by Sandra Brown
Because of his grown children, and because of her policy that employees of the club were not to date the clientele, they had kept their affair a secret. His willingness to drop everything, leave the bank in the middle of a workday, and rush to her aid signified more than just courtesy and concern.
In a voice choked with emotion, she said, “Have I told you what a sweetheart you are? How important you are to me?”
“You mean it?”
“I do,” she said, speaking with an unmitigated honesty that surprised her.
“Well, that’s good. Because I feel the same.”
When he’d enrolled in her health club, she’d immediately been attracted to his engaging manner. She’d overlooked his portly body and had checked out his portfolio. Realizing his worth, she had set her sights on him.
He, having spent the last five years of his marriage nursing his suffering wife, had been ripe for fun, for sex, for Tori’s raunchy teasing, flirting, and flattery. Bonnell Wallace was a feared and revered businessman, shrewd in all his dealings, but he’d been putty in Tori’s talented and well-experienced hands.
However, over time she’d formed an attachment to him that was no longer just about snagging another rich husband. Beneath the flab left by good living, she’d discovered a good heart, a good friend, a good man. She had grown genuinely fond of him, and for her, that was as close as she was ever going to get to true love.
They exchanged air kisses and disconnected reluctantly. As she clutched the phone to her chest, her smile lingered for several minutes. But when her doorbell rang, she dropped her phone, bolted to the door, and flung it open.
On her threshold stood Stan Gillette. If it had been Elvis she wouldn’t have been as shocked.
She didn’t like Honor’s father-in-law, and the dislike was returned. In spades. Neither made a secret of their mutual antipathy. It went beyond being on opposite sides of the conservative/liberal coin.
The only thing they had in common was their love for Honor and Emily, and nothing except that shared love could have brought Stan to her doorstep.
Her heart practically stopped. She gripped the door for support. “Oh, God. They’re dead?”
“No. At least I hope not. May I come in?”
Weak with relief, she stood aside. He marched—the only word to describe his tread—across her threshold, which he no doubt equated to the gateway to Gomorrah, then stopped and looked around as though assessing an enemy camp. She supposed that to some extent, he was. Her furnishings were tasteful and expensive, but his lips were set with stern disapproval when he turned to her.
“How did you hear?”
She wondered how the man managed to make a simple question sound like he was about to jam bamboo shoots under her fingernails. But the circumstances called for her to be civil. “I saw it on the news.”
“You haven’t heard from Honor?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Who else asked you that?”
“Doral. He was here when I got home from the club. Like you, he seems to think that Honor’s kidnapper would call a time out and let her contact me.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm.”
“And I don’t need you implying that if I knew what had happened to Honor and Emily I’d be standing here disliking you with every fiber of my being. I’d be out doing something to bring them safely back. Which begs the question, why aren’t you out there searching for them instead of stinking up my house with your narrow-minded, judgmental self-righteousness?”
So much for civility.
He bristled. “Can you think for one nanosecond that I care more about insulting you than I do about the welfare of my son’s widow and child, the only family I have left?” Tori understood exactly where he was coming from. Her concern for Honor and Emily overrode her hatred of him. Having had her outburst, she backed down. “No, Stan, I don’t think that at all. I know you love them.” In your overbearing and possessive fashion, she was tempted to add, but didn’t. “You must be going through hell.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Why don’t you sit down? Can I get you anything? Water? Soft drink? Stiff drink?”
He almost smiled before catching himself. “No. Thanks.” He didn’t sit, but stood in the center of her living room, looking ill at ease.
“I love them, too, you know,” she said softly. “How can I help? What do you know that the media doesn’t?”
“Nothing. Not really.”
He told her about his conversation with Doral and Deputy Crawford. “The house was a wreck. Crawford seemed more interested in knowing what might be missing from it, as if the fact that Honor and Emily were missing were secondary.”
“He’s a deputy sheriff in a backwater parish. Is he up to the task of getting them back in one piece?”
“I hope so. Of course the FBI is on the case, too. They’ve also called in assistance from other parishes and the New Orleans P.D.” He took a turn around the room, but she could tell he was preoccupied.
“Something is bothering you. What?”
He turned back to her. “It may be nothing.” For several seconds, he wrestled with the decision to air his concern, then asked a seemingly unrelated question. “Have you ever tucked Emily in for the night?”
“As recently as two weeks ago. Honor had me out for burgers on the grill. We put Emily down, then kicked back and killed a bottle of wine.”
By telling him that, she was hitting below the belt, because he considered her a bad influence on Honor.
From the moment they were introduced, he’d regarded her as a slut, unsuitable friend material for the daughter-in-law of Stanley Gillette. Which, from Tori’s standpoint, was just too effing bad. She and Honor’s friendship had been forged when they were girls, and it had endured despite the divergent paths their lives had taken.
She admired Honor’s way of life, but she didn’t envy it. Not for her was the home-and-hearth scene. Marrying your high school sweetheart wasn’t her idea of hot romance. Eddie had been an excellent husband and father, and she had liked him for loving Honor and making her happy. His death had been a tragedy.
