You Don't Know Me

by Nancy Bush

  “A hundred and fifty. Final offer.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll keep going until you think I’ll grab at the bait. But the department won’t pay, will it? I don’t think that’s part of the budget.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was angry.

  Male pride, Hayley thought with an inward laugh. “Oh, yeah, you do.”

  Suddenly, his fingers were hard on her upper arm.

  “Hey!” she cried, surprised.

  “Let the lady go,” another voice snapped out, cold, hard, and masculine.

  Hayley glanced around in surprise. A man had climbed from the car that had pulled into the curb and was staring daggers at her would-be john.

  “Who the hell are you?” Romeo demanded, frustrated.

  His answer was a strong hand wrapped around his thin neck. Romeo was jerked six inches off the ground then dropped back—all so quickly that if she’d blinked she would have missed it.

  Instantly, Romeo began to whine. “Didn’t know she was your lady, man. Maybe you oughtta talk to her about sending out signals, y’know. My throat hurts! I’m sorry, okay?”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hayley thought in annoyance. They were all the same. When the going got tough, the weak buckled under and whined.

  “Thanks for the rescue, but I can handle my own problems,” she told the newcomer as Romeo scurried to his flashing green sedan.

  “You’re soliciting?”

  “You a cop?” She raked him with cold eyes. “Oh, God, you are . . .” She should have seen it instantly. Something about the way they all acted. It was really true. You could tell one from miles away.

  But he sure looked good. Hayley had always appreciated beauty in any form, and man, this guy had it in spades.

  Except . . . that indefinable cop thing. A complete and total turnoff.

  “What’s your name, Mr. POPO?”

  “That’s Mr. Ex-POPO,” he said with a faint twist of his lips.

  “Oh, sure. And you’re here for a date, right?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Uh-huh.” Hayley studied her nails with exaggerated interest. “And who would that be?”

  “You.”

  “The girl of your dreams, right?” she answered, her smile ironic.

  His eyes were gray, and they had a way of looking right into your core. Goddamn cops.

  “Are you Hayley Scott?”

  She nearly swallowed her tongue. Hayley stared. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Connor Jackley. A private investigator working with the Deschutes County Sheriff to find out more about the murder of your stepfather, Thomas Daniels.”

  Rapid-fire words. Bullets that zinged her brain. Hayley gaped, unable to take it all in. “He’s . . . dead?” she asked blankly.

  “Has been for a while.”

  She sensed him watching her closely. The street and noise and smells and filth receded. She was encased in fog. A thick soup of it. Somewhere someone was screaming. Crying.

  “I hated him,” she stated without emotion.

  “Is there somewhere we could go and talk?”

  “About Daniels? Forget it. I’m glad he’s dead.” A moment later it hit her. “He was murdered?”

  “Someone crushed his skull.”

  The words jarred through her, painful and scary. Deep-down scary. A door cracked open at the end of the long hallway of her memory and she slammed it shut so fast, the whole thing was over before she realized what she’d done.

  She wouldn’t try to open it again.

  “So long,” she muttered, attempting to brush past him.

  He grabbed her wrist, lightly, nothing serious. But something broke inside her. She snapped back and scratched him across the face, stunned to see red welts blossom on his cheek.

  He swore, soft and quick beneath his breath. Yanking her forward, he marched her to his car, dragging her to his side and shoving her inside, following quickly.

  “Police brutality!” she screeched, scrabbling for the door handle.

  He was already in the driver’s seat and switching on the ignition. He tore into traffic just as she got the door partway open. For a millisecond she toyed with the idea of jumping out. The boulevard raced past in a neon blur.

  She glanced his way. The raised welts on his cheek were three dark pink lines.

  Without looking at her, he said in a calm, disinterested voice, “If you’re not going to jump out, close the door.”

  She did as she was told and they sped away into the darkness.

  “Kidnapping,” she accused, hands on her hips as they stood outside a fourplex unit in a fairly nice neighborhood. His place? “This sure as hell isn’t headquarters. What do you have in mind?”

