Chapter Twenty-one
The third-floor library at Vestal Valley College was devoid of both people and the answers Andi had been looking for since her first Google search revealed nothing quite like the box she’d found.
Tucked into a corner study carrel, Andi dropped her head into her hands, staring at the image in the textbook and the picture she’d taken that morning of the box. They did not match. Maybe created by the same artist or at the same general time in history, but none of the reliquaries from that cathedral matched the one she had at home.
Surely that was a replica or poor man’s attempt at a reliquary, worth nothing.
But if it wasn’t? Several of these types of boxes had been stolen, found, and replaced over the last ten years—at least that’s what she was getting out of German articles she’d read, relying on a questionable online translation. There were rumors of missing reliquaries that had been hidden behind stones in the church, lost for centuries, but nothing definite and nothing that looked like what Jeff had hidden away.
Still, the possibility that the reliquary might be real had started to torment her, the feeling deepening with the hours of research she’d done. If that was a real box meant to hold a holy relic, then she had to get it back to its rightful owner, even though she’d opened it that morning when she took pictures and found nothing inside but a nest of empty velvet.
The tiny desk was covered with books she’d pulled from the architecture section, printouts she’d made about the Cathedral of Trier, and a few dozen articles that confirmed what she’d learned way back when she’d done that paper on the famous church.
Trier had had multiple reliquaries over the centuries, holding a range of items the church claimed as holy relics. Pieces of the apostles’ clothing, a holy nail from the cross, a thorn from the crown, a ring believed to have belonged to Saint Peter. Some had been debunked and proven by testing to be fake, as she’d written about in her graduate-school paper. Others had been moved to other churches, and some had been hidden somewhere in the bowels of the cathedral.
Some had been stolen and were now in the collections of people who had the money to pay for such treasures and hide them from the world.
She heard footsteps out in the stacks, reminding her that she still had a class to teach in an hour. She couldn’t waste time. Something had to be here.
Flipping open another textbook with pictures from Trier, she turned the pages slowly, scanning words and images for a clue.
“Where’s the nail, Andi?”
She shot up in shock at the man’s voice behind her, but was instantly pinned by two powerful arms that held her shoulders. In front of her face, he smacked the reliquary onto her desk, hard enough to make the top wobble. “Where’s the damn nail that was inside here?”
For a moment, a long, impossible, insane moment, she simply couldn’t breathe. Her head almost exploded with a mix of shock and fear and the sense that everything was wrong. The world had tilted. The sky had fallen. The bottom of life dropped out from under her.
Jefferson John Scott was alive and holding her to a chair from behind.
“Jeff?” she croaked the word.
“Where did you put the nail, Andi?”
“I didn’t…I don’t…you’re alive?”
His breath was warm, coming down on top of her head. She wanted to move, to drop her head back and look up or spin the chair around and face him, but it would be like looking at a ghost.
“I’m sure as hell not dead.”
She closed her eyes and tried to process anything that made sense, but nothing did.
“I…thought you were.”
“That’s what we wanted,” he said gruffly. “That’s why Nora and I went to great lengths to make it appear that I died. So the people who wanted that nail, and me, would not follow the trail to you. You can thank me for that.”
Thank him? She’d mourned him. And so had Christian. “How could you?” she managed to ask.
“I had no choice. They would have found me sooner rather than later. Where’s the nail, Andi? I know for a damn fact that you hadn’t touched that box until yesterday, so you haven’t had time to get it to anyone who can verify its authenticity.”
She tried to shake her head, but he bracketed her with thick biceps. He’d never been muscular, but there was no mistaking his voice. Or his hands. This was Jeff.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been in and out of the house twenty-five times in the past two years, always making sure you hadn’t touched it.”
She sucked in a shocked breath, horror ricocheting through her. “What? You’ve been in my house?”
“I had to make sure you didn’t do anything with it. But then a few weeks ago, I decided it was finally time to move it from its safe place. But that day you came home early.”
The day she’d found the back door open and nothing missing. “You were there?”
“I hid in the front hall closet until you went into the kitchen. You really should change your back lock, too.”
When only a dead man had a key?
“While you were fussing about that, I walked right out the front door.”
A lock she had changed after she found it open. She shuddered under him.
“Then you went and got that damn dog, and I had to wait for a time when it wasn’t there.”
“Wednesday night,” she muttered.
She felt him nod. “Nora tried to keep you outside as long as she could, since it was the first time that damn hund wasn’t in the house.” The use of the German word for dog sent another shiver through her, as if he shouldn’t know any words that Jag could understand. “I got stuck on the damn patio when you got home but managed to climb the wall, which made Rin Tin Tin bark like a blood hound.”
