Linda Conrad - In Safe Hands

She fought to get control of the conversation. “Look, I’m sure of my facts. You’ve been searching for your brother, haven’t you? Why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned already, and than we can compare what we know. I think what I know will hold up to whatever you have.”

Colin had to admit that she’d saved his life. And if she had actually wanted him dead, there’d been plenty of opportunities to do the deed. But it was the vulnerable look in her eyes that finally got him this time.

What did he have to lose? “All right. Fine.” He winced as she dabbed the poultice on his open wound. “I’ve discovered my brother was recruited by SIS, the British Secret Intelligence Service, while I was overseas at war.”

That idea still troubled Colin. Had John gone into covert work in an effort to impress him? Perhaps to get his attention?

Focusing on the present, he went on, “A couple of years ago John participated in an international, interagency sting in Mexico. The mission was to infiltrate the Mexican drug trade, one organization in particular. But then the sting went sour and John disappeared.”

Colin caught his breath and watched Maggie’s expression as he finished the story. “It’s taken me months to get a line on what happened to him, to assure myself that he wasn’t murdered in Mexico. A contact in your state department let me know that John had been threatened, yes, but he’d escaped. Someone, a shadowy figure and difficult to find, knew of his whereabouts. That was the man I expected to meet, when you arrived instead—and the shooting started.”

Maggie’s eyes went wide. “I came only because I needed to ask how you feel about…”

Halting her stumbling words, Maggie worried that she’d already said too much in the wrong way, so she began again. “After we…um…buried the Sheridans and I took in their child, I made every attempt to locate relatives, however distant. I searched the Internet for months. Even the rental car agency records were of little help. I found out that the Sheridans had rented a townhouse in Alexandria about a year ago, but their neighbors don’t remember much about them.”

“Go on,” he urged impatiently, while she gulped in a breath.

“Their licenses and the baby’s birth certificate were registered there, but that seems to be where the trail begins and ends. It’s like they appeared out of thin air a year ago.” She sighed heavily. “So, while I was searching, I became their child’s foster mother. Your niece’s foster mother. How would you feel about…I mean…”

Her words died in her throat. She was too scared to ask.

“You still haven’t said how you connected…”

“You to John Sheridan?” She refused to think of the consequences and plowed ahead. “Witchcraft. My Abuela Lupe helped me. She possesses crystals that see things hidden to others, and she knows how to use their special powers. We weren’t looking for people so much as a specific location of the nearest relative.”

Forcing herself to make eye contact, she continued, “That’s how I knew where to find you. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such sad news.”

Colin lifted the corners of his mouth in what could be either the ghost of a smile or a grimace. “Say for the moment that I…uh…buy into your witchcraft and crystal story, I still don’t understand why a woman who appears—” he waved his hand at her “—as reasonable as you let herself be persuaded to come all this way based on crystals.”

“I believe in my grandmother’s magic absolutely. Besides that, now that I’ve seen you, I’m totally convinced you’re the baby’s uncle.”

“Why?”

“You both have a very distinctive eye color. That clear ice-blue is not something I’ve seen before.”

Colin looked uncomfortable about more than just the bandage she’d applied. “So I’ve been told. But it’s not enough to assure me the child and I are related by blood. I wish for your sake it was.”

This was getting them nowhere. Exhaustion was overtaking them both, making compromise—or even clear thought—impossible.

“Sleep for now,” she whispered. “We’ll talk about it more when you’re rested. I won’t let any harm come to you. Trust me.”

“I don’t trust easily, Maggie,” Colin said as he lay back. “But I will sleep. Then when I awake, we’ll have the rest of our questions asked and answered. Count on it.”

Sunlight streamed down the air shaft outside the hotel room window. Maggie had no idea how long she’d been asleep. Last night, she’d curled up in the overstuffed, ugly, flower-print chair, watching over a sleeping Colin until her eyelids grew too heavy to prop open.

She cast a sleepy glance toward the mussed-up bed and sat up. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Colin was gone.

Holy moly. He must have slipped out while she was asleep. But why? She was fairly sure that she’d cured his wounds, but they hadn’t finished talking about his brother—and more important to her, about the baby.

Jumping up, she checked the room. Colin’s things were missing, too. Darn. She couldn’t just leave and go home to Emma. Colin knew where she lived. He could show up on her doorstep any day and demand she turn over his niece.

Maggie knew what she needed to do. She had to find him. Had to make him agree—in writing—to leave the baby with her for good. She went to her pack and pulled out her grandmother’s crystal, the one that could locate people.

She’d never tried this by herself before. Had never needed to. But this time, as she peered into the glass and focused her mind on finding Colin, the murky depths of the crystal began to clear and images began to form.

A shaft of panic slowly rose up through her spine as she saw Colin’s silhouette in a back booth of a darkened bar. His eyes were trained toward the front door as if he were waiting for someone.

