The Bourbon Kings

by J. R. Ward

  "It isn't supposed to rain," she muttered to no one in particular.

  "You know what they say about the weather around here," one of the waiters retorted.

  Yeah, yeah, she knew.

  Where was Lane? she wondered. She hadn't heard anything from him since she'd seen him by that truck, and that had been six hours ago.

  Mr. Harris came up to her. "You'll tell them that it's all to go into the staging area?"

  "Yes," she said. "That's where the rentals always go afterward--and before you ask, yes, silverware and glassware, too."

  As the man lingered next to her, she was tempted to tell him to grab hold of the table and help her hump it across the event deck. But it was pretty clear he wasn't a hands-dirty sort of fellow.

  "What's the matter?" she asked, frowning.

  "The police have arrived again. They are trying to be respectful of our event, but they wish to interview me anew."

  Lizzie lowered her voice. "Do you want me to take care of things out here?"

  "I'm afraid they're not going to let this be."

  "I'll make sure it's done right."

  The butler cleared his throat. And then, God love him, he gave her a bit of a bow. "It would be most appreciated. Thank you--I shan't be long."

  She nodded and watched him go. Then she got back to work.

  Jerking the table off the deck, she strode across the now-cavernous interior and proceeded out into the open air where a sprinkling of that rain dusted her head and shoulders. The staging tent was way off by the opposite side of the house, and Greta's German accent emanated from it as twin streams of servers, one filing in with party debris, the other emerging with empty hands, moved with speed.

  Lizzie waited along with the rest of them, inching her way closer and closer to the drop-off.

  The larger of the two tents would be taken down in about twenty minutes--and the sweep-up crew was already working the floor, picking up crumpled napkins, errant forks, glasses.

  Rich people were no different from any other herd of animals, capable of leaving a trail of detritus behind them after they abandoned a feeding station.

  "Last table," she said as she once again went under cover.

  "Good." Greta pointed to a stack. "It goes there, ja?"

  "Yup." Lizzie jerked the weight up to waist level and slid the length on top of the pile. "Mr. Harris has to take care of some business, so I'll be manning clean up."

  "We have all in order." Greta motioned for two young men with six crates of glasses apiece to the other corner. "Over there. Make sure under cover, ja?"

  "I'm going to check in with the kitchen."

  "We'll be finished out here in an hour."

  "Right on schedule."

  "Always."

  And Greta was right. At six o'clock on the dot, they were finished, the big tent down, the house and gardens cleared out of anything rented, the backyard reset sure as if it had had its Ctrl+Alt+Del hit. As usual, the effort had been tremendous: As the staff filed off, most of them were heading downtown to drink off the aches, pains, and OMGs of the day, but not Lizzie--or her partner. Home. They were both going home--where she would wait for Lane, and Greta would get treated to a meal cooked by her husband.

  As the two of them walked down to the staff parking area together, they didn't say a word, and at their cars, they shared a quick hug.

  "Another in the can," Lizzie said as they pulled apart.

  "Now we get ready for the Little V.E. birthday party."

  Or Gin's wedding reception, Lizzie thought.

  At least it wasn't going to be Lane's wedding anniversary.

  "I'll see you tomorrow?" she said.

  "Sunday? No." Greta laughed. "Not a soul will be stirring, not a martini nor a mouse."

  "Right, right, right. Sorry, my brain is fried. See you Monday."

  "You all right to drive home?"

  "Yup."

  After a wave, Lizzie got in her Yaris and then joined the lineup of cars and trucks proceeding out the staff lane.

  As she took a left on River Road, what had started as sprinkles turned into an actual rain, and the deluge made her think of the race--shoot, she'd missed it. Reaching for the radio, she turned the thing on and futzed with the dial to find the local station. By the time she found the recap, she was out of spaghetti junction and heading over the Ohio.

  But she didn't follow the reporting and not just because she didn't follow the sport.

  Frowning, she leaned into her steering wheel. "Dear God . . ."

