Kiss Page 32

  Stay mobile until you hear from me.

  What if the caller had Miguel? Someone awaiting orders from Wayne? She couldn’t answer, couldn’t risk that her voice, spoken in lieu of Wayne’s, would tip her hand.

  She would communicate by text as soon as she was clear of this place.

  She ran on light feet back to the end of the building, intending to slip into the safety of Miguel’s Jeep and pull out.

  She rounded the corner. It was gone.

  Frank! Gone with Wayne’s knife, with her meds, with his address on the accident report. Miguel’s phone and wallet were in there too, and Beeson’s phone number. She could only hope Frank didn’t know the total of what he had.

  She stewed over Frank, simultaneously aware that the officers were headed around the other side of the building. The phone in her hands rang again. Same number. She ended the call before it sounded a full ring, then sent a text.

  > NO AUDIO. TEXT ONLY.

  New hope that Miguel might not be out of her reach pushed her anxiety to the background. She wondered where Wayne had stashed his truck. He wouldn’t have come here without his own transportation.

  > Wher th hck ARE u?

  Someone was waiting for Wayne. Where? Wayne was handling so many snakes that Shauna couldn’t be sure which one this was. She had to think like him.

  Think like Wayne. That wouldn’t be hard now, would it? Her cluttered mind snapped into sharp, organized focus. The intensity of events had distracted her from the solution so easily within her grasp:

  Wayne’s memories told her exactly which of his snakes she had to charm. These men were waiting for Wayne to tell them where to take Miguel. Wayne intended to tell them after he had secured Shauna. She replied.

  > The ? is, where are U?

  Shauna closed her eyes and tapped more of Wayne’s recall: she saw his truck parked two blocks south, away from the channel.

  > Duz it mattr? Tell us where 2 go.

  Where to go with Miguel.

  Where should she send them?

  > Is he alive?

  Footsteps were moving in her direction. Shauna had not been paying attention. She dropped behind a barrel, understanding in a second that she did not have enough cover to stay hidden.

  Two men in uniforms came around the end of the building, their flash-lights sweeping over the top of her hiding place. Only the barrel separated her from them. Shauna closed her eyes as if that would help hide her, the display of the phone pressed into her clammy hands. If Wayne’s guys texted before—

  They stepped past the barrel, so close that Shauna could smell cologne. All they had to do was look to the right.

  “Body,” one of the officers said. Their eyes locked onto Wayne, and they jogged toward him.

  She watched them, moved when the sounds of their footfalls gave her enough noise cover. And then she ran in time with them but in the opposite direction, toward the shipyard building on the other side of the alley.

  > Technically alive

  She would take that as good news for now. When she was sure she was out of the officers’ range of hearing, she stopped to punch in an address in River Oaks, on the other side of Houston. It was the only address in Houston that she knew. She thought she might be twenty, twenty-five minutes away.

  > Reply with your ETA

  They would have to map it, make an estimate.

  She picked up her pace again in the direction of Wayne’s truck, careful to keep an eye out for the officers on scene.

  She found the Chevy without any trouble, as if she had parked it herself. Shauna climbed into the cab and went immediately to the ashtray. There were the keys, as usual. The phone vibrated in her palm.

  > Thirty minutes

  She could beat them there.

  > Go

  There was only one way to get Miguel out of this disaster, and that was to give herself over to Trent Wilde. She would ensure Miguel’s safety by surrendering her head and body to science.

  At least one of them would live. Because if she couldn’t save Miguel, she would die anyway.

  40

  To Landon’s great annoyance, it took more than ten minutes to explain to his security detail that he had added a leg to his travel plans, then wait for them to approve his route and destination.

  Ridiculous, he said.

  Imperative, they said, this close to Election Day.

  After some wrangling they agreed to take him to the west side of Houston—one car, two agents, period. It wasn’t like he was driving to Argentina.

