Читать книгу His Child - Delores Fossen - Страница 12

Adjusting the plastic bag of groceries, Jessie cradled the phone against her shoulder and pushed the coins into the slot. Someone had scratched crude profanity into the black plastic box, and the mouthpiece smelled like dog’s breath. The phone company would not have been pleased. It didn’t exactly please her, either. She tried not to breathe too deeply, knowing the smell would turn her stomach.

She entered the numbers and waited. Not long. As she’d expected, he answered almost immediately. “Detective DuCiel.”

“Byron, it’s me.” Jessie tried to keep her vigilant gaze on everything going on around her. It was rush hour. A little past five o’clock. The traffic crawled down St. Mary’s Street. Horns honked. People hurried on the sidewalk. There was enough activity for her to get lost in the crowd, and she counted heavily on it. Getting lost was the only thing that made sense right now.

“Well, it’s about time you called. You said I might not hear from you for months, but I didn’t believe it.” The relief in Byron’s voice soon turned to a bark. “Where the heck are you, anyway? What happened? I was ready to—”

“I only have a few seconds. It isn’t safe to talk here.” It probably wasn’t safe anywhere, but Jessie didn’t say that.

“Where are you? I’ll come right now.”

“That wouldn’t be smart, for either of us. I just wanted you to know that I’m—” What? Not all right. She wasn’t all right by a long shot. “Alive,” she finished. “I’m alive.” And terrified. She wouldn’t mention that, either, even though Byron would almost certainly hear it in her voice.

“That, I can figure out myself. Why the heck haven’t you called me before now? Jess, it’s been three months.”

“It’s a long story. Too long to get into here. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“It’s about Christy, isn’t it.”

Just the mention of her friend’s name made Jessie’s heart feel tight and heavy. It was as if a fist had gripped it and wouldn’t let go. Christy had been dead eight months, and the pain was still just as fresh, just as raw as it had been when Byron had come by the apartment to tell her the news. The news that Christy wouldn’t be coming home, ever.

It was so strange. Even though she’d seen her friend’s body, it was still hard to believe Christy was dead. It was hard to believe Jessie would never again hear the laughter that had come so easily to the fun-loving woman that she considered a sister in every way that counted.

“You were asking too many questions about Christy’s death,” Byron concluded. “And someone didn’t like it.”

Maybe. And maybe it had nothing to do with Christy. Jessie just didn’t know. She didn’t have time to speculate out here in the open, where she was a sitting duck. That didn’t mean she was giving up on finding the person responsible for Christy’s death. She would never do that. One way or another, she would get to the bottom of it. It was a promise she’d sworn to Christy, and herself, the day of the funeral.

She pushed the painful memories away, knowing she couldn’t deal with them at the moment. “Listen, Byron, I can’t talk much longer. I need some money, but I’m afraid I’ll be spotted. I want you to do it the way we talked about before I left Austin. Transfer all of it.”

“All of it? Jess, what’s wrong? Let me come and get you right now. Or better yet, go to the nearest police station.”

Jessie ignored that advice. “Please do the money transfer and work out some travel arrangements. I need to disappear for a while. It’ll take—what? Two days? Three?”

“If I do it the way you wanted, it’ll take three. I’ll have to cover my tracks.”

She didn’t tell him how much that scared her. Three days of hiding out. Three days of praying they wouldn’t find her again. “I’ll pick up the money at the location we discussed. I also need you to check out a warehouse here in San Antonio. And be careful. I don’t know the exact address, but it’s on Isom Road, near the airport. It’s sandwiched between two old brownstone buildings.”

“What happened there?” he asked. “Why do you want me to check it out?”

“Just see if you find anything unusual—but don’t go in there alone, Byron. It might not be safe. Also, I’d like for you to lean a little on my former employer, Ray Galindo. See if anyone was asking about me at the cantina before I disappeared. I’ll call you again when I can.”

“No!” Byron shouted. “Talk to me now. Go to the local cops—”

“I can’t do that. If I tell them everything, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

“To heck with that. You go to the cops. You get yourself some protection.”

