The Agent’s Secret Child Read online

  For an instant, their eyes met in the dim light. She saw his terrible pain, his remorse, his regret, his need for revenge at any price. It was a debt that had to be paid.

  “Karl,” he said to the man who’d been sitting with Elena. “Let’s go check out the cotton candy.” She felt his hand on her arm. He pushed her toward the concession stand.

  JAKE JUMPED out of the car and ran toward the ballpark, his heart thundering in his chest. He could hear Reese behind him, his limp slowing him down.

  He drew his weapon as he neared the stands. From inside, he heard the tinkle of laughter. Elena’s sweet laughter. And the sound of voices.

  As he neared, he spotted something white lying on the ground. He bent down to pick up the baseball and stuffed it into his pocket without thinking. Slowly, he made his way toward the voices.

  The air smelled of popcorn and fresh-mown grass. He slipped onto the field, moving along the edge of the stands. The voices grew more distinct as he neared the concession area. He stopped, glancing around for Reese, but he didn’t see him. The ball field lay empty. Nothing moved on the breeze. No sounds other than the ones coming from beneath the stands.

  He moved closer, weapon drawn.

  “KARL, MAKE SURE we’re not interrupted,” Tommy said to the other man after he’d checked to make sure they were alone in the cool concrete concession area.

  Karl nodded and moved to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the stands, his tread heavy and slow. The two men stood a few feet away, both facing her and Elena.

  Abby hugged her daughter and looked around, hoping to see something she could use for a weapon, some way she could protect Elena. The room was large. Its cold concrete walls were painted with bright colors. A long line of metal counters ran the length of the room on the right. Nearer stood a cotton-candy machine. But not close enough that she could reach it.

  Tommy stood for a moment, just looking around as if the room held a plethora of memories. Or he was waiting for something. But she knew he was watching her closely.

  She lowered Elena to the floor, her hands on the child’s small shoulders, half listening to her daughter recount the baseball game and the food she’d eaten. Half listening to Tommy’s breathing.

  His gaze finally settled on her and Elena.

  Abby swallowed, praying for a miracle. It was the only thing that could save her and Elena now.

  Tommy drew the pistol from his jacket. Elena’s body stiffened beneath Abby’s fingers.

  Behind him and Karl, in the shadows, Abby thought she caught movement. She froze. Jake. He moved toward her, carefully sneaking up behind Tommy and Karl. If either of them turned, they would see him.

  She met Jake’s gaze, that old feeling arcing between them, strong as their passion for each other, strong as their need to save their daughter. Together. Just like old times.

  “Stall,” he mouthed.

  “You realize that Dell was like a little brother to me,” she said as she looked down the dark barrel of the pistol in Tommy’s hand. “Dell—” The catch in her throat was real. “He was my best friend. I had no idea how much pain he was in. I just wish he’d told me. Maybe I could have helped.”

  Tommy shook his head. “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done. Not from the moment Frank Jordan fired the shot that killed Amy.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jake pull a baseball from his pocket. He motioned to her.

  “Anything you want me to tell Dell when I see him?” she asked quickly.

  Tommy seemed taken back by her question.

  The instant Jake threw the ball, she cried, “Under the counter!” in Spanish to Elena and hurled the child toward the metal concessions. Abby dove after her.

  The ball hit Tommy in the back. He let out a loud “Ufft!” and got off a wild shot as he stumbled and fell to his knees from the blow.

  Abby rolled as gunfire ricocheted through the concession area. She came up behind the cotton-candy machine. Karl had turned and fired at Jake. She drove the cotton-candy machine into the thug’s side as she scrambled to her feet, driving Karl back. Jake fired. Karl dropped like a rock, his pistol rattling to the floor.

  She grabbed his gun and swung around.

  Tommy was gone.

  Behind her, she caught a glimpse of Elena scrambling toward a large cooler. Tommy came around the end of the counter and grabbed Elena before Abby could get off a shot.

