TENDER DECEIT (Romantic Suspense Mystery Novel): First Love Series ~ Book 1 (7 page)

He shrugged, the smile leaving his face now. “This is really for the tourists. A bit gimmicky. But it suits my purpose—lets us talk in private.”

Leah realised that he was right as they glided out of the station again. Aside from the few seagulls wheeling in the sky, they were alone, suspended 200 feet up in the air. The lights of Singapore harbour and the city spread out below them, like a jeweller’s window of sparkling gems, with the roads criss-crossing like a glittering tangle of gold chains. In the distance, the setting sun lit the underside of the clouds with a vivid pink glow, while a deep indigo stain spread slowly across the sky. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said, looking out through the glass walls of the cabin. “The view is even more stunning at night.”

“Your food is getting cold,” he said.

Leah looked down, surprised to see that during the time it had taken for their car to revolve around the carousel back at the station on Mount Faber, plates of food had been placed before them, as well as a flute of champagne each. She didn’t think that she would be able to eat with the tension of past memories and present unease humming around her, but a mouth-watering aroma wafted up from the plate and she felt her stomach respond. It was a course of honey soy-glazed, seared scallops on crispy wonton skins, accompanied by iced asparagus. She speared a scallop with her fork and popped it into her mouth. The tender flesh melted like butter with a burst of flavour on her tongue.

“It’s delicious,” she said, smiling shyly at him.

Toran didn’t respond. He had taken his shades and the cap off at last, the latter leaving his hair slightly ruffled. Leah resisted a sudden urge to reach up and brush the dark strands back from his forehead. He was eating thoughtfully, his eyes on his plate. She had the feeling that he was preparing what he was going to say to her. Finally he raised those brilliant green eyes to hers and Leah felt her heart give a little tug again.

“I’m sorry if I scared you just now.” He hesitated. “I was hoping to have the chance to explain everything to you first, but… well, things got taken out of my hands.”

“Explain what?” asked Leah.

He leaned back. “Have you heard of Bentley Warne?”

The name rang a faint bell. “Bentley Warne?” Leah furrowed her brow, remembering the information from the newsreel. “The… Australian property billionaire? Wasn’t he the guy you wrote some articles about last year?”

In the dark of the cabin, she saw Toran’s teeth flash in a wolfish grin. “Yes, I wrote about old Bentley. It was the work of months of careful research and networking with anonymous sources and witnesses. I was writing a column for the
Oriental Tribune
at the time and I’d already published a series of articles asking questions about Warne’s conduct. But last year, it was going to be a full feature that would have been the scoop of my career. Bentley Warne—one of Singapore’s wealthiest men and pillars of society—found to be guilty of corruption, extortion, bribery…”

“But
?” Leah said.

Toran’s eyes hardened. “But my editor suddenly got cold feet, my witnesses mysteriously disappeared, and the next thing I knew, Warne
was threatening to sue me for libel.” He leaned back and gazed out of the cabin window. “I was fired from the newspaper, of course. No references, no appeal, constant public harassment; even my landlord suddenly decided that he was not renewing my lease. And I was facing possible imprisonment for criminal defamation. Bentley Warne is the master of the cover-up and he has friends in high places.”

“You went to jail?” said Leah, horrified.

“No. I have friends in high places too.” He grinned. “And low places.”

“So what happened?”

“I let things cool off. Lay low for a while. Moved to a new apartment. Did some freelance work for publications in other countries, wrote for some websites—”

“But you didn’t forget about it.” It was a statement more than a question.

He inclined his head. “I knew I was right about Warne. But the man is too powerful, too well connected. I had to find some foolproof way to get him that he couldn’t wriggle out of. Then, last week, a… a contact came to me with information. Something that could deliver Bentley Warne straight into my hands.” He leaned forwards, his green eyes intent. “There had been another cover-up. Only this time, what Warne was trying to cover up was murder.”

Murder
. The word hung in the air between them, like a foul smell. Leah felt an illogical urge to laugh and had to bite her lip to stop the hysterical sound emerging. This was crazy, she told herself. Completely crazy. Bad B-movie was right. Any minute now, Toran would start climbing out of the cable car like 007 and shooting at metal-toothed villains in passing helicopters…

She took a quick gulp of the champagne and immediately wished she hadn’t as the bubbles fizzed in her head. Toran was looking at her, his eyes hooded, obviously waiting for her to speak. Leah stared back at him, her mind whirling. What could she say?

“Wh-who was it?” she asked finally.

“A woman. A woman who got in Bentley Warne’s way. And he’s always had the same method for dealing with problems. Get rid of them.”

“Are you sure your contact was being serious?” Leah asked. “I mean… well, killing someone is pretty extreme.”

Toran’s eyes glinted. “You don’t joke when you’re talking about murder.”

This time when Leah heard the word, it didn’t spark such a sense of disbelief. In fact, she found that it was slowly settling in her mind, like the way sand settles underwater and takes new shape after you’ve disturbed it. Maybe it was the matter-of-fact way Toran spoke—if he had been more melodramatic, she might have resisted it more. Instead, she found that she was already accepting the reality of “murder”—it was no longer something which happened only in books or movies, but something which could happen in
her
world too.

