She yanked her arm from his grasp. “I’ve given you not only a second chance, but a third as well. It’s over between us, and nothing you say or do will change that.”
* * * * *
From down the street, Chase watched the confrontation. There’d clearly been a relationship between the two, but the woman obviously wanted nothing more to do with him.
Hoping he wouldn’t have to intervene, he snapped several photos as the man’s voice grew increasingly louder, his movements more animated. Finally, he jabbed a finger at her and, from half a block away, Chase clearly caught his angry “Fuck you, then, bitch”. Spinning on one heel, he stalked back to his truck and climbed in. A moment later, the truck roared away from the curb amid the squealing of tires.
Jesus, the woman had not one, but two men desperate to get her back.
CHAPTER 2
The day after Chase O’Malley returned to California, he brought his Harley-Davidson to a stop in the shade of the two enormous tulip poplars guarding the entrance of his client’s estate. The wrought iron gates were closed, but a speaker was set into the stone wall beneath the security camera. He buzzed the intercom. A moment later the speaker crackled and Hank Keswick’s voice said, “Yes?”
“Chase O’Malley.”
“Come on up.”
The ornate gate hummed smoothly open and the Harley rumbled up the long, sweeping, cobbled drive. Exquisitely landscaped, the grounds blazed with an exotic riot of colors. Shrub-sized geraniums drooped under the weight of globes of red blossoms. In colors that ranged from pristine white to the deepest blood red, islands of roses sparkled in the sunlight, their heady fragrances spicing the breeze. Tall, deep hedgerows delineated the property line and the nearest neighbor was nearly a quarter mile away. Chase found himself envying Keswick his privacy.
He parked the bike at the end of the drive, killed the engine, and took a moment to admire the glossy-black Lexus that looked as if it had just been driven off the showroom floor. The house was less to his taste. Painted a soft pink, the contemporary stucco structure stood three stories high, with a gracefully sloping red clay-tile roof. Potted impatiens in vivid fuchsia and orange marched in orderly rows up either side of the wide, brick steps, while the lawn sprinklers whick-whick-whicked to either side of the brick walkway.
Dressed in muscle shirt, parachute-silk pants, and expensive athletic shoes, Keswick met him at the front door and led him from the marble-floored foyer through a large archway flanked by two tall, potted rubber tree plants.
The living room comprised more space than Chase’s entire apartment. Pale peach walls perfectly matched the thick carpet underfoot. A sixty-inch wall-mounted plasma television looked down upon a trio of lettuce-colored leather sofas. A life-sized, bare-breasted, reclining mermaid clasped her hands behind her head, balancing a thick, glass tabletop on her elbows and the flukes of her emerald-scaled tail.
Colorful silk floral arrangements adorned the bar that stretched the width of the room. Ceramic, nude figurines abounded, and framed prints of yet more nudes graced the walls. On the rear wall, floor-to-ceiling glass windows commanded a view of a rectangular fifty-foot swimming pool whose black-painted bottom acted as a reflecting pond. On the grounds beyond the pool stood a guesthouse.
Overall, an air of femininity permeated the room and so, despite the abundance of female nudes, he assumed Keswick’s wife had been the decorator. Despite the opulence, the room seemed somewhat cheap and tawdry. As they said, money couldn’t buy taste.
Chase seated himself across the massive ivory-painted desk from his client. Behind the desk was a huge gas fireplace with artificial logs that, in this climate, probably rarely saw use. On the mantle above was a framed portrait of Keswick, his wife, and their two children. Strange that she’d not taken them with her when she’d left but, not only would two kids put a crimp in her social life, some women had no more maternal instincts than the average rock.
Dispensing with the pleasantries, Chase told Keswick “Your wife is alive and well, and back in Charleston, just as you suspected."
Keswick released a huge sigh of relief and slumped back in his chair. “Thank god. And you’re sure it’s her?”
Chase handed the large manila envelope across the desk. “You tell me.”
