Private Lives

by Karen Young

  “I don’t want to wake Jesse if possible. This is all she needs to convince her there’s no safe place on the planet for her.”

  “Oh. Right. That’s good.” He sounded as if he had to concentrate to manage a calm tone. “Here, I’ll close the door.”

  “Wait, let me get my robe.” Still shaken to the core, she went into her room and scooped up the silk kimono that lay at the foot of her bed. Jesse, thankfully, was still sound asleep. Moving silently, she slipped on the kimono, but her hands seemed all thumbs when she tried to tie the sash. Seeing it, Ryan gently moved her hands aside and finished the job for her. His own hands, she noticed, weren’t completely steady either. They’d all had a good scare.

  He then pulled the door to very quietly, put an arm around her and guided her toward the den. “Thank God you got here so fast,” she said, her voice shaky. “I don’t know what I would have done if he’d come into my bedroom.”

  “Yeah.” At the den door, he flipped on a light and she saw his face. He looked furious. Now, in the light, she saw that the French doors stood wide-open. “Oh! Did you do that?”

  “I came in that way, but so did your trespasser,” he said in an even tone.

  “But how? I thought everything was locked up. And I set the alarm, too. Why didn’t it go off?”

  “Damn good question.”

  Archie materialized out of the night and dashed inside the open door, quivering with excitement. Behind him, Louie appeared holding a piece of an electronic device. “Looks like your alarm system was deactivated at the source,” he said.

  Ryan was already examining the door frame. He was scowling when he turned to look at Elizabeth. “There’s no evidence that he jimmied the lock here. Did you lock these doors after I left?”

  Chagrined, she realized she couldn’t remember. She’d been rattled by his kiss and all that he’d said. She thought back. Then Cody’s mother had called and she’d hurried to answer the telephone because phone calls upset Jesse. She might not have locked those doors. “I’m not sure,” she said and she could see in his eyes that Ryan guessed the reason why. Or part of it. Wisely, he said nothing.

  Louie came inside and closed the doors behind him. “Is Jesse okay?”

  Elizabeth could at least be confident of that. “She’s asleep in my bed. She didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Did you get a look at him, Lizzie?”

  “No, I only saw shadowy movement as he crept up the stairs.” She rubbed her arms briskly, recalling the terror of that moment. “I was out of bed because something about Archie’s bark was unusual. I was going to take a look at your house from my window.” She reached down and gave the dog a pat. Archie, his job done, flopped down at their feet and rested his head on his paws. “Did either of you see him?”

  Louie gave a rueful shake of his head. “Not me. The minute I released Archie, he was off like a shot, but my days of running at that speed are long gone.” He jerked his head toward Ryan. “And Ryan was hell-bent to get to you. So, looks like whoever it was got away.”

  “It wasn’t necessary to get a look at him,” Elizabeth said, sinking onto an ottoman. Suddenly her legs didn’t feel strong enough to keep her upright. “I know who it was. He headed upstairs because he assumed Jesse would be in the bedroom she shared with Gina. Thanks to Austin, she’s so traumatized that she’s afraid to sleep alone now,” she ended on a bitter note.

  “Austin.” Louie shook his head in disgust. “You see any flaw in her logic, Ryan?”

  Ryan’s gaze as he stared beyond them into the night was dark and intense. “It probably was Austin. He’s just stupid enough to try something as reckless as kidnapping his own daughter.”

  “I told you a restraining order wouldn’t be enough to stop him,” Elizabeth said bitterly. “He’s desperate and for good reason. The consequences for violating a legal document aren’t as serious as being implicated in Gina’s death.” She shot a look at Ryan. “He knows that Jesse can do that once she feels safe enough to talk again. It’s the only thing to explain why he’d do something as risky as this.”

  Neither of the men contradicted her. At that moment, a clock on the mantel began striking the midnight hour. She looked at it as if it couldn’t possibly be right. It seemed as if the night should be far more advanced. She stood up. “It’s late. Thank you both for responding the way you did. Louie, you should have been in bed two hours ago.” She watched him get creakily to his feet, then glanced at Ryan, who still looked as if he wanted to smash something. “He must have roped you into a game of chess,” she said.

