“Let’s go, then. I’m afraid to see what might happen.” She shifted easily into an impersonal, bantering mood that made him want to grasp for the moment he’d just left behind.
But instead of sweeping her into his arms and onto the rumpled bed, he picked up his gun from the nightstand, checked it and slid it into his shoulder holster. It was time to get back to business.
An hour and a half later they walked back into the motel room. The maid had been there in their absence, cleaning up all traces of the way they’d spent the last thirty-six hours. Luke looked around at the impersonal room and felt a coldness settle in the pit of his stomach. Was it really that easy to erase all signs of what had happened between him and Julia? Would the same thing happen after tonight, the two of them separating and all traces of the passion that had flared between them evaporating like mist in the sunlight?
Julia touched his arm and he looked down at her smiling face. “How long do you think it’ll take us to make it look like it did when we left?”
She watched him steadily, holding his gaze, and he felt a weight shift off his soul. “Two minutes, tops.” Bending down, he brushed his lips over hers and felt her immediate response flare into life. Pulling her closer, he held her for a moment, then stepped back. “Hold that thought. I should call and get my messages, make sure no one’s been trying to get in touch with me.”
She swallowed and nodded, a shadow passing over her eyes. “Tonight is the night. Luke, I…”
“What is it, Julia?”
She watched him for a minute, troubled, then opened her mouth just as the telephone rang. They both froze. Luke stared at the phone for a moment, then strode over and picked it up.
“Yes?” he barked.
“Mr. Jones?” a timid voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yes, this is Mr. Jones.”
“We, uh, that is, the motel has a policy about extended stays.” The clerk’s voice drifted away, and Luke could hear him clearing his throat. “That is, when someone stays for more than three days, we need payment for the room before we can let them stay another night.”
Luke relaxed and smiled reassuringly over to Julia. “No problem. I’ll be down in a few minutes to take care of it.”
He hung up the phone and turned to her. “They want us to pay for the room, since we’ve been here for three nights already. I guess their usual clientele make a considerably shorter stay. It sounds like anything longer than a couple of hours makes them real nervous,” he added with a grin.
Julia smiled stiffly and watched as he headed toward the door. “I’ll be right back,” he promised.
When he walked into the room a few minutes later, he headed for the telephone. Julia stood by the window, but it didn’t look as if she were watching the parking lot. Her gaze was unfocused as she stared out at the buildings behind the motel.
“I’m going to make a few phone calls, and then we’ll talk about our strategy for tonight.”
She turned around quickly, but he had already picked up the phone and dialed the number to his house. He listened to the message on his answering machine, then tapped in the security code that would allow him to hear his messages.
The tape clicked on, and Eddie’s voice came over the line. He could almost see his ex-partner’s cocky smile as he said, “How you doing, buddy? Just calling to see if you can get together tonight. A bunch of us are going to be at the Half Moon at about eight o’clock. Meet us there if you can.”
Before he could think about Eddie’s message, the tape beeped and another message began to play. “Luke, this is Raul.” His voice was low and urgent. “Please call me. I have some information for you.” There was the soft click of the receiver being replaced in its cradle, then silence until the tape beeped again. The tape stopped, and Luke pressed the buttons that would reset the machine, then slowly lowered the phone.
“There were two messages,” he said to Julia. “One from Eddie and one from Raul.”
Her eyes dilated with fear, and she moved away from the window to stand in front of him. “What did they want?” she whispered.
“Raul wants me to call. Eddie…” He paused, letting the pain wash over him, letting himself taste the regret and bitter betrayal completely. “Eddie wants me to meet him tonight at the Half Moon Bar. At eight o’clock.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Why would he ask you to do that? Do you think that means that their plans have changed? And what would Eddie be calling you for, anyway?”
“Maybe Raul has found out something about the meeting. But I doubt it’s been changed. They’ve gone to too much trouble to make sure everyone involved is on duty tonight.”
“Then why would Eddie ask you to meet him in a bar when he knows that he won’t be there?”
“I doubt if I would have made it to the bar,” he answered grimly, trying to bury the pain deep inside himself. “The Half Moon is in a real seedy neighborhood. I have a feeling I would have met up with a mugger before I made it as far as the bar.”
She stared at him, shocked. “Eddie is supposed to be your friend. He wouldn’t do anything like that. Would he?”
“There’s a lot of money involved in this, Julia. And Eddie sure seems to enjoy his new life-style.”
“Maybe he just wanted to make you wait there for him while everything was happening somewhere else.”
“This isn’t a cop show on television, where the hero doesn’t get hurt and everything turns out to be a misunderstanding.” His voice was harsh and cold. “This is real life, where people get killed every day. A loser ex-cop P.I. found with a knife in his ribs in an alley wouldn’t even make the newspapers, Julia.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Ignore it, of course.” His answer was immediate. “If Eddie thinks I’m wandering down dark streets to the Half Moon, he won’t be worrying that I’ll show up when his deal is going down.”
