“Put down my daughter,” Sarah ordered, her heart in her throat as Caitlyn screamed in fury, her tiny face turning red as tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re hurting her. Let her go."
“I don’t think so.” Victor tightened his grip on Caitlyn. “Stop right there."
“It’s me you want. Just put her down. I’ll do whatever you say."
“Mama!” Caitlyn screamed, her little arms reaching out for Sarah.
Sarah’s heart broke at the sight of her daughter’s fear and fury. “It’s okay, baby. Please, Victor, leave my child alone."
He gave her an evil smile. “The way you left me alone? You betrayed me, Jessica. You turned on me. You became my enemy, and my enemies do not survive."
“I had no choice. The agents blackmailed me. They said I’d go to prison if I didn’t work with them."
“So instead you sent me to prison.” His wild eyes glittered with anger. “Does your friend here know we were lovers? Or shall I tell him in exact detail what we did in bed together?"
Sarah licked her lips. She didn’t dare look at Jake, but she could feel the tension emanating from his body. So far he’d said nothing, but she knew he was trying to think of some way to take Victor down. He wouldn’t let Victor kill Caitlyn, not without a fight -- which scared her even more. If they weren’t careful, they could all end up dead.
“This is between you and me,” she said to Victor.
“You’re not going to be able to kill all of us,” Jake added.
Victor’s thick lips tightened as he glared at Jake. “All I have to do is kill you first. Do you think Jessica can stop me from taking her life -- or your daughter’s? Quite a little family you’ve made for yourself, Jessica, while I was rotting in prison. Did you think about me? Did you really believe I was going to let you live after what you did to me?"
“You did it to yourself. You smuggled the drugs. You fenced the art. The feds had other witnesses besides me, including Timothy."
“Timothy paid for his betrayal, and so will you."
“Where’s Teresa?” she asked, trying to keep him talking.
“Your friend can’t help you. This time you aren’t going to escape. Shane is dead. Timothy is dead.
And soon you’ll be dead, too. It’s much sweeter this way. I thought it would be enough to know you had taken your last breath, but it will be much more satisfying for me to pull the trigger. But first your friend, I think.” He pointed his gun at Jake.
“Don’t!” Sarah cried.
Her loud yell made Caitlyn scream. Her tiny fists swung in the air, her feet kicking wildly as she fought to get away.
Victor had one arm around the baby, and Sarah could see that Caitlyn’s squirming was distracting Victor. Like any good toddler, Caitlyn knew instinctively how to go boneless and limp, how to use her weight to flop around like a rag doll.
“Dammit,” Victor swore at Caitlyn. “Shut the fuck up."
Caitlyn screamed again as Victor tried to get a better grip on her. Sarah took a step forward, unable to bear the sight of her daughter’s struggles.
“Don’t move,” Victor said. “Or I’ll kill the baby first."
Sarah stopped abruptly. Victor made another attempt to get a better grip on Caitlyn, but in one wild flurry of arms and legs, her daughter knocked the gun right out of Victor’s hand.
Sarah watched in shock as the weapon flew across the room and landed on the hardwood floor, sliding on a straight path toward the bed.
For a moment everyone froze. Then they all moved at once.
Victor let go of Caitlyn to grab for the gun.
As Caitlyn fell to the floor, Sarah ran to her, sweeping her up in her arms.
Jake kicked the gun farther away from Victor and tackled him. But Victor had at least forty pounds on Jake.
Sarah wanted to help, but she needed to protect Caitlyn first. Jake would want her to run. And that was what she would do. She turned toward the door, then gasped in horror when she realized the door was blocked.
There was another man facing her now -- another gun pointing straight at her head. And on the man’s wrist was the tattoo of a tiger. Rick, another Harvard boy gone bad.
Casting a quick look over her shoulder, Sarah saw Victor shove Jake against the far wall. Jake’s head bounced against it so hard a picture frame came crashing down. Jake fell to the floor while Victor staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth and nose, fury in his eyes.
Jake looked like he’d blacked out, Sarah thought as she saw his eyes flutter closed. It was over. There was no way she could escape now. They were going to die.
“Should I shoot her?” Rick asked.
“No, I want the pleasure,” Victor answered, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. There was an evil light in his eyes as he looked at her. “First your baby, then you."
“You just got out of prison,” she argued desperately. “You have your life back. If you kill me they’ll track you down. You’ll go back to jail."
Victor shook his head. “No one will ever know it was me. They’ll think it was him. Everyone knows you were running from someone -- who better than your ex-lover? Time to say good-bye, Jessica."
Sarah couldn’t say a word. Fear paralyzed her throat. There was not a damn thing she could do to stop him. Or was there?
She pressed Caitlyn’s tiny head against her breast. “She’s just a child. She’s innocent. Let me put her down, and then you can kill me. Please, Victor. I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t kill my baby.” She knew her pleas were falling on deaf ears, but she had to try. If Victor had one ounce of humanity in him, he’d let Caitlyn go. But as she looked into his eyes, she knew that whatever humanity he’d had was long gone.
“She has your blood, the blood of my enemy.” Victor bent down to pick up the gun that had slid halfway under the bed.
She turned back toward Rick, hoping to find some compassion in his eyes, but they were ice-cold. The man had no heart, no soul. He’d spent just as many years in prison as Victor had. There was no way he would let her go. He would have killed her already if Victor hadn’t said he wanted to do it himself. “She’s just a baby,” she said helplessly.
Caitlyn began to cry again, obviously sensing Sarah’s growing panic.
And then the unthinkable happened. Dylan came out of nowhere, ramming Rick from behind, sending the large man sprawling across the room, colliding with Victor. The two men got tangled up together.
The gun skittered out of Rick’s hand, hitting Jake in the side of the leg.
