Private Dancer (The Bancrofts: Book 3)

by Barrett, Brenda

  Cathy swallowed. "I was four months along and having a difficult pregnancy. I couldn't go through with the abortion. I thought about it and Miss Icy tried to convince me to do it, but I just couldn't do it. I had this plan you see, to take the money and educate myself, to be a better person for you."

  "Stop it!" Adrian said hoarsely. "Don't lie to me! You know you have never needed to prove anything to me. You knew that!"

  He got up. “Give me a second. I have to take this in stages. One sec."

  He walked to the edge of the pool area. He found that his heart was racing too hard to be normal, and he felt like smashing something. When he had composed himself, he walked back to the table where they were sitting—his feet felt like lead. He lowered himself into the seat across from her.

  "Go on."

  Cathy removed her glasses and wiped her eyes. Tears had been streaming down her face unchecked. "I had her."

  "Her?" Adrian hissed. "What's her name and where is she?"

  "Her name is Avia." Cathy swallowed. "I was supposed to give her up for adoption but when she was born I couldn't part with her. I realized that I had to take care of her, you know, so Miss Icy got me this job as a dancer at Nanjo's."

  "Where is she?" Adrian found it remarkable that he could prevent himself from wringing her neck after hearing that little impossible speech.

  "She stays with Mrs. Pink. She's a retired nurse who lives in Mona. I met her in the hospital when Avia was about one… Avia has very bad asthma."

  "Like my sister Kylie," Adrian said under his breath.

  "So when I started working at the night club Mrs. Pink offered to keep her. She loves children. She's divorced. She's like an honorary grandmother you know… and at least Avia is not growing up in the ghetto."

  "Or exposed to your life," Adrian said fiercely. "You...you...how could you do this to me? Deny me my child?"

  People were walking unto the pool area, but Adrian felt like exploding. "Come on let's go."

  "Where?" Cathy asked.

  "To see her," Adrian said a determined look to his face.

  Cathy got up. "Adrian I don't think..."

  "Shut up and stop thinking," Adrian said through gritted teeth. "You think too much. You plan too much. You plot too much. You are just too much."

  He stormed away from the pool area and into the parking lot. Cathy was struggling to catch up with him. By the time she approached the car she saw him opening, she was out of breath, and nervous. She had never in her life seen this kind of anger in a man. It was not even an explosive anger. It was more like the menacing stillness before an explosion. She didn't want to get into a car with him when he was in this kind of mood.

  "Er... Adrian maybe I should drive my own car."

  He hissed. "Get in here now."

  Cathy got in the car and looked at him cautiously. "You know where Mona is?"

  "Yes," Adrian said curtly.

  "Mrs. Pink lives in the scheme on Brocade Avenue."

  Adrian started the car and drove out of the hotel complex. He was clenching his jaw so hard that he had to convince his mind to let it go. He was so tense; so many thoughts were running through his mind that he didn't know where to start quizzing Cathy.

  He wanted to know more about his child. He wanted to know what was the arrangement with her and Mrs. Pink. He wanted to know why Mrs. Pink and not him. Avia was his child. Despite the lies, she told him earlier in her pregnancy, she could have called his father or mother; they would have told him. He would have found himself back in Jamaica immediately. He looked over at her and gritted his teeth. He was not calm enough, or rational enough to talk. He was definitely not calm enough. Even a question could turn into a shouting match. Cathy was the only one who could bring him to this mass of broken nerves.

  He turned on his car radio. His youngest sister, Jessica, was so in love with the singer Khaled, a young guy who had exploded onto the music scene a few years ago, and she had begged him to get a signed CD for her. He had gone out of the way to get the CD for his sister and even had one in the car that he had bought one for himself. The guy had a decent voice. He put in the CD, turned up the volume, and heard the cover song, 'Tracks Of My Tears' playing. He immediately regretted it. He turned off the music and glanced over at Cathy. She was acting fidgety and nervous.

  Good. How dare her keep his child from him and give her to strangers to raise? There was no excuse, whatsoever, for her to have done so. None.

