The Socialite and the SEAL

by Jenna Bennett

  “Where are we going?”

  He glanced at her. “To find Mimi.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  He gave her another look. “I told you. Up here.”

  Up where?

  “Why should I believe you?” Tansy wanted to know, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. “I don’t see her.”

  Conrad’s hands tightened on the wheel until his knuckles were white. “Just shut up and let me drive. We have to get away from the house before they figure out that we’re gone. You want the dog to survive this, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Tansy said. She felt, surreptitiously, for the door handle on her side of the car. The door was locked, of course. It had locked automatically when the truck moved above a certain speed. But there was a button she could push. She did it, hoping the click would be lost in the roar of the engine and the humming of the tires on the blacktop.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Conrad said without looking at her.

  “What do you mean?” Tansy pulled on the door handle, but the door didn’t open.

  “The child lock is on,” Conrad said. “You’d hurt yourself if you jumped out. We’re going too fast.”

  Tansy had noticed. They were obviously not looking for Mimi along the side of the road. The dog, if it were here, would just be a blur as they flew past.

  And the door wouldn’t open because the child safety lock was on. As if Conrad had known he’d be carrying a passenger who might want to get away.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To see the dog,” Conrad said. “That’s what you want, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then stay in the car. I’ll take you to where the dog is.”

  He kept driving. Tansy sat back in the seat and thought, since there wasn’t much else she could do. She hadn’t even brought her phone with her when she ran to the gate.

  There was no way out of the car until Conrad opened the door. And at the speed they were going, he was right anyway: she’d hurt herself if she jumped.

  And if she jumped, she wouldn’t get to see Mimi. And somehow, although he was acting very weird about the whole thing, Tansy still held on to the belief that Conrad knew where Mimi was. That he was taking her to see Mimi.

  They blew up the road in silence for a minute or two. Conrad slowed down for an intersection, and if the doors had opened, Tansy might have thought about jumping. But since they didn’t, it was moot.

  The truck picked up speed again, and Tansy turned to Conrad.

  “There was no man with a gun, was there?”

  He glanced at her. “No.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  Conrad shrugged. The movement was jerky. Tansy wondered how she’d been able to spend so much time with him just a year ago, without noticing this very erratic behavior.

  But maybe she’d just had a lot of other things on her mind back then. Too many other things to notice that Conrad was acting crazy.

  Or maybe Conrad hadn’t been crazy a year ago.

  “What did you do with my dog?”

  “Took her to my apartment,” Conrad said.

  “Why?”

  “We’ll talk about it when we get there.” He stomped on the gas and the truck shot forward. Tansy sat back—because she didn’t have a choice—and prayed that she’d get to see Mimi and John and her father again.

  13

  Mimi was indeed in Conrad’s second floor apartment.

  They parked in the lot below a four story brick apartment building near the railroad tracks.

  “There.” Conrad pointed to the second floor balcony, where a pair of brown curtains were pulled across the patio doors.

  “I don’t see her.”

  Conrad rolled his eyes. “She’s inside.”

  “Then why are you pointing?”

  Conrad growled. “Let’s go.”

  “You’ll have to open my door,” Tansy pointed out, “since you locked me in here.”

  Conrad glared at her. But he opened his door, jumped out, and came around to open hers.

  Tansy thought about making a break for it. She was wearing shoes with stupid heels again, and they were thin enough and sharp enough that she could probably stab him with one of them if she tried.

  But those same gorgeous heels that would hurt if she kicked Conrad in the stomach with them, would also make it impossible for her to get very far very fast. And besides, she wanted to see Mimi. So she let Conrad help her down from the seat, and allowed him to hold her arm as they walked placidly to the door.

  Conrad let them into a lobby that smelled of last night’s dinner—someone had cooked cabbage—and dirty diapers. They took the stairs to the second floor, where Conrad unlocked a door and stood aside to let Tansy in. She was vaguely aware of the sound of the lock and the security chain being fastened behind her, but all she saw was Mimi.

