She glanced at the rumpled sheets of the bed and to her chagrin thought not of the wedding couple—but of Alex. With a curse, she shut off the penlight and moved to the bedroom door. She knew only too well where those kinds of thoughts would get her.
She had just started to open the door when she heard a warning sound on the other side. Before she could react, though, the door flew open, slamming into her and driving her back. As she fell next to the bed, her shoulder bag smacking the floor next to her, she heard one of the expensive glasses shatter.
She groped for her bag—and her gun—as a dark figure filled the bedroom doorway. She couldn’t see his face. In the dim light coming in from the street through the plastic behind him, he was nothing more than a blurred silhouette.
But from his stance, she could tell he held a gun in one hand and he was trying to find her in the dark bedroom, no doubt afraid to turn on the light for fear that she would see him—and possibly get off the first shot.
Her hand found her bag. Carefully, she slid her hand in until her fingers closed on the gun’s grip.
ALEX GRAHAM couldn’t sleep. In the kitchen, he took a beer from the fridge and wandered through the house, feeling lost and unsettled.
He had way too much on his mind. Caroline. Preston Wellington III. Samantha Peters.
He remembered her face in the warm lights of the café, the soft cadence of her voice, her engaging smile. He found himself smiling at just the thought of her.
His smile faded at the memory of her expression when she’d turned away from the chauffeur’s hospital room door. She’d been on the offense, ready to strike out, expecting someone else behind her.
Why would a wedding planner instantly think she had to defend herself? Especially in a hospital with a guard right down the hall?
And it didn’t seem like her style, eavesdropping like that. Nor had she been happy when he’d caught her at it.
He frowned and realized how little he’d learned about her after spending hours with her this evening. When he thought about it, he recalled how she’d sidestepped any personal questions, turning the conversation back to ask about him.
Maybe it was just part of her training as a wedding planner. Like self-defense?
He shook his head. Nothing odd about a single woman knowing self-defense. That wasn’t what was bothering him. He couldn’t put his finger on it but at every turn he felt there was a hell of a lot more going on with Samantha Peters than she wanted him to know. Than maybe she wanted anyone to know.
He took a sip of his beer and spied his sister’s purse lying on the table by the door where he’d dropped it earlier. The hospital had insisted he take it home with him.
He’d only made a cursory search of the purse looking for keys, Preston’s phone number, his sister’s home address.
Now he wished he hadn’t seen where she’d been staying. All it had done was leave him more upset and worried. What was going on with her? When he’d called his father, he hadn’t mentioned what he’d found out. But when he’d asked about where Caroline was living, his father had said she was staying with a friend while some new place of hers was being renovated. Basically it didn’t sound like C.B. knew any more than Alex did.
And where was Preston Wellington III?
Not knowing anything was driving him crazy.
He retrieved his sister’s purse and took it to the couch where he sat down, and after a moment’s hesitation, dumped the contents out on the coffee table.
He had no idea what he was looking for as he rummaged through the assortment of makeup and vitamins and lotions in between taking drinks of his beer. The bag was like a small drugstore. Did his beautiful sister really need all this beauty stuff?
He picked up her wallet, opened it and found a dozen different credit cards, her driver’s license, a few snapshots. One of a good-looking man who he assumed was Preston. Another of Alex himself. It was an outdated family photograph when he and Caroline and Brian were kids.
Guilt stabbed through him. He’d made no effort to get along with his family for years. Hell, he’d had a chip on his shoulder as big as a California redwood.
Maybe that’s why Caroline had called him today and wanted him to meet her at the wedding planner’s. Because she was hoping to bring the family back together before her wedding. Maybe that’s all there had been to it. And her hit-and-run had been just an accident.
He had to admit he liked the idea of being close to his sister again. No chance of him being close to his brother, Brian. Or even their father. He was barely civil with them and he didn’t feel as though it was all his fault. But he could try for Caroline’s sake, he promised himself. He would do anything—if she would just get better.
He opened her checkbook and was surprised to see how low her balance was.
And then he saw why. He would have expected her most recent checks to be to Miami’s most expensive clothing stores. Instead they were for plumbing and lighting fixtures, drywall contractors and material, lumber.
He sat up, spilling his beer. What the hell? She was footing the bill for all the renovations to the condo? Where was this fiancé of hers? And why wasn’t he paying for the repairs?
Then Alex saw something that stopped his heart cold. Check after check to the same company: Wellington Enterprises, a company no doubt owned by his sister’s missing fiancé.
SAMANTHA COULD TELL that the man in the doorway hadn’t seen where she’d fallen. He was listening, trying to find her in the dark room.
She told herself he might be the security guard. But she hoped a security guard would have more sense than to silhouette himself in a doorway. And the security guard would have said something by now.
Whoever this man was, she could hear him breathing hard. He was either scared or winded. Or both. He was swinging the gun back and forth in a short arc, his hands shaking, indicating he had little experience with a firearm. But even an inexperienced gunman could kill her at this close range.
It was a chance she wasn’t willing to take.
