Bite Me (27 page)

“I plan to get my PhD in that. To get my PhD in art history just seems so . . . useless. I study art and its history every second of every day. I mean, when you think about it . . .
I’m
art history in the making. But a PhD in psychology would allow me to understand my enemies so I can destroy them and their careers before they get in my way.”

Cherise leaned over and whispered in Coop’s ear, “If he starts wondering about the taste of human flesh, you do understand we
will
have to stop him before his murder spree begins?”

“I’m more worried,” Cooper whispered back, “that he’ll become ruling overlord of the universe and we’ll have to find some kind of magic sword if we hope to destroy him.”

They both shuddered and returned to their work.

But after a few minutes, all three siblings looked up and saw the giant panda standing by the TV, eating his bamboo and staring at them.

“Something wrong?” Cooper asked him.

“Just keeping an eye on you three. Like I promised Vic. And thanks for not going to different rooms. It makes it easier to do my job.”

Coop glanced at Cherise and Kyle. Since none of them had any ideas on how to handle this, they again focused on what they were doing. But at least Cherise turned up the TV quite a bit to help drown out the sound of the panda’s munching.

That did help. At least a little.

Allison Whitlan walked into her beautiful home. She removed her cashmere coat and placed it in the closet. She removed her Jimmy Choos, sighing at the cold marble in the hallway against her feet. With the shoes hanging from one hand and her Chanel purse in the other, she went to her living room.

She was halfway across when she stopped, the hairs on the back of her neck raised, and goose bumps spreading up her spine and down the backs of her arms. Slowly, she turned and faced the beautiful but powerfully built Asian woman standing by the gift Allison’s worthless father had sent her. She’d kept the gift, as she’d kept all his gifts over the years, but only because it was unique and interesting. Her friends, great world travelers, had been fascinated by such a large honey badger. They’d all been under the assumption that the African animal was much smaller in size.

“How the hell did you get in here?” she demanded of the woman, who was dressed brazenly in a tight red dress, with bold gold jewelry on her neck and arms.

“I need a name from you.”

“What?” Allison took a step toward the woman, but the intruder raised her forefinger, swung it back and forth while clicking her tongue against her teeth. At that moment, in that very second, Allison knew she was in grave danger. That this . . . person could and would kill her without a second’s thought.

Allison knew it, and it terrified her as nothing ever had before.

“I need a name.”

“It’s my father you want, isn’t it?” Allison shook her head. “You can threaten me if you want, but it won’t matter to my father. He won’t care. All you see here, all the money I have, is because of my mother and stepfather.”

The woman gazed at her with the blackest eyes Allison had ever seen, and after a moment, she pointed at the stuffed honey badger with one perfectly manicured nail.

“Did your father give you this?”

“Yes.”

“Did he bring it himself?”

Allison blinked at the question. She was used to these kinds of questions from the police. The FBI. All of them had been at her door more than once over the years. All looking for her father. Her criminal father. The best thing her mother had ever done was leave that man and marry Allison’s stepfather. Not only had he been ridiculously wealthy, but he’d actually cared about Allison and her mother. Took care of them. Even now he and her mother were still together, currently on her stepfather’s yacht in the Caymans.

“No,” Allison replied. “He didn’t bring it himself. I haven’t seen my father in . . .” she thought a moment. “Ten . . . maybe fifteen years.”

“Then who brought this to you?”

Allison hesitated. But the woman suddenly started walking toward her. Slowly. Taking her time crossing the space between them. She was shorter than Allison, even in those fifteen-hundred-dollar shoes she wore. But good God! Those shoulders! She looked like she could take Allison’s stainless steel front door down with those shoulders.

The woman reached her hand out, and Allison struggled not to jerk away, feeling a movement—any movement at all—would get her killed.

The woman gently pushed a loose curl behind Allison’s ear. “Don’t start lying to me now, sweetie.”

