Last Call (26 page)

Gavin shook his head as his irritation
reignited. “I’ve never played games with Callie. You were the one
trying to force something that wasn’t ever going to happen. She
understands that, and we were having a nice, friendly chat.”

Oh, and as a result of that chat, you can
expect my resignation, just as soon as I figure out a way to fix
the Anticue mess, you son of a bitch.

“What about you and the bar owner?”

Gavin shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “She’s
a pretty woman. It’s nothing serious.” His flippant response felt
like a betrayal, but he had to be careful. “I’ve tried
everything”—heavy emphasis on
everything,
since, after all,
that had been Max’s plan—“to make her see the benefits of selling.
But she’s attached to the property and refuses to entertain any of
the offers I’ve made.”

Max ground his teeth together and glared out
the window.

“If we can’t secure her piece of land, what
are the alternative plans?”

“There are no alternative plans.” Max’s gaze
was steely, his voice frosty. “If you can’t work things out, I’ll
take care of it myself.”

Max’s glacial tone and expression sent a
shiver down Gavin’s spine. Like the rest of the country, the
economy had taken a toll on Holden Enterprises. People weren’t
vacationing like they used to, and the properties were struggling
to turn a profit.

Max wasn’t the kind to panic, but he’d sunk a
fortune into the Anticue endeavor. He had to be feeling the pinch
of having expended the cash, but not yet seeing a return on the
investments. He was getting desperate to wrap things up.

Because he’d never wanted to know how Max
turned reluctant landowners compliant, Gavin never broached the
subject. But for Sunny’s sake, and in a way, he supposed, for his
own sake, he needed to know details. He smiled, trying to look
devious and ratty. “Just curious, Max, how exactly do you take care
of things?”

Max leaned back in his chair, crossed his
hands over his stomach, and stared at Gavin. Apparently, he was as
bad an actor as Sunny, because it was obvious Max wasn’t fooled by
Gavin’s attempt to be oily. ”You worry about working out a deal and
leave the rest to me.”

“How long do I have?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

***

Some habits die harder than others,
Callie mused as she sat in her room, listening to her father and
Gavin hash things out. Right after moving back from Europe, she’d
purchased a listening device off the Internet and installed it in
her father’s office. It allowed her to listen to all of her
father’s conversations, but the only ones she cared about were the
ones involving Gavin.

Her father had been so angry when he stormed
off earlier, she’d almost been afraid to flip it on. But in the
end, she hadn’t been able to resist.

“What’s the rush, Max?” Gavin’s irritation
with the forty-eight-hour deadline was evident in his terse
response.

“I’ve been working on this project for years.
I’m not waiting any longer.”

There was a brief pause, then Gavin said,
“Have you forgotten that I’m taking a vacation?”

“No, I didn’t forget.” Her father’s voice was
cold with a dash of nasty. Had he always spoken to Gavin this way
and she never noticed? Or had things changed between them? “But the
forty-eight hours starts now,” her father said. “Not when you
return from vacation.”

The leather chair squeaked, indicating one of
them stood. “You’re a real son of a bitch, Max.”

Callie gasped and her heart pounded in her
throat as she waited for her father’s scathing response. He didn’t
yell, as she expected, only laughed and said, “Don’t tell me you’re
just figuring that out.”

There was no reply from Gavin, only the
opening and closing of the office door. Leather squeaked again. She
reached for the off switch on the intercom, but stopped when she
heard Max pick up his desk phone and punch in a number.

“It’s Max.” Her father’s tone was all
business. “I have a job for you in Anticue. They have forty-eight
hours to come around, but I don’t think that’s going to
happen.”

What?
Callie’s heart jumped to her
throat and blocked her airway, causing her to gasp for breath as
she waited for him to say more. Something, anything that would
convey the call wasn’t as menacing as it sounded. But rather than
saying anything reassuring, he gave the address for the Blackout
and confirmed he’d call back with the final order.

