The Elusive Jillian Wilson (Siren Publishing Allure) Read online

  Long story short, I denied that I had seduced her and that caused the old man to turn his back on me. They wanted me to marry her.” Vince wiped his hand over his face in an effort to wake up a little bit. He stood up and leaned back on the windowsill and smiled with a twist of his lips.

  “What they didn’t know is Oliver’s was mine from my mother’s inheritance.

  “They sent my father into bankruptcy court. He lost his business and his dignity over the lies of a worthless bitch. My father had to ask me to pay for the food and the house expenses, and it almost killed him at the time. His last words to me were to extract a promise to take care of little Vinny and poor Brenda.

  “In answer to your unasked question, if they were to contest my will, then they will have to pay back my estate, a million each. I have no obligation as far as blood or any true ties to them. As far as I’m concerned, they are the recipients of my living gift and will receive nothing more from me, dead or alive.”

  Vince decided that there was nothing left for him to do for the day at the office. He was dead tired and hadn’t slept more than two hours on the plane. The trip to Russia had been very lucrative, and Vince hoped to further Oliver’s interest in that corner of the globe on a larger scale in the near future.

  He had Ken, the driver, stop at Moos for takeout and walked into his condo at four thirty in the afternoon. After stripping off his wrinkled suit, he took a shower. Standing under the massaging jets of unlimited heated water, he remembered yesterday’s shower and appreciated American modern plumbing a lot more. He had to push thoughts of his nephew’s bullshit out of his mind, at least until tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be able to think with a little more rational reaction and a lot less emotion.

  He wrapped a towel around his hips and walked into the kitchen to grab a cold beer and a fork. Normally he would just use the chopsticks, but tonight he wanted to shovel his food in and then sleep. Chopsticks required a certain delicacy that he refused to force on himself today.

  Vince turned on the local news station and almost choked on his beer when the camera panned across the front of the Oliver building. The news anchor was reciting the events of three days ago and then a picture of a shapely blonde profile still photograph appeared on the screen.

  “Police are asking for information as to the whereabouts of this woman, know only as Jill. Police spokesmen tell us that she is not wanted for any crime, they just want to question her as a possible witness in the matter of the death of Melody Frye and shooting of Vincent Oliver, the nephew of Vincent Oliver, head of Oliver International Oliver.”

  The picture of the woman was not a good one. Her head was turned away, and the likeness was grainy. From what Vince could see, the woman could be anyone with blonde hair and a shapely body. The thought occurred to him that she would have enough dirt on the Oliver family to make a fortune from the tabloids if they got to her before he or the police did. Shit, another problem to take care of.

  * * * *

  Haney was not happy to be interrupted by Vince right now. When the man ordered a full-scale manhunt for the woman, Haney was happy to inform him that it had been taken care of the day after the incident happened. “I knew we would need to do damage control as soon as I heard that the witness had gone missing. Vince, I know my job.” Then he hung up the phone.

  Richard Haney shut the ringer off and continued where he had left off in the book about Down syndrome. The more he read, the higher Beatrice got in his estimation. The words this author used to describe people with Down’s varied from lovable, loyal, and generous to stubborn and manipulative. That described half of Haney’s friends and acquaintances. After all the information he read, Haney came to the conclusion that people with the syndrome were just people with more challenges than most.

  Very few people knew that Haney did pro bono work for parents with autistic kids. He liked his reputation of being a real bastard in the courtroom and saw no reason to showboat any kindness to the general population. His philosophy was that if you had to brag about doing something good for someone else then you were not doing it for the right reasons. Too many people liked to brag about what they had done for someone else as if they wanted praise, and Haney just did not have time for that kind of shit.

  Chapter 4

  Once Jill finally made it out of the city, she headed the minivan west. With no real idea where she was going or even what the future held for her, she still felt a small thrill. After all, she was twenty-nine years old with no ties or place to call home. Most of her adult life had been like this. She had been born in South Bend, Indiana, and lived there for the first eighteen years of her life. Her parents didn’t have the money to send her to college since her father lost his job when the economy tanked.

  Jill got a job in Chicago waiting tables at a high-priced restaurant and answered an ad for someone wanting a roommate. That was where she met Kelly. Over the years and many separations, they finally joined up again in Atlanta. Kelly had a great job working for a resort, and she invited Jill to come and stay with her until she got her dream job.

  Three months after Jill moved in, Kelly met a guest at the resort where she was working, and the rest was history. That left Jill with a month to find prospective clients and start her cleaning business. Since the lease was in Kelly’s name, Jill couldn’t get it changed into hers without some sort of income to prove she could pay the rent, and the landlord flatly refused to rent to her without the proof of employment.

  She had already done her homework and found ten future employees. The bank refused to give her a dime until she had a solid contract in hand the next time she darkened the door. That was why the contract with Oliver had been so important. Now that dream was in the toilet, along with her thoughts of putting down roots in Atlanta.

