Amnesia

by Beverly Barton

  “Do you suppose that phone call has anything to do with our case?” she asked.

  “Our case?” Smiling, Quinn maintained eye contact as he rose from the sofa and walked toward Annabelle. She broke eye contact immediately and leaned back in her chair, her shoulders tensing, her spine stiffening. “You really hate having to share Griffin Powell with me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  That one word said a great deal. For one thing it told him that Annabelle wouldn’t lie to him for the sake of courtesy or to spare his feelings. She might be a lady to whom good manners was of tantamount importance, but she could be direct and absolutely honest if the circumstances called for it.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been put in this situation,” he said. “And you may not believe me when I say that we both want the same thing.”

  “I want to find Lulu’s murderer and see him brought to justice.”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “I’d like to believe you.”

  Quinn knelt down in front of her and reached out to take her hands. She slid her hands on either side of her hips and drew them into tight little fists. “You really would like to believe me, wouldn’t you? You’d like to believe I didn’t kill Lulu,” he said. “I appreciate the fact that you aren’t convinced I’m guilty. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to keep an open mind.”

  “Why does my opinion matter one way or another?”

  He clasped her chin, cradling it in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger. Gasping softly, she met his gaze head-on.

  “Do you want the honest truth?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice quivered ever so slightly.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, then released his hold on her chin. Of their own accord, as if he had no control over them, his fingers glided gently down the side of her neck, pausing when he felt the beat of her pulse. “I usually don’t care what anybody thinks of me. I’ve always lived my life by my own rules and thumbed my nose at society. When you’re as rich and powerful as I am, people tend to cater to you, not the other way around. Being a Vanderley, you understand what I’m saying, don’t you? You’ve had people kowtowing to you all your life.”

  Her pulse quickened as her heartbeat accelerated. He could feel her life’s blood pumping beneath his fingertips. She was either excited or agitated. Perhaps both.

  “The difference between us, Mr. Cortez, is that having been born to wealth and privilege, I was taught at an early age not to abuse my wealth and power. My parents told me that with great privilege comes great obligations. I don’t live my life by my own rules and I do care what other people think of me.”

  He eased his hand from her neck and moved across her shoulder. She trembled. He lifted his hand away, but remained kneeling in front of her. “Haven’t you ever wanted to break free? Don’t you sometimes dream of what it would be like to walk on the wild side, just once?”

  She stared at him as if he were an alien creature speaking in an unknown tongue. Was she so totally buried in Vanderley tradition that she had lost the ability to think for herself? How was it possible that she and Lulu were first cousins? He’d never known two women as vastly different.

  “What are you suggesting?” she finally managed to say.

  “Take a chance. Throw caution to the winds. Trust me completely, Annabelle.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You want to.” He stood up and held out his hand to her. “Tell me that you know I didn’t kill Lulu, then work with me to prove who did.”

  She glared at his offered hand, then looked up at him. “We’re already working together to find Lulu’s murderer. Isn’t the fact that I agreed to be your partner in hiring Griffin enough for you? If I truly believed you’d killed Lulu, do you think I’d have done that?”

  “Tell me. I need to hear you say it.” He hated the urgency in his voice, a pleading tone he hadn’t used since he was a kid. Was she aware of the fact that he was practically begging her to believe him? Until that very moment, he hadn’t realized how desperately he wanted Annabelle to believe in his innocence. And heaven help him, he honest-to-God didn’t know why.

  She stood slowly, as if fighting a battle within herself. When she faced him, only inches separating them, she tilted forward as if her body was drawn to his by some invisible magnet.

  “I don’t think you killed Lulu.”

  He let out the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. Exhilaration welled up inside him. He couldn’t explain how he felt except to say it was as if he’d been given a rare and precious gift. Annabelle’s trust.

  Quinn wanted to kiss her. Don’t do it, he told himself. Don’t even attempt it. If you touch her, you’ll want more than a kiss.

  “Sorry about that,” Griffin Powell said as he came out of the bedroom.

