Читать книгу Under Lock And Key - Sylvie Kurtz - Страница 13

“I thought you were my friend.” Tyler Blackwell loomed above the seated Freddy Gold, owner and editor-in-chief of Texas Gold. How could Freddy ask something like this from him knowing where he was coming from? Wasn’t it hard enough for him to start again? But to start like this? Tyler blasted his friend with every expletive he knew.

Freddy calmly leaned back in his cordovan-leather chair and stared at him.

“Tyler, it’s precisely because you’re my friend that I’m giving you this assignment.” Freddy turned away from him in his swivel chair and went back to work. “I owe her, Tyler. It’s the least I can do. And you owe me. So I’m calling in my chip. Make sure nothing happens to Melissa Carnes.”

What did Freddy have to do with her? She was nothing but a crazy artist who never came out of her self-imposed isolation. And Freddy had a dozen journalists on staff who’d kill for an opportunity to ingratiate themselves to the boss. “Why me?”

“I trust you. I don’t dare trust anyone else when it comes to my niece.”

“Your niece? Freddy—”

“She needs a champion. For once, she needs someone on her side.”

Tyler sneered. The last time he’d tried to be a champion, his wife had died. “If it’s a champion you’re looking for, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

“I know that if you give me your word, you won’t bail out on me until the job’s done. You’ll keep her safe.”

“After Lindsey, you can still say that?”

“Because of Lindsey, yes.”

That vote of confidence silenced him for a while. Since Lindsey’s death, even he didn’t trust himself.

“I know you,” Freddy said. “I’ve taught you everything you know.”

Tyler had come a long way since he and Freddy had been beat journalists together ten years ago. Tyler was just starting then, and Freddy was getting ready to move on to bigger and better things. Freddy had indeed taught him everything he knew. But some things you couldn’t prepare for, and no amount of training could get you ready for some blows. Still, Freddy was always there for him—even when everyone else had given up—and that loyalty had to count for something.

“So who’s this big bad wolf who’s after your little lamb?” Tyler asked, sinking into one of Freddy’s well-appointed leather chairs. He’d hear what Freddy had to say. Then he’d lay out a rational argument as to why he couldn’t take on the responsibility of looking out for someone else. Freddy would have to listen to logic.

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It’s a feeling…” He shrugged.

Tyler stared incredulously at his friend. “Freddy Gold’s calling in a chip on a feeling?”

“Yeah.”

Seeing Freddy so unsure of himself was strange. Tyler contemplated the man in front of him, noticed through his haze of frustration that Freddy had aged seemingly overnight. His jowls, usually so easy to jiggle with laughter, sagged. Puffed smudges made purple half-moons beneath his eyes. Lines spidered from the corners of his mouth.

“So what exactly is it you want me to do?” Tyler asked.

“I want you to protect her. Keep her safe.”

“From what?”

Freddy marched his pen across his knuckles. The muffled noise of telephones and voices on the other side of the office wall filled the uncomfortable silence. Slowly he pulled open the middle drawer of the desk and drew out an envelope. “This came two days ago.”

He pushed the envelope across the desk.

Tyler started to reach for it, then sprang up from the chair, backing away, hands held palms out in front of him. “I can’t.”

“It’s an article about Thornwylde Castle where Melissa lives,” Freddy said as he unfolded the newsprint. “And a bishop.” From his hand, a black chess piece rolled out onto the desk. “It’s a warning, Tyler. Someone’s playing a game, and I don’t like it. I need you there.”

“It’s just an article.” Tyler ran a hand over his face, not liking the sinking feeling weighing him down. “How do you get a warning out of a chess piece?”

“Chess is a game of war. Bishops can move in any direction, but must keep on a diagonal. They’re valuable because they can make long, narrow moves.”

In spite of his best intentions, Tyler couldn’t quite bite off the questions that sprang up. “Who sent the package?”

“I’m working on that.” Freddy hid the bishop in the envelope and returned the whole to the drawer. “Melissa’s had a hard life, but in some ways, she’s very innocent. She won’t know how to defend herself.”

Who? What? Where? When? How? Instinct kicked in. It felt like old times when the merest hint of a question had sent him sniffing for answers. His limbs became jittery. He tried not to think of all the Tennessee bourbon and oblivion he’d only recently given up, but it was like trying not to think of a blue elephant. The bottle with the black label was all he could see. The fire of the dark liquid was all he could taste. The sweet blackness of nothing was all he desired. He shook his head. Stay here. Stay focused. “You already suspect someone.”

“She’s a rich woman who’ll be even richer in a month. Money makes people do unspeakable things.” Freddy frowned, his pen etching deep grooves into the pad on his desk.

Tyler licked his dry lips, tried not to taste the phantom whiskey and rested his backside against the edge of the credenza. “Why don’t you just tell her to be careful and be done with it? Why do I need to go there?”

