I could feel my insides melt as his eyes took in my body. I inwardly berated my weakness for the man. Not even back in my life for a day and he was already breaking through my defenses.
David took a deep breath and then grabbed my hand. He began escorting me across the dirty, yellow tiled floor to some tables far away from the windows on the opposite wall. “Come on, I’m starving,” he mumbled over his shoulder.
“You were always starving as I recall.” I caught sight of my hand in his. I still felt as if I were dreaming. But when he squeezed my hand as we approached a table in the corner of the room, I knew that this was no dream.
He held a chair out for me and I took my seat. I stared at the tabletop before me where past patrons had carved their initials. So many emotions were jumbled up inside of me, vying for distinction, that to keep from coming completely unhinged, I had to continue to focus on the table before me. I wondered if the dreams I had nurtured over the past three years would live up to the reality of the man seated across from me. My uncle’s words came back to me, and I thought perhaps he had been right. Maybe I had built David into something larger than life. An image no man could live up to.
A round woman with silky gray hair and a broad smile strolled up to our table.
“What’ll ya’ll have?” she asked in a heavy southern drawl.
“Coffee, black for the lady,” David began. “I will have tea with milk, no sugar, and a sweet roll.”
“Better bring him two sweet rolls,” I advised. “He always orders one, but eats two.”
The waitress jotted down our order on her pad. “Be back in just a minute,” she said with a smile and turned away.
David looked over at me and grinned. “You remembered.”
I shrugged. “Of course. How could I forget the first time we came here?”
David zeroed his gray eyes on mine. “I don’t know. In my experience, when a woman finds another man to replace the love she left behind, memories tend to get muddy. You forget what you had with one man so you can remember what you have with another.”
“That’s not fair, David. I thought you were dead. And what else did you expect me to do? Spend the rest of my life mourning you and become some kind of nun?”
“Of course not, but Dallas? I can’t believe you ended up with him. Of all the men on the planet, you go after my friend or ex-friend now.”
“I didn’t go after him! I never knew he existed until Simon shoved us together to find out who killed you.”
“I know that. But you were only supposed to be his cover when you two went after Michael. I never expected you would turn into his fiancée. How many men do you plan on being engaged to, Nicci?”
I threw my hands up. “I’m not engaged to Dallas! He wants to marry me…wait.” I stared at him. “How did you know about our cover?”
He turned away from me and gazed about the small coffee shop. “I was against Simon putting the two of you together from the start.”
I anxiously moved in closer to the table. “What do you mean you were against Simon putting us together? You knew about us? Have you gone back to Simon? Is that where you have been all this time?”
He looked at me as he folded his arms across his chest. “All right, let’s clear the air. Before I tell you where I have been and what I have been doing for the past three years, let’s find out if this…” He motioned across the table to me. “If we are salvageable. I don’t see the point of telling you everything if you’re going to run back to Dallas and reveal all my secrets.”
My mouth fell open. “Have you forgotten what we had? How we felt about each other? You owe me a Goddamn explanation, David.”
He frowned as he sat back in his chair and glared at me. “Just tell me one thing. Do you love him?”
I sighed and sat back in my chair. “I’m not in love with Dallas,” I confessed. “I’ve never had the depth of feeling for him that I had for you. Is that what you needed to hear?”
David grinned, slightly. “Not exactly, but it’s a start.”
“What did you want? A string quartet playing in the background as I threw myself at your feet?”
He leaned in closer to me, smirking. “I’m glad to see you’re still ripping people to shreds with that sharp tongue of yours.”
I leaned toward him, scowling. “What did you expect, David? You show up after three years without a single word and want me to act like nothing has happened. Now tell me where you have been,” I angrily demanded.
David sat back in his chair and his face softened. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table as he considered my request. “Nicci, what I’m going to tell you…” He shook his head. “Well, even I have trouble comprehending at times.”
The waitress returned to our table with my coffee, David’s tea, and a plate of sweet rolls.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“No, this is great. Thanks,” David commented as he reached for his tea.
I waited for our waitress to leave before I spoke again. “So why don’t you start at the beginning,” I suggested. “The day you were shot. The police said you had pulled over to the side of the road to help Michael change a flat tire on his car.”
David took a sip of his tea and then put the white ceramic cup back on its saucer. “I don’t recall any of that. The last thing I remember was waking up that morning to find you had already left. You had gone to New Orleans to meet with your father.” He furrowed his brow. “I went to pick up your ring. I have memories of a jewelry store and a pear shaped diamond solitaire. The next thing I remember was waking up in the ICU after the first surgery.”
“First surgery? You said last night you’ve had fifteen reconstructive surgeries. What was the extent of your injuries? What kind of surgeries did you have?”
He shook his head and held up his hand to me. “I had a long recovery and that’s all I will say about it. I don’t want you to see me as any different from the man you once knew. When I was in the hospital in New York I swore—”
“New York City?” I interrupted. “What were you doing there?”
He shrugged slightly. “I was told I was transferred to the hospital there from the emergency room in Hammond.”
