Everything You Are (31 page)

They reached the end of the long hallway in the north wing and Ann pushed a door open.

Jane followed her into a room full of monitors.

A man stood. “Ma'am. Miss,” he greeted them.

“This is Joel,” Ann said. “I planted cameras in Ian's apartment and in the car Ian has been using, and Joel has been keeping an eye on them, forwarding all the clips that might be of interest to me and Sebastian. So, Jane, you don't have to worry. When Ian sets his bait, I'll have my men there, guarding his back.”

“Hey, Joel. I'm Jane.” Jane offered him her hand.

Joel took it and shook it.

Jane's eyes went to the cameras. She might be cooped up in this house, but there was no way she was going to be on the sidelines either. “Somehow, I have a feeling we are going to become very close friends over the next few days.”

Jane had accused him of being stubborn, but it was she who was sulking and refusing to talk with him. Why couldn't she understand that all he wanted was to ensure that she and the child were going to be safe and sound? Now here he was, in his room, in his bed, alone, for the third night in a row.

This had gone on long enough. Ian pushed the thin blanket aside and stood. He went to the hallway and knocked on Jane's door. Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door and slipped inside, into the darkness. “Jane,” he called in a soft voice. “Are you awake?”

A lump on the bed rose up. “Ian?” Her voice hardened.” Ian! What are you doing here? I told you that --”

“I'm lonely and miserable without you.” He strode to the bed. He put his knee on the mattress and leaned over her. “I miss you.”

“You can't waltz in, drop a few sweet words and expect me to forget all about your crazy plan.”

“I don't expect that.” He lifted the blanket and slipped under it. He wrapped his arms around her, drew her against his chest and lowered them to the bed so that he was lying on his side, she with her back against his chest.

“Then what?”

“I just want to be with you.”

“I'm still angry at you,” she said but she didn't try to wiggle out of the embrace of his arms.

“Lately you're always angry at me.” His hand glided over the curve of her stomach.

“If you're going to be patronising, I don't want to talk with you.”

“We don't need to talk.” He kissed the top of her head.

“Don't try anything.”

“Or what? You're going to leave me hanging like the last time?” He chuckled. “That was mean.”

“I won't apologize for it.” She sighed and snuggled closer against him.

“I didn't expect you would.” He pressed another kiss on the top of her head then held her gently, but firmly. She said that she was still angry with him, but at least she was allowing him to hold her and to enjoy her scent and touch. He didn't know what he would have done if she had refused.

They lay spooned, with their breathing the only sound in the room. Holding her, he slowly drifted into sleep. When he woke up, she was still in his arms, sleeping, while the grey light of the dawn caressed her cheek.

He lifted himself onto his elbow and bent over her to kiss her temple. “I love you,” he whispered. He hadn't told Jane, but he had already found the place that he intended to use to draw out Martha. An empty building site where the work had been interrupted because of Martha's meddling and they needed additional permits to continue with construction. Through his imaginary phone calls he had let Martha know that he would be there, in the containers that the site foreman used as an office, every day during his lunch break.

He was well aware that Martha probably wouldn’t appear on the first day, but when a week and a half passed, he started to believe that she might not appear at all. Yet, he continued to go there, spending his time going through the documents, something that he could have done in the comfort of his office, with a Taser taped under the table close to hand. He also had three more Tasers at his disposal: one on the desk covered with papers, one taped under the chair in which he sat, and one in the pocket of his jacket. He also had a sensor and a camera set outside the container's door.

He glanced at the clock on his phone. It showed that an hour of his lunch break had already passed and that it was time to return to the office. He was thinking about calling Jane who, despite their night cuddles, still refused to let go of her grudge. She would probably just ask if everything was okay and after he confirmed that it was, cut the connection. She wouldn't back down and neither would he.

He stood and left the container, locking the door behind him.

His phone started to ring.

He ignored it and strode to the gates and when he walked through them, he locked the heavy padlock on the chain that wound around the gates, part of the chain link fence that framed the building site.

The ringing on his phone stopped, but only for a short second, as if it was taking a big breath before it started to ring again.

He pocketed the keys and directed his stride toward his Mercedes, parked on the pavement two steps away, with his bodyguard waiting for him in the driver’s seat, pretending to be his driver.

He took the phone out of his pocket and glanced at its display just as he reached the car. It was Jane. Why would Jane call him? It would have to be something urgent, unless it meant that she had stopped sulking. Please let it mean that she stopped sulking. He answered. “Jane?” He opened the back door of the car.

“Don't get in the car!”

“What?” He glided onto the backseat and closed the door.

“Don't get in -- You're already in! You have to get out. NOW!”

“What are you talking about?” Ian asked, frowning. His gaze went to the driver’s seat and driver’s cap just visible above the headrest. “To the office, please.”

“Get out now!” Jane screamed into the phone.

