by Dale Mayer
“Right,” he said, “it’s an interesting curiosity for some.”
“We all like different names,” she said. “And why are you with Kano?”
“We’re teammates,” he said, with a smile. “Besides, he’s a friend.”
She studied him intently and saw the same damn thing that made Kano so attractive. That sense of power, that sense of can-do attitude. And damn handsome to boot. Also a long scar ran along his neck and cheek from close to the ear. “Looks like you’ve been through the wars.”
“As have most of his friends,” he said easily.
She turned and slid her gaze to Kano, who studied her with a crooked smile. She studied him and asked, “No new wounds?”
“Nothing visible,” he said cheerfully.
She nodded and accepted the menu from the maître d’. Catherine glanced around the table. “Have you all ordered?”
“Of course,” her mother said. “I don’t have time to waste.”
“Of course,” she said to her mother. “Go ahead and have your meeting. I’ll take my time eating, even if you must leave early,” she said. Her voice was as smooth as she could make it. She had learned that the only way to beat her mother was to play the same damn game. And Catherine wasn’t really good at games, but she could see the appreciation in Kano’s gaze. She wondered how much her coming tonight had been to show him just how much she’d changed. It was an interesting thought.
She didn’t want to think she was still looking for his approval, but apparently she hadn’t outgrown it. And feeling foolish as it was, she quickly ordered one of her favorite dishes off the menu and handed it back to the maître d’. Then she relaxed, linking her fingers but not clenching them, a studied example of grace. At least she hoped so. She looked at Fallon. “So why are you here?”
“Came to visit your mom,” he said with a cheery smile. She looked at Kano and then back at her mom. “Business?”
“If it wasn’t, I would have invited you,” her mom said.
“Too bad,” she said. “Kano invited me.”
“We have to wonder why,” her mom said, her tone caustic. “You don’t need to be here,” she said pointedly to her daughter.
“Apparently I do.”
“We’re happy to see the two of you together,” Kano said, with a gentle smile. He picked up his wine and lifted it toward Catherine. “I hope you’ve been well.”
“Very,” she said, clinking her glass gently against his. She took a sip and looked at Fallon who wasn’t drinking. “Not a wine drinker?”
“Whiskey,” he said succinctly.
“They do not mutually exclude each other,” she murmured.
He nodded, with appreciation. “They do not, indeed,” he said. “Do you like whiskey?”
“Scotch, yes,” she said, “and a little brandy. But that would be the end of the hard spirits.”
“Still, … not bad,” he said. “You have to like somebody who can drink whiskey.”
Her mother snorted. “She’s just playing with you. She doesn’t drink anything.”
“Oh, I’ve learned to drink,” she assured her mother almost bitterly. “It seems to be something I needed to learn these last few years.”
“Needed to learn or needed to learn to control?” her mother snapped.
Catherine raised an eyebrow. “Which completely contradicts what you just said about me. But pardon me. I realize you’re here to talk business, so let me just settle back and be quiet,” she said. And then, with a hand sweep toward her mother, she said, “The floor is all yours.”
Her mother sniffed, glaring at her. “Maybe I don’t want to discuss business.”
“I do,” Kano said. “And I’d like to know what you have to say about Bullard’s crash.”
“Oh, did Bullard crash?” her mother asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, he did.”
“I hope he’s fine then,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Considering it was sabotage,” he said, “I immediately started looking at people who would want him dead and am wondering what you might have had to do with it.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I would never want to kill Bullard,” she said sincerely.
He studied her mother for a long moment, and Catherine could see that Kano didn’t know if he should believe her or not.
“She loves him too much,” Catherine explained. “He’s on her list for husband number five.”
Kano stared at DeeDee in surprise. “I thought number three was next.”
“It’s technically number four,” her mother said testily. “But who’s counting?”
“I am,” Catherine said, with a smile.
“Maybe you should just forget the numbers,” DeeDee said.
“I don’t remember them being that high,” Catherine said.
“That’s because you’re forgetting one that I had when I was young,” she said. “It didn’t last very long.”
“None of them lasted very long,” she said smoothly, but she turned to look at Kano. “Bullard remains on her list of those she wants to be married to.”
Kano leaned toward DeeDee. “In that case, maybe you’ll do your best to help us find him then?”
At that, her mother’s gaze widened. “You think he’s alive?” She sat forward eagerly.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We’re just figuring out if he was kidnapped or if somebody else is hiding him, since people are still after him.”
“People like Bullard always have people after them,” DeeDee said. “That’s the way you judge them, by the enemies they have.”
“Says you,” Kano said easily. “Not everybody thinks that same way.”
“Then they’re fools,” she said. “I heard he had crashed,” she admitted abruptly. Just then the waiters arrived, and silence fell on the table. The food was served, including Catherine’s dish. She smiled her thanks, and, once the waitstaff disappeared, Kano looked back at her mother and asked, “What did you hear?”
