NaturesBounty (9 page)

A screwdriver in the glove compartment came in handy, and he
popped the ignition with it and roared off to do his version of casual tailing
in midmorning traffic. A glance at the dashboard told Nate it was eleven a.m.,
and the gas gauge was encouragingly close to the Full mark. He wondered how
long it would take Lydia to drive to wherever she’d hidden the evidence, which
was somewhere in Flagstaff. He had no doubt that was her destination.

When she pulled up at a bus station, he parked and dashed
inside the adjacent mini-mart for a caffeine boost and another disposable
phone. This one was a cheap flip job with no bells and whistles, but he wanted
it on hand just in case.

He was back behind the wheel by the time Lydia emerged,
clutching a manila envelope and a coffee to go. This was it. Nate wasn’t
entirely sure where she had arranged to meet the guy who had put a major cramp
in Nate’s life as well as hers, but he was fairly certain the meeting wouldn’t
take place in Arizona. They were most likely headed back to some point between
here and the place where this odyssey had all begun. What the hell he would do,
exactly, once he followed her there was another story. He had no weapon, save
the screwdriver, no fun little spy gadgets, and little idea as to what kind of
muscle the guy had on hand.

Maybe Lydia was right about working a deal to make all this
go away, but Nate doubted it. As she got on the highway, he stayed a couple of
cars behind and spent a good half hour spitting out profanities while he fought
to open the ass-cheap cell phone package and get the thing working. Another ten
minutes was spent trying to pull the number he needed from his memory.

Several wrong numbers later, he heard a suspicious and
familiar, “Yeah?”

“Benny, it’s me. Nate.”

“Nate? Is that you? Fuck, boy, word has it that you’ve
landed yourself in ten kinds of shit.”

“Twelve kinds. That’s why I’m calling.” He blew out a
breath. “I hate to ask, but I need someone to watch my back while I’m watching
someone else’s. I need your help. A shitload of it.”

Lydia got out in front of the address she’d been given and
closed her car door. Nate’s car door, rather. Another wave of guilt washed on
top of her anxiety. As she looked at the building jutting up against the night
sky, she wondered what Nate was doing right then. He would be long out of the
handcuffs by now. If nothing else, the maid would have come by and discovered
him. If he’d been smart, he’d stayed put at the motel to lie low until this was
all over. She hoped he was doing exactly that, and that he wasn’t hating her
too much in the process.

No doubt he was pissed as hell at her for stealing from him,
but she had every intention of giving him the car back after this was done.
Hopefully he realized she had no choice, and that she had to do this without
him. If Nate had come along loaded for bear, Andrew would know they’d teamed
up. He might be a lot less likely to make a deal with her if he knew she’d
already told others the truth.

The office building was abandoned, but it wasn’t locked. She
clutched the envelope in her hand as she entered, wondering why it hadn’t
dawned on her to bring a flashlight. It was pitch black inside.

Blinking furiously against the darkness, she took a few
tentative steps on shaky legs. A bright beam of light pierced the night,
hitting her square in the face.

“That’s far enough,” a man said, and she knew the voice all
too well. “Did you bring what I want?”

“You can see I have it in my hand,” she said, squinting her
eyes against the glare. Trying to peer past the flashlight beam did no good.
Everything else was still shrouded.

“Then let’s take our meeting somewhere with a little better
lighting, shall we?”

Her arms were grabbed suddenly by men who appeared on either
side of her. They “escorted” her along the path where their own wildly bobbing
flashlight beams were trained. A door popped open, and ambient light from a
single lamp spilled from the room. Lydia was taken inside, where Andrew sat on
the edge of a small desk that the banker’s lamp was on. The room had little
else in the way of office decor except for an unused waste bin and papers
strewn everywhere. There weren’t even any chairs.

The men stood on either side of her and she glanced at them.
They weren’t the same goons who had broken into her Venice hideaway, and she
wasn’t certain whether she was relieved or disturbed by that fact. She was in
no hurry to see those two again, but the question of how many brutes Andrew had
on the bad-guy payroll sat heavily on her.

“Check her,” Andrew said.

Both men turned, and one grabbed the envelope and held her
arms behind her back while the other ran his hands over her.

“Hey!” she shouted when he literally squeezed each breast,
hefting and prodding into her cleavage. “
Hey!
What the hell is this
about? Can’t you guys get a real date?”

“Relax,” Andrew said. “I’m just making sure we can talk
freely. I’m sure you had something similar done when you were booked into
jail.”

With that, her shirt was yanked up, and her bikini top was
searched inside and out. For a final insult, one of the men stuffed his hand
down her pants. She struggled and spit curse words at him.

