Asking For It (32 page)

As Griffith watched, the man in the rusty beach chair jumped to his feet. "No!" he shouted, in a voice of mingled fear and anger. "Not yet. You can't leave yet!"

Every occupant of the bus burst into laughter. Griffith squinted at the yelling man outside the bus, thinking he looked familiar. Elroy, seated beside Griffith explained, "He probably figured he could sneak another meal before the end of camp, but he missed it."

"It's a bitch when you don't know how to count to fourteen," another boy said. More laughter followed.

Now Griffith remembered where he'd seen the man before. He'd been hunched over a plate at the edge of a table in the dining room. He was, in fact, a pathetic specimen of humanity, obviously able-bodied but too lazy to work. On the other hand, something about the boys' laughter grated.

Griffith cleared his throat, and then spoke at a volume to rise above the laughter. "Take a good look," he told them all. "Look at who you might be, but for the grace of God."

Jeers faded. Heads turned to look at Griffith, either expectant or already sheepish. It was strange, given Griffith's true intentions, to receive their respect.

Ill at ease, he nevertheless went on. "And besides, we all have our handicaps." He chuckled bitterly. "We're only lucky if our handicaps are the kind nobody can see."

If that wasn't the truth. Some people, like Bert, had handicaps that were visible in glaring technicolor.

Others, like Griffith, had handicaps far less visible, though no less repelling.

Griffith's last view of Bert was of him standing by the roadside, together with the man who'd been leaning against the post and even the one who'd appeared stuporously drunk. All three gazed after the bus with dopey longing.

Griffith wished he couldn't relate.

~~~

When Deirdre left Ricky at the fancy restaurant, her spirits soared above the clouds. It was inevitable she would descend from such heights. The next morning she woke up wondering if she weren't totally delusional.

She'd told Ricky his own emotions? She'd informed the man he was in love with her? What gall.

After a morning spent visiting job sites, she walked into her glass-walled office at Blaine Development, swung her briefcase onto her cluttered desk, and glared at all the work waiting for her. While it was true she'd been keeping the office open in the absence of its true leader, that was only by dint of juggling. She hadn't actually resolved or accomplished anything.

Perhaps the same was true of her relationship with Ricky. Perhaps what she'd seen as success was only illusion. Maybe she'd made a colossal fool of herself the night before.

Deirdre leaned forward to squint at one of the many post-it notes she'd left herself on the edge of the desk.
Water flow for Wild Tail Creek
. Her mouth twisted. It was the question that had set everything rolling downhill. Or perhaps the question had simply exposed things for what they really were. She still wasn't quite sure.

She did know she felt zero motivation to continue researching an answer to the bank's question. It was hard to know which would be worse: discovering Ricky was correct in his accusations of Griffith's skullduggery, or discovering that Griffith had every legal right to ruin the camp Ricky claimed had done so much for him.

"That s.o.b.," Deirdre muttered, thinking of her boss. The police didn't think there'd been foul play. "So where on earth did he go?"

The phone on her desk rang, the land line. At the same time her cell phone, buried in her briefcase, buzzed.

Deirdre's heart jumped. The receptionist could field the call on the land line. The cell phone, however, would be a personal call...

Perhaps Ricky.

Come to his senses.

Deirdre wrenched open her briefcase and dug out her phone. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax and hummed, "Hello?"

Thanks to the receptionist, the land line stopped ringing. Meanwhile, from the cell phone spoke a man who was not Ricky. "Good to hear your voice, Deirdre."

"Griffith?" Deirdre teetered on her high heels. Her hand went tight on the telephone. "Griffith Blaine," she exclaimed. "Where the
hell
are you?"

The low, scratchy-smooth voice she hadn't heard in two weeks answered blandly. "I'm at Grace Church. It's near USC. It would be nice if you could come get me."

"I'll be right there!" With one hand in a death grip on the phone, she fumbled with the other to find her car keys inside her briefcase. Holy Cow. Griffith!

"It's on Western," Griffith went on, still bland, as if no time had passed since he'd last spoken to his assistant. "Vernon's the closest cross street."

"I'll find it," Deirdre promised. Her hands were shaking so much she couldn't close her fingers around her keys, which had fallen to the floor. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"The sooner, the better," Griffith replied, nonchalant. "I do rather stick out in this neighborhood."

"But Griffith — "

"I'm returning this phone to its owner now — Thanks, José — and I'll see you in about...forty minutes, Deed."

"What — ?" But she was talking to dead air. She hissed a curse and glared at her cell phone. If she'd had her boss in her hands right then she would have wrung his neck. He'd been gone for two weeks and he thought he didn't have to answer any questions? Deirdre set her jaw. He could think again.

It took her forty minutes to get to South Central, and another fifteen to find Grace Church. When she did, Griffith was standing in front, wearing clothes that looked like they'd come from Sears, and a face that said, 'don't tread on me.'

Deirdre didn't blame Griffith for the forbidding expression, considering the roughness of the neighborhood, but she was utterly disgusted by his hale and hearty looks. If she wasn't mistaken, he looked
tanned
.

Surely the man hadn't taken a
vacation
?

Griffith strode up to her car when she pulled to the curb, but Deirdre didn't unlock the door. Instead she pressed the passenger side window open an inch.

"Talk," she said.

"What?" Griffith tried, and failed, to open the car door. "Open this thing, would ya?"

"No way."

Griffith lifted his gaze from the door handle to stare at her. "Excuse me?" His voice held all the authority and power Deirdre remembered.

But he owed her. Big time.

"You aren't getting in this car until you talk." She raised her voice so he could hear her through the inch-high opening. "Where have you been and why the
hell
didn't you call?"

Griffith's eyes paled to a cold steel color. He fixed them on Deirdre with a hardness she might have quailed before two weeks ago.

Today she merely stared back.

Finally, he gave in. "I was kidnapped. Then stranded. It's not until today I was able to get a ride back to Los Angeles."

Deirdre's jaw dropped. "
Kidnapped
!" Of course she'd considered the possibility, but it was still shocking to hear it expressed as reality.

"Will you open the door now?" Griffith growled.

"What? Oh, yeah. Sure." With a flick of a switch, Deirdre unlocked the car's doors.

Griffith jerked on the handle, got the door open, and shifted his tall frame into the passenger seat.

"Griffith. We should call the police — "

"No police." The words were crisp and firm. Griffith sat back in the seat and closed the door.

"No police?!" Deirdre gaped at him.

"It's a private matter." Griffith twisted to face Deirdre. She received another blast of the hard, gray look. "No police."

A private matter? No police? Ricky's accusations flitted through Deirdre's brain. "Uh...Yeah, it may be private," she asked carefully, "but is there something I should know?"

Still wearing the hard look, Griffith tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean — is there something you're hiding, something...illegal?"

Deirdre nearly wilted under the power of his glare then. But one corner of his mouth twitched. "I have not done anything illegal. But this kidnapping? It's private, and will be dealt with privately. Now, can we get a move on? I have two weeks to catch up on." Griffith gestured. "Hand me your phone, would ya?"

Deirdre hesitated. He'd just said he hadn't done anything illegal. Call her naïve, but she believed him. Griffith was cutthroat, but not dirty. On the other hand... "I don't know if I would call it completely private," she told him, wondering at her own gall again. "You might say I have a vested interest in the matter, having kept your office running without you for two weeks. Do you know who kidnapped you? And where did they keep you for
two weeks
?"

Looking at her grimly, Griffith gave her the almost-smile again. "You want payback, do you?"

"If you want to put it that way, then yes."

He lifted a shoulder and faced forward. "Simon Grolier kidnapped me. You can guess why. And as to how I was kept away for two weeks...?" Griffith paused and squinted out the windshield. "You could say I was...brainwashed."

Deirdre stared at him.
Brainwashed
?

He turned to stare back. "But I'm back now." Suddenly, abruptly, his face split into one of his ferocious grins. "Boy, am I back."

Deirdre felt a shiver go up her back. She wouldn't have traded places with Simon Grolier just then for a million dollars. "What — ahem — What are you going to do?"

A shutter seemed to close over Griffith's eyes. His grin faded and he turned to look out the passenger window. "Why, I'm going to win of course."

Deirdre simply looked at him. When he looked back, she handed him her phone and pulled into the road.

As she stepped on the gas, she thought she heard Griffith mutter once again, "I'm going to win."

