They Sought Vengeance, page 27
Charlotte looked at Dylan, her eyes bright and eager. “We were getting tired of waiting. I thought Logan would do it if I put the thought into his head, but the loser wouldn’t lift a finger to do anything for himself. He’d complain about his life, the poor boy living in the mansion with everything handed to him on a silver platter. But he wouldn’t do anything about it. I gave him everything he needed, and he still wouldn’t do it. He was just waiting for his father to come around. He couldn’t see that it would never happen. The old man wasn’t going to give him the freedom he wanted, wasn’t going to support him if he didn’t do what he was told.” She shook her head in disgust.
“And you couldn’t wait for him any longer,” Zachary suggested.
“No.” Charlotte shot a look at Dylan. “We had to do it. For Wayne.”
“And you couldn’t let Gordon be happy with his children.”
“He is a good dad,” Dylan growled. “He obviously loves them. And why should he get to enjoy them when Wayne didn’t? When Wayne had lost everything because of Drake’s mismanagement?”
Charlotte’s eyes darted suddenly over to the room where the babies were sleeping. Zachary hadn’t heard anything, but it was clear that she had heard one of them stir or make a sound. He took a couple of strides toward the room, his movements automatic. He didn’t consciously make a choice, but his instinct to protect the children instantly kicked in.
“No, you don’t,” Charlotte warned, holding out her hand to stop him.
“I need to see them,” Zachary insisted.
She grabbed him as he entered the hallway and shoved him into the wall. “No! Dylan, help me!”
There was a creak and a groan as Dylan struggled up from his comfortable seat. He wasn’t moving quickly, but Charlotte continued to fend Zachary off until he got there, and the two of them managed to wrestle him into submission together. The more tightly they held him, the more desperate Zachary was to see the twins. He writhed and tried to twist out of their grips. What had she done to the twins? Maybe they weren’t sleeping. Maybe Charlotte had smothered them with a pillow, and one last agonal breath had attracted Charlotte’s attention. If Zachary could reach them, maybe he could do something.
It was a brawl. Zachary had to see the twins and tend to them, but Charlotte and Dylan were just as determined to keep him from them. They had their plan, which involved inflicting as much pain as possible on Gordon, and that overflowed onto Bridget and the twins. But Zachary couldn’t allow that. Every time he escaped their grasps for a moment, one of them would punch or kick him, grab him, and take him to the floor. His face hurt, his head, his body. Every time he crawled to his knees or feet, they were there, beating on him again.
But they didn’t know his history. They didn’t know how many times he had been beaten by someone much bigger and stronger than he was. He wasn’t going to give in because of a little pain.
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There were shouts and crashes but, in the throes of the fight, Zachary didn’t realize immediately that someone else had arrived. Not another attacker, but uniformed saviors who were pulling Charlotte and Dylan back, shouting instructions and threats. Zachary sagged with relief. It was over. He didn’t care about the cops manhandling him as well, yelling at him simultaneously to put his hands on the wall and then lace them behind his head, who searched his pockets and body with rough, impersonal hands.
“The babies are in there,” Zachary told them, trying to nod to the bedroom. “I need to see them. I need to make sure they are okay.”
“Shut up!”
Zachary let them bully him, dragging him out of the hallway as if he were one of the kidnappers, seating him with Dylan and Charlotte, all in a row on the living room floor, hands cuffed, legs crossed.
Garcia and Bourassa didn’t make their entrance until the rest of the house was cleared and the cops were sure that everyone had been subdued and contained. Zachary was not surprised to see that neither of them was particularly happy. They conversed with the head of the insertion team and were led to the bedroom. Zachary couldn’t see what was going on but, remaining as still as possible, tried to hear every word they said. A cold hand clenched around his heart when he heard them call for an ambulance. Was he too late? He had done everything he could to get there as quickly as possible and prevent any harm.
Garcia walked back down the hallway to the living room. She stood in front of Zachary, looking down at him.
“So you’re willing to follow the rules and work with the law enforcement officers on the case until you’re not,” she observed. “And then you go bat crap crazy?”
Zachary couldn’t restrain the embarrassed grin that forced its way onto his features. “I’m sorry…”
“You are not,” she declared. “You’re not the least bit sorry that you kept us out of this and went all Rambo on it yourself.”
“Rambo?” Zachary looked down at himself. He’d never been called that before. He didn’t have any weapons. Or muscles. If she was looking for some bronzed, muscle-bound hero dripping with sweat, she would have to look elsewhere. Except for the dripping with sweat part—he had that covered. And he wasn’t sure whether the moisture dripping below his nose was sweat, tears, or blood.
Garcia gave a low chuckle.
“Are they okay?” Zachary asked, twisting his neck to look anxiously toward the bedroom as if he could see from where he sat. “I heard you call for an ambulance.”
“They look okay, but we can’t rouse them. They may have been drugged, and I don’t think I need to tell you how dangerous that is for an infant. We need to get them medical care as soon as possible.”
“But they’re alive. And unharmed.”
“They will need full examinations to confirm that. But yes, they appear to be unharmed, other than being sedated.”
