Читать книгу: «Christmas Guardian»

To Dakota and Danielle

Prologue

San Antonio, Texas

Jordan Taylor heard the pounding, but it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t part of the nightmare he’d been having. Someone was banging on his door.

He checked the clock on the nightstand. Three in the morning. He cursed, threw back the covers and grabbed his Sig Sauer, because visits at this time of morning were never good.

“Jordan, open up!” a woman said. Not a shout, exactly, but close.

He recognized that voice and cursed again. Shelly Mackey, his ex, both as a business associate and a girlfriend. He wouldn’t need the Sig Sauer. Well, probably not. Since he hadn’t seen or heard from Shelly in months and since her voice sounded a couple of steps beyond frantic, Jordan decided to bring the gun with him anyway.

“You have to help me!” Shelly insisted. She continued to pound on the door. “Please. Hurry.”

That got him moving faster. Shelly wasn’t the drama queen type. Jordan didn’t bother to dress. He pulled on only his boxers and raced out of his bedroom.

Her voice wasn’t coming from the front of the house, he realized, but from the door off his kitchen. Jordan sprinted that way.

But the pounding stopped.

He stopped, too, just short of the door. He waited a moment. Listened.

And heard nothing.

“Shelly?” he called out.

Still nothing. That gave him another jolt of adrenaline. Shelly was likely in big trouble.

Jordan lifted his gun as he reached for the doorknob. Then, he heard it. The sound of a car engine.

Someone was driving away. Not fast. More like easing away, the tires barely whispering on the brick driveway that encircled his house. Jordan unlocked the door, jerked it open, but he caught only a flash of the bloodred taillights before the car disappeared into the darkness.

With his gun aimed, he shot glances around his heavily landscaped yard. He didn’t see anyone, but the soft grunt he heard had him aiming his attention lower. To the porch.

There was a basket with a blanket draped over it.

“What the hell?” he mumbled.

Jordan kept his attention on the yard, just in case the someone or something that had caused Shelly to run was still out there. He stooped down and lifted the corner of the blanket.

A baby stared back at him.

Jordan had never remembered being speechless before, but he sure was now. He looked beneath the blanket again, certain he was mistaken.

No mistake.

The tiny baby was still there. Still staring at him with eyes that seemed to ask who are you and why am I here?

Jordan wanted to know the same thing.

He grabbed the basket, brought it inside so he could set it on the floor and shut the door. He also reached for his phone and jabbed in Shelly’s number. Each ring felt like a week-long wait.

“Jordan,” she finally answered. He didn’t know who sounded more frantic—him or her.

“Talk to me,” he snarled.

“Someone’s trying to kill me.”

Despite the baby-in-the-basket bombshell, he wasn’t immune to the fear he heard in her voice. “Where are you? I’ll send help, and then you can come back for the little delivery you left on my porch.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do things this way, but I had no choice. They’re after me, because of the baby. He’s in danger, Jordan. The worst kind. And I need you to protect him.”

Him. A boy.

Then it hit Jordan. He threw back the blanket and had a better look at that little face. Dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes. About two months old at the most. He quickly did the math. He’d last slept with Shelly nine or ten months ago. Break-up sex. And he hadn’t seen her since.

Jordan groaned, and because he had no choice, he sank down on the floor next to the basket.

“I’ve sanitized my office,” Shelly continued, her words rushing together. “Actually, I burned it to the ground. They won’t find anything there, but I don’t want them tracing the baby to you. Don’t let anyone know you have him. Please. There can be no chain of custody when it comes to him, understand?”

No. He didn’t. But he focused on Shelly and her safety. “Tell me where you are so I can help you.”

“You can help me by taking care of the baby. There are no records and no paperwork to connect me to that child. It has to stay that way. I’ve created a phony trail for us, too. If anyone digs into our connection, they’ll find proof you fired me because I was embezzling from your company. The documentation will imply that we’re enemies and that you’re the last person on earth that I’d ask for help.”

This conversation was getting more and more confusing. “Is this baby mine?” Jordan demanded.

