She was ashamed to admit that her thoughts kept heading in that direction these days. They never really had, except maybe in the days when she was young and naive. She wasn’t even sure he was one of the good guys. She just hoped he was.
She reached up and touched the chain of the medallion he’d given her. So far she hadn’t removed it. Had giving her this meant something more than just keeping her safe?
And were his ‘people’ really doing surveillance on her? If they were, they were good. She hadn’t noticed anyone yet. God, there were so many questions unanswered. No wonder every little thing--from Belinda being so solicitous, to Brian--the driver, up and suddenly quitting his job last week--made her uneasy.
~ * ~
“Have you got everything I need in your purse?” Mary asked Riley the following morning. It was seven-forty and Riley felt exhausted after a restless night. Mary hadn’t been feeling well again and Riley had tried to talk her out of going, cancelling everything until a later date. She’d hear none of it.
“I can’t look in my purse right now, Mary. I have to push your chair.” Riley had counted out all the items she needed to have several times, checking each one with Mary. Mary’s attention had been wandering ominously all morning. Riley prayed she wasn’t headed for another stroke.
“Are you sure you feel okay, Mary?” she asked once more. “You are taking all of the meds I’m giving you?”
“Don’t be daft, girl. I take anything that you lay out for me, don’t I? For all I know, you could be giving me poison and I’d take it.”
“Mary, really. Sometimes you forget. I’ve found pills you’ve dropped in the bed. Are you sure you’re well enough--”
“I’m fine. I’m thinking I’ll leave you behind, Jane Turner. You have been on pins and needles since you came home from the cabin. Has this weirdness got anything to do with Robert Murphy?”
Riley felt herself flush. “Nothing whatsoever. I haven’t even seen the man.”
“He’s a bad boy for not calling.”
“Why would he call? I told you, there’s nothing going on. Mary, he’s gone back to Toronto. Family troubles. He told you.”
“Who has the tickets?” she groused.
“Belinda has the tickets. I’m pretty sure we’re fine for everything. Don’t worry. You’ll be sipping champagne in Cannes by tonight,” Riley said, wheeling Mary’s chair to the waiting limo. “Seeing Todd.”
“Champagne? Will you actually let me have it?”
“I’ll pretend not to notice.”
The replacement limo driver was tall and had a droopy white mustache. As a matter of fact, everything about him drooped, his shoulders, his entire body, which slumped against the car. He wore dark sunglasses, even though it was overcast that morning, sporting an ill-fitting black wool coat and gloves.
A septuagenarian limo driver who might pass out behind the wheel. Just great, Riley mused.
Belinda came out of the house. She stopped short when she saw the driver. The man nodded to her. “Where’s the man I talked with yesterday?” she asked sharply. “Daniel?”
“Daniel took ill,” the man told her.
“You’re old enough for the grave,” said Belinda.
“I can drive ye well enough, lassie,” he said in a thick Scottish brogue. “Best be off, or ye won’t make yer flight.”
“Grandmother, I need to make a phone call,” Belinda said suddenly.
“There’s time for that in the car,” Mary snapped. “Get in. I’m sure this fossil can drive as well as this bloody Daniel person.”
The driver stepped forward and handed Belinda a card. Belinda scanned it and Riley saw her shoulders relax. A feline smile curved her frosted lips. “Fine. Everything’s fine, Grammy.”
The airport was a good forty minutes away. The driver explained that he’d take an alternate route to escape traffic. As with all international flights since the disaster in New York they had to be at the airport two hours in advance for security reasons.
“Take a faster route, please,” Belinda suggested after they were settled.
“I know just the one, lass.”
Riley wished she hadn’t tucked her glasses case into the carry-on. She was trying to gage where they were headed, but the street signs were a blur. She had a feeling that the driver had made a drastic mistake on this alternate route of his, but didn’t open the window and crane out her neck because it would look absurd, even under the circumstances. She and Mary had already had a terse talk about Riley’s lack of enthusiasm regarding the trip.
