Relative Strangers

by Joyce Lamb

  "Get out."

  He stepped back. "Excuse me?"

  "Get out of here or I'll tell them so many lies they'll detain you into the next century."

  "Mags—"

  "I'm not kidding, asshole. Get the hell out." She pointed at the door, praying he couldn't see her shaking, praying he couldn't see her certainty that he would take out a gun and shoot her dead in one motion.

  Jimmy Buffett squared his shoulders, at a loss for what to do next. "He won't like this."

  "Tell Slater Nielsen he's after the wrong woman."

  "Christ, Mags, why do you have to be so difficult?" He reached into his jacket, and she charged him, screaming for help and thinking only that he couldn't shoot her if she were on top of him. They had hit the floor and rolled up against the wall by the time the door slammed inward and two officers barreled in.

  The first one lifted her off of him, and Jimmy Buffett scrambled to his feet, his hands raised above his head. "Whoa whoa whoa. I was just getting a mint. Jesus."

  "We're done here," Meg said.

  The officers were leading her visitor out the door when Ryan and Kelsey came running. "What's going on? What happened?" Ryan demanded.

  "She jumped him," one of the cops said.

  Ryan glanced at Meg, saw she was pale and shaken but otherwise fine, then focused on the man secured between two cops. "Who is she?"

  Jimmy Buffett laughed, his white teeth flashing. "What the hell is this, Mags? You've actually got these people thinking you're not you?"

  Meg grasped the back of a chair for support. "Tell them I'm not her."

  Ryan stepped between Meg and the man she'd attacked. "Do you know this woman?" he asked her visitor.

  One of the officers said, "Mr. Kama—"

  "Let me talk to him a second," Ryan said. "Answer me. Do you know this woman?"

  The thug's lip curled. "Me and Mags go way back." He sneered at Meg over Ryan's shoulder. "Don't we, baby?"

  "He's lying," Meg said, her voice wavering.

  "Sure, baby, whatever gets you through," he said. "You haven't changed a bit." He tried to jerk away from the cops but failed. "I assume I'm free to go. She's the one that attacked me."

  As the cops hauled him out, Meg tightened her grip on the chair, her knees weak. Ryan was right. Until Margot was found, Meg would never be safe. Anywhere.

  She looked at Ryan, waited for him to meet her eyes. "Let's deal."

  Chapterl3

  Margot woke but didn't move from where she had snuggled up to the passenger door of the Mustang. Cool wind rushed in as Jake Calhoun tossed a cigarette out the window.

  Margot shook her head to clear it. It was almost dark, and she guessed it was around six in the evening. "Where are we?"

  "Just went through Paducah. What do you say we check in to a cheap motel for some cheap food, cheap wine and cheap sex?"

  "Up yours, Jake." Stretching her legs, she turned her head left, then right.

  When Margot first met Jake, she'd asked him how he got his nickname, the Bloodhound. He said he had a talent for finding people who were trying to hide. His secret? "I smell their fear," he had said. "Like a bloodhound." .

  Now, Margot shifted in her seat, coughing as he blew thick smoke in her direction. "Comfortable?" he asked, grinning.

  She scowled, helping herself to the pack of cigarettes stuffed in his shirt pocket. "Doesn't seem fair that you smoke twice the crap that normal people do, and you're still breathing," she mumbled.

  He grinned wider as she tapped out a cigarette and pushed in the dashboard lighter. "Thought you kicked that habit," he said.

  "Kicked the Slater habit, and that didn't last," she replied. "So how'd you know where to find me?"

  "Finding you was the easiest job I've had in a long time. See, the thing about people like you is they always think they need someone's help or they're not going to make it. They usually end up looking up people who knew them before they were fucked up. Good ol' Slater told me you're from some podunk town in Wisconsin, so I hung out there a few days, asked around about you. It's amazing how many people yapped my ear off after I gave 'em a sob story about how you broke my heart and took off with our kid and I didn't know the first place to look for you so I could try to win back your heart. Small town folks don't have a fucking clue. Anyway, finding my way to your best bud in Green Bay was a cinch after that. I only had to hang out there a couple of weeks before you showed up. You played it exactly right, Mags."

