Past Tense

by Freda Vasilopoulos

  Her hand fell limply to her side, and she almost dropped the phone. A scream formed in her throat. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to stifle it. The hot metallic taste of blood stung her tongue, but she ignored it as she tried desperately to think.

  An image of Dubray’s lifeless body flashed into her head. She’d thought him dead months ago. Had the sight of him alive and in apparent good health unhinged her so that she’d fulfilled the memory, made sure he wouldn’t come back to life and remind her of Bennett’s duplicity?

  Without taking her eyes from the drawer, she backed away, giving a little cry as she came up against the bed. Through the receiver still in her hand, she could hear Tony calling. Fearfully she dragged her gaze back to the drawer.

  The knife still lay there, a silent and grisly accuser. A whimper escaped her dry lips, and she slammed the drawer shut.

  “Sam, what was that? Sam, what’s happening? Answer me!”

  Slowly, as if her muscles had turned to cement, she brought the receiver back to her ear.

  “Sam? Is something wrong?”

  Sickness rose in her throat. She fought against a desire to scream. “You might say that.”

  “What is it, Sam? You sound—”

  “Tell me one thing,” she interrupted. “Did Inspector Allen tell you how Dubray died?”

  “Knife wound. Why?”

  She closed her eyes, black shadows threatening to smother her. “Tony, I think I killed him.”

  “Sam, are you crazy?”

  “Yes, I think I am. I’m at my flat. There’s a big knife here, and it’s covered with blood.”

  She distinctly heard Tony swallow, but when he spoke his voice was tight with a deadly calm. “Sam, stay in your flat. Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right there.”

  “But you won’t be, Miss Smith.” A large hand reached around and broke the phone connection. “By the time Theopoulos gets here, you’ll be gone.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sam felt the blood drain from her face, and looked down curiously, half expecting to see it puddled on the floor. Jason Wheeler, a self-satisfied smile on his lips, jabbed the gun he held into her ribs.

  Twisting the set of headphones off his head, he spoke briefly into the mouthpiece attached. “It’s all right. I’ve got her.”

  A resigned fatalism settled into Sam’s chest. “That’s how you knew where I was and how long I’d be out. You bugged my flat.”

  “And your phone, dear lady.” He lifted the gun and ran the barrel caressingly along her cheek.

  Sam flinched violently away. “Then you must have been quite put out when I stayed at Tony’s.”

  Wheeler shrugged, the gun steady on her. “Over there, you were even more ridiculously predictable.”

  “Who are you working for?” If she was going to die, she wanted to know why.

  “Me,” Bennett Price said from the doorway. “Jason, bring her into the living room. Change of plan. We’ll wait for Theopoulos.”

  She felt cold but, oddly, no longer frightened. Or perhaps fear had become so much part of her, she’d built up an immunity to it. “I might have known it would ultimately come back to you, Bennett. But why?”

  Bennett walked over and took her arm. Lifting his other hand, he ran it over her glossy hair in a gesture that might have indicated regret. “So pretty, Sam. I always loved your hair, your skin, your coolness. The princess.”

  His fingers clenched, gripping painfully so that she was forced to lean her head toward him to releive the pressure. He was sweating. She smelled the astringent tang of tension on him.

  “Why, Bennett?” She couldn’t raise her head, her eyes held at a level with his vest buttons.

  He jerked her head up. “If you’d married me for real, you would have understood. Money can buy power. And power is the one thing that gets you respect in the world. It’s going to be mine, as soon as I remove a few minor obstacles.”

  “Like the premier of Québec.”

  His expression turned from gloating into hard calculation. “How did you guess that?”

  “It was rather obvious, wasn’t it? None of the federal leaders are likely to step down. Provincial politics would have given your man, Paul Messier, a nice start, especially in Québec, which had more autonomy than the other provinces. But don’t get your hopes up, Bennett. Scotland Yard is already suspicious. If someone were to die at the conference, you might find yourself first in the line of suspects.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “Not likely, Samantha. In this, my reputation is impeccable. Whatever happens won’t be connected with me. Or if it is, someone else will take over. Our cause will go on. Besides, Scotland Yard is tied up with Dubray’s death, and security for the conference. They’ve got plenty to keep them occupied.”

