by Jo Barrett
“Argghh,” Dylan moaned, as Kat’s hands began to move faster and faster. “I’d rather have sex with the surrogate woman.”
“That can be arranged, my dear.”
Kat jumped off the bed, raced into the closet, and returned a moment later wearing a dark wig that she’d worn on Halloween one year, and Dylan’s cowboy hat perched on top of her head.
“Ta-da,” she said, posing in lace panties and a cowboy hat.
He watched in pleasure as she straddled him, crotchless panties and all, and began to rock back and forth, like a bucking cowgirl, on top of him. Last night had been good, but this was bound to be better. This time, Dylan concentrated on giving her pleasure as she thrust her hips back and forth. She felt so good and warm and wet sliding all over on top of him. He gritted his teeth and waited until she threw her head back and moaned loudly.
“Kathleen,” Dylan whispered.
“Shhh.” She pressed her finger to his lips. “You don’t have to say it.”
I love you, hon.
Twenty-three
Dylan zipped into the elevator wearing his morning costume. Jeans, flip-flops, and his new Zeus T-shirt, which had inexplicably become his favorite. He’d considered wearing a suit, but figured he didn’t want to look too fancy for his coffee meeting with C. Todd Hartwell.
It was best to be rumpled, just out of bed, steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Dylan checked his watch. He was only fifteen minutes late.
Better to be twenty, he thought. But he’d already made it this far.
He rode to the ground floor of the Royal Arms and strode toward the conference room. Kat had made him a wickedly strong cup of Guatemalan brew, and for the first time this morning, Dylan regarded the mug.
Damn it, Kat! On this morning, of all mornings, she’d handed him a mug that read: “Best Boyfriend Award!”
She’d given him the mug as a stocking stuffer last Christmas. Dylan scowled and walked briskly toward the concierge desk, where he spotted Eddie gobbling a Whipley’s chocolate glazed, and thinking no one was watching him.
“Morning, Mr. Grant!” Eddie sputtered, wiping specks of glazed sugar from his lips.
Dylan set the coffee mug on Eddie’s desk. “Keep this for me.”
Eddie eyed the mug’s slogan. “Ah, Mr. Grant. She cares for you more than oxygen.” The concierge sighed under his breath.
Enough is enough, Dylan thought. He decided not to allow these personal remarks to slide.
“What are you trying to say, Eddie?”
Eddie wiped his hand against his uniform pants. “Oh, Mr. Grant. I just like Ms. Kathleen so much.”
So do I, Eddie. Dylan broke into a smile and thumped his fist against the concierge desk. “Don’t you worry about Kathleen, Eddie. I’m going to do it right. I’m just waiting for my moment.”
Eddie smiled broadly, revealing chocolate crumb–stained teeth.
Dylan pointed at the Whipley’s doughnut box tucked behind Eddie’s desk. “I thought you were going to lay off those things. Can’t be good for your cholesterol.”
“Mr. Whipley moved in last week, so I get them for free.” Eddie gleamed, as if he’d just won the lottery.
Dylan flinched. Eddie had never called anyone besides Dylan “Mr.”
Only for Dylan had Eddie reserved the revered status of “Mr. Grant.” But now Eddie was calling the doughnut guy “Mr. Whipley.” Probably because the doughnut heir had moved into the penthouse.
Dylan wanted to ask Eddie what the Whipley heir looked like—was he short and stubby like a Napoleon-type fellow, or tall and striking and someone to worry about?
It would have to wait.
Dylan saluted Eddie and flopped down the hall toward the conference room. He clicked open the door, stepped inside, and was immediately overwhelmed by a smell. It was the scent of cheap cologne doused over skin as if the person were trying to put out a fire.
Well, well. What do we have here?
Dylan raised his eyebrows. Smiling up at him from the conference table was 1) C. Todd Hartwell; 2) Louisiana Steve—the Infectious Disease—wearing ten thousand gallons of Drakkar Noir; 3) and his own brother, Wyatt.
Jesus. Is the circus in town?
“Look who’s decided to join us,” C. Todd Hartwell said. He motioned for Dylan to take a seat next to Wyatt.
