Sawyer, Meryl

by A Kiss in the Dark

  "A case came in at the end of the month about the time I thought Royce was due home. A man had been killed in an automobile accident. The survivor claimed the dead man had been driving, but the police suspected the survivor—who'd failed a sobriety test—had actually been at the wheel.

  "The evidence was iffy. The question was whether or not to charge Terence Winston, a local celebrity with a column in the Examiner and a heavyweight in liberal political circles."

  "Didn't you know he was Royce's father?"

  "No. We'd been walking along the beach when I'd asked her name. Between the noise of the surf and my bad ear, I didn't pick up what she said exactly. I thought her name was Royce Annston, but she must have said Royce Anne Winston.

  "The case was a challenge. Even if we could have proved Winston was driving, a good defense attorney could have gotten the drunk driving charge dropped. The police used a breath analyzer and got a reading that was barely over the legal limit."

  "They should have used a blood analysis, particularly since there was a death involved."

  "Hell, they were unusually sloppy all the way around. They mopped up the accident scene in an hour."

  "Typical," Paul said, then took a sip of his lukewarm beer, thinking. Crime scenes were taped for days, every bit of evidence examined carefully. But on the street nothing was more important than maintaining the flow of traffic. Too often those crime scenes were released prematurely.

  "I persuaded the filing deputy—a wimp who must have gotten his law degree mail order—to file charges. Winston was a local celebrity. So what? Why should he get away with anything? Still, the charge would have been tough to prove. The car had burst into flames. What evidence wasn't charred was destroyed by water when the fire department arrived."

  "Didn't you talk to Royce during all this?"

  "I called, but didn't get any answer. The accounts in the paper never mentioned her name, just that he had a daughter and his wife was dead." Mitch shook his head. "At the preliminary hearing I saw Royce again. Only one other person ever looked at me with so much hatred."

  The scars on Mitch's cheek were barely visible in the dim light. Paul knew someone hated Mitch a helluva lot more than Royce. But in all the years Paul had known Mitch, he'd never discussed who had tried to kill him. All Paul knew was someone had attacked Mitch. He suspected it was a woman, but he couldn't say why exactly. Just a hunch.

  "Winston had an old friend—some probate attorney-— represent him. I annihilated him at the prelim hearing without half trying." Mitch shoved the half-eaten pizza out of his way. "Winston was so stricken, Royce had to help him walk out of the courtroom when the judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to go to trial."

  "The next morning I picked up the paper. Royce's father had blown his brains out. He'd been depressed since his wife died and couldn't face a trial."

  "Christ," Paul said. He'd been away, trying to put his life back together after leaving the police force. He'd returned shortly after this happened. It had been another six months before he'd rejoined the living. Mitch never burdened him with his own problems during that time.

  "Half the city showed up at the funeral. When Royce saw me, she went ballistic."

  "I suppose you can't blame her."

  "No. I'd insisted on prosecuting out of blind ambition. I admitted it to her at the funeral. It was a spotlight case that would have made my career. Instead the press was in an uproar and every politician in the city wanted blood."

  "But the press didn't fry you. I wasn't so out of it that I wouldn't have remembered them attacking you."

  "True, the media went after the system and yammered for weeks about evidence ignored in drug cases that are plea-bargained while we'd crucified an upstanding citizen. Back then the media was lobbying for mandatory sentencing, so they ignored me, but it didn't matter. Royce knew what I'd done."

  "That's why you left the DA's office, right?" Paul felt more than a little guilty. He'd returned shortly after Mitch had opened his own office, but Paul had been too absorbed with his own problems to ask why Mitch had left.

  "Yeah. The DA returned—pissed big-time—and took all my interesting cases and left me with a bunch of crap."

  "I guess you can understand why Royce Winston isn't your biggest fan."

  "It's been years, dammit. If Royce were honest with herself, she'd admit that ambition does things to people. And even if I'd been overly ambitious, I was only doing my job. How was I to know her father was suicidal?"

  Paul could still see Royce's point, but he didn't even try arguing it with Mitch. She'd lost her father and no doubt saw Mitch as the epitome of the conniving lawyers she hated.