She watched him with her huge green eyes, and he wanted to go over and kiss away the fear that shadowed them. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. Raul had sounded worried, and he needed to know why.
“I’m going to call Raul. It might take a while to track him down.”
But the artist picked up the phone on the very first ring, almost as if he’d been waiting by the phone for Luke’s call. “Raul, it’s Luke. I got your message.”
He heard a small sigh at the other end of the phone. “Thank goodness you called, Luke. I have heard some information that I think you might need.” He quickly sketched in the details of the meeting for tonight, and the place and time where it was taking place.
Luke lowered himself onto the bed, feeling himself relax. He’d been afraid that something had gone wrong, that perhaps the meeting had been moved and that they’d miss their chance tonight. “Thank you, my friend. This confirms information I had already heard. I’ve made plans to be there.”
“I’m glad, Luke.” Luke could hear Raul exhaling on the other end of the phone. “These eight policemen must be caught and punished. They are destroying my neighborhood and seducing the children of my friends into dangerous and immoral acts.”
“I’ll stop them.” Luke lowered the phone and eased it into its cradle as a coldness spread in his chest. Eight policemen. There had only been seven on the list that Julia had read to him. Who was the eighth? Was is someone so highranking that he wouldn’t be listed on the duty roster? How high into the precinct chain of command did the sickness extend?
He swung around suddenly, scanning the room. “Didn’t the policeman at the hospital give us a bag with everything from the car?” he asked Julia.
“It’s right over here.” Julia walked over to one corner of the room and handed him a plastic bag. “What do you need from it?”
“The duty rosters. Raul said something that bothered me.”
Julia froze in front of him, fear enveloping her like a black cloak. She forced herself to speak. “Luke, before y
ou look at that, there’s something I have to tell you.”
But it was too late. He looked up from the current week’s roster and stared at her, fury and betrayal in his dark blue eyes. And buried far below that was a slashing pain that made her shrivel up inside.
“Luke, I can explain,” she said desperately.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.” His voice was silky smooth. “All the explanations I need are right here in front of me.”
“I would have told you,” she cried.
“When, Julia? When your brother Bobby was standing over me with a gun?” he said bitterly. “When I walked into a trap because I didn’t know all the players?”
“I wouldn’t have let you do that.” She reached out for him, but froze when he flinched away from her. “I wouldn’t have let you get hurt.”
Something shifted in his eyes and she felt the wall spring up between them. “No? You have a funny way of going about it, Julia.” He stared at her, and it was as if some stranger looked at her out of Luke’s eyes. Never before, even two years ago when he’d thought of her only as his enemy, had he looked at her like that. As if she’d ripped away his most precious possession.
“I was going to tell you,” she repeated, refusing to accept the closed shutters on his eyes.
The look he gave her now was filled only with scorn. “When, Julia? When were you going to tell me?”
“I tried to tell you earlier, before you talked to Raul.”
“Not very hard, apparently. All it would have taken was a simple, ‘Luke, I have to tell you something.’” He stared at her, implacable, and she felt something delicate and fragile shattering around them.
“You have to believe me, Luke. I was going to tell you.” Even to her own ears her plea sounded weak, and one look at Luke told her it was futile.
Ignoring her plea, he asked harshly, “How long have you known, Julia? Did you know when you came into my office and asked me to betray my best friend? Were you protecting your brother then, too? When did you first find out that your brother was a dirty cop?”
“Maybe he’s not,” she said in a rush. “He’s only a rookie. He’s been at the precinct for only six months, and this has been going on for a lot longer than that.”
“And maybe he was just real quick to get on the gravy train.” His expression was unyielding. “But that doesn’t matter, does it, Julia? Regardless of whether or not he’s involved, his name was on that duty roster for tonight and you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she whispered. “I should have told you, but I couldn’t. When I saw his name, I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
For just a moment, she saw his eyes soften. She took a step toward him, and he stood up, his look freezing her in her place. The hard man was back, and he wasn’t going to give her an inch.
And she didn’t deserve one. A voice in her head reminded her that she had betrayed his trust. She should have told him immediately. She opened her mouth to tell him, but he spoke first.
“Tell me, Julia, when did you first suspect your brother was crooked? Have you known all along?” He paused, and she could see him remembering. His eyes darkened even more. “Is that why you didn’t want me to join you and Bobby for dinner that night? Were you afraid of what I might find out?”
She wanted to tell him no, but her face betrayed her. As he watched her, she saw the scorn fill his eyes. “Is that why you hired me, Julia, because you knew I had fantasized about you for two years? Did you think I wouldn’t notice your brother was involved if you used your body to distract me?” He leaned closer to her, close enough that she could see not only the anger, but the agony, deep down. “Does Bobby know that you sold yourself for him?”
“That’s not true, Luke,” she whispered. “Whatever we shared was only between us. Bobby had nothing to do with it.”
“I’d have an easier time believing that if you’d told me about him in the first place.” He jumped up and stepped closer to her, the pain now clearly drawn on his face. “Was it all a lie, Julia? All the sweet words, the way our bodies fit together so perfectly? Was it all only a game to you, a way for you to control me and keep me away from your brother?”
