“Jefferson,” she admonished, but there was no weight behind it. Naturally she wanted her son to admire and respect her brother, but what had Henry ever done to deserve it? He’d made no effort to have any sort of relationship with his only nephew.
But he’d made plenty of effort for his “niece.” Apparently, she’d been able to offer him so much more than Jefferson had.
“Well, it certainly makes the old man more intriguing,” Jefferson continued. “A person runs across cops all the time, but a drug dealer who lied, cheated, stole, and murdered his way to the top—that’s definitely different. Just think what my friends would say.”
“Jefferson! You can’t—” She broke off midshriek and laughed ruefully. “You’re just playing games with me, aren’t you? Of course you won’t tell anyone about Henry. It wouldn’t be good for the future Secretary of the Treasury if people knew his uncle was a major criminal.”
“Secretary of the Treasury?” he repeated wryly. “And here I thought one day being CEO of my own investment firm would be enough to make you proud.”
She closed her eyes briefly, and her throat grew tight. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to do a damn thing to make me proud. I just about bust with pride every time I think of you. Just give me a grandbaby or two to spoil, and I’ll be the happiest woman on the face of God’s earth.”
He was quiet for a moment, and when he did speak, his throat was tight, too. “Thank you, Mama. That means a lot. Grant might not give a damn, and Henry never did, but as long as I’ve got you, who cares about them?”
“Honey, your father—” Grimly Kathryn broke off. He was right. Grant hadn’t accepted him as a member of the family any more than Henry had. Oh, he’d put on a better act—had tried to play the role even if he hadn’t felt it in his heart—but his effort had been half-assed at best. One more thing to hold against Henry.
And Selena.
She smiled, well aware it was more of a grimace, and added a cajoling tone to her voice. “Any chance you’ll come visit your uncle Henry?”
“Has hell frozen over?” he asked, feigning surprise. “Mama, my chances of visiting Henry are somewhere between slim and none. My chances of visiting you, though . . . I’ll have to see when I can get away from work.”
“That would be wonderful, Jefferson.” She saw him at least a half dozen times a year—more often than some of her friends saw their grown children who lived right in the same state—but it wasn’t enough. Sometimes, when she was weary of Grant’s distraction, she fantasized about moving to Orlando, making a new home for herself, welcoming the wife Jefferson would surely take, doting on the grandchildren they would give her. Grant certainly wouldn’t object. Heavens, he probably wouldn’t even realize she was gone for at least a year or two.
And he wouldn’t miss her. As far as she could tell, he never did, while she missed him every blessed day. The early years of their marriage had been so sweet, so damn near perfect . . . until the baby had come along and ruined everything.
The mere reminder was enough to rouse a surge of hatred for her brother.
“Let me check with my assistant tomorrow and see when I can manage a few days away, and then I’ll get back to you. How does that sound?”
“That sounds perfect, which is only natural, considering that you are perfect. I’ll hold my breath until I hear from you.”
He laughed again. “Just make sure you’re sitting down so you won’t have far to fall when you turn blue and pass out. I’ll call you tomorrow, Mama. For sure.”
“All right. I love you, baby.”
“Love you, too.”
The line went dead, and she slowly lowered the phone from her ear. As she flipped it shut, she finished with her customary line, little more than a whisper in the silence of the suite. “Always have. Always will.”
Selena and Tony sprawled across the bed, only their fingers touching, their breathing slowly returning to normal, the cool air drying the sweat that slicked their skin. Her hair tangled about her head, she turned to give him a lazy, satisfied smile. “Did I tell you I missed you?”
“In more ways than one.” The rushing in his ears had subsided to nothing more than a dull whoosh, and his heart rate had edged out of heart-attack range. Turning onto his side, he stuffed a pillow under his head, lifted a handful of curls that were caught under the pillow, then settled his hand on her shoulder. “Tell me about Savannah.”
Was it guilt that made her gaze flicker away, or reluctance to discuss something that, so far, had led only to arguments?
“We got in Friday afternoon,” she said at last, “and I had dinner with Sonny Yates that evening. He’s in charge of William’s Southeastern operation.”
She continued, her voice soft, her tone cautious, with what Tony was sure was the sanitized version. What she was describing sounded no more dangerous than any legitimate business trip . . . except legitimate business meetings weren’t held with drug dealers and murderers.
Did he want to press for details? If the feds had put her in danger, did he want to know?
“So it was all fun and games. I worried all that time for nothing.”
She tilted her head to study him. “Were you worried?”
“Jeez, Selena . . . every minute of every day. That’s all.”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
“Sorry, babe, but you don’t get to control that. It’s part of the whole love thing. You can’t have one without the other.” Under the circumstances, a whole hell of a lot of the other.
She was watching him wide-eyed, considering that, when the growling of her stomach broke the silence. Her cheeks turning pink, she laughed and laid her hand there as if to silence it.
“Sounds like someone’s hungry,” he teased. “What do you want for dinner?”
“To go out alone with you.”
He would have liked that, too, dinner, then taking her home, where they could be normal, just two people making a life together. For a while.
