Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (45 page)

     "I have no idea." He cast a suspicious glance at Fallon.

     "I think if we follow that tunnel there," Abby said, "we will come out on the north side of the rocks. Let me have your lantern. The light is much better." She turned her back. "I'll just take a look—"

     The shot was deafening. Francesca screamed. Jack flew backward and slammed against the wall.

     Abby spun around. She stared at Fallon and his gun. Then she ran to Jack's side. "Are you all right?" she said as she peeled his shirt away and inspected the bullet wound.

     "I'll live," he said with a grimace, thinking of the gun beneath his jacket. "What the hell—?"

     The shoulder wound was deep and bleeding profusely. Abby quickly removed her blouse, folded it into a thick pad and slipped it under the bloody shirt. Eyeing her lacy cream camisole, Jack said with a tortured smile, "You'll catch cold."

     "What happened?" Francesca was saying as she brought her hands from her eyes. The light from the lantern was still too bright. It made her head throb. But she saw her father's gun, and the other man lying on the floor. "You
shot
him?"

     "I had to, baby, he was going for his sidearm."

     "I wasn't..." Jack groaned.

     "I don't understand. Daddy, what's going on here? Why did you come to this place?"

     "I wasn't going to tell you, I didn't want to frighten you. These people have been blackmailing me. They're threatening to reveal information about my past, long ago, fabricated lies, but it could be damaging to
you.
I came here to negotiate with them. They're demanding five million dollars."

     "That's not true!" Abby said.

     "But...to shoot him? Daddy, you could have killed him."

     "It was to protect you, baby. If the blackmail didn't work, they planned to kidnap you." He took Francesca's arm. "Let's get out of here. You need to be seen by a doctor."

     "We can't leave him!"

     Fallon looked at Jack. "You're right. We'll take them to the authorities." But Fallon intended to finish the job before they found their way out.

     They limped into the northern tunnel, Abby in the lead, supporting Jack, Fallon helping Francesca, gun still in hand.

     Finally she could go no further. "I'm dizzy," she said. "And I'm thirsty."

     "There's water near here," Abby said, holding tightly to Jack.

     They came upon an underground stream that trickled cool and clear. The cavern was spacious and the air smelled fresh. While Abby tended to Jack's wound, Francesca said, "Daddy, who is Lucy Fallon?"

     He smiled and smoothed back her hair. "She's an old lady in a nursing home and the staff were trying to find her relatives. I got a call from them weeks ago, but I told them I was no relation. My name isn't even really Fallon, it's Falconelli! It's an administrative mix-up. That's all."

     "But it said on the envelope 'For my son Michael Fallon of Las Vegas.'"

     "It's just a mistake, sweetheart. They're looking for another Michael Fallon. I feel sorry for the poor old woman. I wish I
could
be her son."

     Abby scrutinized Jack's face. He was shockingly pale. Reaching into her slacks for a handkerchief, she tenderly wiped the dust from his cheeks and forehead. "Jack, why did he shoot you?"

     "I have no idea. I wasn't reaching for my gun. He doesn't even know I've got one."

     She glanced over her shoulder, thinking of ways to get out of the tunnels and away from Fallon. "Let me get you some water," she said, and left him.

     Jack watched Abby, his heart aching at the sight of her pale back and slender shoulders, the thin silk camisole held up by barely-there straps. Abby Tyler, strong and vulnerable at the same time.

     He shifted his gaze from Abby and saw Francesca turn toward the lantern light. He stared. "My God," he whispered. And in that instant he understood the real reason Fallon had come to The Grove, and why Fallon had shot him.

     Jack did some quick thinking as he watched Abby. She obviously was not yet aware of the truth. But Jack knew that the minute she realized who
Francesca was, she would not be able to mask her reaction, Fallon would see, and their lives would be worthless.

     Jack groaned loudly. Abby ran back to his side, water cupped in her hands. "What is it?"

     "The bullet moved." He pulled her down to him and pressed his lips to her ear. "Pretend you're inspecting the wound," he whispered. "Don't let Fallon know I'm talking to you."

     Abby glanced at Fallon, who was pacing anxiously.

