Justice

by Karen Robards

  “Not in this life.” A sideways glance told her that Rob was watching her still. A shiver slid down her spine. “I should have been more diplomatic, I know, but that guy gives me the creeps.”

  “To hell with being diplomatic.” Mark’s gaze followed hers. She could feel the sudden tension in his body as he spotted Rob. His arm tightening around her waist was the only other warning she got before he bent his head and kissed her. Caught unaware, Jess kept her eyes wide open while his lips slanted over hers and he licked into her mouth even as they continued to dance. He deepened the kiss, and her pulse fluttered with excitement. Her eyes closed and her head reeled and she forgot everything except the hungry insistence of his kiss. Pulse racing, she responded to the heat and urgency of his mouth with an instant, instinctive passion, pressing her body against his, kissing him back, sliding the hand that had been resting on his shoulder around his neck to cling to the strong column of his neck. He tasted of coffee, and champagne, and his kiss sent fire shooting clear down to her toes.

  He broke the kiss, lifted his head.

  Her eyes opened. A little dazed, she had to blink a couple of times before the chiseled planes of his face came into focus. He was looking down at her, his eyes heavy-lidded and hot as they met her gaze. His mouth had a sensuous curve to it that made her want to kiss him again.

  That is, until she remembered where they were.

  Their surroundings burst on her in a flash of disbelief. The dance floor was shadowy, but not so dark that they couldn’t have been seen perfectly well by anyone who’d been interested. Couples swayed all around them: Jess couldn’t see Mr. Dunn and Hayley, but she was pretty sure they were still out there somewhere, and the idea that Mr. Dunn might have witnessed that kiss made her shudder. More potential observers crowded the buffet line, sipped drinks in corners, strolled in and out of the tent.

  Oh, my God. How unprofessional can you get?

  “What was that?” she hissed at him, careful to keep her voice low lest she be overheard. Her hand slid from his neck to his shoulder. Despite the pressure of his arm around her, she managed to peel herself off his chest. Once again they were only dancing, but she could still feel the heat of that kiss like a tangible thing.

  “I was making a point.”

  “A point?”

  “Phillips was looking at you. I wanted the little turd to know that you were taken, that you belong to somebody. If he’s got any sense, he’ll leave you alone now.” Mark’s tone was grim.

  Jess’s initial reaction to that came in a swirl of emotion: a tiny, atavistic thrill at his protectiveness, a hope that maybe Mark was right and seeing that kiss would discourage Rob from ever so much as thinking of her again, and a rousing sense that the sentiments Mark had just expressed needed immediate challenging.

  “First of all, I am not taken and I don’t belong to anyone. How chauvinistic can you get?”

  Mark smiled faintly. “My bad.”

  “Second of all, this is a business party. Being seen kissing you is not the image I want to project.”

  “My bad again.”

  “And third, you can’t just kiss me whenever you feel like it. We’re over, remember?”

  “Are we?” He wasn’t smiling now. They had danced to the far edge of the crowd, and Jess welcomed the faint breeze that whispered across her overheated skin. Mark was holding her close again, so close she could feel the firmness of his chest against her breasts, the hard muscles in his thighs brushing her own. “Are you sure about that?”

  The question made her catch her breath. There were two answers: the one whispered by her heart, and the one in her head, the one she knew she had to give.

  “Yes.” Her tone was fierce.

  “I panicked, you know. That day with MJ. I just flat out panicked because things had happened so fast with you and me. It was just an impulse, a stupid damned impulse, and I regretted it the minute it was done.”

  Her heart pounded. She could feel her pulse drumming against her eardrums. She was panicking, too, she realized. She wanted him so much, but …

  “Look, I forgive you—mostly—for kissing Cates. I even respect you again. I appreciate your help in keeping me alive. But none of that changes anything.”

  He looked impatient. “Jess—”

  “I can’t have this conversation now.” She interrupted whatever he had been going to say by pulling out of his arms. Glancing around, she registered once again the number of eyes around to see, the number of ears to overhear. “Excuse me, would you please? I’m going to the restroom.”

  Without waiting for his response, she hurried off.

