Charade

by Sandra Brown

  “Well, for one thing, he disliked me on sight. Not that I give a damn, but it’s peculiar.”

  “Why peculiar? Does everyone you meet automatically like you?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice, because you did. To cover for him, you jumped in with that joke about helping me with research. Then he nearly had apoplexy when you picked up that photo album. He didn’t want you to see that picture of his late daughter.”

  Cat called upon her acting skills to keep her face impassive. She hadn’t been watching Bill as Alex had, so she couldn’t accurately say what his reaction had been to her interest in the album. However, it hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d been virtually silent following the episode, leaving it to Nancy to handle the situation.

  Nancy had quietly acknowledged the striking resemblance between their daughter and Cat, saying, “Bill and I noticed it when you first joined the cast of Passages. We even teased Carla about it, accusing her of having a double life she hadn’t told us about. Remember, dear?”

  He had given a gruff, muttered, affirmative reply.

  Following that, she and Alex had declined a refill on coffee and insisted that they should call it a night. Cat had profusely thanked the Websters for hosting the party. Nancy felt confident that with the assistance and endorsement of those who’d attended, she could arrange a fund-raiser to top all fund-raisers.

  “I enjoyed myself,” Alex had said to his hosts. “Thank you for including me.”

  At the door, Nancy had hugged them in turn. She’d kept up her composure. Bill, on the other hand, had appeared shaken and…what? Guilty?

  And why had he been so cool to Alex?

  “Did you know about Carla before tonight?” Alex asked now.

  “I knew they’d lost their eldest child. She was killed in an auto accident returning to the university in Austin.”

  “Webster told you that?”

  She nodded. “Even before I moved here. Apparently they haven’t fully recovered. But who could? Your daughter comes home for the weekend. You do her laundry, listen to her going on about the boy she’s seeing, about the professor she hates. You tell her goodbye, instruct her to drive carefully, give her a hug. The next time you see her, you’re identifying her body in the morgue.”

  Cat shuddered and added softly, “I can’t imagine anything worse than having to bury your child.”

  Alex was respectfully silent for a moment, then threw her a curve ball. “Does Webster have the hots for you?”

  “No!”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “He doesn’t,” she insisted. “That would be really sick, considering my resemblance to his daughter.”

  “Maybe that’s what first interested him. His attraction was innocent enough when you met. Over time, it’s evolved into something else.”

  “It hasn’t.”

  Alex maintained his skeptical silence. Finally, she qualified her answer. “Or if it has, he’s never given me any indication of it.”

  “I doubt he’d chase you around the office or try to cop a feel while no one’s looking. He’s too proud for that.”

  “He’s never made a pass, sneakily or overtly.”

  “But you two share more than a routine employer-employee relationship.”

  “I consider him a friend,” Cat said cautiously. “But nothing romantic has ever even been suggested. From all appearances, he and Nancy have a perfect relationship.”

  “No relationship is perfect.”

  She gave him an arch look. “Speaking from experience?”

  “Unfortunately yes. Too many.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “But back to you and Bill Webster—”

  “There is no me and Bill Webster,” she argued. “He’s given me a wonderful opportunity. I like and respect him. That’s it.”

  “I don’t think so, Cat.” She was about to protest, but he said, “I’m not calling you a liar. It’s him. Something about him bugs me.”

  “He’s a handsome man in a stately, distinguished way. He’s extremely successful. He’s vested with a lot of power. He emanates an air of authority.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said testily. “Are you implying that I’m jealous of him?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’ve got it backward, sweetheart. He was jealous of me tonight because I was your date.”

  “Bull!”

  “Okay, fine. It’s bull. But I’m telling you, Webster’s got something to hide.”

  They had reached a Mexican standoff. Cat wouldn’t admit what she was thinking—that Bill’s behavior this evening had been curious and disturbing. She needed time to make sense of it.

  Alex, however, wouldn’t leave it alone.

  “Why do you suppose he acted so weird when you saw that picture of Carla?”

  “Because if the similarity between us was the reason he first noticed me, he was embarrassed. That sentimental trait doesn’t fit the image of a tough CEO, an image he’s carefully cultivated and stringently maintained.”

  “Maybe.”

  She struck the steering wheel with her fist. “Are you always right? Don’t you ever say something like, ‘I never looked at it from that angle. I might be wrong’?”

  “Not this time,” he said stubbornly. “There’s something about Webster that doesn’t ring true. I feel it in my gut. The picture’s too perfect. His life is like an illustration of a contemporary fairy tale. I keep looking for the camouflaged troll.”

  “You’ve slipped into your cop mode, you know.”

  “Probably. Instinct. It’s a hard habit to break. I look at everybody with a certain degree of suspicion.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people are just naturally suspicious. Everyone has something to hide.”

  “You mean like a secret?”

  Her mischievous whisper didn’t make a dent in his solemn expression. “Exactly like a secret. We all have something we’d rather keep under lock and key.”

