by Nic Saint
The man’s face darkened. “If you allow me to come in, I’ll tell you all about it.” He gave her a meaningful glance. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Of course. Please come in.”
Stepping inside, Falcone admired the decor. “Nice place you got here.”
“Thank you. If you don’t mind, could you tell me what happened to Rick?”
Falcone’s lips tightened. “He tricked me. The briefcase I took was not his at all.” Then, seeing Felicity’s blank stare, he promptly took a seat. “I’ve been informed by reliable sources that you’re very good at what you do, Miss Bell. I saw the pictures. And of course I saw the video.”
“The video? Oh, that.” A blush crept up her cheeks. Having forgotten all about that YouTube thing, she made a mental note to tell Alice to take the video down as soon as possible. It really didn’t do for the father of the man she loved to hear her views on sex.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what made you go after Rick?”
She folded her hands in her lap. She understood now what this was. Somehow some form of reconciliation must have taken place, and Rick’s father had decided to check out his son’s date. In many of the romance novels she enjoyed reading, the billionaire father routinely did a background check on his future daughter-in-law, in case she turned out to be a gold digger of some kind. “The first time I met Rick, I thought he was a common thug.”
Falcone inclined his head approvingly. “Very perceptive of you. I have often thought the same thing myself.”
“He was throwing a can of beans at me, so I felt I needed to defend myself.”
“Naturally.”
“Next thing I knew, he was being dragged off to prison and I felt I’d done my hometown a great service.”
Falcone was still nodding. It was obvious he liked where she was coming from.
She cast down her eyes. These kinds of scenes were never agreeable, but she had to be strong. “I guess you want to hear about the egg incident.”
“I’ve seen the egg incident. It was all over that YouTube video. It had a profound effect on me.”
“Yes. Well. I didn’t—”
“I admired your great aim. The way you hit the bullseye.” He shook his head, a fruity chuckle escaping his lips. “Priceless, Miss Bell. Absolutely priceless.”
She was speechless for a moment, starting to feel that the conversation was skewing into the realm of the surreal. The members of Monty Python might have enjoyed Mr. Falcone’s company but Felicity felt quite unequal to the strain. “What do you mean? You enjoyed the fact that I threw eggs at your son?”
“Absolutely. Just what the doctor ordered.” He held up a hand. “I’ve heard enough, Miss Bell. You’re everything I’d hoped for and more. I don’t know how much Jerry Vale and Johnny Carew have told you, but I need to obtain Rick’s computer before he goes and publishes that damn article of his. I thought I had the whole thing in the bag when I took a laptop from Casa di Amore but upon arrival at my house I discovered it was Bomer’s laptop instead. The young idiot must have decided to turn the second guest bedroom into his office for some reason. Now, can you or can you not steal my son’s computer for me?”
CHAPTER 46
Rick emitted a quiet moan. Contrary to popular belief, investigative reporters don’t enjoy being whacked over the head by large and burly attackers. And even though Rick had shot the breeze with fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan caves, warlords in the Somali jungle and reality show stars in Beverly Hills, he hadn’t quite gotten used to being treated roughly.
He gingerly opened his eyes, half expecting to find himself on the floor of some bar in the heart of Shanghai’s port district, the victim of a barroom brawl, when ever so slowly the truth came home to him that he wasn’t in any of the world’s danger zones but in what should have been the safest place on earth: the Calypso family’s fishing lodge.
The moment the floor stopped moving beneath him, and the walls stopped dancing the shimmy shake, he tried to sit up. The shooting pain lancing through the back of his head told him this was not a good idea. Reaching a tentative hand to the injured spot, he discovered a bump the size of an egg where there had been no bump before, and he was seriously thinking the Department of Homeland Security should issue a warning against Happy Bays as a tourist destination.
When the pain had sufficiently subsided, he slowly moved into a sitting position, staring before him with the vague recollection that something was missing. The table was there, the fishing rods were there, and the chair on which he’d been sitting was there, now lying next to him on the wooden boards. With a frown he suddenly realized that his laptop was missing, and he closed his eyes in dismay. He now saw all. Somehow, his crook father had finally managed to lay his grubby little hands on his most cherished possession.
“Damn,” he ejaculated forcefully. “Damn, damn, damn.”
Even though he’d saved most of his work in the cloud, the words he’d put in over the course of these last couple of days hadn’t been uploaded. And as they contained some of his most important insights, he keenly felt the loss.
Then, as reason returned to its throne, there was the nagging sensation that there was somewhere he needed to be. And with a second pang of dismay, he remembered the date he’d arranged with the most beautiful girl in the world. Startled, he jerked upright, only to be struck down again by those shooting pains. His second attempt, more careful now, bore fruit, and he got to wobbly feet, snatching his phone from the desk. At least the thieves had left him that.
He saw that it was already nine o’clock. Felicity had been waiting one hour. Without further ado he initiated the call. After several rings, it went to voicemail, and even though he’d fully intended to explain the situation in a few powerful phrases, he realized how he must sound.
