by Diana Palmer
When she got up and looked for her packet of birth control pills, things got much more complicated. It seemed that in the confusion and haste of their trip, she’d left the pills behind in Kilraven’s apartment. That meant that she’d missed two of them. She recalled the instructions vividly. Her hand went to her belly and she swallowed, hard. It was exactly two weeks between periods, the worst and most dangerous time to be intimate, because her periods were regular.
She had to keep her cool. It was unlikely that she’d conceive after just one time. Well, more like three times, she corrected, and blushed. Amazing, that a man could do that. She’d read that they were only good for one time. Maybe Kilraven didn’t read books about sex. She recalled some of the things that he’d done to her then, and she decided that he must have read a lot.
Well, it couldn’t be helped now. She’d just have to hope that there wouldn’t be consequences from her negligence. Kilraven would kill her. He’d have to, at that, because if she turned up pregnant, no way was she having a termination, no matter what.
SHE HAD AN UNEXPECTED phone call later in the morning.
“Hi, it’s Pat,” came the cheery reply when she answered the phone. “Want to go shopping with me down on Bay Street?”
Winnie laughed self-consciously. “Are you sure you want to be seen in public with me after last night?”
“Anybody can get tipsy, dear. I do it all the time. Head hurt?”
“Not so much. I have aspirin.”
She laughed. “Come on. I’ll pick you up at your front door. What do you say?”
“Okay,” Winnie said, trying to sound reluctant. “I guess Kilraven can live without me for a few hours.”
“You still call him by his last name?” Pat asked, incredulous.
“He doesn’t like people using his first name, and I’ve heard that he actually threw something at his own brother when he used the nickname for it,” Winnie replied. “I’m covering my butt.”
There was a pregnant pause. “Really?”
“Oh, stop that.” Winnie laughed.
“Come shopping. Girls’ morning out.”
“I’ll be out front in five minutes. I’m not dressing up.”
“Neither am I, pet. Come as you are.” She hung up.
Winnie threw on a pretty yellow-patterned white sundress and strappy white sandals, ran a comb through her long hair, grabbed her purse and started down the hall. She was wearing the skimpiest thing she’d brought with her, and she hoped it made him howling mad with desire.
Kilraven was standing at the end of the hall, his hands in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts, which he was wearing with an open white shirt that showed off his broad, muscular, hair-roughened chest.
“Where are you going?” he asked coolly.
She moved closer. “Off to meet men!” she exclaimed with big eyes. “Since we’re getting divorced soon, I’m in the market for a new sex slave! First I’m going to a bar, then I’m going to sit on the piano with my skirt hiked up…”
“Winnie,” he growled.
She made a face. “Pat and I are going shopping.”
“Nice work,” he said with a lift of his eyebrow.
“Not mine,” she replied coolly. “She invited me.”
His eyes slid over her with a new sense of possession. He knew that slender young body as no other man ever had. She belonged to him.
She saw that look, and it irritated her. He was never getting near her again.
“Ask her about her brother-in-law, if you can do it without making her suspicious,” he said. “We’re too close to blow it now.”
We. That was almost funny. There was no “we,” there was only Kilraven’s obsession with finding his family’s murderer. She thought about that and calmed down. She was losing her perspective, and that would never do. They weren’t a happy couple on honeymoon. They were investigators. She had to keep that in mind. The future was her job and his, not a house with a picket fence.
“I can do what I need to do,” she said solemnly. “I won’t blow it.”
She made him feel guilty. He was throwing her in headfirst, all in an attempt to avenge two murders. He didn’t think she could end up on the firing line, but he couldn’t guarantee it. “If anything feels wrong, back off,” he said curtly. “Don’t put yourself in the middle of anything.”
“Pat isn’t going to get me killed,” she said.
His face tautened. “Not intentionally.”
“Thanks,” she murmured. She started toward the door.
He caught her shoulder as she passed him and looked down into her quiet, solemn young face. He didn’t like what he saw. He’d pushed her into this trip against her better judgment. Now he was trying to put the blame for that torrid interlude on her. It wasn’t fair.
“No. Thank you,” he said gently. “You didn’t want to come down here. I browbeat you into it. Now I’m blaming you for things that aren’t your fault.” He sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened when we got here. I just…lost it.”
Well, that was better than nothing, she supposed. “I lost it, too,” she replied. “No problem.”
“You’re sure you’re on the pill?”
Her face flamed. She averted her eyes. “Of course I am!”
The car pulling up out front stopped the conversation.
“I’ll be back,” she said, moving away.
“If you need me, I’ll have my cell with me.”
She shrugged. “If there’s a crisis about picking out a blouse, I’ll be sure to call you.”
“Thank you so much,” he muttered.
She turned and curtsied. “We aim to please. You can always bake some cookies or tidy up the room if you run out of things to do,” she added cheekily.
“My stepmother was right. You are a little blond chain saw!” he called after her, irritated beyond discretion.
“Sticks and stones…” she sang back.
Muttered curses followed her down the steps.
