Page 22

Once Weston left, Kayleigh got coffee and headed over to the makeshift darkroom in the corner. Anything was better than sitting around worrying.

Work had always been her saving grace and it would be again now. Plus, she needed to utilize the time where she could keep everything dark before Weston returned with Gwendolyn.

She put her items in place then shut down all the lights in the room, using the gleam from her phone to make her way back to the corner. She took a breath when she switched off her phone.

Blackness surrounded her.

She had to take a moment to bring her heart rate under control and focus. She wasn’t trapped. She could turn the lights on at any time if she wanted. She was in control.

Plus, this was something she loved to do.

Total darkness was only required while opening the film cassette, loading it onto the reel and placing that into the tank. She fumbled at first with the unfamiliar setup but was happy when muscle memory kicked in. She had the cassette in the tank quickly and was able to turn on the red light so she could continue the process.

No doubt digital photography was the way of the future. Film was a dying art, but it was one Kayleigh never wanted to relinquish. She loved the manual effort, the physical care it took to make sure the photos came out right. The chemicals, the measuring, the agitating, even the darkness.

Now that she had negatives, she’d be able to use her scanner to make digital copies of the images and save them forever. Or would, once she replaced her negative scanner that had been destroyed at her house.

She’d probably make physical copies too. That was the best part about developing film, watching it go from the negative into a living memory on photo paper.

Normally, she waited until she’d printed the enlarged photos to peek at her shots, but when she saw the faintest hint of Weston’s smile on the film, she grabbed a magnification loupe to look.

Though the image was small, just the sight of him was enough to make Kayleigh’s heart jump. She couldn’t imagine a day without him in her life, not anymore.

And, hopefully, after just a few more hours it would be normal days with him. The thought made her a little giddy.

Still smiling, she took the magnifier to the other pictures. There were more of Weston and their day on the lake. Even some of her father’s outrageously large lake house they’d ridden by on the boat.

Just looking at it wrinkled her nose. Unlike the cabin where she’d been with Weston, this house was cold and impersonal. Kayleigh needed comfort and joy, warmth in a home, to relax, and the ostentatious lake house didn’t have any.

Kayleigh’s eye dragged over more of the photos, wanting to see less of the house and more of Weston. She was skimming through with the loupe so quickly she almost missed it. She stopped and went back to a negative of the lake house.

There were two people standing on the balcony. There shouldn’t have been anyone there at all. Dad wouldn’t have let anyone use the house when she and Weston were hiding out at the same lake.

She hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was shooting when she’d taken the shots of the house. She’d been sad about her lack of family and had been using the camera to try to hide her emotions from Weston.

She skimmed down to a picture with a clearer angle of the people on the balcony and upped the power on the loupe so she could see details more clearly.

She nearly dropped the magnifying glass when she identified who the two people were.

Gwendolyn and Beau Kesler.

Gwendolyn had met with Beau Kesler, yet at the hospital she’d said she’d never seen Beau in her life.

Gwendolyn, who Weston was on his way to rescue .

Kayleigh grabbed her phone and rushed out of her makeshift darkroom. With shaking fingers, she dialed Weston’s number, only for it to go to voice mail after one ring.

Just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke, she tried again. Voice mail.

Okay. What should she do? She had no car. She needed to call Chance, but, damn it, didn’t have his number in this new phone, and it didn’t have internet access capability.

She would call information and get the number for San Antonio Security. She would—

The door opened and Weston stood there.

“Oh, thank God, you’re okay,” Kayleigh said, nearly sprinting to the door to hug him. “Gwendolyn is the inside man. She met with Beau Kesler. How did you—”

She froze on the spot when Gwendolyn stepped out from behind him, gun in her hand pointed directly at Weston.

“Hello, Kayleigh. Let’s chat, dear.”

W ESTON HAD KNOWN something was off from the moment he’d picked Gwendolyn up from that gas station. He’d even figured out his raging internal alarms were because her entire situation had been a setup.

But he thought it was because someone was using Gwendolyn to find them, not that she was the one behind everything.

The little bit of blood on her forehead—which probably wasn’t even real—had been a nice touch. He hadn’t gone to see her car in the ditch, he’d just wanted to get her to safety.

