“This is my daughter, Rachael Janes, soon to be Rachael Janes Abbott. I’m adopting her so she’ll be mine legally, as she should have been from the beginning.

“Rachael, your uncle Quincy and your aunt Laurel and my brother-in-law Stefanos.” And he rubbed his hands together, he was that happy, that excited. He hugged her against his side, kissed her forehead. “Rachael Abbott—now that has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Quincy cleared his throat, looked beyond Rachael’s left shoulder. “She does perhaps resemble you a bit, but you must be responsible here, take your time to do things right. You must have DNA tests, make certain she is who she says she is.”

Jimmy said simply, “She’s my very image. Come on now, Quin, admit it. And there are simply some things you know to your soul. Listen to me, this is an evening to celebrate. I have another daughter I never knew about. I remember her mother, Angela, have thought of her often over the years. There is no doubt, and just looking at her, you know there’s no question as to her paternity. Now, let’s have some champagne.”

Rachael sipped the French champagne as she eyed the braised French snails and the French sauced beef tips. The only thing French she liked was baguettes, but there wasn’t any baguette. Laurel and Quincy were civil, but she knew they weren’t happy, knew they distrusted her, believed she’d suckered their brother. As for Stefanos Kostas, he looked at her like he’d just as soon have her sitting naked astride his lap, her tongue down his throat.

“What does Jacqueline have to say about this?” Quincy asked.

Jimmy shrugged. “Who cares what she thinks? I would like Rachael to meet her half sisters. I think they’d all get along well.” To Rachael, he said, “Elaine and Carla both live in Chicago, as I told you. They’re both married. I’m a grandfather twice over now.”

A long, long evening, Rachael thought, and felt her face had frozen into a rictus of a smile by the time Jimmy closed the door on his two siblings.

“They’ll come around,” Jimmy said, hugging her. “Don’t worry,” and he gave her a big sloppy kiss. “Fact is, they’ve got no choice.”

It seemed so long ago, a different life, but it wasn’t. She felt the sun warm on her face now as she looked over at Jack. “I remember thinking we could simply ignore them if they didn’t like me. As long as I live, I’ll remember how Jimmy never doubted me. Sure, I looked like him, but still he was powerful, rich, and famous, and I was nobody.

“Even if he’d been a serial killer, I’d have readily forgiven him.”

“What’d your mom say?”

Rachael smiled. “She was surprised because it never occurred to her he would even remember her. She’d warned me that a DNA test would be the proper thing to do, didn’t matter that I looked like him, and that when it was brought up, I shouldn’t be insulted.”

And Rachael told Jack again about the night Jimmy broke down and told her about the little girl on the bicycle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such desolation in a person’s eyes, such misery, such despair—”

There was a yell.

“Rachael, Jack, come here!” It was Gillette and he was shouting from the front porch. “Hurry! Now!”

Without a pause, Jack drew his gun, grabbed Rachael’s hand, and they ran in a crouch, back to the house.

A spray of gunfire erupted as the three of them dove through the open front door.

TWENTY

Gillette slammed the door, crawled to the side, and reached over to shoot the dead bolt through.

Bullets tore through the door, sending splinters flying. The beautiful high arched windows shattered, spewing glass shards everywhere. They heard bullets gouging the walls.

“Cover your heads,” Jack yelled, pulling Rachael beneath him. “Gillette, stay down.”

Round after round struck the house. No front window was left unshattered. Rachael struggled to breathe, and finally, Jack leaned up. She yelled over the shots, “Uncle Gillette, how did you know they were here?”

Gillette was panting as he pulled a wooden splinter out of the back of his hand. “There was a break in the perimeter alarm. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I knew it had to be trouble. Well, malfunctions sometimes happen, but I wasn’t about to take any chances, not with your situation, Rachael.”

Glory be, Jack thought, an alarm. The gunfire stopped for a moment. Jack said, “Both of you stay down, don’t go anywhere near that door or the windows.”

Gillette was already on his hands and knees. “I’ve got weapons upstairs. I’ll get them.”

“All right, but keep down. No marine hotdogging.”

Gillette laughed as he elbow crawled toward the stairs. Another spray of bullets tore through the line of front windows, striking a side wall, shattering a beautiful gilded mirror.

“Don’t you move a muscle, Rachael,” Jack said, elbowing his own way over to the window. At a break in the gunfire, he peered out, saw a shadow of movement and returned fire with his Kimber. He had only one extra clip so he had to pace himself.

“They’re destroying this beautiful house,” Rachael said.

Gillette returned to the foyer, bent nearly double, clutching two rifles. He fell to his knees and crawled between two front windows to get to them.

Jack said, “Gillette, do you shoot as well as Rachael?”

“I’m a marine,” he said. “Who do you think taught her?”

“Good point. The two of you keep the guys out front contained. There are more, I know it, and I don’t want them coming in behind us. Back entrances, Gillette?”

“There’s only one back door. In the kitchen.”

“Keep your heads down,” Jack said, and kept low to the floor. He felt the heat of some of the bullets flying over his head on their way to thud into the walls. The gilded mirror finally crashed to the floor, wood and glass flying everywhere.

When Jack was out of the line of fire, he jumped to his feet and ran down the hallway toward the kitchen. He felt a stab of exquisite pain in his thigh, ignored it. He stepped into the kitchen at the exact moment a man came in the back door. Jack fell to his knees and rolled, four bullets stitching the cabinets behind him. He heard one dig into the beautiful marble floor.

And that really made him mad. He came up on his side and yelled, “Hey!”