by Jo Davis
Except for the part where she and Julian had been lovers. Frequently.
Yeah, girlfriend. That smacking noise is your cosmic bitch-slap of a reality check. Did you think his lovers were magically beamed to another planet the second he slept with you?
Did you honestly think you were his first fuck buddy?
Oh, God. That’s what hurt most of all. They were childhood friends who shared a bond. The knockout babe next to him had enjoyed a loving, intimate relationship with him long before Grace had arrived on the scene.
She’ll likely be around after he tires of waiting for me.
“Excuse me,” Grace said, attempting to sound normal. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
And then she fled. As quickly as she dared, before either of them noticed the tears stinging her eyes. What had possessed her to be so arrogant as to believe she could keep Julian’s heart on a string? To think she’d just rock along, using him as her comfortable blanket with no regard for his feelings?
Carmelita might not love him in a romantic sense, but she was proof that this man didn’t exist in a plastic bubble. Someone would love him one day the way he deserved.
But Grace didn’t know whether she had it in her to be that someone.
In the restroom, she washed her hands and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Returning all splotchy wasn’t an option. She’d nearly succeeded in restoring a modicum of control when the restroom door swung open and Carmelita sauntered inside. She walked over and cocked a hip against the counter, all traces of the friendly airhead wiped from her face.
“Buck up, sister, because you and I need to talk.”
12
Grace stiffened, every cell in her body prepared for battle. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, but I do.” The woman examined one red nail. “I don’t have any designs on your boyfriend. Julian and I are close, but we’re not in each other’s hip pocket.”
Grace opened her mouth to deny Julian was her boyfriend, but the words wouldn’t form. “That’s interesting to know, but I can’t see why you’d feel the urge to tell me.”
“Really? Then you’re not nearly as smart as he says you are.” She sighed. “Listen, I’ve never seen Julian gone over a woman before. He’s been with one after another because nobody ever held his attention. Now he’s head over heels and I’ve got to worry about him because nobody else will.”
“I’m not planning to hurt him,” she protested. A twinge of guilt pricked her conscience. “But we are still feeling out our relationship, and I’d appreciate being able to do that without his friends’ well-meaning interference.”
“Well, tough shit. Are you jerking him around?”
“Wow, you have a lot of nerve. . . .” The nasty retort hovering on her lips sputtered and died. Something about Carmelita’s expression stopped it cold. A flicker of pain? This was more than the concern of a close friend. When it hit her, she felt numb. “You love him.”
The other woman’s gaze skittered away, and the fight left her posture. She didn’t reply, but she didn’t have to.
“Does he know?” Grace asked softly.
“No, and he won’t.” She gave a laugh tinged with sadness. “All these years, I’d have given anything if he would’ve looked at me, just once, the way he looks at you. I followed him halfway across the country, and he still never got a clue. Or maybe he didn’t want to—who knows?”
Against her will, a wave of sympathy arose for the woman. “I’ve never been in your position, so I won’t presume to claim to know how hard it must be. I am truly sorry.”
“Isn’t it ironic? He’s got all the love he could ever want right here if he’d just open his eyes,” she said, hand over her own heart. “Yet he’s crazy about you, and I have to wonder if you feel the same about him.”
“I am crazy about him! I adore him, Carmelita. Believe that,” Grace said firmly.
“Yeah? Well, believe this. I grew up in one of the toughest barrios in San Antonio, and we take care of our own.” Straightening, she fixed Grace with a grim smile. “I want to like you, and if you make him happy, maybe I will. But you break his heart, and I’ll break you.”
Carmelita turned and strode from the restroom, leaving Grace trembling. Not because of Carmelita’s threat, but from the sharpness of her observations. If she’d noticed Grace holding back, so had Julian, at least deep down.
If she didn’t get her head screwed on straight, she would hurt him. Badly. He deserved to be loved.
But do I deserve him?
How sad that she’d once kept Julian at arm’s length because she believed he needed fixing, when all along it was she who was a mess. Pulling herself together, she hurried back to him, to try to salvage the rest of their day.
Julian picked at the rest of his fries, his appetite gone. He could strangle Carmelita and not suffer an ounce of remorse. Shit! What in the hell were they doing in there? Jesus, not cat-fighting. Please.
As if his thoughts conjured her, Carmelita emerged from the back of the restaurant and made her way toward him. She appeared tense, upset, but not irate. Well, he was pissed and she’d better get ready.
“Scratching our itch?” he hissed as she drew near. “What the hell was that about? Did you have to go and rub her nose—”
Leaning down, she kissed him on the mouth. “Gotta run. I’ll call you.”
“What? Get back here!”
But she was already moving off, dashing out the exit.
“Lovers’ quarrel?”
Fuck! Reluctantly, he met Grace’s pretty eyes as she sat down. Dammit, he couldn’t read her. “She’s not my lover, not since before you and I started seeing each other.”
“Oh, for a whole week, then? Lovely.”
“It’s been almost a month.” Christ, that sounded awful, no matter how a guy phrased it. “You know I haven’t been celibate, Grace. What do you want me to say? That I shut myself in my condo and cried into my Patrón for months because you wouldn’t give me the time of day?”
