by Linda Ladd
Novak watched her disappear inside her back door, and then headed inside the cabin. He glanced around after he got inside, but nothing looked disturbed. He didn’t think Kiki would have come inside, and she would’ve had to pick the lock to do it. Maybe she could break and enter with the best of them, but he didn’t think so. It had been a very close call, and Sandy would be missed within a matter of hours. Not good. Especially on Novak’s first night at the compound. And especially if they found Sandy’s body.
Still, the river was high and running hard, and unless the body got snagged on a log or root wad, he was probably not going to be found, at least not anywhere inside the compound. If Kiki forgot and mentioned to anybody that Novak was out running on the very night Sandy disappeared, Novak better be prepared to clear out in a hurry. Still shivering from the cold, he took a quick shower, as hot as he could stand it, and then he climbed into bed. He could sleep anytime, anywhere, under any conditions. He could get by on a couple of hours sleep when he had to, all learned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan and lots of other places. Sometimes, like now, that strict self-discipline came in handy. Novak was asleep within minutes, his weapon on the bed, right beside him.
Chapter Nineteen
By the time Novak got to work the next morning, the entire staff was in an uproar. Sandy Boyer had not shown up for duty. He wasn’t in his cabin, either, and nobody could find him. They searched the compound all day, with no luck. Kiki didn’t give up the news of Novak’s nocturnal wanderings the night before, but maybe she didn’t connect Sandy’s disappearance with Novak’s hours spent in the woods. She wasn’t a Mensa prospect, after all, that was for damn sure. Instead, she concentrated on doing lots of elaborate eye winking at Novak during the breakfast rush hour and inviting him to sample her highly desirous and fragrant charms. Novak didn’t partake.
Wilson didn’t show up himself, but he did order the river searched, thinking Sandy might have fallen in, been swept away, and drowned. According to some of the other men, Sandy didn’t know how to swim, and one of Wilson’s guards had been carried off a year or so back when the river had been high and swift, just like it was now. It seemed that off-duty guards often swam in the river, right down under the cliff house. It was a dangerous stretch of the stream, and the other guy had barely survived. He had finally fought his way back to the bank but he was almost a mile downriver before he could save himself.
It was lucky for Novak that it was common knowledge that Boyer couldn’t swim. Even more fortunate, the searchers had found a spot that very morning where the muddy bank was all torn up, as if someone had slipped off into the water and clawed at the ground, trying to climb back up. To Novak’s relief, nobody found Sandy’s body. But they probably would. Eventually. Someplace far downstream. If Novak’s good fortune held, miles away. And if all went as planned, Novak would be long gone before that happened.
After the initial search ended in failure, most talk about the missing head of security died down. Seemed like disappearances didn’t raise all that many red flags on Barrett Wilson’s compound. Maybe Sandy Boyer wasn’t particularly well-liked, and everybody was secretly pleased he had gone missing. Novak bet the girls down at the Triangle were celebrating big time and busting out the champagne. They had seemed petrified of his black leather togs and jingling silver chains and threats of severe punishment. Even Mariah had been wary of him. Sandy’s truck remained right where it was that morning, parked out in front of his cabin. When Novak returned to his own cabin later that day, it was gone. Sandy wasn’t mentioned again in Novak’s presence. A guy named Jose Madero took over his job. Nobody cared; nobody mourned.
Almost a week went by without incident, and without Novak catching a single glimpse of Barrett Wilson. He began to worry that Wilson had put two and two together and suspected Novak of foul play. Novak continued to go about his boring job at the Shoot Club, come straight back to his cabin after work, eat alone, talk to nobody, fight off Kiki’s aggressive sexual advances, and then go to bed alone. He spent a couple more nights out on surveillance below Wilson’s cliff house but couldn’t find a way to get inside the heavily guarded red barn. Maybe Sandy’s disappearance had spooked Wilson. Maybe he didn’t want the new guy to be his wife’s bodyguard, after all.
