Son of a Gun Page 9

  Tague, however, had made sure Emma was not neglected. He’d taken her with him to feed the horses and then fascinated her with stories about growing up on the ranch. He’d even asked to hold Belle, but he gave her back quickly when the smells coming from her diaper indicated poop duty. Emma had made quick work of remedying that.

  “You smell like a baby now, though, don’t you, little sweetie?” Emma crooned as she lifted Belle to her shoulder for a burp.

  When that was taken care of, she lay Belle in her beautiful antique cradle and rocked her gently. Belle’s eyes closed and in seconds she drifted off to sleep.

  “Sweet dreams, my precious. Your mother loved you very much, Belle,” she whispered. “I hope your father makes sure you know that.” But fathers had a way of forgetting little girls exist, at least that was how it had been in her world.

  Emma placed a kiss on Belle’s forehead and then dropped onto her bed, lying in the darkness as the events of the past two days skirted through her mind like slippery ghosts. She’d planned and plotted her eventual escape from the first minute she realized she’d been kidnapped. Never once did she imagine a man like Damien dropping into her life. Now that he had, she had no idea how to handle her feelings for him.

  It was after two in the morning before she finally fell into a restless sleep.

  She woke to the sound of her bedroom door creaking open. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and the shadows creeping across the walls.

  “Damien?”

  “Yes. I’ve brought him to you, my beloved Emma.”

  The voice was Caudillo’s. Dread cut off the blood supply to her brain, leaving her nauseous and dizzy.

  “Where do you want this?”

  Finally her eyes focused on the bloody head that rested in Caudillo’s hand.

  Chapter Seven

  Damien jerked awake to the bloodcurdling scream. Not bothering to pull on his jeans, he raced down the hallway, shoved open the door and burst into the guest room.

  Emma was sitting up in bed, shaking so hard her teeth were rattling. Belle started to cry. Lights popped on throughout the house. Footfalls sounded from all directions.

  Damien walked to the edge of the bed. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  Emma jumped from the bed and picked up Belle, rocking her in her arms to console the startled infant.

  “I had this nightmare, only it was so real. Caudillo was standing by the door holding…” Her voice broke so that she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “We heard screams,” Tague said from the doorway behind Damien.

  “What’s wrong?” Durk asked.

  Carolina pushed around them and into the room. “Is it Belle?”

  “Belle’s fine. It was just a nightmare. I’m sorry I woke all of you.”

  “I’m not surprised at the bad dream,” Carolina said, “not after what you’ve been through. Do you want me to take Belle?”

  “No, really, I’m fine. And Belle has already stopped crying. Please, just go back to sleep. I feel bad enough that I woke you.”

  “I second that,” Damien said. “All of you go back to bed. I’ll handle things from here.”

  It wasn’t until they’d all left that he realized how presumptuous he’d sounded. Worse, he was standing in Emma’s bedroom in his boxers and her in the cotton nightshirt she’d picked up when he’d taken her shopping that afternoon.

  He expected Emma to kick him out, as well. When she didn’t he dropped to the edge of the bed and watched her pace the room, rocking Belle in her arms.

  “Are you really okay?” he asked.

  “Not so much,” she admitted.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’m wide-awake now, and I’m a good listener.”

  “How many nightmares do you want to hear about? Tonight’s or ten months’ worth?”

  “As much as you feel like sharing.”

  She placed Belle back in the cradle and sat on the opposite side of the bed from him. She rocked the cradle with one hand, turning so that she could look at him in the glow of moonlight that filtered through the windowpanes.

  “There were lots of times over the last ten months when I feared Caudillo would drive me to the edge of madness. Tonight I thought he had.”

  “I could hear that in your scream.”

  “So you came running but stayed calm and in control. How did you ever learn so much about handling hysterical women?”

  “I wouldn’t call you hysterical. In fact, you’re exceptionally levelheaded for a woman who’s been through ten months of captivity. You’ve even reached out to Belle and have become a lifesaver to her.”

  “It’s more like we saved each other.”

  When the rhythmic sounds of Belle’s breathing indicated she’d fallen back asleep, Emma propped her pillows against the headboard and scooted until her back pressed against them. She pulled the sheet up to her waist.

  “You may as well get comfortable, too, Damien. Since you volunteered, this could turn into a long therapy session.”

  Being in bed with Emma might be a lot of things, but he doubted comfortable was going to be one of them.

  * * *

  FIVE DAYS AGO, WHEN EMMA had tasted her first sweet breath of freedom, she’d fully expected to never share the horrid story of her months with Caudillo with another living soul. All she wanted was to push it to the deepest depths of her consciousness.

  Any eventual communication with law enforcement would have been carried out anonymously, as if she were on the outside looking in. And that only after she felt safe.

  Weirdly, from almost the first moment she’d met Damien Lambert, she’d felt the urge to let the details pour from her heart and her mouth. It made no sense.

