Dom nodded. “If only I’d called in during the night she died, if only I’d had a phone in the bathroom for her.”
“If only, if only.”
There was silence as they gazed at each other. It was a moment of perfect communication, Jordan thought, no walls, no attitude. Keeping her attention fixed on his serious face, she traced the curve of stubble on his chin with her thumb. He grabbed her hand and kissed the palm. “I had a Catholic childhood,” he said with a mocking smile. “What’s your excuse?”
“Just garden-variety insecurity, I guess.”
He kissed her palm again, then used the tip of his tongue to trace the lines that told the story of her life.
In an instant, Jordan felt a flash of heat between her legs, followed by an ache of longing. Again? she thought Should I be doing this again? It seemed her body had the answer to her question. Already it was throbbing with need just from one small contact with Dom’s tongue.
“You’re very good at this,” she said, lowering her eyelids suggestively. “Did it take a lot of practice?”
“Nah, I think I had a natural bent.”
Was this really her? Jordan wondered again, as Dom lowered his mouth to hers. This woman making sexual innuendos and feeling and acting confident about her attractiveness—was this really Jordan Carlisle? Sure was, she answered herself. Most definitely. And she liked this Jordan, liked her a lot.
“I agree,” she murmured a while later, “you do have a gift. Better watch it. I think I could get used to this.”
“Fine with me,” he murmured.
As soon as she’d said the words, she’d wanted to recall them. She’d meant them as light pillow talk, a joke to counteract the heavy emotion she was feeling. But the words sounded possessive, as though she were making plans for the future.
Was that what she was doing? Was this mixture of emotions she felt when she was with him—trust, gratitude, intense and fulfilling passion and a craving for intimacy—was this what was meant by love? If so, she had never experienced it before.
Get off this, she told herself, as a familiar anxiety started up. The one that said she wasn’t worthy of feeling or being loved. No. Stop. Old tapes.
And besides, this was way too soon. With mounting horror, she realized she was being a typical woman. Meet a man you click with, in bed and out, and that first night you begin planning the honeymoon.
Honeymoon? What was she getting herself into here? Way, way too soon, probably not even in the cards. Dom had a lot of inner demons, and she couldn’t possibly be feeling love, not yet.
No, no, no, she told herself silently. Too heavy. She was ruining a delicious afterglow with old voices and introspection.
Opening her eyes, Jordan found herself looking right into Dom’s. He lay on his stomach, his hands underneath his pillow, his head turned toward her. She wondered how long he’d been staring at her and what he was thinking about.
“Your husband was nuts,” he said. “You are one hell of a passionate woman.”
His words made her blush. “With you,” she said, smiling into his warm brown eyes. “With you,” she repeated softly.
As the expression on Jordan’s face registered in Dom’s fuzzy brain, a faint alarm sounded. There was satisfaction, affection, admiration in the way she looked at him. And the soft glow of a woman on the verge of falling in love.
He felt warmed, flattered, moved...at first.
Then the opposite reaction set in, and he felt threatened. What had he gotten himself into here?
There was no doubt the woman got to him, touched deep parts of him that hadn’t been touched since the early years with Theresa, before the baby insanity took her over and he’d erected a wall of protection around himself. He liked his wall, damn it. It got him through the days and nights.
But Jordan’s very existence seemed to be nibbling at the edges of his wall. He’d opened up to her, shared his deepest pain. She brought out a tender side of him he would have denied he possessed, would have laughed at only a few weeks before.
Something about this woman, especially tonight, made his trustworthy, hard-as-nails cynicism shut off, get put on hold. Tonight, he’d made love to her and with her. Tonight he’d felt.
It scared the piss out of him.
Dom shifted his focus around the room and let it stop at the old oak dresser on the far wall. There, in a silver frame, stood another picture of Theresa, this time as she’d been in high school. Braces, hair in pigtails. She hadn’t wanted him to display that picture of her, but he’d insisted. He’d loved the spunky kid she’d been back then, loved being reminded of how she looked just before her metamorphosis into womanhood.
He returned his gaze to Jordan. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, a gentle, satisfied smile on her face. Don’t, he wanted to tell her. Don’t. I can’t make you happy, he wanted to say.
He would say it. He owed her that. “Jordan?”
Her eyes opened with a start. “What time is it?”
Glancing at the bedside clock, he said, “Three.”
“I have to go.” She threw back the covers and scrambled to her feet.
“Why?”
“Cynthia will worry.”
“So what?”
Dom might have been on the verge of warning her off him, but now that she seemed eager to leave his bed, he didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. She hurried from the room, made a quick stop in the bathroom, then headed toward the living room, where her clothing was.
Grumbling, he got out of bed, found his robe and put it on. Scratching his head, he followed Jordan into the living room. What he needed was some sleep, but damn it, he wanted Jordan there with him, sleeping alongside him.
She sat on the faded ottoman, pulling on one sheer black stocking and hooking it to the lace garter belt. She wore nothing else at the moment—the pose was like something on a naughty French postcard—and the sight of her long legs and bare breasts had the undeniable effect of making him hard all over again. He was like a randy kid around her—couldn’t get enough, always ready for more.
