2 Bodies for the Price of 1 (4 page)

“Sorry? For what?”

“For my outlaw father dragging you into his mess. Have you told the partners that he called?”

“No. Randolph asked me not to tell anyone and I told him that I would help him if I could.”

“Peter, you can’t do that. You’ll jeopardize your job. You should go to the police.”

His intense blue eyes bore into her. “I want to help him, Carly. For you…for your family.”

The waitress brought their coffee and smiled at their clasped hands. Carlotta pulled her hand from his warm fingers and busied herself pouring sugar into her mug. Her feelings for Peter were so confusing, it made her head—and her heart—hurt to process them. Did anyone ever truly get over their first love? Her suspicions that Peter’s parents had pressured him to end their engagement after her father had skipped town had been confirmed, but Peter had accepted the blame for not standing up for their relationship.

And as tempting as it was to slip back into his arms, she and Peter moved in different circles these days.

Peter lived in a mega-mansion with a guest house. She lived in a rickety townhouse with Wesley, a giant snake and the world’s nosiest next-door neighbor. Peter’s acquaintances were members of the inner circle of Buckhead society; her acquaintances were members of Loan Sharks of America.

Over the rim of his cup Peter’s expression reflected the turmoil of the past and present that lay between them. He waited until they were alone again before saying, “Did you tell Detective Terry that your father had called you?”

She averted her gaze. “No.”

“So maybe you’re not really so eager for your father to be apprehended.”

Carlotta wet her lips, unwilling to admit that deep down, she was still Daddy’s little girl and no matter what he’d done, she didn’t want harm to come to him. “I…wasn’t sure it was my father. I mean, he said it was, but it’s been so long since I heard his voice. And it was so out of the blue.” She winced inwardly when she realized she’d forgotten to get her phone back from Lindy.

“So now that you know it was him, are you going to tell the police?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I should tell Wesley.”

Peter cleared his throat. “Detective Terry seems to have gotten awfully buddy-buddy with you.”

She looked up. “Jack was just shopping, that’s all.”

“Jack?” His eyebrows went up. “Since when does
Jack
shop at Neiman’s?”

“He needed a suit.”

“He was there to see you, Carly.”

A flush warmed her neck as she recalled the sexual energy that had vibrated between her and the detective. “If he was there to see me, it’s only to stay in touch about Wesley and my father. When the D.A. reopened Dad’s case, he assigned it to Detective Terry.”

“So are you going to tell him about the calls?”

She shifted in her seat. “I don’t know.”

“I hate to pressure you, but the sooner you decide, the better. I want to help, but the last thing I need is for the police to descend on my phone records again if you decide later to report it. The partners might not look favorably upon me withholding this kind of information from them.”

Carlotta nodded. “I understand. I…maybe we should tell the police and let them handle it.”

“Okay. If you want to report the calls, I’ll go with you.” He reached for her hand again. “We’ll do it together.”

Her mind raced ahead—telling Detective Terry about the phone calls, enduring phone taps and maybe even surveillance, luring her father into a trap and seeing the triumphant look on the face of that odious district attorney Kelvin Lucas when Randolph “the Bird” Wren was finally apprehended, with cameras rolling and headlines blaring.

Her stomach knotted and she wavered. “Peter, do you think…I mean, is it possible that my father is innocent?”

He shrugged slowly. “I guess anything is possible.” His expression turned dark. “I was innocent of hurting Angela, despite the way things looked.”

“Of course you were,” she said earnestly. “But you didn’t run. Rather than face the charges, my father skipped town and let everyone else pick up the pieces.”

Peter sighed noisily and the tortured look on his face said he knew that he, too, had let her down. “Carly, I can’t imagine all you’ve been through the past ten years. But no matter how much resentment you have toward your father, you’re a kind, forgiving person. I think if there’s a chance that your father is innocent, you’d want to give him an opportunity to prove it.”

She studied his face. Was Peter flattering her in the hope that her forgiveness would extend to him as well? Or did this man know her well enough to see inside her heart?

