Chapter Twenty-four
“PLEASE don’t try to stop me,” Eden said to Brad. “It’s something I have to do.” Beside her, in his car, she was clutching the paper bag containing the necklace so tightly that her nails had cut through the top of it. “If he wants this thing, he can have it. All I want is my daughter.”
Brad looked at the dashboard clock. It was now fourteen minutes to midnight. “I think I should go in your place,” he said. “I brought a black sweatshirt. If I pull up the hood, I—”
“No one would mistake you for me,” she said, looking at the bag in her hand. “You’ll stay here and wait for me? I don’t know what will happen after I leave the necklace. Do you think he’ll…?” She couldn’t finish her sentence.
Brad put his hand on hers. “I think that once he gets the necklace he’ll leave town immediately. I think he probably has a car waiting close by, and he probably has his plane tickets and his suitcases with him. I think he’s already made arrangements to sell the necklace. Once he has the money in his hands, I think he plans to go to some country that has no extradition laws where he plans to spend the rest of his worthless life in a hut on a beach painting pictures that he thinks will make him the next Gauguin. I think he believes that his paintings will be so good that the world will forgive him for what he did to get the money to bankroll him.”
Eden was looking at Brad with her mouth open. “What do you know?” she managed to gasp out.
“Enough to have an idea of what I’m dealing with. I don’t think either you or your daughter are in much physical danger. I think he just wants the necklace.”
“And after he gets it, will he release her?”
“We’ll find her,” Brad said. “You can count on that.” He squeezed her hand again. “I’ve already alerted some people I know in New York. He won’t be able to escape.”
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Later,” Brad said, looking again at the clock. “You’d better go. Oh, and Eden, if something should happen, I put a few weapons in this car. Under the seats, and in the glove box.” He handed her a car key. “Just in case.” As he closed his hands around hers, he said, “But I want you to know that I’ll always be close by you.”
“What if he hears you?” she said, panic in her voice. “He said I was to come alone. He said—”
“Trust me,” Brad said. “Trust me to know what I’m doing as much as you’d trust McBride.” To Brad’s disgust, these words made Eden calm down immediately. He nodded toward the door, and she put her hand on the handle. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Later, he thought, they’d sort out what was between them personally.
Eden took the big flashlight that Brad had given her and walked down the dirt road toward where she knew the old house awaited. She doubted that her daughter would be inside. Would her kidnapper get the necklace, then take it to an appraiser before he released Melissa? If he did that, he’d find out that the necklace was worth nothing. Then what would happen to her daughter?
There was no gravel on the old road and weeds had grown up in the center of it, but she could see that they’d recently been bent by a car running over them. With each step she took, her heart pounded harder and faster.
When the dark outline of the house came into view, she was sweating and shaking. What if—? she kept asking herself. What if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain? But then, she hadn’t kept her end of the deal, had she? She hadn’t come alone; Brad was with her. At that thought she wanted to run back to the car and tell Brad he had to leave, but she didn’t.
When she got close enough to see the house more clearly in the moonlight, she gasped. It was completely enveloped in blooming wisteria. She knew that most people in eastern North Carolina considered wisteria a noxious weed, but she couldn’t see it that way. To her, it was one of the most beautiful plants on earth. She loved the way the trunks twisted about one another, loved the narrow, pointed leaves, and loved the drooping cluster of flowers that hung off it in the spring.
To the locals, wisteria “escaped.” According to them, if you planted one stick of it, “soon” it would engulf everything in its path. The soon was about twenty years, and to Eden’s gardener’s mind, all it took was a bit of pruning each year to control it.
Where wisteria was most likely to “escape” was in old, abandoned houses like this one. Many years ago, someone had planted a wisteria bush and had probably kept it pruned. When the house was abandoned, the other plants, the magnolias and the snowball bushes, had been devoured by wild vegetation that was stronger than the modern, hybridized plants. But not the wisteria. Given the right climate, wisteria could cover the earth. Not even forests could overcome wisteria. The vine would grow right up the tree, keeping all sunlight from it, and eventually kill the tree.
In the moonlight, to Eden’s eyes, the wisteria-draped house was ethereally beautiful. The old house was still strong enough to hold the heavy vines upright, and the flowers cascaded down it. It was a Hansel and Gretel cottage for gardeners, she thought.
