Thicker Than Water

“A tasty, tension-packed read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water

“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb touch, blending fantasy and romance into an outstanding reading experience.”

—Romantic Times on Embrace the Twilight

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”

—Bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”

—Romantic Times on Twilight Hunger

“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven…. A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night!”

—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man

“Shayne’s talent knows no bounds!”

—Rendezvous

“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping intensity and bewitching passion.”

—Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the preeminent voices in paranormal romance today!”

—Romantic Times

MAGGIE SHAYNE

THICKER THAN WATER

This book would not have happened if not for the assistance of some very special people, and I wish to acknowledge and thank them. I dedicate this book to the following wonderful, talented people. I feel lucky to share the planet with every one of them.

To Gayle Wilson, whose words of wisdom broke the dam! I was stuck fast, but you inspired me at NJRW, 2002.

To Molly Herwood, who went above and beyond to help me find the information I needed.

To WTVH-5’s Maureen Greene and Melissa Medalie, who helped me get inside the head of a news anchor. To photojournalists John and Al, who changed my entire concept of this book’s hero. And to everyone else in the newsroom at WTVH-5 Syracuse, for your invaluable assistance and inspiration.

To David O. Norris, veteran cop, skilled P.I. and Captain of the Genesee Belle for unwavering support and tireless advice, and for helping me get the “cop stuff” right.

To my precious husband, Rick, who stands between me and the world like a suit of armor. Without you, I’d be done for.

I’d also like to thank those I think of as “my team.” My agent, Eileen Fallon, for her solid guidance, wise advice and for her steady hands at the helm of my career. My editors: Leslie Wainger, who has been in my corner, supporting me and believing in me from the very start, and to Dianne Moggy and Amy Moore-Benson, who had the faith to embrace both sides of this writer’s split personality by welcoming both my vampires and my suspense novels into the MIRA family. My editors deserve sainthood for putting up with an author who changes the story while the back cover copy is being written—and never once flinching or complaining.

Thank you, all. My life is richer (and my books are better) because of you.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Prologue

“Can’t you see that we’ll die if we don’t get the hell out of here?”

“We won’t, Jewel,” Lizzie whispered. “Mordecai would never let anything happen to us. Not to us.” Her voice changed to a singsong kind of coo. “No, he wouldn’t. Not to his own baby, would he, Sunshine? No.” She sat cuddling her newborn daughter in the rocking chair Mordecai Young, “the reverend,” had brought into their quarters.

They no longer had to room in the barracks with the other so-called Young Believers. Mordecai Young had moved his special girls into the spacious attic of the main house, where he could be closer to them.

“Lizzie, you’re being stupid. You’re forgetting the plan.” Jewel paced the length of the large room, growing more and more agitated. “And it was working so damn well.”

Lizzie looked at her and for a moment Jewel thought she saw the sharp mind and clear eyes of the girl her friend had been six months ago. “It was,” Lizzie said. “We made him believe we loved him, didn’t we? And it worked.”

It had worked. Mordecai had made them his right hands. They had access to the house. They ate better. He never hit them anymore.

“But, Jewel, I’m not acting anymore. I love him.”

“He’s a criminal. Jesus, Lizzie, he takes in runaways and makes us into slaves. He has armed guards and those dogs of his patrolling the compound in case any of us try to leave. We’re fenced in, fed all the drugs he can slip into our food to keep us complacent while we listen to his sermons and cultivate his crops. And you’ve seen the weapons room. He’s got more firepower than the freaking National Guard down there!”

Unmoved by Jewel’s impassioned speech, Lizzie stroked a forefinger along her baby’s whisper-soft cheek. “He’s my daughter’s father.”

“He’s a drug dealer with a Messiah complex, Lizzie. And this is no place for a baby.” She moved closer, ran a palm over Sunny’s silken baby hair. “We have to get out—for her sake.”

