Don't Look Down (11 page)

Her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. “Unknown,” she mused, hitting the talk button. “
Hola
.”

“Hello?” a deep English accent came back. “Samantha Jellicoe, please.”

“Speaking.”

“I called your office, and your assistant gave me this number. You deal in security, do you not?”

Great. Stoney wasn’t happy, if he was giving strangers her
cell number. Sam changed lanes, shifting the phone to her other ear. She needed to get one of those hands-free things. “Yes, I do.”

“I wonder if we could meet?”

“That depends,” she said, turning right at the light. “Who are you?”

“Oh, yes. Well, that…that’s a bit sticky. I need to ask for your discretion, first.”

She frowned. “I’m very discreet.”

“Very well.” He cleared his throat, managing to make even that sound British. “My name is Leedmont. John Leedmont.”

Samantha pulled over so fast that she nearly wrecked into a red Mercedes. Ignoring the honking, she put the Bentley in park. “John Leedmont of Kingdom Fittings?”

“You’ve heard of me.”

“Rick Addison’s buying your company. Of course I’ve heard of you.”

“He’s
attempting
to buy my comp—”

“What was it you wanted?” she interrupted. “Because if you’re going to try bribery or something, I like chocolate—but Addison really doesn’t take business advice from me.”

“I’m afraid this is a personal matter, Miss Jellicoe, but I don’t wish to discuss it over the phone.”

“Right, you wanted to meet. How about my office, in an hour?”

“Absolutely not. How about Howley’s on South Dixie in thirty minutes?”

He knew Palm Beach. And it was public enough to ease her paranoia a little. Sam checked her watch. “Forty minutes. I’ll see you there.”

She hung up, tossed her phone onto the passenger seat, and pulled into traffic again. That was bizarre, but considering how her week was going, that wasn’t saying all that much.

John Leedmont, the British pipe fittings king, wanted to meet with her privately. She should call Rick, but it made more sense to figure out what the game was, first.

Samantha was almost thankful when she pulled into the police station parking lot. At least the sight of a dozen cop cars parked behind the building gave her something more immediate to worry about. She was insane.

At the front desk she asked for Castillo, and couldn’t help looking around to see if they had wanted posters taped to the walls or something. True, her face wouldn’t be on one, but that was only because the law didn’t know who’d pulled all the robberies she’d done. She was public now, though, and they had all the time in the world to look into her past. Or to try to, anyway.

“Sam,” Castillo’s voice came, and she spun around.

“Frank.” She stuck out her hand, absurdly relieved to see a relatively friendly face.

“Do you want to come on back to my cubicle?” he asked, his expression amused behind his thick, graying moustache. “Or we could stand out in the parking lot if that’d make you feel better.”

“Funny,” she grumbled, motioning him back the way he’d come. “Where’s my damned doughnut?”

She could swear half the police department stopped what they were doing to eye her as she passed by. The robbery department had probably just gone on high alert or something. Shit.

“Here you go,” Castillo said after a moment, taking a seat behind an ugly gray steel desk and shoving a napkin with a chocolate doughnut toward the guest chair.

“Where’re my sprinkles?” she asked, reluctantly seating herself.

“SWAT came in early for drills. They took all the sprinkles.”

“Okay.” She took a breath. “I need a favor.”

“I figured.” The detective studied her for a moment. “You helped me solve an international triple murder. Aside from that, I like you. So I’ll do what I can, but I’m not jeopardizing any investigation, and I’m not—”

“Jeez, Frank. I just wanted to know if you could tell me exactly what was stolen from the Kunz estate.”

“Sam…”

She could hear the reluctance in his voice. “He came to me looking for help,” she said, “and so did you. I just want to know what’s missing.”

He blew out his breath. “Okay, but if this gets out, I’ll know where it came from.”

“Like I have anybody to tell.” Not anybody who’d tell a cop about it, anyway.

“It was ruby jewelry that turned up missing. An entire collection. Kunz had bought them about ten years ago from a private collector. Something about Flemish royalty.”

That rang a bell. “The Gugenthal collection,” she said after a moment.

