Royal Rescue

chapter Fifteen

Brendan fought against the men holding him. He shoved back with his body and his head. He knocked the back of his skull against one man’s nose, dropping him to the floor while the other stumbled into the equipment. Then he whipped a gun from his holster and whirled to confront his attackers.

Men he had hoped he could trust: fellow FBI agents.

“I should have known,” he berated himself. “I should have known the leak was inside the Bureau. I should have known there was no one I could trust.”

Special Agent Martinez, the man supervising the assignment, calmly stared down the barrel of Brendan’s gun. “I’ve heard about this happening to agents like you, ones who’ve been undercover more than they’ve been out. Ones who get so paranoid of the lives they’re living that they lose their grasp on reality. On sanity. You’re losing it, O’Hannigan.”

“No, we’re losing her,” Brendan said, as one of the monitors showed Josie walking inside the house with a killer. Margaret O’Hannigan held a gun, too, pointed at the woman he loved.

“We’ve got the house wired,” Martinez reminded him. “We’re going to hear everything that they say.”

“But the plan was for me to get her to talk,” he said and lowered the gun to his side. He wasn’t going to use it. Yet...

Martinez nodded in agreement. “But once she sees you’re alive, you wouldn’t get anything out of her.”

“Neither will Josie,” he argued.

“Josie Jessup is a reporter.” Martinez was the one who’d confirmed Brendan’s suspicions about it, who’d tracked her back to the stories written under the pseudonym of Jess Ley. “A damn good one. She fooled you four years ago.”

And allowing himself to be deceived and distracted had nearly gotten Brendan thrown off the case. But because he’d inherited his father’s business, he had been the only one capable of getting inside the organization and taking it apart, as the FBI had been trying to do for years.

“She won’t fool Margaret.” Because Margaret had fooled them all for years. Even his father.

Martinez shook his head. “She’s Stanley Jessup’s daughter. She has a way of making people talk. She knows what buttons to push, what questions to ask.”

That was what Brendan was afraid of—that she’d push the wrong buttons. “If Margaret admits anything to her, it’s only because she intends to kill her.”

“Then we’ll go in,” Martinez assured him. “The evidence you found got us the federal warrants for the surveillance. But there isn’t enough for an arrest. We need a confession. You were the one who pointed that out.”

And he’d intended to get the confession himself. He hadn’t intended to use Josie—to put her in danger. Their son needed his mother; Brendan needed her, too.

On the surveillance monitors, one of Margaret’s bodyguards walked into the house, something swinging from the hand that wasn’t holding a gun.

“We won’t get there fast enough to save her,” Brendan said, as foreboding and dread clutched his heart. The van was parked outside the gates. Even though they were open, thanks to the security system being dismantled, they were still too far down the driveway.

“There are guys closer,” Martinez reminded him.

But were they guys he could trust? Could he really trust anyone?

* * *

SHE SHOULD HAVE trusted Brendan. Just because he’d discovered the identity of his father’s killer didn’t mean he was going to avenge the man’s death.

But she’d thought the worst of him again. And she’d worried that CJ would lose his father before he ever got a chance to really know him. Now a gun was pointed at her, and the risk was greater that CJ would lose his mother. At least he had his godmother; Charlotte would take him. She would protect him as Josie had failed to do.

With the lights off and the draperies pulled, it was dark inside the house—nearly as dark as if night had fallen already. Except a little sliver of sunlight sneaked through a crack in the drapes and glinted off the metal of Margaret O’Hannigan’s gun.

She looked much more comfortable holding a weapon than Josie was. Maybe she should reach for hers. Her purse was on the hardwood floor next to where Margaret had pushed her down onto the couch. Even the inside of the home was a replica of Dennis O’Hanningan’s.

“Are you insinuating that I killed my husband? What the hell are you talking about?” the older woman demanded to know.

“The truth.” A concept that Josie suspected Margaret O’Hannigan was not all that familiar with. “And I’m not insinuating. I’m flat-out saying that you’re the one. You killed Brendan’s father.”

“How dare you accuse me of killing my husband!” she exclaimed, clearly offended, probably not because Josie thought her capable of murder but because she hadn’t gotten away with it.

