“To talk to her about this.”
“Dent—”
“I know what you’re going to say. Save your breath.”
“I told you eighteen years ago to stay away from that Lyston girl. You didn’t listen.”
“This is a different Lyston girl.”
“Who’s apparently just as poisonous as her big sister.”
“That’s what I’m going to talk to her about.”
Bellamy’s heart leaped when her cell phone rang. She’d kept it within reach all night as well as this morning, dreading a call from Olivia but at the same time eager to get an update. “Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“Who is this?”
He didn’t deign to respond.
“What do you want, Dent?”
“My airplane came under attack last night.”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“Daddy’s office.”
“I’ll be there in under half an hour. I’m coming in, and I’m coming up, and don’t even think about denying me entrance.” He disconnected.
Lyston Electronics was housed in a glassy seven-story building that was one of a group of contemporary buildings comprising a business park off the MoPac. Their communications products were high-tech and highly coveted, so everyone who worked there wore an identification badge, and security was tight.
Bellamy called the guard in the lobby and made arrangements for Dent to be admitted. “Please direct him to my father’s office.”
Twenty minutes later he was ushered in by her father’s receptionist, whom Bellamy dismissed with a nod of thanks. She remained seated behind the desk while Dent gave the large room a leisurely survey, his gaze stopping on the mounted elk head and on a glass cabinet in which her father’s collection of priceless jade carvings was displayed. He took particular notice of the family portrait that dominated one paneled wall. He walked over to it and studied it at length.
The photograph had been taken during the last Christmas season that the family was intact. Posed in front of an enormous twinkling Christmas tree was Howard, looking every inch the proud patriarch. Olivia, gorgeous in burgundy velvet and canary diamonds, had her arm linked with his. Steven, a recalcitrant fourteen-year-old, had his hands jammed into the pockets of his gray flannel slacks. Susan was sitting on the Oriental rug in front of the others, her full skirt spread around her. She was smiling broadly, confident of her beauty and allure. Bellamy was beside her, unsmiling because of her braces, virtually hiding behind the black Scottish terrier she was holding in her lap.
Dent turned to face her. “What happened to the dog? Scooter?”
“He lived to be thirteen.”
“Your brother? What’s he doing now?”
“Technically Steven is my stepbrother. I was ten, he was twelve, Susan was fourteen when Daddy and Olivia married. Anyway, Steven left Austin after he graduated from high school. Went to college back east and stayed there.”
All he said in response to that was an indifferent
“What did you mean by ‘my airplane came under attack’?”
He walked toward the desk, then sat—sprawled, really—in one of the chairs facing it, seemingly unaware of or not caring how out of place he looked wearing jeans and a western shirt with the tail out when the dress code for the executive offices called for a jacket and tie.
But then he’d always had a very casual regard for rules.
He linked his fingers and rested his hands on his stomach. “What part didn’t you understand?”
“Cut the crap, Dent. Tell me what happened to your airplane.”
“Somebody broke into the hangar last night and beat it all to hell.” He described the damage. “That’s what we can tell just by looking. Gall hasn’t checked out the systems yet.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry, but I’m grounded. Grounded means no charters. Which means no income. To you… Hell, you probably don’t even understand the concept.”
His scorn smarted, because the truth of it was that she had never suffered a financial setback. In her family, money had never been a problem.
“The bank isn’t going to suspend my payments while the airplane is being fixed. I’ll be making payments on a plane I can’t fly. That is until I run out of money completely and can’t make the payments anymore, and then they’ll come and get it. If they repossess my airplane, I’m grounded for good. So your being sorry isn’t of much help, is it?”
“I deeply regret this. I do. I know you need the work.”
He focused on her sharply, then laughed drily and turned his head away. But when he looked at her again his eyes were smoky with anger. “So. You checked me out. Discovered that I’m barely scraping by. Took pity. Was that what yesterday was? You threw poor ol’ Dent a bone?”
“I told you why I contacted you.”
He continued to look at her in that searing way until she relented.
“All right, yes. I’d read that the airline released you after the incident.”
“Wrong. I walked after the incident.”
“Pension? Benefits?”
“Had to be sacrificed when I told them to shove it.” He pulled in his long legs and sat forward. “But we’re not going to talk about my financial woes right now. What we’re going to talk about is why somebody vandalized my airplane after breaking into your house and painting a warning on your bedroom wall.”
“What makes you think the two are related?”
He gave her another hard look.
“It’s strange, I’ll admit.”
“No, A.k.a. Let me tell you what’s strange. Strange is that when I got to your house last night, you were scared silly. Petrified, in fact. But you wouldn’t hear of calling the police.
“I didn’t want the publicity,” she exclaimed. She told him about Rocky Van Durbin and
“Oh, come now,” he scoffed. “It helps sell books, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t deny that book sales increased dramatically once I got out there and began promoting it. I’ve cultivated a lot of fans.”
“And one enemy.”
She stood up quickly and stepped from behind the desk to move to the window. For several moments, she watched the traffic zipping past on the freeway, then turned back into the room. Dent’s gaze was fixed on her as she went over to the leather sofa beneath the family Christmas portrait and sat down.
His eyes narrowed, and he said softly, “You know who the bad guy is.”
“No, I don’t. I swear I don’t. If I did, don’t you think I would have done something before now to stop it?”
“Stop
“It’s not your problem, Dent.”
“Like hell it’s not.” He got up from the chair in which he’d been sitting and dragged it over to the sofa, planting it directly in front of her then solidly planting himself in the chair. He propped his forearms on his wide- spread knees and leaned toward her. “Somebody did a bad number on my airplane. That makes it my
