O'Halloran's Lady Read online

  She checked her watch and frowned. She had assumed O’Halloran had gone down to breakfast early, but if that was the case, he would have been back by now.

  Frowning when she remembered she didn’t have her phone, she walked out to the lounge and quickly checked her email.

  A long list of social networking prompts flowed in with regular emails. She ran her eye casually down the list, automatically designating everything as non-urgent until her gaze snagged on Lydell88.

  An automatic warm glow flowed through her. Lydell must have read her book.

  She checked her watch. She had a few minutes before she needed to go down for breakfast.

  When she opened up the email, the message was simple and succinct. Check the mail program on the laptop next to yours.

  She frowned, briefly confused. Although there was only one logical reason for Lydell to know that there was a laptop sitting side by side with hers on the coffee table.

  Taking a deep breath and feeling suddenly shaky, she bent down and activated the touch pad of O’Halloran’s laptop. It flashed off sleep mode and she found herself staring at O’Halloran’s mail program, which was already open.

  And which also happened to be Lydell88’s mail program.

  Legs feeling a little wobbly, she sat down on the couch and simply stared at the file of emails that O’Halloran had left open for her to see. Tears burned her eyes, trickled down her cheeks.

  She had emailed Lydell88 for years, slowly nurturing the building friendship with him. She had been careful. She hadn’t wanted to impose or ask more than he’d wanted to give. From the careful way he’d never allowed the online friendship to cross over into a real personal relationship, even though they both lived in Auckland, she’d known that he was wary of intimacy.

  She’d respected his need for distance, but it was a fact that most of the correspondence had been instigated by him. Sometimes, on rare occasions, they had even chatted on live forums she had hosted then afterward continued on into the night on her website chat line.

  The conversations had never gotten too personal, but in an odd way they had become her emotional lifeline because underneath the police procedural information and the technicalities of plot, she had been aware that Lydell88 cared. In a quiet low-key way, he had been the closest thing she’d had to a relationship in years.

  She wiped tears from her cheeks, careful not to smudge her mascara, and found herself grinning like a loon as she began opening and reading the emails O’Halloran had sent to her.

  Her heart pounded as she stopped reading and scrolled down the file, trying to count how many, like a miser gleefully counting dollar bills. There were literally hundreds.

  O’Halloran read her books. He liked them.

  Dazed, she reflected that it was no wonder she had fallen in love with him, because he really was perfect for her.

  Outside in the corridor she registered the rattle of a room-service trolley. A knock on the door distracted her from her all-important tally.

  Still feeling like dancing a jig because she was so happy, Jenna answered the door, drawn by the only thing that could drag her away from O’Halloran’s entrancing laptop: the possibility that it could be the man himself.

  The door swung open and was immediately jammed by the trolley she’d heard out in the hall.

  A tall, suited guy, who looked nothing like the bodyguard O’Halloran had introduced her to last night, pointed a large handgun at her head.

  “Good morning, Jenna.” He shoved the trolley, forcing her back into the room as he kicked the door shut behind him.

  Jenna stared at the glinting glasses and what was obviously a fake moustache. He looked different, his eyes were dark, not light, but she would know him anywhere. “Branden Tell.”

  “That’s right. Not the hero, the villain.”

  Chapter 16

  Sunlight beamed through chinks in the dusty little room Branden Tell had dragged her into, shortly before taping her to a chair, taping her mouth and leaving.

  She knew he hadn’t gone far, because periodically she could hear a soft tapping sound, as if he was typing, and once she had heard him speak on the phone.

  She had strained to hear what he was saying, but his voice had been too muffled, indicating that there was at least another room separating them.

  That suited her just fine; she didn’t want him close. Long minutes of being clamped against his side while he’d urged her into a service elevator, the barrel of the gun digging into her side, had been enough. Nine years ago she hadn’t particularly liked Tell. Now she definitely didn’t like him.

  Rocking the chair slightly, trying to make as little noise as possible, she managed to shimmy around in a painful circle, so she could get a good look at her surroundings.

  Not inspiring. A concrete floor and one corrugated iron wall through which tiny beams of sunlight glowed. The only positive was that there was a nail sticking out of one of the timbers. It wasn’t much to pin her hopes on, but the rusty old nail, combined with the fact that Branden had only taped her wrists, not tied them, provided some hope.

  That, and the fact that Branden had made her chew sleeping pills, thinking they would knock her out.

  The pills, depending on which one—and she had tried them all—did make her drowsy, but the effect never lasted long. Her doctor had given up prescribing them for her occasional insomniac episodes, because usually half an hour after taking one she was as wide-awake as ever.

  From the bitter taste in her mouth, the dull headache and general feeling of lethargy, she concluded that Tell had given her one of the stronger formulations. Although that had been a good hour ago now. Tied up in the back of a military-style Hummer, she had fought the drowsy effect of the pill in an effort to see exactly where Tell was taking her. Although every time he had checked on her she had played dead for him.

