Читать книгу The Vampire Affair - Livia Reasoner - Страница 7

“I’m not sure if we can reach a deal or not, Mr. Brandt. The current owner of the resort has no interest in selling.”

Michael Brandt opened his briefcase and pushed aside a 9 mm pistol, a vial of holy water, a wooden stake sharpened to a deadly point and an antique knife with a silver filigreed handle. He took out a legal pad, plucked a pen from the pocket of his jacket and wrote a number on the pad. As he turned the pad around and pushed it toward the man seated on the other side of the conference table, he said, “I’m sure you’ll pass along my offer to him anyway, as you’re duty-bound to do as his attorney.”

Long years as the lead partner in a high-powered practice should have given the lawyer the ability to conceal his emotions, but when he saw the figure Michael had scrawled on the pad, his eyebrows went up in surprise. “That’s very generous,” he said. “I certainly will pass it along.”

Michael turned the pad around again, signed his name under the number and tore off the sheet. “I’ll leave that with you to prove to your client that I’m serious about this matter.” He tossed the pad back into the briefcase on top of the weapons. He had been careful to keep the case turned so that the lawyer couldn’t see its contents.

Both men stood up and shook hands. “I’ll be in touch,” the lawyer promised.

“You’ve got my number,” Michael said. He nodded and left the office.

He didn’t like these places, all stuffy and reeking of wealth and power. But dealing with lawyers, stockbrokers, financial analysts and the like was a necessary part of his business. An occupational hazard, so to speak. And although these meetings were sometimes boring, they weren’t likely to kill him.

Unlike some of the other occupational hazards he faced.

As he got into the express elevator alone on the thirty-third floor of the high-rise and watched the doors slide shut, he stiffened as warning bells went off in his brain. The doors were closed and the elevator had already started to sink, not to stop again until it reached the lobby. It was too late to get out.

The hatch cover in the top of the car was torn off with a sudden wrench. Michael twisted to the side as a black-clad figure dropped toward him. He brought the briefcase up and around. Metal rang against metal as a knife blade ripped through the leather exterior of the case and was stopped by the steel underneath. Michael rammed the case against the knife-wielder, knocking the man back against the wall of the elevator. He followed that with a knee to the groin, the attack almost too swift for the eye to follow. The black-clad man sagged in pain, but he wasn’t out of the fight yet. He got a hand on Michael’s face and clawed for his eyes.

Michael pulled back and swung the case again. It slammed against his attacker’s head with a hollow thunk. This time the man fell to the floor of the elevator, out cold.

No, he was more than unconscious, Michael saw. The caved-in side of his head was mute testament to a fractured skull. Michael bent over and checked for a pulse, finding none. In the heat of fighting for his life, he had struck harder than he intended.

But he recognized the man now, images and information from a computerlike mental database popping up in his keen memory. Carl Williams. Human. Professional killer. Suspected in at least seven murders. Often employed by Michael’s enemies to take care of problems that required a more mundane solution.

The elevator car still descended slowly toward the lobby. Michael figured he had another minute or so, tops.

He took a coil of slender but very strong nylon rope from the briefcase, looped it under the dead man’s arms, then jumped and caught the edge of the hatch with one hand. He pulled himself up through it and then used the rope to haul the corpse through the hatch, as well. Then he lugged Carl Williams over to the edge of the moving car and looked down. There was enough room.

Michael rolled the body off the top of the car. It plummeted to the bottom of the elevator shaft, where it wouldn’t be discovered for a while. Long enough, anyway.

Michael wasn’t going to lose any sleep over Williams’s death. The man was a cold-blooded murderer and didn’t deserve any mourning.

As he hung one-handed from the hatch opening again, Michael grasped the cover with his other hand and pulled it over. He popped it back into place as he dropped lightly to the floor of the car again. He stowed the rope in the briefcase, looked at the rip in the leather and shook his head. Now that he regretted.

The fight for his life and then the exertion of disposing the hit man’s body had made him breathe hard, but that had settled down by the time the elevator eased to a stop and the door opened. Michael stepped out into the lobby.

And was immediately assaulted again. Not by a killer this time, but by an attractive and determined-looking young woman. Almost as tall as him, she had smooth skin that held a faint shade of copper, dark, intense eyes that caught his and didn’t seem to let go and long, straight, midnight-black hair that hung halfway down her back. Her long-sleeved silk blouse was a deep forest-green. Stylish jeans hugged her hips and long legs, legs that Michael couldn’t help noticing as she blocked his path.