The beauty of the old house made her calm down somewhat. She tentatively stepped onto the rotting porch, testing the boards before putting her whole weight on them. The boards creaked, and she paused, listening. She thought she heard something to her right, but it was probably only an animal. The door to the house was open and she walked inside, shining her light around the room. She saw nothing but a falling-down old house, a common sight in North Carolina. The wallpaper and the fireplace surround made her think the house was from the 1840s, maybe later.
A scurrying in the back made her jump. She put her hand to her throat, then turned out the light. “Melissa?” she whispered, but there was no answer. She stood still for a moment, listening, but heard nothing. But her instinct told her that she was being watched. With the light turned off, the house was pitch-black. The wisteria outside kept any moonlight from coming in; she couldn’t see her hand.
“I’m leaving the bag now,” she said too loudly. If anyone was there, he’d hear her. “I just want my daughter back. You can have the necklace. I won’t even report that it’s missing. Please,” she said. “I just want my daughter.”
There was no response, and she heard nothing—which made her sure that there was another human nearby. If she’d been the first person to enter the house, animals would have been scurrying everywhere. But someone else had disturbed them first, and now they were hiding and waiting for all the humans to leave.
“The necklace is here,” she said, then started backing toward the door. She didn’t want to turn the light back on. What if she saw who it was? That might make him refuse to release Melissa.
She backed into the wall, then had to feel her way to the door. When her hands touched the door, she backed through it. Only when she was outside in the cool air did she turn back around and start walking again. In her panic, she hit the step too hard and her ankle twisted under her. She went down, hitting the ground in front of the steps hard. An old board hit her in the side, making her gasp.
But the fall didn’t frighten her as much as what she saw. Under the porch were two pinpoints of light: eyes. An animal? A person?
Fumbling, Eden tried to stand upright, but her hand caught on something, and she flailed about as she tried to get away. She didn’t want to see who it was under the porch. To see, to know, would endanger Melissa.
When Eden finally managed to stand, she started running back toward the car. After the dark of the inside of the house, the moonlight was almost bright, so she didn’t turn on the flashlight. When she saw the car, she breathed a sigh of relief—until she saw that Brad wasn’t in it. Her first impulse was to call for him, but she couldn’t do that. Her second thought was of anger for his not staying put, and anger at herself for asking him to help her. But she couldn’t have done it by herself, she thought. She couldn’t have secretly driven a car out from under the noses of McBride and the whole FBI force, could she?
She leaned against Brad’s car. Now what? she wondered. Did she wait here for Brad like a good little girl, or did she go back into the dark woods surrounding the house and try to find…find what?
My daughter, she thought. Try to find my daughter.
Slowly, she moved away from the car and slipped into the woods that were closing in on the house. There had to be outbuildings still standing. Maybe—She didn’t have any plans or concrete thoughts about what she was doing, but maybe she could see something or find out something.
As a gardener, she knew something about the way plants grew. From the way the wisteria was draping over the house, it grew from the side. Most people planted wisteria by a door, where it could drape over a porch roof. If that was the case, then there was a door on the east side of the building—and there would be a thick trunk to the vine. Eden could hide there and, in secret, see who came out of the building. She could even follow him, or if he got in a car, she could get a license number.
Hurrying, in case she missed him, Eden made her way around to the side of the building, then slipped through the darkness toward where she thought the trunk to the huge vine might be. It was easy to find, and she thought that if she clung to it and stayed very still, she would look like part of the gnarled, twisted trunk. If he aimed a light directly on her, she’d never fool him, but she doubted that he’d do that. If she had any luck at all, he’d walk right past her.
In the distance she heard a car start, heard it crunch on the rocky surface of the drive. Had Brad returned and driven away? Without her? No, she had an idea that he was the type of man who’d never leave a “lady” to fend for herself.
So who was in the car? she wondered. Who was driving away? After a few moments, the sound of the car faded, and all was again silent, but, still, there were no sounds from inside the house. The animals didn’t start making their noises; they knew that a human was there.
Eden stayed very still, willing her heart to slow down and stop making so much noise. After what seemed like an hour, she heard a sound from inside the house. Within seconds she heard footsteps. Someone was walking inside the house.
She waited, staying utterly still. She heard the noise of the paper of the bag she’d put the necklace in. Was he opening it? Or did he trust her? She saw no light, so maybe he was just feeling it rather than looking at it. She held her breath when the footsteps came toward her. Yes, he was going to use the side door. He was coming toward her!
