"I am a messenger come to sue for peace between two warring factions."
"Have you been nipping at the sherry again?"
Jane chuckled. "Tess pleaded with me to chase after you—"
"She what?"
"—and to tell you that she loves you more than anything in her life, except me, of course, and that she thinks you're absolutely right and will do exactly as you say." Jane stared at her phone, which was silent. "Hello?"
"That doesn't sound at all like Tess," Luke said at last.
"That's what I said, but she assured me you were right. Were you?"
"Of course I was! But it's not like Tess to have anyone act as her messenger."
"Luke?"
His voice was tight with tension. "I've got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, Jane. I'm heading back right now and you … I think you'd better stay right where you are."
"Well, of all the absurd—"
The phone went dead in Jane's hand.
* * *
"If we're going to get away from WEB, we'll need cash. Lots of it," Bert said at last.
"Your Swiss bank accounts—"
"Have unaccountably been closed … by someone."
Tess's eyes widened with feigned horror. "Crud. WEB is onto you big-time, then."
"That was my impression."
Tess shoved her hands onto her hips to keep them steady. "Well, look, I've got the Farleigh. It's not cash, but it can bring us some soon. In the meantime, we've probably got enough money between us to at least get out of the country."
Bert suddenly reached out, his hand tangling in her hair as he jerked her painfully against him. "I don't want a companion on this little getaway. All I want is the Farleigh … and my pound of flesh."
"W-w-what do you mean?"
Bert's free hand slashed against Tess's face once. "Someone set me up! The Weinstein apartment was bugged!" He hit her again, harder. The world exploded in her head. "There was a tracker on my Lincoln!" He hit her again, sending her crashing to the floor three feet away from him.
* * *
Luke's car phone rang imperiously at him, once, twice. He grabbed it on the third ring.
"Jane, I don't want—"
"It's not Jane, it's Leroy. We've got trouble."
The Jaguar suddenly swerved. A white Mazda in the right lane blared its horn at him as he passed it.
Luke forced his hand to remain steady on the wheel. "What trouble?"
"I got a call from a WEB agent by the name of Blake Thornton about an hour ago. He and his partner have been tailing Bert for more than three weeks now. And they lost him about two hours ago."
"They what?"
"They began searching and then called me. Seems they know all about my work for you. They needed some fast, knowledgeable help and I was it. We figured your Bert was on his way out of the country. But I just got a call from Hunter. It seems Bert had some unfinished business. He didn't head for an airport. He's at the Cushman estate."
* * *
Tess's face was burning, her head ringing, from the minor beating Bert had just given her. She moved slowly, cautiously on the floor. She didn't want to give him any excuse to get rougher.
"Bert, what the hell is this?" she said, rising to her feet and staring up at him, the picture of baffled innocence. "I know you're tense about WEB—I'm scared to death, myself—but that's no reason to start beating up your best girl."
This time she had him. He didn't even try to hide his surprise. "Okay," he said slowly. "I'll cut you a deal. You give me the Farleigh and I'll let you get out of here alive."
"Thanks a lot. What about my ten percent?"
"You opted for the empire, babe, and you lost. That's your hard luck. I want the Farleigh."
Tess stared up at him a moment and then sighed heavily. "Okay. I can crack one of the wall safes and make off with something to make this job worthwhile. But tell me something first, Bert," she said, playing for time, hoping to distract him just enough. "Twenty years ago, when you were calling yourself Hal Marsh and kidnapped me, did you plan to resell me back to my family sooner than later?"
Bert stared at her. Then a slow, appreciative smile spread across his face. "So, you know."
"Yes," Tess said calmly.
"How long have you known?"
"Long enough. I was … um … surprised at first, but then I saw the humor in the situation."
Bert beamed at her. "Selling the real article as a fake. What a con! I tell you, Tess, I've lain awake at night just laughing."
"So have I, Bert, so have I. So what happened twenty years ago? Why did you dump me with the Carswells?"
"Ah, the damn job went sour from the start. You're the reason I didn't go into kidnapping full-time. God, what a mess! First you fall off the ladder and Jerry and I don't know if you're gonna live or die, then Jerry gets cold feet. Wanted to turn himself in, the bastard."
