Читать книгу Out of Town Bride - Kara Lennox - Страница 11

John-Michael quickly noted that Sonya wasn’t speaking to him as they rode in the limousine toward the hospital the following morning.

“I might have been out of line,” he ventured, “calling you spoiled.”

“Stuff it.”

Okay. She was under stress and he wasn’t helping her any. She’d been acting hinky since she’d returned from her mysterious road trip.

“Were you having an affair?” John-Michael asked. “Is that what New Orleans was about?”

“Yes. With Brenna,” she added, deadpan. “Thank goodness my secret is finally out in the open.”

Tim, who wasn’t supposed to be listening, snorted from the front seat.

“I just can’t imagine what would have drawn you to some of the places you visited over the past few weeks,” John-Michael continued. “Dallas makes sense. But Cottonwood, Texas? And then, some sleazy motel in Smoky Bayou, Louisiana?”

Cottonwood was where Cindy Rheems, another of Marvin’s victims, lived. Smoky Bayou was one of the many stops they’d made as they’d tracked Marvin across two states, always a step behind him. “Will you please just let it drop?”

“I’m responsible for your safety, which means I need to know what’s going on in your life.”

“I hereby absolve you of your responsibility.”

They’d been through this conversation, or ones very similar, countless times since he’d taken the job as her bodyguard.

When they reached the hospital, rather than following standard procedure for entering a public building, Sonya charged out of the limousine toward the front canopy of Harris County Medical Center without waiting for John-Michael to check things out and then escort her. Usually there was no need for extreme security. Unfortunately, today wasn’t usual.

A reporter with a tape recorder appeared out of nowhere heading Sonya off before she could get to the door.

“Miss Patterson, Leslie Frazier from Houston Living magazine. Is your mother all right?”

“Yes, my mother is fine,” Sonya said smoothly, a polite smile pasted on.

“A source close to the situation says your mother is in Intensive Care, that she’s had a heart attack.”

John-Michael was about to jump in and rescue his charge, but she handled the situation just fine.

“She’s undergoing tests,” Sonya said firmly. “I have no further comments.”

The reporter, seeing John-Michael, looked at him hopefully, but he wouldn’t make eye contact, and the firm set of his mouth apparently dissuaded the perky redhead from asking any further questions.

“You shouldn’t go charging ahead of me like that,” John-Michael said when they were out of the reporter’s earshot.

“You’ve been reading your own press,” Sonya said, sounding annoyed. “She was a five-foot-two bubble-head who probably doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I wasn’t in any danger.”

“She could have been someone more dangerous.”

“McPhee, in all the years you’ve been guarding me, has anyone ever threatened me?”

“No,” he admitted.

“The danger is all in my mother’s head. And you’ve bought into it. Get over yourself.” She switched off her cell phone as they entered the building, reminding him to do the same.

They discovered that Muffy was no longer in the Intensive Care Unit. She’d been moved to a regular room. When they finally located her, she was sitting up in bed, her eyes open, the TV on, though John-Michael didn’t think she was actually watching the show. She wasn’t exactly a Jerry Springer fan. Though she was still hooked up to an IV and oxygen, she looked about 500 percent less scary than yesterday.

“Mother?”

Muffy looked over and managed a faint smile. “Sonya. And John-Michael, how nice.”

He walked up to the bed and squeezed her hand. “Mrs. Patterson. You must be feeling better. You look great.”

“Liar. I must…look like…day-old…paté de foie gras.” Her speech was labored, and it pained John-Michael to see her laid so low. But at least she was awake, and seemingly alert.

“Mother, don’t try to talk,” Sonya said.

“I want…to talk. I have to thank…John-Michael. I should have said something…long ago.”

“Thank him for what?”

“For making me go…to the hospital. I thought it was…indigestion. And for finding my girl…and bringing her home.”

Sonya flicked a curious glance toward John-Michael. “You did that? Brought her to the E.R.? How come no one told me?”

“It was a group effort,” John-Michael said modestly.

“Well, thank you,” Sonya said. “You probably saved her life.”

