Low Pressure

by Sandra Brown

  “And you’re still a shit.”

  Steven looked sharply at Dent, who’d spoken for the first time since their lukewarm handshake.

  “You were a sniveling, selfish kid, and so far I’ve seen no improvement.”

  “Dent!” Bellamy exclaimed in a whisper.

  But he wasn’t finished. “She went to a lot of trouble to come here. You could at least pretend to be glad to see her.”

  When she was about to speak again, Steven held up his hand. “It’s okay, Bellamy. He’s right. I am a shit. It’s a survival tactic. Not meant to hurt you.” He smiled ruefully as he reached out and stroked her smooth cheek, and, as though reading her thoughts of several moments earlier, murmured, “Just as I predicted. The duckling has turned into a swan.”

  Then he lowered his hand, and the glimmer of affection she’d seen in his eyes flickered out. “It took time, therapy, and diligence, but I reinvented myself. I was content with the life I’d made. But now your book and the ballyhoo it’s created has brought back everything I ran from. Once again, I’m that skinny, frightened kid being grilled by the police.”

  “Dale Moody?” she asked.

  “Big guy. Barrel chest. Gravelly voice. He questioned me several times. The interrogations didn’t come to anything, but being a suspect, even for a short time, scarred me for life.”

  “Dent said as much.”

  Steven looked over at him, taking him in fully. “Pardon my curiosity. There was no love lost between you and our family, but here you are in Atlanta with Bellamy. Why?”

  Bellamy spoke before he could. “I chartered a flight with Dent in the hope of mending fences.”

  “It didn’t work. In fact, Mother was terribly upset over seeing him.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So why is he here with you now?”

  After a lengthy hesitation, she said, “Someone has been menacing me for weeks. I need to know who and why.”

  She recapped for Steven everything that had happened and ended by saying, “I haven’t told Olivia or Daddy. Please don’t mention it, because they don’t need another worry. But we—Dent and I—don’t think the acts of vandalism done to my house and his airplane were random or coincidental. Whoever committed them is somehow connected to that Memorial Day.”

  He frowned skeptically. “That’s an awfully broad leap, isn’t it?”

  “Dent and I have nothing else in common.”

  Steven gave each of them a long look. “I’m connected to that day. Did you come to accuse me of painting a threat on your bedroom wall?”

  “Of course not.” She reached for his hand. “I’m hoping you’ll share some of your recollections and impressions of that day.”

  “To what end? You’ve already written the book on it.”

  Dent snickered at the wry remark. She didn’t acknowledge it. She had decided that, for the time being, she would tell no one else about her lost frames of time. But it was important that Steven fill in some of the gaps. “Will you answer a few questions?”

  He looked annoyed. “What purpose will be served by talking about it?”

  “Humor me. Please.”

  He considered it for a moment, then gave her a brusque nod.

  She wasted no time. “Shortly before the tornado, you left the pavilion and went down to the boathouse.”

  Another curt nod.

  “Why? Why were you going to the boathouse?”

  “For beer.”

  “Beer? You hated beer. You told me that you had tried it at a party and hated the taste.”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to give it another try. Word had got around that some guys had smuggled beer to the boathouse. I went to check it out, but no one was there. Only a bunch of cans. I was on my way back to the pavilion when somebody spotted the funnel and everybody started screaming. I was nearer the boathouse, so I ran back and took cover there.”

  She nodded absently. “When I came after you—”

  “When you came after me?”

  “To warn you of the approaching storm.”

  “You did?”

  His reaction mystified her. “Why does that surprise you? It was in the book. If you read it—”

  “I did. But I thought you were only capsulizing for narrative clarity.”

  “That’s not the way you remember it?”

  “After I left the pavilion, I didn’t see you again until you were rescued from the wreckage of the boathouse.”

  “You didn’t see me there earlier?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea how you got there.”

  Bellamy glanced over at Dent. He was looking at her, his eyebrow eloquently arched. Turning back to Steven, she said, “After the tornado, you managed to get out from under the debris.”