  The lighter popped out, and she held it to the tip of the cigarette. Nothing happened. She checked the end that should have been glowing red.

  "It's broken," Jake said. "What a bitch, huh? A new car like this."

  "Thanks for the tip. Matches?"

  "Try the glove box."

  "Hit the light, would you?" Margot said as she flipped open the glove box.

  A pair of old and scratched sunglasses tumbled out. Wayfarers. The kind she and Holly had bought after trekking to the only Kmart in their small town. Five bucks they had paid for the cheap imitation Ray-Bans. And Holly still had hers.

  Despair welled anew, and she pushed it and the sunglasses aside, only to see the other thing in the glove box that she instinctively knew didn't belong to her friend. A gun.

  "Jesus, Jake," she said. "Isn't there somewhere else you can keep this? What if kids got into the car and—" She broke off as it occurred to her that this may have been the gun he had used to kill Beau.

  Her hatred for Jake and Slater Nielsen overwhelmed her, like a giant wave that she saw coming faster than she could ever run. All she could do was brace herself. When her fingers closed around the butt of the gun, Jake's foot lifted off the gas pedal.

  The gun was heavy in her hand, the metal cold. She weighed it in her hand, considering.

  It would be easy to kill Jake and avenge the murders of Beau and Holly. She imagined making Jake beg for his life, then blowing his head off anyway. Simple. Cold. Oh so satisfying.

  "You haven't got the guts, Mags," Jake said.

  The Mustang picked up speed.

  She hated him even more for his confidence. She pulled the hammer back, and it made a hollow, clicking sound.

  Jake smiled. "Don't be a fool. You'd kill us both."

  "That really isn't all that important to me right now." She placed the barrel of the gun against the pulse that beat at the base of his neck, amazed that her hand was so steady.

  He raised his chin, looking down his nose at the road. "Mags—"

  "How's it feel, Jake?"

  "It isn't loaded."

  "Liar. A hit man always keeps his guns loaded."

  "Then pull the trigger." He wasn't even sweating. The cocky son of a bitch.

  She squeezed the trigger, and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Trembling with relief and disappointment,

  she sagged back against the seat.

  "I'm not a fool, Mags. I'm not going to keep a loaded gun around where you can get to it."

  She threw the gun back into the glove compartment, finished the search for matches, and came up empty-handed. Slamming the glove box shut, she sat back to stare into the dark, crumbling the unlit cigarette in one hand.

  Chapter 14

  "Where are we going?" Meg asked.

  "Back to the scene of the crime," Ryan replied, steering the Jaguar into Naples' early evening traffic. He checked the rearview mirror to ensure that a car carrying two of his most trusted security people followed close behind.

  He didn't glance at Meg, worried by the clutch in his gut every time he saw her bruises. He was amazed that she hadn't passed out from fatigue. At least she'd eaten something while he had worked out the details of her release with the district attorney.

  "Are you all right?" he asked.

  "Couldn't be better."

  He allowed himself a small smile. "You bounce back fast."

  She turned her head to look at him. "Is this the part where we make awkward conversation and pretend you didn't just blackmail me?"
r />   "I got you out, didn't I?"

  "I wouldn't have been there if you hadn't called the cops," she said.

  "I did it to save your ass."

  "You did it so you could blackmail me."

  "Forget it," he said, and concentrated on driving.

  Meg suspected that maybe he really had saved her life. But he hadn't done it for her, so she'd be damned if she'd express gratitude, even if she did feel safer with him.

  Closing her eyes, she told herself she would turn the deal to her advantage when she was able to think more clearly. After all, Ryan could help her find out everything she could about Margot and why they looked so much alike.

  For now, Meg focused on the scenery beyond the passenger's side window. Darkness had fallen, but the lights of the city revealed towering palm trees, pink stucco motels, ritzy strip malls, fancy restaurants and office buildings that seemed constructed entirely of glass.

