And suddenly, there he was, tall, strong, dependable. Only a few yards away with his back to her he darted around a thick evergreen. Did she dare call out to him and risk alerting Blane? What choice did she have? She would have to take the chance.
“Jacob!” she called, gasping, stumbling as her feet hooked on a root. She twisted to protect Evan as she tumbled into the snow.
“Dee!” Jacob shouted as he broke through the trees, one arm outstretched. The dread on his face broadcast far greater concerns than a simple fall in the snow.
“Deirdre,” a chilling voice echoed from behind her.
Chapter 17
Ten yards too far away to help, Jacob watched Dee tumble to the snow with her son clutched to her. A medium-build, blond man who matched Lambert’s mug shot with eerie accuracy approached her, gun in hand.
Jacob felt as if his brain had been cleaved in two. One part of him assessed the situation with a calm of old. The other part urged him to fling himself on top of Dee and her child, shield them from the evil only three steps away. Why the hell had she left the truck?
“Deirdre,” the man beside her called, each step toward her a menacing promise. He kept his eyes fixed on Jacob, his gun trained on Dee.
Her body jerked as if she’d been slapped. Dee’s face tightened and she squeezed her eyes shut as Evan whimpered in her arms.
“Blane.” The whispered name carried a wealth of disillusionment. She curved her body protectively around a strong-limbed preschooler to keep him from seeing the gun.
Jacob absorbed the waves of pain radiating from her as if they were his own. And they were. He’d brought her here, to this. He’d promised to find her son and keep them safe.
Frustration and rage both slammed into him. And love. Hell, yeah, love.
He loved her so damned much his chest hurt with each icy breath. No more dodging the truth. What a time to figure it out.
Evan tipped up his face and thrust out his bottom lip. “Hurted my nose when we tripped.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” She clutched him tighter, pressing his face against her chest as if to comfort while keeping his eyes shielded from the horror unfolding. “We’ll wash the scratch very soon.”
Lambert closed in on Dee. “Well, my dear, imagine seeing you here, and with such a hulking companion. I thought you’d died out on that road, but you certainly landed on your feet—” he paused, gesturing with his gun to her crumpled in the snow “—figuratively speaking.”
“Well, I’m very much alive,” Dee answered through gritted teeth and poorly disguised fury. “Unlike that man in your Suburban in the river.”
Blane shrugged. “Skidding away from you, I blew out my tires. I needed another ride that would be able to pull the trailer I’d already arranged to pick up. So I pulled over and pretended my car had broken down until the perfect Good Samaritan stopped by—one with a big truck.”
The implication slapped over Jacob in an icy splash. Lambert had left Dee for dead, then hadn’t hesitated to kill a total stranger just to steal his vehicle. The bastard was pure evil.
Then Jacob’s brain snagged on an earlier part of the man’s diatribe. Lambert had thought Dee died, too. But he had to know she was alive if he’d been stalking her at the Lodge. It didn’t make sense.
Regardless, Jacob had to get the man the hell away from Dee and Evan. “Lambert, you want to deal with me. We don’t want to risk the kid getting in the way.”
“Of course not.” He waggled the gun in his gloved hand. “Who says I’m going to shoot anyone? I just keep this around for protection against intruders. Right, Evan my boy?” His face creased with a wry smile. “Although a target as big as that fellow wouldn’t be tough to hit if I wanted practice.”
Jacob hoped Lambert would take a potshot at him, because then the gun would be away from Dee and Evan. If he could be certain the shot wouldn’t be deadly and leave Dee without protection, he would rile Lambert into shooting now. “Go ahead then. You must have been itching to do this all those times you lurked around my place.”
Lambert scowled. “What the hell are you talking about? The last thing I wanted was to see her again.”
Jacob searched for words to stall the man until the police could arrive. “Then why not leave?”
“And live like some two-bit car thief on the lam? I hardly think so.” He gripped Dee’s arm and yanked her to her feet none too gently. “I’m waiting for my new ID to come through. I’d already started the process to get out of the country, but then Dee screwed up the timetable by digging through my old files. I just needed another couple of weeks to finish the transition of my assets into a shelf corporation so I would be free to travel under my new identity.”
A “shelf corporation.” Jacob narrowed his eyes with understanding. He’d heard of that. An old corporation with no activity was allowed to linger “on the shelf” until someone wanted to buy into it, usually to give age to a new business. Some had begun opting in to create a new holding for assets.
A crafty way to shield an old identity.
Lambert would have been able to conduct all transactions under the banner of his new company, his name never coming under the radar. He could have gotten clean away, losing himself in another country.
The possibilities shifted around in his mind. If the guy’s explanation could be trusted, then who had followed them into Tacoma, and who tormented Dee that night at the hotel?