by Robert Gonko
hospital. A limousine escorted by SUVs took them back to the estate. Nick personally escorted Sam to the room he'd occupied on his last visit and left him to get some rest.
Sam dropped his bag on the floor and flopped into a chair. He wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. Steve was the adventurous one, the type to jump in before anyone else, to push the limits. Sam was more sedate. Despite these differences, they'd been friends since childhood. The thought of losing Steve was nearly unbearable.
He heard a soft scratching sound behind him. When he got up to investigate, he saw envelope on the floor just inside the doorway. He didn't think he'd seen that when he came in. It must have been slipped under the door. He picked it up.
There was a typed note inside. “Go to the third floor and knock three times on the first door on the right hand side. Your birth mother is there. Come alone. If you don't, she dies.”
Steve Bennett's eyes crept open. As he regained consciousness, he remembered what had happened. He tried to shout out, but the tube in his throat didn't allow it. He was in the hospital, he realized. How long had he been here? How had he wound up here? Where was Sam?
A nurse came into his view. “Steve,” she said. “Can you hear me?”
He nodded and tried to talk. “Stay calm,” the nurse said. “You've just had major surgery.”
He grunted again and gestured for something to write with. “You need to rest,” the nurse said. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”
Steve shook his head violently. She didn't understand. Sam had to be warned. He tried to get up but the nurse pushed him back down. “You need to be still,” she said. “You have a chest tube in. If you don't calm down you'll have to be sedated.”
He gestured again for something to write with. The nurse, realizing it was the only way to keep him calm, gave him pen and paper. He wrote furiously, then gave the note to the nurse. Her eyes went wide as she read it. Steve pointed at the door. She ran out.
Sam climbed the stairs to the third floor. He felt strangely detached, like he wasn't in control of his actions. There was no one around and the mansion had an empty, deserted feeling. It gave him the creeps. He reminded himself to keep his trust in God. No matter what happened, even if he died, God would not abandon him.
He had been such an idiot. He knew who was responsible for this, and it wasn't Bill and Jerry. It had been Nick all along. That must have been what Steve had discovered, and why he'd been shot. As for Sam's birth mother, it was the perfect bait. How had Nick found her? It didn't matter, he supposed.
He approached the indicated door, took a deep breath, and knocked. A man he didn't recognize opened it and indicated he should come in. Sam found himself in somebody's outer office. The man who let him in gestured towards a closed door. “In there,” he said, making sure Sam saw the gun on his belt. Sam got the message. He approached the door and, after a nod from the gunman, opened it. For a moment he stood there, dumbfounded.
“Come in, Sam,” Sallie Curtis said. “I've been waiting for you.”
EIGHTEEN
“Sallie?” Sam asked, incredulous. No, it couldn't be her.
“Get in here boy!” she commanded. “Now!”
Sallie Curtis sat behind a desk, a triumphant smile on her face. Another gunman stood nearby with his weapon pointed at the head of a woman Sam didn't recognize. “I'm sorry,” the woman said. “I--”
“Allow me to make the introductions,” Sallie interrupted. “Sam, meet your mother, Priscilla Atkins.”
“Atkins?” Sam repeated.
“How do you think my men got into the house?” Sallie asked. “Priscilla provided the security access codes.”
“I had no choice,” Priscilla said. “She--.”
“Quiet,” Sallie said. “You two will have plenty of time to get acquainted later. First, business.”
She took some papers out of the desk. “You are going to sign complete control of your shares over to me, now. Then you and Priscilla can go back to Port Mason and do whatever you want.”
“That's all?” Sam asked.
“It's enough,” Sallie said. “You really don't have a choice, Sam. I'm not going to waste what little time I have left trying to persuade you. Sign it now, or he pulls the trigger.”
Sam stepped towards her. A pen sat next to the papers. He picked it up and signed the documents where indicated. He put the pen down and stepped back. “How do you expect to get away with this?” he asked.
She laughed. “I don't,” she said. “I don't have long to live anyway, so I really don't care. What time I do have left, though, will be enough for me to finally get back at Hank for what he did to me.”
