Deep South (Naive Mistakes #4)

by Dunning, Rachel

  “I knew there was something funny going on, Leora. But when I saw Edmond at the airport, well... I know there are even guys in my office that are in the pocket of the Dragon’s Lair. So I backed off. It would have been too risky.

  “I had Conall’s house scanned for bugs, his computers, his phone. But I had to do it all with my own personal equipment which is subject to flaws—I couldn’t involve the department’s more high-tech gear. Because if someone caught wind of me looking too deeply, they might alert Edmond.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  Trey smiled. “Well, Leo, it’s not what I did—but what one of your friends did. Did you know that Layla Rudemeyer has a scholarship at UE because she hacked into a bank and, instead of getting jail-time, is on a contract to work for the government when her degree is finished?” Trey looked majorly impressed.

  I gulped. “Uhm, no—I just knew she was a little...geeky.”

  He laughed. “Geeky? I think the girl could start World War III with only the moving around of a few digital footprints! She got hold of me on an encrypted line and then helped me hack into my department’s own systems to see who might be on Edmond’s payroll. Doing that, I could finally use the department’s resources, avoiding the wrong people, to see if Edmond was looking into any of our affairs.”

  “Of course he was! He had photos of—”

  “Leora,” Trey said, “we didn’t know any of this. Conall still doesn’t know it! Me and...Priscilla here...got wind of it. All we knew is he’d convinced you to leave—just like that. And that was fishy. So I was just digging around as best as I could.

  “Well, I saw that he was listening in to some of our phone conversations—so then I started digging for real. With Layla’s help, I dug around for old phone records, emails—she’s quite the hacker. Don’t ever get on her bad side.”

  And then I remembered what she’d suggested to deal with Bettina. Yikes!

  Trey continued. “He was—is—monitoring all our phones, email traffic. I’m using a second phone now. He wants you off the scene, Leora. And he’ll keep going at it to make sure you stay off the scene!

  “He was good. I’d actually hit a dead-end. I’d had no idea what leverage he’d had on you. And then...” He looked at Kayla’s mom. She smiled seductively.

  “Which is when I came on the scene,” Priscilla said. “I have my own ways of making people talk. Actually—men mostly.”

  -3-

  Edmond Williams was no Conall Williams when it came to gathering data. When Conall went out to bust the great drug cartels of the world, he got all the data, cross-referenced it, correlated it, analyzed it, found incongruities, dug deeper, left nothing to chance.

  Conall was real high-tech.

  Edmond was more of the Old School clumsy CIA-type when it came to hunting for information—you know, go to the bar, get a guy drunk and then have him talk. Or the classic Incriminating-Pictures-Act. Sure, he’d heard of all these “new and high tech” methods of getting data and so probably hired some people to bug our phones, but Trey figures that’s about as far as it went. If it had been Conall, well, Conall would have had voice recognition software going on every phone call, times logged in a database, links, connections, on and on.

  Edmond merely wasn’t that sophisticated in his hunt—which was our first wildcard.

  Of course, sitting in his limousine driving to the airport, I’d had no idea about this. Even now, listening to Trey and Priscilla tell their story, this still wasn’t fully clear—to any of us! But as the days progressed and as we moved on with our plan to get me out of this bunker and together with Conall again, this fact started becoming apparent.

  If Edmond had been any sharper, if he’d been even ten percent as sophisticated as Conall had been in his own hunt for information, I might not be telling you this story today.

  Priscilla’s role started at her daughter’s wedding—by chance.

  Edmond had hired someone to crash the wedding and take photos of “anything incriminating.” No specifics.

  Edmond had been wanting to dig up dirt, dirt, dirt on me and my friends, family, everyone. The wedding had been a weak place to get it from, but it didn’t stop him from sending one of his cronies in.

  He had different guys, at different times. Honestly, the setup wasn’t that well organized at all. He’d gotten photos of Kayla’s mom already a year earlier—in New York. Same for my mom and Maria. It had all been done before I’d even left the states! When he’d heard of the wedding, he’d simply hired some guy to go and take photos on the off-chance he’d find something more, because he already had all he needed.

  Well, the man on the job was a certain Mr. Horny Spy (a PI, actually) who happened to have an addiction which Kayla’s mom has decades of experience in soothing. Mr. Horny Spy had noticed this alluring, older woman at the wedding reception—and she’d noticed him as well.

  He was a dude of thirty or so, well-built, attractive. I remembered him, he was the guy she’d spoken to after Kayla had introduced her mom to Trey! The guy she’d disappeared with.

  Knowing that she might get into a little...hanky panky...with the dude, Priscilla kept her relationship with Kayla a secret from him. He’d asked, “Are you from the bride or groom’s party?” And Priscilla had answered (in a hot, husky, luring voice), “A woman never reveals her secrets. But I know what you are—you’re a wedding crasher!”

  The man’s eyes had popped open in shock!

