All the Way (25 page)

“I wanted to be there,” Carter said.

“I really appreciate it.” Her gaze wandered in Jake's direction. Adriano would be somewhere nearby.

A man of few words, Carter had come to be a substitute big brother to Payton at Skye. His self-confidence lacked because of a deforming scar on the left side of his face. When she took the job at the club, she befriended him immediately, and he happily reciprocated.

Carter glanced over her shoulder. “I read you were in police custody.”

“You know how the papers exaggerate.” Payton forced herself to answer nonchalantly. She wanted to catch Jake and find Adriano before someone recognized her face from the news coverage, but Carter was a friend.

The waitress moved away from Jake.

“Listen, Carter, I have to go.”

He grabbed her elbow, stopping her. “I'm afraid I can't let you.”

“What?” An instant adrenaline rush told her she was in trouble.

“I need to take you with me.”

“Where?”

“Mrs. Grazicky wants to talk to you.”

“What?” Shocked, she tried to pull away from Carter. “You're taking me to Sherman? Do you know what he'll do to me? He wants to kill me.”

“
Mrs.
Grazicky wants to see you. Let's do this without making too much of a scene.”

She'd never met Mrs. Grazicky personally. What could she want? After everything she had done to elude him, Payton wouldn't go to Sherman or his wife willingly. Patrick was safe. He had nothing to blackmail her with.

Payton screamed obscenities to draw the attention of the hotel guests. In the scuffle, she met Jake's eyes. The lobby became a maze of confusion with people running and screaming about they didn't know what. Jake was swallowed up in the people running for cover.

She continued to struggle, trying to buy enough time for Jake to reach her. She didn't know what he would do with a busted arm, but she didn't have many options. She fought Carter with all her strength but was no match for his raw brawn. Carter tossed her over his shoulder and carried her away.

 

 

“I have an anniversary gift for you, sweetheart,” Cecily said, swishing up to her husband on a cloud of perfume. She was superbly dressed as usual, in blue silk pajamas, even if it was only to go to bed with him. It was one of the things that made Sherman fall in love with her: she always did her best to look good for him and to please him. He imagined he wasn't the best lover, because he'd had so little practice before her, but she never complained, submitting to his late-night gyrations with a hearty smile and thrust of her hips. Although he'd been angry to find her in the motel with Hiram, it had also turned him on to imagine watching her doing wicked things with another man.

“Our anniversary isn't for another month, and I've put you through so much this year, I'm just happy you haven't left me.”

“I've never shared my childhood with you, Sherman, but there are things . . . There are things I wish I'd never seen, but we can't change who we are. We can pretend to be different things to different people, but in the end, we are true to our nature.”

“What are you saying?” Sherman had discarded his newspaper, and every bit of his attention was focused on his wife.

“I'm saying I know all about your
activities
at Skye. I know you sell drugs and women in Chicago. I know about the special auditions the waitresses have to pass before they can work at the club.”

“How?” he asked dumbly, contemplating who could be the spy. If Hiram had told her about the murder, he'd filet the man himself before grinding him up for fertilizer.

“It doesn't matter. What matters is I can't judge you because I've never told you where my family's money comes from.”

Sherman listened with mixed fascination and horror as Cecily told him about her childhood. He pretended not to have found out this information from a jailhouse snitch many years ago. She gave him the graphic details of how she'd witnessed her father killing her mother. He knew about that too. The jailhouse snitch had disposed of the body. She explained how easy it had been for her father to launder money obtained from white slavery to build a legitimate nest egg suitable to pass down to a first daughter.

“Does it make you love me any less?” Cecily asked, a flicker of worry in her eyes.

“Your father sounds like a perfect monster.” He knew from experience he was a crafty monster, too attuned to Sherman's business for his own good. “How did he raise such a perfect daughter . . . perfect for me?”

After sharing a sloppy kiss filled with the remnants of old passion, Cecily returned to the matter at hand.

“What do you have there?” Sherman asked, taking the cell phone out of her hands.

