Authors: Lisa Jackson
If She Only Knew (50 page)
His smile curved cynically. “And that begs the question. Where the hell is she?”
“I don't know,” she said, then rubbed her temple. “No . . . I heard Alex talking to her last night. I'm pretty sure it was her and he said something about her hiding out in the carriage house.”
Nick's smile turned to ice. “At the ranch?”
“I don't know.”
“I do.” He pulled her to her feet. “Let's go.”
She wanted to ask,
And what about us,
but didn't. It was over. She could see it in his eyes. “Yes. Let's.” She crossed the floor and yanked open the door.
And what about us,
but didn't. It was over. She could see it in his eyes. “Yes. Let's.” She crossed the floor and yanked open the door.
A man was waiting for her, a tall man with brown hair, sunglasses, a goatee and a gun with a silencer pointed straight at her heart.
She froze. “Who areâ?”
“Marla,” he said in that same horrid voice she recognized from the hospital and again in her room.
Die, bitch!
Those were his words. “What the hell are you doing slumming around these parts?” he asked with a cold, ruthless smile.
Die, bitch!
Those were his words. “What the hell are you doing slumming around these parts?” he asked with a cold, ruthless smile.
“Who are you?” Nick demanded, but in a second he recognized the face. It had altered from the time they were kids, but his heart nearly stopped as he realized he was facing Montgomery Cahill. In a heartbeat Nick knew this man was the killer.
“What's the matter, Cuz? See a ghost?” Monty asked.
Nick sprang.
“No!” Kylie cried, clutching her baby.
Monty pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty
Kylie screamed.
The baby wailed.
Nick went down in a heap.
Blood oozed from his stomach.
“You bastard!” Kylie fell down beside Nick, felt for a pulse. “Nick, Nick, pleaseâ”
“He's dead.”
“No . . . I can't believe.”
“Want me to put another slug in him just to make sure?”
Still holding the baby, she sprang to her feet and lunged at Monty. He sidestepped and leveled his gun at her child.
She froze. “You wouldn't.”
“Like hell.”
Oh, God, he'd kill the baby. Just as he killed Nick. “No, please, don't hurt the baby, but Nick, we can't just leave him.”
“Let's go, Marla,” Monty insisted, irritation tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“No . . . I'm not who you think I am.”
“That's all right, sweetheart, 'cuz, neither am I. Now you can come quietly with me or I'll kill the kid.” His voice was flat. Toneless. He wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger. She was sure of it.
Kylie had no choice. She looked back to see Nick lying in the hallway, his face white and drawn, his lifeblood spilling onto the shabby carpet. “But we have to call an ambulance, do something, I can't just leave him here . . . Nick . . . Oh, God, Nick . . . I love you.”
“Save it, Marla. You don't know the meaning of the word.” Montgomery grabbed her arm and yanked her, dragging her toward the service elevator.
“Nick,” she cried, horror gripping her heart. She'd lost him just when she'd found him, when she'd discovered who she really was. Now he was dead. Killed. Gunned down. Because of her. “Why did you kill him?” she cried, dying inside. She couldn't lose Nick. Not when she'd just found him, discovered who she really was.
“He was expendable.”
“Expendable?” she whispered, clutching her child, sick inside. “No one'sâ”
“Shut up, cunt,” he growled in that same ghastly voice he'd used as he'd loomed over her bed at the house. “Lover boy bought it and now you and me, we're gonna get it on. Just like before. And you're gonna love it, baby.” He ran the barrel of his gun down the side of her cheek and she reached for it, but he aimed it straight at her son's head. “Uh, uh, uh. Don't want to see baby's brains blown all over the elevator, do you?”
Kylie nearly threw up. She was shaking, her legs weak. Fear gripped her heart in icy talons. “You're out of your mind,” she said as he pressed the button for the basement level and ripped the baby from her arms. She tried to grab James again, but Monty shoved her against the side of the car. The baby screamed.
“Either you come with me quietly, Marla, or I take this kid and I'll either kill him before your eyes or, better yet, I'll leave with him and you'll never know what happened to him, got it? You won't know if he's alive, dead, or if I spend my days torturing him. You'll spend the rest of your life in your own private hell.”
“I'll kill you first!” she cried, eyeing the alarm on the panel of the car and knowing she'd never use it, never take the chance with her son's life.
Monty's grin was pure evil. “Try it, bitch.”
