Gossip (Desire Never Dies)

by Clara Grace Walker

  It didn’t mean she cared either.

  Okay, fine. She cared. That didn’t mean she was wrong about what a disaster a relationship with him would turn into. Just as soon as he realized he was merely trying to mask his hurt, he’d be gone; done grieving for real and ready to find a relationship he did want. And she’d be left with a broken heart. Again.

  She’d been right to turn down his suggestion of going back to his place. Even though she’d wanted to do just that, and lose herself in making love with him. And not come up for air until tomorrow morning. What she needed to do instead was keep her distance. Not call him. Not drop by his office. She needed to stay away from Nick and give things a chance to cool down.

  She pushed thoughts of Nick aside and went back to studying the images of Mindy LePage and Earl Grayson ducking out of a local eatery on her computer screen. She didn’t pay attention to her vibrating phone until she looked down at the caller ID and saw it was someone from E! News. Could be something beneficial to her career. Could be something to drag her stubborn mind once and for all away from Nick. “Hello. This is Jamie.”

  “Jamie, hey, it’s Joel.”

  “Joel. What’s up?” She frequently sold him photos he could use to skewer celebrities. “Looking for some dirt to dish?”

  “Hon, I’m always happy to hear whatever you’re passing.” He paused and added, “As long as I’m standing upwind.”

  She chuckled, but the humor felt empty. “Good one, Joel. Now why are you really calling?”

  “Oh, alright. Have it your way. I’ll get right down to business. I have a job offer for you.”

  He had to be joking. Pulling her leg just to see how far she’d let it go. “Okay. How long before you come back with the gotcha!?”

  “No gotcha. This is for real.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “Seriously. I’ve been given the go ahead to hire a photographer to work exclusively for my show. And you’re the girl I want.”

  She waited, but Joel kept right on being serious and not laughing. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I really mean it. Honestly, Jamie. I’m not on twenty-four/seven.”

  “No. Just twenty-three/six-and-a-half.”

  He laughed on the other end of the line. “You are priceless, you know that? So, what do you say? Want to come and work for me?”

  If she wanted to escape Nick’s temptation, the opportunity had just been handed to her on a silver platter. Accepting a job with E! News would mean moving to California. She’d likely never see Nick again. And the thought of it made her want to cry. Which might be the best reason she could think of to go ahead and leave. “Let’s just say I’m seriously considering it,” she said. “I have a few stories I need to finish working on here. Can I let you know in a few weeks?”

  “Sure. Nothing much happens around here during the holidays anyway. Four weeks long enough to sort it all out?”

  “Yes, Joel. That would be great. Really. Thank you so much.”

  “No problem, hon. I’ll hold the position open for four weeks. Job’s yours if you want it.”

  “Thanks again, Joel. I’ll let you know.”

  She hung up the phone with two paths now laid out before her. All she had to do was decide which one to walk down.

  Chapter 60

  A week had passed and Nick still hadn’t heard from Jamie. No phone calls. No visits to the office. Nothing. And he had no idea why, unless it was her way of telling him to back off. A dozen times a day, he found himself picking up the phone, wanting to call, but each time he stopped himself. He wasn’t going to go blindly chasing after her, the way he had done with Janelle. He wanted Jamie, but he wanted it to be a two-way street. She had to want him back.

  He focused his efforts on work instead. On proving his innocence to Sarge and beating Peter Arnold to the headline announcing the arrest of Janelle’s killer. His gut told him to do that, he needed to talk to Darla Arnold. Trying to locate her, however, had stymied him for the past week. She wasn’t at her home. Hadn’t been there at all, according to her neighbor George. She didn’t answer her phone. More telling, she hadn’t been seen on the party circuit, club-hopping or hitting the social scene. Even his competitors had taken notice of her absence, speculating a long overdue stint in rehab had finally come about. Rod Skinner had also denied seeing or hearing from her. Something was afoot.

