by Liz Lee
He was right. She might not be able to trust him as far as a relationship went, but she had to where the investigation was concerned. “Fine. We can go, but it’s going to look strange.”
He smiled that sexy stop-her-heart smile and laughed that low rough around the edges laugh, and for a second she couldn’t breathe. “See, that’s where you’re mistaken, Lil. Because this is the story—not the truth we both know—but the story everyone believes. The story everyone has to believe for this to work. You rushed to my place so we could make up. If that kiss we shared was seen by even one person, half the town’s going to know all about it.” He trailed his hand down her arm, daring her to respond. “No one’s going to be surprised you left something behind.”
She brushed his hand away and reminded herself she’d always been a pawn in his game. This time she knew it. Under no circumstances was she going to be hurt by him again. She’d lived with people who didn’t care about her all that much her entire life. She could do this too. Somehow. “Whatever. Let’s just go see if you’re right.”
They pulled into the dimly lit, crowded parking lot at ten minutes after seven and David whistled. “Who knew half the town hung out at the high school?”
Lil rolled her eyes and bit her tongue to keep from telling him she’d told him so. “It’s Thursday night. The boosters meet, the cheerleaders are decorating the gym, the student council kids are decorating the halls, the moms are doing something with the lockers. We’ll probably see fifty people before we even make it to my classroom.”
They passed Mr. Pipes as they walked into the building.
“Miss Palmer. Don’t usually see you here this late.” The janitor sent a questioning look toward David and she wondered if Mr. Pipes could be the tie to Degas. If he was, how could she ever find out?
“I got out of here in such a big hurry, I left some stuff to grade in my room.”
She grabbed David’s hand and pulled him down the hall. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else if they could help it. Unfortunately they turned the corner and ran into David’s sister Anna and the principal, Jonathan Miller.
When Anna saw them she squealed and stopped her conversation with the principal mid-sentence.
“Miss Palmer! Mama called an told me the good news.” She grabbed Lil in a huge hug then did a little cheerleader happy jump and smacked her brother’s shoulder. “I’m so happy for you guys. David needs you, Miss Palmer. He really needs you.”
Obviously someone had seen their kiss. No telling what people thought. She saw David’s told-you-so grin and somehow kept the smile on her face.
Mr. Miller told Anna to go back to the gym and they’d discuss homecoming preparations later and then he walked with them to Lil’s classroom. The whole time they walked Lil found herself wondering if Mr. Miller could possibly be the Degas connection. And again she wondered how she’d ever find out.
“Surprised to see you here so late,” Mr. Miller said as they reached her door.
She shrugged and repeated the same story she’d told Mr. Pipes. “I needed to pick up some papers to grade.”
The principal laughed softly and she realized he too had heard about that stupid kiss on David’s doorstep. “I understand. I had to speak to the booster club and the cheerleaders, and the sophomore mothers wanted to ask about the legality of candy sales and No Child Left Behind or I would definitely be home now.”
She just wanted to get in the room, grab what David felt they needed and leave. “I know you miss evenings with the girls when you have to be out.”
He smiled the proud-father smile. “They understand. Since you’re here, I’ll go ahead and warn you. The police will be by in the morning. A family connected to the school disappeared last night. They might have gone back to Mexico, but the police aren’t sure.”
Lil’s pulse thrummed as she tried to sound surprised. She wasn’t supposed to know about this. “The families that leave don’t usually just disappear, do they?”
Mr. Miller’s face looked grim. “No, they don’t.”
She grabbed her keys out of her purse, started to open the door when Mr. Miller continued. “The family, the students, they’re in your class.”
Stupid. She should have asked who was gone. She turned back. Forced shock. At least she hoped it was shock. “My students? Who?”
“Miguel Hernandez and his sister Solidad.”
“Oh no.” Hearing it turned her stomach, especially with what she knew.
Mr. Miller looked at a loss. “We don’t know anything else. Hopefully it’s nothing. I know Miguel is one of your star students.”
“He’s applying for a scholarship to Texas. He has a real chance.” Her voice broke and this time it was real. She could see Miguel so clearly. His bright smile. His hope for a future so different from what he’d known. “He wants to be a lawyer.”
“Well,” Mr. Miller cleared his throat, “with any luck, the police will be able to figure out what’s happened. The family could’ve had an emergency. Maybe everyone will be back tomorrow. The scholarship, his hopes and dreams, those are the things the police will be asking about. We’ll do everything in our power to help them.”
“Of course. I’ll help however I can. But Solidad’s been absent for over a week now. Maybe she’s not connected.”
David had watched the entire exchange without a word. “How many girls have disappeared this year, Mr. Miller?”
“Twelve girls have dropped out, but that’s not unusual on the border. We do what we can, but…” Mr. Miller shrugged, seemed lost in thought then smiled at Lil, “but teachers like Lil are the ones who find success. I’ll talk to you both later, I’m sure.”
When he walked away, Lil practically fell into the classroom. “I nearly blew it.” She whispered the words and he covered his lips with his index finger to stop her.