She held a small digital recorder in her hand and said, “Mr. Brandt, if I could have just a few minutes of your time. My name is Jessie Morgan. I’m a journalist and I have some questions.”

Under other circumstances, talking to this woman might have been quite a pleasant experience, Michael thought, but not now. He had a great deal on his mind—the mission that had brought him here, for one thing, and the fact that mere moments earlier he had been fighting for his life, a sure sign that his enemies knew he was in town. He shook his head, brushed past her and strode toward the huge glass front doors of the office building, saying over his shoulder, “Sorry, I don’t have any time right now.”

As he left the place, he didn’t look back.

It never occurred to him that she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Hating Michael Brandt would have been very easy if he hadn’t been so ruggedly handsome, Jessie thought as she hurried to catch up to him on the sidewalk outside the building. Tall and obviously muscular under his casual but expensive clothes, he moved with an elegant, tautly controlled grace that reminded her of a stalking cougar. Intense blue eyes gazed out from a compelling, rough-hewn face. His sandy hair was cut short but was still long enough to tousle a little in the front. Some instinct must have warned him that she was coming up behind him, because he looked back sharply over his shoulder at her, his muscles tensing as if he thought he might be under attack.

He relaxed as he recognized her, but he didn’t slow down. “I’m sorry, Ms. Morgan,” he said as he strode along the sidewalk among towering skyscrapers. “I told you I can’t give you an interview right now.”

Even though she was almost as tall as him, Jessie had to hurry to keep up. Michael Brandt was the sort of man who didn’t look as if he were moving very fast until you realized how much ground he covered.

“Just a few minutes of your time, Mr. Brandt,” Jessie said again as she clutched the little recorder. “I’m sure my readers would like to know—”

Brandt stopped short but was able to make it seem graceful rather than abrupt. “What paper do you work for?” he asked.

“I’m a freelancer,” she said, “but I’m on assignment right now for Supernova.”

“The tabloid?” His voice was flat.

“It’s a weekly newsmagazine.”

“The tabloid,” Brandt said again. He resumed walking, and this time he didn’t apologize for refusing to talk to her.

With an angry toss of her head that threw her long hair back, Jessie started after him as he headed for a limo parked up the street. She wanted to get in at least a question or two before he reached the car.

“Is there any truth to the rumor that you’re dating Angelica Boudreau?” she called after him.

At first she thought he was going to ignore her, but then he stopped and looked at her again. “I’ve never even met the lady.”

Jessie suppressed the impulse to grin in triumph. All they had to do was answer one question and she was halfway to victory. Once she got even the most reluctant interview subject talking, she could keep them going.

“But what about the reports linking her separation from her husband to her involvement with you?”

Brandt shook his head. “They’re false. Like I told you, I don’t know her.”

“Then who are you dating?”

He smiled. “I can’t imagine why my love life would be interesting to anybody.”

“You’re a celebrity. People like to know what celebrities are doing…especially who they’re doing.”

For a second she thought Brandt was going to laugh. A good-humored twinkle appeared in his eyes, making him even more attractive. But then, in a flash, it disappeared. He gave a shake of his head and started walking toward the limo again. “Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t talk about such things. Besides, I’m not a celebrity.”

“No? You’ve driven race cars in Europe, flown a hot-air balloon around the world—”

“Most of the way around the world. I still haven’t quite managed a complete circumnavigation.”

“And you’re worth umpteen jillion dollars,” Jessie went on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “That right there is enough to make you count as a celebrity.”

“I try to keep a low profile on my financial dealings.”

“Easy to do when you can distract the press by dating some of the most beautiful women in the world. You need a private jet just to keep up with all the ladies you’ve got on the string.”

Brandt looked over at her as they walked. “You’re a determined one, aren’t you?”

“Always have been.”

“What if I said this entire conversation was off-the-record?”

“Too late. You can’t go back and put conditions on things like that.”

“What if I sue your paper?”

Jessie had to laugh at that one. “More publicity for Supernova. The publisher would love it. He has an entire army of lawyers on retainer, and they’ve never lost a case.”

“Not even when the paper printed a story about how the First Lady is actually a space alien?”

“Nobody’s ever been able to prove otherwise, now have they?”

Brandt shook his head, probably not in denial of what she had said but more likely in amazement at her audacity.

