It had worked for the most part. Oh, sure, he’d racked up some debt and had been caught hacking into the county courthouse records, but no one—not even his buddy Chance or his hot attorney Liz Fischer—knew that his crime wasn’t as sloppy as it seemed. The incident had left him with a back door into a database that would hopefully divulge details about his father’s case, and an impending community-service job with the city’s computer security department that would give him all the access he needed.
The fact that his probation officer had turned out to be a stacked redhead who kept him awake at night was an unexpected bonus.
Carlotta was less convinced that their father was innocent of the charges levied against him, but Wesley chalked it up to her anger. She certainly had a right to her resentment—suddenly saddled with a kid, dumped by her boyfriend and left to scrape by on a retail job. His sister’s life hadn’t been easy.
Which was why he’d love nothing better than to take home this money and prove that he could contribute more to her life than migraines. And why he was determined to prove his father’s innocence so their parents could come out of hiding and they could be a family again.
“Hey,” Chance said from a chair where he slouched, watching. “Ain’t there some kind of time limit for placing a bet?” Chance had bought into the game too but, as usual, had been eliminated with record speed.
“Yeah, get on with it,” the owner of the place said to Wesley’s opponent between puffs on a cigarette. The guy stood to get his cut no matter who took home the pot—totally illegal, but no one here was going to call 911.
This money could be the first step toward the kind of life he knew that Carlotta dreamed of: a normal one. If they got their debts paid off, maybe she would even relax enough to start dating. His boss Cooper was nuts for her and he’d seen the way that cop Jack Terry looked at her. Plus her old boyfriend Peter Ashford seemed eager to make amends.
Raise, he urged the guy silently. Try to bluff me. Put another couple of grand on the table. Wesley chewed on his fingernail to fake worry over a bad hand. In truth, he had a damned gorgeous hand that he had slow-bid to this point.
Real Estate Man zoned in on Wesley’s nail-gnawing, then shifted forward in his chair. “All in,” he said, pushing his remaining chips and cash to the center of the table.
Wesley almost wet himself: it was more than he could have hoped for. He wanted to play it cool, but couldn’t help grinning as he responded, “Ditto.”
Chance lurched to his feet to see the reveal. Real Estate Man groaned and turned over a lousy pair of tens. Wesley threw down his full house with a whoop and the celebrating began. With a rebel yell, Chance picked him up and shook him like a rag doll. Wesley couldn’t remember being so happy in all the years since his parents had left. He had finally won a big pot and he couldn’t wait to tell Carlotta.
He’d bet it would be the biggest surprise of her week.
4
Carlotta stared at Peter as his words sank in. Her mouth opened, then closed. “My father called you?”
He nodded. “Can we go somewhere? You should sit down.”
“I…let me clock out.”
She went through the motions automatically, refusing to think about what her father’s phone calls meant. Was he ready to come home? Turn himself in? Had he heard about Wesley’s run-in with the law and wanted to check on them? Then a paralyzing thought seized her—had something happened to her mother?
Panic clogged her throat. She harbored more animosity toward her mother than her father for deserting them. But that wouldn’t soften the blow if something had happened to her.
Carlotta allowed Peter to lead the way to a bistro connected to the mall. Walking next to him felt so familiar, it brought moisture to her eyes. He’d been her first love, had proposed to her before leaving for Vanderbilt University. To outsiders the fact that she wore a Cartier engagement ring most of her senior year of high school might have seemed elitist, but Carlotta had been raised with the best things that money could buy—a grand home, exotic vacations, private schools. Marrying into the uber-wealthy Ashford family had seemed the next logical step.
She had loved Peter more than was healthy, she realized in hindsight. When he’d broken their engagement on the heels of her father’s scandal, she’d thought she might not recover.
She had, but the experience had callused her emotions. Now Peter was single again and pressing on her heart…along with this bombshell from her father.
By mutual consent, they waited until they were seated at a table and had ordered coffee before tackling the mountain of issues between them. She was desperate to hear about the phone call, but reminded herself that Peter had buried his wife only a couple of weeks ago and had just been released from jail himself.
“How are you?” she asked carefully. Undoubtedly, Angela’s death was beginning to settle in and, their bad marriage aside, it had to be a horrific adjustment.
“I take it day to day,” he said. He looked haggard, his boyish good looks compromised by the stress he’d suffered.
“Are you planning to go back to work soon?” Peter worked for Mashburn and Tully Investments, the same firm where her father had been a partner and had perpetrated his white-collar crimes.
Alleged crimes, Wesley would say.
Peter nodded. “Walt Tully has been good to me. I went into the office today to catch up. It feels good to be busy and doing something normal. It was quiet. I was the only one around. When my phone rang and your father identified himself, I was floored.”
Carlotta fisted the cloth napkin in her lap. “What did he say? Are…are they okay?”
“He said they’re fine…healthy, I mean. He said that he’d tried to call you on your cell phone, but that you’d hung up on him.”
“I dropped the phone and accidentally disconnected the call.”
“Oh. Well, he said he couldn’t blame you. But that’s why he called me.”
