Found Wanting (46 page)

He chuckled. "So tough. So unsuspecting. He said he's been pretending to protect you until he could bring you to me. Tonight, in fact. Did he tell you about our meeting later?"

She didn't believe him for an instant. "You're lying."

"That was always your problem, wasn't it? You trusted too easily. You always believed in the good in people. But some people have only as much good in them as you pay them to have."

"Goodbye, Layton."

Quickly, he said, "Addison won't be showing up with Jonah like the two of you agreed."

Her heart dropped as if he'd just kicked it off the roof of a skyscraper.

"Are you still there?" The bastard sounded playful.

"Yes."

"I'm taking him away, Ali. Out of the country. You'll never see him again."

Pain knifed into her. "No."

"Perhaps you'd like to come say goodbye."

Shaking, she gripped the phone so tight her wrist ached. "Where?"

He gave her an address. "Take a cab. I'll buzz you in at the gate. And Ali?"

She held her breath.

"Come alone. Anyone who shows up with you I'll consider a threat and I might take it out on the kid. Got it?"

She bit into her bottom lip. "Yes."

* * *

Mitch strode out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair dripping. He wondered if there was time to make love to Alaina one more time before they left. He couldn't seem to get enough of her.

Near the bed, though, he paused, confusion giving way to alarm as he realized that she was not in the room. He started to turn when something on top of the sheets caught his attention. His cellphone.

He snatched it up, opened it. Caller ID told him the name of the last person to call his number, and his blood went icy.

Throwing off the towel, he pulled on his clothes with shaking hands.

What was she doing? Had she gone after Keller? Why would she do that without telling him?

Oh, Jesus, Keller would kill her.

He reached for his holster and froze.

His gun was gone.

Chapter 35

Alaina sat in the cab, trying to be patient with the traffic jam, but her pulse was racing.

Layton's words haunted her. "Some people have only as much good in them as you pay them to have."

Did that mean he had paid Mitch to set her up?

"He's been pretending to protect you until he could bring you to me."

"That was always your problem, wasn't it? You trusted too easily."

Her heart told her Layton was lying, but her head told her she couldn't afford to take a chance. Her head was also telling her that she was being foolish for going to Layton like this when she knew he wanted her dead. But she couldn't not go. Not when Jonah's well-being -- his life -- were at stake.

She looked down at Mitch's backpack on her lap. His gun was inside, so she wouldn't be confronting Layton unarmed. She only hoped she would be able to pull the trigger this time.

* * *

"Chuck, we've got a problem."

"Slow down. What is it?"

"Alaina has gone to confront Keller."

"How the hell did she get away from you?"

"It doesn't matter. You've got agents watching Keller's house?"

"Yes."

"Tell them to intercept her." Seeing the traffic jam ahead, he slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. Fuck.

"How do you know she's gone to his house?" Chuck asked.

"Keller wants to be in control, and the only place he can be completely in control is on his own turf." He thought of his missing gun, and his insides lurched. While he had seen firsthand Alaina's inability to shoot someone to protect herself, he didn't doubt for a second that she wouldn't hesitate to take out anyone who stood between her and Jonah.

"Dammit, Chuck, tell them she's armed."

* * *

The cab dropped Alaina in front of Layton Keller's palatial home in an old neighborhood that overlooked a golf course and the Potomac River. The area was quiet and regal, the houses few and far between, odd for the D.C. suburbs, where such acreage was rare and so expensive that only the truly rich could afford it.

She approached the gate, noting the camera positioned at the top of the gate, aimed at an intercom where visitors could announce their arrival. Before she could approach the device, a black sedan rolled into the short driveway in front of the gate. Two men were in the car, but only one got out and walked toward her. He looked like an FBI agent, dressed in a dark suit, white dress shirt, tie with diagonal, alternating red and navy stripes, and shiny black shoes. He struck her as a little gawky, so thin and youthful that he might have been a teen without the pimples.

"Ms. Chancellor?" he called.

Alaina shifted her weight from one foot to the other, telling herself to be patient even though every cell in her body was screaming at her to get to Jonah. She was so close. "Yes?"

