Countdown to Danger: Alive After New Year / New Year's Target

Lynley sat in silence, recalling Dodge’s multiple complaints when she’d insisted on leaving Kansas City and buying a place closer to Mom when she was battling breast cancer years ago. The one thing that had begun the destruction of their marriage was when he commented that if her mother died from cancer, at least he and Lynley would never have to work again. They’d be multimillionaires as soon as Kirstie’s uncle died. It was on that day that Lynley discovered she’d married a man just like her dead father.

Lynley cast Mom a quick glance. She’d endured so much, but she was as filled with vitality as she ever had been. It gave Lynley a feeling of peace—the thought that maybe someday she’d be more like her mother, despite her late father’s blood running through her veins. Mom was her rock.

The clatter of Kirstie’s keyboard echoed through the house, and in the beams of sunlight coming through the windows, cat hair floated like stardust. If Mom had her way, this place would soon be crawling with friends, neighbors—most of them empowered with weapons and righteous indignation.

John returned to the room. “Found Dodge.”

“Where?” Mom asked.

He gave Lynley a look of sympathy. “Apparently he’s still living in the house he was awarded in the divorce settlement. He’s in Cassville. He’s working at the hospital in town.”

Lynley slumped back into the sofa. “But I thought he was...gone.”

“This makes him a candidate,” John said. “He would have known about the family money. What he wouldn’t know, since he’s no longer connected to anyone in town, is that you don’t have what he’s after.”

“There’s another option,” Gerard said. “We still have the bulk of Lawson’s bequest in a special fund to support the center while we build the manufacturing plant at the edge of town.”

Lynley sat up, horrified at what he would consider giving up. “Oh, no you don’t. We are not giving the money to this fiend.”

“It would be a way to buy time and track them down.”

“Find another way,” Lynley said. “That’s not happening.”

Mom touched her arm. “Honey, this is your life we’re talking about.”

“This is extortion. I refuse to let someone get rich by using me as a pawn. We’ll have to figure out something else.”

“You can’t tell me what to do with the money your mother donated to my cause,” Gerard said gently.

Lynley paused to breathe, sorting through the streams of anger, terror and frustration that threatened to tie her in knots. “What if Dodge really is behind this?”

Mom met her gaze. “I never trusted that man, but I also never dreamed he would do something like this.”

“We never dreamed my father would try to poison you with mercury, either,” Lynley said.

Mom closed her eyes and shook her head. “It was always about the money for him, too.”

Lynley’s heart squeezed painfully at the sadness in her mother’s voice. Mom had blamed herself for the choices her husband had made. It wasn’t fair. He’d been the one to make those decisions, have those affairs, and even stoop so low as to poison her to get his hands on her uncle’s money, and she took the blame for it? Not fair at all.

With a quick glance at John, Lynley reminded herself why she had no business even considering another man in her life. If her wise, insightful, mother couldn’t read correctly into the heart of a man, what hope was there?

“My question, then,” Gerard said, “is how much is Dodge like Barry?”

Lynley studied the lines of worry around Mom’s eyes, the firm chin, the determined gaze.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Mom asked. “Could that note have been from him?”

Lynley wanted to reach through the lines of that hideous note, the hateful text message to Mom, and discover where they originated. If only she had that kind of insight. But she didn’t. “I think Dodge might be a place to start.”

FOUR (#ulink_7ada3bbe-af9a-56f1-b9fb-604cbe8c77d1)

Two days after Christmas, John was astounded to find himself driving Gerard’s SUV down Highway 37 toward Cassville, Missouri, with Lynley Marshall, of all people, in the passenger seat. He’d had no choice, really. Gerard had an emergency with one of his rehab people this morning.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “If something happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself, your mother will never forgive me, the whole town of Jolly Mill—”

“Would you stop?” Lynley sat slumped low in the seat, and with the tinted windows in Gerard’s SUV, they’d hoped to make this work. “We’re doing the best we can, and you know I can handle that pistol in the glove compartment. Not that it’ll come to that.”

“No. I’ll be with Dodge, and I’ll have my eyes on him at all times. He’ll never know you’re anywhere in Cassville. I still think it might’ve been better for you to go with Gerard to Springfield than to be sitting in the car while I interrogate.”

“Look at it this way—you need me to give you directions to the house.”

“GPS.”

“Your girlfriend?” Lynley’s voice raised in mock exasperation, making him smile despite the reason for this trip.

“Just because it has a female voice—”

“And has gotten us lost half the time we’ve used her. Remember when she placed us on Highway 76 in Branson during rush hour? But would you listen to me and take the alternate routes? No, you had to listen to your girlfriend instead of your...good friend.”

He grinned over at her and was glad to see it reflected back at him. Since reading that note yesterday and seeing her reaction to it, he’d felt overwhelmed with a need to cheer her up, to ensure her safety at any cost. She didn’t realize that he could see the pain in her eyes when she thought her ex-husband might have threatened her life. To think that someone who had once vowed to love her might now be threatening to kill her...of course that would hurt.

“There’s the first traffic signal,” she said. “You’ll want to turn left.”

“You sure? Maybe I should ask my girlfriend.”

She chuckled, and he felt warm all the way through. Good. He’d gotten her to laugh. Mere hours after meeting her, he’d learned about her mistrust of every GPS system known to man. Lynley preferred a good old-fashioned map. She’d even challenged his GPS system to a test, and Lynley and her map had won. In Branson, Missouri, no less, which challenged every GPS system invented.

“Where’s Kirstie?” he asked.

“Lunch prep at the rehab center. Nora and Carmen are guarding her, just in case. I hope Nora bakes some of her famous cookies while she’s in the kitchen. I would’ve been helping if Gerard hadn’t been called out.”

“Now, that’s something I’d like to see.”

“What? Me cooking? I can do that.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“That’s because we’re always at Mom’s and she likes to cook.”

“And you don’t.”

“Not my skill set.”

“I recall a gluten-free puff pancake you made that was one of the best things I ever tasted. Oh, and that thing you call a man-quiche.”

“That’s right. I remember. You ate the whole thing.”

“I have to admire a woman who knows her skill set.”