Lucky (19 page)

Lucky hit him in the rear with the racket as she passed. “You cannot handle even one of me, Nicholas, and you know it,” she drawled. “Come wash your face. You’re glowing.”

The men whooped with laughter. There was little else they could do. Lucky’s facetious reference to sweat was impossible to ignore. And Nick knew good and well who’d put that word in her vocabulary. Fluffy LaMont.

“I’m going to wash up now,” Nick said, and loped across the lawn after her.

Paul smiled and then stared at Lucky’s back as the couple walked into the house.

“Even the way she walks…”

“Don’t worry about it, sir,” Cubby cautioned. “You know what the doctors say. When it’s time, it’ll come to you.”

“To hell with the doctors,” he growled. “Let’s go inside. I’d love something cool to drink.”

Upstairs, the joy of the moment had gone from play to passion beneath the steam of a shower. There was more
soap on the walls than they’d gotten on themselves, but it didn’t matter. Blood ran hot as the lovers continued to volley and serve. But in this game, there were no misses and no faults. Just a man and a woman who refused to let go of the life that had bound them in love. In spite of a madman. In spite of it all.

That night, dinner was almost jovial. A servant removed the last of their plates as Shari wheeled in a cart filled with dessert.

“Oh, my gosh,” Lucky groaned, and pressed her hand to the flat of her stomach. “I can’t possibly eat another bite.”

Nick grinned at her, then eyed the array of chocolate. “I can,” he said. “I’ll have your share and mine.”

“There’s chocolate mousse, as well as fudge pie,” Shari said.

Lucky took another look at the cart. “Well…maybe just a little piece of that pie. Did you say it was fudge?”

Paul smiled. Lucky still had weight she needed to gain back from what she’d lost during Nick’s struggle for life. She could have eaten the entire array of desserts and suffered nothing but a bellyache for her indulgence.

“Just what I thought,” Nick said. “If it says fudge, it’s got your name on it, doesn’t it, honey?”

Lucky tried not to grin, but the truth was too hard to deny.

“It’s my favorite thing,” she admitted. “Queenie always made it for my birthday.”

Paul whooped with laughter. “You had fudge for your birthday instead of a cake? Why on earth would you do something like that?”

“Because welfare always gave us sugar and stuff like that. But we didn’t often have the money to buy many eggs.”

“Oh, Lucky, dear. I’m sorry I asked. Forgive me.” Paul’s soft remark was full of embarrassment and regret.

“No big deal,” she said, poking her fork at the fudge pie Shari set at her place. “Nearly everyone in Cradle Creek got welfare. That’s not what set us apart. My father’s profession did that all by itself.”

“Hell,” Nick said, unable to take a bite of the mousse Shari set before him. Before Lucky’s arrival into his life, he’d never realized how privileged his life had been.

Lucky rolled her eyes and then smiled in delight as she savored the bite she’d just taken. “Ummm…it’s almost as good as sex.” Then she looked up at Nick, who was turning redder by the minute. “Are you going to eat that?” she asked, pointing to his dessert.

He pushed it toward her plate and got another of his own.

“Here, baby,” he said softly. “You can have it. There’s more.”

Unaware of the impact her simple admission of poverty had made upon them, Lucky ate with relish while Nick and his father only picked at their food.

Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang as they continued to eat. If it was important, someone would bring a phone to the table. If it could wait, the message would be on Nick’s desk in the library. As fate would have it, Shari entered the dining room carrying the portable phone.

“Nick. It’s a man who insists on speaking to you. He said it was urgent.”

Nick shrugged. His appetite was gone anyway.

“Hello, this is Nick Chenault. What can I do for you?”

“For starters,” the voice whispered, “you could die.”

Unprepared for the impact of the words, Nick nearly dropped the phone. “Who the hell is this?”

Lucky went still. She’d never seen Nick this angry. His words were barely above a hiss. The first thought to enter her head was the threats on their lives.

To her dismay, she saw that her instincts about the caller were right when Nick covered the phone with the palm of his hand and mouthed to Cubby.
“Call the phone company. See if they can trace this call.”

Cubby ran without hesitation.

Satisfied that he’d done all he could from this end, Nick returned his attention to the man on the phone.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Nick said. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” the man growled. “Is your father there?”

“That’s none of your goddamned business,” Nick said, and inadvertently looked at his father’s face. But in doing so, he gave away the question he’d been asked.

