by Cherry Adair
Jack was out on the lanai, standing near the retaining wall. He turned the minute he heard her at the door. She looked vulnerable, but the determined tilt of her chin brought a feeling of dread to the pit of his stomach.
“Feel better?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Numb actually. I came out to thank you.”
“Listen, Meghan,” he began, reaching for her. She edged back, leaving him no choice but to let his hand slap down to his side. “I’ve been thinking about—”
He went silent when she raised her hand. Her gaze fixed off in the distance. Never a good sign when a woman didn’t meet your eyes. Painful when the woman was Meghan.
“You should go, Jack.”
“I don’t have to, Meghan. Hear me out.”
“You do have to, Jack.”
He placed his finger beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Why do I have to?”
“B-because it’s what I want.”
“You aren’t very convincing.”
“I left a check by the front door. Please leave.”
“Meghan, we need to talk. I have a theory.”
“No more theories.” She stepped away from him as if he had the plague. “Go, Jack. Please? Don’t make this harder than it already is. Your work here is finished.”
“What about—”
“Please don’t say ‘us,’ ” she groaned as she crossed her arms. “There is no us. ‘Us’ requires more than forty-eight hours. ‘Us’ requires more than a physical connection.”
Frustration, hurt, rejection, every emotion he could think of rolled through him. He felt his temper flare and balled his hands into tight fists. “I know that. All I’m suggesting is that I hang out here while we—”
“No, Jack. Thank you, but no. There’s nothing to investigate or protect. Jenna confessed.”
“And you believe that now?” he scoffed.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
Chapter Nine
“IT’S OVER, JACK,” ROZ SAID WHEN SHE CALLED HIS CELL phone. “Barrett Trent called earlier and told me all about the Lewis woman. I would have preferred to hear it from you.”
Jack rubbed his face and rolled his head around on his shoulders. “You would have if I thought the Lewis woman was the killer. I don’t.” He should’ve listened to Meghan when she’d been so positive Jenna Whatever couldn’t have done it. That her father’s ex-lover was incapable of killing herself. Instead he’d used his own considerable arrogance and swayed her into believing something that he was now sure he’d been dead wrong about.
“The police are convinced,” Roz said in her no-nonsense tone. “Mr. Trent is convinced. So what’s the problem?”
“Meghan,” he said on a frustrated breath.
“Meghan?” Roz repeated, none-too-subtle curiosity hanging on each syllable. “Is there something else you want to share, Jack? If this is personal, then I think—”
“Not personal,” he lied. “Just wrong, Roz. Did you get the report back from the accident guy yet?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And it confirms your suspicions.”
Jack cursed. “Well then, that proves Jenna isn’t our killer. If she was, she’d have admitted to rigging the car wreck, too, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Roz agreed. “But we’ve been removed from the case. Time for you to go home.”
“Not yet,” he said, gripping the steering wheel as he pulled over so he could keep Meghan’s driveway in his rearview mirror. The cops were gone. But he’d made her promise to reactivate the alarm system as soon as he left.
“You know the rules,” Roz cautioned.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I also know this doesn’t feel right.” He saw the red Mercedes convertible pull up to the drive and recognized Casey as she made the turn toward the house. He was glad Meghan wouldn’t be alone. Although he’d rather it was himself, not her sister-in-law, there to keep her company.
“Okay, so it has to be someone who would have had access to Michael’s car as well as unfettered access to the store.”
“Who is that?”
“I can think of four people off the top of my head,” Jack admitted. He ticked them off to Roz.
“You can cross Barrett Trent off your list,” she told him.
“Why?”
“Because I did a complete background check on him when he first contacted me after Michael’s accident. He was on a cruise ship in Greece when the car crashed. I verified it with the cruise line as well as the passenger manifest from the emergency flight he used to get back here to be with his daughter.”
“The daughter just went into Meghan’s house.”
“You’re still there?” Roz asked.
“Outside,” he admitted. “I was afraid she’d call the cops on me if I didn’t leave. Hang on.” He turned to watch Meghan and Casey speed out of the driveway. “I’ve got to go, Roz. Keep digging on the others. I’ll call you back.”