  Nick had done everything to find her but go to Peter Arnold himself, who’d been sprung from jail on a million dollar bond. Where he was headed now was only one step short of going to see Peter. He found himself staring at the door to the apartment of Peter’s newest protégé, Regina Mance. He’d called her in advance, and she’d insisted they meet at her place, rather than the public restaurant he preferred, and had suggested. She wouldn’t be swayed when he’d tried to debate the point though. She’d held steadfastly to the condition they meet here, telling him she had so much more than Darla’s whereabouts to discuss. So here he was, ready to find out what Darla’s second-in-command had to say.

  He rang the doorbell twice before she answered. And when she did, she came with nothing but a towel draped around her. He frowned. She must have pulled that move straight out of Darla’s handbook of dirty sex tricks.

  “Regina Mance?” Normally, he would have offered her his hand. But not this time. He didn’t want to give her any excuse to let that towel fall. “Sorry, I must have gotten the meeting time mixed up. Am I early?”

  She winked. “Not at all, Nick. I’d say you were right on time.”

  He stepped inside her apartment, done in black and white, with only the occasional pop of color. The décor didn’t fit her at all. He saw her more in bold swaths of color; bright reds, oranges and sunshine yellows. “Why don’t I have a seat in the kitchen while you go and get dressed?” Her apartment was small and he was already making his way over there. “Mind if I make myself some coffee while I wait?”

  Asking her what seemed to be an innocent question proved to be a mistake, because it gave her an opening he had not anticipated. Scooting off ahead of him, she made her way over to a row of white bead board cupboards and reached up her arms, as if trying to retrieve an item from one of the higher shelves. Predictably, the towel she wore loosened and fell to the floor.

  “Oh darn! Now look what’s happened.” Her voice held just the right note of feigned surprise. She pointed at the towel, smiling at him. “Nick, would you mind picking that up for me?”

  Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t that easy. “Sorry, Regina, but that’s not going to work either.”

  “You know, Darla was right about you. You really aren’t, like, any fun.” Her pout reverberated across the boxed-in walls of the kitchen.

  “I didn’t come here to have fun.”

  She stood there, scowling, hands planted on her naked hips. Her large breasts, still young enough not to sag, bounced once as she huffed out an exasperated breath. Scooping up the towel from the floor, she glared at him. “Fine. Be a sour puss then. Believe me, it’s like, totally your loss, dude.”

  He watched her stomp off, presumably to get dressed, and wondered just how long Peter had been screwing her.

  Coffee still sounded like a good idea. He got up, rummaged through her cupboards and found an instant variety on the shelf to his right, next to a stack of coffee mugs. Good enough. He microwaved a cup of hot water and had a steamy, caffeinated beverage ready by the time she returned to the kitchen, dressed in a magenta-hued, sparkly mini skirt and matching tank top. No bra. Her hair was still a bit damp, but the make-up looked a bit more finished. Notably, she’d highlighted her lips with a bright shade of red. Now she was using the color scheme he thought perfect for her. He pulled out one of her kitchen chairs, offering it to her. “Ready to talk?”

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder, jiggling her breasts inside the tank top with the movement. “Guess it, like, depends what you want to talk about.”

  “How about Darla Arnold?”

  The
look in her eyes turned stone hard. “How about not?”

  “Having issues with Darla these days? You two no longer BFFs?”

  “No.” The denial came quickly. “We’re still friends.”

  “Well then. Since you’re still friends, how about you tell me where she’s been hiding out the past week?”

  Regina frowned. “What are you asking me for? I don’t, like, keep tabs on her.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Darla’s an adult. She can do whatever she wants. And she doesn’t need to report to me to go do it.”

  “I see.” She’d taken a seat on the chair at the adjoining corner of the table, and Nick took a minute to study her face. He got the impression she was telling the truth about not knowing where Darla was, but she still wanted something from him. Had something to tell him, maybe? She’d said she had a lot more than Darla to talk about when he’d called. The anticipatory way she licked her lips every few seconds gave away her desire. Maybe it was time to call her bluff.