“I’m making it my business,” the man whispered. “I’m making everything concerning you and yours my business. Did your pretty whore cry when you bled on her clothes? Next time I won’t miss.”

“You sonofabitch!” Nick stood abruptly. “You filthy coward. Don’t threaten me with words when you haven’t got the guts to show up and say them to my face.”

“Nick!”

Paul’s warning was loud and harsh. Without thinking,
he had shouted out of shock at hearing his son utter such a dangerous threat.

A slow, indrawn breath whistled in Nick’s ear, then turned into an ugly chuckle as the caller rejoiced.

“I heard his voice. It hasn’t changed much over the years. But he has…hasn’t he,
chico?
He got old…and sick. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge…would it?”

Nick frowned. The foreign word inserted into the conversation was impossible to miss.

But Dieter Marx was so high on revenge that he never heard himself say it. In all the years he’d spent in South America, he still thought in English. Yet, in the midst of this drama, without thinking, he’d used the Spanish word for
boy
.

“Where are you? Who are you?” Nick asked.

“In your head…behind your back. Right where you least expect.”

And then the line went dead.

Nick groaned as, moments later, Cubby came back in the room with a defeated expression on his face.

“I couldn’t get to the right people in time for them to start the trace, Nicky,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said. “It was unexpected. But if it happens again, we’ll be ready. I’m calling Detective Arnold. I want a tap on this phone.”

Lucky hadn’t moved or spoken since the incident began. Nick started out of the room, and in doing so, caught a look at her face. It was pale. Her eyes were wide and fixed. But it was the tears rolling unchecked upon her cheeks that sent him hurrying back.

“Lucky…baby…don’t cry.” He pulled her from the chair and into his arms.

Paul looked away, unable to face the devastation that this family was suffering, and all because of him. If only he knew why.

“He said he would hurt you again, didn’t he?” she gasped, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“What he said doesn’t matter,” Nick said, crushing her to his chest. “What does matter is that he gave himself away. Not much…but enough for me to know more than I did before he called.”

“What do you mean?” Paul asked.

“He let a word slip that I don’t think he meant to do.”

“What? What was it?” Lucky asked.

“He called me ‘boy.’”

“What’s the big deal about that?” Paul asked.

“In Spanish, Dad. He said it in Spanish.”

“
Chico?
He called you
chico?
” Lucky asked.

Nick was a little surprised that Lucky knew the word before he revealed it.

“I didn’t know you spoke the language, honey.”

“Lots of girls who cocktail at the club are either Latino, or married to one,” Lucky said. “I guess I picked up more of the language than I realized.”

Paul was quiet. Too quiet.

“Dad? Are you all right? Do you want me to call to your doctor?”

Paul’s eyes were fixed and horror-filled. “The last place Dieter Marx was sighted was in South America, wasn’t it, Nick? Oh, God…if it’s him, we’re doomed.”

“Why? Because he holds a grudge longer than most? Because he’s a hardheaded bastard who won’t give up?”

Paul’s voice softened. The light in his eyes seemed to fade as he stared back into the past.

“The first time we ever got drunk, we must have been, oh…maybe fourteen, fifteen years old. J. J. snuck a fifth of bourbon out of his daddy’s house while Dieter and I waited in the bushes. J. J. and I got drunk first. So we got sick first. But Dieter…old Dieter…he was the master at everything, you know. He was still walking tall when we were on our asses.”

Nick sensed that his father imagined a connection between that story and the drama unfolding now. He dropped back in his chair, taking Lucky with him, holding her tight upon his lap while she trembled and he listened. The tale continued to unwind.

“So three teenage boys got drunk. What’s the point, Dad?”

“The point is, Nicky, drink made Dieter crazy. Sick in his head, crazy. While we were puking all over the place, Dieter was busy sawing off the feet of the neighbor’s dog with a pocketknife for licking it up.”

Lucky put her hands over her face to block out the horror of the words. But it was a pointless gesture. The image was already burned in her brain.

“Good God,” Nick muttered. “He actually cut off the…?” He froze as the memory surfaced. “I’ve got to talk to Detective Arnold.”

Lucky jumped off his lap to keep from being dumped as Nick bolted toward the door.

“But I haven’t finished,” Paul said. “You’ve got to know how twisted and sick he can be when he’s drunk.”

Nick paused in the doorway. “That’s just it. I think we already know. Remember when they found Steve Lucas’s body?”

They nodded, unable to see the connection.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you. It was so grisly, I didn’t see the need.”

“What?” Paul urged.