Patricia had both car windows down and she was laughing when Winnie climbed into the passenger seat of the sleek beige Mercedes. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“He doesn’t think it’s safe for me to go shopping without him,” Winnie muttered. “I suppose he thinks I’ll trip over my high heels and fall into the bay and get eaten by seagulls!”
Patricia pursed her lips and turned her attention back to the steering wheel. “Shortest marriage in Comanche Wells history, huh? I’m just beginning to think that may be right!”
BACK AT THE BEACH HOUSE, Kilraven was brooding. There had been something in the way that Winnie averted her eyes when he’d asked her about being on the pill. He walked into her bedroom and proceeded to do what he was best at. By the time he finished, he was certain that she hadn’t brought anything with her to prevent a child. Not unless she was carrying the pills on her person. And that, as soon as she came back, was his priority. He was going to find out.
15
Winnie was animated while they walked down Bay Street, through crowds of tourists carrying bags and chattering. Nearby was Prince George Wharf, with cruise ships in port. This was one of the most sophisticated cities in the hemisphere, but at the same time it was like a small fishing village. There were big splashy hotels mingled with little cottages set back off the road in groves of palm trees. Winnie loved everything about it.
“Isn’t it amazing that the old British Colonial is still here?” Winnie asked. “Otherwise, Nassau is changing so much that I can’t keep up.”
“It is amazing,” Pat said, smiling. “The grand old lady of the Bahamas. What a history.”
“I used to love staying there. Then Daddy decided that we needed our own place.”
“I love your house.”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
Patricia was watching her curiously. She moved through an arcade to a little nook with bougainvillea climbing the walls, where an open-air shop sold conch soup and mixed drinks. “Let’s have something to drink,” she sa
id.
“Fruit punch for me,” Winnie said with a groan. “I’m still not over my headache.”
“Poor thing. You really shouldn’t drink.”
“I know.”
Patricia gave in the order and carried the drinks to a little stone table with benches. She handed one to Winnie. “I shouldn’t drink, either,” she said, and the happy persona fell away. She put her sunglasses aside with a sigh. “But it’s the only thing that keeps me from becoming a suicide.”
“Pat!”
“Don’t worry, I’m not really the type. It’s just…” She sipped her drink and sighed. She looked at Winnie. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”
“What?”
“First a homicide detective opens that old Kilraven murder file and my husband jumps in to put pressure on the police commissioner to get it closed again. That’s after a murder in Jacobsville that raised eyebrows even up in Austin at the state crime bureau. Then a young woman dies who works for Senator Fowler. That’s followed by assaults on both detectives working the Kilraven case after Senator Fowler had it reopened again.” She looked at Winnie evenly from black eyes. “Then you and Kilraven himself show up next door to my beach house.”
Winnie was a good actress. She’d been a leading lady in her sophomore year. She gave Patricia a beaming smile. “Great deduction.” She held out her left hand, to display her wedding band and its accompanying diamond. “So I got married to Kilraven just to come down here and ask you questions about a murder…” She frowned. “What has any of that got to do with you?”
Patricia looked stunned.
“Did you kill somebody?” Winnie asked, shocked.
Pat rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, I must be getting paranoid.” She took a big sip of her drink. “My husband’s gallivanting all over Texas with a high-school cheerleader, with carloads of media trying to catch him in the act for their next big political scandal. Will’s moldy retainer is threatening a minister. My stepmother…what in the world is the matter with you?”
“Sorry. I just never heard of anybody threatening a minister,” she said with a laugh. “Our minister is bald and sixty and wouldn’t hurt a fly. He came and sat with my father when he was dying.” She was shocked to hear Pat talking about a moldy retainer making threats.
“It does sound strange, doesn’t it?” Pat wondered. She took another drink. “He said the man was drawing things he shouldn’t. Now I ask you, what in the world does that mean?”
“Beats me,” Winnie said carelessly. She grinned. “What are you going to do about the cheerleader?” she asked.
Pat blinked. “Do about her?”
Winnie propped her chin in her hand. “If it were me, I’d go see her folks.”
Pat cleared her throat and took another swallow. A big one. “Not if you had a husband with employees like Jay Copper, you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, what could he do? Threaten you?”
Pat looked down into her drink. She took another swallow. And another. She blinked. “There was a girl, once,” she said dully. “Like the cheerleader. She came to one of our parties. I caught Will with her. She was drugged out of her mind. She didn’t even know what was happening. I made him send her home. He told Jay to drive her.” She took another drink.
“I heard about that from a police officer back home,” Winnie said. She frowned. “Her dad got a new Jaguar and all the charges were dropped, right?”
Pat shook her head. “This one never made it back to her house. They found her…” She stopped suddenly. She looked at Winnie with a terrified expression. “You mustn’t ever tell anyone I said that, especially your husband. Promise me!”
“Okay, I promise,” Winnie said, mentally crossing her fingers. She was so shocked she could hardly manage to put on an act. Jay Copper! Not Hank Sanders, but the old moldy family retainer had gone with the girl who was later found dead. “I don’t understand why.”
“Just never mind.” She put down the drink. “Me and my big mouth! I’ve been scared to death for years, kept secluded, watched to make sure I never said anything…!”
