Against the Odds (14 page)

Fifteen

I
t took almost two hours to get the
paperwork completed and Sabrina released from the hospital. Alex waited
patiently through it all, anxious to get her home and settled.

His home, that was, where she would be safe.

She was sitting in the passenger seat of his BMW, a thick white
padded brace around her neck, her cuts and bruises more purple and pronounced
than they had been yesterday. Alex drove more slowly than he usually did,
determined not to jostle her battered body and make her feel worse.

“There’re a couple of things we need to talk about,” he said as
he headed toward her uptown apartment.

Sabrina turned a little in her seat so she could look at him.
“You want to see a copy of Uncle Walter’s will.”

“For starters, yes.”

“I’ll have to run it down. It should be filed with the rest of
my legal papers, diplomas, my birth certificate, things like that.”

“Should be interesting to see if you’re right about the
survivorship clause.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s something like that. I don’t know if
that’s the legal term. If I die, the property goes to someone else. Walter’s
children, I think. It would make the most sense.”

“How many did you say he had?”

“Three. Robert, George and Priscilla.”

Alex turned west onto San Felipe and merged into traffic.
“There’s something else,” he said, wanting to get this out of the way before he
reached her apartment and she had time to dig in her heels. “You aren’t going to
like it.”

She caught his gaze in the mirror. “What is it?”

“Until we know what’s going on, I want you to stay with
me.”

She frowned. “Stay with you? Where? At your house? Don’t be
ridiculous. I can’t do that.”

“I’d stay at your place, but you don’t have enough room, you
don’t have the best security and you’re too easy to find. My house is better
equipped to handle the two of us and no one will know you’re there.”

“That’s crazy. I’m staying at my house and you’re going
home.”

“That isn’t going to happen, Sabrina. I’ll get Sage and
Jake—hell, I’ll call your mother if that’s what it takes to convince you. You’re
going somewhere safe until we sort this out. That someplace is my house.”

“I can’t believe this. You would actually call my mother?”

“You bet I would. If you’re right about the car—and you very
well could be—someone wants you dead. I’m not letting that happen.” He sliced
her a sideways glance, saw uncertainty creep into her features.

“Having a houseguest is a lot of trouble,” she hedged.

He smiled. “You won’t take up much room.”

Sabrina rubbed her forehead, looked back at him in the mirror.
“Are you sure, Alex?”

“I’ve got plenty of space. I don’t expect you to spend the
night in my bed unless you want to.”

“Oh. Well...”

“I’ve got a pool. It’s very private. No one will bother
you.”

She ran her tongue over her split, puffy lip. “I like to swim.
It’s very good exercise.”

“Then it’s settled.” And with less haranguing than he’d
figured. But then she didn’t have her usual energy—she was just recovering from
a near-fatal car crash. His jaw tightened as he pulled up in front of her
apartment.

“We’ll go in and pack what you need. Take a look at the will,
then I’ll take you home and get you settled.” He rounded the car and opened her
door. She was shaky on her feet as he helped her climb out of the car.

“If you aren’t feeling up to it, I can take you straight to the
house and come back with Sage to get your things.”

“I’m okay. Besides, I’ve got to get the will.”

He didn’t argue. He needed to find out who would benefit by
Sabrina’s death.

“You don’t have a will of your own?” he asked as they stepped
into the entry, not wanting to overlook the obvious, that the beneficiary of
Sabrina’s will might be the person arranging her “accidents.” Assuming any of
his suspicions were real.

“I suppose I need one, but no. If something happens to me, my
mom’s the beneficiary on my life insurance policy, which isn’t very big, and she
also signs on my bank accounts.”

He didn’t see her mother as a suspect, at least not at the
moment. And from what he’d learned, after the stock market tanked, there wasn’t
much money left in Sabrina’s bank accounts, anyway.

The first thing they did when they got inside the apartment was
look for the will. It was right where she’d thought, filed in a small fireproof
safe in her study along with the rest of her important papers.

