Rivals (55 page)

“I might be able to arrange that,” he said at last.

“Wonderful. We can turn the air conditioner on and spend a cosy evening in front of the fireplace with lights turned down low and a fine old brandy I found.”

She sounded happy. Malcom wondered if Diedre was right when she said he was getting cranky and difficult to please. After all, Flame had asked him to come. And she'd never been the helpless, clinging type. That was part of what had attracted him to her in the first place—her pride and independent spirit.

“Where can I reach you later tonight?” she asked.

“What time?”

“I don't expect my dinner meeting with Ben to last much longer than a couple hours. I should be back at Morgan's Walk by ten at the latest. Ten o'clock Central time, that is.”

“Which means eight o'clock here, and I'll be at the DeBorgs' having dinner. Why don't you call me in the morning at my office?”

“First thing,” she promised. “And try to come next weekend, if you can, Malcom.”

“I will. I want to sample that brandy by the fire…and you.”

40

W
hen
Flame walked out of the downtown restaurant, her glance went automatically to the towering black monolith in the next block. The ebony gleam of its marble facade seemed to loom over her, the distinctive gold S of the Stuart logo taunting her with its presence. Abruptly, she turned and waited for Ben Canon to join her.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said. “I enjoyed it.”

“After all the evening meals you've had alone at Morgan's Walk, I thought it might be a pleasant change.”

“It was.” She opened her purse and took out her car keys. “I'll call Malcom in the morning and advise him that you'll be telexing the final draft of the option agreement first thing.”

“I'm going back to my office right now and make those few minor revisions we discussed tonight,” he replied, holding up the folder in his hand that contained the document. “Where did you park? I'll walk you to your car.”

“I'm in the lot across the street.” She nodded in the direction of the light blue Continental parked directly beneath a light. “You don't need to walk me over there, especially when your office is in the opposite direction.”

“Just trying to be a gentleman.” He shrugged indifferently, accepting her refusal of his company.

“Be my lawyer instead and get that option agreement finalized before Chance slips in and buys that land out from under my nose.”

He chuckled at that. “You're sounding more like Hattie every day. Goodnight, Flame.”

He waved the folder at her and set off with a jaunty stride. Smiling absently, she watched him for a moment, then angled across the street to the parking lot. A security light cast its bright glow over the sky blue Lincoln parked next to its tall pole, banishing all the night's shadows.

As Flame paused in its light to unlock the driver's door, she felt a prickle of unease, that odd, uncomfortable—and much too familiar—sensation that she was being watched suddenly claiming her. She hadn't had that feeling since she'd left San Francisco—back when the hawk-faced man had been following her. She looked around, scanning the lot and the street, half-expecting to see the hawk-faced man shrink out of sight. But there was nothing—no one walking along the sidewalk, no one sitting in a parked car, no dark shape lurking in the shadows of the buildings nearby.

Almost angrily she tried to shake off the feeling, blaming it on those threatening phone calls that had her imagination working overtime, as she unlocked the car door and quickly slipped behind the wheel. Yet it remained, cloaked in the need for haste that had her accelerating out of the parking lot onto the street.

Four blocks from the restaurant, the rearview mirror reflected the glare of bright headlights behind her. Flame immediately tensed. Where had that car come from? She was certain there'd been no vehicle waiting to turn at the last intersection. How had it appeared like that—as if out of nowhere? Then she realized how paranoid that sounded and chided herself for seeing a threat in something so innocent as a car behind her on a public street. The entrance ramp for the interstate was just ahead, for heaven's sake. Naturally there'd be more traffic around it, even in this quiet downtown area.

Flame honestly tried to ignore the car behind her, yet she was aware that it turned onto the interstate when she did. But, so did a second car behind it.

The fifteen-mile stretch of highway to her exit seemed much longer tonight. Along the way, she passed slower-moving traffic and other vehicles passed her, yet the glare of headlights in her rearview mirror remained constant. Over and over again, Flame told herself that it didn't necessarily mean it was from the same car.

When it took the same rural exit she did, she began to wonder if her first instinct had been right—that the car was following her. It was five miles to Morgan's Walk from here—five miles on a narrow, two-lane highway that carried very little traffic, especially at night.

With her uneasiness growing, Flame slowed the Lincoln, trying to force the car behind her to pass. But it slowed down, too. When she speeded up, it did, keeping the same close distance behind her. Her palms began to sweat. The hawk-faced man had never been this obvious when he'd tailed her before. Why now? Then she realized that whoever was back there wanted her to know she was being followed—he wanted her to be worried…frightened. The worst of it was—he was succeeding.

Straining, she tried to see beyond the bright beams of her headlights into the blackened night, searching for a landmark that would tell her how much farther it was to the turnoff for Morgan's Walk. Ahead, the highway curved sharply to the right. From that point, Flame knew it was less than a mile to the ranch's drive. She flexed her fingers, trying to ease their knuckle-white grip on the steering wheel, as she slowed the Lincoln to make the curve.

But the car behind her didn't, its headlights suddenly looming closer, the reflection of their glare nearly blinding her.

“Are you crazy?” Flame cried out. “Don't you know there's a curve up ahead?”

A second later it slammed into her from behind, the impact jolting her, pitching her forward against the steering wheel, and sending the Lincoln shooting into the curve. She was going too fast! The car would never hold the curve!

As she braked frantically, the Lincoln briefly skidded sideways, crossing into the other lane. She fought desperately to control it, fear tightening her throat, nerves screaming. But she couldn't hold it on the road. The car careened wildly into the ditch on the opposite side. There was a split second of terror when she thought it was going to roll. Somehow the Lincoln righted itself and plunged up the other side of the ditch, bouncing and roughly tossing her from side to side.

