One To Watch (Fantasy Heights) (8 page)

“Right. I let her go, she calls security, and then we’ll have even more people telling me I’m crazy. But I’m not, Thomas. I know I’m not. Steph did something to him. I have to save him.”

“Let me help. I can help.”

Gail’s grip lessened enough that if Amanda stayed on her knees, head turned to the side, she could bear the pain.

“You had your chance,” Gail snarled. “I tried to tell you Steph did a spell on him or something. You told me I was imagining things. And now I’m here to prove I wasn’t.”

“How? How can you prove it?”

“Come out here, and I’ll show you. Just don’t do anything stupid. I’ve had it with you people. I’ll shoot the girl every time you piss me off, starting with her kneecaps.”

Gail moved back toward the stage, still keeping hold of Amanda’s hair. She had no choice but to scramble along. The heat of the footlights did nothing to warm the chill inside as Gail dragged her toward that circle of candles. Drawn between them was a cross. A dark-colored knife sat at the center of the ring alongside a small glass bottle of clear liquid. Next to those waited a thick leather-bound book with Latin titling.

Gail dragged Amanda a few steps more, forced her down even farther, and then stood on her hair.

As if that would keep her down for long. It might hurt like blazes, but she could get free.

Careful not to tug, she turned her head enough to see Thomas. He made a miniscule gesture with one hand that sent a very clear message: He wanted her to stay calm. Stay put. Stay down.

Steph, meanwhile, had begun to plead. “Gail, please. Please don’t hurt them. Let them go.”

“Shut up!” Gail snapped.

“No. Gail, you have to believe me. No one did anything to Robert.”

“Do you think I’m blind? I saw what you were doing when I got here.”

“That was… That wasn’t magic, Gail. It wasn’t a ritual. We were just—”

“Yeah, I recognize bondage when I see it,” Gail said. “But that’s how it started, wasn’t it? You used sex to trap him. Weakened him with it, and then let the demon have him.”

Demon? Amanda looked from a grim Thomas to a terrified Steph. Gail was absolutely, positively out of her mind. She was also armed. They were all in a lot of trouble.

Amanda felt a brief hope when Robert Warnous’s head lolled, then lifted up. When he spoke, his voice was saccharine. Oily. Pleading, and his words were slurred, as if he were drunk or stoned. “Gail, honey, please don’t hurt anyone.”

“Don’t you get it? Don’t you even realize what she’s done to you? You were practically a vegetable from the drugs. And suddenly you’re singing again? Performing? It’s not possible. It’s unnatural. There’s something evil inside, consuming you.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to hurt anyone.”

“It does,” Gail said. “As soon as I get that demon out, you’ll see. Everything will go back to the way it was. If you’re lucky, you won’t even remember any of this.”

“Stop pretending like you give a shit about me,” Warnous said. “It was always the money. Only the money. As long as I stayed wasted all those years, you were free to leech away every cent of the estate.”

Gail let out an outraged yell. The Hall thundered with the sound of a gunshot. Amanda curled into a ball, clutching her head. The noise was deafening. Painful at close range. She didn’t even dare uncurl to see if Gail had managed to hit anyone.

When she could hear again, Robert was laughing. Loud. Clearly unscathed. “You stupid cow! You just shot at me in front of a Fed.”

“Huh?”

“Him. The bim-boy.” Warnous nodded toward Thomas. “He’s FBI.”

“Oh, shut up. He is not.”

Thomas picked up the thread. “I’ve already got you for assault. Criminal trespass. Threatening a federal officer. Discharging an unlicensed handgun in a public place, and the list goes on. If you surrender now, we might be able to keep your sentence in the single digits.”

Very good actor. Completely believable, the way those words rolled off his tongue.

Gail was uncertain now, distracted, and didn’t have her foot planted so firmly anymore. Amanda needed to get her own feet planted. Give herself a fighting chance to escape. Or maybe get that gun away from Gail.

It could work. Dad had made her and Shelley both take years of Tae Kwon Do as kids. They made it to blue belt before boys and boobs got in the way.

No. No, she couldn’t disarm Gail. Shouldn’t try. This wasn’t a sparring match. And that was a real gun. Besides. Security would have heard the gunshot. They would be on their way by now.

Still, she had a chance. She rolled off her side, got her knees on the floor. Planted her hands, staying very low. She visualized the two simple moves. Any white belt could do them. A simple thrust with her legs, an upward sweep with her right arm.

Ignored in favor of a rant about exorcism and harlots, Amanda kept moving, very slowly, very carefully. Adrenaline bled into her system like quicksilver. She could feel Thomas’s eyes fix on her. She glanced up. His gaze radiated a warning she’d be wise to obey: Steady. Stay calm. Don’t make matters worse.

But Gail was completely fixated on Robert. The gun barrel lolled dangerously toward Thomas as Gail’s anger made her shake and stagger.

Do it. Do it.

“He’s nothing without me,” Gail snarled. “No one else gets him. Nobod—”

Amanda did it. She thrust up with her legs. It cost her some hair, but she barely felt the burning pain as she straightened her right arm, sweeping it up beneath Gail’s gun arm.

She must have struck harder than she’d thought. When her arm connected with Gail’s, the gun went flying, spinning upward and sideways toward Thomas in a wild, wobbly arch.

He might have caught it if he’d stayed put. But half a second after Amanda made her move, Thomas followed suit. He had a good ten feet to cover. He moved so fast that he had Gail’s legs swept out from under her before the gun even reached the highest point of its arc.

Amanda stumbled off to the side while Thomas forcibly turned Gail face down onto the stage. He produced handcuffs from a back pocket and had just ratcheted the first ring around Gail’s wrist when security came streaming in from every direction.

Jerod reached them first. He came straight for Amanda, barking orders for the others to free Steph and Robert.