Winnie put a hand over hers. “I would never do anything to put your life in danger,” she said earnestly. “I mean that.”
Pat relaxed. “Thanks.” She grimaced. “I can’t talk to anybody. My husband has me followed everywhere I go. I’m forever looking over my shoulder.” She glanced behind her and froze.
Winnie turned. There was a man in a suit wearing dark glasses, standing beside a dark sedan.
“Do you know him?” Winnie asked.
“No.”
“He’s probably just waiting on a client,” Winnie said gently. “You have to loosen up! You’re getting paranoid. Honestly. Your husband likes young girls. That makes him a rake, but it doesn’t make him a murderer.”
Pat looked into her eyes. “Do you think so?” she asked anxiously.
“Of course I do!”
Pat put her face in her hands. “I drink too much. I talk too much. I’ll end up in a river somewhere myself one day.”
“Now you really sound paranoid. We should get moving. If you sit here, that alcohol is going to do a number on you. Come on. Shops are waiting!”
Pat laughed. “I guess so.” She stood up. “You’re really nice,” she said. “I’ve only known you from parties, and you always seemed to stand in a corner while Boone and Clark did all the socializing. How are they, by the way?”
“Boone just got married to my best friend. They’re very happy.”
“And Clark?”
She shook her head. “Clark is mixed up with one wild girl after another. This new one seems to be different, though. She’s a librarian.”
Patricia smiled. “I’d have liked to have brothers and sisters.”
“You can have Clark,” Winnie offered.
The other woman swiped at her. “No, thanks. I’m happy as I am.”
They walked away from the shop. The man in the suit pulled out a cell phone and started punching in numbers.
WINNIE WAS FRIGHTENED about what she’d learned, but she put on a happy face and wandered all over Nassau with Pat. It was dark when they drove up in front of Winnie’s beach house.
“Well, the lights are on,” Winnie said. “Maybe he’s still there.”
“You have to stop fighting with him,” Pat advised.
“No. You stop fighting a man like that, and he’ll walk all over you,” Winnie replied firmly. “I’m not anybody’s carpet.”
Pat shook her head. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other sooner.”
Winnie looked back at her. “Me, too.” She grinned. “But better late than never.”
Pat looked sad. “No. It won’t be like that.” Suddenly she turned up the car radio and grabbed Winnie’s arm, pulling her closer. Her eyes were wild. She spoke into Winnie’s ear. “Listen, if I’m not here tomorrow, he’ll probably send me to Oklahoma, to his family’s old home place,” she said quickly. “Jay Copper is there, and I’m scared of what he might do. He’ll know I spoke to you… Your husband has a ranch near there. Find an excuse to go there with your husband. Find me. Will you do that?”
“Why…?”
The jangling of Pat’s cell phone made her start and cry out. She grabbed it up and opened it, turning down the radio at the same time. “Yes?” Her face paled. She gnawed her lower lip. “Yes. Yes, I will. Right now? Very…very well.” She hung up. Her face was tragic. “I have to go.” She leaned closer. “Remember what I said!”
Winnie jumped out of the car. Pat drove off without another word.
WHEN SHE WALKED in the door, Kilraven was waiting. He was standing in the hall, all business.
“Pack,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a Learjet on the way to pick us up. We’re going to Oklahoma.”
“You heard us!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, and so did someone else.” He turned away. “We’ll be lucky if she lives long enough to get there.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned. “The car was bugged.”
“By you?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes. And probably by her husband’s old family retainer. Give me your purse.”
She handed it over without a thought. He opened it and turned the contents out onto the coffee table.
“Is it bugged?” she asked, worried.
He stood erect and his eyes were blazing. “Where are your birth control pills?” he asked coldly.
Her heart jumped up into her throat. She’d fallen right into the trap. It didn’t take ESP to know that he’d already tossed her room. She sat down with a hard sigh. “They’re still in the drawer next to the bed in your guest room. In the rush to the airport, I forgot them.”
He didn’t say a word.
She looked up at him. “Yes, I know the risk is exponential if you miss one.” She glared at him. “But I didn’t expect to be tossed onto a bed and ravished after you promised me nothing would happen!”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m a man,” he bit off.
She sighed. “Oh, yes, you are!” she said with such feeling that his pose of indignation was threatened. He turned away.
“We have to beat her to Oklahoma,” he said.
“Will they try to kill her, you think?”
He nodded. “Too many people have already died trying to cover up what happened.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I think so,” he said. “A lot of it is theory, but I’ve been adding up what I know. And I spoke with your mother on the phone a few minutes ago. She filled in a few more blank spaces. Pack, and I’ll lay it out for you on the way to the airport.”
HE DID, SUCCINCTLY. “The senator had a party and invited one of his conquests, a little girl barely in her teens who’d put on plenty of makeup and stuffed her sweater and pretended to be in college. He drugged her and had fun with her, up until his wife caught him. He protested, but by then the girl came to and realized what he’d done, and started yelling about prosecution and told him her true age. He told Jay Copper to take her home. So he did, but with a detour so that he could enjoy her himself. The senator wasn’t the only man who liked young girls in the house. She fought, he subdued her, and somewhere in the struggle she died.”