Overkill, p.1
Overkill, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Sandra Brown Management, Ltd.
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LCCN: 2022936530
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-5201-2 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-2440-8 (large print), 978-1-5387-2510-8 (signed ed.), 978-1-5387-2511-5 ([BN] signed ed.), 978-1-5387-5199-2 (trade pbk.), 978-1-5387-5202-9 (mass market), 978-1-5387-5200-5 (ebook)
E3-20220607-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
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
Epilogue
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Prologue
The blowout was in full swing.
It had gotten off to a comparably moderate start at around ten o’clock. By midnight, boundaries of behavior had begun to wobble under the influence of liquor, controlled substances, and carnality.
By now, in the wee hours, any semblance of civilization had been abandoned. More guests than not had discarded articles of clothing. All had thrown off their inhibitions. Rap pounded from speakers discreetly hidden throughout the stately home, making it seem as though the walls themselves were secreting the cacophony. It thumped through the otherwise decorous Buckhead neighborhood. For hours, that precinct of the Atlanta P.D. had been kept busy taking noise complaint calls.
The host of the bacchanal had issued a blanket invitation. The majority of revelers overflowing his house were strangers to him, including the young woman who’d offered her inner thigh as the surface from which he was snorting a line of cocaine.
For a while now, the two of them had been lounging on a sofa in a relatively private corner, sharing not only a vial of the white powder but also a bottle of vodka. The latter had been the source of numerous phallic innuendos.
If she’d ever told him her name, he was too stoned to remember. When he’d asked her what she did, as in a vocation, she’d replied, “This.”
“This?”
“I party.”
Perfect. She was here to have a good time, and that happened to be his specialty.
She was a looker. She had dark eyes, which were heavily lined like Cleopatra’s. Her hair was black and sleek, worn perfectly straight and long enough to almost reach her oh-so-smokin’ ass. Plush breasts were on display above the low, loose neckline of her slinky dress. The fabric was gold and shimmery and so gossamer-sheer that her areolae showed through.
When he’d complimented her on the dress, she’d told him she’d worn it “on the red carpet,” but he didn’t know which red carpet, and didn’t care. From his vantage point as he sniffed the remaining cocaine, he enjoyed the view beneath her short skirt all the way up.
This girl had a spirit of adventure and no modesty.
He inhaled deeply, then sat up, flung his head back, and shouted an obscenity toward the ceiling to express his ecstasy.
She giggled and took a drink from the bottle of vodka as she slid her bare foot up his thigh, stopping just short of her toes touching his crotch. “While you were down there, did you peek?”
“What do you think?” He grinned. “I’m a naughty boy.”
“Naughty boys are just my thing.”
“Are they?”
She raised her pair of perfectly shaped brows.
He laughed. “Then you’re going to love us.”
He looked around for his two best friends and spotted them across the room at the food buffet, which looked like it had been plundered by a wolf pack. A naked girl was curled up asleep on a bed of lettuce where chilled shrimp had been earlier. His friends were garnishing her slumbering form with leftover slices of citrus.
“Come with me,” he said, taking Cleopatra’s hand.
She resisted. Reclining against the sofa cushions, she raised one knee and swayed it back and forth as she whined, “What’s wrong with right here?”
“Too public.” He hauled her up and caught her around the waist when she swayed against him.
As they walked toward the buffet table, she looked over her shoulder. “I left my sandals.”
“They’ll be fine. I want you to meet my friends.” When they reached the table, he said, “Boys, we’re going upstairs for some grown-up fun and games. Wanna come?” He laughed. “No pun intended.”
With glazed eyes, the two looked Cleopatra over. The tall blond, who had a drowsy smile that women found irresistible, drawled, “Sure.”
The other looked down at the girl sleeping among the lettuce. “What about her?”
“You can come back for her later,” the host said. “If you have the energy.”
“You won’t,” Cleopatra purred, tiptoeing her fingers up his sleeve. “I can go all night.”
“My kind of girl,” said the handsome blond.
She gave him the look most women did, like she wanted to lick him all over. “We’re gonna have fun.”
The host felt a pang of jealousy, but another line of coke and a swig of vodka would take care of it. He would be the one Cleopatra remembered from tonight, not his irresistible buddy.
