Their Seductress [The Hot Millionaires #1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (21 page)

“Perhaps Mike approved of the direction Ellie wanted the business to take.”

“Representing all those Z-list celebs and self-promoting nobodies that dominate the TV talent shows?” She shuddered. “I don’t think so. My father had standards, even if Ellie didn’t, and someone has to make sure they’re maintained.”

“Like it or not, it’s what the masses want to know about.”

Paige glanced at her watch. Where the hell were Isaac and Nick? They should have gotten here ages ago.

“Someplace you need to be?” Lana asked, her face once again completely emotionless. Fingers of fear trickled down Paige’s spine. This woman might have warped ideas, but she was also ruthless. She had too much to lose and couldn’t let Paige leave here. That didn’t stop Paige from trying to bluff it out.

“Yes, I’m expecting Isaac. He should be here any minute.”

“No you’re not.” Lana took a purposeful step toward Paige. “I happen to know that he’s in a business lunch with Mike. Then they have to go back to the office and get the new client to sign the paperwork.”

“Oh well then, perhaps I’ll nip over to Tampa and meet him there.”

Lana’s acidic smile froze Paige to the spot. “I don’t think so.”

“Why did you have to kill Ellie?” Paige asked, deciding to drop all pretense and keep her talking. She didn’t know if Lana was telling the truth about the lunch, but even if Isaac didn’t come, surely Nick would? She just needed to buy him some time. “You did kill her, didn’t you?”

“Mike and I argued over lunch. He refused to see reason and change his position. Then his phone rang. I knew who he was talking to and that it would be a long call. On impulse I sneaked out the back door and slipped over to the office. I figured I’d have a word with Ellie, at least try and get her to stop bending Mike to her will, if only for my dad’s sake.” Lana’s chest puffed with indignation. “She just laughed at me. Said she hadn’t manipulated Mike and never would. I begged with her to think of Dad, to do what he would have wanted. She said he would have wanted her to move with the times and make as much money as possible.”

“He probably would.”

“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, but it isn’t true. I lost it when she sat there, looking at me almost with pity in her eyes, like she knew what Mike’s perversions must be doing to me.” She strode back and forth in front of Paige, never moving far enough away from the door for Paige to make a run for it. “A red mist of fury clouded my eyes, and I was ten years old again, watching my dad beg her to whip him harder. I felt bile rising in my throat and had to make those vile images go away somehow. I walked behind Ellie’s desk and found I’d grabbed one of those gaudy award statues she was so proud of. I just…I just hit her until the pictures of her and Dad stopped flashing through my mind.”

Paige gulped back the bile that had risen to her own throat. “You’re left-handed?”

“For throwing.”

And caving women’s skulls in, apparently. “Did you know she was dead?”

“I didn’t care. She fell to the floor, blood gushing from her head. I panicked and ran.”

“The police didn’t find your fingerprints on the statue,” Paige said, taking a wild guess.

“I wiped them off.”

Not so panicked then. “And left Ellie where she was, without checking to see if she was alive or dead and without calling for help?” Paige glowered at her. “What sort of monster are you?”

“The sort that will do whatever it takes to protect my family’s reputation.” Her reptilian smile chilled Paige to her core. “You can’t be allowed to leave here, of course.”

“Really? And how will you explain away my dead body?” Paige’s voice was deliberately condescending. “And even if you somehow do manage to get rid of my mortal remains, there’s still Ellie’s car on the drive to explain away.”

Paige’s cell phone rang in her bag. She instinctively reached for it, guessing it must be Isaac.

“Leave it!”

“All right.” Paige gripped her hands together to stop them from shaking. To display any weakness in front of this deranged woman would, Paige instinctively knew, be a grave error. “What do you want me to do?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ll do what has to be done. You’re going to have a little accident that will explain away your body and your car.” She plucked absently at her lower lip as she fine-tuned her plan, casting Paige long, considering looks as she did so. “You came here to talk about Ellie’s funeral, got upset, and I gave you a couple of shots of vodka to calm you down. That was vodka in the iced tea, in case you’re wondering.” Lana nodded toward Paige’s empty glass. “Glad to see you drank it all. They’ll find traces of alcohol in your system to back up my claim.”