“He's dead,” Sam said. “How can you hurt him now?”
“I'm going to destroy everything he cared about, which means Curtis Enterprises,” she said. “To do that, I need majority control. Between your shares, and Nick, I can finally do it.”
“So Nick is in on this,” Sam said.
“I wouldn't risk him,” she said. “I know a mother shouldn't have a favorite child, but I do and it's Nick. He's not a ruthless, cheating bastard like his father. He's nothing like his brothers, either. He's a dreamer. With the company out of the way, he could make those dreams happen. Now that I control your shares I can help him do that and get back at that son of a bitch I married.”
It hit Sam, then. “You murdered him, didn't you?”
“Very good, Sam,” she said. “Six months ago I found out I have an inoperable brain tumor. It's a weird thing to find out you're dying. It gives you perspective. I couldn't stand the idea of Hank outliving me. It would be like letting him get away with everything he ever did. You've got to know how that feels, Sam. Your first wife cheated on you.”
“I didn't turn to murder,” Sam said, feeling strangely confident.
“Don't take the high road boy,” Sallie said. “The men with the guns work for me, remember?”
Sam fell silent. “I could have divorced him,” she said. “I thought about it. You know why I didn't? Because no matter how much money I took from him, he'd still have control of his beloved company. That was the love of his life, not me. Oh, I technically owned twenty percent of it, but that wasn't enough to change anything.
“I really didn't know about you until he was dead,” she said. “It was quite a shock, but it also solved the problem of getting majority control. For once, that old bastard did me a favor.
“Curtis Enterprises is finished,” she said. “With Nick's help, I'm going break it into pieces and sell them off, one by one. Nick will get the technology division and he can do whatever he wants with it. Bill and Jerry will end up with plenty of money if their wives don't wipe them out in divorces, which would serve both of them right.”
Suddenly, she sagged in her chair. “What a day,” she said. “It's wore me out. Take them back to his room and keep them there for now. Get his cell phone and make sure the phone in his room is turned off.”
The men started to lead them out. Nick burst in, followed by Charley Bennett and the police detectives, who had their weapons drawn. “Nobody move!” Edmiston ordered. “You two, put the weapons down!”
The gunmen did as ordered. “Mama?” Nick asked. “You...you really did this?”
Sallie smiled enigmatically. “I still beat him,” she said. Then, with a speed that belied her age, she pulled a small pistol from an open drawer, put it in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
NINETEEN
Priscilla Atkins told the police that she'd been invited to Texas by Sallie Curtis after Hank's death. Once on the estate, Sallie's men locked her in her room, only letting her out to see Sallie when there was no one else around. At one of those meetings, she was told in no uncertain terms that Sam would be killed unless she gave Sallie the security access codes for the Atkins estate.
Tracie came to Houston to be with her husband, leaving the kids in the c
are of her parents. After picking her up at the airport, Sam took her with him to Methodist Hospital. Steve was out of the ICU and, according to the doctors, out of danger as well. A long recovery was predicted but not in doubt. Sam was relived, but still felt terrible that his friend had almost died because of him.
When Sam and Tracie entered the hospital room, they were delighted to see Steve sitting up in bed. His uncle was sitting next to him. Steve looked weak, but he smiled when he saw them. Sam went over and embraced his friend. Tracie kissed him on the cheek.
“I know that look, Sam,” Steve rasped. “It's your 'I feel guilty look.' Don't. You didn't do anything. It's my job to take risks.”
“They said you shouldn't try to talk kid,” Charley said. “So for once, shut up.”
Steve smiled but did as his uncle said. “He actually did a stupid thing,” Charley said. “Looking for former Delta operators on his own? Not his smartest move.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Steve said.
“So what exactly happened?” Sam asked.
“The short version is that my nephew here can be a real idiot,” Charley said. “But I suppose you want the long version, don't you?”
“If you don't mind,” Sam said, dryly.
“After he found out about Flinn, he decided to play lone wolf and go to the guy's apartment,” Charley said. “There were two men cleaning the place out. He waited, and followed them back to the Curtis Estate. He talked his way past the guards