Ben's Wife

by Charlotte Douglas

  Morgan waited for Ben to select an empty table. He hesitated only briefly before leading her across the room to a table by the railing, occupied by a short, muscular woman with blunt-cut gray hair. She wore a tailored tennis dress with lace-tnmmed panties peeking from beneath her abbreviated skirt, and her craggy face lit up like Christmas when she spotted Ben.

  So this was Rhonda Covill, the only female member of the board. Morgan searched the older woman’s face, but couldn’t decide if Rhonda’s pleasure at seeing Ben was genuine or feigned.

  “Bless my tired old bones.” Rhonda grasped Ben’s hand and shook it with the vigor of a man. “I heard you were ready to curl up your toes and die.”

  Ben grinned. “As Mark Twain once said, rumors of my death have been highly exaggerated.”

  “And you’re Frank’s daughter.” Rhonda greeted her with a handshake. “Such a waste. He was a damned good chemist.”

  Morgan winced at Rhonda’s tight grip. “And a wonderful father.”

  “That, too, I’m sure. What are you folks drinking? I’ll buy.” Rhonda crooked a finger at the young woman behind the snack bar.

  “Mineral water,” Morgan said. Rhonda’s toohearty manner could be her usual demeanor or an effort to conceal her true feelings Either way, the woman made her nervous.

  Ben ordered mineral water, too, and they sat at Rhonda’s table. The waitress returned immediately with their order, and Rhonda waited until the server left before speaking.

  “What’s going on, Ben? First that awful fire and Frank’s death, and now Rob Lashner running around filing lawsuits and telling people you have a screw loose. And that you—” she glanced at Morgan accusingly “—are trying to cheat Chemco out of billions.”

  Ben sipped his water, then set down his glass. “Three attempts have been made on Morgan’s life. Rob must want those billions pretty bad.”

  Rhonda’s jaw dropped, and she glanced from Ben to Morgan. “Are you saying Rob tried to kill—”

  “No doubt about it,” Ben said.

  “And you have proof?”

  Morgan shook her head. “The police are working on it.”

  Rhonda’s gaze met hers briefly, then slid away. “Ye gods, what’s this world coming to?”

  Ben leaned toward Rhonda and placed his hand over the older woman’s. “Rob’s been to see you?”

  Rhonda nodded. “Gave me this cock-and-bull story about your brains being scrambled by your injuries from the fire. Said the board needs to keep you from doing something crazy, like destroying Frank’s formula for a gasoline substitute.”

  “Dad’s formula is flawed,” Morgan said. “He feared people would be killed if the product goes on sale.”

  Rhonda assessed her with shrewd gray eyes. “That’s what Rob said you’d claim.”

  “What else did Rob say?” Ben asked.

  Rhonda’s expression seemed pained. “That you wouldn’t live until the board meeting. Your injuries were too severe. And with you dead, Morgan would return home, once her chief supporter was gone.”

  “I’m more than Morgan’s chief supporter,” Ben said with a warmth that made Morgan’s cheeks burn. “I’m her husband.”

  Words failed the loquacious Rhonda, who glanced from Morgan to Ben in stunned silence.

  “Rob Lashner—” Ben’s voice was edged with steel “—is so blind with greed, he doesn’t care how many people might die from Frank’s unstable formula. With his dying words, Frank told me Rob had threatened him not to reveal the flaw, then set the fire that killed him.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Rhonda’s gray brows rose. “I know Rob’s always been a go-for-thejugular businessman, but a murderer? I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” Morgan said. “Neither my father nor Ben is a liar.”

  At least her father wasn’t. She recalled Ben’s lies about Josh.

  “I intend to have enough proof,” Ben said, “by the time the board meets next week, to send Rob to jail for the rest of his life. All I ask is that you keep an open mind.”

  “Of course,” Rhonda answered.

  Too quickly, Morgan thought. Her instincts screamed not to trust the woman, and she worried that Ben had revealed too much. She wanted to leave before he said more. “We’d better go.”

