“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just stay here? No bad guys, no phones, not shoe-eating dogs?”
The last thing he wanted to think about was the man responsible for her distress at home. Reality started to crash around him. He married her to keep her safe, but what if he couldn’t?
God he hated that thought. His eyes traveled to the guards who kept constant watch over them.
But what if it wasn’t enough?
He kissed the top of her head and stared at the fire pit in the middle of the luau. “I’ll keep you safe.”
She swirled her finger on his thigh, drawing invisible shapes. “I know. But if something were—”
He jolted with the words she attempted to utter. “It won’t! Nothing will happen to you.”
She tilted her head up and kissed him softly. When she pulled away, she placed a finger on his lips, keeping him silent. “If… I wouldn’t blame you.”
In an instant, he pictured her lifeless and pale. The vision left him ill. He tightened his jaw and forced the image away. “I’ll never let that happen. Don’t think like that. Don’t talk like that.” His harsh words brought a scowl to her face. “Please,” he added. Telling Eliza to do anything was like daring her. “Please,” he said again.
She stopped and attempted to smile. “Okay.”
When they made love that night, he didn’t leave an inch of her untouched, unloved. As she fell asleep in his arms, he lay awake, thinking of her words, of her worry. He had to do something to remove the threat. In order to do that, he needed every scrap of information, every piece of evidence about Ricardo Sanchez. His day tomorrow would begin with a flight home and then a conference call between his father and his best friend was in order.
****
“Don’t you look like a contented kitten,” Gwen said shortly after Eliza walked in the door of the Tarzana home.
“Hawaii was beautiful.”
“It’s more than that.”
Zod sniffed her hand in greeting. “How are you? Eating any stilettos?”
“Stop playing with that dog and talk to me. I’ve not had sex in ages, so I must live vicariously through my friends. Tell me and you mustn’t leave out the details.” Gwen tugged on her arm until they were both seated on the couch.
The blonde bombshell was a walking contradiction. Little Miss Prim-and-Proper one minute with every inch of etiquette followed, and then Little Miss Sin-and-Sex the next. Eliza loved that about the British born lady.
Eliza tossed her purse on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. Before Eliza could start the lengthy session of girl talk, Zod barked.
“It’s me,” Samantha’s low voice sounded from behind the front door.
“Come in,” both Gwen and Eliza shouted at the same time.
Zod did a regulatory sniff and then circled a couple of times before sitting at Eliza’s end of the couch.
“You haven’t started yet, have you?”
“Started what?” Eliza asked. “And how did you know I was here?”
“Carter called Blake to tell him he was on his way over and that you were coming here to pack. I told Blake I was gonna help and oh my God you’re glowing. How was it?”
Samantha and Gwen sat forward with big eyes and anticipation. Their mouths hung open.
“I heard her excuse, Little Miss I-haven’t-had-sex-in-ages, but what’s your excuse?”
Samantha clapped her hands. “So you did have sex.”
Eliza remembered the cameras and audio surveillance in the room. “You know others are listening, right?”
Sam waved her hands in the air. “Who cares about that? Details! I want details. Carter has had the hots for you for evah.”
“No he hasn’t.”
“We can debate that later. Spill.” Sam shoved an unruly lock of red, curly hair behind her ear and grinned like a child.
There was no walking away from what these women wanted. Eliza sucked in her bottom lip and let her body warm with the memories. “Unparalleled. He was amazing. Warm, sensual and he took his ever-loving time. I loved that…hated it too.” She sighed. “It was worth the wait.”
Gwen started asking detailed questions starting with when and where…did they play in the plane or on the beach?
It was impossible not to get caught up in the recall. With these women, she knew nothing would go farther than these walls.
****
“What are you grinning about?” Carter asked Neil when he walked into the room. The larger man resembled a sixteen year old who just found his father’s stash of scotch.
Neil leveled his gaze on Carter and suppressed a laugh.
“Did Sam arrive okay?”
“She did,” Neil said.
Carter moved from one man to another. “Samantha is with Eliza and Gwen packing, right?”
“Right.”
“So you were listening to them? Watching them?”
Neil had access to the surveillance equipment at the Tarzana house, but Carter never thought of him as a spy.
“Long enough to know that Sam arrived and they’re starting to pack.” The grin on Neil’s face faded. “So…where are we?”
“We’re about to call Cash and see what he found out.”
Carter dialed in the video call and Blake put Cash’s image on the big screen.
“Hey, Dad.”
His father sat at a desk and waved at the screen. “Will you look at that. This would have made my life a hell of a lot easier when I was on the force. Is this how all of you kids talk now? No phones?”
“We text, email, and talk on phones. How was your flight home?” Carter asked.
“Fine, fine. You look rested. How’s Eliza?”
“She’s great. Packing.”
“We like her.”
Carter glanced at Neil and then Blake. “I’m glad. So, Dad, what did you find out?”
Cash’s easy going smile dropped. “Before I tell you what I learned, first you need to tell me your connection to this scumbag Sanchez.”
That didn’t sound good. Already there was fight in his father’s voice.
