Samantha entered Nick’s empty, third-floor, corner office. The receptionist had told her that Dr. Coltrane would be with her shortly. Despite her fear and anxiety over the situation, she couldn’t help but stop her mental hand-wringing and admire her surroundings.
If Nick’s building was something out of Architectural Digest, his office was a cover for Luxury magazine. Very modern and elegantly appointed. It reeked of money. Money which . . . Hello! . . . Nick did not have.
Massive windows on two adjoining sides gave an arresting view of the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans, several ships on the horizon. Another wall, containing floor-to-ceiling bookcases, displayed medical books and objets d’ art, such as a bronze sculpture of two alligators fighting, some rare Newcomb pottery, and a sterling vase of her grandmother’s that she hadn’t realized was missing all these years. He must have taken it from an attic chest when they’d first separated. The floor was polished golden cypress with a jewel-toned oriental carpet in its center. The desk, in the vee of the two showcase windows, was large and sleek, probably specially designed for the space.
But it was the massive sideboard on the fourth wall that drew the attention most. A fifteen-foot-wide and ten-foot-high masterpiece, with beveled glass mirrors and gold-plated knobs, had to have resided in some European castle at one time. She couldn’t even guess what it had cost.
Just then, the door opened and Nick strolled in, as cool and handsome as ever. He wore blue scrubs and a surgeon’s cap, which he tossed into a tall, sterile-looking wastebasket with a swinging lid by the door. His blond hair was neatly cut with not a strand out of place. He must have just completed an operation in the surgical suite Angus had described to her. Maybe he’d even delivered a baby, which he was about to sell.
“Samantha! So good of you to come!”
Like I had a choice. Well, I had a choice, as Daniel so aptly pointed out. But to me, there was no choice. “Nick,” she acknowledged his greeting. “I didn’t mean to take you away from work. We could have met another time.”
He glanced down at his scrubs, which did, in fact, have several dark stains, which could only be blood. He pulled that off, as well, the pants and shirt, exposing a white, oxford collared dress shirt with sterling cuff links and a designer tie, tucked into gray, pleated slacks. “No, no, just a routine birth.”
He walked closer and appeared about to give her a hug, but she stepped back. No way was she letting him put his hands on her. Already his Bleu de Chanel cologne was making her queasy, but maybe that was just nervousness.
He raised his eyebrows at her silent rebuff, though why he should be surprised, considering their past history, was a marvel of male cluelessness. Instead, he went to sit behind his desk. He motioned for her to sit on one of the two leather chairs before his desk.
“What do you want, Nick? What was so important that I had to rush here?”
“There’s no need for hostility, Sammie.”
Her upper lip curled with distaste.
Before Nick could catch himself, he grinned. He knew full well how she loathed the nickname. But then he clearly forced himself to be serious. “It’s been a bitch trying to connect with you.” He pretended to wince as if he hadn’t meant to use “bitch” in connection with her. Hah! She’d be bitch to his bastard any day. “Where were you?” he demanded to know.
“The South of France,” she lied. Or South of New Orleans, anyhow. “A little vacation.” In a run-down plantation house with a horde of people and animals . . . including one very sexy doctor. “You could say it was a working vacation.” Now, there’s a truth! “Although I did visit with my mother while I was there, of course.”
“How is the old broad? Still shagging teenagers?”
She didn’t bother to respond, and she could hardly be insulted at the truth. Although teenagers might be a stretch. Her mother, Colette, homed in on twenty-somethings these days. Or, horror of horrors, an aged thirty-five-year-old a few years back, but Enrique only lasted a few months, couldn’t keep up with her mother, or so Colette had said.
“You know she put the moves on me one time?”
“So you said.”
He gave her body and attire a quick, disdainful survey, probably comparing it to a memory of her always elegantly dressed mother. It was not the way Nick would have insisted that Samantha dress while traveling when they were married. Images to keep up and all that nonsense.
She was still wearing the black skinny jeans and white tailored blouse she’d had on this morning, but she’d added a bright silk scarf at her waist as a belt and a pair of high heels that Tante Lulu found in the backseat of her car, which Charmaine had left behind following a party or something. Samantha had arranged her unruly hair into a neat French braid and expertly applied makeup, including foundation to mute her freckles, mascara, eye liner, and lip gloss. She even wore diamond stud earrings that had been in the jewelry pouch she brought with her to Bayou Rose, for safety.
She’d thought she looked pretty good.
Apparently not.
