Whiskey-Eyed Woman (Soldiering On Book 5)

by Aislinn Kearns

  Mandy swallowed. “If you’d like.” She didn’t know where this was going, but figured it couldn’t be good. She had to stay on her guard and be careful what she let slip.

  “This might take a while. Should we move to more…comfortable surroundings?” He eyed her prison with distaste.

  Mandy was torn between excitement at leaving the dank little room, and fear at where he might take her. More importantly, fear of what he might do to her when they got there. Would he torture her to get the information he wanted?

  She shivered at the thought.

  She nodded in reply, but dread pooled in her stomach. She felt sick, but she took a deep breath to steady herself, ignoring the unpleasant smells of the room as she did so. She could do this. Whatever came next, she could do this.

  Tulane led the way out of the room, and his bodyguard gestured for Mandy to precede him, then brought up the rear as they strode down a narrow hallway. It was equally as dark and damp as the room she’d been left in, but the other rooms all had windows with slatted blinds instead of walls. The prison must have been office space once, converted to suit their nefarious purposes.

  They walked past an opening in the offices that crowded either side of her, and Mandy peeked into the gap as they passed. A large, empty warehouse lay beyond, echoing their footsteps faintly in the distance.

  Mandy almost made a break for it, but a quick glance behind her saw her follower staring at her, a gun in his hand. She’d never make it.

  Eventually Tulane stopped in front of an office that looked like any other. Once she was inside, though, she could see why he’d chosen it.

  A rectangular table sat in the middle of the room, about the size of one found in a police interrogation room. Two straight-backed wooden chairs were tucked under either side, and a lamp sat on one end of the table. The rest of the room was bare.

  A similar small window to the one in her prison sat high on the far wall. The only difference between this and the room they’d put her in was the interior walls were made of glass, though they were covered by closed blinds.

  “Have a seat,” Tulane said, voice as easy as if they were in a restaurant or a job interview.

  Mandy walked a circuit of the room first, eyeing the space while delaying doing what he expected of her. It gave her a small measure of control despite the situation.

  There were no obvious escape routes or weapons, so eventually she eased into the seat Tulane indicated and folded her fingers together in her lap while he sat opposite her.

  “So, Amanda—“

  “Mandy,” she corrected him.

  “Hmmm. Mandy, then.” He paused. “You have some information I want. Now, I’d rather you just tell me and make this easier on both of us.”

  “And what information would that be?” she asked, not immediately refusing him. Better to find out her position of negotiation first.

  “I want to know exactly what you have on me. And exactly what that pretty Assistant District Attorney knows about me.”

  “I see. And what difference does that make to you? It’s all damaging.”

  He didn’t look impressed. “Perhaps that’s so. But I’m sure you can understand a man wanting to know what lies and rumours are being spread about him, so he knows which fires to put out.”

  Mandy worried her thumb over the nail on her other hand. “And if I don’t tell you?”

  His smile was sickly. “Then we’ll have to find a far more…unpleasant method of extracting the information from you.”

  Her stomach roiled. Maybe her fear of torture wasn’t so far from the mark.

  “All right,” she said, not sure how much information she could, or would, give him, but knowing it would be the easiest way of delaying. She’d give Duncan as much time as she could to get to her. And maybe, if she was lucky, she’d glean some information from Tulane, too.

  “What exactly do you want to know? Be specific.”

  Tulane tilted his head. “How did Beaton first come on your radar?” he asked. Not the question she’d anticipated, and possibly one more motivated by personal curiosity.

  “They monitored the security feeds at the home of a client of ours,” Mandy told him. She didn’t mention that client was also her best friend, Sierra.

  He raised his brows. “So you broke in to steal security camera footage?” he asked incredulously.

  Mandy’s cheeks heated. “I did no such thing,” she told him hotly. It was strange to think Blake’s recklessness that night, and Duncan’s enabling, had started this chain of events that had led Mandy to this table, at this moment. Those two had a lot to answer for.

  “Not you,” he said irritably. “Your…never mind.” He dismissed the line of questioning. “If all you wanted was security camera footage, why did you decide to pursue an investigation against us, and me?”

  His phrasing was so careful that Mandy almost smiled. Even now, when he held all the power, he wouldn’t admit to wrongdoing.

  “You may have seen the news, when Duncan and I were caught up in that terrible hostage situation just before Christmas.” She played up the distressed victim angle, drawing out the moment.

  “I see,” was all he said.

  “Someone implicated your company in those awful events.”

  Fires of rage lit behind his eyes and he leaned forward sharply. “Who?” he demanded.

  “I’m afraid I’ve just plum forgot. It’s been so many months.” Mandy smiled sweetly. Of course she remembered Jenny, the girlfriend of one of the terrorists, who’d let slip Beaton’s name. But he didn’t need to know that. However, her feeding that titbit of information gave her something interesting in return. Tulane had a temper—and angry people made mistakes.

  He clenched his jaw in impotent fury. “Don’t forget what we can do to make you talk.”

  Mandy dropped the fake sweetness. “I can’t tell you what I don’t remember. It was a crazy night. A building was completed engulfed in flames, firefighters and ambulances were everywhere, and a huge crowd surrounded the scene. You can check the photos of that night. I don’t remember who said the name. It only stuck in my head because of the previous dealings we’d had with you.”

