All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction) (40 page)

I stood there alone, not quite sure if it had all been a dream… but then I collected myself, and returned to Connor’s room.

When I got back to the room, Connor was still asleep. But Sebastian was there – and so were the police: two detectives with bushy mustaches and rumpled suits.

They’d already spoken to Johnny while I was gone. They took me out of the room to get my statement, but there wasn’t much to tell. They made me repeat the story about the shooting several times and asked a lot of questions, but that was all.

“I just spoke to Connor’s father in the lounge,” I told them, and recounted the strange conversation – especially the part about ‘what lengths she might go to.’

One of the detectives took everything down in a notebook.

“Are you going to arrest her?” I asked.

“If we get anything linking her to the crime,” one of the men said. “But until then, everything’s just hearsay.”

“But you’re going to focus on her, right?”

“We’re looking at everyone, Ms. Ross.”

“What about the guy who shot Connor?”

“What about him?”

“Who was he?”

The detectives looked embarrassed. “We don’t know yet.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“He didn’t have any I.D. on him, and the serial number on the gun was filed off. We’re running fingerprints, but there’s nothing so far.”

I remembered what Sebastian had said:
If Miranda IS behind it, we’ll never find one shred of evidence implicating her.

The detectives gave me their cards, thanked me, and left, with the promise that they would be back to talk to Connor tomorrow.

Once I got back to the room, we had a little argument about who was going to stay the night. There was no question that Johnny was in for the long haul, but both he and Sebastian kept telling me I ought to go home and get some sleep.

“Like hell I am,” I shot back, then told Sebastian, “
You
go get some sleep.”

Finally they gave up, but decided that if we were going to stay, we needed some food. The problem was, it was after midnight and the cafeteria had closed at 10 PM. Raiding the vending machines wasn’t going to cut it, so Sebastian searched Google on his phone until he found a nearby deli that was open 24 hours. They didn’t do delivery, but when Sebastian promised them a two hundred dollar delivery fee, they somehow magically found a busboy who didn’t mind driving over.

Sebastian told him to go to the main entrance so as not to piss off the ER attendants or the ambulance drivers. I volunteered to go down and get the food. I needed a little walk to stretch my legs, and besides, Connor was still out like a light.

Sebastian handed over $250, and I walked down the hall and rode the elevator to the ground level. Rather than try to thread my way through the hospital’s labyrinth of hallways, I decided just to walk the perimeter until I came to the main entrance.

In retrospect, maybe not the best idea.

The night air was cool as I exited the ER. The entire world was still and quiet, with only the occasional car driving down the street outside the hospital. I walked along, enjoying the relative silence and giving thanks that the day’s events hadn’t been worse.

Then they got worse.

“I was wondering when I might catch you alone,” said a low, throaty, Lauren Bacall voice.

I almost messed my underwear right there on the street.

I looked over my shoulder and saw her in a little courtyard by the walls of the hospital. Her blonde hair caught the dim glow of a nearby streetlamp, but the rest of her was in silhouette. She was smoking a cigarette – something I’d never even considered she might do, though it helped explain the sexy, dangerous voice. The orange tip glowed as she inhaled, then dimmed as she pulled it away to breathe out.

My heart was thudding in my chest. I was acutely aware of how vulnerable I was out here in the darkness with no one around.

No one, that is, except for the woman who might have arranged the assassination attempt on Connor’s life.

I thought about running, but I was wearing heels – not the best for sprinting. Plus, if she wanted me dead, she probably had a sniper somewhere. It would be over before I got ten feet.

But maybe I could call for backup.

I still had my back to her, so I reached in my clutch, which I’d brought to hold my phone and the money. I found the phone by touch, glanced down, and hit the ‘Send/Call’ button on the screen, which meant it would call whomever I had talked to last… which was Sebastian, when I told him about the room number. At first I prayed he would hear what was going on and send Johnny rushing down to kick her ass – but then I remembered he might not get good enough reception up there to get the call. So it might just go to voicemail.

Shit.

Then I realized, maybe I could get her on tape saying something incriminating.

That settled it. My heart was slowing down, and I realized she probably wasn’t going to do anything to me. She wasn’t stupid enough to show up in person for that.

Plus, I wanted to nail the bitch for what she did to Connor more than I was afraid of what she might do to me.

Make it count,
I told myself as I gave the phone a few more seconds to go to voicemail.

“Why would you possibly want to catch me alone?” I asked, trying to sound braver than I felt. “Can’t take any incriminating pictures of
that.
”

“Well, I
could,
but I’d need you to undress.”

“No thanks.”

She shrugged and said flippantly, “It didn’t work last time with someone far more interesting in the picture with you, doing something far more salacious… so I doubt it would work this time, either.”

“So you’ve moved onto
other
things,” I sneered. Or tried to sneer. I don’t think the quaver in my voice helped, though.

She walked slowly out of the shadows as she took another puff. Her heels tapped on the concrete
click, click, click
as she entered the light, and I saw she was wearing the same glittering gown as back in the Dubai. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I said, and gave her a smile that was sugar-coated arsenic. “What do you want, Miranda?”

“A little bird tells me that you’re spreading lies about me.”

“What, that you’re a nice person?”

She smiled condescendingly. “No. That I have something to do with this evening’s tragic events.”

“See? You figured it out. I knew you would.”

“Hm,” she murmured, acknowledging my sarcasm but not replying to it. “I would never, ever hurt Connor. You should know that.”

“Actually, everything I’ve ever seen leads me to believe you would
absolutely
hurt Connor.”

“With stock shares and sex scandals, yes. With bullets and assassins, no.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“You
should
believe me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s in your best interest to do so.”

Ice water trickled through my veins and chilled me to my core.

