And now she had to deal with Max’s condition.
A condition that wasn’t good.
He’d had a major heart attack around ten o’clock last night following dinner with a rep from the label. The only reason Max was still alive was because they hadn’t yet left the restaurant when it had happened. The maître d’ had performed CPR.
Max Cogan was alive by the grace of God, it seemed. Once they’d stabilized him, they found five blocked arteries. All of which they’d fix—when and if he survived the heart attack.
If he made it through the first twenty-four hours, he might have a chance. Until then, it was heartbeat by heartbeat.
“Janey,” Jase said again, and when she finally looked up at him, his heart broke.
Her face was swollen from crying. Her eyes windows of despair.
“I can’t leave him. He . . . he might wake up. He’ll need someone. Someone who cares about him.”
Jase understood. Max was family. The only family she had now. And there was no way in hell she was going to let Jase pry her away from his side.
“Okay. Fine,” he murmured with a gentleness that he hadn’t known he had in him. “But you’re going to eat something. And then you’re going to sleep. The staff knows to wake you if he comes around.”
“I’ll run down to the cafeteria and get something for both of you,” Lakesha offered.
Jase nodded his thanks and pulled Janey back against him, pushing her head down onto his shoulder as if he could will her to sleep.
“What about you?” She leaned back against him as another couple entered the waiting area, their eyes just as strained, their hearts just as heavy. There was only one reason anyone sat in this room done in subdued colors of blue, rose, and gray.
They were waiting for someone to live. Or waiting for someone to die.
“I’m fine. I’m a big, tough bodyguard type, remember?”
“Yeah,” she said, and he finally felt her relax against him. “I remember.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Neither of them had slept in over twenty-four hours. Jase knew she was running on fumes. His tank wasn’t exactly full, either, but he’d trained for this in the Rangers. He was used to it. She wasn’t. And she was almost asleep when a nurse came out. The shift had changed an hour ago, so Jase didn’t recognize her.
“Is there anyone here for Max Cogan?”
Janey shot awake. Jase stood when she did. “We are,” Janey said.
“Janey Perkins,” Jase said, introducing her to the nurse. “I’m Jason Wilson.”
“I’m Shelly. And I’ve got good news. He’s awake,” she said cheerily. “And he’s asking for you.”
Janey rushed toward the CCU door.
“I’m sorry.” The nurse stopped her with a hand on her arm and a sympathetic look. “He’s asking for Mr. Wilson.”
Janey stopped, stricken. Hugged her arms around her ribs.
Jase squeezed her arm. Smiled in reassurance, although he was as puzzled as she was as to why Max had summoned him and not her.
“You’d better hurry,” Shelly said. “He may not be awake and alert for long.”
He was awake long enough, Jase thought with a grim set to his mouth when he left Max five minutes later. He’d been awake long enough to turn Janey’s world upside down again.
Desperate. Max Cogan was desperate. And he’d made Jase the designated proxy to level the blow of just how desperate Max was.
As Jase walked back into the waiting room and saw the concerned, expectant look on her face, he only hoped she was strong enough to keep it from knocking her down.
Gambling?” Janey looked stunned as she sat on her leather sofa, the dogs lying contentedly at her feet, the cat purring on her lap.
They’d returned to her Malibu beachhouse a couple of hours after Max had come clean to Jase.
“Max has a gambling problem?”
“Apparently a big one,” Jase said, wondering how much more she could possibly take.
He handed her a bottle of water that he’d just pulled out of the fridge, thinking he was glad that he’d kept his mouth shut when No had called him in Iowa. Glad he’d withheld the info about Max and his gambling issues. It was hurting Janey bad enough to hear it now in the form of a confession from Max. It would have hurt more if Max hadn’t been the one to spill the beans on himself.
