The Honourable Maverick / The Unsung Hero (12 page)

Weirdly calm.

He went into the kitchen to make coffee. Ellie sat on the couch. Rick and Jet sat at the table which had place settings for two, he noted belatedly. And, good grief…candles?

Had Ellie been planning a romantic dinner tonight? Food, in various stages of preparation, was scattered over the bench top. A fresh-looking salad. Mushrooms, sliced and ready to sauté. Was there steak in the fridge? And, if so, how had Ellie known what his all-time favourite dinner was? Not that he was remotely hungry right now. And a romantic dinner seemed like a badtaste joke.

Had it only been last night that they had stepped over the boundaries of friendship and into the realm of lovers?

It didn’t seem real. Maybe Ellie was regretting it and that was why she didn’t want him touching her any more. Perhaps she considered him some kind of distraction now and if she hadn’t been distracted she wouldn’t have become separated from Mouse.

Mattie.

Oh…God. Silently, Max placed mugs of coffee in front of Rick and Jet. What would they think if they knew he’d given their missing mate’s name to the baby who was now also missing?

Rick would probably shake his head sadly.

Jet would give him a look that would tell him he’d been crazy getting into any of this in the first place.

Max went back into the kitchen for the other two mugs. He walked towards Ellie, trying to decide if she’d want him to sit on the couch with her or join the others at the table, leaving her separate. Alone.

He couldn’t do that. Max sat on the couch beside her. She was still hugging herself and he noticed the way her hands were shaking.

‘You cold?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Drink this. It’ll help warm you up.’

But Ellie shook her head, declining the coffee. ‘No, thanks…I think I might have a shower.’

‘Good idea.’ Odd, but maybe it would distract her from this awful waiting as well as warming her up. He wasn’t surprised Ellie was feeling cold. Dread was sitting in his own gut like a block of ice.

‘Will you call me if…if someone rings?’

‘Of course.’ Max watched helplessly as Ellie went into the hallway, closing the door behind her. Leave it open, he wanted to call, but why would she want to when the house was full of men?

With a heavy sigh, Max got to his feet again. He took the unwanted coffee into the kitchen and tipped it down the sink. Then he took the other mug and joined his friends at the table.

The conversation was spasmodic.

‘Maybe he won’t call,’ Jet suggested. ‘Maybe it’s the kid he wants.’

Rick shook his head. ‘Nah. Didn’t you
see
the way he looked at Ellie that day? Hear the way he spoke to her? The creep thinks he owns her.’

‘He doesn’t give a damn about the baby,’ Max said
through gritted teeth. ‘Or he wouldn’t have taken her away from her mother.’

‘He’ll call.’ Rick sounded confident. ‘And I intend to be there when they corner the bastard.’

‘We’re not doing anything that could put Mouse in any danger,’ Max said fiercely. ‘No way.’

The phone rang again and Max activated the speaker.

‘Max?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Jack Davidson. There’s been a possible sighting of the vehicle Jones hired but…’ The detective sounded puzzled. ‘It’s way out on the peninsula. Does that make any kind of sense to you?’

‘No.’ It didn’t. It was a dead-end road. Miles away from any kind of escape from the city unless it was to be by boat and even Marcus Jones couldn’t be that crazy, could he?’Ellie’s never even…Oh, wait…we did take a drive out there recently to look at a house that was for sale.’

Jet’s eyebrows rose eloquently.

‘They were just looking,’ Rick told Jet in a stage whisper. ‘Gina told me all about it.’

‘We’ll follow the lead up,’ the detective finished. ‘Any contact been made at your end?’

‘No.’

After the call, silence fell amongst the three men. Jet got up and paced the living area.

‘Bit poky in here, isn’t it?’

‘I’ve gone off the whole area,’ Max admitted. ‘And I’m going to have to move soon in any case. Sarah sent me an email to say she’s coming back.’

‘Who? Oh, the chick who sub-leased you this place?’ Jet paused to stare out the window. ‘Wasn’t she going to the States to find the father of her sick kid?’

‘Turned out he wasn’t the father after a DNA test.’

‘Bummer.’

‘Yeah. He put Sarah onto another possibility, though. Josh’s mother had just broken up with another guy when he met her. He was also a doctor who worked at Auckland Central. Thinks his name is Richard someone. Or someone Richard.’

‘How old is the kid?’ Jet was pacing again.

‘Dunno.’ Max had only one child on his mind right now. ‘Around seven or eight, I guess.’

Jet’s teeth gleamed as he grinned at Rick. ‘Guess that lets you off the hook, mate.’

