Rivals (58 page)

His smile faded as he recalled Diedre's reaction when he'd told her he wouldn't be there for Opening Day. He'd waited until two days ago to tell her. He wasn't sure why. Maybe to make the trip sound more urgent. But he hadn't fooled her for a second.

“This Friday. That means you won't be here for Opening Day,” she'd said, her acute disappointment plainly visible.

“I'm sorry, but it can't be helped,” he'd insisted.

“Where do you have to go?”

He'd hesitated a fraction of a second before answering. “Tulsa.”

In that instant she'd known exactly who he was meeting and why, although she hadn't said a word. The hurt that flashed so briefly in her eyes had said it all. She'd turned away from him then, her shoulders hunching slightly as if to hold in the pain.

“If you have to go, you must,” she'd said, with an attempt at lightness. “There'll always be next year.” Then, in the tiniest of voices, she'd asked, “Won't there?”

“Of course.” He'd been gruff with her—gruff to hide that twinge of guilt. He wondered what she was doing now.

“Here we are,” Flame said, rousing him from his thoughts. “Ben arranged for us to use one of the hotel's meeting rooms. He said he'd meet us in the lobby.”

A glass pitcher of ice water and four glasses sat on a tray in the middle of the long table. Next to them on a separate tray was an insulated carafe of coffee, Styrofoam cups and packets of sugar and powdered creamer. The rest of the table was taken over by opened briefcases, notepads, and ashtrays.

Malcom sat back in his chair at the head of the long table, his fingers linked together across his middle. At the opposite end, smoke spiraled from the brier pipe clenched between the attorney's teeth. Like Ben Canon, Malcom mostly watched and listened as Flame conducted the meeting, exhibiting a hard intensity and determination. She reminded him of a corporate tiger, seizing on any point that might give her the end she sought.

“But, Mr. Fletcher, you just said you believed Mr. Crowder would like to sell.”

“I know what I said,” the agent replied. “But his daughter won't let him.”

“What right does she have to tell him whether he can sell or not? The title is in his name. He doesn't need her permission.”

“Yes, he does. She has control of everything.”

“That's ridiculous. She's his daughter,” Flame said, with considerably more than a trace of impatience.

“I don't know how it works exactly. Maybe Mr. Canon can explain it better, but she's…I guess you'd call her his legal guardian. They set it up when he went in for that cancer surgery last year. And that's still the way it is. The poor man can barely make himself understood, and he's so sick and weak most of the time from that medication he has to take that he can't write more than a word or two at a time, then he has to rest. And Mrs. Crowder, she's beside herself, worrying over him and all the bills, not knowing how they're going to pay and what's going to happen.”

“What is wrong with that woman?” Flame pushed to her feet. “Can't she see that if she would accept our offer, then her parents could have some peace and security in their last days instead of all this worry over bills? Instead of being so concerned about where he's going to buried when he dies, she should be thinking about how he's going to live.”

“You'd think so,” the agent agreed. “But she's determined to hang on to that farm no matter what.”

“This guardianship—or whatever it is,” she said, turning to Canon. “Can it be revoked?”

“Possibly.” He took the pipe from his mouth to answer. “You'd probably have to take her to court and prove she was unfit to do it. And you're talking time there. Mr. Crowder might be dead by then.”

“What if he signed a sales contract, agreeing to sell at our price, could we make them honor it?”

“I doubt it.”

“They aren't going to sell, Ms. Bennett,” the agent stated. “I think you'd better accept that. And if you have thoughts of making them another offer, you'll have to find yourself another man to take it to him. She came after me with a shotgun the last time I was out there, and she was crazy-mad enough to use it. Next time she might. And no commission—regardless of the amount—is worth my life. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.”

“I understand.” But her look called him a quitter.

He stood up, closed his briefcase, and picked up his cowboy hat, holding it respectfully in front of him. “I wish you luck.”

“Thank you.” She remained standing, her gaze following him as he walked from the room.

