After Midnight

by Diana Palmer

  “He printed it!” Nikki gasped. “Haralson printed it, did you see? Oh, my God…!”

  “Nikki, that was the Lombard tabloid,” Derrie pointed out uneasily, helping her friend into the car.

  “I hate him,” Nikki whispered, sobbing with rage. “I hate him! How could he do that to me, to Clay?”

  “Calm down, now,” Derrie coaxed. “You’ll make yourself sick. I’m going to drive you home, Nikki. It will be all right. You have to stop crying.”

  “I can’t. I want you to drive me to Lombard International. I will not go home in tears. I’m going to break his jaw for him!”

  “No, you aren’t.” Derrie kept driving toward the Battery, ignoring Nikki’s outbursts that lasted all the way there.

  “Thank God, Clay’s home,” Derrie mused as she pulled into the driveway.

  Clayton came out onto the porch and she motioned furiously for him to come. He ran to help Nikki into the house.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” Derrie said, leaving Clay to watch his sister.

  “The animal. The swine. The filthy pig!” Nikki choked. “I’ll break his neck. Have you seen it? His family tabloid, and they printed that…that disgusting photograph! They’re in league with Haralson, I knew they were…!”

  “Calm down,” Clay said, holding her wet face against his chest. “Calm down, now, and listen to me. I tried to fire Haralson and he showed me the photos, Nikki.”

  “Wh…what?”

  “That’s right. He tried to blackmail me.” He grinned. “Nobody blackmails me. I took them to Kane Lombard.”

  She stared at him, heartbroken. Her own brother had sold out to his worst enemy.

  “We compared notes about Haralson,” he told her. “And then I made the comment that I’d like to skewer his liver for what he did to you. That’s when he explained things to me. It seems that you’re marrying him very soon because you’re pregnant.”

  There was a crash as Derrie dropped two cups of coffee on the spotless lacquered wood floor.

  “I hope you enjoy mopping,” Clayton told her calmly. “And I’d like mine in a cup, please.”

  “You know what you can do with the cup,” she replied, smiling nicely as she turned to go back into the kitchen.

  “I’d like to hear you repeat that flat on your back on the kitchen table!” he shouted.

  “Clayton!” Nikki gasped.

  He grinned at her. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to fight. Two things, Nikki. Are you pregnant, and are you going to marry Kane Lombard?”

  “I am not pregnant,” she said violently.

  “You’re losing your breakfast.”

  “I hate breakfast!”

  “He loves you, he says,” he added.

  Her face softened magically. “He does?” The softening went into eclipse. “That’s a lie! He does not, or how could he have let his venomous relatives print that ghastly photograph of us and distribute it all over Charleston? Oh, Clayton, people stared at me as if I were some hussy!” she wept.

  “We know you’re not a hussy. But if you’re pregnant, I don’t really think Kane is going to let you remain single for long. He seems pretty intent on dynasty building.”

  “He lost his son.”

  “I know. He told me. But that isn’t why he wants to marry you, if the way he looks when he talks about you is anything to go on.”

  “I don’t want you to think I was meeting him behind your back deliberately,” she began.

  “I know that.”

  “I only wanted to tell him about the waste dump,” she continued. “I know he didn’t do it. He isn’t that kind of man. But Haralson is, and he hates the Lombards.”

  “So I found out. Derrie and I put our heads together. She has a friend who found out a few things I missed. Now Lombard has the whole picture, and Derrie’s friend went to see Kane with enough evidence to get his neck out of the noose. Added to what Mosby sent me, it’s more than enough to send Haralson to prison.”

  “What was in that envelope that Mosby gave me for you?” she asked.

  “You’re better off not knowing.” He searched her green eyes. “You aren’t carrying a torch for Mosby?”

  She smiled. “I think I’m carrying one for Kane.” She touched her stomach with a wry grimace. “Although how he can know before I do…”

  “Maybe it’s like that when you love someone,” Clayton said quietly. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you will someday,” she replied.

