Deadly Revenge (Pearl River #3)

Chapter 16

16

“Did you find them?” Anxiety laced the cop’s voice. Good.

“No.” Rick Sebastian turned on the road that led to the remote cabin he’d rented. He’d been listening to the conversation from the bugging devices he’d planted in the kitchen and Hart’s office when Ross’s call came in. Her boss and probably the man who’d burst into the house seemed to think she had fainted. Good. “Are you certain she has photos of us together?”

“Yes,” Ross said.

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes. I deleted them from her phone, but something she said the last time we talked makes me believe she has copies somewhere. I searched her apartment before she moved but never found them.”

“Maybe because she doesn’t have any.” He hadn’t heard her mention any photos.

“Oh, she has them all right. She practically bragged about it.”

“Then why hasn’t she used them?”

Heavy breathing came through the phone. “I don’t know. Maybe to torment me for ending our engagement.”

Give me a break. But it was plain the narcissistic cop believed what he said. “I still don’t understand why you can’t claim you were working undercover that night.”

“It’s not that simple. I’ve never worked undercover, and to claim it would look suspicious. It’s better if the photos never show up. For both of us.”

Sebastian smiled. It was no skin off his nose—he’d paid his so-called debt to society—but if Phillip Ross wanted to think it was, so be it. Then his smile faded. While he was in prison, his lieutenant had taken over the Scorpions, and Viper had made it plain he wasn’t giving up the position.

He narrowed his eyes. Jenna Hart was to blame for all of this—prison, the loss of his organization ... maybe his hatred of the cop bordered on obsession. But it was what had gotten him through the long nights in the noisy cell block.

Getting his position back was his main priority ... and taking her out was a close second. Unfortunately Ross had other ideas for the former Chattanooga cop, but Ross’s determination to find the photographs fit in his plans. Sebastian could keep the detective happy while making Jenna Hart’s life miserable.

“She interrupted me, so I’ll go back and search again.” Sebastian turned into the gravel drive and parked. It would be an opportunity to make sure she knew someone had been in her house.

“Did she see you?”

“No.” And she wouldn’t see him the next time, either. He fingered the key he’d taken from her kitchen cabinet after he’d picked the lock to her door. He would have a copy made at a nearby town and then return this one where he found it.

“Did you plant the drugs?”

“I didn’t have time—I wasn’t expecting Hart to come back.” Not that he intended to, anyway. If he’d been caught and the cops found drugs on him, it would have been his ticket back to prison. He wasn’t taking that chance.

“Well, did you at least find something you can leave at the farmhouse implicating her in the drug operation?”

He pulled a gold chain with a cross on it from his pocket. “I did, but I don’t know why you think we’ll need it.” Hart wouldn’t live long enough to reap the repercussion of being framed, anyway.

“You never can tell in this business. It’ll be insurance. I want those photos, or short of that, to make sure no one will believe her if they do surface.”

“Gotcha. I have things to do, and I’ll call you once I have the photos.”

“Hey—this conversation isn’t over until I say it’s over. I’m the reason you’re out of prison.”

Sebastian clenched his jaw then forced himself to relax. For now, he’d let Ross believe whatever he wanted to believe. “What do you want me to do?”

“Find a way to make everyone lose confidence in her.”

“Seems like you did that in Chattanooga when you spread those rumors that she set up a meeting with me that night. You never said how you got that other cop to alibi you.”

“I didn’t, did I?”

Sebastian waited, knowing Ross wasn’t going to explain.

“I need her discredited in Pearl Springs, and I can’t come to Pearl Springs—she’d recognize me. No one will recognize you since you don’t look anything like your old photos, even the one at Pikeville.”

Sebastian would give him that. Gone was his close-cropped hair and the rail-thin body. He’d beefed up and filled out, including his face. “Any suggestions?”

Not that he needed any—he already had her boss second-guessing Jenna Hart’s mental stability. But he needed to let Ross think he was in charge.

“You’re smart—you’ll think of something. How is the drug shipment coming along?”

“Should be ready by the middle of next week.”

“Go to the farm today and make sure they’re on schedule.”

Sebastian bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue. A few more days and he’d let Ross know who was really in charge. “Sure, boss. Do you have a particular time in mind?”

When there was no answer, he checked his phone. Ross had hung up. Just as well. Ross wouldn’t have liked his sarcastic tone. Sebastian pocketed his phone.

He closed his eyes and counted to ten. He had been the one who’d set up this operation from prison. Not Ross. Yeah, Ross had fronted it, but it was Sebastian’s brains that came up with the idea.

Once he had the money from this shipment of drugs, everything was going to change. It would be a pleasure to bring Phillip Ross down. But killing the person who busted him and sent him to prison would be even better.

Still seething, he climbed out of the gray Corolla. Sebastian missed his Range Rover that had been confiscated the night Hart was shot. Another mark against her.

He unlocked the door and entered the rustic cabin. After the last few days, he needed a good workout, but he would have to settle for exercises he could do without equipment, which was nothing new. If there’d been a gym in this one-stoplight town, he would have risked going to it. At least he’d brought a mat that he could practice karate moves on.

He hadn’t let his time in prison go to waste, making himself do push-ups and squats in his cell, even filling a trash bag with water and lifting it. Sebastian had also made friends with an incarcerated martial arts expert. Learning how to defend himself had come in handy, but it wasn’t the only thing he’d learned from him. Or the most important.

He’d learned to quiet his mind and take advantage of the natural forces that shaped the order of events. In the past he’d tried to control the outcome, taking hurried preemptive actions that often resulted in failure. Victory came to those who waited and struck at exactly the right time.

Sebastian gripped the portable pull-up bar he’d attached to the hallway door and knocked off a hundred body lifts. Being patient didn’t mean sitting by and doing nothing.

Tonight he would plant a tracker on her vehicle so he wouldn’t be caught off guard again. With the tracker and listening devices in her house, he would know her every move.

It wasn’t that he disapproved of Ross’s plan to make her look like a dirty cop. It just wasn’t enough after she’d sent him to prison. He would still get his payback, but like a slow, torturous death, in due time. When it came, Jenna Hart would welcome death.

However, he needed to be more careful, or the hours he spent planning would be for nothing. He hadn’t known about the man who arrived right after he knocked Hart unconscious with a karate chop to a pressure point located at the base of her skull.

Judging from his dress and the gun strapped to his waist, the friend was a cop, but not one from around Pearl Springs—he knew what every law enforcement officer in Russell County looked like.

He wasn’t FBI—he didn’t have that look. Must be state. Regardless, the man was a new wrinkle and complicated things. From everything Sebastian had gleaned about Jenna Hart, she wasn’t in a relationship. If she was and the cop stuck too close to her, it would mean taking him out as well.

Sebastian mulled the problem over in his mind. If the man was a TBI agent, that upped the risk. He’d driven past her house, and the only vehicle in the drive had been Hart’s, so he wasn’t with her 24/7. All Sebastian had to do was to be patient. He would get the opportunity he wanted.

And he was an expert at making murder look like an accident.