She had an accent, but she was trying to hide it. Her words were clipped, almost British. But she wasn’t from Hong Kong. Allison had lots of friends who were, she traveled there often, and this woman didn’t sound like them.

Nor did she seem like anyone Allison had met before. Ever. In fact, now that Allison was close to her, there was something so primal about this woman, so base, that Allison had to struggle not to cry in abject fear.

Instead, she swallowed back her tears and her fears and she answered the woman honestly. “Some delivery company. Out of Florida. There was no note. Or return address.”

“Then how did you know it was from your father?”

“The deliveryman told me.”

The woman took Allison at her word, maybe because she could actually
smell
Allison’s fear. It wouldn’t surprise Allison. This woman knew fear, understood it, and thrived on it.

Finally, the woman stepped away from Allison, absently patting her arm. “Very good,” she said, turning away from her and heading across the room.

“If you don’t mind,” she added as she moved away, “I’ll be taking this with me.”

And, out of the darkness of Allison’s living room, Asian men appeared. She hadn’t even sensed they were there. Hadn’t known that she wasn’t alone with this woman. They were Asian, like the woman, and broad. Short, but so powerfully built, Allison had no doubt any of them could have killed her with one blow.

They went over to the stuffed honey badger and picked it up. And she couldn’t explain it, but they seemed to do it with . . . respect. With honor. As if carrying the casket of a fallen soldier.

With care, they lifted the carcass up, stopping briefly by the woman. She rested her hand on the back of it, her head momentarily bowed. That was when Allison felt real . . . pain. Grief. Yes. She felt grief from the woman.

Confused, she watched the woman remove her hand and toss her head back. She let out a breath and made a motion. The men walked out, and the woman looked back at Allison.

“We’ll be leaving through the front door here and then the lobby. You will not call the police. You will tell no one we were here. Anyone. I don’t care who it is. Understand?”

Allison nodded, and the woman walked across the living room, but she stopped one more time when she reached the archway. The woman faced her.

Allison took in a breath, steeling herself for whatever nightmare was about to come next. Threats? Had this woman changed her mind? Would she now kill Allison?

Gazing at her with those cold black eyes, the woman said, “I love your shoes. Are those from the new line?”

Shocked, Allison swallowed, and said, “Next year’s fall line. I have a male friend who works with the company.”

“Lucky you!” The woman smiled. “I’d kill for that.”

Then the woman was gone. The steel door slammed shut.

Allison dropped to her knees, urine running down her legs and into a puddle beneath her, while her entire body shook senselessly for hours.

While Joan’s brothers put poor Damon into the back of the van, she called Balt.

“Yes, my beauty.”

She grinned. The man would just never give up, would he? She liked that. “She didn’t have a name.”

“You believe her?”

“I do. She couldn’t have lied to me if she’d wanted to.”

“We will take from here then, yes?”

“Good luck. See you when you get back.” She disconnected the call and got into the front passenger side of the van.

“Where now?” her younger brother asked.

Joan glanced back at the remains of her mate, but she couldn’t look at him for long. It was too painful.

Focusing on the streets in front of her, she said, “Crematorium.” Her brother stared at her, and she added, “You don’t really think he’s going to shift back to human
now,
do you?”

“You have a point.” Her brother started the van, and waited to pull into traffic. That was when he added, “But if I find out there’s any insurance policy out there with
my
name on it . . . me and you? We got problems.”

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing like that out there.”

Then to turn that lie into a truth, Joan put a reminder in her phone to cancel the insurance policies she had on her brothers.

John Lindow had come home early from the party, and he was glad he had. There was someone in his office. A room even his bitch of a wife didn’t go into. And even if she was brave enough to try, she was out of the country for the next month, spending his money in France. His own fault, though. He didn’t have to marry a “model,” as she
still
liked to call herself.

With his two bodyguards behind him, John quietly walked up the stairs of his Miami mansion and stopped outside the office.

There was a man working at his computer. A man he didn’t know. Because he had an amazing view from this room and bodyguards to protect him, John’s desk faced the big windows, so the man’s back was to the door.

