Lucky Charm (42 page)

Smiling, Matt said, “It will be.”

Ariel watched Matt disappear over the rise with a pang and then closed the front door. It was nearly over. What would happen then? She looked at her watch. She’d better call Marathon and plead the flu before Marathon called Titan to complain. Until she knew what the future would bring, she didn’t want to burn any bridges, not at the risk of losing her job. She was close enough to that already. Taking her cell phone out on the patio, she made the call.

She finally reached a real person, pleading the flu with the office manager. He was surprisingly unconcerned about the delay after the rescheduling.

With that out of the way, though, she could sit out by the pool and read, swim and wish that Matt was there. It was astonishing how much she’d grown to love him in such a short time.

She had the whole day to herself without having to run to an airport or get ready to run to one. This wasn’t a cheerless plastic hotel room and no office waited for her to show up.

There were books on her e-reader she hadn’t even looked at – her original companions for the trip – but Matt had kept her so gloriously busy she hadn’t even thought of them. Thinking of him made her heart beat heavy and deep. Making love to him, though… The things he did to her, the way he touched her, brought her amazingly alive. Simply the thought of it sent slow waves of pleasure rolling deep inside her.

More than that, though, was the knowledge that she could trust him. He fought for the things he believed in, come hell or high water. As much as it frightened her in some ways, he was the only kind of man she’d want. Look at the chances he’d taken for Bill. She could let go with him. Completely.

She curled up on a divan by the pool with her book, the umbrella angled to keep her from burning. It would be easy to get used to this, to coming out here with a book to sit and read. With only the sound of the wind across the sand, the silence was soothing. After a while she became accustomed to the little noises, the horses moving around the corral, the breeze. It would get hot soon and then she’d have to go inside, or go for a swim.

It was such a beautiful house, though, such a great place to live.

What would it be like to live here all the time? If she could, she thought wistfully.

Getting up, she fetched herself a tall glass of ice water, drank some and then carried it out to put it on the table. It would be easy to get dehydrated here. She had to shift anyway to get out of the sun. The book was good and involving but something odd had caught her attention. A noise that wasn’t natural. Or a lack of it. The sudden feeling of being watched.

Something was wrong. Her nerves were on edge as she looked around. She couldn’t see what it was but something was wrong. The horses were restless, too, moving around the paddock. It made her uncomfortable. For some reason her heart pounded with an alarm she didn’t quite register.

Ariel got up and walked to the patio door, put her hand on the latch.

“That will be far enough, Ms. O’Donnell,” a smooth and oily voice, surprisingly deep, said.

Slowly, she turned, as fear moved sluggishly through her veins.

All the stooges were there, along with Genardi and another man, one with the eyes of a predator and the cold and pitiless face of a snake.

A shiver of fear went through her as she looked at him.

Jonathan Lovell, Head of Security for Genesis.

She knew him from his picture. It hadn’t done him justice. No two-dimensional representation could carry the sense of menace he conveyed.

She kept her expression clear. She didn’t want him to know how frightened she was.

He was taller than she’d thought, as tall as Matthew and lean. That face was more angular than she remembered from the photo but maybe it hadn’t been able to truly capture the hard, expressionless angles of his features.

Where had they come from? How had they gotten here without her hearing them?

It didn’t matter. They were here.

Matt’s guns were inside but even supposing she knew how to use them, she knew she would never reach the bedroom in time. There was no chance, looking at her bag sitting under the table, that she could reach her cell phone.

Deliberately, she drew the patio door closed. She heard the latch catch.

The alarm system was activated.

She wouldn’t let them into Matt’s house, have access to his guns, nor would she let them trap her in there.

At a signal from Lovell, his men spread out to try to cut off her chance to escape. Her only hope now was to run. If she could reach the desert, out in the open, she might have a chance to get away among the hills. Once they closed in on her, though, she was finished.

She had to try. She bolted.

Dodging and darting around them and the cactus, she tried to reach cover. A tackle from behind brought her down.

They dragged her back and sat her down in one of the patio chairs forcefully.

“You didn’t go to work today, Ms. O’Donnell,” Lovell said. He had a voice like a wolf, a low growl. “Nor were you where you were expected. That caused me a great deal of trouble. You made me change my plans not once but twice. I don’t like changing my plans.”

Lovell pulled up a chair and sat so they were knee to knee.

“And where is Mr. Morrison?”

He’d hoped to catch Morrison at home. It would have been easier to finish this out here in the desert, so far from prying eyes.

Ariel looked at the man. If Genardi had been frightening, Lovell was far worse. He was a hunter, cold and calculating, icy, there was no mercy in those black eyes, not a shred of kindness. There was no emotion at all. Like any predator, he would hunt her down as dispassionately as a wolf would a deer. Genardi enjoyed hurting, the physicality of it, it played to his ego but this man was colder. He would use it as a tool or a practical necessity, but he would enjoy it, it was just that his pleasure would be more clinical. He would enjoy it as a wolf enjoyed the moment when the deer fell, its jaws closed around the deer’s throat while the hot blood coursed down its throat.

She didn’t dare show him how frightened she was.
Think. Keep thinking
. she reminded herself.

“My, my,” she said, as evenly as she could. “All this for me?”

