A Perilous Pursuit

by Diane Gilmore

  Robert stiffened immediately. Anger flashed across his face. “What does he want?”

  Juan shrugged. “I don’t know, Señor. He said it was urgent and that he had to speak to you at once.”

  “Who is he, Robert?” Taylor asked.

  Robert threw down his linen napkin with annoyance and rose from his chair. “An employee of mine. Apparently one who has a difficult time following orders,” he answered sharply. “I’ll be right back.”

  He strode purposefully out of the room. Juan stood at the doorway a moment longer, his gaze raking over her with lust before turning to depart behind his employer.

  It was in that instant of delay that she saw it.

  Craig’s belt buckle.

  It was Craig’s belt buckle. Juan was wearing it. The studded design and scrolled lettering were unmistakable. She’d had it custom-made in 24-karat gold from her own design by an L.A. jeweler for his birthday six months ago.

  Her mind reeled with confusion. She knew without a doubt the belt buckle was Craig’s. But how did a hired hand end up with it? As she sat still in her chair, a slow feeling of dread began to overtake her. She knew Craig would never have left the buckle somewhere or given it away. He had disappeared right in this area of Mexico, and she hadn’t a clue as to where he might be. Now one of his most cherished belongings turns up, right here in this house.

  Though she tried to stay calm, her instinct began whispering to her that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  An icy tingle of dread began to wind its way from the roots of her hair down around her entire being. Her heart began to pound in time with her racing thoughts. There was only one reason why Craig would have seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. And that one of his prized possessions would wind up in this house, on the waist of a hired hand. And for the lies, the cover-ups, the guarded attitudes of everyone around her.

  Craig must be dead. And someone in this house must have killed him.

  A sheer, black fright swept through her. Could that be the reason behind the staff’s animosity toward her? Was she the next victim?

  She rose from the table and walked quickly into the hall, where the sound of raised voices filtered into the foyer. Robert and his visitor were in the library, and their loud, terse words could be heard all the way out to where she stood. She was about to continue up the steps when their argument made her blood chill. She listened to Robert angrily reprimanding the other person in the room.

  She recognized the voice of Robert’s visitor at once.

  It was Pierre Montagne, the man Craig had argued with back in Bath and the drug dealer Steve had then told her about back in Los Angeles. A sob grew in her throat as, in growing horror, she listened to their conversation.

  “Phillips got away?!” Cabrera bellowed angrily to Pierre. “I will kill you for this! When did it happen? Where? How?”

  “Yesterday,” Pierre replied quickly in a shaky voice, attempting to calm his employer’s exploding rage. “Robert, I—”

  “Yesterday?!” Cabrera shrieked. “He gets away yesterday, and now you come to tell me about it?”

  “I would have told you then, Robert, but we were sure we would find him,” Pierre offered. “Don’t worry. Our men are still searching. If they don’t find him soon, then he is probably dead. You know very well the odds of surviving in the mountains without food or water.”

  “I don’t give a damn about his survival!” Robert exploded, his arms. “Those idiotas up there knocked off the kid against my orders, and now I have nothing to hold on to Phillips with until I am finished with him. If he makes it across the border, you will pay for this, Montagne!”

  “That won’t happen, Robert,” Pierre answered. “We have our connections at the border. When he surfaces, we’ll dust him off, like we should have done before. We can get someone else to do the L.A. job. What’s important now is the girl. Something must be done about her. She has been a security risk for us since she came here.”

  At first Taylor’s mind refused to register the impact of their words. Then she suddenly felt sick with the realization.

  It was Robert Cabrera all along. He was the drug baron, the megalomaniac intent on destroying Craig. He murdered Shaun, and now he was about to do the same thing to Craig, if and when he could find him. And now they were talking about killing her, too.

  Taylor could hardly believe what she was hearing. Robert’s name came back clearly to her now. She had heard it back in England when Craig was talking to the stranger in Bath, and again when Steve showed up at his apartment the following night. Robert Cabrera was a murderer with a volcanic temper, far removed from the confines of human decency.

  She would go up to her room and get the barest of her essentials, namely her passport and remaining money, and flee the house before it was too late. She would go back to Los Angeles and tell the police all she knew, something she should have done in the beginning.

  She turned and fled to her bedroom. Almost at a fanatical pace, she gathered up her passport and wallet, and without taking anything else, hurried through the hall and ran down the steps. She had just reached the door when someone roughly grabbed her arm.

  “Where are you going, Señorita?” It was Juan. He glanced down at her passport. “You are leaving, no? One does not leave without seeing her host first.”

  She tried to get out of his grasp, but his grip was too tight on her. He took her to the library door and shoved her inside.

  “I found her leaving the house, Señor,” Juan said triumphantly to Cabrera. He grabbed her things and tossed them on a nearby table. No doubt he felt like a dog that had just brought his master a bagged pheasant.

  “He’s wrong, Robert,” she said nervously. “I wasn’t going anywhere.” Her words sounded hollow and unconvincing. She wouldn’t have believed it, either.

  “Not going anywhere, señorita?” Juan countered. “One doesn’t normally walk around the house with her wallet and passport.”

