Wild Card (Wild At Heart Series Book 3)

by Christine Hartmann

  Faye pursed her lips and covered her heart with her hands, rolling her head back. “Then the Lord will help us. Does Mal know?”

  Bree’s thumb played with the empty space on her finger. “No.”

  Faye circled the living area furniture like a bloodhound, her eyes darting under twitching eyebrows. She sniffed the air. Bree grinned then swallowed her smile quickly, wondering whether odors from the previous night lingered in the room. She tagged after her future mother-in-law, picking up things Faye lifted and replaced, playing the inept Watson to her Sherlock Holmes. After one circuit of the room, Faye lay her hands on her hips. “Tell me exactly what you did last night when you got home.”

  Bree coughed. Her face turned red. “We sat around for a while. We did some stuff. Then went to bed.”

  “On the sofa?” Faye placed her hand on its back.

  Bree nodded. Faye snatched the seat cushions from the frame one by one, her slim fingers poking into tight spaces. Bree shuddered at what she might find. She knelt down by the window. Her gaze flicked quickly back to Faye, who was on her knees, only half visible, her body twisted so that she reached with one arm past her shoulder under the couch. When she turned back to the city below, her bare foot stepped on something sharp.

  She bent over.

  Faye extracted herself and raised her head above the coffee table. “Find it?”

  Bree leaned on one foot against the windows and inspected her sole. “I think something bit me.” She looked accusingly at the ground. A sparkle caught her eye. She lifted the ring and held it for Faye to see before kissing it and replacing it on her finger.

  Faye clasped her hands. She leaned on the coffee table to rise. “Now Mal never needs to know.”

  “Know what?” Mal stood at the bedroom door, clean-shaven, with hair combed, and wearing a fresh dress shirt and slacks. He looked, Bree thought, as though he’d spent the previous night at a prayer meeting not a nightclub.

  Faye beamed at her son. “That your father and I switched the menu again. Chicken instead of lamb.” She flung up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I couldn’t see bothering you with it.”

  Bree’s mouth hung open. Way to deflect attention, Faye. She skipped to Mal and gave him a peck on the cheek. She used her left hand to unbutton the top button of his shirt, as an excuse to reassure herself the ring was actually on her finger again.

  He eyeballed her phone on the edge of the dresser. “It was vibrating again.”

  Bree laughed and picked it up. “I completely forgot.”

  Mal looked at the sofa parts strewn about the room. “What’s been happening here?”

  Faye handed him a cushion. “Bree thought this was a sleeper sofa.”

  Bree shook her head. Impressive comeback. She wandered into the bedroom.

  9:36AM Ryder: You all make it home okay?

  9:55AM Ryder: Nightclub called. They have Juli’s cashmere sweater.

  10:43AM Ryder: Never mind. Picked it up for you. Text when you get this.

  She dropped to the corner of the bed.

  Bree: How do you know it’s hers?

  Her phone vibrated with an instant response.

  Ryder: They remembered me and her.

  Of course they did.

  Ryder: Want me to drop it off?

  Bree sighed and peeked into the living room, where Mal’s mother engaged him in a discussion about appetizers. She leaned the door shut. Having Mal meet him again is not something I want to have happen.

  Bree: I’ll be over.

  ***

  Greenwood cut the idling engine of his car and unplugged his phone from the charging cord. He scrolled through the voicemails, searching for one from Abigayle amid the calls from his lawyer, his assistant, and various unidentified 415 numbers. But she hadn’t called.

  Whenever he disappeared in the past, she acted as though he’d stepped out for lunch. She updated him on news about the kids and asked him to pick up soy milk at the grocery store, even though they both knew he might not be home for days. He ground his teeth. The world never collapsed because he wasn’t there. That wasn’t how they played things. It wasn’t how he had set things up. He deleted his entire voicemail file without listening to them. “Can’t be there for everything. They can figure it out by their goddamned selves.”

