Wesley set his jaw. How dare the man stand in his kitchen and patronize him. Fury pumped through his body, propelling him closer to Jack. He lifted his finger to within inches of the man’s nose. “You, get out of my house.”
“Wesley—” Carlotta began.
“You’re just Lucas’s errand boy,” Wesley sneered. “You can tell that fat bastard that we’re not going along with it, we’re not going to betray our parents.”
“Wesley, your parents betrayed you,” the detective said quietly.
Wesley didn’t think, only reacted. His fist shot out, but Jack Terry dodged it and grabbed his arm.
“Wesley!” Carlotta shouted behind him. A chair clattered to the floor.
The brawny cop held on to his arm with a steely grip, his expression menacing. “I’m going to overlook that because you’ve been through a shock over your sister.”
“I don’t need your sympathy.” Wesley wrenched his arm away.
“That’s enough,” Carlotta said, stepping between them. “It’s already done, and you’re going to go along with this, whether you like it or not.” Her face softened. “Wesley, this is for the best for us…for me.”
At the anguished look in her deep brown eyes, Wesley bit down on the inside of his cheek. He wanted her to be happy, not to be so burdened. But was this the answer? He felt as if he were in a vise, being squeezed on all sides, caught between his parents and his sister, all of whom he loved.
“You can’t stop it, Wesley,” Detective Terry said. “And we need your cooperation.”
“Please,” Carlotta added.
Wesley closed his eyes. “What would I have to do?”
“Just be alert,” the detective said. “Answer the door and the phone and if it’s a neighbor or a friend, you have to pretend that Carlotta’s…gone.” He shot an apologetic look at her. “If one of your parents calls, we’ll trace it, but you’ll need to keep them on the line as long as possible and try to get them to come here to the house.”
“What if they call on my cell phone?”
“Tell them that you need to call them back, then get their number and call me. If that doesn’t work, then say your battery is dying and to call you at home.”
Wesley gave a curt nod, registering the fact that adrenaline was flowing through his veins at the thought of talking to his dad soon—possibly within hours. What would he say? And if his father was taken into custody, could he really get a fair trial?
“Also, when you’re coming and going from the house, you might be approached.”
“By one of my parents?”
“It’s what we’re counting on.”
“And then what am I supposed to do?”
“Try to get them to come into the house. I’ll be here.”
Wesley noticed the confusion that passed over Carlotta’s face. “You’ll be here?” she asked.
The cop nodded. “Didn’t I mention that I’ll be staying here until this is over?”
16
At Jack Terry’s casual pronouncement, Carlotta felt her jaw go slack. “You’re staying here?”
“I told you that I’d have the house under surveillance.”
“I thought that meant you’d be sitting in your car across the street!”
“In this heat? Besides, this is the best place for me to be if your father calls or shows up in person.”
“Day and—” she gulped “—night?”
“That’s right.”
“But there’s no place for you to sleep.” Her voice had risen a couple of octaves.
“You’re not sleeping in our parents’ bedroom,” Wesley said through gritted teeth.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Jack replied evenly. “The couch will be fine. And look on the bright side—if your father shows up today, it won’t be necessary for me to stay the night.”
Carlotta swallowed hard. The bright side? Her father could be in custody by nightfall. She and Wesley could start over. Jack Terry would be out of her life. Why didn’t those thoughts cheer her more?
The sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway broke into her thoughts. Her pulse spiked. Was it possible that her parents had heard the news already? That they’d been within driving distance of the house? Wesley walked into the living room and called, “It’s Coop. I’m outta here.”
“Tell him what’s going on,” Jack said. “Let him know that Kelvin Lucas is going to speak to the coroner to make sure that they’re on board with our—”
“Lie?” Wesley cut in.
“Plan,” Jack finished. “And be alert to anyone who might be following you.”
Wesley looked at Carlotta. “What about Hannah? What am I going to tell her when she calls?”
She glanced at Jack. “We can tell Hannah, can’t we?”
“No. Too many people already know.” He looked at Wesley. “If anyone asks, you have to pretend. Remember, it won’t be for long.”
“How long?” Wesley asked.
“A few days. We’ll play it by ear, but Lucas said that if they don’t show within a day or two, we should plan a memorial service.” The detective seemed to hesitate, his gaze darting to her, then away. “And if for some reason we haven’t heard from them by the end of the service, then we’ll call off the surveillance.”
For some reason—like they just didn’t give a damn.
Wesley didn’t respond, but his mottled face was proof of what he thought of the entire idea. He left the house with a bang of the door that resonated in the silence.
She and Jack were alone.
He shifted from foot to foot. “Wesley’s question reminded me that you need to call your boyfriend and tell him to keep quiet.”
She pursed her mouth. “Peter isn’t my boyfriend.”
“The sooner, the better—before he tells a neighbor or goes into the office.”
“Okay, okay.” She picked up the handset and used the call history to bring up Peter’s phone number, then hit the dial button. The phone rang four times, plucking on her nerves, then Peter’s sleep-soaked voice came on the line. “Hello.”
