The corner of his mouth lifted, and he dropped the bathrobe so he could begin shucking off his clothes. Not quickly though. The jacket went first. Then, the shirt after he unbuttoned it. It went into the growing pile with the others.
She’d already seen his scars in the alley by the Purple Longhorn. But that seemed a lifetime ago.
“Who gave them to you?” she asked. Dana reached out and traced the one on his right pec.
He grunted softly. Maybe from her touch. Maybe from the question. “It happened a long time ago.”
“That’s an odd name for someone who clearly tried to kill you. Who?” she pressed. She went to the next scar several inches down.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. The first attack happened when I was twelve.”
Her gaze flashed to his. “First?”
“My parents and I were coming home from Christmas shopping, and we walked in on an intruder. He killed both my mom and dad, knifed me and left me for dead.”
The scar-touching torture stopped, and she felt a different kind of torture. Not from the heat or his mouth. But from the pain that his scars caused her.
It broke her heart.
She heard the helpless little sound, and it took her a moment to realize that it had come from her own throat.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It was a long time ago,” he repeated. Jack eased his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him.
Dana did some easing as well--right into his arms. “You’re the first man who’s seen me like this since the stabbing,” she confessed.
He brushed a kiss on her forehead. “I know.”
From any other person, that would have sounded trite at best. A lie, at worst. But Dana had the frightening feeling that it wasn’t a lie. Because her head and heart were all over the place, she might have actually said that to him. Aloud. But the annoying sound brought her back to planet earth.
“Your cell phone,” Jack said, and he let go of her so he could dig it out of her purse. “Unknown caller,” he relayed. “I’ll let it go to voice mail.”
And Dana didn't argue.
She was worried that might turn out to be a trend here.
While they waited and she worried, Dana pulled the bathrobe closed and tied the sash around her waist. It wouldn’t do much to keep Jack’s hands off her, but being covered up might not make her feel so much like a wanton harlot. Well, not a harlot anyway. The wantonness seemed there to stay.
Jack pushed the necessary icons on her phone to bring up the voice mail on speaker.
“Ms. McNeil," the recorded voice said, "it’s me Samuel Wright, the PI that Patricia Snyder hired. I spoke with you earlier outside your bar.”
Dana wasn’t exactly relieved that it was the PI, but she had braced herself in case the killer had left her some kind of threat.
“I need to talk to you,” Wright insisted, “Patricia Snyder has been…murdered and raped. If it’s connected to the letter that Dr. Hartwell’s beneficiaries received, then you could be in danger, too. Call me the second you get this message.”
Jack looked at her. “You won’t be calling him.” And it wasn’t a suggestion.
“You didn’t tell me Patricia had been raped,” Dana managed to say. “Is it true?”
Jack nodded. “She was murdered first, then raped.”
“Oh, God.” She’d known the killer was sick, but this was sick. “And you believe this Wright is connected?”
Jack brushed a kiss on her cheek and headed for the closet. “He knows about the letter, and that means he’s a suspect. He could have been the one who tried to kill us.”
That thinned her breath some more and sent her stomach churning. Dana wanted to be strong, but this was beyond her coping abilities.
“Once I have all my people in place,” Jack continued, “someone will tail Samuel Wright and figure out if he’s who he says he is. If he’s connected to Dr. Hartwell, then we’ll find it.”
“Connected,” she mumbled. “Maybe he’s related to Patricia Snyder? With her dead, he would be in a position to inherit her part of the estate.”
“No,” Jack said from the closet. “I got a copy of Dr. Hartwell’s will, and the bequest to the six of us isn’t transferable. If one of us dies, the pie slice just gets larger. If all of us are dead, the money will be divided among two dozen different charities.”
Dana gave that some thought. “Maybe Samuel Wright didn’t know that.”
“Maybe,’ Jack agreed. He came back in the room and held out a pair of what appeared to be yellow silk lounging pajamas.