“I really don’t feel like being with people,” Meghan grumbled as Casey drove—a tad too fast—over the bridge into West Palm Beach.
“It’ll do you good,” Casey insisted.
“Holy shit, Casey, the train is coming!” Meghan yelled when Casey did a slalom around the caution bars lowering to warn people off the tracks.
“Sorry, necessary detour,” Casey remarked.
Meghan’s heart was in her throat. “You’re scaring me,” she said firmly, in hopes of getting the other woman’s attention. “Please slow down.”
Casey checked the rearview mirror, then marginally slowed the car. “Don’t worry, Meghan, you won’t be scared for long.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Casey said calmly. “I’m going to kill you once and for all.”
Jack was pounding his palm against the steering wheel as he waited for the one hundred twentieth freight car to roll in front of him. He’d been stuck at the railroad crossing for nearly four minutes. Enough time for a genuine sense of dread to settle into every cell in his body.
Tapping the redial button on his cell, he waited for Roz to answer. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Can you check real estate transactions for me?”
“Sure. What am I looking for?”
“Anything in Sam Shelton’s name. It has to be him.”
“Hang on.” He heard the click of the keys on her keyboard. “Nothing for Sam,” Roz told him, clearly distracted as she spoke. “Wait—”
“What?” Jack demanded watching the rail cars speed by. Would this damn train never end?
“I may have something. Two somethings, actually.”
Meghan couldn’t believe she heard correctly. Shock and disbelief ricocheted through her. The only logical explanation was that Casey had gone off the deep end. It had to be grief over losing Michael. Something. Anything to explain the venom and hostility oozing from the woman. “I don’t understand, Casey,” Meghan said when they entered an industrial park just west of the city. “What’s gotten into you?”
“You’re as dense as your brother. You just don’t die as easily,” she said, pulling a small-caliber gun and pointing it at Meghan’s head. “Get out.”
Her brain was swimming in waves of confusion. “Jesus, Casey! What are you think—ouch!” Meghan felt the sting of the gun smacking against her temple. She touched her fingers to the spot and they came away damp with blood. “Okay, okay! I’m going.”
Exiting the car, she glanced around for something—anything—that might help. No people. No nothing. The place was deserted save for one other car. One she knew well.
Casey shoved her toward the door of the warehouse, jabbing the gun into her ribs as they crossed the ten or so yards. Meghan was fairly certain that if she went inside, she wouldn’t ever come out—at least not alive.
Pretending to stumble, she reached down, gathered up a handful of gravel, and tossed it into Casey’s eyes. Then she bolted.
But she didn
’t get far. One second she was running and the next Sam had her by the waist and was dragging her inside the warehouse. It was dark and dank, smelling faintly of motor oil and insecticide. Sam tossed her onto the cement floor.
“Bitch,” Casey cursed, punctuating the remark with a kick in her ribs.
Meghan moaned as the air rushed from her lungs. She saw bright white flecks as she rolled on the floor, writhing in pain.
“Enough,” Sam said, dragging her to her feet and depositing her in a metal chair. It was surreal to look into their faces knowing they were going to kill her. “I don’t get it,” Meghan croaked out, holding her sore ribs. “Why?”
“You owe us, Meghan,” Casey supplied, her voice tainted with venom. “We’re tired of waiting to collect.”
Meghan blinked, still confused. “Collect what? My brother loved you. He married you.”
“No one ever thought to ask if I loved him,” Casey retorted. “I didn’t. Not ever. I wanted to marry Sam. I told my father and he hit me. Can you believe it?”
“Right now?” Meghan asked smartly. It earned her another solid whack with the end of the gun barrel. She cried out but realized that as long as they were causing her pain, she wasn’t dead. If she wasn’t dead, she had hope. “Sorry. Okay. So all this has been about you wanting to marry Sam? Jenna, the Santas—all this?”
“You’re forgetting Michael,” Sam injected. “That’s actually where it started. You were both supposed to die in the accident. I rigged the tire to blow and the gas tank. All traces of the explosives were supposed to be destroyed. But what are the chances that you’d be thrown clear before the explosion? Jesus, I couldn’t believe it!”
