Raising the Stakes

“You don’t know anything,” Keir said, but without much conviction.

“But you do, don’t you? You know where the boy is.”

“Pack up, Baron, and get out.”

“O’Connell. Listen to me. If Kitteridge is here, he’s watching her every move. He sees her fly out of this place looking like she did when she left me, he’ll know she’s on to him. He’ll follow her. She’ll lead him straight to the kid and once she does… Dammit, are you gonna just stand there and let him beat her senseless, then snatch her and the kid?”

Gray glared at Keir. Keir glared back. Was Baron lying, or was he telling the truth?

“At the very least, you’ve got to know I’m right about Dawn going to her son.”

She would. Keir knew that much.

“And if I’m right about her husband following her…” Gray took a step forward. “Here’s the deal. You know where the boy is. Take me there with you. You have security people? Let them come along. And if I make one false move when we find Dawn, tell your men to do whatever it takes to stop me.” His mouth twisted. “O’Connell, I love this woman. I’d give my life for her. And if I lose her because you’d rather stand here than come to a decision, I’ll kill you right after I beat her son of a bitch husband to death with my bare hands. Do you understand?”

The threat didn’t work. The fear in Gray’s eyes did. Keir grabbed for the phone and jabbed a button. No, Dawn wasn’t at her desk. In fact, Becky said, she’d been trying to find Keir to ask him what was going on. Dawn had come flying through the lobby and the guard at the employee’s entrance said she’d driven out of the lot like a bat out of hell. And oh yes, Mr. Coyle had left a cryptic message for Keir, should he stop by, something about a faxed photo of a man who had been identified on a security tape by a cocktail waitress…

Keir slammed down the phone. “Let’s go. Take the fire stairs. It’s faster.”

They pounded down the steps. Keir grabbed his cell phone as they ran through the lobby. “Dan? I’m on my way out the door. I’m heading for Rocking Horse Ranch. Take a couple of your men and follow me.”

Seconds later, the little entourage was on the road. Keir shot Gray a look filled with warning. “If this is all bull and you’re working with Kitteridge, I promise you, Baron, your life won’t be worth a damn.”

“It won’t be worth a damn without Dawn,” Gray said softly, and then he stared out the window as the empty desert flashed by, and prayed that they’d reach her in time.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CARS. Cars everywhere. And trucks and people, all of them crossing the street against the light, laughing and talking and paying no attention to traffic because they were on vacation and she was going to go crazy if everything and everybody didn’t get out of her way. Get out, get out, get—

Dawn slammed her fist against the horn ring. A woman stepping off the sidewalk jumped back. Her plump face reddened and you didn’t have to be a lip-reader to know she’d said something short and ugly but Dawn didn’t care.

All she could think about was Tommy. She had to get to him before Harman did.

Ahead, the light went from green to amber. She stepped on the gas, shot through it before it changed to red. Another minute and she’d leave the city behind. Then it was a clear shot along the asphalt until the turnoff that led to Rocking Horse Ranch. Harman couldn’t have gotten there yet. Maybe he hadn’t even located Tommy. He would, though. There was no doubt of that.

She’d made a terrible mistake underestimating him, thinking him vicious and cunning but not really clever. But he was, clever enough to have gotten together with someone

like Gray, someone she could hardly imagine breathing the same air as her husband.

The road opened ahead. Dawn tromped down on the gas. She couldn’t think about Gray. Not now. It was too dangerous to let herself realize how stupid she’d been. How careless. Four years spent erasing the past and then a man came along and she listened to his soft lies and now she’d compromised everything. She was about to turn Tommy’s life upside down, go on the run, take him from the only stability he’d ever known… If she was right, and Harman hadn’t yet found him.

A whisper of despair burst from her throat and she blanked her mind to everything but the road arrowing across the desert and the child who waited, had to be waiting, at its dusty end.

* * *

Gray gripped the roll bar of Keir’s SUV and stared blindly at the road ahead.

“You sure this’ll get us there faster than the highway?”

“Yes.”

“How much further?”

“Maybe another forty, fifty minutes.”

“This damn thing’s a track, not a road. What if we run into some kind of barrier? Downed trees? A gully?”

“You find a tree within fifty miles of this place, you’ll make it into the Guinness Book of Records. We see a gully, we drive through it. Or around it.” Keir shot him a cold smile. “That’s what Sports Utility Vehicles are for, Baron. Even a city slicker like you should know that.”