Bodyguard Reunion

by Beverly Long

  Tears filled the woman’s eyes. “She told me that nobody was going to get hurt. She promised me.”

  “Who?” he asked, his voice soft, controlled.

  “Sadie. My sister Sadie.”

  “What’s Sadie’s last name?” Royce asked.

  “Sadie Isman. She’s married to Wayne Isman.”

  Noise roared in Royce’s head. Isman had lied to protect his wife. “I need Isman’s room number,” he said, looking at Sonya.

  She didn’t offer even a token protest about guest privacy. She simply looked it up. “Room 720.”

  * * *

  Royce called Detective Mannis and gave him the short version of events. Mannis listened, saying a quiet swear word when Royce identified the imposter as Sadie Isman.

  “Wayne Isman is in room 720,” Royce said.

  “Royce, this is a police matter. I’m five minutes out from the hotel. Don’t do anything until I get there. I don’t want to have to arrest you for interfering in an investigation.”

  “Then you better hurry,” Royce said, hanging up.

  In the meantime, he wanted to know what the Woods knew about Sadie Isman. He took the elevator to the twelfth floor and rapped on their door. Eileen quickly opened it.

  “Any news?” she asked. It appeared she’d shed some tears while he’d been gone.

  “Yes,” he said. He looked over her shoulder. It was only Barry in the room. “Where is Cambridge?” Royce asked.

  “He left right after you. I think he wanted to talk to Wayne.”

  “I just spoke to a woman named Annie Slip. She is Sadie Isman’s sister.”

  Something flared in Eileen’s eyes and Royce was pretty sure it was fear.

  “She has admitted loaning her sister a hotel uniform. Sadie is the woman who abducted Jules.” He paused. “There is no way that Wayne Isman didn’t know that. And he didn’t tell us.”

  Neither Eileen nor Barry said anything. But like before, a look passed between them.

  “I swear to God if the two of you don’t stop doing that, I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  “I’m sorry, Royce,” Eileen said. “It’s just that these are things that we’ve known for years but have never talked to another person about. It’s a hard habit to break. But you’re right, now’s the time. I have no idea what his wife knows. For many years, our paths have crossed socially, more times than not at Joel’s condo when he’d be hosting some kind of party or event. I don’t care for her. She is really quite attractive, you know, when you first meet her, but when you get to know her, there is something about that woman that is deeply disturbing.”

  “In what way?” he said.

  “She’s a social climber. Loves the fact that her husband is successful, that he’s called upon to speak around the world. Loves the money he earns. Loves her perfect little family, with her perfect children. She really acts like she’s better than the rest of us.”

  That was the kind of woman who wouldn’t be happy when it became public knowledge that her husband had had a male lover for the duration of their marriage.

  What would she do to protect that secret? Run an innocent woman off the road? Kidnap multiple people? Kill?

  But for the first time since he’d walked into the ballroom and Jules hadn’t been there, he felt hope. All they had to do was find Sadie Isman and they would find Jules and the others.

  His phone buzzed. Detective Mannis was in the hotel, on his way to the seventh floor. Royce took off and met the man in the lobby. “I think Joel Cambridge is in Isman’s room.”

  “Be ready,” was all Detective Mannis said.

  They knocked on the door. There was no response. “Las Vegas Police Department, Mr. Isman,” Detective Mannis said. “We need to talk with you. Open the door.”

  Royce pulled his phone to get Sonya up there with a key. But just then, the door swung open. It was Isman. The man had been crying. Inside the room, standing by the window, was Joel Cambridge. He also looked as if some tears had been shed.

  There was an open suitcase on the bed. It appeared Isman was packing to leave.

  “I’m Detective Mannis and I think you know Royce Morgan.” The detective stepped into the room and Royce followed, closing the door behind him.

  It was a regular hotel room, with one king bed and a dresser. There was a table and two chairs by the window.

  Nobody sat.

  “Mr. Isman, we have reason to believe that the woman who abducted JC was your wife, Sadie Isman.”

  Royce heard a gasp come from Joel Cambridge.

  Wayne said nothing but he did sink down onto the end of the bed, next to his suitcase. He looked down at his shoes. Royce told himself to count to ten before he ripped the man’s face off.

  Evidently, Detective Mannis felt similarly. “Mr. Isman, may I see your phone?” he asked.

  “Why? Why would you want to see it?” Wayne said, looking up.

  “Because I’m going to make an educated guess that you’ve recently attempted to contact your wife. Your phone, please.” Mannis held out his hand.

  Royce could tell that Isman was mentally evaluating his options. His eyes registered the knowledge that he didn’t see a path out. He looked at Joel Cambridge, swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Joel. Terribly sorry.”

  “You...bastard,” Cambridge said, his voice raw with emotion. “I’ve been here for ten minutes, telling you how frightened I was about Jules and you...you knew.”

  “It will kill our girls,” Isman said. “If they find out what she’s done.”

  It seemed to be an especially cruel thing to say to a man whose own two children were at risk. And while Cambridge didn’t say so, the fury in his eyes told the story.