  Tulane eyed her for a long moment, then seemed to take her lie at face value. Good. If she could lie to him, that gave her another advantage.

  “So, I assume you’ve found some so-called evidence about Beaton’s involvement in that little Christmas incident. What is it?”

  This was where Mandy had to be careful. “I don’t recall.” Phone records, a few emails, nothing wildly damaging. Given what had happened when they’d first got the information—Sam’s boyfriend Cameron being falsely linked to the crime—it was possible at least some of the evidence was corrupted. And none of it related back to Tulane himself. They hadn’t even known who he was until that morning. But if Duncan and Mandy could bring his company down, they knew he’d fall, too, along with any other conspirators.

  However, if he knew that, he might not be so worried. It would be easy enough for him to protect himself with some advanced notice. Given how difficult it had been to link him to the company in the first place, the police may never find a legal link between the two. And even if they did, a good lawyer could argue he was just an investor, not the man giving orders. Lies, of course, but that rarely stopped men like Tulane.

  She had to make him think she had information on him. She’d surprised him by knowing his name. She’d have to continue that ruse if she wanted him to be nervous about the evidence they were holding on him.

  “Your memory is rather poor. Perhaps you should have that seen to.”

  “Duncan knows those files better than me. Perhaps you would’ve been better off kidnapping him after all, even though he would have been more of a challenge.”

  Tulane narrowed his eyes. “You—” he broke off, gritting his teeth.

  “What I don’t understand,” Mandy began, keeping her tone light. “Is why a company like Beaton would have to do such a thing in
the first place? Surely you can’t have been that hard up to hold people hostage and make them pay their own ransom.”

  He glared at her. “I never admitted to Beaton being involved.”

  Mandy tilted her head. “But you may as well have. The way you came after us alone could be considered an admission of guilt.”

  He scoffed.

  “Had you truly screwed up so badly you had to go to such extremes to save your company?” Mandy pressed.

  “No,” he declared, but his eyes darted away.

  “What was it? What did we interrupt that night?”

  Tulane leaned forward. “It was the perfect plan,” he hissed.

  Mandy kept the grin of triumph from her face. “Is that so?” she said doubtfully instead, goading him on.

  “We would have got that money, and dealt with two very inconvenient problems.” He gave her a sly glance. “Not you, surprisingly, since you made yourselves known afterward. But there were people getting a little too close to the truth of our operation. A client. A judge. One got dealt with, and the other simply got away.” He made a face. “We even had a team waiting to come in and save the day, giving us credence with that wealthy crowd. But you two got there first. Saved everyone, took the new clients out from under our noses, and then set the damn place on fire. If you’d held off just a few more hours, it would have gone off without a hitch.”

  Mandy blinked as Tulane sat back, arms across his chest. She didn’t know how to respond to such a revealing outburst, and so stayed silent.

  She’d always thought it had been a daft plan to get money, holding those people hostage. But that hadn’t been the true plan at all. He’d wanted to deal with two people he’d seen as problems without the name linking to him. But he was also playing a long game, trying to lure rich clients to his side by wiping out the bad rumours that had already spread about Beaton Security and playing hero to them. Better to have wealthy clients as regulars to their company than a single injection of cash.

  Possibly the same rumours Sam’s partner Cameron had spread in his effort to smoke out the men that had ordered his brother killed.

  It wasn’t the best plan, but certainly made more sense than what it had appeared on the face of it.

  Mandy eyed Tulane. It was so hard to believe this petulant, easily-manipulated man had been the mysterious figure of her nightmares for so long. How could he ever have made it so far—become such a terrifying pillar of evil? Perhaps that’s why he hid in the shadows, so no one would see the truth.

  His phone buzzed. He gave her a long look, then stood up and moved to the farthest corner from her before answering it.

  “What?” he barked.

  He listened for a moment, then snapped his head around to glare at her. “I’ll be right there.”

  Mandy swallowed as he strode toward her. He grabbed her arm and dragged her roughly to her feet, then opened the door and threw her at the guard.

  “Lock her up until I get back,” he growled, then stalked off in the other direction.

  Mandy looked at her captor, who gave her a lascivious grin. She turned away to roll her eyes where he couldn’t see and pushed away from him, then strode back in the direction of her cell.

  She’d been granted a reprieve. She just had to hope it would be enough.

  Chapter 11

  The house belonging to Gregory Fairfax, aka Tulane, was an impressive structure. Three stories high, red brick, with dark wood trimmings, it looked like a mid-century boarding school. The grounds were meticulously kept, and huge. It had taken Destiny and the other officers three minutes just to reach the house from the road.

  Hannah waited for them on the road. Not usual procedure, but since she’d had to put her reputation on the line to convince a judge to issue this search warrant, Destiny didn’t blame her.

  Destiny knocked, and waited. When she thought they’d waited a reasonable amount of time, she reached for the door handle.

  The door swung open, revealing a plump, middle-aged woman. Her eyes widened at the sight of all the police officers on her doorstep, and she smoothed her apron in a nervous gesture.

