Jake added his two cents with a derision-laden snort. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m here for a receipt.”
Donna’s nose wrinkled at the indignity of acknowledging him. “For what?”
“The monthly mortgage check.”
“I didn’t receive one.”
“Funny, but I already called the bank, and they confirmed mailing it to you.”
She admitted to nothing, and Lilly lobbed the crumpled ball at her feet. “The receipt?”
Donna held her silence. Jake remembered her doing this from time to time with Brady, who’d referred to it as her collection technique. She was so used to people gushing to fill quiet gaps that she usually got her way with it.
Well, not with him!
Maybe she wouldn’t agree to drop the foreclosure, but he had a backup plan. He never understood accusing someone of a heinous crime without a tape recorder. He’d gone one better and improved the CATS program, when activated, to instantly copy a transcript to the detective who’d first expressed interest in the software. It was transmitting from his basement office as they spoke. Steered in the right direction, Donna would tighten her own noose.
“How can you live with yourself, Donna, drugging Lilly the way you did?”
Knowing the program’s one weakness was voice recognition, he made it a point to identify her by name. He’d add diagnostic voice wave patterns on the next go-round.
“I’m afraid I don’t have another copy.” Donna picked up the POA and smoothed it on the foyer table, then handed it back to Lilly. “I’m sure a few wrinkles won’t matter.”
“It was you, wasn’t it, Donna?” he prodded.
“Otherwise, I’m afraid Mr. Murdoch will drop dead from the stress, and then poor Mrs. Murdoch will be spending what should have been her golden years in one of her children’s back bedrooms.”
Jake kept at her. “I doubt you could make Andrew do it. He’s kind of headstrong. He’d be hard for you to control, I guess.”
Donna sniffed, but otherwise ignored him.
Okay, so he wasn’t a natural born detective, but in the right hands, CATS could be a dynamite tool.
“You owe me, and you know it,” Lilly snapped. “Now give Jake—”
“Really? I owe you? Oh, you must mean when you took those drugs and set off the alarm, and I covered for you?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of my never having told Frank why you’re really wearing black.”
Say what? Jake was all ears now.
“I’m mourning my son.”
“Right.” Lilly rolled her eyes.
“Don’t go getting all high-and-mighty with me,” Donna sneered. “I’m not the one cohabitating with my dead husband’s partner less than six months after his death. If that doesn’t scream conspiracy, I don’t know what does.”
“How about still mourning your sister’s dead husband? The same one you visited every Tuesday night for the last ten years?”
Donna gasped.
Jake glided away so if anything started, Lilly’d have plenty room to get in a few good punches before he pulled them apart.
Instead, she kept her cool as she slowly advanced on Donna, indirectly, like a cat playing a mouse to the end.
“Wasn’t it convenient that Brady and Uncle Quentin died so close together? Everyone thinks you’re grieving over your son, but I know better. Now, I see two options here. I can stay until lunch, and we can play this out in front of your investment group. In fact, I’ll bet your sister’s coming today. Mm, that could be awkward. Or you can give Jake his receipt. But I’m telling you, do it soon—”
Donna bristled.
“—or find a way to write off the whole damned mortgage.”
Donna sniffed her displeasure. “I suppose, this one time, if I receive another check, I could overlook its lateness. It must be right now, though.”
“I don’t carry a checkbook,” Jake said.
Lilly’s hand dived into her purse. “I do. You can put a stop on the first check and pay me back next week.”
“What’re we waiting for then? Let’s get it done.” Relieved that he hadn’t sidetracked her checkbook today of all days, Jake clapped his hands together, signifying that all discussion was over and he was ready to leave for the airport.
Lilly flipped open her checkbook. “You know, Jake, just so this doesn’t happen again, like month after month”—she needled Donna with a momentary glare— “how about paying the whole thing off now?”
“I knew it!” Donna went theatric, throwing her hands up in the air. “You have absolutely no concept of how to handle money.”
“Oh, so if I do it, it’s stupid, but if you do it, it’s a good investment?”
Against a strong desire to see Lilly kick the living shit out of Donna, Jake stepped between them. No sense wasting time on a catfight now that they’d reached an agreement. Besides, if they didn’t get out of there soon, they could have breakage. China was one thing; an irreplaceable sixty-thousand-dollar lamp was quite another.
“It’s not up to me,” he said to Lilly, putting himself between her and the lamp, “and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but it’s never a good idea to mix love and money.”
The lines around Lilly’s mouth softened, as if she’d just blown him a mental kiss. He almost forgot where they were, and his body was certainly leaping ahead to Lilly in a red teddy, so much so that he had trouble following her logic.
“I’m lending it to your dad, not you. And I’ve never met him, so there, no mixing. Besides, I’ve seen your work. You’ll have enough rolling in soon to pay him back, and then he can pay me.”
“All the same—”
“So call him. No wait, we’re in a hurry.” Lilly signed a blank check and tore it out of the book. “Shoot, that’s the last one. Well here, fill it out for this month’s payment.
I’ll write a second one when we get home. If your dad wants it—and knowing the Marquettes, I strongly advise him to take me up on this—he can use it until my birthday. If he doesn’t like borrowing from me, he can refinance. Donna, dear, you can start writing that receipt now.”