  “My...profession...should not reflect on my daughter,” Priscilla said to me. “And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let this fellow know he was screwing the bride’s mother! How embarrassing for Kayla! It was clear he didn’t have a clue who Kayla was and that I could...‘do some business with him’...freely. I’ve been working parties for thirty years, babe. I can judge a crowd and spot a mark from the moment I enter the door. I knew exactly who the crashers were (he was the only one I noticed), who the bride’s friends were, and whether the marriage officer liked it from behind or not.”

  I didn’t ask if he did.

  Kayla’s mom had approached the dude because, well, that’s what she does.

  And she’d...escorted him—if you catch my drift. She’d escorted him all the way back in the bushes, on the snow.

  The guy had wanted more “escorting” after that. And so, in a roundabout way, Kayla’s mom had somehow infiltrated the enemy camp—without even knowing it! They saw each other for quite a few weeks. And by “seeing”—I mean fucking. And I mean that he was paying for it.

  He was flying her back and forth from the US regularly for more and more “escorting.” She’d kept this from Kayla, because she doesn’t like exposing her daughter to this part of her life.

  The wedding had been a one-time gig for this guy, apparently. (Priscilla found this out later.) Maybe Edmond had other regular guys he worked with and they weren’t available that weekend. But my guess is that he never used the same guy twice—we’ll never really know.

  Mr. Horny liked it kinky, apparently. Very kinky. He was a bit of a sex addict, Kayla’s mom told me. “Sex is cool and all, but if you want it like you want cocaine, well, you do stupid things for it—like talk,” she said.

  Kayla’s mom had been playing the dominatrix. She’d had Mr. Horny in a dog collar and leash. She’d been doing a little spanking, a little whipping, a little—pulling.

  “Tell mommy something secret,” had been the catch-phrase. She’d say that, and he’d spew something out.

  Did I mention this guy was an addict?

  “Tell mommy something secret...” she said to him.

  “I like it...dirty...” he said.

  She spanked him.

  “Oh, yes!” he cried, on his knees, dog collar on his neck.

  She whipped him, walked around him: “Tell mommy something secret...”

  The guy was panting by now. Apparently he had spittle falling from his mouth, wanting to get his tongue on her p—

  Right. You now know where Kayla gets her
mouth from...

  “I like...the way you taste!” Mr. Horny panted.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk!” She whipped him! “That’s not secret, little baby!” She pouted her lips and cracked the whip! She spread her legs, eased her hand down her pants. “Secret!” She squeezed her nipple. “Tell mommy something secret! A real secret! Something you could...” She bent down, licked him on the lips. He wasn’t allowed to kiss her in return. “...Something you could get in real trouble for!”

  He was sweating, desperate.

  And then he told her.

  -4-

  There was nothing that would have given Priscilla Mitchell away at the wedding as Kayla’s mother to an outsider. She never even spoke at the reception. She’d looked like just another guest. Actually, to be honest, she’d looked like a high-class escort who’d been hired “to entertain.”

  Priscilla Mitchell—was the second wildcard.

  -5-

  I use the term “wild” advisedly. Priscilla is Wild with a capital W.

  Priscilla played him.

  She played his addiction.

  She got three more escorts over to the UK and had him begging for so much sex that it was all he could think of. She told him she liked hearing his “spy stories” and teased him, teased him, teased him (with her tongue, she said) until he talked all of it out! “I like your dirty secrets,” she said to him. “They turn me on!”

  So he told her more secrets—but none of them were what she needed!

  The one thing Mr. Horny hadn’t said, is who he was working for, and this is what Priscilla wanted to know. It’s what she’d wanted to know the moment she’d discovered her daughter and her friends had been the subject of someone’s spying! It’s why she’d invested so much time into the slimeball, why she’d brought girls over—at her own expense!—all the way to the UK for the prick!

  All this was happening before Edmond had seen me in that park in London.

  All Priscilla knew is that Mr. Horny had been spying on the wedding. For whom? He hadn’t told her that—and she’d tried everything to get the information out of him.

  “I can’t tell you. He’s too powerful. I’d risk my life telling you!”

  “Tell me, baby. Tell me!” She’d pulled out the big guns. A nineteen-year-old was currently working Mr. Horny down below. A bleached blond twenty-two-year-old, an ex Miss Connecticut, was working him up above. He was being stroked, pricked, gagged and—

  Hell, I can’t even tell you the other things that were being done to him!

  They were at it with him for two hours. Two hours! Taking him to climax, and then leaving him there. Then again. There were small clamps on his nipples—the guy was relishing in it!

  And then he cracked.

  “Edmond...Williams! Edmond...Williams! Edmond Williams hired me, bloody hell!”

  Priscilla tried to call me about what she’d discovered. When she couldn’t reach me, she called Kayla.

  And then she put two and two together.

  -6-

  She took matters into her own hands, yet unaware that Trey had started looking into my disappearance on his own.

  Priscilla made a few calls to some local brothels (ahem, “escort agencies”) that she knew in London—high class only, because Kayla’s mom only deals with high class, and because Edmond Williams would certainly only deal with high class if he was availing himself of the “finer” pleasures in life!

  Priscilla was certain he was (“I know men, Leora.”)

