Gone Too Far (48 page)

“Don’t expect too much,” Alyssa warned him.

“I won’t but, ah, Lys, what if she hates me?”

Oh, Sam. “I don’t think kids that little have been taught how to hate yet.”

“What do I say to her?”

“Well,” she said, “before you even open your mouth, you need to do an immediate fuck-ectomy of your vocabulary.”

He laughed. “Fuck-ectomy. I like that. Okay. Fuck-ectomy in progress.”

“Part of doing it means you can’t say
fuck-ectomy
anymore.”

“I have a feeling I’m not going to say much of anything anymore,” he pointed out dryly. “So the you-know-what’s complete. What do I say? ‘Hi, Haley, I’m your daddy. Boy, have I missed you.’ ”

“That’s good. Don’t ask her if she remembers you—you’ll both feel bad when she says no.”

“When,” he said. “Yeah. Yeah. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been this nervous.” He glanced at her. “I’m nervous, too, about you meeting her. I know you said your feelings for Haley were mixed—”

“Not about loving her,” Alyssa told him. “I’m going to love her. That’s why babies are so cute. So everyone automatically loves them.” She laughed. “Everyone with a heart, that is.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s a story there?”

Because he’d spent the past few days talking to her, and listening while she talked. Because he knew her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Well . . .”

“Let’s have it.”

“Well, it was after my mother died,” Alyssa told him.

“Why do I already have the urge to kill someone?” he asked.

“We went to live with my father’s sister—Tyra, Lanora, and I,” she said. “It was a pretty stressful time—on top of the grief and loss—because my aunt Joyce kept saying that she was going to take only Tyra and me. That Lanora had to go live with my mother’s cousin. I practically had to go to court to keep us together.”

“Mmph,” Sam said.

Alyssa looked at him.

“I can’t say anything,” he told her, “because I want to say what the
fuck
was wrong with her?”

“Lanora wasn’t my father’s child,” Alyssa told him. “That was what was wrong with Aunt Joyce. Apparently this was why my parents broke up. My mother was unfaithful, she got pregnant, and when my father found out, he left her. Us, too, though, you know? Which was kind of unfair. I didn’t know anything about any of this at the time. I just knew that one day he was there, and the next he was gone. But Aunt Joyce, well, she was a little too happy to fill me in. She told me Lanora couldn’t live with us because of that, because she felt no responsibility toward her.”

“Grphh,” Sam said.

“I remember I just kind of looked at her, and said, ‘But she’s still my sister.’

“And Aunt Joyce said—I remember this as clear as yesterday—she said, ‘When you’re older, you’ll understand.’ ” Alyssa shook her head. “Joyce ended up taking Lanora, too, because Tyra and I weren’t going
any
where without her, but she never gave her any affection. That sweet little baby . . . My mother’s transgressions were not her fault, but Joyce constantly held it against her. I’m much older now, and the only thing I fully understand is how completely wrong Joyce was. She shouldn’t have taken us in if she couldn’t love us all. And believe me, it wouldn’t have been hard for her to love Lanora. It must’ve been a lot of work to stay that hard and cold. But she cared more about blaming my mother—for everything from my parents splitting up to my father’s death—than she cared about the welfare of an innocent child.”

Sam had managed to make the right turn and was now barreling down side streets, trying to make up for lost time. But he still glanced over at her. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“So I’m going to love Haley,” Alyssa said. “Because she’s not responsible for Mary Lou’s mistakes, or your mistakes, or my mistakes. And I’m going to love her twice as much because she’s yours. But you need to know, Sam—I’m not going to take care of her for you. When she’s with you, she’s with
you
. I’ll help, and I’ll be her favorite aunt Alyssa. I’m good at that. But if you really want her in your life, you’re going to have to be her father for real.”

“That’s, um, some of the best news I’ve had all day—the fact that you seem okay with the idea of spending time with me and Haley.” He glanced at her again. And then, almost as an afterthought, he matter-of-factly added, “I love you so much, Lys, sometimes it takes my breath away.”

The man she knew as Bob Schwegel wasn’t getting anywhere near them.

