by Linda Ladd
“Guess we need to talk, Novak.”
All politeness was now gone, not even a “mister” in front of his name. “Yeah? Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Think you forgot to mention a couple of things to me.”
“I’m not usually forgetful.”
“I’m not looking for trouble here.”
That’s when Novak stopped eating and tried to relax his muscles. He put his right hand down beside his thigh where Wilson couldn’t see it. There were fourteen other guys in the place, and they all had a secret wish to gun him down. A fight would be heavily one-sided, but he had a weapon and he knew how to use it. He hoped they didn’t wear firearms to dinner, but he wasn’t counting on any of them being disarmed.
“You trying to say I’m trouble, Mr. Wilson?”
“You didn’t tell me you were a Navy SEAL.”
“Should I have?”
“That’s a pretty impressive credential, I’d say. It impresses me.”
Novak shrugged, relaxed some, and took another bite. But he didn’t relax too much. This guy seemed to bounce all over the place with his questions and his moods.
Wilson observed him askance. Silent for several minutes. “I was just thinking that you’re awfully big for a SEAL, wouldn’t you say so? Thought they liked small guys. You know, wiry guys. Quick guys.”
Novak was a hell of a lot quicker on his feet than most people would think. Wilson didn’t need to know that. “Maybe I specialized in other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Classified other stuff.”
They stared at each other for another long moment. Wilson decided not to push the issue. Instead he brought up a new one.
“Also found out that you were at the NYPD. You didn’t mention that, either.”
“That was a long time ago.” Novak frowned and put down his fork, not taking his eyes off the guy sitting across from him. “My past affiliations bother you? If so, I can be out of here in fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Now, don’t go getting your back up.”
“So what’s this all about? Look, if you’ve changed your mind about putting me on the payroll, fine. I don’t have a problem with it. I’ll clear out right now. Like I said, I like to keep on the move. See what’s down the road.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. I definitely want to keep you on.”
“Anything else you want to ask me?”
“Says you left the military and became a private investigator? You still doing that? You up here investigating me? Can’t blame me for wondering about that, can you?”
Novak decided it was time to start lying. He didn’t want to mention working with Claire Morgan. Her name had become well-known because of the notoriety of some of her cases and her new husband’s fame as a world-renowned psychiatrist. Not many people knew he and Claire were partners, not yet. It was a new enterprise, a new partnership, and the guys that knew about it could be trusted. Claire liked to keep things quiet. Just like him. Another reason he liked her.
“I don’t do that much anymore,” said Novak. “Occasionally, I’ll help somebody out, if it’s a friend in some kind of trouble and if I’ve got the time and want to. Like I told you, I go my own way. Do my own thing. Don’t answer to anybody. That’s the way I like things.”
Wilson was still studying his face, trying to see any hint of subterfuge in his expression, any movement of his eyes that would indicate he was lying. Novak knew those telltale signs, too. He looked back steadily and didn’t display any of them. He’d been trained by the best to withstand enemy interrogations, had withstood a few across from some pretty brutal guys. Wilson didn’t know who he was dealing with. But that was good. He’d find out soon enough.
“I had you checked out because I’m thinking you’d be a good man to guard my wife.”
Okay, now that one really did catch Novak by surprise. Made him damn suspicious, too. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d be interested in. Sorry. I keep my distance from wives, especially the boss’s wife.”
Wilson grinned. “I need somebody who’s good enough to watch over her. Somebody tough and capable like you. She’s a handful, let me tell you.”
Novak frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means she has a mind of her own. Likes to do things her way. Doesn’t like to be told what to do.”
“Doesn’t sound unreasonable. You saying she shouldn’t have a mind of her own?”
“Let’s just say that she doesn’t always listen to me. And she’s got one hell of a temper if she doesn’t get her way.” He sighed. “You see, she’s used to wrapping me around her little finger. I pamper her. Can’t seem to help myself.”
Yeah, I bet, Novak thought.