One-upping Donna and solving Jake’s problem without getting zapped made Lilly feel really positive that things were finally heading in the right direction. There was a flow now, a current that invited her to follow its lead, almost as if John and Elizabeth had stopped fighting her.
She was restless to get in the air. In Silicon Valley, she could get down to the real business at hand and do what needed doing today. And tonight. And tomorrow.
Oh, how I’m going to enjoy this!
“I’d be very careful about accepting a loan from her,” Donna warned Jake, the preposterousness of which made Lilly laugh out loud.
Jake didn’t bother to keep his distance from Donna as he traded the check for a receipt, and his smile, if you could call it that, was chilling. “She could be the devil’s bride, and I’d still choose her over you.”
His deep, rumbling delivery gave Lilly goose bumps. She hoped it scared the living daylights out of Donna.
“That would be a very big mistake.” Donna, whose view had been out the sidelights of the front entry, strode over to the door and threw it open.
Andrew bounded up the steps.
“Well?” she asked eagerly.
“Good news, Mother.”
Jubilant, Donna rounded on Lilly and Jake. “They’ve agreed to exhume Brady’s body!”
Lilly froze on the spot. This was absolutely ludicrous. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her gaze darted back and forth between mother and son, waiting for one of them to laugh and say, “Ha, fooled you.” But they didn’t. When she found the strength to speak, she hoped she didn’t squeak.
“Whatever for?”
Donna circled her, taking her time now, strutting in victory. “Everyone knows, dear, that you’re quite accomplished with plants, so I called in an expert from the university. He’s examined your atrium thoroughl
y. He’s confirmed that you were growing toxic plants that could easily mimic a massive heart attack in a healthy young man.”
Lilly was so appalled, so angry, she could barely see straight. But she couldn’t let Donna know she’d gotten to her. She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“Yet,” Lilly said with a cool smile, “you’re the one with a history of drugging people.”
“I hadn’t seen my son for a week before he was struck down.”
Could this bitch really poison her own son ?
Had it been long-term?
Was that the underlying cause of Brady’s physical problems?
Oh God, Brady, I never suspected.
Had he? But then, who suspects his mother of poisoning him?
“Why?”
“I’m sure they’ll ask you that, dear.”
It was difficult to keep her head, but Lilly’d had calmness drilled into her endlessly during flight training. She fell back on it now, knowing it was the only way to win. “Good, then. I need to know if you murdered him. And if you did, I’ll be sure to let your sister know everything I know. Tell me, do you know who Andrew’s real father is?”
Head held high, Lilly breezed by Donna toward the door, silently vowing to get even if Brady’s death turned out to be anything other than a congenital condition. If John and Elizabeth didn’t like it, they could just deal with it. They’d neither said a word about how she was supposed to handle life outside of conceiving a baby and giving away money, nor were they using the bracelet to send warning zaps now.
Maybe she should have broken something, but a hundred-year-old lamp was irreplaceable, and she couldn’t do it. Not even to Donna.
Maybe she shouldn’t have tossed such a smug look at Andrew as she stepped out onto the front porch. It was a mask anyway; inside she was seething over the possibility that Brady’s family relationships might have been weighing heavily on his mind the last year of their marriage, and she hadn’t known.
Maybe she should have waited for Jake to get through his pithy statement to Donna and catch up before she started down the steps. Lilly was in the right, but she also understood the Marquettes’ power. Even in the wrong, they could cause her a lot of grief. If they had her picked up on some trumped-up charge on the way to the airport, it would touch off a series of events that’d end her days here very soon. Too soon.
Maybe she should have held on to the railing, so that when Andrew stuck out his foot at the very last second, she wouldn’t have tumbled head over heels down the steps.
Her right arm hit on the edge of a brick and snapped with a loud crack.
God, that hurt.
The pain was predictably magnified. Intense. She swore a rather inventive blue streak while Jake scooped her into his strong arms, buckled her into the Mercedes, and zoomed out of range of the Marquettes.
Ohgodohgodohgod.
She’d give up all the great sensations she’d had over the past month if this blinding pain would just stop. Silk sliding over her skin. Hyacinths in her bedroom. Irene’s Chocolate Orgasms. Passionate, all-night sex. Even Snickers bars.
“Oh God, Jake.” And this was the worst reality: “I can’t fly.”
“You’re not gonna yell at me about the emergency room this time, are you?”
“Only if they don’t give me drugs.”
“At the rate you’re yelling, I’m sure—”
“Shit, you’ll miss your meeting.” She cradled her right arm against her chest and doubled over until the shoulder strap of her seat belt locked.
“It’s not important.”
“Yes it is.”
“Well okay, it is, but forget it anyway. Why would I want to do business with people who wouldn’t understand that you need help right now?”
“For your family.”
A couple blocks away, he pulled over to the curb. Shit, he ‘d changed his mind?
“Damn, I’ve never seen anything swell so fast. I don’t want to scare you, sweetheart, but this is bad. Really bad. That bracelet’s going to cut off your circulation if I don’t do something.”
