Текст книги "Deception Cove"

Автор книги: Jayne Krentz

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 46

“YOU CAN’T BLAME ME FOR MY CONCLUSIONS, MS. NORTH.” Ethel Whitcomb removed her reading glasses and closed the folder Drake had given her. She looked at Alice across the width of a First Generation antique desk. “I had every reason to believe that you were involved in the murder of my son. Frankly I’m not inclined to change my mind. Aldwin Hampstead and Zara Tucker may have confessed to the actual act, but as far as I’m concerned you bear a great deal of the responsibility.”

“How can you say that?” Alice demanded.

They were in Ethel Whitcomb’s study. Alice was seated in a chair near the window. Houdini was huddled on her shoulder, fully fluffed but watchful. She knew that he had picked up on her tension. The Whitcomb butler had tried to insist that dust bunnies were not allowed inside the mansion, but Drake had fixed the man with a single look, saying nothing. The butler had mumbled something about making an exception for helper animals and hastily showed them all into the study.

Drake had ignored Ethel’s cool invitation to take a seat. Instead he had walked across the room and placed the folder containing the confessions and a record of the various criminal charges on Ethel’s desk. Then he had stayed out of the way. Thus far he had remained silent, watching Ethel through his mirrored glasses.

Alice knew that the only reason Ethel had agreed to the meeting was because she had expected that only Drake would be present. She had been shocked when Alice had walked into the room at his side. Now Drake’s icy stillness and steady, unreadable gaze were making Ethel nervous. She hid her unease very well but Alice was not deceived. In his present mood, Drake would have made a specter-cat nervous.

“I don’t care what the police and the FBPI choose to believe,” Ethel said. “I know that you seduced Fulton into an MC as part of a plan to convince him to finance your search for a treasure on Rainshadow.”

“Fulton is the one who set out to seduce me,” Alice said. “And for the record, he offered a full-blown Covenant Marriage, not an MC. The Marriage of Convenience was my idea.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment.”

Alice raised her brows. “Well, to give him his due, he never expected that the marriage would last very long because his partners had assured him that after he inherited my share of whatever was discovered on Rainshadow, I would suffer a convenient accident. But in the end he lost his temper when I told him I wanted a divorce and he tried to murder me.”

“That is an outrageous lie,” Ethel said. She pushed herself to her feet. “What he saw in you, I’ll never know. There is no doubt in my mind that my son is dead because of you. Get out of my house or I will call the police.”

Alice looked at Drake. “I told you this meeting was a waste of time.”

“The meeting isn’t over yet,” Drake said. He did not move, but the atmosphere heated with dangerous energy. “We aren’t going anywhere until we have all reached an understanding on a couple of points.”

Ethel glared at him. “There is nothing more to understand, Mr. Sebastian.”

“You will stop harassing my wife.”

“You mean your mistress.”

“Alice is my wife,” Drake said. His voice was lethally soft. “In our family, we take marriage very seriously.”

“It’s an MC, not a real marriage,” Ethel said, her voice very tight.

“It’s a real marriage as far as I’m concerned, and that’s all you need to know. If you continue to send your goon squad investigators after Alice, you will find yourself dealing with me.”

Ethel’s jaw clenched. “Goon squad? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about your deliberate campaign of harassment, intimidation, and attempts to destroy my wife’s reputation.”

Ethel stiffened. “That’s ridiculous.”

Alarmed by the cold energy radiating from Drake, Alice jumped to her feet.

“I don’t think . . . ” she began.

But no one was listening to her. Even Houdini was ignoring her. He was sleeked out and ready for battle.

The blood drained from Ethel’s face. “How dare you threaten me and my family?”

“It’s not a threat,” Drake said. “It’s a solemn promise. You’ve been running Whitcomb Industries long enough to know your way around the business world. You are aware that I can do what I say I can do.”

“That little whore murdered my son.”

