Charade

by Sandra Brown

  “Who?”

  “Paul Reyes.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know all the twigs on my family tree.”

  “You’d remember this twig,” Cat said. “He made headlines after killing his wife with a baseball bat. He stood trial for murder, but was acquitted.”

  “Look, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I don’t know anybody named Reyes. So why don’t you get the hell out of my house?”

  Cat plowed on relentlessly. “Paul Reyes donated his wife’s heart for transplantation.”

  “As if I care.”

  “I think you care very much. I think he cares very much, too. He cares so much, he wants to stop his unfaithful wife’s heart. How does it work? Let’s see. You find the transplantees and set them up, then he comes in to make the kill, right?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Of course it’s you!” Cat said. “You had access to everything that crossed my desk. You were privy to incoming and outgoing calls. You knew everything that went on in my life.”

  “All I know is that you’re a freaking nutcase,” Melia shouted.

  “All station personnel were invited to the barbecue, so you saw me there with Michael. Today, you heard about my encounter with Cyclops. You knew Truitt was no fan of mine or Cat’s Kids. He’d be eager to hear even a breath of scandal about me.

  “So you had someone call him, probably Reyes himself. He identified himself as Cyclops and told that outlandish story. Then, when Truitt began investigating the allegations, you were all too willing to corroborate them. What could be worse—a program designed to help children is actually a hotbed of molestation and abuse.”

  “You’ve got one active imagination, lady.”

  “I didn’t imagine that studio light falling on me.”

  “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “I didn’t imagine my medication being thrown into a Dumpster.”

  “I was pissed at you.”

  “Why?”

  “For being such a bitch!”

  “Or for having a heart that you and your family want stopped.”

  “I already told you, I don’t even know anybody named Reyes.”

  “Judy Reyes was screwing around. The whole family was offended, right? You appointed yourself the avenger.”

  “I can’t believe this!”

  “Oh, I can,” Cat said. “Once I got the clue about your name, everything else fell into place. You’ve been harassing me. The light, the clippings sent anonymously, the story told to Truitt. Those were planned to weaken me. Break me down. Make me vulnerable.

  “Then, when I showed up dead—maybe by suicide?—everyone would say, ‘You know, she’s been acting awfully weird. For months she’s been on the verge of flipping out.’

  “Tell me, Melia, how did you and Paul Reyes plan to kill me? Run me off the road and make it look like an accident? Poke pills down my throat to seem like an overdose? Another accident in the studio? What?”

  “Stop yelling at me,” Melia threatened. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  “The hell you don’t.”

  “Okay! Sure I know you’ve been getting some anonymous mail, but it didn’t come from me. I didn’t rig that studio light to fall, either. Do you think I shimmied up a pole and unbolted it? Get real.”

  “This is real,” Cat said emphatically. “You came to work at WWSA shortly after it was announced that I would be moving here. You made that happen. And you’ve hated me from the minute you laid eyes on me,” Cat accused.

  “I don’t deny that. But it has nothing to do with your stupid heart!”

  “Then what?”

  “She thought I had a romantic interest in you.”

  Bill Webster watched from the second-floor gallery as Cat looked up. When she spotted him, her features went slack with disbelief. Her wide blue eyes followed him as he descended the stairs. He’d pulled on his pants and shirt, but his feet were bare.

  He knew it was apparent that he’d just come from Melia’s bed and that he didn’t have a prayer at self-defense. Babbling excuses or denials would cost him what shreds of dignity he had remaining.

  “There’s only one logical conclusion you can draw from this awkward situation, Cat.” He glanced at Melia, who looked as disheveled as he, if not more so. “In this instance, appearances aren’t deceiving. It’s exactly what it seems.”

  He moved to the small cabinet that Melia kept stocked with liquor for him. “I need a drink. Ladies?”

  He poured himself a stiff scotch and drank it in one swallow. Melia settled into a corner of the sofa. She was studying her fingernails and looking somewhat bored. Cat appeared to have taken root in the center of the floor.