  “It was sheer luck that I wasn’t crushed by the collapsing walls. But that section of the boathouse fell outward instead of in. I was scratched up and dazed, but nothing serious. I managed to wiggle my way out of the rubble and wandered back toward the pavilion. Howard and Mom practically smothered me with hugs. But of course they were frantic to find Susan and you.”

  Steven’s recollections of the storm’s aftermath coincided with Dent’s, so Bellamy didn’t linger on them. “Why did Detective Moody question you?”

  “Because of the sexual overtones of the crime. He interrogated every man past puberty, especially those close to her. The boyfriend,” he said, tipping his head toward Dent. “I was her stepbrother, but that didn’t exclude me. Even Howard was questioned.”

  Bellamy was stunned. “Daddy was questioned? You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m sure that Mother and Howard protected you from knowing about it because of the disturbing implication.”

  “It’s not disturbing, it’s disgusting.”

  Steven looked down and traced the white tablecloth’s weave pattern with the tip of his finger. “Moody wasn’t so far off base.”

  His softly spoken words had the effect of falling bricks. Bellamy was shocked dumb. Dent said nothing, either, but placed his elbow on the table and cupped his mouth and chin with his hand. Steven must have felt the pressure of his solemn stare, because when he gave up his study of the tablecloth, it was Dent he addressed.

  “I don’t need to tell you what she was like, do I? You know firsthand that Susan was sexually supercharged. Which must have been great for you. But for her younger stepbrother who was grappling with his sexual identity, she was a nightmare with a malicious streak.”

  Bellamy swallowed with difficulty and said gruffly, “Are you telling us that you and Susan…”

  “No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “Never the grand finale. But not for her lack of trying. As it was, she got off by torturing me.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear this, Bellamy? It’s ugly.”

  “I think I have to hear it.”

  “All right.” He took a breath. “Susan made a practice of sneaking into my room at night. Two, three times a week. Sometimes more often.”

  “When did it start?”

  “On Mother and Howard’s wedding day.”

  Bellamy gasped in disbelief.

  “She would lie down beside me, rub up against me, talk dirty, describe to me all the things we could be doing if only I wasn’t so afraid of getting caught. She would take off her clothes and dare me to touch her.”

  He snorted a sound of self-deprecation. “God knows, sometimes I wanted to, because I was struggling with the realization that I was gay. At that point in my life, I was desperate to disprove it. But, in truth, the harder she tried to lure me, the more repulsed I became.”

  “Did she know you were gay?”

  “Maybe. Probably. Which would have made the torment even more delightful to her. It got to where I couldn’t stand the sight or smell of her and made no secret of it. She only became more aggressive and daring.

  “Once, she got into the shower with me and told me that Mother was just across the hall. She sa
id that if I made a sound, and Mother caught us, she would tell her and Howard that I was forcing her to go down on me every night. I knew that she could cry on demand and was capable of convincing them of anything.”

  He looked hard at Bellamy. “I’m sorry to be the one to destroy your delusions of our perfect family, but perhaps it’s time you knew the truth about our dearly departed sister.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “So you could have put it in your book, made it more salacious?”

  She flinched as though he’d slapped her. “I don’t deserve that, Steven.”

  He seemed to agree, because he exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. Uncalled for.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me at the time? I would have stood by you during the fallout.”

  “I didn’t want there to be any fallout. I didn’t want anyone to know, but especially not you. You were so different from her. Innocent. Sweet. The peacemaker. And you were my pal. I was afraid that would change if you knew about me and Susan.”

  “It wouldn’t have.”

  “Maybe,” he said, still doubtful. “But in any case, I was ashamed.”

  “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “There were times when my body responded to her in spite of myself, when I couldn’t control getting an erection. I didn’t desire her in the least, but I was an adolescent boy with raging hormones and no other outlet for them. She’d touch me, and I would explode, and she would mock my humiliation. Actually,” he added thoughtfully, “I’m surprised that she never gloated to you about what was going on. She was jealous of you. Did you know that?”

