Bad Boy Secrets

by Seraphina Donavan

  Those words had a dampening effect on the good spirits of the group. Margaret instantly realized her mistake, but before she could even offer up an apology, a commotion at the front doors of the shop interrupted to them. Over the canned music and the protests of the sales clerk, Cass recognized Reed’s voice. She rose and walked down the short hall to main showroom. He was there, standing inside the doors, with the sheriff.

  “Reed, what’s going on?”

  “Cass, you need to come with us now,” the sheriff said simply.

  “What’s going on here?” Margaret demanded.

  “Mrs. Harper--” the sheriff began, but at Margaret’s cold glare he stopped.

  “Sheriff,” Margaret said, in a voice that had withered many a stronger man, “You cannot simply walk in here and make demands without any sort of explanation. You will tell Miss Blakely why you are here and why you require her presence.”

  “There’s no easy way to see this, ma’am, but Rowena Blakely was found dead outside her hotel room this morning.”

  Cass waited for the world to tilt under her. She kept expecting this deep and profound grief to hit her, but it simply wasn’t there. “Was it an overdose?”

  “We’ll have to wait for official confirmation, but it appears to be foul play. Murder, Miss Blakely... and given the nature of your relationship with your mother, we have some questions to ask you,” the sheriff replied, his voice sounding stiff and official.

  “This is preposterous! Cass has been here with us all morning!” Evie protested.

  “As far as we can tell, Rowena Blakely died sometime last night.”

  “It’s all right, Evie. You and your mother keep shopping. We’ll get this whole thing straightened out in no time,” Cass said, gathering her purse and keys. Reed took the keys from her shaking hands.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  “Actually, Reed. That’s not a very good idea. Seeing as how you and Cass are one another’s alibis, it’s probably best if she rides with me.”

  Reed turned toward the sheriff then, his jaw tight and his voice angry, “We are not under arrest. We are cooperating with you in every way. You have just informed Cass that her mother is dead in about the most callous fashion I can imagine, and I’ll be damned before I let you get her alone so you can browbeat her into some trumped up confession.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Evie said. “I’m not buying a wedding dress without my best friend and maid of honor with me anyway. This is more important.”

  “Absolutely,” Margaret agreed, and even Reed did a double take. “I’m calling Phillip, Sheriff Messer. Don’t think that he, or I, have forgotten how you botched things with Trevor and that Evie very nearly paid the price for it... You will not win any elections off this witch hunt.”

  They exited the shop en masse, with Cass and Evie walking towards her small, compact. “What the hell has gotten into your mother?”

  Evie shrugged, “She’s been this way since she found out I was pregnant. I’ll stay pregnant forever if she keeps this up.”

  Once they were inside the car, Evie buckled herself up and then said, “Now, I’m not judging you. If you need me to cover for you I will, legitimately or not.”

  Cass rolled her eyes heavenward. “Look, Rowena was an opportunistic bitch, but I didn’t kill her. If she was murdered last night, I don’t need any alibi other than Reed. Any one of my neighbors could probably verify how much noise we were making!”

  “Really?”

  “My god, Jackson has turned you into a total perv! He came over and helped me fix the steps to the deck, and then he cut down some tree limbs that were growing into the lines.”

  “So you didn’t have sex with him last night?”

  “Of course I did! But I don’t think my neighbors heard that... not last night anyway.”

  The conversation continued in that vein as they drove toward the sheriff’s office. Cass knew that Evie was intentionally keeping it light. “I’m not going to fall apart, Evie. Rowena and I didn’t have that much of a connection. Honestly, I’m okay.”

  “She was your mother.”

  “She was the woman who gave birth to me... Rose was my mother, maybe not a great one, but a hell of a lot better than Rowena ever would have been.”

  Evie pulled the car into a parking space in front of the office. Cass stopped her as she reached for the door handle. “You are not going inside with me. I can handle this. And I might remind you that I have a lawyer.”

  “If you need me, I’m just a phone call away.”

