Redeeming Page 17

  And it would definitely be fulfilling, to say the least. To wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face once and for all. Show him that every action of his would have repercussions forever.

  Or she could use it to take away all that mattered from him, the way he’d threatened all that mattered to her.

  Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. She’d had those Bible verses drilled into her head as a child in parochial school, and it was one of the few that had stuck with her to this day.

  She could take from him. Right now. No one was paying attention to her corner of the restaurant. Just open her purse, pull out her weapon, and it was done.

  Tempting, so very, very tempting.

  But that would be a rash decision, and patience had been what had protected her all of her life. Waiting, watching, making the smart decision—that was how she had survived this long.

  And when a family of four walked in, the youngest a blond boy who reminded her so much of Gregory when he was still a toddler, her decision as cemented. She’d not do anything in front of a small child.

  Children deserved to be protected, no matter what the sacrifice.

  Her gun would stay in her purse for a little while longer.

  Ten minutes later, Lucas and the other man at his table stood, along with one of the bodyguards. They left and she was torn for a moment. Should she follow Lucas?

  Or stay with the woman who so obviously mattered so much to him?

  The woman.

  She was very curious about the woman who had captured Davis Lucas.

  ***

  She followed the two women and the African American bodyguard when they left the café. She suspected where they were going. Lucas Tech stood center of the street, it’s green and white logo a beacon for her eyes. He had everything; even his real estate was larger than life.

  Had he and his bodyguards gone inside yet? Had they opened the drawer where Rodney’s little surprise waited?

  She was fifty feet behind Lucas’s whore when the building exploded in front of her.

  And then she had the choice to make—go back or go forward. Toward the chaos.

  ***

  She kept going. No one tried to stop her, everyone lost in their own little world of panic. She watched the bodyguards act; they knocked the girl completely to the ground and covered her. Protected her. Lucas apparently payed his people well enough not to turn tail and run at the first sign of real trouble.

  The three were getting to their feet; she was maybe twenty yards from where they were. The man, big and black and handsome, was on his feet. The dark-haired woman was helping Lucas’s whore to her feet. The blonde was bleeding, her face raw and nasty.

  She wasn’t so pretty now, was she?

  She followed.

  Had Lucas set off Rodney’s handiwork? Her son was extremely intelligent; he wouldn’t have designed a device that didn’t accomplish what he’d intended to accomplish.

  But if Lucas had survived the explosion, what would be the best way to hurt him?

  The answer was so clear to her that she didn’t even need to think it.

  But how was she supposed to get the woman away from the bodyguards?

  Simple. By getting the bodyguards away from the woman.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Fire engines cut them off, and Paige and Terrance kept Payton between them. Not that she was really aware of them. She just wanted Luc. Between that thought and the headache from where her skull had landed between Paige’s arm and the sidewalk were all that consumed her.

  People were still running past them and Paige yelled at her to stay close. Payton understood the threat; trampling deaths were common in large panicked crowds. And this was one of the busiest streets in the area. There were far more people out than she would ever have expected. But where was Luc?

  She couldn’t hear anything but the roar of sirens, but she heard the gunshots.

  Saw the blood bloom on Terrance’s chest. Paige grabbed for him, but was too slow and Terrance was too heavy. He fell, half pulling Paige with him. Payton dropped to her knees beside him, pulling her sweatshirt free from around her waist and pushing it against the blood stains.

  Paige looked up at her. “Payton, get in the alley. Behind the dumpster. Stay there until it’s safe.”

  “Wait? What are you doing? Paige?” Paige was pushing at her, but Payton refused to budge. “I’m staying!”

  “Dammit, Payton! Go!”

  There was a blur behind Paige and then Paige was falling, too. Straight onto Terrance. Payton screamed, the sound blending into the chaos around them.

  She grabbed for Paige but the other woman was out cold.

  Payton looked up at the blonde woman standing above them.

  The woman had a gun, and it was pointed directly at the back of Paige’s head.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Payton knew her, didn’t she? Wasn’t this woman someone she’d met at the mayor’s dinner so many weeks ago? Judith, or something. She couldn’t remember. Why had she done this?

  “Stand up. Walk toward the alley.”

  “Why should I?”

  “You’re not a stupid woman. On your feet. I’ve already shot one person; it would take nothing to simply put a bullet in this woman’s head and walk away. Then you. It all ends the same for us both.”

  “And just how is that?” Payton stood. “Why did you do this?”

  “Simple. Sometimes it takes a woman to clean up a mess. You understand that I’m sure.”

  “What kind of mess are you talking about?” Was Paige moving? Payton forced herself to stay calm, to stall as long as possible. Someone had seen something, hadn’t they?

  She’d worked in the law enforcement field long enough to know that wasn’t a guarantee, by any means. There were people everywhere on the street, but that didn’t mean any of them were aware of what was going right in front of them.

