by B. J Daniels
“I’m staying at my place in Canyon Creek. I’ll give you two hours. Don’t be late. You know how I hate anyone who wastes my time.” Victor hung up.
Marc swore. After Victor saw his face—and found out everything else—Marc knew he would be lucky to walk out of that meeting alive.
With a curse, he realized he had really only one choice. Get out of the country—or at least try. But it would mean leaving without his son—or settling the score with his wife, his sister-in-law and the Texas deputy who’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong.
He would prefer to find the ledger and his son, take care of all of them and then get out of the country. Rebecca had discovered some of his money, but he had more hidden.
Unfortunately the clock was ticking and if he hoped to live long enough to do what had to be done, he would have to meet with Victor and try to talk his way out of this mess.
* * *
AUSTIN PARKED BEHIND a three-story building with a sign that read Gillian Cooper Designs. As she led the way up the back steps, Austin kept an eye out for Marc Stewart. There was no sign of his black Suburban, but Austin figured he would have gotten rid of it by now.
There were no other buildings around Gillian’s. The studio and apartment sat against the mountainside with only one parking spot in back. The building was unique in design. When he asked her about it, he wasn’t surprised to find out that she’d designed it herself.
As she led him into the living area, he saw that the inside was as uniquely designed as the outside with shiny bamboo floors, vaulted wood ceilings, arches and tall windows. He could see that she had more than just a talent for jewelry. The decor was a mixture of old and new, each room bright with color and texture.
Remembering how Marc had torn up the Island Park cabin, he was relieved to see that the man hadn’t been in Gillian’s apartment. From what he could gather, nothing had been disturbed. Maybe Marc had been wounded badly enough that he’d been forced to get medical attention before anything else. Once an emergency room doctor saw the bullet wound, the law would be called and Marc would be arrested. At least Austin could hope.
He stood in the living area, taking in the place. He found himself becoming more intrigued by Gillian Cooper as he watched her scoop up the mail that had been dropped through the old-fashioned slot in the antique front door.
“I love your house,” he said, hoping he got a chance to see the jewelry she made.
“Thanks,” she said as she sorted through the mail. He could tell by her disappointed expression that there was nothing from her sister. She looked up at him. “Nothing.” Her voice broke as she shook her head.
“Why don’t you get a hot shower and a change of clothes,” he suggested.
She nodded. “There is a shower in the guest room if you...”
“Thank you.” They stood like that for a moment, strangers who knew too much about each other, bound together by happenstance.
He moved first, picking up his duffel bag, which he’d brought up from the car. She pointed toward an open door as if no longer capable of speech. He’d seen it often in people who were thrown into extraordinary circumstances. They often found an inner strength that made it possible for them to do extraordinary things. But at some point that strength ebbed away, leaving them an empty shell.
The shower was hot, the water pressure strong. Austin stood under it, spent. He’d had little sleep last night and then today... He was just thankful he’d burst into the cabin when he had. He didn’t want to think what would have happened otherwise. Nor did he want to think about what he’d gotten himself into and where it would end.
* * *
CLEAN AND WARM and dressed in clean jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, Austin went back out into the living room. Where was Marc now? Austin could only imagine. Hopefully he’d been arrested, but if that were the case, Austin would have received a call by now. The officer who’d responded to his call had promised to let him know when Marc Stewart was in custody.
Which meant Marc Stewart was still out there.
A few minutes later, Gillian emerged from the other side of the house. Her face was flushed from her shower. She wore a white fluffy sweater and leggings. Her long dark hair was still damp and framed the face of a model.
For a moment, she looked nervous, as if realizing she was now alone with a complete stranger.
“If you don’t mind talking about it, could you tell me more about this ledger Marc is looking for?” he said, finding ground he knew would ease the sudden tension between them.
“I only know what Marc told me,” she said as she walked to the refrigerator, opened it and held up a bottle of wine. He nodded and she poured two glasses, which they took into the living room.
Gillian curled up at one end of the couch, tucking her feet under her. Austin took a chair some distance away. He watched her take a sip of her wine and she seemed to relax a little.
“I gathered Marc wrote down some sort of illegal business dealings in a black ledger that he never let out of his sight,” she said after a moment. “Marc is dyslexic so he has trouble remembering numbers, apparently. He wrote everything down. According to him, my sister drugged him and took the book.”
“What do you know about your brother-in-law’s business?”
“Nothing really. He owns an auto body shop, repairs cars.”
“That doesn’t sound like something that would force him to go to the extremes he has to recover some ledger he kept figures in.”
“I’m not sure what’s in it other than where he hid large amounts of money, but I gathered, from Marc’s terror at the ledger landing in the wrong hands, that there is enough in it to send him to prison.”
“I don’t understand why she didn’t take it to the police or the FBI. Marc would be in jail now and none of this would have happened.”