  He spent the three-hour trip contemplating how he had failed his second wife and how Trent Wilde had not. It was never only about one event, he sup-posed. In his case, living fifteen years in a plot not of his making must have played a role.

  And it all began when Wilde had introduced him to Patrice. How fateful that little detail seemed now.

  The car passed through the 610 Loop and turned onto River Oaks Boulevard at four twenty-five, then wove itself into the affluent neighborhood. Landon instructed the driver to pull over a block away from Wilde’s home, a monstrosity for the wealthy divorcé, who lived alone.

  “Wait here,” Landon said.

  “Sir—”

  “Enough. I’m dropping in to visit a friend.”

  He exited the black Lincoln and slammed the door, unwilling to enter any more arguments.

  One car pulling out of a neighbor’s gated drive was the only stirring at this sleepy hour. A chill kept even the birds quiet.

  Trent didn’t bother with gates, but an impressive circular driveway surrounded a garden, and a broad flight of brick steps rose to the double-wide entrance. In a matter of seconds Landon found himself, surprisingly composed, eye to eye with an engraved brass knocker.

  He opted for the doorbell and rang it three times before Trent appeared, cinching the belt of a housecoat around his waist. His left cheek bore an imprint from bedsheets.

  Trent’s eyes registered Landon, then darted to the stairs to the left of the entry. “Well, this is an unexpected surprise. What brings you here? Where’s your detail?”

  Landon pushed past him into the foyer, then stood at the base of the stairs, looking up. Trent closed the door slowly, lingering in shadow.

  “Where’s my wife?”

  Trent shoved a hand into one pocket of his jacket and raised an eyebrow. “Apparently you think she’s here.”

  “Patrice!” Landon shouted, directing his booming voice to the upper level. He turned back to the man he had called friend for so many years. “What’s wrong with you that you can’t keep your hands off her?”

  “Oh, I think it was the other way around.”

  “Do not underestimate me!”

  Trent raised both hands and took a step back, the gesture of mock surrender taunting Landon.

  He brought his fist up into Trent’s jaw with such speed that the man’s fuzzy head snapped back and cracked the glass of the door’s sidelight. He blinked and leaned heavily against the door frame, dazed.

  “Now, now.” Patrice appeared at the top of the stairs in a blue silk robe. “That kind of behavior is not very fitting of a future president.”

  “Really? Let’s talk about fitting behavior.”

  She began to descend the steps.

  “You have used me for your own gain from day one,” Landon said to Patrice. “You’ve manipulated and lied. You’ve even destroyed my relationships with my own children, and for what? A lying backstabber like him?” He glared at Trent.

  Patrice joined the men on the tiled floor, eyes locked on Landon.

  “What do you think this does for us?” he continued. “A sexual scandal before I even set foot in the White House? What happens if the story breaks before the election?”

  Trent had righted himself and now rubbed the back of his head. “It’s gone on under your nose for eight years, Landon. What makes you think anyone will find out about it now, unless you’re the one who tells them?”

  Landon was unwilling to bear
the depth of this humiliation alone. He threw his hands up. “All of us will pay!”

  “No, we won’t,” Trent said. “Isn’t that why you came here by yourself, at this hour? So no one would know? So we can still finish what we started out to do, no matter what?”

  Landon shook his head and started to pace. The clicking of his heels on the tile echoed off the atrium ceiling. “What have you done?”

  “Ask me that in two weeks and I’ll say, ‘I put Landon McAllister in the White House.’”

  Landon stared at Trent. “What is my nomination built on?” he asked.

  “Money.” He shrugged. “Aren’t they all?”

  “Not principles, idealism? Hope? Workable solutions? Morals?”

  “The American dream? You always were the romantic, McAllister. It’s why people like you get elected. Otherwise I would have run for office myself and convinced Patrice to divorce you. But it’s good for a presidential candidate to be married.”

  Landon grunted, disgusted. “Is the money dirty?”

  Patrice laughed low and moved to stand between Landon and Trent. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say your daughter has gotten under your skin with her ideas.”