  “I upbraided Melia severely for what she did with your medication,” he began. “It was a childishly stupid stunt, and I warned her that nothing like that was ever to happen again.”

  “He chewed my ass,” Melia said with a pout.

  The fiery accusation in Cat’s eyes was quelling, but he forced himself not to flinch.

  “I regret that you learned about…this,” he said. “But since you were falsely accusing Melia, I felt compelled to step in and set the record straight.”

  At last Cat spoke. “This is unbelievable. And yet it explains so much, like why you rehired her after I’d fired her.” She expelled her breath in disgust, a reaction that didn’t surprise him. “You know that Nancy suspects you’re having an affair with me?”

  “We haven’t discussed it,” he lied.

  “Why would you sleep with her,” she nodded contemptuously toward Melia, “when you’re married to a wonderful woman like Nancy?”

  “If she’s so bloody wonderful, what’s he doing in my bed?” Melia asked. “Screwing his brains out, that’s what,” she added smugly.

  “Please, Melia, let me handle this.” To Cat he said, “This is my business, Cat. You’ve made it clear on several occasions that you don’t welcome my interference in your private life. I deserve the same courtesy.”

  “Okay. Fine,” she said shortly. “But I think your mistress is the one who’s been harassing me.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said simply.

  “I haven’t had time to check her credentials and find out where she’s been and what she’s been doing the last few years, but I intend to. And if I discover that she’s been anywhere near those three transplantees who died, I’ll notify the Department of Justice.”

  “I’ve lived in Texas all my life,” Melia said. “And for your information, my father’s name is King. I’m only one-quarter Hispanic, so that shoots this Reyes theory of yours all to hell. And anyway, I don’t give a damn where your heart came from. I just didn’t want you to think you could waltz in here and take Bill away from me.”

  “He doesn’t belong to you.”

  Melia snorted. “Oh, yeah? If you’d gotten here about five minutes earlier, you’d know otherwise. I had him on his knees.”

  Bill felt his face turning red. “Melia was jealous of you when you first arrived,” he told Cat. “She thought I might replace her with you. I’ve assured her that’s not the nature of our friendship.”

  Cat turned back to Melia, who was idly combing her fingers through her long hair. “I don’t believe your innocent act. At the very least you corroborated that ridiculous story about child molestation, didn’t you?”

  Melia’s hand fell to her side. Her dark eyes flickered guiltily. Bill stepped closer to her. “Melia? Did you?” She looked up at him, her expression sullen. And guilty. He had an intense desire to slap her hard across the face. “Answer me.”

  She bounded off the couch. “This guy calls me today, okay? He repeats what some biker named Cyclops had told him over the telephone and asked if I knew anything about it. I told him, sure. I saw Cat Delaney with that kid at the barbecue. She carted him around all night, acted real taken with him. Truitt asked if she’d had any opportunities to be alone with the boy. Again I said, sure. With my own eyes I saw her take him into
the house when no one else was around.

  “Then he asked if this could be tied to that other incident, when the couple backed out of that adoption. Could that little girl have possibly been one of Cat’s victims, too? I told him I’d better not address that because I’d been on the staff of Cat’s Kids when it happened and didn’t want to incriminate myself along with her.”

  “My God,” Cat whispered with a mix of repugnance and awe. Then she turned to him. “You’d better keep her happy, Bill. If you ever end this shabby little affair, God only knows the havoc she’ll wreak on your life. Not that you don’t deserve it.”

  Her anger continued to build. “Her unfounded jealousy of me almost destroyed Cat’s Kids. She could have undone everything we’ve accomplished. Her lie could have affected dozens of children’s lives. They would have been deprived of a future, and all because of that…” She flung her hand toward Melia. “Is she worth it?”

  “I won’t allow you to pass judgment on Melia and me, Cat,” he said in a feeble attempt to defend himself. “However, I am sorry that you were hassled today.”

