Shadows At Sunset. Anne Stuart

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      What hadn’t been easy was learning patience over the long years, the great gift of biding his time. He’d been in place for almost a year now, working his way into Jackson Meyer’s confidence to the point where he had total control of the legal department at Meyer Enterprises. Zack Coltrane, with the phony Ivy League degree, the charming smile and the California laid-back ease was poised and ready to take Jackson Dean Meyer down.

      But he couldn’t make his move until he had all the answers. It wasn’t going to be enough to destroy Meyer financially. Killing him would be too easy. Coltrane had never killed anyone in his life, though he’d come close a few times. He suspected in the case of Jackson Meyer it wouldn’t require much effort. He hated him that much.

      But death ended things. And he wanted an everlasting torment for the man who murdered his mother. Once he had proof. He wanted Meyer to know who destroyed him, and why.

      Destroying his business and reputation would be merely a start, and he’d been working on that since he’d come to L.A. Destroying his family would be even better, an eye for an eye. Coltrane had grown up in the grinding, soulless poverty of the icy Midwest, with a father too drunk to even notice him since they’d lost the one thing that mattered to either of them. The least Coltrane could do was return the favor, no matter what that made him.

      The problem was, finding someone Jackson Meyer cared about other than his own sleek, artificially tanned, fitness-center-buffed hide was no easy task. He treated his trophy wife like an impatient parent, his two young children like puppies who hadn’t been housebroken. As far as Coltrane could tell he didn’t even remember their names. And his daughter Jilly might as well not exist for all the mention that had been made of her.

      But Rachel-Ann was different. Rachel-Ann was Meyer’s one weak spot, and that was who Coltrane intended to work on. He’d already managed to put enough pressure on Dean to get him out of the way—Meyer’s only son had conceded the battle without firing a single shot, retiring to his computers and an impressive case of the sulks. As for Jilly, she was simply a casualty of war—if he had time he’d take her, but she was merely a sideline.

      From all reports Rachel-Ann had been hovering on the brink of destruction for most of her life. It seemed only fitting that he’d help push her over the edge, and then stand back and watch while Meyer went flailing after her. And he refused to think about what kind of man that made him.

      He poured himself a Scotch, straight up, carrying it out onto the patio as he slowly sipped it. It was the best Scotch he could find, a single malt from a tiny distillery in the Hebrides, and it had become part of a ritual—a silent toast to the father who drank his life away. An arrogant daring of fate to try to do the same to him. After a decade he still hadn’t learned to like the taste of it, but he drank it, anyway, a small spit in the eye of the vengeful gods.

      His plan was simple. He’d use Jilly to get to her fragile older sister, then go from there. He was a patient man, but he’d waited long enough. Time to up the ante. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to harm innocents. But if Dean was anything to go by then Meyer’s grown children were far from innocent.

      The Los Angeles night was settling down around him, and he stared out over the city, his back to the perfectly decorated apartment that was nothing more than a stage setting. He could feel the cool tingle of anticipation in his veins, a headier drug than the whiskey. By tomorrow night he’d be in the legendary Casa de Sombras, well on his way to the answers he’d spent years of his life looking for. And if he felt even a faint twinge of regret that Jilly Meyer was going to be one of the casualties of war, he dismissed it with a stray grimace.

      He answered the phone on the third ring, just before the answering service would get it, knowing who it was.

      “Did you get rid of her?” Jackson Dean Meyer barked into the phone.

      “For now. You didn’t tell me you wanted me to do anything permanent,” he said lazily.

      There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. “Is there something permanent you could do?”

      “I suppose I could find a hit man if you think it’s necessary….”

      “I don’t find that amusing, Coltrane,” Meyer said icily. “I’m not in the habit of murdering my children.”

      No, only your lovers, he thought calmly, eyeing his drink. “Then she’s going to keep after you until you give her what she wants. You know what women can be like.”

      “She always was a stubborn bitch. Just like her mother,” Meyer snapped. “What is it exactly that she wants?”

      “She wasn’t particularly clear about that, but I imagine it’s something along the lines of you loving your son and me being at the bottom of the ocean.”

      Meyer’s dry chuckle sounded faintly asthmatic. “Made a good impression on her, did you? I warned you she could be difficult. What are you planning to do about her?”

      “Take her out to dinner tomorrow night.”

      “You won’t get her into bed. She’s the prude in the family.”

      “Why would I want to get her into bed?” Coltrane took another sip of his Scotch. The ice had melted, watering the drink down slightly, and the sharpness danced against his tongue.

      “To keep her occupied. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed she’s a good-looking woman. Can’t hold a candle to Rachel-Ann, of course, but she’s still pretty enough even with that hair of hers. And last I heard you weren’t involved with anyone.”

      Coltrane had no doubt that Meyer knew exactly who he’d been sleeping with over the last year and how long each relationship had lasted. His employer’s efforts at surveillance were laughably blatant, and Coltrane always fed him just enough to keep him satisfied.

      “You want me to marry her, boss?” he drawled. “Or just shack up with her?”

      “Don’t push me, Coltrane,” Meyer said. “I want you to distract her. I’ve got too much on my plate right now. Getting the Cienaga estate shouldn’t be causing these kinds of problems, and I don’t need the Justice Department breathing down my neck. You were supposed to give them stuff to distract them. Send them off on another tack.”

      “I took care of it.”

      “Goddamned bureaucrats don’t seem to have a realistic idea of how things are done out here. And where the campaign contributions come from. Get them off my back, Coltrane.”

      “It’s been done,” Coltrane said soothingly. Indeed, it had. The Justice Department investigations of Jackson Dean Meyer’s covert business practices had gone from one investigator to an entire team. And Meyer hadn’t the faintest idea how little time he had left.

      “I don’t want to waste my energies distracted by inconsequentials,” he said.

      Inconsequentials like your children, Coltrane thought, but didn’t say it out loud. There was a limit to how much leeway Jackson Meyer would give him. The man was convinced he needed Coltrane for all his little schemes to fall into place, but he needed his sense of omnipotence even more.

      Meyer was going to find out that his trust in both Coltrane and in his own invulnerability were sadly misplaced. And while it would be the icing on the cake for him to lose his children at the same time, it hadn’t taken Coltrane СКАЧАТЬ