  “I have a brain of my own, woman.”

  “Landon,” said Trent, “there’s nothing illegal going on. Just great business in an economically friendly time for the medical industry. I swear to you, every dime is legit.”

  “Why should I believe anything you say to me, Trent? My employees took a cut in their profit-sharing benefits to put me here. Is that legit?”

  “It’s certainly not a crime.”

  “Convince me! Convince me that if I go on, I won’t be tainted forever. Convince me that I can trust you, because I’m sure you can see that I have every reason in the world not to.”

  Patrice answered for Trent. “Shauna is the only one who doesn’t trust us.”

  He sneered at her, tempted to make her feel the same pain he felt at her betrayal. Instead he managed to grind out his anger through clenched teeth.

  “Not anymore.”

  Trent took a step toward the kitchen, eyes on Landon. “Come sit for a minute. Have a cup of coffee. I’ll answer all your questions, but really, they’re all going to boil down to one, Landon. Will you withdraw from the race or not? I’m pretty sure you’ll see that you’re all worked up over nothing more than an open relationship. Let’s get this worked out now, so we can get on with it.”

  The headlight beams of a car in the circular drive penetrated the window, crossing the faces of all three adults. Patrice peeked out through the sidelight.

  “Wayne’s here,” she said.

  “Good. I’ll have him join us then. One more voice of reason that will put this insanity behind us.”

  41

  Shauna sat in Wayne’s truck for a whole minute before deciding to get out. Worse than the possibility that Trent would not negotiate with her was the possibility that Wayne’s men would arrive with Miguel before she had tried to secure Trent’s help.

  Shaking, she plodded up the brick steps and rang the bell.

  She’d expected to face Trent and his hideous betrayal. But it was Patrice who opened the door.

  Patrice.

  Confusion washed away the words she’d rehearsed for Trent. And then she saw past her stepmother to the foyer, where her uncle looked at her with deadpan eyes. Shauna’s last hope fell away in a landslide of understanding. Her knees smacked the textured concrete of the porch as she collapsed, exhausted from chasing this carrot of possibility only to find, at every bend in the road, more horrible news.

  They were working together.

  She and Miguel would both die.

  Patrice scowled. “Where’s Wayne?”

  Landon shoved Patrice aside and stood in the doorway, looking down at Shauna with round eyes.

  So he was in on it too.

  The pain of the revelation brought a tremble to her arms. She stared up at Landon’s form, backlit in the door frame and blurred by fresh tears. “Why are you doing this?”

  The confused expression on his face told her that he didn’t understand what she meant.

  “Why would you want to hurt me? And Rudy? Why would you let them do this to him?”

  Landon looked over his shoulder toward Trent, who joined Landon. “Shauna, where is Wayne?” Trent asked.

  Shauna couldn’t speak past the knot in her throat. Landon’s features set in their hard lines. He was impatient with her again. “Stop this, now. Why are you here?”

  “Miguel,” she managed, then swallowed to clear her throat. “You have Miguel . . .”

  “Who’s Miguel?”

  Patrice spun on her heel, pulled Trent out of the entry, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. She stalked off toward the kitchen.

  Trent returned to the door and put a hand on Landon’s back. “Let’s bring her inside,” he said to Landon.

  Inside? Panic seized her. They would take her inside and she would never come out alive!

  Shauna grew hysterical. She dropped her weight against Landon’s efforts to pull her up.

  “No! You can’t kill me!”

  Landon’s mouth slackened. “Kill you? Shauna, I would never—”

  “You would do anything! Look at what the drug trial did to me. The drug trial was all you—you told them to drug me!”

  Landon shot a look to Trent. “The drug trial? What did you give her?”

  “You approved it because you knew it was best.”

  “For who, Trent? I wanted what was best for her.”

  “Really, Landon. You knew there was a risk.”

  “Is this kind of behavior a side effect?”

