Danger in a Red Dress

  “I suppose I shouldn’t have profited by that whole gruesome mess,” Carrick said defiantly, “but the news shows were going to get their information from somebody, and I figured it might as well be me.”

  Okay, fine. They had different philosophies about the press. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.” Carrick’s voice rose. “Jesus, what makes you think there has to be a problem?”

  Gabriel kept his voice level. Quiet. “Because Hannah Grey does know how to access the fortune. I’ve watched the playback a hundred times. The things your mother said to her, the things she said back, make that clear.”

  “So?”

  “So why hasn’t she done it yet?”

  “There’s some special time of the year when it can be accessed? Or . . . or she needs some kind of sophisticated software she can’t get to while she’s on the run?” Carrick made the same guesses Gabriel had made.

  “Something like that. What’s for sure is that at some point, she will clear out the account. Finding Hannah is my priority.” For more reasons than he wanted to say.

  “You’re sure you’ll find her?”

  “I have surveillance in place to watch her bank account. If she tries to access her money, we’ll have her.” She hadn’t done it yet, nor had she contributed to her social security account. So what was she doing for income? “I have good sources all over the country”—Gabriel hoped to hell she hadn’t made it across the border to Canada or Mexico—“and I pay well. In cases like this, all it takes is one greedy, observant person to turn her in.”

  “Maybe she’s dead.”

  “No.” No. Hannah couldn’t be dead. Gabriel wouldn’t allow that to be true. “We’re investigating a lead right now.”

  “A lead?” Carrick seemed torn between excitement and dismay.

  “A slim lead. In Houston. From a homeless lady. Who is crazy. Literally.” Gabriel had spent far too much time following up false leads, yet his gut told him this time they’d hit the jackpot. “Sometimes, the offer of a reward is all it takes to clarify the mind.”

  “You’ll keep me apprised of all progress.”

  “You’re the first person I’ll tell. But there’s more.” Gabriel hated to tell him this. “I’ve developed connections in the government, and I know why the investigation was opened in the first place.”

  “You do?” Carrick shuddered as if someone had just walked over his grave.

  Gabriel pushed the sandwich away. The conversation had made him lose his appetite. “Three and a half years ago, an informant filed a report.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone close to your mother.”

  “Hannah,” Carrick said immediately.

  “No, this happened long before Hannah came on the scene.”

  “Right. Right. Of course. I forgot. The government opened the investigation a while back.” Carrick wiped his palms on his napkin. “Then . . . Torres. The old butler. He died almost two year ago, but Mother told him everything.”

  “It’s possible, but not likely.”

  “Why not?”

  “Torres died too soon, and whoever did it was hoping to put pressure on Mrs. Manly, catch her in the act of retrieving the money, and get his cut.”

  “Or take it all,” Carrick said.

  “Exactly.” The boy showed he had a grip on the logistics of the situation, too. He made Gabriel proud. “I don’t believe in coincidence. Whoever told the government that your mother knew about the fortune probably also put Hannah in place to try and pry the information out of her before the government hearing.”

  “Right. That makes sense.” Carrick nodded as if only now did he realize that Gabriel would crack the case. “So you’re looking for two people. One unknown, and Hannah Grey.”

  “By the time I finish my investigation, we’ll know who our mystery thief is, and we’ll make him sorry.”

  “Is he Hannah’s lover, do you suppose?”

  “It’s possible,” Gabriel said harshly.

  “More than possible, I would say. Maybe they need to meet up before they can access the account!” Carrick sounded excited, as if he’d discovered the key to the puzzle.

  “Maybe. All I know is, I am going to find Hannah Grey, and I will get every last scrap of information out of her.” Gabriel smiled with some pleasure as he considered the torments he would use on her.

  He hoped she resisted for a long, long time.

  Carrick stood on the sidewalk, smiled like a fool, and waved Gabriel into a cab and off to the airport to return to the wilds of Texas. Then he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and searched for the one number he’d input, but never called.

