She sat down in the dingy, plaid chair across from the sofa and held her mug cradled in both hands. “I trusted the wrong people. The wrong men.”
“Was Bobby Jack—?”
“Change that tune, will you? Bobby Jack was a guy I dated twice. I didn’t really know him and certainly didn’t trust him. Besides, by the time I met him, I’d wised up. I don’t really trust anybody and haven’t in a long, long time.”
“You trusted Audrey Perkins.” Dom took a sip of coffee.
“It wasn’t a matter of trust. She hired me to do a job and paid me well to do it. Beginning and end of story.”
He eyed her skeptically. “No, that’s not all.” He shook his head. “There’s more to it. There’s definitely something you’re not telling me.”
“If you say so.” Lausanne sipped on her coffee.
“What if I told you that I want to believe you and that I want to help you?” He was being honest with her. He did want to believe her. And God only knew why, but she brought out all of his macho protective instincts.
She set her mug down on the scarred wooden cocktail table anchored between the chair and the sofa. “I’d say you’re lying and it’s time for you to leave now.”
Dom shrugged. “You don’t believe me.”
She stood. “Yeah, sure I believe you. Just like you believe me.”
Dom placed his mug beside hers on the table, then rose to his feet. “I’m going to give you my card. It has my cell number on it. If you need anything or if you decide you want to talk some more, give me a call.”
He slipped a business card from his inside jacket pocket and held it out to her. She stared at the card for a couple of seconds, then grabbed it and tossed it down on the table.
Dom walked to the door. Lausanne followed, keeping several feet between them. He opened the door, then paused and said, “The chemistry we had going on between us in Palm Beach—that was real, wasn’t it?”
She looked him right in the eyes. “Was it?”
Dom momentarily hesitated, then entered the exterior corridor that led to the open staircase. Before he had a chance to say anything else, Lausanne closed the door. He heard the distinct click of the lock.
Why the hell did he want to beat on her door, demand she let him back inside, then pull her into his arms and tell her that he believed her, that come what may, he’d take care of her?
Because he wasn’t thinking straight. He wanted Lausanne Raney. Wanted her stripped naked and lying beneath him. Wanted to be inside her, listening to her cry out his name when she came.
God damn fool!
Dom tromped down the corridor, took the steps two at a time and all but ran to his rental car.
LAUSANNE STOOD at the door. Waiting. Listening. Hoping? No, she didn’t dare hope that Dom would knock, that she would open the door and there he’d be, arms open, telling her that he believed her, trusted her, would stand by her and help her prove her innocence.
She didn’t need Dom Shea. She didn’t need anybody. She’d learned the hard way that if you trusted someone enough to lean on them, to believe they’d be loyal and steadfast, you’d only end up disappointed. And in her case, worse. The first time she’d loved a man, she’d been seventeen and wound up pregnant, unmarried and alone. You’d have thought that experience would have taught her a lesson she’d never forget, but did it? No, not desperate-for-love, gullible Lausanne Raney. Less than four years after she gave her baby girl up for adoption, she fell in love again. She trusted again. And for the second time, she paid dearly for her stupidity. But after five years in prison, she finally wised up.
Lausanne trekked across the living room, opened a bottom drawer in the single end table—a seen-better-days maple veneer—and pulled out a dog-earned phonebook.
Flipping through the Yellow Pages, she tried to erase Dom Shea from her mind. If he’d go away and never come back, she might be able to do that. But the fact was he wasn’t leaving Chattanooga. He’d be keeping an eye on her for his boss, Edward Bedell. And the police were bound to question her again, maybe even press some kind of charges against her, if Audrey Perkins didn’t show up soon. And even if she did, since she wasn’t the woman who’d hired Lausanne, Audrey couldn’t back up her story.
Lausanne spread the phonebook apart on the page that listed attorneys. Unless she was badly mistaken, it was only a matter of time before she’d need a good lawyer. The only problem was, she couldn’t afford a lawyer, good or bad.
