A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (43 page)

“Come in,” came Capozzi’s familiar voice from the other side. No cigar today; that wasn’t a good sign. “Ah, Sebastian. Sorry to have kept you waiting, I had sudden urgent business to attend to. Please, have a seat.”

Warily, he sat down, not lounging back as he usually did, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s all this about, Capozzi? I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“Yes, well, as I said, I had matters to attend to. But regardless, something has come to my attention that pertains to the whole business with Joe and the jewelry heist you botched. As I’m certain you know, the police have no real leads, according to our source in their offices, and so we haven’t much to worry about on that front.” He paused a moment and sighed with apparent contriteness.

As if on cue, there was another knock from the door, and Sebastian turned and looked over his shoulder uneasily. “Come in,” his boss called without hesitation. The door opened and Jesse stepped through, looking fidgety and pale. Last Sebastian had heard, his shoulder was healing pretty well in spite of it all, but he had still lost enough blood that he didn’t get out and do much for fear of straining it. “Jesse, tell Sebastian what you told me.”

The younger man shifted anxiously, looking at his uncle’s lieutenant and swallowing. “Seb, that girl,” he started at last, stammering, “that girl you had stitch me up, that vet—I saw her. I saw her on the street a few days ago.”

Sebastian’s stomach bottomed out, but he kept his expression neutral, lifting a brow. “The vet? No offense, Jesse, but you must have been half out of your mind with pain that night. I doubt you remember much.”

“Yeah, but—but I remember her. I remember her face and what she looked like and I know she is still alive, Seb. I dunno, maybe they saved her after you shot her?” Jesse was naïve, and an idiot, Sebastian thought quickly. Capozzi wasn’t. Capozzi had already guessed at the truth.

“Alright,” he said slowly, looking back at his boss. “If it’s true, I’ll look into it—I’ll deal with it, Capozzi.” Sebastian started to stand.

“No,” his boss interrupted smoothly, leaning back in his own chair. “I’ve already sent someone out to deal with it. Obviously she has to be dealt with, as she can identify you and Jesse.”

“Who? Mark and Rob?”

“I felt that this matter deserved a bit more of a direct approach.”

For a long, breathless moment, Sebastian was absolutely silent and still, staring across the desk as Jesse fidgeted nearby. “What did you do?” he asked softly at last, Tobin’s eyes and hair and face flashing in his head. A slow, satisfied, sadistic smile spread across Capozzi’s face. Sebastian slammed his hands on the desk and surged to his feet, glaring furiously at the other man. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

“That has to be your fifth cup of coffee since you got in this morning,” Kate said with amusement in her voice, stirring Tobin from her thoughts. She looked up at her friend and smiled before sighing and shrugging.

“I need it,” she replied and moved to sit down at the break room table. “I didn’t get any sleep last night. I’m exhausted.”

A brow slowly inched its way up Kate’s forehead, and she smirked a little bit. “Wasn’t last night your date with that doctor? Kevin?”

“Yeah, it was,” Tobin answered, not immediately connecting the dots until that smirk grew a bit broader. “Oh, God—no, not like that!”

“What, you guys didn’t have a good time last night?”

“No! Well, I mean… yes, we had a good time. The band was great, the bar was great, he was great. I had a lot of fun and I told him to call me when he gets another free night in his schedule so we can go out again. But the night ended in the parking lot, not anyone’s bedroom,” she answered, scolding her friend lightly for thinking such things. And it was technically true. Between Kevin and Tobin, the night had not ended in anyone’s bed. “I just didn’t get any sleep once I got home.”

No longer as amused, her brow furrowed with concern. “How come? Or just… all of it?”

“Kinda just all of it,” Tobin agreed with a sigh, shaking her head. “I got caught up in thinking about… stuff, and just couldn’t get it out of my head so I could actually catch some shut-eye. So yes, this is my fifth cup of coffee here, and my eighth including the three I had before leaving for work.”

“Ouch,” Kate said with a sympathetic laugh. “That has to be rough, I’m sorry. Hopefully tonight you’ll actually be able to sleep.”

