I'll Find You (19 page)

“So, when your father died, Stephen was the only heir.”

“There was some provision in the will for me, but I refused it. Now, I guess it will all go to Tucker once my grandmother dies.”

“Does Teresa know that? She must.”

“It wasn’t any kind of secret. Maybe that’s why she’s stashed Tucker with Aimee, waiting for him to grow up a little. As the Mama Bear, she would be in a good position to run things eventually, so maybe she’s just biding her time until Victoria dies.”

“It doesn’t sound like you really believe that,” Callie ventured.

“I think it’s a little too long term for Teresa to plot. After Stephen’s death, I think she just ran.”

Callie thought of William Lister and Derek and Diane. All she’d heard about for the last year was Jonathan’s will and how they felt things were unfair. “What if your grandmother changed her will?”

“What? To cut out her great-grandson? No way. Victoria wants to leave everything to him.”

“But if Teresa were plotting to get her hands on some of the Laughlin estate after Victoria dies, then she would need to make certain Tucker was safe,” Callie said.

He nodded.

“Well, he’s not safe with Aimee. Not completely.”

“Maybe Teresa doesn’t know that. Like I said, if she’s planning that far ahead, I’d be surprised.”

“But your grandmother’s health is good,” Callie said.

“Far as I know. She’s certainly still as imperative as ever.”

The ferry’s engines turned to a low whine as it slowed and aimed for the dock. Small, round lightbulbs were strung in loops from pole to pole, throwing illumination on the people lined up to catch the ferry back. It was after eight o’clock and Callie suddenly felt famished.

They caught a cab for the short ride to the hotel. There was a steel drum band on a dais at one end of the outdoor patio and an older couple was swaying in each other’s arms, though there wasn’t really a dance floor. Tables were lit by candles and the dark water of the bay shimmered beneath the outdoor lights. Callie and West were seated close to the water and she could hear the lapping waves and smell the dank, briny scent. She’d worn a tan, sleeveless dress and flat sandals, but looking around at some of the other women she felt a little underdressed.

“I think I’ll find the ladies’ room before we order,” she said.

“What would you like to drink?”

“White wine.”

“You’re not going to leave, are you?”

She gave him a look and saw the flash of white of his smile. “No.”

“Because I’m buying.”

“I’ll be back. I promise.”

She walked inside, thinking about yesterday’s escape to the ferry and Tucker. It hadn’t been that many hours ago, but now she trusted West Laughlin, at least in regard to Tucker. It was herself she couldn’t trust now, her dangerous attraction to the man.

Her phone rang inside her carryall. William. Finally. She slowed her steps and answered, moving toward a corner of the bar that was unoccupied as the man and woman who’d been seated at the nearest corner table were just leaving.

“There you are,” she said into the receiver.

“I haven’t got anything further on the Laughlins, if that’s why you’re calling.”

“In part. I just . . .” Now that she didn’t feel quite so out of control about Tucker and West Laughlin, she didn’t really have anything to say.

“Have you decided when you’re coming back?” he asked, filling in the gap. “I can set up a meeting with Derek and Diane for next week.”

“I’m still not sure about my travel plans, so don’t do it yet.”

“So, this is still about your interest in the Laughlins.” He sounded wary.

“In a way.”

“Callie, I should inform you that I can’t be your lawyer and also be Derek and Diane’s, at least in this instance where you’re fighting each other.”

“Oh, you’re choosing them,” she said in surprise. She should have expected as much, but it got to her.

“They feel there’s been a misappropriation of funds. Not by you, per se. By Jonathan. I told them I would represent them in the matter.”

He didn’t sound happy about it, but that hardly helped Callie. “Duly noted,” she said dryly.

“You should check with your accountant, when you get back.”

“Jonathan’s accountant,” Callie corrected, thinking of the man she’d only met once.

“Find out about Jonathan’s financial dealings. It would be to your benefit to come back soon and get this resolved,” he said.

“Thanks for the advice.”

She hung up just as she felt someone come up close behind her. She edged away, feeling hurt and angry. William Lister, though not exactly a friend, was someone she’d felt she could count on. He’d been the Cantrell family attorney and that apparently did not extend to her, now that Jonathan was gone. He’d defected to Derek and Diane, the only true Cantrells left.

She started to turn around when a male voice with an American accent whispered harshly in her ear, “There you are. Don’t move, or I’ll bring the police down on you, you thieving whore.”

“What?” She automatically tried to step forward but the corner table was in her way. To her alarm, his hand gripped her hip, holding her in place.

