Night Thunder (9 page)

There was a momentary hesitation before she continued.

“I went to Denver once to visit a cousin,” she said quietly. “Though that was a long time ago. But I haven’t been too many other places. So I don’t think we’ve met.”

Suddenly she smiled. “I’d surely remember a young lady as pretty as you.”

There was a crash in the kitchen just then and Ada started. “Uh-oh. What in the world did Bessie drop now? I hope it wasn’t the steak-and-potato casserole that’s the dinner special for tonight.”

She scurried toward the kitchen. Josy sat perfectly still, gazing with unseeing eyes at the empty coffee cup before her.

Shouldn’t I feel something?
she thought.
If this woman
is my grandmother, shouldn’t I feel something? Some pull,
some connection? Shouldn’t there have been some flash
of something in her when we met, as well?

Ada Scott seemed nice enough. A sweet, simple woman who’d traveled little from her own backyard, who worked among friends, who wore pink cotton pantsuits and sneakers. A woman who had treated her with the politeness you show strangers, and who had spoken of her grandson with obvious pride.

She’s happy. She’s at peace. She doesn’t need or want a
stranger in her life,
Josy suddenly realized.
There’s no
need to go any further with this.

Ignoring the icy disappointment pulsing through her, she slid out of the booth and asked Roberta for her bill.

“Coming right up, but I want to show you something.” Roberta breezed toward the kitchen as Ada emerged. When Josy reached her at the cash register, Ada was shaking her head.

“Bessie dropped a pie. A strawberry-rhubarb pie. It’s all over the floor. But will she let me help her clean it up?” Ada shook her head, her eyes sparkling. “The Templetons are all stubborn to a point, and she’s one of them. Said she dropped it, she’ll clean it, that’s that.” Ada chuckled. “I’m her best friend, have been for years, but do you think she’d let me help her? No, sirree.”

Josy smiled. “You know her pretty well, don’t you?”

“I surely do. You know how it is. You spend enough time with someone, they get to be like family. Me and Bessie, after all these years, we’re like family.”

“You mentioned your grandson.” Josy didn’t know why she was following up the conversation when she’d already decided to let it go. The words just seemed to stream from her mouth. “Do you have any other family besides him—and Bessie?”

“Well, all of the Templetons are like family to me. We go way back. Dorsey, Big John, and their daughter, Katy, of course. She’s Katy Brent now. But I’ve been a widow for the past fifteen years, and my son died some eleven years ago, along with his wife.”

Her eyes clouded. “There was a pileup on the highway during a snowstorm. Both my son and daughter-in-law were taken from me . . . and from Billy, my grandson. He was still a child then. I raised him after that, you know. He’s all I have left. And he’s a fine young man, if I do say so myself. He studies science at the university.”

She shook her head. “Listen to me rattling on. You must have better things to do than stand around here— Roberta! Where’s this young lady’s bill?” she called toward the kitchen.

“Hold your horses. I’ve got it.” But as Roberta came out and handed Josy her check, she also had a sheet of lined yellow paper in her hand. “Take a look at this, Josy.”

It was the invitation list for Corinne’s shower. Her name was there, at the very bottom of the list.

“Corinne wants you to come to the shower and so do I. So next time you come in here, I should have your invitation ready. But in the meantime, consider yourself invited.”

Josy didn’t know what to say. She’d only known Corinne and Roberta for a day—and a night—and they were including her, treating her as a friend, making her feel more than welcome in the town.

“This is so kind of you. I’ve heard of country hospitality, but you don’t have to do this,” she protested automatically, but Roberta folded her arms.

“No arguing, girl. My Luther used to say that arguing with me was a shameless waste of breath—and damned if he wasn’t right. The shower is a week from Saturday, twelve o’clock. At Ada’s place on Angel Road. You’ll get to meet a bunch of ladies from the town, maybe you’ll even get some decorating jobs out of it. I told Tammie Morgan yesterday that we had a decorator here from Chicago. She was curious as hell to meet you. Seems the Crystal Horseshoe wants to renovate a couple of their guest cabins—make ’em even ritzier.”