Instead of offering comfort, though, he mimicked a game-show buzzer as he got out of bed. “Ain’t gonna happen, babe. But I can go out and bring something back, or we can call someone who delivers.”
“Or I could insist Robinette send one of his people out to get something for us. Though he’s posing as my assistant, it drives him crazy when I treat him as such.”
“You’ve got a bit of a mean streak in you, don’t you?” After buttoning his shorts, Tony fished under the bed for his shirt, then tugged it on. “You will put some clothes on first, won’t you?”
“No one sees me naked but you.”
“And I want to keep it that way.”
She rose from the bed, lifted her suitcase to the mattress, then dug inside for an emerald silk robe. It was perfectly modest—sleeves falling past her elbows, the hem brushing her knees, the belt securing it so there wasn’t even a chance of glimpsing anything intimate—but she still looked sexy as hell in it.
Of course, she looked sexy as hell in anything.
As she disappeared into the adjoining bathroom with an armful of clothing, his gaze fell to the suitcase. When he packed a bag, it looked as if a gang of monkeys had helped. Everything in this one was precisely placed—outfits here, bras there. Her makeup and toiletries were packed in matching bags, shoes in more matching bags, newspapers neatly stacked on the bottom out of the way . . .
Why had she brought newspapers back from Savannah? As souvenirs went, they were a pretty sorry choice.
She hadn’t brought the entire papers, just one section each from the Saturday and Sunday editions. Vehicle Forced Off Road, read the Saturday headline, while the smaller text underneath announced, Two Injured.
Sunday’s headline was shorter: Gun Battle Downtown .
He stared at the papers, trying to focus, until he realized that his hands were shaking. Dropping the papers on the bed, he paced to the window to stare out over the grounds. To the west, traffic on Riverside Drive was moving at its usual pace. People were jogging
and walking in the park on the far side of the street, and fishermen were dropping lines from the pedestrian bridge. Everything looked so goddamn normal.
And he felt so goddamn cold. Angry. Afraid. Disappointed. She had lied to him—had lain there naked in bed with him and lied. Fun and games, my ass! They’d tried to kill her twice, and she hadn’t thought it worth mentioning to him.
He forced air into his lungs and squeezed his eyes shut. He was trying to be more accepting, remember? Open-minded? He was trying to keep this relationship from falling apart, and getting pissed off was no way to accomplish that.
Behind him the bathroom door opened and bare feet crossed the wood floor to the rug. “Is this more to your . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and he turned from the window to see her staring at the newspapers. Yep, it had been guilt earlier, when he’d brought up Savannah, and it was definitely guilt there now. Her face was flushed, her throat working, and the arms she’d extended to show off the fact that she was dressed were trembling.
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the windowsill, needing its support more than he wanted to admit. “So . . . Savannah was lovely, hot, and humid. All fun and games.” His voice was sharp, accusing, and remained that way despite his effort to tone it down. “Now tell me the fucking truth.”
“Just how fucking incompetent are you?”
Barnard Taylor set his cigar aside and switched the phone to his other hand. That damned lack of respect. There was a time when he would have shot any pup who dared speak to him in that tone. He might still be tempted, once he found out who the bastard was. There was no shortage of suspects—all the top people in Davis’s organization had his private number—but the evidence pointed toward someone on Yates’s payroll or Selena’s. Hell, for all he knew, it could even be Damon Long. It would be just like that fucker to get someone else to kill his new boss so he could take over and get paid for the hit, too.
“Who the hell do you think you are, calling me at home and talking to me like this? Do you know who I am? Do you know what I could do to you?”
“You’d have to find me first, old man, and since your best men apparently trained with the Three Stooges, I’m not exactly sweating that.”
“What men? What Three Stooges?”
“Playing dumb, huh?” Mystery Man chuckled. “One fuckup after another. Christ, maybe I should have taken my information elsewhere.”
Yeah, right, Barnard mouthed. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Mystery Man had sold the same info to Munroe, probably to Yates, and maybe even to half the competition out there. There were plenty of major players who would like to expand their territories. Trying had been a sure way to die when Mr. Davis was in charge, but with the bitch-girl, that had definitely changed. For all anyone knew, there could be a half dozen hitters out there stalking her.
“She’s back in Tulsa now, living at her uncle’s big, fancy estate. This time your guys won’t get a clear shot at her on the street. They’re gonna have to get past the fence, the guards, the alarm system. It’s gonna be tough.”
“You know what they say—‘if you can see ’em, you can kill ’em.’ ”Long-distance shots through a window, walking to the car, or sitting around the pool—that was what snipers were for. And every man in his line of work happened to know a damned good one. “You got the address of this fancy estate?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Though I have to think maybe I’m wasting my time giving it to you.”
“Giving it? You moneygrubbing little shit, I’ve paid you plenty. You aren’t giving me anything but grief.”
Mystery Man snorted. “I’ve given you the opportunity of a lifetime. I set a target in front of you, and you’ve failed to take it out— twice.”
“I haven’t failed at anything, you little pissant. You try proving I was behind any attempted hit on the new boss. You won’t find a goddamn shred of evidence leading to me.”
“The man doing the hiring was from Philly.”
“It’s a big, big city.”