On the third page, he found the clause she’d remembered. If
Sabrina died within two years after receiving the inheritance from her uncle and
no significant improvements had been made to the property, it went to Walter’s
three children, Robert, George and Priscilla. Should that happen, a monthly
payment was to go to Florence Eckhart for life from the profits of the mine or
proceeds of sale from the property.

“You were right,” Alex said. “If you die, his kids get the land
and your mom gets a monthly stipend for the rest of her life.”

“Walter was my dad’s older brother. He and my father were
close. After Dad died, Walter and Mom stayed in touch as much as possible. He
would have trusted me to take care of her from whatever he gave me, but he’d
want to make sure she got enough to live on if his kids got the property.”

“None of his kids tried to contest the will?”

“Robert did some grumbling about it, but it never went any
further than that.” She took the document out of his hand, flipped back a couple
of pages. “Walter left his children whatever money he had in the bank. If I
remember, it came to about fifty thousand. Besides the property, that was all he
had left in the world.”

She showed him the page. “There’s a clause here that says if
any person named in the will contests it, that person receives nothing. I guess
my cousins didn’t want to lose their portion of the money he left them. As far
as they were concerned, going to court for what they considered a hunk of
worthless desert wasn’t worth it. Or at least that’s what I figured at the
time.”

“Or they figured there was a better way to get hold of the
land—a way that insured they couldn’t lose it in a court battle. They could just
get rid of you.”

Sabrina started shaking her head. “We’re cousins. We grew up
together in Uvalde. We were never close, but I can’t imagine any of them trying
to kill me.”

“Twenty million can do funny things to people.”

“How would they even know about the mine? I’m sure Walter never
told them.”

“You said he was convinced there was silver on the land. You
think his kids didn’t believe him but that might have changed.”

She didn’t try to argue and he could see she was really getting
tired. “I’ll make a copy of the will while you pack. I think it’s past time we
got you home and settled.”

Sabrina nodded and headed for her bedroom. He tried not to let
his mind wander back to what had happened in that room the last time he’d been
in her apartment, but his brain refused to obey. A memory of hot, steamy sex
popped into his head and he started getting hard.

Alex cursed.

He wasn’t sure what it was about this particular lady that sent
him into caveman mode, but it seemed to happen fairly often. Focusing his
attention on the will, he walked over to Sabrina’s printer and scanned a copy,
then returned the recorded document to the fireproof safe.

It took twenty more minutes for Sabrina to pack a bag, grab her
laptop and ask the neighbor, Mrs. Renhurst, to water her plants and pick up the
morning paper while she was away on an extended trip.

He’d cautioned her not to tell anyone, not even her neighbor,
where she was going. Since the last person she remembered talking to about their
trip to Rio Gordo before the helicopter crash was her mother, he didn’t want
even her mom to know.

But that was an argument they’d have later. Right now he just
wanted to get her home and settled and take the exhausted look off her face.

* * *

From Rina’s apartment, Alex drove down San Felipe and
turned into a quiet, shady neighborhood in River Oaks. He pulled into a garage
attached to a white, single-family residence, not a condo as Rina might have
guessed since he was a bachelor.

She waited while he unlocked the door from the garage into the
utility room, then came back to help her out of the car. Slinging the strap of
her handbag, retrieved from the wreck, over her shoulder, she took his arm as
she climbed the two steps into the house.

The kitchen was very upscale, with ultramodern white
appliances, lovely honey-colored wood cabinets, and white-and-gold granite
countertops. As they moved through the dining room into the living room, she saw
it was surprisingly traditional, with a brass chandelier in the entry suspended
over white-and-gold marble floors.

The colors in the living room were masculine: cream, brown and
gold. The dark brown sofa looked comfortable. The throw pillows on top matched
the chairs beside it, which were done in a striped fabric of the same gold,
cream and brown and appeared to be expensive designer pieces.

The fireplace had a warm maplewood hearth. A gold silkscreen
with a slightly Asian flair ran along one wall. The results were sophisticated
and expensive. Masculine with class and style.

Sabrina turned to find Alex standing behind her. “It’s
beautiful, Alex.”

