Key West

by Stella Cameron

  “Stop it.” Billy let out a shuddering sob. She cried, dragging in hoarse little breaths. “All the toes on my right foot are broken. And lots of other little bones. It hurts, Sonnie. Don’t be cruel. Get me out of here. Make them believe I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Can’t do that. Sorry.”

  “Sonnie! It hurts so much. And I don’t even know how it happened.”

  Your foot got stomped on in the car. “Oh, I’m sure it does hurt. It probably always will. Especially when it rains. Some people think that’s an old wives’ tale—about injuries aching when the weather’s damp. It isn’t. It’s true. You’ll probably develop arthritis in time.”

  Billy cried louder…She pulled her head as far away from Sonnie as she could. “You’re just trying to get your own back. Well, all I’ve got is an injured foot. At least my face isn’t ruined.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Sonnie said softly, “but behind your face, inside your head is ruined, isn’t it? It’s rotten in there. Disgusting.”

  “Go away.”

  “Isn’t it? Answer me.”

  “No one’s going to believe anything you say after this,” Billy said.

  “Really?” Sonnie laughed and it felt good. She grabbed a handful of tissues, crammed them into Billy’s right hand, and pushed it to her mouth. “Your nose is running. It looks sickening.”

  “Help,” Billy said, but scarcely made a sound. “Help me, someone.”

  Sonnie straightened. She picked up the cartons of Jell-O and soup and went to the door. “It’s too bad they can’t cast broken toes. They just have to heal on their own, and you hope they aren’t too crooked afterward. Best to stay away from nail polish. It only draws attention you don’t want. It’s a real nuisance having to buy sensible shoes and give up heels or anything cute. They make some really good orthopedic insoles, though. Just because you have to wear boring shoes, it doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with them. Buy cute shoelaces. Silver, maybe. Or the ones that look like neon telephone cords. Those are a great idea, especially when the foot swells. They stretch.” She maneuvered the door open, and left it open.

  The feeling of triumph was too short-lived. She longed to lie down and sleep—and forget. She heard Billy crying, but felt nothing.

  The amazing Mr. Talon leaned against his pillows and glared. But when he saw Sonnie, his expression changed to one of cheerful stoicism. Despite the cast that enclosed his left leg from hip to toe, dressings that covered sutures in more places than Sonnie had so far counted, a banged-up face, and bandages on his knuckles thick enough to resemble mittens, he contrived to look dashing. A white sheet across his lap shielded the essentials. Everything else was muscular and bare—including his tattoo. The nursing staff was already commenting on that tattoo—and finding excuses to check on “the hunk.”

  “You okay?” he said. “You look…angry?”

  “Let it go, please.”

  He frowned, but said, “Okay. They haven’t let Billy go, have they?”

  She would like to forget Billy—for good. “No.”

  “That black outfit she’s wearing. Is it sweats?”

  “Yes. Please, Chris, don’t get worked up. All this can wait for a bit, can’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Gotta tell someone to check her pockets. Dust and little white rocks in there. They match ones at the club—on the walkways. They were in your foyer. Nothing like them in your gardens. She used them to throw at the chandelier and make it move and clink.”

  Sonnie realized what he was telling her. “Billy,” she said. “Poor, mixed-up Billy.”

  She did her best not to look at anything but his face. She also did her best not to feel what she felt anyway: a longing to touch as much of him as his injuries allowed, to kiss all those places.

  “I don’t want you to pity me,” he said, “but they did do an open reduction on my knee. I’ve got pins in there, y’know.”

  “You’re quoting a doctor.”

  “Yup. Thought it sounded worthy of a lot of sympathy.”

  One moment she was convinced she must try to at least help Frank get back on track before she left him; the next she couldn’t imagine doing anything but staying at Chris’s side—forever.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong, Sonnie?”

  She evaded the question. “I don’t want to hear any complaints about what I’ve brought you. I was stopped when I came on the floor and told this would be what you’d eat. The soup’s cold and the Jell-O’s melted. Tough. You don’t get any choices and Ι can’t do anything about it.”

