Seeking Mr. Wrong

by Tamara Morgan

  “Oh, nothing much,” I lie. “Asked a few questions, made a few threats. The usual. Those security types are all the same. They’re mostly talk.”

  And action. So much action.

  He runs a finger over the raw, reddened skin. “Did he hurt you?”

  I hesitate before answering, which turns out to be a good thing, since he takes my silence as a confirmation of the agonies I was forced to endure for the sake of the secrecy. Nothing builds up a criminal’s reputation quite like well-timed reticence.

  “I’ll kill him,” Hijack says and drops my wrist. “Say the word, and it’s done.”

  In that moment, I think he will, too. I can’t decide whether his willingness to fly to my defense is further proof that he’s Johnny or a complete denial of it. It doesn’t matter either way, since he won’t have a chance. Kicking Grant’s ass is something I’m looking forward to doing myself. “Please don’t. I have other plans for him.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I also have other plans for you,” I add. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “I knew I could count on you, Pen!” He leans in and lands another of those quick and friendly smacks on my lips. Accustomed as I am to Grant’s long, lingering kisses, it’s hard to feel anything but disgust. “Please tell me those plans include the words steal and tiara.”

  “I’m not telling you anything where we can be overheard,” I reply. “But don’t worry—I think you’re going to like what I have to say.”

  * * *

  Hijack takes to my instructions about as well as I expect—with enthusiasm and excitement and, I’m pleased to say, admiration—but the next part of my plan isn’t so easy. In order to successfully extract Grant and all my loved ones and the tiara from this sinking mission, I’m going to have to coordinate a carefully balanced sequence of events—events that, unfortunately, include my father.

  He’s not a man to take orders, and he’s especially not a man to take orders from a daughter he’s none too pleased with right now.

  Still, I lift my hand and knock on his front door mere minutes after leaving Hijack. The sooner I get this part over with, the sooner the rest of the plan can get underway. I have a lot of work to do and less than two days in which to do it.

  My dad doesn’t answer at first, leading me to fear he’s not there. I think about sneaking inside and lying in wait for him to return, but considering the likelihood that he won’t be alone when he does, I decide to knock again.

  There’s a quiet shuffle and the sound of a slamming door, but my father eventually appears.

  “Penelope,” he says, his voice dry. He glances at my tiara and blinks. “Oh, my. I see you’ve been busy in my absence.”

  That’s one way to put it. “Can I come in?”

  He stills, his hand on the doorknob. “Must you?”

  There’s enough quelling disfavor in his voice that I’m tempted to turn around and do this without him. Asking for favors is hard enough; asking for favors from an unwilling, disapproving paternal figure is so much worse. And the terrible part is, I can’t blame him for being disapproving. Everything about my situation is clumsy, messy, and fraught with human emotion—all things he despises in a heist.

  But that’s me, unfortunately. That’s the daughter he raised, the person I’ve become. Clumsy and messy and an emotional wreck—and determined to get us all out of this if it’s the last thing I do.

  “Yes, Dad,” I say and shove my foot in the doorway. If he wants to force me out, he’s going to have to crush my bones to do it. “It’s important, and if you don’t let me in, there are about fifteen people out here waiting for a chance to push me down a dark stairwell.”

  “Then perhaps you should avoid dark stairwells,” my father says, but he lets me in.

  His room appears as it almost always does, devoid of life and activity, tidy to the point of obsession. I imagine an entire team of FBI agents could sweep through here with every technological advance they have, but they wouldn’t find a single fingerprint or DNA sample anywhere. Except, of course, for the wine glass with a ring of lipstick he failed to fully hide behind the television set.

  Oh, Dad. Not again.

  “Does my friend Peter know that you’ve, ah, confiscated his daughter’s tiara?” he asks as he extracts a water bottle from the minibar and hands it to me.

  I drink the water gratefully. I hadn’t been aware of my thirst, but between all the torture and evil plotting I’ve been doing today, I haven’t been hydrating properly.

  “He’s the one who gave it to me.”

  “I see,” he says, even though there’s no way he can possibly see anything. “That was a bold choice.”

  “He knows who Grant is.”

  No flicker of emotion crosses my dad’s face. “I was afraid he might.”

  “You knew?” I ask and deflate onto the nearest chair. I don’t know why I’m surprised—omniscience is kind of my dad’s thing. I also don’t know why I’m hurt—he’s never pretended to love my choice of husband. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Let’s just say I suspected it,” my dad amends. He remains standing, his upright stature putting me neatly in my place. “It’s not like Peter to take an ally so publicly without reason. A reason, I might add, that rarely bodes well for the ally.”

  The churning sensation that’s taken over my stomach since my conversation with Peter solidifies into cement.

  “That being said,” he continues, “I fail to see the connection between your husband’s folly and that tiara on your head.”

  Yes, well. He would. My dad is incredibly smart and even more dangerous, but he’s never been very creative.

  “I convinced Peter to let me wear it in Lola’s stead,” I explain. My voice shows an alarming tendency to waver, so I clear my throat and force my gaze to meet my dad’s. “It’s the only thing he really cares about, which means it’s the only way out of here.”