“How did he know that you were working at Mashburn and Tully?”
“He said he’d been keeping up with the company.”
The company—not his family. That hurt.
“What did he want?”
Peter squirmed. “He wanted me to look for some files.”
She frowned. “What kind of files?”
“Having to do with his…case.”
“Why?”
“He said that he needed them to prove his innocence.”
Anger sparked in her stomach and she pounded her fist on the table. “Innocence? If he was innocent, why didn’t he stay and defend himself ten years ago instead of skipping town and leaving his kids high and dry? Why—after all this time—this ruse of proving his innocence?”
Peter reached across the table and took her hand in his. “I asked him the same questions, but he said he didn’t have time to go into it, only that he needed my help. He said that the paperwork given to the D.A. had been doctored—that the original paperwork would exonerate him.”
Carlotta didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. “And where is this original paperwork supposed to be?”
Peter sighed. “He believes one of the partners hid it or destroyed it.”
Her father had always insisted that he’d been framed, but the evidence against him had been so damning. And when he’d disappeared, his declaration of innocence had become a moot point. “How convenient. Did he happen to name names?”
“No, just that he didn’t trust Ray Mashburn or Walt Tully or the firm’s chief legal counsel, Brody Jones.”
“Is Jones still with the company?”
“Yes.”
“Did my father happen to tell you anything specific or was his entire conversation cryptic and mysterious?”
Peter shifted in his seat. “No specifics. He just asked me to poke around, then he hung up.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, Peter.”
“Sorry? For what?”
“For my outlaw father dragging you into his mess. Have you told the pa
rtners that he called?”
“No. Randolph asked me not to tell anyone and I told him that I would help him if I could.”
“Peter, you can’t do that. You’ll jeopardize your job. You should go to the police.”
His intense blue eyes bore into her. “I want to help him, Carly. For you…for your family.”
The waitress brought their coffee and smiled at their clasped hands. Carlotta pulled her hand from his warm fingers and busied herself pouring sugar into her mug. Her feelings for Peter were so confusing, it made her head—and her heart—hurt to process them. Did anyone ever truly get over their first love? Her suspicions that Peter’s parents had pressured him to end their engagement after her father had skipped town had been confirmed, but Peter had accepted the blame for not standing up for their relationship.
And as tempting as it was to slip back into his arms, she and Peter moved in different circles these days. Peter lived in a mega-mansion with a guest house. She lived in a rickety townhouse with Wesley, a giant snake and the world’s nosiest next-door neighbor. Peter’s acquaintances were members of the inner circle of Buckhead society; her acquaintances were members of Loan Sharks of America.
Over the rim of his cup Peter’s expression reflected the turmoil of the past and present that lay between them. He waited until they were alone again before saying, “Did you tell Detective Terry that your father had called you?”
She averted her gaze. “No.”
“So maybe you’re not really so eager for your father to be apprehended.”
Carlotta wet her lips, unwilling to admit that deep down, she was still Daddy’s little girl and no matter what he’d done, she didn’t want harm to come to him. “I…wasn’t sure it was my father. I mean, he said it was, but it’s been so long since I heard his voice. And it was so out of the blue.” She winced inwardly when she realized she’d forgotten to get her phone back from Lindy.
“So now that you know it was him, are you going to tell the police?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I should tell Wesley.”
Peter cleared his throat. “Detective Terry seems to have gotten awfully buddy-buddy with you.”
She looked up. “Jack was just shopping, that’s all.”
“Jack?” His eyebrows went up. “Since when does Jack shop at Neiman’s?”
“He needed a suit.”
“He was there to see you, Carly.”
A flush warmed her neck as she recalled the sexual energy that had vibrated between her and the detective. “If he was there to see me, it’s only to stay in touch about Wesley and my father. When the D.A. reopened Dad’s case, he assigned it to Detective Terry.”
“So are you going to tell him about the calls?”
She shifted in her seat. “I don’t know.”
“I hate to pressure you, but the sooner you decide, the better. I want to help, but the last thing I need is for the police to descend on my phone records again if you decide later to report it. The partners might not look favorably upon me withholding this kind of information from them.”
Carlotta nodded. “I understand. I…maybe we should tell the police and let them handle it.”
“Okay. If you want to report the calls, I’ll go with you.” He reached for her hand again. “We’ll do it together.”
Her mind raced ahead—telling Detective Terry about the phone calls, enduring phone taps and maybe even surveillance, luring her father into a trap and seeing the triumphant look on the face of that odious district attorney Kelvin Lucas when Randolph “the Bird” Wren was finally apprehended, with cameras rolling and headlines blaring.
Her stomach knotted and she wavered. “Peter, do you think…I mean, is it possible that my father is innocent?”
He shrugged slowly. “I guess anything is possible.” His expression turned dark. “I was innocent of hurting Angela, despite the way things looked.”
“Of course you were,” she said earnestly. “But you didn’t run. Rather than face the charges, my father skipped town and let everyone else pick up the pieces.”
