Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “We didn’t have sex,” she informed him. “You sort of tried, but you were really drunk and it was pretty halfhearted. Not that I would have let you. Smile.” She pulled him closer, their faces together, turning toward a news photographer, who snapped a picture for the local paper. “You told me”—she looked around, no doubt to make sure no one was standing close enough to overhear—“that you were in love with this, um, person you met a few years ago, and I was just wondering if that was…the person.”

  Robin nodded. Apparently he hadn’t bedded Dolphina last night as he’d feared. Instead, he’d come out to her. Great. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you look at him,” she admitted. “I hope someday someone looks at me that way. But…” She looked up at him, her eyes apologetic. “You’re either going to have to stay away from…this person or really tone it down.”

  “Who exactly do you work for?” Robin asked her. It was stupid that he didn’t know, but his entourage was so large, with various assistants working for Riptide’s production company and the distribution company and probably even a few sister companies that he didn’t even know about.

  “You,” Dolphina told him. “Well, and Don. I also work for Don.”

  Don. His agent. Who was working on pounding out a mega-million-dollar three-picture deal. Three pictures. With tight scheduling, Robin could make three pictures in a mere year and a half.

  “Tell Don not to worry,” Robin told Dolphina. “I’m not going to fuck this up.”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  The first thing Ric saw when he burst into the hospital’s waiting area was his diminutive mother. The second thing he saw was the makeup-streaked tears on her face.

  He was a freaking detective—he didn’t need Sherlock Holmes’s Guide to Deductive Reasoning to know that the fact that she wasn’t in with his father, combined with those tears, was a bad sign.

  She stood up when she saw him, and as he went to her and put his arms around her, she cried even harder. Which was why her muffled words didn’t make sense.

  “He’s going to be okay.”

  Thank God for Annie, who seemed to know that his brain was struggling to process even simple information. “He’s going to be okay,” she repeated, making sure he understood, her hand solid on his back, warm even through his jacket and shirt.

  “It was mild, as far as coronaries go,” his mother told him as she dug through her purse for her pack of Kleenex.

  He was too dazed to help, but again, Annie was on top of things. She picked up a small box of tissues that was on an end table, and held it out for his mother.

  “Thank you.” Karen Alvarado was one of maybe four people on the planet who could blow her nose and make it look both graceful and delicate. “They’re still running tests, but so far the consensus is that there was no permanent damage.”

  And again, Annie was there, grounding him, squeezing his hand, even speaking for him. “That’s great news.”

  Ric heard the words, but he couldn’t quite believe them. Until his mother turned to Annie, held out her hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Karen. What a lovely dress. Have you known my son for long?”

  He could see from the familiar glint in his mother’s eyes that she was looking for information that would help her do the math to predict his and Annie’s impending wedding date. Length of relationship times extravagance of clothing—Annie’s dress was a never-before-seen eleven on a scale from one to ten—divided by her own wishful thinking…

  If his mother was able to focus on this, his father was definitely going to be okay.

  Relief made Ric desperate to sit down, but that would’ve meant leaving Annie on her own to fend off his mother’s ferocious desire to buy a mother-of-the-groom dress. So he stayed on his feet. “Mom, you remember Annie Dugan. Bruce’s little sister?”

  She looked at Annie more closely, surprise on her face. “The lesbian?”

  Oh, good, Mom.

  “Ric!” If they’d been alone, Annie probably would’ve hit him. And with her intensely developed stone-lugging muscles, she no doubt would’ve made it hurt. As it was, she just laughed her disbelief.

  “We support the Human Rights Campaign,” his mother reassured Annie. “And Teo just did a fund-raiser concert for PFLAG’s Safe Schools program—”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” Annie interrupted his mother, “but that was just a story my idiot brother told Ric. I’m not gay.” She turned back to him. “Is there anyone you didn’t tell…?” Asshole. She didn’t call him that in front of his mother, but it was definitely implied.

  “Oh, really?” his mother said, turning to look at him, too.

  Ric shook his head, totally screwed. He’d only told his mother. But that wasn’t the only thing he’d told his mother. It was years ago, sure, but this wasn’t something she’d be likely to forget. At the time, some girlfriend had just broken up with him—he couldn’t even remember who it was—and his mother had called to express her sympathy.

  He’d told her he didn’t care, that it was just another meaningless relationship that was going nowhere. It didn’t matter who he spent his time with. None of it mattered—because he couldn’t be with the woman he really wanted.

  Annie.

  Who was conveniently unattainable.

  He’d said it to get his mother off his back, never suspecting that one day it was going to come back and kick him, hard, upside the head.

  He sat down, exhausted, and waited for the bomb to drop.

  “I thought you were up in Boston.” His mother was trying to weasel more information from Annie. “When did you move back?”

  “Just a few weeks ago,” Annie told her. “I’m working with Ric now.”

  “Really? He hadn’t told me.” His mother gave him a look that promised a future ass-whupping. “Is your mother still in the area? I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “No, she’s in Savannah,” Annie reported. “She remarried, and…She’s doing well. Her new husband’s actually nice. She finally got a good one.”

  “So where are you staying, then?” Ric’s mother asked.

