Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “You don’t feel right,” he corrected. “I want you to get some rest. I’ll call Lily and have her come by to look in on you. Keep a light burning, babe.” He kissed her then, lightly. “I’ll be back before sunrise.”

  “Callahan.” She tightened her grip as he eased back. It was foolish, she thought, this awful reluctance to let him go. “I love you.”

  He smiled and leaned down to kiss her again, the light, friendly kiss of a man who knew he’d have time for more soon. “I love you, too.”

  “Break a leg.” She sighed, and let him go.

  Luke loved to fly. From the very first time he’d strapped into the cockpit to take his initial lesson from Mouse, he’d been hooked. It had no longer been a matter of learning a practical skill that could add convenience to both of his careers. It had been, from that soaring beginning, pure delight.

  The plane he piloted was registered to a John Carroll Brakeman, a nonexistent insurance executive. To complete the alias, Luke had added a short, trim beard, a three-piece pin-striped suit—with several successful inches of padding beneath it. His black hair was sprinkled with silver at the temples.

  When he landed in Tennessee, he logged in, checked his return flight plan and carried his monogrammed briefcase to the spiffy Mercedes 450 he’d rented. He drove it to the Hilton, checked into his reserved suite and left orders not to be disturbed.

  Fifteen minutes later, minus the beard, the padding and the silver temples, he hurried down the stairwell to the parking lot. The dark sedan he’d ordered under another alias was waiting. Because it was safer than picking up the keys at the desk, Luke popped the lock, hot-wired the engine and drove serenely away.

  Once the job was completed, he would return the sedan to the parking lot and slip back into his room. He would re-don his disguise and check out. Richer by approximately one half a million dollars, he’d fly back to New Orleans. Nothing would connect him with either the alias or the burglary.

  A roundabout route, perhaps, but as Max was wont to say, a roundabout route still gets you where you want to go.

  Two blocks from Sam’s house, Luke parked the dark, nondescript sedan on a tree-lined street. In this suburban paradise, all the lawns were trimmed, the dogs well behaved and the houses respectably dark at one A.M.

  Streetlamps pooled light he easily avoided. Clad in black from head to foot, he slipped between shadows. There was a trace of fog that might give him some problems at the airport. But he felt the mist had been custom-made for him. There was a half-moon, but its light was trapped behind shifting clouds and the air was sweet with hints of spring.

  He circled the Wyatt estate, a sprawling two-story brick with white columns that resembled slender bones in the half-light. There was no car in the drive. The security lights beamed like swords over the lawn and picked up pretty banks of golden daffodils and the tender furled leaves of trees still greening. He was almost sorry that Sam was in Washington. It would have added spice to the sweetness of satisfaction to have stolen in and taken what he wanted while his old enemy snored.

  A tall privacy fence guarded the house on three sides, and old leafy trees shielded the front. Luke used both as shelter as he approached.

  He missed Roxanne severely when he started on the security. The new computerized systems annoyed him, insulted his creativity. He supposed the numbers and complex sequences appealed to Roxanne’s logical mind, but to Luke they took the art of thievery into the ennui of accounting.

  Even with her instructions playing in his head, it took him twice as long as it would have taken her to access the code. Still, she didn’t have to know.

  Satisfied, he chose the rear entrance and handily picked the lock. He preferred the method to jimmying, which any second-rate B&E man could accomplish, and certainly held it above smashing a pane of glass, which took no skill whatsoever.

  Luke stepped into a neat sitting room that smelled of lemon oil and wisteria. The old excitement crept up his spine. There was something indescribably arousing about standing in a dark, empty house, surrounded by the shapes and shadows of another person’s possessions. It was like being told their secrets.

  Luke walked silently from the sitting room, turning left in the corridor toward Sam’s office. His fingers were already itching inside the thin, surgical gloves to turn the dial of the safe.

  He needed no light. His eyes had had time to adjust, and he knew the square footage of the Wyatt home a great deal better than its owners.

