Their Virgin Secretary, Page 36

  sense this spirit doesn’t appreciate the presence of males. Yes. Please take the dog out the back and give us an hour or so.”

  Tate’s hold tightened and he looked down at Belle. “Is she serious? I mean I know they cleared the place out in Ghostbusters but that was because they were worried about crossing the streams. I don’t think we’re worried about that here. I’d rather stay with you.”

  Sometimes it was hard to keep up with Tate’s pop culture references, but he was on par now.

  “I’d like you to stay as well. Sometimes, the house scares me,” she lied.

  Something told her not to separate from Tate. Besides, Helena seemed to have it wrong. The ghost hadn’t been bothering the men. Every instinct she had told her the malevolent spirit had a problem with women.

  “Then I’m not going anywhere. The ghost will just have to deal,” Tate pronounced. He turned to Helena with a shrug. “And so will you. I understand if you can’t work under those circumstances. We can find someone else.”

  Helena held up a hand. “No. I’ll work around it.”

  There was a brisk knock on the door, and Tate walked toward it, his hand outstretched.

  “That’s my assistant,” the medium explained quickly. “Let him in. Just tell him to set up, starting in the bedroom.”

  “But the library is the worst room,” Belle began. Something chilly ran through her, causing her to shiver. Something was wrong. So wrong. Her heart started to race—and it was all centered around that door. Instinct flared inside her. “Tate, don’t open that door!”

  But he’d already had the knob turned. Belle watched in horror as a man’s silhouette loomed in the doorway.

  “Oh, crap. Not you again. What do you want?” Tate groused.

  Her grandmother’s lawyer stepped up, leveling a gun at Tate’s chest. “I want to get this piece of shit job done.”

  There was a tiny ping.

  Tate turned to her, his eyes wide. He pointed toward the back of the house. “Belle, run.”

  There was an odd capsule-like dart sticking from his chest. Tate took a single step in her direction before his face went slack, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Tate went down hard, his big body sliding to the floor.

  What the hell was going on? Belle screamed as the man pointed the gun her way.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A hand clapped over her mouth, stopping Belle in mid-scream. Something hard pressed between her shoulder blades.

  “Shut up or he’ll hit your boyfriend again,” the so-called medium hissed into her ear. “And I’ll have to put a bullet in your spine, too. I don’t want to do that, so you’d better stay calm.”

  The world seemed to have stopped as she turned to stare at Tate’s unmoving form. Was he dead? How could he be gone? He’d held her not an hour ago. He’d promised her a life together, that he’d never leave her. How could it be over? Would she end up like her mother, mourning and bitterly shutting out the other survivors?

  Tears made the world blurry as Belle stared at Tate, willing him to live. Then Gates stepped over his prone body and into the light.

  Her grandmother’s lawyer was dressed in all black, looking totally unkempt. All traces of the polished professional he’d been before were gone. He’d always put off a weird vibe, but now, with his fierce frown, he was downright nasty.

  What was he doing here with a gun?

  “Move him out of the way,” Gates sneered with a glance at Tate. “We’ll need to stage this properly, damn it. He’s a complication we didn’t need.” His cold eyes raked the woman behind Belle. “You said she would be alone.”

  Sir scampered over to Tate, sniffing and whimpering as he tried to rouse his master. The puppy whined and looked to Belle, as though she could fix the problem. She wished with everything in her heart that she could because Tate still wasn’t moving. Fear spiked through her veins. She needed to get to him, but the supposed psychic gripped her too tightly. Belle’s brain whirled. What the hell was going on here?

  Helena huffed. “She was supposed to be. I told the man who called to make the appointment with me that the house had to be cleared. It’s how I usually work. It’s way easier to con a single person than a whole group. There’s almost always a skeptical friend the mark will bring along, if you let her.”

  So Helena wasn’t a real psychic? Why had Mike recommended her? And why was she here with Gates? Had her grandmother’s lawyer been behind the attempts to scare her off all along?

  “You?” she asked him in horror.

  “Me,” he said simply.

  “W-why?”

  Gates stopped in the middle of the hallway and checked his gun. “Your grandmother had information I need. I’ve had this place bugged for years, hoping I’d figure out where she kept it hidden. Eventually, I figured out that she passed it on with the business she sold. But Karen brought it to her in the end. She considered the bitch her mentor or some shit. In fact, she came here at least once a week, but they talked mostly about the old days and their families, even the fucking weather. I think they knew someone was listening in.”

  Belle bit her lip to hold in a gasp. Grandma’s own attorney had been spying on her?

  “Are you going to do your job?” Gates asked Helena in a sour tone. “If not, I could have you tossed in jail. My client can make that happen, you know. He’s a very important judge. He has favors he can call in everywhere. If you turn on me, you won’t see the light of day for a long time, you con artist.”

