DrillingDownDeep (22 page)

“Yeah, someday you might even be able to be seen with me,”
she muttered.

“What the hell does that mean?” He put down his paper.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and sat in the armchair next to
her, unbuckling hers so he could pull her into his lap. She went,
halfheartedly. Or wholeheartedly. Maybe that was the problem.

“What?” He nuzzled her neck. “You’re not letting bombs and
murders and FBI agents running around get you down, are you? Not Vanny Donald.”

She cracked a smile and slouched farther into him, so his
arms were completely around her and she was nestled nice and snug. “It’s just
you’re so fucking rich.”

“Forget what I said about the swearing tapering off.”

“No really. Private planes and estates and diamonds. This
isn’t me.”

She felt him stiffen a little. “Could it be?” he asked.

She shook her head no, but before she could say anything, he
hurried on, “Just forget about all these
things
. They’re part of my
life, and they always have been, but they’re not me. I mean, I’m still a
person.”

“Poor little rich boy,” she muttered with a smile.

“That didn’t come out right. What I mean is, don’t shut me
out because—”

He stopped himself, undoubtedly knowing how it would sound.

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful?”

“Yeah, I guess it kind of sounds like that old, obnoxious
commercial, doesn’t it? Can we just be together and not worry about anything
else?”

“Except bombs and murders and FBI agents?”

He kissed her cheek. “Yeah. Except that stuff.”

By the time they landed in Houston and went to Transcoastal
headquarters where the private eye was detaining Mick, it was afternoon. Agent
Carter was flying down to Houston the next day, but she had begged Michael to
have them talk to Mick alone first. So Mick had been helicoptered in from the
Treasure
Driller
without being told why.

When Vanny walked into the conference room with Michael,
Mick stood up, surprised. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“What’s going on, Mick? What’s really going on?” She and
Michael sat at the table and after a minute, Mick sat down again.

“I don’t know what you mean, Vanny. Is this about that bomb
again, Mr. Reynolds? Because I told you, Vanny didn’t have nothing to do with
that.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Michael said coolly.

Mick looked quickly from one face to another. “Your daddy
know you’re here, Vanny?”

“None of your business,” Michael responded. “We’re here to
talk about you, not Miss Donald.”

“What about me? What’s going on?”

“Did you plant the bomb, Mick?” she asked, willing him to
tell the truth, whatever it was.

He looked at her as if she was crazy. “No! Of course I
didn’t. What you got yourself mixed up in, girl? You let
Mr. Reynolds
have a little of that sugar you don’t let the boys on the rig have, Vanny? That
what all his money gets?”

“I told you we’re not here to talk about Miss Donald.”

“
Miss Donald
,” Mick mocked. “It’s clear as day you
probably been fucking her since the minute you got off that rig, maybe before.
That it, Vanny? And now what? Now you’re trying to blame that bomb thing on me?
Shit!” He stood up abruptly but the hulk of a private detective in the corner
shot him a look that said he better sit back down again or he’d be
making
him sit back down.

She reached a hand out to Mick, trying to soothe him. “I
know you’re mad. I know you’re scared. But if you have anything to do with
what’s going on, you have to tell us now.”

“We know there was a large deposit of cash into your
account. A wire transfer. What was that for?”

Mick turned beet red. “Says who?”

“Says your bank.” Michael was so cool and level she thought
this must be what he was like in business. In fact, what he had seemed to be
like when she had first picked him up, until she’d made him wild for her.

“Don’t I get no lawyer?”

“We’re not the police. Although that’ll be your next step of
course. Because you’ve been a friend to Vanny and her father, I agreed to try
to convince you to cooperate before the authorities got involved. But if you’re
going to continue to deny this, then you’re wasting my time.”

“What’re you going to give me if I tell you?”

“A short jail sentence perhaps?”

“You’re filthy rich. Can’t you do no better than that?”

“What’re you bargaining with?” Michael asked.

The sly face Mick was showing was so unlike the capable
worker and good friend she knew, she almost couldn’t process it. “What happened
to you, Mick?”

He turned on her fiercely. “Your pa, that’s what. That’s
what happened to me!”

“But you’re friends. Are you really responsible for the
accident that put him in a wheelchair? I can’t believe that, Mick.”

“Believe it! I wished those pipes had killed him, Vanny. I
wish I’d been man enough to do it myself long before now. You want to know why
he never talks about your ma? Because he’s the one who killed her. That’s why.”

Vanny’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“She was with me, you know. Your ma. Before she met
Big
Quinn.
It wasn’t enough he was fucking everything that moved, he had to
take my girl too.”