  “Not me. My life’s an open book. I’ve been poked and probed and X-rayed inside and out. They literally pried open my chest and looked around inside. If I had anything to hide, it would have been discovered long before now.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve got a secret, Cat,” he insisted. “Maybe it’s such a deep, dark secret that it’s buried in your subconscious. Even you don’t know what it is. You don’t want to reveal it to yourself because then you’d have to deal with it. We—meaning all of us—bury the ugly aspects of ourselves because we can’t bear to face them.”

  “Gee, I’m so glad I asked you to come with me tonight. You’re a barrel of laughs.”

  “I tried joking with you earlier,” he reminded her. “You didn’t seem to appreciate my sense of humor.”

  She threw him a reproving frown. “I think you’re taking your Cop Psychology course far too seriously.”

  “Maybe. But fiction writers are psychologists too, you know. Hour after hour, day after day, I plot the lives of people. I study their behavior patterns and try to figure out what makes them tick. Think about this,” he said, turning toward her. “You hit your thumb with a hammer. What do you do next?”

  “Chances are I’ll yowl, scream something profane, and hop around holding tight to my thumb.”

  “Exactly. That’s cause and effect. Given that stimulus, we all behave basically the same way. On the other hand, events occur in our lives that are unique to us. They may be accidental or coincidental, but our responses to them are also programmed.

  “And each of us is programmed differently depending on our sex, I.Q., economic background, birth order, and so on. Each of us has reasons for reacting and behaving the way we do. That’s motivation. As an author, I have to know what motivates a particular character to respond to a particular situation in a particular way.”

  “You study human nature.”

  “In all its forms.”

  “And it’s human nature to bury our secrets?”

  “Like a dog do
es a bone. Except we rarely want to dig them up and gnaw on them.”

  “What’s your secret, Sigmund?”

  “Can’t tell. It’s a secret.”

  She stopped at an intersection and turned to look at him. “I think you probably have more than one.”

  He didn’t take the bait. Instead, he held her gaze with his. “Are we going to sleep together tonight?”

  She regarded him thoughtfully until the traffic light changed and the driver behind them tooted his horn. “I don’t believe so,” she said as she stepped on the accelerator.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve talked so much about studying me, I’m self-conscious. Would I be the first television personality you’ve taken to bed? The first heart transplantee? The first redhead who wears a size seven narrow shoe? Do you want to sleep with me so you can store the experience in your mental encyclopedia on human nature?”

  He didn’t jump in with a denial, and it bothered her that he didn’t. She wanted him to adamantly repudiate the charge. She glanced across at him. He was watching her, saying nothing, revealing nothing. His stony silence reinforced her decision.

  “Sorry, Alex. I don’t want to see myself in the bedroom-conquest scene of your next book.”

  He turned from her and stared out through the windshield. His jaw was flexing angrily, and she feared it was because she’d hit the nail squarely on the head. At least he had the decency not to lie about his motives. Nevertheless, she was terribly disappointed.

  “You make me sound like a real shit,” he said.

  “I think more than likely you are.”

  He whipped his head around, and when he saw that she was smiling, he chuckled softly. “Well, you’re right. But even shits are given the benefit of the doubt sometimes.”

  “Okay. Coffee at my house?”

  “Yeah. I’ll take a cab home from there.”

  “Coffee. Nothing else.”

  “I’m not an animal, you know. I can curb my urges when I must.” He was joking, but then he turned serious again. “I really enjoy talking to you, Cat.”

  “Is this a new tack?”

  “No. It’s not a line. I mean it. You’re quick. Smart. Competitive. A good sport.”

  “Hmm, quick, smart, and competitive. And a good sport. Maybe I should give up trying to be a sex symbol and audition for Jeopardy instead.”

  For the remainder of the drive they kept the conversation light. They were still laughing over an anecdote from the dinner party when they turned down her street.

  Cat braked suddenly. “Who’s that?”

  A dark sedan was parked at the curb in front of her house. Although it was visible from half a block away, it was partially obscured by the shadows of the overhanging branches of the live oak trees in her yard.

  “You don’t recognize the car?” Alex asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Expecting company?”

  “No.”

  She had told herself that the two clippings sent to her anonymously were nothing to worry about, but she knew it would be foolish to dismiss them entirely. Nutcases were known to have committed heinous crimes due to their fixations on celebrities.

  She’d been taking extra safety precautions—making certain her doors and windows remained locked, scanning parking lots before leaving buildings, and checking her backseat before getting into her car. She hadn’t gone completely paranoid, but exercising common sense couldn’t hurt.

  “Hey. What’s got you so spooked?” Alex asked.

  “I’m not spooked. I just—”

  “Don’t lie to me. You’re practically choking the steering wheel. I can see your pulse racing in your carotid. What gives?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Cat!”

  “Nothing!”

  “Liar. Pull over.”

  “I—”

  “Do it!”

  She parked at the curb but left the engine running.

  “Cut the lights. Be quiet. Stay put.” He opened his door and got out.

  “Alex, what are you going to do? Alex?”

  Ignoring her, he sprinted across the neighbors’ front lawns toward her house. Soon he melded with the shadows and she could no longer see him.

