by Sandra Hill
They smiled at each other and wished they could be alone for a while.
“Later,” she said.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He left then, but not before extracting a promise from her. “Promise you won’t go to meet Nick the Prick. Wait till I get back. We’ll talk about it then.”
She didn’t exactly promise, but she leaned up to kiss him one more time, which he might have taken as a promise.
As soon as she was sure he was gone, she went back into the kitchen and addressed Brad and Sonny. “What do you want me to do?” She should probably wait until Luc, her lawyer, was with her, or until Daniel returned, but she just wanted this whole nightmare to be over.
After a half hour of rehearsals, Brad suggested that she call Nick to set up a meeting. They practiced lots of different scenarios. “If he says this, you say that.” Or “If he says that, you say this.” Sonny even wrote some notes for her to read on his computer while she was on the phone.
“When should I suggest that we meet?”
“Today. As soon as possible.”
Panic began to set in. She was not ready for this. “Won’t that seem strange to Nick, that I’m so anxious to meet with him? After all, we’ve been enemies for years now.”
“Time is our enemy. The longer we wait, the more suspicious he will get,” Brad told her.
“And a suspicious perp is a running perp,” Sonny added to emphasize Brad’s point.
Samantha insisted on calling Luc to get his advice before she committed. She put the call on speakerphone. After the agents made their case for an early meeting, Luc agreed to the plan, provided the agents contact him when they had a time and place set up so that he could be there, too. Once the police set up Angus in a viewing room, Luc said he could leave and come back to pick him up later. Or else, John could come and take Luc’s place.
So, she hit Nick’s number on her cell phone’s list of contacts and left it on open speaker.
“Nick?”
“Samantha? Where the hell have you been? I’ve left a dozen messages on your voice mail.”
“I know. I just got back in town. My cell phone was out of range until this morning.”
“Where are you now?”
“At the airport.”
“Well, come to my office right away.”
“Why should I do anything for you?”
“C’mon, Sammie, don’t you think it’s time we call a truce?”
Calling me by a hated nickname doesn’t sound like a truce to me. “A bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“Better late than never.”
“I’m not going to kiss and make up, if that’s what you have in mind.”
He laughed. “Far from it.”
“We don’t have to meet in person to make peace with each other. Do it over the phone.”
“Uh-uh! Believe me, you’ll want to know what I have to tell you, and it’s got to be face to face.”
She exchanged glances with Brad and Sonny. Could it be as easy as this? Did Nick want to confess all to her? Sounded too good to be true.
Tante Lulu murmured under her breath, “Dumb as dirt!”
Brad and Sonny glared her way and Tante Lulu made a zipping motion across her lips.
“I need to go home and shower first,” Samantha told Nick.
“No, come here first.”
He probably didn’t want her to see the mess at her house, the mess he had made. “Is it really that important?”
“Yes.”
“Nick, if this is about more of your frivolous lawsuits, forget about it. I’m not reinstating your alimony.”
“It’s not about that. This is something about . . . um . . . your family.”
“What? Did something happen to my father? Or my mother?”
“No, no, no! Nothing like that. By the way, do you know where Angus is?”
“Angus? How do you know Angus?”
“Never mind. Just come. It’s eleven-thirty now. When can you get here?”
“I don’t know. Two? Three? I need to stop by Starr Foods headquarters first.”
The FBI agents had warned her to allow at least two hours for them to wire her up and prepare her, but not to wait too long or nervousness would set in, and she’d blow the whole meeting. She probably would, anyhow. But they’d assured her that they would be a short distance away. Why was she not assured?
“See you then,” Nick said.
When she clicked off, Sonny told her, “Ya did great, darlin’.”
Brad was already on his cell phone advising the other agents or cops where they would be at “fourteen hundred hours” and to make sure there was plenty of backup.
Luc called her almost immediately when he got wind of the final plan. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t have to do it. Legally, they have no grounds for forcing you to do anything.”