Silence. He knew she was still on the line because he could hear her breathing. “Just protect him, please,” she said moments later. “A person might come looking for him. If she uses the code words, red ruby, then you can trust her.”

“Red ruby? You gotta be kidding me. A code word? For what? Why?”

“I have to disappear for a while,” Shelly said, obviously ignoring him. “But when I can, I’ll explain everything.”

With that, she hung up.

Jordan didn’t waste a second, not even to curse. He redialed Shelly’s number. But she didn’t answer. The call went straight to voice mail.

Time for plan B. He phoned one of his agents, Cody Guillory, his right-hand man at Sentron, the private security agency that Jordan owned. Since Cody was pulling duty at headquarters, he answered on the first ring.

“I’m guessing whatever’s wrong got you out of bed?” Cody greeted.

“Yeah, it did. I have a situation,” Jordan replied. “Shelly could be in danger. She still has the same cell number and possibly the same phone she used when she worked for Sentron so try to track that. Discreetly. Let me know where she is.”

“Will do. Give me a couple of minutes. Anything else?”

Jordan looked at the baby and debated what he should say. Don’t let anyone know you have him, Shelly had warned. She’d even used another rare please. For now, he’d take the plea and warning to heart. “Just find her and send someone in case she needs help,” Jordan said, and he ended the call.

The only illumination came from the moonlight seeping in through the windows, but it was enough for him to see the basket. Jordan stared at the baby, whose eyes were drifting down to sleep, and because he didn’t know what else to do, he groaned and considered the most obvious scenario. Had Shelly given birth to his child without telling him? And if so, why wouldn’t he have heard rumors that he was a daddy? There’d been no signs, no hints, nothing to indicate that this child was his.

Except for the dark brown hair, dark brown eyes.

Like Jordan’s own.

Still, that didn’t mean he’d fathered this baby.

He needed to talk with Shelly, and even though it was clear she was in the middle of a personal crisis, he tried her number again. Again, it went straight to voice mail. This time he decided to leave a message.

“Shelly, we need to talk.” He wanted to say more, much more, but a cell conversation wasn’t secure. His number wouldn’t show up on her caller ID or phone records because all calls from his house and business were routed through a scrambler, but someone could get her phone and listen to any message he might leave.

Someone’s trying to kill me, she’d said. Even with the shock of finding the baby, Jordan hadn’t forgotten that. Like him, Shelly now owned a security agency. Even though she’d been in business less than a year, her startup agency provided services as bodyguards, personal protection, P.I.s.

And probably more.

That more had nearly gotten him killed a few times. Was that what was happening to Shelly now? Had a case gone wrong, and was someone trying to use the baby to get to her? Maybe she’d had no choice but to bring the child to him, but it damn well had been her choice not to tell him before now.

If the child was his, that is.

The phone rang, slicing through the silence and waking the baby. He started to fuss. Jordan had no idea how to deal with that, so he lightly rocked the basket. Thankfully, the little guy hushed, and Jordan took the call.

“It’s Cody. I tracked Shelly’s phone, no problem, but while I was doing that, I heard her name on the police scanner, and I zoomed in on the conversation with our equipment.” He paused. “About five minutes ago, a traffic cop responded to a failed carjacking just about a half mile from your place. It’s Shelly’s car.”

Oh, God. “How bad?”

“Bad.” And that was all Cody said for several long moments. “Shelly’s dead.”

That hit Jordan like a punch to the gut. He squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Yes, I’ve tapped into the camera at the traffic light, and I can see her face. It’s Shelly, all right. Looks like a gunshot to the head.”

Jordan forced away the grief and pain and grabbed the basket so he could take the baby with him to his home office. He turned on his secure laptop. “Send me the feed from that traffic camera. Audio, too. And get one of our agents over there.”

“I’ve already dispatched Desmond—” Cody paused, and in the background Jordan could hear the chatter from the laser listening device that Cody was using to zoom in on the scene. “An eyewitness is talking to the traffic cop right now.”

