Alex Kava Bundle
Page 98
“How do you know? You’ve never met him.”
“No, but I did some research and—”
“Ah, research?” her mother interrupted. “Like a background check?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, keeping her voice calm and steady now. The professional kicked back into gear.
“The FBI has always hated him. They want to destroy him.”
“I don’t want to destroy him.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
“Mom, I am the FBI. Please, just listen to me for a minute.” But her mother was fidgeting with the living room blinds, wandering from one window to the next, shutting each and taking her time. “I’ve talked to others who have told—”
“Others who have left the church.” Another interruption, but still with that annoying distracted cheerfulness.
“Yes.”
“Ex-members.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you simply can’t believe a word they say. Surely, you must know that.” This time she looked at Maggie, and there was something in her eyes, an impatience Maggie didn’t recognize. “But you’d rather believe them, wouldn’t you?”
Maggie stared at her again. Her mother’s mind was already made up. Nothing Maggie could say would change what she believed or didn’t believe. No surprise there. What exactly was it that she had expected to find out? Why had she come? It wasn’t likely her mother had any damning information about Everett. To warn her mother, perhaps? Why did she believe her mother would suddenly listen to anything Maggie had to say or to advise? This was ridiculous. She shouldn’t have come.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said out loud, and turned to leave.
“Yes, you’d rather believe them, strangers you’ve never met before.” Her mother’s tone was no longer cheerful, a cruel sarcasm edging in. This, Maggie recognized. This, she remembered. “Not like you would ever believe me. Your own mother.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest that,” Maggie said calmly, facing her mother and trying to ignore the change, not only in her mother’s tone but even in her gestures—nervous swipes of fingers through her hair. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for a tumbler or bottle and finding the tea glass. She grabbed it and emptied it in one gulp, satisfied and not realizing it had been Maggie’s glass by mistake.
“You never believed in me.”
Maggie continued to stare at her. How could the insertion of one little word like “in” make such a world of difference? “I’ve never said that.”
But her mother didn’t seem to hear her. She was going back around the room, opening the window blinds that she had just shut, one after the other. “It was always him. Always him.”
She was ranting, and Maggie knew it was too late to have any semblance of a conversation with her now. But she had no idea who she meant by “him.” This was a new rant. One she didn’t recognize.
“Maybe I should go,” Maggie said, but made no attempt to leave. She only wanted to get her mother’s attention. But her mother was no longer listening. No longer paying attention. This was a mistake.
“It was always him.” This time her mother stopped in front of her, facing her with accusation. “You loved him so much, you have nothing left for any of the rest of us. Not for me. Not for Greg. Probably not even for your cowboy.”
“Okay now, that’s enough.” Maggie wouldn’t put up with this. It was ridiculous. The woman didn’t know what she was even saying.
“He was no saint, you know.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Your father.”
Maggie’s stomach took a plunge.
“Your precious father,” her mother added as if she needed clarification. “You always loved him more. So much love for him that there was never enough left for the rest of us. You buried it all with him.”
“That’s not true.”
“And he was no saint, you know.”
“Don’t you dare,” Maggie said, immediately disappointed to find the quiver return to her lower lip.
“Dare to tell the truth?” Her mother managed a cruel smile.
Why was she doing this?
“I need to leave.” Maggie turned toward the door.
“He was out fucking his girlfriend the night of the fire.”
It was like a knife had been thrust into her back, stopping her in her tracks, making her turn to face her mother again.
“I had to call her house,” she continued, “when the fire department’s dispatcher called looking for him. Everyone thought he was up sleeping in our bed, but he was in her bed. Her bed, fucking her.”
“Stop it,” Maggie said, but it came out as a whisper, because all the air had suddenly been sucked out of her.
“I never told you. I never told anyone. How could I after he went out that night, ran into that burning building and died a fucking hero.”
“You’re making this up.”
“He got her pregnant. She has a son. His son. The son I never could give him.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you making this up?” Maggie said, trying to keep the twelve-year-old hurt little girl from surfacing, though in her head, her voice sounded exactly like a child’s. “You’re lying.”
“I thought I was protecting you. Yes, I lied then. But not now. Why would I lie now?”
“To hurt me.”
“To hurt you?” Her mother rolled her eyes, the sarcasm having overpowered any other emotion or response. “I’ve been trying to protect you from the truth for years.”
“Protect me?” Now the anger began to unleash itself. “You call moving me halfway across the country protecting me? You call bringing home strange men to fondle me, protecting me?”
“I did the best I could.” The eyes were darting around the room again, and Maggie knew she had said what she wanted to say and was now looking to retreat, searching to escape.
“You lost a husband that night. But I lost both my parents.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I lost both my father and my mother. And what did I get in their place? A drunken invalid to take care of. A drunken slut instead of a mother.”
The slap came so suddenly, Maggie didn’t have time to react. She wiped at the sting and was more unnerved by the tears already dampening her cheek.
