Mink Too, All the Riches in the World Can't Buy Love Page 11

  “Yes, and you know I like women, Johnny.” Susan shifted away from the hands trying to fondle her hip and thigh while she sat in his car. “I don’t see why we have to go through this scenario every time I see you.”

  “You don’t enjoy making love to men because you’ve never slept with me, Suzie. I could do everything those women friends of yours do and more.”

  Susan snatched his wandering hand and slapped it onto the steering wheel. “Keep it where it belongs, Johnny! Take me home. I’m tired. Okay?”

  “Okay, okay, Suzie. It never hurts to keep trying.” Johnny snuck a look at her profile. “Are you angry with me, Suzie Q? Come on; don’t be so mean to me,” he whined.

  Susan sighed wearily. She hated it when Johnny whined like a little bitch. “No, I’m just tired. I’ve been working hard to keep Daddy’s business afloat and monitoring him too.”

  “Christ, Susan! Let his executives earn their money. Let the private nurse you hired do that, Baby. That’s what you pay them good money to do. Why do you have to do everything? I miss our time together. When are we gonna go away again?”

  “God, don’t whine. I can’t stand whining men.” Susan rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Just drop me off at the house, okay? I’m doing this because Daddy asked me to do it.”

  “After what he did at the construction site, you’d figure he’d want the Drummond name to keep a low profile for now.”

  Susan frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, the stuff with Yvette you told me about.” Johnny imitated a man masturbating with his fist and grinned at Susan.

  “That’s not funny, Johnny.” What an immature, selfish jerk Johnny Flint is, Susan thought, watching him act stupid. How did I ever think he was someone I’d marry when I became an adult? She rested her head against the leather bucket seat and let the wind blow through her hair. The breeze felt good against her face and she fell asleep. She awoke when she felt a hand slowly unbuttoning her dress and then trying to wedge its way into her bra. “John Flint, if you don’t remove your hand right now, you’re gonna draw back a nub!”

  He pulled his hand back quickly and looked properly contrite.

  “Button me up like a good boy, Johnny.”

  Johnny obediently re-buttoned her dress and grinned. “One of these days, Suzie, you’re gonna let me do you. I can wait.” He winked one gorgeous blue eye and then kissed her forehead.

  “Johnny, tell me something?”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Do I have your vote tomorrow at the board meeting?”

  “You know I can’t talk about that. It’s supposed to be confidential.”

  Susan studied her best friend’s face. “Oh come on, Johnny. I won’t tell if you don’t tell. I need your vote. You know it won’t look right if you don’t back me. Everybody on the board knows we’re old friends.”

  “I could be persuaded, you know.” Johnny leaned over, raised her chin, and tried to kiss her on the lips.

  Susan bit him hard on the upper lip.

  “Ouch! So you like it rough, do you, Suzie Q?” Johnny touched the area gingerly with his tongue and tasted blood.

  Susan saw a light in his eyes that she’d never noticed before.

  “I can do rough too,” Johnny whispered in a hoarse, excited voice. He suddenly yanked her against his chest and forced his tongue inside her mouth. His hand stroked down the length of her arm, then he held her against his chest as he stroked a thigh.

  Susan struggled to free herself, trying to push him away. It didn’t work and she felt Johnny drive his tongue deeper into her throat until she thought she’d choke on it. She couldn’t breathe well. It felt like he was sucking the air out of her lungs. She pushed at his chest hard and then resorted to pounding on his chest to make him release her. He finally let her go. She hurried out of the car, wiping her lips with the back of her hand as she glared at him, suddenly realizing he could be rough with her.

  Johnny watched her flee from his car with a calculating half smile. “Don’t play with me, Susan. I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t have a problem being rough. See you tomorrow at the board meeting.”

