Conrad looked disgusted. “Fine. I’ll take the dog to the groomer.”
“Why don’t you take the Maserati?” Tansy suggested, clearly trying to placate Conrad, who—in JB’s opinion—was behaving like a spoiled brat. The bastard didn’t need a bribe. He needed a fist to the face. “You can keep the top down. She likes that.”
Conrad looked mollified. “If you don’t mind.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” JB told him. Walter Leighton was probably paying for the insurance on the Maserati, and JB was damned if Walter was going to have to cover some juvenile stupidity from Conrad, who was old enough to know better.
Conrad curled his lip, but didn’t answer. Instead he snapped his fingers. “Come on, Mimi. Let’s go.”
“We’ll wait here for Gus,” JB told Tansy.
She nodded. “I’ll just go with Conrad and get Mimi situated in the car.”
JB hesitated. He didn’t want her going anywhere with Conrad, not even to the garage to put her dog in the car. But since he’d sound like a jealous ass if he said anything about it, he just nodded. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll catch a ride back to the gate,” Tansy told him. “Wait for me.”
She hurried after Conrad and Mimi. He watched until she’d caught up, and until Conrad, ostensibly, was in a position to protect her if anything happened, before turning to greet Gus. As per his usual MO, Gus had materialized out of thin air, or at least moved so quietly that JB hadn’t heard him coming. “What do you do? Apparate?”
Gus grinned. “What’s up with the pretty-boy?”
“He was Tansy’s bodyguard after she came back from the Med last year. Guess he didn’t want to be replaced.”
“Guess not.” Gus watched Conrad and Tansy and the small dog fade from view. She’d kept a safe couple of feet between them, JB was happy to see.
“Now he’s on dog duty.”
Gus arched a brow, and JB explained about Mimi’s trip to the groomer.
“Bet that went over well,” Gus remarked.
JB shrugged. “He’s going.”
“But not happily.”
As far as JB was concerned, Conrad didn’t have to be happy about it as long as he did the job. “Tansy told him he could drive her Maserati. And Max said to have you take over the gate until he’s back. Since you were prowling all night.”
“I like to prowl,” Gus said with a shrug, “but I’ll take over the gate. You staying on the girl?”
JB nodded. “As soon as she gets back here. I hope we catch this guy soon.”
“But not too soon.” Gus made himself comfortable in the little guardhouse. “I could easily do this for a week or two.”
JB couldn’t. “I’d rather be sloshing through a swamp somewhere.”
“Course you would.” Gus slanted him a look. “I’d be happy to get used to this, but the lady doesn’t seem interested in me. You, on the other hand, don’t want anything to do with it, and she looks at you like you hung the moon.”
“It’s the situation,” JB said. “If you were standing between her and a madman with a gun, she’d look at you like that, too.”
“If you say so,” Gus said doubtfully, as the sound of an engine filled the air. The Maserati came roaring down the driveway with Conrad at the wheel and Tansy in the passenger seat, her blond hair flying. In the back, Mimi was hopping around, tiny tongue lolling.
The car came to a stop in front of the gate, and JB went to open the door for Tansy. She seemed to expect a hand to help her out of the low-slung car, so he offered one. “You know where to go?” he asked Conrad.
Conrad nodded.
“Drive carefully,” Tansy told him. “I don’t want anything to happen to Mimi. Or the car.”
Conrad nodded, and kept revving the engine while the iron gates opened slowly. As soon as they had opened enough for the Maserati to squeeze through, he stomped on the gas and shot through the gate and onto the road. And was gone in a cloud of exhaust.
JB turned to Tansy with his eyebrows arched. She shrugged.
“Asshole,” Gus said from inside the guardhouse, and that seemed to cover it.
JB gestured for Tansy to precede him, and they headed back to the house, leaving Gus in charge of the gate.
11
It was less than an hour later that Gus called John on his phone. By then, Tansy and John were back in the house, and she was going stir-crazy. “There’s nothing to do!”
John was leaned back in a chair on the patio, looking like he could sit there all day. “What do you usually do at—” He checked the time, “ten-thirty?”
“Get ready to go somewhere for lunch,” Tansy said.
“You eat lunch at ten-thirty?”
“I said get ready to. You know: dress, do my hair and makeup. That takes an hour.” Easily. “And it takes a while to drive into town, too.”
He didn’t say anything, just arched his brows at her, and Tansy huffed a breath. “Today I would be at Sylvia’s. Probably getting ready to eat something delicious in her café.”
“The dog groomer has a café?”
“It’s a doggie spa,” Tansy said. “With a café where the doggie parents can wait while their pooches get pampered.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, and for once, Tansy didn’t think it looked charming. “I fail too see why that’s funny.”
“Really?” He crossed his legs at the ankles. “And here I was beginning to think you were a normal person in spite of all money. Now I’m thinking maybe I was wrong.”
Tansy scowled at him. He grinned back, and she sighed. “Fine. I’m just bored. Although the doggie spa really does have a café, and when I drop Mimi off, I usually do have lunch there. They had divine salads.”
“I’m sure they do,” John said, and that’s when his phone rang. “Excuse me.”