“Maybe—”

“There are no ‘maybes’ about it.”

Jessie took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll go to the San Antonio police, just as soon as I have the money.” And maybe during those three days, she could figure out exactly why someone wanted her dead. “I don’t want to put my neck out that far unless I have some way to hide afterward.”

She hung up the phone, ignoring the shouts and profanity from the one person she considered her friend.

Jessie didn’t know what was going on, but she wouldn’t bring Byron into this. Not yet. It definitely wasn’t the right time to tell the San Antonio police, either. She didn’t believe they could stop what Jake McClendon and his hired help had already put into motion. They couldn’t save her. She was on somebody’s hit list, and all the cops in the state of Texas probably couldn’t stop it.

Jessie pulled the black Spurs cap lower on her forehead and started toward the motel. Such as it was. She had been able to retrieve some money—the cash from a locker she’d rented at a bowling alley. But staying at a more comfortable place might put the wrong people back on her trail. That’s why she’d chosen the downtown area, and not the north side where the kidnappers had originally found her. Maybe, just maybe, the change of location would help keep her alive.

The accommodations didn’t matter much to her, anyway, and they were temporary. In three days she would have to leave San Antonio. No doubt about it. Staying would be a mistake, and she’d made too many of those already.

One of the biggest mistakes had been going to Jake McClendon’s hotel. Now that she’d shaken off some of the effects of the fatigue and adrenaline, she wondered what had possessed her to do something that incredibly stupid. Breaking into a suite in one of the ritziest hotels on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Holding a gun on a man like him. And with all those risks, she hadn’t accomplished a darn thing—something she should have realized in advance.

What had she expected him to do? Admit to everything? Yeah, right.

Instead, she should have spent that time trying to figure out why all of this had happened to her. Of course, two days of thinking about it hadn’t produced any answers—but eventually something had to make sense. The surrogate pregnancy plot was still her first bet, if she could just figure out why McClendon had changed his mind and decided to kill her, instead.

She checked for the small dot of lipstick on the doorknob of her motel room. Still there, and in the same spot, to indicate the knob hadn’t been touched. It was an inexpensive way to detect intruders, but it wasn’t the only thing she’d added. The small door alarm she had purchased from a discount store hadn’t been tripped. Once inside, she closed the door and quickly reset the alarm.

Jessie turned on the lights and set the groceries on the foot-wide counter of the kitchenette. In this case, the kitchenette consisted of a broken microwave oven, a small fridge, and a counter with a warped top.

Home, sweet home.

A dump, actually. It was a lot like the places she’d lived as a kid. The once-white paint on the walls was now dingy yellow. Shag carpet. A shade of green no one made anymore, or wanted. The shag had been pressed flat and had probably been that way for at least two decades.

She laid her purse aside and took the things from the plastic sack. Some grapes. A small carton of milk. And a box of sugary corn flakes—the only thing in the bunch that she actually wanted to eat. The rest was so she could have some semblance of a balanced meal.

Jessie handled the last item in the bag as if it were a bomb that might explode in her hands. A home pregnancy test. She eyed it and the food again. She didn’t know which she dreaded more.

She read through the instructions for the test and peered at the small vial that was enclosed for a urine sample.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she mumbled.

It wasn’t exactly the size of receptacle that would make collecting a specimen easy, but she went into the bathroom and made do. When she came back out, she slipped the vial in its little plastic stand and placed it on the scarred night table. She set the timer on her watch for ten minutes. And waited to see if a little blue circle would form in the bottom of the tube.

The first minute crawled by.

Jessie refused to think beyond this test. First, she had to get the results. She’d go from there. Go where exactly, she didn’t know. She was sure there were rules to this game, but she didn’t know them. Heck, she didn’t even know the name of the game.

“Don’t scream,” the voice warned.

She didn’t, because her throat snapped shut. She knew that voice, knew who it was without looking behind her. Jake McClendon.

Jessie instinctively scrambled toward her purse, but it wasn’t on the table where she had left it. Frantically, she looked around. It was gone.