  Belle really didn’t know what they were talking about, but it all sounded ominous. Two against one, and they had weapons. The odds weren’t looking good.

  “Like I said, I’ll do the job,” Helena shot back, and Belle didn’t think she meant cleansing the house of spirits. “I have zero interest in going to jail. I don’t look good in orange. Where’s your friend? I told you how we should set this up. I studied up on the suicides and the haunting. We can set this up to play straight into the legends about this place.”

  Meaning that someone would have to die by hanging, like those two Peterman girls? Belle’s blood ran cold.

  Gates nodded. “Everything we need is on its way. I told him to park far from the house so no one remembers his truck being here this evening. We’ll set everything up right. But first I need to get that list. You know what could happen if that fucking thing gets out. It would ruin my client and many of his very powerful friends.”

  “I’m sure,” the medium murmured. “Tell me something, Gates, are you on that list, too?”

  What list did they keep referring to? Was that the all-fired important information Gates had been spying on her grandmother to obtain?

  Sir suddenly barked, and Belle felt a chill pass through her.

  The woman behind her shivered. “Fuck, I hate this place. If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s actually haunted.”

  Gates barked. “You bought the act, too? Christ, I’d have thought you were too jaded to believe in things that go bump in the night. This place is no more haunted than my ass.”

  So his refusal to step foot in the house earlier had all been an act? Belle felt foolish for having fallen for it.

  Helena looked skeptical. “Just walking in here makes me sick. We need to get this done as quickly as possible. What are you going to do with that guy? Is he dead?”

  The door opened again, and all of Belle’s questions about who had left her the frightening messages since her arrival were answered. Mike, the electrician, stepped in, carrying a heavy bag. No wonder he’d recommended Helena. They were all in this together.

  Mike blanched and clenched his fists when he saw Tate lying in the hallway. “You said no one would get hurt.”

  “Oh, boohoo. So I lied.” Gates rolled his eyes. “He’s alive. I just hit him with a tranquilizer. I brought it along in case Miss Wright proved difficult, but now we’ve got to figure out how to include him in the scenario. I think I have a way to make this work. Hand me the gun.”

  Mike set down the bag and Gates exchanged his tranquilizer pistol for what looked like a real semiautomatic.

  Belle glanced Tate’s way and her heart soared. Finally, she saw what she’d been looking for: Tate’s chest rising and falling slightly. He was alive—at least for the moment. Hope flared inside her. There was still a chance to save him. She’d have to get out of this mess first.

  Gates moved into her space. “Yes, Miss Wright. Your lover is still among the living, but if I hit him again, I assure you his status will change. This one fires bullets. If I hit him in the chest now, he won’t get up again. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Belle shook her head. Tate’s death would devastate her.

  “Excellent.” A reptilian smile passed over the lawyer’s face. “Then you’re going to cooperate with me. If you tell me where the list is, I’ll make sure this goes easy and quick. We’ll finish our business and be out of your hair.”

  The only thing quick and easy would be her murder. There was no way he could leave her alive after all she’d heard. He’d just committed assault and threatened murder. Now he meant to burglarize her home. He’d admitted to planting listening devices around the house and spying on her grandmother for years for his client, a powerful and obviously corrupt judge. There was no chance he’d let her live. But he needed her cooperation before he offed her.

  She just needed to buy some time to hatch a plan or give Eric a chance to get home. “Of course I’ll help you. Just please don’t hurt him again.”

  She had no idea what drug they’d given him. He could have a bad reaction to it. As still as Tate was now, if they even gave him another dose, he might overdose. It could kill him. He looked so vulnerable, and Belle knew that only she stood between Tate and death.

  “Stop yakking and hurry up.” Helena loosened her hold. “I want this over with. The other two men are out, but I don’t know for how long. We need to be gone before they return. Why are there so many men living here anyway?”

  Gates sneered Belle’s way. “Because she’s a whore, just like her dear old grandma. You do know your grandmother ran a house of prostitution, don’t you? But when she retired, she sold it to her protégé.”

  “Karen Ehlers?” The infamous madam. Several things fell into place, and Belle got an inkling of what they were looking for, but it was probably in her best interest to play dumb.

  “Yes, Karen Ehlers.” Gates nodded toward Mike. “Get set up while I talk to our friend here. You know what to do.”

  Mike looked a little green in the dim light of the hallway. His hands shook as he held his bag and walked toward her. “I just want to go home, man.”

  Gates wouldn’t back down. “If you don’t do what I tell you to, you’ll go to jail. Did you forget that I have your parole officer in the palm of my hand? One word to him, and you go back to prison. I know how life was for you there. You spent a lot of time being passed around, didn’t you? Maybe you liked it. Is that what you want? Do you want to be someone’s bitch again?”

