Best Laid Plans Read online

  “We know Jeanette Van Orden was an acquaintance of yours at one time. It’s obvious she wasn’t much of a friend to you, since she left you here to face the music alone. Tell me where she and the boy are.” The boy was whom they really wanted… whom Dr. Gautier wanted. “You don’t owe the bitch a single thing.”

  She spat a mouthful of blood at him.

  Eric took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Where is she?” he asked again as he rose to his feet.

  “I don’t know. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Want me to take her eye out, Boss?” Deuce carved another line down her breastbone.

  “No.” The man was an idiot. “We want this to look like her boyfriend went crazy and cut her up, not that he spent hours torturing her.”

  A soft sigh from deep in Delilah’s throat had him whirling back to face her. “What the fuck…”

  She was smiling as the light in her eyes faded.

  “Goddammit!”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Deuce said as he wiped his knife blade on the bedspread and put it away. “She was either one loyal broad, or she really didn’t know where the Van Orden bitch is.”

  Eric growled at him, even more annoyed when that didn’t seem to impress Deuce.

  “What now?” the assassin asked.

  “Untie her. I’ve got to search the condo. Maybe I can find something pertinent.” He had an idea where he might find what he was looking for.

  “No, I meant who do we blame this on?” He jerked a thumb toward the whore.

  Eric wasn’t stupid, He could see Deuce was getting… concerned.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Y’see, that’s the thing, I tend to worry about stuff like that.”

  “I have a body we can use.” Eric was a big believer in long-term preparedness, and knowing how this evening would end, he’d come… prepared. “As soon as I’m finished, we’ll take it up to the roof and toss it off.”

  “Are the cops gonna buy it?”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to worry? I know people on the force who’ll cover for us. She’s a whore, he’s a junkie. This is going to be just another murder-suicide.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so.” Eric left Deuce to cut the ties that had secured the whore while he went to the spare bedroom she’d used as a sewing room.

  ***

  THREE HOURS LATER, and nothing. Every fucking place the bitch could have hidden an address book, a letter, or some kind of note had turned up useless.

  Fuck it. He couldn’t wait any longer. The whore had a cleaning woman come in three days a week, and today was one of those days.

  He and Deuce needed to set the stage or else even the men he had on his payroll wouldn’t be able to fudge the details.

  Eric had placed the male body in the trunk of his car, surrounded by bags of ice. Now he and Deuce went down and hauled John Doe up to the condo after dousing the body with cheap whiskey to give the impression he was drunk.

  “Jesus, he’s heavy, Boss.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Yeah, I get that. How are your friends on the force going to explain how cold his body is?”

  “It’s winter, right?”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  “Damn straight.”

  After catching their breaths, they went up the staircase that led to the roof.

  “We need to make it look like he bashed his head in against that tree over there,” Eric instructed.

  “Uh…”

  “Who’s running this show?”

  “Don’t pitch a fit, Boss. You are.”

  “And don’t forget it. Now, you take his left arm and leg, I’ll take his right, and on the count of three we hurl him off the roof.”

  “Got it.”

  There was a solid, satisfying thunk as the body smashed headfirst into the tree.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  “My pay?”

  Eric took a fat envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to him.

  “Sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted.”

  “It happens.”

  They took the elevator down to the first floor and shook hands. Deuce left, but Eric lingered behind.

  Today wasn’t a Sunday or a holiday. Mail had been delivered, but there hadn’t been any in the condo.

  Okay, it was an off chance, but… He went back up to the condo, tracked down the key to the mailbox in a catch-all dish the whore kept on the peninsula, and returned to the mail room.

  Bill, junk, some woman’s magazine that wasn’t Cosmopolitan, and… an envelope with a Savannah postmark. He slit the flap and removed one of those thinking of you cards. A photograph fell to the floor, but he ignored it for the moment.

  My dearest Del,

  I hope you’re well. Has Pete asked you to marry him yet? Tell him if he doesn’t, I’ll come back and give him a punch in the nose.

  Don’t be angry with me for sending you this. I’ve been missing you so much. And just look at the photo I’ve enclosed! I wanted you to see how adorable Denny—he’s Denny this year—looks in his little tuxedo. Our cute little boy.

  He stooped to pick up the photo. It was of two men who also wore tuxedoes with red roses in their buttonholes. They were holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, and there were wedding bands on their ring fingers.

  Fags. He curled his lip, then resumed studying the picture.

  Sitting cross-legged at their feet was a kid with sandy hair and hazel eyes, and very prominent ears. Personally, Eric didn’t think he looked in the least cute, but that was women for you.

  Mr. Jackson’s son and his fiancé—his husband now they’re married—were kind enough to ask us to participate in their wedding. Oh, we all know it isn’t legal, but maybe one day.

  They got married on the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, so that when they said I do, it was Christmas Day.

