Wordless (Pink Sofa Secrets Book 1)

by Mel Sterling

  Gard came out of the back shelves and stood watching them. She ignored Gard. This was between her and Jack. JT. John. Mr. Jarvis. Whatever the hell his name was.

  "Will you call your next book 'Small-Town Racketeers: What You Don't Know Will Bankrupt You?'" She reached out and spun the tablet so she could see the text on it. Sure enough: her glance caught "Barzak" and "Howard" and a list of titles, her name, Gilly's, even Jack's and Gard's. He was documenting her personal tragedy for his own materialistic ends.

  Jack's look upward was slow and confused. "Tell you what?"

  "That you're John T. Jarvis, muckraker." Her index finger stabbed down onto the Katrina book. "Why would you lie to me like this? Pretend to be helping out Uncle Horace, making friends with me, with Ben, taking me—" her voice broke a little. "—taking me to bed, for God's sake, making me think you—"

  I love you, Lexie. Love you.

  She couldn't say the words. Wouldn't say them. Because they simply weren't true, no matter how real they had sounded at the time, Jack's body so intimately entwined with hers that she couldn't tell his skin from her own. It was all part of how he worked, she saw now, how he wormed his way into his subjects' confidence and hearts, before he pulled the strings that tied their lives up into horrible knots and left them exposed to the censure and cynosure of the world.

  "Lie to you? Lexie, what are you talking about?"

  "Get out. Take your things and go. And don't come back."

  "I don't understand."

  "Sure you do. You're a smart man. I want to thank you for your help the past few days, getting the store put back together and backing me up while I talked with the postal inspector and the FBI, but we're done here. You do not have my permission to write a book about Uncle Horace, this store, or me. If anything shows up on your website or an internet video or anything else you do when you drag unfortunate victims through the mud, I'll have a lawyer on you so fast—"

  Jack stood up. "Now wait a minute. You're saying I'd use you for my own purposes."

  Lexie glanced down at the books Jack had written, then back up quickly. If she looked at them too long, tears would threaten, and she had to stay cold. In control. Not think too much about kisses and the fun of Chinese food in the back room, all the walks home through the autumn streets, sudden smiles across the bookstore, or the night she'd spent with Jack when she needed someone.

  Jack had been there for her, in the most intimate way imaginable. His words crept in again, prying at her doubt. Uncertainty spiked through her. What if he'd just been in the wrong place at the right time? What if—

  No. She crossed her arms. She'd seen all their names in whatever he was writing. He was, at the very least, making notes. "Yes. That's what I'm saying."

  Gard walked up the main aisle past the desk and set down a stack of books. Again Lexie ignored his movement. At last, she met Jack's eyes.

  He was stunned. There was no other word for it. His hand brushed the table, then grasped the edge, as if he needed its support.

  Lexie turned on her heel and stalked past Gard into the back room. She closed the door behind her firmly and pushed in the small lock button.

  On the sales floor, she could hear an explosion of sound, but not the words that made up the noise. It wasn't long before she heard the double beep of the door chime. She stood immobile, staring blindly at the shipping table, where a half-dozen books waited to be wrapped. The online sales had continued, trickling in throughout the day as always, even though the store itself was still closed to walk-in shoppers. Nothing from Howard, not yet. They were waiting for that, she and the FBI, waiting for the other shoe to drop so they could close in.

  She told herself she had known from the start Jack wouldn't stay around. She just hadn't thought the knowledge of exactly how it would end, how he would leave would devastate her like this.

  After a while she sat down on the pink horsehair sofa and rested her head against the back. She tried not to think about the pleasure Jack had given her yesterday on this very sofa, but it was like trying not to think of an elephant. It was all she could think of, once she'd started. One hot, slow tear slipped over her lashes, and she scrubbed it away fiercely. She would not cry over this.

  She did, anyway. She was exhausted, sick from the blows that just kept coming. The mess made her long for the simplicity of her life in the big corporation in Chicago, the basic nine-to-five where she wasn't worrying about other people's safety and livelihoods, or keeping a business afloat in a small town. Where work stayed at work, and her time after work was her own.