  “Jake!” she cried as Tommy came up too quickly with Elena in his arms, the barrel of his pistol to the back of the child’s head.

  “Drop the gun,” he ordered. “Now!”

  She let the pistol fall to the floor.

  “You too, Jake,” Tommy said as he moved from behind the counter, using Elena as a shield. The child’s eyes were wide but lit up when she spied her father.

  “Daddy!” she cried.

  “Hi, baby,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.” He lowered his gun to the floor and stepped away from it as Tommy instructed. The room grew impossibly quiet.

  “Dell wouldn’t have wanted this,” she said, knowing she was wasting her breath.

  With a shudder of relief she saw Reese appear behind Tommy. He limped toward them, his weapon drawn.

  “Reese?” Tommy said at the limping sound behind him. “What kept you? I could have used some help.”

  “Looks like you’re doing just fine,” Reese said.

  She heard Jake swear under his breath behind her as Elena squirmed in Tommy’s hold.

  She stared at Reese. Hadn’t he been the one who’d given Jake the cell phone with the tracking device in it? The one who’d told Jake she wasn’t Abby Diaz? He’d made them believe Frank was behind it. Frank, her father. Could what Crystal have told her be true?

  “I should have known,” Jake said. “If I hadn’t figured out that Abby was here, you would have helped me out, huh, Reese? You’ve been so helpful. Like the cell phone with the tracking device. Nice touch.”

  Reese shrugged and gave a slight bow. “I do try to please.”

  “And telling me that Abby really wasn’t Abby,” Jake said as he moved up behind her and put a hand on her back. “That was good!” She realized it wasn’t just his hand. He pressed the cold steel of a knife flat to her back. She reached back, as if to cover his hand with her own, and took the knife and slipped it down into the waistband of her jeans. “You have a flare for the dramatic!”

  “Please, you’re making me blush,” Reese said. “Now, kindly step away from Abby.” He motioned with his gun.

  Jake stepped a few feet away from her in Tommy’s direction. A clear signal. She’d recognized the knife as well. It was the one she’d pulled from Julio’s body, the one she’d had in her bag. She knew, the same way she knew Reese didn’t know Jake had had the knife.

  “But you did figure it out,” the agent said. “You just thought Frank was behind it. Him putting the tracking device in the cell phone made it so easy for me.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re doing this for Dell Harper, too,” Jake said conversationally.

  Reese shook his head. “Naw, I’m just in it for the money. Crass, huh?” He shrugged. “The thing about being on a drug task force, you see so much money and after a while you realize if you put one drug dealer away, another one just comes along to take his place. What’s the point?”

  “That’s bull, Reese, and you know it,” Jake said congenially enough. “It’s greed, plain and simple.”

  Reese’s look darkened. “The FBI owes me something for this bum leg.”

  “The FBI didn’t blow up that warehouse,” Abby interjected.

  “Enough already,” Tommy snapped. “Let’s get this over with.”

  She had to get Elena away from Tommy. “Please, just let me hold my baby one last time. Then you can—do what it is you have to do.”

  “Don’t do it,” Reese warned. “You don’t know her like I do. She might try something.”

  Tommy shot Reese a disgusted look. “Like what? She isn�
��t armed and she can’t do much with a child in her arms.”

  He slowly let Elena down, turning the pistol on Jake. “And I’ll be forced to kill her lover and the father of her baby if she does.” Elena ran to her.

  She scooped her daughter into her arms and hugged her tightly, aware of the knife wedged against her spine.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Reese warned Jake.

  She waited for a sign from Jake.

  “You’re getting awfully paranoid, Ramsey,” he said.

  Now! With one swift desperate move, she held Elena with one arm and reached back with her free hand, pulled the knife and threw it in a once expert, long-practiced movement. It appeared knife throwing was right up there with bike riding. You never quite forgot how.

  The blade glittered in the concession lights for an instant, then hit home, burying itself to the hilt in Reese’s chest.

  Reese gasped in surprise and stumbled back, getting off a wild shot that ricocheted through the room.

