At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) (13 page)

The director's face beamed from the main page, and it wasn't his mother's.

Frowning, Jack ran another search, using her name.

That was when he found the obituary, dated three years ago, a week after her fifty-third birthday.

The picture was old, a close-up taken on a long-ago family vacation.

The headshot showed her beaming smile, the bright eyes behind the lenses of her glasses. Jack's own eyes burned so badly that he had to blink a few times before he could read beyond her name, Marlene Estes McKenzie.

She'd died at home, according to the writer of the obit, surrounded by family and friends. In lieu of flowers, her husband and sons requested that donations be made to a well-known foundation dedicated to fighting breast cancer.

Breast cancer.

Jack breathed deeply until his emotions were at least somewhat under control, then, against his better judgment, he reached for Ashley's phone, dialed the familiar number.

“Dr. McKenzie's residence,” a woman's voice chimed.

Jack couldn't speak for a moment.

“Hello?” the woman asked pleasantly. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

He finally found his voice. “My name is—Mark Ramsey. Is the doctor around?”

“I'm so sorry,” came the answer. “My husband is out of town at a convention, but either of his sons would be happy to see you if this is an emergency.”

“It isn't,” Jack said. Then, with muttered thanks, he quietly hung up.

He got out of the chair, walked to the window, looked out at the street. A blue pickup truck drove past. The house opposite Ashley's blurred.

All this time, Jack had imagined his mother visiting his grave at Arlington. Squaring her shoulders, sniffling a little, mourning her firstborn's “heroic” death in Iraq. Instead, she'd been lying in a grave of her own.

He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

How long had his dad waited, after his first wife's death, to remarry?

What kind of person was the new Mrs. McKenzie? Did Dean and Jim and Bryce like her?

Jack ached to call Ashley, needed to hear her voice.

But what would he say?
Hi, I just found out my mother died three years ago?
He wasn't sure he'd be able to get through the sentence without breaking down.

He moved away from the window. No sense making a target of himself.

The night grew darker, colder and lonelier.

And still Jack didn't turn on a light. Nor did he head for the kitchen to raid Ashley's refrigerator, even though he hadn't eaten since breakfast.

He'd done a lot of waiting in his life. He'd waited for precisely the right moment to rescue children and
diplomats and wealthy businessmen held for ransom. He'd waited to be rescued himself once, with nearly every bone in his body broken.

Waiting was harder now.

In his mind, he heard the voice of a young soldier. “You'll be all right now, sir. We're United States Marines.”

Jack's throat tightened further.

And then the throwaway cell phone rang.

Sweat broke out on Jack's upper lip. He'd spoken to Vince over Ashley's phone. He'd warned Ardith not to use the cell number again, in case it was being monitored.

It was unlikely that the FBI would be calling him up to chat. They had their own ways of getting in touch.

Holding his breath, he pressed the Talk button, but didn't speak.

“I'll find you,” Chad Lombard said.

“Why don't I make it easy for you?” Jack answered lightly.

“Like, how?” Lombard asked, a smirk in his voice.

“We agree on a time and place to meet. One way or another, this thing will be over.”

Lombard laughed. “I must be crazy. I kind of like that idea. It has a high-noon sort of appeal. But how do I know you'll come alone, and not with a swarm of FBI and DEA agents?”

“How do I know
you'll
come alone?” Jack countered.

“I guess we'll just have to trust each other.”

“Yeah, right. When and where, hotshot?”

“I'll be in touch about that,” Lombard said lightly. “Oh, and by the way, I've already killed you, for all intents and purposes. The poison ought to be in your
bone marrow by now, eating up your red blood cells. Still, I'd like to be around to see you shut down, Robocop.”

Jack's stomach clenched, but his voice came out sounding even and in charge.

“I'll be waiting to hear from you,” he said, and hung up.

O
h, and by the way, I've already killed you, for all intents and purposes. The poison ought to be in your bone marrow by now, eating up your red blood cells.

Lombard's words pulsed somewhere in the back of Jack's mind, like a distant drumbeat. The man was a skilled liar—and that was one of his more admirable traits, but this time, instinct said he was telling the truth.

Jack had never been afraid of death, and he still wasn't. But he was
very
afraid of leaving Ashley exposed to dangers she couldn't possibly imagine, even after all he'd told her. Tanner and her brother would
try
to protect her, and they were both men to be reckoned with, but were they in the same league with Lombard and his henchmen?

One-on-one, Lombard was no match for either of them.

The trouble was, Lombard never
went
one-on-one; he was too big a coward for that.

Coupled with the news of his mother's passing,
three years ago
, the knowledge that some concoction of jungle-plant extracts and nasty chemicals was already devouring his bone marrow left Jack reeling a little.

Suck it up, McCall
, he thought.
One crisis at a time
.

It was after midnight when a local cab pulled up in front of Ashley's house.