The images popped onto his computer screen. Jordan saw Shelly’s car. The driver’s door was wide open. Her body was sprawled out in the middle of the street, limp and lifeless. Hell. If he’d just gotten to the door sooner, if he could have stopped her from leaving his place, then maybe she’d still be alive.

Another patrol car arrived, but Jordan zoomed in on the conversation between the traffic cop and a twenty-something woman dressed in a fast-food restaurant uniform. An eyewitness. Her body language and nearly hysterical tone told Jordan she probably hadn’t been involved in this as anything more than a spectator to a horrific crime.

“The man didn’t want her car,” Jordan heard the woman say, and he cranked up the volume.

“What do you mean?” the cop asked.

Tears streamed down the eyewitness’s face. “That man dragged her from her car and tried to force her into his black SUV. He was trying to kidnap her or something.”

Or something. Jordan was afraid he knew what that something was. This man wanted information about the baby. But why?

The eyewitness broke down, sobbing while she frantically shook her head. “The woman fought him,” she finally said, her trembling fingers held close to her mouth. “She tried to get away. But he shot her and then drove off.”

There it was. The brutal end of one nightmare and the start of another.

This wasn’t a botched carjacking. Shelly had been murdered. And Jordan instinctively knew the man in the SUV wasn’t finished.

The killer would come after the baby next.

Chapter One

Fourteen months later

December 22nd

Kinley Ford was after two things: Jordan Taylor and the truth. Tonight, she might finally get both.

If she didn’t get killed first, that is.

Because if he did indeed know what was going on, he might take extreme measures to stop anyone from finding out.

Swallowing hard, she stepped inside the reception area of the Sentron Security Agency to find the Christmas party in full swing. The place sparkled, not just with some of the guests in their glittery dresses. There was also an angel ice sculpture on a center table, and it was flanked on each side with white roses in crystal vases and bottles of champagne angled into gleaming, silver ice buckets.

Kinley dismissed all of that and looked around. There he was, on the far side of the room next to the massive Christmas tree.

Jordan Taylor.

He looked lethal. And was. She’d studied every bit of information she could learn about him. Over the years, he’d killed three people. All in the line of duty, of course. But that still gave him a dangerous edge that she would be a fool to dismiss.

Kinley hated to think of him as her last resort, but she had exhausted her list of persons of interest. She’d exhausted her bank account. And herself. She wouldn’t give up if she failed tonight—she would never give up—but she literally had no idea where to go next.

Beside her, her “date,” Cody Guillory, took her coat, then her arm and led her not in Jordan’s direction but toward a tall blond-haired man by the ten-foot-long table filled from corner to corner with party food.

“Anna,” Cody said using the alias she’d given him, “this is Burke Dennison.” Cody checked his watch. “In about three hours, he’ll be my new boss.”

Burke flashed a thousand-watt smile. With that sun-blond hair, blue eyes and tan, he looked every bit the golden boy he was. At thirty-one he was a self-made millionaire and about to take the reins of one of the most successful security agencies in the state.

Burke used his champagne glass to make a sweeping motion around the reception area at Sentron headquarters. “I bought the place,” Burke let her know. “Isn’t that a hoot? I’m a ranch hand’s son from Dime Box, Texas, for Christ’s sake. Who would have thought it?”

Jordan Taylor obviously had, since he was the present owner and about to relinquish control a mere three days before Christmas.

Kinley wanted to know why.

For fourteen months, she’d examined the lives of more than a hundred people and had looked for any changes in their lifestyles. This was a major change for Jordan. But the question was, did it have anything to do with Shelly’s murder?

“Well, if I’d had the cash, I certainly would have bought the place,” Cody remarked. He, too, looked around. Almost lovingly. “My life is here.” He shrugged, then smiled. “And usually my body. Burke, don’t you expect me to give you eighty hours a week the way I gave Jordan.”

Both men laughed, but she didn’t think it was her imagination that there was some tension beneath. Maybe Cody wasn’t thrilled with gaining a new owner, or losing the old one.

