Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) (28 page)

The steam rising from the hot tub beckoned her, so she stripped out of her dirty clothes and sank into the bubbles. Even the hot water couldn’t ease the ache in her heart at the thought of Adrian betraying her. He had met with Jack and Devlin. Her eyes narrowed. What had they talked about? What had Adrian proposed? She wanted answers, and she would get them as soon as she was finished with her bath. The biggest question made her heart stop beating for a moment. If Adrian had done the unbelievable and offered to kill Nikki for money, why hadn’t Jack turned him over to the police? She shivered in the hot water, feeling colder than she ever had.

Jack settled onto the bed, shifting on the hard mattress in an attempt to get comfortable. He heard Nikki’s splash as she got into the tub. Hopefully she would stay in there for a while and give him time to think. He couldn’t believe it—she was still alive. Alive. He had only gone to the hospital to try and get a scoop on what was going on with Adrian, maybe talk to him and see what he knew. Then he’d seen Nikki. He remembered the way she felt in his arms when he’d come up behind her. Glancing down at his groin, he muttered, “Is that worth six million dollars?” He could have both, at least for a time. Until Devlin returned.

Jack didn’t trust keeping her at his apartment. The police could come looking, though he couldn’t imagine what for. With no motive or obvious opportunity, he had nothing to worry about. He still worried, though. Last time the whole operation had been screwed up. Marrying Nikki was out of the question this time. She was supposed to be dead, and she was worth more to him dead than alive. He wasn’t going to take the chance that she wouldn’t marry him. Besides, she was really in love with that Wilde guy.

He grinned. Well, maybe not anymore. She’d looked pretty convinced when he’d showed her the newspaper. Everything was working wonderfully.

He could see that she wasn’t going to let him talk her out of calling Ulyssis. She obviously trusted the man, enough to tell him where she was. Why didn’t she trust
him
two years ago? They were supposed to be in love. It bothered him more than it should. She didn’t seem to suspect that he had been behind the original bombing, so why had she turned to someone else? They could have had her money long ago.

So, what was he going to do with her now? The answer was obvious. He was going to have to kill her. Damn, he hated messy one-on-one confrontations, but he didn’t want to do another pipe bombing. His luck was bound to run out with someone recognizing him buying the pipe, even if it was outside the city. He thought of walking into the bathroom and shoving her beneath the soapy water, picturing her arms and legs flailing until they stilled in death.

That thought repulsed him. He didn’t want to see her die, or deal with a body. Maybe a fire. They might find remnants of a human body and figure out it was Nikki. No, she was already dead; best to keep her that way.

Jack walked out of the bedroom and wandered into Devlin’s office. The knife that he used as a letter opener sat on the blotter. Jack picked it up, feeling the sharp tip. Filled with copper and coated with black zinc, the knife was strong enough to do some serious damage. The handle had a tiny ladder and a little man on top, matching some of the other art pieces in the office. Holding it against his leg in case Nikki had stepped out of the bathroom, he walked in and sat down on the bed again. Stabbing her held as much appeal as drowning her, but he had to have something in case she got out of hand.

Jack flipped on the clock radio on the white oak headboard. He spotted a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray. He’d smoked on and off for years, and a cigarette had enormous appeal at the moment. Finding a lighter nearby, he settled back and lit up, waiting for the calming effect. Instead, he nearly choked on the stale cigarette. He ground it out and put the ashtray on the dresser, waving away the cloud of smoke that surrounded him. The pack had probably been there from when Blossom was alive, since nothing else in the room seemed to have been changed.

His attention shifted to the radio as a newscast came on. The last two days he always listened to newscasts.

“... escaped from his hospital room today, taking a nurse as hostage. Wilde later released the victim, unharmed. Police found her car at the Greyhound bus station and have verified that Wilde was on a bus heading to Panama City Beach. Although the police won’t release any information, we believe that the FBI are setting up an arrest at the next stop. We remind you that Wilde is armed and considered extremely dangerous. Anyone seeing him should notify the police immediately.”

