by Sandra Brown
“No.”
“Why did you go, Jordie?”
“It isn’t relevant.”
“The federal government thinks it is. I think it is.”
“Why?”
“Because, dammit, I’ve got to know.” He moved closer to her, radiating an angry heat. “Did you ever fuck Billy Panella?”
Chapter 33
Jordie’s shoulders slumped as she looked into his face. “No, Shaw. No.”
He took half a step back, then turned away from her and walked over to another chair, where he sat down, leaned back against the thick cushion, and momentarily covered his eyes with his hand.
Concerned, she asked, “Are you about to pass out?”
“No.”
“You should be lying down and resting.”
“Later.” He lowered his hand. “First I want to hear about that damn trip. If you weren’t sleeping with Panella, why’d you go?”
“Josh insisted.”
He gave a short laugh. “Josh insisted?”
“You have to understand—”
“Well, I don’t.”
“I’m trying to tell you,” she snapped back.
He said nothing else. However, his steely gaze was unnerving. She left the arm of the chair and moved to a window that overlooked the courtyard. She opened the closed shutters just enough to see between the louvers and looked down on the woeful cherub in the fountain.
“Do you know about Josh’s scars?” she asked.
“Scars? No.”
“Wiley and Hickam know. I thought maybe during your investigation—”
“The target of my investigation was Panella for crimes other than his scam with Josh. Different division. I wasn’t in on theirs.”
She turned to him. “It’s true, then, that you’d never seen me before last Friday?”
“No. I never had.”
“When Josh turned informant, I made the news, too.”
“I must’ve been busy. Or watching pay-per-view. I didn’t know about you until I got here and Mickey told me that Josh Bennett’s sister was our target.”
“In the bar, you decided there on the spot to take me, to use me to catch them?”
“Yes.” She was about to turn back to the window when he added, “But if I hadn’t had that excuse, I’d have come up with something else. I started wanting you then, and it hasn’t stopped.” The way he was looking at her left no room to doubt him.
Her heart swelled with a mix of emotions, but she couldn’t indulge them. There was too much left to explain. With reluctance, she turned to the window again, looked down at the cherub, and began.
“From the nape of Josh’s neck all the way down to his ankles, his back is horribly scarred. Ugly, awful scars.”
“What happened?”
“He fell into the fireplace and his pajamas caught fire. He was seven years old. I was nine. It was Christmas morning.”
Shaw murmured something unintelligible, but it conveyed a lament.
She said, “You really should repair that cherub in the fountain. She looks so sad.”
“Never mind the cherub. Get on with your story. What happened?”
She took a breath, continued. “The morning started out a happy holiday. Josh and I had woken up early and raced downstairs, excited, as kids are on Christmas. We drank hot chocolate while we opened our presents. Mother cautioned Josh not to drink it too fast or he would burn his tongue. After a catastrophe, you remember ironies like that.
“Anyway, after all the presents had been opened, Daddy went outside to check on his hunting dogs. Mother went into the kitchen to make waffles. Josh and I stayed in the living room to play with our new toys.
“One of mine was a Barbie. Josh was being a little brother, pestering me by flipping up her dress, messing with her hair, making fun of her boobs. I yelled at him to stop. Mom heard the quarreling and, like Moms do, called from the kitchen for us to quit fighting, that it was Christmas, that we didn’t want to spoil the day by bickering. But Josh kept it up. He grabbed my doll. We got into a tussle over it.”
She felt the familiar thickening in her throat and for a moment was unable to continue. She rather hoped that Shaw would grant her a reprieve and tell her that she didn’t have to talk about it. But he didn’t.
“It happened very fast,” she said. “One moment Josh was jeering at me, holding my Barbie behind his back, taunting me, and in the next, his pajamas were on fire. I actually screamed before he did. Mother came running in. She hollered for Daddy, but she also had the presence of mind to push Josh to the floor and throw a rug over him. Daddy ran in, fell on top of Josh, and pounded his back until the flames were out. By then, Josh was screaming, too.”
She noticed that drops of water were trickling down the cherub’s cheeks. It appeared she was crying. “It’s started to rain.”
Shaw didn’t acknowledge her weather report. He said, “All these years, you’ve been atoning for an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident. I pushed him.”
“You were kids, Jordie. In a tussle over a toy.”
She came around. “If I hadn’t been fighting with him—”
“He holds that sword over your neck, doesn’t he? He never lets you forget it.”
Because he was so right, her burst of anger was quickly spent. “No. He never does. What you sensed that I omitted from our phone conversation today? He said that I wanted him dead, out of my life, that when Panella put a bullet in his head, I’d finally be getting what I want, rid of him.”
He rubbed his eyes again and when he lowered his hand, he said, “Your parents?”
“To their dying days, they didn’t let me forget it, either. Not maliciously. Just—”
“—just subtle but constant reminders that you were responsible for your little brother’s tragedy.”
“Something like that,” she admitted quietly.