Lovell smiled, looking at her with fascinated speculation. The hunter surprised that the rabbit fought back.

“Not you, Ms. O’Donnell. May I call you Ariel?” he said. “No, not you, sweet Ariel. Your boyfriend. He’s a dangerous man. Whatever worries we had about you will end today.”

That dispassionate discussion of her death was chilling. They were going to kill her, today, and he wanted her to know it, although he wouldn’t say as much out loud. To anticipate it.

No premeditation here, should it ever come to that. He was a careful man, Mr. Lovell.

They would kill Matt, too, if they could find him. If they could surprise him.

“We thought at first merely to keep you unsettled. You would be less likely, perhaps, to notice any…irregularities. You didn’t rattle. That was surprising. So I asked Mr. Genardi to send you that little discouragement.”

He glared up at Genardi and the stooges.

“They were distracted, perhaps. You are a pretty little morsel, much stronger than we anticipated.”

He studied her with a disturbing fascination that sent a queasy thread of alarm through her.

“Mr. Morrison, however… We underestimated him, his persistence and skills,” he said. “Our lines of communication were tangled. We worked at cross purposes. Like the death of Mr. Parkhurst, something that could have and should have been handled much more effectively by Mr. Genardi here. If it had been handled correctly Matthew Morrison would not be a problem. It was not. We should have done more checking on him. If that had been done we would have dealt with him, too, more effectively and permanently. Our superiors are not happy. Now we’ve been forced to take more direct action. Mr. Morrison really should have taken the offer.”

Lovell had not been happy about that. It was a serious miscalculation on Maxwell’s part, sending a Marathon helicopter out here, such a public thing if it came down to it. The offer, and the amount of it, also revealed how desperate and concerned the man was. But that was on Maxwell, if it ever came to trial.

It was Lovell’s job to clean up the mess Maxwell had made and to keep the last from happening. Not just for Maxwell anymore, but for himself as well.

He liked being wealthy.

“Now, Ariel – such a pretty name – tell me where he is and when he’ll be back.”

Ariel shook her head. She hadn’t missed the admission, however oblique, that Genardi was responsible for Bill’s death. Now she knew. Lovell wasn’t afraid to tell her, though, since he’d already as much as told her they were going to kill her.

She wasn’t going to give him Matt, too.

“I can make her talk, Mr. Lovell,” one of the stooges said and smiled tightly, “she owes me for a kick.”

She remembered his hands on her and had no doubt what he had in mind.

Looking at Lovell, she stared him straight in the eye, “If he touches me you learn nothing. I’ll have no reason to talk. No reason to say anything.”

He smiled. “Oh, you’ll talk but I do believe you mean it about this gentleman here. He’s not the one you should be afraid of, however.”

There was something in his eyes, a flatness in his tone.

“I am.”

That speculative look was back, a fascination.

“Mr. Genardi, please hold her. Just how strong are you, Ariel?”

Genardi took her shoulders, curling a hand around her chin to press the back of her head against his abdomen.

He was smiling in anticipation.

“I’ll tell you,” she said, desperate.

They would use her to get to Matt but Matt wouldn’t want this. If she could talk to him, there was a way to warn him but he wouldn’t want this. Neither did she. She was terrified. She tried desperately not to show it.

Lovell looked at her with ophidian-like interest and a little exhilaration in his cold black eyes.

“I think you’ll lie and of course you will. We want the truth. No games, no tricks. Such a strong-willed woman. You must be convinced.”

The look in his eyes sent a chill through her.

With that nearly emotionless curiosity, Lovell smiled in anticipation.

He took her hand, his fingers pressing into the back of it, seeking the nexus of nerves there. Pressure points, nerve endings, the places on a human body that caused pain if touched the wrong way. Pain lanced up her arm and she fought not to struggle as his free hand slid up her arm to her shoulder, digging in to her collarbone.

“That’s enough,” Lovell said, pulling up one pant leg a little to keep the crease in his slacks as he leaned forward. “No marks, no bleeding, you see. Pain is all that’s needed. I learned that little trick and a few others courtesy of the CIA. You’re convinced, Ariel, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she gasped.

Lovell studied her with satisfaction.

“Where is he?” he asked, pleasantly.

Biting her lip, she said, “At his office in town.”

Lovell considered it. That was too open.

Morrison Investigations was on a well-traveled road. Nor would it be an easy extradition. Too public and with assistance nearby. It was doubtful that his coworkers would stand by. That wouldn’t do. If he had more time he could have set up something a little more aggressive, but he didn’t.

It was time for more direct measures. He picked up her phone and handed it to her.

“Call him. You’ll ask to speak to him, nothing more,” he said.

Thinking quickly, Ariel hit speed dial.

“Morrison Investigations.”

Darrin’s deep mellifluous voice came through and he’d used the speaker phone. She could hear the hollowness, the echo. Her eyes closed in relief.

“It’s Ariel, Darrin, may I speak to Matthew, please,” she said, making an effort to speak normally, trying to keep her voice steady and not let the fear show.

That was real enough and it ran coldly through her veins. She loved him, them, both Matt and Darrin. She wouldn’t get them killed. She’d already buried one man she’d loved, she wasn’t burying another. Not this one. Not Matthew.