John held his hand out, and one of his guards handed him a .22 he kept on him for this sort of thing.

He took aim and shot the man in the back. The power of the shot pushed the man forward, and then he fell out of the chair and onto the floor.

John handed the gun back to his guard and walked into the room. He didn’t want to kill the man right away. Not until he knew what he was doing here.

Leaning down, John studied his computer screen, ignoring the splatter of blood.

“Ahh. I see.” This man wanted to know who was involved in the shipment that went to Allison Whitlan. Frankie Whitlan’s daughter. John’s company delivered all sorts of things for anyone who could afford their prices. From expensive rugs legally sent from France to elephant tusks illegally sent from Africa, John’s company did it all. But the illegal jobs were dealt with differently. There might be a record of a package going to a certain location, but he wasn’t stupid enough to actually write “nearly extinct tiger meat inside. Handle with care” on the box.

Knowing the man hadn’t found anything he could use, John stood. “Okay, guys, let’s—”

John frowned. His guards were gone. He walked out into the hallway, but they weren’t there, either. Had they heard a noise? Maybe, but even when that happened, one guard always stayed with John while the other investigated.

A cracking noise behind him had John spinning around. The man he’d shot was standing now, and that noise John had heard was the man cracking his back.

“You know,” the man said, “it’ll take them hours to get that bullet out of my back.”

John didn’t understand. The man hadn’t been wearing a bulletproof vest. Or any protection but a long-sleeved T-shirt. A .22 in the back might not kill, but it should still damage. A lot.

The man took a deep breath and let it out. “But I’m not going to get mad.” John backed up as the man walked toward him. He turned to run, but he was caught by his neck. John fought hard. He wasn’t a weak person. He had bodyguards, but he knew there was only so much they could do. He still knew how to take care of himself. Yet no matter how many times or how hard he hit the man dragging him down the hallway, John couldn’t seem to hurt him.

The man took him down the stairs, down the hallway, through the kitchen and mudroom, until they were out the back door. It was late, so the woman who cleaned his house was in her little bungalow. And John knew she’d never come out to investigate. She’d learned a long time ago that was a quick way to see something she didn’t want to see. Yet, even understanding that, John still screamed for help. But he knew it wouldn’t make any difference.

Dragged past his pool and into his yard, the man finally stopped, and that was when John was suddenly falling . . . into an open grave.

John landed on his two bodyguards. They were alive but out cold.

He looked up and the grave was surrounded by a large group of men. It was dark out, so he couldn’t make out any faces, but the light coming from the house told him it was about eight or nine males.

“You clearly don’t know who I am,” John warned.

“We do not care,” the man said with a heavy Eastern European accent.

“I can give you anything you want.”

“We want one thing. Name. Who paid for package that went to Allison Whitlan?”

John swallowed. “I don’t—”

Dirt began to be shoveled onto him. All but the man with the accent, working together to cover him. To bury him alive.

“Wait! Wait!”

The men stopped.

“Give us name,” the man said. “And we go. Do not give us name, and we stay . . . ’til we are done.”

John hesitated. Going against Whitlan was a very quick way to die. But when it took him longer than thirty seconds to reply, the dirt began to fall again.

“I’ll tell you!” he screamed. “I’ll tell you!”

“Make it quick. I grow bored.”

“Bennett. Lyle Bennett. He paid for the package to be delivered to my company and then to be delivered to Allison Whitlan.”

“That is very good.”

Then the dirt began to rain down on John again. He screamed and begged, and after a few seconds, the dirt stopped.

“Just joke,” the man said as he and the other men laughed. “We make promise, we do not break promise. But be careful who you choose to protect. It could land you in early grave.”

C
HAPTER
23

L
ivy sat on Vic’s kitchen table. He’d put her there himself. But, she noticed, only after he’d put down a giant beach towel first. That was probably because she was naked, and she did appreciate his need to be tidy.