Don’t forget that fifty grand you stashed away in a savings account. If you have to, you can use part of that money for legal fees.
Who was she kidding? A good lawyer would take the entire fifty thousand and then some. She could hock the jewelry she’d bought on her trip and the expensive luggage, but she’d keep the clothes because she’d need them when she got a new job. Besides, used clothes sold cheap.
How did a person go about choosing a lawyer? When she’d been arrested as an accomplice to armed robbery nearly six years ago, the court had appointed an attorney to defend her. He’d been young, fresh out of law school and eager to win. He’d lost, but he had gotten her a lesser sentence. She owed him that much anyway.
Lausanne read through the list of criminal attorneys. Do you see a name that you like? Ever heard of any of these people? Damn! Frustrated, she ripped out a page from the phonebook, folded it in half and stuck it in her slacks pocket.
She eyed the two half-empty mugs on the cocktail table.
Don’t you dare moon over that man. He’s no good for you. He’s not your friend. He’s your enemy. Remember that the next time you see him. And if your heart starts fluttering when he looks at you, remind yourself that he believes you’re capable of murder.
After picking up the mugs, she took them into the kitchenette, dumped the coffee into the sink and stuck the mugs in the ancient dishwasher. Knowing she didn’t have the luxury of wasting time, she yanked the ripped phonebook page from her pocket, stuck it in her purse and then grabbed both her purse and sweater as she headed for the door.
She should choose a lawyer and get in touch with him; and she would—later. But first things first. She’d take the bus to the grocery store to buy the basics she needed and while there, she’d pick up a copy of today’s newspaper so she could search the want ads. What she needed even more than a lawyer was a job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NOW WAS THE TIME to make a move on Gray. Cara had never been more certain of anything in her life. He was lonely and vulnerable, worried sick about Audrey and feeling terribly betrayed. In the past, she had kept her feelings to herself. She’d never interfered in Gray’s marriage, never crossed the line between concerned sister-in-law and being madly in love with her sister’s husband. But this time, it seemed that Audrey was gone for good and might not be coming back. Ever.
Did she want Audrey dead? Yes and no. If there was any other way to free Gray of his obsession with Audrey, then Cara wouldn’t wish her sister dead. But being totally honest with herself, she knew that as long as Audrey was alive, Gray would forgive her and take her back no matter how many times she ran off with another man. Gray would never let Audrey go, would never set either of them free to find happiness with other people.
Pausing in the hallway to check her appearance in a floor-to-ceiling mirror, she moaned. Even at her best, she could never be as attractive as her older sister, never as sleek and slender, never as sexy and enticing. But she possessed qualities that Audrey didn’t have. She was loyal and loving and faithful and…
And she loved Gray more than Audrey ever had, more than anyone ever could. He was the sun and moon and stars to her. The beginning and end of her world.
Cara’s hand trembled as she reached for the crystal door handle. Before she’d left Gray in the living room with her father twenty minutes ago, she’d made him promise that he’d stay for lunch.
“You need to be with family,” she’d told him. “With other people who love Audrey.” She hadn’t actually lied to him. Their fa
ther loved Audrey and in her own way, she did, too. She loved her sister as much as she hated her.
After sucking in and blowing out a deep breath, Cara grasped the handle and eased open the door. Putting a pleasant expression on her face, she waltzed into the room, but came to a dead stop when she saw Gray and Patrice. With her arms draped around Gray’s waist, Cara’s wicked step-mother kissed him on the cheek.
“What the hell’s going on?” Cara demanded.
Gray jumped as if he’d been shot, yanked out of Patrice’s embrace and turned to face Cara, his face slightly flushed.
“We didn’t hear you come in.” Patrice gave Cara a haughty, cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk.
“Patrice was merely comforting me,” Gray said innocently.
And Cara believed him. Wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him. But if anyone was going to comfort Gray, she was. Not her tramp step-mommy dearest.
“Shouldn’t you check with Cook about lunch?” Cara issued Patrice a condemning glare. “She needs to know that Gray will be here for lunch and for dinner tonight, too.”
