False Security (32 page)

Rachel crept
down the hallway, her boots making no sound on the marble floor. Her heart
pounded in her throat and her breathing echoed in her ears, magnified by the
silence.

As she neared the door at the
end of the hall, the subdued melody of a piano filled the air. She placed her
ear against the door and strained to hear the music. She recognized the beautiful
and complicated meshing of tones, could follow them exactly in her mind, yet
she struggled with how she knew the song.

She gripped the doorknob and
turned it with the greatest of care. Holding her breath, she eased open the
door, alert for any creaks the hinges might utter.

The marble floor continued past
the door. To her left, a circular staircase rose from the floor and reached for
the second floor below a dome ceiling. Any other time, she would have
appreciated the beauty of the intricately detailed railing, but she didn’t care
about the staircase.

Across the room, Jonathan was
seated at a white grand piano with his eyes closed. His head moved in time to
the music he created, his face rich with emotion. As soon as she saw him, she
remembered the origin of the song, and her hand covered her mouth. She wondered
why she didn’t identify it sooner.

They had danced to it.

No distractions.

Donovan’s instructions from her
first kill forced her to move forward. She walked across the floor, her gloved
hand leveling her gun in front of her. The long sleeves of her black shirt
concealed her chafed wrists.

She didn’t bother keeping her
footfalls silent, and Jonathan’s fingers ceased dancing across the keys. As he
stood up and walked toward her, his casual dress astonished her, given the
tuxedo and business attire she had previously seen him wear. His unkempt hair
topped off blue jeans and a plain, cotton shirt. Rachel’s thoughts wavered, her
attraction to him rekindled, and she almost forgot the reason for breaking into
his home.

His eyes moved from her face to
the gun and back again. “I knew you were an angel, but I didn’t realize you
were a dark one,” he said, showing no indication that he was surprised by her
presence. “I take it you do little more than security work for King.”

“It’s true I came here to kill
you.”

“Sent by King, no doubt.”

“You won’t sell to him, but
those who will take over your company upon your death will be easier to
persuade.” The hollow words sounded rehearsed, and she hated having to force
the unconvincing charade.

“That’s funny. I didn’t realize
my company was worth so much to him. Are you sure that’s the real reason?”

Rachel remained silent, her
well-practiced script falling apart before her eyes.

“I just wish my life was worth
more than that to you,” he said.

“If it wasn’t, you’d be slumped
over your piano right now. I’d like to make you a deal. A business
proposition.”

“And what would that be?”

“You pay me one million dollars,
and you get to keep breathing.”

Jonathan didn’t blink. “One
million? I take it King doesn’t know about this.”

“I don’t suppose he does.”

“How long do I have to come up
with the money?”

Rachel glanced at the wristwatch
she wore over her long sleeve. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

“You’re expecting a miracle.”

“Not necessarily. I also need
you to create an account for it to go into, one that can’t be traced back to
me.

“And you’re awfully trusting in
that request. My computer is in there,” he said, pointing to a door behind him.

She followed him into his den,
where his laptop rested on an oak desk next to a towering houseplant. Rachel
focused on the wall to her left. Pictures of children with their parents
covered the top half of the wall, and Rachel found herself drawn to the
photographs.

“That’s my family,” Jonathan
said. “Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews.”

She noticed a black and white
photograph in the center of the pictures. An older house was in the background,
but the focus of the picture was a toddler standing barefoot on a gravel
driveway. His too-small pants had holes over both knees, his shirt looked
stained, and he had a smudge of dirt next to his unsmiling mouth. She stroked
the glass over the boy.

“I was two years old in that
picture. I keep it up there to remind myself where I came from.”

It was an interesting glimpse
into the world of Jonathan Thomas. She wanted to know more, but there was no
time for that.

Rachel spun around at his
presence behind her. Her breathing rattled in her lungs, and she let him take
the gun from her hands.

