Taken (34 page)

She stopped a few feet inside the room, just as he’d expected. No girlish scream for help came from her lips.

She just stared at him for a long moment. He gave her credit for showing less of her emotions than he’d expected.

A twinge of uncertainty flashed through his brain, his instincts for survival telling him this was not quite the response he’d anticipated.

“You dare to enter my bedroom without an invitation?” she asked, her voice cold, angry.

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Where was the fear, dammit? Didn’t she know what he could do to her?

For a moment she reminded him of someone else, another woman who hadn’t understood that he was important, that he mattered, that he was a force to be reckoned with. She’d ended up dead.

“You tried to kill my friends,” he said. “That wasn’t nice.”

She shrugged. “They were in my way.”

“You failed.”

“I’ve already expressed my displeasure,” she said. She walked farther into the room, showing off her long legs, her generous cleavage spilling out of her black cocktail dress. She wore stiletto shoes that were far too high, too sexy, too much for someone her age. Not that he knew exactly what her age was, but he suspected she was far older than she appeared. She could cover up the effects of gravity with plastic surgery, and no doubt she’d done just that. But she couldn’t take the years out of her eyes.

“I told you to leave them alone. I have my own plans,”

he continued. “If you interfere again, I’ll take you out myself.”

“As if you could,” she dared, a smile playing around her raspberry-colored lips.

“I got in here, didn’t I?”

“I knew you were here,” she returned. “I let it happen.

I wanted to speak to you. They’ve scheduled a date for the auction. It’s two weeks from Friday. Everything must be in place by then. If you can’t get the necessary materials by the end of the week, I won’t need you anymore, Evan. Do you understand what that means?”

“You’re threatening me?” he asked in true amazement.

“You can’t kill me.”

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“Can’t I?” she said with an evil smile. “Try me.”

“Then you’ll never get what you want,” he said with a shrug.

“So do your job and we’ll both be happy,” she replied.

“Now, do you have something to show me?”

He hesitated, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver watch. “Yes.”

“Very good,” she said with satisfaction. “We’re almost there. I will get back what’s mine, and then I’ll get more.”

She walked over to the bed. “Now, I want you to pay a visit to an old friend of ours.”

“Who?”

“Charlotte.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You missed something the first time around.”

“I got Johnny’s watch. She doesn’t have anything else.”

“I think she does. I think she has Dominic’s watch.”

For the first time since the game had begun, Evan felt a chill in his bones. Dominic had a watch?

At the look of disbelief on his face, she laughed and laughed and laughed.

Kayla sat by her grandmother’s bedside, wishing she’d wake up again so they could talk, but Charlotte had fallen into a deep sleep. The doctor who’d stopped by earlier said it was good, that rest would help her heal. She’d asked Kayla if her grandmother had been under a lot of stress lately, which had only made Kayla feel guilty that perhaps she’d created that stress. Her grandmother had been leading a nice, quiet, uneventful life until Kayla had burst in on her with Nick and wild stories of Evan and a con, old watches, missing treasure.

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She’d probably brought this on. She should have left things alone.

The door behind her opened, and she started, then relaxed when she saw it was Nick. She got up from her chair and met him by the door, not wanting to disturb her grandmother.

Nick held out his arms, and she walked straight into them. He’d been gone only a few hours and she’d missed him. Missed being in his embrace. Missed the feel of his hands on her skin. Missed his voice, his smile, his strength. She knew they were too involved, or at least she was too involved. They didn’t talk about it. But someday they’d have to talk. Someday they’d have to decide where they were going in the future . . . if they were going anywhere.

For the moment she would let things ride. For the first time in her life she was with a man without expectations, without a plan, without a list of things she wanted. It was freeing. And yet it was also scary. Because she knew deep down that Nick wasn’t a man looking to commit to a woman. Their relationship was probably just convenient.

She knew he liked her, enjoyed being with her, but more than that? He was a difficult man to read. He didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve like she did. He didn’t use two words if one was enough. She wondered if he’d ever told a woman he loved her; for some reason she doubted it. She knew he could love, and deeply, too. But love had hurt him: Jenny, his mother, his other sister, his father, and even Evan, his onetime friend, had betrayed him, kept secrets, told lies. If she had to pick one thing to give him, it would be honesty. He deserved nothing less.

“How is she?” Nick asked, his hand stroking her hair.

“Okay, I think.” She lifted her gaze to his. “The doctor
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said she’s just sleeping. If her heart looks good all night, they’ll release her in the morning. They think the attack was more of a warning, telling her to slow down, take it easy, not get too stressed about anything.”

“You’re feeling guilty.”

“And you are starting to know me too well. Please don’t tell me it’s not my fault, when we both know it’s my stubbornness that caused her upset. If I’d left things alone as she asked, she might not be sick.”

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “But you can’t deal in what-ifs. It will drive you crazy.”

“You’re a likely one to talk. You’ve been kicking yourself for twelve years over what happened to Jenny.”

He nodded. “So maybe I’m an expert on the topic of self-flagellation.”

“That’s a big word,” she said with a smile. “It sounds a little kinky.”

“Oh, so you’re interested in kinky,” he said with a wink. “You should have told me before.”

And she never should have started this tease, with her grandmother about six feet away. “Behave,” she said.

“You started it.”

“And now I’m ending it.” She stopped talking as she heard her grandmother mumbling. She walked back to the bed. “Grandma,” she whispered. “You’re okay.

You’re just dreaming.”

Charlotte opened her eyes and gazed straight at Kayla.

“They didn’t want to kill him. It was an accident. You understand, don’t you?”

Was she talking about one of the guards at the mint?

Kayla was confused, but she could see the worry in her grandmother’s eyes. “I understand,” she assured her.

“They didn’t mean it.”