  “Impossible.”

  “It’s true. She was jealous of the special relationship you and Howard had. He favored you, and she knew it. It also miffed her that when I came into the family, you and I forged a sibling bond that I never had with her, or even wanted. Not that she craved my friendship, but she didn’t want to be second on anyone’s list.”

  He looked across at Dent again. “You weren’t her one and only. She told me about all the boys she ‘did’ behind your back. She was a slut who gave away free samples. It was befitting that she was strangled with her own underpants.”

  “Steven, please,” Bellamy whispered.

  “You wanted to hear this; you’re going to hear all of it,” he said testily. “One Sunday at family dinner, Susan passed a pair of her panties to me under the table. Here I was, seated between her and Howard, and she reaches for my hand and presses her underwear into it. I became so hot with fear and mortification I thought I’d pass out. And all through the meal, she was smiling that sly, triumphant smile that was uniquely hers.

  “That was the kind of demeaning joke she liked to pull. There were many more times when she did something similar. I could go on and on, but it would serve no purpose. She can no longer make my life hell. She’s dead. And I’m glad.”

  He fell silent for several moments, then roused himself as though coming awake after a bad dream. He looked out over the dining room and said, “I need to get back to work. Besides, I’ve said everything I plan to. Except this.” Before continuing, he made certain of their full attention.

  “Moody questioned me extensively, but my story never changed. Not one word of it. He didn’t have any evidence to place me where her body was discovered. Nor could he cite an opportunity for me to have killed her. But what he never asked me, what he didn’t know, was that I sure as hell had a motive.”

  Chapter 12

  The fist came out of nowhere and crashed into Rupe’s face like a wrecking ball.

  He landed hard on his butt. Lightning bolts of pain pierced his skull and ricocheted off the inner walls of his cranium. His ears rang, and he was momentarily blinded.

  Before he could even cry out, he was grabbed by his shirt collar and jerked to his feet with teeth-jarring, bone-shaking velocity. The planet teetered, then spun out of its orbit, making him sickeningly dizzy. He gagged on the nausea that filled his throat. His head wobbled on his neck uncontrollably. Blood streamed from his broken nose into his slack lips.

  “Hey, Rupe, long time no see.”

  Being shaken like a rag doll, Rupe blinked against the skyrockets of pain still exploding from within his skull. The earth righted itself and, finally, the multiple blurred images wavering inches from him coalesced into one of an older, heavier, uglier Dale Moody.

  “How’re you doing, Rupe?”

  Dale knew the extent of the other man’s pain, because Dale had had it described to him before. He’d landed a blow just like the one he’d delivered to Rupe on a fellow cop, who’d later waxed poetic about the various levels of excruciating pain to be found on the receiving end of Dale’s right fist.

  In answer to Dale’s question, Rupe mumbled unintelligibly.

  “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

  Dale, still gripping a fistful of expensive, imported silk/cotton blend, hauled Rupe by his shirt collar over to his rattletrap Dodge and propped him against the rusty, dented rear quarter panel. “Would you take this heap for a trade-in?”

  “Fgnuckyoo.” With his rubbery lips and swelling nose, that was the closest Rupe could come to correct pronunciation.

  Dale grinned, but it was a nasty expression. “I’ll take that as a no.” Keeping his grip on Rupe with one hand, he used the other to open the back door of his car, knock the top off a white foam cooler, and take from it a bag of frozen peas he’d brought for the occasion.

  “Maybe this will help.” He crammed the bag over Rupe’s brutalized nose.

  Rupe cried out in fresh pain, but he reached up and snatched the bag of peas from Dale’s hand. He applied it more gently and glared at the former detective from behind the smiling Green Giant. “I’m filing charges of assault.”

  “Will that be before or after your eyes swell shut? I hope you don’t have any TV commercials to do this week. You’re gonna look like shit for a while. Maybe you can buy shirts that’ll match your bruises.”

