by test
“No, you certified jackass. I wanted to save the dog that helped me,” she blurted out, wondering why she was trying to explain herself to a man that was quite literally the king of all assholes.
“I didn’t see any dog. I believe Samantha that you have gone quite loopy. I would suggest that you have Johanna check you out, at the earliest opportunity. Dog,” he muttered.
“Now I have heard it all.”
“Oh, shove it,” she whispered, falling silent. Well, if Lord Devlin hadn’t seen the dog, then where had it come from? She hadn’t been imagining or seeing things. She was tired, but not crazy. Why did unexplainable not to mention ultra weird things always seem to happen to her? For once, just once, she’d like to have a logical explanation for the different things she saw.
Her sister Charlotte would tell her that it was her ‘gift’ resurrecting itself. But there was only one kind of sight that she wanted. She would continue to smother the other sight as long as she could.
“Were you always so damnably charming?” Devlin inquired, settling himself back against the black leather seat.
“I was born with my charm,” she smirked.
He shrugged his shoulders, and let out a throaty chuckle.
“Your poor mother. ”
The hover limo shuddered, and began descending toward his opulent mansion. It was constructed like a fortress, and she shivered keenly wondering how Tyler had managed to break into it. Her husband was talented all right. She wouldn’t know where to begin in infiltrating Lord Devlin’s home. It looked as if it could fight off a bloody army.
The door to the limo opened and Lord Devlin stared back at her in expectation.
“Well, are you coming? ” he asked, tapping his foot restlessly.
“You don’t have to seem so eager,” she muttered, sliding across the seat. She wrinkled her nose and noticed for the first time that she had rusty lettuce stuck on her. Her stomach rolled RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 102
for what seemed to the fifth time that morning. She was a bloody mess!
“I can hardly wait,” he retorted. He watched with a sour grimace as she flicked the lettuce off of herself.
“You smell,” he muttered.
She groaned. He could be charming with almost any other woman. But whenever he was talking to her he lost all semblance of tact. She made a rude noise through her nose, and gave him a glare.
“And you’re an asshole! But you don’t see me telling you that at every chance I get.” She swore when she hit her head on the roof of the car.
“Don’t worry, no damage will have been done,” he muttered, as she staggered back.
“Your ass is still quite unharmed.”
“Why don’t you pucker your lips up and bust it a big one?”
He quickly reached out a steadying hand she pulled back away from him.
“Take
your
filthy hand off of me!”
“Yes, you’re right. It will be soiled now that I have touched you,” he murmured.
She gave him another creative glare.
“Now I have to go in and give my hands a good scrubbing. The smell probably won’t air out of my limo for at least a week.”
“Here’s to hoping!” she said brightly, as they walked up to the massive front door.
“You can use one of my bathrooms to clean yourself up. I’ll contact Danny, and your sister. They will in all likelihood be quite worried about you. Later, I will take you back up to The Emerald Star.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t think that I could stand one more minute of your company. You make my ass ache.” She tried not to let her jaw drop onto the black and white marble floor.
No matter how much she detested Lord Devlin, she had to admit that he had good taste.
Her heart sank as she realized the kind of lifestyle that a certain someone could be living right now. If she hadn’t broken Johanna and Lord Devlin up, Johanna would never of had to worry about being up to her ass in scary shit, and she never would’ve had to worry about how they were going to pay for things. But then, she’d always known that Devlin had gone after Johanna because someone else had spurned him…. Maybe just maybe, she should have encouraged Johanna to marry Devlin, no matter how she’d felt.
Boy oh, boy, maybe she had royally screwed her sister. But then all form of guilt left her, when she saw the three painted women sitting in the front parlor on the couch. They looked like cheap whores. Maybe he’d gotten a group rate.
“Oh, Lord Devlin haven’t you been a naughty boy!” Samantha snickered.
* * * *
Samantha studied the women with interest and nearly stuck her tongue out at them when they suddenly glanced her way. They all frowned at her and then Samantha was reminded that she was still wearing her bright red pajamas. Not knowing of anything else to do, she gave them a wacky grin, as they all put constipated expressions on their faces. “Say, aren’t they stuck up pieces of crap,” she murmured, instantly disliking them.
“These are my late wife’s friends,” he muttered. Huh. So, that explained why they reminded her of whores. They must have been friends from the good old days. Ah, nostalgia.
“That would explain why they look like brainless wonders.”
He scowled down at her and she grinned back.
“Exactly how long have they been Lady Devlin’s friends for?” she asked. She returned RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 103
her attention to the women completely ignoring the perturbed glare that he gave her. She just had to know, if they’d worked with Lady Devlin. She wanted to know everything. Suddenly, Lord Devlin’s life seemed more than mundane.
“For as long as I can remember.”
She studied the painted dolls with even more interest, and tried to figure the women out.