  “Just walk. That way.” Toward an alley. Payton pulled in a deep breath to steady herself. She needed to think. She couldn’t go down that alley.

  “What are you after? What did I—or Paige, or Terrance—do to you to warrant hurting them like this?”

  “What am I after? You really shouldn’t have to ask.”

  The connections were there. “Luc. You’re after Luc, aren’t you?”

  “The illusive Davis Lucas, also known as Lucifer. He certainly has been Satan for my business lately.”

  “And just what business is that?” What was she supposed to do? This was the kind of stuff that happened to Paige and Alessandra, even Cody, but never Payton. “Why are you after Luc? Did you bomb his office?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Is he dead?” She had to ask it, had to know.

  “I don’t know if he is or not. And it doesn’t matter to me one way or another. That’s not the purpose I have in mind.”

  “So why did you shoot Terrance?”

  “Presentation. And expediency.” The woman nudged Payton with the gun.

  Payton stopped walking. “Don’t do that again.”

  “Foolishly brave.”

  “Nothing to lose.” She didn’t know where the courage came from, but it was there. “I’m not walking until you explain what’s going on.”

  “Simple. I need to be seen, make my entrance onto this stage. You’re my ticket.”

  “You know, maybe I am just stupid. Because how can I help you do anything when I don’t know what’s going on?” Dear God, hopefully Paige would wake up and realize Payton needed help. Somehow. But…how hard had the woman hit her? Paige had had several concussions in the last six months, hadn’t she?

  What if something happened to her like happened to boxers who’d been hit in the head too often? Was Paige already dead? Dying? What about Terrance?

  She pushed thoughts of Luc out of her mind, thoughts of the others she cared about, but especially of Luc. If she let herself think of him as gone, she’d never be
able to figure out what to do here. She had to think, had to keep herself from doing anything idiotic.

  Because if Luc wasn’t dead, he’d be coming for her soon.

  She needed to be alive when he got there. This woman was not going to hurt him.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Damn. Paige’s head hurt again. And this was nothing like the headaches she’d been plagued with since just after Thanksgiving. Those irritations didn’t hold a candle to the pain she felt right now.

  What had happened?

  She was lying on something soft…and wet. The air smelled like smoke and charred building. She’d smelled that a time or dozen in her life, that was for sure. She also smelled copper. Blood.

  Someone nearby was bleeding; was it her? She put one hand on her head. There was definite blood, but the wound didn’t seem that deep. But the blood beneath her was.

  Paige opened her eyes.

  And stared into the pain fogged brown ones of her brother’s bodyguard. Everything came rushing back.

  The crowd had thinned, hadn’t it? Everything that had happened had probably gone down in less than ten minutes, though time had seemed to stand still for a while. But the initial rush of panic on the streets had settled.

  The first responders and fire crews were setting up, getting into position to prevent anyone else from being injured or killed.

  Hands grabbed her around the waist and lifted her to her feet. She started to fight, but then looked at who had her. A firefighter.

  She recognized him. He’d been the one to help her out of the PAVAD basement when the place had blown around her, Al, and Payton. She’d gone to the movies with him a time or two.

  Payton! Where in the hell was Payton? She fought off the firefighter’s hands.

  She studied the area—where would Payton have gone? She had to be nearby.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  It took him too damned long to find Brockman, and for the first time he cursed the sheer size of the building. Once the dust settled a bit more he took a look around and realized just how damned lucky he had been. Not much remained of the west side of the building. His office had sat at the very top of the west side. No more.

  He found Brockman’s leg first. His breath froze for a moment until he realized the man in question was still attached.

  “Brockman, you son-of-a-bitch, can you hear me?”

  “I’m not dead or deaf, though the head is still ringing. Yours?”

  “Still attached.”

  “Damned bloody.” Brockman was looking at him, but it was clear that the bigger guy couldn’t go anywhere for a while. Luc bent down and pulled at some of the debris. “That going to be a problem?”

  “Head feels like someone took a bat to it. But like I said, it’s still attached. Things could be a whole lot worse. This shit stuck in you anywhere?”

  “I don’t think so. Just heavy.” Brockman pushed at a huge chunk of wall that was on top of his abdomen. “If we can leverage it, I can get out. And we can get out of here.”

  It took a few minutes, but Luc was finally able to find a piece of lumber strong enough to work. He jammed it under the wall segment and lifted. The debris slowly lifted.

  Brockman grunted and slid out. He got to his feet, a bit unsteady, but he was up.

  Luc felt a little better about the situation. No one was dead, yet.

  That was always a good sign, wasn’t it?

  He stayed at the other man’s side, not wholly convinced the guy didn’t have internal injuries or something. “We need to find a way out of here.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem.” Brockman pointed to what used to be the front entry, sixty feet away. The glass was gone.

  But the door hung neatly in the frame.

  Luc ran, his thoughts only for Payton.

