Double Dealing (18 page)

Samantha finished slicing the pizza with one of her very
dull knives and picked up the pan with pot holders, starting back toward the
table with her burden. “How?”

“How much, Sam, do you think West-Land Equipment would pay
for a spread-sheet showing the wholesale costs of all the parts and materials
Thorndyke buys to build its new submersible pumps?”

“Eric! My God! What have you done?” Samantha was shaken. The
pizza slithered precariously on the tray as she came to an abrupt halt halfway
to the table and stared at him. “You’re talking about industrial espionage!”

“I’ve got that financial information, Sam. I went into the
Thorndyke computer and pulled it out before I left Los Angeles two days ago. I
made a printout of it, and I can sell it to West-Land for enough to set myself
up in business as a computer consultant anywhere in the country! Don’t you see
the beauty of it?
Thorndyke’s
going to wind up
financing my career, all right, and on my terms!”

Samantha read the agony of suspense in her relative’s taut
features, knew instinctively that he was somehow seeking her approval and
support for what he had done. But before she could think of anything to say,
the pizza gave up its attempt to cling to the tray and slid off onto the
brown-and-white-checkered floor, landing in a squishy splash of cheese and
tomato sauce.

Wordlessly Samantha glanced down at the mess at her feet. It
crossed her mind that this sort of thing would probably never have been allowed
to happen in Gabriel’s kitchen.

Then she raised her eyes again to meet the urgent blue gaze
of the young man who had just announced his intention of selling the family
secrets.

“How do you know West-Land will pay so much for what you
took from the Thorndyke computer?” she whispered.

“Because the deal’s already been made, Sam,” he explained in
a stark-sounding voice that told her just how uneasy he was over what he had
done. There was a tense pause, and then Eric ground out savagely, “Don’t look
at me like that! I couldn’t call if off now, even if I wanted to!”

“Why not!” she demanded.

Eric’s mouth twisted. “Because the whole arrangement was
made through a… a kind of broker. A
man who does this sort of thing for a living. He found the buyer when I
contacted him and told him what I had. He takes a cut.”

“And if you were to change your mind?” she pressed anxiously.

“Sam, I can’t change my mind! This broker isn’t exactly a
pillar of the business community! Don’t you see? He’s like a loan shark or
something. If I don’t deliver the goods on time, I’ve had it. He will send someone
to come and collect what I promised to provide. Forcibly!”

“Oh, my God, Eric. What have you done?”

“I’m trapped, Sam. I can’t change my mind now. I have to go
through with the deal.”

“Eric, you can’t!”

He stared at her for a long, anguished moment, and then he
closed his eyes. “I know. I’ve known since yesterday. A man doesn’t betray his
own family, no matter what they’ve done to him. Christ, Sam. What am I going to
do?”

The really annoying thing about this, Gabriel decided laconically,
was the thought of Samantha’s expression when she opened the door to find him
standing humbly on her doorstep, checkbook in hand.

He hooked one foot over the bottom deck rail and leaned his
elbows on the top one. Far below, the white wake foamed around the hull as the
Washington State ferry slid placidly through the cold gray waters of Elliot Bay.
Behind him the Seattle waterfront receded slowly, the aggressive new skyline
half-hidden in the mist.

Jesus! It was cold! How the hell did Samantha survive this
chilled, damp weather? Gabriel huddled deeper into the lightweight windbreaker
and thought briefly of the sunshine and warmth he had left behind in
California. Down there the Pacific was an inviting blue. Here it was
steel-gray.

She lived on an island. Figured. Count on Samantha not to
live like a normal city person in a high-rise apartment building in downtown
Seattle. Judging by the number of cars parked
belowdecks
,
a lot of people around here lived on islands. There were literally hundreds of
chunks of land scattered throughout the waters of Puget Sound. It had taken a
while to find the right ferry for the island on which Samantha lived.

Gabriel considered again the reception he was likely to
receive when Samantha opened the door to him. This was the third day, the last day
she had allowed in her ultimatum. Had she been getting anxious? Or had she
simply been making plans to contact Oakes?

Whatever her present state of mind, Gabriel knew exactly
what would go through her quicksilver brain the moment she opened her door to
him.

“Little witch,” he muttered, lifting the Styrofoam cup of
hot coffee to his mouth. “You’re going to think you’ve won, aren’t you? You’ll
probably be impossible to live with until we get a few things straightened out between
us.”

He could read the delighted arrogance and feminine satisfaction
in those gold-flecked tortoiseshell eyes already. His mouth kicked upward in a
wry grimace. It was going to take some work to convince her that just because
he had arrived, money in hand, she wasn’t one hundred percent in the driver’s
seat.

And it was going to be a little hard to explain to her exactly
why he had succumbed to the pressure of her feisty ultimatum. Not that he didn’t
comprehend his own motives quite thoroughly, Gabriel thought grimly. He’d
realized almost as soon as she’d left his house that morning that he’d go
through hell to keep her from getting tangled up with William Oakes. Good God! Together
Oakes and Buchanan would have screwed her to the wall! The woman didn’t have
the foggiest notion of what she was getting into when she talked of forming an
alliance with Bill Oakes. She probably didn’t have a very realistic idea of
what it took to go up against a man like Buchanan, either. A lamb among wolves.

But a very arrogant little lamb who wouldn’t have sense
enough to run when the wolves started closing in on her. Gabriel’s eyes
narrowed as he studied a mist-shrouded island slipping past on the starboard
side of the ferry. No, Samantha wouldn’t run. She didn’t lack courage.

He sighed and downed the last of the coffee. So here he was,
the angel Gabriel to the rescue. Except that he didn’t feel particularly
angelic about the whole thing. What he really felt was a distinct hardening of
his body below the belt when he thought about having Samantha within reach
again.

Some angel.

And Samantha definitely wasn’t going to look upon this as a
rescue operation. She was going to take one look at him and think he had come
all the way to Seattle for the sake of the deal she had offered. She was going
to assume that her threat had worked.

Which left him with the task of making her understand that
just because he was prepared to back her financially, he was not prepared to be
a silent partner. Gabriel intended to have a very vocal say in the plans she
was formulating. Damned if she was going to assume she was the one in command.

But it was going to take some doing to teach her otherwise,
he reflected, turning away from the rail to head back to the glass-walled cabin
in the ferry. He figured his best chance of regaining the upper hand would be
to put Samantha flat on her back in bed. The empty Styrofoam cup crumpled with
a soft crunch as his left hand tightened reflexively.

It wasn’t easy finding the house along the narrow, winding
mad which circled the island. It was almost hidden among the heavy growth of
pine and fir, but when it came into view, Gabriel decided the old Victorian monstrosity
suited Samantha perfectly. Eccentric, fiercely independent, and even arrogant,
but like its owner, offering a promise of cozy warmth inside.

There were two cars in the drive. Gabriel frowned as he
parked his rented Buick. The Fiat had to be Samantha’s but the black Ferrari
looked like a man’s car. He knew it in his bones. Oakes? Would she have contacted
him already? Damn it to hell, she was the one who had said three days. She
could damn well honor her own time limit.

He slammed the door of the innocuous Buick, shoved his
chilled hands into the pockets of the windbreaker, and headed toward the porch
steps. Was he going to have to kick Oakes out on his ass? Or did the Ferrari belong
to some other man, a lover, perhaps?

No. Not a lover. The only lover in Samantha’s life right now
was himself, whether she realized it or not. But if there was a man hanging
around who had opinions to the contrary, Gabriel decided he’d have to set the
record straight immediately.

“Now who’s sounding arrogant?” he chided himself half under
his breath as he raised his hand to clash the huge brass eagle which appeared
to serve as a door knocker. He was rather appalled at the grim resolution he
was feeling. Possessive jealousy wasn’t at all characteristic of him. But,
then, neither was this business of chasing after a woman and begging her to
take his money!

Samantha glanced up from the computer printout she was studying,
a wave of trepidation assailing her as the eagle on her door clanged
demandingly. For an instant she stared into her brother’s tense eyes as Eric,
too, lifted his head. He turned away from the computer screen where he’d been
furiously working on a financial spread-sheet program.

