“I don’t know.” But a low, uneasy gnawing had started in Reid’s belly. The itch of something dark and dangerous tickled his spine. His premonitions weren’t often wrong. Could the shooter have been sent because they were found snooping in Hugh Barrington’s office?
“Reid? What?” Pen stepped in front of him, one hand fisting on his shirtfront. “You look like someone just walked on your grave.”
He tried to shake off the gut feeling about Barrington. “It’s...nothing. I—”
Barrington’s involvement in the attack seemed unlikely on the surface. First, it had been no more than two hours since they’d been at the Barrington estate. Sure, they’d detoured by the park for their talk, so there might have been time to call a hit man if the butler had reported their activity to Barrington the minute they left. Or could Stanley have called in the shooter, with or without Barrington’s knowledge?
No coincidences...
Reid’s jaw tightened, and his gut knotted as he tried to decipher the unlikely turn of events when Penelope gasped in terror. She grabbed both of Reid’s arms and rasped, “Nicholas!”
Reid blinked once as his brain shifted gears, following her line of thought, and a bolt of fear shot to his heart.
“If this was targeted at me...or related to Andrew, they...” She seemed to have trouble catching her breath. “They could go after Nicholas! I have to get him from the church. Now!” She wrenched herself out of his grip, her steps unsteady as she spun away.
“Pen, slow down. Don’t panic.” He scrubbed a hand down his cheek, thinking fast. “We can’t take my truck. The cops will need it for the crime scene. Where are your keys?”
“H-here.” She fumbled for a moment in her pocketbook before dumping the contents, including the jewelry box, on the street. She grabbed her keys and phone, shoved the necklace and her wallet back in the purse and started at a run for her driveway.
“Tell the cops we’ll be back. We have to get her kid!” he shouted to the elderly man who, at their abrupt departure, sent a startled look after them.
“I’ll drive!” he shouted, and she tossed him the keys over the hood of her Ford Explorer. Gunning the engine, he pealed out of her driveway and raced back toward the neighborhood entrance.
“Buckle up and hold on,” he told her as he punched the gas.
He’d lied to her neighbor. If someone was trying to kill Penelope, even just maybe, he would not be bringing her or her small son back to her house. Andrew’s family was now officially in protective custody, Reid Colton–style.
*
Penelope wouldn’t take an easy breath until Nicholas was in her arms. She squeezed the armrest of her Explorer as Reid whizzed down back streets, taking the shortest route to the church.
As Reid drove to the church, she’d shed her sweatshirt, just in case there were still bits of embedded glass clinging to it, and used the brush from the gym bag she kept in the backseat to rid her hair of any last shards before retrieving her son.
The velvet box of jewels peeked up at her from her purse, and she frowned. “Do you think... Is it possible someone knew we had the jewels with us? That it was a failed robbery attempt?”
“I think you’re on the right track, but I don’t think it is about the jewels.”
The hard line of Reid’s mouth sent a frisson of something cold and dark to her soul. “What are you saying?”
“Think about it, Pen. Your father’s butler saw us in his office. He has to know by now that we were there snooping. That we were in his safe.”
“My father! You think my father sent that man to shoot us?” She chortled a scoff of disbelief. But fingers of fear and doubt squeezed her heart. “My father...”
Every time she repeated the assertion, a tiny piece of her skepticism chipped away. Could Hugh Barrington, who’d never been especially warm or generous with her, who’d coldly ignored her mother in the last months of her illness—who kept a getaway stash in his safe—really be as cruel and heartless, as criminally cold-blooded, as to put a hit on her and Reid to protect his own interests?
Nausea swelled in her gut. She wanted desperately to deny it. And yet...Andrew had been keeping a file on him. Someone had replaced Andrew’s insulin with potassium chloride.
“But...we were only in his office a couple hours ago. For him to have arranged a hit on us that quickly would mean—”
“Stanley was on the phone to him before we made it back to my truck. I guarantee that.”
She turned a stunned look to Reid, her insides churning. Her father!
“Does it really surprise you that your father could have a gunman for hire in his little black book? With one call he could have made the arrangements, given the guy your address, knowing eventually you’d have to go back to your house.”
Acid built in her stomach as the harsh truth settled like a rock. “Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over!” she shouted, even as she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the passenger door.
He braked hard, swerving to the curb just as she stumbled out of the Explorer and indelicately lost her lunch on the side of the road.
“Pen!” His voice held a sharp note of concern.
She waved a hand behind her, as she coughed and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I... I’m okay,” she lied. She was trembling to her core. Heartsick. Terrified. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.
She flopped back onto the passenger seat and motioned for him to drive on. “Go. Hurry. We have to get Nicholas, before...”
She closed her eyes, not allowing herself to finish the thought. Nicholas had to be all right. She simply couldn’t live with any other possibility.