"Who was Jerry?"
"Jerry Burns, used to be an underbutler for the Cushmans. He was my inside man."
"So, did you ice the jittery Jerry?"
Bert shrugged his massive shoulders. "Sure. I'd always planned to, of course, just not so soon. There I was without a partner, a half-dead kid on my hands, and every cop and Fed in the country looking for me. You were so hot, there was no way I could ransom you for the million dollars I had demanded. So, I hid out for a few weeks, cut your hair, and then sold you to the Carswells for a thousand bucks. A lousy thousand bucks," he muttered, his gray eyes glittering as he glared at Tess. "I was expecting a cool million and you only brought me a thousand bucks. I figured you owed me big-time, babe, and I meant to get what was due me one way or the other."
Tess's stomach turned over. "Is that why you bought me back from the Carswells?
He smiled, grimly amused. "Oh, I'd figured a way to get my million out of you by then. I decided to give the cops five or six years to give up on the case, buy you back from the Carswells, and then ransom you to the Cushmans. But when Violet brought you to me in Charleston, you didn't recognize me. That's when my brain shifted into overdrive. I decided to sell you back to the Cushmans, all right, but only after you'd been trained, only after you were a good enough thief, a good enough con, to pull the job off and snare me a hell of a lot more than a million. And it worked. You did a great job, babe."
"Thanks, Bert. That means a lot to me. I have just one comment." Tess pulled her WEB identification and badge from her left pocket, the gun from her right pocket, and grinned. "You're busted, babe! You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used—"
Bert stared at her. Then he laughed. "Very funny, little girl. You had me going for a minute."
"It's no joke, Bert. I really do work for WEB and you really are going to jail for lots and lots of years."
His gray eyes narrowed into murderous slits. "So it was you."
"The biggest and the best con I ever pulled," Tess said proudly. "You trained me well, Bert. You know all of those jobs we so fondly recalled during my prep time for this con? You were right: Weinstein's apartment was wired. Those conservations are on tape. You confessed to over thirty different criminal activities from theft to murder. My WEB associates have gathered the corroborating evidence for your stateside activities and, with a little reluctance from your former associates, they've found enough evidence on your Australian and South American drug syndicates to make even Noriega's defense attorney blanch. We've … er … convinced Mendoza to testify against you."
Bert went a little green at that.
"Now, I want you to very gently remove the thirty-eight from your shoulder holster with your left hand and set it on the ground and then kick it, gently, toward me."
"What thirty-eight?"
"Oh, give me a break, Bert. That gun is practically welded to your body by this point. Take it out, now."
Slowly, his eyes never leaving Tess, he removed the gun from his shoulder holster, set it on the ground, and shoved i
t toward Tess with his foot.
"Thank you."
Tess was pocketing her badge and ID when Bert leapt at her.
* * *
Luke nearly rear-ended Jane's Mercedes as his Jaguar screeched to a stop at the front door of the Cushman mansion.
He was out of his car and holding Jane's car door closed in the next moment. "Stay here!"
"Would you care to rephrase that?" Jane said icily.
"Bert's inside, dammit! He may be holding Tess!"
The blood drained from Jane's face.
Luke ran up the front steps, jerked open the front door, and looked wildly around. Where was she? Was she safe? Was she already dead?
A gunshot broke the silence.
Luke's heart slammed into his throat. The library!
He ran down the hall, drenched in cold perspiration. A second gunshot made his hand shudder on the library door as he pulled it open.
"Tess!" he yelled.
Bert had bent her backward over the library desk. Blood streamed from his shoulder as they fought for possession of the gun in Tess's hand. Luke's yell had distracted Bert long enough for Tess to knee him savagely in the groin. His bellow of pain was abruptly cut off. Luke had a hammer lock around his throat. Terrified and enraged, he could conceive of no greater pleasure than strangling Bert here and now. He swung him off Tess and into the center of the room.
Bert's face, what he could see of it, was turning purple as he gagged and gasped for air, struggling to get free.