Carlotta wet her lips. “Did Daddy say he would call again?”

“Yes, but he didn’t say when.”

“Did he say where he was?”

“I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. He did seem to be keeping up with local events. He, uh, knew about Angela and offered condolences.”

And did her father suspect that Peter wanted to rekindle their flame? Was he betting on Peter’s feelings for her to fuel Peter’s attempts to help him? A sick feeling settled in her stomach. “Does he know about me and Wesley, about what’s going on in our lives?”

Peter hesitated. “He didn’t say.”

She took a quick drink from her cup to mask the sudden tears.

Peter squeezed her fingers again. “He’s alive, Carly. That’s something. And I didn’t know your father that well, but it’s unfair for me to judge him for walking out on you, when I did the same thing.” His blue eyes were shadowed with pain. “I know how my actions have haunted me. I can only imagine that your father, too, has deep regrets.”

Her heart shifted in her chest. She desperately wished that her failed relationship with Peter wasn’t so entwined with her parents’ disappearance, because sitting here with him and feeling the hope radiating from him, she could be lulled into thinking that repairing her relationship with Peter
and
her relationship with her parents was possible.

Even desirable.

Did that make her an optimist, or an idiot?

“What do you say?” Peter murmured, and she had the distinct feeling that he was asking her to give him and her father both a chance to prove themselves.

5

c
arlotta’s mind raced as she stared across the restaurant table at Peter, patiently waiting for her response as to whether she planned to tell the police that her father had called both of them. Unsaid words burned the back of her tongue—a decade’s worth of pent-up conversations she hadn’t been able to have with her father. Or with Peter.

How could you leave me? Where have you been? Do you think that I’m like a book that you can stop
reading, put away for years and then pick up where you left off? There is a hole in my heart in the shape
of you.

“Whatever you decide, Carly,” Peter said earnestly. “I’ll support you any way I can.”

Meaning that one word from her and Peter would either help Randolph Wren in his supposed quest for exoneration or nail him to the wall.

As often as she had wished her father safe, Carlotta had fantasized about seeing him squirm, seeing him publicly held accountable, robbed of his freedom—like his disappearance had robbed her of her freedom.

But while running out on his children was reprehensible, it wasn’t a crime. He and her mother had left Wesley with her, and legally, she’d been an adult. The sudden responsibility had been staggering, but she’d gotten through each day by telling herself that her parents would return before nightfall. Slowly the days had turned into weeks and months, then years, until one day she’d realized that their parents weren’t coming back and that she and Wesley were somehow, astonishingly, surviving. But every time she’d watched Wesley reach a milestone—winning first place in the science fair, struggling with his voice changing, getting his driver’s license, being fitted for his prom tux—her resentment toward her parents had magnified.

Sometimes she thought that she hated her parents. But was she willing to see them go to jail?

“I need to think about it,” she said finally. “I’m having a hard time trying to absorb everything.”

“That’s understandable,” Peter soothed.

“I’ll call you.” She folded her napkin and put it on her plate. “Thanks for the coffee, Peter.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I’m on Marta.” Carlotta doubted that Peter had ever ridden the city’s public train system—too many germs and no cup holders. “My car’s in the shop being painted from when I was side-swiped.” By the same person who had murdered Peter’s wife.

A similar thought must have gone through his mind because his mouth tightened. “Then let me drive you home.”

She hesitated.

“Maybe I’ll be able to recall something else from your father’s call.”

He had to know how irresistible that tidbit would be. “Okay,” she conceded.

After leaving several bills on the table, he guided her toward the mall exit nearest the valet stand. His hand hovered at the small of her back, grazing her often enough to dredge up memories of when they had made love as teenagers.

At the time, she’d thought she might combust from the sheer ecstasy of being in his arms. In their circle of friends, they had been the
it
couple: good-looking, rich and head over heels in love. Their future seemed golden. Carlotta hadn’t even considered a plan B. When her parents had skipped town and Peter had dumped her and the rest of her supposed friends had fallen away, she had been set emotionally adrift…a scared kid, ill-equipped to finish raising herself, much less a nine-year-old boy. How many days had she longed for Peter’s comforting presence next to her, like this?