He’d driven them all over town, making sure no one was following, when it ended up no one needed to follow at all. The enemy had already been in the car with him.

He’d been so intent on getting her inside the safe house and out of potential harm’s way, he hadn’t realized he’d made a huge mistake until he’d felt the muzzle of her gun against the back of his head as he opened the door.

He’d almost made a move right then to disarm Gwendolyn, prepared to take his chances, when Kayleigh had rushed over. He hadn’t been willing to take a chance with her life. And now that he had his hands restrained behind his back, he wished he’d made his move.

Kayleigh was nothing short of devastated to find out Gwendolyn wasn’t who she’d pretended to be.

“Dad trusted you. I trusted you. I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

Gwendolyn’s face was hard and cold as she pointed the gun at Kayleigh. “There’s a lot you don’t know about your father. He wanted his precious baby girl protected from the truth about him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That money you so enjoy? It comes at the cost of other people. Dearest Daddy isn’t the pristine businessman you think he is.”

Kayleigh shook her head. “Dad may have been ruthless in some of his business endeavors, but he never did anything to justify what you’re doing now. He’s in a coma because of you!”

“Yeah, why don’t you tell us exactly what you think Leo did and maybe we can get to the bottom of this,” Weston said from where Gwendolyn had forced him to sit at the table.

He wanted to keep her there as long as possible. His brothers were already attempting to reach him on his phone—it had been vibrating in his pocket. He’d called them on the way to get Gwendolyn. When he didn’t respond now, they would eventually come check to see what was going on.

Gwendolyn looked at her own phone. “Less chatting and more traveling right now. We’re not staying here. Today is going to be a busy day for Kayleigh.”

She pointed the gun at Weston and tilted her head toward the door, gesturing for him to move. He stayed where he was. They stared at each other for a long minute.

“Have it your way.” Gwendolyn turned the weapon on Kayleigh.

Damn it. Weston didn’t think Gwendolyn would shoot Kayleigh, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He stood and walked to the door. Kayleigh rushed over to him and grabbed his arm.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered as they walked together.

Kayleigh nodded, but he could see the terror in her eyes. He wished he could put his arms around her. But mostly he wished he could get her out of there.

Maybe while they were driving. Maybe he could convince Gwendolyn to release him so he could drive. Between he and Kayleigh, they would be able to overpower the lone woman.

But when they got outside, Weston saw why Gwendolyn had kept checking her phone since she’d arrived. Beau Kesler was waiting, leaning against his Range Rover.

“I have to admit, I didn’t think this would work,” he said to Gwendolyn. “I’m impressed.”

Gwendolyn shrugged. “Your attack on Dean helped make my story more believable, even though you screwed it up.”

“There will be plenty of time to kill Dean McClintock. Right now, he doesn’t matter.” Beau’s smile was slimy as he pushed off his vehicle and walked toward them. “We have the princess. That’s all we need.”

Weston shifted so that he was between Kayleigh and Beau. There wasn’t much he could do with his hands restrained, but Beau had already proven himself willing to kill. Weston wanted Kayleigh as far from him as possible.

“Are you sure?” Gwendolyn asked.

Beau looked over at Gwendolyn. “Have I ever steered you wrong? Haven’t we walked through all of this together? You lost Sarah, and now it’s time for Leo to pay.”

Who the hell was Sarah?

“You are going to stop this merger,” Gwendolyn told Kayleigh. “Your father is a murderer and I’m not about to let him make any more money off innocent people. You are going to stop it.”

“Murderer?” Kayleigh’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? Dad is not a murderer.”

“My dead daughter would say otherwise.”

“What?” Weston and Kayleigh said at the same time.

Kayleigh shook her head. “You never talked about a daughter.”

It hadn’t shown up in any of the digging San Antonio Security had done on Gwendolyn either.

“Of course not. It would’ve made Leo suspicious to hear that his assistant had a teenager who died because of him. Beau was able to hide all traces of Sarah from my background so Leo wouldn’t know.”

Beau slipped his arm around Gwendolyn. “I just wanted to help you do what’s right. Leo Delacruz destroys lives.”

