Convenient Lies

by Robin Patchen

  “Maybe if you’d given me the opportunity to explain.” The baby squeaked at Brady’s raised voice, so he lowered it. “You just took off without a word.”

  “What did you expect?”

  He watched her a long moment, saw the defiance in her gaze and just beyond it, the pain. He softened his voice. “After all we’d been through, I expected you to talk to me. I deserved that.”

  Fourteen

  Julien took a slow sip of his American beer and set the mug on the table, refusing to look at the door.

  In the busy hotel lounge, Julien had chosen a seat where he could keep an eye on the lobby. He glanced at the bar’s patrons, suited men and women, leather shoes, laptop cases propped against chairs. Because one can never stop working.

  He’d landed at LaGuardia a few hours before. Both Farah and Hector understood the importance of secrecy, so neither of them would have told his father they hadn’t located Rachel yet. What had prompted Papa’s insistence on this stateside meeting?

  Julien resisted the urge to tap his feet. Farah and Hector were at Columbia right now, trying to track down an address for Rae. If Farah’s charms didn’t work, Hector’s brawn would. They’d have her address by dinner.

  From the corner of his eye, Julien saw his father enter the hotel. He wasn’t a tall man, and flanked by his two most loyal guards, he looked even shorter. He wore a gray suit and blue tie over a crisp white shirt, which set off his complexion. Like Julien, he could pass for nearly any dark-complexioned nationality, thanks to his Spanish, African, and French heritage. He walked with authority, and people seemed to step out of his way without even realizing they were doing so.

  His guards wore designer suits too. Unlike Hector, these men were lean. One would never guess their strength. And their weapons were well-hidden beneath their jackets. They looked like three high-powered businessmen.

  Julien knew the truth.

  When Papa saw him, he said something to one of the guards, then left them in the lobby. He entered the lounge and slid into the seat across from Julien.

  “What are you drinking?” Papa asked.

  “Sam Adams Octoberfest.” It was one of his favorites, and Julien didn’t mind a bit that drinking beer would irritate his father. “Would you like one?”

  Papa made no effort to hide his disgust. “I don’t know how you can stomach it.”

  “I developed a taste at Princeton.”

  “You’re no longer a college boy.”

  “When in Rome.” He set the bottle down and signaled for the waitress. After his father gave his order in perfect English—Scotch, neat, of course—Julien said, “What are you doing here, Papa?”

  “I’d hoped to meet your wife.” He looked around. “She is here, no?”

  “She’s at her grandmother’s bedside.”

  “In California?”

  His father could not possibly have found out about what happened in California. But Julien needed an excuse for being in Manhattan. “In her haste to get here, Rae neglected to tell me her parents had moved her grandmother to New York to be closer to her sister. I’d be with my wife right now, if not for your summons.”

  His black eyes focused on Julien’s, a hint of challenge in them. “Is that so?”

  Julien tapped his fingers on the table. “What’s going on?”

  “Your deal fell through.”

  His fingers stilled. Hector had been trying to nail Aziz down on delivery and payment, but the man had been elusive. Now Julien knew why. “What happened? And how did you find out?”

  “Geoffrey had a conversation with your contact. Seems Aziz was eager to make a trade, but you refused.”

  “It was unnecessary, and it adds more manpower and risk.”

  “This has nothing to do with risk.”

  Julien remained still, though not without effort. “Everybody has to have a line.”

  “Your brother has drawn his line in a place that makes me more money.”

  “My brother cares only about money. And power. That is not how you raised us, Papa. I take risks, but I don’t take unnecessary risks just to earn your approval.”

  Papa leaned forward. “Maybe you should try a little harder to earn my approval.”

  Julien settled back against the chair. He would not grovel. “All my life, you have groomed me to take over your business.”

  “The job is still yours, my son. If you’re willing to do it. But you need to embrace it for what it is. You need to...” His voice trailed off when the waitress delivered the drink. Papa waited until she walked away. He leaned closer to Julien and lowered his voice. “You need to adjust your line for the changing times.” He lifted his drink to his lips, sipped slowly.

  At his father’s deadly calm, Julien’s veins gushed with adrenaline, but Julien wouldn’t back down. He’d faced men with weapons and armies and vast power, and Julien had always held his ground. Papa was a man, just like any other. Or so Julien had been telling himself as long as he could remember.

  “We are equalizers, my son. We make it possible for the least among us to make their feelings heard. We keep tyrants in line.”

  “We have plenty of tyrants as customers.”

  “It’s not our job to decide who—”

  “Yes, yes.” Julien waved off his father’s mantra. “So you’ve always said. But how does the opium fit in?”

  Papa sipped his drink, set it down. “I’ve never understood your opposition to that aspect of the business.”

  Julien looked at the customers in the bar, ordering their second and third and fourth drinks for the evening. He glanced at his own. But it was different. It was.

  “I went to college with a man who sold cocaine,” Julien said. “The men who bought it told themselves it was different. They weren’t going to end up like those people in crack houses. A friend tried it. He told me cocaine made him his best self, amplified his skills and gave him energy to get more done. I think he’d done it four or five times. And then, one night, he had a heart attack and died. He was twenty-one.”

