All Night Long

by Candace Schuler

  Susannah shrugged, tacitly admitting the truth of his assessment.

  "What I don't, like, understand," said Heather, "is how Eddie thought this whole thing would work, anyway. I mean, like, when Susannah or Judy got calls for this Isabel, they just hung up. Wouldn't that kinda, like, you know, make his customers mad? Or make 'em dial up some other escort service? I don't see how this Eddie character thought he could, like, stay in business that way, you know?"

  "Eddie's stupid," Judy told her, her soft mouth flat with distaste. "He's mean and vicious, but he's stupid. He saw what he thought was a golden opportunity and he took it."

  Matt nodded, agreeing with her assessment. "A task force has been shadowing Eddie for the past two months. Until recently he just ran street girls, young but not young enough to gain him any special attention from the authorities. He got that when he started adding minors to his string. That was his first mistake. His second was in thinking he could use The Personal Touch to upgrade his dirty little operation."

  "Upgrade?" Millicent said.

  "Call girls get more money for their services than streetwalkers," Judy said flatly. "And the younger they are, the more expensive they are."

  "How long has he been setting up appointments through The Personal Touch?" Susannah wanted to know.

  "Not long," Matt assured her. "Maybe two weeks at the most." His smile was Machiavellian in its satisfaction. "As Judy said, he's stupid. So stupid that he didn't think any of it through. There was no way in hell it could have worked. Even if the department hadn't already been investigating him, it wouldn't have worked. The logistics and the infrastructure just weren't there."

  "There's still something I don't completely understand about all of this," Millicent said.

  They all looked at her.

  "Why would he want to use the phone lines at The Personal Touch in the first place? Wouldn't it have been easier to set up his own?"

  "You'd think so," Matt said. "But that's where Eddie's lack of intelligence comes into play. He thought using The Personal Touch would save him the trouble and expense of setting up his own operation."

  "But—"

  "Eddie thinks everyone else is as greedy and stupid as he is, Mrs. Ryan," Judy said. "Especially women. He probably didn't think any of us would even notice anything was going on."

  "But Helen," Heather insisted. "How'd he, like, get Helen to help him? She pretty much hates men, you know? How'd he even, like, talk to her about it?"

  "That day outside The Tea Cozy a couple of weeks ago," Judy said. "It had to have been then. Remember, Susannah, she was out there for awhile after I came in? She said she was giving him a piece of her mind. But maybe she wasn't. Maybe she heard him telling me I was in a perfect position to help him pull off some really great new scam and she decided to help him out herself."

  "She wasn't out there that long," Susannah reminded her. "Maybe ten, twelve minutes, maximum."

  "They could have made a date to meet later and iron out the details."

  "But why?" Susannah said, trying to understand. "Why would she do it?"

  "Why does anybody usually do something like that?" Matt put his hand on her knee and squeezed it comfortingly. "Money."

  Judy snorted rudely. "If she thought she was going to make any money working with Eddie, she was crazy. He barely gives his girls enough to live on."

  "Do you think she, like, knew the place was going to be raided?" Heather asked. "I mean, she was supposed to be helping out at the party like usual. But she went home sick instead, you know?"

  Matt smiled a bit evilly. "I think what probably made her sick was hearing Susannah and me arguing in her office about the investigation."

  "Poor Helen," Susannah said.

  Matt laughed softly. "Susannah, sweetheart, she was using your business to sell sex. Making appointments to send teenage girls like Heather to men's hotel rooms. How can you say 'poor Helen'?"

  But it wasn't really a question. He knew perfectly well how she could. It was just the way she was. And, God help him, he loved her that way.

  "We've got to help her," Susannah said.

  "We'll make sure she has a lawyer waiting for her at the police station when they bring her in," Matt said soothingly.

  "The police are going to arrest her?"

  Matt nodded. "Of course they're going to arrest her. She's committed a crime. Or, at least, been an accessory to one. As soon as the police find out she's involved, they're going to want to bring her in for questioning."

  "How are they going to find out she's involved?" Susannah asked, but she knew the answer.