  We had a nice time at the reception, which was held in the house, but we didn’t stay long. The people who attended might have been good, but I didn’t know them. Del, you wouldn’t believe how huge this house is! It goes on forever, and there was a room where a buffet was laid out as well as one for dancing. I danced with the men of the family I’m staying with, although Miss Stephens, the other company bookkeeper, didn’t like the fact that her boyfriend asked me to dance. He’s a nice guy, but really, she had no reason to be jealous. Ragg Mopp—isn’t that the oddest nickname?—only has eyes for her. I don’t know why she doesn’t see that.

  I’ll tell you a secret, and you have to promise never to tell a soul.

  Well, no problem with that, Eric thought snidely.

  Mr. Weber—he’s Mr. Jackson’s partner and helps run their construction company—has a friend who’s also gay, and I have the feeling he might be… well… a little in love with Mopp. If you saw the way Mr. Cooper looks at him…

  I wish someone other than Denny would look at me like that.

  I’m being silly. Don’t worry about me, Del. I’m fine, and I’m taking good care of our little boy.

  I wish more than anything I could see you again. I miss you so much. Being put in the same foster home with you was the best thing that happened to me, except for Denny.

  Take care, and good luck with Pete.

  Love,

  Babe

  Eric put the rest of the mail back into the mailbox, stuffed the photograph, card, and envelope into his pocket, and then hurried out to his car.

  He didn’t have as much to go on as he’d have liked—a street name and house number would have been ideal but a return address hadn’t been included—but he had a zip code and names. Savannah wasn’t that large a town.

  He’d catch a flight in the morning and see what he could discov
er.

  Chapter 3

  JAN SAT AT the bar and stared out the window of the Always Reddy Pub. The temperature had dipped, typical for January in Savannah, and raindrops were chasing one another down the big picture window that looked out onto West Bryan Street.

  She’d never been there before, since it was a gay bar, but she’d heard JT talk about it plenty of times—he was friends with the owners. It was where he’d broken his thumb punching some jerk who’d come on to him.

  In fact, JT had done them a favor by taking in Babe. Who was the cause of all Jan’s troubles, the witch.

  Jan pushed the coaster the tumbler rested on in circles and then in squares, and fumed.

  It just wasn’t fair.

  The boss’s son had married a total geek, who’d come to the ranch at the same time she had to help keep the books.

  So okay, Jan had never cared for Tad Jackson that way. So okay, he was gay and the marriage wasn’t legal.

  Still…

  Did he and Rush have to look so in love?

  And why did Rush have to call Tad by that stupid nickname? Before they knew it, everyone would be calling him Tadder. What kind of a name was that anyway?

  She picked up her glass and took a healthy swallow, then put it back on the coaster and resumed moving it in squares and circles.

  They’d come back from their honeymoon the other day, and they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other.

  They hadn’t even tried. And no one had objected to their goofy antics.

  Not that she couldn’t empathize. After all, she’d been in love once. She felt the corners of her mouth dip down. She and Nick should have gotten married as soon as they’d graduated from high school, but Nick felt they needed to get their degrees first.

  Which… okay….

  But then what had he done? He’d gone and gotten that goody-two-shoes, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth preacher’s daughter Mary Margaret Thompson pregnant and had to marry her. Not only that, but he’d pushed aside his degree in business administration to become a deacon in Reverend Thompson’s church.

  Jan had decided it was time she got married. And why shouldn’t she? She was pretty and vivacious, and all the boys adored her, especially Billy Bob Bolt, who—whom she was dating right now.

  Billy Bob—he’d always looked at her as if he worshipped the ground she walked on. A girl could build a marriage on that, even if she wasn’t in love with the guy who looked at her that way.

  At first she’d worried about the way JT’s friend Joshua Cooper looked at Billy Bob—was everyone at the freaking ranch gay? She’d taken care of it, of course. She’d casually mentioned that it was a good thing Billy Bob was dating her, because his family would disown him if they even thought he might be interested in someone of the male persuasion.

  “You’re right.” There had been sadness in Mr. Cooper’s smile, and for a second Jan felt badly. But only for a second. Billy Bob was hers, dammit! “It’s difficult when a young gay man doesn’t have the support of his family,” Mr. Cooper continued, “so it is good that Ragg Mopp isn’t gay.”

  Ragg Mopp? Seriously? That ridiculous nickname was something else that drove her up the wall. Who’d started calling him that anyway? Guys could be such jerks. Grown men, and they came up with the weirdest names on the jobsites.

  But then that witch Babe—yeah, like that was her real name—she showed up with her brat of a son, and what did she do? She started insinuating herself into the family. JT was a sucker for what he called little lost lambs, and of course Mr. Jack would never say no to him. They made a big thing over the brat too, and as a way to repay their kindness—so she said—Babe would go with Mr. Jack to Home Depot whenever he needed something for the ranch, even though Billy Bob usually did that.

  To make things even worse, after all those trips to Home Depot, Babe set her sights on Jan’s man, making goo-goo eyes at him and calling him by that stupid nickname.

  Jan had given Billy Bob an ultimatum: marry her now, right now, or they were through. She’d dump his redneck ass.

  And he’d said no! Okay, technically he’d said not now, but he wanted to wait until he graduated from college, and she wasn’t doing that again, no ma’am. As far as she was concerned, that was the same thing.

