The Marriage Conspiracy

by Christine Rimmer

  The camera around that neck swung as Dekker’s captive struggled.

  “Easy,” Dekker whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. We’re just going to have a nice little talk.”

  The body in his grip stopped fighting him. “Whatever you say…”

  Dekker knew that voice. He murmured a low oath. “Pollard.”

  “Got me.”

  “I thought you were a reporter.”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Man’s gotta make a living, Smith.”

  Dekker gave his captive’s arm a slight upward push. Pollard let out a sharp grunt of pain. Dekker whispered, “Who are you working for?” As if he didn’t already know.

  “Look. Could you ease off on the arm a little?”

  “I want some answers.”

  “You’ll get them. Just back the hell off.”

  Chapter 8

  Joleen heard a thud on the back porch. And then faint scuffling sounds, followed by the mutter of low voices.

  Dekker had found his man.

  She listened for the heavy thumps and pained grunts that would have indicated a brawl in progress. She simply was not going to put up with any brawl on her back porch.

  But no such noises occurred. So she kept her word and waited there on the floor of her bedroom, her back against the kitchen door, her knees drawn up to her chest.

  Dekker returned to her the way he had left. He appeared in the doorway to the bathroom.

  She gave a push with her feet and slid upright. “Well?”

  He pulled the door closed behind him. “For the moment our visitor is gone. Too bad we all know he won’t stay that way.” Dekker held out his hand. “I confiscated this.” A memory card sat in his palm.

  Joleen stared at it and thought about the long, sweet, not-deep-enough kiss she and Dekker had shared at her kitchen table—the kiss, she reminded herself, that had been purely for the reporter’s benefit. She wondered how many shots the man had taken through the kitchen window. Not that it mattered now, since Dekker had the memory card.

  Dekker turned from her. He broke the card in half and dropped it into the wastebasket by the closet door.

  Joleen went to the bed and sat on the edge. “I can see what you mean, about those reporters.” She flopped onto her back with a sigh. “They get old real fast.”

  Dekker was silent.

  She lifted her head off the bed and frowned at him. “What?”

  “That was no reporter, Jo.”

  She hauled herself to a sitting position again. “Then what?”

  “P.I.,” he said flatly. “Name’s Pollard. Dickson Pollard. Used to be on the OCPD. Now, he’s on the payroll at Ace Security, the biggest—and some say the best—agency in the city.”

  Joleen felt her skin crawl. “Robert Atwood.” Righteous indignation burned along her every nerve. “Robert Atwood hired him to spy on me.”

  “Jo. It’s not exactly a big surprise.”

  “That man has probably been takin’ pictures of me for weeks, hasn’t he? Peeking in my windows, spying on my life.”

  “Look at it this way. The situation hasn’t changed. You just know for sure now, that’s all.”

  She scowled at her friend. “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

  He came and dropped down beside her on the bed. “Because it’s a violation of your privacy, of your right to lead your life without people who mean less than nothing to you—total strangers—poking their damn noses in it.” There was heat in his voice.

  She found her own anger had worn itself out. Weariness took its place. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I think now I understand a little better how you’ve felt the last few days, with all those reporters following you everywhere you go. It’s not fun.”

  “No. It is not.”

  “And I guess, even though you took the card from his camera, that detective will still be reporting what he saw to Robert Atwood.”

  Dekker made a low noise of agreement. “No way to stop him—short of keeping him captive or murdering him.”

  “But that’s good, right? Robert Atwood will read in the papers that we are married. And Dickson Pollard will report that he saw us acting like newlyweds.”

  “Exactly.”

  They sat for a moment without speaking.

  Finally, Dekker muttered, “I’ll bet you’re beat. We should go to bed.” He started to stand.

  She realized she didn’t want him to go.

  And, now she thought about it, he probably shouldn’t go.

  She grabbed his hand before he could get away from her. “Dekker…” He let her pull him back down beside her. “It just occurred to me. Maybe you ought to sleep in here—I mean, in case that Pollard guy comes back. If you’re sleepin’ in the guest room, won’t that cause suspicion, about the two of us, about whether our marriage is the real thing or not?”

  “I’ll keep the light off and the shades down. You do the same. If Pollard does come back tonight, he won’t have a clue where either of us is sleeping.”

  That made perfect sense. She felt foolish, suddenly, for suggesting otherwise. She just knew her face was cherry red.

  “And after tonight,” he added, blessedly oblivious to her embarrassment, “for two weeks, we won’t be here to spy on. When we get back we’ll find a new house. I’ll make sure security there is state-of-the-art.”

  She forgot all about her red face. “We’re going to move?” Joleen loved her little house. Her uncle Stan, who made his living buying rundown houses, repairing them, and then selling them again, had found it for her. Uncle Stan had also made sure she got a great price and small mortgage payments. She’d put in a lot of time and tender loving care to fix it up just the way she wanted it. “We didn’t talk about moving.”

  “No, but we will have to move.”

  “Have to?”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You have a problem with moving?”

  “I, well, I suppose I thought that you could just…” She let the sentence trail off.