  Annabelle jumped as if she’d been shot and moved hurriedly away from Quinn. The tightly wound tension inside him momentarily coiled tighter and he had to fight the arousal that had been building since the moment he touched Annabelle.

  Griffin glanced from Quinn to Annabelle. “Is everything all right in here?”

  “Yes,” Annabelle replied.

  “Was that phone call anything we need to know about?” Quinn asked, eager to change the subject and take his mind off how much he wanted Annabelle.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Griffin suggested.

  “What is it?” Annabelle asked. “Whatever it is, just tell us.”

  “The Commercial Appeal is going to run an exposé on Lulu’s life in tomorrow’s paper,” Griffin said. “They’re going to show what they believe was the real Lulu, warts and all.”

  “Oh, God!” Sudden tears glistened in Annabelle’s eyes. “How much do they know? And will they really print things about her personal life knowing the family will sue the paper?”

  “They’re going to paint Lulu as a fun-loving party girl who handed out her sexual favors as if they were candy,” Griffin told them. “And my bet is they won’t print anything that can’t be substantiated. They will maintain that every word is the truth and not slander.”

  “But why would they—?” Annabelle asked.

  “To sell papers,” Griffin said, then looked right at Quinn. “And exposing the fact that Lulu had a legion of lovers will make it appear that Quinn, despite the fact he found her body, was only one man of many who might have had a motive to kill her.”

  “Are you accusing me of something?” Quinn asked. “Like leaking this story to the newspaper?”

  “The investigative reporter who’s doing the exposé on Lulu somehow found out that she was pregnant.” Griffin stayed focused on Quinn. “The police department or the ME’s office could have a loose-lipped employee, but according to my sources, someone in the law offices of Hamilton, Jeffreys, Lloyd and Wells made a phone call to the Commercial Appeal today.”

  “Kendall?” Quinn didn’t want to believe that his friend and lawyer—and his lover—would have done something that unethical, although it was something that under different circumstances, he might have done himself. In order to win, he’d always been willing to do whatever it took, no matter how underhanded or borderline illegal. “You think my lawyer leaked the news about Lulu’s pregnancy?”

  “There’s no way to prove it, of course,” Griffin said. “But, yes, I think Kendall Wells is planning ahead, just in case you are charged with Lulu’s murder. She’s smearing Lulu’s reputation now and keeping her own hands clean, thereby keeping yours clean, too.”

  “If Kendall did this—and I’m saying if—I didn’t know anything about it.” Quinn turned to Annabelle. “I swear to you that I had nothing—”

  “I can’t do this right now.” Annabelle held up a protective hand, warning him to stay away from her. “I’m going back to my suite. I need to contact some of our people and see if we can stop this exposé from coming out. It’s possible we have enough pull to influence the publisher. If not, we’ll have to come up with some da
mage control.”

  “Your cousin’s going to be exploited in the Commercial Appeal and your main concern is damage control for Vanderley, Inc.?” Quinn shook his head. “If that’s the case, then I think I’ve misjudged you. You’re not the woman I thought you were.”

  She pinned him with a stern, rueful look. “I don’t give a damn what people think of Lulu because she apparently didn’t care. If she had, she would have lived her life differently. But I do care that if Uncle Louis finds out the truth about his precious little girl, it will break his heart. The damage control I mentioned isn’t to apply a Band-Aid to Lulu’s public image, but to somehow keep the news from reaching my uncle, and if that fails, to convince him that everything being said about Lulu is a pack of lies.”

  Annabelle turned and practically ran to the door.

  Calling out her name, Quinn headed after her; but Griffin grabbed his arm, halting him.

  “Let her go,” Griffin said. “You can apologize to her later.”