  Who’d have thought meek and mild Billy Bob Bolt would let January Stephens walk away?

  She wouldn’t put it past him to be screwing Babe in the bed he’d shared with her. Okay, it hadn’t been often, and the sex really wasn’t that great, not that she would ever admit it. And that was because she was being kind. She was pretty sure Billy Bob had been a virgin when she’d let him take her to bed that first time. His family were members of a small, ultra-religious sect, and because of their beliefs, if Billy Bob had ever used his dick for anything other than pissing before they’d begun dating, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  But that was beside the point. He should have just done what she wanted. Didn’t he love her?

  Why did he have to be such a guy?

  Jan moodily ran her fingers up and down the condensation that coated the glass of her Hawaiian Redneck.

  Redneck. Yeah, that was suitable enough. She didn’t usually drink, but she liked the sweetness of this cocktail. How bad could it be? She picked up the glass and swallowed the remainder of her drink.

  “Bartender! Lemme have another one of these.” Her tongue didn’t seem to want to work. How many was this anyway?

  “I get the impression you’re not feeling any pain, miss.” He studied her thoughtfully. “You’d better make this one last. And you’d better have a way to get home. I’m confiscating your keys.”

  “How dare you! Those are my car keys!”

  “Yeah, well, Mr. Reddy ain’t gonna be happy if you get a DUI. In fact, it could cost me my job.”

  She frowned at him. “Well, how am I supposed to get home?”

  “Don’t worry about it, pretty girl. I’ll be more than happy to take care of you.” The smooth voice came from behind Jan, and she glanced over her shoulder to see who her white knight was.

  Well, well, and yum, yum. He stood there, holding a martini garnished with a trio of olives. He was dressed in slim black Dockers and a white button-down shirt, which was visible through his unzipped leather jacket. His brown hair was neatly slicked back.

  “Hello there,” she cooed, fluttering her lashes as she smiled into his brown eyes. If there was one thing she had learned quickly after Nick had dumped her, it was how to manipulate a man.

  “Let me buy you that drink.”

  “You’re so sweet.”

  “A pretty lady like you shouldn’t be alone.” He grinned at her, and she smiled back at him. He was a little older than the men she usually dated, but he was easy on the eyes and had the whitest teeth.

  “I’m January Stephens.” She sat back, thrusting out her bosom, and crossed her legs, pleased she’d worn one of her shorter skirts.

  “I’m Eric Jameson.” He grinned at her again.

  “You do know this is a gay bar, don’t you, sugar?” Jan asked.

  “Actually, I didn’t know.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” In spite of how annoyed she was with everyone right now, she had no qualms with alternate sexualities. However, the last thing she wanted was to get involved with someone who was in the closet.

  He tipped up her chin and brushed his lips over hers. “I saw you come in, and I couldn’t resist following you.”

  She’d been about to scold him for being so forward, but that stroked her sense of self-worth.

  “Really? Oh, you are a sweetheart.” Chivalry wasn’t dead. Mentally she blew a raspberry at everyone on the ranch.

  “There’s an empty booth in the corner. Suppose we make ourselves comfortable and get to know one another?”

  “What a good idea.” She tur
ned to the bartender. “Bring my drink to the booth.”

  The bartender shook his head, but she ignored him. She was an adult and could do what she wanted.

  She slipped off the barstool and looped her arm through Eric’s.

  In spite of how it started, this was going to be a very fun night.

  Chapter 4

  ERIC LOOKED DOWN at the bed where the stupid bitch was sleeping off the scopolamine he’d slipped into her drink while she was distracted. That drug was a little trick he’d picked up from Dr. Gautier.

  Fortunately, the first bartender who’d served them had gone off duty. Eric could tell just by the way the man kept observing him and the bitch that he’d put his two cents in if it looked like Eric was doing anything more than mildly flirting with her.

  As it happened, the bartender who replaced Mr. Meddlesome didn’t notice anything—he was too busy taking care of the patrons who lined the bar at least four deep.

  Eric hadn’t slept with the bitch—he had better taste than that—although it might not look that way to the casual observer. Her clothes were disheveled, her hair was a mess, and as for her makeup—her lipstick was caked and cracked at the corners of her mouth and she looked like a raccoon thanks to the mascara and eyeliner smeared around her eyes. In addition, she had crease marks in her cheeks and there was a stream of drool on the pillow.

  But before she’d fallen into a drunken slumber, she’d talked. God, how she had talked. About the man she worked for, about the people who lived in the house she called the ranch, about her boyfriend… and about the woman she was certain wanted to take him away from her.

  The woman named Babe, who happened to have a kid with her.

  Eric curled his lip and then dismissed the bitch on the bed. He didn’t even remember her name; it was immaterial. He had things to do, more important things than watching her sleep off a drunk.

  It would have helped if he could stake out the neighborhood, but according to the bitch, “the ranch” was in a gated community with a guard house at the gates. Otherwise he’d have considered the idea of driving in on the bumper of another car. Those damned round-the-clock guards made it impossible; there was no way he’d be able to get into the complex itself.