  “Chess,” Ryan repeated with a look at Louie that was impossible to read. “No, we didn’t actually play that game tonight, but I bet you’re good at it, Louie.”

  “Lizzie’s pretty good, too,” Louie said. “C’mon, Archie, we’re heading home, boy.”

  “I’ll pick up those files in a few minutes,” Ryan told him. “I’m going to make a check of the house to be sure Austin didn’t leave himself a way to enter another time. I don’t think he’ll try again tonight.”

  “Do you think that’s necessary?” Elizabeth asked a few minutes later as Ryan came down the stairs. He’d already canvassed the entire lower floor of the house, running his fingers over the tops of the windows, checking the locks. He’d even gone into the garage. “I really don’t think he had time to go anywhere except that one bedroom.”

  “Humor me.” Ryan still had a brooding look about him. “I feel responsible. I’d stay the night if possible, but I can’t leave Jen alone.” His smile, when it came, was unexpected. He seemed briefly amused as he fiddled with the controls on the defunct security system. “She’s already reading something into the fact that I can find no end of excuses to be here.”

  Elizabeth put her fingers over her mouth, hiding a smile. “Oh, no.”

  He turned, cutting a sharp look at her. “You think it’s funny?”

  She gave a tiny shrug, but her eyes were bright with humor. The terror that had prompted the panicked call to Louie’s house was gone. She wasn’t the only one shaken by the incident. He wouldn’t soon forget how he’d felt when her call came.

  “What did you mean,” she asked, “by saying you feel responsible tonight?”

  He snapped the cover shut on the electronic gadget. “I should have waited to see that you locked the French doors tonight when I left.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It was totally my own fault. I’ve lived alone since the age of eighteen. The thing is, I was—”

  She stopped, but before she could move away, he caught her chin in his hand and turned her face up and looked into her eyes. “You were what?” he asked huskily. “Upset? Dizzy from a kiss? All shook up?” He chuckled softly. “Well, honey, that’s my excuse, too. It was all I could do to leave without finishing what we started.” His gaze strayed down to her mouth.

  “Ryan—”

  “Umm, I love it when you say my name.” His mouth came down on hers then, not with the care he’d taken on the patio, but with a deliberate demand that plunged them both instantly into a vortex of sensation. Her arms went up and around his neck. Her mouth was soft and sweet, opening to his with a hunger that matched his own. Embracing her more fully, he wedged a leg between hers and took the kiss deeper. Heat pooled heavily in his groin. He wanted to see more of her, needed to touch her in more intimate places. He slipped the knot of the kimono and pushed it away from her shoulders onto the floor so that all she now had on was the skimpy little gown.

  He’d been on an adrenaline high when he’d crashed into her bedroom tonight, but he hadn’t been too far gone to miss the look of her in that little gown. He hooked a thumb around a spaghetti strap and bared her breasts. And when he bent and took a nipple in his mouth, she moaned, a low and throaty sound. The taste of her was almost as good as the scent of her, intoxicating, arousing him on some purely elemental level. The bed, he thought. He needed to carry her to the bed and put an end to the craving in both of them.

  Oh, God, not possible.
Jesse was in the bedroom and if they went upstairs—on the off chance Liz would go—Jesse might wake up and come looking for her. God damn. With a groan, he sought her mouth again like a hungry man whose chance at a banquet had been seized. Then, unwilling to stop altogether, he let his mouth trail down her throat. He pushed her little scrap of a gown even lower and gave himself the pleasure of roaming a hand over the flat of her stomach. She was like satin, warm, enticing, tantalizing. Then, unable to resist, he went lower and found the sweet, glorious heat of her.

  She made an urgent, keening sound and he smiled to himself. Oh, yes. Open for me, sweetheart. Let me. He chanted it soundlessly, urging her beyond her conscious mind, knowing if he broke the spell with a word, she would come to herself and it would end. But if he couldn’t have all of her tonight, he wanted to give her something to remember. And something to hold him until he could have all of her.

  Elizabeth clung to him weakly, feeling his fingers like torture—wild, irresistible torture at the heart of her—moving mercilessly, giving no respite. There was too much happening to stop it now. “Let go, Liz,” he murmured. “Let me give you this. Just let go.”