Ben Canon thoughtfully poked at the charred tobacco in his pipe bowl and sent an upward glance at Flame. “There's one consolation in all this. If she won't sell to us, she won't be selling it to Stuart either.”

She turned on him roundly. “That isn't good enough. We have to have that land. It's absolutely essential to the development. Which means we have no choice,” she declared firmly. “We have to buy their mortgage and force them out.”

“Why?” Malcom studied her with critical eyes, catching her stunned glance that quickly flared into bewildered anger.

“What kind of a question is that?” she demanded. “You know very well why.”

“Do I? I wonder.” All of his business life he'd heard statements very similar to hers. Yet he resented hearing such ruthlessness coming from her. “Those people want to keep their land. But you're going to force them off it.”

“I am not that cold-blooded, Malcom,” she said, her indignation rising. “I want to buy their mortgage and force them to
sell
, not throw them off the land without a penny. We'll pay them much more than the land is worth.”

“Is that how you justify it?”

“What is going on?” she demanded. “If you have another alternative, tell me, because I can't see that we have any other choice except to give up. And if we do that, Chance—”

“I wondered how long it would be before Stuart's name was mentioned,” he murmured.

“Malcom, whom do you think we're fighting? Who do you think is out there trying to get Morgan's Walk—any way he can?”

“And who do you think is becoming just as ruthless as Stuart?”

“I have to be!” she cried in anger. “It's me he's trying to destroy.”

“And that makes it all right for you to destroy the Crowders' lives.”

“I am not—
we
are not—destroying their lives. Ultimately, we're helping them,” she argued.

“And you're going to
make
them accept that
help
whether they want it or not…”

“When did you become so righteous?” she demanded. “How many stores have you forced out of business or into bankruptcy? How many companies have you taken over? The iron man isn't exactly lily white.”

“That was business. With you, it's purely vengeance. It's taken me a while to realize that everything you do revolves around getting even with Stuart. Maybe I didn't want to see it before.”

“That isn't true,” she denied, made restless and impatient by his accusation.

“Isn't it?” Malcom replied, a little sadly. “The only reason you're with me, Flame, is because I can help you get back at Stuart. You're using me…in much the same way he used you.”

“How can you say that?” The fullness of her temper moved darkly over her face, clouding the green of her eyes.

“Because it's the truth. And I've discovered I don't like it.” He got to his feet, amazed that all he felt for her at the moment was pity. “Go ahead and buy the mortgage, force the Crowders into selling. Do whatever you like, Flame. You've changed. You've become vindictive, twisted by your desire for revenge. And I want no more part of it.”

When he started for the door, she demanded, “Where are you going?”

He paused near the door and turned back to her. “Back to San Francisco—to spend the weekend on my boat with my wife. And believe it or not, I'm looking forward to it.”

She stiffened, her chin coming up. “Are you pulling out on me, Malcom? I thought we were partners.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You once told me that you wanted our relationship to be strictly business. You've got what you wanted. The next time you need to meet with me, call my secretary. She'll schedule an appointment for you.”

Flame spun away, not watching him walk out the door, her hands gripping the back of a chair, his accusation ringing in her ears. She felt Ben Canon's eyes on her.

“He doesn't understand,” she insisted defensively, but it was too late to explain to Malcom about the threatening calls she'd received.

“I can see that,” he replied, idly puffing on his pipe.

She grabbed up her things and started for the door. “You heard what he said. Buy the mortgage on the Crowder farm—the sooner the better.”

Still smarting from Malcom's remarks, Flame swept out of the room and down the hall to the hotel lobby. She had a brief glimpse of his familiar profile, the silver tips in his dark hair flushing in the light, as he slid into a cab. Resentment, hot and galling, raced through her again. She'd been honest with him. She'd told him from the start that getting even with Chance was part of this. Hadn't he believed she was serious? Had he thought it was some game she'd get tired of playing in a few weeks? Was that why he had twisted everything around and tried to make it sound as though she had somehow deceived him? She hadn't, not once. She suspected that the real truth was their relationship hadn't lived up to his fantasy of it, so—with typical arrogance—he blamed her. Let him.

