BRIDAL JEOPARDY
Page 17
That was good for me, too. And it gives me something to look forward to. When I get you back, we’ll finish what we started.
She prayed that he was right. Prayed that he would be able to get her away from the man who refused to allow her to escape from him.
* * *
STEPHANIE WOKE with the memory of making love with Craig and a smile on her face. She’d dreamed of having a relationship like that, but she’d been sure it would never happen for her, until she met Craig.
She whispered his name and turned her head, expecting to see him lying beside her. Then reality slammed back like a prison door clanging behind her.
She wasn’t with Craig. Not at all. She was in a bedroom in John Reynard’s house. Thank the Lord, not Reynard’s bedroom.
She clenched her hands into fists, wanting to pound them against the walls for all the good that would do her.
When she glanced at the bedside table, she saw the letter opener she’d put there—which looked as if she’d been expecting to be attacked in the night.
Hoping that no one had checked in on her, she put the weapon back on the desk and went to the bathroom, where she got ready and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
People were moving around the house when she came down, and John and Claire were sitting at the dining-room table, talking as intimately as they had been in the lounge the night before.
As she watched them together, she wanted to ask why John just didn’t marry Claire, since they were so obviously suited to each other, but she kept the question to herself.
“There she is,” Claire said.
“Yes, we let you get your beauty sleep,” John added as he gave her a considering look. “I’m sorry I drank so much last night. It won’t happen again.”
While she was scrambling for a reply, he said, “The wedding will be this afternoon.”
“What?” she gasped, feeling as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “I thought you wanted a morning wedding.”
“I changed my mind,” he answered.
“Yes. We have almost everything arranged,” Claire said brightly.
Unable to stand, Stephanie dropped into a chair at the table. She’d known that John wanted to move quickly, but she’d had no idea the wedding would be today,
Claire bustled over and set a notebook in front of her. “Since you were asleep, I took the liberty of making some selections. I thought Prestige would be an ideal caterer. They’re bringing the food from their kitchen in New Orleans. But I know there’s a branch of Just for You Flowers about twenty minutes away, so we can use them. I’ve sent out email invitations to a number of John’s business associates, and I’ve already received some replies, but I think we can expect a small group—perhaps twenty guests. And we’ll have your father picked up and brought here. We decided that a justice of the peace was the easiest choice for an official. Mr. Vincent Lacey will be here at five.”
Stephanie fought a wave of dizziness. “Five? The ceremony is at five?”
“Yes. Your dress has also arrived. And I can do your hair and makeup. That’s what I used to do—for one of the local TV stations before I came to work for you.”
“Oh” was all Stephanie could say, ordering herself not to start shaking. She had to hold it together but knew she was on the edge of a meltdown. And the worst part was that when she tried to contact Craig, she couldn’t locate him. He seemed to have fallen off the edge of the earth again.
* * *
HAROLD GODDARD ENDED the phone call with a broad grin on his face. He had some good news for a change. He’d known from his men that someone else was looking for Stephanie Swift and Craig Branson in Houma.
There was a chance it could be someone who knew about the clinic’s purpose, but he doubted it. Maybe this had to do with her fiancé, John Reynard. Harold had used the old Reynard murder connection to get Craig and Stephanie together. But it looked as if Reynard wasn’t prepared to give her up.
And now there was a massive mobilization at Reynard’s country estate. Mobilization for a quickie wedding. Caterer, florist, a justice of the peace. The works.
Which made it pretty clear that Stephanie wasn’t dead. Reynard must have taken her back to the plantation. Maybe his men had even blown up that cottage and killed Branson.
Now Reynard was going to make sure his bride didn’t escape again. Harold tapped his finger against his lips, thinking. He’d sent two guys to Houma, but it looked as if Reynard had a lot more than that at the plantation. Harold had better get some extra help and send them down there.
The plantation was fenced in—with a gate. But the guards would be expecting wedding guests, which meant it wouldn’t be that hard to crash the gate and snatch the bride.
Of course, Branson was out of the picture now, but it would be very instructive to see what had happened to Stephanie with her lover gone. He’d examine her mental state, then put her out of her misery.
* * *
CRAIG HAD BEEN BUSY. Last night he’d spent some time in the bathroom of the cheap motel where he was staying, using a clipper on his thick dark hair and then shaving his head. He’d cut himself a couple of times, but the effect of the hair removal was startling. He didn’t recognize the ugly-looking man who stared back at him in the mirror. Hopefully, Reynard wouldn’t, either.
Next he took a chance and wired five thousand dollars from an account he kept under another name to a Western Union office in a nearby town.
He’d used some of the cash to buy spy equipment to monitor phone communications at the plantation, and that had already paid off. Reynard was planning his wedding for that afternoon.
Craig swore. The bastard was moving fast. But as he listened to the preparations, he got an idea.
