Carnal Vengeance

by Marilyn Campbell

  Chapter 19

  Holly felt as though she had been pushing her way through quicksand for the last six hours. Surely traffic to the Keys after the hurricane had moved faster than that heading for National Airport. And how had the plane stayed up in the air at the slow speed it flew? In spite of a non-English-speaking cabdriver who must have thought she'd enjoy the scenic route through Miami, Holly finally reached the hospital before the sun fully set.

  Her frustration reached a dangerous level when the nurse behind the desk in the intensive care unit told her she couldn't release any information on David Wells and he wasn't permitted any visitors.

  Desperation enabled Holly to improvise. "But I'm his sister. I've been traveling all day to get here."

  The nurse's face lost some of its sternness. "Oh, that's different. What's your name?"

  Holly frantically sifted through the stories David had told her. "Jill. Jill Wells."

  The nurse ran her finger down a list on her desk. "Oh, yes. Here you are. I wasn't told to expect any of his family today. Mr. Wells has been moved to a private room. I don't believe he has regained consciousness, but he is in stable condition. Holly listened to the directions to get to David's room, but her mind was analyzing what the nurse had said. Most important was the fact that he was no longer in intensive care. That had to be a good sign. But why wasn't any family expected to visit? The way David described them, they were extremely close—not at all the types to stay home if their brother was seriously injured.

  The uniformed police officer sitting in front of the closed door to David's room smiled broadly and rose as Holly approached. Hoping the same ploy would get her past another obstacle, she smiled back and said, "I'm Jill Wells, David's sister. Nurse Johnson said that it would be all right for me to see him."

  The officer picked up a clipboard from behind the chair and scanned a sheet of paper similar to the one the nurse had checked. Giving her another smile, he knocked three times on the door.

  "What now?"

  Holly blinked at the strength of the irritated voice. It was David, but he didn't sound like someone who had been at death's door a few hours ago. And he was very definitely not unconscious.

  The officer pushed open the door, but held up a hand to keep Holly from proceeding before he announced her. "There's a woman here to see you. Says she's your sister, Jill."

  "Jill? No kidding. Let her in."

  The officer stepped aside to let Holly enter. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw David striding toward her, looking extremely healthy except for the white mound of bandages taped onto the left side of his head.

  "Honey, you were told not to—" He halted the moment he saw Holly and his welcoming grin turned to a sneer of contempt so quickly that she turned around to see if someone else had entered the room behind her.

  "Thank you, Officer," he said, then waited until the door was closed again before speaking to Holly. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  She had been worried sick, had run herself into the ground trying to get to him and he barked at her as if she were his worst enemy. "I—I heard you were critically wounded in a shoot-out. David, I don't understand. I thought you might be dying." She set her bag on the floor and crossed her arms over her stomach, as if that could stop it from churning.

  "Oh? And I guess I'm supposed to believe you came flying to my side because you really cared one way or the other?"

  Wrinkling her forehead in confusion, Holly wondered if his head injury had altered his mind in some way. "David, please, you're frightening me."

  "You can cut the act, lady. I know exactly what you're here for. I realize it took me awhile, but then you are one hell of a distraction."

  He turned his back on her, walked to a chair behind a desk in the corner, sat down and started tapping away on his laptop computer. If he had suffered brain damage, would he have been able to arrange for a private hospital room to be partially converted into an office so that he could keep writing while he recuperated? Something was very wrong here.

  "You may as well leave," he said without taking his eyes off the screen. "You can find out whatever you want to know by reading my story... just like everybody else. And, by the way, a favor for old times' sake—please don't spread around the fact that I'm alive and well just yet."

  As if walking on eggshells, she crossed the room to him. "I didn't come this far to be sent away like a naughty child. At least tell me why you're acting like this."

  He stopped typing and glared up at her, but didn't move. "Fine. I'll spell it out. I received some very enlightening information a few hours ago. Let's see how many clues you need to guess what I found out. Dominion University."

  Holly's chest rose with the sharp intake of her breath.

  David's voice was mocking as he praised her. "Aah. Not bad. Only one clue. In case you're interested, some of the other clues were twenty and twenty-one years ago, Cheryl Wallace, Erica Donner, Rachel Greenley, Timothy Ziegler, Billy O'Day, and last but not least, Jerry Frampton." He smirked at her and pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk. "You'd better sit down before you fall down. You look worse than I feel."

  She did as he suggested rather than running out the door as she was tempted to do. "I wanted to explain before you left, but you—"

  "Don't give me that shit," he snarled, slamming his hand on the desk. Wincing, he placed his hand over his injury as if the impact had run straight up his arm to his head. "We were together the whole fucking weekend before I left. How much more time did you need?"

  "David, please. When I heard about O'Day being killed, I panicked. I know I should have told you everything right then and there, but I wasn't thinking clearly. And then Bobbi was at my apartment, waiting for me when you left, and—"

  "Bobbi?"

  "Yes, she—Oh, god, David, I wanted to call you, but you never gave me your number, nor did I have your address to go see you in person. I left two urgent messages at your office." She knew her eyes were filling with moisture and she looked away to keep him from seeing.