  Robert looked at her with the same intense, hypnotic gaze that was once so compelling. He knew she was lying. For a long moment, neither of them said a word. Finally, he spoke.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Taylor.” His voice was soft and calm. It was almost dangerously gentle, nothing like the rage she’d heard only a minute ago. “Montagne, you and Juan leave us alone will you?”

  Taylor stood rooted in place while Pierre and Juan left the room. They were alone. Robert closed the door after they left, then turned to face her.

  “I guess you heard what happened,” Cabrera said almost regretfully. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, but perhaps it is better now that you do know.”

  “You kidnapped Shaun in order to get Craig down here,” she stammered, feeling sick with despair. Her eyes filled with tears, not just of sorrow, but in fear of standing before a murderer. “You killed him!”

  She must have made a choking sound, for he looked at her as if he felt sorry for her.

  “Darling, please understand!” he said. “It will be far easier on our relationship when you see that things had to turn out this way.”

  Taylor’s stomach lurched at his pet name for her. “We don’t have a relationship,” she said, a catch in her voice. “We never did. You know that.”

  She was practically paralyzed with fear, but she knew she had to stay calm, to stall him and keep him calm. She began to back slowly from him toward the door. If she could just make it out of this room, she could get away and, quite possibly, escape with her life.

  “Yes, we do,” Robert continued, a glimmer of passion building in his voice. He walked slowly toward her, keeping his eyes on her. “You felt it too, when I kissed you. Why do you still deny it? You are so beautiful, and so vibrant. Stay with me, Taylor. I want you.”

  He was getting close, too close. In a flash, T
aylor turned and made a lunge for the door, but Robert was too quick for her. He pushed her hard against the door, grabbing her arm and forcefully turning her around, pinning her against it. His grip throbbed tightly on her arm, making her cry out in pain. An unnatural fire blazed in his eyes that seemed to burn right through her.

  “It’s not good for you to be like this, Taylor,” he said, irritation beginning to filter into his voice. “Don’t make me hurt you. You can’t leave here now. You can’t leave here—ever.”

  He put his arm around her firmly and guided her back into the room. His grip was so tight on her that she was immobilized by it, unable to move except in the direction he chose. She had no choice but to stiffly follow along.

  “You will forget about Phillips,” he said calmly. “He was worthless and weak, not worthy of a strong, beautiful woman like you. You will stay with me, and he will fade from your memory. I will make you very happy here.”

  The thought turned her stomach. She broke from his hold to face him. If she were going to die here tonight, she suddenly wanted to know everything. About Craig.

  “Why did you look for Craig after he left England?” she asked. “He left the drug trade and didn’t tell anyone what he had been doing before.”

  “So you know of his past dealings with me,” he said. “Let’s just say he was called back into my service to do a job for me. He was going to make a hit, one that I’ve been thinking about for many years. Fairchild deserves it.”

  “My—father?” Taylor could barely speak the words.

  “Cariño, you don’t understand! If he had just minded his own business back in New York, our law firm would have tripled its income from my business dealings. Thanks to Fairchild snitching to the feds, I went to prison for a very long time. Had it not been for my sense of survival, I would have been ruined, perhaps even dead. Today I have the power to give him what he has coming.”

  Taylor’s mind reeled. The man before her was Roberto Perez, her father’s past law partner, the one he told her was so dangerous. Now, as she looked with terror at Robert Cabrera, she realized that he must have been harboring his hatred for her father for years, waiting for the right moment to strike back. He knew exactly who she was all along and intended to keep her, like a sick trophy.

  “Phillips didn’t like the idea of treading on his new boss,” Robert continued conversationally, “so I used a little leverage to help him change his mind.”

  Shaun. And now he’s dead. Tear sprang to her eyes thinking about her young, spitfire friend.

  Fear penetrated every pore of her being, knowing she was face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer with no escape. “You killed Shaun when Craig finally agreed to your plan, didn’t you?”

  “Not exactly. The kid would have been good insurance for me until the job was done, but with you poking around the house like you were, I had to move him out to the field house.”

  So that was the sound she heard in the cellar, she thought with despair. Shaun was in the mysterious room. He was so close, yet she didn’t even know it at the time.

  “Too bad he was so stupid as to try and run from my people,” Robert continued casually. “I didn’t want to get rid of him so soon.”

  His warped opinion of himself was truly appalling. His logic was twisted, his sense of compassion completely mixed up.

  “And now Craig has gotten away from you,” Taylor said, confirming what she hoped she’d overheard. Although her heart pounded with fright, she was also relieved to know that he was still somewhere out there, alive.

  Cabrera waved his hand dismissively. “He did, but not for long. He’s probably dead by now. Even if he isn’t, he’s bound to turn up eventually. That’s when I’ll get him.”

  “You are a cold-blooded murderer!”

  “Cut the theatrics, Taylor,” he said with annoyance. “I am not a murderer. I simply do what I must do to maintain my business. Sometimes people have to be taught a lesson.”