At least that was what Alyssa Locke had told her when Mary Lou had called and explained what was going on.

“Don’t leave the house,” her ex-husband’s girlfriend had said in her melodious voice. She sounded like someone who reported the news, with a cool authority to her voice that actually helped calm Mary Lou. “You’ll be much safer there than in a motor vehicle.”

Why was it FBI agents didn’t just say car?

Mary Lou had met the woman only a few times. Alyssa Locke was unbelievably beautiful with flawless brown skin and slender hips and big green eyes and sleek, dark hair with reddish tints that just
had
to come from a bottle. Either that or God deserved to be bitch-slapped for His almighty unfairness to all other women on earth.

It was bad enough that Alyssa had that mouth, with the kind of lush, full lips that white women everywhere tried to copy by getting collagen injections.

And yet Alyssa walked around dressed like a man saying things like “motor vehicle.” Mary Lou had to wonder if Alyssa’s entire cool, reserved, professional demeanor was some kind of twisted turn-on for Sam. She’d spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering about that, jealous as hell.

She’d even found out Alyssa’s cell phone number, but she’d never gotten up the nerve to call her. Until today. Who would’ve thought, even just six or seven months ago, that she’d ever call up Alyssa Locke to ask for her help?

There was probably only one person in the world who could’ve talked her into doing that. And she was sitting here, holding his hand, watching Whitney read another chapter of
Alice
to Haley and Amanda.

Talk about Wonderland . . .

“It’s going to be all right,” Ihbraham told her quietly.

“I’m scared they’re going to put me in jail,” she admitted. “Alyssa told me that Sam’s cousin and his wife are meeting us over here, that they’ll make sure Haley’s okay while I’m being questioned, but . . . Could you go with them? Be with her, too?”

His smile was apologetic. “I’m certain they will wish to question me, as well.”

Because he’d been born in Saudi Arabia. Because he looked the way a terrorist was supposed to look.

“That’s not fair. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Perhaps I can help give them a description of this man you believe is behind all this trouble. I met him once, you know.”

“I remember,” she said. “But maybe if you left now, they wouldn’t—”

“I’m happy to stay right here,” he said. “More than happy.”

Mary Lou leaned against him. He smelled so good—spicy and warm. “I missed you so much.”

He put his arm around her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get here faster. All those months in the hospital, I lost clients and it’s taken longer than I’d hoped to get my business back up to speed. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even have enough room on my credit card to get a plane ticket.”

“I can’t believe you drove all that way.”

“I’m pretty tired.” His fingers were in her hair. His touch was gentle but extremely sensuous. “I find I’m most eager to retire tonight.”

She looked up at him, and although he was smiling, the look in his eyes told her that she’d read his innuendo quite correctly.

“Unless you’d prefer we wait for our first night together until after we’re married,” he murmured.

After . . . ? Mary Lou’s heart nearly stopped. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”

He laughed, but his eyes were so serious. “I thought I wouldn’t ask—just tell. I thought perhaps if I didn’t give you a choice, you wouldn’t think about all your reasons not to marry me. Wherever I go, if there’s trouble, people
will
look to me.”

Mary Lou felt her eyes fill with tears. “Because they’ll say, Look at that man with his incredibly beautiful wife. Trouble must just follow them around.”

“Did you just tell me yes?”

She nodded. And the lights went out.

“Hey!” Whitney said. It wasn’t dark in there by any means, because sunlight was still coming in from behind the blinds, but she was trying to read.

There was a sound in the distance, like ripping fabric, that Mary Lou had heard before. It was a sound a person could hear only once but then never forget.

“Those are gunshots,” Whitney said, her eyes wide.

The phone rang, lighting up the button that was a direct line to the guardhouse at the gate.

Whitney lunged for it. “Jim! What was that?” She listened. “Who is this? Where’s Jim?” Her face contorted. “Oh, shit.” She held the phone out to Mary Lou. “He says Jim’s dead. He wants to talk to you.”

Mary Lou stood up. Took the phone. “Who is this?” she asked, even though she already knew. It was the man she knew as Bob Schwegel.

