B. J. Daniels

by Secret Weapon Spouse

  “His name isn’t Preston Wellington III,” she said. “It’s Presley Wells. He has a record, served time jail for burglary. He took out a large insurance policy on your sister, five million dollars. I’m going to his hometown in Tennessee to see if I can find him.”

  “And you are…?” he whispered.

  Her eyes filled and he had the feeling that it took every once of her strength to keep the tears from spilling. “A wedding planner. Among other things.”

  He nodded. “And who called me last night and told me you were at Caroline’s condo?”

  She shook her head. “It had to be the man who shot at me. I’m fairly sure no one else saw me there.”

  He said nothing for a moment as he shifted his gaze from her to the water. “Wouldn’t you say the chances were good that the man you had your little…run-in with at the condo was this Presley Wells?”

  “I can’t say. He was average height and weight—like half the men in Southern Florida.”

  “Except half the men in Southern Florida don’t have a key to Caroline’s condo,” he said, looking at her again. “I’m going to Tennessee with you unless you have a problem with that.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Eventually, you’re going to tell me what your investment is in all this, aren’t you.”

  Her gaze softened. “Maybe.”

  He shook his head again. “I must be crazy.” But at least this way he could keep an eye on her—for more reasons than he wanted to list. He just had to be careful and not get too close, although he had a bad feeling it was too late for that.

  SAMANTHA WATCHED Alex on his cell phone as he made arrangements for a chartered flight to Tennessee this afternoon.

  He didn’t trust her. But who could blame him?

  She hated this. But there was no way around it. She had a job to do. It didn’t matter what Alex Graham thought of her. All that mattered was getting to the bottom of Sonya Botero’s abduction. And while Samantha didn’t want to believe Presley Wells was behind it any more than she believed he was behind Caroline’s hit-and-run accident, she knew she had to go to Tennessee and find out the truth.

  “So where do we fly into?” Alex asked.

  Samantha told him the town Clare had given her. “Knoxville would be the closest airport. We’ll have to drive down into the Smoky Mountains south of there.”

  Alex hesitated, then said into the phone, “I’ll need a four-wheel drive rig waiting for us at the airport. That’s right. Just as soon as we can fly out.”

  Two hours later, Samantha was sitting across from Alex in a soft leather seat, the rest of the small jet empty except for the pilot. She hated to think what this was costing Alex, but apparently he could afford it.

  Samantha closed her eyes as the plane took off, recalling her hurried phone conversation with Rachel before takeoff. The Holcom-Anders wedding had gone off without any trouble. No more Weddings Your Way clients abducted or injured. But also no ransom demand on Sonya Botero yet.

  “I’m on my way to Tennessee,” Samantha told her. “Alex is chartering a plane.”

  “You told him then?” Rachel asked.

  “I couldn’t keep this from him.”

  “Have you blown your cover?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve considered telling him you’re an agent.” It wasn’t a question. “I would think long and hard about doing that. You could be jeopardizing the team—let alone your own life. I don’t think I have to remind you that in this business you have to be very careful who you trust.”

  “No, you don’t have to remind me,” Samantha said.

  “Let me know as soon as possible what you find out in Tennessee.” Samantha had heard the warning in her boss’s voice and the disappointment. Samantha’s cover had been blown only once before while in the FBI but she was sure Rachel knew about it. That time it had cost her dearly but she feared this time it could cost her her life.

  “So who was he?” Alex asked.

  Her eyes came open with a start. “What?”

  “The man who let you down, who was he?”

  She stared at him. Alex had to be a mind reader. “I don’t know what—” She stopped. His gaze held so much compassion. She looked away. “What would make you think—”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not,” he said and turned to look out the window. Wisps of clouds blew past against a backdrop of blue. She caught a glimpse of the Gulf as the plane banked and headed for Tennessee.

  “I met him after college,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. Alex said nothing. He didn’t look at her and for that she was grateful. “It was the first time I’d been serious about anyone. Even at the time, it seemed too good to be true. It was. He’d been playing me to get to my roommate—his real target.”

  He looked at her then, his gaze filled with empathy. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, deciding to tell him all of it. “The thing was, my roommate didn’t want him. His obsession led to him kidnapping and killing her. He’s on death row now.”

  Alex’s eyes widened in shock. “My God.”

  She didn’t tell him that she and her roommate were both FBI agents working undercover or that her cover was blown and her career almost lost before the man was captured.

  “He totally fooled me,” she said. “What does that say about me?”

  He shook his head. “That you’re trusting. His kind are pathological liars with no feelings other than basic survival instincts. It’s like they were born with something missing inside them. They’re so good at lying, no one can see through them.” He fell silent. “I’m afraid this Presley Wells might be one of them, that’s how he fooled my sister.” He looked over at her. “You do realize that all men aren’t like that, right?”

  “It’s just hard to trust your instincts after something like that,” she said quietly. “I’ve always felt I should have seen what was going on. If I had, I might have been able to save Meredith.”

