скачать книгу бесплатно
“Not anymore,” Michael said. “Only his body. It’s at the bottom of an elevator shaft now.”
“Huh.” Max shook his head as he resumed piloting the limo through Dallas traffic with sure, steady skill. “I told you I should have gone upstairs with you. I guess you handled things all right, though, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s right.” Michael fingered the tear in the leather briefcase, annoyed that he would have to replace it. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him; he could afford another briefcase, even a custom-made one like this. He could afford a thousand just like it and never even miss the money.
Maybe it wasn’t the briefcase, or the resort deal, or the fact that his enemies were on his trail. Maybe it was the flicker of something he hadn’t felt in a long time, something he didn’t want to feel. In their brief conversation, even though he had done his best to brush her off, Jessie Morgan had roused something in him, and not just the physical stirrings of desire to which he was no more immune than any other man in the presence of a beautiful woman.
He had wanted to talk to her, he realized now. He’d wanted to open up to her. Could be that she simply had the reporter’s knack of getting people to say more than they should.
But just in case it was more than that, just in case she had stirred up something within him that was better left dormant, he was damned glad that he would never see her again.
It wasn’t enough, Jessie thought. It wasn’t nearly enough. She couldn’t get even a news item out of the information she had about Michael Brandt, let alone a feature. She sat at the kitchen table in her studio apartment with her laptop open and connected to the Internet, searching for something she could add to her file about him.
No reporter had ever been able to determine exactly where or when he had been born, leading to speculation that Michael Brandt wasn’t even his real name. The press had first noticed him in Europe about ten years earlier, when he was apparently in his early twenties. Despite his youth he had quickly made a name for himself on the Grand Prix circuit as a daring and often victorious driver. Evidently he had plenty of money to start with, because from the first he stayed in the finest hotels and squired around the loveliest young women on the Continent. His faint Midwestern accent marked him as unmistakably American, though.
He had returned to the States and continued to race, but in addition he sought the thrills of the stock market and the financial wars. Real estate, computers, communications, other high-tech electronics—Michael Brandt had a finger in all those pies. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. And if that wasn’t enough, he was linked romantically with beautiful singers and Hollywood actresses and heiresses. He was the proverbial young man who had it all.
But who was he, really? And where had he come from? Jessie was determined to find out, because her readers wanted to know. And maybe someday if she broke enough big stories—even if they were in the pages of a tabloid like Super-nova—the editors at a real newspaper would notice her, would look beyond the impoverished childhood on the reservation and the education at a junior college and a second-rate state university and see her potential as a reporter and writer.
She might have lived up to that potential already if she had been able to accept the scholarship to Oklahoma University that had been offered to her as a senior in high school. Unfortunately, it was a private scholarship endowed by one of the local oil tycoons. Jessie’s writing on her school newspaper had caught his eye, he claimed. But it was really her looks that had caught his eye, and once she realized that the scholarship carried a high price tag, she’d turned it down flat and settled for the best education she and Nana Rose could pay for.
She still carried that bitter disappointment around with her, though, and had never forgotten that you couldn’t trust rich people who thought they could buy whatever they wanted.
In the meantime, her freelance work kept the bills paid—barely—and she knew how important it was to keep her editors happy, their thirst for sensationalism quenched.
Maybe Michael Brandt was a space alien, she told herself with a wry smile. Or was possessed by the spirit of Nostradamus. Yeah, that would explain how he’d been so successful in the stock market. He could predict the future.
Her cell phone beeped.
She picked it up and looked at the screen then smiled as she recognized the number. She thumbed the button to answer the call and said, “Hello, Nana.”
“Let me guess,” her grandmother said. “You’re working again when you should be out enjoying your youth.”
“I’m working so I can pay the bills this month,” Jessie said.
“My bills as well as yours. I feel like I’m stealing from you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could never pay back everything I owe you.”
Nana Rose had raised her on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma, taking Jessie in when her father had died of complications brought on by his alcoholism and her mother had taken off…somewhere. Jessie never knew for sure where her mother had gone or what had happened to her. All she knew was that from the age of seven, the only real parent she’d had was Nana Rose, her father’s mother.
It was Nana Rose who had worked two jobs to support them, Nana Rose who had denied many of her own needs to save the money to send Jessie to school. True, her education wasn’t going to impress anybody, but it was the best Nana Rose could afford and Jessie was determined not to let her grandmother down. She was going to fulfill her dream and be a respected, successful reporter…one of these days.
“What are you working on now?” Nana Rose asked. She took a keen interest in Jessie’s career and had ever since Jessie left the rez and moved to Dallas. As soon as Jessie started getting assignments and making a little money, she began sending some of it back home, over Nana Rose’s emphatic objections.
“I’m trying to write a profile of Michael Brandt.”
“Who?”
“He’s some ruggedly handsome, mysterious tycoon who’s supposed to be dating Angelica Boudreau.”
“Oh, her! She goes through men like they were tissues.”
Jessie had to laugh. “Yeah, but Brandt claims he doesn’t even know her, let alone date her. We’ll see. I haven’t given up digging for the truth just yet.”
