by Beth Yarnall
I cast a dubious eye at the perfectly made bed, then back at them. Really it was none of my business what went on between them, and besides, seeing the two of them get together was the best thing to happen all crappy day.
“I hate it when that happens,” I teased Juan Carlos.
“I know!” He pointed a finger at me. “You owe me.”
I cracked a smile, feeling the most normal I’d felt all day.
“I, ah…’bye.” Richard made for the exit so fast he nearly spun me around.
“You embarrassed him. He’s never going to let you find out now,” I joked.
Juan Carlos looked at the closed door like it held everything he ever might have wanted.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Juan Carlos turned to me, his face full of the hopeful joy and near-painful rush of falling hard. What I’d seen a hint of earlier was now broken open, naked and free, filling the space between us. He didn’t just like Richard. He was falling in love with him.
I’d felt that once. With my ex-fiancé. And he’d handed it back to me, broken and rejected.
“He’ll be back,” I offered, not knowing what else to say.
“You know what his ma said to me on the phone?”
I shook my head.
“She asked me what was wrong with me. Why I’d throw away a perfectly good man like her son.” He looked at me with eyes filled with disbelief. “I thought he hated me.”
“I always thought you hated each other.”
“I did hate him.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” He shook his head, throwing off his mood and returning to himself. “You can stay if you tell me what happened with skunk girl. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Jeez, it feels like forever ago.” I relayed every detail I could remember. By the time I got to the part where Trinity danced around the room, Juan Carlos was in stitches, gripping his stomach, bent nearly in half. I couldn’t help but laugh right along with him.
“Holy Dancing with the Crazies. You have got to be making some of this up.” He swiped a tear off his cheek. “Please tell me you got it on video.”
“No cameras allowed.”
He dropped into a chair. “Oh, man. That’s the best story I’ve heard in a long time.”
“And I saw Vivian.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“You should have started with that! What is the matter with you?” He rushed me, pulling me down onto the bed next to him. “What happened? What did she say? How’d you get in to see her?” He shook my arms. “Start talking, chica, before I pass out from lack of information to my brain.”
I filled him in on my visit with Vivian, from my spying on Jerk and Shorty to Kennedy’s parting words.
“Holy whodunit! This mystery is more twisted than my aunt Sandy’s morals. And they don’t call her Randy Sandy for nothin’, you know.” He stood up to pace, tapping a finger to his chin. “Something’s way off here…more than just Trinity’s rocker. I don’t like those guys, what did you call them? Jerk and Shady?”
“Shorty.”
“Right, Shorty. So, Shorty bopped a bimbo and spilled some super hush-hush secret that may or may not get back to Big Mac, whoever that is. And Vivian is covering up for someone. Someone worth protecting enough that she’s willing to become Big Bertha’s prison bitch.” He threw up his hands. “I don’t get it. What are we missing here?”
“I think it might have to do with Trinity and Hjálmar. Remember how Mateo said he’d heard a rumor that the company was for sale?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to find out if that’s true or not. I also think we need to find out how the company was structured and who takes over now that Dhane’s gone, especially since Trinity isn’t exactly in a position to step in. You wouldn’t happen to know someone who knows someone who could look into that for us, do you?”
Juan Carlos cracked a smile so wide it made the Cheshire cat look like he was frowning. “You know I do.”
“Get on it. I want to do some digging into Dhane’s father’s murder. I have a feeling that was the big something Vivian left out of the story she told us about how she and Dhane met.”
“Oh my God, you’re right! That witch.”
“Vivian trying to gloss over accidentally spilling the fact that Dhane had changed his name made me really suspicious. I knew she was hiding something. The thing I don’t get is why? Why would you and I care twenty-some-odd years later about a murder he was never charged for?”
“Use my laptop.” He ushered me over to the desk. “Go, go. I got some phone calls to make.” Then he began furiously tapping commands into his phone.
