Royal Rescue

chapter Fourteen

Her body ached. Not from the explosion or even from running from gunmen. Her body ached from making love. Josie smiled and rolled over, reaching across the bed. The sheets were still warm, tangled and scented with their lovemaking. He’d made love to her again and again until she’d fallen into an exhausted slumber.

And she realized why when she jerked awake to an empty bed. An empty room. He’d left her. She didn’t need to search her house to confirm that he was gone. But she pulled on a robe and checked CJ’s room before she looked through the rest of the house.

Her son slept peacefully, the streetlamp casting light through his bedroom window. It made his red curls glow like fire, reminding her of the explosion.

And she hurried up her search, running through the house before reaching out over the basement stairwell to jerk down the pull chain on the dangling bulb. It swung out over the steps, the light dancing around her as she hurried down to her den. He wasn’t there and neither were her folders.

He had found something in them. What?

What had she had?

Notes she’d taken from the conversations she’d overheard in the bar and from informal interviews she’d done with other members of the O’Hannigan family. News clippings from other reporters who’d covered the story. Sloppily. They hadn’t dug nearly as deep as she had. A copy of the case file from his father’s murder, which she’d bought off a cop on the force. Brendan wasn’t wrong that many people had a price. They could be bought.

But not Charlotte.

Too bad the former U.S. marshal wasn’t close enough to help her now. Maybe Josie wasn’t close enough, either—to stop Brendan from doing what she was afraid he was about to do: either confront or kill his father’s murderer.

“But who? Who is it?” she murmured to herself.

She’d gone through the folders so many times that she pretty much had the contents memorized. Brendan had figured it out; so could she. But she couldn’t let him keep his head start on her. She had to catch up with him.

No doubt he had taken her SUV. But she had another car parked in the garage off the alley, a rattletrap Volkswagen convertible. It wasn’t pretty, but mechanically it should be sound enough to get her back to Chicago. She had bought the car from a student desperate to sell it for money to buy textbooks.

She had never had to struggle for cash as her community college students did. Her father had given her everything she’d ever wanted.

Brendan’s father had not done the same for him. In fact, if rumors could ever be believed, Dennis O’Hannigan had taken away the one thing—the one person—who had mattered most to Brendan: his mother.

Why would he want to avenge the man’s death? Why would he care enough to get justice for him?

Was it a code? Like the one her father had taught her. She shrugged off her concerns for now. She had to wake CJ and take him over to Mrs. Mallory’s.

The little boy murmured in protest as she lifted him from his bed. “C’mon, sweetheart,” she said. “I need to take you to Mrs. M’s.”

He shook his head. “I don’t wanna go. Gotta p’tect you like Daddy said.”

She tensed. “Daddy told you to protect me?”

“Uh-huh,” CJ murmured. “He’s gonna get rid of a bad person and then he’ll come home to us.”

The words her sleepy son uttered had everything falling into place for Josie. Brendan may not have trusted her enough to tell her the truth. But he had inadvertently told their son.

* * *

BRENDAN WASN’T SURE who he could trust, especially now that he knew who’d killed his father. But he knew that Josie had at least one person she could trust—besides himself.

Charlotte Green’s outraged gasp rattled the phone. “You thought I might have given up her location?”

He pressed his fingers to that scratch on his head. If the bullet hadn’t just grazed him...

No, he wouldn’t let himself think about what might have happened to Josie and his son. She’d had the gun though—she would have defended herself and their child.

He glanced around the inside of the surveillance van, which was filled with equipment and people—people he wasn’t sure he should have trusted despite their federal clearances. If U.S. marshals could be bought, so could FBI agents. He lowered his voice. “After gunmen tracked us down at my safe house and tried to kill us...”

“I didn’t even know where you were when you called me, and if I had,” she said, her voice chilly with offended pride, “I sure as well wouldn’t have sent gunmen after you and Josie and my godson.”

He still wasn’t so sure about that. But, he realized, she hadn’t told anyone where she’d relocated Josie. Why keep that secret and reveal anything else?

“You must have been followed,” she said.

He’d thought about that but rejected the notion. “No. Nobody followed us that night.”

“Maybe another night then,” she suggested. “Someone must have figured out where you would take her.”

The only people who knew about the safe house were fellow FBI agents. He glanced around the van, wondering if one of them had betrayed him, if one of them had been bought like Charlotte’s former partner had been bought and like he’d thought she might have been. “You didn’t trace the call?”

“No.”

He snorted in derision. “I thought you were being honest with me. That’s why I trusted you.”

More than he trusted the crew he’d handpicked. The other men messed with the equipment, setting up mikes and cameras, and he watched them—checking to see if anyone had pulled out a phone as he had. But then if they were tipping off someone, they could have made that call already, before they’d joined him.

“But you must have a GPS on that phone you gave her,” he continued, calling her on her lie. “You must have some way to keep tabs on her.”

She chuckled. “Okay, maybe I do.”

That was why he’d left Josie the phone. “That’s what I thought.”

“Until recently she was easy to track,” Charlotte said. “She was at home or the college.”

