by Sharon Sala
Billie looked startled and then began to panic when she realized why he’d asked.
“No. I can’t leave. You might need me. Sahara might need me.”
“It’s going to take all of my skill and attention to keep Sahara safe today. I don’t want you to become collateral damage to whatever may go down.”
“And neither do I, Mama,” Sahara said. “You will actually be helping. If the man who’s after me sees you leaving, he is going to assume I am here alone, and that’s what we need him to think.”
“I don’t like this,” Billie said.
“I don’t like any of this, either, but I want it over,” Sahara countered.
Billie was outnumbered and she knew it, but she gave them both a parting shot.
“If anything happens to either one of you, I will never forgive myself for leaving.” Then she ducked her head and covered her face, trying to hide her tears.
Brendan took her by the shoulders. “Billie, look at me.”
She lifted her head.
“If you had to kill someone, would you?”
She gasped. “I don’t know. I think I could if Sahara was threatened.”
“That’s honest enough, but hear me. I know I would, and that’s the difference between me and you. Let me do my job. I will leave bodies all the way to the door to keep her safe. Sahara has been through enough lately. If something went down and you were hurt… Let’s not even make that a possibility.”
Her lips parted, but after that, she’d run out of arguments.
“It won’t take me long. I need to change clothes and shoes. I’ll leave and won’t come back until one of you calls me.”
“Thank you,” he said, and gave her a quick hug.
“Thank you, Mama, it will be all right.”
Billie’s arms tightened around her. She wouldn’t let herself even think it could be the last time she saw them alive.
“I love you, too. See you later,” she said, and left to go change.
They waited to see her off, then locked the kitchen door behind her as she went to the carriage house to get her car.
“Now we wait,” Brendan said.
“Where?” she asked.
“I think stay close to the front door, maybe that formal living room.”
“The white room?”
He nodded.
“And where will you be?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me. If Sutton is buzzing the gate to be let in, then we’ll buzz him in, but when he gets to the door, first look to see if his hands are empty. If they are, then you can let him in. He has to make a move before we know for sure he’s behind all this. Just know that you will never leave my sight.”
She began to shake. “I play roles like this, but reality is a bitch.”
“Come upstairs with me a minute. I want to get the rifle, and I have an earpiece you can wear. Your hair will hide it, and I can give you guidance without anyone knowing it.”
It was a small measure of comfort.
“You’ll be my director,” she said.
Once upstairs, he secured the earpiece on her and then slipped one over his own ear, tucking the battery in his back pocket and fastening the mike to his arm.
“Wait here,” he said, then closed the door behind him as he walked into the hall. He walked a few steps from the door and then lowered his voice to just above a whisper and spoke into the mike. “Can you hear me?”
Sahara jumped at the sudden sound of his voice in her ear.
“Yes, I hear you,” she yelled.
He jogged back to get her and the rifle.
“Then we’re good to go. Let’s go back down.”
They took seats in the white room. Sahara far away from a window and Brendan hidden within curtains, looking out.
The wait felt endless. An hour passed. Brendan knew the wait was taking its toll on her and started talking to get her mind focused on him instead.
“Waiting is a bitch, isn’t it, baby? When I was still active duty, sometimes we’d be out on a mission and have to wait out a target’s arrival.”
“What’s the longest you ever had to wait?” she asked.
“Forty-two hours.”
“That’s almost two days!” she cried.
He grinned. “Yeah, I know.”
“Oh my Lord…how did you stand it?”
His expression blanked. “It mattered greatly that the mission succeed.”
“Oh,” she said, and could tell by the tone of his voice that was all he was going to say, and let it go.
Silence grew between them again. A clock began to chime down in the library.
“It’s eleven,” Sahara said needlessly.
He started to speak and then stopped, eyeing the car pulling up to the gates.
“There’s a black Ford Taurus at the gates,” he said, and they both bolted toward the kitchen to see the video feed and buzz him in.
“It’s a courier,” Sahara said. “See the sign on the door?”
“I see a sign but not much of his face. Tell him to look toward the camera.”
She nodded, then pressed Talk.
“State your business,” she said shortly.
“Nationwide Courier service, ma’am. I have a packet of papers for you. Signature needed.”
“Look up at the camera, please,” she said.
“Oh! Sorry,” he said, took off his cap and looked straight up into the camera.
“One moment,” she said, and buzzed him in.
They watched the gates open and the car approaching the house.
“Do you recognize anything about him?” Brendan asked.
“He sits tall in a seat like Sutton, but he looks older and heavier.”
“When he rings the doorbell, let him in and don’t let him past the foyer. Don’t let anyone past the foyer. You won’t see me, but I swear to God if he goes for a gun, I’ll drop him where he stands before the gun is in his hands. And one other thing, Sahara. If you hear me tell you to drop, you need to hit the floor immediately. Not a second of hesitation. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“I love you.” He kissed her quick and hard. “So much,” he added, then took off running up the stairs just as the doorbell began to chime.
Sahara moved toward the door, praying as she walked.
