I'll Find You Part 14

That's what had done it for her: recognizing a soul mate. She had given herself over to him heart and soul and they'd screwed like rabbits even while they were picking out her next mark, whimsically always referred to as "Mark." It had been dangerous and fun as they set up each stupid sap. Sometimes she'd acted like Andre was her boyfriend who had beaten her mercilessly in the past. Sometimes she'd played a working girl who was on the run from a terrible life of near slavery. Sometimes she had been just a lonely woman after a sad breakup. It didn't matter what story she told, she had always finished with needing money and, of course, she had wanted to leave with "Mark," her would-be savior. It was truly amazing how gullible men were.

They had worked their game long enough to start to feel the heat, and that's when Andre had suggested they move to Los Angeles. Teresa had initially been reluctant. She liked their life on Martinique, even though they'd had to lie low a few times when one of their Marks had caught on too early to the scheme and gone to the authorities.

"Just one more," she'd begged, hoping to delay leaving.

It had been a hard sell but then Andre had chosen her last Mark, pointing him out across the restaurant lounge of the Bakoua Beach Hotel. "He's been hanging at the bar, and I've been listening. Family has money," he'd whispered in her ear. "Make him fall in love with you."

She'd loitered around the hotel, watching Mark for an entire day, keeping out of sight and eavesdropping wherever she could. He wasn't much of a talker when he was sober, but once he had a few drinks, information had started spilling out. His brother and sister had been p.i.s.sed off because dear old Dad had left him much of the fortune. He'd worked for the company, which was in real estate development. Everything had been going and blowing and he and Dad were putting deals together right and left and getting out at just the right time. His grasping siblings could just kiss his a.s.s; they were getting nothing.

He'd given himself this trip to the Caribbean as a means of self-congratulation. He'd already been to Barbados, St. Croix, and St. Lucia, and now he was about as far south as he was going, though he'd thought about a stop in Venezuela. Problem was: dear old Dad wasn't doing so hot, so Mark was going to have to head back and play the part of the dutiful son.

Teresa had originally planned to step into the room in her long, backless black dress, but, sizing him up, she'd changed for a more conservative knee-length sundress the color of pink champagne. She'd walked through the bar and stood at the edge of the covered patio, looking out toward the bay, pasting a forlorn expression on her face.

Then she'd turned an about-face and walked up to the bartender, asking if he knew what time the ferry docked at the Pointe du Bout side. "Looks like I've been stood up," she had said. Mark had sat on her right, nursing his third drink that she'd seen.

"You need a ride somewhere?" he'd asked.

"Probably the airport," she'd said sadly. "This was supposed to be our engagement trip, if you can believe that. But it's hard to compete with a dead wife. I think he's changed his mind, and he's already left me."

He had looked her up and down. "Then he's an idiot."

She had smiled.

"Sit down and let me buy you a drink first. Then we'll get a cab together." He had smiled at her and she had noticed how handsome he was. "I'm Jonathan Cantrell," he had said.

"Teresa."

"Just Teresa?"

"DuPres," she had said, using her maiden name.

They hadn't gotten a cab together. They'd gone straight to his room. Since she'd been with Andre she'd managed to get her dates dead drunk and rob them before anything but a sloppy petting session ensued, but with Jonathan, she'd never had that chance. Before she knew it they had both gotten naked and she was in the middle of an energetic lovemaking session, which had only fueled the thrill of the game. Thinking of Andre finding out had sent shivers beneath her skin and intensified her o.r.g.a.s.m. She didn't even have to fake it. She had determined she wouldn't tell Andre, then thought maybe she would. No, she couldn't . . . it was too dangerous....

She had stayed with Jonathan Cantrell the whole night and into the next day. She'd tried to call Andre, but Jonathan was on her like a blanket, so instead of merely rolling him she became his island lover.

The next night Andre had shown up at the hotel lounge and she'd felt his eyes burning into her as she'd sat with Jonathan's arm draped possessively over her shoulder. She'd met his gaze and shaken her head. There was nothing she could do. When Andre left she had been scared that it was over with him. She had really loved him so much.

But then there was Jonathan, so maybe she could get over Andre?

Jonathan had taken her on an incredible shopping spree, showering her with jewelry and designer couture and treating her to sumptuous dinners in restaurants all over the city. She'd had more booty than she'd ever gotten before and she was trying to figure out how to haul it away with her and escape when Jonathan was called home: dear old Dad had died.

Jonathan had wanted her to come with him back to Los Angeles. She'd been sorely tempted, but had demurred. She had told him she really, really wanted to go but she had things to wrap up in Martinique. Yes, she was a US citizen. She had spun him a tale of being from a small Ohio town when in reality she'd been the daughter of a Gulf Coast fisherman and a beautiful, promiscuous thief and had simply rolled into the same life as her mother.