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Ready to go and buy a trousseau? Kane Lombard doesn’t strike me as a waiting sort of man.”

  “I haven’t said I’ll marry him,” she pointed out.

  “And you’d better put the announcement in the paper pretty soon,” Clayton added, ignoring her protests. “After what came out in that tabloid today, there’ll be a scandal if you don’t.”

  “Say, did you see the afternoon paper?” Derrie asked, scanning it as she came in with a tray of cups and saucers and a pot of coffee. “There’s an announcement of Nikki’s engagement to Kane Lombard.”

  “He didn’t! He wouldn’t!” Nikki burst out.

  Derrie chuckled. “He did.”

  Nikki glowered at both of them. “Well, I won’t marry him.”

  They both looked at her stomach. She put her hands over it protectively. “I won’t,” she repeated.

  “Have some coffee,” Derrie invited, handing a cup of it to Clayton.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “I’d like some, too,” Nikki began.

  Derrie handed her a glass of milk, smiling.

  “I hate milk!”

  “It makes babies big and strong,” Derrie coaxed.

  “How did you…?”

  “Eavesdropping,” Derrie nodded. “I learned from him.” She pointed toward Clayton. “He was always standing outside conference room doors with his ear to them.”

  “I was not.” He glowered at her.

  “How do you think he knew how to vote while he was in the state legislature?”

  “I read the issues and made up my own mind,” he reminded her.

  “After I explained them to you.” She polished her nails on her skirt and looked at them. “God knows how many mistakes you’d have made without me.”

  He started to speak, stopped, and shrugged carelessly. “Well, I’m not making any new ones. Why don’t you come back and run my campaign for me?”

  “Because I’m running it,” Nikki replied.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “So?”

  “Sam would never forgive me if I left him now,” Derrie told him. “But we can be friends. Until after the election.”

  He lifted one eyebrow and smiled slowly. “Just friends?”

  She laughed softly. “Well, anything’s possible,” she said demurely.

  The phone rang and Nikki reached beside her to answer it. It was a well-wisher. She hung up. It rang again. Within ten minutes, it seemed that everyone in Charleston and North Charleston had recognized her in one paper or the other and wanted to comment on the Romeo and Juliet story. Nikki was fuming by the end of the day, and not at all in the sort of mood to answer the phone one last time and find a smug Kane Lombard on the other end of it.

  “You!” she exclaimed. “Listen here, you snake in the grass…!”

  “What time tomorrow do you want to be married?” he asked. “One o’clock would suit me very well, but if that isn’t convenient, we can try another time.”

  “How about another century? I am not marrying you!”

  There was a pause. “My father would love that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s got the next headline set in type already. Want to hear it?” He began to read, “Mother Of Romeo And Juliet Baby Refuses To Marry Heartbroken Father Of Child.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Yes, sad, isn’t it? I expect people will call and write and accost you on the street, you heartless Jezebel.”

  “Kane,
how could you?”

  “Well, you did help, after all,” he reminded her. “In fact, you remarked that it felt very good.” He paused. “I wonder how that would look in print?”

  “You blackmailer!”

  “I did the only thing I could, you know,” he relented, his voice soft and quiet. “He would have published the photographs.”

  “I suppose he would have.”

  “As it is, I’ve cut the ground from under him. He now has photos that have no intrinsic value to shock or humiliate. And you and I have some unfinished business.”

  “This isn’t the way it should happen,” she pointed out.

  “Probably not,” he agreed quietly. “All right. We’ll do it the right way. By the book, my dear.”

  “By the what? Kane? Kane!”

  But the line was dead. She glared at the receiver. “You’re a horrible man and I will not marry you!”

  “Oh, I’ll bet you will,” Clayton said. He held out a glass. “Drink your milk.”

  John Haralson had finished his third glass of scotch whiskey. He heard his motel room door open but it didn’t really register until he saw Cortez and a uniformed man standing in front of him.

