The cop narrowed his eyes, obviously not enjoying having his investigative skills second-guessed by a race car driver. “We certainly did, Mr. Lansing.”
“Then you better start checking out his overseas bank accounts.”
“We’re looking at every aspect of the case.”
Beau felt his jaw clench. “Do you see how it could all be related?”
Detective Alexander stood, pushed out his chair, then scooped up the papers Beau had spread over the desk. “We’ll turn this over to the Kansas City police, where Dash is headquartered. In Long Pond, we’re worried about a murder. Our job was made pretty easy by the amount of blood in that motor coach, which doesn’t match the victim.”
“Who does it match?”
“It’s not yours. And it’s not Miss Benson’s.”
“Harlan?”
Shaking his head, the detective ran a hand over thinning hair. “It’s not his, either. Unless somebody comes up with a smoking gun, you’re cleared and so is he.”
Beau felt a whoosh of air deflate his lungs. “Are you sure?”
Alexander gave him the don’t-doubt-me look again. “Yes, we are. Someone is running around with some fairly serious razor whacks taken out of their skin, and that’s our perp.”
“Razor whacks? What are you talking about?”
“We found a shaving razor in a trash bin not far from the VIP section of the infield. Covered in blood and filled with skin. It matches the blood on the floor of your motor coach.”
No wonder he’d never found his razor.
If it wasn’t Harlan Ambrose, then whoever was the murderer still walked among them. Perhaps Celeste had been right that Olivia’s killer just had the wrong girl.
“There’s one more thing you ought to know, Detective. We had an unidentified visitor at the motor coach on Thursday night who left a pretty chilling calling card.”
Finally he had the cop’s undivided attention.
All of the weight seemed to lift from Celeste’s shoulders. It felt utterly right to sit next to Travis while he slept, whispering softly to her mother. She longed to share the fact that she too had fallen for a guy who was funny and handsome and sexy. But she wasn’t quite ready to reveal to her mother what she’d barely begun to accept herself.
She was saved from the temptation to confide when Elise decided it was best for her to find a room and check in before the onset of the evening storm they saw brewing.
It gave Celeste time to think about Beau and what she would say to him when they were alone and able to make love that night. What would happen now that she’d agreed to the operation?
Would things change between them? Would he agree when she said the only “sin” of her mother’s that she was afraid of committing was losing a man she could love?
When Celeste finally heard the sound of masculine footsteps in the hall, she looked to the door expectantly, awaiting the golden glow in his eyes, the secret smile he saved just for her.
The sight of Craig Lang hit her like a slap in the face.
He filled the doorway, an unreadable expression on his face. “Hello, Celeste.”
“How did you find me?” she managed to ask, after getting over the surprise of seeing him. But if Jackie had recognized her from an Internet photo, surely he had too.
“Ma Kettle back at the racing place sent me here.” He frowned and took a step inside the room, throwing a quick glance at Travis.
She wasn’t ready for these two worlds to collide. Elise was one thing. Craig was something else altogether. And the thought of Beau coming in here any minute nearly undid her completely. “Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you,” he answered, then cocked his head toward the hall. “Come outside with me.”
Anything to get him out of there. Reaching for the handbag she’d pushed under Travis’s bed, she accidentally bumped the metal rail around it. Travis moaned, and his eyelids fluttered open, his gaze falling directly on Craig. Then he closed his eyes and drifted into rhythmic breathing again. Forget the purse; she didn’t want to wake him. “Okay, let’s go get a cup of coffee.”
As they left the room, Celeste looked down the hallway for a sign of Beau or any of the Chastaine people. She saw a nurse, but no one familiar.
As the elevator bell rang and the doors opened to an empty car, she glanced at Craig, who still wore an impassive expression. She’d talk to him this one last time and get it over with. Then she could go back to her new world and new love. Where she belonged.