She inched the bracelet down to where her wrist normally tapered. Every touch, every movement, hurt like hell. The chains were growing tighter right before her eyes.
Jake jumped out of the car. Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, tried to control her breathing and get a handle on the pain, but it was too intense. She couldn’t concentrate, but she didn’t give up trying.
The car barely rocked as Jake slid back in. “How’s it now?”
“Please tell me you were buying drugs.”
“Where? It’s all residential here.”
“Hey, at this point—geez, it hurts!—I’m not picky, okay?” She wouldn’t know how to buy drugs from anyone, but guys automatically knew that kind of stuff, didn’t they? He’d been self-destructive once.
When Jake touched her arm, she nearly went through the roof.
“Whoa, easy. Does it really hurt that bad?”
With her good arm, she dug her fingers into his thigh and squeezed. “Does that hurt?”
“Keep your eyes closed. Take a deep breath.”
She tried, she really did. She was just about to tell him it wasn’t helping when she felt a little tug at her bracelet and heard a snip. Almost before the sound registered, Lilly’s arms and legs grew heavy. For the first time in her life, it took strength to drag oxygen into her lungs.
“No,” she wailed, staring at her bracelet now, at the one chain that dangled, cut clean through.
Whatever you do, don’t take it off.
Lilly knew exactly what was happening. She remembered the long, long line waiting for her outside the pearly gates.
“Shit, if it’s going to hurt this bad the whole time, just go ahead and send me to hell now.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that. I thought you had an in with these angels.”
“I worked so hard to keep my end of the bargain. I’m so close.”
“Hold still, hon. I’ve got one more cut to make.”
She shuddered with the effort it took to speak. “You can’t.”
Oh God, she was getting weaker, and she wasn’t done here yet. A part deep inside her yearned to mourn the son she’d never have, was insistent that she do so. A larger part regretted that she hadn’t had time to prepare Jake to face her death and not implode.
“I need time to tell him,” she said, hoping Elizabeth could hear her. “I need time to make him understand.” At the moment, Jake was patiently studying her, but that could be short-lived. “Your family needs you to stay strong.”
“You talking to me now?”
“Yes!”
“Hey, just wanted to clarify things.”
“Shut up and listen, would you?” It took several gasps to collect enough strength to go on. “Your family needs you. People need your technology. It’d be wrong if you do like you did last time… you know, if you self-destruct?”
If he didn’t listen, if she had to make him hate her to accomplish this, she would. Whatever it took, even the naked truth, because she loved him.
“It’s cutting off the blood to your hand, Lilly. You’ll lose it.”
It hurt like hell, too, but what difference did a hand make? If the bracelet went, so would her life. Angie’s departure had set the pattern. Upon Lilly’s death, she had no doubt Jake would repeat it.
Dear, sweet Jake. He was so important to so many people. She was out of time, she understood that. No more bargaining room there.
Elizabeth, are you listening? I promise, if you let me get through to Jake, if he comes to accept my leaving or if I have to make him hate me so it won’t hurt so much, then no matter what, I won’t bitch about the dreaded line.
“Lilly? You ready?”
“No.”
“Don’t be stupid, it’ll be too tight by the time we get to the emergency room.”
Lilly’s head lolled against the head rest. “You can’t let the
m. Jake, please, whatever you do, don’t… don’t let them cut it off.” It was an effort, but she covered the remaining chain with her left hand. No more sneak attacks. No one’d be able to get to it without her knowing it. She didn’t have the strength to beg; her eyes would have to do it for her. “I’m not strong enough to stop anybody…”
“It has to go.”
“… but you are.”
“No way. You’re crazy with pain. I know what’s best.”
“Jake, please, you have to believe what I know is true.”
If he didn’t stop them, she knew that the next cut would end her last breath.
Visibly upset, he raked his hand through his hair. “No.”
He was so not ready for this.
“If you don’t open your mind—If you don’t stop them—I’ll die.”
22
It’s not possible! Jake felt Lilly’s life, the very light of her, fade. Right before his eyes, like a bulb on a rheostat, her spirit just dialed down and stayed there, close to flickering out.
All over a broken arm? He thought not. Everything else looked fine; she must be bleeding internally. Her whole body sagged in the passenger seat, melting into the leather as if becoming one with it. He raced the Mercedes through the streets toward the nearest hospital, driving like a man possessed, holding his hand on the horn through every intersection and supporting Lilly in an upright position in between.
“Where does it hurt? Lilly! Talk to me.”
“It’s John and Elizabeth.”
Her conviction defied argument.
Though he’d been in love with her from the first time they’d met at the church, it was nothing compared to the depth of his feelings now. He’d die to save her, if he could.
He’d die if she deserted him.
She winced at every bump in the road. As much as it hurt him to see her in pain, he couldn’t slow for every pothole. Too much was at stake. He turned a corner to find, too late, that he’d ventured onto a street with a huge Allied moving van blocking the way. Without hesitation, he eased over the opposite curb and drove along the sidewalk.
“I love you. Lilly, can you hear me? Stay with me, sweetheart. I love you.”
A Date on Cloud Nine Page 27