  The ladies’ restroom was located in another, smaller tent behind the big one she’d left. Jess stayed in there a long time. When she came out, she was feeling calmer. She wasn’t up to talking to Mark anymore at the moment, and she was relieved to discover that he wasn’t, as she had feared, waiting right outside when she finally emerged.

  Pearse was still with Margo Knight over by the waterfall, but they were talking instead of dancing now, probably so the heiress could enjoy the cigarette she was smoking. Jess needed to talk to Pearse—it was better that he heard from her rather than some other source that she had temporarily agreed to represent Tiffany. Besides, she also needed to stay out of that tent for awhile. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to approach Pearse, but it had to be done. Anyway, she was definitely on team Lenore. If she could break up Pearse’s tête-à-tête with Ms. Moneybags, she figured she should do it.

  Keeping a wary eye out for Mark, she walked along the edge of the pool toward the engrossed twosome. Tall potted palms partially blocked her view. Lounge chairs in her way made her path erratic. The roar of the ersatz waterfall was loud enough to preclude her from hearing anything the couple was saying, but she saw that Pearse was laughing and vicariously felt Lenore’s pain. She was maybe fifteen feet from her goal when her eye was caught by a passing guest and she stopped abruptly, transfixed, head swiveling as she followed his progress. A tall man in a tux, partially turned away from her. Black hair, fair complexion, narrow jaw …

  The lights went off. The sudden total darkness alarmed her, and she froze until the lights came back on again and she understood that they were being deliberately flickered as a signal for something, much as they would signal the beginning of the second act. The dance music had stopped. Another band began to play from somewhere above her, presumably the upper terrace. Loud and upbeat, the song was “Margaritaville.”

  “Everybody, come on up to the upper terrace. Mr. Dunn has an announcement to make,” a male voice boomed over the sound system.

  Jess barely heard. Rooted in place, she was busy looking for the man she had just seen in the tide of guests who were starting to head in droves for the upper terrace. There he was, over by the tent, moving toward the path like the rest. As if he felt her gaze on him, he turned and looked straight at her.

  Who …?

  The lights went off again.

  This time, as the velvety black night descended, as the band built to a crescendo, as the pool area emptied of its guests, something hit Jess hard in the side. Too stunned even to cry out, she found herself flying off her feet, hurtling through space, crashing down into the churning maelstrom where the waterfall cascaded into the pool. In her nostrils was the too-sweet smell of cheap cologne.

  Since her sister had drowned, she’d had a secret, morbid fear of being in the water. She never went swimming, never paddled in the surf, never waded.

  But she was falling in.

  No!

  She screamed, but it was too late.

  Cold and dark, the water closed over her head, swallowing her cry, shooting up her nose, making her choke and clamp her lips together as she struggled frantically to save herself. Something had her, held her, pulled her down. She was blinded and deafened by the water, sensory deprived, unable to see what it was. All she knew was that she was being forced further and further under, propelled toward the bottom, helpless to get away. Fig
hting against it with all her strength, she struggled to hold her breath. Her heart pounded as though it would burst. Her unprepared lungs ached for air.

  Horror rushed through her veins as she faced the truth: it was her worst nightmare come to life.

  Oh, my God, I’m going to drown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Water filled her nose, her ears, burned her eyes, churned against her face. It was like being caught in a washing machine, except instead of being tumbled around she was sinking like an anchor through the turbulence despite her struggle to win free of it. Desperately Jess held her breath, knowing she would die if she didn’t. Her pulse pounded like a jackhammer against her eardrums. She felt like her lungs were going to explode. Something had her around the waist—somebody had her around the waist. A person, a man, was forcing her to the bottom. She couldn’t see him. It was too dark, pitch black there beneath the water, for her to see so much as her own flailing limbs. But she knew he was there. Felt him. Sensed him. His arm locked her to him. Fiercely she fought, although the water resistance meant that her kicks and blows had no real power. She grabbed his arm, tried to pull it off her, tried to squirm free, to no avail.

  Panic had her screaming inside her head.

