by Cora Brent
“Congressman Anders!” I shouted. “Do you know a woman named Carmen Carerra?”
More people turned to stare at me. A waitress delivered a drink to Jeff Anders. He accepted it with a smile while his bodyguards stood up menacingly, prepared to take me away if I did something hostile.
“She used to work here,” I said to all the watchful faces, addressing no one in particular. “She was also an undercover reporter researching a story about Congressman Anders. She disappeared a month ago and her identification was found on the property today.”
Griffin Sullivan put a hand on the shoulder of one of Anders’ bodyguards. The man didn’t advance but he didn’t sit down either.
“Dalton,” Griffin said sternly as he placed himself between me and the bodyguard. “Your girlfriend isn’t feeling well.”
He wasn’t wrong. I really wasn’t feeling well. Particularly when I saw the worried look on Dalton’s face. He put his hands gently on my shoulders and looked down at me.
“What’s going on, Cami?”
I took a step back from him. “You know. You know more than you admitted to. She worked for you, Dalton.”
His face was a map of confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Griffin was trying to usher both of us away from all the eyes and ears. He made a gesture to the musicians on stage and they started playing louder. I allowed myself to be propelled to the back of the club, past the restrooms, down the corridor where terrible Ivan had emerged like a monster out of a nightmare and grabbed my sister.
I stopped walking. Both men turned around and looked at me, Griffin with an expression of irritation, Dalton with an expression of puzzlement.
“You need to tell me what you know about Carmen,” I demanded.
Dalton was starting to look exasperated. “Cami, I still have no idea who or what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. She worked for you, Dalton. She worked here.”
He threw up his hands. “For fuck’s sake, I’ve never had an employee named Carmen.”
Griffin pushed open a door. “Let’s step inside and keep the drama out of the club.”
I crossed my arms. “I’d be crazy to go in there with either one of you.”
Dalton’s expression went from confused to wounded. “Cami,” he said in a gruff voice, “I still have no idea what you’re carrying on about, but you can’t honestly believe you’d ever have a reason to be afraid of me.”
I was silent.
“Do you?” he pressed and the hurt in his eyes was honest. I knew the answer to his question before even he asked it.
“No,” I said quietly. “I’m could never be afraid of you, Dalton.”
“Good, nobody is afraid of anyone,” Griffin said impatiently. “Now let’s step inside.”
The room was one of the plush private enclaves for the use of the club’s VIP members. Someone had been here recently. There was a deck of cards and a half empty bottle of wine on the table.
Griffin sank down on the leather couch and made himself comfortable. I eyed him with suspicion. Dalton would probably open a vein before he would hurt me but I wasn’t so sure about Griffin. Dalton might have had the same thought because he positioned himself between us and gazed at his friend with some consternation.
“What do you know about this?” he asked Griffin.
“And what did you do with her purse?” I added.
“I have it now,” Griffin said without a trace of worry.
“Aren’t you going to turn it in to the police?”
Griffin shrugged. “What for?”
My jaw tightened. “Because she’s missing, you fucking over-privileged idiot.”
Griffin roared with laughter. “You know, I really do like you, Cami.”
“That’s touching,” I said sarcastically. “But I don’t see what it has to do with the fact that an undercover reporter has disappeared, a reporter who happened to be looking into the misdeeds of your politician buddy. She took a job performing here at the club.”
“Oh, shit,” Dalton muttered. “Cat Caren.” He gave Griffin a sharp look. “That’s who we’re talking about here, isn’t it?”
Griffin nodded, looking vaguely bored with the whole situation. “Yeah, that’s who we’re talking about.”
Dalton turned to me. “Cami, she was only working here for a few weeks. She took the job under the name Cat Caren and I sure as hell had no idea she was a reporter.”
“Didn’t you wonder why she stopped showing up for work? Did you know she was missing?”
He looked uncertain and glanced at Griffin. “I thought you said no one was worried because she was in the habit of taking off.”
Griffin shrugged. “No one is worried. And Carmen or Cat or whatever she feels like calling herself today is indeed in the habit of taking off.”
“Is she dead?” I asked.
He chuckled. “You watch too much true crime television. Carmen isn’t dead. Carmen is fine.”
“Why should I take your word for it?”
He smiled. “Do you have another alternative?”
“I could go to the police.”
Griffin considered. “You could. But you’ll only waste your time and look foolish.” He stood up. “Can we agree that this topic is concluded for now? I have some guests out there that I need to pay attention to and then I’m taking off. Early morning meeting tomorrow. Dalton, I assume you’ll escort your imaginative girlfriend out the back door?”
Dalton threw him a stony glare. Griffin looked rather weary for a second as he paused with his hand on the doorknob. Then he opened the door, and the club noise filtered in briefly before the door closed again.
I looked at Dalton. He looked at me.
Then he sighed. “Let’s go, Cami.”
I followed him out of the room and to the back door.
“Did you leave your car with the valet?” he asked once we were outside.
“No. I parked it in the golf course lot.”