  “Hello officers. I’m Marigold, the housekeeper. Can I help you?”

  Destiny smiled placatingly. “Hi Marigold. We’re here to search the house.” She held out the search warrant so the woman could see it. “Mind if we come in?”

  Marigold moved the door so the gap was thinner than her body and she blocked the way. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Mr. Fairfax is not home. You can come back?”

  Destiny kept her smile firmly in place. “Actually, we don’t need Mr. Fairfax to be home.” In fact, they’d purposefully served the warrant when he wasn’t there, just in case he was dangerous.

  “I don’t know…” Marigold hesitated.

  Destiny stepped forward, intending to nudge the woman aside if she had to, but Marigold backed up fearfully the second Destiny moved. The officers crowded into a large entrance room before Marigold changed her mind.

  The inside of the house was even more impressive than the outside. A grand imperial staircase dominated one wall, rich carpet running all up the middle. Paintings of pompous people at least six feet high hung on two walls, and the ceiling was further decorated with Renaissance-style artwork, complete with cherubs.

  To the left, Destiny could see a sitting room through the open door, and to the right, the end of a pool table was visible. And this was just the front of the house.

  “Alright. Let’s get searching,” she told the other officers and snapped on a pair of gloves.

  An hour later, and they hadn’t found much of anything. Not that she expected to find Mandy chained to his oversized four-poster bed, but any clue would have been helpful. She idly picked up a picture from the bedroom mantle of a man in his fifties, and a woman about a decade younger. From the clothes and hair it had probably been taken about ten years before. Both looked completely humourless. The man might be Tulane, but who was the woman? Destiny didn’t think he was married. A sister maybe? She put the picture back and resolved to ask someone if they knew her identity, more out of curiosity than needing to know for professional reasons.

  Pressure pressed down on her, as she knew Tulane could be home any minute. She lifted the mattress to check beneath, but there was nothing. Maybe she should rip the mattress itself open…

  A commotion sounded downstairs, and Destiny raced out of the room, down the hall, and peered over the balustrade. A man in his sixties wearing a sharp suit stood in the centre of his entrance hall, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Why did you let them in?” he yelled in poor Marigold’s face.

  “Sir,” said one of her fellow officers. Peters, Destiny thought. “The law allows us to execute the warrant any time between the hours of 8am and 10pm, regardless of whether the occupant is home.”

  Well done Peters, keeping a level head. Tulane—because it could only be him—rounded on the officer.

  “My lawyer will hear about this.” He strode into the sitting room. Seconds later, a tirade spewed forth, presumably directed at said lawyer. Let him stew, they’d done nothing illegal.

  Destiny resumed her search. She found a library, the kind with floor-to-ceiling books. It took her breath for a brief moment, but then she set her shoulders and began to search. Mandy’s fate couldn’t wait for her to admire Tulane’s collections.

  She pulled books off the shelf at random, flicking through them in search of any hidden documents. She reached for another book, but the one next to it caught her attention. A hardcover with faded gilt writing spelling out the title. Old enough for the top of the spine to be peeling back, revealing the inner workings of the book.

  The faint edge of a piece of paper was visible at the top of the book, squeezed between the pages. A small kick of excitement rocketed through her.

  She checked the title. Machiavelli’s The Prince. Of course. She almost rolled her eyes.

  She pulled the book out and carefully opened the book to t
he page she was looking for. The scent of old book pages wafted up towards her, settling her. She slowly opened the folded piece of paper contained inside. It was a document on a Beaton Security letterhead.

  She scanned the page, and a thrill of triumph sparked in her veins. The document announced Gregory Fairfax was a legal signatory of Beaton Security as co-owner of the company. A simple legal document so he could sign off on important matters if needed, but it was all the connection Destiny needed.

  She carefully logged her find and continued the search, not wanting to miss anything else. No other smoking gun documents revealed themselves, so she moved on.

  Eventually, the officers met back by the car to share their finds. Tulane stared after them, glaring all the while.

  “Can we search the grounds?” Destiny asked Hannah.

  Hannah shook her head. “The warrant was just for the house.”

  “Now that we have proof he’s connected to Beaton, can we arrest him?” she asked hopefully.

  Hannah laughed. “No. We need to get that warrant as well, since none of you caught him in the act of doing anything illegal.”

  “I know, but his crime is existing, let’s be real.”

  Hannah’s laugh grew louder.

  Destiny warmed. She liked making this woman laugh.

  Hannah turned towards Destiny, and their gazes met and held. Sexual attraction thrummed between them.

  But now wasn’t the time to think about that. Mandy needed them.

  And now, hopefully, they had what they needed to get her safe.

  Duncan ended the call with Destiny and told Blake the good news. Neither Sam, nor Zack, had returned from their scouting mission, and Duncan had to hope they’d soon be back with the information he needed. The clock ticked down and they only had six hours until midnight.

  But now, thanks to the document Destiny found, as soon as Mandy was safe, they could arrest Tulane and keep her that way. But first he needed to get her out of his clutches.

  “You know this is probably a trap, right?” Blake mused as they returned to the city maps, crossing off the locations he’d tried.