He did take note of her earrings and get the familiar cha-ching gleam in his larcenous eyes. “Why France? Don’t tell me, dear old grandpa is opening some stores there?” The snide note in his voice was not going to gain him points with her, if he only knew. But then, Nick had an over-inflated view of what he could say or do and still appear charming.
“No new stores in France,” she declared, setting her handbag, which held a secondary wiring device, on the floor at her feet. “I have to get home and take care of my animals. What’s up, Nick?”
His eyes went wide, and she realized her mistake. If he was the one who broke into her house, he would know there were no animals there presently.
“A neighbor offered to care for my pets while I was gone. I have to pick them up and bring them home before I even unpack. And, frankly, I’m dog tired, ha ha ha, from my trip. You know how jet lag affects me.” Oh, Lord! I’m rambling. Slow down, Samantha. Let Nick do the talking.
“Actually, I do remember. You slept for twenty-four hours straight after we returned from our honeymoon trip to Paris. But then, you might have been tired out for other reasons.” He grinned knowingly at her.
She felt like hurling the contents of her stomach. Tante Lulu’s beignets and dark chicory coffee suddenly felt like hockey pucks and tar in her stomach.
She stared at him stonily.
“Where’s Angus?” he asked.
“Huh?” She’d been prepared for that question, but she needed to feign ignorance.
“Your brother Angus . . . where the hell is Angus?”
“Angus isn’t really my brother. He—”
“I know what he is,” he snapped. No more Mr. Nice Guy, apparently. “I need to talk to Angus, and I need him now.”
“Why?”
“He stole something from me.”
Oh, so that’s how he was going to play this. “Money?”
“Not specifically. Something a lot more valuable than mere cash.”
Mere cash? Bite your tongue, Nick. Cash has never been mere to you. Ever. “How do you know Angus anyhow?”
“He is . . . was . . . working for me.”
She tilted her head to the side. “In what capacity? Angus has no medical training, as far as I know.”
“Computers.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know where he is. Why would I?”
“I’ve checked everywhere else? And he disappeared the same time you did. I sense a connection.”
She tried her best, but she felt a blush coloring her cheeks. And Nick saw it, too.
“You do know where he is! What a goat fuck this is turning out to be! The time for games is over, sweetheart. I want Angus, and I want him now. Either you bring him to me, or I go to the police.”
“The police?” She frowned in confusion. “What would you tell the police?”
“Well,” he eyed his bookcase unit, “several valuable items of mine seem to have gone missing. A Samuel Remington bronze sculpture, two Newcomb vases worth ten thousand dollars, and an antique silver vase that once belonged to Robert E. Lee.”
She barely stifled a scoff at that last. Her grandmother had been from Scotland, not the South. More important, Samantha realized that Nick was going to fabricate thefts by hiding the objects himself. But this was just a ploy, it had to be. Nick wouldn’t take any chance of Angus being in police custody and spilling the beans about his illegal activities.
What then did Nick hope to accomplish with Angus now? Surely he didn’t think he could continue with his baby selling gig. The answer came to her immediately and ominously. Nick was going to kill Angus. He had to. How else would he ensure that Angus would forever remain silent?
But Nick a murderer? Was that possible?
Desperate men did desperate things, she reminded herself of the FBI agent’s words. And Nick had too much to lose now. Money. His medical license. His reputation. Prison. Oh, yeah, those were reasons to turn an already immoral man to evil.
“Where’s that brother of yours hiding? And, by the way, I don’t suppose he has a pregnant girl with him. Lily Beth Fontenot ring any bells?” Nick stood and was coming around the desk, hands fisted with fury, convinced now that she knew something.
She stood, too, not wanting to be sitting while he hovered over her. “Don’t be ridiculous, Nick. First, Angus is not my brother, not even my stepbrother. And why would he have a pregnant girl with him? Oh, my! Is that what this is about? Angus getting some girl pregnant? Well, that’s not the end of the world, is it?”
“I’ll tell you what’s the end of the world. You. If you don’t stop these games and tell me where those two idiots are. They owe me! They owe me big-time.”
She shoved her chair to the side and was backing up with each slow, threatening step Nick took toward her. “You want to stop playing games? I do, too. Tell me exactly what the problem is. What is so urgent that I had to come here today?”
Just then, the door swung open and Angus rushed in, followed closely by the receptionist who was yelling, “Hey, you can’t go in there.”
“No? Watch me,” Angus yelled back, shoving the receptionist back out and slamming the door in her face.
