Guarding Grace Read online

  But that was then. This was now.

  He’d just started thumbing through the files, when the phone rang. Although the ID didn’t give the caller’s name, the number told him it was the Ridgeway residence.

  He braced to hear his brother asking for help with his latest mess.

  Instead, John’s wife expelled the breath she must have been holding. “Brady, thank God.”

  “Lydia, what’s wrong?” he asked, picturing her delicate aristocratic features stiff with tension but not a strand of her dyed auburn hair out of place.

  “I can’t talk over the phone,” she said, her control almost slipping. “Just come over here. I…need you.”

  I need you.

  In the twenty-five years they’d known each other, she had never uttered those words. In public she could look friendly. But she’d never asked for his help. What was going on over there?

  “I’m on my way.”

  Hurriedly, Brady changed from sweats into dark slacks and a button-down shirt. As an afterthought, he shrugged into a tweed jacket and paused to swipe a comb through his unruly dark hair.

  On the ride up rain-washed Connecticut Avenue, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He reached for his cell phone, then drew his hand back. He couldn’t call Lydia to ask what was wrong, not when she’d sounded so secretive. Was she going behind John’s back? What?

  As he wove in and out of traffic, his mind drifted to the strange workings of fate. And of genetics.

  Brady might be the smarter brother, but it was John who had the ear of the U.S. President.

  Brady’s goals had been more modest. He’d seen what the quest for power did to a man, how it changed his values and warped his perspective. All he’d wanted was a fulfilling job, a comfortable life—and a wife and two kids.

  His hands clenched on the wheel. Unfortunately, that had been too much to ask.

  As he turned into the driveway of the Ridgeway estate, the man in the guardhouse gave him a grim-faced look. Before Brady could blink, a bank of bright lights switched on, momentarily blinding him.

  “Get out of the car,” a voice boomed. “Keep your hands in the air where we can see them.”

  Chapter Two

  Shadows moved behind the lights. Men. With guns—judging by the glint of metal.

  “Out of the car,” the voice boomed again. “On the double if you don’t want to get your ass shot.”

  Brady stepped into the rain, blinking as the spotlights stabbed into his vision.

  From behind the wall of light, he heard a familiar voice, Bill Giordano, the man who headed his brother’s home security detail.

  “It’s okay, Taylor. He’s Ridgeway’s brother.”

  Brady was allowed to get back into the car, along with the security man, and they proceeded up a curving drive toward the fifty-room mansion his brother had bought ten years ago.

  “What are you doing here?” Giordano said, speaking in the quiet tone that Brady knew meant watch out how you answer.

  “Lydia called me. She said she needed me. What’s going on?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this. Your brother is dead.”

  Brady managed to drag in enough air to say, “How?”

  “Heart attack—we think,” Giordano answered. “He was catching up on some work at the office before he and Lydia went to a reception.”

  “Doesn’t the consortium have a doctor on staff?”

  “And defibrillators. All the goddamn latest equipment. If they could have saved him, you know damn well they would have.”

  Brady nodded, trying to pull himself together.

  Lydia was waiting for him in the upstairs family lounge. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she walked toward him, setting a glass on an end table as she crossed the room.

  As if to mock the occasion, she was dressed for an evening reception in a long emerald gown that was the perfect color for her hair and skin.

  When she embraced him, the scent of the liquor on her breath grabbed him as tightly as her arms, and a seductive thought wove itself into his mind. He could have a shot of bourbon. Just one. To get himself through the trauma of John’s death.

  Stop it.

  One drink, and he was on a one-way trip to hell. No bourbon. No exceptions.

  THE CAB PULLED up in front of Grace’s apartment just off Dupont Circle. She already had a ten-dollar bill in her hand, which she handed to the cabdriver.

  “Keep the change,” she called as she hurried through the drizzle to the front door of the converted brownstone. Once it had been a single residence. Now each floor had two apartments.

  Her low-heeled shoes clattered on the uncarpeted wooden steps as she climbed to her second-floor unit, unlocked her front door and stepped into the small living room.

  When she’d locked the door behind her, she stopped short, her stomach clenching as she looked around the shadowy room. She’d been strapped for cash when she came to DC, and she’d lovingly put together this refuge with more imagination than money. Her sofa and coffee table were from a secondhand shop in Adams Morgan. She’d found the worn Oriental rug and the wicker baskets at garage sales. And she’d rescued the Queen Anne end tables from the alley two steps ahead of the trash truck.

  She’d thought she was making a home for herself. Now she knew she’d been kidding herself.

  John Ridgeway’s death had changed everything. Quickly she checked to make sure nobody was lurking inside the apartment.

  BRADY EYED the security man hovering discreetly at the edges of the room. “Where can we talk privately?” he asked Lydia.

  His sister-in-law turned, the taffeta skirt of her evening gown swishing as she led him down the hall to a bedroom that looked as if it could have graced a Louisiana plantation house.