It came to a shuddering stop in an open pasture twenty yards from the road. Flame sat there for a full second, her fear-frozen hands gripping the steering wheel. Then the shaking started, tremors of relief vibrating through her as she realized how very close she had come to disaster. She sagged against the seat back, then stiffened, remembering the car that had forced her off the road. All she could see of it was the red of its taillights in the distance.

She had no idea how long she sat there with the engine idling, the transmission in park—something she had no memory of doing—waiting for the shock to subside. Finally, on shaky legs, she got out and inspected the damage. All she found were some dents in the chrome bumper and clods of earth and clumps of grass caught here and there.

Aware that there was little hope of anyone driving by at this hour, she realized that she either had to walk for help or drive out of there and back onto the road herself. She chose the latter option.

That mile to Morgan's Walk was the longest she'd ever driven in her life, her arms, her shoulders, her neck aching from the banging about she'd taken. She was certain she'd wind up with several lovely bruises, but at least that was all. It could have been much worse—and that was the scary part.

The telephone started ringing the minute she walked into the house. She stopped short, dread sweeping over her as she stared at the beige telephone on the foyer table. Slowly she walked over and picked it up.

“Hello,” she said, a wary tension in her voice. That alien voice replied in its eerie monotone, “You were warned. You may not be so lucky next time.”

Flame gripped the phone, unable to speak, unable to move-paralyzed by the significance of that message. As the line went dead, she could feel every aching bruise and strained muscle in her body…and the fear rising again in her throat.

Fighting it, she quickly depressed the button and heard the familiar hum of the dial tone. Hurriedly, she punched a set of numbers, but in her haste, she inverted two of the digits and had to start all over again.

“Ben.” She held the receiver with both hands. “Someone…someone deliberately ran me off the road.”

“What? When?”

“Just now. On my way back to Morgan's Walk. It was deliberate, Ben. Somebody's trying to kill me.”

“Flame, where are you? How do you know it was deliberate? What makes you so certain?” The questions came rapid-fire, the shock in his voice evident.

“I'm here…at Morgan's Walk. I just got a phone call telling me—” She stopped, catching the edge of panic in her voice, and started again, forcing a calmness. “—telling me that I'd been warned—and that I might not be so lucky next time.”

“What?” Ben sounded as stunned as she had been. “Who was the call from?”

“I don't know.”

“Was it a man's voice? A woman's?”

“It was a robot's,” she replied and laughed nervously, trying to shake off her fear.

“What? Be serious, Flame.”

“I am. Somebody's using some sort of voice synthesizer to make these threatening calls.”

“These calls,” Ben repeated. “There have been others?”

“This makes the fourth—or maybe its's the fifth. I can't exactly remember now.”

“Dammit, Flame, why didn't you tell me about them?”

“I didn't think they were important. I thought they were a prank. Now…” She breathed in deeply. “Now I think I should notify the police.”

“I'll do it. You stay there and I'll bring a detective out to talk to you. As soon as you hang up from me, call Charlie. I don't want you alone in that house.”

She started to protest that such a precaution wasn't necessary, then thought better of it and agreed to call Charlie.

“I'll be there in thirty minutes—forty at the outside,” Ben promised.

Flame sat in the parlor with both hands wrapped around her third cup of the strong black coffee Charlie had made for when he arrived. Time and the potent brew had managed to push most of the fear to the back of her mind, and enabled her to regain control of her emotions, allowing her to go over the events again and again and again with the detective from the Tulsa police department.

“No. I told you I couldn't see what kind of car it was,” she repeated her previous answer. “He followed too close. The glare of the headlights—”

“
He?
The driver was a man?”

“That was merely a figure of speech,” Flame insisted, her patience waning at this endless picking over ever little detail. “I couldn't see the driver. I don't know if it was a man or a woman.”

“And there weren't any other cars on the road?”

“None,” she said, shaking her head. “Not before or after I was forced off the road.”

“Let's go back over these threatening calls you say you've been receiving.”

“Again?” she murmured, sighing in irritation.

“Yes, ma'am, again,” he confirmed, his voice remaining unmoved and continuing its stubborn and polite run. “What did the caller say?”

“He—” Flame caught herself. “
—it
warned me that I'd better stop or I'd be sorry—or a variation of words to that effect.”

“Stop what?”

“I don't know!” As the answer exploded from her, she took a quick breath and tried to control her rising temper.

“You must have assumed something,” the detective persisted.

“I
assumed
the calls were a prank.” She shoved the coffee cup onto the end table and rose from the sofa, too agitated to remain seated any longer. She crossed stiffly to the fireplace, ignoring the throbbing protest of her right knee at the renewed activity, then turned back to confront the detective. “Somebody tried to kill me tonight, Mr. Barnes, and I want to know what you're going to do about it!”

He leaned back in the chair, resting his head against the rose brocade upholstery. “Who would want to kill you, Ms. Bennett?”

Flame hesitated a fraction of a second. Abruptly, she turned her back on the detective and stared at the ornate fireplace screen. “I moved here only a few weeks ago. I don't know many people here.” She hesitated again and turned back to face him. “I'm not sure if there's any connection, but—before I moved here—when I was in San Francisco, I was followed by this man. Twice he slipped me threatening messages.”

The detective looked at her with sharpened interest, his pen poised above his small black notebook. “What did he look like? Can you describe him?”

“He was…of average height and build, in his late forties. I think he had brown hair and I believe his eyes were hazel. And there was a very pronounced hook to his nose. I always thought of him as the hawk-faced man.”

“And these messages, were they the same as the phone threats you've been receiving?”

“No, they were different. That's why I'm not sure if it means anything. The hawk-faced man was always warning me to—I quote—‘stay away from him.'”

“Who were you to stay away from?”

“I—”