by EC Sheedy
“I doubt that,” April said, her tone dry.
“He’s here because of me,” the girl said, stepping out from behind Legs. “He’s curious. After he checked you out, found out you weren’t his sister”—she eyed him smugly—“which made him a happy man, he found out about me and decided he’d pretend he wanted to meet his little sister, so he could see the sexy blonde again without all that icky family stuff getting in the way.”
It was Joe’s turn to blink. “Jesus.”
“Don’t swear.” She gestured with her head in Legs’s direction. “She doesn’t like it.” She flopped back down on the bed and put her hands behind her as a brace. From there she gave him a crocodile smile—all teeth, no heart.
Joe looked at Legs. “She always like this or is it something in my winning personality?”
Cornie answered. “You don’t have a winning personality. You’re a jerk. I’ve got a missing mother, and a jerk for a brother. Great.” She let the brace of her arms collapse and fell back on the bed.
April, who’d been watching their exchange with an expression that bounced between shock and amusement, said, “While you’re stretched out there, Cornie, stuff that pillow in your mouth, would you?” She turned to Joe, and her face got all tight and suspicious. “You checked us out. Why?”
“I check everybody out, Legs. Especially women who claim to be sisters while sobbing about how the mother who dumped me—pretty much like the kid there said—suddenly needs me to keep her sorry butt alive.”
“You’re the one with the sorry butt.” Cornie’s voice from the bed.
“Cornie, for God’s sake.” April’s face flushed when she glanced up at him, and her eyes snapped with irritation.
Green eyes. Yes. Definitely green, not the dark hazel he remembered from yesterday. It didn’t get much better than a green-eyed blonde, and dressed in jeans and a Tee—not one that showed her midriff sadly—she was hotter and more beautiful than he-remembered.
“You need help strangling her?” he said, tipping his head toward the bed the kid was lying on.
“No, I can manage fine. Thanks.” She shot a holding glance toward the girl before turning back to him. “What you can do is tell us why you’ve changed your mind and are willing to help.”
“Who said I was?” Just because she was right was no reason not to make her sweat a little. And maybe the kid had him pegged. Maybe Legs was why he was here. Wouldn’t be the first time his cock went on autopilot—but it had been a long time. Hell, he wished it were that simple. It wasn’t.
He was here because, after he’d bounced April out of his office, he’d thought things through and decided it’d be interesting to clap eyes on his mother, after all—and get a couple of questions answered. From what little he knew about her, she’d be easy enough to find. A quick run through her little black book shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours. He didn’t buy for a moment this was the life-and-death situation Legs made it out to be.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” She shot him a sharp look. Smart eyes, he thought, and direct. Don’t-mess-with-me eyes. “And you know, Joe, one kid is all I can handle right now, so I’d appreciate an answer mano a mano. What are you doing here?”
Man to man? Not exactly what he had in mind. “I’ve decided it’s time to meet Worth, get a few things off my chest.” Hell, he was between jobs, semi-flush with cash. Why the hell not?
She eyed him, all wary eyes and distrust. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” He slid his gaze over her. “Although the kid’s right. You not being a sister is definitely an added incentive.”
“Told ya,” Cornie said, giving him the evil eye. “He’s a jerk. And you’re the carrot on the stick.”
April shook her head either at him or the kid’s tangled metaphor. He didn’t know. Then she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. As a woman praying for patience, she was picture perfect.
“I do like carrots,” he said. He managed not to smile, when she opened her eyes and tried to kill him with them.
“That said, I think we understand one another. Always a good place to start.” With that she went to the phone, put her hand out, and said, “Your credit card please.”
“Excuse me?”
“I need to book three tickets to Las Vegas.” She made a gimme gesture with her fingers.
The kid shot to her feet. “I’m coming? And I don’t have to stowaway?”
