Southern Comfort - Fern Michaels [96]
However, he wasn’t finished with Kate Rush and Sandra Martin. He would ruin that pair if it was the last thing he ever did. He’d virtually begged the Rush bitch to listen to him when he’d showed up at the cop’s place. He even tried to appeal to her sense of duty, or he thought he had, but she still refused to relent and listen to what he had to say. When all was said and done, he would take care of Kate Rush. And that was it.
For the rest of the evening, Lawrence Tyler was going to be Lawrence Tyler, whoever the hell that was. Right now, he was content to be the guy Nancy Holliday had met on her way to Key West.
He dressed in the soft worn denim jeans he’d purchased at the secondhand store and a white dress shirt. He left the two top buttons undone and rolled up the sleeves for a casual look. Eyeing the dirty sneakers he’d tossed in the closet, he had a change of heart. He wanted to look casual, snappy, like everyone else in Key West, so he opted for a pair of the leather flip-flops he’d purchased at that tacky tourist gift shop. He slipped the newly purchased Ray-Bans around his neck, grabbed his wallet, along with the keys to the rental car and his room key. As he was about to lock the door behind him, he remembered his cell phone. He ran back inside and grabbed it off the small dressing table. He’d keep it on vibrate. The last thing he wanted was a call from the blackmailer while he was getting to know Nancy Holliday.
Tyler jogged downstairs and outside onto the front porch of the bed-and-breakfast. The warm evening air was a pleasant surprise. It had been so hot and humid the past two days that Tyler wondered why he’d ever considered living in Florida again. He’d hated it when he had to spend time here as a kid, especially when he was trotted out for his father’s political campaigns, and when Jellard had assigned him to the Miami office before he turned the tables and ended up switching places with Jellard, Tyler had hated it even more.
Inside the Mustang, he poked a few knobs to lower the rag top. He cranked up the engine, found an oldies station playing The McGuire Sisters singing “Teach Me Tonight.” He smiled, thinking about how fitting that song was. He cranked up the volume and drove the short distance to the other end of Duval Street. Lady Luck was with him, and he found a parking spot on the corner of Greene Street, mere feet from the famous Hemingway hangout. He didn’t bother closing up the rental. He’d taken out insurance. If anyone wanted to screw with it, so be it.
He walked the short distance to Sloppy Joe’s, where the music was so loud it could be heard several blocks away. He frowned, thinking the environment sure as hell wasn’t conducive to getting to know Nancy Holliday unless they used sign language. If she showed, maybe he could convince her to take a stroll on the beach. Later, of course. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t like the loud music and party atmosphere. He couldn’t have cared less about the racket, but he truly did want to get to know the woman better. For some reason, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. Normally, he was with a different woman every other night. He was lucky if he remembered their names. But not this time. He checked the time on the watch he’d purchased at the drugstore—7:50.
He stood outside on the sidewalk in front of Sloppy Joe’s, hoping to spot Nancy or someone whom he would recognize as his blackmailer. He stood there for twenty-five minutes, his mood turning more sour by the second. Fuck it, he said to himself as he went inside. It was eight fifteen. Nancy wasn’t going to show, and it looked as though his blackmailer wasn’t going to either. He found a beat-up wooden barstool at the bar. The bartender, a young guy with a pierced lip and tongue and a Mohawk, wiped the bar off in front of him, slapped down a wet cardboard coaster, and said, “What ya havin’?”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’ll have a