Necessary Detour (6 page)

Nikki gathered the covers around her, not wanting the sight of her multi-million dollar body accessible to a fully-clothed sex partner, sex being the questionable word. Besides some fiddling that she hadn’t recognized as the sex act, she was pretty sure they hadn’t consummated their tryst. True she’d only been with one man in the last twenty years but Burn liked videos and she’d watched plenty of actors pretending to have sex, people who probably fucked a lot in their private lives and knew how to do it.

He sat on the side of the bed and slipped into his Ferragamos. Lucky for him his socks hadn’t come off during sex and it was easier to put himself back together.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, love, I have an engagement, but thank you for dinner and …everything.” He glanced in the direction of Nikki’s sheet-covered crotch and playfully pinched her leg.

“An engagement at midnight?”

“Yes.” He looked incredulous that she doubted him. “Look, you are gorgeous. I have wanted to shag Goldy since I was a teenager, and I thank you for fulfilling this fantasy.”

Since he was a teenager? How old did he think she was? Nikki knew for a fact that he was older than her. She slid back to lean against the pillows, the sheet still tightly gathered around her bodice. He hadn’t even unbuttoned his shirt and here he was insulting her.

“When you were a teenager, I was singing in elementary school recitals.”

He chuckled. “Let’s not get testy, Goldy.” The way he emphasized her name made her angrier. “We both know what this was.”

It was now clear that he’d come here tonight to fuck Goldy. Not get to know Nikki and then make love to her. She should have just done him in the dressing room, in full Goldy regalia. Why had she thought he might be interested in Nikki?

“Wait.” She’d try to save this. “We were having a nice time. Can’t you stay and …..snuggle? Maybe talk a bit?” She gave him her irresistible sex-kitten look.

“I’m not much of a snuggler, love.” He looked at her almost pitifully, unveiling an expression she’d hardly ever seen in her privileged life. “Let’s just remember it as fun and leave it at that, shall we?”

He turned to go and Nikki sprang off the bed with the sheet. She still wore the black leather, thigh high boots, for God’s sake.

Nikki followed him out of the bedroom, tripping on her king-sized cover up. All the things she wanted to say were stuck in her throat as she watched him grab his expensive leather jacket from the couch and throw it over his shoulder, like he was exiting a movie scene. Nikki stood in the bedroom doorway, shoulders slumped. “I expected more…”

He sighed and turned to face her. “Look, Goldy—you of all people should know how to do this. You invited me here to fuck you, right?” He didn’t seem so conversationally stilted now. “Well, we fucked.”

She nodded. “But I wanted…more.”

He threw out his hands. His coat swung from his right hand. This move was definitely choreographed. “Well, whose fault is that?”

Hers. She’d wasted this chance, this moment to be with one other man after a lifetime with Burn. After working him into a lather, she’d tried to secure his affection as Nikki when all he wanted was Goldy.

At the very least, it was embarrassing. He’d seen her naked. Sucked on her tits. Holding back angry words was not going to be possible now. She needed to hurt his feelings.

“I know how touchy men are about this sort of thing and I do understand if you’re embarrassed and want to go, but I just think we could keep trying…” she stopped when she saw the look on his face.

Now she had his attention. “Sort of thing? What sort of thing?”

Nikki pulled the arrow back and let it fly. “Erectile dysfunction.” Her lips twitched under the strain of a smile.

“You’re joking, right?” He spun around and glancing at the blackness outside, ran his hand through his hair.

“I can imagine it’s difficult when you’re faced with your fantasy woman but…”

He turned and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Look. I functioned. I came. We fucked.”

Nikki took great delight in seeing his restraint. “I didn’t. I barely got started. And you say you actually climaxed?” Nikki tried to look confused.

He stared at her for a few very long seconds, trying to hold in his temper. “There’s no need to get all pissy about it.”

That silenced her. Her balloon had lost all its air. He was right. It was a fuck, or an almost fuck and there was no need to get pissy, especially seeing that’s what she wanted in the first place.

She’d had a few minutes of passion and, just because it hadn’t been good and he’d planned a quick getaway, didn’t give her the right to judge him and then get mad that it wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d brought him here on the premise that she would be Goldy and they’d do the nasty deed. This was all she got.