  “Damned if I know,” he admitted tersely. “I’ve got some questions that need to be answered. Your sister couldn’t seem to put the pieces together for me.”

  “My sister?” Hayley asked cautiously.

  “Denise Scott. She didn’t know Thomas Daniels was dead, either.” His voice suggested he thought they were both telling a few fibs. “You’re not going to try and tell me she’s from Indiana and you’re not sisters, are you?”

  “I guess not.” Okay, she had thought about it. “So how’d you find me?”

  “She gave me your address. I followed you. Stanbury’s by day, Hollywood Boulevard by night.” He shrugged.

  “Oh, yeah, like you’re shocked?” A small voice inside her head clamored to be heard. The voice of her innocence. A voice that wanted to scream, “I’m just acting! It’s just an act!”

  She staunched the voice. Hell, if she was going to tell him anything.

  “I think I have a good case against you,” she pointed out, then said in a teary voice, “He forced me into his car against my will and brought me to a strange location . . .” She waited, gesturing to her surroundings.

  “His apartment,” he filled in.

  She clucked her tongue. “His apartment. And there forced me to . . .” Again she waited for him to offer an answer.

  “Talk about a man whom I believe beat and forced me and my sisters into sexual acts against their will.”

  That door at the end of her mind’s hall creaked open. “No,” she spat through her teeth. “No.”

  “A man whose actions may have directly led to my entering the world of prostitution.”

  “I’m no goddamned prostitute.”

  There. It was out. Better than talking about Daniels.

  “You’re a wannabe actress.”

  Hayley blinked. He knew. The bastard knew all along!

  “The manager at Stanbury’s has quite a lot to say about you.”

  “Jason!”

  “Why are you doing this?” He flicked a look at her outfit.

  Hayley wasn’t one to make friends or trust anyone, especially anyone male, but for some strange reason she felt a need for companionship. “Buy me a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you.”

  He gestured toward the fourplex, brows raised in question.

  “I need neutral territory,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “Some hooker,” he muttered, but he held the passenger door for her and Hayley, wondering what demon possessed her, slid into the seat.

  The place was loud, small, and densely packed with people. Hayley was grateful. No one paid a bit of interest in the way she was dressed. But it sure played havoc with their ability to hear each other, and as the evening wore on she learned she desperately wanted to hear what Mr. Connor Jackley had to say.

  He was an ex-cop. She learned very quickly that the man didn’t bother to lie. He was, what he was. She also learned he wanted Thomas Daniels’s killer and nothing, and no one, would distract him.

  By coincidence, it seemed, he’d been in Wagon Wheel shortly after Daniels’s body was discovered. His nephew had found it, for God’s sake, and Connor, at the urging of Sheriff Gus Dempsey, a personal friend, was making inquiries in Los Angeles while the investigation proceeded—molasse
s slow, if Hayley read correctly between the lines—back in Oregon.

  Hayley learned more by what he didn’t say than by what he did. Connor Jackley wanted Daniels’s killer. He believed that Hayley, Denise, or Dinah (or all of them together) were either personally responsible or, at the very least, involved. Greater Wagon Wheel apparently considered Denise, the most successful sister, and the one with the wildest reputation, the prime suspect.

  Jackley, for his part, cagily kept his feelings about Denise to himself. But his very caginess spoke volumes. Hayley knew what it meant. A conquest. A score. Another notch for her unfairly beautiful older sister.

  Mr. Jackley had a thing for Denise.

  “She wasn’t all that informative,” he told her, when she questioned him about his interview with Denise.

  “There’s a surprise.”

  He nodded, his lashes narrowing thoughtfully. She knew he was remembering Denise. Her lushness. Her weakness. Her irresistibility.

  “Did you sleep with her?” she asked, hoping to sound matter-of-fact.

  He merely smiled, letting her know in his inimical way that he wasn’t going to play that game. Hayley decided he hadn’t slept with her. Not yet, anyway.

