She Can Hide (She Can Series) (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY
-
TWO

“I’m sorry. Would you please repeat that, Kenneth?” Ryland went to the sideboard and poured scotch into a tumbler. His doctor wanted him to give up alcohol. What was the point of living longer if a man couldn’t enjoy anything?

“Homemade explosive devices, Mr. Valentine,” Kenneth repeated.

“Messy way to kill a person.” Ryland sipped his scotch. The aged amber liquid slid down his throat with a smooth, smoky burn. “Unreliable too.”

“Obviously.” Kenneth’s tone dripped with disgust. He detested shoddy work.

Ryland despised unanswered questions. “Do we know who or why?”

“No, sir. But I will shortly,” Kenneth said. “The only witness is a child. He’s been taken into custody.”

As much violence as Ryland had seen and perpetrated in his scratch-and-claw fight to the top of life’s dog pile, harm to children left a bad aftertaste. But a witness could be a problem.

“Do you know where he is?” Ryland settled at the desk in his study. He eased his conscience with a deep swallow of scotch.

“Yes.” Kenneth’s voice turned grave, and Ryland wondered if Kenneth had ever drawn a line. Or had the atrocities he’d witnessed at a tender age left him completely numb to humanity, devoid of compassion? “I’m sitting outside the house now.”

Ryland ended the call. He turned to face the bank of windows that encompassed the wall of his study. His home was on the Point. On one side, a deck and pool area led onto a private beach. On the other, patio seating and a hot tub overlooked the harbor. The windows in his office had a stunning view of Little Egg Harbor Inlet. Tonight the water was busy. Whitecaps churned and black water undulated. Small green buoy lights bobbed and blinked in the darkness. With each pulse of dancing light, the ocean warned him.

A storm was gathering force.

Ryland clicked on the flat-screen that hung on his wall and tuned to the weather channel. Needing quiet, he muted the volume. A wall of green marched up the coast. The forecast hadn’t changed. No coastal advisory had been issued. The weather would be nasty, but it wasn’t time to board up the windows. Ryland shut off the TV and turned back to his scotch.

“Ryland!” Marlene’s voice interrupted his musing. His wife must have returned from her girls’ night out.

Pocketing his phone, he left his office. In the center of a two-story glass atrium, the stairway curved to the lower floor. Marlene was in the living room. Still dressed from her dinner and show, she looked every bit the elegant wife of a successful businessman. Pride warmed him. He’d done the right thing by preserving his marriage. Once, he’d been tempted to throw it all away for a pretty blonde. Thank goodness he’d come to his senses. His sons, his reputation, all would have suffered if he’d succumbed to his affair. He’d have become a walking cliché, one more man who thought buying a younger wife would somehow stop the passage of time.

He had plenty of associates who left their children’s mothers and accumulated trophy wives. The same men got manicures and facial treatments. Botox and plastic surgery left them ridiculous caricatures of themselves.

Ryland was old-fashioned that way. Beauty treatments were for women. Period.

A man earned respect through power and money. Unless referring to his wife or girlfriend,
pretty
didn’t enter into the masculine equation for success.

“How was your evening?” He buzzed her smooth cheek with his lips, careful not to muss her still-perfect makeup. After decades of marriage, he’d never seen her without her “face” on, as she referred to her morning beauty routine. It pleased him that she cared to make herself attractive for him and that even now she was still willing in the bedroom.

“We had a lovely time.”

“The show?”

Marlene had attended a concert at a rival casino.

She shrugged. “Disappointing. We left early and had more wine instead.”

That explained the sparkle in her eyes.

He eyed her shapely calves. Maybe tonight…

Marlene caught his look. Was that a frown?

Ryland shifted closer. “What’s wrong?”

She pulled back. Coy? Marlene liked to play games. She kept him on his toes. “Nothing.”

“Would you like a nightcap?”

Marlene crossed her legs. Her skirt rose on her thigh. “Yes, please.”

She was going to make him work for it. As usual. Ryland got up and crossed the hardwood to the bar in the corner. He refreshed his scotch and mixed Marlene a martini. One thing about his wife, she had never been “easy.” Her philosophy was that when a man worked for something, he appreciated it more.

Ryland gave her credit. Her methods worked. Young women could take lessons in catching and keeping a man from his wife. He’d strayed over the years, but he always came back. He handed her the martini, and she sipped delicately and licked her lips.

Ryland’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

His wife raised a
now?
eyebrow.

“I’ll turn it off.” Ryland pulled the phone out. His thumb went to the
OFF
button. A number popped onto the screen, and the call went to voicemail. He froze.

“I’m sorry. I have to make a call.” He stood.

Marlene’s eyes sparked with anger. “Work will be the end of you. At your age, you should be relaxing, not working until you drop.”

At his age?

Well, didn’t that take the wind out of his metaphorical sails. His erection deflated like a punctured bike tire.

A
whoops
look crossed her face. She knew that insinuating that he was too old to take care of business was one step over the line. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I simply want you to enjoy the life you worked so hard to create.”

“It’s quite all right, my dear.” He patted her thigh. “I’m not as young as I used to be. Perhaps you’re right. I should be easing back on my responsibilities.”

As Ryland walked out of the living room, in the corner of his eye, he saw his wife toss her martini back.

