Susannah Sandlin - Deadly Calm and Cold (The Collectors) Read online

  ALSO BY SUSANNAH SANDLIN

  The Collectors

  Lovely, Dark, and Deep

  The Penton Vampire Legacy

  Redemption

  Absolution

  Omega

  Allegiance

  Also in the Penton Legacy World

  Storm Force

  WRITTEN AS SUZANNE JOHNSON

  Sentinels of New Orleans

  Royal Street

  River Road

  Elysian Fields

  Pirate’s Alley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Susannah Sandlin All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477826812

  ISBN-10: 1477826815

  Cover design by Kerrie Robertson

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912197

  To the real denizens of Lincolnshire and especially Swineshead, England, whose lovely town and rich history I unmercifully rearranged in the making of this book. No one will come and dig up your lawns.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  One step forward, a dozen steps to the rear. Welcome back to the idiot’s club.

  Samantha Crowe scowled at her reflection in the mirror of London’s lavish Bridestall Hotel bathroom, its gleaming Italian marble frame mocking her pale face. Make that her pale, worst-hangover-in-history face, a pasty oval surrounded by a blond mop of tangles and pierced by two bloodshot green eyes.

  They weren’t bloodshot because she was hungover—at least not entirely. They were bloodshot because she’d slept in her contact lenses. Because God forbid the man she’d spent the night with should see her in red-framed geek glasses. Correction: the guy she’d slept with after only knowing him a week. The man who’d wined and dined her, flashed a lot of money, and hung on her every word.

  That in itself should have been a red flag upside her headful of stupid.

  A man for whom she’d broken her own no-men-until-after-grad-school rule, only to awaken and find him gone, luggage and all, without so much as a “screw you.” Then again, his lack of communication was quite a literal “screw you” minus words.

  Her brains had apparently oozed out her ears while she was listening to his pile of flattering horse manure. Rich American businessmen didn’t fall for plain-Jane grad students who tended to prattle on about their research. It wasn’t even sexy research that would lead to a cure for cancer or baldness, but obscure medieval history, for God’s sake. She’d probably bored him into fleeing.

  “Face it, Crowe. Bad man choice? You got skills.” Oh well, at least she’d gotten dumped inside a five-star central London hotel; it could’ve been in her own fleabag studio flat in Bayswater. That would have happened to Carolina Sonnier, the name and person she’d left behind ten years ago, when she was eighteen. Caro was an equally bad judge of character when it came to men; too bad when she’d changed her name she couldn’t have implanted some kind of jerk radar.

  Last night? Not going on her curriculum vitae.

  A knock on the hotel door prevented her from more positive self-talk, which she wasn’t very good at anyway. She opened it to find a chipper, immaculate, dark-suited hotel employee with a cart covered in shiny silver-domed dishes.

  “I didn’t order anything. You must have the wrong room.” Sam’s stomach growled as if on cue, reminding her that she had consumed nothing solid in more than twelve hours. But she’d looked up the hotel online, and the small suites like this one cost more than a thousand pounds a night. She doubted breakfast was within her fellowship-stipend budget.

  A chill of panic rushed up her spine. What if Gary Smith, her one-night hotel stand and six-day love interest, had taken an early exit and left her to pay the oversized tab, with an overpriced meal as an exclamation point at the end? Talk about screwed.

  “Oh, no, I assure you this is the correct room.” The room-service guy was way too cheerful. “A full English breakfast courtesy of Mr. Smith, madam. Shall I bring it in?”

  Well, okay. Things were looking up. “Courtesy of” usually translated as “paid for,” right?

  “Go for it.” Sam stepped aside and mentally tallied the cash she had left in her bag so she could at least tip the guy before dodging out on the bill, in case she was wrong about that translation. She pulled out a five-pound note and slipped it into her pocket while the waiter uncovered eggs Benedict, meats, breads, potatoes, more breads. She’d be swimming in carbs the rest of the day.

  “Mr. Smith apologized for his early departure but asked me to assure you all the expenses have been handled and to personally deliver this.” The waiter pulled a thick manila envelope from beneath the food-laden plate and handed it to her, smiling when she awkwardly traded it for the folded fiver. Poor guy; she hoped his tips the rest of the day made up for hers.

  As soon as he’d disappeared down the carpeted hallway, she put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, checked her cell phone for the time, and then consulted the hotel information card posted on the back of the door. Checkout wasn’t for another four hours, so she had time to eat and shower in elegance before returning to her minuscule apartment.