Jake’s eyes flew open, and he scrambled to his feet.
As Dylan went after Rick, Jake rushed Victor again.
With the doorway free and clear, Sarah ran from the room. She had to get Caitlyn to safety. To her shock Catherine was running up the stairs, determination in her eyes, a baseball bat in her hands.
“Take Caitlyn. Give me the bat,” Sarah said.
“No way. She needs you, Jessica. You’re her mother. Now get the hell out of here."
Catherine charged into the bedroom like a female warrior.
Sarah heard a thud, then a boom as a gun went off.
God, she prayed the bullet hadn’t hit Jake or Dylan or Catherine. She covered Caitlyn’s ear with her hand and raced toward the stairs. As much as she wanted to help, her first priority had to be Caitlyn. She had just reached the bottom of the stairs when her name was called.
“Sarah."
Her heart came to a thudding stop.
Jake stood at the top of the stairs. His face was bloodied and bruised, but his eyes were triumphant. “Victor is dead."
“What about --”
“Knocked out,” Dylan said, dragging Catherine toward the stairs. “Thanks to our leadoff hitter here. Someone call 911. I want to make sure that guy doesn’t wake up.” Dylan headed back toward the bedroom as Catherine dashed down the stairs past Sarah, heading for the phone in the living room.
Jake walked down the stairs, his gaze never leaving his daughter. Caitlyn was still crying, her face buried against Sarah’s breast.
Jake looked like there were a million things he wanted to say, but no words crossed his lips. His hand came to rest gently on Caitlyn’s back. He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe he was touching his child again.
Sarah felt her eyes fill with tears. She was sure Jake wanted to rip Caitlyn out of her arms and take her into his own protective embrace. But he wouldn’t do that to his child. He wouldn’t scare or hurt Caitlyn by taking her away from her mother -- the woman who had also betrayed him.
Instead, in a move that reminded her exactly why she had loved him so much, Jake put his arms around both of them, pulling Sarah close, keeping Caitlyn between them. His forehead touched hers. She closed her eyes at the tender gesture. They were safe. They were back together -- at least for the moment.
“Look who I found,” Catherine said, leading a dazed Teresa into the living room. “She was tied up in the kitchen."
“Oh, my God!” Sarah whispered. Teresa had always been a short, scrappy brunette, but she looked even tougher now with a black eye and a bump the size of a golf ball on her forehead. “What did they do to you?"
“I would have gotten away if they hadn’t double-teamed me,” Teresa complained. “At least I got a few punches in. I’m sorry, Sarah. I went outside to the garbage early this morning and they came up behind me. They told me they were only letting me live so I could keep the baby alive until you got here. That’s when I took a swing at one of them. I guess he hit me harder than he intended, because when I woke up, I was alone and tied up in the kitchen. I heard Caitlyn screaming upstairs. It scared the shit out of me. But Catherine says they’re dead -- or at least one of them is."
“Victor is dead. The other one Catherine took out with a baseball bat. I didn’t do anything except grab Caitlyn.” Sarah realized that she had always felt so alone, but today her friends had risked their lives to save her and her daughter.
“Hey, I saw you,” Jake said abruptly, his gaze on Teresa. He pointed a finger at her. “You were in the hospital outside of Sarah’s room a couple of days ago. I thought you were waiting for someone, but you were watching me."
“You were there?” Sarah asked in amazement.
Teresa nodded. “I saw the report of the accident on the news, and I came to see how you were. I left Caitlyn with my neighbor just for an hour. When I got to the hospital and realized you had amnesia, I wasn’t sure what to do. You never told me who was after you except that it was a guy, and when I saw him,” she said, tipping her head toward Jake, “I didn’t know who he was. I decided it was safer to just keep Caitlyn with me until you got your memory back. You told me not to tell anyone no matter what happened. But maybe I should have."
Sarah shook her head. “You did the right thing. I didn’t get my memory back until this morning, when Jake found Victor’s picture on the Internet. I’m really sorry you got hurt, Teresa. I knew I was putting you in danger. I shouldn’t have done it."
“Don’t say that. You were forced off the side of a cliff. If you’d had Caitlyn with you, who knows what would have happened? It was my fault they got in here today. I should have been more careful."
As Teresa finished speaking, Sarah heard sirens in the distance.
“The police,” Jake muttered. “Take Caitlyn into the living room.” He gave Sarah a gentle push.
She hesitated. “Jake -- did you kill Victor? Or did Dylan?"
“I did,” he said calmly. “We were fighting for the gun and it went off. The bullet hit him in the heart -- if he even had a heart."
“I can’t believe he’s dead. Are you sure?"
“Positive. You can take a look at him when the coroner brings him out, but right now you need to stay with Caitlyn."
“I don’t want you to go to jail. This was my fight.
Victor was my enemy. You’re the one who needs to take Caitlyn. I’ll say I killed Victor in self-defense. I’ll put the gun in my hand, cover your fingerprints with mine.” Her mind raced with what else should be done to protect Jake.
Jake’s gaze searched hers in amazement. “You want to lie for me?"
“Well, you know I’m pretty good at it,” she said, trying to make a joke, but she choked on a sob.
“Don’t tell any more lies, Sarah. It’s time for the truth."
“Not at your expense."
“It’s going to be all right. It was self-defense."
She shook her head at his naïveté. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d never been on the wrong side of the law. She had. “You believe the system will work, that justice will be served, but that doesn’t always happen, Jake. Sometimes the bad guys win."
He cupped her chin with his hand. “And sometimes the good guys do. Trust me. For once in your life, Sarah, trust me."
“I do, but --"
Before she could finish they heard heavy footsteps on the porch. The police and paramedics had arrived. It was time to officially end her life on the run.