She let her arms fall to her sides. “Whatâwhat do you want?”
“Just what you do, Marla. Everything. Every fuckin' thing.” His gaze raked down her body. “I want what I deserve.”
Nausea roiled up her throat. “You tried to kill me. You jumped in front of Pam's car on Highway 17 and then you were in the hospital and in my room. You put some kind of poison in my juice.”
“That was tricky. I had to sneak into your room, but I'd done it before. See, honey, you're smarter than you look.”
She remembered the figure she'd seen in her window. “You failed,” she threw back at him, refusing to be intimidated
“Not for long.” He turned to the baby. “Shut up, kid. Shut the fuck up!”
“He's just a baby!”
“Not just a baby. Conrad Amhurst's damned grandson. Shit.” He spat out the words as the car jolted to a stop.
Kylie's head was spinning, her brain trying to come up with some means of escape as he prodded her out the door and into the basement parking garage that smelled of grease and exhaust. “Here,” he said, nudging her up a single, concrete flight of stairs and onto the street where the wind ripped around the buildings and the sky was dark as night. She thought of Marla and Alex, Eugenia and Phil Robertson, Cherise and Donald Favier. How many people were in on this deadly plot? How many people had died, all for the sake of Conrad Amhurst's money? Pam Delacroix. Charles Biggs. And now Nick. Precious Nick.
Because of her.
Because of greed.
Because she'd always wanted to be another woman.
Now, as she walked through the blustery morning, she had one eye on the gun Montgomery concealed in his parka, the other on her child. Could she risk screaming for help, snatching her baby away and damning the consequences? No . . . there wasn't enough time.
“Promise me you won't hurt the baby,” she begged. “You can take him back to the apartment and leave him there or take a cab and offer to pay the driver to take him andâ”
“Shut up!” Monty exploded, his eyes snapping fire. “The kid stays with me.”
“Butâ”
“Get in,” he growled as they reached a dark blue Jeep. The vehicle Nick had thought was following them, the one at the church where Donald Favier was a preacher. She had no options. With a sinking sensation, she climbed inside the dirty interior. The stale scent of cigarette smoke mingled with the odor of grease. Old taco wrappers and beer bottles were strewn across the floor of the back seat. “Put your seat belt on,” he ordered as he settled behind the steering wheel, holding the squirming, crying baby on his lap. Kylie reached for her child and was rewarded with a smart crack on the wrist with the butt of his pistol.
“No tricks,” Monty warned. “Don't try to pull a fast one.” He twisted on the ignition with one hand, held the squirming baby in his other. “If I slam on the brakes, the kid is either killed by the air bag or goes through the windshield. Like Pam.”
Terror drove a stake in Kylie's heart. She didn't dare move, did everything he said as the engine sparked and James started to cry in earnest. Monty pulled away from the curb and stepped on the gas. The Jeep roared up the hill. The baby wailed and Kylie was helpless to do anything. She thought of Nick. He was probably already dead and soon, soon, her baby would be too. Unless she complied. Or . . . Oh, God, could she go through with itâsleep with this vile killer? Could she pretend to be a woman she was not, just as she'd pretended confusion the night before with Alex? She nearly retched. Nausea roiled up her throat but she knew deep in her heart that she'd do anything to save her son.
Even if it meant seducing the bastard who held James's fate in his filthy, cruel hands.
“What the hell happened here?” Paterno yelled. “Call 911. Get an ambulance!” Paterno was on his knees, feeling for a pulse, sensing that Nick Cahill was about to die in the hallway outside Kylie Paris' apartment. “Hang in there,” he said and the guy's eyes fluttered open. Doors opened to the corridor. Janet Quinn was already on her cell phone.
“Kylie,” Nick said, reaching up with effort, grabbing Paterno's shirt front and tie in his fist.
“I know about her. Don't talk.” The detective opened Cahill's jacket and shirt, saw the dark ring of the bullet hole and the blood still pouring out Cahill's wound. Gunshot. “Who did this to you?” He whipped out his handkerchief and ignoring all those warnings about gloves, tried to staunch the flow of blood.
“Marla . . . Kylie . . . Montgomery,” Nick rasped.
“Hell, he's out of it.”
“Monty,” Nick repeated, his eyes glassing over. “He's got her.”
“Who? Where are they? Where's Marla?”