  He felt his temperature increasing again.

  "She recently had a relapse," Cathy said as they approached Mona. "I pay a lot of money in hospital fees." She cleared her throat. "That's why I dance at the club, you know, to take care of her."

  "No!" Adrian said turning in at Brocade Avenue. "You dance at that club because you lied to me; that's all Cathy. You are basically whoring yourself out to Nanjo because you are a liar. You are a liar who loves money. That's all there is to it."

  Cathy's voice hitched on a sob. "Adrian that's not true. I wanted you to have the best there was in life and that clearly wasn't me."

  "Martyrdom doesn't fit you," Adrian said roughly. "Which house is it?"

  She pointed to a green and white place with several flowering plants in the front yard.

  He parked the car in front of the gate and got out.

  Cathy came out of the car slowly and inhaled again. “Mrs. Pink does not hear too well so I have to press the buzzer several times.”

  There was a light in the front room of the house and the flickering of a television. Cathy pressed the buzzer and Mrs. Pink came out. She was a short, stout lady with clear mahogany skin. She wore long gray box braids that had colorful shells attached to the ends of them. Her hair was almost at her hips.

  "Ah, Cathy," she said cheerfully. "You didn't tell me you were stopping by."

  Cathy smiled at her weakly. "This is kind of an impromptu visit." She indicated to Adrian. "This is Adrian, Avia's father. He wants to meet her."

  "Oh, I see." Mrs. Pink smiled at Adrian. "I do see." She nodded her head, laughing. "Come on in. Little Miss Avia is painting up a storm in the living room."

  Adrian stepped into the house, feeling like he was in unfamiliar territory in his emotions and in his physical space. He was going to meet his daughter, a child he thought had never been born, a child he had over the years longed to have, only to now discover that she did have the child.

  He felt overwhelmed. When he turned down the passageway behind Mrs. Pink and entered what looked like the living room. He saw her. She had her head bent over a very large sheet of paper, deep in concentration. She had brown hair like Cathy. It was caught up in a fat ponytail and was trailing along her paper as she moved her little fingers along the paper. Mrs. Pink cleared her throat and looked up.

  Her little face lit up when she saw Cathy.

  "Cathy!" she yelled getting up. "I missed you. You said you were coming by this weekend. You are a day early."

  Cathy bent down to hug her.

  Adrian leaned against the wall taking in the scene. She was a tiny scrap of a thing and looked so much like his sister Jessica. She had Cathy's hair color; the rest was Jessica Bancroft, down to the little pink bud mouth and the little cleft in her chin. She was really his, and he couldn't believe it. Until this moment, it had not registered until he saw her in person.

  She looked across at him when she released herself from Cathy and smiled at him shyly. "Hi." She walked to where he stood and held out her hand for him to shake.

  Adrian smiled, stooping down to her level. "Hi," he responded. Obviously, his child was confident.

  "My name is Avia Bancroft," she said primly.

  Adrian looked at Cathy swiftly. What the hell? She had given her my name?

  Cathy was looking at both of them with tears in her eyes.

  "Well, my name is Adrian Bancroft," Adrian said solemnly shaking her hand and then drawing her to him in a hug. "I am extremely happy to meet you."

  Adrian hadn't wanted to leave her. He
had wanted to take her back to his hotel and move her to Mount Faith with him on Monday.

  Mrs. Pink said she understood his anxiety but thought it would be best if Avia had some time to get used to him first, before he attempted to take her. Cathy had not said much. She was looking defeated, as if all the life had been sucked out of her.

  Even now, with him in the car on their way back to the hotel she was sitting in the seat like a limpid doll.

  "I want my daughter," he said to her silent profile. "I am taking her."

  Cathy only nodded. "I figured you would."

  He swallowed. "What about you? What are you going to do?"

  Cathy shrugged. "I don't know. I have been paying for Avia to go to private school and get all the best things out of life. That's what I work for."

  "So now you can stop doing that sort of work," Adrian said. "I will look after my child financially."

