The Good Daughter (5 page)

“The boss, he can make it worth your while if you help out now and again. Nothin’ big, just keep your ear to the ground and let him know if somethin’s coming down.”

Vince’s fingers curled into a fist. “You want me to be a freaking snitch—am I hearing you right, Tino? You lost your mind?” He took a step forward. “What the hell are you doing even asking me a question like that?”

Tino held up one hand. “Hey, listen to me, man. Shut up and let me finish.”

Vince turned on his heel. “I’ve heard enough.”

Tino grabbed Vince’s arm. “That’s what he told me to ask, bro, but that’s not what I’m asking.”

“It better not be.”

Tino’s eyes had sobered, but they still darted all around. “I can’t talk here. Let’s go somewhere else.”

If he had a brain in his skull, Vince would walk away now, but the weight of their history and the pleading in Tino’s eyes stayed him. His gut was greasy with an instinct that what he was about to hear would only make a complicated situation worse.

“All right. Head down the alley. I’ll pick you up at the other end.” Without waiting to see if Tino did it, Vince left.

But after he got in his car and drove around to the end of the alley, Tino never showed. Vince parked down the street and doubled back, but his friend was nowhere in sight. He edged back toward the bar through the shadows.

There he saw Tino in a heated argument with a guy whose every move screamed syndicate. The part of Vince that had known a scared nine-year-old boy wanted to rush to Tino’s defense—

But the experienced cop knew that to do so would sign Tino’s death warrant. Vince’s only choice was to leave and try again later to discover exactly what the devil was going on.

And hope Tino was still alive when he found him.

T
HE TELEPHONE RANG
while Chloe picked at her solitary salad. “Hello?”

“How are you, darling?” The soft, Southern tones of her mother’s Georgia upbringing slid easily through the line.

“Mother—” Chloe glanced at the clock. “Are you all right? I thought you and Daddy were going to a fund-raiser.”

“Oh, well, we were, but your father’s been working very hard lately, and we decided a night in might be the thing. Am I interrupting?”

“Only my dinner.”

“This late? Chloe, that job requires too much of you. Why, your father and I—”

Before the usual lecture could begin, Chloe interrupted. “It wasn’t work, Mother.” Not that her mother would like what she’d been doing any better.

“Oh. Well then, I hope it was something fun. Shopping with a friend or drinks with Roger, perhaps.”

“Just a little volunteering.” Though her mother would hardly consider the Women’s Shelter any less sordid than her job.

“That’s wonderful, dear. Junior League or your sorority?”

Her mother had too many sources in both for Chloe to lie. “I’m providing free counseling at the Women’s Shelter.”

“Oh, Chloe…” Silence hung in the air between them.

But instead of the long-suffering sigh Chloe expected, she heard what almost sounded like a sniff. “Mother? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dolores St. Claire breezed on. “I called because I’m planning a little dinner party to introduce Roger to more important backers for his campaign. As Roger’s fiancée, you’ll be a hostess.”

“We’re not engaged.”

“It’s only a matter of time. You haven’t gone out with anyone else in ages, and you two are a perfect match. You’re one of his biggest assets in the race.”

It sounded so cold, especially coming from her own mother. She didn’t want to be anyone’s asset. She wanted to be…more. No longer the good little Chloe who always
did the right thing. A woman who, for once in her life, took a chance or two. Danced closer to the edge instead of always staying behind secure fencing. Except she didn’t know what edge.

And then she thought of one with blue eyes and a go-to-hell grin. “Maybe I want to go out with someone else.”

A shocked silence bled through the line. “You’re not serious.”

Chloe took a mental step back from the cliff crumbling at her feet. “I don’t know. But please stop making assumptions about Roger and me. I’m involved in my career right now.”

“Chloe.” Her mother spoke carefully and slowly. “I’d be the first to say that you’ve accomplished far more than your father and I ever envisioned. You’ve made us very proud—”

Chloe could hear the
but
coming.

