Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,48
later Court read police reports about a fatal car crash involving a young Sacramento woman and her five-year-old daughter.
It was after that he decided to set up his small army. A private army, answerable only to him. Best decision he’d ever made.
His army had proved useful over and over again, and Court hadn’t given the woman in Sacramento and her daughter a second thought for 25 years.
His heart nearly stopped when he saw the photo of the woman who had engaged the geneticist, the one who’d found his archival DNA.
The female version of Bard. If the two were ever seen in public together there would be no doubt that they were related, that they were father and daughter.
For just a second, Court was … not sorry, really. He always did what had to be done and never suffered regret. But … sort of sad that they couldn’t claim her. Genius IQ, Harvard, MIT, computer expert, skilled in things Court didn’t even recognize. Not a mark against her name, not even a parking ticket.
What a pity. Life played such ridiculously cruel games, sometimes. The mother had been impossible for Bard and by extension for him, but the daughter … The daughter would definitely have been an asset.
Court sighed.
It was not to be. Not only was it not to be. If Bard found out that a child of his had been hidden from him, it would not be pretty. Bard wasn’t stupid. If he dug into the past, he’d realize what Court had done. And then …
Court shivered.
Bard was a man who had trained and trained hard to kill. He was a superb shot, he was skilled in hand to hand combat, he was a leader who led willing men at times to their death.
His son was a stone-cold killer.
Court couldn’t swear that Bard wouldn’t kill him for what he’d done. If Court were capable of feeling regret, he’d regret having killed the child. Maybe he should have given orders to drive the mother off the road when she was alone in her vehicle. That way they could have had the child. Bard would have quit the military, or at least stopped being a field officer. There were plenty of jobs at the Pentagon for a man with his talents, with time to raise a beautiful and smart daughter.
Court sighed. It was a pretty dream but it would never have worked. Bard was professionally paranoid and the first thing he’d have done was investigate the mother and her death.
No, Court had done the only thing he could do. By some wild card of fate, the child hadn’t died, had lived, and was now looking for her biological family. If she was smart — and by all accounts she was — she’d find her way back to Sacramento, to that trailer park.
Resnick would intercept her.
Sorry, honey, Court thought, with a touch of sadness. You’re likely to be the only grandchild I’ll ever have — but you have to go.
He made a note to call Resnick for a sitrep.
Sacramento
The safe house was unusually nice. It surprised Hope. In thriller movies, the safe house was a cheerless anonymous apartment in a cheerless anonymous neighborhood. Flaking walls and an empty fridge. Maybe some cockroaches. Or else a dilapidated and ramshackle farmhouse at the end of a dirt-track road far from anywhere.
Instead, the safe house Luke drove her to was in an attractive, bustling part of Sacramento with restaurants and art galleries and offbeat shops along the streets. Part of a gated community with a guard and landscaping, and inside it was comfortable and well decorated.
Well, hats off to Black Inc.
The entire drive she’d been completely lost in thought. Actually, it couldn’t even be called thought — more like drowning in images. What she’d seen resonated strongly, like someone had switched on a tuning fork inside her. It felt like the vibrations would shake her apart. She sat and tried to hide her trembling but it didn’t work. Luke switched on the seat heating on her side as well as the cabin heating. It wasn’t cold, but she was.
Hope could usually think her way out of problems but there was no thinking her way out of this. There was no rational thread to pursue, nothing really to grab hold of beyond vague impressions, memories so fleeting they couldn’t even be called memories, just flashes. A swimming pool and a bright red inflatable tube. A blue bike with trainer wheels. A small dog with long hair.