The Successor Page 11

  “I don’t know,” she gasped. “I swear.”

  “Tell me.”

  She gazed up into his eyes. “I…I—”

  “Tell me,” Christian hissed. “I’ll help you, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  She put a hand to her chest, still trying to catch her breath. “All right, all right. I was having an affair with a guy in Washington. This morning his wife caught me in bed with him at the farm they own out here. She sent those guys after me.” The young woman waved back in the direction of the store. “I thought I lost them, but obviously I didn’t.”

  “The guy’s wife must be pretty important if she can send four guys after you and you’re that scared of them.”

  The young woman’s eyes opened wide. “You got that right.”

  “Who is she?”

  A frightened look spread across the young woman’s face. “I can’t tell you. I really can’t,” she repeated when she saw irritation in Christian’s expression. “I—”

  “Charlie, over here!”

  In unison, Christian’s and the young woman’s eyes darted toward the sound of the voice. It was so close.

  Christian grabbed the girl’s wrist. “Come on!”

  “YOU KNOW, Christian’s handing out the Laurel Energy bonuses tomorrow.”

  Allison looked up from her computer. She’d been tapping out an e-mail to a lawyer she didn’t care for, so it was a good time to take a break. Her tone was starting to get confrontational, which was the sinister part of e-mail—sometimes you wrote things you wished you hadn’t because it was so much easier when you didn’t have to say it to someone’s face. So she always took Christian’s advice and reread her e-mails at least three times before sending them. “I do know, but how did you find out?” Actually, Allison hadn’t known that tomorrow was going to be the day. She knew it was going to be sometime soon, but she didn’t have specifics. Here was another example of how she and Christian weren’t as close as they used to be. Not too long ago she would have known that tomorrow was going to be the day before anyone else in the firm.

  “Somebody found a copy of a memo in a trash can,” Sherry Demille explained.

  Sherry was an associate at Everest who worked almost exclusively with Allison—Allison had hired her away from another Manhattan investment firm a year ago. Sherry was only twenty-five, but she and Allison had become good friends despite the eight-year age difference. Sherry was big-boned but always managed to use just the right amount of makeup and wore clothes that accentuated her long legs and downplayed her wide shoulders and high waist. She had long, dark hair and a round face she broke up by wearing glasses she didn’t really need.

  “Somebody?” Allison asked in a leading tone.

  Sherry held her hands up. “It wasn’t me. I swear.”

  “Who was it?” Allison could see Sherry struggling, wanting to keep her source confidential but not wanting to aggravate her mentor. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “When did Chris tell you?”

  Allison didn’t like the way Sherry referred to Christian so informally. She knew Sherry thought Christian was “dreamy”—she’d said it enough times, especially after a few drinks when they were out. It wasn’t as if Christian would ever encourage Sherry’s advances, Allison knew, but it seemed as though small things like that were bothering her a lot lately. “A couple of weeks ago.” Allison didn’t want Sherry thinking she and Christian weren’t as close as they used to be. She’d never told Sherry how much she cared about Christian—because Sherry had a big mouth—but she wanted Sherry to keep thinking she was as close to the top as it got.

  Sherry dropped her notepad down on the front of Allison’s desk and clasped her hands together. “How much do you think he’ll give me? Did he talk to you about it?”

  “No.” Sherry was as aggressive as a young associate came. Sometimes her attitude bordered on obnoxious, but she was also talented. Good at running numbers and doing due diligence. Fast and accurate with financial data and the other nuts-and-bolts stuff, which freed up Allison to think about the big picture. And Sherry was fun to be with outside of work. They’d been going out more and more together at night, to clubs in Manhattan. It took Allison’s mind off Christian. “He makes those decisions by himself.”

  “He probably doesn’t even know my name,” Sherry fretted.

  “Don’t worry, he knows your name.”

  Sherry caught her breath. “He does?”

  “He knows everyone’s name,” Allison said quickly.

  But Sherry wasn’t deterred. “Chris is so down-to-earth for being so famous and important, you know? Last week he held the door for me downstairs as I was leaving to go home, asked me if I needed a ride anywhere. I was meeting a couple of friends at a place right down Park Avenue, but I almost took him up on it just so I could get to know him better. It sure would have been nice to have the face time.”

  Allison gazed at Sherry. “He offered you a ride?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “In the limousine?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Allison glanced back at her computer screen. The guy she was e-mailing was forty-seven and had just divorced his wife. The rumor at the law firm was that he was dating a twenty-six-year-old bond trader at an investment bank downtown. A Paris Hilton look-alike. What was wrong with men? “But you didn’t take him up on it?”

  “I will next time.”

  Christian was just being nice, Allison figured. That was all there was to it. He didn’t have designs on Sherry. He couldn’t. “Let’s go get something to drink at the deli downstairs,” she suggested, standing up and grabbing a key off her desk. It was a spare one to Christian’s office he kept on the molding above his door. Only she and Debbie knew about it. She had needed a file out of Christian’s office early this morning and hadn’t returned it yet. “My treat.”

