Dead By Morning

Chapter 36

Derek had held her in his arms all night Friday night and finally sometime over in the morning, she had fallen asleep.

Maleah awoke to a new day, yet she was haunted by yesterday’s events. Physically, she ached like hell from the beating Michelle had given her. Emotionally, she was a wreck. Her thoughts and feelings were all over the place. She was shocked and angry and sad about Michelle’s betrayal and equally sympathetic about the intolerable choice Michelle had been forced to make. Maleah wanted to believe that if she had been put in such a horrific position, she would have chosen a better solution. Poor Michelle, her life was all but destroyed.

What was going to happen now that Anthony Linden was dead? Would it be only a matter of time before the pseudo-York sent another gun-for-hire to terrorize Griff?

Most of Saturday passed in a blur. Sanders chauffeured them—Nic and Griff, Shaughnessy, Derek and Maleah—to the sheriff’s department to give their statements concerning the attempt on Maleah’s life. A distraught Michelle had confessed that she had killed Shiloh Whitman and had been ordered to kill Maleah. Griff had contacted Camden Hendrix, an old friend and head of a law firm the Powell Agency kept on retainer. Despite what Michelle had done, Griff had instructed Cam to provide her with the best legal representation possible. Griffin Powell believed that, no matter what, you took care of your own.

After their trip to the sheriff’s office, Maleah and Derek spent most of the day with Nic and Griff and Griff didn’t mention anything about Nic being pregnant. When Maleah and Nic were finally alone for a few minutes, Maleah asked Nic why she hadn’t told her husband about their baby.

“I’m going to tell him. But not yet. Not for a few more days. Not until we all have a chance to come to terms with what Michelle did and sort of get our bearings.”

And so that was what they did the rest of the day Saturday—tried to get their bearings in a sea of mixed emotions.

Saturday night Derek made love to her so slowly and tenderly that she cried. And being the man that he was, he understood that those tears of joy also released a myriad of pent-up emotions. A lifetime of emotions.

Odd that in the midst of all the chaos and upheaval in their lives, she could, on a very personal level, be so happy. Happier than she had ever been in her entire life. She loved Derek Lawrence and he loved her.

That morning, after they made love again, Derek propped up on his elbow, looked down at her, and said, “I think you’re going to have to marry me.”

Smiling like a lovesick fool, she stared up at him and asked, “Why would you think that?”

He grinned. “Maybe it’s because I love you and you love me and I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you.” He swooped down and kissed her. Then he lifted his head and laughed. “I know it sounds corny, but I want your face to be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night.”

When she socked him in the chest, he fell over on his back and laid his hand over his heart.

“You’re right. That did sound corny.” She leaned down and nuzzled his nose with hers. “But since I happen to feel the same way, I think you’re right. You are going to have to marry me.”

Griffin Powell stared at the letter in his hand, the letter that had arrived special delivery this morning via an international courier. The return address was a hotel in London, Berkeley Knightsbridge, where Luke and Meredith had stayed.

If that was someone’s idea of a joke, that person had a truly warped sense of humor.

Griff had read and reread the letter before he called Yvette.

Once she arrived, Sanders joined them in Griff’s private study. Sanders closed and locked the door before Griff gave the letter to Yvette.

After she read the letter, she stared at Griff, a combination of doubt and hope in her eyes. “Could this possibly be true?”

“I don’t know.”

Yvette handed the letter to Sanders.

He read it quickly.

With concern in his black eyes, he looked from Yvette to Griff and said, “You cannot believe what this letter says, not without proof.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Griff replied.

“I want to go to England, to Benenden and see her for myself,” Yvette told them. “If there is the slightest chance that she really is . . .” Yvette closed her eyes.

Griff could not bear to see her in such pain. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. This letter proves nothing except that someone wants to hurt us, someone who knows about what happened on Amara.”

