“Ten million ought to do it,” she said, smiling at him like the Cheshire cat. She knew he had no choice in this matter and relished the shocked look on his face.
“You’re crazy,” he said, practically laughing at the ridiculousness of her request. She might as well have said a trillion dollars. “You’re positively certifiable. I don’t have that kind of money. Do I even look remotely like Bill Gates?”
“I’m sure you don’t have it buried in Kevin’s backyard, or stuffed into a mattress, but you could get it. Just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers to demonstrate. “All it would take would be a phone call to that old bitch and a promise to take your place in the family business and you’d be set. And I’d be gone.” She finished softly, sitting up and leaning forward to watch him more closely.
“Who are you? Satan?” He asked, only half-joking. She didn’t actually think he would return to the life he’d abandoned ten years ago, did she? “I’m not going back there. I belong here.”
“Fine,” she said, sharply. “Then we’re still married and you can forget about that girl. Shouldn’t take to long to find someone else. After all, it took you three years to find her. The next Miss Perfect is right around the corner, I’m sure,” she said with acid in her voice.
Duncan sighed in exasperation. This couldn’t really be happening. “Kerry, just name a reasonable amount and I’ll agree to it. We’ll never have to see each other again.”
Kerry gave him a pitying look. “Sorry, but why would I be content with a reasonable amount when I can have a completely unreasonable amount.” Her eyes gleamed with avarice, imagining all that money at her disposal. “You have no idea how expensive my lifestyle is. Whatever your ‘reasonable’ amount is, it probably wouldn’t even keep me in shoes,” she said with an resentful sniff.
“No one needs ten million dollars,” Duncan said in disbelief.
“I do. I was married to you for ten years which makes me entitled to it.”
“You make it sound like being married to me was some kind of hardship. Like you deserve danger pay, or something.”
“Well, compared to what I expected, it was a hardship.”
“What do you mean?” Was she finally going to be truthful and admit she was a gold-digger? It didn’t seem possible. She liked to keep her options open, and admitting that she had scammed him would positively ruin any chance at ever squeezing another cent out of him.
“Very simple. I married you because I wanted something better.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked at him without even a glimmer of guilt. “You really should have figured this out by now. Don’t you remember what it was like for me before you agreed to marry me? I lived in a trailer with my four brothers, while my mom worked as a waitress. You were my ticket out of there. Until you decided to be a cop.” She said in disgust. “I mean, who decides they want to be a cop when they’re from one of the wealthiest families in Canada? Why did you have to be such a loser?”
“I told you before we got married that I wanted to be a cop,” Duncan said stiffly.
“Yeah, but how was I supposed to know you were serious? No one with all that gorgeous money at their disposal decides to give it up to go to the police academy. I thought you’d come to your senses when we got married. Man, was I stupid.”
“And the baby?”
“Oh my God. You have got to be kidding.” Kerry looked at him in shocked disbelief. “No, there wasn’t a baby.”
“You lied about everything. Kev was right.”
“Kevin? Yeah, he probably had it all figured out. I can’t believe he never told you.”
“He hinted, but I didn’t believe him.” Didn’t want to believe him, Duncan thought. “At least not until he brought it up again this week.”
“You still talk to him? Man, did I ever miss the boat on that one. He’s an author now, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t make enough for you.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to marry him. Besides I’ll have your money, I won’t need his. The Kevster and I had some good times in high school.” She looked away from Duncan dreamily. “He might be interested in comforting me through my divorce,” she ended nastily.
“Trust me. He wouldn’t throw a bucket on you if you were on fire.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said with a knowing smile. “Now, are you going to call your grandmother or what?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Well, then I guess I’m here for the duration,” she said getting up and slinking past him. She pointed to her suitcase. “Can you bring this in?” She asked, walking briskly toward his bedroom. “This place isn’t exactly up to my standards, but it’s really too late to find a hotel. Be a dear and bring me some fresh sheets will you? The smell of cheap perfume gives me a headache.”
“Jessie doesn’t wear perfume.”