He placed the gun on the desk
behind him and turned back toward her. “Do you have any concept of how
beautiful you are?” he asked. He lifted her chin and touched his lips to hers.
His fingers moved through her hair and the other hand traveled around to her
back. His hand tightened on her back and he pulled her closer to him.

Pain zapped her out of her
blissful state. She broke away from him, and tried not to cry out. The blood
drained from her face and her muscles tightened.

“What is it?” Jonathan asked,
his brow creased.

“This is wrong. We shouldn’t be
doing this.”

“That’s not it. You look like
you’re in pain. Are you hurt?”

“Nothing happened,” she said.

His expression became
suspicious. “I didn’t ask you what happened. I asked if you were hurt.”

She wanted him to stop probing.
She couldn’t let him find out what Donovan had done. “I’m not hurt.”

His eyes searched hers. “I don’t
understand. Why are you lying to me?” His frown deepened when she didn’t reply.
“You were okay until I touched your back. Did you hurt yourself?”

“I’m fine.”

“Stop lying to me.”

Rachel folded her arms and
scratched at an invisible itch under her sleeve. “I’m fine,” she repeated.

Jonathan took her arm and pulled
it toward him. Her right sleeve had shifted when she crossed her arms, exposing
her chafed wrist. Jonathan pushed up her sleeve and examined the healing red
circle around her wrist. “What in the—”

She snatched her arm back from
him and pushed her sleeve down over her wrist.

“Rachel, turn around.”

“No.”

He took her arm again, but didn’t
tighten his grip so as to hurt her. He stressed each word he spoke. “Turn
around.”

Rachel bit her bottom lip and
rotated. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. He took the sides of her shirt
and raised it. He held the material up for a moment and then lowered it back
down. She turned around.

His eyes shifted away from her,
and rage boiled beneath the surface of his wavering voice. “Why?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s
over.”

“Why?” he yelled.

“It’s over!”

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?
Because of what I told King? Or did someone see us together on the estate? Is
that what happened?”

His words made her
uncomfortable, and she wished she had never come. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does too matter. A person
cannot...he cannot do that to you.” He took his cellphone out of his front
pocket. “I’m calling the police.”

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “You
can’t do that. Promise me you won’t do that.”

“Give me one reason why I
shouldn’t.” As soon as the words left his lips, understanding crossed his face,
and he glanced at the gun on the desk. “Exactly what kind of work do you do for
King?”

“I am security at the estate. I
didn’t lie about that.” She ran her tongue over her dry lips, and guilt
consumed her. “I’m also a thief. I can pick any lock and crack any safe.”

He returned his phone to his
pocket. “You didn’t break in here tonight to steal something. Have you killed
many people?”

“Too many.”

“I see.” He took a deep breath.
“How long have you worked for King?”

“About ten years now, since I
was thirteen.”

“You started picking locks when
you were thirteen?”

“That’s when I was taught how to
do it. I moved to the estate when I was ten, after my parents died. My uncle
works for Donovan.”

“Let me see if I understand.
After your parents died, you went to live with your uncle who happens to work
for King. And King took advantage of that and trained you as a thief and a
killer. Then he what, trained you as his mistress, too?”

“It was never like that,” she
said. “There’s love.”

Sadness claimed his eyes. “What
he did to you, Rachel, that’s not love. There’s nothing even remotely similar
to love in what he did.”

“Jonathan, I’m a professional
thief and a contract killer. Maybe I don’t deserve love.”

He brushed the tears off her
cheeks. “Yes, you do. You deserve it more than anyone I’ve ever known.” He
cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again. Breaking away from her, he
lowered his head. “How long has he been hurting you?”

Everything Jonathan said
confused her, and heartache sliced through her chest. She didn’t want to talk
about any of this, didn’t want to admit that everything Donovan did to her was
wrong. She had explained away his actions for so long that she believed it was
okay for him to do those things, that she deserved all of it.

Her eyes moved around the room
in search of something to focus on to avoid looking at Jonathan. “Over four
years now,” she said. “Since I was nineteen.”

