by Debra Webb
The blonde nodded. “She came here…once.”
“Do you recall the date?” Ted prepared to make a mental note.
“About two weeks ago.” Camille Soto wrung her hands now, the enormous rock on her left ring finger an obstacle to her apprehensive movements.
A gift from the doc? he wondered.
“Was there a public confrontation?”
Another concise nod. “I was working. She made quite a scene.” She released a heavy breath. “The whole thing’s documented if you’d like to watch the security surveillance recording.”
Bingo. Documented. That warning that his instincts had been gearing up to screeched into a full wail now. Something was way off here. “That was the first and only time the two of you have met?” Ted watched her eyes closely as she responded.
She blinked. “Yes.” Then she looked away.
The lady wasn’t a very good liar. “Did security take care of the incident or was it necessary to call the police?” He had a feeling he already knew the answer before he bothered to ask.
“Security escorted her off the property.” Direct eye contact now.
“Did you take any legal action? An order of protection?”
She shook her head, the pain in her expression seemingly real. “I didn’t want to embarrass Brent. His reputation is very important to his practice. He could lose clients over that sort of thing.”
“Was Dr. Vandiver here when this confrontation occurred?”
“No, thank goodness. He was in New York, at a medical conference.”
She’d relaxed substantially since the topic turned to the wife’s exploits. “Would you like something to drink?” Now that she had relaxed, he wanted to ensure she stayed that way through a few more key questions. Questions that she might not want to answer.
“No.” She looked around the room. “I need to know where he is.” She searched Ted’s face. “You’re sure he’s all right?”
He inclined his head and studied her just as intently. “Do you have reason to believe he’s in danger?”
Her lips pinched for a time before she answered. “I…told you his wife is unstable.”
“You did.” He braced for her reaction. “But you are the other woman. The chances of hearing a compliment about the wife are slim to none.”
She shifted her position on the sofa, reached into her jacket pocket. “I should try his cell phone again. He should have called me back by now.”
“You have my word, Ms. Soto.” Ted stood. “Dr. Vandiver is safe.” He crossed to the laptop. There was no reason not to show her that the doctor was right next door. Ted had gotten all he was likely to at this point.
One point he had gleaned was that all parties involved in this investigation were keeping secrets.
The image on the screen sent adrenaline firing through his veins.
“He’s still not answering.”
Ted ignored her comment.
He was at the door in three rapid strides.
The blonde called after him as he bounded into the corridor but he didn’t look back.
The door to his room stood wide open.
Moving cautiously, he eased into the room, where Friedman was supposed to be babysitting Vandiver.
Deserted.
Ted had been right next door. Separated by one thin wall.
There hadn’t been a sound.
No scream.
A tumbler of Scotch sat on the table in front of the sofa. Friedman’s purse lay on the bar.
All was exactly as it should be except for one thing.
The overturned chair said all that Ted needed to know.
Friedman and Vandiver had not left of their own free will.
Chapter Seven
Wednesday, 1:05 a.m.
“Get her in the car.”
Nora didn’t relent in her struggle. She glared at the ape attempting to shove her into the backseat next to Vandiver. Let him see her determination.
“Now!” his buddy roared from across the top of the car.
The jerk crushing her arm rammed the muzzle of his weapon into her rib cage. “Get in.”
Like he was going to kill her.
“Make me,” she tossed back, showing no fear.
Fear equated to weakness.
Weakness would get her killed even faster.
A furtive glance at the guy waiting at the driver’s side door confirmed her assumption.
They weren’t going to kill her or Vandiver…yet.
Not that she was a mind reader, but she’d heard the one who appeared to be in charge say that their orders were to bring her in undamaged. Maybe Vandiver didn’t matter.
Just as the guy’s attention shifted back to her, she plowed upward with the heel of her left hand, connecting with his Adam’s apple.
He stumbled back, gagging and choking.
She tore free of his grip and reached for his weapon.
The very idea that they’d come here unarmed. The Colby rules were nuts!
Her head jerked back from the abrupt, cruel grip in her hair. “Drop the weapon and get in the damned car,” the jerk in charge spat against her ear. The muzzle of his weapon jammed into her skull to emphasize his fierce statement.
“All you had to do was ask nicely.” She unclenched her fingers and let the weapon bounce on the concrete floor of the parking garage.
The brute purposely bumped her head against the roof of the car as he shoved her into the backseat. She winced. Bastard.
The front doors slammed shut and the tires squealed as the car lunged like a rocket out of the parking slot. They’d backed into the spot closest to the elevator for a fast getaway.
Nora rubbed at her head. Any minute now, if not already, Tallant would realize they were gone and he would give pursuit.
Without a weapon. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
She scowled at the creeps in the front seat, dressed like Wall Street execs, driving a European luxury sedan. Weapons kept hidden until there was no choice but to show excessive force.
Not like any P.I.s she’d ever encountered.
Who gave the order to ensure she was unharmed? Who were these guys?
