The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,131
way out was just to get rid of him.
And not in an annulment kind of way.
FORTY-FOUR
The following morning, Lane left Lizzie asleep in their big bed at Easterly as he took a quick shower and got dressed. Before he left, he spent a moment watching her in her slumber and thinking that he’d so picked the right woman.
And then he was on his way, striding down the corridor, descending the front stairs, leaving out the main entrance.
The Porsche came awake at the turn of the key, and he sped down to the bottom of the hill, taking a left and going to the Shell station. A large coffee and a cardboard breakfast sandwich later and he was heading to the local branch of the bank, going around bicyclists, getting stuck behind a school bus, cursing as a minivan full of kids nearly wiped him out.
Then again, that might have been his fault. He hadn’t slept well and the coffee hadn’t properly kicked in yet.
What the hell had his two brothers been doing on that shoreline? And why had that shit not come up in conversation?
Because they had something to hide. Duh.
After Detective Merrimack and Pete the Geek had finally left the business center, Lane had had the impulse to drive out to the Red & Black, but he wasn’t sure whether Team CMP was going to head that way themselves. After all, Edward rarely answered that phone for anybody, and the detective had the focus and follow-through of a bloodhound on a scent.
The last thing Lane wanted was to appear confrontational in front of a peanut gallery of police—and he was sure as hell ready to do some hot stepping all over both of his brothers.
In the end, he and Lizzie had stayed on the estate, making love in the pool house again and then upstairs in the tub … and in the bed.
Great stress relief. Even if it didn’t change what was going on.
Pulling into the bank’s parking lot, he found an empty space and realized he’d picked the same one he’d used before when he’d first found out there were problems.
He almost backed up to leave the car somewhere else.
Recognizing that magical thinking wasn’t going to help, he got out and left the top down even though the sky was heavy with rain not yet fallen and the weatherman was calling for a tornado watch. That was the thing with Kentucky. There was no seasonal weather: You could start the morning off in shorts and a T-shirt, need your torrential rain gear at noon, and end the afternoon with a parka and snow boots.
As his phone rang, he took it out of the pocket of the linen jacket he’d worn the day before. When he saw who it was, he almost let it go into voice mail.
With a curse, he accepted the call and said, “I’m getting you the money.”
Even though he had no clue how.
Ricardo Monteverdi’s panties were back in a wad, the ten-million-dollar cash injection thanks to Sutton having bought fewer days of peace than Lane remembered bargaining for. The man was once again pulling the whole we’re-out-of-time, save-my-ass-before-I-ruin-your-family thing, and as he droned on, Lane measured the sky once more.
Lenghe’s jet was due to arrive in forty-five minutes—and if it wasn’t on time, it was going to get delayed for hours and hours.
“Gotta go,” Lane said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Hanging up, he waited for an SUV to pass and then strode over to the double doors. The local branch of PNC was your standard-issue glass-fronted, single-story box, and as he walked in, that attractive blond manager came forward to greet him.
“Mr. Baldwine, how nice to see you again.”
He shook her hand and smiled. “Mind if we talk for a minute?”
“But of course. Come inside.”
He went into her office and sat down in the chair for customers. “So my father has died.”
“I know,” she said as she took a seat on the other side of her desk. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not going to mess around with—thank you, thank you for that. Anyway, I’m not going to mess around with trying to shift signatories on the household account. I want to open a new one, and I’m going to wire three hundred thousand dollars into it ASAP. We’re going to have to transfer the automatic payments for all Easterly employees over to the new account effective immediately, and I need a list of anyone whose salaries pinged the old one and bounced. It’s a big mess, but