  There was a quality of silence to an empty house Luke had always enjoyed. It was a whispering, a humming, an eerily pleasant kind of music the air took on when there was no one inside to breathe it.

  He had turned into Sam’s office before it struck him that the music was absent. Then the light flashed on, blinding him.

  “Well, Luke, come right on in.” Sam leaned back in his desk chair, causing the leather to creak. “I’ve been expecting you. Please.” He gestured, and the light glinted off the chrome of the .32 he held. “Join me for a drink.”

  Luke studied Sam’s smile, scanned the smooth surface of the desk where two brandies rested. He imagined it was Napoleon, but doubted its flavor would wash the oily taste of a setup out of his mouth.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Oh, several months now.” With the gun aimed at Luke’s chest, he leaned forward to cup his snifter. “I’m ashamed to say I didn’t suspect earlier. All this time, I put the Nouvelles’ extravagant life-style down to a little blackmail or some short cons. Sit,” he invited. “I’m so terribly sorry you came alone.”

  “I work alone,” Luke said, hoping to salvage at least that much.

  “You were always pathetically gallant. Sit,” he repeated, and his voice was as cold as the chrome of the handgun. Gauging his best chance was to play the scene out, Luke sat. “The brandy’s excellent.” Sam set aside his snifter to lift the phone. “Don’t worry,” he said when he noticed the flash in Luke’s narrowed eyes. “I’m not phoning the police. I don’t believe we’ll need them.” He punched a series of buttons, waited. “He’s here. Yes. Use the back door.” He was smiling when he replaced the receiver. “A little surprise. Now what shall we talk about while we wait?”

  “You might be able to make breaking and entering stick,” Luke said calmly. “There’s a possibility of attempted burglary. All of which I can probably finesse into a joke. Poor judgment, I could say, trying to pull a fast one on a childhood rival.”

  Sam paused a moment as if considering. “I doubt that would work, particularly after I pointed out the pattern. One I admit I didn’t catch on to until recently. You son of a bitch,” he said with the smile still spread over his face. “You sanctimonious bastards—all of you. Acting outraged because I knocked over a couple of shops while you were nothing but petty thieves and grifters yourselves.”

  “Not petty,” Luke corrected and decided to try the brandy after all. “And never grifters. What do you want?”

  “What I’ve wanted all along. To make you pay. I hated you, right from the start. Keep your hands where I can see them,” he warned. Luke shrugged and sipped brandy. “I didn’t know precisely why, only that I did. But I believe it was because we were so alike.”

  Now Luke smiled. “You’ve got a gun on me, Wyatt. You can kill me or send me to prison. But don’t insult me.”

  “Always cool, and still reckless. It was a combination I might have admired if you hadn’t been so disgustingly superior. You held the Nouvelles in the palm of your hand. Oh, I saw the potential even then, but you were in the way.”

  “Face it, pal.” Maybe, just maybe, he could anger him enough to force him into a mistake. “You fucked up.”

  Sam’s eyes glittered, but the gun didn’t waver. “What I fucked was your girl. And I seduced Roxanne away from you. Believe me, if I’d realized the potential there, I’d have fucked her rather than—what was her name? Annabelle.”

  The fury bounded up. Luke had to c
url his hand around the arm of the chair to stay seated. “I should have broken more than your nose.”

  “There, for the first time, you’re correct. You should have destroyed me, Callahan, because now, I’ll destroy you. Come in, Mr. Cobb.”

  Now Luke did jerk to his feet. Brandy splashed over his gloved hand. There, in the doorway, was his oldest nightmare.

  “I believe you two know each other,” Sam continued. Oh, this was rich, he thought. Magnificent. What more could he ask for than to see Luke’s face go white? A great deal more, he decided, chuckling to himself. A great deal more. “You might not be aware that Mr. Cobb has been working for me for quite some time now. Help yourself to the bar while I explain a few salient points to our mutual friend.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Cobb strutted over to the whiskey decanter and poured a double. He liked the idea of sharing a drink with a man of Wyatt’s caliber, being invited—after all this time—into his home. “Looks like he’s got you by the short hairs, Luke.”

