Wild About The Bodyguard (17 page)

She was
thankful that he was occupied and she could be left to her
thoughts. Maybe that’s why he kept it playing. He knew she needed
this time to convince herself that she had no option. She needed to
hear the truth. She wouldn’t have to tell her sister how much the
discovery had hurt her. She wouldn’t need too many words, period.
Ann would see it in her face. In her eyes.

Sammy had no
idea how Ann would respond. What would she say? What bothered Sammy
even more was not knowing how they could ever get past
this.

Around noon,
Chase pulled the vehicle into the familiar circular driveway. When
they found the door wide open, a chill chased up Sammy’s spine.
Urging her to stand behind him, Chase entered the foyer and scanned
the scene.

He called out,
“Anyone home? Mrs. Hallows? I’m here with your sister,
Samantha.”

Sammy stayed
close. Was it possible that a gun was peeping around some corner
today? She had a feeling that, under his jacket, Chase was
packing.

Sammy touched
his arm. “I know where she might be.”

He took a hold
of her hand as she showed him the way through the showcase house
and out onto the back veranda. Sure enough, with a relaxed air, Ann
was pruning her prize pomegranates. When her sister turned to her
visitors, however, Sammy saw the glint of apprehension in her
eyes.

Barely missing
a beat, Ann came forward. “You’ve brought a guest.”

“
This is
Chase Wild.” Sammy said. “The man who’s been helping
me.”

“
With your
investigation into the disappearance of the ring.” Ann offered a
thin smile and offered her hand. “Sammy says you’re
good.”

“
We seem to
have got to the heart of it,” he replied.

When he
withdrew his hand, Ann’s hovered mid-air before her smile tacked up
and she brushed a kiss on Sammy’s cheek. “Anyone care for something
to drink? Coffee? I have a new machine. You preset your favorite
with a fingerprint. With your background, that might interest you,
Mr. Wild.”

Chase grinned
at the joke but knocked back the offer while Sammy willed the
nerves to stop jitterbugging in her stomach. Best to spit it
out.

“
Why did you
do it, Ann? How could you lie to me all these years?”

Ann’s head
went back before a perfectly manicured eyebrow lifted and that thin
smile returned. She looked Chase up and down. “You
are
good.”

“
You stole
the ring,” Sammy went on, struggling to keep her voice steady. “You
stole it from
me
.
And then you took the insurance money. That’s fraud, Ann. And all
those lectures about needing to keep on the straight and narrow.”
She felt her lip curl. “I looked up to you.”

Ann’s face was
tight. A pulse was popping at the side of her neck. Sammy saw her
sister’s throat convulse twice before she managed a
reply.

“
I didn’t
mean for it to turn out like that.”

When Chase
turned around, Sammy realized that someone had joined
them.

Rick was
edging out onto the veranda, his expression guarded, thinning hair
lifting on a valley breeze. His eyes shifted between the three.
“Everyone looks so serious.”

Ann stepped
in. “She knows.”

Rick’s
complexion paled. He pulled out a chair and plonked
down.

“
We tracked
down your shop,” Chase said to Ann. “The drawers weren’t cleaned
out properly.”

“
It was a
legitimate business,” Rick said.

“
Which you
used to palm off the ring,” Chase added.

“
I hadn’t
planned it that way,” Ann said.

“
Then tell
us,” Sammy ground out. “How exactly
did
you plan it?”

Her sister
withered into a chair, too. “You didn’t know, but after Mom died I
got behind on rent. I borrowed to pay the funeral expenses. You
were so distant and angry. I was worried you might drop out of
school.”

“
So, you set
up the fraud,” Chase supplied.

“
I began
packing,” Ann said, “and searching for affordable
accommodation.”

“
I told Ann,”
Rick cut in, “that she could move in with me. Sammy, too, of
course. It wasn’t a palace but I couldn’t see another
way.”

Sammy
snapped. “
Bullshit
you couldn’t see another way.”

Ann’s arm shot
out, trying to calm her. “This isn’t Rick’s fault,” she said. “At
the beginning, it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

“
Stop lying,”
Sammy groaned, holding her roiling stomach. “It’s too late for
that.”

“
I packed up
my stuff,” Ann went on. “I was trying to find a way to tell you
that we needed to move. I knew you didn’t like Rick.” Ann’s eyes
glistened. “I’d just wished that Mom was still around. I was
twenty-one but it was
hard
, Sammy. So very hard for me to
know what to do.”

“
It was hard
on me too
.” When Sammy’s voice cracked,
she swallowed and toned it down. Yelling wouldn’t do any good. “Mom
would never have wanted us to break the law.”

Ann took a
deep breath. “Sammy, I
lost
the ring. When I was packing, I thought I’d put
it in a safe place, hidden among some books. But when I took those
boxes to Rick’s, I couldn’t find it. I searched and searched. I
couldn’t believe it.”

“
She told
me,” Rick said, sitting back, still looking white. “We searched
together. Everywhere. At my place and hers.”

“
I went to
the authorities,” Ann said. “I told them it must have been stolen.
I told them everything. I honestly believed it was taken from our
apartment. The insurance company believed that, too, because they
paid out.”

Sammy wanted
to shake her. “But it
wasn’t
stolen. You sold it two years later.”

Ann nodded.
“You’re right. It wasn’t stolen. I found it at the apartment a week
later. Suddenly it appeared in a nook in my bedroom. I remember
thinking Mom had brought it back. That she might have taken it in
the first place...”

As Ann
shrugged weakly, Sammy glanced at Chase; he didn’t look
convinced.

“
It just
showed up?” he drawled.