When he got to the door, she saw the silhouette of a tall man. In his hand was the bag, but she couldn’t see his face. She watched in silence as he walked within two feet of her and headed toward the back of the house.
When he was about fifty feet away, she moved from her hiding place and started to follow him. She stepped on a twig, and the man started to turn around. Eden drew in her breath. He was going to see her!
Before the man could turn his head, a hand clasped over her mouth and she was pulled back into a thicket of pyracantha—the barbed wire of the plant world. At least twenty thorns sank into her flesh, but she couldn’t move to get away from them for fear of making noise.
The hand was still over her mouth, the thorns were sticking into her, and she was jammed up to a body that she’d come to know well. Through the bushes she could see the silhouette of the man with the bag in his hand. He was looking back toward them and listening, but he saw nothing, heard nothing.
There were tears in Eden’s eyes from the pain of the thorns. When the man with the bag turned away and started walking again, she shook her head to get McBride’s hand off her mouth. Frowning, she looked at him. She wanted to bawl him out for lying, sneaking, and tricking her, but he had on his FBI face, with no hint that there was anything personal between them. Besides, she was glad to see him. If he hadn’t shown up, she would have been seen by the man.
Jared was dressed all in black, and his face had been darkened, so she could hardly see him in the shadow of the bush. Silently, he motioned for her to move back into the open, and she readily obeyed. Once she was free of the bushes, she started twisting about to remove the thorns from her skin.
Stepping ahead of her, Jared looked toward where the man had gone. She could see nothing. Turning back to her, he motioned for her to go back toward Brad’s car. It was only when he turned that she saw that he had night-vision goggles on his head, and that there was a large pistol in his hand. Around his waist was a belt that held more weapons.
Eden obeyed him. Silently, she turned toward the driveway and headed toward the car Brad had borrowed. But the second she was out of sight of Jared, she turned back. For one thing, she didn’t think it was safe for her to be near a car, and for another, Jared’s presence made her believe that Melissa was somewhere nearby.
“Eden!” She heard an urgent whisper that she knew was Brad’s.
Putting out her hands, she went forward. He caught her hand in his and pulled her down to the ground beside him.
“Where have you been?” he asked, worry in his voice.
“I went back to the car and you weren’t here, so I—”
“I think I know where Melissa might be.”
“Take me there,” she said. “Now.”
“Remi is here, so don’t get frightened if you see someone.”
“Remi? The son-in-law you don’t trust?” She looked at him. “Was he hiding under the porch of the house?”
“Yeah,” Brad said, and she could see his smile in the darkness. “Clever, aren’t you?”
She started to say that she’d discovered him by clumsiness, not clever deduction, but didn’t. Brad took her hand and turned to his left, away from the house, and away from the car.
“Icehouse,” he said over his shoulder, but then said no more. They unclasped hands, but she could follow him easily. He walked slowly, always waiting for her to catch up. They used no light, and they were as silent as possible.
An icehouse, Eden thought, and knew that it was a good choice for a hiding place. Icehouses were nearly always underground, so no lights would show on the outside. And no screams could be heard, Eden involuntarily thought, then shivered.
As she watched Brad moving through the woods, she thought maybe she should tell him that McBride was there, and that the woods were probably full of FBI agents, but Eden said nothing. She was at the point where she wasn’t sure of anything or anyone.
It took nearly twenty minutes to find the old icehouse, and Eden knew that Brad had to have done a lot of research to know where it was. Or had he played there as a child?
There was an artificially created hill, and on the north side was a heavy oak door. Brad ran his hands down it, feeling for the lock. There was none.
When Brad reached to pull the door open, Eden grabbed his arm, her expression telling him to be careful. Smiling at her, he patted her hand, then he pulled a pistol out of the holster at his side. He hadn’t been wearing a gun earlier. He motioned for Eden to go into the trees to safety, but she shook her head. She’d stand outside, but she wasn’t leaving.
Brad pulled the door open, and when it made no sound on its hinges, Eden knew that they had been oiled recently. The inside was darker than the house had been. She heard insects scuttling across the floor, but no other sound.
“Melissa?” Eden said into the darkness, and in the next second, she heard whimpering. Her daughter!
Stumbling over her feet, Eden ran toward the sound. She could see nothing, but her hands felt warmth. Frantically, she reached out and touched her daughter’s big, hard belly. In seconds, she found Melissa’s face and pulled down the gag from her mouth.