“This meeting is over,” Drake said. He started toward Alice. “You might want to contact your people who are working on the Morgan project, Ethel. As soon as we leave here today, I’m going to call Paul Morgan and tell him that Whitcomb is having some serious financial problems that have not yet become known to investors. The deal you’re doing with him will be dead by five o’clock tonight.”

“But Whitcomb isn’t having any financial problems,” Ethel whispered, shocked.

Drake gave her an icy-cold smile and took Alice’s arm. “You know how it is when it comes to rumors in our world, Ethel. When word gets out that Morgan stepped back from a deal with Whitcomb, the gossip will spread like wildfire.”

“No,” Ethel said. “You can’t do this to me and my family.” She pointed a shaking finger at Alice. “Not because of . . . of her.”

“Because of my wife,” Drake corrected. “And, yes, to protect her, I will destroy you and everything you have built.”

Ethel sank slowly down into her chair. She stared at Drake. “She’s hypnotized you, just like she hypnotized my son. Don’t you see?”

Drake’s mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “I see more than you can possibly imagine, Mrs. Whitcomb.”

“Enough,” Alice said. She stepped between Ethel and Drake. “There is no need to crush the entire Whitcomb family, not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. I mean, no one has ever offered to do anything like that for me before and I’m touched, really I am.”

Ethel looked at her, evidently speechless. Alice smiled and then turned back to Drake.

“But we need to keep in mind that stalking me was Ethel’s idea—”

“I am not a stalker,” Ethel shouted.

“And it was a perfectly understandable reaction, if somewhat over the top,” Alice concluded.

“What?” Drake asked.

“She honestly believed that I murdered her son and that there would be no justice.” Alice turned to Ethel. “In your shoes and given your resources, I would have gone looking for a little rough justice, too. But it would have been nice if you had first made sure you had the real killer.”

“Don’t you dare lecture me,” Ethel snapped.

“Just sit down and read the contents of that folder,” Alice said. “After what you did to me this past year, it’s the least you can do. You’re an intelligent woman. Look at the evidence. And then, please, just leave me alone. That’s all I ask. If you stay away from me, I promise you that Drake won’t go after Whitcomb Industries.”

Ethel appeared nonplussed. She looked at Drake.

“Do I have your word on that?” she asked.

Drake’s mouth hardened. He gave the question some thought and then he shrugged. “What the hell. All right, it’s a deal. But if I suspect at any time in the future that you have inconvenienced my wife in any way—if she even gets a parking ticket—I will assume that you are behind the said inconvenience. I will use all of the Sebastian, Inc. resources available to me to take down Whitcomb Industries. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” Ethel said. She collapsed back into her chair. “Please go now.”

Drake took Alice’s arm and steered her toward the door. Neither of them spoke until they were back in the car. Drake sat quietly behind the wheel for a moment.

“I should have known that you would go soft on me,” he said.

“I told you, I didn’t want revenge,” Alice said. “I understood her anger. All I wanted was for her to leave me alone.”

“She will.” Drake smiled his coldest smile and rezzed the car’s flash-rock engine. “Ethel Whitcomb won’t bother you again. She knows that if she does make trouble for you, I’ll take her company apart piece by piece.”

“You’d really do it, wouldn’t you?”

Drake turned his head to look at her. Light flashed on his mirrored glasses. “In a heartbeat.”

Alice took a deep breath. “She believed you.”

“Yes.”

“Hopefully, she’ll believe the evidence in that folder, as well.”

“Don’t count on it.” Drake eased the car away from the curb. “Can’t expect a mother to believe the worst of her son. But maybe, in time, she’ll accept the fact that he wasn’t the man she wanted him to be. Or not.”

A wistful sensation wafted through Alice. She smiled a little and reached up to touch Houdini.

“Family,” she said. “Sometimes the rules are different.”

“Yes,” Drake said. “When it comes to family, the rules are always different. You’re my wife. I’d bend every rule in the book for you.”