  “Succinctly put. Now that we’re all together, I’ll outline the deal.” It was perfect, so perfect, Sam could barely keep his voice from shivering with excitement. “It was my idea to have Mr. Cobb contact you and squeeze you for a few thousand a month. Imagine my surprise when you paid quietly and with ease, even when I gave him permission to increase the amounts. Now, how, I asked myself, does a man—even one with a certain amount of financial success—pay off blackmail demands in excess of a hundred thousand a year without altering his life-style by even the smallest degree?” Waiting a beat, Sam tapped a finger against his curved lips. “He can’t, of course, unless he has another source of income. So, I began tracking you. I still have contacts of my own, you know. Then I laid the bait and watched you nibble. My insurance company, my security system, my schedule. It wasn’t difficult to make it seem as though I planned to be in Washington this week.”

  The first wave of sickness had sweat springing cold to the back of Luke’s neck. “You opened the cage door,” he managed, “that doesn’t mean I’ll let it lock behind me.”

  “I’m aware of that. You see with a clever lawyer you might just wriggle out of the charges. Since you came alone, it would be difficult if not impossible to spread the blame to the Nouvelles. I could simply kill you.” Lips pursed, he lifted the gun, sighting in on Luke’s forehead. “But then, you’d only be dead.”

  “Don’t kill the golden goose,” Cobb said and chuckled at his own wit.

  “Certainly not, particularly if you can make him roast slowly.”

  “And he’ll keep paying, too.” Cobb poured more whiskey.

  “Yes, though not in the way you mean.” Sam smiled at Cobb, then pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the bullet exploded in the small room. Luke felt it echo through him as if he were a hollow tunnel. Dazed, he watched Cobb stagger, saw the look of surprise on his face, and the blood flow through the neat black hole that had suddenly appeared in his forehead.

  The glass of whiskey hit the rug first, rolled unbroken across the bright Turkish carpet. And Cobb fell like a tree.

  “That was easier than I imagined.” Sam’s hand shook once, but it was excitement rather than nerves. “Much easier.”

  “Jesus.” Luke tried to spring to his feet but found his limbs heavy. He rose slowly, like a man fighting his way up through water. The room spun like a carousel and the bright, bloody carpet flew up to meet him.

  When he awakened, his head felt clogged. The drummers banging inside it were muffled with wads of cotton wool.

  “Obviously you have good stamina.” Sam’s voice seemed to drift through the mists. “I thought you’d be out longer.”

  “What?” Wobbly, Luke managed to crawl up on his hands and knees. He had to fight a powerful wave of nausea before he dared lift his head. When he did, he saw Cobb’s dead-white face. “Oh, God.” Lifting a hand, he wiped the sweat from his face. He was light-headed and sick, but still aware enough to realize he no longer wore his gloves.

  “No gratitude?” Sam demanded. He sat behind the desk again, but when Luke focused in, he saw he held a different gun. “After all, the man made your life hell, didn’t he? Now he’s dead.”

  “You didn’t even flinch.” Sam, the gun, the room wavered as Luke fought to clear his head. “You shot him in cold blood and didn’t even flinch.”

  “Thank you. Remember, I can do the same with you—or Max or Lily. Or Roxanne.”

  He wasn’t going to beg, not on his hands and knees. Painfully, Luke pulled himself to his feet. His legs wobbled, adding humiliation to terror. “What do you want?”

  “Exactly what I’m going to get. I can call the police now, tell them you and Cobb broke in while I was working late in my office. I surprised you, you pulled a gun. Then you argued between yourselves, and you shot him. During the confusion, I managed to get my gun. This is my gun by the way.”

  He gestured with a trim .25. He wanted to pull the trigger, wanted badly to pull it and feel that jolt of power again. But that would be too quick. Too quick, too final.