He smiled. “If you’re going to ask if I did it myself, the
answer is no. My sister has a pretty good flair for design, but she wasn’t
living in Houston when I bought the house.”

“Whoever did it did a wonderful job.” There was an unspoken
question in the remark.
Who was responsible? One of your
many female conquests?
But Alex left the question unanswered.

“The family room is more casual,” he said. “I spend most of my
time in there.”

“I’d love to see it.”

His eyes ran over her face. “You’re looking a little pale. How
about a nap then I’ll give you a tour?”

A nap sounded wonderful. She realized she had been running on
adrenaline and determination since she’d left the hospital. “That might be a
good idea.”

“Your bedroom’s upstairs. I can carry you if your legs are
still shaky.”

“I’m fine.” But as she started up the stairs, her legs began to
tremble and Alex carefully scooped her up in his arms.

“I’m not hurting your neck?” he asked as he effortlessly made
his way to the top.

“No.” But she was suddenly breathless just the same. Since the
night they’d made love, she’d thought of him a hundred times, remembered the way
his body felt on top of her, inside her, remembered those hard, beautiful
muscles that were moving and bunching even now as he carted her down the hall
and into in a bedroom done in soft shades of cream and blue.

She glanced around as he set her on the bed. The furniture was
expensive, a mahogany four-poster and matching dresser and nightstands, a pale
blue silk comforter on the bed. “Whoever she was, she had exquisite taste.”

“That was the reason I hired her.”

She flicked him a glance. “Not because you wanted to take her
to bed?”

He grinned unrepentantly. “That, too, but it was a long time
ago.”

Sabrina just shook her head. Alex settled her on top of the bed
and busied himself removing her sneakers, fluffing the pillows and easing them
behind her head, tossing a blanket over her legs.

“I’ll get your stuff out of the car and be right back,” he
said.

Sabrina nodded and relaxed against the pillows. Her eyes felt
heavy and she was drifting on the edge of sleep when her cell phone started
chiming. Alex had left her purse on the nightstand. She reached for it, dug out
her phone and pressed it against her ear. “Hello?”

“Sabrina. This is Arturo. Your friend, Mrs. Cantrell,
telephoned yesterday to tell me about the accident. I phoned the hospital this
morning, but they said you had already been released. I am so sorry to hear you
were injured. I hope you are feeling better.”

“Much better, thank you. I appreciate your call, Arturo. We’ll
need to reschedule—”

With a low curse, Alex dropped her overnight bag, stormed
across the room and took the phone out of her hand.

“Ms. Eckhart isn’t feeling well enough to talk,” Alex said
darkly. “She’ll have to call you back.”

“What are you doing?” Rina demanded. “Arturo and I were
involved in a business conversation!” But Alex had already broken the
connection.

“No more phone calls. There’s a GPS tracking device inside your
cell.” He pulled out the battery, opened the drawer in the nightstand and dumped
the phone and the battery inside. “I’ll buy you a disposable at the grocery
store then there won’t be any way to track you here.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”

“You’re the one who told me you thought your accident wasn’t an
accident.”

She reached up to adjust the uncomfortable collar. “Maybe I was
wrong.”

Alex tugged her suitcase over and set it up on the dresser.
“Why don’t we wait and see what the cops find out.”

Rina didn’t say more, just leaned back against the pillow and
closed her eyes, let the exhaustion she was feeling sweep over her.

She didn’t hear Alex leave. She had already fallen asleep.

* * *

Alex watched her a moment, then quietly left the
bedroom. She was sleeping hard, her body trying to recover from the trauma it
had undergone. He got to the bottom of the stairs before his iPhone started to
ring.

Alex pulled the phone out of his pocket, recognized the caller
ID as belonging to Trace and pressed the phone against his ear. “Hey, buddy, you
got something for me?”

“Mark Sayers just called. He says the bolt came off the
steering rod. No prints, nothing to say for sure whether it happened by accident
or if someone loosened the bolt enough it would eventually work its way off the
rod.”