“Tobin, Tobin, look at this!” Lisa burst into the room squealing—and carrying an enormous vase of fresh flowers that made the two vets look up in surprise. “This arrived for you just now! Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“It is,” she allowed slowly as she stood and moved to take the vase from Lisa. She set it on the nearby counter and fished around between the soft, fragrant petals of flowers she didn’t know the names of, searching for a card or something. After a few moments, she managed to find it and plucked it loose, reading it.

“Well, who’s it from?” Kate asked, standing as well and sniffing at a large red rose.

“It’s from Kevin,” Tobin told the other two women with a soft laugh, shaking her head a little bit. “God, he went a bit overboard, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s really, really sweet,” Lisa exclaimed happily, almost dancing about where she stood nearby. “They’re so lovely.”

“Are you sure that last night ended in the parking lot, Tobin?” Kate teased, prompting more laughter as she shook her head.

“Yes, I’m very, very certain… I should go put these in my car. I’ll completely forget to take them home with how tired I am. Lisa, do we have any appointments for a while?”

The receptionist shook her head. “Not until one thirty—it’s a slow day.”

“Good. Want to come and get lunch with me? Food could help,” Tobin offered, glancing between Kate and Lisa.

“Oh, I’d love to,” Lisa answered regretfully. “But I already have lunch plans with Poppy. I’ll have to go with next time!” Tobin nodded in understanding.

“I’d love to go, lunch sounds great,” Kate said and moved to her office to grab her purse. “So, where were you thinking?”

“I would love a burger,” she decided as she carefully peered over the top of the flowers, almost needing to waddle toward the front door, trying not to let the bouquet get squished against the sides of the door frame.

“Burgers it is,” Kate agreed, watching her with amusement. “Yeah, I think Kevin overdid it a little bit—but it is really sweet.”

Tobin smiled softly, choosing not to think about the fact that she had to make a date with Sebastian at some point, when she had a much better guy like Kevin she actually wanted to go out with. “He’s from Nebraska—got that sweet country boy charm to him. Can you grab the door for me?”

“Sure thing.” Kate moved ahead of her and opened the inner front door, letting her get through, and then opened up the outer front door as well. Tobin smiled at her, stepping out into the warm sunshine.

Before she had the chance to get to her car, there was the sound of tires squealing on the pavement. It was a loud, obnoxious sound, and Tobin winced—and then time seemed to stop. There was a sound… a sound she would never forget ringing in her ears. A sound she couldn’t forget no matter how hard she tried—and it was echoed. The sound that echoed it, she realized, was the sound of glass shattering, as the vase exploded in her hands, and there was a surge of pain in her hands. Some part of her expected another surge of pain elsewhere, but it didn’t come. A flash of red caught her eye, and Tobin turned.

“KATE!”

Tobin sat in silence in the darkness of her car. Without seeing anything out of the front window, she wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there—and it almost didn’t matter. In her lap, Oliver was curled up tightly, whimpering softly, getting tiny pieces of white fur on her black slacks. Bichons didn’t shed, she thought absently, but that didn’t matter much. Her fingers were slowly stroking the dog’s curly fur, though she couldn’t feel anything through the bandages that were wrapped around her palms. She had turned just in time so that the bullet had shattered through the vase before hitting Kate. The glass had sliced up her hands. The pain was almost a good thing. It was a reminder that anything was real.

She hadn’t thought twice before adopting Oliver herself. Kate would have done the same thing, if it had been Tobin—she wouldn’t have even hesitated to take on three cats. Though she didn’t… hadn’t liked cats as much as dogs. But Oliver knew something was wrong. He didn’t know where his owner was, the person who had cared for him his entire life. He knew something was wrong, and no matter that he’d known Tobin nearly as long as he’d known Kate, it wasn’t the same. It would never be the same again, even if a dog’s heart was easier to mend than a human’s.

Her heart couldn’t handle breaking much longer. It couldn’t handle any more fear or pain. But that didn’t seem to matter much either, because the people who were responsible would almost prefer her killing herself, getting done with it. She hadn’t been able to see anything that day. She had been focused on the massive vase of flowers and trying to get it into her dad’s car. Now there were still half-trodden petals outside the vet clinic, and she was wondering if there was even any point in opening it back up again. Could she honestly pretend she had the strength to continue their practice? It had been hers and Kate’s. And it was gone. Tobin would be lying if she said she wanted to go back to work—not because it wouldn’t get her mind of off things, but because going back to something that had been theirs was too much. All of it was too much.