When a tuxed waiter moved closer, Cody snagged two fluted glasses of champagne and handed her one so they could toast Burke. Kinley thanked him and pretended to have a sip while she pretended to be interested in the conversation Burke started about some changes he wanted to make.

She’d gotten good at pretending.

In fact, everything about her was a facade, starting with the red party dress she’d bought from a secondhand store. The symbolic necklace that she wore twenty-four/seven. Her dyed-blond hair. Her name. She was using the alias Anna Carlyle tonight, but she had three other IDs in her apartment. She’d lived a lie for so long. Too long.

“Excuse me a moment,” Kinley said to Cody and Burke.

She stepped away and tried to be subtle. She mingled, introducing herself. She even sampled a spicy baconwrapped shrimp from the table, all the while making her way to Jordan.

There was an auburn-haired woman talking with him, but as if he’d known all along that Kinley was coming his way, he slid his gaze in her direction. He whispered something to the redhead and she stepped away, but not before giving Kinley a bit of the evil eye. Probably because she thought Kinley was her romantic competition. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Nice party,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Anna Carlyle.”

He kept his attention fastened to her face. Studying her with those intense brown eyes that were as dark and rich as espresso.

This was the first time she’d seen him up close, the first time she’d gotten a good look at him, and sadly, Kinley realized she wasn’t immune to a hot guy. Funny, after what she’d been through she was surprised to feel any emotions other than grief and fear, but Jordan Taylor had an old-fashioned way of reminding her that beneath the facade, she was still a woman.

Simply put, he was the most physically attractive man she’d ever met.

He wasn’t slick and golden like his Sentron successor, Burke. Jordan had a sinister edge that extended from his classically chiseled face to the casual way he wore his tux. The tie was loose. His left hand was crammed in his pocket. The other held not a glass of champagne but whiskey straight up.

It smelled as expensive and high-end as he did.

His hair was loose, a bit long, brushing against the bottom of his collar. It was also fashionably unstyled, as if he didn’t have to spend much time to make it look as if he could have been posing on the cover of some rock magazine.

“Anna Carlyle, huh?” he asked. And it was definitely a question.

That pulled her from her female fantasy induced by his good looks and smell. “Yes. Cody was kind enough to invite me to the party. And you’re…?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile of humor though. It made Kinley want to take a step back. She didn’t. She held her ground.

“Jordan Taylor,” he finally said. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

She was in the process of bringing the champagne glass to her mouth for a fake sip, but Kinley froze. Nearly panicked. Then he tamped down the fear that she was about to be exposed. She didn’t mind being revealed as a liar, but exposure could be deadly.

“Yes, I did know you were Jordan Taylor,” she admitted. “You’re the host of this party. I must have seen your picture in the paper or something.”

He eased his hand from his pocket. In his palm was a slim platinum-colored PDA. He held up the tiny screen for her to see.

She saw a picture of herself.

Specifically, a picture of her in the coffee shop across the street. Her worried eyes were fixed on the Sentron building. He flicked a button, and another photo appeared. Also of her. This time she was parked in a car on the street just up from his San Antonio estate.

Oh, God.

Kinley glanced over her shoulder, looking for the quickest way out. There wasn’t one. To get to the doors, she’d have to make her way through at least three dozen people, including twenty or so security specialists who among other things were trained to apprehend suspects. But Jordan likely wouldn’t even let her get that far, because he was the most qualified security specialist in the room and was only a few inches from her.

She couldn’t read his expression. He didn’t seem angry. Or even curious. He just stood there, calmly, while he apparently waited for her to make the next move.

“I was thinking about hiring a bodyguard,” she lied. “I wanted to check out Sentron first.”

He made a hmm sound, slipped the PDA into his pocket, set both their drinks aside and grabbed her arm. “Let’s take a walk, have a little chat.”

Once again she held her ground. Fear shot through her, but Kinley couldn’t go with him. She had to get out of there. “I should get back to my date. Cody will be wondering where I am.”