  Is this some kind of sick joke? Somebody’s idea of a prank? Throw her into the pool and …

  He’s trying to kill me.

  She knew it with an icy certainty that chilled her soul.

  He forced her down, dragged her to the bottom, shoved her against a hard surface. She could feel the harsh texture of the concrete against the backs of her legs, against her flailing arms. He was on top of her then, shoving her away from him, shoving her against the bottom of the pool. Suddenly something caught, yanked, held her. The pressure holding her down shifted from the man on top to something beneath, something sucking at her like a giant vacuum cleaner, something that snapped her down against the concrete and kept her there while she struggled like a butterfly on a pin, unable to break free.

  Terror closed like a fist around her heart, her lungs, squeezing them, compressing them until they pulsated with fear.

  Help, she screamed silently.

  The man was gone. She was alone. She knew it, knew that whatever now held her in its grip wasn’t human. It was swallowing her alive, forcing her inside it, and no matter how hard she pushed against the concrete and clawed for the surface she could not wrench herself free.

  A drain. It’s a drain. I’m caught in a drain.

  The horror of it galvanized her. She battled against the suction, kicking and clawing and fighting with everything she had to escape, holding her breath, fighting a desperate, urgent need to breathe.

  It was her dress. The skirt of it, caught by the drain’s suction, had already been swallowed as far as the slit would allow. Realizing that, she yanked at the wet silk, pulling with all her strength. She couldn’t get free.

  Far away, in the world above the water, the lights came on again. She could see the white froth where the waterfall hit, see the blue curved edge of the pool, see the blackness of the sky high overhead, as if through a filmy lens.

  Get out of the dress.

  The zipper was in the back. Caught as she was against the concrete, she couldn’t reach it. Straining for it, then ripping at the neckline, the straps, the slit, she made no headway. The silk was too strong. The drain held her fast.

  Somebody help me.

  Her lungs burned for air. She thrashed like a hooked fish. Water crammed into her nasal passages, pushed toward her throat. She could taste it, taste the chlorine.

  Courtney.

  Her sister, three years old. Drowning. Big blue eyes, brown curly hair turned black and slick because it was wet. Looking at her with wide-eyed fear before the wave swept her away.

  Oh, God, Courtney, did it hurt?

  She had asked her sister that a million times in her dreams. Now she had the answer at last: it hurt dreadfully. The pain of needing air and being denied it was indescribable. It shredded her insides like red-hot claws. Her body twisted in agony. She had to breathe.

  Please God, please …

  Heaving, kicking, battling against the suction for all she was worth, she prayed for her life. Her lungs felt like they were collapsing, no oxygen left at all, sticky membrane adhering to sticky membrane. Her heart beat so hard that she could feel it slamming against her ribs. Every cell in her body cried out for air.

  It takes less than two minutes to drown.

  She’d read that somewhere.

  How long has it been?

  Even as the question slipped through her brain, her thoughts grew fuzzy. Her vision started to blur. Her struggles weakened. She had to, had to, had to, fill her lungs …

  The man was back, grabbing her around the waist again, but she no longer had the strength to fight him off. Anyway, it was too late. Her limbs floated rather than flailed. The struggle suddenly seemed remote, the world increasingly far away. She couldn’t resist the need to fill her lungs with something, anything, to gasp and suck in whatever was there, for more than a second or two longer.

  The pain was too intense, the compulsion to breathe too great.

  Filling her lungs became this ferocious, driving need.

  She saw it now: how easy it would be just to let go and let the water claim her.

  Unable to fight it any longer, she gave up and inhaled.

  Not air, water. Horrible, horrible water. Gushing into her mouth. Coughing, choking, struggling against it as it poured down her throat, burst through to her lungs. Not easy at all. Hard, so hard.

  I don’t want to drown.

  All of a sudden she shot upward. Barely conscious now, Jess registered it with dreamy surprise. The suction had released. The same force that had pulled her down was carrying her up.

  Too late …

  Then she must have blacked out, because the next thing she knew she was lying on her side beside the pool, choking and gasping and spewing out water and finally sucking in air. Blessed air.