‘Get off the grass. I’m careful about stuff like that.’

Another silence fell. Maybe they were all thinking about a time a little further back in their lives. Ten years ago, when they’d all dealt with their grief over Matt in different ways. Jet had taken up martial arts. Max had taken on some intensive postgraduate studies. Rick had been drinking a lot. And partying. Hard. Being careful might not have been high on his agenda for a while there so it was just as well the timeframe wasn’t compatible.

Max’s thoughts drifted back to what was threatening to overwhelm him but did he want to start a conversation about Marcus Jones and what he might be capable of doing to a baby?

What he might do to Ellie if he ever got close enough to her again.

It wasn’t the first time a kind of telepathy had occurred between these men.

‘She’s taking a hell of a long time in that shower, isn’t she?’

‘Yeah…’ Max shoved his chair back. ‘I might go and check on her.’

He could hear the shower running as he stepped into the narrow hallway but he got no response when he knocked on the bathroom door.

‘Ellie? You OK?’ He opened the door to a wall of steam.

For a moment, it was hard to see anything in the small room but when Max stepped in, he could see quite well enough through the condensation on the glass walls of the shower.

The water was running but there was nobody standing beneath it and in that split second of realisation Max knew there never had been.

With an oath, he shut off the water. Three long steps was all it took to get him back to the door of the living room.

‘She’s gone,’ he said, his tone as hollow as his gut.

‘What?
Where?’

‘To meet the weasel, of course,’ Jet said impatiently. ‘How does she know where to go?’

‘Her phone.’ Max breathed out another soft curse. ‘I
thought
she’d got a message but she denied it.’

‘She was probably following instructions.’

‘But how can she go anywhere? Unless it’s on foot?’

Max took a swift glance at the hook beside the coat rack. ‘My car keys are gone.’

He moved towards the phone. ‘I’d better call Davidson.’

‘Wait.’ Jet wasn’t pacing any longer. He was standing very still. ‘We know where she’s going.’

‘Yeah…to meet some deranged bastard who’s got her baby.’

Jet shook his head impatiently. ‘His vehicle’s been sighted on the peninsula road, yes?’

Max and Rick stared at him.

‘How hard could it be to catch up with an SUV on that road?’

An exchange of glances was all it took.

The three men reached for their helmets. Seconds later and they were outside the apartment, kicking their bikes into life.

With a roar of intent, they sped off into the night.

V
ALUABLE
time had been lost while Ellie tried to remember how to programme the satellite navigation device in Max’s car but now she was well on her way.

But where on earth was she going?

It seemed to be the route she and Max had taken the day they’d gone to view that house. Along Andersons Bay Road. Onto Portobello Road with the dark expanse of the harbour on her left. But why would Marcus want to come way out here?

Because it was isolated?

Was he planning to
kill
her?

No. While the thought was terrifying, Ellie didn’t believe it. Marcus Jones was a respected surgeon. His reputation and career meant everything to him. He was obsessive, yes, and very, very angry that she was refusing to do what he wanted her to do, but murder? Unthinkable. And even if she was in danger—and she knew perfectly well that she was being stupid going off on her own like this—what mattered was the safety of her child. If she lost her own life in saving Mattie, so be it. The drive to protect her baby was strong enough to override everything else.

She couldn’t go as fast as she wanted on this road because of its twists and turns but she was keeping ahead of any other traffic. The frequent glances into the rear-view mirror, fearing the flashing lights of an overtaking police vehicle, showed nothing very close at all. There were lights behind her but they were going at much the same speed she was and they disappeared for a while each time she took a bend. Nothing to worry about.

Max would have found the shower running without her by now and Ellie felt a twist of remorse at deceiving him. He didn’t deserve that. But he did deserve her protection and keeping him well away from Marcus Jones was the best thing she could do as far as not causing him any further trouble. He wouldn’t have hesitated to jump in boots and all. That was one of the things she loved most about him. His strong sense of right and wrong and the absolute need to help someone in trouble. He’d be frustrated right now because he wouldn’t have any idea of where she was going. She didn’t even know herself. Even if he’d told the police she was missing they would have no clue as to where to begin looking either.

The image of Max, on the phone maybe, rubbing his forehead and frowning with concern…for her…sent a wave of longing through Ellie. A desire to reassure him. A desperate need to feel his arms around her.

She gripped the steering-wheel so tightly her fingers started losing sensation. She had to concentrate. She had bought some time but would it be enough? Marcus was hardly a patient man and this journey seemed to be going on for ever. She had gone past Portobello
and onto Harrington Point Road from where they had turned up the hill to that house. The fleeting thought that Marcus had somehow known how much she loved the property and had purchased it as some kind of bribe could be dismissed because this was obviously nowhere near the end of this road where she’d been ordered to go.

