A knock at her door snapped her back into the present.
“It’s Carey. Mama told me you were in here. We need to talk. Can I come in?”
She glanced at Wes.
He made no move to leave, sliding his hands inside his pockets, his expression focused, his body language stalwart and challenging.
She moved to the door, unlocking it and letting him in.
“Sammy—we’ve got a—” Carey stopped on the threshold when he saw Wes. “Hey, Wes. Sorry to interrupt but I need to speak to Sammy in private.”
Wes glanced at her in askance.
“You’ve got about three dozen women hankering for your attention on the terrace,” Sam reminded him. “Don’t want to keep them waiting, do you?”
His jaw ticked as he considered her. “We’re not done.”
“We are for now.”
Wes’s gaze swung to Carey. Something unspoken circled between them before Wes nodded. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
And then he was gone, the door shutting quietly behind him.
Carey crossed the carpet toward her, “You okay?”
“I will be,” she nodded. “What’s going on?”
“I just spoke with Sandro. The FBI and the CIA are monitoring all private jets heading into Texas, but there are too many small airfields to cover,” he told her gravely. “Lightner could just as easily land on the east coast, plug in a new flight plan and land anywhere. We don’t know his jet’s tail sign.”
Sam rubbed her brow. “We knew it would be tough. I don’t think he’ll use the warhead. He still needs to cash in on it somehow, but my guess is he’ll go for something showy when he comes after me. Something daring to teach me a lesson.”
“You think he’s going to come after you at the gala tomorrow night,” Carey realized.
“I do.” she nodded. “It’s public, showy, and just his style. Whether I’m there or not, it’d be a huge win for him.”
“How?”
“He’s into explosives, right? Took out a couple blocks in London. Why not repeat that M.O.?” she reasoned. “Doesn’t need much high-tech shit to do that. Just C-4, some charges he can get at RadioShack, and a way to get in the door.”
Carey rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Shit. We should cancel.”
“What good would that do?” she replied. “He’ll just find another way. What if he tries to blow up this building on a weekday? Bear, the best way to get this bastard is to trap him. The gala is too tempting. It’ll be full of movers and shakers. There will be press. Lightner won’t want to pass the opportunity up. Not as angry as he is now that we’ve outed him to the world. He’s desperate too. No one will do business with him, but if he manages to kill me this publicly, that ups his street cred and puts him back in business. People will be lining up to work with him.”
“The manpower required—”
“Bear, this is what we do,” she reminded him. “Our team has already run security on this scale before. We’ll just have federal help now.”
“Our family will be there,” he said quietly. “Everyone we care about—”
“Yes, they will.” Sam put her hands on his shoulders, meeting his troubled blue eyes. “But let’s tell Uncle Grant, Aunt Hannah, Jack, and our team exactly what’s going on and let them decide. This doesn’t have to be a last stand if they don’t want it to be.”
*
April—Early Afternoon
Wyatt Towers, Houston, Texas
W E S L E Y
He didn’t go back out to the terrace. Instead, Wes decided to do more snooping on the executive floors of Wyatt Petroleum, feeling more bull-headed and determined than ever to prove his point after his conversation with Sammy.
The elevator doors dinged quietly as they opened on a whisper. Wes stepped into the mahogany-lined private elevator, pressing the button he knew would take him directly to the private suite of offices occupied by Mack and a handful of others. If Wes remembered correctly, he’d be able to walk right into Mack’s office without having to go through the circus hoops of making an appointment and pretending that the meeting was going to be anything but a direct confrontation.
There was no way he was going to drop this now. Not when he was so close, he could practically see all the puzzle pieces falling into place—especially now that Sam seemed to need proof that it wasn’t just a ploy to get her back, even if it had started that way. She could tell him she didn’t love him anymore. She could tell him there was no chance in hell they’d ever be able to find their way back to each other—but none of that changed his determination. He’d only just bitten into the apple. He knew it was rotten. Every instinct he’d developed in his years as a journalist told him to see this through.
