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Determination swept through him. “Whatever I have to.”
Dirk thought briefly about sharing with Hannah his fear that ransom wasn’t the motive, but then decided against it. There would be time to tell Hannah when he was certain. And besides, he wasn’t sure how long he would still have cell phone coverage—just their brief conversation had taken far too long and they’d had to repeat themselves several times. So all he said was, “The kidnappers already called me once, but they didn’t make a ransom demand...yet. And this damned typhoon—that’s why I called you now instead of waiting for the girls’ bedtime to call you, when you’d be expecting it. I know it’s super early there, but this typhoon could shut everything down soon, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to reach you until tomorrow or the next day. Assuming service can be restored quickly and doesn’t take days or weeks.”
“I know you’ll do whatever you have to do, Mr. DeWinter,” Hannah said stoutly. “I have confidence in you. If anyone can bring Linden and Laurel home safely, it’s you.” Then her voice broke and she pleaded, “Oh, please bring them home safely, sir, and soon. Please! I don’t even want to think about what they’re going through right now.”
Dirk couldn’t speak for a moment. “Me, neither,” he said finally, then disconnected the call. His eyes closed and he breathed deeply for several seconds, images of his daughters helpless in the clutches of heartless men who could do something like this to innocent little girls flashing through his mind in an endless filmstrip.
A soft hand touched his arm. “Are you okay?” Mei-li asked.
Dirk ran one hand over his face while the other tucked his phone back in his jeans pocket. “Oh, hell, yeah,” he told her roughly. “I’m just fine. My daughters have been kidnapped by a man who wants me dead, my housekeeper thinks I can pull off miracles and you tell me my daughter’s nanny just might be lying about exactly what happened.” He laughed without humor. “Oh, yeah, and I can’t get help from the US consulate or search for my daughters because a Cat-5 hurricane—excuse me, typhoon—has decided to hit Hong Kong a month too early in the season. Have I left anything out?”
Mei-li’s face held nothing but compassion. “I think that encompasses it.”
The backs of his eyes ached suddenly, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold his emotions at bay. But when he opened his eyes again he knew everything he was feeling was right there on the surface. “They’re not even two years old,” he whispered as despair swamped him. “What kind of monster takes his revenge on little girls?”
Mei-li looked around, then dragged Dirk to a couple of unoccupied chairs a short distance away. She pushed him into the first one, and Dirk let her. Then she pulled the other chair closer to his and sat down. “There’s a story here you haven’t told me,” she said firmly. “You’ve dropped hints, but I need to know everything.”
After a moment Dirk nodded. “Yeah, you do.” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, holding her gaze with his. “I killed a man.”
Chapter 4
Mei-li didn’t allow herself to gasp, even though she’d never imagined this was the secret Dirk was keeping. But after the first shock passed, she accepted it with nothing more than a blink. It made sense. It had to be something momentous. Something life altering. While she’d never killed anyone herself, she knew those who had. Sometimes killing was justified, and until she knew more...she wasn’t going to judge.
* * *
Dirk considered what to add to the bald statement that he’d killed a man. “Nearly twenty years ago now. I was sixteen. He was a year older. We had a...a history of animosity.” That statement didn’t even come close to describing the hostile emotions on both sides that had led to their final confrontation.
“What happened?” The quiet, nonjudgmental way she asked the question immediately reminded him of his court-appointed defense attorney from twenty years ago. And it allowed him to answer with a semblance of detachment.
“Bree was fifteen. We were... I guess you could say we were in love, as much as teenagers understand love.” Words couldn’t begin to encompass what he and Bree had felt at the time, so he didn’t even try. “Lyon Blackwood was...” A spoiled rich kid who thought he was entitled to take whatever he wanted.