  As the road curved, the scenery gradually changed—from ranch-style homes with carports and short driveways to houses with tall windows, four-car garages and rambling drives. Ryan turned the Jag down one of those drives banked on both sides by flowering trees, spotlights shining up into them to showcase leaves that spurted bright orange and magenta. A house with tall, white columns came into view.

  As they got out of the car, Ryan said, "The killer entered the house through a sliding door at the back of the house. The security cameras back there were shot out."

  On the porch, he ducked under yellow crime scene tape to unlock the front door, then gestured for Meg to precede him inside. The air in the house was stale and damp, the tile floors covered with a thin layer of dust. Plushly carpeted steps led upstairs.

  Ryan hung back, watching her for a hint of familiarity, waiting for her to make the next move.

  "Where did it happen?" she asked.

  "Bedroom." He waited a beat, but she didn't budge. "Upstairs."

  She mounted the steps, and he followed close behind, so close that she caught his scent—wind and soap. Goose bumps dimpled her skin, and she hoped he didn't notice.

  About halfway up, she paused to look at a smattering of dark brown marks that marred the white wall, as if someone with a blood-covered hand had braced against it. Feeling Ryan behind her, watching intently, she continued until she was outside a door criss-crossed with more yellow tape.

  He pulled the tape down and opened the door. As she walked in, she saw a large, dark brown stain, stark against the white carpet. Her stomach flipped, and she backed away, covering her mouth with one hand.

  Ryan stood close behind her, blocking her from backing up more than a step. "Beau was shot at point-blank range as he stood at the foot of the bed," he said near her ear. "That means the killer stood as close as I am to you right now."

  She braced a hand on the doorjamb as an image flashed in her head of Dayle, dead, or worse, dying slowly, her blood soaking into the hot Florida sand, no one to help her, no one to hold her.

  Meg stepped sideways this time, away from Ryan.

  "Blood was smeared across the mirror," he said. "As if whoever killed him had left a message and whoever found it didn't want anyone else to see it." Taking a creased photo from his back pocket, he handed it to her. "A copy of this was pressed into the edge of the mirror."

  The woman in the photograph could have been Meg, arm in arm with a man who had a cleft in his chin and dark, wind-blown hair similar to Ryan's. It was the first color picture she had seen of Margot Rhinehart. She had the same green eyes, the same auburn highlights in dark brown hair. Who are you?

  Ryan shifted near her elbow, and Meg flinched back from him.

  He gave her an impatient look, but then his gaze dropped to the collar of bruises on her neck, two stark thumbprints at the base of her throat. Swallowing the sudden ache in his own throat, he said, "I guess you have a right to be jumpy."

  "Tell me about Margot." She kept her face blank, her voice even.

  "About three and a half months ago, Beau told me he was going to marry the woman he loved. He sounded happy, relaxed, like I'd never heard him sound. He e-mailed me this," he said, indicating the picture. "Less than two weeks later, he was dead and the police were showing me the security tapes starring the woman in the picture. I thought I'd found her when I spotted you at the airport."

  She could understand how he would think she was the woman in the photo. There were differences, but perhaps they were too subtle for anyone who hadn't looked at a similar face in the mirror her entire life. But there had to be differences that were evident to other people: the timbre of their voices, the way they spoke and gestured, the way they laughed.

  It struck her then how odd it was that apparently Ryan had never met Margot. "I had the impression that you and your brother were close. Why didn't you know his fiancee?"

  "Beau and I were close when we were kids, but we hadn't spoken much in the past ten years."

  "That's a long time."

  "We had a difference of opinion."

  "It must have been huge."

  "Beau was devoted to our father's business, and I wasn't. He couldn't accept that my interests were creative rather than business-oriented. It wasn't his fault, really. That was how our father was, and my brother was just like him." He paused, remembering how Beau had gushed about his fiancee. "I didn't think Beau would ever get married. He was too focused on his work, too driven. Margot changed him."

  "Love can do that, I guess," Meg said. "Change you."

  "Spoken by someone who has serious doubts."

  "Spoken by someone who's never been changed."