He’d missed a date, and here he was, about to babble on about being attacked. Women, he knew, liked their men strong and in control. True alpha heroes capable of taking care of any contingency life throws at them. Until now, the powerful image Felicity had of him as a successful reporter had cast its spell on her and had in no small way contributed to his appeal. If he were to tell her he’d allowed himself to be overpowered by some two-bit goon working for his father, the fascination he held over her would instantly vanish.
No, he had to find some other reason for the delay, and decided to make his way over to her home and tell her in person. It would give him the time needed to come up with a good story. A story where he came out the hero—not the victim. Perhaps this way he could still salvage something from the wreck.
He raced to the house, uttering silent curses at the plaintive shoots of pain in his head and reaching his destination, stormed inside in search of Bomer. Finding him upstairs, he was surprised to discover that cheery party animal in a state of great distress. Clutching his hands to his hair, Bomer cried, “Someone has stolen my laptop!”
This bewildered Rick a great deal. That his own laptop would be stolen he could understand. But why anyone would bother with Bomer’s computer was a mystery to him, and frankly he didn’t really care.
“So? Just get yourself another one, why don’t you?”
For a man as rich as Bomer, the price of a laptop was no biggie, he knew.
“It held all my pictures!” Bomer bleated.
Rick could make head nor tails of this. “Pictures? What pictures?”
“Charlene’s pictures.”
“So?” It seemed strange to him that anyone would want to take pictures of that foul stepsister of his, but then he knew from experience that the world was full of strange people. He knew this because he’d interviewed quite a few of them. “Don’t you have a back-up?”
“No, I don’t,” Bomer muttered, visibly in the depths. “I was going to but I forgot.” He sat slumped on the bed, next to his suitcase.
“Well, then I guess you better call the police,” suggested Rick. He was starting to think that he’d jumped to conclusions regarding his father
stealing his laptop. Perhaps there was a gang of laptop thieves at work in Happy Bays.
“I don’t want to call the police.” Bomer gave him a look in which despair and embarrassment were nicely mingled. “Those pictures of Charlene…” He gulped. “They’re nude pictures. She’d kill me if she knew I’d told anyone.”
Rick held up a hand. The prospect of anyone being mad enough to get involved with his stepsister was enough to sicken him, but that any man would go as far as to take pictures of Charlene in the nude? “Please,” he muttered, “say no more. Whatever compelled you to take those pictures in the first place?”
“She made me!” he cried. “You know how much she’s dying to make a name for herself in show business.”
Rick knew this all too well. On more than one occasion Charlene had begged him to introduce her to some celebrity or movie star, in hopes the mere association would get her name into the tabloids. He’d never really understood her reasoning behind this. She was a billionaire’s daughter. If she wanted fame, she simply had to ask daddy, who could probably get her a record contract, or a movie deal, or even a reality show. But then she didn’t merely want to be famous. She wanted to be notorious. A bad girl. And being daddy’s girl didn’t fit into this scheme.
“She told me she wanted to make a…” Bomer shuddered, then continued in a low whisper. “She wanted to make a sex tape.”
Rick started violently. “No,” he muttered, horrified.
“Yes. She said it was her ticket to fame. That it would secure her name in the limelight. Those pictures were only the start. A dress rehearsal so to speak. She had the whole thing planned out in minute detail. First she would leak the tape, and then she would do the same thing with the pictures. She called it her media campaign.” He threw up his hands. “And now the whole thing has gone kaput!”
Rick pondered this. Even though the notion of his sister naked gave him the willies, a brain the size of his, even though now slightly stirred—or even shaken—never ceased to fire on all cylinders. “You know? This may be the making of you, Bomer. Did you ever…produce this sex tape?”
“No, we didn’t. I kept putting the thing off, finding the idea of the whole world watching my…well, you know what—”
“Yes, I think I do,” said Rick, his sense of privacy easily rivaling Bomer’s. He too, wouldn’t like to see his thingummy on display for the whole world to see.
“That was one of the reasons she was so pissed with me. She kept pushing me to make this tape, and I kept stalling and then when she caught me in your apartment, she thought I was cheating on her and that was the end of it.”
“Then what are you fretting about? You and she are not an item anymore, so what do you care that someone stole those pictures?”
This gave Bomer pause. It was an angle of the affair he hadn’t examined. Finally he said, “I guess you’re right.” His face lit up with sudden relief. “I don’t even have to tell her! That was what bothered me the most, you see. That I would have to fess up about having lost her precious pictures.”
“Well, since you’re not engaged anymore, I doubt she will bother you again.”
Bomer’s face clouded again. He’d thought of another thing. “What if the thieves decide to publish the pictures? Or, worse, decide to blackmail her?”
“Either way, it won’t affect you,” thought Rick. “And besides, if they publish the pictures, Charlene will get exactly what she wanted. Same thing if they try to blackmail her. She’ll make sure she milks this thing for all it’s worth.”
“Of course.” Bomer heaved a sigh of intense relief. “You’re right. It will be exactly what she wanted.”
“That settled, there is something I need from you, buddy.”
“Anything!”
“Can I borrow your car? I’m late for a dinner date and I really can’t wait around for a taxi. It’s a case of some urgency.”
