by Janet Dailey
“Yes. I have the record right here in front of me,” the man insisted.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I troubled you.”
The man made some reply, but Bick was beyond hearing it. Pain was crashing in on his head, shattering his images and destroying his illusions. Numbed fingers dropped the receiver on the hook. There was a burning sensation in his eyes as they began to blur. He had believed her, but she had been deceiving him all along.
“That little liar!” He choked on the words. It hurt to breathe, his chest muscles tightening up in a tortured contraction.
Something exploded inside him, unleashing a torrent of violent energy. He pushed out of his chair and recrossed the room to the outer office. As he slammed the door, the secretary behind the desk turned with a start.
“Cancel all my appointments for today. I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
It was a growled order that left the woman blinking after him in shock.
After adding the column of figures twice and arriving at the same answer, Tamara entered the total at the bottom of the page. She cleared the adding machine and punched the next number in the following column. The door to her office swung open and she looked up. A smile spread across her features with radiant force as Bick walked in.
“Hello.” Her greeting was soft and warm, echoing her feelings. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t.” His expression was unfathomable, but there was a subdued bite to his voice.
Her gaze ran over the haggard lines stamped into his features. They made him look tougher and harder, and tired. “Sit down. You look like you could use a cup of coffee. How do you like it? Black? Or with cream and sugar?” She stood up, silently volunteering to get him a cup.
“Forget the coffee.” But he did sit down in the chair placed in front of her desk.
Tamara was tempted to argue that a cup of coffee would do him good, but the set of his jaw warned her not to do it. So she sat back down and wondered why he hadn’t stolen a good morning kiss. Of course, there wasn’t anything loverlike in his expression this morning.
“Did you come to watch me work?” Tamara attempted to lighten his apparently black mood.
“No. I want you to repeat what you told Adam and me yesterday.” He leaned back in the chair and laid an arm along her desk, picking up a pencil to roll it between his thumb and fingers. The narrowness of his gaze was strangely challenging.
“Again?” A frown flickered across her face.
“Yes. Again.”
Tamara hesitated, fighting down a budding apprehension. She began her explanation with an account of her mother’s illness and her subsequent financial straits. Bick listened without comment, never taking his eyes off of her. She went into greater detail about her attempts to broach the subject of a loan with Mr. Stein before she took it upon herself to take the money.
“Don’t forget the part about the previous loan.” Bick prompted her when she paused.
“I … I was just coming to that.” The frown became a permanent part of her expression when she continued. She explained the similar position she had been in the previous time and the late Art Stein’s offer of a loan. Again Tamara made certain Bick understood she had repaid the loan with money her mother inherited. Lastly, she referred to the insurance policy.
When she finished, Bick set the pencil aside to clap his hands, applauding her with mockery. “Marvelous performance. You did even better than yesterday, but then, you had time to perfect your story, didn’t you?” he concluded.
“It isn’t a story,” Tamara protested in wary anger. “It’s the truth.”
“I don’t think you know the meaning of the word,” he jeered. “With a body and a face like yours, you can make a man believe almost anything you want. What were you thinking when you walked out of the office yesterday afternoon? Did you say to yourself, ‘The poor, dumb sucker bought every word I said?’ How much was I supposed to eventually pay, Miss James? Twenty thousand dollars?”
“What?” She reeled in confusion, staring at him in bewilderment when he stood up to rest his hands on her desk and lean toward her.
“You thought you had hooked yourself a prize fool, didn’t you?” Bick accused. “I admit I was—for a while. I thought Adam had made a mistake about the missing funds. I didn’t want to believe you had anything to do with it. When you openly admitted that you had ‘borrowed’ it”—he sarcastically emphasized the verb—“I was enraged. Then you started telling your sad tale. I can’t believe I actually swallowed that garbage about your poor, dying mother.”
That was too much. Tamara lashed out with her hand, her palm stinging against a hard cheek. The contact sent sharp needles stabbing all the way up her arm. The slap had turned Bick’s head at an angle, an ugly red patch rapidly turning white on his suntanned cheek. Moving out of her range, he straightened.
“You made sure I was on your side before you left, too,” Bick continued in the same caustic vein. “A little kissing, a little petting, then you left while I was still panting for more. Just for curiosity’s sake, how long would it have been before I finally laid you? Had you worked that out on your timetable yet?”
“No!” Tamara was indignant, angry, repelled all at the same time.
“Did you think you were going to get as much out of me as you got out of the Stein brothers? Or were you playing me for bigger game?”
“You’re insane.” It was the only explanation.
“No.” Bick laughed harshly. “I was out of my head for a little while, but not now. You overplayed your hand, Tamara. You are guilty of overconfidence. Before you gave me the name of that insurance man, you should have made certain he was going to play along with you. Or were you just positive that I wouldn’t call and check on the policy?”
“Why would I need to talk to him?” she retorted. “If you called him, then you know the details of the policy and its amount.”
“You can drop the act now, Tamara.” A nerve twitched in his jaw as he looked at her with contempt. “That wide-eyed innocence won’t work. There isn’t any use pretending anymore.”
