To the Limit (16 page)

She nodded, close to tears of pain when he finally loosened his hold.

"How about this? You pick the place."

She blinked up at him, a little afraid. Until he kissed her. It was so tender. So, so loving.

"Now get packed." He reached for the shirt he'd tossed over the back of a chair. "I need to get some bread. You have your mind made up where we're going by the time I get back."

He dug her ATM card out of his pocket and headed for the door. "Be back in thirty. Abe—book a charter."

Tiffany fought tears. And told herself not to let ideas bring her down. Stupid ideas. Like ... like maybe Lance only loved her as long as the money flowed. Like he was manipulating her with drugs and slow, deep kisses and the amazing way he made love to her.

"Go ahead," he said, softly now. "Pack your things. Or would you rather spend a little time with Abe?"

A wave of shame washed through her, making her nauseous. Love had a price. Sometimes it was terrible. Frightening. And sometimes it made her wish she were strong enough to leave him.

But the thought of leaving him was so frightening it hurt. She couldn't leave him. Life without love was worse. She knew.

She caught Abe smirking as she turned back to the bedroom. With shaking hands, she shut and locked the door behind her.

Then she dug her stash of weed out of the hiding place in her makeup case. Only after she'd lit up, dragged deep, did she feel a little steadier. Only after she'd finished it did she feel good again. And after she smoked a wet stick—Lance had told her it was marijuana, PCP, and formaldehyde—she was high as a kite.

Sometimes that's what it took to remember that Lance loved her. Sometimes it was all it took to shake the fear. His love was all that counted. It didn't matter that he spent her money. Nothing that he did to her mattered. As long as he didn't leave her.

Chapter 10

It happened the same way with police
work. You worked a case like a hound dog and sometimes it came down to luck. That is, if you consider playing every angle and turning every stone as getting lucky. No matter, after a night of searching, Mac was cruising by the Ocean Key Resort Hotel around six the next morning and spotted Tiffany Clayborne stepping into a stretch limo.

He jerked his head back around in time to see a slim dark-skinned man with a long black ponytail duck into the limo behind her. Pulling over to the curb, Mac turned on his emergency blinkers and grabbed the city map he'd laid out in the passenger seat so he'd look like one of the many lost tourists trying to find their way back to Old Town.

After adjusting all three rearview mirrors, he got a line on the limo as it pulled out from the hotel's portico and eased into traffic. Since the stretch was big and black and roughly as inconspicuous as an aircraft carrier, he let it get a couple of city blocks ahead of him before he pulled out into the stream of traffic.

He maneuvered along a safe distance behind the limo, following when it turned south on U.S. 1. After crossing over Stock Island Bridge, the limo hooked a left onto South Roosevelt Boulevard. That's when Mac spotted the Key West International Airport sign.

Hell. Fate giveth; fate taketh away. He'd actually discovered the chicken and it looked like she was about to fly the coop. He'd hoped that when he found Tiffany, she'd be settled in—at least for a couple of days. The plan had been to give Edwards a call, lead him to the prodigal daughter, and collect his fat paycheck. As neat and tidy as a laundered shirt. Unless he figured out a way to delay Tiffany getting on a plane, however, there wasn't going to be anything neat and tidy about it.

Speaking of neat and tidy. He caught a look at himself in the rearview mirror, then leaned over and dug his electric razor out of the glove box. If Tiffany was, in fact, leaving, he thought as the razor buzzed across his face, he might be able to get a lead on where she was headed. But not if he looked like he'd just crawled out of a drainage ditch.

Just his luck, the security guard on duty was diligent as hell when he pulled into the terminal drive, two cars behind the limo. At least he'd had the foresight not to pack his Beretta. Not only would he not be waved on to a parking spot; he'd probably be spread-eagled against his Taurus by now.

He hadn't been back in Florida long enough to make any key contacts—especially down as far south as mile marker number 1—so he was on his own coming up with a ploy that might detain Tiffany long enough to get Edwards down here.

And all of this on a bum wheel, a couple of hours' sleep in the backseat of the Taurus, and clothes that looked exactly what they were—past their prime. Not much he could do about that, but he finger combed his hair and popped a Tic Tac. Another hit of ibuprofen an hour ago had taken the edge off, but his knee was a far cry from ready to go.

Tough. He snagged his cell phone, covered his banged-up eye with his dark glasses, and shouldered the car door open. And damn near dropped to his knees.

"Jesus H. Christ."

Mac didn't know which ticked him off more. The pain that shot through his left leg and arrowed all the way to his gut or the fact that it slowed him down. He gritted it out and made it into the tiny terminal that handled mostly charter flights. Fortunately for him, terrorism and security didn't appear to be high on the priority list this far south of D.C.

The terminal was open-air, as laid-back as a day on the beach, and consisted of a circular concourse with open walls of windows that afforded a bird's eye view of the concourse that could be accessed by three open gates. He arrived at the far gate just in time to see Tiffany, and what he could only assume was her boy band, walk across the tarmac to a charter jet.

Disgusted, he hobbled toward the window. Careful not to draw any attention to himself—it was always possible that someone with a badge and a gun might get jumpy—he whipped out his cell phone and snapped a few pictures. Then he watched as the pretty boy with the ponytail motioned for Tiffany to board. Leader of the band, calling all the shots, Mac decided as Tiffany obediently climbed the ramp and ducked inside. The guy milled around on the tarmac, overseeing the loading of a couple of guitar cases. In addition to the dude with the black hair, there was a big ruddy-faced bald guy covered in tattoos and a slighter, skinny urban cowboy type who carried his guitar case onto the plane with him.