  Mike came to stand in front of her, his face hardening as he obviously made his decision. “I’m sorry, Annabelle. I don’t want to do this, but I’m on parole. He works for people who can send me back to jail. I can’t go back. Give him what he wants. Please.”

  Mike walked away, his footsteps heavy on the stairs.

  Gates got in her face. “I want the list, bitch.”

  Belle’s brain went straight back to her first night in the house. She’d found a weird list written by two different hands in the desk, along with her grandmother’s journal, in some sort of hiding place. She’d taken the journal, but put the list back because it had seemed like nonsense at the time. It was very likely some sort of code written by Grandma and Karen Ehlers. Their client list? She wasn’t sure, but that seemed likely, given how badly Gates wanted it.

  Her grandmother and Karen Ehlers would need some way to keep track of their transactions. Maybe they’d even dealt in information as well as pleasure. According to the news, Ehlers had decided to write a tell-all book. To ensure her retirement? Had someone learned of her plans and silenced her for good?

  “What list?” She couldn’t let on that she knew where to find it. Play dumb. Buy yourself time.

  Gates slapped her face. A hard crack rent the air before the pain bloomed in her cheek. Belle bit back a groan because her skin was on fire—and not in a nice way. The difference between violence and what her men shared with her was massive. They were careful to bring her up to the edge of pain. Gates just wanted to torture her.

  “Give me what I want or it gets worse from here.” Gates smacked her again, and she couldn’t stop her startled gasp. “Your grandmother started a list of clients, then sold it to Karen Ehlers with the business. I have every reason to believe it’s in this house. I want it now.”

  She cupped her hot cheek. “Why would it be here?”

  “Because Ehlers told me she gave it to Marie before she died. Your grandmother was her momma whore. When Karen got worried about her safety, she hid it here, a sort of insurance policy. You might have heard that Karen had decided to write an exposé. She thought that list would ensure that no one came after her, a sort of mutually assured destruction. She promised not to use real names, but everyone would have figured out her clients’ identities.”

  Belle shrank back. “I don’t know anything about it. I only met my grandmother once, when I was a child. We didn’t keep in touch. I was surprised she wrote me into her will at all.”

  Gates frowned. “But you’ve been living here. You must have seen something. I found a draft of that Ehlers bitch’s actual manuscript. She’d written the part that identified her clients and their sexual preferences in code, based on that list. I destroyed the manuscript and all the electronic copies of it I could find. I need to do the same with that fucking list. The elite of New Orleans are on it, and being exposed would ruin them.”

  Belle wasn’t so sure about that. New Orleans wasn’t exactly known for being uptight and prudish, but Gates clearly wasn’t willing to take any chances.

  And that was when she remembered the camera.

  If she could trip the motion detector, at least she could capture her attackers on video and they would be identified. They wouldn’t get away with murder. And leading them upstairs would take them further away from Tate. She had no idea how long it would take him to metabolize the drug, but she didn’t like that gun being so close to his helpless form.

  “I haven’t found anything like a list.” The minute she gave it up, they were both dead. She couldn’t imagine how Eric and Kellan would cope if they had to walk into this house and find her body, along with Tate’s. They would be devastated. She had to fight for every second.

  “Well, that is very bad for you,” Gates snarled, raising another hand to her.

  She raised her hands to ward him off. “But I haven’t searched her bedroom.”

  Gates’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been sleeping there.”

  She shook her head. “No. Not since the first couple of nights. I moved into one of the smaller rooms because I couldn’t sleep in the master. I heard voices.”

  Gates chuckled, a nasty sound. “Yes, I had Mike set an audio device in the ceiling above the bed. It was tripped after the light was off and the room went still. The device would whisper when you were asleep and turn off the minute you moved. It was supposed to make you want to move.”

  Clever, but she would try to use it to her advantage. “It scared me. I didn’t like to go into that room, but I know my grandmother kept a lot of very personal things in there.”

  She’d found pictures and a box of little keepsakes. The closest was big, and Belle hadn’t even started to clean it out yet. There were storage boxes under the bed, as well. With any luck, she could keep them upstairs and searching for a very long time.

  Gates nodded toward Helena. “You look through the office and the library. I’ll take her upstairs. Don’t make a mess. Our scenario is not a burglary. The last thing I need is for the cops to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Helena let her go, obviously secure in the fact that Belle had another gun pointed straight at her chest. “I thought you had your interns looking through there last week.”

  So that’s why he’d insisted on “taking inventory” of everything in the house. They might have looked through drawers and rifled through closets, but they had obviously missed her grandmother’s hidey-hole.

  “I couldn’t actually tell them what I wanted them to find. I told them to bring me anything that looked like personal notes because Marie Wright might have jotted additional instructions about the division of her estate. Of course, the idiots didn’t find anything. Start looking for hidden compartments,” he instructed Helena. “Wright was a whore for a long time. She ran a brothel herself. She knows how to keep a secret.”

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