Looking helpless and confused, like a pitiful child, Gray murmured, “Cara, I shouldn’t impose on—”
“Don’t be silly,” Cara told him. “You’re always welcome here. You’re family and always will be, no matter what happened to—happens with Audrey.”
Squaring her shoulders in order to bring attention to her expensive silicone breasts, Patrice smiled at Gray, but spoke to Cara. “I thought surely you’d told Cook yourself. I know how eager you are to keep Gray here with us for as long as possible.”
“I would never overstep my bounds,” Cara said. “Daddy informed me when you two married that you were the lady of the house and would take care of all those little wifely duties.”
Patrice’s smile vanished. “I’ll go speak to Cook. I know how much you want to be alone with Gray…to comfort him.”
When Patrice exited the living room, Gray slumped down on the sofa, rested his arms against his thighs and dropped his hands between his spread knees. Nervously tapping the tips of his fingers together, he hung his head.
Poor, darling Gray. Such a sweet, delicate disposition. Far too gentle and kind for a woman like Audrey.
Cara sat beside him, but made no attempt to touch him.
“Patrice is a viper,” Cara said, keeping her voice level and calm despite the anger and hatred boiling inside her. “Please be very careful around her.”
“She was trying to be kind.” Gray’s voice cracked. “She knows how much I love Audrey, how desperately I want her to be all right.”
Cara lifted her hand and laid it on Gray’s back, careful to keep her touch light and sisterly. “What if Audrey doesn’t come home? You have to face that possibility. We all do.”
Gray lifted his head and glared at Cara, his mouth gapping in a mournful sigh. “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”
“I think it’s possible. That Raney woman is lying. I know she is. Hiring someone to impersonate her isn’t something Audrey would do. And if that woman knows Bobby Jack Cash, then it’s highly probable that the two of them…” Cara paused for effect, wanting Gray to believe that she was as traumatized as he by the thought that Audrey might be dead. “I can’t bear to think about it.”
“I did everything I could to make her happy.” Gray sighed dejectedly.
Cara patted his back, ever mindful to keep her touch non-sexual. “I know you did. No one could have been a better husband. Audrey just needed something else. She was never satisfied, not even when we were kids. She always wanted what she couldn’t have.”
Gray glanced at Cara. “To be sisters, you two are so very different.”
Cara’s hand on his back stilled. If anyone else, other than her father, had said that to her—that she and Audrey were very different—she would have taken the comment as a compliment. But coming from Gray, she wasn’t sure.
“We had different mothers,” Cara reminded him. “I suppose that’s part of the—”
“God, how I wish Audrey could be more like you.” Gray covered his face with his open palms.
“What?” Had she heard him correctly or were her ears deceiving her? Was she simply hearing what she longed to hear?
“You—you wish that Audrey was more like me?”
Gray removed his hands from his weary face and cocked his head to one side in order to look up at Cara. “If only I’d fallen in love with you instead of Audrey, my life would be so different.”
Overcome with sheer joy, Cara barely contained her emotions. She wanted to hug Gray and kiss him and confess her undying love. But now was neither the time nor the place. He wasn’t ready to find out how desperately she loved him, how much she’d always loved him.
Keeping one hand unmoving on Gray’s back, Cara reached out with the other and tenderly cupped Gray’s chin between her thumb and fingers.
They sat there in the elegant living room of Edward Bedell’s ancestral mansion and gazed into each other’s eyes for a long, heart-stopping moment; then Gray pulled away from her tentative hold and rose to his feet. He walked across the room, paused by the windows facing the front veranda and heaved a sonorous sigh.
“Please don’t misunderstand,” Gray said, his back to Cara. “I love Audrey. I’ve been besotted with her for ages. But we’ve made each other so miserable. If only she could have truly loved me. If only I’d been enough for her.”
Cara wanted to run to him, to comfort and console him. Not yet. Wait, an inner voice cautioned. It’s too soon. Once we know for sure that Audrey is gone and will never return, then Gray will be mine. All mine.