Dana didn’t take them. In fact, the only thing she did was take a step back.
Jack stared at her. “This isn’t a seduction set-up. These are the only things in the closet that would come close to fitting you.”
Dana tightened the sash on the robe. “Not yellow,” she managed to say.
He glanced at the PJs. Then, at her. “Trey,” he growled, and he tossed the PJ’s onto the closet floor.
She didn’t ask if he’d seen the police pictures of her blood soaked yellow pajamas, but Dana prayed he hadn’t. She didn’t want those images in anyone else’s head.
Jack kept his attention on her and used the second bathrobe to towel his hair. His clothes were still wet. His shirt, still open.
“Nothing in that closet to fit you?” she asked. Not that she minded seeing his bare chest, but it was a distraction. And a reminder of those body kisses he’d just given her.
Another head shake. “The person who owns this place only uses it to meet his lover on the first and third Saturdays of the month. He doesn’t keep many clothes here.”
She made a sweeping glance around the place. “This is someone’s love nest?”
“Yeah. My company, Sen-tron, bought it for him under another corporate name, and one of my subsidiary agencies manages the property. None of it can be traced back to me.”
As if he’d noticed the way she was looking at his chest--and he probably had--the corner of his mouth kicked up, and he walked back to her. He slid his hand around her waist and nudged her closer.
But this time, Dana held her ground. Those kisses were incredible, but they clouded her mind.
“You’re very rich,” she said.
He looked at the distance between them. Frowned. “I am. I inherited a lot of money when my parents were killed. I made some decent investments.”
A massive understatement no doubt.
“Does the money matter?” he asked. With his hand still on her waist, he tugged her closer again. She landed against him, and what was left of her breath went south.
Oh, man.
This wasn’t good.
“I can’t even think about having sex with you,” she clarified.
He just stared at her.
“Okay, I can think about it,” Dana amended. And visualize it. And feel it. “But I can’t…do it with you.”
Sheez. She sounded like a teenager in the back seat of a car.
Jack moved his mouth to her ear. “It’s okay.” But he also moved his hand from her waist and inside the robe. To her stomach. “I’ll never push you farther than you want to go.”
His hand went lower. Returning to the front of her panties. Back to the place where the heat went from warm to scalding.
“You’re pushing me now,” she pointed out.
“Yeah. But you want to go there.” And he cut off anything else she might have said with one of those scorcher kisses. “Let me make you want it more.”
Oh, that sounded like the path to hell. Or to paradise. Either way, Dana thought she might be ready to see where Jack’s agile hand would take her.
But her ringing phone stopped both her and Jack’s hand.
He cursed, let go of her and grabbed the phone from her purse again. “Unknown caller,” Jack said, looking at the screen.
Probably Samuel Wright again. Like before, Jack let it go to voice mail, and then he put the recording on speaker
.
“I’m calling back in thirty seconds, Dana,” the man said. Definitely not Samuel Wright. “Answer it. Because we’ve got a lot to talk about. Oh, and by the way, this is Vince Langford.”
The call ended, and Jack and she exchanged glances. Concerned ones. “You think it’s really him?” she asked.
Jack lifted his shoulder, and they waited, the seconds crawling by. Even though Dana knew the second call was coming, she still gasped when the shrill sound shot through the room. Jack answered it, but he didn’t say a word.
“Cain,” the caller said. “I’m betting you didn’t let Dana answer the call. That’s okay. I need to deal with you, too. We have to talk.”
“How do I know this is really Vincent Langford?” Jack questioned.
“Vince,” he corrected. “One look at my face, and you’ll know.”
That stirred Jack’s jaw muscles. “Dana’s not getting close enough to your face until I know who you really are.”
“Too late,” he fired back. “I’m already here, Cain. Take a look out front and then let me the hell in.”
Chapter Nine
Jack knew there wasn’t enough profanity for him to express just how he hadn’t wanted this to happen, but he cursed anyway. He also did a little praying that this was a bluff, but the caller’s tone didn’t have a hint of a bluff in it.