Hell, she would still probably get away with it. Josie glanced down at her bag again. She needed to grab her gun, needed to defend herself. But then it was no longer just the two of them.

Heavy footsteps echoed on the hardwood flooring. “There was nothing in her car,” the man who had dragged Josie from the Volkswagen informed his boss as he joined them inside the house. “But this.”

Josie turned to see CJ’s booster seat dangling from his hand.

“You have a child?” Margaret asked.

She could have lied, claimed she’d borrowed a friend’s car. But she was curious. Would Margaret spare her because she was a mother? “Why does it matter that I have a son?”

“How old is he?” Margaret asked.

“Three.” Too young to lose his mother, especially as she’d been the only parent he’d ever known until a day ago.

Margaret shook her head. “No. No. No...”

“It’s okay,” Josie said. “You can let me go. I don’t really know anything. I have no proof that you killed Dennis O’Hannigan.”

The man glanced from her to Margaret and back. Had he not worked for her back then? Had he not realized his employer was a killer?

Maybe he would protect her from the madwoman.

“You have something far worse,” Margaret said. “You have Brendan O’Hannigan’s son.”

“Wh-what?”

“The last time I saw you, I suspected you were pregnant,” Margaret admitted. “You were—” her mouth twisted into a derisive smirk “—glowing.”

Josie hadn’t even known she was pregnant then. She hadn’t known until after her big fight with Brendan, until after she’d had the car accident when her brakes had given out and she’d been taken to the hospital. That was when she’d learned she carried his child.

“You—you don’t know that my son is Brendan’s,” Josie pointed out.

“All I’ll have to do is see a picture,” she said. She pointed toward Josie’s purse and ordered her employee, “Go through that.”

He upended the contents of the bag, the gun dropping with a thud to the floor.

“You should have used that while you had the chance,” Margaret said. “I didn’t waste my chance.”

“Are you talking about now?” Josie wondered. “Or when you shot your husband in the alley behind O’Hannigan’s?” She suspected this woman was cold-blooded enough to have done it personally.

The man handed over Josie’s wallet to his boss. The picture portfolio hung out of it, the series of photos a six-month progression of CJ from infancy to his birthday a couple of months ago. Usually people smiled when they saw the curly-haired boy. But his step-grandmother glowered.

“Damn it,” Margaret cursed. “Damn those O’Hannigan eyes.”

Josie could not deny her son’s paternity. “Why do you care that Brendan has—had—a son?”

“Because I am not about to have another damn O’Hannigan heir come out of the woodwork again and claim what is rightfully mine,” she replied angrily. “I worked damn hard for it. I earned it.”

“So you didn’t kill your husband because you were afraid of him. You killed him because you wanted his fortune,” Josie mused aloud.

The woman’s eyes glittered with rage and her face—once so beautiful—contorted into an ugly mask. “He was going to divorce me,” she said, outraged at even the memory. “After all those years of putting up with his abuse, he was going to leave me. Claimed he never loved me.”

“You never loved him, either,” Josie pointed out.

“That was why it felt so damn good to pull the trigger,” she admitted gleefully. “To see that look of surprise on his face as I shot him right in the chest. He had no idea who he was married to—had no idea that I could be as ruthless as he was. And that I was that good a shot.”

So she had fired the gun herself. And apparently she’d taken great pleasure from it. Josie had no hope of this callous killer sparing her life.

Margaret chuckled wryly. “The coroner said the bullet hit him right in the heart. I was surprised because I didn’t figure he had one.”

“Then why did you marry him?”

“For the same reason I killed him—for the money,” she freely admitted.

She stepped closer and pointed the barrel right at Josie’s head. “So your kid is damn well not going to come forward and claim it from me now.”

Margaret thought Brendan was dead—that CJ was the only threat to her inheriting now. But if Brendan had really died, the estate would go to his heirs, not his stepmother. Then Josie remembered that Dennis O’Hannigan had had a codicil in his will that only an O’Hannigan would hold deed to the estate. Before Brendan had accepted his inheritance, he’d had to sign a document promising to leave it only to an O’Hannigan. Margaret must have thought she was the only one left.