“While they were piling guilt on you, they made allowances for Josh. Every rotten thing he did was overlooked, tolerated, forgiven. He—”
“Shaw.” The earnest plea in her voice stopped him. “Everything you’re saying, I’ve said to myself ten thousand times. Therapists have repeated it to me ten thousand times. In here,” she said, pointing to her head, “I know it wasn’t my fault that our family was never the same. Daddy sought consolation in the beds of other women. Not my fault. Mother subsisted on tranquilizers and vodka. Not my fault.
“How they parented Josh after that wasn’t up to me, either. Their indulgence turned him into a petulant tyrant. He loves nothing or no one. He thinks only of himself, and believes that he’s entitled to a free pass because of the pain he suffered. I know all that.
“But I wasn’t the one who spent months in agony. He was in the hospital for over a year. He had to endure skin grafts, life-threatening infections, and that was just the physical effects. His psyche was damaged more severely than his body. He didn’t respond to child psychologists, clergymen, counselors of any kind. My parents allowed him to be abusive to the people who were earnestly trying to help him, and they undid what little progress had been made by spoiling him.
“Josh behaved like a monster, because that’s how he saw himself. When he was well enough to return to school, he was subjected to curiosity and cruelty. You know how mean kids can be.”
“Big sis to the rescue.”
“Almost daily.”
“He came to count on you to fight his battles.”
“Yes, and there was no letup. The more I or anyone did for him, the more he demanded. He didn’t take personal responsibility for anything. No matter what the transgression or failure was, it wasn’t his fault. His life became one huge ‘if only.’ If only he weren’t scarred, he could play sports, make more friends, girls would like him.”
Feeling the weight of that unceasing burden to keep Josh happy and on an even keel, she propped herself on the windowsill. “I started out wanting to protect my little brother from further harm and ridicule. Then, I don’t know, making up for th
at Christmas morning became a pattern.”
“Until no matter what you do, even to this day, it’s never enough. ”
A reply was unnecessary. Shaw said, “But you’ve enabled him to abuse you like that.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Then why don’t you tell him to fuck off?” Immediately he dismissed his question with a wave of his hand. “Never mind. I understand why you don’t. Not even when he insisted you go away for the weekend with his boss.”
“Back to that,” she sighed.
“Comes around like a bad penny.”
His sharp gaze stripped away her defenses until she actually felt exposed and raw. She covered her face with her hands and drew such deep breaths to bolster herself that Shaw spoke her name with concern. When at last she lowered her hands, she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly.
“I lied to Joe Wiley and Agent Hickam. I’ve lied to you,” she said softly. “I went to Costa Rica to help Panella and Josh swindle several hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know the total, but the amount isn’t as significant as the fact that I participated in the…the con, I guess you’d call it.”
Exhaling deeply, he sat forward, planted his elbows on his knees, and pressed his thumbs against his temples.
Quietly, she said, “You were right, you see, to place me under arrest.”
He dropped his hands between his knees and looked over at her. “What’d you do?”
“What I’m good at. I hosted parties. Two dinners, one brunch. Served by white-coated waiters in the private courtyard of the villa I shared with Panella. I ordered the food, liquor, the floral arrangements, boxes of Cuban cigars for the gentlemen guests, Hermès scarves for the ladies.
“During the events themselves, small affairs actually, I played gracious hostess while Panella handed out colorful brochures featuring a place that didn’t exist. At least not where he said it did. He pitched it as a retirement paradise for the well-heeled and discriminating. He encouraged the couples to buy partnerships in it while the getting was good. Of course, as partial owners they’d get first choice of the homesites overlooking either the sugar beach or the Emerald Golf Course.”
“Did you know at the time that it was fictitious? Or were you duped along with the potential investors?”
“That’s hard to say.”
“No it isn’t. Yes. No. Both easy to say.”
“I didn’t ask whether or not it was real because I didn’t want to know. But that makes me no less culpable. I believed it was all a fraud, yet I stood by and watched nice people sign their money over to Panella.”
“How much was your take?”
“Zero. Nothing. I’m not a thief.”
He shook his head in perplexity. “Then what was your inducement?”
“Josh was the first to broach the idea. I was a professional party giver. I knew how to put people at ease, show them a good time, get them to relax. I would give Panella a classy veneer. I’d look good on his arm. Josh actually used those phrases, although I’m sure Panella coached him on what to say. I refused even to hear him out. I told him not only no, but hell no.
“But Josh didn’t let it go. He said that his job, ergo his life, hinged on my doing him this one tiny favor. Was it too much to ask? Could I be so selfish as to refuse? And he used the old standby: Didn’t I owe it to him?”
Shaw expressed his disgust with a terse vulgarity. She gave him a weak smile. “I’m giving you the abridged version. Josh kept after me for months. I continued to refuse. Then one evening as I was leaving Extravaganza, Panella ambushed me. He said it would be much healthier for Josh’s career if I helped with this project.
“I actually laughed and told him that it would suit me fine if he fired Josh, that I’d rather my brother never work another day for him. Then I told him to go to hell, got in my car, drove home.”
She paused and stared blankly for a moment before focusing on Shaw. “That was the night I learned that Panella doesn’t take no for an answer. He texted me in the wee hours. After seeing the text, I texted back agreeing to make the trip and act as his hostess.”