Paige was equally glad that she’d tipped it into a pot plant whilst Lana had been upstairs with Joe. “Glad to oblige,” she said, forcing a note of cheer into her tone, hoping to wrong-foot Lana with her casually indifferent attitude.

“You were upset and intoxicated. Joe called for me, and when I was upstairs with him I heard a splash and then you cry out. I rushed down and found you floating facedown in the pool.”

“I thought I was going to have a car accident,” Paige said helpfully.

“You’d fallen in the pool,” Lana continued, ignoring the interruption, “bashed your head, and knocked yourself unconscious.”

“Another bashed head?” Paige waggled her brows, tamping down her fear by reminding herself that Isaac
had
to get here any time now. “Not very original.”

Lana shrugged. “Simple plans are usually the best.”

“Well, when it comes to cold-blooded murder, I guess you’re the expert.”

“Hold that thought, dear,” Lana said sarcastically. “Anyway, I came running down and tried to revive you, without success, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously.”

“Then I called 911. Near hysterical I’ll be, just to add a little authenticity.”

“Careful not to overdo it.”

“Sweet of you to worry on my account, but there’s no need. I know exactly how to play the police.” Lana’s rictus smile was chillingly confident. “Have I missed anything?”

“Just a few things. For your plan to work, I have to allow you to push me into the pool, and why would I do that? I’m taller and stronger than you, and I don’t have any particular wish to die today.”

“But I’m ruthless,
and
I was college dive-team champion three straight years. I’m a strong swimmer and know how to control my breath under water. I can hold you under, and stay under with you if I have to, until you run out of air.”

“That must make you very happy.”
Come on, Isaac. Now would be a good time to arrive.

“You have no idea. I’ve never liked you, Paige, and in spite of Ellie’s claims to the contrary, I believe you were responsible for Doug Drake’s death, so it’s poetic justice that you pay with your own life.”

Lana took a step toward her. Paige, stung by the injustice of Lana’s words, instinctively stepped backward, which was the last thing she ought to have done. Paige was furious that Lana had goaded her into moving so close to the edge of the pool when she ought to have gone in the opposite direction. She tried to dodge sideways, but Lana was too quick for her. She was smiling, genuinely this time, as she placed one hand in the center of Paige’s breastbone and pushed.

Hard.

“Bye, bye,” she said, waving her fingers at Paige as she toppled into the pool, screaming with shock as she hit the water.

As she surfaced she saw Lana kick off her shoes and make an elegant dive in, barely leaving a ripple in her wake. Before she had time to wonder why Lana’s head hadn’t broken the surface again, Paige felt two strong hands gripping her ankles and pulling her down. She fought against the drag but already knew it was a battle she’d never win. With one hand on top of Paige’s head, Lana held her under whilst she bashed the side of her head against the tiled rim of the pool.

Lights exploded inside Paige’s head as she struggled to breathe. She opened her mouth instinctively, desperate to fill her screaming lungs with oxygen but instead swallowing a mouthful of chlorinated water. She felt herself weakening and abruptly stopped struggling. The other woman had won. She had neither the strength nor the will to fight her.

So this was what it’s like to drown, she thought in a detached way as she lost consciousness.

“Come on, come on! Let’s go, guys!”

There was a pileup on the interstate, and the traffic was deadlocked. Isaac and Nick were going nowhere. Isaac drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his Jaguar, becoming more anxious by the minute. They’d been stuck in the same spot for so long that they were almost on first-name basis with the people in the surrounding cars.

“I’ll try her cell again,” Nick said.