  “There’s rarely just one way to accomplish something, but go ahead. I’m listening.”

  I dig my fingernails into my palm. I won’t let him do this to me—turn us into another Peter and Lola, the man who knows everything and the girl who will never be good enough for him. I might not be perfect—there’s no denying that fact—but neither is he. At least I’m willing to do something about it.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  He doesn’t blink. “Where is who?”

  “Eden St. James. Is she hiding in the bathroom, or did you shove her in the closet?” I don’t wait for him to reply. “Or is it the balcony? You should have warned her not to try and swing to mine. I reoiled the railings this morning. She’ll plunge to her death.”

  Now my dad blinks—several times, in fact, his steely eyelashes fluttering in feigned disbelief. “You think I have Eden in my closet?”

  “Or the bathroom,” I remind him. “It’s okay. I’m resigned to it by now. I heard you guys enjoying…relations the first night. I think you have terrible taste in women, and I’m pretty sure she’s using you to get to me, but I’m not here to judge. I just need her to go away.”

  My dad clears his throat. At first, I think it’s a warning to stop talking about his relations—even if I do overhear them—but he does it again almost immediately, louder the second time.

  “You’d better come out here,” he says. “She knows.”

  “Yeah, she totally knows,” I echo. “And she’s not about to let you ruin her father’s life, so be prepared to grovel. I have a blunt object on my head, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  She’s not, as it turns out, in the bathroom or the closet. She’s hiding in my room—a turn of events I find so upsetting that I whirl on my dad in anger.

  “Are you kidding me, Dad?” I cry, hands on my hips. “You let Eden into my room, just like that? What if Lola had been napping in there? What if she decided to plant a b
omb or saw through the floor so she could sneak in later?”

  “Honestly, Pen. You always make everything sound so dramatic.” The feminine voice behind me is full of exasperation. “The only thing I did in there was tidy up your clothes. You have to hang silk up or it gets crushed. I wouldn’t have given you my favorite blouse if I knew you were going to wad it up with the rest of your crap. That’s a five-hundred-dollar print.”

  “Tara?” I watch as my stepmother enters the room and gives my father a peck on the cheek. He accepts the salute with a warm smile—the kind of warm smile he almost never gives me.

  I’d like to take a moment to express my outrage, but Tara notices the tiara and lets out an almost inhuman squeal.

  “You got it? You actually got it?” She runs for me, arms outstretched. “How much does it weigh? Does it feel good? Can I try it on?”

  She doesn’t wait for an answer. Lifting the tiara from my head, she transfers it to her own platinum locks.

  She looks amazing in it, of course. Without waiting for anyone to invite her, she saunters over to the nearest mirror and preens at her own reflection. The gold scrollwork with the imbedded sapphires sets off her hair to perfection, and not even the enormous rock in the center looks out of place next to her immaculate white dress.

  “You never cease to surprise me, Pen,” she says, taking in her image with satisfaction. “I thought for sure you had no plans to take it—you were very convincing. What are you going to do now?”

  “First of all, I’m going to call up Riker and let him know where you are.” I take turns glaring at both her and my father. “You should be ashamed of yourselves, both of you. Sneaking around like horny teenagers, betraying a man who’s done nothing but support you. How long has this been going on?”

  They share a guilty look. “It’s not what you think,” Tara says, at the same time as my father speaks up with, “I don’t have to explain myself to you, young lady.”

  Since it appears I’m going to get a lot more out of Tara than my traitorous parent, I start there. “It’s going to break his heart, you know. He really likes you.”

  “He really likes you, Pen,” is her tart reply. “I’m just a temporary distraction. It’s all I’ve ever been, and it’s all I’ll ever be.”

  Her words sting, mostly because they carry an element of truth. Riker and I haven’t been romantically involved in a long time, but he never fully got over my choice of Grant over him. Even though I know our friendship will always be a huge part of my life, it’s shifted these past few years. That’s why I liked his relationship with Tara so much—it was evidence that he was moving on, that he was healing.

  “You can throw blame around all you want, but I’m not the one he’s currently sleeping with,” I say.

  “Well, neither am I, so you can stop looking at me like that.”

  When I stare at her in confusion, she lifts the tiara off her head and returns it with a sigh. “He and I are just friends, Pen.”

  I stare at the tiara and then back at her. “But you came on this cruise together. You’ve been hanging out almost nonstop for the past few months.”

  She turns a light shade of pink. As she’s not one to be shamed by much, I can’t help feeling alarmed. “He was helping me out with a little dilemma, that’s all,” she says.

  A slow, creeping smile moves over my father’s face.

  “What kind of dilemma? Riker’s not good at anything but looking broody and ordering people around.”

  She flushes darker. “He does more than look broody, Pen. He also looks…handsome. A man like that comes in handy every now and then.”

  That’s all I need to hear to put the pieces together. “Oh, my God.” I take a step back, desperate to put distance between me and my wayward parents. “You were using Riker to make my dad jealous, weren’t you? You were only pretending to like him. You were running a sex con.”