  “Possibly.” Trent looked back toward the kitchen.

  “Shauna, listen. I want to talk with you, but you’re not making any sense. You can come in and we can all sort this out together, or you can stay out here in the cold. I don’t really care what you choose.”

  Shauna’s tears dried up. There was nothing more to cry about. Nothing mattered anymore. There was no way they would let her live through the day now that she knew. She’d been a fool to cling to any hope that she could save Miguel from these monsters.

  She set her jaw and let Landon pull her up. Followed him like lamb to the slaughter, through the doorway, into the marble-floored foyer.

  Odd how warm his hand felt on her cold fingers. She stood under a huge crystal chandelier, numb, as Trent closed the door.

  “In here,” he said, and walked toward the hall.

  Landon glanced at her, released her hand, and stepped after Trent. But Shauna didn’t follow them. Couldn’t follow them. She felt suffocated.

  “Did you know he’s trafficking children, Landon?”

  The question came out softly, but it stopped Landon before he entered the other room.

  “Black-market babies are funding your campaign,” she said. “And other children. Girls.”

  Landon slowly turned around. Trent had stopped and now turned as well. He walked back into the round foyer, eyes expressionless again.

  “Wayne defected from the Marines during the Iraq war,” Shauna said, eager to say it all even if they knew it already. “He spent a year hiding in Thailand, established black-market connections while he was there. He met Trent on a flight to Canada, bartered his liaisons in exchange for Trent’s political access. Trent pulled strings to wipe Wayne’s military record.”

  Her father looked at Trent. “You told me you recruited him from Global Wellness, that he could give us a competitive edge over them.”

  Trent didn’t bother responding. His dark gaze drilled Shauna’s.

  “I put my career on the line for that,” Landon said. “You used my connections to expunge his record.”

  “Yes,” Trent said without looking at Landon. “I did.”

  “Wayne’s only real role at MMV was to launder funds,” Shauna said, returning Trent’s glare with her own. “He brought in kids from Thailand, then later from Cambodia and Indo
nesia. The children passed through Houston and Florida and went to American families and . . . and other parties.”

  “They paid MMV?” Landon’s question pleaded for a denial.

  “They paid artificial overseas subsidiaries of MMV,” Shauna told him. “Shell companies. The company pocketed net amounts at a 75 percent rate.”

  “This can’t be true.”

  “She does have some imagination, doesn’t she?” Trent said.

  Shauna looked at her father. His frown was so perplexed that she almost believed he hadn’t known any of it. But she didn’t have the stomach to embrace such a futile hope.

  “I think you should go home, Shauna,” Trent said. “And you, Landon, use your head. Does this sound reasonable to you?”

  Landon looked at Trent, then back at Shauna. The color had drained from his face.

  “Landon . . .” Sweat beaded Trent’s forehead. “You can’t possibly believe her.”

  The words reached into Shauna’s chest and squeezed her heart. No, Landon, you will never believe me, will you? Not when Patrice is burning my skin, not when I’m the target of a murder, not when I am telling you the truth.

  Landon took his daughter’s hand. There was that warmth again. His eyes watered. “How many children?” Landon asked.

  “Three hundred fifty a year for seven years,” Shauna said. “Sixty million dollars net, nine million a year for the company. For your profit-sharing plan.”

  Her father’s features seemed to age in seconds.

  Was it possible that he . . . ?

  “Patrice coordinated the placement of the infants,” Shauna said.

  Landon studied her with a look of such confusion and despair that Shauna wondered if she could hope in him after all. That somehow he would return to her, that he would believe her.

  “Please. You have to believe me. You have to. Just this one thing.” Her words came out too fast, running into each other, but she couldn’t slow them down. “It’s so important. I didn’t make up any of it. Miguel and I found out . . . Tell me you weren’t a part of this. Please. Daddy, please tell me you believe me.”

  Trent laid a hand on Landon’s arm. “She’s delusional, Landon. Send her home before this gets ugly.”