Charade

by Sandra Brown

  “It beats putting kids in orphanages.”

  “I know.” She decided she’d had enough of the salad and pushed aside her plate. “But a foster home is temporary, and the child—especially an older child—is fully aware of that. It’s a home situation, and that’s good. But it isn’t your home. You’re being allowed to live there, but only for a while. You’re only visiting until you get too old, or do something wrong, or circumstances change, and then you’ll be moved someplace else.

  “You perceive the message as ‘Nobody likes you enough to want you permanently.’ And before long you begin to think you aren’t worthy of love, and you start living up to everyone’s low expectations—either real or imagined. ‘You think I’m unlovable? Well, just get a load of this!’ As a defense mechanism, you begin rejecting people and opportunities before they have a chance to reject you.”

  “That’s an adult analysis.”

  “You’re right. When I was in the system, I didn’t realize I was self-fulfilling the prophesies. I was just a lonely little girl who felt unloved and unwanted, and who would do anything to get attention.”

  She laughed ruefully. “I pulled some real doozies. I hated feeling like a charity case.” Her eyebrows pulled into a steep frown. “And then there are people—perhaps even good-intentioned folks—who don’t have a clue how to rear a child.

  “I hasten to add that this applies to natural parents as well as foster parents. They have no idea that they’re inflicting emotional wreckage. A word, a look, even a pervasive attitude can destroy a child’s self-esteem. People who would never dream of being physically abusive do irrevocable damage to a child’s spirit.”

  “Such as?”

  “I could bore you for hours.”

  “I’m not bored.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “You’re taking mental notes, aren’t you? This will show up in a novel, right? The Perils of Cat Delaney. Believe me, Alex, the truth is worse than anything you could dream up.”

  “I know that from my days as a cop. Go on. This is off the record.”

  “I remember one Christmas,” she said after a moment of reflection. “I was thirteen and by then had a grip on how the system worked. I knew never to expect too much. But there was another foster child living in the same house as I, a little girl about seven. The couple also had a daughter that age.

  “Both the little girls wanted Barbie dolls for Christmas. That’s all they talked about. To win Santa’s favor, they did their chores, went to bed on time, ate their veggies. On Christmas morning, the couple’s daughter unwrapped the Mattel megaseller in all her blond splendor. She got the real thing, dressed in a pink prom dress and matching high heels.

  “The foster child got a brand X Barbie, a scaled-down, pale imitation. What that said to her was that she wasn’t quite up to par, wasn’t good enough to have the genuine article. Even Santa Claus didn’t think so.

  “And I thought why—why would someone hurt a child like that? What could have been the difference in price between the two dolls? A few measly dollars? The cost of a rump roast? Wasn’t a child’s self-image worth more than that?

  “I’m really in no position to judge because I’ve never been a parent. It’s got to be the most challenging job imaginable. But it’s not that hard to understand how hurtful an oversight from Santa Claus can be.”

  She drew a sigh. “I saw instances like that time after time. I would get so angry over the injustices that were heaped on kids. But, as I learned, the adult world is full of injustices too.”

  Their salad plates were removed and they were served their steaks. “Good Lord,” Cat exclaimed. “This could qualify for a zip code.”

  The breading had been fried to a crunchy, golden brown. The meat inside was fork-tender. Alex cut into his. “What did you do after you left the typing job? That’s a long way from a starring role in a soap opera.”

  “Obviously I needed more education. I’d saved every penny I could, but I still couldn’t afford to attend college. So I entered a beauty pageant.”

  His fork halted midway between his plate and his mouth. “A beauty pageant?”

  She took umbrage. “Is that so astonishing?”

  “I figured you for someone who’d think beauty pageants are sexist and exploitive of women.”

  “At that point in my life, I was willing to be exploited for a chance at a twenty-thousand-dollar scholarship. So I invested in the best push-up bra ever engineered and added my name to the long list of hopefuls. Pass the rolls, please.”

  The bread was yeasty and soft and melted in her mouth. “Sinful.” She moaned, closing her eyes and licking butter off her lips.

  “If you think the roll is sinful, you ought to see the expression on your face.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Alex’s gaze was fixed on her mouth. “Do you realize that everything you do is sexual?”

  “Do you realize that you have a dirty mind?”

  “Indubitably.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “You’re a walking, talking turn-on. That’s why every man you meet falls a little in love with you.”

  The statement was more disturbing than flattering. “That’s not true.”

  “I can name three. No, four.”

  “Who?”

  “Dean Spicer.”

  She raised one shoulder in a dismissive gesture. “Since I left California, we’ve been nothing more than good friends.”

  “Because that’s the way you want it. He’s still in love with you. Second is Bill Webster.”

  “You’re way off base there. Bill adores his wife.”

  “She shares my theory.”

  Cat negated that with a firm shake of her head. “You’re wrong. And if Nancy thinks there’s anything besides friendship and mutual respect between Bill and me, she’s wrong, too. Who else? Not that I’m buying any of this, you understand. I’m just curious.”

