by Nancy Bush
A dilapidated vintage Chevrolet backfired into the parking lot and Hayley Scott climbed out. Connor watched her slim legs climb the exterior stairs to her apartment. There was something “lost little girl” about her that struck him. Denise was openly wild, mired in emotional turbulence, but Hayley possessed a more sedate, though similar, quality.
He wondered what Dinah would be like.
Climbing from his car, he followed her at a more leisurely pace, losing sight of her before he reached the bottom step. Hayley Scott moved at double-speed, fueled by determination.
At her door, he rapped loudly, faintly amused at the sound of her bird-quick steps. She opened the door to the length of the chain and peered out.
“Well, hello,” she said, frowning. “Just in the neighborhood, or are you planning to grill me some more?”
“Maybe a little of both.”
“Your honesty’s your worst quality,” she told him, unlatching the chain.
“No more streetwalking?”
“No.” Pure finality. Discussion closed. “I’m just waiting for the boss man to watch my audition,” she revealed, opening the door to him. As Connor entered the apartment, she glanced in disgust at the small pile of DVDs dumped unceremoniously on the couch. “I took one to him today but things didn’t turn out the way I expected.”
“He didn’t like it?”
“He never saw it.” She glanced his way. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ve got time.”
Hayley shrugged. “So do I. I was late for work, and my old buddy, Jason, fired me.”
For some reason, that struck Connor as funny. He grinned, surprised at how long it had been since he remembered smiling.
“What’s with you?” Hayley asked suspiciously.
“Come on, I’ll take you to dinner.”
“Who’s buying?”
“I am.”
“Will you save the psychoanalysis of me and my family until after I eat?”
He lifted three fingers in the traditional Boy Scout’s honor.
Heaving a sigh, she capitulated, “All right. But only ’cause I’m broke and starving.”
“I won’t let it go to my head.”
“I mean it. There’s nothing else,” she said fiercely.
“Duly noted.”
For that he earned a hard glare that oddly made him feel like grinning again.
Scraping up the last forkful of chocolate-almond mousse, Hayley leaned back in the seat with a sigh of contentment. Connor fiddled with his water glass, smearing rings of condensation across the glossy black tabletop of the Immediate Gratification Café.
“Maybe I’ll get a job here,” Hayley said, stretching her arms above her head. “This would be a good place to be fired from.”
“What happens if your acting dream doesn’t materialize?”
“Oh, it will. I’ll make it happen.”
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or alarmed at her single-sightedness. “You ready to talk?”
“I don’t have anything else I can tell you, but fire away.”
“Let’s go for a walk.”
They headed outside into crowded streets. The café was located across from a trendy strip mall and Hayley, though she’d struck out with Callahan and lost her job at Stanbury’s, felt positively lighthearted.
She knew what it was—stupid though it might be. Connor Jackley. Being in the company of a man whom she could trust was a totally new experience for Hayley. All he wanted was information. And though it was information she wasn’t prepared to give, it was nice to know where she stood. No grabbing hands, dirty thoughts, wicked suggestions. The man was Mr. Clean with dark hair and good looks—a potent combination if you were the kind of woman who cared—which she, of course, wasn’t.
“So when are you going to start with the third degree again, Jack?”
He shrugged. “I’d like to talk to your sister when she’s not under Lambert Wallace’s influence.”
“Oh, Denise split with him already.”
“She did?” Connor was surprised.
“Yup. Her ex was waiting for her at their house in Malibu. He told me he’d have her call me.”
He looked unconvinced.
“Well, I suppose she could be leading some kind of double life, which, knowing Denise, is a distinct possibility. But Mr. Callahan acted like she’d been there awhile.”
“What about your other sister?”
“Dinah?” Hayley shrugged. “Dinah takes care of things. You don’t have to worry about her.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Denise promised to get me in touch with her, but nada so far. I thought you could help.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t quite believe her. Oh, sure, she could tell him Dinah was somewhere in New Mexico, writing for some paper, but then he’d just contact her and stir up this hornet’s nest even worse.
Better to leave Dinah out of it.
“Tell me about her,” he said.
“Dinah?”
They stopped by his car. Connor opened the door, offering her a hand of assistance. Hayley stared at it a moment, shivered slightly, then got in her seat unaided. While he climbed in the other side, she stared out the window.
“I hate thinking back,” she admitted cautiously.
“Because of Daniels?”
“Well . . . yeah.” She grimaced. “He made us all so uncomfortable. Particularly Denise. She had this boyfriend and I think the old man was jealous. He yelled at her a lot. She would run off to be with Jimmy and when she’d come back he’d yell and yell and yell!” She shuddered, managing a faint smile. “You get the picture.”
“What about Dinah?”
“Dinah was cool.” Hayley forced herself to talk. It would be safer if she gave him the history. Much safer coming from her than Dinah or Denise. “Dinah’s the smart one. Just a few well-placed words and he’d get furious! I used to envy her so much. He hated her.”
“Your stepfather,” he clarified.