“No lie, dawg. You pull a stunt like that for a meeting with the brothers and you’d get a cap in yo’ ass,” Steve snickered, as if he were a black guy from Compton, and not a short little white dude from New Orleans.
Dylan noticed Wyatt was sitting at the head of the table, Big Swinging Dick that he was.
“Larry, Moe, Curly,” Dylan shot back. He had a fleeting image of himself bolting from the conference room. Just turning on his heel and running out the door as fast as he could. But instead, Dylan plopped down into a chair next to his younger brother.
He was amused, if anything.
“Morning, brother,” Wyatt said, clapping Dylan on his knee.
“I thought you were still asleep,” Dylan said. He wondered what the Younger was up to.
Wyatt wants in on this deal, he thought.
“We’ve got one more joining us,” C. Todd said, checking his watch.
Just then, a tall, elegant man dressed in a crisp suit and tie that made Dylan’s mouth go dry stepped into the room.
“I’m Jonathan Whipley,” the man announced, in a tone that sounded like Yale or Harvard or one of those other East Coast schools.
Everyone stood from the table to shake the glazed doughnut heir’s outstretched hand, as if the king himself had arrived.
Dylan stood, too. He surveyed the man of the moment. Jonathan Whipley held himself with a certain grace. Dylan had seen this grace only twice before. In Cullen Davis King, and in Kathleen Connor King. It was something you either had or didn’t have. And Dylan knew he didn’t have it.
Nope. Not the son of Butch Grant.
He threw on his most engaging smile and said, “Pleasure to meet you, John.”
The king paused and shot Dylan a crisp look. “I go by Jonathan,” he said, eyeing Dylan’s T-shirt.
Dylan blinked.
“Now that we’re all here and we’re all looking pretty, I’d like to get started,” C. Todd Hartwell announced. He took a slug from a can of Red Bull.
Before Dylan knew what was happening, C. Todd Hartwell was passing maps around the table.
Dylan unfurled the map and stared. He’d heard the C. Todd Hartwell had a nose for finding out where the big minerals were located, but until this moment, he hadn’t realized how good the oil promoter actually was. The map Dylan held in his hand had cost roughly three million dollars to produce. That’s how much a seismic shoot at this depth would be. Dylan knew that C. Todd Hartwell didn’t have that kind of cash. So this meant that the data was hot.
C. Todd Hartwell had stolen it or copied it or somehow gotten his grubby hands all over it.
Dylan noticed that the survey name and abstract number had been blacked out. This meant that no one besides C. Todd knew where the minerals were located.
Smart, Dylan thought. C. Todd was clever, indeed.
In Houston, Texas, the race to drill was all that mattered. And, in the oil and gas business, there was never any trust. It wasn’t that men weren’t good on their word—it was just that there was too much money at stake—too many rolling factors to deal with—and too much competition. Greed would turn even a God-fearing pastor into a liar, and Dylan had seen it happen. With his own pastor, Father Bookings, who was now serving ten years in Huntsville State Prison for using church donations to fund his own oil and gas scam. Which was why Dylan never attended church anymore, and reserved his own charitable donations for Kathleen’s hospital.
Dylan glanced around the room and quickly did the math. C. Todd Hartwell would be captaining the deal. The guy with the information was always the lead dog in the pack. In reality, C. Todd was part slick salesman and part thief. Rumor had it that he was good at
wining and dining girls at big oil companies with access to the right files and to the office copy machine.
Steve the Infectious Disease would be the operator. Dylan was surprised to learn that Mr. Louisiana had started out as a roughneck, and then gotten experience at drill sites all over south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.
Jonathan Whipley was an investor and would write a big check.
And this left Dylan and Wyatt.
Why did C. Todd invite us to the meeting? Dylan wondered.
The oil promoter obviously believed that he and Wyatt had the backbone and the stomach for risky oil deals.
Houston was the biggest small town on the planet when it came to gossip. Dylan wondered if C. Todd had somehow found out about Wyatt’s gambling losses. After all, it was the oil promoter’s business to know everyone’s business. And C. Todd probably figured that a guy who lost half a million in Vegas surely wouldn’t blink at the idea of a risky oil investment.
