by Jane Graves
Tom’s face crinkled with disgust. “Well, yeah, but not with the leopard print.”
Maybe it wasn’t so preposterous after all.
She raced to the curtain leading back out to the club. The others hurried after her, standing behind her as she looked out over the crowd. She zeroed in on the DJ booth near the bar. Steve was standing inside it, headphones on, still tuned in to the emcee’s wrap-up of the show.
“Renee?” John said. “What are you doing?”
Her mind was spinning too fast to respond. She was crazy even to think it, wasn’t she?
Then her attention was drawn to the front door of the club, and her heart just about stopped. Someone was coming in. Someone about six feet, five inches tall. Someone with more tattoos than brains. Someone with a bald head that glinted under the neon lights.
“That’s Leandro,” John said. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Renee watched as he strode straight over to the DJ booth and started talking to Steve. Then both of them turned and scanned the club, and her stomach dropped through the floor. They were looking for someone.
They were looking for her.
She wheeled around to face Tom. “Did you tell Steve I was out at that motel in east Texas? Before the bounty hunter found me?”
Tom squeezed his eyes closed.
“Tell me!”
“Uh...I may have said something to him.”
A slow, boiling anger rolled through Renee, an anger fueled by the horrible days she’d spent since her arrest wondering if her life was going to be over. Now she knew precisely what had happened that night. She knew who was to blame. And she knew that the reason she couldn’t shake a certain bounty hunter was because he had an informant—an informant who had a motive to make sure she landed in jail. If she took the fall for the crime, he wouldn’t.
She whipped the curtain aside and stomped down the steps.
“Renee! Stop!”
John started after her, but the whole place was on its feet applauding again, and she quickly lost him in the crowd. She stormed through the club, weaving among the tables, driven by a single-minded fury unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
Leandro turned as she approached, and when it dawned on him who the woman was in the bright red dress and the purple, pearl-studded hat, a malicious grin spread across his repugnant face. He squatted a little in anticipation, curving his arms away from his body like a pro wrestler ready to do battle. His nose was taped yet again, with blue and purple bruises extending two inches beyond it on either side.
Full of fury, Renee never missed a beat. She yanked a tray from a nearby cocktail server’s hand, sending the drinks crashing to the floor. Leandro snarled, his hands curling into hooks, ready to sink right into her. What he had on her in sheer bulk, though, Renee made up for in speed. She took the tray in both hands, reared back, then swung it around in a wide arc and smashed him right in the face.
He stumbled backward, his hands flying to his nose. He let out an excruciating howl of pain like a wounded moose wailing through the wilds of the Yukon.
Then she zeroed in on Steve.
She leaped over the counter of the DJ booth, which she should never have been able to do in four-inch heels, but she was experiencing a surge of power greater than that of a mortal woman. When her feet hit the floor on the other side, she went for Steve’s throat. He stumbled backward and fell. Renee landed on top of him, her hands wrapped around his neck.
“Hey!” he said, his voice choked. “What the hell—”
Renee tightened her hand on his throat and inched forward until her knees were on his shoulders. He stared up at her, gagging, his eyes almost popping out, and when she thought about how he was going to let her go to prison for a crime he committed, it was all she could do not to keep squeezing until he turned blue.
Instead, she spotted a bottle of Jim Beam on a lower shelf of the booth. She took it by the neck and smashed it against the floor. Glass flew in all directions, followed by a tidal wave of golden brown liquid. She was left with a nifty little weapon of razor-sharp glass shards still clinging to the neck of the bottle. She rested it against Steve’s throat with the points pressing into his skin, feeling like Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Xena, Warrior Princess, all rolled into one.
“You scum-sucking bastard. You set me up!”
“Come on, Renee!” he said, coughing. “I don’t know what you’re—”
She pressed the glass to the side of his neck, and he let out a gaspy squeak. “Hey! That hurts!”
“You haven’t even begun to hurt, you slimy little toad! Now tell me the truth!”
When Steve didn’t respond, Renee pressed her knees even harder into his shoulders and dropped her voice to a malevolent growl. “Ever hear the phrase ‘going for the jugular’? One little flick of my wrist, and you’re history.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Damn right I am! I’ve got nothing to lose! They already think I shot a store clerk, so what’s the big deal about drawing a pint or two of blood from a slimy little DJ?”
“Renee, please—”
“I know you dressed in Tom’s clothes. I saw you leaving his apartment after the robbery. I know you’re the one who’s been sending Leandro after me. You even told Paula and me which ATM to go to so he could find me!”
She pushed the glass harder against his neck. “Say it. Tell me you were the one who robbed that store!”
“I can’t breathe!”
“Then you’d better hurry!”
He gagged a little more, and then the words came spilling out. “I didn’t mean for you to be involved! I swear! What were you doing going out at eleven o’clock at night, anyway? I tried to stop you from leaving. I tried! If only you’d stayed home, I’d have been able to get the stuff out of your car and none of this would have happened!”