The sound of the door locking.

“You cretin, why don't you ever listen to me?” Jane sobbed into the phone.

“Jane, what's wrong?”

“Turn off the phone, please,” a female voice ordered him and the driver turned around. He --
she
held a gun in her hand, pointed at him.

So close up, the barrel looked so big. He turned off his phone, set it down on the seat beside him and focused his gaze beyond the gun, on the woman that held it. “Hello, Martha. I can't say it's a pleasure to see you.” Martha looked so different from the strict-looking woman that had taken on the role of his family's housekeeper. At first glance, she still appeared the same, but there was something dark in the lines around her mouth and something dangerous and vengeful in the glint of her eyes as she stared at him.

“No? When you went to so much trouble to see me?”

He furrowed his eyebrows.

“I'm not stupid, I know that all your blabber was a trap. How long have you known about the microphones?”

“Where's my driver?”

“Here.” With her chin she pointed at the passenger seat. “He's not dead, if that's what you’re asking. I'm not a murderer.”

“Yet you pushed Jane down the stairs and sabotaged the elevator. And you are pointing a gun at me.”

“That's different.”

“How?” He knew moves with which he could have kicked the gun out of her hand, but he didn't dare execute them in the confines of the car. There was only one solution: he had to get the Taser in his jacket pocket. And to get the chance to do that, he had to stall.

“It's an eye for an eye.” She disengaged the safety. “Hasn't your father told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Move to the middle seat, please.”

He moved to the middle, mindful to put his hand on his pocket as he did. He repeated, “Told me what?”

“That Linda was pregnant.”

Linda was pregnant? “Linda, she was your step-sister, right?”

“Don't play stupid with me.” Martha grimaced. “I know how you and your father work, and I'm aware that you must have been conducting an investigation into my past. You must know perfectly well that Linda was my sister and that your father had an affair with her.”

“No, I don't.” He touched the rectangle. The Taser's probes were turned downward and he had to have them pointed at Martha. He needed to get out of this alive, and preferably unharmed, or Jane would skin him alive.

“You heard Beth. You were there. Linda believed that your father loved her, but he didn't. He allowed his parents to fire her and throw her off the estate when she was at her most vulnerable. She told me that in the letter when she asked for the money she needed to survive.”

“My father helped her, so did my mother.” Ian's fingers shifted the Taser, his move tensing the fabric of his pocket on one side and wrinkling it on the other.

“They killed her and the baby. The baby that should have been mine. She was supposed to give birth to my son; to the child which I was to adopt, a child who would be your age. But then she wrote me a letter: how the baby's father was going to take care of everything, and when I came to the country, all I found was Linda's grave. Yes, your father certainly took care of everything.”

“My father didn't kill her. He loved her.”

“It's an eye for an eye. Your father's actions caused my son's and my sister's death, so I'll take what he treasures the most. I couldn't destroy the company, so I'll just have to destroy his first born.”

Ian's phone started to ring.

“Cancel it,” she ordered.

He obeyed, using the gesture of sliding a finger over the phone's screen to conceal his other hand turning the Taser.

The phone started to ring again. He risked a glance at the display. “It's Father.”

“Cancel it!”

“It must be important if he's calling,” he said with a calmness he wasn't feeling. He turned it on and turned on the speakers. “Yes.”

“Turn on the speakers,” his father said.

“They are already turned on.”

“Ian
is
Linda's son,” his father said. “He is our son!”

“Ian
is
Linda's son,” Mr. Thornton's voice said. “He is our son!”

“What?” Ian said.

Jane stopped pacing before the wall of monitors and blinked at them, while her hands curled around the edges of her long shirt. She glanced at Ann, who sat at the long table under the rows of monitors beside Joel. Just a few minutes ago she had ended a conversation with her son-in-law, informing him about Ian's situation.

The older lady stared at the monitors. She held the phone in her hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her shoulders were tense, but there was no sign of surprise on her face.

“You lie,” Martha cried out.

“You knew about Ian being Linda's?” Jane asked.

“Of course,” Ann said, without glancing at her. “They were only nineteen years old at the time, who do you think took Linda in, took care of her, and then after the poor girl died after giving birth to Ian, acted as the executor of her will?”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Linda's dying wish was that I marry Amelia, and for Amelia to adopt Ian and raise him as her own. Linda wanted her child to have a family that would love him and provide for him.”

So Ian was adopted. Well, half-adopted. Jane's eyes glided to the monitor on which she could see Ian's profile and part of the gun that was pointed at him. His face was blank and he had been fumbling with something in his pocket. If he got himself killed, she planned to kick his ass, hard. She fisted her hands, her nails digging into the softness of her palm.
Please, please, don't get yourself killed, just don't get yourself killed.

“Nobody's going to get killed,” Ann said, conviction in her voice.

Had she said that out loud? Jane grimaced.