“Don’t fight him,” Andrew said. “Unlike my other friends,
these men are gentlemen. They won’t pull out their weapons unless they have to.
Let’s not make it necessary.”

She gritted her teeth while the guy proceeded to very
intimately, though roughly, probe her entire crack from her clit to her ass.
When he pulled away, there was a sick gleam of satisfaction on the asshole’s
face.

“Yeah, a real fucking gentleman,” she said. She yanked her
arm hard, and the other man let go.

“Sorry that was necessary,” Andrew said, “but things with
you haven’t exactly gone as expected.”

She snorted. “Yeah, well, working at your company didn’t
quite line up with my five-year plan either.”

“I have to say, your little jaunt to California came as
quite a surprise.” He nodded to the guy with the envelope, who stepped forward
and handed it over. “That wasn’t part of the plan at all. I’m afraid you made
matters a lot worse for yourself.”

“You’re the one who made matters worse for me,” she said as
he opened the envelope.

“On the contrary. I was just trying to make an important
point about the consequences of corporate snooping.” He peered inside the
envelope and shook his head. “Oh dear. Yes, this little piece of paper would
have been quite inconvenient to explain away.” He glanced at her. “You were
supposed to sit in jail overnight until I could pay you a visit, explain how
this was going to work, and then drop the charges when I was assured of your
cooperation. Instead, you somehow managed to post bail despite a frozen bank
account and then skipped out of state.” He waggled a finger at her.

“I always keep rainy-day money. You never know when some
criminal is going to come along and spoil your parade.” She cocked her head.
“Out of curiosity’s sake, just
how
were you going to say this would work
before I ruined your little plan?”

He held up the envelope. “You were going to hand over the
evidence you stole and go away quietly in exchange for me dropping the charges
against you. Should at any point you decide to change your mind, you would go
to jail for embezzling.”

“Which you yourself are actually guilty of.”

“But with all trails now conveniently pointed to you,” he
said, lifting the envelope, “this was the only remaining evidence of any, shall
we say, questionable bookkeeping with my name attached.”

He stood and straightened his suit jacket. “That deal is
still on the table. We part ways professionally, of course, and in lieu of
severance, you can keep twenty percent of the money that was funneled into your
account to help sell your embezzlement. I’ll drop the charges against you. All
I need is your silence and any copies you made of this bank statement.”

“I made two copies when I left town,” she said, nodding to
the envelope. “Two copies are there. The original was in the beach house when
your testosterone convention showed up, so I assume you already have that one.”

He gave her a tiny smile. “I do, in fact.” He tore the
envelope in half and pulled a lighter from his chest pocket. He lit the corner
of the papers and dropped the burning evidence into the metal waste bin nearby.

“Speaking of testosterone,” he added, watching the flames
climb, “my associates were highly pissed off about the man who attacked them.”

Acrid smoke curled up from the trash bin. “Attacked them?
That’s a load of crap. He was defending us. I don’t suppose you plan on paying
for the damage? That place is owned by someone dear to me. He said I could use
it whenever I wanted, not trash the joint.”

“Consider it the price for doing business poorly.” He
glanced over at the burning trash. The flames were higher, but still contained.

“I know you left with Nate Antillean,” he went on. “Do tell,
where is he now?”

She lifted her chin. “I have no idea.”

“And yet you pulled up in front of this building in a car
registered to him. The same car my guys followed to California.”

“Yeah, that.” She shrugged. “I sort of borrowed that car
without permission after I escaped from him.”

He looked unconvinced. “Is that so?”

She glowered back at him. “Yeah, that’s
so
. Look, I
wasn’t about to let that bounty hunter drag me back to jail, and I sure as hell
didn’t want him to know about this little tea party of ours. So I left him
handcuffed in a motel room two states away.”

“My, you really have taken to the criminal life, haven’t
you?”

“I did what I had to in order to survive. Now, about this
deal, does it include letting Nate off the hook as well? Just because I screwed
him over doesn’t mean I want him declared a fugitive for helping me get away
from
your
bastard henchmen.”

He shook his head. “I told you, this entire incident went
way off the map. I can drop the original charges I arranged to have brought
against you, but anything you or your friend did after that is totally out of
my hands.”

“He’s not my friend. He’s just an asshole bounty hunter.”
While she spat out the words, she really hoped her face looked stoic enough to
be convincing.

“I understand my men waited quite some time outside your
apartment for him to bring you out.” He paused. “After delivering balloons to
you. Birthday gift?”

