Best Kept Secrets

by Sandra Brown

  He came to his feet and walked toward the man still in the bouncers’ custody. He was standing with his head bowed.

  “What about you? Got a name?” Reede asked, jerking the man’s chin up. “Well, howdy, Lewis,” he drawled. “Thought we’d seen the last of your miserable hide. Didn’t take my warning seriously, did you? Can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s gonna be to have you residing in my jail again.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Lambert,” the man sneered insolently.

  Reede hauled back his fist, then reached for the man’s spine through about a foot and a half of abdominal tissue. Lewis doubled at the waist, but only until Reede’s fist connected with his chin, bringing it up with a powerful blow. He was then lifted by the lapels of his jacket and shoved against the wall.

  “You’ve got a big mouth, Lewis,” Reede said calmly, barely winded by the exertion. “We’ll see how smart you talk after a month or two in a place where the bad boys will make you eat their dicks for breakfast every morning.”

  The man whimpered helplessly. When Reede released him, he slid down the wall to form a pathetic heap on the floor. Two deputies stepped into the room, gawking at their plush surroundings.

  “He resisted arrest,” Reede calmly said, pointing at Lewis, then curtly ordered him handcuffed, Mirandized, and booked for attempted murder. He consulted with the paramedics who had come in behind the deputies and were dealing with the injured man.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” one of them reported to Reede as he slid a needle into the victim’s arm. “It’s serious, but not critical.”

  Satisfied that everything was being handled properly, Reede’s attention reverted to Alex. Taking her upper arm in a firm grip, he hauled her toward the door.

  “Let me go.”

  “Unless Nora Gail hired you on, you’ve got no business here. Nora Gail, shut down for the night.”

  “This is Friday, Reede.”

  “Tough. Don’t let anybody leave, either. Somebody’ll be along soon to start the questioning.”

  He roughly shepherded Alex down the steps and into his Blazer, nearly cramming her into the seat before he slammed the door shut. He climbed in behind the wheel.

  “My car is over there,” she told him stubbornly. “I can drive myself back to town.”

  “I’ll have one of the deputies pick it up later.” He ground the key in the ignition. “What in God’s name possessed you to come here?”

  “I didn’t know what it was until I arrived.”

  “Well, when you figured it out, why didn’t you leave?”

  “I wanted to talk to Nora Gail. She’s a very old and dear friend of yours, I understand,” she said with phony sweetness.

  At the intersection with the highway, they met one of his patrol cars turning in. He signaled the deputy to stop and rolled down his window. “Give me your keys,” he told Alex. She passed them to him because he wasn’t going to give her a choice, and because, in spite of her brave front, she was trembling.

  Reede tossed her keys to the deputy and instructed him to have his partner drive Ms. Gaither’s car to the Westerner Motel when they were finished with the preliminary investigation of the shooting. With that taken care of, he zoomed onto the highway.

  “Don’t you feel the least bit guilty?” Alex asked him.

  “For what?”

  “For turning a blind eye to a whorehouse operating in your county?”

  “No.”

  She looked at him, completely flabbergasted. “Why not? Because the madam is an old flame of yours?”

  “Not entirely. Nora Gail’s place keeps potential troublemakers concentrated in one spot. Her bouncers keep them in line.”

  “Today they didn’t.”

  “Today was an exception. That scumbag is bad news no matter where he is.”

  “I should report you for police brutality.”

  “He had that coming, and then some. He got off on a technicality the last time he passed through our judicial system. This time he’ll spend a nice, long time in prison.

  “And, by the way, they caught Lyle Turner in New Mexico. He confessed to slitting Pasty’s throat for screwing around with Ruby Faye. It had nothing whatsoever to do with you, so you can stop looking over your shoulder for bogeymen.”

  “Thanks for telling me.” The news relieved her, but this latest development was still on her mind. “Don’t try to get me off the subject. I’m not going to sweep this under the carpet. Pat Chastain would love to know that there’s a bordello operating right under his nose.”

  Reede laughed. He took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, and shook his head in dismay over her naïveté. “Have you ever met Mrs. Chastain?”

  “What does that—”

  “Have you?”

  “No. I’ve talked to her on the telephone.”

  “She’s a country club hag, tanned skin stretched over solid bone. She wears more gold jewelry than a pimp, even when she plays tennis. She thinks her shit don’t stink. Got the picture? She likes being the D.A.’s wife, but doesn’t like the D.A., particularly in bed.”

  “I’m not interested in—”

  “Her idea of foreplay is, ‘Hurry up, but don’t mess up my hairdo,’ and she would probably rather die than let him come in her mouth.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Pat’s got a favorite out at Nora Gail’s who’ll swallow it and pretend to like it, so he’s not going to lift a finger to shut the place down. If you were smart, which I’m beginning to seriously doubt, you won’t embarrass him by letting on you even know that Nora Gail’s place is out there. And don’t even think about tattling to Judge Wallace. He never partakes, but all his friends do. He sure as hell isn’t going to stop their party.”

  “My God, is everybody in this county corrupt?”