Novak had not figured he’d be getting up close and personal with Emma Adamson or that it would be an easy accomplishment to do so. Infiltration was never easy. But he was patient, and he had to be patient now. Wait for the right opportunity to present itself. Mariah was checking in with him by text messages, way too often, asking where he was and what the hell was going on. He had pretty much ignored her queries and deleted her texts straightaway. At least she hadn’t barged into the compound to seek him out, but she might. He wouldn’t put it past her.
One text told him that she had gone back to work at the Triangle Club, which wasn’t exactly a brilliant decision on her part. He didn’t like to think what she was doing down there. She was going to get hurt if she didn’t stop with her reckless and damn ignorant blunders. And she was going to get hurt a lot more than the bruises she had suffered the night they dumped her out of a car door on his doorstep.
But Sarah would not want any harm to come to her sister, and he didn’t, either, despite the fact that she was a pain in the ass. So he was going to have to come up with something to prevent her from working anywhere on the compound or the Triangle Club. She might let something incriminating slip out to the wrong person, probably would, in fact. Something that would put Wilson on to Novak. He did not want that to happen. Wasn’t going to let it.
Two days later, Novak was finally given a night off. He drove out of the Shoot Club parking lot in his truck and took the highway south to the Triangle Club. He kept on his Shoot Club cap and camo uniform so nobody would give him trouble about entry. The same weighty basketball player type manned the front door. He just stood back and stared Novak inside. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask for ID. So now they were buddies/comrades in arms. And Novak was definitely armed. He had the .45 stuck down in its usual place, his camo shirt untucked and covering his weapon. He wanted the gun close at hand, just in case Sandy’s body floated up somewhere downstream or Kiki opened her big mouth once too often.
Inside the strip club, it looked exactly the way it had the first time he had shown up. Maybe busier. Otherwise the same. It was dim, smoky, colored spotlights revolving around on the stage where the oil-slick pole dancers danced in their G-strings and advertised themselves for sale. Lots of practically naked girls were squirming around on the laps of lots of horny men, of course, men who should be home with their wives. It was a sleazy place, all right, and he did not like Mariah working there. He did not like being there himself.
Novak found that he was glad that Kiki didn’t work there. Yet. That kid was growing on him, like a headstrong little sister would, reminding him a little bit of Adonis, maybe, if she hadn’t been afraid of her own shadow. But Kiki was heading down the wrong road and at an all-out sprint. She would probably be good at pole dancing, though, if she pursued the skill as eagerly as she pursued him. Now he figured she just considered him a challenge.
Choosing a table set up against the back wall where it was dark and secluded, Novak sat down in a chair where he could see the door. He ordered a beer. Then he waited for a glimpse of Mariah. It surprised him that she had begged Wilson to let her come back and work there, but maybe she really didn’t have a lick of sense, after all. If her newspaper story came before all else, especially in dangerous situations like this one, she really was going to end up dead. No doubt about it. Novak wasn’t sure he could prevent it, either.
About a quarter of an hour passed before Mariah showed up. She came out from behind the blue curtain, carrying a tray. He watched her top off four beer mugs, and then she wended her way through tables filled with rowdy male customers, many of whom reached out and tried to grope her body. She seemed pretty adept at twisting herself away from their rough hands and simply ignoring their crude r
emarks. She finally ended up on the opposite side of the club from Novak and stopped beside a table holding four college types. They looked and acted like football players. Mariah didn’t see Novak until she was on her way back to the bar to pick up her next order. She took a visible double take and then headed straight for him.
“Well, my word, if it isn’t my old nemesis, Will Novak. You come up here to see me dance?”
“Please tell me you’re not working the poles.”
“I’m not. What do you take me for?” She smiled and put the tray down on the table, and then cupped his cheeks with her palms. She pinched his cheek and Novak pulled his head away.
“You don’t want to know that.”
“Rude as always. Why are you here, sweetheart? Miss me terribly?”
“Just curious to see if you were still alive.”
“Oh, I’m alive and kicking. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
Mariah plopped down sideways onto his lap. She smelled good. Red Door, again. She felt like Sarah used to feel when he pulled her down on his lap and kissed her. She had always laughed when he’d done that and slid her arms around his neck and partook with as much eagerness as he had. So did Mariah. Exactly the same way. Arms around his neck, pressing her body close. It was an uncanny feeling.
