She gazed up at him with those huge brown eyes. “She said he was the second born, and that his name was Darius.”
The room seemed to grow and then contract, as though he’d taken a hallucinogenic of some sort. It took all his strength to stay balanced without reaching for support. She was still talking, telling him something more about her sister, but he couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying.
Sam had named him…him…as the father of her baby. But that was impossible. Incredible. Wrong. Wasn’t it?
He did some quick calculations. Where had he been ten to twelve months ago? Whom had he dated? It was true that he’d spent some time over the years finding love in all the wrong places. There had been a period of his younger life when he’d made conquests first and asked questions later—if at all. He wasn’t proud of those times and he was sure he’d put them well behind him. But what had he been doing last year? Why was it that he couldn’t really remember?
He thought of Cici’s cute little face. Was there anything familiar in it? Had he felt a slight connection? Some magic sense of kinship? A tie? Anything?
He agonized for one long moment, searching his heart and soul for evidence. But he quickly decided there was none. No, he was sure there had been nothing like that. It was crazy to even think this way.
“Have you ever heard of him?” she was asking. “Do you know much about him? Any idea where we can even look to find him?”
“We”? He noted the question and realized what it meant. She really did think he was going to drop everything in his life and start helping her, didn’t she? The problem was, he would have to do just the opposite. He needed to melt away and very quickly. She didn’t realize how dangerous this could be for him. She was sort of like a grenade someone had pulled the pin on and rolled into his apartment. Things could explode at any moment. The smallest jolt could blow everything up.
“No,” he said shortly. “What gave you the idea I would know these things, anyway?”
“I told you, I was given your name as someone who might be able to help me.”
She was looking nervous. He hated to disappoint her. But this was serious and now it had his complete attention.
“Given my name?”
As the full implications of that began to come into focus, an icy finger made its way down his spine and all his instincts for survival began to stir.
“Who was this who gave you my name?”
“A man associated with my law firm. He deals with Ambrian things all the time and he knew who you were.”
He took that in and considered it carefully. But wait. His Ambrian roots weren’t known to more than three or four of his closest associates. To most of the world, he was Dutch. How in hell would someone in Texas know otherwise?
“His name?” he said quickly, staring at her intensely, as though he could draw the information out of her if he tried hard enough.
“Carl Heissman. Do you know him?”
Slowly, he shook his head. He’d never heard the name before, at least, not that he could remember.
She shrugged. “I really didn’t know him until…”
“How did you get in touch with him? Did you go to him and ask for his help?”
“No, it wasn’t like that.” She shook her head. “No, not really. I went to the office and asked for a leave and explained about Cici…”
“So how did he contact you?”
“He must have heard about what I was doing from my boss, so he gave me a call.”
His heart was thumping in his chest. “He told you my name over the phone?”
“No. Actually, he wanted to meet at a little wine bar downtown. We sat out on the patio.”
“Where he couldn’t be recorded,” he muttered to himself.
“What?” she asked.
She was beginning to wonder why all this was such a big deal to him. Either he could help her or he couldn’t. The man in Texas was a side issue as far as she was concerned. She frowned at him, just to let him know she thought he was going off down a blind alley and that wasn’t very helpful.
But he wasn’t paying any attention to that. He shook his head, his brow furled, obviously thinking things he wasn’t sharing with her.
“Go on.”
“Well, I thought he knew you from the way he talked. He gave me your name and address and then he even offered to pay for the trip.”
David’s eyes flared at that bit of information.
“Why would he do that?”
She shrugged. “I thought it was odd at the time, but I assumed it might have been the law firm that was offering to pay. I didn’t take anything from him, but…”
“But you don’t really know who he is or what his connection to your law firm is, do you? He just came at you out of the blue.”
She gave him an exaggerated glare for the interruption, but she plowed ahead.
“I have a number where I’m supposed to call him when I find Cici’s father.” She glanced around, looking for a phone. “Do you think I should give him a call?”
He held back the grunt of exasperation he was tempted to mete out. That was obviously the last thing he wanted her to do.
“You haven’t called him yet?”
“No.”
“Don’t.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “You haven’t found Cici’s father, have you?”
“Maybe not.” She eyed him speculatively, her chin high.
He groaned, turning away. He knew he couldn’t let her call the number. That would pinpoint his exact location for sure. But how to convince her of that without giving away the entire background?
Whoever this Carl Heissman was, the man was playing games. Deadly games. He had to think fast and get back to basics and consider all possibilities.
He glanced at her again, studied her, tried to pick up on any details he might have missed so far. Why was she really here? Was this a ploy? A plot to coax him out of hiding?
Whatever. He had to get out of here right away and hope whoever was behind sending her here wasn’t already on his trail—or worse, here as well and just hadn’t revealed himself as yet. He heard a sound behind him and turned quickly, jumpy as a cat.
There was nothing there—this time. That wary buzz was back in full force. Ayme had invaded his space like the point guard of a small enemy army and he was going to have to be on alert every minute. He couldn’t afford to trust her or anything about her. His eyes narrowed as he looked her over and considered every angle.
And then the house phone rang.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment as it rang once, twice…
Then David took three steps and picked up the receiver, staring down into the identifying screen. Nothing was there. It was blank.
His face turned to stone and his heart beat so hard he could hardly breath. It was never blank. It always said Private Caller if nothing else. But this time, it was blank.
He couldn’t answer. That would give the caller absolute knowledge of where he was at this very moment. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this person wasn’t calling in the middle of the night for a friendly chat. This was the danger he’d always known would come his way—and until he understood the exact threat better,