“Because…we’re estranged. She would dismiss anything I told her.” The admission seemed painful to swallow. But then, mistakes always were. Tyler should know. He had a Texas-size one stuck in his craw. “She can’t know I sent you. She’ll just send you away.”

Tyler leaned forward. He couldn’t do this. Not even for Freddy. “Just how do you propose I accomplish this feat?”

“Find the story. Like you’ve done a hundred times.”

But this time it would be different. “There are ways for her to protect her money from poachers. What story is there?”

“Start with the money, work up to her family. Her stepmother has big social ambitions and that doesn’t come cheap. Her half sister lives for pleasure—also an expensive hobby.”

Tyler sprang from his chair, leaned his fists on the desk’s top and glared at his friend. “Are you insane? You want to send me into the middle of a family feud?”

“No, I’m dead serious.” Freddy kept scribbling, as if the action could keep him anchored while Tyler blustered. “Twenty-two years ago, my sister told me she didn’t feel safe at the castle. A week later she was dead. I dismissed her fears. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”

Mistakes, Tyler had made so many already. And here was Freddy, desperate to send him right into the middle of another. “I can’t. Not after—”

“When you fall off a horse, you have to climb back on the sucker before he can kick you while you’re down.”

Too late. He’s already kicked. Tyler dropped to the chair like a stone. This wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t work. “How am I supposed to get in there to talk to her? You think a recluse is going to open her home to a stranger? Let him peek at her books and play knight to her damsel?”

“You’ll pretend to be writing an article on her stallion. Eclipse is a champion. She won’t turn down press for him.”

That made sense. An article in the most respected news magazine in the state was publicity no one could afford to turn down. “That’ll work for an hour, maybe two. After that, what?”

“You’ll think of something.”

Tyler knew himself well enough after the ravages of the past year to understand that his decisiveness had become rusted, his vision blurred, his drive stalled. But most of all, he knew he didn’t want to be the Tyler Blackwell of a year ago. And that was what Freddy was asking him to do. He’d spent his life becoming Tyler Blackwell, ace reporter, the dog who wouldn’t let go of the bone until he could drop it, meat and all, into the reader’s lap on the morning paper’s front page. Truth had once been all-important. But his drive for truth—and his ego—had also cost him the woman he loved, and in less than a year, his career. If he was to start over, he wanted something different.

“I’ll have my secretary call Deanna and let her know you’re coming,” Freddy said, jotting a note to himself.

“Who’s Deanna?”

“Deanna Ziegler is Melissa’s friend. To get to Melissa you have to go through Dee.”

“Have this Deanna person warn her.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Nothing about this situation was simple. “You said you weren’t on speaking terms. Why would this Deanna allow a reporter you send to write about the stallion?”

“An article in Texas Gold with horses show season in full bloom is good business, and Melissa is a good businesswoman. She doesn’t trust me, but she trusts what I’ve done with the magazine.”

A headache was starting to drum at Tyler’s temples. “Why are you doing this?”

Freddy put his pen down, wove the fingers of his hands together and closed his eyes. A moment later he lifted his gaze. In Freddy’s dark eyes Tyler saw a despair close to his own and knew he had no choice. Freddy needed to protect Melissa from this possible foe as much as Tyler needed to find some logic for Lindsey’s death.

“After her mother died,” Freddy said, “Melissa needed me, and I let her down because I was too busy building my career. I thought she was safe with her family. She wasn’t. I owe her.”

The jangle of the phone interrupted their conversation.

“Rena?” Freddy said, a frown creasing his forehead. Rena was Freddy’s stunning wife, fifteen years younger than the old bear and the center of Freddy’s universe since he’d met her two years ago. Rena was also seven and a half months into a difficult pregnancy. “I’ll be right there, sweetheart.”

“Rena all right?” Tyler asked. Freddy didn’t need the worry about his wife on top of the worry about his niece.

“The doctors think they might not be able to stop the baby from coming this time. I’m off to the hospital.”

Freddy hustled his bulk toward his office door. “I let Melissa down, Tyler. I need some redemption—especially now.” Freddy raised his hands in a helpless gesture, and Tyler realized Freddy was trying to make the world right for Rena and their soon-to-be-born child by rectifying past mistakes and maybe even appeasing the gods of fate. For whatever reason, he still didn’t feel worthy of Rena’s love. Couldn’t he tell just by looking into his wife’s eyes that she adored him, soft middle, thinning hair and all?

“I can count on you?” Freddy asked, hesitating at the door.

Tyler nodded. Trust Freddy to know exactly what to say to make him feel like a heel. Who else had given him a million and a half chances? Who else had never given up on him—even when he’d given up on himself? Guilt was as good a motivator as any, and Tyler felt guilty enough for letting Freddy down.

He grabbed the file with Melissa Carnes’s name off Freddy’s desk and strode out of the office behind Freddy. Just get it over and done with.