Some small, doubtful part of him recognized he was swimming upstream, but he’d known going in that this wasn’t going to be easy. Loving Sam was as simple as breathing to him by now, but doing the right thing by her was the hardest challenge he’d ever faced.
Wes pulled her dog tags out of his pocket, staring down at them for a few silent moments as he rode the elevator down. He felt naked without them now. The simple metal chain plates felt like a crucifix. A symbol of his faith; his faith in her—and in himself. Wes slid the necklace back on as the elevator opened directly from a private alcove into Robert Wyatt’s office. It was Samantha’s now, though she rarely used it. Like the penthouse, the office had high ceilings and breathtaking views of the city. She’d changed the furniture since taking over as chairwoman of the board. It looked like her—a balanced mix of elegant and modern with a sleek Carrara marble desk, a high-backed Eames chair, and a silk Shiraz rug with a cool blue hue depicting a thrush of delicate nightingales.
Wes tucked the dog tags under his shirt as he passed the private sitting area to the office next door, smiling blithely at the startled assistant as he opened Mack’s door like he had every right to be there. That was the key to getting your way most of the time—having the cockiness to walk right in and take what you wanted. Most never dared. Wes dared. He goddamn lived for it. And it helped that he felt a little reckless after leaving Sam, their conversation and her words still a fresh wound.
Mack glanced up in the middle of jotting something down in a notebook, surprise delineating his heavily lined features. Wes clicked the door shut before he could react.
“Sorry to barge in like this, but Sammy told me you wouldn’t mind,” he lied smoothly, striding forward with a good-to-see-you smile and a relaxed gait.
Mack McDevitt blinked once, standing from behind a heavy mahogany Chippendale number with a well-worn leather blotter. Old school—like the man who ruled from it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mack responded with a cordial look of curiosity as he recognized him. “That you, Wes? I haven’t seen you in—what’s it been now? Ten years?” he asked, shaking Wes’s hand.
“Longer, if you can believe it,” Wes replied. “How have you been, Mack? You’re looking good.”
“Well I ain’t buzzard bait yet, but I’m no spring chicken like you,” Mack said with a pseudo-polite affability. “Must admit I’m surprised to see you though. How can I help you?”
Mack still had the long-legged, rangy look of a man who’d spent years in the field, with the kind of deeply-lined, leathery skin earned from toiling under the unrelenting Texas sun. His once-dark hair was slicked back and silver, his dress clothes understated but expensive. All in all, he had the physical presence of a man who’d come to success on his own terms, a certain kind of unyielding ambition, and a tomcat charm that Texan men had refined to an art since the Alamo.
“You said Sammy sent you?” Mack asked curiously as Wes took a seat across from him.
“She did.” Wes nodded, knowing full well she’d done no such thing. “We were upstairs talking at the luncheon for the Wyatt Foundation. I was asking her about someone she thought you might know.”
“No kidding?” Mack cocked his head. “Who?”
“Man by the name of Toma Sak
urai, Sammy’s uncle on her mother’s side.” Wes watched him closely. “You remember him, right?”
Mack’s quizzical look belied his sudden stillness. There was an alertness to his posture that tripped all of Wes’s red flags. That was the thing about investigating a man versus his dossier. Anything looked innocuous on paper, but once you looked someone in the eye, if you were paying close attention with just the right amount of intuition, you could see their character, could glean their truths, no matter how closely they were guarded. Wes wished he had a camera.
“Why do you ask?” Mack asked, leaning back in his leather executive chair.
“Well, Sam’s asked me to help look into the circumstances surrounding Rob and Ry’s death.” Wes felt the tension emanating from Mack like the infinitesimal pull on a fly line. “Seems she’s got reason to believe there was some foul play.”
Mack nodded slowly. “She’s mentioned that.”
“So I started to look into all the people who might have benefited from Rob kicking the bucket before his time. Been a real hair ball, I can tell you that.”
“And you think Mr. Sakurai was one of those people,” Mack surmised, his eyes gleaming.
