Son of the Enemy (21 page)

Tears welled up, but thank God she was angry now, and her pride was kicking in. “What more do you want from me?” she shouted. “I’ve done my civic duty, and I’ve certainly kept you entertained while you were on the job.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh please, John! Or is that even your name? Whoever the hell you are, you took what you wanted from me—or wasn’t it enough? Did you come back for a quickie?”

He pulled her roughly to him and held her tightly in his arms. She flailed, tried to push him away, cursing him. He whispered her name into her damp hair, squeezing her closer. Would anyone ever hold her like this again, as though he would rather die than let her go?

“Don’t do that, damn it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Act like you’re hurting too.”

He pulled his head back and tipped her face up between his hands, letting her see the pain in his red-rimmed eyes. And his anger, which was never far from the surface. “I had no part in this investigation, Hannah.”

She pulled his hands off her and stepped back. “Yeah, right.” Her voice was scratchy and thick with tears.

He took a step closer. “If I’d known about it, I would have talked you out of it. I would have tied you up or kidnapped you to keep you from going through what you went through tonight.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

There was a fierce light in his eyes. “It makes perfect sense and you know it. You’re an intuitive woman. You knew my instinct would be to protect you, no matter how good a reason the FBI might have given you to sacrifice yourself.”

She squeezed the sides of her head with her palms. “Stop this. Stop trying to confuse me, damn you.” She pulled her robe closer around her. “Why did you come here, then, pretending to be a writer?”

He ran a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long story, and we really don’t have time to go into it right now. I’m taking you away from here. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

“You think I’m just going to take off with you? Are you nuts?”

He shrugged. “You think I’m going to leave you here to wait for Bradshaw and his cronies to show up?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “No matter what Thornton may have done, he won’t hurt me.”

John threw his head back. “Hah! Honey, your naiveté never ceases to amaze me. Your good friend Thornton’s connected with organized crime, remember? You think he calls all the shots? Well, think again.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“Well, you should be.” He pulled a flat box out of the inside pocket of his coat. “And then there’s the little matter of the stalker, remember him? Here’s the scarf I told you about. The one you didn’t want to see the other day.”

She pulled the top off the box and stared at the delicate gold scarf.

“
A thing of beauty to match your eyes, my lovely Belle
. Signed B. like last time.”

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “How does he know what color my eyes are?”

“Anyone who’s ever seen you would remember the color of your eyes,” John said. “They’re an unusual color. Amber. Like tigers’ eyes.”

She looked away. “My mother’s eyes were the same color.”

He took the box from her and set it on the mantle, then grasped her shoulders. She closed her eyes, but didn’t pull away.

“Look at me,” he said.

“I don’t want to.” Why did he have to keep touching her? Didn’t he know how much she was going to miss his touch? The lump in her throat thickened.

“It’s no coincidence that the scarf matches your mother’s eyes as well as yours.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy who’s stalking you was also stalking your mother. And I’d bet even money that he’s also the person who killed her.”

Hannah felt her insides go cold. “No,” she whispered. “He’s… Her killer’s in prison. There was no stalker. No one ever said there was a stalker.”

“Maybe not back then. But I have new information. There
was
a stalker, but the only people who knew about him were your mother and the man who’s sitting in prison. Sam Daly.”

Hannah pulled back. “
He’s
the one who claims there was a stalker? Gee, there’s a credible source.”

John took a breath and let it out slowly. “I believe him, Hannah.”

She was incredulous. “Why? The man is a convicted murderer. Maybe he’s tired of being in prison and dreamed up this stalker so he could get some media attention and force the FBI to reopen the case.”

John was shaking his head. “This isn’t an FBI case, at least not yet, and he’s not looking for media attention. The only person he’s told about it is me.”

She was speechless. John had spoken to
him
? The man who took her mother away from her? “I can’t believe this.”

“I know you think Daly’s the scum of the earth, but he’s actually—”

“He’s the devil.”

“He said the stalker gave your mother an opal ring.”

“There are lots of opal rings.”