Keswick’s eyes burned with intensity as he slowly flipped through the eight-by-tens. Chase sympathized, for he knew exactly what the man had gone through.
After high school graduation and just before he’d enlisted, he’d married Michelle, his high school sweetheart. He’d dutifully sent her the majority of his paychecks and had called her every day his training allowed. Then he’d gone temporary duty at Fort Bragg, to start SFAS — the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course. He’d explained to Michelle that she wouldn’t be able to reach him during the twenty-four days of survival training, and she’d assured him she understood.
Once the grueling course was finished, his first act was to call her. There was no answer. He continued calling, once an hour for the remainder of the day. Severely disappointed at not being able to reach her, he was not yet overly worried.
On the second day, he finally grew alarmed and called Michelle’s mother, who professed to have no idea where her daughter was.
On the third day, he continued calling even as he applied for emergency leave.
On the fourth, he boarded a flight for Pittsburg.
There was no sign of her at their apartment. After making the rounds of all their haunts, he headed to his best friend’s house, where he caught the two in flagrante delicto. After he’d finished beating the erstwhile friend to a bloody pulp, Michelle had cried and begged for forgiveness. Without a single word to her, he’d turned and walked out. Vowing to never again to put himself into a position where he could be hurt, he’d returned to Fort Bragg where he immediately filed for divorce.
Across the desk from him, Keswick was still going through the photos. Chase had a second envelope inside his jacket, containing the photographs of the wife and the man with the black pickup truck, but he kept these to himself for the moment. Keswick had hired him to locate his wife, not report on her amorous activities. If he wanted to know what — or whom — she’d been doing, he’d ask.
Finally, Keswick looked up. “You’ve made me a very happy man. For the past six months I’ve lived with the fear that Larissa was dead.” He opened a desk drawer, withdrew a check, and handed it across the desk.
Chase glanced at the amount and got to his feet. “Glad to have been of service.”
“Don’t go yet,” Keswick said quickly. “I got another job for you.”
Chase lowered himself back into the chair. Keswick took one last look at the top photo and placed the stack on the desk. He steepled his fingers and peered at Chase over their tips. “Were you really Special Forces?”
“Fourteen years.”
“Which means you’re a man of … special talents.”
“One could say that.”
“I wanna hire you for another job. I want you to transport my wife back here.”
Chase gazed at him, his face carefully neutral. “Against her will, you mean.”
“She ain’t gonna come on her own.”
“That would constitute kidnapping.”
“That’s why I’m willin’ to pay you fifty grand.”
Despite the state of the economy, the security-consulting firm he was a one-quarter partner in was doing reasonably well. In addition, while stationed in Afghanistan, he’d banked nearly eight years’ worth of paychecks, so he definitely wasn’t hurting for money. Still, fifty thousand was fifty thousand. Moreover, he was bored. Ah, Jesus, was he ever bored. Who would have guessed that civilian life would be so colossally, stupefyingly tedious?
“No,” he said finally. “As much as I’d like to accommodate you, I can’t.”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought. If you keep Larissa blindfolded the whole time, there ain’t no way she could ID you.”
“But she�
��d know that you hired me. Once the authorities had you in custody, you’d identify me.”
Keswick smiled and shook his head. “I promise you, Larissa ain’t gonna go to the cops. I got somethin’ on her that she’ll do anything to keep secret. She’s gonna be mad as hell, but she ain’t gonna say or do nothin’.”
Chase shook his head. “Sorry. Too risky.”
“You drive a hard fuckin’ bargain, O’Malley. Alright then, eighty grand, forty now and the other forty upon her delivery.”
“You can’t be serious.” In the isolated corner of Chase’s mind where reason and common sense resided, instinct jangled a warning. When something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. However … eighty-thousand dollars was one hell of a lot of money. “If I were to do this — and I’m not saying I will — what makes you so sure she won’t simply take off again? You’ll have blown eighty thousand for nothing.”