“How did you get to the ER in Hammond? And who did I identify in the morgue?”
He scratched his head. “Apparently another gunshot victim was put in my place on the side of the road that day.”
“What do you mean put in your place? By whom?”
“Simon. He had been keeping an eye on me ever since I had left his employ. After Michael shot me, he had me removed from the scene and sent to the hospital in Hammond. When I was stable enough to travel, he arranged for me to be transferred via private jet to a hospital in New York City. He needed me in a place where he had the connections to keep me hidden, but could also get me the best of care.” He paused and cautiously eyed the other patrons in the small coffee house. “I knew my leaving Simon’s organization had created problems for him. Many of Simon’s clients would have been none too pleased about having all of their dirty little secrets still walking around in my head. Probably felt that if I didn’t make a go of it as an artist, blackmail would be my next best source of income.”
I shook my head. “But Simon told me he had no problem with your leaving his organization. Simon let Dallas leave.”
David smirked as he reached for one of the sweet rolls. “Simon had a big problem with my walking away from him and his organization. Dallas, on the other hand, he desperately needed to get rid of.”
“I don’t understand.” I looked down in my coffee as I tried to put the pieces together inside of my head.
“After the shooting, Simon could not chance anyone finding out that I was alive, especially my good friend, Dallas. So Simon sent Dallas out to search for my killer. It kept Dallas busy for a while, but then he began to grow suspicious. That is when Simon brought you into the picture. He knew Dallas would never be able to resist you.” He took a bite of his sweet roll.
“That’s why Simon lured me to New York last December? To meet Dallas?”
He nodded and put the roll back down on the plate before him. “When Dallas kept refusing to have you involved with the investigation into my death, Simon became curious and wondered if it had something to do with his feelings for you. After Simon learned how Dallas really felt about you, he brought you to New York. He figured a man like Dallas would win you over sooner or later. With the two of you out of the way, he assumed I would have no reason to leave him.”
“But why go through all of this trouble? When I first met Simon, he told me that he thought of you as a son. He helped you growing up. He talked about how he took you in at seventeen and taught you about wine, food, and—”
“Simon is a pimp, Nicci,” David growled. “All of this was to get me back.” He waved his hand over the reconstructed side of his face. “And thinking he could get you out of my life for good, he arranged for another man to take my place in the morgue. He took advantage of what Michael Fagles had done to get you out of the picture. He must have had someone killed with the same looks, and build as me, and placed them on the side of the road with all of my belongings. And that was the person you identified.” David nodded. “Gerard probably found someone to double for me and then killed him. He does all of Simon’s dirty work”
My eyes went wide as I thought of the well-dressed man I had first met at Simon’s luxury New York apartment. “Gerard, the butler?” I questioned.
“Gerard’s a henchman, not a butler. And an occasional hit man when the need arises. I saw him following me in Hammond. That’s when I knew Simon was watching me. I started making plans to get away and was going to tell you everything, but then Michael showed up and I never got the chance.” He paused and took in a deep breath. “Once everyone who knew me was convinced that I was dead, Simon made arrangements to get me out of Hammond and to a hospital in New York. I eventually ended up in an exclusive rehabilitation facility in Buffalo. Simon paid for everything. He even bought me a new identity.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked, leaning in closer to him. “I could have helped you.”
“At first I didn’t want you to see me, Nicci,” David said firmly, his Irish accent sounding heavier than ever. He looked down at the table. “I don’t think I could have tolerated you seeing me with half a face. I was hideous and…”
“I wouldn’t have cared what you looked like,” I declared.
“But I cared, and Simon used that to his advantage. He started telling me things about you. Things I didn’t want to believe.”
“What things?” I asked, cutting through the uncomfortable feeling settling between us.
He reached for his teacup. “He told me about how you had moved on, and that you had started seeing other men.” David raised his head and his eyes were filled with so much pain. “Then one day he announced you were engaged to a prominent physician in New Orleans. I figured you had gone back to Michael.” He took a sip of his tea.
“You’re joking! After all the stories I told you about how he treated me. How he used me to build up his practice with rich and lonely housewives from the city’s social set? You actually believed I could go back to him?”
He placed his tea on the table. “Yes. By then over a year had passed since the shooting and I was…” He paused for a moment and glanced down at his tea. “I was still recuperating and still facing more reconstructive surgeries. I didn’t know if I would ever be the same. I’m not the same. And I didn’t know if you would ever be able to look at me without…pity. Simon knew how I felt and used it to his advantage. He kept telling me that you were young, beautiful, and deserved a man that would complement you instead of hinder you.”
“And you believed him? You stupid ass!”
“I thought you had gone back to Michael,” David argued, raising his voice. “I wondered what I had meant to you if you could have gone back to that …that moron!” He then nervously looked around at the other patrons in the coffee shop.
I picked up my cup of coffee. “So Simon manipulated you into believing I was out of reach.” I took a sip of my black coffee.