“I heard that the plane had been blown up,” she said. “That’s not exactly something you can keep quiet.”
“Who did you hear it from?”
“One of my men,” she said.
“Gregg?”
“No. If Gregg had come to me, I could have helped him,” she snapped. “I would never have blamed him for Bullard’s crash.”
“And yet somebody who worked for you tried to persuade him to be a part of it.”
“When they couldn’t,” she said, with a shrug, “they tried to blame Gregg. Everybody needs a patsy.”
“And the people who work for you were behind this?”
“Nobody said they were behind it,” she said. “And they aren’t people who work for me. They were people who used to work for me.”
“So tell me about them.”
“Rod is an arrogant SOB, who thinks he’s too good to work for a woman,” she said immediately. “He has aligned himself with a bunch of people I rejected as not having sufficient qualities or the correct morals to work for the company,” she said, “but water will always find its own level, and he found his.”
“You think they’re behind it?”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said, “but it would be hard to decide that without more information.”
“Any idea where we can find their offices?”
“As far as I know, they’ve all hit the ground, running in the opposite direction. Whatever the hell you guys did in England these last couple days has split them all up.”
“Or made it look like they’re split up,” Kano said.
She frowned and nodded. “You never really can tell,” she said. “They’re rats, all of them.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
She glared at him. “You might not like me,” she said, “but you did almost become my son-in-law.”
“Maybe,” he said, “and you’re right. I don’t particularly like you.”
She laughed out loud at that. �
��Good thing,” she snapped, “because I would have taken off your head at some point in time. You hurt my daughter. That’s inexcusable.”
It was all Catherine could do to keep her mouth shut on that point.
Her mother looked at her and said, “You never did understand, did you?”
“I still don’t apparently,” she said. “Why would you have anything to do with Kano and me?”
“Because you were too innocent,” she said. “Somebody had to look after you.”
“That’s how you raised me,” she said.
“I did, but I didn’t expect you to be quite so …” And she left it hanging.
“So naïve?”
“Yes, that’s true. Naïve is a good way to describe it.”
She frowned at her mother. “I’m not that bad,” Catherine said.
“Not now,” she said. “You’re finally showing a bit of spine. But you’re still a long way off. You’re like a kitten with these little claws.”
The insult was blatant. Catherine wasn’t sure what was behind it, but she took it with a bright smile. “I see you’re as direct as always,” she said.
“It’s not as if you’ve had lunch or dinner with me in the last year, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said, “but I don’t live here permanently either.”
“Yet Kano crooks his finger, and here you are,” she said snidely.
“You don’t know anything about the relationship that I have with Kano,” Catherine said coolly. “Or why I may have come. The fact remains, you never invited me.”
“I didn’t know you were in town, did I?”
At that, Catherine burst out with honest laughter. “That is definitely a lie,” she said. “Dear Mother, you always keep track of where I am every moment in the day.”
Her mother glared at her. “You’re my daughter. What do you expect me to do?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “You’ve never been a typical mother, so typical mother things don’t apply.”
“Maybe I can learn,” her mother said.
Was that a note of desperation? Catherine decided she’d imagined it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You are who you are.”
“Damn right I am,” she said, “and the sooner you accept that, the better off everybody will be.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I didn’t think what I believed impacted you in any way,” she said.
“It doesn’t.” And, with a sneer, she looked at the guys. “I’ll send you an address,” she said. “It’s the last one I have for that group. I was keeping tabs on them to see how much trouble they could get into. If they had anything to do with Bullard, I don’t know about it.”
“Good enough,” Kano said.
DeeDee had finished her dinner, and, without a word, she stood, waved her hand, and said, “The least you can do is pay for my dinner.” At that, she turned and walked out.
Fallon muttered, “We intended to in the first place.”
Her mother laughed and disappeared from sight.
“It’s just my mother’s way to have a parting shot, so it makes her look in control,” Catherine murmured, setting her fork on her almost empty plate.
Kano looked at her in surprise.
She smiled a little sheepishly and said, “Yes, I’ve grown up.”
“Good,” he said, with feeling.
“You don’t have to make it sound that bad.”
He flushed in surprise.
She pivoted in her seat to face him. “I was young. I was naïve—make that stupid. I know,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of years trying to regain control of my life.”
“Sounds like you have,” he said.
She shrugged. “There was room.”
“Sure,” he said, “but just because there’s room doesn’t mean people are ready to make the change they need to.”
“And not everybody,” she said, “is capable of seeing the change that has to be made.”
He tilted his head, focused on Catherine’s eyes, her expression. “Sounds like you have come a long way. I’m glad for you,” he said, with a nod.
“What about you?”
He stared at her, nonplussed.
She smiled. “You never did know what to do with direct talk, did you?”
“I can talk directly with the best of them, but, once it comes to relationship stuff, it gets a whole lot more confusing.”