  He was too angry to believe the desperate sincerity in her voice. When he'd called in to his editor that afternoon, he'd gotten his messages. One was from Valerie asking if he needed anything more than she'd sent him in her email, an email which he'd never seen until that morning. Two were from Holly, but there was no urgency mentioned, so he had just assumed she wanted to talk—until he reviewed the information Valerie had uncovered and realized that what Holly really wanted was an update.

  "Forget the tears, Holly. It's too easy for you to sit there and tell me how you were going to tell me everything, after I already figured part of it out on my own."

  She leaned forward, her eyes pleading with him to believe her. "I swear it's true. I'll admit to... keeping things from you before, but everything changed between us since the beginning. If you had let me talk to you the night you called, instead of playing one of your games—"

  "Nice move—put me on the defensive. It might have worked under different circumstances, but we're talking about murder here."

  With a resigned sigh, Holly leaned back in the chair and asked, "Have you said anything to the police?"

  He met her frightened gaze and hated himself for wanting her even now. "No. I had this ridiculous notion that I should talk to you before I turn you over to them. But I didn't want to do it over the phone. Anyway my condition is being kept secret on purpose. They hadn't even wanted to call Jill for me but I wouldn't stay unless they did.

  "But understand one thing. I hate liars more than I hate getting on airplanes. The only reason I waited was because my instincts told me that no matter what else you are, you couldn't knowingly be involved in murder."

  Her relief was instantly evident and he wondered why he had let her off the hook so easily. "It was the same instincts that told me there was a story behind the odd group of women that met with Erica Donner that day I first saw you in the hotel. And then my instincts were telling me you wanted me for something besides a
playmate. You kept telling me you weren't interested, but I didn't listen, did I?"

  "I wasn't... at first." She blushed in spite of herself. "All I was supposed to do was pass you the information on Frampton, but then you—"

  "Seduced you? Maybe I did, or maybe you seduced me. Either way, I'll accept responsibility for that part of this mess, and I thank you for confirming that you were the one who got the lead on Frampton to me. I assume you were also the one who cut out the lines of the tabloid article that stated how he had been a star quarterback at Dominion."

  Holly angled her head at him. "I don't understand. I thought you were angry because I gave you a lead that almost got you killed."

  "I'm not angry about getting a hot lead. I'm pissed with you for lying to me! I was so furious when I first realized there was a connection between you and all those people, I could have wrung your neck." Actually, he had been fantasizing about locking her in a pitch black room, where he could take advantage of her fear of the dark while simultaneously arousing her to mindlessness, then forcing the truth from her.

  "Did Rachel call you?"

  "If you're referring to FBI Agent Rachel Greenley, I've never spoken to her. No, a very skilled researcher at The Washington Herald came up with the facts I needed to put it all together.

  "Remember how you told me you and Erica Donner went to school together? I knew then you were lying about the school being Georgetown. I already had a detailed bio on Donner and knew she'd graduated from Berkeley, after she'd transferred there from Dominion. I am also aware that she and Rachel Greenley were freshmen at Dominion the same year as Cheryl Wallace. However, my friend in Research couldn't place you there at that time. And I couldn't find out anything about the other two women.

  "Now those facts alone aren't very condemning, unless you know why I was in the Kessler Hotel lobby the day I first saw you." He paused to see if she'd squirm. She didn't, and he dropped the bomb he'd been holding. "Tim Ziegler had called me with an interesting story about Cheryl Wallace and Erica Donner systematically destroying the lives of a certain group of men."

  David thought Holly looked adequately stunned, so he went on. "He was murdered before he could give me any more than a few hints, but I was sufficiently intrigued to check it out. Then I was intrigued by you and I admit to getting a little sidetracked for a while. Then this morning I read an email my researcher friend had sent me over a week ago but, lucky for you, it had gotten caught with a bunch of spam. In it were the names of all the boys in Timothy Ziegler's fraternity twenty years ago. That email also included the information that, with regard to researching your background, we just hadn't checked far enough. You were at Dominion too, but it was the year before."

  Holly had gotten over her initial shock and was reduced to staring at a spot on the floor, but David wanted her to hear every detail. "Imagine my surprise when I saw the names Billy O'Day and Jerry Frampton. That's when I remembered Wallace's comment about two of the men being star football players. Just to make sure I wasn't jumping to any false conclusions, I looked up the football team and verified who the first-string quarterback was at that time." He didn't bother to say the name.

  Quietly she said, "No one was supposed to be hurt."

  "Hurt? Dammit Holly, they're dead! My instincts may be telling me you aren't a murderer, and I know for certain you were nowhere near O'Day when he was killed, but there's no way you're going to convince me that this is all a string of incredible coincidences!"

  Holly shook her head. "No. I wanted to believe that's what Ziegler's murder was, but now..." She bent her head and covered her face with her hands. "Oh god, David, I'm so scared."

  He had to force himself to remain seated while every muscle in his body strained to go to her. She used you. She's a lying bitch who's probably putting on an act for you right now. By the time she raised her head and let her big, misty, blue eyes beg him for understanding, he had reinforced his guard against her. "I assume the meeting that day had something to do with Cheryl's gang rape. But if you weren't plotting murder, what were you discussing for so long?" When she didn't answer immediately, he pushed harder. "You said you wanted to explain. Let's hear it. Now."