"Luke, stop!" Tess screamed. "You're killing him!"
She was pulling at his shoulders. He shrugged her off. All he needed was a moment or two more and Bert's neck would snap.
Suddenly two hands grasped his hair and jerked his head back. "Don't you dare kill him!" Tess growled, her blue eyes burning into his.
Slowly Luke became aware of just what he was doing and about to do. With a gasp, he released Ben, who collapsed on the floor. He stared down at him, nearly dizzy with the rage and fear still churning within him. He had almost killed a man!
"Tess—" he said raggedly.
She slipped her arms around him and hugged him tight. "It's okay," she whispered. "I know the feeling."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Here," she said, pressing the gun into his right hand. "You'd better hold this. My hands are shaking so badly, I'm more likely to hit you than Bert if he tries anything."
"Thank God. Thank God you're safe!" Luke whispered hoarsely as he held her tight. He was shaking. Dimly he was aware of the warm tears slowly trailing down his face. "I was so scared that I'd lost you—"
"Never," Tess murmured, pressing her lips to his. "You are never going to get rid of me."
Bert groaned on the floor and struggled to his hands and knees. Instantly, Luke shifted Tess into his left arm and aimed the small automatic at him.
The precaution was not necessary for in the next moment three people, armed to the teeth, burst into the library. The first was a woman with thick black hair pulled back into a French braid. She had a forty-five aimed at Bert's head. The second was a man. He frightened Luke almost as much as Bert had. His hair was blond, nearly white. His eyes were an ominous black. He was tall, heavily muscled. His face was the hardest, coldest face Luke had ever seen. He too was holding a gun on Bert. The third person was Leroy Baldwin.
"Are we interrupting anything?" the woman inquired with a startling Irish accent.
"Think of it as a mop-up operation, Diana, and glad to have you!" Tess said.
"Why is he bleeding?" the blond man demanded, his soft Southern accent in chilling contrast to the hardness in his voice.
"I shot him," Tess replied. "Resisting arrest and all that."
"Where the bloody hell did you of all people get a gun?" the woman demanded.
"I stole it, of course," Tess replied. "There's a large collection of guns behind us and, as I've said more than once, the locks in this house are pitiful."
"Tess?"
Jane was standing in the doorway. She looked bloodless, her face aged a hundred years.
"Grandmother, I'm fine," Tess said, breaking free of Luke's arms to run to Jane and hold her tight. "The nightmare is over, I promise."
"I was so worried," Jane whispered.
"Me, too."
Suddenly Jane pushed Tess to arm's length. "Is that why you sent me off on that fool's errand after Luke? Bert was here and you were trying to get me out of the house?"
"He would have hurt you if he'd had the chance," Tess said gently.
"Fortunately," the blond man said, "he didn't and he won't." While the Irish woman covered him, he quickly and thoroughly frisked Bert. He removed a switchblade from a small holster on his calf and tossed it to the woman.
"Tess, who are these people?" Jane demanded.
"Oh, now where are my manners?" Tess exclaimed. "Allow me to introduce Blake Thornton and Diana Hunter, WEB agents and my able assistants on this job."
"What job?" Jane said.
Tess blushed. "It is time to explain, isn't it? I came into this house to con Bert. To catch him in the execution of a federal crime. I never knew I'd find you. I never knew I would endanger you. I was only thinking of my revenge, of seeing his face when I told him who the real mark was on this job. But as Luke so … cogently … pointed out, Blake and Diana and I already had enough evidence to have him arrested and jailed for the next thousand years. So, I told Blake and Diana to arrest him. Unfortunately, Bert had already slipped his leash and came looking for me. I had to be sure he didn't find you, too. And … there's one more thing, Grandmother. Bert has used the name Hal Marsh in the past. He's the man who kidnapped me."
"Kidnapped you?" Leroy Baldwin said, staring at her. "Do you mean you really are Elizabeth Cushman?"
Tess laughed. "Ironic, isn't it? I came to this house to get my revenge, and found my family instead."
"I love it," Diana stated. "I always said you were born with class, Tess."
"Thank you, Diana."
