The Ultimate Romantic Suspense Set (8 romantic suspense novels from 8 bestselling authors for 99c)

by Lee Taylor

  They run the place, Carly. Speck likes it there.

  “So what?” I catch myself talking out loud. I sit back. Have to let it go. I take a deep breath.

  Who the hell does he think he is coming to my door, telling me about my past, asking me to help him? Help him with what? Almost as if the prick is trying to blackmail me into something. But what?

  Speck is comfortable behind the wall.

  At some point, a bowl of chicken soup ends up in front of me, courtesy of Dottie, the waitress. “No more bourbon until you eat a little something, sweet pea,” she says. I obey. The soup goes down easy. Reminds me of my mother’s chicken noodle soup. Always made me feel better. Just the medicine I need to clear away the voices in my head.

  When I finish, Dottie returns to clear the table. “Thanks,” I tell her. “For dessert I’ll take a double shot of bourbon.” I sit back in my seat, resting my head on the back of the booth.

  “That’s some dessert,” she grumbles. “Let me bring you a nice piece of cherry pie, love. Fresh this morning.”

  “No thanks. Just the bourbon.”

  She leaves, carrying my empty soup bowl, mumbling to herself. Her frizzy orange hair matches the orange stripes in her blouse; makes me a little nauseous.

  I light up my last cigarette to ease my stomach just as the Beatles’ Ticket to Ride jolts the airwaves. The right song at the right moment. Could always count on the lads to help clear things up. After the bourbon, I’m going to O’Hare. Tonight. Catching the red-eye to New York. Wake up in the city that never sleeps.

  Mike walks up to my table. “I thought I’d find you here. What happened? Couldn’t bear to leave me?” He slides in across from me, a wide grin on his face.

  Just what I need, Smiling Mike, like the Sunday comics, full of anticipation, wonder. Only it was Smiling Jack when I was a kid. Always thought Jack was hokey.

  “Something came up. How did it go today?”

  “Great, actually. I’ve been talking to some people and this movie is the break we needed. Been thinking about it all day. We should expand and open another office in Hollywood. Maybe start out with a couple TV shows, then gradually move into features.”

  Mike pauses. Brain churning. I wonder what goes on up there. Wonder if I should tell him about Captain Bob’s visit. About his proposal. ‘Use it somewhere,’ he’d said.

  What would Smiling Mike do?

  Probably nothing.

  He continues his pep-talk, “You could go out there. To Hollywood. Find us an office. Set things up. Might be just the thing you need.”

  “Me? Do I have a sign on my ass that says, ‘I’ll do anything?’ I’m not going anywhere. Where’s that damn waitress? What kind of place is this?” I start to get up. Mike pulls me back down.

  He says, “Hang on. I’m not going to force you into something you don’t want to do. It was just a thought. Obviously, a dumb one.”

  I lean forward and glare at him. “I don’t want to be told what to do. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mike is silent for a while. He runs his hands through his hair, looks around then leans back in his seat.

  The guy really tries. Tries to do and say the right thing. Sometimes too hard. I guess this is one of those times. I should just leave. Go back to the room, gather up all my stuff and walk out of his life. We’d both be better off. I’m no good for anyone, especially Mike.

  Mike says, “We started shaving the men today. They’ve got their own barber. A trustee.”

  “Probably butchered his whole family and stuck ‘em in a blender. That’s why he’s the barber. Good with a knife.”

  He stares at me. Cocks his head. “If you say so,” he says. I can tell he’s trying like hell to keep me from getting under his skin.

  I need to go easy on him. This isn’t his fault. “Sorry. Just don’t like that place.”

  Dottie finally brings over my double and Mike orders a glass of house red. She leaves.

  I ask Mike, “No dinner?”

  “Ate at the prison. Some old Italian mobster does the cooking. It’s pretty good. He’s working on a cookbook.”

  It’s almost too much for me to handle. I yell out, “What the hell goes on over there? They let all their most notorious criminals have the run of the place or what?”

  Mike is startled by my outburst and gawks at me for a second. “Look, I don’t know what they do or why. I’m trying to have some kind of conversation with you. Trying to tell you what happened today. Can you lighten up a little?”