  Cass opened the door and climbed out, hiking up the steps to the glass door. With a steadying breath, she pushed it open and stepped inside. Reed and the sheriff were already there. A deputy ushered Cass down a narrow hallway to what she could only describe as an interrogation room. The scarred metal table and folding chairs were straight out of an episode of Law & Order. The concrete walls covered in institutional gray paint were not exactly inviting.

  “Miss Blakely, if you’d take a seat please.”

  Cass eyed the chair dubiously, “I’ll stand if you don’t mind. I’m rather fond of this dress and that chair looks none too clean... Also, Sheriff, you’ve known me since I was a toddler, and never before in my life have you called me ‘Miss’. Now isn’t the time to start.”

  He sighed heavily and settled into the chair on the opposite side of the table. “I have to ask, Cass, did you do it? Did you kill Rowena?”

  “I have seen my mother one time since she came back to town, Sheriff, and that was three weeks ago when she first showed up. She asked to stay at my house and I refused. We argued and she left.”

  “There are eyewitness reports of two raised female voices last night at approximately nine in the evening. Where were you?”

  “I was at my home. Reed was with me.”

  “Your boss?” he asked.

  “He’s more than my boss, as I’m sure you’ve both guessed and been informed. Reed came to my house. I cooked dinner. He helped me with some things that needed to be done with the back deck and the back yard, and then he spent the night.”

  “What time did he go to sleep? It’s possible for you to slip out without waking him.”

  Cass rolled her eyes heavenward and then just bit the bullet. “If I’d slipped out anywhere near nine o’clock, I’m sure he would have noticed. He was paying rather particular attention to me at that time, and if you can’t figure out what exactly that means, sheriff, I am not going to explain it to you.”

  The man blushed furiously, his sagging cheeks turning beet red. “I’m gonna go talk to Reed, Cass. And if your stories don’t mesh, or if they mesh just a little too perfectly, we may have problems.”

  “Can I have a towel to sit on please? I have a feeling I’ll be here a while.”

  He glanced at the chair, which looked to be coated with a good half inch of dust and then gave her a brief nod before heading out the door.

  ONLY a few doors down the hall, Reed was in the uncomfortable position normally occupied by his clients. He was developing a sense of empathy he had never expected to. When the door opened and the sheriff entered, he rose. “I want to know exactly what evidence you have to warrant questioning Cass!”

  “I have no evidence. I have hearsay and speculation, Counselor. I know that Cass and her mother don’t get along, and I know that everytime Rowena has shown up in this town, she’s brought that girl nothing but trouble. If anyone had reason to want her dead, it is Cass. Now it’s my turn to ask questions. What time did you go to her house last night?”

  “I got there around six. We ate dinner and then I fixed the steps on her back deck.”

  “What else did you do?”

  “I cut down some tree limbs before they grew into the power lines.”

  “Do you do this for every secretary you’ve ever had?”

  Reed clenched his fists at his side. “Cass works in my office, but that is not the entirety of our relationship.”

  “So what time did
you leave her house?”

  “This morning. I woke up this morning just as Cass was leaving. She’d left a note about dress shopping with Evie and then I went to the office.”

  “Is it possible Cass left the house last night while you slept?”

  Reed sighed. “No, it isn’t. If she’d gotten out of bed, I would have known.”

  The sheriff tossed the papers on the desk, disgusted. “Why did you go to Rowena Blakely’s hotel this morning, Reed? Don’t even think of bullshitting me.”

  Reed cursed softly. “Cass does not know about this and if possible, I’d prefer she not. Rowena did enough evil shit to her already.”

  “Fine. If I can keep it quiet, I will, but it damn well better be good.”

  “When I went into the office this morning, someone had delivered an unmarked envelope. It contained pictures of Cass and of me in compromising positions.”

  “Why would that be an issue? Neither of you are married. You can both do whoever and whatever the hell you want!”

  “These were very compromising pictures, Sheriff and no I don’t intend to give you any more information about them than that... The real issue is that Rowena had previously tried to blackmail by revealing the name of Cass’ father... Parker Remington.”