  He finished it for her. “Move in here?”

  “Is that so impossible?”

  “Come on, Jo. You’ve got one bathroom—accessible only through your bedroom and Sam’s.”

  “We could add another bath.”

  “Why not buy a bigger house, something more suited to the three of us? We can afford it. We can afford any damn house we want.”

  “But…” she began, then didn’t really know how to go on. What he said did make sense.

  “Jo.” He was shaking his head at her. His eyes looked so soft. “I know you love your house. But there are going to be changes. You have to accept that.”

  She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them. “You’re right. And I…I want us both to be happy with this marriage of ours.” She raised her head, gave him a smile. “We should live in a house we’ve chosen together.”

  Now his expression was the next thing to tender. “Did I ever tell you I like your attitude?”

  “Some call me anal. Can you believe that?”

  “Never.” He cupped the back of her head in his big hand and pressed his lips to her forehead. When he pulled away and met her eyes again, she could still feel that kiss on her skin, a sensation of sweet warmth and gentle pressure.

  He stood. “So who gets the bathroom first?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “I’ll be three minutes…max.”

  “No hurry.”

  “I’ll just go in and out through Sam’s room.”

  Awkward, she thought. This is awkward, the two of us, married but not married. Will it always be this way?

  No, she told herself. Of course not. They would grow accustomed to living in the same house, to each other’s day-to-day ways. They’d be like roommates, eventually. Roommates, only better. Because of the bond that had made them family to each other long before their marriage. Because they were the dearest of friends.

 
And their moving would ease the awkwardness, too. With a bigger house they could each have a lot more privacy.

  “Jo?” He was staring down at her, waiting for her to answer him.

  What was the question? “Oh. Sorry. Go ahead. Through Sam’s room.” He turned to leave her—and she stopped him before he could open the bathroom door. “Dekker.”

  He faced her again, lifted an eyebrow in an expression that said, What now?

  She shouldn’t have stopped him. Why had she done that? “Never mind. Go to bed.”

  “Not yet. You’ve got something on your mind. What?”

  “It’s stupid…”

  “What?”

  “Well, um, remember Lucy Doherty?”

  He was frowning, puzzled. And why shouldn’t he be? Lucy Doherty was a page from the distant past. She had gone away to college over a decade ago, married some med student and moved to Colorado, if Joleen remembered right.

  “What about her?” he asked.

  “Was that…were you in love with her?”

  He folded his arms over his broad chest. “Weird question.”

  She shrugged, to show him that she agreed with him. It was a weird question, and she shouldn’t have asked it. She wished she hadn’t.

  But she had, so she might as well get his answer.

  Not that he would give it easily. He said, “I was sixteen years old.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “I don’t get it. What made you think of Lucy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” Liar, a critical voice inside her head accused. You are a stone liar. “I was just wondering…” Wondering while you kissed me, remembering you and Lucy, the way I spied on you kissing her…

  Yes. That was the truth of it. His kiss had reminded her of watching him with Lucy. But she simply could not make her mouth say that truth.

  Why not? She could—and usually did—tell Dekker anything and everything. But somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him this particular truth, not right now, not tonight.

  You do not tell him everything, that critical voice insisted. And the voice was right. Somehow she’d never gotten around to telling him how she’d spied on him with Lucy, though it had happened almost fifteen years ago, was a meaningless incident, really, nothing to make a big deal over.

  Well, and now she considered the question, why should she have told him that? It was years and years ago. Before her father died, when she had felt…safe. Secure enough with her world and her place in it to do naughty things now and then. She had as good as forgotten all about it.

  Until tonight. Until Dekker had kissed her. Not deeply. But long…

  “Jo, are you all right?” He was watching her too closely, that frown of puzzlement still creasing his brow.

  She drew herself up. “I am fine. And it is late. Go to bed.”

  He lingered for just a moment, on the verge of saying more. But then he only muttered a good-night and left her, shutting the door carefully behind him, so that all she heard was the tiny click as the latch caught.

  Joleen turned off the lamp—Dekker had said they should keep the lights off—and she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on her bed to wait for him to have his turn in the bathroom.

  A minute or two later she heard him in there, heard the water running, heard the toilet flush. He finished, as he’d promised, in almost no time at all.

  There was silence from the other side of the door. The faint clicking sounds from the early-model digital clock on her nightstand seemed suddenly very loud.

  She should get up, wash her face, brush her teeth. But she just lay there, staring into the darkness.

  Joleen lifted a hand, touched the pads of her fingers first to the space between her brows and then, very lightly, to her lips. Her eyelids drifted down.

  She turned on her side and snuggled into the pillow.

  An interesting way to spend a wedding night, she thought as sleep came creeping up on her—alone in her own bed, touching the places her absent bridegroom had kissed….

  Chapter 9

  By morning the reporters had discovered the address of the Bravo Baby’s bride. A caravan of them followed the Lexus all the way to the airport.

  Dekker didn’t try to reason with them. He didn’t yell at them to get lost. He didn’t even rev up the Lexus and leave them eating his dust.