  Like Caudillo, Damien was wealthy and no doubt had an impressive realm of influence. But where Caudillo had faked a suave and cosmopolitan attitude, Damien was the real thing: rugged, with the swagger of a cowboy, the confidence of a man firmly fixed in his values and the manners of a gentleman.

  And unbelievably protective. She’d expected it to be years before she felt at ease with a man. Now she was lying in bed with Damien and ready to open up.

  She raised her arms and slid her hands behind her head. “One of the weirdest initial things about the kidnapping was that Caudillo seemed surprised that I was upset. He said I should have realized as he did that we were meant to be together, and that he was just making it easy for me.”

  “So he was mentally deranged as well as evil.”

  “Some of the time he seemed to be. At other times, he seemed exceptionally rational, like when he insisted I give him access to the files of specific agents in our field office.”

  “Did you?”

  “I couldn’t have if I wanted to, but for some reason he was convinced I was lying about that.”

  “Was he trying to get specific information or just fishing for information to help him avoid getting caught in their web?”

  “I was never sure. Caudillo prided himself on answering to no man—and definitely not to a woman.”

  “Did he let you use the internet?”

  “Never. The only time I was ever allowed to leave my quarters was when he was with me. As he reminded me often, I was completely at his mercy. My life existed for his pleasure and purposes.”

  “What were your living quarters like?”

  “Elegant, as if I were a guest in his mansion. The closet was filled with revealing gowns that looked like something whores in the Middle Ages might have worn. Caudillo brought them back from his many trips. He presented them like they were valuable gifts. Bras and panties were not to be worn at all when he was in the house.

  “The bathroom was stocked with bath oils and perfumes and baskets of makeup that I was expected to wear every day in case he decided to pay me a visit.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “Then I participated in a forced period of
fasting, usually lasting at least three days, to cleanse my heart and body.”

  “But he never touched you sexually?”

  Emma sucked in her breath as the images infiltrated her mind. Even thousands of miles away from him, she grew nauseous.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Damien said, evidently sensing her growing discomfort.

  But saying it out loud would hopefully dispel some of the power it held over her. “Like I told you, we never had sex. He claimed he was withholding it from me due to his disgust at my unseemly reaction to his first attempt. Who knew vomit could be such a blessing?”

  “But he did touch you?”

  “He made me sit on his lap while he told me what he referred to as ‘stories’ to make me understand him.”

  Damien rolled his eyes.

  “Exactly, as if I didn’t already understand more about him than I ever wanted to know.”

  She hesitated again. The rest of what she had to say was the torturous part, the words that had fueled a hundred nightmares almost as gruesome as tonight’s.

  “The stories always began with his childhood. The beatings he received at the hands of his father. The cruel and inhumane treatment from his stepmother. The nights he’d plotted killing them both, always culminating with the way he’d eventually cut their hearts from their chests and fed them to their dogs before disposing of their mangled bodies.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I did. The distortions in his face said it all. But he didn’t stop there. He went on to tell me about other women he’d kidnapped, though he never used that word. He spoke of them as guests. He’d tell me how he pampered them but it was never enough, so eventually he’d had to kill them. He didn’t spare the details of those murders, either.”

  “Proof that you were being held by a psychopath and insurance that you’d obey his every order.”

  “I’m sure that was his purpose. Instead it only made me more determined than ever to get away from him.”

  “How many women were there when you escaped?”

  “Just me.”

  “And when you arrived?”

  “There were three of us. The first one disappeared almost immediately. Caudillo told me she’d drowned while trying to escape. I only saw the second woman a couple of times. She seemed sickly, pale and anorexic thin. I think he may have literally starved her to death.”

  “Thank God you escaped.”

  “It was only by chance.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Caudillo was away from the island. I heard gunfire, and the noise that followed suggested chaos. I screamed. An armed man that I’d never seen before burst through my door, glanced my way and then left. When I peeked out the door I realized that the fortress had been overrun with gunmen and that the usual guards were nowhere in sight.

  “I walked out of my room but then ducked into Caudillo’s office when I heard more gunfire. His safe had been ransacked. Hundred-dollar bills the raiders must have dropped littered the floor. I grabbed what I could and then ran to the beach and waited for the opportunity to board the boat that the gunmen had come in on.”

  “Were they stealing weapons as well as money?”

  “Yes, huge crates of them. When I saw my chance I boarded and hid in the galley behind the crates. The boat left the island shortly after I boarded.”

  “Left for where?”

  “Mexico. I escaped the next morning while the thieves celebrated their victory.”

  “You’re one spunky woman, Emma Smith. You may still have some hard days in front of you, but you’ll get through this and come out just fine.”

  “You’re far more convinced of that than I am, cowboy.” Keeping the rest of the truth from him seemed a violation of trust. “Now that I’ve told you this much, I may as well clear up another of my lies.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Afraid so. My real name is Emma Muran. Now you know all there is to know, but I still hold you to your promise not to reveal my identity or my connection to Caudillo.”