Castillo looked at her. “Right. And you knew that because…”

“Rubies and Flemish royalty. I keep up on things.”

“I guess so.”

“How much was taken?”

“From preliminary insurance reports, something around twelve million bucks in cash and jewelry.”

Sam tapped her fingers on her thigh. “And the artwork?”

“One Van Gogh and an O’Keeffe.”

“That’s a weird pairing.”

“They were both in his office,” Castillo supplied, checking his notes. “Apparently he’d just come back from a collection trip.”

Hm. If that were the case, things the family had never known existed could be missing, as well. Another complication. “But nothing turned up missing from anywhere else in the house?”

“Nope.”

“So it was a murder first, with the robbery maybe just to cover it up.”

Sitting back in his chair, Castillo took a bite of his own doughnut, buttermilk glazed. “You think like a cop. Did you know that?”

Great
. “Thanks, I guess. Any clue which it is?”

“What do
you
think?”

“Me?” There were a few other things she knew—or suspected—but that was her own business. Helping the cops wouldn’t do anything but lose her the bet. “Kunz knew something was going to go to hell, and from somewhere close by,” she offered. “People like him don’t have many weak points, and they don’t let an outsider see one unless they can’t help it. And if it was just the jewelry or the cash he was worried about, he could have had the stuff moved to a safe deposit box or something.”

The detective had set aside his doughnut to jot down more notes. “That makes sense. And it all fits with your bodyguard theory.”

“When’s the funeral?” Samantha asked abruptly. She didn’t attend many of those; when her friends or colleagues died, she usually wasn’t in a position to come into the open. She wanted to attend Charles Kunz’s, though, if she could, both to let him know that she intended to keep the promise she’d made, and to see what—or who—crawled into the sunlight to attend, as well.

“Day after tomorrow. It’s gonna be private, but I’m going
from the PD.” He took a breath. “Do you want to be my date?”

Their relationship had definitely changed since their first meeting, when he’d pulled a gun on her. “Rick might get an invite. If he doesn’t, then yes, I’d appreciate it.”

“You got it. But Sam, if you’re asking me this stuff because you’re trying to solve the case, don’t. It’s my job, and I’ll take care of it. I don’t want you screwing it up. And between you and me, there’re enough people around who’d like to see you take a wrong step that you shouldn’t even be crossing the street on your own.”

With a smile, she stood. “Frank, I have no idea what you’re talking about. My father was the thief, and he was convicted for it. Remember? I’m the art and security expert.”

“Yeah, and I’m Fidel Castro. Stay off my radar—and everybody else’s.”

“Don’t worry about that, Fidel. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

As quickly as she could do so without looking like a fleeing felon, Samantha left the police department.
Man
. That had rattled her more than a B and E gone bad. Taking deep breaths, she jumped back into the Bentley and headed for Howley’s.

She’d only seen John Leedmont once, when she’d met Rick at his London office for lunch right as the CEO of Kingdom Fittings had been leaving. He was tall and distinguished, and she’d had the urge to start singing, “The Very Model of a Modern Major General” from
The Pirates of Penzance
.

When she walked into Howley’s to see him seated at one of the Formica tables, her first thought was that he didn’t look as music-inspiring today. No, he looked worried. It was getting to the point where everybody who wanted to talk to her was worried about something. Happy people, though, probably wouldn’t need her services.

“Leedmont,” she said, pulling out the chair opposite.

He half rose, doing the British bowing thing as she sat. “Miss Jellicoe. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“You do security work.”

“You already asked me that. The answer’s still yes.” A waitress came by, and she ordered a Diet Coke.

“And you’ve promised your discretion. If this were to become public, I would be ruined. And I would make certain that Addison never got his hands on Kingdom Fittings.”

Sam sat back. “Gosh, you make this sound so attractive. Are you offering anything besides threats?”

“A flat fee of ten thousand dollars, American.”

It wasn’t much as fees traditionally went for her, but it was just about enough to cover her first month’s office rent. “That sounds okay,” she said slowly, “but I still want to know what the gig is, first.”