  Susan watched the navy blue convertible glide down the driveway, stop at the guard’s shack to make conversation, and turn onto the main road to the highway. She always knew he was going to start making demands of her. “It was just a question of when, wasn’t it?” she muttered as she spit out the taste of him. When it came to Johnny, Susan knew she wouldn’t be able to put off his sexual demands any longer. He was becoming increasingly cruder with his hands and mouth. She didn’t know if their friendship was worth the price that she knew he was going to demand of her. For some reason, he didn’t believe that she preferred to sleep with women. He kept pushing the issue of bedding her every chance he got. She still thought of him as her oldest and dearest friend. His friendship was a habit she was finding difficult to break. A part of her kept hoping he would finally accept her for who she was and move on to find a woman who could give him all the things he seemed to want from her.

  “Lord, I’m tired,” she muttered, trudging up the wide walkway of the house when she saw it. It stuck in the doorframe and waved to her like a bright red flag.

  “Hello. Liz Gilmore speaking.”

  “I thought you’d be asleep, Sergeant.”

  Liz heard something in the soft southern lilt. Is it fear, anxiety, or nerves? she wondered, pressing her cell against her ear. Maybe it was because Susan Drummond had called so late, but her gut tightened involuntarily. That was always a bad sign. Some of the worst cases started with tension deep in her stomach.

  “You found another note, didn’t you?”

  Susan groaned softly into the phone.

  “Was that a yes, Ms. Drummond?”

  “Yeah.”

  Liz sighed. She was hoping that her gut was wrong, but it hadn’t been so far. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Did you touch it?”

  “Yes.”

  Liz frowned. She probably messed up potential fingerprints and DNA evidence. “Do you have a pair of tweezers or tongs or gloves?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you keep baggies in your house?”

  Susan shrugged and frowned. “I don’t know. What’s a baggie?”

  Liz sighed. “You know, plastic freezer bags or zip-lock storage bags.”

  “Oh, yes, those. I’m sure we have some.”

  “Use latex gloves or tweezers to pick up the letter, slip it into the plastic bag, and bring it over here pronto. Try not to touch it with your bare hands again if you can help it, Ms. Drummond. Don’t tell anyone about the note. Okay?”

  “Can’t this wait until tomorrow? I’m tired,” Susan complained.

  “Yeah, I know you are. I feel for you, Ms. Drummond. Just bring the note. Take a cab and I’ll pay for it.”

  Susan glanced at her watch. “Visiting hours are over, Sergeant. How am I gonna get to you?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Security will let you in.” Liz scratched her head. “Bring some stuff to sleep in for a couple of nights.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, okay!” Liz snapped, not wanting to answer another question or arouse her fears. “See you in twenty minutes.”

  The sergeant sounded angry, Susan thought as she placed the kitchen phone back in its cradle. She’d dropped the crumpled note in the wastebasket. After speaking with the sergeant, she was glad she hadn’t torn the note to shreds. That was her first instinct when she saw it. Between Johnny’s antics tonight, her father’s nearly fatal accident, and tomorrow’s board meeting—the first one she’d be chairing—she was on edge and capable of doing anything to ease the tension she felt welling up inside her. She searched through the cupboards and found some gloves among the cleaning supplies. God bless Becky and her fastidious little self, Susan thought. Her housekeeper was afraid to break a nail or get dishpan hands. She kept a large supply of gloves under the sink in the kitchen. She pulled on gloves
to place the note into a plastic bag carefully.

  Then she went up the stairs quietly to the second floor and her bedroom. She stuffed a duffel bag with a nightshirt, underwear for two days, and two T-shirts, then slipped into a pair of faded, hip-hugging jeans and black boots. She found a wrinkle-free suit for the board meeting, folding it carefully and placing it on top of the pile. She threw in several pairs of latex gloves as an afterthought. She tiptoed upstairs to the third floor to see her father and found him asleep in bed with a book in his lap. The night nurse was sitting in the chair reading the local newspaper when she entered the bedroom.

  “Nurse, tell him I’m at this number when he wakes up in case he needs anything.”

  The nurse nodded. “Certainly, Miss Drummond. I’ll do that as soon as he wakes.”

  Susan studied her father’s face in repose and then leaned over to kiss his forehead. “Goodnight, Daddy,” she whispered quietly.

  When Susan arrived at Liz’s door, she found Jake and his father involved in an animated conversation with Liz Gilmore. That surprised her, since she expected to find the sergeant alone and waiting for her. Instead, her brother and her father were examining the first note, reviewing every character and word in it.