Lizzie closed her eyes. A tear squeezed through her lashes. “I know. I know you’re right. I just…I don’t think he means to be…I think he really believes the things he tells us.”

Maybe he did, Jewel thought. Maybe he really did believe he was more enlightened than the rest of the world, or that he’d been chosen by God to be his new messenger and ordered to create this compound. And that the marijuana crop didn’t do much real harm, and that it was the good he could do with the money it brought in that made it all right in the eyes of the Almighty.

Yeah, maybe he really did believe all that. Which made him insane, and even more dangerous.

“He loves her. It’ll kill him to lose her.”

“He wants to control her,” Jewel insisted. “He named her. He sets her schedule. When she eats, when she sleeps, when she’s bathed, how often you get to hold her. He sees her as something he owns, just like us.”

“It’s just his way.”

Jewel thinned her lips. “Tonight,” she said. “I made a special snack for the dogs. It ought to put them out of commission. We’ll tell the guard at the gate that Sunshine is sick and that Mordecai ordered us to get her to a hospital. If he gives us any trouble—” She took the paring knife out of her jeans pocket. “I snatched this from the kitchen tonight.”

“My God, Jewel!” Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Why can’t we try to go out through the tunnels?”

“How, when he keeps the only key on a chain around his neck?” Jewel put a firm hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “I’m seventeen years old, Lizzie. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in this prison. And neither is she,” she added with a nod at Sunshine. “I love her, too, you know.”

“I know you do.” Lizzie sighed, lifting her eyes. “What about Sirona and Tessa?”

“I don’t know. Since he moved them into the main house, he’s been visiting us less and less at night. I think he’s going to get tired of us soon, anyway. We lose favor, we end up back out in the barracks. And you know that wouldn’t be good for the baby.”

“I know.” She looked more sad, though, than afraid. Sad that her lover was spending time with other women. She’d never minded sharing him with Jewel. But that was different. They were like sisters, the two of them.

“I’d like to take Sirona and Tessa with us, but I’m not sure we can trust them not to run straight to Mordecai if we tell them our plan.”

“I don’t like them, anyway,” Lizzie said.

She was pale and far too thin. She’d been bleeding heavily since giving birth—too heavily, in Jewel’s opinion, but then again, what did she know? It had been seven weeks. She thought it should have stopped by now. Lizzie wasn’t the same spunky, fun-loving girl she’d been when Jewel had met her on the streets. They’d heard rumors of this place, that it was a dream come true for runaways.

It wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare.

They both looked up quickly as they heard his unmistakable footsteps, coming up the stairs. The door opened, and he stood there, with his warm brown eyes, long, mink hair, and neatly trimmed beard. He wore white robes and sandals, and he looked for all the world like Jesus. But when he spoke, the illusion was shattered by his soft Southern twang.

“I need to take li’l Sunshine now. Bedtime.” He smiled as he looked at the baby.

Lizzie kissed her child’s forehead and hurried to hand her over to her father. “Good night, my sweet baby.”

Jewel watched him take the baby. He stared down at the child adoringly, his brown eyes softer than ever. “You’re a special li’l girl, you know that? The daughter of the Son. You’re blessed, my Sunshine. You’re blessed.” Then, as he turned and carried the baby away, he began to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

“Mordecai,” Jewel said, knowing he would be angry at her interruption, but daring it all the same.

He turned, scowling at her.

“I’m worried about Sunny. Do you really think it’s safe for her here, with the drugs and the weapons and all?”

“Do you think I’d risk my only child?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “I just—I overheard you talking to one of the guards today. You said there had been some kind of…government men asking questions in town.”

He walked closer to her, his face gentle—right up until his fist connected with her jaw, knocking her backward to the floor. Lizzie shot to her feet, rushing to where Jewel landed.

“Let that be a lesson to you about eavesdroppin’,” Mordecai said. “Haven’t I taught you better?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, a hand on her face, not daring to get to her feet. Lizzie was leaning over her, hands on her shoulders, but she turned now to the man who stood nearby, cradling the baby in his arms.

