Silent Partner Part 8

"Stay where you are!" she yelled. "Don't move."

"Don't worry, ma'am," he answered smoothly, keeping his arms out away from his body. "My job is just to get you down off the mountain."

Angela inched toward him, making certain she didn't stumble on the cave's jagged floor. She kept her finger on the trigger the whole time. "Who sent you?" she demanded, stopping five feet away. She couldn't see much. Just a full curly beard and a s.h.a.ggy head of hair.

"People at the lodge. They were worried. They said you were supposed to be back a while ago."

That seemed odd. They hadn't been gone that long. Of course, it was almost dark. Maybe that was what had them worried. But wouldn't he have come from the other direction if the lodge had sent him?

"Anybody else in there?" The man glanced past her into the cave.

"No," she answered hesitantly. Shouldn't he know that John Tucker was supposed to be with her? Wouldn't people at the lodge have told him that?

"Wasn't there supposed to be someone with you? That's what they told me."

"There was, but he went to scout around."

"Scout around?"

"We had some trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Yeah."

The man glanced down at the pistol. "Ma'am, I'd feel a whole lot better if you'd point that thing in another direction."

Could I really shoot him? Could I really end another human being's life, even if he means me harm?she asked herself. "Who owns this ranch?" she demanded.

"Jake Lawrence," the man answered.

She could tell he knew he was being tested. "Whoruns the ranch?"

The man chuckled. "John Tucker, the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Angela let out a long breath, then lowered the gun slightly and blinked.

In that moment the man lunged, knocking her to the ground as she screamed and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets whined as they caromed about the cave, and then he was on top of her, slamming her hand against the rock floor fiercely until the gun skittered away. He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her to her feet. She could feel herself starting to go dizzy as her air supply was cut off.Never trust. Never trust. She clawed at his beard as he slammed her back against the wall, then spun her around.

"Where's Lawrence?" he hissed, lips to her ear as he pressed her cheek hard against the rough rock wall.

"At a cabin further up the mountain," she moaned, grimacing in pain.

"What?"

She could feel his hot breath on her face. "At the cabin."

"But you're supposed to be with him."

"Our meeting is over. He's probably gone." She didn't know what else to say. "Please stop hurting me."

"This isn't right!" the man roared. "Not right at all. G.o.dd.a.m.nit, you're supposed to be with him!"

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Tell me where-"

She thrust her heel into the man's shin, and he groaned loudly. For a split second she was free and she broke for the back of the cave and the revolver. But he managed to trip her and fall on top of her heavily, knocking the wind from her lungs as they fell. She reached desperately for the gun, just inches from her fingertips, but his hand darted past hers and he tossed it further back into the darkness.

Suddenly she was being pulled to her feet again, her hands forced together behind her back, and he was pushing her toward the cave entrance, the cliff, and five hundred feet straight down. She fought desperately, struggling to dig her toes into the ground, but he was too powerful and she closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for the terror of the plunge and the horrible impact. Perhaps this was why she had hated heights since childhood. Perhaps somehow she had known she would die this way.

She opened her eyes wide as they burst from the cave and screamed wildly as the man propelled her the last few feet. The canyon stretched out before her, sheer walls falling to a frozen river. This had to be a nightmare. She was going to wake up in her room at the lodge, on the edge of the sleigh bed, about to tumble to the floor. This couldn't be happening. "No! My G.o.d, no!"

And then they were both down on the trail, faces buried in the snow after a powerful impact. Angela could feel her head and shoulders hanging over the edge of the cliff, nothing but air beneath her. Her attacker was trying desperately to push her over, and she clawed wildly at the snow, digging for anything to hold on to. For an instant she found a rock, but it popped from the ground as she grabbed it and she was sliding further over oblivion.

Then strong hands clamped down on her ankles, then her legs, and she was being dragged away from danger and pulled to her feet. Lawrence's personal army had turned into her personal cavalry and suddenly she was safe. There were four of them around her, brushing the snow from her clothes and asking her if she was all right. She nodded, unable to speak, catching glimpses of her attacker being pummeled by four more of the guards a few feet away. He was shouting at them in a foreign language she didn't recognize.

Two of the men who had rescued her stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the scuffle. She strained to see, but once more they moved to block her view. When she was able to see again, her attacker was gone. For a few moments she didn't understand what had happened, then the realization set in. He was off the cliff into the abyss. Dead. She stared at the empty s.p.a.ce where he'd just been, dazed.

Then she glanced to her right, between two of the men who had rescued her, and directly into the burning eyes of William Colby.

It was almost midnight, and he was tired of trying to pick up the woman. She was with two female friends who'd made it clear with their withering looks across the bar that they weren't going to let her go home with him. Besides, he had an important sales call in the morning, and he didn't want to have to drive her back to her car when they were done. She wasn'tthat good looking.