He’d die before telling her he’d moped his fair share.
“Not in the least. But I prefer not to trade bedtime stories with my boyfriend’s former playmate. Call me strange,” she said drily.
“I’m sorry, bella. I don’t know what came over her—‘boyfriend’?” His pulse gave a kick and his stomach did a funny flip.
Shrugging, she shot him a small smile. “Slip of the tongue. I haven’t had one since high school, so what do I know?”
“Oh.” He studied the table, at a complete loss. He couldn’t guess what she expected of him, and frankly, he was exhausted from trying. A change of subject was in order. “Say, um, why don’t we walk down to the dock at the bottom of the hill when we’re finished eating and catch one of the boat rides up the river?”
“I’d love to.”
It wasn’t every day a man found himself in a sticky spot between two women—and not in a pleasurable context.
When they were done, he paid the bill and they walked down to the dock to await the next tour. Grace seemed okay at first, if a bit distant. She slipped her hand into his and some of the clouds diminished around his mood. Yet when he attempted to nuzzle her neck, steal a kiss, she turned her head and pulled away. Her withdrawal hurt something fierce.
Once the boat was under way, she sat close by his side. But emotionally, leagues lay between them. A deep, chilly chasm he didn’t know how to bridge.
“Grace, I’m sorry.”
“For what? For living your life before I came along?”
He had no answer for that one. Nothing that wouldn’t dig him a deeper hole than ever.
He wondered if guys like Six-Pack would agree falling in love was damned hard work. If so, it was a miracle anyone ever did.
Near the point where the boat turned around to head back, however, it suddenly struck Julian that they were very close to the section of river where the two kids’ bodies had been found.
Again, the spiderweb brushing his skin.
Later, he told himself. Not now.
After they disembarked from the boat, Julian drove them across the bridge to Stratton’s for an ice cream, searching for another way to stretch the afternoon. He wished he could count on spending time with Grace this evening, either at her place or his, but the chance meeting with Carmelita had put a strain on things. Temporarily, he hoped. In any case, he sure didn’t want to come across like he expected to get her naked, considering. He didwant to, of course; he just didn’t want to act like it.
Too soon, they were cruising to her place. When he pulled up in front of her building, his dread proved a reality. She shouldered her purse and laid a hand on his, giving him a sweet smile.
“Thank you for today. I really enjoyed spending it with you.”
In other words, Get lost. Despite today’s promising beginning, there would be no repeat of their last time together. He tried to smile back, but his face wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m really sorry about lunch. Too much reality, huh?”
“A little, yeah. But I’m a big girl. The truth is, I also have court in the morning and I have files I need to study tonight if I hope to be ready. Rain check?”
Okay, make that Get lost—for now.
“How about dinner at my place tomorrow night? I’ll cook.” He’d never felt so exposed in his life, feelings waving like a banner.
She bit her lip, considering. “I’ll call on my lunch break and let you know. Work for you?”
“Sure, baby.” He brushed a flyaway strand of hair from her cheek, then leaned over and gave her a thorough kiss, tongue sweeping into her heat, curling with hers. Just in case she thought he’d give up easily.
She broke away and opened the door, and he was pleased to see she was flushed, glancing at him as though having second thoughts about sending him off.
“Bye, Julian.”
“Adiós, bella.”
He watched until she disappeared inside, then pounded the steering wheel in frustration. “Goddammit!”
He had half a mind to call Carmelita and bawl her out. What in the hell had she been thinking? But he was so pissed he didn’t even want to speak to her, which shook him. And saddened him, too, because something between them had changed with her stunt today.
She’d been his one constant for years, and now . . . he was standing on quicksand waiting to go under. Reaching for a dream he might never realize.
At home, he tossed his sunglasses, wallet, and keys on the bar, kicked off his shoes, and booted up his computer. Might as well make use of his empty evening.
Hoping to distract himself, he surfed the Internet for a while, reading online news and playing computer games. Eventually, however, his thoughts turned to Warren Vines and their confrontation. And to a story he wasn’t convinced was true.
He spent a while searching the Net for any mention of the Vines family. Nothing, except a couple of blasé business articles on Warren as the head of W. H. Vines, his son Derek at his side like a good lapdog. About the company’s move from Texas to Tennessee. Julian let his mind drift, and his thoughts snagged on something Grace had said the previous night.
Derek. Up against a sexual harassment charge. Because someone had found the nerve to stand up to him, as Julian hadn’t done. What if Derek had molested other boys and in fact had never stopped in all these years?
What if . . .
“No.” The idea was too fantastic. Too horrendous.
But he sat up straighter and decided to search anyway. Starting with something simple, he Googled Murders in San Antonio 1994. And promptly got over half a million hits. After checking the first couple of pages, he cursed. He’d never find anything this way. Some of the links were about specific cases that went to trial long ago. Some cases had never been solved. Some of the links were garbage.
Narrowing his search, he typed in cold cases after his original phrase. Right on the first page, a link close to the top was one he should’ve thought of, especially after speaking with Ford on Friday.
