Flirting with Danger by Bev Hardy (digital e reader TXT) 📖

go back downstairs. I assume that Richie has left now then."
She nodded.
"When you're ready to leave, I'll order you a taxi," he said, before disappearing into the adjacent room.
Charlie sat back on the sofa and reached for her wine again but then a thought hit her; she had to check for those discs.
Turning, she glanced nervously at the open door, but saw no signs of Doug returning.
She stood quickly and moved to the desk, scanning it for the disc file. Her heart thudded anxiously as she found it, opened the folder and searched the dates on the discs. She hated doing this to Doug; it felt as if she were going behind his back. But there was no sense in getting him involved. Turning the next page in the folder, to her amazement, yesterday's discs were there! With shaking hands, she slipped them out of the pockets and turned to find her handbag. She half expected Doug to be standing behind, watching her, but he wasn't. Returning to the sofa, she placed the discs into her handbag and reached for her wine glass again. Thank goodness, maybe now they had the proof they needed to clear Luke of suspicion.
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Luke burst through the kitchen door downstairs, only to find both Charlie and Richie gone, replaced with a small group of staff who were finally enjoying their after work drinks. They looked up at him with surprise.
"Anyone know where Richie went?" he asked urgently.
"Think I saw him leaving," one of the girls replied.
Then Luke was gone again, bolting across the reception area and out into the darkness of the front driveway. He paused in the shadows only long enough to reach under his trouser leg and pull out a firearm from his ankle holster.
He could see Richie approaching his car from across the driveway. Luke stuck to the shadows and headed for Richie.
The cold, hard barrel of Luke's gun made its indent in the side of Richie's head. Richie froze.
"You and me are gonna go for a little ride Richie boy. You know what the Borelli's did to Danny? Well, that's gonna be more like a walk in the park compared to what I'm gonna do to you."
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Earlier that morning.
Bella Jackson entered the reception area of The Club and glanced around at the opulent surroundings.
These people sure had some money.
She was drawn to the garden room straight ahead of her but was halted by Hannah, the receptionist, before she could get there.
"Can I help you?" Hannah asked.
"Oh sure, I was just gonna take a look around hunny," she replied.
"I'm sorry but this is for members only," Hannah said.
"Right. I wanna be a member then," she answered.
"Unfortunately there are no memberships available at this time," Hannah came back.
Bella assessed Hannah for a moment before shrugging and turning to leave. On her way however, Bella paused for a moment when a suited man passed her, and Hannah called out,
"Richie, I thought you'd left. She came back a few minutes ago. You keep missing each other," she laughed.
Richie replied, "I forgot to ask Sue about tonight. Where is Charlie now then?"
Heading out into the driveway once again, Bella took a quick look behind her before slipping around the side of the building.
Another American. What had that woman called him? Richie. Bella could use this to her advantage.
She bet that nobody would ask Richie's girlfriend from New York to leave. She was going to find out what she needed to know and no snooty receptionist was going to stop her! Chapter 22

It was easier than Luke had thought to break into that garage, even with Richie raving on about how he knew Luke was bad news all along. Bad news for him, yes. Now he was going to make Richie lead him to Tony Borelli and finish this thing once and for all.
He had found an old broken washing line in a stack of boxes, using it to tie Richie to a chair.
Richie glared furious resentment at Luke. "Right, so I've seen this in the movies; now you're going to do what? Torture me to tell you stuff. Well then, it's going to be a messy business, 'cause, how many times do I need to tell you, I don't know anything!" Richie yelled desperately.
It was a good job that Mrs Bennett's hearing left a lot to be desired, and that there was nobody else presently staying in that guest house.
Luke grabbed another kitchen chair, pulled it in front of Richie, turned it around and straddled it backwards, leaning on the back of the chair with one arm, while the other hand kept the firearm pointed in Richie's direction.
"You know this thing could be over with in seconds; you just gotta answer one simple question and we're through. Just one question," he stressed.
"Damn it, if I know the answer, which I doubt… but if I do, I'll tell you…" then Richie paused for a moment, eyeing Luke with suspicion as a thought occurred to him "…There's only one thing I won't do; you can do or say what you like, but I won't say nothing about Charlie. If this is to do with her, forget it. I'll throw anyone else to the wolves," he announced.
Luke was confused for a second. Why was Richie so focused on Charlie? It had to be a decoy. He was messing with him.
"Good, so I got a whole pack of wolves waitin' for Tony Borelli right now. Where is he?" Luke replied.
Richie closed his eyes momentarily and sighed. As he had thought, he wasn't going to be able to answer Luke's questions. Now his only hope was to convince this lunatic that he really did know nothing about these random people he kept mentioning.