“Mick—”

“I thought she loved me too. But she was just a faithless
whore.” He shot her a look of pure hatred. “Like mother like daughter I guess.”

“What do you mean he killed my mother?”

“Vanny—” Michael warned.

“No! I want to know!”

“I mean your mother was murdered. Shot to death while you were
asleep in your cradle. They never arrested him, but I know in my gut who did
it.”

“No!” She shot up out of her chair and started for him,
grabbing his shirt and hauling him out of his chair. “You lying—”

Michael pulled her away. “Take her out of here,” he
instructed the private eye. “I’ll talk to Mr. O’Malley alone.”

She stomped out without another look at the lying dirtbag
piece of shit. She nursed a cup of coffee the detective brought her until
Michael came out, maybe twenty minutes later.

Shoving off the wall where she’d been slouching, she said
hotly, “He’s a fucking liar.”

Michael took her arm, leading her away to the elevator after
telling the detective to call Lt. Rigsby at Houston P.D. to come over and pick
up O’Malley since he’d confessed to planting the bomb. “He and the FBI can
fight over jurisdiction later. For now, I want that man locked up. Tell Rigsby
if he has any questions to call me. Otherwise, I’ll check in with him later.”

When the elevator doors closed on them, Michael took her in
his arms and out of nowhere, she burst into tears. “He didn’t! I know Pops
didn’t!”

He gathered her close. “Shhh.” Patting her back, he let her
drench his shoulder with her tears and by the time she had calmed down, they
were at the car. He opened the back door for her and she slid in, exhausted by
her unexpected flood of emotion.

“To your apartment, sir?” the driver asked.

Michael looked at her. “You need to see your father.”

“He didn’t do it, Michael!”

“You have to hear that from him, Vanny.”

She nodded. “Where’s my goddamn truck again?”

He leaned over and gave the driver instructions to her
father’s ranch house, which she had no idea how he knew.

“No, you don’t have to drive me.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Michael—”

“I’m coming with you, Vanny. And that’s the end of it.” He
pulled her close for the long drive and for once she didn’t mind taking orders
from him.

When they pulled up to the ranch house, there was still a
light in the front window, and the last thing she worried about was what her father
would think of her pulling up in a chauffeured Cadillac with Michael Reynolds.
Right now she had bigger things on her mind.

Her father had wheeled himself to the door by the time Vanny
inserted her key and opened it. She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. “Hi,
Pops.”

“Vanny! What on earth is going on? Whose car is that?” He
stopped short at the sight of Michael who held out his hand.

“Michael Reynolds, sir. It’s an honor to meet Vanny’s
father.”

Pops looked from one to the other of them, but she couldn’t
bother about that now. She crouched down next to him, her hands on the arms of
the wheelchair, her head on his shoulder, and simply sobbed the story out. At
some point, as she was telling him about Mick’s betrayal and what he’d said,
her father had started stroking her hair, leaning down to kiss the top of her
head.

When she raised her tear-laden eyes at him, she could see
moisture in her father’s as well. And she had never once seen him cry.

“My poor little girlie,” he murmured.

“It’s not true, Pops, is it?”

“I would have cut my heart out before I would have hurt your
mother. Same as I would before I would ever hurt you.”

She stared into his eyes, green like her own, and felt such
a tremendous sense of comfort, of relief, of a lifetime of love and affection.
“I know, Pops. I know.”

“Your mother did date Mick before we started seeing each
other. And he was awful sweet on her. But we fell in love. Mick just had to
accept that and he seemed like he never could. Wouldn’t even talk to me while
she was alive. Once she had been killed—” His voice faltered.

“So that part was true? My mother was murdered?”

“I never wanted you to know, honey. I couldn’t bring myself
to speak of it. When they called me on the rig, I about died myself.”

“The rig?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. I was in Alaska on a job. Had been for a few months
even though Vanny here was no more than a tiny little thing. I shouldn’t have
left your mother alone then. Just a young girl and a baby in an apartment in a
not-so-great part of Houston. It was my fault in that sense.”

“No, Pops.”

“They said it was a robbery, but I don’t know. I never
really believed that either.”

“Was O’Malley on the rig with you?”

“No. I don’t know where he was. We’d lost contact by that
point. It was only after Vanessa’s, your mother’s, death that we became close
again. Although I’m never going to speak to the son of a bitch now!”

“Well, Michael had to pull me off him, I was so mad.”

Michael smiled. “Not that I didn’t know you’d flatten him.”
On a more serious note, he added, “Did they ever investigate O’Malley at the
time?”

