by Jane Graves
“Hello, there,” he said with a guarded smile, eyeing John up and down. “I’m Samantha. The assistant manager. And you are...?”
John flipped out his ID. Samantha gave it a quick, offhand glance, then slid onto a bar stool, resting his arm against the bar. He crossed his legs, then flicked his cigarette into a nearby ashtray and gazed at John warily.
“What can I do for you, Officer?”
John laid a fifty on the bar, and Samantha’s mascara-laden eyes widened with interest.
“I’m looking for a guy who might be one of your customers. Last time he was seen he was wearing a leopard-print shirt, black spandex pants, black gloves, and white shoes.”
Samantha raised a deadpan eyebrow. “White shoes with that ensemble?” He took a drag off his cigarette and blew out a ring of smoke. “Are you sure you’re not the fashion police?”
“And big, dangly earrings that look like rainbows.”
“Oh, dear. Is this everyday wear, or Halloween?” He stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “To tell you the truth, that could be one of two hundred people who come in and out of this place every night.”
“This guy is maybe five-ten, maybe six feet. Probably wearing a long blond wig.”
“Blond. They all want blond. What is it with that, anyway?” He brushed his phony waist-length hair over his shoulder with a preening flick of his hand. “There’s no mystery to blond. It’s nothing more than somebody jumping up saying, ‘Me! Me! Look at me!' He rolled his eyes with disgust. “Self-absorbed, self-conscious. That’s what it is. It takes class to go brunette. To stop letting your hair talk for you.”
As if his wasn’t singing, “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” at the top of its hairy lungs.
“Do you have a photo?” Samantha asked.
“No,” John said. “Just hoping the clothes might ring a bell.”
Samantha eyed the fifty-dollar bill, clearly trying to figure out what he could do to earn it.
“Tell you what.” He reached over the bar and nabbed a pink flyer from beneath it and handed it to John. “Tomorrow night we’re having a talent show. Every cross-dressing, sexually ambiguous gender-bender in town will be here. You can probably find the person you’re looking for.”
John eyed the flyer, noting that the grand prize was one thousand dollars, with the runner-up receiving five hundred. A show like that could draw a considerable crowd.
He folded the flyer up and stuck it in his coat pocket, then grabbed a cocktail napkin. He wrote his phone number on it, then slid it along with the fifty down the bar toward Samantha. “I’m sure you’ll call me if you see anyone before then who fits that description.”
“Well, certainly, Officer. You can bet I’ll be on the phone right away.” Samantha snagged both items and tucked them into his phony cleavage. “And if you find who you’re looking for, try not to bust the place up, okay? The owner will have my ass if you do.”
John left the club and ventured across the street to Queen’s Court. The owner and manager were nowhere to be found, and the bartender zipped his lip so tightly when he saw John’s badge that he knew something illegal had to be going on somewhere in the vicinity. But unless that illegality was being committed by a man wearing a leopard print, right now John wasn’t interested. One look from the bartender, though, and the patrons at the bar clammed up, too, leaving him no chance to get any information at all.
He walked a block and a half south to the Chameleon, where business had started to pick up a little. He hung out there for half an hour, watching people come and go. He talked to several employees and even a patron or two, but nobody remembered the clothes or the earrings.
John went back outside and stood on the street comer, wishing he had better news for Renee. It wasn’t as if he’d expected a guy wearing leopard print and rainbow earrings to walk right up to him and confess, but at least he’d hoped for some kind of recognition on somebody’s part.
Still, the talent show was something he hadn’t anticipated, and it could very well draw the person he was looking for. Right now, it was about the only hope he had.
But what would happen if it turned up nothing?
Don’t think about that now.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and headed back down the block to his car. For the next twenty-four hours, his task was clear: he had to keep the world from finding out Renee was with him until he could get to the talent show tomorrow night. With luck, a certain badly dressed man who robbed convenience stores would be out for a night on the town, never dreaming that there would be a cop in the crowd who was looking just for him.
When John got home, he found Renee curled up on his sofa waiting for him, her legs tucked up next to her and her long blond hair spilling over her shoulders. He’d been coming home alone to an empty house for so long now that he didn’t know what it was like to do anything else, and he felt an unfamiliar stirring of warmth as he looked at her. What would it be like if she were here when he got home every night?
He shut the door, and Renee rose to meet him. “What did you find out?”
“Not much,” he said, tossing his wallet and his car keys on the dining room table. “Nobody I talked to remembered anyone in clothes like the ones I described. But I did come up with this.” He handed her the flyer. “There’s a talent show tomorrow night at a club called Aunt Charlie’s. It should draw a big crowd that’ll be full of just the kind of people we’re looking for. I’m planning on being there.”
“Do you think you’ll find something?”
It was a long shot, but he couldn’t bear the thought of telling her that. “I think there’s a good chance I’ll come up with something.”
Renee eyed the flyer, then looked up at him with a cautious expression. “What are we going to do if you don’t?”