Fast.

TYLER COULDN’T SEE a thing. The furious rhythm of the wipers couldn’t keep up with the torrents of rain plastering his windshield. His headlights were useless on the dark country road, and he cursed his stubbornness.

He should have waited until morning. But no, Tyler Blackwell had to do everything his own way. Maybe Freddy was right and he did have a suicidal streak. Why else would he be driving on this godforsaken road in the middle of a deluge? After all, May and mobile home-eating storms were synonymous. Had he unconsciously wanted a spring twister to rip him away from this unpleasant assignment? On the other hand, maybe he wanted to prove that he wasn’t a washed-up has-been, that no storm could stop him. Whether he wanted to prove that to himself or to Freddy, he hadn’t decided yet. All he knew for sure was that he wanted his debt to Freddy canceled. Get in. Get the answers. Get out. Once he’d made up his mind, he’d seen no reason to put off the inevitable.

Damn, where was all this rain coming from? Spring weather in Texas was temperamental, but this was ridiculous. Slowing to a crawl, he leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered into nothingness. There should be signs of civilization. A light. Anything. The town of Fallen Moon couldn’t be more than a few miles ahead. He’d get a room there and find Melissa Carnes in the morning.

He’d just decided to stop and wait for the rain to thin when his Jeep dipped to the left and the road disappeared beneath the wheels. He grappled with the steering wheel, trying to find the road again. Too late. Gravity took over and plunged him into a deep ditch.

The Jeep bounced, slid sideways and came to a grinding halt, sending Tyler crashing into the left side of the vehicle and his head deflecting off the window. Pinpricks of bright light romped before his eyes, then faded like spent firecrackers when he shook his head.

The acrid stench of gasoline filled his nose. A warm trickle of blood ran down his temple. The sting of rain pouring in from the cracked window pelted his face. When he tried to move to get his bearings, dizziness overwhelmed him.

He reached up to touch his forehead and connected with the roll bar, instead. If it hadn’t been for the bar, he’d be dead. And against all odds, he was surprised he was glad to be alive.

The engine wheezed spasmodically, but the lights were out. Tyler saw nothing, not even the hand he waved in front of his face. Slowly, deliberately, to keep his head from swinging crazily like one of those bobbing-head dolls in a car window, he fumbled for the ignition switch and turned off the engine. He reached for the door handle. Pain shot through his wrist.

“Okay. Take it easy.” Securing his hurt wrist against his bruised ribs, he twisted his body and pulled himself through the window with his good arm. Rain assaulted him with a vengeance.

Another bolt of lightning rent the sky, giving him a chance to reexamine his position. Then he braced himself against the Jeep’s frame and jumped. Slipping on the muddy embankment, he lost his balance and landed in the water at the bottom of the ditch. As he sat, water filled his cowboy boots and seeped through his jeans and cotton shirt.

The rain turned into pea-size hail. Numbed instincts prickled back to life. Survival proved stronger than the pessimism of the past year.

Tyler forced himself to stand. Pain throbbed through his body and ended in his head with the pounding of a hundred hammers.

“Tyler Blackwell is back,” he warned the rain. Thunder mocked him.

He clawed his way out of the ditch, pulling up his body with sheer determination until he found the road. Lightning flashed at regular intervals, lighting his way. Wincing with every step, he trudged toward town.

What kind of trouble could a recluse get herself into within the confines of a castle? Melissa Carnes painted pictures, and she rode horses, for crying out loud. Freddy’s instincts were wrong this time. It was the baby, the guilt. There was no psychotic stalker, no wicked stepmother, no greedy half sister out to harm his niece.

“I hope you’re worth it, lady.” He gritted his teeth and concentrated on walking.

“Damn you, Freddy, for cashing in your chip, and damn you, Lindsey, for dying.” No, he didn’t mean that. It wasn’t her fault. He sneered. Yeah, most people would say it was his fault. His beautiful wife. If he hadn’t been so ambitious. If he’d known when to let go. If he hadn’t pushed the wrong person too far. Then Lindsey would still be alive, and he’d still be a hero. He rested for a moment against a sign that read No Outlet. “Great. Just great. I’m heading nowhere.”

The road came to a sudden end. Lightning crazed the sky, flickering a mirage before him. The photographs had not done Thornwylde Castle justice.

Before him was a fortress straight out of Camelot—moat, drawbridge, towers and all. Castles belonged in England, not the wilds of North Texas. Took a rich eccentric like William Carnes to import a castle and plop it on land more suited to ranch bungalows. Took a peculiar woman like Melissa Carnes to live there and pass herself off as a witch. But she was Freddy’s niece, and Tyler had promised to keep her safe.