“Teaching journalism,” he remarked. “That’s why you kept my secret from her. You realized that I had reason to be cautious with her. That no matter how much you changed her appearance or her identity, she was still a reporter.”

“A teacher,” Charlotte corrected him.

He snorted again. “Of journalism.” And she’d still had the inclination to seek out dangerous stories. For her, there was no story more dangerous than this one. He had to make certain she was far away from him.

“Use your GPS,” he ordered, “and tell me where she is now.” Hopefully still at home, asleep in the bed he’d struggled to leave. He had wanted to hold her all night; he’d wanted to hold her forever.

Some strange noise emanated from the phone.

“Charlotte?”

“She’s on the move.”

“But I took her car.” She must have borrowed a neighbor’s or maybe Mrs. Mallory’s. Hopefully, she’d left their son with his babysitter.

“The Volkswagen, too?”

“I didn’t know she had another.” As modestly as she’d been living in that small, outdated house, he hadn’t considered she’d had the extra money for another car.

Charlotte sighed. “I’m surprised that clunker was up to the trip.”

“Trip?”

“She’s in Chicago.”

“Damn it,” he cursed at her. “I could have used you here. I’m surprised you didn’t come to help protect her. She thinks you’re her friend.”

“I am.”

“You’re also a princess. What is it? Couldn’t spare the time from waving at adoring crowds?”

“I’m also pregnant,” she said, and there was that sound again. “And currently in labor...since last night. Or I would have come. I would have sent someone I trusted, but they refused to leave me.”

Brendan flinched at his insensitivity.

“So like you asked me to, I trusted you,” she said. “I thought if anyone would keep Josie safe, it would be the man who loves her.”

“I’m trying,” he said. And the best way to do that was to remove the threat against her.

He glanced at the monitors flanking one side of the surveillance van. One of the cameras caught a vehicle careening down the street, right toward the estate they were watching on the outskirts of Chicago.

For all the rust holes, he couldn’t tell what color the vehicle was. “Her second car,” he said. “Is it an old convertible Cabriolet?” Even though the top was currently up, it looked so frayed that there were probably holes in it, too.

“Yes,” Charlotte said.

“I have to go,” he said, clicking off the cell. But it wasn’t just the call he had to abort. He had to stop the whole operation.

“Block the driveway!” he yelled at one of the men wearing a headset. That agent could communicate with the agents outside the van. But he only stared blankly at Brendan, as if unable to comprehend what he was saying. “Stop the car,” he explained. “Don’t let her get to the house.”

“From the way you’re acting, I’m guessing that’s the reporter you dated,” another of the agents inside the van addressed Brendan. He must have been eavesdropping on his conversation with Charlotte. Or he’d tapped into it. “The one you just discovered was put into witness protection and that she had the evidence all this time?”

This agent was Brendan’s superior in ranking, and even though he had worked with him for years—four years on this assignment alone—he didn’t know him well enough to know about his character.

Could he be trusted?

Could any of them, inside the van or out?

His blood chilled in his veins, and he shook his head, disgusted with himself for giving away Josie’s identity so easily. All of his fellow agents had been well aware of how he’d felt about Josie Jessup.

“It isn’t?” the agent asked.

“No, it’s her,” he admitted. “And that’s why we have to stop her.” Before she confronted face-to-face the person who’d tried to kill her.

The supervising agent shook his head, stopping the man with the headset from making the call to stop her. So Brendan took it upon himself and reached for the handle of the van’s sliding door. But strong hands caught him, holding him back and pinning his arms behind him.

Damn it.

He should have followed his instincts to trust no one. He should have done it alone. But he’d wanted to go through the right channels—had wanted true justice, not vigilante justice. But maybe with people as powerful as these, with people who could buy off police officers and federal agents, the only justice was vigilante.

* * *

HE WAS GOING TO kill her.

Josie had to stop him—had to stop Brendan from doing something he would live to regret. Taking justice into his own hands would take away the chance for him to have a real relationship with his son.

And her?

She didn’t expect him to forgive her for thinking he was a killer. She didn’t expect him to trust her, especially after she’d come here. But she had to stop him.

She hadn’t seen her white SUV along the street or along the long driveway leading up to the house. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t exchanged it for one of those she had seen. The house, a brick Tudor, looked eerily similar to Brendan’s, just on a smaller scale. Like a model of the original O’Hannigan home.

Brendan had to be here. Unless it was already done....

Was she was too late? Had he already taken his justice and left?

The gates stood open, making it easy for her to drive through and pull her Volkswagen up to the house. But she hadn’t even put it in Park before someone was pulling open her door and dragging her from behind the steering wheel. She had no time to reach inside her bag and pull out the gun.

Strong hands held tightly to her arms, shoving her up the brick walk to the front door. It stood open, a woman standing in the doorway as if she’d been expecting her.

Yet she acted puzzled, her brow furrowed as if she was trying to place Josie. Of course, Josie didn’t look the same as she had when she’d informally interviewed Margaret O’Hannigan four years ago. Back then the woman had believed Josie was just her stepson’s girlfriend. And since they’d only met a few times, it was no wonder she wouldn’t as easily see through Josie’s disguise as Brendan had.