April Worth shifted her attention from the telephone pad and gave Joe the once over, from toes to head and back again. “You can definitely come, Cornie. We’ve got ourselves a supersized bodyguard. The way I see it, it’ll take a small, well-armed army to hold off big boy here.” She met his gaze, her own cool and defiant. “All the carrot has to do is stay one step ahead.”
He handed her his Amex. Smiled. “I’ve got a long stride, Legs.” He winked his best wolfish wink. “A very long stride.” He heard the word “jerk” mumbled again; it seemed his sister had a severely limited vocabulary. Legs shot him a narrow-eyed glance.
“What you’ve got, Joseph, is a bloated ego and a small brain”—Legs looked pointedly at his crotch—“most likely in your pants.” She met his gaze, her green eyes jewel-hard. “And if you call me Legs again, you’ll lose even that.”
Cornie giggled. “You better listen up. Better men than you have tried and failed.” She shook her head, smiling so hard it looked to break her face. “You don’t know what you’re in for, big bro.”
Bro. . .
Joe’s mind locked on the word and his stomach got queasy. He looked down at . . . his sister. She might as well have been a multi-limbed alien for all he knew about her. Then it hit him—smart-mouth was a living, breathing, honest-to-God relative. Legs might not scare him, but this teenage girl who shared a DNA strand with him made his nape prickle and his stomach sink. He felt like a kid who’d found a monster in the closet and didn’t know whether to beat it with his bat or give it a cookie.
“We leave tomorrow,” April said, handing him back his card. “Pick us up at noon, please. We’ll be ready.”
He pulled his eyes from the girl and looked at the woman. She stood watching him, her arms crossed, her expression speculative and laced with amusement. “You can go now, Joe.”
Obviously April Worth wasn’t averse to giving orders, and any other time he might have called her on it, but not today. Not now. All he wanted to do was get his ass out of here. Now—before this follow-that-cab scenario he signed on for started to play out. He had some thinking to do—about just what he was getting himself into. He’d gone along this far without that mysterious construct called family. Maybe he should leave it at that, because he didn’t like the effect this sass-mouthed teen nightmare had on him. “Happy to,” he said. He slipped the card back in his wallet. “I’ve got a date with someone who appreciates small brains.”
Her lips twitched. “I’ll bet.”
Heading for the door, and with nothing to do but continue the charade, he gave a few orders of his own. “Tonight, you and . . . Cornball here, make a list of everything you know, think, and feel about where dear mommy might have gone. And people. Who she knows—men and women—and how long she’s known them. You got that?”
And while you mess with that, I’ll decide whether or not to show up tomorrow.
Legs said nothing. The girl got up and walked to stand in front of him. “I have a name, you know. It’s not ‘kid’ and it’s not Cornball. It’s Cornelia. My friends call me Cornie.” She eyed him with no mercy. “So far you don’t fall into that esteemed group.”
Henry Castor sat in his rented Taurus, smoking and dreaming about the new Mercedes set for delivery next week in Seattle. He’d even kicked around the idea of renting one when he got to Vegas, but he figured this job didn’t warrant such a quality vehicle and might attract attention. His plan was to get the job done and be out of this town two seconds later. You’re mine, Phylly baby, just as soon as I talk to your boss. Yeah.
And, tha
nk Jesus, it’d started to cool down. Whole damn day over a hundred. Shit. He couldn’t wait to get back to Seattle where you could breathe the air without scorching your lungs. He lowered the air-conditioning, and watched the parking lot slowly empty out. He figured by eight, eight-thirty at the latest, she’d be alone up there, and judging from how fast the staff was hightailing it out of the building, he looked to be right.
Hot and High, Inc. took up the second floor of a two-story building in a kind of a light industrial district, not far from McCarran Airport. The area already looked mostly deserted, but they worked late at the redhead’s place.
