Southern Comfort - Fern Michaels [85]
The blackmailer laughed. “Oh, stop with the threats, Larry my boy. I’ve been in your condo, I’ve touched your silk boxers. What’s a little search of your room? Nothing. Trust me. And did you know that I’ve always thought of you as Larry. Lawrence never suited you.”
“We’re supposed to meet tonight at Sloppy Joe’s. What more could you possibly want?”
He heard the caller laugh. He wanted to reach through the phone and wring his neck, choke the life right out of him.
“You really don’t have a clue, do you, Larry?”
Such anguish. Goddammit, he knew the voice from somewhere, he’d heard it before. He couldn’t place exactly where and when, but when it came to him, the bastard was going to be sorry.
“Stop calling me Larry. No one calls me that. What the fuck do you want? I thought we’d made our plans?”
A wicked laugh caused him to hold the cell phone away from his ear. He could not wait for this to be over and done with. With his days numbered as a DEA agent, he just wanted to get on with his life. Maybe he’d move to the Bahamas when all was said and done. He wasn’t known there, at least as far as he knew. It might be the perfect place to start over. Maybe he could convince Nancy Holliday to come for a visit. What the hell was wrong with him? Suddenly he was having all these fantasies, now it was Nancy Holliday, and he didn’t even know the woman.
“I think you’re getting very brave, Agent Tyler. Actually, I’m calling because I want to help you.”
Tyler shook his head. He wasn’t that gullible. He said nothing and waited for the blackmailer to resume his emasculation for the day.
“You’ve been watching that compound on Mango Key for over a year now, haven’t you?” the blackmailer asked.
“That has nothing to do with you,” Tyler said. He removed the phone from his ear and was about to press the END button when he heard the blackmailer raise his voice.
“Don’t hang up.”
Now Tyler was sure the bastard had a camera on him, as there was no other explanation. He sure as hell wasn’t psychic. “Where is it?” Tyler asked. “I know you’ve been in my room, so I can only assume you weren’t in here just to touch my things. Though maybe you were. You tell me.” Tyler smiled. Two points for him.
“You can wipe that shit-eating grin off your pretty mug, sonny boy. Of course I’ve been in your room, and of course I’ve planted a camera, along with an audio device, and your phone is bugged, as you surely must know by now. You can toss everything and start anew, but it will be a waste of time. In a matter of minutes, maybe an hour or two at most, I will have the new items bugged just as easily as I did the first time. Now that we have that matter cleared, I want you to listen to what I have to say. We both know you’re about to become DEA refuse. Let’s just say I have recently been made aware of a certain event that not only will allow you to keep your job, but to rise to the top, as I’ve told you in previous phone conversations.”
Damn! Who in the hell is this? I know the voice, know it’s disguised, but I can’t pin it down. Think, dammit, where have I heard this voice before?
“Don’t waste your time trying to figure out who I am. You’ll never guess. Now, I am running out of patience with you, Larry. As they say, time is money, and I have wasted too much time already. Do you want to hear what I have to say or not? It’s your call.”
Did he? Tyler wasn’t sure, but if the blackmailer had a plan to dig his ass out from under the mile of crud he’d wedged himself under, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to listen to what he had to say. “I’ll give you one minute, then I’m hanging up. And I will not meet you tonight if this info turns out to be another line of your bullshit. You got that?” Tyler puffed his chest out. See? He could call the shots when he needed to. If only his father could hear him, he’d think twice before making fun of him again.
The blackmailer gave him the details of what he would need to do and when and where to do it in order for him to come out smelling like a