The Quiet Seduction (16 page)

“Yeah!” Pete shouted softly.

He was being forced to miss school. That put this in
the category of a vacation, and vacations were always welcome. If life as an army wife had taught her some basic lessons, being an army brat had been a good learning experience for her son. It had definitely helped make him more adaptable.

Lord, she loved Pete so much it hurt. He was still a child, but he considered himself the man of the family now, and as such, he took his duties seriously. Too seriously, sometimes, but there was nothing she could do about that. For a little while she'd thought that Spence might—

Forget it, she chided silently. Whatever Spence was involved in, it was big. Comparatively speaking, life on a struggling ranch—a horse breeding operation with two mares, two geldings and a bad-tempered stallion—was small. Too small to interest a man with an important position in town, and friends who could call in favors at the drop of a hat.

She could have cried, only it wouldn't have helped. Besides, Pete would have wanted to know why she was crying, and she could hardly tell an eight-year-old boy that she'd fallen head over heart in love with a man she had pulled out of a ditch.

P
ete didn't catch any fish. If he was disappointed, he didn't let it show. Neither of them had ever dressed a fish before, but Ellen was sure she could have figured it out. “Maybe tomorrow,” she consoled. “I've always heard that fish bite best early in the morning.”

“Yeah, they pro'ly wake up hungry just like I do. Mom, do we have any cookies left?”

Without the regimen of school and chores to shape his days Pete was always hungry. She felt the opposite, having to force herself to eat.

That evening for supper, using two leftover biscuits, a can of tomatoes and whatever seasoning was on hand, Ellen made tomato pudding, one of her mother's favorite dishes to serve with the canned corned-beef hash. Her father used to turn up his nose and make some disparaging remark about taking the girl out of the country but not being able to take the country out of the girl.

“This tastes funny,” Pete said.

“Then laugh, but don't complain unless you're ready to take over as chef-in-chief.”

“Chef-in-chief, that's funny!”

She playfully cuffed him on the head. “Everything's funny to you.”

Pete scraped his plate clean while Ellen told him stories of the people she'd known when she was a little
girl, exaggerating facial expressions and accents, shamelessly throwing in outrageous details. By the time she ran out of imagination, he was asleep on the sagging sofa.

She covered him and left him there, then opened the door and stared out at the golden trail across Greasy Pond, compliments of the rising full moon. The scrubby oaks and cottonwoods cast romantic shadows on the row of weathered old shacks, disguising their dilapidated condition. Other than small birds skimming over the water, feeding on insects, nothing stirred.

And that, she supposed, was good.

Sooner or later Spence had to call. She didn't care if the call could be intercepted or not, she needed to hear his voice. Needed to know he hadn't forgotten her. Had whatever happened between them been only gratitude on his part for pulling him out of that ditch? Or on hers, for saving her son? She refused to believe that. She knew very well what her own feelings were; it was Spence's feelings she couldn't be sure of, didn't dare allow herself to believe.

Turning back inside, she knew she would never be able to sleep. What on earth was she supposed to do? How long were they going to be stuck there? If she'd had any cleaning supplies, she might even have given the place a thorough scrubbing. Anything was better than waiting and not knowing. Minute by minute, hour by hour, hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

Waiting for a call that didn't come.

So maybe when this was all over she would go back to Austin for a visit. Her father might even have mellowed with time, and Pete really did need a man in his life. A male role model. Right now all she had to offer was Booker and Clyde, and her father was definitely
better than that. It wouldn't hurt for Pete to be exposed to a little refinement.

 

Spence's downtown office had been locked once he'd been declared missing, but not before his files had been searched for anything pertaining to the trial of Alex Black. It had never occurred to him when he'd locked the door behind him that morning nearly three weeks ago, to remove the files directly pertaining to the trial. Malone would have laid claim to all that his first day in office.

As for tangential information that was far more potentially explosive, Spence had his own methods of handling the paper trail that led from certain politicians, plus a few of Mission Creek's big businessmen, directly to the Texas Mafia. If he'd known he was going to turn up missing, he might have done a better job of securing it, but he was hoping his hide-in-plain-sight method had worked.

Missing. That was the official designation. Pressure would have been brought to bear to declare him not only missing but presumed dead, in which case everything in his office would have been subject to intense scrutiny. Without a body, however, the police were obliged to follow certain procedures. Any cop who tried to rush the process would have tripped too many alarms.