“They had a difficult time making the identification on the body,” Nick said. “Partly because he’d been dead a while before the discovery, and partly because they couldn’t get any fingerprints.”

Paul shrugged. “You just said he’d been dead some time. Surely the body had begun to…” He looked at Lucky, gauging her condition before adding, “…shall we say, deteriorate.”

“They couldn’t get any prints because he didn’t have any hands.”

“Oh, my God!” Lucky whispered, and felt the room start to spin.

“Oh, damn,” Nick muttered, and caught her as she fell.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did in front of her.”

“No, Dad. We have to know it all, or none of us will survive. She’ll be all right.” He lifted her into his arms, his face filled with concern as he started toward the stairs. “As soon as I get her to bed, I’m making that call. This is all too coincidental for my peace of mind.”

And then Paul was left alone in the dining room with the remnants of their dessert staring him in the face. He
covered his face with his hands and muttered, “I’ve come to believe that only in death does man achieve peace of mind.”

But there was no one to hear his morbid thought. And less than an hour later, Will Arnold came calling with some news of his own.

T
he phone company readouts of the calls made from Charlie Sams’s residence were strung out across the desk in the library. Nick and Detective Arnold were deep in conversation while another man worked silently nearby, setting up the phone tap that Nick had requested.

Lucky sat in a chair near the fireplace and stared at the blazing logs, absently watching the smoke spiral up into the chimney above. This whole fiasco was almost too theatrical to be believed. The urge to simply walk out on the play in action was overwhelming except for a few simple facts. The bomb that had been placed in Nick’s car. The bullet scar high up on his chest. And the bodies of men that kept surfacing after each of these bungled attempts.

She hung her head in defeat. The web of death and deceit was woven too tightly for escape. She, as well as the Chenaults, were virtual prisoners until the man, whoever he was, was caught.

Nick knew she was frightened and depressed. It was a depressing situation. But because of the matter at hand, he couldn’t let himself get bogged down in her fear.

The phone call tonight was their first solid clue since the terror began. It wasn’t much, but along with the information Will Arnold had brought, it was an important link.

“See,” Arnold said, as he ran his hand down the computer readouts. “Here…and here. This date, and this one. All calls were made through an overseas operator.”

“Can you tell the location?” Nick asked, making little headway in deciphering the log.

“Laws of disclosure, which control the right to acquire such information, vary from country to country. About all I know for sure at this point is that they were made from somewhere in South America.”

As Lucky heard Arnold’s words, the memory of Paul’s childhood story, and the horror of what Dieter Marx had done, came back with startling clarity. She gasped and dropped the wineglass she’d been holding. It shattered on the flagstones in front of the fire with a brittle, tinkling sound. The web around them had suddenly grown tighter. A servant hastened to clean up the glass and the wine before any damage was done, but it was too late to stop the horror from spreading in Lucky’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to face the men who stared. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

Before Nick could say anything of comfort, she was gone. He rubbed the back of his neck in a weary gesture as the detective began gathering up his reports.

“Coupled with what you told me about your call, this
adds up to enough reason to get some classified files resurrected from inactive to active,” Arnold said.

Nick frowned as he continued to press Arnold for answers the man clearly didn’t want to divulge. “Classified? The old warrant that Las Vegas had on Dieter Marx was fairly open and shut, wasn’t it? He committed a murder. He escaped. What was the big secret about that?”

“Yes and no,” Arnold said. “There were rumors that after Marx fled to South America, he got involved bigtime in gun running and financing wars and revolutions. More than one country had been after him when the story of his death surfaced.”

“Oh, man,” Nick said. “This keeps getting worse and worse. And the awful thing is, we still don’t know if it’s him. All of this is simply guesswork.”

Arnold grimaced as he gathered up his men and his papers and headed for the door. “Everything the law is based on orbits around clues and facts, but a lot of a detective’s luck comes from hunches. Never ignore your gut feelings, Chenault. It could get you killed.”

“Thank you for that timely advice,” Nick drawled. Giving him advice on how to stay safe was, at this point in his life, a bit moot.

After Arnold was gone, the silence of Nick’s home had never more been more eloquent, or more welcome. Nick started up the stairs. At the moment, getting to Lucky was the only thing on his mind.

Lucky stood at the window, clutching the parted curtains tightly in her hands as she watched the police drive away. If only they’d taken the danger with them, she thought.
“How much longer?” she muttered aloud. “How much longer will this last?”

