by Janet Dailey
“No.” From somewhere behind him came the almost inaudible whoosh of a furry critter moving at warp speed. He smiled to himself. Babaloo wouldn’t come out from his chosen hiding place until Charlie got settled in. And the big black dog had better watch his back.
Charlie circled through the condo, his nose twitching now and then when he came across a familiar-smelling spot. He seemed to remember the place.
“Can you get a good look at that cut?” Erin asked. “I don’t think I did.”
Bannon sat on the couch and motioned the dog to come to him, using the circle of strong light directly under the lamp to examine Charlie’s nose. “No blood. It seems to be healing. But I can call a vet. Want to take him in?”
The dog stood patiently as she came over to look for herself. “I’m not sure, Bannon. What do you think?”
“He seems fine.”
Erin sighed and stroked the dog’s head. “I guess we’ll know if it starts bothering him.”
“Yeah.” He rumpled Charlie’s thick neck fur and then let him wander off. The dog selected an area rug and flopped down on it. “Go ahead and get comfy, boy. We’re back to square one.”
The unthinking comment made Erin look sad all over again. “Are we? What exactly does that mean?” she asked him softly.
He rose from the couch and went to her. “I really don’t know, Erin. Let’s take it one thing at a time for now, okay? Until we can figure out what to do. Right now you’re here and you’re safe.”
She nodded, putting the bag from the drugstore by the tackle box with her art supplies and propping the sketchpad against both.
“Did you have plans for today?”
Erin gave him a numb look, not replying for a few seconds. “Yes, but—what time is it?” she asked, looking around for a clock.
He was about to answer when her gaze stopped at the mantel and the framed watercolor he’d bought from her. That rainy day seemed awfully long ago.
“Oh,” she said with surprise. “The Chincoteague horses—I’d forgotten about that painting. It looks really nice there.”
“I thought so too,” he said quickly, grateful to have something to talk about besides what had happened. “I am going to hang it up eventually,” he added. “Just haven’t decided where yet.”
“You don’t have to. Sometimes it’s fun to move paintings around for a while. Find out where they want to be.”
Bannon smiled. “I like that idea.”
She smiled back but the moment of happiness faded quickly. Erin seemed too restless to sit. She stood there, rubbing her arms as if she was nervous or chilly or both, and Bannon snapped out of it.
“Do you want to lie down?” he asked. “Let me get the bedroom ready—I tore out of here the second you called.”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
Bannon interpreted that instantly. “Uh, I speak female. It isn’t ready and I have work to do. Just make yourself at home in the meantime.”
He went into the bedroom. He really did have work to do. A heap of sweatpants and socks and underwear filled a whole corner. Grubby jeans tossed in that general direction a while ago had snagged on the back of a chair on their downward trajectory. They were still hanging there. Man-type grooming products, some with no tops, were crammed into a cardboard box that had once held hiking boots. How was it that the room had never seemed messy to him until now?
Bannon grabbed empty laundry bags from the bottom of the closet and stuffed his dirty clothes into them, throwing the full bags over to the door. His dress shirts and two suits he never wore got shoved hard against one side of the closet—he took extra seconds to space out the empty hangers for her. Then he wedged the shoebox and its contents into a dresser drawer and took a pair of clean socks out of it, slipping one over each hand and dusting like a madman before he peeled the socks off and stuck them in one of the laundry bags. Good enough. Fresh sheets next. He found some and whipped them on, clean and taut.
His big bed was almost ready for its beautiful occupant. He bit his lip to keep from thinking of her in it. Chestnut hair tumbled over a pillow. Those luminous blue eyes looking up at him as he . . .
Save it for your dreams. Do the right thing, he told himself.
He shook out the comforter and sailed it over the top sheet, straightening it when it settled. Then he punched the pillows into shape.
“That was fast,” Erin said when he came out, a laundry bag in either hand.
“Yeah. You’re set. Everything but the pillow mint.” He gave her a sheepish look.
“Thanks.” Her gentle voice communicated more than the single word did.
“So—um—go ahead and take your things in there. I cleared off the top of the dresser for your art supplies and personal stuff. And there’s plenty of room in the closet if you want to hang up some clothes.”
“I really appreciate everything you’re doing, Bannon.”
Her soft look melted him. He told himself to keep the conversation light and keep his distance. “Yeah, well—do you want breakfast or anything? You should eat something.”
She nodded. “I could manage a slice of toast. Just one. And tea would be great.”
He nodded. “No problem. I have bread. And a couple of tea bags—somewhere.”
He knew exactly where they were: in a drawer stuffed with Chinese takeout menus, soy sauce packets, and enough chopsticks to build a birdhouse.
“Not Earl Grey or anything fancy like that,” he added. “Just plain tea.”
Something hot to drink would do her a lot of good. She could wrap her hands around the cup. Sip slowly. Nibble on the toast. Not think.
“That’s fine.” She smiled faintly and walked away from him to pick up her duffel bag.
CHAPTER 14
Another damned beautiful morning. The tall magnolia tree outside the window was covered with white, waxy blossoms, big as pinwheels. But the sunlight hurt his eyes, even through the filmy chiffon of the first layer of curtains. Montgomery yanked the cord that closed the heavy drapes, plunging the study into gloom.