As soon as Jonathan was on a plane, she had gone back to Andre. They had a huge fight and she could still feel the way he'd wrapped his hands around her neck, squeezing and squeezing, until she'd felt real fear. But then he'd seen the swag she'd returned with and new thoughts circled his brain. Maybe a long-term mark wasn't that bad of a plan. Maybe she could hook up with Jonathan Cantrell again when they got to Los Angeles. Andre would find them a special home base, and Teresa could continue to work her magic.

She'd thought about how Andre had almost strangled her. There was a dangerous side to him that she thrilled to, but she knew he was balanced on a knife's edge and sometimes he went too far. Just thinking about it had made her want to throw him down and ride him. Adrenaline junkie. Yep, that's what she was, but she'd never considered it a bad thing.

She had sought Jonathan out in Los Angeles. It wasn't hard, as he lived large. His father's death had coincided with a dip in the real estate market and though Jonathan had pretended like it was just a blip on the investment highway, while they had continued their relationship Teresa could tell he was losing money. Some of those real estate deals that had seemed like such a great deal had gone south in a hurry.

She'd had to walk away from him. He had sensed that she was pulling back and had tried to hang on, following her and spending d.a.m.n near every minute with her, also spending d.a.m.n near every dime of his fortune.

It was difficult to get free but she had managed it.

She'd grown tired of Jonathan, anyway. Too needy, toward the end. She'd been glad to be back full-time with the man she loved, even if Andre had grown a little too . . . the most fitting word was: superst.i.tious. He had rules and regulations for every behavior. Like a grown-up version of "Don't step on a crack or break your father's back." It had been noticeable enough that she'd read up on it and figured it had to be some form of obsessive/compulsive disorder.

Still . . . she had loved him. Even when he had started referring to himself as The Messiah. Whatever floats your boat, she had thought. She had a few quirks herself.

When he had commanded her to sc.r.a.pe up an acquaintance with Stephen Laughlin, she'd thought he wanted a repeat of the Cantrell situation and she'd gone along. But Andre had wanted to cut ties with her during the sting, and though he didn't say so, she had sensed Stephen wasn't just your average mark. Andre didn't call him Mark; he called him Stephen. Teresa had started to understand this was the endgame.

So, she'd sc.r.a.ped up Stephen Laughlin's acquaintance. It wasn't as easy as some. He had been that rare guy who had been interested in a long-term relationship. A quick, hot affair had held no interest for him. She'd had to play the game a while before he did more than take her on dates and actually talk to her across the table.

How was she to know that Stephen would be a good guy? One who fell for her hard but was always nice to her. And the Laughlins had big money. They were in the cattle business and their acres of land and beef cattle in central California supported a multimillion, probably billion-dollar business. When Stephen had asked her to marry him, Andre had been thrilled. "Jackpot," he whispered, but though Teresa had tried to keep from going that far, Andre had pushed the whole thing. There was another level here that she didn't quite understand, and she had actually started feeling kind of bad about fooling him so much. But she had stuck by her love for Andre and decided to go for it, and so she had married Stephen, becoming Teresa Laughlin.

And then she'd gotten pregnant. That wasn't supposed to happen. She'd thought about an abortion but never seemed to find the energy to do it. She was living on the Laughlin ranch at the time and only talking to Andre every week or so on her cell phone. He had seemed perfectly content to let the whole thing spin out, and Teresa had found herself getting very used to playing the part of Stephen Laughlin's beautiful wife. That his grandmother, Victoria, and his mother, Talia, both pure b.i.t.c.hes on wheels, had hated her only added to her sense of satisfaction with the whole thing. The longer she had stayed, the less she had wanted to leave.

But then Andre had dropped the bomb. "You need to kill him."

"Kill him?" she'd laughed, thinking he was joking. "What are you talking about?"

"If he dies, you inherit everything."

"Oh, I don't even think that's true." She'd swept a hand across her burgeoning stomach, chilled to her core. If Andre knew about the baby . . .

"It is. Don't question me. Just do it."

He'd hung up on her and she'd stood for long moments, frozen like a statue. Surely he didn't mean kill him, she'd told herself. That's not what they were about.

But he had meant it, and as time pa.s.sed and he heard nothing from her, he started texting that he was coming to do the job himself. At eight months pregnant, she couldn't have him see her, so she had told him that she was working on the project.

"How?" he'd demanded. "Give me your plan."

"Stephen has some friends who like me a lot. One in particular, Edmund Mikkels, likes me a little too much. I think I can . . . work on him."

"Do it," Andre had said, and in the background she had thought she heard a woman's voice.

"Are you with someone?" she had asked, jealousy rising like bile in the back of her throat.

"I'm your messiah," he had said. "Don't ever forget."