“No, don’t turn around. Just ease yourself to the side and walk out through the front doors. I’m right behind you.”

“There’s—this is a mistake.”

“I saw you with tonight’s date. I have a gun. Don’t make me use it.”

A
gun?
He put slight pressure on her hip to turn her toward the front of the hotel. She didn’t fight it. Her gaze ran wildly over the other customers around the bar, hoping one of them would notice something was amiss. What if she just screamed?
Never get in a car with a kidnapper. Don’t let them take you. You have a much better chance staying alive.

“I don’t know you,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Stop it. You’re making me angry. You don’t want to make me angry.”

His voice was cold and hard. Her brain had practically shut down, but she got that he thought she was someone else.
Teresa.

“My name’s Callie Cantrell.” She tried to turn to look at him but he was a brick wall of anger.

“I don’t give a damn what you call yourself today. I want my money back, and I want you in a cell. What the fuck did you give me?”

She shook her head, afraid to argue with him, her brain racing.

“Come on. We’re going to the boat. . . .” She felt something hard in the small of her back and she took a step forward.

Callie’s heart raced as she moved forward. This couldn’t be happening. They were right in the hotel lobby. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so frightening. Was he thinking of taking her hostage? Where was his car? Her heart was galloping in her chest. “You’ve made a mistake,” she said again.

“No.”

“I’m not Teresa, if that’s who you think I am.”

He whipped her around and glared into her eyes. He was tall and had a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard surrounding a florid face. His clothes were casual but expensive. His anger was palpable, but she’d never seen him before in her life.

And he got a jolt looking her square in the face, too. She saw it in the widening of his eyes. “What are you up to?” he demanded.

“I told you. I’m . . . Callie Cantrell.”

“Shut the fuck up. This is some trick!”

“No . . . no trick.”

“Who are you?” he demanded. “Where’s Tara?”

Tara was close to Teresa. Callie’s mind jumped from thought to thought. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

They were deep into a tense conversation. To the outside world it might appear as a lovers’ quarrel. “You know where she is. This is some game.”

Callie just stared at him mutely. She didn’t have any argument that seemed to wash. But since it was the second time in two days that she’d been mistaken for another woman, she suspected there was some connection between Tara and Teresa. “When did you see Tara?” she asked.

“Last night.” He glared at her, unwilling to admit his mistake just yet.

“You were with her last night?” Callie repeated, her pulse leaping.

“Ah, you know her!” He jumped on that.

“No, I’m looking for someone who looks like me as well. Her name’s Teresa.”

“Old Sal said you were hustling here before, about six years ago. He recognized you, too.”

“But it wasn’t me,” she reminded him, and he stared into her face in consternation.

She realized the hard object pressed against her spine was not a gun but the end of a table knife, which he now held loosely in his hand.

“What’s going on here?” West’s voice rang out behind him. The guy whipped around, sizing West up.

“It’s all right,” Callie said quickly, before the situation could get further out of hand. “He thinks I’m someone named Tara.”

“Yeah?” West assessed the man coldly. She realized he was poised on the balls of his feet. He looked dangerous and determined, and she was glad to see him.

“You part of this con?” the man asked West.

“No con.” West carefully gestured toward Callie, not making any sudden moves. “Her name’s Callie Cantrell. I’m sure she told you that.” He flicked a look to her over the man’s shoulder and she nodded vigorously.

The man slowly started to relax his belligerent stance. “Egan Rivers isn’t a man to toy with,” he said.

West said, “You’ve just made a mistake.”

“If I have, I apologize. Remains to be seen.” He kept his gaze on West several moments longer, then shook his head and stalked back inside, toward the far end of the bar.

“You okay?” West clipped out, his eyes following Rivers.

“He was with someone named Tara last night who looks like me.”

He gave her a quick look. “You think Teresa’s here?”

“Maybe. What do you think?”

“I need to talk to him.”

“I want to go with you.”

“You’re white as a ghost,” he said, already in motion.

“I’m fine,” she answered stubbornly, following after him as he swept through the bar fast, his strides eating up the distance. She had to pick up the pace to catch up with him. Rivers was already out of sight, having charged through the bar and out the side door that led to a series of stairs down to the private docks behind the hotel that were shared by the Bakoua Beach and several other hotels that ringed the bay. West burst through the door, but Rivers was moving fast down the steps as Callie slammed through after them.

He thought I was Teresa.
Teresa must have used the name Tara and had taken him in some way.

Egan Rivers moved quickly for a big man. West raced down the steps two at a time. “Hey!” he called.