The San Antonio PD’s Web site had a section dedicated to cold cases, so he clicked on the link. And what a creepy frigging section it was. Murder victims were listed in order of the year they were killed, beginning in the 1970s. There was a photo of the victim on the left and a paragraph on the right describing the circumstances surrounding his death.
Face after face. Both young and old, all lives cut short before their time. Dios, their stories made him sad. Before he knew it, he got caught up and spent more than a half hour reading the first few. Coming up for air, he realized he hadn’t even scratched the surface. Wading through all these would take hours, possibly days.
What he was looking for might not even be there. This was why the searching was best left to the cops, who knew what they were doing.
What he needed was help from a cop he trusted. Phoning Tonio crossed his mind, but he nixed that idea, fast. Tonio hated keeping secrets from Mama as much as Julian did, and he didn’t want her getting wind of this.
Which left one person Julian knew of.
He half expected to get Shane Ford’s voice mail, and was surprised when the man answered.
“Detective Ford. Can I help you?”
“Detective, this is Julian Salvatore. I need a favor.”
The guy gave a short laugh. “You and everybody else. I’ll want a good reason.”
“Because it might relate to your murder investigation.”
This got Ford’s attention, and his tone sharpened. “How so?”
He paused, hoping he wasn’t about to make a first-class fool out of himself. “I need you to use your pull to research any disappearances or murders of young adults that may have taken place in San Antonio, Texas, fifteen years ago. Maybe even further back.”
A weighty pause. “What, might I ask, would that have to do with my case?”
“Call me paranoid, but not over the phone. I’ll come by tomorrow and tell you.”
“Listen, what are you doing right now?”
“Long weekend, and I’m beat. I’m going to crack open a beer and catch a baseball game.”
“Tell you what—save me a brew and I’ll come there,” Ford suggested. “I’m not really on duty, just putting in some OT.”
Despite his dread of spilling his story to the cop, Julian grinned. Ford was an okay guy. “You got it.”
“Be there in ten.”
Julian pressed the end button, waited a couple of seconds, and made another call.
Sometimes, a man just needed to hear his mother’s voice.
“Hello?”
The sound of the cheerful voice on the other end made his throat burn. “Hi, Mama.”
“Hijo! What have you been doing that you don’t have time to answer when your mama phones? I’ve left two messages since Friday, and nothing! Are you all right?”
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Seemed like all he’d been doing to day was apologizing. He could picture his mama puffed up like a bantam rooster. “I’m fine. How’s Tonio?”
“Humph. Why don’t you call and ask him yourself?” But she relented and her voice softened with love and worry. “He works too hard. And the cut in his side isn’t healing, hijo. He thinks his mama don’t know, but I see how he favors it. He’s tired, but he won’t take any sick days.”
Shit. “I’ll call him. I promise.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll listen to his big brother.”
He doubted it, but for Mama, anything. “And the girls? How are they?”
“Haven’t you spoken with your sisters?”
“Not lately,” he admitted, feeling guilty. “I’ve been busy.”
“Well, Maria and Liza are pregnant again, and Sal and Robert are strutting around like peacocks. Constance is dating a nice young man who’s a hotel manager on the River Walk. Tawny is still at home, fussing at me to take my medication.” She heaved an exasperated breath. “I don’t think that one ever plans to leave the nest.”
Julian laughed. “You don’t fool anyone. You’ll cry for a month when sh
e takes off.”
“How are you, my baby? And don’t tell me ‘fine’ again, because I know better. The tone of your voice never lies.”
His amusement died. He didn’t want to panic her, but there were times in a man’s life when he still needed his mother’s advice. Her support. “Honestly, I don’t know. I . . . I’ve fallen in love.”
“Oh! Madre de Dios! Truly? Hijo, this is wonderful!”
Wincing, he interrupted before she could launch a barrage of questions. “But she doesn’t love me.” God, his voice had cracked.
Several beats of silence passed as she weighed this. “Oh, hijo. How can you be certain? The woman who’s finally captured your heart must be very special. And she must know what a wonderful man you are,” she insisted.
“Grace enjoys my company, but I’m not sure she wants more. As in the whole picket fence-and-kids deal. She’s a successful lawyer, beautiful and smart. But she’s independent and she doesn’t like her applecart upset. Why should she give up what she’s got for a blue-collar guy like me?”
“Nonsense! If she’s so smart, she’ll grab hold before you get away and never let go! Besides, she doesn’t have to give up anything and has everything to gain. Once she realizes that, she’ll come around. Mark my words.”
Julian swallowed hard. “Thanks, Mama. I needed to hear a friendly voice on my side tonight.”
“I’ll always be on your side,” she said gently. “Are you sure nothing else is wrong? You still don’t sound like yourself.”
I don’t feel like myself.
He longed to tell her. About witnessing Brett Charles and the man leaving the club. About the hit-and-run. The bodies.
His growing suspicions about who might be behind it all.
The whole horrible ordeal hovered on the tip of his tongue. If he spilled this, they’d be forced to rehash the painful past, which would hurt her. And then she’d be on the first plane out, put herself in the middle, and possibly into danger.
