No Regrets

by JoAnn Ross

  She didn’t respond. But her cat green eyes, already too wide in her pale face, turned panicky. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she wasn’t all that experienced at this. There was a strange aura of innocence about her that belied her seductive performance back at the hotel. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change.

  “You’re not new at this.”

  “No.” Her shoulders slumped and he watched a defeated bleakness displace the panic in those remarkable eyes.

  He wasn’t surprised. But for some reason he was pissed. “Then you should know the drill.” The light turned green and he returned his attention to his driving. “Getting busted comes with the territory.”

  She didn’t answer. But the next time he glanced up into the rearview mirror, Dan viewed the silent tears streaming down her face.

  After Mercy Sam’s ER resident had declared that she was in no danger of dying on him, Dan took her into the station, where she was booked, fingerprinted and photographed. Through the entire process, she seemed numb, only answering the basics—name, address, date of birth. He was not surprised when, for occupation, she put actress. Every hooker he’d ever met was either an actress or a model. However, the desk sergeant confirmed her allegation.

  “She was a regular in Roommates,” the cop said. “Not one of the stars, but the camera loved her. Whenever she was in a scene, she was all you looked at.”

  That only pissed Dan off more. Having grown up in L.A., he was familiar enough with the hometown business to understand that she’d beaten incredible odds to win a spot on a network series. To throw it all away to make her living on her back was beyond his comprehension.

  “So you really are an actress,” he said, glaring at her across his desk.

  “I told you I was.” Other than the tears, the spark in her slanted catlike eyes was the first real emotion he’d witnessed.

  “I know.” He linked his fingers together behind his head and rocked back on the hind legs of the chair, eyeing her with renewed interest. “And I’ll admit that I didn’t really believe that. Because it’s difficult to imagine why, when you obviously had so much going for you, you’d prefer giving blow jobs to guys with more bucks than brains.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world. And so do you, unless there’s someone you can call to post bail.”

  She thought about Jason and realized he’d probably kill her if she called him down to his own police station to bail her out of jail. Miles wouldn’t hit her, but he had his own little ways of retaliation that she feared would be even worse than Jason’s. As for their mother, Elaine had made it all too clear that her name was never to be mentioned in the unlikely event of an arrest.

  At the time, Tessa hadn’t considered that a possibility. Jason had assured her that the cops had known all about his mother’s little enterprise for years and had always looked the other way. There was, of course, the lawyer all the girls were instructed to call in the event they might have any trouble with the authorities. But Tessa couldn’t remember his name.

  “No,” she said quietly. “There’s nobody.”

  Although Dan was surprised by that, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. They’d been trying to bust the ring for months, ever since the body of a young woman had washed up in Malibu. At first it looked as if the body had been battered by the pounding it had taken against the rocks; however the autopsy had revealed that most of the damage had been done pre-mortem. The coroner also hadn’t found any water in the lungs, contributing to the theory that the girl had been dead when she’d entered the water.

  When her friends in Westwood had told the investigating sheriff’s deputies that the model and sometimes extra had recently begun working for a prostitution ring catering to the Hollywood elite, the sheriff’s department had contacted the LAPD, which was when Dan had been brought into the case.

  There had been rumors about the ring’s existence for years, but the police hadn’t actively pursued an investigation. Dan felt the reason for the lack of interest was that none of the brass—from the division commander all the way up to the commissioner—wanted to know whose names were on the alleged client list.

  He sat there, looking at Tessa for a long time. Then decided that this was not a case for kid gloves. She’d already demonstrated an eerie ability to retreat deep inside herself. If he wanted to shake loose any information, he’d have to go for the gut.

  “You know,” he said, his easy, conversational tone designed to put her at ease and set her up, “you’re not the first girl working this ring we’ve picked up.”

  As he’d expected, she displayed not an iota of interest.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know Brittany Thomas, would you?”

  Although she shook her head, the faint flicker of recognition that flashed in her eyes, told him otherwise.

  “Maybe if you saw a picture of her, it might refresh your memory,” he suggested. He reached into a drawer for the file. Then laid the gruesome police photographs of what had once been a vibrant, beautiful young woman in front of her.

  The blood drained from her already pale face as if someone had pulled a plug. She put a trembling hand over her mouth. “Bathroom,” she managed.

  Not wanting her to hurl all over his desk, not to mention the outrageously expensive cashmere sweater he’d bought to live up to the image of a Hollywood high roller, he took hold of her shoulders, lifted her from the chair and dragged her across the room, enlisting a female cop along the way to accompany her into the ladies’ room. He’d already risked an unprofessional conduct investigation; there was no way he was going to put himself in another possibly compromising situation.

  When she came out again, she’d obviously washed her face. Without makeup she looked a great deal younger than she had back at the hotel. And far more vulnerable.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere more private,” he suggested gently. “And we can talk about Brittany.”

  She bit her bottom lip, but nodded her acquiescence. Not that it would have made a difference if she’d refused, but Dan had always found investigations went a lot easier if the suspects were cooperative.

  He took her into the box, a small room that was one of the few things about police work television programs tended to get right. “Have a chair,” he said, pulling the one that faced the mirror out for her. “Can I get you something? Some coffee? Soda? Tea?”