  “So what do you think he’ll give me?” Sherry asked, following Allison out of the office and toward Christian’s.

  “I don’t know.” As they approached, Allison saw that Debbie wasn’t at her desk outside Christian’s office. Allison didn’t want to leave the key lying on Debbie’s desk, so she reached up and replaced it on the molding. When she had, she turned around and pointed at Sherry. “Don’t tell anyone,” she warned.

  “Of course not,” Sherry said as they walked toward reception, rolling her eyes as if Allison really hadn’t needed to say that. “Now come on and guess what Chris is going to give me. Jesus, Allison, don’t be so uptight about this.”

  Allison pursed her lips. This was what happened when you socialized with your subordinate, she realized, when you didn’t keep your distance. Maybe Christian was right after all. Maybe she couldn’t work with him and date him, too. She let out a frustrated breath. It was too late. She couldn’t turn off her feelings for him now. “You’ll just have to wait for tomorrow.”

  Sherry scowled as they reached the elevators. “You know, someone told me they saw Christian out with a model last week at a restaurant on the Upper West Side.”

  CHRISTIAN HELPED the young woman along through the trees, at one point hauling her back to her feet when she tripped over a fallen tree. He had no idea where they were going—or where they were, for that matter—but he’d seen that terrified look on her face a moment ago and it told him they needed to run. Wherever, it didn’t matter, as long as it was away from these men. His first instinct when he’d jumped from the Integra had been to catch her, then let the two men catch up and call their bluff. Surely they wouldn’t do anything to her if he was there, especially if he told them who he was.

  But that look of absolute dread had convinced him that a game of chicken was the wrong strategy. He’d spent a lifetime reading people’s faces, taking his cues from subtle expressions in terms of when to push and when to give during negotiations, and his track record spoke for itself. She couldn’t be that good an actress. He just wondered who in the hell could scare her so badly. The woman wh
o’d caught her in bed with her husband had to be someone very powerful. He’d put Quentin on finding out who she was—if they saw each other again.

  “This way.” He could hear their pursuers, like a pack of dogs, crashing across the dead leaves behind them. It was a sick feeling. “Come on!”

  “I’m so tired,” she gasped.

  “Don’t think about being tired, think about being scared. And run.”

  Suddenly they were at the edge of a drop-off. At least two hundred feet down, Christian figured. At a sharp angle over big boulders, some jutting far out from the face of the hill. In the distance he thought he heard the sound of rushing water. “Damn it!” He made a snap decision. “We’ve got to go down there, we can’t go back. They’ll catch us if we do.”

  “I can’t do it,” she said fearfully. “I’ll fall.”

  “Hey, I’m wearing loafers,” he snapped, pointing at the hard soles, then her tennis shoes. “And I’m probably twice your age. If I can do it, you definitely can.”

  “I’m telling you, I can’t do it.”

  It was time to act like a chairman. “No choice.” He picked a route over and around the boulders, committing it to memory, then grabbed her hand and tugged her over the edge. “Come on.”

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  They made it down the hill faster than he’d hoped, almost slipping several times, but they made it. He glanced up as they reached the bottom, half-falling, half-running the last ten feet through a small stream to level, dry ground. The men had just reached the brink of the cliff and were starting to climb down the slope after them. It looked as if one of them had shoved a pistol in his belt before scrambling down the first few feet, but Christian couldn’t tell for sure.

  He yanked her arm hard. “Run, damn it.”

  He pulled his cell phone out as they sprinted away. The LCD showed only one bar for an antenna, but he dialed 911 anyway—and got through. As he and Quentin had pulled into the store parking lot he’d noticed the name of the place—Grayson’s Market—and he shouted it as loudly as he could to the operator as he and the young woman ran, hoping the men chasing them would hear him and understand that he was on his phone. He yelled that they were in the woods south and east of the store, and that they needed help fast. That they were running for their lives. That his partner was at the store and needed help, too. The men chasing them might figure he was just pretending to talk to someone, but that was all right. As long as he planted a seed of doubt in their minds, they might turn around. More important, help was on the way. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get to them too late.

  “What’s your name?” he asked as he stuffed the phone back in his pocket. They were jogging along a narrow, faint trail, probably made by deer. The center of it didn’t have leaves on it, so they weren’t making much noise. He was planning to cut back into the woods in a few moments.

  “Beth Garrison. What’s yours?”

  “Christian Gillette.” He stuck his arm in front of her and pointed. “That way.”

  She put her hands in front of her face as they headed back into the heavy stuff. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “Do you care as long as we lose those two guys back there?”

  She shrugged as she ran. “I guess not.”

  They took off through the underbrush, dodging thornbushes, branches, and roots. The sound of water was growing louder and soon Christian could see it through the trees, glistening in the late-afternoon sunlight. Then, suddenly, they were standing on the bank of a wide river, smooth, round, mud-colored rocks beneath their feet. It had to be the Potomac, based on the map of western Maryland he’d looked at on the way to Camp David. It was a couple of hundred yards across and appeared deep and fast in the middle. He was confident he could swim it, but not that she could—she seemed exhausted. And if the men chasing them had guns, they’d be vulnerable out there splashing across the surface. They might make it thirty or forty yards from shore before the men made it to the bank—a long shot with a pistol—but still he didn’t want to gamble. For all he knew they were marksmen. He couldn’t risk Beth drowning halfway across, either.