  “And here I thought you was covering for her, and it’s shaking up to be the other way around.”

  “I didn’t kill Rowena, sheriff. If I had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said calmly. “I’m smart enough to cover my tracks.”

  “Do not leave town. Either one of you. Get that girl a damn good lawyer, preferably one that she isn’t boning. Just cause I believe you doesn’t mean other people in this town will.”

  Reed let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Thank you, sheriff.”

  “I’ve got some advice for you son... you tell that girl everything and you tell her quick. Women have a way of finding out things and you never see it coming. If you don’t tell her the truth, it will bite you in the ass.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN Reed was still processing the sage advice the sheriff had given him as he headed out the door. He walked down the hall to the other interrogation room. In a station the size of Gresham County’s there weren’t many options. Opening the door, he saw Cass sitting at the table, her legs crossed primly, looking completely out of place. “We’re going home.”

  With a raised eyebrow, she asked, “Is that the sheriff’s decision or yours?”

  “Both.”

  “Do I have to identify the body?”

  Jesus, Reed thought. It hadn’t even occurred to him. “They can finger print her and run it against her arrest records.”

  “They don’t have--”

  Reed stopped her. It wasn’t something that he wanted her to even consider. “Cass, you don’t want to see her yet. Trust me.”

  “Fine, but I do need to make the arrangements... I don’t have my car here. Evie picked me up this morning. When she dropped me off here, I just wasn’t even thinking. I’ve never planned a funeral before.”

  He realized in that moment that she was on the verge of falling apart. Rowena might have been an opportunistic bitch, but she had been Cass’ mother. Walking towards her, he pulled her into his arms. “If you want me to take care of it, I will. If not, I’ll go with you when you do.”

  Cass didn’t know where the tears were coming from. It was such a sudden thing. She knew, logically, that they were pointless. The hardened part of her heart even acknowledged that Rowena wasn’t worth them. Still, there was enough of that needy child still inside her to recognize that there would be no more second or fourteenth chances to make things right. The last words ever spoken between them would be the harsh ones. “I think I just want to go home... Would it make me a bad person to put it off until tomorrow?”

  “No, that doesn’t make you a bad person. I’ll stop by the office and grab my things and then we’ll go to your house.”

  They left the sheriff’s office together. Reed ushered Cass to his car. Pulling up in front of the office, he left it running while he ran upstairs and grabbed his things. He tossed the envelope full of pictures into his briefcase and grabbed his laptop, knowing that he would need to reschedule things for the next few days. When he returned to the car, Cass was staring intently out the window.

  “What is it?”

  “Crystal,” she said, simply. “I’ve seen that car parked in front of my house a dozen times, but I didn’t know it was hers.”

  Reed looked over to the ancient Grand Marquis. It was the size of a small house. “It isn’t hers. That car belonged to her grandfather.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “All through high school, I pumped gas at Fisher’s. I knew every car in this town and who drove them,” he said.

  “I forget sometimes that you were as poor as I was. We lived right beside on another in the same shithole trailer park, and yet you and your mom were always somehow above it. I always admired her... I wanted to be like her.”

  “She always liked you. I can remember coming home from school and you would be sitting on our front porch with her braiding your hair and while you ate my Fruity Pebbles.”

  Cass laughed, “You guys always had the best cereal... I knew even then that she just felt sorry for me, but I didn’t care. Rowena couldn’t be bothered and Mamaw Rose was just old and tired.”

  Reed took her hand, squeezing it, not as much to comfort her as himself. “I’m not going to say she didn’t feel sorry for the fact that you got dealt such a crap hand... But Mom had always wanted a daughter. Some cute little thing to dress up and do god-awful things to her head.”

  Cass grew quiet for a long while before she asked, “I know why I would go visit your mother. What reason in this world could you have had to go see mine?”

  He didn’t try to bullshit his way out of it. Instead, he asked, “There’s no way I can talk you into just shelving that for a while, is there?”

  “No. It’s been bugging me ever since you walked into the dress shop this morning. How would you have even known unless you were there? And you told me not to look at her... You wouldn’t know that unless you’d seen her.”

