by Lisa Jackson
“You have me. And Seneca.”
“I know, I know,” Didi said, suddenly squashing out her cigarette with vehemence in the ashtray on a side table. She covered her face with her hands, her polished nails glinting under the lights, and Remmi took note that the one she always colored differently was black tonight. Perfect.
Didi let out a sigh and dropped her hands. “Sometimes, what with my job and all and, you know, no husband or boyfriend, it’s all a bit, no, make that a lot, it’s a lot much for one woman.” She carried the ashtray to the kitchen, dumped it, and wiped it with a paper towel. “I’m not getting any younger, Remmi, and to be the single mother of a teenager and twins. God, I’m not even thirty-five, and I feel ancient. Ancient. I should be out, having fun, kicking up my heels and . . . and . . .” Her voice fell away, and she dropped down into a chair near the table, where the briefcase, still unopened, lay flat. She glanced at the leather case and swallowed hard, blinking as if she were fighting tears.
“Mom?” Remmi whispered, and her mother waved a frantic hand to stop the reproach.
“Just go back to bed. Don’t worry about the twins, okay? They’re my responsibility. I’ll–I’ll take care of them. I’ll take care of everything.” Her smile, faded without the lipstick, faltered a bit. “Don’t I always, honey?”
“Sure, Mom.” Remmi felt like a heel.
“That’s right.” Didi glanced at the wall phone hanging over the kitchen counter.
“You can tell me, you know.”
“Tell you what?”
Remmi shrugged. “Anything, Mom. You know that.”
For a second, Didi appeared to consider the offer, seemed about to divulge the truth, then her gaze shifted to the wall phone again, and she shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to tell, now, is there?” She pinned a bright smile on her face and faced her daughter again. She winked. “Go on, now, honey. You worry too much, you know? Everything’s fine. Just fine.” Another glance at the phone. “And don’t you bother Seneca, okay? She has to get up with the twins . . .” Again, Didi’s voice faded out before she cleared her throat and added a little hoarsely, “She has to get up early.”
She made little shooing motions with her fingers, and Remmi realized Didi wasn’t about to admit to the exchange that had occurred in the desert.
She should call her out, Remmi thought, demand straight answers from her mother, admit that she knew what had gone down tonight, but she didn’t, and as she slipped between the cool sheets on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, she thought of Noah and her missed opportunity.
It doesn’t matter. Not with Ariel gone.
Tears filled her eyes, and over the soft hum of the air conditioner, she heard the sounds of distant sirens as the walls of the house closed in on her.
Didi was obviously expecting a call.
From whom?
Someone with whom she’d been in cahoots?
The “daddy” who had been given a girl dressed up as a boy?
Or someone else?
Remmi wondered if she’d ever know. She barely breathed, listening for the sound of the house phone, but the house remained still, aside from the soft whoosh of air through hidden ducts and her own shallow breathing.
Too many secrets, she thought, as she closed her eyes and knew that sleep tonight would be impossible. We all have too many secrets.
* * *
Oliver Hedges Junior—or OH2, as he preferred—stood at the windows of his penthouse and surveyed the panorama that was Las Vegas, the lights of the city stretching out to the desert. God, he loved this town. Especially tonight. He smiled and caught his watery reflection in the glass: tall, broad-shouldered, and trim, his hair cut neatly, his beard just visible, a crisp shirt, top buttons open beneath a dark Armani jacket with matching slacks, a drink swirling in his hands.
The picture of health and success.
Everything was coming together for him.
He hoisted his drink to the ghostly image, ice cubes dancing in the short glass. “Here’s to you and playing everyone to a T.” Then he took a long swallow of the aged scotch.
Perfect harmony, that’s what it was, just like the music playing from the hidden speakers tucked into the ceiling panels of the ten glassed-in rooms of his condominium in the sky. Well, make that near-perfect harmony. There was that one little hiccup.
