Vortex (Cutter Cay) (33 page)

He turned his head and gave her a look vicious enough to make her take a step back. “You can wait fifteen minutes.”

If he had his way, she’d be dead in less than that. “I honestly can’t.” Acting lethargic and still partially drugged wasn’t easy when her blood was racing, and she now wanted to do freaking jumping jacks. “I’m going to pee my pants any minute.
Seriously.
How long was I out, four maybe five hours?”

Victor gripped her upper arm, his fingers painfully tight as he propelled her a short distance from the others. “If you do anything to ruin this day for me, I’ll kill you slowly, painfully. You got that? Anything that makes anyone take a second look at you will get you killed. Mena! Mack! Get over here.” He shoved Daniela at Mack, who grabbed her breast in passing. She stepped on his instep with her stiletto.

“Take her to the john. Both of you go in with her. Three minutes. Don’t fuck up. Go!” He turned to his bodyguards. “Wait outside for her.”

Daniela was frog-marched to the bathroom across the hall. It was empty. Victor’s men stood outside while she, Mena, and Mack went in.

“Be quick,” Mena told her.

“I’ll speed pee,” Daniela assured her sweetly, closing the door in the other woman’s face. She did have to go—and badly. But more importantly, she took Mack’s phone out of her pocket. She deserved an Oscar for her performance in the room, because getting the phone from between the cushions and into her jacket pocket unseen had been a major production. She set everything up to record, then put the phone back in her pocket. All she needed to do was press the right button.

She finished and flushed, and went out to wash her hands.

Mena scowled at her. “Here, fix your lipstick yourself.”

“That’s so nice of you,” she said, not too sarcastically, taking the tube from the stylist and opening it as she leaned over the sink to apply it in the mirror.

The diamond ring on her left hand sparkled in the lights over the sinks. She’d never seen it before. It was a suitable size for a wealthy man to give his beloved. But not so big and ostentatious that people would frown.

“It’s not for you. It’s for the senator.”

Daniela met her own eyes in the mirror. God. She looked as she’d done before she’d run for her life. Honey-blond hair sweeping her shoulders, eyes smoky, lips creamy beige. Nails pink. As ordered by Victor. The dress and jacket were her own. Items he’d taken from her condo. The knowledge that he’d felt free to invade her personal space when she was gone infuriated her, until she remembered who she was dealing with. Taking a few of her clothes was the
least
of his infractions. She kept her expression bland. “Of course. It always is.”

“Let’s go!” Mack snarled, hand on the partially open door.

They walked quickly across the empty hallway and back into the anteroom of the ballroom. Whatever the doctor had shot her up with made her feel a little giddy and almost euphoric. Daniela reminded herself that she had to get a grip, and focus. She’d only have one chance to get this right.

Victor was pacing, Patti by his side. The publicist was a stunningly beautiful black woman with mahogany skin and a centerfold body that was squeezed into a fire-engine-red power suit with a short skirt. She’d apparently forgotten to put a blouse on under the jacket. Patti had always looked like an expensive call girl. But she’d once been an entertainment attorney, and had worked for Victor for ten years.

The two were lovers, and Daniela had seen Miss Reed bare-assed naked and being held under the water in Victor’s bathtub several times. She was adept at holding her breath with those large … lungs.

“Daniela,” the other woman said coldly. “You’ve caused the senator a great deal of trouble and expense.”

Daniela casually stuck her hand in her pocket and gave the woman a withering look that clearly had no impact. “So I heard.”

“I’ll go over what we want the press to know. You’re a clever girl, I’m sure you’ll deliver the short statement, and let Victor do the talking.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Don’t what, for fuck sake?” Victor spat, eyes narrowed like the snake he was. He shoved his glasses impatiently up the bridge of his aristocratic nose.

“Don’t want to lie? What if I stand up there and tell them that you were bringing drugs in from South America, and using Blue Opal as a distribution center?”

Fury erupted behind his eyes and his fist jerked up, up ready to strike. She drew in a sharp breath, raising her hands defensively and stepping back before he hit her.

“Don’t hit her now!” Patti snapped, grabbing Victor’s wrist.