  “How people choose to use it—”

  “It gets people addicted. The people who deal it are dangerous. I have worked hard to develop my business, and I want to focus my energy on what I know, deal with people I have relationships with. Dealing drugs is an ugly game, and I don’t want a part of it.”

  “What you do kills.”

  “Maybe I save lives,” Julien said. “Like you always said, we give the weak and defenseless a voice. We can be equalizers.”

  “The people who sell the opium, it’s all they have. It’s their livelihood.”

  “It’s a crude and vulgar way to pay the bills.”

  Papa’s eyes narrowed, and again Julien felt a surge of adrenaline. He hadn’t given in to the flight response since he was a child. He’d been tempted when he’d been caught playing with his father’s pistol at nine years old. He’d wanted to run. Fear had held him in place. He’d turned to his father and pointed the gun at the ground.

  To teach him how dangerous the weapon was, Papa made him fire it.

  At the family dog.

  But Julien hadn’t run. Not even as he’d watched his beloved German shepherd bleed to death. Not as he imagined what would have happened if he’d turned the gun on his father instead.

  That night, Papa had buried the dog himself. As they stood beside the grave, his father, sweating and dirty, laid his hand on Julien’s shoulder. “It’s a terrible business, killing. It’s not something to take lightly. When you wield a weapon, you must be prepared for the consequences. Better to learn it through the loss of a dog than a friend, no?”

  It was a lesson Julien had never forgotten.

  “So you’re ashamed of me?” His father’s words pulled him back to the moment.

  “I’m proud to be your son.” The words were true, most of the time. When he watched Papa kiss Maman’s hand, he was proud to be his son. When he felt the respect of business associates who learned Julien was Alejandro’s son, he pu
ffed up with pride.

  “Just not Geoffrey’s brother,” his father said.

  “I would die for my brother. I would die for you, for the family. You know my commitment.” Julien sipped his beer. “But I do not want to expand into the opium trade.”

  “Your brother is making a lot of money.”

  “My brother is as crude and vulgar as the drugs he deals.”

  Julien hadn’t meant to say that. His father’s stony face didn’t dissuade him from continuing. “How do you justify the girls?”

  Papa lifted his drink. “People are entitled to their entertainment.”

  Entertainment. Julien swallowed his retort. Another loathsome business fueled by perverts and addicts. He wanted no relationships with such lowly people, but now wasn’t the time to argue the point. He laid his hands on the table, marveling that they were steady. He’d trained his body well. “And you approve of Geoffrey betraying me?”

  “I approve of the money.”

  “You know he can’t run your business. He doesn’t have the sense you have. He doesn’t have the self-control.”

  “He is loathsome and vulgar,” Papa said, “according to you.”

  “Not him. The people he works with—”

  “I’ve always felt you were a better choice to run the business, and now that you have an heir, and more, I assume, on the way, I can continue grooming you for the position. Geoffrey will need to be led. And you will need to find a way to compete with him. It’s time to adjust that moral line.”

  “It’s not about morals. It’s about—”

  “Dealing with people who are beneath you. But you must learn.”

  Julien nodded slowly. “And what if I decide I’m not willing to live with those terms?”

  His father’s gaze never wavered as he leaned forward. “You either choose to take over running the business, or you work for Geoffrey. But as you know, one doesn’t leave the Moreau family.”

  Julien knew too well the truth of that. His cousin had turned against the family when Julien was a schoolboy. He’d escaped, gone to Interpol, agreed to testify in return for a new identity.

  He’d never testified. His body had never been found.

  What did the man expect, turning his back on his family? Trying to escape those unbreakable ties.

  Rae. What was her endgame? Was this just a foolish whim to visit her grandmother, or did she know more than he realized?

  Julien thought about all the files he had back Paris. In Tunis. Surely she hadn’t...

  He pushed back from the table. “I need to be with my wife.”

  “We’ll see your family at your mother’s birthday celebration?”

  Julien stood, pulled a few bills from his wallet, and tossed them on the table. “We’ll be there.”

  Fifteen

  Rae turned over in bed and peeked at the clock. Nearly midnight. Johnny would wake in a couple of hours to eat. She needed to get some sleep, not rehash her conversation with Brady for the thousandth time.

  He’d asked her about her husband, their home, their lives. She hated lying to him, and she really hadn’t liked the fact that he’d known she was lying. He’d finally quit the interrogation, handed her the baby, and headed for the door. “Please call Samantha tomorrow. You need to talk to her.”

  “The only reason I’m talking to you is that you’re too stubborn to go away.”

  He stopped, hand on the door knob, and turned to her. His eyebrows lifted so high they disappeared beneath his hair. “Are you seriously saying I’m stubborn? Honey, you wrote the book.”

  The temptation to visit with her old friend was nearly overwhelming. But what if Julien discovered their friendship? What if Julien discovered Brady had been over?

  Yet, how would he?

  Rae couldn’t think straight.

  Brady took a deep breath. “Sam will stop by tomorrow. For the sake of your friendship, talk to her.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  He chuckled, but the sound died. “Sam’s been punishing herself for what we did for too long. She needs to be set free of it.”

