Men-of-Action-Seres-04 -Saints and Sinners (16 page)

“He was working on something, honey, and we think it was something dealing with you…maybe even your mother.”

“My mother! No,” she shook her head. “There is no way my mother had anything to do with this. Elizabeth would never do anything to hurt her career.”

“I notice you say she would never do anything to hurt her career, what about you?” Thomas’ voice chimed in, drawing their attention back to him.

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“Me…” she uttered that one word as if it should be a silent utterance and not a well audible one. “I learned a long time ago that she doesn’t care about me. It’s just back then I always thought it was my fault.

Now I guess I realize it had nothing to do with me. Liz doesn’t know how to love anything, but her own ambitious plots. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt in the process just so long as she gets what she wants.” It had taken her years to figure that out, but once she had, she stopped feeling as if she were to blame for every ounce of unhappiness in their lives. She stopped trying to make up for destroying things, because the destruction of their family wasn’t her fault.

“Could she have killed your father to help her career?” Alaina exhaled slowly, feeling the gentle touch of Sully’s hand on her thigh. “I don’t know. I mean it did help her career. She took down an entire mafia family; got a promotion, rose to the top in the agency and now she’s put in her presidential bid. I’d say she gained a lot from my father’s death…but I don’t know. I just don’t know. I mean the guys they arrested swore they had nothing to do with it—but they were convicted so they must have; right? I mean they must have been guilty.” She felt sick, and it wasn’t just from hunger. Her entire world was being turned upside down and she was powerless to stop it.

“What does any of this have to do with Troy?”

“He was researching something before he died. There are a lot of names floating around that seem to be linked to your family.”

“The doctor?”

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“Yes, and his son, who just happened to be a plastic surgeon.” She laughed. “So you think Liz had them killed because she didn’t want people to know she had some work done? Everybody should know that. I mean even I knew that. Botox here, collagen there, a tummy tuck after she couldn’t lose the post baby weight, lipo…that’s not worth killing over.”

He shook his head. “I’m not saying it is,” he frowned. Liz was like a walking science project let Alaina tell it. Did she really think that was normal? “I’m saying it’s peculiar that both doctors who had access to your family died within weeks of each other, and that the nurse, who moved up here shortly after that, was just murdered last night. All the deaths, except one, were made to look like accidents.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what to think, Sully. I mean Liz is capable of all sorts of evil, but I just can’t imagine she would risk her career like this. If it got out that she had anything to do with any of those deaths…” She stopped abruptly thinking of the implication. “That’s it; isn’t it? You think she killed the doctors. You think Troy found out. You think that’s why he wanted to speak with me that night. You think she killed him for it.” She felt anger rising in her heart. If Liz had murdered her father, Troy and those doctors then she was more evil than Alaina could have ever imagined.

“I don’t know what to think right now, Alaina. I just know there are a lot of coincidences, and I don’t believe in coincidence. Something is Capri Montgomery 149

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going on here, something that’s linking all of these deaths together, and I have to keep an open mind to the possibility that she might be behind it.” She sat there, dumbstruck, wondering what she was supposed to say to that revelation. She didn’t even know what she should think about it. On one hand, she could see Liz doing anything to get ahead, but on the other hand, she couldn’t see how Liz would possibly think murder was going to propel her career forward. Seriously, why would she kill the doctors? Unless she had had an abortion, that would be a career killer in politics. She didn’t think that was the issue. As far as she knew, her mother had only been pregnant once, and that was with her. She would have known about another pregnancy; wouldn’t she?

There were so many questions, so many possibilities, things that didn’t add up, things that should have, but probably never would.

“Alaina,” Sully brushed his hand up and down her thigh.

“I’m not so hungry anymore,” she said absently. Out of everything they had just told her the only response she could think of was that she wasn’t hungry anymore. She had lost her appetite the moment they told her Troy had been murdered—and he had been murdered because of her.

She really was the destroyer of worlds. If it hadn’t been for her, then her father could have left Liz instead of being killed. He had stayed out of his sense of duty to his family, duty to the child, not to Liz. Now she wished he hadn’t been so noble. Now she wished he had just left—she wished he had taken her with him too, but if he couldn’t she would have spent a thousand lifetimes in hell just to know that her father was alive and safe.

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“None of this is your fault,” Sully assured her, as if he could read her thoughts and knew she thought it was all her fault.

“Sure it is,” she mumbled. “They all knew me. They all got killed.

Seems like my fault to me.” She pushed her hair back from her face.

“Well, except the plastic surgeon, and the nurse…I didn’t know them.”

“No, you didn’t know them. And none of those deaths are your fault.” He had that commanding tone again, the one that told her he expected her to hear and understand his words. He also expected her to agree with him. “Troy was a reporter. He would have chased a story whether he met you or not.”

“Why this story?” When she saw Sully shrug and then saw the concealing look on Thomas’ face she had a theory of what they were thinking. “You think he approached me to get the story?”

“I think he loved you a great deal. Hold on to that.” His words were genuine, but she was sure they didn’t fully disclose what he was thinking. His eyes betrayed him now, and she was sure he was thinking just that. Troy had approached her that night in the gallery to get close to the story. He was ambitious, he wanted, more than anything, to be a hardcore journalist. Maybe he saw her as his ticket to his prize. She didn’t want to believe that. She didn’t even want to think it.