She leaned into him, pressing the right combination of buttons until a vivid picture appeared on the small screen. He looked at his wife, full of questions. His mind raced. This was wonderful. This was terrible.

“My man found her.”

Sherman turned to the screen again, wishing—only for a fleeting moment—he was alone to stare at the picture of Payton tied to a chair in a sparse room. Blindfolded, she was trussed up, apprehensively waiting for what she knew would come. The sight made his groin stir.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Cecily smiled. “I'll take you, but first we should talk about what we want to do to her before we kill her.”

Chapter 27

Full of surprises, Cecily had her man Carter take Payton to Sherman's second home in the upscale University neighborhood. Sherman wondered exactly how many of his secrets Cecily knew but never revealed. Sherman kept the home mostly for a place to take his current mistress, so it was the perfect place to stash Payton. The neighbors wouldn't look twice at a strange woman coming or going.

Hiram and his ragamuffin crew left the bedroom after moving Payton to the bed. Sherman was torn. He entered the room eagerly awaiting Cecily's appearance but wanting a moment alone with Payton. Her hands were crudely tied behind her back, and a black sack covered her head. Her body trembled, but she was quiet. Her feet were flat on the floor, and she sat ramrod straight, her bosom heaving with every intake of breath.

In this captive position, she was deliciously enticing, and the things Cecily had planned would only make her more irresistible. He removed the black sack, and her eyes grew wide with fear. He held a finger up to his lips, signaling she should be quiet. With one yank, he removed the gray utility tape from her mouth.

“Beautiful Payton Vaughn. You've caused me a lot of trouble. Not to mention the amount of money I had to pay these goons to find you.” He grimaced. “I want the evidence.”

“Sherman, I don't have it. I—”

He held his finger to his lips again. “Don't demean the honesty of our relationship by lying or, worse yet, making promises you have no intention of keeping.”

“It was a trick to get Patrick back. I never had anything. We just figured it out.”

He watched her, wanting it to be the truth. “It's the only way you'll get out of this alive.”

“I don't have anything. I swear.”

“The reporter?” It was a rhetorical question. No doubt the reporter had the evidence, itching to print it on the front page of the newspaper. “This complicates things. Now I have to get the reporter to give it up before I kill him.”

“Kill him? You can't.”

Sherman waved away her plea. “You'll forget about him soon enough. Once we're far away from this place.” He stroked her face. “No more about him.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“More like, what are
we
going to do
to
you?”

“We?”

“My wife and I.” He sat next to her, brushing her thigh with the back of his hand. He nodded toward a table on the other side of the room with an arrangement of various sex toys. “If you could have accepted what I offered you from the beginning, this wouldn't be happening. Instead you chose to turn on me. I don't tolerate disloyalty well.”

“I saw you ordering that big man in the other room to murder someone. Your father-in-law.”

“Quiet!”

“How could I accept murder?”

“Highly regrettable. I take full responsibility. It wasn't planned. The man threatened to call in his markers because he found out about the drug business. He's the king of white slavery, but he wants to restrict my business ventures. He told me drugs would bring too much heat. He was only worried about himself. If he would have called in the loans, my businesses would have gone bankrupt.”

“And your wife is fine with this?”

“Don't you get it? Cecily would have packed her bags and run home to daddy if she knew we'd had a disagreement. She's truly daddy's little girl. Without her money and my businesses, I would be broke. I won't go back to living that way.”

“So you had him killed.”

Sherman couldn't stop touching her. “Careful. We don't want Cecily to know. She has plans for you, and quite frankly, I'm excited about seeing my wife do another woman. We wouldn't want to ruin the party.” His eyes wandered to the closed door. “Cecily will know soon enough. You've made such a stink, it's only a matter of time. That's why we have to do what we're going to do, and then you and I have to get out of the country.”

“I'm not leaving the country!”

He smiled. Payton would do what he told her to do. Or he'd put her on the plane unconscious.