  And then the pleasure erupted in a flood of sensation, rushing over her, through her, stealing her mind, her breath, her everything. He shuddered with her, pressing her head with one hand hard against his throat as she reached her peak and then holding her as she slid weightlessly, bonelessly back into reality.

  “Oh, my God,” she said long, long moments later. She couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look at him.

  It took some effort, but he smiled against her hair. “Was it that good?”

  “I’ve never—”

  “Yeah, well, you could have fooled me.” He could barely speak. It had been an awesome moment when she came. He chuckled soundlessly. She owed him now. Oh yeah, she owed him. He felt her shoulders shaking and realized she was laughing, too. “What?”

  “Do you always bring your women to their knees with sex?”

  His smile broadened. “That part comes later.”

  She pushed back then and looked up into his face, going all serious on him. “This doesn’t mean anything, Ryan. We were both under a lot of strain tonight. Add that to…everything else and…something like this happens. We shouldn’t rush into anything.” She took the kimono he held out to her wordlessly and clutched it to her body. She smoothed her hair. She held one slightly unsteady hand to her cheek. “Shouldn’t you be heading over to Louie’s?”

  He studied her, knowing she’d have some trouble coming to grips with what she’d allowed. But he could live with that. “Okay. But this time, I’m waiting until I hear the sound of the dead bolt on those doors.”

  And for the second time that night, he crossed her patio and the shadowy lawn, heading for Louie Christian’s house, one very frustrated man.

  Twenty-Three

  Lindsay had the phone in one ear, taking notes on a laptop computer about a smashup on the I-610 loop when Elizabeth walked into her office at WBYH-TV the next morning. She flashed a smile at Elizabeth, held up one finger and indicated a chair, all this while typing the particulars of the accident. She spoke a few words to someone on the other end and hung up.

  “Give me a minute, Liz.” She rose, sailed down the hall calling someone by the name of Harry. No more than a minute later, she was back, closing the door and flopping down in the chair next to Elizabeth. “Now, what’s up? I’ve been on pins and needles since you called.”

  “It’s about the list of names you told us about yesterday.”

  “Okay…”

  “I know this is an imposition,” Elizabeth began, “but if you could just give me what you’ve got on the woman Austin was engaged to, I’ll take it from there.”

  “Imposition? Are you kidding? Every spare minute of my life has been spent digging into that scumbag’s life. Helping to nail him isn’t an imposition, it’s a pleasure.” Lindsay reached for a file on her desk and opened it. “Let’s see…you’re talking about Patricia Ellis, only her name isn’t Patricia Ellis anymore. It’s Mrs. James Bartlett Parks. J. B., as he’s known, is an architect and they live somewhere in the Woodlands. It’s a long drive, but the rush hour is over.” She got up and grabbed her handbag and laptop. “We can be there in about forty-five minutes provided we avoid the accident on the loop.”

  “Wait, is it okay for you to leave in the middle of the day?” Elizabeth stood up, glancing at the desk piled high with files and a mix of other stuff that looked as if it would take a month to sift through. “You don’t have to do this. I just needed her name and address. I can take it from there. Really.”

  Lindsay gave her a look of disbelief. “You’re serious, aren’t you? No way do you get to do the good part on your own, honey. Besides, it may take the two of us to persuade her to—” She stopped. “Now that I think about it, what do we want? We could ask for a copy of the police report she filed, if she has it. But I vote for trying to persuade her to visit the judge.” Urging Elizabeth along, she headed for the elevators. “Hetherington’s an old fart, pardon my French, but he was pretty fair-minded in deciding the merits in Gina’s petition. I bet if he heard Patricia Ellis Parks swear that Austin broke her jaw two weeks before they were to be married, he would put an end to any hope that weasel has to ever even see Jesse.”

  “That would be helpful if it happened.”

  “Helpful? Hey, I see persuading her to testify as the whole enchilada.”