The locksmith installing a turnbolt on the door looked his way, surprised. “Mind if I turn on a lamp?” he asked.
“Be my guest.” He sat at his desk and closed his eyes.
There was the click of a switch and then the sound of the drill the man was using. A female voice interrupted.
“What are you doing?”
Montgomery opened his eyes to see Caroline standing in the doorway, staring at the locksmith.
“He’s installing a lock, Caro.”
“Why?”
Montgomery sighed. “For privacy. Mine.”
The locksmith didn’t look at either one of them when he spoke again. “Uh, sir—I think I’m missing a part here. Could be in my truck. Back in a sec.”
Montgomery waved him away and prepared himself mentally for a tirade from Caroline.
“I haven’t been snooping,” she said angrily, clenching her fists against her elegantly belted waist.
He didn’t argue with that, but studied her instead for a long moment. Then he folded his hands on top of the antique partner’s desk. “I hope that we can come to a civilized agreement. I called Ollie Duncan an hour ago and told him to contact your attorney. Shall we let them take it from here and draw up a settlement of some sort? Subject to our mutual approval, of course.”
She gasped and her beautifully made-up eyes filled with tears.
“Do you know what I like about lawyers?” he asked in a conversational tone. “They don’t cry. At this point in my life, I would rather be billed five hundred per hour than watch a woman weep.”
Caroline grabbed up a porcelain figurine of a female nude from the nearest shelf and hurled it across the room. The head cracked neatly off and lay there among the other pieces. Montgomery surveyed the damage but seemed unfazed. “Hmm. Not worth fixing. You bought that, as I remember.”
She stood there, shaking with rage. “Yes, I did. And about a thousand other things. I decorated the
entire house!”
“Not with your money,” he pointed out. “And I suggest you limit yourself to that one item, if you have plans to destroy anything else I paid for.”
His controlled tone set her off. “How dare you talk to me like that!” she shrieked. “You can’t lock me out of a room in a house I live in! You have no right—”
“Caro, don’t. You know it’s over.” He rose and leaned stiff-armed on his desk, bracing himself with outspread fingers.
He gazed at her steadily, almost amused by how quickly she ran out of steam. Of course she had been snooping. He had no doubt that her lawyer was already reviewing the bogus files she’d taken such pains to download. However, this didn’t seem like the moment to tell her that she’d been captured on webcam doing the downloading.
She swallowed a sob, then turned on her heel and stormed out. Montgomery sighed and sat back down, occupying himself with paperwork. The locksmith returned and finished the job in silence.
The day wore on. Caroline went out at some point—he heard her car drive off without noting the time or caring. The housekeeper brought in lunch on a tray after that and took it away untouched. His head ached badly. The smell of food made it worse.
Montgomery locked the door after the housekeeper and returned to the antique desk, opened the secret compartment under the top, and lifted out his laptop. He tapped a few keys, pulling up spreadsheets he’d been working on.
He checked the e-mail. No personal messages came to this address—only updates from Sidney, his accountant. Montgomery read the last one, which recommended a new type of anti-virus software. Given all their precautions, it didn’t seem necessary, but he might as well install it.
The program downloaded swiftly but took much longer to sniff through his financial documents and files. Montgomery grew bored watching the box that showed the percentage of checked files, and pushed his chair back from the desk, rising unsteadily.
Dull pain throbbed in his temples. He had to lie down. He went to the sofa and stretched out full length, putting his arm over his eyes and letting his mind drift.
A beep brought him back to full consciousness.
Confused, Monty sat up partway. The room was dark, but then the heavy drapes had been pulled—he dimly remembered doing that in the morning. He listened and heard nothing.
His nap hadn’t eased his headache. The dull pain was sharper now. Upstairs—there were pills he’d hidden upstairs.
Monty got to his feet and went over to the desk. His hand hovered over the laptop’s keyboard, about to shut it down. But the warning on the screen flashed at him.
He blinked as he read key phrases.
Malware detected. Unable to destroy. Self-replicating virus in system, type unknown. Trojan horse installed and functional but not activated. Firewalls breached, security compromised. Extensive corruption in all directories. User files will be misdirected via . . .
Line after line of baffling code appeared. He scanned it all without comprehending it, until bracketed e-mail addresses popped up at the very end. Only one had a name he knew.
[email protected]
The brazen bastard. Montgomery’s big hands clutched the edge of the desk for support. The screen blurred as he stared into it. He’d been hacked.
Fake company names and tax ID numbers were set up throughout the files, traps waiting to swallow the last of his money. He sat down and keyed in commands, frantically trying to remember the moves in his shell game. The accounts showed no changes other than the ones he’d made in the last several days. If he was remembering right.
The ache in his head was fiercely painful. He forced himself to stay where he was, typing in one last password.
It was the key to the trust account that held the reward money. If unknown electronic fingerprints showed up on it, Montgomery would rat Hoebel out at the highest level of the state government and tip off the feds. The blackmail would end. As for his own financial misdeeds, Montgomery had powerful friends who would arrange for immunity from prosecution, if his new plan to pay back his investors and get out worked.