She lost sight of the harbour. The countryside her headlights picked out was barren. Dry, rocky grass-covered hills with patches of gorse but little else. The harbour might be invisible but there was a new vast darkness on her right. The open sea, well below some dramatic-looking cliffs. No flashing lights behind her, though she did catch a glimpse around one corner of a vehicle’s lights. Maybe two cars were following because there seemed to be more than two lights. Who would be travelling this road at night? A farmer? The person who looked after the lighthouse? Wildlife officers who had work to do at the albatross colony maybe? That thought was comforting. It would be nice to think there was someone else not too far away when she reached her destination.

Finally, she got to where Harrington Point Road ended. In a car park for people who wanted to visit the tourist attraction of the albatross colony. A cluster of buildings had security lights on but there were no signs of any activity so the only other car in this area had to belong to the person who had brought her there. It was too dark to see if it was occupied but then came a flash of light. And another. The bright, white glare of an automated lighthouse signal.

Ellie could see the other car was empty. Of adults, at
least, but was Mouse in there? She killed the engine of Max’s car and fumbled for her safety belt, her feet hitting the ground at a run the instant she’d climbed out. Her path took her straight to the other vehicle, to peer in through the windows in the desperate hope of seeing an occupied baby seat but the interior was empty and in that moment of utter desolation Ellie felt the buzz of the phone in her pocket.

Walk towards the lighthouse, the message read. You’ll see where I am.

The gust of wind Ellie stepped into was cold but nothing on the ice that was running in her veins as she followed the new instruction. She stumbled on the rough roadway because, in between the flashes of the lighthouse beacon, it was so dark. On and on she went. She could see the lighthouse clearly with its white walls and the darker dome of its tip but she couldn’t see anyone standing nearby.

With each brief illumination, she turned her head further, frantically searching for the man who was waiting for her. He wasn’t close to the lighthouse at all. He had gone past signs warning of the danger of the nearby cliffs and he was standing very close to where the land beneath his feet appeared to vanish.

Ellie was much closer when the next flash of light came. She saw that Marcus was holding the handle of a baby’s car seat in one hand.

And he was smiling.

They had to kill the engines of the bikes as soon as they saw the vehicle Ellie was driving pull to a stop but they could coast some distance down the hill in
silence. They had already switched off their headlamps before rounding the last bend in the road.

‘We’ll go the rest of the way on foot,’ Jet told his companions. ‘How fit are you guys feeling?’

‘Fit enough,’ came Max’s terse response. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Got a phone call to make first,’ Jet said calmly. ‘Not a good look to have the back-up arriving too far past the action.’

Abandoning the bikes, the three men travelled fast on foot but they were still well behind Ellie when she got close to the lighthouse. They paused as they saw her turn off the pathway.

‘Where the hell is she going? There’s nothing but cliffs over there.’

‘He’s
there,’ Max hissed. ‘Wait for the light. See?’

They saw. The lone figure and the small shape of the car seat.

Ellie a matter of metres away.

Open ground around them. No chance to get behind Marcus and take him down and if he saw any of them approaching, he could drop that car seat—and Mouse—over the cliffs beside him.

If Ellie got close enough, she could meet the same fate.

And there was nothing at all Max could do about it.

He’d never felt so helpless in his life. There was fury, there, too. At Ellie, for putting herself in danger like this. What the hell was he going to do if something happened to her? His life wouldn’t be worth living.

Why?

Because he
loved
her, dammit. He loved Ellie and he loved Mouse and it didn’t matter that they had turned his life upside down. He wanted it to stay that way. He didn’t want to lose either of them. He
couldn’t…

Don’t move, Ellie, he prayed silently. Don’t get any closer. Wait…

‘The lighthouse,’ Jet said softly. ‘It’s as close as we can get and it’ll give us cover. Wait for the light to go past and then run like hell.’

‘Marcus?’ Ellie stopped. Instinct was telling her not to get close enough to be touched. Not yet, anyway. Not unless she had no other choice. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Waiting for you, Eleanor.’

She closed her eyes for a heartbeat. How was she going to play this? Would he want her to seem weak and helpless? But hadn’t she just demonstrated she wasn’t by getting here at all? There was only one thing she wanted to say right now.

‘I want my baby.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Please…give her back to me.’

‘My
baby, too, Eleanor.
Isn’t
she?’