I twitched the mouse to bring the screen to life. Where to start? I had a feeling if Dhane had changed his name, then so had Trinity. I did some quick math to guesstimate the year Vivian had gone to Wichita and met Dhane. I typed in Wichita, murder, and the year. All I got was a bunch of hits for Wichita Falls murders so I narrowed my search by adding Kansas.
An hour later my eyelids were drooping so low I had to prop one open while I clicked the mouse with the other hand.
“Don’t do that, you’ll give yourself wrinkles. And if you get eyes like a Shar-Pei, I’m not gonna want to hang out with you anymore.” Juan Carlos came over and closed the laptop. “It’s late. I need my beauty sleep and you need your…sleep.”
“Ha-ha. Suddenly everyone’s a comedian. Must be Vegas.” I yawned so deep I almost blacked out. “I can’t do it. I can’t go to sleep in a nice plush bed knowing Vivian’s sleeping on a wafer-thin, lice-ridden cot in a jail cell. It doesn’t seem right.”
He brought me in for a hug. “I know how you feel, but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. We need our sleep if we’re going to help her.” He rubbed my back and I nearly dropped off standing up. “I’ll tell you what, the minute she gets out we’ll delouse her and take her to a nice spa. How does that sound?”
“All right, I guess.”
He turned me around and pushed me toward the door, grabbing up my purse on the way. “Here.” He handed me my bag. “Get some rest. We’ll begin again bright and early.” He kissed my forehead and pushed me through the doorway.
“Will you set your alarm and call me?” I was terrible at waking up early.
“Absolutely. Go.” He shooed me away.
I dragged my bag down the hallway after me. I was too tuckered to hoist its heft onto my shoulder. At my door, I had to search its depths for my key card, reminding me of the one I’d gotten to Dhane’s suite. What if I’d been the one to find his body? I shuddered at the thought. The door slid closed before I could find the light switch, but I was too tired to care. I padded my way across the room, feeling for the end of the bed.
Big hands grabbed me, pulling me onto the bed. My scream got cut off by one of the hands clamping over my mouth. I tried to struggle, but I was held too tight. Panic gripped me and blanked out everything but my desperate need to escape.
Chapter Twelve
“Easy, Azalea. It’s just me.”
“Alex?” I mumbled into his hand, my heart banging around like a bat in a cage.
“If I let you go, promise not to scream?”
I let out a breath, blowing air over the hand on my mouth.
“Is that a yes?”
I nodded, narrowly resisting the urge to bite his fingers off.
He released me and I immediately came out swinging, hitting him anywhere I could land a strike.
“I’m sorry. Stop it! Don’t… Ow!” He captured my wrists so I used my feet and knees. “Azalea…ow…watch it…oof—” He let me go and curled up like shrimp, covering his crotch half a second too late.
I swatted him in the shoulder. “What the hell is the matter with you? What are you doing here?” I punctuated each question with another whack. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” I pushed off the bed and switched on the bedside lamp. It was quite satisfying to see the damag
e I’d done.
But I was still mad, so I picked up a pillow and hit him again. “Why are you in my room?”
He held up a hand, gasping, his face mottled red.
“You deserve it, you rotten jerk. Never, ever sneak up on a woman in her darkened hotel room.” I threw the pillow against the headboard. “You scared me half to death. My heart’s still racing. Jeez.” I turned away and paced the foot of the bed, trying to calm myself down.
“Sorry,” he wheezed out.
I stopped and glared at him. “You should be.” Pity got the better of me—he just looked so pathetic. “Are you all right?”
“Do you have a permit for that knee?”
Crossing my arms, I cracked a smile. If he was making jokes, he was feeling better. “I’d apologize, but it’s your own fault. Why are you in my room skulking about?”
He leaned up on his elbows to look at me. “I wasn’t skulking. I was sleeping.”
“Why?”
“It’s nighttime?”
“Alex,” I warned.
“There are no more rooms, so I flashed my badge and got James into Vivian’s room.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re in my room.”