  Up ahead, the horizon was filled with tremendous black clouds, the rolling thunderheads looming high in the sky. Worse? There was a green tinge to it all--and even to her untrained, naked eye, the stuff appeared to be rotating.

  She checked over her shoulder. Behind her, there was nothing much going on weather-wise. There was even a stretch of blue sky.

  Shoving her hand into her purse, she took out her phone and dialed Easterly. When that clipped English voice answered, she said, "Weather's coming. You're going to need--"

  "Miss King?" the butler said.

  "Look, you need to batten down the pool area and the pots--"

  "But there is no 'weather,' as you called it, due. In fact, the weathermen have made it clear that a spot of rain is all we shall have this evening."

  As a flash of lightning licked its way across the underside of that cloud front, she thought, well, at least she'd gotten along with the man for almost an hour. "Screw the Weather Channel. I'm telling you what I'm looking at right now--there is a storm bigger than downtown Charlemont heading across the river, and Easterly's hill is the first thing it's going to run into."

  Crap, had she remembered to shut her windows at her farm?

  "I was unaware of your skills as a meteorologist," Mr. Harris said dryly.

  You are a dick, sir. "Fine, but then you can explain the following after it goes through: One, why the awning by the pool blew off. Two, why the four porch pots on the west side of the terrace have fallen over and need to be replanted. Three, where the lawn furniture ended up--because unless you make sure it's in the pool house, it's going to drag through the flower beds. Which brings me to number four--namely when the ivy, tea roses, and hydrangea will be fixed. Oh, and then you can follow all that up with writing the family a seven-thousand-dollar check to cover the new plant material that will be required."

  Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock--

  "What was the second . . . issue?" he said.

  Tallyho, big guy.

  Lizzie ran through the whole protocol, which was the result of her and Greta having worked with Gary McAdams for years storm-proofing the grounds in the spring and the fall. The thing was, it didn't take an EF5 dropping directly in Easterly's backyard to create a mess. Some of the generic storms were more than capable of doing a lot of damage if they had straightline winds.

  It was one of the things she'd had to learn fast when she'd moved down to Charlemont--

  As if on cue, she drove into a blistering wall of rain that hit the windshield so hard it sounded like a team of tap dancers rocking out to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

  Cranking up her wipers, she took her foot off the accelerator because the Yaris was capable of hydroplaning on the highway with even the slightest amount of water under its tiny tires.

  "You got it?" she said. "Because I need to hang up and drive through this."

  "Yes, yes of course . . . oh, my God," the man whispered.

  "So you see the storm?" Have fun with that, she thought. "Better get moving."

  "Indeed. Quite."

  Lizzie hung up and tossed her phone back into her purse. Then it was a case of hunch over the wheel, hold on tight . . . and pray that some idiot show-off in an SUV didn't run her off the road.

  Things got even worse, fast.

  And jeez, after a day as long as the one she had put in, the last thing she needed were torrential bands of water that cut her visuals down to five feet, along with teeth-rattling thunder and lightning, but t
he weather seemed determined to parallel what was going on at Easterly--almost as if the drama at the house was affecting even the weather.

  Okay, that was hyperbole.

  But still.

  It took her five hundred years to reach her exit. And then another seven or eight to get to her driveway. Meanwhile, the storm had turned into stormS--with a big capital "S" on the end: Lightning crackled and sizzled, seeming to target her car, and thunder roared, and she got pelted with a round of hail you could have hit out of Fenway Park. White-knuckled, frankly pissed, worried about Lane, and sore all over, when she finally made it to her home, she was a hot mess of--

  The finger of God.

  That was the only thing she could think of.

  One moment, she was just about to pull into her spot by her house. The next? A jagged bolt of lightning licked out of the sky--and nailed her big, beautiful tree right at the top.

  Sparks flew like it was the Fourth of July.

  And she screamed, "No!" as she hit the brakes.

  The Yaris's tires were iffy on dry pavement. On a wet, muddy dirt road? It was greased-pig time.

  And that was how she learned Lane was already at her house.

