Heart of Winter

by Diana Palmer

  He smiled gently at the expression on her face. “Oh, I let go, all right,” he laughed softly. “Would you like me to show you?”

  She lowered her eyes shyly. “I think you’d better go home.”

  “I think so, too.” He studied the caftan. “I can’t feel anything except skin under that flowing thing, and I’m getting ideas right and left.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “But you were hoping, weren’t you?” he asked perceptively.

  “Yes,” she admitted, her heart in her eyes. “Oh, yes, I was.”

  He stopped the words with his hard mouth, kissing her roughly, briefly. “Sleep well. Meet me at the office around twelve, and I’ll take you to lunch.”

  She blanched, remembering her meeting with Brown, the accusations…but she put them all out of her mind for the time being. She smiled. “I’ll be there.”

  She didn’t sleep for a long time, thinking about the night that had ended so unexpectedly. It was hard to believe that a man like Bryan Moreland could actually be in love with her. She had so little; he had so much. But between them, they seemed to have everything.

  Her mouth was still bruised from the pressure of his, her ribs still ached from the embrace that had seemed to crush her. A man couldn’t pretend that kind of emotion, she thought dazedly. And to realize that a man she loved could feel that way in return amazed her.

  Brown’s words came back to haunt her, tearing the delicate fabric of her dreams. Tomorrow, she’d go to meet him, and maybe all his accusations would vanish like nightmares in the daylight. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—believe what he’d told her. Bryan Moreland wasn’t a crook; she was sure of that. She fell asleep finally, with a picture of Moreland’s leonine face in her soft eyes.

  Daniel Brown was waiting for her in the small coffee shop where she’d arranged to meet him, his long pale fingers nervously clutching the fragile stem of the half-empty wineglass that held what remained of a cup of coffee and a smear of whippped cream. He looked up as she entered, and a relieved expression crossed his face.

  She forced a smile she didn’t feel and sat down in the chair he pulled out for her.

  “Nippy out today, isn’t it?” she asked, slipping out of her heavy black coat.

  “A little.” He took a quick sip of his coffee. “Can I order something for you?”

  “Espresso,” she said.

  He gave the waitress her order and sat back down with a heavy sigh.

  “Have you got it?” she asked suddenly. Better to have the truth all at once, if it was the truth, than to dig it out a sentence at a time.

  But even as she hoped he might not be able to produce that damning evidence, he reached in his pocket and pushed a folded sheaf of photostat copies across the spotless white linen tablecloth at her.

  With a hard swallow, she opened the papers with trembling fingers and looked at the first of the copies. Her heart felt suddenly like an anchor in her chest. Her green eyes closed momentarily. It was a check for one hundred thousand dollars, made out to Bryan Moreland, signed by James White. Her gaze flashed to Daniel Brown’s curious, wary face.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said unexpectedly. “Look at the second photostat before you say it.”

  Puzzled, she turned to the second sheet, and saw what he meant. This photostat was the endorsed back of the check, with Moreland’s unmistakable signature.

  Dully, she thumbed through the rest of the material. There was a photostat of a page of financial records with the disbursement of five hundred thousand dollars to James White Realty for a tract of land marked airport land purchase. Another sheet was from the tax assessors office, showing the fair market value of the property at one hundred thousand dollars. It was enough, more than enough, to give to the paper’s legal staff. In fact, the very obvious overpayment might be enough to make an accusation and prosecute.

  “This will destroy Bryan Moreland politically,” she murmured.

  “Probably,” came the cool reply. “But the evidence speaks for itself. They were trying to cover up an overpayment of four hundred thousand dollars—of which your aging boyfriend received one-fourth. Explain that, if you can.”

  She stared at him, pausing while the waitress put the cup of espresso in front of her. “Now tell me the real reason why you’re doing this,” she asked quietly.

  He looked taken aback. “I told you already, I…”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I know what you told me. I want the truth.”

  He shrugged, averting his gaze. “All right, maybe I felt like a little revenge. We were in love, you know.”

  “You and who?” she persisted.

  “Mrs. Moreland, of course,” he said bitterly. “She was much younger than he was, and he treated her like dirt. She was nuts about me.”

  Those words haunted her all the way back to the office. Something wasn’t quite right, although revenge might be a good motive for helping to nab a crook. But if it wasn’t revenge…

  When she handed over the photostats to Edwards, he and the legal staff were convinced that they had a blockbuster of a story.

  “You’ve done a damned good job, Carla,” Edwards told her with a rare smile. “I knew you’d pull it off.”

  “Brown won’t testify, you know,” she said. “And I can’t reveal my source by telling where and how I came by those photostats.”

  “We’ll work that out,” he assured her.

  “What if…” she cleared her throat. “What if it’s a frame?”

  He studied her closely. “You know better than to get involved with a news source.”

  She nodded, and smiled bitterly. “You can’t imagine how well I’ve learned that lesson.”

  “Go eat something,” he said with a paternal pat on her shoulder. “It will all come right.”

  Bill Peck stopped her just as she started out the news-room door. “Want to have lunch with me and talk about it?” he asked with uncharacteristic kindness.

