Killer Romances
Page 68
Then reality set back in. Been there, done that. Dreams are for others. Not me, she thought. Besides, Lucy didn’t have time to dream any more now than she had all those years ago.
She rolled her head from side to side and lifted the kinks from her shoulders. Her feet hurt. Those strappy little shoes weren’t made for walking, that was for damned sure. She kicked out of them and, while undoing her dress, padded to her bedroom and a pair of jeans. A hot shower sounded idyllic, but the night wasn’t over and Cassie was still missing.
Chapter 3
Jack strode briskly up the walkway to his townhouse with one hand inside his tuxedo pants pocket. He fingered the thumb drive he’d taken out of Lucy’s bag, having quickly switched it with one containing campaign speeches from his briefcase that sat on the backseat of his car in front of the judge’s house.
The drive had to be what Lucy had stolen. Why hadn’t Frank mentioned its existence right after checking his safe, the perfect time to come clean, in his opinion? If he had, then Jack might have felt compelled to hand it over. Until he understood more, he’d decided against enlightening anyone about his current possession.
At his front door, he inserted the key into the lock. Bogie, one of his cats, greeted him verbally, telling him in cat speak that his arrival meant time to eat. He stripped off his jacket and scooped up the big fellow. As the door latched behind him, he carried Bogie to the bedroom, dumped the cat unceremoniously on the bed, switched on a lamp, and began undoing his studs. He eased out of his shirt and cummerbund. After kicking out of his too-tight dress shoes and hanging up his jacket, he changed into sweatpants.
Jack dug the drive out of his tux pocket, then padded to the kitchen and put out food for both cats before returning to the computer, situated in an alcove across the room.
He usually left it on standby, but hadn’t. As much as he wanted to know what was on the thumb drive, he was also beat and didn’t want to take the time to start it up. It had been a hellacious day and even worse evening. Having to placate Frank and Livie after walking Lucy home had zapped most of his energy.
The morning would come soon enough. He could wait. He stuffed the drive into his sweatpants pocket and headed for bed.
Later, Jack awoke with a start. The red LED numbers hovering above his bedside table told him he’d been asleep for less than ten minutes. Suddenly a scraping sound infiltrated his thoughts. He listened harder. His heart skipped beats when he identified the noise. Someone was jimmying the lock on his living room window. The distinct sound of the window sliding up confirmed the thought.
Jack climbed out of bed. Silently, he pulled on his sweats.
Keeping to the shadows, he made his way to the hallway.
He rounded the doorway and froze. A dark figure moved across the room.
Silently, Jack leaned into the wall and waited. The intruder veered toward his computer and turned it on. Seconds later, the light from the monitor illuminated the person’s face.
He expelled the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and switched on the light.
“Old habits die hard, I see,” Jack said in a menacing drawl.
Lucy Maddox jumped and spun around. “I came for my property.” Instead of a designer gown, she was now dressed in dark jeans and a sweatshirt. She notched her chin an inch and stuck out her hand, palm up. “I’d like it back.”
Jack ignored her and reached into his pocket, fingering the reason she was here. He should have figured she would pull something like this. “I see you’re still adept at breaking into houses. As well as safes.”
The lady had balls; he’d give her that.
“You took the thumb drive out of my bag and replaced it with another.” She glared at him. “I want mine back.” She moved to sit in a rocker. Still glaring, she crossed her arms and started rocking. “I’m not leaving without it.”
“You’re not serious?” He’d be a dead man if those angry amber-eyed daggers she fired had been real, but he only laughed at the déjà-vu moment. Receiving her glares was nothing new, except, he had to admit, she’d improved her technique.
“Very.” The intensity of her stare only increased, as did the fervency in her voice when she hit the arm of the chair with a fist and added, “I trusted you and you stole from me.”
“Did I, now?” Jack could say the same about trust. He’d trusted her earlier…his first mistake. If he hadn’t wasted time trusting, Lucy would still be working the party. He wouldn’t have had to walk her home and, in the process, start to obsess over her. Last but not least, she wouldn’t be here now, complicating his life with a demand he had no intention of honoring.