  “Cortez!” he greeted. “Have a drink!”

  “No, thanks. You’ll need to come with us.”

  He blinked. “Why?” he asked with a pleasant smile.

  “It’s a pretty long list.” Cortez read the warrant. “Violation of the controlled substances act, possession with intent to distribute, attempted extortion, bribery…you can read the rest for yourself.”

  Haralson frowned and moved a little unsteadily to his feet. “You’re arresting me?”

  “No. He is. You’re being arrested right now for violation of South Carolina state law. You’ll be arraigned on federal charges a bit later.”

  “You’re on vacation.”

  Cortez smiled coldly. “I haven’t been on vacation since I engineered the first meeting with you at FBI headquarters where you were trying to dig information out of one of your cohorts,” came the quiet reply. “And by the way, you’d better have this back.” He handed the startled man the two-dollar-and-fifty-cent gold piece.

  “You bought it.”

  “Not really. I don’t collect coins. But it was helpful to let you think I was obsessed with that particular one, after I saw you buy it.”

  “Of all the underhanded things!” Haralson roared.

  “You wrote the book on that.” Cortez slid his sunglasses back on. “He’s all yours,” he told the police officer. “Take good care of him for us. We’ll be in touch.”

  Haralson yelled after him. “You don’t have any jurisdiction down here or in this case! You work for the FBI!”

  Cortez lifted an eyebrow. “Do I?” he asked with amusement, and kept walking.

  The same evening, the front door at the Seymour home opened to admit a gift-laden Kane Lombard. He walked past Clayton into the living room, where he dumped his burdens on the sofa next to a startled Nikki.

  “Roses,” he said, pointing to three large bouquets, one of each color, “chocolates, CDs of romantic music, two books of poetry, and perfume. Chanel, of course,” he added with a grin.

  Nikki gaped at him. “What is all this?” she asked dully.

  “The accoutrements of courtship,” he explained. He sat down beside her, ignoring Clayton. “The ring is in my pocket, somewhere. It’s only an engagement ring, of course. You have to come with me to pick out the wedding band.”

  “But I haven’t said I’ll marry you…” she stammered.

  “Of course you’ll marry me,” he said, extricating the ring in its velvet box from his jacket pocket.

  “I hate diamonds,” she began contrarily as he opened the box.

  “So do I,” he agreed. “That’s why I bought you an emerald.”

  He had, too. It was faceted like a diamond, with incredible clarity and beauty. Nikki stared at it, entranced. She knew that a flawless emerald commanded the same price as a quality diamond; in fact, some were even more expensive. And this stone had to be two carats.

  She looked up, her eyes full of delighted surprise.

  He smiled at her. “Never expect the obvious from me, Nikki,” he said gently. “I’m not conventional.”

  She studied his broad, leonine face, reading the sorrows and joys of a lifetime there. Her hand lifted to touch it, to trace its hard contours. She did love him so.

  “Marry me, Nikki,” he said softly.

  “All right.”

  He smiled, holding her hand to his cheek. “My father will cry, you know,” he said.

  “He can always find another headline.” She nuzzled her face into his chest. “Perhaps Haralson’s arrest will make a good one.”

  “Oh, no,” he told her, glancing at Clayton, who was just coming into the room with a tray of coffee and milk. “Haralson’s going to be top secret until the Justice Department is through with him. I understand that their chief prosecutor is taking a special interest in the case.”

  “He could plead insanity and get out of it,” Clayton remarked as he set out cups of steaming coffee for Kane and himself and a cold glass of milk for Nikki.

  “I told you, I hate milk,” she muttered at her brother.

  “And I told you, it’s good for the baby,” he replied with a knowing look.

  Kane didn’t even look embarrassed. He was beaming.

  “You needn’t look so smug, either of you,” she told them, sitting up to drink her milk. “I haven’t had any tests. It’s too early to tell, anyway.”

  Clayton leaned forward. “Nikki, how about some scrambled eggs?”