Rivers threw him a dark glare over his shoulder and kept moving.

“Hey, slow down,” West called. “I’ve got some questions for you.”

His answer was to double his speed.

Behind West, Callie said, sounding out of breath, “Teresa must be in Martinique!”

“Damn it.” West didn’t really want to tackle the man, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him get away. The boats were lined up with narrow wooden docks running off the main access. Rivers turned onto one, took two steps, then seemed to think better about revealing his destination because he stopped short and turned, his arms up, his fists clenched at his sides, his face full of belligerence.

West slowed immediately. He was sure the man didn’t have a gun, but there was no reason to test that theory if he didn’t have to. He eased to a stop and lifted his hands. “Hey, look, I don’t want to fight. Just want to ask a question or two.” He heard Callie coming up behind him, her sandals slapping the boards, her breath coming fast. He wished she’d gone to the table instead of chasing after them, but there hadn’t been time to negotiate the point. “We’re looking for someone named Teresa who resembles Callie and has a connection to Martinique. You thought she was someone named Tara, which sounds a lot like Teresa. Maybe they’re one and the same.”

“You’re both in it with her,” he said, glaring at West, then Callie, who had moved to just behind West’s right shoulder. Rivers slowly dropped his hands, but his stance was still confrontational.

“Not sure what you mean,” West said.

“The scam, man.” He pointed a finger at them. “I’m calling the police.”

“We’re not involved in any scam. I thought Callie was Teresa at first, too, but she’s not. The hair’s the same . . . body build. But you know she’s not the woman you’re looking for.”

Egan Rivers had been breathing hard, too, and now he inhaled a long deep breath. “I don’t really give a shit what your deal is.”

Callie said, “You can maybe help us find her. That’s all we want.”

“You met Tara last night?” West asked.

His face turned a brick red in remembrance. “Picked her up at the hotel bar.” He gestured to the Bakoua Beach. “I spend a lot of time around here, Pointe du Bout, Trois-Îlets,” he said, referring to the entire area on this side of the bay. “Had an Internet sales business that I sold. I bought that boat.” He inclined his head toward a vessel with a shiny, navy-blue hull toward the end of the dock. “She came on to me last night. We had some serious fun but she slipped me something. I was out cold. Got up this morning and all my cash was gone.”

“Who’s Old Sal?” Callie asked.

West looked at her, but Rivers answered readily enough. “Man, he’s been around Trois-Îlets for years. Maintains the docks, does some work around the hotel grounds. Everybody knows him. He asked me this morning about Tara. When I told him about her, he said she used to work this area, five, six years ago.”

“Work this area? That’s what you meant about a con?” West asked.

“Yep. Went after guys with money. Sal said she’d been gone a while, but he recognized her right off.” He was staring at Callie now, examining her closely. “What happened to your jaw?”

West’s gut twisted with remorse as Callie said, “And here I thought I’d managed to cover it up with the miracle of modern makeup.”

Rivers actually smiled and the rest of his aggression melted away. “Guess you’re not with her.”

“We’re not,” West said.

“Wanna come to
Castaway
for a drink? That’s what I’m gonna do.” With that he turned and headed for the boat, the stern of which was backed to the dock. West looked at Callie who nodded. He took her hand and they moved forward together.

Rivers led the way onto the boat, then gallantly offered a hand, helping Callie aboard, as West brought up the rear. It was about forty-some feet and had a back salon with a built-in banquette with red cushions and a bar surrounding a tidy galley. There was something stripped down and masculine about it, function over form, that spoke of Egan Rivers’s apparent bachelorhood.

“What’ll you have?” he asked Callie as he slipped behind the bar.

She glanced at West, then said, “White wine?”

Rivers declared sourly, “I think that bitch drank all the chardonnay. No wait. There’s one more bottle.” He pulled out a bottle from the refrigerator, uncorked it, then brought up three plastic glasses from a lower cupboard and filled one for Callie. “I’m having Maker’s Mark,” he said to West. “That work for you?”

“Sure.” As Rivers set up their two glasses, West asked, “Old Sal told you that Tara used to work these hotels?”

“Yep.”

“Where can I find him?” West asked.

“Oh, he’s around. Mostly during the day.”

“What else did he tell you?”

Rivers slid a glass to West, picked up his own, took a deep swallow. “Look, I’m sorry I threatened you,” he apologized to Callie. “I don’t like being taken, y’know? She stole from me. Didn’t get a lot, but I think she drugged me. But we had some fun, first, so maybe I shouldn’t care.”

