Stay (Dunham series #2)

by Moriah Jovan

  She blinked. “Really?”

  “If that’s something you want to do, yeah. Be happy to help.”

  “Oh, yes, Knox. Thank you!”

  Vanessa doused the flame and slid the mess onto a pewter plate, garnished it with a couple of grapes and took it over to her guinea pig. His wizened black face topped by that shock of white curly hair bent over the plate and he sniffed appreciatively. “Apples’n’onions,” he said reverently. “You shore can cook, Vanessa, honey.”

  That meant nothing. Over the years, she’d learned that if Curtis praised a dish effusively but didn’t finish it, he didn’t like it but wouldn’t hurt her feelings. What she awaited right now was an abrupt nod and a clean plate.

  “Boss? The order? Dude wants it pronto.”

  She started and headed over to the packing bench to look at the ticket: Nash Piper, Hilton-Bozeman, Montana: Three days, favorites, breakfast, lunch, dinner.

  Well, so he’d made it, and just into October, too. Fourteen hundred miles on foot, not counting however many miles he’d managed to hitch a ride, in five months.

  The Whittaker House kitchen knew Mister John Thompson’s tastes as well as she did, so she instructed her assistant to cook the food and pack the Styrofoam-lined box accordingly. He looked at her funny, but did so. Once that was done and she bent to sign off on the packing slip, she paused and wrote,

  Not going so well here. Hope yours is better. V

  She didn’t know why she’d written that, but she had no one to talk to, and for the first time in her life she wanted—needed—a girlfriend who didn’t also inhabit Knox’s world in some way. Nash was the only person who might understand, but he was gone and she blinked away the tears.

  It was done and she need not think about that anymore. At least now, thirteen-year-old Vanessa had closure, even if twenty-eight-year-old Vanessa had a hole in the middle of her chest.

  Vanessa looked over her shoulder to check on Curtis’s reaction to her new dessert. “Cur—”

  “Missouri prosecutor Eric Cipriani is garnering national attention . . . ”

  She whipped around and looked up at the TV.

  Again.

  But all she saw was an artist’s rendering of Eric in a Chouteau County courtroom speaking to the jury, an expression of rage on his face.

  It transformed him from a suave Italian gentleman into an Osage warrior, his battlefield a courtroom, Hugo Boss his war dress. She caught her breath at his magnificence.

  “ . . . defense counsel Dirk Jelarde had entered a plea of not guilty, but today the jury convicted Tanya Williamson of four counts of first-degree murder for the June fourteenth slaying of her four children in a Chouteau City, Missouri motel. Williamson’s sentencing hearing is set for December tenth, and Cipriani has requested the death penalty. Senator Tye Afton, Republican Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was quoted as saying, ‘Cipriani is a fine prosecutor, a fine representative of Missouri’s commitment to law enforcement. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, innovative ideas, and a growing grassroots movement behind him.’

  “Missouri’s governor also praised Cipriani after today’s verdict.”

  The screen changed. The governor stood in the marble rotunda of the capitol building, his words echoing. “A year and a half ago, Eric Cipriani took the reins of the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office after Knox Hilliard made a mockery of it for the preceding fourteen years. He has turned that county around and today, I can say with great confidence and gratitude that Chouteau County has one of the finest prosecutors in the state at the helm of its jurisprudence system.”

  “Governor Dixon! What do you think of Mr. Cipriani’s future in politics? Senator Afton seems to think he could be the savior of the Republican party.”

  “Well, let me put it this way. I don’t care what he calls himself or what party he’s representing, I want to work with him.”

  Okay, you’ve adequately demonstrated your willingness to have fun. Find me a place to fuck you silly where we won’t get arrested.

  Vanessa watched stonily when the screen changed, showing reporters with microphones, cameras, and booms chasing Eric up the Chouteau County courthouse stairs to the prosecutor’s office. He turned on the landing halfway up and held his hands up for silence, which he got.

