Brainstorm (18 page)

By the time Jack came back upstairs, I was soaking in the
clawfoot tub. “You’ve modernized this with all the conveniences of a spa, yet
still managed to make it feel like you’re stepping back in time.”

He handed me a glass of wine, and pulled a wooden stool
to the side of the tub. “You look relaxed,” he smiled, and took a sip from his
own glass.

“I am.”

“Good. Soak. I’m going to grab a shower.” As part of
Jack’s remodeling project, he’d installed a three-sided glass shower. Five
water jets protruded from the walls at various levels, and a huge rain
showerhead extended from the ceiling.

I watched as he stripped the clothes from his perfect
body and while he turned on the water and waited until it reached temperature.
I took another sip of wine, unable to pry my eyes from the muscles of his arms
and legs that flexed with every move. He seemed not to notice me staring. Men.
They weren’t self-conscious about their bodies, like women were. Of course,
there was no reason Jack should be worried about anyone seeing him naked. He
was beautiful.

He stepped into the shower, and the water glistened on
his skin. I stayed put while he washed his hair, but a girl can only take so
much. By the time he’d rinsed out the shampoo, I was standing with him under
the spray, wrapped in his arms.

Every inch of him was like granite pressed up against me;
the very definition of a hard body. As he leaned down to kiss me, he slid his
hands slowly down my back until he reached my bottom, where he massaged and
probed, until I pleaded with him to get on with it. Obligingly, he reached
further down, to the backs of my thighs, and picked me up. I wrapped myself
around him, pleased that he seemed to be exerting no effort to hold me exactly
where he wanted me. I stroked the back of his head, whispered to him, and in a
single move, we were one.

Later, as we snuggled under the covers, I glanced around
the room, and my eyes rested on his service weapon. “Why did you become a
police officer?”

“Lots of reasons,” he said. “I was bullied in school, as
a kid.”

“You? Seriously?”

“I was scrawny, not terribly athletic back then, and my
family didn’t have much money. I was the awkward kid in old clothes the other
boys made fun of to make themselves feel better.”

“That’s awful!” I cuddled in closer.

“Without my parents knowing it,” he said, “I stopped
taking the bus and started walking to school. And before I left in the
mornings, I ate as much as I could get away with, so I could skip lunch and not
have my tray dumped in the cafeteria. It was a constant struggle to stay out of
harm’s way.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“My parents didn’t want to hear about it, and there was
no way I was about to talk to a teacher, so I tried to avoid the kids that
bugged me, and when I couldn’t, I suffered through it.”

“When did things change?”

“Not until after I graduated. But I believe that our past
dictates who we become, and because I was bullied, I had this hope that one day
I could be there for someone else, who felt they had no one to turn to.”

“That’s noble,” I said, knowing that what he’d said was
true: our past
is
responsible, at
least to a large degree, for who we become.

“That’s why a lot of people join the force,” he said.
“Unfortunately, that feeling gets worked out of you pretty fast, once you see
what the job really entails.”

“Is that what drew you to me? You thought I needed
someone to turn to?”

“I didn’t know anything about you when we first met,
except that at the time, you thought one of your clients had disappeared. I saw
such compassion and worry in your face. I knew you were someone who cared about
people. Plus,” he smiled, “you were hot.”

“I was a mess shortly thereafter,” I said. “You’ve seen
me. I can be a problem.”

“Trying to talk me out of marrying you?”

“Not on your life. If you’re dumb enough to ask, I’m
smart enough to accept.”

“Using that for your vows, are you?”

“Short and sweet, right?”

“Well, short anyway.”

“I was thinking about making an appointment with Dr.
Steele,” I said. “I’d like to try and convince her that I’m in pretty good
shape, and get her off my back.”

“Worth a try,” he said. “Show her the new you.”
That should be easy,
I thought,
since she’s never met the old me.
“I’ll
tell you what I want,” he continued, “I want to see Harley testify against
Ferdy.”

“Do you think they’d let me see her?”

“Harley? I don’t know. Why would you want to put yourself
through that?”

“I didn’t get to talk to her much in California. Maybe,
if she’s cooled down a little, I can get more information out of her.”