“What’d he say in the text?” Shaw asked darkly.
“Nothing. Not a single word.”
“He must have threatened you with something.”
“A cell phone video. He had rigged this effigy of Josh and dressed it in a pair of pajamas. He doused it with gasoline, held a cigarette lighter to it, it burst into flames.”
Shaw closed his eyes briefly. “Jesus Christ.”
“Josh is terrified of fire, you see. Of being burned. I…well…” She scooped her hair off her nape and rubbed it as she tiredly arched her back to stretch. “Effective inducement, wouldn’t you say?”
“The sadistic son of a bitch.”
“Yes. But it worked. I went to Coast Rica and did my part. On the flight home, Panella reached across the armrest and patted my hand, complimented me on the terrific job I’d done, and said he had some other ideas where I could be useful.
“I thought I was going to suffocate before that flight landed, because I realized that neither Josh nor I would ever be out from under his thumb. Josh was already his puppet, and after seeing that ghastly video, I would always be afraid to call Panella’s bluff. If he could terrify me into giving a few parties, what else would he demand of me?”
“To sleep with him.”
She leaned forward from the waist.
“He did, didn’t he? When you were on that trip?”
“Shaw, I swear to you that’s where I drew the line. I told him that if he touched me, he’d have to kill me. And wouldn’t that be a mess? If I wound up dead in the villa where we’d hosted parties together, he’d be opening himself up to a criminal investigation.”
She gave a small shrug. “I suppose he recognized the logic in that. In any case, he left me alone. It wasn’t about sex, anyway. He’d never exhibited the least bit of interest. It was control he desired, not me. But he never forgot that I said no to him. I believe that’s one reason why he hired Bolden to kill me.”
Shaw sat for so long a time just looking at her, that she feared he still didn’t believe her. Finally he asked, “That was the only time you did anything for him?”
“Yes. Within a month of that trip Joe Wiley approached Josh, and I began my campaign for him to testify against Panella. But if there hadn’t been a legal case in the making, if there had been no Joe Wiley or Agent Hickam, I would have done something to get him out of our lives. I returned from those three days in Costa Rica with the resolve to do that.”
“What about your fiancé? Jackson?”
“In regard to the trip, you mean? I told him that I was attending an event planning convention that weekend.”
“When he called you—”
“He didn’t.”
“For three days?”
“He had no reason to call.”
Shaw looked at her with dismay. “‘Honey, how are you? Did you have a good flight? How’s the hotel? I miss you. Let’s have phone sex and make it dirty.’”
Getting testy, she said, “He didn’t see the need to call.”
“If you ask me, Jackson didn’t keep very good track of his woman.”
“Well, I didn’t ask you, and Jackson had no reason to doubt me.”
“No? Then why did he call it quits at the first sign of trouble? He didn’t stick around to see how involved you were, or not. He didn’t vow to slay dragons for you or even to stand in the background and lend moral support. No, he left skid marks getting outta there and on to his debutante. In fact, what did Jackson ever do to inspire your love and admiration?” He ended by grumbling, “I don’t like him.”
She laughed softly. “He wouldn’t like you, either.”
“Nobody does.”
“I do.”
Chapter 34
Following Jordie’s hushed proclamation, neither she nor Shaw moved or said anything. For several moments, the only sound was that of rain pattering against
the window glass.
Then he placed his hands—large, strong, beautifully shaped hands—on the arms of the easy chair and pushed himself out of it. He walked toward her in the slow, measured tread that she remembered from when they were in the garage. Except that this time as he got closer, she didn’t tremble with apprehension but tingled with anticipation.
Standing in front of her, he took up her whole field of vision. Not that she wanted to look at anything except him.
He said, “Why?”
“Why do I like you?” How best to explain it? After consideration, she said, “Because you don’t make excuses for yourself. You don’t apologize for who you are.”
He reached for her hand and pulled her up. As before, he cradled her face between his hands and tilted her head back. His eyes roved over her features, perhaps looking for a more comprehensive explanation for what she’d said, or for a protest when he nudged her feet apart so he could stand between them.
He bumped her once, then again, testing her willingness. She tilted against him invitingly, and when he paired the notch of her thighs with the erection inside his jeans, the warmth of desire spread through her middle like the finest of liqueurs.
She closed her eyes and let her neck go limp, relying solely on his hands to hold her head up. She whispered, “I don’t want to fight you anymore, Shaw. Or fight this.”
He dabbed the corner of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, then moved his mouth to her neck and gently sucked the spot just beneath her ear.
“Whatever this is,” she said on a waft breath. “What is this?”
Lowering his hands from her face, he reached behind her, up under her shirt, and unhooked her bra. “This is further notice.”
“What?”
“I said you’d be under arrest until further notice.”
“I confessed to a crime.”
“I’m about to commit one.”
He slid his hands around her rib cage and into the cups of her bra. He made a sound of satisfaction as his fingertips played lightly over her tight nipples, then he ground them gently against his wide palms before his fingers closed around her breasts, tenderly but possessively.