In the Enemy's Arms (16 page)

Don’t shake. Don’t let him see he scared you.
Aw, hell, it was way too late for that. She took the phone without touching him, barely managing to close trembling fingers around it, and lifted it to her ear. “H-hello?”

Grayson folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the jamb, watching, waiting, still scary.

“Dr. Calloway. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure, but I’m sure you’ll understand why I can’t.” The voice was male, lightly accented, smarmy and oozing with feigned graciousness. “I was under the impression that you and Mr. Seavers were looking for the records he helped steal from my employers.”

“We—we are.”

“And you believe they might be at Mr. Grayson’s home? Or Mrs. LeFrancois’s or Mrs. Clarence’s?”

She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t have a clue. If she were braver, or more foolish, she would reply that he’d been under the impression that she and Justin were still in Cozumel; obviously, he was wrong. She would tell him that of course the records weren’t at those people’s homes, but then, neither were the girls they had supposedly adopted.

But she wasn’t brave, or foolish, and she couldn’t find the clearness of mind to form any response at all.

“I’m very disappointed, Doctor. I wonder why you and Mr. Seavers are harassing the foundation’s clients. I wonder why you’re not devoting your time to recovering the records, as we asked. I wonder why I should wait another hour to prove to you that this business is serious. I wonder why I’m not giving the order to dispose of Mr. Calloway as we speak.”

“You don’t want to do that,” she blurted. Grayson’s bored, disinterested manner made her skin crawl, and she wanted to turn her back to him but couldn’t do it. Instead, she took a few steps to the side so the brick wall of the entry was behind her and he was in her peripheral vision. “You want the files back, don’t you?”

“I’m not so sure now. You’ve apparently found someone who can decrypt them.”

“Only one. Only the file with the girls’ names and the parents they were placed with. That’s it. Nothing else. And we can recover the flash drive with the rest of the files. We just need a little more time.”

“Where are they?”

“We’re not sure yet. Justin and Susanna overreacted. They wanted to get the flash drive with the files as far away from them as possible, in a place where you could never find it. They passed it off to a friend who gave it to another friend who gave it… You get the idea.”

The man chuckled. “Amateurs. They should never have taken it from the island.”

“They should never have taken it from the foundation,” she pointed out, and he laughed again.

“I like you, Dr. Calloway. You’re pragmatic. If you ever decide you want to live in paradise, we could find a place for you at the foundation.” When he spoke again, the good humor was gone from his voice. “Leave our clients alone. Get the files. We’ll give you forty-eight hours to contact us. Mr. Grayson will give you the number. After that, start checking the news reports for Cozumel. You never know when another body will wash up onshore. Unfortunate boaters, fishermen…divers. Good day, Doctor.”

The call clicked to an end. Dazed, she listened to silence for a moment before Grayson’s movement made her stiffen. He held out one hand for the phone, a slip of paper in the other. When they’d made the exchange, he growled, “Get off my property before I throw you off. And if you come back, I’ll drag your scrawny ass inside and shoot you for an intruder. Got that?”

Eyes wide, she started to nod, then decided to hell with it. Spinning, she rushed back to the car, fumbled with the door, with getting in, with the seat belt, chanting as soon as she got in, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

Thankfully, Justin didn’t ask questions; he shifted into Reverse, backed out fast and headed toward the gated entrance at a fair rate of speed. Once outside the gates, Cate eased her grip on the door handle a bit; after they’d put several more blocks between them and Grayson’s subdivision, her heart slowed enough that cardiac arrest didn’t seem imminent.

She was in the middle of her first deep breath in a long time when Justin abruptly cut in front of an oncoming car and turned into a strip-center parking lot. Her head whipped around, searching for something suspicious behind them, but she saw nothing. Just life as usual on an Atlanta afternoon.

Would she ever have a
life as usual
again?