  Reed glanced at the rearview mirror as he turned onto Cass’ street and saw the Grand Marquis cruising several car lengths back. “I’ll tell you everything, but let’s wait until we’re inside.”

  Cass looked over her shoulder and saw the older model car creeping up behind them. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “I’ll handle it. Just go inside.”

  “Oh, hell no! She wants to spy on me, to sneak around and follow us like some love sick teenager? That’s just fucking fine with me!”

  Before Reed could even think of what Cass was planning to do, she had crawled over top of him, straddling his hips. Her bottom hit the horn and it sounded for a split second, before he pulled her up off of it. That movement had the unfortunate side effect of settling her barely covered mound against his cock, which instantly hardened in response. “Cass, I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, but this cannot be good.”

  “On the contrary, I think it can be very good! Where’s your kinky side now counselor? Or can you only access that behind closed doors?” Even as she was asking the questions, Cass was working his zipper down, exposing his cock. She scraped one lacquered fingernail gently over the tip and watched him shudder.

  “If you want to fuck in a public place, fine, but these are your neighbors not mine.”

  She gripped his hair, yanking his head back and drove her tongue into his mouth. It wasn’t a kiss really. It was a duel for supremacy. Her life was spiraling out of control and for just a moment, for one blissful second, she needed to feel in control. Teeth and tongues scraped and slid sensually together, she nipped at his lips and then soothed. But above all else, she led. For the first time in their somewhat unconventional relationship, Reed let her be the one in charge. She wasn’t stupid enough to think it was anything other than choic
e on his part. When he tried to touch her, she grabbed his hands and planted them firmly on the steering wheel behind her.

  “Not this time,” she admonished, breaking the kiss. Reaching between their bodies she grasped his cock again. It was rock hard and pulsing her hand. Rising onto her knees, she brushed the glistening head against the lace of her thong, and then with a flick of her thumb, nudged the lace aside so that bare skin touched slick, bare skin.

  “Do you want me to fuck you, Reed?”

  He met her gaze with a heavy lidded one of his own, “Yes, Cass. I want you to fuck me.”

  Her eyes glinted, still damp from her brief bout of tears. “Tell me...”

  Fuck, she was killing him, he thought. But she wanted a distraction, she needed something, anything, to keep the pain and anger at bay. He understood that only too well. “I want to slide my cock into your hot, tight, pussy. I want to feel how wet you are, how hot... I love the way your cunt closes around my cock like a fist, squeezing it tight when I pound it into you.”

  She moaned as she parted the lips of her pussy with one hand and rubbed the head of his cock against her clit. On the second pass, she shuddered deeply and knew that she wasn’t going to be able to tease him for much longer. It was the emotional upheaval of the day, as much as anything else, but she craved him in that moment, craved the feeling of him inside her and the sweet release he could provide. With an artful undulation of her hips, she nudged his cock inside her, but only the head. Her thighs trembled as she held herself above him that way, letting her walls of her pussy flutter around the sensitive head until he threw back his head on a low groan.

  Slowly, Cass sank down on to him, savoring every inch of his cock spearing into her. Her body clenched and shuddered and she let him fill her. It wasn’t the hard angry ride she had thought she wanted, it was slow and torturous. The steering wheel behind her restricted her movement, so that she could only circle her hips against him, savoring the languid glide of his cock in her dew slicked sheath. A glance over her shoulder and she saw that his hands were clenched into fists on the steering wheel, following her orders. He wanted to touch her, to grab her hips and pound upward into her. She could see the desire plainly on his face, but it was her turn and she planned to enjoy it. Reaching behind her head, she unfastened the halter of her sundress, and dropped the straps to reveal a lacy, strapless bra. A gentle tug, and her nipples were barely visible above the cups, their natural pink darkened by desire and starkly contrasted against the black lace. She placed two fingers at his lips and he sucked them, wetting them. She then placed those fingers on one nipple, tugging it gently as she added a slight clenching of her sheath to the slow undulation of her hips. He groaned loudly.