“Whoever sent the letter signed it Malcolm York and that signature looks authentic,” Sanders pointed out to them. “But we know that it is not possible for him to be the real York. This man, whoever he is, is a fraud. And this girl mentioned in the letter, even if such a girl exists, may well be a fraud, also.”

“But what if she does exist? What if she’s not a fraud?” Yvette opened her tear-misted eyes and looked pleadingly at Griff. “If I can see her . . . touch her . . . I would know. Even without a DNA test.”

“It would take a DNA test to convince me,” Sanders said. “This man who calls himself Malcolm York has simply found a new means of tormenting us. Apparently killing Powell employees and members of their families was not enough for him.”

Griff nodded agreement. “You’re right, Sanders, but this letter is not something we can ignore.” He walked over, caressed Yvette’s damp cheek and said, “I’ll make arrangements for us to take the Powell jet to London tomorrow. But before I finalize my plans, I have to show Nic the letter and I have to tell her everything.”

“Do you think that is wise?” Sanders asked.

“No, Griffin is right,” Yvette said. “He has to tell his wife. She has every right to know.” Yvette glanced at Sanders. “Perhaps you should tell Barbara Jean.”

“No,” Sanders replied. “Not now. Not until we know for sure.”

Nic kept rehearsing how she would tell Griff that he was going to be a father. Should she say, “We’re pregnant?” Or maybe she should hold his hand over her still flat belly and ask, “Which would you prefer, a son or a daughter?” Then again, she could just put her arms around him, look up into his gorgeous gray eyes and say, “We’re going to have a baby.”

In the end, it probably didn’t matter how she said it. Griff would be thrilled. No, the timing wasn’t perfect and Griff, who worried about her way too much as it was, would hover over her night and day. And she had every intention of letting him smother her with attention. After all, why not give him the pleasure of pampering her for the next seven months?

When she arrived outside Griff’s study, she found the door open and Griff waiting there alone.

She could tell him about their baby this morning. She could walk right into his study and deliver the good news that he was going to be a father.

But when he looked at her, the expression on his face stopped her cold. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. What had happened now?

She rushed over to him. “Griff, what is it? What’s—?”

He grasped her shoulders. “I love you. If you never believe anything else, believe that.”

“You’re frightening me. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

“First, tell me that you know I love you more than anyone or anything on this earth.”

“Yes, I know you love me. And I love you.”

He released his tenacious grip on her shoulders. “I received a special delivery letter from London a little over two hours ago. The signature on the letter was a decent forgery of Malcolm York’s signature.”

“Then it was a letter from him, this man you refer to as the pseudo-York.”

“I want you to read the letter.” Griff reached behind him and lifted the envelope from the desk. “After you read it, I want you to sit down and let me tell you about what happened on Amara. It’s something I should have already told you.”

Nic felt sick at her stomach. It could be nothing more than morning sickness, but she suspected it was nerves. Fear-induced nerves.

Griff removed the letter from the envelope and handed the single page to Nic. She took the letter in her unsteady hand. When she first glanced at it, her vision blurred for a few seconds and then instantly cleared.

Dear Griffin,

I hope this letter finds you and your wife well. Give Mrs. Powell my sincerest regards. And please give my regards to our beautiful, delectable Yvette. I think of her so often, of the two of you and dear Sanders, too. Ah, what wonderful times we shared on Amara. How I wish we could all be together again, as we were then.

I have been fortunate not to have spent all these years alone, to have been able to keep a part of Yvette with me. She is almost seventeen now. I gave her a little red Porsche for her sixteenth birthday. She calls me Papa and adores me as I adore her.

I believe I’ve been selfish far too long by keeping her all to myself. Being a generous man, I have decided to share her with her mother. If Yvette would like to meet her daughter, tell her that she can find Suzette at the Benenden School in Kent. As you can imagine, I’ve spared no expense on her education. You will find her to be as beautiful and brilliant as her mother and as strong of heart as her father.