  A familiar, hateful voice answered after one ring. “Mr. Manly, it’s good to hear from you at last. I hope you have news about the fortune for me.”

  “I think you’ll want to take care of something before it gets to be a problem. It seems my security man is sure Hannah Grey knows how to access the offshore account. He’s going after her now, thinks she’s in Houston, and once he gets that information—”

  “I don’t think he would go far with that amount of money before he was, shall we say, deprived of it?” The voice sounded almost amused.

  “You don’t understand.” Carrick really needed this handled. He’d had enough of brothers hanging around, talking about business and wondering what he did for a living. They would want their own cuts when they broke the code to access Father’s fortune—he knew it. Everyone would want a cut, especially . . .“Gabriel Prescott will turn it over to the government. He is that kind of guy.”

  The voice on the other end of the line sharpened. “You’re sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Well, then, Gabriel Prescott has officially become a pest to be removed, and Hannah Grey has become a resource to be discovered.”

  “Whatever you think best, Osgood.” Carrick hung up and said to no one in particular, “I was hoping you would say that.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Hannah stepped out of the air-conditioned comfort of the Wal-Mart in Houston, Texas, and the September heat hit her like a fever. It was autumn at home in New Hampshire, but here the pavement was so hot it burned through the thin soles of her shoes, and the heat rose in waves that smelled of motor oil, an ice-cream cone melting on the concrete, and the Dumpster behind the store. Not far away, the cars roared along the 610 loop.

  She walked down the row of cars toward the quiet neighborhood behind the store, toward the Metro bus stop, and hated Texas. She hated the humidity, she hated the giant cockroaches that populated the bathroom at night, she hated her job checking at Wal-Mart, she hated the variety of accents—smooth Eastern Indian, rapid Spanish, the tonality of Vietnamese, and most of all, that twangy Texas accent she heard everywhere.

  She adjusted the backpack she carried with her everywhere, the one with all her worldly possessions, and felt the familiar trickle of sweat start down her spine.

  But it wasn’t really Texas she hated.

  She was homesick.

  She wanted to live in New Hampshire, in a town where she knew people. She wanted to shuffle her feet through the falling leaves, feel the first bite of winter in the air. She wanted to work as a nurse, in a hospital, not as a checker. . . . She wanted to know she would not have to move on again soon.

  If she could save enough, she’d go to California.

  But who was she kidding? She didn’t dare access her own account. The cash Mrs. Manly had left her ran out four months ago, in San Antonio, and she would never be able save money working for minimum wage. She could hardly feed herself. She lived in the misery of a dorm in a hostel in the museum district. The people who ran the place had taken pity on her and let her stay on as one of their permanent residents, but the other permanent residents were odd, to say the least, and one old woman was watching her with a glint in her eye that made Hannah very uncomfortable.

  But the old lady was half senile. Surely she didn’t remember last winter’s newscasts
. . . and Hannah had changed her appearance, dyed her hair a mousy brown and let it grow, and pierced her ears multiple times. She dressed like a teenager, made sure she looked younger than her twenty-five years.

  She felt older. A lot older.

  That was the trouble. Mrs. Manly’s murder had struck a chord with the press. The story had been covered on every television station, on the Internet, in the papers.

  Melinda Manly, Wife of Notorious Industrialist, Womanizer and Thief Nathan Manly, Murdered by Nurse She Trusted!

  Carrick had been interviewed time and again, his expression tragic as he related the story of how he had hired Hannah to help his mother . . . and instead she had killed her. At that last sentence, his voice always trembled theatrically. The guests at the party had told their stories, each one more fantastic than the one before. Even Jeff Dresser had had his moment of glory as he related how she’d screwed his poor old father to death and, in the same sentence, threatened to have the body exhumed and examined for foul play.