“Oh, Jesus! Maggie.” Her mother reached for her and Maggie pulled away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, don’t.” Maggie raised a hand in warning. She stood straight, avoided her mother’s eyes. “Don’t apologize,” she said, allowing one more swipe at the tears. “This was the perfect response from you. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”
Then she turned and left, making it to her car, managing to drive through the blur before stopping at the entrance to I-95. She pulled off on the side, killed the headlights and switched on the car’s flashers, shoved the emergency brake into place, left the engine running and the radio blaring while she let the sobs pour out of her. While she gave in and let those damn leaky compartments burst wide open.
CHAPTER 54
Gwen needed to slow down, but she gulped the remainder of her wine, anyway. She could feel Tully watching her from across the small round table with a polite look of concern while he fumbled with his spaghetti and meatballs.
He had chosen a lovely Italian restaurant with crisp white tablecloths, candles in every window and an array of wait staff that treated them with a kind and friendly manner, then screamed at each other in Italian as soon as they got behind the swinging kitchen door.
She had barely touched her fettuccine Alfredo with fresh cream sauce and portobello mushrooms. It smelled wonderful; however, right now the wine and its anesthetizing effect was all she wanted. She needed something to wipe away the feel of that pencil stabbing into her throat and the desire to kick herself for being so stupid. She was beginning to understand why Maggie resorted to Scotch so often. Maggie had a much longer and more grisly list of images to wipe out of her memory bank.
“Actually, I’m used to women not talking to me at the dinner table.”
It wasn’t at all what she expected him to say, and she found herself laughing. He smiled, and it only then occurred to her how awful this afternoon must have been for him, too.
“Thanks,” she said. “I really needed to laugh.”
“Glad I could help.”
“I certainly messed up this trip. We didn’t get anything.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Pratt thought that Father Joseph sent you. He said it. That’s more than we knew before, and it may be all we need to connect him and the others to Reverend Joseph Everett. It will be a wasted trip, though, if you don’t eat something.”
He smiled at her again, and she wondered if he wanted to forget about this afternoon as much as she did. He was still looking at her as if expecting an answer.
“If you’d like, we could go somewhere else, if this isn’t quite what you had in mind,” he offered.
“Oh, no, this is fine. It smells wonderful. I’m just waiting for my appetite.”
She hadn’t told him she helped herself to a glass of champagne while she changed for dinner. The hotel had mistakenly sent up a newlywed basket to her room. When she called down to the front desk, the clerk was so embarrassed, he insisted she keep and enjoy it, that they would send another to the intended couple. Well, she wouldn’t be able to enjoy all of it. The basket included massage oils and an assortment of condoms. She’d have to settle for the champagne and chocolates.
She watched Tully wrestle with his spaghetti, mutilating it into small pieces instead of wrapping it around his fork. It was painful to watch.
“Mind if I show you how to do that?” she asked.
He looked up, saw what she meant and immediately turned red. Before he could answer, she slid her chair over, so that she was sitting next to his right arm. Without making a big deal or fuss, she gently put her hand over his, barely getting her fingers around his large hand in order to show him how to hold his fork.
“The secret,” she said, while reaching across his lap and taking his other hand, “is in the spoon.” She nodded for him to pick up his spoon in his left hand. “You pull just a little spaghetti with your fork to release it from the pile, and then you wrap it, slowly in a smooth gentle motion, against the bowl of the spoon.”
She could feel his breath in her hair and could smell the subtle scent of his aftershave. His hands complied with her every command, and it surprised her how good they felt against her own palms. When the task was complete, she let go, sat back into her chair and scooted to her side of the table, all the while avoiding his eyes.
“Mission accomplished.” She pointed to the perfectly wound spaghetti still on his fork. “You’re a quick learner.”
He hesitated, then brought it to his mouth. He tried the process again while he chewed, lifting his fork to show her when he managed it on his own. This time their eyes met and neither of them looked away until one of the wait staff interrupted, offering to refill their wineglasses, which Gwen accepted. She was sure it was probably a good idea to also anesthetize the unfamiliar arousal she was suddenly feeling.
With this glass of wine, she did manage to eat some of her fettuccine and even clean up her half of a cannoli dessert. Through coffee and during a long cab ride back to the hotel, she found herself telling Tully about her practice and the old brownstone she was restoring, while he told her about Emma and the trials and tribulations of raising a fifteen-year-old girl. She hadn’t realized he had custody of his daughter. Somehow his being a devoted single father only completed the annoying image she already had of him as the perfect Boy Scout.
At her hotel door, she invited him in for a glass of her complimentary champagne, sure the Boy Scout wouldn’t accept and that she was safe. The Boy Scout accepted. Before she poured the champagne, she turned to him, needing to say what she had avoided saying all evening.
“I need to thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes and holding him there, so he couldn’t joke his way out of this. “You saved my life today, Tully.”
“I couldn’t have done it without your help. You have really good instincts, Doc.” He smiled at her, obviously still uncomfortable with taking any of the credit. Okay, so he was going to make this difficult.