She hadn't been sure what that meant, but she sure as h.e.l.l didn't want some s.k.a.n.ky wh.o.r.e moving in on her man, so even before she delivered Tucker, she had started working on Mikkels. With thoughts of ripping the woman's hair out by the roots, she had gone into full grifting mode: always being a little too friendly to Edmund, touching him on his arm, his back, brushing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against him, finding ways to play the damsel in distress like the time she put two tires in the ditch outside his ranch/farm. The Mikkels family was deep into agriculture and Teresa had let Edmund know that she found the Laughlins' singular investment in cattle repellant.

The subtle pressure had worked. Teresa could almost pinpoint the day when Edmund's interest in her had changed from mild interest to out-and-out l.u.s.t. Didn't matter that she was pregnant. He would wait, and then they would be together.

When she went into labor and gave birth to Tucker she forgot every plan. Seeing that little baby just drove them from her mind. She fervently began to wish she could just be Stephen's wife and Tucker's mother.

But Edmund Mikkels had been well and truly wound up and ready to go. If he even wondered about her new baby, he hadn't acted like it. With Andre renewing his threatening texts if she didn't get moving, she had stoked Edmund's determination by complaining that Stephen just didn't understand her, that he seemed to go out of his way to make her unhappy. Lies, all of it. But Edmund had focused on freeing her from her marriage prison with laserlike intensity. Teresa had barely had to do more than whisper a few words in his ear, he had been so amped to play the white knight . . . even if that included murdering his good friend.

She had been the one who had gotten cold feet. Stephen's death was supposed to be an automobile accident, a hit-and-run echo of what had happened to his father, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to do it. Stephen just didn't deserve it. But Andre had been growing crazily determined so when Stephen's friends invited him on a hunting trip and Edmund met her eye, she had swallowed back her own misgivings and just let it happen.

And then the hunting "accident." She'd never heard the true particulars and didn't really want to know. There had been a group of them, all experienced hunters, though Stephen had a tendency to "shoot golf," as he joked, more than actual game. After being rushed to a hospital for a bullet wound in the back that ripped through to his front chest, Stephen had slipped into a coma and died. The bullet had done too much damage. His organs had shut down. Game over.

Edmund's remorse had been so huge that everyone had believed it had been an accident. Stephen had inexplicably stepped in front of him when he'd been aiming at a deer. The man's tears had even made Teresa wonder exactly what had gone down but she hadn't been about to ask him. They'd barely had the funeral before Andre had demanded that Teresa come home. "Shouldn't I stick around for some part of the inheritance?" she had asked. Wasn't that the plan?

Andre wouldn't listen. Get back here now, he'd texted, but she'd demurred because of Tucker. She told Andre that she had to wait or she would draw too much suspicion to herself. Not that it was easy living with Victoria Laughlin, who sent her cold sideways glances, or that she enjoyed any of Talia's frequent appearances. That woman had been trouble, pure and simple. But at least Talia had left Teresa's baby alone, as she wasn't exactly the maternal type, whereas Victoria had been proprietary of Tucker in a way that had alarmed Teresa. She'd realized she had to get Tucker away from all of them.

That's when she'd thought of Aimee, the only person she truly trusted to help with Tucker and keep her secrets. They'd met when Teresa first arrived in Martinique, and if not fast friends, they at least were like-minded, though Aimee wasn't nearly as successful at grifting as Teresa was.

When she called Aimee and told her that she needed to hide her son from the Laughlins and Andre, Aimee had balked at first, but then she'd slowly come around to agreeing to care for him, once the bracelet was offered up as collateral. Like Talia, Aimee's maternal instincts weren't exactly in the A-plus range, but money was a really good incentive.

"I will pay you back, but you can't sell the bracelet," Teresa had warned sternly. "That's a deal breaker."

Aimee had eventually acquiesced and Teresa had been relieved that things had worked out so well because there was no way she could have the bracelet in her possession when she faced Andre again. He would immediately take it from her, and she wasn't interested in giving it up.

Parting with Tucker had been wrenching. He hadn't wanted her to leave him, but she had consoled herself with the thought that she would only be back with Andre for a short time. She had told herself she would return for Tucker within the year, and they would make a life together. She hadn't been quite sure how she would convince Andre to let her go, and she had steeled herself for the confrontation to come, but she was going to make it happen.

But to her shock, when she had gotten back to Andre, he'd picked up several other women who were now living with him in the house she'd once shared with him alone. The handmaidens. It had been unbearable. She had been torn between jealousy and fury, and though she knew she'd made the right choice where Tucker was concerned, she had let herself fall into the drama, determined to win Andre back for herself.

What the h.e.l.l had been wrong with her? Why did it take so G.o.dd.a.m.n long for her to see the truth about him?

