Page 52 of Dangerous Lover

It was time.

New York

Waldorf Astoria

Deaver hada Christmas dinner brought up by room service from Peacock Alley. Maine lobster salad, prime grilled sirloin, dry-aged for 28 days, with a wild mushroom side dish and a $50 bottle of Valpolicella breathing on a sideboard—150 bucks, including tip, and worth every penny.

Axel continued with his generosity and Deaver lifted a cut crystal glass in his honor.

When the waiters had finished setting the meal out on the huge, antique oak table, and bowed themselves quietly out of the room, Deaver breathed in deeply, and savored the moment.

It was all so perfect—the linen tablecloth and napkins, the fine bone china, the heavy silverware, the crystal glasses. The delicious smells of excellent food and clean table linen.

Deaver had grown up in a trailer park outside Midland, Texas. All his childhood, most of his food had been eaten cold, out of a can, and he had had to fight the cockroaches for it. He’d been eighteen, and in the Army, before he knew that forks came in different sizes.

But that was a long time ago and he’d discovered that he had a taste for living large.Thiswas how he was meant to live.

An hour later, Deaver wiped his mouth with the peach-colored oversized linen napkin and gave a little belch. Perfect. Perfect meal. The first of many.

The rest of his life was going to be like this. Exactly likethis—luxurious surroundings, staff, superb food and wine—except he was going to have women around. Lots of them.

No women now. Now it was hunting time.

Wrapped in the hotel’s thick terrycloth robe, he opened the laptop he’d bought from Drake. Again, whatever Drake delivered was excellent. It was clearly a laptop that had seen heavy use, but its hard disk had been wiped clean and it powered up just fine. Deaver connected to the high speed wifi, then sat back to reflect, staring at the bright screen.

The Colonel had found Prescott in January of 2012, emaciated, half-dead and half-frozen behind a dumpster. Deaver had been OUTCONUS most of that winter, freezing his butt off in Azerbaijan. By the time he got back to base, Prescott was a done deal. The Colonel had adopted him, he’d put on forty pounds of muscle and was studying for his GCE, intent on joining the Army.

Deaver had hated him on sight. The Colonel thought the sun shone out of his ass. Well, he would, considering his own son, the other Jack, had been a whiny wimp who’d started drinking at fifteen and had managed to wreck a car he’d stolen for a joyride and got himself killed at the age of twenty, together with a family of four, before his new cocaine habit could do it for him later.

One thing you had to say for Jack—he was as straight as they come and the Colonel had taken him on like a second lease on life.

When the Colonel retired to found ENP Security, everyone had assumed that Deaver would be his second in command.After all, he’d served under the Colonel for almost twenty years. It was his due, dammit.

Twenty years in the Army and he had fuck all to show for it. Everyone else was making a bundle off Homeland Security and now it should have been Deaver’s turn.

But the only thing The Colonel had offeredhimwas a job—and a miserably paid one at that, even though it was double what he’d been making in the Army. Deaver was expecting a managerial position with stocks and he ended up being a glorified paid gun, sent immediately to Waziristan to guard a pipeline and then to Sierra Leone to guard fat mining executives.

And Jack Prescott quit the Rangers and was made Executive Vice President of ENP Security the next day.

It still burned.

But he couldn’t dwell on that now. No emotion when planning a mission. Love, hatred, revenge—they could get you killed quicker than gunfire. No, Deaver had to think it through, logically and clearly, step by step.

Well, step number one was to be sure that Elvis had actually left the building.

Half an hour later, it looked like he had. Prescott had sold the company to a competitor and had sold his house to Rodney Strong, a CPA, and his wife Cathy Strong, lifestyle coach.

Deaver was stumped at that, looking at Cathy Strong’s site. It took him a few minutes to realize what she actually did. No wonder the woman had sounded like a flake on the phone.

Speaking of phones—Prescott’s phone had been disconnected, as had been all the utilities, and reconnected in the name of Rodney Strong. There was no record of sale of property, or utility contracts, in the name of Jack Prescott, either in town or in a fifty-mile radius.

Much as Deaver found it hard to believe, since Jack had inherited a big, expensive house and a thriving company—he’d sold everything and disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d even sold his car.

Just to torment himself, Deaver hacked into Prescott’s bank account and stared at the screen, jaw muscles jumping.

On the 19thof December, just before leaving for Sierra Leone and fucking up Deaver’s life, Jack Prescott had converted all his assets into a cashier’s check for $15 million and change.

The fucker!

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