She rolled her eyes. “She wants to talk to you. Bet she thinks you’ll give her a deal—that decorator they got from Los Angeles cost them the sun and the moon.”

Decorating jobs?
Josy thought in dismay.
What have I
gotten myself into?

“Oh, my, Tammie Morgan.” Ada snorted. She looked Josy straight in the eye. “Whatever you do, young lady, don’t let that woman take advantage of you. She’ll try to suck your brain and find some way to get you to work for her for free.”

“Thanks for the warning. I won’t let that happen.”
Mostly because I know nothing about decorating dude
ranch guest cabins,
Josy thought ruefully.

Her little deception was taking on a life of its own and she felt a twinge of guilt. At the same time, there was a small rush of warmth because Ada had warned her about Tammie Morgan. Even if it wasn’t personal—Ada was just warning Corinne and Roberta’s friend—it still made her smile at Ada with a surge of gratitude.

“Actually, I’m curious to meet her now.” She laughed. “And I’d love to come to the shower. Thank you, Roberta, for including me.”

“It’s a good thing Corinne finally got me this list today or it would be too late to even have a shower,” Roberta flung over her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen.

Another customer had lined up behind Josy now, so she murmured a good-bye to Ada and left the diner.

But as she drove back to the apartment, she reflected that the shower would afford her a perfect opportunity to see Ada’s home, to see if she recognized it as the same house she and her parents had driven to that long-ago day. Of course, Ada could have moved since then, but maybe she could find out about that too and casually ask where she’d lived before. It was an opportunity—an opportunity to learn more about her grandmother, to reconcile that memory of her parents and herself and the woman on that porch.

Even if she never told Ada a word about their relationship, even if they never had a real conversation alone together about anything except Thunder Creek chitchat, seeing her home and watching her interact with her friends and neighbors would provide a better sense of the woman to whom she was related by blood.

And that will be enough,
she told herself.

But as she pulled up in front of her building she could still see Ada Scott’s sweet, gently lined face in her mind. And she wasn’t entirely certain she’d be able to leave Thunder Creek without finding out one thing: why the plainspoken woman who worked the cash register at Bessie’s Diner and had raised her grandson from the time he was a boy had made the decision more than fifty years ago to give away her newborn daughter.

Chapter 8

“ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA where Ricky Sabatini is at this moment?”

Oliver Tate’s voice was calm as he turned from the window where his children splashed three stories below in the shimmering free-form pool, and where his wife lounged on a pink chaise amid copper pots brimming with roses.

But for all the evenness of Tate’s tone, Dolph Lindstron wasn’t fooled. Not for a second.

Dolph was a big man—six foot six, 230 pounds of rock-solid muscle, and a brute strength forged in the slums of Copenhagen. But he wasn’t stupid. Fear slithered through him like a snake when he saw the ice-chip green of his employer’s eyes, the catlike way Oliver Tate pivoted from the window overlooking his estate.

For Oliver Tate, losing Ricky Sabatini was equivalent to a cardinal sin. And he was the sinner.

“No, Mr. Tate.” Dolph stood at rigid attention. “Not yet, I don’t. But I’ll lock down Sabatini’s whereabouts soon. And I
will
find him,” he vowed, then tensed as he caught the flash of anger in Tate’s icy eyes.

“And the woman—the woman with my property?” Tate asked silkily.

“Josephine Warner. We’re still searching for her. She’s nobody, not a professional, we should have her any day. And your property too, of course,” Dolph added as his employer’s eyebrows shot up, a sign he recognized. Tate was infuriated.

And Dolph knew it wasn’t healthy to infuriate Oliver Tate.

“The Warner woman flew out of LaGuardia to Salt Lake City. She stayed two nights at the Best Western motel near the airport, paid cash for her room, made no phone calls. But the clerk remembered her—after I refreshed his memory, that is.” Dolph smiled, his teeth gleaming whitely beneath his shaved head. But there was no responsive smile from Tate. Only two clipped words.

“Go on.”

“She bought a blue ’95 Blazer with Utah plates—paid cash again—and no one’s seen her since. But we have people in Salt Lake City asking more questions, and I’m going back to interview the car salesman again personally—”

“I’m not interested in your tedious explanations, Dolph.” The words flicked like a slow, slick whip. “I want results.”