“I left the coke on the table over there. Go get it and her sandals,” he said to the third man. “We’ll take the elevator. I don’t trust any of us trying to climb the stairs.”
The cocaine and gold sandals were retrieved. The quartet threaded their way through other guests who were either already passed out or engaged in their own debauchery.
The elevator was situated beneath the sweeping staircase and was for the private use of the homeowner. It was built seamlessly and invisibly into the paneling. It was small. The four of them crowded in, which required sandwiching Cleopatra’s curvy body between the host and the blond. The third wrapped them in a group hug.
The ride to the second floor was brief. They piled out of the elevator and staggered their way down the wide hallway to the bedroom. The host went in first, then bowed at the waist and gestured them all in with a wide sweep of his arm. He shut the door and locked it.
He turned Cleopatra to face him and, smiling, said, “Our games have only one rule. I call the shots.”
She slid the skinny straps of her dress off her shoulders and let it slither down her body to the floor, then walked naked across the room and stretched out on the bed, arms extended above her head. “Fire away.”
Chapter 1
Zach Bridger’s life was upended while in the Cayman Islands, sitting at the pool bar, sipping a cold beer, and chillin’ to Buffett’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”
It was only eight-thirty in the morning, but his date-of-the-week had wanted to claim an ideal spot for sunbathing the day away, so she’d dragged him out of bed early. Other guests at the swanky resort must’ve been of the same mind. A line had formed for the breakfast buffet at the open-air restaurant, and the bar itself was doing a lively business.
“Isn’t that your ex?”
Zach, who’d been enjoying the array of lubricated female flesh around the swimming pool, turned towa rd the bartender, who hitched his goatee up toward the TV, where a photo of Rebecca dominated the upper right-hand corner of the screen behind the anchorwoman’s shoulder.
An indifferent grunt was Zach’s response to both the bartender’s question and the picture. He couldn’t attach the word “wife” to the woman beguiling the camera with her sloe eyes. It escaped him how he could have pledged his everlasting love, honor, and fidelity to her. Neither of them had kept the vows. He had, however, endowed Rebecca with a helluva lot of his worldly goods.
He said, “Best years of my life have been the five since our divorce.”
“Hear ya.” The bartender gave him a kindred grin. “It’s been three since mine.” He reached for Zach’s plastic glass and topped it off from the beer tap, then glanced over his shoulder at the TV, which now featured another picture of Rebecca. “Recently she’s been hanging with a hockey player. One of those without any vowels in his name.”
“Pity the poor bastard,” Zach said.
The bartender chuckled. “I think they’ve split.”
“I don’t keep up.”
Zach hadn’t seen Rebecca in the flesh since she’d flounced out of the divorce court. She’d left through the front entrance to endear herself to the paparazzi waiting there, while his lawyer had sneaked him out through a rear exit to avoid them.
Occasionally, by accident, he’d catch a mention of her on one of those hyperactive, celeb-tracking shows. She was usually featured as a gorgeous accessory draped over the arm of a guy who was trending on social media.
The bartender wiped up a spill. “You must’ve whetted her appetite for professional athletes.”
Zach saluted the bartender with his fresh beer.
“We’re supposed to be cool with celebrity guests. Not make a big deal, you know. But I have to tell you, I’m a huge fan.”
“Gotta pen?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” The bartender produced a ballpoint. Zach pulled a cocktail napkin from the holder on the bar and scrawled his autograph on it.
With sleight of hand, the bartender pocketed the signed napkin. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.
Zach was tipping the glass of beer toward his mouth when he saw that the images on the TV had changed. Now live video was being transmitted from either a drone or a helicopter as it circled above what appeared to be a sprawling private estate, currently encircled by police cars and emergency vehicles. Rebecca’s name still appeared in the bulletin scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
Zach set down his beer and slid his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “Turn up the sound, please.”
The bartender did as requested, upping the volume enough for the anchorwoman to be heard above “Good Vibrations.”
She was saying, “Authorities have told us that the nine-one-one call came in at three-oh-eight this morning, but the caller has yet to be identified.”
Zach and the bartender exchanged a look. Zach got up from his barstool and moved around behind the bar in order to better see and hear.
“First responders arrived at the Clarke mansion within thirteen minutes of the nine-one-one and found Rebecca Pratt in an upstairs guest bedroom. We don’t have details yet, but her condition has been described as unresponsive. She was taken to Emory University Hospital, but there’s been no word on either the cause or seriousness of her condition.