He shrugged. He didn’t consider himself a hero. He’d done what anyone would do. Anyway, having Sonya’s gratitude felt alien. He was much more comfortable when she was mad at him.

Sonya returned her attention to her mother, brushing her hand lightly against Muffy’s cheek. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got sick.” She’d already apologized several times, but she felt compelled to repeat herself.

“I know, pumpkin. Is Marvin here?”

“He’s still in China. I can’t get hold of him.” She said this quickly, as if she’d rehearsed the answer over and over. And her eyes flickered up and to the right. John-Michael had studied neuro-linguistic programming as part of his criminology curriculum. Sonya was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth about Marvin’s whereabouts. John-Michael wished he could get to the bottom of this mystery, but he didn’t want to press Sonya when she was still so worried about her mother.

“How are the wedding plans coming?” Muffy said to Sonya.

“I’ve put the wedding on hold,” Sonya said firmly. “We’re not going to focus on anything for a while except getting you well.”

“You can’t postpone it,” Muffy said, her voice suddenly stronger. “We’ll lose our date at the country club!”

“Mother, don’t worry about it. I promise it will be fine. We’ll work it out. I want you to focus on getting better.”

“It’s not for two months,” Muffy persisted. “I’ll be fine by then.”

“We’ll see,” Sonya said.

It amused John-Michael to see Sonya playing the patient parent figure, Muffy the petulant child. He and his father had experienced that reversal many years ago, but he’d never expected to see it between these two. In his mind, Sonya was the eternal child, the spoiled princess, and Muffy the overindulgent but firm mama.

Sonya had seemed different, though, since her trip. More mature, more serious, more assertive. Unfortunately for his mental well-being, more attractive, too. He would have to adjust his thinking.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, moving toward the door.

“Oh, John-Mikey,” Muffy said, using his childhood nickname. Muffy was the only person who could get away with that. Not even Jock tried it. “Could you bring me something to eat? Maybe a nice blueberry muffin?” She batted her eyelashes. “The breakfast they served me was pitiful.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sonya said. “She’s not getting one bite of anything the doctor didn’t prescribe. But I understand if you’d like to get something for yourself,” she added. “I did get you up rather early this morning and didn’t even offer you breakfast.”

“I think I will get something,” he said gruffly. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” John-Michael slipped out the door, needing some space and distance from Sonya. He wasn’t sure he liked her being polite to him, nice, even. Such behavior upset the world order. It was much better that he treat her like a contemptible snail.

She’d started to be a little bit nice last night, too, sharing her macaroni and cheese. And he’d felt that familiar pull. She’d looked so approachable, all rumpled in her night clothes, her silky robe and nightgown showing far too much of her body’s contours to be considered modest.

That was why he’d deliberately picked a fight with her, calling her spoiled. Nothing was as certain to get her dander up. And he needed her mad at him. When she was nice, she was too damn tempting. And this added dimension she’d recently acquired, this mysterious allure he’d never noticed before, only added to the overall package.

SONYA HAD THOUGHT that, once she and her mother were alone, she might broach the subject of calling off the wedding altogether. Though she wasn’t ready to admit she’d been seduced, conned, dumped and picked clean, she couldn’t allow the wedding plans to continue. Her mother had already spent a fortune on the preparations, much of it nonrefundable.

But Muffy’s first words, once they were alone, changed her plans. She grasped Sonya’s hand with more strength than a woman so recently at death’s door should have been able to muster. “Sonya, promise me something.”

“I’ll try. But I won’t smuggle you any of Thomas’s cheesecake.” Thomas was Muffy’s favorite dessert chef, from the Cheesecake Emporium.

“No, be serious. You can’t postpone the wedding.”

“Mother—”

“Listen to me. Planning that wedding was…the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, more fun than planning…my own, even.”

“I know,” Sonya said. “But the stress—”

“Oh, stress, schmess. I was enjoying myself, and having fun never caused a heart attack.”

Sonya knew differently. Even good stress could affect the body in negative ways.