  "Goddammit. After what she did to me on that talk show, I'm going to be bird-dogged by reporters."

  Paul had never heard Mitch this angry. He was one of the most controlled men Paul knew; Mitch seldom lost his temper. Could it be he did intend to run for office, and Royce had exposed his plans?

  She'd cleverly picked up on something even Paul hadn't noticed until she brought it up. Mitch refused to defend any man accused of rape. Why?

  "Are you defending a cougar? That'll mean more publicity."

  "Actually I'm representing the Wildlife Foundation at a Fish and Game hearing. They want to destroy some cougar because he attacked a hunter." Mitch stabbed the air with his finger. "What I want to know is how the hell Royce found out about it. They just hired me."

  "Hey, Mitch, you know nothing can be kept secret. How else would I make a living?"

  "I don't like anyone meddling in my business. You know that."

  Paul nodded, thinking Mitch guarded his privacy—particularly his past—like a pit bull. And he held a grudge like Kohmeni.

  "Nobody treats me the way Royce did tonight and gets away with it. She's had it. I swear, I'll screw her."

  "Geez, you're a celebrity—-already," Brent exclaimed the following evening as they walked into the elegant St. Francis Hotel for the auction to finance the Center for Women in Crisis.

  Did she detect a hostile note in his voice? Was her success going to threaten Brent? This was a side of him that she'd never seen until this moment.

  A gauntlet of reporters with belted battery packs and klieg-light sets greeted them. Pack journalism, Royce decided. If one station came, they all did. The minicam crews were the harbingers of electronic gossip in the la-la land of TV news—an amalgam of entertainment and journalism. Did she really want to be a part of this?

  One reporter lunged in front of her, his bald head sprouting a lonely tuft of red hair like a patch of crabgrass. "Any truth to the rumor you and Durant were lovers?"

  "Don't be ridiculous." Butterflies the size of bats flew through her stomach. A kiss in the dark didn't make them lovers. Besides, no one could know—unless Mitch had told.

  Would he retaliate for what she'd done to him last night by making certain Brent found out about that kiss at the party? How could she explain passionately kissing a man she hated? She couldn't even explain it to herself.

  "That creep was Tobias Ingeblatt from the Outrage," she told Brent.

  The Evening Outlook was a local tabloid whose stories were financed by supermarket ads touting the lowest prices in diapers and mayo. It was such a joke, everyone called it the Evening Outrage, but it was stocked near the registers beside national tabloids. The Outrage's circulation was awesome with its tales of the clandestine clenches of local celebrities.

  Tobias Ingeblatt was their star reporter, she thought with disgust. He probably made three times what her uncle earned. Ingeblatt frequently resold his stories to a national tabloid. Usually his pieces featured the exploits of aliens with heads like light bulbs. He'd made the front page of the nation's largest tabloid when he'd come up with a story— complete with a picture—of Bill Clinton getting a preelection endorsement from the aliens. The issue sold out in one day.

  Ingeblatt nosing around made her nervous. More than nervous.

  "There are my parents." Brent looked acr
oss the room. "Let's say hello, then see what they'll be auctioning tonight."

  Royce kept her hand on his arm as he negotiated his way around the maze of closely packed tables. The soft light from dozens of chandeliers and the peach-colored damask fabric on the walls cast a mellow glow across the ballroom. The dance floor had been turned into a viewing area for the auction items. She scanned the crowd previewing the auction items for her friends.

  "I've ordered wine," Ward Farenholt said as they walked up. "I'm not drinking that inferior cabernet the charity is serving."

  "Good idea." Brent kissed his mother's cheek.

  Royce had to admit she envied how close Brent was to his mother. There was always a distinct coolness between father and son, but Brent was genuinely fond of his mother. A good sign, she told herself, recalling her discussion with Talia and Val. You could judge a man by the way he treated his mother.

  Royce mumbled good evening, thinking nothing ever suited Brent's father. It was a wonder Caroline Rambeau measured up to his standards for a daughter-in-law, but she did. Ward was fond of Caroline—almost affectionate. Evidently, he had a heart, but opened it only to a select few.

