Watching for Willa Read online

  “Murder, you son of a bitch. Cold-blooded and premeditated murder. Two counts of it if that other woman doesn’t make it.”

  “What?” The man wavered on his feet. “No! I didn’t…You don’t…I haven’t killed anyone!”

  “Tell that to the girl whose body is probably on some Austin forensic’s table even as you stand there sweating into your silk suit.”

  “You think I did that?” Felix shook his head violently. “No. Oh, God, Zach, wait a minute. I may be guilty of some despicable things, of breaking your trust and cheating you. But rape and murder?”

  “It’s too late to deny it. The cops have the evidence to get a conviction. You’re going down, pal.”

  Felix gripped the doorframe, clearly needing its support. “What evidence?”

  “The gold pen you always wear?” Zach nodded to his agent’s mauve-and-gray tie. “Didn’t you even know you’d lost it? It was discovered near the girl’s body. How long do you think it will take them to track you down once they find your initials on it? Then it’ll just be a matter of matching sperm samples and…”

  “The bitch!” Felix screamed, striking the doorframe with his fist. “The conniving, blackhearted—I’m being set up for this, Zach. I swear to you, I didn’t do it.” He laughed, his eyes frantic. “Look at me. Do I look like someone who’s capable of such barbaric behavior?”

  “That’s the worst part of it,” Zach admitted, although he kept the gun trained on his agent. “You were the one person I wanted to be wrong about.”

  “You are wrong. I did not kill anyone. I did not rape anyone.” Felix raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t know how my pin got where it did, okay? I have a strong hunch, but I am positive that I couldn’t have lost it myself unless I rolled down my window while driving to or from here and literally threw it. And that didn’t happen. You want to know why? Because I know where I did lose it. At Judith’s.”

  “So you admit to working with her?”

  “With?” Again the tall, agitated man shook his head. “No, no, no. Any contact we had was under duress. In fact I lost my pin the day I told you I was delivering her accounting report and check.”

  “Really. Next you’re going to tell me it came off when you two got into a wrestling match because the check wasn’t big enough.”

  “No,” Felix returned with total levity, “we fought because I told her I was through ripping you off.”

  Zach narrowed his eyes. “Explain that.”

  Once again the look of shame had Felix avoiding his gaze. He leaned back against the frame and crossed his arms around his middle.

  “She got hold of some damaging information and threatened to go public with it if I didn’t make it worth her while to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Damaging to whom?”

  “Me!”

  “And whose money did you use to pacify her?” He watched the older man swallow and squirm. “Whose?”

  “Yours!”

  Zach had to rest his gun hand on the desk a moment because now he was shaking, shaking with fury. He didn’t know why he felt worse; after all, a lost life was so many times more tragic than any amount of money. But this was a rape of a different sort, and yet another betrayal of trust.

  “You mean above and beyond what the court awarded her?” he asked, so softly he barely heard himself.

  Felix didn’t nod this time; rather he lowered his head until his chin nearly rested on his chest.

  “How much?”

  “Over a hundred thousand.”

  Impossible. He would have noticed it.

  Granted, he’d been careless about a great many things and indifferent to even more, but he’d looked at the reports, damn it.

  Yeah, doctored ones.

  Zach could only think of one question to ask. “Why?”

  “I’d never have let her get away with it if there had been any way, Zach.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you think is a justifiable excuse,” he growled, resentful that what little trust he possessed was being obliterated. “Tell me what it is or I’ll phone the police right now and you can explain yourself out of a murder charge.”

  Felix covered his face with his hands and moaned pitifully before dropping them at his sides like a condemned man. “She was in Houston about a year ago—at least that was the excuse she gave for stopping by. Maybe she’d been on to me all along. At any rate, I’m still in the dark as to how she found out where I live. But while I was on the phone, my roommate answered the door and there she was.”

  “I don’t get it. What? Did Judith later threaten to allude there was something between you two to break up you and your girlfriend?”