  When the tears subsided, she realized she'd have to go out and at least lock the door, now that Jack and Gard were gone, to keep passers-by out of the store. Not everybody read signs taped on doors. People were always trying the knob, even well outside posted business hours. She pressed her face to her knees in resignation, then slowly rose, straightened her clothes, pushed back her curls, and squared her shoulders. Life would go on, and hopefully so would the day-to-day business of the bookstore.

  Eventually.

  She had to believe that. Tomorrow, Ben would be at work again, and together they'd finish getting the store ready to reopen. She had to believe that, too.

  When Jack closed the door of Horace's Books behind himself and Gard, he stood for a long moment, gathering his thoughts. Gard was silent, as he often was when assessing a situation or just letting the men under his command do their jobs. Jack couldn't tell which it was at the moment, but he was grateful for Gard's presence. He couldn't quite believe what had just happened, and he wasn't sure he understood it all. He didn't know where to go, either—he didn't want to go back to the dismal studio above the co-op, and he damned sure wasn't going into The Cup, because except for making Lexie listen to him, the only thing he wanted was to make Gilly tell him what was going on. But he'd promised he wouldn't.

  He wasn't quite ready to leave the bookstore, either. So he crossed the street to the park and sat down in the mellow autumn sunlight, on the bench with the best view of Horace's Books.

  "She won't think you're stalking her, will she, JT?" Gard sat next to him and stretched out his leg.

  "Does it still hurt a lot?" Jack ignored Gard's question. "Your leg."

  Gard shrugged. "That phantom pain thing. I guess it can come and go for years. My brain doesn't believe part of the body is gone. You're avoiding the subject. We can't always talk about how sorry you are for not saving my leg in Iraq, JT. You gotta let that go."

  "It rides me. Day and night. When I least expect it. I know it wasn't my fault. I know I did what I could."

  "It's like a phantom pain for your brain, too. You just keep turning that rock over and over, thinking it'll be different next time, but it never is."

  "I can fix this, I know I can."

  Gard looked at him wryly, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees, clasped hands dangling between them. "Why do I get the feeling we're not talking about my leg anymore?"

  "I can't believe she didn't know who I was."

  "Did you ever tell her?"

  "She never asked!"

  "I'll take that as a 'no.' She found out at a really bad time, man."

  "I just thought she was polite. Most of the time, when people don't know who I am, then they find out, it changes everything. They go all star-struck on me, try to get me to use my connections, want me to investigate their evil landlords or help them stick it to someone they think did them dirty. They don't get it, what I do—it's not about that, it's about the bigger picture. Lexie—I thought she didn't care about all that."

  "Until your spotlight started shining on her and her business."

  "It's not like that. I'm not writing an exposé, I'm just documenting the facts, getting them all down so when the time comes, there's an accurate record of what's been going on. But she wouldn't even let me explain."

  "Words and deeds, buddy. Words and deeds."

  "Don't give me any of your bullshit Marine philosophy."

  Gar
d shrugged. "I'm just saying. If she's the woman I think she is, she'll come around, as long as you've treated her right up till now. She's just got to have some time to put it straight in her head. All the words in the world won't fix it this second."

  "You're not saying I should send her flowers, are you? What good will that do?"

  "Not flowers, no. And not sixteen emails explaining your side, like a lovesick high-schooler."

  "What are you, Dear Abby's asshole nephew? C'mon, Gard, I—" Jack stopped. He'd been about to say, "I love this woman." Instead, he said, "I will fix this, and if it takes sixteen emails, I'll write every one."

  "That would be stalking."

  Jack closed his eyes. "She's got to listen to me."

  "Just not right now."

  "Gard, what if she's really in the middle of something bad? Someone broke into her house and took that book. I can't just let her be on her own. What if something happens and I'm not there?"

  Gard's palm rasped over the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "What are you saying, JT? Why is it different now? You weren't with her last night, and everything was fine."

  Jack gave Gard a sidelong glance. "You were asleep."

