Chapter Twenty
Cat wondered if Dylan believed Ginny was going to let any of them go once she had the drive.
Cat didn’t think so, but she also didn’t want to take the chance that the woman might shoot them all if she didn’t get what she wanted.
As far as Cat could tell, Luca wasn’t armed.
Sharese either.
But the hairdresser was feisty enough that she could have a weapon on her.
Cat would assume that Ginny would have checked before, when Sharese and her brother had picked her up in the van and then dropped her off at the sheriff’s office apartment.
Clearly Ginny didn’t trust anyone, even her own cohorts.
Cat met Dylan’s gaze and held it.
She hoped she was reading it correctly as she winked, then suddenly grabbed her stomach, let out a cry of pain and bent over as if having a major contraction.
The sound of a gunshot echoed around her, terrifying her that Ginny had pulled the trigger on the gun that had been pressed to her back.
She realized that the woman was wounded as Ginny grabbed her by the hair and began to pull her toward the open van door, using Cat as a shield.
But the sheriff made herself into dead weight, slumping forward and slowing their progress.
Ginny was yelling for Luca and Sharese to help her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cat saw Dylan launch himself off the deck at Ginny.
What she hadn’t seen was Luca.
He came flying toward them, intercepting Dylan.
Sharese rushed to get behind the wheel of the van and now started it up.
Ginny almost had the two of them to the van door.
Cat knew that she couldn’t let Ginny force her back into the van.
She and her baby were as good as dead if she did.
She kicked back at the woman, bringing her boots down on Ginny’s ankle.
She heard her cry out in pain and jerk hard on the handful of Cat’s hair in her fist, forcing her toward the gaping door of the van.
Dylan dove off the deck.
There was no way he was going to let Ginny take Cat.
He almost had his hands on Ginny when Luca charged him from the side, driving them both to the ground.
They grappled on the ground, Luca clearly trained for combat.
Dylan hadn’t had to use his training in a long while.
He wished he could say the same for Luca as they fought.
At the same time, he tried to keep an eye on Cat and Ginny.
He saw her stomp on Ginny’s ankle, then hit her hard in the side with an elbow.
Heard the cry of pain she made as Cat swung around going for the gun.
He fought harder, terrified for Cat and her baby as he watched the sheriff try to wrestle the gun away from Ginny.
Cat shoved Ginny hard, slamming her into the side of the van, both still fighting for the gun.
Ginny still had a death grip on the weapon.
She had height and weight against Cat, but the sheriff was holding her own.
As he and Luca fought, Dylan heard Sharese rev the van’s engine.
She was yelling for Luca to get in when the gun Cat and Ginny had been fighting over went off.
A few seconds later, the van lurched and died, rolling slowly backward.
The horn began to honk as Sharese slumped over the wheel.
Luca cried out and struck Dylan, catching him in the jaw and knocking him backward before racing to his sister.
Dylan righted himself and launched himself at Ginny.
She’d been momentarily distracted as she and Cat were forced back from the moving vehicle.
He quickly wrestled the gun away and turned the weapon on her.
“Move and I will shoot you.”
Ginny stumbled back, blue eyes glittering with malice as he pulled Cat to him.
He could see that she was breathing hard but didn’t seem the worse for wear.
Still he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,”
Ginny snapped.
“I was talking to Cat.”
“Fine,”
Cat said, but he saw her hand go to her stomach as if she was worried about her baby.
Cat could hear the worry in Dylan’s voice, see it in his expression as the FBI came charging out of the trees.
It took little time after that to take Luca and Ginny into custody.
By then, she was in Dylan’s arms, the baby between them, both with a hand on her stomach.
She waited to feel her daughter kick.
Time seemed to stretch out forever before she felt her daughter moving again.
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded.
She was all right.
Her baby was all right.
But Dylan insisted a helicopter be ordered to take Cat to the hospital to make sure she was all right.
He led her over to the deck, insisted she sit as they both gave their statements to one of the agents.
His concern comforted her.
There was no doubt in her mind that Ginny would have killed them all.
Both Ginny and Luca were now in cuffs in the back of a large SUV as the agents searched for anyone else who might have been involved.
Still no sign of Rowena or Patty or the baby.
The coroner had been called for Sharese.
Agents had had to pull Luca away from his deceased sister.
Even now, he was still beside himself, head down, silently sobbing.
Dylan asked to speak to Ginny and Luca before they were taken away.
He stood at the open window looking in at Ginny and Luca.
Cat heard most of the conversation, her heart breaking for him.
“I used to think you were beautiful,”
he said to his wife.