  "Because I'm going to tell them," Matt said. "I'm an officer of the court," he added before she could say anything. "I've taken a sworn oath to uphold the law. By not telling what I know, I'd be guilty of withholding information in a criminal investigation."

  "I'm not asking you to withhold information," Susannah said earnestly. "I wouldn't do that. But couldn't you just sort of delay it for a little while?"

  "Define 'a little while," Matt said dryly.

  "Not long. Maybe just a couple of hours? Just long enough for her to turn herself in? The police and the people at the DA.'s office look favorably on people who turn themselves in, don't they?"

  Matt nodded. "All right. But if she hasn't turned herself in by nine o'clock in the morning, I'm going to send two uniforms after her."

  She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you, Matt," she said warmly, then stood, looking down at him expectantly.

  "Are we going someplace?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

  "Helen's going to need friends to help her through this," Susannah said, as if it made perfect sense that she—the wronged party—should be that friend. "And a lawyer."

  * * *

  The small house in the Sunset district of San Francisco looked like every other neat, pastel-colored row house in the city's fog belt. The only indication that it might be any different were the lights blazing from every window, cutting through the curling fog to send lozenges of light spilling out onto the street.

  "Well, we know she's up, at least," Matt said, as he turned his Lincoln onto the concrete apron of her driveway and killed the engine. "I'd say that probably means she knows the jig is up."

  "I hope she's all right," Susannah fretted as they mounted the steps to the front porch.

  Matt shook his head. "Leave it to you to feel sympathy for someone who may have done serious damage to your livelihood," he said, but it wasn't really a criticism.

  Susannah shushed him with a look and rang the doorbell.

  There was nothing but silence from inside.

  She raised her hand and pounded on the door. "Helen? Are you in there? Helen? It's Susannah Bennington."

  There was a fumbling noise on the other side of the door. "Susannah?"

  "Yes, Helen, it's me." She looked up at Matt. "I've brought Matt Ryan with me. You're going to need his help."

  There was a moment's silence, and then the sound of a dead bolt being thrown back and a chain being unlatched. The door opened a crack.

  "Are you all right, Helen?" Susannah asked. "Can we come in?"

  Helen nodded hesitantly and then stepped back, pulling the door open so they could enter. It was obvious she'd been crying. Her eyes were red and swollen, her skin blotchy.

  "Do you mind if I take that?" Matt said, indicating the two-foot length of pipe clutched in her right hand.

  Helen looked down at the pipe, as if she'd been unaware that she was holding it. "I thought you might be that horrible Eddie Devine," she said, making no move to hand over the pipe. "He's called me twice tonight, threatening me. He said if I told anyone about our arrangement, he'd see that I regretted it."

  "He won't be threatening anyone for a while." Matt reached out to take the length of pipe from her. He placed it in the umbrella stand. "As of an hour ago, he's in jail."

  "Jail?" Helen said hesitantly. And then her face crumbled. "Oh, God! I'm going to jail,
too, aren't I? I'm going to be a jailbird!"

  "No. No, it won't be that bad," Susannah said, reaching out to comfort her. "You won't be a jailbird."

  "Oh, Susannah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I—"

  "Hush," Susannah said. "It's going to be all right. I promise. Everything will be all right. Matt will take care of everything."

  Matt sighed, resigning himself to playing the white knight—probably for the rest of his life—and waited until the older woman got herself under control. "Mrs. Sanford," he said when she'd calmed down, "are you ready to talk now?"

  "Yes." She straightened and looked up at him, still dabbing at her eyes with the tissue Susannah had pressed into her hand. "Yes, of course." She looked back and forth between Matt and Susannah. "You want to know why I did it, don't you?"

  "If you feel up to telling us," Susannah said.