“Oh, Mommy!” Melissa cried. “I knew you’d come. It’s been horrible, Mommy. It’s been—”
“I know, sweetheart,” Eden said as she felt down Melissa’s arms. Her daughter was in a chair, her hands taped together behind her. Brad turned on his flashlight, and the little room flooded with pale light. Eden went to her knees behind her daughter and tried to tear the duct tape off. When her fingers couldn’t do it, she used her teeth.
“Here,” Brad asked from above her, and handed her a knife.
“Mommy, Mommy,” was about all Melissa could say.
“I’m sorry,” Eden said, sawing at the tape to free her daughter. “He wanted the necklace, so he took you. It was all my fault.” She got the tape off her daughter’s wrists, then moved to the front of her to release her ankles.
Brad helped Eden stand up, as her knees were shaking.
“Could you help me up?” Melissa said to Brad.
He had to put his arms under hers to lift her, as her legs and arms had lost their circulation. “I think we should get out of here.”
“Too late for that,” said a man from the doorway. He was a heavyset man, with thick eyebrows, and Eden had never in her life seen a man with so little life in his eyes. There was no emotion there, no feelings.
“Who are you?” Eden whispered.
“Somebody that don’t want no trouble,” the man said, looking Eden up and down, then looking at Melissa. When Brad moved his foot, the man turned quickly and shot him in the leg. The sound inside the earth-encased room was deafening.
With a scream, Melissa collapsed back onto the chair. Eden ran to Brad as he fell to the floor.
“He’s all right,” the man in the doorway said. “I just wounded him. You.” He pointed his gun at Eden. “I want you to come with me.”
“You have the necklace,” she said.
“Yeah, I got it,” he said, pulling it out of his jacket pocket. “I didn’t plan on that. That skinny guy held on to it so tight I had to pry it out of his hands.”
Eden looked at the man, trying to understand what was going on. If he didn’t want the necklace, what did he want? And if he hadn’t taken the necklace, who was he?
“You gonna get up or am I gonna have to shoot the kid?” He pointed his gun at Melissa.
“You want the paintings, don’t you?” Eden said softly as she walked toward him.
“Yeah, sure. What else would I want?”
She glanced down at Brad on the floor. The bullet had grazed his thigh. He was bleeding and in pain, but she knew that he’d be all right. She walked slowly, so the man in the doorway could see that she wasn’t going to cause any problems.
“My house is full of FBI agents,” she said calmly. “It will be difficult to get the paintings out of the house.”
“Your house used to be full of agents,” the man said, “but I got rid of a lot of them, including the ones around here.”
Eden tried to keep from gasping out loud. Was Jared one of the agents he’d rid himself of? She couldn’t keep the blood from draining from her face.
“Yeah, missy,” the man said, an ugly half grin on his face. “I got rid of your boyfriend too.” He glanced at Brad on the floor, who was wrapping the sleeves of his windbreaker around the wound in his leg. “One of ’em, anyway. So which one are you plannin’ to stay with?” he asked Eden, smirking like a dirty little schoolboy. He waved his gun at Brad. “He know what you and McBride did in that shed?” He looked at Brad. “And she know what you did with your fancy dame? You three are why I never wanted to settle down and have a family. Ever’body in bed with ever’body else.”
“If you’re insinuating that my mother—” Melissa began, trying to heave herself up out of the chair.
“No!” Eden shouted when the man pointed his gun at Melissa. Eden leaped to put her own body between the path of the bullet and her daughter.
“Ain’t that sweet?” the man said. “But I ain’t never killed no pregnant woman and I don’t plan to. Now you,” he said, motioning to Eden, “you come with me. I got a couple of men waitin’ to load up the paintin’s, then we’ll get out of your way.”
“Mother,” Melissa said from behind her. “Please—”
“I’ll be all right, won’t I?” she said to the man.
“You behave yourself and you’ll be fine.” He stepped back in the doorway to let Eden pass him, then glanced back at the two people in the icehouse before he shut the door, leaving them in the dark.
Eden walked through the night, trying not to trip on anything. She had an idea that if she fell, the man would shoot her. In fact, she couldn’t see why he hadn’t just stolen the paintings in the first place.
Far ahead of them, behind the house, she saw the outline of a car. His? Or did it belong to the FBI? She glanced back at the man, and he motioned for her to go toward the car. She took another step, then tripped over something and fell to the ground. She braced herself, expecting death.