At that, she burst out laughing. “Not really,” she said. “It’s actually very, very simple.”
“No. No, it isn’t,” he said, “because, right now, you’re talking in circles, and I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m not trying to say anything,” she said, “but it was important to me—for my growth and for my future—that I let you know that I’m no longer the same innocent child that I was.”
“And, for that, I’m happy,” he said sincerely.
She smiled, nodded, and said, “I’m happy with my growth too.” She placed her napkin beside her plate. Then she stood, and both men stood at her side. She turned to Fallon. “It was nice meeting you, Fallon.”
“Likewise,” he murmured, and she also felt a certain sincerity in his words. Feeling triumphant, she quickly made good on her exit.
*
Kano watched Catherine leave, more than a little stunned.
“Wow,” Fallon said.
“Yeah, wow, indeed,” he said.
“I gather she’s changed?”
“And how,” he said, retaking his chair. The waiter came around, asking about desserts, but he shook his head and said, “As you can see, we’re done.” By the time they were outside the restaurant, he was still recovering from the changes in her.
“I like her,” Fallon said.
“There’s a lot to like,” Kano murmured. “Back then she was just very young. I felt guilty for the longest time because she was too young.”
“Maybe. She doesn’t look very young anymore though.”
“No, she doesn’t. But she’s still off-limits.”
“Why? Because of the black widow?”
“That and many other reasons,” he said. But even he was struggling with reasons why.
“You really think DeeDee wanted Bullard as her future husband?”
“I think she collected husbands, the ones she could make use of,” he said, “so it’s possible.”
“Please tell me that Bullard wouldn’t have been so taken in by her lies.”
“One thing Bullard appreciates,” he murmured, “is talent and the ability to make things happen.” Kano shook his head. “So, from his perspective, there are plenty of reasons to be friendly with her. But I don’t know if that means he would be taken in by her.”
“Where to next? I don’t trust her a bit.”
“No,” Kano said. “And did you notice how she didn’t let us get close enough to put a bug on her?”
“I know,” he said, “but we do have somebody out there, watching where she’s going.”
“She’ll go straight home,” Kano said. “I’m surprised she didn’t invite us for a nightcap.”
“I think her daughter joining us for dinner surprised her.”
“Probably, I just don’t know what she might do to Catherine over that.”
“A yelling match?”
“It’s possible. I don’t know.”
“Any reason to be worried about Catherine?”
“I don’t think so. I hope not anyway.” Just then, he heard a familiar voice behind him and turned to see Catherine on the phone in the lobby. He nodded her way to Fallon, who turned and saw her.
“Then it’s a good thing she hasn’t left yet.”
“No, not yet,” he said. They watched and waited until she was done. Then she walked out, obviously distracted. Kano stepped into her line of vision and said, “Hey, I thought you’d left.”
She stopped, startled, then looked at him and said, “No, I’ve got a patient problem.”
“Patient?
”
She shrugged. “I work with children who have special needs,” she said, “and one has been rushed to the hospital.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” he asked. “We can drive you there.”
She hesitated. “I came in a taxi,” she said.
“Smart,” he said.
“Is it?” She gave him a droll look. “Leaves me without wheels now.”
“But not without a ride,” he said.
Fallon immediately contacted the valet for their vehicle. “Come on. We’ll take you.”
“If you don’t mind,” she said, but it was obvious that she was torn.
“We don’t mind.” As soon as their vehicle was brought around, Kano helped her into the back seat, and Fallon drove. As they got to the hospital, Kano exited and helped her out. “You’re hardly dressed for it though.”
“I couldn’t care less,” she said cheerfully. “I can be me now.”
“Now that Mom’s not here?”
“In some ways, yes,” she said, “and this is so much more important than any of her games.”
“Thought you weren’t into playing games?” he asked curiously.
“I’m not,” she said. “Unfortunately other people insist that I play them.”
“Not me,” he said. “You know how I feel about games.”
“But that’s what we’re doing already,” she said, with a half a smile, “dancing around in circles. So the game has already begun. It’s a question of where and how it ends.” And, with that, she disappeared.
Fallon whistled into the air. “Wow,” he said, “I wasn’t expecting that at all.”
Kano had to admit he wasn’t expecting any of it either. Just then, as he went to get back into the car, he watched as a big black sedan pulled away at a rapid speed. He looked at Fallon. “Wonder who that is?”
“You think it was following us? After the restaurant? Was it following us, or is DeeDee keeping track of Catherine?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I want to go inside and check on Catherine. Run the plates.” With that, Kano followed Catherine inside.
Chapter 4
Inside the hospital, Catherine walked up to the front desk and waited for the receptionist to get off the phone. As Catherine waited, she wondered at the timing that would have had Kano and Fallon being the ones who brought her here. It’s not that she was against them understanding what she did for a living. But nobody, including her mother, understood how deeply Catherine had gone into her field.