“No, I mean, I never, he wouldn’t…”

“The man I just spoke to in that room seemed almost insane
with rage. He may have been able to hide it from you, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if he had acted on it back then. With respect to the bomb, it was
what we thought, Vanny. Someone called him and offered him money for the
sabotage, first the valves and then the bomb. He added the little caveat of
having your father and then you take the blame. As much as he defended you at
the time, I can see now it was backhanded. Whatever he said, by the end of it
on the rig I was definitely suspecting you.”

She colored at the memory of what else he was doing at the
time.

“But O’Malley sincerely didn’t seem to know who had employed
him for the sabotage and probably didn’t care. He was heavily in debt from
gambling and in very real danger if he didn’t pay them back. He jumped at the
chance. But unless they can trace the wire from that deposit, he can’t help us
further in the current investigation. I do think Houston P.D. should question
him about your mother’s murder though.”

She nodded. “The fucking bastard.”

“Vanny!” her father scolded and she grinned, standing up.
“Excuse my daughter’s language, Mr. Reynolds. I’ve never been able to get through
to her that a lady shouldn’t talk that way.”

“He’s used to it by now,” she said before she realized how
that sounded. As if driving up in his fancy-ass car didn’t give her away
anyway. She flushed, but Pops, God love him, didn’t comment. Maybe he thought
she’d been through enough trauma to start grilling her about her romantic life.
He kissed her hand, holding it. “So are you home or do you have to get back? To
your job?”

She never thought she was much of a blusher. So what the
hell was going on here? She could feel her face on fire with what was evidently
embarrassment.

“Could I have a moment alone with your father, Vanny?”

“Why?” she snapped.

“Vanny,” her father said.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? In case you haven’t
noticed, Michael, this house isn’t quite the same layout as one of your big-ass
apartments. Am I supposed to go lock myself in my room?”

“Wait in the car for me.”

She frowned.

“Please.”

“Oh all right. I do have to go, Pops. But I’ll come back in
a few days. I love you.” She hugged him, tight.

“I love you too, girlie.”

When Michael came back to the car a few minutes later, she
said, “What did you say to him?”

“I told him he had a beautiful daughter.”

“What did you really say to him?”

He pulled her close. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go home,
Vanny.”

God, how she loved the sound of that.

* * * * *

Vik Pillay hung up the phone.

“So what did Agent Carter have to report?”

Vik had been an Interpol agent for most of his adult life.
He’d seen gunrunners. He’d seen murderers. He’d seen terrorists. So not much
scared him. But every man had his fears.

And right now he was looking at a truly scary sight.
Samantha was stirring something on the stove in the kitchen of their flat. To
say his wife couldn’t cook was a little like saying a tsunami couldn’t quench a
dry mouth.

“What do you have there?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh it’s a recipe the cook at the Hamptons house gave me. It
has duck in it.”

He wished his wife would start with something small. Like
Spaghettios. If she tried to make duck, he was sure he’d be tasting feathers
before the night was out.

Good thing he was so crazy in love with her. He wrapped his
arms around her waist from the back while she stirred some orange sauce that
smelled, incredibly enough, good.

“So come on, what’d he say?”

“Carter? Oh not much. The only Russian connection they could
find was that Tiffany’s dead pimp was a Russian thug. Oh, and they picked up
the guy who planted the bomb on the rig, but he had made it himself and he
didn’t know who paid him to plant it. He was a worker on the rig. An older guy
with gambling debts to pay. ”

“Did Vanny know him?”

“It sounds like it.”

“It’s just so strange, having two such different people
involved. I mean, Tiffany plants one bomb and some old oil rig guy plants
another. With nothing in common.”

“Nothing but your family. Or at least your brother Michael.”

“But it does make sense that an oil rigger may have been
able to craft together a bomb whereas an empty-headed socialite wouldn’t.” She
held up her spoon with the thought. “Whoever is behind this had to
give
her
the bomb, which is why the devices were so different.”

“From what we now know about your Tiffany—”

“She wasn’t my Tiffany! I hated her.”

“Just a figure of speech.” He gently directed her hand back
to its stirring. She tended to forget about things like that in her cooking.
Funny she was such a genius about other things, computers and numbers, which
was why he was always eager to talk a problem over with her. Samantha had a
fabulous mind, not that he married her for her mind of course. One hand strayed
down to her very fine ass. “But from what we know about Tiffany now, the
prostitution, the possible murder in her past, she may have been blackmailed
into her participation and the rigger just bribed into it.”

“But why the oil rig? Why the party?”

“Well, Jeff Fischer admitted his ex-wife was the one who had
encouraged him to look into the company Michael eventually purchased, the one
that owned the rig. So there’s that.” He glanced down at the pot. “Is it
supposed to be getting that gray filmy thing over the surface like that?”