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L
eaving Alaina alone hadn’t been at the top of Sully’s to-do list, but he didn’t have much choice. He and Thomas had an appointment to keep, one that would get him the answers he needed and he couldn’t take Alaina with him. She had assured him that she would be okay in the townhouse, that she would keep the doors locked and wouldn’t open them for anybody. She had assured him that since nobody knew where they were, and that he could put himself at ease when it came to her protection.

She was right; nobody knew where she was. He had been careful when he made the journey to Boston, and since he hadn’t used plastic not even once, he didn’t have a paper trail following him. He also had Thomas secure the housing for him. None of that made him feel better about leaving her behind—alone. What choice did he have?

“She’ll be okay,” Thomas broke the silence in the car with words of assurance, words of comfort. It did nothing to assure or comfort him.

“She’s a strong woman. No matter how this turns out she’ll be okay. And Saints and Sinners 152

she’ll have you by her side to help her,” he added with a high level of confidence in his words.

Was he that transparent when it came to Alaina? “I don’t—” Thomas laughed, cutting off Sully’s attempt at denial. “Trust me; I know the difference between love and lust when I see it. You love her.

There’s nothing wrong with that, Sully. You both deserve some good in your life, embrace it. Don’t run from it.”

“Maybe you should take your own advice,” he advised.

“When I settle my business with Sabian I’ll gladly take my own advice—for the right woman that is. Right now I can’t offer a good woman what she deserves. I won’t put any woman through that, especially not her—whoever she is.”

Justice was what Thomas wanted, maybe more than anything. He had been working for years trying to get that justice. Sully knew Thomas wouldn’t stop until he did. But he wondered if Thomas was ready to abandon love, and the rest of his life in what could be a hundred year pursuit. He had no doubt that they would get Sabian eventually; he just didn’t know if it would be anytime within this decade. The man was so well hidden, so well sheltered by certain political figures that he was nearly a ghost. One day he would have to slip up. One day Sabian’s treachery would have to come back to haunt him. One day…but Sully wasn’t exactly sure when that day would be.

Thomas pulled into a parking space near the entrance. “We’re here.”

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The bright red “emergency” writing was a sure indication that they were indeed there.

“She’s working in the burn unit,” he said. “There’s an easier way to get there without getting in anybody’s way.” Lila Carter breezed into the lounge as if she were expecting a million dollar prize once she got through the door. “Thomas McGregor?”

“That’s me,” Thomas looked over the petite female. She was cute.

He estimated her age to be about twenty-five. The way she smiled at him, the look in her eyes, told him she was expecting to get more out of the meeting than a conversation.

“You’re way more attractive than I thought,” she complimented him. He resisted giving her any indication that he would be interested in her. He wasn’t in the business of hurting people. He wasn’t celibate, but the women he had dated since coming back from near death had all known he wasn’t planning long-term. They all knew he couldn’t promise them forever. He made it a point to stay away from any woman who had the romance novel impression that he was going to change his mission for them. Lila looked like such a woman. No matter how cute she was; no matter how nice the raven locks complimented her alabaster skin, no matter how good her D-cup breasts looked underneath her scrubs, he couldn’t get mixed up with this woman.

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“This is Sully, he’s a bit of an investigator,” he said. Sully did do some investigating, but Lila didn’t need to know more than that. “We have some questions to ask about—”

“Lidia…I know. I can’t believe she’s gone. I mean, all of us are in shock. She was here one day and then just gone.” She shook her head.

“Have a seat,” she gestured to a table in the back corner.

“You said on the phone that you were sure Lidia was murdered.

You said that the week’s events had led you to believe it was because of something in her past. Can you explain more to me about the events of that week?”

She nodded. “I was going to go to the cops, especially when they listed her death as an accident saying she fell asleep with a cigarette when she didn’t even smoke.”

“So why didn’t you?” Sully cut in.

“I was scared. I saw that guy watching her. I don’t think he saw me—”

“What guy?”

“A really skinny Latino guy. He was cute for an older guy. He had to be about forty because his hair was kind of black with a hint of gray.

It’s probably why I noticed him as quickly as I did. At first I thought he was checking out Lidia because he wanted to ask her out. Then I realized that Lidia was a little too old for him, so I figured maybe there was something else. He wore these killer sunglasses. I mean he looked like something…well, he looked like one of those military recruit guys.

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Confident and sexy. But it put me off that he was standing across the lot watching us when we took our break. Then, when we left for the day I saw him sitting in his car. He pulled out right after Lidia. I don’t think that was benign, I think he was after her. You see, she told me about D.C. She told that reporter too, and he was supposed to come back and talk to her again, but he never did.”

“Troy Christianson?”

“Him too, but I meant the other one. Not long after Troy met with Lidia, another guy showed up and asked some questions and then left. I think he was asking about that Troy guy because Lidia said he seemed more interested in what Troy wanted than what happened in D.C.”

“What happened in D.C.?” Thomas watched as Lila’s painted red lips thinned.

“I don’t know if I should say. She told me in confidence.”

“Something got her killed. Don’t you want to know what, and who, and see justice done?” He watched her nibble on her lip as she slowly shook her head yes.

“I think it’s all to do with that James woman, the one trying to get in on the presidential run…Lidia mentioned that her husband went to see the plastic surgeon she worked for.”

“Her husband?” Sully sat forward. Thomas knew what he was thinking; they both assumed it was Ms. James who had made the appointments.

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“Yeah, he had a meeting with the doctor, but Lidia said it seemed very hush-hush. He never came back after that one time. She thought maybe he was complaining about the cost of his wife’s procedure…apparently Doctor Faulkner Jr. had a way of inflating prices.” She snorted. “Like we haven’t seen that before.” She shook her head.