But if Hoebel had gone so far as to steal the two million, Montgomery would kill him. He would.
He sat back in his chair, pressing his fingertips against eyelids that he had to close. His eyeballs seemed to be about to burst out of his head.
The weird sensation eased and he opened his eyes, seeing the same warnings on the laptop screen as before. Someone had been into the trust account. And gone out again. The money was still there. Every cent of it. And the beneficiary’s name was still Ann Montgomery.
His only child wasn’t dead. His obsessive review of the security tape had begun to convince him of that. And meeting Erin in person had done the rest. But Ann, his Ann—dear God, he would have to call her Erin—knew nothing of that. And he knew nothing of how she had survived, only that she had. He might be dead before she learned the truth.
Pain, flashing, uncontrollable pain, made his mouth twist on one side.
What he was about to do might be the last move in a game he’d been losing for months. Shaking, forcing himself to focus, he whisked the entire sum into another account, long since drained, held by a bank that served only private clients.
He picked up the receiver of the phone on his desk, an old model with an actual dial. Like him, it still worked well enough. He made a call to the bank’s president, an old acquaintance, and steadied his uncertain voice to something resembling authority. He requested that the account be frozen unless he came in and personally authorized any changes.
Done. No questions asked.
But there was one more thing. He jotted down a codicil to his will leaving the money in the reopened account to her, fiercely aware that he had no one to witness his signature. He was in no condition to drive to a notary or wait for anyone to come to the house. Montgomery jabbed at the laptop keyboard again. The tiny light for the webcam flashed. He recorded himself reading the codicil aloud, held it up to the webcam, and put a book behind it to sign his name on camera. A few more clicks to review the result and check that the written words were legible and his voice, clear enough, came next. He saved it and, with clumsy fingers that barely obeyed him, sent the video file as an attachment to his lawyer and his accountant.
Video wills were legal and so would this be. His face, his voice, his signature, each and every word of his intention and instructions were recorded and date-stamped, and safely sent. If Caro found the laptop, she could not destroy or alter what he had done.
Ann would have something if he didn’t survive. He wished it was more, far more. At least she would know that he’d given her all he had. Montgomery rose with great difficulty and staggered to the bar. He sloshed bourbon into a short glass and tossed it down without water. Gagging, sickened by the backwash into his raw throat, Montgomery made his way back to the desk.
Caro wouldn’t be stopped by a mere lock on a door. He would notify his accountant of the security breach, then shut down the laptop and hide it away.
No. Not yet.
He wanted to see his daughter again.
His fingers felt oddly thick as he opened the file with the security video from the Montgomery mansion.
Bannon was following Erin Randall down the hall.
They had just left Ann’s bedroom. Montgomery knew the way to it by heart, as if he had walked it yesterday. As if she were still three years old.
He paused the video on Erin’s lovely face as she turned to ask Bannon something. He replied and she looked up, not seeing the electronic eye looking down at her.
Capturing her.
Alive.
Montgomery’s breath caught and the pain in his head intensified to the screaming point. Slack, dragged down, his mouth gaped open. Yet he couldn’t hear himself scream. A strange silence pervaded the room. Three words echoed but only in his mind.
. . . keep . . . her . . . alive . . .
A flicker of strength coursed through his body and into his hands. Somehow
he closed the laptop and thrust it into the compartment.
It was the last thing he did before a tiny blood vessel in his brain ruptured. Montgomery jerked and fell forward onto the desk, arms outstretched as if he were drowning. His weight shut the top. Then he rocked backward in his chair and tumbled out of it to the floor.
Machines hummed. He could hear himself breathe, caught somewhere between dreaming and death in a half-lit room. There were people in the room, coming and going, not talking. An older woman bent over him and he tried to speak to her. His words made no sense. She didn’t reply. Something pierced his skin and a tiny flash of pain ran up the inside of his arm. A feeling of peace replaced it. She went away and he lay there motionless.
The room dissolved around him and so did the years.
He saw his young wife walking hand in hand with a little girl—their daughter. They called to him, laughing, coming closer with every step, but they never reached his side. Luanne, he called back. Luanne. He took a step toward them and they vanished, replaced by a burst of brilliant light that dazzled him. His eyes hurt and he began to cry. Tears trickled out from under his closed lids. He didn’t see the nurse return or know that she had wiped the tears away.
CHAPTER 15
Returning from his usual morning run, Bannon turned his key in the lock and pushed open the door.
Erin turned around, startled, as he stepped over the threshold, fear in her eyes. It had only been a day since the attack.
He wanted to kick himself. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have knocked or coughed or something.”
She shook her head. “I would have jumped, no matter what.”
“With good reason. Let’s decide on a signal or something. So you always know it’s me.”
“A secret knock? Not shave-and-a-haircut.” She looked worried. “Just say your name.”
“Right. That opens every door.” Bannon put a hand to his bristly chin. “Speaking of shaves, I need one. Mind if I—”
“Don’t be silly. This is your place.”
“But I want you to be comfortable here.” Bannon shut the door behind him and locked it.