The Bourbon Kings #1 (22 page)

The waiting area had cream concrete walls. Cream floor. Plastic chairs in orange and yellow and red. The smell in the air was old sweat, dirty clothes, and Lysol.

Thanks to Mitch, they steamed right over to the registration counter with its bulletproof glass windows and lineups of officers with their various catches of the day. Talk about a wake-up call on the other half. Oily men and stringy young boys … barely clothed working girls … seedy, worn-out older women … all of them stood or weaved in place next to their arresting officers, their faces showing the grind of hard lives lived badly.

“Over here, Deputy Ramsey,” someone called out by a reinforced door.

After going through the checkpoint, they headed by a number of conference rooms that had red lights above the entrances and bars over little chicken-wired windows.

“If you’ll wait in here,” the officer said by one of the rooms, “I’ll bring her down.”

“Thanks, Stu.” Mitch opened the door and stood to the side. “I’ll be out here.”

“Much appreciated.” Lane clapped the guy on the shoulder. “And we’re probably going to need more of your help.”

“Anything you want, I’m here.”

Samuel T. paused by the deputy. “Has anyone talked to the press yet?”

“Not on our side,” Mitch replied. “And I’ll try to keep it that way.”

“My sister doesn’t have the best reputation.” Lane shook his head. “The fewer people who know about this, the better.”

Mitch closed them in together, and although there were four chairs bolted to the floor around a steel table that was likewise secured, Lane couldn’t sit down. Samuel T. did, though, putting his ancient briefcase to the side and steepling his hands.

The attorney shook his head. “She’s going to be pissed to high heaven you brought me here.”

“Like I’d call anyone else?” Lane rubbed his aching eyes. “And after this, you’re still helping me with my divorce, right?”

“Just another busy morning with the Bradfords.”

A
t least they let her keep her own clothes on, Gin thought as she was led down yet another concrete corridor painted the color of month-old vichyssoise.

She’d had a terror of undressing in front of some hairy-chested female officer and then getting violated by a gloved hand before being thrown into an orange jumpsuit the size of a circus tent. When that had not happened, she’d then become obsessed about being put in some kind of filthy holding cell with a bunch of drug-addled prostitutes coughing AIDS all over her.

Instead, she’d been put in a cell by herself. A cold cell, with just a bench and a stainless-steel toilet with no seat or toilet paper.

Not that she would ever use something like that.

Her diamond stud earrings and her Chanel watch had been confiscated, along with her LV bag, her phone, and those hundred-dollar bills and useless credit cards she had in her wallet.

One call. That was all she’d been allowed—just like in the movies.

“In here,” the guard said, stopping by an African-American man in uniform and opening a thick door.

“Lane—!” Except she stopped rushing toward her brother when she saw who was sitting at the table. “Oh, God. Not him.”

Lane came in for a tight embrace as the door was shut. “You need a lawyer.”

“And I’m free,” Samuel T. drawled. “Relatively speaking.”

“I am not talking in front of him.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not one word.”

“Gin—”

Samuel T. cut her brother off. “Told you. Guess I’ll just take my things and go.”

“Sit. Down,” Lane barked. “Both of you.”

There was a heartbeat of silence—which Gin took as a sign that Samuel T. was as surprised by that tone of command as she was. Lane had always been, out of the four Baldwine children, the go-with-the-flow type. Now, he sounded like Edward.

Or the way Edward had used to be.

After she settled uneasily in a chair as hard and chilly as an ice block, Lane jabbed a finger in her direction. “What did you do?”

“Excuse me?” she said on a recoil. “Why is this my fault? Why do you think it was me—”

“Because it usually is, Gin.” He slashed his hand through the air when she started to argue. “Cut the shit, I’ve known you too long. What did you do this time to piss him off? I will get you out of this, but I gotta know what I’m dealing with.”

As Gin glared up at her brother, she wanted nothing more than to tell him to fuck off. But all she could think of was that image of her credit cards going into the slot of that gas pump and the words
Not Approved
flashing on the digital screen. Who else was going to help her?

She glanced over at Samuel T. He wasn’t looking at her, and his face was impassive, but the haughty disapproval he was enjoying was as obvious as the scent of his cologne in the air.

“Well?” Lane demanded.

Weighing her options, she realized she was wholly unfamiliar with situations involving rocks and hard places. With enough money and amnesia, there was nothing she’d been unable to opt out of, whether it was through paying someone off, refusing to stay, or refusing to go.

Unfortunately, those endless arrays of options had been funded by a lifestyle that had only looked like something that was hers. In fact, it had been owned by someone else. She simply hadn’t known that until this morning.

She cleared her throat. “Samuel T., will you … give me a moment alone with my brother.” She put her hand out. “I’m not—I’m not saying you can’t be my lawyer, I just need to be in private with him. Please.”

Samuel T. cocked a brow. “First time I’ve heard you say that word. At least with your clothes on.”

“Watch it, Lodge,” Lane growled. “That’s my sister.”

The man shook himself, as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone with her. “My apologies. That was inappropriate.”

“Don’t go far.” Lane started pacing around, his hand yanking at his short, dark hair. “For the love of God, we need good representation.”

As Gin’s attorney, lover, and baby daddy—though he didn’t know that last part—left, she stared down at the pointed toes of her silk stilettos. The left one had a smudge running across the top of the toe box, something she’d gotten while sliding herself into the back of the cop car.

There was a
click
as the door shut behind Samuel T., and she didn’t wait for another prompting. “He wants me to marry Richard Pford.”