  His stomach growled. He seized the youth-size baseball cap he’d found in the trunk and yanked the brim tightly over his forehead before exiting the car. Head low, face away from the surveillance cameras, he lifted the top from a nearby garbage can and dug through the contents. With a clear plastic container of Caesar salad and half empty soda bottle clutched to his chest, he jogged back to his vehicle with downcast eyes and almost ran into a young mother and her son. The terrified boy clung to his mother’s hand. The mother pulled him close and kept walking.

  A few feet past Greenwood, the mother stopped and squatted. “Don’t be scared, honey. He’s homeless. He probably used to live like us and then had bad luck. You want to give him your cookie? He might like that.”

  The boy buried his snack beneath her windbreaker and shook his head so hard his ear-length brown hair flopped around his head like helicopter blades.

  “Remember, homeless people deserve our pity.” She stared after Greenwood. But when he stopped and slowly turned toward her, she broke into a run, dragging her son by the arm and throwing anxious glances over her shoulder.

  Greenwood glared after them. When he returned to his car, he peered at what he could see of himself in a side view mirror. He brushed fuzz from his lips and spat on his fingers and rubbed at smudges on his cheeks. He sniffed under his arms and wrinkled his nose. His fingers fondled the last remnant of a crease in his trousers. He looked again in the mirror.

  A week ago he wore the same suit to a two-thousand dollars per plate charity gala. In the opulent palm courtyard of a downtown San Francisco hotel, a string quartet played Bach while photographers vied for a shot of him with his wife, and his hand balanced a crystal champagne flute of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Rosé. He berated a waiter who knocked his arm, causing him to spill a pin-size drop of liquid onto his pants. Abigayle dabbed the spot with her napkin as he looked imperiously over her head, feeling like a king with his subjects. The room buzzed with his name. Doors were flung open when he approached. People stepped aside. Everyone wanted a chance to be seen with him, shake his hand, or beg for a donation.

  At events like the gala, the ability, foresight, and ambition that spurred his rise to the top shone, he thought, with particular brilliance. His role fit him perfectly. His former self disappeared, rendered invisible by the adulation flashing at him from all angles. In such bright light, there was no room for a man who didn’t understand who he truly was, who didn’t know how to grab what he wanted. When the world told you how wonderful you were, you had to act as though you believed it, to prove they’d all been wrong when they’d said you were worthless, would amount to nothing. The people who said that wouldn’t even recognize him now. Griff Greenwood took whatever pleased him. He made his own fantasies come true. He didn’t hide from the law, he laid it down.

  Wherever he went, kids ran after him, begging for a free toy, wanting his autograph, saying they hoped to be him when they grew up. Videos of his new toys went viral. Children’s hospitals flooded him with requests. Kindergartens and elementary schools cancelled classes if he said he’d drop by at the holidays. There was no need to count the awards and certificates he received—all he had to do was look at his office walls to remind himself. He was adored. People loved him. Children loved him. And he loved children back. Because children, he knew, gave him everything. They made all his dreams, even the secret dreams that once shamed him, come true.

  And Paulo was the culmination of that love. Paulo loved the gifts he gave him. He loved the money. But Paulo loved Greenwood more. Why else would he send naked pictures of himself from his bedroom? Call his work phone to tell him he wanted him? Sext him from the high school lavatory? Those were signs of lo
ve.

  Greenwood knew exactly what those signs looked like. His stepfather had shown him. Now he was able to show Paulo. It was a circle completing itself. Starting a toy company was the only thing Greenwood ever wanted to do. It represented a way to children’s hearts, to boys’ hearts. And now he had Paulo’s heart, the heart of a pure eighteen-year-old who looked five years younger than his age but was a consenting adult in the eyes of the law. It was too perfect to be anything but fate. In the space of a few weeks, Paulo had become the beginning and end of everything in Greenwood’s life, his passion and his fate, his freedom and his prison, his heaven and his hell.

  Before getting into the car in the garage, Greenwood bent to inspect the material of his pants that was flecked with caked French fries and stained with melted chocolate and burger juice. He scratched at it violently with his fingers.

  “Go to hell, brat.” He called after the child who was no longer visible, his voice echoing in the vast concrete hall. “Go fuck yourself.”