“I no longer do.
There is something so cold and cruel in you, so soulless.
I don’t understand how you could have hurt so many people.
Please, Ginny, at least tell me where I can find my nephew.”
Ginny stared at him for a moment before smiling.
“You’ll never have him.
He’s ours now.”
He shook his head.
Cat could see that he was fighting the urge to choke the truth out of the woman.
Cat felt the same way.
It shocked her the animosity she felt.
It made her question her time as acting sheriff.
Luca’s head came up, his eyes puffy from crying, his face blotchy.
“Patty has your nephew,”
he said between sobs.
“Shut up!”
Ginny snapped.
“If you say another word—”
Luca spat out the words.
“You killed my sister.”
“It was an accident, you fool.”
Luca shook his head.
“My sister and I didn’t want any of this and you knew it.
You dragged us into this.”
He turned to one of the FBI agents right outside the vehicle.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
“Where can I find Patty?”
Dylan asked and Luca gave him an address.
One of the FBI agents said, “We’re on it.”
“What about Rowena?”
Dylan asked Luca, who only shook his head before he said, “Gone.”
“Dead?”
Luca shrugged and looked at Ginny.
“Probably.”
Agents were headed for the address Luca had given them.
Cat breathed a sigh of relief, smiling as Dylan put his arm around her and they headed to the chopper now setting down some distance away.
His look said that he’d found out what he could, now all he cared about was making sure Cat and her baby were all right.
After the FBI had arrived, everything had been a blur of activity.
Cat told herself that her daughter was fine as they climbed into the chopper.
Her baby was kicking maybe more than usual, but other than that…
Feeling exhausted, she closed her eyes as Dylan took her hand and squeezed it gently as if to say everything was going to be all right.
She tried to think positive thoughts.
Dylan told her that the FBI was going to pick up Patty Cooper Harper and his nephew at the address Luca had given them.
She thought of JP.
The coroner had come over to her before he’d left with Sharese’s body.
He’d said he wanted to be sure she was all right, then given her a thumbs-up before leaving.
She was beginning to think of him as a grandfather figure, cranky and yet cool in that he knew interesting stuff.
Maybe she was injured, she thought, given the trail her mind had taken.
As much as Cat wanted to tell herself it was over, she knew she couldn’t until the doctor told her that her baby was fine.
Until Dylan had his nephew in his arms.
She couldn’t believe the way her boring job had turned out, as she and Dylan were strapped in and the chopper rose up above the trees headed for the hospital in Kalispell.
Once there, Dylan didn’t leave her side until the doctor assured her that her daughter was fine.
By then, it was morning.
“But no more cops and robbers,”
he said.
“Take it easy these last few weeks.”
Cat smiled, nodding in relief.
She would take it easy, she told herself as Dylan called the chopper to take her back to the ranch.
“He’s going to pick us up out back. Ready?”
She hugged her stomach, feeling her daughter trying to get comfortable in the small space.
They were both anxious for the infant to come bursting out into the world.
Cat couldn’t wait to meet her.
When she looked over at Dylan he was watching her, a frown on his face.
“I’m fine,”
she tried to reassure him.
“I know.”
“That’s not what’s bothering you,”
she said.
“Did they find Patty and the baby?”
He shook his head.
“When they got to the address, she’d already left.
They found lots of baby clothing and supplies.
Apparently Patty is taking good care of him.
They’ll find her.
They have to. The last person who saw them said that she had the baby and was so loving toward him that they’d thought she must be the mother.”
“The feds will find him,”
she said, touching Dylan’s arm.
She’d been so relieved that her daughter was all right that she’d just assumed the call had been from the FBI and they’d found Patty and the baby.
Nothing was over for Dylan.
His deceased wife had come back and was now headed for jail, but he still didn’t know the part his brother Beau had played in all this.
Of course, it wasn’t over for him and wouldn’t be until he had his nephew.
The chopper landed in the same spot it had earlier at the ranch.
The van Sharese had been killed in was gone and so was any evidence of what had happened there last night.
Still Dylan felt a chill as he and Cat disembarked and headed for his pickup parked in front of the cottage.
Nothing looked amiss, yet he found himself searching for movement, his senses all on alert.
He saw that there was a light on in the big house upstairs.
Rowena must have left it on.
Cat must have followed his glance because she picked up on his unease.
She slowed and moved closer to him.
The spring breeze had a bite to it he recognized.
Snow.
He breathed in the cold, almost welcoming it.
They were almost to his pickup when he heard a baby cry.
The startling sound made him freeze, Cat next to him.
