Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (31 page)

EIGHTY-FOUR

So much about her
had changed over the years. Her name. Her face. Even the person she was meant to be was gone, leaving behind someone she barely recognized. But her hands … her hands had remained the same. Large hands for a woman, wide palms with long, tapered fingers. They’d done things. Things she wasn’t proud of. Things she couldn’t forget. Things that had saved her, kept her family safe. But looking at them, she realized they were the same hands she’d used to carry plates of eggs and sausage when she’d been nothing more than a young, pretty waitress in Jessup.

She ran a thumb over the back of her hand, across the smooth, star-shaped scar she’d had since she was barely more than a girl, raising her eyes just enough to see Michael’s hand, laying still against the pale blue blanket draped across the hospital bed. A hand like hers. Capable of anything if it meant safeguarding something you loved. She reached for it, wanting to feel its warm weight in her own. Needing it to remind herself that he was okay. They both were.

“Miss Vaughn.”

Her head jerked up, aiming her gaze at the man standing in the doorway. Even though she’d never met him, she recognized him instantly. Livingston Shaw had the same lake-blue eyes and guilelessly handsome features as his son.

He gave her a fatherly smile as he eased himself into the room, motioning for the pair of thugs in three-piece suits to wait for him in the hall. “I think what’s to be said here is best kept between us, don’t you?”

She didn’t speak, didn’t take her eyes off the man in front of her. She stood, hands clenched into fists as she instinctively inched closer to the bed Michael lay in, ready to do more things she wasn’t proud of if it meant keeping him safe.

“Nothing to say?” the man said, settling himself into a chair across from her. “It’s quite alright, I understand. I’m sure the picture of me painted by my son and Mr. O’Shea has been less than favorable.” He pinched the crease in his trousers at the knee and straightened it, flicking away an invisible speck of lint before he looked at her and smiled. “You’re quite important to both of them, you know. Benjamin went through great lengths to hide you from me—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him work harder at anything that didn’t involve
wasting my money. And Michael … ” His gaze drifted to the man
stretched out between them. “Well, I can only imagine what his reaction would be if he knew that you’d called me.”

“I didn’t call you,” she said quietly, doing her best to control the fear that squeezed her gut. “Where’s Ben?”

“Benjamin is otherwise engaged at the moment,” he said, the smile on his face slipping just a bit. “And you
did
call me.” He held the round, silver tracking beacon she’d slipped into her pocket before entering the maze between his thumb and forefinger. “Who did you think would come when you pushed this button, Miss Vaughn? Did it even occur to you that doing so would completely undo all of my son’s hard work?”

“To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought,” she said, the lie flowing smoothly despite the fact that her stomach was doing flip-flops. In that split second before she pressed the disc’s slightly domed top, she’d known that doing so would end whatever anonymity she’d enjoyed where Livingston Shaw was concerned.

And she hadn’t cared.

She forced herself to relax, sitting in the chair she’d recently vacated, stretching her legs out in front of her, ignoring the pain that shot through her thigh. “I did what needed to be done. I’m sure Ben understands.”

“I seriously doubt that.” He chuckled softly. “But he no longer has a choice in the matter, does he?”

Not trusting her voice, Sabrina just shrugged, folding her hands over her stomach.

Her nonchalant reaction seemed to amuse him. “He’s worried about your safety. What I might do with you now that I know who and what you are … ” The smile on his face widened, his blue eyes sharpening to a razor’s edge. “Perhaps you and I can work together to put his fears to rest.”

EIGHTY-FIVE

She was back in
the woods. The unnatural quiet of them, the heavy silence of animals crouching in the brush, hiding from something bigger. Something ruthless and evil.

“You keep bringing us back to this place, darlin’ … you even understand why?”

She didn’t turn around. Didn’t have to. She’d known he was there. Wade would always be there. Like a cancer in her brain that she could never cut out. “This is where I killed you.”

“A lot of death happened here. Lot of blood in this dirt. Lot of screams trapped in these trees … ” She could hear the smile in his voice, like the memories his words invoked were fond ones. “But you didn’t kill me, Melissa. You just opened the door, you know that.”

She turned, made herself look at him. “You’re nothing more than the personification of my survivors’ guilt. You’re dead, Wade. You’re dead and gone, and I’m crazy.”

He laughed at her, his ruined face—torn bits of muscle and bone hanging from tendon—dripping gore onto the front of his uniform. “Is that any way to talk to the guy who saved your bacon? You might be crazy, darlin’, and I might be dead, but I ain’t gone. I’m inside you … so deep, you’ll never dig me out.”

She felt a terrible reverberation in his words. A truth she pushed away as soon as she heard it. “Why
did
you help me? Val and Michael—why did you help me save them?”