  I put on a smile and tilt my head like some kid’s doll. “Is this better?”

  “Much. Thank you. Now, just stay that way for the rest of the night. Makes me feel like you’re glad to see me.”

  I take a drag off my cigarette, blowing the smoke over Mike’s head while singing along, “She’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care.” Couldn’t have said it better. “You see Speck today?”

  “No. Somebody said he drank too much of his homemade hootch last night and got sick. Spent the day in his cell. Why?”

  “He makes his own booze? How does that work?” My chest feels tight. I toss down half of my drink. Visions of Speck slide through my head: holding a martini like Hawkeye in Mash, cracking jokes, laughing with his buddies while the war swirls around him. While I hear voices. Their voices…and I do nothing.

  “I don’t know. Captain Bob just told me the facts, Ma’am, nothin’ but the facts.”

  “Speaking of the Captain, he paid me a visit today.” The words fall from my lips as if I had meant to tell him all along. As if I had planned on telling him. Mike: my confidant, my compassionate partner. The one I turn to for strength during difficult times.

  Dottie puts down Mike’s glass of wine. “Got some nice juicy steaks in the kitchen to go with that red, sweetie.”

  “What?” Mike asks, puzzled.

  “Got some T-bones—”

  “I think he’s talking to me, Dottie. He already ate dinner, thanks,” I tell her as I crush out my cigarette in the ashtray. “I need another pack of cigarettes. Can you give me some change?”

  “Sure, sweet pea, but what kind do you want? I can get ‘em.”

  In the meantime, I can tell Mike is just chomping at the bit. He says, “Are you going to tell me what Captain Bob wanted?”

  “Thanks. Benson and Hedges, menthol,” I tell her and hand her a five. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks, hon. Captain Bob from the prison?” Dottie asks Mike. He nods. Dottie continues. “He was in here today. Real nice man. Got his troubles though, working at that prison. Makes a lot of ‘em depressed. I’ve known several really nice men over the years that blew their brains out. Gets to ‘em after a while, being locked up with all them devils. Suppose that’s why Bob had all that trouble with Warden a while back. Got passed over for a big promotion. It’s them gangs. Can make a man do things he don’t normally do.”

  “How long have you known the Captain?” I ask just as she’s about to wind down. Don’t want to tell Mike what the Captain said. He won’t understand. Won’t care. Let Dottie talk. Avoid the problem. It’ll drift away. Anyway, I don’t really know what the Captain wanted. Don’t want to know. Probably a jerk. A jerk with a misplaced conscious. Who cares? Not me.

  “I’ve known Bob for about fifteen years or more. Don’t know how he does it. Day after day. Got a sick wife at home, too. You ought to see them two together. Real love birds. Still brings her in here every once in awhile, poor thing. They used to come in and he’d fill that old jukebox up with quarters and they’d dance all night. Laughin’ and smoochin’. That was before Bud put the pool table in. Now there ain’t no room for dancin’. Just as well. She can’t dance no more anyway. Was a sweet woman, though, still is. Had a real pretty smile, looked like…what’s the actress’ name from that Sally and Harry movie? Had an organism in the restaurant?”

  “Meg Ryan had the organism,” Mike says straight faced, repeating her mistake. He looks over at me. In spite of myself, I
have to smile.

  “Yeah, just like Meg Ryan when she smiled. But that damn prison’s a real curse. That’s why my Bud quit it. He was a guard. A Captain, like Bob, but he quit and we opened this place. Couldn’t take it no more. All them devils runnin’ things. Makin’ the guards do stuff they don’t want. Makin’ Bud mad all the time. Yeah, Bob’s got his troubles. Too bad. He’s a real nice man. Can I get you two anything else besides the cigarettes?”

  “No. Thanks,” Mike says. Dottie exchanges my ashtray for a clean one and leaves. I put down the rest of my bourbon.

  Mike winces and says, “You drink too much.”

  I force out, “You don’t drink enough.”

  “It won’t solve anything.”

  “Not looking for a solution.”

  “Are you going to tell me what he wanted or not?” Mike argues.