  "Maybe you have to want to change. Or maybe you wanted to, but you weren't allowed. That would be understandable, if someone had power over you that you couldn't control."

  She handed him the picture. "I'm not her."

  Before she could turn away, he grabbed her arm, saw the temper flare in her eyes. "I want to believe you," he said.

  She tugged away, telling herself that anger, not his touch, caused the frantic flutter of her heart. "No, you don't. If you wanted to, you would. You're not a stupid man."

  Looking into her green-blue eyes, he realized that she was right. He couldn't afford to let himself believe that she was innocent. Not if he was going to use her to get at Slater Nielsen.

  "We're done here," he said. "Let's go."

  Half an hour later, Ryan was letting them into a house that wasn't as large or as elegant as Beau's but was still the home of a wealthy person.

  This house, unlike Beau's, was airy and clean and felt lived in. Sand trailed across the black tile where sliding glass doors opened onto the beach, the waves of the Gulf caressing the beach several yards away beneath a bright moon. An elaborate computer station that included two laptops, a printer, a fax machine and a multiple-line phone was set up in what would normally be a formal dining room. Hundreds of papers were strewn across the surface of a massive desk.

  "Who lives here?" Meg asked.

  "You'll meet him soon enough. Guest room is upstairs."

  It was simple but contained all the necessities, from a double bed and dresser to a bedside table with a phone. Ryan gestured at a bag that sat on the bed. "Kelsey picked up some clothes for you. Shower's through there."

  Once he left her alone, Meg didn't waste an instant getting into the shower. With the spigot blasting needles of hot water at her body, she started to feel human again for the first time in days. Afterward, she didn't dry herself off but wrapped the towel around her body to let time do the job. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, she thought about sleep. She needed it. Her body demanded it. But there was something else she had to do.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  Ryan chugged down several fingers of whiskey. He didn't feel it burn its way down. He didn't enjoy it. He wanted its anesthetizing effect. After another liberal gulp, he clunked the highball glass on the black, glossy surface of the bar and braced his hands on its edge.

  Tension had settled in his shou
lders, and he rolled them, stretching stiff muscles. He tried not to think about the woman upstairs, tried not to think about how he was using her, how his mistakes in judgment had almost gotten her killed. Her friend was probably dead because of those same mistakes. He tried to think of a way to cut her loose, racked his brain for a way to walk away and forget she existed.

  But Beau's image was there every time he squeezed his eyes shut. Not the smirking twenty-something Beau who'd chided him about his lousy luck with women. Not the happy Beau telling him about his beautiful Margot, the catch of the century. Not the shrewd, business-minded Beau who had kept KamaTech afloat after their father died.

  No, the image that assailed him was a dead Beau with a gaping red hole in the center of his forehead.

  Margot Rhinehart was responsible, at least in some way, for that gaping red hole. And Ryan wanted her to pay for it. And he wanted the man she worked for to pay. He wanted them all to pay. He didn't care how.

  Meg Grant, whoever the hell she was, could help with that. If he walked away from her now, he was nowhere. He had accomplished nothing. Beau's killers were that much closer to getting away with the murder of a good man.

  He sloshed more whiskey into the glass and tossed it back before reaching for the phone. That's when he saw the tiny red light that indicated someone else in the house was using a line.

  He charged up the stairs.

  Meg was hanging up the phone when Ryan slammed open the door and glowered at her as if he could have snapped her in two. She self-consciously checked the security of the towel's end tucked between her breasts and rose from the bed.

  Standing in the doorway, he attributed the rapid banging of his heart to his race up the stairs. It had nothing to do with the way the skin across her chest glistened with moisture. Or the way a few remaining drops of water dribbled unchecked down her toned arms.

  Meg shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other. She'd had her share of hungry looks before, had returned plenty. But this man was so ravenous that it took her breath away. Even as her head didn't trust him, her body responded. How could it not? He was a rugged, gprgeous guy with that cleft in his chin, angular jaw, thick, messy hair, and dark, sensual eyes. She could see that he was having an explicitly sexual idea. It was exciting, and frightening.