They had almost reached the long black limo. Jessie knew she was running out of time. She wanted to get in one more question. “What do you have to say to those who claim you obtained your fortune through unethical or perhaps even illegal means?”

He opened the rear door of the limo—the driver didn’t get out to do it for him, Jessie noticed—but paused to look at her before he got in. His steely eyes flashed as if he were angry at her, and she suddenly worried that she might have pushed him too far. Something about this man told her she didn’t want him angry at her.

But then he seemed to relax, although it took a visible effort for him to do so. “Nobody’s ever been able to prove it, now have they?” he asked, paraphrasing what she had just said to him.

With the slam of the door and a purring surge of the limo’s expertly tuned engine, he was gone, leaving Jessie to stare after the departing vehicle.

Michael settled back against the luxuriously upholstered rear seat. The vehicle’s smooth acceleration as it pulled away from the curb testified to the driver’s skill. He looked at Michael in the rearview mirror and asked without the deference usually associated with a chauffeur, “Who was that?”

“The woman? Just another reporter.”

“I saw the way she was chasing you along the sidewalk.” The big blond man chuckled. “I thought I might have to get out and help you, but then I figured you could take care of her yourself.”

Michael frowned. “What do you mean by that, Max?”

“Well, she was pretty good-looking, in a persistent sort of way.”

“I didn’t notice,” Michael lied.

The truth was, he had noticed how attractive Jessie Morgan was…more than he wanted to. With everything else going on in his life right now, he didn’t need any distractions—especially from a nosy reporter, no matter what she looked like. The resort deal was a delicate and important one, and the attack on him in the elevator proved that he couldn’t let his guard down even for an instant. Not that he would have, even if Carl Williams hadn’t tried to kill him. Years of living with violence and danger had ingrained caution in him. No one got too close to him except the handful of people in the world he trusted…and sometimes he kept his distance even from them.

He wished he had kept his distance from Charlotte. He wished that every day of his life.

“How did the meeting go?” Max asked, and Michael was grateful for the question since it got his mind off those painful memories.

“All right. The lawyer said his client wasn’t interested in selling, but we all know what that means.”

Max grunted. “Everybody’s got their price. You just have to find it.”

“Exactly.” Michael paused, then went on. “Something interesting did happen on my way out of the building.”

“Besides having a hot lady reporter chasing you, you mean?”

Michael tried to ignore the reference to how hot Jessie Morgan was, even though images filled his mind. Her long legs in those sleek-fitting jeans. Her breasts in that silk shirt. Her dark, intriguing eyes…especially those eyes. He forced the images away.

“Carl Williams tried to kill me.”

“Son of a—” The limo lurched a little as Max instinctively hit the brakes. “Williams? He’s in town?”

“Not anymore,” Michael said. “Only his body. It’s at the bottom of an elevator shaft now.”

“Huh.” Max shook his head as he resumed piloting the limo through Dallas traffic with sure, steady skill. “I told you I should have gone upstairs with you. I guess you handled things all right, though, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s right.” Michael fingered the tear in the leather briefcase, annoyed that he would have to replace it. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him; he could afford another briefcase, even a custom-made one like this. He could afford a thousand just like it and never even miss the money.

Maybe it wasn’t the briefcase, or the resort deal, or the fact that his enemies were on his trail. Maybe it was the flicker of something he hadn’t felt in a long time, something he didn’t want to feel. In their brief conversation, even though he had done his best to brush her off, Jessie Morgan had roused something in him, and not just the physical stirrings of desire to which he was no more immune than any other man in the presence of a beautiful woman.

He had wanted to talk to her, he realized now. He’d wanted to open up to her. Could be that she simply had the reporter’s knack of getting people to say more than they should.

But just in case it was more than that, just in case she had stirred up something within him that was better left dormant, he was damned glad that he would never see her again.

It wasn’t enough, Jessie thought. It wasn’t nearly enough. She couldn’t get even a news item out of the information she had about Michael Brandt, let alone a feature. She sat at the kitchen table in her studio apartment with her laptop open and connected to the Internet, searching for something she could add to her file about him.

No reporter had ever been able to determine exactly where or when he had been born, leading to speculation that Michael Brandt wasn’t even his real name. The press had first noticed him in Europe about ten years earlier, when he was apparently in his early twenties. Despite his youth he had quickly made a name for himself on the Grand Prix circuit as a daring and often victorious driver. Evidently he had plenty of money to start with, because from the first he stayed in the finest hotels and squired around the loveliest young women on the Continent. His faint Midwestern accent marked him as unmistakably American, though.