  “Just bide your time,” she counseled. “She’s promiscuous as hell. Can’t help herself, really.”

  “She didn’t strike me that way at all.”

  He was baiting her. Putting her on. Expecting her to open up, bare her soul, and tell the tragic tale of the Scott sisters.

  Wishing fervently that she hadn’t marked him with her raking claws, she decided to give him a little something.

  “Once upon a time there were three sisters who plotted to murder their stepfather. The oldest one—the smart one—didn’t want to do it. Too dangerous. Sure, he deserved to die, but let it be someone else’s problem.

  “The second one was too screwed up to make a plan. She spent all her time digging herself out of her last mistake. Trouble followed her like a little black cloud, but she made it to the big time anyway.”

  “And the youngest sister?” he asked, when she hesitated.

  The door swung wider, a black hole beyond. Dread ran through her like scalding liquid.

  “The youngest sister is glad he’s dead,” she said slowly. “She hopes he really is dead, but it seems impossible.”

  “He really is dead.” Jackley was quiet, sober, intense.

  “Then let’s leave him that way,” she whispered, not caring whether he could hear or not.

  They spent another hour at the coffee shop, neither bringing up again the reason they were together. For an investigator, Mr. Jackley was one patient man.

  “Pay the bill, Jack, and take me home,” Hayley muttered into the relative quiet of the now half-empty room. It was late and her throat ached from conversing at the top of her lungs.

  He grinned.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “My nephew calls me Jack.”

  “Uncle Jack?” she asked, grimacing, knowing it had to be true.

  He lifted his palms in acknowledgment and Hayley groaned.

  “Yeah. Well. Tell me all about your Brady Bunch extended family another time. I’m tired, and I’ve got to face Jason early tomorrow.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  His hand lightly touched the small of her back as he held open the door and guided her from the late-night coffee bar. Long after she was in bed, the lights out, the memory of that slight touch lingered like a sweet melody you couldn’t forget, or the scent of perfume that conjured up images of a certain time or place.

  Hayley wasn’t much for self-diagnosis. She set goals and went for them. Period. Life was a challenge.

  But tonight the memory of Connor Jackley’s presence was a real, living thing that wouldn’t let her rest. In a way she’d never understood before, she understood now. She was attracted to him. Truly, deeply attracted. The mystery of physical magnetism was now solved and it had a name: Connor Jackley, late of the L.A.P.D.

  “An ex-cop,” she muttered aloud in disgust. “Wouldn’t you know.”

  And he had a thing for her ever-more-popular sister.

  She’d taken the pill and slept away the early evening. Surfacing around nine P.M., Denise realized she was still lying on the couch. She staggered to her feet, resenting the fuzziness of her brain.

  “Lambert?” she called, but the house was empty. Barring Lina, that is, because she lived in the maid’s rooms above the garage.

  Wandering out to that garage, Denise checked out Lambert’s stable of cars. Three of them. A bloodred Maserati. A Mercedes. And a late-model blue Ford sedan—the kind used by surveillance operatives, cheating husbands, and people of all colors, creeds, and genders who want to blend into the woodwork.

  And the keys were inside.

  “You are under the influence,” she told herself, but she slid into the driver’s seat anyway. She had to see John and her cheating sister. Only, Dinah wouldn’t cheat on her. No way. Her twin was too careful. Too smart.

  Denise eased into traffic aware that a) she had to drive slowly or risk an accident and b) she had to drive fast enough not to draw attention to herself. She was so immersed in her driving, in fact, that the miles cruised beneath her tires and before she could believe it was possible, she was on the last turns to the Malibu house.

  Her head was clearer. Not clear, but clearer. She congratulated herself on her skill behind the wheel. No lousy traffic cops had pulled her over. She was here and she felt marvelous.

  Except for that headache behind her eye. And a crummy all-over feeling of anxiety that Connor Jackley had stirred up.