  Ben rose, tugged his wallet from the back pocket of his tennis shorts and extracted a card. “If you hear anything, give me a call at home.”

  “I’m not sure I trust her.” Morgan skipped down the exterior steps beside Ben. “She didn’t tell us anything new.”

  “No, but we’ve accomplished our mission.”

  “Instilling reasonable doubt?”

  “Exactly. Unless Rhonda is in league with Lashner—”

  “You think she might be?”

  He shrugged. “I’m the one who has trouble trusting people, remember?”

  “So Josh told me.”

  He had the good grace to look chagrined. “Anyway, our visit with Rhonda calls Rob’s credibility into question, unless I really do act brain damaged.”

  She paused at the foot of the stairs, tipped her head and considered him somberly. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but—”

  “Why, Morgan Winters Wells—” he broke into a smile “—you’re teasing me.”

  The warmth in his expression eased her icy fears. If only she could be convinced he cared for her, that he wasn’t simply using her to trap Lashner. Her head ached, as if it had been batted back and forth like one of the tennis balls she heard pinging on the nearest court. She had never doubted Ben’s motives until he’d revealed how he’d tricked her.

  Now, would she ever trust him again?

  He draped his forearms across her shoulders, clasped his hands behind her neck and regarded her with a fondness that made the gold flecks in his eyes shimmer. “What about you, Miz Greedy Guts? Do you come by your rumored stinginess naturally, or do you have to work at it?”

  “I do penny-pinching exercises every day,” she answered with a straight face.

  He tugged her closer, until her body fitted snugly against his. “I’m not usually a greedy man, but I want you all to myself.”

  She couldn’t resist needling him. “You’d better talk to Josh about that.”

  Desire flared in his eyes. He lowered his lips, but the reference to his deceit cooled her longing, and she turned her head away.

  “You asked me to remind you,” she said, “to call Detective Paxton.”

  After a long studying look, he nodded and dropped his arms from her shoulders. “It’s times like this I wish I didn’t have to worry about Lashner monitoring my cell phone calls. There’s a pay phone in the locker room. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared into a dark hallway behind the pro shop, and Morgan leaned against the rough cypress wall to wait, hidden from everyone except those passing on the adjacent walkway. She tipped back her head and closed her eyes. Without protest, she would gladly give a whole week’s pay for just one good night’s sleep.

  Voices from the tennis courts, the whirring of distant golf carts, even the clanking of a soft drink machine in the hallway behind her faded. She dozed, oblivious to her surroundings.

  “Why, Miss Winters,” a cultured voice exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise. I’ve been searching for you everywhere for weeks.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she looked directly into the face of her worst nightmare.

  Just a few feet away, a tall, thin man with graying hair had halted on the walk. He approached and cornered her in the hallway. “How good to see you again, my dear.”

  Robert Lashner had found her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Thanks, detective, I’ll keep in touch.” Ben hung up the receiver.

  Unwilling to leave Morgan alone a second longer, he rushed out of the locker room and jolted to a standstill when he spotted Lashner.

  Glancing quickly around the grounds, he detected no one who looked like Lashner’s henchmen. But not recognizing them didn’
t mean they weren’t out there. Thankful he had called for a cab before he’d phoned Paxton, he forced his tensed muscles to relax and sauntered toward Morgan and Lashner.

  “What are you doing here, Rob?”

  Lashner, who hadn’t heard him approach, wheeled around. His chiseled features broke into a welcoming smile, reminding Ben of a fox in a henhouse.

  “Ben,” he said in a booming voice, “it’s great to see you out and about. I’ve been worried about you, my boy.”

  Ben clenched his fists and held his temper. For two cents, he’d have gladly wiped the irritating smirk off Lashner’s conniving face.

  Morgan relayed Ben a look of relief. “Mr. Lashner says he’s been trying to contact me. I guess I should check Dad’s answering machine more often.”

  If coming face-to-face with her father’s killer had rattled her, it didn’t show, he thought, adminng her cool, collected poise.