Hayley nodded. “And then that would get Denise going. She’d start in with the sarcasm and he’d bellow and rant and rave. It was kind of funny really.” Digging through her purse, she searched doggedly for a mint. Where were the damn things anyway? “Damn it!” she muttered, slamming the purse on the floor.
“What about you?”
“What about me, Dr. Freud?” she demanded. “I just wanted it all to stop, okay? And eventually it did.”
“What stopped it?”
“We left. We just packed up and got the hell outta Dodge. Dinah insisted I take my high school equivalency and that’s the end of that story.”
“You all left together.”
“We split up pretty fast. Dinah had places to go and she connected with Glen Bosworth.” She made a face of disgust. “And Denise met a guy who was an actor and then she got a part and things happened for her.”
Connor’s gray eyes held hers. She didn’t like what she read in them. It made her feel funny inside. Scared. “What about you?” he asked softly.
“I’ve bummed around taking acting classes and waiting for lightning to strike twice. It struck my sister, I figured it could strike me, too.”
He didn’t respond immediately and Hayley began to feel defensive. “Look, I didn’t know he was dead, okay, but believe me, it’s no big loss to the world. He was scum.”
“Someone murdered him. The investigation isn’t going to go away.”
“Well, why the hell not?” Hayley demanded. “Can’t somebody find something more constructive to do than churn up all this crap!” She exhaled in frustration, raking back her hair. She felt itchy and anxious inside, ready to push away from a subject too hot to handle and get back on track with the things that mattered in her life. But Connor Jackley clearly wasn’t interested in the Hayley Scott of today. She could prattle on for hours about her hopes and dreams, if he cared to listen, but no, no. All he cared about w
as the past. Her past. And part of her detested him for it.
“Whoever killed my stepfather probably just couldn’t take it anymore. He had a way of turning everything to shit. Denise called it ‘The Sadim Touch’—backward for Midas. I just steered clear of him.”
“Did he abuse you?”
“No.” The answer came swiftly. “But not for lack of trying,” she admitted after a moment.
“What about your sisters?”
“Denise hung out with her boyfriend. Dinah stayed at school. I just stayed away.”
Connor pulled the car up to her apartment complex and killed the ignition. Twisting so he could get a better look at her, he placed one arm along the back of the seat. Inside, Hayley shrank away, though she didn’t physically move.
“There’s been talk that Denise was pregnant when she left Wagon Wheel. Jimmy Fargo, currently of Seattle, said she had an abortion.”
Hayley ground her teeth together. Reluctantly she pushed out the truth. “She lost the baby.”
“Miscarriage?” he asked.
“What does it matter?” she demanded.
“I think Daniels abused her. I don’t know about you and Dinah, but I believe Denise was physically, possibly sexually, abused. If he found out she was pregnant, what would he do? Beat her? Slap her around?”
Hayley flinched at every word. Connor watched, his expression stone, but inside his heart ached for her. Emotions flitted across her face. Emotions she denied, but they were there. Deep under the surface. Only available when he mined them with the picks and shovels of brutal truth.
“I want you to go away and never come back.”
“Will you give me Dinah’s address?”
“No.”
“I can get it from Denise. It’ll just take a little more time.”
“I don’t care what you do.”
“Are you protecting her?”
“I thought I liked you,” Hayley said icily. “I was wrong.” A moment passed. “You’re not going to go away, are you?”
“I can’t.”
Connor’s appetite for answers was whetted. He was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, at any price, though he knew that price would be heavy.
Glancing over at Hayley, he felt a moment of deep regret. In profile, her resemblance to Denise was uncanny. What would Dinah be like? The sister he still hadn’t met.
“Good night, Jack.” Hayley looked at him quickly as she climbed from the car. “Glad to see the scratches have gone down. It’s been . . . interesting, but our association is at an end.”
She walked away, less determined than before, less sure. A different Hayley was emerging. Courtesy of his constant badgering?
He wished he knew if he were helping or hindering, but it really wouldn’t matter anyway. He wanted the truth. He’d determined that much, if nothing else.
The newsroom hadn’t changed one iota since she’d left. The same zigzag of partitions, the same clutter, the same noise. Dinah stood in the doorway, oddly removed, and wondered if Kate Patton had taken over her desk as well as her column.
She strode to Flick’s office, a glass-enclosed adjunct stuck in the corner. But Flick wasn’t there, nor was he on the private balcony though a half-eaten cigar still smoldering in the outside trash can said he wasn’t far away.
She let herself onto the balcony and settled into one of the chairs near the odiferous, smoking trash can. She felt tired all over, her thoughts so uncomfortable they physically hurt. Her own stupidity had landed her in this predicament, and Dinah Scott was not stupid.
At least not normally.
Groaning, she rubbed her face and tried to forget images of John Callahan. Yet every breath she took reminded her of his scent. It seemed to have permeated her own flesh, and though she loathed to admit it, she was well on the way to falling in love with the bastard.
Only, he wasn’t a bastard. She, Dinah Scott, would not fall in love with someone as self-centered, despicable, and cold as John Callahan had been purported to be. She should have known better than to listen to Denise. When had her sister ever been right about anything?
“Oh, hell,” she murmured, as Flick appeared inside the office and then herded his considerable bulk outside.
He didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at the sight of his errant reporter. “What do you want?” he growled around another smelly cigar as he squeezed into the chair next to Dinah’s. A shriek rose from the cushions—a last death throe? Apparently not, because the chair held, at least for the moment.
“I want my job, a raise, and an extension on my long-distance job situation.”
He harrumphed loudly.
“It doesn’t hurt you that I’m in California. It just bugs you that you can’t look over my shoulder.”
“Nice attitude.”
“I learned from the master.”
“You get nothing. You bailed out, and I don’t need the grief.”
Dinah knew he was bluffing. She was secure about her work, and she was syndicated by enough papers to have a career with or without the Santa Fe Review. “Are you making me move to Los Angeles permanently?”
That earned her an eyebrow twitch. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m getting acclimated. A little more smog. A little more traffic.” She shrugged her acceptance. “A few more natural disasters, but it’s a huge area. I’ve talked to several local papers and even the Times. I’m not an unknown, Flick.”
This was a bold lie. Okay, she was syndicated, sort of, and had a popular blog, but the papers that picked her up weren’t exactly the most well-known.
Flick stared at her, scrunched up his face, then slid his cigar thoughtfully from one side of his mouth to the other. He puffed hard, sending out a cloud of blue smoke and foul odor. “Nobody knows you.”
“We could argue all week. Do I or don’t I have a job?”
“You have a job if you stick around. No raise.”
“I’ve got unfinished business in L.A.”
“Shit.” He scowled.
“I should be back for good in a couple of weeks.”
They stared at each other for long moments. Flick finally broke the silence. “What’s the matter with you?”
Dinah reacted. “What do you mean?”
“You’re different. Less bitchy. Kind of distracted.”
“Thank you so much.”
The faintest smile glimmered in his eyes. Pulling the wet cigar from his mouth, he smashed the end in the nearest ashtray, then flicked the ugly remainder at the trash can. It hit the rim and flopped onto the balcony floor.
It was the first time Dinah had ever seen him miss.
Scowling, he muttered, “Two weeks! After that, forget showing your face around here ever again.”
“You’re a peach,” Dinah said, then beat a hasty retreat before he could change his mind.
She was halfway out the door when she remembered her favorite readers. Hurrying to her desk, she encountered a young—very young—woman with a pinched mouth and a surly stare.
“Kate Patton?” Dinah asked.
“Who’re you?”
“You’re at my desk,” Dinah told her, proprietarily yanking open the drawer and rummaging around until she found the glasses. “It’s a temporary assignment, so don’t screw anything up.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She yawned and walked toward the coffee machine. “Like anybody cares about this shitty newspaper.”
Infuriated, Dinah bit back a sharp retort. She cared. This job meant a lot to her, and it really ticked her off that someone as young and inexperienced as Kate could get away with that kind of attitude. Flick would have a fit.
Instantly, Dinah’s mood improved. Another couple weeks, maybe a month, Kate would be history anyway. Two weeks? Screw that. Dinah was safe until spring.
Well, at least her job was safe. Her heart—that was another matter.
The Corolla sat waiting patiently at LAX. Dinah paid the parking fee, offered up a prayer that
the new clanging beneath the hood was something minor, then eased into traffic.
Driving was a disaster. A huge pileup with blaring horns and a carnival of flashing red and blue lights added an hour to her trip home. Nevertheless, her heart was light. She had her repaired laptop in hand, finally, and she was heading back to Malibu.
Careful, she warned herself. But her fluttering heart refused to listen. She didn’t know whether John would be home or not, but the anticipation was a powerful elixir.
Her breath caught when she saw the gates were open. He was there. Waiting. Unless of course the house had been burglarized again.
But no. The Land Rover was parked in the driveway.
Be casual. No big deal. Act naturally.
As if gasping out its last breath, the Corolla died in the drive. Dinah coasted to a stop, yanked on the brake, then sat for a few moments inside the car, her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, her pulse in overdrive.
She was an idiot, a helpless teenager, a reckless lovesick patsy. But she couldn’t help it. Her whole being had been taken over by emotion, and her normally cool head, her most constant ally, had gone on vacation.
Yep. She was in serious trouble.
She walked quickly up the flagstone path to the doorway, her fingers clasping the door handle, her heart feeling like it would jump out of her chest. She had to press a hand to her breasts, then laughed shakily at the notion. God! She was nuts!
Inside, the house was quiet. She stood in the entryway, breathing shallowly. “John?” she called tentatively, hating the uncertain quality of her voice.
Her actions were so well scripted she could have been the star of a Denise Scott film. Life imitating art.
But he wasn’t anywhere around. At least he didn’t answer when she called. The Land Rover was a mystery, but it wasn’t impossible that he’d left with someone else.
Another woman?
Her heart leaped. She was instantly furious with herself. God! What a mind! Of all the things to think of.