outstanding warrants but you worked out a deal for not bringing them in.”
Peterson chuckled. “You can’t stop asking questions, can’t stop trying to ferret out all the information you can.”
She shuddered, remembering that Brendan had accused her of the same thing. No wonder he hadn’t been able to trust her.
“But you and your father won’t be able to broadcast this story,” he said.
“You’re not going to get away,” she warned him.
“I know. But it’s better this way—better to see his face and yours than have someone else take the pleasure for me.” He pushed the barrel deeper into her back and ordered, “Open the door.”
“I—I think someone should warn him first,” she said. “Let him know that I’m alive so that he doesn’t have another heart attack.”
“It was unfortunate that he had the first one,” Peterson agreed. “He was only supposed to be hurt, not killed.” He glanced at the orderly as he said that, as if the man had not followed orders. “But the doctors have put him on medication to regulate his heart. He’s probably stronger now than he was when he thought you died four years ago. That didn’t kill him.”
His mouth tightened. “It would be easier to die,” he said, “than to lose a child and have to live.”
He wasn’t worried about getting away anymore, because he had obviously decided to end his life, too.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Not yet,” he replied, “but you will be.” He pushed her through the door to her father’s room.
“Stop shoving my mommy!” CJ yelled at him. “You’re a bad man!”
“What—what’s going on?” asked the gray-haired man in the room. He was sitting up as if he’d been about to get out of bed. He was bruised, but he wasn’t broken. “Who are you all? Are you in the right room?”
“Yes,” CJ replied. “This is my grampa’s room number. Are you my grampa?”
Stanley Jessup looked at his grandson through narrowed eyes. Then he lifted his gaze and looked at Josie. At first he didn’t recognize her; his brow furrowed as if he tried to place her, though.
“You don’t know your own daughter?” the U.S. marshal berated him. “I would know my son anywhere. No matter what he may have done to his face, I would recognize his soul. That’s how I knew he couldn’t have done the things that article and those news reports said.” He raised the gun and pointed it at Josie’s head. “The things—the lies—your friend told you, claiming that my Donny had tried to hurt her.”
“Donald Peterson,” her father murmured. He recognized her attempted killer but not his own daughter.
“Your son told me, too,” Josie said. “He had once been my friend, too.”
“Until you betrayed him.”
“Until he tried to rape my roommate,” she said. If not for her coming to her father with the article, he might have gotten away with it—just as he’d gotten away with his drug use—but the athletic director hadn’t wanted to lose their star player from the football team. So they’d tried paying off the girl. When she’d refused money, they’d expelled her and labeled her crazy. So just as she had done with Margaret O’Hannigan today, Josie had gotten Donny Peterson to confess.
“Josie …” Her father whispered her name, as if unable to believe it. Then he looked down at the little boy, who stared up at him in puzzlement.
Poor CJ had been through so much the past few days. He’d met so many people and had been in so much danger, he had to be thoroughly confused and exhausted. He whispered, too, to his grandfather, “He’s a bad man, Grampa.”
“Your mama and grandpa are the bad ones,” Donald Peterson insisted. “My Donny was a star, and they couldn’t handle it. They had to bring him down, had to destroy him.”
After the confession and the subsequent charges, Donny Peterson had killed himself, shortly before the trial was to begin, shortly before Josie’s brakes were cut. Why hadn’t she considered that those attempts might have been because of Donny? Why had she automatically thought the worst of Brendan? Maybe because she’d already been feeling guilty and hadn’t wanted to admit to how much to blame she’d been.
“And that is why I’m going to destroy them,” Donald continued.
“You’re a bad man,” CJ said again, and he kicked the man in the shin.
Josie tried to grab her son before the man could strike back. But he was already swinging and his hand struck Josie’s cheek, sending her stumbling back onto her father’s bed. Stanley Jessup caught her shoulders and then pulled her and his grandson close, as if his arms alone could protect them.
CJ wriggled in their grasp as he tried to break free to fight some more. “My daddy told me to p’tect you,” he reminded Josie. “I have to p’tect my mommy until my daddy gets here.”
Donald Peterson shook his head. “Your daddy’s not coming, son.”
“My daddy’s a hero,” CJ said. “He’ll be here. He always saves us.”
“It is a daddy’s job to protect his kids,” Donald agreed, his voice cracking with emotion. “But your daddy’s busy arresting some bad people.”
“You’re bad.”
“And he’s too far away to get here to help you.”
Tears began to streak down CJ’s face, and his shoulders shook as fear overcame him. He’d been so brave for her—so brave for his father. But now he was scared.
And Josie could offer him no words of comfort. As Donald Peterson had stated, there was no way that Brendan could reach them in time to save them.
They had to figure out a way to save themselves. Her father shifted on his bed and pressed something cold and metallic against Josie’s hip. A gun. Had he had it under his pillow?
After the assault, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to be prepared if his attacker tried again. But Donald’s gun barrel was trained on CJ. And she knew—to make her father and her feel the loss he felt—he would shoot her son first. Could she grab the gun, aim and fire before he killed her little boy?
THE CAMERAS HAD still been running inside the van, and they’d caught the plate on the black SUV that had driven off with Brendan’s son and the woman he loved. The vehicle had a GPS that had led them right to its location in the parking garage of the hospital.
When they’d arrived, Brendan hadn’t gone down to check it out. He already knew where they were. So he ducked under the whirling FBI helicopter blades and ran across the roof where just a few nights ago he’d nearly been shot. Once he was inside the elevator, he pushed the button for the sixth floor.
It seemed to take forever to get where he needed to be.
His mom was right. He should have taken Josie here. He never should have let her and CJ out of
