Page 60 of Abducted

He chuckled. “Why so worried? Trust me.”

Soft voices from the kitchen piqued her interest. “I’m not worried. Just nervous.”

“You’ll like this.” He led her down the hall and to the kitchen. She rounded the corner.

Her breath caught. Tears filled her eyes before she could catch them. She covered her mouth with her hand and a small sob escaped her throat.

“Mom!” She threw her arms around her mother.

“My baby,” Her mother’s soft voice eased the tremor in her body. Her arms locked around Lana, her lips pressed into her hair. “Oh, honey. I’ve been so worried.”

“What are you doing here?” She pulled out of her arms far enough to spot Cal. A big, warm smile spread across his face. His eyes danced with pleasure. He shoved his hands in his pockets and winked at her. “How did you—”

“This man”—she gestured to Cal, her eyebrow raised with mock chastising—“cornered me on the street in front of my hotel. He told me that if I wanted to see you, I needed to come with him.” She lifted a hand to her slight hip. Her cool blond hair was pulled back in a clip at the nape of her neck. “Scared the life out of me.”

Cal grinned. “Sorry about that, ma’am. We’re trying to be very careful.”

“Please, call me Sonja.” She waved at him. “‘Ma’am makes me feel old.”

She pulled Lana to her chest again. “Can we talk, sweetie? I want to know everything that’s been going on.”

“Of course.”

“Would you like something to drink, Sonja?” Cal stepped away from the counter. “Water?” he offered.

Sonja accepted, and Cal poured her a glass from the fridge. Cal and her mother…in the same room. She looked from one to the other. Sonja was as gracious as always, but her eyes were sharp beneath her kindness. Her mother wasn’t stupid. She would smell their attraction for each other a mile away. Aside from her daughter’s disappearance, she would want to know every detail about Cal.

Wanting complete privacy from the men’s ears, Lana brought her mother back to the master bedroom. The room she and Cal had had sex in.

Sonja set her glass down on a nearby table and situated herself on the edge of the bed. Lana folded her legs up next to her. Her face warmed at the still-rumpled sheets.

“What the hell is going on, honey?” Sonya’s tone was gentle, yet demanding.

Lana rolled her lips in. Best not to beat around the bush. She breathed a sigh through her lips. “I’ll tackle one topic at a time. First of all, someone hired some people—hired hit men—to kill me.” She would not tell her mother that Cal had been one of those people. Of all the things to be disclosed, that was one that Sonja did not need to know.

Her mother’s hand fluttered to her mouth like the wing of a broken bird. She closed her other hand around Lana’s, and tears filled her eyes. Her brow snapped down, and fire shot from her eyes, which were the same hue of blue as her own.

“Who would do such a thing? How do you know this?”

She shifted on the bed. “We believe it was Tanner. He–he came on to me a few months ago, and it didn’t go over well. I talked to Grace about it and I thought it had blown over.” She toyed with the rumpled duvet cover.

“One of Cal’s friends is a special agent with the FBI. He did some digging on Tanner and found that as a minor he’d been charged with rape.” She wet her lips. Sonja’s eyes never left hers. “Then later, he was a person of interest in the murder of a different young woman. He was never convicted, nor did the suspicion cops had of him make it to the tabloids. That makes it look like he used money to protect his name.”

Sonja pressed her fingers to her mouth. Her eyes clouded with worry. The faint lines that had begun to crease her face in recent years deepened. “Why would he do all of this? Why would he want to kill you over that?”

“If people were to find out about his assault on me—”

Her hand grabbed Lana’s arm, her fingernails piercing the skin. “He hurt you?”

“No, Mom. He just behaved badly, and I had to throw him out with the threat to call the police. He left right after. But if people found out that happened, it could open up interest in the other cases he was a suspect in.”

She released her hold. Her hand pressed against her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “I handled it.”

“You don’t think it’s all a misunderstanding? How do you know someone planned to have you killed?”

“Cal found the man who’d been hired.”

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