  He propelled her into the living room, pushing her down on the sofa as he spoke to Wheeler. “Watch her. I’ll check if Theopoulos is coming.”

  He moved to the window, flicking the curtain aside as he peered out. The day’s sunshine had vanished, swallowed up by thick clouds massing themselves over the sky.

  As the damp breeze touched her, Sam realized the window was still open. She dragged in a long breath, but before she could scream, Wheeler gestured with the gun. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  She glared at him, daring him to use the gun. They were on the third floor of a building with limited escape routes. If he shot her, the neighbors would surely hear.

  A movement at the kitchen doorway drew Sam’s attention. Bagheera, always curious about strangers, poked his black head around the corner. She extended her fingers. “Come here, cat.”

  Bagheera hesitated, sizing up the situation, clearly picking up some of the tension in the room. Making up his mind, he deliberately paced over to Wheeler. Only Sam knew his approach wasn’t friendly. The cat’s tail hung low. The hairs on his neck were just slightly erect, a ruff that denoted caution.

  Wheeler stepped out of the way, not liking the cat, although Sam was sure they hadn’t seen each other before. The evening Wheeler had stopped for coffee Bagheera had been out.

  A plan began to form in Sam’s mind. Bennett stood at the window, which he’d closed, his back to the room. She called to the cat. “Bagheera.”

  He swung his head toward her, his fur settling down and his tail coming up, waving once. Gathering his muscles, he leaped upon her lap. Sam pretended to give him all her attention as she stroked his belly in the spot he liked. Wheeler visibly relaxed. He pulled a chair closer to the sofa and sat down on it.

  Sam looked at him. “I suppose it was you doing all those things to frighten me,” she said conversationally. “What I don’t understand is that if you wanted to kill me, why bother with the other stuff?”

  Bennett turned around, answering. “We didn’t want to kill you. Only to get you in the right frame of mind.”

  Sam frowned. “That business with the truck certainly looked real. And dangerous.” Her voice rose angrily. “It wasn’t fair to involve Tony.”

  “So naïve, aren’t you, Samantha?” Bennett drawled. “In a war, sometimes bystanders get hurt. You didn’t need to get involved with Theopoulos. Anyway, the truck wasn’t my idea. That was Dubray.”

  “I thought Dubray was dead. That’s why I left.”

  “He wasn’t. So you admit you were at the house that day, do you, Sam?” Bennett asked in a silky tone that held an undercurrent of naked steel.

  There was no use denying it. She already knew too much. “Yes. I saw Germain.”

  “That’s why Dubray wanted you dead. He knew it would put an end to everything if he were connected with Germain. As it was, he might have been able to salvage part of his reputation, although he was finished at city hall.” He nestled his elbow in his palm and tugged at his ear. “Dubray was helpful in finding you. He knew the person who could keep track of your bank account. But he got too vindictive, too nervous.”

  “Yes,” Jason Wheeler put in. “He had to be eliminated.”

  “Y
ou killed him.” The statement was matter-of-fact, but an icy knot tightened in her stomach. If Wheeler had killed once, he would find it easier to kill a second time.

  “He was becoming a liability,” Bennett said. “We had to get him out of the way.”

  “But why have me find his body?”

  Bennett didn’t answer, merely smiling slyly as he turned back to the window.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Wheeler said. “After they discover the knife in your room, the police are going to think you killed him.”

  Were they? There was a hole in the premise. She was sure of it, but at the moment it eluded her. She closed her eyes for an instant, shutting out the room, Bennett, and Wheeler with that deceptively small gun. Bagheera purred and she held onto the normality of the sound as if it represented her sanity.

  “The old lady got too nosy.”

  Wheeler’s low voice penetrated her thoughts. Sam’s eyes popped open. “You killed her. You bastard.”

  “Shut up,” Bennett ordered without turning around. “Theopoulos just came round the corner. Get ready.”

