He said, “Don’t forget the decapitated head with all the electrodes. That one’s a work of art.”
Zara said, “The thing under glass? Scowling like this?” She screwed up her face.
“You’ve seen it?”
“Seen it! The disgusting thing’s taking up space in my living room!”
“I should’ve known she’d make off with that piece, too. She got all my best stuff.” He grinned proudly. “Like a damn pack rat, your mother was.”
Zara snorted. “Was?”
Candy said, “They helped me feel closer to you, all those props. Your masterpieces.”
Emma asked, “Did you construct the ray gun, too?”
“Of course. After filming, your mother had to have that ridiculous thing. She, uh, convinced me to give it to her, for her personal collection.”
Zara was beginning to figure it out. “When you offered Mac Byrne two million dollars to buy it back from Mom, anonymously, you assumed he’d make a reasonable profit and that she’d get to keep most of that money. That was your way of trying to take care of her, wasn’t it, Bil—Dad?”
He looked uncomfortable. He addressed Candy. “I knew you’d been on your own most of those thirty years, and it hadn’t been easy for you. I was sort of…keeping tabs. After Sutcliffe died five years ago and you still didn’t try to get in touch, I figured you didn’t want to hear from me.”
“I thought you’d hate me.”
“I could never hate you, sweetheart. The thing is, I…I’ve got a lot of money. More than I can spend. I didn’t see why you shouldn’t be comfortable.”
Candy held his gaze, misty-eyed and wobblychinned. At last her face crumpled on a hiccuping sob.
“Oh, Lord…” Billy heaved himself off the love seat. “Sweetheart, I can’t stand to see you like this.”
She gulped, “I—I—I—I—”
He made his way to her and lifted her to her feet.
She bawled, “I don’t deserve you! I never did.”
He wrapped her in his arms. “Agreed. What do you say I let you spend the next thirty years making it up to me?”
Zara bit her lip on a smile. It sounded like something Logan would say. The idea of her mother spending the rest of her life with Billy Sharke—her father!—warmed her right down to her toes.
He looked at Zara and her sister over their mother’s head. His eyes glistened. “We all have a lot of catching up to do. I just want you to know…I’m proud as hell to be your old man.”
Zara laughed and blinked back her own tears. “Hate to break the news to you. I don’t go around disarming bad guys every day.”
“We’re even,” he said. “I don’t go around kneecapping ‘em with my cane, either.” He kissed Candy’s platinum head.
Detective Jackson poked his head in. “Your ride’s here, ladies.”
Zara rose with them. “I’ll go with you. I just want a word with Logan first.”
The detective said, “Oh, he already left, Miss Sutcliffe.”
Her heart constricted “Where did he go?” She regretted the stupid question the instant it left her mouth.
Detective Jackson shrugged. “Not to Tahiti, that’s all I know. I asked him to stick close to home for a while, till we get this whole thing straightened out. Same goes for all of you.”
Stick close to home. She should have been thrilled at the prospect. Her apartment. The agency. Her old routine. Her smooth clean sheets and her cappuccino maker and her drawer full of naughty undies that she used to wear just for herself, wondering what all the fuss was about
She wished she’d never found out.
Chapter Fifteen
Zara unlocked the steel door next to the closed warehouse bay, grateful that she still had the key she’d wangled from Logan.
She hadn’t heard word one from him these last two and a half weeks since Mac’s death. He hadn’t answered his phone or returned the messages she’d left on his machine. She’d even gone to his apartment on Manhattan’s West Side in the area once known as—not too far from the warehouse, as it turned out. He was home, she was certain, but he didn’t answer her persistent knocking. She’d vowed then and there to wash her hands of the man. He obviously didn’t want anything to do with her.
Yet here she was, still tracking him down, tenacious as a bloodhound. Those six days she’d spent with him were burned into her soul, taking up much more psychic space than they had a right to. When she’d left him standing over Mac’s body, talking to the detectives, she couldn’t have guessed that would be her last glimpse of him. He’d never even said, “So long, it’s been real.”
She knew that anguish and guilt had caused him to withdraw from her, and from everyone else. He’d been forced to do the unspeakable—to take his own brother’s life. She empathized with the hell he had to be going through. But he didn’t have to go through it alone.
He’d taught her to trust. It was high time she returned the favor.
He’d go where he feels safe, Lou had told her. Some secluded place where he can lick his wounds in private. She knew of only one place that fit the bill.
Every sound seemed magnified in the deserted building—the clang of the heavy door slamming shut behind her, the clicking of high heels on concrete. There were no windows here on the first floor, just unrelieved gray-painted cinder-block walls and concrete-sheathed columns standing sentry at regular intervals. The overhead fluorescent light fixtures had been left on—a clue that her quarry might indeed be in residence.
She click-clicked across the floor to the freight elevator and pushed the call button. A deep mechanical rumble heralded its arrival. Through the thick, wiredglass window she watched it descend. The wide doors opened vertically, parting up and down instead of sideways.