Gillian shook her head. “Apparently she thought she could force him into giving her a divorce and custody of Andrew Marc in exchange for the ledger. She also needed money. I guess she didn’t realize just how dangerous that would be.”
“Or she didn’t get a chance to before Marc realized the ledger was missing. He figured out she was headed for the Island Park cabin fairly quickly.”
She nodded. “He’d stashed money there.” She grew quiet for a moment. “Apparently she hid the ledger. I know it’s not at their house. He said he tore the place apart looking for it.”
“You and your sister were close. Any ideas where she could have hidden it?”
“None. Becky and I...” She hesitated, turning to glance out the side window. “We weren’t that close recently. Marc thought I was a bad influence on her. I didn’t want to make things worse for her but I couldn’t stand being around him. He kept her on a short leash. The last time we were together before this, I begged her to leave Marc. She kept thinking he was going to change.”
Austin heard the worry in her voice. “A lot of women have trouble leaving.”
“I always thought my sister was smarter than that,” she said as she got up to refill their glasses.
“Intelligence doesn’t seem to have much to do with it.” He doubted this helped at the moment. Marc Stewart was out there somewhere, wounded and still obsessed with finding not only the ledger, but also his son. Which meant Gillian wasn’t safe until Marc was behind bars and maybe not even then, depending on just what Marc Stewart was involved in.
She met his gaze as she filled his glass. “You saw what Marc’s like. Just out of spite, he might do something to Andy if he finds him.” Her voice cracked, and for a moment, she looked as if she might break down.
Austin rose to take her in his arms. She felt small but strong. It was he who felt vulnerable. He’d never met anyone like her, and that scared him. Not to mention the fact that Gillian felt too good in his arms.
He let go of he
r and she stepped away to wipe her tears.
“We’ll find your nephew,” he said to her back. He had no idea how, but he agreed with her. Marc was a loose cannon now. Anyone in his path was in danger. “Your sister was living in Helena? Where would she stash her son that she thought he would be safe? Marc said the boy was with his grandmother.”
Gillian shook her head. “No grandparents are still alive.”
“Maybe a babysitter? A friend she trusted?”
Again Gillian shook her head. “Marc didn’t allow her to leave Andy with anyone, not that she had need of a babysitter because he would check on her during the day to make sure she hadn’t gone anywhere.”
Austin hated the picture she was painting of her sister’s life. “Then how did your sister manage to not only get possession of Marc’s ledger, but hide their son?”
Gillian shook her head again. “I suspect she’d been planning it for weeks, maybe even months. Rebecca did tell me when I was trying to get her to leave him that time in Helena that Marc had threatened to kill her and Andy if she did.”
He guessed that Rebecca had believed her husband. But then she’d taken the ledger and thought she had leverage. “You said your sister visited a while back. Is there a chance she left you a note that you might have missed?”
Gillian shook her head and stepped to one of the windows to look out. Past her, he caught glimpses of the Gallatin River and the dense snowcapped pines. It was snowing again, huge flakes drifting down past the window. How could his brothers live in a place where it snowed like this?
“Apparently my sister found quite a bit of money that Marc kept hidden in his locked gun cabinet.” She turned toward him. “It is missing, as well.”
He thought of the ransacked Island Park cabin. “Your sister had gone to the cabin to get more money he had stashed there?”
She nodded. “So foolish. I guess she wanted to keep him from skipping the country and taking his money, and she thought that would work. She apparently didn’t think she could keep him in jail long enough to do whatever she had planned.”
He watched her look around the room as if remembering her sister’s last visit. She frowned. “If Becky was well into her plan when she came to see me, why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t she tell me so I would know what to do now?” She sounded close to tears again.
“While she was here, where did she stay?”
“In the spare bedroom. You don’t think she might have hidden the ledger in there?”
He followed her, thinking there was a remote chance at best. Still, they had to look. Like the rest of the place, it was nicely furnished in an array of colors. The wall behind the bed was exposed brick. Several pieces of artwork hung from it.
Gillian searched the room from the drawers in the bedside tables to under the mattress and even under the bed. Austin went into the bathroom and looked in the only cabinet there. No note or a ledger of any kind.
As Gillian finished, she sat down on the end of the bed. She looked pale and exhausted, like a woman who should be in the hospital.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t have seen a doctor while we were at the hospital? I don’t mind taking you back.”
“I’m fine,” she said with a sigh. “Just disappointed. I knew it was doubtful that Becky left anything. She would have been afraid I would find it and try to stop her. Rebecca never wanted to be a bother to anyone, especially me, her older sister. She hid a lot of things from me, like just how bad it was living with Marc.”
“Why don’t you get some rest? We can talk more in the morning and figure out what to do next.”
She nodded. “I can’t even think straight right now.”
He reached out and took her hand to pull her up from the bed. “You still have that headache?”