“No, Luke, it wasn’t a game.” She tried to meet his gaze, but the pain in his eyes was almost too much to bear. “I swear it wasn’t. It was real. All of it.”
For a moment the anger faded from his eyes and he stared at her with a yearning that made her want to cry. “I wish I could believe that.” His words were spoken so softly that she could barely hear them. “I wish like hell I could believe that.” He gave her an almost pleading look. “Could you believe it, if you were in my shoes?”
She wanted to shout, Yes, I would believe you. She wanted to tell him everything she felt inside, the way she was alive only when she was with him. But she looked at him again, and knew it was too late. He couldn’t believe her now, because she had let him down. The cold started in her chest and spread to every inch of her body. She hadn’t been there for him, just like his wife hadn’t been there for him. She had committed the ultimate betrayal. She hadn’t been honest with him.
Turning away, she stared blindly around the room. Her belongings were mixed with his in a painful mockery of the intimacy they’d shared for the past two days. Moving slowly, like an old woman, she began to gather her things and stuff them into her suitcase.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice, harsh and impersonal, came from behind her but she couldn’t turn around.
“Leaving. I’m sure you don’t want me around now.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
For a moment, she was riveted to the floor with joy. He didn’t want her to leave. She spun around, looking for forgiveness in his face. All she saw was impersonal regard. He stared at her as if she were a stranger he was forced to spend time with. A stranger he didn’t much care for.
“What do you mean?” she faltered.
“Do you think I’m going to let you run to your brother and tell him what’s happening tonight?” He smiled at her, a curving of his lips that was completely without humor. “I’m not that slow. It may have taken me a while to catch on, but I’ve figured it out now. No, Julia, you’re staying with me until this is all over.”
“I wouldn’t tell him anything,” she said, desperate to get away. She couldn’t bear to feel his scorn for the rest of the day.
His gaze flickered over her once, then he picked up the duty roster and sat down on the bed to study it. “You’ll understand if I don’t believe you, won’t you?”
He didn’t even bother to look at her as he spoke, and he didn’t seem to expect an answer. Feeling her soul shriveling inside her chest, she slowly sank down on one of the hard chairs. This wasn’t the way she had planned to spend their last hours together. She stared at him, silently pleading with him to look at her, but he continued to read the sheets of paper in front of him. It was as if she no longer existed.
Chapter 14
Julia faced the television blindly, not seeing the old black-and-white movie that played in front of her. She was vividly aware of Luke’s presence behind her, but she couldn’t bear to turn around. In the hours since he’d discovered the truth on the duty roster, he hadn’t once looked at her or spoken to her. He sat on the bed, gazing into space and occasionally jotting something down on the back of the roster.
She desperately wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she knew that he wouldn’t tell her. And she didn’t want to see the distrust in his eyes when she asked, or feel the weight of his suspicion crushing down on her.
She couldn’t just sit here, though, feeling his indifference, especially not in this place where memories of their lovemaking still shimmered in the air. She had to get out of this room. Jumping up, she turned off the television and spun around. “I’m getting hungry. Do you want me to run out and bring back something to eat?”
He glanced up at her from the sheets of paper in his lap, and his look sent
a shaft of pain through her heart. He was watching her as if she were an unwanted intrusion that he longed to get rid of, but didn’t quite know how to. After a moment, he set aside the paper and stood up.
“I’ll come with you.”
Unshed tears gathered in a huge ball in her throat. “I wouldn’t try to call Bobby, Luke.”
“No, you won’t.” His voice was impersonal and implacable. “Because I’ll be there to make sure of it.”
“I give you my word,” she said desperately. “I will not call Bobby.”
He stared at her for a second, and she wanted to wrap her arms around herself and shrivel up into nothing. The scorn in his eyes would haunt her for a long, long time. “Just how much do you think your word is worth, Julia?” he said softly.
He didn’t bother waiting for her to answer. Picking up his gun, he checked it again and shoved it into the holster he still wore. He opened the door into the hall, checked it in a routine that had become second nature to her, then waited for her to leave the room. Locking the door behind them, he led the way down the stairs and into the car. She trailed behind him, her heart constricting in her chest and her soul weeping bitter tears of regret.
He chose a fast-food restaurant, and they sat in silence and ate their hamburgers. The food tasted like sawdust and sat in a heavy lump in her stomach. Getting away from the motel room had seemed like a good idea, but it was far worse to sit in public with Luke and have to pretend that everything was all right. At least in the privacy of the room she didn’t have to sit across from him and see his glance pass over her and dismiss her, or feel the cold dislike when his gaze did settle on her.
“Are you finished?” he asked abruptly.
She nodded, even though half of her food was still lying on the tray in front of her. The motel room that had been so confining earlier now seemed like a haven from the scorn in his eyes, and she couldn’t get back there fast enough. At least there she wouldn’t have to sit close enough to him to feel the waves of distaste that rolled off him whenever he looked at her.
An Honorable Man Page 21
