Authors: Stephanie Bond
and glanced toward the wide staircase that led to their
respective bedrooms. Peter had grown less chatty, as if he,
too, felt the awkwardness descend. His expression was a
mixture of anxiety and longing.
“I think I’l go ahead and turn in,” she said in a rush. “My
back is stil sore from the accident.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding relieved. “I think I’l stay up and
work a little. Good night.”
“Good night.” She fled before tension could overtake the
moment. Upstairs, she closed the door to the guest room
where she’d been staying. Peter had been kind enough to
offer her refuge when she’d needed a safe place to stay.
But it had come with the expectation that they would
work on their relationship. It wasn’t too much to ask,
Carlotta conceded, but she hadn’t anticipated that soon
after, Wesley would test positive for drugs, and Coop
would be arrested as a serial kil er.
And that she would stil feel so uncertain about creating a
life with Peter.
After washing her face and putting on pajamas, Carlotta
climbed under the covers of the bed. She longed for sleep
to erase the problems plucking at her. But she was half-
afraid to close her eyes, afraid that the morning would
bring yet another crisis.
From the nightstand, her cel phone rang. She glanced at
the caller ID screen. Jack. His cal was becoming a nightly
ritual.
She connected the call. “Hi, Jack.”
“All tucked in by your lonesome again?”
She sighed. “What do you want, Jack? It’s been a long
day.”
“I could come over and rub your—”
“Jack!”
“I was going to say ‘feet.’”
“I’m sure Peter would love that,” she offered.
“Maybe he’s into watching versus doing.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Wait. I called to tel you that the GBI agents want you to
come in Monday morning to answer more questions.”
“About Coop?”
“I’d say that’s a safe bet.”
“Are you back on The Charmed Kil er case?”
“Not officially, but I occasionally hear things.”
Pil ow talk with Maria? “So when I get the formal request,
I’m supposed to act surprised.”
“Yeah, you’l have to really stretch yourself because you
never lie,” he said dryly.
“Acting comes in handy sometimes,” she cooed. “A
woman never knows when she might have to fake it.”
He laughed. “Not with me, sweetheart.”
She frowned. He was right, the arrogant man. Unbidden
desire whipped through her body, and on the heels of it, a
shot of melancholy, because nothing in her life seemed to
be in sync. She knew Jack was withholding information
from her, and he knew she was withholding information
from him.
“Jack…I’m scared.”
“Of the dark?”
She smiled. “Yes. I’m scared of the dark.”
“Set the phone on your pil ow,” he said quietly. “I’ll wait
until you fall asleep before I hang up.”
The man was ful of surprises. Carlotta set the phone next
to her ear and curled onto her side, listening to Jack
breathe. She made an effort to outlast him, but she lost
that struggle with a smile on her face.
8
Wesley shifted on the uncomfortable chair in the coffee
shop, waiting for Meg. He hadn’t wanted to crawl out of
bed so early, but she’d asked him to meet her outside the
office to go over the test data at this godawful hour. So
here he was, sneaking a smoke under the table, trying to
wake up. He was on his second foamy drink with sprinkles
that was some pricey derivative of coffee.
Conscious of his promise to Carlotta, he’d swallowed only
half a tablet of Oxy this morning, cutting his normal dose.
And he’d hoped the extra caffeine would help to ward off
withdrawal. Instead, his head rumbled and his bladder was
about to explode, but he wasn’t about to carry a damn
bouquet of flowers into the john.
He looked at the flowers and hoped Meg didn’t notice the
brown edges. It was the best bunch the convenience store
on the corner had to offer. He picked off a few dying
petals, but it left the flowers looking a little bald. He tossed
down the rubber-banded bouquet and wiped his hand
over his mouth. Like it mattered.
From his backpack, the theme of The Mickey Mouse Club
sounded. He winced—if Mouse was calling this early in the
morning, it couldn’t be good. They’d had a lousy
col ections day yesterday—he probably wanted to work
today. Wes cursed under his breath and flipped open the
pay-as-you-go phone. “Yeah?”
“Hey, little man, did I wake you up?”
“Nah. What’s going on?”
“Bad news. You know that Logan kid you let slip through
your fingers yesterday?”
“The Georgia Tech student who owes The Carver ten
large? I didn’t expect the guy to jump out the window.”
“Yeah, wel , I just found out the frat boy got kicked out of
school. Which means he’s probably planning to hightail it
back to Cincinnati and skip out on his debt, if he hasn’t
already.”
Wes sighed. “I wasn’t planning to work today.”
“Change your plans,” Mouse said. “The stakes went up
when The Carver bought your debt from Father Thom.”
Another loan shark he owed…or used to. Now all his
markers were with The Carver, the man he was working
undercover for in exchange for leniency from the D.A. on a
previous charge. To get his foot in the organization, he’d
offered to partner with Mouse to collect on “non-
traditional” accounts—students whose environments he
could infiltrate.
“If this schmuck is stil in town, find him,” Mouse said.
“And if I can’t?”
“The Carver’s gonna hold you personally responsible.”
The line went dead and Wesley snapped the phone closed.
His arm tingled where The Carver had sliced the letters C-
A-R into his flesh for a previous infraction, with the
promise to finish the job if Wesley stepped out of line
again.
Wes lifted the cigarette for a drag.
“You can’t smoke in here,” the guy at the next table said.
Wesley started to give him the finger, then something in
the newspaper the guy was reading caught his eye. APD
Receives Anonymous Note Identifying Headless Man. “Can
I see that?”
“Are you going to put out the cigarette?”
Wesley grabbed the paper out of the guy’s hand and took
another drag.
“Hey!”
“Relax, dude. Your blood pressure wil kil you before my
cigarette does.”
