Discarded Promises

by Candice Poarch

  “They’re all suppositions. You don’t even know what her advance was. Or if it was enough to quit the day job.”

  “But she said hers was substantial.”

  Denton reached across the table and grasped Quilla’s hand. “Sadie was beautiful, it’s true, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew Tom wasn’t going to marry her.”

  “He could have told her otherwise.”

  Denton shook his head. “He works for his wife’s father. If he leaves Wendy, he’s out of a job. Tom’s wife’s family owns the apartment where Sadie works. She knew that.”

  “Sadie was getting older. I knew she wanted children. Perhaps he didn’t offer marriage. Maybe she just wanted to have his child without marriage.”

  “That certainly wouldn’t have sat well with Tom. But again, it’s only speculation. The body . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t you know a body can disappear around here for years, if not forever? Maybe not, since you aren’t from this area.”

  “Look, I brought you to dinner because I wanted to relax. For one night, can’t we put Sadie to rest? We can begin evaluating her again tomorrow.”

  Quilla studied him a long moment. Then she said, “Okay.”

  The server arrived and asked if they would like a drink.

  “Want to share a bottle?” Denton asked.

  “I don’t drink, but knock yourself out.”

  In the end Denton ordered a glass of wine and Quilla lemonade.

  “Do you still have family here or did they retire and move south?”

  “My father lives here. I have other relatives in North Carolina.”

  “What does he feel about your involvement in Sadie’s case? Isn’t he concerned?”

  “I’m a grown woman, too old for my father to worry about every little thing I do.” She wasn’t getting into the sad details of her family.

  “This is more than a little thing. On your own, you’re investigating a murder.”

  “He doesn’t know that. And I thought we weren’t going to talk about it any more tonight.”

  “My apologies,” he said just before the waiter returned with the drinks.

  The dinner was delicious. Denton kept up a running conversation on any subject except Sadie.

  “I think I should follow Tom,” Quilla said just as the dinner ended.

  “Are you crazy? Don’t you know you could get killed?”

  “You don’t want me to go to the police. You don’t want to talk about the case. You don’t want me to follow him. How else are we going to gather information? Maybe he hired someone to kill Sadie. And if I follow him, I’ll find out who.”

  “Of all the . . . Promise me you won’t follow him. You aren’t a trained professional.” Agents were already following Tom, but he couldn’t tell her that. The last thing he needed was for Quilla to show up at the wrong place at the wrong time. “You worry me, woman.”

  Quilla merely sipped her lemonade and smiled.

  Denton didn’t trust that smile.

  Later, Denton appeared huge in her cozy living room. He seemed to take up most of the available space. The cushions groaned as he sat forward to place his cup of tea on the coffee table. He reached out for her.

  “Come here,” he said. He pulled her close to him and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  They talked about her shop, about his family, his work, inconsequential things really, laughed over embarrassing moments. But Quilla wouldn’t talk about her family. And she realized he wasn’t so bad, after all.

  “Have you ever been married?” Quilla asked.

  He nodded. “I’m divorced.”

  “What happened?”

  “Marcy said I was married to my job.”

  “That will do it.”

  “She’s engaged. A summer wedding, I was told.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I’m happy for her.”

  “And what about you?”

  “It’s over.”

  “No regrets?”

  “I wish I could have been a better husband. The husband she needed. But it didn’t happen. And it’s no sense in stressing over the past.”

  Quilla wasn’t sure getting over a loved one was as easy as he tried to make it seem.

  “My mother misses her more than I do.”

  They laughed. There was a spark of some indefinable emotion in his eyes, and the moment went from friendly and warm to charged with sexual tension. They were crossing an important line from exploration to intimacy. No words were spoken. They reached for each other.

  When his lips met hers she was more than ready. Her hand stroked his neck and pulled him close. His tongue probed in and out of her mouth again and again leaving her insides burning with fire.

  She sucked it gently and Denton’s senses reeled as if short-circuited. “You take my breath away.”

  “Good,” she said.

  His eyes glowed with intense inner fire as he kissed her again, and ran his hands over her curves. He slid her dress up her thighs and she wiggled her hips and raised her arms so he could slide it up her body and over her head.

  Then he leaned back and looked her over seductively. His breath caught in his throat at her magnificence. She wore only her bra and thong and he had to fight the overwhelming need to take her then and there.

  Slowly he removed her bra and slid her panties down her legs. For the first time he glimpsed her body. He couldn’t tear his gaze from her full breasts and the dark triangle of curls that beckoned him.

  He drew in a deep breath. “You are so sexy,” he said in a soft breath.

  She answered him by unbuttoning his shirt, and peeling it off. When she drew her hands down his chest, the air left his body. He pressed her flat against the seat cushions and settled on her, enjoying the feel of her soft breasts and pointed nipples against his chest. When she wrapped her legs around him and let her hands roam over his back and down to his tight buttocks, he nearly went out of his mind.

  “Turn over on your stomach, baby,” he told her. He slowly ran his tongue from her lower back to her neck.

