Southern Comfort - Fern Michaels [103]
Pete looked scared.
“I was starting to get worried. It’s been almost fifteen minutes. Everything okay?”
“Peachy,” Sandy said as she rummaged through the glove compartment. She found a pocketknife. “I’ll be right back.”
Without giving Pete an explanation, Sandy raced across the street. Her feet were raw from the damned pebbles, her stomach had a scrape the size of a melon, plus she had to pee.
Seeing Lawrence Tyler’s mouth taped was priceless. Seeing Lawrence Tyler’s upper body duct taped to the steering wheel was even better. Sandy couldn’t help herself. She laughed so hard tears pooled down her face. Before she cut him loose, she wanted to see the bastard squirm just a few minutes longer. After a couple of minutes of watching him writhe and twist, she whipped the pocketknife out and sliced the heavy-duty duct tape away from his mouth.
As soon as the tape fell away from his mouth, Tyler yelled at her, “You idiot. There’s a bomb under the seat set to go off at midnight. Cut me free and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Oh my God,” Sandy said as she began hacking away at the tape pinning him to the steering wheel. “Are you sure about the timing.”
“How the hell would I know any more about the timing than what my loving godfather said?” he replied.
“Your loving godfather? What the hell are you talking about, Tyler?” she asked as she frantically continued with her efforts to cut him loose.
“It’s a long story.”
Before either of them could say anything else, the last of the tape came loose, and they ran from the Mustang as fast as they could. And it was a good thing, too, because no sooner had they crossed the street to get to the car Pete was still sitting in than the bomb in the Mustang went off and flames shot ten feet into the sky. Pieces of the car shot out in all directions, and only the tall shrubbery kept them from being hit by flying debris.
Pete jumped from the car and ran over to where Sandy had instinctively pulled Tyler to the ground. “Are you all right,” he asked. “What the hell just happened? Did that car over there explode?”
“Pete, help us to the car and let’s get out of here. Give me the cell phone so I can call Jelly. As for you, Tyler, just get in the car and shut up. As soon as we’re away from here, you and I are going to have a serious chat.”
For once, Tyler was quiet.
Up till now, Sandy had joked and made light of the entire evening, but now it was time to get down to business. “Lawrence, it seems your father has had your ass covered again. Jellard got word that you’re being blackmailed. Want to tell me about it?”
Tyler looked at her as though he’d like nothing better than to chew her up and spit her out, but didn’t. “No, but I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Not really.”
Without arguing, without calling her every name in the book, Lawrence Tyler told Sandra Martin his story about the blackmailing informant, who had turned out to be his godfather.
“I thought they knew what was going on at that . . . damn compound, so I took off hoping to make a bust before my ass got kicked to the curb. Now I find out this was personal. I don’t get it. I still don’t know what I was being blackmailed about. That miserable bastard never said before he forced me to let him tape me to the steering wheel and told me that now that I knew who he was, he was going to have to eliminate the evidence against him, namely me. That’s when he planted that bomb he said would go off at midnight.”
Sandy almost felt sorry for Tyler. Almost.
“I don’t know why you were being blackmailed either, but here’s what I think.” Sandy held her hand up. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to hear me out.”
Tyler just nodded as though he knew he was defeated.
“This blackmailer, your godfather, knew you would do whatever it took to make a grand-finale career move. He knew you were about to get the boot. He knew Kate and I were sent to Mango Key to watch that damned place. What better time to blackmail