  Worst of all, the video of Hannah injecting Mrs. Manly with the fatal dose of curare had played on screens and monitors time and again. They never showed how desperately she tried to save her with CPR. No, never that. But they went over and over how curare was an ancient South American paralyzing poison known as arrow poison, and described how it cruelly killed Mrs. Manly by slowing and then stopping her heart and lungs.

  Who had taken the video? How? Susan Stevens had told them there were no videos or microphones. Yet the video existed, so Susan had lied, and Hannah had failed. Failed in a long line of failures.

  Now she lived her life in fear and poverty, looking over her shoulder, always afraid the police would catch up with her and arrest her, or worse, Carrick Manly would locate her and . . . Well, she didn’t know what he would do, but she would never make the mistake of underestimating him again. She’d given the injection, but he’d replaced the medication, knowing full well what would happen.

  He had killed his own mother.

  She turned onto the street lined with cars and houses, old bungalows guarded by high, dense hedges, mixed with a few brand-new McMansions looking dominant and out of place. The neighborhood was in transition, run-down and yet in demand because of its proximity to downtown. She stopped under a huge old live oak, taking a moment to savor the shade and the peace of being away from demanding customers and her prick of a supervisor.

  But almost as soon as she stopped, she caught a glimpse of a man walking along the sidewalk toward her.

  In an instant, and with the expertise gained from eleven months on the lamb, she sized him up: midthirties, tall, fit, Hispanic, dressed in well-fitting jeans and an expensive golf shirt.

  Her heart started the low, steady thump she had come to associate with danger. She wanted to run. Instead, she started toward him—better to pass him than to have him follow her. She kept her gaze away from his, yet observed him out of her peripheral vision. He had striking green eyes, and he was watching her, smiling pleasantly like a man who liked what he saw.

  That wasn’t the problem. She was attractive. Men still looked at her. And this guy appeared to be decent enough—but what was he doing here? By Wal-Mart, by the bus stop? He was out of place.

  He was about two car lengths away from her, still watching her, still smiling, when twenty feet behind him, another man opened the door of a parked car, leaned out and took aim with a small, lethal-looking pistol.

  Hannah reacted purely on instinct. She screamed, “Down!” and dove for the pedestrian.

  At the same time, he leaped for her. The gunshot sounded, a blast in the quiet afternoon.

  He crumpled facedown on the concrete.

  Something hit her left wrist—a ricochet, a rock, twirling her sideways, making her stagger into the hedge. Furious and frightened, she recovered and flung herself on top of the stranger. Her hands skidded across the blistering hot pavement, and knew she was going to feel it later.

  But not now. Now all she could feel was the guy beneath her. He was still warm but motionless. Unconscious. Dead? Maybe dead.

  Please, God, not dead.

  The man in the car slammed the door, gunned the engine, and peeled away from the curb.

  He’d be back. When he realized she was still alive, he’d be back.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Grabbing the wounded man—not dead, please don’t be dead—beneath the armpits, Hannah pulled. Hard. It hurt. Hurt her wrist so badly, tears trickled down her cheeks. She dragged him into someone’s yard, behind a high, dense hedge. She looked around, expecting to hear someone scream or shout, to come to her aid.

  The house was lifeless. If anyone was on this street, he was hunkered down, terrified of the gunfire, just like her.

  Fine. She would do this on her own.

  She slid her hand around the man’s neck and pressed her fingers to his carotid artery.

  His heart beat strongly.

  He honest to God wasn’t dead. It was the best thing that had happened to her in almost a year. “And to you, too, I suppose,” she muttered.

  She wanted to collapse in relief, but he was facedown in the grass with blood leaking from beneath his hip. She pulled off her backpack and rummaged through it, grabbing the first piece of cloth that came to her hand.

  Man, he was bleeding all over the place. “Can you hear me?” she asked. “I’m going to press on your wound.”

  She jumped when the guy answered her. “Is the shooter gone?”

  “Yes.”

  He lifted his head. “Do you see any more suspicious-looking characters?”

  “Only you.”