Jonathan’s eyes dampened, but
his body remained tense with anger. “Is this the first time that he...that he
did...” He gestured toward her.

“Yes,” she said. “That was the
first time, and it’s the last time.”

Jonathan clamped his hands
together in front of his waist. “Well, you’re leaving him. That’s the most
important thing. I guess I’ll work on getting you that money.” He sat behind
the desk and worked on his computer.

Rachel kept her eyes lowered,
not wanting to see the anger in his hard eyes and clenched jaw. She consulted
her watch every few minutes to keep track of the time.

“What name do you want this
under?” he asked.

“I don’t care. Make something
up.”

“Make something up,” he
repeated. He lifted his eyes and studied her face. “Of course.” He started
typing again.

“What?”

“Angel Thomas.”

“Interesting.”

“I think it’s perfect.” After
several more minutes of rushed typing, Jonathan clicked the mouse and the
printer beside his desk responded. He leaned back in his chair and examined
her, his face now expressionless.

Rachel tried to ignore his
inspection of her. So many things he said made sense to her, and she questioned
what she thought she had with Donovan. Part of her wanted to scream at Jonathan
for trying to open her eyes to the truth, for shredding her life apart within
minutes. The rest of her wanted to collapse in his arms for protection.

The printer stopped, and he
removed the pages it ejected. Standing up, he said, “I created two accounts.
One is overseas and has the bulk of the money. The other is in the States, and
has five thousand in it. When you transfer money from one account to the other,
always make the transfers less than ten thousand and make them at least a month
apart. As long as you’re not transferring large amounts of money day after day,
the government won’t trace it.”

Rachel stored away the
information in the back of her mind. She had never considered that taking large
amounts out at once could call attention to her movements. Once she left,
Donovan would do everything he could to find her and get her back, and she
needed to stay off his radar.

Jonathan handed the pages to
her. “Here is all the information you need to get to the money.”

The first page showed the
account with five thousand dollars as the balance. She turned to the second
page, and her lips parted with surprise. The balance of the overseas account
was five thousand short of five million dollars. “Five million dollars?” she
asked. She read the balance again to make sure it was right. She raised her
eyes to his. “I don’t understand.”

“I want to make sure you’ll be
taken care of.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“You demanded one million
dollars so I could live to see another day. The way I see it, I bought myself
five days. But according to my accountant, I made an anonymous donation to a
private battered women’s shelter. He’ll have a coronary working out the
details.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I won’t tell him about this at all. That might
be best.”

Battered woman. Is that what she
was? She had never heard the term before, but she knew exactly what it meant.
In that instant, every bruise, every punch, every backhand, and every crack of
the whip came alive on her body at once.

With trembling hands, she folded
the pages Jonathan gave her and shoved them into her pocket. “That’s very
generous of you,” Rachel said.

“It’s not generous,” he said.
“It’s the only thing that’s right, the only thing that will let me sleep at
night. Knowing you’re safe and he can never touch you again.”

He handed her a business card
and pointed to a phone number he wrote on the back. “If you need me for
anything, you can reach me directly at this number, twenty-four hours a day. It
doesn’t matter what I’m doing or how late it is, I will always answer your
call.”

Rachel took the card from him.
“Thank you.” She grew uneasy as he moved closer to her. “I have to go,” she
said.

“You don’t have to leave,
Rachel. You can stay here with me. I can help you and I can take care of you.”

“I can’t stay.”

“It’s King, isn’t it? Please
don’t tell me you still feel anything for him.”

“It has nothing to do with him,”
she said.

“I know you must be experiencing
a lot of confused emotions right now. I’m sure he told you he loved you before
and after he did those terrible things to you, and I’m sure you believed him.
Because you’ve been there so long, you probably don’t know any better. You also
must be terrified of him after what he’s done to you, but I can make it so he
will never hurt you again. I can protect you from him.”