The Callahan's: Ultimate Sins Part 9

Crowe grinned back at him. "I was just curious."

"By the way," John's gaze moved to Amelia, "I left my bags downstairs. Just tell me where you want me to put them."

Crowe stiffened furiously. His bags? Dammit to h.e.l.l. John moving in with her?

"You can take Wayne's suite. That way you'll have plenty of time to see if the FBI missed anyplace that Wayne could have hidden the rest of his journals or anything else they're still looking for."

"What's missing?" Crowe asked.

"My mother's heirlooms, and all the money he had in savings. He'd been slowly making withdrawals over the past few months, and just before Amory kidnapped me, Wayne withdrew all my savings as well."

The last comment had her voice filling with worry.

"Amelia, I told you, you don't have to worry about the money," John told her. "I'll take care of everything."

John didn't see what Crowe did in the stormy blue-green depths of her eyes or in that stubborn curve of her chin: determination to take care of herself. Over the years, she'd never asked anyone for a d.a.m.ned thing. If he wasn't mistaken, though, a h.e.l.l of a lot of people in this county hadn't minded asking her for favors.

Especially favors that would get them out of trouble with Wayne Sorenson.

"I appreciate the offer, John, but I told you, I'll take care of it." There was no hiding the firm refusal in her voice. "I won't be a charity case, especially to the brother I've only just found. He would have had to hide the cash here in the house; it's the only place he would have been a.s.sured of being able to check on it daily."

"We'll see then." Her brother nodded, his gaze gentling as he stared back at her. "If it's in his rooms, I promise, I'll find it."

Watching Amelia, Crowe found it impossible to understand how a man could be as cold and cruel to his child as Wayne had been to Amelia. She was so delicate that even understanding how she had endured the many "punishments" was an impossible feat.

"I'll show you up to the suite." She glanced at Crowe again before heading to the doorway. "I'll get clean linens if you'll show Crowe the bas.e.m.e.nt entrance." The suggestion was made in a less-than-steady voice as she paused at the doorway and glanced back at him, her eyes dark, wary. "Good night, Crowe, and thank you for checking up on me."

He inclined his head mockingly, letting her see in his gaze the knowledge that he she was running from him.

"I have to go away for a while, Amelia," he told her, watching as she paused, her back still turned to him. "I'll be gone for about six weeks. When I get back, be waiting for me."

The soft, dark strands of her hair brushed below her shoulders as she turned back to him. "I stopped waiting for you a long time ago, Crowe. A very long time ago."

His teeth clenched, grinding furiously at the sudden flash of something filled with pain and bitterness that flashed in her eyes.

"See you soon, fairy-girl," he promised.

Heat flooded her face at the intimate name, and a hint of anger tightened her lips, but she didn't say anything more.

Turning, she all but ran from him like a frightened doe in hunting season.

Crowe restrained his chuckle, well aware of John's scrutiny and the disapproval in his gaze.

"Come on, I'll show you the way out," John growled as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "How the h.e.l.l did you get past that horde out there if you came in another way?"

It really wouldn't have mattered how he came in; he could have done so without the journalists being aware of it.

"I'm just good like that," he claimed as John led him from the kitchen.

And through the dining room to a narrow hall at the back of the house.

"I just bet you are," John muttered under his breath.

Crowe pretended he didn't hear the comment, though he had a feeling John knew better.

Just as Crowe knew better than to believe that John didn't know about the training Crowe had in the military. And that the training would have ensured his ability to enter the house without being seen.

Opening one of the hall doors, John stepped inside long enough to flip the light switch and brighten the rough-lumber steps leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

This feature was not part of the plans sent to the county after they begin keeping such records, though. Crowe knew it wasn't, because Crowe had gone searching for the house plans during those first weeks, seven years ago, when he'd begun secretly seeing Amelia.

The rough drawing submitted after Wayne's father purchased the house indicated no more than a four-foot crawl s.p.a.ce beneath the house.

"Interesting." Crowe gazed around the open, though cluttered bas.e.m.e.nt. "Believed in saving everything, didn't he?"

If the antiques were any indication, more than three generations had been storing their cast-offs down here.

"No kidding," John agreed. "The attic is worse. You can't even walk around up there, let alone figure out where to look for anything in particular."

