“Are there other options?” he asked.
“I know a lawyer…” Vance began, but could tell from Miles’ expression that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“Anything you can do?” he asked.
Vance considered all the reasons—the good reasons—to say no. But instead responded: “I’d need to know much more about what’s happening.”
Cara wiped the back of her hand below her nose. “Let me talk to her alone, okay, Miles?”
#
How did people make such bad choices? Debra Vance thought about that all the time. Police work did that to you. It also made you jaded—the way Delgado thought about Miles. But sometimes she was guilty of it herself—and after barely more than five years on the force. You started to think bad decisions were something you'd never fall victim to. But you did.
Sometimes choices deceived you. What seemed like a good idea turned disastrous, and the whole world, in its sanctimonious 20/20 hindsight, shook its head at how you could have done something so stupid, or selfish, or reckless—or all of that and more. Vance had observed judges make speeches when handing down verdicts in simple traffic cases as if the governor having appointed them to the bench absolved them of their own sins.
“Were there others besides Valentine?” she asked Cara.
The two women sat in Miles’ truck, doors closed, engine running, heat on. Miles stood twenty yards away by the parking lot railing, facing south into the sunshine.
“Many others?” Vance wanted to know.
Cara didn’t answer, as if what she’d confessed so far had strained her will to admit anything else.
“More than ten?” Vance asked.
Cara shook her head. No.
“How long has this been going on?”
Nothing.
“Years?”
A quick, stern head shake.
“Months?”
“A few weeks,” Cara managed to say.
Next came the question Vance most wanted the answer to: “Did any of this have to do with Miles?”
“No. No. Of course not.” Cara had no difficulty saying that.
#
“I shouldn’t have told her that, should I?” Cara asked Miles, looking out the window, not at him. “That Valentine was paying to have sex with me.”
They were back on the Key Bridge, driving away from the Marriott.
“I felt like I needed to say it.” Her voice sounded far away. “And the reason I wanted to talk to her alone…” Cara sniffled, still not looking at him. “…is I didn’t want you to be more ashamed of me than you already are.”
“I’m not ashamed of you,” Miles stated certainly.
Cara replied quietly: “I don’t see how you can’t be.”
46.
The following morning, Debra Vance arrived at Cara Blakely’s house.
It was the first Vance had seen of the area where Miles lived other than that posted video of him being pulled out of his truck when wrongly suspected of kidnapping Cara’s son. The houses on the street were all similar—cute Tudors—but smaller than she’d expected, and older—not knowing why she’d had that impression, except that good-looking people seemed to live in better places. Not that it was a bad neighborhood, or even marginal. But it was average, and Miles was not. Nor, Vance now appreciated, was Cara Blakely.
Yesterday Cara’s beauty had been hidden by shadows of the parking garage. Now, her color looked healthier. The dark circles under her eyes had faded. And her thick hair was loose, no longer confined inside a ski cap.
Letting Vance inside her house through the side door, Cara wore a black ribbed cardigan over a black t-shirt, with dark slacks and flats—a conservative look perhaps intended to keep from reminding Vance about what Cara had done with Danny Valentine. Even so, the shape of Cara’s body was magnetic.
She led Vance into her living room, which Vance visually surveyed, finding the most interesting feature to be Miles, seated on the sofa.
He stood when she entered the room, his expression conveying appreciation.
Vance nodded to him. She held a plain-looking clock in her hand—a six-inch-square box of faux-wood, three inches deep, with numerals and hands on its face, and a few chips and scratches in the veneer to give the appearance of age. “This is it,” she said of the device she’d described to them yesterday, proceeding to repeat some of those details. “A camera and microphone are built in, but very hard to see, even close-up. The main question is: where to put it?” She considered the tidy room’s simple furnishings, the decorated Christmas tree with its lights off.
The fireplace mantle seemed the obvious choice, but perhaps too obvious. According to what Cara told Vance yesterday, Valentine had been in her home twice before. A new object on the otherwise empty mantle might catch his attention. Perhaps the built-in shelves were a better choice.
“Are you planning to give Valentine the money here?” she asked Cara. “Or should there be a second camera upstairs?”
The question made Cara turn to Miles, who stood close beside her—and there it was, Vance thought: the way Cara touched Miles’ arm, leaving her hand there several seconds—the gesture so natural Cara probably didn’t realize she’d given herself away. “I don’t think I can do this.” Cara’s voice was unsteady, talking to Miles.
Vance shared the woman’s hesitation, but for her own reasons: if this idea backfired, she could likely kiss her law-enforcement career goodbye. But instead of killing the plan, she talked Cara through it. “I’ve used this camera before and it’s never been a problem.” She didn’t reveal that previous surveillances hadn’t been police work, but moonlighting for her attorney friend in divorce cases.
“I only have to do it one time?” Cara remained angled toward Miles as if asking him. “Get him on camera taking money once?”
Vance said, “If you can get him to talk—engage him in a conversation that makes clear what’s going on—once could be enough. I’ll take what we get to someone I trust in the prosecutor’s office—like we talked about. And leave I.A. entirely out of it.”