He took another drink, letting the taste linger a bit on his tongue as he heard the sound of a baby crying. His child. Though not a male child, as he’d been told, but a little girl. Hmmm. That complicated things a bit, presented a new challenge, but he would just have to adjust. Just as he’d accepted many little bumps in the road of life, including the one that hadn’t bothered him as a young man but had created a problem later: the simple fact that he was sterile and had been told by several doctors that he would never father his own biological child. A blow. But one he’d finally accepted, and he had found a solution to the problem as his younger brother was very, very virile, as it turned out, and he could almost too easily father a child.
Some things in life just weren’t right. He hesitated to use the word “fair,” as he’d never been one to complain about his lot in life. Still . . .
He frowned, caught the change in his diluted reflection, squared his shoulders, and told himself everything would work out.
It always did.
Again, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t made major adjustments in the past. Wasn’t that the reason his father was spending the rest of his days at Fair Haven, a nursing facility that took care of the very wealthy? Poor Dad. Spending what remained of his life practically bedridden, needing help from a bevy of nurses and aides for all of his personal needs. Once a titan of industry, now, in his sixties no less, reduced to a mere shell of what he was. All because of an unfortunate skiing accident at Heavenly Valley.
“Too bad,” OH2 said, swallowing a smile before finishing his scotch and feeling the slight buzz that came after two drinks. Shifting his gaze to the darkness surrounding the edges of the city, he saw the flash of lights—blue and red, faint, but still visible as the emergency responders, cops and firemen and EMTs, surveyed the damage caused by the incinerated car in the desert.
Good luck, he thought sarcastically. Try piecing this one together.
Again, the tiny child let out a whimper, and he glanced to the door of the bedroom, where, he assumed, she was being attended to. For a second, he considered walking inside the bedroom with its makeshift crib, one of those pop-up portable things, and decided against it. Instead, he made his way back to the bar, dipped his empty glass in the bucket of small ice cubes, then poured himself two, or possibly three, more fingers of scotch. Just enough to enhance the euphoric feeling that came with a job well done.
But the other child. The boy, if Didi Storm’s story was to be believed, would be an issue. He smiled at that, the double entendre, because, unfortunately, his brother’s children would be the only heirs to the estate, and despite the prevailing politically correct ideals of this country, a boy would be preferred.
Of course, his own son would have been better.
But because he was adaptable, his brother’s son, or maybe even daughter, would just have to do. Caught young enough, that progeny could be molded.
He took a taste of scotch—cool, as the ice had begun to melt, but warming as it slid down his throat. Sipping steadily, he began plotting his next move. Didi, the greedy slut, was a problem. A major threat. As long as she was alive, knowing what she did, she’d be hanging around, like a wasp that was just out of reach but that you knew, should you turn your back, would sting you. Repeatedly.
Not if he could help it.
* * *
Seated at the tiny kitchen table, Didi stared at the money—tens, twenties, and some fifties strewn on the scarred maple tabletop, some in uneven piles, all stacks unstrapped and counted. All two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—yeah, if you were an idiot. Upon close inspection, she’d learned that only about 10 percent of the bills were leg
it, the others damned good fakes, close to perfect, but not quite. Surely the forgeries wouldn’t pass the scrutiny of any bank teller worth his or her salt. They probably wouldn’t even get by the cashiers at a quickie mart.
“You bastard,” she said under her breath and closed her eyes. What a complete and utter moron she’d been, all the while thinking she was so damned smart. Now, little Ariel . . . Didi let out a pained mewling sound at the thought of her daughter and that fire . . . What the hell had happened out in the desert? Who had been shooting and why? Was it to cause the horrible conflagration, someone out to get Brett? Or her? Letting out a sigh, she flopped back in the spindle-backed chair and pushed her hair from her eyes. Her platinum wig was where she’d tossed it, on the seat of the old rocker, a piece of furniture she’d planned to replace when . . . She eyed the piles of money again.
