DrillingDownDeep (14 page)

“Tell me how this all happened again, honey,” her father
asked. “It seems awfully fast. You maybe should hold off and see what other
possibilities there are.”

“No way, Pops. This job came out of nowhere and the pay’s good.
I had to jump on it.”

“Where’s the rig you said?”

She hadn’t. In fact, she’d been purposefully vague. Had to
be, since lying to her pops was, again, not one of her better skills.
Everything she was telling him was technically true—she’d never said the new
job was on a rig, he’d simply assumed it—but not the whole truth.

“Let me try it out first and if I like it, I’ll tell you all
about it.”

Not.

“And who is this friend who gave you the line on the job?”

“You don’t know him.” She dropped a light kiss on his cheek.
“Take care, Pops. I’ll see you in a week or two.”

And then she was out the door and into the lion’s den.

The reason for Michael to even have an office in Houston was
to do some actual work there. Not stare out the window on to the loop. A new
acquisition always needed the most attention from Reynolds Industries at the
beginning.

Kind of like a new mistress.

Unfortunately, he had been neglecting one for the other.
He’d barely been able to make it out of bed since Vanny accepted his
offer
.
Almost out of principle, he’d dragged himself into the office before they flew
back to New York this afternoon. But he’d spent all morning counting the
minutes until she showed up here and they could go. Not that he was so anxious
to get to New York. He wasn’t. He knew what he was anxious for. Her.

She’d been with him almost constantly for nearly a week and
he was waiting to tire of her company. Mysteriously, he hadn’t yet. They’d done
none of the things he usually did with a new mistress.

Except the sex of course. They’d done that.
A lot.
He
never seemed to tire of her lush, fit body and her fresh, honest enjoyment of
their time together in bed.

But there had been no romantic candlelit dinners at
five-star restaurants. No quick plane trips to Paris. No shopping sprees.

Michael had tried. All of those things. And Vanny had seemed
tempted by not a one of them. Especially, most shockingly, the shopping spree.

“I hate shopping,” she’d said when he continued to suggest
it. “It’s a necessary evil at most.”

Words he didn’t believe he’d ever heard out of one of his
mistress’s luscious mouths.

So when they weren’t in bed—and it was embarrassingly rare
that they weren’t—they were doing one thing or another he’d never done with a
woman. Jogging. Seeing a movie, in a regular theater, not some kind of premier.
Stopping at a fast-food restaurant.

That last, he could have done without, but Vanny had been
intrigued when he admitted he’d never eaten at a McDonald’s. Apparently, that
was unheard of, although after he
had
eaten there, he wondered why.

But he hadn’t done much work the whole week. Actually, any
work. He’d authorized the
Treasure Driller
to start operating again, but
couldn’t seem to get excited about the concept of finding out what had happened
there. In fact, he’d taken very few people into his confidence as to what
really had, not sure why.

The knock on the office door got his attention. He’d been
barking at Miss Prentiss all morning and he knew she wouldn’t venture in here
unless she had to.

“Yes.”

She came in.

“What? Is Vanny here?”

“Yes, Mr. Reynolds, but I’m afraid there was something of a
situation down in the lobby.”

“With Vanny?” He sat up straighter.

“There was a policeman at reception asking to see you.”

“Oh.” He turned back to the window. “You know better than
that. Have an in-house lawyer talk to them and get the details and then contact
Remy.”

Remy Lindsay, his personal lawyer for twenty years, would
handle whatever the local police wanted.

“Yes, of course. I sent someone from legal down, but in the
meantime, the policeman asked for Miss Donald.”

“Vanny? Why the hell for?”

“Apparently, it’s an inquiry regarding the
Treasure
Driller
.”

“Where is she?”

“That’s just it, sir. He asked the receptionist and she
pointed Vanny out as she was making her way to the elevator.”

“Oh shit.”

“The policeman asked to speak to her and she agreed. My
understanding is the in-house lawyer arrived just then and the three of them
went to a conference room in the legal department.”

“Where?” he snapped. When she gave him the location, he
strode out, adding, “Get hold of Remy and have him standing by for my call.”

Taking the regular elevator, not the executive elevator, he
went to the floor Miss Prentiss had indicated. Stepping out, he ignored the
stares of his employees as he headed toward the conference room buried at the
far end of the legal department. He didn’t recognize anyone and he was too
pissed off to even nod.