She didn’t dare move. Nor take a breath. She knew she didn’t have time to draw her gun from her bag before he would hear the sound and fire. Her only hope was to draw his attention to another part of the room.
She inched her hand free under the bed, remembering the clothing that had been tossed across the end of it. She was betting on what she would find and was rewarded when her fingers closed around a high-heeled shoe, just as she’d suspected.
Moving in slow motion, she drew it from under the bed, careful not to make a sound. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer. With luck, he wouldn’t see her movements—just hear the shoe drop.
She had to be ready. Once she threw the shoe she would have to move quickly.
She needed to breathe, to move from her awkward position on the floor. She counted to three and launched the high heel through the open bathroom doorway.
The gunman swung in that direction and fired off two quick shots, the sound of breaking glass raining down on the tile floor. The huge mirror over the sink had shattered, making more noise than the shots especially since the gun he carried seemed to have a silencer on it.
Under the cover of the racket, Samantha scrambled up, staying in a low crouch and swung her gun toward the door.
She’d been trained to kill when necessary. Not that she’d ever had to kill anyone. She didn’t want tonight to be the first. Especially if the man with the gun was Caroline Graham’s fiancé.
But the doorway was empty.
She blinked. He couldn’t have had time to come into the room. He must have stepped to a side of the door. That meant he was waiting for her to make her next move.
Listening, she waited, afraid he had somehow slipped into the room. That he might even be hiding in the closet. Or on the other side of the bed.
Then she heard the rattle of plastic.
He was making a run for it!
She rushed to the doorway, dodged to one side, and took a quick look around the e
dge of the doorjamb in case it was a trick.
She heard the thunder of footfalls and took off after him. As she pushed through the plastic and turned the corner toward the door, something solid struck her in the face just below her left eye and dropped her to her knees.
She blinked back stars and blackness as she grabbed the wall to keep from passing out. She could hear the sound of heavy footfalls, the sound of him retreating down the stairs, getting away.
She tried to get to her feet, but the blackness closed in and she had to sit down in the Sheetrock dust and lean her head back against the wall.
It wasn’t until she turned on her penlight that she saw what he’d thrown at her. A foot-long piece of two-by-four lumber.
No chance of any prints on the board. She waited until the dizziness and darkness stopped, then she returned to the bedroom to retrieve her shoulder bag.
VICTOR CONSTANTINE felt a hundred times better. The antacids had done their job. He’d opened the car window while waiting down the street from Weddings Your Way and the refried beans smell was almost gone.
But that wasn’t why he felt so good.
He’d had a hunch that the wedding planner would return to her office. And she had.
He’d been taken off guard when she’d switched cars the first time. But now she returned, with the top down on the sleek black sports car convertible, her hat gone and her hair blowing in the wind. He wondered where she’d been and what she’d been up to.
He’d waited, figuring she would switch cars again. And she had, driving a white sedan—just as he’d been told she drove.
Following her at a safe distance now, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been hired to follow her and the man he knew only as Alex, although he’d found out that Alex drove a pickup, worked as a fireman and that his last name was Graham. He’d never wondered about why he was hired by his clients. It was dangerous.
But this time, he found himself considering what his client was so afraid these two were going to find out. A fireman and a wedding planner. Hell, how dangerous could they be?
Several things about the two did make him wonder. One, the car switching and how fast the wedding planner drove. And that she went home alone. What was wrong with this Alex guy that he’d let that happen?
Victor looked up and realized he didn’t see her car. He sped up. No way had she seen him tailing her. No way. Traffic was light. If she could have turned, he would have seen her. But somehow she’d given him the slip. Again.
She must have suspected someone might follow her.
But how had she known how to lose him like that?
Who the hell was this woman?
Victor Constantine planned to find out.
SAMANTHA THOUGHT she would never be able to get to sleep. Her mind raced with the day’s events, her thoughts always circling back to Alex Graham.
She took a hot bath and climbed naked between the cool sheets, her head aching from where she’d been struck by the board at the condo. Her body also aching for a man’s touch. Not any man’s touch. Alex Graham’s. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying for sleep. Praying for Sonya and Caroline.
The next thing she knew she was awakened by the phone. “Hello?”
For some reason she thought it would be Alex. Probably because he’d been on her mind again right before she’d fallen asleep.
“I woke you. Sorry,” Clare said. “But I knew you’d want this right away.”
Samantha sat up. Clare couldn’t have already heard from the lab with a match on the fingerprints from the champagne bottle or glasses. It hadn’t been that long ago that Samantha had dropped them off.
She turned on the lamp and glanced at the clock beside her bed. “What are you doing still working at this hour of the night?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Samantha knew that feeling. Normally.
“It’s about Preston Wellington III.”
She felt her heart leap in her throat. Something had happened to him. Isn’t that what she’d been afraid of?
“According to every record available in the U.S., no one by that name exists,” Clare said.
“What?” She sat up straighter, trying to make sense of what Clare was saying.
“No record of a birth, social security card, employment, library card, school attendance, graduation, marriage or death. Nada,” Clare said. “There was no Preston Wellington III. Until a year ago.”