But I remembered that I was getting this on Sebastian’s voicemail.

“How so?” I asked.

“You should do your best to stay in my good graces.”

“Or what, Miranda? You’ll hire somebody to shoot me, too?”

For a second, I thought I might have provoked her enough to say something – or maybe
do
something (which scared the hell out of me). There was a brief flare-up of the hatred I had seen in her eyes at the Dubai – but then it passed, and was replaced with cool disdain.

“For the record… in case those detectives you were talking to earlier put some kind of a wire on you… I would never, ever harm Connor, or pay anyone else to do anything of the sort.”

My stomach turned. “How did you know I was talking to two detectives?”

“I told you. A little bird,” she said, and took a puff on her cigarette.

At the beginning of the conversation I had assumed Miranda had heard about what I had said to Mrs. Templeton:
You brought her into this hospital?!
She hired the man who tried to kill your son!

But now I realized what she really meant, and I was far more frightened by that.

If she had sources in the police department… what
couldn’t
she get away with?

“Did a little bird tell you I came out for a walk, too?” I asked.

“Maybe. Or maybe I was just waiting, having a smoke.”

“Because billionaire hedge fund investors always hang around outside hospitals at one o’clock in the morning, right?”

“Multi-millionaire hedge fund investor. Connor’s media blitzkrieg cost me dearly.”

“Is that why you had him shot?”

I could hear the smirk in her voice. “You’re growing tiresome.”

“
You’re
already there. Besides, I wouldn’t say Connor did you in. I’d say it was because your assholery backfired on you.”

“Is that even a word? ‘Assholery’?”

“It fits you perfectly, but if you want something more highbrow, how about the expression ‘hoist on your own petard’?”

“Much better. I always enjoy hearing
Hamlet
from the mouths of gutter trash.”

“But this little piece of gutter trash beat you, didn’t she?” I whispered. “Is that why you’re here? Because you can’t stand being beaten, especially by someone so…
‘inferior’?”

She smiled, in perfect control of herself. “I’m here because I wanted to tell you something.”

“…which is?”

“Stop telling lies about me.”

“I haven’t told a lie yet, Miranda.”

“You have, and you should stop.”

“Or what?”

She didn’t answer with words; instead, she dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and stepped on the glowing ember with the heel of her shoe… then slowly ground it out.

The message was crystal clear: I was the cigarette. Or would be.

“Take care, Lily,” she said with a faint smile.

The way she said it, you could interpret it as a cold ‘goodbye’… or as ‘watch your back.’

I knew which way she meant it.

She turned and walked away, her heels going
click, click, click.

As though on cue, a Rolls Royce glided up to the curb, silent as a cat. She got in the back and closed the door without another look at me. The car sped away and left me standing on the sidewalk, my heart hammering in my chest.

I reached in my clutch and found the phone was still going. I hung up the call and was just about to run inside the hospital when a beat-up Honda Civic roared around the corner. A young guy in a backwards baseball cap rolled down the window with a hand crank.

“Hey, you the chick who ordered the deli?”

As soon as I paid him and got the food, I went inside the hospital’s main entrance. It took me an extra ten minutes to wind through the hospital corridors and find my way back to Connor’s room… but it was worth it.

“Jesus,” Sebastian muttered.

The three of us – me, Sebastian, and Johnny – were all standing in the hallway outside Connor’s room. Sebastian had just finished playing the voicemail back on his phone. Johnny refused to leave Connor, so we’d had to move from spot to spot like we were using a divining wand until we finally enough reception to play back the message. It was muffled and staticky in places, but most of the conversation came through.

Johnny frowned at me after it was over. “Why did you go outside?”

“You know I went to go get the food!”

“You could have walked
through
the hospital.”

“I
would
have if I thought that psychotic bitch was going to be
waiting
for me.”

“Yeah, well… don’t go outside unprotected again.”

“You were going to send me home,” I pointed out. “She could have just as easily gotten me when I walked out to catch the cab, or when I got to my apartment. Besides, she didn’t
do
anything – and she’s not
going
to do anything, not when there’s this much heat on her from the – ”

“Alright, alright,” Johnny gave in. “Just… be careful.”

“Believe me, I will. But what do we do now?”

“About what?”

“About the recording!”

“She didn’t say anything the police would care about,” Sebastian pointed out.

“She clearly threatened me!”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“She ground out the cigarette, which she obviously meant to be
me!”

“But you can’t tell that on the recording. All she says is ‘take care.’”

“Yeah, the way a guy in
The Godfather
would!”

Johnny sighed. “I know everything you’re saying is right, Lily, but the fact is, she never said anything that incriminated her.”

“And I’m not even sure the recording would be admissible in court,” Sebastian added. “In fact, you might even get in trouble if we brought it to the police.”

“Why?!”

“Wiretapping laws. If you record a conversation in California, all parties have to have knowledge and agree to it. If you do it secretly, you could get jail time.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me. She can do whatever the fuck she wants – ”

“No one said it was fair,” Johnny interrupted. “You just have to remember that she
never
fights fair – and unfortunately, in this case, the law would be on her side. Not to mention she never said anything that would incriminate her.”

“Damn it,” I sulked, even though I knew he was right. ‘Technically’ right, anyway. “We’re going to let Connor hear it though, right?”

“He’s asleep.”

“Well, not
now,
but when he wakes up – ”

“Maybe in a few days,” Johnny cautioned. “I don’t want to upset him. Not now.”

“Okay,” I agreed. That was entirely reasonable. Then I turned to Sebastian. “But you’ll save the voicemail, right?”

“Of course,” Sebastian nodded. “And I’ll have legal go over it. If they think we can use it against her, believe me, we will. As long as you don’t have to go to prison and be all
Orange Is The New Black.
”