She hesitated at the door to Johnson’s room. According to the Miami Confidential team, he was complaining of headaches and claiming he couldn’t recall anything about the incident.
Talking to him would no doubt prove to be a waste of time and possibly make Johnson suspicious, but maybe he had remembered something by now. Something that would help.
She pushed the door to his room partially open and stopped at the sound of his raised voice. He was speaking to someone, his tone strained.
She froze as he moved into her field of vision and she saw that he was on the phone, pacing back and forth in front of the window, his back to her. Cautiously he lifted a corner of the blind and peered out to the street.
“I’m telling you they tried to run me down,” Johnson said. “I was almost killed. What if they try again?”
So much for him not remembering anything about the incident, she thought, and wondered if he might be right about being in danger. But why kill him? There were other witnesses at the scene.
Thinking of the killers hitting Johnson here at the hospital, she heard movement behind her and whirled around, all her FBI self-defense training coming back in a rush.
ALEX HARDLY RECOGNIZED the woman who spun on him, her hands going up in a self-defense move. He jerked back in nothing short of shock. Even Samantha’s expression wasn’t one he’d seen before. She looked ready to kick his butt. More than that, she looked scared as if she’d been expecting someone to harm her.
“You all right?” he asked, glancing toward the hospital door she’d just let close. He’d caught her eavesdropping. Had she overheard something that frightened her?
“Sorry,” she said instantly, seeming embarrassed. “You startled me.”
“I guess.”
“I was just checking to see how Mr. Johnson was doing.”
Mr. Johnson, from what Alex had overheard, was the driver of the limo, the man who was attacked and his client abducted.
“He seems to be on the phone,” Samantha said, with a nonchalance that she didn’t quite pull off.
Alex had noticed Johnson on the phone when he’d come up behind her.
“How is Caroline?” Apparently she’d expected him to spend more time with his sister.
“The same,” he said, wondering again about Samantha. Just about the time he thought he might be figuring her out, she threw him another curve.
Suddenly, he felt exhausted as if the day’s events had finally caught up with him. “I should get you back,” he said. “It’s late. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”
“Really, it hasn’t been a problem. Dinner was wonderful, but I’ll take a cab back,” she said quickly as if she wanted to get away from him. “After the day you’ve had, you must be anxious to get home. Like you said, it’s late, and you look drained. No reason to go out of your way.”
How did she know that her office wasn’t on his way home? “It’s too late for you to go back to your office tonight anyway,” he said, suddenly wondering where she lived and why she was trying to get rid of him. “Let me take you home. I’d be happy to give you a ride to work in the morning. Just tell me what time to be there.”
She started to argue but he stopped her.
“I won’t hear of you taking a cab. Not after you were kind enough to spend the evening with me. I really didn’t want to be alone. So you must let me take you home.”
“I have to go back to the office tonight before I can go home.”
Why wasn’t he surprised? “Well, then I’m taking you.”
She nodded as if she’d accepted that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. But he could see that she would have much preferred taking a cab. Why was that? Earlier they’d been so close. But now she seemed uncomfortable in his presence and had been ever since he’d caught her listening in at the chauffeur’s hospital room door. Or was it after he’d caught her in her self-defense mode and seen her expression?
Either way, he’d heard enough to know that this Mr. Johnson was scared—and that the man thought the driver of the black limo had purposely tried to kill him and might try again.
And all this just when Alex had almost convinced himself there was nothing going on, that Caroline’s accident had been just that—an accident.
As they reached the outer door, he took Samantha’s elbow and felt her jump at his touch—her reaction even more pronounced than it had been the other time.
Who was Samantha Peters—a woman who seemed to do everything possible not to be noticed?
Whatever her motivation, he told himself he had every right—and possibly every reason—to find out more about this woman his sister had been working with over the past six months.
Chapter Five
Victor Constantine had the worst case of heartburn he’d ever had in his life. He knew better than to eat spicy food. He parked down the street and watched as the woman got out of the man’s pickup.
She had great legs, he noticed as she bent back into the truck to say something. Nice posterior, too. But that suit she wore was all wrong for her. The woman didn’t have a clue how to accentuate her assets.
Victor had taken some classes the one and only time he was in the joint. He thought he would have made a pretty good designer. He had the eye. Maybe he would try to get back into that when he retired—which wouldn’t be long and he would still be plenty young enough to make something of himself as a designer.
The chick shut the door and headed for the building again with the sign out front that read: Weddings Your Way.
Was she a wedding planner? That was interesting.
He sighed wishing he could call it a night as he unsnapped his cell phone and hit redial. “He just dropped the woman off at Weddings Your Way. You want me to follow him? Or her?”
“Her. Find out where she lives. While you’re there, see what kind of security system she has at her house. Check the place out. You might be going in.” Click.