  “Can I please get a replay?” His touch was like a drug, lulling her to euphoria.

  “My pleasure.” He used his tongue like a probe, going places where she’d never been touched before.

  After several minutes of intimate foreplay her moans were frantic with need and desire. He nudged her onto her back and kissed her once more.

  He surveyed her, taking in every delectable curve. Sliding down her body he caressed every inch of her. The degree to which she responded stunned him. Her breath came in long surrendering moans, urging him to complete what he started. As he dug his hands into his pocket for a condom, reason suddenly asserted itself and he realized he’d stepped way over the line.

  He couldn’t do this, but he was only a man and he needed her right then more than he needed the air he breathed. He couldn’t hold back the bursts of hungry desire that spiraled through him. He inhaled several times, but it didn’t dampen his need—even a little.

  Gazing at the desire and expectancy in Quilla’s face didn’t help. He couldn’t leave her. Not like this. If he couldn’t get what he wanted, the least he could do was give her what she needed. His hands moved of their own volition as he caressed her intimately. He kneeled on the floor and settled against her raised knees and kissed her. Her hips buckled.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  “Ohhhhhh, love it.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  She was beyond thinking, just feeling. “More, more more!”

  Her hips moved beneath him, her fingers dug into his shoulders as he worked his magic on her, using his hands and mouth until the turbulence of her climax shook her.

  He tightened his arms around her, allowing himself to revel in the explosion that overtook her.

  Then he slid up her body and held her gently in his arms. He gulped a deep breath, kissed her tenderly and gathered her close to his heart, savoring every inch of
her naked length against him.

  He had to leave. He was dying. He needed cold air to cool his ardor. He’d never felt desire like this before. And he couldn’t do a thing to alleviate it. If he didn’t leave that moment, he’d take this to a place he shouldn’t go, a place he wanted to go with every fiber of his being. As it was, he’d already gone too far.

  He brushed a gentle kiss across her forehead and picked up his shirt, wrenching himself away from her magnetic pull.

  Aftershocks vibrated through Quilla’s body, but the world around her slowly came into focus when the cold air hit her. He was still partially dressed and they had not completed the consummation.

  “You didn’t tell me Denton was a woman’s dream,” Regina said with a sly smile.

  Quilla glanced up from her inventory. “What are you talking about?”

  “Came in here looking for you. I mentioned Bow Wow Play Palace and he looked at me like he’d swallowed a frog. Girl, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at him. Nothing but pure lust will make a man like that go into a place like the Play Palace.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a dog day care center.”

  “I don’t think your chocolate bar will agree.”

  “My what?” Quilla glanced up from her paperwork. “He’s not my anything.” She still wasn’t quite settled with what had ocurred the night before. She had been in the moment, but he certainly hadn’t been.

  “Please. Even you can’t be that blasé. If he wasn’t already taken—”

  “He isn’t.”

  “Please. You need to be with somebody. You can’t stay alone forever. Eddie is yesterday’s news. You can do so much better.”

  “I don’t want to hear ‘good men are hard to come by.’ You use that like a broken record. And you’re too young to think that way anyway.”

  “You’re finally listening to something I said. He wasn’t wearing a ring.”

  “I don’t have time to talk about him. I have to go see Trait.”

  “Now I heard that man had quite a crush on you when you were at T.C. Williams.”

  Quilla quirked an eyebrow. “Now how many years ago was that?”

  “So what if it was over ten? I heard his wife left him.”

  “So what?”

  “Personally, I’d take Denton. You need to thaw that ice block you’ve surrounded your heart with. Else you’re going to end up alone.”

  “Are you twenty-five going on fifty-two? I’m going to put the tree up when I return.” Quilla grabbed her coat and left. She didn’t have an ice block around her heart. It was as human and real as the next one, thank you very much.

  She drove down King and over to Duke, then to Eisenhower to the station. A lot of construction was going on with plenty of barricades. Once she entered, she had to show her ID before she was allowed back to Trait’s sanctuary in the bowels of the building.

  She was lucky enough to catch him in. She wasn’t about to call him first. He would have made sure he was out. She knew him.

  It was a large modern building—not much buzz, but sound echoed. It was on the ground floor and the high-rise jail was above it. They housed high profile federal prisoners there so security was heavy.

  Trait looked up from his desk, and Quilla detected his groan from across the room.

  “Did you find a body?” he asked. “If not, we have nothing to discuss.”

  “Mind if I sit?”

  He checked his watch. “Two minutes, Quilla.”

  Quilla noticed he still wore his ring. Obviously he was still in love with his wife. Not that she cared.

  “Tom Goodwill was having an affair with Sadie.”

  “And?”

  “He’s married.”

  He impaled her with his midnight eyes. “Half the married men in Alexandria are probably having affairs.”

  “She was obviously his mistress, Trait. She was probably writing from personal experience and he didn’t like it. You should talk to him at least.”

  “Since when do I need you to do my job for me? I can’t bring a man in simply because he was having an affair. Let me do the investigating.”