“It isn’t an act!” she flared. “Will you stop saying that!”
“I suppose the next thing you are going to say is that you didn’t know the policy was no longer in effect. Or are you suffering from a convenient case of amnesia?” he mocked.
“No longer in effect? You’re mistaken,” Tamara insisted. “I paid the last premium. There isn’t another one due for three more months. I know it hasn’t lapsed.”
“No, it hasn’t lapsed. You cashed it in, remember?” Bick jeered.
“I didn’t!”
“Dammit! Quit lying! You cashed it in seven months ago. The agent checked and double-checked the date. When you ‘borrowed’ those company funds, you knew there wasn’t any damned insurance policy to pay them back!”
Tamara breathed in sharply only to have a paralysis grip her lungs. Seven months ago. It couldn’t be. It was merely a coincidence that her mother had received the inheritance money seven months ago. There wasn’t any connection between the two events.
“The insurance policy doesn’t exist,” Bick stated after regaining his temper. “And I’m beginning to doubt that your ‘sick’ mother exists.”
“Don’t say that,” Tamara whispered in choked dismay.
With a long stride, he was at the back of her desk, seizing her wrist and pulling her out of the chair. “Come on.”
“Where?” She stumbled after him, pulled by the bone-crushing hold on her wrist. “Where are you taking me?”
“Why, Tamara? Can’t you guess?” he mocked. “You are taking me home to introduce me to your dear, precious mother. Unless, of course, she has risen from her deathbed to do some shopping.”
With a callous lack of concern, he dragged her out of the office past the members of her staff. He was indifferent to the stares that turned Tamara red with embarrassment. Outside, Bick shoved her into the passenger seat o
f the car and climbed into the driver’s side. Tamara rubbed her wrist, trying to stimulate the flow of blood into her numbed hand and fingers.
They were a block from the office before she ventured to speak. “I think I can explain what happened about the insurance policy.”
“Have you had time to come up with a good story?” He ridiculed her maliciously. “You must have an excellent imagination.”
Tamara tried to ignore his jibes. “I didn’t cash that policy in, but I think my mother did.”
“That’s good,” Bick nodded. “Blame it on your mother. No doubt the two of you are working together anyway.”
Tears burned her eyes and she turned her head away from him so he couldn’t see them. She stared out the window, her vision blurring.
“I mentioned to you that my mother received a small inheritance about seven or eight months ago,” she reminded him in a small voice. “I used most of it to pay back the first loan. At the time that my mother gave me the inheritance check to deposit in the bank, I was so overjoyed at this totally unexpected windfall that I never questioned it.”
“You wouldn’t want to be accused of looking a gift horse in the mouth, would you?”
Tamara ignored his comment as best she could. “Several times my mother had tried to persuade me to drop the insurance—to cash it in and take what equity it had accumulated because it was becoming so impossible to make the payments. I didn’t. Mr. Stein—Art Stein—convinced me the policy was excellent collateral, under the circumstances. So whenever she suggested it, I refused. This last time, I think she took it upon herself to do something about it.”
“That’s a good try, but not very convincing.”
“All right, so there isn’t any insurance money—and there won’t be!” she was stung into retorting. “But I swear to you I’ll pay the money back.”
“How?” Bick challenged.
“You can take part of it out of my check every month—make it a regular deduction,” Tamara argued.
“My God!” The exclamation was a strangled laugh. “You’ve got guts suggesting such a thing.”
“Why? At least, you are guaranteed you are going to get your money, aren’t you?” she flared.
“I presume, of course, that you are suggesting that the deducted payment be somewhere around a hundred dollars a month,” he said dryly.
“I will need money to live on,” Tamara pointed out.
“Do you have any idea how long it will take to pay back twenty thousand dollars and the interest it would accumulate? Twenty-five years, if you’re lucky.”
“Yes, I know.” She brushed at a tear that slipped from an eyelash. “But I will pay you back.”
“Your plan has a flaw.”
“What?” she demanded.
“You don’t have a job.”
“What?”
“You’re fired, that’s what,” Bick retorted.
“Why?” Tamara turned in the seat to give him a stricken look.
“You don’t honestly believe that I am going to let you continue working when I have proof that you are a thief!” He sliced her a narrow look. “I wouldn’t put you in charge of a petty cash fund, let alone permit you to continue working in an accounting post.”
“But I’m good at my work,” she protested.
“Too damned good!” he scoffed. “Adam almost didn’t find your little ‘loan,’ and he’s the best. I wouldn’t hire you to answer the telephone!”
“But …” Tamara faltered, suddenly panic-stricken. “But I have to work. How can I possibly earn a living?”
“It’s a pity you didn’t think of that before you got greedy, isn’t it?” He slowed the car and turned it into the curb, parking it in front of her house.
Chapter Six
There was a gasp of alarmed surprise when Tamara walked into the house ahead of Bick. It was followed by a relieved “Tamara” as Sadie identified the intruder and pressed a reassuring hand to her fluttering heart. “My land, girl, you gave me a fright walking in like that. What are you doing home?”
