Grace Anne

chapter 19



Michael collapsed. He’d heard the voices seconds before he’d answered her then, while he was trying to motion for someone to come and help him, he’d heard the gunshot. He held the phone to his ear, trying to hear anything as his father came toward him.

“Someone has Grace. I think it might be Verrie. I have to…call the house. Tell them everything I say.” Michael tried to work around the lump in his throat. “Ask them if Trace is there or if he is with Grace and to come and get me.”

He heard his father talking, but was trying hard to hear anything going on at the other end of Grace’s phone. There was another shot, this one farther away, but nothing more. Then, as his father turned to him, he thought he heard Thomas.

“It’s Cain. He wants to know if she has the same cell phone as before. He said that Shamus has a tracker on it and that they’re headed to it now. And Trace is with someone named Alyssa.”

Michael nodded.

“The cops are on their—”

Michael held up his hand when he heard something and his father closed his mouth with a snap.

“…care what you think. You f*cking moron. If you want to f*ck her, you’ll have to do it after I kill her. She’s caused me enough f*cking problems to last four lifetimes.”

“I’m not f*cking her dead. And I want her awake when it happens. If you so much as put another bullet in her before I get my chance then I’ll…I’ll kill you.”

Michael looked at his dad as he stood in front of him as Thomas spoke. He covered the mouth piece and took a pen from his pocket as he pinched the phone between his shoulder and chin. He wrote the word “Thomas” on his hand, and nodded when Lucas looked up at him sharply.

He heard something thud, then more cussing. He heard someone moan and knew it was Grace. At least she was still alive was all he could think about. Then more doors slamming before the car started. This time when someone spoke it was muffled. He couldn’t make out much, only an occasional word here and there, but not enough to figure out who the woman was and what she was doing with Grace. He had a pretty good idea, but nothing concrete.

When Lucas handed him his cell phone and his mom and he walked away Michael held the phone to his other ear and said hello.

“We’ve pinpointed the area where she is by less than ten feet. It would be better if she hadn’t taken her out in the middle of nowhere, but we know close enough…f*ck,” Payton snapped. “They’re on the move. Could be better this way. They might move into somewhere we can get a better bead on them.”

“Grace is still alive. I can hear them. Thomas is with them. He’s…he wants her. The woman she’s with is saying things that… From what Grace has told me, it could be Verrie, the one who killed the man in her parents’ house when she was a kid.”

Payton would know better than anyone not to give him platitudes or soft words. Like his business dealings, he was more of a “give it to me straight” kind of guy. So he was very grateful for Payton in his next words.

“She can hold her own, but this woman is beyond nuts. We’ve been doing some investigating since you and I’ve talked and we’re reasonably sure she’s responsible for nearly all the killings that have been associated with the family. And I’ve had a buddy of mine doing some looking around on the family property, both here and in California.” Payton paused just enough that Michael knew he wasn’t going to like what he said next. “They’ve been able to uncover at least four bodies here and one in Cali. Two of those here haven’t been in the ground long, the other as recent as the last year. The one they’ve been able to see has been mutilated. We’re waiting on word to see if it was post or during.”

Michael had a feeling that they would find she’d done it while the guy was still living. He shuddered when he thought of what could happen to Grace. The limo pulled up in front of him and slid to a soft stop. He turned his back to it and spoke to Payton again. “Did you send us a car?” Payton said he had and gave him the driver information. “All right. My parents and I are coming there. Tell Trace…tell him we’ll get her back and that I’ll be there soon.”

“Will do,” Payton said. “And Michael, when this is over, I’d like to talk to you about moving here permanently. You and the new family can build and we’ll be all one big, happy clan.”

Michael didn’t say anything. His throat had closed up on the emotion he felt about having a family of his own. He sat in the limo across from the only father he’d ever known and didn’t know what to say to him. He was glad that the man seemed to know this and didn’t speak either for a long time.

“It’s entirely my fault,” Lucas said and before Michael could tell him he was full of shit he raised his hand to stop him. “Just after his mother died I sort of went into a deep sort of depression. He was hurting too, I guess. Though to be honest, I never really thought that Thomas knew his mother all that well. He’d been in trouble a great deal as a child and we ended up having him put…away, I guess. He’d had this…he would kill the neighbor’s animals. Just for fun, he’d told us. It was just a way to pass the time.”

“How old was he?” Joey asked softly. “How old was he when it started and then when he was let go?”

They both looked at Lucas as he shifted on his seat. “Five. His mother died when he was seven so he was in the home for just under two years. And when he came home he was so different. And as long as he took his medications he was the same as every other little boy.”

Michael waited and when Lucas didn’t speak for a while he reached over and took his hand. “What happened to make you not want to be with him anymore? What made you turn from him?”

Lucas turned and looked at him with tears in his eyes. Michael could see the pain there. It was raw and open, nearly as messy as a real wound and no less painful.

“I fell in love with your mother and you. You were the kind of son I wanted. Normal and smart. You seemed to have it all together and knew just what you wanted, what you needed. And then when you signed up for the service I realized that I loved you more than I ever had Thomas and would never feel…I’m such a horrible man.”