Trouble, she mused, that was for sure.
“What’s happening?” Vandiver whispered.
She turned to face him, nose to nose since he was leaning toward her. Not that he’d intended to get so close. The driver had taken the time to blindfold him before shoving him into the car. That they hadn’t bothered to do the same to her spoke volumes about intent. Mostly vis-à-vis her.
Another bad sign.
“Hold on,” she whispered back, frustrated as hell—mostly at herself for letting these nimrods get them in the car. Seemed it wasn’t her night, after all. “Let me get my crystal ball and I’ll tell you exactly what’s going on.”
The doctor’s face had paled despite his store-bought tan and the blindfold that covered a good portion of it. The pallor had slid all the way down his throat. “What do they want?”
They’d been abducted. Couldn’t be good any way you looked at it. Still, she had an assignment and she wasn’t about to let Tallant get a heads-up on her. “You tell me, Doc. Maybe these are the guys your wife hired.”
His sharp intake of breath told her he hadn’t even thought of that. Maybe she was crazy, but if, as he’d insisted, he was truly worried about his wife’s plans for him that would have been the first thought to cross his mind. She stared straight ahead, shook her head. “That’s what I thought.”
He clammed up like the latest fresh catch on the dinner menu.
“What do you want?” she demanded of their hosts. She had no intention of sitting back here and waiting to see what happened.
“You’ll know soon enough,” the driver said with a vicious glare in the rearview mirror.
So much for straight talk. She’d keep her eye on the shorter guy—the one in the front passenger seat who’d let her tag-team his weapon. He was the weaker of the two. For sure the least experienced. All she need
ed was one more opportunity before they got where they were going.
She glanced at Vandiver, who’d caved without so much as a struggle. He would be on his own if he didn’t have the guts to make a run for it.
Yeah, and Jim Colby would have her hide when she got back to Chicago.
Twenty minutes later they had left the Strip behind for the unending road that seemed to disappear into the dark desolation of the desert.
They had patted down both her and Vandiver. Taken his wallet and cell phone. Her purse was in the room. If she hadn’t tossed the communications link Tallant had given her that could help. She had nothing. Damn it.
Wait.
Vandiver’s cell phone was up front with the two goons.
A smile pushed the corners of her mouth upward. All Tallant had to do was activate the tracking software of the communications interceptor she’d added to Vandiver’s cell phone and he could track their movements.
As if the driver had read her mind, he picked up the cell phone in question, removed the battery, then threw both out the window.
Dark or no, when the driver made the next right, recognition flared deep in Nora’s brain.
Hope…certainty…bravado…all of them drained as surely out of her as if her throat had been sliced.
She knew this place.
Whether she gasped or stiffened, she couldn’t say, but whatever she did, Vandiver was suddenly leaning toward her again. “What?”
“Shut up!” the short guy growled.
Just as well. She didn’t need Vandiver freaking out on her and he probably would if she told him they were as good as dead. The guy’s hands weren’t even tied and he hadn’t once reached up to attempt removing his blindfold. No way this guy could be planning to kill his wife. He was way too lightweight for that.
The long drive was lit only by the moon. As they rounded the final curve, the mansion came into view. The barren landscape and soaring mountains around the massive fortress were lit up like a lost piece of the Vegas Strip that had somehow ended up out here in the middle of nowhere.
Sweat dampened her skin as the towering gates opened, beckoning them into the enemy’s lair.
Why couldn’t this bastard be dead?
Why hadn’t someone grown a backbone and put a bullet straight through his arrogant head?
Just her luck.
Karma or something equally annoying.
She’d stepped on too many toes. Used too many people when the need arose.
Now she would pay the price.
The car stopped and she reached for the door. No point waiting for the shortest of the two apes to drag her from the backseat.
The business end of a handgun flew up to her face. “One wrong move and I’ll have to disobey orders,” her escort warned. He’d jumped out of the front passenger seat and leveled his weapon before she’d had time to open the door and get one foot on the ground.
Evidently he’d dredged up a little courage during the doomed ride.
“Do I look stupid to you?” she demanded, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
The driver ape had wrenched Vandiver from the car. This time the poor guy resisted.
Too little, too late.
He shouldn’t bother.
Barring a flat-out miracle, they were toast.
As they climbed the front steps, memories of the last time she was here flickered like a bad movie reel in her head. Falling down those stone steps. Rolling onto her back and putting a bullet right between the eyes of one bodyguard. A shot to a kneecap of another. Then she’d scrambled to her feet and run like hell, barely making it through the gate as it closed behind the property owner as he drove away.
He’d thought she was dead by the time he cleared the gate. Imagine his surprise when she’d put a bullet into one of the tires of his limo. She’d aimed for the driver and for him, but in the condition she’d been in, she’d missed them both.
She’d eaten the dust left in the wake of the vehicle’s frantic departure.
Then she’d grown a brain and run like hell. Luckily a passing car had picked her up before the rest of his security could rally and come after her.
