Lucan closed the door of the study with great care and walked a few steps into the room, giving himself a couple of beats to come up with a response. He had anticipated this scene for months, ever since he had discovered that Tazewell was his biological father. But it was happening too soon. And the dynamic was all wrong.
In his fevered imagination he had been the one in control of the scene. He had played it out a million times in his head. He would summon Grayson Tazewell into the richly paneled study of the wine country estate. He had hungered—lusted—for the moment when he would inform his father that the Tazewell Fund belonged not to the son who physically resembled him but to the one who had inherited Grayson’s ruthless streak; the son who was his true heir.
The timing for this scene was unfortunate, Lucan thought, but now that the initial shock was over he could feel his blood heating. He was going to savor the hot rush of victory.
“Looks like my brother got to you,” he said. “You do realize that Easton is jealous of me, don’t you? He knows that I’m the only one who can save Tazewell. You know it, too.”
“You’re the one who pushed my company to the brink of bankruptcy, you fucking son of a bitch. You packaged those offerings in start-ups that didn’t even exist except on the Internet.” Grayson seized a file of papers and hurled it across the desk. “Nothing but steaming piles of shit. All of them.”
Lucan watched the computer printouts fly from the folder and scatter across the carpet. He smiled.
“You fell for it, didn’t you?” he asked. “The dazzling Grayson Fitzgerald Tazewell, the hedge fund magician of the West Coast financial world, fell for the same kind of con that he has run dozens of times.”
“That’s not true.”
“We both know it’s true,” Lucan said. “Like father, like son. Like me.”
Grayson swept out a hand to include the study, the wine country view; his whole world. “I didn’t build all of this with fake investments, you lying bastard.”
“Sure you did. It’s true that you were damned good, I’ll give you credit for that much. You had a knack for dumping the losers when it looked like they were going to be a problem. But right from the start you’ve been running a series of giant pyramid schemes. You created your own artificial bubbles in various tech areas. Just high-stakes versions of the old-fashioned pump-and-dump routine. What’s more, you got away with it for decades. Right up until I came along.”
“I’ve been able to read the market like no one else, you stupid SOB.”
“No, your real talent was the ability to manipulate markets like no one else, at least in the short term. But because you were so good and it was all so easy, you got lazy. After I found out who you were, I watched you for months. I studied you. I dug into your past maneuvers. And when I was ready, I dangled the bait. You didn’t just reach for it, you lunged for it with both hands.”
“You’re destroying my company.”
“I told you at the start that I’m here to save Tazewell Global. That was the truth.”
“Bullshit.” Grayson slammed one fist against the desktop. “This is about revenge, isn’t it?”
“I don’t need your money. I have plenty of my own. My only goal is to save Tazewell.”
“Why? If you hate me so much, why first destroy and then try to save my company?”
Quinton smiled slowly. “Because when this project is finished, it’s going to be my company.”
“You’re crazy. Fucking crazy.”
“It’s my price for rescuing Tazewell Global. I was going to wait awhile before I had you sign the papers and transfer the assets, but under the circumstances, there’s no reason not to do it now. Everything is ready to go. I’ll have Victoria print out copies of the contract. We’ll sign them today. You will make a formal announcement to the financial media this afternoon. Day One of your retirement starts tomorrow.”
“You can’t possibly believe I’ll sign your fucking papers.”
“The alternative is that the news of the sudden bankruptcy of Tazewell Global goes out today. It will contain enough information to ensure that the feds and a team of FBI agents will be at your door very early tomorrow morning. Not only will Tazewell go down in flames, but you’ll go to prison. Everything you’ve built is on the line. You’ve got two sons but we both know that I’m the only one who can save your company and your precious reputation.”
“No,” Grayson roared. “I won’t let you do this to me. You think I can’t protect what’s mine?”
He wrenched open the center drawer of the desk and reached inside.
A gun, Quinton thought. He was stunned. Grayson was reaching for a gun to kill the one person who could save the empire. Tazewell would rather go down with his company than let his rightful heir have it.
The realization came as a blinding flash of the obvious. Well, shit. We really are alike.
Enraged, Lucan grabbed the glass phoenix off the pedestal and hurled it at Grayson, who instinctively lurched to the side. The heavy statue slammed into his shoulder and then crashed to the floor, shattering.
Grayson grunted in pain but he managed to retain his grip on the pistol.
But Lucan was already rounding the corner of the desk. He grabbed Tazewell’s gun arm. Grayson fought back with the rage of a man who has nothing left to lose. Off balance now, he went down hard on one knee. He made another desperate attempt to aim the pistol but Lucan clung to his gun arm.
And then they were both on the floor, struggling wildly. Their movements were hampered by the desk and the wall. Lucan was on top, both hands wrapped around Grayson’s forearm in a desperate effort to get control of the gun.
The pistol roared. The boom exploded through the room and reverberated off the walls.
Grayson stiffened violently.
And then he went utterly limp.