“It’s not common practice,” he said, “but I’ll see what I
can do.”

He handed me my freshly topped-off wine glass, then
retrieved his own from the bedside table. “Cheers.”

I held up my glass. “To my future husband. You know, back
in the day, when this beautiful house was built, we’d never have been allowed
to drink wine in bed together before we were married.”

“Naked. Don’t forget naked.”

“Bless the passage of time,” I said.

He held up his glass and touched it to mine with a little
clink. “To the passage of time. Know what else we wouldn’t have been allowed to
do?”

“Pray tell.”

He put his glass back on the table and disappeared under
the covers.

“Oh,” I breathed.
“That!”

I fidgeted in my chair and waited for Harley to appear. The
windowless walls in the visitor’s room were cement, and the furnishings, if you
could call them that, consisted of an oblong table that was bolted to the
floor, and two uncomfortable plastic chairs - one on either side of the
immovable table. An officer stood outside the door.

Harley walked in, handcuffed, and wearing a prison
jumpsuit; her outwardly calm demeanor was betrayed by the anger that flashed in
her eyes. She took the chair opposite me and put her bound hands on the table.
“I can’t believe you called the police on me.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Harley. If I had done what you
wanted, I’d have been as guilty as you. And anyway, what did you
think
I would do – you lied to me from
the moment we met!”

“Well, I didn’t have a choice, either. You have no idea
what my life was like.”

“So when did you take the money? In the middle of the
night?” I asked. “Then what? You just showed up for work the next day, like
nothing had happened?”

“What difference does it make now?”

“And who did you hire to install the carpet?” I asked.
“There are no receipts or checks for the work.”

She sat back in her chair. “Is that why you came? To
interrogate me? Because if it is, you might just as well leave.”

“All right,” I said, “then tell me what you plan to do
now. Testify against Ferdy and Danny, and try to get immunity in return? Be a
jailhouse snitch?”

“I have a public defender, not some big-shot lawyer like
Ferdy,” she said, “so I don’t know what will happen. But I’ll make any deal
that will get me out of here.”

“You mean Lover Boy isn’t going to spring for a lawyer to
represent you? What does that tell you? You’re almost as stupid as I am,
Harley. Now are you going to testify against Danny, or not?”

“What do you care? You should just be happy he’s in
jail.”

I stared at her, and noticed a little twinkle in her eye.
What was that? Not a happy twinkle – but one that spoke of cunningness. And
then it hit me. “It was
you
,” I said.
“You were the one who turned in that anonymous tip about Danny, way back when.”

“Of course, it was me –
duh
, Audrey – I needed him to be arrested so he wouldn’t try to
get the money, and find out it was already gone. What do you think – I didn’t
plan every little thing? The only mistake I made, was to trust you.”

“I should have realized it was you, when you said those
very words to me, the first time we Skyped. You said you could connect Danny to
the robbery. I just didn’t put it together, until this minute.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Audrey, you put Carl in jail
for me, although it was unintentional on your part,” she smiled, “it saved me
from having to do it. I got one of them arrested, then you got one of them
arrested – it was like we were working together for a common goal. It was
almost cosmic!”

“Yeah,” I said, “it was magical. So then, all you had to
do was dump Ferdy, the non-violent one - the only one who was never a threat to
you, and off you’d go, with three million dollars. That was the plan, right? To
pick them off, one-two-three?”

“Except it happened faster than I’d thought it would,”
she said. “That night, when I was sitting on that damn cot, and you told me the
story of how Danny had bumped into you, and how afraid you were that he might
have seen you on TV, and recognized you, I freaked out.
 
Right then, I knew I had to get out of there,
in case Danny
did
happen to catch you
on TV. He would have tracked you down so fast and sent Carl after you! And let
me tell you, it would not have gone well for me either, if they’d found me
hiding in the building with you!” She shook her head.
 
“I kept trying to wrap my mind around the
fact that Carl had hidden the money in the building
you
moved into. How the hell does something like that happen?”

“So you took the job at Carrie’s to get away from me?”

