Author's Note: A slightly shorter chapter. Still setting up the tone, mystery and sinister nature of the villain…
This guy was an expert manipulator, Merri concluded. There was no denying it. The way he had her exactly where he wanted her, vulnerable, without a single recourse. Well, any sensible one, anyway. It wasn't by accident that she was sitting at the opposite end of a long dining room table, wearing a slinky burgundy satin dress and being threatened in an extremely civilized subtle manner over the fish course.
The dress was regrettably sleeveless. And she still had not a stitch on in the way of undergarments. She wasn't self-conscious about it. It hadn't been her choice, after all. And she had more to worry about than whether her nipples were visible. What she disliked about being coerced into donning the fancy, low cut and backless evening gown sans even panties was that there was nowhere to hide the knife she was seriously considering absconding from the dinner table with.
"Are you going to get to the point tonight?" she asked, interrupting some inane tale about his family's historic plantation home, Harvester Valley . Did she not find it picturesque, a great legacy worth preserving, by whatever means necessary, blah, blah, blah...
He did not resume his veiled implications that she and LaSalle (not once referring to her missing partner) were somehow a threat to his family's great legacy, one he was not only obliged but happy to deal with. Instead, he cut a piece of the whitefish fillet with the edge of his fork, scooped it up, placing it in his mouth and chewing it slowly, his blue-grey eyes locked on her the entire time as he made an appreciative noise she could hear from several yards down the table. It was delicious, she had to admit. Flaking perfectly and melting on the tongue like butter.
She stared back as he followed his fish with a drink of wine. Which she assumed was equally exquisite, but was abstaining from herself. This man was tricky. He was urbane, manipulative. Not your run-of-the-mill street criminal or crime of passion murderer. Neither was he about to spill his evil plot for world domination like a narcissistic bond villain. But that wasn't to say this Monsieur Beauchamps wasn't a narcissist. Or a sociopath.
"I apol-uh-gize if my dinner con-vuh-sation has not been up tuh yuh standards, Miss Meredith." He smiled that unsettlingly perfect conman's smile. "Would you be so kind as tuh re-cuh-mend an alter-nuh-tive topic tuh explore?"
She knew he was trying to frustrate her to the point where she lost control over her emotions. She also knew that remaining steadfastly stubborn and unyielding would push him into attempting other methods to get her to talk, unpleasant methods. But maybe then, she'd find out what happened to her missing friend. Because if he tried playing Mr. Nice (and Manipulative) Guy with Chris LaSalle, that hadn't likely lasted long.
"Where is LaSalle?" She kept her voice even. Not nonchalant. But marshalling her acute worry, which had her stomach so twisted up in knots she'd barely picked at her food despite knowing she needed what sustenance she could get given an uncertain immediate future.
Beauchamps put his fork down.
"I em growin' weary of that par-ti-cu-lar line of questionin', Miss Meredith. Didn't yuh mama evuh teach you tuh stick tuh polite con-vuh-sation, such as the weathuh and a puhson's health?"
"Oh, I apologize," she said, plastering a big fake smile on her face, refusing to look away from those clever, sinister blue-grey eyes. "How is LaSalle?"
Beauchamps laughed. It was the most fake laugh she'd ever heard, worse than that of businessmen kissing the CEO's ass. Perhaps because of the fake laugh's mere absurdity, it made her yearn to hear her partner's amused chuckle, all genuine good humor and accompanied by that beautiful goofy grin of his. LaSalle smiling and laughing was charming as hell. This man's false joviality sent a chill down her currently naked spine.
"I em beginnin' tuh think that you need yuh hearin' checked, my dear," he said, the 'amusement' blinking out in a fraction of a second. "Because like I have already told you upon sev'ral occasions, I do not possess any knowledge concernin' yuh friend's where-uh-bouts or activities."
Merri blinked. The light in the large dining room had shifted. Hadn't the sun already set, though, by the time she was woken and escorted to the bathroom to wash up and change for dinner?
"Why don't you regale me with uh tale," Beauchamps said, refocusing his attention on finishing up the remainder of the fillet on his plate. She could see the flash of the silverware but the room had taken on an unfocused sort of soft glow, and try as she might she couldn't quite make out the expression on his face. She'd felt dizzy and exhausted earlier, plopping down on the bed rather than thoroughly searching the blue and white room as she'd planned, thinking it was because her body had been fighting off an infection, pumped full of antibiotics, kept sedated and hadn't consumed any solid food in the past three days. But apparently it had been due to other, likely pharmaceutical influences. "Puh-haps if I have uh better pic-shuh of yuh partnuh, I might remembuh some detail I heretofore have fuh-gotten."
He wanted... He wanted... Her to tell him about LaSalle? God, she was thirsty. She reached for the water, knocked it over.
"Oops." Beauchamps got to his feet, walked around the table to her. "Let me assist you. I did not take you for a clumsy woman, Miss. Meredith."
He righted the glass, and there was still about half an inch of the clear liquid in the bottom. Merri licked her dry lips. She was very thirsty. She reached for the glass again, but Beauchamps caught her hand.
"I don't think you will be needin' any more of that." He deposited her hand in her lap and she couldn't quite find the will to lift it and punch the bastard in the face for drugging her. She blinked at him instead, trying to focus on his smug smile and cold, calculating eyes as he pulled her chair away from the table and crouched before her, studying her face. "Now, why don't you tell me what you and that tenacious partnuh of yuhs have been up tuh ovuh the past couple uh weeks?"
Ah. The truth. Finally. This was all because of the... the case... LaSalle's friend… What was his name? Um…
"What have... you... to..." Unconsciousness was beginning to descend upon her like the night sky at sunset.
"Well, damn," Beauchamps said, his face growing entirely cold in the glimpses she got between blinking, her eyes remaining closed longer than they were open. And then he was standing, shouting. "Who mixed our 'onuh'ed guest's cocktail?! You puht too damn much in!"
There was a slight sting on her cheek, causing her to jerk her head back up and open her eyes. Beauchamps slapped her lightly again.
"I uh-pol-uh-gize, Miss Meredith. Good help is so veruh diff-uh-cult tuh find nowadays. If one wants somethin' done right, it seems one must do so oneself."
"Wouldn't... talk... anyway," she said, helpfully excusing whatever apparently inept assistant who'd fixed her spiked water. That's what that slice of lemon had been for, apparently, hiding the… the taste… of the…
She lost consciousness.
A/N: I already have the next chapter partly written, so I can guarantee you that we find out what Beauchamps is specifically after and what's happened to LaSalle.