  Jake whistled as she came into the room. “I don’t like it.”

  “What don’t you like, Jake?” Susan asked as she strolled into the room, knowing she was the object of at least two pairs of Gilmore eyes. The third pair and the ones she wanted to watch her every move were looking everywhere but at her. Okay, be that way, Liz Gilmore, she mused as she smiled at Jake.

  “It’s the feeling I have.”

  “Do all you Gilmores have sensitive body parts or something?”

  “What?” Liz looked at Susan Drummond as though she was crazy.

  “Your sister just told me not more than an hour ago about some feeling in her belly. You have a bad feeling, probably the hairs standing on the back of your neck. The only Gilmore I haven’t heard from is your father.” Susan glanced at Jake Sr.

  “My body works just fine, thank you very much, Ms. Drummond.” The old man chuckled, then winked at Susan. “Sit down, young lady, and show us the second note.” He patted the chair next to Liz’s bedside. “Please.”

  Susan allowed a small smile to come forth as she sat down next to the sergeant.

  Liz Gilmore looked uncomfortable when Susan sat down not more than a foot away but handed her the note without mentioning her discomfort.

  The second note read:

  Eye is watching you!

  “Hmm, that’s the second time the writer made grammatical errors. Do you think he’s illiterate, Jake?” Liz asked, noting the incorrect spelling.

  “No, I don’t. He wants us to think he is. It makes me wonder if he knows…” Jake stared at Susan, then stroked his goatee. “What do you think, Dad?”

  Jake Sr. scratched his head. “Suppose for a minute it’s a disgruntled employee. What would he be watching?”

  “It might be the investigation of the explosion,” Jake replied. “Or maybe the note refers to the people who survived, especially if he thought they could identify him.”

  Liz frowned. “How could he think that? I was too far away from it. All I could see was a dark shape running across a field. If I could identify him, he’d be in jail.”

  “What about her father?” Jake asked and pointed a thumb at Susan Drummond.

  Three pairs of eyes turned toward Susan.

  Susan responded nervously, “What? He didn’t see anything. He said he heard noises, but when he looked out, there was nothing there.”

  Liz thought back to their conversation earlier tonight. “You said when Danny and I busted in on your father, he thought we were the noise. He did say we, right?”

  Susan nodded.

  Liz stroked her chin thoughtfully. “At least two people were there that night. Your father heard two people, not one. Now we know there were two people at the ODC site that night besides Danny and me. Think they’re hired hands, Jake?”

  “Yes. They didn’t count on Danny and you being curious about a gas smell or her father using the trailer.”

  “Unless they were trying to kill…” Liz didn’t finish the sentence when she realized what it would do to Susan Drummond to hear that her father was the intended target.

  “Was it two explosions or three, Kiddo?” Jake interrupted and turned to look at his sister.

  Liz closed her eyes as she tried to remember. “Three, Jake, there were three. I heard two at the site. One was powerful. It knocked us down. I couldn’t hear a thing for a couple of minutes. We started running back to the trailer when the second one knocked us down again. I smelled gas, a real strong odor by the trailer. I figured it was going to blow next. I didn’t remember a smell that strong until we ran back to get Drummond and the woman.” Liz’s eyes widened with understanding. “I’ll be a son of bitch!”

  “Oh yeah, Lizzie!” Jake followed his sister’s line of reasoning that somebody had meant to kill Owen Drummond.

  “What? Please tell me,” Susan asked, frowning at the three Gilmores.

  “Who’s with your father right now, Susan?”

  Susan looked at the Gilmores. She glanced at Liz’s father first, then Jake, and finally, Liz. “You don’t think that they meant to kill him? Dear God, you do,” she said, reading the answer in their faces. “A night duty nurse is with him. I set the house alarm before I left.”

  “It connects to the stationhouse or private security?” Liz asked.

  “Private security,” Susan responded.

  “Good, good,” Liz remarked, tapping her lip in deep thought.

  “You want the first shift or do I take it, Old Man?” Jake asked, staring at his father.

  Susan frowned. “Wait a minute. Sergeant, tell me what’s going on?”