  Elizabeth smiled and followed her into the elevator. “It’s half the enchilada. I’ll probably get legal custody if that happens and I used to think that would be the happy ending. But Jesse still isn’t talking and the reason is that she’s afraid that Austin will somehow appear and take her away. If Patricia will agree to testify, that will be a major first step, but what we need ultimately is to get Austin out of the picture altogether. And the only way to do that is to prove that he contributed to the accident.”

  “Not a problem,” Lindsay said breezily. Steering Elizabeth out into the foyer, she urged her toward the door. “Steele’s working that end.”

  “But how?” Out of the building now, they began weaving through a sea of parked cars. Apparently, Lindsay planned to drive. “Even if Jesse spoke, I’m not sure the word of a five-year-old would be enough.”

  “Steele has some leads and I think Ryan is doing some stuff behind the scenes.”

  Ryan? Elizabeth put a hand on her tummy, remembering the cataclysmic encounter with Ryan last night after Louie left.

  “Meanwhile, tell me all about what happened last night.”

  Elizabeth gave her a startled look. “Last night?”

  “The break-in.” Lindsay clicked the remote in her hand and a chirp sounded from an SUV twenty feet away. “Austin’s stupid attempt to end life as he knows it.”

  “Oh. That.”

  Behind the wheel now, Lindsay turned and looked at her. “Was there anything else last night I should be asking about?”

  “No!” But Elizabeth felt a flush warming her face. She waved a hand blindly. “Just drive. And you’re right, for Austin to break into my house was beyond stupid. Fortunately, Archie barked like crazy and woke me up. I called Louie instead of 911, which proved to be a good thing. In two minutes, Ryan was at my door.”

  “Ryan was at Louie’s house last night at midnight? You didn’t mention that when you called this morning.” Lindsay took a left turn onto an up-ramp and merged at a hair-raising pace—to Elizabeth—into a maze of vehicles on the interstate.

  “Ryan has just learned that Louie knew his father,” Elizabeth explained. “He thinks Louie worked with Judge Paxton. Ryan’s obsessed with the court docket at that time as it relates to Paxton’s cases. He thinks Louie may be able to shed some light on whatever was happening then.”

  “Whoa, this is really interesting.” Lindsay whizzed past an eighteen-wheeler. “Now, when did you say this happened?”

  “At about the same time our father died. In fact, Judge Paxton and Jud
ge Walker were in the same judicial jurisdiction, according to Ryan. They knew each other.”

  “Well, what d’you know about that?” Lindsay murmured. Deep in thought, her speed actually slowed to the legal limit. “This is very interesting as I’ve been doing some research into the circumstances of Judge Matthew Walker’s death myself. You’d be surprised how difficult it’s been getting access to what should be public files. Were you aware of the Caymen Islands caper that resulted in the disbarment of several crooked judges and lawyers at about that time?”

  “Somewhat.” Elizabeth did know about it. As an undergraduate when she’d still aspired to be a lawyer, she’d read extensively about it. But the affair with Evan Reynolds and her pregnancy had killed not only her interest in her father’s profession, but she’d let go her obsession with all things relating to her father.

  Lindsay went on, “Someone, some entity doesn’t want us poking around in that old scandal or Matthew Walker’s role in it. Every time I’d get onto something, the trail would just fizzle out.”

  “You’re that curious about Matthew Walker?”

  “Well, he is my biological father. And he was a charismatic political figure at the time. How could I not be? And remember, I didn’t know my connection to the judge until your write-up in the paper.”

  “I keep forgetting that.”

  “Uh-huh. And in case you’re thinking I’m just too nice, I have to confess something else. If there was something fishy about the judge’s demise and it does have to do with that Cayman Islands scandal, it would make a delicious feature for a local news special.”

  “Your ticket to your own show again,” Elizabeth guessed.

  “Very possibly.” Lindsay took her eyes off the road and grinned at her. “I’m shameless, right?”

  “You’re ambitious, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Only when you hurt other people with your ambition does it become a vice.” She returned Lindsay’s smile. “I don’t think you’re the back-stabbing sort.”

  Lindsay waved at senior citizens in a van who’d recognized her in passing. “Thanks.” She signaled suddenly and zoomed off the interstate at the exit for the Woodlands. “Now let me see if I’ve got this straight.”