After Midnight

by Diana Palmer

  “Things will get better. I’ll phone you in a couple of days. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”

  He hung up and Kane stared down at the telephone, barely seeing it at all. Amazing how much had happened in these few days. He was surprised by the protective instincts that Nikki provoked in him. He could save himself so easily by just mentioning where he was, and the circumstances of his two-day absence. But if he did that, not only would he sacrifice his ace-in-the-hole, he had to consider what it would do to Nikki. She was ill. He couldn’t land her in a scandal until she was in fighting shape. Then, though. Yes, by God, she was going to pay for ingratiating herself to him and pumping him for information. God knew what she’d managed to find out from his housekeeper and Jake during her residence. He’d have to grill both of them and make sure. Damn his own blindness! He’d been so attracted to her that he hadn’t even considered that she might have ulterior motives.

  He forced his mind back onto the problem at hand. Indiscriminate dumping was a long-standing problem. Many people had been charged with it. He hoped Lawson would turn up something else on Seymour. He didn’t relish the thought of having to use Nikki’s presence in his life as a weapon against her brother.

  Derrie was cheerful in the office the next morning, having just heard the news.

  “Nice going, boss,” she chuckled.

  “Don’t thank me, thank Haralson and his friend, Cortez,” Clayton returned, smiling at her as he put down his briefcase in the small office he kept for constituents in Charleston. It was part of a suite of law offices, but he rented a room. It was nicely furnished and very sedate. Everything a congressman’s office should be, he thought approvingly. He had another in the state capital. A man couldn’t gather too much support, and he had to be accessible everywhere.

  “Was he personally responsible, do you think?” Derrie asked. “Mr. Lombard, I mean.”

  “What does that matter?” he asked, puzzled.

  She frowned. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  Clayton sat down and stared at her. “I’m fighting for my political life,” he said slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot. “If I don’t get Lombard’s back to the wall, his family may discover something about Nikki and Mosby and print it. Can you imagine in your wildest dreams what that would do to Nikki?”

  “Yes, I can,” Derrie said sadly. “But it hardly seems fair to destroy a man’s whole life to spare your sister. Mr. Lombard’s wife and little boy were killed in a car bombing in Lebanon just last year. He doesn’t deserve to be crucified if he’s not personally responsible.”

  “Of course he’s personally responsible. I feel…” He stopped as the telephone rang, picking it up. “Seymour,” he said. “What’s that? You’ve had them blow up some photographs of those dead birds and put them on the placards they carry? Are you sure…okay. Well, listen, don’t pay them any more than you have to, we’re on a tight budget right now. Okay. You do that. Thanks, Haralson.”

  He hung up, a little hesitant about feeling triumphant. Haralson sounded very happy, but Clayton felt a sense of guilt. How absurd. He had to keep Lombard off his back and protect Nikki. This was the best way.

  “Well, that should heat things up at Lombard’s plant,” he said thoughtfully. He glanced at Derrie. “You might call the local television stations,” he told her. “Tell them we’ve heard that a group of environmentalists are about to start a picket line at Lombard’s plant.”

  Derrie was just staring at him, her blue eyes incredulous. “You’ve paid people to picket him!”

  “I haven’t. Haralson’s taking care of it,” he said stiffly. “He says that by putting Lombard on the defensive, we can protect Nikki and Mosby from any tabloid threat.”

  “And you believe him? Clay, this isn’t the way!” she cried. “For heaven’s sake, this is dirty!”

  “And you don’t want to soil your lily-white hands?” he chided coldly. She pricked his conscience, brought out his own doubts and fears. He didn’t like it.

  “What you’re doing is against everything I’ve ever believed in,” she said quietly.

  “Do you think you’re irreplaceable?” he asked, furious with her scruples, her refusal to obey instructions. “Do you think I keep you on the payroll out of undying love? My God, the only reason you’re still working here is because of your typing skills. You’re so starchy that you rustle when you walk, Miss Prim! No wonder you can’t get dates except with nearsighted acne lepers!”

