“Listen, I’m here in Whisper Creek. I’ll head over to Mom’s now and make sure the bastard’s not bluffing.” She hopped from one foot to the other as she tugged on her jeans, becoming aware of the deep soreness between her legs. “Maybe she’s got the ringer off or her sound machine turned up loud. You know how she needs white noise to sleep.”
“Ana... He’ll kill her. Rick must’ve planned all along to get rid of everyone who knew anything. He had to have looked her up before we ditched him. There’s no reason for him to keep her alive for a trade. We won’t know the difference until he’s got us face-to-face, then he’ll take us out, too.”
“Shut up, Frankie.” She pulled a sports bra over her head, then grabbed her top. “You’re not going to think about anything but keeping your head down and your mind sharp. I’m gonna run by Mom’s.”
“Okay but—”
“You keep that burner phone on you at all times, you hear me? I want you and Eric to check in every thirty minutes. And find a safe place to hole up and stay there until I tell you otherwise. Don’t make a move without me, got it?”
“Yes. I got it. Ana...” Frankie’s voice broke. “It’s all f**ked up. It all fell apart.”
“That’s usually what happens when you break the law, Frankie. You’ve just been really damned lucky so far.” She shoved her nightgown into her bag. “Be careful. Love you.”
Ana was straightening from grabbing her heels off the floor when Jake stepped into the room fully dressed with his gun on his hip and his badge clipped to the waistband of his jeans.
“You can’t come with me,” she snapped.
“The hell I can’t.” His gaze bored into hers. “That’s my brother out there with yours. Christ, Ana. You’re here because you knew they’d pulled off that heist and you didn’t say a damn thing to me.”
“Because they’re not going to jail, Jake!” She shoved her heels in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I can take care of this and you can keep your hands clean.”
“Is that all you think I worry about?” He stared at her face, then cursed under his breath. “I’d break any law for you. Every law. There’s nothing I won’t do for you.”
“I know.” She went to him and put her palm over his heart. “I know you would. I’m just not sure you could live with yourself afterward and I don’t want to put you in that position. I love you, Jake. Just the way you are.”
Jake lifted her fingers to his mouth. “I have something for you.”
“Not now!”
He released her hand and shoved his own into his pocket. A moment later, he was sliding a diamond onto the ring finger of her left hand, a square cushion-cut that caught the light of the moon shining through the gap in the shutters on the windows.
She swallowed hard, afraid to blink. “Jake—”
“I’ve been holding on to that for years. Now it’s your turn.” He tugged her bag off her shoulder and dropped it on the couch. “Give me your keys. I want to drive the Jag.”
Ana felt damn near giddy. Too much adrenaline, she told herself. Neither of them was thinking straight. It’d never work... unless it did.
But they had to make it through the next few hours first.
“You got a jacket?” he asked.
“In the car. Let’s go.”
Jake watched as Ana opened the trunk of her car and revealed body armor and a handgun safe. She selected one of three guns she had locked away and slid it into her shoulder holster, then shrugged on a windbreaker and relocked the box. Her movements were calm, practiced, and efficient. Jake marveled at the strong, sexy woman she’d become.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“No.” Shutting the trunk quietly, she studied the two-story house tucked into the woods. “But I’m really glad you’re here. Come on.”
In the silver glow of moonlight, the old Victorian with its round, pointed rooftops and wraparound porch looked like something out of a fairytale—the kind where things went wrong.
Ana kept her cool even after they’d searched the house and confirmed that Tilly had been taken. There were signs of a struggle in the master bedroom, but mercifully no blood.
“Rick Parker could’ve killed her here, if that was his plan,” she said flatly, picking up Tilly’s cell phone from the nightstand and searching through it. “Could’ve made it look like a burglary gone bad. She talked him out of it, maybe gave him information that made her valuable. She conned him. It’ll keep her alive for a while. Let’s go.”
“Hey.” He caught her by the shoulders before she moved past him and looked down at her face. Recognizing her fierce determination to keep her emotions at bay, he settled for a soft kiss to her brow.
“Jake—”
“We both needed that. Now we can go.”
They went downstairs and were almost out the front door, when Ana stepped on something that crunched beneath her black running shoes. Crouching, she examined the broken glass; then she found its source lying on the floor just inside the door.
“This shouldn’t be here,” she said, straightening. “Mom has kept this photo on her side of the bed forever.”
Jake took it from her, looking at the yellowed image through the cracked glass.
Her mouth curved in a smile. “That photo was taken the day my dad proposed, after they left the bank and took a stroll on the boardwalk. It’s a message she knew I would understand. Mom’s leading Rick to Atlantic City.”
His brows arched. “Isn’t that a big leap?”
“Trust me,” Ana insisted. “The minute he went along with whatever story she sold him, it became her show. She’s running it. We just need to catch up with them, before he figures that out.”
As they drove east on 422, Ana pulled out her laptop and began typing furiously. Jake watched her out of the corner of his eye. Reaching over, he slid his hand beneath her hair and stroked her nape with his fingers.
He was so damn glad to be able to touch her again. To be able to smell her and hear her, to have her nearby to look at. She was keeping him sane instead of frantic with worry over Eric.
She looked at him, her face made stark by her grimness and the shadows of night. “Frankie will take care of Eric. Don’t worry.”
“It’s not just Eric I’m worried about.” He tugged gently on her hair.
“I can’t think about that. I can’t lose it. Not now.”
“Okay, so we’ll keep your mind off it. Do you travel a lot?”
“Yes, but that’s because there was nothing to keep me home. I won’t so much now.” She returned her attention to her laptop screen. “The good citizens of Whisper Creek will have to get used to seeing me around again.”
“Is that where you want to live?”
Her gaze shot to him again. “The last time I checked that’s where you lived, right?”
“I stayed because it kept me close to your family. I was afraid if I moved away, I might lose touch with you altogether.” He shrugged. “Don’t look so horrified. There wasn’t any place I had a burning desire to get to and Eric needed the stability of staying in one place. But my job can take me anywhere—you know that.”
“You’d do that?” she asked quietly.
“I’d do anything for you, Anastasia. You make me a happy man.”
Ana was quiet for a few moments, then, “You know how my parents got engaged? They met in Atlantic City. My mom was running an insurance scam and my dad was hustling old stuff. She wanted to get her hands on his antiques and he wanted to get a fraudulent payout. They played each other for a few weeks, then they agreed to meet at a local bank where he was supposed to show the goods for appraisal—he pulled an engagement ring and a bottle of Dom Perignon out of the safe deposit box instead.”
“Your dad proposed in a bank?”
“Surrounded by other people’s safeguarded valuables—absolutely the perfect venue for my parents. They’d been onto each other almost from the first, but for them the game was their version of flirting and dating. That’s what my family is like, Jake. And I don’t see them ever changing.”
“I’m not running scared, Anastasia. If it takes a few decades or a lifetime, you’ll eventually figure that out.”
Shaking her head, Ana got back to work.
The sky over the turnpike was lightening when Ana answered a check-in call from Frankie.
“Hey,” she said quietly, achingly aware of the block of ice in her gut. “I got an email from Detective Samuels in New York—Terence Parker passed away an hour ago.”
“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Terry. Jesus. He was a good guy, you know? He didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
“Have you heard from Rick?”
“Yeah.” Frankie took a deep breath. “And he let me talk to Mom. She sounded okay. Not scared at all. And you were right about Atlantic City—that’s where he wants to do the swap. Eric’s texting the address to Jake’s cell now. I told Rick I’d have to talk to Mom directly before the meet or I wouldn’t show up, and I said we wanted to get out of town before nine.”