  “No. She let me know that she’d seen me at a hotel restaurant earlier with my daughter.”

  “You have a daughter?” Zach gave himself a shake, wondering what other revelations his so-called “friend” had been keeping from him. “When were you married?”

  Felix rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t. I had a wonderful but brief affair fifteen years ago. It was a difficult period for me and—it just happened. Anyway Kasey’s mother was in Houston on a business trip and brought her along.”

  “Your roommate wouldn’t be able to handle the news that you had a teenage daughter?”

  “That was a blow, but hardly catastrophic. It was my daughter I needed to protect…and her mother. Karen is an attorney with an extremely conservative Philadelphia law firm. Neither she, nor Kasey who goes to an exclusive private school, would be able to handle the fact that I now live with another man.”

  Zach pinched the bridge of his nose. No wonder Judith had followed him like a bloodhound. She’d always been a soap opera addict; this was right up her alley!

  Silence stretched until Felix pleaded, “Say something, will you? Or better yet, do me a favor and use that damned gun.”

  Instead, Zach eased the hammer back into its safety position and replied, “You steal from me. You lie to me. You get yourself in such a mess that you’re blackmailed by the woman you know tried to kill me, and you want me to do you a favor and put you out of your misery?” He opened the drawer and put away the gun. “Oh, no, pal. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “But what am I going to do?” Felix cried, stepping farther into the room now that the gun was out of sight.

  “You’re going to release me from our contract for one thing.”

  “You don’t have to ask for that because it’ll be automatic once I’m in prison, which is where I’m sure to end up, thanks to what Judith’s done.”

  The idea should have brought pleasure and didn’t. Annoyed, Zach muttered, “I’d rather not wait. And you’d better get with your attorney and draft a statement of intent to pay me back before your daughter’s mother decides to sue you for injury, as well.”

  “Anything, Zach. Whatever you say. Consider it done.”

  “I’ll believe that when I have my money back,” he replied coldly, his mind already shifting to other things.

  He wondered how many people Judith was manipulating and blackmailing. No one could keep up her reckless, ruthless pace without running out of luck; in fact, he was amazed someone hadn’t taken revenge already. Unfortunately, he couldn’t wait for that, or for the law to do him a favor. Too many lives were still at risk—especially Willa’s.

  At least there was an ounce of good news in all of this. Whether she’d intended to or not, Judith had taken some of the pressure off him as being a suspect in the murder of the Leahy girl. And now his own list of suspects were narrowed down to two.

  He had to find out whether Ger Sacks or Roger Elias was the stalker before he struck again. And an idea came to mind.

  “Did you ever see anyone else around her place when you went by Judith’s?”

  “No. No one except her cleaning woman.”

  “No unexpected guest? There wasn’t someone you glimpsed in another room?”

  “I always phoned ahead of time to let her know I was coming—you know what a flitter she is�
��and even then I’d often have to wait in my car until she arrived from who knows where. Why? Is there another problem?”

  Just one, but so deadly that it made what Felix had done seem trivial in comparison, Zach thought, missing his Scotch for the first time today. And Roger Elias was due in a matter of hours for their Sunday game. Under the circumstances, he really needed to turn up the heat tonight. It was obvious the pressure was getting to Judith’s puppet; could he add to it without causing another young woman to be hurt? He needed to think. Preparations had to be made, and most of all Willa needed to be warned to keep her distance just in case.

  Felix cleared his throat. “Is there anything else I can do, Zach?”

  He looked relieved, even hopeful, that this was off his chest. Zach stared at the man, realizing that in a few weeks Felix would have come to terms with this whole episode. In a few months he might even have turned it around so that it was his client’s fault for bringing Judith into their lives in the first place.