He could tell she desperately needed him to give her an answer, but the truth was that he didn’t have one. Right now he had no other leads to follow. If they turned up nothing tomorrow night, all she would have going for her would be a very shaky eyewitness, an almost-alibi, and an absence of motive. He knew firsthand that juries sometimes made incredibly dumb decisions. Under those circumstances, how could he ever suggest that she should turn herself in? By the same token, how could they carry on the way they’d been with no resolution to the situation at all?
“Let’s take this one step at a time,” he told her. “Let me go to the talent show tomorrow night and see what that nets us. We’ll go from there.”
She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. Finally she just nodded. He knew his answer hadn’t satisfied her. Hell, it hadn’t satisfied him, either.
“It’s nearly eight-thirty,” John said. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah. A little.”
“How about a pizza? Sausage and black olives?”
“Sounds good.”
Renee sat back down on the sofa again while John ordered the pizza. When he went back to the living room he found her sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked up beside her again, staring off into space. He knew she needed some reassurance, but he just didn’t know what to say. So he simply sat down beside her and slipped his arm around her. Instantly he felt how tense she was.
“Renee? Are you all right?”
She laid her head against his shoulder. “Yeah. I was just thinking about my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes. She still lives here in Tolosa, but I haven’t seen her in almost two years.”
“Why not?”
“Because she hates me.”
“But why? It looks like she’d be proud of you for putting all your teenage problems behind you.”
Renee sighed. “My mother’s an alcoholic. She didn’t want me around when I was a kid because I was too much trouble when all she wanted to do was drink. And she doesn’t want me around now because I remind her that people really can change, and she doesn’t want to believe that, or she’d have to do something about herself.”
Jo
hn couldn’t imagine what it must be like to grow up with that kind of nonstop negative bombardment. Renee had suffered through it for years, yet still she’d been able to rise above it.
“I got up the nerve to visit her two years ago,” she said. “I thought it might be time to mend some fences. I’d become a rational adult and I thought maybe she had, too.”
“What happened?”
“She greeted me at the door with a drink in her hand. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Things went downhill from there. Within fifteen minutes I was reminded of what a rotten kid I’d been back then and what an ungrateful daughter I was now.”
“Ungrateful daughter?”
“Oh, yeah. She told me that after all she’d done for me, I should be able to give her a few bucks once in a while now that I had a good job at a fancy restaurant. Apparently she was running low on booze, and her welfare check hadn’t shown up yet.”
John heard the catch in Renee’s voice, as if she were on the edge of tears. He took her hand and held it tightly.
“Before I left her house,” Renee said, “I went back into the bedroom that used to be mine. It was as if I’d never left it—the unmade bed, the concert posters I’d stolen from a music store, the broken dresser mirror I’d once slammed my alarm clock into in a fit of rage. I just stood there staring at all that, at the evidence of what my life used to be like, and I told myself that it was the last time—I was never coming back there again.”
“Good. Stay away from your mother. You don’t owe her anything.”
“I know. I just feel cheated sometimes, you know? Other people have these wonderful families, and I’ve got nothing but an alcoholic mother who doesn’t give a damn whether I live or die.” She sighed softly. “To tell you the truth, if I end up in prison, she’ll probably be thrilled, because then what she always said will finally be true.”
“What’s that?”
“That I’d never amount to anything.”
She said the words matter-of-factly, but John knew the magnitude of the pain behind them. If only he had the power to sweep those memories from her mind so she’d never be haunted by them again, he’d do it in a second.
“I tried to do everything right,” she said. “So why is everything turning out so wrong?”
“There’s no answer for that. And if you go looking for it, you’re just going to make yourself crazy.”
“Did you know that, except for Paula, you’re the only person I’ve ever told about my past? I can’t bear the thought of anyone else knowing. I’m always afraid of what they’ll think of me.”
“It’s over. You don’t have to be ashamed of it anymore.”
“I was beginning to believe that. I really was. And now this.”
“It’ll all be over with soon and you can put it behind you.”
There he went again, making more promises. He had no business promising her anything. But just the thought of her pulling herself out of the dark hole of her past only to get shoved over the edge again was more than he could stand, and he’d say anything to take that sad, wounded look off her face.
“Is there a movie or something on television?” she asked. “I could use a distraction until the pizza gets here.”
He reached for the remote and flipped on the television, and he found he welcomed the distraction as much as she did—something to get their minds off the problems they faced. They watched an episode of an old sitcom, and finally both of them relaxed enough to start laughing at a few of the jokes.
He pulled her close, tucking her into his arms as they watched, and soon her body seemed to dissolve into his. He thought about how flawlessly they fit together, how warm she felt against him, and how wonderful her hair smelled even though she’d washed it with nothing more than the cheap shampoo he used every day. He wished there were a way to stop time, a way for them to stay in this little niche of life they’d found together without having to worry about mingling with the outside world ever again.
Then the doorbell rang.
