Hooked

by Polly Iyer

  “My mother? A psychologist would say Harry was trying to make a not-so-subtle connection that my interest in you was because my mother was a prostitute. That’s a load of Oedipal crap. My mother was a drug addict who turned tricks to pay for her habit. Was it a hard beginning for a kid? Yes. No question about it. She was sick and fragile and victimized. Was I fucked up about it? Sure. But I got over it, because you can’t let someone else’s mistakes ruin your life. She was the architect of her downfall, not me. But there’s a clear distinction between the women I’ve dealt with professionally and my mother, and an even a clearer distinction in my relationship with you. You? Ah, you were…different, right from the beginning.”

  She watched him, and he watched her. “Harry knew your motives were clear of any childhood connection, which is why he wanted me out of the way. That’s why, if he knew where I was, he’d have let that building come down on me. He bartered me in exchange for you.”

  “It backfired, didn’t it? With a simple slip of the tongue, Harry gave himself away. I almost didn’t notice it. I often wondered if subconsciously he wanted me to know. Russo’s meter was running down. Harry would be free. Almost. Except for me. He wouldn’t be completely free unless I forgave him.”

  Tawny smiled. “I see the psychology courses are working.”

  “Just trying to make sense of everything. I’ll never know the answers. Maybe I don’t want to know. I can’t let it ruin all the good things I remember.”

  “I wonder if Mario would have given up Harry in exchange for leniency.”

  “I doubt it. What he had with Harry was between the two of them. There’s that thing about honor among thieves. Mario Russo protected his own. It was built into his character.”

  “Unless he thought you betrayed him.”

  “And you did.”

  “Not really. I told it all to the police after. I suspected Rick Martell killed that girl, but I wouldn’t say anything until I had proof. If I’d spoken up, maybe everyone would still be alive. I’ve thought about that a lot.”

  He drew a long breath. “You couldn’t know how it would play out any more than I knew Harry was batting from both sides of the plate.”

  “Mario thought he had reason to kill me. He couldn’t bring himself to do it by his own hand, so he hired those two nitwits to do the job for him. Then he had to get rid of them too. Mario was who he was, who he was raised to be, but Benny and especially Eileen were much worse. I’m sure you read the statement I gave to the police. I told the prosecution I’d be happy to testify at their trials, but Harry got Benny to give up Russo for a deal. What’s more, he got him to give up his wife.”

  “Big deal about Russo. He gave up a dead man who never regained consciousness. A massive aneurism, the doctors said. Harry was free. I always wondered how much he knew about the inner workings of the mob. Did he know of any others like him? Traitors?”

  Tawny noted the bitterness in Walsh’s tone.

  “He made himself look good before he resigned, but it was a false show, and he knew I knew it. To his credit, Benny insisted none of his girls be charged as part of his plea bargain. Cut years off his sentence. Melody got probation, though.”

  “I heard that,” Tawny said. “Hooray for Benny.”

  “Eileen went down. She contracted the murders of innocent people to keep her in the good life. She deserved it, but I felt sorry for their kids.”

  “The innocent always suffer, don’t they?”

  A faraway look seeped into Walsh’s eyes, and then it was gone. “It happens,” he said. “The Cooper kids went with Benny’s sister. Eileen’s mother fought for them, but the courts decided the sister could give them a better environment. She was younger, well off, and she wanted them. Heard tell Eileen knew a few of the girls in prison from the old days, and Benny started teaching the guys inside how to make money in the stock market.”

  “Good luck with that,” Tawny said, laughing. “Leave it to that pervert. He can turn those lemons into lemonade, can’t he?” They both laughed, although none of what they were talking about was funny. They realized it at the same time and stopped laughing.

  There was so much to say. So much she wanted to tell him. “Strange thing, one of Benny’s girls was probably better at making money than he was. I put a chunk of what was left of my money with her before I took off, and she’s doubled it. All nice and legal. So I’m not flat broke.”

  “Maybe she can invest some money for me.”

