.”

“The deal’s changed, Hugh,” Wade told him. “It might be different if embezzling from KenneMac had really been your first offense. Nice bluff there, by the way. But we all know that KenneMac wasn’t anywhere near being the first, and we know—thanks to Grady’s family and friends at the FBI—that it wasn’t your last. You may have been slick about getting out of town, but you always left prints behind.”

“You can leave now—just walk away and don’t look back. Or you can keep going with this and I can guarantee you won’t live long enough to serve out all your time,” Beck told him.

“You’re forgetting something real important here, MacGregor.” Hugh’s bravado was beginning to wear thin. “I can prove that boy is mine. I can go to court and get an order for DNA testing that will prove he’s my son. I can still—”

“You can still save your ass,” Beck told him. “Or I can take you into custody right now, hold you till the FBI gets here.” He turned to Grady. “What time did your brother say he’d be here?”

Grady turned his wrist to look at his watch. “He said he’d be here in time for dessert. So any time now.”

Hugh looked from one face to the next, trying to decide, Wade figured, whether or not they were bluffing.

“No five million dollars, Hugh,” Wade said. “Just
one long prison sentence. Oh, sure, it would just about kill me not to know where Austin is; you’re right on the money there. But just how much satisfaction will that give you when you’re spending every day in a five-by-eight cell with some guy who calls you ‘Peaches’?”