  “Give him your damn phone, Wayne,” Cambridge said.

  Seemingly defeated, Wayne reached into his pocket. Gave the phone to the detective.

  Mannis pushed a couple buttons. “Fourteen calls to the same number during the last half hour. No answer.”

  “Sometimes I can reason with her,” Wayne said.

  Mannis used his own phone. He rattled off the number to someone along with some quiet instructions. He hung up. “We’ll track the activity on this number. We might be able to get a location.”

  “Where would your wife have taken Jules?” Royce jumped in.

  Isman shook his head.

  Royce clenched his fist. He would beat it out of the man.

  Detective Mannis put a hand on his arm, his attention still focused on Isman. “There were two men who appear to be accomplices of your wife. Do you know who they might be?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Think,” Royce demanded.

  Isman threw up his hands. “My wife’s sister lives in Vegas. But we rarely have come to see her. We don’t have any friends here. The only person I know...” Isman stopped. Then started again. “The only person I know in Vegas is a man that my oldest daughter dated several years ago when she was in college. I thought he was trouble the first time I met him. And soon enough it fizzled out by itself.”

  “His name.”

  “Shane Cary.”

  Royce was already typing his name into his smartphone. Found an address, did a quick map lookup. “Got it. Lives outside of Vegas, maybe forty-five minutes.”

  “Let’s go,” Mannis said. “Come with us, Mr. Isman. I’m going to hand you off to officers who by now are in the lobby downstairs. I suggest on your ride to the police station that you start praying that JC Cambridge, Charity White and Louisa Goodall are just fine.”

  Chapter 25

  JC heard heels clicking on the tile floor. She motioned for Charity and Lou, who had been talking in low tones, to be quiet. She figured less than an hour had gone by since the woman had left her in the room.

/>   The door opened. The woman stood in the doorway. “It’s almost time, ladies. Just heard from Shane. He’s on his way back.”

  “Time for what?” JC asked.

  “Time for you to die,” the woman said. “I’ve got a plane to catch. The girls will be worried.”

  The girls.

  So familiar. She’d just heard someone use that term. It was Wayne. He’d said that the girls were going to join them in Europe. He had always referred to his daughters as the girls.

  She stared at the woman and she knew why she looked familiar. She’d only met her once but there had been pictures of Wayne’s daughters in his office. She could see the resemblance. “Sadie, it’s been a long time.”

  The woman’s head jerked up. “So you finally put it all together, huh?”

  Charity and Lou were looking at her, clearly confused by the conversation.

  “Actually, Sadie, I’ve got a couple questions. Can we start with the letters?”

  Sadie waved a hand. “Did they amuse you? They did me. Every time I thought about you reading them and getting wigged out, I had some happy moments. Plus, I didn’t think it would hurt to have the cops think that whatever happened to you was the work of some deranged poet.”

  “You shot at me at the Wallington Hotel,” Jules said.

  “That was Shane,” Sadie said. “He’s much better with a gun at close range. But the three of you will get a chance to experience that firsthand soon.”

  “Was it Shane who threw the bottle?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  So that had been unrelated. As they’d speculated, maybe just somebody mad at a drug company. “You said earlier that Wayne knew how to keep his mouth shut. He had done it before. What did you mean?”

  “I guess I can tell you. It’s not like you’ll have a chance to repeat it. When I forced your mother’s car off the road, my car got a little damaged. He was the one who got it fixed.”

  JC felt all the air leave her lungs. This woman had stolen her mother’s life. Stay focused. Keep her talking. “Did he know what you’d done?”

  “He never asked. Wayne and I didn’t need to discuss these things. We understand each other.”

  “Why? Why hurt my mother?”

  “Because...” The woman stopped, her face turning red. “Because she had the potential to ruin my life. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” JC said.

  “Yes, it does,” Sadie yelled. “It does.” She stood in the doorway and slammed the palm of her hand against the door frame. “If people found out about Linette and this one here,” she said, stabbing her finger in Charity’s direction, “then they were going to realize that your father was a pig. A cheating pig.”

  “Why did that matter to you?” JC pressed. If she was going to die, she was going to understand this one last thing.

  “It didn’t matter to me,” the woman screeched. She was practically foaming at the mouth. “It mattered to Wayne. I did it all for him.”

  And suddenly it made sense. After her mother had died, her father had dated sporadically but never anyone serious. She’d thought it was because he’d still been in love with her mother.

  But that wasn’t it. He’d been in love with Wayne. But the two of them had been trapped by the need to keep their relationship a secret.

  “How long did you know?” JC asked, her voice sounding as if it was coming from someone else.

  “Our youngest daughter was two.”

  Wayne’s youngest daughter was at least twenty-five years old. It was a staggeringly long time to have hidden a relationship.

  “There were unexplained absences, quiet phone calls, all the usual stuff. I thought he was having an affair. So I followed him. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that it was your father.”

  “But you didn’t leave him.”

