“We came to see Grampa.” He’d even pushed the button to the sixth floor. “We shoulda brought Gramma.”
No. Brendan was already going to lose one person he loved—if Josie didn’t think of something to at least save their son. She didn’t want him to lose his mother, too.
She looked up at their captor. “We should have left him with his grandmother,” she said. “And his father. He isn’t part of this.”
“He’s your son,” Peterson said. “Your father’s grandson. He’s very much a part of this.”
She shook her head. “He’s a three-year-old child. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
The elevator lurched to a halt on the sixth floor, nearly making her stomach lurch, too, with nerves and fear. With a gun shoved in the middle of her back, the U.S. marshal pushed her out the open doors. She held tight to CJ’s hand.
He kept digging the gun deeper, pushing her down the hall toward her father’s room. A man waited outside. He was dressed like an orderly, as he’d been dressed the night he’d held Brendan back from getting on the elevator with her and CJ. She’d been grateful for his intervention then.
He wasn’t going to intervene tonight—just as his partners in crime had refused to be swayed from the U.S. marshal’s nefarious plan. But still she had to try. “Please,” she said, “you don’t want to be part of this.”
“He’s already part of it,” Peterson replied. “Even before he set the bomb, he was already wanted for other crimes.”
She understood now. “You tracked them down on their outstanding warrants but you worked out a deal for not bringing them in.”
Peterson chuckled. “You can’t stop asking questions, can’t stop trying to ferret out all the information you can.”
She shuddered, remembering that Brendan had accused her of the same thing. No wonder he hadn’t been able to trust her.
“But you and your father won’t be able to broadcast this story,” he said.
“You’re not going to get away,” she warned him.
“I know. But it’s better this way—better to see his face and yours than have someone else take the pleasure for me.” He pushed the barrel deeper into her back and ordered, “Open the door.”
“I—I think someone should warn him first,” she said. “Let him know that I’m alive so that he doesn’t have another heart attack.”
“It was unfortunate that he had the first one,” Peterson agreed. “He was only supposed to be hurt, not killed.” He glanced at the orderly as he said that, as if the man had not followed orders. “But the doctors have put him on medication to regulate his heart. He’s probably stronger now than he was when he thought you died four years ago. That didn’t kill him.”
His mouth tightened. “It would be easier to die,” he said, “than to lose a child and have to live.”
He wasn’t worried about getting away anymore, because he had obviously decided to end his life, too.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Not yet,” he replied, “but you will be.” He pushed her through the door to her father’s room.
“Stop shoving my mommy!” CJ yelled at him. “You’re a bad man!”
“What—what’s going on?” asked the gray-haired man in the room. He was sitting up as if he’d been about to get out of bed. He was bruised, but he wasn’t broken. “Who are you all? Are you in the right room?”
“Yes,” CJ replied. “This is my grampa’s room number. Are you my grampa?”
Stanley Jessup looked at his grandson through narrowed eyes. Then he lifted his gaze and looked at Josie. At first he didn’t recognize her; his brow furrowed as if he tried to place her, though.
“You don’t know your own daughter?” the U.S. marshal berated him. “I would know my son anywhere. No matter what he may have done to his face, I would recognize his soul. That’s how I knew he couldn’t have done the things that article and those news reports said.” He raised the gun and pointed it at Josie’s head. “The things—the lies—your friend told you, claiming that my Donny had tried to hurt her.”
“Donald Peterson,” her father murmured. He recognized her attempted killer but not his own daughter.
“Your son told me, too,” Josie said. “He had once been my friend, too.”
“Until you betrayed him.”
“Until he tried to rape my roommate,” she said. If not for her coming to her father with the article, he might have gotten away with it—just as he’d gotten away with his drug use—but the athletic director hadn’t wanted to lose