“How?” Kayleigh whispered.

“He bought my father’s pharmaceutical company,” Beau said. “But instead of selling it as a whole or keeping it running as it was, Leo dismantled it.”

“Everyone who was in a clinical trial—like my Sarah—was cast aside. All trials canceled. She died.” Gwendolyn stiffened. “Beau rebuilt another pharmaceutical company and now Leo is trying to do the same thing again. I’m not going to let that happen. Your father has to pay for what he’s done.”

Beau’s smile was smug. “So you’re going to cancel the merger today. Not only that, you’re going to sign over the rest of Leo’s holdings to us while you have unprecedented power of attorney. By the end of the day, everything that was Leo Delacruz’s will belong to us.”

Gwendolyn stepped away from him. “We didn’t talk about that. All we talked about was stopping this merger.”

“Think of Sarah. This is justice. Our plan shouldn’t be just about stopping Leo from doing it to other people. This is about you getting what you deserve. Now is the perfect time. Leo’s out of commission. We can get everything that’s coming to us.”

“I won’t do it,” Kayleigh said. “Gwendolyn, I am so sorry for what happened to your daughter, and I’m sorry if Dad had some hand in it, but I won’t sign everything over to you and especially not to Beau.”

Beau dropped all pretense of being reasonable and took a threatening step toward Kayleigh. “I think you will.”

Kayleigh straightened her shoulders. “If you kill me, you get nothing.”

Weston yanked on the handcuffs around his wrists again, but they didn’t budge. “You’re going to kill us anyway. You can’t afford to let us live. We know who you are and that you’re behind all of this. And if anyone at the merger suspects that Kayleigh has been hurt or coerced, it won’t go through anyway.”

Next to Weston, Kayleigh crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t do it.”

Beau nodded. “Patterson is right. We can’t allow you to live.”

“Beau!” Gwendolyn gasped. “This wasn’t what we agreed on. Leo was the only one who was supposed to get hurt.”

Beau ignored her, walking toward Weston and Kayleigh. “It’s business. My father always told me that you have to take your emotions out of everything when it comes to business. Of course, Dad died of a heart attack at fifty-five, so what did he know?”

Weston stepped forward so that he was completely between Beau and Kayleigh. “Don’t touch her.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Hero. It’s not her I’m after.”

Beau’s fist slammed into his belly. Weston doubled over, trying to suck in air.

Beau yanked him up and nailed him in the face, once, then again. Weston couldn’t protect himself with his hands restrained behind his back. Pain exploded as he took two more hits in the gut.

“Stop!” Kayleigh yelled. “Stop, please.”

“You don’t want me to punch him anymore?” Beau said.

Weston turned his head to the side and spat out blood. He wanted to let Kayleigh know he was all right, but Beau was already talking again.

“You’re right. Punching is rather ineffective.” Beau pulled out a knife, gripped Weston by the shirt and stabbed him in the side.

Agony blistered across Weston’s torso and he fell forward as Beau shoved him to the ground. He could hear Kayleigh sobbing as she dropped to the ground next to him.

“Weston.” She helped him sit back up. “Oh God, are you okay?”

He glanced down as she lifted his shirt to look at the wound. It hurt like hell, but at least it was in the fleshy part of his side—nothing critical.

Before he could assure Kayleigh he’d be all right, Beau snatched her up by her hair.

“Do you see what I’ve done to him in just a few minutes? Imagine what I could do with some time and a little creativity. Do you want to see your boyfriend die screaming? That’s what’s going to happen if you don’t do exactly what we said.”

Weston tried to get up again but fell back to the ground with a groan when Beau kicked him.

“And after we finish with Weston, maybe we’ll start on his nice foster parents. That’s a great story, isn’t it? How Clinton and Sheila Patterson adopted all those boys. Would you like to see them also die screaming? I can kill every member of his family.”

“Family has been what this is about all along, hasn’t it?”

Everyone froze, turning toward the voice of the man who’d just stepped from around the building.

Kayleigh gasped. Weston blinked, worried he’d taken too many hits.

There stood Leo. Very much not in a coma.