The door opened and a third well-dressed goon stepped back for them to enter.
“Take him downstairs,” the guy closing the door announced. “He’s waiting in the study for her.”
He.
Yeah, him.
Vandiver called out to her in desperation as the short guy dragged him away.
So much for this case.
Tallant was going to be seriously ticked.
The driver jerk manacled her arm and hauled her farther down the long entry hall. Second door on the left. She knew the way. She hadn’t needed any directions.
He shoved her through the door, then closed it behind her.
He sat in a leather wingback, a His Majesty’s Reserve cigar in his hand. Only the best for the reigning emperor of Sin City.
“It’s been a long time, Nora.” He puffed the hand-rolled cigar, which cost more than most people earned in a week.
She walked to the closest chair and dropped into it. “Not long enough.”
“You look well.”
Who else would be wearing a two-thousand-dollar silk suit at two in the morning? Imported leather shoes. Not a hair out of place, though there was more gray at the temples than before.
Only Ivan Romero, the man who owned the largest piece of every casino on the Strip. Sadistic scumbag.
“I thought you’d be dead by now.” She relaxed into the chair.
Those evil brown eyes flickered with scarcely contained fury even as a smile split his deceptively handsome face. “You left me quite a mess the last time you visited my fair city.”
His city. Right. She presented him with an equally insincere smile. “I try.”
“Why are you here?”
The smile was gone and so was his patience. Time to get down to the nitty-gritty.
“I’m here on business.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared back at him with matching frigidity.
“Whose business?”
“Not yours.” That would be his foremost concern.
“Shall I ask the question again, querida?”
She arched an eyebrow at the disingenuous endearment. “Checking out a cheating spouse,” she said, knowing exactly what nerve that would hit.
Fury blazed in his expression just as surely as if he’d spontaneously combusted. “Still making a living prying into the private affairs of others, I see.”
Affairs being the key word there. “Why don’t we cut to the chase, Ivan? You cheated on, abused and almost killed your wife. I helped her leave you and start a new life with a brand-new identity, which you still can’t crack. We’ve been down this road before. I don’t know where she is or what her new name is. That was the deal. I can’t divulge what I don’t know.”
Even the woman’s own father didn’t know the final details. The two had said their goodbyes ahead of Nora’s setting the operation into motion.
Chalk one up for her. Nora resisted the impulse to lick her finger and hold it up in the air.
“I’m well aware that you did your job thoroughly,” Romero admitted. “If it was possible to find her, I would have done so by now. I’ve come to terms with that reality.”
“Then why am I here?” This little tête-à-tête seemed like a colossal waste of time to her. Vandiver was likely hysterical. Nora had an investigation to conduct.
“I didn’t arrive at this understanding overnight,” Romero reminded. “It was slow in coming. When I admitted defeat, I shifted my energies to a different avenue of satisfaction.”
Revenge. Yeah, she got it. That was why she was here after all these years.
“Imagine my surprise when you showed up here.” He laughed softly. “You always did have perfect timing.”
Yeah, yeah. Give her a gold star.
“I’ve waited five long years for this moment.” He chuckled. “To have you here in my
home. Under my dominion.”
Did he really believe she would ever be completely under his control? She would die first. Almost had the last time. She’d escaped with a fractured jaw, two cracked ribs and a mild concussion to prove it.
“I’m certain you’ve known my whereabouts the entire time. All you had to do was call and we could’ve had lunch.” Why was he beating around the bush? This wasn’t his usual style.
“True.” He nodded. “I’ve kept up with your activities to some degree. Not that I had a precise plan for revenge. Not really.” He tamped out the cigar, left it in the crystal ashtray. “More a fantasy of sorts.”
Oh, now, that was what she’d really wanted to hear, that she was this creep’s fantasy on any level. “Wow, I’m flattered.”
“Actually.” He rested his elbows on the intricately detailed chair arms and steepled his fingers. “I’ve considered at length the varied and painstaking ways I might teach you a lesson about the choices you’ve made in life.”
“What? You’re my father now?” Her pulse rate had adjusted to the threat of the unknown. She was resigned to her fate to some degree, but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to it.
“Brace yourself, Nora.” He stood, adjusted his elegant jacket. “You’re going to experience extraordinary pain. You will wish for death, but it will not come. Then perhaps you’ll know how I suffered after you raped my life.”
“You know, Ivan—” she pushed out of her chair, not about to give him that position of authority “—you really should get over it. You’re just ticked off because someone got away before you were through with them.”
“Ah, I see. You thought you were so smart back then. Still do, it seems.” He made that annoying, condescending tsking sound. “You’re wrong, dear Nora. It wasn’t simply a matter of her getting away.”
“So she took a small portion of your vast fortune.” She made a scoffing sound of her own. “I’m certain you don’t even miss it. In fact, it’s rather petty of you to whine over a few hundred thou.”
Romero moved a step toward her. As if on cue the door opened and two of his goons moved up behind Nora.
