Chapter 2
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Frank Ogden hunched, twisting his shoulders, trying to relax away the tension tightening his whole body. Damn Gary anyway.Frank no more wanted to be here right now than he wanted to look into his mother’s grave. But he had no other alternative. Gary’d made that very clear. Either Frank cooperated by getting the nosy FBI bitch off Gary’s back or Stacia Ogden Steadman would die.
Frank hated the step-brother who had bullied him for twenty years. Gary was a big, hulking brute with a streak of viciousness a hundred yards wide. He liked to make people squirm, liked to smell their fear and watch them wither. Frank was no ninety-pound weakling now, but years ago he’d been a slight and somewhat sickly kid. That was when the bullying had begun. It hadn’t ever ended. Gary didn’t punch Frank around anymore, but still knew how to get to him. Frank’s mother was one of those weak spots.
A widow once again, Stacia Steadman was in her late sixties, a gentle, little woman, almost fragile, slender and fine-boned. Max Steadman had left her enough to live on comfortably. In his gruff way, he’d been kind to her and her son, but his death had left them both vulnerable to Gary’s brutality. Max had left money to Gary, too, but it wasn’t enough. Gary wanted it all. Until Stacia was also dead, he couldn’t have it.
Frank wanted to postpone that event as long as he could. If he had to step across the line into a shadowy area close to abetting a felon, he’d do it. Maybe he could somehow get word to the law later. And maybe he could protect the determined FBI agent from any real harm. He’d already told Gary he wouldn’t stand to see her hurt or killed. Could he make good on that vow? And then, if things worked right, he just might be able to take Gary down. He knew enough now: the only question was when, where and how to use it so no one got hurt.
Her name was Kerry Satterfield. Such things weren’t hard to find out if you knew your way around cyberspace, which Frank did. The name was vaguely familiar, but how could it be the same person? The Kerry Satterfield he’d known back in the small Arkansas town where they’d both once lived had been a skinny, ragged waif of a girl. Since her mother was labeled the town whore, the boys all figured Kerry would be easy. She wasn’t, but she’d had to fight to keep her chastity.
Knowing how it felt to be bullied and hassled, Frank had stood up for her until they become friends. Then Max Steadman had been transferred. The family left and never went back. He wasn’t sure why he still remembered the girl.
About then, he saw the battered blue Toyota pull into the parking lot below the second-story window from which he watched. It was the same car he’d left the note on two days ago. The tall, slender, auburn-haired woman who got out didn’t look anything like the girl he recalled. It had to be someone else. She paused with her hand on the door handle, her gaze sweeping the area. Alert as a startled deer, she was clearly ready to flee or fight. She was also beautiful, not in the classic starlet and model sense, but in a strong, confident yet feminine way, as a lioness or a bitch wolf might be.
That’s one hell of a woman.The thought came unbidden, but equally undeniable. Something quickened inside of him.
She strode across the lot to disappear into the foyer where the mailboxes and the buzzers for each apartment were. Although this part of town had seen better days, most of the apartments and homes retained a modicum of amenities, a few traces of their former class. Buzzing for admission was one of those residuals. There really wasn’t much security, but it gave the illusion. Gary liked to rent places that had a hint of class, not the real low-rent slum spots. He said the law paid a lot less attention to what went on in the supposedly decent neighborhoods.
The raspy jangle of the electric bell cut through his thoughts. Frank strode across the room and then pushed the answer button. “Who is it?”
“K—Karen Stephens.”
He heard her hesitation over the false name, but he already knew who she was. Pushing the other button to open the grated gate at the foot of the stairs, he spoke into the microphone. “Come on up.”
He had the advantage since he’d seen her already and knew what to expect, except up close her sheer sexuality had even more impact. She was tall, about five-ten, he’d guess, close to his own six-foot height. Slim yet athletic, she still had enough curves in all the right places, but it wasn’t just her body. It wasn’t even her square-jawed, angular face lit by vivid hazel eyes and a mouth just a little too wide for perfection. Everything about her screamed woman and hinted she was a woman who could be had. No pushover, though…not cheap or easy. But if a guy knew the right buttons, she was available. Maybe she didn’t even realize the signals she sent.