Henry knew this was the design studio of Rusty Black’s business, because the building where all the sewing stuff happened—and where Phyllis Worth had worked before she up and disappeared on him—was farther out. He’d done a good look-see before setting up this unscheduled appointment with the redhead. If she wouldn’t talk, her payroll records would talk for her. He huffed out an irritated breath. Chances were the records were on a damned computer. He hated those things. Didn’t understand them, didn’t want to.
He got out of the car and headed for the building.
He already didn’t like Rusty Black, didn’t like any woman who told him to fuck off—to his face, on the phone, or any other way. Probably one of them lib-type ballbusters. He hated those bitches. His blood boiled around his neck even thinking about them.
He took the stairs slowly, listening hard to hear if anyone else was hanging around. Nothing.
He passed through a tiny reception area and crossed a carpeted work area filled with drafting tables at odd angles, filing cabinets, and a scattering of computers. The lights weren’t out, but they were dimmed. There was a giant movie screen-type thing on one end of the place, and her office at the other. It was glass with slatted blinds. One of the slatted sections was open, and he saw her plain enough, sitting at her desk, working in the pooled glow from a high gooseneck lamp; her red hair, copper bright under its light, swung loose over the papers on her desk.
He didn’t bother to knock, just walked right on in.
She had a pencil in her hand and was drawing something; took her a second to register him when she looked up.
“Who the hell are you?” she said.
He closed the door, locked it, and gave her his best bullshit smile. “I’m the guy you told to fuck himself.” He figured she’d get scared at that, maybe take a step back. Didn’t happen.
“I tell lots of guys to do that. Which one are you?” She looked at him as if he were shoe shit.
“The one that doesn’t like it.” He walked to the window and closed the one blind that was open.
She watched him, real calm-like. Too calm. The blood was boiling in his neck again. “Ah,” she said. “You’re the asshole who’s looking for Phylly.”
“The very one.”
“And you’re doing the little office lockdown thing, because you’re planning to beat the crap out of me if I don’t tell you where she is.” She put her pencil down and stood. Loomed. “Well, you better think again, mini-dick, because I don’t plan on making that easy for you.”
Jesus, the woman was a giant, a fuckin’ Amazon. She had at least seven inches on him. Damned if his blood didn’t jelly some. He took in air, spread his legs, and cupped his crotch. “No need to go and insult a man’s equipment, Red. And for your information, there’s nothing mini about it. Yeah.”
She rolled her eyes.
Putting one hand in his pocket, he lifted the other and waved it, damn near cheerily. “How about you just tell me where Phyllis Worth is, and you and I go our separate ways”— he nodded at the papers on her desk—“you to your little pictures there and me to find Worth. Just want to talk to her is all. Nothing to worry about on that score.”
She snorted, like a goddamn mare, put her hands flat on the desk, and lowered her head enough so she could look him square in the eye. “How about you getting the hell out of my office, before I”—big accent on the I—“beat the crap out of you?”
Henry pulled out his shiny new Glock. “I don’t think so.”
She stared at the gun, sucked in a breath.
He had her attention, or at least what he had in his hand did. “Where’s Phyllis Worth?”
“As far away from you as she can get—which is a long, long way from Vegas.”
“Something a little more specific would be good.”
She shook her head, eyed the gun in his hand. “I hate to repeat myself, but . . . Go fuck yourself.”
He fired. He didn’t mean to exactly, but damned if his finger didn’t convulse on that trigger. Yeah.
She stared at him, her face white with shock, then she lifted a hand to her shot-up shoulder, now pulsing blood down the front of her white blouse. “You son of a bitch.” She slumped back into her chair, blood slipping and sliding through the fingers of the hand pressed to the wound.
Henry wanted to kick his own ass, knew damn well his putting a bullet in her was a bad idea, bound to attract the boys in blue. Q wouldn’t like that, but there was no going back now. “There’s more where that came from.” He put both hands on the gun, steadied it. He always shook a bit after he fired. Never told anybody that though. Always figured it wasn’t how you felt about things that mattered, it was how you performed. Henry Castor always performed. “So how stupid are you, bitch? Here’s your second chance. Where’s Worth?”