Maybe she really was getting paranoid. He mind kept returning to Robin as it seemed to do every waking moment.
What if Robin was really working for the bad guys? That was a distinct possibility. She didn’t know for sure that he hadn’t been duping her. She only knew what he had told her. It could have all been lies. He’d lied before.
Oh, God...
She didn’t have to trust him. She had no real reason to trust him. She’d just been momentarily swayed after he’d been hurt in that bar. Especially after he’d played the hero, covering her body with his.
What if those black helicopters and those people he worked with were from a terrorist network or something? Or drug dealers? It was plausible, wasn’t it?
She knew what she’d seen with her own eyes. It was possible she and Mary and Belinda could be in serious trouble right now, caught up in something bigger than they’d ever imagined.
She looked out the window. They’d passed the Krishna Temple! Even blind as she was, she couldn’t miss the glittering golden spires! That should have been his signal to take a left.
Belinda didn’t seem to notice. She gazed out the window with a private little smile on her face.
What the hell was this?
Riley decided she had to do something. She pressed the intercom button to alert the driver. Nothing happened. Perplexed, she reached out to tap on the glass that separated them from the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing?” Belinda snarled.
“I have to talk to the driver. He’s headed the wrong way.”
Riley went to tap again. The girl grabbed Riley’s wrist, digging pink polished fingernails into her flesh. “Don’t bother.”
Riley jerked her arm away. “This driver is headed the wrong way, Belinda. We have to tell him--”
“He is not headed the wrong way, Jane.”
“Belinda--”
“Jane, mind your own business. You don’t even own a car so where do you get off backseat driving--”
Riley stared at the girl, her mouth open in disbelief.
“I don’t feel very well, Jane,” Mary said from the seat across from Riley. “I think I need my heart pills.”
Riley got her purse and searched through it. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There were no pills. None. Someone had taken them out of her bag. She spilled the contents onto the seat beside her in a panic.
The car swerved right and stuff from Riley’s purse bounced all over the floor. She knew for certain now they were not headed to the airport. They were in a rural area. Riley could feel the difference in the road surface.
“You’ll be fine, Mary,” Riley told the old woman. “Belinda, get the driver to stop. Maybe I transferred everything into the carry-on by mistake.” She didn’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt to look.
Mary was now shivering, moaning against the seat. Riley pounded on the glass harder.
“Belinda, dammit!” Riley cried. She rapped on the glass again. The window whirred open.
“Keep driving,” said Belinda coolly.
Riley could take no more. “Shut the hell up, Belinda! Driver, this woman is ill. Mrs. Connors needs to get to a hospital.” Riley said, unable to hold her temper. Then something hard jabbed her several times in the ribs.
Riley turned her head to look at Belinda. She was posed there quite calmly in her Versace dress, a gun in her small hand. She lifted the gun and smiled, pointing it at Riley’s face.
>
“What are you doing? For God’s sake, Belinda! Is this a sick joke?”
The girl gave a catlike smile. “No joke. This is sort of like a kidnapping. Unfortunately you and my grandmother are going to be the victims. Don’t worry. You’ll die a hero, Jane. In her case, it’ll be of natural causes.” She looked down at Mary, who was slumped in the seat. “Doesn’t the old bat look peaceful without her mouth going a mile a minute?”
“You actually planned all this?” Riley asked.
She seemed affronted. “Of course I planned all this.”
“Where are you taking us?”
“We’ll board a private plane, a Lear that belongs to a friend of mine. You’ll both die in an accident in Europe. It’s going to look better that way.”
Riley looked down at Mary. Her face was pale, her lips drained of colour. “She’s ill, Belinda. She may be dying.” She turned away from Belinda, beseeching the driver. “Help me, please...”
“He’s in on this, idiot. He works for my lover,” Belinda said crossing shapely legs. “It wasn’t supposed to happen quite like this. I was told that the alterations to her medications would take days to kick in rather than a week. I thought she’d just die in bed and Louis would take care of it.” She sounded worried for a second, then brightened. “This is a better plan. Louis will still look after it for me now, of course, like he looked after everything else for me.”