  “You’re a…”

  “I know what I am,” Dale said brusquely, all traces of humor vanishing. “And I know even better what you are. Now, we can stand here all night swapping insults. I’ve got nothing else to do. But you’re a busy man. You’re also the one who’s bleeding and hurting like hell. Your better option is to talk to me like you’ve been itching to do. I drove halfway across the state to get here. So talk, you son of a bitch.”

  Rupe continued to glower at him, but Dale knew better than anyone that the former ADA was good at thinking on his feet. Even in a tight spot like this, he would be searching for an angle that would turn the situation to his advantage. Knowing this about his nemesis, Dale wasn’t surprised when Rupe cut to the chase.

  “The Lystons’ younger daughter. Remember her? Bellamy? She’s written a book.”

  “Old news, Rupe. Low Pressure. I know all about it. I also know about the tabloid writer who’s exploiting it. I stopped on my way here to gas up and saw today’s issue in a rack by the register. Bet the cashier would’ve been blown away if she’d known she was selling a copy to one of the featured personalities.

  “I fared better than you, Rupe,” Dale continued conversationally. “I was only mentioned as the ‘former lead investigator, unavailable for comment.’ But Van Durbin went on at some length about you. Reading between the lines, I’d say he wasn’t all that impressed with your public service to Travis County. He said you couldn’t give him a ‘definitive’ answer when he asked you about hard evidence, which in this case was a pair of lacy underwear. Van Durbin relished that.”

  “I read it.” Rupe lifted the makeshift ice pack from his nose, looked with disgust at the imprint his blood had made on it, then tossed it aside. It landed on the pavement near his feet with a loud splat. Rupe looked down at it and used that opportunity to take in the parking lot at a glance.

  “Nobody’s around,” Dale told him. “Nobody to rush to your rescue. Which is your own fault for parking way out here at the edge of the lot. What? Ar
e you scared somebody will notice you coming and going out of that young lady’s apartment up there?

  “You really should choose another place for your shabby rendezvous, Rupe, or you’re liable to get caught with your pants down. How old is she, anyhow? Eighteen? Nineteen at a stretch? Is she even legal? Shame on you, diddlin’ a girl too young to buy beer. You being a church deacon and all.”

  If looks could kill, Dale would be dead. “Your pal Haymaker?” Rupe spat. “Is he your snitch?”

  Ignoring that, Dale continued taunting him just for the hell of it, just because it felt good. “Does your wife know you’re banging a hot young thing? Come to think of it, your missus might not be all that upset about it. She might be glad to learn you can still get it up.” Dale leaned in and whispered, “But you’d better hope Van Durbin doesn’t get wind of it.”

  Rupe scoffed. “He has a column in a cheap rag that people line their birdcages with. So what? What harm can he really do me?”

  “Austin’s King of Cars?” Dale mocked.

  Rupe wiped dripping blood from the end of his nose and shook it off his fingers. “That was the ad man’s suggestion.”

  “Whatever, Rupe. Whatever. You’ve done real good for yourself. But it could all go away like that.” He snapped his fingers half an inch from Rupe’s brutalized face.

  “You think I’m scared of Van Durbin?”

  “No, but you’re scared shitless of me.” Dale crowded in on him. “First the book, and now Van Durbin, have stirred up the dust, but I’m the one who could choke you on it.”

  “You’d choke, too.”

  “But I don’t have anything to lose.”

  With both hands, Rupe pushed against Dale’s broad chest. Dale fell back a step, and Rupe gave him and his car a scornful once-over. “That’s readily apparent.”

  Dale ignored the insult. “You, on the other hand, have made a large target of yourself. You’re easy pickin’s for a media crucifixion.”

  “Save your threats. If you tried to destroy me, you’d fail.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re already beat, you just don’t know it,” Rupe said. “That’s why I’ve been trying to reach you, to tell you that if you get to feeling sentimental about Allen Strickland, law, justice, and the American way, you’ll be digging your own grave and yours alone.”