“Be nice to me, sweetie pie,” she whispered, her lips caressing his ear. Her tongue took liberties until he jerked his head away from her mouth. “If I stop serving and working the bar, I’m going to have to give lap dances. So I don’t usually stop serving. In your case, I’ll make an exception. Just because you’re family and I know you love me so much.”
“Get off me, Mariah. And then get the hell out of here before they hurt you.”
Mariah just smiled and swung her leg over until she straddled his lap. He glanced around, uncomfortable as hell, but nobody was paying attention to them, no one except for the guy who’d given her a ride back from the bar that first night in town. She’d called him Sam. He was frowning and didn’t look pleased at her familiarity with Novak, so maybe he had the hots for her. Her guy averted his face the moment he caught Novak looking at him.
“Your boyfriend over there? He’s gettin’ jealous. You got something special going on with him now? A complete stranger? Good God, Mariah.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Just a friend. He likes me. Worries about me working up here, just like you do. So he comes in and watches over me. Sweetheart, isn’t he?” Novak frowned at that information and kept his eyes on the man. Mariah got his attention again when she started rubbing her breasts against his chest and whispering down so close to his neck that he could feel how soft her lips were. “So tell me, Will, how it’s going up there in your neck of the woods? Tell me, and then I’ll get off you and go about my business. This is the only way we can talk without people noticing us.”
“I was approached to be the wife’s bodyguard. If things go the way I think, I’ll know soon enough if that woman up there is Emma Adamson.”
“Yeah, and I heard that Sandy just took off without a word to anybody. They seem to think he drowned in the river. The girls here said he couldn’t swim a lick. You have anything to do with that, Will?”
Novak said nothing. Looked away.
“Aha, so you did. Just as I suspected. The guy just didn’t like you at all,” Mariah continued, still writhing up against him, loins and chest. She kept pressing her mouth on the side of his neck, just under his ear. He could feel her bare legs under the little short camo skirt she wore. He wanted her to get off of him.
“You ever thought about what Sarah would say, Mariah? If she could see you doing something like this?”
Mariah gave a low, throaty laugh and ran her fingers up through his hair. “She’d probably say, ‘Get the hell off my husband.’”
Novak frowned. “She’d be worried to death about you. It would make her sick to her stomach if she knew you were working in this kind of dive. Doing this kind of crap. Lap dances with strange men? Really? Don’t you have any self-respect anymore? None at all?”
“You really want to know what she’d say? She’d tell me I wasn’t being ladylike. That’s what she always said when I was out having fun. That ladies didn’t act like that.”
“Calling this unladylike is the understatement of the year.”
“She’s gone, Will. Gone for good. She’s never going to fuss at me again for the things I do. You hate it that she’s gone. I hate it. Everybody who ever knew her hates it. I’d give anything in this world if I could bring her back. But it’s over, she’s gone forever, and you need to let her go like the rest of us had to. She wouldn’t want you to act like this, lead the life of some kind of monk dragging around in a hair shirt. Have you ever even looked at another woman since she died?”
Novak had sure as hell not led the life of a monk since his wife had died, but he’d never met a woman he wanted to be with for more than a month or two at a time. “I’m not talking about Sarah with you.”
Mariah shook her head, but then she presented him with a dazzling smile and nuzzled his neck some more, until he leaned away again. She was whispering now. “The girls have been talking to me. Told you they would. I’ve got a lot to tell you. How about meeting me back at the motel later tonight? I get out of here around one o’clock. Meet me at the Avalon after that. I’m still in the same room. We need to coordinate what we’re doing. Now give me a hundred bucks so I won’t get slapped around by Mike when I go back empty-handed.”
“I’ll pay you, all right. To get the hell off me. You need to remember these guys will kill you if you look at them sideways, and they won’t think twice about it.”
