“And you would have fought the world and the devil for my soul?”
“Don’t laugh. Yes, I would have fought, and I would have won.”
“I’m not laughing,” he said gently. “And I believe every word you’re saying. You know, I saw you once when you were about ten years old. You were tough and full of passion, and I could tell that either Sandra or life had created a very special person.” He grimaced. “I couldn’t claim to have anything to do with it.”
Her eyes widened. “You saw me?”
“Only once. Then I turned my back and walked away.” He smiled. “Like the selfish son of a bitch that I am.”
“You were selfish.” Her eyes were blazing. “You should have given me my chance.”
“In my twisted psyche, I believe that I thought I might be doing that. Of course, it might have been ego and self-love raising its head.”
“You walked away. Why?”
“By that time, I had risen very high in my present profession, and anyone near me could be a target of revenge from crime figures or foreign governments or any number of other individuals. You wouldn’t have been safe.”
“Bullshit. We could have worked it out.”
“You keep saying that, but perhaps I didn’t want to make the effort. Perhaps you would have been an inconvenience.”
“Is that the way you felt?”
“Yes.”
She studied him. “You’re lying.”
“I don’t know how I felt all those years ago,” he said wearily. “I was softer and not as honest with myself as I am now. Every year, I could feel myself getting harder and harder, and sometimes I thought that soon I’d feel completely numb.”
“I don’t care about your walking away from that ten-year-old girl. I never knew about it, and I’m not that little girl any longer. I want to know about now. I can see that hardness. Everyone can see the hardness. I want to see something else. You look me in the eye and tell me. Was Bonnie right? Do you feel anything for me? Loss. Would you feel loss?”
He didn’t speak.
“You answer me, Zander.”
“Difficult, Eve.”
“I don’t give a damn. You look deep and tell me the truth.”
“I feel…” He stopped and when he spoke again his voice was uneven. “What do want me to say? Let’s see, if Doane blew your brains out, would I feel a sense of loss?” He stared intently into her eyes, holding them. “I would feel such a sense of loss that he had robbed this ugly world of such a unique person that I would kill him in the most painful way possible.”
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t look away from him. “Why? After all these years, why would it matter to you whether I lived or died?”
“God only knows. It could be that all during those years, I never permitted you close. It’s only after Doane made me pay attention to you that I began to feel … something.” His lips twisted. “And how I fought it. It was only the night of the fire at that ghost town in Colorado that I realized that you had become … necessary. It stunned me.” He paused before he added hoarsely, “And it broke me.”
“Nothing could break you.”
“No?”
“And I don’t want you to kill for me, Zander. I only wanted you to care.” She gestured with frustrated impatience. “Or for you, it could be the same thing. I don’t know why it matters to me anyway. But it does. It does. Maybe there’s a reason that we came together. I don’t want anything here unresolved when I go to Bonnie.”
“I’ve given you the only answer I can, Eve.” The intensity suddenly left his face. “And don’t be in too much of a hurry to tie up loose ends. I have no intention of letting you go to Bonnie anytime soon.”
“You’d be more convincing if you weren’t cuffed hand and foot, one arm in a cast, and with no weapons and—” She frowned. “I can’t believe you let Doane catch you.”
“I appreciate your faith in my prowess, but he counted on the fact that he’d catch me off guard.”
“And he did it?”
“What do you think? No man is perfect. Though I do come close.”
“You’re better than Doane. You ran rings around him in that forest in Colorado.” She paused, gazing at him in despair. And this Zander was the same man she had met in that forest. Even though he appeared helpless, as Doane had claimed, there was an aura of confidence and power that had been there when she was his prisoner. “I could wish that if you were going to get yourself caught, you’d choose a time when there wasn’t so much in the balance.”
“Your life? No, you’re talking about those nukes that Doane wants to set off to honor his idiot son.”
“You know about them?”
He sighed. “I’ve heard nothing but how irresponsible it is that I don’t give my full cooperation and sacrifice personal will to the CIA, Homeland Security, and a zillion other bureaucrats. Catherine Ling is very vocal on the subject.”
“Catherine? What does she have to do with this?”
“What doesn’t she have to do with it?” he said dryly. “She barged into my life and announced I had to be kept alive so that I’d be a decent barter for you. She even had the nerve to appoint herself my bodyguard. I had a hell of a time slipping away from her tonight.”
“I can imagine you would.” But she had trouble with the concept that even Catherine had been bold enough to confront Zander in his lair. It was both bizarre and humorous. “But she’d want more than me in that barter if she knew about those nukes.”
“Yes, but you were the primary prize.” He inclined his head toward her. “You’re the primary prize for all of us, Eve. Except, perhaps, Venable.”
“Then Venable is the one who is right,” she said soberly. “And you should have paid attention to what Catherine was saying.”