Head pounding, he dragged himself over the wooden bridge that spanned a water-filled moat and found himself faced with a barred and closed entrance gate. Three stairs, that to his aching body, seemed as unscalable as Mount Everest, stood to the left and led to a smaller door. With his last ounce of strength he hoisted himself up the steps and knocked on the door.

He leaned against the rain-slicked wood. His body crumpled under his weight and his face buried itself in the prickly doormat. A wave of heaviness surged through him and filled him with the same darkness that surrounded him.

And as the last thread of thought snapped into black, an overwhelming sense of evil engulfed him.

RAY LUNDY sat alone in the cab of his pickup truck in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the prearranged two-short-and-one-long signals of light. He couldn’t have asked for a better atmosphere if he’d had a straight line to God. Drenching rain poured from a sky darker than Hades, and the eerie strobelike dance of the wizened oak branches around him added just the right touch.

His contact wanted anonymity. Well, hell, you couldn’t get more lost than in this part of Parker County. Ray pressed the button that lit his digital watch. He’d give his contact five more minutes, then he’d leave.

Only fools went out on a night like this. Even the witch wouldn’t venture out of her castle tonight. No, anyone with half a brain would stay home, heeding the weatherman’s forecast of possible tornadoes in the North-Texas area.

Though the purr of the idling engine offered a measure of comfort, Ray flipped on the heater button to stave off the chill. He didn’t dare turn on the radio. Not that anyone would be out on a night like this, but he’d hate to be caught unawares. Instead, he let the rhythm of the rain on the pickup’s roof keep his thoughts company.

Ray knew he was a fool, but if things kept going his way, it wouldn’t be for much longer. Soon, very soon, he’d give his job the kiss-off and be his own man. He’d get back what was owed him. Then he’d be the one giving orders, sending whipping boys to do the dirty work and him reaping all the rewards. A smile curled his lips at the headiness of the thought. Yeah, he could handle that.

Through the heavy downpour Ray saw the weak signal. He hit his headlights in answer. Let the contact get wet. I may be a fool, but I ain’t stupid.

The contact, dressed all in black, yanked the rusty door open and slid into the passenger seat. “Couldn’t you have picked a drier spot?”

“Yeah,” Ray said, exaggerating his drawl. “Guess I could’ve. But then I’d have missed a great sight. Tch, tch. Rain and leather and silk just don’t mix, do they.”

He laughed and drew a cigar from his coat pocket. Once he lit the stogie, he took a slow drag, inhaling deeply before he deliberately blew smoke rings in his contact’s face, enjoying the action even more than the poke he’d had earlier with the new stable girl. He was the one pulling strings now. Power. There was nothing to beat sheer power. It was his birthright, and he’d get it back—no matter whose strings he had to yank to get the results he wanted.

“Why all the secrecy?” Ray asked.

The contact shifted to avoid the smoke. “Nobody can know I’m involved. It has to look like it’s her idea. I have just over a month to run Melissa Carnes off her land.”

Ray stopped blowing smoke rings. Now wasn’t that interesting? Melissa Carnes would have been his last guess for this little enterprise. Oh, yeah, this was definitely his lucky day. “It’ll take me less than a day to plug a bullet in her brain. Everyone knows the witch likes to ride at night.”

“No, you jackass! It has to look like it’s her idea to leave.”

See if you talk to me in that tone of voice when this is over, you bottomfeeder… Ray took a long pull on the cigar. I’m in charge here. “Why?”

“You’re paid to follow orders, not to ask questions.”

“I like to understand the psychology behind the job.” And see how it fits with my game plan.

The contact reached over and scrunched Ray’s shirt collar in a tangle of fingers. “Understand this—if you don’t do things my way, you don’t get paid. Got it?”

Ray pushed away the powerless grip. The nerve of this pawn to think he had any say over the direction of play. “All right, don’t have a hissy fit.”

I’m in charge, Ray reminded himself. He couldn’t hide the smile coming from deep inside, and he tasted once more the sweet flavor of power. His power over people like the contact; people who usually considered him scum.

Who was scum now?

“So,” Ray said, blowing more smoke straight at the aristocratic nose, “what do you want?”

“I need her running scared.” The contact paused.

Lightning cut jagged lines across the black sky. Thunder boomed farther to the south. One of Ray’s greatest skills was reading people, and what he saw now was desperation. This desperation would buy him his crown. “I don’t come cheap.”

“Once Melissa Carnes is off her land, you’ll get your slice.”

“I like my cake with lots of icing.” Ray savored the thought, the power. His, all his.

“There’s enough to go around.”

Ray blew another string of smoke rings and marveled at their perfection. “Did you read about the mason who broke his leg at the witch’s castle?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Ever heard of the telephone game?”

“I don’t get it.”

Of course not. “How do you get rid of a witch?”

Impatience wrenched the contact’s pretty features into their true plug-ugliness, so Ray gave the brainless cockroach its answer. “With a witch-hunt.”