She felt her face go hot. “The idiot didn’t even have a gun.
He wanted to use minimal force in my capture, so he waited until I opened the
door for him and let my guard down. And after you, I’m sure you can understand
how that took a while. I don’t trust men in suits.”

There was a look on his face that suggested he knew more
about the ruse Nate used to get inside, but she held his steely, narrowed gaze
steadily.

“Really brave of your muscle heads, by the way,” she went
on, “charging in on an innocent woman and an unarmed man.”

“Not so unarmed, from the way I hear it.” He smiled slowly.
“Or innocent.”

“Fine, whatever. Are you going to agree to this deal or
not?”

“I told you, the deal’s still on the table.” He glanced at
the burning bank statements. “As for the extras you’re trying to include, I’m
afraid that’s impossible. I control FTI, not the entire police force.”

“And yet you somehow knew enough to have Nate followed. You
must have some influence.”

He shrugged. “I may have found out that your bond agent is
willing to do favors for the right price. I’m sure you can understand, what
with his bonds running out on him. How’s a man to earn a living?”

“So you made him your bitch.”

“I merely made sure he chose the right man for the job of
finding you, and he fed me certain information as to your whereabouts when it
came along.”

Her heart pounded. So, Nate had been right. Asa had
deliberately picked him to track her down because he knew Nate wouldn’t use a
gun. He hadn’t, however, apparently counted on Nate being just as effective a
fighter without one.

“Because you wanted to get to me first, obviously.”

“I wanted a chance to discuss my offer privately before you
found your way back to jail.” He paused. “Something you seem intent on doing.”

She sniffed. “You stole from your own coffers, blamed it on
the help, and then talked the law into helping you. Now you’ve screwed another
guy’s future just for helping me. I’m hardly the bigger bad here.”

He laughed. “I may have been the one diverting funds for
personal use, but you were the one who went on to commit additional crimes. You
and your bounty hunter.”

“Because you gave us no choice. So do we have a deal? Surely
you can swing one more favor to make this all go away.”

He cocked his head at her. “Why does it matter to you
whether he gets arrested? If he’s just some asshole bounty hunter, you should
be happy to see him pay for trying to take you to jail.”

“I want to walk away with a clean conscience. The guy was
just doing his job.”

“And then some.” He eyed her for a long moment before
glancing up at his men. “Let’s double the guard outside, shall we? Just in case
anyone happens to be skulking around doing their
jobs
.” He nodded to the
guy on her right. “Check in with Art.”

The man got on his radio while the other one went out the
door.

“I told you, he’s not here,” she said. “I stole his car and
left him stranded in Arizona. He knows nothing about this meeting.”

“Are you sure about that?” Andrew asked.

“All clear,” came the return report on the radio.

She shot Andrew a smug look. “See? You’re wasting time.
Let’s finish this deal and get the hell out of here. The sooner we ‘part ways
professionally’, as you put it, the better I’ll like it.”

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll call the attorney first thing in
the morning. The embezzlement charges will be dropped after my discovering that
the entire incident was due to an unfortunate accounting error. Once your
account is unfrozen, the money shifted there will be removed. Twenty percent
will be diverted to you in a separate account as your fee for keeping quiet
about the bank statement you stole.”

“And my other request?”

He shook his head. “There truly is nothing I can do about
any other charges. You had no prior record, however. Get yourself a good
lawyer. I’m sure he can talk the jail time down to a minimum.”

She curled her lip at him. “You just used ‘good’ and
‘lawyer’ in the same sentence. That’s funny.”

“It’s your own fault that you broke the law by running. If
you’d have stayed put, this would all be behind us.”

So, she would still be a fugitive, and so would Nate. And if
he was so inclined to press charges, she was a car thief as well.

“Fine,” she said.

The radio crackled to life. “I have movement out here,” said
someone on the other end. The message was broken up by a weak signal, but then
she heard, “Hey, you! Stop right there.”

The goon beside her flinched, but Andrew shook his head.
“You stay here.” He shot Lydia a glance. “She supposedly escaped a bounty
hunter. Keep an eye on her. Feel free to watch from the point of your gun if
she does anything stupid.”

He stalked over and snatched the radio from the other man’s
hand. “Five, what’s going on?”

Silence followed for a while before the answer came.
“Negative. Some homeless drunk was trying to get in the back door.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Lydia. “And does this
drunk in
any
way fit the description of Nate Antillean?”

She stiffened. It couldn’t be. No way could he have gotten
to her so fast. Even if he’d escaped the cuffs, how would he have been able to
find her?

That’s when she thought of the smart phone tucked in her
jacket pocket.