“Tell me, Lucy. If I had actually done what you’re accusing me of, how is that any different from your breaking into the judge’s safe and taking it from him in the first place?”
“I told you I never got the chance.”
“Lying again?” He smiled, yet the smile he offered was too cold to reach his eyes. To his satisfaction, it appeared as if Lucy understood the message he flashed. “I see you remember my stance on liars.” He hated deception and wanted no part of it in his life. Especially now. Deception led to secrets and secrets led to those you cared about getting killed right before your eyes.
Lucy held her head high. “Whether I’m lying or not doesn’t change the fact that I’m not leaving here without that drive. My friend’s life depends on it.”
Vehemence spilled out of every pore of her body. So much so that he was tempted to ignore her crimes. She obviously felt her actions were justified. Not that anything had changed in that respect either. She’d always sworn to have strong motivations for her behavior all those years ago. Whether true or not was no longer an issue. The more relevant issue now was to handle her differently than he had in the past.
Jack had been too stupid back then—naïve might be a better word—to realize that Lucy had only been trying to survive. As best she could. Still, if Lucy hadn’t been so angry and had trusted in the system enough to take the offered help, she could have survived a hell of a lot better. “Look, I know you’re convinced your friend is missing, but you don’t have to play hero and save the world on your own. Maybe I can help…if you level with me.”
Her chin went higher. “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t give a rat’s ass about saving the world. I never have. I only care about saving Cassie.” Lucy snorted. “As far as I’m concerned, most people don’t deserve saving.”
“Ah, Lucy.” Jack shook his head. “You sound so cynical.” And for some unfathomable reason, the thought disturbed him. No. He wasn’t going to let her burrow any deeper under his skin. She was in the wrong and needed to learn some restraint.
“It’s not cynicism. It’s the way I operate. I’ve never been on society’s receiving end other than to get royally screwed, so why should I give a flying fig about others?”
That sounded more like the Lucy Maddox he’d dealt with all those years ago.
He threw out a halfhearted laugh. “Why, indeed?”
“Don’t mock me.” Her glare was back. “I didn’t have your silver spoon or your perfect family life.”
Jack held up his hands in surrender. “I certainly wasn’t mocking you. I know life dealt you a lousy hand.” He couldn’t resist adding, “But you know damn well you brought some of your problems on yourself.” It was the truth, and he never understood why she pushed people away who wanted to help her. No. Pushed was too mild a word…shoveled was more accurate…with bulldozer force.
She rolled her eyes and rocked faster. “Of course you’d say that. Still playing the ‘I’m better than you because I don’t live like you’ role?” Fuming, she stopped suddenly and Jack could almost see the smoke rising from her head. Yep, the old Lucy was back, an idea substantiated in the acerbic tone of her voice as she added, “Mr. High and Mighty, sitting in judgment of those of us who make you uncomfortable. You may think you knew all about my problems, but you knew nothing of what it was like to be totally alone and on the stree
ts. Or how I felt about it or about the system that only made the problems worse. In the world I come from, you survive by screwing others before they screw you and that includes guys like you.”
He nodded. “Got it. The whole world sucks.” The hurt in her voice, or disillusionment, Jack wasn’t sure which, sent an unwanted pang of sympathy through him. He swallowed hard. She was in the wrong. She’d broken the law. More than once. He shouldn’t feel any compassion for her, or remorse over their past dealings. Yet both emotions stole over him.
To his credit, he’d tried to help as best he could back then. But he’d had a job to do and she’d taxed every bit of his patience to carry out that job.
The more he thought about the woman still rocking, the more agitated he became. Why was he even arguing with himself when she needed to be accountable for her actions? Both then—and now. Hadn’t she learned anything from the past she’d survived? Hell, she was a functioning, tax-paying member of society, something few who’d lived on the streets ever achieved. Jack had read the statistics. Yet Lucy obviously didn’t grasp that surviving the ordeal wasn’t enough. She needed to knock that victim chip off her shoulders and quit repeating mistakes or blaming others for those mistakes.