But Stan kept him alive and present to the point where Honor felt guilty if she as much as contemplated dating. That had been one topic they’d discussed over that excellent bottle of Pinot Noir.
Not for the first time, Tori had urged Honor to start going out, to meet new people, specifically men. “Your period of grieving has been twice the accepted time. You need to kick up your heels, and I mean that in the most literal sense. What’s the holdup?”
“It would break Stan’s heart if I began dating,” Honor had replied wistfully.
Tori had argued that she wasn’t married to Stan, and who cared what he thought anyway.
Apparently Honor did. Because she was letting Stan prevent her from having a future. He was keeping her shackled to the past and to a husband who was dead and buried.
But that was an issue for another day. Today, they had to deal with one much more pressing. “What about tucking Emily in?” she asked.
“She always sleeps with two things.”
“Her bankie and Elmo.”
“They weren’t in her bed this morning.” While Tori processed that, he continued. “They weren’t in Honor’s bed either. I didn’t see them anywhere.”
“A kidnapper who let Em take her bedtime pals along? Hmm.” She thought back to Doral’s insinuation that the supposed kidnapping might not have been that at all. What was Honor into?
As though reading her mind, Stan said, “I believe in keeping confidences.”
She didn’t touch that.
“I know how close Honor is to you. I don’t understand the friendship. I don’t approve of it. But I respect it.”
“Okay.”
“But these are critical circumstances, Victoria.”
His use of her full name underscored how critical the circumstances were. As if she needed him to emp
hasize that to her.
“If Honor has confided to you—”
“That she’s involved with a man named Lee Coburn? Is that what you’re waltzing around? Save the dance steps, Stan. The answer is no. Honor doesn’t confide in me every thought and feeling she has, but I think I would know if she was seeing someone. Hell, I’d be celebrating it. But if she knew this man at all, I swear to you that I’m unaware of it.”
He received her answer with characteristic stoicism. He coughed behind his fist, indicating to her that there was more on his mind. “Crawford asked Doral a lot of questions about Eddie. Crawford seems to be working under the delusion that there’s a link to him in all this.”
“I guess that explains why Doral asked me about it.”
“What did Doral ask you?”
“If Honor had recently revealed a secret about Eddie.” She shrugged. “I accused him of being high.”
“Then there’s no such secret?”
She gaped at him for several seconds, then looked around her familiar living room, almost expecting to see writing on the walls that would explain to her why everyone seemed to have lost their minds. When she came back to him, she said, “Stan, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I won’t tolerate any negative implications about my son.”
“The deputy’s implications were negative?”
“Not precisely. But it sounds to me as though he’s trying to draw a connection between Eddie and what happened at Sam Marset’s warehouse on Sunday night. That’s preposterous. I don’t know why Coburn sought out Honor and turned her house upside down, but both he and Crawford are mistaken if they think Eddie was involved in anything…”
Tori supplied the word he couldn’t bring himself to speak. “Illegal.” She waited; Stan said nothing. “I agree with you. Eddie was a Boy Scout, a model citizen, an honest cop. So what are you worried about?”
“I’m not.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and assessed him closely. “A team of wild horses couldn’t have dragged you into the home of the scarlet woman of Tambour. But here you are in my den of iniquity asking questions that make no sense to me, but obviously do to you. And to Doral.”
He remained stubbornly tight-lipped.
She continued. “Doral’s brother was killed this morning. Your daughter-in-law and grandchild are missing. Yet this alleged secret, involving a man who’s been dead for over two years, has got the two of you barging in on me when you should be out there overturning every stone in search of my friend and her little girl. What gives, Stan?”
Without a word, he strode to the front door and opened it.
“Wait!” She joined him at the threshold. The look he gave her would curdle milk. She didn’t back down from it, but she moderated her tone. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of me. In fact, I rather enjoy ruffling your American eagle feathers. But I love Honor. I love Emily. I want them back, whole and sound and safe.”
He remained rigid and unmoved, but he didn’t storm out.
Still speaking in a quiet, reasonable tone, she continued. “Just so you know, I’ve made arrangements to have a large sum of cash available if and when you get a ransom demand. Don’t be stubborn and proud, Stan. Don’t be a priggish idiot. Nobody has to know that the money came from my whoring hands. Let me do this. Not for you. For them.”
He remained as taciturn as ever, but he said, “Thank you. I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 22
Honor’s eyes remained fixed on Coburn as the man on the telephone repeated to her how dangerous he was. When she didn’t respond, Hamilton prompted her. “Mrs. Gillette?”
“Yes,” she said hoarsely, “I… I’m listening.”
“Coburn is lethal. He’s been trained to be. But the fact that he abducted you instead of killing you—”
“He didn’t abduct me, Mr. Hamilton. I came with him voluntarily.”