He dug in one of his many pockets for it. “Yeah?”
And then his voice and his whole demeanor changed, as he sat bolt upright in the chair. He must still be hurting from yesterday, because Tansy saw a quick grimace cross his face at the sudden movement. He didn’t let it stop him, though. “Where is he?” His voice was quick and sharp.
Whoever was on the other end of the line said a few words, and John nodded. “We’re on our way. Get Max and Mick down there.”
He was out of the chair before he’d disconnected the call.
“What’s the matter?” Tansy asked.
“Conrad’s back. He says Mimi’s been dognapped.”
For a second, the world stopped. Tansy knew she’d heard what she thought she’d heard, but her brain wasn’t processing it. Then things clicked back into place, and she could think again.
“Dognapped? Mimi’s been dognapped?”
“That’s what he said,” John said. “He’s down at the gate. Let’s go.”
He set off across the patio with long strides. Tansy had to run to catch up, and when he realized he was outpacing her, he slowed his steps so she could keep up. He even held out a hand, and even though she knew it was just as much to drag her along as to give her comfort, Tansy grabbed it and held on.
Even so, they were the last ones there. When they reached the driveway, Tansy could see the blue Maserati parked in front of the gatehouse, with the gate securely shut behind it, and Max and Mick halfway between her and John and the car. Mick had no problem keeping up with Max’s longer legs, or if he did, it didn’t slow him down.
John picked up his speed, with a glance at her. “You all right?”
Tansy nodded. She didn’t have enough breath left to speak, but she was hanging on. Aside from a few attempts at jogging, she didn’t think she’d ever moved so fast.
They arrived in front of the Maserati half a minute later. By then, Mick had Conrad out of the vehicle and was interrogating him, while Max and the other SEAL, Gus, were watching, arms folded across their chests. There was a whole lot of testosterone on display.
“He just stepped out in front of me!” Conrad said, with a
shrill edge to his voice. Tansy wondered whether that had always been there, and she was just now hearing it, or if it was something new.
“Why didn’t you run him down?”
For a second it seemed as if Conrad didn’t have the words to respond. He looked at Mick with bulging eyes, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.
“Where’s my dog?” Tansy wanted to know. “Where’s Mimi?”
She looked into the car, but of course the small dog wasn’t there.
“We’re getting to the bottom of that,” Mick assured her, with a glance at John.
He put a hand on Tansy’s back, warm and comforting through the thin silk of her blouse. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her back.”
They’d better. Or Tansy would never forgive any of them. Especially John, who had refused to take Mimi to the doggie spa himself.
Of course, if she and John had taken Mimi to the doggie spa, whatever had happened to Conrad would have happened to them.
She turned back to Conrad, in time to hear him get his voice—or maybe his wits—back. “I didn’t recognize him.”
“I see.” Mick’s voice had landed somewhere between sarcastic and incredulous. “So this man, whom you didn’t recognize, came out of the trees on the side of the road, and waved you down.”
Conrad nodded.
“And when you stopped, he pulled out a gun and told you, ‘the doggie or your life.’”
“I recognized him,” Conrad said, “then.”
“You recognized him.”
Conrad nodded. “It was the guy in the picture. From the briefing yesterday.”
“The guy in the picture.” Mick’s voice was flat. “Which guy?”
“The terrorist!” Conrad said. “The Arab guy. Mohammed somebody.”
“He was here?” This was Max’s contribution. “In Philadelphia?”
“He was right down the road,” Conrad said, warming to his story now that he had their attention. “He flagged me down. And then he started waving this gun around. And he took the dog and left.”
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Tansy wanted to know. John made a soothing circle with his hand on her back.
“He had a gun!” Conrad said.
“So do you! And if he was walking away with my dog, you could have shot him!” In the back if he had to. No one would have minded.
“What did he want with the dog?” John asked.
Conrad gave him a look down the length of his nose. Funny, but Conrad didn’t look the least bit handsome anymore. “How am I supposed to know?”
“I thought you might have asked.” The suffix—asshole—came through loud and clear, although John didn’t say it, and didn’t even mouth it. Tansy had no problem hearing it, even so.
“Where did he take my dog?” she wanted to know.
Conrad turned to her. “I don’t know, Tansy. But I’ll find out.”
How? How was he going to find out?
John’s eyes had narrowed, and it took Tansy a second to figure out why. Then it registered: Conrad had called her by her first name. He wasn’t supposed to do that. She’d never told him he could. He must have forgotten himself in the moment.
“Where did this happen?” Mick wanted to know.
Conrad gave directions. It wasn’t that far. A couple of miles down the road.
“Then what happened?”
“I waited for him to disappear,” Conrad said, “and then I followed him.”
There was a moment’s silence. None of the SEALs said anything. Mick didn’t, either.
Then— “How did that go?” Max wanted to know.
Conrad glanced at him. He didn’t seem to have the same attitude problem with Max that he did with John. Maybe Max scared him more. That was certainly likely. “I couldn’t find him.”
John muttered something. The other SEAL—Gus—nodded. Tansy didn’t hear what they said, and didn’t think she should ask.
“All right,” Max said, with a glance at Mick. “With your permission, I’ll send a couple guys out to search the area. See if we can pick up anything.”