“I would have loved him,” Martha said. “I would have given him everything.”

“But you couldn't give him as much as we could,” Mr. Thornton's voice travelled from the phone's speaker. “He's my son, and Linda's, there's no way I would have been able to give him up.”

“He should be mine, Linda promised me.”

“Joel, what is the situation? Are the men already in position?” Ann asked.

Joel, wearing a headset with a microphone, swung in the chair to face Ann. “Yes, ma'am.”

But what good could they do? Jane had from Joel learned that his men only had tranquillizer guns and their darts couldn't penetrate the glass, even if the car's windows weren't made out of bullet-proof glass. She nibbled on her fingers, mumbling under her breath, “What to do, what to do?”

On the screen Martha still held her gun aimed at Ian, her nephew, and her hand started to tremble. What if she shot him by mistake? And why was Ian so occupied with his pocket? Shouldn’t he be working on softening up Martha?

“Oh, God.” With her hands, Jane covered her face. She couldn't watch this, but she couldn't walk away from it either. Her knees threatened to buckle under her, but she couldn't sit down, because sitting down meant being still, something that she doubted she would be able to do.

“I have to think about this.” Martha’s hand started to tremble even harder.

Jane peeked between her fingers and took a step toward the screens.

Ian pushed whatever it was in his pocket forward.

What was he trying to do? Jane lowered her hand and bit into her thumb as she leaned over the desk, her nose almost touching the flat surface of the monitor.

The sound of a pitched buzz was followed by the deafening sound of a shot fired.

Ian slumped back into the seat. Martha folded down, her body jerking.

“Go, go, go,” Joel said into the microphone.

With her fingernails clawing over the table's smooth surface, Jane's eyes darted between the monitors. She could see Ian's face, his closed eyes and the paleness of his skin, but she couldn't see the lower part of his torso. “What happened? Is he okay? Is he okay?”

The doors of the car were hauled open and men in dark suits pushed their way into the car, pulling Martha out and crowding around Ian.

Jane wheeled to face Ann, her fingers digging into the fabric of Ann's sleeve. “Ann!”

Ann stood and wrapped her arm around her shoulder. “Calm down, Jane.”

“But Ian--”

“He's alive.”

“She shot him. She shot him, didn't she?”

“Calm down, don't panic.” Ann squeezed her against her then released her. “Joel?”

“Mr. Thornton has been shot in the torso. He's bleeding, but his pulse is strong and the ambulance we had on a stand by should be there in twenty seconds. Jim is requesting further instructions regarding the lady.”

“Give him to me.” Ann stretched out her hand toward Joel. “Jane, be a good girl, contact downstairs and request that Tom be in the driveway in five minutes.”

Joel passed Ann his headphones.

The screens before Jane now showed an empty car and a dark stain on the beige leather of the backseat. From the speakers came the distant sound of men talking and the sound of sirens was getting louder.

“Jane!” Ann snapped her fingers. “Tom. Car.”

“Yes.” Jane nodded and then rushed to the intercom at the end of the table, her hand on her belly.
Your father is going to be okay, he's going to be okay, I promise
. She pressed her lips tightly together while she dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
But he's only going to be okay until I get my hands on him
.

#

Jane rushed across the hallway, eyeing every door she passed, searching for room 223.Two big men were close behind her. They were part of Ann's personal army, and Ann had instructed them not to let Jane out of their sight. Martha had been detained, but she could have an accomplice and, to be on the safe side, none of the Thornton family members were allowed to go anywhere without an escort, including Jane.

“Here, miss,” the bodyguard pointed at a door along the hallway, on her left, where two men, so similar to the ones that accompanied her, stood on each side of the door.

“Thank you.” She slowed down and then stopped before the door, nodding to the men.

They nodded back, not trying to stop her.

Jane fisted her shaking hands and took a deep breath before she loosened her fingers and exhaled in a long puff. She knocked, then pushed the door open and peeked inside.

Ian sat on the hospital bed, a frown on his face and his jaw locked, with his shirt hanging off his left shoulder. He stared straight ahead while a nurse bandaged his arm. His eyes landed on her and the frown smoothed out into a smile. “Jane.”

He was okay. Her shoulders slumped with relief and she darted forward, around the nurse, to his right side. She slapped his arm. “I'm so angry with you,” she hissed, not knowing if she should slap him again or kiss him. He was fine.

“I thought you would be.” He smiled at her. He wrapped his arm around her, pulled her against him and kissed the top of her head.

“You got hurt.” Jane snuggled as close as the edge of the bed and the nurse standing at Ian's left side allowed her.

“It's just a scratch.”

“Two scratches, actually,” the nurse said.

Jane glanced at the bandage on his torso and then at his left arm.

“I was lucky that the bullet grazed me between my side and my arm. It just burned my skin and ruined my jacket and shirt,” Ian said.