Jase hadn’t wanted to talk about Max’s confession at the hospital. Not with Lakesha there. Not until he had Janey where she could have some privacy to absorb this latest twist. And until the doctor had come out later with the announcement that Max had made it past the critical hour and it looked like he was on track to recovery, Jase hadn’t been able to budge her from the hospital.
“Why didn’t I know this? How could I not have known?”
“Shame motivates. Max is ashamed of his habit. He hid it well because of that. He never intended for you to know.”
“And he was making what he thought was a deathbed confession?”
“He was trying to save your life.”
She blinked up at him.
He let out a deep breath and sat down on the arm of the sofa. She looked small and breakable and ruined as he related the story Max had told him. How he’d gotten in deep with a bookie by the name of Herb Meyers—how Herb turned out to be mob-connected and how Max had gotten into them for two hundred thousand dollars. And the hard part, how Max had planned to “borrow” the money from Janey and hope she never found out.
“Only Max had a change of heart,” Jase told her, watching her face, wishing he could fix all the things that were so very wrong in her life. “In the end, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t steal from you. So this Meyers guy came after him again—Max spotted him at the restaurant. That’s what prompted the heart attack.”
“Why didn’t Max come to me? Why didn’t he ask me for the money? I would have given it to him. He knows I would have given it to him.”
“He loves you,” Jase said simply. “He didn’t want to let you down—like your mother let you down, he said.”
“So he figured stealing from me was the way to go?” Anger bled into the hurt and confusion.
Jase understood. And sympathized. “It’s hard to see any good in this, but remember, he couldn’t do it. And the only reason he felt desperate enough to even consider it was because Meyers had made threats—threats involving your life. That’s why Max called me so often. He’d never give me any specifics—but I sensed that he was desperate. Now I know why he didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
“So . . . so you’re thinking the man . . . the man who tried to kill us at the lodge . . . that this Meyers person sent him?”
“When I told Max about it, he seemed to think so, yes. As payback for Max not coming through.”
“That’s our answer then?” Her eyes looked dead. “Meyers hired an assassin to kill me because Max didn’t pay up?”
“I’d like to think so,” Jase said, wishing he could work up some enthusiasm for the idea. “It would put a period to this sentence.”
“And to make certain Meyers doesn’t send someone else, the simple answer would be that I just pay off Max’s debt and the story is over.”
Jase looked at her carefully. And knew she didn’t buy that idea any more than he did.
“Or it would be,” she continued, “if Neal wasn’t dead. If Grimm weren’t still on the loose. If there weren’t four dead women whose names just happened to be on a list in my mother’s lockbox.”
Her mother, who was also dead, Jase thought, knowing she was thinking the same thing.
Jesus, what a mess. What a fucked-up, deadly mess.
He watched as she sank deeper into her sofa, hugging Cat to her breast . . . and all the while, his “got a bad feeling” feeling ramping up about one hundred clicks.
23
Same day, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Dallas checked the address, parked his rental car, and walked up the sidewalk toward the neat little ranch hou
se on the south end of the city.
A petite dark-haired woman answered the door. He saw the resemblance to her mother immediately. Emma Richards looked very much like the photograph Dallas had found of Candice Richards—the second woman on Alice Perkins’s list.
The woman he’d been too late to save. She’d died three days ago. In her own garage, of an apparent accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Can I help you?”
“Miss Richards? I’m Dallas Garrett. I called earlier. About your mother?”
“Of course. Please.” She stepped aside, hesitant but still inviting him in. “Come in. Although I really don’t know how I can help you, Mr. Garrett.”
She offered a hand toward a chair, an indication for Dallas to sit down.
“I appreciate your time. And I’m truly sorry about your mother.”
Tears formed in her eyes as she sat opposite him on a delicate floral sofa done in pinks and greens. “It’s . . . such a shock, you know.”
Yeah. He knew. “I’m sure it is. And believe me, I wouldn’t intrude at a time like this if it wasn’t important.”
“What is it that you think I can help you with?”