“No one is forcing me, I swear.”
“Okay. I’ll try to get over to Nick’s office once I’m done here with Angus.”
After she ended the call, Tante Lulu told them all, “I’ll stay here and hold down the fort. If any bad guys show up, I’ll shoot ’em first and ask questions later.”
“Someone needs to lock up that woman,” Brad told Samantha in a loud whisper.
“Better men than you have tried,” John LeDeux remarked, on overhearing. He’d come back to try and convince his aunt to go home. Fat chance of that happening now.
“Cain’t anyone take a joke?” Tante Lulu asked.
“Some joke!” Brad muttered.
“C’mon, auntie. I’ll drive you home and pick up your car later.”
“Not yet,” Tante Lulu said. “I jist started the roux fer the étouffée. Besides, someone needs ta look after the animals.”
“Well, I’ll come back fer ya later then,” John said, “but do not . . . I repeat, do not drive home yerself. The police are threatenin’ to put a boot on your vehicle ta prevent it from movin’.”
“Yer the police, Tee-John.”
He rolled his eyes. “The other police.”
“Whatever ya say, sweetie.”
“Yeah, right,” John said, rolling his eyes at the others in the room.
Brad and Sonny went out to the front driveway to get the wiring equipment from their vehicle, and John went with them. Which left Samantha alone with Tante Lulu.
Tante Lulu set two glasses of iced sweet tea on the table, along with two slices of her Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake that she’d thawed from her freezer. She motioned for Samantha to sit down across from her. You’d think this was her home, the way she took over.
“Now, let’s talk about the thunderbolt,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Love makes fools of men . . . and women, too . . .
Daniel was reclining beside Molly on her hospital bed, his one arm around her little shoulders, the other arm holding his iPhone in front of them both. Her face was pressed against his chest, and he could feel the heat of her fever even through the cloth of his shirt. He’d been shocked by the blueish shadows under her eyes and her labored breathing when he’d first arrived. What a change from yesterday!
He kissed the fuzz on her bald head, which she usually kept covered, and it was like the down of a dandelion. People, like Samantha, couldn’t understand his aversion to having children of his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t like children. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have specialized in pediatrics. But the attachment to them was just too strong, too devastating when it was broken. Molly was a case in point. He hardly knew her, and yet . . . and yet!
Molly hadn’t let him shut down his phone since he’d first shown her the present she would get when she got better. It was the picture of the seven kittens, and Molly couldn’t make up her mind between the pure white or the yellow-and-black striped one. Of course, their colors might be entirely different when they lost their birth hair, but she didn’t see
m to care about that.
It was presumptuous of him to promise a pet to a child without the parents’ approval, but he would worry about that later. Somehow, he would make it happen.
“That one!” she decided conclusively, pointing her finger at the white one. “Snowball.”
“Are you sure? Bumble is cute, too.” Molly had given each of the kittens names. The yellow-and-black one was named after . . . what else . . . ? A bumblebee.
“No. Snowball is smaller, like me. And you told me she’s a girl. Bumble is a boy. Maybe you could find a boy to adopt Bumble.”
Somebody is going to take all seven of these cats, that’s for sure. Maybe even eight, if Maxine can be thrown into the mix.
Molly had acute myeloid leukemia and while she had responded well to the initial high dosage of chemo, today she had relapsed, and her white cell count had skyrocketed. A stem cell transplant was her only hope, but she had to be in remission for that to take place.
Ideally, one of her siblings would be a good donor match, but both parents had to agree to the procedure, and thus far, Molly’s mother couldn’t be reached. Her father was a match, thankfully, and although parent to child bone marrow transplants weren’t common, they could be done. But that meant getting Molly back into remission and getting her father here from Savannah.
“I want my daddy,” Molly said, suddenly losing interest in the kittens.
“I know, sweetheart. He’s on his way.” He glanced up to see a nurse approaching with a syringe. “Why don’t you take a nap, and maybe your daddy will be here when you wake up?”
