However, Susannah was of a mind to try to stall for time as she knelt on the floor of her parents’ bedroom trying unsuccessfully to open another safe. “I’m not your sister,” she said, gritting her teeth. “And I’m telling you this safe is empty. Daniel emptied it three weeks ago when he went looking for my parents.”
“Then Daniel must have known the combination, which means you should. You seem to have the birthdays all memorized.” Bobby smacked her head with the gun butt again. “And I am your sister, whether you want to admit it or not.”
Susannah sat back on her haunches, blinking against the pain in her head. Where are you, Luke? She knew he’d understood her message. Never in her life had she called Arthur “Daddy,” and the idea of taking anything to remember her mother made her sick to her stomach. She thought of Talia, bleeding beneath the stairs, and prayed Luke would get here before Talia bled to death or Bobby truly did blow their heads off.
So stall. Give him time. “You are not my sister. You are not even my half-sister. We are not related.” And her head flew to one side when Bobby slapped her, hard.
“Is it so damn hard to admit?” Bobby asked, her eyes flashing with anger.
Susannah hoped giving Bobby the upper limbs on the Vartanian family tree might diffuse her anger. She worked her jaw side to side, her eyes stinging. “Yes, because it’s not true. Your father is Arthur Vartanian, but my mother did the same thing your mother did. She slept around. Arthur Vartanian was not my father.”
Bobby blinked at her. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I had a paternity test done. Frank Loomis was my father.”
Bobby looked unsure, then threw back her head and laughed. “Sonofabitch. All this time, sweet Suzie Vartanian has been a bastard, too.” She then sobered meanly. “Dial the safe, Suzie, or I go downstairs and blow your friend’s head off her shoulders.”
Susannah swallowed. “I don’t know the combination to this one. I’m not lying.”
Bobby frowned. “Then get up.”
Susannah obeyed, relieved, then went rigid at the sound of a car pulling up outside. Luke. Please be Luke. Bobby heard it, too, and, eyes narrowed, crept to the window.
“Fuck,” she muttered. “We have company. Who is he?”
Susannah stayed where she was, then cried out when Bobby yanked her hair, pulling her to the window. Hank Germanio was carefully approaching the house, his weapon drawn. “I don’t know,” she lied smoothly. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Oh, you’re good,” Bobby said softly. “Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Luckily Leigh Smithson told me about him, too. That’s Hank Germanio. He’s the impetuous type, a real one-man show. Go.” She pushed her to the top of the stairs. “Call for help.”
“No,” Susannah said. “I won’t lure another person in here. You can kill me first.”
“Oh, I will. After you finish opening all the safes. For now, I’ll pick the GBI guys off one at a time.” Bobby dragged her so that she stood in front of her on the top step, put her gun to Susannah’s temple, then screamed at the top of her lungs, “Help! She’s got a gun. Oh my God, she’s got a gun and she’s going to kill Susannah!”
Through the side windows along the front door Susannah could see Germanio. He looked up, saw her standing on the stairs. Germanio hesitated.
Susannah screamed, “No! Don’t come in. It’s a trap.”
But it was too late. Germanio crashed through the front door and calmly, Bobby fired and Germanio’s head… came apart. He was dead before his body hit the floor.
Horror and shock exploded into rage. “Fuck you,” Susannah screamed. “Damn you to hell.” She threw her handcuffed hands to the right and yanked Bobby’s wounded arm as hard as she could. Bobby howled in furious pain and Susannah kept yanking, throwing Bobby off-center. When Bobby stumbled, Susannah turned, throwing her weight into the bigger woman and sending them both down the staircase.
They grappled on the stairs, Bobby grabbing at Susannah’s hair, dragging her down. Bobby’s hair was too short. There was nothing to hang on to, so Susannah kicked and scrambled back up the stairs. Bobby grabbed her leg, yanking her down.
Where was the gun? Did Bobby still have it? No. If she did, she would have shot me by now. Susannah kicked with her other leg, twisting to look over her shoulder, trying for a glimpse of the gun. She saw it at the same moment Bobby did, on the bottom stair. There’s no way. I can’t get it before she does. She’ll kill me now.
Bobby let go, crawling backward to where the gun lay, and Susannah scrambled up, her breath backing up in her lungs. Get away, get away.
Dutton, Monday, February 5, 1:50 p.m.
They were almost there. Luke pushed the anger aside, focusing on Susannah and Talia in Bobby’s hands. He’d deal with Bobby, then Charles Grant was a dead man, wherever the hell he was. Charles hadn’t gone home, so he was out there somewhere.
Luke bore down on the accelerator, jumping when his cell buzzed. “Papadopoulos.”
“Luke, it’s Chase. Where are you?”
“About two minutes from the Vartanians’ house. Where is Paul Houston?”
“He was headed toward Dutton, but took a detour.”
Luke recognized the route. “That’s how Corchran told us to come in so we could avoid the traffic, but the opposite way. He’s coming here. Why, to help Bobby?”
“Not Bobby. Charles. Put me on speaker so Pete gets this, too. Al Landers went to the prison to meet with Michael Ellis. Showed him Susannah’s sketch and Ellis broke. Paul Houston is Ellis’s son. Houston and Charles Grant killed Darcy, not Michael Ellis.”
Luke frowned. “His son? Ellis took the fall to save his son? Why?”
“And why would Houston set up his father?” Pete added.
“Payback. Ellis was in Vietnam, in a POW camp, and so was Charles Grant.”
Luke shook his head. “No, I checked. Charles Grant had no military record.”
“Because he was Ray Kraemer, then. Kraemer was an army sniper, captured in ’67, met Ellis, and the two ended up escaping together. Ellis was desperate to get home. His girlfriend had his son, but gave him up for adoption. That was Paul. Ellis and Kraemer were down to the last of their food. Ellis shot Kraemer, stole the food, and left him in the jungle to die.”
“Sonofabitch,” Luke murmured. “Obviously Kraemer didn’t die. What happened?”
“Ellis said Kraemer resurfaced eighteen years later in Dutton, calling himself Charles Grant. He chose Dutton because that’s where the mother of Ellis’s child had moved after giving birth. Paul’s mother is Angie Delacroix. She’s one of Grant’s people now.”
Luke blew out a stunned breath. “My God.” His mind spun, thinking about all the things she’d told them. “But she told us the truth. DNA showed Loomis is Susannah’s father and the tip on Bobby’s birth mother panned out. Why would she try to help us find Bobby? Bobby worked with Charles, too.”
“That I don’t know yet. I had her picked up, but she isn’t talking. Ellis talked a lot, though, when Al Landers told him we knew about Paul being a cop. He said somehow Kraemer located Paul when he was eight. He became his tutor through an after-school volunteer program, but brainwashed Paul against his birth parents and his adopted parents. Paul ran away when he was ten, went to live with Charles. Looks like Charles has been molding Paul all his life. Ellis said Paul will be loyal to Charles to the death.”
“So why did Ellis confess to Darcy’s murder?” Pete asked.
“To protect Angie and Paul. Charles threatened to have Paul kill Angie if he didn’t.”
“That’s Charles’s revenge,” Luke said, “owning Ellis’s son, using him against him, while Ellis sits in Sing-Sing. He pled guilty to killing Darcy, but he’s really paying for what he did to Charles Grant forty years ago.”