  She straightened in the chair, folded her hands on her lap, took one deep breath and began. "The day you saw me at the hotel was the first day I'd met those women and I've only seen Cheryl Wallace on television."

  Holly unemotionally related what she'd learned that day, the events that led to the creation of the Little Sister Society, what had happened to Erica, Bobbi, Rachel and April, and how they had successfully exacted retribution on eleven of the men.

  Despite his anger with Holly, David found himself sickened by the abuse of the women while feeling some admiration for their ingenuity, but his experience as an unbiased reporter helped him conceal those feelings. "None of that explains how you fit into this tale of revenge when you weren't even at Dominion that year."

  "No, I wasn't. Jerry Frampton and Tim Ziegler used me for their entertainment the year before."

  He remained silent while she described how they had tricked and raped her. Though her story was appalling, his resentment for what she'd done to him was too great to be erased simply because he now knew what made her tick. He could empathize with her fears without forgiving her deceitfulness, and he gave her points for knowing how to deliver a concise report. She answered every question that popped into his head before he could ask it.

  When she paused, he pushed for one final explanation. "So you joined the Society that day to go after Frampton and I was the reporter you picked to do your leg work. Lucky me."

  She shook her head in protest. "I tried to tell you before. I was only supposed to pass you the file and follow your progress. No one should have gotten hurt. No one ever had before." Although he gave no indication she was getting through to him, she went on to fill him in on what had occurred with the other women since that first day.

  Even though he had told himself she'd been using him, his gut still twisted when he heard her admit it aloud. It was the final evidence he needed to put her back into the category of being just like every other woman he'd ever known. When she finished, his tone remained cold as he agreed with her reasoning about coming to him before the police.

  "You're going to have to tell the FBI everything you told me. Greenley might still try to turn it around on you, but you'll have the advantage of having opened up first." David massaged the temple on the uninjured side of his head as he organized his thoughts.

  "After the D'Angelo fiasco, I've got a little pull with the Feds down here. They're the ones that put out the report that I was critically wounded and unconscious. The thinking was, if whoever destroyed the film wanted me out of the way too, they might stay clear in hopes that my death would occur naturally. I was giving depositions for hours today and there'll be more tomorrow. Once that's done and my physical appearance in court is no longer vital, I'll have a miraculous recovery."

  "But what if Frampton sends someone after you then?"

  He gave her credit for looking genuinely concerned. "I get to have a babysitter until the case goes to court, whether I need one or not. In the meantime, this arrangement is a little reimbursement for my trouble. Plus, by keeping the bad guys away, they're also keeping other reporters off my back. It's giving me a chance to get my story done before granting interviews to anyone else."

  "How badly were you hurt?"

  He shrugged, again ignoring her worried expression. "The bullet grazed my scalp and gave me a slight concussion. I was unconscious part of yesterday, while all the red tape was getting fucked up. Today, I've got a hell of a hangover, made twice as bad by the damn depositions, to say nothing about your little contribution. They've offered painkillers but the first one knocked me out for the night and left me groggy for hours this morning, so I turned them down today." He rubbed his temple a bit more. "The worst damage seems to be to my hair. It's going to look pretty strange until it grows back in where they shaved it."


  "I was wondering what had—" She had started to smile but then cut herself off and looked at the floor again.

  David lifted a few sheets of paper until he found the card with Senior Agent Quick's home phone number on it. "From everything you told me, it sounds like Frampton or Frankowicz might be next on the killer's agenda, and it could happen any time. Frampton probably would have been better off staying in jail for a while."

  Without waiting for a response from her, he called Quick and gave him just enough information to convince him to race to the hospital room with recording equipment. "He'll be here within the hour," David told Holly after he hung up, then turned his attention back to the computer monitor, effectively demonstrating that her presence was no longer a distraction.

  "David?"

  He kept his eyes on the monitor. "What?"

  "Does the end justify the means?"

  That caused him to look up and deepen his frown. "Am I supposed to understand that?"

  "My conscience needs to know. Was risking your life and getting shot worth the story?"

  "Absolutely," he answered without hesitation. "Although I may have felt differently had the bullet struck an inch to the right. What about you? Were your means justified?"

  Holly thought of the sweet revenge and feelings of power she had expected to enjoy, and wondered where they were now. Instead, she had crippling fear, a guilty conscience, and a vacuum in her chest where her heart used to be. She replied to his question honestly. "No."

  "Too bad. You worked hard enough for it."

  Every snide comment he made was like another dash of salt on her fresh wound. She felt bruised and battered.

  Like a victim.

  Again.

  What had happened to her resolution that she would never permit anyone to make her feel that way again? David had caught her off guard, with her heart exposed, but she could piece it back together, in time, as she had before.

  As he put his mind back to work, she kept talking to herself, rebuilding her inner strength, reminding herself that she had never expected anything permanent to come of their relationship. It was only the frightening situation she found herself in that had blurred her reasoning. With each positive affirmation, she sat a little straighter in the chair and lifted her chin a bit higher.