  Yes, Mimi was there. Alive and well, or so it seemed.

  When Tansy came into the living room, dark with the curtains closed, the small dog was lying on the brown corduroy sofa, looking sad.

  But when Tansy said her name, she lifted her head, and then jumped off the sofa and came dancing over. She didn’t make a sound, though, and it wasn’t until she came close that Tansy saw why.

  She turned to Conrad, outraged. “You taped her mouth shut!”

  “Couldn’t have her in here barking her head off,” Conrad said with a shrug. “It’s a no-pet building. The super would come to ask questions and I’d be kicked out.”

  “Then why did you bring her here, you moron?”

  Tansy sat down on the floor with Mimi in her lap and began picking at the tape wound around Mimi’s small snout. The little dog whimpered, and Tansy battled back a sense of murderous rage. How dare he hurt her dog? Who did he think he was?

  It could have been worse, though. Conrad must not have had any duct tape available, because he’d taped Mimi’s mouth shut with scotch tape. The clear tape was thin, and while it didn’t come off easily, Tansy could have imagined that something else would have been far worse.

  She petted and cooed at Mimi while she did her best to remove the tape. And all along she found herself wishing, desperately, that Mimi had left a couple of calling cards somewhere in Conrad’s apartment. A nice pile of poop in one of his sneakers for the next time he decided to go on a run, maybe.

  “I can’t believe you did this!” She scowled up at him. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I could have broken her neck,” Conrad said, with a quick twist of his hands to demonstrate. “I thought you’d prefer this.”

  The implication was that he could still do it, and maybe he would, if she didn’t keep quiet. Tansy ground her molars together and went back to picking slivers of scotch tape off her dog’s furry snout. As soon as the tape was off, Mimi opened her mouth and let out a sharp, complaining yip.

  “I know,” Tansy told her, hugging her close. “He shouldn’t have done that to you.” Bastard. “When we get home, I’ll make sure you get an extra special treat.”

  Conrad didn’t say anything, but somehow managed to convey that they wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Tansy wanted to ask what the hell he thought he was going to do, but he was acting so weirdly irrational that she was afraid of what the answer would be.

  But really, what did he expect to happen? He couldn’t keep her here forever. Was he going to kill her? Why?

  He’d never come across as homicidal. He still didn’t. Tansy had her back to him, and she wasn’t really worried that he’d suddenly put a bullet through the back of her head.

  But at the same time, what was he trying to accomplish? Why were they even here? Why had he dognapped Mimi in the first place? What was he trying to prove?

  “That I can do a better job than those stupid SEALs your father brought in,” Conrad said, and Tansy realized she’d asked the question out loud. “He shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have let him do that, Tansy.”

&nb
sp; His tone was somewhere between accusatory and very, very reasonable. Tansy opened her mouth to tell him not to call her by her first name, that he worked for her and he’d damn well better address her with respect—and shut it again. It wouldn’t go over well.

  “I was supposed to protect you,” Conrad said. He came around the sofa and sat down on the coffee table so he could talk to her face to face. His expression was earnest, but every so often a muscle in his jaw would jump. Tansy wasn’t sure whether it was a weird little tick or because he was grinding his teeth, and frankly, she didn’t care. How could she have ever thought him handsome? She tried to see it, but all she saw was the man who had dognapped Mimi, scotch taped her snout shut, and lied about it.

  Meanwhile, Conrad kept talking. “It was my job. Not theirs. Not his.” His face contorted. “Stupid bastard. Climbing that wall to impress you. And broadcasting it to everyone first, to make sure we all knew. So I showed him.”

  Tansy felt a chill creep down her spine. “You shot at John?”

  She should have figured that out by now, she supposed. After all, there hadn’t been a man with a gun dognapping Mimi. She just hadn’t put two and two together and fingered Conrad for all of it.

  “Of course I shot at John!” Conrad’s face twisted on the name. “I wasn’t trying to hit him, though. Just make him fall. So they’d ship him off and I’d go back to being your bodyguard.”