“I’m not sleeping in a king-size bed with James.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping in a king-sized bed with me either.”
He sat up, and the bedsheet slipped down his chest and right on down his chiseled abs, landing so it barely covered his, ah, broken bits and pieces. “I have nowhere else to sleep.”
“Are you naked?”
He pulled the sheet up under his arms. “Just shirtless. Please. I promise to keep my hands to myself.” He showed me his palms, turning them forward and back, perfectly innocent.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Other than some bruised parts—” He lifted the sheet to have a look at himself.
I fixed my stare to the ceiling.
“—thank God,” he whispered to himself. “My ego included, nothing’s the matter with me.”
“You can’t sleep in my bed.” I pointed to the couch, which was really more of a love seat. “You can sleep there.”
“Half of me could. What should I do with the other half?”
I honestly didn’t know what to say. I was afraid to look at him for fear I’d launch myself at him, so I scurried off to the bathroom, leaving a “You’d better be dressed and out of my bed by the time I get back!” in my wake.
I closed the door behind me and sank down against it. The tile floor was cool beneath me, helping to ground me and stanch my rampaging emotions. I wanted to stretch out, letting the hard coldness of it seep into me. Instead I got up and switched on the shower, setting it for colder than I usually took it.
By the time I came out of the bathroom, Alex was sitting up in bed, watching some sports channel.
“You were supposed to be dressed and out of there by the time I finished.”
“I am dressed, see?” He flicked the sheet back to reveal board shorts.
Aw, jeez. I didn’t look away in time, and so I got hit with the full effect of a very toned, very male, mostly nude, super-way-hot Alex from about the knees up. I clapped a hand over my eyes, but the image was already there, burned into my memory bank.
“I can put a shirt on if it bothers you that much.”
A challenge. I didn’t do well with challenges. I’d yet to meet one I wouldn’t take, which always ended with me in all sorts of hot water. I had a feeling spending the night in the same bed as Alex would be a losing bet. He might be able to control himself, but I wasn’t all that sure I could.
He switched off the TV. “Come to bed. I promise to keep my hands to myself.” He patted the mattress beside him.
Climbing into bed, I gave him my most stern look. “You’d better keep that promise. My other knee is just as lethal.”
He pulled the covers back and tucked me in. “I’m sure it is.”
~*~
The trill of the phone startled me awake. Without opening my eyes, I reached a hand out, feeling for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Good morning, sunshine!” Juan Carlos chirped.
“Uhnn.” I flipped my hair off my forehead and found myself staring into Alex’s baby blues. Somehow during the night I’d draped myself across him, leaving a pool of drool on his chest. “Oh, God.”
I tried to get up, but Alex wrapped an arm around me, pinning me in place. He put his other hand behind his head and looked down at me with the kind of grin that got girls like me in big trouble.
“Rise and shine! I’ve been a busy, busy boy this morning,” Juan Carlos blabbed on. “I have so, so, sooo much to tell you. Are you awake? Hello?”
“I’m awake.” I gave Alex a hard shove in the chest and he released me. I scampered off him onto my own side of the bed.
“Good. Meet me in the café downstairs in half an hour.”
“Half an hour? That’s not enough—” Click. “Damn.”
I handed Alex the phone to hang up for me.
“Something wrong?” he asked, using the bedsheet to wipe down his chest.
I rolled my eyes and sighed, frustrated with him, this whole situation, and if I was honest…myself. “Yes. No.”
He looked me over slowly, searching for what, I didn’t know. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, soothing. “I want you to know that I’ll only take what’s freely given.”
His words made me tingle in places that hadn’t so much as twitched in months.
He reached over and took my hand. “Okay?”
Damn! Did he have to be hot and sweet? Not to mention half-dressed, interested, and so freakin’ close? As much as I wanted to, and Lordy did I want to, I couldn’t. Not with Vivian in trouble.