Wade gave her that boyish grin, reaching out to touch her, trailing a cold fingertip down her cheek. “Because you’re mine. I’m the only dead you’re allowed to carry, darlin’. I’m the only one who gets you forever … ”

She jerked away from the weight of his hand, her eyes snapping open, shrinking away from the outstretched arm in front of her.

Michael was watching her, eyes dulled by medication, the color of sun-bleached concrete. “You’re dreaming,” he murmured.

Guilt. Shame. Denial … She felt it all in a split-second before she scrubbed a heavy hand over her face, trying to brush it off like dirt. “How are you feeling?” She gave him a smile. “Want me to get the nurse?” she said, ignoring the fact that those gray eyes of his seemed to see inside her. Like he could hear the ghost that rattled around inside her head.

Michael shook his head. “No … Val?”

He’d been asking about her every time he woke, and she gave him a reassuring nod. “She’s okay. Better than, actually. She wants to go home—keeps threatening to check herself out, against medical advice.”

He smiled a bit. “Reminds me of someone … ” The smile slipped away and he turned his head, looking up at the ceiling. “Should be with her. Not here.”

He was already trying to push her away. He didn’t want her here, she knew that, but she wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. “They took her in for another round of tests so I had a few minutes.” Pretending he didn’t know that she’d been here for over an hour.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He looked at her again, his eyes gone from faded gray to something darker. “It isn’t safe.”

This was it. Her moment to tell him that she’d been riding around in Ben’s pocket this entire time. That there was no longer any such thing as
safe
for her. Not where Livingston Shaw was concerned. The moment slipped away, like so many others, and she let it. Let him believe that there was still something worth fighting for. Instead she captured his hand and brought it to her lips, pressing them to knuckles that were bruised and swollen before she stood, producing the thick manila envelope she’d found on the seat of her car.

The moment his eyes touched on it, Michael turned his face away, pulling his hand from her grasp. “I was wondering if he’d actually have the balls to give it to you.”

“Balls really aren’t something Croft finds in short supply.” She shrugged, tossing the envelope onto the foot of the bed. “I didn’t read it.”

He looked back at her. “Why not?”

Sabrina caught his gaze with her own and held it. “Because nothing it says matters to me.”

He shook his head, his mouth a grim line slashed across his face. “I tried to tell you—that night in Jessup when I left with Lark—I tried, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“I know.”

“This is never going to work between us.” He reached out, playing his fingers across the back of her hand. “No matter how much I want it to. Do you know that too?”

She didn’t answer him. “I brought you something else,” she said, pulling his Kimber from beneath her jacket. She pressed it into his hand before tucking it under the covers. “Don’t let the nurses catch you with it. They get nervous around armed patients.”

His hand shifted beneath the covers, tightening on the grip of the gun. “Thank you,” he whispered, his throat working against the words, turning them into gravel. He wasn’t thanking her for the return of his property, and they both knew it.

She nodded once, the corner of her mouth lifting for just a moment. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

Michael finally smiled at her, his face softening just a bit. “Loving you is gonna give me a complex,” he said as his eyes drifted closed again. He wasn’t asleep. He just didn’t want to watch her leave.

Sabrina leaned in, pressing her mouth to his for just a moment so she could take the smile with her. “That makes two of us.” She straightened. “See you around,” she said before she turned and walked out the door.

Peggy Coleman Photography

About the Author

Maegan Beaumont is a native Phoenician, currently stuck in suburbia with her high school sweetheart and husband, Joe, along with their four children. She writes take-you-to-the-edge-of-your-seat thrillers and loves action movies and spending time with her family. When she isn’t busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess, she is locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot, and her Rhodesian Ridgeback and one true love, Jade.

Acknowledgments

There are so many people without whom this book would not have been possible. My fantastic husband, Joe, who’s never too tired to rinse the dinner dishes, even when it’s my turn, and who still likes to hold my hand, even when it’s freezing. My beautiful kids, who eat more pizza than they should and never complain about having to fish clean socks out of the laundry hamper. My wonderful friends, who still love me when I stand them up for lunch (I’m looking at you, Susana!) and who offer me an endless bounty of love and encouragement. My loud, crazy family—you’re the reasons I am the way I am … and for that I thank you! My canning wife, Melissa, thank you for sharing the joys of motherhood with me and for forgiving me when I cheat on you.

To my agent, Chip MacGregor, I say thank you, thank you—a million times, thank you for believing in me. To the crack team at Midnight Ink—Terri, Nicole, and Amelia—thank you for making my work better and for getting it out into the world. To Les Edgerton, my mentor and my friend—I’ll never be able to repay you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying. Mary Lillie, thank you for making me sound smarter than I actually am. To my girls in Writer’s Therapy, Mary, Holly, Susana, and Linda—knowing you makes me better in every possible way. And as always, to my real-life Val … Annie, there will never be a day that I don’t need you, never be a day that I don’t love you. Thirty years in—I think we’ve made it.