  Rae tried to come up with a quick-witted answer for that, but nothing came to mind as she imagined her old friend, tortured because of the way Rae had treated her. For years, she’d told herself that Sam and Brady had deserved it after betraying her the way they had. But now... Rae understood the need for freedom.

  His lips had twitched, and he’d pulled out his badge and flipped it open. “I might need to take you in for questioning.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t tempt me.” His grin faded. He slipped his badge into his pocket. His gaze was so tender, so reminiscent of the way he’d gazed at her when they were young and in love. That thought had her backing away.

  As if he could read her mind, he took a step back. “Please talk to Sam. Maybe you don’t trust me right now, but think back to when you did, to when you and I told each other everything. Try to remember what that felt like for just a minute.” His hand covered his heart as if touching memories. Or maybe he was protecting it from her. “Do you remember?”

  Every minute of it. She nodded, unable to speak.

  “For the sake of the boy I used to be, the girl you used to be, and the friend Sam used to be, please, just talk to her.”

  Rae wished he’d put his detective mask back on. This vulnerable man had too much of a pull on her heart.

  So of course she’d have to see Sam. Anything to make that tortured picture of Brady go away.

  * * *

  The night of tossing and turning had her pouring a second cup of coffee the next morning. She’d planned to get to the bank, but Brady had called and told her Samantha would be over before lunch. Rae agreed to be there.

  The sunny weather had disappeared behind a thick layer of clouds and drizzle, and though she wanted to continue her search of the barn, it was too cold. At least Julien couldn’t possibly find her this fast. She still felt safe here.

  Though something told her Dad had hidden his box in the barn, it wouldn’t hurt to look in the house too. After breakfast, she carried the baby upstairs and laid him in the middle of what used to be her parents’ bed.

  She pulled open the closet door and stared at the mess within. It was packed. She quickly flipped through the musty clothes hanging from the bar. Mom’s things, mostly. Some of Dad’s nicer suits and ties. Rae bent and looked at the floor. There had to be fifty pairs of shoes. And every purse, pocketbook, and wallet her mother had ever owned lay in a heap on the right. On the left, boxes had been stacked halfway up the space, bumping into the clothes hanging above. Rae opened each box and looked inside. Cheap costume jewelry, old perfume bottles, belts, and purses.

  She stood and peered at the shelf above the clothes rod. More shoes were piled beside a chest. Rae stood on her tiptoes and tried to work the chest off the shelf. It wouldn’t budge.

  Maybe that’s where the treasure was hidden.

  Unfortunately, she’d have to get help with that.

  Rae sighed and moved on to the long bureau that had been her mother’s. She opened the top drawer on the left side and found Mom’s panties and bras just as her mother had left them. She ran her hand along the bottom of the drawer but found nothing unusual.

  Rae glanced at Johnny, who was sucking his fingers and staring at the wall. “You like this room?”

  He turned to her voice. Was that a smile? She approached and tickled his belly. “You having a good time, sweet thing?”

  He bounced again, and his lips twitched. And there it was again, that almost smile, gone before she’d been sure. She picked him up and snuggled him close, amazed at the way his little head fit perfectly in the crook of her neck. She patted his tiny back and rocked him gently. All the stupid decisions she’d made, and somehow she’d still ended up with this precious, priceless life. She’d fallen in love before, had friends she’d cared very deeply about, but the feelings she had for Johnny were unexplainable. Why hadn’t
he been given to a better person, one who was worthy of him? She couldn’t answer that, but she knew she’d never done anything to deserve this perfect child.

  She could feel his soft breaths against her neck, his very life measured in tiny puffs through her hair. So small and vulnerable. She would do anything to protect her child. Anything.

  She held him in front of her and looked into his dark, serious eyes. “We’re not alone, my sweet child. We have each other, and that’s all we need. I’m going to take care of you.”

  He wiggled in her arms, and she smiled and set him down, then wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Back to work for me.”

  She turned to the bureau, took a deep breath, and opened the second drawer, then the third, feeling around for anything hard and finding nothing but socks, pantyhose, and a girdle. The next drawer held scarves. Rae pulled them out one by one, flooded with memories. Rae still missed her mom. After she’d been sent to prison, Rae had visited her a few times, but her mother barely recognized her.

  And then she’d died. Rae had become an orphan at sixteen.

  She was moving on to the next drawer when she heard the crunch of tires on the asphalt. She looked out the window. Samantha.

  She turned to Johnny. “I’d be really grateful if you’d do something to make her get out of here fast. Scream or have a blowout or something.”

  He stared at the ceiling.

  She scooped him up. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” They were halfway down the stairs when she heard the knock at the door.

  Rae took a deep breath, blew it out, and pulled the door open.

  Samantha stood on the other side, her round face a mixture of joy and dread. She smiled, blinked twice, and said, “Thanks for opening the door this time.”

  The sight of her best friend, up close, stole her breath. How she’d longed for Samantha in the years since she’d seen her.

  Rae stood back, and Samantha walked in and smiled at the baby. “Brady didn’t tell me about this guy. How old is he?”

  “A little over two weeks.”