  “Oh.” He managed to push his hair back with the fingertips of his right hand. “I guess that’s what I’ll eat then.”

  She put the cups on his bed tray and pulled a chair near the bed. “The police must have given orders for Billy to be detained at the hospital.” If she ought to feel guilty for what she’d just done to her sister, it wasn’t happening. “She’s got a badly injured foot, but that’s no reason to keep her here. Romano’s also here, and Jim. And Cory Bledsoe.

  “They’ve decided they can control things here, and the hospital is going along. The only player they haven’t dredged up is Ena. Annette Roberts. But they’re hunting for her.

  “Do you suppose all this means they think they know what’s been going on?”

  “That would be my guess,” Chris said. “They know about the attic at your place now. Would you close the door, please?” Sonnie felt uncertain, but she did as he asked.

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” he said, and rolled the tray as far away as he could.

  “Υou saved me, Chris.”

  “So you’ve already told me. I’d do it again. Anytime.”

  “The cost was too high. You’re suffering too much.”

  “I’ll be hopping around on crutches in no time.”

  “I just got a pretty direct warning.” This seemed like a way for her to broach a subject that couldn’t be ignored. “I was told I’d lose friends if I did anything to hurt you.”

  “Would you kiss me?” Chris said. “I think I really need you to kiss me now.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to be very calm. He knew what they needed to talk about. Avoidance wouldn’t change reality.

  “Sonnie, don’t do this to me. Come to me. Let me feel you.”

  He’d come close to being killed for her because he loved her. And she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t die if he stopped loving her. Barely able to see through a haze of tears, she went to him and, very gingerly, kissed him. But if she’d had any plans to withdraw, she could forget them. Dressings or no dressings, he held the back of her head and kissed her. The man was a wizard with his mouth. If they gave out awards for killer kisses, Chris Talon would win first place, hands down.

  He slid his fingertips down her arms until he could hold her hands. His eyes were pure green now. “I’m not giving up on you. Not ever. I don’t care if you decide you’ve got to be Frank Giacano’s support group—that you’ve got to stand by him. That’s the kind of thing I expect from you. But I will be there, darlin’. I will be a shout away at all times.”

  “I can’t live without you.” She couldn’t close her mouth when she finished. The words had tumbled out—a small but powerful torrent beyond her control. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  Chris brought first one, then her other hand to his lips. “I’m not going to live without you,” he said. “But I’m not blasé enough to believe we can have what we’ve already had again until you make peace with it. Does Frank want to work it out?”

  “He said he did. He said he wanted to start another pregnancy as soon as possible.”

  Chris felt instantly enraged. He breathed in through his mouth.

  “But he hasn’t changed, Chris. And the things he said—how would he know about you? He does, in detail. And when I told him the baby had died, he cried as if it was a new shock; then he said he’d read all about it in a newspaper clipping.”

  Chris pressed his lips together.
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br />   Sonnie said, “He’s the same as he always was. And he sent me on that drive with Billy. He ordered me to go with her. I think he knew something about what was going to happen.”

  “What do you think their plan was?”

  “To put me in a sanitarium and keep me drugged. My parents would have been brought in, and of course they’d have agreed that Frank needed access to my trust to cover my expenses. Frank and Romano separately planned to use me for their own gain. Romano had no idea what Frank was up to, but I think they’re both in big trouble and they’d do anything to dig their way out. And my sister is as involved as they are.” She could no longer pretend otherwise.

  Chris thought she was close to the truth about Frank and Romano. He wouldn’t push her on the subject of Billy, but he was glad they both realized she was as guilty as hell. “Detective Whittle is in charge here. He’s a good man, straight. He told me they’re suspicious about how Frank was able to slip his captors after almost nine months and just walk away. Frank says he was in Europe with these goons, but there’s no record of his coming back into the States. And he’s got an answer for anything they throw at him, every little detail. They also think he arranged for an anonymous tip to break in media-land because the press and TV started to arrive in Key West late this afternoon. Truman Avenue looks like the who’s who of ‘Inquiring minds want to know.’ We don’t believe that happened accidentally.”