But Margaret must have realized she’d given herself up during one of their conversations. That was why Margaret had tried to kill Josie.

While Josie had changed much over the past few years, this woman hadn’t changed at all. She was still beautiful—her face smooth of wrinkles and ageless. Her hair was rich and dark and devoid of any hint of gray despite the fact that she had to be well into her fifties. She was still trim and tiny. Her beauty and fragile build might have been what had fooled Josie into excluding her as a suspect in her husband’s murder.

But now she detected a strength and viciousness about the woman as she stared at Josie, her dark eyes cold and emotionless. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

“Josie Jessup,” she replied honestly. There was no point clinging to an identity that had already been blown.

“Josie Jessup? I thought you were dead,” the woman remarked.

Josie had thought the same of her. That Brendan might have killed her by now.

“Are you responsible for this?” Margaret asked, gesturing toward the open gates and the dark house. An alarm sounded from within, an insistent beeping that must have driven her to the door. “Did you disable the security system, forcing open the gates and unlocking the doors?”

Brendan must have. He was here then. Somewhere. Josie wasn’t too late.

“Search her car,” Margaret ordered the man who’d held her arms.

Josie stumbled forward as he released her. But the woman didn’t step back, didn’t allow Josie inside her house.

“I wouldn’t know how to disable a security system,” Josie assured her. “I am no criminal mastermind.”

“No, you’re a reporter,” Margaret said. “That was why you were always asking all those questions.”

“And you were always eager to answer them,” Josie reminded her. Too eager, since she hadn’t realized she’d given herself away. But then neither had Josie. She still wasn’t sure exactly what it was in those folders that had convinced Brendan of the woman’s guilt. “You were eager to point the blame at your stepson.”

“A man shouldn’t benefit from a murder he committed,” she said, stubbornly clinging to her lies.

“Brendan didn’t kill his father,” Josie said, defending the man she loved.

Margaret smiled, but her eyes remained cold. “You weren’t so convinced back then. You suspected him just like everyone else.”

“And just like everyone else, I was wrong,” Josie admitted. “But you knew that.”

The woman tensed and stepped out from the doorway. She held a gun in her hand.

For protection? Because of the security breach? Or because someone had tipped her off that either Brendan or Josie was coming to confront her?

“How would I know something that the authorities did not?” Margaret asked, but a small smile lifted her thin lips. “They all believed Brendan responsible, as well.”

“But they could never find proof.”

“Because he was clever.”

“Because he was innocent.”

The woman laughed. “You loved him.”

It wasn’t a question, so Josie didn’t reply. Or deny what was probably pathetically obvious to everyone but Brendan.

“That’s a pity,” the woman commiserated. “It’s not easy to love an O’Hannigan. At least you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

“I don’t?” Josie asked.

“Brendan is dead.”

Pain clutched her heart, hurting her as much as if the woman had fired a bullet into her heart. He’d already been here. And gone.

“You didn’t know?” Margaret asked. “Some journalist you are. How did you miss the reports?”

Had his death already made the news? The Volkswagen had no radio—just a hole in the dash where one had once been. The kid who’d sold her the auto had been willing to part with his car but not his sound system.

Margaret sighed regretfully. “And it was such a beautiful estate. I’d hoped to return there one day.”

“The house?”

“It blew up...with Brendan inside.” Margaret shook her head. “Such a loss.” With a nasty smile, she clarified, “The house, not Brendan.”

The explosion. She was talking about the explosion. Brendan wasn’t dead. Relief eased the horrible tightness in Josie’s chest, but the sigh she uttered was of disgust with the woman. “How can you be so...”

“Practical?” Margaret asked. “It’s so much better than being a romantic fool.”

Josie hadn’t been a fool for being romantic; she’d been a fool for doubting Brendan. Then. And maybe now.

If he’d intended to kill his stepmother, wouldn’t he have already been here? Where was he?

“You’re better off,” Margaret assured her. “You were stupid to fall for him.”

“You didn’t love your husband?” Josie asked. That would explain how she’d killed him in cold blood.

She chuckled. “My mama always told me that it was easier to love a rich man than a poor man. My mama had never met Dennis O’Hannigan.” She shuddered but her grip stayed steady on the gun. “You were lucky to get away from his son.”

“Brendan is—was—” she corrected herself. It was smarter to let the woman think the explosion she’d ordered had worked. “He was nothing like his father.”

“You don’t believe that or you wouldn’t have gone into hiding,” Margaret remarked. “You even changed your hair and your face. You must have really been afraid of him.”

She had spent almost four years being afraid of the wrong person.

“Were you afraid of his father?” Josie asked.

Margaret shrugged her delicate shoulders. “A person would have been crazy to not be afraid of Dennis.”

Dennis wasn’t the only O’Hannigan capable of inspiring fear. Neither was Brendan.

Despite her small stature, Margaret O’Hannigan was an intimidating woman.

So Josie should have held her tongue. She should have stopped asking her questions. But maybe Brendan was right—maybe she wasn’t capable of not being a journalist. Because she had to know...

Even if the question cost her everything, she had to ask, “Is that why you killed him?”