  “What now, Columbus?”

  Christian glanced over at the young woman. “Would you rather be on your own?”

  Beth shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Because it sure would be a hell of a lot easier for me if I were on my own out here. But, hey, it’s like they say when the bears are chasing you in Alaska. As long as you can run faster than at least one other person in your group, you’re safe. I’ll bet I can run faster than you, even though I’m old enough to be your dad.”

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me here.”

  Christian scanned the far shore, searching for any sign of civilization, but there was nothing. Just an unbroken wall of fresh green leaves scaling the hills until they met blue sky. “We’ve got to keep moving,” he said, heading back into the forest. “Sooner or later we’ll find something.” The bad part about this was that the farther they went downstream, the farther they got from the point of reference he’d given the 911 operator: the store. “I hope.”

  They moved through the underbrush quickly but didn’t sprint, trying to stay as quiet as possible, keeping the river in sight through the branches. They stopped every hundred feet to listen, but the sounds of footsteps behind them had faded completely. Hopefully the two men had turned upstream when they’d reached the bank.

  “Why are you helping me?” Beth asked, hunching over as she pushed a dogwood branch out of the way.

  Christian was suddenly aware that the forest smelled good, full of sweet spring scents—and Beth’s perfume. “To tell you the truth, I really don’t know. I guess I’ve got this character flaw. When I see someone who needs help, I help.”

  “How old are you?”

  He sighed. Why were people always asking that question? “Forty-three.”

  “Wow.”

  His eyes moved to hers reluctantly. “Why’d you say it like that?”

  “You don’t look that old.”

  He didn’t like forty-three sounding old to her. Of course, he liked that she didn’t think he looked that old. She was probably just buttering him up to make sure he stayed with her while she was so scared. He winced. The investment world had jaded him. He was always looking for an ulterior motive, and sometimes there wasn’t one. Sometimes people were simply being sincere. But not often.

  “Really? I don’t?” He tried to keep from asking the question—it might sound so pathetic—but he couldn’t help himself. “How old do I look?”

  “Forty-two.”

  Boy, he had that one coming. “Thanks a lot.”

  She laughed, glancing back over her shoulder nervously. “I’m just kidding. Really, you look like you’re in your early thirties, max.”

  “You’re just being nice.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m serious.” She was quiet as they covered another twenty yards. “I like older men. I don’t date young guys. They’re too insecure, still too caught up in being macho. Still proving that they’re better than everyone else and that they’re right all the time. I like hanging out with men who already know they’re better and don’t have to show off for anyone.”

  She sure was a smooth talker. “How old are—”

  “The man I’m seeing now is fifty-two,” she interrupted.

  “Was fifty-two.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Based on how his wife came after you, he’s probably dead at this point.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.”

  “You going to tell me who she is?” he asked.

  They came to the brink of a twenty-foot ravine. At the bottom was a small stream rushing its last few yards to the Potomac. Christian helped Beth down the slippery embankment—it had rained hard a few days ago and the slope was still muddy. At one point she fell against him and he noticed that she felt light as a feather. He found himself wondering right away if she’d fallen against him on purpose. S
he seemed coordinated. Not necessarily in great shape—she’d tired quickly running through the woods—but definitely athletic. And she was nice to look at.

  “How old are you?” he asked as they climbed the other side, clinging to roots and saplings to pull themselves up to the top.

  “I’m…oh, God.”

  Christian glanced at Beth, then in the direction she was looking. Standing in front of them was one of the men who’d jumped out of the black sedan back at the store. He wore military boots, jeans, a blue windbreaker, and sunglasses. And he was leveling a pistol at them.

  “Nice try, Ms. Garrison.” The man motioned with the gun. “Who’s your friend?”

  “I’m Christian Gillette.”

  The man stared at Christian blankly, no sign of recognition on his face. “Congratulations, Mr. Gillette. You picked a hell of a thing to get mixed up in. You should have left well enough alone.” He pulled out a yellow phone and pushed the walkie-talkie button. “Jimmy, get down here fast,” he said loudly. “I’m about a half a mile downstream from where we split up. They followed the river, just like you thought they would.”

  “On my way,” the response crackled through the small speaker.

  Christian watched the guy slip the phone into his front pocket, then suggested calmly, “Why don’t we go back to that store and see if we can work things out?”

  “Why don’t you shut up?”

  “I think once you find out who I am you won’t want to do anything rash.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you are. I have my orders.”

  In the distance Christian heard a faint sound coming from the direction in which he and Beth had been headed. A thump-thump-thump that was growing louder by the second. He eyed the man holding the gun. The man heard it, too. Christian could tell by the way his eyes kept flickering toward the river and the noise, as if it made him nervous. A few moments later the sound was very loud, definitely headed right at them.