She pushed through the lobby doors and paused long enough outside to drape her raincoat over her head, not bothering with the umbrella, and ran through the rain to her car. With windshield wipers slapping at the steady rainfall, she drove out of the hotel lot, onto the street, heading for the freeway entrance a block away. Driving down the on-ramp, she spotted a gap in the blur of red taillights and accelerated quickly to highway speed to fill it.

There was a release in the speed and power at her command—a release from the anger and frustration that had no other outlet. She gripped the wheel, fingers clenching and unclenching, her lips pressed tightly together as she stared through the pouring rain at the gleaming taillights in front of her.

A car came up behind her, its headlights on full bright. Flame winced at the painful glare of them in her rearview mirror, a brightness that seemed to be magnified by the rainy, black night.

She muttered irritably at the unseen driver, “Didn't anyone ever tell you it's common courtesy to dim your lights when you're behind another car?” She flashed the Lincoln's headlights from low to high beam and back again, then gestured in the rearview mirror for the car behind her to do the same, but the driver didn't get the message. “Dammit, will you dim them?”

In an attempt to escape them, Flame swung the Lincoln into the passing lane. But then other car swerved with her, staying right on her tail. She switched back to the right lane and slowed down, hoping it would pass her. But the full, reflected glare of its blinding headlights were there again, directly behind her.

This time Flame realized, all her previous irritation and anger fleeing as alarm surfaced, that she was being followed…more than likely by the same person who had forced her off the road before. And just as before, whoever was back there wanted her to know he—or she—was there.

“Dammit, who are you?” she cried in mixture of fear and frustration.

She tried, but between the sheeting rain running down her rear window and the harsh brightness of its headlights, she couldn't see what kind of car it was—if it was Chance's silver Jaguar or something else. Flame spotted the interstate sign indicating an exit one mile ahead—and the one after it promising gas, food, and lodging at the exit…and, more important, help.

She pushed her foot down on the accelerator and raced for the exit. Her stalker stayed right with her. She didn't slow down or signal her intention as she neared the off-ramp. Instead, she waited until the last possible moment then swerved the Lincoln onto the exit, and began to brake.

She was surrounded by darkness and pouring rain. The glare of the headlights—they weren't there anymore! The car hadn't followed her. With a quick turn of her had back toward the interstate, Flame tried to catch a glimpse of the car before it disappeared.

But she couldn't see it. It wasn't there. At the same instant, she had that eerie feeling she was being watched. Some sound, some motion, some instinct told her the car had pulled alongside her on the wide off-ramp. She automatically slammed on the brake as she turned to look.

There was a faint, explosive sound as her windshield fractured into a glass mosaic of a thousand tiny pieces. She couldn't see!

Fighting the waves of panic, Flame brought the car to a full stop. That's when she noticed the two small holes in the windshield—bullet holes—and the corresponding holes that had also shattered the glass in the driver's window.

The next day, the sky was blue and clear, the sun shining brightly, the water puddles standing around Hank's service station at the interstate exit offering the only lingering evidence of last night's storm. But the nightmare of it was very real to Flame as she watched a man from the police lab measuring the diameter of the bullet holes in the windshield of the sky blue Continental.

When she shuddered uncontrollably, Charlie touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

She thrust her chin a little higher, but carefully avoided looking at him. “Somebody's trying to kill me, Charlie,” she murmured tightly. “Hattie warned me he'd stop at nothing—not even murder. But I didn't believe her.”

43

R
unnels
of perspiration streamed down his face and neck, plastering the cotton T-shirt against his chest. Drawing the racket back, Chance channeled all of his strength into his swing at the fast-flying ball and rocketed it back at the wall. Immediately he moved back, shifting to a ready stance, totally intent on the ball yet aware of his opponent, one of the trainers at the gym. The man made a diving swing at the careening ball—and missed. Game point.