  "Wasn't Royce terrific last night?" Brent asked his father.

  "There's no hope for the homeless. They're a fact of life and have been since the beginning of time."

  Ward directed his comments solely to Brent. It was as if Royce weren't present. Ward ignored most people, talking to the chosen few, like Caroline, he didn't consider inferior. He never spoke to Royce unless he couldn't avoid it.

  "You're doing another trial program?" Eleanor asked Royce.

  "Yes. I'll be interviewing the head of the Center for Women in Crisis. I'd hoped to do it last night to publicize this event, but I guess they don't need my help. The turnout's great."

  "On the next show," Eleanor said, a false note of warmth in her voice, "you'll look better if you have the makeup man use more concealer. Your freckles showed. And your hair—"

  "Mother," Brent cut in. "Royce didn't want to hide her freckles or change her hair."

  Royce challenged Eleanor, staring into the older woman's glacier-blue eyes. Seeking this woman's approval was futile. Never try to please her again. "I don't want to be another blond prime-time clone. God gave me naturally curly hair and freckles. That's what the viewer will get—the real me."

  Brent said, "Royce is an original."

  Eleanor blessed Royce with the smile she saved for the homeless and liberals. "I see."

  Royce turned away before she said something hateful. Was her relationship with Brent doomed? She walked around the table until she found her place card and put her Leiber bag beside her napkin.

  The jeweled cat looked more like a piece of art than an evening bag, she decided. It threw off shards of iridescent light like a Fourth of July sparkler. Still, its flashing green eyes looked so real that she imagined the cat was laughing, making fun of her for wasting her time with people who hated her. And always would.

  Well, at least she'd have her two favorite men beside her tonight. Brent was on one side of her and Uncle Wally was on the other. Wait. Brent was with her, but the other card had an unfamiliar name. She left her cat bag guarding her plate and marched around the table, remembering the fiasco at the last party when she'd been seated with Mitch. She was positive Eleanor had been responsible.

  Naturally, Caroline was at the table between Brent and his parents, seated with the Italian count. The other couples were friends of the Farenholts. Coming to the auction had been Royce's idea. Uncle Wally was supposed to be with her.

  Brent walked up. "Let's look at the auction. Mother tells me Cartier's diamond necklace and earrings are spectacular."

  "I don't want to look at any jewelry," she snapped.

  Eleanor chose that moment to walk up. "Oh, my. What's wrong?"

  "Why isn't my uncle beside me?"

  "Well, I—that is we—" She turned to her son. "Your father and I thought Wallace Winston would be more comfortable at another table."

  "You've got a lot of nerve."

  Royce's tone sapped the color from Eleanor's face. She flung a disgusted look at her son, then scurried away.

  Brent caught Royce's arm. "Mother was only thinking of your uncle, darling."

  She yanked out of his grasp, every slight she'd suffered from the Farenholts surfacing at once. But nothing could top this. Why had she put up with it for so long?

  "You're a fool. You know your parents don't approve of Uncle Wally. Never mind that he's one of the city's—this country's—most respected journalists."

  "You're right," Brent reluctantly admitted.

  "And they hate me too." She took a deep breath, already regretting what she was about to say, but knowing she had no other choice. "I don't want to be engaged to a man whose parents despise me. Uncle Wally is all the family I have, and your parents deliberately hurt him. He bought a ticket tonight to please me. Now he'll have to sit God only knows where."

  Brent put his hands on her shoulders. "I'll take care of it."

  "Don't bother." She glanced over to where the Farenholts were standing. Caroline and the Italian count had just arrived. Smiles. Hugs. "I'm going to find my uncle and sit with him."

  "Royce," Brent said, his brown eyes sad, "I love you. I'll talk to my parents and make them understand."

  "I'm calling off our engagement until we work things out."

  "No you're not, dammit!" His tone was uncharacteristically angry. "We'll discuss this later"—he lowered his voice—"when we're alone."

  Barely controlling her own temper, she rushed off to find her uncle. The room was too crowded to be comfortable. Too crowded to find anyone quickly. The Dillinghams waved to her, but mercifully they were far enough away to avoid them without appearing rude. She finally found her uncle at the back of the room. Alone.