  “Oh, for crissake, Alex, grow up. Everybody in the whole goddamn world is corrupt. You might be the only person who ever went through law school and came out believing that the law is still based on morality. Everybody’s guilty of something. Everybody’s got a secret. If you’re lucky, the next guy’s secret is juicier than yours. You use his secret to keep him quiet about yours.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up. It was Nora Gail you were with the night Celina was killed.”

  “Congratulations. You finally got one guess right.”

  “It wasn’t a guess. Wanda Plummet told me.”

  He grinned. “When did you figure her out?”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted with some reluctance. “I recognized her picture in the yearbook. You could have told me, Reede.”

  “I could have, but you’d have started pestering sooner.”

  “I didn’t pester her. She was most cooperative.”

  “She was scared. You can’t tell by looking at her now what a hell-raiser she used to be.”

  “I’d rather talk about her sister, Nora Gail. The night my mother was killed, were you with her all night?”

  “Wouldn’t you love to know?”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

  “Making love?”

  “Screwing.”

  “Where?”

  “Her house.”

  “Nora Gail said you were in her car.”

  He whipped his Blazer around a farmer in a pickup truck. “Maybe we were. Car, house, what’s the difference? I don’t remember.”

  “You had been to the ranch earlier.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You ate dinner there.”

  “We’ve been over this already.”

  “This was a special night—Celina was there for dinner.”

  “Don’t you remember talking about this?”

  “I remember. You told me that you’d left before dessert because apple pie wasn’t one of your favorites.”

  “Wrong. Cherry pie. It’s still not one of my favorites.”

  “That’s not why you left, Reede.”

  “N
o?” He risked taking his eyes off the road to glance at her.

  “No. You left because you were afraid Junior was going to propose to Celina that night. You were even more afraid that she was going to accept.”

  He brought the truck to a jarring stop outside her motel room. He got out and came around to her door, almost jerking it off its hinges when he opened it. Grabbing her arm again, he pulled her to the ground and pushed her toward her door. She resisted and turned to confront him.

  “I’m right so far, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, I went out with Nora Gail to blow off some steam.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No, so I sneaked back to the ranch and found Celina in the mares’ barn. How the hell I knew she was going to be there is something you’ve yet to figure out, Counselor,” he sneered.

  “I took the scalpel out of my pocket. Why I’d taken it from the vet’s bag when I could have strangled her with my bare hands is something else you’ll have to muddle through. While you’re at it, think about where I’d hidden it when I took off all my clothes to screw Nora Gail, who would in all probability have noticed a scalpel.

  “Anyway, I used the scalpel to stab Celina repeatedly. Then, I just left her body there on the outside chance that Gooney Bud would come wandering by, see her, try to help her, and, in the process, get her blood all over himself.”

  “I think that’s exactly how it was done.”

  “You’re full of shit, and a grand jury will think so, too.”

  He angrily gave her another shove toward her door. In a quavering voice, she said, “There’s blood on your hands.”

  He looked down at them. “I’ve had blood on them before.”

  “The night you murdered Celina?”

  His eyes moved back to Alex’s. His voice was raspy with menace when he lowered his face close to hers and said, “No, the night she tried to abort you.”

  Chapter 35

  Alex stared at him blankly for several seconds. Then, she attacked him. She went for his face with her nails, his shins with the toes of her shoes. He grunted in pain and surprise as she landed one solid kick against his kneecap.

  “You liar! You’re lying! Lying!” She took a swing at his head. He managed to dodge it.

  “Stop it.” He grabbed hold of her wrists to protect his face. She tried to wrest her hands free, while still kicking out with her feet and knees. “Alex, I’m not lying to you.”

  “You are! You bastard. I know you are. My mother wouldn’t do that. She loved me. She did!”

  She fought like a wildcat. Fury and adrenaline pumped through her system, endowing her with additional strength. She was still no match for him. Holding her wrists together in his left hand, he shook her key out of her handbag and used it to open the door. They stumbled inside together. Reede kicked the door shut.

  She bucked against him, shouting deprecations, trying to work her hands out of his grip, slinging her head from side to side like someone demented.

  “Alex, stop this,” he ordered fiercely.

  “I hate you.”

  “I know, but I’m not lying.”

  “You are!” She twisted and turned and tried to stamp on his feet.

  He forced her down on the bed, and secured her there with his own body. Keeping an iron grip on her wrists, he placed his other hand over her mouth. She tried to bite it, so he applied more pressure, making any motion of her jaw impossible unless she wanted to break the bones.

  Her eyes were murderous as she glared at him over the back of his hand. Her breasts rose and fell dramatically with each breath. He hung his head above hers, his hair falling over his brow, gulping in draughts of air until he regained his breath.

  Finally, lifting his head, he stared deeply into her eyes. “I didn’t want you to know,” he said in a low, throbbing voice, “but you just kept pushing me. I lost my temper. It’s out, I can’t take it back, and damn me if it’s not the truth.”

  She tried to shake her head no, the denial in her eyes vehement. She arched her back in an effort to throw him off, but she remained pinioned beneath him.