Leah realised that Toran was still talking and made an effort to drag her concentration back to him.

“…I need, but Warne has made sure that my contact won’t be speaking to me again.”

Leah shook her head. “If they tried to silence your contact, wouldn’t they have made the effort to silence you too?”

“Oh, they did.” His mouth twisted.

There was a pause. Then she said breathlessly, “The yacht.”

“Yes,” Toran said grimly. “On Saturday morning, I tried to reach my contact again, but I came up against a blank. I had no way of getting more information—I had run out of leads, but I
knew
I was on the scent of something big. So, in frustration, I called Bentley Warne’s secretary again to try and get an interview with him. To be honest, I thought it was a long shot—I’ve tried countless times to speak to him before, but always got shot down as soon as they heard my name. I was pretty certain that after the fiasco last year, there was definitely no way Warne would grant me an interview now, but… well, ‘tenacious’ is a good journalist’s middle name. I was really surprised when they told me that Warne would see me that evening.”

“And that didn’t make you wonder?” Leah demanded. “I mean, the man wanted to put you in prison! Why would he suddenly agree to answer your questions and let you write things about him again?”

Toran shook his head wryly. “I guess it should have. I let my excitement rule my head. I was just so elated at the thought of finally getting a chance to speak to Warne—to grill him in person—that I didn’t really think too much about ulterior motives.” He paused. “Not then, anyway. But I did think about it later—I think that was what saved my life.”

“On the yacht,” Leah said.

He nodded. “Warne was holding one of his charity things on board his yacht, the
Lady Mathilda
, moored at Sentosa Cove, but he said he could see me for a few minutes during the party. He sent me an invite and said he’d find me there. When I got on board, I saw him with some of the party guests. He waved to me and then I was escorted to a cabin at the rear of the yacht and told to wait there for him.” Toran gave a grim smile. “The windows from the cabin looked out onto the opposite side of the marina. There’s a building there which is completely covered with glass windows—almost like a mirror—and that’s what saved me. I looked out and saw a reflection in the windows of this building. It was Warne, getting off the yacht with some of his men and hurrying away. The alarm bells went off. I didn’t stop to think. I just ran out on deck and threw myself off the side of the yacht. The entire stern exploded seconds later. The cabin I was in was completely destroyed.”

There was silence in the cable car. Leah stared at Toran, then looked out of the window, not quite able to take his story in. The wires above them creaked slightly as the cable car continued smoothly on its journey. They had passed through the station at HarbourFront Tower Two and crossed the harbour, and were now almost at Sentosa Island. The lights of a few ships out at sea winked back at her.

“But… what about the news reports?” she asked, finally turning back to Toran. “Julia said—the newspapers—they seemed to have identified you as a fatality in that accident—”

Toran made a sound of derision. “They’d have been lucky to identify a piece of burnt toast in that mess. They were just making an assumption based on the guest list of those on board and the fact that I haven’t come forward since the accident to show that I survived. I haven’t bothered to correct that.”

“You’re faking your own death?” Leah stared at him. “But what about your parents? Won’t they be devastated if they think—”

“My parents died five years ago. I have no other close family.”

“Oh.” Leah swallowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I remember seeing your mother sometimes at school. She was lovely.” She didn’t add that the first time she had met Toran’s mother was that fateful day in the principal’s office, but the memory of it brought colour to her cheeks. She was glad for the dim light in the cabin.

Toran’s eyes met hers in a way that suggested he knew what she was thinking about and Leah felt her cheeks burn even more, but all he did was say, “Thank you. It has actually worked in my favour because it meant that I could let the lie rest. No one… well, not many
really important people are going to miss me. Some friends will be upset if they find out, but that can’t be helped for now. When things are cleared up, I’ll explain it to them.”

Did that mean that there was no girlfriend—no one special—who would miss him? Leah despised herself for the sudden spurt of curiosity and pushed the thought away. She cleared her throat. “So Warne thinks you’re dead?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I intend to let people keep thinking that until I find out what’s going on. But I’m taking no chances. Warne isn’t stupid. I’m sure he’s got his men checking things. He’s good at digging up connections. I don’t know if Warne knows about us, but I know they’re keeping an eye on you.”

Leah felt her cheeks warm again at his mention of “us”—what did he mean? What did he think there was for Warne to know? But she kept her expression neutral and said, “I thought I was being followed at Heathrow Airport. And again just now when I was on the MRT. But each time, the man disappeared so I thought maybe I was just being paranoid—”

“No, you weren’t being paranoid.” Toran looked amused. “You
were
being followed just now. By Curtis, one of Warne’s security personnel. But don’t worry. I took care of him.”

“What do you mean you ‘took care of him’?” Leah asked.

He looked at her blandly. “I haven’t just been sitting behind a desk these twelve years, you know.”

