Play Dead (16 page)

At times like this, Trent wished his father had opened a corporate office. Then Trent could hide out in a high-rise somewhere until the dust settled. But no, his father, like the other surfers who’d turned their passion into a business, chose to stay close to their customers. A spacious office was in back of the retail store.

Face your problems
, Trent told himself. He glanced at the crowd in front of his store. Was that The Wrath standing there?

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he swore as he climbed out of the Porsche.
Don’t go off half-cocked,
Trent warned himself. Sales of MMA gear were keeping the company afloat. Trent hadn’t anticipated the trend, didn’t like The Wrath and all his steroid-pumped bully boys who lived for cage fighting, but enough people idolized the prick to spend money on clothes—even when dollars were tight—that carried The Wrath’s logo.

With a measured, purposeful stride, Trent walked toward the swarming horde at the door to Surf’s Up. No one paid any attention to him as he elbowed his way forward until he was almost abreast of the gaggle of reporters who had a bouquet of microphones thrust to The Wrath’s face.

“Yo, Trent,” called The Wrath.

Bulky cameras burdening the shoulders of the men with the flashy reporters swung in Trent’s direction. Reporters scrambled to reposition themselves. Microphones jabbed at him.

“Isn’t it the
bomb?
” The Wrath asked. “Hayley is alive.”

Bile rose in Trent’s throat and he forced himself to smile and nod. “The whole family is thrilled.” A bald-faced lie. Only Meg Amboy was truly happy.

“Were you surprised? Where had your sister been? Why hadn’t she called? What’s going to happen now? Who was the woman in the car? Has her family been notified?” Like machine-gun fire, the questions bombarded him.

Trent suddenly remembered the brief clip he’d seen on TV of Garver Browne. “No comment,” he said as he shouldered his way past the reporters toward the two shopping-center security guards stationed at the entrance to his store. If he left them panting for more, Surf’s Up would be on television for hours. Couldn’t hurt business.

The Wrath followed at Trent’s heels. “I had to talk to Hayley myself. See that she was okay.”

Trent halted and The Wrath nearly bumped into him in front of the counter fashioned from old-time surfboards. He cautiously asked, “You talked to her?”

“Sure,” the muscle-bound hulk replied with his trademark sneer. “She’s in the office.”

My office!
Trent stopped himself from shouting this out loud. What the fuck was she doing here? The Hayley he knew would be hiding out until this situation was resolved. Obviously, someone had tried to kill her. What was she doing sashaying around? Camping out in
his
office?

What should he do? What should he say? How should he act? Shit! He should have gone home. There was no turning back now.

H
AYLEY PRETENDED
she didn’t hear Trent coming toward the office. She tinkered with the computer, looking at sales reports that she’d already reviewed. Could she pull this off? She’d never been much of an actress, and was worse at lying.

Your life depends on this,
she reminded herself. When Ryan had dropped her off before the shop opened, she’d spotted the reporters and slipped in the back door. The young clerks—who surfed on days off—had been thrilled to see her.

Hayley had expected Trent to arrive any moment, but he hadn’t, which was unusual. The man had an admirable work ethic. Trent had refused to attend college because he felt he could learn more on the job. Hayley’s mother hadn’t agreed, but Trent’s mother backed him all the way.

Cynthia had always wanted Trent to own Surf’s Up. Hayley hadn’t spent much time around her father’s ex, but when she had, Hayley could tell the woman saw Trent as the rightful heir to the surf empire his father had built. It hadn’t bothered Hayley because she wanted something different for herself.

Hayley had told a clerk to call the center’s security guards to keep the media vampires thirsty for fresh blood out of the shop. They swarmed outside the door, anxious
for Surf’s Up to open. A few seconds later insistent banging on the front door had caught her attention. She’d peeked from behind the rack of board shorts where she’d concealed herself to see The Wrath.

She had the clerks let him in and he strode right up to her, then engulfed her in his powerful arms. “I heard you were back. I couldn’t believe it. I had to see for myself.”

The MMA fighter who could make opponents quake with a single scowl was genuinely glad to see her. When she’d been thinking about her lack of close friends, Hayley hadn’t realized Carleton Cole—The Wrath—had become a friend, not just a business contact. She took him back to the office and gave him the story that she and Ryan had agreed upon.

Ryan hadn’t come into her room last night as she’d half-expected. Half-hoped. She was confused; her own emotions baffled her. How could she be so attracted to Ryan when less than a week ago, she’d been telling herself to get over Chad Bennett? She was over him all right, but what had she gotten herself into now? Her life was proof positive she was a crummy judge of character.

Hayley recalled some psychologist on television saying women tended to pick the same kind of man over and over. Was that what she was doing?

Was she setting herself up for another heartbreak by falling for a man who must still be in love with a dead woman?

There was no way to compete with a ghost, she realized. That person had died and could no longer do anything wrong. Jessica Hollister had been immortalized in Ryan’s mind. Otherwise he would have moved on after two years, right?

