Runaway, page 1
RUNAWAY
LISA MARIE RICE
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No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Lisa Marie Rice, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
Escapade ©2018 by Lisa Marie Rice
Cover Design by Sweet 'N Spicy Designs
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Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Also by Lisa Marie Rice
About the Author
1
Warrenton, Upstate New York February 20
Eight billion dollars.
All that was standing in the way of eight billion dollars was an old man dying of pancreatic cancer and his cold bitch of a daughter. Once Philip and Charlotte Court were dead, he could cash in. In about an hour, it would be a done deal.
Robert Haine ran his finger over the preliminary contract with the Pentagon. The figure was written in letters and digits, simple laser-produced strokes of ink on paper, but he found it impossible to lift his hand from the document.
Haine wasn’t a fanciful man—indeed, being a cold-eyed realist had taken him far in life—but it seemed to him that the letters grew warm under his fingers.
Eight billion dollars. On May 30. He’d be a billionaire in three months’ time. True, the money wasn’t, strictly speaking, his. Strictly speaking, it belonged to Court Industries, or rather to Philip Court and his beautiful but cold daughter, Charlotte. It would have been his by rights if Charlotte had married him. That had been the plan. But his careful courtship of her had gone nowhere. The tasteful expensive gifts, the flowers, the dinner invitations—all turned down.
Still, he was CEO of the company, and the Proteus Project was his. His baby, his idea, rammed through over the objections of the Courts.
Haine was now a mega-rainmaker. Billion-dollar contracts were the stuff of legend, and he’d suddenly become a man who could bring in ten digits, a man who had the power to move so much money it would have to be stacked on pallets if it were in cash.
There was no going back. He couldn’t lose this.
He was rich now. Or soon would be.
He was good at being rich, too. He knew how to do it right. The Courts, both father and daughter, sucked at it. Fuckers had had money for more generations than he’d had hot meals as a child, and you’d never know it. Philip dressed in old, comfortable clothes and ancient shoes made by an English cobbler a thousand years ago. He’d once boasted that the ragged old tweed jacket he had on had belonged to his father. Robert nearly gagged.
They had a huge 300-year-old pile of bricks along the river that hadn’t been renovated in fifty years. Everything in it was shabby. “Comfortable” they called it. There was no sense to it, either. Charlotte’s watercolors were hung right next to the two Winslow Homers her great-grandmother had bought from the painter himself. The Homers were worth a cool two million, and Charlotte’s watercolors were worth exactly zero, since she didn’t exhibit, but there they were—together on the same wall. Charlotte could have all the jewelry she wanted, but all she ever wore were her mother’s and grandmother’s rings and a string of pearls inherited from an English aunt.
And then there was Charlotte herself. With those cool grey eyes, studying him, finding him wanting.
If she had accepted him in her bed, he’d have showered her with Bulgari rings and Tiffany bracelets, but the little bitch wouldn’t give him the time of day. Nothing he could do would catch her attention for more than a minute. He might as well have been a neutered dog. Here he was, fucking saving her fucking company for her, and she couldn’t look at him for more than a minute without yawning.
There was nothing he could do to impress her. She didn’t seem to give a shit that he’d taken the company from the brink of bankruptcy and had turned it around in five years. No matter that instead of a slow slide into bankruptcy, the end of a company that had been in the Court family since 1854, Court Industries had been turned into a leading-edge provider of precision equipment, and that he’d worked eighteen-hour days for years to do it. He’d saved the Courts’ asses, and they weren’t even noticing. Philip Court was on a respirator, dying, and Charlotte Court didn’t care about anything except her father.
What the fuck did she care if the company went under? She probably had enough socked away for life. Charlotte had a rich aunt in Chicago who’d left her a bundle she hadn’t even touched. There was enough valuable crap in that musty old mansion of theirs to keep her for a hundred years. No, Miss Cold Bitch would never know poverty and degradation, would never live in a trailer park. She had no idea how low you can fall, and never would.
Well, she’d asked for it.
Charlotte had no clue that when she refused him first, then the Pentagon contract, she suddenly made herself into a roadblock, a wall to his ambitions.
All his life, Haine had been able to see the next step and the one beyond that and channel his energy in the direction he wanted events to go. It always amazed him that people could be so blind to consequences, not see. Haine could. He could war-game it so easily.
Philip Court was about to die—Haine checked his watch, the slimmest of Huguets—in about twenty minutes. Wasn’t even murder, really. Just a little speeding up of the natural process.