  Cathy closed her eyes. "It is not going to be so simple to quit the club and Nanjo."

  Adrian snorted. "It was easy for you to quit me though, even though, we were together for six years."

  "At least you wouldn't kill me if I left you," Cathy said softly.

  Adrian's hands tensed on the steering wheel. "How did you get involved with this guy, and why?"

  "It was three years ago. I went to the club. Nanjo saw me and liked me. He started paying me special attention you know, monetary and otherwise. Avia was sick at the time; I thought she was going to die. I was desperate for extra money so I got involved with him."

  Adrian tried to keep his voice from being bitter but the question came out that way anyway. "Why didn't you get in touch with my parents then?"

  "Your Dad thought I had an abortion. He paid me to do that, remember?"

  "Why didn't you call and ask for my number then?"

  "I figured you had moved on with your life. I didn't want you to get tangled with me again. I thought it was unfair to you."

  Adrian hit the steering wheel in frustration. "Don't you know me at all Catherine Taylor? I have never gotten over us. Never. There was nobody else. There has never been anybody else. I have never moved on. "I..., " his voice broke, "God help me, I tried. I really did." He sighed. "Where do you get your reasoning and your mixed up theories from?"

  Cathy started sobbing. She silently sobbed until they reached the hotel parking lot. Even after they stopped and Adrian turned off the car engine, she was still sniffling, her head down-bent and her kerchief wet with tears.

  "I deserve to be in pain because of this," she finally said on a hiccup.

  Adrian grunted. "I think your problem is that you need to talk to me about your plans before you carry them out. If I had known about your grand plan to let me get on with my life without you because you are a liability, I would have put a stop to it. I think it is ridiculous. I told my father that right in front of you. Why did you choose to listen to him instead of me?"

  Then it hit him. Cathy, as tough as she liked to appear, and as much as she liked to pretend that she was unaffected by the murder of her mother by her father, for some strange reason had internalized the whole thing and was going through life thinking she was inadequate.

  He wasn't a psychologist but it didn't take much to figure out that some of the earlier events in her life had impaired her decision-making process.

  Her phone rang and she answered it.

  He could only hear her side of the conversation, but he surmised that it was Nanjo. Her expression had changed, and she was sitting up straighter in the car seat. When she hung up, she looked at Adrian with a scared look in her eye.

  "I think Nanjo is having me followed. He said he knows I am not at home. What was I doing at the Pegasus Hotel at ten in the night?"

  She scrambled out of the car.

  "He may just have a tracker on the car, Cathy," Adrian said. "Leave him now, tonight!"

  Cathy shook her head. "He'd find me, and he would kill us both, and Avia."

  Adrian sighed frustrated. "Let's go to Mount Faith, we'd be safe there."

  "No we wouldn't," Cathy said, searching her bag for her car keys. "I told him that your father was the president of the university. That's the first place that he would look."

  "So when I have Avia, aren't you going to see us anymore?" he asked.

  "I am not sure," Cathy said.

  "You couldn't abort her when she was a baby but you are going to abandon her now when she is five?" Adrian asked incredulously. "Don't you think I saw the emotions wafting off you in spades when you hugged her? You also feel guilty because you can't have her with you all the time. Cathy, can't you see sense for once."

  Cathy hobbled away. "I am going now."

  "We are far from over." Adrian locked the car door. "You can't just walk away. Choose me this time Cathy."

  Cathy practically ran to her car after he said that.

  *****

  Nanjo was pacing the floor of the VIP section of his club after calling Cathy. The beat of the music downstairs was causing the place to vibrate. She was at the Pegasus. He would bet his last brand name shoes that that was where her first love, Adrian Bancroft, was staying.

  She had disobeyed him and gone to see him. The thought made him clench his teeth in rage. He barely realized when Juan Feliz walked into the place, his face wreathed in smiles.

  "Hey, Nanjo," he said in his accented English. "Everything is going smoothly with the transaction. We have the quantities that were ordered."

  Nanjo nodded absently.