“The ranch . . . Cahill . . . ranch . . . but Kylie . . . you've got to find . . .” Nick passed out.
“The ambulance is on its way,” Janet said as she leaned down, felt for a pulse on the hand that had dropped away from Paterno's shirt.
“It had better get here fast.” Paterno didn't think Nick would survive. Chalk one more up to the killer.
“Jesus,” Janet whispered, more as a prayer than a curse as she saw the wound and Paterno's blood-soaked handkerchief. “He's not gonna make it.”
“You're never gonna get away with this,” Kylie said as Montgomery reached into the glove box and pulled out an electronic garage door opener that not only opened the gate of the Cahill estate to swing open but also caused the garage door to crank up. “The house is filled with servants.”
“Is it? Well, the old lady is down at Cahill House making plans for the annual holiday party, Lars has been deployed to drive her wherever she needs to go, the teenager's at school, Alex is making arrangements for your father's funeral and the servants that were left were given the day offâbecause the old man died.”
Alone?
She was going to be
alone
with him?
She was going to be
alone
with him?
“This is how you got into the house,” she said, eyeing the garage door opener. “Alexâdid he give it to you?”
“Smart girl,” Monty said, juggling James. “We'll go in.”
“And do what?” she asked. “What is it you want?”
“Money.”
“I don't have any.”
“But you have access . . . through the computer. All you have to do is make a few transfers.” He sent her a glance. “What's a few hundred grand for your kid's life?”
“I can't even log onto the damned thing,” she argued. “I . . . I don't know the codes.”
“Sure you do. You've done it hundreds of times. I've seen you.”
“No, I can't. I'm not Marla.”
“Yeah, right. I heard you the first time.”
“But it's true. We switched placesâ”
“Shut up, bitch!”
Desperation tore at her soul. There was no way out of this mess. Monty was certain she was Marla. There was nothing she could do to dissuade him. He assumed she could give him money from her accounts with Alex, but that was impossible. Oh, Lord, what could she do? “But I can't remember,” she said.
His hard eyes slitted behind his sunglasses. “I know enough of the code. You'll remember. Now,” he said as he parked his Jeep in the spot once reserved for Marla Cahill's Porsche, “let's go.” He forced her out of the rig and while he carried the baby, he kept his gun in his pocket, but trained on Marla. She thought of flinging herself at him, but that would accomplish nothing and he would certainly kill her son. She looked for a weapon, but other than a few old hubcaps on the wall, a vise mounted on a workbench, and a tire iron that she had no chance of reaching, there was nothing.
She was doomed. When she couldn't access the files, he'd get angry and . . . and . . . oh, God, she couldn't think what might happen to James. The elevator door opened and he halfshoved her inside. James was fussing loudly now and Monty was getting irritated. “Shut up,” he growled at the baby.
“He's tired.”
“Tough. Shut him up.”
“Here, let me have him.” She reached forward and Monty slammed her back against the wall of the car, then punched the bedroom floor with the muzzle of his silencer.
“Keep away.”
Maybe a servant would be in the hallway. Maybe Monty didn't know what was going on in the house, she thought desperately, grasping at any little straw she could find. Fiona might still be around and Rosa could be vacuuming or dusting. Carmen . . . where was Carmen, surely she wouldn't have left the premises . . .
oh, please God, let someone be here to help me.
The elevator door opened into an empty hallway. “Let's go,” Montgomery growled as the baby quieted. The corridor was empty. Lit by a few lamps. No sounds of rattling dishes, muted conversation or footsteps disturbed the deathly silence.
oh, please God, let someone be here to help me.
The elevator door opened into an empty hallway. “Let's go,” Montgomery growled as the baby quieted. The corridor was empty. Lit by a few lamps. No sounds of rattling dishes, muted conversation or footsteps disturbed the deathly silence.
Monty pushed her into the suite, then locked the door behind him. “Well, well, well,” he said, glancing around. “This place hasn't changed much, has it?” His smile was brutal. Dirty. Filled with horrifying promise. “You and me, we spent some time here. A lot of it.”
Her stomach recoiled at the thought.
“I don't remember.”
“No?” That stopped him. Beneath his thin moustache, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “Well, that just won't do, now will it? Maybe I should find a way to remind you.”
Oh, God, this was her chance. If she could find the nerve. Dig deep. Remember the old Kylie, the one with brass balls, the woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. “And just how do you propose to do that?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.
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