The anxiety in his tone caused Isaac to feel ten times worse than he already did. Nick was laid back about absolutely everything and seldom let himself get wound up, no matter how great the provocation. If even he felt there was cause for concern when Paige didn’t answer her damned phone then Isaac was absolutely convinced that something bad must have happened to her. He should have listened to his damned instincts and foregone that stupid business lunch.

“Idiot!” he muttered, once again slamming the heel of his hand against the steering wheel so hard that he’d probably have a bruise.

“Still no answer,” Nick said, pocketing his phone with a worried frown.

“Perhaps we should ring Weir,” Isaac said. “He might be able to get there quicker than us.”

“Not if he’s in Tampa, although I suppose he could get a local patrol car to stop by and check things out.”

“The traffic’s starting to move now,” Isaac said, breathing a huge sigh of relief. “How much longer before we get there?”

“We’re about ten minutes away, just as long as there are no more holdups.”

“Then we ought to make it first. Don’t call the locals. They’ll probably only screw it up.”

They crawled passed the triple pileup that had caused the delay, and Isaac was finally able to hit the gas. He barely spared a thought for the poor guys who’d been caught up in the accident, even though they almost certainly hadn’t walked away from it. He only cared about Paige, so damned much that it felt as though his heart was about to burst through his chest with a combination of worry and frustration at his inability to protect her.

“Why the hell did she do it?” he asked for the tenth time. “I told her not to go near Lana. I was quite specific—”

“That’s probably why she went.”

Isaac shot Nick a sideways glance. “You’re saying it’s my fault?”

“You
were
a bit dictatorial.”

“I was only thinking of her.”

“Independent women like Paige don’t take kindly to being controlled.”

Isaac flashed a brief grin. “She likes it in bed.”

“That’s different and you know it.” Nick tried out a grin of his own. “Once we get her back, you can take her to bed and tan her backside for disobeying you. I’m betting she won’t object to that.”

“Me neither,” Isaac said. “But we’ve gotta get to her first.”

“This is the turnoff.”

Isaac indicated and pulled the powerful car into the slip road. Following Nick’s verbal directions, he negotiated his way to Lana’s street with little regard for neighborhood speed limits. He threw the car onto the drive behind Ellie’s Mustang, switched off the ignition, and was out of the door in one athletic bound, Nick on his heels. They rang the front door bell and, without waiting for a response, tried the handle. As with many houses in this safe area, it was unlocked.

The two men raced through the empty house, calling Paige’s name. No response. They paused in the lounge, wasting a precious second while they got their bearings.

“Where the hell are they?” Nick fumed.

“Out there!”

Isaac saw frantic thrashing coming from the pool, and his heart almost stopped then and there. He was too late. Paige was being held under by a manic Lana,
and b
lood was spreading across the surface of the pool in rapidly widening swaths. Had she been stabbed before Lana drowned her? Momentary inertia was replaced by the frantic need for action. There had to be something he could do. He absolutely refused to let Paige die.

He and Nick broke into the pool area at a run, kicking off their shoes as they went. Without the need for words, they dove into the pool in tandem. Nick grabbed Lana from behind. She fought him like a banshee but in so doing was forced to relax her hold on Paige. Isaac immediately pulled Paige to the surface, hoping against hope that he’d see her take in a huge lungful of air and then berate him for being late.

It didn’t happen. Instead he trod water, using all his strength to push her out of the pool from behind. In her wet clothes she was a dead weight, but desperation lent fire to his muscles and he managed it on the first attempt. Not that it made any difference. Her lips were blue, and she wasn’t breathing.

Refusing to believe that she was gone, Nick laid her on the tiled floor and felt for a pulse. To his relief, he found a weak one. Too weak, surely? He placed his hands on her sternum and administered CPR. He noticed in the periphery of his vision that Nick had managed to subdue Lana and pull her from the pool as well. She had blood pouring from a cut lip. Isaac suspected that Nick had whacked her to stop her from struggling.