Holding the inside of his wrist near his lips, he spoke softly into what she assumed was a microphone. A white, curly cord dangled behind one ear. Pausing before her, he flashed a badge. "Special Agent Bristol, FBI. Will you come with me, ma'am?"

She hesitated, casting a glance at the camera above the gate. If she went with the agent, she would blow her one and only chance of seeing Jonah, of getting him away from Layton. Casually, she slipped her hand into Mitch's backpack and closed her fingers around the cool butt of his gun. She had no intention of firing it, of course. All she had to do was point it at the guy and force him to back off until Layton buzzed her in. But the thought of pointing a gun at this man, this federal agent who looked not that much older than her own son, made her shudder. What if he pulled his own weapon?

"Ma'am?"

She didn't move. If she walked away with him, her chance would be gone. Jonah would be gone. It would all be over, and Layton would win.

She let the backpack drop to the ground.

The agent focused on the pistol in her hand, but his expression didn't change. "You don't need that, Ms. Chancellor."

"I'm going to go in to see Mr. Keller," she said. "All you have to do is let me go."

He nodded. "All right."

"I'm going to --"

He attacked so fast, he had her on the ground and pinned on her back, the air gone from her lungs, before she could blink. He easily plucked Mitch's gun away from her.

A car door slammed, followed by running feet. "What the hell's going on?"

Agent Bristol got up. "Bitch pulled a gun on me."

"You're kidding! You oughta make her pay for that."

"I like the sound of that."

The tone of the exchange set off alarms in Alaina's head as she wheezed in her first breath since he'd taken her down. Would FBI agents speak that way? Then she remembered Mitch's fear that Layton might have a source inside the Bureau. Apparently, he had two.

"Go get us buzzed in while I take care of her," Bristol said.

"Okay. Oh, and after you got out of the car, he called to say one of us should stay and watch the gate. Guess he's expecting some uninvited guests."

"You stay. I want to play delivery man."

"You got it."

As his partner jogged back toward the car, Bristol nudged Alaina with his foot, Mitch's gun still in his hand. "Get up."

"Give me a minute," she gasped, exaggerating distress that had already eased. She glanced toward the car, saw the other man was on the other side of it, a good twenty feet away. She might have just enough time --

Bristol hooked a hand under her arm. "We don't have all fucking day, lady."

She launched herself up at him, hitting him at the waist with desperate force that tumbled the slight man backward. She landed on top of him, nailing him in the gut with her elbow before scrambling up his body as if it were a jungle gym. Her fingers had just clamped over Mitch's gun when someone grabbed her from behind and lifted her up.

Twisting violently in strong arms, she drove her heel into her captor's shin, heard him grunt. His grip loosened, and she squirmed, thinking she was almost free, almost --

He pivoted, swinging her around, and she glimpsed Bristol's face before something hard and warm smashed into her jaw.

* * *

Addison sat on the floor of the bathroom, a bottle of tranquilizers clutched in her hand. She wondered how many it would take. Ten? Twenty?

She held up the bottle, studied the label. It had originally held thirty. She was sure she'd taken no more than five in the few days since she'd had the prescription filled.

Her cheek throbbed where Layton had struck her. But it was difficult to tell which pain was more intense -- where he had hit her or shame at how she had spilled her guts after only one blow. Such weakness shouldn't have been a surprise, she thought. She had been weak her entire life. Weak and stupid.

The guilt seemed to thrum in the bruise on her face. She had betrayed Alaina, forcing her only sister into a life of unimaginable hardship and fear. A fresh flood of shame went the guilt. What kind of person could blindly let Layton do what he'd done? She had failed in every way possible. As a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a human being. Perhaps it was best that Layton had denied her the chance to be a mother, because she no doubt would have screwed that up, too.

Plus, once the feds exposed Layton's transgressions with PCware, whatever they were, their image as the perfect couple with the perfect life would be shattered. Everyone would know, and if their friends didn't shun her, they would pity her. She couldn't bear the thought of it.

Her only consolation at this point was that once someone found her body, her bruised face would raise questions, as would the lengthy letter she had written, stuffed in an envelope and slid under the mattress she had shared with her sister's rapist for more than a decade.

Rising up to her knees, her hands shaking, she filled a glass with water.

* * *