Beau was itching to see Travis and Celeste when he finally left the police station in downtown Daytona. But first he stopped at a pay phone and pulled out the paper Kaylene had given him on the way out. Harlan might be off the hook for murder, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to get away with his massive swindle of Chastaine.
“Mr. Johnston’s office,” a lilting, professional voice answered.
“This is Beau Lansing. I need to speak with Creighton.”
“Oh—hello, Mr. Lansing. I’m sorry, Mr. Johnston is—”
“Get him on the phone,” Beau demanded.
The sweet tone disappeared. “Hold on, please.”
He traced his finger along the grimy metal of the pay phone as the first few fat drops of rain splashed on his shoulders.
Her voice had dropped a few more degrees when she came back on the line. “Mr. Johnston is not available.”
His temper snapped. “Then deliver a message for me. Tell him that his golden boy Harlan Ambrose has been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the marketing fund, and capped it off this morning by taking the last five million dollars of Chastaine Motorsports money.”
She said nothing.
“Did you get that?”
The phone clicked, and he thought she’d hung up on him, but the Muzak assured him that he was still on hold.
“Beau!” Johnston’s booming voice filled the line. “I’ve been trying to reach Travis.”
“Travis is in the hospital. He had both kidneys removed this morning—”
“You’re kidding!” He certainly tried to make it sound like he cared. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s getting a kidney transplant and he’ll be on dialysis until then, but I’m not calling to talk about his health.” Beau waited a beat. “There seems to be a critical administrative error in Dash’s accounting.”
Johnston was silent.
“Are you aware of it?”
“Well, son, we do seem to have some issues internally—”
“Like embezzlement.”
Johnston cleared his throat. “We are seriously pursuing an investigation of some accounting problems.”
“Then seriously pursue this: five million dollars disappeared this morning.”
“That wasn’t embezzlement, Beau. I transferred that money myself.”
A sickening wave rolled through Beau at the words, but he waited for a plausible explanation. There had to be one.
“I’ve decided to pull out of NASCAR sponsorship. I wanted to tell Travis myself that we’re realigning our marketing strategy,” Johnston said.
“Bullshit,” Beau spat back. “You don’t want to get caught in the middle of a scandal and you’re going to cover for Harlan Ambrose.”
“No, Beau. Harlan was arrested by our local Kansas City authorities this afternoon.”
Instead of relief, Beau only felt confusion. “Then why are you cutting us off?”
“As I said, we’re realigning our—”
“Don’t give me that crap.” Something didn’t fit. Some piece just didn’t fit. He remembered the way Johnston’s face glowed at the dinner at Pocono. That was not a man about to can a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign. Shit, he’d been eating up Celeste’s video with a spoon.
Celeste. She knew Johnston, through her father. What did she say Johnston wanted from her father? Towers. Cell phone towers all over Connecticut. That made Gavin Bennett someone who could tell Creighton Johnston what to do.
“I’m sorry, Beau,” Johnston continued. “I think you have a bright future and I’m sure you’ll find another sponsor.”
“Yep—one who doesn’t owe favors to Gavin Bennett.”
Johnston’s stunned silence was the only confirmation Beau needed.
Gavin Bennett knew exactly where his daughter was, and he must have wanted her home bad enough to pull some powerful strings behind the scenes.
Or he wanted her quiet.
He hung up the phone and ran through the rain toward his truck. He had to be with Celeste.
The irony that Craig had rented a Porsche wasn’t lost on Celeste as she climbed into it. She missed the truck.
“So tell me,” Craig said as he turned the key in the ignition.
Celeste reached to stop him, to tell him they could talk without driving, when he asked, “Will you call this redneck Daddy now, instead of the one that raised you?”
“Excuse me?” She choked on her own surprise. How did he know?
“You heard me.” His tone was so ice cold and nasty that it raised goose bumps on her arms.
“I doubt that my mother’s private history was included with the picture you saw on the Internet, Craig. What were you doing surfing racing sites anyway?”