“
I know how
it sounds,” Ann said. “But hasn’t it happened to you? You can’t
find something. You search every conceivable place ten times over.
Then, out of the blue, it appears out of nowhere.”

Sammy
wondered. Yes, that had happened to her, and more than once, most
recently with an earring that had suddenly materialized again on
her bathroom counter. She’d thought at the time how weird it was.
She guessed that had happened to just about everyone. But in this
case, it sounded too convenient.

As Chase’s arm
wound around her back, Sammy lifted her chin. “What happened
next?”

“
By then,”
Ann went on, “the wheels were turning. The police were
investigating, although I don’t think too hard. The papers were
with the insurance company. I made a decision. I kept quiet. Rick
thought I was making a mistake.”

“
I told her
we should come clean and go back to plan A,” Rick said. “Both of
you moving in with me. We had a big argument about it.”

“
It spilled
out into the building hallway,” Ann explained. “I was so riddled
with guilt, I was sure someone would have overheard and turned us
in.”

“
Not us,
Ann,” Sammy pointed out. “Turn
you
in.”

Only Sammy’s
anger wasn’t as sharp as it had been. She could see by Ann’s ragged
expression that she was telling the truth. But that didn’t excuse
the fact that she had made that huge decision without her. She
would have disagreed, like Rick...who she suddenly had more respect
for. He’d wanted to do the right thing. And Ann had never let her
know the truth because she’d known Sammy would be livid. Because
she was afraid of being turned in or found out.

“
The
insurance money was paid out,” Ann went on. “We moved into a nice
place. You had money to go to college. I started up a
business.”

“
The cafe?”
Sammy asked. “Or the sex shop?”

“
You know I
love health and cooking. From day one, I adored my cafe, but it was
slow to kick off. After some research, I discovered what others
have known for centuries. What our courtesan ancestor certainly
knew. Sex sells.” Ann’s expression changed. “You almost came across
the ring one day,” she said. “You were looking through my jewelry
box and I came in. The blood froze in my veins.”

Sammy crossed
her arms. “Maybe that was the time to tell me.”

“
Maybe it
was.”

Chase spoke
up. “You decided to move it on instead.”

“
I sold a lot
of erotic jewelry,” Ann said. “There’s a huge market.”

“
I had no
idea about the shop,” Sammy said.

“
I didn’t
want it to influence you,” Ann explained. “You were a good girl. I
wanted you to stay that way.”

Sammy sat down
beside her. “You didn’t, well, get more into that scene, did
you?”

“
I sold lots
of steamy stuff,” Ann said, “but I never used it
myself.”

Rick spoke up.
“I can vouch for that.”

“
I kept the
ring there for a while, hidden away. One day a lady came in looking
for something different. Sexy but also classy. She was prepared to
pay a great deal.”

“
Mrs.
Garfield,” Chase said.

“
I showed her
the ring,” Ann said, “gave her a price. She walked out one very
happy customer and that was the end of the whole long, unpleasant
episode. Or so I thought.”

Rick added,
“She always intended to repay the insurance money.”

Chase cocked
an eyebrow. “How?”

“
I had ideas
of telling them,” Ann said, “that the ring had shown up and they
could have their payout back.”

“
But the
insurance company went belly up a year after the payout,” Rick
explained.

Sammy sat
there for a moment absorbing all she’d heard. She wasn’t happy with
it, but she could see how events and circumstances could have
gotten the better of Ann. She searched her sister’s
eyes.

“
Were
you
ever
going to
tell me?”

“
I always
wanted to,” Ann said, reaching for her sister’s hand. “I’m almost
glad you found out. I don’t know that Mom would ever forgive
me…”

When Ann’s
voice hitched and she hung her head, Sammy’s heart broke. She
squeezed her sister’s hand and then brought her in for a
hug.

“
So, what do
we do now?” Sammy asked, looking over at Chase.

He shut one
eye, thinking, and then exhaled.

“
I vote we
put together some fingerprints.” He grinned. “And make some
kick-ass coffee.”

After an hour
of coffee and more pleasant conversation, the sisters seemed to
have reconciled and somewhat mended their fences. Chase was pleased
by the outcome, but also, deep down, he was a little post party.
The case was solved. Sometime soon Sammy would be heading off for
L.A. He could travel down and visit, but how lame. He imagined the
conversation.

Hey. Thought
I’d rock in, take you out for dinner. Oh, and mind if I share your
bed for a night or two? Because I really do miss you.

Damn, he
missed her already.

After goodbyes
were exchanged, Chase made himself comfortable behind the wheel of
his vehicle while Sammy and Ann embraced. Sammy even gave Rick a
hug and a smile; seemed he wasn’t such a prick after all. Sammy
slid into the passenger side seat, but before she could shut the
door, Rick handed an envelope to Ann who passed it on to her
sister.

Sammy studied
it. “What this?”

“
Open it on
your way home,” Ann said, and then smiled softly at Chase. “Thanks
for helping make this right. This last bit...” She dropped a kiss
on her sister’s forehead. “Well, now all the loose ends will be
tied.”

They were out
on the road before Sammy ripped open the seal. Hands on the wheel,
Chase glanced across and grinned. “That looks
interesting.”

She extracted
a bank passbook and opened it to the identification page. “It’s a
bank account made out in my name, opened eight years ago.” She
flipped to the next page and made a sound like she’d lost her
breath. “There’s a single transaction. A deposit. A big
one.”

When she told
him the amount, Chase let out a long low whistle. “The purchase
price of the ring from Mrs. Garfield, I presume.”

“
There’s a
note or card in here, too. No. A photo....” Sammy sounded choked.
“It’s me and Ann selling homemade perfume in front of our old
building.” She flipped over the decades old snap. “There’s a
message on the back. It’s from Mom.”