  Because she plowed right into the back of his Porsche.

  *

  Lane had been sitting at Lizzie's kitchen table reading BBC financial reports for about two hours when the storm hit. As the first wave of rain and noise and flashing rumbled through the house, he didn't bother to look up from her laptop, even as the old-fashioned glass in the windows rattled and the roof beams creaked.

  The volumes and volumes of data were overwhelming.

  And he was panicked that he only understood a fraction of it all.

  Then again, it had been pretty damn naive of him to think he could get a handle on his father's dealings with any kind of alacrity. Aside from the crushing numbers of files, he just didn't have the extensive accounting background that was going to be required to sort everything out.

  Thank God Edward had been prepared for something like this, setting up those shadow accounts and passcodes and emails. Without all that, it would have been impossible to export the information without triggering some internal alert.

  Maybe that would still happen, though.

  He didn't know how much time they had before their father tweaked to the fact that there had been a major leak.

  Taking a break, he sat back and rubbed his eyes--and that was when the second wave of storms hit. And whether it was the forced TO thanks to his burning retinas, or the fact that this T-cell really was kicking it up huge, he became very aware that Lizzie's home was suddenly under siege.

  Getting to his feet, he went around and shut all the open windows, downstairs and up. As he jogged from room to room, lightning strobed in crazy bursts, casting fast, hard shadows over Lizzie's floorboards, her furniture, her piano. With the sky nearly dark as midnight and all the jagged licks nailing the farmland, he felt as though he were in a war zone.

  He'd forgotten how rough these eastward-moving spring storms could be, the collisions of hot and cold fronts given free rein over the miles and miles of flat, tilled fields in the midwest.

  Back on the first floor, he glanced out at the front porch and cursed. The wicker rockers and side tables were milling around, animated into nervous agitation by the countervailing gusts of wind.

  When he went to open the door, the heavy weight blew in at the slightest turn of the knob, and he had to drag things shut behind himself as he stepped out. Grabbing hold of anything he came in contact with, he moved Lizzie's stuff around the corner of the porch, out of the worst of the gale.

  He was coming back around to tackle the final lounge chair when he saw headlights turn in off the main road. It had to be her--and he was glad she was home. He'd meant to call, text . . . send up smoke signals or a homing pigeon, but his head had been locked in a--

  Everything happened in a weird combination of slo-mo and speed of sound: The blast of lightning that came out of the sky right above the house. The explosion of noise and the bomb burst of illumination.

  That tree limb that was the size of an I beam cracking free of the trunk and falling to the ground.

  Right as Lizzie pulled up under it.

  The crunching sound of metal getting crushed stopped his heart in his chest.

  "Lizzie!" he screamed as he went airborne off the porch.

  Rain pelted him in the face, and the wind was like a pack of dogs tearing at his clothes, but he bolted across the puddled ground at a dead run.

  Death comes in threes.

  "No!" he hollered into the storm. "Nooooo!"

  The Yaris had crumpled under the weight, its roof mashed down flat, its hood caved in--and his own life flashed through his mind as he skidded to a halt in his bare feet. Branches with bright green, new spring leaves were everywhere, compromising his vision as much as the rain and the wind--and still lightning flashed and thunder carried on as if nothing important had happened.

  "Lizzie!"

  He dove into the wet mess of the leaves, clawing to get through, get around, get over. Even with all the wind, he could smell the gasoline, the oil, and hear the hiss of an engine that had been mortally wounded.

  Maybe all the damp would stop a fire from igniting?

  Lane changed tactics and began to climb up and over--until he worked his way around and onto the front of the car. Finally, he felt something slick and wet under his hands, and he knocked on it, wanting her to know he was there. "Lizzie, I'm going to get you out!"

  With frantic jerks, he tore through the leaves and branches--until he found the spidered, bowed-out glass of the front windshield. The panel was still intact--but that didn't last long. Squeezing up a fist, he punched through and all but shoved himself into the opening.