Instead of finding a parking space, he drove behind the shops, about halfway down the length of the building, where a row of Dumpsters blocked them from the street. He shut off the engine, got out and came around to her side of the car. His hands were unsteady as he loosened the seat belt, then he lifted her out of the car, pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

He felt so solid and strong, and she’d been scared forever, it seemed. Her knees gave way, and she sagged against him, face pressed into his shirt, shudders ricocheting through her. She’d been threatened before, but by patients who talked a lot and were rarely in a condition to act. But this man on the phone, and Grayson—they could both act and feel no remorse. Grayson could have snapped her like a twig before she’d been able to do more than croak Justin’s name.

He stroked her hair, but this time he didn’t bother assuring her that everything would be okay. They were long past the
okay
mark, and she didn’t know if they would ever find it again.

Slowly the rush of emotion that made her feel so fragile passed, but she didn’t step away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, clasping her hands behind him, standing as close as she could. She was afraid in a deeply fundamental way she’d never known before, and he was the only safety she knew.

Her shivers had stopped and the pressure around her lungs lessened before she spoke. “When Mr. Grayson opened the door, he handed his phone to me. It was the man who’s called you.” Drawing comfort from him, she repeated the conversation, amazed by how many details her brain had stored in total recall in the midst of total panic.

“So either Mrs. Clarence or the nanny doesn’t like uninvited guests.”

“The nanny was scared. She probably called her boss as soon as she got away from us.” Swallowing hard, she tilted her head to see his face. “He gave us forty-eight hours, Justin. If we don’t call to arrange a time to return the files by then, they’re going to kill Trent.”

“Where’s the number?”

For a moment she stared blankly, then let go of him. The paper was still crumpled in her left hand, the ink, thankfully, unsmeared. He tucked it into his pocket, then gazed into her eyes. “You okay?”

She nodded. It was a lie, and she was pretty sure he knew it. “We can’t let them kill Trent.”

“We can’t,” he agreed.

“But if we give them the files, they’ll kill all of us.”

“They will. I don’t know about you, doc, but I’m not eager for that to happen.” He pulled her to a nearby bench, used by shopping center employees on smoke breaks, judging by the number of cigarette butts on the ground around it. “You still think we should contact Trent’s GBI agent cousin?”

The part of her that had just been threatened and insulted at the same time—scrawny ass, indeed—by a big scary guy wanted to say
hell, yes.
Some stronger part stopped her. “We have a deadline and not much to tell him. No proof that Trent and Susanna have actually been kidnapped. No proof that the Wallace brothers are involved. No proof that the girls were ever delivered to the parents on that list. No proof that the other encrypted files on the flash drive have any incriminating evidence in them. If we went to Rick, he would at least look into it, but it would take him more than forty-eight hours to learn anything. And if the Wallaces found out…”

“It would be too late for Trent and Susanna.”

She scooted closer to him, until the warmth from his body seeped into hers. “And for us,” she whispered.

He settled his arm over her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “We need to find just one of those girls.”

“How? If the Wallaces warned Grayson about us, they’ve probably warned everyone.”

They sat in silence for a time. The air was warm, the street sounds muted. A plain board fence faced them on the opposite side, defaced—or maybe improved—by graffiti, and the odors from the Dumpsters mixed with leftover cigarette residue for an unpleasant perfume. It could have been worse, though. Apparently none of the Dumpsters were used by restaurants.

Looked like that might be her new motto:
it could be worse.

“Okay,” Justin said. “They know we’re in Georgia, so let’s have Garcia dig up what she can on the families out west. We can be on a plane headed that way in no time.”

“But if the parents have been warned…”

“The logical thing for us is to go for the best access. Sixteen of those families live in the South, so we came here. The other six might think distance will protect them. That we’ll continue to hang around where most of the kids are supposed to be. They might not take it as seriously as the ones here will.”

“As seriously as Grayson
did,
” she added with a shiver.

“If we catch the Wallaces, we’ll catch Grayson, too.” He hugged her tight for a moment, then let go and stood, handing her the burn phone, keeping his own. “You call Garcia, and I’ll see about the plane.” Scrolling through phone numbers, he walked away from the bench, then turned back to grin at her. “He’s wrong, you know. Your ass isn’t scrawny at all. In fact, it’s just about perfect.”