Samantha groaned. “You’re sure?”
Clare chuckled. “He must have made some impression.”
“It wasn’t just him. They were one of the few couples who made me think, ‘Wow, they truly love each other. These two might really make it.’ He seemed so head-over-heels for her. How could I be so wrong?”
“She’s rich? And he’s one hell of an actor?” Clare suggested. “You know what amazes me? That someone with Caroline Graham’s money wouldn’t be suspicious of every man she met. I’d run a check on the man before I even dated him—let alone agreed to marry him. I guess the old adage is true: Love is blind.”
“She must not have wanted to know,” Samantha said, thinking about the shirts in the closet at the condo. Love was indeed blind—and stupid, she thought. “Well, if Preston Wellington III is just some name he’s taken, then who is he?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I see your note here about sending some fingerprints to be analyzed? If his prints are on file, I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
If his prints were on file. Samantha had a bad feeling they would be and not because of some employment requirement. She wouldn’t be surprised now to learn that the man had a record. After all, Caroline’s fiancé had already proven himself a liar. Chances were good he would have had a run-in with the law.
In fact, chances were even better that Samantha had run into him tonight at the condo.
Chapter Six
The next morning on her way into Weddings Your Way, Samantha passed Juan DeLeon leaving. Sonya Botero’s fiancé was tall, dark and incredibly good-looking but today he appeared shattered, like a man who feared he’d lost everything. The expression on his handsome face broke her heart.
To find someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and to lose them— The thought broke off abruptly as she recalled the single time she’d felt that way. And how incredibly wrong she had been.
It wasn’t long after that that Rachel had approached her about working with the Miami Confidential team. She’d been ecstatic. Until she heard what their cover was.
“Weddings?”
“Is that a problem?” Rachel had asked her, sounding surprised by her reaction.
“No,” Samantha had quickly covered, cursing silently to herself. Weddings?
It was hard sometimes seeing how happy the brides were. Like Caroline Graham.
And Sonya Botero.
It had been almost twenty-four hours and still there was no ransom demand, no word at all. Where was Sonya? Who had taken her?
Samantha was reminded of last night and the man who’d tried to kill her in Caroline’s condo. She quickly went to her ultra neat desk and pulled out her appointment book.
If Preston Wellington III had been after Caroline Graham’s money and that plan was soured by her pregnancy, maybe he saw a way to still get the fortune he was after.
She leafed through her appointment book, already knowing what she was going to find. Sonya Botero’s appointment had been right after Caroline Graham’s.
That meant that Caroline’s fiancé would have seen Sonya. Had he found out who she was? More to the point, had he found out what she was worth?
Samantha shuddered at the thought, shocked by what that could mean. Was it possible that Sonya Botero’s alleged kidnapping was nothing more than a smoke screen for the true crime—the murder of Caroline Graham.
Samantha went into the small kitchen adjacent to her office and made herself a cup of tea, feeling chilled and needing the calm that hot tea always brought her. Taking the cup to her office w
indow, she looked out over Biscayne Bay. The water shimmered in the sunlight. Several sailboats leaned in the breeze, canvases bright white against the blue horizon.
“Samantha?”
She turned to find Rachel standing in the doorway of her office.
“I was waiting for your report,” her boss said.
“I was just going to check in,” Samantha said quickly.
Rachel closed the door and moved deeper into the office, stopping short when she saw the cut and dark bruise that even makeup couldn’t hide on Samantha’s cheek.
Without further hesitation, Rachel slid into a chair, motioning for Samantha to do the same. “What happened?”
Samantha touched the injury and winced. “Some of my skills in the field are a little rusty, but I got what I went for.” She told Rachel what had happened. “I’m just waiting to hear from the lab.”
Fortunately the champagne glass that had broken when she’d fallen was the one with the lipstick on it and the pieces were large enough that the lab would probably still be able to lift a print or two from it.
“Caroline Graham hasn’t regained consciousness?” Rachel asked.
Samantha shook her head. “Luckily, the baby is all right. At least so far.”
“And the fiancé?”
She shrugged. “He’s still missing. And on top of that he’s not Preston Wellington III. No person by that name existed until a year ago—about the time Caroline met him.”
Rachel looked surprised. “I saw him come in with Caroline. I didn’t suspect a thing.”
“Neither did I. I really believed he was in love with her. That they were in love with each other. And this morning, I did some checking. Caroline and Sonya had some appointments after each other. Preston or whoever he is would have seen Sonya, might even have learned who she was.” She realized what she was saying. The man was looking even more like a suspect in Sonya Botero’s abduction as well as Caroline’s hit-and-run.
Rachel didn’t look pleased to hear the news. “Did you talk to Craig Johnson last night at the hospital?”
She told Rachel about her visit to the hospital and what she’d overheard in Craig Johnson’s hospital room. “He sounded scared. I have a feeling the reason he is complaining of a headache and memory loss is so he can stay in the hospital where he feels safer.” She went on to tell her boss about the threatening phone call she’d received.
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