“I want you to get into my pickup and leave,”
he whispered as he fished out his truck keys and handed them to her.
She took the keys, but said, “I’m not leaving you.”
“Cat,”
he said impatiently.
“Think of your baby.”
“I’m thinking of mine and yours.”
They heard the sound again and both looked toward the cottage.
Cat started moving toward the deck.
Neither was armed.
The feds had taken Dylan’s weapons as well as Cat’s.
He touched her arm.
“Let me get my gun out of the pickup.”
He moved swiftly to the truck.
It was unlocked.
He reached in, felt under the seat and knew at once that the gun was gone.
No reason to check the glove box.
There wouldn’t be a small one in there either.
Closing the pickup door, he stepped back and noticed the odd way the truck was sitting.
A glance under it solved that mystery.
His right front tire was flat.
He no longer thought Cat could get away.
They were on their own here.
Cat seemed to notice his expression and looked again to the cottage where the baby had begun to cry louder.
He knew there was no stopping her.
She moved in that direction again, Dylan at her heels.
She reached the door and opened it, but he insisted on going in first, determined to protect her to the end.
Once inside, he stopped to listen.
It was dark except for a faint light toward the back of the cottage.
He waited for his eyes to adjust.
The crying was coming from a bedroom at the back.
Seeing no motion, he stepped into the kitchen, drew out a knife from the rack, then followed the sound, afraid of what he would find.
Cat was right behind him—after taking a small cast-iron skillet from where it hung next to the stove. It would have been comical, the two of them moving down the hall, if it hadn’t been so serious.
The bedroom door was open, light spilling out along with the sound of the crying baby.
Reaching the doorway, Dylan hesitated.
He told himself it could be a recording to lure them down here.
He thought he was right when the crying stopped.
He peered around the edge of the doorway and quickly jerked back, shocked at what he saw.
Cat had no idea what Dylan had seen, but whatever it was had spooked him.
“You can come in,”
said a weak female voice from inside the bedroom.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Something about the voice sent a chill through Cat.
She pushed past Dylan into the doorway and stopped dead.
The woman sitting in the chair by the window holding the baby looked like a ghost.
Her skin was deathly pale, and a large bump protruded from her forehead.
Both her eyes were blackened, her nose sat at an odd angle, and smears of dried blood covered her cracked upper lip.
Cat felt shock ricochet through her.
She glanced at the baby, fearing it too had been injured.
It didn’t appear the infant was hurt, even as he began to cry again.
Patty Cooper Harper looked nothing like her photo, but Cat knew it was her.
She edged to the woman’s chair, setting the small cast-iron skillet aside.
“May I hold him?”
she asked, her voice cracking.
For a moment she didn’t think the woman would release him.
The baby was wrapped in a small blanket that was stained with blood.
Patty looked down at the baby, a painful smile on her face as she slowly held him out to Cat.
The instant he was in her arms, Cat moved to the bed and laid him down so she could open the blanket and make sure it wasn’t his blood.
Her heart was pounding with fear.
They finally had the missing baby.
Please don’t let him be injured.
Dylan snapped on the overhead light as she peeled back the blanket and inspected the infant.
He appeared unharmed.
He looked up at her then began to cry again.
“I need a couple of towels,”
Cat said, trying to keep her voice calm.
Dylan produced several large ones.
She placed the baby in one, then wrapped him up in a second one, before she began to rock him.
The infant quieted in a few moments.
“Has he been fed?”
she asked Patty, who nodded.
“I took care of him,”
she said quietly.
Her eyes looked dark, hollow.
“Who hurt you?”
Cat asked as Dylan went to the woman.
Patty didn’t answer, her eyes on Dylan.
“She’s going to come back and kill us all.”
Tears formed in the woman’s eyes and ran unheeded down her cheeks.
“The baby too.
I tried to fight her off but she…”
Patty seemed unable to finish.
“How badly are you hurt?”
“Too bad.”
She looked to Cat holding the baby, rocking him in her arms.
“Don’t let her hurt him.”
Her eyes seemed to widen as if she’d heard the same thing Cat had.
Someone had just opened the front door.
Patty began to cry silently with sobs that racked her body.
Dylan had heard the cottage door open as well.
He looked at Cat, a silent message passing between them as she held the baby closer.
He hid the knife up the sleeve of his shirt and moved to the door.
There was so much he needed to say to her, desperately wanted to say.
He just hoped he got the chance.
He could hear someone in the kitchen moving around.
Stealthily, he closed the bedroom door and crept down the hallway, unsure who or what he would find.