  She sank onto an antique curved-back sofa. Brady took a parlor chair opposite her. Her complexion was pale, but her eyes were fierce.

  “Let’s cut to the chase. I know John was seeing other women. He’d done it through most of our marriage. That’s why he stayed late at work tonight.”

  He answered with a tight nod. John loved to brag about his conquests. Man-to-man. Never to his wife. And then there was the illegitimate son he’d asked Brady to locate—not that John had actually gotten in touch with the boy as far as Brady knew.

  He pulled out the small notebook he always carried and started making terse, cryptic notes.

  “We had a reception tonight. At the Cosmos Club. He said he wanted to get in a couple of hours of work first—on his autobiography. With that research assistant from the Smithsonian. Grace Cunningham. He’s been seeing her for a couple of months.”

  Brady cleared his throat. “And his security men knew what he was really doing?”

  “I assume so.”

  “When did he usually meet with Grace Cunningham?”

  “From six to eight on Tuesdays. She should have been gone when he died. But his staff could be lying about that.”

  “Did he write her address or phone number in his book?”

  Lydia stepped into the walk-in closet and came out carrying a manila folder.

  When Brady opened it, he saw a picture of a young, appealing woman with dark, chin-length hair and blue eyes. She was pretty, but she certainly didn’t look like a seductress. Maybe that was part of her charm for John. Behind the picture were several pages of personal background.

  “Can I take this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about his address book?”

  Lydia hesitated.

  “Would you rather have John’s brother check his contacts— or the DC police?”

  Lydia left the room and returned with a small blue book, which she handed to him.

  When a knock sounded at the door, he thrust the folder into the waistband of his slacks in back, where it was hidden by his sports jacket, and the address book into his pants pocket.

  “Come in.”

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Giordano said. “We’ll be making an announceme
nt soon about your husband’s death. You might want to change into a dark suit before the press shows up here.”

  Lydia looked down at her evening gown as if realizing that she was dressed for a formal reception.

  Standing quickly, she took a moment to compose herself. When she spoke, her voice was well modulated. “Yes. I’ll be right with you.”

  The door closed again, and she raised her eyes to Brady. “I want to know if one of his enemies killed him. I mean— did somebody send in a woman to cut off the blood flow to his carotid artery or something? You have to find out what happened.”

  “If I can, I will,” he promised. He was really speaking to himself, not Lydia. He’d gotten used to cleaning up John Ridgeway’s messes. Maybe he was too comfortable with that role.

  What he did now depended on what he discovered—starting with Grace Cunningham.

  GRACE WANTED to scream at Karen Hilliard. Instead she pulled off her business suit and pulled on jeans, running shoes and a dark T-shirt. Leaving her good clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor, she made for the kitchen. Because she didn’t want to announce that she was home, she worked with only the illumination from a streetlight outside the window as she pulled the sugar canister out of the cabinet, then started digging in the white grains like a dog looking for a buried bone.

  As her fingers closed around the legal-size envelope, she breathed out a small sigh. She was going to need the cash. No credit cards. Not in the name of Grace Cunningham.

  Or Ginnie Cutler.

  She’d buried Ginnie two years ago. Everybody she’d known from before she’d made her big decision thought she had died in a boating accident. Even her parents, and it still made her heart squeeze when she thought about how her death must have devastated them.

  They didn’t even have the solace of a grave site—after all the years of raising their daughter, of loving their daughter.

  Scenes from her life flashed through her mind as she dashed down the hall to the bedroom.

  She remembered the pink-and-white little girl’s bedroom that had made her happy. Her eighth birthday party when she’d proudly taken eight friends out to lunch. The smile on Mom’s face when her daughter had graduated from high school.

  Her parents hadn’t had a lot of money, but they’d showered their daughter with love and given her the confidence to take the road she traveled now.

  She’d come to Washington with a carefully constructed new identity and a lot of optimism. Like those first-term congressmen who thought they were going to make a difference. You could check her driver’s license, her Social Security number and her college transcript—from Barnard instead of Brown, where she’d really gotten her history degree. All the documents would testify to whom she was supposed to be. The background had stood up to even Ridgeway Consortium scrutiny. Not anymore. They’d go digging and find out that Grace Cunningham had never really existed.

  But before that—they’d check the visitors’ book and see when she’d left this evening.

  When she’d escaped through the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, she’d barely been thinking about her next move. Now she knew she was going to have to disappear—again. And come back as someone else. If she had the cash to do it again.

  Not that she’d committed a crime. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  In the bedroom she switched on the television, turning the volume low, and caught the news on CNN.

  They were reporting John Ridgeway’s death. But nothing had changed about the story.

  So much for honesty in the halls of power.

  As she stared at the television set, she wanted to curl up in a ball on the bed and close her eyes. She wanted to wake up and find out the past hour was all a horrible dream. But it was real. Just like the nightmare of two years ago.

  Only now a powerful man was dead, and she was a witness. And if she didn’t want to end up like Karen, a secret detainee, she’d better get the hell out of here.