  She paled and began to swallow noticeably.

  “She loves them,” Clayton told Kane. “But just lately, the mention of them makes her sick. Interesting, isn’t it?”

  “It was potatoes when my mother was carrying my youngest brother,” Kane told Clayton. “She couldn’t eat them until he was born.”

  “How many of you are there?” Clayton asked curiously.

  “Four. Three boys and one girl. Our sister is married and lives in France. My mother is dead now, but my father already thinks there’s nobody like Nikki. He knows the Blairs, too,” he added, chuckling. “Claude has been singing your praises to my father ever since he realized that we knew each other.” He hesitated. “He’s also arranging a wedding present.”

  “A cat,” Nikki said without pause.

  “How did you guess?” he chuckled.

  “She’s missed Puff,” Clayton remarked. “It will be nice for her to have another cat.” He studied Kane. “You knew that Haralson had been arrested. How?”

  “Haralson’s so-called friend Cortez came to see me,” he replied. “That gentleman would make one bad enemy, so I’m glad he’s on my side.”

  “Mosby thought he was helping me by sending Haralson down here,” Clayton said heavily. “Neither of us knew that he was playing right into Haralson’s hands. And none of us had any inkling that the Justice Department was already watching Haralson for another reason entirely.”

  “Who is Cortez?” Nikki asked curiously.

  They both looked at her. “FBI,” Clayton said. At the same time, Kane said, “DEA.” They both stared at each other.

  “Which?” she persisted.

  They laughed sheepishly. “It seems that he has some uncoordinated credentials. Perhaps he’s a stray KGB agent looking for work,” Clayton replied.

  Kane put down his cup. “Whoever he is, he’s saved my neck. I’ll have to pay a fine to help with the cleanup, but they found toxic waste from a number of other companies in that dump. Burke is in trouble up to his neck and faces a jail sentence, along with my errant employee.”

  “I won’t be getting any more mileage out of your situation, either,” Clayton promised the older man. “However,” he added meaningfully, “if you were still polluting, and doing it deliberately, the fact that you’re going to be my brother-in-law wouldn’t help you.”

  Kane
chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it. Integrity is a rare asset these days. Nice to know it runs in the family.”

  Clayton nodded, acknowledging the compliment, and sipped his coffee.

  The small café in downtown Charleston was busy. Phoebe didn’t really understand why she’d bothered to go back there every day, sitting and waiting for someone who was surely already back at his job in Washington, D.C., and out of the state. It must be some mental aberration resulting from too much time spent digging up old pieces of pottery, she told herself.

  She was halfway through her second cup of coffee and it was time to leave. She had shopping to do. She started to get up, just as a tall man in sunglasses came in the door.

  His hair was loose, hanging down his back in clean black strands. He was wearing jeans and boots and a denim shirt with pearl snaps. A couple of people gave him a frankly curious stare. He ignored them, making a beeline for Phoebe. He took off the sunglasses and hooked the earpiece into the pocket of his denim shirt. He held out his hand.

  She took it, ignoring the covert looks of other customers, and let him lead her out the door.

  He put her into the rental car without a word, climbed in beside her, hooked his sunglasses back on his nose and drove off.

  Neither of them spoke. He drove to the coast and parked on a dirt road overlooking the ocean, in a spot lined with live oaks. He got out and so did she. They walked down to the deserted beach.

  The wind blew his hair as he looked out over the ocean, and her blue eyes studied the bronzed smoothness of his face, its straight-nosed, high-cheekboned profile adding to the subtle mystery of him.

  “You’re leaving,” she said perceptibly.

  He nodded. “I have a backlog of work waiting. Two new cases will be coming up pretty soon, too, from here—a discrimination suit and a drug trafficking charge.”

  “You’ll have to testify, you mean,” she said.

  He took off the sunglasses and turned. His dark eyes slid over her face quietly. “To try the cases,” he said. “I’m a federal prosecutor—an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.”