That was him on the patio making Jag crazy that night. Jeff. On her patio. While she almost made love to Liam. She literally couldn’t breathe.
“Then I couldn’t get back in there until today, when, lo and behold, I found this on the shelf.” He slapped a hand on the reliquary. “Empty. Back to my original question. Where is the nail, Andi?”
“It was empty.”
“It was in there.” He squeezed her neck with those thick muscles, a feeling of desperation transferring from him to her and back. “The holy nail. The nail from the cross. The nail that is worth a lot of money to some very rich people. The nail I risked my life to get out of Europe. Someone must have taken the nail.”
Christian. Her stomach tightened as she remembered Liam coming down from the playground structure, laughing about the “nail” Christian had produced from his tool kit.
It must have been a thousand years old, he’d joked.
Or two thousand.
“So, you give me that nail and I’ll give you Christian.”
A white light popped behind her eyes, blinding her with fury and fear. “What?” she demanded, almost managing to get up from the chair, propelled by the sheer force of her reaction to his words. “You have him?”
“He’s fine. Nora has him.”
That did it. A surge of wild, hot emotion burst through her whole body, making her writhe and push and free herself from him. She spun halfway around before he grabbed her arms and took control of her again.
“You took him?” She blinked at him, too wild with horror to drink in the changes in a man she’d lived with and shared a child with.
He was bigger. There were probably twenty or thirty pounds of sheer muscle on this man who used to lift textbooks, not weights. His once-short chestnut brown hair had grown long, wavy. His face was beefier, covered with unshaven whiskers, but his eyes were the same. A memorable and distinct green that used to look at her with humor but were now dark with…desperation.
For a dead man, Jeff Scott was damn desperate. And desperate men did very, very bad things.
“Where the hell is the nail?” he demanded.
In a playground structure in Bushrod Square.
Those scary green eyes narrowed at her. “Andi?”
“Why…the will? The custody? Why?”
He sniffed out a dry laugh. “My mother left him money, which is actually laughable but I guess she had more of a soft spot for that kid than I thought.”
“And you want it?”
“I need it,” he fired back. “And so does my sister, it’s part of our…ransom.”
Ransom? “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head. “Now they want the nail and money not to kill me. And we are the rightful heirs to the Scott money. ’Course, I never dreamed you’d marry some local yokel dog catcher and put up a legal fight. I figured you’d buckle under the first threat of taking Christian and sign the trust over to her. But the money’s only half of it. I have to have the nail, Andi.”
But all she heard was Nora…Christian…ransom…and nothing made sense. “She has Christian now?” That was impossible. Liam had to have him. Liam was picking him up. He had to be with Liam.
But Jeff nodded. “And, Andi, she’ll take him far, far away. She’ll keep him hidden. We’re very good at that, my sister and me. And it could be a long time before you see him again, and if those German bastards want me dead, they won’t hesitate to kill my son, too.”
“Christian,” she whispered, barely audible over the sound of her heart breaking.
“So get me the damn nail, Andi.”
She could very probably find it on top of the play structure, but if he believed that only Christian could find it, then he’d have to produce Christian. Andi had to take the chance to get to him. “I don’t know, but Christian does.”
He glared at her. “Get real, Andi.”
“He does. He mentioned a nail to me that he had at the square, in the playground.” Her voice was remarkably calm, considering her heart rate was anything but. “He must have taken it from the box. He’s the only person who knows, so you give him back to me, and I’ll get you that nail.”
He searched her face. “You lie to me and you’ll never see him again. You understand, Andi? I’m fighting for my life here.”
And she was fighting for her son. “I understand.”
As she stood to leave with him, Andi eyed the man she’d been sure was dead for two years. Once again, absolutely nothing in life was certain.
Except that she’d do anything, including kill or be killed, to protect her son.
* * *
Liam stared at the young woman at the front desk of the Sweet Peas Day Care center adjacent to the elementary school as if she’d spoken an absolute lie.
“No,” he insisted. “He has to be here. Christian Rivers. No one has permission to pick him up but his mother or me. Check the list.”
Her gaze darted from him to Jag, who sat at perfect attention, but still managed to look pretty damn threatening. “I did check the list, and his father’s name has been on it for years, and he picked him up a few hours ago.”
Someone had had Christian for hours? Liam’s stomach turned. “Do you mean to tell me you released that child to a stranger?”
There was no way Andi would use an after-school care that was less than one hundred percent secure.
