Son of the Enemy (31 page)

He nudged her ahead of him into the bedroom and flipped on a lamp, flooding the small room with a dull yellow glow. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was uninteresting, sparsely furnished and messy. But the bed was big, and when he shut the door behind them, she noticed the full-length mirror on the door facing the bed. She looked up at him, saw the heat in his eyes and felt her nipples tighten.

“Now what?” she whispered.

He guided her toward the bed, but stopped when her back hit the metal frame. When he bent to pick up a necktie off the floor, she saw that he’d positioned her so she was facing the mirror. He wrapped the tie around the leather belt binding her wrists and tied her to the bedframe. Then he knelt in front of her.

“Watch everything I do,” he said.

“I…I will.”

He started by kissing her belly, big hands covering her breasts, tugging at her nipples as she watched, her eyes half-closed, lips parted. She gasped when he took one hard nipple into his mouth and sucked like a starving man. One hand worked the fastening on her jeans and pulled them down over her ass while he continued to suckle and knead her breasts. He skimmed a thumb lightly through her sex and it came away wet.

“I’m going to lick your cream off your nipple,” he said, then proceeded to coat her nipple with her own juices and run his tongue slowly around it until he’d lapped up every last drop.

“Use your tongue there,” she whispered. She was trying to wiggle her jeans off her legs so she could spread them, but he insisted on tormenting her, rubbing the juice on her nipples and licking it off.

“Please,” she begged, tugging at her bonds, wishing she could take matters into her own hands but at the same time totally turned on by her immobility.

Finally, finally, he tugged her jeans down her legs, but only allowed her to pull one leg free. He tied the other one to the corner post with her pants. Then he pushed her free leg to the side, lifted her foot and wrapped his hand around her ankle to hold it in place on his shoulder. She was completely open to him.

“Now,” she groaned.

But John had other ideas. He nibbled on her thighs, avoiding the very spot where she wanted his mouth.

“Please.” Her pride was gone. Watching the whole scene in the mirror was monumentally erotic, and she was so ready to come.

Instead he turned her to the side and nipped at her ass. She could feel the sticky wetness on the inside of her thighs, see John’s fully dressed, powerfully built body ravishing her naked one. Slowly. Too slowly. He was killing her.

And then, when she couldn’t wait anymore and her voice was raspy from begging, he brought his impossibly hot, impossibly sensual mouth between her legs and began to feast. She watched him from above, his dark head moving between her thighs, watched him in the mirror, the muscles in his hand and lower arm bunching as he clutched on to her ankle, holding her legs open wide so he could run his tongue over every part of her swollen lips, thrust it up inside of her until she screamed his name. And came, and came, and came.

Hannah woke with a start. Some sound had invaded her sleep, and she was suddenly wide awake. John’s arm was slung over her hip, his long body sprawled diagonally across the bed. He had dragged out their lovemaking while she was bound to the bed, driving her wild, keeping her on the knife’s edge until she’d pleaded herself hoarse, and then, after he released her, thrust his cock deep inside and fucked her hard and fast. Feverishly. At some point she’d slid into a deep, dark sleep.

John’s steady snoring told her he was still out like a light. She smiled in the dark.

Good sex will do that to you.

But she needed to pee, so she slid out from under his arm and made her way in the dark, down the short corridor to the bathroom. She managed to snag John’s slightly ripe long-sleeve tee shirt off the floor and pulled it down over her head. It hung to her thighs.

When she came out of the bathroom, she was more wide awake than she really wanted to be, but decided to make use of the time rather than go back and risk waking John. He was exhausted, and not just from the vigorous sex. She would likely hit the wall herself before too long, but now would be a good time to go through the boxes.

She turned on a table lamp in the living room and pulled out the yearbook. First she went to her mother’s portrait and then to the drama-club section.

Sharon Lavoie as Belle.

She felt a shiver down her spine. The thrill of learning that John loved her had given her a respite from the disturbing and increasingly complicated situation she found herself in. She was being stalked by a man who may have been her mother’s killer. The man convicted of killing her mother could go free after twenty-three years of imprisonment. John would most likely lose his job with the FBI. Thornton could go to prison.