Sincerely,

Malcolm York

The letter slipped from Nic’s hand and sailed slowly onto the floor. She lifted her gaze and stared at Griff.

“Yvette has a daughter?”

“She gave birth to the child nearly seventeen years ago when we were on Amara.”

“I don’t understand. Where has the girl been all these years? And how would this pseudo-York know about her? If what he says is true, this girl thinks of him as her father. But if the real Malcolm York was her father—?”

“York wasn’t her father.”

“But Yvette was York’s wife.”

“In name only.”

“What are you saying?” When Griff didn’t immediately respond, she demanded, “Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

“Come over here and sit down.” When Griff reached for her, she jerked away from him.

“I don’t want to sit down,” she told him. “I want you to explain. Tell me what happened on Amara. Tell me about this girl, about Suzette.”

“You have to understand what it was like for us, for me and Sanders and for Yvette, who was as much a prisoner as we were. She was forced to do things she didn’t want to do, just as Sanders was. Just as I was.”

“I know that he used you and the other men he captured as prey in his savage hunts, that you were treated like an animal, that you were forced to kill in order to stay alive. I know that eventually, you and Sanders and Yvette killed York and . . . But there’s more to what happened on Amara, isn’t there, a lot more?”

“Yes.” Griff watched her closely, a look of agony and supplication in his eyes. “And I will tell you everything. I swear I will. But for now, I have to explain about Yvette’s child.”

Nic instinctively knew she did not want to hear what her husband was about to tell her. But she had to know the truth. She needed to know.

“Tell me.”

“York was involved in numerous illegal activities. That’s how he made his billions,” Griff said. “His two most lucrative business ventures were drug trafficking and human trafficking.”

“Human trafficking?”

“All the captives on Amara were not there just to be used as prey to hunt and kill. Some were there to amuse York and his closest allies . . . his business associates.”

“You’re talking about selling human beings into slavery. Children and women and—”

“York was a sick son of a bitch. He didn’t get any pleasure from sex with his wife or any other woman. He preferred to watch rather than perform.”

Bile rose from Nic’s stomach, the taste bitter in her mouth.

“Are you all right?” Griff asked.

She swallowed. “Go on. Tell me the rest of it.”

“York found Yvette the perfect tool to give him unlimited pleasure. He forced her to use her gifts as an empath to connect with the men’s minds, the men he hunted and killed. Everything he could learn about how they thought, how they felt, how they might react in any given situation, gave him an edge over even the most resourceful prey.”

Nic felt dizzy. Don’t faint, damn it, don’t faint.

“Are you sure you’re all right? You look so pale.” Once again when Griff tried to touch Nic, she avoided him.

“Please, don’t touch me.” She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him. “Don’t stop until you’ve told me how all of this connects to Yvette’s child.”

Griff took in and released a deep breath. “York forced Yvette to have sex with any of his business associates who wanted her. He used her to find out their secrets. When he realized that by her having sex with a man, Yvette was able to connect with his thoughts and feelings more intensely than simply by touching them, he began bringing whatever man he intended to hunt the next day into his home and forcing him to have sex with Yvette . . . while he watched them.”

Nic swayed. She backed up and braced her hips against Griff’s desk.

“When Yvette became pregnant, York threatened to abort the child, but being the evil son of a bitch that he was, he decided to allow her to have the baby. And then when the infant was only a few hours old, he took it away from Yvette.”

Nic couldn’t imagine the agony Yvette must have experienced. “And all these years, what did she think happened to her child?”

“She didn’t know,” Griff said. “After we left Amara and managed to claim some of York’s fortune for Yvette, we started searching for the child. We’ve been looking for nearly sixteen years.”

“What about the child’s father?”

“Yvette doesn’t know who fathered her child. It could have been one of several men she was forced to have sex with during the specific time in which she became pregnant.”

And then Nic asked the only question that really mattered to her. “Were you one of those men?”