“But, darling, don’t you want more from life? A family? Children to cherish? Your father and I so hoped—” Her mother’s voice cracked.

Chloe closed her eyes and bit back a retort, reminding herself that her mother meant well. Her parents had always held her to a high standard, but she had never doubted her importance to them. She’d been showered with every advantage since birth. She owed them more than this growing impatience, but being their first—and in her mother’s case, only—priority sometimes smothered her.

Still, she felt selfish for even thinking that way. “Mother, I don’t want to disappoint you. Yes, I’d like
to have all those things, but—”
With someone like Roger?

“Darling, you can’t wait forever.” Her mother’s voice held an odd urgency.

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing.” There was the sound of her mother’s nose softly blown.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” A cold fist grabbed her heart. “Is it—are you ill, Mother?”

“No.” But tears were clearly present.

Oh, no. Not— “What’s wrong with Daddy?” He’d looked tired lately, but he’d ascribed it to overwork. “Mother, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“He doesn’t want to worry you, and neither do I.”

“I’m not a child. I haven’t been one for a long time. I don’t need you to protect me from life.”

“We’ve only tried to keep you safe because you’re everything to us, sweetheart.”

The burden of that sometimes pressed Chloe beyond bearing, but right now she couldn’t concern herself with how much she wanted out from under the suffocating blanket of that love. “Mother.” She used her most soothing voice. “Talk to me. We both love Daddy. Let me help.” Once again, she thought she heard a stifled sob. “Do you want me to come over there?”

“No—no, honey, not tonight. It would only upset your father if he knew—”

“Knew what?”

Finally, her ever-dignified mother’s voice broke. “He hasn’t been feeling well for some time, but he wouldn’t
go to his doctor. Your father always has to be in control. Always on top of his game.”

“Ever the strong one,” Chloe supplied.

“Yes.” Her mother paused. “Men don’t take aging well, darling. They don’t like feeling vulnerable. Women have to cope with drastic changes in their bodies all their lives, once a month or through pregnancy. But barring serious illness, for much of their existence, men never have the experience of their bodies betraying them. Your father hates growing older because it’s a force that his will can’t completely overcome. Still, he was managing, but now—” Her mother fell silent.

A multitude of horrors cascaded through Chloe’s mind. She seized on one. “Daddy’s…dying? Is it cancer or—” She tried to think what could be responsible for her mother’s fear.

“It’s leukemia. He was recently diagnosed.”

“What can be done about it? Don’t they perform bone-marrow transplants? I can donate. I’ll call his doctor tomorrow—”

“No.”

Chloe was already spinning plans, and her mother’s flat refusal took a minute to sink in. “No?” she echoed.

“You can’t do that.”

She frowned at an odd note in her mother’s voice. “Of course I can. I’m Daddy’s only living blood relative, and I want to do it. He gave me life, and now I can give it back.”

“I can’t talk about this now.” Her mother’s voice was so faint, Chloe could barely hear her.

“I understand that you’re upset, but surely you see that there’s an easy solution.”

Strain invaded her tone. “Chloe, I have to go. Promise me you won’t take any steps yet.”

“What? How can you possibly rationalize waiting? How can you jeopardize Daddy’s health?”

“I should never have mentioned this. Your father will be furious.”

“Mother—”

“If you love me, you will not say one word about this to your father or anyone else until I have time to think.”

“Think about what?” It was so unlike Mother to be irrational. “What can you possibly need to consider?”

“I can’t discuss this anymore with you tonight, darling. Please.” Weariness and sorrow coated every syllable.

Pity stirred in Chloe. “I don’t want Daddy to die.”

“A few days won’t hurt anything, but he’ll be upset if—please, Chloe, promise me you’ll wait.”

Chloe had never heard her sound so defeated, had never heard her plead. Dolores St. Claire was always in control, always composed.