Jack sat up as though he’d been injected with air. Wilde was out, maybe headed for the panhandle. Maybe not. He searched the windows that looked out over the beach, almost expecting to see the man standing there. Jack shook his head and settled back on the pillows. If Wilde were smart, he’d be hightailing it far from here, and it wouldn’t be on a bus. The world thought Nikki was dead, and so would he. He’d have no reason to look for her.

His thoughts returned to Nikki and what he had to do. If he could kill her and dispose of the body where no one would find it, then Adrian would be convicted for her murder, if they caught him, and that would be the end of it.

“Jack, I have questions I want answers to.”

He whirled around to find her standing there, wet hair dripping down the silk shirt. Turning down the radio, he tried to remain casual as he neared her.

“Sure, darling. Come sit with me.”

“I’d rather stand.” She lifted her head. “Have you been smoking?”

“Had a hankering when I saw the cig in the ashtray. Sorry.” He patted the bed. “Come here.”

“Jack, what kind of proposal did Adrian come to you and Devlin with?”

He gave her a sympathetic look. “You’ve come to accept it.”

“Just answer me.”

“He told us that he knew Devlin would inherit a lot of money if you died, and he knew where you were. He said that if we cut him in on the project we were working on, he’d make sure you were never able to inherit that money.”

She shivered, but her expression was steely. “What did you tell him?”

Ah, so she had been doing some thinking of her own while in the bath. “What do you think? Not to touch a hair on your body.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why would he have blown me up? It did him no financial gain.”

“The only thing I can think of is…” Ah, yes. Her previous suspicion. “I think I know what happened.” He injected a sinister tone in his voice, nodding his head sagely. “Devlin must have contacted him behind my back and took him up on his offer. They probably worked together to make sure Devlin had an alibi since he was the obvious suspect. The bastard.”

“So why didn’t you go to the police when Adrian first contacted you?”

Hmm. “To tell you the truth, I was afraid. He made some pretty hefty threats if we went to the cops. You see the power behind the threats now, don’t you? I figured if we didn’t take him up on his offer, he wouldn’t hurt you. After all, we’re the only ones your death is worth money to.”

“What were you doing at the hospital?”

“That was a coincidence. I was visiting a friend. Appendicitis.”

She stood there, absorbing every lie he’d told her. Did she believe him? She wrapped her arms around herself, a gesture he remembered her doing before when she was upset. Self-protective. When he thought she was going to sit down, she walked over to the phone and started dialing.

“Who ya’ calling there, darling?” He was up in an instant, standing by her side.

“Ulyss—”

He pressed the button on the faux marble phone. Taking him by surprise, she threw the handset at his head and ran. He didn’t let the stars in his vision keep him from stopping her. He made a grab for those long, wet tresses and yanked her back against his chest. Before she could raise her foot to kick him, he slid the knife in front of her face. Her green eyes widened in terror as she recognized the curved camel blade Devlin used to open his letters with, more of a piece of art than a letter opener or weapon. Still, it served Jack’s purpose as Nikki’s struggling ceased.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you’re going to have to die. Really die this time.”

CHAPTER 18

“Are you going to f-freeze me to death?”

Nikki shivered as she stared at Jack. While she was strapped into a chair with rope, he looked so casual leaning against the doorway to the wine cellar. Her father had been so proud of the thing, set at the perfect temperature to keep his precious bottles just right. It had been engineered and insulated to keep the cool air in, since they couldn’t actually dig it into the ground. For Nikki, it had always been a dreary, scary place. Especially when Devlin had locked her in it a few times for laughs.

This wasn’t for laughs. Jack rested the tip of her brother’s knife against his cheek, looking thoughtful. Where was Devlin? She knew he had to be part of this. Unless he really was up north.

“It’s not how you die so much as how I get rid of your body. You see, you’re already dead to the world, so your body can’t pop up somewhere, now can it? It would have been so much more convenient if you’d died in the van like you were supposed to.”

Anger boiled inside her. “Gee, sorry to screw your plans up by not dying for you. Both times.”

He smiled, but there was nothing humorous about it. “You did screw my plans up, but the first time,
you
weren’t supposed to die. Everyone else was.”

A chill ran down to the tips of her fingers. “What are you talking about?”

“Blossom and Devlin were supposed to die in that first explosion. You, my dear, were supposed to be so grief-stricken that you’d marry me so I could take care of you. With all that money you were due to inherit, that would be very easy. Only you didn’t wait for me, and Devlin forgot his stupid sunglasses.”