Suddenly Luke pulled Tess toward him. "What happened to your face?" he said grimly.
"Oh crud, has it started to bruise already?" Tess said, her hands going to her cheeks.
"Did that monster hit you?" Jane demanded.
"Only a little," Tess said gently. "I'm used to it. It's okay, Grandmother, really."
"No, it is not okay," Luke seethed, pulling her into his arms. "The next time we have an argument, you storm out of the house. Got it?"
"Got it," Tess replied with a grin. She glanced across at Diana. "What about Bert's stooges?"
"His so-called surveillance team is cooling their heels in jail," Diana replied as she holstered her gun. "I hate amateurs."
"This has all been a terrible strain for you, Diana, I know," Tess said.
Diana suddenly laughed and kissed Tess on her cheek. "You don't know the half of it!"
Blake handcuffed Bert and then, holding on to the cuffs, jerked him to his feet.
Bert bellowed with pain.
"If you're so delicate, you shouldn't be in the business," Blake advised him in a soft voice that sent chills down Luke's back. "You hurt a friend of mine. I don't like that. I'd like to make you pay for it here and now. But I'll let the justice system do it for me. Federal penitentiaries are notoriously … rigorous, you know."
Diana laughed.
"Federal penitentiary," Tess said with a happy sigh. "What a wonderful sound. It just rolls off your lips like music: federal penitentiary."
"You'll never even get me to trial," Bert sneered. "I've got connections—"
"Of course you do, Bert," Tess said soothingly. "Phil Larkin, Barry Kincaid, and the others. They're all in jail waiting for their own trials right now."
"We like to be thorough," Diana explained.
"And we wanted you very badly," Blake said in his chilling, soft voice.
"It is times like these," Luke said, holding Tess close, "that I wish I worked for the Feds. But don't worry, Bert, old buddy, old pal,
" he said as he directed his own chilling gaze at the monster. "I have friends in high places. Sometimes it pays to be a Mansfield. I'll make sure you get the prosecutor and the judge from Hell for your trial."
Blake eyed Luke with interest. "I like this man."
"So do I," Tess aid.
To Luke's surprise, Blake reached out and pulled Tess to him, hugging her for a moment and then releasing her.
"It was brilliantly done, Tess," he said. "You can be my group leader anytime."
"Thanks," Tess said softly.
"It's been a grand game, Tess," Diana said. "You're certainly the best con I've ever come across, and that's saying a lot. I can't wait to work the next job with you."
"Oh gee, Diana, I can't," Tess said. "I'm retiring from WEB. I'm going to be much too busy to pull any more jobs. You see, I have to learn how to run the Cushman empire … and I'm getting married very, very soon. Aren't I?" she said, looking at Luke.
"Very soon," Luke growled, pulling her back into his arms and kissing her hard. He looked up at Diana long enough to catch his breath. "Want to come to the wedding?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Diana said with a grin.
Tess clung to him in a most pleasing and trusting manner. "You're first on the guest list, Leroy," Luke said.
"Consider the tux rented," Leroy said with a grin.
"I won't get married if you're not there, Blake," Tess said.
"You won't be able to keep me away," he said. "I love crying at weddings."
She smiled with open affection at the agent. "I always knew you were a softie. That thirty-eight of Bert's that you pocketed is probably the same one he used to kill a fence by the name of Eddie Grafton seven years go. You might want to run it through ballistics."
"I love the way you work," Blake murmured. He and Diana led Bert from the room, Leroy trailing behind.
Taking a steadying breath, Tess walked up to Jane and pulled both of her aged hands into her own. Even across the room, Luke could see that Tess was shaking.
"I have an apology to make, but words don't seem enough somehow," she said. "I came into this house to con Bert, which meant conning you. Deceiving you. Using you. I didn't care about that. All I cared about was putting Bert behind bars. Nothing else mattered. That was unforgivable of me. Just because I've turned out to really be what I pretended is no excuse. I want to apologize for every lie, every deception, and for today's pyrotechnics. But today … Bert called the game. I had to finish the job I started."
STOLEN HEARTS Page 23
