Freefall (43 page)

Having settled Uncle Rob into the health facility where he’d rehabilitate over the next weeks, Gentry prepared to go home. Denny had offered to fly her to the San Luis County Regional airport, where he housed his jet and where Cameron would deplane. But she had needed to see her uncle settled.

Now she waited at the San Jose airport for a flight into LAX. On the flight from Kauai, she’d slept like a baby in the recliner next to Uncle Rob, but it would feel good to get home. She kept her head down as she waited, reading the novel she’d bought from the rack and hoping no one would gasp out her name and alert the crowd.

Unlike the locals on Kauai, Californians knew their celebrities. No place in the nation packed people into the theaters like the West Coast. Gentry understood her obligation to them, but still she hoped her overnight flight and surreptitious arrival had thrown off the press. She hadn’t intended to lie, but Cameron’s fears had altered her announced plans. They couldn’t hold that against her.

“Excuse me.”

With a sigh, she looked up to the woman standing over her.

“Is that your little girl?”

Gentry followed her finger to a crying toddler a few feet away and said, “No.” But then she worried until a young, harried woman rushed back and swiped up the child. Their eyes met and the woman stopped short.

“Oh. You’re—”

“Please. Don’t say it.”

The girl shoved the toddler to her hip and dug through the diaper bag. “Can you sign something?”

Now the other woman had sharpened her gaze. “Oh. Gentry—”

Gentry shot her a pleading glance.

“Sorry.”

The young mother thrust a disposable diaper and a Sharpie at her. “It’s permanent ink. I have to label all her stuff for daycare.” She jiggled the baby to make her stop crying. “Hush, Jillie. That’s Gentry Fox.”

Several heads came up. So much for the novel. The time before her flight would not be spent reading. Shortly before boarding, she escaped to the rest room. Though a couple diehards waited outside her stall, she took out her phone and called Cameron, just to make sure he and Denny had made it in all right.

She took the phone down and checked the number she’d dialed when a woman with a British accent answered. “Hello?”

“I’m … I was looking for Cameron Pierce.”

“He’s in bed. Can I help you?”

She hadn’t imagined him with a housekeeper.
She
had no housekeeper. “Is this…? Who is this?”

“It’s Myra, Gentry. I don’t know if he’s mentioned me.”

Right. The marriage that never happened. “I just wanted to make sure he got in all right.”

“He’s fine. A little ragged, but he’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She hung up, certain that the girls outside her stall had hung on every word. Now they would listen to her pee, because she had a plane to catch and even Hollywood actors’ bladders got full.

Cameron woke with a hung-over feeling he hadn’t experienced since college. He wasn’t a good daytime sleeper even when he needed it. It worked against his chemistry. And he had a terrible feeling he hadn’t dreamed Myra.

For a long time he’d hoped and believed she would show up and do exactly what she was doing, that they could pick up where they’d left off and all the things she’d said and done would turn out to be false. At first he’d avoided all her haunts, afraid he’d see her; then he’d haunted them, afraid he wouldn’t. He knew now that she’d left town, left the country, actually—had gone back to London.

And each year without her had thickened his skin until no one but Nica could touch anything soft inside. Gentry had changed that. She had cracked the shell and left him vulnerable. He sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face.

Myra was a living, breathing cliché. The thought that he’d found someone special, even spectacular, had kindled a desire in her to have back what she hadn’t wanted before. Her apology had been the one thing she knew would catch him unprepared. He forked his hair back with his fingers and stood up.

The sooner this was done the better. A relationship with Gentry might be impossible, but whatever Myra had in mind would be deadly. He went down the stairs to the patio, where she browsed a magazine in her miniskirt, with bare, tanned legs waxed smooth as marble.

She squinted up. “Get some sleep?”

He sat down on the edge of the planter and rested his forearms on his knees. “What are you doing, Myra?”

“You want the big picture, then?”

“With a broad brush.”

“I need your help. You’re in the helping-damsels mode, aren’t you?”

He swallowed his retort. “I thought you were upset. You apologized.”

“Yes, well, you’ll expect that when you hear.”

“Hear what?”

“What I need.”

He leaned back and gripped the nape of his neck. “Let’s have it.”

“I want you to get my son back.”

He fixed her with a stare. “Your son.”

“He’s with my sister.”

He shook his head. “If you know that …”

“I can’t get him. I terminated my parental rights.”

“So you thought I’d just kidnap him?”

Her rain-hued gaze met his. “You never terminated yours.”

With anyone but Myra his reaction would be shock and dismay. Because she was capable of lying even to herself with incredible finesse, he reserved any emotional response. “First, I don’t believe you have a son. That would be an act of self-sacrifice. And his being mine is a stretch, even for you.”

She walked into the house and snatched her purse from the counter. From her wallet she took a photograph of herself in the indisputable act of giving birth. “I had quite an easy time of it, actually.”

His chest tightened. He handed back the picture, not sure he wanted to hear more. “Where does your sister fit in?” He hadn’t seen Mary since the wedding. He’d considered their relationship unnaturally distant, but it was just another idiosyncrasy of Myra’s that fascinated him. Her self-possession, her independence.

“It was a surrogacy of sorts. I’d no desire to be a mother, and she’d no ability.”

He shook his head. “I’m not getting this.”