“It’ll be alright,” Miles assured Cara, leaning down to meet her eyes when Vance thought what he really wanted to do was take her in his arms.
The intimacy between Miles and Cara was obvious, and Debra Vance envied it. She said, “We’ll put it on the shelf then?” Referring to the camera.
After a moment, Cara nodded.
Vance opened the back of the clock, turned the camera on, reclosed it, and set it in place. “If something changes,” she explained, “if Valentine wants to pick up the money somewhere else, or you get enough advance notice when it’s going to happen so I can be here, call me.” Vance had put her number in Cara’s cell phone yesterday, under “Deb.” “We good?” she asked. “Any questions?”
Cara shook her head.
Miles followed Vance into the kitchen to show her out. “Thanks for this,” he said.
“Hope it works.” It felt wrong to lie to him: to say nothing about how the camera and microphone inside the clock would keep recording even when switched into the off position.
#
Once Vance was gone, Miles and Cara went upstairs to her bedroom. Miles put his arms around her. She closed her eyes.
After a while, Cara said, “Maybe I’ll go to Ireland for the custody hearing and not come back. I’ll let the bank have the house and my car. And let the credit card companies cut me off. I’ll start over.”
Miles stroked her hair.
Cara took a deep breath. And another. When her phone buzzed, she jumped, thinking it was going to be Valentine. The thought of him twisted her stomach.
Miles checked her phone. “Wendy Jordan,” he said.
#
Cara pulled her car to the front curb and Wendy promptly emerged from the lobby, blonde hair brushing the shoulders of a Burberry cashmere coat. She leaned into the opened window of Cara’s Acura, handing her a small Sophora cosmetic bag. Inside were ten hundred-dollar bills.
“To cover the first one.” Wendy smiled. “And look—like I said—don’t panic. This happens. You just got hit early on. It’s no big deal. He’s not going to bust you, and eventually he’ll go away.”
Cara was stunned by Wendy’s help, having assumed she was being left to deal with Valentine on her own.
“And sorry again for not getting back to you sooner. Sucky timing. But I was with somebody who demands my uninterrupted attention.”
Cara nodded, too surprised and grateful to find words to respond.
“And when you give him that,” Wendy said, referring to the money, “see if he’ll take a one-time payment to settle the whole thing. Try five grand.”
Cara nodded again, even though she didn’t think that would work.
Then, as if nothing was wrong, Wendy said, “Harrison’s coming up this weekend.” Referring to the majority owner of the company from Raleigh—the first client Wendy had set Cara up with. “He wants to spend New Year’s with you. His wife and kids are going to be in Aruba with her parents.”
Cara swallowed. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Wendy nodded understandingly, but said: “Give Harrison a call. See how it feels.” Which sounded more like an instruction than a request.
#
Miles phoned Juan’s father to ask for the afternoon off—wanting to be home for Cara when she returned.
There was silence at the other end.
“Senor Arroyo?” Miles thought the call may have been dropped.
Juan’s father spoke sharply: “You are not to come here anymore. You lied to me. You told me Juan is upset about a girl. There is no girl. It is something at school. But not any girl.”
Miles wondered how much Juan had told his father.
“I trusted you,” Mr. Arroyo accused.
Quietly, respectfully, Miles responded, “Lo siento. No quise hacerte daño.” I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Juan’s father ended the call.
#
Five miles from her office, Cara stopped at a small coffee shop. Her hands were shaking as she received a cup from the barista.
She sat in a plain chair—no padded loungers in this non-chain shop—and thought about Harrison.
That first night she was with him he’d known she was nervous—that she was new to “all this” as he called it. And he liked that about her. Cara hadn’t told him about Amsterdam, because that seemed like someone else to her now. Then again, she seemed like someone else now. Because this couldn’t really be her.
She sipped her coffee, desperate for a way out. her phone, she checked flights to Ireland: times, connections, costs. Then rental properties: concentrating on the city center, thinking that’s where more jobs would be. Then job listings, including restrictions on employment for U.S. citizens. Trying to figure out how much money she’d need to get herself settled. And wondering: what if she told Wendy that Valentine had turned down $5,000, but agreed to take $10,000? Or $15,000? Would Wendy give that to her? Even as a loan? Only Cara wouldn’t give the money to the crooked cop, but would keep it herself.
And then there was Harrison… Cara finished her coffee and went out to her car, took a few deep breaths, and called him.
He left a meeting to talk to her—so happy to hear from her. Excited by the sound of her voice. Eager to be with her again.
An hour later, Cara returned home.
Miles was inside, waiting for her. Cara hugged him close and whispered, “I’m going to Ireland…” Her voice sounded different than when she’d mentioned this earlier—as if that had been a fantasy and this was a plan. “I’m going and I’m not coming back... And the only thing I’ll miss about here will be you.”
Miles did not question her, and Cara was glad about that. She didn’t want to have to lie to him about having made arrangements to be with Harrison not just for New Year’s Eve, but an entire week. Because the way for her to get out from under all this was to do it one final time with one wealthy client—the way she thought Danique would have done it. Then take the money she’d be paid by Harrison, and the money she was going to steal from Wendy Jordan, and go to Ireland, get her son, and disappear.
