Deception (Southern Comfort) (37 page)

“I know,” Kathleen said, miserably.  “I’m finding the chances of him dying in an accidental fire a couple days before the attempt on Donnie a little too coincidental.”

“Maybe his superiors found out what he’d been up to with the local women and decided he was a liability.”

“Could be,” she agreed. Then her cell phone rang and she pulled it from her jacket, frowning at the number in confusion.  “Murphy,” she answered cautiously, followed after a slight pause with “He’s right here.”

They exchanged a look across the table, Josh’s questioning; Kathleen’s pensive. Then he watched her features slowly rearrange themselves into a mask of obvious distress.  He patted his own pocket, realized he’d left his own phone on his desk, and felt the cold sweat of fear pop out on his brow.   “Is it Sam?” he demanded with urgency.

Kathleen held up a hand for patience, asking some question of the person on the phone.  But the roaring in his ears prevented Josh from hearing.  Something had happened to Samantha.  He felt it all the way to his bones.  “What’s going on?”

Kathleen snapped the phone shut and looked at him, regret all over her face.  “That was Simms.  There’s apparently been a fire in your building.  And in the chaos afterward he lost track of Sam.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SOMEONE
was rocking her, Sam thought dreamily.  She hadn’t been rocked since she was little.  There’d been an old rocking chair on their front porch, and sometimes her mother would hold Sam on her lap. They’d watch the sun set over the farm. 

Then her father had broken it
one night in an angry rage, and her mother never rocked her again.

She lifted her eyelids, slowly.  They were so heavy that the effort hurt.  In fact, she hurt all over – throat, head, ribs.  The cut on her palm was even throbbing for attention, and her head rested awkwardly on her bruised cheek.  She needed another dose of medication if she was going to get any sleep.  Maybe Simms would bring it to her.

Maybe Simms knew why the sofa was rocking.

Simms.  Sam’s eyes popped open.  What had happened to him after the fire?  Hell, what had happened to her?  She looked around in confusion, willing both her eyes and her brain to focus.  She was woozy, sweating a little, and her stomach rocked in time with the couch.

Except she wasn’t lying on the couch.  She was lying in the middle of a bed.  And it wasn’t even the bed that was rocking.  It seemed to be the entire room.

Trying to make sense of her surroundings, Sam shook her head and pushed herself onto an elbow.  As she did, the heavy blanket over her slipped away and she realized to her horror that she was naked.

What the hell was going on?

Rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding the blanket against her breasts with the other, Sam managed to clear her head enough to get a good look at the room.

It wasn’t overly large – maybe ten by ten, although the shape wasn’t exactly square – and the walls were paneled in some kind of wood that gleamed darkly in the faint lamplight.  The lamp itself was attached to the wall at the side of the queen-sized bed, casting dim light over the blue-striped bedding.  There were no windows, she thought momentarily. Or there were, but they were small and high, out of sight behind heavy curtains.  Boat windows, she speculated.

But that didn’t make any sense. 

Still chewing on that, Sam continued her perusal, wondering if this was perhaps some kind of high class hotel room.  Although how she’d gotten here she couldn’t quite recall.  Maybe Josh had come to pick her up after Simms called him and –

Sam’s breath caught in an agonizing gasp as her gaze lit on the shadow in the corner.  The club-style chair sporting a bold nautical pattern was currently occupied by a familiar blond.

“You’re awake,” he smiled, flicking a lighter to the tip of his cigarette.  And when the glow from the flame illuminated his face Sam saw the signs of age that had previously been hidden.

This was not the man she’d initially thought.

“Mr. Wilcox?” she croaked, her voice a study in confusion.  She’d met the man only once but his resemblance to his son couldn’t be mistaken.

“Samantha Martin, I presume?”  He chuckled as he pocketed the lighter.   Tanned and healthy, he was the very image of the consummate yachtsman and Sam thought yes, a boat. She’d been correct about the windows.  And it also explained the
subtle rocking.