Wait a minute, she told herself. What made her think
Ryan hadn’t moved on? He could have a girlfriend in L.A. or somewhere. After all, his excuse for breaking off the kiss was to “keep this professional.” Considering Ryan had ignored professional standards in hiding her, Hayley believed this wasn’t the real reason.

Something she’d heard in his voice, seen in his eyes when he’d discussed his wife made Hayley believe Ryan’s reasons were personal—not professional. Technically, it was impossible to be unfaithful to someone who was no longer among the living, but maybe Ryan didn’t feel that way.

On some level, he was attracted to her.
Get real
, she thought.
Remember what he said:
“You’re so damn sexy. It’s eating me alive.” Last night may have meant
something
to her, but to Ryan it had been all about sex. He might worship his wife’s memory, but he had physical needs. No doubt anything in panties would do. Well, not these panties.

She had to keep her priorities in mind. Finding out exactly
who
wanted her dead and
why
trumped anything else in her life. Next came her aunt and her career. Sex finished dead last.

“Hayley!” Trent called from the doorway.

She lifted her head, acting as if she hadn’t heard him arrive. The Wrath was at his side, smiling. She’d thought The Wrath had left for his morning training session, but now he was here again.

“I’m baaack!” Hayley cried, striving to sound upbeat. She rose from the computer and awkwardly walked into Trent’s outstretched arms.

“Oh, my God! I can’t believe it!” Trent bear-hugged her. “I—I thought…w-we thought—everyone thought you were dead.”

A croaking sob burst from Trent and hit Hayley like a
punch worthy of The Wrath. The anger simmering inside her instantly cooled. Uncomfortable, she pulled out of his embrace. Were those tears pooling in Trent’s eyes? His reaction was the last thing she’d expected, and it left her totally unprepared.

“Everyone’s stoked that you’re okay,” The Wrath said.

“Where were you?” Trent asked, his tone concerned. “Why didn’t you let anyone know you’d be away?”

“It’s a long story.” She didn’t want to have this discussion in front of The Wrath.

“Gotta run,” The Wrath said, instantly solving her problem. “I’m late. Just came back to tell you the reporters know you’re in here. Now they have the rear entrance covered.”

“Thanks,” she said. “It was great to see you.”

He reached out and brushed her cheek with his big hand. “Anytime, babe. You’re the bomb. Don’t wanna lose you.” He sauntered toward the door. “Remember, you’re coming to the exhibition fight.”

“Count on it,” she replied, then ventured a look at Trent. He was more composed now, but there was no mistaking the emotion on his face. He’d acted the same way when they’d been told their parents had died.

Could she be mistaken about Trent? Perhaps it had been Farah or Cynthia who’d conspired with Chad. It was possible, she conceded. In her experience, women were much more capable of deceit than men.

“Sit down.” Trent still looked shaken. “Tell me all about it.”

The office had two desks with computers and a bank of filing cabinets and display stations for mock-ups of gear they were considering producing or purchasing. The larger desk had belonged to their father, but after his
death, Trent had taken it over. The other desk had been her mother’s until Trent came to work full-time. Then she began to do more of the designing at home. Since the plane crash, Hayley had used the desk.

Hayley sat in the chair next to her father’s desk and studied Trent for a moment. “I went to Costa Rica to paint a mural for Ramon Estevez’s new hotel.”

He gazed at her with reproachful eyes. “I didn’t realize you knew Estevez.”

Hayley explained about selling her art in a gallery in San Francisco where she’d met Estevez and agreed to paint a mural. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist. Surely you knew that.”

Trent shook his head. “I thought it was a hobby, like golf or tennis.”

“Didn’t you want to be a pro skateboarder? Isn’t Surf’s Up a second choice?”

Trent rocked back in the swivel chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then he looked at her again. “Sorta. Not second choice. I just thought after my pro career, I would come into the business. I’ve always liked it.” He waved his arm to indicate the shop in front of the office. “I thought you did, too.”

This wasn’t going the way she’d imagined. Hayley could see her revelation—instead of making Trent free to claim the company as his own—disappointed him. Now, she really questioned his involvement in the destruction of the trust documents.

“I want a career as an artist. Doing this mural raises my profile in the art world. I flew down there secretly because I didn’t want Aunt Meg to worry. You know how much she hated Dad’s plane. Then when they were killed, she made me promise not to fly on small planes.”

Trent sighed heavily, his voice filled with anguish. “You could have told me.”

For a moment, she was baffled. He cared much more than she could possibly have imagined. Why not? They’d been raised together—part of the time anyway—and he’d helped her father teach her how to surf. She would have been just as upset if he had died. “I should have, but I wanted to make
sure
Aunt Meg didn’t find out. Her heart’s so weak.”

“I see,” he slowly responded, but it was clear that he didn’t.

“Somehow the air crew didn’t run my passport through the system, or the authorities would have realized I was out of the country,” she rushed on to change the subject. “When I returned and found out, I hid until I decided what to do.”

Trent arched one eyebrow as if she lacked her full share of brain cells. “Who was the woman killed in your car?”