  “It was not a sex con!” Tara protests.

  “I don’t approve of that language,” my father adds.

  I groan. This suddenly explains so much—the way Tara and Riker have been spending so much time apart, Tara’s interest in my father’s room, the late-night sounds that will forever be burned in my brain. “Then you brought him on the cruise to—”

  “To nudge your father in the right direction?” she asks, sending me a quelling glance. “Yes. You’ll be happy to know your father and I have fully reconciled. We’re going to try and make a real go of our marriage this time.”

  “And that is all we’re going to say on the subject,” my father adds in a firm voice. “What happens between your stepmother and me is of no concern to you.”

  “Does Riker know?” I ask.

  “Of course he knows,” Tara says. “He’s been in on it from the start—in fact, he’s the one who convinced me to give it a try in the first place. He was feeling restless and thought a project would give him something productive to do. If you ask me, that man’s talents are going to waste. He shouldn’t be stuck in New York, dancing attendance on you. He could be running a huge criminal enterprise of his own.”

  I’m far too relieved to hear that Riker isn’t about to have his heart shattered into a million pieces to feel angry at her implication. Besides, I don’t make him dance attendance on me. He’s in New York because it’s his home—it’s where he belongs. He’s as much a part of it as I am.

  “Then what was Eden St. James doing in here?” I turn my attention to my father. “The other day, when she was asking about Kit O’Kelly?”

  “Exactly that,” he says. He loses some of the stern, unyielding look I’ve seen on him so much of late—especially when his gaze lands on Tara. It’s almost sweet, the way he turns all soft and gooey when he looks at her. “She thought I might have some insight into the identity of Johnny Francis and stopped by to ask. Also to try and sneak some information on you, but I hope I’m not that obtuse. I told her you had your whole room wired with explosives and that not even I dared to go in there without your knowledge.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, so if she asks, you have paramilitary training and pyromaniacal leanings. I also told her that I tried institutionalizing you when you were younger, but it never took. My intention was to convince her that you’re as unstable as you act, but I’m not sure she bought it.”

  I laugh out loud. The idea of my father coming up with such a ludicrous lie—and for me—is too much. “So you’re not disregarding my safety and well-being for your own selfish ends? You’ve been looking out for me this whole time?”

  “What did you just say to me, young lady? My what ends?”

  I gulp. “I thought maybe you were distracted, that’s all. She is awfully pretty, and you have been lonely lately, and…”

  My dad strides over to where I’m standing, the hard lines of his face solidified to stone. I fear for a moment that he’s going to strike me or—worse—rake me down with one of his harsh verbal cuts. But when his arms come up, it’s to pull me into an embrace that crushes the air right out of my lungs.

  As the tiara is wedged between us, it’s a necessarily brief hug. Having prongs that size stabbed into one’s sternum isn’t exactly comfortable.

  “For Christ’s sake, Penelope. Since the moment you told me you wanted to come on this damned cruise, I’ve been looking out for you and that meddlesome team of yours. It’s the only reason any of you are still alive.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” he interrupts. “You’re not alone out here, baby doll. You never have been. I wish you would rid yourself of this idea you have that I’m your enemy.”

  His moment of soft accessibility lasts for all of five seconds before he adds, “And for the record, I have never been, nor will I ever be, lonely enough to let a woman like Eden St. James come between me and my daughter. I resent any implication to the contrary.”

  At that,
I can’t help glancing at Tara, who is similar to Eden in many ways and who comes between him and his daughter all the time. If it came down to one or the other, I’m not sure he’d pick me over Tara.

  I can’t find it in me to be upset. Tara just looks so happy.

  “Now. Are you going to tell me what you’re really doing with that tiara?” my dad asks, reverting back to his paternal airs almost immediately. “If you want my opinion, you should give it back to Peter Sanchez as soon as the first opportunity presents itself. His motives for letting you have it—whatever they are—can’t be good.”

  “I know.” I return the tiara to my head, standing patiently while Tara tuts and tucks everything in place. I’m pretty sure she takes an extra ten seconds or so to fondle the diamond, but I don’t hold it against her. “Which is why I have a favor to ask you.”

  “What kind of favor?” Tara asks, instantly alert. She knows me well enough to realize that most of my favors include life-or-death risks at considerable expense to her personal well-being.

  “Do I have a choice?” my father asks warily.

  “I think I have a plan that will get us all safely off the boat,” I say to whet their appetites. Then, when that doesn’t do enough to excite them, I add, “With the tiara in our possession.”

  “I’m in,” Tara says without delay.

  “Do I have a choice?” my father repeats.

  “Can you come up with another way to get Grant out of here alive?” I counter.

  His heavy sigh is all the confirmation I need. The countdown on my husband’s head began the moment this trip started, and his time is rapidly running out. My dad’s influence might be enough to keep me safe from Peter Sanchez—and it might, in one of his more generous moods, even extend to cover my friends—but not even a man like Warren Blue can protect an FBI agent from a group like this one.

  “I didn’t think so,” I say. “Which is why I need you to punch Riker so hard in the face, he has no choice but to fight you back.”