Amelia Autin - A Father's Desperate Rescue

Mei-li glanced at the boarded-up windows around them and cocked her head toward the wind and rain raging outside. “We have nothing but time.”

He thought about the best way to put it. “Part of me wanted him locked away forever. I could forgive him for trying to kill me—I’d killed his son, and in his mind I deserved to die. But I can never forgive him for trying to kill Bree, when all she did was tell the truth on the witness stand.”

“But you didn’t attend his parole hearing to give a victim impact statement.” At the look of surprise he couldn’t help but show, she explained, “We have something similar here in Hong Kong—we were a British colony for a long time, remember.” Then she said, “But you didn’t go. Why?”

“Because by that time I’d become a father,” he said simply, as if that said it all.

A glimmer of a smile returned to her face. “I see.” And somehow he knew she did see. That she understood it hadn’t been fear of the potentially negative publicity something like that would bring, but rather unexpected compassion for the man who’d loved his son so much he’d been driven to take the law into his own hands, to exact his own brand of justice. A father’s justice. The same kind of justice Dirk was envisioning now.

“After Blackwood’s trial, Bree and I headed for California. I legally changed my name from Derek Summers—the name I was born with—to Dirk DeWinter. Not just to leave behind the stigma that still attached to the name, but because my agent, Marty Devens, recommended it. Bree suggested Dirk. My agent suggested DeWinter. Said it was ‘euphonious.’” He laughed abruptly. “I didn’t even know what that word meant back then. He had to explain it to me.”

Then Dirk shifted gears. “So now you know why Terrell Blackwood wants me dead,” he said. “Now explain to me what you said earlier about Vanessa.”

“Inconsistencies in her story,” she said promptly. “Didn’t you spot them?”

“Not sure exactly what you mean.”

“Several things. First, there was the fact Chet was knocked out and the girls were chloroformed, but neither was done to Vanessa. Bound with duct tape, yes, but that’s all.”

“Yeah. She didn’t have an answer for that when you questioned her.”

“Second, she said she thought it was room service with lunch when the doorbell rang.”

Dirk snapped his fingers. “Right. If it was room service, why wouldn’t they have used the butler’s entrance and not the front door?”

Mei-li said softly, “That wasn’t actually what I meant, but that’s another inconsistency. They’re starting to pile up.”

Dirk frowned. “Then what did you mean?”

“She said the girls were in their bedroom taking their afternoon nap when the kidnappers arrived. But lunch would have arrived before their nap, not during it, so those two statements she made contradict each other—if she was expecting room service, the girls wouldn’t be napping. And if the girls were napping, she couldn’t have been expecting lunch to be delivered. Anyway, didn’t you notice the little tea table in front of the window? One of the chairs was knocked over...the way it might be if the girls were snatched in the middle of their lunch...not from their bedroom.”

“Is that important? Where they were when they were taken?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t like inconsistencies in stories. Vanessa told one lie for sure, possibly two or three. We don’t know why she lied—I’ve had people lie to me for the damnedest reasons, even my own clients.”

“I’m not lying,” Dirk was quick to interject.

“I didn’t say you were, just that some clients do. Sometimes it’s a misguided effort to make themselves seem more heroic than they are. Sometimes it’s because they’re ashamed to admit something, or they don’t see it as relevant to the case. So Vanessa isn’t necessarily lying because she’s involved—her lies could have a perfectly reasonable explanation. But until we know for sure...”

* * *

No, Dirk’s not lying, Mei-li mused as she followed him back upstairs to the Spring Moon Restaurant. Academy Award–winning actor or not, she didn’t think he was acting when he’d told her the story he’d just recounted. But he’s not telling the whole truth, either. She wasn’t unduly perturbed—not about this. As she’d told Dirk, her clients often withheld information from her. But she had the basic facts behind the kidnapping now, understood the motivation of the man who’d engineered it—and that perturbed her.

Kidnapping for ransom—at least in Hong Kong—was a business of sorts, and most kidnappers played by the rules. Rule number one: receive the ransom, release the victim unharmed. That wasn’t to say the initial ransom demand was paid. As with most things in Hong Kong, the ransom amount was negotiable—which was where she came in. She was extremely skilled at negotiating with kidnappers and had an uncanny knack for knowing just how low the price could go before the kidnappers dug in their heels. And while her fee wasn’t tied to how much money she saved her wealthy clients on the ransoms they paid—that was an idea fraught with potential disaster for the victims and their families—bonuses from grateful clients weren’t uncommon.

But kidnapping for revenge was a completely different animal, and something with which she had no experience. There were no rules that both sides adhered to, because the motivation wasn’t money. She’d be flying blind on this case. If she were wise, she’d bow out with her record intact and let Dirk find someone else. Problem was, she couldn’t think of a single ransom negotiator in Hong Kong who had any more experience in this kind of situation than she did. Even worse, the kidnap victims in this case were little more than babies. If you walk away and anything happens to them...

She couldn’t do it. She’d gone into this line of work for a very personal reason, and she couldn’t walk away now any more than she could change what had happened eleven years ago. But she owed it to Dirk to tell him and let him make the decision. She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped as an idea occurred to her. If Vanessa and/or Chet were involved in the kidnapping, a little misdirection could work in her favor. But she needed to warn Dirk of her plan ahead of time.

She put a hand on his arm to stop him just as he was about to enter the restaurant. “I have to tell you something,” she said in an urgent undertone. “But before I do, how good an actor are you?” She laughed suddenly and hit the heel of her hand against her forehead before he could say anything. “Sorry,” she apologized. “You are an actor—an award-winning actor. I wasn’t thinking of that, honest. I just want to tell you something in front of Vanessa and Chet, and I want you to pretend you don’t already know what I’m going to say.”

One corner of Dirk’s mouth quirked upward in a travesty of a smile. “I think I can manage that. So what are you going to tell me?”

“I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m the best ransom negotiator in Hong Kong. I’ve never lost a kidnapping victim in all the years I’ve been doing this—not one.” Okay, a couple of times she’d needed an assist, but now wasn’t the time to bring up that detail and go into a long and involved explanation, because that wasn’t her point. “But I’ve never had a case that involved kidnapping for revenge.”

Dirk’s smile faded, replaced by an expression Mei-li had no trouble reading. Desolation. The way a man might look if all hope and light and faith had been extinguished. “You’re withdrawing?”

“Not at all,” she reassured him. “I’m still willing to give it my best shot. But I won’t lie to you—I’ll be relying more on gut instinct than on past experience. If you still want me, knowing that...”