  He reached over and took her hand. “You certainly aren’t the first woman to be taken in by a man. At least you weren’t pregnant with his baby.”

  “My instincts told me that Preston…Presley was a good man,” she said with a lift of her brow. “If I’m wrong about him, too…”

  “Then you could be wrong about me?”

  Heat warmed her cheeks. She looked away. “It’s not quite the same thing.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not, because I’m not like either of those men.”

  Silently she said the words she couldn’t bring herself to voice. How time will tell.

  VICTOR CONSTANTINE watched the plane until it disappeared into the clouds before he made the call. “They just left in a chartered plane for Knoxville, Tennessee.” He held the phone away at the sound of loud swearing.

  “I want them stopped. Whatever you have to do.”

  Victor frowned. “How would I stop them? Shoot down the plane?”

  “Not now, you fool. Catch the next flight to Knoxville, Tennessee. Take care of them out there. The roads where they’re headed are narrow mountain lanes. It should be easy for you to make sure they never make it back here.”

  “Do you realize what you’re asking me to do?” Victor said mentally adding up the cost for two murders.

  “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I want them taken care of.”

  “Then we’d better discuss my fee.” He tossed out a number, having no desire to go to Tennessee. And even less desire to kill Samantha Peters. He’d missed catching her at home last night and clearly tonight was out, but maybe when she returned…

  “I’ll pay you double your fee. Just make sure that neither of them returns to Miami.” The phone went dead.

  His client had just raised the stakes. Only a fool would turn down that kind of money.

  He waited, not surprised when his cell phone rang. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve chartered you a jet. You’re still at the airport,
right?”

  “Right.”

  “Take down this address in Tennessee. The area is isolated, nothing but squirrels, mountains and timber.”

  “You want it to look like an accident?”

  “That would be nice but not necessary. I just want them both dead.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They hadn’t talked the rest of the short flight. Samantha had dozed. Or possibly pretended to. It gave Alex a chance to just look at her. He had so many questions. At least one of the big ones had been answered.

  He knew the first time he’d touched her that she was more than a little gun-shy when it came to the opposite sex. He knew the look, the feelings, the reactions. He’d been burned himself and hadn’t even dated in months. It took a while to trust again and he wasn’t to that stage yet himself.

  But he couldn’t imagine going through what she had. It proved how strong she was.

  He wondered if that was why she’d changed her hair, tried to hide her body beneath the oversize suits. She came off as an ice princess when there was molten lava burning inside her. Their kisses had proven that.

  She was scared of those feelings. So was he. And with good reason. She knew who he was. He couldn’t say the same of her. More than a wedding planner. But how much more?

  Once they landed, Samantha gave him directions and they left Knoxville and quickly found themselves in the Smoky Mountains.

  As they left the city and the roads became steeper and narrower, he caught her several times watching her side mirror. With a jolt, he realized why. “You think we’ve been followed?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said. “Someone’s been following us since the day Caroline was injured in the hit-and-run.”

  He gritted his teeth. “And you didn’t bother to mention it?” How did she know about these things anyway?

  She seemed to let that go without comment.

  “Isn’t it pretty obvious who would be following us?” he asked. “Let’s see. Who lied about who he was? Who doesn’t seem to want to be found?”

  “It could be someone who’s hoping we’ll find Presley for them,” she said.

  He saw her expression. “Like my brother or my father?” He let out a curse. He hadn’t thought of that.

  The road was now only a single lane as it climbed up a series of switchbacks. “You sure we’re on the right road?”

  She was staring back at the road behind them. “It shouldn’t be much farther according to the directions we got back at the station.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t put it past either my brother or my father to hire someone to follow us. But you can’t think they hired the guy who almost killed you the night in the condo.”

  “I don’t think he came there to kill me. Maybe scare me. But then I surprised him,” she said.

  He glanced over at her, recalling what had happened at the hospital when he’d sneaked up behind her. “I’m sure you did.” He had to shift into four-wheel drive to make the next switchback up the mountain. “Or maybe he was there for the same thing you were. Maybe he’d realized he’d left something incriminating in the condo and had gone back to retrieve it. I’m putting my money on Presley Wells. Unless you know something else I don’t.”

  “I don’t know any more than you do now.”

  He shot her a look, wanting to believe her. Up ahead, the road flattened out a little and he spotted an old rusted mailbox with WELLS printed in crude letters on the side. “Looks like we found it.”

  AS SAMANTHA CAUGHT a glimpse of the house set back in the woods, she felt her stomach knot. The house had once been white but was now in desperate need of paint. Wash flapped on the clothesline out back and trash burned in a fifty-five-gallon barrel off to the side, the smoke rising slowly to fill the air with a rank smell.

  Alex brought the rental SUV to a stop in the rutted yard sending a half-dozen chickens scurrying across the bare dusty ground. Several old dogs slept in the shade, not even stirring as flies swarmed around them. Through the tall weeds along the side of the house she could make out the remains of aging vehicles rusting in the sun.