  So now she was driving down the road, yet again looking for a place to call home. There was no hurry to get to any particular place, so Jill stopped a couple of times to top off her tank, eat, and stretch her legs. By the time she stopped for the night at a large chain motel and showered then stretched out on the bed, she was pleasantly tired. She reached for the remote and clicked the TV on. The weather man was talking about the thunderstorms that would cause gusty winds and heavy downpours for the next day. “Great, that means I will be driving in rain all the way past St. Louis then,” she told the smiling man as he continued his predictions for the next seven days. She clicked the remote and turned off the light next to the bed. Checkout time was eleven a.m., and she planned to sleep as long as she felt like it.

  At six a.m. Jill woke up to a horrendous boom of thunder and a flash of blinding lightening. “Great, just fucking great.” The sound of a scream outside had her pushing the covers back and heading for the window. She could see nothing but water cascading down the pane. No help there, so she grabbed her jeans and a clean T-shirt and got dressed quickly. The electricity kept blinking off and on, so she decided to gather her things and wait out the storm down in the small restaurant. Hopefully they had coffee, and maybe if she was lucky a Danish or something to get her started for the day.

  Jill took the stairs on the way down to the lobby and was glad she had when the electric went out and stayed out. There were emergency lights illuminating the steps, and that was a good thing since the stairwell had no windows to light the way. By the time she made it down the two flights, she had been joined by several other people, and they pushed the door open to reveal chaos. The large plate-glass windows in the lobby were smashed, and rain was pouring inside. The large potted plants that had been outside the doors last night were now lying on their sides in the windows. Wind and rain blasted anyone trying to run through the lobby, and Jill’s heart sank when she saw the little boy holding onto his father’s hand by the elevator. He was crying in fright. The man was out cold. There was a bloody gash on the man’s head, and his body was slumped over a bench. No one else was paying attention to the two as the rain kept anyone else from noticing the little one’s cries for the man to wake up.
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br />   Damn. Jill knew she wasn’t going to ignore the little boy. He couldn’t be more than three years old. She left her case in the stairwell and ran to the two people left alone to fend for themselves. When she got to him, the boy cried harder. She checked the man’s neck for a pulse but saw that he was dead. The sightless eyes stared ahead without life, and it gave her a moment of panic to know she had touched a dead man. She quickly pulled her hand back, and the boy tugged on her shirt, bringing her back to reality.

  She crouched down and lifted the little guy in her arms, hugging his shivering body close to hers. He stopped crying and looked directly in her eyes, and she smiled at him. “Hello, I’m Jill. Let’s get you somewhere safe, okay?”

  She ran with the little boy hugging her for dear life until she thought he was going to strangle her and ducked back into the stairwell. The small space was solid with block walls and no windows to break glass over them, so Jill thought it was probably the safest place for them to ride out the storm.

  Jill was almost surprised when she looked around and found that they were the only people in the little spot. She wondered what was so important out in that rain that made the others leave the relative safety of the solid walls and run out into the lobby like that. Well, she couldn’t help them, but she had helped the little boy and herself, so it would have to be enough.

  His name was Eli, and he was “free” years old. Jill found him fascinating as they talked, and every time they heard the thunder boom or something crash close, Jill told him that God and his angels were bowling in heaven. “They sure do make a lot of noise up there don’t they, Eli?” The little man held his hands over his ears and nodded in agreement. Eventually he climbed into her lap, and she hummed a soothing tune. Eli fell asleep and didn’t hear the sound of a train coming closer. Jill heard it and pulled her case closer to them to maybe block Eli from anything that might fly.

  She had never been in a tornado before, but she had heard people that had lost homes and loved ones telling a reporter how the sound of a train was heard just before it hit. She hunched over Eli to protect him as best she could as she heard the roof being ripped from the motel. The whole place shook, and little Eli slept through it. Jill marveled at the resilience of the child. He was so trusting and sweet. She wondered how this child’s mother felt about being separated from this beautiful little man. If she was his mommy, Jillian would be a complete wreck until he was safe in her arms.

  Distant sirens were the only sounds to be heard within minutes of the ceiling collapsing in the stairwell. Jillian looked around in shock that the little corner was completely clear where they sat. Eli was waking up from his nap and wiggling around in her arms, so she cautiously sat straighter so her little friend could stretch. She made sure he saw her smile when his eyes popped open. “Hey, sleepyhead, I think the storm is over. Look up. It took the roof off so we could see it is safe to come out now.”

  Eli rubbed his eyes with his grubby little hands and announced that he was hungry and he willy willy needed to go potty. Jill had to promise not to look when she coaxed him to pee in the corner of the rubble. Now all she had to do was figure out how to get out of the small space.

  The door opened, much to her surprise, as soon as she touched it and put a little weight against it. In fact, she almost fell through the doorway because the door fell out of the wall as she quickly backed up and slid on her ass in the dusty remains of the ceiling behind her. Eli giggled and pointed at her, so she bit back the curse words and smiled instead. She stood up and dusted off her behind, and Eli laughed louder at the puff of dust that caused.

  She bent over and picked him up, growling at him, pretending to chew on his neck as he giggled and squirmed even more. Jill spied her bag sitting there unharmed and intact, so she grabbed that too and gingerly stepped on the fallen door to exit the building. On the opposite side of the doorway there was one inside wall left standing.