“Why did you do it? Tell me!”
“I owed money. A lot of it. I didn’t have it, and the guy I owed was demanding a down payment or he was going to kill me. I swear he was, Renee. He’d already come to my apartment and beaten the hell out of me more than once. That’s the only reason I robbed that store. But I never intended to implicate you!”
All at once she heard the door to the booth swing open behind her. John reached in and lifted her off of Steve, then pried the broken bottle out of her hand and let it fall to the floor with a clatter.
“He’s guilty!” she shouted. “Did you hear him? He confessed! He’s the one who did it!”
“I heard, sweetheart. Every word. But let’s not add murder to the charges, okay?”
He pulled Renee out of the booth, then went back in after Steve and hauled him out. Suddenly she realized that everyone in the place had turned their attention from the stage to the guy getting arrested. The emcee shoved his considerable bulk through the crowd, wondering what was going on, and John asked him to call 911. Then he dragged Steve out the front door, calling to Renee over his shoulder and telling her to stay put.
By now a big crowd had gathered around the DJ booth, with everyone staring at Renee as if she’d grown an extra head. For a moment, all she could do was stand there, stunned.
Then she remembered Paula.
Oh, God. Poor Paula. Where had she gone? This was one of those pill-popping, wrist-slitting situations that some women just wouldn’t be able to handle. She knew Paula was a whole lot more stable than that, but what must she be feeling right now?
Renee shoved her way through the crowd and finally saw her sitting at a table by herself, a lost, confused look on her face. Renee had no idea what to say to her. Even Hallmark didn’t have a card for “sorry your boyfriend wears women’s clothes.”
She started to walk over, but then she saw Tom approaching Paula. She stopped and thought about the situation for a moment, wondering if Paula needed her, then decided that maybe it was best to let them work it out for themselves.
She went to the bar and sat down to wait for John. So many emotions were spinning around
inside her head that she couldn’t see how she’d ever sort them out.
Paula and Tom weren’t the only ones who had some talking to do.
Chapter 21
Paula shoved aside two beer bottles and an ashtray full of cigarette butts, then rested her elbows on the table and dropped her head to her hands, feeling as if her entire world had just collapsed. She couldn’t believe Steve had committed that crime, then let Renee take the fall for it. After what he’d done, she was glad he was going to jail. She was glad he was finally out of their lives.
Their lives?
Hers and Tom’s.
Only there wasn’t the two of them anymore. How could there be when he was more of a woman right now than she was?
“Paula?”
She turned to see Tom standing behind her, minus his dark wig. But still he wore the dress, the makeup, the false nails— “Don’t, Tom. I can’t handle this. Please go away. Please!”
He pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you listen to me.”
“I don’t understand any of this! How can you—”
“It’s complicated. And it’d be impossible to explain in just a few minutes, so I’m not even going to try. I just want you to know two things. This does not mean I’m gay, and—”
“You’re wearing a dress, Tom!”
“I know. Not everybody who does this is gay. It’s still me under here. The same me you’ve always known.”
She gave him a sidelong glance, then turned away again. She couldn’t deal with this. She just couldn’t.
“Don’t you want to know the other thing?” he said. “What?”
“I love you.”
She closed her eyes, feeling the tears coming. Damn it. She was not going to cry.
“With other women this wasn’t an issue—I never got close enough to them that I thought I’d ever have to tell them. And then you came along. I’ve dated a lot of women, Paula. But you...” He paused, shaking his head. “I know you think you’re plain and all that nonsense, and sometimes you wonder why you’re the one I want, but the truth is that I’ve always been afraid that I’m the one who’s not good enough for you.”
And then she really did cry, tears pouring down her face, and she felt so dumb sitting there in that weird, weird place, crying her eyes out. Tom put his arm around her shoulders. If she kept her eyes closed, she could almost believe that he was the Tom she knew so well. The one who looked like a man.
“Do you remember what you told me?” Tom said. “That there was nothing I could do that would make you stop loving me?”
Of course she remembered. Every word. But how was she to know he meant something like this?
Still, when she looked at him now, his beautiful green eyes stared back at her the same way they always had—with complete and total adoration. Was he still there? Underneath the false eyelashes and the too-bright lipstick, was he still the man she loved?
“I’m not asking you to say yes or no right now,” Tom said. “I know we have a lot of talking to do. I’m just asking you to keep the door open.”
She looked at him plaintively. “Are you sure you’re not gay?”
“Remember the last time we made love?”
“Yes?”
“Now ask me that question again.”
She couldn’t help smiling a little. Good point.
“So all this time Steve knew about this?”
“Yes. When we roomed together, he found my stuff one day. He said he’d never tell anyone, but I could never be sure.”
Tom sighed. “Every time I’d get a little money together, thinking I could start to pay you back what I owe you, Steve would get in hot water with his bookie and hit me up. He never said it directly, but I was always afraid that if I didn’t do whatever he wanted me to, he’d tell you about...this.”