Warmth rushed through her.

“Drake, there’s something I need to tell you, something important.”

He started to turn his head to look at her, but at that instant his phone buzzed.

“Damn,” he said. “That’s my emergency number. No one uses it unless there’s a real problem.”

He hit the speaker button. “Drake Sebastian.”

“There’s trouble at the para-psych hospital, Mr. Sebastian. Zara Tucker has escaped to the roof with a hostage. Tucker is asking for a helicopter, a lot of money . . . and you. ”

“I’m on the way,” Drake said.

Alice groaned. “I knew she was going to be a problem.”

Chapter 47

ALICE STOOD WITH DRAKE IN THE DOORWAY OF THE rooftop stairwell. Together they looked out at the scene unfolding on top of the twelve-story hospital.

Zara Tucker stood at the edge of the wide circle that marked the helicopter landing pad. She was dressed in the oversized green scrubs that she had stolen from a supply cupboard. Her blonde hair was blowing in the snapping breeze. She held a mag-rez pistol on her hostage, a middle-aged woman named Dr. Harriet Metford.

Drake glanced back over his shoulder at the small crowd in the stairwell. The hospital administrator, two para-psych doctors, a couple of strong orderlies, and the guard who had lost his weapon to Zara were crammed into the space.

“What’s the status on the helicopter?” Drake asked the guard.

“The chopper is on standby on the roof of Sebastian, Inc. headquarters, as you ordered. The FBPI negotiator and his team are on the way.”

“Trust me, she won’t wait long enough to allow you to get into extended negotiations,” Drake said. “Tell the pilot to take off and hover over the hospital. Tell him to be ready to land as soon as I raise my hand.”

The guard asked no questions. Responding to Drake’s cool air of authority, he immediately turned away to speak into his phone.

Drake looked at Alice. “Ready?”

Who was ever actually ready to confront a madwoman with a gun?Alice wondered.

“I might have a mild touch of stage fright,” Alice admitted. “But they say that sharpens the act.”

“No kidding?” Drake looked grim. “What about a case of stark terror? Does that work? Because that’s what I’ve got.”

Alice gave him her best stage smile. “Don’t worry, this trick never fails. The audience goes wild every time.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Drake said. “You’re the magician this time. I’m just the box-jumper.”

He moved out of the stairwell doorway. The sharp sunlight sparked and flashed on his mirrored glasses.

“You always had a flare for the dramatic, Zara,” he said. “But you’ve definitely outdone yourself this time.”

“I thought you would appreciate the theatrics,” Zara said. “Where is your lovely new bride?”

Alice moved out of the shadows of the stairwell to stand beside Drake. “I’m here.”

“Excellent.” Zara smiled. “Wouldn’t be the same without you. Stay right where you are. One wrong move and I will start shooting Dr. Metford in various parts of her anatomy.”

“I understand,” Alice said.

The whap-whap-whapof a helicopter’s rotor blades sounded in the distance. Zara tipped her head to one side. Then she gave Drake a glowing smile.

“Sounds like our ride is here,” she said. “Time for us to fly off into the sunset together. Take off your glasses.”

Drake did not move.

“Take off your glasses,”Zara screamed. “I want you totally psi-blind, you bastard.”

Slowly Drake raised one hand and removed the sunglasses. Alice glanced at him and saw that he had closed his eyes against the blinding radiation of normal sunlight.

“That’s better.” Zara looked at Alice. “Your turn. Pick up his glasses and throw them over the edge of the roof.”

Alice hesitated.

“Do it now or Dr. Metford pays the price.”

Alice bent down and picked up the sunglasses. She moved slowly to the side of the roof and tossed the glasses over the edge. The mirrored lenses caught the bright light in one last flash before they fell out of sight.

The helicopter cruised toward the rooftop and started to hover.

Zara looked at Alice. “Come here.”

“Me?” Alice said.