“I figured it was a chance to get away from Carl
and
you – two birds, one stone. But when
you told me Carl had followed you in his truck, I knew I hadn’t gone
nearly
far enough away.”

“So you took off.”

“I took off.”

We sat in silence for a minute, then I said, “Look, I
don’t want to testify against Danny – I don’t want to ever look at him again.
The least you could do is testify against him
for
me after all the crap you pulled – and after all I’ve done for
you.”

“So that’s it? That’s why you drove all the way here? To
get me to agree to keep you from having to look Danny in the eyes again?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see,” she said. “You ruined my life – it’s
your fault I’m here – so
no!
”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You’d have been caught sooner
or later. You might be good with a computer, but you’re not as smart as you
think you are; I got the police into your suitcase with the office phone
number.”

She raised her hands and shook them, causing the
handcuffs to clink together. “I think it would be good for you to see Danny
again. Maybe the little reunion would be so awful, they’d have to put you away
– then you’d know how I feel.”

“You think I like seeing you in here?” I asked. “I don’t.
But after saving you so many times, it was time to save myself.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she spat out. “I’m fully capable
of saving myself. I learned a thing or two from Carl. Don’t think I wasn’t
watching, and listening, and learning, while I was with him. Oh, and didn’t you
ever wonder why your other assistant left you high and dry? Why you suddenly
needed to replace her?” She leaned in and whispered, “Carl took care of her,
too.” She stood up and pushed her chair back so hard that it tipped over and
crashed to the floor. The sound echoed through the room.

The guard moved in and escorted her out, leaving me alone
in the stark surroundings, aghast at all I’d just heard. What had Carl done to
get rid of my first assistant? He couldn’t have killed her, or her family would
have contacted me when they were unable to reach her. I hadn’t bothered
tracking her down to ask why she’d left, because I’d had to find a replacement
for her so fast. And I had, hadn’t I.

Outside, Jack waited for me. “I’d ask how it went,” he
said, “but it’s written all over your face.”

“You have no idea,” I said, feeling faint, and I told him
what Harley had said about my former assistant.

“We’ll get on that, I promise,” he said, “but she was
probably just trying to get you more upset.”

I shook my head. “I should have known this was a fool’s
errand. All I ended up with are pieces to a puzzle I didn’t even know existed.”

“Come on,” he said, “let’s get something to eat before we
head back.” We found a Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, not far from the police station. A
regular customer in the same establishment back home, Jack ordered a House
Special and a side of Drunken Spicy Shrimp, without even looking at the menu. I
ordered a chopped salad and coffee. With my first forkful, I realized I was
hungrier than I’d thought, and my mood brightened. Between bites, he asked,
“So, what else did Harley have to say?”

“She said she hoped facing Danny in court would push me
over the edge, so that I’d need to be put away.”

“Nice. You were in there a while, though, there must be
more.”

“She said she
learned
things from Carl. She watched, and learned, and listened. Those were her words.
What the heck does that mean? And, of course, she blames me for her losing the
money, after all the risks she took to get it.” I pushed the salad around the
plate with my fork. “I think those guys were really rough to deal with. And of
course, she put up with all that abuse from Carl.”

He shook his head. “And you still feel sorry for her,
right?”

“Down deep I do, I guess,” I admitted. “I mean, if I
disregard all that she did, I can see her true motivation; how she thought the
money would give her a better life. And she really believed she’d get away with
it.”

“That’s why all perps get caught,” he said. “They don’t
pay attention. They always make one stupid mistake.”

“She focused on the freedom she’d have,” I said, “and she
was willing to share that life with me. Then I blew her in.”

“And you thought about it,” he said, looking at me out of
the corner of his eye.

“Thought about what?”

“Going with her.”

I looked down at my plate. “I know I did. At the time, it
meant I wouldn’t have to testify, or be afraid that Dr. Steele was going to
throw a net over my head and drag me off.”

“So I was the only reason you didn’t take her up on it?”

“Ultimately. Once you explained what running away would
mean for me, and I saw things for what they really were, and especially after
you proposed, I knew I could never leave you.”

“Wow,” he smiled. “You must like me a lot.”

“You know I do,” I said.