“His father,” she corrected, tapping on a computer keyboard. “He had a photo ID, and his name matched the one on file. Jefferson John Scott, approved since Christian started coming here four years ago.” She turned the screen to him to underscore her point, showing a face Liam recognized from his pictures around Andi’s house.
“He’s dead.”
She lifted both brows. “Looked pretty alive to me.”
“It was someone else.”
“Someone else who Christian called Daddy and ran to him, jumped into his arms, and kicked his legs with excitement?”
Every vein in his body turned to ice. “That’s impossible.”
“Should I get the day care worker who was here with me and also witnessed it?”
Liam shook his head, backing away, trying to make sense of something that made zero sense.
His body burned so badly forensics was impossible, though he was ID’d by next of kin.
Paul Batista’s words hit him in a gut that was already on fire. Was it possible? Jeff Scott had faked his own death? Had help from his sister?
But why come back now and take Christian?
Because Andi wasn’t giving up the trust fund. And Andi had that box Paul Batista was asking about.
“Do you want me to get the other teacher?” the young woman asked, her edge of sarcasm dulled, probably because there wasn’t any blood left in Liam’s face.
“No…no.” He backed away, trying to think this through. He had to call Andi. And he had to find Christian. Jogging back to his truck, he pulled out his phone and dialed Andi again, swearing softly when he got her voice mail.
Then he made another call but had to leave a message with Paul Batista, giving him Andi’s address and asking him to meet Liam there as soon as possible.
Andi’s house. Would Jeff go there with Christian? It was on the way to Vestal Valley College, so Liam headed there first, almost unable to concentrate on driving as he put the pieces together and came up with one pretty screwed-up puzzle.
At her brownstone, things looked quiet and normal. No strangers rolling buggies, not many people around at all. Using his key, Liam let Jag inside first, and instantly, the dog went crazy. He barked ferociously and started sniffing the ground, going back to the kitchen door, which was locked, then following a scent with a determined focus Liam had rarely seen.
Barking, he headed straight upstairs, and Liam followed, bracing for an intruder and ready to give Jag the order to attack.
But the second floor was quiet. Christian’s door was open, his room exactly as he’d left it. Jag headed straight for Andi’s office, growling low and menacing and mad almost immediately. Liam followed the sound as it kicked up to a frantic bark, finding Jag sniffing the floor and drafting table and—
The box was gone.
For a second, Liam stared at the empty spot on the shelf, digging around his memory of that very morning when he’d walked in here and seen it. He’d left the house with Andi, and she hadn’t had it. He was certain. She’d worn a bright red dress with heels to work and decided to switch her handbag on the way out. The bag she carried was far too small to hold that box.
Had Andi come back home to get the box? Or had someone else been in this house since then? Someone with a key to the back door.
Jeff Scott was alive. If that theory was right, he couldn’t waste another second here. He had to get to Andi and figure out where Christian was. Grabbing Jag’s collar and ordering him out, he ran back down the stairs, formulating a plan as he got outside and locked the door behind him.
He’d call the police on the way to the community college and start a search for Christian. He’d get his brothers, too. Turning to where he’d parked, he froze as his gaze fell on something red in the square. A red dress…
He blinked at the two people who walked briskly along the path, headed for the playground area, as one more seismic shock rocked his world.
It was Andi in that red dress and heels, walking with a man who had a secure arm around her, leaning close to her. He looked huskier than he remembered Jeff Scott being, but Liam knew the walk, the posture, the tilt of the guy’s head. He wouldn’t forget the man who stole the woman Liam loved.
What the hell was she doing with him?
Unable to stop himself, Liam walked closer, to the end of the street, gauging traffic as he crossed, a sickening sensation of déjà vu rising up in him.
“Daddy! Daddy!” The words smacked him from across the street, and he saw a familiar little six-year-old breaking away from a dark-haired woman—Nora?—and running toward Andi.
Andi seemed to stumble a little as the man holding her let go and extended his arms to capture one happy little boy in his arms.
How was this even possible? What the wretched hell was going on?
Andi slowed her step and held back, watching Jeff spin Christian in a circle, making Jag let out a sharp bark.
Liam tugged hard at his leash, but Andi turned at the sound. She looked right at him, too far away for Liam to read her expression. But he could interpret her rigid posture of flat-out fear.
Still holding Christian, Jeff reached back and snagged Andi’s arm, pulling her closer, his face away from Liam.
She threw one more look over her shoulder at Liam, and in that instant, he knew the only way to protect her was to let Jag tear into a man Christian was hugging with all his might. Not only would Christian hate Jag and Liam, the sight could scar the child for the rest of his life.