Victor wasn’t happy about breaking into the woman’s house at some time in the future. While it meant he could charge the client even more, it also meant that this job wasn’t going to be over as quickly as he’d hoped. His heartburn was killing him and now he would have to sit and wait.
He watched the man walk her to the door. Quite the gentleman. But what was she doing going back to an office this time of the night?
Rubbing his chest, Victor glanced down the street hoping to see a place he could buy some antacids, but the area was too hoity-toity to have a gas station or a convenience store. To add insult to injury, the car smelled like refried beans.
He thought again about bagging this job. The only thing that stopped him was the money. He had a pretty good idea where all this was headed given what a bastard he was working for. The end pay would be primo. It would be his last job. End on a good note.
Maybe he would become a designer. Or hell, a wedding planner. He would be great at either.
AS SAMANTHA CLOSED the front door of Weddings Your Way behind her, she waited until Alex drove away before she headed straight upstairs to the secret room on the second floor.
“I had a feeling you’d still be here working,” she said as she stepped in and closed the sealed door behind her.
Clare Myers turned from her computer. “You and I should really get lives, you know that,” she said, grinning.
Samantha smiled as she pulled out a chair next to Clare. The only way to eliminate Caroline Graham’s fiancé as a suspect was to find him and she hoped Clare would be able to help. “I need to find out everything I can about Preston Wellington III.”
“You still haven’t been able to contact him?” Clare asked, sounding surprised.
“No. And I’m starting to worry.” She gave Clare all the information she had on the missing fiancé—which she realized wasn’t much.
“How is Caroline Graham doing?”
“She might not make it and she’s pregnant.”
“Oh, no,” Clare said. “I’ll see what I can do to find
him for you. I planned to do a preliminary search earlier but I got sidetracked doing some checking on the Sonya Botero and Juan DeLeon side of the investigation.”
“Still nothing on that end?”
Clare shook her head. “They say in the case of a kidnapping that the first twenty-four hours are critical.”
That explained what Clare was still doing here.
Clare’s words stuck in her mind as Samantha headed down the stairs toward her office. She hoped to have something on her end of the case by then, as well. Unfortunately, she was starting to wonder if Alex’s concerns might be justified.
As she reached the ground floor, she heard the phone in her office ringing.
She thought about letting the machine pick it up. If it was Rachel, she would use Samantha’s cell. Other than Clare, no one knew she was here and from the ring she could tell it wasn’t an inside-the-office line.
Surely whoever was calling wouldn’t expect her to be in her office. Not at this hour.
Unless it was Alex.
Maybe he’d thought of something he’d forgotten to tell her. Because he was the only one who knew she was here.
Or was he?
She thought about the tail and with a chill, picked up the phone, automatically touching her keypad to be sure the shop’s security system was up and working tonight. She hadn’t noticed the tail after they’d left the hospital but that didn’t mean anything. She’d been distracted after being caught outside Craig Johnson’s room.
“Hello?” she said into the phone.
At first she heard nothing, then the sound of breathing. Great, an obscene phone call. Just to prove this day couldn’t get any worse.
She started to hang up when an obviously disguised voice said, “You’re making a mistake. Stop butting into Caroline Graham’s life or you’ll regret it.” There was a click. The caller was gone.
A chill wound around her neck like a garrote.
Samantha hit star 69 but the number was blocked. The phone rang and rang. No answer.
She hung up, confused and even more afraid for Caroline. Samantha would have sworn that Sonya Botero’s abduction had nothing to do with Caroline Graham. Maybe it still didn’t. But something was definitely going on with Caroline. Beginning—and possibly ending—with her missing fiancé.
One thing kept bothering Samantha. The men’s clothing in Caroline Graham’s closet. They hadn’t just been old. They’d been cheap. Not the kind of shirts a rich man wore even when he was doing manual labor.
But the Preston Wellington III that Samantha had met at Weddings Your Way dressed like a rich man, acted like a rich man, to all appearances was a rich man on the same financial playing field as Caroline Graham. He wouldn’t be doing manual labor. He would hire it done.
So that left the big question: Whose shirts were those in Caroline’s closet?
Someone had followed them after they’d left the condo. She had to assume the caller knew she’d been to the condo tonight. Knew she and Alex were digging into Caroline’s life—and Preston Wellington III’s.
That meant there must be something to find.
More and more Samantha thought Alex had been smart to put a private guard outside his sister’s hospital room. Caroline might be in serious danger. And Preston Wellington III could be the person she had to fear most.
SAMANTHA HAD NO CHOICE—especially after that threatening phone call.
She would have to go back to Caroline’s condo tonight and get the champagne bottle and glasses. It was time to find out what was going on.
She considered who the caller might have been. The list of suspects was fairly short at this point. It came down to who had something to hide.
Right now that seemed to be Preston Wellington III since no one had heard from him.
Samantha didn’t even want to think what that meant. She’d liked the man. What did that say for her instincts? Nothing good.