  Now was the time. She’d have no other chance. As Wheeler’s eyes flicked momentarily toward Bennett, Sam’s grip tightened on the cat. “Sorry, cat,” she muttered, and threw him at Wheeler.

  The man yelled and recoiled. The chair tipped over, catching his legs. Sam was on her feet before it stopped falling. She yanked open the door and broke into a run.

  Her feet clattered on the stairs as she tore down them. She made it to the second floor landing before she heard a pursuer panting behind her, shoes falling heavily on the thinly carpeted treads.

  “Tony,” she yelled, confident her pursuer wouldn’t shoot.

  It was Bennett behind her. He caught her on the next landing, tangling his hand in her hair while with the other he prodded a gun into her back. Helpless, she had no choice but to let him drag her down the last flight. Wheeler followed close behind.

  Tony walked into the main floor hall the same instant they reached it. He stopped in his tracks, but his expression gave away nothing. His eyes met Sam’s briefly, sending a message she could only interpret as “Stay cool.”

  Faint hope rose in her. Although she would have given anything to have prevented Tony walking into danger, together they might be able to escape yet.

  “One sound and I’ll shoot her,” Bennett warned, his eyes opaque and deadly. “No, I won’t kill her, but she’ll wish I had.”

  A pale gray Mercedes stood parked at the curb. The chauffeur, whom Sam remembered from Paris, sat impassively at the wheel.

  “So it was your car that was parked in Pickle Herring Street last evening,” Sam said. “Not Aunt Olivia’s.”

  “You didn’t even know what kind of a car Olivia had,” Bennett said scornfully.

  “But the message said to look for a car like this.”

  “Trusting soul, aren’t you?” Bennett’s lip curled. “Taking anonymous messages. That wasn’t even Olivia who phoned you at the pub to change the meeting. It was Jason.”

  “Damn,” she muttered in useless chagrin. “And I suppose it was Jason who phoned Tony to say you’d been called in for questioning?”

  Bennett smiled silkily. “Of course, my dear.”

  Sam stared at the ugliness that had once been her fiancé. No, he hadn’t suddenly grown warts, but she could no longer see the smoothly groomed exterior. She saw inside him, the twisted evil of his soul. “And you drugged me.”

  “Just enough in your lemonade to make you feel a little confused, not enough to do any harm. Your story about going to the warehouse was confusing enough. Now when the police find the knife in your flat, I’d say your credibility will be pretty well nonexistent.”

  Tony ground his teeth in angry frustration as Bennett manhandled Sam toward the car. He debated tackling Wheeler, using his fists to wipe that supercilious smirk off his face. But with two guns, one for each of them, the odds were stacked against him.

  Wheeler pulled the car door open. “Get in,” Bennett ordered, taking a tighter hold on Sam’s arm as he poked the gun into her side. “You first, Theopoulos.”

  Sam crawled in after Tony, settling down with relief as Bennett let go of her. Tony wrapped his arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick smile that warmed some of the chill from her bones. Together they might have a chance.

  Bennett climbed in beside them while Wheeler ran around the car to get into the front seat. The driver pressed a button, locking the doors.

  The drive through Central London’s congested streets seemed endless, but in reality it took less than an hour to reach a construction site in the East End. Several hard-hatted workers eyed the group curiously as they trooped over the muddy ground toward a huddle of trailers set up as offices.

  The weapons might be invisible, but Sam was conscious of the hard grip Bennett kept on her arm and the shape of the gun in the hand he had tucked in his overcoat pocket. She shivered as a cold wind carried drifts of fog off the river. A pile-driving machine pounded rhythmically, drowning out all other sound.

  Bennett nodded to a man coming out of one of the trailers. “’Afternoon, Tremblay. Some business to take care off. Please see that we’re not disturbed.”

  “Right, Mr. Price.” The accent was French-Canadian.

  Bennett was known at the site. The realization slammed into Sam’s brain. Then she saw the logo painted on the trailers: Price Enterprises. No wonder Aunt Olivia had said Bennett’s business was doing well if he were involved in this mega-project that would change the face of East London.