Her parents were not demonstrative with each other, their relationship restrained but cordial. As a little girl, she’d assumed every couple was like that. In junior high, she’d secretly yearned for passion and grand sweeping gestures but had always known better than to voice those longings. St. Claires did not air their dirty laundry, she knew that, and the base emotions were not allowed rein.
A lack of disturbing passions was part of who they were. Who she was supposed to be.

But sometimes…she wondered. Only once had she seen that restraint breached, when she was in junior high. She’d overheard an argument between them that had opened her eyes when she learned that her mother had been wealthy, while her father had struggled his way up from a poverty he had loathed. As she grew older, she’d had inklings of a subtle competition between them, a delicate balance of power.

If they weren’t affectionate with each other, however, each had lavished Chloe with attention. Their love was accompanied by high expectations, yes, but Chloe had no reason to doubt that her parents cared for her. Her mother had built her whole life around the only child she would have.

Still, she knew her father did not receive the same devotion. “You are absolutely certain that you’re not endangering Daddy’s health by asking me to wait?”

Her mother’s response was quick and cutting. “Do not
ever
doubt my loyalty to your father, Chloe.”

Shame rose. “I’m sorry.” She might wish for a different relationship for herself, but marriages came in all shapes and sizes. She held out an olive branch. “Of course you want what’s best for Daddy. It’s just that this—” Tears burned her eyes. “He’s always been so strong,” she whispered.

“I understand,” her mother said. “He’s seeing the best doctors, and you can be certain money won’t be an object.”

“But I don’t understand why you don’t want me to—”

Her mother cut in. “Please, darling. Your father could never accept any risk to your health, and there would be risk.”

“I don’t care.”

“But he does.” Her mother’s voice held firm. “And so do I. I’ll talk to him, but I want your promise that you won’t speak to him about this yet.” Then her mother’s voice quavered again. “I don’t want anything to happen to him, either, Chloe.”

Chloe could not deny the real concern in her mother’s voice and chided herself for all her doubts about their marriage. “All right, Mother. But I’m going to worry every minute.”

“I understand, darling. Now—” her mother hesitated for a second “—I do need your help with this dinner party.”

Love warred with the urge to scream that dinner parties didn’t matter, that nothing mattered but her father’s return to health. But Chloe stifled the words straining to emerge from her lips. All Chloe’s life, her mother had made it clear that one didn’t falter in one’s duties, regardless of feelings or needs. One carried on.

Maybe this dinner party was a welcome distraction for her parents. So Chloe carried on, good daughter that she was. “Perhaps we can talk about it tomorrow.”

A long silence, then her mother’s voice held more warmth than usual. “Tomorrow will be just fine. Good night, my darling girl.”

Fury battled with love, and Chloe thought she might
choke on both. Dragging herself into her role, Chloe said in a voice whose calm no doubt made her mother proud, “Good night, Mother.” With shaking hands, she slowly hung up.

T
HE PHONE RANG
just as Chloe was slipping into her heels while fastening an earring. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Drat. If she took this call, she couldn’t get to the office far enough ahead of her first appointment to telephone her father’s doctor.

But it might be her mother. Knowing how sick her father was, Chloe could not blithely let the recorder catch it. “Hello?”

“Oh, good, I caught you.” Not her mother but Helen Masters.

“Hello, Helen. I’m sorry, I have to get in to work early. Could I call you later?”

“This won’t take but a moment, dear. I’d like to schedule a meeting for this week to discuss the Christmas auction. What about ten o’clock on Thursday?”

The middle of work. Chloe stifled her impatience that Helen assumed she should be free. “Would it be possible to schedule for lunch sometime, instead? Most days I have appointments straight through.”

Helen paused. “Oh, dear. Jane Ann has tennis on Thursdays, Mamie has bridge on Wednesdays and my hairdresser appointment on Friday can’t be canceled
short of nuclear war—Freddie gets very testy, you know.”