  She shook her head. “Thanks. But there’s something I’ve got to do first.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t go. He’ll rip you into small pieces.”

  Her thin shoulders lifted fatalistically. “There’s very little left to be ripped up,” she said in an anguished tone. “See you.”

  She walked into the waiting room of Moreland’s office with a heart that felt as if it had been pounded with a sledge hammer. Her face was pale, without its usual animation, and her body felt as taut as rawhide.

  “Go right in, Miss Maxwell,” his secretary said with a smile.

  “Thank you,” Carla said gently. She opened the door to his office with just a slight hesitation.

  He was sitting behind the big desk, his dark eyes riveted to her trim figure dressed in a gray suit and black boots. A smile relaxed the hard lines in his face and made him seem younger, less intense.

  “Sexy as hell,” he remarked with gentle amusement.

  She swallowed, and not to save her life could she return his smile. “Hello, Bryan,” she said in a loud whisper.

  The smile faded. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently. “Did you stop by to tell me you couldn’t make it for lunch?”

  Her shoulders lifted slightly, as she gathered her courage. “I don’t think you’re going to want to take me out when you hear what I’ve come to say.”

  His heavy black brows collided. “Sit down.”

  She shook her head. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stand,” she said miserably. She fumbled in her purse for the photostats she’d made of Brown’s material. “I think this will explain it all,” she said, handing them to him. She waited while he studied the documents, his eyes narrowing, his face becoming as hard, as formidable as she remembered it from their first conflict.

  His dark eyes flashed up to her face, blazing. “Well?” he growled. “What about it?”

  She curbed an impulse to turn and run. “Do I really have to tell you that?” she asked in as calm a voice as she could m
anage. “We’re going to publish this information. We can’t afford not to.”

  His jaw tautened. “You think this check is a kickback?” he asked in a strange, deep tone.

  “We know it is,” she agreed tightly. “It’s painfully obvious that you don’t pay five times fair market value for a piece of land unless somebody benefits. We’ve already checked with the man who owns the land. All he got out of the deal was two hundred fifty thousand dollars. That leaves the other half unaccounted for, except for your cut. Either White alone or with another conspirator pocketed the rest, and we can prove it. I’m sorry, but…”

  “You believe I’d take a kickback?” he asked with barely controlled rage. “You really believe I’m capable of that kind of vice?”

  “You accepted a check from James White for one hundred thousand dollars,” she said in a voice that trembled, “just two days after the check for the airport land left city hall. What else am I supposed to think?”

  “Get out.”

  He said it so softly, so calmly, that she did a double take. He didn’t raise his voice, but then, he didn’t have to. There was an arctic smoothness in his words.

  She turned to go. “I’m sorry,” she said inadequately, her voice a bare whisper. Inside, she felt as if she were frozen forever.

  “Not half as sorry as you’re going to be, I promise you,” he said. “One more thing, Carla.”

  “What?”

  “Was it really necessary to get that involved with me to get the story?” he asked coolly. “Did you have to pretend an emotional interest, or was that just a whim?”

  Her face reddened. “But, it wasn’t…”

  He laughed shortly, leaning back in his chair to study her with eyes that shone with hatred. “I should have been suspicious at the beginning,” he said mockingly. “A woman your age wouldn’t have been so interested in a middle-aged man. I suppose I was too flattered to ask questions.”

  “But, Bryan, you don’t understand…!” she cried.

  He ignored her. His eyes were those of a stranger. “Go print your story,” he said. “You might add a postscript. I got my funding for downtown revitalization this morning. I may leave this office, but I’ll take the city slums with me.”

  Tears blinded her. She turned and ran out of the office leaving a puzzled secretary staring after her.

  The story hit the stands the next afternoon, with a blazing banner headline that read, “Kickback Suspected in Airport Land Purchase.” The story carried Carla’s byline, even though Edwards had had a hand in writing it. She hadn’t slept the night before at all. She could imagine the anguish Moreland was going through. She’d destroyed him. And he thought that she’d been pretending when she said she loved him. That hurt most of all, that he could believe she’d be that cruel for the sake of a story. But, after all, didn’t she believe that he’d been crooked enough to take a kickback? How could she blame him?

  Over and over she heard his deep voice growling at her accusingly. It began to haunt her. And Daniel Brown’s voice haunted her as well, admitting that he’d been in love with Mrs. Moreland, that she was “nuts about him.” From what she’d heard about Angelica Moreland, she was hardly a lovable woman. And she would have had to be a good deal older than Brown, who was still in his middle twenties. None of it made sense. If only she could get her mind together enough to think logically!

  She walked into the newsroom the next day with a feeling of unreality. Her mind was still on yesterday, but Peck snapped her out of it with his greeting.

  “We’re into it now,” he greeted her grimly. “Moreland’s filed suit for defamation and character assassination.”

  “Did you expect him to admit he was guilty?” she asked with a bitter smile.

  He grinned back. “Hell, no.” His pale brows drew together. “Something bothering you besides the obvious? Making accusations sometimes goes with the job, honey. Reporters don’t win popularity contests, you know.”

  “I know.” She slumped in her chair. “What do you know about the late Mrs. Moreland?”