  Lizzie was laying sideways, her head in the passenger seat, her arms flopping around as if she were trying to orient herself. Both air bags had blown, and the chalky dryness in the air was at odds with the storm's tremendous humidity.

  "Lizzie!"

  At least she was moving.

  Shit. There was no way he could get any of the doors opened. He was going to have to pull her out.

  Reaching forward, he touched her face. "Lizzie?"

  Her eyes were fluttering, and there was blood on her forehead. "Lane . . .?"

  "I got you. I'm going to get you out. Are you hurt? Your neck? Your back?"

  "I'm sorry I hit . . . your car . . ."

  He closed his eyes for a split second, and said a prayer. Then he snapped back into action. "I'm going to have to drag you out."

  Fighting his way further into the interior, he somehow managed to reach the seat belt release, and then he grabbed ahold of her upper arms--

  And stopped.

  "Lizzie? Listen to me--are you sure you're not hurt? Can you move your arms and legs?" When she didn't reply, he felt a fresh surge of alarm. "Lizzie? Lizzie!"

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Back in Charlemont, Edward was not paying any attention to how his remaining horse did in the Derby. He wasn't even at the track.

  No, he was trying on a new role.

  Stalker.

  Sitting behind the wheel of a Red & Black Stables truck, he glanced through the passenger window at the enormous brick mansion he was parked in front of.

  Built in the early 1900s, the great Georgian pile was even larger than Easterly--which had been the point. The Suttons had been the interloping upstarts for almost a century at that point, and as that family's fortune finally overtook the Bradfords', they had constructed the house as a trophy to their triumph. With some twenty or thirty bedrooms and a village of staff quarters under its massive roof, the manse was nearly a city unto itself--on the second-best rise in town with the second-best view of the river and the second-best garden.

  But yes, they had Easterly beat on size.

  Just as the Sutton Distillery Corporation was bigger by thirds than the BBC.

  Edward shook his head and glance
d at the crappy watch he'd taken to wearing. If Sutton stayed true to her usual schedule, it would not be long now.

  At least nobody in a uniform with a barking German shepherd at his side was harassing him to leave. Sutton Smythe's family estate had security that was every bit as tight as Easterly's, but he had two things going for him. One was the logo on his vehicle: the R&B trademark was like a royal warrant, and even if he had been a serial killer parked in the downtown lobby of the courthouse, there was every possibility that the police would leave him alone with that thing in place. The second gimme he had in his favor was the Derby. Undoubtedly, everyone was still talking about the race, settling up bets, reliving the glory.

  Soon. She would be home soon.

  After Lane had gotten him back to the farm, he had taken some of his meds and had a drink. Then he had reread the mortgage papers . . . and lasted about ten more minutes before he'd picked up Sutton's evening purse and limped out to one of his trucks.

  Moe and Shelby and the rest of the stablehands were down at the track with the trainers and the horses. As he'd driven off, he'd thought it was a shame to waste the peace and quiet at the farm--but this was something he needed to handle in person.

  Rain began to fall, first as a few drops; then as a drizzle.

  He checked his watch again.

  Thirteen minutes. He was betting she would be home in thirteen minutes: Whereas most of the two hundred thousand people at Steeplehill Downs were going to enjoy a long trek back to wherever they had left their cars, followed by a further gridlock as they attempted to get on the highway, folks like the Bradfords and the Suttons had police escorts that got them in and out the back ways fast.

  And he was right.

  Some twelve minutes and a number of seconds later, one of the Sutton family's black Mulsannes pulled up in front of the house, the driver popping out from behind the wheel and triggering an umbrella as he went to the rear door. A second security man did the same on the other side.

  Sutton's father emerged first and needed the arm of his chauffeur to get to the house.

  Sutton, on the other hand, uncoiled slowly from the vehicle, her eyes trained on his truck. After speaking with the driver, she took the umbrella from the man and walked over, heedless that she was ruining her high-heeled shoes.

  Edward put the window down as she approached--and tried to ignore the scent of her perfume as she came up to him.