“Years of ignoring my doctor’s advice—and yours—are what made me sick,” Muffy continued. “But as I was lying on that gurney in the emergency room, and I heard them yell ‘Code Blue!’, only one thing kept me alive. I kept telling myself, ‘you have to get through this for Sonya’s wedding. You can’t miss Sonya’s wedding.’”

“Oh, Mother…”

“We can’t delay it. What if I have another heart attack and I don’t make it?”

“That’s not going to happen. Your doctor told me—”

“Doctors don’t know everything. We can’t predict the future. Promise me…” She paused to catch her breath. “Promise me you’ll carry on with the preparations, that we’ll do it on January 8, just as planned.”

Her heart dropped like a rock thrown down a well. The last thing she needed was to continue the pretense that she was going to marry that skunk. “Of course, Mother.” What else could she say? She’d straighten everything out when her mother’s health was better, when she was in no danger of relapsing. Meanwhile, she would have to pretend she was still a blushing bride-to-be.

THREE DAYS LATER Muffy’s health had dramatically improved. She was walking, talking in a normal voice, eating normally—if hospital food could be called normal for Muffy, which it couldn’t—and begging to be let out of the hospital. She chose to sit in her chair rather than in bed, looking resplendent in the quilted silk bed jacket her friend Tootsie had given her. She’d brought her manicurist in for a fresh set of tips and her hairstylist to reshape the flattened poof of her red-gold hair. She was even wearing makeup.

Per Muffy’s request, Sonya had brought her Day-timer and her Rolodex, and was now making a long list of tasks that had to be attended to ASAP for the wedding. Her cardiologist happened to visit during this heated planning session, and Sonya was positive he was going to put the kybosh on it. She was, in fact, hoping Dr. Cason would tell Muffy that she was not to even think about something as stressful as her daughter’s wedding for at least six months.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite happened. Dr. Cason took one look at Muffy, noting the sparkle in her eye and the roses in her cheeks and the smiles and laughter, and he declared planning a wedding to be the secret, curative tonic everyone was looking for.

“But, Dr. Cason,” Sonya ventured, “don’t you think this wedding is too stressful for her right now? I’ve told her we could postpone it.”

“No,” Muffy said, “absolutely not. That would mean starting all over, rebooking the orchestra and the country club, and who knows if our first choices will be available? It would be horrible, much more stressful than merely putting the finishing touches on what we’ve already planned.”

Dr. Cason grinned. “I think your mother’s right, Sonya. Look at her. She’s smiling and laughing, and studies have shown a happy attitude to be one of the key factors in recovering from cardiac illness.”

“And I won’t overdo, I promise,” Muffy wheedled. “Sonya can do all the running around and dealing with people. I’ll just recline on my chaise lounge, eating my steamed broccoli and drinking skimmed milk—” she shuddered slightly “—and directing her efforts.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cason said, no help at all.

Of course, McPhee was listening to the whole exchange. She looked to him for help, but he remained silent. It was only after they were once again in the back seat of the limo that he voiced his opinion.

“You seem awfully anxious to postpone the wedding.”

“Nonsense. I can’t wait to marry Marvin. But of course I want to do what’s best for Mother.”

“Have you talked to Marvin yet?”

“Yes. Yes, he called last night. He was horrified to hear about Mother and he’s going to come home as soon as he can.”

Then McPhee did something odd. He closed the glass partition between them and Tim. Normally everybody talked freely in front of Tim, who was the soul of discretion. He’d been driving for the Pattersons since before Sonya was born.

“I’m sure Marvin’s parents would be happy to know you’ve talked to him,” McPhee said once they were hermetically sealed into the back seat. “Because they haven’t seen or heard from him in three months.” He dropped this bombshell casually, as if it were just normal conversation.

“Wh-what?” Sonya’s heart hammered inside her chest so hard she thought it was trying to escape.

“I took a closer look at the report the security agency provided on Marvin Carter III. He really is the oldest son in a very wealthy Boston family. Has quite a pedigree.”

“Well, of course he is!” Sonya said somewhat desperately. She could tell by the sound of McPhee’s voice that he had something up his sleeve. And he was about to drop it on her.

