Tempting Fate Read Online Free PDF Page A

her. "There'd been a bomb threat in Justin's Vegas hotel. When he went out to handle things, there was another threat, handwritten, addressed to him. He didn't like the feel of it. When he came back, he tried to convince Rena to leave, but…" With a quick grin, he glanced out to sea. "She's another stubborn woman. Justin was downstairs talking to the police about a second threat when the guy got to her."
    The grin was gone, as though it had never been, and a look of barely controlled fury took its place. "He held her for almost twenty-four hours, handcuffed to the bed. He wanted Justin to pay two million in ransom."
    "Good God." Diana thought about the small, violet-eyed woman and shuddered.
    "It's the only time in all the years I've known Justin that I've seen him so close to losing it," Caine remembered. The look of cold fury was still in his eyes, but his voice was calm. "He didn't eat, sleep—he just sat by the phone and waited. It wasn't until the boy let him talk to Rena that we finally had a clue to who he was. In some ways, that was worse."
    "Why?"
    This time Caine stopped and looked down at her. She wouldn't know, he thought. Perhaps it was time she did. "When Justin was eighteen, he was in a fight in a bar. The man who started it didn't care to be drinking in the same place as an Indian."
    The rich, dark eyes frosted over. "I see."
    "He pulled a knife. During the struggle, Justin was ripped open—about six inches along the ribs." Caine saw her pale, but he continued in the same tone. "The man was killed with his own knife and Justin was charged with murder."
    Diana felt a sudden wave of nausea and fought it off. "Justin was on trial?"
    "He was acquitted once the witnesses from the bar were subpoenaed and under oath, but he spent a few grim months in a cell."
    "My aunt never told me." Diana turned away to face the sea. "She never said a word."
    "You would have been around eight. I don't imagine you'd have been a great deal of help to him."
    She could have been, Diana said silently, thinking of her aunt's comfortable income, her influential connections. And I should have been told. God, he was only a boy! Squeezing her eyes shut, she struggled to clear her mind and listen. "Go on."
    "It turned out that the boy who had Rena was the son of the man Justin had killed. His mother had drummed it into his head that Justin had murdered his father and had been freed because the courts had felt sorry for him. He had no intention of hurting Rena, only Justin."
    The sea seemed louder somehow, more violent. "So Justin paid the ransom?"
    "He was prepared to, but it wasn't necessary. Rena phoned just as he was leaving to make the final arrangements. She'd knocked the kid out with a skillet and cuffed him to the bed."
    Stunned, and amused despite herself, Diana turned back. "She did?"
    Caine acknowledged her smile with one of his own. "She's tougher than she looks."
    Shaking her head, Diana began to walk again. "And what about the boy?"
    "His trial comes up later this month. Rena's paying his legal fees."
    Her eyes whipped up to his. In them was a mixture of anger and admiration. "Does Justin know that?"
    "Of course."
    She digested this in silence, walking again. "I'm not sure I could be so forgiving."
    "Justin's more resigned than agreeable," Caine commented. "And when we had Rena back, safe, it was hard to refuse her anything. My first reaction was to get the kid locked up for the next fifty years."
    Diana tilted her head to study his face. "I doubt he'd have much of a chance if you could prosecute. I've read some of your trial transcripts. You go for the jugular, counsellor."
    "It's cleaner," he said simply.
    "Why didn't you run for state's attorney again?"
    "Politics has too many walls." He sent her an off-centre grin. "I imagine you've run into a few with Barclay, Stevens and Fitz."
    "Barclay is the epitome of the dry, stern-eyed attorney. Dickens would have loved him. 'My dear Miss Blade,'" she began in a whispery thin voice,