  “A cup of tea would be wonderful,” she said in a soft, sad little voice. Reminding himself that this woman had been prepared to screw his brains out all night for five thousand bucks, Dan reined in his sympathy and reminded himself that she was, after all, an actress.

  “No problem. Would you like sugar in that?”

  Her look of gratitude reminded him uncomfortably of Trudy, the cocker spaniel he’d had when he was a kid. “Two lumps, please.”

  “You got it.” Before he left, he casually tossed the photos onto the table. Facedown this time.

  Outside the room, he watched as she stared at the photographs. She reminded him of a woman watching a snake charmer; her expression revealed distaste, fear and an unwilling attraction, all at the same time.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You know you want to look. You’re dying of curiosity…. Just turn one of them over…and see what the future holds in store for you.”

  As if she’d heard him, she glanced up at the one-way mirror. And although he knew she couldn’t see him, Dan looked back at her. “Do it.”

  He watched as she reached out, then drew her hand back. “Dammit, this could be you, baby. You ought to at least take a long hard look at what you’ve gotten into.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, she took a deep breath and quickly turned over the top photograph. Dan watched her gasp, saw her hand go to her stomach, and wondered if she was going to be sick again.

  She looked away. Then seemed to force her gaze back t
o the unpalatable scene, and stared at it for a long, silent time. She surprised him by turning over every one of the twenty photographs, each more gruesome than the previous one. Her expression had taken on that eerie disconnected look, making Dan think she’d mentally removed herself again. But when she finished looking at the last photo, the one of the autopsy, then buried her face in her hands, he knew the ploy had worked.

  “Gotcha,” he murmured. But as he stood there on the other side of the glass, watching her slender shoulders shake from her silent weeping, he realized that the rush of satisfaction he was accustomed to feeling under such circumstances was strangely missing.

  Two days after the Emmy Award broadcast, Molly was having dinner out on the terrace of the Pacific Palisades home with Reece and Grace.

  “I’m impressed,” she said, watching him cook the meal on the oversize gas grill. “I didn’t realize Emmy-winning writers still cooked their own dinners.”

  “It’s only hamburgers.” He spritzed some water on the flames that shot up when he turned the beef patties. “Not nearly as fancy as whatever you must have had at the Del.”

  Molly wasn’t surprised he knew about her excursion to San Diego. After all, she had told Theo and Grace. But she was puzzled by the edge to his tone. “Actually, I had a roast beef sandwich from the hotel deli,” she responded mildly. “But the view was spectacular. Almost as nice as this.”

  “I’m glad we come up to your high standards.”

  Again, his words were tinged with an unmistakable sarcasm. Molly wanted to ask what his problem was, but didn’t want to get into an argument with Grace present.

  “Are you going to marry Dr. Salvatore, Aunt Molly?” Grace asked.

  The question caught Molly totally by surprise. She glanced over at Reece, even more surprised to discover that he was suddenly looking at her with an uncharacteristic intensity.

  “Why on earth would you ask that?”

  “Because Aunt Theo told Uncle Alex that you should be married so you could have some kids of your own. And since Dr. Salvatore took you flying in his airplane, they thought maybe you might marry him.”

  Molly smiled at the simplistic reasoning. She also realized that Alex and Theo had obviously picked up on Joe’s feelings for her. “Gracious, I get the feeling that I’m living with a junior spy,” she hedged with a laugh.

  “Molly’s not going to marry Dr. Salvatore,” Reece ground out as he spritzed the fire again and turned down the flame on the barbecue.

  Annoyed by his tone, Molly was tempted to ask him why he was so sure of that, but once again managed, just barely, to hold her tongue.

  “I already have you,” she told Grace. “Who I love every bit as much as if you were my own little girl.”

  “I love you, too. But it’s not the same,” Grace said. “Since you don’t live here with Daddy and me like a real mommy.”

  “Well, you’ve got a point there.” Molly forced a smile and reminded herself how lucky she was to have as much access to Grace as she did. “And, although Dr. Salvatore and I are very good friends, I don’t think getting taken for an airplane ride is any reason to marry a man. Besides, he’s getting married to someone else.”

  “He is?” Reece could have kicked himself for allowing his interest to show.

  He tried telling himself that the only reason he gave a damn was that if Molly married the guy and moved back to Arizona, Grace would lose the closest thing she’d had these past years to a mother. And, although that was a valid excuse, Reece also admitted that the truth was that if she left Los Angeles, he’d miss Molly. A lot. More than he would have expected. More than he should.

  Hell, he realized, he was jealous of Salvatore. And worse yet, any other guy Molly might be tempted to get seriously involved with.

  Molly’s direct gaze narrowed as she looked straight at him. “He’s marrying a BIA nurse. She’s a wonderful woman. I think they’ll have a wonderful life.”

  “Lucky them,” he muttered as he took the burgers off the grill.

  A tenseness that had been building between them the past few months lingered as they ate their supper in relative silence, listening to Grace’s convoluted story about something that had happened between Mary Beth Williams and some little boy at school. Mary Beth, Grace informed them, was the most boy-crazy girl in school.