The bas.e.m.e.nt was far smaller than the house above it and, if he wasn't mistaken, laid out a bit oddly.

"Stay away from her, Crowe."

Well now, hadn't that just been thrown out of the blue, Crowe thought, amused.

Narrowing his eyes, he gazed out at the bas.e.m.e.nt for long seconds before he finally turned back to the other man.

"That's not your decision to make," he reminded the deputy. "And even if it were, it wouldn't do you any good, John. Don't try to stand between me and Amelia, because I promise you, I won't stand for it."

John's lips thinned, his gaze turning cold. "You don't have a choice. You used her to draw Sorenson out of hiding, and I don't appreciate that. I won't let you use her again, no matter the reason. She doesn't deserve it. And by G.o.d, you don't deserve her. Not anymore. Not the man you've become."

Crowe nodded as though considering the warning before smiling mockingly. "There's where you're f.u.c.king wrong," Crowe a.s.sured the other man, letting him see the full, blazing determination that filled him. "I do deserve her. I deserve her far more than you even know, John. And if you think I'll let you stand in my way, then you're wrong."

"Dammit, Crowe-"

Crowe turned on him slowly, forcing back the humanity it had taken him years to find again after leaving the military.

The man John saw now was the stone killer he had been then. The killer John knew existed in his past.

"Yeah, I know what you are," John sneered. "I may have not reached your level, Callahan, but that doesn't mean I wasn't invited there."

Crowe let his lips tilt further. The operation he was part of was so much higher than the invitation this man had been given, it was laughable.

"An invitation is one thing," Crowe said softly, "the years of training afterward is another. Don't think you can take me on, John. Your a.s.sociation with my uncle won't save you. He should have warned you of that."

"But has anyone warned my sister about you?" The air around the deputy sizzled with fury. "And isn't she just a little innocent for you? Find a woman with enough experience to handle that ice your heart has become."

"She can handle it just fine," Crowe promised him, wondering how p.i.s.sed Amelia would get if he punched the b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the face. "Now let's end this little p.i.s.sing contest before one of us says something you may regret."

The hard line of John's jaw tightened furiously as he let his anger rule him rather than using it to strengthen him. Maybe, Crowe thought, John should have accepted that invitation just for the training that went with it.

"The grudge is what I worry about," John snapped, the gray-blue of his gaze sparking with charged energy. "What will that grudge dictate where Amelia's concerned, Crowe? She's Wayne's daughter. She was raised by him, she worked with him. Try to tell me you'll ever trust her enough to let that ice around your heart melt for her, and I'll call you a liar. The only reason you're here now is because she's that final snub you can give Wayne by actually getting into her bed rather than just letting him believe that was where you were."

"And I'll be there, in her bed," Crowe promised him. "He teased me with her for seven years. Had I suspected for a second who he was, John, just for a second, then I would have taken her and dared him to come after her," he added softly, dangerously. "Now Sorenson is no longer here to hold her from me, or to threaten her. Don't doubt this: I will have her now."

John drew himself stiffly erect as Crowe let a hard, confident smile curl his lips. "You think I won't warn her about how you feel?"

Crowe smiled. "Why bother? You and I both know she just heard every word I said."

Reaching up, Crowe tugged at the digital audio-video line only barely visible in the small gap between the overhead ceiling tiles and the wall.

"Next time, try using less wire. That way it doesn't end up revealing itself," Crowe suggested before tipping two fingers to his forehead and striding past John and leaving the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Crowe ignored the somber regret that filled the deputy's gaze.

He ignored the jagged, unexplained strike of pain deep in his own chest at the knowledge that Amelia wouldn't have been able to resist listening, watching, any more than he could have resisted if the roles were reversed-and just how angry he would have been.

Amelia stared at the video screen John had wired into her room when he had installed the more advanced security system. When he'd wired in the audio she'd rolled her eyes at him.

He had grinned and told her it would eventually come in handy. It always did.

Now part of her wished she'd never let him do it. At the very least, she wished she hadn't turned it on to see Crowe one last time. Watching him leave, seeing his icy expression, the hardness in his eyes made her wish she'd just seen him out herself instead of giving in to the need to run and hide.