“Lindsey Fulton.” Just saying her friend’s name, imagining her gruesome death, caused a sense of loss too deep for tears.

Trent frowned. “Do I know her?”

“No. She was an artist from San Francisco. She’d flown down and met me at Gulliver’s where I’d parked my car. She was going to use it and stay at my place until I returned.” Hayley didn’t bother to explain about Lindsey’s crazy husband.

“Jesus H. Christ! Talk about being unlucky. Wrong place at the wrong time.”

He was just a little too flip about Lindsey’s death, she decided, but didn’t call him on it. If they kept discussing Lindsey, she was certain she would begin to cry. That would put her off track. She’d come here for a reason.

She’d installed the two state-of-the-art listening devices Ryan had given her. One was in Trent’s office phone. Another was hidden in the rim of his desk. She had a third to slip into his cell phone—if she had the chance.

“Why’d you hire Garver Browne?”

“That was Aunt Meg’s idea. I went to see her first, intending to call you next,” she fibbed. “She insisted I needed an attorney. She was right.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police acted as if I were the criminal.” She went on to tell him about the aggressive questioning. “They even asked me to take a lie detector test.”

“Really? They’re holding up my container from China, but they didn’t mention the test to me.”

“Be careful what you say,” she warned him. “Don’t talk to the press. That’s what Garver told me. Let’s see what charges they file, if any.”

Trent hesitated, measuring her for a moment in a way that made her even more uncomfortable. “Didn’t Browne tell you to stay out of sight? If he didn’t, he should have. What if the killer tries again?”

As casually as she could manage, Hayley fibbed, “Garver thinks it’s a drug mix-up. Happens all the time. With all this publicity, they’ll realize their mistake and leave me alone.”

Trent nodded thoughtfully. “Probably.”

Actually, when she’d called Garver to tell him she wasn’t going to play dead and hide, the attorney told her that she was “wacko.” He believed that someone would try to kill her again. She asked one of the questions troubling her. “You haven’t let anyone ship drugs with the company’s orders, have you?”

“Of course not,” he shot back immediately. “Hell, they had drug sniffing dogs all over the store, the warehouse, the container. Then they tore everything apart, but they didn’t find shit. I’m not sure why they think it’s drug-related.”

She felt his sharp eyes boring into her. If Trent was lying, he was better at it than she could possibly have imagined. “It seems the way bombs are made give them a certain signature. The police told me the ATF identified this bomb as belonging to the Sinaloa cartel.”

“Really?” His eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t—”

“No. I never have done drugs.” She couldn’t believe he was asking her, since he’d tried over the years to get her to smoke pot or kick back tequila shooters with him and she’d always refused.

“What about The Wrath and that crew? They’re a bunch of dick-swingers pumped on steroids. Who says they aren’t involved in some major drug scam?”

“That’s ridiculous,” she cried, then told herself Trent had a point. She’d gone to the local gym where he worked out. It was in the seedy part of Costa Mesa near Santa Ana.

A lot of odd-looking guys hung out around the gym. They seemed friendly enough, she thought, recalling The Wrath showing her a few moves to ward of an attacker. Not that it had done much good when Ryan mistakenly jumped her. A crowd had gathered to watch her lesson. Just because they’d been smiling and laughing didn’t mean they weren’t involved in illegal activities.

Suddenly, she recalled something else. On the morning of the car bombing, Hayley had gone to the gym where The Wrath was training to get his approval on some designs. Was it possible the bomb had been planted while she was inside the gym?

“I suppose you could be right,” she admitted, still wondering about her trip to the gym. “There’s a lot of money at stake in MMA fights.”

“No kidding. Joe Hunter just bought a twenty-plus million-dollar estate on the ocean in Laguna.”

Hayley knew “Mean Joe” Hunter was an MMA promoter who’d bought the rights to televise the sport when the bouts were unknown beyond the back alleys. Joe had made a fortune when MMA hit the big time and television was the next step. She hadn’t realized the promoter had moved to the art colony just minutes south of Newport Beach.

“Fights have always attracted a certain…element,” Trent said. “Fixing fights. Mobsters. The works.”

“What would that have to do with me?”

Trent threw up his hands. “I haven’t a clue. I guess it doesn’t compute. Garver Browne is probably right. This was a mistake.”

“Let’s hope the police come to the same conclusion—and the media. Then we can go about our lives.” Hayley tried to inject as much sincerity into her voice as she could. “Tell me what’s been going on with Surf’s Up. I checked the sales reports. Swimsuits are still selling at last year’s level. Same for board shorts. MMA merchandise sales are up—way up.”

Trent held the tip of his tongue between his teeth, the way he had when he’d lost a skateboard competition when they’d been kids. Being a man, her father had claimed. Trying not to cry.

Why was he so upset? No one had tried to kill him. An odd twinge of heaviness centered in her chest, turned to lead. She’d grown up with this man. Hayley was friends with his wife. His son was her nephew and she loved him as if he had been her own child.