And whether she knew it or not, she wasn’t as coldhearted as she claimed. “If you’re so into screwing others, explain to me why you risked your job tonight trying to find information on your friend. Or why you pick up stray kittens and find homes for them.”
“That’s different.” She waved a dismissive hand and started rocking again. “I care about them.”
“Yeah, you do.” Maybe too much. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she masked her caring with bravado and anger. “But someone who cares about friends and strays usually doesn’t spout off about screwing others before they screw you.” Of course, life had screwed her but, hell, life tended to screw everyone at some time or other. Still, he was beginning to grasp that there was more to Lucy-goosey than met the eye.
Jack had to admit, he’d never bothered to look all that closely before now.
“Why do I feel like I’m back in the courtroom defending myself?” She planted her feet firmly on the hardwood floor and brought the rocker to a stop. “It’s wasted energy.” She held out her hand again. “Just give me back my drive and I’ll be gone, then you and your—”
“Wait.” He put up his hand, cutting her off. Though Frank had avoided all talk of the thumb drive theft earlier, he had mentioned Duncan’s warning phone call. Lucy’s boss would fire her in a heartbeat if he ever found out she’d invaded his townhouse. “Let’s can the bullshit, okay? We both know you had a rough life and I had an easy one. That’s never going to change. But we’re here now and you obviously have a problem that maybe I can help you with.” Based on past experience, she wouldn’t let it go. At least if he was working with her, he could keep a lid on things so she wouldn’t lose her job, and he’d uncover a few answers to questions that were bugging him about Frank’s silence at the same time.
“Yeah, just like old times,” she mumbled, but loud enough so that he understood each word.
He laughed. “Uh, uh, uh,” he admonished. “That kind of attitude won’t get what you want.” He caught her attention with that and she glanced at him with the question in her eyes. “Let’s just say, hypothetically speaking of course, that I have this drive you’re talking about.” Shrugging, he asked, taking another tack, “Why is it so important?”
Duncan liked her and had hired her against public opinion, and she had lasted five years before this incident. That right there spoke volumes. Duncan didn’t put up with fuckups, as he put it. In fact, the more Jack was with Lucy, the more he believed his earlier impression, one that had never changed in thirteen years. She needed his help. But would she take it?
Good question.
She eyed him for a long moment, clearly gauging his sincerity, as he held his breath, uncertain whether or not he wanted her to trust him enough to open up. He had a niggling feeling he might be better off not knowing and getting any more involved, but he couldn’t help her if he had no clue as to what motivated her to steal the drive in the first place.
“I don’t know why it’s so important,” she finally said, sighing. “Cassie didn’t say. And since she’s missing, I can’t ask her, now can I?”
He smiled. If only he could bottle that sass and sell it, he’d be a billionaire. “Why do you think she’s missing when no one else does?”
She shrugged and continued rocking. “No one else knows what I know.”
“Then don’t you think it’s about time you leveled with me?” When skepticism flared in her eyes, he increased the wattage of his smile. Yep. The lady had moxie; he’d give her that. Jack’s irritation faded as pure amusement replaced it, something he hadn’t expected. Lucy had never amused him in the past, only frustrated him beyond endurance. “I promise, I only want to help. But I can’t do that unless I know all the facts.”
Glancing at him, she stopped all motion and her eyes narrowed into deeper, suspicious slits. “Why?”
Bacall, his other cat, took that opportunity to jump onto her lap.
“Why not?” Jack noted, with an unwanted twinge of jealousy of the way his finicky feline curled up on her lap, along with the way Lucy stroked her. Why it bothered him that the two seemed to automatically trust each other eluded him. Yet he couldn’t discount his cat’s actions. Bacall never warmed up to anyone other than him, and sometimes he thought she only tolerated his affection because he fed her.
“So, do we have a deal?” he asked, pushing the disturbing thoughts aside. So what if his cat liked Lucy? It didn’t mean a damn thing, other than she was a cat person.
