Bad Girls Finish First (17 page)

17

“H
ere, try this.” Raven reached into one of Michael's bureau drawers and tossed his favorite toy on the bed.

“No, thanks, I'll stick with the hot oil,” David said.

They were in Michael and Raven's bed, and David had just finished giving Raven a massage with oil that Michael had bought in Paris. Besides the toy, Raven had tried to get David to use other things of Michael's. His slippers. His robe (it would have been too small, anyway). Even his toenail clippers. It turned her on.

But David refused. “It's bad enough that I let you convince me to come here.” Shame crossed his face. Sleeping with Raven was over the line, and doing so in Michael's bed was, for David, a brand-new low. He loathed himself for being there, but he and Raven were in deep. They had quickly become addicted to each other and found a way to be together once or twice every week. David didn't know how he was managing, considering the other things he let slide in order to get to Raven.

“I told you I couldn't leave the house today,” Raven said as she massaged David's feet. “I'm expecting a special delivery,” she lied. “Besides, this is my home, too. Michael's in DC, and Evan's in Houston with his high-school choir. Who are we hurting?”

“Tell that to the pain in my soul,” David mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing, babe,” He smiled down at her. “I'm here, so that's that.”

“Is it really true you were a boy preacher?” Raven asked.

“That's right. Preached my first sermon at ten. That's when I realized that I was right.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

Raven laughed, but David didn't.

“Few men know right from wrong. Plenty pretend that they do, but half of them are more confused than the people they're trying to lead. I happen to be one of the few, one of the real ones. I was born with the responsibility to do great things,” he explained.

Raven motioned at the room. “So this is your idea of doing right?”

David felt the pain in his soul again. “I said that I
know
what's right. My name is David for a reason.” He nodded to himself and added, “I could have just as easily been called Jacob, I suppose.”

“But your mother chose David.”

“My mother? No way—about the only thing she ever did for me was lay with some dude so I could get here. I think one of the hospital nurses named me.”

“Sounds like you and your mother don't connect.”

“We didn't, not for years. She was a piss-poor excuse for a mother when Dudley and I were kids. She's the reason I don't like—I've never liked being around women who remind me of her. I used to hold a lot of things against my mother, but I gave up my resentment a long time ago. We made our peace before she died.”

“Did Dudley and your mother make up, too?”

David shook his head. “No. The ability to forgive is a gift from God. It's His grace, nothing else, that helps you through it. Dudley doesn't believe in God, so, once you get on his bad side there's no making peace with him.”

Raven understood Dudley's position. She thought about her own mother and wanted to ask David,
How do you do it? How do you make peace with a woman who's hurt you so much you can't really feel hurt, or any other emotion, anymore?
—but the question got stuck in her throat, so she said something else instead.

“You think your name describes you perfectly, huh?”

“Of course, David was the ideal man to name me after, much better than Jacob, when I think about it. That's what I am: a modern-day David, a man after God's own heart.” Comparing himself to David of the Old Testament made David feel better about himself. Sure he was sinning now, but he'd get right later on.

“When it comes to a hot woman, I'm like my namesake.” David moved closer to his lover and kissed her on his favorite spot. “It's the goodness and the courage in my heart that matters. What I
do
is beside the point.”

After they had sex, David's guilt set in. “You know this can't go on forever,” he said to Raven as he dressed. “It's not right.”

Then he asked, “Can you slip away to Dallas one day next week?”

That night David tossed and turned. When he finally fell asleep he dreamed of being at the Joseph home with both Michael and Raven. In the dream, the couple went about their evening and barely acknowledged his presence. They treated David like an uninvited guest who had overstayed his welcome.

 

 

“Dudley?” Raven opened the door to Dudley's office and looked around for him. Certain that he wasn't inside, Raven quietly closed the door behind her. Although she had a key to his door—she'd stolen it from his secretary's desk—Raven was glad that the door was unlocked. Less to explain. She and Dudley planned to meet in his office at three, and when she found out he was stuck in a committee meeting at the state capitol that started at two and was bound to run over, Raven decided to show up fifteen minutes early so she could snoop around. Dudley was far too close to Michael for her not to know more about him than she did.

She looked around the office. Where to begin? Raven got the desk drawers out of the way first, then went through Dudley's credenza.

“Dudley, you ass. You really shouldn't keep things like this in your office, even if they're under lock and key,” Raven said as she picked up a lock box from Dudley's credenza. She used a paper clip to unlock the box and found copies of medical insurance claim forms. She saw the name Dr. Dennis Laverne on several forms. “I wonder what's wrong with Dudley,” she said aloud as she went over the forms, line by line. She found what she was looking for: prescription receipts for Melleril.

Raven leaned back in Dudley's chair.
Well, I'll be damned; Dudley's a certified nut case. He's taking antipsychotic drugs,
she thought. Raven looked at her watch: five minutes until three. She moved to Dudley's floor-to-ceiling closets, and unlocked those. She felt around in the corner, where she couldn't see. Raven, who didn't scare easily, touched something that made her nearly jump out of her skin.

Slowly, she pulled out Dudley's sawed-off shotgun.
Dudley's not only a nut case, he's a nut case with a gun.
Raven realized she was starting to sweat. She put the gun back, locked the closet doors (and triple-checked to make sure she'd locked them), and looked around the office. Everything was back in place, but it was too late for her to sneak out. She might run into Dudley on his way in.

Raven walked behind Dudley's desk, where she stared out the window at the beautiful Austin hills and waited.

 

 

Dudley loosened his tie, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it, his eyes closed.

“Don't tell me we lost another endorsement!”

