her sitting on the ledge, humming softly, her white nightgown clinging to her body as she cradled her baby and fed him. He’d been upstairs, looking down over the railing and moonlight had spilled over her shoulders, illuminating her like a madonna with child. The sight had been almost spiritual, but also sensual, and he’d slowly eased his way into the shadows and waited. Telling himself he just wanted to walk down the stairs unnoticed, one of the floorboards had creaked and Randi had looked up, seen him there on the upper landing, his hands over the railing.
“Come on, let’s see what Juanita's got in the kitchen,” Nicole was saying, bringing Kurt crashing back to the here and now. “Smells good.”
“Cinn-da-mon!” the shier twin said while her sister rolled her eyes.
“Cinn-a-mon,” Molly corrected.
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Nicole shuffled the girls down the hallway toward the kitchen while Thorne returned to the living room.
The smile he’d reserved for his wife and family had faded and he was all business again. “So what’s it gonna be, Striker? Are you in?”
“It’s a helluva lot of money,” Matt reminded him.
“Look, Striker, I’m counting on you.” Slade gave up his position near the window. Lines of worry pinched the corners of his eyes. “Someone wants Randi dead. I told Thorne and Matt that if anyone could find out who it was, you could. So are you gonna prove me right or what?”
With only a little bit of guilt he slid the check into the battered leather of his wallet. There wasn’t really any point in arguing. There hadn’t been from the get-go. Striker could no more let Randi McCafferty take off with her kid and face her would-be killer alone than he could quit breathing.
He planned on nailing the son of a bitch.
Big-time.
“Great!” Randi hadn’t gotten more than forty miles out of Grand Hope when her new Jeep started acting weird. The steering was off, and when she pulled to the side of the snow-covered road to survey the damage, she realized that her front left tire was low. And it hadn’t been when she’d left. She’d passed a gas station less than a mile back, so she turned her vehicle around, only to discover that the station was closed. Permanently. The door was locked and rusted, a window cracked, the pumps dry.
So far her journey back to civilization wasn’t going as planned—not that she’d had much of a plan to begin with. That was the problem. She’d intended to return to Seattle, of course, and soon, but last night…with Kurt…oh, hell. She’d gotten up this morning and decided she couldn’t wait another minute.
All of her brothers were now married. She was, once again, the odd woman out, and she was the reason that they were all in danger. She had to do something about it.
But you’re kidding yourself, aren’t you? The real reason you left so quickly has nothing to do with your brothers or the danger, and everything to do with Kurt Striker.
She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the pain in her eyes and let out her breath. She was no good at this, and had never wanted to play the martyr.
“Get on with it,” she muttered. She’d just have to change the damn tire herself. Which should be no problem. She’d learned a lot about machinery growing up on the Flying M. A flat tire was a piece of cake. The good news was that she was off the road and relatively dry and protected from the wind under the overhang of the old garage.
With her baby asleep in his car seat, she pulled out the jack and spare, then got to work. Changing the tire wasn’t hard, just tedious, and her gloves made working with the lug nuts a challenge. She found the problem with the tire: somewhere she’d picked up a long nail, which had created the slow leak.
It crossed her mind that maybe the flat wasn’t an accident, that perhaps the same creep who had forced her off the road at Glacier Park, then attempted to kill her again in the hospital, and later burned the stable might be back to his old tricks. She straightened, still holding the tire iron.
Bitterly cold, the wind swept down the roadway, blowing the snow and lifting her hair from her face. She felt a frisson of fear slide down her spine as she squinted, her gaze sweeping the harsh, barren landscape.
But she saw no one.
Heard nothing.
Decided she was just becoming paranoid.
Which was a really bad thought.
* * *
Huddled against the rain, the intruder slid a key into the lock of the dead bolt, then with surprising ease broke into Randi McCafferty’s Lake Washington home.
The area was upscale, and the condo worth a fortune. Of course. Because the princess would have no less.
Inside, the unit was a little cluttered. Not too bad, but certainly not neat as a pin. And it had suffered from neglect in the past few months. Dust had settled on the surface of a small desk pushed into the corner, cobwebs floated from a high ceiling, and dust bunnies had collected in the corners. Three-month-old magazines were strewn over a couple of end tables and the meager contents of the refrigerator had spoiled weeks ago. Framed prints and pictures splashed color onto warm-toned walls, and an eclectic blend of modern and antique furniture was scattered around the blackened stones of a fireplace where the ashes were cold.
Randi McCafferty hadn’t been home for a long, long time.
But she was on her way.
Noiselessly, the intruder stalked through the darkened rooms, down a short hallway to a large master suite with its sunken tub, walk-in closet and king-size bed. There was another bath, as well, and a nursery, not quite set up but ready for the next little McCafferty. The bastard.
Back in the living room there was a desk and upon it a picture, taken years ago, of the three McCafferty brothers—tall, strapping, cocky, young men with smiles that could melt a woman’s heart and tempers that had landed them in too many barroom brawls to count. In the snapshot they were astride horses. In front of the mounted men, in bare feet, cutoff jeans, a sleeveless shirt and ratty braids, was Randi. She was squinting hard, her head tilted, one hand over her eyes to shade them, that same arm obviously scraped. Twined in the fingers of her other hand she held the reins of all three horses, as if she’d known then that she would lead her brothers around for the rest of their lives.
The bitch.
Disturbed, the intruder looked away from the framed photograph, quickly pushed the play button on the telephone answering machine and felt an instant of satisfaction at having the upper hand on the princess. But the feeling was fleeting. As cold as the ashes in the grate.
As the single message played, resounding through the vaulted room, it became evident that there was only one thing that would make things right.
Randi McCafferty had to pay.
And she had to pay with her life.
Two
Less than two hours after his conversation with the McCafferty brothers, Striker was aboard a private plane headed due west. A friend who owned this prop job owed him a favor and Striker had called in his marker. He’d also taken the time to phone an associate who was