  He looked around, his face hard, arrogant, so unlike the face she had stared into when he had eaten kangaroo jerky, ridden the rides with her, teased her about a pink saloon girl dress, and posed for a tintype with her.

  . . . that was before I found out my girlfriend was about to come in the middle of an amusement park while twenty people watched me finger-fuck her.

  Today, he stood tall, proud, and broad in his navy designer suit. His Donegal beard was trimmed to its usual sharp edges, his shirt collar and cuffs still crisp, his tie immaculate.

  “I want everybody to understand something,” he boomed, his voice deep and powerful. Angry. “You pull [bleep] like this in my county, I will hunt you down and bring you in and make damn sure the victims get their justice and the people of Missouri get their revenge.”

  I’m taking you to Silver Dollar City today . . . and we’re going to hold hands and ride rides and see the shows and eat cotton candy and funnel cakes and ice cream and hot dogs.

  Vanessa hurt so badly she could barely catch her breath, but she couldn’t turn away.

  “What if you had lost?”

  Eric’s head snapped to the reporter who’d asked that, and his eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t going to lose.”

  “If you had,” she persisted, “would you have turned vigilante like your boss did in 1994?”

  “I wasn’t going to lose,” he repeated slowly, his jaw grinding. “And that’s enough of that.”

  I’m going to teach you how to have some good, clean fun.

  “Mr. Cipriani! You were in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office for six years as the executive assistant prosecutor and interim, and the last year and a half as the elected prosecutor. You’ve already begun to raise funds for a run at the Missouri attorney general’s office, and the governor has openly endorsed you for that position. Do you think you can work with a Democrat?”

  He nodded abruptly. “Governor Dixon’s an honorable man and I look forward to working with him. Until I beat him in the election after that.”

  “What party will you be representing?”

  “Independent.”

  The press corps buzzed. “But Senator Afton has been quietly championing you as an up-and-coming leader in the Republican party.”

  “Then he’s been doing it without my knowledge or consent.”

  “You ran and won as a Libertarian in Chouteau County.”

  “I ran and won as Eric Cipriani, somebody the county knows and trusts as a prosecutor and a local businessman. I’m not completely on board with the Libertarian platform, and the difference is significant.”

  “You haven’t made any secret of your aspirations to the presidency. Do you really think you can get all the way to the White House as a third-party candidate?”

  “The people of this country want real change, and I’m it. When they go vote, they won’t see ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’ or ‘Independent’ on their ballots. They’ll see ‘Eric Cipriani’ and check the box. Okay, press conference is over, folks. I want to go home and put my feet up and pop a cold one.” With that, he turned and climbed the rest of the stairs.

  If I didn’t mean something more to you, you’d have tucked me away somehow, minimized me to some secret little tryst . . .

  The studio announcer faded in. “Eric Cipriani,” he said, “has the financial backing of some of the most powerful conservatives in the state of Missouri and the full support of conservative pundit Justice McKinley, who just happens to be on his staff. Justice McKinley’s marriage to scandal-ridden Knox Hilliard could be a sticking point in his campaign for attorney general, so it’ll be interesting to see how this all works out. See you after the break.”

  V
anessa turned, numb, her head bowed. She walked over to the staff table and sat next to Curtis. She vaguely noted that he had cleaned his plate, and she tried to keep her agony to herself when he laid a gentle hand on her back.

  “I guess you liked the apples’n’onions.”

  “Yeup.” Good. Precisely the reaction she needed. “Cranberries ain’t native, though.”

  “Color. A little zing. I can substitute something else that’s native when it’s in season, maybe sugared elderberries.”

  He nodded. Got up. Shuffled, all hunched over, toward the back door, then paused with his hand on it. Turned to look back at her.

  “That boy loves you, missy,” he croaked, his voice nearly broken with age and cigarettes, whiskey and song.

  Her mouth trembled and she gave him a tight smile. “No he doesn’t. I never gave him a reason to.”