  Tansy wasn’t sure what to say to that. Shrieking at him that making John fall from the second story to the flagstone patio might well have killed him, wouldn’t help.

  “Why did you want to go back to being my bodyguard?” she asked instead, as calmly as she could.

  Conrad reached for her hand. The touch of it made Tansy’s skin crawl, but she didn’t pull away. Mimi growled, and Conrad scowled at her. “Stupid bitch. I should have wrung her neck when I had the chance.”

  Tansy tried to stay calm. She squeezed his fingers to get his attention back on her and away from Mimi, while she soothed the tiny dog with her other hand. Outside in the parking lot, she could hear the growl of a powerful engine. Conrad looked like he heard it, too, and Tansy said, quickly, “Why did you want to go back to being my bodyguard, Conrad?”

  Conrad’s face relaxed, and he smiled. “I like it when you call me that.”

  Tansy forced herself to smile back, when what she really wanted to do was smack the stupid grin off his face. “It’s a nice name.”

  It wasn’t. It was a stupid name. And he was a stupid man. And she just wanted to get away from him. And when the knock on the door came, Tansy thought she might get the chance to do just that.

  Conrad scowled at the door.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Tansy asked.

  “If we’re quiet, maybe he’ll think we aren’t here.”

  Tansy opened her mouth. Conrad looked at Mimi. Tansy closed her mouth again. It wasn’t worth Mimi’s life.

  “Conrad!” a voice called through the door. “It’s me, Donnie.”

  Conrad relaxed. “The super,” he told Tansy, before raising his voice. “Whaddaya want, Donnie?”

  “Gotta message you gotta dog in there,” Donnie said through the door. “I gotta check it out.”

  “There’s no dog here,” Conrad told him, in blatant disregard of the evidence on Tansy’s lap. She murmured soothingly to Mimi. It might be nice if Mimi barked, but since barking might be Mimi’s death sentence, it was much better if she didn’t.

  “I know that, Conrad. But I gotta look. You know the rules.”

  Conrad sighed. “Can you come back later, Donnie?”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Donnie said through the door. “C’mon and open the door, Conrad. Just show me that there’s no dog, and I’m gone.”

  Conrad murmured a curse. “Hang on. Just let me put some clothes on.”

  Donnie didn’t comment on the fact that it was close to noon and that Conrad ought to be dressed by now. “I’ll be right here,” he said, and Tansy could imagine him leaning up against the wall outside the door. No possibility for taking Mimi out that way, then.

  For a second, Conrad didn’t look like he quite knew what to do. He looked around the apartment for somewhere to hide her and Mimi.

  “How about we just wait on the balcony?” Tansy suggested. “And you keep the curtains closed?”

  If they were out there, surely she could find a way to get down. Or if not, at least a way to get Mimi down, to where she’d be safe. If Conrad didn’t have Mimi to use as leverage, Tansy could get away from him somehow.

  Conrad hesitated. Donnie knocked on the door again. “C’mon, Conrad. I don’t have all day, you know?”

  Conrad cursed quietly, and opened his mouth. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming. Just a sec.”

  He pointed to the door to the bathroom. “In there.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Tansy said. “He’ll check the bathroom. It’s better if we go on the balcony.”

  Conrad hesitated.

  “You’re on the second floor,” Tansy pointed out. “It’s not like I’m going to jump. Or fling Mimi off.”

  That seemed to resonate with him. Especially since Donnie renewed his assault on the door. “Get a move on, Conrad. Geez, you think I have nothing better to do than check on your non-existent dog? If there’s no dog in there, why don’t you just let me in?”

  “Coming,” Conrad called, muttering about what he wanted to do to Donnie once he got him alone.

  Tansy picked up Mimi and headed for the balcony. Maybe, if she just did what she said she was going to do, and Conrad was torn between her going in one direction and Donnie the superintendent yelling at him from the other, she could make it out of the apartment and onto the balcony without him stopping her. The last thing she wanted, was for him to realize that if he snapped little Mimi’s neck and stuffed her in a drawer, Donnie would never know she was there.