“And he left roses on her porch. And scarves. I know, there are lots of roses and lots of scarves.”

“He really sucked you in, didn’t he? Well, I’m not going to be sucked in. Not by that slimy, evil bastard.”

“He called her Belle.”

For several long moments she just stood there, staring at him. How could this be? Sam Daly killed her mother. She’d known that for twenty-three years, and had hated him for it every single day. Why, suddenly, all this talk about a stalker? Even if there had been someone stalking her mother, how could the same man be stalking her all these years later?

“Why did he tell
you
all this?” she asked hoarsely. “Why did you talk to that…that lying, murdering son of a bitch?”

“Because he’s my father,” John said quietly.

Chapter Twenty-One

Philip watched the taillights disappear around the trees before he climbed into the old Mercedes. He knew Bradshaw was going to see her, and he wanted to be around in case she needed him to protect her again. He felt in his pocket for his knife and imagined the blond giant clutching at his neck, bright red blood spurting through his fingers as he stumbled backward and slid down the wall, dead, with his eyes open.

He smiled.

Good thing he had that rock in his pocket when he saw that man attack Belle. It had felt so good to put himself on the line for her, to risk his own safety to keep her safe. She must have gotten away, because Bradshaw’s Neanderthals had searched all around the grounds for her, inside and outside the fence, but she had disappeared. Now he had to make sure she’d made it home.

He stopped the car at the gate and waited for the guard to come around. The man’s breath stank of alcohol.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the guard asked. “Mr. Bradshaw doesn’t want anyone leaving the grounds tonight.”

“Ty called and wanted me to bring him his iPod.” He held it up for the guard to see. “He’s bored at his grandmother’s house.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, Mr. Bradshaw didn’t say anything about that.”

“Why don’t you just call him and ask him? I’m sure he won’t mind being interrupted for such an important question.”

The guard snarled. “You know what, fish face? You’re really starting to get on my fucking nerves.”

“Or I can just call him myself. You don’t need to trouble yourself.” Philip reached into his pocket, but the guard was already walking back to his little gatehouse. He pressed the button and the gate swung open. Philip smiled and waved as he drove past him. The guard flipped him the bird.

Once he was out of sight of the gatehouse he pressed down on the accelerator. He wanted to get to her house as quickly as possible after Bradshaw arrived, but he couldn’t risk being seen. He would park at the school and run through the woods, then circle the cottage to her bedroom window. At the thought, his breathing quickened and his palms felt damp on the steering wheel. Tonight would be his first time looking through the tiny peephole he’d dug into the wall just below the window, facing her bed. He rubbed a sweaty hand over his erection and sent up a prayer that she hadn’t discovered it.

“Very soon now, my love,” he whispered as his tires splashed through the wet snow.

John pulled a small, black rolling suitcase out of her closet and tossed it on the bed.
Christ
, she looked totally shell-shocked, standing there clutching her robe together, her gaze unfocused.

“I’ll explain it all to you when we get to Marblehead,” he said. “For right now, though, I’m asking you to trust me, even though that’s the last thing in the world you want to do.”

“Trust you,” she echoed, looking through him rather than at him. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m John Emerson Daly. That’s my real name. My mother is an Emerson.”

“John Emerson Daly. Sam Daly’s son.” She moved to the bed and flopped down, saying the name over and over like she was in a trance. Suddenly she put her hand to her mouth and raised her eyes to him—and burst out laughing.

It was hysterical laughter, out-of-control laughter. She fell onto her side holding her stomach, laughing like a maniac. He felt skewered by her laughter. Humiliated.

“Help me out here, Hannah,” he said, wanting desperately to end this fit of hysteria. “You need clothes for at least a couple days, maybe three or four. Toiletries, whatever.”

She was still laughing, swiping at her eyes, but after a minute or so it came in bursts that were beginning to sound a lot more like sobs.

“Hannah. Are you listening?”