Over the years there had been hundreds of
rumors regarding her father’s unethical practices, but she never
believed any of them. She never
wanted
to believe them. But
she couldn’t deny that this call had been ominous, with a clear
intent.

Since he hadn’t used the speakerphone, she
couldn't hear the other person. Therefore, she had no way of
knowing who he’d called, or the specifics of what her father
intended.

Regardless of all she didn’t know, she had to
call Gavin. Her fingers trembled so badly it took three times to
get his number dialed, as she struggled to hold back the tears.
“Gavin.” She swallowed the painful knot in her throat and sniffed.
“He just made a call.”

“Who made a call?”

“Daddy. He… I… shit. I have his office
bugged—”

“I knew it.” He laughed, then immediately
sobered. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re crying.”

“No, I’m not okay. Daddy called someone. He
told them he had a job for them in Anticue.” She choked on a sob.
“I don’t know what he meant, specifically, but it sounded bad. I
can’t believe he’d do something awful. But I also can’t deny what I
heard.”

As the silence on the line stretched on
forever, her heart broke under the gravity of the situation. Unable
to stand the deafening quiet any longer, she said, “Are you
there?”

She heard something that sounded like Gavin
hitting the dashboard a couple of times, then he said, “Yeah. I’m
here.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Callie, I
need your help. I know he’s your father, but will you help me?”

***

Turning a flat piece of copper into pine
needles seemed like a good idea when Sunny dreamt it up last week.
But after hours of pounding, with little visible progress, she was
beginning to have her doubts. Hell, she was past doubts and now
believed it to be her worst idea. Ever.

She tossed the hammer and chisel onto the
table, yanked off her gloves, and grabbed her bottle of water.
Maybe after a short break she’d be able to, once again, find the
brilliance in the plan.

Wiping sweat from her forehead, she sank into
her lawn chair and kicked up her feet, exposing as much of her body
to the ocean breeze as possible. She swished a big gulp of water
around in her mouth before swallowing, then poured the remainder of
the bottle over the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and let
her body relax, hoping the breeze and pounding surf would calm her,
giving her some relief from her out-of-control thoughts.

Since Gavin left, her mind had been a
whirling dervish of activity, spinning up thousands of questions,
but finding few answers. She’d thought working on this new project
would help, but that hadn’t been the case.

Several moments into her
please-let-me-find-some-peace meditation, she heard the hum of a
motor and the crunching of tires on the gravel parking lot. She
didn’t want to leave the solitude of the trance, but the motor
didn’t sound like Robby’s truck, and common sense dictated she open
her eyes to see who’d come to visit.

If she were completely honest with herself,
she’d admit to hoping it was Gavin. She still didn’t know if she
could trust him, but her sweaty palms and rapid heart rate
indicated it didn’t matter.

A red, low-rider pickup with flames painted
on the front idled at the edge of the lot. The dark tinting on the
windows kept her from seeing inside the vehicle, so she couldn’t
make out the driver. She also couldn’t tell how many people were
inside.

In all the time she lived on the island,
she’d never been afraid. People often pulled into the lot to check
the hours of the bar or to turn around. But everything about this
vehicle, from the red paint and flames, to the dark windows, to the
way it sat unmoving, screamed danger. Even though she couldn’t see
into the vehicle, she had the sense the driver was watching her,
sizing her up.

Gavin’s words came rushing at her…
He can
make your life hell.

She hoped she was being paranoid, allowing
Gavin’s ominous warning to overtake logic and freak her out
unnecessarily. But in case this wasn’t runaway paranoia, she got up
from her chair and stepped backward into the workshop.

She didn’t want to take her eyes off the
truck, but she needed to search the workbench for something that
could be used as a weapon. With shaky hands, she grabbed her
cellphone and a long piece of pipe she could swing like a baseball
bat.