“It’s not me as much as it is Eliza. Her parents…”
Cash swallowed hard and dropped back in his seat. “Eliza’s last name wasn’t Havens, was it?”
“No.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“What is it Dad?” Carter sat forward, rubbed his hands together. From the gray look on his father’s face, he knew it wasn’t good. Even for a seasoned veteran of the force.
Cash pushed a few papers around on his desk and perched a pair of reading glasses on the end of his nose. “Ricardo Sanchez is doing two life sentences at San Quentin. He doesn’t care who he pisses off in prison, spends plenty of time in solitary. Though of late he’s backed off. The guards say it’s normal for a man in his forties to lay low.”
“Why is he there?” Carter knew Eliza’s parents were murdered, but did Ricardo personally end their lives? Or did he call in the hit?
“Sanchez ran a well organized sex trade operation. Anytime sex is involved, you’ll find drugs. And he had a hand in that as well. His reach covered a dozen states and three countries. Some of the testimony that I found indicated that he was a modern day mob boss. He had a family, kids, even a dog. If you can call a vicious pit bull trained to eat small children a dog. Still, he was respected and feared. He evaded arrest, and notice for that matter, for years because of the legit business he used to cover up his criminal activities. That’s where Kenneth Ashe comes in. Name means anything to you?”
It should. Something told Carter he should know that name. He shook his head.
“Mr. Ashe drove a shipping truck at night for Sanchez’s models.” Cash air quoted the word models. “You see, Sanchez disguised his sex slaves as runway models for second class fashion shows. Sanchez didn’t keep the same legit men on the jobs for more than few weeks before swapping them out. He had oblivious drivers drop off and set
up runways. Later he’d have his boys come with the mostly underage girls to entertain an exclusive group of men. The men at the front of the caravan never knew what was happening on the other end. According to the testimony, Ashe was on his second week as a driver and had lost something at work. Unfortunately, he returned later that night for it.”
“Ashe slipped into the backroom of the “fashion show” and found Sanchez in the act of raping and beating a minor. Ashe was a family man. Had a kid of his own…a daughter. He hid but was trapped, unable to leave until after Sanchez was done.”
“He didn’t try and stop him?” Neil asked.
“The room was filled with women, girls, and several of Sanchez men. All armed. If Ashe had tried, he would have died.”
Carter swallowed a mouthful of bile. Ashe must have been Eliza’s father.
“Sanchez killed the girl, as an example of what would happen if the others didn’t cooperate. He boasted that every time a new batch of girls came in he personally sacrificed one.”
“Jesus.”
“No, I don’t think Jesus was invited to this party. When Ashe managed to get away, he went to the authorities. An investigation was launched and Sanchez was taken into custody. Within a week, every girl had been murdered and found in the most horrendous of places, all violated, thrown away like garbage.”
“What happened to Ashe?”
Cash removed his glasses and looked at Carter through the video camera. “He, his wife, and their young daughter were taken into protective custody. After the trial Sanchez was sentenced and the Ashe family disappeared into the witness protection program.”
Carter dropped his head into his palms. Blake placed a hand on his back.
“Do you want to hear the rest?”
Carter nodded, but he didn’t look at his father.
“Kenneth and his wife Mary attempted to live life within the system. But like I said, Sanchez had a reach. A year or so later, the authorities found Mary much like the girls from the sex ring, dead, violated and her husband bound so he could watch. His throat slit. A note was pinned to the skin of his forehead letting whoever found them know that their daughter was next. Luckily, the girl had been in school that day.”
Carter felt his lunch in his throat. Thank God, Lisa wasn’t there. Did she know all of these details? She couldn’t, he decided, or she would have run with the first threat of her safety. No wonder Dean and Jim were so persistent about placing her in a bunker.
“Where is your wife, son?”
“Packing.”
Neil stood and started to pace. “There are two secret service guards on her twenty-four-seven, and I have another private man on the house.”
“Do we know if Sanchez still runs his business from the inside?”
“I’m working on that now. He still has contact with his wife and kids.”
“How fucking fair is that?” Carter exploded. “He destroys Eliza’s life and then goes on with his own?”
Blake clasped his shoulder. “We won’t let him get to her.”
“I knew it would be bad, but this? Dammit, Blake.”
“It’s okay. Eliza is fine, guarded.”
Carter’s skin boiled and his blood threatened to blow like the top of a volcano. Eliza was fine…but for how long?
****
Eliza ran out of words explaining her honeymoon and everything “Carter” to Sam and Gwen. Miss Prim-and-Proper fanned herself with a magazine, and Sam sat forward, leaning over her knees with her chin in her palm.
“You look happy,” Sam said.
Eliza’s cheeks ached from smiling. “I am.”
Gwen patted her knee and stood. “We might want to begin packing. I’m certain Carter will be worried if we delay.”
Eliza glanced around the living room, her home for the past couple of years and sighed. Deep in her heart, she knew she wouldn’t be returning to this small Tarzana home. Even if the day came when she and Carter separated, the chances of her living there would be slim.
The three of them filed into her bedroom and moved in separate directions to pack her personal things. “This shouldn’t take long,” she told the women. “Carter’s home is filled with furniture. Besides, most of this is yours anyway, Sam.”