When your ship came in?
When you scored on the biggest con of your life?
Face it, Didi, you were the one who was conned, and now . . . and now . . .
It crossed her mind again that she should go to the police, to tell what she knew, but what would happen to her then? She’d be arrested and her remaining children . . . No, that just wouldn’t work. Ever.
She’d been tricked by Brett, played for a fool.
Double-crossed.
Just like you double-crossed him.
She crumpled a few of the fake fifties and tossed them into the air so that they could flutter up near the pendant light, then drift back to land on the pile of other bad bills. How had she been so dumb?
All wasn’t lost, she knew. She still had Brett Hedges’s son, and she would be able to exchange him for Ariel . . . if . . . if her daughter had somehow miraculously survived. She squeezed her eyes shut, refused to believe the worst. Maybe she could somehow set up another con, get Ariel and the money she was owed or . . . or what? What exactly could she do to right this wrong?
She’d been a half-wit to make the trade in the desert, to dress the part of the seductress, to show up in her big car—all to remind Brett of what he’d given up.
“As if he’d ever wanted it in the first place,” she said and dropped her head into her folded arms, letting her last cigarette burn out, unattended. What to do? She heard Adam begin to whimper from the car seat where she’d left it in the middle of the living room. She’d made a horrible mess of her life, a bigger mess than she’d even imagined.
She’d burned her bridges in the Midwest, then again in Hollywood, and now, here in Vegas? How bright was her future? Not very.
Dear God, she was a moron.
No, no, you’re not. Don’t let this get you down. It’s just a setback. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and rethink this . . . situation. It’s only a problem if you let it become one. You’re still Didi Storm, still sexy as hell, and smarter than anyone gives you credit for. You’re still young even if you feel older than your years, and you’ve still got one ace up your sleeve, don’t you?
Lifting her head, she spied Adam, looking up at her with wide, innocent eyes. He was beautiful, with his shock of white-blond hair, eyes that were crystal blue, and a button of a nose. Spying her, he waved his little hands and actually smiled, a big, gummy smile that melted her heart. “Oh, you,” she said, as she reached down, unstrapped him, and held him close. He cooed against her, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t give him up. And she never intended to. Nor had she planned on letting Brett keep their daughter. She’d been certain she could get Ariel back. Now, of course, her confidence was beyond shaken, a hole in her heart.
There had to be a way. Think, Didi, think!
The baby let out another gurgling cry.
“Come on,” she said and carried him over to the makeshift changing table near the hallway. She stripped him of Ariel’s pink onesie, then changed his diaper and slipped him into blue and white pajamas before making a bottle for him. She was weaning the babies because she had to. No one wanted to see a sexy showgirl with leaking tits, and she’d had to prepare both Adam and Ariel for the event of them living with their father, if only for a little while.
Adam took the bottle hungrily, and she sat on the threadbare rocker, one she’d picked up from a secondhand store at the edge of town. It squeaked under her weight, but she rocked steadily, gazing down at the miracle of her son.
How could she ever give him up?
Probably just as easily as you did Ariel.
“It wasn’t easy,” she whispered and fought a fresh wash of tears. What was wrong with her? Probably still the post-pregnancy hormones readjusting in her system. That was it. And what would she tell Remmi tomorrow when it became obvious that she wasn’t about to pick up her daughter from her friend Trudie’s? Not that Remmi had believed her. The look she’d sent Didi had been total disbelief, as if somehow Remmi had known her mother was lying through her teeth.
That damned girl was too smart for her own good.
Where have you heard that before? Isn’t that what your father said often enough? And what had been your mother’s response? “You got that right. But there’s more. She’s too smart and too damned sexy. It’s dangerous, Frank. You got that? Those raging teenage hormones are gonna get her into the worst trouble a girl can get in—you mark my words!”
Her mother’s warnings to her father still rang in her ears, though they had been whispered over fifteen years earlier and had, of course, as it turned out, been spot-on.
