In Enemy Hands (14 page)

Vandergriff paused. Staring at something over Nadia’s shoulder, he giggled. “It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. He lunged at me and his father caught his arm. He’d never taken his eyes off the money, you see. I took it out of my wallet and pressed it in his hand. ‘Just half and hour,’ I repeated. The old man stared at the ground and whispered, ‘You won’t hurt her?’ I managed not to laugh in his face. I’d already decided that little bitch was going to pay for her disrespect. ‘Of course not,’ I told him. You should have seen the look on Maria’s face. She kicked and screamed and scratched when I grabbed her arms and dragged her to the barn. Her family simply stood there.”

Vandergriff scratched his chin and gave her a speculative glance. Nadia hoped her slack face didn’t reveal the horror she felt inside.

“I always wondered if that six hundred dollars felt like Judas’s thirty pieces of silver burning in her father’s pocket while he stood in that barnyard and listened to her screams.”

Vandergriff leaned forward, suddenly red-faced and angry. He jabbed Nadia in the chest with his finger. “I had her any way I wanted her, and I took longer than thirty frigging minutes. I left her lying there, battered and bleeding and bruised, and by the time I left, she wasn’t saying ‘no’ anymore. She was saying, ‘Please don’t kill me, sir.’”

An evil smile curled his lips and the bile in Nadia’s throat burned like acid, threatening to choke her.

“I had to go back to college the next day. I figured I’d never see any of them again, but four months later, when I was home for winter break, I found my father waiting up for me one night. As soon as my key hit the front door lock, he summoned me into his study. Maria’s father and oldest brother were inside waiting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father so furious. He pointed at the old drunk and said, ‘This man says his daughter is pregnant with your child. Could that possibly be true?’ I shrugged. I figured he’d take care of it for me, so I said, ‘Yeah, it’s possible.’ He busted me one across the mouth and launched into a tirade about how I was a Vandergriff, and what did I think I was doing sleeping about with white trash like her. Her father sat there, afraid to say a word, but her brother got in Father’s face. He swore that Maria was a virgin before I ‘used’ her, a fact I was forced to admit, and that no man had known her since.” Vandergriff shook his head.

“When my father was raging like that, he’d scare the tail off Satan himself. I was shocked, but not entirely displeased when Father said I would be marrying her. No Vandergriff had ever been born out of wedlock, apparently not even to servants. After the baby was born, a blood test would be performed to confirm paternity. That was all they had back then. Father made it clear that they would pay with their lives if they were lying.”

“My father paid her father twenty thousand dollars in cash for her silence. He and her brothers were to leave that night, and never darken our doorstep again. Maria would be a Vandergriff, lost to them forever. So, once again, her father sold her to me. She was only fifteen, such a pretty little toy, and to be honest, I looked forward to taming her.” He winked and brushed his hand in Nadia’s hair. “Much the same as I look forward to taming you. I forgot how fierce those green eyes could look.”

Nadia looked down. The barely restrained glee in his face was more than she could stand.

“Effective immediately, Maria was moved into the main house.” Vandergriff leered at her. “Would you like to know what my father did to your grandfather and uncles?”

“No,” Nadia said.

Vandergriff propped his feet on the coffee table. Lacing his hands behind his head, he smiled at Nadia. “Come now, don’t be a spoilsport. I’m going to tell you anyway. They all lived in the same camper. You know, one of those little round silver things. That night, my father and I watched his men surround it. One of them padlocked the door, the only way out. A dog couldn’t have fit through those tiny windows. They poured gasoline under it and struck a match. Whoosh!” Vandergriff spread his fingers wide. “You should’ve heard them screaming. I always wondered what it must have felt like inside that thing. Did you ever see any of those old fashioned popcorn cookers, the kind people used before microwaves? I used to love to do those on the wood stove. The little covered aluminum pan with a handle that you shook over the stove until its top popped out like, well, a pregnant woman’s belly.” Vandergriff laughed at his own joke. “I figured it might’ve felt like that, or maybe a can of sardines with a blowtorch beneath it.”

“The baby,” Nadia asked softly, trying to rid her mind of the horrible visual images of death and suffering he invoked. “What happened to the baby?”

Vandergriff shrugged. “Your mother’s sweet little teenage body was made for a lot of things, but apparently childbirth wasn’t one of them. Our son died. She nearly died. She labored for over fifteen hours. I can still hear her screams. I think it did something to her, mentally. Stole the fire right out of her. She was never quite the same after that.”

How had her mother survived it? Nadia wondered. The scars on her face were nothing compared to the scars she must carry on her soul. How very strong she must be. He hadn’t broken her. He hadn’t destroyed her. But it must’ve been so hard for her. How could you survive such things, and still have the ability to love? How strong the bond between her parents had to be, to withstand so much trauma.

Nadia remembered one time when her mother was sick with the flu. She’d cried and begged and screamed in her delirium. Her father had never left her side. He’d held her hand, mopped her forehead with a cool washcloth and whispered reassurances in her ear.

Nadia’s heart swelled with a new love and respect for her parents. For them, she would not let Vandergriff defeat her.

He reached for her again.

Someone coughed behind them and Vandergriff drew back his hand.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir—”

“What is it, Theo?” Vandergriff snapped without turning around, without looking away from her face.

“It’s Andreakos. His men are on the move. We think … Peterson thinks they might be heading this way. If they are, they could be here in a couple of hours.”

Vandergriff flinched.

“There’s no way he could know about this place,” he said, but Nadia caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes. “Have you talked to Underwood?”

“No, sir.”

For a moment, hope surged within her. Her father was coming to rescue her.

Then Vandergriff said, “Tell Peterson to get the plane ready. He’s going to accompany the girl back to California. The compound is more secure. There’s no way they’ll be able to get to her there.”

