LITMIR.BIZ

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orders and contact the Hong Kong police...not yet. But he was also smart enough to know that paying the ransom demanded, no matter how much, wasn’t a guarantee he’d ever see his daughters again—alive or dead. He had to do something. His life would be over if anything happened to Linden and Laurel.

      Dirk gave a hand to help Chet to his feet, then led his daughters’ nanny and bodyguard into the living room while Patrick called his cousin. “What else can you remember about the kidnappers?” he asked Vanessa as he seated her on the sofa. He grabbed a notepad and pen from where they sat beside the phone and handed them to her. “Jot down every detail you can think of while it’s fresh in your mind.”

      He turned to Chet, who was hovering beside the sofa, and brusquely indicated he should sit, too. “I know you were unconscious, but do you remember anything before they hit you?”

      Chet shook his head as he sat. “I don’t even remember answering the door,” he admitted. “Vanessa says I did, so I must have, but...” He touched the swelling on his forehead, feeling it gingerly. “I just remember coming to on the floor in the girls’ bedroom, bound and gagged beside Vanessa. The twins were already gone.”

      Patrick entered the living room saying, “My cousin will take a cab and be here in less than fifteen minutes—assuming they’re still running with the typhoon about to hit soon.”

      Dirk glanced at Vanessa. “What have you got for a description so far?” Before she could answer, he turned his attention back to Patrick. “Linden and Laurel don’t like strangers. They’d probably have been crying at the very least, maybe even screaming, so how could the kidnappers get away without anyone noticing and calling the police?”

      Patrick shook his head. “I’ll bet anything your daughters weren’t conscious when they were taken out of here. The kidnappers wouldn’t want to take a chance someone would notice them.”

      “Chloroform,” Dirk said, a chill of recognition washing through him. “That’s what that smell was when I first walked in.” His anger went from white-hot to ice-cold. “Those sons of bitches chloroformed my little girls for money.”

      His iPhone rang suddenly, and he answered immediately, even though the caller’s ID was blocked. “Yes?”

      “Mr. DeWinter?” The voice was as American as his own, silky smooth, with menacing overtones.

      “Yes?”

      “We have your daughters.”

      Dirk drew a deep breath, tamping down his sudden, overwhelming rage. “Whatever the price is, I’ll pay it.”

      The voice on the other end of the line laughed softly. “Of course you will, Mr. DeWinter. Of course you will.”

      “How much?” he demanded. He put a tight clamp on his emotions, trying to force himself to focus, as if this was happening to someone else. His brain was already operating at warp speed when he said, “But you have to give me time. Everything’s closed here—banks, everything—because of the typhoon. I can have the money wired from the States tomorrow, but—”

      The cold voice cut him off. “You’ll be contacted with the details—how much, when and where. But don’t worry, you’ll have all the time you need. The only thing you need to know right now is, if you call the police, your daughters are dead.”

      “I haven’t called them.” He thanked God that Vanessa and Patrick had stopped him.

      Then everything else was driven from Dirk’s mind when the other man said, “Very good, Mr. DeWinter. Or should I say...Mr. Summers?”

      All the strength went out of Dirk’s legs, and he sank into the nearest armchair. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

      “Terrell Blackwood sends his regards.” Then the phone went dead.

      Dirk’s eyes squeezed shut. “They’re dead,” he said under his breath, trying to take in the reality. “Oh, God, they’re dead.”

      A long-ago memory surfaced, Terrell Blackwood screaming at him across the courtroom, “You’ll pay for this, Summers! You’ll pay in blood!”

      He’d already paid, every day of his life. The scar on his body was nothing compared to the scar on his soul. He’d carried the knowledge of what he’d done with him, weighing on his conscience, making him the man he was. Until Bree had died, he’d managed to suppress his guilt, though, had managed to convince himself his motive had been pure.

      But God had seen into his heart and had known the truth—and made him pay. He was still paying. That punishment he could bear. What he couldn’t bear was knowing Bree had also paid when she was totally innocent. Just like his daughters—totally innocent. A memory flashed into his mind, him wild with grief, telling Juliana the day before Bree’s funeral, This is my punishment. God is punishing me, but she paid the price.

      And if anything happened to Linden and Laurel because of him...he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

      Vanessa, Chet and Patrick all stared at Dirk strangely, but Vanessa spoke first. “What do you mean...they’re dead?” she asked in a halting, choked voice. “They can’t be dead. That’s—” She broke off suddenly.

      Dirk’s brows drew together in a question, but the sound of the suite’s doorbell distracted him. Patrick turned to answer the door, but Dirk was faster. He yanked the door open, then stared in incomprehension at the beautiful, dark-haired Eurasian woman standing there. The woman in the red dress from two weeks before. The woman who’d haunted his dreams. Mei-li Moore.

      “Yes?” He had no idea why she was there, but he strove for patience. “Can I help you, Miss Moore?”

      “I think it’s the other way around, Mr. DeWinter,” she replied with a smile intended to put him at his ease. “My cousin said you need my assistance.”

      Patrick was right beside Dirk, and now he said, “Mei-li! Thanks for coming so quickly.” He reached around Dirk and tugged her inside, then closed the door.

      Dirk hadn’t been expecting Patrick’s cousin to be a woman. That’s all he could think of to account for his sudden inability to process what he was seeing and hearing. That, and his emotional turmoil over the kidnapping and the mention of Terrell Blackwood’s name. He wasn’t sexist. He really wasn’t. But when Patrick had said his cousin was a private investigator and a ransom negotiator, he’d immediately envisioned a man. Especially here in Hong Kong, where even now women were struggling for equality in many professions. It wasn’t as bad in Hong Kong as it was on the Chinese mainland, but women here still had a long way to go to achieve even what the women in the United States had.

      And since Hong Kong had a stringent restriction on firearms possession—the three bodyguards he’d brought with him from the States had been forced to leave their weapons behind—many private investigators didn’t even carry guns, the great equalizer between men and women.

      All those thoughts flashed through Dirk’s brain in less than a minute. And at the same time he realized this could actually work to his advantage. If the kidnappers were watching him—as the threats voiced to Vanessa indicated—they might not suspect Mei-li was a private investigator working the kidnapping case.

      Assuming his daughters weren’t already dead.

      That brought him back around to his immediate reaction to hearing Terrell Blackwood’s name. And it didn’t take him any time at all to realize that if Blackwood was involved, ransom probably wasn’t the sole motive for the kidnapping. Far from it.

      “Mr. DeWinter?”

      The strong, cultured voice belonged to Sir Joshua Moore’s daughter. “I need to find out everything you know as quickly as possible,” Mei-li continued. “Patrick couldn’t tell me much over the phone, just that the kidnappers warned you not to call the police, and you haven’t done so. Is that still the case?”

      “Yes.”

      “I think that’s

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