He had returned to the States and continued to race, but in addition he sought the thrills of the stock market and the financial wars. Real estate, computers, communications, other high-tech electronics—Michael Brandt had a finger in all those pies. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. And if that wasn’t enough, he was linked romantically with beautiful singers and Hollywood actresses and heiresses. He was the proverbial young man who had it all.

But who was he, really? And where had he come from? Jessie was determined to find out, because her readers wanted to know. And maybe someday if she broke enough big stories—even if they were in the pages of a tabloid like Super-nova—the editors at a real newspaper would notice her, would look beyond the impoverished childhood on the reservation and the education at a junior college and a second-rate state university and see her potential as a reporter and writer.

She might have lived up to that potential already if she had been able to accept the scholarship to Oklahoma University that had been offered to her as a senior in high school. Unfortunately, it was a private scholarship endowed by one of the local oil tycoons. Jessie’s writing on her school newspaper had caught his eye, he claimed. But it was really her looks that had caught his eye, and once she realized that the scholarship carried a high price tag, she’d turned it down flat and settled for the best education she and Nana Rose could pay for.

She still carried that bitter disappointment around with her, though, and had never forgotten that you couldn’t trust rich people who thought they could buy whatever they wanted.

In the meantime, her freelance work kept the bills paid—barely—and she knew how important it was to keep her editors happy, their thirst for sensationalism quenched.

Maybe Michael Brandt was a space alien, she told herself with a wry smile. Or was possessed by the spirit of Nostradamus. Yeah, that would explain how he’d been so successful in the stock market. He could predict the future.

Her cell phone beeped.

She picked it up and looked at the screen then smiled as she recognized the number. She thumbed the button to answer the call and said, “Hello, Nana.”

“Let me guess,” her grandmother said. “You’re working again when you should be out enjoying your youth.”

“I’m working so I can pay the bills this month,” Jessie said.

“My bills as well as yours. I feel like I’m stealing from you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I could never pay back everything I owe you.”

Nana Rose had raised her on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma, taking Jessie in when her father had died of complications brought on by his alcoholism and her mother had taken off…somewhere. Jessie never knew for sure where her mother had gone or what had happened to her. All she knew was that from the age of seven, the only real parent she’d had was Nana Rose, her father’s mother.

It was Nana Rose who had worked two jobs to support them, Nana Rose who had denied many of her own needs to save the money to send Jessie to school. True, her education wasn’t going to impress anybody, but it was the best Nana Rose could afford and Jessie was determined not to let her grandmother down. She was going to fulfill her dream and be a respected, successful reporter…one of these days.

“What are you working on now?” Nana Rose asked. She took a keen interest in Jessie’s career and had ever since Jessie left the rez and moved to Dallas. As soon as Jessie started getting assignments and making a little money, she began sending some of it back home, over Nana Rose’s emphatic objections.

“I’m trying to write a profile of Michael Brandt.”

“Who?”

“He’s some ruggedly handsome, mysterious tycoon who’s supposed to be dating Angelica Boudreau.”

“Oh, her! She goes through men like they were tissues.”

Jessie had to laugh. “Yeah, but Brandt claims he doesn’t even know her, let alone date her. We’ll see. I haven’t given up digging for the truth just yet.”

“No, you never gave up, even when you were a little girl. I remember a time—”

Jessie didn’t want to be rude, but she knew her grandmother could reminisce for hours if given the chance. “Nana, did you call for a reason, or just to chat?”

“I need a reason to talk to my granddaughter now?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that I am working.”

She heard Nana Rose take a deep breath, then say, “I hate to ask, but there’s a problem with the plumbing here in the house, and I’m going to have to get it fixed.”

“How much do you need?” Jessie asked without hesitation.

“The plumber said three hundred dollars ought to cover it.”

Jessie winced, knowing Nana Rose couldn’t see that over the phone. But she kept her voice light as she said, “No problem. I’ll wire it to you first thing in the morning.”

“Thank you, Jessie. That will sure be a load off my mind, I tell you.”

The money wouldn’t wipe out Jessie’s checking account, but it would take a serious bite from it. Still, she had no choice. “Don’t worry about it at all,” she assured Nana Rose. “Everything will be fine.”

“Thank you so much. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

This time Jessie smiled. “Well, you’ll never have to find out, because I’ll always be here for you.”