Dangling her purse on his finger, he stepped out from behind the closet door. In his other hand, he had her gun, the one she’d just bought the day before.

“You must have a whole arsenal of these things stashed away,” he calmly remarked, making sure she saw that the gun was now unloaded.

She wished for an arsenal, though it probably wouldn’t have done any good. He no doubt would have found others, as well. The man had the instincts of a cop, even if he didn’t look like one. No tux today, but he wore fashionably tailored navy slacks. Expensive, certainly. And so was the shirt that was almost the same lapis blue as his eyes.

He tossed the gun and purse onto the bed and tipped his head to the vial. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see the results, too.”

“Actually, I do mind.”

“Tough. I’m staying.”

That didn’t come as a surprise to her. “How did you find me?” Even more important questions were, How much did he know? Did he know who she was? And what did he plan to do with her? He might just decide to kill her on the spot.

“When you left my hotel room without saying goodbye, I sent out my security people to follow you. I’ve had them watching you for the past two days, but I decided it was probably time we had a little talk.”

Resources. The man had resources and money. Jessie had underestimated just how quickly he would be able to use those two things to locate her. “You didn’t trip the alarm.”

“No. The lipstick on the doorknob was a nice touch, though. Most people go for a strand of hair or a piece of thread. Not you. But then, from what I’ve learned about you, you don’t do things the usual way.”

Jessie put some starch in her posture. She would need all the composure she could marshal to get through this. And maybe even then, she wouldn’t be able to talk him out of killing her.

“You can just get out.”

“I don’t think so. You started all of this when you came to me, remember?”

“A mistake. Now get out.”

“Or what? You’ll call the cops, huh?” He sat on the edge of the bed, the rusty springs creaking under his weight. “I think the cops are the last people you want to call. Tell me what you meant by all that junk you spouted in my hotel room. Why did you think I was trying to kill you?”

Jessie considered lying. Maybe she could convince him she was schizophrenic or something. Instead, she decided to say nothing. She eased into the cracked vinyl padded chair across from him.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” he asked. “Or do you think I’ll just go away if you don’t talk to me? Think again, Jessie. A woman breaks into my hotel room, holds a gun on me and then accuses me of trying to kill her. Oh yeah, and of getting her pregnant. Hard to do, since I’ve never laid eyes or, for that matter, laid anything else on her.”

“Then, if you know that, why don’t you just leave?”

“I will when I get you to admit all of this was part of a blackmail scheme. You came to my hotel to extort money from me.”

“No.” She looked away, but he lunged off the bed and got right in her face.

“You thought you had everything figured out, didn’t you?” His tone went from angry to abrasive. “You did your homework and found out about my Hodgkin’s Disease. You learned all about Cryogen Labs. And your scheme might have worked if the vials hadn’t been destroyed. That’s the part you didn’t know, the part you couldn’t have known. Cryogen kept that under wraps to avoid negative publicity.”

“Now will you get out?” she asked.

“Not yet. You had your say, and I want mine. Care to guess what I found out when I had you investigated?”

That got her complete attention. She forced her expression to stay calm. Well, she forced it as much as she could, considering that her heart was about to pound right out of her chest. “What?”

“That you’re not really Jessie Briggs.”

Her false composure slipped a considerable notch. She had to escape. But how? She didn’t think he would let her out of his sight this time. Besides, he probably had his thugs waiting outside for her. “Just who am I, then?”

He didn’t say anything for several moments. “You’re nobody. You don’t even exist. Don’t you think that’s odd? In this day and age, there are absolutely no records for a Jessie Briggs who comes even close to matching your description. No driver’s license. No social security number. Nothing. And trust me, if there had been something, my people would have found it.”

She didn’t dare breathe easier yet. She could tell from the gleam in his eye that he had a trump card left to play—and that card might get her killed.

“Care to know what I did next?” he asked, slowly enunciating each word.

“No.”

He ignored that and continued. “I had the fingerprints checked on your gun.”

