Dark Paradise (32 page)

"I just came looking for cigarettes," Marilee mumbled, turning away from

the puddle of light around the table.

Someone handed her a pack of French Gauloises. Instead of shaking one

out, she took the whole thing, stumbled over a thanks, and ducked out

the door into the dimly lit hallway.

MacDonald Townsend was one of the most highly respected men on the bench

in northern California. Rumors already had him placed on a seat in

superior court.

He had the governor's ear, a wealthy wife, and, apparently, an appetite

for Colombian snow.

And for one long, hot summer, MacDonald Townsend had been Lucy's lover.

The questions loomed larger, boomed louder with every beat of her pulse

in her temples. She hurried down a maze of halls, finding an exterior

door just when she was sure she was hopelessly lost. Desperate for fresh

air, she let herself out and stood a moment to get her bearings.

She was downhill from the parking area, nearer to the stables than the

cars. Still trembling a little, her heart still pounding, she walked

down a paved, landscaped path toward the dark barnyard. The smell of

horse manure and pine trees seemed a big improvement over the stench of

greed and power that hovered like smog around Bryce's crowd.

she wandered down along the end of the long building where a big sliding

door had been left rolled back. She leaned a shoulder against it and

stared in at the row of box stalls. Music from the party drifted down

the hill, diluted enough to be pleasant. More comforting were the sounds

of the horses eating and stamping flies, but not even that could loosen

the tension in her nerves.

Christ, what a party. Lawyers trolling like sharks in a swimming pool. A

pillar of the bench snorting coke. She felt like Alice down the rabbit

hole on LSD. The sinister quality of it all crept over her flesh like a

thousand worms. It grew and pressed in on her until it felt as if it had

taken a solid form and stood staring out at her from the shadows of the

stable.

Marilee straightened away from the building, unable and unwilling to

stop herself from overreacting. All she wanted was away from this place.

Wonderland had offered her all the revelations she could stand for one

night.

She hurried up the path for the parking area, headed for her Honda,

never thinking the feel of eyes on her back was real.

Judge Townsend paced the elegant confines of Bryce's private lair. He

was fifty-two and favored Charlton Heston. Many said he was a man with a

brilliant future ahead of him. At the moment, that future was going up

in flames in his imagination. His nerves were strung tighter than piano

wire.

"Dammit, Bryce, how could you invite her here?
 
She could be another

Lucy or worse." He stopped his pacing at the window that overlooked the

valley and stared out into the darkness for a moment. His thin mouth

quivered. He brought a hand up and pressed it against his forehead as if

he were feeling for a fever. "Jesus, I don't believe this is happening

to me."

Bryce watched him from a casual perch on the edge of his desk. He held

his expression calm and vaguely amused, but inwardly he sneered at

Townsend. Spineless.

The man didn't have the nerve to play in the big leagues.

He was weak - weak of mind, weak of spirit. He constantly succumbed to

temptation - women, cocaine, money. He succumbed, he did not indulge. The

difference was huge. Bryce might have admired Townsend if he had plunged

himself into his vices with joy and verve. But MacDonald Townsend was

like a tightrope walker afraid of heights. Every time he slipped from

his lofty position, he screamed and sweated and soiled himself. Bryce

despised him and enjoyed pushing him, shaking the wire, luring him over

the edge.

"We don't know what Lucy might have told her," Townsend said. "We don't

know what evidence she might have left."

"We searched the house," Bryce said calmly. "There was no videotape.

Lucy was playing games with you, taking your money and laughing at you

behind your back."

"That bitch." His whole body was trembling now. He squeezed his hands

into fists at his sides. "I never should have touched her."

"No," Bryce commented mildly. He slid off the desk and sauntered to the

window with his hands steepled before him like a priest. Ignoring the

view, he turned toward Townsend, his pale eyes glowing with contempt.

"No, my friend, you should never have touched Lucy. You didn't have the

nerve to play her kind of games. You are, however,very fortunate to have

me to look out for your well-being."

"You'll take care of the Jennings woman?"

"I'm keeping an eye on her. I'll take care of everything. I always do."

Bryce started for the door, eager to rejoin the party.

Townsend was tedious. He wanted to turn his attention over to Samantha.

Her innocence was genuine, her beauty fresh. He wanted to stand beside

her and watch the wonder in her eyes as she took in the experience of

meeting famous people and living the good life for the first time.

The judge's voice bit into him as he reached the door.

"Bryce, do you know who killed Lucy?"

Bryce gave him a hooded look. "Of course. Sheffield. It was an accident.

Wasn't it?"

Marilee sat on the deck, curled up in an Adirondack chair, covered with

the serape from the sofa. Staring down at the moon-silvered creek, she

let her mind tumble and race. She smoked the expensive French cigarettes

one after another, not tasting them, just grateful for the nicotine. She

would quit - just not tonight. She would have that fresh start - if her old

life would ever give up and let go.

God, Townsend snorting coke, Lucas representing the man who shot Lucy.