The sobs tore through Michael. He didn’t know what to do about what Lucas had just said, so he looked to his mother. She, too, was crying, but her tears were silent. She held onto her husband and said soft words, but nothing that Michael could understand.

“You’re not a horrible man. And I’ll kill anyone who tries to say differently.” Michael looked away as he began telling his parents something he’d never told anyone before. “Thomas was…he’s evil. He’s always been that way, even when we were children. I knew about things, things that I’d never talked about with you, but I learned to watch out for. Things like people around him. He always acted, no matter who they were, that he was above them. And the drugs didn’t help him either.”

“Drugs?” Lucas asked. “I never… Well, I suppose that’s not true either. He seemed to be fine for long periods and, though I should have questioned him, to be honest I was just glad he wasn’t bothering me. And the evil part, I agree. As much as it pains me to say it, he should never have been released from that home. None of this would have happened if I had just—”

“Thomas is with someone who is by far more insane than him. You remember me telling you about Grace’s mother? Well, she has her too. And Thomas is with them. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but the Feds are involved and so are the locals. He killed a cop, Dad. They aren’t going to go easy on him when they find him.”

Lucas nodded. “No. And I hate to say this, but he’s finally getting what he deserves. He’s been doing things to lead up to this his entire life.”

The rest of the ride was made in silence. Michael wanted his Grace back. He wanted to take her to the big bedroom they’d shared the night before he’d been called back and make love to her until neither of them could walk. He wanted children with her, lots of them so that Trace would be a big brother. As soon as they pulled into the drive of the mansion his son came running out of the house and hugged him tight.

“They found a dead man at the end of the drive. Aunt Alyssa said this place is becoming a battle ground.”

Michael picked him up and was glad that he didn’t protest.

“Aunt Sin said as soon as I’m old enough she’s going to teach me how to use a machine gun. She said that way I can protect us all when they get too old to do it themselves.”

Michael looked up at the woman in question and she waved. He was going to have to have a talk with the little woman before she had Trace as scary as she was. He nodded before he spoke to Trace. “You might want to take that up with Grace. She might have a few things to say about that too.” Trace scrambled down and walked with him to the house. “Have they heard anything?”

Michael had lost the connection with the call not long after they’d gotten in the limo. He had called Payton and he’d told him that they still had a bead on the phone and that he would call him as soon as there was anything different. The closer Michael got to the steps, the more worried he got. Something had happened and he was sure it wasn’t good news.

Shamus, Payton, and Sin took him into the large office. His parents were taken to another office by Alyssa and Cain. When his father started crying again and his mother too, he knew that Thomas was dead. He sat down hard in the chair and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Thomas was found about ten minutes ago. Single bullet to the head and then rolled from a moving vehicle. He was dead before anything happened to him,” Sin said in way of starting out. “He was rolled into traffic off of Seventy. Several other vehicles hit him before traffic stopped. They only knew it was him because Verrie Waite called the police station and told them she’d done it and that if they wanted Grace not to suffer the same they were to back the f*ck up.”

“Where are they now? I’m assuming that we didn’t, right?” At Sin’s grin, he knew that they hadn’t. “I’m not sure I like that look. What the hell have you done?”

“She f*cking knows everyone. And if she doesn’t, then Alyssa does,” Shamus said with a grin. He turned a large whiteboard from the books on the shelves lining the walls and pointed to it. “There are four non marked cars following the limo. Hard to hide one of those suckers. The dead man here was one of drivers, so we called them. They have GPS in all their cars so we have a firsthand look at where they’re going.”

He knew there was more, so he waited.

“We have a van at every exit between here and wherever. They take turns going to the next exit with a police escort on the back roads. By the time she passes one of them, there are two more racing to the next exit waiting.” Shamus handed him a thick file. “This is how we’re tracking her.”

There were IP, or Internet protocol, addresses for several different devices. They had a complete picture of every place the limo stopped, hesitated, and… Michael looked up. “You think it’s necessary to know when she rolls down her window? I mean, this is all good shit, but seriously, we know what radio station she’s listening to for Christ’s sake.”

“It’s not to know what she’s listening to, it’s to hear what is being said. We have a direct line into the thing and can control most of the electronics. We could even shut the sucker off is we wanted.” Sin looked at the two men before she continued. “She’s still alive. Verrie, or whoever she is, keeps talking to her and Gracie is moaning. I won’t let anything happen to her, Michael. None of us will.”

“We aren’t stopping it just yet because we need her dead to rights.” Payton flushed. “I could have said that better. So far, all we have her on is kidnapping and maybe the death of the driver, but nothing else. I don’t want her to get off that easily. If she takes Grace somewhere and is prepared, this is all premeditated.”

“So you’re using my future wife as bait.” Michael took a deep breath and tried to reign in his temper. They were playing with his future, his and Grace’s.

“No, we’re using my sister as the way to end all of this,” Sin said softly. “And just so you know, Grace agreed to this.”