  Bennett handed Wheeler a ring of keys and waited as he unlocked the door of the last trailer. Inside, a desk, a filing cabinet and a photocopier took up most of the space. An electric heater warmed the air, combining with the fog seeping through poorly sealed windows to create an oppressive humidity.

  “Sit down, Samantha,” Bennett ordered, gesturing toward a straight chair opposite the desk.

  He stripped the tie from Tony’s neck and used it to lash his hands together behind his back. With a vicious twist he pulled the silk taut. Tony flexed his fingers. They were already beginning to tingle. More than a few minutes like this and the circulation would be cut off. He gritted his teeth, tensing his wrists in an effort to work some slack into the knots.

  Wheeler took over guard duty as Bennett unlocked the file cabinet and took out a folder. Seating himself behind the desk, he placed the file in front of Samantha.

  “Okay, Samantha, the games are over. You’re going to sign these papers.”

  She glared at him defiantly. “Why should I?”

  “Because if you don’t—” he directed a slight nod at Wheeler “—your friend Tony will soon be begging you to.”

  Before he finished speaking Wheeler doubled his fist and slammed it into Tony’s stomach. Sam felt tears stinging her eye as Tony grunted in pain and hunched over, nearly falling. Grabbing a handful of Tony’s shirtfront, Wheeler pulled him up and landed a second blow to his kidney. Tony turned white but managed to gasp, “Don’t do it, Sam.”

  “Make it easy for him, Samantha,” Bennett said with an infuriating smile. He extended a pen to her. “Sign the paper.”

  Sam looked down at the folder. Shocked, she took in the words. “I, Samantha Smith Price, being of sound mind…”

  Skipping through the conventional legal phrases, she slid her gaze to the bottom. “I leave my shares of stock in Smith Industries to my husband Bennett Price, as well as the trust fund from my grandmother…” More legalese, then a place for signatures in which the witnesses had already signed. Only the space with her name typed below it remained blank.

  She looked away from the document, her face feeling as if the skin had mummified over the bones. “So you’re going to get it all, Bennett.”

  For a second he looked startled, but at once comprehension crept into his eyes. “Ah, I see you know about the arrangement your father made with me. He wanted to be sure you married well this time. It was part o
f the agreement I made with him. Once you sign these papers and the marriage certificate—the date on it coincides with a business trip I took to Europe—no court will be able to dispute my claims.”

  Her lips would hardly move and she didn’t recognize her voice as she whispered. “You planned all along to kill me.”

  “No, my dear. It wouldn’t have been necessary. Look at this other document. You’ll see. As soon as we married I would have got half of Smith Industries. When you disappeared, I couldn’t claim it.”

  “That’s how you covered your ass,” Tony retorted. “It always bothered me that the prenuptial agreement seemed so heavily in Sam’s favor.”

  “Shut up,” Wheeler snarled, aiming a blow at Tony’s head. Ducking to one side, Tony deflected the worst of it. Even so, Wheeler’s fist made a sickening thud as it connected with Tony’s shoulder muscle.

  “Stop,” Sam cried. “You’re killing him.”

  “Not yet.” Bennett smiled grimly. “But I’m prepared to if you don’t sign. And remember, there are lots of ways to die.”

  Sam’s eyes skittered from Bennett’s face to Tony’s. All the color had gone from his skin, leaving it a pasty gray. He looked sick, almost as sick as she felt.

  “Okay, give me the pen.”

  “Sensible decision, Sam,” Bennett said. “You see, that’s where you and I differ. I’ve always found it safer and more profitable not to care about anyone. Too much emotional baggage slows you down.”

  “What a rotten way to live.” Sam stabbed at the paper with the pen. Perhaps someone would contest these diabolical documents with which she signed away both her integrity and her life.

  “Maybe,” Bennett said complacently. “But if you don’t care for anyone, no one can use it as a weapon against you. Emotions have no place with ambition. That was Dubray’s weakness. He got soft, too soft for this business. If he’d played along, he could have had a great future.”

  “A future that ended permanently last night,” Tony said. He glared murderously at Wheeler as the man lifted his gun. “Try it, Wheeler. Another body might not be so easy to explain.”