“I have enemies,” Wilson admitted then. “I’m just trying to keep her safe.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Except that she doesn’t like it. Won’t put up with it. Fights me at every turn.”
Novak said nothing.
“You interested?” Wilson prompted.
“Maybe. After I get used to this place. See how it goes for a few days. Don’t know yet if I like it here. People don’t seem very friendly.”
“Give it time.”
“What enemies?”
“People I’ve had problems with in the past. Everybody has a few of those. Even you, I suspect.”
Novak started eating again, silent. He had enemies, all right, usually two steps behind him.
“You didn’t tell me that you grew up in Australia, either.”
Novak put down his fork. “That bother you, too, Wilson?”
“It’s interesting to me.”
“I’ve been in America a long time. I was born here. I grew up down there.”
“My report says you’ve been a private investigator for a long time.”
“Didn’t we just settle that? You always grill new employees like this? I don’t like it much.”
“If they’re going to be around my wife, I do.”
If Novak found out that Wilson’s wife was being mistreated, he was going to make sure she was long gone before her husband found a suitable guard to watch over her. “You keep saying I’m gonna be around your wife. I said I wasn’t interested. We got a communication problem here, or what?”
“You’d be good at the job, I think. I don’t think she could get things by you like she does the others. She knows how to handle men. She’s very charming and very manipulative.”
“You don’t even know me, Wilson. Why the hell do you want a complete stranger guarding your charming, manipulative wife?”
“Sometimes that’s the best kind of person I could have around her.” He glanced across the room at the other men, then back at Novak. “And I told you. I like your credentials. You can hold your own. You’ve proved it twice already.”
“Against a woman?”
“Against my wife.”
Novak didn’t want to sound too eager. But he wanted that job. “I don’t want to be a bodyguard. Done that a couple of times. Didn’t like it.”
“Just think about it, will you? Meet her. See if you don’t think she needs somebody like you to protect her when I’m not around.” He frowned around some more, apparently sick and tired of his spousal dilemma. “She’s just a little bitty thing. Fragile. Emotional. Ethereal. My precious little bird.”
This guy sounded like a misogynist to Novak. Novak decided to play the “Me Tarzan, You Jane” game with him. “So are most women. Doesn’t mean I want to spend all my time babysitting your precious little bird, especially if she’s also a headstrong, bitchy woman.”
Wilson laughed. “Like I said. Think about it before you turn me down. Get your bearings around here. Then come up to the house for dinner one night.” He nodded, got a smug expression on his face. “Once you meet her, you’ll want the job. Haven’t met a man yet who didn’t immediately feel the need to protect her. She’s just like that. Brings out a man’s protective instincts.”
“She’s had a few.”
“Get one of them to do it again.”
“They didn’t work out for various reasons.”
“Maybe I won’t, either.”
“Like I said, Novak, think on it. I’ll double that salary I quoted you. That ought to tell you something.”
Novak decided that to stay true to his cover, the money ought to be the clincher. If he really was a drifter working for cash and then moving on, that would be a good incentive to try out the bodyguard bit. And Novak needed to get that job. He wanted to meet the wife. Spend time alone with her. Make sure she was Emma and she was okay and she really wanted to get out. “All right, I’ll take a look at her, I guess. But if she’s a whining brat, I’m not your man.”
First, Wilson looked slightly annoyed by Novak’s description of his wife, but that didn’t last long. “She’s far from being that sort of girl. You’ll like her. Everybody loves her.”
Wilson sat a while longer, made small talk a bit about the compound’s various features, and then he finally got up and left. The other men watched him out the door and then swiveled wary eyes back to Novak. They were afraid of their master, no doubt about it. Now they were afraid of Novak, too. But that was a good thing.