“Your wife is in on this? She doesn't mind you sleeping with another woman?”

“Most of what we'll do tonight is her idea. She's very eager to meet you. I'm just lucky to have the pleasure of an understanding wife who is more than happy to let me get my shot at you first.”

Alerted by a rustling outside the window, Sherman walked across the room and peeked out the vertical blinds. The street was dark. All the residents of the quaint neighborhood were tucking in the children and settling back in their easy chairs for a little television. No one had the faintest clue what was going on in their neighbor's home.

A brushing sound caught his attention. He scanned the darkness but saw nothing. His nerves were on edge. He had to finish this, get out of the house with Payton, make it to the plane, and get out of the country without Cecily catching on. It would be tricky, but he'd get it done.

“If you keep me here until after the trial, I can't testify,” Payton offered.

“True, but who knows how long that tenacious ADA will keep this going? I can't keep you here for months.” He had to get out of town. Tonight.

“If I don't give the ADA any information, there won't be enough evidence to convict you.”

“Do you think I believe you haven't told her everything already? You're going to walk away and forget the murder? You should have done that from the start.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I seem to be Charlotte's public-enemy number one. The prosecutor would dig up other charges.” He sighed heavily. “And now we have the issue of your kidnapping.” The hole his crimes had dug was too deep. Getting rid of Hiram would help, but there were other matters.

Payton asked again, “What are you going to do with me?”

He watched the desperation make her facial features sharper, more beautiful. He enjoyed this word game. It evoked crude fear in her. The anticipation of her fate was making her forehead wet with perspiration. Taking her would be better than conquering a virgin. Power over a beautiful woman was the best aphrodisiac of all.

“My stress level is through the roof.” He kicked off his shoes. “Can you think of any way the two of us might be able to take care of it?”

Confusion and then recognition knitted Payton's trembling bottom lip.

He continued his torment. “At fifty-three I probably seem like an old man to you. Well, I'm not. What are you? Twenty-something? I have needs and desires—just like the reporter you ran off with. I can only imagine what he did to you.”

“Adriano took care of me.”

He grunted. “The first time I walked into Skye and saw you standing behind the bar, I wanted you. For months I tried to get your attention.” He began to unbutton his dress shirt. “The only thing you ever wanted to talk about was business.”

“Sherman—”

“A woman is most beautiful when she's scared. Her fear brings out the best in a man.”

Rambling, Payton pleaded with him. “We have to work this out. I don't care about testifying. That's why I ran away.”

“You might have had a chance of convincing me of that if the police hadn't whipped you out of the bus station into protective custody.” He let his shirt drop to the floor at his feet. “There may be a way you can get back in my good graces.”

“What?”

“You don't care about testifying against me?”

“No,” she answered readily. He almost believed her.

“Then agree to go away with me.”

Her bottom lip dropped.

“It would be so much nicer if you came voluntarily.”

“Go where?”

“I'll tell you once we're on the plane.”

She remained quiet, but her eyes darted wildly.

“I'll give you some time to think about it. We have all night. Have you ever slept with a white man?”

“I've never been with any man I didn't care for—black or white.” A cross between disgust and panic twisted her mouth. “You're talking about raping me.”

He laughed loudly. “Amateur psychiatry. I love it.” He cupped her chin. “My dear, I'll take you any way I can.” He shoved her back on the bed.

She batted her eyes wildly, refusing to let the tear clinging to her lash fall.

He struggled to remove her sweater. Frustrated, he pushed her onto her stomach and freed the knot binding her wrists. He dug his knee into her back to keep her in place.

“Don't even think of trying anything. Hiram and Carter are in the house. If I call out they'll come, and when they come they'll shoot first.”

 

 

“Call Hail!” Adriano shouted to Jake as he went after Payton.

He ran to the first of the taxis lining the driveway of the hotel. Ripping the driver's door open, he grabbed the man and pulled him from the vehicle. No time for polite explanations. He was losing sight of the white cargo van. As he pulled away from the curb, Jake jumped in the front seat.