And they were too young to remember the trauma. When they woke up, they would be back with their family and the kidnapping would just be a bad dream, no more traumatic than being left with a babysitter. He hoped.
“We didn’t do anything to hurt them,” Charlotte asserted.
Garcia and Zachary both ignored her. Of course she would say that. And her story would morph. She had been coerced into it by Dylan. He had threatened her, held something over her. He had misled her into thinking they were in danger and he was rescuing them. But Zachary had their original story on record.
Zachary didn’t ask to be released but, eventually, Garcia bent down and helped him to his feet, then unlocked the handcuffs. Zachary rolled his shoulders and massaged his wrists. He was covered with scratches, scrapes, and bruises, and tomorrow he would be a riot of colors, he was sure. He hadn’t been in a knock-down drag-out fight like that in a long time. A taser would definitely have helped.
“How are you feeling?” Garcia asked.
“Fine. No permanent damage.”
She looked him over, shaking her head. “When the adrenaline rush wears off and you feel the extent of your injuries, you might change your story.”
Zachary shrugged. It didn’t really matter. He would sacrifice his body and comfort for two helpless infants any day. That protective streak was a mile wide, ingrained as it was to protect his younger siblings, then foster siblings, from those much larger and more powerful, and ensure that they had enough to eat, clothes and blankets to keep warm, and other necessities of life. He could not overlook the neglect or abuse of a child. It wasn’t in him.
“Come outside,” Garcia told him. “Kenzie will need to see that you’re okay, and then we can chat about just how you got here and what compelled you to do it on your own and go charging into danger without any backup.”
“Well… I knew you would come, so it wasn’t exactly with no backup.”
“Have you ever watched any cop shows on TV? What happens when one of them charges into a building with no backup, even if it is ‘on the way’?”
Zachary looked down, somewhat embarrassed, as Garcia escorted him out of the house. “Well, they get ambushed,” he offered. “But every other cop I’ve dealt with has told me not to go by what I see on TV.”
Garcia gave a bark of laughter.
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There was a crowd gathering outside. Plenty of emergency vehicles, marked and unmarked, cops outside as well as in, neighbors hanging around to get the scoop on what had happened. Kenzie was outside the perimeter, but Garcia motioned to one of the officers securing the scene to let her into the front yard.
Kenzie hurried over to him. “Zachary!” She held his face in her hands, looking him over critically. “I can’t believe you did that! Whatever possessed you to come over here instead of passing the information on to Detective Garcia and the agent? And don’t tell me ‘poor impulse control,’ because that isn’t going to cut it today.”
It had not been an impulse this time. Maybe his dash for the bedroom to look in on the babies had been impulsive, but escaping detection at Gordon’s house and making his way over to Dylan on his own had been a deliberate move, and he had planned carefully before making his way inside.
He let Kenzie pull him in for a hug and patted her soothingly on the back, knowing that it must have been difficult for her to see that he was in danger.
“There wasn’t enough evidence,” Zachary explained. “They wouldn’t have been able to get in without a warrant, and there wasn’t enough evidence to get a warrant.”
“So you decided you would just come over here like a cowboy and take care of everything yourself instead of waiting until they could build a case.”
At least she had said cowboy instead of Rambo. It was a little easier for him to see himself as a lone cowboy than a soldier. But a cowboy without a gun.
“I was careful,” Zachary told her. “I made sure that I had the cameras and microphone set up so that you could all see and hear what was going on, so that anything they said could be used…”
“You were not careful,” she snapped. “Collecting evidence is not the same as being careful.”
“Well… I let you know where I was.”
“You should have given Garcia everything you knew and let the police take care of it.”
Zachary shrugged. “That would have taken too long.”
“And as a result… look at you. Why would you rush into something like this? You’re lucky that they weren’t both armed! How could you take that chance?”
“I had to protect the babies. Make sure that they were okay.”
“How many broken bones do you have?”
Garcia looked surprised at this. “He’s banged up pretty good, but I don’t think anything is broken.”
“I know this man better than you do. Zachary?”
Garcia was right that the adrenaline rush was preventing Zachary from feeling the full extent of his injuries. He tried to evaluate.
“Nothing to be worried about,” he assured Kenzie. “Maybe a rib.” He looked at his hands, bloodied and scraped up. Already swelling. “Knuckles.”
“What about your head? It looks like they bashed it into the wall a few times.”
He explored the most tender spot with his fingertips. “I don’t think so. I think it’s fine.”
“You’re getting x-rays.”
Zachary sighed, but he was resigned to whatever Kenzie deemed necessary. Including the lectures and recriminations that would probably go on for weeks. And he deserved them. But it was a small price to pay for rescuing Bridget’s twins.
“You could have really screwed things up,” Garcia told Zachary severely, clearly not believing that he was taking it seriously enough. “You could have been killed before we got here. You could have made them run or do something to harm the children. Obviously, you couldn’t just fight the two of them off and prevent anything from happening. You needed us here to help you for that.”
“I didn’t plan to fight them,” Zachary pointed out. “I checked out the house first. I had audio and video. Dylan was sleeping. I thought I could get into and out of the house cleanly. And if I couldn’t… well, you would know where I was.”