Both she and Nick stared at Angus with amazement. His blond hair was standing on end, half in and half out of a ponytail. One of his athletic shoes was unlaced. And he was out of breath, as if he’d run up all three flights of stairs, instead of using the elevator. Did the FBI and police know he was here? Had they chased him, and that’s why he was so disheveled? What the hell next?
“Angus! What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t let you do this for me. Nick, let Samantha leave.”
“What? Are you crazy, Angus? Nick isn’t holding me here,” Samantha said.
“C’mon, Nick, you and I can handle this. I won’t tell anyone about the baby selling scheme. I can’t give you Lily Beth, but I won’t rat on you about the past stuff.”
Oh, good Lord! He was going to spoil it all.
Nick looked from Angus to Samantha with sudden understanding. “You told her,” he accused Angus. “You friggin’ fool!” He began to back up slightly, and tripped over her handbag, which spilled onto the floor, disclosing a wallet, a hairbrush, her cell phone . . . and the wiring device.
Nick picked it up, narrowed his eyes at her and Angus, then swung around back behind the desk, pulling out a drawer and a pistol, which he aimed at Angus. “Who’s on the other end of this wire?” he asked.
“No one,” Angus lied. “It’s just hooked up to my computer. I had a plan to get you on tape. Not to go to the police.”
“It would have been used as leverage so you would let Angus and Lily Beth go,” Samantha elaborated. “Honestly, Nick, can you see Nick and Lily Beth going to the police when they might be arrested themselves?”
Nick seemed unsure whether to believe them or not. He raised his weapon while he considered the situation.
Taking no chances, Samantha picked up an amber paperweight off the desk and threw it at Nick, which missed his fool head and hit his shoulder, but it caused the pistol to discharge. The bullet hit Angus, causing him to fall backward.
“Oh, my God! You killed him,” she shouted, rushing to Angus who lay prone on the floor, unconscious.
“He’s not dead. I just nicked his scalp.”
“How do you know that? Are you crazy? You’re a doctor, for heaven’s sake. Hippocratic Oath and all that crap! Come over here, dammit, and check him.”
Nick ignored her and picked up her handbag and its contents off the floor. He stomped on the wiring device, then walked over to her with the pistol still raised. “I told you. It’s just a scalp wound. A bleeder. He’ll live.”
She stood and glared at him. “What kind of doctor are you?”
He shrugged. “Give me the other device,” he snarled, holding out his free hand. “I know Angus would have put a wire on you, too.”
At least he was buying the story of Angus, not the FBI, setting up the sting. And hopefully, the feds and police would be descending on them shortly, having heard the gun shot.
She yanked the device out of her bra and handed it to him. He stomped on that one, too. Then, while she attempted to kneel and help Angus, noticing the flutter of his eyelids, Nick looped the shoulder strap of her handbag over her head and grabbed her by the upper arm, keeping her upright.
Angus made a surreptitious flicker of his fingers, signaling that he was, in fact, not dead, although there was a huge amount of blood, which would surely stain the precious carpet. Luckily, Nick didn’t notice. With the weapon pressed against the back of her head, he steered her toward the bookcase unit. And just like in the movies, he pushed a secret lever, and a part of the unit opened onto a dark stairway. The bookcase closed behind them.
“Holy freakin’ Alfred Hitchcock! Why would a doctor need a secret entrance to his offices?”
“Not a secret entrance. Just a quick way to go down to my private surgery suite. That way I don’t have to go through the halls in soiled scrubs, like I just did. It puts the patients off to see all that blood.” She couldn’t see his face in the dark stairway, but she suspected he was grinning at his ingenuity. “But you know why I really wanted this private entrance or exit. Angus must have told you. Because of my extra-curricular activity. But it also leads to the parking garage, which is next door, connected to my first floor by a corridor.”
Uh-oh! He plans to leave the building. With me. Are the cops watching the parking garage? Or just the ground floor entrances and exits of this building? Oh, crap! I am in over my head! “Where are we going?” she asked as he pushed her down the steps.
“To the bank, where we’re going to empty out your safety deposit box. You’re going to pay, and pay big for what you cost me today, bitch.”
What I cost him? How about what he cost himself? Did the jerk ever take responsibility for his own actions? Why was it always someone else’s fault that he was: a) born poor, b) had a professor who had it in for him just because he skipped five classes, c) messed up that one operation during his residency and had to repeat the whole year, d) had an overactive libido, e) couldn’t help but cheat with a dog of a wife like Samantha, f) drank too much at the hospital Christmas party and hustled the director’s daughter, g) etc., etc., etc.
