by Diana Palmer
“Thank you for tonight,” she said after a minute. “I enjoyed it very much.”
“I enjoyed it, too. Good night.” He sounded abrupt and not in the best of moods.
She watched him go down the steps with a feeling of loss. He wouldn’t be back. She’d overstepped the boundaries of their fragile relationship and brought emotions into it. She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t want a woman who could get inside his emotional armor. No, he wouldn’t be back.
She watched him get into the car and drive away without even glancing toward her. Cinderella, she thought with faint amusement. The clock strikes twelve and the spell dies.
Well, I’m just lucky I didn’t turn into a pumpkin, I suppose, she thought to herself. With a long, hurting sigh, she turned and unlocked the door.
The house was dark and nobody was stirring. She hoped Clay was in bed, and not still out carousing with his slinky girlfriend or his awful male friends. But she’d had one lovely night that she could tuck away in her memory. Maybe it would help get her through the rest of her life.
She went to bed determined not to cry, but she did.
CHAPTER TEN
Kilpatrick brooded all night long, and barely slept. Occasionally on Sundays, he made an attempt to get to church. This morning wasn’t one of those times. He’d had two neat scotch whiskeys when he had gotten home the night before, and his head was hurting.
Becky had looked at him with eyes so soft they haunted him. She’d said that she’d take care of him if he got sick. His own eyes closed and he groaned out loud. Even his uncle, who’d cared for him, hadn’t been an openly affectionate man. Kilpatrick didn’t know how to handle affection. He’d never had to. Becky was changing that, and he couldn’t let her. He was totally wrong for such an innocent. He wanted her badly, almost enough to seduce her. He couldn’t let that happen. Becky had too many burdens.
He made coffee and drank it while he read the Sunday paper. It was so quiet now that Gus was dead. He missed the dog terribly. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get a puppy. He remembered what Becky had said about a basset hound and smiled. He’d like one. Well, he could do worse than go looking in pet shops. He couldn’t take her with him, of course. Odd how that put a damper on his enthusiasm. But he couldn’t let her get attached to him. She was so vulnerable, dammit—not the kind of woman who could take an affair in stride.
He put down the paper and pulled out his briefcase, stuffed to the top with briefs he needed to look over before court began the next day. If he was going to brood, he might as well work, he told himself firmly.
Becky dressed to go to church after a long and sleepless night. It was probably just as well that Kilpatrick had walked away without a backward glance, she told herself. It would make her life less complicated. But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
She knew that Granddad wasn’t up to church, and Clay never went, despite her best efforts to encourage him there. But Mack enjoyed Sunday school and he alone was always up and dressed when she went out the door.
With reluctance, she knocked at Clay’s door and poked her head around it.
“Keep an eye on Granddad while we’re gone, if you can,” she said coolly, noticing that he looked hungover. She wasn’t going to ask when he had gotten home.
He raised himself up on one elbow sleepily, glaring at her. “You’re a turncoat, Becky,” he accused coldly. “How could you go out with that man after what he did to me?”
She didn’t blink an eye. “After what he did to you?” she asked. “How about what you did to get yourself in trouble—or doesn’t that count?”
“If you bring him here again, I’ll…!” he began.
“You’ll what?” she demanded in a driven tone. “If you don’t like the conditions here, you know where the door is. But don’t expect me to stand up for you in court a second time. If you leave, I’ll be sure to let the juvenile authorities know.”
He actually paled. She’d threatened that once before and she looked determined. He felt sick. The Harrises had him well under their thumbs with what they’d threatened, and his own infatuation with Francine kept him there. He didn’t want to lose her or his new wealth, and he sure didn’t want Kilpatrick on his neck. But to let the man hang around here was to invite disaster.
“Becky,” he began.
“A ten-year-old boy at Curry Station Elementary died of a coke overdose,” she said, watching his face carefully.