By way of response, Bomer threw him the keys to his Porsche. “Knock yourself out, brother Rick. She’s all yours.”
For once, Rick didn’t mind being called by that ridiculous nickname. The sound of those words had greatly appealed to him. ‘She’s all yours.’ He hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
CHAPTER 47
As Rick steered Bomer’s Porsche into town, he passed Charlene’s Beemer. The two siblings awarded one another a brief glance, and then went on their merry way. There had long existed between them the kind of peace that existed between the USA and the USSR during the greater part of the cold war. Peaceful coexistence, some politician had once called it, and that was exactly how relations between Rick and Charlene could have been described.
Rick didn’t care about Charlene, and did his best to avoid her, and Charlene gladly returned the favor.
She expertly steered her car up the driveway to Casa di Vitae, where she hoped to find her father and confer with him about this great tragedy that had befallen her. She was a strong-willed independent girl, who was used to doing things her own way, but from time to time, when the great tragedies of life knocked her for a loop, she still found herself seeking daddy’s advice and shoulder to cry on. Contrary to Rick, Charlene had always greatly admired her father, and had remained on excellent terms even after he’d divorced her mother. In fact she’d opted to stay with him and hadn’t failed to inform the divorce court accordingly.
The fact that Bomer was a louse and a scoundrel and a heartless nitwit should have been clear to her from the start, especially since he was a close friend of her stepbrother, but she still hadn’t expected him to be a louse of such enormous proportion. Even with the wedding coming up, he’d insisted on going back to his womanizing ways and had had the gall to use Rick’s place to set up dates with girls behind her back. The man was simply incorrigible.
She drove up to the house and jerked the car to a screeching halt on the gravel drive. And that’s when she noticed a couple of men approaching from the beach. She recognized them as two of her father’s goons. Though she didn’t know their names—nor did she care—she did know they took care of some of the more unsavory little jobs a man in her father’s position sometimes required.
Contrary to Rick, she approved of her father’s shady deals and the notoriously unscrupulous ways in which he conducted business. If you want to make an omelet, you need to break some legs, she had always felt, and if hiring these two thugs was the way to amassing great wealth, so be it.
She stepped from the car and made her way to the front door, letting herself in with the key.
Before she could step inside, the voice of Jerry arrested her and she rolled her eyes. “Daddy! Some people here to see you!” she hollered. When no response came, she frowned darkly. She was used to people being at her beck and call, and didn’t enjoy being made to wait for a response. “Daddy!”
“He’s not there,” Jerry said, a little breathless.
Instantly, Charlene snatched her iPhone from her purse. “Daddy? Where are you?” she demanded.
She listened for a moment, then transferred her gaze to Jerry, who was gesturing at the phone. Reluctantly, she handed it over.
“Boss? It’s Jerry. Yeah, I know, I know. But we’ve got it.” He darted a surreptitious glance at Charlene, then continued in a stage whisper, “We’ve got the goods! Yeah, the thing’s in the bag.”
Whatever Jerry was discussing, her father’s response seemed to please him, for his weaselly face contorted into a hideous grimace. She deduced it was some species of smile, and eyed it with distaste.
“Thanks, boss. Much appreciated.” He handed her back the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
Charlene tossed her hair, then held the phone away from her ear. No way was she going to touch a phone that had been infected by this ghastly creature. “Daddy, when are you coming back? I need to talk to you.”
“And I need to talk to you. Where are you?”
“At the house.”
She could have been mistaken, but did her father sound peeved? It couldn’t be. She was, aft
er all, the apple of his eye, or so he always claimed.
“I’ll be right down. Don’t go anywhere.”
She assured him she wasn’t likely to head back out after she’d just driven all the way to Happy Bays when he abruptly disconnected without so much as an ‘I love you’ or ‘I’ll see you soon honey bunch.’ She frowned, and then became aware that the weasel was staring at her, licking his lips.
“What do you want?”
He handed her a laptop. She took it, staring disapprovingly at the ghastly thing. “Give this to your father, will you?” He gave her a hideous wink. “He knows all about it.” After uttering these words, he finally took off, along with the big brute who seemed to be his constant companion.
She closed the door, carried the laptop into the house, and set it down on the table. Moments later, she was walking out onto the patio. She was feeling annoyed, not only with Bomer but also with her father. She didn’t enjoy people telling her what to do and when he’d issued his command that she stay put, she’d experienced that familiar twinge of rebellion that was as much a part of her personality as the domineering streak she’d inherited from her mother.
She decided to go for a walk and made her way to the strip of beach. And she was passing Casa di Amore when she noticed something was going on there. Music drifted from the house, and she could see people milling about, drinks in hand and merrily prattling and having a ball. Curious, she set foot for the house. She loved parties, and always felt that any party where she wasn’t present wasn’t much of a party at all.
CHAPTER 48
Falcone stared dumbly at the woman pacing the floor before him. For the past hour she’d spoken extensively and spoken well on a topic on which she obviously held strong views. Several times now, he’d tried to interrupt her, and put in a word of his own, but she’d simply silenced him with a cold look and continued her speech.