  “I just don’t understand you. If it were me, you wouldn’t care, either, would you? You’d go your merry way while my murderer walked the street.”

  “Don’t personalize this, okay? If it were you, I’d hunt them down until my dying day. Now are you satisfied?”

  “No.”

  “Quilla, give it a rest. You’d have every man in the city arrested for one charge or another. I know how you feel about men.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Your own prejudices are driving your thoughts. We can’t have that in the department.”

  “And that’s your final word.”

  “Let me repeat myself. Give it a couple of weeks instead of a couple of days.”

  “It’s been longer than a couple of days.”

  “Not by much.” Stacking some papers in a folder, he slid back his chair and stood. “Now I have to go. Let me walk you to your car.”

  “I know my way.”

  Quilla was on her own. She didn’t know why it was so important, but the injustice was just too great for her to leave it alone.

  Quilla left, a knot lodged in her stomach. She remembered that she had Sadie’s diary and she hadn’t begun to read it. A starting point. Time to map out her strategy to find Sadie’s killer.

  Chapter 6

  Tom met Sidney in the bar that evening. Selecting a table near the back, he sat so he could watch the people around them. The noise from the game on television was loud and the crowd was even rowdier. Tom sipped his bourbon, enjoying the slow burn down his insides.

  “Is the money in the account?”

  “Not yet,” Sidney said. A server came over and he ordered wine. A sissy drink as far as Tom was concerned.

  “What do you mean?” Glancing around, he lowered his voice. “They promised it by yesterday.”

  “I checked the account again before I left the bank. It isn’t there. Did the shipment get out all right?”

  “I got a message they received it on the other end.”

  “Something must have happened between them and the buyers.”

  “Crap.” Tom hated having to go through a third party. But things being the way they were, he couldn’t ship directly to certain countries.

  “Call your contact. See what the hell’s going on. I can’t wait until this is over and I can kiss this job good-bye.”

  “You and me both. Wendy’s complaining I’m not spending enough time with Randall. Wants me at PTA meetings and such. As if she can’t take care of that.”

  “And very well.”

  Tom grinned. “Don’t tell me you’ve got the hots for my wife. I thought you got over your little crush in high school.”

  Sidney shook his head. “She ever find out you married her for her daddy’s company?”

  “Now why would I tell her that?” Tom swallowed another sip of bourbon.

  “Didn’t quite work out the way you wanted to, did it?”

  Tom narrowed his eyes. “You got a beef with me?”

  “Not me. We’re buddies to the end, remember?”

  Back at the shop, Quilla finally put up the Christmas tree while Regina waited on customers. Although she had put up decorations in the window the night after Halloween, she hadn’t put the Christmas tree up yet. This year she was doing something different. She’d taken pictures of dogs that visited her shop throughout the year and put them in small round frames. Now she hung all of them on the tree.

  Of course she had to keep stopping when pets came around.

  “Are you Quilla?” asked a woman she’d never met before. “I’ve heard a lot about your treat shop. A friend gave Sheba a bag of treats as a gift last Christmas. I’m visiting for a few days and wanted some more.”

  “Wonderful. What kind of dog do you have?”

  “Oh, she’s right here.” She opened her jacket to reveal the teacup Pomeranian snu
ggled up against her chest.

  “She’s so precious,” Quilla exclaimed. Regina came around the counter to look at her.

  “May I hold her?”

  “Oh, yes.” She was so light.

  “How do you keep from stepping on her?” Regina asked.

  “I’m very careful about where I walk.”

  “May we take a picture of her in a cup?” Quilla asked. “We’re decorating the tree with pictures of dogs.”

  “Of course. She actually fits in a cup.”

  Quilla gently put her into a cup. Regina stayed close by in case she decided to hop out. Only her head could be seen over the top. It was amazing how small that dog was, Quilla thought as she snapped the pictures.

  Behind the gate, Lucky’s ears were alert. Quilla took the dog over to her so she could see it, but not close enough for her to touch.

  The first thing Quilla noticed when she returned home was a message on her answering machine. Her father asked her to call him.

  “I don’t know why,” she said to herself. The last time had been disastrous. She erased the message. However he felt, she wasn’t ready to relive the past.

  That evening, she undressed and donned comfortable pj’s. Regina was working the next day, so after making a cup of chamomile tea, Quilla made a fire in the fireplace and sank into the comfortable chair beside it. She propped her feet on the ottoman and sipped her tea. In a few minutes the blaze was brilliant and crackling, the area toasty.

  Before Quilla’s mother died, her father and Quilla had had angry words about his drinking and his treatment of her mother. After she died, her father’s drinking had worsened. He’d started to drink during the week, barely eating anything for dinner before disappearing into his room for the night. Quilla had been so lonely and alone, she could barely stand the loss. It was the worst time of her life.

  And by the time she graduated, they barely knew each other. That summer she worked and waited eagerly to leave for college. Once she left, she never returned.

  The popping and crackling blaze bought her thoughts back to the present.