Several seconds ticked by before Hamilton said anything. Then he cleared his throat and politely asked if Coburn was treating Emily and her well.
She thought of his threats, real and implied, and the strong-arming, and the battle royal over possession of the pistol, but she also remembered his snatching up Emily’s bankie and Elmo as they fled the house. She thought of his taking a chance on being captured to buy them food and water.
And she thought of his coming back rather than deserting them.
She said to Hamilton, “We’re all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Put Coburn back on.”
She passed the phone to him. He said into it, “Talk to me.”
“You first.”
He talked Hamilton through the mass shooting and everything that had transpired since. He was concise and ended by saying, “I had no choice but to get her and the kid out of there. They’d be dead if I hadn’t.”
“You’re certain that this policeman you killed was Sam Marset’s assassin.”
“I saw him do it.”
“Along with his twin.”
“Correct.”
Hamilton took a deep breath and expelled it loudly. “Okay. Except for the warehouse killer’s identity, and the misconception that Mrs. Gillette was kidnapped, that matches everything Tom VanAllen told me.”
“Tom VanAllen. Who’s VanAllen?”
“My successor down there.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“When it became apparent that you’d kicked up a shit storm.”
“You talked to this VanAllen before taking my call?”
“I wanted to get a feel for the situation from his perspective. I wanted it unfiltered. I even asked him if you were an agent from his office working undercover.”
“Gee, you’re a stitch.”
“I needed to know what he knew or suspected.”
“I’m kinda interested in that myself.”
“As far as local law enforcement is concerned, you’re a friendless dock worker who went postal and shot up the place. That’s good. Now that I’ve talked to you, I’ll admit to VanAllen that I tricked him in order to get his unbiased assessment, and then I’ll enlist him to help bring you and Mrs. Gillette in. Once you, she, and the child are safe, we’ll figure out how to go in and mop up.”
Coburn frowned, pulled at his lower lip with his teeth, and looked hard at Honor. Finally, he said, “Negative.”
“Excuse me?”
“Negative. I don’t want to come in yet.”
“Don’t worry about your cover. It will remain intact. The official word will be that you died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a standoff with federal agents. We’ll make arrests based on the intel you’ve gathered so far, but no one will know where it came from. You’ll be reassigned to another part of the country, and no one will be the wiser.”
“Sounds swell. Except that I haven’t finished the job here.”
“You’ve done well, Coburn,” Hamilton argued. “You’re getting out alive, which is no small accomplishment. And you’ve fingered some key people in The Bookkeeper’s organization. I’ve got men from San Antonio to key points east, all the way to the Mississippi/Alabama line, standing by to make arrests, soon as I give them the green light. You took out one of The Bookkeeper’s main facilitators this morning.”
“But we don’t have The Bookkeeper.”
“I’m satisfied.”
“I’m not. Something big is about to happen. I want to put him out of commission before it does.”
“Something big, like what?”
“A new client. A Mexican cartel would be my guess. I think that’s why Sam Marset was bumped. He was whining over a couple of his trucks getting stopped and searched. Those two weren’t hauling anything except potting soil, but it spooked Marset, because he was guaranteed that none of his trucks would be subject to search. The Bookkeeper wanted to shut him up. He doesn’t need a complaint department at any time, but especially not now.”
Hamilton considered it, t
hen said, “But the new alliance isn’t a sure thing.”
“It’s pending.”
“Can you identify the cartel?”
“No. My time ran out Sunday night.”
Again Hamilton took several moments to mull it over. Coburn watched Honor watching him.
Finally Hamilton said, “We’ll go with what we’ve got. With or without this pending arrangement, you’ve built a case. It’s enough.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. No federal prosecutor is going to touch this unless he’s got a smoking gun or an eyewitness who’ll swear his life away to see justice done, and no one is going to do that even if he’s guaranteed a new identity in Outer Mongolia, because everybody’s scared shitless of The Bookkeeper.
“It would also be a P.R. nightmare for the bureau. Sam Marset is just a name to you, but in these parts he was looked upon as a saint. Drag his name through the mud without absolute proof of his corruption, make charges that won’t stick, and all you’ll do is cause resentment among the law-abiding population and put the offenders on red alert.
“Then the DEA will get pissed off and blame us for sending every dealer underground. Same with the ATF, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security. Everybody will get skittish and back off stings they had planned, and we’ll all slink back to square one with nothing but our dicks in our hands.
“If you bring me in now, that’s what will happen. After a week or so, when things have cooled down, the smugglers will return to supplying their customers. They’ll go on killing each other, plus a few innocent bystanders now and then whenever a deal goes south, and those casualties will be on your head, and on mine for not finishing my job.”
Hamilton waited several beats, then said, “Bravo, Coburn. That was a very impassioned speech, and I hear you.” He paused again. “Okay. You stay. But as good as you are, you can’t clean this up by yourself, especially now that you’re a suspected mass murderer. Badges down there would love to get in their target practice on you. You’ll need backup. VanAllen will provide it.”