They said their goodbyes after Nana Rose urged her one more time to go out and have a little fun occasionally. As Jessie broke the connection and set the phone down by her laptop, she reflected that she didn’t really have time for fun, not with all the obligations that hung over her. This new, unexpected expense made getting a good story out of Michael Brandt’s visit to Dallas even more urgent. If she could come up with something really spicy, Supernova might pay a bonus for it, maybe even enough to take care of the plumbing problems in the old house in Oklahoma.

Three hundred bucks would be pocket change to a man like Brandt, she reflected bitterly. Less than that, really. Even if the amount were ten times that, in his carefree life he would never miss it. But it meant the world to an old woman on a reservation.

The phone rang again, and this time Jessie didn’t recognize the number. She answered the call. “Morgan.”

“Jessie, it’s Ted Carlisle.” The voice belonged to an eager young man. When she didn’t make any response right away, he went on, “You know, from the Chateaux.”

“I know who you are, Ted,” Jessie said, even though she hadn’t really until he mentioned the resort hotel that was so high-class it was practically stratospheric. Ted worked there as a night clerk, one of numerous sources she had cultivated over the years. “You have something interesting for me?”

“How about Michael Brandt?” asked Ted. “Interesting enough for you?”

Jessie’s grip tightened on the phone. Like all reporters, coincidences made her suspicious, and it was strange that Ted would call with information about Brandt while she was working on a story about him.

But you had to make some allowances for serendipity, and Jessie’s instincts told her this was one of those times.

“Go on,” she said. She hadn’t been able to find out where Brandt was staying. “Is he at the Chateaux?”

“Interesting enough that maybe you’d, uh, like to have a cup of coffee with me sometime?”

Ted was a nice enough guy, but he was not only younger than her, he was almost a full head shorter. If Jessie went out with him she would feel sort of like she was dating her little brother.

But she didn’t tell him that. Without committing to anything, she said, “That sounds nice.” Let him draw his own conclusions. “What about Brandt?”

“He’s here,” Ted said. “He’s registered under the name Bennett Chapman, but it’s him. I got a good look at him, and I saw his picture just last week on the cover of your paper.”

Jessie was about to say that Supernova wasn’t her paper, she only freelanced for it, but that wasn’t important. Instead she said, “Is he there now?”

“Yeah, he came in a little while ago. But here’s the thing…he had some guys with him.”

“Guys? What kind of guys?” Oh, Lord, thought Jessie, Ted wasn’t about to tell her that Michael Brandt was gay, was he? Not that there was anything wrong with that, as the old saying went. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized what a great story it would make if she could reveal that Brandt’s carrying on with Angelica Boudreau and all those other beautiful women had been just a front to cover up his homosexuality.

She forced herself to focus on what Ted was saying. “Two tough guys. They looked almost like…like crooks, Jessie. Gangsters. Only the old-fashioned kind, like in mobster movies.”

Jessie’s brain shifted gears as smoothly as any of those race cars Brandt drove. Forget the gay stuff, she told herself. Brandt might be connected to the mob. A made man, for all she knew. Maybe that was how he had gotten his money in the first place. Maybe he’d been a contract killer for the syndicate. Yeah, that would make a great story.

Although it was hard to reconcile the idea of him being a cold-blooded killer with the way he looked. Tough and ruthless, yes, maybe even dangerous when he had to be, but not evil. Not with those eyes that masked depths of feeling and that jaw that needed to be stroked so that it unclenched and the anger and pain went away…

And why in the world had she described him as ruggedly handsome to Nana Rose, without even thinking about what she was saying?

“Jessie? You still there?”

“I’m here,” she said with a little shake of her head as she banished those thoughts. “Ted, I have to get in there.”

“What!” Ted’s voice rose to a mouselike squeak. “Into Brandt’s lodge?”

The hotel was actually a group of buildings modeled after Alpine ski lodges, scattered across some rolling hills on the edge of the city and clustered around a central building that housed all sorts of amenities, including a five-star restaurant. The appeal of The Chateaux was not only its luxury, but also its privacy.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Jessie said. “If he’s having some sort of meeting with his gangster buddies, maybe they’ll order room service or something like that. I’m on my way, Ted.”

“But you can’t! I’ll get in trouble! I’ll—”

She didn’t hear the rest of his protest, because she had already closed her cell phone and was on her way toward the door of her apartment, her digital camera dangling from its strap around her wrist.

She smelled a story, maybe the biggest story of her career, and she would take any risk to get it.