But what she was doing on her boss’s yacht still hadn’t computed in her drug-fogged brain. 

Alan Wilcox studied her with open assessment.  “And now that we’re both clear on the identity of the other, I think it’s time we had a little talk.”  His genial smile faded into a frown.  “To look at you, one wouldn’t imagine that you’d be capable of causing such trouble.”

A trickle of nerves tugged at Sam’s belly.  Her very naked belly.  She was suddenly quite aware of the fact that she’d somehow parted ways with her clothes.

And wondered exactly what had happened when they’d been taken.

Seeming to guess what she was thinking, Wilcox’s smile reappeared, sardonic.  “Don’t worry yourself, Samantha.  I don’t make a habit of raping unconscious women.  I apologize for your state of undress and assure you we’ll rectify that as soon as possible.  We removed your clothing as a precaution.  Living as you do with one of our city’s finest, I preferred not to take any chances.  After the attack you suffered last evening and the information he’s no doubt turning up right now, I wouldn’t put it past him or any of his colleagues – at least, the ones I don’t have on my payroll – to have placed a bug in your clothing.  GPS tracking systems can be a real bitch when you’re attempting to flee the country.”

Sam tried to swallow, but couldn’t work up the spit. Some of what he was saying began to sink in.  Somehow, somehow, Alan Wilcox – maybe even Dane – was connected to that attack on her brother.  Connected to the attack on her. 

But why? 

Was this all because of some stupid gambling debt?  Is that why Donnie had been shot?  

And what could they possibly want with her?

“I don’t know what Donnie did, or how much he… owes you or whatever, but there’s no way I –”

Wilcox’s bark of amused laughter cut her off.  “Darling. You think I’d go to all this trouble over some paltry amount of money your brother might have taken?”  His blue eyes twinkled with mirth but Sam thought there was more lighting them than amusement.  Maybe insanity. This whole situation smacked of psychosis.  “I’m worth millions, sweet girl.  But unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to enjoy those millions from the inside of a jail cell, now would I?”

“No,” Sam agreed, thinking to placate him until she could figure out a way out of this mess.  She was on a boat, headed for God-knew-where.  Screaming was probably futile.  She saw no indication that her purse had accompanied her, meaning her cell phone wasn’t an option.

Not to mention the fact that she was naked, unarmed and still wobbly from the drugs, which didn’t leave her a whole lot to work with.

Drugs, she suddenly thought, mind clearing.  There must have been something other than oxygen in that tank.  Which meant that fireman probably wasn’t as friendly as he’d seemed. 

“Did you set fire to my fiancé’s building?”  The thought was so preposterous she almost couldn’t speak it.  But it made sense, in a totally whacked kind a way, because how else could she have ended up here?

“Not personally,” he answered, no hesitation.  “But I needed to get you out of that building. I had to work fast and it seemed the most likely way to get hold of you without creating any more problems.”

Without creating any more problems? He’d burned down a freaking building!

Apparently ignorant of the fact that he was crazy, Wilcox sat back, linked his hands over his stomach.  “You see, Samantha – or may I call you Sam? – your brother was a fine employee.  Dane was really very fond of him.  But he had the misfortune to run an errand for my son that put him at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The wrong place at the wrong time. 

Oh, well that explained everything then.

“Your brother was delivering some funds and stumbled upon one of my employees taking care of a little problem that had been plaguing me.  Actually, I believe he showed up after the problem had been taken care of, and that’s what probably threw him. He’d been expecting to make a simple stop and go and ended up eyeballing a corpse.  You see, I’d made the miscalculation of becoming physically involved with my best friend’s daughter.”  He smiled, as if amused at his own folly. “A tight little body, that one.  But conversely a loose pair of lips.  When I came to my senses after the haze of lust had cleared, I informed her that a continued involvement between us simply wasn’t possible.  She threatened to tattle to Daddy.  That in itself wouldn’t have been an insurmountable problem – she had compromising photographs, which were embarrassing but not illegal. After all she was nineteen. But the stupid little minx made the mistake of sticking her nose in my business, making off with a computer
thumb drive that would have been… damaging in the wrong hands.  You understand what I’m saying, don’t you Sam?”