Dylan leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander. He considered how he and Wyatt were both broke. The image didn’t fit the reality. He also thought of Kat. Of Kat paying the rent. She had money tucked away somewhere, and he wondered if it was a lot. It had been a heckuva lot more before she’d decided to give it all away to her hospital.
Don’t think about that. She’s perfect. Even if she can’t have children.
Dylan felt his throat tighten. C. Todd began his presentation—he was circling the table like a hawk, and as he passed by, Dylan got a clear scent of Wild Turkey.
“So you fellas can see from this map that there is a huge untapped field out there that hasn’t been drilled. I mean, no one is bothering to touch it—not Exxon, not Shell, none of the big guys. They’re too interested in the offshore deals, so they don’t want to waste their time on making this hole. But it’s no small deal—I mean, we’ve got five guys in this room. And, if we’re splitting it up five ways—and we turn it on, and it gushes like a dog in heat—then we’re talking big money.”
“What do you assume the production will be?” Jonathan Whipley asked. His tone was formal, as if he’d been private schooled all his life. Dylan wondered how a doughnut heir knew anything about oil wells. Maybe this wasn’t Jonathan Whipley’s first rodeo. Maybe he’d invested in some other oil deals before.
Or maybe he’s faking it, Dylan thought.
“Good question,” C. Todd replied, which made Dylan want to gag.
“Let’s say we produce a quarter million barrels a day, then at today’s prices, I figure we’ll score checks of around a hundred thousand apiece each month.”
C. Todd Hartwell crossed his arms over his burly chest, and Dylan noticed that his shirt had yellow sweat stains under the armpits.
“That’s bad ass,” Wyatt piped up, in traditional not-knowing-when-to-keep-his-mouth-shut Wyatt style. “Where do I sign?” Wyatt glanced theatrically around the table for a pen. The other guys cracked smiles.
Dylan peered at the seismic map again. Something’s wrong here, he thought. He traced over each quadrant with the tip of his finger.
C. Todd, you sneaky sonofabitch.
“This data is incomplete,” he blurted, which quieted the room.
“How do you mean, dawg?” Steve asked, scratching his cheek. Mr. Louisiana was sporting green suede pants and a leopard fedora perched sideways on his head.
“This is fringe data. See”—Dylan held up the map—“this part shows the edges of where the minerals are located. It’s like a treasure map that’s been ripped into two pieces. The other half—the important half—is missing. What we’re looking at is the edges. We could drill all along the edges and never hit the big field.”
C. Todd Hartwell stared at the floor like a man who’d just been busted.
Steve took off his sunglasses and threw them across the table.
“The other half of the map is locked up in Bo Harlan’s office,” C. Todd said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I plan to get it by this weekend.”
Jonathan Whipley spun around in his chair. “Don’t tell me you’re stealing this data from another company.”
“Who said anything about stealing?” C. Todd said, cracking his knuckles. “The information was mine to begin with. Bo Harlan took the map from me a few months ago in one of his poker games, so I’m going to liberate it back from him.”
Dylan tried not to laugh. Here was a prime example of a thief pointing fingers at another thief. It was almost too much fun.
“How do you plan to get it?” Steve asked. He was drumming his fingers on the conference table now, and staring at C. Todd as if he were about to kill him. Dylan realized that Steve was actually kind of scary. The way people from Louisiana tended to be. Dylan figured they’d all been crossbred from pirates and Indians and slaves, which was why Cajuns were so artistic and weird and violent.
C. Todd dropped down into one of the chairs and sighed. It was obvious to Dylan that he’d been drinking the night before since the oil promoter was sporting the classic hung-dog hangover look. His cheeks looked flush with rosacea, and his eyes were dark and baggy underneath. When the oilman leaned forward across the table, Dylan could smell last night’s Wild Turkey.
“My girlfriend works at Titan Energy,” C. Todd admitted. “She’s the secretary for the big boss man himself, and since she’s so hot, Bo Harlan gave her a key to his office.”
“Bo Harlan’s office is probably covered in maps. How does your girlfriend know what she’s looking for?” Dylan asked, which was the next logical question.