“He used to work for you.”
“I’ve employed hundreds of people over the years. Turnover’s high in my line of work.”
“So it’s all coincidence, huh? And it’s coincidence that he offered the job to someone else who used to work for you.”
Barnard rubbed the ache between his eyes, then hauled himself out of his easy chair and went to the bar to fill a glass halfway with scotch. He tossed back half of it, grimaced, then set the glass down hard enough to slosh the rest over the rim. “Pure coincidence,” he agreed. “Ain’t it funny how that works? Now . . . you gonna give me that address or not?”
“You could find it yourself,” Mystery Man said flatly. “Everybody in Tulsa knows the chief of police lived in that big, fancy house by the river. But I’ll make it easy on you. Ready?” He rattled off the numbers and street, then added, “Try to get it right this time, will you?”
“ ‘Try to get it right this time,’ ” Barnard mimicked as he hung up. “Goddamn whiny-ass . . . I’ll fucking get it right, and then I’m coming after you.”
The boast felt good, not that there was much chance of making good on it. He didn’t have a fucking clue who the guy was or how to find out.
Besides, he had other priorities.
13
Damon Stood at the window in the guesthouse living room, gazing across the grass. It was the middle of the night, and except for the two guards pulling duty at the back gate and the three or more at the main gate, everyone was asleep.
He couldn’t sleep. He had too much to think about.
Should he stay or should he go?
Staying held both advantages and disadvantages. There was Selena’s promise of more money to look forward to, not that he’d seen a dime yet. The only money in his pocket was what he’d lifted off the tourist, cozied up next to the phone he’d lifted from Selena. At the moment, he didn’t have a use for either. No place to spend the cash, no one to call on the phone. No one he trusted with his life . . . yet.
There was the possibility of getting rid of Selena and taking control of the business himself. He could use her own people against her—at least, one of them. He had caught only a glimpse of the computer screen last night before Jamieson had slammed it shut, but it damn sure hadn’t looked like any e-mail or instant message screen he’d ever seen. Selena’s mild-mannered accountant was up to something, and it was nowhere near as innocent as talking to someone on the Internet. Damon could use that to his advantage.
And the biggest disadvantage of all—there was the possibility of going to trial, to prison, to Death Row.
And if he left? Once he got rid of the damn bracelet, he would be free. He was only a few hundred miles from Dallas, where his new life awaited him. He would change his name, change his appearance, and disappear with his fortune. In a month, maybe two, he would resurface someplace new and use that fortune to build more fortunes.
Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a downside to that option.
Once he got rid of the bracelet.
Once he got off the estate.
Once he created a big enough diversion to give him the head start he needed.
Eight or so dead bodies would be one hell of a diversion.
His feet made little noise on the wood floor as he prowled around the room, sliding open drawers, looking in cabinets, and finding nothing of use. No scissors, no knives, not even a fucking letter opener. No heavy skillets in the kitchen, no solid brass candlesticks or bronze castings. Even the bronze-and-marble statue that Selena had used to crack open his skull two years ago—that William had insisted not only on keeping but displaying—was gone from its place on the sofa table.
She had damn near killed him that night. After learning the truth about William a few weeks ago, she’d become convinced it had all been part of his plan to bend her to his will—that he had instructed Damon to get close to her, to assault her, to traumatize her.
He hadn’t. Fucking with he
r had been Damon’s idea—his way of getting back at William for all the insults, the disdain, the lack of regard. But damned if he would ever tell Selena that.
He stood between the living room and kitchen, hands in his hip pockets. There wasn’t a single fucking thing in the cottage that he could use as a weapon . . . but he didn’t need a weapon. He’d killed with his bare hands before, including the very first time, and he found a visceral pleasure in it. It was the ultimate power—the ability to preserve life or to end it, right there in his hands.
The tick-tick of the clock underscored his shallow breathing. He’d been thinking about it since yesterday in an idle maybe-he-would-maybe-he-wouldn’t sort of way. How would he kill them? How would he pit himself against eight or more and succeed? Where would he go? How would he remove the bracelet? How would he get to Dallas?
Killing them would be the easy part. Robinette was asleep down the hall. It didn’t take much skill or strength to choke the life out of someone in his sleep. Leaving the cottage would set off alarms in the guard shack, and Damon would wait in the bushes outside to take out the guards who responded. It didn’t matter whether it was one or five; he knew from experience that most security guards would hesitate to use deadly force. He wouldn’t.
After killing any remaining guards at their posts, he would let himself into the main house. He knew alarms and had no doubt he could bypass the one on the mansion. He would kill Gentry first—between her and Jamieson, she was the more dangerous. After taking care of the computer wiz, he would take the prize—Selena. Just thinking about killing her was enough to warm the blood pumping through his veins.
Strangling would be his first choice of methods. Leaning over her, tightening his fingers around her throat, watching the fear in her eyes as she ran out of air, feeling the slowing beat of her heart beneath his hands, would be so sweetly intimate. But he knew from past run-ins that she wouldn’t lie there compliantly while he killed her. No, she would fight like hell and would probably kick the shit out of him in the process.
Deep Cover Page 22