He blinked several times, clearly surprised to see Raven standing behind his desk. “What are you doing in my office?”

“Relax, I just got here. I'm surprised we didn't run into each other in the hallway. The door was unlocked.”

“We lost one, and we're on the brink of losing another,” he replied. “The Educators for Change pulled out this morning. They're penny ante, have about ten members, so screw them. I'm more worried about a Latino group out of San Antonio. Their leader's getting nervous; the organization has backed losers in the last two elections and they're not anxious to do it again. I expect to hear from them this afternoon and I doubt it'll be good news.”

Raven sat in Dudley's chair. “You're telling me we can't even hold onto a bunch of Mexicans?”

“They're Americans. Mexicans don't get to vote in our elections,” Dudley dryly commented.

Raven waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever. Instead of making jokes, you ought to be figuring out how we're going to turn this election around. We're in trouble, and it looks like it's because you can't do your job!”

“You're angry, I'm angry, and we're both crazy. If you want to find out which of us is craziest, scream at me again. And by the way, get out of my chair.” Dudley never moved and never raised his voice. Raven thought about the sawed-off and took a seat in an armchair.

“I know why this is happening. Erika's pissed off at me because we took the STRAPPED money but couldn't get Michael to keep quiet on gun control,” Raven admitted.

“Can we give her back some of the money?” Dudley asked.

Raven raised both palms. “All gone. I've tried reasoning with her, but she wants what she paid for, and honestly, I can't blame her.”

Dudley smirked. “I'm surprised that you're so understanding.”

Raven shook her head. “I understand Erika, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to let her push me around.” She leaned forward on Dudley's desk, her chin resting on her fist. “You know what? Erika's got too much time on her hands. Instead of us trying to get her off our backs we need to jump on hers.”

She slapped both hands on the desk. “That's it! Dudley, when it comes to digging up dirt you claim to be the master. Let's see how good you are. Find something nasty on Erika and figure out a way to use it. We need to be in full swing on this by the end of the week.”

Raven was relieved to finally have a game plan. And she was pleased that her meeting had yielded unexpected information. Who would have ever guessed that Dudley Capps owned a shotgun?

 

 

“Are you going to finish that?” Raven asked.

“No, help yourself,” David replied. He propped himself on one elbow and watched Raven eat the rest of his hot brownie à la mode. They were at David's home, cuddled up on his sofa. “I've seen some women put away the sugar, but you set a new record.”

Raven took a bite of the brownie and faked a shiver. “It's because this is better than sex. If I were forced to choose which chocolate treat I like the best, you or this brownie, you'd be in trouble.”

“Have you always been hooked on the stuff?”

“Since I was a little girl.” Raven set down the empty bowl and burrowed deeper into David's arms. “When I was about ten, my parents and I passed by this bakery and I saw a Boston cream pie. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, so I begged my parents to buy it. Jacqueline said no, I wouldn't like it, but my daddy was so happy to see me happy that he bought it anyway. Jacqueline got so upset that she stopped talking to Daddy. We ended up cutting our day short and going home.”

Raven blinked her eyes rapidly and whispered to herself, “I should have known then.”

David's eyes were closed. He rubbed her stomach and said, “So what happened next?” David was only half listening to Raven, but her voice was like warm honey and he wanted to keep it flowing. If he kept feeling like he was feeling, Raven wasn't going to get to finish her story.

“Daddy cut me a huge slice, probably a quarter of the whole thing. I took one bite and started crying. Jacqueline was right: I hated everything about the dessert: the texture, the taste, everything. Jacqueline wanted to make me eat it anyway, ‘She wanted it, let her eat it,' she told my daddy, but he's not like that. He told me I didn't have to eat it if I didn't want to, so I threw the rest of my slice into the trash. Jacqueline didn't say a word, just kept chain-smoking those cigarettes of hers, those damn Virginia Slims, and watching me.”

Raven's voice didn't sound so sexy anymore and David, after years of hearing parishioners go on and on about their problems, noticed the change. He kept rubbing Raven, but he started listening, too.

“That night—it must have been after midnight because Daddy never got up—Jacqueline jerked me awake. I started crying, but she put her hand over my mouth and marched me into the kitchen, straight to the trash can.”

David kept stroking Raven, but there was nothing erotic in his touch. He looked down at her. Tears were sliding from the corners of Raven's eyes.

“Jacqueline made me dig my slice of cake out of that filthy can. Boston cream pie is really a cake, not a pie, did you know that? I'd eaten the dessert early in the afternoon, so by midnight there were all sorts of things on top of my slice of cake. What I remember most is her ashes. That bitch probably smoked ten extra Virginia Slims that day, just for me. By the time I got the Boston cream pie out, my fingertips were black with ash.”

Raven seemed unable to say the actual words, so David said it for her. “Your mother made you eat it.”

“Every crumb. And David, it was so big. I'm sure it didn't take me more than a half hour to eat it, but it seemed like it took all night.” Raven's eyes, and her voice, were now desert dry. “To make it worse, I had to listen to her fuss at me about how I needed to learn that everything that looks good isn't good for you. Jacqueline compared me to that cake, pretty on the outside . . . you know. She always said things like that. All the time.”

David stretched out on the sofa and pulled Raven to him. As they lay face to face, Raven said, “After she made me eat that trash, I threw up for two days. You'd think I'd hate sweets, but,” she wiped away a tear, “look at me. Still taking in trash, using my body as a garbage can.”

“Oh, baby. Come here,” David said as he put his arms around her.

Raven reached for his sex, but he took her hands and put them around his waist. He pulled her to him. “No, just come here.”