She took a couple of deep breaths, then reached for the box of tissues on the nightstand and blew her nose. “Listening to what?” Her voice was rough. Monotone. She was no longer looking at him, just staring down at her hands, occasionally wiping tears off her face.

“We have to go,” he said slowly. “I wanted to give you some space, but I waited too long. We’ve wasted too much time. Now, what do you need?”

“I have school on Monday.” She stared at the suitcase, then at the closet, back to the suitcase. “I can’t go anywhere. I have appointments. I have a school to run.”

“We’ll say one of your relatives died and you had to leave. We’ll call Larissa from the road, okay? She can hold down the fort for a few days, change your appointments around.”

Hannah was shaking her head. “If any of my relatives died, I probably wouldn’t even know about it.” He could see the hysteria threatening to bubble up again and squatted in front of her, his hands on her knees.

“One of your relatives
did
die, and that’s why we’re going there.” She focused on him then. “Your mother. She died. We’re going up there to figure out who killed her.”

She frowned. “If it’s the same guy who’s stalking me, why not look for him here?”

“Believe me, I plan to. That’s what the cops are supposed to be doing. But let’s face it—we need help from the FBI, and the only way I can convince them to help is to establish that Sam Daly was not the man in your mother’s bedroom that day. That her real murderer is in this area, and that he’s a threat to you.”

“And just how exactly are we going to do that?” She had broken eye contact, and the flat tone of her voice told him she was still on the edge of losing it.

John sat beside her on the bed but didn’t touch her. She really didn’t know the role she’d played in putting his father in prison all those years ago. “I’ve read all the newspaper accounts of your mother’s murder. They all say you were in the bedroom when she was killed.”

“I already told you. The memory is gone.”

He risked touching her hand where it lay on the bed, but she jerked it away. Damn, that hurt. “I’ll tell you everything on the way, I promise. Please, honey, let’s just—”

“I’m not your honey.” She stood and crossed to her dresser, moving slowly, like an old lady. She opened a wooden jewelry box and pulled out the opal ring, then twisted it between her thumb and fingers. “I would have known if she’d gotten this from an evil person. I wouldn’t have worn it all these years. It’s not possible that I—”

They both heard the car splashing up the drive at the same time, but the blank expression on her face didn’t change.

“Shit,” he said.

“That’s probably Thornton.”

John flipped off the light and peeked through the curtains. The black Mercedes had come into view between the trees. Definitely Bradshaw, but he appeared to be alone.

“Say as little to him as possible. Just get rid of him.”

“I won’t answer the door.”

Fuck.
He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “You have to snap out of it.” That sparked a hint of anger in her eyes.
Good.
Anything was better than that awful flatness. “If you don’t respond, he’ll bust the door down, or get one of his goons to do it.”

She pushed him away. “Where’s your motorcycle?”

“The tech guys picked it up and brought it to my apartment after they dropped me off. I came in my car and parked it at the school. Bradshaw won’t know I’m here.”

She took a deep breath, tightened the belt on her robe and walked into the living room. He positioned himself beside the bedroom door with his back to the wall and pulled his gun out from the back of his pants, where he’d shoved it so Hannah wouldn’t spot it. The mirror opposite him provided a view into the living room. He could see the tension in Hannah’s body as she stood there, waiting for Bradshaw to knock. When the knock finally came, she took another deep breath and waited a few beats.

“Go away,” she called through the door.

“Let me in!” Bradshaw called back. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I don’t want to see you right now, Thornton. Please go away.”

“Let me see that you’re okay and I’ll leave.”

She hesitated a moment and then opened the door a tiny bit. “Satisfied?”

Bradshaw pushed his way in and she stepped back.

“Don’t you ever pick up the phone?” Bradshaw asked. “My God, you’re all scratched up. What did you—?”

“I’m fine.” Her tone was flat again. “But I’m exhausted and cranky, and I need to get to bed, so please just go.”

“What happened?” Bradshaw grabbed her upper arms. He was coiled tightly, John could see. “What did Nick do? No, don’t turn away. I need to know what that bastard did. Did he touch you?”