  Quinn took the time during his drive to his newly leased Memphis house to collect his thoughts and allow his temper to cool. He could blame everyone else, but when it came right down to it, he had no one to blame but himself. He’d been the one who had insulted Annabelle, the one who’d mouthed off without giving her the benefit of the doubt. In his own defense, he could say that he had simply judged her by the other women he’d known, but he knew that defense wouldn’t hold water with her. She had taken a giant leap of faith and admitted to him that she believed he hadn’t murdered Lulu. And how had he repaid her? The very first time his faith in her was tested, he’d failed. Failed miserably. He had all but accused her of being a cold, heartless, business-first bitch. God, how could he have been so stupid?

  Was there any way he could repair the damage? Maybe if he crawled on his hands and knees over hot coals or broken glass, she might give him a second chance.

  Ask yourself why the hell you care? Annabelle Vanderley is just a woman. Attractive. Rich. Cultured. With a pedigree reaching back to Adam and Eve. He’d known her type before and had had his pick. So what if he’d seen her as a challenge. He’d conquered other women who’d been just as great a challenge, hadn’t he?

  Stop thinking about her. Concentrate on more important issues. He had to regain control of his life, even while being forced to remain in Memphis. Kendall had made an important decision—to leak information to the local newspaper about Lulu’s personal life—without discussing it with him first. They needed to talk. He’d make her understand that although she was his lawyer, he would have the final word in everything that affected him. But first, he needed to have a powwow with a couple of his loyal employees—one who’d ratted on another and one who’d bedded Quinn’s lover in Quinn’s own bed. After he confronted Marcy and Aaron, he would telephone Kendall at her office and leave a message with her secretary for her to call him.

  By the time he reached his home away from home, he had cooled off considerably and was thinking clearly. There was no need to rip into either Marcy or Aaron, but they both needed to be aware that in the future, he wouldn’t tolerate such behavior.

  When he unlocked the front door, he halfway expected Marcy to meet him as she often did. Instead the living room was empty and no one was there to greet him. Wondering if all three of them had gone out, he walked across the tile-floored foyer and toward the hallway. That’s when he heard voices coming from the kitchen, so he veered left and swung open the kitchen door.

  Jace was emptying the dishwasher and putting away dishes. Perched on a bar stool, Aaron hunched over the counter working on a crossword puzzle. Marcy was busy stirring what smelled like spaghetti sauce in a pan on the stove.

  Jace was the first one who noticed Quinn, who stood in the doorway studying the threesome. “Hey, Quinn, I thought you wouldn’t be back this soon. Did you finish up with that private detective?”

  “Yeah, we’re through for now,” Quinn said.

  Marcy turned the temperature down on the stove eye, laid the wooden spoon on a folded paper towel and studied Quinn for a moment. “What’s wrong? You’re glaring at me.”

  “Was I?” Quinn pulled out the second bar stool and sat down beside Aaron. “Maybe it’s your imagination. Or perhaps your guilty conscience.”

  Marcy flushed. Aaron looked up from the crossword puzzle. “What’s going on? Why should Marcy have a guilty conscience?”

  “I had a very interesting conversation with Griffin Powell. Would you believe that he knows more about my employees than I do?”

  “I know I should have told you myself,” Marcy said, a plea for understanding in her voice and in her eyes. “But I didn’t want to cause trouble between you and Aaron. We’re like a family and I was afraid that if you knew what he’d done, you would be hurt and angry and…”

  Aaron slid off the bar stool and inched away from Quinn, then grabbed Marcy’s arm and shook her. “What are you talking about? Who did you tell what about me?”

  Marcy jerked free of Aaron’s hold and looked back and forth from Quinn to Aaron. “I never would have said anything, but when Mr. Powell told me that it was important for the police to be aware of all the men Lulu Vanderley had been with for the past two months—”

  “Hellfire, Marcy, you didn’t!” Aaron stomped across the floor, shaking his head as he clenched and unclenched his hands. “You swore to me you’d never tell.” He paused, looked at Quinn and said, “Hey, she came after me. I swear. You know I’d never betray you. I tried to get away from her, but she just wouldn’t take no for an answer. God, man, I’m sorry. I—”

  “Aaron, what did you do?” Jace asked, a worried frown marring his handsome young features.