“Investigators are at the scene, questioning everyone who was attending the party at the lavish home. It’s estimated there were between forty and sixty guests. Police report that illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia were found in various rooms of the mansion. Foul play has not been ruled out.
“Rebecca Pratt, often seen on red carpets with high-profile personalities, has remained single since her bitter divorce in 2017 from Super Bowl MVP quarterback Zach Bridger, who as yet has been unavailable for comment. We’ll bring you updates on this breaking story as we get them. Now, we’ll turn to the political brouhaha being raised in Washington over comments made by—”
Zach took the remote from the bartender and clicked off the audio. The Beach Boys had given way to Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” but nearby activity had been suspended and conversations had ceased.
Zach became aware that he had the undivided attention of everyone in the immediate area.
He came out from behind the bar, replaced his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and avoided making direct eye contact with anyone. He and Rebecca had walked away from their brief but tumultuous marriage without looking back. But it seemed that nobody else was willing to let it go.
She’d reverted to using her maiden name, but their names were still linked, and rarely was one of them mentioned in the media without a reference being made to the other, like it or not. He didn’t like it. In fact, he hated it like hell because her current reputation was an ongoing embarrassment to him. But there it was: the price of fame.
Even though he had to dig deep to find any emotion beyond indifference toward her, he had never wished her ill. “Unresponsive” didn’t sound good at all. He wandered back toward the pool, trying to remember where he’d deposited his date-of-the-week, trying to remember her name.
He finally spotted her chatting up a slender, hairless Euro type in a Speedo, who was half reclined on the chaise next to hers, which Zach had vacated not twenty minutes earlier.
As he wended his way around other sunbathers toward them, his cell phone rang. He was often razzed about never being without it. It was an extension of his hand.
Recognizing an Atlanta area code, he figured it was a news outlet who’d bribed his number out of somebody. Likely they would want a sound bite from him regarding Rebecca and what was certain to be today’s lead story.
In his mind, he formed something appropriate to say, something to which no one could take exception, something conveying concern but disconnection. He thumbed on his phone.
“This is Zach.”
Within thirty seconds, he wished he’d never answered that call.
It took him almost twelve hours to get from the hotel swimming pool on Grand Cayman to the hospital in Atlanta.
He didn’t feel too bad about abandoning his date; she and the Speedo seemed to be hitting it off. He told her to enjoy the rest of her stay and to charge everything to his credit card the hotel had on file. He tipped the concierge three hundred bucks to get him a seat on the next flight to the States and to book ground transportation at both ends.
The car that had been arranged to meet him at ATL was an innocuous black sedan. After the mandatory greeting, the driver, who’d already been told which building of the medical complex where Zach was to be dropped, sensed his passenger’s disinclination to chat during the drive from the airport.
Zach had braced himself for a chaotic scene, but there was even more pandemonium than he’d anticipated. It was escalated by his arrival. As soon as he was seen getting out of the car, the media throng waiting outside the main entrance converged on him with the impetus of a tidal wave, or more like a school of sharks that had smelled fresh blood.
“Zach, when did you hear?”
“Was it a drug overdose?”
“Was she depressed over her recent breakup with—”
The female reporter shouted a name that sounded foreign and like it didn’t have any vowels. Zach kept his head down and didn’t even deign to say “no comment” to the barrage of questions. He plowed through the reporters and videographers until, through the glass doors of the entrance, he spotted Bing.
Ned “Bing” Bingham had coached him at Clemson. The bond they’d forged there had grown even stronger when Zach went pro. Now retired, Bing was still his go-to person whenever the shit hit the fan.
He saw Bing bark an order to the uniformed men guarding the door. Like most people did when Bing barked an order, the officers hopped to. They opened the door for Zach and he squeezed through, leaving the news throng outside disappointed, but all the more frenzied.
His showing up here had added considerable spice to the story, catapulted it into the stratosphere of the sensational. Ordinarily he took the media’s insatiable appetite for buzz in stride. But these circumstances weren’t ordinary, and he resented like hell the intrusion, not only into his privacy, but into that of Rebecca and her parents.
He thanked the officers who’d allowed him in, then went over to his friend and mentor. “You’re a welcome sight, Bing.”