“Well, hello, Mary Lou,” he said in his slightly nasal voice.

It was the man who had smuggled guns into the Coronado naval base in the trunk of her car, the man who had murdered her sister.

Mary Lou hung up the phone, punched an outside line, and dialed 911.

She had said exactly nothing in response to his declaration of love.

Sam took it as a good sign, even though “I love you, too,” had been noticeably absent. Truth was, he hadn’t really expected to hear her say that. The real thrill came from the fact that he’d said “love” and she hadn’t said “No way.” She hadn’t accused him of misinterpreting what this was he was feeling.

And she was the one who was talking about Haley as if the three of them would be spending lots of time together.

Alyssa looked up from the map. “You know, it just occurred to me that I never told you that I got my period this morning. We started talking about having a choice and . . . But that’s what I needed to pick up from the drug store. Tampons. Not that prescription.”

What? “But you said you were right at the point in your cycle—”

“I am,” she said. “I was. But I started bleeding, so—”

Holy fuck. But it was fear that gripped him, not relief. “Are you all right? I didn’t, like, hurt you or something, did I?”

“No.” Alyssa smiled, as if there was something funny about the idea that he might’ve been too rough. “God, no. This actually happened to me before. I go a real long time without having sex, then I have a lot of sex, and my cycle gets all out of whack. I think it’s the result of a hormone overload.” She laughed. “You know, I’ve always kind of thought of you as a hormone overload.”

He wasn’t sure, but it was possible she’d just insulted him. Except her smile was very warm, and that look in her eyes . . . “Wow,” Sam said. “I’m . . . man, that’s, um . . .”

“An enormous relief,” she filled in for him.

But his fear had turned into something else entirely and it wasn’t relief. He glanced at her. “Is it?”

She looked away first, no longer laughing. “Sam, you’re insane if you—”

Her cell phone rang.

“If I what?” he asked.

She shook her head as she answered her phone. “Locke.” She sat forward, her body language shifting to high tension as she listened intently.

“No,” she said, “but call me right back.” She closed her phone, but opened it right away. “We’re getting reports of shots fired in the vicinity of the Turlington estate, and the local police have gotten notification from the security company. Someone inside the house has triggered a silent alarm.”

Fuck!
Sam floored it as Alyssa dialed the phone number Mary Lou had given her.

She’d run down to the front door and pushed the panic button on the alarm system the way Mrs. Downs had shown her when she’d first arrived. The housekeeper had said in her know-it-all manner, “Here’s something that you need to know, but you’ll never need to use.”

Mrs. Downs apparently didn’t know everything.

“I didn’t
lose
it,” Whitney said. “It’s somewhere in my room. It doesn’t work half the time anyway. Cell service out here sucks dick.”

“Find it anyway!” Mary Lou said. Ihbraham had brought Haley and Amanda into the bathroom, where whatever he was doing was keeping them giggling. Mary Lou had sent them in there. She’d read lots of books where the characters climbed into the bathtub for protection when the shooting started.

When the shooting started . . .

Lord, that incessantly ringing phone was starting to drive her mad.

Whitney went into Mary Lou’s bedroom instead of down the hall to her own.

“You need to find that phone!” Mary Lou followed her. “If we don’t call and warn them, Alyssa and Sam are going to drive right up to the gate and then they’re going to be just as dead as Jim Potter and— What are you doing?”

Whitney dumped the guns and ammunition from Mary Lou’s beach bag onto the bed. She was lining them up and . . .

Loading them?

“I’m not going to let terrorists walk in here and just shoot us,” the girl said.

“You know how to use those things?”

Whitney gave Mary Lou a teenager’s “shit, you’re stupid” look as she attached one of those clips to a very deadly looking, very large weapon. “Daddy took me to his firing range for the first time when I was five. I qualified as an expert marksman when I was eleven. In case you haven’t exactly noticed, in this house we worship at the altar of Smith and Wesson.”

“Keep those things away from the girls,” Mary Lou ordered. “But show Ihbraham how to use one. I’ll be back in a sec.”

She was going to find Whitney’s phone if it was the last thing she did.