“Sure.”  She nodded her head, started looking for a weapon, because it was obvious where this whole thing was going.  Just like the wrap-up at the end of every mystery novel she’d ever read, the killer was spilling his guts to his final victim.  Sam thought that kind of thing only happened in fiction or maybe Hollywood, but apparently it had some basis in the truth. 

Either that or Alan Wilcox had been watching too many movies and figured this was how he was supposed to do it.

“Your brother saw what had happened to the girl and apparently succumbed to an attack of conscience, because he snagged the evidence my young paramour had collected and ran, rather stupidly.  We thought perhaps that he’d mailed it to you, or maybe hidden it in his apartment. But after months of watching you and a rather exhaustive search, we concluded you didn’t have it.” 

He looked her over carefully.  “You don’t, perchance, know where he stashed it?”

Sam looked at him like he was nuts.

“I thought as much,” he sighed. “But I guess the point is now moot.”  

“You shot Donnie,” she said, horror and anger mixing to heat the blood which had previously gone cold.

“Once again, not personally.  That hit was executed by my employee – my incompetent employee – who couldn’t even manage to carry that off right.  When we discovered the evidence missing and found the deposit bag your brother had been carrying, it was simple to put together.  Your brother had gone to ground by that time but we managed to track him, though were rather unsuccessful in taking him out.  And… well, I believe you know the rest of the story.”

He smiled benignly and Sam started to panic, terror rising like gorge in her throat.  He’d come to the end of the gut-spilling.  What came next spelled serious trouble for her.  “Why?” she asked, hoping to keep him talking.  “Why did you go to the trouble of coming after me?” 

It was actually a pretty legitimate question.  In the grand scheme of things it just didn’t make sense.  “Is it because I… accidentally killed that man last night?” 

“Hardly,” Wilcox crushed out his cigarette.  It had left a thin film of smoke in the cabin.  “I’m afraid I’m not that loyal.  But the man you killed – which was nothing short of astounding, by the way – is well known to many law enforcement types as having strong ties to organized crime.  And it’s only a matter of time before they make the connection between an attempted mob hit on your brother and what was happening at his place of employment. Which, unfortunately, leads straight to my door.  So as I explained, it has become imperative for me to leave the country.  It’s inconvenient,” he said coolly.  “I’m forced to leave a great deal of my worldly possessions behind.  I had an empire built up, one I planned to pass to my son, and your surprising resilience last night robbed him of his birthright.  I’ve kept him in the dark regarding some of the more… questionable aspects of the business, but I’m afraid he’s about to find out all about it.  And to soften the blow, and make up for some of the trouble you’ve caused, I decided to bring you with us.  He’s rather taken with you.”

Gaping, Sam forgot both her quest for a weapon and her notion to appear agreeable.  He was in bed with the mob, had a former lover murdered, attempted to kill Donnie to keep him quiet, and had burned down Josh’s building just so he could bring her along as some kind of sexual pacifier for his son?  “You’re crazy,” she told him bluntly.

He merely laughed, crossed his legs at the ankle.  “You were never meant to be hurt by this.  I’m not needlessly cruel if I don’t have to be.  Like your brother, you simply had the unfortunate luck to turn up at the wrong place at the wrong time.  But by bringing attention to my ties to
certain organizations of questionable legal status, you’ve brought the whole house of cards down on our heads. And darling if I’m going down, then I’m obliged to take you with me.  If it’s any consequence, I’m relieved you weren’t killed.  Dane would have been disappointed.”

Disappointed? Sam thought, wildly. 

Who the hell did this man think he was? 

Clearly the power he’d wielded for so long had given him some kind of God complex.  She was suddenly so angry that she almost launched herself at him and to hell with the consequences.  But the sudden arrival of a third party brought her imprudent plans to a halt.