“How about I let them know that you ordered thugs to kill DEA Special Agent Price, and his wife,
and
their three lovely children? Bet they’d love to run with
that
ball.”

“I’ve already had it leaked to the press that you’re mentally unstable. Who do you think they’ll believe? A woman taking antipsychotics and antidepressants? Or a well-respected senator?”

“You’ve got a point there. Wow. Antipsychotics
and
antidepressants. You
are
thorough. Clearly I’m a mess.” Daniela shoved both hands in her pockets.

“How about I tell them how much you like to play in the water?” she taunted. “You and Miss Reed here with her personal flotation devices. Hard to drown
her,
I imagine. Have so much fun taking near-death experience to a whole other level. Holding someone’s head underwater is called—what was it again? Oh, yeah. Autoerotic asphyxiation. A dangerous, nasty little game you so enjoy. Wouldn’t your voters love to know that you hire prostitutes to play with the two of you?” She took her hands out of her pockets and hooked her thumbs in them instead.

“Nobody gives a rat’s ass what I do when I’m not doing my job. And I do my job well.”

“Drug reform. Importing heroin?” Daniela weighed each choice on her hands. “I bet they’ll be interested in the drugs. Oh, and that you put the money from that last fund-raiser straight into your pocket earmarked swimming lessons?”

“I’ll drug you again,” Victor said coldly.

“Well, you
could,
” Daniela mused. “But won’t it be hard for that sniper you hired—What’s his name again, Mena? Harry Smith? Nah. I don’t think that’s his real name. So awkward to shoot me when I’m lying down somewhere unconscious. I suppose it could be done. But not with nearly as much flair as if I was standing meekly by your side acting the doting fiancée. Thanks for the ring by the way. Is it real?”

Light glinted on his glasses, but she didn’t need to see his eyes to know his expression. “How the
fuck
do you know about Smith?”

Patti slid her red-tipped fingers up his arm. “Shut up, Victor. You’re just incriminating yourself, and confirming—”

He turned on Patti and practically grabbed her by the lapels of her jacket. Not that there was very much of it. He dropped his hands, but his face was flushed, his mouth twisted with fury. “Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up. Remember who signs your paycheck.”

“You have to go out there now. What are you going to do?” Patti’s attractive face looked quite homely when she was pissed and scared. Poor Patti.

Daniela flinched as he spun around to grab her arm in the vise of his fingers. “Let me tell you
exactly
how this is going to play out. We’ll walk in there together, hand in hand. I’ll tell everyone how my people searched the globe for you, and discovered you’d been kidnapped and held hostage on a boat called the
Sea Wolf,
where you were terribly abused. I’ll discreetly not go into detail. You’ll have ninety seconds to tell everyone how grateful you are that I found you. That we’re planning a June wedding because we can’t stand to be apart. You’ll tell them how much you love me, an—”

“No.”

Victor backhanded her, sending Daniela stumbling into Patti, who jumped out of the way. “No?”

“It’s a complete sentence.” Daniela righted herself, straightening her jacket. “I’m not going to lie to the press to save your criminal, unpleasant ass. What are you going to do about it, kill me? You already plan to anyway. You see, I don’t have anything to lose, Victor. So I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand there calmly while a sniper is lining up his shot as I bullshit everyone, so that I die in your arms and you look like a hero. I won’t do it.”

Patti’s hands fluttered as she leaned in, brushing her breast against Victor. “Victor, we have to go out there, we’re already late—”

He glared at the publicist. “I didn’t tell you to speak. Shut the fuck up.” He turned back to Daniela. “Nothing left to lose?” The sneering smile he gave her had never been seen by the media, she was damn sure. But she’d seen it often, and knew what it foreshadowed.

Her blood ran cold.

“I have your parents at my Back Bay house. If I don’t call to assure their keepers that everything is going according to plan here, they have instructions to torture and kill them. They’ll waterboard your father first—he’s almost seventy, isn’t he? Your mother might enjoy a little autoerotic asphyxiation.”

Daniela hadn’t known her capacity for hating someone until she’d met Victor, and never more than at this moment. “Nice try. Right now they’re visiting Mykonos.”