Still, pressure had to have been brought to bear by certain individuals on certain others. Spence knew who had done the applying; that was an open secret. What he couldn't be sure of, not without further proof, was just where that pressure had been applied. Who had buckled? Had it been a top-down decision, or a bottom-up one?

Del Brio's first act on taking over as the new mob boss had been to ramrod his man into the position of acting D.A. to rush through the trial before new evidence could be admitted. Shortly before he'd gone missing, Spence had been close to compiling enough evidence to rock a few well-placed citizens off their perches. He'd wanted that deposition for a turnkey job, but even without that he had enough to hand over to the feds. Let the attorney general's office take over. The evidence he'd compiled, if it was still where he'd left it in his office, was enough to build a solid case, even without the coup de grace.

Spence had wanted to go directly to his apartment after leaving Ellen and Pete in safe hands. He'd wanted to change into his own clothes, his own boots.

But in case the place was being watched, he'd sent Tyler in with a list.

Flynt drove him to a rundown motel out near the rodeo arena, where he registered using the name Jason Hale.

“ID?” the sleepy-eyed clerk had mumbled.

“Sorry. My wallet got lifted. I borrowed enough from a friend to live on for a few days, though.”

“Be forty-five a day in advance, sign here.”

Spence signed, using a slashing backhand. He counted out enough for three days, not that he intended to stay that long, but he'd just as soon not have to spend much time in the lobby. Considering the seedy clientele, it was just the sort of place where he might come face to face with Peaches and Silent Sal.

Inside the room, Flynt glanced around and said, “Did that clerk say forty-five a night or four-fifty an hour?”

“Go to hell,” Spence retorted, a tired grin removing the bite from the words.

“Look, I'll have a driver's license for you in a few hours. Sure Jason Hale suits you?”

“Yeah, I'll stick with it until this mess is cleared up. I'm going to need wheels. It'll be a while before I can get in touch with my insurance company.”

“I'll have a rental outside your door as soon as we get you documented.”

“Tinted glass.”

“You got it. But watch out, okay? We don't know how many people are still looking for you.”

Spence stroked his bristly jaw. He'd gone without shaving since yesterday. Another couple of days and it would take a Weed Eater to mow his beard.

Seeing the gesture, Flynt warned him not to shave. “You're looking just crummy enough to escape notice.”

“Thanks,” Spence said dryly, and of all things, he thought of Ellen. Of the carefully controlled look on her face when she'd brought him her husband's shaving gear. Had he read more into the simple gesture than she'd intended? At the time he'd still been pretty groggy.

He had some unfinished business to deal with where Ellen Wagner was concerned, but before he could do anything about it, he had to wind up what he'd started here in town. What happened after that would be up to her. And Pete.

He knew what he wanted to happen.

For the next few hours, holed up in a crummy little motel room with mustard-yellow walls, a rose-colored bedspread and a few faded rodeo posters, Spence wrote down every scrap of information he could remember,
including where the hard evidence was located, its source and how it all tied together. He drew diagrams. It helped him to think more clearly—helped to prevent him from busting out, heading downtown and making a royal ass of himself. And in the process, ruining whatever chance he had of pulling this case together in time to hand it off to the FBI. Alex Black was going to take the fall—there wasn't much he could do about that now, but hell, the guy had pulled the trigger. Judge Bridges hadn't been his first hit. As young as he was, Black had been no amateur.

Only if Spence could make his case tight enough and hand it off to the feds would all the dominoes come tumbling down. Justice would be served in the long run—or as much of it as any man could expect.

God, he sounded jaded. Time he got out of this rat race.

He had his own ranch—had he thought to tell Ellen? Not that he'd had much time even to visit for the past couple of years. Hers was small; his was even smaller, but his was a lot better managed. Maybe something could be worked out between them, although they were separated by practically the entire width of Lone Star County.

From time to time, to ease the tension gathering at the base of his neck, he flopped back on the sagging mattress and stared at the stained acoustical-tiled ceiling. He pictured another bedroom—paneled walls, white cotton curtains—nothing fancy, but clean and comfortable and somehow just right.