“No, you never gave up, even when you were a little girl. I remember a time—”
Jessie didn’t want to be rude, but she knew her grandmother could reminisce for hours if given the chance. “Nana, did you call for a reason, or just to chat?”
“I need a reason to talk to my granddaughter now?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that I am working.”
She heard Nana Rose take a deep breath, then say, “I hate to ask, but there’s a problem with the plumbing here in the house, and I’m going to have to get it fixed.”
“How much do you need?” Jessie asked without hesitation.
“The plumber said three hundred dollars ought to cover it.”
Jessie winced, knowing Nana Rose couldn’t see that over the phone. But she kept her voice light as she said, “No problem. I’ll wire it to you first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you, Jessie. That will sure be a load off my mind, I tell you.”
The money wouldn’t wipe out Jessie’s checking account, but it would take a serious bite from it. Still, she had no choice. “Don’t worry about it at all,” she assured Nana Rose. “Everything will be fine.”
“Thank you so much. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
This time Jessie smiled. “Well, you’ll never have to find out, because I’ll always be here for you.”
They said their goodbyes after Nana Rose urged her one more time to go out and have a little fun occasionally. As Jessie broke the connection and set the phone down by her laptop, she reflected that she didn’t really have time for fun, not with all the obligations that hung over her. This new, unexpected expense made getting a good story out of Michael Brandt’s visit to Dallas even more urgent. If she could come up with something really spicy, Supernova might pay a bonus for it, maybe even enough to take care of the plumbing problems in the old house in Oklahoma.
Three hundred bucks would be pocket change to a man like Brandt, she reflected bitterly. Less than that, really. Even if the amount were ten times that, in his carefree life he would never miss it. But it meant the world to an old woman on a reservation.
The phone rang again, and this time Jessie didn’t recognize the number. She answered the call. “Morgan.”
“Jessie, it’s Ted Carlisle.” The voice belonged to an eager young man. When she didn’t make any response right away, he went on, “You know, from the Chateaux.”
“I know who you are, Ted,” Jessie said, even though she hadn’t really until he mentioned the resort hotel that was so high-class it was practically stratospheric. Ted worked there as a night clerk, one of numerous sources she had cultivated over the years. “You have something interesting for me?”
“How about Michael Brandt?” asked Ted. “Interesting enough for you?”
Jessie’s grip tightened on the phone. Like all reporters, coincidences made her suspicious, and it was strange that Ted would call with information about Brandt while she was working on a story about him.
But you had to make some allowances for serendipity, and Jessie’s instincts told her this was one of those times.
“Go on,” she said. She hadn’t been able to find out where Brandt was staying. “Is he at the Chateaux?”
“Interesting enough that maybe you’d, uh, like to have a cup of coffee with me sometime?”
Ted was a nice enough guy, but he was not only younger than her, he was almost a full head shorter. If Jessie went out with him she would feel sort of like she was dating her little brother.
But she didn’t tell him that. Without committing to anything, she said, “That sounds nice.” Let him draw his own conclusions. “What about Brandt?”
“He’s here,” Ted said. “He’s registered under the name Bennett Chapman, but it’s him. I got a good look at him, and I saw his picture just last week on the cover of your paper.”
Jessie was about to say that Supernova wasn’t her paper, she only freelanced for it, but that wasn’t important. Instead she said, “Is he there now?”
“Yeah, he came in a little while ago. But here’s the thing…he had some guys with him.”
“Guys? What kind of guys?” Oh, Lord, thought Jessie, Ted wasn’t about to tell her that Michael Brandt was gay, was he? Not that there was anything wrong with that, as the old saying went. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized what a great story it would make if she could reveal that Brandt’s carrying on with Angelica Boudreau and all those other beautiful women had been just a front to cover up his homosexuality.
She forced herself to focus on what Ted was saying. “Two tough guys. They looked almost like…like crooks, Jessie. Gangsters. Only the old-fashioned kind, like in mobster movies.”
Jessie’s brain shifted gears as smoothly as any of those race cars Brandt drove. Forget the gay stuff, she told herself. Brandt might be connected to the mob. A made man, for all she knew. Maybe that was how he had gotten his money in the first place. Maybe he’d been a contract killer for the syndicate. Yeah, that would make a great story.
Although it was hard to reconcile the idea of him being a cold-blooded killer with the way he looked. Tough and ruthless, yes, maybe even dangerous when he had to be, but not evil. Not with those eyes that masked depths of feeling and that jaw that needed to be stroked so that it unclenched and the anger and pain went away…
And why in the world had she described him as ruggedly handsome to Nana Rose, without even thinking about what she was saying?
“Jessie? You still there?”
“I’m here,” she said with a little shake of her head as she banished those thoughts. “Ted, I have to get in there.”
“What!” Ted’s voice rose to a mouselike squeak. “Into Brandt’s lodge?”
The hotel was actually a group of buildings modeled after Alpine ski lodges, scattered across some rolling hills on the edge of the city and clustered around a central building that housed all sorts of amenities, including a five-star restaurant. The appeal of The Chateaux was not only its luxury, but also its privacy.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Jessie said. “If he’s having some sort of meeting with his gangster buddies, maybe they’ll order room service or something like that. I’m on my way, Ted.”