No, Ellie wanted to scream. She’s mine. And…and Max’s. He gave her the name of his special friend. The name he would have chosen for his own child.

‘Isn’t
she?’ The snarl was almost a shriek.

‘Y-yes. Yes, she is.’

‘No lies this time. You haven’t got your let’s-pretend-we’re-tough-guy-bikie doctor friends around to help you this time, have you?’

‘No.’ Oh, dear Lord…she wished she did. All three
of them. In their black leather gear. Tall and menacing and ready to protect her. But she didn’t have her dark angels. She had to protect herself. And her baby.

‘I’m sorry, Marcus,’ she said shakily. ‘I didn’t mean to lie to you.’

‘Yes, you did. You’re lying now, you stupid cow.’

‘I…I was scared. I’m still scared…’ No problem sounding genuine now.
‘Please,
Marcus. I’ll do anything you want. Just…don’t hurt her.’

The icy wind was gusting. Biting through her clothing. Was Mouse freezing? Ellie could hear a thin whimper of sound but it was unlike any noise she’d ever heard from her baby before. It sounded…exhausted. Alarming.

‘She’s cold, Marcus,’ Ellie said desperately. ‘And hungry. I need to feed her. Please…’

‘Come and get her, then.’

She couldn’t do that. She had to get Marcus away from the edge of the cliff but she couldn’t think of any way to achieve that. Paralysed by fear, Ellie simply stood there. Waiting for another flash of light. Listening to…What was that?

Marcus heard something too. ‘What the
hell
is that?’ he yelled. ‘You told someone where you were going, didn’t you?’

‘No. I promise. I didn’t tell anyone.’

The noise was getting louder. She looked over her shoulder and up at the sky. The tiny flashing lights of an aircraft were clearly visible and the sound was taking on the recognisable ‘chop’ of helicopter rotors. Was help coming? Did she simply need to find some way of stalling Marcus? Distracting him, maybe?

‘We need to go somewhere they won’t be able to see us, Marcus. We have to hide. Quickly!’

‘What? No…I—’

‘It’s all right. Listen, we’ll get away from here. I’ll tell the police it was all a mistake. That you didn’t kidnap anybody. That we’re together. You know, engaged…’ She turned towards the lighthouse. ‘Come with me.’

The helicopter had activated a powerful searchlight. An area that included the car park was being looked at while it hovered overhead.

‘You don’t want me,’ Marcus sneered. ‘You want
him.
You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing? Playing happy families. Going to look at houses to buy?’

‘No. It’s you I want, Marcus. Only you.’

The helicopter was moving again. It was almost directly overhead. Ellie dipped her head and groaned aloud. This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t lie convincingly enough. But then she raised her face and saw Marcus running towards her.

Empty-handed.

The spotlight from the helicopter came on again and the terror that Marcus had thrown the car seat over the cliff proved unfounded. The seat was on the ground where he’d been standing. He’d simply abandoned it.

‘You
bastard.’
All that terror and an unholy fury that someone could frighten her that much went into the shove Ellie gave Marcus as he reached out to grab her. He stumbled backwards, stepped onto a rock and fell hard.

Ellie ran. Not towards the relative safety of the
lighthouse but back towards the cliff. She reached the car seat. The safety-belt mechanism was open and there was nothing to slow her from grabbing her baby with both hands and clutching her to her breasts. But, just as swiftly, Marcus was getting back onto his feet.

The roar of the hovering helicopter filled her head. The spotlight was almost blinding her. Could she really see what she thought she was seeing?

Three dark shapes well away from the shadows of the lighthouse. Moving at astonishing speed towards Marcus. And further away, flashing blue and red lights. So many of them. Emergency vehicles speeding along the road towards this scene.

The knowledge that somehow Max had followed her here and was trying to protect her was unbelievable but maybe he was too late. Everybody was too late. Marcus was on his feet, his face so twisted with fury it was virtually unrecognisable. He was launching himself in her direction. Screaming words that were incomprehensible. He wasn’t going to stop. He was going to send them all over the cliff.

Ellie curled herself over the precious bundle in her arms. Curled herself so forcefully she rolled forward, landing on her shoulder and then her back. She felt the impact of a foot on her thigh and then saw Marcus tumble to land on her other side. She heard the thump of his body land and then he rolled again, unable to slow the momentum he’d built up. Another roll and then he vanished. She heard an unearthly scream that got drowned by the whine of an aircraft engine being shut down after landing.

The moment that sound began to fade she could hear the sound of the voice she loved the most.
‘Ellie.
My God, Ellie, are you all right?’