“Forget it, Celeste. I know everything.”
“Everything?”
“I know that man up there in the hospital is your biological father.” His voice dripped with repugnance.
“Then you should feel better about not marrying me,” she said softly.
“I do,” Craig said smoothly as he pulled out into traffic. “I won’t be watering down the Lang gene pool.”
She watched long lines of raindrops slide over her window, noticing how the rain increased. “I’d rather not go anywhere. Please keep the car parked and we can talk here.”
He turned onto the main highway.
“Let’s take a drive.” He revved the engine and maneuvered the Porsche into the left lane. “You can show me around your new town.”
“It’s not my new town, and it’s raining too hard to see anything.”
“Maybe you want to take me over to that racetrack and show me the infield.” He gave her a derisive smile. “You certainly seem to know your way around the garages.”
Her throat squeezed closed. This wasn’t possible. Craig couldn’t have known how she’d spent the past few days.
For as cool as he was acting, though, he was nervous. He couldn’t keep his hand off his mustache. Celeste could see his gaze darting from the rearview mirror to the road ahead.
“Why did you have to go running after him, Celeste?”
She wasn’t sure if he meant Travis or Beau. “I have my reasons.”
She looked ahead but felt his harsh stare. “And why did you have to act like a slut with the race car driver? To ensure we were finished for good?”
He sounded like her father when he’d call Elise words like stupid and whore.
God, she couldn’t believe she’d even humored him by accepting the ring she never wanted. She hadn’t been afraid of her father, or trying to please him; she’d been insane.
“Did you have to sleep with him?” He spat the question at her.
“Are you talking about Beau Lansing?”
“Why? Were there others, Celeste? A whole bunch of good ol’ boys drinkin’ beer and doin’ you at the races before someone got murdered?”
The fake southern accent riled her more than his words. What a judgmental, brutish hypocrite. “How long have you been following me?”
He swung around a bus, the spray from its wheels deluging their car. The Porsche fishtailed and Celeste gasped. She remembered the voice on the phone—the footsteps and the burned message of warning. Would Craig stoop to that level?
“Were you in the motor coach, Craig?” she asked, willing her voice not to crack.
He shot her a dangerous look from under his thick brown lashes. “Motor coach?” He laughed, low and mean. “A trailer’s a trailer, Celeste. Upscale labels won’t make you any different from your mother.”
Her apprehension ratcheted up to alarm, and she fervently wished she hadn’t left her purse and cell phone under Travis’s bed.
White letters on green signs whooshed by as he barreled ahead at seventy miles an hour toward Broadway Bridge—the same bridge she’d crossed with Beau on her first morning here. She leaned forward, trying to see as the windshield wipers smacked the water around. A familiar vise grip encircled her chest as her gaze traveled to where the top of the bridge melted into a foggy mist. Daylight had just about disappeared, leaving a veil of darkness and rain.
“Take me back to the hospital, Craig,” she said calmly.
In response he floored the accelerator, pinning her against the seat. The rumble of the steel panels of the Broadway Bridge rattled her teeth, leaving a metallic taste of fear in her mouth.
Chapter
Twenty-eight
The last thing Beau expected to find at the hospital was Tony Malone on the floor under Travis’s bed, pressing buttons.
“What the hell are you doing, Malone, tryin’ to get more RPMs out of that thing?”
Tony chuckled. “I just want to change the angle. Look at him, Beau. They have this thing on an embankment as steep as turn one at Talladega.” The bed hummed and gradually dropped a few degrees.
Tony stood and wiped his hands on his pants with a satisfied grin, then laid a handbag he’d retrieved from under the bed on the nightstand. Beau recognized it as Celeste’s. He’d tried to call her, but her cell phone kept transferring him into voice mail.
Tony looked straight at Beau. “Why didn’t you tell me he was this sick?”
Beau dropped onto the empty chair next to Travis’s bed. “He didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Stubborn old mule,” Tony said.