She felt another chill, helped more by the refrigeration. “Devlin wasn’t in on it? Just you?”

“Yeah, only me. So, you see, you had no reason to hide from him. Then he told you he wanted to straighten things out between the two of you, and you took it as a threat and disappeared. At first I thought you had figured out I was behind it, so I found you and tried to kill you. You just don’t die, do you? Then you really disappeared. If only you’d trusted me.”

“Then what? I’d be dead, too.”

“No, I wasn’t planning to kill you after we married. Unless you didn’t give me control of your money. But there was no you, so Devlin had to do. I’ve got him wrapped around my finger. If only he weren’t so stupid, he’d still have some of that money the lawyers didn’t eat up. Then he went and bought this defective building. But I’m optimistic. I saw an opportunity to make better. I made a deal with Devlin to give me control of LandCorp if I fished him out of the toilet. When he agreed, I knew that to do that, all we needed was you. Dead, of course. Then Devlin would inherit your share of the inheritance, and I would be in control of it. With that money, we could turn this building fiasco into a winner, and from there we’d become rich.

“You see, Nikki, I was never rich. No mansion, no servants, nothing. An apartment in West Palm Beach and a 1987 Toyota Corolla. That’s all I have, besides my style and a keen desire to get my hands on some money so that I could make myself the rich bastard I pretended to be. All those deals I told you and Devlin about were real; they were just engineered by someone else who had the money to accomplish them. All of my successes were on a small, much less impressive scale. I wanted the opportunity to make those big deals myself, and I needed you to do that. That’s where Adrian came in.

“We all worked together to make sure we got your money for this project. Heck, you weren’t using it. Then, after I think everything’s worked out, there you are in the hospital parking lot. I was there to talk to Adrian.”

“You’ll burn in hell for what you’ve done.”

“Until then, I’ll make a ton of money. It’ll be a lot easier to get investors when I have a nice chunk of it in the deal myself.”

“Where did you get the explosives? Not everybody has the makings of a pipe bomb in his garage.”

He drew the knife to his lips, pressing the flat part of the blade against them. “They’re surprisingly easy to make; smokeless powder, some pipe, and an electronics background, and viola...a pipe bomb is born.”

“You’re going to screw up, Jack. Somewhere along the way, you’re going to mess up and someone will figure it out. Like finding out about your background.”

He didn’t look worried. “My background isn’t easy to trace, darling. I jumped around so much, doing different things at different companies, they’d never put together the total of two years I worked for an alarm company.”

“They’re going to find out.” She didn’t really believe that, but she didn’t want him to feel so comfortable with murdering her.

“I won’t screw up. I haven’t yet. And you know what’s so darn funny? Here you were all this time living right under our noses, and now you’re in the most obvious place, yet no one is looking for you.”

“I don’t quite find the humor in it.” She softened the edge in her voice. She didn’t want to beg, but she had to take a chance. “Jack, if I married you now, and signed over the money to you as soon as I took possession of it, would you let me live? I mean, how could I ever prove all this, even if I did say something to the police, which I wouldn’t?”

“Sorry, Nik. I couldn’t take that chance. Don’t think I like doing this. It’s nothing personal. You’re just worth more to me dead. Like your brother, I want to make something of myself. Only I’m smarter than he is. And it’s true, that you have to have money to make it. When Devlin inherits your money, I will have control of it. Before we know it, I will be a very rich man.” He leaned over and pinched her cheek. “And darling, I will toast to you when I make my first million.”

“You’re so kind. I hope someone poisons your champagne.”

“Now, now. Don’t get hostile. I told you it’s nothing personal.”

Her heart fell. There really was no hope. No one knew she was alive, Adrian might have been part of it ... her heart ached at the thought of him. How could he have done this to her? She didn’t want to believe it, but it fit too well. The meetings, his aloofness ... heck, the police had him under arrest for her murder. There were witnesses to the fact that he had purchased the pipe needed. And the partial cigarette in the ashtray in her mother’s bedroom. He had been there, plotting her murder along with Devlin and Jack. Right there in her parents’ bedroom.