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“Why?”
“You’ll have to trust me on that.”
Dirk started to refuse, but Mei-li touched his arm, her eyes pleading for him to do as Jason asked. “You know why he wants this?” he demanded.
“No, but I trust him. If he says it’s important, I believe him.”
Dirk glanced at Jason, who still wore the black greasepaint he’d had Dirk remove. And he realized this had been part of Jason’s plan—he wanted Dirk recognizable for some reason. Something to do with the photo he wanted Dirk to pose for with his daughters.
Then he thought about all the help Jason had given Mei-li and him, almost from the beginning. And he acknowledged he and Mei-li couldn’t have rescued his daughters alone tonight. Not without risking their lives. Jason had earned Dirk’s trust, so if he said this photo was important...
* * *
A Father’s Desperate Rescue! blared the headline at the top of the website Terrell Blackwood was browsing. And beneath the headline was a photo of internationally famous superstar Dirk DeWinter—who would always be Derek Summers to the father of his victim—on his knees on a pier in Aberdeen Harbour, ecstatically embracing his twin daughters. And Terrell knew he’d failed.
The sound of cars coming up the long, curving driveway from the main road to the big house Terrell had been born and raised in jerked him out of his stunned contemplation of the headline and the photo on his computer. He moved sharply to the second-floor library window. Two Minnetonka police cars were just pulling up in the semicircular drive in front of the house. The lights weren’t flashing, but as he watched, four policemen exited the vehicles. Two made their way around the back of the house; two headed for the front door. And Terrell knew why they were there.
The front doorbell rang, and Terrell shook his head. “No,” he told the policemen, who couldn’t possibly hear him. “I’m not going back to jail.”
He walked slowly back to his desk, pulled open the middle drawer and withdrew a loaded Smith & Wesson—the Smith & Wesson that had been his father’s and his father’s before him. Back before guns had to be registered.
Ex-convicts couldn’t legally own guns. But unlike the gun he’d used on Derek Summers and Sabrina Weston, this had never been registered in Terrell’s name, and no one knew he had it. It was his secret insurance policy.
He looked up at the large photo of his son on the wall across from his desk—the last photo taken of him before he’d been murdered. “I’m sorry,” he told Lyon. “I’m so sorry.” Then he raised the Smith & Wesson to his temple.
* * *
When Dirk finally woke, it was almost five in the evening. Which made sense, since he hadn’t left the Aberdeen police station until after six that morning.
His daughters had been examined at the police station by a doctor friend of Mei-li’s—she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of friends in every occupation, who never seemed upset when called upon to do her a favor no matter the time of day or night. The doctor had pronounced the girls basically fit, although woefully filthy. And he’d given Dirk cream to apply to the chapped and abraded areas on their skin. But he’d confirmed the twins didn’t need to be checked into a hospital for observation. “Rest and tender loving care is all they really need,” the doctor assured him.
By the time Dirk and Mei-li had walked in the front door of his suite with the twins, it had been close to seven. They’d fed the girls and given them a bath—an emotionally trying endeavor for Dirk when he again saw the physical condition his daughters were in—then read them stories and tucked them into their cribs. Dirk had called Vanessa and Chet, who’d promised to be there in half an hour, then had left Mei-li sitting in the rocking chair in the girls’ bedroom, keeping watch—he knew they would be safe with her to guard them—while he had a quick shower.
Mei-li had left as soon as Vanessa arrived to take charge of the girls, with Chet as their bodyguard. “Get some sleep, tim sum,” she’d murmured by the front door, preparatory to walking out. “You’re asleep on your feet.”
“So are you,” he’d told her.
“And I’ll be asleep myself as soon as I possibly can. I need a shower, and...” She’d looked at the backs of her hands, which still bore traces of black. “...a lot of cold cream.”
He’d glanced backward, but neither Vanessa nor Chet was in sight, so he’d kissed Mei-li, long and slow. “Take a cab.”