“Jackass.” Travis’s hoarse bark cut through the room. “Not a mule. Get your insults right, Malone.” He opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Beau. “ ’Bout time you showed up.”
“Hey. How ya feelin’?” Beau regarded the dark emotion in Travis’s eyes. Or was it pain? He wished he knew how much Celeste and Elise had revealed before they left.
“I feel like my engine’s been pulled and stripped for scrap.” He licked his dry lips. “Gimme some water, Beau.”
Beau reached for the large cup on the table next to the bed and held the straw to Travis’s lips.
Travis dropped back on his pillow and sighed contentedly. “Thanks, son. And good ride height on the bed, Malone.”
“Has anybody seen Celeste?” Beau asked.
“Who?” Tony asked.
“He means Cece,” Travis said, a silly-ass grin breaking across his ashen face. “Her real name is Celeste. Ain’t she a beauty?”
Yep. Travis knew the truth.
Tony lifted his eyebrows in surprise before he answered Beau. “I saw her leaving when I was parking. She was getting in a black Porsche.”
Beau frowned, trying to figure it out. “Her mother drove here in a Porsche?”
“Her mother,” Travis said groggily. “Now, there’s another fine-looking woman.”
Tony turned to stare at Travis in open disbelief. “Wow. They must be some pain meds.”
The corners of Travis’s mouth lifted slightly. He not only knew the truth, he was downright reveling in it.
“Her mother wasn’t driving the Porsche,” Tony added. “Unless she’s about six two and has a mustache.”
“I saw him too,” Travis said.
“Who?” Beau demanded.
“Somebody she called…” Travis frowned and bit his lip. “Craig.”
A warning bell rang in Beau’s head. “When was he here?”
“Maybe half an hour ago. I was fake sleepin’ again,” Travis admitted with a little glimmer in his eye. “You’d be surprised what people will say around you when they think you’re asleep.”
“Where did they go?”
“For coffee.”
Beau turned and bolted from the room. “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder. He pounded the elevator call button, and as its doors swooshed open he barreled smack into Elise Bennett.
“Oh!” She jumped back and bumped into the elevator door as it closed behind her. “Excuse me.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Celeste left with Craig Lang,” he said urgently. “Where would they go? Do you have any idea?”
“Craig?” The color drained from Elise’s chiseled features. “What’s he doing here?” Suddenly, her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, God.”
“What’s the matter?”
“You have to find them! He…he could hurt her!” Panic made her squeak. “Gavin said make it look like suicide—he must have meant Celeste, not Noelle!”
Beau’s blood turned to ice. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard Gavin tell Craig to get rid of her, to make it look like suicide. I thought he meant his mistress—not his daughter!”
They stared at each other as Beau tried to psyche out Craig Lang’s brain. The guy didn’t know the town, so he couldn’t go to some back alley in the industrial section. He’d have to take her somewhere where she was at his mercy. Somewhere she would be weak and he could have the upper hand. Somewhere…
“Call the police,” he told Elise. “Talk to Sergeant Tom McMathers. Tell him to send every possible squad car to the bridges to the beach. I’m going to try Broadway; it’s the closest.”
He slammed one hand into the elevator call button again and gave Elise a gentle prod with the other. “Go. Call. Now!” As she ran down the hall toward Travis’s room, he punched the wall with the same ferocity that thumped through his veins.
With each lightning strike, Celeste could see the white-caps of the swirling water below. Then the world turned black again as thunder rolled. Craig’s mouth set in a grim line as he accelerated to the top of the bridge, zooming past much slower cars and sliding to the outside lane.
Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and brought the car within inches of a low cement barrier that lined a narrow footpath on the bridge. The only thing separating brave joggers from a fifty-foot fall into the Intracoastal Waterway was a waist-high guardrail. Celeste stared at the blackness beyond it, her heart racing as bridge panic cut off the air to her throat and chest.
Killer Curves Page 25