Clay seemed to stop breathing. His face gave nothing away, but there was a flash of pure fear in his eyes and Becky wanted to scream. She’d tried not to believe he had any connection with drug pushing, but that look made her nervous.
“Do you know anything about it?” she demanded.
He looked away. “Why would I? I told you, I don’t want to go to jail, Becky.”
She didn’t really relax. She couldn’t. She just gave him a long look and went out, closing the door.
Mack suddenly appeared behind her. Becky turned to notice that his face was flushed, his eyes wide and troubled. “It was Billy Dennis,” he said. “The boy who died. He was a friend of mine. John Gaines called me while you were gone last night and told me about it.” His eyes lowered. “Billy never hurt anybody. He was a loner. Nobody much liked him, but I did.”
“Oh, Mack,” she said softly.
Mack glanced toward Clay’s room and started to speak, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He sighed and turned away.
Becky said good-bye to Granddad after she settled him, and she and Mack drove to the small Baptist church she’d attended since childhood. In rural Georgia, Baptist was the predominant church, and had been for over a hundred years. Fire and brimstone rained down from the pulpits of all but the most citified churches, and on Sunday morning, the pews were always full.
Becky loved the little white country church with its tall spire and picturesque setting. But mostly she loved the peace and security she felt inside its spartan walls. Her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandparents were buried in the graveyard behind the church. One of her cousins had donated a large chunk of the cash it had taken to build the structure, which was over seventy years old. Becky knew that the sense of tradition and continuity that made the rural South so closeknit was part of the reason local residents came to church each Sunday and supported its outreach programs. They might curse their cats and each other during the week, but on Sundays they at least made the effort to reach for a nobler self than they possessed.
“You look very handsome,” Becky told Mack as they climbed out of the car and moved toward the door.
“You, too.” He grinned. He was wearing dress slacks, the only pair he had, with one of his two white shirts and his only tie. He wore sneakers, because they didn’t have the money for leather dress shoes.
Becky had on her one white suit, which she wore with a blue knit blouse and faintly scuffed white high heels. Fortunately, nobody here made an issue of how people dressed, or looked down on less fortunate members of the congregation. These were the people who’d come rushing out to the house when Becky’s mother died, with plates full of food and offers of help. They were people who lived what they believed in. She felt as much at home here among them as she did in her own living room. Perhaps that was what made church fun, instead of a weekly chore undertaken only for show.
As she listened to the sermon, she thought about Clay and hoped that he wasn’t beyond help. She didn’t know what to do. Giving in to his threats wouldn’t accomplish anything, but what if by refusing she pushed him too far and he wound up in prison? She ground her teeth together. If only she could ask Kilpatrick for help. She’d tried, but her emotions had gotten in the way. Now she was going to have to manage alone, somehow.
Monday morning came all too soon. She’d spent the rest of Sunday cooking and getting everyone’s clothes ready for the week and watching television with Mack and Granddad. Clay had been gone when she and Mack returned from church. He didn’t come in until late Sunday ni
ght, after everyone had gone to bed.
“Are you going to school today?” she asked him coldly as she hustled Mack down the hall.
Clay shrugged. “I guess so,” he said. He looked and sounded subdued. In fact, he was. The child’s death had worn on him. He’d never expected anything like that to happen. It was worse than anything he’d ever done before, even if he hadn’t given the stuff to the kid. He’d just asked one of the older boys he knew for some tips, and the Dennis boy was known to somebody’s younger brother. Bubba had done the actual selling. But Clay couldn’t say anything about that without implicating himself, and the Harris boys had already made some nasty threats about what they could do to Clay with their combined testimony. He was well and truly hog-tied, and matters were worse now since Mack had refused flatly to have any part of what they were doing. He’d sweated it out, expecting Mack to tell, but the boy hadn’t. But Mack wouldn’t even speak to him now, and since the Dennis boy’s death, Mack looked at him as if he were some nauseating piece of garbage. It really hurt to have his hero-worshiping little brother hate him. Becky, too, seemed to have stopped caring about him. He was like a whip without a wheel, drifting deeper and deeper toward the shallows and sandbars, with no one he trusted enough to confide in.
