Authors: Stephanie Bond
wife’s dirty secrets from being discovered and her
reputation tarnished. It was noble of him.
Peter reached for her hand and pul ed her against him.
“I’m sorry this happened, Carly. I know you were close to
Cooper. But I’m glad it’s over.”
“But it’s not over,” she protested.
“You realize, don’t you, that Coop’s arrest gets your dad
off the hook?”
Carlotta balked. She’d held off tel ing Jack or the GBI that
Peter had remembered a romantic liaison between her
father and one of the victims. Maybe she should’ve come
forward.
And sacrificed her father for Coop?
She shook her head. “Coop is innocent, I tel you.”
“Let the police do their job,” he chided against her hair.
“Meanwhile, have you given any thought as to when we
can take that Vegas vacation I won at the club auction?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I haven’t. But Jack said the
GBI would be wanting to talk to me again. And I’d have to
ask my boss about taking time off.”
“With all you’ve been through lately, I don’t think your
boss would mind.”
She nodded. “I’m off tomorrow, but I’l talk to Lindy when I
go in Saturday.”
“Good,” he said with a smile. “I think we could both use a
break.”
She manufactured a smile in return. “You’re probably
right.” Actually, she suspected that Peter was hoping that
a change of venue would allow them to consummate their
relationship. They had tried on two occasions and both
times, Peter had come up a little too quick on the draw.
They both agreed they were putting too much pressure on
themselves, but Carlotta was admittedly worried that the
one aspect of their previous relationship that had been
rock solid—the sex—was now such an awkward challenge.
Something so natural shouldn’t be so difficult…should it?
From her purse her cel phone rang. Thankful for the
distraction, Carlotta pul ed away and reached for her bag,
half relieved, half panicked to see Wesley’s name appear
on the caller ID screen. “It’s Wes. I’l take this upstairs,
then change into something more comfortable.”
Peter nodded. “I’l get dinner started.”
God help her, she was beginning to hate those words.
Carlotta turned toward the stairs and connected the call as
she climbed toward the second floor. “Wes?”
“Hi, Sis.”
“I guess you heard about Coop?”
“Yeah, he called me.”
Carlotta gripped the phone. “Is he okay?”
“As good as can be expected, I guess. He wanted to get in
touch with Liz Fischer.”
Carlotta frowned. “Liz?”
“He needs an attorney, duh.”
“Yes, wel , Liz is certainly al that.” And more, considering
Liz had been their father’s mistress, was a booty-cal for
Jack Terry, and had also bedded Wesley, who was at least
twenty years her junior.
“Coop said he was with you when he was arrested?”
Carlotta walked into the spacious suite where she was
staying and sat down on the bed. “Uh…yeah. He came to
the store to say hel o. Jack had told me that Coop had
been M.I.A. for a day, so I made the mistake of calling him
to let him know Coop was okay. The next thing I knew, the
police were everywhere. They handcuffed Coop right in
front of me.”
“So Jack gave him up? Asshole.”
Her phone beeped and she glanced at the screen. “Hold
on—that’s Hannah on the other line.”
“Okay.”
She clicked over. “Hannah?”
“Jesus Christ, I’m watching the news. Tel me it isn’t true.”
Carlotta sighed. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m heartsick.”
“But Coop isn’t a serial kil er! That’s crazy.”
“I agree.” Carlotta hardened her jaw. “So what are we
going to do about it?”
“Break him out?”
Carlotta gave a little laugh. “Hang on a minute, wil you?
Wes is on the other line.”
“Okay.”
Carlotta clicked over. “Wes? Hannah is as upset as we
are.”
“I forgot to tell you that Coop said he’s sorry he
embarrassed you at work.”
Coop was in jail, but he was worried that he’d
embarrassed her. Carlotta blinked back sudden tears, then
took a deep breath. “I think we need to do something.”
“Like what?”
“Prove Coop innocent.”
“I’m in,” Wes said.
“Can we get together tomorrow?”
“I could do one o’clock.”
“Where?”
“How about the townhouse? I’l show you the new
security system.”
“Great. Hang on. Let me talk to Hannah.”
“Okay.”
Carlotta clicked over. “Hannah? Wes and I are going to
prove Coop’s innocence. Do you want in?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Pow-wow at the townhouse tomorrow at one o’clock.”
“I’l be there. Can I bring Chance?”
Carlotta rol ed her eyes. Chance Hol ander was Wes’s
partying, trust-fund, pornographic, drug-dealing, slob of a
friend. And apparently Hannah had grown a soft spot for
him and his gigantic shlong. “Only if you keep him on a
leash.”
“See you then.”
Carlotta ended the call, then clicked back to Wesley.
“We’re all meeting there tomorrow.”
“Okay, see ya. Night, Sis.”
“Good night.” She disconnected the call, and exhaled.
She’d confront Wesley with the results of the drug test
another time.
Carlotta sighed. It would be nice if the Wrens could taper
things down to one crisis at a time.
4
The next morning, Wesley approached the metal detector
in the government building where he worked for Atlanta
Systems Services—ASS for short—his body screaming for a
hit of Oxy. A war raged in his head, his hands shook as if he
had palsy, and his nerve-endings fired at wil . It had taken
him twice as long to ride to work because he’d had to
concentrate to keep from swerving his bicycle into traffic.
He was hoping the worst of the pain would be over before
he clocked in, but it seemed to be escalating. He used his
sleeve to wipe the perspiration from his forehead.