“Well, something smells like an Avon factory exploded in here,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face as if to fan away an offensive odor.
Duncan followed her to the bedroom and put his hand on the jamb to prevent her from opening the door. There was no way this thing was sleeping in his bed, or his house. She looked up at him resentfully, opening her mouth to protest. He gave her a sharp look and her mouth closed, the lips tightening to an even thinner line. “Not so fast.” Duncan said evenly. “I’m not a bellhop or a maid. And I never invited you to stay. You can just toddle your ten million dollar ass back downstairs and catch a cab to whatever overpriced, unscented hotel will take you in this time of night. Because you are not sleeping here.”
Kerry gaped at him and began to sputter, but Duncan cut her off. “I mean it, get out.” None too gently, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the front door. He paused long enough to pick her purse up off the couch and drape it over her head. He opened the door wide and pushed her out into the hallway, nudging her suitcase after her with one bare toe. “Now, I’m gonna call a cab for you, and it should be there waiting for you soon. Don’t leave the lobby until you see it, okay?”
She nodded mutely as he began to close the door. Just as it was about to shut completely, she put out her arm to stop its progress. Duncan was tempted to just push it closed, but didn’t want to hurt her, so he allowed her to block his efforts to shut the door in her face. “You can’t seriously think I’d allow you to treat me like this,” she hissed, regaining her voice after the shock of Duncan actually standing up to her. “Just wait. I’ll have my money. You’ll give in. You always do.”
“Not this time,” he said, quietly. “Call me tomorrow with a better offer and I’ll see what I can do. Until then, don’t come near me or this place.” He pushed on the door gently and Kerry’s furious face was gone. But her curses rang through the door for several minutes. Once or twice, she kicked the door with her pointy-toed shoes. Glad that his nearest neighbor was away in Boca Raton, Duncan firmly slid the chain on the door and walked out to the patio. Him and Hannibal had a long night ahead of them, figuring out what to do about the various women in their lives.
Chapter 23
Forgotten Treasures was closed twelve days for repairs. The stained glass window sustained the worst of the damage, but had been replaced the first week. Without Jessie’s permission, Clay had convinced the artist, Joseph, to modify the design, so now instead of just a bright purple and green dragonfly caught in flight, there was also a pale peach rose depicted in the window. Jessie had been furious at first, but hadn’t wanted to explain why the rose was so painful for her to look at, so she left it and tried not to look at it too often.
At the end of the week, the store looked as good as new, but Jessie just couldn’t make herself open it to the public. Not just because of Diego. They’d hired a hulking, library sciences student named Cal to work in the store with Jessie in the mornings, so vulnerability to Theresa’s former manager wasn’t the problem. It was Duncan she couldn’t face. As long as the store was closed, he couldn’t confront her in person. He’d left numerous phone
messages asking for an opportunity to explain, but Jessie ignored them all. Even the very pricey first edition of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover he’d found on ebay didn’t persuade her to contact him. The exquisite hardcover copy just sat on the cashier’s desk, untouched and unread.
As the days passed, the phone calls dwindled, along with the pain of Duncan’s betrayal. Unsuccessfully, Jessie tried to convince herself it was no big deal. She’d lost her virginity as planned. She should be happy that he’d provided her with such a perfect excuse to avoid him. She would go on with her life, having gained some valuable knowledge in the physical side of love, but also more wary of the emotions involved.
She’d only known him two and a half days, how much of an impact could he make in that short a time anyway? Huge impact, her little voice whispered, massive, life-altering impact. Call him, you moron. She ignored it, as usual, and went about her days keeping busy and avoiding thoughts of brilliant blue eyes, warm smiles, and teasing laughter. Those things weren’t for her. Work was for her, and she delved into it with a vengeance in an effort to forget.