Stooping, she pulled the steel-slat safety gate up, stepped inside the enormous elevator and closed the gate. She pushed five, followed by Close. And rode the grinding, clanking contraption up five flights, staring at the scraped-up embossed steel floor and graffiticovered walls she’d hoped never to see again.
The things one did for love.
Was that what this was? She’d always thought love was supposed to hit you like a rubber mallet—and leave you floating on a cloud. What she felt was much more complex, and in some ways, much more prosaic.
Frustration.
Exasperation.
Worry.
With just a dollop of compassion to keep her off balance.
On the fifth floor she inserted her key in the lock and pushed open the door to her onetime safe house. Clouds of dust motes drifted in the shafts of late morning light streaming in through the filthy windows.
Her eyes zeroed in on that putrid old mattress, now littered with empty coffee cups, deli bags and assorted sections of the Sunday Times. Logan sat in the middle of the mess, nine-millimeter in hand, aimed at her heart.
Zara raised her hands. “Don’t shoot. I’ve got a check for you from Publishers Clearing House.”
He let the gun dangle over his raised knee. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. His eyes were brutally eloquent. What the hell are you doing here?
She started toward him. “Need help with the crossword?” A memory came to her of another Sunday morning when the two of them had lolled around on this mattress together, trying to think of a seven-letter word for “afflicted,” starting with s. The answer only came to her yesterday.
Smitten.
He set the gun aside and held out his hand, palm up.
Fat chance. Smiling sweetly, she opened her small black patent shoulder bag and ostentatiously dropped the warehouse key inside. She clicked the bag shut.
She paused at the edge of the mattress, hands on hips, staring down at him. From his vantage point he probably had a sensational view up her short, bodyhugging electric blue dress. Good.
He was barefoot and shirtless this warm June morning, dressed only in jeans. His long hair was loose, due more to indifference, she suspected, than choice. A couple of days’ w
orth of whiskers studded his strong jaw. He looked uncivilized. Virile.
Irresistible.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“Go.” He licked his fingertip and turned to the op-ed page.
“I don’t think so. We need to talk.”
“I need to be alone to read the damn paper. If you need to talk, I suggest you find someone who wants to listen.”
“Logan—”
Before she even registered movement, he’d reached up and yanked her shoulder bag. She tried to hold on to it and ended up sprawled on her belly atop the Arts and Leisure section. Pinning her with a knee to her back, he opened the purse and upended it over her fanny. The contents rolled off her and scattered. She jerked when his fingers plunged between her thighs, groping from her knees to the hiked-up hem of her stretchy dress. If this was his idea of foreplay.
He withdrew his hand, flipped her over and displayed his prize—the key. He slipped it into his jeans pocket.
“Now.” He pulled her to a sitting position and shoved her empty purse at her. “Go away or I’ll toss your butt on the street. I don’t want you here. I can’t make it any plainer than that.”
“Ah, still the same silver-tongued rascal. You don’t mind if I collect my things, do you?” She lifted her wallet and took her time tucking it into a corner of the purse, just so.
He sighed heavily, watching her scan the mattress for the next logical item to pack. “How the hell did you get all that stuff in that little bitty bag anyway?”
He’d advanced from threats to nonsensical questions. She supposed that was progress.
“Watch and learn from the master,” she answered, lifting a corner of the newspaper, searching for her checkbook. “The key is to pack each item in the correct order, and in the precise spot where it belongs.”
He regarded her in stony silence, sitting crosslegged with his arms folded over his chest, imperious as a pasha. Finally he blurted, “Okay. How’d you get away from Baby Jane?”
She smiled. That question must have been driving him crazy for two and a half weeks. “I calmly suggested she call the FBI and ask them if there’s an agent named Logan Pierce.”
“And she did it?”
“She pretended to ignore me at first, but I could tell I’d gotten her thinking. She started knitting faster and faster, making all these mistakes. Finally she picked up the phone.”
“Keep packing.”
She looked around at the jumble of her belongings.
“Now, where is that lipstick?” Under her butt, if she wasn’t mistaken.
He asked, “Did you know the revolver was unloaded?”
“I figured it out. Played with it till that round thing swung open that holds the bullets…?”
“The cylinder.”
“I looked in all the little spaces and they were empty. And there was no ammo in your duffel—you must’ve taken it out.”
“Did you really think I was going to leave Baby Jane with bullets?”
“I suppose I should be thankful for small favors.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Zara, you could’ve gotten yourself killed, pulling a stunt like that—confronting Mac with an unloaded weapon.”
“He had my mother, Logan. I saw everything through the window. Besides, I figured I had surprise on my side.”
He just stared at her, and what she read in his expression just then made up for nineteen days of silence. Almost.
He said, “I couldn’t have asked for better backup. You did a hell of a job.”
“We make a good team.”
The light faded from his eyes and he looked away. “I mean it, Zara. I need to be alone.”
“Why? So you can keep beating yourself up over what you were forced to do?”
“No one forced me to do anything. I had a choice.”
“You’re right. You could’ve chosen to let your brother kill me.”