  She felt her chest expanding with incredulous temper. “How dare you!”

  “You moralistic little prude, you belong in a convent somewhere,” he continued hotly. “Always defending animals and plants, street people, and the like…Bett said that you’re pathetic and she was right. I need someone in this office who can help me politically, not a far left conservative trying to undermine everything I do!”

  “I won’t support dishonesty and corruption, thank you very much,” she fired back. “You’ve changed since you got thick with Mosby Torrance and that Haralson plague of his and Bett Watts. You’ve convinced yourself that your position is worth anyone else’s sacrifice, haven’t you, that a little lessening of principles is worth all the prestige and money?”

  “I’m protecting my sister, and you know it,” he said angrily.

  “No, you aren’t. You’re protecting yourself against the Democratic challenger and trying to regain the points you lost by sacrificing the spotted owl on the altar of profit.”

  “Don’t judge me!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she agreed. “Your own conscience will hang you out to dry one day, if Ms. Watts doesn’t pin it on the line right next to your manhood!”

  He stood up abruptly, almost shaking with rage. “Get out!” he yelled.

  “I’d be delighted!” she said fiercely, her small hands making fists beside her slender hips. “I was offered another job just a week or more ago, with a politician who has a conscience and a little moral fiber. I daresay he’d hire me in a minute!”

  “Then feel free to join him!” Clayton growled. She made him hate himself. He wanted her gone, now! “If you want to go, go. And damn you and your pristine little conscience!”

  She couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever cursed her. She stood glaring at him with the blood draining out of her soft complexion. As her burst of temper dissipated, it dawned on her that he’d just fired her. After three years of hard work and hero worship, he’d admitted that he loathed her. She’d been fired, and he’d made it sound as if she were quitting. It didn’t quite all register at once.

  The ringing of the telephone startled them both. Automatically Derrie reached for it. She listened for a minute and in a taut voice announced, “It’s Nikki.” She handed him the receiver and walked out, closing the door quietly behind her.

  “Hello, Nikki, what do you want?” he asked irritably.

  There was a pause. “I need you to come after me,” she said, her voice hoarse and strained.

  He was immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I had a relapse. It’s pneumonia,” she said heavily. “I’ve seen a doctor and I have antibiotics,” she added quickly, “but I really can’t stay here alone.”

  “When was it diagnosed?”

  “Three days ago…”

  “And you haven’t called me until now?” he raged. “Nikki, in the name of God…I’ll be there in two hours.”

  He put down the receiver, worrying his thick hair as he stormed into the outer office. The path had been very clear in his mind—he’d tell Derrie to take over the office and he’d fly up and get Nikki. His plan altered immediately when he saw his aide.

  Furious tears were streaming down Derrie’s face. She’d already cleaned out her desk drawers and was picking up the small box that held the meager contents of her three years as his aide. All at once, he came to his senses.

  “Derrie, no,” Clayton said in shock. “Listen, I didn’t mean it,” he added quickly, realizing that
he’d said too much. “I’ve had a bad morning…”

  “I’ve had a worse one,” she said icily, her blue eyes glaring at him. “You can call the temporary agency. They’ll replace me. I’ll come back to retrain someone, but it’s Friday and you have no pressing appointments today.” She nodded toward the appointment book. “The names and telephone numbers of your appointments are right there. I guess you can make a pot of coffee all by yourself if you have to,” she added with bitter sarcasm.

  “You can’t leave,” he groaned.

  “No? Watch me. I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient. You did invite me to leave,” she reminded him with cold pleasure when he grimaced. “But even if you hadn’t, I can’t work for a man who puts his political career above honor.” Her soft eyes had gone hard, glaring at him. “You’ve been around Ms. Watts and Senator Torrance too long, haven’t you? Whatever they’ve got is contagious and you’ve caught it.”

  “You can’t leave!” he ground out. Then he dashed all her illusions by adding, “Damn it, Nikki’s got pneumonia. I need you to stay here and hold down the office. I have to go up and get her at the beach house.”