Her face, white before, was chalky now. It looked as if the damn bullet had aged her twenty years. Not a killing shot though. Not yet. He took aim at her chest, and for the first time she blinked.
“Worth,” he repeated. “Where is she?” It looked like she was going to pass out on him. No fuckin’ way.
Instead, she struggled to her feet, put her face inches from his. “Where you’ll never find her.” She gave him a dragon’s smile. “Now get your sorry ass out of my office, before I—”
He fired again.
Chapter 6
Quinlan Braid placed his hands on the patio balustrade and looked down; already the egos and their satellites were gathered in their selected herds on his lawn and patio. It was the Los Angeles A-list—an awkward, unwieldy mix of politicians, moneymen, and movie people who pretended to admire one another while each sat on his own smug perch, convinced it was the highest of them all.
Catching sight of Giselle, his groin tightened, and his gaze followed her lush form as she wove her way through the crowd to the patio below, where she joined two of his guests. She wore white as he’d instructed her to, and she looked like an angel—which, of course, she wasn’t—at least not in his bed. Giselle Morrisey was the best he’d ever had.
She looked up, saw him, and waved, the gesture bordering on childlike. “Hurry up,” she mouthed.
He nodded. Giselle would enjoy the formal evening—another reason he’d proceeded with it. Keeping her amused served to stave off his own boredom.
Back in his bedroom, he lifted his chin and straightened his black tie. With so much on his mind, he’d considered canceling the event and spending the evening in bed with Giselle. It wasn’t as if he needed these people anymore. He already had their money. But he’d planned this party months ago as a way of showing the expected gratitude for his guests’ investment in his last financial offering. A deal that had gone very well. Fifty million dollars domiciled in an offshore, zero-tax regime. Tax relief for them. Immense profits for Braid Enterprises.
He studied his tie in the mirror. Perfect. As was the catered food, the music, and the lights and candles artfully illuminating the grounds of his lavish estate.
Yet, he hesitated, loath to join his guests and curry favor no longer necessary to him, when the matter currently of most importance in his life was his own past—brought back to him in living color by Henry Castor.
He had to deal with the man, of course, but the prospect was not without its concerns. The measures required might well be severe, and Q was disquieted by the thought that he might have grown soft over
the years, his instincts dulled by the security that gates and money provided.
Opening a narrow drawer in a tall marble-topped bureau, he surveyed the symmetric row of folded, monogrammed Irish linen hankies. He selected one with double-seamed edging and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He was ready—prepared, physically and mentally, for the evening ahead.
All he needed were his shoes, given to Jerald to shine exactly twenty-one minutes ago.
Where was the man?
He reached out a hand toward the keypad on his dresser, was about to touch Jerald’s call number, but again hesitated. So unlike him, these delaying actions, but he couldn’t settle himself.
Perhaps an added moment of reflection . . .
He walked to the French doors leading to his private patio. Not the patio looking down over the pool area where close to a hundred and fifty people waited for his arrival, but the secluded balcony he used for drinking his snifter of cognac and smoking the one cigarette, a Nat Sherman classic he allowed himself each night before retiring. A thoughtful, analytical time, this private moment appealed to his sense of order.
Henry Castor, on the other hand, was chaos—a yawning sucking chasm pulling Quinlan into a past he’d left far behind. He’d brought back to Q the one transgression—in years of many—he’d never forget. It was his basest moment; the moment when greed erased his soul—and it bore no statute of limitations.
He remembered Victor twisting Robert Browning’s famous words, poking at Q’s initial reluctance to become involved—in one more job. “‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,’ Quinlan, my man,” Victor had quoted. “Or what’s a hell for?”
That final reach had given Q the last of the funds he’d needed to start the legitimate life he’d planned—as far from Victor and the streets of Seattle as he could get. Except for a minor matter or two, Q hadn’t had serious dealings with Victor Allan since.
