No need to ask who the
he
was. Only one person could put that look on Leena’s face.
Or Maddie’s, for that matter.
Good old Uncle Rick.
“He already knew I’m not on that cruise like I told him. He thinks I might be on the run.”
Maddie stared at her, absorbing all that Leena wasn’t saying. Uncle Rick and his merry men weren’t stupid. They knew Leena wouldn’t run on her own.
Nope, of course she’d have gone straight to Maddie.
Damn.
Chances were, they’d never
not
known where Maddie was, but up until now, they hadn’t needed her. Not when they had Leena.
“He’s playing it cool,” Leena said. “Pretending I’m not gone. He said if I just come back and do a job for him, I can get back to my vacation.”
“You don’t have to do what he says. You’ve left Stone Cay behind.”
“Maybe no one ever really leaves.”
“I did. You know I did.”
“Yeah, you left. You had to sneak out in the middle of the night without a forwarding address, and you couldn’t look back. You had to run hard and fast, thousands of miles away. You were young and all on your own, and you were nothing but a child.”
“But I did it.”
“But you had to hide. You had to start a new life.” Leena said this in wonder. “No money, no friends or family or anything. Back then, I couldn’t imagine the courage it took, and now…now that I’m here, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do the same.”
“Well, I know. Besides, you’re older than I was, and you’re not alone. You have me. You can do this. You can, Leena. I promise.”
They stared at each other, Leena’s fear and Maddie’s strength battling it out. Unfortunately, fear was a formidable opponent, and contagious, as well. Hers and Leena’s differences had always been very obvious, but suddenly, the gap seemed to shrink to nothing until they were both young and scared stupid all over again.
“I want to do this,” Leena whispered.
“And you will.”
“But it’s asking so much of you.”
“Look, you’re out of there. That’s all that matters. The rest will be fine.” Maddie only hoped that was true, but God, she didn’t really want to vanish again. She loved the life she’d made for herself.
Loved.
It.
But she loved Leena more, even if it meant saying good-bye to everyone else. All they’d needed was a few more days, and she’d have had The Plan in motion. They’d have been gone. But now, Rick already knew Leena wasn’t where she’d said she was, and the man Maddie didn’t want to have to say good-bye to had shown up.
God.
“If Rick finds us—”
“If he tries to push us around, we’ll push back,” Maddie said firmly. “We’ll get the authorities involved.”
Leena was already shaking her head before Maddie finished. “Manny,” she said, and the name stopped Maddie cold.
Manny had been one of Rick’s grunt men, young and built, and Leena had gone out with him once. After their date, he’d come on to her strong, wanting sex. Leena hadn’t been ready. She’d refused him anything but a quick kiss, but Manny hadn’t been happy with that and tried for more. Leena’d shoved free of him, and he’d fallen down the stairs.
And died.
That was Leena’s story.
Unfortunately, Rick had another one because Manny had been found with a knife wound in his gut. Back then, Rick had cleaned up that mess, but it wouldn’t stay clean.
“If I stay gone,” Leena said, “Rick’s going to bring me up on murder charges.”
Which would affect them both. “Okay, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Ohmigod.” Leena shook her head. “I’m really doing this.”
“Yes.” Maddie thought of Brody, hopefully on his wild-goose chase after her PT. “But we need to move up the timetable to, like, now.”
“We can’t. I have someone I want to say good-bye to first. In New Orleans.”
“Now?” Leena shook her head. “New Orleans? Who’s in New Orleans—”
“Ben.”
Now it was Maddie’s turn to shake her head. “Leena, no. We can’t do good-byes. We have to leave. Now.”
“No.” Leena’s chin was set. Never a good thing. “I’m sorry, Mad, but I’m not like you, all tough and impenetrable, letting nothing get to me. I have to say good-bye.”
Is that how Leena saw her? Really? Tough? Impenetrable? Cold? Is that how Brody would see her when she was gone? “I let plenty get to me. I just don’t let any of it rule me. You have to be strong.”
“No one’s as strong as you.”
“You are, and I’ll prove it to you. Wait right here.” With a calm she didn’t feel, Maddie raced up the stairs. In the master bedroom, she went to the dresser that she’d commandeered as her own for her stay. Specifically, the underwear drawer. Beneath all the silk and lace that was her own vanity-vice, past the gun she kept there, sat a small jewelry box.
The only thing she had of their mother’s.
It was wooden, intricately carved, and Russian, and she carried it with her because it gave her comfort. Supposedly, her mother’s mother’s mother had brought it over when she’d first come to the States. Inside was a string of pearls and a three-by-five picture of twin four-year-olds—Maddie and Leena, dressed for Halloween, wearing Batman and Robin costumes.
Superheroes.
They were grinning for the camera, arms slung around each other, their world as wide open in front of them as the gap in their mouths where their front teeth had been.
Maddie ran her thumb over the photo, her wistful smile fading. It’d been shortly after this picture had been taken that their mother had left them, just walked away to go after her dream of riches and fame in Hollywood rather than see her own children grow up. Rumor had it she’d made it only as far as one of the strip clubs in Miami.
Maddie and Leena had been raised on Stone Cay, a private Bahama island, in a huge, luxurious compound that made up their father’s family heritage. Family being a loose term, of course. Their father had been with them until Maddie’s and Leena’s eighth birthday, when he’d died of a heart attack after a fight with his brother over how to run a portion of their import-export gem business, the illegal portion.
Maddie and Leena had grown up in the lap of decadence and luxury, but they’d also grown up quickly. Classic poor little rich girls, one twin with an aptitude for survival skills and one gifted with a genius for jewelry design.