“You were amazing. Perfect.”
Her eyes met his and she couldn’t move. She pulled away from his hand. Tried to act as if the heated moment hadn’t happened.
“Twelve dropouts this year. How many are really missing, David? How many?”
He had to stop touching her. David’s finger burned from the pressure of her lips, but he focused on her question.
Lil deserved the truth. But to tell her was to show her the hopelessness of this decision of hers.
Maybe it would change her mind. Make her see the danger here. Scare her enough to get her to leave. Jamison couldn’t force her into helping with the investigation.
“Hundreds. In the last five years over seven hundred women have gone missing on either side of the border. Half are unaccounted for to date.”
“Unaccounted for?”
“No bodies.”
She sat at her desk and dropped her head to her hands. “Oh God.”
He wasn’t done. “One hundred are missing from this area. One hundred women between the ages of 11 and 22. More if you count the older and younger, but we don’t.”
“One hundred. That’s crazy, David. Crazy. Where are the news crews? The alphabet soup guys?”
She’d lost him. “Alphabet soup?”
“You know, CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, INS,” she waved her hands as she named them. “They’re trying to solve this with you,” she laughed as she pointed and he tried not to take offense. “And me. That doesn’t make sense.”
He should’ve just kept his mouth shut. Waited until they got back to the apartment. He knelt beside her desk, took her hand in his and tried to explain. “Listen Lil. Degas and his people work on the fringes. They don’t mess with the middle class girls whose families will make a fuss. They take the kids who cross the border regularly. The migrant workers, the kids at concerts in Mexico, the working girls. The Hernandez family has some similarities, but some major differences too. People will care this time.”
The fact that she left her hands in his spoke as loudly as her angry words. “Sure they will. Until they’re convinced Miguel and his family left on their own. That they went back to Mexico.”
>
The last was said with such bitterness it broke his heart. Because she was right. “Yes.”
She took her hands from his and pressed them against her temples. “Oh God. How long will that take? A day? A week?” She shook her head. “This is impossible. We’ve already lost and we haven’t even started.”
Even though he wanted her to leave, David couldn’t stand the defeat her heard in her voice. “Come on, Lil. We haven’t lost. Not yet. Let’s just look through your classroom. See what we can find.”
His words seemed to remind her of his deception. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. “You should’ve been honest with me from the beginning, David. No telling what we would have found working together before.”
The pain in her voice was the first since she’d turned on the ice princess. It was pain he deserved to hear. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Lil’s back straightened at his words, but that was the only indication she gave that she’d heard his words. She pulled papers from a filing cabinet drawer marked final essays and dropped them in her bag then turned to face him, ice princess back.
“We’re here to find out what happened to Miguel and Solidad. Not to talk about my feelings. I chose to be here. I don’t need your apologies and I’m not going to pretend it’s all okay now.”
Back to square one. Only worse. At the apartment, Lil’s anger had been sexy. Here in her classroom, her hurt made him feel like every bit as much a loser as the creeps he helped catch in the act of infidelity. He couldn’t make Lil’s pain go away, but he could at least try to make her feel better.
“We had a deal, Lil. And I’m sticking to it. If it makes you feel any better, I feel like a total jerk.”
“Good.” She grabbed another file of papers and dumped them in her bag. “You are a total jerk.”
And even though she wasn’t facing him, David thought maybe, just maybe, he saw a little smile.
Lil held the bag of papers as tightly as she could. An hour later and all they had were the major papers Miguel and Solidad had turned in during the year.
Pointless papers that meant nothing.
But maybe they did. Because David seemed to think they might unlock the keys to the missing-girl universe, and God, please, she wanted them to.
Fortunately the meetings were over and the only people still in the building were Mr. Pipes and his cleaning crew, so she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t devastated. Because she couldn’t do it.
How could the world just stand by and let this happen?
David opened her door and she climbed in his beat up truck and tried not to care about how nice he was being to her. How he wasn’t saying anything because he knew she would break if she had to talk.
He climbed in beside her, started the engine, flipped the volume up on his radio, changed the channel from his favorite country to her favorite classic rock.
Such a charmer. Always the charmer. Using her.
They passed a Sonic and the neon lights blurred as her tears started to fall. Jerk.
She blinked and tried to stop them. She could do it. She’d swallowed plenty of tears in her lifetime. She knew the trick. Find a focal point and stare at it until they dried up as if they’d never been.
David cleared his throat and she knew her tears bothered him. Good. He deserved to be bothered.
“It’s okay to talk to me, David. I’m not going to break.” She wiped the rogue tears that refused to stop away and turned to face him.
The chink-chink of a cash register sounded on the radio. Once the song started, David brushed her cheek with his thumb. She started to push him away, but he shook his head. “We’re in public, Lil. You’re crying. This is part of the show.”
She swallowed hard and pressed her cheek into the palm of his hand. She could do this. Even though it hurt, even though it reminded her of every kiss, of every touch, all lies.