“I paid attention. But every one of those organizations would take me down if they could. I have problems working with anyone that I know will turn on me after they get what they want.” He smiled faintly, “And it would happen, Eve. They would make promises, then find it convenient to forget. That’s the world as I know it. It’s the world you know, too.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Then what does matter?”
“The children.”
“Ah, but of course.”
“And the parents who gave them life. I’m not important at all when you put those on the scale.”
“I beg to differ. But, then, I’m far more callous than you’d ever dream of being. After decades, I’ve only managed to care about one individual, and you mustn’t expect me to suddenly throw open the gates to anyone else. It’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t expect anything from you. You bewilder me.” He had said he cared about her but she didn’t know how she felt about him. He was completely out of her experience. Perhaps he was out of everyone’s experience.
But she wanted to know him, she realized suddenly. He had been an emptiness within her, and she had put that emptiness aside and tried to forget it existed. How long had she lived with that secret bitterness she would not admit even to herself?
Release it. It would only corrode and hurt her if she held it close. But she had to know one thing more than he had told her.
“Did you … love my mother?”
“Sandra?” He slowly shook his head. “Sex. Pure sex. And she cared nothing for me. We met in Florida when we were just teenagers. We were both wild and hungry for life. After high school, I’d gotten a job working on a freighter that was due to leave Daytona in four weeks for South Africa. Sandra’s mother had brought her down there on vacation, and she was partying on the beach every night.” He shrugged. “So was I. Booze and drugs and sex. Sandra liked them all. I wasn’t the first or the last man that she took under that pier to screw.” His gaze was on her face. “You don’t like my saying that. You’re protective of Sandra even though she wasn’t a good mother to you.”
“No, I don’t like it. But I asked you, and I’m not ignorant about Sandra’s past
.” She paused. “And she was good to my Bonnie when she was alive. She loved her. Everyone loved her.” And she vaguely remembered Sandra’s telling her about that vacation in Florida and that Eve was conceived at that time. “If she was that promiscuous, how did you know I was your daughter?”
“I didn’t.” He grimaced. “The next week I took off for Johannesburg. Three months later, I received a letter from Sandra telling me that she was pregnant and that she was certain that the kid was mine. I didn’t believe her.”
“Why not?”
“Because my shipmate, George Royce, who had also spent a good amount of time beneath the pier with Sandra, received a letter stating that she was sure George was the father. I figured that she had just sent out letters to all of her partners, hoping that one of us would believe her. She wasn’t too bright to send a letter to both George and me. She might have known we might talk to each other.”
No, Sandra had never been bright. “Desperation?”
“Perhaps.” He was silent. “But I preferred to think she was victimizing me. It was more convenient. I wasn’t a particularly good kid, but I still had a few ingrained scruples left at that period of my life. Enough to feel a twinge of guilt. I sent her some money and turned my back on her.”
“But you came back later. Why did you come back?”
He shrugged. “Curiosity? That possibility always stayed with me. Maybe because those nights in Daytona were the last carefree time I had before my life changed.” He corrected, “No, before I changed. I’m the one who joined a mercenary army in Johannesburg and discovered my true vocation. Any blame belongs solely to me, not fate. I learned to accept that truth with no excuses. That’s probably why I wanted to make sure that I’d made the right decision about Sandra.”
“And how did you do that?”
“DNA. It was difficult, but I managed to get your hairbrush and a blood sample.”
She stiffened. “And what did the DNA show?”
“That for once Sandra had told me the truth,” he said quietly. “You’re my daughter, Eve.”
She inhaled sharply. She had been expecting it, but his words still came as a shock. “I’m surprised you went to those lengths.”
“I was curious.”
It could be true but she didn’t think that was the entire story. “And if I was a target because I was your daughter, then you had to know that someone else might find it out, too.”
“Someone else did find out. Doane. I wasn’t careful enough when I was checking that DNA. I left a trail. At the time, I had no idea that a man could be so obsessed that he would spend five years hunting down every single bit of my history. I should have known. You wouldn’t be here now if I’d taken care of Doane five years ago.”
“If,” she repeated. “Who knows? Doane is crazy. We just have to take what we’ve been given and try to get out of this. Though we haven’t been given a hell of a lot.” Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “Doane mentioned Kevin’s mother, Harriet, out of the blue. What do we know about her?”
“That she’s in control, that her dainty little finger is on the detonator, and she’s only waiting to set it off until she sees Doane blow my head off. And that she’s probably going to be here very soon to take care of that little matter.” His brows rose. “Is that enough information?”
“More than enough. How soon?”
“She’s in Chicago, so we may have a little time.”
“Doane hates her. We may be able to use that.”
“Divide and conquer? Don’t count on it. Where my imminent demise is concerned, they stand united. I killed their beloved Kevin.” He added, “But all is not lost. Catherine will be scouring the coastline for a cottage with a graveyard of driftwood.”
She stiffened. “What?”
“Providing there really is a macabre collection of driftwood outside? Since I was unconscious when Doane brought me here, I wasn’t able to verify its existence.”