The guy got up and scurried away. Wes scanned the short
article that described the scrap of paper he’d mailed to the
APD with three variations of a name scribbled on it. He
hoped that one of the names belonged to the headless
corpse in the morgue. He was pretty sure Mouse had done
the guy in, since the dead man’s finger had been in the
trunk of Mouse’s Town Car. And because Mouse had
forced Wes to remove the teeth from the severed head
with a pair of pliers.
The APD hopes the person who mailed in the tip wil come
forward.
“Right,” Wesley murmured.
“Hi.”
He looked up just as Meg dropped into the seat opposite
him. She wore jeans, a striped T-shirt, and rugged
sneakers. Her hair was skimmed back into a bouncy
ponytail. His heart jerked sideways. “Hi.”
“Whatcha reading?” She craned for a look.
“Nothing,” he said, setting the paper aside.
“Are those for me?” she asked, nodding to the flowers.
“Uh…yeah.” Heat climbed his neck as he snubbed out the
half-smoked cigarette.
She picked up the bouquet and brought it to her nose.
“Nice. But why?”
Under the table, Wes’s leg jumped from the lack of Oxy.
“Because I was an ass at the reception. The woman you
saw me talking to—she wasn’t someone I hooked up with
afterward. She’s my probation officer. I was embarrassed
to tel you.”
Meg’s pink mouth rounded. “Oh.”
“Your dad made me mad, but I shouldn’t have left without
tel ing you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “Now we’l have to
have that first date all over again.”
Pleasure coiled through his chest. At the reception, Meg
had announced to him that she never put out on the first
date. His mind and body had instantly zoomed ahead to
the second date, a chance he’d presumed had been lost
forever.
She removed a daisy and stuck it in her ponytail. “I’m
going to get tea. Do you need anything?”
He stared at her. She made it seem so effortless, being
pretty and sexy. She was like a wild animal—natural and
carefree and a little scary.
“Wes?”
“Uh, I’m going to hit the head. I’l be right back.”
In the bathroom, he splashed his face with water, but
nothing seemed to help the excessive sweating. From his
pocket he pul ed the other half of the Oxy pil he’d
swallowed earlier. This half he popped into his mouth and
chewed. He needed the quick rush and the relief of his
headache if he was going to look at the printouts Meg had
brought. He promised himself he’d cut back on the Oxy
again after he left Meg. For now, he needed all his wits
about him.
When he returned to the table, Meg was sipping milky tea
and already perusing the thick printout of info she’d pul ed
from the database. The data was arranged in dense
columns that would make little sense to anyone just
glancing at it. She handed him a yel ow highlighter pen
when he sat down, then she narrowed her eyes.
“Did you take a hit of something in the bathroom?”
“No,” he lied happily. He was starting to feel good.
She looked dubious, then gestured to the page in front of
them. “So here are your dad’s records. What do you make
of them?”
He eagerly scoured the pages, looking for descriptive text,
notes from the court reporter, any kind of transcript. But
the staccato bits of info he fol owed with his finger were
familiar and useless—his father’s name, birthday, the
county, the judge’s name.
“What were the charges?” Meg asked, her voice tentative.
“Right here. Investment fraud and embezzlement.” He
scoffed. “What a crock.”
She leaned in to look over his shoulder, infusing the air
with the scent of strawberries. “What’s Mashburn, Tul y &
Wren?” she asked.
“The name of the firm where he worked.”
“He was a partner?”
“Yeah,” he said, his chest puffing out a little. “We had a big
house. Carlotta and I went to private schools and
everything.”
“What school did you graduate from? I went to St. Pius.”
He squirmed. “I went to Paideia when I was small. After
my folks left, I transferred to public school.”
She sipped her tea and nodded, but he could tel a public
school education made him seem inferior in her eyes.
“Who is Liz Fischer?” she asked, tapping the report.
“My dad’s attorney—and mine.” He glanced over the rest
of the data, then pushed it away with a sigh. “There’s
nothing here I didn’t already know.”
“We can keep poking around,” Meg offered.
He nodded warily.
“So…did your parents leave in the middle of the night?”
“No,” he mumbled, staring into his scummy coffee. “I
remember they were dressed up, going out to eat, I think.
My mom was wearing a red dress. She always looked and
smel ed great.”
Meg smiled.
“She gave me a kiss goodbye and I stood at the door
waving at their car.” He took a drink from the cup. “And
they never came home.”
Meg’s smile disappeared. “Just like that?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. Carlotta got me ready for school
the next morning. I thought my parents were sick or
something. But when we got home from school, I knew
something was wrong. Carlotta started making al these
phone calls, and I could tel she was scared.” He gave a
little laugh. “But she kept tel ing me everything was okay,
that Mom and Dad would be home soon.”
“And?”
“And…nothing. Carlotta took care of me, and eventually
we just stopped talking about our parents.”
“So you never heard from them—no phone calls,
nothing?”
“They sent a few postcards over the years, to say hi and
that they were okay.”
“From where?”
“From all over. I guess they stayed on the move.”
Her mouth opened and closed. “But you’ve never…talked
to them? You’ve never seen them in all this time?”
He shook his head.
Meg looked horrified. “But how could they do that to you
and your sister?”
Wes could feel his defenses rising. “They knew we’d be
okay.”
“But to go all this time and not talk to your kids?”
He pushed up his glasses, trying to tamp down his anger.
“What kind of parent does that?”
“Actually…my sister has seen my dad.”
Her eyes went wide. “When?”
“A couple of months ago, someone stole Carlotta’s identity
and jumped off a bridge. For a while, we all thought it was
her. The news even reported her death.”
“How awful.”
“The D.A. asked Carlotta to play dead for a while, hoping it
would bring my parents out of hiding.”