  She had decided that if he thought she was unconscious then that was an advantage of a sort. Given that she was pretty sure Tell didn’t mean her to live, she needed to exploit every advantage if she was to have any hope of escape.

  She had timed the drive, which had been a good forty minutes, and she knew from overhead signs she’d glimpsed that they had been on the Southern motorway. The change from the roar of motorway traffic to sporadic passing vehicles signalled that Tell had turned off into one of the suburbs south of Auckland.

  Working the chair until she was backed up to the nail, she tried to catch the edge of the tape on the nail head. The process was awkward, because she couldn’t see what she was doing and had to work by feel. Added to that her hands were starting to go numb, which meant she had to work quickly. If they went completely numb she wouldn’t be able to feel where the nail head was.

  After the first few minutes her shoulders and arms began to burn, but she gritted her teeth and kept rubbing the tape back and forth on the nail. Every now and then she slipped and the nail scraped over her skin, but she ignored the discomfort.

  Stopping to rest her shoulder muscles, which were starting to cramp, she tried pulling her wrists apart. Before there hadn’t been any movement, now there was enough flexibility that she could wiggle her wrists a little. It was definitely working because feeling was pouring back into her hands in the form of fiery pins and needles.

  Jaw gritted, she started the sawing process again. Time crawled by. Her shoulders and back ached and the effort made her break out in a sweat. Her wrists and hands felt like they were on fire, but she was eventually rewarded with a sudden loosening.

  In the distance she heard a rumble, as if a large roller door had been activated, and the sound of a heavy truck. Abruptly, the sporadic sound of vehicles fell into its context. She wasn’t hearing road noise. The building must be part of an industrial area somewhere.

  If it was a warehouse of some kind that meant it would be one o
f many. So there had to be people nearby, and they were probably ridiculously close. All she had to do was get free and find some way to sneak past Tell.

  The heavy detonation of an explosion jerked her head up, followed by the rending shriek of metal, so close it hurt her ears. She could hear footsteps.

  Heart pounding so hard she could barely breathe, eyes wide, she stared at the shadows that filled the doorway, hope and a fierce exultation filling her.

  O’Halloran.

  She knew it. He had come to get her.

  * * *

  O’Halloran stepped through the twisted ruin of the door Carter had just blown off its hinges into the cavernous space of the warehouse.

  Carter and West flowed in behind him. Moving quickly, they checked the series of storerooms that opened off the main area.

  Kicking open the final door, O’Halloran stared into an empty room. The place was dusty and the only footprints were theirs. Tell hadn’t been here for weeks, if not months.

  Knowledge nagged at the back of his mind. He had made the mistake of remembering Tell as he had been years ago, an unassuming student, and not overly bright. But Tell had been smart enough to elude Farrell, and Marc couldn’t forget that he had kept him on a string for six years.

  West walked up behind him. “He’s not here.”

  O’Halloran holstered his gun and checked his watch. “Nope, he’s somewhere else.”

  Now that they’d exhausted this avenue he needed to get back to the hotel, because Jenna had a flight to catch. Farrell had a watch on the airports and Tell’s house and an APB out on Tell’s vehicle, which apparently was a Hummer.

  A shadow falling across the sunny entrance to the warehouse made Marc stiffen. An elderly man was poking his walking stick at the remains of the door.

  He fixed Carter with a beady eye. “This doesn’t belong to that crook Morrison, or his son. We made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It now belongs to the Retirement Village Trust, as of last week. Planning on turning it into a community hall.”

  Carter had the grace to look guilty. “Uh, sorry about that—”

  “I hope you’re going to fix the door.”

  “Sure, I’ve got tools in the truck. Will tomorrow do?”

  “It will, and don’t think about weaselling out of the job. We’ve got your licence tag and security footage. The neighbourhood watch is on the ball around here.”

  Marc’s attention sharpened. “Morrison? Was that the cop?”

  “That’s right. Got indicted for extorting money from organized crime figures and gangs.”

  “I remember.” He should. He had made the arrest and filed the charges.

  As they walked back to Carter’s truck, disparate pieces of information began to fall into place. Tell had been illegitimate, but he had let it be known that his father was a cop, which was why he had wanted to follow him either into the military or the police force.

  The same year Natalie had died, Marc had prosecuted a crooked cop by the name of Branden Morrison.

  Sliding his phone out of his pocket, he short-dialled Farrell. A few minutes later, she called back, confirming that Morrison was Tell’s father.

  His stomach tensed at the implications as he swung into the passenger seat of Carter’s truck. He had been looking for motivation and a way to tie Tell into both Natalie’s and Jared’s deaths and Jenna’s stalking. He had thought it had to be Tell’s fascination with Natalie, the added resentment that Marc had the career that Tell had been shooting for, combined with his fear that Jenna’s book might expose his crime.

  The only problem with that scenario was, why risk exposure by going after Jenna now, when it was too late to stop the book being published anyway?

  It would have been far better if Tell had stayed quiet and let the whole thing fade. After all, the book was fiction. As closely involved as Marc was, he had read it and not connected the dots.