“Could you just let me thank you?”
“Okay.”
She came to him, stood on tiptoe and still had to tug on his tie to bring him down to her height so she could kiss his cheek. As she did this, she noticed that his eyes were now serious. Before she pulled back, his mouth caught hers in a gentle but passionate kiss that was no longer about gratitude.
She rocked back on her feet, feeling a bit out of breath and staring up at him.
“That was unexpected,” she said, surprised that she was feeling light-headed. It had to be all the wine.
“I’m sorry,” he said, restoring her image of the Boy Scout. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you don’t need to apologize. Actually, it was…it was quite nice.”
“Nice?” He looked wounded, and she smiled though his eyes were still serious. “I think I can do better than nice.”
In two steps he was kissing her again, only this time it wasn’t long before his mouth refused to be confined to her lips. Gwen leaned against the back of the sofa and her fingers slid across its texture, looking for something to grab hold of while Tully continued to convince her that he could, indeed, do better than nice.
CHAPTER 55
Ben Garrison didn’t get back to the Ritz-Carlton until late. He found the employee door at the back alley and took the freight elevator up to the fourteenth floor. This morning he had argued with the desk clerk about getting moved to a different floor. No matter how anyone looked at it, the fourteenth floor was still the thirteenth floor. Surely there had to be another corner suite available. But now, it looked like it wouldn’t matter. His luck was back. Nothing could go wrong. After these photos hit the newsstands, he would be king of the fucking world again.
As soon as he got back to his room he threw his duffel bag on the bed and stripped out of his clothes, bagged them in one of the plastic hotel laundry bags and tossed the bag next to the other trash he’d dump in the morning. He set his boots in the whirlpool tub to clean later and slipped on the plush terry-cloth robe that the wonderful housekeeping staff had left fresh and clean on the back of the bathroom door.
He had packed his developing tank and enough chemicals to develop the film. He could make a contact sheet of the exposures he wanted to sell. That way he wouldn’t have to take them to a local twenty-four-hour photo shop and have some pimply faced kid freaking out by what he saw.
While he pulled out everything he’d need, he called down to room service. He ordered their roast duck with raspberry chocolate cheesecake and the most expensive bottle of Sangiovese on their wine list. Then he dialed his own number to retrieve his messages. After the National Enquirer had hit the stands, he expected some calls from news editors he hadn’t heard from in years, suddenly pretending to be his best buddies again.
He was right. There were fifteen messages. His damn machine could take only eighteen. He grabbed the notepad with the hotel’s embossed logo and began going through the list. He could hardly contain the smile and finally laughed out loud at the two messages from Curtis, the first wanting to know why he hadn’t brought the exclusive to him and the second telling him he’d beat anyone’s price for whatever else Ben had. Oh, yes, life was good again. It was very good.
One of the messages was from his old pal, Detective Julia Racine—he had been hoping to hear from her. Unlike the other messages, Racine didn’t waste her breath sweet-talking or befriending him. Instead, she threatened to arrest him and charge him with obstruction of a police investigation. Jesus! She could turn him on just with her voice, especially when she talked
dirty. Hearing her call him a “fucker” gave him an incredible hard-on. He played the message again, just to enjoy the sensation. Then he decided to save it for future use, rather than erase it.
He flipped through his little black book, and it occurred to him that he might be able to make it up to Detective Racine. As much as he enjoyed her calling him a fucker, he wouldn’t mind cashing in on one of the quid pro quos she was so famous for. From the tone of her voice, the poor woman probably hadn’t been laid for some time, be it male or female. And he had to admit, tonight had sorta put him in the mood. He was quite certain he could come up with a proposition that might be as interesting to Racine as it was to him.
Finally, he found the phone number he was looking for and started dialing Britt Harwood’s number at the Boston Globe. It was late, but he’d go ahead and leave a message. Hell, might as well give the hometown boy a first shot at this exclusive. He smiled, thinking of Harwood’s face when he showed him the contact sheet of a dozen good little Christian boys mauling and ripping the clothes off women in the middle of Boston Common.
CHAPTER 56
Tully still couldn’t believe it. If it hadn’t been for cellular technology, he’d be back at the hotel with Gwen, perhaps even making their way through that gift basket of champagne and condoms. How close had they come to making a huge mistake? Yet, he’d give anything to be back there with her instead of standing under a moonlit sky, up to his ankles in mud, listening to a chain-smoking detective mangle the English language as they waited for the medical examiner.
At first, he’d wanted to strangle Morrelli for the interruption, even if there really had just been a murder similar to the one at the FDR Memorial. He caught himself wondering if Morrelli had done it on purpose, which he knew was crazy. After all, how could Morrelli have known what he was interrupting? Hell, Tully hadn’t known what was going to happen. Fact was, he still couldn’t believe he had even kissed her, let alone…What was he thinking? Maybe it was for the better that they had been interrupted. Otherwise…otherwise, it could have been…hell, otherwise, it would have been pretty incredible.