  "I needed the money," she admitted. "It's as simple and awful as that. Everybody thinks I got a big settlement in the divorce. That Donald was forced to provide for me because of how long we'd been married and the adultery and everything. But divorce doesn't work that way anymore. I got the house and half of our savings. What was left of our savings," she amended with a sniff. "He'd spent most of what we had on that girlfriend of his. He ran up a lot of credit card bills, too. Bills the judge said he was supposed to pay but he hasn't. The collection agencies have been calling me, threatening to take my house. So when I heard Eddie Devine telling Judy he had a scheme where she could make some 'real' money and that she wouldn't have to turn tricks to do it, well—" she lifted her plump shoulders in an uneasy shrug and looked away "—I listened. And then, when she made it clear to him that she wasn't interested and wouldn't do it, no matter what, I told him I would." Fresh tears of shame welled up. "And I did. I'm sorry, Susannah. I was sorry the very first day I got involved. But it was too late by then. I'd already said yes. And Eddie wouldn't let me change my mind. Even when everything started to go so wrong, he kept insisting it would work."

  "You're going to have to provide a few more details when we take you down to the police station so you can turn yourself in," Matt said when she fell silent.

  "Turn myself in?"

  "The police will be more lenient than if you wait to be arrested," Susannah told her. "It's really just a formality."

  "It's more than a mere formality," Matt corrected her, believing honesty was the best policy in a case like this. "The detectives assigned to the case will interrogate you," Matt said to Helen. "They'll want to know how you got involved with Eddie Devine, what your arrangement with him was and how it worked, how long it's been in operation. They'll want names if you have them. That sort of thing. I suggest you cooperate fully and completely. It will be much easier on you if you do."

  "Oh, I will," Helen said fervently. "I'll tell them everything I know."

  "What happens after that depends on your answers to those questions. Since I'm with the DA.'s office, I'll have some prosecutorial discretion as to whether, or for what, you're charged."

  "He'll arrange it so you don't have to spend any time in jail," Susannah said. "You'll be able to come right back home."

  "I'll try," Matt affirmed with a rebuking look at Susannah, "But I can't promise anything. A lot depends on your answers to the detectives' questions." Helen nodded. "I understand."

  "Get your coat, then," Matt said gently, "and we'll go."

  * * *

  "I think everything went pretty well, don't you?" Susannah said as she and Matt drove away from the police station. It was five-fifteen a.m. and the city was quiet, the nearly deserted streets blanketed in early-morning fog.

  "Nobody had the book thrown at them, if that's what you mean," Matt said. "Except Eddie Devine," he added with a note of satisfaction in his voice.

  With the details Helen Sanford had provided, they had enough to put Eddie Devine away for a good long time.

  "Judy was right about him, you know," Matt said. "It was incredibly stupid of him to try to use The Personal Touch." He shook his head. "There was no way it would have ever worked. Hell, according to what Helen said, the whole scheme was so poorly thought-out it started to fall apart from the first day."

  "What will happen to Helen now?"

  "She'll get immunity for testifying against Eddie."

  "No jail time?"

  "No jail time," Matt assured her. "But she will be on probation."

  Susannah reached over and touched his hand where it lay on the steering wheel. "Have I told you yet how wonderful you've been through all of this?"

  "No," he said, glancing away from the road for a moment to smile at her. "Tell me now."

  "You're a knight in shining armor," Susannah said, meaning it sincerely. "My hero. I don't know what I would have done without you."

  "Does that mean you'll marry me?" His tone was teasing but the question was deadly serious.

  Susannah laughed softly. "After all this, you still want to marry me?"

  "Still," Matt affirmed. "Always."

  Susannah felt her heart leap in her chest, joy like a wild thing trying to break free. She reined it in, ruthlessly. One of them had to be practical. The irony wasn't lost on her that that one was her.

  "What about your campaign?" she said. "Your family tradition of public service? Following in your father's footsteps? None of that will be possible if you marry me."

  "Says who?"

  "Matt, be reasonable. You know I'm ri—"

  "I'm sick and tired of being reasonable," Matt said forcefully. "I've been reasonable all my life. I've done everything that's expected of me. What's required. What's sensible. Well, this is one time I am definitely not going to be reasonable, dammit."