Paula couldn’t believe it. Steve had been holding this over Tom’s head? Was that why Tom had tolerated his cousin, and his cousin’s nasty girlfriend? Because he was afraid of his secret being revealed?
“Steve did a terrible thing to Renee,” Tom said. “And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he pays for it. I knew he’d been into my things that weekend the robbery occurred. Stuff was moved around. He denied it, but he was the only one who knew about me, and he’d been there that night. I had no idea his messing with my stuff had anything to do with the robbery, though, or I’d have told the police right away. Even if it meant the world knowing about me. I wouldn’t have let Renee take the fall, Paula. You’ve got to believe that.”
“Of course I believe that,” she said. “So you’re going to tell the police what you know?”
“Yes.” Tom’s expression grew grim. “Steve has always had a rotten streak, from the time we were kids. I held out hope that maybe he’d change, but obviously he never did. It was such a good thing when he started dating Renee. I thought finally he’d found somebody nice. And then he went and screwed that up, too.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?”
“And risk losing you? How could I?”
Paula closed her eyes, feeling those tears coming again. “I love you, Tom. I think I always will. But I’m not completely sure I can get over this.”
He brushed a lock of dark hair away from her forehead, then slid his hand down her arm and took her hand in his. “I know. Just promise me you’ll try.”
She nodded, then managed a tiny smile. He smiled back, taking that little bit she gave him and not asking for more. But even as she expressed her concerns, she knew the truth. She couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life without him.
So he had one little flaw. She’d once dated an IRS auditor who never used deodorant and believed he was abducted by aliens every Halloween. This was a definite step up from that, wasn’t it?
“I love ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’” she told him. “Why haven’t you ever sung it for me?”
“I will. Every day from now on, if you want me to.”
This was all very strange, and more than she could absorb all at once, but he was still Tom, and she still loved him. She didn’t know how, but she had the feeling that sooner or later everything was going to work out all right.
When Renee glanced toward the door of the club and finally saw John coming back in, her heart fluttered wildly. She took a deep, calming breath, reminding herself that just because he was here now didn’t mean everything was all right between them.
He made his way through the crowd that remained and sat on a stool next to her. She sensed he wanted to be closer to her, to touch her, but she turned away and stared down at the bar.
“Steve’s on his way to the station,” John said. “I talked to the detective on the case. He’s going to meet me there in an hour to get a formal confession.”
“What if he changes his mind about confessing?”
“The clothes he wore in the robbery can be used as evidence. Hair samples in the wig, that kind of thing. We can prove he wore the clothes, that he was coming out of Tom’s apartment that night, and that he had strong motive to commit the robbery. Gunpowder residue on the gloves will prove whoever wore them fired a gun. Considering what we know now, the D. A. will forget about you and go after Steve. But it won’t come to that. I’m betting he’ll confess. Then the charges against you will be dropped.”
“It’s over, then?”
“Not officially, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Renee nodded, emotions tugging at her from all sides, the most overwhelming of which was relief that it was over and she was free again. She knew she should feel happiness, too, because John was here, because he’d come to help her. But something still nagged at her that she just couldn’t ignore.
John stared at her, his face full of concern. “How about you? How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. A little tired.”
There was a long silence between them. Finally he turned her around on the bar stool until s
he was facing him. “Renee? What’s wrong?”
Didn’t he know? Did he think he could just walk back in here after what happened last night and everything was going to be fine?
“After the number Alex did on you last night,” she told him, “my first thought when I saw you here tonight was that you were going to arrest me.”
“What?” He shook his head. “I told you I’d never take you to jail, and I meant it!”
“Before last night, you told me you’d do everything you could to help me, too. But you didn’t mean that, did you?”
He closed his eyes. “Renee—”
She felt the tears coming, and she was not going to give in to them. “You have no idea how it felt to have you turn on me the minute your brother snapped his fingers. And then you dumped me at that motel, telling me you never wanted to hear from me again. I’m going to have a hard time forgetting that, John.”
He bowed his head. “I know. I’m sorry. I never should have done that.” He took her hand in his, his thumb rubbing hers in gentle, mesmerizing strokes. “But I’m here now. Doesn’t that count for something?”
She pulled her hand from his grasp. “You came here tonight only because you could do it on the sly. If you were successful, fine. If not, well, who was to know you’d even tried in the first place? But when it came to standing up to your brother face-to-face and fighting for me, you refused. So what happens the next time it comes down to me versus your job or your family?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “We need to talk. Come back to my house with me.”
“No. We have nothing else to talk about.”
“Renee, if you’ll just listen—”
“Alex already knows I have a record. Remember how big that went over? Imagine telling it to the rest of your family. I’m sure they’ll be equally thrilled.”
“I don’t care what they think.”
“On the contrary. You care very much what they think, or you wouldn’t have sent me away last night.”
“Things have changed since last night.”
“Oh, really? So you think now that you can tell your family I’m innocent, you can slip the juvenile record past them and maybe they’ll overlook it?”