“Yes, Mr. Tate. Sure. I’ll—”

The door to the office burst open suddenly and immediately Oliver Tate held up a hand for silence. Seven-year-old Eric Tate darted into the room in swimming trunks and sandals.

“Daddy, I swam. I swam across the pool. Stephanie can’t swim, she’d drown if Mommy or Catrina didn’t hold her up, but I can swim!” the boy announced, his hair still wet from the pool, though his feet were dry and clad in sandals, as required by Oliver Tate whenever anyone left the pool to enter the house.

“Good boy, Eric. You see? I told you swimming was easy.” Oliver grinned down at the boy and tousled his damp hair. “You’re strong, aren’t you? A good, fast, strong swimmer.”

“The strongest.” Eric glanced over at Dolph, smiling. “One day I’ll be as strong as Dolph,” he boasted.

“Yes, you will. In the meantime, keep practicing your swimming so you’ll be the best swimmer in the world. Or at the least in your high school when you’re old enough to try out for the swim team. Daddy likes the best.”

“Mommy is the best, right? The most beautiful?”

“Indeed she is. Out of all the women in the world.”

“Stephanie isn’t the best at anything.”

“Not yet, she’s only a baby. When she is older, she will be the best of daughters. Now see what I have for you.”

Dolph kept silent as Oliver Tate reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a coin. He handed it to his son.

“Those who are best always get rewarded. This coin is worth a great deal of money, Eric. I want you to have it— put it away where no one will take it from you, and keep it. When you win your first swimming meet, I will give you a box of coins just like this one. All of them rare and valuable. But if you lose—I will come to you and take this coin away.”

The smile faded from the boy’s face. “You’ll take it away?”

“Only if you lose. If you win . . . there will be more. Much more. And I know that you are strong enough to win.”

Tate bent and kissed his son’s cheek. “Go now. Put this in a safe place and then swim some more. Work at it. If you want to be the best, you must work very hard. Remember. Only the best is good enough.”

The best,
Dolph thought, and a tiny bead of sweat glistened on his shaved head. Oliver Tate was obsessed with the best. He insisted on it. Once upon a time, Dolph knew, his employer had been Olvan Tatrinsky, a starving kid from the slums of Helsinki, who lurked in alleys wearing rags and eating from garbage cans, until he started earning money by running errands for gangsters.

But as soon as he had enough money and the means to travel to America, Olvan left his native land, magically reappearing several years later as young, ambitious banking whiz Oliver Tate. His original backers were unknown, and probably dead, but now the boy who had lived in alleys infested with rats and garbage had far surpassed all those who had tutored him in the ways of crime.

Now his name, his fancy new name, was found in the registers of the best hotels, the business columns of the
Wall Street Journal,
and the invitation lists of all the best New York and London parties.

He was married to a former Miss World, had two perfect children—and the one that was imperfect, the brain-damaged eldest son who had been born first and in trauma after an automobile accident, had been shipped off to an institution, well cared for but ignored, as if he no longer existed.

And if Dolph didn’t soon find what Ricky Sabatini had stolen from Tate, he knew he would no longer exist either.

Because Tate would decide he was no longer the best. There was always someone waiting to take his place, someone stronger, smarter, more ruthless and resourceful. Dolph had risen through the ranks in just such a way and he knew the drill.

Already, Hammer, who had gone trigger-happy with Archie Noon, and Lyle Samuels, the tech genius who had installed and been responsible for the Tate house’s security system, had both been removed. Bloodily removed. Piece-by-piece removed.

Their bodies would never be found and no one would ever know. But Dolph knew—because he had disposed of them, exactly as Tate had ordered.

Hammer had screwed up. And Samuels’s system had failed. His guards and dogs and alarms and buttons and lasers had failed.

And Mr. Tate loathed failure. Particularly when it hit home, and this particular failure had hit home in the most personal way for Oliver Tate.

Ricky Sabatini had stolen from him. Stolen something of immense value and beauty. Something Mr. Tate prided himself on possessing—especially since he himself had stolen it from an enemy.

