He chuckled. ‘Damn, now I wish I did. But I don’t, and I have a mess of my own to clean up here. Too many people got involved in this, and Chip there hurt some of my people, so I’m short-handed. And FYI, the cops rescued Aunt Tabby and have sent her to the hospital. I’ve given the order to have her finished off there.’
Stephanie absorbed this. ‘So no one was ever coming to help us, were they?’
‘Nope. Sorry.’ Bitch of it was, he did feel sorry. And oddly reluctant to leave her tied to the chair, even though he had work to do. He felt oddly reluctant to leave her at all. ‘Why did Drake take Chip’s gun to the alley?’ he asked. ‘The truth.’
She lifted a shoulder. ‘Tala had been meeting some guy in the park. I was supposed to walk the dog, but I hated to. Stupid dog. I made Tala do it, to get her out of the house when I wanted Drake to myself. I’d send her out at two, three in the morning. A few days ago I caught her humming a tune and got suspicious. Drake and I checked the logs and saw that some nights she stayed in one place for five minutes or more.’ Stephanie’s smile was reptilian. ‘I beat her within an inch of her life. It was a wonder the bitch could walk.’
‘How did you know she was meeting a man?’ Ken nodded, immediately seeing his own mistake. ‘Oh, right. The audio files.’
‘Yes. Drake was livid that she was sniffing around the guy in the park. He set her up by telling her we were going into the city that night to buy drugs. He left his jacket in the room with her, with his cell phone in the pocket. He wanted her to use it, and she did. She met the guy in the alley, and . . . you know the rest.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and meant it. He carefully locked up his cart with all of his weapons, then left her sitting there. He was halfway up the stairs when she spoke again.
‘Excuse me,’ she called. ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘You don’t need to.’
A frustrated huff. ‘How much are you going to ask for me?’
‘I don’t know. It’ll be an auction. But I’ll make sure the winner won’t beat you.’
‘That’s not a major comfort,’ she said sarcastically. ‘How much is the “buy now” option?’
‘Like on eBay?’ He laughed. ‘We’re a little more sophisticated than that.’ But because she’d intrigued him, he gave her a number that was over-the-moon inflated. ‘Two million.’
She considered it. ‘I’d like to buy myself, then.’ Startled, he came back down the stairs to stand five feet away, carefully avoiding the pools of Chip’s blood. ‘What do you propose using for money?’
‘I have Chip’s bank account passwords.’
‘You’re lying,’ he said, although he appreciated the effort. ‘If you had them, you wouldn’t have been worried about losing your credit cards.’ He went back up the stairs, chuckling at the vile curses she flung at him. ‘I’d take you myself, but I’d never sleep a wink,’ he said. ‘You’d go all Sharon Stone on me the second I closed my eyes, and they’d find me with an ice pick through my heart.’
‘What does that even mean?’ she demanded, and he laughed again.
‘That you are far too young for me, Stephanie. I’ll send someone down with some food in a little while.’
He locked the door and texted Alice to come out to the house. He’d send her down to tend to Stephanie, along with Burton. Then he’d have Burton dispose of the bodies.
For a moment – just a moment – he’d been tempted to allow Stephanie to buy herself outright. But that was a crazy thought and Ken Sweeney was not a crazy man. Just once, he’d like to let go with a woman and not worry so much . . . But not with that one. She was trouble with a capital T.
He forced himself to march away from the basement door and into his office, where he planted his ass behind his desk. But rather than working, he opened his phone and checked his tracking program once again. Reuben and his right hand, Jason Jackson, were both still AWOL. Demetrius was still sitting near the Ledger’s front door. Burton was on his way back to Ken’s house, to do a forensic examination of Reuben’s car. Joel was in his home office, no doubt working the books, and Sean and Alice were in the office downtown.
Decker’s phone was at County General, which hopefully meant he was taking care of dear Aunt Tabby. The old woman was a loose end they couldn’t leave unsnipped.
Everyone was where they should be except for Reuben and Jason Jackson. Ken sent a group text to them all, telling them to come to his house for a mandatory meeting.
His company was spiraling out of control and things had to change. Otherwise Ken would take them all out – every last one of his so-called trusted group – and start all over again on a beach in the Turks and Caicos.
Seventeen
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 3.25 P.M.
Marcus breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Scarlett turned on to her street. He hadn’t been certain that she actually intended to bring him to her house. She’d been totally rattled after that kiss, worried that she’d let go so completely that she’d forgotten her job. Even as the knowledge made him feel ten feet tall, he knew that if she’d turned around mid-route and taken him back to his office, he wouldn’t have complained or cajoled. It would have been her choice and he would have honored that. Because that kiss had rattled him too. He wanted her unfettered in her pleasure, wanted to make her forget her own damn name. But she had to want that too.
Now that they were so close to her house, he let himself believe that she did want him enough, that this thing between them had a real chance, whatever ‘this thing’ was.
He sighed to himself. And now that they were so close to her house – and to her next-door neighbor – he had something he needed to set straight. He hoped what he was about to tell her wouldn’t make her change her mind. ‘I, um, have a confession to make,’ he said, breaking the silence that had filled the car since Scarlett had gotten back on the highway. ‘I told you that I drove by your house.’
She downshifted as they started up the enormous hill atop which her house sat as if holding court with the houses gathered around. ‘Four times, I think you said.’
‘Yeah, well, I did a bit more than just drive by and look. When I saw your big Land Cruiser always parked in the driveway, I wondered whose it was.’
‘It’s mine,’ Scarlett said sharply.
‘I know that now. I thought at first it might belong to a . . . significant other.’
‘How did you find out it was mine?’ she asked.
He braced himself. ‘I kind of sort of asked your neighbor.’
Her brows shot up. ‘You kind-of-sort-of asked Mrs Pepper?’ She huffed in exasperation. ‘Oh for God’s sake. She’s the biggest gossip in the neighborhood.’
‘I didn’t intend to,’ he said defensively. ‘And I didn’t come straight out and ask her. I have a little more finesse than that.’
‘If you managed to get one by Mrs Pepper, then you’re a better man than most.’
But he wasn’t. He knew that. He was a better man than some, but not most. For months the truth about his mission at the Ledger had kept him from pursuing this woman he’d never been able to get out of his mind. No longer, he thought. He still had no intention of dragging her into his bend-the-law world. He wouldn’t ask her to look the other way or to betray her integrity by helping him. But he wasn’t letting her go. He’d find a way to have it all.
If she hadn’t been interested, he wouldn’t have pushed her. Hell, he wouldn’t even be here right now. But she was. She hadn’t pushed him away earlier. Far from it.
He had to touch her again soon or he was going to burn up, from the inside out.
‘I’m not sure I managed to get anything by Mrs Pepper. She might remember me.’