So he downed the rest of his beer, tossed his business card at her as a courtesy, and headed out the tavern door across a deserted parking lot toward his Lexus. As he neared the car, he thought he could see a man leaning against it through the darkness.

"Hey, off the car, hemorrhoid." No reaction, and now he could see two of them. "I said, off the-" He swallowed his words when they broke from the car and raced toward him. He tried to run and at the same time pull his cell phone from his pocket. But they were on him quickly, pushing him to the ground roughly and s.n.a.t.c.hing the phone. "What's going on?" he stammered as one of the men grabbed him by his collar and yanked him to his feet. The attacker was the size of a double door refrigerator. "There's been some mistake."

"There's been no mistake."

"What do you want?"

"You're gonna get a call tomorrow."

"A call?"

"You'll do what the caller tells you to do.Exactly what he tells you to do."

"All right," he gasped.

The refrigerator tightened his grip. "You understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. You don't do what you're told, and you'll see us again. And next time it'll be a lot worse," the refrigerator growled, slamming his huge fist into the man's midsection.

The other one dropped the man's phone on top of him, and then they were gone, faded into the night, leaving the man to try to figure out what had just happened as he clutched his stomach and gasped for air.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Daytime temperatures rarely dropped below freezing in Richmond, even in the middle of February. But today, beneath ominous gray clouds, the brisk morning gusts of central Virginia were bitter cold.

Angela pulled the tapered ends of the collar of her long wool coat tightly around her neck and shivered as she hurried up Ninth Street toward Main, bent over against the wind and the incline of the steep sidewalk. It seemed colder here in Richmond than it had in Wyoming.

As she turned the corner on to Main, Sumter Bank's headquarters came into view. The Sumter Tower was a fifty-story gla.s.s-encased monolith that soared above the rest of Richmond's skyline. The city's next tallest building was forty stories, and the rumor was that the city wouldn't grant a building permit for anything over that, not as long as Bob Dudley, Sumter's chairman of the board, was around. He'd commissioned the Sumter Tower ten years ago-at the beginning of his tenure as chairman-as a monument to himself.

"Hey, there," called a short black woman. She was clasping a notepad and a pen in one hand as she descended the steps from the Sumter Tower courtyard and quickly covered the last few yards between them. She was surprisingly agile for her stocky build.

"h.e.l.lo, Liv." Olivia Jefferson was theRichmond Tribune reporter Jake Lawrence had referred to, the woman who was taking Sumter to task for what she perceived as its poor service to the city's minority community. Jefferson was a tough-talking, middle-aged woman who'd grown up on the city's rough east side, but now lived in the Fan, a desirable neighborhood west of downtown.

"Where have you been, Angela?" Liv asked. "I tried calling you three times yesterday."

"Traveling. I told you I was going out of town on business."

"But I thought you were supposed to be back yesterday."

The original itinerary had Angela returning to Richmond on one of Jake Lawrence's Gulfstream jets as soon as their meeting was over. But after she had come within inches of being hurled off the mountain, Lawrence's armed guards had escorted her back to the lodge where she'd taken a warm shower, relaxed for a few hours, then eaten a late dinner alone with William Colby.

John Tucker had made no further appearances. During dinner, Colby volunteered that Tucker had made it down the mountain safely. However, Tucker had not shown up to say good-bye that evening, nor did she see him the next morning before Colby drove her to the airport. She was disappointed. She had wanted to see Tucker again. If only to convince herself that he really was all right. As much as she trusted John, she did not trust Colby.

Over dessert Colby had informed her that his men had recovered the body of her attacker from the canyon and determined that he was a recently hired ranch hand. A drifter, Colby had been advised by local authorities only a few minutes before sitting down to dinner, who had an a.s.sault record. He had apologized stiffly-Angela could tell it was something he was not accustomed to doing-criticizing Tucker several times for not doing a more thorough job of screening applicants. Then he'd requested that she not speak of the incident with anyone in return for a cash payment of ten thousand dollars, which she hadn't accepted. She'd flown back to Richmond yesterday, arriving in the late afternoon.

There was only one question Angela had really wanted to ask Colby during dinner. Had her attacker fallen from the cliff-or been pushed? But she hadn't asked because she didn't want to provoke him, particularly with another night alone on the lodge's fourth floor ahead of her. It was clear Colby hadn't wanted to discuss the incident in any detail, and that she wouldn't have been given a straight answer anyway. Besides, given several of Colby's remarks, she was fairly certain by the end of dinner that she had her answer. The question had then becomewhy had the man been thrown off the cliff? But she wasn't prepared to ask that question either. Perhaps that was simply the standard way Colby dealt with anyone who threatened Jake Lawrence. Perhaps he was as cold as he seemed.

