Dangerous Melody Read Free Page B

don’t know if Victor’s going to make it.”
    “I’m sorry.” Her brothers, though they held nothing but animosity toward him, were her entire world. For one crazy moment, he wanted to wrap her up in an embrace. “How does it fit together? What is Bittman after?”
    “I can’t tell you any more.”
    He folded his arms. “We’ve been through this already so cut out the dramatics. I wantto know what’s going on, and you’re going to tell me.”
    Her eyes glittered. “I wasn’t supposed to get anyone involved or he’ll kill my father.”
    “Too late. I’m involved.”
    Her eyes grew cold. “No, you’re not, Tate.” With that she pushed by him, leaving a tantalizing whiff of the cinnamon fragrance she always wore.
    He followed behind her as she exited the mansion, got into thepristine Mustang and roared out of the driveway. When the dust settled, he made his way back to the motorcycle, still hidden in the trees.
    Why, he wondered, could he pass through his day without remembering so much as what he had for lunch, but he could minutely recall Stephanie’s face after seeing her, even only briefly, for the first time in four years? It was so unfair, especially whenevery detail—the full lips, the electric brown eyes, the determined set to her chin—reminded him of his greatest failure. Pain rippled through him again.
    You are the worst thing that ever happened to Stephanie Gage.
    He shook away the thoughts. He’d come to find Maria, and instead he’d fallen into Stephanie’s life and that of the man he despised above all others, Joshua Bittman. They’dmet enough times years before when Stephanie started consulting for him. Tate pegged him as an arrogant, condescending egomaniac with more than a casual interest in Stephanie. It might have been coincidence that, after a heated encounter with Bittman, whom he’d thought was trying to win Stephanie’s affections, his business contacts had dried up. Fuego Demolition suddenly had regular clients cancelingcontracts without notice. He’d never been able to prove it was Bittman, but it gave him even more reason to find his sister and make sure Bittman hadn’t done something to her.
    He flipped open his cell and punched in Gilly’s number. Gilly was an eccentric computer whiz he’d known since the sixth grade. “Need a favor. Can you find out which hospital Victor Gage was transported to? Car accident.”
    “What’s going down?”
    “I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
    Gilly provided him with the answer in moments.
    Not involved, Stephanie said? He threw a leg over the seat of the motorcycle in spite of the ripple of pain. Not likely.
    Kicking the engine to life, he roared off the property.
    * * *
    Stephanie was not aware of the miles unrolling under the tires of her car.Her mind worked and reworked plan after plan as she hurtled toward the hospital. Each idea disintegrated into the anguished scream of her heart. Daddy, Daddy. She’d let Bittman take him. What had her father thought as he lifted off into the sky, looking down at the daughter who had failed to save him from a madman? Bile rose in her throat, and she fought the urge to floor the gas pedal, insteadcutting around a driver in a van so closely that she could see his crew cut and the arch of his eyebrows. Tate had no right to interfere.
    The call, the one at precisely four o’clock as she stared into the barrel of the security guard’s gun, had been from Bittman. She phoned him back with no answer. She knew the unspoken message.
    You didn’t follow directions, Stephanie.
    You toldTate Fuego.
    Now your father will die.
    Tate’s interference might have cost her father his life. She fought to control the spiraling panic.
    Focus, Steph. Figure out what to do.
    Bringing in the cops would seal her father’s fate. He would be found dead with not one shred of evidence linking Bittman to the crime, just a few phone calls. No menacing messages saved to voice mail.No incriminating texts. No one