     "Abby," Jack whispered hoarsely. "Francesca..."

     "What?"

     "Don't react. Don't let Fallon know—"

     "Know what?"

     "Francesca...she is your daughter."

     She frowned. "What are you talking about?"

     "In my pocket...folded up. The wanted poster—Abby, the picture of you, it looks just like Francesca. And the description of your hair, red-gold. Francesca's..."

     Abby chanced a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Francesca in the lantern's glow, her hair catching the light in red-gold highlights. And suddenly the memory of something her grandfather had once said:
"I remember the day your Mama brought you home, Emmy Lou. A week old and all smiles and shiny copper hair. That hair of yours made folks comment. It looked like someone had been polishing pennies and you got mixed into the bunch and got your head polished as well."

     Francesca Fallon, her daughter? Was it possible?

     "I don't see the bullet, Detective," she said in a tremulous voice.

     "Abby!" Jack whispered sharply. "Hold it together. Fallon shot me because he intends to kill us. He knows that as soon as we saw Francesca, we would know the truth. As long as Fallon thinks we don't yet know the truth, we have a chance. But if he thinks we've figured it out, we're dead."

     "But Jack, if you're right...I have to tell her we aren't going to hurt her. Jack, she needs to know!"

     Her voice had gotten too loud. Fallon looked over. Jack brought Abby's face down and caught her mouth in a hard, deep kiss.

     Fallon turned back to Francesca. "Can you walk, baby? We have to get going."

     She nodded.

     Fallon waved his pistol. "You, on your feet."

     Abby started to rise and Jack whispered, "Wait." Scooping up a small handful of dirt, he smeared some on Abby's cheeks. She understood. Francesca had not yet seen her face. But once she did, and saw the striking resemblance, would she ask questions? What would Fallon do then?

     
Would he go so far as to kill Francesca to keep his secret safe?

     Abby struggled with her emotions. Now that she saw Francesca in the light, she knew she was indeed her daughter. Francesca's eyes came from Abby's grandfather, her mouth belonged to Abby's mother, and the red-gold hair a perfect match to her own. And, in profile, Francesca's fine, straight nose was that of the hippie drifter who had stolen and broken Abby's heart.

     It was all Abby could do to keep from running to her, taking her into her arms and holding her...after all these years. My daughter! Abby's heart cried out.

     As she reached for Jack, Fallon said, "Not him. He stays. You come with us."

     When she started to protest, Fallon showed her the gun and said, "Leave him or I'll finish him off."

     "Daddy!"

     "Just go ahead, baby. Everything's going to be all right. His friends will find him. But we're taking this woman as insurance. As long as we have her with us, they won't hurt you."

     "I won't leave Jack," Abby said.

     "If I kill him, you will."

     "Go," Jack said.

     "Listen," Abby said to Fallon. "You two just go. Follow this stream. It leads to the aquifer. There is a water-processing station there. I promise, you will never—" Her voice broke. "You will never hear from us again."

     "I don't take risks. Now get over here and pick up that lantern."

     "Go," Jack whispered again. "I'll be all right."

     She knelt quickly and kissed him on the mouth.

     But when she joined Fallon, and he said, "Not that way, we go this way," Abby protested. "We must follow the stream."

     "And find your friends waiting for us at the end? That was your plan all along, wasn't it?"

     "I had no plan! I didn't create the sandstorm or make the plane go down. Mr. Fallon, listen to me—"

     He aimed the gun at her. "I could just as easily do this here." Francesca slumped against him. Her color was bad.

     "All right," Abby said. "We'll go your way. But we have to get...your daughter medical attention."

     With a final glance at Jack, Abby went into the tunnel, taking the lantern and plunging Jack into utter darkness. He heard their footsteps fade away, and then he was alone.

     "Mr. Fallon, you have to believe me, this is not the right way," Abby said after they had gone several yards.

     He wasn't listening, and when his face caught the lamplight, she saw a deadly look in his eyes that alarmed her.

     With a groan, Francesca collapsed. Abby ran to her side.

     Fallon stood over the two women, watching Abby, hearing the worry and fear in her voice, saw how gently she touched Francesca. "What's going on?" he said softly.