His resentment dissipated as he leaned on the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “You sure you have to go? I could make it worth your while to stay.”
She glanced at him, caught the meaning of his words and smiled regretfully. “I’m sure.”
“Why do you live with her?” he asked, then winced. “Stupid question. I mean, you probably love living in that big house. Most people would.”
She cocked her head. “But not you?”
“Nah,” he said honestly. “All that room, it would make me nervous. I’m used to ten people and one bathroom.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “there is a lot of room in that house. And it’s the emptiest, coldest place I’ve ever been in.”
She pulled on the other stocking, then rose, picked up her gown and lowered it over her head. It fell in soft folds over her body. He didn’t like seeing her covered up again, all elegant and unattainable. Of course, he reminded himself, she only seemed unattainable. He knew differently.
“So, seriously,” he asked, “why do you live there?”
“It’s temporary. I can’t afford to live anywhere else at the moment,” Jordan told him. “There’s nothing left of my modeling money, and Reynolds’s estate was tied up in a family trust, so I didn’t inherit anything. After the tragedy, I had nowhere else to go, and Cynthia wanted me to live there. I was in pretty bad shape, had no inner resources left. So I live with my mother-in-law. For now, anyway. If all goes well, I’ll be moving out in a few more months.”
“Do you two ... get along?”
He tried to sound neutral, but she read between the lines and smiled grimly. “She wasn’t very pleasant or welcoming to you, was she?”
He shrugged. “I figure she’s a snob. You got a lot of them in Beverly Hills Goes with the territory.”
“Yes, she is a snob,” Jordan said thoughtfully. “Also vain and shallow. And she has a bad heart an
d is terrified of dying. But, funnily enough, once in a while, when she’s a human being, when she forgets to be a Carlisle, I do get along with her. I even sometimes like her, although I don’t think the feeling is mutual.” She sighed, looked around the room. “However, at the moment, I’m all she has.”
“Guilt again.”
“Some. But I’m working on it.” She found her earrings on a side table, put them on. “I guess when I get Michael back, I’ll—”
“If,” he interrupted.
“Excuse me?” Both hands were at her earlobe, adjusting the clasp as she looked up.
“If you get Michael back,” he explained, emphasizing the first word.
“What do you mean, if?”
Aware that he was destroying the nice afterglow, but unable to see any way around it, Dom pushed himself away from the door frame, walked toward her, stood facing her. “Hey, Jordan, you’re assuming all kinds of stuff. First, that the kid in the picture is Michael.”
“It is.”
He took a beat, let her see his doubt. “Okay. Then you’re assuming we’ll find him.”
“We will,” she said forcefully, obviously upset with his attitude. “No matter how long it takes. I will.”
Her intensity was one hundred percent real. She believed with all her heart. Dom could see it, could smell it on her skin. Not just intensity, but obsessiveness. That powerful maternal urge that kept the race going but could also destroy women who had that urge frustrated. Theresa with no babies, Jordan with hopes that her baby had risen from the dead.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and lowered her onto the ottoman She stared at him, confusion written across her face. “Listen to me,” he said firmly. “I want you to promise me something ”
“What?”
“Don’t do anything more about meeting Wally’s demands without me. If you get another note, if he sets up another little get-together, you call me immediately. If you find out any other information, you tell me right away. You let me handle things. But most of all, please stop kidding yourself, stop building up false expectations.”
Shaking her head, she put both hands over her ears. “Why are you doing this? Why are you being so negative?”
He sat down on the nearby chair, pulled her hands away from her ears and held them between his. “This is not being negative, Jordan. This is being realistic. The guy could be conning you, probably is. I’m just trying to prepare you, keep you from getting your hopes up too much.”
She ripped her hands from his grip. “This is not some missing child on a milk carton,” she said with intensity, “this is my little boy, and through some strange twist of fate, he is alive and living elsewhere. I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t care. So, no, I will not leave everything to you. I have to help, have to play a part. I was the one who found out Myra’s last name. I know I can find out more about her.”
“How?”
“I’Il go through Reynolds’s records, his checkbooks.” She ripped a hand through her hair, looked around the room wildly. “I’ll call up his friends—surely one of them will know something.”
“The more people you let in on this, the quicker Wally will disappear.”
“But you’re going to find Wally! You said you would. You have his fingerprints.”
“And unless he’s an ex-con, there may not be any fingerprints on file. Then it’s a dead end. Again.”
Her agitation grew. “Then we’ll have to look for Wally Foster. We’ll track down all Wally Fosters.”
One more time, Dom took her hands, squeezed them to get his point across. They were ice cold and achingly slender. He put them against his chest to warm them. “Jordan,” he said firmly. “Are you sure that’s his last name? It’s Myra’s, or so Hal says. What if Foster was a married name or a stage name? Wasn’t she planning to break into Hollywood? Wouldn’t she have changed her name?”
“You have to stop this,” she said, twisting away, trying to free her hands.