Sam pushed at her unruly red curls until they were tucked into a band and out of her face. “It seems like yesterday that Blake and I were here packing my clothes. Maybe the bed is blessed and those who sleep in it are marriage bound.”
Gwen tilted her head and considered the mattress with renewed interest. “If that’s the case, perhaps I should move in here.” She placed both palms on the covers and gave it a tiny shove.
“You want to get married?”
“I’ve wanted to marry for years, but the men I’ve dated simply didn’t suit me for the long term.”
Eliza laughed. “You might have to give them more than a week of your time.” During several of their late night conversations Eliza had discovered a lot about Gwen’s dating life. As a daughter of a wealthy duke, her family expected her to have a very discreet private life. That translated into boring dates and forgetful sex. Many of the royals who’d lost their money, but not their titles, didn’t fall into the public eye. The Harrisons were different. Their faces were splattered among the British tabloids, as often as any starlet in Hollywood would be in the States.
“It’s not my fault the men I’ve met bore me to tears. There needs to be interest inside the bedroom and out, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You’re talking to two women who married their husbands before they slept with them. I don’t think you have the right audience for that argument.”
Gwen’s eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped. “I can’t imagine. What if Carter made love like a wet fish?”
“I think you’re selling yourself short, Gwen. If a man warms your blood before your first kiss, the chances of that kiss being cold are slim. Carter can make me blush from across the room. And don’t you dare tell him I said that.” Eliza didn’t want all her secrets revealed to her husband. Not yet anyway.
“I knew Blake would be a fantastic lover the first time he touched my hand.” Samantha licked her lips as she spoke.
“Truly?”
“Call it chemistry, energy, desire… I knew. If you had told me a year before we married that I wouldn’t sleep with my husband before the wedding day I would have reacted like you.”
Gwen leaned on one arm as she listened. “You met my brother only days before you married.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Details, details.”
“You can’t say that about me and Carter.”
“No, I guess not. Surly there was some contact before the wedding… Wasn’t there?”
The memory of their encounter in the kitchen surfaced in Eliza’s mind. Her face grew hot and Gwen and Samantha started laughing.
“Busted.”
“We didn’t have sex. Heavy petting and hot, sultry kissing.”
Gwen tossed a pillow in Eliza’s direction.
They all laughed until their sides hurt.
“I’ll miss this terribly. I’ve never had girlfriends as close as the two of you,” Gwen said.
“I’m moving out, not away,” Eliza reminded her.
“We should initiate a “girl’s night out” once a month…maybe twice.”
“That sounds delightful.” Gwen scurried off the bed and picked up a box from the floor.
“No talk of work. Just girl talk.”
“Sex talk.”
“You’ll have to find a boyfriend if you’re going to entertain us,” Eliza chided.
“I might just do that.”
Sam turned toward her sister-in-law. “Have anyone in mind?”
Gwen hesitated and then shook her head. “No.”
“Liar.”
Gwen’s jaw dropped. “I’m not lying.”
Eliza folded her arms over her chest. “Are you telling me there isn’t anyone who makes your insides boil…that makes you spark just thinkin
g about him?”
Again, she hesitated. “No.”
Sam shook her head. “Liar.”
Gwen let a tiny smile cover her face as she turned away. “Believe what you must.”
Sam glanced up at Eliza with a questioning stare.
They both watched as Gwen looked into the lens of the camera mounted in the doorway.
Gwen was keeping secrets from those who monitored the house.
Probably Neil.
It took every effort of control for Eliza not to call Gwen out.
The doorbell rang and distracted them away from the conversation. Eliza moved from the room waving a finger in Gwen’s direction. “This isn’t over with, Miss Prim-and-Proper.”
Zod stood by the front door while Eliza opened it. Russell, one of the bodyguards, waited on the other side. “Sorry to disturb you Mrs. Billings, but your husband has asked that we keep you in sight or hearing range at all times.”
Reality slammed into her chest. All the girl talk and ease of the day shot away faster than the bullet leaving the chamber of a 357. “Why? Has something happened?”
“Not that I know of, ma’am. He directed me to step into the house.”
A shiver fluttered up her spine. She opened the door wider and let him in.
Samantha walked up beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Eliza. You’ll hardly notice him after a while.”
I won’t bet money on that.
Packing went quickly and Eliza was taking another trip to the car when Mrs. Sweeny, the neighbor from next door, walked around the hedge with a pot in her arms. “Eliza? Eliza dear?”
Zod snarled at the older woman wearing an apron who smelled like fish.
Eliza called him down. Her bodyguard watched from inside the house.
“There you are. I never knew you were dating our future governor and here I saw a picture of you in a wedding dress standing next to that handsome husband of yours.” Mrs. Sweeny liked to talk, and she never put on airs.
“We didn’t announce it to the world until after the ceremony. You’re not the only one surprised by our union.”
Mrs. Sweeny bobbed her head until her grey hair started to tumble into her eyes. “I should be grateful you didn’t attract many of those men with cameras like Samantha did.”
Married by Monday (Weekday Brides) Page 18