There had been a lot of people at the funeral today. Friends, family, patients—pets. Lots of pets had been there. Tobin had gotten special permission to allow pets into the funeral home. She hadn’t taken her cats, but she had been able to take Oliver, and he had been able to say goodbye, inasmuch as he could understand what was going on. A lot of nice words had been said, and she had said what she could, although she couldn’t speak to how senseless it was. She should have, because their clinic wasn’t in a bad neighborhood in the city and so there should have been no reason at all for that to happen there, as they were walking out to get lunch in the middle of the day. It just wasn’t as senseless as it should be because those men had been aiming for her.

Detective Lucas had talked to her a few times since it had happened. The cases were considered related because of Tobin, so she had taken Tobin’s statement and tried to get as much information out of her as she could. She doubted she had been much help. She had talked to the detective again yesterday, though. A bit of information had come up that had seemed prudent to share, for Tobin’s safety. They had run ballistics on the bullet that had killed Kate. It had been a match to the bullet that had killed the jewelry store owner.

The detective’s conclusion was obvious, and Tobin hadn’t tried to correct her at all, even though it felt like her head was going to implode from the information. Sebastian’s gun. The bullet had been fired from Sebastian’s gun.

She had had to tell her father what happened. Except for Lisa, Poppy, and the detectives, she hadn’t told anyone. But when her dad had gotten the call that she and Kate had been rushed to the hospital, and he had panicked because he didn’t have a car to go and see her and see if she was alright, she had had to tell him. He had been completely worked up when he had gotten to the hospital, and she had still been hysterical, and so she had just told him everything. Because what else could she do, right then? Lie some more, pretend someone hadn’t just put a hit out on her, tried to kill her because of what she had seen? Not even what she had seen, but because she had been the unfortunate choice when it came to kidnapping. And now Kate was dead.

Sebastian’s number was still sitting on her counter from that morning. She hadn’t touched it. Some part of her thought that he would be in her apartment after what had happened, but currently there were police assigned to follow her around, to make sure she was safe. Tobin didn’t know why she hadn’t just thrown out the number when she’d been released from the hospital. She didn’t want to believe that it was because she might still use it when all of this was his fault. She just hadn’t been able to touch it. And she hadn’t been able to tell anyone about the fact that he had been following her around and stalking her and that she’d had sex with him. Because that was a damn punch in the gut when she had had sex with him the night before Kate had been murdered. Tobin had never been more ashamed of anything in her life than that. Nothing would ever compare to that knowledge, that fact. Nothing.

In the end, she wasn’t sure if that was the reason why she hadn’t seen Kevin again, or because of the reason she had told him—she wanted to keep him safe. Tobin hadn’t told him all of it. Actually, she hadn’t told him any of it, but it had been all over the news that a local veterinarian had been gunned down outside her place of business, and he had called her asking if she was alright and if he could do anything. She had told him that she needed time. She had told him that she didn’t know if the men who had killed Kate would come back. And if people had understood before that she had needed time not to be so frightened after being kidnapped, they definitely understood that she needed time to mourn her best friend. That was the only good thing about any of this. The fact that there was a good thing at all was sickening.

Tobin took a deep breath and shut her eyes tightly before looking down at the small, quivering dog in her lap. His leash was sitting in the passenger seat, and she picked it up before lifting Oliver into her arms and climbing out of the car, locking it. She smiled thinly to the police officers who were currently stationed outside her apartment before making her way to the front door. It didn’t take her long to get inside and head upstairs to her apartment. Her cats had seemed uneasy since Oliver had shown up, with his toys and food bowl and everything, but even Autumn had been sweet to the mourning Bichon. Whatever animals understood of a situation like this, they knew that their new roommate was upset.

Unlocking her door, she gently set the dog down before turning and locking the door again, debating getting two or three more deadbolts and having them installed. She didn’t know if those other guys who’d been with Sebastian knew where she lived too, or if it was just him, but if they knew she was still alive, then she wasn’t safe.