“Yes.”

That single word upended Nicole’s entire world, everything she believed in, every emotion, every thought, sending her into a tailspin of confusion and rage.

“Damn you, Griffin Powell. You swore to me that you and Yvette were never lovers!”

“We weren’t lovers. Not ever.” He grabbed Nic’s shoulders and shook her gently. “What Yvette and I did was not making love. God, Nic, it wasn’t even having sex, not really. We were forced to perform in front of York.”

Nic jerked away from Griff, rushed behind his desk, doubled over and threw up in his wastebasket.

When Griff reached her, she stood up straight and backed away from him. “Please, don’t touch me. Not now. I—I can’t think straight. You have to give me time to think, time to sort through what I’m feeling . . . about you and me and about Yvette. And . . . and about her child.” She looked Griff square in the eye. “She . . . Suzette could be your daughter.”

“Yes.”

Nic walked across the study, opened the door and without turning back to look at Griff, said, “I’m going upstairs to pack a suitcase and then I’m going to Gatlinburg to our . . . to my cabin.” Knowing how she loved the mountains, Griff had given her the cabin as a Christmas present.

Stay strong. You can do this without crying, without screaming, without hysterics, without falling apart.

“I don’t want you to follow me or contact me in any way,” she told him. “When I’ve had time to think about everything, I’ll come home. I’ll come back to Griffin’s Rest and—”

“You can’t go off by yourself,” Griff told her, his voice pleading. “It’s too dangerous for you to be alone. If you have to do this, then I’ll send Shaughnessy or one of the other agents with you.”

“I want to be alone, Griff. I have to be alone. Try to understand.”

I need to think. And cry and scream and rant and rave and go slowly out of my mind.

“How about a compromise?” he asked. “Ask Maleah to go with you.”

“I won’t do that. She and Derek . . .” Nic swallowed her tears. “No, not Maleah. Not now. If you insist on my not going alone, then send someone to follow me on the drive to Gatlinburg. And you can post guards at the cabin twenty-four/seven. But I want to drive there by myself and I do not want a bodyguard in the house with me.”

“I don’t want you to leave, Nic. Stay here. I’ll give you all the time and space you need. Just don’t leave me.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t bear to look at you right now.” She walked out of the study, her head held high, her shoulders straight, and her heart breaking into a million pieces.

Maleah didn’t know all the details, only that Nic had left Griffin’s Rest after Griff told her that Yvette had a child, a nearly seventeen-year-old daughter that she hadn’t seen since the day of her birth.

“Griff may be the girl’s father,” Nic had explained. “I can’t stay here at Griffin’s Rest. I need to get away. I don’t want to look at Griff and see the pain in his eyes every time he looks at me.”

“I’ll go with you,” Maleah had told Nic.

“No, no. You and Derek, you two need to be together now. I want you to enjoy being in love. Those first few days and weeks are so incredible. I don’t want you to miss them.”

When Nic made up her mind, there was no arguing with her.

Maleah stood in the open doorway and watched Nic drive away from Griffin’s Rest. When her Escalade was barely out of sight, Griff motioned to the man behind the wheel of the black Hummer. He pulled out and followed Nic.

At that precise moment, Maleah knew what she had to do. She turned to Derek, who stood beside her, his arm draped around her waist, and said, “She shouldn’t be alone. Will you understand if I—?”

Derek clasped her hand. “Come on, Blondie, I’ll help you pack a bag. But not until after I give you a proper send-off.”

“I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“Call me every hour on the hour,” he teased.

“I’ll call you every morning and every night and think about you every hour in between. How’s that?”

He pulled her into his arms as they reached the top of the stairs. “When this crisis with Nic and Griff is over, you and I, Ms. Perdue, have a future to plan. A future that includes a wedding and a honeymoon.”

“Yes, we do.” Maleah stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

Loving and being loved gave her the strength to believe in the possibility of a happily-ever-after.