Something crunched beneath his hip. With a hand, he reached for the object. An empty juice box, now crushed by his weight. He smiled. She’d always liked grape juice.
Juliana got in, breathing as if she’d just run a marathon. She tossed the ill-fitting wig onto the passenger’s seat. As she reached for the keys already in the ignition, her hand shook. The adrenaline flowing through her blood filled the atmosphere inside the car with electricity, crackling in him a sudden desire for action.
Patience. No sudden movement
.
Silently letting go of the juice box, he uncurled from his cramped position.
“Nice day for a car ride in the country,” he said, casually draping an arm over the seat and around her shoulders, hemming her in.
Crying out, Juliana jerked her head up and stared at him, eyes rounded, in the rearview mirror. Her skin paled, making her features appear porcelain-fragile. Her knuckles whitened against the steering wheel.
“Lucas, my God! What are you doing here? Get out, get out!
Now
.”
He’d expected the surprise. He’d expected the question. He hadn’t expected her to ask him to leave as if
he’d
just committed a crime instead of her.
She’d been so in control when he’d met her six years ago, so in charge of her composure. Now she seemed on the edge of panic.
Out of place in Juliana—out of place for the Phantom.
“Nice to see you, too, Jewel. What’ve you been up to this morning?”
“Lucas, please, get out.” Her voice rasped—breathy, needful, almost desperate. Her body hardened beneath his hand as if one more breath would stretch her past her limit and break her into pieces. What was going on?
“Either you tell me what you were doing in my house, or we sit here all day.”
She fumbled with the car keys, overcranked the starter, causing the motor to whine and screech. “I have to get home.”
Her gaze darted in all directions, searching her surroundings.
“What are you looking for?” His guts roiled with sudden knowing. She wasn’t the Phantom. She wasn’t in this alone. A partner? Was this how the Phantom had managed the other thefts, too? How he’d managed to commit his crimes in broad daylight without being seen? By using decoys to acquire the gems he craved as much as an addict needed drugs?
She fumbled with the keys again, pressed the accelerator, flooded the engine. “I have to get home—”
His hand tightened around her shoulder, trying to calm her, but found instead that touching her derailed his focus. “Why?”
Her gaze darted again, in and out of shadows, searching. “He’s watching me.” Her voice cracked, thin and brittle. “He said if the police became involved in any way—” She shook her head. “I told him you were FBI. I told him—”
“Told who?”
Tears brightened her eyes. She seemed to suck them back, squared her shoulders, and regained control. “Lucas, if you ever cared for me, get out, now.”
“Not until you explain what you were doing inside my house, stealing a family heirloom.”
“Family heirloom?” She shook her head, wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “No, Lucas, you have to leave. I’ll explain later. I’ll tell you everything later. But right now I have to get home.
Alone
.”
“Jewel—”
“—Lucas…” She half-turned in her seat to look at him. Her forehead pleated in supplication. Before he realized her intention, she grabbed her shoulder bag, scrambled out of car, and sprinted away. She headed down the logging road and turned left onto the main road.
He swore, struggled out of his tight spot, and raced after her. Not many cars used this road at this time of the day, but the last thing he needed was for a good Samaritan to get involved in this already complicated equation.
Her long legs ate the road, and even with his conditioning of daily workouts, he found catching up to her difficult. She sprinted as if the devil licked at her heels. But it wasn’t him she feared. The knowing hit him like a brick and he stumbled for half a step, swearing as he regained his balance.
She should be afraid of having been caught. She should be afraid of spending time in prison for her crime. She should be afraid of him, of the questions he’d ask her. But as he caught up to the long-limbed woman he’d known intimately, he realized something else made her fly over the narrow sandy shoulder. Something greater than her fear of breaking the law, greater than her fear of punishment, gave her wings.
She’d bolted to survive.
But from what?
Was that what had happened six years ago, too? What had she been running from then?
“Juliana!” His cry huffed raggedly as he overtook her.
“No! Go away.”
Just as he grabbed for her, she sidestepped. With a lunge, he tackled her. They fell. He twisted in the air, catching the brunt of their impact with the ground, then kept rolling into the shallow ditch, pinning Juliana beneath him and the Nadyenka Sapphire between their bodies.
“
Let me go
.” Breathing hard, she struggled against his grasp like a woman possessed. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Then explain.”
She sobbed now as she struggled. Great big sobs filled with fear, desperation, and anguish. “I have to get home. I have to get home.
Please
, Lucas. I have to get home.”
He anchored her into the ground with his weight, while she bucked for freedom. Holding both her hands, he twined his fingers with hers and stayed the movement of her arms with his forearms. He stilled the motion of her head by placing his face against hers, cheek to cheek. “Shhh, shhh,” he whispered in her ear, giving in to the strong urge to calm her, comfort her, take care of her. “It’s all right, Jewel. Whatever it is, I can help you.”
“No, no.” Her breath puffed against his nape. “You’re only making things worse. Let me go,
please
, let me go.”
Her tears spread hot against his cheek, melting something inside of him, flooding him with the peace that had evaded him for so long. He understood now the restlessness that had hounded him since his transfer back to Boston six months ago, fueling in him the unsettling urge for stability and familiarity. The dreams, starring Juliana, that had come with unnerving regularity should have given him a clue. Her proximity had been the reason for his fretful sleep, his impatient days.