“Get her out of here,” Thomas told him. “Take her to Steph’s office and wait for me there. And someone better call medical. I don’t think anyone’s hurt, but Warnous is juiced up on God knows what.”

Amanda watched, adrenaline draining away to leave her quaky and nerveless. Thomas swooped to pick up the gun and tear it into pieces. Or at least that’s what it looked like to her as he sprang the barrel and ejected the clip.

“Come on,” Jerod told her. “You can tell me what happened on the way.”

She did her best, but even to her own ears, her account sounded incoherent.

Jerod got the gist, she figured, when he asked, “Gail planned an exorcism?”

“I don’t know. I think so. She’s a little…”

“Insane.”

“Well, yeah.”

They’d reached the admin offices where Jerod got her a glass of water and asked her to go through the whole thing again.

“Slower, please,” he said.

By the time she reached the part where the gun went flying, Steph and Thomas had arrived.

Steph, white-faced and shaky, sank onto the settee next to Amanda. “That was very stupid, what you did. Very brave, but very stupid.”

“Stop it, Steph,” Thomas complained. Quiet. Cold.

“Yeah, and I’m sure you’re dyin’ to say I told you so, but you’re gonna have to wait. It’s long past time I had a talk with Amanda.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”

“Thomas, it’s too late. The others are doing everything they can to out you, and Amanda’s not deaf. Eventually what happened will sink in, and then what? You want her to get the wrong idea and leave? Is that what you really want?”

Thomas sank into a chair and leaned forward, rubbing his eyes a minute, then pinching his brows together.

Oh, God, Amanda thought. What was going on? What were they talking about?

Finally, Thomas let his hands fall once more, and raised his chin, looking about fifteen years older than when they’d come in. “Maybe it’s for the best if she leaves. You ever think about that?”

“Of course I have. But she’s changed everything, Thomas. Before she showed up, things were… You know how they were. And it’s not just you. It’s Josh, too, and if you ever listened to him, she’d already know.”

“Then let him tell her.”

“He won’t. It’s not his story to tell. Not entirely.”

Amanda broke in. “What are you talking about? Will somebody please, just this once, tell me what’s going on?”

Steph and Thomas stared at one another for a good twenty seconds before he spoke again, sounding very grave. “You know what it’ll mean. We’ll have to inform everyone of disclosure. My people, Jerod’s camp, the other owner, and… the others.”

“I know,” Steph said. “I can’t say I’ll cherish every minute of having them here, but we have no choice. All of us are bound by the same rules. Even them.”

Thomas’s expression turned into haughty, feigned indifference. But Amanda noticed that once again, just like that day with the burning note, he couldn’t look at her.

Steph must have taken his silence as agreement. She turned to Amanda, took a deep breath, and let it out. “What Robert said, back in the Hall, about Thomas being FBI. It’s true, Amanda. And Thomas told me about Fiona, so I know you saw those articles about Kay and Josh. You remember reading one agent was killed, and another survived, right?”

Confused, she nodded.

“Well, that survivor was Thomas.
Is
Thomas. He stayed, obviously. We… That is, this resort, has a sort of agreement with the local authorities and the Feds and some other interested parties. Our doors stay open in exchange for certain concessions. One of them is to have an agent on site to keep an eye on things and run background checks and stuff. After Thomas recovered from what happened during Dixon’s arrest, he agreed to take over as our onsite agent.”

Amanda blinked. She heard the words coming out of Steph’s mouth. She even understood, to some extent, what they meant.

But Thomas? Savage seducer Thomas? An FBI agent?

She looked over to him. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she could see there was no mistake. All those thick lines between business and his personal life. The scars. His warnings about doors and ignoring curiosity.

Jerod spoke up, very quietly. “I have to restrict her until the Accord and the owners have met.”

Thomas transferred his stare from Amanda to Jerod. Then he nodded. “I always said she didn’t belong here. I should never have agreed to take her on. It’s my fault.”

“It is not your fault,” Steph argued. “It’s mine. You were right about her, and you were right about Robert. I should’ve listened to you. I’m very sorry.”

Amanda held her hands up. “How were you right about me? Why don’t I belong? And don’t I get a say in this?”

The others spoke in unison. “No.”

With that, Thomas got up and walked out, leaving Jerod and Steph staring at one another.

Steph gathered her hair over one shoulder. “Safe to say none of us will ever forget your first day as security chief.”

“I know you mean well, but don’t make light,” Jerod said. Leaning against the wall near a window, he turned his attention onto Amanda. “Here’s what happens. Because we’ve disclosed Thomas’s status, the terms of your contract have to change. We cannot offer you a revised contract without the consent of certain others, and until they can convene, you are placed on limited duty. But that doesn’t matter if you decide you don’t want to stay.”

Amanda stared at him. Half her mind felt sluggish and numb. The other, more logical half was gathering data and fitting shards and fragments into shapes, starting with the word
disclosed
. She knew something about Thomas, about the permanent presence of law enforcement at Fantasy Heights, and she was no fool. If word leaked out to clients, no matter what purpose Thomas served, those clients would flee in droves.

Not for one second did she believe she could walk away from this place without an ironclad non-disclosure contract and the threat of a lawsuit hanging over her head. But she could still walk away. They were offering her a choice instead of firing her outright.

How could she make a decision? She might have learned Thomas’s secret at long last, but that didn’t answer questions like what purpose he really did serve, and how the disclosure would change things for her.

Not that it mattered. There really was no choice involved. Not for her.

“I’m staying.”

Always a pleasure...

Meg Silver writes fun, fast-paced erotic fiction. Passion and pleasure are always the main themes, and the series installment format makes for great light reading, whether readers are looking to spice up a quiet evening, or warm up the engines for something more adventurous.

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