When he opened the door, Vanny was sitting there with a man
in a sports jacket, presumably the policeman, and a freckle-faced redhead he
recognized as the head of the litigation department for Transcoastal. All three
looked up in surprise at his entrance. The lawyer stood up. The policeman did
not.

“Mr. Reynolds,” the lawyer said. “This is Lt. Rigsby.
Lieutenant, this is our CEO, Michael Reynolds.”

“Yeah. The one I was told wasn’t here.”

Michael held his hand out to Vanny. “Come on. This interview
is over.”

Vanny was dressed in her usual outfit of jeans and a tee.
She didn’t look uncomfortable and she didn’t look about to obey him. So nothing
unusual all around.

“I’m just answering a few questions, Michael. I have nothing
to hide.”

Perhaps the most dangerous tool the authorities had in any
investigation.
I have nothing to hide.

Without disputing it, he went to the conference phone and
dialed in a number.

“Mr. Lindsay’s office,” came over the speaker.

“This is Michael Reynolds.”

“One moment, Mr. Reynolds.”

Remy came on a moment later. “What’s this all about?” he
asked.

Michael ignored the question and addressed the cop. “This is
Remy Lindsay, my personal attorney and the personal attorney for Miss Donald.
If you want to ask her any questions, you can contact him and set up an
appropriate interview, with counsel present. Not ambush her as she’s walking
through the lobby and fire questions at her.”

“So you two are friends?” the cop asked, looking from him to
Vanny and then back again.

“None of your fucking business.”

“Hold on,” Remy cautioned from the phone. “Would the
policeman there please identify himself?”

“Lt. Rigsby, Houston P.D.”

“Lieutenant, might we allow Mr. Reynolds and his, er, Miss
Donald to depart and then we can continue this conversation?”

“His,
er, Miss Donald
agreed to answer my questions
and I don’t hear anything different out of her now. So if it’s all the same to
you, I‘d like to keep going here. You can stay on the line if you want. No skin
off my nose.”

Michael tried to make eye contact with Vanny, but she was
purposely playing with the rim of her Styrofoam coffee cup and refusing to look
at him.

“Fine.” Michael sat down. “You can leave now,” he addressed
the litigator. God knew what Vanny would say, or had said already.

“Michael, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let me stay on
the line.”

“I didn’t mean you, Remy. You stay on.
You
,” he
nodded to the in-house lawyer, dismissing him, “can go.”

The guy left immediately.

“Okay, so as you were saying, Miss Donald, you found a
bomb.”

Oh fuck.
“Wait right there,” Michael interjected.
“What’s the purpose of you questioning her? This is a company matter. It has
nothing to do with the police.”

“If there even is any so-called matter,” Remy added from the
speaker, flying blind. “Perhaps you could explain what exactly it is you’re
investigating, Lieutenant.”

“We received reports that there was a bomb on a Transcoastal
rig, the
Treasure Driller
.”

“Reports from whom?” Remy asked. “The company refused to
comment on those reports.”

The lieutenant looked at the phone deadpan, as if Remy could
see him. “Look. Miss Donald here has already admitted she found a bomb.”

Vanny finally returned Michael’s intense stare and shrugged.

“What of it?” he snapped to the cop. “I’m not aware of
Transcoastal filing any police complaint on the incident.”

“Well, see the thing is, planting a bomb isn’t exactly a
private matter. We don’t need anybody to file a complaint. We kind of don’t
allow bombs, got it?”

“Given how far the rig is out in the Gulf,” Remy said, “I
doubt you even have jurisdiction, Lieutenant.”

“It’s a little murky, but the Coast Guard has asked us to
take a first stab at the investigation. Transcoastal is a Houston company, so
Houston has a vested interest in somebody planting a bomb on one of its rigs
right at our back door.”

“
I
didn’t plant it,” Vanny said.

“I did,” he said, before he even thought it through.

“Not another word, Michael.”

He ignored Remy. “It was a security exercise. I wanted to
see how the crew reacted to the situation.”

Both Vanny and the cop were looking at him skeptically.

“You left a ticking time bomb for Miss Donald to find. You
expect me to believe that?”