And even though she’d just stolen his most precious possession, his heart suddenly ached for the tenderness she’d once showed him, for her seductive kisses, for the softness of her body moving in rhythm to his. Sliding cheek against wet cheek, he moved his head until their lips met. He tasted the saltiness of her tears, the anguish in her sobs, and desperately tried to alchemize both into the trusting bond they’d once shared.
She gulped and gave a small cry that could have been regret or longing, but she remained unyielding. Maybe there had never been as much between them as he’d believed. The thought saddened him, but the tenderness remained. Juliana was no thief. She had a reason for her unlikely action, and he would get to the bottom of it.
He stared into her eyes, now more gray than blue. They reminded him irrationally of thunder on a stormy day. He should have fought for what was his, shouldn’t have let her walk away just to save his male pride. He caressed her cheek with his own, gentled his voice. “Why are you running? What are you afraid of?”
She closed her eyes. Torment etched into her features, distorting them. Her chest heaved beneath his.
“Talk to me, Jewel.”
“Let me go.”
“I can help you.”
She shook her head.
“We can work this out. Let me help you.”
“Please, Lucas.”
“I can’t. There’s too much at stake. I know you didn’t steal the Nadyenka Sapphire for yourself. Who did you steal it for?”
Her eyes opened wide. “How—”
“It’s not your style. Who coerced you into this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“What’s he holding against you?”
She turned her face away from his and struggled once more. He absorbed her blows, letting her tire herself out. Sensing he was on the right track, he kept up the pressure of questions drilled with precision.
“What’s he holding against you, Jewel?”
“Nothing. He’s holding nothing. Now let me go!”
“Blackmail? Is that it?”
“No!”
“He has pictures of you in a compromising position with some public official, and you’re terrified he’ll publish them?”
“No!”
“You cheated him on an original piece, on an appraisal, and now he’s buying your silence with this theft?”
“No!”
“You fenced some of the other pieces he’s stolen, now he’s threatening to expose you?”
“No!”
A car whizzed by, shivering the grass above them in its backwash.
“Then what, Juliana? You’re not the sort of woman who’d compromise her ethics for a stone, no matter how big or how valuable the damned sapphire is. What does he have on you that would make you break the law, make you take the chance of spending time in prison, make you run the risk of destroying your career? It has to be something big, something priceless. For the life of me, I can’t think of anything you’d be willing to give up your precious lifestyle for. You certainly weren’t willing for me.”
Pain twisted in her eyes. He’d pushed too far, made his point too personal. But hell, this
was
personal. He’d lost her six years ago and still didn’t know why. If he didn’t catch the Phantom, he stood to lose the only proof to his lineage to Dunavia. He stood to lose all the hard gains he’d made in his career. Old Rules-and-Regs, his squad supervisor, wasn’t going to give him many more chances to botch this case before passing it on to “abler” hands.
And now that he’d found Juliana again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her go.
“What’s he holding against you, Juliana?”
She whispered something.
“What?” he asked, bending his head closer to catch her response.
“My daughter.”
The words came out on a thin thread of voice. He thought he’d misunderstood them, but the truth was wide and frank in her eyes, which shifted from gray to deep blue. He stared down at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Juliana had a child? His heart contracted with pain. Juliana with another man? His mind couldn’t quite click the picture in place. Ridiculous as it sounded, he hadn’t thought another man could tame her. He’d unconsciously waited for her to realize the fact and come back to him.
“What?” he asked again, more to jump start his stalled brain than because he wanted her to repeat her unexpected blow.
She cried harder now, and her sobs resonated inside him, making him share her torture. “He’s got my baby. I have to get home before he calls. I have to give him the Sapphire, or he’ll hurt my daughter. Please, Lucas, let me go.”
Kidnapped. Her child had been kidnapped. Now everything made sense. To save his baby, he would have given up the sun and the moon, stolen the Seven Wonders of the World—he’d have done
anything
.
He’d worked on a kidnapping case once early in his career, and he knew the odds weren’t good. More often than not, the families lost the ransom and their loved ones. But a baby couldn’t describe her captor, couldn’t point to a picture. There was still a slight chance this could have a happy ending.
If they worked it right.
He lightened his weight on her, but didn’t set her free. “You need me.”
“No, no police. He made me promise no police. Definitely no FBI.”
With a curved finger, he wiped the tears from below her eyes. “Me, Lucas, your friend. I’ll help you. Not Special Agent Vassilovich.”
The color of her eyes shifted to cloudy gray once more, swirled with pain and something else he couldn’t quite describe.
“He won’t care,” she said, her voice so lifeless it chilled him. This wasn’t the Juliana he’d known and loved. “He won’t know the difference. He knows what you are.”
The Phantom had done his homework well. Not that Lucas expected anything less from such a foe. Now the prey was playing games with its predator. Knowing this gave Lucas a slight advantage. One he would press to its full measure.
“Do you have a garage?” he asked, forming plans, calculating odds, adding and discarding options as he spoke. He would get Juliana’s child back, and he would put the Phantom behind bars.
“Lucas—”
“Do you have a garage?” he insisted.
“Yes.”
“Is it attached to the house?”
“Lu—”
He gave her a stern look.
“Yes.”
“Then, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll hide in the back of your car. You’ll go home as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You’ll drive into the garage and shut the door—”
“He’s close enough to watch. He knows things—”
“Once we’re inside, you’ll shut all the blinds and curtains and we can start planning—”
“It won’t work. I can’t take a chance—”