  “And she kissed him right on the lips.” Grace wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, as if imagining a boy’s lips touching hers.

  “Gracious,” Molly said, her shock not entirely feigned. As she wiped away a smear of catsup from Grace’s lips, she hoped Mary Beth’s predatory tendencies did not rub off on her daughter who, at this stage in her young life, seemed to prefer playing wedding with her Barbie dolls than practicing for the real thing.

  “Mary Beth is definitely too young to be kissing boys,” Reece agreed. “But when you get older, Grace, you’ll discover that kissing isn’t yucky at all.”

  “You should know,” Molly muttered beneath her breath.

  Reece seemed determined to date every bimbo in Hollywood. She’d been meaning to speak with him about the example he’d been setting for his daughter. When reporting his Emmy, Variety had mentioned his well-known tendency to go out with all the women who appeared on Night Thrills.

  “Excuse me?” Reece arched a chestnut brow. “Did you say something?”

  “Molly said, ‘You should know,’” Grace said helpfully.

  “Yes.” Reece’s expression, as he met Molly’s unflinching gaze was a challenge. “I suppose I should.”

  “Variety did a nice piece on your Emmy win,” she said, meeting the challenge. “It really is quite wonderful, Reece.”

  Although her tone was mild and her expression smooth, Reece knew she was referring to that crap about, as Variety had put it, “Longworth’s girl of the week.”

  “You should have heard them announce Daddy’s name, Molly,” Grace said, oblivious of the silent battle taking place over the hamburgers, corn on the cob and tossed green salad. “Aunt Theo and I just screamed and screamed. And even Uncle Alex shouted.”

  “I did hear it.”

  Frown lines furrowed the smooth young forehead. “Did you watch the show at the hotel in San Diego?”

  “Now there’s a thought,” Reece murmured. From his expression, Molly realized the idea of Joe and her being in a hotel together wasn’t exactly a pleasant one.

  “Actually, I was already back at home when they called your daddy’s name.”

  “That was an early evening.”

  Molly thought she heard questions in Reece’s tone and wondered if he could possibly be jealous. She decided that her imagination was definitely running away with her. Even before winning the Emmy, he could have had just about any woman in town. With competition like that, she wasn’t even in the running for his attention.

  “We had an early dinner so we could watch the sun set. Afterward, Joe flew back to Arizona.” Molly smiled. “He said he was worried about the clinic, but I think he really just missed Naomi.”

  Reece knew a lot about missing the woman you loved. Although the pain had eased, he doubted there was a day that went by that he didn’t think of Lena.

  Before he could respond to that, the portable phone on the table rang. Reece picked it up.

  “Hello. Oh, hi. Yeah, she’s here. Just a sec.” He handed the phone across the table to Molly. “It’s Dan. For you.”

  Afraid something might have happened to Alex, Molly grabbed the phone. Out-of-the-blue calls usually meant some tragedy. “Dan? Is your dad all right?”

  “Last I talked to him, which was this morning, he was great,” Dan assured her. “I was calling to ask a personal favor.”

  “Anything,” Molly said.

  “I’m in Beverly Hills with this woman. Actually, an informant. She’s been beaten and is in pretty bad shape.”

  “Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?”

  “Probably. But she doesn’t want the cops called in, which the ER doc would pro
bably have to do.”

  Molly didn’t understand. “But you’re a cop.”

  “I know. But the situation’s a little sticky, Molly. Anyway, I was wondering if you could come by and check her out. If she’s in real danger, I’m going to have to take her to the hospital, but if it’s just cuts and bruises, I’d rather handle it myself.”

  Molly was more confused than ever. She also didn’t want to be the one to make what could end up being a life-and-death decision. “Give me twenty minutes to take care of a few things,” she said. “And I’ll be there. What’s the address?”

  She took the pen Reece handed her and wrote the Beverly Hills address on a paper napkin, then hung up and immediately dialed Theo, and without going into details, asked if she could come stay with Grace for a little while.

  “Reece and I have to go out,” she explained.

  “No problem, sweetie,” Theo assured her. “I was just fine-tuning a script, and Alex can watch the basketball game on Reece’s television just as easily as our own. Give me a couple minutes to put a pair of shoes on and we’ll be right over.”

  “So, where are we going?” Reece asked, irked by Molly’s not even bothering to ask him if he had other plans for the evening. “And why?”

  Molly stood up and began carrying the empty plates into the kitchen. “It’s a bit complicated,” she hedged. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Twenty minutes later, Reece was about as angry as he’d ever been. “You had no goddamn right to do this, Molly.”

  “I’m sorry, Reece.” Glancing down at the instructions Dan had given her, she turned right on Beverly Drive. “But I didn’t have any choice.”

  He folded his arms. “Well, I do.”

  She found the house. It was Spanish-style with a red-tile roof, smaller than its neighbors, but still quite lovely. Or it would be with a coat of new paint and a lawn service to tend to the overgrown bushes and weed-filled lawn.

  “No, you don’t,” she said mildly as she pulled into the driveway behind Dan’s fire engine red Mustang GT. She cut the engine, pulled the key from the ignition and looked over at him. “You took an oath—”