With Dana right on his heels, Jack hurried across the room to the wall of windows that faced the front of the house. There was a park-like area across the street. No houses. Just thick trees and shrub lined trails. At first Jack didn’t see anyone, but then the man stepped out from behind one of the massive oaks. He was wearing jeans, a black leather jacket and had a phone pressed to his ear. Even from this distance, he could see the man’s face.
Jack’s face.
It was the same man, same face that he’d caught a glimpse of when he was escaping with Dana.
“Satisfied?” Vince asked.
“Not even close,” Jack snarled. “How'd you find me?”
Vince kept his attention fastened to the house. “I’d rather get out of the rain to discuss that. We’re getting soaked out here.”
“We?” Jack challenged.
The man reached behind the tree, caught onto someone and dragged out the other part of the we.
A sound came from Dana’s throat. Maybe surprise, but Jack had known that sooner or later this meeting would happen. At the rate they were going, however, he’d thought his first glimpse of these two might be photographs of their dead bodies. But like Dana and him, they’d survived.
Maybe because one of them was the killer.
Not the woman. Not Grace Fletcher.
And Jack wanted to kick himself for immediately thinking that. That was Dana’s face, and he couldn’t bring himself to think she was capable of murder.
“Let them in,” he heard Dana say.
Jack snapped toward her, and he was ready to launch into a dozen or more reasons why that wasn’t a good idea.
“He didn’t try to kill us,” she added.
“Hell.” And Jack repeated it while he held his hand over the phone so Vince wouldn’t be able to hear this argument. “It’s because he looks like me.”
“Possibly.” Her eyes came to his. “Probably,” she amended. “But we also need answers, and they might have them.” Dana paused. “Besides, they know we’re here. They found us. As a minimum, we can find out how they did that so the next place will be safer.”
Jack couldn’t argue with that. They would need to move, and he had to know how to make that place safer. However, he was afraid that these answers would have a huge price tag on them.
“Well?” Vince asked. “What’s the verdict?”
Jack went through all the possibilities. Putting Dana in the car and driving out of there. Calling for Rusty to come and apprehend their visitors. Jack didn’t want to do that himself because he didn’t want to leave Dana alone.
But he ditched those possibilities, including the one about staying put and doing nothing. Besides, if Vince was anything like him, then this visit was going to happen.
“Is your phone traceable?” Jack asked.
“Of course not. And neither is Grace’s. I adjusted the settings. Hope you did the same to yours and Dana’s.”
“I did. Now, leave all your weapons on the porch,” Jack instructed Vince.
Vince made a huffing sound. “You’ll be armed.”
“Yes, I will,” Jack promised. “I’ll meet you at the door.” He faced Dana head-on. “And you won’t be. You’ll stay here.”
She lifted her hands in the air. “Since when don’t I have a say in this?”
“Since now,” Jack fired back. He didn’t like being a jackass, but he couldn’t risk Dana’s safety. “There’ll be a gun somewhere in the closet. Find it. Hold onto it. Lock the bedroom door behind me. And most important, stay put.”
She called him a name. A bad one.
He dropped a kiss on her outraged mouth, drew his gun from the back waist of his pants and walked out. He waited until she’d shut the door. Actually, she slammed it. The moment he heard her engage the locks, he hurried down the two flights of stairs. By the time he made it there, someone was already ringing the doorbell. Vince, he verified when he looked through the peephole. Grace was standing right behind him.
Jack got his gun into position, braced himself for pretty much anything, and he disarmed the security system before he threw open the door.
Vince met him gun-to-gun.
Jack saw that it was his face all right, except for the scar, but he also saw the hard determination in his double’s eyes.
“I said no weapons,” Jack repeated.
“Then put yours down,” Vince countered.
Not in the mood for word games, Jack started to shut the door, but Vince blocked it with his boot.