He nodded. “And it worked for a while. Until I read Painting Jenny.”
I put my cup down on the table. “You read my book?”
He picked up his half eaten sweet roll. “I figured if you loved me as much as Jenny loved that artist in your book, then we still had a chance. I told Simon I wanted to get back to New Orleans to see you. That’s when everything changed for me. Simon became obsessed with keeping me under his thumb. Once, he even threatened to have you killed if I ever tried to contact you. I always knew Simon thought of me as his. He feels he created me, but after the shooting, he began to act like he owned me.”
“Owned you? I don’t understand.”
“For years before you came along, Simon was grooming me to take over his organization. I know every facet of his business in detail. He can’t afford to let me just walk away.” David popped the remainder of the pastry in his mouth.
As I watched him munching on his sweet roll, an uneasy feeling settled over me. “What do you mean Simon was grooming you to take over?”
David grinned. “You said before Simon told you that he thought of me as a son. Well, legally that’s true. I’m Simon’s heir. Setting you up with Dallas, and manipulating me with his lies, was all to fulfill his sick dream of securing his legacy. He wants me to continue running his organization after his death.”
“So how did you get back to New Orleans?” I reached anxiously for my cup. “Simon is a man with a great sphere of influence,” I remarked before I took another sip of my coffee.
“After Katrina hit, I was going out of my mind worrying about you. Simon was away on business and I figured if I could get back in a day or two, I wouldn’t be missed. I found a way to get down here and went to the house in Hammond to check on you. I thought if I could just see that you were all right, then I could head back to New York and return to my life with Simon. But the moment I first saw you, sitting on the front porch swing looking out at the sunset, I knew I had to get away from Simon. After that, I started regularly sneaking out of New York to get back to New Orleans to check on you.”
I put my coffee cup down “You went to my house?”
“Our house,” he stubbornly asserted.
“My house,” I corrected. “You left it to me, along with the rest of your assets, in your will.”
“And then you sold it? I loved that house, Nicci.”
“I sold it because after everything that happened there…I’m not going to defend my selling the house in Hammond to you. Now go back to what you said before. You went to the house in Hammond to see me?”
“Dozens of times after the hurricane. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
“And were you the one snooping around in my back shed after the storm?”
“You damned near killed me, Nicci.” David laughed. “Bullet grazed my ankle. Bled like hell.” He paused and frowned at me. “Since when do you own a gun?” he asked.
“Since I felt people were sneaking around my house at night.” A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Where you there the night I shot Michael?” I questioned.
He nodded his head slightly. “After Simon sent you and Dallas to New Orleans in search of my murderer, I decided to come back and check on your progress. I wanted to go to the house to see what you and Dallas had planned.” He paused and furrowed his brow. “Saw more than I expected of you and Dallas together on that couch. If you know I what I mean,” he grumbled.
“I know what you mean!” I snapped as I remembered that night. Dallas and I had spent several frustrated days cooped up waiting for David’s killer to strike. We had shared an intimate moment on the couch right before Michael had surprised us. I cringed as I imagined David watching us from the window as we made love. Then I felt the blush rise up my cheeks as my slight embarrassment turned into abject humiliation.
“When Michael sh
owed up,” David went on. “I knew something wasn’t right, so I decided to stick around. I followed him into the house and I was in the shadows by the stairs when you shot him. I added one more bullet just to make sure the bastard was dead.”
I stared at him. “A .357 Magnum bullet?”
David nodded in agreement. “I got out of there before the police started showing up. I couldn’t chance being caught.”
“So were you the second shadow I saw by the garage that night!”
“Probably.” He shrugged. “But then again there could have been more of us former fiancé’s floating around the place that night,” he added with a playful grin.
“I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you let me know you were alive before now? I could have helped you. You could have sent me a note, a letter, an e-mail, text, anything. Why now, David?”
He sat back in his chair and took a moment before he spoke. “After I shot Michael, I realized Simon had been lying to me about the two of you.” He paused and took in a deep breath. “About three months ago, I hatched a plan to free myself of Simon by utilizing his biggest weakness, his hatred for Greg Caston. The two men have been threatening to eliminate each other for years. I had heard from Simon that Caston was a really big fan of my work. So I arranged for Caston to be introduced to some recently discovered Jennys by a gallery owner I know here in the city. I knew Caston would relish the opportunity to introduce the missing David Alexander’s to the world. Then I had the news of the paintings, and Caston’s involvement, leaked to Simon. I told Simon the Jennys were not mine, knowing he would jump at the chance to ruin Caston by exposing him as a dealer of forged paintings.”
“But where did the paintings come from?” I asked.
He slyly smiled. “I painted them.”
“So they’re not really forgeries?”
“Technically, no. But David Alexander has been dead for three years, and these works were never catalogued with any of my previous paintings, so it will be hard for anyone to absolutely prove they aren’t forgeries.”
“Except for me. I was with you when you painted almost every one of your Jennys. If I say they are legitimate, then no one will dispute their authenticity.”
Sacrifice Page 11