  Her sad and tired face caused him to wish he’d kept the last bit to himself. She had to know what kind of publicity hound she’d married.

  The ferocity with which she slapped her hands over her ears caught him off guard. And it scared the hell out of him. He didn’t say a word, but figured he’d wait until she was ready to share whatever had upset her.

  “My foot,” she said, and her face contorted. She sat on the chair, pulled her right ankle across her left knee, and held her sandaled foot as if it were freshly wounded. “In the Volvo. Just like with Billy. Someone stamped on my foot to keep it on the pedal—to make me give the car more gas. And when Romano drove me at that wall the other night, he said something about doing that—that I should do it to him, I think.

  “It wasn’t an accident I hit that wall. I couldn’t have done anything to stop it. He stamped on my foot and turned the wheel. He turned the car toward the wall.”

  Any color she’d had fled her face.

  “Take it easy,” he told her. “Just let it come.”

  “That’s why I went to Key West again, isn’t it? Because I knew I had to find out what really happened to me. I don’t panic easily, Chris. Nothing I was told made any sense, but who would listen to a woman who couldn’t remember the truth?”

  “Who was he, Sonnie?” Chris asked as quietly as he could.

  “I don’t…Well, I don’t know. They said I was alone in the car.” She glanced downward. “We were alone, Jacqueline and I.”

  “But someone slammed your foot on the accelerator. Unless he wanted to die, he’d have to jump clear, wouldn’t he? And to do that he’d have to be fit, really fit. His timing would have to be either perfect or instinctive.”

  “We were alone,” she said, and shook her head. “No, we weren’t. Pain, so much pain in my foot—and my ankle. I undid my belt. Then I hit the side of my head here”—she touched her right temple, then her jaw—and here. And I couldn’t stay then.”

  “You mean you lost consciousness?”

  “Maybe. I must have.”

  He mustn’t push too hard. “You’re doing just fine. Great. You don’t have to worry about it now. I don’t suppose you recall what you hit your head on.”

  When she bowed her face and looked up at him, her deep blue eyes held sorrow, confusion.

  He said, “Forget I asked. We’ve still got some rocky times to get through tonight. The hospital isn’t going to put up with being used as an interrogation center for long. They’ll want all of us out of here.”

  “Not you,” she said, still far away. “They’ll make you stay.”

  This wasn’t a good time for argument, so he grunted.

  “I didn’t hit anything,” she said. “He hit me. He shouted at me, and hit me until it was all black.”

  Keeping his hands relaxed on the sheet took a whole lot of willpower. “Unconsciousness feels like that. I surely know how it feels. What did he shout?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “No.” Damn, so close but so far away. “And you still can’t think who he was?”

  Her expression cleared. “No, I can’t. But I got a feeling just then. And I’ve already started to bring it back, haven’t I?”

  “You surely have. Now quit worrying about it. You’ve got as long as it takes.” And will you take it with me, Sonnie? Will you decide in favor of me? Please, will you stay with me for the rest of our lives? I’m trying to he so reasonable here, but I don’t know how I’ll be if you leave me.

  She surprised him by standing up. “I don’t regret being with you—with you.” Faint brushes of red stained her cheeks. “I wanted you from the moment I met you. You’re steady and strong, and although I knew you couldn’t be interested in me, I wanted your strength and certainty for myself. You never pushed yourself on me.”

  Hardly trusting himself to exhibit any of that legendary strength, he said, “I didn’t have to fall for you. I couldn’t seem to help myself, though. And I’d do it all over again, and again. Only I don’t have to, because I’ll never stop loving you.”

  Moving close enough to trace the damn tattoo he’d acquired to help complete his biker image, she inclined her head and smiled faintly. “I’ve got to work on learning to like myself. Find out if I do like myself. I like you, Chris. There is nothing about you that doesn’t turn me on.” The smile became broad. “Look what you’ve done to me. I never used to say things like that. Now I hope I don’t ever have to go back to being prissy.”