When he’d first bought the house, the Realtor had warned him about bears making themselves at home if he left a window or door unlocked.
But he knew it wasn’t a black bear in his kitchen.
As he reached the kitchen opening, he started to glance in when he heard Rowena’s annoying voice.
“No reason to be sneaking around,”
she said as she turned from the sink where she’d been washing her hands.
She dried them on her bloody pants.
He caught the smell of smoke on her as one hand went into her pocket and came back out with one of his guns.
She didn’t point it at him.
Instead, she held it at her side, almost daring him to make a move.
“Can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to,”
he said, not bothering to hide his disgust for the woman.
“Just finishing up here at the ranch,”
she said.
“Make a girl a drink?”
His first instinct was to tell her to go to hell, but he curbed it and moved cautiously toward the living room.
At the bar, he called back to her, “There’s no ice in the bucket.”
“I’ll rough it this one time and go without,” she said.
He didn’t think she would shoot him before she had the drink as he slipped the knife from his sleeve and hid it next to the ice bucket.
He worried that she was too smart and too well trained to let him get close enough to use the knife anyway.
She had his guns from the pickup.
He’d bet she’d also searched the house for more.
She knew she had the upper hand and that he and Cat and the baby and Patty were now at her mercy.
“It’s over, Rowena,”
he said as he mixed up the gin and tonic she liked.
“Ginny and Luca are in jail.
Sharese is dead.”
“No loss there,”
the woman said, suddenly closer than he’d realized.
He could barely smell her perfume under the stench of smoke.
She just wasn’t close enough to keep her from shooting him before he could disarm her or stop her with the knife.
He could hear in her voice how she was enjoying being one of the few left standing.
Was she now in charge? It would appear so.
The power had already gone to her head.
This is probably what she’d always wanted.
He thought about her relationship with Ginny.
Rowena must have been jealous as hell, resenting his wife, wanting what she had. Did that include him? He thought Cat might have been right about hoping to seduce him. Like that was ever going to happen, he thought.
He took his time finishing her drink with a slice of lime from the small container.
Rowena would have preferred a fresh cut wedge, but then again, he doubted she would have wanted him using a knife.
Catching a glow through the nearby window, he looked in the direction of the big house on the side of the hill.
It wasn’t caused by the small light upstairs he’d seen earlier.
This light was much brighter and appeared to be growing brighter by the moment.
He realized what it was and let out a small laugh as he turned slowly to hand her the drink.
“You burned down my house?”
he asked laughing.
“The house I hated and refused to live in?”
“It was a symbolic gesture,”
she said, sounding angry.
“Put the drink down there.”
She pointed to a side table.
He did as she asked and moved again to the bar where there was at least one weapon at his disposal.
As she took the drink in her free hand and stepped back out of his range of attack, he noticed how tired she looked.
“You look exhausted.
Burning down houses isn’t as easy as you thought, huh?”
Her gaze locked with his as she took a sip of the drink, and he saw fury in those blue eyes.
He noticed that the gun was no longer at her side.
It was now pointed at his heart.
“Mind if I make myself a drink?”
he asked, already turning back to the bar and the knife.
“I didn’t expect you to come back here, figured you got whatever you’d come here for and were long gone.”
“You know that’s not true,”
she said with a chuckle.
“You made sure I didn’t get what I came here for.”
Again he heard something in her voice, a need for revenge against the woman she’d called her best friend—and that woman’s husband.
“Can’t imagine why you’d come back, especially just to burn down my house,”
he said as he poured a drink and considered both the knife and the heavy silver ice bucket partially filled with melted ice.
“Ginny thought she was so smart marrying you,”
Rowena said.
“She was fulfilling her mission and then she was free—as long as she came through with the goods—the names of the US undercover operatives in the Soviet Union who’d been responsible for the deflection of the country’s famous ballet star Giselle.”
“This is about a ballet dancer?”
Dylan demanded, half turning to look back at her.
He’d never understand Russian politics.
“She was our leader’s favorite,”
Rowena said.
“Of course,”
he mocked.
“So, what went wrong?”
“Ginny.”
Her gaze hardened.
“She started falling in love with you and wanted out.”
He turned back to his drink.
This wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
He’d faced the woman only hours ago.
That hadn’t been love in her eyes.
“I don’t believe you.”
“She couldn’t go to you, so she got your brother to help her.
She was going to sell us out for you.”
He shook his head, his hands fisting at his sides.
“She got my brother killed.”
“He knew what he was getting into,”
Rowena said flippantly.
He finished making his drink and picked up the glass, squeezing so hard he feared it would break.