“That’s a risk I’m willin’ to take. It’s my fault she left. Once upon a time, things were very good between us. But I started doing coke, and shit just spiraled out of control. Despite the fact that I love Larissa more than life itself, while I was high I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants. She came home early one day and caught me with three call girls.”
Yeah, that would definitely motivate a wife to leave.
Keswick picked up the top eight-by-ten and gazed at it longingly. “But I’m clean and sober now and, since she’s been gone, business has boomed. Believe me, when she sees how well I’m doing now, she’ll stay. Larissa always loved spending my money.”
The first time Chase had seen Keswick’s wife, the thought had struck him that she was out of Keswick’s league. Now he understood how Keswick had bagged her. The woman was a trophy wife. Since she hadn’t bothered filing for divorce, Keswick must have had her sign a pre-nup. He gazed up at the framed portrait on the mantel above the fireplace. The husband, wife, and two children looked like the typical happy family and, perhaps, once upon a time they had been. Although, what did it say about a mother who would abandon her children? Perhaps she’d left them with Keswick knowing that he could provide for them so much better than she could.
Eighty-thousand was commensurate with the risk he’d be taking. If he agreed do this, he could fly back to Charleston, buy a panel truck, and acquire her at her house after dark. That would be the easy part. The element of greatest risk lay in driving her back here to California, clear across the continent.
He pulled his gaze from the family portrait to find Keswick gazing intently at him. “What’s the dirt you have on her? The information will stay between us.”
Keswick blew out a resigned sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Like thousands of other young, beautiful women, Larissa came to Los Angeles with dreams of being an actress. And, like a lotta them, she hit a rough patch. To keep from endin’ up homeless, she made one of those low-budget fetish-porn videos. Several months later we met and the rest, as they say, was history. She did some really kinky shit in that movie and was terrified her friends and family might eventually see it. So, as a wedding present, I spent a shit-load of money buyin’ up all the copies. Of course, being a practical man, I kept the original.”
With a major indiscretion like that hanging over her head, the woman quite possibly would be willing to overlook the fact that she’d been abducted, providing it had been done merely to return her to her husband and she hadn’t been harmed in the process. “Have you really thought this out? There’s a lot of other fish in the sea.”
“But none like Larissa.” Keswick reached into a drawer, pulled out four paper-banded bundles of crisp hundred-dollar bills and handed them across the table. “Here’s the first forty.”
Chase hesitated a moment, then took them.
“There’s just one condition,” Keswick added. “You can’t mention me, and you can’t tell her where you’re taking her. If you do, you forfeit the second forty grand.”
Chase frowned. “Why the secrecy?”
“When she left, she didn’t bother sayin’ goodbye to me or the kids. She just walked out the door and vanished. Until now, I’ve lived with the fear that she was dead. I tried to keep the kids from seeing how worried I was, but they’re a lot more perceptive than people realize. We’ve spent the past six months grieving. I still love Larissa, but I wanna pay her back for what she put us through. Give her a little taste of her own medicine.”
Chase could well imagine how they’d suffered. During the four days in which he’d been unable to reach Michelle, his fear had been unrelenting as he’d envisioned every horrific thing that might have happened to her. Keswick and the children had lived with their fear for six months. Although his moral code had precluded him from raising a hand to Michelle, he gladly would have made her suffer the same mental anguish she’d put him through.
The four bundles of bills fit neatly into two pockets of his leather jacket. “Keeping her in the dark won’t be a problem because, the less information she has, the better. But won’t she know you’re the one behind it? Who else would have her abducted and transported across country?”
“Yeah, she’s gonna suspect me but, before we met, she was involved with a few unsavory characters. As long as you don’t confirm her suspicions, she’ll have to deal with the fear that it might not be me. Lemme give you a few words of advice, though. Larissa comes across all sweet and innocent, but that’s merely a carefully cultivated illusion. She’s a devious and skillful liar, as well as an Oscar-worthy actress, so don’t believe anything she tells you, and don’t trust her for a minute. And for fuck’s sake, be careful. She carries a gun — even sleeps with it under her pillow — and she won’t hesitate to use it.