The man behind her pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. Eden had to work to keep from screaming. Lying on the ground, his nose inches from hers, was a man whose dead eyes were staring into hers. She put her hand in her mouth and bit her knuckles to keep from screaming.
“He a friend of yours?” the man asked, humor in his voice.
“I—” Eden began, trying hard to keep herself together. The man behind her shone his light on the dead body.
“I asked if you know him,” the man said, this time with no humor in his voice.
“He’s—” She went to her knees to try to get up. She thought that perhaps she had been hurt when she fell down the steps in front of the house, and she knew that there were thorns in her body from when Jared—She blinked to keep from remembering him. He couldn’t be dead, could he?
“He worked for Brad,” she said when she was standing. When the man looked puzzled, she said, “Brad is the man you shot in the leg.”
“Oh, him. I’m too nice. Anybody else would have killed him.”
Eden gave him a weak smile that seemed to please him. He motioned for her to step over the body and go to the waiting car. Eden put her head up and tried not to think about what she was doing as she stepped over the legs of Drake Haughton, the young man who was Brad’s architect for Queen Anne. She remembered what Brad had said in the car about the man who was demanding the necklace wanting to go somewhere to paint. Had Drake been a frustrated artist? Had he been the one to paint the watercolors that Tess Brewster had sent to the frame shop?
“I tell you,” the man behind her said, “I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to. With just plain, ordinary people kidnappin’ and robbin’ their friends, what’s left for us professionals to do?”
“You’re a professional criminal?” Eden asked, sounding as though she was asking him if he was a plumber.
“Yeah. Been one for years now. Most of my life, really.”
“Do you enjoy your work?”
“Was that one of them veiled things?”
At first Eden didn’t know what he meant. “A veiled insult? No. I was just curious. How did you find out about the paintings?”
“Applegate. Or whatever he called hisself. Did you know he was a spy? I might have to kill a few people now and then, but I’d never betray my country. But he did.”
“Was the U.S. his country?”
“I don’t know. Hey! Whose side are you on?”
“My daughter’s,” Eden said quickly. “Did you kill Mr. Applegate?”
“Yeah. But he didn’t do nothin’ for my country. He played the ponies and owed my boss a lot. He sold some info and paid some debts, but he’d just rack ’em up again. When my boss got sick of him, I went to see him. He said he knew where millions of dollars in paintin’s were.”
“I see,” Eden said, looking ahead toward the car. She was walking very slowly, but the man didn’t seem to mind. She had an idea that he thought it was a nice night for a stroll. “How did he find out about the paintings?”
“He said he figured out a riddle. That’s what he told my boss. Applegate said he was good at solving riddles and he figured out the one in some book. You read that book?”
“I think perhaps I wrote it,” Eden said softly.
“Not the smartest thing you ever done, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.” She didn’t add that she’d had no idea the riddle had anything to do with millions of dollars’ worth of paintings. “He told you where the paintings were, but you killed him anyway.”
“That’s what I was told to do,” the man said, shrugging. “But I made him eat the paper he wrote down your name on. I thought that would get rid of it. Who knew they’d find it inside him? It’s amazin’ what they can do nowadays.”
Eden was beginning to understand. A man with an addiction to gambling had for years paid off his debts by selling government secrets. But when the debts overwhelmed him, he’d been ordered killed. He’d tried to save his life by telling what he’d figured out about a riddle in a book that had yet to be published. But it hadn’t worked. He’d been made to eat what he’d written down, then was killed.
“I guess your boss was interested in the riddle,” Eden said, walking even more slowly, trying to give Melissa and Brad time to get away.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Real interested. But by the time we got here, the FBI was already here—and some man was stayin’ in your old house and paintin’ ever’ night. It was Grand Central Station in here. I had to get rid of the agent, and I had to ask that man what he wanted.”
“Drake.”
“Yeah, the necklace guy. When I found out that he was crazy and didn’t know nothin’ I let him go.”
“Crazy?” Eden asked. The car was close now.
“Yeah. Said he was plannin’ to be a great painter. I thought his stuff was good, but not great. I used to watch him paint while I was waitin’ for you to show up. The FBI took a long time to get you here.”
“I was important?” she whispered. “You could have taken the paintings at any time.”
“Naw. Boss said it had to be legal or he’d get only about twenty percent of their worth. He wanted you to show up so you could sell ’em to him, but, I tell you, it wasn’t easy. You got more men around you than a pop star.”
“But you killed them off. What about the men who ransacked my house?”