And if Dolph didn’t get it back, and soon . . .

He thought of what he had done to Hammer and Samuels. And knew that there were at least three men on his team who would be only too happy to do the same to him. And then to step into his shoes.

Men ready to prove that they were the best at whatever Oliver Tate asked of them.

Dolph waited until the boy ran from the room, the coin clenched tight in his hand, and then he spoke.

“I’m leaving in an hour for Salt Lake City to follow up on the Warner woman. I didn’t want to tell you earlier in case it didn’t pan out, but Len might have a lead on Sabatini and is checking it out. I’ll know more from him by the end of the day.”

“That’s more like it.” Tate nodded. “Keep me informed. I want him dead as much as I want what he stole from me.”

“And the woman? If we find her and she doesn’t have it after all?”

“Kill her regardless. It’ll be a lesson to Sabatini and to anyone else who might try to go up against me. Don’t come back here, Dolph, until she’s dead.”

Dolph nodded. He hoped he was the one to find the woman. It would prove his worth to Tate once and for all, and besides, he liked killing women. In addition to the stress, the pressure, and of course, the high pay and equally high stakes, this job had some special perks. Now and then he got paid to do what he liked best.

Standing before Oliver Tate, he struggled to keep from smiling. First he’d make her tell him everything she knew about Tate’s little treasure and about Ricky Sabatini’s whereabouts, likes and dislikes, friends, all the information they’d need to track him down—and then he’d kill her.

Slowly. Deliciously.

“Dolph, I’m tired of waiting. I want them both found and I want my property. You’re to bring it back here personally. If you can’t do it in a timely fashion, I’ll have no choice but to turn the matter over to someone who can get the job done.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Tate. I won’t let you down.”

Oliver Tate made no reply. He watched Dolph leave, thinking what a shame it would be to lose him—Dolph was quick and intelligent and ruthless, as well as being big as an ox.

But if he couldn’t recover the prize, what good was he?

I can’t afford inefficiency,
Tate thought, turning back to the window. Far below he saw his wife applying sunscreen to Stephanie’s back and legs. He liked watching them from above, surveying the kingdom he had created for them, for all three of them.

The sprawling Tudor house in Southhampton, the three acres of gardens, velvety cool and brilliant with flowers, the stables where only Thoroughbreds were allowed to dwell. Then there was the cabana and guesthouses, which were larger than the stinking ship he’d toiled on to earn his passage to America.

His children would never know what it was to be spat upon, beaten, dressed in rags. They would never know hunger or fear. They were born to lead, as he was leading, and they would lead from strength. Always from strength.

He’d teach them. Especially Eric. The boy would one day take his place and he must see what a leader needed to do to stay on top.

He must know. Just as Olvan Tatrinsky knew what he must do to those who had stolen from him.

The loss of one treasure was as bad as the loss of all. It could not be tolerated, and such an affront must be punished, rectified, and purged. The treasure was his, for as long as he chose to keep it. And someday when he decided it was time, when he had tired of looking at it, admiring it, anytime he chose, he would give it to Stephanie. She must have the best, only the best.

And no scum cop like Ricky Sabatini was going to cheat Oliver Tate and his family out of anything.

At least, not for long.

His secretary buzzed him from the reception area outside. The entire third floor of the house was set up as a home office with a reception area, conference room, and a private office suite. There was also a completely separate, private entrance for those admitted through the security gates with special passes.

“Yes, Linda.”

Below he saw the housemaid setting up a tray on the patio beside the pool. No doubt crab salad and caviar and French bread and baby greens, as Renee preferred when dining alfresco. He expected there would be peach melbas for dessert. He was eager to go down and join them, to sit with Renee and hear her tell him about Eric’s achievement.

But his secretary’s words made him grimace, for he’d have to delay several moments before riding the elevator down to the pool.

“Wallace Becker is on line three.”

“I’ll take it.”

NYPD precinct captain Wallace Becker spoke the moment he clicked onto the secure line. “We’ve got him— we’ve got Sabatini. My men are working him over as we speak. Any time now, he should be begging us to make a deal.”