72 Hours Page 3

  “Just a job,” he said. “It’s me, remember? The guy who doesn’t know how not to work?”

  “Devlin told you I was coming?”

  Alex nodded, hating the lie even more when looking her in the eye. “But not why.”

  She took a deep breath, and he noted the slight hitch. “I need to know…I need—”

  Damn. Alex rested his hand on his hip, closer to the Glock tucked at the small of his back. This woman never needed anything, especially from him. But today…something was very wrong.

  He blinked. Her arm moved. He blinked again, and found himself staring straight down the barrel of her Sig .38.

  “I need you to get dressed and come with me, Alex.”

  He spent a few seconds eyeing the barrel of the gun while he slow-breathed his pulse rate down.

  What the hell was Grace into? And who was she into it with? She was supposed to be doing boring-as-hell computer support for the feds, not kidnapping people at gunpoint.

  He shifted his gaze to her eyes, and he found no give there. No doubt about it. He either had to pack a bag or incapacitate her.

  “I want you to untie that drawstring and let your pants fall to the floor.”

  “Interesting foreplay technique, sweetheart. New since last time we were together, isn’t it? A little rough is one thing, but this…”

  “Let the pants drop, Alex. And let the Glock go with them.” She knew him well, but he knew her, too. Oh, she sounded cool enough, but he saw the flush on her neck. Saw her nipples harden under the light sweater.

  And felt the hot rush of victory. Game over.

  With slow, deliberate ease Alex pulled the ends of the drawstrings loose. Wait for it.

  He ran his thumbs around the front of the waistband, loosening it, and the weight of the Glock drew the silk fabric low on his hips.

  Grace’s eyes slid down to his groin.

  He dove, launching himself at her midsection. He heard the air whoosh from her lungs as he swept his arm up and sent the Sig clattering to the opposite side of the room.

  He managed to slip his hand under her head before it bounced off the floor. Grace was pinned under his body, and he squeezed his thighs together just in time to block her jabbing knee.

  The Glock had slipped down into the leg of the pajamas now bound uncomfortably around his thighs, but he didn’t need it. Didn’t want it. He’d shot her once, years ago, and she probably still hadn’t forgiven him for it. He hoped never to have to do it again.

  He grabbed Grace’s wrists and raised them over her head, stretching her body beneath him.

  “Tell me what this is about, Grace.”

  “Get off me,” she growled.

  Alex saw the muscles in her neck tighten, and barely managed to dodge what would have been a nose-breaking head butt.

  “Enough, or I’ll put your ass to sleep for a while.”

  Grace stilled. She’d known him for years—long enough to know he never made idle threats. Staring up at him with those blue eyes, she trembled under him.

  “Talk to me,” he said in a softer tone. He had never seen this woman desperate. But she was desperate now.

  “I need you to come with me. Please don’t ask me why. Please.”

  “I will go with you,” he promised. This woman who owned a piece of his soul was on the edge, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go over alone. “I’ll go with you, sweetheart. But you do need to tell me why. And why the gun?”

  Her throat worked hard to swallow and her eyes flooded with tears. Against his own skin he felt her stomach muscles spasm.

  “What the hell?” He lifted himself from her and she curled into a ball, sobs making her entire body shake. He swore viciously. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He stood, letting the Glock slip through his pant leg to the floor, and refastening the drawstring at his waist. Then he dragged her to her feet. “Grace, dammit, talk to me now!”

  She collapsed against him, and fear pumped adrenaline through his body. He held her for a second, then grabbed her chin in his hands, forcing her to look up him.

  Her teeth chattered, and her body shuddered hard. “They took my son, Alex.”

  No. Not Danny. The words ran through his mind like a mantra, but instinct stopped him from saying them aloud. Alex Rossi knew nothing about Danny, other than the fact that Grace got pregnant by her scumbag doctor right after the London fiasco. As far as she knew, she hadn’t spoken to Alex in eight years.

  But Sean Devlin knew all about Danny—knew all the things any proud mother told her friends. Or the people she believed to be her friends.

  Guilt and fear punched him hard in the gut. He let her go, taking a step away from her. She slid to the floor, sobbing.

  “Your son. I’m so damn sorry.” Alex plunged his hands into his hair, afraid to say more as his mind tried to sort what he wanted to say and what he could say. Anger grew in him until it eclipsed everything else. He was going to hurt somebody for this.

  * * *

  Neither of them moved for several moments. Only the rattling hum of the air conditioner broke the silence.

  Grace wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked up at Alex. “Somebody wants you, and they took Danny to make sure I brought you to them.”

  It hurt so much to say his name aloud. She wanted to hide her son away inside of herself, to keep him all to herself again.