“Richard … I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me. Father is cutting me off unless I marry the man. He says it’s because that goddamn distributing company will give us better rates or something.”

“Is he insane?” Lane breathed.

“You wanted to know why I took the car—that’s why I took the car, and that’s why Father called the police.” She looked up at her brother. “I’m not marrying Richard. No matter what our father does to me—and that is what you’re dealing with.”

Getting up, she went over to the door and opened it herself. “You can come back in.”

“Such an honor,” Samuel T. murmured.

As her lawyer resettled in the chair by his briefcase, she said, “So how do I get out of here.”

“You make bail,” Samuel T. replied. “And then we try to get the charges dropped, either because we plea you out or your father gets over whatever you’ve done.”

“What kind of bail are we talking about?” Lane asked.

“First-time offender works in her favor, the flight risk does not. Only about fifty grand, tops. McQuaid is a friendly judge to people like us, so it’s not going to be high.”

Fifty thousand dollars, she thought. Indeed, that had never seemed like much before. Nothing but a trip to Chanel in Chicago.

She thought of what little was in her purse. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

Samuel T. laughed. “Of course you do—”

“I’ll make sure it’s paid,” Lane cut in.

Samuel T. opened his briefcase and took out some papers. “Do you authorize me to represent you in this matter, Virginia?”

Since when did he call her by her proper name? Then again, maybe he didn’t want her brother to pound him into the concrete floor by any further familiarity. “Yes.”

His eyes, those piercing gray eyes, held her stare. “Sign this.” After she did, he muttered, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”

Her breath rattled in her chest as she exhaled. “But then what.”

What exactly was going to be different on the other side of all this? It wasn’t like her father was suddenly going to turn over a new leaf. Edward had barely survived William Baldwine’s willingness to choose business over his children.

“We get you out first,” Lane said. “Then we’ll deal with the rest of it.”

Glancing at her brother, she realized she had never seen him so serious before: As he leaned against the bare wall of the ugly little square room, he was so much older than when he’d left two years ago, so much more in command.

She had grown to expect such authority from Edward; never Lane, the Playboy.

“He’s going to win,” she heard herself say. “Father always wins.”

“Not this time,” Lane gritted out.

“What the hell is going on here?” Samuel T. asked.

Lane just shook his head. “You take care of this, Samuel. You just get my sister out of here. I’ll handle the rest.”

God, she hoped that was true. Because clearly her attempt at crossing their father hadn’t gone so well.

A
s Lane came to a halt in front of Easterly’s front entrance, he hit the brakes on the Porsche so hard that he dragged half of the drive’s cobblestones with him into a park. He didn’t kill the engine; just got out and flew up the stone steps, passing through the double doors like a draft.

Nothing registered as he entered the mansion, not the maid cleaning the parlor. Or the butler who spoke to him. Not even his Lizzie, who stepped into his path as if she had been waiting for his appearance.

Instead, he left the house through the door at the base of the dining room and strode for the business center, crossing through the orderly arrangement of round tables under the tent and then dodging the groundskeepers who were stringing lights in the blooming trees.

His father’s place of business had a terrace onto which a series of French doors opened out, and he headed for the pair that was all the way down on the left. When he got to them, he didn’t bother trying the handle, because it would be locked.

He banged on the glass. Hard.

And he didn’t stop. Not even as he felt a wetness on the outside of his hand, which seemed to indicate he’d broken something—

Oh … he’d smashed the glass out of the first pane of his father’s office and moved on to another.

The good news, he thought, was there were plenty more where that came from.

“Lane! What are you doing?”

He stopped and turned his head toward Lizzie. In a voice he didn’t recognize, he said, “I need to find my father.”

William Baldwine’s exceedingly professional executive assistant raced into the office and her gasp came through loud and clear through the shattered glass.

“You’re bleeding!” the woman exclaimed.

“Where is my father.”

Ms. Petersberg unlatched the door and opened things up. “He’s not here, Mr. Baldwine, he’s gone to Cleveland for the day. He just left, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Was there something you needed?”

As her eyes went to the blood dripping off his knuckles, he knew she was heading in a may-I-bring-you-a-hand-towel direction, but he didn’t care if his veins emptied all over the place.

“Who told my father Gin left?” he demanded. “Who called him? Was it you? Or a spy in that house—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Or did you call the police on my sister? I know for a fact my father wouldn’t know how to dial nine-one-one himself even though they said he did.”

The woman’s eyes flared, and then she whispered, “He told me she was going to hurt herself. That she was going to try to leave this morning, and that I had to do what I could to stop her. He said that she needs help—”

“Lane!”

He whipped his head around to Lizzie just as things went off-balance, his body listing to one side.

With a strong hold, she caught him, and kept his weight off the ground. “Come on. Back to the house”

As he let himself get rerouted, blood fell to the flagstone terrace, speckling the gray with dark red spots. Glancing back at the assistant, he said, “You tell my father I’m waiting for him.”

“I don’t know when he’s returning.”

Bullshit,
he thought. The woman scheduled William down to his bathroom breaks. “And I’ll be here until Hell freezes over.”

There was so much rage in him, he was blind to his surroundings as Lizzie guided him off. The fury was about Edward. And Gin. His mother.

Max—

“When was the last time you ate anything?” Lizzie said as she muscled him through a doorway into Easterly.

For a moment, he felt like he was hallucinating. And then he realized all the men and women in white were chefs, and that he and Lizzie were in the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, what?” he mumbled.

“Food. When.”

He opened up his mouth. Closed it. Frowned. “Noontime yesterday?”