“You didn’t answer her question, Mordecai. What happens if these government men try to come in here? What we’re doing isn’t exactly legal. And you have all those guns—”

Sighing, he gazed down adoringly on his child. “It’s as I’ve always told all of you, mankind is not ready for a soul like mine. They may very well try to kill me, in the end. And if they do—well, now, what better place for my only child than with her daddy?”

“You—you mean…?”

“Death is nothing to fear, you know. Haven’t I taught you as much? Haven’t you learned a thing in your time here?” He shook his head slowly, then turned and carried the baby out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Lizzie hurled herself after him, only to collide with the door. When she went to tear it open, it had been locked from the outside. She pounded on it uselessly, then collapsed against the wood, sobbing.

Jewel got to her feet and went to her friend, sliding her arms around her and pulling her close.

“Oh, God, you were right, Jewel. You were right. He doesn’t care if Sunny lives or dies!”

“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll take her with us. Everything will be okay.”

“I thought he loved her,” Lizzie sobbed. “I thought he loved us!”

“He only loves his own crazy ideas. He loves the power he has over all of us. He loves being in control and this God complex of his. And he loves money. God, he’s got scads of it down there somewhere.”

Lizzie lifted her head. “I know where he keeps it. It’s in the escape tunnel.” She stared hard at Jewel. “It’s almost as if he knows something horrible is going to happen. It’s like he’s…preparing for it.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t be here when it does. And neither will our baby.”

As it turned out, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

They awoke to the sound of gunfire, rapid and loud.

Jewel leaped out of bed and ran for the door. “It’s coming from inside the house!” The knob wouldn’t turn in her hand, though.

Lizzie was at the window, looking out. “From outside, too! There are soldiers!” Her entire body jerked backward when the glass shattered, and she hit the floor.

“Lizzie!” Jewel ran to her, sliding across the floor on her knees when she got close. “Lizzie, my God.” There was blood on the front of her nightgown.

Lizzie sat up, pushing Jewel’s hands away from her belly. “It’s okay. Just a little cut. The glass.”

Jewel shook her head, terrified her friend had been hit by a bullet. “Are you sure? Let me see.”

“I’m fine, Jewel.” Lizzie pressed her palm to the bloody spot on her nightgown. Jewel tried to shift it aside to see the damage, but Lizzie pushed her away. “We have to get the baby out of here!”

“I know, I know.” Jewel helped her friend to her feet, watching her face, worried.

Lizzie went to the locked door. The gunshots were ringing out faster, louder, than before. Then something even louder than a gunshot shook the entire house, and Jewel thought she smelled smoke. Lizzie gave up twisting the knob, stood back, and kicked the door. It was an old door, and the wood began to split under the pressure of her foot. She kicked again, and then Jewel was beside her with a small metal chair in her hands. Using the chair as a battering ram, she slammed it against the door. The two took turns attacking the door, until it finally gave way under the assault. The smoke smell was stronger now, as they raced down the stairs to the second floor nursery.

But Sunny’s crib was empty. “Oh, God. Oh, God, where is she?” Lizzie moaned.

“Mordecai must have her!”

Jewel gripped her friend’s arm and tugged her out of the nursery. They ran together down to the ground floor. Fire and smoke were everywhere. The front door was open, but instead of running out of the house, people were running into it, bullets chasing them down. Some lay on the floor, dead or dying. Others stood at the windows, firing shots at the army of men outside. The front of the house was completely engulfed in flames.

“He couldn’t have got out that way!” Jewel cried.

“The basement. He must have taken her to the tunnel.”

As they ran for the basement, Jewel tripped over someone, turned to look, and saw Sirona, cowering in a corner, sobbing. Tessa was nearby, sitting on the floor looking shocky, her face blank, her body rocking.