She smiled at him. “It’s nothing to be alarmed about. I’m fine. Really.” Suddenly she froze. “Becky did leave something.” Her voice rose with excitement. “I didn’t think anything about it at the time. Since Andy had been playing with an old key ring of hers that had a dozen keys on it. She left a key on the night table beside the bed. I thought it must have come off Andy’s key ring so I just tossed it in the drawer for when he came back.”
She opened the drawer beside the bed and took out the key.
Austin had hoped for a safety deposit key. Instead, it appeared to be an ordinary house key. He realized that Gillian’s first instinct on finding it was probably right.
“You didn’t find anything else?”
She shook her head, her excitement fading. “It’s probably nothing, huh?”
“Probably,” he said, taking the key. “But we’ll hang on to it just in case.” He pocketed it as Gillian started to leave the room.
“You can have this room,” she said over her shoulder. She stopped in the doorway and turned to look back at him. “That is, if you’re staying.”
“As I told you, I’m not going anywhere until Marc is behind bars. I’m a man of my word, Gillian.”
She met his gaze. “Somehow I knew that.”
“No matter how long it takes, I’m not leaving you.” Austin knew even as he made the promise that there would be hell to pay with his family. But they were used to him letting them down. She started to turn away.
“One more thing,” he said. “Did your sister have a key to this house?”
“No.” Realization dawned on her expression. She shivered.
“Then there is nothing to worry about,” he said. “Try to get some sleep.”
“You, too.”
He knew that wouldn’t be easy. An electricity seemed to spark in the air between them. They’d been through so much together already. He didn’t dare imagine what tomorrow would bring.
She hesitated in the doorway. “If you need anything...”
“Don’t worry about me.” As he removed his jacket, her gaze went to the weapon in his shoulder holster. He saw her swallow before she turned away. “Sweet dreams,” he said to her retreating back.
Chapter Fourteen
It had begun to snow. Large lacy flakes fell in a flurry of white as Marc pulled up to Victor’s so-called cabin in the mountains overlooking Helena, Montana. The “cabin” was at least five thousand square feet of luxury including an indoor pool, a media center and a game room. At his knock, one of Victor’s minions answered the door, a big man who went by only Jumbo.
“Mr. Ramsey is in the garden room.” Oh, yeah, and the house had a garden room, too.
There was no garden in the glassed-in room, but there was an amazing view of the valley below and there was a bar. Victor was standing at the bar pouring himself a drink. Marc got the feeling he’d seen him drive up and had been waiting. Today he wore a velour pullover in the same blue as his eyes.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked as he motioned to one of the chairs at the bar. Victor seemed to take in his bandaged face and neck, but said nothing.
Marc took one of the chairs. “Whatever you’re having.”
“Wise man,” Victor said with a disarming smile. “I only drink the best. Isn’t that the reason you and I became friends to begin with?”
Friends? What a joke. Marc didn’t need him to spell things out. “I like the best things in life like anyone else.”
“But you aren’t like anyone else,” Victor said as he pushed what looked like three fingers of bourbon in a crystal glass over to him.
“No, I’m unique because I know you.” He knew it was what the man wanted to hear, and right now he was fine with saying anything that could get him out of here. He took a gulp of the drink. It burned all the way down. As he set the glass down, he said, “Okay, I screwed up, but I’m trying to fix it.”
Victor lifted a brow. “You think? And how is it you hope to do that?”
He wasn’t surprise
d that his mess was no secret to the man. Victor had someone inside law enforcement. There was little he didn’t know about.
“I didn’t mean to almost kill her.”
“The her you’re referring to being your wife?”
“Who else?”
“Who else indeed. With you I never know.” Victor took a sip of his drink, studying him over the rim of the glass. “Attempted murder, kidnapping, assault?” Victor leaned on the bar like one friend confiding in another. “Tell me, Marc. What’s going on with you?”
He knew this tone of voice. He’d seen it used on other men who’d messed up in their little...organization. He also knew what had happened to those men. Victor was most dangerous when he was being congenial.
“The bitch drugged me and took my ledger—you know, where I kept track of the business.”
Victor leaned back, his expression making it clear that his concern had shifted to himself rather than Marc’s future. “By the business, you mean your automotive business.”
Marc didn’t answer.
“You wrote down our business transactions?”
“It was a lot of names and numbers, and I do better if I can write it down.”
“You mean like names of our associates and their phone numbers.” His voice had dropped even further.
“Yeah, that and a few transactions just so I could remember whom I’d dealt with. You have a lot of associates.”
Victor looked as if he might have a coronary. “This...ledger? I’m assuming you got it back. Tell me you got it back.”
“Why do you think I tried to kill her? She hid it and my kid. I was trying to get the information out of her....”
“That’s why you involved her sister.” Victor closed his eyes for a moment. He was breathing hard. Marc had never seen him lose his cool. Victor was the kind of man who didn’t do his own dirty work. He prided himself on never losing control, but he seemed close right now.
“So you don’t have the information and you don’t know where it is,” Victor said.
That about sized it up. “But I’m going to find it.”