He’d expected more too, she realized. Until that moment, she hadn’t noticed that he’d only called her Goldy.

His footsteps tapped across the hall tile. “You owe me a bra!” she called just before the outer door slammed.

Louisa Lake sunshine beckoned from outside the bedroom window. Judging from the angle of the rays, she’d slept in. Elvis snored through his flattened nose while Nikki eased out of bed and dressed in her favorite jean shorts and a soft blue T-shirt.

Her flip flops clapped noisily on the wooden stairs as the little dog shot from behind and beat her to the kitchen. Nausea lingered somewhere between reality and anticipation as she made some tea. With a steaming mug in hand, she sat at her laptop to check the online gossip columns.

“No Goldy in Them Thar Hollywood Hills,” “Goldy Fever,” “Panning for Goldy.” The word plays were predictable and almost infinite. Goldy’s whereabouts was anyone’s guess, although several articles speculated she was at a penthouse in Nassau. She smiled to hear that her decoy’s efforts were successful. Days earlier, a bellboy had seen Goldy sneaking into the private elevator at the Atlantis Resort. Sightings of the rock star were coming in from all over America and even Europe, but Nassau ranked number one for Goldy sightings. With reason.

The Goldy decoy was paid to sneak up to the penthouse, order room service discreetly three times a day, and wait for further instructions. “At least I’m not paying her for nothing.” Elvis wagged his curly tail and Nikki laughed as he danced around the kitchen. “I’m told she looks a lot like me in the blonde wig.”

She grabbed her cell phone and informed her security company to go ahead with plan B—flying the decoy to a private island in the Keys with two bodyguards and a staff of four. “Tell her to pack up.”

Staring out the kitchen window to her garage, she considered simply taking the car out for a drive. The walls were closing in around her even with her daily boat rides. The thought of the press’s possible presence in Louisa Lake seemed to lose all credibility on a glorious day at the lake. Shakespeare didn’t seem so horrid in the sunshine either. The FBI was confident he’d be in California. She hadn’t heard anything for a while. Who knew if he was obsessed with other celebrities? He might have a whole ring of famous people he was threatening.

On impulse, Nikki called Agent Gateman at the FBI for the latest report. “Anything new?”

“Nothing.” He sounded almost cheerful. “I’ll make an educated guess that he’s probably less motivated after the announcement of your retirement. But we haven’t closed the file.”

Next, Nikki called her publicist, Phyllis.

“All is well. Things are dying down already,” she said. Phyllis didn’t believe the strange neighbor was anyone threatening. “Maybe he’s a biographer, but someone’s bound to write your story eventually, darlin’.” Nikki cherished Phyllis’s casual take on catastrophes and always felt better after a conversation with her.

A disguise would take care of any lingering fears and allow Nikki the freedom to enjoy her trip to town. After all, costumes had always allowed Nikki to attend normal events like the movies, restaurants, taking Quinn to the fair. The curly brown wig was still in the duffle bag in her bedroom. The fat suit too.

Elvis’s reaction to the wig was comical and Nikki laughed out loud. “It’s Mommy, silly boy.” She’d been transformed into a different woman. One baggy dress later, Nikki grabbed sunglasses and headed to town before noon, before any residual September tourists hit the town for supplies. A car ride would do as much for her attitude today as summoning a personal bodyguard from her L.A. roster.

Anyone watching the road into town would have seen a lady in a black car pull into Barney’s Gas Station shortly after nine o’clock and slide to a stop at pump number four. The other bays were empty. Nikki contemplated using her debit card to avoid having to go inside the store with cash. No, no cards, just in case they were traced. She paid in the convenience store and hurried outside to fill her tank.

It was a postcard-perfect day in Louisa Lake and Nikki closed her eyes to let the heat of the morning bathe her face while she pumped her own gas. This was yet another simple pleasure she hadn’t done in awhile. Hearing a car pull up to the next island, Nikki first turned her back then looked over and saw the familiar blue Chevy truck. Dammit. When Pete stepped out, her first thought was that he might be following her.