“No, he won’t.”

Because Jordan said it so confidently, Kinley glanced over her shoulder again. Cody and Jordan exchanged a subtle glance, and Jordan’s grip tightened on her arm.

“When I realized you were following me, I sent Cody to the coffee shop. His orders were to strike up a conversation with you and then to invite you to tonight’s party—an invitation I figured you’d jump at.” He paused, met her gaze. “Cody’s very good at his job, isn’t he?”

He was. Kinley hadn’t suspected a thing. Maybe because she’d been so excited about the possibility of learning the truth of what’d happened fourteen months ago?

“I’m leaving,” Kinley insisted.

“Yes. After we have that chat.” Jordan didn’t give her a choice. He practically dragged her in the direction of a hall.

“I have a gun,” she warned.

“No, you don’t. Before you stepped foot in this building, I scanned you—thoroughly.” He tipped his head to a small camera-like device positioned over the front doors. “If you’d been carrying concealed, I would have already disarmed you.”

That caused her heart to drop even further. What had she gotten herself into? And better yet, how could she get herself out of it?

He opened a door and maneuvered her inside. Even though she didn’t stand a chance of overpowering him, Kinley got ready to fight back. She gripped her purse so she could use it to hit him.

But Jordan didn’t attack her. He turned on the lights and shut the door. The room was filled with wall monitors, desks, computers and other equipment. No people though. She was very much alone with a man who might kill her.

“This is Sentron’s command center,” he explained. “Soundproof and secure. We won’t be overheard here.”

Which meant there’d be no one to hear her if she screamed.

He took out the PDA again and began to flick through more pictures. There was one from her college yearbook. Another of her in an airport terminal. Her passport photo. But the bulk was from newspaper articles when she’d been reported missing and presumed dead two years ago.

“There’s about three million dollars’ worth of equipment in this room, including facial recognition software. When I realized you had me under surveillance, I pulled up every image in every available databank.” Jordan turned, aimed those eyes at her again. “I know who you are, Kinley Ford.”

Since she didn’t know how to respond to that, she didn’t say anything.

“You’re twenty-eight. Not a natural blonde. You have a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Texas. Two years ago the research lab where you worked exploded, and everyone thought you were dead. You obviously weren’t. You surfaced again fourteen months ago, only to disappear again. Now you’re here.” He outstretched his hands. “Why?”

Kinley chose her words carefully. “I knew Shelly.”

He drew his arms back in, clicked off his PDA. “Did you have something to do with her murder?”

“No.” But Kinley knew she didn’t sound very convincing. “Did you?”

For the first time, she saw some emotion. For just a second, there was something in his eyes. Not pain, exactly. But some sentiment that he quickly reined in. “No.” He didn’t sound any more convincing than she had.

They stared at each other.

“You knew Shelly,” Kinley accused.

He nodded. “She was a former business associate. I fired her because she was embezzling from me.”

Yes. She’d read all about that. “And she was your lover. I saw a picture of you two in the newspaper.” In the photo, Shelly hadn’t been able to conceal the attraction she was feeling. It’d come through even in a grainy black-and-white image. Not for Jordan, though. In that photo, he was wearing the same poker face he had now.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“The truth. Among other things, I want to know who killed Shelly and why.”

For just a second, his mouth froze around the syllable he’d been about to say. Then, he obviously rethought his response. “What other things?”

Kinley blinked, because that’d been a slip of the tongue. “I was her client. And her friend.” She had to pause and take a deep breath. “I left something important with her.”

Mercy, had she stuttered on the word important?

Her nerves were so raw now that she didn’t know. “I tried to retrieve the item,” she continued, “but then I learned her office was destroyed and that she was dead.”

She didn’t think for a minute that Jordan was just going to accept her explanation. No. The question came immediately. “What kind of item?”

“That’s personal.” And she’d had more than enough of this intimidation. Kinley straightened her shoulders, tucked her purse beneath her arm and started for the door.

She didn’t make it far.