“The police are not your agents. We don’t work for you. You had no idea if I would come here or even know where you were.”
Zachary raised his brows. “I’ve worked with you for a few days. I knew you would come. And my location is shared with Kenzie, so I knew you could find me.”
“That gets us into the neighborhood, but not to the house you were in. You’re parked down the block. You’re lucky we got here in time.”
“Then I guess I’m lucky,” he agreed. “And the babies are safe.”
“Don’t think I’ll ever involve you in a case again. You promised me you would work within the law and not cause problems. If I see you again in the future, you will not be on my party invitations list.”
“But the babies are safe.”
She looked frustrated with his insistence that this was the only thing that mattered. But how could she argue it? The potential consequences for the police department and the media attention would have been dire if the babies had been lost, regardless of how it had come about. Their rescue, on the other hand, would cover up a multitude of other faults. The public—and Bridget Downy—would forgive just about anything in light of their safe return.
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Tricia and Julia had been checked out at the hospital. Though they were required to stay overnight until they reacted normally to stimuli, the doctors said they were perfectly fine and would recover fully from the light sedation they had been given. Bridget, on the other hand, had been heavily sedated, so she was still in bed when Gordon brought the twins home from the hospital.
“I should just leave this to you,” Zachary whispered as Gordon opened the bedroom door. Zachary was chickening out. He had been flattered that Gordon wanted him there for the reunion but, when he thought about it, he knew it wasn’t his place. He might have been able to be Bridget’s knight in shining armor this time, but she wouldn’t want him there, and he had no place in her bedroom.
“No, come,” Gordon insisted. “Do you think I want to be in trouble for not bringing you so that she could thank you?”
Zachary couldn’t help smiling at that. While Gordon was a wealthy, influential business leader, cutthroat in his business and used to being able to order everyone around, he still bowed to Bridget. If Bridget wasn’t happy, he needed to do something to fix the situation. He was better at handling Bridget than Zachary ever had been, more able to give her what she wanted and to act correctly in social situations, so Zachary assumed he didn’t attract the same anger and resentment from her as Zachary had.
Gordon opened the bedroom door awkwardly, holding one girl in each arm. Zachary followed a few steps behind and stood in the doorway rather than entering the room.
Bridget mumbled and moved around restlessly. Zachary was swept back in memories of sleeping with her. Her smell, the texture of her skin, those little sleep mumbles that didn’t mean anything.
He had been in paradise when she had been happy.
“Bridget. Bridge.” Gordon shook her gently. “Bridget, wake up.”
Bridget mumbled an incomprehensible complaint and pulled away from him.
“Bridget. Come on, honey. Don’t you want to see the girls?”
Something about his question made Bridget take notice, even in her drowsy state, and she sat up partway, searching for him in the dimness.
“Gordon?”
“Morning, honey. I brought the girls to say hello.”
“The girls?” Bridget looked from one to the other, confused. “Are they okay? I had a dream…”
“They’re just fine. Here, do you want to hold them?”
Bridget reached out her arms, and Gordon settled them against her, like a parent helping his child to hold the new baby in the family for the first time, making sure that the twins were secure and Bridget was awake enough not to drop them. The babies babbled and giggled happily.
“They… they were kidnapped,” Bridget said, frown lines visible in the dimness of the room. “From the store. The parking lot. I… they were, weren’t they?”
“Yes. But they’re back now. Zachary found them and brought them back.”
Bridget looked around and, eventually, her eyes found him in the doorway watching. “Zachary.”
Zachary drank in the image of Bridget, drowsy, her hair tousled with sleep, cradling both babies in her arms. She looked peaceful and relaxed, all the cares of the world gone. An angelic portrait. Madonna and children.
“Zachary found them?” Bridget murmured, echoing Gordon’s words. “Thank you, Zachary.”
“You’re welcome.”
She lay back, her eyes closing again. Gordon checked the security of each of the babies, then turned to Zachary to speak a few more words.
“You always come through, Zach. I know that I shouldn’t call you, that I should let you live your own life and find someone else who can help. But you always come through. I can’t trust anyone else.”
Zachary nodded, wordless. He had no idea what to say to that.
“Can you see yourself out?” Gordon suggested. “I want to stay here with Bridge. Make sure she doesn’t roll over on them or take them out when they wake up if she’s not ready to get up yet. Just… savor this time.”
“Sure, of course.”
He left Gordon there, enjoying the company of his partner and children. At times like this, Zachary couldn’t see Gordon as anything other than a family man, concerned for his family, present, and loving. There was no sign of the ruthless businessman who would do anything to get ahead of the competition, including working his employees almost to death.
He couldn’t see Godfrey’s business colleague refusing to do anything to help Wayne Carver and offering him no recourse for the loan that Godfrey still held. He had been as unconcerned for Carver as he had been worried about his children.
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Logan met with Zachary away from the mansion. Maybe he was embarrassed by everything Zachary had found out about him, or the way that he had been played by a maid he thought had been attracted to him. At least he hadn’t been convinced to murder his own father. She hadn’t been able to talk him into hating his father enough to do that. There were many men and women who had been talked into such things in the past, and Zachary was sure Logan would have regretted it.