  The next day, the phone signaled in Vanessa’s ear and she answered it by rote. “Whittaker House. How can I help you drop out of society?”

  “Yeah, you got a vacancy for a hobo with a little extra cash?”

  It was all Vanessa could do not to burst out in tears at the sound of that hoarse voice, packed with heartbreak, knowing that not only had she lost everything, so had Nash.

  “Yeah,” she said, sniffling.

  “I promise not to call you Melanie if you promise not to call me Eric.”

  Vanessa managed an entirely fake chuckle. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. When are you planning to show up?”

  “Two, three days,” he murmured. Cleared his throat. Began again, with forced matter-of-factness. “Drivin’ a hot rod now. ’Cause I can.”

  “Beats walking. Okay, I’ll clear out your suite.”

  “Nah. Just clear out half your closet. Might as well make it official.”

  Don’t ever mistake sex for love because that’s when girls start getting stupid.

  She sighed, feeling very stupid.

  It was too late for them, but she said, “Okay,” because she could think of nothing else to say at the moment. She’d call him back tomorrow and tell him not to return; now that she’d had the real thing, a substitute was no longer an option.

  Sitting on the side of her bed that night, she carefully slid that precious, precious reproduction tintype out of its sleeve to look at it for the first time.

  It was the only evidence she had of that flash in time when Eric Cipriani had been hers.

  When he had looked at her the way she had always wanted him to.

  When he had touched her with reverence and joy.

  When he had taken her to Silver Dollar City to ride rides and hold hands and eat cotton candy, to kiss and stroll and talk . . .

  She expected to see a leer in the tintype, some expression of lust because he’d had his hand under her skirt, but no.

  She stared at it, eyes wide, her hand shaking so badly the paper trembled.

  Tears splashed onto it, onto his face, blurring the one expression she hadn’t expected to see.

  I want the chance to fall in love with you.

  He had.

  * * * * *

  38: Limousines and Sycophants

  “Oh, you look so pretty,” Giselle remarked when Eric limped into the dojo two weeks after he’d won that damned trial. He stopped, looked in a mirror, and grimaced. Saw half of Giselle’s class—the female half—stop to stare at him. “Did Mill send you to the hospital?”

  “Twice,” Eric admitted, touching one of the many bruises his sensei had given him. He turned away from the scrutiny. He didn’t mind the gawking outside dojo walls, but he didn’t want it in his own house. “Sixteen stitches from a knife, two busted ribs.”

  “Sixteen? That’s what he gave me. He must have his teaching slices down to a science.”

  “He’d better. Another quarter inch to my femoral artery and then I could’ve found out if Joseph Smith was right. Mill says he expects you to be working on advancement and to present yourself for your third black-belt test within the year.”

  Giselle stared at him. “I’m only a first.”

  “I told him about your little tiff with those two assholes on the Plaza and he told me to promote you to second immediately.”

  “Oh, so what he really wants is a detailed accounting and a choreographed re-creation in front of a ballroom full of black belts.”

  “With handouts, including the police report. He’s got a date, a full roster, and a waiting list.”

  Giselle turned back to her class with a laugh, but then snapped at them to focus on their techniques and not on Mr. Cipriani.

  Eric sighed and limped toward his office.

  Convicting a child-murderer hadn’t satisfied Eric’s howling need for Vanessa nor had the interviews, the photo shoots, the sudden thrust into the political and pop culture stratosphere—free publicity he needed to start on his campaign in earnest. He’d figured a week of intensive training in Salt Lake with his sensei would get his heartache cut and pummeled out of him.

  No such luck.

  “Fifth black, my ass. I need to be busted down to first. Maybe yellow,” he groused as he dropped into his battered desk chair and turned on the computer. He blinked when he pulled up his accounting program, stared. Sat forward. Stared some more.

