by Nancy Bush
“I . . .” She struggled to speak and shook her head. “No.”
“But there were some times when he came close?”
She was taken back once again to the smell of the basement—damp, dirty, musty. The extra room was there, the one with a cot, and Denise was freezing cold, shivering, pressed up against the concrete wall while Thomas unwrapped his belt.
“You like this, don’t you, little hot pants?”
She watched the belt uncoil, mesmerized, listening to the tattoo of her heartbeat. No Dinah. Dinah wasn’t here. No Mama, ’cause she was sleeping on the bed, too tired to help. And Hayley couldn’t know. Couldn’t let her know ’cause she was too young.
The first slap took her breath away, then she felt nothing. His fists followed, thick and red and full of power and hate. She felt nothing. Then he stripped out of his clothes and she watched in silence as he stroked himself and initiated her into this, their soon-to-be nightly ritual. She felt nothing. Nothing but a sense of the inevitable. Because she deserved it. She always deserved it.
“Deserved what?” Stone leaned forward, tuned in. Apparently, she’d spoken aloud.
Denise stared down at her trembling palms. “I lusted after him. I wanted him. And I deserved to have him.”
That stopped him for a moment. Surprised, Doc?
He recovered. “You were a kid with a crush on your mother’s husband. It’s normal.”
“Oh, no, no.” She wagged a finger at him. “No fancy mumbo jumbo. I wanted him, and I got him. The cruel bastard! I dreamed about him. Us. In bed together. I wanted him. I let him know in a hundred little ways. A flirtatious smile. A slip of the hand in his. Shit, I just brightened up when he walked in a room.”
“Until?”
“Until I saw what it was doing to my mother,” Denise choked out.
“Until he acted on your flirtatious ways,” Stone corrected gently.
“I think my mother knew.” Her voice was softer and softer, barely audible. She couldn’t hear the words. Couldn’t face them.
“Was he sleeping with your other sisters?”
“NO!” The shriek that jumped from her throat startled her.
“How do you know?”
“Because they hated him.”
“But you hated him, too.”
“I was the one who wanted him,” she reminded through clenched teeth. “Not Hayley.”
“Why did you say Hayley and not Dinah?” he asked after a long moment.
“Because he couldn’t have Dinah,” she answered rapidly.
“But he could have Hayley?”
“She was fourteen!”
The cry reverberated through the room. From a great distance Denise viewed the scene with humor. He’d done it. He’d wrung a confession from her. From a memory she’d fought hard to repress.
“Thomas Daniels forced himself on Hayley when she was fourteen.” Stone said the words, but she could tell he didn’t want to say them either.
She nodded jerkily. “It was always when Dinah wasn’t around. He was shrewd. He was so god awful shrewd. But he couldn’t fight Dinah. Every time he hit her, she hit back. But if she’d known about what he did to us, she would have killed him.”
“So you hid it from her.”
“Oh, yes. Always. And I told Hayley that nothing happened. ‘Remember, Hayley. Nothing happened,’ I told her over and over again. And she believed me.”
Floodgates. Opening slowly with a rush of poison behind them. Denise the sicko was now Denise the Blabbermouth. Bad words. Bad memories. Bad, bad times.
“Now that you know all that you suspected to be true. You should be proud. Give yourself a medal. You’ve done what no man has done before, and I feel brand-new. Hallelujah!”
“I’m sorry you had to protect them,” he answered, his voice sounding faraway and ripply.
“Protect them? I didn’t do a goddamn thing.”
“You kept his attention focused on you. You tried to save Hayley and you tried to save Dinah, too.”
“You’re nuts, Doc. You make no sense,” she said wearily.
She heard him walk around his desk. He was right behind her. His breath on her neck. “I know what you thought. ‘If I keep him occupied, maybe he’ll forget about my little sister. But I’ve got to be careful, because if Dinah finds out, she’ll kill him. She really will.’”
“Fuck you, Stoner!”
“You think Dinah killed him and you’ve been burying everything and keeping it inside and destroying yourself with it.”
“I’m not that deep, shrink.” Now her whole body was shaking, and shock of all shocks, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Wetness in her eyes. Tears. She turned her hands skyward, then dropped hotly onto her palms.
“You’re just not very good at hiding things,” Stone answered. “Especially from yourself.”
Her skin felt seared from his touch. The urge to turn into his arms was overwhelming. She fought it, but he was too close and too important to her. Swallowing, she slowly rotated, wrapping her arms around his neck and silently seeking comfort. At first he resisted. He let her hold him, but he didn’t respond. But then his hands crept tentatively across her back and he returned the embrace.
“I’ve wanted you to hold me,” she admitted, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
She felt him shake his head. “You’ve been sending off sexual signals to keep me from finding out about you.” A beat. “You’re still doing it.”
“This isn’t sexual.”
“Isn’t it?”
She vehemently shook her head, dragging herself back from him in an effort to prove her point. But damn the man. He was right. She was already thinking about sex with him. Already feeling triumphant that she’d breached his first line of defense.
Shocked at herself, her feelings must have shown on her face because Stoner actually cracked a smile. “Denise, you’re too attractive to resort to this. Give yourself a break. People will still like you if you don’t sleep with them.”
“They don’t like me either way,” she said.
“Yes, they do.” He sighed, his breath stirring the blond hair at her crown. “So, what are we going to do about Dinah?”
“What do you mean?”
He held her at arm’s length, staring at her through those eyes that knew her far too well. “You think she killed Thomas Daniels.”
“What?” Denise laughed.
“You think Dinah killed him.”
Her veins were ice. “Wow, do you jump to conclusions. No way.”
“You’re acting again.”
“Oh, sure. Like you know so much about it.”
“Your whole body’s shaking from fear, Denise. I know you think she did it. The question is: What are you and I going to do about it?”
Denise blinked, scared. For once in her life she had no answer.
Connor rented a midsize sedan at the Portland Airport and they began a three-hour drive around Mt. Hood toward central Oregon. He glanced at Hayley, huddled in the seat beside him, and did the unthinkable. He reached over and brushed her hair away from her face in a tender motion.
To his amazement, she didn’t overreact. She just closed her eyes and leaned toward his fingers.
“I’ve talked to Dempsey and the sheriff’s department about a job. I’m definitely moving back,” he said.
“I know.”
“I want you to come with me.”
She half laughed. “There’s really an abundance of good film roles in Nowheresville, Oregon.”
“I’m serious, Hayley.”
She looked at him, then. Understanding crossed her face. A brief flare of pure happiness, then the curtain of guilt and fear.
“You have to tell me everything,” he warned gently. “That’s why we’re here. Before we go back, I want to know the complete, unvarnished truth.”
She didn’t respond and Connor settled in to drive, determined to have all the answers no matter what it took to get them.
“
. . . Three, two, one . . .” The production assistant circled his hand and indicated that she was on camera.
Dinah stared at the single eye of the lens. It was surprisingly easy and impersonal, this verbal reporting stuff, though she certainly got impassioned over some of her subject matter. With practiced ease, she slid into her editorial on the slimy, step-on-your-neighbor’s-grave-for-a-good-story, tabloid tactics of the media. Pure irony, since she was the media, but right now, the message was the important thing.
A minute and a half to say everything she had to say. More time than they liked to allow, but enough to get the point across. She spoke casually, her voice rising as it always did at the end.
“. . . what is the price of fame?” she finished. “And whose life is it, anyway?”
The production assistant signaled the cut-off. Dinah grabbed her papers and hurried from the desk, stepping over snaking cables and aiming for the gray double doors at the back of Studio One.
John Callahan stood there, as expressionless as a sphinx.
“What’s wrong?” Dinah asked anxiously. “Denise?”
Something in his eyes flickered. “No, it’s not Denise.”
“What then?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Dinah drew a breath. Today she wore makeup, for the camera, and she’d actually sold out and put some blond highlights in her hair, once again for the camera. She wanted to hate it but had to admit it looked pretty good.
Except where Callahan was concerned.
“What about?” she asked, leading him from the studio to the inner-carpeted hallway.
“Hayley.”
“Hayley?” Dinah repeated, giving him a once-over.
“I’ll take you to dinner,” he said by way of invitation, “and we’ll talk.”
John took Dinah to his apartment, which was just as masculinely designed as his bedroom at the Malibu house. Prints by unknown artists in shades of taupe and black and peach accented a cool room with off-white carpet, rust brown leather couches, and wrought-iron floor lamps. She liked it, but it only served to make her feel more like an interloper.
“So where’s the food?” she asked.
He opened the refrigerator where someone had left an array of cold salads. “I asked my housekeeper to make us up something.”
“You knew I’d say yes. How disappointing.”
He set several bowls of pasta salad and salad greens on the counter, then eyed her in a way that made her heart lurch. “I planned to do my damnedest to persuade you,” he said, motioning her to a black leather barstool.
They ate in silence, the minutes stretching out.
She sipped red wine and stared straight ahead, hating herself for the simple fact that she wanted him to sweep her into his arms and make hot, passionate love to her all night long.
Ratwoman, she berated herself. Ratwomen let men walk all over them and kept coming back for more.
Except that, she reminded herself sternly, he didn’t want her.
“Something’s wrong with Hayley,” he said in his slow-talking drawl.
“Wrong?”
“She’s completely changed.”
“Like you know her so well.”
“I know that she was selfishly determined and brilliantly focused and now she’s neither.”
“What does that mean?”
John’s gaze swept reflectively down her face, focusing on her throat where her heart beat, strong and even. “Something happened to her, and I think it happened during that whole Lambert Wallace mess. Either that did it, or something related to it. She just can’t keep it together and this damn film is going to collapse around us all if she doesn’t find a way out.”
Dinah inwardly snorted. So that was it. His precious film. “You want me to talk to her?”
He shook his head. “She’s gone to Oregon. Jackley’s still working on your stepfather’s murder—”
“What?”
“—case,” he finished, frowning.
“Hayley went to Oregon?” Dinah cut in. “To Wagon Wheel?”
“Jackley thinks she can help. So we’re filming the scenes with Denise that don’t—”
“Why did he take her?” Dinah broke in again. “Why only her?”
“Beats me,” John replied. She knew she was acting like a maniac but she couldn’t help it. “Hey, if it brings her around, more power to him.”
“He should be talking to me.” Dinah’s face set in hard lines of concentration.
John gave her a long look. “Why? Do you know something?”
Dinah regarded him coolly. She hadn’t kept secrets this long to suddenly spurt them out like a fountain. “When did they leave?”
“Couple days ago.”
“I’m going, too.”
“Whoa.” He grabbed her as she slid off the stool. “You know what really happened, don’t you?” he said, the truth dawning.
“It isn’t what you think.”
“This all has to do with Daniels, doesn’t it? That’s why Hayley’s been like walking death. You know who killed him, and so does she.” A beat. “Denise,” he whispered.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Oh, John.” Dinah swallowed hard. It was over. All over. And she was suddenly glad. “I’m the one who stuck his body in the culvert, not Denise.”
Chapter Eighteen
Springtime was still frigid winter in central Oregon. Cold, arctic, blasting air rushed off the mountains, sometimes forming into snow, sometimes turning to needles of rain that took your breath away.
Hayley stood at the edge of the field, her hands tucked inside the insulated navy blue parka. Connor’s. He’d wrapped her in the oversized coat, his gaze warm and concerned.
She wanted to reach out and stroke his beard-shadowed face. She couldn’t make herself do it, and the moment had ended.
Now, the whistling wind filled her ears, so cold it gave her an instant earache. Her eyes squinted and she gazed at the soggy stalks of field grass, feeling slightly sick.
The culvert where Thomas’s body had been found was about fifty feet away. The field was in back of the house where they’d all once lived, but no one had ever looked in the culvert. The place had gone into foreclosure after Daniels’s disappearance, and the subsequent owners had leased the property to a middle-aged, retired couple that never set a foot out of the tiny crabgrass-infested backyard. The fence that had once surrounded the periphery had long ago fallen into disrepair, and ignoring its gray, weathered, broken slats, two boys had ridden on horseback into the open area and come across Daniels’s body.
She’d told Connor a little bit about her past, how she’d shied away from her lecherous stepfather, how she’d squirmed when girls at school had whispered about his numerous affairs.
But she hadn’t told him about Denise.
Now, however, the accusing silence of the place coupled with the angry whine of the wind preyed on her soul. She had little resistance. None, really.
He’d taken her to meet the players in this dark farce. His nephew, Matt, and his close friend, Mikey. His own sister, Mary, who spent half the time regarding Hayley with pity and understanding, half the time haranguing her brother into rejoining the force. His laconic brother-in-law and the sheriff, Gus Dempsey, who clearly thought Denise was guilty, and who was eager to close the book on the whole damn thing and forget it.
And then there’d been the curiosity seekers, the ones who came to see her. Ex-schoolmates, ex-friends, ex-everything. Hayley Scott, Denise Scott’s little sister, an aspiring actress who may, or may not, have knocked off her mother’s vile husband.
And wonder of wonders, a balding thirtyish man with flashy taste and more money than sense had introduced himself to her as Jimmy Fargo, Denise’s long-ago love. He’d driven down from Seattle at Connor’s request, she’d learned, and he was eager to be a part of the investigation.
“Yeah, she was pregnant,” Jimmy told them, settling ba
ck in a squeaking chair in Dempsey’s office for a big, long yarn. “I gave her money for an abortion, and she did it. I regret it now, though. We shoulda had that baby and been a family.” He smiled in a way he undoubtedly thought was full of regret but managed to look merely slimy. “I’m doing all right now in Seattle. Sold my parents’ place here, got quite a pretty penny for it, then invested in real estate in Seattle. Made a fortune!”
“Then why did you sell your story to a tabloid?” Hayley had asked, feeling dirty just being near him.
“Well, sure, there’ve been a few lean times. And besides, I think the public has a right to know the truth. After all, she’s down there making tons of money and acting like she’s so good and all. I thought people should know, that’s all.”
Throughout this exchange, Connor said nothing, but Hayley could feel the waves of disgust emanating from him. Jimmy Fargo was a weasel. He’d been cute and kind of cool in high school, but he’d turned into an ogre of mega-magnitude.
“You’re certain the child was yours,” Connor finally asked.
Fargo’s face turned a dull, ugly red. “You bet it was!”
“I was just wondering if there was any other man in—”
“I was her man, okay? Me. Nobody else. She killed my baby!”
Hayley had turned away. She couldn’t look at him. He was another part of the problem that had led to the killing, and she couldn’t bear to look at him.
Jimmy then went on about Denise and how nobody believed him that she was Denise Scott, the movie star. It was clear he was upset that some of her fame and notoriety hadn’t rubbed off on him and he meant to set things right. Finally, Connor held the door for him and Jimmy reluctantly got to his feet.
“I remember you had that concussion,” he added at the door, wagging a finger at Hayley in recollection. “Couldn’t make it to class and all. Denise said you fell, but Mr. Saunderson called county services and went to see if you were all right. I remember ’cause it was right before she left. Before you all left.”
Fuzziness. Hayley almost recalled that same memory but it eluded her somehow. She was afraid to chase it. Afraid it might reveal even more memories she didn’t want to see.