  "I'm so sorry," she said when she found him. "Eleanor Farenholt had your seat changed."

  "It doesn't matter," Wally said with his usual smile.

  "It matters to me. I can't go on like this. I called off our engagement until we settle the situation with Brent's parents." She linked her arm with his. "Tonight before I dressed I went up to Daddy's office in the attic. I always feel close to him when I'm there. I couldn't help remembering how happy we were as a family. It'll never be that way with the—"

  "Honey, don't toss aside a man you love too easily. Above all, don't worry about them accepting me. I've lived with rejection most of my life."

  "It doesn't matter. I love you."

  "In spite of what I am?"

  "Because you're a wonderful person. You know, when I was a little girl I used to tell everyone how lucky I was to have two daddies. Now that Papa's gone, you're my father. And I'm not letting the Farenholts be nasty to you. Come on, forget them." She tugged on his arm. "Let's find Val and Talia."

  "You go on. I'll wait right here."

  Royce located Val in the auction area. Her friend looked very striking in Royce's copper lame dress. Val's hair, a unique shade of red somewhere between rich honey and chestnut, was swept upward in clusters of soft curls. Thank heavens, she wasn't spending another night moping over her ex-husband.

  "Royce, I've been looking for you." Val's eyes swept over Royce, registering her approval. "That's a great dress."

  Royce wore a loose-fitting beaded lavender gown that deepened the green of her eyes. The shower of lavender beads had a high neckline—she'd learned her lesson last weekend—but it glimmered as she moved, making her even more noticeable. Like all of Royce's clothes it had a dramatic flair. This gown had a bare back that plunged to her waist, exposing most of her back, a stark contrast to the demure front.

  "So, where's the parsley king?" Royce asked.

  "He's inspecting the vintage wine, trying to decide if he should bid or not."

  "Here's a tip. The king is into escarole and endive—big time. Tonight, if it's green and it's on your plate, eat it."

  "You're too much," Val said with
her familiar smile, a smile Royce had rarely seen since her divorce.

  "Let's check out the jewels from Cartier." Royce looked at the long table with security guards standing behind the display cases. "Talia is over there."

  By the time they'd winnowed their way through the mob, Talia had disappeared into the throng.

  "Don't turn around," Val cautioned, her voice low. "Mitch Durant is coming this way."

  "What's he doing here? He never attends charity events." Royce turned her back to the aisle, feigning interest in a Frette comforter on display. She kept her head down, determined to avoid Mitch. Although she didn't turn, every muscle tensed, alert to his presence. For a minute he waited behind her, not saying a word, but she could feel the heat of his body.

  "Hello, Royce." The tone was thoroughly masculine, undeniably Mitch's voice.

  She had no choice but to turn and face him. He stunned her with a smile, not just a casual grin, but an affectionate one. Wasn't he angry? The last time she'd seen Mitch, he'd been furious. Somehow she stumbled through an introduction to Val.

  "Excuse me," Val said with a apologetic glance at Royce. "My date is waiting."

  Royce could have killed her, except the parsley king was trapped by the mob in the mock vineyard, waving for Val to join him.

  "Last night was great, wasn't it?"

  Caught off-guard by his friendliness, she managed a nod. Mitch didn't wait for her answer, nor did he attempt to hide his gaze. His eyes roamed down her shoulders to her breasts to the flare of her hips, then up again, lingering on her lips.

  The last time she'd been this close to him, she'd been in his arms. She battled the unexpected urge to move closer, sucking in a quick breath and stepping back. For the life of her she couldn't explain her reaction to this man.

  "You're clever, Royce. You had everyone in town talking about your show. Arnie loved it."

  Arnold Dillingham had liked the show, she thought with pride. He'd sent her five dozen long-stemmed roses this morning. With the flowers was a note saying her Q-factor was unbelievably high. The Q measured name recognition and audience approval. Eleanor Farenholt could go to hell. Freckles, wayward curls, were what the public wanted, not sleek blondes whose only talent was reading the TelePromp-Ter.