  Brockman lumbered behind him.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Payton walked as slowly as possible, determined not to make anything easy for this woman. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name. We met once, didn’t we?”

  “Do you really think this is the time for idle chatting?”

  “Do you really think this is going to work? There are tons of people around, and Luc has at least one other bodyguard around. They’ll realize I’m gone or they’ll find Paige. She’s Luc’s sister, you know, and an FBI agent. She’s going to get some attention. And Luc—Luc won’t stop until he finds me. He’s like that with the people that he loves. And he can be very, very dangerous. Are you sure you want to mess with him?”

  “I’ll do what I must in order to get what I must. What I want.”

  “And what is that? Can you at least tell me why you’re doing this? I’m assuming you’re responsible for that whole mess at Luc’s office?” Payton turned to face her, and forced herself to ignore the small caliber weapon pointed at her chest. “What do you hope to accomplish here? You’re going to get caught.”

  “Exactly. That’s exactly what I need to do.” The woman’s gaze was steady, calm, collected. That terrified Payton.

  “What about your son?” She’d met him, hadn’t she? She may have even danced with him that night. “I met him, I think. Very nice and very handsome.”

  If anything the woman’s focus sharpened. “Yes, he is. A far better catch than Davis Lucas. At least my sons understand how business is conducted.”

  “And how is that?”

  “With dignity and without poaching someone else’s territory.”

  “How did Luc do that?” Keep her talking. That’s what she should do. Wasn’t that something Cody had always said worked in these types of situations. Keep the subject talking until help could arrive?

  Hopefully help would arrive soon, because she didn’t know how much longer she could keep doing this.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Paige saw the woman and Payton as soon as she entered the alley. The woman wasn’t even making an effort to hide what she was doing. Why?

  Paige had her weapon drawn, and she approached the pair steadily. “Put the gun down and put your hands on your head.”

  The woman looked at her for a moment, and Paige cataloged her quickly. Fifties, blonde, blue-eyed, expensively dressed. It took her a minute to place her. Judith Buenavista, mother of the man they’d arrested yesterday. Was this her revenge against Luc for her son?

  It did make sense.

  “Put the gun down.”

  “No. I don’t think I will. You see, men like Davis Lucas need to be kept in their place.”

  “And what place is that?”

  “Out of mine. There’s etiquette to this sort of thing, and I’ve been building that supply chain since the two of you were in diapers. He had no right to interfere. Payton, I suggest you move here, please.”

  Payton complied, her gaze meeting Paige’s. Payton was terrified, but she was holding herself together. Payton had an inner core of strength that Paige had always admired; she’d shown it to Paige the first time when the lab had exploded around them. Paige would get her friend out of this safely, somehow.

  She’d dealt with confrontational suspects—even armed ones—many times. But never had the woman her brother loved been in the middle of it.

  How was Paige supposed to end this without something going horribly wrong?

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Payton had never been happier to see Paige than in that moment. And Paige had her gun pointed straight at the woman. “What about your son? Do you think he wants to hear about his mother being killed by the FBI while he’s waiting in a jail cell? What do you think that would do to him? It would devastate him. He loves you, I could see that when we danced.”

  “You danced with Rodney?”

  “At the mayor’s dinner. He obviously takes a great deal of pride in you and what you’ve managed all these years.” Payton shifted a bit to the left. She needed to get out of the woman’s line of fire, so that Paige could do what had to be done.

  But the woman kept the gun trained right on Payton.


  “Rodney is a fine man, and an outstanding businessman. He always understood, from the very beginning, how this business should work. He’s had a few slipups in the past, but he’s always managed to come out on top. He will be fine once I settle things.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” Paige asked. “He’s been arrested, he’s confessed, and I’ve seen the evidence for myself. Your son is guilty and it’s just a matter of time before we shut down the entire operation.”

  “My son only did what I told him to. I involved him in it. You think he would have had the connections and the knowledge to build this without me? I’ve been using this city to move merchandize for twenty-three years. I’ve made millions for my family. Millions. He’s only been involved with the supply chain for four years. And at first he didn’t even know what it was we were shipping and receiving.”

  “What it was? It was young girls. Innocent children who didn’t ever deserve to be treated that way.” Payton couldn’t keep her mouth shut. This woman didn’t care, to her each girl she’d bought or sold was nothing, just a commodity. Nothing. How could she face herself each day? “How could you do that? You’re a woman, a mother, what if it was your son who was treated that way?”

  “But it wasn’t. And the business supported that son. A mother is supposed to provide for and protect her children. And that’s what I’ve done. And what I will continue to do. Davis Lucas will not stop me.”

  The woman wasn’t crazy, at all, was she? That was the most terrifying part of it all. The woman was coldly rational. Calculating and uncaring. Payton could barely fathom it. What had done this to this woman? Or had she always been evil and morally corrupted?