After learning Reynard’s plans, he stopped at a discount department store and bought some extra shirts, which he put on in layers, bulking up his body to change his physique a little. As he passed the cosmetics department, he had another couple of ideas. He bought a dark eyebrow pencil and fake tanning cream. He spent some time in the men’s room putting on the tanning stuff and doing his eyebrows, trying to make them look thicker but natural. Next he stopped in the hardware store and bought some little rubber rings, which he stuck into his nostrils to make his nose look bigger. After altering his appearance, he ran a couple more errands. With the state’s lenient gun laws, he was also able to pick up a SIG semiautomatic with a couple of spare clips—plus some other equipment he was going to need.
When he was as prepared as he could be, he drove to Just for You Flowers, where the staff was frantically working to get the Reynard order ready in time.
He’d asked for a wedding bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath plus several vases of flowers in stands to decorate the pool area where the wedding was being held.
“Hi, I’m Cal Barnes from the New Orleans store,” he told the woman behind the counter. “When they heard you were doing a job for John Reynard, they sent me down here to help.”
She gave him an annoyed look, and he was pretty sure that with his bald head and heavy eyebrows, he looked like a thug.
“No need. We have it under control,” she said.
But I’m going to drive the van that brings in the flowers, Craig said, putting in every ounce of mental energy he could muster. He’d done this before with Sam. He’d done it with Stephanie. He’d never done it on his own, but he knew Stephanie had been pushing John in the direction she wanted, and if she could do it, so could he. He reinforced the silent observation with a second repetition.
The woman’s expression was still doubtful. “I’m just going to call Phil at the New Orleans shop and check on that.”
“It was Phil who sent me.”
She reached for the phone, and he sent her a fast and furious message. Don’t call Phil. Don’t call Phil. You need Barnes to drive the truck.
“We could use a driver. Some of the stands we’ll need are heavy, and we only have women in the shop today.”
“I’m glad to help with that,” Craig said.
“And while you’re here, there are some deliveries that need to be put in the refrigerator.”
* * *
SEVERAL MILES AWAY, Rachel and Jake Harper were tuned in to the preparations at the estate.
“He’s going to marry her this afternoon,” Rachel said, a note of disgust in her voice. “And Craig Branson is ready to go in there and rescue her.”
“He could get himself killed,” her husband answered.
“I know that. And I want this to come out okay for them. What can we do about it?”
“I should say—nothing,” Jake answered firmly.
She gave him an incredulous look. “You’d leave two of the children from the Solomon Clinic in terrible danger?”
“I didn’t say I’d do that, but we have to think carefully about what we’re risking.”
“I know. But maybe we’d better start making some contingency plans.”
He answered with a tight nod, and she knew he would go along with her plans—if he didn’t think they were too dangerous.
She also knew he had grown up on the streets, committed to no one but himself. Caring about no one but himself. He’d bonded with her because of the telepathic link they’d forged, but it was still difficult for him to see the importance of extending that bond to the others. Especially after the first children from the clinic that they’d met had started off by attacking them.
Chapter Eighteen
Trying to act as if his brain wasn’t going to explode from tension, Craig went to work helping unload roses and gladioli. Then he tried to look busy while he watched the woman who was putting together bouquets, hoping he could do a credible job of flower arranging. It looked like the trick to making them stay in place was anchoring the stems in some kind of rigid foam stuff.
And all the time he kept projecting the message that nobody had to check up on him at the New Orleans office. He was supposed to be at the local shop. He couldn’t be sure if it would work, and he kept thinking that if it didn’t, he might have to pull a gun and herd the two women into the refrigerator, while he stole the van and went to the wedding.
Every minute that ticked by made him feel a little closer to pulling off the delivery scheme. But that didn’t stop his mind from churning, because there was no way to know if his plan would work until after he got into the estate. More than that, he knew Stephanie had to be sick with worry about the upcoming wedding, but there was too much activity around the plantation for him to risk going until closer to the big event. The best he could do was to keep sending messages, telling her he was coming. Telling her it was all going to turn out okay, even when he was pretty sure she couldn’t hear him.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t picking up anything from her, and that had him worried, even though he kept telling himself they were simply too far apart.
* * *
STEPHANIE’S CHEST was so tight that she could barely breathe. While she ate breakfast, she covertly watched John. But he gave no sign that he remembered anything from the evening before.
Of course, that could all be an act. One of his main goals was to never have anyone think less of him. Even her and Claire, so he put up a good front.
After she’d done her best to pretend that she was hungry, he pushed back his chair and stood up.
“I should leave you ladies to the preparations,” he said, his voice casual, though she knew he was hiding his own tension.
“We’ll be ready for you at five,” Claire said in a chipper voice.
Right, Stephanie thought. Why don’t you just stand in for me, since you’re apparently enjoying sleeping with him?