     And Abby realized what she had done. She looked up at him. "The fourth baby didn't die, did it?"

     When Fallon remained silent, Abby said, "Why?" pain in her voice. "Why did you take my child?"

     Fallon glanced at Francesca, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and deep. And he came to a decision. "I needed a baby," he said, because Abby Tyler might as well know why she was going to die. He would carry Francesca out to safety and tell her the two criminals had met deserved ends.

     His voice seemed to come from deep inside the cave's shadows. "I married Gayane Simonian to get her father's casino hotel. When she was pregnant, I had to protect her. I had enemies. Gayane would have been vulnerable in a hospital. So I arranged for the baby to be born at home."

     Fallon's eyes focused on the cave wall, as if he were seeing the past unfold
on the rocky surface like an old movie. "When Gayane died in childbirth, and then the baby a few minutes later, I knew I was going to lose everything. So I called a man I had once worked for, asked him if he had any deliveries in the works. He had four, he said, from Texas. He told me the name of the motel on the highway. I bundled up my dead baby and drove out there. I selected an infant and switched them."

     He closed his eyes and saw the babies on the motel bed, all girls, one with an extra finger on each hand, the second too small and quiet, the third Jewish, the driver said. Fallon had wondered if she could she pass for Italian when he saw the fourth—the nursemaid, inexperienced with babies, had mistakenly thought it had died but it had merely fallen asleep. This one was crying lustily now, fighting to live, small hands waving in the air, ready to seize life. With reddish gold wisps of hair and eyes that looked straight at him. "Came from White Hills Prison," the driver said. "Mother is serving life for murder." That was the one Fallon chose and named Francesca. When he returned to the Wagon Wheel, he paid off the nurse and doctor, sent them away, not telling them about the switch. And then he presented the baby to his father-in-law, Gregory Simonian, who accepted her as his grandchild.

     The rest—holding the baby in his arms, feeling the soft bones and curves through the little blanket, Fallon having never known love before, feeling a strange new emotion flood his heart, forgetting that she wasn't his, his mind over the years editing out the night of her birth and the little corpse buried in the desert—he did not say any of this to Abby. Francesca was
his.
Nothing was going to make him give her up.

     "Boudreaux said you were serving life for murder. The warden had assured me you had no family, that during the time you spent at White Hills no one visited you. So I knew no one would come looking for the baby. Especially not you, once you escaped and you were on the FBI wanted list. But I underestimated you."

     Abby rose shakily to her feet. "What are you going to do now?"

     "I can't let you live," he said.

     "I'll give you everything on the adoptions," she said quickly, "all the files, the data. I won't tell anyone. I have an airline ticket. My bag is packed. I'll disappear."

     Fallon's voice came from far away, from a place that filled Abby with dread. "It's not enough. You're too much of a threat. Francesca is getting married tomorrow. She is my passport into a world that I've been fighting to get into since I was a boy. I handpicked the man she is going to marry. I've worked for years toward that goal." He frowned at the wall as another scene from the past played out there. "She almost married a worthless skydiver, you know, but I took care of that."

     He raised the gun and Abby braced herself.

     Jack felt his way along the rough walls, as blind as a mole since Fallon had taken the lantern, his shoulder throbbing. He was following the water upstream. He knew that if he went downstream, he would reach safety. But he couldn't abandon Abby.

     His legs grew weak. The floor seemed to fall away from under him.
So this is what it's like to die.

     Suddenly, light flooded the chamber and Jack heard Zeb Armstrong say, "Are you all right, Detective?" Gentle hands taking him, Vanessa saying, "He's hurt!"

     A few minutes later, Jack felt better. They had revived him with water and a tonic from the first aid kit. Vanessa cleaned and bandaged his wound, stopping the bleeding, and gave him a pain killer.

     "Fallon took Abby at gunpoint."

     "Which way did they go?"

     He pointed upstream. "There's more. Francesca Fallon is Abby's daughter."

     "What!"

     "We have to go after them. There is no telling what Fallon will do now that his secret is out."

     "Can you walk?"