“Well, see I did at first,” Wes admitted. “I understand there was no love lost between the Sakurai family and Rob Wyatt for stealing their precious daughter away.”
“If there was any animosity between Mr. Sakurai and Rob, then I wasn’t privy to it,” Mack told him carefully. “In fact, I haven’t seen the man in years. He’s a shareholder but he never attends the board meetings.”
“Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” Wes nodded. “I thought that was strange too, being that he inherited all his sister’s shares when Ry died. So I looked into him, and it turns out he was the last surviving member of the Sakurai family. He wasn’t married. Didn’t have any heirs.”
Mack lifted a bushy brow. “Why are you using past tense, Wes? You know something I don’t?”
“Oh, it’s just because I’m assuming the man’s dead,” Wes replied with a shrug, like it was a perfectly obvious conclusion. “See the last known record of him was entering the United States in June 2000. His dividends are paid out, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since Rob and Ry died.” His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that something?”
“What’s something is waiting for you to get around to what you’re doing in my office, Wes,” Mack replied with the lift of a dark, bushy brow. “You gonna get to the facts, or do I have to sit here for the whole megillah?”
“You were the last person seen with Mr. Sakurai,” Wes lied. “I was just wondering what you recall about the man? Maybe tell me what the last thing you discussed was?”
Mack steepled his fingers. “Couldn’t tell you that, Wes.”
“Why?”
“Too long ago,” Mack replied with a disinterested shrug. “Old man like me? Sometimes I can’t remember where the hell I put my reading glasses,” he joked, though the atmosphere in the office took a distinctly hostile chill.
That was the thing about beating the bushes. Sometimes you got the good stuff—a fox dashing out across your path—the hunter being hunted. Other times, it was just a distracting mess of wild notions, scattering in the air like butterflies. Either way, Wes was getting what he needed out of the conversation. Every instinct he had told him that Mack McDevitt wasn’t to be trusted. Not by a long shot.
“So what happens when a board member goes missing?” Wes pressed.
Mack appeared briefly amused. “We’re a private company, Wes. Any information about how we run our business is strictly confidential. You should know that,” he tutted. “Matter of fact, that’s exactly what Sammy would say to you too, so now I’m thinking maybe she didn’t send you here to ask questions that she already knows the answers to. I reckon you just blew by on your own wind, son.” He stood up, gesturing to the door. “You found your way in. Now you can see yourself out.”
Wes shrugged amiably, standing too. “Suit yourself.”
Mack smirked at him. “Always do.”
Wes turned to go, but he stopped about halfway to the door. “Oh, there’s one more thing I forgot to mention.”
“This ought to be interesting,” Mack replied tersely, resting his hands on his desk.
“Oh, it is,” Wes answered with a confident look. “When I couldn’t find record of Sakurai leaving the country, I followed a hunch looking through missing persons reports and came up with something. An unidentified Asian man of Sakurai’s approximate age, height, and weight was found shot to death, just outside the city a couple months after Rob and Ry died. He was too decomposed to be positively ID’d though. Case went cold.”
Mack considered him. “Bit morbid to believe that poor man was Sakurai, don’t you think? Maybe he’s just out on a beach somewhere, enjoying his millions.”
“Maybe,” Wes conceded. “Or maybe he allied with the wrong man.” He opened the office door. “You have a good day now.”
*
April—Early Afternoon
Wyatt Ranch, Texas
J A C K
Jack stared at the speaker phone in Samantha’s office, incredulous. “What the hell do you mean they think they’ve got a one-in-ten chance of catching Lightner when he lands?”
“Exactly as I said,” his father answered over the intercom, gruff. “We’ve got the CIA, the FBI, Houston police, and the goddamn Texas Rangers all over every airport that’s landed within a hundred miles of Houston and nothing to show for it.”
“Lightner’s being especially careful now that he’s stateside,” Jaime chimed in from Chicago. “We lost the signal when he landed in Florida to refuel. My guess is he tossed the phone for a new one.”