Haine had outsourced that task to his chief of security, Martin Conklin, and his team. Conklin was scheduled to call in half an hour to say that Part One of the mission was complete. Philip Court was dead in his intensive care unit. That was easy—who was going to do an autopsy on a guy dying of pancreatic cancer, wasting away in some elegant private clinic, listening to Mozart? Conklin—who was good at voice disguise—would place the call to Charlotte. Ms. Court, this is Dr. Sebastian Orvis at Parkwood Hospital. I’m afraid I have some bad news. He’d then drive to the dangerous curve on Overlook, where Charlotte would lose her life.
Haine started rehearsing the solemn tones he’d use at the club, lamenting the tragedy over a vodka martini.
Well, you know how distraught Charlotte’s been lately. Practically living in that hospital room. Beautiful young woman like that, it’s not natural, spending all her time with a sick man. There had to be a reaction. Such a loving daughter, but she was exhausted. And you know what the road is like just above Overlook. That’s a really tricky curve. Why just the other day, my car slipped and almost bounced off the guardrail at that exact point. Charlotte’s never been a good driver. The car just spun out of control. What a tragedy. What a waste. Court Industries? Why I guess I’ll just have to carry on without Philip. That’s what he would have wanted. Charlotte, too.
Haine trusted Conklin to run her off the road. He’d been trained and trained well in combat driving.
The phone rang and Haine frowned when he saw the caller ID. It was way too soon for Conklin to be calling.
“Yes?” Haine answered. As always, no names. Not on cell phones, not on landlines.
“We got a problem.” The cell phone connection was lousy, crackling and hissing. Was Conklin panting?
“What?” Haine’s voice was calm, but the hairs on his neck were standing up. This was supposed to be easy. It was just a thing that had to be done to get to the other side of the road, without any fuss.
“She was there already.”
Every hair on his body was standing up. Charlotte spent long days and some nights in the hospital with her father. But she always came home for a few hours in the late afternoon. She was supposed to be home, goddammit!
“Bitch whacked me with the IV tree. A nurse got in the way, and I had to take her down, too. But I winged her. Through the shoulder, I think. She’s bleeding, I followed her trail out of the hospital, but she’s gone.”
Shitshitshit!!!
And then it came to him complete, like a storyboard.
“I’m going to have to go down to police headquarters—can you meet me there?”
“Yeah. There’s going to be fallout, though. The old guy’s room is a mess, and there’s a dead nurse outside.”
Haine was thinking fast. He had ten men in CI’s Security Department to deploy. He’d hired well. They were loyal to him, not the company.
“Don’t worry about that. You’ll be meeting up with Vaneyck, Oakley, and Ryan outside police headquarters. Stop Charlotte from getting into the police station. Use any means you want, but make sure she doesn’t get through. No matter what.” Con
“Of course.” Conklin sounded shocked.
“What is it?”
“Smith & Wesson 908.”
Perfect, Haine thought. It only weighed twenty-four ounces and had a small grip. The kind of gun a woman would choose.
“Wipe it down. Did you load the magazine like I tell you to do?”
“With latex gloves? Yeah.”
Okay. There would be no fingerprints on the weapon traceable back to Conklin.
Haine war-gamed the new version. For the benefit of Chief Brzynski and that new anchorwoman on WRCTV, the cute one with the tight ass, what was her name? Anna. Anna Lorenzetti.
Poor Charlotte, I guess she finally just broke down. Maybe I should have seen the signs. She told me a couple of months ago she felt hunted, there were enemies everywhere. She even told me she’d acquired an illegal weapon. A Smith & Wesson, I think she said. She’s been acting very erratically, Anna. Said she hadn’t slept well in months, and she was looking very poorly.
Who on earth could imagine it would come to this?
I sent my head of security to check on how Philip was doing in the hospital. We miss him very much at the office. Conklin said he caught Charlotte smothering her father with a pillow. I guess she just couldn’t stand to see him suffer anymore.
I’m sure she wasn’t herself when she shot that nurse. The stress was just too much for her.
Here a slow sorrowful shake of the head. Sad, pensive expression.
What a waste, Anna. What a terrible waste.
Wonderful story. Played very well. It would play particularly well with Chief Brzynski. A month ago Haine hinted that Brzynski could count on a 200K–a-year job with Court Industries after retirement. It was all in place.
Now all that was missing was a dead Charlotte.
“Take her down, Conklin. I want men around her house and in a perimeter around police headquarters. Tell your men to shoot on sight. Make sure you get to the body before the cops do and plant that gun on her. Fold her fingers around it. Say she was drawing on you and you shot in self-defense.” Haine stopped and did some calculations. The amount had to be just right. Enough to be a strong motivator but not so much they’d be too eager to take precautions. “Tell the men there’s a thirty-thousand bonus for the one who bags her.”