  Gard flung his head back and looked at the sky. "And here I thought you were on the couch all that time. Nice of you to give me the bed. I sacked out like a ton of lead. Where were you, sitting on her front step?"

  "I borrowed your rental car and parked a block down from her house. I couldn't sleep anyway."

  "Lucky no one called the cops on you."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "What the hell, JT?"

  Now Jack did say it. "I love her, man. I'm worried about her. I can't stand that she's shoving me out of her life like this." He put his hands on his knees and pushed up from the bench. "I'm going back in there and make her listen."

  "No, you're going to let her stew awhile. I never thought I'd see the day when you quit your running around, but this looks like it." Gard gave a low whistle. "What'll you do, hang up your video camera, stay home and do the laundry, walk the cat?"

  Jack grinned despite his urgent need to fix things with Lexie that very minute. Gard's mocking taunts sounded stupidly good. Never feel the terror of a wildfire leaping overhead to emerge behind him and cut off his escape. Stop wondering if the incoming storm surge would wash out the road or block it before he could get to safety. Not feel again that gonad-shriveling moment when a crowd became a mob and a man with a camera became an enemy and a target. Maybe he'd finally lost his nerve in Iraq when people were shooting at him and others he cared about. Or, maybe, he was finally outgrowing his adrenaline addiction. From his position so deep inside his own life, he wasn't sure he could tell the difference, and he wasn't sure knowing that particular answer mattered any longer. What mattered was the future, not the past or the thrill of the moment. It was a new way of thinking for him.

  Gard had to rub it in. "Change the diapers too, I bet."

  Leave it to Gard to yank him out of his navel-gazing. "If it came to that. I don't shirk my responsibilities, you know that."

  "Good God a'mighty, JT."

  "Shut up. I can't wait for the day when some skirt rings your bell and lays you out like a Christmas buffet. You'll never hear the end of it from me."

  "Come on. Dinner. I'm buying."

  "It's two o'clock in the afternoon."

  "Beer, then." Gard shrugged and got to his feet.

  "When are you gonna shut up?"

  "When are you gonna listen?"

  "Who made you an expert on Alexia Worth?"

  "Like your method's working so well for you. Beer. Then we'll decide who gets the first shift in the car for the night. I'm voting for me; you need a nap. You're a damn long-legged cranky baby right now."

  In the end, it was Gard who took the first shift in the rental car, parked in a different location than Jack had chosen last night. Jack slept fitfully in the studio for a few hours, waking shortly after midnight and moving through the rain-wet streets hunched in a hoodie.

  The engine of Gard's rental car was idling as Jack approached. Gard nodded at him and leaned across to the passenger side, nudging the door open. Jack slid in, moving a small jar of instant coffee out of his seat. "God damn, Gard."

  "Staying awake, sonny boy. Good to see you too. Now we really look like crooks. Here making a drug deal, on the bad side of midnight in the law-abiding part of town." Gard had the lights off, the car's heater on, and the radio playing softly.

  "Anything?"

  "Naw."

  "Level with me, Gard. Do you think I'm worrying for nothing?"

  "Worrying about which thing? Lexie not talking to you?"

  "No, someone after her."

  Gard shrugged. "I think you should listen to your gut, is what I think. If your gut says she's in danger, that's that. It's why I'm here taking my turn, because your gut was talking loud and clear. I don't think she's in danger of violence, not really—white collar crooks don't want to get their hands dirty. Someone broke in and took that package, but they didn't wreck the house, and they didn't mess with her personally."

  "She's running scared now."

  "Scared is good. Keeps you alert. Helps you stay out of trouble because you see it coming."

  "I guess. I've got it from here, if you want to go on back and catch some Zs—"

  "Shhh." Gard's chin pointed up the street. "Somebody's coming. Probably nothing, but pull up your hood, sit real deep in the seat. We're in the shadow, they're across the street. Probably won't see us, but we gotta be still as owls."

  "Still as owls? Where'd you get that?"

  "You ain't got a back-country granny like I do. Now hush up."

