With Branson out of the picture now, it would be very instructive to see what had happened to Stephanie with her lover gone. He’d check out her mental state, then put her out of her misery.
Craig had been busy. Last night he’d spent some time in the bathroom of the cheap motel where he was staying using a clipper on his thick dark hair and then shaving his head. He’d cut himself a couple of times, but the effect of the hair removal was startling. He didn’t recognize the ugly-looking man who stared back at him in the mirror. Hopefully, Reynard wouldn’t either.
Next, he took a chance and wired five thousand dollars from an account he kept under another name to a Western Union office in a nearby town.
He’d used some of the cash to buy spy equipment to monitor phone communications at the plantation, and that had already paid off. Reynard was planning his wedding for that afternoon.
Craig swore. The bastard was moving fast. But as he listened to the preparations, he got an idea.
After learning Reynard’s plans, he stopped at a discount department store and bought some extra shirts in several sizes, which he put on in layers, bulking up his body to change his physique a little. As he passed the cosmetics department, he had another couple of ideas. He bought some dark eyebrow pencils and some fake tanning cream. He spent some time in the men’s room putting on the tanning stuff and doing his eyebrows, trying to make them look thicker but natural. Next, he stopped in a hardware store and bought some little rubber rings, which he stuck into his nostrils to make his nose look bigger. After altering his appearance, he ran a couple more errands. With the state’s lenient gun laws, he was able to pick up a Sig semiautomatic with a couple of spare clips—plus other equipment he was going to need.
When he was as prepared as he could be, he drove to Just for You Flowers, where the staff was frantically working to get the impromptu Reynard order ready in time.
He’d asked for a wedding bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath, plus several vases of flowers in stands to decorate the pool area where the wedding was being held.
“Hi, I’m Craig Barnes from the New Orleans store,” he told the woman behind the counter. “When they heard you were doing a job for John Reynard, they sent me down here to help.”
She gave him an annoyed look, and he was fairly sure that with his bald head and heavy eyebrows, he looked like a thug.
“No need, we have it under control,” she said.
But I’m going to drive the van that brings in the flowers,Craig said, putting in every ounce of mental energy he could muster. He’d done this before with Sam. He’d done it with Stephanie. He’d never done it on his own, but he knew Stephanie had been pushing John in the direction she wanted, and if shecould do it, so could he. He reinforced the silent observation with a second repetition.
The woman’s expression was still doubtful. “I’m just going to call Phil at the New Orleans shop and check on that.”
“It was Phil who sent me.”
She reached for the phone, and he sent her a fast and furious message.Don’t call Phil. Don’t call Phil. You need Branson to drive the truck.
He kept repeating the message, waiting with his heart pounding. If she didn’t take him up on the offer, he’d have to go to plan B, and he had no freaking idea what that was. But hehad toget inside that plantation compound if he had a chance of rescuing Stephanie before she ended up in Reynard’s bed tonight.
“We could use a driver. Some of the stands we’ll need are heavy, and we only have women in the shop today.”
“I’m glad to help with that,” Craig said.
“And while you’re here, there are some deliveries that need to be put in the refrigerator.”
Several miles away, Rachel and Jake Harper were tuned in to the preparations at the estate.
“He’s going to marry her this afternoon,” Rachel said, a note of disgust in her voice. “And Craig Branson is ready to go in there and rescue her.”
“He could get himself killed,” her husband answered.
“I know that. But I want this to come out okay for them. What can we do about it?”
“I should say—nothing,” Jake answered firmly.
She gave him an incredulous look. “You’d leave two of the children from the Solomon Clinic in terrible danger?”
“I didn’t say I’d do that, but we have to think carefully about what we’re risking.”
“I know. But maybe we’d better start making some contingency plans.”
He answered with a tight nod, and she knew he would go along with her plans—if he didn’t think they were too dangerous.
She also knew he had grown up on the streets, committed to only himself. Caring about no one but himself. He’d bonded with her because of the telepathic link they’d forged, but it was still difficult for him to see the importance of extending that bond to the others. Especially after the first children from the clinic that they’d met had started off by attacking them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