  I’m confused now, thinking about the Captain. Sounds like one of the good guys. Wyatt Earp trying to clean up the town so he can go home to the little woman with his head held high. Seems too good. Like he’s Gacy the clown; little boys buried in his backyard. What the hell does he want with me? And what do I tell Mike? Not the truth. Not now. Need to find out more information from the Captain.

  I blurt out, “A part in the movie.”

  Mike is somewhat stunned. “He came all the way out to our motel to ask you for a part?”

  Dottie returns with the cigarettes. I mumble thanks and she walks away.

  “Yeah. How about that?” I answer with false conviction. Smiling. Trying to get him off my back. Should have never mentioned it.

  “Why didn’t he ask me? I was with him for most of the day?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Captain.” I open my pack, pull one out and light it with a Bic. Mike takes a swig of his wine, puts the glass down and gets that look on his face I hate, that what-are-you-up-to-now? look.

  “Carly?”

  I give him the same look back, “Mike?”

  “You’re not telling me the truth, are you?”

  “Absolutely,” I tell him, but I can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t believe me. Doesn’t matter. He can’t handle the truth. Never could. That little boy crying in his seat couldn’t believe his sister would ignore him. Abandon him for a look at her idol. He’s still that little boy, only taller.

  I’ll have to figure this thing out with the Captain on my own. “I’m not leaving,” I tell him. “You won’t be able to handle the action alone. I’m feeling much better. Just needed a day off. I’m fine now.”

  “Oh sure, you’re fine. Look at how fine you are. Your hand is shaking.”

  I put the cigarette down in the ashtray and fold my arms in tight across my stomach, tucking in both hands. Can’t let him get to me. Can’t let him change my mind.

  “I’m cold.”

  “You’re cold. Okay. And what about Speck?”

  “What about him?” I can feel myself starting to slur, starting to spin. Have to be careful. Don’t want to give anything away.

  “What if you run into him again? The man has a physical effect on you. This isn’t a smart move, Carly. Especially after what you’ve told me about him. And especially after last night. I think you should go home. I can take it from here.”

  “I keep telling you, nothing happened last night. Just drank a little too much on an empty stomach. You overreacted, like you always do. Look,” I push my glass away. “I’ve had enough.”

  “You said you didn’t want to do this movie, didn’t like breathing in the same air as Speck. You told me that you wanted to go home. Needed to go home.”

  “No, you said I should go home. I don’t want to. Besides, I have to find Captain Bob—the sweet, depressed lover—just the right part. And you’d miss me too much,” I tell him, leaning across the table, puckering up my lips to give him an air kiss. He’s looking so cute tonight in his black T-shirt and his khaki pants, hair all messy, baby blues glistening with concern. What would it be like to just let go? To love like Captain Bob’s wife loves him. To put that much trust in a man and have him come through. Steadfast. Constant. No matter what.

  I tell myself that’s the booze talking and I lean back. Take a breath to ease my silly thoughts.

  Mike smirks, shakes his head, then picks up his wine and says, “To Captain Bob,” and drinks down every drop. “Dottie,” he calls out. “A tall glass of milk, please.”

  “Two,” I yell.

  With a squeamish look on her face she calls back, “Sure, sweet peas, two glasses of milk coming right up.”

  Twelve

  July 12, 1966

  “Wake up, it’s past eleven o’clock. We’re supposed to be at Beth’s in an hour. Wake up, you guys,” Sharon’s sister called from just outside the tent.

  “What?” Sharon mumbled.

  “It can’t be. It just can’t be!” I said as I jumped up to look out of our mesh window. “What happened?”

  Sharon’s sister, Mandy, opened the flap on the tent and peeked inside. “You guys look dead. Up all night talking? That’s what you get. I guess you don’t want to come to Beth’s and see those Peter and Gordon pictures.”

  Beth had taken pictures at the concert. She even made us copies, which was fab, but the three of us had slept right through the night. What happened to Wolf? One of us was supposed to have kept watch. And even worse, we had missed Mass and broken our promise to God.

  “Yes, we want to come,” Sharon sighed. “We’re just tired.” She stretched her body out like a willow branch, long and thin. “We’re up. When do we have to leave?”