  Damien put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the curl of his arm. “He’s not going to kill you, Emma, not as long as I have your back. Now why don’t you relax and get some sleep before Belle wakes up again, ready to eat.”

  She knew it was false assurance, but Emma let it embrace her like silk. She closed her eyes and fell asleep, still sheltered in Damien’s arms.

  * * *

  THE SUN HAD BARELY KISSED the horizon when Damien pulled on his jacket and stepped out the back door. His breath quickly turned to vapor in the cold air. He hurried down the steps, slid behind the wheel of his pickup and revved the motor.

  It was less than a quarter of a mile to the ranch offices. Usually he walked it to get his blood pumping and his mind focused on the duties of the day, but today he was eager to see if Carson Stile had faxed him anything on Caudillo overnight.

  Damien had met Carson during his senior year at A&M. They’d shared a statistics class and been teamed by the teacher to work on a project. Damien figured the teacher had thought of it as an academia-type joke. The rich rancher’s kid, who liked sports and dabbled in rodeo, paired with the California scholarship nerd, who spent most of his time playing video games in his room or hanging out in the computer lab.

  Oddly, they’d hit it off, and when Carson lost his scholarship due to funding cutbacks, Hugh had picked up the tab. Hugh hadn’t really expected to see the money again, but Carson had paid back every cent.

  He was working for a tech company in Seattle now. Not surprising, since Damien knew for a fact there hadn’t been a file in the A&M system Carson couldn’t have hacked into. But for the most part, Carson played it straight. He did, however, have the full scoop on every professor on staff.

  The last time Damien had seen Carson was two years ago, when Carson had been in Dallas for a conference. He’d driven out and spent a week at the ranch when it concluded. Carson had diligently avoided everything on four legs, especially the bulls.

  The second Damien opened the door at the ranch headquarters, he knew he’d made the right decision in calling Carson last night. The fax machine was stacked with new pages. Carson had obviously kept company with his computer until late into the night.

  Damien started a pot of coffee, picked up the faxed pages and started reading the scoop on Anton Klein, better known in the Caribbean as Caudillo.

  It read more like a legend or a fairy tale than pure facts. Damien spent the next hour absorbing the information and trying to get an accurate assessment of the bastard who’d ripped Emma’s life apart.

  A billionaire playboy who had several residences in Europe, including a castle in Ireland, an opulent villa in France, a vineyard in Italy and, of course, a tropical island in the Caribbean. The island was said to be his retreat, and few people had ever been invited onto the premises.

  At almost two hundred feet in length, his craft was one of the largest privately owned vessels in the world. Many friends and acquaintances and even European and Middle East royalty had apparently spent time with him on his yacht.

  Caudillo was said to be charming, handsome, generous and exceedingly mysterious. Although he came from a family of successful shipping magnates, that didn’t fully explain his vast wealth.

  Speculation about that ran from involvement in the blood diamond trade to involvement with corrupt dictators. Oddly, there was no mention of illegal arms, even though he was known by a name meaning “warlord.”

  There were vague references to his being a man you wouldn’t want to cross. Damien had to wonder if that was because those who had crossed him were no longer breathing.

  Nothing directly contradicted Emma’s description of him, yet nothing painted him as the kind of twisted psychopath she’d described.

  But seeing Emma’s anguish over the past two days, he was convinced that Caudillo was exactly as she’d described him.

  Caudillo had to be stopped before another female became his victim.
Damien just wasn’t sure of the best way to go about that yet.

  An hour and two cups of coffee later, a plan of action was forming in Damien’s mind. He’d read enough about Caudillo. But there was one search he’d have to do himself, at least until Emma released him from his promise not to reveal her true identity.

  Telling him her real name had been a giant leap of faith. He wouldn’t betray her—unless her safety depended on it.

  But he would not let Caudillo near her again. In his mind, that more than justified what he had to do next.

  He could remember several well-publicized disappearances in recent years, but he had no recollection of an American woman disappearing while vacationing in the Caribbean ten months ago. If it had been covered up, he intended to find out why and by whom.

  He typed “Emma Muran” in his search engine. Several subjects came up. An artist in Toronto. A musician in New Orleans. A gourmet caterer in Phoenix. There was no mention of an Emma Muran who’d disappeared while vacationing in paradise.

  He kept searching and finally uncovered where Emma had gone to high school and the academic honors she’d earned while attending the University of Alabama. He even found her address and phone number in Nashville. There was absolutely nothing about a kidnapping.

  But surely her family would have reported her as missing. If not, then the friend who was supposed to go with her would have gone to the police.

  Something was seriously wrong with this picture.

  He killed the screen and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. It was time to set the plan in action. But he wouldn’t do it behind Emma’s back.

  * * *

  EMMA SPOONED A BITE OF creamy yogurt into her mouth and swallowed without tasting, oblivious to the family chatter around the table.

  Damien’s absence at the breakfast table created a sense of foreboding in Emma that bordered on panic. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable last night. Had she seemed too needy? Was he reconsidering his efforts to help her find Belle’s father and to escape arrest?