  “The other is unregistered, and untraceable—except for the fact that it now has your fingerprints on it. You’ll be charged with murder, and with your connection to Cobb, I doubt you’d wiggle out.”

  He smiled then, hugely. A man dazzled by his own brilliance.

  “That’s our first scenario,” he went on. “Which would play nicely, I believe. I don’t like it as much as the second, because it involves me. The second is that you take the body and dispose of it. Then you go.”

  “Go?” Struggling to remain lucid, Luke dragged a hand through his hair. “Just like that?”

  “Exactly. Only you don’t go back to New Orleans. You don’t contact the Nouvelles. You, quite literally, disappear.” The grin on Sam’s face spread, erupted into a fast, wild giggle. “Abracadabra.” The sound had cold fingers squeezing Luke’s spine.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?” Sam asked, and his eyes glittered. “You’d like to think so because I’ve beaten you, beaten you at last.”

  “All of this?” Luke’s voice was still slurred from the drug. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if to be certain he understood the words himself. “You planned all this, you murdered Cobb, just to get back at me?”

  “Does that seem unreasonable?” Sam leaned back in his chair, swiveled it side to side. “Perhaps I’d think so if I were in your position.” He jerked forward again, and had the pleasure of seeing Luke jolt and brace. “But you see, I’m not. I’m in charge. And you’ll do exactly as I say. If you don’t, I’ll have you arrested for murder, and I’ll see that Maximillian Nouvelle is investigated for grand larceny—unless I find it more enjoyable to kill him.”

  “He took you in off the street.”

  “And kicked me back onto it.” The smile on Sam’s face twisted into a sneer of disgust. “Don’t expect loyalty from me, Callahan, especially if you’re not willing to put your own on the line.”

  “Why don’t you just kill me?”

  “I prefer the idea of you grubbing for a living in some godforsaken town, having sweaty dreams about Roxanne and the men she’ll fill her life with, losing that star you’ve held on to so tightly over the years. Escape this, Callahan. You go, or the Nouvelles pay, for the rest of their lives. And don’t think you can leave now, then reappear in a few weeks. You may slip the noose, but I’ll pull it taut around Max’s neck, that I promise. I have all the evidence I need to hang him, right in the safe you never had the opportunity to open.”

  “No one would believe you.”

  “No? A dedicated public servant with a pristine record? A man who brought himself out of the hell of the streets? Who, though he felt a certain loyalty to the old man, could no longer conceal the facts? And who, recognizing the signs of senility, would plead for confinement in a mental health facility rather than prison?”

  That turned fear to ice, a sharp, ragged spear of ice that threatene
d to draw blood. “No one’s going to put Max away.”

  “That’s up to you. Your call, Callahan.”

  “You’ve got the hammer.” He felt his life slipping through his fingers like sand. “I’ll disappear, Wyatt. But you’ll never be entirely sure when I’ll be back. One night I’ll just be there.”

  “Take your old friend with you, Callahan.” He gestured toward Cobb. “And think of me, every day, when you’re in hell.”

  24

  Luke knew it was foolishly risky, but risks no longer seemed to matter. He left the second rental car in the hotel parking lot and, using the main elevators in the lobby, rode up to his room. Once inside he pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of a paper sack, set it on the dresser and stared at it.

  He stared for a long time before breaking the seal. He tipped the bottle back, taking three long swallows to let the fire burn through the worst of the misery.

  It didn’t work. He’d already learned from the harsh example of his youth that liquor didn’t negate miseries, it only compounded them. But it had been worth a shot.

  He could still smell Cobb. The sweat and blood and stench of death clung to his skin. It had been a hideous job, weighing down the body and sinking it into the river.

  He’d wanted him dead. God knew he wanted the man dead. But he hadn’t known what sudden, violent and pitiless death could do.

  Luke couldn’t forget how Sam had fired the gun—so casually, as if taking a life was as simple an event as an evening of cards. He hadn’t done it out of hate, or for gain or in blind passion. He’d done it thoughtlessly, like a young child might tumble a building