  No, this was nothing compared to a life. But it demanded a price. “Yes,” he replied his look holding closure. “You can get out of my house.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As soon as he’d locked the door behind Felix, Zach began to telephone Willa. He stopped himself just as quickly. Aware of the anger and bitterness still seething inside him, and not wanting to expose her to any more of it than necessary, even if she was anxiously awaiting a call, he decided to first go downstairs and clean up the mess in the study.

  He liked the protectiveness and generosity in that impulse, despite the sharp little voice beneath it that mocked him. After so much time alone, is it the woman you’re reacting to, or simply the craving for human contact? But he knew that voice. It was the same one that had told him he could never write a book, then finish it, then sell it. Muttering, “Take a hike,” he wheeled himself to the elevator and lowered the car to the first floor.

  Lifting the table meant easing himself to the floor and using his considerable arm and torso strength. But since he had to crawl around to locate all the game pieces anyway, it was hardly an inconvenience. It did trigger a flood of memories, though, reminding him of how dark his spirit had been when he’d first spotted Willa on the floor and believed the worst; of how brutal and painful her bruises had been; of the incredible night they’d shared.

  He wanted her again. Now. In a hair-trigger response, his body heated and tightened. When he found the white queen, he closed his fingers tightly around it, and leaned back against a chair to savor the feeling, the memories…how quickly she was becoming his sanity.

  God, you’re developing a case.

  “Can schizophrenia be far behind?” he drawled, reaching for his metal chariot. No sooner did he settle himself back in the chair, than the phone began ringing. He smiled wryly. No doubt Willa had felt the power of his thoughts and hadn’t been able to wait any longer for him to call.

  “Don’t worry, I’m still alive,” he murmured into the mouthpiece.

  After a brief pause a dry male voice replied, “I’m glad to hear that, man.”

  Ger? This was definitely unexpected. He had to do some fast thinking to cover his blunder.

  “Hell, I thought you were my agent again. He’s been checking on me ever since the news about the murder broke.”

  His trainer grunted something, adding, “Yeah, everyone’s been dragging around here all day. Seems the girl was a member for a while. I don’t remember her, but a bunch of the others do. That’s why I’m calling. Everybody must either be depressed or scared, and business is a real bummer. So I was wondering if you felt like taking an extra workout today?”

  Another guy with the soul of a slug, Zach thought drolly. Did he think women cared about their thighs and men about their beer bellies at a time like this? Only the fact that his focus was intensifying on Ger kept Zach from telling him to get a life.

  “Sounds okay. What time?”

  “How about—Can you hold on a second?”

  Zach listened as Ger turned away to respond to someone who’d interrupted. He had to concentrate because it sounded as if Ger had the receiver either pressed to his chest or almost covered with his hand. Still Zach faintly heard the man swear and say something like “—her. She can’t do this to me!” The person bearing the bad news made a brief comment to that and a second later Ger replied, “All right. All right! Tell her I’m coming.”

  Then to Zach he said, “Ah…sorry, man. This real pain in the—I just learned another customer needs me. I have to cancel out.”

  Damn. Zach did some quick calculating. “How about later? I’m available until around seven.” He figured that would give him time enough to shower and prepare for Elias.

  “Better not. I never know, uh…forget it. I can’t,” he muttered, sounding more rattled by the minute. “Sorry I bugged you.”

  Zach sat listening to empty air space for several seconds before he hung up. Who was the customer who’d flustered the trainer so? Was he indulging in too much wishful thinking, or had Judith gotten a message through to her puppet? The timing was right. After that exchange with Felix in Willa’s store, Judith would be foaming at the mouth. It fit…it fit…but could he be sure?

  Returning to the study, he finished resetting the chess pieces. Then he hurried back upstairs, knowing Willa would be getting frantic.

  As he picked up the phone, he realized he had no dial tone. “Sweetheart? Is that you?”

  “This is Roger. Roger Elias. Guess my timing’s off. It sounds as if you’re expecting another call.”

  Zach shut his eyes, tempted to beat his head against the desk. Now what? he wondered.

  “It’s no problem, Roger. What’s up?”