  Tawny would never mention the money Rick Martell diverted went to dozens of charities, both local and national: rape crisis centers, homes for unwed mothers, and children’s shelters. All donated anonymously, and the only other person who knew would never tell. Like the particulars of her past, Lincoln Walsh didn’t need to know. Maybe some day she’d tell him. Maybe not.

  Walsh reached across the table and took her hand. “What about you? You’re back in the city. What are your plans?”

  “I’ve got a job with the museum, and not as a docent. I applied for a job as assistant curator for the classical wing, and they hired me. I start in April.”

  “Hey, that’s terrific,” Walsh said. “So you’ll be around awhile.”

  “No plans of leaving again.” She drained her coffee and poured some more. “What about us?” She raised her gaze to meet his. This time neither looked away.

  The wide grin of moments before softened, and his expression became thoughtful. “That night, when you laid it out for me―you know, about what you were and that I’d have to come to terms with it if we had something real. I gave it a lot of thought. How would I react if we were out to dinner and ran into someone you slept with?”

  “How would you react?” Tawny felt her heart thumping. Everything was coming down to this moment, to his answer. She lifted the mug to her lips and her hand shook. Liquid sloshed inside the cup.

  “I’d watch the man and know he was thinking―that I was the luckiest guy on earth.”

  She tried to smile, but all she wanted to do was cry. She hated blubbering women, had never been one. But that’s what she felt like doing. She breathed in and swallowed the sobs by sheer force of will. “That’s about the best answer you could have given.” She placed the mug down. “So where do we go from here? Help me, Walsh. I’m new at this relationship stuff.”

  “I’m kind of a novice myself, but I guess we start at the beginning, like all relationships―with a date. What are you doing for lunch? I know a great vegetarian restaurant not far from here. They even have tofu jerky.”

  Tawny broke up. She hadn’t laughed for so long she’d forgotten what joy sounded like. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me, but I couldn’t stay away.”

  He got up and pulled her to him. “I almost gave up hope you’d come back to fill that empty place in me with your name on it.” He kissed her, running his fingers through her hair.

  Tawny felt warm inside, her own empty spaces filling so full they were going to spill over. “I’m glad I came back too. After all, you saved my life. Doesn’t that kinda make me yours?”

  He tilted his head in contemplation. “Yeah, I guess it does. No more running away, Tawny Dell. We’re in this together from now on.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Polly Iyer is the author of six romantic suspense/thriller novels: Hooked, InSight, Murder Déjà Vu, Threads, and the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series—Mind Games and Goddess of the Moon. Learn more about Polly and her books at www.PollyIyer.com

  Read chapter one from Murder Déjà Vu

  Chapter One

  A Meeting of the Minds

  What did a man born rich and privileged look like after spending fifteen years in prison and another six hiding in these mountains? Dana pondered her question as she parked her Jeep in the gravel driveway next to a rough-looking pickup and skirted around the house to the back.

  Reece Daughtry sat in an Adirondack chair on the dock, reading. A johnboat bobbed in the lake, complete with fishing rod and tackle box. After swivelin
g around to see his intruder, he turned back to his book.

  She had her answer. Unshaven, leather-tanned, and lean, with dark blond hair heavily threaded with gray brushing his shoulders. Reading glasses perched low on the bridge of his nose. He struck Dana as more interesting looking than handsome, but he could be called that too.

  A booming voice echoed over the water. “What do you want?”

  “A fireplace.”

  “I’m not working now.”

  Undeterred, she kept going, waiting for him to tell her she was trespassing. He didn’t.

  A few well-fed cats poked their heads out of the greenery lining the rock stairs down to the lake. Another snuggled under his chair, and a three-legged mutt hobbled to greet her.

  “Hey, pooch, how’ya doing?” She bent down to rub him, and the dog wiggled his excitement. “Nice dog.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m not building fireplaces right now.”

  “I heard you. Doesn’t make me want one less.”

  “Come back in a year. Better yet, don’t.” He kept his nose in the book.