We walked side by side in the darkness.
“You could have talked to me first,” he said. “Before you came charging into the club making a scene. And while we’re on the subject you could have given me the benefit of the doubt where this Carmen person is concerned.”
I winced because he was right. “I know. I’m sorry. I really didn’t plan that outburst. Something just kind of snapped when I saw Anders.”
“But that’s why you wanted to come down here tonight? Not to see me.”
I tried to reach for him. “No, of course I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you.”
He shook his head and widened the distance between us. “That’s why you were acting all fucking weird this afternoon. While I was down in the wine cellar you looked in the purse, found out who it belonged to and came to all kinds of wild conclusions. Fuck, Cami, why didn’t you just ask me right then and there?”
I was dangerously close to crying. “I don’t know. You’d already told me you didn’t know her and I thought maybe….”
“You thought maybe I might know that something bad had happened to her, that I was part of some cover up in the case of the disappearing reporter.” He stopped walking and suddenly cupped my face in his hands, the same way he did that day at the botanical gardens when he kissed me for the first time. Except now his eyes were hurt and angry instead of passionate. “It’s me, Camille. Do you think I’m capable of hurting anyone? Or of standing by and keeping quiet while someone else did?”
“No,” I whispered because it was true.
He nodded and dropped his hands. “How’d you come by all that information anyway? About Cat, no, sorry, Carmen, being an undercover reporter and shit.”
“I can’t tell you that,” I said miserably.
He let out a snort of exasperation. “Well that’s just fucking great.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.”
“Dalton!”
He stopped walking and turned when I shouted h
is name. I ran right into him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed, pressed my cheek against his chest to listen to his heart, just like I did every time we embraced. He sighed and hugged me back. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. I wanted him to ask me to spend the night with him. This time I’d say yes. I’d make it all up to him, show him how much he meant to me. But tonight he didn’t ask.
“Let’s get you home,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and leading me to my car.
Before I got behind the wheel I slipped my arms around his shoulders and kissed him as passionately as ever. He kissed me back with just as much urgency. He put his hands on me and grinded his hips against mine so I could feel how hard he was, how much more he wanted to take but wouldn’t. The night had been broken somehow and the best thing to do was to wait for another one. Or maybe it was us that had been broken. I could hardly stand to think about it.
“Text me when you get home so I know you’re safe,” he said before he closed the door.
I gave him one last sorrowful look. “I will.”
Dalton didn’t move as he watched me drive away. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw he was still there just before I turned a corner. I wondered how long he stood out there under the stars before returning to the club.
The porch light was on at my house but all the windows were dark. I texted Dalton just like I promised.
I’m home. I miss you.
A moment letter he texted a reply.
Good night Cami.
My mother was standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. She looked a little sloppy and absent minded, the same way she always looked when she was deep into writing another book. She smiled at me when I walked in. Then her face grew concerned as she examined me more closely.
“Everything okay, Cami?”
I didn’t want to rehash everything right now. Plus my mother would be alarmed if she heard I was mixed up with scandalous politicians and vanishing reporters. I wished the night had gone differently. I wished I wasn’t responsible for the hurt look in Dalton’s eyes. I wished I were in his arms instead of standing in my parents’ kitchen and trying not to cry.
“I could really use a hug, Mom,” I said with an unmistakable quaver in my voice.
Of course she gave me one. She didn’t even hesitate.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dalton
Cornering Griffin for a detailed conversation was at the top of my list but I didn’t get the chance. Somehow he slipped out of the club shortly after I returned from walking Cami to her car. I texted him. Repeatedly. But the night ended without receiving a single reply.
When the Aqua Room lights went out and everyone was gone I stood there in the empty club and listened to the silence. I’d played a large role in making this place what it was but suddenly I was weary of it all and didn’t care if I never set foot inside here again.
I didn’t belong here.
I belonged out in the dirt, teaching the next generation how to properly field a grounder.
I belonged under the stars on a desert summer night with the girl of my dreams in my arms.
The thought of Cami made me wish I’d taken her back to my suite. I knew she was waiting for me to ask, that she was eager to make up. She would have stayed and we would have wildly screwed for hours before falling asleep together in my bed. But there was a cloud hanging over the night and I didn’t want her to stay with me out of remorse.
My eyes drifted to the dark stage. The stage where Cat Caren, aka Carmen Carerra, was standing the last time I saw her. Griffin had impatiently claimed that Carmen was just fine but I didn’t know if I could take anything he said at face value. My old friend had his own secrets that I’d been willfully blind to. He might be willing to do a lot to keep them under wraps.
I thought about going to the police but I didn’t really have much to tell them. A woman who had briefly worked for me had disappeared. They already knew that and yet no one had contacted me to ask questions. Whether that was due to Griffin’s influence or something else was anyone’s guess. I also didn’t know what to make of the fact that her purse was fished out of the lake but it made me think of the night a month ago when Carmen performed at Aqua Lounge for the last time. I remembered that night clearly because I’d been walking home after the club closed and thinking about Cami. I heard a noise, a commotion, a possible scream. Enough to make me tense up and wait for something to materialize from the darkness. At the time I convinced myself it was just some nocturnal animals fighting a natural battle.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Too many coincidences were stacking up.
