“After he made the phone call, Landry changed into a bathrobe,” she continued. “I could move a little by then, but I kept very still, hoping he would think I was still immobile. I knew that my only chance was to shout for help when room service arrived.”
“What happened?”
“Room service was very prompt,” she said. “The problem was that the man pushing the cart wasn’t the only person who showed up. There were also a couple of photographers.”
“The tabloid paparazzi guys?”
“Yes. I staggered to my feet and screamed at them, but no one paid any attention. Evidently, ‘Help me, this man kidnapped me,’ isn’t a universally recognized cry for assistance. The photographers took the photos and ran off. The room service person started to leave.”
“I doubt if that was room service. More likely someone Landry paid to stage the scene.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “I hadn’t even considered that, but it makes sense.”
“What did you do?”
“My only thought was to get out of the room before the door closed behind the guy with the cart. My head was spinning. I had a terrible headache, and I thought I might throw up. But at least I could move again. I made it out the door. Landry didn’t even try to stop me. He laughed and said something about this being just the beginning. One of the last things he said to me as I left was, ‘I’m going to destroy you.’”
“Bastard,” he repeated, softer this time.
“Sick bastard. I told you, the man is not right in the head. He’s scary crazy, because he’s able to conceal his craziness from others.”
“I believe you. What did you do next?”
“I went down a back staircase and found a hotel linen closet. There were some spare spa robes inside. I grabbed one and left through a back door. But the two photographers were waiting in the parking lot.”
“The bathrobe photos.”
“Yes.”
She stopped talking. He knew she was wondering if she had just made a major mistake by confiding in him.
“Got one more question,” he said.
She shook her head slightly, not saying no, more like pulling herself out of the past and back to the present. She was still petting Araminta.
“Can I assume you didn’t go to the cops because you didn’t think they would take your word over that of a member of the Guild Council?” he asked.
“No,” she said, visibly regaining her fortitude and iron-willed determination. “I kept quiet because his threat to destroy me was not the very last thing he said.”
He went even colder inside. “He threatened to kill you?”
She shook her head again, a clear negative this time. “Oh, no. The last thing he would have wanted was a murder investigation, especially with me as the victim. There were too many clues that would have led back to him. He had made it clear to the press that I was his mistress, after all. There was a record of the appointment he made to meet with me at my office. I had left notes about my decision not to take him as a client and so on. No, he didn’t threaten to kill me.”
“What did he threaten?”
“He said that if I went to the police he would destroy my family.”
“Did he say how?”
“He was very specific. He said he’d see to it that my father lost his job at the company where he has worked for over thirty years and that my mother would be forced out of her position at the library. He said he’d make sure my brother never got accepted as a member of any of the new rain forest exploration teams. He even went so far as to promise that he’d make sure my sister’s marriage was called off.”
“Does your family know the truth about what happened?”
“No, absolutely not,” she said, sinking a little into the seat. “I didn’t dare tell them the truth. They would have insisted that I go to the police and damn the consequences. I just couldn’t risk it.”
“They think what everyone else in Frequency thinks? That you fell hard for Landry, and when the affair was exposed in the press, you had no choice but to close your business and leave town?”
“Yes.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Part of it was true. I didn’t have any choice but to leave Frequency. I decided that it would be safer for everyone. Besides, my business was doomed, anyway, after the scandal broke.”
“Do you really believe that Landry could have carried out his threats?”
“For the record, I don’t think he could have stopped Josh Santana from marrying my sister. I don’t think there’s any force on the planet that could keep those two apart. But Landry has more than enough power to make life hell for both of them as long as they live in Frequency City.”
“The Guilds aren’t all-powerful, in spite of what you seem to think.”
“Give me a break. Back in Cadence, if Mercer Wyatt set out to get a librarian and a midlevel executive fired, don’t you think he could call in some debts and get it done?”
He exhaled slowly. She was right, he thought. Mercer Wyatt had spent years playing the IOU game in Cadence. He could do a lot of damage if he chose.
“Yeah, probably,” he admitted.
“And he certainly would be able to keep a young, newly minted research scientist like my brother off an exploration team. The Guilds have enormous control over who goes into the rain forest.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that. The big difference is that Wyatt doesn’t operate that crudely.”
“You mean, he wouldn’t cash in a lot of valuable debts to the Guild just to carry out a personal vendetta against a matchmaker.”
“Be a waste of assets,” Davis said. “Wyatt is too smart to go in for that kind of petty manipulation.”
“You mean he’s not crazy.”
“No,” he agreed. “Wyatt is not crazy.”
“Trust me, Benson Landry is.”
Chapter 15
MIDWAY THROUGH THE REHEARSAL DINNER, CELINDA’S great-aunt, Octavia, who was on her third green ruin martini, leaned over to whisper in her ear. “I like your new boyfriend.” Octavia winked. “He’s hot. Ghost hunter by any chance?”
Celinda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Her only consolation was that it was highly unlikely that anyone else had overheard the comment. The large, private hotel dining room was packed with various members of the Ingram and Santana families as well as assorted bridesmaids and groomsmen. Two long tables, decorated with a sea of pink flowers, pink napkins, pink tablecloths, and pink favors, had been set up to accommodate the crowd. Pink champagne and cocktails had been flowing freely all evening. Things were getting loud.
“Not exactly,” Celinda whispered back.
“You sure?” Octavia asked. She looked skeptical.
Octavia was a small, dynamic woman who, after she had a few martinis in her, tended to veer toward the unpredictable and outrageous. Tonight she wore one of the blonde big-hair wigs from her vast collection and sparkled under the weight of what must have been a couple of pounds of glittery costume jewelry.
There were certainly those in the Ingram clan who were of the opinion that Aunt Octavia’s skirts were too short and her heels were too high for a woman of her age, but Celinda was not one of them. She usually found her aunt wonderfully entertaining. But tonight she was starting to get a little worried.
Everyone had been polite and friendly this afternoon, but, as she had warned Davis, her arrival at the hotel with a strange man had sent shock waves through the family. Fortunately, what might under normal circumstances have been an overwhelming flood of pointed questions had been drastically tempered by the fact that the focus of attention was on the bridal couple.
Celinda had concluded that she and Davis just might be able to pull off the deception if they could escape