“He’s only three years old,” Josie reminded her. “He’s not going to take anything away from you.”

“I didn’t think Brendan would, either. After he ran away I thought he was never coming back.” She sighed. “I thought his dad had made sure he could never come back, the same way that he had made sure Brendan’s mother could never come back.”

“You thought Dennis had killed him?”

“He should have,” Margaret said. The woman wasn’t just greedy; she was pure evil. “Then I wouldn’t have had that nasty surprise.”

She was going to have another one when she learned that once again Brendan wasn’t dead. But if he wasn’t...where was he? Shouldn’t he have been here before now?

Could someone else have hurt him? Or maybe the authorities had brought him in for questioning about the explosion and the shootings at the hospital....

Maybe if she bided her time...

But Margaret pressed the gun to Josie’s temple as if ready to squeeze the trigger. The burly guard flinched as if he could feel Josie’s pain. “Now you are going to tell me where you’ve left your brat so we can make sure I don’t get another nasty surprise.”

“He doesn’t need your money,” Josie pointed out. “He’s a Jessup. My father has more money than CJ will ever be able to spend.”

“CJ?”

Josie bit her tongue, appalled that she’d given away her son’s name. Not that his first name alone would lead the woman to him.

“So where is CJ?”

“Someplace where you can’t get to him,” Josie assured herself more than the boy’s step-grandmother. He was safe now, and Brendan would make certain he stayed that way. No matter what happened to her.

“You’ll tell me,” Margaret said as she slid her finger onto the trigger.

Uncaring that the barrel was pressed to her temple, Josie shook her head. “You might as well shoot me now, because I will never let you get to my son.”

The trigger cocked, and Josie closed her eyes, waiting for it. Would it hurt? Or would it be over so quickly she wouldn’t even realize it?

The gun barrel jerked back so abruptly that Josie’s head jerked forward, too. “Help me persuade her,” Margaret ordered her guard.

And Josie’s head snapped again as the man slapped her. Her cheek stung and her eyes watered as pain overwhelmed her.

“Where is he?” Margaret asked.

Josie shook her head.

And the man slapped her again.

A cry slipped from her mouth as her lip cracked from the blow. Blood trickled from the stinging wound. “I’m never going to tell you where my son is,” she vowed. “I don’t care how many times you hit me.”

“I care.”

Josie looked up to see Brendan saunter into the living room as nonchalantly as if he were just joining them for drinks. But instead of bringing a bottle of wine, he’d brought a gun—which he pointed directly at Margaret. Probably because she had whirled toward him with her weapon.

But her guard had pulled his gun, and he pressed the barrel to Josie’s head. Brendan may have intended to rescue her, but Josie had a horrible feeling that they were about to make their son an orphan.

She should have thought it out before she’d chased after Brendan. She had been concerned about CJ losing his father, but now he might lose both his parents.

* * *

“I THOUGHT YOU were dead,” Margaret said, slinging her words at him like an accusation.

“You keep making that mistake,” Brendan said. “Guess that’s just been wishful thinking on your part.”

“I thought the explosion killed you.”

“You were behind that?”

“I wanted you dead,” she admitted, without actually claiming responsibility.

But she’d already confessed to enough to go away for a long time. Martinez had been right about Josie making her talk. Now that Josie had gotten what they’d wanted, he needed to get her to safety.

“I’ve wanted you dead for a long time,” Margaret continued. “This time I’ll personally make sure you’re gone. You’ve disrupted my plans for the last time.” She cocked her gun at him now. “Then we’ll retrieve your son.”

She gestured at Josie as if they were co-conspirators. Had she not heard anything Josie had said to her? Josie would die before she would give up her son’s location. That was what a mother should be like. CJ was one lucky boy. And Brendan would make sure they were reunited soon.

But Margaret was not done. She was confessing to crimes she had yet to commit. Crimes that Brendan would make damn certain she never got the chance to commit. “And when I get rid of that kid, I’ll be making damn sure there will be no more O’Hannigans.”

“You’re the one who’ll be going away forever,” Brendan warned her as he cocked his gun. But if he shot her, would the guy holding Josie surrender or kill her?