  Getting his name from these agencies might have been difficult...for anyone else. But Priscilla Mitchell is well-known in the industry. She found that he did avail himself of a certain agency in London, under the name Max Worthington. Priscilla got the skinny on the type of girl he liked, what he liked to do with her, all of it.

  Then Priscilla got the agency’s permission to send one of her own girls in, instead of the London agency’s girl. The London agency would get the fee regardless.

  “For an additional price,” the London Madame had said.

  “Of course.”

  Priscilla paid it gladly.

  -7-

  Priscilla probably guessed Edmond’s capabilities and connections better than any of us. She’s worked with “similar men” in the past, she told us. So she planned on doing the simplest thing possible: Get photos of the man “doing the deed,” and then blackmail him to stop whatever it was he was doing with her daughter and her friends.

  She really had no interest in knowing why he was interested in us, only that he should stop. She had no knowledge of Edmond’s desire to have Conall take over the family business, his desire in keeping his family’s blood “pure” (or whatever his twisted idea of my and Conall’s relationship was.) And she didn’t want to know these things. They were extraneous to the simple facts: He was spying on her daughter, and that needed to stop!

  Or else!

  It was a simple plan. And, well, she’d done a few similar things before with other men, she confessed. And they had worked...

  Priscilla sent her girl into the lion’s den. But Edmond was a paranoid man. He would actually have the girl strip-searched before, well, “being escorted.” It was simply impossible to sneak a camera or any other recording device in!

  This was a problem. The man was careful not to be caught with his pants down.

  She needed help.

  And that’s when she remembered Trey.

  “Kayla told me at the wedding that Trey is a spy,” she said.

  Trey neither confirmed nor denied this.

  -8-

  And so, working together, they got the photos, and videos.

  “It’s amazing what you can do remotely with a mobile phone,” Trey said. “Even when it’s switched off.”

  I didn’t want to know.

  -9-

  Meanwhile, my dad had put out an electronic breadcrumb that would be found only by someone looking for it.

  Layla the Hacker had been looking for it; Trey had asked her to do it.

  She found it yesterday.

  He got in touch with Trey, and had him and Priscilla on a flight over here within an hour. Trey trusted my dad implicitly.

  Apparently he’d heard of him—a lot.

  -10-

  The plan to get me back and happily-ever-after with Conall was supposed to be simple.

  No one was supposed to get shot as a result of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  -1-

  Unfortunately, the plan so far was majorly flawed. As we hashed out what to do with the photos, we realized a few fatal things.

  It was not enough to fight fire with fire. We had some incriminating photos of Edmond Williams—that’s correct. But he had his paws everywhere (or so it seemed.) If we showed him the photos, we ran the risk of having him lose his mind and call in whatever “favors” from whatever “friends” he had, and putting people we loved at risk. Like he’d told me himself, his family name was the most important thing to him. It could go either way—and somehow I doubted he’d just give up.

  I told Trey and Priscilla this.

  Priscilla was distraught. She’d worked for so long to get to the bottom of this conspiracy, and now it looked like all her work had been for naught. But she agreed with me. When she’d first started digging and working on this, she’d had no idea just how, well, psycho the guy was! But now she knew. And she also knew the extent to which he was connected. It changed things.

  And it reduced our options.

  The man was a wildcard himself in the enemy camp. We had to put any preconceived ideas of him aside. Yes, he was Conall’s father. But Conall was nothing like him! We had to expect the worst just to be safe.

  So we decided to use the photos for another purpose. The idea came from Priscilla.

  It was the bravest, most daring, least likely to succeed, wildest operation Trey had ever embarked on: They needed to convince a woman to do something she didn’t want to do.

  A man might have many mistresses that he t
akes and leaves, but there’s only ever two women in his life that he always fears, and fears completely:

  His own mother.

  And his wife.

  Edmond’s mother is dead.

  So that left Madeleine Williams.

  -2-

  Priscilla and Trey returned to the UK that evening. The plan was to have Priscilla contact Madeleine Williams, show her the photos of her husband, and have her take a stand.

  -3-

  The final wildcard was Madeleine Williams.

  -4-

  A few days later.

  Horace had one of the staff take Edmond for a walk while he escorted Priscilla to Madeleine Williams’s chambers. It was Conall who had enlisted Horace’s help, a thing Horace had apparently done all his life for “the Williams Boys.”

  Conall had been told enough by Trey to know that Trey would get me back, but not enough for Conall to lose his mind and throw his father out a window! Some operations are best run clandestinely—Trey’s forte.

  Conall still had no idea of the extent of his father’s betrayal at this time.

  Priscilla was escorted to Madeleine’s room.

  Priscilla showed her the photos.

  A small showdown ensued.

  Madeleine said she’d known all her life about the other women and that Priscilla had no right to barge in here and tell her how to live her—

  It wasn’t going well.

  Priscilla tried other tacks, tried to calm the woman down, tried to appeal to reason.

  None of it worked.

  In extremis, she finally told Madeleine the one thing that got the snowball rolling down that snow-covered mountain.

  And it had nothing to do with other women.