Riley stared at the girl, horrified. “Will you at least let me make her comfortable? She’s flopped there like a rag doll.” Riley’s heart clenched just seeing Mary’s pitiful little form.
“No need. She’ll be dead soon. Like you will,” Belinda said.
Riley shook her head in disbelief. “I want to know something, Belinda. Was Robert in on this? Robert Murphy?”
“That clown?” Belinda scoffed. “I never saw him before that party. I’ll admit he might be exciting to sleep with, but in a matter of days I’m going to be with a man who puts every other man to shame.” She said this with the zealous, glassy-eyed affirmation of a cult member. “I’m going to marry a man whose power is legendary. I am going to marry him and be the freaking queen of the world,” she bragged.
She almost wanted to giggle to think that Belinda was killing her family to become queen of the world, vacuous little princess that she was already...
Riley appealed to the driver again. “Will you please let me help this lady? I need to see if she’s still breathing.”
Belinda gave an icy little smile. “Sorry. He can’t do that.”
Anger and fear made a vein in Riley’s temple throb painfully. Mary was going to die. She was going to die, too. “You had Todd killed, didn’t you?” Riley stated in a quiet voice.
“Todd?” She gave a little laugh. “I didn’t have to do anything really. He was stupid. He sealed his own fate getting involved willingly in that drugs-for-cars thing. Louis said he’d go for it like a cat to cream.”
“A drugs-for-cars thing?” Riley repeated.
“Louis just had to introduce him to some people who’d take him where we wanted him to go,” she said, her wide blue eyes growing more and more maniacal.
“And you think you’re going to inherit all Mary’s money now? Is that the plan?”
“That’s the plan. If she dies I get it all.” The car lurched suddenly and Belinda was tossed in the seat. Unfortunately she didn’t drop the gun. Riley had been trying to keep her head from ricocheting off the car’s roof, too.
“God, you stupid old man. Can’t you drive better than this?” Belinda shrieked, banging on the glass.
“Sorry, m’dear,” the driver called.
“And are you going to hand all that cash over to this new husband?” Riley asked. Belinda stiffened slightly at that. “I suppose he’s a modern man. He’ll allow you to handle it all yourself, won’t he? Have you thought about what might happen if Todd isn’t really dead?” Riley inquired. “Have you thought about what might happen if he turns up and tells the cops what he knows?”
Belinda flinched ever so slightly.
“You may have screwed up here, Belinda,” Riley said. “As a matter of fact I know you screwed up.”
“What exactly do you know, Jane?” she asked.
“I saw him.”
“You are lying!”
Riley smiled. “I saw him being pulled out of a ravine in Washington. He was alive, as far as I could see.”
“He’s dead. That call from Monte Carlo was faked.”
Riley shrugged. “Whatever.”
“I’m going to enjoy killing you, Jane. This is taking too long, driver! I have to meet someone in less than an hour.”
The driver looked into the mirror, his mirrored sunglasses revealing nothing. “I’ll get you where you should be. But I suggest that you put down the gun, Miss Connors. Before it goes off.”
The man’s voice!
Robin...
Oh, God... What was this? Was Robin here to save her or harm her? Riley schooled her features to show no recognition. She probably looked so terrified anyway, so Belinda wouldn’t notice a change.
“Put the gun down, Belinda. This is all over,” he said suddenly, softly, finally.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, sitting up like a demented chipmunk, obviously astonished.
The man took off his glasses and his hat. A silvery powder that had covered his hair floated around the cab, lit by a beam of sunlight through the windshield.
Belinda’s face blanched. “No. No!”
“Give up on this, please. It’s over.”
Before Riley could move, Belinda lifted the gun and aimed at the back of his head. Robin did nothing, just grinned in the mirror.