“He’s also a habitual thief. The family has done a good job of hiding it from the public. Arrest records purged, charges dropped, people paid off. But about three months ago he disappeared. Family has no idea where he is, and frankly they’re hoping he won’t turn up. I did a bit more digging and discovered he’s wanted by the FBI in connection with some art and jewelry thefts.”

“Where did you hear such nonsense?” But her trembling voice gave her away. He knew. He knew everything.

“How much did he take from you, Sonya?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I notice you don’t wear much jewelry anymore, other than your engagement ring.”

She nervously twisted the two-carat, pear-shaped solitaire that sat on her left ring finger. She’d had it checked. It was a very convincing cubic zirconia. She looked out the tinted window. Then she rummaged in her purse until she found a lipstick and reapplied the color and powdered her nose.

“This isn’t going to go away,” McPhee said. “The longer you stay in denial, the worse it will be when the truth comes out. And it will, believe me. Sooner or later the press will get wind of it.”

Sonya put her face in her hands. Why did McPhee, of all people, have to find out? Wouldn’t he have just a grand time, rubbing her nose in her stupidity, rubbing salt in her wounds? He’d told her from the beginning he thought something wasn’t right about Marvin.

“Your new friends, Brenna and Cindy. They were Marvin’s victims, too?”

Sonya nodded, her face still hidden. She couldn’t bear to look at McPhee, to see that knowing smirk that was surely on his face.

McPhee lowered the glass and said something to Tim, though she couldn’t hear what. The blood was pounding too loudly in her ears. A few minutes later the limo parked.

“Be right back,” McPhee said.

Sonya looked up then. They were in a strip shopping center. She had no idea what McPhee was up to and she didn’t care. She just wanted to take advantage of his absence and pull herself together. McPhee was right, she couldn’t play the denial game anymore. Now she had to draw on all her strength and make some decisions. If she crumbled, others would make decisions for her, as they’d done most of her life, and she wasn’t going to let that happen. Now now. Not when the stakes were so high.

With the decision made to own up to the true situation, Sonya felt better, stronger. She reminded herself that her friends Brenna and Cindy had benefited after taking a strong stand against Marvin. Cindy had recovered her restaurant and at least some of her money, and Brenna had tracked down the Picasso painting Marvin had stolen from her parents, as well as some of her jewelry. It was time for Sonya to pull her head out of the sand and resume the fight.

When McPhee returned to the limo a few minutes later, Sonya was sitting upright, posture erect, hands folded demurely in her lap, her face a mask of haughty detachment. She’d learned that face from Muffy. It was the one she wore in the fact of any disaster. “Never let anyone see you crying,” Muffy had told a ten-year-old Sonya after her father’s funeral, when she’d inquired why her mother had remained dry-eyed and stern-faced during the service. “If you must cry at all, tears are for when you’re alone.”

Then she realized McPhee was holding out a grande toffee-nut latte from Starbucks—one of her many weaknesses. “I had them make it with whole milk instead of skim, and extra whipped cream,” he said. “You don’t look like you need to lose any more weight.”

The small kindness almost undid her. She wasn’t used to McPhee being kind or sympathetic, not in recent history. Courteous, yes. Always mindful of her needs, always quick to do her bidding. As she took the coffee drink, she glanced over at him. No sign of a smirk. He looked genuinely worried.

“I told Tim to just drive around for a while,” he said. “I want to hear the whole story. I need to know what happened if I’m going to help you keep this thing contained. Now, let’s start from the beginning. How much did he take from you?”

Resigned, she told him what he wanted to know. “Not as much as he took from some of his other victims. I didn’t have a lot of easily accessible cash, just what was in my checking account—about thirty-five thousand dollars. He couldn’t get at my trust fund, which I’m sure was what he was hoping for. But he did take all my jewelry, which was worth a considerable sum.” She’d collected quite a few baubles over the years. Her mother was fond of giving her jewelry for just about any occasion—the larger and more unusual, the better.