“Don’t worry, we’re going to make a trade, but it’s not quite the bargain that Drake expected. You’re the one who is coming with me, not him. And don’t even think of pulling your disappearing act or I will kill Metford first and Drake second.”

“No,” Drake said. “That wasn’t the arrangement.”

“It wasn’t?” Zara smiled. “How forgetful of me. Come here, Alice North.”

Alice walked slowly toward her. When she was a couple of feet away, Zara shoved Dr. Metford aside. The doctor stumbled and went down hard on her knees.

Zara aimed the pistol at Alice. “I’m holding the gun on your bride, Drake. Signal the pilot to land the helicopter.”

“There’s no need to take Alice,” Drake said.

“There is every need to take her,” Zara snapped. She took a syringe out of her pocket. “As long as she is with me you won’t try to do anything stupid. Call in the helicopter.”

Drake raised his arm. The helicopter eased in closer to the rooftop and started to descend. The downdraft from the blades whipped Alice’s hair into a froth. The roar of the engine swamped all other sound.

“Magic time,” Alice said quietly.

Houdini leaped from her shoulder where he had been perched. He sprang straight at Zara’s throat, becoming visible the instant he lost physical contact with Alice.

For Zara, the moment must have been surreal, Alice thought. Without warning, a fierce creature with four eyes and a great many teeth was suddenly flying at her out of midair. She screamed and stumbled backward.

Houdini landed, drawing blood.

Zara screeched and clawed wildly at him.

“Down, Houdini,” Alice said. “Now.”

Houdini bounded out of reach of Zara’s flailing arms, landing nimbly.

Drake was on Zara before she could aim the pistol. He snapped the mag-rez out of her hand. She crumpled, screaming in frustrated rage. She pounded her fists against the rooftop.

Drake looked at Alice.

“Good trick,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. Her pulse was pounding. She scooped up Houdini. “But I think I prefer the old knives-in-the-box routine. You always know where you are with knives. Bullets, not so much.”

“We’ll keep that in mind for our next trick.”

Three men wearing FBPI jackets charged out of the stairwell, heading for Zara.

Zara rose slowly to her feet. She stared at Drake in disbelief. “You’re blind in daylight. You can’t see without your special glasses. You’re day-blind, damn you. I destroyed your talent.”

“You altered my talent,” Drake said. “You didn’t destroy it.”

“You’re psi-blind!” Zara shrieked.

She flew at him. Alice watched, cold with shock, because she knew what was going to happen next.

Drake waited until the last possible instant and then he stepped out of Zara’s path. She shrieked again and tried to change course, but it was too late. Carried forward by her own momentum, her knees struck the edge of the low parapet. She toppled forward and flew over the edge of the roof.

Her scream echoed forever, a shrill, keening counterpoint to the drumbeat of the helicopter blades.

And then it was over.

The helicopter settled onto the roof. The pilot shut down the engine.

Alice hurried to Dr. Metford and peeled the tape off her mouth.

Metford took several deep breaths. “There was a heavy sedative in that syringe. She said she planned to use it on you so that you wouldn’t be able to pull any of your tricks. Once she was in the clear she was planning to push you out of the helicopter. She wanted to use you to hurt Mr. Sebastian.”

“Yes,” Alice said. “We assumed that might be her plan.” She reached down to help Metford to her feet. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Metford stood, clearly shaken. She stared at Drake.

The guard, the hospital administrator, and the two orderlies who had emerged from the stairwell stared at him, too.

“Sorry for staring,” Dr. Metford said. “But we were under the impression that you were day-blind.”

Drake fixed on her with his silvery eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever heard of contact lenses?”

“Crystal contacts?” Dr. Metford said, dumbfounded.

“Something the techs in the Sebastian labs have been working on for me for a while now.” Drake’s jaw tightened. “They’re prototypes. Not the most comfortable things in the world to wear. If you don’t mind, I need to find a nice dark place where I can remove them.”