“Peter, hi, it’s me, Carlotta.”
“Carlotta, hi. Are you okay?”
She could picture him lying in bed among decadent designer sheets, pushing his blond hair out of his eyes and swinging his long legs to the floor. Her midsection tightened, as well as her grip on the phone. “Yes, everything is fine.”
Jack was walking around making sure the curtains were closed, but she knew he was listening to every word. The awkwardness of standing in her robe talking to Peter while he was in bed and while Jack stood only a few feet away toyed with her concentration. She turned her back to Jack so she could focus on her conversation. “But I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything,” Peter said.
“For now, we’re not going to correct the news reports that it was, um, me who jumped off the bridge.”
A confused, disbelieving noise sounded over the line. “Are you saying that the police are going to let everyone believe that you’re dead?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Why?”
“I believe the prevailing reason is the hope that my parents will reveal themselves.”
“What? That’s sick!” Peter exclaimed, sputtering. “They can’t make you go along with it.”
“I agreed to it, Peter. I have my reasons.”
“Did you tell them—”
“My phone is being tapped,” she cut in before he could mention her father’s phone calls. “And Detective Terry is here conducting surveillance.”
“Surely he’s not staying in the house with you.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Jack smirking at her, as if he could guess the direction of the conversation. “As a matter of fact, he is.”
“Then I’m coming over there too.”
“No,” she said quickly. “That’s not necessary and it might cause problems. I need for you to go along.”
“I’m supposed to pretend that you’re dead?”
In the split-second of silence that followed, the ugly thought darted through her head that until only a few weeks ago, she had been dead to him. It was a stark reminder that she still harbored resentment for the way their relationship had ended. Carlotta struggled to keep her tone light. “It’s only temporary.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t go along with this.”
“But Peter, you have to—” She was interrupted by Jack relieving her of the phone, his expression sour.
“Ashford, this is Detective Terry. You’ll keep your mouth shut unless you want to take it up with the D.A., got it?” He disconnected the call unceremoniously and set the phone on the table with a bang.
She crossed her arms. “Nice bedside manner you got there.”
Jack raked his gaze over her yellow chenille robe. “It’s true that no one ever accused me of being gentlemanly in bed.”
She angled her head and gave him a flat smile. “How is Liz Fischer?”
He pierced her with a defiant, sexy stare. “Fine, last time I looked.”
“Is she under surveillance too?”
“Liz is an officer of the court and your father is a fugitive. If he contacts his former attorney, by law she has to report it.”
“So, you’re expecting her to rat out her former lover to her current lover?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Why don’t you go put some clothes on?”
She gave a dry laugh. “So I can keep you company? I’ve got news for you, Detective—since I’m supposed to be dead, I’m going back to sleep. You can…surveil.”
“Fine. I’m going to put my car in your garage.”
Carlotta frowned, uncomfortable with the implied intimacy—and the sensual image his offhand comment had put into her head. She flounced back to her bedroom and slammed the door, then fell on her bed, knowing she was way too keyed up to go back to sleep. She heard him leave the house, then return. She felt Jack Terry’s presence in the house as if he were some supernatural entity, everywhere at once.
As she lay there, she tried to get her mind around the idea that soon everyone would think she was dead—her coworkers, her friends, her neighbors and her parents. Instantly her stomach balled up in fear. How would people react to the news? Would anyone really break stride or would they simply shrug and nurse a “sure glad it wasn’t me” sensation while they honked the horn at the too-slow car in front of them.
When her thoughts turned to her parents, Carlotta brought a pillow to her stomach to counter the sudden sharp pain. Deep down, she was terrified her parents wouldn’t show. They had proved their extreme selfishness when they’d abandoned her and Wesley and nothing over the past ten years gave her reason to believe they had changed. They might conclude that Wesley was an adult now—older than she was when they had skipped town—and could take care of himself. They might decide that nothing would be accomplished if they came forward.
Miserable, she dragged herself out of bed and headed to the shower, trying to focus on the positive things that could result from this little charade. If their father did show up and was taken into custody, Lucas would help to wipe Wesley’s record clean. And the reward money would be enough to send Wesley to college and away from Atlanta while the trial played out in the court system and in the media.
When she stepped under the showerhead, however, and allowed the water to cascade over her naked body, her thoughts stubbornly turned to Jack Terry, who had planted himself in her living room—and her life—as if he belonged there. If her life had been allowed to run its natural course, she would have been happily married to Peter Ashford for several years now and her and Jack Terry’s paths never would have crossed.
But her life had been derailed, so instead of being a Buckhead wife with few worries, she was in debt up to her eyeballs, unexpectedly unemployed and temporarily dead.
And sharing close quarters with a watchdog possessing a thickly muscled body that made her think wayward thoughts. Just how ungentlemanly was he in bed? Did he ever let his guard down? And were she and he destined to communicate solely in cagey sound bites and flirtatious banter?