Twenty-One
Bubba rang the doorbell, then took a deep breath to calm his nerves. This day had been a long time coming, although it was not how he wanted it to go down. He hadn’t wanted to watch Sahara die. But she’d challenged him, called him out in front of the world. He couldn’t let that pass.
He shuffled the envelope and clipboard from one hand to the other and wiped sweat from his brow as he waited for Billie to answer. He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do about her. On one hand, she’d become caught in Leopold’s trap just as his mother had. But on the other, they’d let her live here. It didn’t matter that she’d been turned into a servant. She’d been under this roof, not suffering hunger or evictions, never worrying about paying utility bills or going without clothes.
As for Sahara, they’d chosen her to keep. There was no way for him to explain how deeply that knowledge had hurt once he’d learned the whole story. Just because she’d been born beautiful, and Katarina had wanted a beautiful child, his own father had thrown him away.
Then he heard a lock turning and gave his face a quick pat, making sure the stage makeup wasn’t melting off his face in this damn heat. He slumped his shoulders, patted the gun in the back of his pants, then held the envelope and clipboard against his chest.
The door swung inward, but it wasn’t Billie, it was Sahara standing before him. He stuttered. “Uh…packet for Sahara Travis.”
“I’m Sahara Travis.”
“You’ll have to sign for it,” he said, and then pretended he’d left the pen in the car. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dropped the pen. I’ll go—”
“No, I have one just over there,” she said, point
ing to an ornate antique desk against the wall. “Please step in out of the heat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and pushed the door shut but didn’t let it catch as he followed her.
Sahara picked up a pen and then held out her hand for the clipboard.
The front door swung inward as he handed it over.
Sahara looked up and stifled a gasp. “Lucy! What are you doing here?”
“I needed to tell you that the furniture and clothing in the penthouse are ruined.”
Sahara frowned. “You could have just called.”
A stranger stepped up behind her. Lucy took him by the hand.
“I also wanted to introduce you to someone very special. Sahara, this is Wiley Johnson…my boyfriend. I thought now was as good a time as any for you two to meet.”
Sahara’s gaze darted from the couple to the courier, who seemed to be patiently waiting for her to sign. Was she reading this wrong? What should she do?
And then she heard Brendan’s voice.
“Move a few steps to the right.”
She casually stepped to the right as she acknowledged the introduction.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Wiley.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Lucy is my sweetheart. I’d do anything for her.”
They came inside, but instead of bypassing the courier, they stopped beside him.
Sahara’s heartbeat stuttered. “What’s going on?” she asked, then heard another car coming through the gates.
“Shut up,” the courier snapped, and dropped the envelope to the floor. “We can’t start this party until all the guests have arrived.”
Lucy giggled. “If he hadn’t been late, he could have arrived with all of us. He’s always the slowpoke.”
“Wait, baby. Someone else is coming. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself so they wouldn’t see her shaking.
“Lucy? What is going on? Are you part of this? Please God, tell me you’re not.”
“If I said that I wasn’t, then it would be a lie,” Lucy said, and snuggled back against Wiley, who just stood there grinning, now holding a gun.
When Marcus Beloit walked in the door and sauntered up to the others, Sahara moaned. Her knees went out from under her as she staggered to catch herself.
“I got held up in traffic and feared I’d be too late.” Marcus made a sad face. “Poor little rich bitch. I think we’ve shocked you.”
Sahara looked from one face to the other and back again, unable to believe what she was seeing. She’d been expecting Sutton, but Marcus? Lucy? She felt utterly sick and completely betrayed.
“Are you all…responsible for what’s been happening to me?”
“Ta-da,” the courier said, and grinned as he pulled a gun from behind his back.
That was when she recognized him.
“Sutton?”
“What? Is my makeup melting already? Damn hot soupy day today, but a good day to die.”
Her voice began to shake. Her heart was beating so fast she felt like she would faint.
“Lucy? Marcus? I thought you were my friends. Sutton, we grew up together. Why are you—”
“Why? I’ll tell you why!” Sutton shouted, hammering his fist against his chest. “We’re Leopold’s children, too. But he didn’t keep us. He threw us away and kept you! You had everything and we had nothing.”
“That’s not true and Lucy knows it!” Sahara cried.
Lucy shrugged. “I know he left you everything…as if you didn’t already have too much. If it hadn’t been for that pig of a girl on set, you would have had your last lunch ages ago and none of this would be happening.”
Sahara gasped. “You poisoned the food!”
“I sure did. It would have been so easy.”
“You’re okay, baby. Just keep them talking. The cops are on the way, coming quiet. No sirens.”
Sahara took a deep breath. Unwilling to let them know how scared she was, she transformed into the role she knew would make them angry and defensive, throwing back her head and putting her hands on her hips.
“Okay, that explains the cyanide. Which one of you has the hots for bombs?”
Wiley Johnson raised his hand. “That would be me, because I have the hots for Lucy. I’d do anything for her.”
“If we’d taken my jet when we left California, you would have blown her up,” Sahara snapped.