He was going to have to face facts. He was old. And his new plan did include passing the family business down to his sons. After he’d cleaned up the last few entrails, of course.

He went back into his study, closed the door behind him, and pressed
CALL BACK
.

Tension gripped his muscles as the ring sounded in his ear. This call followed Kenneth’s too closely for it to be a coincidence.

Abby left the rental car in the parking garage attached to the casino. The cold damp was welcome. Despite the triple espresso and chocolate, her head was fuzzy and her eyes sticky with exhaustion. But then it was two a.m. Not that you could tell from the casino, designed to camouflage the time of day. Were there any windows on the casino level? Probably not. Management wanted people inside, with the clanging bells and flashing lights urging them to lay down their chips. Views of a pretty beach would draw customers away from the tables. Casinos wanted people inside, handing over their money on the pie-in-the-sky chance of hitting it big—something that wasn’t going to happen. The odds were always with the house.

She walked past the opening to the gaming floor. For a winter night, business was good, but weekends were usually busy. Even in the off-season, people within driving distance sought Atlantic City as a weekend getaway. Take in a show, have a nice dinner, gamble, and then maybe spend the following afternoon shopping the outlet stores.

She turned down a wide hallway and passed a bank of silver-fronted elevators. She emerged into the hotel lobby. Black marble floors gleamed. Overhead, chandeliers sparkled. At this hour, the view out the glass doors was all dark night and bright lights. In the morning, the landscape couldn’t hide under the cover of darkness. Under her glitz and glamour makeup of shiny surfaces and bright lights, Atlantic City was an expensive whore, ready and willing to take your money for a wild ride and give you the boot when your wallet was empty.

Abby’s boots clicked on the marble as she went straight to the concierge desk. The African American man behind the counter was dressed in a black suit and impeccably starched white shirt. All part of the classy image the casino was trying to project. “May I help you?”

“Abigail Foster. I’m here to see Mr. Valentine. He’s expecting me.” Abby was suddenly aware of her own ragged appearance. With the stress and rattled nerves of the evening, her jeans and turtleneck had passed fresh hours ago. Appearances were valued by some people. Ryland Valentine was one of them. A more put-together look would have served her well for this meeting.

But it was too late now. She’d passed the jumping-off point when she’d made that call from the car.

“Yes, Miss Foster.” The concierge turned and called over his shoulder, “Randolph?”

A large, hard-looking man stepped out of a doorway behind the counter. The bulge under his jacket and the earpiece looped over one ear identified him as security. “This way, Miss Foster.”

Abby followed his hand gesture to a hallway off the opposite side of the lobby. He walked a step behind her and to her right. They stopped in front of a private elevator. A swipe of his card key opened the doors. He waited for Abby to board first. She stood to the side, as far away from him as she could get in the small space. He swiped his card again and pressed the very last button. The car shot upward with a smooth launch and glided to a stop ten seconds later. Abby’s stomach kept dropping for a few more nauseating seconds.

As the doors slid open, fresh sweat damped Abby’s lower back. What had she done?

Ethan turned his truck into the parking garage of the Valentine Casino. He’d pushed his pickup hard all the way down the Atlantic City Expressway to catch up with Abby. He popped a handful of antacids into his mouth and chewed. The extra bold venti, and Abby’s inability to trust him, burned all the way up his esophagus.

With a fist to his on-fire solar plexus, he watched her park her rental car two aisles over. Laughing and talking, a trio of middle-aged women crossed in front of his pickup, their voices echoing in the concrete structure. Abby got out and walked toward the casino elevators with purposeful strides. She knew where she was going, he realized with another stab to his pride.

It was no coincidence that she’d headed for Atlantic City, where Joe Torres lived. She knew a lot more than she’d told Ethan.

He followed at a discreet distance. Fortunately, he’d changed out of his uniform before chasing after her. His jeans and boots blended with the varied dress of the casino’s patrons. He waited outside the elevator until her car stopped on the lobby floor. Then he jumped in the next one that opened. On the main floor, he spotted her at the end of the long hallway that led to the hotel registration desk. Stopping on the other side of the lobby, he peered through a tall potted fern.

Abby was talking to the concierge. Ethan drew back when the security goon escorted her down a private hallway behind the desk. How the hell was Ethan going to follow her?

Three young couples in cocktail attire walked from the direction of the gaming floor and crossed the lobby. A slender brunette stopped, put a hand on her man’s shoulder, and slipped off her sky-high heels. The relief that relaxed her face was close to orgasmic. Hooking two fingers in the skinny straps, she padded barefoot to the elevator banks.

Ethan skirted the lobby and studied a display of brochures next to the concierge desk. Picking up a pamphlet on the historic town of Smithville, he glanced casually down the private hall. The goon card-swiped a key slot and escorted Abby onto an elevator.

Damn. How would he follow her?

“Excuse me, sir.”

Ethan turned. The two guys standing behind him were twin mountains of brawn. Ethan eyed bulges under their jackets. Armed mountains of brawn. The little earpieces with the wires down the sleeves indicated they were part of the staff, whatever that meant. The fact that they were official employees of the casino didn’t give Ethan any warm or fuzzy feelings of security.

“You were following the lady.” Number One had a head the size and shape of a microwave oven. The flat-top buzz didn’t help.

“What lady?” Ethan lied.