“I don’t wanna sleep,” Molly whined, even as she cuddled even closer into his embrace.
To distract her, he began to describe the situation at his home. He’d told her about the plantation before. Now, he said, “Did I tell you about the animals who have come to visit me this week? There’s a biiiiiig dog, who has a sore hip, and can only move around slowly. Then, there’s a biiiiig cat that looks like a cougar. Do you know what a cougar is? Yes, the wild animals with the stripes. And get this . . . a little pig called Emily who follows me around like a shadow.”
Molly giggled at that. A wonderful sound, especially considering how bad she must feel. She didn’t even notice the needle entering her upper arm.
“And did I tell you about the bird . . . a cockatoo . . . that can only say one thing, and it’s a bad word? Maybe if you came to visit one day, you could teach Clarence some new words.”
“Betcha I could,” Molly said.
Within minutes, she was fast asleep, and he was able to slip off the bed. The nurse arranged the child more comfortably in the bed, and checked her temperature once again. “No change,” she remarked shortly.
George came in then and motioned for him to come out into the hall. “Did you get her father on the line?” George asked him.
“I did. He should be en route, as we speak.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Threats. Bribery.”
George laughed, halfheartedly. “When I talked to him earlier, he had a half dozen excuses. Couldn’t get off work; he just got a new job working construction. No money for gas. His car needs repairs. No place to stay when he gets here. All legitimate excuses, of course, but . . .”
“I offered him a job and a place to stay until Molly gets better.”
“What?” George blinked at him with surprise. “Doing what? Staying where?”
It had been a spur of the moment decision, but one that could work out well. “Aaron and I can never get enough help renovating that damn plantation house. If Molly’s dad can wield a paintbrush or hammer a nail, he can work for us. For a while, anyway. And I figure one of those old slave cottages is better than the run-down motels where he’s been staying, even without indoor plumbing. Hell, he can put plumbing in, if he has the expertise.”
George was smiling at him. He didn’t have to say the words. He knew that Daniel was being pulled back into medicine, whether he wanted it or not. Fact is, he was ready.
After he left the medical center, with a promise to George that he would check in later, Daniel sat in his car and looked over the ridiculous grocery list Samantha and Tante Lulu had put together. He tapped his fingertips on the steering wheel. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Something had been niggling at the back of his brain ever since he’d left the plantation.
He thought about his last words with Samantha, and suddenly he knew what the problem was. Samantha was going to meet with her ex-husband, despite his asking . . . rather, telling . . . her not to.
Fear shot through him. Nick was a desperate man, as the FBI agent had told them, and desperate men were unpredictable. There was no knowing what Nick might do to Samantha to get what he wanted.
Then the fear was replaced with anger. How dare she take such chances? If she didn’t care about herself, why didn’t she care about his feelings?
But then, how did she know what his feelings were? He didn’t know himself.
He called Samantha’s cell phone, and was not surprised to get no answer. Then he tried Luc and John LeDeux’s respective cell phone numbers. No answers there, either. Finally, he tried the last resort. Tante Lulu.
She answered on the first ring.
“Tante Lulu, is Samantha there?”
“No. Do ya know where the Tabasco sauce is? I cain’t find it nowhere.”
“What do you mean, no? Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Samantha.”
“Oh, I ain’t supposed ta say.”
That was answer enough for Daniel. He clicked off and put his car in gear, heading toward New Orleans. He had a rough idea where Nick’s new medical building was located.
He saw enough evidence of the harm that came to people, without trying. He’d be damned if he’d let her put herself in harm’s way, willingly.
As a result, he drove like a maniac north on 90 toward New Orleans, and had no trouble finding Nick’s three-story Southern Women’s Maternity Center, which looked like a mini Taj Mahal. No wonder he was in financial trouble. All black onyx, marble, and glass. It even had a dome and finial on top like the Indian architectural wonder. Obviously, the clientele served here had to be of the wealthy class (except for Nick’s black market baby mothers). No way would regular insurance pay for the kind of luxury this place exuded.