  “Hassled?” she repeated, implying what a ludicrous understatement that was. “Being sorry isn’t enough. You can’t fix this with an apology.”

  She lifted the cordless phone off the end table and pitched it to him. “I’m sure you know the managing editor of the Light. Call him. Stop them from printing that story.”

  “That’s impossible, Cat. It’s too late. I’m sure it’s already being printed.”

  “Then you’d better trot down there and pull the plug on the presses yourself. If you don’t stop that story, I swear they’ll have another one tomorrow that will totally obscure the one about me! I’d hate to do that to Nancy, but I would in order to safeguard Cat’s Kids. And you know me well enough to know that I’m not bluffing.”

  She glared at Melia. “As for you, you’re a slut. A silly, malicious, spoiled slut.”

  Then she turned her contempt onto Bill again. “And you’re a joke. A pathetic, middle-age-crazy cliché, trying to recapture your youth with your pecker. And to think I once admired you.”

  She sneered scornfully, then moved to the door. “I suggest you make that call before it gets any later.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  With barely an hour to go before dawn, Cat returned home. When she’d left Melia’s apartment, she’d been too upset to sleep. But that had been hours ago. Now she felt she could sleep for a month. She stepped out of her shoes and pulled her shirttail from the waistband of her jeans as she headed for her bedroom.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  The voice boomed out at her from the darkness of her living room. “Damn you, Alex!”

  “I’ve been waiting on you half the night.”

  He switched on the table lamp and blinked against the sudden brightness. Then he rose from the easy chair in which he’d been lounging. “Where the hell have you been all this time?”

  “Driving.”

  “Driving?”

  “San Antonio doesn’t have a beach, so I made do.”

  “Is that supposed to make sense?”

  “Not to you. It does to me. What are you doing in my house? I didn’t see your car outside. How’d you get in?”

  “My car’s parked on the next block. I walked through the backyards and broke in through the kitchen window, same as I did before. It’s a flimsy lock. You should have it replaced. Why wasn’t your alarm set?”

  “I figured it wasn’t necessary since there’s a cop parked down the street watching the house.”

  “Getting past him was a snap. If I can do it, someone else can.”

  “So much for Hunsaker’s surveillance,” she muttered.

  “Why wasn’t he tailing you?”

  “He tried to follow me when I left. I told him I was only going out for milk and bread and would be right back. Just now, when I drove past, I caught him yawning. I think he was waking up from a long nap.”

  “Figures. You okay?” She nodded. “You don’t look okay. You look like shit,” he said candidly. “Where’d you go on this drive that lasted for hours?”

  “Nowhere. Everywhere. And stop grilling me. You’re the intruder here, not me. I’m hungry.”

  Her hopes for getting to sleep anytime soon had been dashed, so she decided she might just as well appease her hunger. She hadn’t eaten since the few bites of the cheeseburger that Jeff had brought her earlier.

  Alex followed her into the kitchen. She took a box of cereal from the pantry and shook some into a bowl. “Want some?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why were you waiting for me?”

  “Later. Let’s hear from you first. Where’d you go and why? What’s been going on since you left Hunsaker’s office yesterday afternoon?”

  Around a mouthful of granola, raisins, and slivered almonds, she said, “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  She motioned for him to sit down. He straddled one of her kitchen chairs. Between bites she told him about Ron Truitt and all that had ensued after he’d dropped his bombshell. “As it turns out, it wasn’t Cyclops who called him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Last night, while Jeff and I were sitting here and I was crying in my beer over the pending demise of Cat’s Kids, the biker from hell called. He’s not too happy with me, but he pled ignorance to the scoop given to Truitt.”

  “He could have been lying.”

  “Possibly, but that’s not the impression I got.”

  “If not him, who?”

  “That remains a mystery. But I know who corroborated the story. Melia King. You remember her,” she added sweetly. “The walking wet dream?”