And one way or another my old friend Griffin Sullivan was going to have to address them.
My suite was empty, lonely. It didn’t feel like home. It never had. I’d grown used to spending so many months at a time on the road playing a game that I could no longer remember what a real home felt like.
But that would change.
I had been tossing around the idea of signing a lease in a brand new apartment complex three miles from here. I could imagine bringing Cami there, undressing her slowly, making love to her eagerly and then holding her tenderly as we fell asleep together.
Yeah, I was doing it. I’d just made up my mind.
I fell asleep on the couch and awoke to the sound of knocking. The fierce sunlight pouring in through the sliding glass doors made me think I must have slept too long and now housekeeping was visiting. But then I saw that the time only seven thirty.
When I opened the door I had some hope that the visitor might be Cami. Instead it was Griffin.
“Hey,” he said, leaning tiredly against the door frame in the same clothes he’d been wearing when I last saw him at the club. Then again, I hadn’t bothered to change out of my own clothes before passing out on the couch so I couldn’t judge.
“Are you going to let me in?” he asked because I was blocking the door with my arms crossed.
I backed off enough to let him pass. He sat down on a stool at the small dining table while I closed the door.
“Why did you run off last night?” I accused. “You must be aware we’ve got a few things to talk about. Yet you didn’t answer any of my texts.”
He yawned. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had another minor emergency to tend to.”
“You mean another scheming cover up for the benefit of one of your vile associates?”
He exhaled irritably. “Shit, you’ve been listening to Cami’s wild tales too much.”
“Tell me something different then.”
Griffin scowled. “Believe me, I know Anders is an asshole but his interests are tied up with the family so when he feels like setting up a hot piece of ass in a luxury suite I’m expected to accommodate him.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”
“His girlfriend. Or whatever you want to call her. Anders has been underfoot these last six months because he’s been fucking this girl six times a day. I warned him that it was going to lead to trouble and that there’s no young pussy magical enough to risk a man’s career but it’s not like Jeff Anders listens to me. Anyway, now that he’s going to be running for governor he has to cut back on his extracurricular activities. I guess he tried to break it off last night and she ran to her room and swallowed a bunch of pills. So that’s what I was dealing with.”
“Holy shit.” I leaned against the wall, feeling sick. I thought about the girl I’d seen glaring unhappily at all the action the day of the press conference. “She killed herself?”
“No, thank god. She just swallowed enough to earn a nice stomach pumping and a few days in a private hospital room at St. Anthony’s. Still a pain in the ass to keep quiet though and I wish there was a way around it.”
My jaw hardened. “Because there’s nothing more important than making your life easier.”
He grimaced over my words. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll do everything I can for the girl. And I already told Anders that
from now on he has to move his party off my damn resort no matter what my father says.”
I clapped my hands, slowly, obnoxiously. “What a hero, finally standing up to daddy.”
He narrowed his eyes but didn’t argue.
“And what about Carmen?” I asked him. “What did you do for her?”
“Carmen,” he said and made a sour face. “Two weeks ago I found out that Carmen has been happily ensconced in some five star Puerto Vallarta resort since the night she disappeared. She was up Anders’s ass, found out he’d been accepting huge bribes in exchange for support of a new football stadium on the taxpayer dime. She was going to expose him and consequently fuck with his political aspirations. So he made her an offer. One of the requirements was that she needed to skip town for a while. She didn’t hesitate to accept. She probably tossed her own fucking handbag in the lake. Apparently Carmen Carerra is a woman who has always wanted to be mysterious. And rich. Now she’s both.”
“Why the hell should I believe that?”
“You can call her if you want to confirm. I did.”
I mulled the information over. Somehow it had the ring of truth. “I need to tell Cami this.”
He nodded. “Sure, tell Cami. Just as long as she understands that this will never become public knowledge.” Griffin caught my eye. “And you know she can’t work here anymore.”
I glared at him. “And I suppose you expect me to tell her that.”
“No. I’ve already informed Anne who will pass the word along to Eleanor. Cami will be told this morning. I arranged for her to receive a month’s pay to compensate for this ah, misunderstanding.”
“You might be disappointed to discover that Cami is not someone you can buy off.”
He snorted. “If I were trying to do that I would have been a hell of a lot more generous.” He frowned and raked a hand through his hair. “I feel bad about this, Dalton. I know this thing will cause trouble between us.”
I was incredulous. “That’s the only thing you feel bad about? Jesus, Griffin, what the hell else are you and your family wrapped up in? Don’t think I haven’t forgotten about those Russian mafia investors you were entertaining around here last month. Now you’re up to your neck with a slimy politician who seems all too eager to make people disappear. What would have happened to Carmen if she hadn’t gone willingly? What could happen to the next reporter who digs up some dirt on that guy?”
