The van lay on the driver’s side, the metal crumpled beneath her. Pieces of that metal and the plastic interior shell of the door protruded into her seat, poking her arm and her hip. She struggled with her seat belt, pushing the button to free the clasp. But it held tightly. Her fingers trembling, she pushed hard on the button and tugged on the strap.
And finally it snapped back. She settled heavily against that crumpled door, wincing as the metal dug through her clothes and into her skin. But that was only a minor discomfort in relation to her overwhelming fear for her son.
She reached up again—for the seat belt holding Michael’s booster chair against the backseat.
“Are you hurt?” she asked him. “Do you feel any pain?”
His eyes wide, he shook his head.
But she couldn’t trust he wasn’t like her—in shock, with so much adrenaline coursing through her that she might not have realized if she’d been shot.
What about Milek? Was he shooting or getting shot?
What the hell was going on outside her van?
Then suddenly the gunfire ended—leaving an eerie silence behind but for the squeal of tires against asphalt. Someone was driving away.
Who? Which shooter?
Did it matter? She could trust no one.
She had to get away. “I’m going to undo your seat belt,” she warned Michael. “And you’re going to fall. Fall toward me, and I will catch you.”
Tears still streaming down his little face, he nodded agreement.
But before she could reach the clasp, the door slid open on the passenger’s side of the van. And big hands reached through the opening, reaching for her son.
Terror overwhelmed her and she screamed. “No! Don’t take my son! Leave him alone!”
“Where the hell are they?” Garek asked the question already echoing inside Logan Payne’s head as he stared down at the empty caskets.
Dirt slipped from beneath his feet as he stood on the mounds built up around those open and empty caskets. The graves were in a remote area of the River City Peaceful Acres cemetery—far from the street. So nobody had heard or seen anything—until the caretaker had stumbled across those piles of dirt. At least that was what the investigating police officer had shared with Logan.
The young officer was talking to Candace now, his head bobbing as he answered her questions. The kid didn’t know any more than he’d already told them, though. So Candace left him quickly to return to her husband’s side. Logan suspected there was only one man who could answer their questions.
Standing on another mound next to him, Garek clicked off his cell phone and shoved it into his pocket; his hand was shaking. Candace took it in hers. “Milek’s phone keeps going to voice mail.”
Logan also had his phone to his ear, listening to his half brother’s recorded voice. Special Agent Nicholas Rus. I am not available at the moment. Leave me a message, and I will return your call.
“Bullshit,” he cursed as he jerked the phone away. Rus hadn’t returned the message he’d already left him. “Nick’s is going straight to voice mail, too.”
Garek repeated, “Where the hell are they?”
With her free hand, Candace gestured toward the empty caskets and suggested, “A better question might be where the hell are they?”
The inside of both caskets was pristine. There had been no bodies decaying within them for a year. Logan doubted there’d ever been a body in either.
“Nick knows,” he said, and anger surged through him. He’d just begun to forge a relationship with the half brother who’d turned his family upside down when he’d shown up in River City. But it wasn’t Nick’s fault that their father had had an affair with Nick’s mother.
It was Nick’s fault for letting Stacy and Milek suffer, thinking that Amber Talsma and her son had died in a horrific crash.
“The son of a bitch must have staged the whole accident,” Garek said, his anger and disgust apparent. “How could he put everyone through that?”
Candace squeezed her husband’s hand, offering her love and reassurance. “He must have had his reasons.”
The comment gave Logan comfort, as well. No matter what Nick had done since he’d come to town, he’d had a reason for every action.
“What are you thinking?” Logan asked. “Witness protection?”
“She must have seen something,” Candace replied. “Maybe she witnessed her boss’s murder.”
DA Gregory Schievink had been gunned down outside his house. But if the rumors were true about the deceased DA and his assistant, Amber could have been with him—especially since his wife had been out of town at the time.
“But she’s been gone a year,” Garek said. His voice hoarse with anger, he added, “Milek has mourned her for a whole freaking year. Until...”
Nick must have told him that she was alive. He had probably revealed the secret while Milek had been helping the special agent keep Garek and Candace alive. Since then, everyone had noticed the younger Kozminski brother had been doing better.
“Some cases take a year or more to go to trial,” Logan said. Even after he’d left the River City PD to start the Payne Protection Agency, he’d had to testify in cases he’d investigated while he’d been a detective.
“What case?” Garek asked. “There have been no arrests in the DA’s murder. If Amber witnessed the shooting and was alive, there would have been an arrest.”
While Garek hadn’t always been on the right side of the law, he understood how it worked.
“That’s true,” Logan acknowledged. “There must be some other reason...”
But what? Why the hell would an FBI agent have helped the assistant DA fake her death and that of her son?
Logan punched in Nick’s number on his cell again. But just like before, it went straight to his voice mail.
Where the hell are they?
* * *
He had her son. He had taken him away before she could reach for him—before she could rescue him. Then the front passenger’s door opened and big hands reached inside for her.
Instinct had her shrinking back against the crumpled driver’s door. But then stronger instincts kicked in—of a mother protecting her child. And she struggled from beneath the steering wheel.
“Wait,” a deep voice advised. “Don’t move. You might be injured.”
She recognized the voice and the hands. Those same hands had lifted her son from the backseat. Those hands had once touched her, caressed her...
Held her.
“Where’s Michael?” she asked. “Where’d you put him?”
“He’s out here,” Milek replied, even as he leaned inside the van. “He’s safe. For the moment...” His silver eyes darkened to gray—with concern, with fear. He was worried that whoever had been shooting at them might return. “We need to get you out—if you’re not hurt, if you can move.”
She was moving. But as she moved the van rocked, threatening to roll over again. Her breath caught, trapped in her lungs, as fear overwhelmed her. Then those hands slipped beneath her arms and easily lifted her, as if she weighed no more than their child.
Once she cleared the passenger’s door, he didn’t put her down, though. He held her, his arms