Were they really ex-prostitutes? All of the questions that flooded her mind were giving her a migraine. He made a show of moving away from her, just as one of the women came toward them.
The woman sniffed at her and she glared back at the woman. How dare she imply that she stunk!
“We can see you are occupied at the moment, Lord Devlin, so we will return later today,”
The woman said, eying her knowingly. “I can see your tastes have changed since your wife’s death. Just make sure that she is certified,” the woman advised, motioning for her gal pals to join her.
“What are you thinking of Rhonda? Of course she’d be certified. Lord Devlin runs the brothels around here.” One of her companions pointed out. They gave her one last disdainful glare and rushed out the door.
Samantha’s face flamed with heat and she resisted the urge to break the priceless figurine in front of her. Instead, she wanted to bust something on Lord Devlin’s anatomy.
“You let them think that I was your hired woman! ” she spat out, marching over to him.
How dare those women think that she’d ever serve Lord Devlin with more than a punch to the nose? Disgusting. They needed a mind cleaning, and she could hook them up with a good telepath.
“In your state of undress, I can hardly make them believe otherwise. You aren’t exactly a crooked nosed hag. And if you didn’t have such an off putting personality, I would gladly hire you for your personal services.” Lord Devlin took a step back from her and crinkled his nose. “I was serious when I said that you could use my facilities. In fact, PLEASE use my facilities.” She could tell that he was having a hard time putting up with the strong scent of her.
“Honestly, what do you think that I am supposed to smell like? The Red Falcon or one of his people are responsible for putting me down there in the garbage, and you mark my words, I will figure out who it was. When they transported me down onto the planet, I landed right beside a garbage dump. An overflowing garbage dump! I can’t be expected to smell like roses,” she mumbled, as she suddenly got a good whiff of herself.
Damn, she smelt more than the time that she had fallen into a New San Francisco swamp.
YUCK! He was r
ight, she did need to have a good long shower. The hotter the better.
“Yes, well,” he said, as she regarded him steadily. “If you go up the stairs and walk down the hallway then turn right, the first door that you find will be the Blue Room, and you can go in there and have a shower. I will arrange for some suitable clothing for you,” he muttered, reaching for the holo-phone. “And if you don’t move quickly, I’ll get you moving by coming up there with you to ensure that you clean yourself properly.” Her heart dropped into her stomach.
He’d just made a blatant pass at her. Unbelievable.
“I am going…and please, don’t ever think of coming to help me when I am in the shower, because if you do, you won’t be coming out alive.”
He smirked at her, his eyes sparkling. He was a big jerk, but he’d still saved her life…
for that, she could forgive him.
She turned away not wanting to express any gratitude to him and dashed up the long and RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 104
winding staircase. By the time she’d reached the top she was quite dizzy. She thought back to his instructions, walked down the hall, and then stopped abruptly.
Did he say right or left? She couldn’t remember past the shooting pain in her head. So, she turned left. She reached for the doorknob to the first door on the right, and was surprised to find that everything was so old-fashioned in such a modern house.
She opened the door and stifled a scream. She gaped at the woman in a flowing pink negligee that stood in front of her.
“My bad,” she mumbled, her cheeks again flaming red.
The woman stared at her angrily, but didn’t say a word, as Samantha quickly shut the door. She let out a surprised gasp, and decided that she definitely should have turned right.
Her shoddy sense of direction had once again gotten her in trouble. She wasn’t at all taken aback. She knew that Lord Devlin was a pig when it came to women. She just hadn’t imagined that even he would have been bold enough to invite a woman into his house so shortly after his wife’s tragic death. “Hell, Samantha, you shouldn’t be surprised, he just offered to help you out with a shower.” She shuddered.
She found the right room quickly enough, and made her way into the large adjoining bathroom. She showered and then wrapped a towel around her hair, while she reached for another fluffy one to wrap around her body.
She stepped out into the room and was surprised to find black leather pants, and a leather trench coat waiting for her on the bed.
Farther away, someone had carefully laid her bra and panties, not to mention the same kind of shirt that she normally wore beneath her leather coat. She dressed quickly, and was about to make her way out into the hallway again, when she felt a strange tingly sensation wash over her.
She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she stood in front of a relieved Tyler, and a seemingly irritated Red Falcon. She looked around and quickly discovered they were standing in the quarters that she had been assigned on The Emerald Star.
“Well, you took your sweet ass time,” she spat out, scowling crossly at the Red Falcon.
She moved closer to Tyler and watched as something unfamiliar filled the Red Falcon’s eyes.
“How the hell did you gain access to my transporter system?” he demanded. She was actually surprised by his display of anger. She had thought that he was a man that never lost his control. Obviously, she’d been WAY off the mark.
She gasped out in outrageous horror at his ridiculous question.