~~~

He was going to win.

Griffith repeated this to himself as he walked into his office for the first time since getting kidnapped. Wading through the maze of half-wall cubicles, he could feel tension stretch across his neck and shoulders as one person after another looked up and stared at him. They simply stared. Nobody cheered his return with, "What the hell?" Nobody stepped forward with a smile to slap him on the back and welcome him home.

And why should they? In Deirdre's car on the way over here, she'd told him she was the only person who'd even noticed he was gone.

The looks Griffith was receiving were not of astonishment at his presence, but of fashion disbelief. The well-tailored Griffith was showing up at the office in a polyester shirt?

Griffith kept walking, wearing a nonchalant expression despite the gnawing ache in his gut. He told himself it was good no one had noticed he was gone. It meant he'd organized a well-managed office. It meant there were no complications beyond those he'd already discovered via his flurry of phone calls on the way back here from Grace Church. He could get right to making money again.

His protective bubble, alas, was gone, but that was okay. Making money was as good as a bubble. He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Money cured all kinds of pain.

Griffith entered his office and walked over the plush carpet to his walnut desk, feeling like he was sinking back into his previous life.

But the pain had been bad there on the sidewalk outside the church, with all the campers milling around, waiting to meet the friends or relatives who'd arrived to fetch them home.

Orlando had walked up to Griffith with his customary swagger. But then he'd tossed the dark hair out of his eyes and looked up with a grave expression on his face. "Don't worry," Orlando had said. "You're a good guy, and she'll see it. She's got to...eventually."

Now, standing behind his big desk, Griffith leaned his palms on the surface and closed his eyes. He shouldn't have been surprised. Orlando was sensitive enough to realize things had gone terribly awry between Griffith and Kate. Perhaps what had been the real surprise was that Orlando didn't automatically blame Griffith. He'd...sympathized.

That had been bad enough, having anyone sympathize — having Orlando, in particular, even care. Then the kid had reached out, awkwardly, in obvious impulse, and given Griffith a hard embrace.

Caught off-guard, Griffith still would have embraced Orlando back. Hell, he would have hugged the kid so hard he probably would have suffocated him. But Orlando had skipped away before Griffith could do any such thing. Griffith had soon seen the reason why. Coming toward Orlando was a woman with the face of a hardened felon. Tattoos covered her well-muscled chest and shoulders.

The woman's expression darkened considerably when she saw Orlando. Catching him by one shoulder, she issued a curt question in Spanish that Orlando was careful to take his time to negate. Then she'd sent a glare around at the crowd, the kind of glare someone on the outside gives those they perceive to be on the inside. Griffith had done his best to act like he'd never seen Orlando in his life. He had a feeling it would be much better for Orlando that way.

On his desktop, Griffith's hands curled. He hoped Orlando would use the phone number Griffith had scrawled on a laundry tag and handed to him during the drive to Los Angeles. Although, of course, hearing from Orlando would only bring back the pain...