  “Breathe, damn you,” she heard a harsh voice gasp. “Breathe.”

  She breathed, coughing and sputtering but breathing. Her surroundings were blurry, but she saw that a man was on his hands and knees beside her, trim and fit in black pants and a white shirt, hair soaked, water streaming off him so that she knew he’d been in the pool, too. She felt a little frisson of fear until he moved so that the weird pale light hit him just right and she could make out the broad strokes of a handsome, familiar face.

  “Mark.” It was a croak.

  “Jesus, Jess, what are you trying to do to me here?” He was coughing, hoarse, but indubitably there.

  Immediately she relaxed and gulped in more air, and wheezed and gasped and breathed some more, greedily, as if she could never get enough, while a crowd began to gather around and Mark wrapped her in his coat, which was dry. That was when she understood that she was clad only in her soaking wet, flesh-colored bra and panties, and that Mark had shed his coat to jump in after her, and that the reason everything was still blurry was because she must have lost her contacts in the water.

  “My God, what happened?”

  “How did she fall in?”

  “… that little girl lawyer from the Phillips trial …”

  “Probably too many mai tais.”

  “Who found her? Oh, that guy? Who is he?”

  “… tell Mr. Dunn …”

  “Look out, here come the EMTs.”

  “Jess? Is it Jess?”

  The jumble of voices she was overhearing was too intertwined to make out more than a few random phrases, but that last voice belonged to Lenore, Jess was almost sure. Just as Jess looked up to see that Lenore, and Hayley, and then Andrew and Pearse were standing over her looking down in concern, the EMTs arrived. Jess tried to sit up then, tried to tell everyone that she was fine, but her voice was low and ragged and easy to disregard, and she was so weak that she found that sitting up was not an option after all. Instead she was scooped up and deposite
d on a gurney, then silenced by an oxygen mask that they kept clamping over her face and she kept pushing aside to try to insist, in a raspy, weak voice, that, except for being shaken up, she was fine. Her objections were overruled by everyone from Mark to Pearse to Mr. Dunn, who insisted she go to the hospital to be checked out.

  “Really, I’m all right,” she tried to say one last time as they trundled her away toward the waiting ambulance, but the words turned into a spasm of coughing and she got the oxygen mask treatment again and gave up.

  Mark rode in the ambulance with her. Knowing he was there made all the difference. Without the strain of having to worry about her safety, or keep up a brave front for her colleagues, she was able to close her eyes and be as weak and trembly as she actually felt. She could suck in the healing oxygen, secure in the knowledge that she was safe, and there was only Mark to see.

  In the emergency room, when the doctor had finished examining her and she and Mark were finally left alone in one of the little curtained cubicles, she lay back against the raised head of the bed, feeling limp and exhausted but so glad to be alive. Her head swam, her throat was sore, and a clip on her finger monitored her oxygen levels, but the doctor had said he didn’t think she had suffered any lasting damage. They were just waiting on the results of a couple of tests, to be sure.

  It wasn’t an accident.

  There was no chance. Someone had deliberately tried to kill her. As she faced the incontrovertible truth of it, fear formed a hard knot in her chest.

  “Mark. I didn’t just fall in.” It was the first chance she’d had to tell him what she had been bursting to tell him since she’d gotten her wits together. Her voice was croaky and hoarse. Her throat felt raw. Jess shivered as she remembered swallowing so much water, remembered the chemical tang of chlorine, remembered the horror of it rushing into her lungs. They’d taken her wet underthings when she had arrived and dried her hair and wrapped her in warmed blankets, so that now she was swaddled like a baby in blue thermal cotton. But suddenly she felt freezing cold again.

  “What?” He was sitting in a chair just a few feet away, his head tipped back against the smooth green wall. Nobody had thought to offer him a blanket, so his clothes had more or less dried on him. Due to the absence of contact lenses, her vision was still blurry, but she could see that his white shirt was still damp enough to cling to his broad shoulders and wide chest, and his black bow tie hung open from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. But he had to be feeling cold, too, and clammy in the air-conditioning. She would have passed him a blanket if she’d had the energy to move. But she didn’t.