Leena.
After that little talent had been discovered by Uncle Rick, they’d pulled Leena into the business almost nonchalantly—oh, here, Leena, an important client wants to buy this million dollar gem from us, please design a piece for it. Then Uncle Rick would swap the gem out for a replica, sell the designed piece to their customer and the gem to someone else, and pocket the cash from both deals with their customer never the wiser.
When Maddie had learned of it, she’d freaked, knowing that when Rick got caught, Leena would go down in flames right alongside him. Maddie also knew that the only way to save Leena was to get her off the island, but every time she planned an escape, Leena would back out. Maddie might have stayed on Stone Cay all these years just to keep watching after Leena if it hadn’t been for that one last fateful night, which had forced her to run hard and fast and never look back.
Staring down at the picture now, Maddie felt the regret nearly choke her. She’d walked away from Leena, left her alone and defenseless.
Seemed she wasn’t so unlike her mother after all.
But the mistakes of her past were just that. She didn’t have to repeat them. She wouldn’t repeat them. Leena had come to her. She was ready. They could do this.
Together.
Slipping the picture in her pocket, she left the room to prove it to her sister.
Physical therapist, Brody’s ass. PTs didn’t make house calls, not even to gorgeous liars.
And Maddie
was
desperate. There’d been many, many times when he’d daydreamed about her being desperate…desperate for his body was his favorite.
But that’s not what she was desperate for now. Nope, she was killing herself trying to get rid of him, and that wasn’t going to happen.
It took him about four minutes to jimmy the lock on the sliding glass door. It would have taken less, but halfway through, Shayne buzzed him on his cell to ask if he’d handled things yet.
“Working on it.”
“What’s taking you so long? You losing your touch with women?”
Brody snarled, and with a laugh, Shayne disconnected.
Anger was a good motivator, but angst was a better one, and Brody slid the door open. Helping himself, he stepped inside. Someone had gone a little overboard with the wild, wild West theme in the place, but even without the cowboy paraphernalia, the interior screamed expensive taste, much like the woman who lived here.
There was no one in the living room, but he followed a low murmur of voices into a hallway, where there was a line of skis and snowshoes that he absolutely could not see Maddie using. She liked cars and planes, things with engines, nothing that required her own steam.
Why was she here, so out of her element?
Then he heard a cell phone ring, and Maddie’s voice answer, low and unhappy. He moved into the kitchen where he found her talking to her cell phone, opened on the counter.
“I’ve been out of range,” she said.
“That’s a problem.” The man spoke in a harsh warning tone. “You need to get back in range.”
“You don’t understand.” Maddie wrung her hands. “I just want to live my life. I want to…travel. I won’t tell anyone what we’ve done, I promise. Just let me go.”
This made Brody even more tense, as did the fact that she was back to being a platinum blonde and wearing the sprayed on jeans.
What the hell? She looked like the kick-ass Maddie he knew, but she did not sound like her, not with the uncertain tone and stance that suggested she could be bullied and intimidated.
The Maddie he knew would never give anything away, certainly not a single vulnerability, and she sure as hell never let anyone bully or intimidate her.
Never.
He was missing something, and the niggling of it rumbled through him.
“I know you won’t tell a soul,” said the man through the speaker. “Just as I know you’ll get back here. You have a job.”
“I’m…no longer interested.”
“Get reinterested. Fast.”
“But—”
“Okay, let me make things clearer. Get back here, or I’ll send someone for you. And you won’t like that, believe me. You know you won’t.”
At Sky High, Maddie would have cut the guy off at the knees, if not the balls, and Brody waited for her to do just that. Instead, she shuddered in fear. “No, please. Don’t.”
Okay, fuck this, he thought and strode across the room toward her.
She whirled and at the sight of him, let out a terrified little squeak that stopped him short.
“Brody?” she whispered, hand fluttering up to her throat like a damsel in distress, which confused him all the more.
“Who’s Brody?” the man on the phone demanded.
Brody slowed his steps, not liking the way she was retreating from him, backing up against the counter. He’d figured she’d slug him or do anything in her usual take no prisoners way. Instead she was cowering to the tile, eyes huge on his. “Brody’s my…”
“What?” the cell phone commanded. “He’s your what?”
“I forgot to tell you. I’m…married.”
Dead silence all around.
Well, except for Brody’s heart, which skidded to a stunned stop, then began a heavy, hard beat that threatened to give him heart failure.
Married?
“Yeah,” Maddie said, eyes still locked on Brody. “And he makes enough money for the both of us, so I don’t ever have to work for you again, Rick. And if you’re smart, you’ll just let me go.”
Brody was still on the married portion of that sentence. What the hell was she talking about? She dated occasionally, he knew. He hated it. But he’d always taken some comfort in the fact that when she did date, she rarely repeated a guy.
But married? That required a lot of repeating, and he would have definitely noticed that.
“You’re married,” the man on the phone said in clear disbelief.
“Yes.” Maddie’s eyes were still locked on Brody. “And Brody doesn’t like the islands, so we can’t come back. Sorry.”
Jesus. Why would she say she was married to
him?
“You’re the one who’s going to be sorry if you don’t get back here to Stone Cay,” the man said, and the following click, along with the aggression and fury in the sound, echoed through the kitchen, distinctive and succinct.
Brody stared at the woman who his eyes were telling him was Maddie while his brain screamed otherwise, but then she did something even more extremely un-Maddielike.
She put the cell phone in her pocket and burst into tears.
Absolutely struck stupid by all of it, he moved as if underwater, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms.