JAKrentz - Uneasy Alliance (15 page)

"O
ur blackmailer seems to do his homework fairly thoroughly." Torr ignored Abby's stunned expression, methodically picking up the scattered clippings and the note that accompanied them. He straightened and calmly finished unlocking the front door.

Abby, still crouching, stared after him for a timeless moment. He was acting as if nothing had happened. He was so monumentally cool about the whole thing while she was on the verge of exploding from a combination of fear and anger.

Speculation that Latimer had killed his wife in a jealous rage. Latimer, the brilliant successful head of a large corporation. Latimer, who had told her that he'd wanted a career change about three years before.

Latimer, whose amber eyes had flared with the promise of masculine possession, who'd claimed that Abby belonged to him now. Had his dead wife once seen that possessiveness? Been a victim of that claim?

Abby scrambled to her feet and followed Torr into the house. "The note," she managed in a voice that surprised her with its steadiness, "let me see the note that came with the clippings."

Torr carried the envelope and its contents into the kitchen and set them down on the table in a neat pile. The typed note was on top and he read it before silently handing it to Abby. She almost snatched it from his hand.

There is no safety with him. Latimer killed once because his woman was sleeping around. He'll do it again when he finds out what a little whore you are. You've jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Better run if you still can.

Shaking, Abby dropped into a chair beside the table. She stared sightlessly out the window, vaguely aware that Torr was preparing coffee. How could he do that, she wondered. How could he calmly make coffee while these clippings hung between them like a time bomb?

"I didn't kill her, you know," he said quietly as he waited for the coffee to filter into the pot. "The coroner's verdict was accidental drowning. She took the sailboat out by herself even though the weather reports had been bad. I wasn't home at the time. I was in New York on business."

Abby brought her gaze back to his as he set coffee down in front of her and took the seat on the other side of the table. "Was she…did she have another man?"

"Oh, yes, she had another man."

Abby stared at him, trying to read the stark shuttered expression in his eyes. "Did you know?"

"I knew."

"You quarreled?"

"We quarreled. Frequently."

"Why didn't you just get a divorce?" Abby asked painfully.

"I was going to file after I returned from New York."

"Why hadn't she filed already if she was in love with someone else?"

"She was more in love with her share of my income than she was with the other man. Money was always very important to Anne. She hadn't had a lot of it while she was growing up and the lack of it left its mark. She needed the financial security I could give her. But she didn't need me for much else."

There was no bitterness in his words. There was no emotion at all. Somehow that made Abby more nervous than anything else could have done. Torr's calm, cold response to her questions seemed unnatural. She reached across the table to where a row of her vitamin bottles had been neatly lined up. Selecting the vitamin B complex, she gulped down a couple, chasing them with the too-hot coffee.

"If your nerves are shaky, you probably shouldn't be drinking coffee," Torr observed mildly. "It would probably be more effective to stop the caffeine than to pop vitamin B."

"You're an expert on vitamin therapy now along with everything else?" She hadn't meant to snap at him like that. She wanted to stay in control of herself—as much in control as he was of himself. Hopeless task undoubtedly.

"I'm trying to become an expert on you. It's not easy." Torr's mouth relaxed briefly into a shadow of a smile. The expression hardened almost immediately when she didn't respond.

"Were you an expert on your wife?" Abby heard herself ask and was at once appalled at the question.

"I was at the end," he replied, shrugging. He stretched out his feet, examining the tips of his hand-sewn leather shoes. "This isn't getting us very far, is it? You look scared to death of me. But I'm not the one you're supposed to be frightened of, honey. It's the guy who sent the note and the clippings who should be giving you the case of nerves. I'm the one who's going to take care of you. Remember that."

Abby shook off the cobweb of conflicting emotions. She had to get control of herself and of the situation. She had to find out exactly what she was dealing with before she got any deeper into the mess. "Who are you, Torr? Who are you really? The man who was once head of this firm?" She indicated one of the clippings. "Or the man who trades commodities on his own?"

"I'm the man you met at a class in Japanese flower arrangement, Abby. No more, no less." He flicked a disparaging glance at the clipping that had his picture on it. "I haven't been him for nearly three years. I don't ever want to be him again. He had a job that demanded eighteen hours a day. He had a wife who couldn't be trusted. And in the end he had no friends. They all disappeared when the rumors started."

"The rumors?"

"The ones that suggested I might have killed Anne because she was unfaithful."

Abby caught her breath, alarmed at the queasiness in her stomach. "Why did they think you might have killed her?"

"Anne made a point of taking some of our quarrels public." The unpleasant look in Torr's eyes came and went. "She'd have too much to drink at a party and start telling everyone within earshot that I beat her, that she was an abused wife. On other occasions she'd hint to anyone who'd listen that I couldn't match her lover in the sack. During the last few months we rarely even saw each other. She was busy with her latest conquest and I was busy preparing for the divorce."

"You must have hated her at the end," Abby whispered.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know what I felt at the end. But I do know that she hated me. She disliked the fact that she was tied to me for financial reasons. Strongly resented that she needed me if she wanted to go on living the life-style she preferred. It infuriated her that I wouldn't tolerate her lovers. She claimed my jealousy was insane and that there were no grounds for it. The truth is that at the end I wasn't even jealous any longer. I just wanted out."

"You once told me that under certain circumstances any man could be made jealous and that any man might resort to violence."

"I didn't kill her, Abby." Torr gave her a steady glance.

Abby's eyes fell away, going back to the note and the clippings in front of her. "How did he know about… about all this?" she whispered. "The blackmailer…"

"An interesting question. One possibility is that he knew about the mess when it happened. As you can see, there was a lot of newspaper publicity. Most people would have forgotten but someone in the corporate world might have remembered because he would have known who I was at the time. Or the blackmailer might simply have done some investigation on his own. I doubt that, though. I think there's every possibility that the man we're looking for has some knowledge of the corporate world—enough to remember my name and a three-year-old scandal. When the payoff demands are finally made, I think we'll have a real handle on who we're dealing with."

Abby looked up questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"If the demands are for a small steady sum of cash, I think we can assume we're dealing with a petty crook. But if the blackmailer wants something else, something more sophisticated…" Torr broke off, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as his gaze went to the window.

"Like what, Torr?"

"We'll have to wait and see. It shouldn't be long. He wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if he weren't planning to act fairly soon. He's put the pressure on you and psychologically this would be the best time to make the payoff demands."

"Your knowledge of criminal psychology amazes me," she muttered.

"It's not a lot different from corporate psychology."

"That's a pretty cynical thing to say."

"And not particularly relevant," he agreed with a curious smile. "The real issue at hand now is what you're going to do, isn't it?"

Abby stiffened, folding her hands primly in front of her on the table and studying them as if they contained some answer she badly needed. "There's not much I can do until I hear what the blackmailer wants."

"You can run."

She looked sharply. "Is that what you think I'm going to do?" she whispered.

"I think the idea is flitting around in your head. Am I wrong?"

She moved uneasily and then got up to open the refrigerator door. Hunger was hardly a driving force at the moment, especially given the unstable condition of her stomach. But the need to do something active and seemingly purposeful was strong. Fixing lunch, while ridiculous on the surface, offered a much-needed physical goal. She ignored Torr's question, deliberately examining a plastic-wrapped brick of cheddar cheese.

"Am I wrong, Abby?" He didn't move from his chair but she could feel the intensity of his eyes on her back. "Are you thinking of running? Did the clippings achieve their objective?"

"What objective?" She located the lettuce.

"Obviously the blackmailer wants to scare you away from me. He doesn't want you under my protection. And he seemed to know just what string to pull to make you very nervous about my company, didn't he?" The last comment was rather thoughtful, as if Torr had just realized the full implications.

The words caught Abby's attention too, and she let the refrigerator door close slowly. "Yes. Yes, he did. You're right about one thing, Torr. Whoever is doing this seems to know me well."

Their eyes met across the room. "He not only knows about your protective feeling toward Cynthia, he also knows you're wary of men who have a reputation for dangerous jealousy and possessiveness."

How many people in the world knew her that well, Abby asked herself. It was terrifying to think that the blackmailer knew her so intimately. With a fierce scowl she began to make cheese sandwiches. The blackmailer was astute. Of all the strings he could have pulled to make her nervous about the dangers of staying with Torr Latimer, he'd found exactly the right one. She wondered what the arguments between Torr and his wife had been like. Violent? Cold and hostile? Torr was a strong man with a strong will. Crossing him would be dangerous under any circumstances, but even more so if he were crossed by a woman he considered his own. Abby shuddered as she sliced the bread, remembering the quiet resolute manner in which Torr had told her that she belonged to him. It was true he had put no pressure on her to return to his bed, but that didn't mean he wasn't feeling possessive. It only meant he was willing to be patient.

She was letting her imagination run away with her, Abby silently scolded herself. Just as the blackmailer would have wished. Savagely she slapped the sandwiches together, carried them over to the table and sat down. Torr didn't glance up. He was leafing through the pile of clippings.

"This envelope wasn't just meant for you," he remarked softly, drawing out another photo. "I think I was intended to see it, too."

"Another photo from that awful weekend?" Abby reached out to take it from his hand. Torr waited intently. "Oh, my God," she breathed. It was a picture of her again but the man with her wasn't Ward. It was a stranger. Someone she was certain she had never met. And he was making obscene "love" to her on a sandy beach. The man's body covered hers and all that could be seen was her face.

Stricken, Abby let the photo drop from her hand as if it were on fire. It fell face down on the table and it was then that she saw the typed note on the back.

She's a whore, Latimer. She'll go to bed with anyone who has the cash. Just like your wife.

Abby's mouth went dry as Torr reached across to retrieve the photo. He flipped it back over, studying the scene. "Torr, I don't even know him. I swear, I've never been with that man. He's a total stranger. I…oh, I don't understand how…" She floundered to a halt, enraged and scared and helpless.

"A sandwich," he finally said, still staring at the photo.

"A sandwich! There are some right in front of you. What do you expect me to do—feed one to you?" It was a stupid thing over which to explode but Abby couldn't restrain herself. She sat glaring at him furiously as he glanced up from the photo. He looked first at her challenging expression and then at the pile of cheddar cheese sandwiches. Comprehension dawned.

"I didn't mean I wanted to eat one. I meant the photo is a sandwich. Your face, probably from one of the other shots, rephotographed with this woman's body and this man. A photographic sandwich. A little air-brushing would conceal the evidence of lines from the different photos."

Abby heard the explanation but her attention was suddenly on the whiteness around Torr's knuckles. She gazed in morbid fascination at the indication of his fury. Did he believe his own explanation? She licked her lips.

"You think someone deliberately made this photo to get at you?" she whispered. "To make you turn on me?"

"Who do you know who's into photography, Abby?"