As always, pain stabbed into her heart when she thought of Ty losing his father that way. In adolescents poor judgment was common and forgivable. But in an adult? In the father of a teenage boy with a history of drug use? No. She would never forgive Thornton for hiring a known drug dealer with daily access to Ty.

She continued to flip through the pages, stopping when she spotted her mother in a photo. Drama wasn’t her only interest, apparently. She was also on the field-hockey team, the yearbook staff, the prom committee. Did she have a boyfriend?

She curled her legs under her and tucked the yearbook into her lap, enjoying the sense of proximity to her mother. Starting at A, she scanned all the faces, wondering which of these people had known her mother. Who were her friends? Had she been in love with someone? Several people had written messages over or around their faces, some of which were really touching.
Your friendship means everything to me. Let’s always stay in touch.
Hannah brushed away tears. How many of these people knew Sharon had been murdered?

Had one of them killed her?

The thought chilled her, but she continued to study the youthful faces. She was turning the page at the end of the K section when she remembered a name.
Philip Krantz.
The playwright. She flipped back and found the name. His bio was very short:
Drama 9-12.
Founder, Playwright Society
. The poor boy had terrible acne and light hair, cut very short. His features were ordinary, even nondescript—except for his eyes. Even though the photos were black-and-white, it was clear that his eyes were a very light color, most likely blue or gray. And somehow familiar.

Go quickly!

A man with light, pearly eyes so like the boy’s in the yearbook…strong arms lifting her onto the wall at Thornton’s estate…

Could it be?

She headed toward the bedroom to wake up John and tell him about the similarity, but stopped before she reached the door. The stranger had helped her that night. If he’d meant to hurt her, he’d had the perfect opportunity. And it was so dark out there, she never got a good look at his face.

Yawning, she decided to wait until morning. She was bone tired, her eyes were bleary, the lighting in the room was poor, and there was nothing they could do in the middle of the night anyway. She went back to turn off the lamp and heard a soft buzzing sound from somewhere in the room. What in the world? It took a couple of moments for her to realize it was her own cell phone buzzing inside her purse—wherever that was. But who would be calling her at this hour?

She finally spotted her purse on a chair and grabbed the phone. The caller ID said Mary Barnes. Hannah frowned. Mary was the school cleaning lady who’d sent Edna to cover for her while she recovered from surgery. Why would she be calling her so late at night? Especially since she hadn’t returned a single one of Hannah’s calls up until now. Puzzled, Hannah flipped open the phone. “Mary?”

“Hannah, it’s me, Ty.” The boy’s voice was strained.

“Ty? What—”

“Are you at John’s apartment with him? His motorcycle’s here.”

“Yes, but how did you—”

“Look out the window, okay, and please don’t tell John, just come downstairs
now
, like
right now
.” It sounded like he’d been crying.

“What’s wrong?” She went to the window and peeked through the miniblinds. Sure enough, Ty was right outside John’s apartment building, sitting in the passenger seat of a dark Mercedes, a cell phone pressed to his ear. The car was no doubt one of Thornton’s. Would Thornton’s goons use Ty to get to her?

No, Thornton would never allow that. And if he was in the car with Ty, well, she was certain he would never hurt her, no matter what John said.

“Please, Hannah,” Ty pleaded. “Just come down right now.
Alone
. I promise you, it’s
real
important.”

What could she do? “Okay, just…let me put something on.”

“Just come,” he begged. “Please please please.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” She clicked off her cell, set it down on the windowsill and walked softly into the bedroom to get her jeans. As she slid into them, she was sorely tempted to wake up John. He was sound asleep, snoring loudly, his big strong body facedown, spent from lovemaking. She hated to wake him, but she was alarmed by the fear she heard in Ty’s voice. Then she remembered what John had told her about Ty’s message, saying he’d done something really stupid that had to do with her. At fifteen, everything felt like life and death. For an impulsive boy with a guilty conscience, the need to confess could be agonizing. She gazed at John’s peacefully sleeping form.