Peter sighed noisily and the tortured look on his face said he knew that he, too, had let her down. “Carly, I can’t imagine all you’ve been through the past ten years. But no matter how much resentment you have toward your father, you’re a kind, forgiving person. I think if there’s a chance that your father is innocent, you’d want to give him an opportunity to prove it.”
She studied his face. Was Peter flattering her in the hope that her forgiveness would extend to him as well? Or did this man know her well enough to see inside her heart?
Carlotta wet her lips. “Did Daddy say he would call again?”
“Yes, but he didn’t say when.”
“Did he say where he was?”
“I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. He did seem to be keeping up with local events. He, uh, knew about Angela and offered condolences.”
And did her father suspect that Peter wanted to rekindle their flame? Was he betting on Peter’s feelings for her to fuel Peter’s attempts to help him? A sick feeling settled in her stomach. “Does he know about me and Wesley, about what’s going on in our lives?”
Peter hesitated. “He didn’t say.”
She took a quick drink from her cup to mask the sudden tears.
Peter squeezed her fingers again. “He’s alive, Carly. That’s something. And I didn’t know your father that well, but it’s unfair for me to judge him for walking out on you, when I did the same thing.” His blue eyes were shadowed with pain. “I know how my actions have haunted me. I can only imagine that your father, too, has deep regrets.”
Her heart shifted in her chest. She desperately wished that her failed relationship with Peter wasn’t so entwined with her parents’ disappearance, because sitting here with him and feeling the hope radiating from him, she could be lulled into thinking that repairing her relationship with Peter and her relationship with her parents was possible.
Even desirable.
Did that make her an optimist, or an idiot?
“What do you say?” Peter murmured, and she had the distinct feeling that he was asking her to give him and her father both a chance to prove themselves.
5
Carlotta’s mind raced as she stared across the restaurant table at Peter, patiently waiting for her response as to whether she planned to tell the police that her father had called both of them. Unsaid words burned the back of her tongue—a decade’s worth of pent-up conversations she hadn’t been able to have with her father. Or with Peter.
How could you leave me? Where have you been? Do you think that I’m like a book that you can stop reading, put away for years and then pick up where you left off? There is a hole in my heart in the shape of you.
“Whatever you decide, Carly,” Peter said earnestly. “I’ll support you any way I can.”
Meaning that one word from her and Peter would either help Randolph Wren in his supposed quest for exoneration or nail him to the wall.
As often as she had wished her father safe, Carlotta had fantasized about seeing him squirm, seeing him publicly held accountable, robbed of his freedom—like his disappearance had robbed her of her freedom.
But while running out on his children was reprehensible, it wasn’t a crime. He and her mother had left Wesley with her, and legally, she’d been an adult. The sudden responsibility had been staggering, but she’d gotten through each day by telling herself that her parents would return before nightfall. Slowly the days had turned into weeks and months, then years, until one day she’d realized that their parents weren’t coming back and that she and Wesley were somehow, astonishingly, surviving. But every time she’d watched Wesley reach a milestone—winning first place in the science fair, struggling with his voice changing, getting his driver’s license, being fitted for his prom tux—her resentment toward her parents had magnified.
Sometimes she thought that she hated her parents. But was she willing to see them go to jail?
; “I need to think about it,” she said finally. “I’m having a hard time trying to absorb everything.”
“That’s understandable,” Peter soothed.
“I’ll call you.” She folded her napkin and put it on her plate. “Thanks for the coffee, Peter.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I’m on Marta.” Carlotta doubted that Peter had ever ridden the city’s public train system—too many germs and no cup holders. “My car’s in the shop being painted from when I was side-swiped.” By the same person who had murdered Peter’s wife.
A similar thought must have gone through his mind because his mouth tightened. “Then let me drive you home.”
She hesitated.
“Maybe I’ll be able to recall something else from your father’s call.”
He had to know how irresistible that tidbit would be. “Okay,” she conceded.
After leaving several bills on the table, he guided her toward the mall exit nearest the valet stand. His hand hovered at the small of her back, grazing her often enough to dredge up memories of when they had made love as teenagers.
At the time, she’d thought she might combust from the sheer ecstasy of being in his arms. In their circle of friends, they had been the it couple: good-looking, rich and head over heels in love. Their future seemed golden. Carlotta hadn’t even considered a plan B. When her parents had skipped town and Peter had dumped her and the rest of her supposed friends had fallen away, she had been set emotionally adrift…a scared kid, ill-equipped to finish raising herself, much less a nine-year-old boy. How many days had she longed for Peter’s comforting presence next to her, like this?
Within minutes, Peter’s navy blue Porsche arrived and he held open the door of the low-slung decadent car for her. Carlotta lowered herself gingerly into the leather seat that wrapped her in a buttery soft cocoon. She reached for her shoulder belt, but Peter’s hand was already there, pulling the strap across her body and fastening the belt with a click. He smiled at her as if to say that if she stayed with him, he would make sure she was safe. Closing her door with a soft thunk, he strode around the front of the car, gave the valet a tip that would cover her lunch budget for a week, then swung into his own seat with practiced ease. They pulled away with the smooth growl of a perfectly engineered motor.
Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1 Page 3