  She was throwing clothing into a duffel bag when she heard the wooden stairs creak. Her hand on a pair of jeans, she went rigid, listening intently.

  It could be one of the neighbors. Maybe nosy Mrs. Sullivan who was always peeking out her front door to see if Grace was bringing anybody home.

  The next sound she heard was something metal sliding into the lock of her apartment door.

  No knock. Nobody calling out, “Police. Open up.”

  For a second, she was too stunned to move. Then she shoved the money into her purse, along with Karen Hilliard’s evening bag.

  Without a second thought, she abandoned the duffel bag in the middle of the bed, thrust open the window and climbed out onto the ledge.

  She hated to take extra time. But an open window was a dead giveaway, so she turned to ease down the sash behind her.

  Thank God she was in good shape from all those laps at the pool—and the fencing lessons she’d been taking.

  After slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, she lowered herself by her hands and let go, landing with a thunk on the roof of the next building. As soon as she hit the flat surface, she sprinted toward the edge, skirting puddles of standing water.

  Behind her, through the old glass, she heard footsteps running through her apartment—then men’s voices.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  “Maybe she didn’t go home.”

  “Where else would she go?”

  Without looking over her shoulder, she kept moving across the gravel, then over the side of the building.

  “She’s on the roof.”

  “Don’t let her get away.”

  Lord, who were these men? The DC cops? Or more likely John Ridgeway’s private security force.

  Either way, she was pretty sure that getting caught could be a fatal error.

  Fear swelled inside her chest, making it hard to breathe. But she didn’t break her stride until she came to the edge of the building. As she lowered herself over the side, she saw a man coming out the window.

  Two of them had barged through the front door without announcing their presence. Was the other one going around back to cut her off at the pass.

  She dropped to the roof of a garage, then to the alley.

  “Stop her!”

  Praying she could make it, she hurtled down the alley, her running shoes splashing through puddles of dirty water. Before she reached the car, a hand whipped out from the shadows and grabbed her shoulder.

  Grace screamed, the sound coming to her above the roaring in her ears.

  She’d almost made it—and now…

  A man barked out a gruff order. “Hold it right there, sweetheart.”

  It wasn’t necessary to fake terror. She was literally shaking in her shoes. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.

  “I won’t. If you come quietly.”

  Oh sure.

  When he turned her toward him, she went still, pretending to comply, letting him think he had control of a woman too terrified to resist. But as she came around, she lashed out, whacking her elbow into his armpit the way they’d told her to do in self-defense class.

  He was totally unprepared for the attack. Grunting, he dropped his hold on her shoulder.

  Free of his control, she struck out with her foot, catching him in the balls. He screamed as he doubled over.

  But he wasn’t the only one she had to worry about. Another man dropped over the side of the roof, charging toward her.

  If she ran, she had no chance. So she played deer in the headlights, standing still and breathing hard, forcing herself to wait until he was almost on her. Then she moved, using her body weight to shove the first guy into the second.

  They both went down.

  A curse rang out behind her as she turned and sprinted away, knowing this was her last chance.

  Her lower lip wedged between her teeth, she kept moving, braced for the pain of a bullet slamming into her back.

  Instead, just as she turned the corner, another man stepped into her
path, trapping her.

  “Come on,” he said.

  As he took in her wide-eyed look, he snapped, “I’m not one of them.”

  “Then who?”

  “The cavalry. Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “Away. Let me help you, before they catch up with you.”

  With a gun in his hand, he gestured toward a car pulled up at the curb. The guy looked tough and capable but subtly different from the men who’d broken into her apartment. Making a split-second decision, she climbed into the car.

  Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it might break through the wall of her chest.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “It looks like I’m your bodyguard.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “You put up a good fight, but they would have gotten you in the end.”

  She sighed, eyeing him. “What’s your name?”

  “Brady Lockwood.”

  Oh Lord. She should have recognized him! But the photos she’d seen of him had been old. He hardly looked like the same guy.

  “You’re John Ridgeway’s brother.”

  Chapter Three

  Brady drove toward Georgetown with no particular destination in mind. The one thing he knew was that going home wasn’t an option at the moment. Despite claiming to be her bodyguard, he still didn’t know if he was going to end up taking Grace Cunningham to the cops. And he sure as hell didn’t trust her enough to let her into his apartment.

  As she sat next to him, she radiated tension. Yeah, well, she should. She’d been involved in something pretty nasty this evening.

  He saw her hands trembling. She was on the edge, and maybe he could use that to his advantage.

  Turning off Wisconsin Avenue, he pulled onto a side street and under a streetlight that gave him enough illumination to see her.

  When the car came to a stop, she glanced around in alarm. “Where are we?”

  “On the run. But you look like you could use a friend.”

  “I’m fine,” she protested.

  “Of course not. You’ve been through a rough couple of hours.”

  He cut the engine, then reached across the console and gathered her close, stroking his hands over her back and shoulders, then into her hair, feeling her tremble.