  He pushed himself over with arms and his good leg, and looked up at her. “Can you stop the bleeding?” He spoke quickly, tersely, like a guy who was familiar with situations like this. With shootings and violence. Maybe the nice jeans and name-brand golf shirt were merely a cover. Or maybe he could afford to dress well because he was a drug dealer. Maybe he’d been shot in some turf war.

  And maybe it didn’t matter. As long as it was possible that he had been shot in her place, she would care for him.

  Hell, she was a nurse clear down to her bones. She’d care for him no matter what the circumstances.

  “Have you got a phone?” she asked.

  He grimaced in pain as he dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a cell.

  “You call nine-one-one. I’ll bandage you, slow the bleeding.” She pressed the cloth—damn, it was her Usher T-shirt—under his hip, and realized the blood that covered his thighs came from the exit wound at the front.

  She fumbled in her backpack again, grabbed another piece of cloth, and pressed it on the front wound, then pulled out her ball of twine. “Can you lift yourself?”

  “Yeah.” He did, and while she wound the twine around his hips, he asked, “You carry twine in your backpack?”

  “You never know when you’re going to need it.” When you’re on the run, she meant. She had a first-aid kit, too, but nothing in it would take care of a gunshot wound. “Nine-one-one,” she reminded him. “You’re going to be fine, but not if you bleed out here in the grass.”

  While she tied the two shirts—the other was her plain white tee; this incident had put a serious dent in her wardrobe—he made the call.

  “I’ve been shot,” she heard him say. “Pick me up at”—he glanced toward the house—“323 Wisteria. Green house, cracked paint. We’re behind the hedge of ligustrum.”

  Ligustrum. She glanced at the dense green leaves. She hadn’t known what it was. So he must be from Houston.

  But he hadn’t called emergency . . . had he? Was he a cop assigned to find her, bring her in?

  He must have read her mind, because he cut off the call, took her good wrist in a firm grasp. “An ambulance would take too long. I called my chauffeur. He’ll be here in less than a minute.”

  His chauffeur? She stared into his green eyes. She didn’t know what to say. So you are a drug dealer? So you’re rich? So you’re a rich dr
ug dealer?

  “I haven’t thanked you,” he said. “You saved my life.”

  “No. Really, no, I’m sorry. I . . .” I’m sorry. That guy was aiming for me and hit you. Not the thing to say. “I know it hurts, but you’ll be fine.” Her wrist really burned, but she couldn’t look away from his hypnotic eyes. He held her with his gaze as surely as he held her with his grasp.

  “If you hadn’t yelled, he could have killed me.”

  “No, really, because—” Don’t say it. Don’t tell him who he was aiming for.

  “Then you shielded me with your body.” His other hand grasped her fingers, thoroughly keeping her in place. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

  “No. No, I’m not. I had a responsibility because—”

  Out on the street, a car pulled up. A door opened.

  She tensed.

  “It’s my car.” He smiled tightly, a man in pain, yet intent on reassuring her. “I recognize the sound of the engine.”

  Footsteps sounded on the broken concrete sidewalk. A broad-shouldered black man dressed in a dark business suit stepped into the yard. He looked down at the wounded man, and in a tone of disgust, he said, “Hey, boss, I leave you alone for ten minutes, and you get shot?”

  “Daniel, don’t nag,” her patient said.

  “I’m not nagging. I’m stating the facts.” Yet as Daniel talked, he leaned over Hannah’s patient, running his hands over his bones, observing the bloodstained jeans. In a gentle voice, he told her, “I’m going to pick him up now. Won’t hurt him more than I have to, but he needs to go to the hospital.” She caught her breath as he hefted her patient into his arms.

  The patient groaned, in obvious agony, then called, “Come on, girl. We’ve got to get out of here before they come back!”

  All right. Good point. She didn’t want to be shot. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t know who this guy was, but if he could hide her away from Carrick and his lies and his assassins, she didn’t care. She didn’t have any scruples anymore. She couldn’t afford them.