  He needed her to work. That was all it had ever been, all it would ever be. She’d loved him, and he had nothing to give her. Why had it taken so long for her to realize it? She sighed heavily. “I’ll go up and get her,” she offered. “I like Nikki.”

  “What am I supposed to do in the meanwhile, type letters?” he raged. “That’s what I pay you for!”

  “Not any more,” she said with quiet dignity. She shifted the box in her arms. “If you’ll have the pilot stand by, I’ll go to the airport and then I’ll bring Nikki home.”

  He was furious. He couldn’t hide it. Logic told him that he couldn’t get a temporary girl in here and train her in the next thirty minutes. Derrie wasn’t going to stay, but she would go and retrieve Nikki. She had him over a barrel.

  “All right,” he said gruffly. “I’ll phone the pilot.” He indicated the box. “Don’t you want to leave that here?”

  Her eyebrow lifted. “Why? I’m not coming back.”

  She turned and walked out the door, leaving it ajar because she had her hands full.

  Clayton stood by the desk and stared after her with a mind that absolutely refused to register what had happened. He’d never had to worry about leaving the office before, because Derrie was so competent and capable. She could handle anything. Now she was gone. He’d fired her. He would have to replace her. He wondered if he could. His delight over Seymour’s downfall was overshadowed by his emptiness at losing the best assistant he’d ever had. Bett would be delighted, he realized, because she’d never liked Derrie. But Clayton felt a growing sense of great loss. And not only that, now he was faced with the unpleasant task of learning how to make his own coffee.

  Nikki was surprised to see Derrie at the door when she answered it.

  “Clayton didn’t come with you?” Nikki asked weakly.

  “He has to answer the telephone and make coffee,” Derrie said with forced carelessness. “You see, this is my last official act as his secretary. I quit.”

  Nikki stared at her, seeing the faint swelling around her eyes and the visible pain of her decision.

  “Why?”

  “Because your brother is letting Torrance and Bett Watts mold him in their image,” the younger woman said quietly. “He’s helping to dispossess the spotted owl out west, and now he’s using some underhanded methods to crucify Kane Lombard for something he may not even be guilty of.”

  Nikki’s heart jumped wildly in her chest. “Lombard…what did he do?”

  “You don’t have television here, do you?” Derrie asked. “Well, it’s all over the news. Mr. Lombard has been charged with several counts of industrial pollution of a major tributary. They say he cut costs by throwing out a reputable waste disposal company and replacing it with some local who was notorious for dumping vats of pollutants in deserted fields and marshes. There’s been terrible damage to wildlife. Dead birds everywhere. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 make it a felony to dump toxic wastes illegally.”

  “Oh, my God,” Nikki said shakily.

  Without registering Derrie’s curiosity, she wobbled to the phone, picked it up and blindly dialed Kane’s number without considering the consequences.

  His housekeeper answered, and all she would tell Nikki was that Mr. Lombard had been called urgently back to Charleston.

  Nikki put down the receiver. She’d never felt quite so bad. “He wouldn’t do such a thing,” she said.

  “I know that,” Derrie said. “The poor man’s had so much…Wait a minute, how do you know he wouldn’t?”

  Nikki started. “I’ve read about him,” she began.

  “Of course,” Derrie said with an apologetic laugh. “So have I. He seems like a decent sort of man.” Her smiled vanished. “Your brother is losing all his values, you know. I said I’d come and get you, but I’m through entertaining Ms. Watts and making coffee and I’m not sacrificing my conscience for the sake of any job. I have a good brain and it’s going to waste.”

  Nikki managed a wan smile. “Indeed you have, but I fear for my brother’s future if you aren’t in it. You were a moderating force. Now, Bett will be telling him how to tie his ties.”

  “I know.” Derrie’s eyes were sad as she recalled the things Clayton had said to her, but she forced the misery away. “We have to get you back to Charleston. What can I do?”