  Quinn slid off the bar stool, reached out and clamped his hand down on Aaron’s shoulder. “I don’t care that you fucked Lulu. Or knowing Lulu the way I did, I should probably say I don’t care that she fucked you. But the police are going to care that you had sex with her because Lulu was pregnant. Six weeks pregnant.”

  “Oh, God!” Jace’s face went white as a sheet. He nervously fiddled with his glasses, readjusting them farther up his nose.

  “You’re shitting me,” Aaron said. “Lulu was pregnant?”

  “The baby she was carrying could have been fathered by any man she had sex with five or six weeks ago,” Quinn told him. “Me, Randall Miller and you and God knows who else. The police think that maybe whoever fathered her child killed her. And right now they’re laying odds I’m the daddy.”

  “Don’t you see, that’s why I told Mr. Powell about Aaron being with her six weeks ago,” Marcy said. “So the police would know somebody else might have fathered her child. When Mr. Powell said she’d been pregnant—”

  A barfing sound came from the sink area. Quinn, Marcy and Aaron turned to see Jace throwing up.

  “Are you okay?” Marcy asked as she rushed to Jace and rubbed his back.

  Jace lifted his head, tore off a paper towel from the spindle rack and wiped his mouth. “Yeah, I’m okay. It must have been that burger I ate for lunch.” He turned on the faucets and washed out the sink, then tossed the paper towel into the garbage.

  “Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” Quinn said. “Everything is okay here. Nobody’s mad at anybody.”

  “I—I think I’ll go out, maybe ride around and get some fresh air.” He looked at Marcy. “Mind if I take the rental car?”

  “Go ahead,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about renting a second vehicle, maybe even one for each of us. Is that all right with you, Quinn?”

  “Sure, whatever you think y’all will need while we’re here,” Quinn said.

  “I’ll probably call the rental place and make arrangements for an SUV of some kind. It’ll be good for picking up supplies and all.”

  After removing his glasses and wiping them off with the edge of his sweater, Jace grabbed the car keys from the counter, then glanced at Aaron and said, “You shouldn’t have done it. Lulu Vanderley might have been a whore, but you had no r
ight to— She belonged to Quinn.” Jace ran out of the room, his glasses clutched in one hand.

  “Poor Jace, he’s so high-strung and emotional,” Marcy said.

  “He’ll be okay.” Aaron didn’t make eye contact with anyone else in the room. “And he was right about my screwing around with Lulu. Quinn, I’m sorry. I tried to steer clear of her, but a part of me wondered what it would be like to get it on with one of your women.”

  “You men are all alike,” Marcy shouted. “All you ever think about—no, scratch that. Y’all don’t think. At least not with your brain.”

  “Okay, now that everybody has had their say, let’s put this whole thing into the proper perspective and move on.” Quinn patted Aaron on the back and held out his hand to Marcy. When she came to him, he put his arm around both her and Aaron. “No more fighting among ourselves. We’re a team. Let’s act like one. Okay?”

  They both replied in unison, “Okay.”

  “Marcy, go rent yourself an SUV and, Aaron, if you need a vehicle—”

  “I don’t.” He shook his head. “Jace and I can share the car.”

  “If you change your mind, rent whatever you want.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I’ve got a phone call to make and then I’m going out again,” Quinn told them. “Don’t wait on me for supper tonight.”

  Thinking it might be safe now to leave Marcy and Aaron alone, Quinn walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. After removing his cell phone from his pocket, he sat down and dialed Kendall’s office number again.

  Marcy came out of the kitchen, a frosty mug in her hand. She set it on a granite coaster atop the coffee table, offered Quinn a halfhearted smile and disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms. Quinn eyed the iced tea. Wherever they were, Marcy always made certain she kept a pitcher of unsweetened tea made for him. Neither she nor the guys would touch the stuff, preferring traditional sweet tea. And Marcy knew he liked his tea, milk and most beverages served in a frosted glass, so she always kept glasses in the freezer.