  The entire building was gone. The quiet told the story of the devastation and the power of Mother Nature. Jill told Eli to act like a monkey and hang on tight as she slowly climbed over blocks and piles of wood. A small car sat where she thought the lobby used to be, and a cat was running over the refuse. It seemed like hours by the time the duo made their way to a small patch of ground that was cleared of wood and roofing materials. People in yellow and orange vests could be seen in a distance, sifting through the mess of wiped-out homes and businesses.

  When she saw a policeman, Jill could have kissed the man. Eli needed water and his mother’s arms. They had been walking around looking for someone that was not engaged in rescuing someone from the basements or holding a fire hose trying to put out several fires. “Look, Eli, a real policeman. Let’s go talk to him, shall we?”

  Jill and Eli made their way back to the motel parking lot, and she was happily surprised to see her minivan still sitting in the back row of the lot alongside seven other cars that hadn’t been destroyed by the devastating twister. She opened the door and fished around for a bottle of water and found a snack-sized candy bar. Eli made the candy disappear and swallowed some of the water, too.

  As luck would have it, the cruiser was filled to capacity with people that the officer was shuttling to the emergency shelters downtown, and Jill knew that she would not be able to find Eli’s mom given the current situation she was in. When she talked to the cop, Jill told him about finding Eli in the lobby next to a man’s body and that she thought the man was dead so she grabbed Eli and took him to the stairwell.

  One of the women sitting in the backseat looked like the motherly type, and she smiled when Eli came to her lap. Jill waved good-bye to the small person with tears pooling in her eyes, knowing that she was going to miss him. At least the authorities will have a better chance of finding his mom than I ever could in this mess.

  It took her nearly an hour to dodge debris in the street and stop her vehicle so she could get out and toss siding and splintered two-by-fours to the side off the road before she could get back onto the highway. At the next exit the police were blocking the ramp, so Jillian stayed on the highway until her gas gauge dropped to a quarter tank of fuel, and she got off the highway to find the truck stop advertised on the billboard just before the exit.

  After filling her gas tank and using the ladies’ room to wash up and then almost scaring herself when she looked in the mirror until after she brushed her hair, Jillian parked the minivan and walked into the diner for a well-deserved meal. The plan was to get to St. Louis tonight, and so far she had made good time. There was another hundred and fifty miles left of today’s journey according to the signs along the highway.

  That night she stayed at a smaller chain motel franchise. All of the rooms were parking lot level, and Jill slept like a baby. She took the room for another night so she could look around the city and decide where to go from here.

  Chapter 5

  Vince left the hospital feeling like the weight of two large boulders had been lifted from his shoulders. Vinny was unusually quiet while Vince informed him and his mother of his decision to pay them off and let them fend for themselves. Brenda responded as he thought she would. As her screams and recriminations became louder, the staff had to come into the room to warn her to quiet down or leave.

  Vinny had just looked at him and nodded his head then shocked him by saying thank-you without any argument. Vince left a copy of the paperwork on the bed for Vinny and watched as Brenda tore her copy into shreds.

  Now the sun was shining, and his day was going well. When Vince got back to his office, there was more good news. Haney and his minions had found out the blonde witness’s name, Jillian Wilson. There was a head-shot photo, and Bea confirmed that she was the woman she met that day.

  Jillian’s driver’s-license information told him that she was twenty-nine years old, five feet five inches tall, and weighed one hundred sixty seven pounds. Hair blonde, eyes hazel. Her address was listed in Connecticut but nothing tied her to Atlanta.

  Haney’s men fou
nd her through her license plates. When the private security went throughout the neighboring businesses and just by luck got a copy of all the video feeds in the area. One noticed a blonde walk into the building and then walk out wearing a dark sweater around the time the woman went missing according to the police. When they saw the direction she came from, the investigators concentrated on public street parking and garages. That was gold for the investigators. The garage also had cameras at low levels to get plate numbers in case of hit-and-run dents and the like. She drove a late-model Chrysler minivan. It was dark green in color, and Vince could see the rust beginning to eat away the wheel wells and rocker panels on the vehicle.

  So far the police were still investigating the attempted murder and accidental death. Since Vinny had not disputed the eyewitness’s statement, finding Jillian Wilson was not a top priority. If and when they found her, they would probably go over her statement again and then close the files.

  Vince drew the obvious conclusion that the woman needed money. Her vehicle was at least ten years old, and she had taken the chance to show up without an appointment for a possible contract with his company without knowing if there even was a contract to be awarded. The woman had guts to come directly to the CEO’s office rather than submitting a letter of inquiry like most of the subcontractors did.

  Now that they had a name and the description of her vehicle, it should not take a lot to find the elusive woman.

  * * * *

  After work Vince came home, showered, and shaved. He dressed in a dark blue suit then added a new gadget-laden watch and grabbed a few condoms and his wallet before leaving his condo. The very sexy and entertaining Jeanie waited for him to take her to an expensive restaurant. From there they would go shopping for something shiny then perhaps they would end up at the guest house where he would allow the most-talented Jeanie to properly thank him for the lovely evening in a very pleasant way.