  “Well,” Annie said, glancing at him for help. “I haven’t really, um, found a permanent—”

  “She’s living with me, Ma,” Ric said, jumping with both feet onto the detonator, because hell, as long as his mother now thought his destiny had finally arrived, he might as well let her enjoy the fantasy while it lasted. Particularly since the next few days and weeks were going to be rough for her, with his father in recovery.

  Besides, there had been people at tonight’s party who were friends of his parents—people he’d seen talking to Gordon Burns. If Ric’s name came up, even casually in conversation…

  His mother took the news remarkably well. No cartwheels or shrieking alleluia. “What do you know?” she said. “A two-miracle day.” She turned to Annie, fumbling for another tissue to wipe more tears of joy from her eyes. “We’ll have to have lunch.”

  “I’d like that,” Annie lied. She gave Ric a smile that promised a painful death.

  Ric got to his feet, intending to head over to the nurses’ desk to ask when they would be able to go in to see his father.

  “Do you think it’s too late to call Martell?” his mother asked, and he turned back to answer her, glancing at his watch. It wasn’t even nine-thirty.

  “I don’t think so,” Ric said. “Why do you want to…?”

  “We’re going to need a lawyer,” she told him. “Teo’s heart attack? It happened while he was in police custody, in a holding area, awaiting transport to the county jail.”

  “Slow down,” Annie said. “Slow down. Ric. Ric. Ric.” She caught his arm, but he still didn’t stop until she hip-checked him into the wall of the police station. “How does this help?”

  “My father could have died.” He was furious.

  “How does this help?” she asked again.

  “Get out of my w
ay. Go home. Lock the doors. Martell will be there soon.”

  She stood firm. She’d come here with him from the hospital, in the car that Jules had dropped off.

  Before leaving, Jules had tried to talk Annie into letting him escort her home. But she wouldn’t leave Ric then, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him now, when he was clearly on the verge of losing it—after finally seeing his father, and hearing exactly what had happened to the older man.

  “No,” Annie told Ric now. “Please. Ric, just take a minute—”

  “And what?” Ric asked. “What changes, Annie, if I take your minute? What do you know about what happened to my father tonight?”

  Teo Alvarado, world-famous Cuban American jazz pianist, had gone to a political rally, in which a group from the opposite side of the immigration issue had also come, attempting to turn the event into a full-scale brawl. The police had stepped in, taking truckloads of protesters—including Teo—into custody.

  When it came time to be processed, Teo discovered that both his wallet and his cell phone had been stolen in the fracas. He had no identification, and the police officers in charge had no sympathy or patience with his heavily accented English, and had ordered him into a holding area for illegals. When he’d tried to stand his ground, he was manhandled and handcuffed—which apparently triggered his heart attack.

  And that was when things went from bad to worse—because the police detectives in charge of processing the so-called illegals thought Teo’s complaints were merely a ploy designed to get him special treatment. They ignored him—and he collapsed, his hands cuffed painfully behind his back.

  It wasn’t until another police officer arrived, a uniformed cop named Lora Newsom, that an ambulance was called. She didn’t recognize Teo as Ric’s famous father, but she did know a heart-attack victim when she saw one, and got him the help he’d needed.

  “I know it’s wrong—what happened to your father,” Annie told Ric.

  “Damn straight it’s wrong! Since when is this a country where citizens have to carry around papers?” he asked. “Not citizens who look like you, but citizens who look like me, like my father, especially when we speak English with an accent.” He picked her up and moved her out of his way.

  “Ric—”

  There was no stopping him. For someone she thought of as both thoughtful and mostly easygoing, reasoning with him now was like trying to talk sense to a guided missile.

  Which didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. “Ric.” She followed him into some kind of break room, where a coffee machine was set up next to a refrigerator. A folding table was in the center, surrounded by metal chairs.

  Two men had been sitting at the table, having coffee and doughnuts, but when Ric came in, they jumped up in alarm and backed away, toward a wall of windows.

  “Shit, who let him in here?” the shorter one said.

  “Ric,” Annie said again.

  But Ric had slowed down. He seemed almost calm now as he picked up one of the abandoned coffee mugs, sniffed it, and took a long slug.

  “We didn’t know it was your father,” said the heavier one—the same detective who’d come to Ric’s office just that morning. Detective Donofrio.

  “It didn’t occur to you,” Ric asked as he gently set the mug back onto the table, “that even though you didn’t know he was my father, that he was someone’s father?”

  “You weren’t there,” Donofrio insisted. “It was a fucking zoo—they were all talking Spanglish. These were people who were throwing rocks at each other—”

  “No, these were the people who were having rocks thrown at them!” Ric exploded, grabbing the table and heaving it up and over. It crashed into the far wall, the ceramic mugs shattering on the industrial tile, jelly doughnuts bouncing everywhere.

  He spotted her near the doorway, her mouth no doubt hanging open in shock, and he shouted at her. “Get out of here!”

  Annie didn’t. She stepped farther into the room. “Ric, don’t do this. Don’t get yourself arrested. We have an important job to do.” Her voice shook—she couldn’t help it. “Don’t make me do it alone.”