  “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Regina.” He stood as if to leave. “You have a nice day now.”

  “Wait!”

  The request came as he started to push in his chair. He stopped, mid-push, giving the girl the expectant stare he employed when waiting for an interview subject to spill their guts. “Yes?”

  “I have some things to tell you.”

  “You know where Darla is?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t. Really. But I do know some things about Peter. You might like to hear them.”

  He might at that. Pulling the chair back out, he reclaimed his seat at her kitchen table. “What do you know about Peter?”

  Her frown turned into a coy smile as she twisted a strand of her long hair around her pinky. “I don’t think so,” she said. “First we have to discuss payment.”

  He should have known. This was no revenge-based gut spilling. She wanted money. “How much?”

  The coy smile turned into a grin. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. All depends on what you have to say.”

  “How would you like a first-hand account of Peter’s affair with an underage girl?”

  She meant herself, no doubt. “Alright,” he agreed, and pulled out an audio recorder from his pocket. “I’ll have the check sent to you as soon as I get back to the office. Start talking.”

  “Not so fast, Mr. Slick.” She held out her hand, palm-side up. “Money first.”

  “I don’t walk around with that much cash on me, Regina.”

  “No. But I’ll bet you walk around with, like, a checkbook, don’t you?”

  She had him there. He pulled the company checkbook out of an inside pocket on his sport coat and wrote out a check for the requested sum. “There you are,” he said, sliding the slip of paper her way. “Now start talking.”

  She relaxed back into the chair; legs kicked out in front of her, and picked up the check. After looking it over, she slipped it into a white Michael Kors handbag on her kitchen table. “Perfect,” she said. “Think I’ll go shopping this afternoon. And as for Peter, he pays good, too.”

  He pays well, Nick thought. “Is that right?”

  Her smile turned cocky. “Sure is. He gave me five grand the night he took my virginity. And he’s given me little presents ever since.”

  So Peter had her before the late Andy Clarke. “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Sixteen.” She paused and added. “And-a-half.”

  Peter really was a sick pervert. Still, Nick kept his composure, never letting his subject know his thoughts about what he was being told. “Is that how you got the idea to start an affair with Andy Clarke?” he asked. “Figured he might be good for a few grand himself?”

  She laughed, confirming he had guessed correctly.

  “Yeah, but he never paid as good as Peter. And he wasn’t nearly as good at it either. Doing Andy Clarke was like giving out mercy fucks.”

  Two years ago, when he’d first heard of her affair with Andy, he’d imagined her to be some poor naïve teen-ager seduced by some lecherous old man. It appeared now nothing could have been further from the truth. “So where were you when you and Peter first had sex?”

  “His place.” She spoke with complete complacency. “I was over spending the night with Darla. Peter caught us sneaking into the booze, but instead of getting all bent out of shape and freaked out about it, the way most parents would, he was really, you know, cool about it.”

  “He was?” He could think of a few other words he might use besides cool.

  “Yeah.” She started giggling. “He told us if we were going to drink, we should at least be getting into the good stuff, and he went and brought up a few bottles of champagne from the wine cellar. It was great. We had three bottles downed in less than an hour.”

  He was picturing the scene now. Late at night. Peter there with his daughter, who would have been about seventeen at the time, and her sixteen-year-old girlfriend. Getting them both drunk. He would have been in between wife number two, Odette, the notorious pill popper, and his current, but soon-to-be ex-wife, Lisbeth. Sutton would have been long gone to New York. Which meant Peter would have been alone in the house with the girls. “What happened next?”

  She giggled some more. “Peter suggested we play Spin the Bottle with the empty champagne bottles, and the bottle kept landing on me. Next thing I knew, my clothes were coming off and he was, like, having sex with me.”

  A hint of disgust tugged at Nick. “What if the bottle had landed on Darla?”

  “Oh, it did a couple of times.” She was laughing out loud now, making exaggerated hand motions as she spoke. “But Peter just kept pointing the bottle back in my direction.”