“I’m still thinking about it.”
Jack laughed. “Well, while you’re thinking about it, I’m going to grab a beer.” Happy to have come up with a diversion, he headed toward the kitchen. “You want something? Coke? Wine?”
“Do you have any green tea?”
“Fresh out.” He snorted. “I’d never take you for a tea drinker.” Lucy had always struck him as being a bourbon or tequila kind of gal—the kind who drank it straight out of the bottle.
“There are a lot of things you’d never take me for.”
She had a point there, Jack thought, as she stood and followed him out of the living room.
He flipped on the light switch. Maybe it was time to dig a little deeper and see what other surprises the lady hid behind that “bite me” attitude.
“I could use a glass of water.”
“Water it is.” He reached inside the fridge, grabbed first a beer, then a bottled water, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Nodding, she wiped at the condensation forming on the bottle.
He rested his butt against the counter a few feet away, twisted the cap off his beer, and brought the bottle to his mouth, watching her uncap her drink.
She’d washed her face and let her hair down. Without makeup, with masses of dark brown curls framing her face, and dressed in faded jeans and an old sweatshirt, Lucy appeared much younger than her twenty-nine years—exactly as she should have looked all those years ago—instead of the dirty-faced, snarled-haired, angry teen he’d dealt with during his first summer internship during law school, when she’d gone through his mentor’s courtroom. But then it was probably a good thing she’d come across as unattractive back then. Who knows what would have happened to her on the streets if she hadn’t. Despite the fact that her breasts all but disappeared under that sweatshirt, he remembered how they’d perked up earlier. Yep, the woman leaning against the doorjamb now stirred something inside him. Attraction? Lust? He squelched the thought before it went any further. He’d only allow the situation to interest him. Nothing more. Nothing less. As soon as they found out what was on the drive, they could come up with a plan. Then he could wash his hands of her.
He swallowed another mouthful of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Come on,” he said,
going against his better judgment and deciding to play this out. Starting for the computer in the living room, he ignored the way the light highlighted a few freckles across her cute nose. They added another element of innocence to her appearance, one he doubted she possessed. As he walked, he reached into his pocket and snatched the drive, holding it up. “Before we see what’s so damned important on this thing that has you breaking and entering…twice…” he gripped the back of a chair and slid it out, “fill me in on why you think your friend is missing.”
Jack grabbed another chair and indicated it with his head, as he plopped down. “Sit and start talking. From the beginning.”
Lucy spent a moment updating him on Cassie’s most recent story assignment involving a dead teen. Supposedly, the girl had been a runaway. “Cassie has a thing about runaways and young kids living on the streets, so she focuses on their point of view in her stories in hopes she can make a difference. She’s been an activist since her sixteen-year-old sister was raped and killed after running away. Cassie was thirteen at the time. Six months later, guilt drove her mother to suicide.” Lucy crinkled her brow and looked away. “Then during Cassie’s first year of college, her father ended up dying of a heart attack, leaving her millions. But because he was such a bastard who cared more about work than his family, she calls it blood money and spends it to help girls like her dead sister…including girls like me.” Lucy cleared her throat and looked down, spending an inordinate amount of time studying her fingernails before she added, “She found me after my first week out of juvie when I tried to steal her purse.” Lucy looked up. “And rather than send me back, Cassie took me in.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, making them appear ten times bigger…and making her appear ten years younger…like the lost little girl she’d been.
Jack coughed to smooth out the lump at the back of his throat. “Go on.” Some people sure had it rough in this world. Both Lucy and her friend had endured pain and loss at the senseless hands of fate. Despite Lucy’s role in making her situation rougher, it didn’t seem fair that anyone had to suffer so much. Yet one thing Jack knew as fact. Life was rarely fair. Ginny’s death had taught him that. It also taught him about emotional pain, that bitch of a club lurking in the deepest part of the mind waiting for a chance to strike in a memory. The only solution to avoiding more pain was to keep everyone at a distance, especially women. Even with those he loved most, like his parents and Frank, he’d put up an emotional wall.