“I—” How on earth could she explain? Tamara wondered. So she didn’t try. “I’d like you to meet … my employer, Bick Rutledge. This is Sadie Kent, the nurse who looks after my mother.”
She saw the sweeping and cynical look Bick made as the two exchanged greetings, a look that appeared to find fault with Sadie because she wasn’t wearing a uniform. It had been a mutually agreed decision. Perhaps it was unprofessional, but it kept the house from seeming like a miniature hospital ward.
“How is Mrs. James?” Bick inquired with droll blandness.
Sadie cast a hesitant glance at Tamara before she answered. “I imagine she is overwhelmed with curiosity at this moment to find out what her daughter is doing home in the middle of the morning.”
“Then perhaps we should go into her room,” Tamara suggested quickly.
“By all means,” he agreed.
She was first to enter her mother’s room and walked to the hospital bed, bending to kiss her mother’s cheek and murmur a greeting. As she turned to face Bick, her hand automatically sought the limp hand of her mother’s in an instinctively protective gesture. Her proud look defied Bick to challenge the state of her mother’s health.
Making the introductions, Tamara watched his expression, but he showed no reaction—not pity, not doubt, not acceptance—nothing. She wanted to scream at him to admit that her mother was tragically ill and she hadn’t been lying. But, of course, she didn’t.
“This is a surprise, Mr. Rutledge,” her mother said in her concise speech pattern to make her slurring voice more distinct.
“I insisted that your daughter bring me here so I could meet you,” Bick stated. “She has told me frequently about you.”
“Tamara has mentioned that you have taken her to lunch and given her rides home. She was much too casual about it, I thought, but now I understand why.” It was a brightly knowing look she darted to Tamara.
“Mother, please,” Tamara murmured, because that remark that had once been very close to the truth was now very far from it.
Her mother made an attempt at an understanding smile and let her gaze return to Bick. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Rutledge?”
“I would like that, thank you,” he said, accepting.
But Tamara was reluctant to leave him alone with her mother. She wavered uncertainly beside the bed, still clutching her mother’s hand in a mute attempt at protection.
“I would like very much to talk to you at a greater length, Mr. Rutledge,” her mother said with concentrated effort. “But I tire easily. Perhaps it would be better if you drank your coffee in the kitchen with Tamara.”
“Of course, Mrs. James.” He agreed to that, too. “It has been … a pleasure meeting you.”
Her mother’s eyelids drifted down in a silent acknowledgment of the polite statement before she looked at Tamara to prompt her into movement. Bick waited to follow her out of the front bedroom through the living room to the kitchen. Sadie eyed them curiously as she passed them to check on her patient.
In the kitchen, Tamara walked directly to the cupboard and took two mugs from the shelf. Fresh coffee was in the chrome-plated percolator and she filled the two cups, keeping the mug with the chip in it for herself and handing the other to Bick. Turning her back on him, she walked to the white-painted kitchen table and chairs.
“I suppose you still think it was an act, that my mother was faking it,” she accused tightly. “Maybe you’d like to talk to the doctors. I can give you several numbers to call. One for our family doctor, the specialist’s number, his consultant, or maybe—”
“That’s enough,” Bick snapped. “I am already convinced you were telling the truth about your mother.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?” she challenged, and pulled out a chair to sit at the table.
“You told the truth about your mother, but there’s still that matter about the missing twenty thousand dollars,” he pointed out in sharp remi
nder.
And now no insurance money to pay it back—and no job. “Yes, I know.” Tamara sighed and cupped both hands around the mug to warm her chilled flesh with its heat. “How am I going to explain this to my mother?” She lifted her gaze to meet his piercing look.
“Tell her you have me wrapped around your little finger. I gave you the day off because I had been making you work so hard,” he jeered, letting her see that his opinion of her intention hadn’t changed. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell her. That’s your problem.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
He moved to stand near her chair. “Do you want me to give you the money?”
“Would you?” A wary hope took the dullness from her blue eyes.
Setting his cup on the table, he put a hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table in front of her and leaned down. “Why should I?” Bick challenged.
“Because … you want to help me.” Considering the low opinion he held for her, there couldn’t be any other reason—not any more. His hard, lean features told her that.
“What would I get out of it?” His hand left the table to curve around her throat and tilt her head back.
Gripped by the throat, she couldn’t elude his mouth when it came down to capture hers and force a deeply passionate kiss that flamed her blood. He freed her lips to draw a breath while his hand slid from her throat to possessively cover the roundness of a breast with his palm.
“Lady, you’d be an expensive lay.” His insolent comment prompted her into slapping his hand away. The action merely drew a smile as Bick straightened. “And what would it accomplish? It might get you out of trouble for the moment, but inside of a month you’d be badly in need of money again. That probably doesn’t concern you, though,” he taunted. “With your beauty, charm, and body, you’ll find yourself another sucker to supply the cash. That insurance policy is a good ploy. Maybe the next guy won’t be smart enough to check on it.”
“I didn’t deliberately lie about that,” she insisted. “I told you I didn’t know my mother had cashed it in.”
“So you said.” His mouth thinned in grim skepticism, and he turned to walk to the door.