Francine had comforted him last night. Don’t worry, she’d said, nobody will know you had anything to do with it. But even that hadn’t given him peace. He wondered if he was ever going to know it again. He had to go to school because he’d go crazy if he stayed home.
Becky went to her office equally subdued. Granddad had looked a little peaked this morning, and she was worried about him, too. He hadn’t said two words about Kilpatrick since Saturday, but that wasn’t his usual style, either. He said exactly what he thought, except when he was too sick to care. She hoped he wasn’t headed for a relapse.
“Well, how did it go?” Maggie demanded under her breath when Becky walked into the office.
“We had dinner and danced, and it was great fun,” she lied, smiling. She handed the beaded bag and shoes back to Maggie in the paper bag she’d carried them in. “Thanks so much for the loan of those. I was dishy. He said so.”
“I’m glad that you enjoyed yourself. You’re entitled to some fun.”
Becky tucked a strand of loose hair back into her bun and straightened her plaid shirtwaist dress. She looked neat and clean, but not spectacular. “This is more my style, I guess—country and fundamental.” She sighed. “Oh, Maggie, why is life so complicated?”
“I’ll have to tell you later,” Maggie whispered, nodding toward her boss’s office. “He’s in a mean mood. Court starts this morning, you know, and he’s got two cases—one of them against your friend Kilpatrick. He’s boning up on new decisions for all he’s worth, but I’ll bet Kilpatrick is already two steps ahead of him. He thinks so, too.”
Becky’s heart jumped at the sound of Kilpatrick’s name, but it wouldn’t do to get overenthusiastic. That interlude was over. And grand though it was, she had to live in the real world, not in the dreamy past. She uncovered her typewriter and got to work.
It was late afternoon when Kilpatrick returned from court. He’d handled one case himself that involved drug trafficking, while his colleagues had been parceled off into other courtrooms, prosecuting cases ranging from child molestation to attempted murder. He was tired and out of humor, and it didn’t do his temper any good to find Dan Berry waiting for him.
He put his briefcase down beside his desk and stood erect, stretching, his body aching from hours of sitting in one position.
“Well, what is it?” he asked heavily.
Berry got up and closed the door gently. “Something personal,” he replied. “It’s about the bomb.”
Kilpatrick sat down on the edge of his desk and lit his cigar. “Shoot.”
“You know I told you Harvey Blair was out of prison and had threatened to waste you when he was released?” he began.
Kilpatrick nodded.
“The state fire marshal’s office has traced the timer in the bomb to a local radio parts shop. The owner was a good friend of Blair’s, as it turns out.”
“Which doesn’t mean that he made the bomb or ordered it made. And most electronics shops carry the makings of a bomb.” He shook his head, his dark brows drawn together in a scowl. He smoked his cigar absently. “No, I think it’s old man Harris and his boys. I’m damned near sure of it.”
“You haven’t forgotten what I told you about the Cullen boy and his electronics knack?”
“I haven’t forgotten. I just don’t think he’s quite that stupid.”
Berry’s eyes narrowed. “Look, we all know you’ve been seeing the Cullen boy’s sister…”
“Which doesn’t have a damned thing to do with the way I handle this office,” Kilpatrick said in a hot, angry tone. “I won’t turn a blind eye to anything that kid does just because I take his sister out occasionally. If he was involved, I’ll prosecute him. All right?”
“All right!” Dan said, saluting. “You’ve convinced me—honest!”
Kilpatrick glared at him. “And I don’t think it’s Blair, either. But if it will make you feel better, I’ll go by and have a chat with him.”
“Unarmed?” Berry burst out.
Kilpatrick’s dark eyes flashed. “He won’t off me in broad daylight in his own house. Even Blair has more brains than that.” He got up and checked his watch. “I’ll do it now. My next case isn’t until morning. Have you done any more checking into the Dennis case?” he asked.