All of them slithering around in Bryce's den of vipers. Watch yourself

with Bryce, luv. . . . Lucy enjoyed playing with snakes, but then, she

had fangs of her own. . . .

Snakes in the Garden of Eden. The image sent shivers crawling down her

spine.

"What the hell were you into, Lucy?" she whispered, staring through

tears at the Mr. Peanut tin she had brought out and set on the table.

In one hand she clutched the letter her friend had left behind. She

didn't try to read it. She only held it, as if it were a talisman, as if

merely touching it might give her the power to see into its author's

past. But all that came was a sense of dread and a sense of confusion,

and she didn't know if she wanted to try to reach past either of them.

What she wanted was someone to confide in, a shoulder to lean on. She

felt so alone. She had cut herself free of her family, free of everyone

she had known. Somehow it only made her feel worse to think that no one

from that life would have understood or helped her anyway.

She could hear her mother's voice ringing with disapproval. Well,

Marilee, what do you expect?
 
The people you run with. Honestly, it

isn't any wonder one of them was shot dead. If you'd listened to your

father and me and gone to law school . . . if you'd married that nice

Enright boy . . . if you were more like your sisters . . .

In the private theater of her mind she could see Lisbeth and Annaliese

sitting primly, their legs crossed, arms folded, smug spite shining in

their eyes. It was a cinch no one Lisbeth or Annaliese knew had ever

been shot or had an affair with a married district court judge or

screwed a top trial attorney on his desk while his client waited in the

anteroom. They wouldn't understand or offer support. She thought of Brad

and knew his biggest concern would have been the possibility of her

getting him an introduction to Ben Lucas.

She thought of the people she knew here. Drew would listen to her, but

what would she say?
 
All she had were fragments and hunches and bad

feelings. Then there was the ugly possibility that he would tell her

something she didn't want to hear. What she wanted most was a pair of

arms around her, reassurance, and the awareness of strength. Someone

well-grounded in sanity. Someone there to catch her. Someone to hang on

to.

J.D. Rafferty came to mind. She didn't want him to, but he came anyway,

which was just like him. What a joke that she would want to turn to him,

she thought, trying in vain to muster up a sense of humor. He didn't

even want her in the state.

He wanted her only in his bed.

J.D. stood at the rail of the corral and watched the horses by

moonlight. They ignored him now that his supply of butter mints had run

out. The little palomino mare turned and looked at him every once in a

while, curious about him, but the others all stood with their hind legs

cocked and their ears back, dozing. For the horses that had worked, the

day had been long and hard. They weren't interested in losing any sleep

over J.D.'s presence.

J.D. knew how they felt. Physically, he was beat, his body aching,

muscles protesting even necessary movement. Mentally, he felt as though

someone had taken a lead pipe after his brain. Spiritually, he had a big

old stone tied around his neck, and he was going under in deep, deep

water.

The sight of Will's wife with Bryce's crowd had scared the hell out of

him. He had been able to fool himself up to then, believing he could

thumb his nose at Evan Bryce, play his game, and beat him. But Bryce had

just been toying with him, amusing himself. Now he was upping the ante

and J.D. was playing with a busted hand.

If Samantha divorced Will - and God knew she had grounds for it - she could

drag him to court and sue him for his part of the Stars and Bars. If she

won, Bryce would be standing right there beside her, ready to stick his

foot in the door. And once Bryce got a toehold, that would be the end.

Four generations of Rafferty stewardship would be over, and J.D. would

be the one who let it happen. The burden of guilt, the shame, would be

his to bear. Beyond that, if he didn't have the Stars and Bars, he had

nothing at all.

He looked out over the horses to the hills and trees beyond, and felt as

bleak as a sun-parched bone.

He would have nothing.

He had no one.

He thought of Marilee and couldn't quite steel his heart against the

insidious desire to pull her close and just hold her.

"Fool."

"You were mighty hard on the boy today."

J.D. glanced over as Tucker hobbled up to the fence and hooked a boot

over the bottom rail. The old man held his glare, unblinking, then

turned and spat a stream Red Man into the dirt.

"He's not a boy. He's a man," J.D. said. "It's time he acted like one."

"He's going through hard times, J.D."

"Aren't we all?
 
It's a hard life."

"You don't make it any easier - on yourself or anyone else."

"I don't want to hear it, Tuck," J.D. said wearily.

Hanging his head, he looked down at the hands he dangled between the

bars of the fence. Workingman's hands, thick, tough, callused. "I'm

hanging on by the skin of my fingertips. Like those idiot rock climbers

who come out here on the weekends."

Tucker was silent, working his chaw, thinking. The pharmacist's palomino

mare wandered over and sniffed at him, rubbing her nose against his

beard stubble. He pushed her away with a gentle hand. "You're not the

only one hanging on, son. We're right there with you me, Chaske, Will."

"What if he just lets go, Tuck?" J.D. said, for the first time giving

voice to a fear that went deep and well beyond thoughts of the Stars and