  Liz looked at her father. Her look asked for his help. Jake Sr. shrugged, so she glanced at Jake, silently asking his help to explain the situation to Susan Drummond.

  Jake waved her away. “No, you tell her, Lizzie. We gotta go.”

  Jake Sr. stood up and then looked at Jake, who stood up too. “You got our cell numbers, Baby Girl?”

  “You know to call us if anything breaks. Okay, Lizzie?”

  Liz nodded. “Yeah, I do. Thanks, Dad, Jake.”

  Jake Sr. kissed Liz’s forehead, then squeezed Susan’s shoulder. “Your dad will be fine.”

  Jake turned around at the door. “I’ll call Ingrams to come over to relieve one of us tomorrow. I think we can trust him, Lizzie.”

  Liz nodded. “That’s fine. Bye, Jake.”

  “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on before I call the sheriff’s office?” Susan frowned as the two Gilmore males left. She glared at Liz before whipping out her cell phone to make her threat real.

  She looks scared, Liz thought. “Hey, hey, Drummond, don’t do that. Sit here and let me explain a few things.” Liz patted the side of the bed.

  Susan studied Liz Gilmore’s face. She tried to read what was in her eyes but couldn’t. She sat down on the edge of the bed, nervously picking at the quilt.

  Liz sighed wearily. She hated to be the one to confirm Owen Drummond’s life was in danger. “We think someone might try to kill your father because they think he can identify Danny’s killer. As much as I hate to say it, we can’t trust the police. Based on what you told me about my godfather, the less we involve him the better. My brother and father are staking out your house tonight and tomorrow to provide protection for your father. If you still want to call someone, call your father’s nurse and tell her my people are on their way, okay?”

  Susan looked frightened. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Do what I say and he’ll be fine,” Liz remarked softly as she tried to reassure Susan.

  “Can’t I go back home? If something happened to him, I don’t know what I’d do. My mother died after she had me. She went into labor early and bled to death on the way to the hospital. It’s been my father and me for
as long as I can remember. He has his women, but he’s not serious about them. He doesn’t believe in marriage or long-term commitments. I don’t either.” Susan glanced at Liz, trying to gauge her reaction. She’d never confessed that much to anyone before, not even to Johnny Flint or her girlfriends. Why now, and why tell it to a woman that she barely knew?

  “I probably wouldn’t if he was my father, Susan,” Liz murmured quietly. “But that’s not important. You’ll have to stay here tonight. I don’t want you to get in the way at your house. There’s a cot in the corner and the sheets are at the foot of my bed.” She watched Susan shrug and then slip off the bed. She prepared the cot, spreading the sheets on the narrow bed. Then she tucked in the corners of the sheet and put a blanket at the foot.

  After she made the bed, Susan grew nervous and began to pace, unaware that Liz studied her movements. She watched how her hips swayed and wiggled as she moved restlessly around the room. How her hand touched things, stroking them lightly with her fingertips or moving items around, then putting them back. “I know this is a lot of pressure for you, Miss Drummond, but it can’t be helped. If I allowed you to return to your house tonight, Jake and my father would have to worry about keeping you safe as well as your father. It’s simply better for you to stay here. Understand?”

  Susan stopped wandering around the room to glance at Liz. Liz could see the tears forming in Susan’s eyes. She felt sympathy for her. “Miss Drummond, er, Susan, in about thirty minutes, I’ll call Jake’s cell. You can talk to him, just to check on things. How’s that sound?”

  Susan nodded.

  “Here, it looks like you’re gonna need this.” Liz held out a lacy hanky and then moved over so Susan could sit on the bed next to her.

  Susan took the handkerchief and played with it as the tears continued to course down her cheeks.

  “Allow me?” A large hand gently pulled the hanky out of Susan’s hand. “Lean over here.” Liz dabbed at Susan’s eyes with the lacy cloth as she glanced into her face. “It’s gonna be all right. Please don’t cry, Susan. Nothing is gonna happen to your father. I promise.” Concerned dark eyes looked into sad hazel eyes and watched them grow darker. Liz drew closer until their lips touched. She kissed Susan tentatively at first, then with more force.