Berry nodded. “I’ve interviewed several kids who knew him at the elementary school, including a young man named Mack Cullen, who was one of his friends.”
Kilpatrick’s jaw clenched.
Berry saw that telltale movement. “You didn’t know, I gather? I thought the Cullen woman might have mentioned it.”
He shook his head. “But I’ll make a point of asking,” he said, agreeing to something he’d sworn he wouldn’t do. He’d promised himself he’d leave Becky alone, but the weekend had dragged by and he missed her company, her smile, the sound of her voice. He’d almost picked up the phone early this morning, but he’d managed enough willpower not to. Now, it seemed that he had a good excuse to satisfy his conscience. His whole mood lightened.
“Please check under your hood before you drive away,” Berry cautioned wearily. “We don’t want you blown to bits before we get the goods on the perp who wired you. Okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” Kilpatrick assured him, sticking the cigar in his mouth and grinning around it. “I’d look like hell in pieces, I’m sure.”
Berry started to speak but Kilpatrick was already out the door, headed directly for Becky’s office. To hell with noble principles, he told himself.
He opened the door and walked in, finding Becky bent over her typewriter. The other women stopped working to stare at him.
He perched himself on Becky’s desk and waited until she looked up, her face first astonished, then radiant with delight.
He grinned. “Glad to see me? I’m glad to see you, too. I’ll be tied up all week in court, but we can have dinner Friday night. Chinese or Greek? I’m partial to a good moussaka and resinated wine, but I like sweet and sour pork almost as much.”
“I’ve never had Greek food—or Chinese,” she confessed, sounding as flustered as she felt.
“We’ll work it out as we go. I can’t stay. I’m going to interview a man who threatened to pull out my guts and knot them around a telephone pole.”
She gasped.
“No problem,” he said, getting to his feet. “I don’t think he did it. He doesn’t know beans about electronics, and he wants to stay on the outside too much to complicate things.”
“Do you check your car…” she began again.
“You and Berry,” he muttered, glowering down at her. “Honest to God, don’t you people think I like living? Of course I check my car, and my door, and my bathroom, and I even had a cat imported to check my food befo
re I eat. Satisfied?”
She laughed in spite of herself, and noticed Maggie smothering a giggle.
“I’ve lived almost thirty-six years all by myself,” he murmured. “I’ll make forty yet. Did you catch hell at home?”
“I started to, until I told Clay he could move out and handle his own bail from now on. He was in a snit the rest of the weekend. And even Mack went broody. He knew the little boy who died,” she said with a long sigh. “Poor little guy. What a rotten age to die.”
“Any age is a rotten age, if it’s senseless.” He searched her face, reading the pain there. She even feels for strangers, he thought, and wondered if he might have read too much into her words the other night. That bothered him. He was beginning to realize that he wanted a lot more from Becky than distant compassion.
“I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “See you later.”
“Yes,” she said with her heart in her eyes as she watched him walk away. It was a good thing that he didn’t look back. She smiled and then she laughed. She’d been blue all weekend, thinking he’d said good-bye to her, and it had only been hello.
“Well, well—Cinderella, right here in my office,” Maggie chuckled. “I think he likes you.”
“I hope he does,” Becky said softly. “Time will tell.”
The next few days sped by. With court in session, Becky went mad filing and typing, and so did Maggie and the other girls in the office. But in a way it was good, because it diverted her thoughts from Kilpatrick.
At home it was a different matter. Becky found herself daydreaming regularly. It was amazing to her how bright and new the world seemed now that she had someone to dream about. Granddad and Mack didn’t say anything when she announced that she was going out with Kilpatrick on Friday. Neither did Clay, although his blood went cold. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but having the district attorney hanging around his sister was going to cause him a hell of a lot of trouble. When the Harrises got wind of it, he didn’t know what they might do. If anybody got in trouble, he’d be the first person they’d suspect.