It took Lucan a few seconds to realize that he had been partially deafened. The gun had gone off very close to his ear. He was vaguely aware of the muffled sound of the door slamming open. He looked up in time to see Victoria coming in low, pistol in hand. Devlin was braced above her. He swept the room with his weapon.
They took in the situation in a heartbeat.
“Are you hurt, sir?” Victoria demanded.
“No.” Lucan finally remembered to breathe. He rolled off the dead man and sat up slowly. He was shaking. He could not bring himself to look at the body. “No, I don’t think so. He . . . he went for a gun. He was going to kill me.”
“Understood, sir,” Devlin said. “Move away from the body.”
Lucan got to his feet, feeling uncharacteristically clumsy and awkward. He took a few steps back and forced himself to look at Grayson. The bullet had entered through the jaw and exited out the side of the head. There was a lot of blood and other matter on the windows and the floor of the study.
Victoria went forward to check for a pulse.
“Dead,” she announced. She rose quickly. “You’re sure you’re all right, sir?”
“Y-yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m okay.”
He was shocked at the slight tremor in his voice. He had trouble keeping his balance. Devlin reached out to assist him.
“I said I’m all right,” Lucan snapped.
“Yes, sir.” Devlin’s hard eyes got a little harder. He stepped back.
“He was going to kill me,” Lucan whispered.
“Yes, sir,” Devlin said. “How do you want to handle this? We can call the cops and go with self-defense—”
“No.” Jolted by the possibility of having to deal with the police, Lucan concentrated and managed to pull himself together. “Are you out of your fucking mind? We can’t get the police involved in this. It would ruin everything.”
“Understood, sir,” Devlin said. “Just laying out options. This is going to get complicated.”
“No, it’s not,” Victor
ia said. “There’s no one on the grounds or in the house. The housekeeper went home two hours ago. It’s highly unlikely that anyone heard the shots. We can make this go away, sir.”
“How?” Lucan asked. He was unable to take his eyes off Grayson.
“We’ll clean up the scene,” Victoria said matter-of-factly. “Take the body into the hills. Bury it. There’s a good chance it will be found eventually but if it is, it will look like Tazewell was killed because he wandered into a drug operation while out hiking.”
“Owners of powerful hedge funds don’t just vanish while out hiking, you idiot,” Lucan said. “When Easton Tazewell finds out his father has gone missing, he’ll launch a search.”
Devlin studied the body. “You know, this could pass as a suicide.”
Frantic now, Lucan seized on the option. “Suicide. Yes, that might work. Tazewell found out he was facing bankruptcy. He couldn’t stand the humiliation of failure.”
“I don’t think your half brother is going to buy that story,” Victoria warned. “He’ll want a full-scale investigation. If that happens, it will come out that you and Devlin and I were all in the house on the day of the shooting. The housekeeper was here earlier. She saw us. We can probably finesse it but there will be a lot of questions and there’s a real risk that your identity will be exposed.”
“Let me think, damn it,” Lucan said. “We need to get this right. We’ve got time.”
“No, we don’t, sir,” Devlin said. “We have no idea where Lancaster and Meadows are. All we know for certain is that they are on the move. It appears that the Cutler, Sutter and Salinas people are all still in Seattle but it’s hard to tell what that means.”
“Because you can’t get past their damned encryption,” Lucan hissed.
And neither can I, he admitted to himself.
“Their tech security is very good, sir,” Victoria said.
“They’ve upgraded in the past few months,” Lucan muttered. “All right, we know that Anson Salinas, Max Cutler and Cabot Sutter are still in Seattle. That’s a good sign. It means they don’t have any leads. They may be spending a lot of time online looking for us, but our security is good, too. Just to be on the safe side, from now on we use burner phones. Understood?”
“Understood,” Devlin said.
Lucan tried to think. “The good news is that Lancaster has no way of knowing about the Tazewell connection and he can’t possibly know the endgame. But things are becoming unstable. We are going to have to bring this project to a close on a much faster timeline than I had intended.”
“It isn’t just Lancaster and his brothers we have to worry about,” Devlin said. “There’s also the problem of your half brother.”
“Easton and his wife are in Seattle,” Lucan said. “We don’t have to worry about them, at least not now.”
“The problem is that there’s no way to know when Easton might decide to contact his father to check on the status of the situation here,” Devlin said.
“Sir, don’t forget that we have a contingency plan for an emergency such as this,” Victoria said quietly. “We can close up the house. Instruct the housekeeper and gardener not to come in until they receive instructions to do so. Drive to San Francisco and catch a plane out of the country this evening. By the time someone finds the body, we will have disappeared.”
Lucan wanted to howl with fury. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
He got the rage under control with a monumental effort and took another look at his father’s body. The shock had subsided but a strange excitement was flooding his veins. It took a moment to identify the sensation, and then it hit him—he was thrilled. Elated. Triumphant.
He was now in full control of his father’s empire. All he had to do was finish what he had started. And then his new life could begin.