A week and a half after the night Jessie left Duncan’s apartment in tears, the store was still closed. Clay and Jamie were both sitting on the cashier’s desk at Forgotten Treasures watching Jessie clean the store like Martha Stewart on speed. They shook their heads dismally at each other as she kneeled on top of a bookshelf and rubbed Pledge into its pine surface to make it gleam, uncaring that no one would ever see the top of a twelve-foot shelf. She wore a red kerchief on her head like Aunt Jemima, gigantic overalls, and a man’s blue plaid shirt. In other words, she looked more like a drudge than ever. Worst of all, she was not participating in their debate over what had happened between her and Duncan.
Jessie was completely mum on the subject, which drove Clay and Jamie completely insane without curiosity. She wasn’t speaking much at all about anything, no matter how much they attempted to engage her in conversation. She just offered some vaguely polite responses and went back to making the store as clean as an operating room.
Whatever had happened with Duncan, Clay and Jamie knew it was bad when Jessie refused to come to the phone when Duncan called, and surreptitiously disappeared into the storage room whenever a delivery was made. Their hunger for gossip piqued, they theorized endlessly about what had caused this rift between the two lovebirds.
“He was impotent. I’ll bet that was it,” Jamie said to Clay, holding her wrist at a limp angle as a visual aide to her theory. Conservatively dressed for cleaning today, Jamie wore tiny white overalls with nothing but a pink tube top on underneath. Instead of her customary stilettos, she was sporty in Keds with four-inch platform heels.
Clay watched Jessie furiously polish the corner of the nearby bookshelf she was perched on. “He didn’t look like the in-need-of-viagara type to me, if you get my meaning.” He held his own hand up at an erect angle and wiggled his pale eyebrows. “I’ll bet he was kinky. Wanted her to powder and diaper him like a baby or something.” He stuck his thumb in his mouth and rocked back and forth to demonstrate.
Jamie gave him a disgusted look. “No way. Where do you get this stuff, anyway?”
“Springer, of course. But I’m telling you, these controlling types really get off on being babied. High-powered executives and decision makers just love being coddled.” He called up to Jessie, “Did he have a big cradle instead of a bed, Jess? Was that it?” Jessie just glared down at him and continued cleaning.
“I know,” Jamie said excitedly, grabbing Clay’s arm to get his attention. “How about a foot fetish. Maybe he wanted to lick her shoes or something over-the-top like that.”
“That’s stupid,” Clay said, giving her a contemptuous look. “Foot fetishes are so nineties. Cross-dressing is the hot perversion right now.” He threw a pen lid up at Jessie, narrowly missing her nose. “Did he want to wear your panties? Was that it? C’mon, Jess. Enquiring minds want to know.”
Jessie edged onto the ladder and slowly stepped down until she was on eye level with both her tormentors. “You guys are way off,” she said, wiping her hands down the front of her overalls. “No perversions or freakish behavior occurred. That’s all I’m saying.” They both looked at her with shock. “I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about it.” It was tempting to just tell them Duncan was married, but the thought of the confrontation that would ensue from this revelation horrified her. She also knew Jamie would feel compelled to pay a visit to Duncan if she found out about his wife, and the humiliation of that encounter would be too embarrassing to comprehend. It was better to keep her mouth shut.
Clay jumped off the counter and held his arms out to her. “Just a hint. That’s all I’m asking.”
Jessie rolled her eyes and pointed her cleaning rag at them both. “Why are you two so interested in this? I did what you wanted. I got out there like a trooper and lost my virginity. Problem solved. Now, can we just forget about it please?” Just once, she wished she had a nice polite family like the ones on television that backed off when they were asked. Instead she was plagued by the familial version of the Spanish Inquisition.
Clay held out his hand as if to shake hers. “Hi, have we met? My name is Clay and no, we can’t just forget about it. I’m your friend, and this gorgeous vixen is your sister.” He made a sweeping gesture in Jamie’s direction, “And as such, you’re obligated to tell us everything of interest that happens to you. Ever. Please proceed,” he said, crossing his arms and waiting expectantly for her to tell her story.
“Funny, I don’t remember signing any contract to that effect,” Jessie said, smiling despite herself. Even when he was annoying, Clay amused her.