“Why do you think I needed out? You’d have wanted the family thing if you knew. I didn’t. But it didn’t seem right to throw it away when Mary had such a need. Believe it or not, it was an act of kindness.” She could be so horribly convincing.

“You’re saying you gave your baby to your sister and now you want him back?”

“He’s yours, Cameron. He looks just like you.”

His breath made a slow escape and didn’t want to come back.

“So you see.” She stooped down beside him. “I can give you more than Gentry Fox. I can give you back your son.”

He knew better than to believe her. She’d say anything.

“Would you like to see him? He sends photos to Auntie Myra.”

“No.” He stood up. “I need you to leave.”

“You think I’m lying.”

“I don’t think anything. I just want you to go.”

“Cameron.”

“Don’t.” He raised a hand to silence her. “Just go.”

She shouldered her purse and walked into the house, paused to leave something at the counter, then disappeared through the kitchen doorway. He stood long minutes on the patio, then went inside and looked at the photograph of a dark-haired little boy. He went into the garage, hoisted his board into the truck bed, and drove to the shore.

Curt licked the blood from his lip, then ran his tongue over his teeth. They might be loose in the sockets, but none had fallen out. He felt an unholy relief at that. He spit, squeezed open his eyes, and rolled his face off the pavement. Pain speared his side.

He tried to move without breathing, to breathe without moving. If he didn’t move soon, someone would see him. He couldn’t stand that. No one was going to look at him with pity. And he didn’t want any questions.

He dragged himself to his knees, spit more blood, but guessed it came from his mouth and not deeper inside. If they’d wanted to cause permanent damage, they could have. This was a warning, an incentive. He pulled himself up by the car door, eased onto the seat, and gingerly slid one leg, then the other under the wheel and onto the pedals.

They hadn’t messed up his car; that was good. Slowly he raised a hand and tipped the rearview mirror. He swore, then swore again. It would take days, maybe weeks for the cuts and swelling to leave his face.

“Pathetic. You look pathetic.” He wiped the water running from one eye, sniffed through his swelling nose. “Just look … how can …” He dropped his head back against the rest, eyed himself, and swore again. “You are the sorriest excuse …”

Blood trickled from his lip. He had to get cleaned up before anyone saw what a pathetic—
Wait a minute. Wait
. He looked again in the mirror. Maybe pathetic was exactly what he needed. He almost smiled, but his brutalized lips stopped him. Could he get some mileage from this pain and humiliation?

He’d slammed the car into park when they dragged him out. Now he put it back into drive, went through the intersection and turned at the next. Twenty-five minutes later he pulled into the driveway. Ten to one she’d let him in. His attackers had increased his odds dramatically.

He rang the bell and waited, braced himself on one arm, head down. It was only half feigned.

When the door opened, her expression said it all. “Curt?”

He groaned softly. “Hard to tell.”

She reached for him. “What happened?”

He pressed a hand to his side. “Three guys …”

He bent and took so long before continuing that she said, “Here. Come in.”

The pain shot through his side when he lowered his arm, but he exulted. More than ever, he needed what she had.

She led him inside. “Come here to the sink. Let me clean you up. We’ll call the police.”

He startled. “It won’t help.”

“What?” They’d reached the powder room sink. She started a stream of water and took a rolled facecloth from the basket.

“I shouldn’t have come here. I didn’t think.”

She dabbed the cloth on his lip, his cheek. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“I’m not involving you.” He gasped when she pressed the cold, wet cloth to his swollen eye.

“Do you know who did this?”

He moaned as she worked the cloth over his face. “I was supposed to pay back an investment, but the deal didn’t close. Whole thing fell through, but by then I’d reinvested the original monies. Three of the partners were okay with that. One went ballistic.”

“He did this?” She lowered the cloth and looked into his face. Her compassion hurt worse than the blows. He hadn’t expected the hollow way it hit him.

“His goons. Listen.” He winced, once again holding a hand to his side. “He’s foreign. He’s not touchable. Got some kind of diplomatic immunity.”

“You still have to call the police. People can’t—”

He rested a hand on her arm. “It’ll only be worse if I do.”

She took a step back. “This isn’t drugs or something …”

He looked hurt. “You think I’d be involved in that?” Real pain found his face. “I saw what heroin did to my mom, my sister.” Truth added purity. “Can you really think I’d touch that?”

She rested her hand on his arm. “I just don’t understand. Why would someone—”

“I should’ve known he was crazy. One of the guys warned me. Those Arabs don’t … think the way we do.”

“Curt, you have to—”

“I’ve said too much. I shouldn’t have come here.” He ran his blood-streaked hands under the water. “I must have been dazed. Forget—”

“Forget it?” She caught his wrist.

“Allegra, this was a warning. If I don’t have his money by tomorrow …” He pulled free and swore. “I shouldn’t have come here.” He backed out of the powder room, turned for the front door.

“Curt, stop.”

Again he let the pain show—and the fear. “This isn’t how I do business. Please don’t think—”

She took both his hands. “How much do you need?”

He shook his head. “Two hundred grand. Maybe I could put him off with half that, but everything I have is tied up.” He winced. “One deal feeds another. Sometimes things are flush and sometimes they’re strapped. It’s just timing, but he wouldn’t see that. He thinks I cheated him.” He swallowed hard. “Babe, please let go.”

“And what if you don’t have his money tomorrow?”