California Schemin' - Kate George [66]
I rose and walked out of the room. Wallace hadn’t spoken since I’d yelled at him. Was this good or bad? I didn’t know, so I hotfooted it out of the room as fast as I could without looking like I was beating a hasty retreat. Which, of course, I was.
Beau was at the window with his suitcase and backpack when I came back in the room. His frown disappeared when he saw it was me.
“Thank God,” he said. “I was wondering if I needed to break in, guns blazing, and rescue you.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“No, no gun, just a figure of speech.”
“Oh.” I thought a moment about the merit of guns. “Too bad. Listen, Wallace wants to buy me off. He said he’d set me up for life if I ID'd those two guys. I’m thinking we can use this to escape. I’ll insist that I see Sheriff Fogel, and then I’ll tell him Wallace is blackmailing me. We’ll be free. Or something like that.”
“I still think we should escape. That way we don’t have to worry about either of us being held as hostage while he gets what he wants. Because whatever he says about money, he’ll use our relationship to elicit cooperation. He’s already proven that.”
“I’m game. Do we go now?”
“I think we’d better wait until nightfall. Too many people checking out the view during the day, and we can’t afford to be spotted.” He stashed his luggage behind the coffee table where it couldn’t be seen from the stairs and sat down on the couch. “Come sit with me. I want to hear what happened. I didn’t even know you were back in California.”
“You didn’t know I was gone? How long have you been here?”
“Look at the dates on my plans. A week at the very least, merrily designing projects to do when my leg heals.”
“You almost get killed falling off sabotaged scaffolding, and you come back here anyway? Didn’t it occur to you that it could be a trap?”
“I recognized Wallace’s name and figured a senator would be safe enough. If I disappeared, he’d know to go looking. It didn’t occur to me that he was in on the murder.”
“Lily Wallace. She was the money behind the man. Wallace doesn’t have any of his own. If she left he’d be ruined. He murdered her or had her murdered, if he didn’t actually pull the trigger.”
“What does he want with you?”
“He says he’ll make me independently wealthy if I claim that these two criminals did it. Why he thinks it will work, I don’t know. I already told Fogel I didn’t see anything.”
“People forget things when they are in moments of high stress. Fogel would probably believe you if you told him you remembered seeing someone. It would take the heat off Wallace and give him room to breathe. What did you tell him?”
“I take exception to being told to lie and perjure myself. I was thinking of telling Senator Wallace that I’d talk to Fogel and then somehow slip a note to Fogel so he’d know the truth. But I do think getting away would be better. Get away, find Fogel and tell him that Wallace has been holding me captive. That would be the safer thing to do.” And more satisfying.
“You never want to do anything the easy way, do you?”
“Easy shmeasy. I don’t want the bad guy to get to do things his way. Anyway, I’m sure he’d find a way to foul up my plan, so we’re getting out of here.”
I got up and examined the possibilities for escape. The windows didn’t open, of course. I was pretty sure if we broke one, an alarm would sound. I paced up and down thinking of options. There was nothing for it. We were going to have to go through the main house. Crap.
A quiet tap at the door interrupted my planning. Beau, who had been lounging on the couch watching me, sat up, concern on his face. The lock turned, and Wendy stepped through the door and closed it behind her. She ran lightly down the stairs to me.
“Paris and I have been planning,” she said quietly, “we’re going to get you out of here. I don’t know what my dad’s up to, but I’m sure it’s wrong. My mom told me he didn’t know right from wrong. That’s why she divorced him.”
“So why do you hang out with him?” I asked.
“I don’t. I was completely surprised