"Read my lips," he replied, slowly but surely, "I have never heard of a Tony, or a Danny, or a Bella. I've never even been to New York in my life."
"Wrong answer," Luke replied, reapplying the barrel of his gun to Richie's head before he rethought, glancing around the garage for inspiration.
There were two things that Luke was sure of at that point: firstly, that Richie was connected to the Borelli's as he had suspected all along, and secondly, that this was Luke's only chance to finally get to Tony and end this torturous situation. Besides, this was most definitely the end of the line, because now Charlie was involved. This thing had to be sorted, and now, that minute… before it was too late.
Luke's eyes scanned the shelving units and homed in on a couple of tools hanging from the wall: a hammer, a chisel, and set of garden sheers.
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"Ed, have you seen Luke anywhere? He seems to have gone missing," Charlie said.
Eddie was flitting from table to table, trying to clear the bottles, glasses, and litter in as quick a time as possible in order to get back to the after work party. He stilled suddenly with his back to Charlie, and thought for a moment before slowly turning to face her.
This was going to be a tricky one.
Before he had chance to answer however, one of the younger staff, who enjoyed nothing more than knowing absolutely everything about other people's lives, chipped in and said,
"Did he find that woman? What a tart! Did you see what she was wearing? I thought Luke was going to blow a gasket when Eddie mentioned her..." she said to Charlie, trailing off when she realised what she had said.
Eddie glared at the girl, who subsequently snuck away guilty.
"What woman?" Charlie asked Eddie, feeling suddenly very edgy.
"Err, I'm not sure," he replied, busying himself again.
Charlie could read him like a book; he was trying to cover something up. She grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to stop and look at her.
"Edward, what woman was Luke looking for?" she repeated sternly.
Eddie squirmed, trying to figure out how to reply.
"Well… there was some woman here from New York," he finally said.
New York? Mafia?
She frowned, her mind working overtime. "Why would you not want to tell me that?" she asked suspiciously.
Damn it, Eddie couldn't hide a thing from Charlie.
"Why Eddie?" she pushed, now doubly wary from his reluctance to answer her.
He sighed, dumping all the bottles and glasses he was holding down on the table before grabbing her hand, leading her across the garden and down the hill to the wrought iron benches below; a considerably more private place to discuss what he was dreading having to tell her. Well, it would be better coming from him than her finding out on the grapevine.
"What on earth is going on?" she asked.
"Come and sit next to me hunny," he replied, seating himself on one of the benches.
She sat next to him. "You're really worrying me now Eddie. Just spit it out."
"How have you and Richie been getting on lately, sugar?" he asked.
"Not that great at the moment actually, why?" she replied.
"You know how you keep turning down his proposals? Well, that must mean that you don't see yourself with him in the long term, right?"
"Hmm, Eddie where are you going with this?" she asked, frustrated with Eddie's inability tell her what she needed to know.
"And you probably don't really like him as much as you had originally thought you were going to, right?" he went on.
"Eddie, if you don't get to the point, I'm not going to like you as much as I had originally thought!"
"Okay, okay," he answered, "the woman that Luke was looking for was … Richie's other girlfriend from New York," he finished quickly, cringing in preparation for her reaction.
She stared at him for one moment and then to his surprise, she burst out laughing.
"Who told you that?" she asked, chuckling to herself.
"She did," he replied with a frown.
""Hmm, then she had an ulterior motive, because she is most definitely not Richie's girlfriend."
"How can you be so sure?" he asked.
"Because I know Richie, and besides, he's very particular about the women he dates. There's not a chance he would date a 'tart' from New York. Anyway, there is more to this than you know," she said, standing suddenly. "Come on Ed, I'm going to need your help."
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Luke placed the dubious looking objects in a row on the workbench next to Richie.
Richie eyed them with terror. "Look, I'm telling you, I don't know a Tony 'whatever his name is' for God sake!"
Luke's hand shot out and he grabbed the hammer.
"I swear, I don't know him! You want me to make something up?"
"Okay, let's talk about Jackson, your girlfriend," he stressed, laying the hammer across his lap.
"Charlie's my girlfriend," he replied. "I've told you, I don't know any of these people."
Luke leant across and picked up the chisel.
"I swear, I don't know them, I don't know them!" Richie shouted, wracking his brains to think of a way out of this situation.
"Funny she turned up from New York today, aint it? I don't see there bein' too many of us Americans in Doug's English Country club, an' suddenly, here we all are," Luke commented.
Luke's words whizzed through Richie's head on fast forward. He paused, and rewound.
"Hold on, maybe I do know who this woman is you're talking about," he said.
"Yeah," Luke replied, picking up the hammer and toying with it in his hand. "Start talkin'."
"I passed a woman in the