They dragged her there. Over the bed was the large print. She walked to the mattress, and one of the men snickered. “Look, she wants us.”
“Shut up,” Stephen said. “Mrs. Sinclair?”
“There’s a safe. Beneath that picture. Maybe…”
He moved past her, pulled the picture down and smiled at the wall safe. “Nicely done. Combination?”
She hesitated.
Once again the goons moved in to her sides. “Sixty-nine, sixty-nine.”
More snickers from the goons. Stephen just looked at Bailey, then without a word turned to the safe.
Bailey held her breath.
The safe clicked open, revealing the inside, which was loaded with cash. Bailey stared at the unbelievable sight of the stacks and stacks of bills.
Stephen clicked his fingers, and one of the goons produced a large duffle bag, which they filled while Bailey just stood there, shocked.
Alan had really had the money.
He’d really stolen from his own investors, never mind that they were all thieves, too. “Okay then,” she said with forced joviality. “So you guys can go now.”
Stephen looked at his men, jerked his head in her direction, and walked out of the room.
The two goons looked at her and smiled. Leered, really.
Her insides shriveled.
Once again they moved in close, one on either side, and took her arms.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, trying to pull free. “Really. I’m good.”
They laughed, then headed out of the room, toward the stairs, taking her with them. Her heart was racing, and so was her brain. She figured all she had to do was push one of them down the stairs, grab the other’s gun, and then shoot them.
No problem.
Ahead, Stephen was on the phone. Once again he jerked his head in their direction. Apparently this was yet another wordless command because they immediately halted while Stephen ran down the stairs to take his call in privacy.
Both goons were breathing like a St. Bernard, and drooling like one, too, as they stared at her. She realized in the various scuffles since getting out of the SUV, her dress had slipped off one shoulder. She quickly scooped it back into place.
One of them nudged it back off with the tip of his gun, which pretty much made breathing impossible.
“Still dizzy, Hot Thing?” he asked.
What if his gun went off by accident?
The other thug took out his gun, too, and played with the collar of her dress. An involuntary squeak of terror left her lips.
They liked that.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to make eye contact with either of them.
“She’s scared,” one of them whispered, and trailed the tip of his gun over her breast, lingering at her nipple.
“Yeah. Think she’s scared enough to do whatever we say?” The other slipped the tip of his gun along Bailey’s waist.
The steel was icy even through her garment.
“Hey. Boss is still busy. Let’s take her into one of the downstairs bedrooms. She’s still pretty loopy-”
The other goon grinned. “Yeah.”
Stephen was still gone. She didn’t know where, but she was completely on her own. They were going to rape her, and then kill her. They’d each gripped an arm when she heard an odd thunk from below, and with it came the softest sound, almost…a sigh. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of-a beat-up leather jacket?
Noah?
Her head spun, making her realize she was still dealing with the effects of the drugs they’d given her. Then she saw another movement, in the doorway to the kitchen, and she’d have sworn on her life it was Kenny.
Noah and Kenny together…But if she was hallucinating, then maybe she could dream up some superhuman strength to go with it. Drugs did that to people; she saw it on Cops all the time, stupid people fighting the police officers without a care.
She’d fight.
Thug Number One, the guy just above her on the stairs, was looking at his cell phone. Big mistake for him because she’d just morphed into the Bionic Woman. Whirling to the other, she jammed her knee right into his crotch. She’d seen this done in the movies, and truthfully, had never really believed a woman could drop a guy to the floor, but that was exactly what happened.
He dropped like a stone, tumbling down the stairs, hitting each one with a thud and an “oomph.” The duffle bag went with him, breaking open at the halfway point. Money flew through the air like confetti, floating slowly to the ground as the man landed, then slid into the foyer-just as the shadow that she’d seen, the one with her brother’s face, pointed a gun at the guy’s chest and said, “Don’t move.”
Bailey turned to the other thug, and once again saw that flash of beat-up old leather jacket, now at the top of the stairs, above them.
Huh?
Her hallucination-in-leather executed an impressive roundhouse kick to the goon’s chest, who went sailing. He hit the stair railing, which cracked and shattered. With a scream, he continued his sail through the air, landing on the hardwood floor ten feet below with a groan.
Kenny…my God, it really was Kenny…stood down there between the two thugs with a rather shockingly serious looking gun. “Got ’em,” he called up just as Bailey felt two strong, warm, almost unbearably familiar arms encircle her.
“And I’ve got you,” Noah said fiercely, hugging her close. He sank to the stairs with her in his arms. “I’ve got you.”
“There’s still Stephen-”
“Got him, too. He’s unconscious in the foyer.”
She cupped his face to make sure he was real. “I thought I dreamed you.” She said this without letting go of him, because she was never going to let go of him again. “I thought…”
“Me, too.” His voice was thick, hoarse with emotion, and he squeezed her tight. “You’re not hurt?”
“No. You-”
“They never touched me. God, Bailey, when they took you-”
“When we were on the dance floor, just before they came,” she said. “You heard me, right? You heard me say-”
“Say it again.”
“I love you.” She fisted her hands in his shirt, feeling his heart pounding sure and steady beneath his ribs. “I love you, Noah Fisher.”
Two uniformed officers ran inside, guns drawn. From the kitchen came two more. “Drop your weapons!” they yelled to everyone.
More uniforms poured into the house. While chaos ruled, Bailey tipped her head up. Unbelievably, money was still dancing through the air, coming down like green rain. “So it’s over?” she whispered to Noah.
“No.” He buried his face in her hair, as if he could inhale her. “It’s just beginning.”
Epilogue
It was Friday afternoon, the last day of school before summer vacation kicked in. Bailey was back in the place she knew she was meant to be-at the head of a classroom.
She had no more fears from her past. Alan’s resorts had been sold and were being completed by a different