Since all of the women on the list were dead, Dallas had decided to question their children. Emma Richards was the first. He fished the list of names out of his pocket. “Do any of these names mean anything to you?”
She studied the list, her brows furrowed over deep brown eyes. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t . . .” She paused, frowned. “Wait. Maybe. I’m thinking my mother may have mentioned—” Her eyes widened in alarm and she cut herself off.
“Your mother may have mentioned what?”
She tucked her lower lip between her teeth, handed him back the list. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrett. I don’t think I can help you.”
Dallas felt all of his antennae rise to attention. Jackpot. This woman knew something. The trick was going to be convincing her she needed to tell him.
“I think you can,” he said gently. “I think you need to. I arrived too late to save your mother, but—”
“Wait. What . . . what do you mean? Too late to save my mother?”
He met her dazed frown. “I don’t think your mother’s death was an accident, Miss Richards. I think she was murdered. Just like the other women on this list. And if we don’t act fast, yet another woman may die.”
All the color drained from her face.
“And I think,” he added when it was clear the urgency of the situation had set in, “that you might have some information that could keep her alive.”
Same night, New York City, Marriott
McCoy was such a prick, Chris Ramsey thought as she rode the elevator to the tenth floor for their eight o’clock meeting.
She’d been pimping McCoy for days, trying to work him into a lather that would push him over the edge so he’d do something stupid—stupid and sensational—to Janey.
Like call her out in public. Make a big scene by telling her what a bitch she was.
She was getting there, Chris thought with a smug grin as the elevator doors opened. Yeah. She was getting there. By the time the tour started up again in a little over a week, she’d have McCoy at a boiling point.
And she was going to catch it all on tape. The price for her film would skyrocket. Ka-ching. If McCoy actually got rough with Janey, well—she grinned, just thinking about it—all the better.
She stepped out of the elevator cab—and was almost knocked down. She felt a sharp pain in her ribs from the blow.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going, creep!” she sputtered, and glared up at the asshole who’d run into her.
The crazed venom in the man’s eyes stole her breath. She stumbled backward, punched in the gut by sheer, instant terror.
For the first time in her adult life, she wondered what it would feel like to die. Just when she thought she was going to find out, he took off down the hall, disappeared through an exit stairwell door.
“Christ,” she said, working to catch her breath as an unprecedented weakness threatened to buckle her knees. “Jesus H. Christ.”
His eyes. She’d never seen such rage.
And that’s when it hit her. She recognized him.
Holy fuck. He was Janey Perkins’s stalker. After the incident in Atlantic City, the cute little bodyguard had had Edwin Grimm’s picture circulated to everyone who had contact with Janey.
Still reeling with that knowledge, wondering what in the hell Grimm was doing here, Chris stumbled toward McCoy’s room.
Then she felt her heart kick up about a hundred beats per when she reached the door. And found it ajar.
Wrong. Everything was wrong. Grimm. The open door. The catch of her breath. The jerk, crash, jerk of her heartbeat. The stabbing pain in her side.
“McCoy?”
Even before she pushed the door all the way open, she knew he wasn’t going to answer. Derek McCoy lay prone on his back on the floor, a brilliant red stain bleeding from his throat onto the plush white carpet.
Dead, she thought, mesmerized by the blood flowing from McCoy’s throat . . . suddenly aware of the blood dripping to pool at her feet.
In a dazed sort of comprehension, she looked down at the hand she hadn’t even realized she held against her ribs.
It was covered in blood. Her blood.
“Bastard,” she swore, and, stumbling into the room, crashed against the desk. “That bastard is not going to kill me, too.”
She reached for the phone. Fumbled with the receiver, followed it down when it fell to the floor.
She dragged the base of the phone down with her. Punched zero.
And begged them to come for her. To not let her die like this.
The next night, Janey’s Malibu beachhouse
Janey stared solemnly at the TV, petting Cat, the dogs sleeping at her feet, still feeling marginally dazed over the news about Max. It hurt. Hurt to know that someone she loved had been about to betray her. Hurt more to know that Max had almost died.