One way or the other, she had to answer some nagging questions about him and what had happened to Caroline. There’d been no word on Sonya Botero and the clock was ticking.
But first Samantha had to make sure she wasn’t followed this time. She checked her gun. Fully loaded with an extra clip in the bottom of her bag.
She added two large evidence bags and a pair of latex gloves to her oversize shoulder bag, then leaving the light on in her office, she went into her private restroom and changed her clothing, stripping out of the business suit and dressing in black running gear.
She pulled her hair up and under a black hat and checked herself in the mirror, pleased. Then she left by the back way.
The humid Florida air hit her as she stepped from the air-conditioned building into the well-lit staff parking area under Weddings Your Way. Sliding into her small black sports car convertible, she turned the key.
The car was the only hint of the woman Samantha kept hidden from most people. The one crack in her armor. Her one little secret vice since she drove a midsize white sedan except on those rare occasions that called for cloak-and-dagger, speed or letting the real her out under the cover of darkness.
The engine roared to life with a throaty rumble that made her smile. Catch me if you can.
She blasted out of the parking garage and onto the street. A set of headlights flashed on behind her. She could imagine the driver half asleep, bored, caught off guard since her office light was still on. And in this car, he couldn’t be sure he was even following the right person.
Samantha smiled to herself and gunned the engine, rocketing around a corner, then another. Losing her tail had been almost too easy. But she still zigzagged her way to Caroline’s condo enjoying the feel of the night air.
“WHAT THE HELL do you mean you lost her?”
Victor swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. After he’d lost her, he’d stopped at a drugstore and bought himself some antacids but they were taking their sweet time working.
“I can’t even be sure it was her,” he said, hating the apologetic tone of his voice. He was a professional. How had he let a snip of a wedding planner trick him like that? The light was still on in her office when the little black sports car had come flying out of the back of the place. “She switched cars on me.” She’d had a head start and was driving like a bat out of hell. Driving nothing like he had expected her to do.
“So maybe she’s still at her office?”
He swore under his breath. “I don’t think so. I think that was her. Given the way she dresses, it was unlikely but still…”
A curse on the other end of the line. “Never mind. I’ll take care of it. Go home. I’ll call you when I need you.” The line went dead.
The antacids were starting to work. Victor Constantine began to breathe a little easier.
But he didn’t go home. Instead, he circled back to Weddings Your Way. He had a hunch. And he wasn’t going to be able to sleep until his heartburn got better anyway. She’d fooled him once. But she wouldn’t again.
THE SAME GUARD was on duty as when Samantha had been to the renewal project with Alex. She spotted him from a safe distance but avoided detection by parking some distance away and keeping to the darkness as she worked her way to Caroline’s condo.
There were no lights on in any of the buildings. Apparently it was true that Caroline’s was the only one occupied.
It definitely made things easier. Samantha let herself in. The lock for the front door took a little longer than she had planned. Seemed her skills were a little rusty.
She took the stairs to the penthouse condo using her penlight to open the condo door, then she turned off the light and listened to make sure she was alone.
Cautiously, she swung the door open and stepped in. The condo was pitch-black, no light coming in back here from the street. She heard nothing and smelled the same scents as before. If Preston Wellington III had come back here, he hadn’t been wearing his usual aftershave or cologne.
She moved by memory through the dark condo to the plastic curtain, aw
are that the windows facing the streets had no coverings. Any light could be seen from down below.
Slipping past the plastic, she found the doorknob to the bedroom, turned it and stepped in, closing the door behind her before she snapped on her penlight. In this room, there were thick drapes that covered the windows and let in no light and, so she hoped, let out no light.
Everything appeared to be just as it had before. She was reasonably certain that no one had been here. The champagne glasses were in the same place, the bed still unmade, the sheets rumpled, a few articles of clothing flung across the end.
As she moved to the bedside table, she pulled on the latex gloves and carefully collected the champagne bottle, placing it into one of the evidence bags then into her purse. She did the same with the glasses.
As she turned, she studied the room again trying to understand what might be going on with Caroline Graham. Samantha’s first guess was a lover. This could be a lovers’ hideaway that Preston hadn’t known about. Until recently. He’d definitely been here. Unless the lover wore the same aftershave.
Was it possible that Caroline was financing the entire building project for her lover? That might be enough to set off Preston Wellington III. But enough that he would hire someone to try to kill her in a hit-and-run?
Samantha made a mental note to have Clare run financial reports on both Caroline and Preston. But given the shirts in the closet, Samantha suspected there was another man besides the one she’d met with Caroline. And that raised the question of whose baby she was carrying.
Another possible motive for Preston Wellington III to commit murder.
Samantha felt a wave of disappointment. She’d believed that she’d been in the wedding planning business long enough that she could spot the couples who were truly in love and had a chance of making their marriage work. She would have bet all of her money on Caroline and Preston. They seemed that much in love.
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