“So you could have the store?” Meghan guessed.
Sam shook his head. “It’s more than the store, Meghan. It’s the prestige, something your do-gooder brother always took for granted. Your father handed him that store and he couldn’t have cared less.”
“But I do, so why are you doing this?”
“We earned it,” Casey insisted. “The original plan was for me to marry Michael, then you and Michael would die together, then I’d inherit. I’d marry Sam and there’d be nothing my parents could say.”
“Only you didn’t die,” Sam continued. “And I had to suck up to that moronic assistant of yours so I could keep tabs on you. Thanks to Terri’s eagerness to share everything with me, I was able to switch the report from the accident reconstruction company so you wouldn’t get suspicious. I came up with the poisoning idea. Santa wasn’t the target per se, but we figured three or four murders would be enough to convince the cops that a serial killer was on the loose. But Barrett got concerned and hired that Palmer guy, so we had to adjust the plan.
“The hardest part was getting Jenna to write the note. I had to play a little game of Russian roulette with her before she finally took pen in hand.”
Meghan saw a flash of movement pass outside the window. If there was someone outside, she needed to get his attention. She needed noise. Bracing herself, she said, “The two of you are nuts. Cruel, disgusting—ouch!”
This blow toppled her to the floor. She actually saw stars and flashes, heard grunt and groans, then a pop of gunfire and the acrid scent of smoke. She felt a burning sensation in her arm, saw a gush of blood. Then nothing.
Meghan blinked against harsh, bright light. She smelled antiseptic and slowly tried to process the scene around her.
White. It was very, very white. White-tiled walls, white sheets, white everything. “I’ll be damned, there is a heaven. Who knew you could be dead and thirsty?”
She heard a gentle laugh and turned her sore head in the direction of the sound. Blurred at first, it took a few seconds before Jack’s face came into full focus.
“You aren’t dead,” he promised her, lifting her hand and kissing her knuckles. “A little silly from the painkillers, but you’re fine.”
“You stayed?”
He nodded. “I’m hard to get rid of. Which is good, because as it turned out, you needed me.”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“Not in so many words,” he countered. “But you did fire me and you pretty much tossed me out of your house on my ass.”
“Not possible. Anyone that stupid should be shot.” Her lips curved. “Oh, wait! I was shot.”
He laughed again as he kissed her forehead. “I’m staying, Meghan. We can go slow, whatever you want.”
“I want you, Jack.”
“For how long?”
This was a trick question. “Ah—”
“Let’s make this simple,” Jack gave her a penetrating look. Clearly he hadn’t slept in forever. His eyes were shadowed, his jaw needed a shave. He been worried and stuck around to keep her safe. He’d gone over and beyond the call of duty.
He looked so dear to her as he said gruffly, “Should I go and buy a spare toothbrush? Or should I sell my condo in D.C. and have my furniture shipped?”
Meghan’s smile bloomed from her heart. “I have the number of a great moving company in my address book. We’ll call them after you’ve kissed all my aches and pains better.”
Indulge in some red hot holiday thrills from these four bestselling authors!
CHERRY ADAIR
“One of the reigning queens of romantic adventure.”
—Romantic Times
LEANNE BANKS
“When life gets tough, read a book by Leanne Banks!”
—JANET EVANOVICH, New York Times bestselling author
PAMELA BRITTON
“Pamela Britton’s engaging, well-defined characters blend with her storytelling skills for a winning combination.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
KELSEY ROBERTS
“Kelsey Roberts’s seamless blend of tender romance and compelling intrigue will keep you turning pages.”
—TESS GERRITSEN, New York Times bestselling author
Red Hot Santa is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2005 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
“Snowball’s Chance”: Copyright © 2005 by Cherry Adair
“Santa Slave”: Copyright © 2005 by Leanne Banks
“Big, Bad Santa”: Copyright © 2005 by Pamela Britton
“Killer Christmas”: Copyright © 2005 by Rhonda Pollero
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN 0-345-48597-1
www.ballantinebooks.com
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