“How did I...?” she sputtered, trailing off, as her brain nearly overloaded with her frustration. “Someone on your ship did this to me, and I think they did it because they know that I am delving into the murder of Lady Devlin. Well, I won’t be intimidated. I’m going to continue my search until I find the real killer.”
“So you say,” the Red Falcon said, dropping his arms to his side. “If what you say about being transported down to New Monaco’s surface against your will is correct, then I will investigate. Granted, it might be very difficult for me to catch the person that did it to you.
Unless, I ask Devlin to ask his spies he has placed on the Emerald Star about it, that is.”
Samantha put her index finger up to her temple and groaned. “I don’t understand your relationship with Lord Devlin. This whole mess is giving me the largest headache that I’ve ever suffered. Let me get this straight. You are Lord Devlin’s adopted child, and yet he doesn’t trust you, so he has spies stationed onboard your ship. And here I thought you were the great and RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 105
mighty Red Falcon.”
“I let Devlin have his way. It would only make him madder to know that I knew about his people. He thinks I’m in the dark about the situation and so he is content. I, on the other hand, let the spies know what I want them to know, which isn’t that much. They make reports, Devlin reads them, and thinks that in his roundabout manner he is watching over me. But we must be very careful with Tyler. Devlin still wants to hang him, and I must keep up the appearance of only believing in you because you are sleeping in my bed. Devlin is a complicated man, what motivates his actions can sometimes not be determined. I would’ve thought that he had killed Lady Devlin, if I hadn’t known the manner in which she was murdered.”
Samantha sat down in a chair resting her chin on her hand.
“Oh, and why is that?” Samantha winced, suddenly realizing that she didn’t have a clue about the way in which Lady Devlin had been murdered.
Worse yet, she had never conducted a murder investigation, and she didn’t really know how to go about it. She was definitely no Sherlock Holmes.
The Red Falcon sighed and Tyler stared at her in suppressed irritation.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” she muttered sullenly. “I didn’t have much time for the incidentals when I was trying to run to your rescue. All I knew was that Lady Devlin had been murdered, and you were being blamed for it. Excuse me if I didn’t stop to read the whole report.
She was dead. Finding out about how she had been done in, wasn’t going to bring her back to life.”
“That is true. But unless you want to see Tyler hanged, you’ll have to get your details straight. Lady Devlin was strangled. Devlin would never do something so violent. If he wanted to kill her, he’d have had her poisoned or shot, from a distance.”
“What if he had ordered the hit?” she countered, as he furrowed his brow.
“That wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. He still would have made sure that she died in a less physical way. Devlin’s mind is like a ticking time bomb, but he uses his intelligence whenever he makes an important decision. I have known him long enough to realize that killing Lady Devlin was something that would have never entered his mind. They had the model marriage. She entertained his powerful friends and allies, while letting him have the kind of marriage that he desired with her.”
“What kind of marriage was that?” she asked, shakily reaching for the cup of coffee that was steaming on the table in front of her. She felt like she’d been thrust into a really complicated soap opera.
She assumed that the cup of coffee was meant for her and when no one told her otherwise, she cautiously sipped at it.
“An open one,” The Red Falcon said, causing her to spew out her mouthful of coffee.
Just at that moment, a communication channel was opened, and she heard Johanna’s aggravated voice on the other end.
“Is my sister there?” she asked the Red Falcon, he glanced Samantha’s way.
“Of course,” he clipped off. Johanna let out a relieved sigh.
“I’ve been viewing camera footage from New Monaco, and I could’ve sworn that I saw her running through the Red Light District in nothing but her pajamas. I must have been mistaken, but with Samantha it wasn’t something that would have been unexpected. I need to talk to her on a private frequency if you don’t mind, it concerns a family matter, of the utmost importance.”
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ws 106
Samantha quickly shot to her feet, and impatiently reached for his communicator.
The Red Falcon handed her the star shaped object, and Samantha walked into the bathroom, so she’d have some privacy. As she left the bedroom, she noticed the slight frown that creased Tyler’s forehead. Guess he wanted in on the conversation as well.
“What’s up, Johanna?” she asked, wondering how she should tell her sister that she was right.
She’d have some smart-ass reply ready for her, and Samantha didn’t know if she could face it, without her second cup of coffee.
“I’m by myself on The Excalibur, and we left space and docked on New Monaco expecting to start the investigation like yesterday, but when you didn’t show up, Dylan, Veronica and Ross set out on their own. Dylan has the bright idea that he’s going to clear Tyler’s name all on his own, and he convinced me to stay with The Excalibur, because I don’t feel that great. But I’m worried. He hasn’t checked in for over an hour. Samantha, he’s alone, with Veronica and her husband. Though Veronica has nowhere else to go, since her ship was destroyed, I can’t help but be concerned. If I give you their last known location, can you go and check it out?”