  His own grin faded fast. “What are we going to do? You have to call it.”

  Being careful to avoid wounds, she smoothed his hair away from his face, watching her own fingers as she did so. “We’re going to believe we’ll be together again. If that’s what you want.”

  The word believe grated, but he said, “It’s what I want. When?” He had to hear her tell him it wouldn’t be long.

  “I don’t know. Not long. But there are things I have to do.”

  The door opened without a prior knock and Detective Whittle came in. He held Cory Bledsoe by the elbow. “Excuse me,” the detective said, “but we won’t take long with this. Would you mind waiting outside, miss?”

  “She’ll be fine here,” Chris said. “She needs to stay.”

  Whittle, a blond man with sharp gray eyes, raised his brows but nodded. Sonnie felt his authority. He wore it low-key but comfortably. In charge. Whittle.

  “We’ve been talking to Mr. Bledsoe about how he came to be in possession of a dead man’s passport and papers. We’ve been talking a lot, but he can’t seem to come up with an answer. What I’d like from you, Mr. Talon, is your permission to mention the information you shared with me about Mr. Bledsoe.”

  Bledsoe showed none of the congenial assurance Sonnie expected from him. “You were in my house,” she said, never intending to say anything. “You tried to frighten me by pretending to be dead in the foyer. And you went back there again. Ena saw you.”

  “I don’t know any Ena,” Bledsoe said, not looking at her. “I’ve never been in your house.”

  “You must have worn a wig.”

  “Sonnie,” Chris said gently, and shook his head.

  Detective Whittle flexed his shoulders. “Sure you know Ena. Annette Roberts, really. You were looking for a way to get out of the country, so you paid Annette for her dead husband’s papers.”

  Bledsoe raised his face. He wore the expression of a horse confronted with flames. “I didn’t.”

  “Okay if I say something?” Chris asked, and the detective gave a short nod. “You didn’t pay Annette for her husband’s paper
s?”

  “No.’

  “What did you pay her for?”

  “Nothing. I need to sit down.”

  “Was it Romano you were paying? Paying off by terrorizing Sonnie? He and Billy wanted to drive her mad—or make it seem as if she might be mad.”

  “No.”

  “I found a list of women’s names in Annette Roberts’s attic. Didn’t mean a thing till I found the same names written in a notebook that belongs to Billy Keith.”

  Cory’s eyes flickered rapidly between Chris and Detective Whittle. Sonnie could smell his fear.

  “Your ex–tennis pro left because you wanted him to perform sex acts in front of you, didn’t he?” Chris said.

  “Who told you that?” Cory panted and bared his teeth. “You don’t have any proof.”

  “Remember Ginger-Pearl? She moved on. But you had plenty of other victims. You shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get Romano to work for the club. What did you do to make him go digging for dirt on you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Chris laughed and said, “That’s not what he says. He says the whole plan was yours. All of it.”

  “It’s a damn lie,” Cory said. His face contorted. “I can’t stand it.”

  Whittle eased the man onto the chair Sonnie had vacated. “Sit a minute. We’ll go and see what Romano says when the two of you are face-to-face.”

  Ashen, Cory closed his eyes and shook his head no. “I don’t ever want to look at that bastard again. He did this to me. With help from her.”

  “Her?” Chris said mildly.

  “Billy Keith. She isn’t human. She lit her own cigarette so she could help him. All I did was tell him I knew he was getting it on with her and that”—he glanced at Sonnie—”that if he didn’t share the goods with me, I’d see if someone would pay to know about the two of them. They seemed okay with it. But when I’d finished—”

  “Finished?” Whittle asked.

  Cory swallowed. “She egged me on. She wanted me. But afterward they said it wouldn’t be a good time for me to start spreading rumors. I said I wouldn’t, but they worked me over anyway. Then they took me to the attic at Sonnie’s house. They said if I did what they wanted, they’d let me go and no one would ever find out about—about the stuff at the club. You know the rest. I made a mistake and got away without the passport. I’d found it in the attic. I had to go back for it. Can I lie down?”