Chloe remembered. Freddie had done her mother’s hair for years. His clientele planned their lives around his schedule. “What about next week, then?” Glancing at the clock, she winced.

“Oh, Jane Ann will be on a cruise all next week, didn’t you hear? That Harvey—he’s trying to make up for—”

“Helen, I’m sorry,” Chloe interrupted. “My calendar is at the office,” she lied, trying not to scream. Her father might be dying, and Helen wanted to gossip. “I need to call you back.”

Helen’s voice chilled noticeably. “Chloe, this auction is a big responsibility.”

So is my job,
Chloe wanted to say but didn’t. Helen had as little respect for it as her parents had.

“It’s a worthy cause, Helen, and I’ll do my part.” She looked at the time again and prayed for patience.

“I’ll be leaving for my mah-jongg game at two, dear. Make sure you reach me before then, please.”

Chloe scribbled herself a note and tore the paper off the pad. “I promise. Goodbye, Helen.” She didn’t wait for the older woman’s goodbye before disconnecting.

Twenty minutes later, she all but ran up the two flights of outside stairs to her building, racing down the hallway and into Wanda’s office.

Wanda was busy taking a message and grimaced as she met Chloe’s gaze.

Chloe picked up her messages and turned toward her office just as Wanda hung up.

“Hold it. Another one here. Your
maman
wants you to call her your guest list today.”

Chloe’s shoulders sank. “Good grief.”

“For Roger’s dinner party for the fat cats,” Wanda added, her opinion plain in her tone. “Not, of course, that she would put it that way.”

“Of course not.” Chloe’s mouth quirked.

“Don’t your
maman
know more fat cats than you do,
chère?
”

“Wanda—”

Wanda shrugged. “Just askin’. It’s not like you ain’t got better things to do.” Her eyes sparkled. “Not as if you got an important job or anything. Sure not as important as your fiancé’s campaign to rule the world.”

“He’s not my—”

“You ever gonna clue that man in, girl? Or your folks? He don’t stir your blood. Bores the hell out of you, in fact, so what are you waiting for?”

“Wanda, I can’t—” Chloe glanced at her watch. She had ten minutes before her first appointment. “I know you mean well. And I’ve tried to make them understand that I’m not ready—”

“You’d be ready if the right man came along, I promise you that. How come a woman who can see into other people’s heads can’t see what she’s doing to herself? You’re more than they think, Chloe. You deserve better than some Ken doll.”

The restlessness that had been boiling higher and higher within her for months rattled the lid she’d slammed on it. “I’m trying to be fair to all of them, Wanda. This will be a tough campaign, and I don’t want
to make things harder on Roger.”
And I can’t upset my parents right now.
“I have to make a call before this first appointment.”

Wanda held up a hand. “All right. I’ve said my piece,
chère.
But I just want you to think about why you turn yourself inside out for everyone, trying to be two different people when you know you don’t like one of them.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wanda,” Chloe said stiffly.

With a cheerful grin, Wanda waved her on. “Don’t think you’re insulting me with that. Some folks don’t need a Ph.D. to see what’s right.”

Chloe relented. “I thank you for caring. I just—”

Wanda’s hand fluttered. “Go on and make your call. You’ll do what you’ll do—and I’ll be here, regardless.”

Chloe found a smile. “And I’m glad for it—sometimes.” She closed the door as Wanda’s husky laughter filled the room.

V
INCE HAD LOST TRACK
of how many times he’d paged Gloria in between answering stupid phone calls in the chief’s office. He already knew it was useless; she wasn’t going to answer.

What he didn’t understand was why.

Could Krueger have suspected him and used her to set him up? Had Gloria just lost her nerve about leaving Krueger and warned him? But the raid hadn’t had the feel of a setup; he’d developed a sixth sense for that long ago.