  She couldn’t help noticing his long, knotty fingers. Laborer’s hands, with rough skin and short clipped nails. Sinewy forearms like twisted rope. “What are you reading?”

  He glanced up. “You still here?”

  “Yup.”

  “Only a few people know where I live. Know why? So trespassers can’t come here and bother me. Let me guess who snitched. Old Harris big mouth.”

  “Don’t blame Harris. I saw the article he wrote on the house that featured your fireplaces. He warned me not to come, but I blackmailed him into telling me where you lived.”

  “You should’ve listened.”

  She moved closer and offered her hand. “Dana Minette.”

  He nailed her with a squinty glare. “Any relation to the prosecutor Minette?”

  She pulled back. “Not anymore.”

  “We had an ugly run-in years ago. He tried to stop the sale of this property to keep a convicted murderer out of his county. My attorney humiliated him; the judge ruled in my favor.”

  “Yes, I know. Robert is always looking for ways to get his name in the papers. He picked on the wrong person that time.”

  “He came here about a year ago. Said he had no hard feelings, and would I build him a fireplace. Can you beat that?”

  “I take it you jumped at the chance.”

  Daughtry pushed his reading glasses onto his forehead and focused on her for more than a split second. “You’re a smart-ass, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told.” Was that the beginning of a smile?

  “If he’s your ex-husband, you’re well rid of him. He’s an asshole.”

  “He’s my ex, and you’re not the first person to describe Robert in those exact words.” She plunked down on the dock, crossed her legs, Indian style. “You’re all excellent judges of character.”

  “He didn’t have nice things to say about you, which I thought rather ungentlemanly, since I didn’t ask. Said he was redoing his house after he dumped his ungrateful wife.”

  “He said that? Ha!”

  “Yup. His county, his house. Probably pissed you weren’t his wife anymore, even though it was his idea. Or so he said.”

  “It’s a long story. Twenty years long.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Me either. Will you build me the goddamn fireplace? The two pictures I saw in the Regal Falls magazine were the most unique works of art I’ve ever seen.”

  Daughtry stared at her a long time with the clearest, most intense blue eyes. “Your ex wanted a fireplace in the worst way. Said he’d double whatever I charged.”

  “I bet when you held out, he doubled the amount again.”

  His smile was unmistakable now. “How would your ex feel if I built one for you?”

  “Talk about being pissed off.”

  * * * * *

  Reece went into the house as soon as Dana Minette left. She was a piece of work. A very nice-looking piece of work. He could go for a woman like her, but a woman’s what got him twenty to life, and he sure as hell didn’t need any more trouble. Whenever he felt the urge, he drove to one of the larger cities within a hundred-mile radius—Asheville or Charlotte—put up in a motel, and found someone to satisfy his sexual needs. No entanglements. No emotional attachments. He could do it by himself—he had years of practice—but he never found that a satisfying substitute for the warmth of a woman’s body or the touch of soft skin. That was the way it had been for the six years since he got out of prison and how it would be from now on. He’d even adapted to the loneliness. Had plenty of practice with that too.

  The three-legged dog nuzzled his leg. Reece never named any of the dogs or cats roaming his property. They were there, and he fed them. “Hey, Pooch. She gave you a good name, didn’t she?” He leaned down and rubbed the dog’s neck. He’d found the beagle cross lying on the side of the road, near death, taken it to his vet, and had it treated and fixed. He did that with every abused or emaciated animal he came across. Electronic fencing and collars kept them inside his property so they couldn’t wander off and wind up like Pooch, or worse. Reece debated whether he was imprisoning them, but dead was more of a prison than contained, though he disliked the thought of either.

  The phone rang. He let it go to the answering machine. When he heard the voice, he picked up. “Hey, Carl.”

  “Deciding whether you feel like answering your phone, big brother?”

  “I couldn’t check the number in time.” Sometimes Reece answered, sometimes he didn’t, depending on his mood. Carl knew that.

  His brother laughed.