  Tell could have quietly sold up all of his assets, emigrated and dodged possible charges, but he hadn’t; he’d stayed because he’d always had another, ultimately more powerful motive: revenge.

  The yearly emails from Tell were the clincher. He had never had any intention of fading into the background. All Jenna’s book had done was present him with another platform to act out that revenge.

  The link that strung Tell’s crimes together was simple: it was him.

  Marc stared out of the window at the heavy morning traffic on the motorway—rush hour was getting underway.

  Checking his watch, he tried phoning the hotel room again, then Dawson’s phone. He frowned. Jenna should have picked up, she would be anxious to leave, and should have phoned him by now. Something was wrong.

  Before he could dial Blade’s cell, his phone vibrated again.

  It was Blade. Dawson was down, with a concussion, and Jenna was missing. He had checked security tapes and found the footage. A tall guy dressed like a bodyguard had taken her down a service elevator into the underground garage. The guy had looked nondescript apart from a moustache, which had obviously been fake, but he had been driving a military-style Hummer.

  Chest tight, heart hammering, Marc hung up. He stared blankly ahead, no longer seeing the interior of the truck or the cars and buildings flashing by. Grimly, he tried to think.

  He could second-guess Tell, he’d done it often enough with other criminals. All it took was careful analysis, but for long seconds all he could think about was the way Jenna had trusted him last night. The moment this morning when he had watched her roll over in bed and reach for him. And he hadn’t been there.

  In that moment he realised, too late, that he wanted to be there for her—personally, professionally, every way there was.

  The enormity of the mistake he had made in going after Tell instead of leaving the enforcement work to Farrell sank in a little deeper.

  For long seconds, he was flung further back into the past, to a burning building and a wife and child who had needed him. He hadn’t been there for Natalie and Jared.

  Knowing that Tell had murdered them had made a difference. Looking back, there was no way he could have known his arrest of Morrison would have a backlash. Tell would have staked out the house. With Natalie keeping her correspondence with him secret, Marc had been cut out of the loop, literally.

  But that wasn’t the case with Jenna. She had shared everything with him: her fear and distress, her passion and love.

  His fingers closed into fists. She had even helped him with the investigation.

  Natalie and Jared’s loss still hurt, but he’d had years to come to terms with it. But the prospect of losing Jenna filled him with desperate fear.

  In her quiet way, Jenna was his, more intimately and completely than any other woman had ever been. Over the years, he had gotten to know every nook and cranny of her mind, her quirky humour, the softness of her emotions, the steely way she had refused to allow any guy to rush her into bed unless she wanted to go there.

  And she hadn’t. Instead, she had saved herself for him.

  He would get her back.

  He had to. He loved her.

  The realisation hit him like a kick in the chest.

  It explained why he had never been able to forget Jenna, even down to emailing her under an alias so even if it was only in a small way, he could continue to be part of her life.

  Carter glanced at him and softly swore. “What’s happened?”

  Keeping his voice toneless, Marc related the bare details Blade had given him.

  Carter pulled over. “What do you want to do?”

  “Blade’s already called Farrell. She’s put an APB out on Tell. He’s driving a Hummer, so he should be easy to spot.”

  The military fetish fitted. Unfortunately, a whole lot of things fitted, now that it was too late.

  Too
late. The words haunted Marc. Six years ago he had been too late for Natalie and Jared.

  He had no intention of being too late for Jenna.

  Grabbing his briefcase, he flipped it open and dug out his iPad. Using the software that West had supplied, he checked to see if coordinates for Jenna’s phone had been recorded. The result was still negative.

  He would keep checking, but time was passing. If Tell had intended to turn on the phone, he would have done it by now. Chances were, he had tossed it.

  Marc flicked back to his server and typed in Google. “Tell has another bolt-hole. We just have to find it. His father extorted a lot of money from organized crime figures, which could never be recovered because he tied it up in family trusts. The trusts owned a number of properties. All we have to do is search for property holdings under the name Morrison.”

  The hits were numerous. A lot of people had been outraged by Morrison’s greed. Within seconds, O’Halloran found what he wanted in a sensationalised press offering that had completely ignored the idea of confidentiality and had published a list of Morrison’s assets.

  With a sense of disbelief, he noted that there was also an exposé on Morrison’s illegitimate children, three at last count, including Branden Tell. Now wasn’t a good time to reflect that if he had read the Sunday papers six years ago, he could have solved the case.

  He wrote down the addresses of a number of properties in South Auckland, all of which sounded industrial.

  Picking up his phone, he called Farrell. She agreed to dispatch cars to check out the addresses he had given her, but at present, thanks to the arson investigation, she had limited manpower.

  Jaw locked, Marc gave Carter the nearest address. It was a long shot, but they had to start somewhere. He had a cold itch up his spine. Time was important.

  He needed to find Tell before the man had time to put the next part of his plan into action.

  And Marc was convinced that Tell had something planned. Otherwise, why bother to kidnap Jenna?

  If Tell had wanted to extract a simple, straightforward revenge he could have obtained that by shooting Jenna in their hotel room.