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“He betrayed them. They were brothers. He had to pay. But not with his life. It wasn’t supposed to be with his life.” Charlotte let out a sigh, her eyes drifting shut, and once again she slept.

“Who on earth was she talking about?” she asked.

Nick stared back at her. “One of the men did something wrong, and he died because of it.”

“Frankie? Do you think the other two escaped, but they killed Frankie because he was going to get in the way?”

“Maybe.”

She was surprised by the doubt in his voice. “Who else could it be?”

“I can only think of one other person — Dominic.”

“The watchmaker?”

“He did disappear over the side of a boat, as I recall.

No one saw what happened. No body was ever found. I wonder who else was on the boat with him that night. It might be interesting to find out. Your grandmother certainly is a fountain of information.”

“A slow, trickling fountain. Just when you think there’s nothing left to come out, something does.” Kayla looked back down at her grandmother, wondering what other secrets this sweet old woman was keeping. “But I don’t think we’ll get any more information tonight.”

“Well, tomorrow is another day.”

19

“I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish here,” Kayla said as they walked down the sidewalk toward the San Francisco branch of the U.S. Mint early Wednesday morning. The mint was located in a historic building on Fifth Street in the heart of downtown. She knew that the U.S. Treasury was still using part of the building, but the rest of the old mint had been converted into a museum.

Ordinarily she would have loved exploring a historical landmark, but at the moment she had a lot on her mind, and she wasn’t sure this trip to the past would help them figure out how to find the other watches and bring Evan down.

“Haven’t you ever heard of returning to the scene of the crime?” Nick asked. “This is where it began. There could be a clue here.”

She paused at the bottom of the steps that led up to the massive building famously known as the Granite Lady. It was truly an awesome structure, with its impressive sand-stone columns and air of invincibility. It had been built to withstand earthquakes and fires, and it had done exactly that, but time had brought decay to the Granite Lady, and
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they could see by the signs out front that the building was currently undergoing a massive renovation that would result in a spectacular museum. Public donations were still being encouraged and accepted.

“I guess they don’t make money here anymore,” Kayla murmured as they headed up the steps.

“I don’t think so. I read a bit about the mint on the Internet, and I think it said the last coins were produced here several years ago, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which no one liked because it looked too much like a quarter.”

She smiled. “That sounds like a good trivia question.”

“I just wish I’d been able to learn more about the robbery, but it was a long time ago. Hopefully they’ll have more of that historical information inside.”

“Being here does make it feel more real,” she said, gazing at the building. “It’s such a formidable structure. I can’t believe Johnny and his buddies thought they could just waltz in and rob the place. It’s hard to imagine how they even got in.”

“I doubt security was as sophisticated in the fifties as it is today. And your grandfather wasn’t short on nerve or big ideas, from what I understand.”

She frowned at that. “I really don’t like it when you call him my grandfather.”

“Sorry.”

“I mean, I know that’s what he is, but my real grandfather, Edward, worked in a bank. He was the president.

Isn’t it odd that my grandmother fell in love with a robber and then married a bank president? That’s bizarre.”

“She covered all the bases. Maybe she had a thing for men and money.”

“More like a thing for bad boys. I’m still not sure she
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didn’t marry my real grandfather just to give her baby a name and find financial security for herself.”

“They stayed together a long time,” Nick reminded her. “They had chances to divorce after your mother was grown. Their relationship had to be about more than security.”

“I sure would like to believe that. I always wanted to have a marriage like hers. It was the example I held up for myself. I guess that’s why learning all this stuff about her is so shocking.”

“Just because she’s fallen off that pedestal you put her on doesn’t mean she’s all bad,” Nick said. “It just means she’s human.”

“You and I are alike that way. We expect a lot from the people we love. And we both keep getting disappointed —

you with Jenny, me with my grandmother. The irony is that they’re probably just as disappointed in us.”

“You’re right,” Nick said somewhat heavily. “I don’t think I’m at the top of Jenny’s list, but I suspect I haven’t been there for a while. That’s why no one saw fit to tell me about her baby. Hell of a secret to keep all these years.”

She could hear the tension in his voice and knew he hadn’t gotten over that bombshell yet. She, too, wondered why Jenny hadn’t told him after time had passed.

Kayla doubted that Jenny had ever forgotten about her child. She’d mentioned going to the grave. Kayla thought about what else Jenny had said — that sometimes there were fresh flowers on the grave, as if Evan visited their child, too. Did he?

It seemed like such a sweet thing to do. But Evan wasn’t sweet. He was cold, cruel, and ruthless. He didn’t have a heart. She knew that firsthand. Maybe Jenny was
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wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Evan who put out the flowers; perhaps it was someone else, her mother or her sister.

“Ready to go inside?” Nick asked.

“Sure.”

They walked through the front door of the building and paused by an information booth to pick up some brochures. A receptionist told them another tour would be starting in a half hour that would take them through the vault areas and down to the basement, where original coin presses were on display. She also pointed out some of the features in the main reception area, including the cast-iron staircases and the gas lamp chandeliers. While they were waiting, she suggested they view a historical video that ran every ten minutes in an adjacent room.

“That sounds like a good place to start,” Kayla said.

They walked into the small viewing room and sat down.

There was an older couple in the front row and two other women in the back, also waiting for the video to start.

Kayla checked her watch for the time. She was supposed to pick up her grandmother from the hospital at noon, and she didn’t want to be late.

“This shouldn’t take long,” Nick said.

“I know. I’m just eager to talk more to my grandmother. I’m not sure how hard to push her for information. I don’t want her to get upset and have another attack.”

“Well, we need to know if she really saw Johnny. That would be huge.”

Kayla nodded. “I agree. I also want to know who she was talking about last night when she mentioned someone being killed by mistake.”