  "My friend, my friend, what's happening with you?" Juan asked. "This is good news. When both of us are finished with this we will be getting paid. Maybe after this you can spend some time with your little woman."

  Nanjo inclined his head. "What would you do if you find out that your main woman is cheating?"

  Juan frowned. "I would have to have proof," he said. "If Mamacita was cheating on me and I have proof, then," his eyes darkened, "I'd kill the son of a bitch who dared to touch her, in front of her, no less. That way she would never even think of doing it again. I wouldn’t kill her cuz she is the mother of my four children; one of them is a toddler… Can't kill Mamacita."

  Nanjo shrugged. "I forbid Cathy to see this guy she calls her first love, just this morning. I forbid her and tonight her vehicle was sitting in the Pegasus parking lot for hours. She must have gotten together with the guy."

  Juan frowned. "See, it's not good to jump to conclusions, Nanjo. You love this woman—you have to trust her a bit. Just yesterday, you were thinking of marrying her. Isn't she the loyal kind?"

  Nanjo grunted. "I never had cause to doubt that she was, but there are parts of her that are closed off from me. I used to think it was all right just having her body but now I want her mind. I don't want her thinking about that guy or seeing him."

  "So kill him," Juan Feliz said. "She will mourn him at first but then all will be well again."

  Nanjo snarled. "I don't just kill people without a cause. I have to find out if he has designs on my woman first. I need to know what's his reason for being here. If it's Cat, his days are numbered."

  Juan nodded. "Fair enough. Can we discuss the shipment now?"

  Nanjo nodded. "Sure. I am letting my personal problems interfere with business. You know it has to be at the old port, near the crafts market."

  "But that's too close to a police outpost," Juan said worriedly.

  "Have we ever been caught yet?" Nanjo boasted." Never. Let me take care of the police. You make sure that your goods board the ship… my shipment will be there too. Have you worked out how to get the drugs on US soil yet?"

  Juan nodded. "My agents on that end are ready and waiting."

  Nanjo leaned on the bar counter, his hands tapping rapidly on the counter. "I'll get everything ready."

  "In two weeks," Juan said clearly. "On the 10th. Don't forget, Nanjo."

  Nanjo looked at him fiercely. "Have I ever forgotten anything related to business?"

  "No you haven't," Juan said, "but w
e have a lot riding on this. Forgive me if I am anxious."

  Nanjo shrugged. "Want a drink?"

  "Nah," Juan said. "I think I am going to watch those new girls you have down there. That thick one, what's her name again?"

  "Rosy." Nanjo said. "Want her?

  Juan nodded.

  He picked up his cell phone and called Natty. "Make sure Rosy pays special attention to Juan."

  He hung up the phone. "I am not in a drinking mood tonight. I think I am going to go home."

  "Okay." Juan walked out of the room and Nanjo stood there, his mind running back to Cat.

  He wanted answers tonight, and somehow, he believed only torture would get him the answers he wanted from her. Maybe he should wait a little. Bide his time. Do some investigation himself on this Adrian Bancroft.

  He picked up his car keys. He probably should go home and get some sleep, visit her apartment tomorrow and calmly find out where she was, and whom she was with. Her answers had better be good... or else.

  Chapter Eight

  Adrian met with his thirty-member team at the Jamaica Conference Center in the morning. The night before he had made a valiant effort to work out logistics and arrange his material for the meeting, but he had found it hard to focus, and even now, with thirty pairs of eyes following his every move, he was feeling surreal.

  He handed the group the work schedule and deadlines for each step of the research, and sat down as they digested the information that was on paper. As he had anticipated, several of them had questions and he answered them accordingly.

  He was really trying to keep his mind focused, but his mind kept rehashing the scenes from the night before.

  He had a daughter; a sweet little girl that had Cathy's hair and his sister's face.

  His mother was going to be flabbergasted when she heard, not to mention his father. He did not intend to hide Avia from the world. She was his and he was so grateful to God for her. It was as though all the dark days of his past were worth it.