“But you can’t! I’ll get in trouble! I’ll—”
She didn’t hear the rest of his protest, because she had already closed her cell phone and was on her way toward the door of her apartment, her digital camera dangling from its strap around her wrist.
She smelled a story, maybe the biggest story of her career, and she would take any risk to get it.
Chapter Two
The night had a chill in it, but in her jeans and lightweight brown leather jacket, Jessie didn’t really feel it. She parked her sturdy old blue Toyota pickup at the edge of the lot in front of the Chateaux. It looked out of place among all the limos and luxury cars.
She carried the little recorder in her jacket pocket, even though she wasn’t really after an interview tonight. She wanted to get some shots of Michael Brandt and the men with him. Maybe if Brandt’s companions really were mobsters, one of her law enforcement contacts could identify them for her.
Getting the pictures might be tricky, though. Brandt had been a celebrity long enough to have developed a knack for dodging the paparazzi.
Not that she considered herself one of those guys. She was a reporter, damn it, not some sleazy celebrity photohound.
She knew the Chateaux had security cameras all over the place and personnel watching the video feeds 24/7, so trying to sneak around to the lodge Brandt had rented would just net her a hassle from some burly rent-a-cops. Instead she walked openly into the main building and headed for the registration desk where Ted Carlisle stood behind the counter. His eyebrows rose in surprise and maybe even alarm when he recognized her.
“Jessie, you can’t just barge in here like this,” he hissed between his teeth as he leaned forward over the desk.
She ignored the warning and reached inside her jacket to pull out a folded manila envelope. “I have some legal papers here for Mr. Bennett Chapman,” she said in a normal tone of voice, remembering the alias Ted had told her Brandt was using.
“I—I’ll take those for him.” Ted held out a trembling hand.
“No can do, hon,” Jessie said. “He has to sign for them, and I have to get his signature personally.” She smiled. “You wouldn’t want me to lose my job, would you?”
This masquerade was just for the benefit of the security cameras and the men watching them, of course. Ted hesitated and then poked a few keys on his computer. “I’ll have to escort you to Mr. Chapman’s lodge,” he announced.
Jessie hadn’t counted on that, but she had little choice other than to play along with him. She nodded.
Ted said, “Just a minute,” and picked up a phone. After a second he said into it, “Stacy, can you cover the desk for a minute? I have to escort someone making a delivery to one of our guests.”
He hung up, and less than a minute later a blond woman came out of a rear office to take Ted’s place. Like him, she wore cream-colored slacks and a blue blazer, the employee uniform here at the Chateaux. Ted came out from behind the desk and said to Jessie, “Come with me, miss.”
Nobody would think anything unusual was going on. A lot of high-powered businessmen stayed here while they were in town, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to have visitors and receive deliveries at all hours of the day or night. After all, on the other side of the world it was already the middle of the next day.
Jessie and Ted left the building through a glass door that opened onto a flagstone walk. Discreet but effective illumination came from lights in the trees that covered the property. The walk split into various paths that led to the different lodges. As they moved along one of the paths, Ted said, “What were you thinking, walking in like that?”
“Oh, come on, Ted. You know as well as I do that if I started skulking around this place, security would be all over me in two seconds. This way the guys keeping an eye on the cameras think it’s all legit.”
“That’s what they’ll think until you start annoying Brandt and he starts yelling. Then it’ll be my ass for letting you in.”
“You won’t get fired over something like that. Reprimanded maybe. But you can blame the whole thing on me. After all, I did lie to you about who I am and why I’m here. You can’t catch everybody who has an ulterior motive for wanting to see one of your guests.”
“Wanna bet? That’s exactly what I’m supposed to do. If anybody else asked me to do this…”
“I’ll make it worth your while, Ted.” Before he could get any wrong ideas, she added, “If I get some good shots and a story to go with them, Supernova will pay through the nose and I’ll cut you in on it.”
“Well…all right. What’s really in that envelope you showed me?”
“Half a dozen pages of meaningless boilerplate. You’d have to actually start reading them to know they aren’t valid documents.”
“You’ve pulled this scam before, haven’t you?”
“It’s not a scam. I’m not trying to rip anybody off.”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
They came to one of the lodges set deep in the trees. It was lit up like Brandt was having a party or something, but according to Ted the only people in the lodge were the mysterious millionaire playboy and his two goombah-looking associates.
“Maybe you should have showed up dressed like a hooker,” Ted suggested. “Guys like that are the type who’d send out for a call girl.”
Jessie laughed. “You just want to see me all slutted up. No thanks. I’m a working girl, but not that kind.”
Ted mumbled something she couldn’t make out, probably an apology. Then he pointed to the intercom mounted beside the front door and said, “I’m supposed to announce visitors. Technically, I should have called from the desk before I even brought you out here.”
Jessie pressed the button on the intercom before he could back out. “Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.”
A voice she recognized as Brandt’s crackled from the little speaker. “What is it?”