This was what she got for being so hungry for him that she had to see him.

This is what she got for loving him.

But all she was to him was the final snub at the man who had destroyed Crowe's entire family's life.

Wayne had murdered Crowe's grandparents and parents, and had tried to see him and his cousins imprisoned since they were teenagers.

Having her in his bed, and breaking her heart, again, would be the ultimate prize because evidently he didn't consider shattering her soul seven years ago to be enough.

She had six weeks before he would be back, roughly the same amount of time before the DNA results on the body believed to be Wayne's would be in.

And if Wayne was dead, it was six more weeks before Amelia could have her life back.

If.

G.o.d, she prayed it was over. Only then could she have more than just her life back. Only then could she have the one dream that had sustained her after losing Crowe. The only thing that had held her here, that had kept her fighting, breathing, living.

The chance to finally be free ...

CHAPTER 5.

Six weeks later Crowe stared at his copy of the DNA results, just as his cousins Logan and Rafer stared at theirs-with a sense of pure, unadulterated rage and disbelief.

He was aware of the others in the room as well. His uncle, Ryan Calvert; Archer Tobias; the FBI special agents a.s.signed to the Slasher case, Elliot Weston and Jake Donovan; as well as the forensic experts Nash Callum and Dr. Joseph Edger.

"The clue that tipped us off was the remnants of the latex mask." Nash spoke into the silence as Crowe slowly closed the file and looked up. "It was made with a special polymer that should have disintegrated completely, but they didn't get the mix just right. The amount of latex used allowed just enough of it to adhere to part of the skull for testing. From there, we began running the DNA against all known databases, and we got d.a.m.ned lucky. Jimmy Bowers actually sold DNA samples to a testing facility over twenty years ago and allowed the DNA to be included in a batch shared among government research agencies. From there, we were able to trace his connection to Wayne through John Caine's DNA. But we also ran the samples against Amelia to connect them to Wayne and came up negative."

"Because she's not Wayne's daughter," Crowe stated softly, only barely managing to hold back the satisfaction raging through him.

"No, she's not," Nash agreed, the dark brown of his gaze somber as it met Crowe's.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h, Sorenson was still alive. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had once again managed to escape.

"What is he, f.u.c.king Houdini or something?" Rafe muttered, slapping the report on the table before throwing himself back in the chair and pushing his fingers through his hair.

Raw disgust filled Rafe's expression as well as Logan's.

Crowe felt the door he'd managed to open on his humanity slowly begin to close.

"Where is he?" Crowe directed the question to the special agents.

"We don't have a clue." Special Agent Weston breathed out heavily as he leaned forward, his arms crossing on the top of the dark conference table, his gaze gleaming. "But according to the profile we have of him, he's close enough to know exactly what's going on, with whom, and where. And he's just waiting to strike, when you least expect it."

And he would strike at Amelia.

The thought had Crowe's entire body tensing with the need for action. She would never be safe, she would never be free until Sorenson was dead. It was the only way to ensure he never harmed her again.

And there was only one way to draw him out- "Unless we force him to make a move again," Crowe mused, narrowing his gaze and staring back at the agent coolly.

Weston nodded slowly.

"His daughter," Agent Donovan guessed, his attention now on Crowe as well. "That drew him out before."

"But there was no proof we were lovers, only supposition." Crowe nodded. "If he continues to think we believe he's dead, and Amelia and I begin a very public affair..."

"Then he could snap," Donovan agreed. "But I think we keep the truth of her parentage to ourselves. Wayne learns that she's not his daughter, he won't give a d.a.m.n what happens to her."

The agent was wrong, Crowe knew; Wayne would still care. It was Amelia he'd have to keep that information from, though. If she found out that she wasn't related to Wayne it would give her the out she needed to possibly leave Corbin County, and Crowe couldn't allow her to do that.

She belonged to him.

She might not like it, she might not want to admit it, but he wasn't going to allow her to run from it. They had something to finish. Whatever had eased the ice beginning to overtake him seven years ago, haunted him. He'd been completely frozen inside after he'd left. So frozen that at times he worried himself. He nodded slowly, aware that his cousins stared back at him in disapproval.

"You can't keep that information from her, Crowe." It was Logan who hissed the protest beside him.