But then another vision came into view in the crystal. A man, hunched into a trench coat, approached the restaurant’s back door. He slid his hand down into the coat pocket and withdrew a gun.

No!

Maggie grabbed her backpack and raced out the door and down the hotel’s stairs. Her mind knew the way to go, and it was clear she had to go now.

But would she be in time to save his life?

From his booth in the darkest corner of the bar, Colin watched while the blighter who’d dropped off his pint backed away from the table, muttering something in Spanish. Colin tried to ignore the twit’s stares. He knew the fresh scratches on his face must look strange, but they’d already closed over with scabs and were healing thanks to Maggie’s natural potions. Not much else he could do about them now.

Needing to test his muscles, he stretched in his seat. A little soreness remained, but none of the intense pain from before. That Maggie Ryan had done an amazing job on him.

He had no trouble understanding why he’d so easily accepted her natural healing ability, yet still could not believe her witchcraft story. Years earlier, he himself had received training from a curandera healer. His father had been a diplomat, stationed in the Mexican state of Vera Cruz at the time, and Colin went for summer holiday. He’d spent a couple of fascinating months there learning about natural healing, honing the healing skills he’d picked up years earlier from his Irish mother and grandmother.

Colin seldom allowed himself to dwell on his early lessons in native plants, or on the Irish half of his background for that matter. Such thoughts usually turned dark when they led to the uncomfortable memories of his mother’s abandonment, and from there to thoughts of John, and the worthless reasons he’d given himself for neglecting his own brother.

He now knew that no amount of anger toward his mother was adequate grounds for deserting his baby brother. It hadn’t been John’s fault that their mother drove a wedge between the family. Colin realized, too late, that John had looked up to him, counted on him. And Colin had let him down. Stayed away when John needed his big brother the most.

Feeling melancholy, Colin tried to shake off the memories. He’d left Maggie’s room because, if he’d stayed, he might have begun to believe all her stories. Her spirit had called to him, her body set his afire at first sight. He couldn’t think clearly around her.

Natural healing was one thing, but witchcraft and crystals were quite another. Deep in his being, he did not believe.

He wasn’t ready to give up on John. To admit he’d lost his only brother. Not yet.

After making a couple of phone calls, Colin had gotten hold of a man who swore to know the truth. He was to meet that man here, in this pub, in the middle of the day.

It now seemed a waste of time.

Without warning, Colin felt the cold steel of a gun barrel as it pressed against his neck.

“Don’t move, Fairfax,” the deep voice said in heavily accented English. “And don’t make a sound.”

Where had the bastard come from? Colin had been watching the front door, and the bloke had appeared out of nowhere.

“We’re going to take this out to the alley. But if you make any wrong moves, I’d just as soon shoot you here. Understood?”

Colin nodded. His mind was busy calculating his chances, and the choice between making a stand here or out in the alley. Would this man have any real answers for him? Or was he just there to stop Colin’s questions for good?

“Get up. Slowly, por favor.”

Colin found himself leaning more toward the idea that this hombre wanted to kill him, not talk. The thought chilled him to the bone. His brother must be dead after all.

Numb and heartsick, Colin shifted and slid out of the booth. The man at his side grabbed his arm and jammed the gun in his ribs.

“Now walk. Nice and easy, sí?”

A commotion in the front of the bar caught everyone’s attention. Colin and his captor slowed then stopped dead.

“Colin, darlin’.” A high-pitched female voice lilted through the barroom. “Don’t you dare walk away from me, you…you…I’ve got something to say to you.”

Colin turned and blinked at the sight of Maggie shoving her way through the tables and heading directly for him. She looked like an avenging angel, storming through the bar patrons, who all watched her every move. An angel in a familiar, pea-green coat. He wanted to warn her to stay away but hesitated to make any quick moves. Instead, he waited for a chance to take control of the situation. Colin knew he could wrestle the gun away from the smaller man at his side if all things were equal, but he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

Particularly not Maggie.

She stormed up and raised her voice so she could be heard throughout the bar. “Colin Fairfax, you come home with me right this minute. How dare you leave just when I was telling you about the baby.”

“What?”

Maggie grimaced and shoved at his chest. “Come on. Stand up like a man. Let’s go home and face the music together.” She grabbed his arm and tugged him away from the stunned gunman.

Colin shot a glance at the guy and saw the man’s mouth had dropped open. Colin knew exactly how he felt. What the hell kind of game was she playing?

A dangerous one.

Maggie pulled him toward the front door. Every eye in the place was locked on the two of them.

“Maggie,” he whispered in her ear. “The guy has a gun pointed at us and no one is watching him now. We need to disappear before he figures it out.”

They both hit the door at a run. Maggie leaned against it and shoved. Just as daylight and cold city air blasted him in the face, the zing of a bullet whizzed past his ear and hit the front window. Glass shattered everywhere.