  Her initial anxiety had abated. She had been spooked, but only for a moment. Her skittishness now seemed silly. For all she knew, the car belonged to someone visiting a neighbor.

  Impatiently she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Be quiet. Stay put. Sit, roll over, play dead,” she muttered with pique. She didn’t need him to rescue her.

  In seconds she was out of the car. Following the path Alex had taken, she ran on tiptoe, sticking to the shadows. The closer she got to her house the more ridiculous she felt. Would someone with a grudge against her park in front of her house, announcing his presence?

  On the other hand, how could she account for the eerie feeling of being watched that she’d experienced lately? Those damn white envelopes and their cryptic warnings were playing mind games with her. She’d always scorned cowardice. It wasn’t like her to be jumpy, to imagine bogeymen lurking in shadows, ready to pounce.

  Yet, her nervousness increased the closer she came to her house. Except for the soft glow of the porch light, all was in darkness. There was no sound; nothing moved.

  Then, coming from the backyard, she heard raised voices. A shout. A grunt. Scuffling sounds. Shortly, two figures materialized out of the darkness. Alex was struggling with another man as he virtually dragged him into the front yard.

  “I found him trying to break in the rear door,” he told her.

  “You son of a bitch,” the other man growled. “Let go of me.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Alex threw him facedown onto the ground and crouched over him, planting his knee in the small of the man’s back. He shoved his right hand up between his shoulder blades. “If you so much as move, I’ll break your frigging arm,” he threatened. “Cat, call 911.”

  Galvanized, she ran up the front walk, but almost tripped on the steps when her name was once again called out, this time by a voice ragged with indignation and pain, but nevertheless familiar.

  “Cat, for crissake, call this cocksucker off me.”

  She whirled around, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Dean?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cat swabbed the scrape on Dean Spicer’s cheek with peroxide. The cardiologist winced and cursed beneath his breath. Alex, straddling a chair backward, struggled to contain his smile.

  They were gathered around Cat’s kitchen table. It was exactly the kind of kitchen Alex would have assigned her if she were one of his fictional characters.

  The basic color was white, accented with splashes of color—a Georgia O’Keeffe poppy on one wall, African violets blooming on the windowsill, a whimsical black and white teapot patterned like a Holstein cow.

  Spicer brushed aside Cat’s hands. “It’s fine,” he grumbled. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “You mean liquor? No.”

  “Aspirin?” She shook her head remorsefully. He sighed. “Well, I guess you weren’t expecting a guest to be attacked and wrestled to the ground.” He glared at Alex. “I think an apology is in order.”

  “I won’t apologize for reacting to what I saw, which was you trying to pick the lock on Cat’s back door.”

  True, he’d roughed Spicer up before discovering that he was friend, not foe, but he hadn’t really hurt him. All that was wounded was his pride, and Alex couldn’t work up any sympathy for that.

  “You shouldn’t have been prowling around in the dark trying to break into her house,” he said.

  “You should have asked for some identification before attacking me.”

  Alex snickered. “That’s a good way to get your head blown off. You don’t walk up to a perp and politely ask to see some ID. You contain him, then ask questions. You wouldn’t last ten minutes on the streets doing it any other way.”

  “I wouldn�
�t know. Unlike you, I’m not from the streets.”

  Alex came out of his chair so fast that it went over backward. “You’d better be glad Cat recognized you when she did. I was about to sew your asshole shut for calling me a cocksucker.”

  “Guys!” Cat exclaimed. “We’re all friends here, right? A mistake was made, but it’s the kind of thing that we’ll laugh over in a few weeks.”

  Alex doubted that either he or Spicer would ever think this was funny, but he didn’t argue with Cat. She was already as jumpy as her namesake. He righted his chair and sat back down. He and Spicer continued to eye each other with animosity.

  As Cat recapped the bottle of peroxide and set it aside, she mildly chided her unexpected guest. “If only you’d called and told me you were coming, this could have been avoided.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well you certainly succeeded in doing that!” she said brightly.

  Too brightly. Her smile seemed forced. Alex guessed that she wasn’t too thrilled to see Dr. Spicer, whom she’d introduced only as her friend. Alex didn’t need it spelled out that Spicer had been more to her than that. Her voice sounded thin and strained now as she politely asked about his flight.

  “Did you get a meal on the plane? Can I fix you something?”

  “I didn’t eat the meal they served, but I’ve had your cooking. Thanks anyway.”

  “Coffee?”

  “None for me.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Well then, we should go into the living room.” Neither of them moved, so she joined them at the kitchen table. “I can’t believe you actually came to San Antonio,” she said to Spicer. “I didn’t think you’d be caught dead out here in the provinces.”

  “From what I’ve seen so far, it lives up to my low expectations.”

  “Thanks a lot!” Her umbrage was in jest, but he took it seriously.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Your house is nice.” He gave the kitchen a critical glance. “Nothing compared to your place in Malibu, of course.”

  “True. There is a shortage of beachfront property in San Antonio.” Cat laughed nervously at her joke. Neither Alex nor Spicer cracked a smile. They left it to her to carry the conversation. “When did you decide to make the trip, Dean?”