Jordan stepped in front of her, blocking her path and sending her straight into him. He was solid. She learned that the hard way when her breasts landed against his chest. If he had any reaction to the contact, he didn’t show it. He merely stepped back so that he was right in front of the door.

“Who sent you here?” he demanded.

“No one.” That was the first real truth she’d told tonight. “And I’m leaving.”

“Not now, you’re not.” He blocked her again when she tried to go around him. When Kinley tried again, he caught her, whirled her around and pinned her against the door. “Who knows you’re here?”

It wasn’t a question she’d anticipated, and now it was her turn to study his eyes to see what had prompted him to bring up one of her biggest concerns. “Obviously your people know.”

“Just Cody. And he doesn’t know your real name. He thinks you came because I wanted to have sex with you. So, who knows you’re here?”

“No one. I’ve been careful.”

He gave a slight eye roll and tipped his head toward the PDA where he had pictures of her. “If I saw you, someone else could have, too.”

True. And that terrified her. It had terrified her from day one, but even that wasn’t enough to make her stop this search. She had to know if Jordan had the answers she needed.

Well, one answer in particular.

“What’s this really all about?” she asked, hating that her voice was shaky. Heck, she was shaking. And the full-body contact he was giving her wasn’t helping. She felt trapped. Threatened.

“I want to know the same thing,” he countered. “What item did you leave with Shelly?”

She shook her head. “I can’t say.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Can’t,” she insisted. She met his gaze. “What do you know about this?”

He stayed quiet a moment. “I figure if you take what I know and what you know, we’ll have a complete picture. So, you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. You first.”

Kinley considered that and then considered the alternative. She couldn’t afford a stalemate. Nor could she afford the consequences of what would happen if she spilled all. So, she took it slowly. “I honestly don’t know who killed Shelly.”

“But you know who was after her and why,” he snapped.

“Maybe.” She groaned. “Look, I can’t think like this. Just back up.”

To her surprise, he did, and then made an impatient circular motion with his right index finger to signal her to keep talking.

Best to start at the beginning, she thought. That was the easy part. Too bad she didn’t know if she could trust him with the ending.

“Shelly’s death could be linked to what happened at the Bassfield Research Facility where I worked,” Kinley explained. “Secrets went missing. Illegal deals were made. The authorities have caught some people responsible, but since there might have been others involved in the illegal activity, they thought it best that I be placed in witness protection in another state.”

“Yet you’re here,” he pointed out. “Not in witness protection but at my company’s Christmas party.”

Kinley was certain she couldn’t keep the emotion or the heartbreak out of her expression. “Finding the item I left with Shelly is critical. It’s worth the risk of leaving witness protection.”

“And you think I know where this…‘item’ is?”

She closed her eyes a moment, shook her head. “I don’t know. But I made a list of all of Shelly’s friends, family members and enemies. I’ve made it through that entire list—”

He put her right back against the wall. It happened so fast that it robbed her of her breath. “You asked these people questions?”

That urgency and his stark concern didn’t help her breathing. “No. I didn’t want to raise any suspicions so I followed them the way I followed you. I watched them, looking for any signs that they might know something.”

His eyes turned even darker. “Because if someone got this item, they’d be able to draw you out of hiding. Why? What do they want?”

“Information about the last project I was working on.” It was a guess. But a good one, since she hadn’t been able to think of another reason. She hadn’t been privy to all top-secret data used in the project, however.

“You were working on antidotes for chemical weapons.” Again, it wasn’t a question.

She nodded, not surprised that he knew about the project that’d nearly gotten her killed and had cost her everything. “The formula for the primary antidote went missing. Someone may think I know where it is. I don’t,” she quickly added. “That’s the truth.”

“For a change.” He turned on his PDA again, scrolled through some pages and stopped on one. Not a picture. This one had some kind of code in it. “That’s your DNA. Day before yesterday, I had Cody collect your cup from the coffee shop, and I ran the test myself. No one but me has seen the results. Or compared it to anyone else’s.”

Oh, mercy.