“If you want your toes still attached to your body, you’d better take a step back,” Jack warned.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Grace stepped between the two. “Stop your pissing contest and get inside. Drawing attention to ourselves is probably not a good idea.”
Her words were stern, but her expression changed when she met Jack’s gaze. She made a slight sound in her throat and stared at him. Those were Dana’s eyes. Dana’s face. But it was different, too. The slight chicken pox scar near her left eyebrow. Her lips were chapped.
She didn’t dress like Dana, either. Not that he knew a lot about Dana’s wardrobe, but Grace wore baggy khakis and a tucked in black shirt. She would have looked boyish if it weren’t for that tumble of blond hair on her shoulders.
Grace stared at Jack a moment, gave a weary sigh and stepped around him and into the foyer.
Jack felt it. The punch of attraction. It wasn't quite as strong as what he’d felt when he first saw Dana. But close. However, because she wasn’t Dana, he moved back and gave her some room. Besides, he had bigger fish to fry right now.
“How did you find me?” Jack asked Vince. And he blocked the man from coming inside.
Vince made a sweeping glance behind him first. “I had some friends tap into the traffic light cameras with facial recognition software. They picked you up at the light just outside the neighborhood. Then, I had them do a satellite check, and they saw you drive into the garage.”
Jack knew from experience that kind of help wasn’t available from just anyone. “FBI?” he questioned. “National Security Agency?”
“Both. And a couple of others who freelance, more or less.”
That didn’t settle the knot in his stomach. “You have friends in high places. And low ones. You’d better hope to hell that those friends didn’t help lead the killer to Dana. Or Grace,” he added. Jack glanced at her, but she was only volleying glances at both of them.
“Probably the best way to prevent the killer from killing us,” Grace said, “is to get inside and shut the door.”
She was right, but Jack wasn’t letting Vince inside until that gun was out of his hand
s. The look he gave Vince must have finally convinced the man of that because Vince cursed, eased his gun onto the foyer floor and stepped inside. Jack, however, didn’t put down his gun, but he did lock the door, and he rearmed the security system. He also took out his phone and called Rusty.
“I need you over here now,” Jack told his PI. “Bring DNA kits.”
That didn’t earn him any surprised looks from either Vince or Grace.
“So, you think you two are twins?” Grace asked. Her voice was similar to Dana’s, but the cadence was off. Still, if she’d whispered it to him, he might not have been able to tell the difference.
“Triplets,” Jack corrected. “Maybe.”
“Maybe could be right,” Vince said. “I’m going to reach in my jacket and take out something, and I’d rather you didn’t shoot me.”
Jack nodded, eventually, and Vince extracted an envelope that looked familiar. So were the photos that Vince took out and dropped onto a marble foyer table.
Now, Grace reacted. She gasped and picked up the photo of their nude look-alikes having sex.
“I took them from the car you left parked in front of Dana’s apartment,” Vince volunteered.
Jack felt himself practically bristle. He didn’t like this man breaking into his car or saying Dana’s name. It sounded intimate.
“That’s not me,” Grace said, shaking her head. She gave both Vince and him an accusing glance. “One of you was with Dana McNeil?”
“It’s not me either,” someone said from the top of the stairs.
Jack turned and gave Dana his best glare. Which she ignored. Obviously, she’d ignored his stay put warning, too, because here she was.
She was still wearing the bathrobe, probably because her clothes were soaking wet, but that, too, seemed intimate even though she was covered from neck to ankles.
“Dana,” Vince said in that some tone that was like nails on a chalkboard to Jack.
“Vince,” she greeted before looking at the woman who shared her face. “Grace.” She tipped her head to the living room that was just off the foyer. “I think we all sit down and try to work this out.”
But none of them moved.
They all just stood there, staring at each other. Jack was pretty sure though that Vince did more staring at Dana than anyone else. Finally, Dana broke the staring session, and she went into the room and dropped down onto the sofa.
Dead Ringers Page 7