John rose reluctantly to answer the door, leaving Renee sitting on the sofa. Looking out the peephole, he saw a man holding a pizza box. He swung the door open.
“Twelve-fifty,” the guy said.
John put his hand to his hip pocket, then realized he’d tossed his wallet on the dining room table. He left the door open and went to retrieve it.
“If you ordered this pizza with black olives, I’m gonna be pissed.”
John froze. He couldn’t have just heard what he thought he heard.
His brother’s voice.
He spun around. Alex was standing at his front door.
At nearly six-foot-four, his brother towered over the pizza delivery guy, who stared up at him a little nervously. Alex swiped the pizza out of his hand and flipped open the box, then turned to glare at John. “When are you going to learn that there are some food items that do not belong on pizza?”
John’s gaze flicked over to Renee. She sat frozen on the sofa, her eyes wide, and unless Alex backed out the door right now and went away, he couldn’t possibly miss seeing her. And now that he had his hands on a pizza, he’d never leave.
“Alex,” he said, trying not to sound as uptight as he felt. “What are you doing here?”
“Heard you were back in town. Thought I’d come by.” He nodded down at the pizza with a satisfied smile. “Great timing, huh?”
John gave the delivery guy a ten and a five and closed the door, his heart beating double time. There was no way out of this. No way.
Alex started toward the kitchen, then stopped short when he saw Renee sitting on the sofa. He gave her an appreciative smile. “Hey, John. You should have told me you had company.”
“Uh, Alice,” John said, “this is my brother, Alex.”
Alex smiled broadly. “Ah. So this is Alice. The one Sandy couldn’t shut up about.” He glanced back at John. “The one she said you’re not good enough for.”
“Sandy has a big mouth.”
“But she speaks the truth, unless she’s talking about me.” Alex walked over, swapped the pizza to his left hand, and held his right hand out to Renee. Renee rose from the sofa and shook his hand, a somewhat terrified expression lurking right beneath her shaky smile.
“Hear you made it through Sunday lunch with the family,” Alex said. “Good for you. That’s the first hurdle out of the way.”
“Uh...what’s the second one?”
“Me.” He eyed her up and down, then turned to John with a guy-to-guy grin. “She passes. Flying colors. Now let’s eat.”
As he carried the pizza into the kitchen, John whispered to Renee, “I’ll get rid of him as fast as I can.”
“We’ll just do what we did with the rest of your family,” she whispered back. “It’ll be okay.”
When they got to the kitchen, Alex set the pizza down on the table. “John’s always getting those damned black olives,” he told Renee. “I hope you break him of that. Make him see that pepperoni—”
He stopped suddenly and stared at Renee. His eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head in that way that said there was something he didn’t quite understand.
“Alice?” John said. “Can you get us some plates?”
“Uh. .. sure.”
Renee walked over to the cabinet beside the refrigerator, and Alex turned to follow every move she made. His expression grew more hard-edged as the seconds passed. When she turned back around, she stopped short, obviously sensing that something was terribly wrong. Then John glanced back at Alex. His questioning gaze had become an accusing glare.
“Alice?” he said. “I don’t think so. It’s...Renee, isn’t it?”
Chapter 18
Renee felt light-headed, and for a moment she was sure she was going to pass out. Renee? Had he just called her Renee? How did he know?
Alex turned to John. “Don’t you know who this woman is?” The room went deathly still. John didn’t move. He merely stared at his brother, keeping his cool, but she knew it was a h
ard-won battle. She held her breath, trembling with apprehension, because she knew his back was against the wall. What would he tell his brother?
“Yes. I know who she is.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” Alex said. “She’s an armed robbery suspect. She skipped bail days ago.”
“I told you I know who she is,” John said sharply.
“Then what the hell is going on here?”
“Renee,” John said, his gaze never leaving his brother. “Go to the bedroom.”
“John—”
“I said go. Now.” His voice was low and intense, with a commanding quality to it that said she didn’t dare disobey. She set the plates down on the countertop and left the kitchen, but instead of going all the way to the bedroom, she stopped halfway down the hall and leaned against the wall, where she could hear everything the two men said.
“Let me get this straight,” Alex said. “You know she’s an armed robber, and yet—”
“Alleged armed robber.”
“Don’t dump that semantics crap on me, John. This is then woman you sat down with your family at Sunday lunch, knowing who she was?”
“I didn’t ask for that. That was Sandy’s doing.”
“But you didn’t think twice about lying to everyone, did you?”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know all I need to know. I was there the night they brought her in on that armed-robbery rap.”
John’s voice held steady. “She’s innocent, Alex.”
“You think so, huh? Well, maybe you’ll think twice when I tell you this. When I saw her that night, I happened to remember a certain little juvenile delinquent I arrested several years ago on a public-intoxication charge. How could I forget her? She dumped beer all over my shoes.”
Renee bit back a gasp. Was it possible? Had John’s brother been the patrol cop who had picked her up all those years ago? He was a detective now, but he wouldn’t have been back then, and he clearly remembered the incident....Oh, God.