  “Angelica?” He shrugged. “She liked men and money, and she hated her husband and motherhood. That about wraps it up.”

  “What kind of men did she like? Young ones?”

  “Angelica!” he exclaimed. “My God, she liked them older than her husband. I think it must have been a father fixation. She was never seen with a man under fifty except Moreland.”

  Her lips made a thin line. “Do you know anybody who could help me get some information on Daniel Brown’s private life?”

  One eyebrow went up and he grinned. “Think Moreland’s innocent?”

  Her chin lifted. “Yes.” Her eyes dared him to make a comment.

  He only smiled. “So do I.” He laughed at her expression. “Don’t look so surprised, honey. I’ve known His Honor for a lot of years, and he’s got more integrity than any other public official I know. Sure, I’ll help you dig out some info on Brown. I think he had an angle, too.”

  She returned the smile, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. “Then, let’s go. I want to see a man I know at the city police department about some personnel records.”

  “I’ll check with a contact of mine,” he said, following her out the door. “My God, don’t we remind you of the news staff on that hit television show?”

  She laughed. “Which one? The one where we solve crime and make America safe for consumers, or the one where we fight for truth, justice and the…”

  “Never mind. Let’s sneak out before Eddy can ask where we’re going.”

  “I don’t think he cares if we even work today,” she replied. “He looked sick when I poked my head in to ask about assignments, and he didn’t even offer me one.”

  “He’s brooding over the lawsuit,” he told her. “The attorneys warned him that he mightn’t have enough concrete evidence to avoid one, but he took the chance. Without asking old man Johnson,” he added, grimacing.

  “He didn’t ask the publisher?” she exclaimed.

  He shrugged. “He couldn’t reach him by phone, and the deadline was coming up fast. He took a gamble on the hottest story in years. Now Johnson’s all over him like ants over honey.”

  She felt herself shrinking inside as she remembered whose byline the story carried. “How much trouble am I in?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, glancing at her sympathetically. “I wish I could tell you your job’s secure, regardless. But I can’t. That’s the first thing Moreland’s going to want by way of recompense if the evidence against him is false.”

  “Which I think it is,” she murmured weakly. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat as they walked outside in the chill air. “It’s going to be winter soon,” she remarked, shivering.

  He drew in a breath of cold air, unaware of the pollution judging by his expression. “What’s that poem, ‘keep spring within your heart, if winter comes, to warm the cold of disillusion…’”

  “I didn’t know you like poetry,” she said, feeling the words with a sense of aching grief.

  “An occasional line,” he chuckled. “Even though it goes against the grain. Come on, we’ll catch a bus downtown.”

  “Lead on.”

  Carla, who was used to a two-man police department, couldn’t help but be awed by the mammoth precinct with crowds of lawbreakers and blue uniforms and plainclothes detectives. She felt uncomfortable among all the unfamiliar faces.

  “Don’t worry,” Peck assured her, “none of them bite.”

  “Care to lay odds?” she whispered.

  “Shhh!” he said sharply. “Not here!”

  She flushed at his teasing tone. “I wasn’t trying to gamble with you,” she protested.

  “Discussing a capital crime, right in front of the city’s finest!” he clucked. “Shame, shame.”

  “Will you stop,” she muttered. “I’m a good girl, I am.”

  “So was Ma Barker.”

  “Why did we come here?”

/>   “To see Leroy.”

  Her eyebrows went up, but he moved forward to haul a patrolman off to one side. There was a lot of whispering, and gesturing, and the tall, dark-haired, middle-aged policeman was giving Carla a look that made her feel vaguely undressed.

  They joined her at the door, and Peck took her arm, propelling her out onto the street with Leroy right behind.

  “We’ll grab a cup of coffee and talk,” Peck said, leading them toward a nearby cafe. “Carla Maxwell, Leroy Sample.”

  They exchanged mumbled pleasantries and walked along in a companionable silence. Once inside the old cafe, which featured worn, bare wood floors and vinyl-covered booths repaired with black electrical tape, they talked over strong coffee.

  “What do you want to know about Daniel?” Leroy asked with a grin. “I don’t know much, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Is he local?” Peck asked, all reporter now, not the jovial companion of minutes ago.

  “No,” Leroy replied. “He came here from Florida about six months ago, and was he a ball of fire! He was going to clean up all the corruption in the city and close down drugs and gambling for good.”

  “And then…” Peck prodded.

  “You want the truth?” Leroy asked, lowering his voice. “He was offered a little temptation to turn his head, and he turned it. Some of the rest of us have been made the same offer, but we nixed it. He liked the dough.”

  “You think somebody’s paying him still, even though he’s been fired?” Peck asked.

  “We all know he was feeding you that bull on Moreland,” the patrolman said angrily. “With all due respect, I hope he sues the hell out of you. If Moreland took money, he had a legitimate reason. He’s not on the take. I’d know.”

  Carla felt her heart lift, and she prayed silently that this fierce policeman was right. “Who’s paying Brown?” Peck asked point blank.

  Leroy looked uncomfortable. “I do my job the best way I can, and I try hard not to stick my nose out too far. Those guys play rough, Peck. I’ve got a little girl three months old.”