  “I see.” A small measure of relief soothed him, but not much. “Wasn’t Darla there though? When the two of you were having sex?”

  “Oh hell yes! You should’ve heard the prissy little bitch. She kept whining and telling her daddy to leave me alone until she finally got mad and left.”

  Nick thought again about Sutton’s long-dead girlfriend. “Do you know about any of Peter’s other conquests?”

  Regina frowned and shook her head. “No. Peter and I made a deal to enjoy each other’s company, but no strings attached and, like, no questions asked. It was all supposed to just be fun, not like, serious. You know?”

  Supposed to be fun. Did he detect a hint of regret in her voice? “How many other people besides Darla knew about what happened between you and Peter?”

  “No one.” She shook her head frantically. “Peter was clear about no one else finding out. Said people wouldn’t, like, understand how it was between us.”

  “I see. So why tell me now?”

  She shrugged and her gaze fell to the floor. “Because Peter and I are done now. So I guess I don’t have to worry about disappointing him anymore.”

  He nodded, thinking how much harder he’d have slugged Peter Arnold if he’d known that day on the police station steps what he knew now. “Thank you for sharing that story with me, Miss Mance. I have no doubt my reader’s will be glued to every word when this comes out.”

  She smiled, bringing back her sexpot persona. “No problem, hunky boy. I can’t wait for the story to come out myself.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Better believe it. You know what they say, any publicity is good publicity.”

  “People do say that,” he agreed. He just wasn’t sure it was true.

  Chapter 61

  The morning of December fifteenth dawned bright and sunny. Nick tried not to make too much of it. Just Mother Nature’s somewhat twisted sense of humor. He felt particularly crappy today. Three months, to the day, since Janelle’s murder. And his birthday. And he still hadn’t heard from Jamie. What a rotten combination.

  “Happy Birthday to me,” he sang quietly, and with a melancholy flair. He hadn’t been a fan of birthdays since he’d
turned eighteen, moved out on his own and realized what a cold, hard and incredibly judgmental place the world really was. His mother had died six months later, and by the time nineteen rolled around, he no longer considered the day cause for celebration.

  He’d barely dried off from his shower before throwing on a robe, and hadn’t bothered to shave. He needed coffee. And maybe a splash of scotch to go with it. He made his way downstairs and was heading for the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Dread worked its way down his spine. He did not want any birthday wishes today. He’d even gone so far as to call Candi and tell her he wouldn’t be in the office.

  The doorbell rang again. He held his breath and answered the door. There stood Jamie, brightly wrapped gift in hand. Finally. His spirits picked up the moment he laid eyes on her. Looking at the smile on her face, and the way her t-shirt clung to her curves, he knew she might be the one person who could bring back his love of birthdays.

  She glanced at his bathrobe attire and frowned. “It’s nearly eight thirty, Nick. I’ve never known you to sleep in so late.”

  True enough. He was the proverbial morning person.

  “You know, when I called the office and Candi said you weren’t coming in today, I thought you were just taking the day off to celebrate. I didn’t realize you weren’t feeling well.”

  “I’m fine.” He stepped away from the door to let her inside. “Even better seeing you here.”

  She handed him the gift with gold shiny wrapping paper and a silver bow. “I’m glad to hear that. Happy Birthday.”

  “Come here.” He took the present from her, a book judging by the size and weight of it, set it down on a table near the door, and pulled her into his arms. “You’re all the present I need.”

  Chapter 62

  During the entire drive to Nick’s house, Jamie had vowed to drop off his gift, a book about Alphonse Mucha and the art nouveau movement, and leave. Tell him she couldn’t stay. She had other things to do. But no. He reached for her and she stepped right into his embrace, receiving his kiss as anxiously as he gave it. Every lecture she’d given herself about keeping her distance, about keeping her feelings under control, disintegrated as soon as he touched her. Another hole punched through her emotional wall.