He went toward the shadowed stairwell.

Dr. Metford looked at Alice.

“He’s going to remove the crystal contacts and put on the other pair of special sunglasses that he brought with him today,” Alice explained.

Dr. Metford’s brows rose. “He knew that Zara Tucker would demand that he destroy his first pair?”

“He knew how she would stage her big scene today. He’s got a talent for business negotiations.”

“Obviously there’s a reason the business world calls him the Magician,” Dr. Metford said.

Alice smiled. “Yes.”

Chapter 48

“YOU KNEW THAT IF SHE SAW ONE LAST OPPORTUNITY TO take revenge that she would try, even if it meant her own death,” Alice said. “That’s why you stood so close to the edge of the roof.”

“I thought there was a high probability she would risk everything at the end, yes,” Drake said.

He drank some of the whiskey in his glass. Alice swallowed some more of her wine. They were on the sofa in the living room of Drake’s town house in the Old Quarter, feet propped side-by-side on the low black lacquer table in front of them.

It was late. Midnight was approaching. Drake was not wearing his sunglasses. The glow of the Dead City Wall was at full force, illuminating the narrow streets and rooftops of the Quarter. The eerie green radiance flooded the living room with paranormal shadows. The only other light came from the fire that burned in the hearth.

The remains of the rich, chunky soup and the sandwiches that Drake’s housekeeper had prepared earlier were on the table in front of the sofa. Houdini had done his best to deal with the leftovers but now he was sprawled flat on his back on the sofa between Alice and Drake.

“You could have been killed,” Alice said. She took a meditative sip of her wine. “You were standing very, very close to the edge.”

“I should have done something permanent about Zara on Rainshadow,” Drake said. “But it would have involved too many other people. Harry, Chief Attridge, Charlotte, Rachel, you.”

“We would all have kept your secret.”

“I know,” Drake said. “But I did not want to put that burden on others who have enough secrets of their own to protect.”

“Now I’m the only one who knows for sure that what happened to Dr. Z was not entirely an accident.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“No,” Alice said. “No, I am not okay with that because you could have been killed with that damn fool bit of strategy out there on the rooftop.”

Drake looked briefly startled by the fierceness of her reaction. “It wasn’t that risky.”

“Yes, it was, and I want your promise that you will never, ever do anything that dumbass again.”

“Dumbass?”

“Yes, dumbass. I’m sure there were other ways of taking out Tucker. You did not have to put your own life on the line.”

“It seemed like the simplest and most effective strategy at the time.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about strategy. We were staging a trick. Magicians don’t like it when the box-jumper decides to improvise.”

“When I saw Tucker there on the roof, I knew that she would keep coming at you until she was stopped,” Drake said. “She realized that if she could hurt you, she would have her revenge against me. Sooner or later she might have been successful. I could not allow that.”

“I realize you felt an obligation to protect me. I appreciate that. However—”

“Don’t say that.”

She frowned. “Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say that you appreciate my need to protect you.”

“But I do appreciate it,” she said earnestly. “It’s very nice of you.”

“Nice?”

“Gentlemanly. Heroic. Whatever. You feel a sense of responsibility toward me, and you are the type of man who takes his responsibilities seriously. I admire that, really.”

Drake took his feet off the table. He leaned forward and put his whiskey glass down with enough force to make a loud clink. He reached out, took Alice’s wineglass from her unresisting fingers, and set it down beside his.

“Something wrong?” Alice asked, bewildered.

“I do not want to hear that you admire me,” he said. His unshielded eyes burned. “I did not do what I did today because I am nice. I did it because it was necessary. That’s how I work, Alice. I examine a situation, define the goal, and then design a strategy to achieve that goal.”

Alice stilled. Something had changed quite drastically in the atmosphere. She was not at all certain where things were going.

“I understand your approach to life and business,” she said. “Why don’t you want me to admire you for it?”