The nurse secured the bandage and stepped aside.

“Thank you,” Ian said.

The nurse nodded and gave Ian a glance over before she left.

Jane wrapped her arm around Ian's waist and rested her forehead against his chest. “For a moment there, I thought I'd lost you.” Tightness squeezed her chest. “I thought I lost you.”

“I'm here, Pukki, I'm here.” His fingers combed through her hair. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“You’d better not.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I will.” He pressed another kiss on her head. “If you promise not to be too bossy, for the next few months I'll be your door mat. I'll do everything you want, everything you say. You say jump and I'll ask how high.”

“You don't know how to be a door mat.”

“I can try.”

The sound of the door opening.

Ian's body tensed and his shoulders squared as if he was preparing himself for battle.

Jane glanced over her shoulder to see Ian's parents entering the room.

“Jane, can you give me a few moments, and then we'll continue to discuss my being a door mat?”

“Yes, of course.” She moved away from him.

He caught her arm. “Don't go. Just...”

“Yes.” Jane nodded to him before her gaze went to Ian's mother, who was already by Ian's side, looking as if she was going to cry any second now. Jane moved out of the way. She stepped to the foot of the metal bed.

Amelia's hands cupped Ian's face. “You gave us such a fright. What were you thinking?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ian took hold of Amelia's fingers and drew them away from his face, then released them.

Amelia pinched her eyebrows together.

“About Linda being my mother.”

Amelia pressed her lips together before she said, “Because she didn’t want me to. She was afraid that if you knew you might feel different to the children your father and I might have.” Her hand caressed Ian's cheek. “She loved you so much. And we love you so much too.”

“How can I continue to call you Mother?”

Amelia stumbled backwards, looking as if Ian had just slapped her.

“That was uncalled for.” Mr. Thornton stepped to his wife's side.

Ian drew his eyebrows together. “I didn't mean to....” He sighed, lowering his head. “I'm sorry.”

Amelia's hand curled around Ian's forearm. “I'm your mother, just as she is -- was. Oh, Ian, Linda knew she wasn't going to make it, and she wanted you to be happy. She made me promise to take care of you as if you were my own. And I did, gladly, because the first time I laid eyes on you, I already adored you.” A sad smile flashed on Amelia’s face. “You were such a tiny little thing, your skin all wrinkled, and you were the most beautiful baby that I had ever seen.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she squeezed Ian's hand. “You're mine just the way Chris and Izzy are mine, but you have two mothers, one that give birth to you and one who raised you, and they both wanted nothing but the best for you.”

“You should have told me.”

“Perhaps.” Ian's father folded his hands behind his back. “I always thought that you should have learned about Linda and who she was, but by telling you about her I would have disrespected her dying wish, something that I wasn't willing to do.”

“You made me believe that I was Thornton and Cromwell.”

“But you are, Ian, you are.” Amelia caressed his face again.

“I'm not Cromwell. Does Ann know?”

“Right now, we should focus on Martha. She's at the police station, they are interrogating her.”

Jane shifted her legs and leaned on the cold metal frame of the bed to lessen the discomfort that came on whenever she stood too long.

“The fact that you're a son that I had with our family maid might come out in a trial -- something that I'd like to avoid, not for us but for Linda. I don't want her name to be dragged through the mud. Ann has already involved the lawyers. She proposed that if Martha is willing to suppress the information about your background and plead guilty, we will cover the cost of her lawyer and not press charges.”

“Do we really have to discuss that right now? I don't want to think about her or what to do with her,” Ian said. “Right now I want to be alone, with Jane.”

“Yes, quite understandable. We’ll talk about that later then, when you come back home.” Mr. Thornton offered Amelia his arm. “Let's go, dear, and wait for the children at your mother's house.”

Amelia took Ian's hand and something that looked suspiciously like fear flashed in her eyes when she said, “Regardless what you have learned today, you are --  and will always be -- my son.”

Ian sighed and in the silence that followed the tension rose and tightened around them like a vise.

“You're my son,” Amelia repeated.

Ian sighed again and squeezed her hand. “I'm sorry for what I said before. You'll always be my mother.”

Amelia nodded. She released Ian's hand to take a handkerchief out of her bag and dabbed with it under her eyes. She gave Ian a small, shaky smile before she looped her arm with her husband’s. “We'll talk more later.”

“Yes,” Ian said.

They left the room and as soon as the door closed behind them, Jane was beside Ian. “Are you okay?”

“No, not really.” He slipped his injured arm into the sleeve of his shirt, grimacing. “But I will be, in time.”

Jane helped him push the sleeve up and tugged the shirt over his shoulder before she pulled the edges of the shirt together. She started to button it. “I don't mean your wound.”

“I know.” He caressed her face. “I'm not okay. They lied to me. It was because of the promise they made to Linda, but they lied to me about who I am.”