“I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” he added.
Stephanie nodded.
As soon as he was out of the room, she felt marginally better.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Claire said.
“Mmm-hmm,” she answered, wanting to scream at the woman who had been betraying her all along.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” Claire asked.
“Yes,” she said. She was thinking she was so lucky to have met Craig, and he was going to get her out of this.
Or die trying? That stray thought had her insides going cold. She knew he was going to try to get in here, but she didn’t know how.
“You should start with a nice relaxing bath,” Claire said. “I’m thinking about what order we should do stuff in. First the bath. Then we can do your finger-and toenails. Then your hair and makeup. What color do you want for your nails?”
From the sideboard she brought over a box of nail-polish bottles. “I think a pale pink would look good with your coloring.”
Stephanie agreed because she had no interest in the color. Or maybe bloodred would be best. Then it wouldn’t show on her hands if she ended up in bed with John and scratched her nails down his face.
She canceled that thought as soon as it surfaced, knowing it was dangerous to give Claire even a hint of her real feelings.
Instead she said, “Yes, let’s go with pink.” At least getting herself all prettied up would give her something to do until the hateful ceremony.
And then what? She kept thinking of something she’d heard about the 1950s. Back then, the Soviet Union had been the major threat to America, and people had debated “Better dead than red or better red than dead?”
In other words, if you succumbed to the enemy, could you bide your time and hope to free yourself?
She knew that was true for the countries that had been Soviet satellites. They’d stuck it out and come through the dark period. And many of them now had democratically elected governments.
All of that was well and good in theory. But could she stand to go to bed with John Reynard? Stand to have him kiss her, touch her? Be inside her? And what else would he want her to do to him?
When she couldn’t stop herself from shuddering, Claire touched her arm. “I know you’ve been through a terrible experience,” she murmured. “Maybe it would help to tell me about it.”
So you can report to John, Stephanie thought, but she only shook her head. “I don’t want to dwell on it.”
“I understand.”
Yeah, I’ll bet you do, she thought with a note of sarcasm. Aloud she said, “I’d like to take that bath now.”
If they had to have a wedding night, maybe she could get him drunk again. Or would that work twice in a row? And she couldn’t do it every night of her life. Eventually...
She cut off that thought, because she couldn’t let it come to that.
* * *
HAROLD GODDARD WAITED impatiently to hear from the men he was sending into the Reynard compound.
When Wayne finally called, he snatched up the phone. “What?”
“There’s a lot of activity at the estate. Delivery trucks going into the compound. Two catering trucks.”
“And anyone going in and out is getting stopped at the main gate?”
“Yeah.”
Harold thought for a moment. Were they really expecting an attack, or was Reynard just taking precautions because that was his M.O.? Finally he said, “I think he’s not really expecting trouble. I mean, who would go up against him? I’ve hacked his email. The wedding ceremony’s at five. Wait till then, then crash the gate. You’ll know where the woman is, and you can take her and run.”
“What about collateral damage?”
“Do what you have to.”
Chapter Nineteen
The flower delivery was scheduled for three-thirty in the afternoon. Craig’s tension mounted as the departure time approached. And he breathed out a sigh when he finally drove away from the loading dock in back of the flower shop. He made one more stop, at a spot where he’d left the extra equipment he was going to need, packing it into the back of the panel truck behind the flowers.
He said a silent prayer that he wasn’t going to get Stephanie killed, then headed for the main gate of Reynard’s estate and waited with his heart pounding while he sized up the operation. At the gate there were three guards. One of them asked for his credentials and checked them over carefully, as if the president of a foreign country was staying here and needed special protection.
“I’d like a look in that truck,” the man said.
“Sure,” Craig agreed as though he didn’t have a thing in the world to hide. Like, for example, that he was here to kidnap the bride. Climbing out, he walked around to the back and opened the door.
There’s nothing in here but flowers. All you see is flowers, Craig said over and over as the guy climbed inside and poked around.
Flowers. Just flowers. And I’m just the delivery guy, doing his job.
The guard jumped out. “You’re good to go,” he said.
“Thanks.” He waited a beat.
“Yes?”
“Where should I park?”
“Around the side of the house. The ceremony is out by the pool.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He would have liked to ask more questions about the layout of the estate, but he assumed he was supposed to know. He still wasn’t sure what “around the side of the house” meant, but when he spotted a catering truck pulled up near the triple garage, he breathed out a little sigh. Before parking, he turned around so that he was facing outward, poised for a quick getaway. But he figured that would look normal because he was unloading the flowers from the back.
After climbing out, he followed one of the catering guys to the back of the house. Chairs had been set up on either side of an aisle, facing a bank of bushes. Over to the side were six round tables, with snowy-white cloths where china and cutlery had already been set out.