“Okay,” I answered, getting up to look at myself in the mirror over the dresser. I looked like I felt: out of control and messy. “Yikes.”
“I like it. You have that morning-after look.” Alex dropped his feet to the floor and stretched.
I nearly fell face-first into the mirror. The thin light streaming through the crack in the curtains lit up his torso, deepening the shadows and highlighting the oh-so-delicious rises.
“Do you have to do that?”
He turned to me. “What?”
“Nothing. Just get dressed. We’re meeting Juan Carlos in half an hour.”
“Mind if I take a quick shower?”
Oh, the images…
While Alex showered, I changed into a vintage Western-style button-up shirt with tiny pink-and-white flowers on it and my darkest jeans. Dark circles rimmed my eyes, so I applied shimmery, peachy-pink and taupe eye shadows and lots of mascara. To keep the focus off my eyes, I patted my cheeks with a rose-colored cream blush and followed with a dark fuchsia lipstick. I looked like a cowgirl pinup.
Grabbing a brush, I began hacking away at my mass of hair, trying to get it all to go in the same direction. It wasn’t working, so I pulled out my box of bobby pins and MacGyvered myself a pretty cute updo. I found a small pink flower and tucked it in over my right ear. The flower reminded me of Vivian.
Alex came out of the bathroom, smelling of fresh aftershave and clean man. This roommate situation was not going to work. “Why are you always naked? Don’t you own any clothes?”
Alex looked down at himself, all innocence. “I’m wearing pants.”
“Just hurry up.” I bent to grab my snakeskin peep-toed pumps and spied his computer case. I never did find out what had happened when Dhane’s dad died. “Can I use your computer?”
“Sure. Cord’s in the bag.” He grabbed a shirt from his suitcase and finally covered up. Not that I watched his every move or anything.
I booted up the computer and began a new search. It took less than five minutes to find the information I had searched two hours for the night before. Apparently I searched better with a few hours sleep under my belt. “Bingo.”
My cell phone rang.
“It’s been thirty-five minutes. Where are yo
u?” Juan Carlos wanted to know.
“I’ll be right down. And you won’t believe what I found out.”
“And you won’t believe what I found out. Hurry!”
In my rush, I snapped the computer shut, grabbed my bag, and was halfway down the hall before I remembered I’d left Alex in the room. I spun around and plowed right into his chest. “Oomph.”
“You really should watch where you’re going,” Alex said.
“Every time I turn around, you’re there!” Buoyed by the excitement of what could be a real clue in all this mess, I shook off my irritation and grabbed him by the hand. “Just come on.”
I fidgeted the whole way down in the elevator. When the doors finally opened, I sprang free, bolting toward the café.
Juan Carlos and I began talking at once.
“You’ll never believe what I found—”
“Guess what I dug up—”
“You first,” we said in unison
“No, you,” we said again.
“Azalea goes first so she doesn’t explode,” Alex said, taking a seat next to Richard and introducing himself.
“Well, hello there.” Juan Carlos held out his hand for Alex. “It’s so nice to see you again.” Then he threw me a dirty look. “Azalea didn’t mention you’d come with James.” He turned and whispered to me behind his hand. “You should have told me Detective Delish was here. I would have spent more time getting ready.” He smoothed the hair over one ear with the palm of his hand. “How do I look?”
“You look fine. Same as always,” Richard said, not looking up from his menu.
“Good to see you, too,” Alex said. “New look?”
“Yes. Do you like it?” At Alex’s nod, Juan Carlos simpered, turning side to side.
“If you’re done barking up the wrong tree, Azalea has something she wants to tell us,” Richard interrupted, earning a sniff and head toss from Juan Carlos.
“I swear, Alex, if you weren’t straight I’d be all over you like Bob Mackie on Cher,” Juan Carlos said.
Alex laughed. “And if I were gay, I’d let you.”
“Hello?” I slapped a hand on the table. “Anyone remember Vivian? You know, our friend who’s in jail?”