  Alex wasn’t amused. “That makes sense,” he said grimly. “There’s been bad blood between you two from the get-go.”

  “And now I know why. She’s been sleeping with—euphemistically—the man who’s suspected of having the hots for me.”

  “Webster!”

  “I can’t tell you what a blow it was to my ego to discover that he prefers her to me,” she said caustically. Then she recounted for him the scene at Melia’s apartment.

  “That son of a bitch,” Alex said, hitting the table with his fist. “I knew he was a slippery bastard. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I’ve always thought of Bill as being extremely astute. Even shrewd, but in a constructive way. As it turns out, he’s a lying, cheating adulterer. And in my opinion that’s the lowest life form on the planet. I don’t understand why that’s such a hard commandment to keep. If you want to screw around, you don’t get married.” She noticed Alex’s wince. “You don’t agree?”

  “I agree that it looks good on paper. It’s rarely that simple. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances.”

  “Rationalizations, you mean. But I don’t see how Bill could even rationalize this affair.”

  She was furious with him, but she also felt a keen sense of loss. Bill Webster certainly wasn’t accountable to her for what he did in his private life. All the same, she felt betrayed by a man she had admired and respected. The betrayal hurt.

  “Why would he jeopardize his marriage to a classy lady like Nancy for that sulky little tramp?”

  “Maybe Melia delivers the goods.”

  “I’m sure she does. What really upsets me is that Nancy thinks I’m the delivery girl.”

  Finished with her cereal, she left the table and began making coffee. “I could throttle him. Cat’s Kids was almost destroyed because he can’t keep his pants zipped. All during this showdown, he tried to maintain his dignity, but I could tell he was embarrassed. I hope he was mortified. I hope he gets a bad case of the palm-sweats the next time he, Nancy, and I are in the same room. Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  She returned to the table with two cups of the fresh brew. “After leaving Melia’s, I was too upset to come home, so I drove around for hours, trying to make sense of everything.”


  “Do you think Webster can halt the story?”

  “I think he’ll go to any lengths to try. Short of that, he’ll demand a retraction of equal length and prominence, and insist that the newspaper accept full responsibility for the error.”

  She smiled wanly. “Having avoided that disaster, I’ve only got to worry about living through the day after tomorrow.”

  “It’s nothing to joke about.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “There is some good news.”

  “I could use some.”

  “Irene Walters called this afternoon. Guess who’s spending the weekend with them? Joseph.”

  Gladness spread through her chest. “That’s…that’s wonderful. Oh, I hope it works out. He’s so clever. So sweet. And I’ll never forget him telling me that he wouldn’t be mad at me if he wasn’t adopted.”

  “My guess is he’s a shoo-in,” Alex said, chuckling. “She said they saw the segment on him and fell instantly in love. They have to complete the parenting course, but in the meantime, he’s going for a visit. Charlie wants to start teaching him how to play chess. Irene’s got a list of his favorite foods. They’re even sprucing up Bandit so he’ll make a good first impression.”

  Not until he reached out and stroked her cheek did she realize they were wet with tears. “That is good news. Thanks for telling me.”

  He wiped her cheeks dry with a napkin, then stared deeply into her eyes. “Who called the newspaper, Cat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m guessing it’s your original stalker.”

  “Me too. He’s still out there, playing with me. But how’d he know about Cyclops?”

  “Your phone could be tapped. Your house could be bugged.” He paused. “Or…it could be someone close to you, someone you trust and would never suspect.”

  The coffee she’d drunk turned rancid in her stomach, because Alex’s conclusion matched the one she’d reached on her long drive through the sleeping city.

  She stood up quickly. “I need a shower.”

  “Better hurry.” He checked his wristwatch. “Our flight’s in two hours.”

  “Flight?”

  “That’s what I came to tell you. I’ve tracked down Paul Reyes’s sister. She lives in Fort Worth and has agreed to talk to us.”