Jamie rolled her eyes and tapped both feet against the desk to get their attention. “Look, Jess, what the stud-muffin here is trying to say is that we will not let up until you tell us what we want to know. We’re the Terminators of gossip. You should know this by now. So, why don’t you save us all some time and just let loose,” Jamie said, shrugging her shoulders in exasperation. “Besides, confession is good for the soul. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I feel fine, but thanks for the concern for my eternal soul. Very selfless of you both.” Jessie shifted the ladder to the next aisle and began climbing up to the next shelf. From their position on the desk, Jamie and Clay could just see her head and shoulders. The closest shelf blocked the rest of her body from their view.
Clay and Jamie looked at each other for a second until Clay nodded at her to proceed. “But Jessie, you’re not fine,” Jamie called up to her sister. “You’re not fine at all. You’re on autopilot again.” Jamie lowered her voice slightly. “Just like after Mom and Dad died.”
Jessie just sighed and shook her head as she sprayed Pledge on her cloth. Why hadn’t her sister taken history or drama instead of psychology? This constant analysis was driving her batty. Trying to sound calm and steady instead of angry and demented, she said slowly, “Jamie. You have no clue what you’re talking about.” She began rubbing the white cloth over the top of the shelf. Despite her resolution to keep her emotions detached, her voice began to rise. “How can you compare what happened with them to what happened with Duncan? I barely knew the man.” She stopped rubbing long enough to give her sister a dirty look. “And I’m not on autopilot. I’m just a little overwhelmed. I mean, my store was destroyed and a psycho pimp threatened me. I’m entitled to feel a bit off, aren’t I?”
“I suppose, but I don’t think that’s the reason you’re all wigged out. You’ve lost something and this is how you cope. You retreat. It doesn’t matter how long you knew him, you cared for him and now that he’s gone from your life, you’re grieving.” Jamie shrugged like it was elementary to her and looked to Clay for approval. He nodded his agreement and hopped back up beside Jamie on the counter to present a united front.
“She makes a good point for once, Jess. Maybe you should listen to her,” Clay said, sounding atypically surprised and impressed. “And we might even be able to
help you deal with it if you tell us what happened,” he added hopefully.
“Clay, seriously, do not be sucked in by her psychobabble. She talks a good game, but she’d clueless.” Jamie looked affronted, but Jessie continued. “I’m not grieving for someone I barely know, and I’m definitely not ‘wigged out.’” She sat comfortably on top of the shelf and looked at them steadily. “And once again, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. And, I don’t want you two to talk about this anymore either. At least not while I’m around. Duncan is gone from my life and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. Okay?”
They mumbled an ‘okay’ but Jessie could tell, their hearts weren’t in it. This subject was only on temporary hiatus. She just wished she could turn off her thoughts of Duncan so easily, if only for a little while.
There was a tentative knock on the door. Jessie jumped like the noise had startled her, and then scrambled down the ladder. She was headed for the storeroom when she noticed that Clay and Jamie weren’t moving to answer the door. She paused and stared at them, “C’mon, Clay. Get the door. We’re expecting that shipment from the Flanagan’s estate sale.” Clay just shook his head without moving another muscle. Jessie made a frustrated “Urgh,” and turned to Jamie. “Jay, can you, please?” She asked in a wheedling tone as the knock repeated itself.
Jamie just smiled at Jessie’s predicament and mirrored Clay’s crossed arms and shaking head. “No way. You’ve been darting off to the storeroom like a startled rabbit every time someone knocks. It’s time to face your fears. I’m not your co-dependant here.”
“You two are just plain nasty,” she said, stomping toward the door. “I’ll remember this next time you ask me for a favor.” She put her hand on the knob and held her breath as she unlocked it and pulled it open a crack to see who was outside. Her breath came out in one long sigh of relief when she saw Theresa standing out there. The girl was smiling shyly at her and holding out a package. “Theresa,” she said in surprise as she pulled the door open. “It’s so good to see you. I can’t believe you’re still here.” She peered behind the blond girl as she gently tugged her into the store, but there was no sign of Duncan. She felt oddly disappointed despite her resolution to stay away from him.
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