“I could’ve wounded him. Shot him in the arm, the shoulder…”
“Is that what they taught you at the academy? To take careful aim at a gunman’s shoulder when he’s about to shoot an innocent victim? You acted quickly, automatically, the way you were no doubt trained. It’s not like you made this decision, I’m going to kill my brother now.”
He sighed. “Zara, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You’re right. No one else can really understand what you’re going through. I can try, though. I know I hurt for you. I hurt so badly for you, Logan.” Her voice cracked.
“All my life I tried to protect my brother, to take care of him. So did my folks, in their way.”
“How are they taking it?”
He was silent awhile. “Better than I’d expected. I think, in a way, they knew it was inevitable.”
She said softly, “I think you did, too.”
His gaze turned inward. “I keep replaying it in my mind. Those last few seconds.”
“Did you expect him to just give up and surrender quietly?”
He was about to lie and say yes, she could tell. Instead he shook his head. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but she sensed he wasn’t ready for that.
She said, “I’ll tell you how it looked from where I was standing. Mac knew it was over, knew he couldn’t get away. You were standing right there, holding a gun on him. And he knew that you knew he had that second gun in his pocket—yours.”
“What’s your point?”
“He knew you were watching him like a hawk, in case he made a move for that gun.” She let that hang there.
“And he did. So what?”
“So it was his choice, don’t you see? He took the decision out of your hands. He could’ve cooperated, let you disarm him. He could have let himself be taken into custody and eventually ended up in a mental facility, like you wanted. But he chose to pull that gun, forcing you to stop him. He knew he didn’t have a prayer of getting away.”
“Are you saying he had a death wish?”
“No. Not really. I just think he wanted the horror to end as badly as you did. He was tormented, fanatically jealous of you. That night he tried to drown me, he slipped so easily into pretending he was you.”
Logan looked pensive. “And he used my name for his alias in Hobart.”
“But he could never become you. It was like some…violation of the natural order, the two of you coexisting. Two incompatible halves of one whole.”
“Seems I’m not the only one who’s given this some thought.”
She was pleased that she’d managed to get through to him, at least a little. “I would’ve liked to talk to you about all this back then.”
He hesitated. “There was no point. It’s over.”
Her chest squeezed painfully. What’s over? she wanted to ask. The terrible ordeal…or the beauty that came out of it, what the two of them shared?
He continued, “I saw no sense in prolonging things, Zara.”
She tried to smile, but bitterness infused her voice. “Is this what they call a clean break?”
“It’s for the best.”
“I…I can understand if being with me reminds you of…what happened. Maybe it feels to you like our relationship is…I don’t know, tainted in some way. We can talk about it, Logan, we can work around it.” She despised the pleading tone in her voice. Where had this desperation come from? When had he become as important to her as the air she breathed?
His expression hardened in exasperation. “It’s not that. You’re making this harder than it has to be. I thought I made it clear back then that there’s no future for us.”
There it was. He didn’t want her. He’d tried to let her down the kindest way he knew how—by ending it abruptly. Her eyes stung with tears of humiliation.
She started grabbing her scattered belongings and shoving them into her purse helter-skelter. She couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes. The disdain. Or, worse, pity.
She whipped the newspapers aside and grabbed her t
issues, compact and comb, shoving them into her purse as she staggered to her feet.
“Uh…you missed something,” he said. She turned back and saw the small box that had tumbled over the side of the mattress. Ribbed for her pleasure.
Her mortification was now complete. She snatched up the box and crammed it into the overstuffed bag, her face hot as a griddle. She sprinted toward the door as quickly as her heels would allow.
“Zara. Don’t…”
Don’t go away mad, just go away. Wasn’t that how it went?
He swore softly. “You’re taking this the wrong way.”
Yanking the door open, she almost laughed, but it would have ended in tears. Exactly how many ways were there to take it?
She stabbed the elevator call button and waited impatiently. Once inside, she pressed the ground-floor button and Close. As the doors started closing she heard the warehouse door open and Logan’s voice bellowing at her to wait up. She jabbed the G button again, hard, as if that would get her there faster. Her fingernail snapped.
She jumped as a resounding blow shook the closed doors. Logan’s fist, no doubt. The elevator started its creaky descent.
She wished she’d never sought him out. How foolish of her to assume he shared her feelings. What had been wondrous and unique to her had been simply a passing diversion to him. One of many, no doubt.
On the ground floor the doors slid open. She yelped in alarm when the safety gate rolled up before she could touch it. Logan must have sprinted down the five flights of stairs, though he didn’t appear the least bit winded. She tried to scoot past him, but he looped a long arm around her waist, hauled her back inside the elevator, closed the gate and punched the Close button for good measure.
The harsh light from above picked out sharp angles in his face, turned it into a menacing landscape of light and shadow. “You are going to listen to me.”
“I listened. You made yourself perfectly clear.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“You want me to make this easy for you!” she cried. “You want me to tell you it’s okay for you to do this to me—to make me care and then walk away. It’s not okay!”
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