  “What’s up?” Reece noted the hesitation. “Carl?”

  “Dad’s in the hospital. He had another heart attack.”

  Reece stiffened at the mention of his father, a reaction over which he had no control. “What do the doctors say?”

  “It doesn’t look good. He’s conscious but weak. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Well, keep me informed.”

  “Jesus, Reece. That’s cold. Your father is dying and all you can say is ‘keep me informed’?”

  “We’ve gone over this a hundred times. Sorry, but I can’t fake that I care. Wish I could, but that’s not my style.” He pulled a beer from the fridge.

  “You’re still his son.”

  Reece wanted to laugh, but the humor eluded him. “He should have thought about that twenty-one years ago.” He took a long draft from the bottle. It did nothing to cool his heat.

  “He could have handled it differently, I agree, but―”

  “Look, I’ve gotta go. Let me know when it’s over.”

  Reece clicked the off button before Carl could argue. He finished the beer, then took another. He’d worked hard over the years to control his anger and sense of betrayal, but times like these brought them back like a knife twisting in his belly. How could he forget? One day he and Carl were drawing up plans to expand the family’s home-building business—Reece, the architect, designing a new type of energy-efficient structure; Carl the business head, making them affordable. The next day he was locked in a cement cell with the echoing sound of steel doors clanging shut to keep him rotting inside. One day he had dozens of friends; the next only Carl and his mother stood in his corner. When he saw the toll it took on his mother to sneak away and visit, he asked her not to come any more. That, more than anything, had torn him up.

  Now she was gone, and he hoped the old bastard would soon follow, freeing him of at least part of the rage that consumed him and, yes, the hatred for the old man he carried in his chest like one of his stones. How could he feel anything for a man who believed his son capable of slicing a woman’s throat, almost severing her head from her body? Who probably still believed it with his dying breath?

  Reece looked around the house he built with his own two hands. Stone and wood and glass. It fit the new life he’d made for himself. A life he liked. He wasn’t designing the
buildings he’d envisioned all those years ago, except for his own, but he was creating something he considered beautiful. Others thought so too, which gave him pleasure. He worked when the spirit moved him, nourished his passion for reading, fished, and ran the mountain roads—all the things he couldn’t do inside, except for the reading, which had saved his sanity.

  His thoughts roamed back to Dana Minette without conscious effort. He couldn’t decide whether she was cute, pretty, or beautiful, though his skill judging women was twenty-one-years rusty. He didn’t score the trifecta in honky-tonk bars, but he wasn’t after looks in those places.

  Dana Minette possessed something quite different. Determination, humor, and warmth, all wrapped up in an attractive package about sixty-three inches in height. Better still, she didn’t appear the type to genuflect for money or position. So how did a creep like Robert Minette get a woman like her to stay with him for twenty years?

  He remembered the first time he saw Minette, with his white-collared, pin-striped shirt, suspenders, and shiny suit. The man had done everything to rally the townspeople against the murderer who wanted to live among them. Reece had run too far and too long to run again. He fought Minette and won. So where did the lawyer find the nerve to drive into his yard, say he had no hard feelings, and act like Reece should fall at his feet and say Yassuh, Masser.

  “No one refuses Robert Minette,” he’d said, slicked-back hair glistening in the morning sun. “Robert Minette gets what he wants.”

  Reece laughed and ordered him off his property. The attorney stormed away in his Escalade, a spray of gravel spitting from its tires.

  Not this time, bub, and good riddance to you.

  Acknowledgements

  To my good friend and critique partner, romantic-suspense author, Ellis Vidler, for her constant support, encouragement, and generosity. She’s forgotten more about writing than I’ll know in my lifetime. To mystery and romantic-suspense author, Maggie Toussaint, a writing partner who is strong where I’m weak, and whose excellent critiques made this a much better book. And to mystery author, Lynda Fitzgerald, whose critiques added so much to the final manuscript. To my family who cheered me on, and to my friends who rooted for my success, my heartfelt appreciation. I hope I haven’t let you down.