“Shut the window, Robin!” Riley cried. He did nothing. She grabbed at the small, manicured hand that held the gun. It went off with a loud report, the bullet slamming through the glass divider and shattering it into little square pieces. It missed Robin by inches. The car swerved into oncoming traffic. He kept it on the road as car horns blared behind them.
Riley had to give up trying to keep the unconscious Mary on the seat when Belinda grabbed Riley by the hair and viciously yanked. She fell to her knees on the carpeted floor and grabbed blindly at Belinda’s arm, digging her nails into flesh. Belinda swore and the gun went off with a loud report.
The car swerved on the soft shoulder again and Riley realized that she’d been shot. It was weird. It had barely hurt at all, more like a blow to her shoulder, like someone had punched her hard.
“Hang on!” Robin cried. “I can’t pull over on this bridge.”
Belinda answered by pulling the trigger again. The bullet slammed through the front seat and the car lurched again, scraping the cement guardrail with a loud screech.
Suddenly a bone deep calm filled Riley. She launched herself at the girl with all the strength that she had, mashing Belinda’s face into the leather-clad door frame. Belinda still had the gun. Riley wondered how many times it would fire. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold off Belinda. She felt weaker by the moment as blood soaked through her beige wool jacket.
It didn’t even register that the car had stopped until the door suddenly flew open behind her screaming adversary and the two of them toppled like rag dolls into the muddy culvert. Riley landed on top of Belinda, finally able to wrest the gun from her hand.
~ * ~
“What’s going on?” Otis was screaming in Rob’s ear. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s all over, Otis. I don’t give a crap about getting Vasco. This gig’s finished. Call in for some medical help fast. The old lady’s in some kind of coma and Riley’s been shot.” Rob ripped off his headset and tossed it on the ground.
He yanked the stupefied Belinda out of the muddy water of the drainage ditch, dragging her by the scruff of the neck to the back of the car and cuffing her to the bumper with his belt. Riley, who was bleeding, but quite alert, had scrambled up the bank herself trying to get to Mary.
�
�Riley, darlin’, go sit in the front seat. Let me see to the old lady,” he told her.
Riley’s green eyes welled with tears of pain and anger. “Will you be able to save Mary?”
There was a crowd forming on the highway shoulder. He heard police sirens wailing in the distance. Mary didn’t look good, but she was alive. “Someone will be here any minute. She’s still breathing, Riley. Let me look at that gunshot.”
She stiffened. She was covered with mud and blood and weeds from the ditch. She had never looked more beautiful to him. She was alive. “No, I don’t need your help. You used me again, didn’t you? Your people?”
“Riley, I’m sorry. You knew that we had to do this. After what Todd told us--”
She blinked. “He’s still alive?”
“He’s recovering at a secure location. No one was supposed to get hurt. We assumed it was simple, that Belinda was rendezvousing with Vasco’s people. We intended to follow. I’m sorry. She did it all for him. We didn’t know how she’d try to kill you and Mary. We assumed that she’d arrange Mary’s death in Europe.”
“She did it for this Vasco? She would have killed for him?”
“Yes. We know she tried to have Todd killed. She wanted the entire inheritance. She did it all to be with Louis Vasco. Even after she knew he may have done something to cause her father’s death.”
“Guess that’s what happens when you fall for the wrong man.”
Rob gave a dry little laugh as he approached her. “Guess so. Riley, why? Why didn’t you just let her shoot me?”
“Don’t be an ass, Robin.”
He shook his head, pulling her hand away firmly from the wound and applying a more steady pressure to her shoulder. “You’re a very brave girl.”
“I think I’d have to be to get mixed up with someone like you.”
“This isn’t bad,” he said tightly. “It’s probably passed through muscle.”
“Will you be able get this character now? Will you get what you’re looking for?”
He spoke though gritted teeth. “That doesn’t matter anymore. He’s probably slipped through the cracks again. I don’t care. Let Otis worry about it.”
B. G. McCarthy - A Thief At Heart Page 22