Jack watched nervously from the study window as Vince got out of the front passenger seat, tucking his wallet into the back pocket of his chinos as he did so, and then opened the rear door, curbside.

Rachel scrambled out to the sidewalk, standing with her small hands on her hips like some miniature queen surveying her kingdom. She was soon followed by a much less confident Ardith, hunched over in a black trench coat and hooded scarf.

The cab drove away, and Vince steered Ardith and Rachel up the front walk.

Jack was quick to open the door; Rachel flashed past him, clad in jeans and a blue coat that looked like it might have been rescued from a thrift store, with Ardith slinking along behind.

“A
cab?
” Jack bit out, the minute he and Vince came face-to-face on the unlighted porch.

“Hide in plain sight,” Vince said casually.

Jack let it pass for the moment, mainly because Rachel was tugging at the back of his shirt in a rapidly escalating effort to get his attention.

“My name is Charlotte now,” she announced, “but you can still call me Rachel if you want to.”

Jack grinned. He wanted to hoist the child into his arms, but didn't. After the conversation with Lombard, he couldn't quite shake the vision of his bones going hollow, caving in on themselves at the slightest exertion.
He would need all his strength to deal with the inevitable.

Get over it
, he told himself. If he lived long enough, he would check into a hospital, find out whether or not he was a candidate for a marrow transplant. In the meantime, there were other priorities, like keeping Rachel and Ashley and Ardith alive from one moment to the next.

“Are you hungry?” Jack asked, thinking of Ashley's freezer full of cherry crepes and other delicacies. God, what would it be like to live like a normal man—marry Ashley, live in this house, this Norman Rockwell town, for good?

“Just tired,” Ardith said. Even trembling inside the bulky raincoat, she looked stick-thin, at least fifteen pounds lighter than the last time he'd seen her. And Ardith hadn't had all that much weight to spare in the first place.

“Yes!” Rachel blurted, the word toppling over the top of her mother's answer. “I'm
starved
.”

“I wouldn't mind something to gnaw on myself,” Vince said, his gaze slightly narrowed as he studied his boss, there in the dimness of Ashley's entryway.

“We rode in a helicopter!” Rachel sang out, on the way to the kitchen.

Jack stopped at the base of the stairs, conscious of Ardith's exhaustion. She seemed to exude it through every pore. The unseen energy of despair vibrated around her, pervaded Jack's personal space.

“You two go on to the kitchen,” Jack told Vince and the little girl, indicating the direction with a motion of one hand. “Help yourselves to whatever you find.” Although he kept his tone even, the glance he gave the pilot said,
We'll talk about the cab later
.

Jack did not regard himself as a hard man to work for—sure, his standards were high, but he paid top wages, provided health insurance and a generous retirement plan for his few but carefully chosen employees. On the other hand, he didn't tolerate carelessness of any kind, and Vince knew that.

Vince grimaced slightly, keenly aware of Jack's meaning, and shepherded Rachel toward the kitchen.

“Don't burn too many lights,” Jack added, “and stay away from the windows.”

Vince stiffened at the predictability of the order, but he didn't turn around to give Jack a ration of crap, the way he might have done in less dire circumstances.

Jack shifted his gaze to Ardith, but she'd turned her face away. He put a hand to the small of her back and ushered her up the stairs.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

“I'm scared to death,” Ardith replied, still without looking at him.

Even through the raincoat and whatever she was wearing underneath, Jack could feel the knobbiness of her spine against the palm of his hand.

“When is this going to be over, Jack?” she blurted, when they'd reached the top. She was staring at him now, her eyes huge and black with sorrow and fear. “When can I go back to my husband and my children?”

“When it's safe,” Jack said, but he was thinking,
When Chad Lombard is on a slab
.

“When it's safe!”
Ardith echoed. “You know as well as I do that ‘when it's safe' might be
never!
”

She was right about that; unless he took Lombard out, once and for all, she and Rachel would probably have to keep running.

“You can't think that way,” Jack pointed out. “You'll
drive yourself crazy if you do.” He guided her toward the room across from his, the one Ashley had set aside for Ardith and Rachel.

Although he'd been the one to send Ashley away, he wished for a brief and fervent moment that she had stayed. Being a woman, she'd know how to calm and comfort Ardith in ways that would probably never enter his testosterone-saturated brain.

And he needed to tell
somebody
that his mother had died. He couldn't confide in Vince—they didn't have that kind of relationship. Ardith had enough problems of her own, and Rachel was a little kid.

Jack opened the door of the small but still spacious suite, with its flowery bedspreads, lace curtains and bead-fringed lamps. He'd closed the shutters earlier, and laid the makings of a fire on the hearth.

Taking a match from the box on the mantel, he lit the wadded newspaper and dry kindling, watched with primitive satisfaction as the blaze caught.

Ardith looked around, finally shrugged out of the raincoat.