  Abby whirled around, trying to shield Elena, as she dove for the stairs.

  At that same instant, Jake went for Tommy’s weapon.

  A shot echoed through the building. Then another. She waited for the pain as she clutched her daughter to her breast and launched herself and Elena under the stairs.

  For a moment, she thought she might have been hit. She stared down at Elena, seeing the wide eyes, but feeling the child’s sweet breath against her cheek as she pulled her back under the open stairwell.

  Silence filled the concession area. She waited with her heart lodged in her throat. She had no weapon. And she and Elena were trapped.

  “It’s all right, Abby.”

  She felt tears rush her eyes at the sound of Jake’s voice. It was over.

  Slowly she climbed out with Elena. Tommy lay on the floor at an odd angle. Blood leaked out like motor oil onto the concrete. Reese was sprawled not far away, his weapon still in his hand, his eyes open and sightless, the same knife that had killed Julio stuck in his chest. There was something symbolic about that, she thought.

  She turned away, shielding Elena, and felt Jake’s arm come around her shoulders.

  “Daddy!” Elena cried as she encircled his neck with her arms. “I knew you’d come. I wasn’t even scared.”

  Jake hugged them both to him, then led them up the stairs and out into the night.

  “The thing is,” Jake said as they walked across the ballfield. “I have this place north of here on the Smoking Barrel Ranch where I work. Right now the cabin isn’t much but I was thinking, we could always add on to it.”

  Abby looked up. The first star of the night glittered brightly in a sky warm and rich with the promise of summer. She stumbled to a stop, realization rushing over her in a drowning wave of relief. Tears blurred the night and great sobs rose in her chest. They were alive. They were together. At last.

  Jake pulled her and Elena into his arms. The three of them stood in the middle of the baseball diamond, cloaked in the darkness as the rest of the stars came out, one after another.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Frank Jordan had come out of his coma. He was asking for his daughter.

  “This is something I need to do alone,” Abby told Jake. She reached up to cup his jaw in her hand. His face was warm, his dark eyes full of promise.

  She stood on tiptoe to meet his kiss. It fired that now-familiar passion. Just a look. A touch. A whisper. She wondered if she would always yearn for him and suspected she would until the day she died.

  “I’ll take Elena to the park across street,” he offered. “Take your time. You can meet us there.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand, then knelt down to hug her daughter. She still feared letting Elena and Jake out of her sight, but she knew she had to learn to trust again. To believe that they’d lived through this for a reason. And that now, nothing could keep them apart.

  As she stepped gingerly into Frank’s room, she was filled with so many emotions. And even more regrets.

  He looked older against the white of the pillow, his face drawn and pale. But his eyes lit up when he saw her and tears welled and spilled down his cheeks.

  She moved to his bedside.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “If I had married your mother—” His voice broke.

  She sat down in the chair next to his bed. He reached for her hand. It felt cold, as cold as her heart toward him. “Tell me about you and my mother.”

  Slowly, he proceeded to tell her a story of a young, ambitious man and a beautiful Mexican girl named Rosa Louisa. Her mother. He faltered when he reached the part where Rosa Louisa told him she was pregnant with his child.

  “I made the biggest mistake of my life,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper. “I abandoned her. I thought a wife and a child would keep me from reaching my dreams.” Anguish contorted his face. “I have regretted leaving your mother every day of my life.”

  “You could have gone back,” she said, wishing that were true.

  He shook his head. “She wasn’t strong. She took her life right after you were born. I never got to tell her how I felt. How sorry I was.”

  “Why didn’t you come for me?” Abby asked, her heart breaking.

  He shook his head. “You were better off with your grandmother.”

  “But still, you could have—”

  “I couldn’t face you with the truth. Not then, not later.” He told her how he’d watched her from a distance, watched her grow up. How he’d planted the seed about the FBI when he’d sent her career information after graduation. How delighted he’d been when she’d unknowingly followed in her father’s footsteps, becoming an FBI agent. No wonder her grandmother had been so upset about that choice.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I had the chance to get you on my team,” he said. “I was so proud of you. To be near you—”

  “That day I disappeared, you called me in your office.”