“Come on, come with us,” Jewel said, bending to grip Tessa’s upper arm, jerking her to her feet. Sirona followed wordlessly. Lizzie was several steps ahead of them by then. The fire was spreading—chasing them it seemed. “Hurry!”

They made it to the basement stairs, then down them. It was dark, but Jewel saw Lizzie come to a sudden stop ahead of them and heard her as she shouted, “How could you? How could you try to save yourself and leave the rest of us to die?”

Jewel raced closer, shocked into stillness when she saw Mordecai there, cradling little Sunny in his arms.

“Go back to your room!” he shouted. “You have no idea what’s happening here!”

“I know exactly what’s happening.” Lizzie’s voice was weaker than before. The red stain on the front of her nightgown was larger now, spreading. There was an explosion from somewhere close. It was deafening, and it shook them physically. A loud roar followed, and Jewel felt the heat.

“Give me my daughter,” Lizzie said.

Mordecai lifted one hand, and Jewel stiffened when she saw the gun he held. “Go back or die right here.”

Jewel ran at him. He was so focused on Lizzie that he didn’t see her fast enough to fire, and she hit him with every ounce of strength she possessed, knocking him right off his feet and wrestling the baby from his arms as she fell on top of him. The gun skittered across the concrete floor. Jewel tore herself and little Sunny from Mordecai’s arms, and then it seemed like the end of the world as the beams and boards above them came crashing down like some fiery avalanche.

She was knocked to her knees, and when she managed to get up again, holding the screaming baby close, choking on the smoke and heat, she saw Lizzie on her knees. Sirona and Tessa hovered two feet away, looking terrified in the dancing light of the flaming beams that littered the floor now. And beneath one of those beams, Mordecai lay, trapped.

He held out a hand toward Lizzie. “Help me. Help me, and I’ll get you out of here.”

Lizzie got slowly to her feet and edged closer to him. She stepped carefully over and around the burning beams that crisscrossed his torso. Then she knelt beside Mordecai. “I loved you,” she told him.

“You still do, you know you do. It’ll be like I promised, Lizzie. You and me and Sunny, the plantation house in Virginia. A real family.”

“Just like you promised,” she whispered. Then she reached out…and snatched the chain with the key dangling at its end from around his neck. She looked past him then, at the other girls. “Come on.”

The flames blazed higher. Soon they would all be trapped. They hurried forward, and the four women ran as Mordecai cried out to them to save him. Then the rest of the ceiling came crashing down, and he was silent, buried under flaming debris.

“Hurry!” They made it to the secret door that was hidden behind a set of false shelving, and Lizzie took the baby from Jewel’s arms and handed her the key. Then she leaned back against the wall, as if she could barely stand on her own.

“Lizzie?”

“Just get the door.”

Jewel nodded, hurrying to fit the key to the lock, taking off the padlock, opening the door onto a pitch-dark tunnel. The air that wafted from it smelled of earth and cool dampness but, blessedly, not of smoke. “It’s open. Come on.”

She turned back to Lizzie, who had slumped to a sitting position on the floor. Lizzie leaned close to her baby, kissed her cheek. Then she lifted her gaze to Jewel’s again. “Take her,” she said, her voice so hoarse and weak that Jewel could barely hear her over the fire.

Jewel dropped the key, taking the baby from Lizzie’s arms, tucking her into one of her own and reaching down with her other hand to help Lizzie. Lizzie only shook her head from side to side and let her upper body fall backward to the floor.

“Lizzie!” Jewel leaned over her.

“Take her. Take her, Jewel. She’s yours now.”

“Get up, Lizzie. Come on, I’ll help you.”

“Take the money. There’s so much of it, there in the tunnel. Duffel bags full of it. Take it and make a good life for my Sunny.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

Lizzie smiled gently. “No. I’m leaving you.” She pressed her hand to her belly again. “It wasn’t glass, honey. It wasn’t glass at all.” Her eyes fell closed.

Jewel shook her, but there was no response.