Haine disconnected and started dressing to go out. It was snowing. He hesitated a moment. The cashmere Armani overcoat would get soaked. Better to go with the Shearling.
2
Ripley, New York February 20
“Fill it up!”
Charlotte Court buzzed down the window of her maid’s SUV and shouted over the howling wind at the gas station attendant. She was shaking with shock and pain and grief, huddled in her down jacket against the icy sleet pinging against her face.
Underneath the jacket, blood was seeping out of the makeshift bandage she’d packed against the bullet wound. Her heart was also bleeding grief for her father, still and dead on his hospital bed, murdered by one of Robert’s minions. Of the shocks of the past two hours, that was the worst—knowing her father was dead.
She needed a safe place to hole up. Robert’s men had been at the police station and had surrounded her home. The profile of an armed man outside the gates of her home had been visible against the dying light. Whatever was going on, she needed to get away from Robert, get medical attention, then call in the murder of her father and the attack on her life to the FBI.
A motel was a possibility. She was driving her maid’s SUV. Moira had even left her brand-new American passport in the glove compartment, so Charlotte could sign in to the hotel as Moira Charlotte Fitzgerald. Then from there she could call…
Charlotte jumped as a face with a straggly moustache plastered itself against the passenger-side window. “That’ll be seventy bucks, ma’am,” the man screamed against the wind.
Charlotte bumped her left shoulder against the door in turning towards her purse and nearly blacked out from the pain. She had to breathe slowly through her nose until the worst had passed. Thank God she was wearing black. Blood from the wound had seeped slowly through the down jacket and left a red, wet sheen on the left-hand side door.
No credit card. Whatever Robert was up to, he had the resources to track credit-card payments. So she handed most of the small amount of cash she had over to the attendant and drove around to the side of the station.
The restrooms were way in the back, past rows of shelves with junk food, soda pop, maps, and movie magazines. Were there any OTC medications? A couple of aspirin might just dull the pain a little. Or even better, ibuprofen.
She heard her father’s name mentioned and another stab of grief nearly brought her to her knees. Her eyes welled, her heart thumped painfully at the thought that she’d never see her father again.
Then another name caught her attention.
To her horror, someone was calling her name! Charlotte cringed, ready to run, when she realized that except for a very bored young teen bopping her head to the beat coming through her earbuds, she was alone in the shop.
What…?
Her name was being blared from the TV fixed to a bracket high up on the wall. There was a big-hair female anchor. A photograph of Charlotte was in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.
Police are on the lookout for Charlotte Court, heiress to Court Industries. She is wanted for questioning in the death of her father, Philip Court of Court Industries at Parkwood Hospital and the shooting death of Imelda Delgado, a trauma nurse at the hospital. Police warn that Ms. Court may be armed and must be considered dangerous. Anyone sighting Ms. Court is warned not to approach her but to contact the authorities at…
Oh my God! She was wanted for murder! Not only did she have to escape Robert and his goons, she had to avoid the police! Armed and dangerous. They’d shoot her on sight. And worse—Robert was friends with the chief of police. If she were in custody, he’d find a way to get to her.
Charlotte made it back to the SUV, gasping with panic. She pulled out of the gas station lot as quickly as the ice on the road allowed and headed west, hoping to make it across the state line before she fainted.
* * *
By nightfall, Haine was pacing, impatiently waving away his housekeeper’s offer of dinner.
The bitch had gotten away. He didn’t know how she had done it, but she’d disappeared off the face of the Earth.
She couldn’t get far, though. She hadn’t been back to Court Mansion, so she wouldn’t have much money. The instant she used her credit card, he’d be on top of her.
He’d spent the day at police headquarters, and an APB had been put out for one Charlotte Court, suspected of murder, considered armed and dangerous. Haine had long ago had duplicate keys made to Court Mansion. One never knew. He sent Conklin in to plant the gun in her room, under a pile of underwear. All they needed now was Charlotte. Dead.
The state police would be alert, but Haine trusted Conklin’s men more than he trusted the police. Conklin’s men were good—they were fast, and they were ruthless. They’d find her first and deliver a corpse.
It wouldn’t be long. Charlotte was wounded and on the run, the object of a manhunt.
No, Haine thought with a slow smile. A womanhunt.
Somewhere in Kansas
Crest Motor Court
February 24
Charlotte Court stared at her pale, exhausted face in the cracked, spotted bathroom mirror. Her skin was paper white, except for the patchy red fever flags on her cheekbones. Whatever her temperature was, she didn’t want to know. All she knew was that it was high. Fever floated in her veins, making her light-headed, slightly hallucinatory. For a moment, there were two white-faced Charlottes reflected in the dark-spotted mirror with the backing nearly completely eaten away on the left-hand side.