Chapter Eighteen
Novak lay on his bed in the dark in his own snug little cabin at the far end of the Hunt Club road. He lifted his arm and looked at the glowing green numerals on his wristwatch. Two-thirty a.m. He was waiting. He was forcing himself to rest, relax all his muscles, but he was as impatient as hell to get outside and explore the forested miles of Wilson’s compound. There was a whole lot going on around him in Wilson’s idyllic retreat nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Novak wanted to know exactly what was going down, when it was going down, and where it was going down. He jumped a bit, startled, when his phone vibrated around on top of the nightstand. He scooped it up. The screen read Claire Morgan.
“Whatcha doin’?” she asked when he picked up.
“Lying here waiting to get out and cause Barrett Wilson some serious grief.”
“Sounds like you. Sounds like me. Sounds like a lot of fun, too. Wish I was there.”
“Harve find out anything?”
“Harve always finds out everything. Your guy’s got lots of holes in his background story. But I suspect you already know that.”
“Yeah, I guessed as much. What about his wife?”
“Even less to go on. I’ll let you read it yourself. One thing you might not know. Emma Adamson’s parents died in a murder/suicide thing. They were about to get imprisoned for forgery. You know about that?”
“No. What about Emma?”
“She apparently wasn’t involved, but her husband was the one who turned her parents in. Can’t imagine her being overly kosher with that.”
“Yeah. Maybe this whole thing has to do with forgery. Emma’s an artist herself, a good one.”
“It’s worth considering. You sure you don’t need me to come back and help you give that guy some serious grief? I’m good at causing trouble, as you know.”
“I don’t think Black would go for that. He seems to like having his bride around on the honeymoon.”
“That he does. I like it, too, actually. We’re between islands right now, drinking champagne and watching one hell of a gorgeous Hawaiian sunset. At least, he’s drinking champagne. I’m drinking fresh pineapple juice. Like to keep my senses about me, even in paradise on earth.”
“So he’s doing good?”
“Yep. Better every day.”
“What about you?”
“I am good to go. Hand’s all healed up. How’s your shoulder?”
“Okay. Well, tell him I said hello and to take it easy. You stay out there and have a good time. I’ll see you whenever I see you. Gotta go have my own kind of fun. Tell Harve thanks for the info.”
They hung up. Novak thought the art forgery thing might be the best lead yet. It fit, and he wondered why Mariah hadn’t seen the need to mention it. Seemed to him that she was hiding something from him. If so, he would find out what soon enough. He immediately went into his email account and skimmed Harve’s meticulous report on Barrett Wilson. It didn’t amount to much more than Mariah had already provided. Except for the forgery thing. It didn’t appear Emma had any involvement whatsoever. But her husband had turned them in.
All of it was connected somehow; he just had to separate the strands and weave them together again in the right pattern. Wilson had covered his tracks well, if he even was Robin Adamson on the run. This guy did not resemble the pictures, not enough for Novak to be sure. But most guys on the lam changed their looks. He meant to find that out tonight. It was time. He turned the deadbolt on the front door, slipped out onto the back stoop, and locked that door behind him.
Stepping down onto the concrete patio, he stood there in the cool darkness and listened. Not a sound. Nobody around. No game cameras set up, not out in back of his cabin. He’d checked that out earlier that evening. He moved out, keeping inside the shadows. He squatted down every few minutes, watching and listening for the crackle of dead leaves or the snap of branches breaking. He didn’t want to be found out, not this soon. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wilson had somebody tailing him. If anything, Wilson appeared to be careful.
All was silent except for the stiff breeze rattling through the tree branches high above his head. Somewhere far off in the night, he heard dogs barking. Lots of dogs. He hoped to hell they weren’t let loose at night to roam the compound, but he had a feeling they might be. When he was far enough behind the row of cabins, he pulled out his flashlight and headed at a slow jog back through the woods on a diagonal line. He had pretty much cased out the compound for directional cues and distances on his initial tour in Wilson’s Jeep. Now he wanted to see if there were other buildings on other roads that he hadn’t seen, because his gut kept telling him that there was more going on under the placid, well-ordered surface of Wilson’s three businesses than met the eye. He was pretty sure nothing about it would be good.