Mac didn't have names, but at least he had faces now. And possibly a jump on their next destination if he played his hand right.

The jet was already preparing to taxi toward the runway when he approached the desk at the charter gate and put on his frazzled face.

"Oh hell," he muttered, and ran a frantic hand through his hair. "I missed 'em, didn't I?"

The woman behind the service desk looked up as the whine of jet engines winding up and the scent of jet fuel floated in through the open airport terminal. "You have a problem, young man?"

She appeared to be in her early sixties, tight gray curls, crisp white blouse, carefully painted-on eyebrows that were arched ever so slightly as she looked him over, trying to decide if he was a mere annoyance or, in this day and age, a terrorist threat.

"Lady, you don't know the half of it." He limped over to the desk, propped his forearms on the counter, and made a big show of catching his breath.

"Is there something I can help you with?" She smelled like the perfume his mother used to wear. Chanel? Estee Lauder? One of those French broads.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I am so screwed. That was Tiffany Clayborne, right?"

Mae, according to the shiny gold nameplate on her blouse, tilted her head to the side, studied him but said nothing.

"It's OK. I know you have your confidentiality rules. You don't have to say anything. Besides, I know it was her. Just like I know I'm out of a job. God. What a frickin' morning."

"Why would you be out of a job?"

He pushed out a laugh. "Because my boss at Ocean Key is gonna boot me out the door the minute he finds out I didn't catch Ms. Clayborne and make sure she paid her tab."

He turned around, slumped with his back against the counter, and let out a deflated breath. "He's gonna see it as my fault she left without giving us her credit card imprint."

Silence.

"Leave it to management. You know? The suits with the high-ticket jobs? Anyway, one of them opened up the penthouse suite to her and her friends simply because she's the daughter of some Palm Beach billionaire and told her they'd worry about payment later."

He flayed a hand in the air, disgusted. "Only Ms. Clayborne, she didn't seem to worry about payment at all—then or later—and since I was the desk clerk on duty when she hightailed her high-class butt out the door half an hour ago, that same high-ticket suit decided to sacrifice my ass to save his. He sent me after her and told me not to come back unless I had cash or her signature on this bill," he patted his hip pocket as if a bill were actually in it, "or a line on where to find her to send it."

Behind him, there was still nothing but silence. He took it as a good sign that Mae wasn't telling him to peddle his tale of woe to someone who gave a damn.

"Oh well." He pushed away from the desk, the picture of absolute dejection. "Sorry I bothered you."

"What did you do to your leg?" she asked when he'd limped a few steps away.

He stopped. Gave a weary laugh. "I think I sprained it when I ran out of the hotel after her. Banged it hard against the side of my car anyway. Well, it
was
my car. No job, no payment."

Mae made a pinched face. "Don't you think you're laying it on a little thick?"

He grinned, sheepish and contrite and just a little flirty. "Yeah. But I'm desperate. Is there a prayer that it's working?"

God love her, she grinned. Then she sobered, studied him, and scowled. "The charter flight is headed for La Guardia," she said, leaning forward so no one else would overhear her.

Fuckin'A!

He'd started to think he was going to have to wait until he could tag an ATM withdrawal from Tiffany's account to get a line on her location, and by that time the whole happy tribe might be a couple of days ahead of him.

"You're a doll, Mae."

"I didn't do a thing."

"Right. Didn't say a thing, either. Nothing that anyone will hear from me. Thanks again. Thanks a million. I don't suppose you heard where, in New York, they were staying?"

"Now you're pressing your luck."

He nodded and took off. His leg didn't feel nearly as bad as he limped out the door. At least he had a destination city. And as he hit U.S. 1 headed north and beat a fast track back to West Palm, he didn't give much of a thought to sharing the information with Eve Garrett that Tiffany was on her way to NYC. Well, not much of a thought, except that after this was over he was definitely going to give Eve a call.

If nothing else, just to hear her rail at him. There wasn't too much the woman did that didn't make him hot, and being on the receiving end of one of her tirades—well, let's just say that even thinking about it made him rise to the occasion.

"OK. Extract your head from your ass, McClain," he muttered. It was time to get serious. There wasn't one damn thing he could think of that justified even thinking about Eve that way. He'd screwed with her life once. If he were any kind of man, he wouldn't screw with it again.

Besides, she considered him the equivalent of roadkill. And yet she'd called last night, offered to find him a room.

Because she felt guilty. It had nothing to do with him. More to do with the kind of woman she was.

He pulled into a fast-food place to get a cup of coffee to keep him awake. On the road again, he made a call to Roger Edwards. New York was a big place. Edwards had a couple of ideas on some of Tiffany's favorite haunts, which was good. Without them, it was going to be like sifting through sand in a sandbox.

Unlike Little Miss E.D.E.N., Inc., at least Mac knew which sandbox to look in. If push came to shove, he wasn't above playing with the definition of
lawful
again if it would help him get the information he needed. Once Tiffany and the boy band settled in, he'd access her account again and close the deal.

And unlike Eve, and over and above what he'd said, it wasn't all about the money. It was about what the money could do. It was about seeing his daughter. And Ali was the most important thing in his life.

Eve was in the shower when her cell rang at seven the next morning. It was Uncle Bud.