Every cell of him wanted to stop this woman, finish this and get Cat and his nephew to safety.
But Rowena wanted him to try to get the jump on her.
He could feel her waiting, sipping her drink, probably even smiling to herself.
He knew she could shoot him before he could spin around.
He took a sip of his drink and carefully put it down.
As he did, he took hold of the edge of the ice bucket telling himself that if he flung it at her before he attacked, he might stand a chance.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,”
Cat said from behind them.
He froze, his hand loosening on the ice bucket as he slowly, carefully turned to see her standing a few yards behind Rowena.
She was holding the baby wrapped in the towels he’d gotten for her, her expression fierce.
She’d never looked more beautiful, he thought with a jolt that rocketed through him.
In those seconds, Rowena spun around, leading with the gun.
Dylan’s heart leapt to this throat as he rushed her.
He expected to hear the sound of a gunshot.
Instead, he heard a surprised cry from Rowena.
Past her, he saw that Cat had thrown the baby at her.
Rowena had dropped her drink and raised her arms either to protect herself or the baby—only to see the towels uncoiling as they flew through the air revealing nothing inside.
Taking advantage of Rowena’s surprise, Dylan grabbed her from behind and twisted the gun from her fingers.
She fought, screaming and crying as he took her to the floor.
“Ginny made me do it,”
she cried.
“I had no choice.
It was all her idea.
She told me to find the thumb drive, then make you pay.”
“It doesn’t matter, Rowena,”
Dylan told her.
“It’s over.
We know that the only reason you came out here in the first place was to find the missing document.
You failed.”
“That wasn’t the only reason.”
Her gaze was pleading.
“I was as pretty as Ginny, smarter, and I had money.
I still have money.”
He shook his head as he heard what she was asking.
“I’m sorry, but you’re not my type.”
Rowena jerked angrily under him.
“And she is?”
she demanded, motioning her head toward Cat.
“She is,”
he said nodding.
“You are so going to pay,”
Rowena spat out, the words hard and cold.
“Your brother double-crossed us and look what happened to him.
Now it’s your turn.”
“Beau paid with his life, Rowena.
Wasn’t that enough?”
She shook her head angrily as her gaze shot to Cat.
“I wish you’d died the other night on the road.
You’re the one who should have crashed into the trees!”
Her gaze swung back to Dylan.
“I knew how to get to you.
Take out your girlfriend.”
“You were driving the truck?”
he demanded through clenched teeth.
“Not me.
I can’t drive a stick shift,”
Rowena said.
“Patty.
But she failed and I got stuck babysitting that brat of Athena’s.
You should be thanking me.
If Ginny had gotten her hands on that baby…”
At the sound of the baby crying down the hall, Cat hurried to retrieve him.
When she returned, he saw from her expression that Patty was also gone.
She cuddled the infant to her, the crying stopping as the sound of sirens filled the air.
“Patty’s gone,”
Cat said to Rowena.
“Everyone is either in jail or dead.”
Rowena snorted.
“You’re the ones who killed Patty, the two of you, running her off the road.
When she hit that tree, the steering wheel crushed something inside her.
She hasn’t been the same since.
I’m surprised she survived this long.”
“Why didn’t you get her to a doctor?”
Cat cried, only to have Rowena give her an impatient look.
“Why do you think?”
“Well, it’s over now,”
Dylan said.
Rowena glared at him.
“You think this is over? It will never be over.
There’s more of us, lots more of us.”
“And more of us,”
Cat said.
“You’re fighting a losing battle.”
As Dylan let the federal officers take Rowena away, he reached for Cat, drawing her to him.
After a moment, she said, “Would you like to hold your nephew?”
He felt his eyes burn with hot tears.
Beau’s son.
He’d feared that he would never get to see him—let alone hold him.
His throat constricted as he nodded, and she put the infant in his arms.
He was almost afraid he would break down when he looked into the infant’s tiny precious face.
What was he going to do with a baby? But then he did look.
He felt a jolt.
Baby Doe was the spitting image of Beau when he was a baby.
He felt his heart fill and he knew.
They were both going to be all right.
Wasn’t this what he’d always wanted, a family? He just hadn’t dreamed of becoming a family like this. But he could do this, he could raise this baby on his own. It was what his brother would have wanted. It was also what he suspected Athena had wanted when she’d tried to reach him.
He glanced up at Cat and smiled through his tears.
She too was crying.
Peering down again at the beautiful baby in his arms, he whispered, “You’re safe now.
We’re going to be just fine, you and me.
You’ll see.”