He pictured a woman standing beside the bed in a white chenille bathrobe with the sash pulled tight, revealing the flare of her hips, the narrowness of her waist. Fresh from her bath, her face would be flushed,
her hair tousled and still damp. “Ellen, Ellen,” he murmured. “What are we going to do? How the devil are we going to work things out?”

 

They met at the courthouse. Spence had set the time for three hours past midnight, knowing that traffic would be practically nonexistent, security at its most lax. At this point, he couldn't afford to trust even the cleaning crew. While Tyler distracted the lone security guard, the other two men slipped up the back stairway and into the office that still bore Spence's name in gold letters on the pebbled-glass door. Thank God they hadn't yet got around to declaring him officially out of the picture or the locks would have been changed, his office space reassigned.

“I hear Malone got the big corner office,” Tyler said quietly, referring to the newly appointed district attorney.

“Southwestern exposure. Once he finds out the place is an oven eight months out of the year he might change his mind. Look in the top file drawer under Insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“What, you expected a folder labeled Corruption In Internal Affairs And Business Ties To The Mob?”

Flynt pulled the thick file while Tyler cleared a working space, then the two men began scanning the contents. The papers at the front and the back of the folder concerned insurance. The rest did not.

“Damn, just look at this,” Tyler said softly.

Flynt glanced up from his own stack of paper—more interesting reading—then glanced over his shoulder to where Spence sat hunched over his desktop computer.

The three men worked feverishly. From time to time,
one of them would utter a quiet oath. Flynt read a certain document and whistled softly just as Spence shut down his computer and turned away. “Yeah, sort of gets you right here, doesn't it?” He slapped a hand over his heart.

“Man, this is going to blow this county wide open.”

“Let's hope so. Grab the whole folder and let's get out of here before Gus makes another round.”

At the sound of a phone, all three men jumped. Spence stared at the instrument on his desk. No lights were blinking.

“Mine,” Tyler acknowledged. Hips braced against the long oak table that had been part of the original courthouse furnishings dating from the early 1920s, he spoke quietly. “Murdoch. Yeah, go on, I'm listening.” He swore, and then said, “I'll be there as soon as—Look, give me twenty-four hours. I'll get word to you as soon as I know our E.T.A.” A long pause and then, “Two, possibly three. Meet us at the embassy. And keep me posted on any change of plans, will you?”

Turning to the other two men, he said, “If we've got everything we need here, I suggest we get moving. That was my contact with military intelligence. Spence, I'll bring you up to date since you've been out of the loop, but it'll have to be the condensed version.” He began gathering up file folders, shoving them into a battered briefcase. “I told you Luke's located the commander, but before he could extract him, things blew wide open. Literally. Luke got a face full of shrapnel. He's in a makeshift field hospital somewhere in the jungles of Central America. Surgery took place a couple of hours ago.” He looked at one man, then the other. “My contact says the prognosis doesn't look too promising.”

Spence froze. “But he came through surgery?”

“Yeah, he's stabilized for the time being, but it looks like he might not regain his sight.”

All three men fell silent. It was impossible to think of their friend being blind. Luke Callaghan was a V.M.I. classmate, a fellow Gulf War veteran. A loner in spite of his wealth, Luke permitted very few people to get close to him. Spence, Flynt, Tyler—and one other man—were among the chosen few.

“Come on, let's get out of here,” Flynt said gruffly. “We've got plans to make, places to go and things to do. Man, I hope your passport wasn't in your car when you tangled with that twister.”

“Office safe at home. Why?”

“We'll swing by and pick it up. Anything else we can grab later.”

“You want to clue me in?” Spence went about opening shades and switching off lights, leaving things the way they'd found them. Until they were ready to spring the trap, he was still officially missing.

 

Day two was exactly like day one at the catfishing resort known as Greasy Pond. Pete fished, using bait provided by one of their guardian angels. Wieners, in this case. Yesterday's bait had been chicken nuggets. Ellen had gone to the manager and borrowed a child-size life preserver and made him wear it, much to his disgust. “Mom, I'm just going to sit on the end of the pier.”

“You might fall off.”

“No, I won't, and anyway, I can swim real good.”

“Oh? And just where did you learn how to swim?” She had thought more than once about her father's Olympic-size swimming pool, not to mention all the
other advantages Leonard Summerlin could have provided.