She ran her eyes over him. So she’d been right last night in Clarke Quay when she thought that hard, muscular body could do more than just pose in a gym. He was wearing a simple blue shirt with his black jeans, but the soft, linen fabric did little to disguise the power and strength in his arms and shoulders. Toran James was a man who could handle himself in a fight.

“I was a war correspondent for a few years,” he said calmly. “Reported from a few dangerous places. I had some combat training, made sure I knew how to protect myself and those around me.”

“What did you do to Curtis?”

“He’ll be fine. Just a sore head tomorrow. And he’ll have had no idea who jumped him.”

She shook her head. “It was still a crazy risk. Why did you ask to meet out here in public? Shouldn’t you have—”

“Don’t you remember doing Poe at school? ‘
The Purloined Letter’
? Sometimes the best hiding places are in plain sight.” He gave that wolfish grin again. “Even if they suspect that I’m not really dead, Warne’s men would never think that I would risk being seen in public. In fact, it’s easier to hide in a tourist crowd. And they’ll be watching your hotel, your movements—so it would be perfectly natural for you to go check out some of the major tourist attractions, whereas it would be much more suspicious if you suddenly went to a deserted part of town to meet me.”

Again, Leah wondered at his easy assumption of an involvement between them—that somehow, her trip back to Singapore this time would definitely include a meeting with him. Had he expected that, after all these years, he could just contact her out of the blue, snap his fingers, and she would come running? She sat back as a humiliating thought struck her.

Isn’t that what she did?

The cable car creaked as it glided once more into the station at Mount Faber. They had completed the first round trip. The cabin doors slid open and a smiling waiter exchanged their empty plates for the main course, refilled their glasses, and sent them on their way again for another round trip to Sentosa and back.

As soon as the doors slid shut, Toran leaned forwards and said. “But Warne’s men are not going to give up. They’ll be watching you still, waiting to see what you know.”

Leah shook her head. “I don’t understand—why me? Why would they be interested in me? I’ve had nothing to do with Bentley Warne and I… we… we haven’t been in touch for years. Why should they think I’m involved at all?”

She sensed Toran hesitating slightly before he said, “My contact mentioned your father.”

Leah gaped at him. “My father?”

“Yes, your father. My contact mentioned that David Fisher had information—evidence—which could help me prove Warne’s guilt.”

“But why would my father—”

“Curtis was following you earlier this afternoon,” he cut in. “He was watching you when you were at your villa.”

Her eyes widened. “My father’s study…”

“Yes?” Toran’s gaze sharpened.

“My father’s study had been ransacked—someone had been in there, searching very thoroughly.”

“Did you notice anything missing?” asked Toran.

Leah thought of what she had found in the
concealed safe inside the gramophone cabinet. But those were personal things—her father’s letters, her mother’s photos—surely they would have nothing to do with Bentley Warne? Was it worth even mentioning? Besides… She looked at the man across the table. Once, she would have trusted Toran with her life. But now, he was a grim-eyed stranger who scared her because he could still elicit a force of feeling that she thought only belonged in a schoolgirl infatuation.

“Leah?” He raised an eyebrow.

“N-nothing,” she said. “It was all a mess. I’m not sure if anything was taken. There was a safe—hidden behind a painting—which had been opened. But I don’t know what was in there originally, so I couldn’t tell if anything had been taken. There were some certificates… a gold Rolex watch… some cash…”

Toran shook his head impatiently. “Your father always struck me as a careful man. He would never have left the evidence in a safe that could be so easily discovered.”

“But it would have been locked—”

He made a dismissive gesture. “It’s fairly easy to crack a safe if you know how—I could do it myself. Anyway, I don’t think they found what they wanted. Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be following you. They must think that
you
found something they didn’t.”

And you?
Leah wondered silently, looking at him from beneath her lashes. She was aware that Toran stood to gain from the same knowledge, that he was after the same thing as Warne’s men.
Was that the reason he contacted her again after all these years? The real reason he wanted to see her tonight?

She picked up her fork and toyed with the food on the plate in front of her. The main course was crispy pork belly, drizzled with
hoisin
sauce and served on a bed of purple yam mash, with sautéed
pak choy
, shitake mushrooms, and roasted sesame seeds. Fragrant steam rose from the plate, but Leah found that her appetite seemed to have vanished.

“How did you know that Curtis was watching me at the villa today?” she asked Toran.

His face was inscrutable. “I was there.”

“You were following me?” She jerked her eyes to his.

“I was following Curtis, actually, but I wasn’t surprised when I saw him tailing you to your father’s house. Leah…” Toran made a movement as if to reach across the table, then stopped himself. He looked at her intently. “I need your help. Bentley Warne has shown that he will stop at nothing to silence me. I know too much now. My only hope is to find this evidence your father had and expose Warne before he has a chance to stop me.” He paused. “Is there anything else you found? Anything you haven’t told me?”

Yes!
Leah wanted to say. A part of her wanted to trust him, to tell him everything, but something held her back. She hesitated, then shook her head.