Novak made good time in the woods, veering down game trails and rain gullies, always heading in the direction of the cliff house. He slowed considerably when he came to the nearest end of Wilson’s personal valley. Far across the pasture he could see lights burning in the house atop the cliff. Looked as if Wilson had plenty of dusk-to-dawn security lamps posted at intervals around his home. They completely surrounded the house. He turned off the flashlight and then made his way down the rocky slope to the edge of the vast and grassy fields, keeping near the gravel road but staying well out of sight.
Once he hit level ground, he took off running through the waist-high grass and weeds. Fast-paced but quiet. He was used to distance running, did it every single morning at Bonne Terre. Rain or shine. He liked to finish with a sprint and then hit it hard on a punching bag before sprinting to a second bag and beating the hell out of it. He kept himself fit that way and that regimen acted to hone his fighting skills. He made it quickly to the river, guided by the faint light of a half-moon. He could hear the sound of the river roaring between its banks before he actually saw it. The water was high from some heavy rains hitting hard up in Tennessee, storms he’d seen on the television in his room at the Avalon, big ones that were causing flooding everywhere around. The river was rushing down its bed, hard and loud, and looked fairly treacherous in spots, with some rock-strewn shallow rapids and what looked like deep holes, dangerous with swirling currents. He’d have to find a shallow ford where he could get to the other side safely and without being seen.
When he found a good spot that gave him an unhampered view of the house, he hunkered down and listened again. He wanted to know if Wilson had guards patrolling the riverbank. He figured the guy did; he seemed security conscious enough to have them posted everywhere. Novak could get past them without a problem. He could have waited until Wilson invited him up to meet his little fragile bird, bu
t he wanted to know the layout and placement of guards before he walked blindly into what could be a trap. Wilson didn’t seem the overly trusting sort and had researched Novak and questioned him about his past. Maybe he wasn’t as impressed as he said he was. Maybe he thought Novak might be out there in the dark, up to no good, and doing exactly what he was doing at the moment.
After waiting about fifteen minutes with everything remaining still, with no guards showing up on either side of the river, he rose up again but kept hidden inside the trees while he searched for a place to cross the stream. He found it about thirty yards above the house. He crossed easily, using a series of flat rocks as stepping stones and wading through swift knee-deep water the rest of the way. Then he crept down along the base of the cliff, keeping well inside the dark shadows that hugged the overhanging granite bluff.
Novak was fairly certain that this was the approximate spot where he saw the woman riding the horse. There had to be a bridle path somewhere along the bank that she had taken back up top. It took him another half hour to find it. It was fairly wide, about five feet, and a little steep, but it rose gradually with enough turns to make the ascent safely both on foot and horseback. The woman had to be a good equestrienne to make it up or down that path without her horse spooking or sliding on loose rocks. According to Mariah, Emma Adamson was that good. But lots of women were that good. He kept his eyes peeled for game cameras or security traps, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe this reconnaissance was going to be easier than he thought.
By the time he made it to the top, he could see all kinds of lights and lampposts throwing off circles of white illumination that he was going to have to avoid. Other lights would probably be motion-detector lamps, which was doubly dangerous. He skirted back behind the property where the night lay deep and dark and impenetrable. That’s when he spotted the first guard.
A man was stationed at the side of the house. The guy was not big, maybe five feet nine inches. Slender, not husky. He was standing at the bottom edge of a large deck made of stained wood. The guy was smoking a cigarette. Novak could smell it from where he stood. The tip brightened in the darkness each time he took a drag. The deck had four levels, one after another, all leading gradually up from an oblong swimming pool to a sliding-glass door. The surface of the water was hidden by floating wisps of steam; the pool heated for the cool fall weather. Underwater lights were on. It looked like a smoking blue topaz stone lighting up the night. The water was moving, blown from the slight breeze, and throwing wavering reflections up against the side of the house and the guard and the nearby trees. It looked as if the whole scene floated underwater.