  “Why didn’t you just shoot me and take my carcass in to get your bounty?” His voice cut through her like Italian steel.

  Anger pushed her to her feet, and she swept up his dropped Glock on the way. She would get her son back, even if this was the only way to do it. “He’s not a bounty—he’s my son. And they want you alive and able to talk or you’d be dead already.”

  Alex held out his hand, palm up. “Give me the gun.”

  It took all her resolve not to let her hand shake as she pointed the Glock at him. “I want you to get ready to travel. Now.”

  “You can’t shoot me, honey.”

  Could she? This was Alex, after all. The only man who’d ever stirred up those happily ever after feelings in her. His shooting her—with her own gun—all those years ago wouldn’t make it any easier to pull the trigger of his own gun now.

  “You can’t shoot me,” he continued, “because whoever wants me, wants me alive. Even a non-fatal shot could lead to heavy blood loss or infection. You can’t take the risk.”

  “You said you’d go with me.” Grace’s stomach rolled as she realized there was no easy way—if any—of doing this without Alex’s cooperation.

  “I will, Grace. And you need to tell me everything. But first I want my damn gun back. Don’t make me take it from you.”

  Chapter Three

  The challenge hung between them, but she really had no choice. Emotion aside, Alex had given her a very logical reason why she couldn’t shoot him. There wasn’t much sense in keeping the gun.

  Unless he planned to shoot her again. That’d be one way to make this problem go away and save his own skin. “I’ll give it back to you later.”

  Alex folded his arms across his chest and she knew the debate was over. “Then I won’t go. You either trust me, or you don’t.”

  “I trusted you once. Remember London? I wouldn’t trust you to take out my garbage.”

  Something like confusion passed over his face, then was gone. “I guess I’ll have to wish you good luck, sweetheart.”

  She cursed a blue streak while handing over the Glock. She didn’t need good luck. She needed him to do what he was told.

  “Still quite the lady, I see. I think your Sig went under the loveseat.”

  She fished it out while Alex put some clothes on. It was hard, but she managed not to drift to the doorway to watch. Danny was her sole focus, and she wasn’t about to let anything cloud her judgment.

  “You look like hell,” he said, reappearing in jeans and a snug, white T-shirt. “Pour us each a coffee and let’s talk.”

  There was a fre
sh pot in the kitchen, and she added extra milk and sugar to his because she remembered he liked his light and painfully sweet. She remembered a lot about Alex Rossi. Too much.

  She set his cup on the table and took a deep breath. The only way to get through this was from the beginning.

  He didn’t interrupt while she related Rustikov’s visit. She even managed to get through most of it without choking up. Most of it.

  “What time did they take him?” he asked when she had finished.

  “It had to have between eight and eight-thirty. He never made it to school.”

  She paused, taking a sip of coffee to hide her need to calm herself.

  “I called one of his classmates, and managed in a roundabout way to find out he wasn’t in class today. So they somehow got a woman to call in and pretend to be me.”

  He looked up from the ammo clip he was loading to cock a questioning eyebrow at her.

  “If a child doesn’t show up for attendance, the school calls home. He wasn’t there, but nobody called me.”

  “Did you call the school to verify they made calls for all the absentees?”

  “No, I… Everybody thinks I do web design from home. I’ve even done some for people in town. If I called the school, they’d know Danny’s missing. There’d be reports, police, and a lot of explanations I’m not ready to give yet.”

  “Why didn’t you tell…why didn’t you call Devlin?”

  Grace winced. She knew as soon as she started talking he’d ask this question, and there was no possible answer but the truth. But he wouldn’t like it.

  “I needed to come on my own…alone.”

  “Don’t you think having everybody in on this would up your chances of getting the boy back? You’re a pro, Grace, and you know this shit.”

  “I’m a mom, too, and I know that nobody with the Devlin Group, especially Sean himself, would willingly sacrifice you for my son. I’m the only person willing to do that.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “And you thought I’d simply cooperate, and go to my death without question?”

  “No, I… You just… I want my boy back, Alex.”

  He set his mug on the table, then walked over to her. He crouched, cupping her chin in his hands. “We will get him back, sweetheart. Together.”

  She had to blink away a wave of fresh tears. With his touch warm on her face, her heart ached to believe in him. But her mind knew better.

  “I’m going to call Devlin, and get more people on this,” he continued, looking away from her. “He can figure out who’s free and put the tech support on alert.”

  She nodded, unshed tears clogging her throat.

  “And, Grace, if it comes down to me or the child, trust in me. Please.”

  Trust wasn’t something she had in spades when it came to Alex Rossi, but she had no other choice right now.