  He rammed his fists in his pockets, ignoring Lashner’s outstretched hand. “What brings you here? Not tennis or golf in that suit.”

  Lashner dropped his hand to his side, but his smooth facade didn’t crack. “I’m early for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the main clubhouse, so I popped over to see Rhonda. She plays tennis every morning.”

  “Really?” Ben acted surprised, while suspicions raised the hackles on his neck. He wondered if Rhonda had called Lashner and told him Ben and Morgan were at the club. Rob’s showing up was either intentional or a crazy coincidence. “Give her my regards. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a car waiting.”

  “Of course.” Lashner nodded to Morgan and turned away, then halted and approached them again. “Do you know why a police detective visited me yesterday?”

  Suppressing a satisfied grin, Ben shrugged. “I’ve been cooped up at home, remember? You’re not in some kind of trouble, are you?”

  Lashner’s suave mask slipped. Malice glittered in his eyes, and his words struck cold and hard, like bullets. “No, I’m not the one in trouble.”

  “Happy to hear it,” Ben replied with fake enthusiasm, and placed his hand beneath Morgan’s elbow. “Sorry, but we have to run.”

  Stepping past Lashner, he guided Morgan out of the hallway and around the pro shop to the parking lot. Forcing an unhurried pace, he felt the older man’s stare boring between his shoulder blades. If the hired guns were around, they could grab Morgan and him at any moment, although an abduction in the club’s parking lot, visible to tennis players, golfers and Chamber members arriving for lunch wouldn’t be a smart move.

  And Lashner was no dummy.

  Nonetheless, when Ben found the cab waiting, relief blew through him like a fresh breeze. He opened the door for Morgan, then climbed in beside her.

  “Take us to the nearest shopping center,” he instructed the driver.

  Morgan, her face pinched and pallid, sighed with relief. “Seeing you step out of the locker room was like a last-minute reprieve.”

  Ben jerked his head toward the cabbie in a silent warning to watch her words. “What did our friend say before I arrived?”

  “Just that he’s been trying to reach me. I restrained myself from mentioning the deadly shape his latest ‘messages’ had taken.” Anger over the sniper who had almost killed her revived her color.

  He reached for her hand, happy when she didn’t pull away, and they rode in silence. Every few minutes, he checked the rear window. No cars appeared to be tailing them, but Lashner had enough money to hire the best, and a pro wouldn’t allow them to spot him.

  “Did you make your call?” Morgan asked.

  “I’ll tell you about it later.” Ben scanned the landscape as the cab turned into the shopping center. “Driver, drop us in front of the department store.”

  When the cab stopped, Ben exited, gave Morgan a hand as she climbed out, and paid the driver.

  “Where to now?” she asked as the taxi pulled away.

  “Shopping.”

  “For what?”

  “Another taxi. Lashner had a good look at this one. It’ll be easy to trace.” Taking her arm, Ben strode through the double doors of the store and paused at the first counter with an available clerk. “Is there a pay phone in the store?”

  The cosmetics clerk batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes and pointed toward the rear of the store. “Next to the rest rooms.”

  He started down the aisle with Morgan in step beside him. “I reached Paxton. He questioned Lashner yesterday, but Rob was at home, with twelve dinner guests as witnesses, when the sniper fired on us.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s too clever not to have an alibi. Did the police find the boat?”

  “They checked every marina between here and the mouth of Tampa Bay, but they couldn’t identify the sniper’s vessel. I doubt it docked at a marina, anyway. Thousands of private slips line the coast. That boat could be hidden anywhere by now.”

  They entered the rear hallway and found the phone kiosk. He dug into his pocket for change.

  Morgan, her forehead furrowed with worry, grasped his arm. “Paxton wasn’t fooled by Lashner’s alibi, was he?”

  Overwhelmed by a desire to shield her from any anxiety, he ran his finger down the soft curve of her cheek. “That’s the good news. Paxton’s put a roundthe-clock tail on my esteemed partner.”

  “Good. Now Lashner’s getting a taste of his own medicine.”