The engine of the vehicle revved and the
truck pulled farther into the parking lot. The building blocked her
view and kept her from seeing them or what they were doing. The
upside was they couldn’t see her either. She sprinted toward the
stairs and climbed them two at a time, not slowing until she was in
the kitchen with the door locked behind her.

She ran to Robby’s room, her only view of the
parking lot, and yanked up the blinds. The truck was making a slow
circle in the gravel. From the corner of her eye, a flash caught
her attention.

She whipped her gaze to the road and saw
Robby pulling into the lot. Panic for his safety seized her. She
fumbled with her phone, trying to open it, so she could call him
and warn him to stay in his truck.

The mysterious vehicle's motor revved, and
when she looked out the window again, all she saw was the tailgate
as the truck disappeared down the road, heading south toward the
bridge. She snapped the phone closed and, with shaking knees, made
it from Robby’s room to hers.

She hadn’t believed Gavin’s boss would
actually inflict physical harm, but maybe she’d been wrong. What
kind of man did Gavin work for? And what kind of person was Gavin
to condone such behavior?

While working in her shop, she’d begun to
consider that Gavin made a few valid points. The money she and
Robby would receive from selling the property would pay for Robby’s
schooling, saving them years of student loan payments. She was
concerned about running the bar by herself. If she sold, she could
work for someone else and not have the stress of being a business
owner.

But she had just as many valid reasons for
not selling, and this latest development pissed her off. Selling
because she wanted to was one thing. Selling because she’d been
bullied?

Hell, no.

She stripped out of her sweaty clothes and
jumped into the shower. By the time she finished, she had a firm
plan. It was time for Robby to teach her the ins and outs of
computer research. However, rather than researching Gavin, she
wanted to know everything possible about Max Holden.

Callie’s call sent shockwaves of rage through
Gavin. An hour later, he’d calmed slightly but still felt the sharp
sting of reality. Funny how a person’s world could change in an
instant. Gavin had made the decision to quit his job before Max
made that call. But finding out just how far Max would go had cut
him to the core.

He was also fully aware his world hadn’t been
the only one to disintegrate with that call. Callie was devastated,
and Gavin was worried about her. He’d called to check on her
several times and had even offered to let her stay with him for a
few days while she sorted things. But she declined, saying she
planned to spend the night with Tiffany.

After Max left for his golf game tomorrow,
she’d go back to the house and finish her detective work. She’d
already proven herself valuable to Gavin’s efforts by slipping into
Max’s office and retrieving the last number dialed from his
phone.

Since Max had given both Gavin and the hired
gun forty-eight hours, Gavin felt as if everything—meaning Sunny
and Robby—would be okay tonight. First thing in the morning, Gavin
would call his friend Marty, a private investigator, and have him
track the number. If they could find the person Max called, then
maybe they could figure out his plans.

Gavin picked up the bottle of Crown sitting
next to his chair and threw back another long swig. He’d started
off using a glass, but decided a shot at a time wasn’t getting the
job done. Tonight, he needed heavy-duty firepower to kill his
demons.

After leaving Max, he’d gone to the gym, but
quickly lost interest. Rather than calming him, it had the opposite
effect. So, in lieu of being healthy, he headed for the liquor
cabinet.

Sitting in his perfectly manicured backyard,
watching the crimson sky turn dark, had also proved agitating, at
first. But the bottle of Crown had mellowed him out, allowing him
to contemplate his future.

Although the idea seemed crazy on the
surface, he’d always wanted to run a restaurant. He loved to cook
and, at one time, considered culinary school. Every time he closed
his eyes and allowed himself to imagine that kind of future, he
found himself on the beaches of Anticue.

He loved the solitude and relaxed lifestyle
the island offered. But that would be lost forever if he didn’t
figure out a way to stop Max. Taking another swig from the bottle,
he assigned his mind the task of figuring out a solution.

***

“I’m coming. Jeez, knock it off.” Sunny
scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes and shuffled through the living
room toward the kitchen.

Robby exited his bedroom right behind her.
“Who’s beating down the door?”