Within minutes, Peter’s navy blue Porsche arrived and he held open the door of the low-slung decadent car for her. Carlotta lowered herself gingerly into the leather seat that wrapped her in a buttery soft cocoon. She reached for her shoulder belt, but Peter’s hand was already there, pulling the strap across her body and fastening the belt with a click. He smiled at her as if to say that if she stayed with him, he would make sure she was safe. Closing her door with a soft thunk, he strode around the front of the car, gave the valet a tip that would cover her lunch budget for a week, then swung into his own seat with practiced ease.

They pulled away with the smooth growl of a perfectly engineered motor.

In the cozy intimacy of the two-seater, it was impossible not to be affected by Peter’s nearness, the way his long body sprawled in the seat, the way his thick blond hair fell onto his forehead, the precise angles of his handsome profile. She knew this man intimately and he knew her body just as well.

The one sobering image was visualizing Angela sitting in this seat only weeks before, unaware that her life would come to such an abrupt and tragic end. Although the woman had indulged some of her darker whims, she hadn’t deserved to die. And Carlotta was haunted by the knowledge that Angela had died knowing that her husband carried a picture of Carlotta in his wallet.

Perhaps in deference to the decision she faced, Peter didn’t press her for conversation and instead slid in a Jack Johnson CD and turned up the volume. Dusk was descending early on this ominously overcast day, prompting motorists to flip on their lights. A stiff wind ruffled the riotously blooming crape myrtle trees in the median, sending bright pink blossoms across the flared hood of the Porsche. Sunday afternoon traffic around the mall area was as heavy as her mood.

But soon the mellow music began to calm Carlotta’s ragged nerves and she laid her head back against the headrest, and closed her eyes.

She didn’t want to watch as they left the exclusive area of Buckhead and entered the more shabby section of the city where she and Wesley lived in a town house. She just wanted to listen to the music and imagine that her life had turned out exactly as she’d planned.

In her mind, she and Peter were married and on their way home to their sprawling residence in a gated community where they would relieve their nanny, then tuck in their beautiful children before retiring to the hot tub with a fifty-dollar bottle of wine and making love with a passion that contradicted how long they had been together.

A touch to her hand startled her and her eyes flew wide open. The music had dimmed and the car had stopped.

“We’re here,” he said quietly.

In the falling dusk, the car headlights illuminated a garage door with peeling paint and a driveway riddled with cracks and stray weeds. Embarrassment welled in her chest. She had let things go around the house.

Wesley had repaired and cleaned the small deck in the back, but from the front it looked as if a low-class family inhabited the place.

If the shoe fits, wear it,
she thought morosely.

Who was she kidding? If the shoe fit, she’d
buy
it with her employee discount.

Peter adjusted the rearview mirror and stared intently, then checked the side mirrors.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“It’s probably nothing. I just thought someone was following us.”

Her pulse picked up and she turned around in her seat. “You’re kidding.” Could her father be tailing them? Jack Terry? A loan shark? Good grief, the possibilities were endless.

“Like I said, it’s probably nothing. Or just a pesky reporter.”

“Have reporters really been following you?”

He shrugged. “A couple were parked outside the subdivision when I left this morning. Guess they wanted to get a shot of the bereaved husband. And I’m sure some of them aren’t quite convinced I had nothing to do with Angela’s…dying.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? Like Detective Terry said, you’re the one who believed in me when no one else did.

How can I ever thank you?”

She dipped her chin. “Your discretion in this matter with my father is thanks enough.”

“Carly,” Peter said, picking up her left hand. “It’s really none of my business but what did you do with the engagement ring I gave you?”

“I…had to sell it.”

He nodded. “As you should have. I suspect money was tight after your parents left.”

“It was. But actually, I didn’t sell it until a few weeks ago.” In the wake of Peter’s wife’s murder, the act of pawning the Cartier ring had been as necessary to her emotional security as to her financial security.