“What kind of fun?” West asked.

Rivers gave him a knowing look. “The best kind.”

West had an instant mental image, but it was of Callie and himself. “Old Sal say anything else?” he asked, dragging his thoughts back.

“She and her partner left when things started to get hot. They just disappeared one day.”

“Partner?” West asked.

Rivers rubbed his beard and grimaced. “Sal caught him on a boat once, watching Tara and some other guy getting it on. Mostly she picked up guys and went to a hotel room, but this time was on a boat. The partner was spying on ’em, but Old Sal caught him at it and called him out. Peeping Tom just sauntered off, like no big deal. The guy who owned the boat heard their voices but was kinda busy. When he surfaced and found Old Sal, he was outraged, but he was into Tara, or whatever her name is, and let it go. Wasn’t gonna give her up. Later, he told Sal he was pretty sure she knew the guy was watching them and played into it. Made me worry about last night a little, but hell, Tara was doing things to me at the time that I wouldn’t’a wanted to give up, either, even if I’d known.” He lifted a hand to Callie, a silent apology. “Sorry about scaring you. I wanted to kill her after talking to Old Sal.”

West reached for his cell phone and the big man turned back to him. “What’re you doing?” Rivers asked suspiciously.

“I want to show you a picture, that’s all.” West clicked on the phone and scrolled through his photos until he found the one with Teresa in it. Cautiously, Rivers moved close enough to get a good look at it.

“Looks just like her, but then so does your girl.”

“That’s Tara?”

“That’s what I said. Who’s the guy?”

“My half brother. Stephen Laughlin. The woman in the picture’s name is Teresa Laughlin.”

“She his wife?” he asked.

“She was. Before his death.”

“Oh hell, man. What happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” West said grimly.

Callie’s heart stuttered as she sipped at her glass of wine and listened to Rivers’s tale unfold. Thoughts danced in the back of her mind.

Teresa picked up men at bars in Martinique . . . Teresa . . . Martinique . . . Jonathan . . .

She suddenly remembered seeing some papers Jonathan had left on his desk. A quick view before he came back into his office, swept them up and yelled at her for being a sneak. She’d tried to defend her innocence, but he’d been coldly furious and she’d left the room, injured. She’d forgotten that fact. It happened right before the accident. Had it been something about the money Jonathan had spent from the mortgage? No, it was . . . an address?

An address for Teresa DuPres.

Oh, God. Her head hurt. This was one of the missing pieces she’d tried so hard to remember after the accident. Jonathan knew Teresa. She could still practically hear Jonathan calling out to her at the coffee shop that day, “
Teresa!
”

It had never been Marissa. It had been Teresa. Teresa DuPres Laughlin.

Rivers was leaning against the galley cabinets and now he focused on Callie. “Where do you fit in to all this?”

Callie felt like she was in another world. “I—don’t. Not really. I just got mistaken for Teresa. . . .” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded strained. She could feel West’s attention sharpen on her.

Jonathan knew Teresa. West’s
Teresa! It wasn’t just a vague thought in her head. He’d had her name and an address written down. He must’ve met her in Martinique, maybe fell for her. She recalled how shocked he’d seemed when he’d called out to her that day and then realized he’d made a mistake. But he’d pursued her anyway, hoping for sexy, dangerous, morally ambiguous Teresa, a woman who fit into Jonathan’s adrenaline-charged world of wealth, sex, and fantasy far better than Callie ever could. He’d tried to re-create her with Callie, but it hadn’t worked. She’d been a poor substitute, a pale copy of the real thing.

“You okay?” West asked.

It seemed so obvious all of a sudden. Her marriage to Jonathan failed in large part because Callie couldn’t measure up. Not that she was blameless. She’d wanted a fantasy too: Jonathan Cantrell, handsome, sophisticated, worldly. “I’m fine,” she said tautly.

“If she’s working these parts again, you’ll find her,” Rivers predicted.

“Old Sal mention what this partner looked like?” West asked.

“You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“I’ll do that.”

Callie could feel a buzzing in her ears. She’d barely touched her drink, but she felt half drunk. Could she remember that address? Could she, if she tried really hard? It had been in California . . . Venice, maybe? Not Los Angeles, but a nearby suburb?

“Your brother meet her here?” Rivers was asking West.

“At a Los Angeles bar,” he answered.

“Ahh, so, that’s where she went,” the bigger man said. “But now she’s back.”

“Do you mind if I walk outside to the prow?” Callie asked. “Just want to look at the bay.”