"My trip went a day longer than I expected," Angela answered, glancing past Olivia at a dozen warmly bundled people walking in a slow circle in front of the Sumter Bank main entrance. Each of them carried a homemade sign accusing Sumter of discriminatory banking practices, and each was doing his or her best to subtly get in the way of anyone trying to gain access to the building. They were also shouting insults at employees as they darted toward one of the entrance's three revolving doors. Two Richmond policemen drinking coffee from 7-Eleven cups kept a casual eye on the protesters from inside the bank's main lobby. "Is that all right with you?"

"Well, you certainly came back from your trip stretched tighter than a drum."

"Yeah, well." Angela caught sight of a man coming down Main Street, head bowed against the gusts. It was Ken Booker, her boss, and she turned away, hoping he wouldn't see her.

"Your meeting must have been pretty rough," Olivia commented.

"Why do you say that?"

The older woman reached out and touched Angela's face gently. "Your cheek is all scratched up."

"Oh, I fell in my bathroom last night," Angela explained, pulling back from Olivia's fingers and glancing after Booker to make certain he'd gone inside. "I slipped stepping out of the shower." She could still feel the cave's gritty rock wall sc.r.a.ping her face, and the incredible terror as her attacker had propelled her toward the edge of the cliff. She hadn't told Colby at dinner that the man had mentioned Lawrence, indicating to her that his attack wasn't the result of some psychotic vendetta against women, that he wasn't just some mindless drifter. "I hit my cheek against the sink when I fell."

"That's more of a sc.r.a.pe than a bruise."

"I'm late, Liv."

"Wait a minute. We need to talk."

"Not here," Angela answered, glancing around furtively. "Not now."

"What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing." She brushed past Liv and headed toward the protesters. "I'll talk to you this afternoon," she called over her shoulder, moving around the human circle without incident when Liv motioned to them that Angela shouldn't be hara.s.sed.

Five minutes later, Angela reached her workstation in the middle of the fourteenth floor, remaining there only long enough to place her briefcase down on her desk and lay her coat over the back of her chair. Then she headed for Ken Booker's office at the far corner of the large room.

"I'm back from Wyoming," Angela announced, walking briskly through Booker's doorway.

He glanced up from behind his desk. "So I see." He was a senior managing director, in charge of all of Sumter's corporate lending and a man not far from the corporate ladder's top rung. He was preppy looking, with thinning blond hair and tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses, and he always wore a heavily starched, white Oxford b.u.t.ton-down shirt. "Angela, I'm busy right now. We'll have to talk later."

"This can't wait." Booker was the one who had approached her about the meeting with Jake Lawrence. "Who contacted you, Ken?"

"What?"

"How did Jake Lawrence's people get in touch with you? How did they get you to send me to Wyoming?"

Booker placed the gold Cross pen he'd been making notes with down on the legal pad in front of him. "Is there a problem?"

"Just tell me." She wanted to ask him why he had gotten in the way of her promotion twice, but that would be risky. Maybe Lawrence really had no idea about that. Maybe he was plying her with misinformation because he had his own agenda. She wasn't certain who or what to believe at this point, and she was going to be very careful about what she conveyed to anyone.

Booker eased back in his chair, a puzzled expression on his face. "You okay?"

"Fine."

"All right. Well, Lawrence's New York office called. It was one of his financial people. In fact, I'd met the guy before. I'd called on him in the past to try to get business from some of Lawrence's portfolio companies, but they've always stuck with the big New York banks. The guy called to tell me that Lawrence wanted to speak withyou . Frankly, I was a little put off by his att.i.tude and the fact that he didn't want to meet with me, but-"

"Ken, I-"

"Mr. Booker." Booker's a.s.sistant stood in the office doorway. "I'm sorry to interrupt, sir."

"That's all right, Jean. Look," he said, glancing back at Angela, "I don't know what the problem is but this is a conference call with some very important people in Washington that I've had scheduled for some time and I've got to-"

"No, actually it isn't," the stern-looking woman at the door interrupted. "Angela, the chairman has requested that you come up to his office on the fiftieth floor right away. He and the president are waiting for you."

For a moment the office fell silent, then Booker looked up at Angela and shrugged. "Better go see what they want."

She nodded slowly. Jake Lawrence's prediction had been eerily accurate. She hadn't been back in the building for ten minutes and already Bob Dudley was looking for her.

"By the way, Angela," Booker called after her, "I wouldn't mention to the men on fifty that you were talking to Liv Jefferson this morning." He nodded at Angela's startled reaction. "Yeah, I saw you."

"I wasn'ttalking to her."

"Don't get so defensive."

"I'm not."

"Could have fooled me."