“To make you want to leave. You would be gone too, except for that FBI guy.”
“And the snakes?” she asked softly.
The man’s eyes brightened. “That was my idea. McBride and I go way back. I was supposed to keep you alive, but I knew he’d take care of you, so to speak, so I could afford to give him a little trouble. Payback for all the trouble he’s given me over the years.”
Eden started to ask about Jared but couldn’t bring herself to do it. “You told Drake that we’d found the necklace.”
“Yeah. I was watchin’ and listenin’. Seein’ as it was his paintin’s that led you to the necklace, he thought it should be his. He said it was his chance to prove his talent to the world. I helped him arrange the kidnappin’.”
“Who did my daughter meet at the airport?”
“Don’t know. Ugly little creep. He ran off as soon as I showed up.”
“So what happens now?”
“You’re gonna sell me the paintin’s,” he said. “I got papers for you to sign. You don’t like ’em, so you’re gonna sell ’em to me. And after I buy ’em I’m gonna find out, by accident like, that they have other paintin’s underneath ’em. All done legal-like and all sold on the open market. No tryin’ to find secret buyers for ’em. My boss wants all this to be legal.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask who his boss was, but she thought better of it.
“’Course the funny part is that if you tell anybody what happened tonight, I’ll come back and do whatever I have to.”
“Yes, I understand,” Eden said quietly. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a shadow move. Was someone there? Had someone survived this man’s slaughter? “I assume that you’re getting a good cut for doing this. If it’s to be your name on the papers, legally, you will own them.”
“Are you tryin’ to turn me against my boss? He won’t like that.”
“No, Mr.—”
“Jolly. Ever’body calls me Jolly. Counta I don’t laugh a lot. But the name ain’t fair ’cause I got a good sense of humor. It’s just that it don’t match anybody else’s.”
When he said the name, Eden froze in place. She’d heard his name when she’d been locked in the cellar, but she hadn’t told Jared. If she had, maybe—
She stopped her thoughts because she heard a shot in the direction they had come from. In Melissa’s direction. She turned, and so did the man. It ran through her head that she should use his turned back to try to escape, but she didn’t. He might take his anger out on Melissa.
“You stay right there,” Jolly ordered. “If you don’t I’ll—”
“I know,” she murmured, then watched him retreat into the dark woods.
In the next second she was on her back, tackled from the side by a heavy body and flattened to the ground. On top of her was Jared McBride.
“Please tell me you weren’t going to just stand there and wait for him to come back and kill you.”
“I can’t breathe! I thought you were dead.” There was relief in her voice.
“You can mourn me later.” He rolled off of her, stood up, then pulled her up with him. “Stay low,” he whispered, “and stay close to me. Jolly has two other goons with him.”
“What about Melissa?” Eden said into his back as she did her best to keep up with him.
“I don’t know. I’m the only one here.”
“Remi is here,” she said.
Halting, Jared looked at her. “That big Cajun is here?”
“Somewhere. I saw him hiding under the porch of the house.”
Jared shook his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t we just send out invitations? It was bad enough having to act like we didn’t know what you and Granville were up to. I had to fish pieces of a note out of the toilet pipe.” He made a noise of exasperation. “Stay with me and keep quiet. Can you use a gun?”
“Never shot one in my life.”
“That’s a help. Get down!” He put his hand over the top of her head and pushed her down into a circle of tree trunks. They could hear male voices near them, but the voices didn’t seem upset, so maybe they hadn’t found out that Eden was missing. She was the only one who could sign the papers, so they needed her.
“Hands up!” came a voice near them. “Drop your weapons! Do it or we’ll shoot.”
“Who the hell is that?” Jared said under his breath. “And who is he talking to?”
Eden thought she was going to be sick. She recognized the voice. “He’s my son-in-law,” she said. “Stuart.”
Jared leaned back against the tree trunk, then with a grunt of pain, turned his back to Eden. “Could you…?” She knew what he meant. There were still pyracantha thorns in his back, as there were in hers. While he reloaded two guns, she ran her hands over his back and pulled out all the thorns she could find.
“Thanks, honey,” he said, making a joke. “Wish me luck,” he said as he started to leave their dark little nest.
But Eden caught his head in her hands and kissed him hard. “Save everyone,” she whispered, “including yourself.”
He removed the pistol from his ankle holster and handed it to her. “Aim and point.” He kissed her again, then he was gone into the night.