Someone tugged Jewel away. Sirona. Tessa was already moving past them into the tunnel. “You have to go. You have to get the baby out,” Sirona said gently.

“I can’t leave her!”

“She’s gone, Jewel. She’s gone.”

The fire surged closer, brighter and hotter. Jewel got up and handed the baby to Sirona; then she took Lizzie by the wrists and dragged her limp body into the tunnel. She couldn’t bear the thought of her being burned, or ending her life so close to Mordecai Young. She pushed the door closed behind them, then turned to take the baby from Sirona again.

As she moved through the seemingly endless tunnel, she wondered how her life had managed to change so drastically over the course of one short summer. First her drunken, abusive father had hit her mother one too many times and wound up in prison for murder. Then the streets, where Jewel had fled to avoid ending up a ward of the state. Then this place, this supposed underground haven for runaway teens.

And now? What now?

She made her way through the tunnel, Sirona and Tessa flanking her. Eventually it grew lighter, and she spotted the duffel bags resting on the ground along the wall. She said, “Grab those and bring them. We’ll split up what’s inside once we get out of here. If we get out of here. And then we’ll go our separate ways.” She looked sternly at the two girls. “None of us can tell what happened here. Not ever, do you understand? If we do, little Sunny will end up a ward of the state—just like I almost was—or worse yet, with Lizzie’s family, whoever they are. And that couldn’t have been good, or Lizzie wouldn’t be…” She swallowed hard, lowered her head. “She never even told me her last name.”

“I was in the system,” Sirona said. “It’s no place for Sunny. It’s okay. We’ll never tell.”

“There’s enough money in those bags for all of us to start fresh, start new lives. We can never look back from here. Never. It’s a pact. Understand?”

They both nodded.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

Sirona and Tessa each grabbed a bag and followed Jewel along the last leg of the tunnel. It angled slowly upward from deep in the earth, growing lighter and lighter, until finally it opened into sunlight.

They climbed out, helping each other. “It’s morning,” Sirona whispered.

Jewel turned to look back at the flames and smoke rising in the distance from what had been the Young Believers’ compound. Every building on the place must be burning, she thought. And everyone left behind must be dead.

But that was behind her. She turned her back on all of it and faced the slowly rising sun that shone its red-orange light onto her and onto the baby.

Her baby now.

“It’s Dawn,” she whispered.

Chapter One

Sixteen Years Later

Syracuse, NY

Mascara tears were so far beneath her that she could barely believe they would dare skim down her face. She speed-yanked a half-dozen tissues from the hotel-issue dispenser and wiped the trespassers off. Then she cranked on the cold water, splashed her face and went still, staring at her reflection as the water dripped from her chin.

What would Dawn think of her if she saw her mom like this? Was this the way she was raising her daughter to be? Weak? Compliant? Afraid?

No.

“I’m not paying the scrawny little bastard anymore,” she whispered to her reflection. She stood a little straighter, lifted her chin a little higher. “No more. It’s over. One way or another, it’s finished.”

She opened her purse and yanked out a compact. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing he’d made her cry. No one made her cry. Hell, she was the one who was known for making other people weep. On the air, in front of the entire city. This idiot had jerked her around long enough. The fact that he’d dared to even try—the fact that she had let him get away with it, even for a little while—it was beyond the pale.

“What the hell was I thinking?” she asked her reflection, while her hands moved to automatically and expertly return her face to a state of near perfection. “I’m not some little nobody. I’m Julie Fucking Jones.”

The doorknob of the hotel’s bathroom jiggled. She sent it a burning glance. “Keep your pants on, Harry. I’ll be out by the time room service gets here with your goddamn celebratory champagne.”

Footsteps moved rapidly away from the bathroom door.

She paused, glanced down at the mascara she’d just pulled out of the handbag, and grimaced at it. “Waterproof, my ass.” She flung it at the wastebasket, then snapped the bag shut and turned on her heel to return to the other room—to end this thing, as she should have done six months ago.