Lucy frowned. “They didn’t count on me going with you,” she said.
“So Sutton said,” Sahara drawled, pointing at him. “But there would have been one less heir.”
He flushed.
Sahara waved her hand as if pushing them aside.
“So that takes care of the LA failures. Who killed Leopold and Katarina? I’m guessing Sutton because Marcus wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty.”
When Marcus screamed out an epithet, Sutton laughed.
“And you’d be right. Brother Marcus doesn’t like ugly.”
Sahara turned her head slowly, centering her gaze on Marcus.
“That means you’re the snake in the grass who sent the snake in the vase. So who hired Harley Fish? Either you or Sutton. I’ll bet that pissed you off when you figured out the cops had your thousand dollars and I was still alive.”
Marcus shoved past Lucy and Wiley and would have gone after her but for Sutton, who grabbed him by the back of the shirt.
“No, brother. You have to go find the security system and get rid of the evidence that we were here.”
“I’m not looking for anything until I watch her die,” Marcus shrieked.
“Then stand back,” Sutton said, and started to reach for his gun.
“I brought my pretty pink pistol, too,” Lucy said.
Marcus pulled out a box knife, shoved the blade into the cut position and began waving it toward her face.
“Just so you know, that beautiful face is going to look like a patchwork quilt after you’re dead. There won’t be any glorious Hollywood send-off for someone who looks that gruesome.”
When Sahara grinned, they stopped, staring in disbelief.
“You think this is a joke?” Sutton shouted.
“If it is, then the joke is on you. What in hell made you think that showing up after I’m dead would get you anything?”
“Because we’re blood kin. Because we’re Leopold’s bastards just like you.”
“Except I was adopted. And they named me their heir, and I outlived them, which means all of this now belongs to me,” Sahara said. “And my will already names the people who will inherit my fortune, none of whom are you, you or you,” she drawled, pointing at her siblings. “So, it doesn’t matter how dead I am. You won’t get shit.”
“You don’t have a will,” Lucy growled through clenched teeth. “I checked.”
“Oh, little sister, yes, I do, as of a few days ago. And why? Because Brendan already found out Sutton was my half brother and found records naming all the women Leopold had paid off. I’m not stupid. When it became obvious I could have siblings who were behind this, I made damn sure they wouldn’t get a dime.”
Lucy screamed and went for her gun.
Sutton was cursing her with every breath as he started to take aim.
But it was Marcus who was closest, and who was already coming at her with the box cutter when Sahara heard Brendan say “DROP.”
She hit the floor facedown just as Brendan fired four shots in rapid succession from somewhere above and behind her.
She heard one thud, then another as Marcus and Sutton hit the floor without a sound. They never saw this coming.
Lucy’s scream was cut short as her shot went wild. A bullet went right between her eyes and plowed a rut through her brain.
Wiley dropped like a rock on the cold marble floor.
Sahara’s head was still down, her eyes were closed, and she was screaming Brendan’s name.
All of a sudden she was in his arms, and he was walking outside with her face pressed hard
against his chest.
“Don’t look, baby, don’t look,” he kept saying. “It’s over, it’s all over now.”
Policemen exited cruisers and came running up the steps with their guns drawn, passing Brendan and Sahara as they ran inside.
He carried Sahara all the way to the top of the steps and then slowly lowered himself onto the porch, still holding her in his arms.
She couldn’t stop crying.
“They hated me,” she sobbed. “My own sister and two brothers, and they wanted to be rich bad enough to kill. Oh my God, Brendan, oh my God. They hated Leopold, but they turned out just like him…greedy, selfish, liars.”
“I know, baby, I know, but it’s over. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
An unmarked cop car pulled up.
“The detectives are here,” he said.
She groaned.
Fisher and Julian came up the steps on the run.
“There were four of them?” Fisher asked.
Brendan held his gun up by the barrel.
“Three other heirs and a boyfriend. The female on the floor brought the bomber with her from LA. He said he loved her. Said he’d do anything for her. This is my gun. I have permits and a license to carry, and I want it back when you’re done with it. My rifle is on the second-floor landing. I didn’t use it.”
Julian dug an evidence bag from his pocket.
Brendan dropped the gun in, and Julian fastened the bag and tagged it, then squatted until he was eye level with Sahara.
“Miss Travis?”
Sahara opened her eyes. The cop was blurry, but she recognized him as he touched her arm.
“I am so sorry for all that has happened to you here. You should have been welcomed into our city and able to focus on laying your family to rest. Your bodyguard is ace at his job. So glad you are okay.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Fisher also touched her arm briefly as he passed, and then they were inside.
“One of us needs to call Detective Shaw in LA,” Julian said.
“I’ll do it. You start with the bodies,” Fisher said.
Outside, Brendan reached in his pocket and handed her his phone.
“Call your mama.”
Sahara did as he asked and then waited as the phone began to ring. Billie answered breathlessly.
“Hello?”
“Mama, it’s over. They’re dead and neither one of us was hurt.”