Sonya took another sip of the rich, sweet coffee drink. The warmth was welcome, since she was shivering.

“He took three fur coats,” she continued. “A sable, a mink and a fox.” Not that she ever wore them. They were gifts, too, and very impractical, given that it seldom got cold enough for fur in Houston. Besides, fur coats were very un-PC.

“So Marvin was engaged to Brenna and Cindy and you at the same time?”

“Yes. Cindy had a lot of cash from her first husband’s life insurance. Her parents had left her money and property, too, as well as a restaurant, so I’m sure she was quite attractive to Marvin. Brenna is the heiress to a chi-chi department store in Dallas.”

“How did you locate them?”

“I found Brenna’s phone number in the call history of Marvin’s cell phone.”

McPhee arched one eyebrow. “And why were you looking there?”

“I’d started to suspect he had a girlfriend,” she admitted. “All those long absences when he was supposedly traveling on business. Whispered phone calls at odd times. So I snooped. But I didn’t try to contact her until after Marvin left with all my stuff. When I was supposed to be at the spa, I went to see Brenna instead. She had a lead on a third victim, who turned out to be Cindy. She lives in Cottonwood—that’s why we went there. By the time we found her, she’d already lost everything.

“Holy cow. Were there more victims?”

“He was working on a bank teller in Louisiana. Her father owned the bank. He was planning some sort of scam to get access to the bank’s computer system. But we caught up with him before he could actually steal anything from her. Flushed him out. We recovered some of Cindy’s money, but Marvin got away.” She laughed. “He had to run naked down Main Street to get away from us.”

She chanced another look at McPhee and realized she’d surprised him. He was staring at her, slack-jawed. “Let me get this straight,” he said when he’d recovered from the shock. “You went with Brenna and Cindy—those two pretty blondes I met a couple of weeks ago when you went to Dallas—on a manhunt? That’s what you were doing all that time you were out of town? That’s why you were in New Orleans?”

“Yes. Then there was New York.”

“You went to New York?” McPhee asked in a voice that sounded fearful of her answer.

“No, silly. But Brenna did. She and Agent Packer had him cornered at that jewelry show.”

“The one you were helping her get ready for?”

Sonya nodded. “Marvin escaped by jumping down an elevator shaft.” The story had been reported on CNN, and even the Houston Chronicle had run a piece on it. Thankfully, Marvin’s real name hadn’t been mentioned in either story.

“It’s all starting to fit together now,” McPhee said thoughtfully. “But it’s weird. I never thought of you as one of Charlie’s Angels.”

“As I’ve pointed out before,” she said with exaggerated patience, “you don’t know everything about me. What’s more, I intend to continue the hunt for Marvin. He’s getting bolder and greedier. Pretty soon he’s bound to do something really stupid and get himself caught. Or get somebody hurt.”

“It’s too dangerous. You can’t—”

“I can, and I will. Mother’s illness derailed my participation, but once we get her squared away, I’m back in it. Law enforcement isn’t making much of an effort. Marvin didn’t murder anyone or rob a bank, so he’s a low priority.”

“What about Packer?”

“He was the only FBI agent to take the case seriously, but then he got fired, and when he recovered the stolen Picasso they tried to give him his job back, but he refused, and now he’s a private investigator.”

McPhee squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, as if he had a headache. “Stolen Picasso?”

Sonya was pleased to have surprised McPhee. As she recalled how strong she and the other women—“The Blondes,” as the people of Cottonwood had dubbed them—had been together, she felt a surge of power wash through her. The feelings of helplessness and inadequacy that she’d almost succumbed to a few minutes earlier receded. She wasn’t just a spoiled debutante, no matter what McPhee thought. She was smart and capable, and she could accomplish great things when she put her mind to it.

“We think Marvin might have gone to—”

McPhee held up a hand to halt her explanations. “Please, I can’t take any more of this. You’ve thrown my whole universe off balance.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “You need that, sometimes.”