She slowly met his icy-blue stare. God, this couldn’t be happening. How stupid could she have been to go to this man in the first place? She knew how dangerous McClendon was, knew what he was capable of doing, and yet she’d walked right into his waiting arms. She had all but pulled the trigger for him.

“And? What did you find out?” Jessie waited. Held her breath.

“They belong to a woman named Jessica Barrett. There’s plenty of information on her. A rap sheet, for one thing. Shoplifting. Petty theft. Writing hot checks. She’s twenty-eight. Born in Dallas. And matches your description to a tee. Her last job was as a cocktail waitress at a gentleman’s club, and I use the words gentleman and waitress loosely. My security people say Ray’s Cantina is nothing more than a sleazy strip joint known for its prostitutes and drug pushers.”

His voice lowered to a dangerous level. “Would you like to tell me now that you’re not the lying, scheming con artist that I know you are?”

Jessie tried not to look too relieved. “All right, so you’ve figured me out. The game is over. Now will you please leave?”

“No. Not until you tell me who put you up to this. Because I’m not buying that you did all of this on your own.” He caught her by the shoulders. “Let me tell you my theory. My political opponent is a man named Abel Markham, the dirtiest SOB who ever wanted to sit in the Texas Legislature. He’s the reason I’m running for office. I don’t want him anywhere near the State Capitol Building, and he knows I can stop him.”

“You’re a real Boy Scout, aren’t you, McClendon.” Jessie figured she had nothing to lose now. She couldn’t possibly rile him any more than he already was.

“No, I’m not. But I don’t go around trying to trash other people’s lives. I think Markham came up with this little scheme because of your most recent place of employment.”

She fired a narrowed glance at him. “What do you mean?”

He mumbled something and shook his head. “A woman named Christy Mendoza worked at Ray’s Cantina, too, and she died at my ranch about eight months ago. It was an accident, but Markham’s always tried to turn it into something else.”

Jessie couldn’t believe he’d laid this in her lap. Too bad she couldn’t question him about it. But it wasn’t the right time. All she wanted was to get out of there.

“This kind of plan smacks of the dirty dealings that Markham’s so fond of,” he continued. “What did he want you to do? Go to the press with this idiotic notion that I’d gotten you pregnant?”

“Abel Markham doesn’t travel in the same circles I do.” But it was something to think about. Had her questions about Christy put a man like Markham on her trail?

“No, but he could have found you,” Jake insisted. “He could have chosen you as the person to try to ruin me. Know what I think happened next? You went along with it, except at the last minute you got greedy and decided you could cut yourself in for some bigger bucks. So you came to me with that insemination story, hoping you could blackmail me. Because even if your story is a pack of lies, the media would have a field day with it. And it is a pack of lies, isn’t it, Jessie?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“There was no kidnapping. No insemination. No plan to kill you. Just a dirty congressional candidate and a money-grubbing con artist who thought she’d found the goose that laid the golden egg.” His grip tightened on her shoulders. “Am I right? Tell me I’m right!”

“You’re right. Now please go. I’m leaving town and won’t bother you again.”

The shrill beeping pulsed through the room. Jessie gasped before she remembered what it was. The timer on her watch. She quickly pushed the small button to stop it.

“Well?” he prompted, when she didn’t move. “Why don’t we look at the results of the test together?”

“Why would you even care? You already know this was a con.”

“Let’s just call it idle curiosity.” He picked up the box and quickly read through the instructions on the back. “It says if it’s positive that a little blue circle will appear in the bottom of the tube.” He caught her arm and pulled her out of the chair. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

Jake nudged her toward the night table. Jessie eyed the vial as if it were a deadly rattler. And she prayed. Because it was the only thing left to do. There was a chance. A slim chance.

“A real moment of reckoning, huh, sweetheart?” he asked. He snared her gaze for a long, cold moment, and together they turned and looked at the vial.

Jessie flattened her hand over her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut. There was no need to say anything because it was there. There. In the tube.

The blue ring.

A groan clawed its way past her throat. “Oh God,” she mumbled. “Oh God.”