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Just one.
* * *
Stomping on the accelerator, Brett Hedges drove as if he were trying to outrun a damned avalanche. And he was. The storm of emotions roiling within him, propelling him, was chasing after him, nipping at his heels, threatening to swallow him with all its vengeful fury.
Just who the hell did Didi think she was?
Baiting him?
Taunting him?
Threatening to expose him and using a kid to do it?
A mental image of her beautiful face swam before his eyes. Sly green eyes, pouty slick lips, high cheekbones, and a naughty come-hither smile that was part innocence and part pure sensual guilt. With a sexy, sassy attitude and a body to match, she’d lured him, teased him, and thrown out her proverbial bait, and he’d snapped it up, hook, line, and sinker.
The damned part of it was, he’d probably do it all over again, even knowing the consequences.
Maybe...
As dust spun from beneath the Mustan
g’s tires and the engine roared, he sped across the desert, the sinking sun at his back, the luminescent glow of Las Vegas deep into the horizon, the million stars in the clear, dark sky beginning to show. He drove steadily to the stupid meeting point that she’d insisted upon.
He’d told her he would drive to the city, have the meeting in a hotel room in one of the large casinos, but no. She wanted a face-to-face in the middle of the damned Mojave Desert.
It seemed over the top. Nearly insane.
Then again, Didi was nothing if not a drama queen, so here he was, racing across an uneven track of what couldn’t even be called a road, in the middle of the fucking Nevada desert. The back of his neck twinged, that same feeling that was always a warning, telling him he was making a big mistake, maybe a colossal or epic error in judgment, by agreeing to her demands.
For a second, he sneaked a peek at the passenger seat, where his briefcase lay. Inside: blood money. Next to it: his pistol. A Glock G-19. With fifteen rounds in the clip.
Just in case.
His back teeth ground together as bugs spattered his windshield and dust filled his nostrils.
Shit, shit, shit!
Pounding on the steering wheel with one curled fist, he thought of all kinds of scenarios, nasty ones, where he would put her in her place. His guts curled at the thought of paying that lying bitch, who, less than a year ago, was all wet lips and hot pussy, a woman who was, as it turned out, as crazy as she was sexy, as cunning as she was erotic, a woman he never should have touched, let alone slept with. Oh, hell, this was a mess, and he was right at the center of it.
But he wasn’t going down without a fight, he thought, as he heard the first cry of a lonesome coyote over the growl of the Mustang’s engine. Inside his somewhat battered briefcase, he had a little surprise for Didi. Some of the bills weren’t legit, but near-perfect forgeries, a fact she wouldn’t be able to discern until she’d really examined each bundle, all strapped neatly. Professionally. By the time she’d realized her mistake, it would be too late. She wouldn’t be able to go to the cops without selling herself down the river for attempting extortion and selling her own infant. He wasn’t sure about the laws, but what she was attempting was darned close to human trafficking in a way, even if he was the kid’s father.
Right? Maybe.
Did it matter? No.
The upshot was that she would be cornered as well as broke.
He felt a grim satisfaction at that thought. Didi would get what she’d deserved, the con artist becoming the mark. It all had an ironic and gratifying ring to it, he thought, though the sprinkling of legitimate fifties and hundreds within the straps did bother him. A necessary cost of doing business.
He only wished he could be a fly on the wall when she finally discovered that the illicit tables had been effectively turned on her.
As he thought about that, he allowed himself a grin, and for the first time since he’d rented his car in LA, the warmth of the lowering sun was welcome against his back.
* * *
In the back of the Cadillac, Remmi fought nausea. The car was speeding, engine humming, and Didi didn’t seem to care as the tires hit rocks and potholes that caused it to bounce. The cargo space was beyond hot, the air stale, and Remmi held onto the grips on either side of the tight space, handholds made especially for Didi when she was hiding within this cramped space as part of her routine. Now the straps helped Remmi from hitting her head again and kept her body, even wedged as it was, from shifting and banging against the sides or ceiling. Her head still throbbed from the first time, and she couldn’t chance Didi hearing a suspicious noise, though that scenario seemed far-fetched right now as she was driving like a bat out of hell to a place only she knew. The longer the trip, the more woozy Remmi felt, and the more her fear mounted. Wherever Didi was taking her twins, it wasn’t a good spot, of that Remmi was certain.
What if Didi was somehow plotting to get rid of Ariel and Adam? Remmi’s heart twisted, and she didn’t really believe it because she felt at some level her mother really did love her infants, even if they were fatherless, and once again, Didi Storm, aka Edwina Maria Hutchinson, was thrust into the role of single mother. She’d stuck by Remmi despite the lack of a husband; surely, she would do the same for the twins. Or would she? Hadn’t Didi taken extraordinary measures to hide her pregnancy, wearing tight girdles in the first few months, which, combined with her morning, afternoon, and night sickness, had kept her from showing, but then, when the two babies began gaining weight in utero, Didi had stopped working, claimed an illness shrouded in mystery, and quietly had her babies at home, with Seneca as midwife and Remmi as her aide. Remembering the birth, Remmi felt even more queasy. Afterward, when the two infants were breathing on their own, wailing and cleaned, their cords cut, the detritus of afterbirth and blood dispensed with, Remmi’s heart had soared at the wonder of birth and the creation of the perfect tiny humans, but during the protracted labor and birth itself, she’d nearly vomited.