“Because I want you to love me instead,” Drake said, “the way I love you.”

A great sense of warmth and wonder welled up from some place deep inside Alice. She looked into Drake’s silver eyes and saw the silver fire that burned in the depths. She touched his cheek.

“I thought you knew,” she whispered. “You’re the one who sees what others don’t see.”

“What did you think I saw?”

“That I love you,” she said. “That’s what I was going to tell you today when we left Ethel Whitcomb’s mansion. Took me a while to recognize the feeling. I’ve never been in love before.”

“Alice.”

He started to pull her into his arms.

Evidently fearing that he was about to get squashed, Houdini stirred abruptly and bounded down to the floor. He whisked across the room, heading for the open slider. At the door he paused for a cheerful chortle before dashing out onto the balcony and hopping up onto the railing. Alice caught a glimpse of his small, furry frame silhouetted against the green light of the Dead City Wall before he took off into the night.

And then she stopped thinking about Houdini because Drake was kissing her in the luminous psi-and-fire-lit night.

A long time later they lay together, stretched out on the sofa in front of the fireplace. They were both still fully clothed, although Alice’s pants and blouse were rumpled. Her initial sense of wonder had worn off. Reality came crowding back.

“What about your family?” she said quietly. “Will they accept me?”

“Accept you?” Drake laughed. “Get real. When they find out you’ve agreed to marry me, they’ll fall all over themselves in gratitude. They were afraid that I was never going to get past what Tucker did to me, that I would never find the right woman.”

Alice twisted a little in his arms. “When did you decide that I was the right woman?”

“I knew that the first night we met. Why in hell do you think I rushed you into that Marriage of Convenience the following morning?”

“What?” Alice struggled to a sitting position. “Are you telling me the MC wasn’t about protecting me from Ethel Whitcomb?”

“I told myself that it was a good strategy for keeping her away from you. And it was true, up to a point. But there were other ways of handling people like Ethel Whitcomb.” Drake tangled his fingers in Alice’s hair. “From the moment I saw you in the alley behind the theater dodging those thugs, I wanted you. When you kissed me in that parking garage after we got the MC, I figured I had a chance. After we spent our wedding night in the cove watching each other’s backs in that damn fog I knew I would do whatever was necessary to keep you close.”

“I kept telling myself not to mistake sexual attraction for love,” she whispered. “But I knew from the beginning that what I felt for you was not just physical in nature. It’s as if I’ve been waiting all my life for you to show up.”

Drake smiled. “We’ve both waited long enough. What do you say to a quick, quiet Covenant Marriage and another honeymoon on Rainshadow?”

“A third honeymoon on Rainshadow? Sure, why not?” Alice smiled. “A romantic island paradise teeming with escaped sea monsters living in flooded caves, giant mutant insects, and ancient ruins full of dangerous Alien technology—not to mention an underground labyrinth of uncharted catacombs. What could possibly go wrong?”

“We were made for each other. We can handle anything that comes along.”

A sparkling tide of knowing and a sense of profound certainty flowed through Alice.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes to everything, Drake Sebastian.”

He kissed her for a very long time. After a while he got to his feet, picked her up in his arms, and carried her into the lingering shadows of the bedroom.

* * *

HOUDINI AND THE OTHERS PLAYED THE NEW GAME OF hide-and-seek among the ruins inside the great Wall that surrounded the Dead City. The centuries-old ethereal quartz towers glowed in the night, offering virtually unlimited hiding places for dust bunnies. They raced around, darting in and out of the ancient structures until shortly before dawn.

When the first light of the new day illuminated the sky, they left the long-abandoned ruins. They dined on leftover pizza that had been discarded in a trash container in the alley behind a nearby Old Quarter restaurant. A good time was had by all.

The ruins left behind by the long-vanished Aliens held many ancient secrets. But the future on Harmony was with the humans and their games and their pizza.