  “Listen to me, Alex,” he said, angrily straining the words through his teeth. “Nobody even knew Celina was pregnant until that night. She’d been back from El Paso for several weeks, but I hadn’t gone to see her yet, hadn’t even called. My pride was still hurting. In a juvenile way, I was letting her sweat it out.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head ruefully. “We were playing games with each other, childish, foolish, silly, boy-girl games. Finally, I decided to forgive her.” He smiled with bitter self-derision.

  “I went to see her on a Wednesday night because I knew your grandmother would be at prayer meeting at the Baptist church. After the service she always stayed for choir practice, so I knew that Celina and I would have a couple of hours alone to sort things out.

  “When I got to her house, I knocked several times, but she didn’t come to the door. I knew she was there. The lights were on in the back of the house where her bedroom was. I thought maybe she was in the shower or was playing the radio so loud she couldn’t hear my knocking, so I went around to the back.”

  Alex lay still beneath him. Her eyes were no longer narrowed with animosity, but shiny with unshed tears.

  “I looked through her bedroom window. The lights were on, but Celina wasn’t in there. I tapped on the window. She didn’t respond, but I noticed her shadow moving on the bathroom wall. I could see it through the door. It was opened partway. I called her name. I knew she could hear me, but she wouldn’t come out. Then—”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and bared his teeth in a grimace of pain before going on. “I was getting mad, see, because I thought she was just playing coy. She opened the bathroom door wider, and I saw her standing there.

  “For a few seconds I just looked at her face because it had been so long since I’d seen her. She was staring back at me. She looked puzzled, like she was asking, “What now?” And that’s when I noticed the blood. She was wearing a nightgown, and the lower front of it was streaked with red.”

  Alex’s eyes closed. Large, cloudy tears slid from beneath her quivering eyelids and ran onto Reede’s fingers.

  “It scared the hell out of me,” he said gruffly. “I got into the house. I don’t even remember how. I think I raised the window and slipped through. Anyway, a few seconds later, I was in her bedroom, holding her. We both ended up on the floor and she just sort of crumpled in my arms.

  “She didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. I was screaming at her, shaking her. Finally, she turned her face toward my chest and whispered, ‘Baby.’ Then I realized what all the blood meant and where it had come from. I scooped her up, ran outside, and put her in my car.”

  He paused for a moment to reflect. When he picked up the story, the emotion that had racked his voice was gone. He spoke matter-of-factly.

  “There was this doctor in town who did abortions on the sly. Everybody knew it, but nobody talked about it because abortions were still illegal in Texas then. I took her to him. I called Junior and told him to bring some money. He met us there. He and I sat in the waiting room while the doctor fixed her up.”

  He gazed down at Alex for a long time before removing his hand. It had left a stark white imprint on the lower half of her face, which in itself was ghostly pale. Her body was now pliant beneath his, and as still as death. With the pads of his thumbs, he wiped the tears off her cheeks.

  “Damn you to hell if you’re lying to me,” she whispered.

  “I’m not. You can ask Junior.”

  “Junior would back you up if you said the sky was green. I’ll ask the doctor.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Figures,” she remarked, laughing dryly. “What did she use to try to kill me?”

  “Alex, don’t.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “What was it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me, damn you!”

/>   “Your grandma’s knitting needle!”

  It had started out a soft exchange but ended on a shout. The sudden, resulting silence was deafening.

  “Oh, God,” Alex whimpered, clamping her teeth over her lower lip and turning her face into the pillow. “Oh, God.”

  “Shh, don’t cry. Celina didn’t hurt you, just herself.”

  “She wanted to hurt me, though. She didn’t want me to be born.” Her sobs shook her whole body. He absorbed them with his. “Why didn’t the doctor just take me while he was fixing her up?”

  Reede didn’t answer.

  Alex turned her head and stared up at him. She caught handfuls of his shirt in her fists. “Why, Reede?”

  “He suggested it.”

  “Then, why didn’t he?”

  “Because I swore that if he did, I’d kill him.”

  An emotion zephyred between them. It was so strong it knocked the breath out of her and made her chest ache. She uttered an involuntary, wordless sound. Her fingers momentarily relaxed in the cloth of his shirt, only to grip it tighter and draw him nearer. Her back arched off the bed again, not in an attempt to throw him off, but to get closer.

  He sank his fingers into her hair, tilted his dark blond head, and pressed his open mouth against hers. Her lips were parted and damp and receptive. He sent his tongue deep into her mouth.

  Frantically, she worked her arms out of her coat sleeves and locked them around the back of his neck. He raised his head suddenly and looked down at her. There were dark shadows from weeping beneath her eyes, but the blue irises were crystal clear as they steadily gazed back at him. She knew exactly what she was doing. That’s all he needed to know.

  He ran his thumb over her lips, which were moist and swollen from his hard kiss. All he could think about was kissing her again, harder, and he did.

  Her throat was arched and vulnerable to his lips when they left hers. He drew her skin lightly against his teeth, then soothed it with whisks of his tongue. He nuzzled her ear and the base of her neck, and when her clothing got in his way, he pulled her to a sitting position and peeled her sweater over her head.

  As they lay back down, their breathing was loud and uneven, the only sound in the room. He unclasped her bra and pushed the cups aside.