“What?” She looked back down and took to stirring more
vigorously and he had half a mind not to bother her with the puzzle, at least
until he’d eaten. But even as she stirred, she seemed to be turning the matter
over in her mind. “What about the guy who talked to Tiffany? I take it there
was nothing there.”

“Not according to Carter. He thinks maybe the real
perpetrator left the purse for Tiffany to find and this guy just stumbled on
it.”

“Hmm. Who was he again?”

“Some electronics mogul. From Texas, actually.”

“Really? Well, that’s a connection. Was there anybody else
from Texas there?”

“I don’t know. I can ask. But what would this guy have
against your family?”

“Maybe it’s not that. What was the Texas guy’s name again?”

“Kohler.” Vik turned the name over in his mind. Kohler.
Kohler.
Kolchinsky.
That was it. The old Russian mobster who sometimes
went by Kohler when he was traveling. He thought for some reason it made him
sound American, although one word out of his mouth and that was blown. But
surely he was dead by now. The guy was like a million years old.

Vik risked leaving Samantha alone at the stove to grab his
cell and tap out a text to Carter. Maybe there was something there. “Your
family doesn’t do any electronics, does it?” he asked as he typed his message.

“Not much. Some. Michael’s really the one who’s into that.”

“What do you mean? He invests in it?” What else would a CEO
do?

“Michael was at Cal Tech a long time ago. When I was a baby.
He came into the business because Daddy wanted him to, not that he’s ever
looked back.” Vik glanced over at her and saw she was holding the spoon up
again in thought.

“Stir,” he called out and she pursed her lips at him but
did.

“Anyway, he fiddles around with electronics. Very good at
it. Even has some patents.”

Kolchinsky. Electronics. Texas.

Vik was starting to get a funny feeling here.

He added an addendum to the text to Carter.

* * * * *

“You incredible incompetent.”

It sounded even worse in Russian. “English,” Heinrich Kohler
muttered over the phone. If he spoke in his native tongue, a slight accent
crept back into his English and he had worked too hard to eradicate it to slip
back now.

The party on the other line helpfully repeated the insult in
English.

“I have everything under control,” Kohler assured his boss.
“There are no links back to me.”

“They questioned you, didn’t they?”

“As an innocent bystander. An observer. I never left the
party as far as they know and the bitch is dead.”

“The Texan gambler?”

Kohler paused. “They have him, but again, no link to me.”

“This was supposed to go a good deal more smoothly. I don’t
have to tell you that.”

It was unfortunate the FBI were involved now. He had counted
on Damien Reynolds trying to hush the whole thing up and handle things
privately. As indeed, Michael Reynolds had originally hushed up the
Treasure
Driller
incident, even though that fucking gambler had leaked the story to
the media. The point was to have them spooked, particularly Michael, and
eventually turning to his firm for help. Why not? His firm was the biggest in
Texas on the commercial security front. Or else they were supposed to be. What
they really were was a glorified smuggling operation. But the whole of Texas
thought otherwise. So when Michael Reynolds had security problems, who else
would he turn to?

With the
Treasure Driller
right there, it was only
natural. And Transcoastal had been the perfect patsy. He knew its decadent and
lazy management would be a tempting target for Reynolds. Just the type of company
he liked to turn around.

In addition to luring Reynolds into buying Transcoastal,
he’d even finagled an invitation to the old man’s party so he would be there
when something went kaboom. To offer his advice of course.

He would casually mention a type of bomb-detection
technology he was developing that Reynolds might want to install on all their
rigs, in all their homes, a revolutionary technology that could sense an
explosive device in a mile radius. He’d say his firm was working on it, but
just happened to be missing one little circuit, a circuit that Michael Reynolds
was developing as a matter of fact. Reynolds intended to patent it and then
sell it to companies manufacturing prosthetics, its real potential unseen, the
idiots.

A joint development agreement later and Kohler’s dummy
company would have the patent to the circuit and could begin manufacturing for
its real purpose, military, and shipping the circuits out for an exorbitant
price on the Russian black market. The cover of Reynolds Industries would help
him bypass a lot of those pesky American export laws. Who would possibly
question a company like Reynolds Industries, headed by one of the most
powerful, politically connected families in the country?

There was no bomb detection device of course. But since
there weren’t going to be any more bombs to detect, he didn’t see that as a
problem. It had all been about luring Michael Reynolds to Texas in the same
business sphere and getting that circuitry as well as the protection of the
Reynolds family through a joint venture for his exports of it. With a family as
rich and prominent as the Reynolds, this obfuscation had seemed to be the
desirable route.