  He laboriously pulled himself back out of his chair and shuffled out of his office into the workout area. He stood to the side of Giselle’s class while she taught, but as soon as she understood he wanted to talk to her she set the class to doing timing drills, admonished them to keep their minds on their assignment, and bowed herself out.

  “Did our enrollment really double this last week or is that some math error?”

  “Nope, it really doubled. I mean, between the governor putting you on the AG short list and you making the cover of People magazine, you’re in demand. ‘Prosecutor Eric Cipriani sexes up conservative politics.’”

  He sighed. “Oh, well, did you explain that I’m not teaching anymore?”

  He missed that.

  “Yes, Eric,” she said dryly. “Your magic fairy dust has settled over the dojo. Six degrees of separation and all that. All they need is your name on the storefront. And oh, by the way, KC Magazine called for an interview and photo shoot, and about a dozen bloggers have had their naughty photoshopping way with your pictures. Too bad the public won’t get to see all those beautiful purple and green and puke-yellow blotches all over your face. Mardi Gras gone wrong.”

  He scowled at her overt amusement.

  “I just did my job,” he grumbled. “No need for everybody to go all nuts over it.”

  Giselle’s smile faded and she stared up at him. “You don’t seem very happy.”

  He took a deep breath. “I—” He waved a hand, taking in his dojo and the courthouse across the street, the magazines with covers of his face that he just now saw piled on top of one student’s gear bag. “This is fun,” he said bluntly. “I like it. I’m getting where I want to go and I don’t even care that I’m getting there on my looks. Just so long as I get there and I don’t have to beg for money to do it.”

  She said nothing. Waited patiently.

  “I want that. I’ve wanted it since I was a freshman. Maybe even before that when I had old Jenkins in my ear constantly harping on capitalism and the American way. I don’t know. But I’ve worked for it. Kept my nose clean, did Knox’s job—conspicuously. Bided my time, paid my dues, did everything right. I spun my web and waited and let it come to me so I could pounce. It’s here and it’s time to go to war. I deserve this.”

  “Yes, you do,” she agreed quietly. “We’re all very proud of you, Eric. Proud to be behind you, associated with you.”

  “Yeah, so why do I feel like shit?” he burst out.

  She took a deep breath, in through the nose, held it, out through the mouth. Looked at the floor. “It doesn’t mean much without the person you love,” she murmured.

  He started. “Uh, Giselle— You and Bryce . . . ?”

  Her head snapp
ed up, eyes wide. “No, no. We’re fine. But when we started out together— I . . . had to give up something I wanted very badly in order to be with him. I was just remembering that. I . . . ” She stared off out the front windows then and Eric could see tears sparkling in her eyes. “I would’ve sacrificed anything to be with Bryce, but I really had to think about it. I couldn’t have them both. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make and it hurt.”

  Even without specifics, Eric understood what she was telling him.

  “Laura Ingalls Wilder,” he murmured, and felt Giselle’s surprise at the abrupt change of topic. “You know her work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a lot of emotion in her writing.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It’s subdued. Matter-of-fact. Very, ah . . . suck it up.” Her mouth twitched. “Very little bitching about serious problems. No sparkle to the relationships, but strong ties and quiet love, all highly romanticized. That would appeal to a child in Vanessa’s situation, and she bought into the romance of it because she was too young to know better.”

  He took a deep breath, not sure he wanted to spill his guts like this. “Vanessa said something about us, her and me, being poor trailer trash. She said she hated drama and the stupid thing was, we’re standing in the middle of Silver Dollar City, right? and she’s screaming at me, telling me I make her have drama. Don’t have a clue what she means, but she’s the one going totally apeshit.”

  “Huh. She’s always been pretty quiet, circumspect. Always strove to be like Laura.”

  “Uh . . . the painting? Maxim? Esquire?”

  “I said she tried. Then Sebastian happened to her.”

  Eric rolled his eyes and Giselle chuckled.

  “She prays to Laura. Like a god.”

  Giselle shrugged. “Well, as gods go, she’s an excellent one to have.”