  He turned the Lincoln into his driveway as he uttered the last words, braking so hard that Susannah's seat belt locked, snapping her back against the seat.

  "My feelings for you aren't reasonable, Susannah."

  He slammed the gearshift into Park and killed the engine.

  "They never have been, not since the first day I met you."

  He released his seat belt and reached out to release Susannah's, too.

  "And I'm not a reasonable man when I'm around you," he said, dragging her across the leather seat and into his arms. "I'm not practical. Or rational. Hell, I'm not even sane," he growled furiously, and crushed his mouth to hers.

  Susannah's response was as explosive as if she were a keg of dynamite and his kiss a burning match. She locked her arms around his neck like a vise, holding him as closely, as tightly, as he was holding her. Their mouths plundered recklessly, their lips open wide, their tongues engaged in a heated, sensual duel where both combatants came out winners.

  He was hard and hot.

  She was soft and wet.

  They were both breathing hard, aching with intemperate need and a heedless, reckless passion that drove them to find the surcease that came only in each other's arms.

  "Say you want me for more than just a night," Matt demanded savagely, dragging his mouth down the slender column of her neck.

  "I want you for more than just a night."

  "Say you love me."

  "I love you," Susannah moaned, gasping as he pushed back the trench coat out of the way and nipped her bare shoulder in a blatant act of possession.

  He moved his hands to her head, threading his fingers through her hair, holding her head tilted back so he could gaze deeply into her eyes. Piercing, peerless blue stared into eyes as soft and warm as bubbling chocolate. Searching endlessly. Beseeching sweetly. Finding passion. And need. And a love so deep and strong it couldn't be denied.

  "Say you'll marry me," Matt whispered.

  "I'll marry you," Susannah whispered back.

  He smiled.

  And she smiled.

  He gentled his hands in her hair, cupping the curve of her head between them, and brought her lips to his. The kiss was tender this time. Soft. Sweet. Endlessly beguiling. Smiling lips pressed to smiling lips. Silken tong
ue tips delicately exploring. Fingertips dancing over a stubbled jaw and a satin throat, tracing the whorl of a dainty earlobe and the hard curve of a Nordic cheekbone. They sighed and murmured, nuzzled and nestled, fondled and caressed and cuddled joyously, wordlessly expressing the wonder and magic of being in love.

  "The windows are fogged up," Susannah murmured when Matt finally freed her mouth.

  "Hmm?" he said, his lips pressed against the soft skin of her throat.

  "The windows. They're fogged up."

  Matt opened his eyes to look. "So they are." He lifted his head to grin at her. "The last time that happened, I was in the back seat of my dad's car with the head cheerleader. Cindy, I think her name was."

  Susannah raised an expressive eyebrow. "Would you like to re-experience your heedless youth and climb into the back seat now?"

  Matt twisted a bit to glance over his shoulder. "It's very tempting," he said, after a moment's consideration. "But I'm not seventeen anymore—thank God—and there's a perfectly good king-size bed in the house."

  Susannah stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. "No sense of adventure," she teased.

  "You're looking for adventure?"

  Susannah smiled her witchy smile.

  Matt grinned and adjusted their position on the front seat, pushing her down beneath him. She felt his hand skim up her leg, up under her dress, reaching for the moist delta between her thighs.

  She caught at it, stopping him before he reached his goal. "It's six o'clock in the morning," she reminded him. "And we're parked in your driveway. Anyone could walk by and see us. Some eager beaver reporter might decide he has one more question he wants answered."

  "What happened to that wild sense of adventure?"

  "Well, really," she said primly. "One of us has to be reasonable."

  Epilogue

  Ten years later

  Sacramento, California

  "We couldn't ask for a more perfect day for a swearing-in ceremony, could we?" the news commentator asked his co-anchor as the scene that filled television screens all over California gave proof to his words. "The temperature is a balmy seventy-two degrees on this winter's day. There's a light breeze out of the West. Governor-Elect Matthew Ryan is at the podium. His wife Susannah Bennington Ryan has just been handed the Bible to hold while he takes the oath of office."