“Yes, it’s there. How did you know?”
“Bonnie evidently knew about it and passed the description along.”
“Bonnie…” She felt a rush of warmth and love. “And you believe it, Zander?” For some reason, she desperately wanted him to believe that Bonnie’s soul still lived.
“Don’t be rid—” He stopped as he saw her expression. “Perhaps. I shouldn’t, of course. Ghosts are mere hallucinations, but I find myself wanting to believe what you believe. I’ll have to see how accurate she is about that graveyard before I pass judgment.” He glanced at the door. “I don’t know how much more time Doane’s going to give us. He’s too erratic. Look, we can’t wait until Harriet gets here. That would be cutting it too close. We have to make our move before that.”
She stared pointedly down at her bound wrists. “And how are we supposed to do that?”
“Why, just follow my lead…” For an instant, she thought she saw a twinkle in his eye as he smiled mockingly. “Like a good and obedient daughter.”
CHAPTER
17
VENABLE CALLED JANE WHEN they’d been in the air over thirty minutes. “Change course. We’ve just found out that Harriet’s not heading for Sea-Tac Airport. Her pilot’s flight plan calls for her to land at Sandhurst Airport. It’s a small coastal airport southwest of Seattle.”
“Tell me you won’t have anyone there to meet her,” Jane said. “You’ll keep your word.”
“Unless something happens to indicate that Harriet’s plans are escalating. Then all bets are off.” He changed the subject. “You promised to tell me the location of those nukes. I need that info, Jane.”
“But you won’t act on the information while we still have a chance to get our hands on Harriet and Doane? That’s first on the agenda, right?”
“I’ll get a force together, and we’ll be poised to move to defuse those nukes at the first sign that there’s any immediate danger.”
“In your opinion.”
“In my opinion. Give me the locations.”
“We can’t be certain. According to Kendra, there’s a good chance that the one in Seattle is somewhere in the King Street Station. You’ll have to explore to find out exactly where.”
“Got it. As long as we know the approximate location, I can arrange a flyover by a plane with terahertz spectroscopes. They can detect plutonium signatures at great distances,” Venable said. “What about Chicago?”
“The Wrigley Building, where there’s another clock tower. We think it’s on the lowest floor, but we can’t be—”
“I think I’ve found it,” Margaret said from across the aisle. She held up a security video.
“Wait a minute, Venable.” Jane asked Margaret, “What did you find?”
“There’s a small room down there where the Wrigley executives used to store boating equipment. I don’t know if it was supposed to be emergency stuff since the complex is on the river or if the executives once did some public-relations gigs on the water. Anyway, there are black-and-white photos on the walls that show them standing at the rail of various craft and having a good old time.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“That it must have been decades ago. Everything is covered with dust except for the oars and various pieces of equipment that are covered by plastic.” She made a face. “Very well chewed plastic.”
“What else?”
“Half of a life preserver. The rats really must have loved the material that was used to make that preserver. W and R were the only letters left of the original Wrigley.” She paused. “It was leaning against the wall beneath a large wood panel that had ships carved on it. I couldn’t tell if there were any burned-out wires in the area.”
“If it was a room that had been deserted for decades, it would be a safe place to hide that device,” Trevor said. “Maybe your rats are more reliable than you thought, Margaret.”
“They’re not my rats,” she said flatly. “But they may have come through for us. Though I guarantee that wasn’t their purpose. They only have on
e purpose.”
“Talk to Venable. He’ll want to know everything there is to know about that room.” She handed Margaret her phone. “It might be a good idea to skip the bit about the rats.”
“No, he has to take me the way he finds me,” Margaret said. “He’ll survive it. Venable has had to deal with me before.” She started to speak into the phone.
“I have to go up to the cockpit and tell Caleb of our new destination,” Jane told Trevor as she unbuckled her seat belt. “You heard me try to pin Venable down. He wasn’t having it.”
“I think he’s trying.” Trevor reached out and gently stroked her cheek. “He likes Eve. If he can, he’ll give her every break.”
“If he can,” she repeated. For the briefest instant, she rested her cheek on his hand. He had strong hands, wonderful hands, she thought. Hands that brought pleasure and built that golden cocoon that shut out the world and made everything safe and good. As safe and good as Trevor was himself. She gave his palm a quick kiss and rose to her feet. “I can always count on you to make me see the bright side.”
“That’s what I want for you. The bright side all the way.” He smiled. “So give Caleb his new marching orders and come back, and we’ll work on it. We have a few hours we can steal before we have to hit the ground running. I’m going to use every one of them.”
Jane’s smile lingered as she headed for the cockpit. A few hours to steal. A few hours to be close to him and build a few more memories.
Loving memories. Bright memories.
Driftwood Cottage
“HARRIET’S ON HER WAY.” Doane’s face was flushed as he came back into the cottage. “She should be here within a few hours. You’re a dead man, Zander.”