“Stop!”

He slowed enough for Jake, with his broken arm, to get inside.

Ethan wrenched open the back door and jumped in. “What the hell's going on?”

“I told you to call Hail,” Adriano said to Jake, weaving into traffic to follow the van.

“I'll call her from here. Just drive.” Jake pulled his cell phone from the clip on his waist.

“Is this about Payton?” Ethan asked, trying to get up to speed.

“They took her,” Adriano answered, his concentration on the road. Frantic, he cut, crisscrossed, and dodged through the traffic. He never lost sight of the van.

“We've got him,” Ethan announced.

“What are you talking about?” Adriano asked while Jake made the call to Lisa Hail.

“We must have driven through some dead spots, and when we got back to the hotel, I dropped off to sleep.”

“What?” Adriano asked impatiently. He didn't have time for long explanations. Payton was in the back of the cargo van speeding down the highway, getting away from him.

“We've got a match on the dental records. Franco Cimino. Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds.”

Finally, concrete evidence to support Payton's claim. Tangible proof to be used to put Grazicky away.

“Did you get that?” Jake asked the person on the other end of the line.

“I faxed the information to Hail before I came downstairs to tell you,” Ethan said.

Adriano watched the van dangerously swerve in front of a car as it changed lanes. He had to keep Payton alive in order to testify . . . in order to tell her he'd realized he'd give up everything, including his job, to be with her.

“Back off,” Jake said. “Let them think they've lost you, but keep them in sight.”

It was a good idea. If they kept driving the way they were, they'd flip the van. He dipped between two cars. “I'll kill Grazicky.”

Jake spoke into the cell, giving the police their coordinates. “Where the hell are they taking her? Out of Charlotte?”

Adriano got on the expressway, keeping a safe distance, and continued to follow the van. An eternity later, they exited.

“We're in the University area of the city,” Ethan offered. “Very upscale.”

“Don't lose them,” Jake coached while giving the police directions over his cell.

The white van pulled into the unlit driveway of a pastel pink house. Lights were on inside. Quiet stillness engulfed the neighborhood. Manicured lawns with bikes strewn about. SUVs and family vans lined the driveways. In the distance a dog barked.

Adriano recognized the two black sedans parked in the driveway from the cheap motel in South Carolina. He remembered the horror on Payton's face as he pulled her through the bathroom window and could only imagine how she was suffering now.

“Who lives here?” Adriano asked.

“Probably one of Grazicky's mistresses. He has houses for them all over town.” Ethan had been keeping his own file on Grazicky, hoping it would be his big story to break, propelling him out of small-town television news to a more commercial market. He had the pretty-boy good looks for it, but did he have the stomach for investigative reporting? Adriano couldn't allow him to become a liability. The only one he planned on saving tonight was Payton. Adriano knew Jake was capable even one-handed. Ethan looked too polished to want to get into the mix.

“Drive to the next block,” Jake said, ignoring the policeman's order to stay put until they arrived. “The police say they're no more than three minutes away.”

Three minutes was an eternity. “Payton could be dead in three minutes.” He parked the taxi on the next block up from the house. “I'm going in.”

“I'm with you,” Ethan said, getting out of the car.

 

 

Carter braced his elbow on the mantle above the fireplace. His eyes were glued on the hallway, down which Sherman had Payton hemmed up in a bedroom. His ears were open to the conversation Hiram and his merry-losers were having. Cecily was somewhere in the house, preparing for her big entrance but allowing her husband enough time to get started.

Hiram sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Beside him, Kellie was trying to persuade him to leave. “When they come out of the bedroom,” she whispered, “they'll have the big monkey over there kill us.”

She was right, of course.

“Look what Carter did to Dan—sliced his ear completely off. We have to leave now.”

“We haven't been paid,” Hiram reminded her.

Marvin pulled his attention away from the TV. “Nobody's going anywhere until I kill the woman and collect my fee—plus the bonus money.”