  Finally, she’d said something that gave him pause, but she had no idea what he might’ve said or done next, because half a dozen police officers burst in through the door behind her, startling her and knocking her off her Heels of Death.

  She landed hard, skidding on the filthy floor.

  “Don’t touch her! Don’t you fucking touch her!” she heard Ric shouting as someone grabbed her, their hands rough as they yanked her arms behind her, her cheek against the gritty tile.

  “I’m okay,” she shouted as she was hauled, still roughly, to her feet, because, God, there were about six police officers working to control him. “Ric, I’m okay—don’t make this worse!”

  “Annie!” he shouted as she was led from the room, limping, one of her heels snapped clean off. “Annie!”

  It was there, in the hall, as she was being led away to get locked up, that she experienced another startling first.

  She heard Enrique Alvarado start to cry.

  Annie looked hot, in that I’ve just survived a plane crash and an attack from a tribe of zombies bedraggled evening-gown kind of way, killer shoes dangling from one finger, as one of the newbies to the police department brought her out from the women’s holding cell.

  “Where’s Ric?” Annie asked Martell.

  First things first. “Sign this,” he told her, finishing up the paperwork and holding out a pen for her.

  She balked. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not going to sign anything that—”

  “This just gets you home,” he explained. “We’ll handle right and wrong tomorrow.”

  She read through the papers quickly—apparently she had trust issues—but she finally signed her name. “So is Ric in a lot of trouble?”

  “Some.” Martell pocketed the pen and pushed the papers toward the officer. “But you pretty much stopped him before the little t became a capital one. Plus he’s still got plenty of friends here. And it’s not like he’s ever gotten this drunk before, which is also a point in his favor.”

  Annie had been following him toward the door, but now she stopped short. “Drunk? He wasn’t drunk.”

  “Yeah, he was.” He took her arm, trying to pull her outside, but she planted herself. “He smells like a distillery, which is why I won’t be able to get him out until the morning. He’s an overnight guest in the city drunk tank.”

  “I was with him all night,” Annie insisted. “He ordered a beer at the Bijou, but he didn’t drink any of it.”

  “That you saw.”

  She was clearly going to argue this one until her face turned blue. She opened her mouth, so Martell spoke over her.

  “I’m doing my boy a favor here.” He let a whole lot of whine into his tone. “Again. I got court in the morning, early, and you’re standing here quarreling with me about scientific evidence? Shut your piehole, beeyotch, and get your badonkadonk into my car.”

  His name-calling obviously stunned her. She’d been wading hip-deep up shit’s creek for quite a few days now on too few hours of sleep, but enough of her brain was working for her to realize that beeyotch was not the most important part of the message he’d just delivered.

  She snapped her mouth closed and went out the door.

  She managed to stay silent until they got into his car, until he ran Ricky’s bug sweeper over them both.

  It was part of their new daily regimen. Every time they left the house or office, every time someone new came over, and especially every time they came into contact with Burns or one of his friends, including those here at the local police, they were going to check and recheck to make sure they weren’t being listened in on.

  They were both clear, so Martell said, “Sorry about that. I had to get you to zip it. Beeyotch.”

  “Badonkadonk was nice, too.” Annie laughed, but her amusement didn’t last. “Ric wasn’t drunk.”

  “I bel
ieve you.” He just hadn’t wanted her shouting that news flash in the police station. “But he definitely wanted someone to think he was.”

  She stared at him. “You’re telling me he purposely—”

  “When Ric texted me,” Martell reported. “Must’ve been while you were still over at the hospital. He told me two things. I need you to stay with Annie tonight, so clearly he anticipated not making it home.”

  She thought about that as he started the car. “What was the second thing?” she asked.

  “Took me a while to figure that one out.” Martell laughed as he pulled out of the police-station parking lot. “You’ll probably get it right away—WWGBJD, with a question mark at the end.”

  Annie looked at him, her pretty face angelic in the dashboard light. “What would…Gordie Burns Junior do?”

  Martell nodded. “That’s what I got, too.” He had no idea what Ric was up to, but it was clear he was up to something.

  Of course maybe he just couldn’t bear the temptation of sleeping down the hall from sweet Annie Dugan, so he’d gone and gotten himself locked up.

  With Ric, you never knew.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  In Sarasota, news traveled fast.

  Which was why, on Friday morning, ten minutes after Ric was released from the Sarasota City Jail, and two minutes after he got off the phone with his mother at the hospital, Gordie Burns Junior took his call.

  He had business, Ric told Junior as he drove himself home, that he wanted to discuss in person. That was not a problem—most of Junior’s business was the kind that couldn’t be discussed over the phone. But Junior wasn’t available until Saturday night, late. They made plans to meet at Tammy’s, which was Screech’s main rival as far as topless dancers went, out west of the highway on Fruitville Road.

  Jules Cassidy’s rental car was parked in Ric’s driveway, no doubt because Martell had needed to leave for court. One thing about the little FBI guy—his word was rock-solid. At least when it came to keeping Annie safe.

  Yeah, Ric was the one who’d gotten her knocked to the floor of the police-station coffee room last night.