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
He pulled into his parking spot and stopped the truck before facing her.
“Out of the people you saw tonight, who do you think might be involved?”
She looked out the passenger window and shivered even though no one was watching. No one she could see anyway. She turned to face him and answered his question. “Everyone. No one. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to speak to the people at work without wondering if they’re the ones working with Degas.” That was going to be a little disconcerting. It already made her feel guilty.
David leaned in close, whispered. “Don’t make assumptions, Lil. They’ll get you killed.”
She forced herself to stay there, to ignore the goosebumps that broke out down her shoulders and arms as his hot breath hit her neck and ear. “Andrew Miller’s wife was killed by drug dealers in a drive-by. He’s raising his two little girls all by himself. He’s not helping Degas.”
He dragged his index finger down the side of her face, following the path of her earlier tears, and she bit her lip to keep from telling him to stop. She closed her eyes and reminded herself it wasn’t real. That to respond in anyway to his physical touches was to set herself up for more heartache. But her body remembered how good he felt. It craved his touch.
She opened her eyes and sat back against the seat and tried not to care that her heartbeat was pounding in her ears.
“I’m just trying to show you what it’s like. You’ve got to look at every person you work with differently now, Lil. Your boss, your friends, everyone. And you’ve got to be careful. Look how hard it was when Miller told you about the missing family.”
He was right. She knew he was right. About the case and about pretending they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“This is what you’ve signed on for, Lil.” He leaned in, touched her neck with his hot lips and she nearly moaned out loud. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? I can call Ryan now. Call him and tell him you’re not doing it.”
This. She knew he was talking about more than the suspicion, the questioning everything and everyone. He was talking about pretending they were a couple. And this whole touchy-feely show was as much to convince her to leave as it was to convince anyone watching that the minute they walked through his door, they’d be headed straight to the bedroom.
That’s all it took to get her wayward body back on the right page. His stubbled cheek was rough against her lips when she kissed it before moving her lips to his ear.
She told herself she didn’t feel anything other than victory when she heard his breath catch before she whispered, “Stop it, David. Stop it now.”
As Lil followed David into the apartment she weighed the two courses she had to choose from. Confront this now and get it over with or stomp into the bedroom, slam the door and tell David they’d talk in the morning.
She walked across the room, past the photos of his brothers and sisters—one big happy family. When he closed and locked the front door she tossed the bag of papers he insisted could be so important on the coffee table and turned to face him.
“I’ve said this already. I won’t say it again. I swear to God, David, one more kiss, one more touch and I’m out of here. And by out of here I mean out of your apartment not out of San Mario. You say I need to trust you, fine. You need to trust me. Trust me when I say nothing about San Mario is a charity project. I’m here and I’m not leaving and I can help if you let me. We’re either together on this or we’re separate. You can tell Ryan to call me at my place and we’ll work something out. But I’m not going to let you use emotional blackmail again.”
She raised an eyebrow waited for him to answer. If he didn’t say the right thing, she was grabbing her stuff and hitting the road.
For five seconds he stood there silently watching her and finally he sighed and nodded. “You’re right.”
That’s it. Two words. The right words, but still, she expected more.
“So?”
Another five seconds of silence served as her answer before he spoke again
. “So I’m sorry. I just…” he stopped and looked at the bag of papers then back at her as he shrugged and continued. “I just don’t want you mixed up in this, but it’s too late. You’re in it. And I don’t want you in it alone. Ryan will use you any way he can. Alone that would put you in far more danger than with me. So yeah, I won’t screw with your brain like that again. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Holy cow. Lil didn’t quite know how to respond so she settled for “Good” and picked the bag up off the table, but David wrapped his hand around her shoulder when she started to walk away.
“We still have to play the part when we’re out in public, Lil. It’s the only way.”
She stepped away from him and answered as she continued walking away. “In public we’ll do whatever it takes. You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Later Lil sat at the breakfast bar looking over the papers and trying to ignore the way her stomach growled at the scent of fresh pound cake. She was going to gain a hundred pounds living with him.
A monster died on the big screen television as he clobbered it with a boxing glove.
She wished finding and killing monsters were as easy as PlayStation made it.
Right now it felt like she was looking over the same words she’d already read. The same fragments and run-ons and usage errors in Solidad’s dreams of finding the perfect man and being the perfect mother and keeping the perfect house. Miguel’s same clearly defined goals, complete with timeline for graduating from law school and helping his family escape poverty.
She took a bite of the lemon pound cake and let it dissolve on her tongue.
He’d used six sticks of butter to make this cake. She’d watched him make it more times than she could remember. And several of those times had turned into one sensual culinary delight after another. Those days were over.
He lured another monster out, smashed it on the head and grabbed an extra life before moving on to the next level.
He’d pretty much done the same thing to her heart.
Smash, bam, slam, out-a here. Off to the next galaxy to break more hearts with that ironically angelic smile, with that wavy black hair that touched the collar of his shirt, with those hands that knew just where to touch, with those words that promised a lifetime of fun in the shortest time possible.