  “Jeff Doyle.”

  She laughed.

  “If he weren’t gay, he’d be in love with you,” Alex insisted. “As it is, he merely worships the ground you walk on.”

  “You really are into fiction, aren’t you? Who’s number four?”

  He let his piercing gaze answer for him.

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Because it’s a crock, and we both know it. You’d just like to sleep with me again.”

  “What are my chances?”

  “Nil.”

  He grinned in a manner that said he didn’t believe her. “Did you win?”

  “What? Oh, the pageant? No.”

  “Too slender?”

  “Too stupid.”

  “There’s a story, right?”

  She nodded. “During the preliminaries, we were required to mix and mingle with the judges. One of them was an oily character who was supposed to be a portrait photographer, but he looked like a crooked used car salesman to me. He was so earnest, so willing to put us contestants at ease, that his hands were constantly on us. Touchy-feely. The creepy kind of touching that makes you feel like you’ve stepped on a slug.

  “Anyway, he would sidle up to us independently and whisper things like, ‘You’ve got what it takes, sweetheart.’ Later we girls compared notes and came to the unanimous conclusion that he was a jerk and a joke. But as the week progressed toward the big competition on Saturday night, he became bolder, more familiar.

  “His groping was no longer a joke, but none of the girls wanted to be the first to expose him for fear of jeopardizing her score. The old geezer knew this, of course. He was committing sexual blackmail and getting away with it. So I decided—”

  “Let me guess,” Alex interrupted. “You set out to right the wrong.”

  “Yes. I thought he should be revealed as the slime ball he was. During the dress rehearsal, he cornered me and began discussing my assets and enumerating ways in which he could help me make the most of them. I pretended to be breathless with excitement and gratitude, ea
ger to hear more. So he suggested I join him in his room later, where he could go into more detail.

  “We set a time. Before going to his room, I left a message for the committee chairwoman that he needed to see her as soon as possible.”

  “You set a trap.”

  “Hmm. Unfortunately, it backfired. Ms. Committee Chairwoman arrived at his door just in time to find him trying to wrangle me out of my blouse. He turned the tables, said I’d come to his room uninvited and offered him my lily white body in exchange for a high score on his tally sheet.

  “I suggested that if she didn’t believe me, she could consult the other girls whom he’d been groping all week. Which she did. But every last one of them chickened out.

  “I guess that tacky tiara was more important to them than the truth. So, I was branded a slut who had compromised the integrity of the pageant and was promptly disqualified.”

  “I bet you had plenty to say then.”

  “Actually I was rather terse. As I recall, all I said was, ‘Screw this. I’ll become an actress instead.’ ”

  Through the remainder of their meal and during the drive back to San Antonio, she told him the rest of her life story. After the fiasco of the beauty pageant, she’d sold everything she owned except for a few changes of clothes and bought a one-way Greyhound ticket to Los Angeles.

  She worked at the fragrance counter of a department store, earning barely enough to pay for acting classes and a roach-infested apartment. When she was able to afford it, she put together a portfolio of photographs and began touting herself to talent agencies.

  “Finally, out of the blue, an agent called and expressed an interest in representing me. At first I thought it was a prank call.”

  “I know the feeling.” By now they’d reached the outskirts of the city. Alex took an exit off the freeway. “I felt exactly like that when I first heard from Arnie Villella. What was your first acting job?”

  “A TV commercial. I spread a nonyellowing wax onto a vinyl floor. It aired nationally for over a year. The residuals were good. After that, I did more commercials, worked trade shows, pitching everything from household cleaners to Hondas, appeared in a few stage plays. Then my agent heard about the new character on Passages, and I auditioned for Laura Madison. You know the rest.”

  He stopped at an intersection and turned to her. “Say where.”

  “The TV station. My car’s there.”

  He looked at her meaningfully. “Sure?”

  She knew what he was asking, and had her libido been making decisions for her, the choice would have been much easier. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  As they headed to the TV station, Alex brought her up to date on the progress he’d made during his trip to Houston. “The Department of Justice was lukewarm on its promise to check into the accidental deaths of the three heart transplantees. The agent I spoke with sounded harried and indifferent.”

  “So we’re on our own.”

  “More or less. At this point he wouldn’t even consider asking the organ banks for confidential information, the UNOS numbers, etcetera. Not until it’s determined that crimes have been committed, he said. So, with nothing more to go on, I began checking out death certificates.”

  “Thanks, Alex. You’ve done wonders with the little you had to go on. It would have been impossible for me to track down Petey.”

  “After what he said about Sparky’s size—I think it’s worth pursuing further, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll try and locate members of the disbanded gang. Although it’ll probably be a wild goose chase. First I’ve got to find a former member. If and when I do, will he or she have had enough interest in Sparky to trace the destination of his donated heart? The odds aren’t good.”

  “That woman—Kismet? If we could find her, she might know something.”

  “Yeah, but I’m sure Kismet was an assumed name.”

  “I doubt Cyclops was the name the leader was christened with, either.”