“Not so much a danger of that anymore, now that Sandy’s gone. He used to really hurt the girls. Do awful things to them if they did something wrong or got sassy with him. Really slap them around or hit them with that chain he always wore. Most of them thought he was a sadist. I think so, too, honestly. He wanted to hurt me so bad that night when they were holding me up here. Barrett Wilson was the one who stopped him. The look in Sandy’s eyes that night? It was scary. Girls around here? They’re celebrating that he’s gone and hope it’s for good. Okay, just be at the motel tonight. Now give me some money.”
“No way.”
“For God’s sake, Will, I’ll pay you back. Just fork it over. You want me to get in trouble?”
Novak pushed her off and pulled some cash out of his wallet. “Get out of here while you can. You hear me? For once, act your age.”
Mariah took the money and then she pinched his cheek again and kissed him hard on the mouth. She stood up and smiled down at him. “I happen to have enjoyed that, even if you didn’t. See you later, darling heart.”
Novak watched her walk off, avoiding most of the groping gauntlet of drunken men. She was going to get herself assaulted or killed. Why couldn’t she just listen to him for once? He hoped to hell he’d be around to save her life, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be.
As it turned out, Mariah beat him back to the Avalon Motor Lodge. She opened the door when he knocked and smiled up at him. After he was inside, she shut the door, turned the lock, and leaned against it. “Now you’re being a good boy. I really didn’t expect you to show up.”
“Okay, I’m here. Talk.”
“Sit down. Want something to eat? Drink?”
“This is not a social call. Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Oh, all right. Just be patient. You’re just impossible to get along with, Will.”
Mariah sat down on the bed. She had shed some of the sleaze and wore dark blue sweats. The soft fleecy kind. He hoped she’d showered off the grit and smell of the Triangle Club. It looked as if she had scrubbed her face clean of makeup now and it made her look a lot younger. She had her hair down and brushed out over her shoulders. Shiny and inky black. She looked innocent now. Sarah’s memory welled up again to haunt him. He cringed inside, felt his breath catch a little bit. He shook himself mentally.
�
��What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Novak ignored her question and got right down to business. “So tell me about the girls up there.”
Mariah sobered. “They’ve been saying that Wilson has a veritable army guarding the compound. All trained and armed.”
“I know that. I’m one of them. I’m not so sure about the trained part. But they’re armed, all right. Everybody up there carries a weapon. Guns are issued, right along with the uniforms.”
“They say he’s got some kind of secret operation going on in that compound. Nobody knows what, and they say it’s very well-guarded. Say a few guys who worked up there have disappeared overnight and never heard from again. Like Sandy. So they all think Wilson got rid of him. Bet the guys up there didn’t worry about his absence very long, did they?”
“All day searching. What do the girls think happened to the guys who disappeared?”
“They think Wilson had them whacked.”
Whacked? Novak thought. “You been watching The Godfather?”
Mariah made a face at him. “So when do you get to see Emma?”
“If she is Emma. Wilson said he was gonna invite me to the house and let me meet her. I’m still waiting. Said she was a handful. Is she?”
Mariah stared at him a moment as if considering what she was going to say. Then she shook her head. “No way. She’s little bitty, Will, and gentle and fragile and kind to her friends. You know, very considerate and thoughtful. Not like me.”
If Mariah thought she was going to get a denial about that out of Novak, she was sorely mistaken. Mariah insisted that she had changed, but she hadn’t. He didn’t believe her, and he still had a feeling she was hiding something from him. She was always hiding something from somebody. “What’s really going on here, Mariah? Tell me, if you know something. I need to know everything before I try to get in close to her and Wilson.”
Mariah’s steadfast gaze faltered, just the slightest little bit. She looked down and to the left. She was formulating a lie, damn it. Novak was sure of it. Almost at once, though, her eyes returned to him with a direct stare that locked steadfastly with his own skeptical gaze. All wide-eyed innocence now, but she had looked that way lots of times in the past when she was up to her eyeballs in lies and deceptions. No reason to think she’d changed her ways. “You are just way too suspicious, Will Novak. Why don’t you just chill out for a change and trust me? Would it kill you to do that just once? I only want to find my friend and get the story about what happened to her. She comes first. The story comes second, but if we can bust that bastard holding her hostage, I will celebrate with you.”