  “In about fifteen minutes. I borrowed the car so we don’t have to take the bus, but hurry up anyway.” Mandy went back up to the house.

  Lisa turned over and said, “Wolf left with his suitcases about six this morning. Somebody picked him up. I told you that new spirit wasn’t any good. Now what?” She sat up and yawned, her curly hair in a state of confusion around her face. It needed ironing in the worst way.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why didn’t you run out there after him? You could have stopped him.”

  “He came out and got into a waiting car. There wasn’t any time. Why didn’t you stop him?” she argued.

  “It was your watch. I was asleep,” I snapped and punched down my pillow.

  “Now what?” Sharon asked me, as if I should know the answer. “This is your fault. You didn’t want to go to Pete’s Tap last night. We could have talked to him if we’d gone. You’ve ruined everything.”

  I tried to shift the blame back to Lisa, “If I had seen Wolf leave this morning I would have run out there after him, but Lisa didn’t do anything. She didn’t even wake us up.”

  “You would not. You’d have been too chicken, just like you were last night,” Sharon countered.

  “Just admit it,” Lisa said. “It’s your fault if we don’t marry the Beatles. You’re just too scared all the time. Say it, or I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”

  Lisa believed that you weren’t human if you couldn’t say you were sorry. She said she read it in the Bible somewhere, which she probably did since she was always reading. It was her very own test to prove that a person was actually real and not some alien or devil.

  But I was mad and ready to go straight home. Mandy called out a ten-minute warning and I thought about the pictures. If I left now I would probably never get copies and it could take weeks just for us to be friends again. Then there was Wolf to consider. Maybe he just moved to another boarding house. Maybe he didn’t actually leave on a ship.

  “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault,” I said, folding my blankets.

  “We better get ready,” Lisa said, and as simple as that, the fight was over.

  We left the tent up for later, thinking that maybe we could stay in it one more night—that is if my mother would let me. Sometimes, though, if the three of us were together too much we’d fight and I’d be the one left behind. I couldn’t let that happen this time. Not with somebody like
Wolf Dietrich hanging around and the Beatles concert only a few weeks away. We had to be mates, that’s all there was to it.

  When we arrived at Beth’s apartment near Stony Island, another South Side community, two of her friends were already there so she didn’t pay much attention to us. She introduced Mandy to her friends and gave us the pictures from the concert.

  The friends were her old classmates from nursing school. Beth had to drop out after the first year because she got pregnant and then married—neither of which was acceptable to South Chicago Community School of Nursing.

  Sharon, Lisa and I sat together on the floor of Beth’s baby-proof living room, sipping lemonade. We looked over the pictures of the concert, squealed at the appropriate times, while Mandy and the other girls talked and laughed and played with Beth’s baby boy. The two girls had brought over graduation pictures of themselves and fellow classmates to share with Beth. The actual graduation was in a few weeks, twenty-one days to be exact and they couldn’t wait for the day to arrive. From what I could gather, it wasn’t school that bothered them, it was ‘serving time’ at the hospital they wanted to be done with.

  One of them mentioned that the graduation ceremony was being held at McCormick Place.

  “That’s where these were taken,” I said holding up the pictures that Beth gave us. “When do you graduate?”

  “August seventh,” the red-haired girl said. Her name was Mary Ann Jordan. She smiled at me, a warm, genuine smile as if she wanted to be my friend. Right away I could tell I was going to like her.

  “That’s only five days before the Beatles concert,” Lisa said.

  “I love the Beatles. Did you know they almost played at the Aerie Crown in McCormick Place, but it’s not big enough to hold all the fans,” Mary Ann said.

  I nodded yes and said, “If they had played there instead of the Amphitheater we would’ve met them for sure. We know how to get backstage.”

  “Are you going to the concert?” the other girl asked. Her name was Suzie Farris. She kept adding sugar to her lemonade, tasting it and adding more. Beth had to refill the sugar bowl just for Suzie. I liked her. I even liked her pixie hair cut, and her outfit, white shorts and a green, cotton shirt. I decided that if I ever cut my hair I would want it to look like hers.