DOM PULLED INTO the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in East Brainerd. He’d called Bain Desmond right after leaving Lausanne’s dismal little apartment. He couldn’t shake the negative vibes he’d gotten from the place. After seeing her in West Palm Beach, dressed to the nines and living in the lap of luxury, it came as a surprise to see how she really lived when she wasn’t impersonating an heiress. But what he couldn’t decide was whether her being that poor meant she was more or less likely to have killed Audrey Perkins.
After going inside the restaurant and placing his lunch order, Dom checked his watch. Two-thirty. Desmond had agreed to meet him right about now. It looked like the detective was running late. Dom picked up his order, prepared his cola and got his condiments. After grabbing a straw and a handful of napkins, he carried his tray to a booth near the bank of front windows.
He cleared his tray, sat down and glanced out the windows at the kiddie playground. A young woman stood guard over two preschool-age children and an older woman kept watch over a toddler as the three little ones ripped and romped, laughing and squealing with delight. Dom had a twelve-year-old nephew and a nine-year-old niece back in Texas, his elder sister Pilar’s two kids. He hadn’t seen them—hadn’t seen any of his family—in over five months. But Thanksgiving was just around the corner and he intended to go home for the holiday and then back again for Christmas. He’d already put in for the time off and gotten Sawyer’s approval. Family meant everything to Dom. One of these days, he’d have a wife and children of his own.
“Wishing you were that age?” a male voice asked.
Snapped out of his thoughts, Dom looked up to see Lt. Desmond, a cola in one hand and a bag of fries in the other, standing by the booth.
“I didn’t see you come in.” He gestured to the opposite bench. “Have a seat. And yeah, there’s nothing like being a kid, is there?”
Desmond set his cola and fries on the table, then slid into the booth. “Not if you have a happy childhood.”
Dom nodded, not wanting to get into a discussion of their personal lives. “I appreciate your meeting me. I just dropped off Lausanne Raney and—”
Dom’s cell phone rang. He groaned, then yanked the phone from his belt loop and flipped it open. He noted the caller ID. The Dundee Agency. “Dom Shea here.”
“Hi, Dom. I thought I’d better get in touch right away with th
e info you requested on Lausanne Inez Raney,” Daisy Holbrook told him.
Dom glanced at Desmond, who asked, “Do you need some privacy for this call?”
Dom shook his head and motioned for the detective to stay put.
“Shoot,” Dom said. “Tell me what you’ve found out about her.”
“It’s not good,” Daisy said.
Dom’s stomach tightened. “Somehow I knew you were going to say that.”
“The lady turned twenty-eight in August. Born and raised in Booneville, Mississippi. Ran away from home at sixteen, got pregnant at seventeen, gave the child up for adoption. Not much on her from eighteen to twenty-one. At twenty-one, she was arrested as an accessory to armed robbery.”
“Shit!” Dom muttered under his breath.
Desmond gave him an inquisitive stare, which Dom ignored.
“Go on,” Dom said.
“She spent the past five years in the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville. Got her GED while there and took advantage of the vocational programs the prison offered. She studied office education. She was a model prisoner. Not one black mark against her.”
“Anything else?”
“Bedell, Inc. has a policy of hiring rehabilitated ex-cons,” Daisy said. “Lausanne didn’t lie on her job application about her background. She didn’t have to.”
“What about Bobby Jack Cash?” Dom asked.
“He’s an ex-con, too. Spent a few years behind bars for being the brains behind a swindle that took the life savings of four old women. He’s done some petty stuff, too. Written bad checks. And he was acquitted on manslaughter charges. It seems he killed a guy in a bar fight.”
“Nice guy. Did Bedell, Inc. think this guy was rehabilitated when they hired him as a guard?”
Daisy chuckled. “I don’t think it mattered. It seems the guy had a recommendation from Mrs. Bedell.”
“Patrice Bedell?”
“Right.”
“Interesting. See if you can find out why she’d recommend him. Dig deep enough to find out if there was something personal between them.”
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