But now she understood where they were going. Nick was still fixated on the gold bullion in her bank deposit box. Did he really think he could get away with that? “Nick, that gold has to weigh more than a hundred pounds. How in hell are you going to remove it without sticking out like the thief that you are?”
He pressed the revolver harder against her back, causing her to trip and almost go forward, flat on her face. Which would probably be a good thing, if he fell forward, too, except she might very well break her neck in the process.
“You’ll be with me, Sammie dear. All the bank employees will see is my lovely ex-wife who has reunited with me. And I have a small, wheeled luggage I keep in my trunk for spontaneous, weekend trips. A Louis Vuitton.”
“Spontaneous, as in getting lucky with some young bimbo?”
This time, he pinched her arm, hard.
She yelped.
They had gone down three flights of stairs by now, and Nick opened a door, shoving her into the tunnel-like corridor, where the overhead lighting, after all that darkness, blinded her, at first. Nick frog-marched her the short distance to the lower level of the parking garage. She fully expected . . . no, hoped . . . to have a SWAT team waiting for them with weapons raised. But, no, there weren’t even any people around. Just a couple dozen vehicles.
“Where does Angus have the computer that was receiving your transmissions?” he asked suddenly.
“Uh,” she hesitated. She couldn’t say her house because he had already been there. Or Angus’s apartment, which he’d probably also ransacked.
He pinched her arm again.
She was going to be black and blue . . . and purple. “At my office at Starr Foods,” she lied.
“Shit!” he said. “No way we’re going there. Well, there’s nothing to be done about the laptop then. Just need to get the gold and leave the country.” He was talking to himself, not her.
He steered her toward his Mercedes, opened the passenger door, then forced her to slide over the gearshift and onto the driver’s seat, then he followed after her. Apparently, she was going to be driving the getaway car. He clicked the lock lever on a remote he held in one hand. The other hand still held the pistol, aimed at her. He shoved the remote into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone which he manipulated with one thumb, calling someone.
“Misty, where are you?”
“Good. Don’t go near the medical building. Pack a bag for both of us.”
“Yeah, a major fuck-up, caused by my ex-wife.”
She said something that made him laugh. “I agree. Listen, call Jerry at the airfield and tell him to have the plane ready in—” he glanced at his Rolex“—an hour. I’ll meet you there. It might take me a little longer than that, but we’ll leave immediately once I hit the tarmac.”
How could Nick think he had an hour to get the gold out of the bank and get to an airfield without the cops picking him up? But wait. Nick didn’t know the FBI and law enforcement were already on-site. He must think it would take a while for the receptionist to go into the office and discover Angus’s body. He would speculate that the receptionist’s first reaction would be to call an ambulance and then the police to whom she would report that her boss was missing.
She felt somewhat relieved to know what Nick didn’t. The good guys were probably already tailing them. She hoped.
“Love you, too, babe,” Nick said into his phone.
When he clicked off and shoved the phone back in his pocket, she asked, “Is that your muscle-bound marathoner girlfriend?”
“Angus talks too much,” Nick said and motioned for her to start the car. It had a keyless ignition, and he had the key remote on his person; so, it was easy to start. The Mercedes motor purred like Maddie after a tasty meal of Starr Foods albacore tuna. Why wouldn’t it? The vehicle had to cost a hundred thousand dollars. But it was probably leased. Otherwise, Nick wouldn’t leave it behind. He’d find some way to stow it on an airplane or arrange its transport.
“Where to now? The bank?”
He grinned evilly at her. “No, darlin’. We’re going to visit dear ol’ Aunt Maire.”
“What?”
“The pink lady is going to be the grease on the wheels of my escape. Pink grease. Ha, ha, ha.”
“What are you up to, Nick?”
“Your sweet aunt is going to sit in her pink Cadillac in her pink garage with the motor running. I figure it will take forty-five minutes for her to die from the carbon monoxide poisoning. A little added incentive for you to help me get the gold out fast and return to rescue your aunt. Ingenious, huh? And I just thought it up now.”
Samantha was becoming very, very afraid. This was not one of the possible scenarios that the feds had sketched out for her. Not even close.
And suddenly Samantha wished she’d listened to Daniel and let him come with her. How much more dangerous could it have been? Would she ever have the chance to tell him, “You were right, honey.”
In fact, would she ever see Daniel again?
Because, sure as sin, Nick was never going to leave her alive as a witness to his crimes.