“As long as it takes to keep us safe, baby,” Nick said.

Lucky dropped the curtain and spun around as Nick entered the room, closing the door behind him. Moments later she was trembling in his arms and trying not to cry.

“I love you so much,” Nick whispered. “Trust me to make this better.”

The room whirled around her. Everything about the entire night seemed evil, and as hard as they had tried, the unknown assassin kept insinuating himself into their lives. It was suddenly all too much to endure.

“Then prove it,” she begged. “Make me forget this is happening. Make me forget everything but you.”

His eyes turned dark. A kick of emotion sent his pulse into overdrive as Lucky started to shed one item of clothing after the other. Desperation colored her intent as she began to tear at his clothes as well.

“Ssh,” he whispered, and pulled her to him, cradling her head against his chest in an effort to calm her shaking. “Not so fast. Not so fast. Let me help.”

She sighed and went limp within his arms as he began digging through the coils of her hair. One after another, the pins came out, and her hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. Black as the coal from the hills where she’d lived, what it covered of her body was just a tease for what lay beneath.

Motionless, she waited, absorbing the joy in Nick’s gaze as he looked his fill. And then looking was not enough. His hands skated down the surface of her hair, testing the buoyancy of her breasts under the stray locks.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and then lifted her hair from her shoulders to make way for his mouth. His tongue raked across one nipple, while his teeth squeezed…just enough…not too much. One breast. Then the other. Back and forth until Lucky felt she would die from the pleasure.

She groaned as a wave of heat swept through her belly and beyond. With both hands, she clasped Nick’s head to her breast and urged him closer, tighter. Inside, she felt the honey as it started to flow. She wanted…needed…that mind-altering drug of release that came only with the climax of Nick’s lovemaking.

Nick grunted with surprise at the audacity of her movement and felt an answering nudge from his own body as it rose to the occasion, pushing against the confines of the clothes he had yet to remove. By the time he too was undressed, he was aching for her.

“Come to bed, lady,” he whispered.

A storm of passion clouded his eyes and thickened his voice as he held out his hand for her to follow him down. She shuddered, rocking on her feet from the waves of excitement he’d unleashed in her. Nick caught her before she fell.

The bedcovers were smooth against her back, a cool contrast to the heat in her body. Her breasts rose as she took a deep breath. Moments later her eyelids opened, and she was staring back up at him, powerless to deny him anything he wished. Her world revolved around the man and his love.

Nick tried to smile. But the knowledge that he’d brought her to this point with so little foreplay was over
whelming. And in a strange way, also frightening. The responsibility of loving like this could be dangerous, for Lucky as well as for him. If he lost himself in this woman, he might lose sight of the danger that they were in. If that happened again, as it had on the night he’d been shot, next time neither of them might survive.

Lucky encircled her arms around his neck.

He shook as he succumbed to her plea, then lowered his head, feathering kisses across her lips and down and around the valley between her breasts.

She sighed as she shifted beneath his weight.

“I will die if you don’t do something fast,” she whispered, and slipped her hands between their bodies, then captured the hard, thrusting length of him within her fingers.

His eyes closed. His blood raced. All he could do was hold on and wait for the madness to begin.

After the shock of the phone call, oddly enough, the weeks passed with no further incidents. Slowly, the terror faded into a shadowy fear that never quite left. They worked, ate, made desperate love, and then drifted into sleep, only to repeat the routine again and again throughout the ensuing days.

Because of the onset of preparations for Paul Chenault’s annual birthday bash, Lucky had begged a promise from Lucille LaMont that she would help her find something to wear. So they met for lunch in early October.

“Sorry about all the drama,” Lucky said, eyeing the bodyguards as well as Fluffy’s reaction to their presence
when she slid into the circular booth at the restaurant and leaned over for her kiss.

Fluffy promptly returned the peck, then straightened the rather low-cut neck of her outfit to make certain that enough of her bosom still showed.

“Sweetheart, think nothing of it,” she said. “I rather like it. It reminds me of the old days. Back then, anyone of any importance, whether good or bad, was accompanied by muscle, you know.”

Lucky grinned. “I’m glad you could have lunch with me,” she said. “I miss you. I miss hearing your stories. I miss picking cat hair off of my clothes, and helping you choose what to wear to the salon on Thursdays.”

Lucky’s innocent statement had the old woman close to tears. No one missed the company as badly as she did. But she would have cut out her tongue before admitting to the loneliness she’d felt when Lucky had been forced to move into the Chenault home for protection.