And how had Barnes and Newcombe even found
Gloria to obtain her denial? She’d have had to approach them because he’d never broadcast her name. Confidential informants came and went, but Gloria had been his CI for a long time. She had kept her head about drugs better than most prostitutes. She’d never touched the deadly addictive high of crack, though he was aware that she’d sold it. Within her was a woman who wanted badly to be a good mother to Jason—that desire had probably saved her.

He’d tried to convince her to go straight, to return to school, to apply for assistance with her son. She’d only shaken her head sadly as though he were demented. Her mother had been on welfare—she knew the score. “You never get out of that system, Vince. I’m making the most money I can this way. Minimum wage won’t take care of my boy.”

Vince shook off his sense of futility. He’d keep looking for Gloria, but at the moment he had to figure out what was going on by some other route. He’d have to dig up information fast. He couldn’t put himself at the mercy of IAD’s investigation, especially not with Newcombe on the case.

He didn’t trouble himself with worry that he was going against the regs, that if he were found investigating on the sly, he’d be off the force in the blink of an eye. Department legend said he had the best nose for sniffing out undercurrents others couldn’t find. Well, now he’d use it on his own behalf. If he took the rap on this case, it wouldn’t matter—he’d lose his job anyway. He couldn’t just sit on his hands and wait.

Then Vince remembered Gloria’s mentioning a
friend of hers who’d left an abusive boyfriend a couple of weeks ago. Her friend was staying at the Women’s Shelter, Gloria had told him. Maybe he’d get lucky and find out where Gloria was. He needed some answers. Bad.

C
HLOE SAT VERY STILL
, willing herself to be calm, to keep her mind clear. The woman in the chair across from her stared at the Women’s Shelter’s frayed blue carpet, eyes unblinking. Chloe knew scenes of horror played on the carpet as if on a movie screen; Danielle was so very close to opening up. Chloe felt like holding her breath, all too conscious of how important this stage was.

Danielle was a prostitute who’d sought refuge at the shelter from her pimp. As with many prostitutes, she’d likely been sexually abused as a child. When Danielle let loose the protection denial afforded her, the pain would be brutal. It had to happen, but both she and Danielle would have to go through hell to get to the other side, where healing was possible. It was the hardest part but the most essential.

“Who hurt you, Danielle?” She saw the woman recoil as if struck by an unseen blow.

Danielle’s head shook violently. “No one hurt me.”

“Who touched you?”

Danielle’s body shrank away from the memories Chloe could see crowding in on her. “Nobod—” She choked on the word. A tear leaked from her right eye.

Chloe reached out, sliding her hands under Danielle’s, holding lightly. “He can’t hurt you now. I’m here with
you. You can’t shock me. I won’t be disgusted.” Pressing her advantage, she continued. “I understand.”

Danielle’s head snapped up. “You bitch—” She jerked away, but Chloe wouldn’t release her. “Someone like you can’t know what it was like, having them touch me, having their hands, their—” A sob broke free.

Then her hands tightened, squeezing Chloe’s fingers in a vise. Chloe ignored the pain, concentrating on the woman before her.

Danielle began to rock, moaning softly. A keening erupted into a near scream. “I hate him.” Her eyes flashed pure venom. “I want to kill him for what he did to me—it hurt, it hurt so bad—” Anguish shattered her frame. She dropped Chloe’s hands and bent double, burying her head against her legs, hands gripping white knuckled at the back of her neck.

Chloe could barely hear her muffled voice. She slipped to her knees in front of Danielle and rubbed her hands over Danielle’s back in long, soothing strokes, cradling the woman’s head against her chest. “Tell me,” she urged. “Release it.”

Danielle uttered words of such horror, a child’s sobs of terror, lost in a world gone evil and frightening. Chloe’s heart ached, her gorge rose. She thought she could have killed the man herself if he’d been in the room.

But it wasn’t her revenge to take. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. The body beneath her hands was wire tight and shivering.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

The woman shuddered. Her voice barely came
through. “He said I was too sexy, that he couldn’t help himself.”

“He was lying. He was an adult. You were a child. You did nothing wrong.”