“Cristo! Where the hell is he?” Jack dragged a hand down his face. “If I was on the run, I wouldn’t land near a major city. I’d go for an unmanned airfield.”
“There are thousands of those in Texas and Louisiana,” Jaime pointed out. “Even with all the help we have from the FAA, a good pilot knows how to maneuver low enough to avoid controlled airspace. All we know for sure is that he’s angry and he knows Samantha is in Houston.”
“Fuck!” Anger spiked through Jack’s veins as he pushed up out of his chair. He thrust his hands through his hair, pacing the office. “Samantha wants to stay and draw him out. She thinks he’s planning on attacking at the Wyatt Foundation Gala in a couple days.”
“She’s got to cancel,” Jaime sputtered. “No way can she risk it.”
“Then Lightner will definitely know we’re onto him,” Jack pointed out. “Besides, he could raise the stakes and do something crazier. Maybe try to blow up Wyatt Towers or another city block in Houston just to get back at her. He’s losing his shit. He wants revenge.”
“Gianni—you’re crazy to stay there and tempt fate,” his father told him. “It’s madness.”
“It is kind of nuts, bro,” Jaime agreed. “This guy has nothing left to lose and he’s got a nuclear weapon. That’s a recipe for nothing good.”
Jack glared at the speaker phone. “I’m not leaving Samantha.”
“See reason, Gianni,” his father pleaded. “She doesn’t want you to stay in Houston either.”
Jack planted his hands on the desk and leaned toward the phone. “I’m going to say the same thing that I said to her, Dad: Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. I swore to her I wouldn’t leave her again, even if she asked me to. Even if she insisted upon it.” He took a breath, then laid down the hammer. “You would never leave Mom, would you? Jaime, you would have never left Cassie, just as you’d never leave Maddie now. So don’t fucking tell me to walk away from this woman. Just don’t.”
A tense silence followed, before Jaime broke through it, saying gently, “He has a point, Dad. So what’s the plan, Jack?”
“Samantha wants to draw Lightner out at the fundraiser,” Jack informed them. “They’ve doubled up security, and the museum already has an impressive system they’re piggy-backing off of. He’ll be walking r
ight into a trap.”
“Sei pazzo!”43 his father exclaimed. “Even if you manage to get him cornered, he’s going to lash out. The man was British SAS, for chrissakes! There’s no telling what he could do once he feels threatened.”
“Would it be more or less dangerous if we didn’t know when or where he was going to strike, Dad?” Jack countered. “I don’t want to live my life constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for revenge to strike. Samantha’s right to do this. If we’re ready for him, it’s dozens against one. I support her decision one hundred percent, if it means we can get this sonofabitch once and for all.”
“What about all those innocent bystanders?” Sandro retorted hotly. “Have you considered how many people could be hurt besides you and Samantha?”
“Dad, Lennox Chase is the best private security firm in the world right now. Coupled with that, Mitch has sent the best guards from Leviathan. If you want to alert the FBI and the CIA to what’s going on—you’re welcome to do that, too. Either way, we’ve got this situation as under control as possible. I have faith in her,” Jack told his father. “Now I need you to have faith in me.”
“Sei fuori.”44
“So you keep telling me,” Jack smiled, hearing his father’s sigh. “Look, the chopper will be here to get me in a few minutes. I’ll be in Houston just in time to meet the rest of the team coming in from Tel Aviv. I’ll call you both once we’ve got the game plan.”
“Hey, bro?”
“Yeah, Jaime?”
“In bocca al lupo!”45 his brother told him. An old Italian saying for wishing someone luck.
Jack smiled grimly. “Crepi lupo.”46
Chapter 25
April—Early Evening
Wyatt Towers, Houston, Texas
S A M A N T H A
“How can you be sure Lucien Lightner is going to try to cause a ruckus at the Wyatt Foundation gala tomorrow?” Aunt Hannah asked as she sliced vegetables at the expansive granite counter of their penthouse kitchen. Carey sat across from his mother at the counter, sipping a tall glass of water while Jack stood beside her, helping her prep dinner.
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 42