  He stood and took a step back. “I’ll call Devlin while you wash out those mugs and the carafe. I have orders for no housekeeping unless I request it—too many tools of the trade lying around. Then we figure out a Plan A. Did you bring the picture? The technicians might be able to get something from that.”

  Grace swallowed hard and nodded. Some part of her had known this moment would come—had known Alex wouldn’t just roll over and play dead for her.

  She walked to the door where she’d dropped her bag and unzipped the outer pocket. The picture was already folding at the edges. She’d looked at it a thousand times during the chartered flight, staring into her son’s frightened face.

  And it was that face that made her have to stop and take a deep breath before she could turn back to Rossi. “Alex, I…”

  He took it from her on his way by and she could do nothing but wait, her heart hammering in her chest. He had fired up his laptop and plugged in a scanner before he looked at the photograph of Danny. His son. Their son.

  She knew the instant it hit him.

  His shoulders hunched as if he’d taken a blow to the gut, and she heard his ragged intake of breath. Alex’s head bowed until his forehead rested on the picture.

  Grace knew what he saw. She had lived with it every day of her son’s life. Rossi’s thick ebony hair, his olive complexion. The dark chocolate eyes. Even the faint hint of dimples that kept their faces from being too unforgiving.

  How many nights had she watched her son sleep, then gone to bed haunted by an older, hardened version of that face?

  “How could you?” Alex demanded in a voice both cold and hoarse. Then he swore and stood so abruptly his chair skittered backward and fell. “How in God’s name could you do this?”

  Every muscle in her body trembled, but Grace kept her spine ramrod straight. “I did what I thought was best for my son.”

  Immediately, she cursed inwardly, wishing she could snatch the words from the air before they reached his ears.

  “Your son? No, Grace. Our son.”

  She opened her mouth, with no idea what might come out of it, but he spun and stormed into the bedroom. He took the picture with him, and slammed the door behind him so hard a cheaply framed print rattled and fell to the floor.

  Grace made it to the loveseat before her knees buckled. Pressing her hands to her overheated cheeks, she finally let the torrent of tears fall.

  The first crash was accompanied by a howl of rage, and she flinched back against the seat. It sounded like the bedside lamp, and was quickly followed by the smashing of something small—probably the telephone.

  She didn’t notice the suite door opening until it had swung halfway. She leapt to her feet, the Sig jumping into her hand almost of its own accord. Even as fear shot through her, she was amazed by how quickly her body and mind had dragged out the old bag of skills.

  Carmen was first through the door, and Grace nearly collapsed with relief. Gallagher was tight on her heels, closing the door behind them.

  “Hey, we…” he began, but the words died when he saw Grace. “Wow! Long time, no see, lady.”

  The next crash was louder, and sounded as if it involved furniture. Grace winced as the two agents looked at the bedroom door. “He’s not in a great mood right now.”

  “What are you doing here, Grace?” Carmen asked in alarm. “Where’s Danny?”

  She didn’t want to tell the story again so soon, but she knew these two people were going to be instrumental in getting her son back. Taking a deep breath, she launched into another gut-wrenching retelling of the morning’s events. It wasn’t any easier the second time.

  * * *

  Alex sank on the edge of the bed, his breath ragged from the exertion of venting his anger. Picking up the photograph, he traced his son’s mouth with the tip of his finger. It was the only thing he’d gotten from Grace.

  She was carrying my child that night in London. Alex shuddered and drove back the bile in his throat by force of will. Grace had been pregnant when he’d looked at her down the sight of her own Sig.

  Sorrow and regret swept away the last of his anger, and he closed his eyes against the memories of that hideous night. He thought of Danny—of the life he’d followed through emails and phone calls as Sean Devlin.

  Now he knew why there were so few photos. And never a school portrait. Only the occasional candid shot. When Danny’s Little League team had won their first game, Grace had sent Devlin a photo of the team in a huddle, showing only their backs. A Halloween picture with Danny’s face obscured by his mask.

  The Rossi likeness was so strong Grace would have feared Sean guessing the truth and telling Alex. Juggling two identities had never been easy, but this was one hell of a tangled web they’d managed to weave. And he’d never taken the time to wonder why a woman with the best technology the government could provide couldn’t scan and send a school picture of her son.

  Our son.

  Alex stood and made his way through the wreckage of his room to the door. Right now there could be no past, only the present. They would get Danny back, and then the time would come for Grace and him to lay their ca
rds on the table. Nothing stood between Alex and an objective, and his only objective now was to hold his son.

  He was surprised to see Gallagher and Carmen in the sitting room. They weren’t supposed to be back for another hour or so. They were both unharmed and a steel case was propped against the television stand.