“The gig. Right.” He cleared his throat again. “This was slipped under my hotel room door this morning.” With a deep breath he pulled an envelope from his inside coat pocket and set it between them on the table.

Immediately wary, Sam dropped her hands into her lap. She wasn’t going to be tricked into touching someone else’s stolen property or dirty money in public. “Why don’t you open it and show me?” she suggested.

“I’d prefer not to do so here.”

“You set up this meeting. I consult on security installation, and this isn’t looking like that.”

“No, it isn’t. But I still need your help.” Grimacing, he opened the envelope and set the contents on the table in front of her.

Samantha looked down. “Crap.”

The waitress appeared with her soda, and Sam slammed
the photo upside down. Once they were alone again, she flipped it upright once more. Grainy, probably taken with a telephoto lens and at night, she couldn’t tell who the woman was. That white moustache, though, was hard to miss.

“So you got a blow job,” she said, keeping her voice pitched so no one at the closest tables could overhear. “Good for you.”

“Did you read the photo’s border?”

She held the photo closer. In small black letters along the white border of the picture she could just make out the words
$50,000, P.O. Box 13452, Palm Beach 33411-3452
.

Samantha looked at the picture again. It had been taken from above, looking down into the front seat of the convertible. The steering wheel was on the left, and the woman, with black straight hair and no facial features visible, wore a red tube top and white shorts. “This was taken here,” she said. “And you got into town what, yesterday?”

“She practically leapt into the car.”

“And right onto your cock. Amazing.”

“But she didn’t. I didn’t receive anything, and I didn’t pay her for any services. She asked for a ride, and I gave her one.”

“If you ever watch
Cops
, you’ll see that about ninety-five percent of the johns they bust say that same thing.” She glanced up again at the bony hands gripping a cup of tea. “You’re married,” she stated, taking in the thick gold band on his left ring finger. “And this isn’t your wife.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then pay the money.”

“Not without an assurance that this picture will never surface again, and that I’ll never receive another copy with a request for an additional sum of money at a later date.”

“How did she end up with her face in your lap, if you’re telling the truth?”

“I am telling the truth. She chose the place we should pull over,” he said after a moment, reluctance edging his voice, “and when I stopped the car to let her out, she dropped her lighter, then leaned over to get it. That lasted for maybe a second, and then she got out of the car and thanked me, and I continued back to the hotel. Until this morning, I thought that was the end of it. My good deed, as it were.”

“There’s no such thing as a good deed,” Sam returned, despite herself beginning to believe him. “So you think somebody paid her to set you up?”

“I don’t know how else to explain it.” Reaching over, he flipped the photo on its face again. “Will you help me, Miss Jellicoe?”

“I don’t have much experience with blackmail,” she hedged, keenly aware that Stoney was probably going ballistic back at the office waiting for her.

“If this had happened in London, I would have had people to contact who I could trust to assist me. Here, though I have many acquaintances, I wouldn’t precisely say that I trust any of them.”

“Especially after somebody took that picture.”

“Precisely. And calling my people in now would bring too much negative attention. I know that you handled a delicate situation for Addison, and my gut tells me that I can trust you. Any information about why this happened would be helpful, though of course you will only receive the fee if I receive the original photo, the negative if there is one, and a reasonable assurance that any and all copies have been destroyed.”

“If it was digital, you could be pretty much screwed, pardon the pun.”

“I still want to know who took the picture.”

She liked a man who tried to maintain a reasonable handle on reality even when his life was going to shit. “I’ll see
what I can do,” she said, sweeping the photo back into the envelope. “Where are you staying?”

“The Chesterfield. Room 223.”

“I’ll be in touch.” Finishing off her soda, she stood.

“I won’t have this hanging over my head while I’m negotiating with Addison,” he said distinctly.

Hey, she hadn’t even seen any money yet, and he was already making threats and ultimatums—not that she could blame him. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning,” she amended, tucking the envelope under her arm and heading back to the car.

To her surprise, her office reception area was empty of applicants when she reached the suite. The leather couches were more noticeable, and they were very nice. She wondered again to whom they belonged. “Stoney?” she called, heading into the back.