  “I had three small children. My family meant everything to me. Of course I didn’t leave him. And—” she lifted her chin “—I still loved him. And I believed him when he said that he still loved me. We understand each other. We belong together. But I told him, there could be no more secrets.”

  Sadie turned to Charity. “That’s how I knew that your mother was stirring up trouble last year. Joel told Wayne and Wayne told me. She was a greedy bitch and she and that man, who lived in sin, by the way, deserved to die. You know, it’s easy to start a fire. So easy.”

  Charity’s face was absolutely white. But she said nothing.

  “It should have ended there. But you couldn’t let it go, could you?” Sadie asked, continuing to stare at Charity. Her voice was thick with scorn. “You were going to bleed Joel Cambridge dry and he was going to crack. I couldn’t have that. I figured you’d told your BFF.” Sadie’s gaze flickered to Lou.

  JC heard a car engine. Evidently so did Sadie. The woman smiled. “And that’s why all of you have to die. You know secrets. Secrets that need to finally be put to rest so that I can stop worrying about them. I’m so tired. So very tired.”

  She was insane. So very insane. No doubt about it.

  JC heard a car door, the house door and footsteps coming down the hall. It was the man who’d driven JC to the house. The man Sadie called Shane.

  He looked only at Sadie. “The hole is ready. Striker and I want our money.”

  “You’ll get your money,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Now.”

  JC saw her chance. “She probably intends to have you do all the work and then she’s going to find a way to kill you, too. Maybe shoot you and your brother and leave you in the hole with us.”

  “Shut up,” Sadie screamed.

  But she’d gotten Shane’s attention. “I don’t like this,” the man said.

  “I’ve got five thousand in my purse,” she said. “You can have it all. As a down payment.”

  “The price was thirty thousand,” Shane said.

  “You’ll get your money.”

  Shane fingered his scraggly mustache. And JC allowed herself to hope.

  But then he pulled his gun from his waistband and pointed it at them. “Let’s go, then. I want these women out of this house.”

  * * *

  Detective Mannis drove his SUV with lights and sirens on, keeping the speed up near one hundred on the interstate. There were three more police SUVs all doing exactly the same thing behind them. They were still five miles from Shane Cary’s house when Royce’s cell buzzed.

  He answered his phone. “Morgan.”

  “They’re moving. Red SUV going north on Furlough Road. You’re going to want to hurry.”

  “Stay on the line,” Royce said. “Turn,” he yelled at Mannis.

  The man looked at him as if he was crazy but he did it. As did the vehicles behind him. “What the hell?” he asked.

  “My partner Trey Riker, he’s in the air.” Once Royce had looked at the map of where Shane Cary’s home was located, he’d called Trey while Mannis had been busy organizing backup. On the way here, he’d gotten a text that Billy-Bob Anderson and Trey were in the air, en route to Cary’s house.

  “Jules?” Royce asked his partner.

  “Yeah. Four women and a man left the house. She looked okay.”

  But now she was being taken somewhere. It could not be good.

  “We’re going to back off a little,” his partner said. “We don’t want to spook them.”

  “Do you see us?” Royce asked, craning his neck to see out the window, to see if he could spot the plane.

  “Got you,” Trey said. “You’re two miles behind.”

  “Faster,” Royce said to Mannis. He was not going to lose Jules a second time.

  * * *

  They were going so fast that h
ad the three of them not been tightly packed in the back seat of the SUV, they’d have been bouncing around like Ping-Pong balls. Because nobody had taken the time to belt them in. And there was no way to brace themselves because their hands were still duct-taped in front of them.

  She was in the middle with Charity on one side and Lou on the other. Shane drove and Sadie, who seemed almost manic now, would look forward, then whip her head in their direction as if to make sure they were still there.

  “What’s that? What’s that plane?” she demanded, craning her neck to try to see out her closed window.

  “Don’t worry about it. He’s been flying around all week,” Shane said.

  Then she looked at her watch. “I have got to make my flight. I need to be back in New York tomorrow. I’m on the hospital foundation board,” she said brightly, looking at JC, “and we’re planning our spring event.”

  She was crazy. There was no other explanation.

  Lou leaned forward to get in her line of vision. “Well, when they ask you what you did in Vegas, make sure you tell them that you killed three innocent people.”

  Sadie’s jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. “Shut up,” she yelled, turning to face the front again. “Hurry,” she said to Shane.

  JC tapped Lou with her right knee and Charity with her left. Both girls gave her an imperceptible nod in response. They had a plan. They had agreed that their best window of escape would come when they were transported to the hole.

  Once they were out of the vehicle, they were going to make it impossible for their captors to focus on all three of them at once. They were going to split up and then run, roll, crawl, whatever it took to try to get away. Shane had a gun but he’d already proved that he wasn’t a great shot. They had to count on his poor aim.

  Lou, who had danced from the time she was in kindergarten to high school, had said she intended to kick in Sadie’s face. She’d said it calmly, like she didn’t expect it to be any big deal.