Nothing could have made her laugh at the moment, unless it was the kind of laugh that led to hysteria. She would have thought nothing could have made her smile, either, but Justin’s remark, along with that boyishly charming grin, did just that.

Chapter 8

O
ne of the benefits to being rich was having rich friends. It took Justin ten minutes on the phone with an old friend from college to catch up on the last few years, ask after his family and arrange to borrow his private jet for a few days.

When he got off the phone, he listened to Cate’s side of the conversation with Amy. “Which family?” Cate repeated. “How about the one least likely to threaten to shoot me?”

Amy’s response made her brows lift. “You can do that? Wow, Amy, you really are the chief worker of miracles. We’ll be checking for your email.” Cate pressed the End button with one fingertip, then automatically handed the phone back. “She’s going to check the remaining couples for arrest records.”

“Does Grayson have one?” Of course Amy would have looked him up while they were talking.

“He’s been arrested several times. He has anger issues.”

Justin’s stomach knotted. He’d offered to go to the door himself. Why in hell had he given her a choice? Grayson wouldn’t have killed her because the Wallaces didn’t want her dead—yet—but he could have hurt her badly with one punch, one bulldog grip or shove. And
he’d
sat in the car like an idiot, unable to see or hear her, thinking she couldn’t be facing anyone more dangerous than Monette Clarence, who wouldn’t have risked her manicure with physical violence, or the frightened nanny who would have run screaming if either of them had said
boo!

He’d helped get her into this mess. If he couldn’t keep her safe while she was in it, what the hell good was he?

He leaned against the car. “Where do your sisters live?”

She blinked, puzzled by the change of subject. “Two of them are still in Macon, one’s in Charlotte and one’s in Savannah.”

“I can put you on a plane to Savannah. Better yet, do you have any friends that live out of state? Or what about that cop you used to date? Would he let you hide out with him for a while?”

She stood and closed the distance between them with long strides, her manner menacing despite the fact she was shorter, skinnier and so damn delicate looking. “No, you can’t put me on a plane to Savannah. I’m not going to risk endangering my sister or her family. Yes, I have friends who live out of state, and yes, it would be harder for the Wallaces to connect me to them, but no, I’m not doing that, either. Yes, of course AJ would let me hide out with him, and even better, his wife, the woman he dumped me for, is an ex-homicide detective herself, but that’s not happening, either. You’re stuck with me, Justin. Just as we’re stuck with the damn Wallaces.”

When she stopped, she was standing so close. All he would have to do was shift his feet a few inches apart, slide his hands around her waist, nudge her an inch or two closer. It would be more intimate than they’d ever been, except for last night’s talking in bed. Even though they hadn’t even touched. Hadn’t even been in the same bed.

“If anything happens to you…”

She came one step closer. “We’ll have the Wallaces to blame.”

“They wouldn’t know you or Susanna existed if not for me.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Cozumel’s not that big. They realized there was big money in abandoned kids, and Susanna was in the business of rescuing said kids. They would have found their way to her sooner or later.”

It didn’t ease the guilt nagging at him, but she was right. Joseph and Lucas Wallace were sharp businessmen, always looking for the next investment, the next big return on their money. Like sharks to chum, they would have found Susanna and La Casa on their own and been circling in no time.

Now they were going in for the kill.

“Did you get us on a flight?”

“I did. We have to be at the airport in an hour.”

An hour, and the drive to the airport would take half of that. They’d already eaten lunch and managed to make it too dangerous to even drive past any of the other addresses in the metro area. Until they got word from Garcia, there was nothing else they needed to do.

There was no reason for him to push her back. No reason to rise from where he leaned, or to walk away from her, to get into the car with that safe distance of the center console between them. No reason to do anything but exactly what they were doing: standing so close that one deep breath would make their bodies touch, staring at each other like they’d never really seen each other before, waiting and wondering and wanting…