He held tight. “And you have to hear me. I want to get this guy, Jordan, but if you get too involved it might get screwed up.”
“And who’s to say if you get too involved it won’t get screwed up?” she challenged.
“This is my job—it’s what I do.”
“Being a mother is what I do.”
“Damn it, you’re more than just a mother, and you know it.”
“But not right now, Dom, not while each day passes without my son.”
He started to counter, then changed his mind. Inhaling a deep, frustrated breath, he held it, then blew it out of his mouth impatiently. Dropping her hands, he rose, walked over to a window, looked out. Nowhere, he was getting nowhere with Jordan. Butting heads with an obsession.
Turning once more, he locked gazes with her, straight on. “I want your promise not to do anything on your own. I’m asking you. Please.”
“Dom,” she said, rising from the ottoman. “I’m going to cooperate the best I can. But you need to know that I will do anything, and I mean anything, to get my son back!” She picked up her purse, fumbled for her keys and found them.
“Good night,” she said tightly as she walked to the door and pulled it open. Then she paused, turned and offered him a wan smile. “I know I’m sounding unreasonable and I’m sorry. But—” she shrugged “—there’s nothing I can do about it. Please, Dom, try to understand.” She chuckled then, but it was a weak, half-hearted, tired chuckle. “Believe it or not, I had a lovely time tonight.”
Then she turned and walked out the door.
Dom watched her as she got into the Rover and drove down the block. As her taillights disappeared, he felt an ominous sinking in his gut.
Moments before, they’d been so close, sharing confidences and—despite his ambivalence and inner struggle—strengthening that connection they seemed to have together. But now, like a puff of smoke in a windstorm, it was gone.
Jordan was on her quest again. What, he wondered, would happen to the two of them along the way?
Chapter 10
Dom showed up at his desk early the next morning to attack the piles of paperwork that continued to multiply, one on top of the other, like the piggyback plants his mother used to nourish in the small kitchen window box. For a change, he’d woken up with Jordan in his head and on his mind, but this time with the taste of her in his mouth. Still, he was determined, this one morning, to put her on hold and to pay attention to his job.
He stared with disgust at the manila file folders, notebooks and loose sheets spread out on the desktop. As the bureaucracy grew, it created more and more forms to fill out—requisition forms, case status forms, unsolved, solved and pending, duty schedules, subpoenas currently tucked into his calendar pages. Every time a crime was committed, every time someone was questioned about that crime, a new mountain of paperwork was created. Paperwork was not his strong suit, never had been.
And even with all his cases staring accusingly at him, the one that was taking up most of his head was an unopened one—it didn’t even have its own paperwork yet.
Jordan Carlisle’s son was officially deceased—case closed. To open it up again would involve a hell of a lot more than a mother’s notion that a snapshot of some kid was her son one year after he was supposed to have died.
Muttering with disgust at how easily he’d gotten distracted from his vow to clear off his desk, Dom called to check on the status of Wally’s fingerprint search—nothing yet—then walked himself over to records, where he finagled a readout on Reynolds Carlisle’s death without having to deal with the computer himself, another non-strong suit.
As he stood there and leafed through the various forms, he ascertained that it was pretty much as Jordan had told him. Two burned bodies, adult male and child, no alcohol or drugs in Carlisle’s system, no explanation of why the car had swerved and gone over the embankment. No witnesses, nothing. The coroner’s report revealed that due to extensive damage, there had been no positive physical ID of the kid, but there was no d
oubt Michael Carlisle was the dead child in the back seat.
No positive physical ID. That small fact, Dom supposed, meant there was some chance, some possibility, however minuscule, that Jordan’s hope was justified. Like one in a million.
Mulling it over, he headed to his desk. What else could he do? There were police artists, of course, computer specialists who could take a picture of the eighteen-month-old Michael and come up with what his face would look like a year later. Dom could probably call in a favor and get one of them to do a workup, see if it matched the picture Jordan had been sent. But he’d already asked Nick to follow Jordan, asked a contact in SSB to “unofficially” run the fingerprints for him, gotten records to access a file that had nothing to do with any of his cases. How many more favors could he ask on this one?
All law-enforcement officials did things under the table—if they didn’t, nothing would get done. But he knew he was skirting the boundaries here, maybe even placing his job in jeopardy by using his status, his contacts, for a noncase, a purely personal matter. Jordan Carlisle.
Clear that desk, he admonished himself. Put her away. There was work to be done.
However, he finally admitted an hour later, leaning back in his desk chair and stretching his arms over his head, the work on his desk was not getting done. Not when he was so preoccupied with Jordan’s situation.
Myra Foster. She was the link, and he needed to find her. She’d wanted to be an actress, so he’d start there. He hit the phones, called Screen Actor’s Guild, Screen Extra’s Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Actor’s Equity. The only Myra Foster registered was an extra, and she was seventy-two years old. There was also a Myra Ann Foster, age eight.
So, if she’d done any acting, she was nonunion, which meant she might have done some independent films, and there was no one central place to call for that kind of information.
The Tough Guy and the Toddler Page 17