  The gates loomed in front of her and she suffered a bad moment when she wondered whether John had changed the code. But punching out his birthday on the keypad sent the wrought-iron sentinels swinging backward. Quickly, Denise jumped back in the car and drove inside.

  The house was dark, not even a light left on to confuse prowlers. Dinah had to be out, Denise realized, because the only reason the house would be dark was if she were sleeping, and she would never go to bed this early. Her sister, like herself, was a bit of a night owl.

  Unless she and John are in bed together.

  That sobered her up in a hurry.

  Drawing several deep breaths, she tried to hang on to her self-control, then gave up in a rush of fury and betrayal. She ran for the front door and lay on the bell. The chimes rang maniacally, over and over, as her finger jammed the button incessantly.

  Nothing.

  Slowly, Denise realized the house was empty. No Dinah. No John. Maybe they were together somewhere. Maybe they weren’t.

  There was another keypad near the garage but when she pressed that code nothing happened. So John cared a little bit about security after all.

  “Damn.” She’d given her only house key to Dinah.

  There was a window at the back of the house that never latched properly. And she knew the alarm system would be turned off; too many mistakes while she’d lived with John had prompted him to dismantle it.

  “Let ’em rob us!” he’d hollered. “It’s better than having the police driving over here every time you forget to disarm the damn thing!”

  Yanking on the window, she felt the latch slip. Crawling inside, she was enveloped in smells and memories that reminded her of John and the few months of happiness they’d shared.

  You ruined it. Remember Merle, the cameraman? Remember him?

  But that was because John was doing that Gentry bitch.

  Except he hadn’t been.

  She couldn’t remember.

  Yes, you can!

  Covering her ears, Denise stumbled through the dark, banging her shin so hard on a table she howled with pain.

  Swearing, she switched on the living room light, disdainful of leaving traces of her break-in. Let ’em know she was here. Too damn bad.

  She wandered around the upstairs, flipping on lights, examining rooms. To her surprise, Dinah had chosen the guest room.
>
  How did she explain that? Denise wondered vaguely.

  John’s room was unoccupied. It looked exactly as it had when she’d left and possessed that same empty, unlived-in sense.

  He’s not living here, she realized in surprise.

  Back downstairs, she shook her head, waiting for the cobwebs to clear, praying for a spell of lucidity. But depression dogged her like an uninvited guest and she found herself standing in the office, staring at John’s belongings in the room he loved best.

  The thunder egg paperweight caught the light, its inner core of crystals glistening opulently, like some rich mine where gems encrusted every inch of the walls.

  Denise picked it up, judged its weight in her hands, then suddenly panicked over what Lambert might do to her if he found out she’d stolen his car.

  Driving like a madwoman, she made it back to Beverly Hills in record time, screeching to a halt in the garage, her heart thundering in her chest. Then she ran inside and waited in the darkness.

  A lamp was on down the hall. She walked slowly toward it, a prisoner approaching the firing squad. But unlike Dinah, Lambert had left a light on.

  She was alone.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she glanced down at the thunder egg still in her possession, then she cradled it to her chest and closed her eyes. She had a piece of John. Tomorrow, tomorrow she would plan her next move to win him back, but for tonight she had a little piece of him.

  Crawling into Lambert’s huge, fluffy bed, she cuddled the thunder egg as if it were a baby, and dreamed that everything was going to be all right now.

  Chapter Nine

  Dinner out with His Highness. He’d extended the invitation and she’d turned him down, but then, while she’d been editing her latest column, she’d been so finely attuned to his presence in the house that she hadn’t got a damn thing done anyway. He’d managed to invade every bit of breathing space even if he wasn’t actually in the room with her. So she’d buckled, and they’d spent a miserable two hours together.

  She’d said next to nothing, picking at her food and worrying herself sick that he would realize the impossible: she was not his ex-wife. Not that he had much to say. She guessed he was as sorry as she was that they’d tried this exercise in futility.