“One of these days this will all be over. And then you can look back on it and tell your grandchildren what exciting days you lived through,” she said.

“If I live long enough to have any children to produce them,” Lucky muttered.

“Hush! Enough of bad news,” Fluffy pronounced. She changed the subject by patting her hair and arching her brows. “So…what do you think?”

Lucky grinned. “I think you wouldn’t need headlights on a moonless night,” she said. “What’s this one called?”

The old woman chuckled at Lucky’s apt description of her newest hair color. It did have a tendency to glow.

“It’s called Power Platinum.” She lifted her dinner
plate, using it as a mirror, and tilted it enough to catch the light. “Do you really like it?”

Lucky slid her hand across the tablecloth and tenderly clasped the old woman’s hand. “Fluffy LaMont…it’s just you!”

“It is, isn’t it?” The plate went back in place as the waiter appeared and handed them menus.

“What are we having?” Lucky asked. She always let Fluffy choose. It gave her such pleasure to be in charge that it wasn’t in Lucky to object when odd combinations of food arrived.

“Hmmm, how about lobster bisque, asparagus
en croute
, barbecued chicken wings, and for dessert…some Mississippi mud cake?”

Lucky hoped her expression didn’t show the horror her stomach felt.

“Sounds like an experience, Lucille. Order away. I’m game if you are.”

Fluffy’s mouth pursed at the proper use of her name, and she imperiously waved to their waiter to summon his attention.

“Of course you are game,” she said, as she waited for him to make his way across the room. “That’s why we get along. You have guts, girl!”
And
, Fluffy thought,
you’re so much like I was when I was young that it scares me
. “All or nothing,” she muttered, unaware that she’d said that last bit aloud.

“All, of course,” Lucky said, thinking she was referring to the food, “I’ll have it all.”

Fluffy smiled. “That’s the only way to go.” As soon as the waiter had taken their order and left, she added, “Now.
Tell me all about this party. When is Nick planning to hold it? And what on earth will you wear?”

“Next week. Sunday afternoon. Outdoors if weather permits. And I haven’t the slightest clue. That’s why I need you. You’re the fashion expert. Oh, I almost forgot. You’ll be getting an invitation in the mail. Nick said he’d send a car for you.”

Fluffy clapped her hands. “Marvelous. Just like the old days when people knew how to party. Now…” She leaned forward, peering intently at Lucky’s face, hair, and figure, assessing what she had to work with. “I think…something casual yet sexy. Maybe a soft, flowing pants and jacket ensemble. Possibly a lace or metallic knit camisole beneath. Something that covers just enough, but makes men want to snatch it right off.”

Lucky leaned back in her chair, her eyes shining, her mouth split wide in a grin. “Fluffy…you never cease to amaze me.”

“Why?” Fluffy said.

“Because no matter what you put on, you’re always considering the best way to get it off.”

Fluffy smiled. And as she did, Lucky had a flash of the fabulous female she once must have been. “But darling, of course. It was what I did. I took it off. All off. Remember?”

“Vividly,” Lucky said. The waiter appeared with steaming dishes of food. “Oh, good. Soup and chicken wings. I suppose that means that the asparagus and cake come next.”

“Don’t be such a smart mouth,” Fluffy remarked, waving her soup spoon at Lucky’s nose. “Eat your food like a
good girl. When we’re through, we’ll go back to my place. You can help me pick out something to wear. I wouldn’t want to shock the old dames of society who are certain to be invited to Paulie’s soirée.”

Lucky frowned. “What did you call him?”

“Who? Paul? Oh, that. That’s what he was called in the old days. I didn’t realize I’d used it. Don’t repeat it or he’ll kill me. He absolutely hates it.”

Lucky nodded and wondered why a chord of memory had just been struck. But before she could pursue the notion, Fluffy’s red satin jumpsuit caught the attention of some old-timers passing their table. Their prompt recognition of the aging celebrity set the bodyguards in motion as the people clamored for an autograph. By the time it was all sorted out, Lucky had forgotten about the slip of Paul Chenault’s name. And when she heard it again, it was already too late to prepare herself for the shock that would come with recognition.

The day was perfect, just as Nick had predicted. But it was only the weather that was cooperating with his father’s party. The rest of it was going to hell in a handbasket.

Nick’s desk was cluttered with paper. He kept swiveling his chair from one side of his desk to the other while he made continuous notes. And every time impatience struck, he shifted his phone to his other ear, just as he was doing now.