Mick nodded.
“Meanwhile, you’d better sit tight here.” He glanced at Tansy, and then at John. “He might call.”
John nodded.
“I want to find Mimi!” Tansy protested.
Max nodded. “We’ll find her. But it’s better if you stay here. If this is a ploy to get you away from the estate, somewhere he can kill you more easily, we don’t want to play into it.”
That made sense. Even if it didn’t feel good.
She turned to John, helplessly.
“They’ll find her,” he told her. “Gus can track anybody through anything.”
She looked at the tall SEAL who’d been sitting in the guardhouse since Conrad left. He nodded.
Tansy capitulated. “OK. I’ll stay here. But please find my dog. She’s probably scared. And he might hurt her. Please get her back.”
Max turned to Mick. “I’ll take Gus and Rusty and go there. I’ll leave Cisco on the back gate, and JB on Ms. Leighton. You’ve got the front gate and Mr. Leighton?”
Mick nodded. “We’ve got it covered. Just find the dog. And the bastard who took her.”
Max said he would. “OK if we just take the Maserati? Since it’s here?” He glanced at Tansy.
“Take whatever you want,” she told him. “Just bring me Mimi.”
“We’ll do our best.” He nodded to Gus, who said, “Shotgun!” and vaulted into the passenger seat. Rusty was already on his way down the driveway from the house, and a few seconds later, he crawled into the back. Max slid in behind the wheel, and the car reversed back through the now open gate. It looked ridiculously small with the three huge men inside.
The car took off down the road with a roar of the engine. Mick reversed the movement of the gate and they all watched it clang shut. In the distance, the sound of the Maserati faded.
Tansy turned to John. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
“There’s a lot of waiting.”
He nodded. “We’d best get back to the house. Just in case the bastard calls.”
Tansy nodded. “Conrad...” She turned to him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. It’s just... I love Mimi. I wish you wouldn’t have let him walk away with her.”
“I’ll get her back for you,” Conrad promised.
Tansy wanted to ask how he planned to do that, but Mick got in before her. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” Conrad said. And backpedaled, “I mean, it was scary. But I’m all right now. I could have gone back there with them. To tell them where it was.”
“They’ll find it,” John said. And added, “If the directions you gave were good.”
“They’re good.” Conrad sounded pissed off.
“Do you need some time off,” Mick wanted to know, “or can you go back to work?”
Conrad squared his shoulders and stuck his chest out. “I’m fine.”
Mick gestured to the gatehouse. “You know what to do.”
He herded John and Tansy ahead of him up the driveway, muttering darkly about incompetent idiots.
* * *
The Maserati came roaring back an hour later. By then, JB was sick and tired of sitting beside the phone, waiting for a ransom call that never came. So was Tansy, but she wasn’t willing to leave. When they heard the familiar roar of the Maserati’s engine, JB glanced out the window and saw the sleek, blue shape zoom by up the driveway in the direction of the garage.
He looked at Tansy. “The guys are back.”
She nodded. “I wonder why Conrad didn’t let us know.”
JB knew why. Conrad didn’t like JB any better than JB liked Conrad, so Conrad wasn’t doing him any favors. He should have notified Tansy, though. She was beside herself with worry for her little dog.
JB admitted to a little concern, too. Yes, Mimi was just a dog. A barely-there ball of fluff and shrill barks. But she was Tansy’s dog. More than a dog to Tansy. A compan
ion. A friend. A warm and comforting presence during those nights when she woke up with nightmares.
Conrad should have kept the dog safe.
And Conrad should have let them know that the SEALs were back. Bastard.
“Go,” Tansy told him. “Maybe they have Mimi.”
If they’d had Mimi, they’d have stopped at the house. But JB didn’t tell her that. It didn’t seem to have occurred to Tansy yet that Mimi might not survive her ordeal. And JB wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it.
“Please,” Tansy said. “I don’t want to leave the phone in case he calls. And I’m safe inside the house. You don’t have to hover over me. Go find out if they know anything. Maybe they tracked him somewhere and they know where Mimi is.”
JB hesitated. Tansy looked up at him with those big, blue eyes swimming with tears. “I want my dog back. Go get me some good news. Please.”
When she put it like that, how could he not?
He hesitated for a second before doing something he’d told himself he wouldn’t do. He leaned down and kissed her. Very lightly, just a soft brush of his lips over hers. When he straightened, her eyes were closed and her lips parted, and all he wanted to do was do it again.
He didn’t. “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”
He walked away before she could open her eyes, but he could feel her gaze following him as he walked out of the conservatory and across the patio toward the garage.
He’d thought he’d meet the guys on the way there, but they were still standing just outside the garage doors when he made it to the big building. Max saw him coming and shook his head. “No dog.”
That was a good sign, actually. If el Saud—or whoever had the dog—was keeping Mimi alive, that was better than the alternative.
“Did you find the place where it happened?”
“We found the place where Conrad said it happened,” Max said.
Oh-kay.
JB looked from one to the other of them. Rusty shook his head. “I’m just gonna go back to the house. You two fill him in.”
The Socialite and the SEAL Page 11