Danielle jerked upward, her body shaking, eyes crazed with pain. “Then why did it happen?” She went on, voice rising in anger. “Why me? Why didn’t anyone stop him? How could he say it was my fault if it wasn’t?”

She glanced toward the floor, and Chloe’s relief at escaping those eyes shamed her.

“I wanted to be grown up,” Danielle whispered. “I always did, even when I was very little. I couldn’t wait to be big.” Her gaze rose to Chloe’s, eyes shifting rapidly, side to side. “If I’d stayed a little girl, he would have left me alone.”

“No.” Chloe’s voice strengthened. She grasped Danielle’s shoulders. “He didn’t want a woman. He wanted a little girl.”

“He’s sick,” Danielle shouted.

Chloe wanted to close her eyes in relief, but she didn’t. “Yes.” She nodded. “He is.
He
is, Danielle—not you. You did nothing to bring it on. He’s the one who’s to blame. You couldn’t have stopped him.” Seeing the woman’s doubts, Chloe persisted. “There was nothing you could do to prevent it. Nothing.”

Danielle wavered on the brink of trusting. Finally, she swallowed deeply and spoke. “Are you so sure?”

Chloe placed one hand on Danielle’s hair, sliding the other arm around her shoulders, knowing that a safe touch was something prostitutes craved yet seldom
received. It was the best way to let Danielle feel that she wasn’t disgusting, wasn’t subhuman. “Yes.” Chloe pressed Danielle’s head against her shoulder. “I’m absolutely sure.”

Danielle’s body collapsed, huge, shattering sobs shaking her frame. Chloe tightened her arm and stroked the woman’s hair, murmuring sounds of comfort. “Let it go, Danielle. Let it go.” Her own eyes burned with unshed tears.

C
HLOE WALKED OUT
of the shelter, holding herself erect, fighting against the urge to scream, to pound at the earth, to raise her fists to the sky and curse God.

So much pain. What kind of world subjected children to such destruction? Sheer will propelled her to her car. She’d go home and shower and try to scrub away all that she’d absorbed from Danielle. Counselors needed walls, too, but if the walls were too strong, the counselor lost the ability to feel. Drained by Danielle’s emotion, she had to fight to remember that she was separate from that woman, that her body had a boundary those stories shouldn’t cross if she was to help.

A boundary regained at great cost. Right now every nerve was rubbed raw from bone-deep anger at adults who victimized children and set up cycles that passed down through generations. The world was full of Danielles who never got help breaking out of that self-hatred.

Despair swamped Chloe; the minuscule difference she could make felt so futile. Almost to her car, she suddenly knew she couldn’t drive. Not yet. She headed for
a nearby cluster of oaks, seeking shelter in their shade while she pulled herself together. She was so tired she could barely put one foot in front of the other.

“Doc, what are you doing here?”

She jerked around to stare at Vince Coronado, his hands filled with bags from a toy store. For a second, his appearance seemed fated. He would understand Danielle’s pain and would have defended her. A part of Chloe craved his strength and his anger.

But yielding was unthinkable. “I could ask you the same,” she challenged, glancing at the bags.

Color rose on his cheeks. He shrugged. “I’m visiting someone—” He shifted on his feet, then took a good look at her. “You okay?”

Compassion. Concern. Both crept beneath her meager defenses. Chloe focused on the trees. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think so.”

Refusing to give in to weakness, she pointed at his bundles. “For the children at the shelter?”

“Yeah.” But he wouldn’t be deterred. His voice turned gentle and coaxing. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

His kindness undid her. “Nothing,” she insisted. Then it all caved in on her.
Only that my father is desperately ill and the world is an ugly place and—
“Excuse me, please. I just—”

She headed blindly for the shade. Darting behind the huge trunk of a very old oak, she crossed her arms over her chest, hands gripping her shoulders. Lips pressed together, she squeezed her eyes shut as though she were a child who believed that would make her disappear.