He assumed there were already unmarked police and FBI vehicles parked around the perimeter of the building. At least, he could hope so, for the benefit of Samantha’s safety.
He picked a spot near the front entrance and hesitated, not sure if Samantha and her “posse” had arrived yet. He could go in and case out the place, maybe ask a receptionist if they’d seen Dr. Coltrane’s ex-wife, but then the question was taken out of his hands as he saw Samantha’s BMW pull into the far end of the lot.
“I knew it!” he muttered to himself as he realized he’d been half hoping that he’d been wrong. That she really wouldn’t be coming to meet Nick the Prick as he went looney-bird, batshit crazy.
Her BMW was immediately followed by several other vehicles that were probably the FBI and/or local police, although they were innocuous enough. A Comcast van. A beat-up pickup truck. A private mini-bus for handicapped folks. And, holy crap! Was that an ice cream wagon? The vehicles pulled in on either side of Samantha’s BMW and one just across the lane from her. The ice cream trunk was parked off to one side of the parking lot, near the building, though he noticed its bell wasn’t ringing. There was also a black guy with expensive sunglasses trimming the bushes, and a female jogger, with the biceps of a linebacker, who’d made two laps around the parking lot so far.
And Samantha was dead center, like a bull’s-eye, in the middle of this goat rodeo. He exited his car with a foul expletive that caused the lady getting out of the next car with a toddler to flinch. “Sorry.”
After riding in his air-conditioned car, the hot Louisiana sun hit him like a blow. Hotheaded came immediately to mind, in more ways than one. He stomped q
uickly to the back of the parking lot so he would be out of range of any security cameras in case Coltrane was watching. Though the good doctor wouldn’t have any reason to be suspicious of him. As far as Daniel knew, Coltrane wasn’t even aware of his existence.
The FBI saw him almost immediately. In fact, there were probably other agents planted around the lot and even inside the building, prepared to record Samantha’s wired meeting. And they expected Samantha to suddenly become some kind of Jennifer Garner/Sydney Bristow CIA agent from the old TV series, Alias. Insanity!
Brad Dillon stepped out of one side of a cable company van, and Sonny Sonnier stepped out of the other. The fire in their eyes turned the temperature about ten degrees higher. And that fire was aimed at him.
Brad held a map in one hand and pretended to be asking Daniel for direction but, instead, he hissed, even as he took hold of his upper arm, “What the hell are you doing here, LeDeux?”
Sonnier came around his other side, also grabbing an arm. “I shoulda known. Ya cain’t tell a LeDeux ta do nothin’.” The agents and law enforcement officers in the other vehicles were probably shaking their heads at the crazy ass doctor who was going to ruin the show.
Almost magically, the sliding door on the side of the van opened and he was shoved inside, and Samantha was shoved into the other side, rather stunned.
“I give you five minutes to send this asshole home or we abort this mission,” Dillon told Samantha.
“Let me jist shoot ’im with a stun gun. Quicker and more fun,” Sonnier said.
“No, give me the stun gun. I’ll take care of him.” Samantha shot him a look that would curdle milk.
He sank down onto the bench seat facing hers, and the sliding doors slammed shut. There was even a click of the lock. What did they think he was going to do? Pick her up in his arms and run from the vehicle. Even if he made it out, in this heat, he wouldn’t make it ten feet. Hell, even without this heat, he wouldn’t make it that far.
He made a quick survey of her appearance and felt a little sick. Yeah, she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on this morning, but she’d amped up the sex factor with makeup, hooker high heels, and a scarf around her waist that pulled her blouse tighter against her breasts. A wave of unwarranted possessiveness swept over him as he realized she’d done all of this to impress her ex-husband. That was unreasonable, he knew, but what place had reason in a jealous mind?