JOHN-MICHAEL LEANED BACK against the limo’s buttery leather seat, stunned to the core. He’d known Sonya was harboring a secret. He’d tried to put it together a couple of weeks ago, when she’d taken a quick weekend trip to Dallas to help Brenna prepare for a jewelry show. He’d discovered then that she had another new friend, Cindy, from Cottonwood, Texas, and the three of them had behaved the way closely bonded, longtime friends act. He knew there was a story there, but he’d been at a loss. He hadn’t gotten many facts out of Heath Packer, either. The FBI agent had been friendly to John-Michael, and his personal interest in Brenna had been apparent, but he’d volunteered little information as to the nature of the friendship among the three women. By the time John-Michael and Sonya had returned to Houston, he’d been no wiser.

His theory had been that Sonya had a lover. That would have been shocking enough. But to find out she’d been living a clandestine life hunting down a criminal blew him away. He could hardly wrap his mind around it.

Sonya, pensive now after her long, convoluted explanation, took another sip of her latte, leaving a slight whipped-cream mustache. She licked it off.

Not now, John-Michael thought disgustedly. Now was not the time for his sporadic lust for Sonya Patterson to rear its ugly head. He’d been dealing with it for years, and usually all it took was a sharp reminder of exactly who Sonya was—a spoiled, useless little rich girl with nothing more important on her mind than her next manicure appointment—to cool his desire. Physically she might be a pure turn-on, but he’d long ago learned to look beyond a woman’s body to the substance of her. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen, and he had no trouble attracting them. But finding one who was pretty and intelligent and interesting—that’s what it took to capture John-Michael’s libido for more than thirty seconds.

Sonya had become suddenly interesting, damn it. Perhaps she had a lot more behind that cool demeanor than she let on. She did have a degree in chemical engineering from Rice University, and graduating from that school was no cakewalk. But frankly, he’d assumed Sonya’s family wealth had bought the degree. Her mother had donated buckets of money to her father’s alma mater. And he’d never seen Sonya study much while she was in college.

This was a helluva time for him to start thinking of her as more than arm candy. He had a future planned, a life apart from the Pattersons. He’d actually been looking forward to moving on. Now, suddenly, he wasn’t so sure.

He forced himself to think about freezing cold waterfalls and cornmeal mush until his jeans were no longer quite so tight. Then he returned to the matter at hand.

“When are you going to tell Muffy?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “I’m not. Are you kidding? The news would kill her! Dr. Cason said we had to keep her smiling and laughing.”

“You’ll have to tell her at some point. I mean, let’s face it, the groom isn’t going to show up for this wedding.”

Sonya started to chew on one of her nails, then quickly stopped herself. She used to bite her nails as a child, he remembered. It was only when she’d discovered acrylic-sculptured nails that she’d been able to stop.

“I’ll tell her when she’s stronger,” Sonya said. “But not now, not yet. She’s not even out of the hospital. And you can’t tell her, either,” she said, suddenly fierce. “You can’t tell anyone. No one is to know that this wedding isn’t going to take place.”

“Don’t you think people are going to get a little suspicious when they never see the groom-to-be? Isn’t his absence going to be noted?”

“I’ve already told people he travels on business a lot. And he supposedly lives in Boston. Anyway, most men are weddingphobic. They won’t come near the preparations. No one will think it’s odd in the least, believe me.”

“But…you can’t just let your mother keep throwing money at a wedding that won’t ever happen,” John-Michael objected. “Doesn’t it strike you as a bit cruel to lie to her, to keep up the pretense? The farther along you get with this thing, the harder it’s going to be when you have to call it off.”

Damned right it would be hard. And he wasn’t helping. But Muffy could stand to throw away a few bucks a lot more easily than her heart could stand an emotional shock. And somehow Sonya would figure out a way to pay her back. “As soon as her doctor says she’s well enough to handle gruesomely unpleasant news, I’ll tell her. But not before. McPhee, promise me. Not a word.”

“All right, I promise.” What choice did he have? He wasn’t going to be responsible for causing Muffy a second heart attack. But his instincts warned him that the longer they maintained the lie, the messier it was going to get, for all parties concerned.