  “Help me pack,” Nikki said. “Then I’ll dress and we’ll get underway. Are we flying?”

  “Afraid not. You know you can’t fly in a pres surized cabin with pneumonia, you’d have to be taken off by an ambulance when we got to Charleston. I hired a limo.”

  “Extravagant…”

  “Very.” Derrie smiled. “I hope your brother has a migraine when he sees the bill.”

  Nikki was too sick to argue, but she couldn’t help but wonder what Clayton had done to make loyal Derrie quit.

  Kane Lombard met the vicious publicity head-on. He knew what was going to happen from the minute Lawson had called to tell him the news. He wasn’t guilty, but by the time the media got through with him, he’d look it.

  It wouldn’t be a nine-day wonder, either, he realized when he saw the headlines. Seymour had jumped in feetfirst with charges that Lombard was a prime example of the capitalist who put profit before conservation. He was going to make an example of Kane. He had strong support, too, from every local environmental group and a few national ones. When Kane got to his plant, he had to get through placard-carrying mobs of people who had probably been hired by some of Torrance’s crowd for the benefit of the TV cameras that were strategically placed.

  Many of the same public officials who had paved his way when he opened the automobile plant were now lined up visibly with the opposition.

  “It’s going to be a circus,” Kane remarked, looking down on the mob at the gates of the plant from his sixth-story window.

  Gert Yardley, his elderly executive secretary nodded. “I’m afraid so. And the news people are clamoring for interviews. You’ll have to give a statement, sir.”

  “I know that. What kind of statement do you recommend? How about, ‘I’m innocent’?” he asked, turning to face her.

  “I have no doubt whatsoever about your innocence,” Mrs. Yardley said, and smiled sympathetically. “Neither does Jenny,” she added, naming the junior secretary who shared an office with her. “Convincing yon ravenous wolves outside is going to be the problem.”

  He stuck his hands in his slacks pockets and turned away from the furor below. “Get my father on the line, will you?”

  “I can’t, sir,” she said. “He telephoned two hours ago and said to tell you that he’s on the way down here.”

  “Great.” He lifted his eyes skyward. “My father is just what I need to make a bad day worse. I can handle my own problems.”

  “I’m sure he knows that. He said
you might need a little moral support,” she added with a smile. “A man who’s being publicly hanged shouldn’t turn away a friend. Even a related one.”

  “I guess you’re right.” His dark eyes narrowed. “I want to see that new waste disposal man, what’s his name, Jurkins. Get him up here.”

  “He’s out sick,” she returned grimly. “And Ed Nelson is still recuperating from his kidney stone operation. He and Mr. Jurkins both called in, both also protesting their ignorance of Burke’s true operation.”

  “They would, wouldn’t they? God forbid they should try to cross the picket line. All right, call Bob Wilson and get him over here,” he said, naming the head of the legal firm that represented Lombard, Inc.

  “I anticipated that,” she said. “He should be here momentarily.”

  “Thanks, Gert,” he replied.

  She smiled. “What’s a good secretary for, if not to help the boss? I’ll buzz you when Mr. Wilson arrives.”

  She left him, and he turned back to the window. It was threatening rain. Maybe it would dissuade some of the lesser-paid protesters, he mused. He thought about Nikki and allowed himself to wish that she was here. He’d cut her out of his life, and he couldn’t sacrifice her even to save his reputation. He wondered how badly he was going to regret that decision, even as he firmed it in his mind.

  “As far as the company goes, you haven’t got a legal leg to stand on,” Bob Wilson told him regretfully a few minutes later. “I’m sorry, but they’ve got ironclad evidence linking Lombard, Inc., with Burke’s and the illegal dumping site. The fact that you didn’t personally make the decision to hire him doesn’t negate the fact that you approved your subordinate’s hiring of him. The buck stops at you. The company is in violation of several environmental laws, federal, local and state, and it will be prosecuted for at least one felony count, probably more as the investigation continues and they find more of Burke’s handiwork. A fine is the least of your worries right now.”