“The ticking was cosmetic. I claimed to disable it once I
was alone, but it wasn’t actually triggered in the first place. It was just a
dud. Looks no different. And I didn’t care who found it. I simply wanted to see
if someone would and what would happen as a result. Whether the evacuation
would be timely under those conditions. That kind of thing. Companies do this
kind of thing all the time, Lieutenant.”

Vanny seemed a little less sure. “Is this for real?” she
asked.

“Absolutely.”

Remy was silent on the other end.

“It was an exercise, as I said.”

“And you fired Miss Donald here because of an exercise?”

“That was purely temporary, for show. Transcoastal fully
intended to reinstate her at a future time.”

“And didn’t tell her?”

“Miss Donald and I came to other arrangements.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Of course. You obviously know we’re seeing each other. You
really believe I would be doing that if I had fired her for planting a bomb?
Talk about strange bedfellows.”

Now the cop didn’t look so sure. He glanced at Vanny.

“Surely you don’t investigate training exercises, do you?”
Michael said, standing up and holding out a hand to Vanny.

She stood up as well, although she declined to take his
hand. He opened the door, telling the litigator who was lingering outside,
“Please show this gentleman out.”

He didn’t say a word to Vanny in the elevator. Not a word.
When she started to say something, he shook his head definitively. A testament
to how he must have looked, she didn’t push it.

Once back in his office, he pulled her into the adjoining
bedroom.

“I am so angry at you,” he said once he’d closed the door.

She yanked her hand back. “So what? You going to spank me
now?”

“You know what? I’m the one with the money, but you’re the
one who’s spoiled.”

“Oh so I’m spoiled because I won’t jump when you snap your
fingers. ‘Get up, Vanny. Come here, dog.’ Is that it?”

“You’re spoiled because you do whatever the hell you want
without thinking out the consequences. Do you know what could have happened
down there with you just blithely admitting to finding a bomb?”

“I did find it!”

“Cops are not your friends, Vanny.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“And you’re being naïve. That lieutenant wasn’t your dad or
some roughneck you could charm, or
me
. He was a working-class stiff with
a case load he had to clear and the handiest suspect ever just handed to him!
The daughter of a guy who had been fired for sabotage! What do you think he
would have done with the information you gave him down there?”

“Investigate maybe? I didn’t plant that bomb, Michael, and
my dad didn’t tinker with the valves. And none of this is a fucking training
exercise, is it? Somebody is sabotaging your rig. I thought you might give a
crap about that and want to find out who was doing it.”

“What I give a crap about is not having you end up arrested
for it. You go off with a cop, without a lawyer—”

“For a rich guy, you’re awfully paranoid about the police.
Aren’t they all in your pocket or something anyway?”

“No! They’re not. I don’t bribe cops or pay off politicians
or anything else you’ve imagined in your little mini-series-McDonald’s mind.”

She slapped his face. “You condescending asshole.”

He held a hand up to his burning cheek. Oh he was so going
to teach her a lesson.

She hadn’t meant to slap his face. For one thing, it was so
drama-queenish. Almost straight from a mini-series, as he’d accused her. For
another thing, it seemed to really piss him off, if he wasn’t already as pissed
off as she’d ever seen him. She bet he’d never roughhoused as a kid either. She
remembered how furious he’d been when she pushed him in the cabin and surmised
her indignant slap just now hadn’t been her smartest move.

Use your words, Vanny,
her condescending playground
monitors had always urged her. She guessed she should have listened.

Michael yanked her over to the bed and sat down on the edge.
She tried to squirm away but he pulled her over on to his lap, face down on the
bedspread, her legs hanging out the other way.

She’d never been spanked in her life. He wouldn’t!

Before she could stop him, he unsnapped her jeans and pulled
them and her panties down just far enough so she was bare-assed over his lap.
She struggled wildly, but he held her in place with one hand. Easily.

“Don’t you dare, Michael!”

And then
smack
.

“You bastard!”

Smack. Smack.

His hand was so big it covered both her cheeks.

“You should’ve gotten a spanking a long time ago, Vanny.”

His slaps came down just hard enough to sting, but
controlled enough that she suspected he may have occasionally done this in the
past for more than teaching a woman a lesson.

“I’m going to leave this gorgeous ass with a little reminder
of what I think of your behavior this afternoon.”

The thought unexpectedly turned her on, as did the heat at
her backside. Closing her eyes, she let out something that sounded suspiciously
like a groan at another firm smack.