She slid a lathered sponge over her body, allowing her mind to run rampant. The sight of Jack half-dressed in the changing room came back to her and she imagined what it would be like to have him holding the sponge, running his big, soapy hands all over her body, doing ungentlemanly things to her—
Suddenly the water pressure dropped, then blasted out icy cold; he was running hot water elsewhere in the house. Carlotta shrieked, jumping around to escape the frigid water. She turned off the shower and dove into a towel, her teeth chattering, more so when the cool air from the overhead vent hit her.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door, eliciting another gasp.
“Are you all right in there?” Jack asked. “I heard you screaming…hope I didn’t interrupt something.”
Irritated, she yanked on her robe, then opened the door. “You made me take a cold shower.”
He managed to take in the length of her—from wet hair to damp toes—before he grinned. “I didn’t realize I had that effect on you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him even as her cheeks warmed. “Get out of my bedroom.”
“Ah, there’s the Carlotta I know—prickly.” He gestured to her bedroom, the unmade bed, clothes strewn everywhere. “And are you always this messy?”
“Are you still here?”
“No,” he said, backing away. “By the way, I made breakfast.”
Dammit, how did he know she was starving? She frowned. “Enough for two?”
“If you hurry.”
She hurried. A quick blast of hot air to her long hair dried it enough to pull back into a ponytail. A swipe of powder and some lip gloss sufficed as makeup. She pulled an ancient pair of Levi’s and a red John Butler Trio T-shirt from her closet, and pushed her feet into a pair of whisper-thin flip flops. She considered making her bed, but didn’t, just to spite Jack.
On the way through the living room, she stepped over a bulky black duffel bag and stopped to listen to “CNN Headline News” playing on the big-screen TV that dominated the cramped living room.
“Investigators are still looking into what may have caused Atlanta resident Carlotta Wren to jump to her death last night from the Seventeenth Street bridge.”
She gasped when her high school senior picture flashed on the screen. My God, how young she looked. And how naive.
“Wren was eighteen when her father, investment broker Randolph Wren, and his wife, Valerie, disappeared, allegedly to evade the fraud and embezzlement charges levied against Mr. Wren when he was a partner at the Atlanta firm of what was then Mashburn, Tully and Wren. No one has heard from the Wrens since. Atlanta police say that Ms. Wren may have been despondent over her brother’s recent arrest and being suspended from her job.”
“Nice photo,” Jack said next to her. “I’ll bet you were a cheerleader.”
She turned to glare at him. “Did you have to tell them that I’d been suspended from my job?”
“Sorry. It goes to motivation.”
She ran her hands up and down her arms. “This is creeping me out. The report sounds so believable.”
“It’s supposed to. And it’s on all the wire services.”
Carlotta imagined her parents having breakfast—her father drinking raw eggs, her mother drinking vodka—and hearing that she’d taken her life in such a hideous, public way. Would her father think it had something to do with him calling her? Would they, as the police believed, come running to console Wesley and mourn their only daughter or would they, as she believed, convince themselves that what was done was done.
Jack’s hand settled on her shoulder, his eyes reflecting that pseudo-caring look that so confused her. “Why don’t we eat before the food gets cold?”
She followed him slowly, watching numbly as he dished up a mountain of eggs and pan-fried chicken breasts. He licked the end of his thumb as he studied her. “By the way, you look pretty good for someon
e who’s supposed to be dead.”
“Very funny.”
“I hope it was okay to raid the refrigerator.”
“Okay by me. That’s Wesley’s domain.”
His mouth crooked into a half-smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
She sighed as she poured them each a glass of orange juice. “You’ve got me all figured out, don’t you, Detective?”
He set two piled-high plates on the table and waited until they’d both sat down before giving her an intense look. “No, I don’t have you figured out…yet. I wouldn’t have figured you for a Levi’s kind of gal, for instance.”
His scrutiny unnerved Carlotta. She dipped her fork into the eggs and took a flavorful bite, making an appreciative noise before asking, “What else would you like to know?”
Jack put away an enormous mouthful of food before replying. “I guess the first thing that comes to mind is why someone who looks like you isn’t married with a couple of kids.”
She concentrated on cutting a bite-size piece of chicken. “I guess I’ve been busy raising Wesley.”
“He’s a grown man. You can’t use that excuse anymore.”
She gave a little laugh. “What makes you think I want to be married and have kids? I kind of got my fill of the whole domestic scene.”
“Or maybe you were just waiting for Ashford to come to his senses.”
She bristled. “If that were so, it would make me rather pathetic, don’t you think?”
“But now that his wife is gone,” he pressed, “he’s hoping to pick up where the two of you left off.”
Carlotta looked down at her plate. “I think so, yes.”
“Because he still cares about you or because he feels like a bastard for leaving you when your parents skipped town?”
She didn’t respond—hadn’t she been asking herself the same question? Instead she decided to turn the tables on him. “What about you, Jack? Ever been married?”
He laughed, a big, booming sound. “Nope. My line of work doesn’t exactly lend itself to a white picket fence.”
“No kids?”
“Nope.”
“Really? You seem like the kind of guy who would want to replicate himself,” she said dryly.
Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1 Page 10