“I’m sure I can handle an errant housewife.”
“I’m serious. Watch your back.”
Jesus, if the man were afraid of his own wife, maybe he’d be better off without her.
As Keswick escorted him to the front door, Chase briefly wondered at the fact that Keswick hadn’t inquired as to whether she were involved with another man. However, Keswick wasn’t the only injured party in this relationship. He shook his head in disgust. Drugs or no drugs, the man had brought prostitutes into his family’s home.
As he kicked the Harley-Davidson to a start, he felt the old, familiar excitement throbbing in his veins once again, the same feeling he always had before a mission.
It felt as if he were alive again.
* * * * *
Brian Sparrow — now known as Hank Keswick — watched the ex-Special Forces man thunder down the driveway on the Harley. All glossy black and shiny chrome, the bike was a powerful, testosterone-fueled dream of a machine that would befit a predator such as himself. After he’d extracted his long-awaited revenge against the miserable fucking cunt who’d shot him, he’d celebrate by buying himself one. And of course, the requisite black leather jacket.
He’d always despised men like O’Malley, with their muscles, good looks, and beautiful women. But not anymore. Or, at least, not as much. Now, thanks to the miracle of anabolic steroids, some judicious plastic surgery, and the trappings of wealth, he almost was one of those men.
Once the huge motorcycle turned onto the main road, Sparrow stepped back inside, remotely closed the gate, and strode back through the mansion. Coming here two years ago to recuperate had been a stroke of brilliance. He’d been aware that his aunt was involved in the porn industry, first as a porn star and then as a director / producer of porn, but he’d had no idea she’d done so well for herself.
At least financially.
By the time he’d arrived, AIDS acquired on the job had severely ravaged her health. A shrewd operator always recognized an opportunity, and so he’d worked hard at making himself indispensable. His aunt had been grateful to be able to turn the running of the business over to a family member, even if that family member was practically a stranger.
Bored with the lame fuck films his aunt had directed, he’d had the guesthouse transformed into a bondage playhouse. B
DSM films had proved to be a much more lucrative venture.
Crossing to the fireplace, Sparrow took the framed portrait down from the mantel. Stealing the portrait of Larissa from her apartment two years ago had been yet another stroke of genius. Once he’d devised a scheme to get her here to California, it had been a simple matter to have one of his cameramen Photoshop her image together with his own and those of his sister’s two brats to create a family portrait so convincing that Mr. Special Forces had bought it without question. He could only hope the threat of forfeiting forty grand would ensure that Mr. Special Forces kept his fucking trap shut about where he was taking her. If he were to reveal that he was delivering her to her husband and children, she’d be quick to explain that she had neither, which might make him balk at delivering her. People were fucking idiots, allowing such absurdities as ethics and morals to govern their actions and Mr. Special Forces appeared to be an idiot of exactly this caliber.
Two years ago, ego had allowed him to grow careless, and subsequently, the prey had bested the predator. Since then, his rage had burgeoned until it was nearly a living entity. Now, nothing less than rivers — oceans — of blood could wash away the shame his humiliation. Gazing at the portrait, he imagined the cunt’s beautiful face contorted with pain as a hot crimson rain splattered across his face and hands. As his cock grew hard in his pants, he silently rejoiced that his long-awaited dreams were about to become reality.
He’d dismissed the round-the-clock nursing staff several weeks ago with the explanation that dear Aunt Coco was going into a hospice facility. It was only fitting that her biodegrading corpse now provided nourishment to the roses she’d loved so well, as did the bodies of his last three victims.
Now, with his new soundproofed playroom all set up, he’d be able to take his sweet time with the cunt.
Larissa was special — his lucky number thirteen.
CHAPTER 3
The Heart Has Reasons Page 2