  He ripped open the top of the salad box. An ear-piercing car alarm screeched through the building. He lurched forward, spilling limp lettuce dripping with gooey dressing into his lap, his head almost colliding with the windshield. When he caught his breath, he swiveled in his seat just as a plump woman in a gray skirt was pulling herself into the white SUV.

  ***

  Abigayle peered through the ten-foot sidelights framing the stainless steel door. The intricate frosted and clear glass pattern afforded her a kaleidoscopic view of the man shifting from one foot to another on the doorstep. She undid the latch and swung the door wide.

  “Henry, come in.”

  The tall man slipped past her and stood in the entrance fidgeting with his car keys. “Can’t stay. Illegally parked.” His jaw shifted from side to side and, despite Abigayle’s efforts to meet his eyes, they avoided hers with the determination of a suspect in police custody avoiding the eyes of his interrogator.

  She interlaced her fingers and let her arms hang loosely. “How can I help?”

  He darted her a glance then studied the abstract wooden sculpture on the pedestal to her right with the interest of an appraiser. “You know I owe Griff.” He took a step toward the door and closed it, keeping his fingers on the handle. “But I shouldn’t be here.”

  Abigayle took a deep breath and moved her hands to her hips. “Henry, when your kid had his rollerblading accident, when he was bleeding like a stuck pig, I carried him in my arms to the hospital.” She flashed him a look like a teacher chiding a habitually tardy student. “For God’s sake, just spit it out.”

  The man kicked the floorboards. “There’ve been rumors for a while.” He stepped close enough for her to smell the latte on his breath and notice, through the amber colored aviator sunglasses, the dark circles under his eyes. “Some really nasty accusations.”

  Abigayle riveted her eyes on his, daring him to look away. “You mean the investigation’s started.”

  He stared back. “You know?”

  “I do now.” She dropped her gaze and her mouth tightened with the resignation of someone who had stepped over an invisible threshold.

  Henry shook his head. “If I were you…” He unlatched the door and stepped through to the outside, poking his head in for the final comment. “I’d start to distance.”

  Abigayle looked around the wide foyer with its American hardwood flooring, glass brick accent wall, and mauve Chihuly chandelier suspended from the twenty-foot ceiling. She sighed and screwed her eyes shut for a moment, When they opened, their recesses glinted in the reflected light like two polished bullets. She marched to the foot of the wide staircase.

  “Hey, you two.” She took the steps two at a time while scrolling through the contacts on her phone. “Get out your suitcases.”

  Chapter 14

  The atmosphere as she walked through the casino on her way to the garage was only slightly less frenetic than the night before. The areas reserved for gambling, she noticed, were far from windows and doors. It was impossible to tell, just from the surroundings, whether it was eleven in the morning or eleven at night. The music and noise from the slot machines, the calls from the card and roulette tables, the ambient music, the carpeting, the low ceilings, the adequate but not overpowering lighting, and the attractively clad hostesses all contrived to create an intimate and alluring environment. The tables were less populated, but the patrons were equally eager. The pale skin of some indicated they had not stepped outside in days.

  Bree passed an enormous hall filled with slot machines. The garish multicolored lights drew her eyes, together with the bells and bings. The flashing machines with their digital payouts in large numbers and enticing phrases, “triple cash” and “lucky seven,” were mesmerizing, like the attraction of hard candy mixed with the temptation of an amusement park ride. She followed the Mosaic pattern on the carpet to the closest one, located under a glittering chandelier, and fished in her purse for the complimentary voucher from their room. She scanned the seats nearby. All I need is Soumil or Faye to catch me gambling.

  She squeezed her purse tightly between her knees, inserted the ticket, and pushed the button, holding her breath as the wheels spun. Near misses flashed before her. Her fingers tightened into fists, willing the images to stop in a line. She knew it was a computer generating random numbers, and if she had been watching a screen of zeros and ones, she would have walked away after the first spin. But the designers knew how to draw her in. And she was willing. When her first adrenaline pumping win made her squeal when it disgorged a voucher for five more dollars, her eyes glazed. The big winner today could be me. Her eyes riveted on the circling pictures below the large purple sevens that spurred her on. This machine is the one.