He kept his back to her and Nikki was able to stare. Jeans fit him well. He had broad shoulders, nicely muscled arms. He whistled a tune from the radio, watching the highway as he pumped his gas. This was the man who’d kissed her, his lips softer than his rough look suggested.

Fifty dollars, sixty dollars, and finally Nikki’s pump stopped. She caught herself humming Pete’s song and stopped immediately, returning the gas nozzle to its holder. Under his scruffy hair at the back of his neck, he wore the leather string that held the small amulet.

Jumping into the driver’s seat, Nikki realized she’d left her keys inside the store, at the cash desk. The spaced-out, red-eyed cashier was busy setting up a display, so Nikki grabbed some magazines, gum, and a few other items. Stepping up to the desk, she absently knocked a box of condoms off a display. Setting the boxes to the side, she paid and left.

Her front window was partway down, but she felt blissfully unrecognizable as she pulled away from the gas pumps.

Pete looked up. “Morning, Nikki,” he called and tipped an imaginary hat.

What? Pete had said her name plain as day, even though she wore big sunglasses and a frizzy brown wig. How did he know? He wouldn’t recognize the car. She’d given Quinn the Escalade and was now driving the car they kept at the lake for when they flew in by helicopter or float plane. Glancing in the rear view mirror, she saw the problem. Elvis hung out the back window, panting and smiling at everything out there in the big wide world. He must’ve stepped on the window button and, of course, Pete recognized her dog.

“Elvis!” she wailed. The man who kissed her had just seen her in a silly wig trying to ignore him. What would he think about her wandering around town in this ridiculous getup?

Resisting the urge to bang her head against the steering wheel, she headed out of town. She was useless at sneaking around. Pete was everywhere she went and Elvis seemed to be on his side. Pete wasn’t a photographer. That much she knew. If he was, she’d have seen photos by now all over the internet. Those long lenses of the paparazzi could zero in on very distant objects and Nikki had been outside enough to give him plenty of fifty-thousand-dollar shots.

“Let’s stay ahead of this guy, Elvis.” From the passenger seat, the little pooch hung on every word. She checked her rearview mirror and saw no one. “I am screwed if Pete is writing a book on me and I let him kiss me.”

A hefty wind blew off the lake, rustling the trees and sending an abandoned piece of white paper somersaulting across her driveway. Nikki clicked the garage door closed, grabbed the paper, and looking skyward, saw clouds moving in to change the beauty of the day.

She walked to the side of the house to rescue anything that might blow away and, stopping to watch the dance of the birches’ leaves flickering in the wind, she caught a glimpse of something at the Dickerson place. It was just a flash of color in the front window Looking closer, she saw nothing.

The wind picked up and waves blew across the bay. The papery sounds of the flickering leaves almost drowned out Elvis’s barking and when she turned to see what he’d found, her heart jumped. The blue pickup truck was parked in her driveway. Pete stood to the side of it, his eyes on her. Realizing this was the second time she’d been caught spying, her face blazed with embarrassment, until she considered that he might think she was simply looking out at the bay.

She toddled toward him. “We meet again.” Her attempt to be casual sounded forced and Nikki was painfully aware of how unusual she looked in the padded suit.

Pete held up a small plastic bag. “The guy at the gas station thought these were yours.” His voice sounded like sandpaper on lava rocks.

Seeing the Trojan logo through the thin bag, she froze. This was either creepy or amusing. “I’m not missing anything.” Nikki’s vision drifted to the scar on Pete’s chin, then to his eyes. A chill travelled up her spine when their eyes locked.

“He said he charged you.” Pete looked genuinely confused and handed her the bag. “I told him we were neighbors.” His hands were callused. Not necessarily a writer’s hands. Or a software engineer.

“I went to town in a fat suit because I like anonymity.” What could she say? Even though now would be the time to peel off the suit and shed the pretense, she had only underwear beneath. Instead she chucked the bag at the trash can in an overhead throw. Landing on the grass in front of the can, the bag became a perfect retrieve for Elvis, the non-retriever, and he took off for his prey.

“Your secret is safe with me.” The hint of a smirk passed over Pete’s lips.