Too many deaths. Too much drama. Still too many unknowns. Like was she out of danger now that the assassin was dead?
Assassin. Lord. Max’s loan sharks had sent an assassin to kill her.
“His name is Alex Marshall,” Baby Blue had told her after he’d received a report from the police. “He’s a known gun for hire. Had been on the FBI’s most wanted for four years.”
He was also an ex-cop.
“How does that happen?” she’d asked Jase. “How does someone who protected and served . . .”
“Turn rogue?” he’d finished for her when she’d found herself at a loss to comprehend. “Who knows. Something must have clicked off inside him,” he’d offered, and they’d left it at that.
“The main thing is,” he’d continued, “that he’s not a threat to you anymore.”
“And as soon as they know I’m going to pay Max’s debt, Meyers and his pals are out of the picture, too, right?”
“Right,” he’d said, but something in his eyes hadn’t been all that reassuring.
That’s why she was sitting here. Watching a plastic-faced and polished reporter stare earnestly into the camera, her long sable hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup flawless.
“In our top news story tonight, we’ll take you to Santa Monica, where one of the biggest news makers of the year, the Reverend Samuel Black, is staging the latest and, might I add, largest revival service in the history of his ministry.”
“Why are you watching that crap?”
Janey looked up over her shoulder as Baby Blue came into the room.
“I’m turning over a new leaf. As long as my life is in the crapper, I’ve decided to become a narcissist.”
“Not funny,” he said with a concerned look.
“Sorry. It’s the best I can do.”
She watched him walk across the living area to the kitchen. He’d just showered. His chest was still wet. He was barefoot and wearing only a pair of faded jeans.
> But even the sight of his lean hips and broad bare back couldn’t rouse her out of her funk. She barely smiled when he handed her a bottle of water and popped the top on his can of Coke.
“Charles Crocker is in Santa Monica now to bring us that story,” the reporter went on with a practiced smile. “Charles, what’s happening there?”
“Well, Shawna, as you can hear in the background, it’s a night for an old-fashioned revival. The tents are up, the choir is singing, and the Reverend Black is breaking records with his ‘take it to the people’ crusade. Have a listen to this interview we taped with him earlier today.”
Janey sipped from her water bottle, aware of Baby Blue easing a hip onto the arm of the sofa beside her as the camera cut to a pristine white backdrop upon which hung a slim gold cross. The Reverend Samuel Black, in all of his spiritual glory, entered the shot, his salt-and-pepper hair groomed to perfection, his smile benevolent and serene, his manner godly in his black robe.
“You’ve got quite a gathering here tonight, Reverend,” a reporter stated off camera. “To what do you attribute your ever-increasing popularity?”
“I am but a shepherd,” the reverend said modestly. “It’s my responsibility to lead my flock—and they have been looking for leadership for a very long time.”
“You’ve expressed very definitive views on everything from politics to music,” Charles prompted.
“I have indeed. We are in the midst of a moral decline, much of which I fully attribute to the music the young people are forced to listen to today.”
Here it comes, Janey thought. He’s going to let me have it.
“You’ve been a vocal critic of rock. To the point of singling out certain artists.”
“Sweet Baby Jane and her ilk are not artists. They are the devil’s spawn. They will know retribution someday. In the meantime I merely attempt to steer my flock back to the right path.”
The shot flipped back to the studio. “Thank you, Charles. And thank you, Reverend Black, for your insights.”
“Pious bastard.”
Janey glanced up as Jase touched a hand to her hair. “You okay?”
“It’s funny. I’ve had a lot of time to think lately . . . you know. Childhood stuff. Anyway, it’s ironic that Black decided to single me out because I remember how my mom used to watch him on TV on Sunday mornings. How she used to watch him and cry.”
Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 04] Page 26