  The mixture of sweetness and sarcasm on her face enticed him, but her safety took precedence over his longing. He dropped a quarter in the slot, dialed a cab company and gave directions to a spot blocks away, a place Lashner would have a hard time connecting to them if he checked the taxi company logs.

  When Ben hung up, Morgan headed back into the store.

  He grabbed her arm. “Not that way.”

  Turning to the rear of the hallway, he opened a door marked Employees Only. In the stockroom, a middle-aged man was stacking boxes of dinnerware.

  “Hey,” he said with a bad-tempered growl, “you can’t come in here.”

  Unperturbed, Ben ambled toward him. “Is there a back way out?”

  “Yeah, but ain’t nobody supposed to use it but employees. You’ll have to leave the way you came.”

  Ben returned to the door they’d entered, opened it a tiny crack and peered out. His viewpoint offered an unobstructed vista of the front of the store. Entering the front doors behind a woman with a baby stroller was the thug who had attempted to kidnap Morgan at the airport. Two big guys in ill-fitting suits followed close behind. The poor cut of their clothes failed to conceal the bulge of shoulder holsters beneath their jackets. Lashner’s assassins had caught up fast.

  Ben drew back, shut the door and tried to purge the panic from his expression.

  “What is it?” Morgan asked

  “Our friend from the airport and his pals,” he whispered, “but don’t worry.”

  He reached for his wallet, pulled out a fifty dollar bill and approached the stock man. “Hey, buddy, can you help a guy out? I’m really in a pinch.”

  He flashed the fifty, then leaned over and whispered in the man’s ear.

  The older man’s ruddy face broke into a grin. He palmed the bill and shoved it in his pocket “Right this way, folks.”

  They followed the stock man down an aisle between shelves piled high with inventory and through a curtained alcove into a dark hallway.

  The man indicated an exit sign glowing red at the hall’s end. “That door opens out back, behind the Dumpster.”

  Knowing Lashner’s assassins were breathing down their necks, Ben didn’t wait to thank their guide. He rushed Morgan straight to the door and out into the glaring sunlight. Surveying the area swiftly, he pointed to an almost imperceptible break in the headhigh hedge lining the back of the shopping center lot. “That way.”

  Morgan spnnted to the hedge and slipped easily between the ligustrum branches into the backyard of a small ranch-style house. Ben followed, cursing silently at the valuable seconds wasted freeing his shirt that sn
agged on a branch.

  He caught up with Morgan and headed up the driveway. “I hope you’re up to a jog.”

  “Good thing we’re both wearing sneakers.” She followed his lead without question or complaint, as if they’d worked as a team their whole lives. He found her intriguing in ways he couldn’t begin to define. If they came through this alive, he looked forward to identifying what made her so appealing.

  But now wasn’t the time to contemplate her allure. He glanced quickly over his shoulder. Their pursuers were not in sight, but the men could appear any minute. He had to widen the distance.

  He and Morgan pounded up the drive and reached the curb of a deserted residential street. Together they darted across the road to the drive of the opposite house, through the open carport to the rear and straight into the adjoining backyard. They sprinted to the next street, turned right at the curb and jogged down the shaded avenue.

  He had to be losing his mind. The troublesome wound in his chest ached, he labored to breathe, and they had three hired killers on their heels, but in spite of all that, he felt lighter and happier than he had in weeks.

  Morgan, her lips softly parted, her skin glowing like porcelain beneath a thin sheen of perspiration, her glorious golden hair gleaming in the dappled light, inspired his irrational well-being. When she glanced at him, her sky blue eyes shimmered with acceptance, and the sweet tilt of her lips made unspoken promises.

  Okay, so he was crazy, but he felt terrific. His burden of past deceptions and lies had lifted. She had learned the truth, and she didn’t hate him for it.

  He laughed aloud.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked without breaking stride.

  She’d think him nuts if he confessed how happy he was. “I was thinking about the man in the stockroom and how quickly fifty dollars changed his mind about helping us.”

  She lifted one brow. “It took more than fifty dollars. What did you whisper to him?”