“It’s probably just some friend of yours, Sam. They can’t
know where I am. Not this soon!”

“Your family knows where you are,” she reminded him tightly,
her heart pounding as she considered just who might be standing on the other
side of her door. She didn’t fear the possibility of finding another Thorndyke out
there.
Thorndykes
were irritating but manageable. She
feared another sort of visitor entirely.

The deadline Eric’s industrial espionage broker had given
her brother had slipped by last night. Eric hadn’t delivered the promised
financial information.

“My family knows, but the people I’m dealing with wouldn’t
contact them to find out where I am,” Eric hissed. “And no one else knows where
I am!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll see who it is.” Samantha got to her feet,
feeling a little shaky as she faced the prospect of answering her door. “Eric,
we’ve got to call the police. I can’t live like this, worrying every time
someone knocks on my door!”

“You think the lake can handle this crowd?” he scoffed
unhappily.

“Well, what are we going to do? If you really think they’ll
be after you… “

“I’m working on it, Sam. Don’t worry. By tomorrow I’ll have
this doctored spread-sheet ready. West-Land won’t be able to tell it isn’t the
original version! I’ll turn it over and we’ll be out of this mess.”

The idea had come to Eric and Samantha yesterday as the
deadline for delivery drew near. Samantha had known from the first that her
brother wouldn’t be able to follow through on his act of corporate espionage. Rage
and a driving sense of injustice had pushed him into rashly making the deal,
but the ties of family loyalty and his own personal decency had reasserted themselves.
He was not Victor
Thorndyke’s
son for nothing.

But the plan for extricating him from the web he had woven
was taking time to prepare. The substitute data sheets with the phony financial
information had to look good if they were to fool both Eric’s shadowy contact and
West-Land. He had been up most of the night restructuring the original
spread-sheet. Samantha had spent the night beside him, doing what she could to help.
The thought of time having run out on them was terrifying.

The clash of the eagle came again, and Samantha drew in her
breath. The door had to be answered.

“Sam,” Eric called after her urgently.

“Yes?” She paused in the doorway and glanced back at her
brother’s disturbed expression. He was scared, too, she realized.

“Sam, if you don’t recognize whoever’s out there, don’t open
the door,” he ordered starkly.

“Believe me, I won’t!”

“I wish you’d gotten a dog, a big one, like I told you to a
few months ago,” Eric muttered, sliding out of his chair and moving forward to
follow her into the living room.

“Oh, shut up and stay out of sight,” she gritted irritably. “It’s
probably only your brother or one of his minions come to take you home.”

“A large dog wouldn’t be a bad idea in that case, either.”

Samantha padded across the floor in her fluffy house slippers.
She was wearing a pair of faded jeans which fit like a glove and a loose, plaid
flannel shirt. Her hair was knotted carelessly on top of her head, slightly
askew. The long, hard night showed in the drawn look of her features and in the
unnatural brightness of the brown and gold eyes.

Restlessly she prodded her glasses higher on her nose and
peered through the tiny peephole built into the old wooden door.

“Gabriel!” The name was a soft, startled exclamation. She
blinked rapidly, stepping back from the door. “It’s Gabriel Sinclair!”

“Who the hell’s that?” Eric frowned from across the room,
watching the shocked expression on his half sister’s face. “You know him?”

“You could say that. Good grief! I never thought… I mean,
the most I expected was a phone call. I didn’t dream he’d turn up on my front
porch!”

“Who
is
he?”

“A . a business acquaintance,” Samantha began awkwardly as
the eagle clashed once again.

“Well, for God’s sake let him in,” Eric grunted in relief. “I’m
going back to work.” He swung around the corner, heading back down the hall to
the parlor where the computer equipment was housed.

Samantha reached for the doorknob with trembling fingers.
Gabriel had come. In her heart of hearts she hadn’t really expected him to show
up. Not like this. Wordlessly she flung open the door and stood staring up at
the man in front of her.