  He nodded. “I was worried about you. I’d seen how protective you were with Dell.”

  “Did you know about Dell?”

  He shook his head. “I knew you were pregnant with my grandchild.” He waved away her question of how he’d known. “I just didn’t want anything to happen to the two of you.”

  “You covered up what happened.” It sounded like an accusation even to her ears.

  “I did what I thought was best. It wasn’t until later that I put it all together and realized it was my fault. That Dell had ultimately killed you and the baby because of me. But I thought it was over.”

  All he’d had after that was his work, he said. He’d thrown himself into it. Crystal began to drink more, feeling disconnected from him, and they’d finally divorced. His fault. She’d realized all his emotions were tied up in the past and the family he’d lost.

  “Then you really didn’t know Julio Montenegro abducted me?” Abby asked.

  “No, I was knocked out in the blast. I believed the body we found in the ashes was yours. I never dreamed you might be alive. Until Julio contacted me. He’d been there that night. He’d taken you and the knowledge of what had happened to use when he had enough money to make a move against Calderone.”

  “I only found three hundred thousand dollars,” she said.

  “Who knows how much he stole?” Frank said. “I have a feeling Ramon knew a lot more about Calderone’s missing money than Julio. I would imagine Ramon used Julio as his scapegoat.”

  “Ramon?”

  “Dead. Killed in the shootout in Study Butte.”

  “You saved my life and Elena’s,” she said, knowing that now to be true.

  “I’m the one who jeopardized it in the first place,” he said bitterly. “I did everything I could to protect you, including hiring Jake to go after you. He was the one man I believed I could trust although I’d been given evidence to the contrary. I knew Jake. I knew how much he loved you. If he couldn’t get you and Elena out of Mexico alive, no one could.”

  “Yo
u also falsified the fingerprint and autopsy reports,” she said.

  He nodded. “I thought if no one knew you were Abby Diaz—”

  “But Tommy knew.”

  He nodded. “Because of Reese.”

  He’d even made a deal with the devil, Calderone, providing the information where Ramon could find Jake in Study Butte. In exchange, he got to call the shots.

  But things had gone badly at Study Butte because he hadn’t known about Tommy Barnett. Nor about Reese.

  “How did you know about Study Butte?” she asked, remembering that Jake thought no one had.

  Frank looked chagrined. “When you started seeing him, I found out everything about him. I’m also the one who put the tracking device in the cell phone Reese gave Jake. I thought I could protect you.”

  He’d acted like a caring father, she thought. She squeezed his hand, touched by his attempts to protect her and Elena. He’d risked his life. He’d even risked his job, his reputation with the Bureau, something that had meant so much to him.

  “We’re fine,” she said. “Elena is—” She shook her head and smiled, not sure how to describe her daughter. “She bounces back easily. It’s as if she came into the world expecting nothing, so she’s always amazed by what life has to offer her.” Tears filled her eyes. “She has the father she’s always wanted. She’ll mend.”

  Frank squeezed her hand. “I would like to be part of your lives, but I know I have no right to ask.”

  Abby looked into his face, her feelings all too close to the surface. “We’re going to need some time. Jake is taking us up to the Smoking Barrel Ranch where he works. He has a place up there on Ash Pond. Elena loves it. He’s promised to teach her to ride. And the people on the ranch, well, they’re quite the bunch. They’ve become Jake’s family.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  She got to her feet. “The thing is,” she said, feeling tears rush her eyes. “Elena would love having a grandfather.”

  “What about you, Abby? Is it too late for us to be father and daughter?”

  Was it ever too late to find the father you’d always yearned for? “I was thinking,” she said, hearing her voice break, “you might like the Smoking Barrel Ranch and I know you’d find the people who live there very interesting. Maybe when you’re feeling better, you could come up.”