And made a decision.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

John heard the car pull away from the curb. Something was wrong. Hannah wasn’t in bed. The digital clock on the dresser said 1:17. He crossed the bedroom in two long strides and stood naked, looking at the box on the couch and the lamp that signaled Hannah had been in there going through her mother’s things. He called her name and went into the bathroom. She wasn’t in the apartment.

“Shit!” What could have happened to make her leave? He picked up the phone on the kitchenette counter and called her cell. A few seconds later he heard a buzzing sound from the living room. He followed the sound to the windowsill and found Hannah’s phone. His first instinct was to open the blinds and look for her outside. His second was to scroll through her dialed and received calls. Mary Barnes had called at 1:09 from a local area code. Less than ten minutes ago.

“Who the hell is Mary Barnes?” he said to no one. And why had she called Hannah in the middle of the night?

“Fuck!” he roared, then strode quickly into the bedroom and threw on some clothes. Could this Mary person have needed help?
Mary.
Hannah had mentioned a Mary when they were at school one day, but in what context? Damn it, he couldn’t remember. He sat on the edge of the bed with his heart in his throat and dialed Mary Barnes’s phone number.

“Come on, come on.” The voice mail came on with an electronic message that simply stated the number. He paced while the voice went on and on with all the options he could choose, and then finally he got the tone.

“Mary Barnes,” he said gruffly. “If Hannah is with you, or you know where she is, call me at this number immediately.” He rattled off the number, twice, then clicked the phone shut. His heart was pounding with dread. Something was wrong. Very wrong. He called information and got phone numbers for two Mary Barneses and one M. Barnes. The first number was answered by a man who was pissed off about being woken up and said he had no idea who Hannah was. The second Mary Barnes didn’t answer at all. Then he called M. Barnes and got her voice mail—and a voice he recognized.

“You’ve reached Mary Barnes and Edna Krantz,” the voice said.

What the hell?

He left the same message. Halfway down the steps, his cell phone rang. The caller ID listed only the number, but he recognized it as Mary Barnes’s cell number. “Mary Barnes?” he asked immediately.

“John?” The voice on the other end was thin and frightened.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

“Me, Ty. You have to come to Hannah’s house. He…he says if you don’t he’s going to kill me.”

John stopped moving for a split second and then ran harder toward his motorcycle. “Who is it, Ty? Who’s going to kill you?”

“Philip,” he whispered. “My driver.”

Philip?
Could it be? “I’m on my way.”

No answer.

“Is Hannah with you? Ty?
Ty?
”

Still no answer. His fear for Hannah and Ty was so intense that some protective mechanism inside him flipped and made him calm. He had two calls to make and gave himself thirty seconds to make them. First he called the sheriff’s office, where he learned there was a car stationed at Hannah’s cottage. Relieved, he instructed the dispatcher to alert the deputies to Ty’s and Philip’s presence and not to shoot. Then he told the man to find Mary Barnes’s address in the directory under M. Barnes and send a car out there immediately. His next call was to Rita Santini. She picked up on the second ring.

“I don’t have time to talk,” John said. “So just listen. I’m getting on my motorcycle and heading to Hannah’s cottage. Ty Bradshaw just called to tell me someone named Philip Krantz—I think he drives Ty to school—is going to kill him if I don’t get to Hannah’s place right now. There are supposed to be a couple of sheriff’s deputies there but I don’t trust them to find their own dicks. Meet me there.”

“What? The bureau will have my ass if I—” Santini began, but John cut her off.

“You owe her, Santini!” he shouted. “Big-time. Now get your ass over there.” He clicked off his phone, started the engine on his Harley and sped off into the night.

The sheriff’s car sat about halfway up the driveway to Hannah’s cottage. John parked the Harley at the bottom of the dirt road and ran up. He peered inside and saw one man, apparently asleep.
Fucking incompetent!
He pulled at the door handle. Locked. He knocked at the window. The guy didn’t move. He knocked again, and then he knew—the guy was dead.

John released the safety on his gun and ducked into the trees. He didn’t have time to wait for backup. He could only hope Santini followed through and showed up with the cavalry. The night was overcast and very dark, but he could see the cottage through the bare branches. No lights were on inside. He inched closer, staying low, until he was close enough to make out what appeared to be drag marks leading from the trees up to the front porch. His heart sank in his chest.