“She doesn’t. So I’ve got a little sting operation planned for this weekend.”
“Romantic,” Dylan said.
“Problem is,” C. Todd said, “I need help. And I hear from your brother that you guys aren’t too pleased with Wild Bo, either.”
Dylan shot Wyatt a disapproving look. It was one thing to discuss family matters with a money manager. It was quite another to discuss them with the biggest mouth in the city.
Jonathan Whipley jumped from his seat and managed to knock his chair over. The sophisticated doughnut heir, with all his private school breeding and Harvard mouth, was looking flustered.
This pleased Dylan to no end.
“Count me out,” Jonathan said. “I’m not going to be involved with anything illegal. Especially breaking and entering.”
“This is the oil and gas business, man. Not the doughnut business. Everyone’s hands are dirty. Goes with the territory,” C. Todd announced. He produced a roll of breath mints and popped one in his mouth.
Jonathan Whipley stroked his tie. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear this.” He strode toward the conference room door. “Call me when you have more details and I’ll decide whether I’m still interested.”
C. Todd said, “Sounds like a plan.”
As soon as Jonathan was out of earshot, C. Todd grinned. “Twenty bucks says he used to be an Eagle Scout.”
“How do you plan on breaking into Bo Harlan’s office?” Dylan asked.
C. Todd plopped his feet up on the conference table. He was wearing flip-flops, and his toes looked gnarly.
“My girl—she’s got one of those electronic key cards to the entire building, and a key to Bo’s private office. Problem is, he’s a paranoid sonofabitch so he’s got an alarm on his office door.”
Nice, Dylan thought. So this is where Wyatt came in on the deal.
The younger Mr. Grant had spent two years living with a master burglar in Vegas. He’d learned a few tricks of the trade himself, like how to bypass car alarms, office alarms, and house alarms. Although Wyatt never used these burglary skills, Dylan considered it one of his younger brother’s greatest talents.
Wyatt stared wide-eyed at the oil promoter. “How’d you know I could bypass alarms?”
The oil promoter chugged the rest of his Red Bull and burped loudly. “It’s my job to know everything about everybody. But don’t take it personal, man.”
Wyatt stood from his chair and lumbered toward the doo
rway. “I’m hungry,” he grumbled. “Let’s go eat.”
Twenty-four
The best steakhouse in town for chasing skirt was Smith & Wollensky, which was why it was nicknamed “Smother and Molest-Me.” With its cheerful green and white sign beckoning patrons, Smith and Wollensky attracted a colorful and well-heeled lunch crowd. Usually there were a bunch of E&P guys, along with the women who loved them, and a sprinkling of plaintiffs’ lawyers to keep everyone on their toes. The women running around the steakhouse during lunch were typically the type of girls who dress for a nightclub during the day. Lots of bustier tops, high heels, exposed cleavage, and hair extensions.
Dylan wasn’t interested in these women, but the other guys wanted a meal with a view. I guess I’ll have to suffer, he thought. Since the four men were planning a theft, it would’ve been smarter to choose a more out-of-the-spotlight locale. But the steak and potatoes were calling their names. And Wyatt said he was jonesing for béarnaise sauce.
Dylan, Wyatt, C. Todd, and Steve scored a cocktail table inside the bar, so they could watch the action. The lunch scene was in full gear by the time each guy ordered his steak, potatoes, and beer. And by scene, this meant the bustier-clad women frittering from table to table chatting with men they knew.
Dylan cut into his rare steak and watched the juices run out onto his plate.
“What kind of alarm system are we talking about?” Wyatt asked, grabbing the bottle of ketchup and smacking it until it dripped out over his French fries.
C. Todd’s face assumed a grim expression. He’d obviously done his homework. “Passive infrared,” he announced.
Wyatt sat back in his chair. “This should be interesting.”
“What’s the problem, dawg?” Steve asked. He was staring at a group of girls sitting at the table next to them, but managed to turn his attention back to Wyatt.
“Passive infrared alarms are used in museums, banks, and places where people want high security. It’s not easy to penetrate because it detects thermal heat, like changes in body temperature,” Wyatt said.