Yesterday his coworker Meg Vincent had nailed him for
using his community service job as a cover for tapping the
city’s legal databases to gather information on his dad’s
case. When he’d left at noon, she hadn’t decided whether
or not to turn him in. Considering that he’d left her high
and dry at a hoity-toity reception with her parents earlier
in the week, he wouldn’t blame her if she did. Meg’s
father, a renowned geneticist, had hired a P.I. to tail
Wesley, presumably to uncover enough dirt on him to
keep Wes away from his precious daughter. According to
Dr. Vincent, the only reason Meg had invited Wesley to
the reception was to make her father crazy. Too late,
Wesley realized Dr. Vincent had probably just been
taunting him, hoping he’d react exactly the way he had.
When he’d tried to apologize to Meg for leaving the
reception, she’d cut him off with her revelation that she
knew what he was doing at ASS. So, after pissing her off,
his balls were now in her hands.
Wesley thought it would be better not to be high in case
the police were waiting for him at the ASS office to toss
him in the clink for abusing his community service job and
violating probation. But with a vise tightening around his
temples, he was rethinking that thought.
“You okay?” a security guard asked as he walked up to the
detector.
“Hungover,” Wes said, trying to look sheepish instead of
like a domestic terrorist.
The guard grinned. “Been there. Eat a banana, man—
always helps me.”
Wesley nodded his thanks, then stepped through the
detector and retrieved his backpack from the scanner belt.
To delay his arrival as long as possible, he took the
elevator to the top of the building, then rode back down to
the seventh floor. When the doors opened, he looked out
expectantly. When he didn’t see any police uniforms or his
boss Richard McCormick standing there ready to call him
on the carpet, he stepped off and strol ed toward his
assigned work area.
Meg Vincent was already sitting at the four-plex
workstation they shared with Ravi Chopra and Jeff
Spooner, but she didn’t even glance Wes’s way when he
dropped into his chair. He sat there for a few minutes,
listening to himself breathe, waiting like a peasant for Her
Highness to acknowledge him.
His head was a metal bucket ful of rocks. It hurt to blink.
Through the haze of pain, though, he perceived that she
was wearing snug black pants and a pale green blouse that
was done up one button too high for him to appreciate it.
A flowered headband held her dark blond hair away from
her face. The purple smudges under her eyes made them
look even greener, but he was relatively sure whatever
sleep she’d lost hadn’t been over him.
She sighed in his direction. “You’re high.”
He licked his dry lips. “I wish.” His voice reverberated like a
jackhammer in his head.
Meg twirled a mechanical pencil between her fingers.
“What’s stopping you? I’m sure you have a stash of pil s in
your backpack.”
He did, inside a hol ow ink pen to thwart a search in case
he was shaken down. “Have you told McCormick about the
test data?”
“Not yet. If I told him, he’d fire you, you know.”
He nodded, even though it hurt like hel . “And my
probation would be revoked.”
“You’d go back to jail?”
“Yeah.”
Ravi and Jeff walked up, arguing good-naturedly about an
episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Ravi was of Far
Eastern descent. Jeff, on the other hand, was from a galaxy
far, far away. The guys stopped and looked back and forth
between Wes and Meg.
“Somebody die?” Jeff asked.
“You,” Meg warned, “unless you give us a few minutes of
privacy.”
“Uh, sure,” Jeff said nervously. The sloppy geek was head
over heels in love with Meg. “We’l get some breakfast out
of the vending machine. Come on, Ravi.”
Ravi was a germ-a-phobe who wouldn’t touch the buttons
on the vending machines without wearing his latex gloves.
Ravi looked panicked, but he, too, did pretty much
everything Meg told him to do. The two of them headed
down the hall in the opposite direction. Meg waited until
they were out of earshot before turning back to Wes.
“So what’s the deal with your parents?”
He swallowed. Talking about his parents always made him
nervous and defensive. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, did they just up and abandon you and your
sister?”
“They left me in my sister’s care,” he corrected, “because
my dad had to leave town.”
“Because it was either leave town or stand trial?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, trying to tamp down his irritation
that she was judging Randolph without knowing what had
happened. “But he’s innocent of the accusations.”
“So why not stay and defend himself?”
The sixty-four thousand dol ar question. The question that
his sister had asked so often over the years. The question
that niggled the back of his own mind. “I guess he had his
reasons.”
Her mouth flattened. “And your mom? She had her
reasons for leaving her kids?”
Wes had met Meg’s mother at the reception that he’d
ducked out of. Mrs. Vincent had been a warm, caring
person who obviously adored her daughter and husband.
Wesley had blushed under the woman’s welcome, and had
fought the urge to stay and soak up her attention. It was
apparent Dr. Vincent hadn’t shared Wesley’s shady
background with Mrs. Vincent. Just as it was apparent Meg
couldn’t comprehend her mother leaving her.
“She knew my sister would take good care of me,” Wes
said.
“How old were you?”
He squinted. “Nine, I think.”
Sympathy clouded her eyes. Normally her reaction
would’ve irked him, but at the moment, he needed her on
his side.
“That must’ve been tough on you and your sister,” she
offered.
He shrugged. “I’m sure it’s been tough on my parents,
too.”
“So you haven’t seen them since they left?”
He shook his head, unleashing an earthquake. He sucked
air through his teeth against the sharp pain.
“And the charges against your father stil stand?”
He nodded with as little movement as possible.
“So they’re fugitives?”
“You could say that,” he conceded. “But I think they’l
come home soon.”
She frowned. “Why would you think that?”
His mind slogged away. He debated tel ing her that his
father had been in touch with Carlotta recently. But he’d
already told his attorney Liz, and regretted it.
“I don’t want to get you involved,” he said, trying to sound
as mysterious as possible.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re protecting me?”
“Yeah. The less you know, the better.”
She sat back and crossed her arms. “Give me one good
reason why I shouldn’t tel McCormick that you’re here
simply to dig into your dad’s case.”
He shrugged. “It’s more interesting if I’m around?”
She made a face. “More dangerous maybe.”
Even though the muscles in his face ached, he grinned.