Patti gave him a pleading look. “Victor—this is all going to fall apart if we don’t go out there
right now
!”

He stuck his hand into his breast pocket and withdrew his phone. “Call the house and speak to your mother.”

Daniela’s fingers were cold as she took the phone and hit the speed dial for Victor’s Boston home. The phone was picked up on the second ring.

Patti shifted restlessly, her eyes going to the double doors and the noisy crowd waiting in the ballroom.

Victor folded his arms, looking smug and self-satisfied.

“Let me speak with my mother,” Daniela told the man who answered the phone, holding Victor’s gaze with murder in her heart.

Her mother must’ve been standing right there. “Dani, honey! We’re having such a wonderful time at Victor’s house.” It was her mother’s fake voice. The voice she used when Daniela’s father had had a heart attack last year and they didn’t know if he’d make it.
That
voice. The voice that said what the hell is going on, and how do we stop it? Scared. Worried.

“Mom. I thought you were on the cruise?” Her belly tightened. The people she loved most in the world were thousands of miles away. Unprotected and terrified. She’d brought this on them, and the realization that Victor not only could, but would, kill them on a whim was beyond terrifying.

“He persuaded us to cut our trip short and come home for the wedding. You naughty girl—why didn’t—”

“Everything’s going to be okay, Mom. I have to go. I’ll call you later, okay? Give my love to Daddy.” She handed Victor back his phone, and said dully. “Promise you’ll let them go—after.”

“Someone has to mourn at your funeral to make it look convincing for the press. I promise.” Which was as worthless as his fake glasses, and his cheap charm.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

Nineteen

They walked in hand in hand. Logan hated to admit that Daniela and the senator made an attractive, hell—
wholesome
-looking couple. The press surged forward. Sixty or seventy people, equipped with cameras and mics, pushing for a better view as Stamps and Daniela made their way to the podium set up on a small raised platform at one end of the ballroom.

Stamps smiled benignly at the crowd, then lifted his and Daniela’s joined hands in a show of triumph and solidarity. The cynical press cheered, and started yelling questions.

The fucking American dream. JFK and Jackie. Impeccably dressed, modest jewelry—except for the flash of a diamond engagement ring. The senator raised his other hand as he whispered to Daniela. Her smile was strained, but she, too, waved at the cameras.

Logan gritted his teeth, feeling trapped and hating it. What hold did Victor have over Daniela, to keep her so docile?

The senator tapped the mic. He was a president straight out of central casting. Neat suit, discreetly expensive. His shoes were shiny, and so were the lenses of his glasses. A neat trick so that no one could see his eyes, Logan would bet money on it.

Stamps waited until everyone had quieted down and introduced himself with self-deprecating humor, making everyone laugh with him. By the movement in her jaw, Logan could tell Daniela was holding back the bile surging in her throat. He imagined that vomiting from the podium onto the crowd would not go over well with Stamps’s squeaky-clean public image.

He explained how the love of his life had been kidnapped by, unfortunately, radical Peruvians, and brought to this country. He placed the blame squarely on the
Sea Wolf
and her crew. Why in the hell a multimillion-dollar corporation like Cutter Salvage would give a rat’s ass about kidnapping a senator’s girlfriend was something the press would have to think through for themselves.

They’d eat the bullshit he served up on a plate and smile. Until they dug deeper.

Stamps talked about the ransom demands, and when he mentioned her distraught parents, Logan saw the stiffening of her shoulders, and the pulse throbbing at the base of her slender throat.

Stamps had Daniela’s parents. Fuck.

Logan made eye contact with Wright, who was positioned about a hundred feet away. The other man indicated he was already on it, and Logan turned back to Daniela and the dog and pony show. He wanted her to know he was there. But since he had no idea what her reaction would be in a drugged state, he stayed out of sight as much as he could in the seething, churning mass of reporters.

The senator held up a finger for the media to wait, then slipped off his glasses to wipe away a tear.

The press should be wearing waders, for God’s sake. Surely they weren’t buying any of this? Clearly Daniela was there under duress—unless they bought everything Stamps was telling them, in which case she looked exactly like a rescued kidnap victim leaning against her fiancé for strength.