  Now that it appeared Gary had at least thought enough to order breakfast for her and leave a note, her mood improved rapidly. She was still an idiot, expecting flowers and violins when the guy was apparently thinking more last-night-in-London quickie, but that was her pattern, wasn’t it? Thus the grad-school rule. Now she was going to change it to the no-more-men-period rule. She wouldn’t be the first spinster to grace the halls of academia; in fact, it was almost expected.

  She rolled the tray near the window and pulled over a cushioned chair. She’d been too nervous the night before to make much note of the room’s decor except for an overwhelming sense of gray, but now that she studied it, Sam realized the color scheme seemed inspired by a dense black-and-white tapestry with a lot of horses and hounds. This fabric covered the walls and the bed and the back of the chair, and the furniture gleamed w
ith an antiqued-silver finish. Even the bust of the horse’s head sitting on the window ledge had the patina of aged silver.

  How veddy British upper crust. Conservative, stuffy, and almost dizzying. Might as well enjoy it while she could.

  Sam laid the envelope on the tray and shoveled eggs and sausage, toast and potatoes onto a plate as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. Everything in London cost a fortune, way more than back at Louisiana State University, and her one-semester research fellowship didn’t afford her much more than whatever the corner market held in its clearance bins—that and her morning coffee indulgence. Poverty was proving to be a good diet tool, so she couldn’t complain. How many people had a chance to live in London for four months, doing nothing but academic work for a master’s degree? Never mind that the way she’d gotten here hadn’t exactly been on the up-and-up. She would more than make up for it with her research results.

  Curiosity outweighed hunger after a couple of bites, though. That envelope looked awfully thick and heavy—way more than a simple we’ll-always-have-our-six-days-in-London good-bye note. It was a simple brown business rectangle with a metal clasp on the back. She ran her hands across it, then slid a nail underneath the flap to pop it open. It had been sealed well—not like one might fasten a hastily dashed-off, spur-of-the-moment note.

  Weirder and weirder. Sam’s sense of unease returned—the one she’d had when she’d awoken to find herself alone in the room, with the drawers and closet empty and no sign of Gary’s luggage. Even the champagne stand and glasses he’d already had waiting in the room when they got in from the restaurant last night had been removed.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She pulled out the contents, noting a folded white sheet atop what looked like a stack of photographs. She set the paper aside, confusion turning to hot anger when she saw the first image in glossy eight-by-ten detail. What kind of sick joke was this? That perv had sent her photos of . . .

  Hot anger froze into icicle claws that sank into her heart and compressed her lungs. The photos were of her, with him, in this room last night. She recognized the shape of his body, but the face wasn’t that of Gary Smith. It was someone else, someone she’d come to London to forget.

  Fingers numb, heart racing, she flipped past image after image, more than half of them showing things she didn’t remember doing. No doubt that it was her, though. Her face was always visible—not to mention everything else. By contrast, Gary Smith’s face wasn’t in any of them. Not a single one. Only the face of the man from Baton Rouge who hadn’t been anywhere near the Bridestall Hotel.

  Her memories of last night were fuzzy, but they weren’t that fuzzy.

  Underneath the last photo, which showed her head thrown back in what looked like pleasure, fingers twined through the man’s hair (his face conveniently hidden), she found a smaller envelope.

  What kind of sick freak had she been with last night? And by God, she’d faked that orgasm because one thing she did remember was that he’d been rough and clumsy, his mouth a virtual Grand Canyon with lips and a tongue. He’d been all about his own pleasure with little regard for hers. Except he apparently had an agenda.

  How had he gotten pictures of David? How had he known about David at all when she’d left him and all the mess of their affair behind her in Baton Rouge?

  Sam’s fingers shook, partly from shock but just as much from anger, as she set the smaller envelope aside and unfolded the note. It wasn’t on hotel stationery but plain white paper like one might find in any office setting in the world. Nor was it handwritten but printed on an ordinary ink-jet printer, by the looks of it. None of this made any sense whatsoever.

  Oh God. Her focus froze on the salutation, just two words: “Dear Carolina.”

  No one outside a couple of juvenile court workers and a teacher back in Louisiana knew that Carolina Sonnier, juvenile felon with a three-strikes arrest record, was now Samantha Crowe, normally self-controlled graduate student with horrendous judgment in matters of love and sex.

  How the hell could he have found out about Caro? She’d buried her other self behind sealed records and a carefully created web of lies.

  Her lungs struggled to breathe under the weight of panic, and the walls that had seemed elegant a few minutes ago now threatened to suffocate her in their black-and-white textile excess. She didn’t want to read any more, not here, not in a room he’d paid for and gone to a lot of trouble to set up for this sick joke.

  I have to get out of here.