“We don’t know where Lancaster is,” he said. “But we do know where Easton and Rebecca are. We will deal with them first.” He glanced at his watch. “Book flights for Seattle. We can be there in a few hours. We’ll take care of that end of things tonight. Tomorrow we move on to the next step.”
“What is the next step?” Devlin asked.
He sounded skeptical.
Lucan described the plan he had conceived.
“Got it,” Victoria said.
“Risky,” Devlin said. “Lot of moving parts. You sure you don’t want to go with something simpler and more straightforward?”
“If you don’t think you can handle the job, you’re free to resign now,” Lucan said.
Devlin glanced at Victoria. “I can handle it. I’m just saying it’s complicated, that’s all.”
“The boss is right,” Victoria said. “Anything less complicated would be even riskier. You know as well as I do that it’s not easy to just grab people off the street these days. Too many cell phones and security cameras around. This is a situation that requires distraction.”
Devlin’s jaw hardened. “I’ll book the flights to Seattle.”
“Too bad we can’t use the Tazewell Global jet,” Victoria said.
“Talk about a red flag,” Lucan said, irritated. “A private jet can’t fly in and out of major airports without leaving a trail.”
Victoria flushed. “But Lancaster can’t possibly know about the Tazewell connection.”
“I’m not taking any chances,” Lucan said. “We need to set the stage here because eventually the body will be found. When that happens, I don’t want anything left behind here that could possibly link to me.”
Devlin didn’t say anything but his eyes narrowed a little.
“I don’t want anything left that links to you or Victoria or me,” Lucan amended smoothly. “I’m trying to protect all three of us. Now, move, people. I want to be out of here and on our way to Seattle within the hour.”
Devlin swung around and strode out of the room. Victoria followed quickly.
Lucan waited until they were gone and then he took one last look at the body.
“I’ve got it all, you son of a bitch,” he said softly.
Riding the hot rush of triumph, he crossed the room to the glass case that held the outrageously expensive hundred-and-fifty-proof brandy. He grabbed two bottles and headed for the door.
The only thing that had changed was the timing. It was still going to end the way it was supposed to end—with fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
There was nothing like a shower and fresh underwear to reinvigorate a woman, Winter decided. The combination did as much good as a session of meditation. Life got simpler when you were on the run. The essentials took on a whole new level of importance.
She pulled on the new pair of black panties and the new black jeans. Then she fastened the new black bra and slipped the new black T-shirt over her head.
She emerged from the steamy bath to find Jack standing in the doorway of the connecting rooms. He was wearing his new khaki trousers and—surprise!—a long-sleeved white shirt.
The energy in the atmosphere around him was so intense she was pretty sure she could have used it to charge a computer. Behind the lenses of his glasses his eyes had the icy-hot look she had come to recognize. Hunting mode.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve had another insight?” she said.
“I just reviewed some information from that lawyer I told you about.”
“The one who is a client of Cutler, Sutter and Salinas?”
“Right. He made some calls to people he knows in San Francisco. Evidently a couple of months ago there were rumors circulating that suggested Tazewell Global might be having financial problems. The situation was bad enough that a handful of the biggest clients pulled their accounts. Grayson Tazewell managed to smooth things over, but he hasn’t been seen in public since that time.”
“I can tell you think that fits in with the latest version of your conspiracy theory,�
� Winter said.
“Yes, it does. Running a con on a hedge fund would be right up Zane’s alley. Tomorrow we’re going back to San Francisco. I want to check out the headquarters of Tazewell Global.”
Winter was startled by the little rush of excitement that ruffled her senses. She smiled.
Jack’s eyes tightened at the corners. “What?”
“This business of hunting bad guys is sort of cool,” she said.
Jack used both hands to carefully remove his glasses. He took out a handkerchief and polished the lenses with a thoughtful air.
“You think I’m fortunate because I’ve found my passion, as you put it?” he said.
“Yes. I think that is a rare and valuable gift.”
“It may have its uses but I wouldn’t call it a gift.” He stowed the handkerchief in his pocket and put on his glasses. “At times it feels a lot like a curse.”
“Every talent has a downside. The trick is learning how to manage both aspects—the light and the dark.”
He was silent for a moment. He did not take his eyes off her.
“Now what?” she asked.
He walked slowly, deliberately across the small space that separated them and came to a halt in front of her.
“You may be right about me,” he said. “I think I have found my passion.”
“Right. Solving cold cases and finding answers for people.”
“No,” he said. “That’s the work I do.” He cradled her face between his hands. “At the moment my passion is standing right in front of me.”
Heat lightning crackled in the room. A sensual thrill shivered through her. She put her hands on his shoulders.
“Jack,” she whispered.
It was all she could say. It was enough.
With a husky groan of raw hunger, Jack covered her mouth with his own. The kiss crashed through both of them, fueled by the adrenaline that was flooding Jack’s veins. Winter clenched her fingers into his shoulders to steady herself.
He broke the kiss long enough to pull off her new T-shirt and toss it onto the foot of the bed. The new bra followed a short time later.
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