She'd never been thrown over for another woman, and she didn't react well to the new situation; she could be honest with herself about that now. The handmaidens had really p.i.s.sed her off, sucking up bunches of the money that she had earned for Andre and herself. She couldn't bear them, and she had complained mightily to Andre about them, but it had all fallen on deaf ears. In the end, she had resolved to make the best of it and get back to Tucker as soon as possible, but she had fallen into the new routine, playing that Andre was The Messiah, conning Marks out of cash and gifts, her mind constantly trying to find ways to oust the handmaidens and be first in Andre's favor.

And then . . . the urgency to rescue her son had disappeared. Her whole life with Stephen had faded into the background, begun to feel dreamlike and distant, like it happened to someone else. Her reality was being under Andre's watchful eye, and dealing with the handmaidens whom she had begun to hate with a pa.s.sion that had been buried in a kind of numb state of repression she'd come to accept as the norm. Then the death of the Cantrell boy. At her hands. She'd woken up as if someone had slapped her. What she and Andre had once had in Martinique was long gone and the man who now owned her heart and soul wasn't the same one who'd joined in their wild adventure together once upon a time. This Andre was a taskmaster who demanded total obedience and strange rituals that she had endured, even while she had begun secretly squirreling money away, sensing some formless future where she would run away with Tucker, a loose plan that had become fully formed over the last year.

Teresa lay in the tub, her hair wound into a loose topknot, her eyes closed, her pulse running light and fast. She didn't fool herself that she'd gotten away from Andre. Picking up Tucker was merely the first step.

But she was here. In Martinique again!

Maybe she didn't have to pick up Tucker immediately, she mused. Aimee knew she was on her way, but she hadn't been specific about when she was arriving. Maybe there was time to run one more con. She and Andre had gotten away by the skin of their teeth, but it had been years.

She smiled to herself, feeling a rush of excitement at the thought. A few hours and maybe she could pick up a new Mark.

Chapter Twelve.

The walk to Tucker's apartment was only about fifteen minutes but on the way West's cell phone rang. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and frowned at the number.

"No international service, huh?" Callie commented.

"What've you got," West answered the cell, shooting Callie a sideways look.

Yeah, you're a liar too, she thought.

The bracelet was in her carryall. She was giving it back to Aimee. Whatever the story was on how Teresa had obtained it, it wasn't her affair. She just wanted to be rid of it once and for all.

West was making monosyllabic replies, which started to p.i.s.s her off. He'd actually stopped walking and Callie had slowed to a halt as well. They were now standing on the sidewalk, close to the buildings, standing back from the wheels of the parked vehicles that were humped up off the street.

After what felt like forever he finally clicked off. "A friend of mine," he said.

"Yeah?"

"I do have international calling," he admitted.

Callie shrugged.

"I didn't want to give you an out until I knew more about you. You could have had me calling anyone."

"Only my attorney. Or the Cantrells' attorney, if you really want to get down to it." Briefly she thought of Derek and Diane and their insistence that Jonathan had left more money and/or a.s.sets than what she knew of.

"Who was that?" she asked, nodding toward the cell phone he was dropping in his pocket.

"A friend at the LAPD. My old partner."

"What did you ask him to get?"

"What?"

"You answered, 'What've you got?' so . . ."

He didn't immediately answer as they started walking again. She could tell he was rolling things around, debating on how much to tell her, which only p.i.s.sed her off all the more.

"I asked him to look up the Cantrells and the accident on Mulholland."

She felt something flutter inside her chest. Fear . . . grief . . . remembrance of those terrible moments. She swallowed. "Did he find anything?" she asked lightly.

"Probably nothing you didn't know. There were partial prints found on the car that hit your vehicle, on the door handle and steering wheel. There's no match in the system, so far."

"n.o.body told me anything about the accident," she admitted. "I was in the hospital and by the time I got out . . ." After a month at Del Amo . . .

"The case is still open," he a.s.sured her. "The car that hit you was stolen and it was left at the scene. Whoever rammed into you ran and got away. Maybe they were fairly new to the criminal life, took the car for a joyride, hit you and after your car went over the edge, they just ran. Couldn't cope with what they'd done."

"That's the prevailing theory," she said. Her chest felt tight. Memory was torture.

"I asked Dorcas for a photo of Callie Cantrell. He's sending me one."

"You still don't believe I'm me?"

"I just asked for the photo."

"Keep telling yourself that," she muttered angrily. "You're still trying to tie me into all of this."

"You're here in Martinique," he pointed out. "Fort-de-France. Where Teresa sent an e-mail to a local Internet cafe. The one you were at this morning," he added. "You're a doppelgnger for her, and you're friends with a boy named Tucker, who, I'm pretty sure, is Stephen Tucker Laughlin. You're wearing a Laughlin heirloom." He indicated the bracelet. "You might not be Teresa, but you're something."