Willa Maye Hutchinson had not only suspected her daughter of sleeping around but had known it.
It was all water under the bridge. Didi settled into the rocker with her baby and started moving back and forth again. As Adam finished his bottle and drifted off, she started plotting her next move.
She had to take her emotions out of the situation and come up with a plan, something that would help her and her children.
Brett Hedges, dead or alive, still owed her a quarter of a mil.
Someone was going to pay up. Either him, if he was yet among the living, or that miserable rich old man of his.
And this time it would cost them more.
CHAPTER 7
From her bed, Remmi stared at the bedside phone—actually, the cordless extension she’d grabbed from the living room. It had been about twenty-four hours since the events in the desert, and Remmi was still undecided about what to do.
If only Noah would call.
Where was he?
What had happened?
She had so much to tell him.
Biting her lip, she considered calling the police. Again. Just as she had considered confronting her mother for the kabillionth time.
She glanced to the doorway when she heard Didi’s distinctive, fast-paced walk along the hall. Her mother rapped softly, then pushed the door open. A bright, false smile was pinned to her glossy lips. “Honey, I’m going out.”
Remmi had already gathered as much from the frantic way Didi had gone to her room and started stripping clothes from hangers, tossing her designer costumes onto the foot of her king-sized bed after eyeing each item. It was a routine she went through every night before a performance or a big date. Remmi, or sometimes Seneca, was expected to return the discarded outfits back to the closet. “Stay here, with Adam; wait until I get back,” Didi said as she peeked into Remmi’s room.
Remmi had spent the rest of last night wide awake and the day dozing off and on; her dreams, when they came, were of fiery blasts and babies crying and Remmi finding herself lost in the desert.
“But you’re not going to work?” Remmi asked, sliding into a sitting position against the headboard.
“No . . . not tonight. This is a private appointment.” Again, Didi was dressed up in the Marilyn getup. A different dress, tight, black, and cut low enough to show significant cleavage, but the same wig and exaggerated makeup. The spark of excitement that had been with her the night before was replaced by a wariness and a deeper sadness, both visible beneath her forced smile.
“And you’ll bring Ariel back
?” Remmi knew she was pushing her mother, but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t have the guts to admit the truth, to say she’d been there in the desert when all hell had broken loose. She hadn’t been able to bring up the fact that she’d been hiding in the Caddy’s cargo hold.
Because she was afraid of her mother’s reaction.
You’re as bad as she is. Just confront her, damn it!
She’d tried, twice, and failed. Had ended up back in her bedroom chewing on her fingernails.
All day, Didi had been wound up, angry, barking orders at Seneca and her daughter. Seneca was used to Didi’s moods and secrets, and the tall midwife kept her thoughts to herself, went about her business and questioned nothing. It was so weird. If Seneca thought it odd that Ariel was missing, she didn’t question Didi.
Maybe she was in on the plot all along.
With Seneca, you never knew. She kept to herself, especially her opinions. Her hair was long, dark, and curly, tied loosely at her nape, her skin a soft mocha color, her eyes a gold that burned with intelligence. She’d said her grandmother was Jamaican, and that she’d grown up in New Orleans, and she did have a slight accent that Remmi couldn’t place. Cajun? Islands? Remmi didn’t know. In fact, Remmi knew little about the woman who spent a lot of days and some nights at their house. Seneca had helped birth the twins and never let on to anyone that Didi had borne more than one child. Seneca was ever-patient, and Didi had remarked cryptically once that Seneca “was in it for the long game,” whatever that meant.
Now, Seneca didn’t question what Didi was up to, just got Adam ready for bed.
It was Remmi who was upset. She’d spent the night worrying about what had happened and the day watching the news, trying to find out what the police knew. Nothing, as far as she could tell. She’d called Noah’s home over and over again. No answer. She felt as if she were surely going out of her mind.