“I want to call Charles,” she said, clearly expecting a refusal. “I haven't talked to my husband since—”

“If you want to put him and the other kids in Lombard's crosshairs, Ardith,” Jack said evenly, giving her a sidelong glance as he straightened, then stood there, soaking in the warmth of the fire, “you go right ahead.”

She was boney as hell, beneath a turquoise running suit that must have been two sizes too big for her, and her once-beautiful face looked gaunt, her cheekbones protruding, her skin gray and slack. She'd aged a decade since gathering her small daughter close in that airport.

Ardith glanced toward the open door of the suite, then turned her gaze back to Jack's face. “I have two other children besides Rachel,” she said slowly.

Jack added wood to the fire, now that it was crackling, and replaced the screen. Turned to Ardith with his arms folded across his chest.

“Meaning what?” he asked, afraid he already knew what she was about to say.

She sagged, limp-kneed, onto the side of one of the twin beds, her head down. “Meaning,” she replied, after biting down so hard on her lower lip that Jack half expected to see blood, “that Chad is wearing me down.”

Jack went to the door, peered out into the hall, found it empty. In the distance, he could hear Vince and Rachel in the kitchen. Pans were clattering, and the small countertop TV was on.

He shut the door softly. “Don't even tell me you're thinking of turning Rachel over to Lombard,” he said.

A tear slithered down one of Ardith's pale cheeks, and she didn't move to wipe it away. Maybe she wasn't even aware that she was crying. Her eyes blazed, searing into Jack. “Are you judging me, Mr. McCall? May I remind you that you work for me?”

“May I remind you,” Jack retorted calmly, “that Lombard is an international drug runner? That he tortures and kills people on a regular basis—for fun?”

Ardith dragged in a breath so deep it made her entire body quiver. “I wish I'd never gotten involved with him.”

“Get in line,” Jack said. “I'm sure your parents would agree, along with your present husband. The fact is, you
did
‘get involved,' in a big way, and now you've got a seven-year-old daughter who deserves all the courage and strength you can muster up.”

“I'm running on empty, Jack. I can't keep this up much longer.”

“Where does that leave Rachel?”

Misery throbbed in her eyes. “With you?” she asked, in a small voice. “She'd be safe, I know she would, and—”

“And you could go back home and pretend none of this ever happened? That you never met Lombard and gave birth to his child—
your
child?”

“You make me sound horrible!”

Jack thrust out a sigh. “Look, I know this is hard. It's
worse
than hard. But you can't bail on that little girl, Ardith. Deep down, you don't even want to. You've got to tough this out, for Rachel's sake and your own.”

“What if I can't?” Ardith whispered.

“You can, Ardith, because you don't have a choice.”

“Couldn't the FBI or the DEA help? Find her another family—?”

“Christ,”
Jack said. “You can't be serious.”

Ardith fell onto her side on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest in a fetal position, and sobbed, deeply and with a wretchedness that tore at the fabric of his soul. It was one of the worst sounds Jack had ever heard.

“You're exhausted,” he said. “You'll feel different when you've had something to eat and a good night's sleep. We'll come up with some kind of solution, Ardith. I promise.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, then in the hallway, and Rachel burst in. “Mommy, we found beef stew in the fridge and—” she stopped, registering the sight her mother made, lying there on the bed. Worry contorted the child's face, made her shoulders go rigid. “Why are you crying?”

Stepping behind Rachel so she couldn't see him, Jack glared a warning at Ardith.

Ardith stopped wailing, sat up, sniffled and dashed at her cheeks with the backs of both hands. “I was just missing your daddy and the other kids,” she said. She straightened her spine, snatched tissues from a decorative box on the table between the beds, and blew her nose.

“I miss them, too,” Rachel said. “And Grambie and Gramps, too.”

Ardith nodded, set the tissue aside. “I know, sweetheart,” she said. Somehow, she summoned up a smile, misty and faltering, but a smile nonetheless. “Did someone mention beef stew? I could use something like that.”

Rachel's attention had shifted to the cheery fireplace. “We get our own
fireplace?
” she enthused.

Jack thought back to the five days he and Rachel had spent navigating that South American jungle after he'd nabbed her from Lombard's remote estate. They'd dealt with mosquitoes, snakes, chattering monkeys with a penchant for throwing things at them, and long, dark nights with little to cover them but the stars and the weighted, humid air.

Rachel hadn't complained once. When they were traveling, she got to ride on Jack's back or shoulders, and she enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She'd chattered incessantly, every waking moment, about all the things she'd have to tell her mommy, her stepfather, and her little brother and sister when they were together again.

“Your own fireplace,” Jack confirmed, his voice husky.

He and Ardith exchanged glances, and then they all went downstairs, to the kitchen, for some of Ashley's beef stew.

 

Ashley waited until she was sure Olivia and Tanner were sound asleep, then crept out of the guest suite. The night nurse sat in front of the television set in the den, sound asleep.