  “You all right?” Alex asked as he parked next to a battered old pickup.

  She could only stare at the house. She knew this kind of poverty, this kind of despair. She’d lived it in Iowa, where she’d grown up, and had run like hell from it the first chance she got.

  “Samantha?”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice, as she caught movement behind the faded curtains. Faded like her mother after having so many children and being caught in a cycle of hopelessness.

  “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to,” Alex said, obviously seeing her hesitation to get out of the car.

  She could feel his gaze on her, that same curious searching look he’d been giving her for several days now. How much could he see? Could he see her fear at the possibility of witnessing her earlier life in this family’s faces? Did he have any idea what a coward she was when it came to her past?

  She’d been running all her life, she thought as she opened her car door in answer and got out. A rusted sprinkler spat out a trickle of water in a tight circle near the porch on what might have once been a lawn but was now a mud hole. The sun was an oppressive ball of heat directly overhead. It beat down on her as she walked toward the rotting porch steps, Alex by her side.

  The porch sat at a slant, the boards weathered and rotted. The smell from the trash hit her again and Samantha was struck with the image of her mother, her body thin and stooped, wearing a worn old housedress and slippers, taking out the trash to be burned.

  The woman who opened the door could have been Samantha’s mother. She wore a worn-thin homemade housedress, her graying hair limp and hanging around her narrow weary face.

  “Yes?” she asked, squinting into the bright day as she eyed first Alex, then Samantha.

  “Mrs. Wells?” Alex asked.

  “Yes?” She looked at them suspiciously as if they were bill collectors.

  Alex seemed at a loss as to what to say to the woman and glanced at Samantha. “I know your son Presley,” she said.

  The woman raised a brow, her narrowed eyes filled with even more suspicion. “He done something?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Samantha assured her. “His fiancé has been in an accident and we’re just trying to find him to let him know.” Her voice sounded shaky but not half as unsteady as she felt.

  The woman looked more than skeptical and Samantha realized it was the kind of story that bill collectors used to come up with when they were trying to track down her daddy.

  “I’m Samantha Peters,” she said, holding out her hand to the woman.

  Mrs. Wells ignored it.

  “I’m planning Caroline and Presley’s wedding and this is her brother Alex Graham,” Samantha continued, dropping her trembling hand to her side again, feeling the dampness. She wiped her palm on her skirt trying to find that cool she’d once been so famous for. It had deserted her.

  The woman frowned. “Caroline? That the woman he goin’ to marry?”

  “Could we step inside?” Alex asked, swatting at the flies swarming around them.

  With obvious reluctance the woman stepped back. “But I ain’t got no idea where he is.”

  Samantha stepped into the living room. Even the smells took her back to her childhood. The house was unbearably hot and dank. Everything looked as worn-out as Presley’s mother.

  “He don’t come here no more,” she said, wiping her hands on her dress. “Ya’ll want to sit down. I got some sweet tea—”

  Samantha glanced toward the sagging couch and felt Alex’s gaze on her. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  She felt light-headed but nodded. “Fine.”

  “Thank you, but we can’t stay,” he said to Mrs. Wells.

  “Did Presley tell you anything about Caroline?” Samantha asked.

  She shrugged. It seemed to take all her energy. “He mighta sai
d somethin’ in his last letter.”

  “Do you remember the letter’s postmark? Where it was mailed from?” he asked.

  “Miami. He lives down there,” she said. “You sure he ain’t in trouble with the law again?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Alex said.

  The woman made a face. “His letters. There’s money in ’em.” She looked up at Samantha. “Says he’s an…investor. Don’t know what that is but it don’t sound legal.”

  Samantha saw Alex hide a grin.

  “Investing can be legal,” Samantha said.

  The woman didn’t look as if she believed that.

  Samantha pulled one of her business cards from her purse. “If you hear from Presley would you let me know?”

  Mrs. Wells took the card in her rough hands. Through the window Samantha could see the old-fashioned wringer washing machine out back. She remembered her mother bent over one.

  “You should buy yourself an electric washing machine with some of the money Presley sends you,” she said.

  Mrs. Wells narrowed her eyes. “The one I got works good enough.”

  Samantha said nothing as four children, ages from about ten through sixteen, came running in through the back door. They all looked a little like the man who’d been with Caroline the first time the two had come in to talk about their wedding.

  “How many children do you have?” Samantha asked, her voice cracking, and quickly softened the question by adding, “I come from a large family myself.”

  “Twelve, only six left at home.”

  Samantha nodded. Her own mother had her first child at fourteen and spent the next thirty years having babies. She could feel Alex’s eyes on her, feel his surprise at hearing about her large family.

  “Your husband gone?” Samantha asked, knowing he probably was, since there were no diapers on the clothesline.

  “Died some years back.”

  A silence fell over the house.

  “I always wished I’d grown up in a large family,” Alex said into that silence.

  Samantha looked away, not wanting him to see her contemptuous expression. He had no idea what it was like. But then he’d never been dirt-poor. Samantha had. So had Presley.