  In one swift move, he drew her back to him. She was again caught in his strong, masculine arms like a massive web. She looked at him, so close now. His expression held a glow of dangerous insanity lurking behind his gentleness. She twisted in his arms, trying to break free, but his strength was too much for her.

  His hand reached up and clamped tightly around her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “I don’t want you to be like this, Taylor. I’m losing my patience. You better start learning to behave or you won’t like the consequences.”

  He pulled her roughly to him and pressed his lips hard on hers. Only it wasn’t a kiss as Taylor knew it. It was a determined, malevolent assault, a physical invasion to make her more aware of him as a man. His tongue snaked into the recesses of her mouth, like a fiery demon trying to possess her. Gagging, she struggled to pull away, but his grip was too tight.

  He reached up and slammed his palm hard against her cheek, the force of his blow jamming her lip against her teeth. She tasted the coppery flavor of her own blood trickling in her mouth. “Stop fighting, Taylor. You want more of that?” he hissed angrily, his face inches from hers. “You wouldn’t be alive right now if it weren’t for me, and you’d best start showing some gratitude.”

  She fought his grip. Nothing mattered now except staying alive. Getting away from him. Getting out of this house.

  “You can fight me now, but that’s all right,” he said, holding her tight. “You might not like it, but you’ll come to accept it, and you will learn to love me. You don’t have a choice. If you want to stay alive, you will learn not to make me angry.”

  Taylor was so filled with terror she could hardly breathe. Finally, her survival instinct kicked in. Relax and drop, she learned in self-defense class. She stopped struggling and went limp in his arms. As soon as his grip on her relaxed to try and catch and hold her dead weight, she broke free of his hold. Then pulling away, she ran to the door. Flinging it open, she ran out, disappearing down the hall as fast as she could. She flew toward the kitchen for the back door. She heard movement behind her, someone chasing her. Was it Juan? Pierre? Or was it Robert himself?

  The kitchen was dark and empty. She yanked open the back door and ran into the cool, dry blackness with all her strength. Suppressing the urge to just run randomly in a wild panic, she focused her mind on where she was going. The garage, she told herself, her feet pounding as fast as her heart. If she could find her car, it would be her only way out. She was thankful for the walks around the grounds she had taken while Robert was gone. She was now familiar with the layout of the property. Thank God fate had given her that small gift!

  She had reached the tall, bulky hedges that lined the swimming pool when someone grabbed her in the darkness. Before she could scream, a dirty hand clamped tightly over her mouth, and she was pulled down into the foliage. She felt the weight of someone on top of her as she struggled to break free.

  “Shhh! Stop it, Taylor, it’s me,” came the urgent whisper into her ear.

  The hand gradually eased up from her mouth. Taylor gasped for breath as she anxiously opened her eyes. Craig was leaning over her.

  The shock of seeing him again held her motionless, rooted in place on the ground like the shrubbery. Agape, she stared at him, trying to register the thought processes that were all jamming into her brain at that instant.

  It was Craig, but he looked different. He had a partial beard and his hair was a disheveled mess. He was filthy, his clothes in tatters. And he looked as if he had lost at least 20 pounds.

  But she wasn’t dreaming. It was Craig. Through the terror, she felt a wave of euphoria roll over her. In that frozen moment, they stared at each other as if it were for the first time. Then Craig began to smile uncontrollably.

  He pulled her tightly into his arms. “You’re alive. Oh, thank God I’ve found you!”

  “Craig? Craig?” Taylor could hardly believe her e
yes. She thought she was hallucinating, her mind playing a cruel trick on her during this horrendous nightmare.

  “Are you okay, luv?” he asked, his voice low.

  At first Taylor wasn’t even listening. Craig was alive! She clung to him as tightly as she could, thinking that somehow he might disappear if she let go. But gazing at him, she knew otherwise.

  “Craig! God, I thought I lost you!”

  Craig glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Cabrera is after you, isn’t he?”

  Taylor blinked back her tears. “Yes. He wants to keep me a prisoner in that house, and he’s going to kill you if he finds you!”

  “I know, I know,” he said softly. He held her close and gently stroked her hair until she stopped trembling.

  “How did you know I was here? How did you find me?”

  “Shaun told me,” Craig said. “He told me before they—”

  “Oh, God, Craig,” Taylor cried in a surge of grief.

  “Shhh, we can’t think about that now,” Craig said quickly. He kissed her. “Come on. Now. We have to move fast or they’ll find us. We have to get to the motorway.”

  Nodding in agreement, Taylor wiped the tears from her cheeks. Craig got up and pulled her to her feet. He took her hand and started to move, but suddenly grimaced and fell back to his knees. She gasped at the sight of his injured leg.

  “They hit me when I ran,” Craig said through gritted teeth. “We can’t stop now. Let’s go!”

  She helped him back up, and supporting his weight, they started toward the cattle pastures, away from the house. She could see the headlights of the cars that whisked along the highway. It was just beyond the fields—

  Suddenly a group of high-beam flashlights cut them off. Pierre Montagne’s voice pierced the darkness beyond the glare of the lights in their eyes.

  “Going somewhere, Phillips?” came the raspy, French voice from out of the circle of light.