  She stuffed the photos and papers back into the envelope and tucked the whole bundle into her oversized purse. Crammed her feet in the stupid heels she’d bought for her big night with the rich American who’d chatted her up at her corner pub only a week ago and—miracle of miracles—had seemed genuinely interested in her. Interested in her mind as well as her body, she’d thought. She had been upset after a text message from her mom, had gone to the pub to unwind, and had been bulldozed by the lavish attention, especially when he wanted to see her again, night after night.

  On some level, she obviously still believed that interest from a well-groomed, wealthy man would prove She had been finally moved beyond the mean streets of New Orleans’s impoverished, crime-riddled Eighth Ward, where violence and drugs would suck you down and then spit you out like last week’s gumbo.

  All the attention from this man had proved was that, once again, she’d been an absolute fool.

  Looking around the room to make sure she’d left nothing but her self-esteem behind, Sam tugged down the hem of the black dress she’d thought such a tasteful and practical purchase before she left Baton Rouge. It had been intended to see her through any evening events she might need to attend while in London.

  Well, she’d had an evening event, all right.

  She kept her gaze trained on the marble floor when the hotel doorman greeted her and opened the heavy, glass-paned door for her to exit the lobby onto the city street, busy at midmorning with traffic and shoppers, tourists and business people. Common sense told her the doorman couldn’t possibly know she wore last night’s dress, couldn’t know the shameful contents of the envelope in her purse, but her nerves screamed otherwise. For all she knew, every hotel staff member had gotten a copy. Not that they’d understand the full significance of the expertly doctored photos.

  The hour it took her to travel across town to Bayswater by bus and tube helped slow her heart rate and give her some perspective, sitting there among tourists and commuters and students all going about their normal business. She had freaked out and run before reading the letter. Gary Smith obviously had money, judging by his choice of hotel and the cash he’d thrown around all week. He’d claimed to be a venture capitalist, and if he had half a brain, he’d realize a grad student wouldn’t make good blackmail material. Unless he demanded payment in history textbooks and the occasional romance novel, she had nothing Gary Smith could possibly want.

  Maybe Gary was the one in trouble. Maybe he was the target and she was the pawn.

  Seriously, Samantha or Caro or whoever you are. Get a freaking clue. What are the chances his name is even Gary Smith?

  She silenced her inner nag, whose strident voice had tried to warn her a few times that Gary Smith was too good to be true. Instead, she clung to the perverse hope that the man was a victim of violence rather than a sociopath, hanging on to that possibility until she arrived at her studio apartment in a decidedly middle-class-going-funky neighborhood a few blocks and a world away from Kensington Palace.

  By the time she reached the top floor, she’d convinced herself she should be worried about him. Gary might be hurt. This could be some kind of bizarre ransom demand. After all, London was a huge city. It wasn’t like the mean streets in her hometown, where the criminals often knew the victims, or even the political pathways in her current city of Baton Rouge, where most of the criminals worked in the state capitol. Gary was a rich American, and that made him a target.

  She jiggled her bag to get at the key
ring in the bottom, still unaccustomed to carrying only one key. She had no car to lock, no office to lock. Just a mailbox key that also fit into the lock of an attic room so tiny that if she stood with her legs apart, one shin could touch the edge of the undersized twin bed and the other the ledge of the narrow futon that served as a sofa. The flat also boasted one cane-bottomed chair and a small round table that held her laptop, a kitchen where she could reach everything without moving her feet, and a bathroom too small to turn around in. All that luxury for only $1,500 American a month and “quite an amazing steal,” the leasing agent had insisted when she’d rented it online.

  She let herself in and collapsed on the futon, refusing to open her purse until she’d recovered from her eighty-eight-step climb—she knew because she counted them every time she went up or down. She kept thinking it would get easier, but after almost three months she still was gasping lungsful of air by the time she got to the sixty-step mark.

  Finally, armed with a bottle of water, she reopened the packet, removing the photos and the smaller envelope, setting them all beside her on the faded red cushion of the futon. Again she unfolded the paper, and though the words “Dear Carolina” still sent chill bumps washing across her arms, she continued to read this time.

  Dear Carolina:

  Thank you for sharing ad nauseam your research and theories on the whereabouts of the crown jewels that England’s King John had the misfortune to lose back in 1216. Now it’s time to back up your claims. You have thirty days in which to locate the jewels.

  Obviously, she was suffering from stress-induced hallucinations, because she couldn’t possibly have read that right.

  Sam read the first paragraph again, and it hadn’t changed. Forget about Gary the Perv. He was now Gary the Certifiably Insane Freak. Find the crown jewels lost eight hundred years ago? The man was psychoballs.

  Sam rattled the paper in frustration before lifting it to continue reading: