Crime and Passion

by Marie Ferrarella

  That was a little more philosophy than Ilene thought even her precocious son was capable of. About to laugh off the notion, Ilene saw the expression on Clay’s face.

  His father’s words had struck a chord.

  Maybe Andrew wasn’t just trying to be nice to her. Maybe there was more than a little bit of truth in Andrew’s words, she thought. Clay’s mother had left him. Willingly or otherwise, she had left. Fear of abandonment could have gone a long way to making Clay think twice before forging another relationship with a woman.

  The next moment she was rejecting her own theory. She was making excuses for Clay because she wanted to tell him that Alex was his. All these years, not a day went by when her secret hadn’t weighed heavily on her conscience.

  Doing the right thing wasn’t always easy, she reminded herself. But keeping her secret was still the right thing to do.

  “Damn it, she couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.”

  John Walken’s angry voice echoed about the massive room where he retreated to be alone with his thoughts. His thoughts were now as dark as the rich, teak bookcases that comprised three of the four walls. Behind him on one wall a movie ran unnoticed, its image scattered along the fifty-inch plasma screen. He had all the toys, all the trappings of wealth a man could possibly want.

  His toys were in jeopardy and he wouldn’t stand for it.

  “The next time you call, I want to hear that you found her, understand?” He didn’t have to tack on a threat, it was understood.

  The man on the other end of the line was quiet for a moment. His voice was strained with unreleased anger. “It’s not like we’re not trying.”

  Walken held up his brandy glass. The handsome face reflected there was cold, deadly. “Try harder. The D.A.’s office just served me with papers for an indictment hearing.”

  That smug little Cavanaugh bitch had come to do it personally. Everywhere he turned, he felt as if the walls were closing in on him, on the life he’d fought so hard to forge. All because of one do-gooder he hadn’t been able to control.

  Control took on many forms, and he was ready to exercise the ultimate one.

  Provided she was found in time.

  The man on the other end attempted to reason with him. There was a great deal at stake. None of them could afford to lose their cool.

  “It’s just a fishing expedition. They can’t prove anything. You’ve erased all the data from the hard drive, and we’ve substituted another computer for the one O’Hara was using,” he reminded Walken. “There’s no way they can get their hands on any substantiating data.”

  “Unless they have O’Hara. Damn it, this comes under the heading of protection. Something you’ve been more than happy to accept money for. Now protect me!”

  “Her computer’s the important thing, and that’s history.”

  Rage bubbled in his veins and threatened to explode. “You don’t think she’s made copies? The woman’s not an idiot, she knew no one was going to just take her word for anything. And you just told me your people didn’t find anything at her house. That means she’s got the damn laptop with her. I want it and her and the sooner the better.” He took a breath, issuing the final threat. “If I go down for this, I’m not going down by myself. You remember that.”

  There was silence on the other end. “I’ll find her,” the man promised. “And when I do—”

  Walken quickly interrupted the other man. He wanted no verbal exchange to actually implicate him. Even though things were understood. “I want you to do whatever you have to do in order to fix the problem—and I don’t want to know any details, other than the fact that this won’t somehow come back and bite me on the butt.”

  The other man’s voice was condescending. Walken hated him, hated dealing with him, but he was a necessary evil. He’d never dreamed when he’d begun juggling things to come out in the black that it would lead him down this slippery slope. “Consider it done.”

  “It better be—before we are.” Not waiting for anything further, Walken slammed down the receiver. He threw back the rest of the brandy, then poured himself another.

  Giving up, Ilene threw off her covers and got out of bed. It was a little past midnight. She couldn’t sleep. Clay had stirred up things within her so badly she felt as if someone had left a blender on inside. A blender with a broken switch.

  Combing her fingers through her hair, she looked ruefully at her rumpled bed where she had tossed and turned for the past hour. She was exhausted, but there was no way she was going to get any sleep, at least not for a while.

  Her laptop sat on the bureau. Might as well do something productive, she thought.

  She switched on the main light and then took her laptop and placed it on the small desk where Callie had sat before her, doing her homework and complaining bitterly about the useless information she was required to learn. Andrew had told her that little tidbit when he’d settled her into this room earlier. Instead of downstairs, she was in an upstairs bedroom now, one that was connected to her son’s room via a bathroom. Andrew had told her he thought she could use more space.

  Sitting down, she smiled to herself. The man was going out of his way to make her feel welcomed, to make her feel a part of things, and she was more grateful to him than she could say.

  But having Clay around made her feel hopelessly adrift, as if the past and the present had collided. For the first time in five years, she didn’t have a game plan.

  Other than surviving this ordeal and remaining as intact as she could manage.

  Turning the computer on, she watched the screen turn light, then dark, then light again as it went through the various stages of its wake-up cycle. The fan made a rattling noise for the first few minutes before settling down.

  She keyed in a familiar code and pulled up the files she’d copied from her computer at work. She’d covertly transferred the files less than a week ago. It was against the rules, but then, so was embezzling, or whatever it was that John Walken chose to call what he’d done with Simplicity’s funds.

  One by one she carefully copied the files again, this time onto disks. Though her computer had never given her any trouble, she wasn’t about to take chances. She was a firm believer in backing up files, especially in this case. The process was tedious. There was no CD burner attached to her laptop so she was relegated to copying the files onto disks. As they downloaded, she looked around the room, trying to find a safe place to hide the disks. What better place than in a house filled with police personnel?

  She tried not to allow her thoughts to go anywhere beyond the parameters of the room.

  Even so, as she sat, waiting, she ran her tongue along her lips.

  Tasting him.

  Or maybe she was just going crazy. It wouldn’t have been the first time. He had that kind of effect on her.

  Clay stood outside her door. It wasn’t his first trip to this destination tonight. He’d walked from his room to hers twice already. But each time, he’d hung back and eventually returned to his own room.

  He was asking for trouble.

  If he opened the door to her room, if she allowed him to come in, he knew what would happen. Knew there could only be one outcome—if not opening up Pandora’s box, at least letting the genie out of the bottle. Everyone knew once that happened, the genie couldn’t be stuffed back in.

  Better to leave the cork inside, he told himself. She’d obviously moved on with her life, had a child, made a career for herself. If he tried to find his way back into that life, he might mess things up royally, and for no greater reason than his own male pride. She had nothing to gain from the invasion, because he still had his demons, still was no more inclined to settle down now than he’d been before, despite the longing he felt inside. He wasn’t husband material, not when the idea of marriage made him want to book the next flight out of town.

  About to retreat, Clay heard his pager go off. He looked down at it and saw Santini’s number. Whatever crime had gone down on the other
end would keep him from making a mistake in his own house.

  Grateful for the diversion, he went toward the nearest phone.

  He didn’t hear Ilene opening the door to her room and stepping out.

  She looked up and down the hall, then shrugged. There was no one there. Her imagination was getting way too active. She could have sworn she’d heard a pager go off. Which meant someone had stood outside her door. The only logical conclusion for her to draw was that it had been Clay.

  Only wishful thinking on her part, she admonished herself as she stepped back into her room and closed the door.

  Clay didn’t want to come back into her life. If anything, he might just want to see if he could get back in if he wanted. Only his ego was at work here. He didn’t miss her. He didn’t want her. She’d already accepted that once, why was it so hard for her to do the second time around?

  She went back to something she at least had a fighting chance to understand. The files that were in her computer.

  Chapter 10

  “But you can’t go in there.”

  The feeble protest was uttered by the diminutive secretary outside of John Walken’s office as Clay and his partner made their way past her into the man’s domain.

  Clay suspected his cousin had already sent in a team of people, armed with a subpoena and boxes to carry off any and all pertinent files that could point to wrongdoings on the part of Walken and other officers of Simplicity Computers.

  Walken hung up his phone the moment they entered. Though there was a smile on his lips, the man looked a great deal less hospitable and gregarious than the last time they had seen him. Undoubtedly it had something to do with the possibility of losing his six-million-dollar house, Clay mused. As far as he was concerned, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  Still, Walken went through the motions, rising from behind his desk and making a point of shaking first Santini’s hand, then his, as if that silently placed them in a pecking order. Or maybe at odds with one another, Clay wasn’t sure. He did know that John Walken had made it to the corporate top by his considerable wits and his talent for reading people.

  But he had gotten sloppy, Clay thought. The man had certainly underestimated Ilene.

  Walken’s smile appeared a little tight as he sat back down. “I’m afraid that if you’re here to lead me off in handcuffs, gentlemen, you’ve gotten ahead of yourselves. The dragoons from the D.A.’s office were just here and carted away a great deal of very dry reading material. It’s going to take them a while to falsely piece anything together.”

  “Thanks for the narrative, Walken,” Clay retorted crisply, “but we already know that. We’re here on a related matter.”

  Walken looked to be all graciousness as he leaned back in his chair. “How can I help?”

  Clay was going to enjoy wiping that smug look off the man’s face when the time came. “We traced two calls from a public phone located about a quarter of a mile away from your house. Both were to the cell phone of a known felon who’s not too fussy about what he’d do for money.” Clay nailed him with a look. “The same man who left that drawing you claimed not to know anything about taped to Ilene O’Hara’s dining room window.”

  Walken looked bored. “This is all very fascinating, gentlemen, but what does this have to do with me? I’m sure there have been dozens, no hundreds of calls made from that phone. I have a phone in every room of my house, plus two cell phones—one strictly for calls to and from Simplicity—they like keeping me on a short leash here,” he confided. “I have absolutely no reason or desire to get into my car and drive down to the gas station to make a call.”

  Santini pounced. “How did you know it was a gas station? My partner didn’t mention where the phone was.”

  The bored look intensified. “Because there’s a gas station a quarter mile from my house and it has a phone, and while I don’t use the phone, I do use the gas pumps.” He rose again, his body language clear. He was throwing them out. “Now if you don’t mind, I don’t think you and I really have anything else to talk about. Despite the ‘paper theft’ by the D.A.’s office, with Ms. O’Hara no longer working for us, my own workload has increased and I do have reports that need to be done. Can’t keep the shareholders waiting forever.”

  Walken was one cool customer, Clay thought. He hadn’t expected any information out of Walken, but he’d just wanted to let him know that the noose was tightening around him. “Out of curiosity, what are you planning on telling those shareholders?”

  “That there wasn’t as much profit as we first believed there to be.” He looked at Clay pointedly. “By the way, if you happen to be in touch with Ms. O’Hara, you might suggest to her that she start looking around for a lawyer of her own.”

  The goading tone scraped along Clay’s already raw nerves. “Are you planning on suing her?”

  “No, but the D.A. might want a crack at her,” Walken answered mildly. “I’m finding some very curious changes of my own, done not that long ago. All initiated by Ms. O’Hara.” The smug look seemed to widen. “I don’t have to tell someone as sharp as you that the best way to take attention away from yourself is to create a major diversion. In this case, that would be pointing a finger at the top of the corporate ladder because people always seem so ready to believe the worst of CEOs.”

  Clay could feel his cheek muscle twitching. The man had a hell of a lot of nerve, trying to turn the tables like this. “And just why do you think that is?”

  Walken’s face was a mask of innocence. “Haven’t the foggiest. But I would alert your so-called witness that I’ve put all of my best people on this and they are finding some very damning things about her audit.” He moved closer to Clay, cutting Santini out for the moment. “Off the record, you might like to suggest to her that she come in so that we can attempt to square things away without any public fanfare.”

  Clay knew what the man was after. “I have no idea where she is.”

  Walken looked genuinely disappointed. “A pity.” He sighed with just the right amount of regret. “Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to go on record with the D.A.’s office.”

  Clay’s expression never wavered. “I guess you’ll just have to.” About to leave, he paused one last moment as he turned around in the doorway. “And by the way, ‘off the record,’ anything happens to her, Walken, anything at all, I’ll be back and I won’t waste my time chasing after middle men.”

  Like a man who’d heard a trap snap successfully, Walken’s eyes shifted to Santini. “You heard him threaten me.”

  But Santini merely shook his head. “Sorry, it’s this old water polo injury. Did something to my hearing. It goes in and out at the damnedest times.” His mouth curved. “Like now.” He looked at Clay. “We finished here, partner?”

  “Finished,” Clay affirmed, leading the way out. “See you in court, Walken.”

  For the rest of the day, Clay felt as if he was just marking time. Beyond looking out for Ilene and her son’s safety, the case involving Simplicity was predominantly out of his hands. Other cases awaited him, cases that had been put on hold this past week.

  He couldn’t do a thing about Walken right now, and it galled him. The man was sharp, not allowing anything to link him to the small-time thug he’d employed to frighten Ilene. Or worse.

  Still, everyone slipped up. It was just a matter of being patient, something he didn’t have all that much experience with. Clay just liked to keep things moving.

  When things got too serious, required too much maintenance, he moved on. Because to remain meant to get too deeply involved. That left you open for a whole world of hurt and he’d already had hurt in his life. He didn’t need any more of it.

  Shedding his weapon and holster and placing them on the same shelf his father had placed his revolver on for over thirty years, Clay made his way to the back of the house. His mind was on a cold beer and a place where he could just sit down and drain his head of thought for a while. But he walked past the small room th
at his father had always laughingly referred to as his den. A pool of light spilled from the room out into the hallway.

  Clay looked in automatically. Inside the room was a desk, a recliner and a television set, the latter far smaller than the one in the family room.

  Inside the room was also Ilene.

  She sat at the desk, surrounded by mounds of paper. His father’s taxes, he surmised. Clay had a sneaking suspicion that his dad had added things just to keep her busy. Numbers weren’t Andrew’s passion, but they weren’t his nemesis the way he’d indicated, either. His father had always liked to keep on top of things, that included things like his finances and taxes. As long as Clay could remember, his father had never gone to a consultant. It was a matter of pride. Clay knew for a fact that his father had mailed his previous year’s return an entire week early. Ilene was surrounded by bunk—previous papers pulled out of sequence and thrown down to give her busywork to do. His father had done it to distract her.

  The beer was forgotten. Leaning against the door-jamb, Clay watched as she chewed on her lower lip. She did that when she was lost deep in thought. He’d noticed the habit a long time ago and teased her about it. He’d asked what made her lower lip so tempting to chew on, then had gone on to explore the issue himself by nibbling on it. Her subsequent moan had almost driven him crazy.

  Just as memories of her, of them, took their toll on him now.

  Ilene was being watched. The feeling had her jerking up her head, first to look toward the window, then at the doorway. A small gasp mingled with a sigh of relief escaped her lips when she realized that it was only Clay watching her.

  Next moment the concern returned. Something was up. It was early. Clay didn’t come home early, not even for his sister’s party. She’d been here for over a week now. The comings and goings of the Cavanaughs had become second nature to her. Clay left early and returned late, acting far more dedicated than she’d ever thought he would be.