  So Tansy cradled Mimi as gently as she could and made for the door to the balcony. Conrad hesitated.

  Donnie was starting to get pissed. “What the hell’s going on in there?” he yelled. “I have a key, you know. If you’re not opening the door in five seconds, I’m unlocking it myself.”

  He started counting. “One. Two. Three.”

  Conrad watched as Tansy reached beyond the curtain for the door handle, but he didn’t stop her.

  “Four,” Donnie called from the hallway.

  Tansy opened the door to the balcony just as Donnie got to five. She dashed behind the curtain and outside with Mimi in her arms.

  And straight into a pair of strong arms.

  For a second she froze. Then she recognized him. The smell. The feel of his arms around her. She didn’t even need the sound of his voice, but it was nice to hear even so.

  “I’ve got you. Shhh. We have to be quiet. I’ll get you down. Just a second.”

  He took Mimi from her. The tiny pooch didn’t make a sound, although she did stick out her tiny tongue to lick the tip of his thumb.

  “What the hell happened to her?” he wanted to know.

  “He taped her mouth shut,” Tansy said, her voice soft but echoing with fury.

  John looked at her for a second. “Rusty’ll take care of it.”

  He carried Mimi over to the edge of the patio. Through the open door into the apartment, Tansy could just make out the sounds of Conrad opening the door to Donnie.

  When she turned around, Mimi was gone. John’s hands were empty as he came toward her.

  Tansy looked around, frantically. “Where is she?”

  He pointed over the railing. Tansy rushed the couple of steps over and peered down. Max was just squatting to drop Mimi into the passenger seat of the Maserati. He was standing on the hood of the car, giving him a couple of feet of extra height on top of the already impressive six-and-a-half feet or so he already had.

  He straightened and smiled up at her. “Your turn, Ms. Leighton.”

  “Sit on the edge,” John told her. “I’ll hold your hands, a
nd Max will catch you when you drop.”

  Tansy hesitated.

  “Trust me. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  From inside the apartment, Tansy could hear raised voices. One of them was Conrad’s. The other was Donnie’s, explaining—at high decibels—why he had to come and make sure there was no dog on the premises. “I gotta call, OK? Somebody called and said there was a dog here. I gotta look and see that there’s no dog.”

  “C’mon.” John helped her up on the railing around the balcony. The ground looked a long way away, but Max was close. “Just drop straight down. It isn’t far. Max’ll catch you.”

  Max nodded.

  “Gimme your hands,” John added. His engulfed hers, warm and hard and comforting. “You’re safe. I promise. We won’t let anything happen to you. Just one quick drop. Max’ll catch you. I’ll jump down, and we’ll pick up Rusty and go home.”

  “Where’s Rusty?”

  “On his way down,” Max said. “After making sure that Conrad opened the door to the super.” He reached up. “C’mon, Ms. Leighton. I’ll catch you. Jump.”

  “Go,” John told her, and Tansy let herself slip off the balcony. He held her, long enough for Max to get a grip on her ankles.

  When John let go, Max let her slip through his arms until she landed on the hood of the Maserati. He steadied her for a second, then nudged her out of the way. “Go. Sit with the dog.”

  John had already climbed over the railing and was hanging by his hands. When he dropped, Max caught him, too. They both staggered for a second, before jumping off each side of the car and getting in. John got behind the wheel and Max into the passenger seat, while Tansy scrambled into the back and gathered Mimi into her lap. The small dog greeted her with ecstatic licks on the chin.

  “Make room for Rusty back there,” John told her as he yanked on the stick shift. The Maserati was already running, poised for a quick getaway, as Rusty came jogging around the corner. He didn’t bother with the door, just vaulted into the back.

  “Go.”

  The Maserati took off, streaking out of the parking lot and onto the road at twice the legal limit. Tansy shrieked, and John looked at her in the mirror and laughed.