The butler paused. “You’re not going, sir?”

Vandergriff sighed. “I wish I were. I’m so sick of this godforsaken place.” He wrinkled his nose at Nadia and smiled. “But if I leave, who will be here to greet our guests?”

The ride back across the river seemed endless. The churning waves only increased the churning in Dante’s stomach. He kept picturing the look on Nadia’s face. The pain in her eyes.

Would she ever forgive him? He would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her.

“Here we are.” Vandergriff’s man grabbed hold of the dock and pulled the boat close so Dante could jump off.

Dante glanced across the parking lot. It was empty except for Waynie’s truck. The sight of that battered little pickup made his throat ache.

Dante stood and slowly unfastened his lifejacket. Dropping it into his empty seat, he moved toward the tow. The boat lurched and he leaned forward to keep his balance.

Vandergriff’s man never saw Dante’s punch coming. Without so much as a grunt, he crumpled to the bottom of the boat.

Dante moved quickly, sawing through the straps of the lifejacket with his pocketknife. Using them, he secured the man’s hands and feet. He pushed his burden onto the creaking wooden dock, pausing only to strip the man of his cap and walkie talkie. He pulled the cap snugly on his head and clipped the walkie talkie to his waistband.

Swinging the boat around, Dante opened up the throttle and headed back the way he’d come.

He had known something was wrong as soon as he’d stepped out of that study and seen the pain in her eyes. Nadia had told the truth when she said she wasn’t a liar. No matter what she’d said back there, or how calmly she’d said it, she couldn’t hide the desperation in her eyes. Her terror was raw, palpable, and grotesquely disproportionate to the situation. When he’d held her, he’d caught the scent of ozone … the smell of burnt flesh … and he had known.

It had nearly killed him to walk out that door, but if they were going to have any chance at all, he had to catch Vandergriff and his men by surprise.

As he zipped along the black water, the walkie talkie crackled to life.

“Base to North.”

Dante hesitated. They were calling for his escort.

He’d listened to their radio conversation as they’d made the first trip across, but he didn’t feel confident enough to impersonate the man.

“Base to North. Come in.”

He had no choice.

Keying the device, Dante counted on the crashing water to muffle his voice.

“This is North. Over.”

“Drop off your package, North?”

“Affirmative. On my way in.”

“What?”

“Affirmative,” Dante repeated.

“Go to Cahill when you get back to get an update. We’ve got company coming tonight, 10-4?”

“10-4.”

The radio was quiet after that and Dante could only hope he didn’t have an ambush waiting for him.

No doubt who the company was. Dante only prayed Vandergriff’s men weren’t already on red alert.

No one was waiting on him when he arrived back at the dock. He secured the boat next to the others and hopped off. Tugging his cap lower, he skipped up the wooden steps, heading back to the main house.

Hoping the guys who were monitoring the cameras weren’t paying too much attention, Dante headed toward the men’s barracks adjacent to the house. It struck him how similar the set-up was to Branson’s.

A distraction. He needed a distraction.

Then he spotted it.

A red lawnmower sat next to the front steps. Beside it was a can of gasoline.

Whistling, Dante grabbed the can and liberally doused the back of the barracks. The fumes made his eyes tear when he flicked his silver lighter and tossed it into the pooling gasoline. With a loud whoosh, the weathered wood burst into flames.

Dante ran down the front porch of the building, rapping on doors and shouting, “Fire! Fire!”

Men emptied out of the building in various stages of undress. They came from around the house. Inside the house. An alarm began to blare.

Dante took advantage of the pandemonium and burst through the back door of the main house, startling the cook. The tiny Mexican woman dropped the pan of rolls she was pulling from the oven.

She opened her mouth to scream.

“El fuego. La casa es se quemar
,” Dante said quickly. His Spanish was rusty, but the woman seemed to understand. She shut her mouth, nodded at him and ran out through the back door.

Dante checked the clip in his gun and pushed his way through the swinging doors into a deserted dining room. He had almost reached the other door when he heard the loud voices outside it. He scurried under the low-hanging tablecloth a moment before the doors burst open.

“I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know right now.”

Vandergriff sounded furious. He stopped right beside Dante’s hiding place. If he’d wanted to, Dante could’ve touched his black loafers. Sweat beaded on Dante’s forehead and he struggled to control his rapid breathing.

“Stewart, go upstairs with the girl until I call you down. Blow a hole through anyone who tries to open the door. Theo, you come with me.”

Dante waited until he heard the soft whish of the swinging doors before he took off after Stewart.

He was starting up the stairs. Dante rushed him. At the last moment, the big man turned and stared at Dante with huge, shocked eyes.

Stewart reached for his gun.

Dante never slowed. He crashed into him, driving Stewart backward into the steps. The wind left the fat man’s body in a rush and he heard a sickening crunch.

Shoving his gun under the man’s chin, Dante said, “The girl. Tell me where he’s got the girl.”

“Mister …” the man wheezed. “I can’t. I’d be better off … with you pulling the trigger …”

Knowing he was running out of time, Dante slammed Stewart’s head against a step, knocking him unconscious. He crawled over the man’s bulky body and sprinted up the stairs.

Four identical doors greeted him. Dante started at the closest one and began trying them all.

The third was locked. Dante launched himself at it, kept launching himself at it until it splintered beneath his shoulder. He stumbled through the doorway and found himself staring into Nadia’s stunned face.

She was tied to the headboard of a huge oak bed.

Dante clamored up on the bed and whipped out his pocketknife. He began sawing through the ropes.

“You came back for me,” she said.

She looked so glad to see him that Dante felt his guts knot. This was all his fault. He had done this to her.