  “I can’t come tonight.”

  The words came out in a rush, and sounded tense, leaving Zach with the impression that he didn’t want to explain himself, either. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No, I…Something’s come up and I won’t be able to make it, that’s all.”

  But in all the time they’d been meeting, he’d only missed one night and that was last winter when an ice storm had raged through most of Texas. It struck Zach as highly coincidental that Elias should choose tonight for his second absence.

  “I see,” he said simply, aware of silence’s power on the psyche, particularly on the telephone. He hoped that would make Elias squirm enough to slip up and provide some piece of information. Zach knew he couldn’t afford to wait until their next game.

  “It’s not a problem, is it? You, er, sounded like you might have something lined up anyway.”

  That’s the one thing Zach didn’t want him to suspect. “Oh, that. I’d been cut off from my agent’s assistant, and I thought she was calling back.”

  “Oh. I thought…since you said ‘sweetheart’…”

  “If you heard her voice, you’d understand. She sounds twenty minutes out of college. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Anyway,” he added quickly, before Roger tried to cut him off, “I’ll miss the game. You do give the day a boost when I have to anticipate whether you’ll challenge me with either a Catalan Opening, or the Latvian Gambit or the Slav Defense.”

  “You don’t have to say that because you think it’ll make me feel better. I thought you might be glad for the break. I seem to be getting on your nerves lately, anyway.”

  Zach’s gut instinct was to keep pacifying the younger man. He’d dropped enough hints to make it clear he knew who he was talking to—or thought he knew. As much as he loathed empty gestures and insincere compliments, he would do that and more if it meant keeping the stalker from striking again. He had to remember the man had been drawn to him first because of hero worship.

  “Nothing could be further from the truth, Roger. Apparently, I’ve let my work and my self-destructive habits get the best of me, and at expense to you. I apologize.”

  “I hate it when you patronize me.”

  The slam of the phone forced Zach to jerk the receiver away from his ear. What the hell…? And he
thought he’d been losing his mind?

  He hung up the receiver, but didn’t take his hand away. Willa wasn’t going to believe this, he thought, glancing down at the number he’d written down. He dialed her number.

  The moment he heard her voice, he murmured, “I wish it was closing time.”

  “What on earth took you so long? I didn’t take nearly as long as you did!”

  “You didn’t have three different maniacs to deal with.”

  That quieted her. “What do you mean? I’m in my office—it’s okay.”

  First he told her about Felix—a summarized version, but she seemed to get the idea. What helped him most was that, as he’d learned last night, she was a good listener, and cared.

  “Zach, bless your heart,” she whispered when he’d finished sharing the first part of his story. “I can’t believe he did that to you! Are you all right? Did you mean what you said when I answered the phone? Let me make a few calls to bring in more staff. I can be there in…a half hour?”

  “Hey, that was just self-pity talking. You have enough on your hands.” But he was moved by her gesture. It had been a long time since anyone had offered to make such a sacrifice for him. “I’ll survive—if you’ll promise to let me see you later.”

  Her sigh barely made it across the line. “I’m so glad you want to.”

  “Willa, I’d push the sun down and drag up the moon if I could,” he confessed, a little embarrassed at how eager that made him sound.

  “I’d help you if I could,” she whispered back. Then she grew sad and angry. “Blast it all! He seemed like such a dignified, honest man. I liked him, Zach. Yes, he was a bit rigid and formal, but I thought that was just a part of his commitment to excellence. Instead he’s the world’s worst waffler! No wonder Judith took such pleasure taking cat swipes at him. Surely he can’t believe she’ll leave him alone now?”

  Zach had wondered about the same thing. “I suppose he thinks if he doesn’t have access to my money, he’s no longer worth harassing, but you’re right. That’s naive on his part and shows he still doesn’t know what he’s dealing with. He thinks he’s dealing with a witch, when in actuality he has someone far more dangerous on his hands.”