  The two of them slid deeper into the bucket seats of the rental. Jack flipped his hood up and pulled it as far forward as it would go to mask his face and still leave his vision unobstructed. Gard turned off the engine and accessories. Immediately Jack felt an ominous silence close around him. It didn't feel actively dangerous, not the way night in Iraq had felt, as if bullets could see better in the dark than they could in daylight, but there was something in the air.

  Probably just his imagination. He tucked his hands in his armpits and watched.

  The figure came on, tall, thin, moving with quick jerky strides. A man. At first Jack thought the figure would go right past Horace's house, but two houses away the man's pace slowed and he began to peer around carefully.

  "I'm getting out." Jack put his hand on the door latch.

  "Hold your fire."

  "He's staring at her house. He's the one."

  "Look over your shoulder."

  Jack's head snapped to the right, and there was someone else coming up the street from the opposite direction. He silently cursed himself for being so tightly focused on Lexie's house that he neglected to keep a better general watch. The dark profile was peculiar, as if this person was wearing a hat. Then the person passed under a streetlight, and Jack and Gard recognized her at the same time: Gilly Harris. Her hands were jammed into her pants pockets, and her stride was abrupt and quick. What Jack had taken for a hat was just her spiky fauxhawk.

  "Be ready," Gard said softly.

  "It's just Gilly."

  "Meeting someone. Look." Gard hardly moved, but Jack's eyes turned back to the first figure, who had slowed even further, and was slouched to light a cigarette. The lighter flared and lit his face, and Jack drew a quick breath.

  "I know that guy."

  "Who is it?"

  "He's one of the poets. Thinks he's a real ladykiller."

  "Poets?"

  "They read at the bookstore a couple of nights a month. This guy's got some real interpersonal issues."

  "He doesn't dress white collar."

  "Nope." Jack snapped his fingers softly. "Dammit, what's his name. It's something…poet-like, all pretentious and artificial."

  The two figures stopped a dozen feet apart. Gilly waved her arms in the air dramatically. Jack couldn't hear what she was saying, and he
didn't dare open the car door because the dome light would draw attention to them. "Put down a window," he hissed to Gard. "Need to hear what they're saying."

  "This looks bad for that little gal." Gard engaged the key just enough for Jack to ease down the passenger's side window a couple of inches. They still couldn't hear words, but Gilly's tones were shrill and angry. The poet—dammit, what was his name?—kept his voice low. The poet's body language was wheedling, cajoling. His hands reached toward Gilly, softly, beckoning.

  Gilly slapped them away, and Jack felt a little heartened. Perhaps she had been an unwitting—and therefore unwilling—accomplice after all, assuming this poet had something to do with the whole situation and he and Gard weren't just witnessing a lover's spat.

  After midnight on a street close to the bookstore, and so close to Lexie's house. Coincidence?

  Yeah, his gut was still complaining: whatever was going on, those two were a part of it. He strained to hear, but it was no good. Gilly and the poet were too far away, one house past Lexie's.

  Suddenly Jack shot upright. Gard slapped a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. "Q!" Jack blurted, his hand over his mouth.

  "What?" murmured Gard. "Q what?"

  "Q. It's what he calls himself. Just the letter."

  Gard snorted softly. "Figures. If I was a poet, I guess I'd be ashamed to let people know my real name too."

  There was a sharp slapping noise, and then Gilly was striding back the way she had come. Q rubbed a hand over his cheek and jaw, then took a drag on his cigarette, the ember flaring once, twice, before he flicked the butt into the gutter and crushed it beneath his shoe. A moment later, Q dug a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. There was a brief exchange with someone, then Q too turned and went back the way he had come, looking back at Lexie's house one last time.

  "Well," said Gard. "That was educational."

  "The hell it was," Jack objected. "We just saw Gilly ditching her boyfriend. We got nothing."

  "Nope. We just saw Gilly telling him she won't do his dirty work anymore. And we've got a whole letter, Q."

  Jack gazed after Q, thinking fast. If Gard was right about Gilly and Q, then they also had another lead to chase down: whoever Q had called on the cell phone.