47.
“I missed you! I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!” Jennifer Gaines jumped into Miles’ hug, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “Did you miss me?”
“I did.” He couldn’t help laughing.
They were in Miles’ driveway, where Jennifer had pulled her mother’s Audi in behind Miles’ truck.
She wore the charm bracelet he gave her for Christmas, and Miles had on his new scarf.
He was surprised how much he had missed her. But she often surprised him. Jennifer was the first girl his own age he wanted to spend time with, to be more than friends.
He liked how she was honest and forthright with him. And while she shared the simplicity and lack of life experiences of other girls he hadn’t remained attracted to, he could tell she was on her way to becoming a more complex, more adult woman. And while she was not yet like Amanda or Cara, she was going to be.
The charms on Jennifer’s bracelet jingled behind his neck as she held him, telling him again how much she missed him. And asking between kisses if Cara was home.
“No,” Miles answered.
“But her car’s not there,” Jennifer half sang, tempting him. “So is she at work?”
“Yes.”
“And what time does she get home?”
“Usually after six, I guess.”
“Mm. And what time is it now…?”
He smiled, seeing where she was leading.
“Oh, I know,” Jennifer reasoned, “maybe she comes home five hours early. But your dad could always come home early, too. And think about it…if someone’s going to walk in on us—Cara or your dad, I’d pick her. I mean—that would be a strange way for me to meet your father, don’t you think?”
Miles didn’t bother to mention his father had gone away on business.
They went inside Cara’s house, where Jennifer did a turn in the center of the living room, then settled into a comfortable slouch across the sofa, gesturing for Miles to get on top of her. He’d already turned off the camera in the clock—the device positioned to catch Valentine.
Miles really liked the way Jennifer kissed him. Amanda’s kisses had been deeper, longer, passionate. Cara’s kisses were more breathless, as though the moment had stolen her self-control. With Jennifer, it felt like waking up to a sunny day in a wonderful place with new adventures to explore.
After a little while on the sofa, they went up to Cara’s bed, the charms on Jennifer’s bracelet jingling as she peeled off her sweater and jeans, eager to show off the new underwear she’d bought at a shop in Charleston. “They match,” she said of her bra and panties.
Miles smiled. “I see that.”
She pounced onto the bed, bracelet still jingling.
After a wonderful twenty minutes, they were lingering pleasantly when there was a hard knock on the front door.
Jennifer jumped up, “Oh, shit.” Concerned, but still with that little bit of a laugh.
Miles pulled on his pants, grabbed his long-sleeved tee, and peered out the front window.
There was a dark van in Cara’s driveway.
“Who is it?” Jennifer whispered. She stood behind Miles in her sweater, a garment almost long enough to be a dress.
“I don’t know.”
A man walked back toward the van. Was it Valentine? Miles wondered.
The man got inside the vehicle. And sat there.
Miles couldn’t see the license plate from upstairs. But after a minute, the van’s engine started and it pulled away. A magnetic sign on its rear door was imprinted with three initials, beneath which was the word: Deliveries.
Miles went downstairs, with Jennifer following right behind him.
Outside on the landing was a box.
“Mm…” Jennifer recognized the logo imprinted on the address label. “Fancy linger
ie. Please, can we open it? Please, please, please. I bet it’s super-hot.”
48.
Miles was putting laundered sheets on Cara’s bed when she came home from work.
She said, “You know you don’t have to do this for me.”
Miles thought she looked tired. For a brief moment, he felt guilty for giving the impression he was doing housekeeping for her, not covering any evidence of having been with Jennifer, who’d left two hours ago. But those feelings receded while he fixed Cara dinner.
They ate by candlelight, sitting side by side at her dining room table.
Cara told Miles she’d bought a one-way plane ticket to Ireland. And found a place to stay in Dublin, showing it to him online: a one-bedroom walk-up in an old stone building overlooking a park. She’d been texting with an agency that specialized in placing Americans in office jobs, hopeful they could find suitable work for her. And her lawyer in Baltimore was drafting papers for Cara to give him power of attorney to wrap up her affairs here, including trying to sell the house and negotiating her debts with creditors.
Miles did not question her plans, nor ask about the package that had been delivered that afternoon—the box that remained unopened on the living room floor Cara had said nothing about. Nor did he question whether Cara was telling the truth when she said she was going to spend New Year’s Eve at a party her company was giving at a fancy D.C. hotel. It wasn’t that he didn’t care—because he did, very much. But he wanted her to have the courage to go forward with her plans to leave, even if it meant he might not see her again.
When they were in bed later, Miles was surprised when Cara made the first move. They hadn’t had sex since before Christmas—before Valentine forced his blackmail scheme on her.
They took their time. Their kisses were long and drawn out and continued once Miles was inside her—moving slowly, steadily. Something about how Cara looked at him made it feel like she was imprinting this scene into memory, as if confirming there would be few chances for them to share this again after tonight.
The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door Page 20