  When Joleen praised his self-restraint, he replied with obvious satisfaction, “Where we’re going, they won’t be able to get to us.”

  Joleen began to understand what her husband meant, when they arrived at the airport and she learned that Jonas Bravo had sent a private plane for them. More than a plane. A jet.

  “Jonas offered me the use of one of his planes when I flew home last week,” Dekker said. “I turned him down, told him a commercial flight would do just fine. And then I ended up spending the night at O’Hare, holding up DeDe’s wedding in the process. Not this time. If I have to learn to live with reporters tailing me everywhere I go, damn it, I’ll get there fast and in comfort.”

  They landed at Los Angeles International Airport at just a little past noon. A long, black limousine was waiting to take them to Jonas’s house in Bel Air.

  Angel’s Crest looked like the villa of some Mediterranean king. Of pinkish stone, with a red tile roof, the house crowned a hill at the end of a long curving drive lined in stately palm trees. From the back, which was visible most of the way up the drive, it was all carved stone archways, jewel-paned glass and glittering fountains. Also in back, across a spacious courtyard from the house itself, a rectangular swimming pool tiled in cobalt blue sparkled like a huge sapphire, catching and throwing back the golden rays of the southern California sun.

  The limousine topped the hill and drove around to the front, where the view was simpler than on the way up. The facade consisted of two wings of that pinkish stone, each with a double row of large windows, upstairs and down. The wings flanked an imposing portico a story taller than the rest of the house. The portico boasted a row of smooth stone pillars and a mosaic-tile floor.

  Beyond the giant, studded mahogany front door, a beautiful black iron staircase curved upward toward an arched ceiling three stories above.

  “Palmer,” said Dekker to the man who answered the door. “How are you?”

  “I am quite well, sir. Yourself?”

  “Fine. This is my wife, Joleen.”

  “Hi.” Joleen held out her hand.

  Palmer hesitated only a fraction of a second before clasping Joleen’s fingers and giving a quick squeeze. “A pleasure, Mrs. Bravo.”

  Sammy, who’d been clutching Dekker’s index finger and staring wide-eyed until then, stepped forward. “I Sam.”

  The butler gazed down at him and spoke gravely. “How wonderful to make your acquaintance, young man.” Palmer glanced up and met Joleen’s eyes. “Miss Mandy will be so pleased to find she has a…” He paused, stuck on the exact nature of the relationship.

  Joleen came to his aid. “Nephew. Mandy is Sam’s aunt. Stepaunt, I guess, if you want to get specific about it.”

  “Yes, of course. Her nephew. That’s right.” Palmer gestured toward the curving staircase. “May I show you to your rooms?”

  Dekker asked, “My brother…?”

  “He should be here soon, with Mrs. Bravo—that is, the other Mrs. Bravo. They’ve requested a late lunch—at two, in the small dining room, if that will suit you?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You remember the way to the nursery?”

  Dekker said he did.

  “If the boy is agreeable, you could take him there before proceeding to the dining room. Amanda’s nanny, Claudia, will watch them both while the adults enjoy a more leisurely meal than would be possible with the little ones in attendance.”

  Since Sam was usually pretty good in new situations, Joleen gave a qualified yes. “We’ll try it. Kind of play it by ear. See how he takes it.”

  “Whatever you decide. Just an option, you understand.” Palmer led
them up the stairs and down a couple of hallways, finally stopping to usher them into a spacious bed/sitting room. “I hope this will do.”

  The room took Joleen’s breath away. Lush floral fabrics covered the sofas and the bed. Gold-threaded brocade curtains spilled to the floor around the ceiling-high arched windows. A heavily carved gilt-framed mirror hung over a fireplace with a mantel that looked as if it might have once graced the private rooms of some decadent French king. Glass doors opened onto a terrace, which overlooked the city far below.

  Joleen found herself staring at the bed. It was huge, king-size at least, silk pillows piled high against the padded satin headboard. It was also the only bed in the room.

  “The closets and bath are through there.” Palmer gestured toward a door on a wall perpendicular to the one that led out to the hall. “And a room for the boy…” He strode over and opened a third door. “I had a bed with rails brought in—or is Sam still in a crib?”

  “He’s been in a bed for a couple of months now.”

  “Excellent. You’ll find a large bin of toys suitable for a boy Sam’s age in there, as well.”

  Sam picked up the important word, toys, and made a beeline for the room that had been set up just for him. Joleen followed as far as the door. She saw white-trimmed forest-green walls, a dark green rug on the burnished wood floor. It was cozy and inviting. And Sam was already digging into the toy box.

  Joleen turned back to the adults in the main room. “It’s just great,” she said to Palmer. “You have thought of everything.” Well. Everything except the fact that she and Dekker slept in separate beds…

  The butler nodded. “Also, there’s a smaller bath, on the other side of the child’s room.”

  “Thanks, Palmer,” Dekker said.

  “You are quite welcome, sir. Your bags will be brought up right away.”

  Palmer left them.

  Joleen felt Dekker’s eyes on her. “One bed,” she said softly.

  “Yeah.” His smile was rueful. “I noticed that.”