  “I doubt Cyclops was christened.”

  Forlornly, she stared through the windshield. As he’d said, the likelihood was extremely slim that they would identify her stalker in time to prevent a catastrophe. But she would continue exploring every open avenue. She wasn’t going to simply wait for a fatal accident to befall her.

  “Alex, you said earlier that you were checking into several catastrophic deaths that would result in organ donations. What were the others?”

  “One was a multicar accident on the Houston freeway. It happened during rush hour. There were a number of fatalities, but I haven’t learned if any became organ donors. I’ve got a paid informer working that angle for me. He’s an orderly in one of the major hospitals.

  “The other was a case I was already familiar with. I didn’t realize until I began looking into it again that it had happened around the time of your transplant.”

  Interested, she urged him to go on.

  “For months it was a statewide news story. As a crime novelist, I was interested because it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill murder. It happened in Fort Worth. Paul Reyes discovered his wife, Judy, and her lover in bed together. Reyes pulverized her skull with a baseball bat, but the paramedics managed to keep her heart beating until they got her to the hospital and declared her brain-dead. Meanwhile, Reyes had been taken into custody. From his jail cell, he gave permission for his wife’s organs to be harvested.”

  “Did he go to prison?”

  “No. That’s the hell of it. His attorney argued for change of venue and got the trial moved to Houston, where he was acquitted.”

  “How could that have happened?”

  “Technically, Mrs. Reyes’s heart was retrieved before it stopped beating. He didn’t actually kill her. It was a mistake for the state to go for premeditation instead of manslaughter. There was also some fancy legal maneuvering by his defense attorney. Combined, the trial resulted in an acquittal.”

  “Couldn’t they get him for attempted murder? Or assault with a deadly weapon or something?”

  “That would be double jeopardy. After the trial, Reyes disappeared. Hasn’t been seen or heard of since.”

  Cat was excited. “This fits, doesn’t it? Paul Reyes is still angry with his adulterous wife and obsessed with stopping her heart.”

  “That crossed my mind. I watched him when the verdict was read. His eyes had the fanatic gleam of a man possessed. I think he fully intended to kill Judy, and his only remorse was that he’d been denied the pleasure of doing it.”

  “People don’t disappear without a trace. Someone knows where he is.”

  “I’ve already started trying to track down a family member who’ll talk to me, but in the Mexican community, families tend to close ranks to protect each other from outsiders. Besides that, they become borderline hysterical whenever organ transplantation is mentioned.”

  Cat nodded in understanding. “The Spanish cultures traditionally reject the entire concept. They feel that a body should be buried intact, or the departed never finds peace and rest in the afterlife. We had several Hispanics among our transplant population in California. They’re working to break through that cultural barrier, but with limited success. So Mr. Reyes’s decision was probably unpopular with his and his wife’s family.”

  “I’ll keep probing.”

  “Does my blood type match hers?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I could have received her heart.”

  “Conceivably. But there’s the time factor to take into account.”

  Having arrived at the TV station parking lot, he pulled into the space beside Cat’s car. After cutting the motor, he stretched his arm along the back of the seat and turned to face her. “Reyes attacked her in the middle of the afternoon. Your transplant took place early the next morning.”

  “But how long did Judy Reyes’s heart continue beating before they pronounced her brain-dead? It could have been hours, right? Which moves the harvesting closer to the time of my transplant.”


  “That’s speculation.”

  Miffed over his lack of enthusiasm, she said, “This has a lot of possibilities. Why are you throwing a wet blanket over it?”

  “We’re searching for facts, not possibilities. Don’t jump to conclusions just because they’re convenient. This must be methodically investigated.”

  “Well, don’t drag your feet.” She tapped the crystal of her wristwatch. “The clock is ticking toward the anniversary date.”

  “I’m aware of that, Cat. Are you scared?”

  She saw no virtue in equivocating. “A lunatic has very subtly, but very definitely, threatened my life. Damn right I’m scared.”

  “Then move in with me until we find him.”

  “I can’t believe you’d have the nerve even to suggest it.” She clearly enunciated her words. “It ain’t gonna happen, Mr. Pierce.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want it to.”

  “Liar.”

  Cat saw red. She admitted to several character flaws, but lying wasn’t among them. Furthermore, she despised lies and liars. He couldn’t have insulted her more.

  “You really value that appendage in your pants, don’t you? We poor, frail females tremble at the thought of being deprived of it. Is that what you think?” She laughed scoffingly. “It was probably her husband’s stupid male arrogance that drove Judy Reyes to take a lover.”

  Moving like quicksilver, he whipped the revolver from beneath his jacket and aimed it at her head.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Cat thought she’d been shot, until she realized that the three sharp raps weren’t emissions from the revolver but someone knocking on the car window.

  She turned her head quickly. A rent-a-cop was peering into the car, his nose almost touching the foggy glass. Hastily she rolled down the window.

  “Oh, Ms. Delaney, it’s you,” he said with surprise and relief. “This strange car parked next to yours? I came to check it out. Everything okay?”