  When the woman two seats over beat her screen and cursed, the commotion snapped Bree out of her trance. The delinquent was small and innocuous, in a 1980s lavender dress with puffed sleeves and high frilly collar and a thin gold belt cinched at her waist. A cream colored vinyl handbag perched on her lap. Her tight gray curls bounced as tiny fists assaulted the machine. And from her mouth issued colorful language that made Bree blush.

  Bree hastily ejected her ticket and, with a quick squint at her neighbor, slid off her seat and jogged toward the garage entrance, feeling as though she had engineered a lucky escape.

  Her heart still pounded slightly when she exited the elevator on the second floor and looked across the colossal expense of cars. Where’s the car? She tried to conjure an image from two nights before, but when she closed her eyes all she remembered was a sense of hunger and her mind being occupied with thoughts of Ryder. She shook her head and found the unlock button on the remote. She strained her ears but heard no sound. The recessed red alarm button on the reverse side looked ominous. Here goes nothing. The whoop echoed obnoxiously in the low ceilinged environment. She could see the lights flashing from where she stood and hastily silenced the alarm.

  The driver’s seat was higher from the ground than she remembered. She used the handle by the front window to pull herself inside. The car smelled faintly of donuts in the sand, transporting her back again to the evening when she had arrived. She started the engine, rolled down the windows, and gunned the air conditioning. As she backed up, the rear camera monitor showed a glimpse of a homeless man rushing toward her car. Bree shuddered and pushed the shift lever into drive, leaving the gesturing man behind. She kept an eye on her rearview mirror, but the only thing on her tail near the exit was a black Mercedes.

  When she pulled into the bright near noon sunlight of the strip, she reached into her hair for her sunglasses and was momentarily disoriented when she didn’t find them there. The fleeting lack of concentration resulted in her again heading the wrong way down the congested, multilane road. She leaned back and let the traffic take her where it wanted, her mind busy. Should she have told Mal where she was going? Was it clear that Ryder thought nothing of yesterday’s incident? Should she turn around and ask him to leave the sweater at the front
desk for her to pick up later? At the edge of the city, she made a U-turn and drove slowly back to his hotel, where she pulled past the glitzy main entrance and halted by the middle island. When a white suited attendant in gloves yanked open the door, she jumped.

  “Valet parking, miss?”

  She struggled to the ground and handed him the key. “How long does it take to get the car when I come back?”

  “No more than five minutes.” The young man accepted her five dollars with a bow and hopped behind the wheel.

  Bree hurried inside, weaving among the Jaguars, Cadillacs, and Mercedeses crowding the pavement at the entrance. The cool air of the hotel hit her like a wall. Her eyes searched the opulent check-in area for signs of Ryder, and when she didn’t see him, she slipped along a side passage that led to an enormous, three-story, shopping gallery. She breathed easier. A little retail therapy was just the thing to take the edge off. She could feel her blood pressure dropping as she wandered past voluptuously curved escalators that transported throngs from floor to floor under glass domed ceilings. Marble Roman pillars and statuary lined a huge mosaic water feature. Scents of perfume and leather wafted from large glass doorways.

  Bree’s eyes roamed the displays, imagining herself wearing the scarves, the watches, the jewelry, and the bags. Her heels tapped reassuringly on the stone walkways. At a window dominated by a life-size pink Indian elephant on which sat a mannequin in a white fur coat, Bree closed one eye and cocked her head. An Asian couple asked her to take a picture of them in front of the display. She obliged and laughed away their profuse thanks. At the next shop, the mannequins wore next to nothing, sporting negligees, bras, and panties. On a whim, Bree stepped inside. White, spacious, partly opened drawers displayed merchandise according to size. Against the wall, at artistic intervals, hung silver rods with hangers of dainty goods. Bree fingered a blue lace of a silk nightgown with an ethereal lily pattern print.