Web of Lies

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

Web of Lies copyright @ 2014 by Candice Owen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

PROLOGUE

Present day--Faith

It never failed to make her tremble when Jack did that.  She was a big woman, in every way.  Six feet tall in her bare feet, big-boned, and round, Faith Lee had never thought she would be any man’s choice for a lover...until Jack Johnson showed up.  Once she relaxed, he made her feel like the most delicate flower― which was not surprising since he was a good eight inches taller than she was and a bear of a man. 

No man before Jack had ever towered over Faith. As she settled deeper into the warm cocoon of his big body, she thought about how she finally had someone whom she could lean on.  She had always been alone, from the time her mother died when she was a toddler.  The accident that had taken her mother had scarred her father for life, although she didn’t know about that until much later. 

When her mother died, her father had left her with his mother, and Faith learned pretty early on that “love” had many colors, most of them shades of black and blue.  She didn’t understand that her grandmother was abusing her until she was taken away from her after a particularly brutal punishment.  In fact, it was so bad that it landed her in the hospital.  She was placed, at age twelve, into a foster home and was lucky to have found acceptance there.  Now, fourteen years later, she still thought of Tom and Mary Clancy as her true parents.

During her time in foster care, her father often came to visit. When she turned eighteen, he took her on trips with him.  That was when she discovered that she liked riding pillion on his motorcycle, so he taught her to ride. 

Their relationship grew over time, and then he disappeared again when she turned twenty.  As a junior in college, she had tried to find him, but aside from a phone call six months into his absence, she didn’t hear from him or see him again.  She remembered how angry she had been that he abandoned her a second time.

Again, she had turned for comfort to the one mother she knew, Mary Clancy.  Mary was her rock in those last two years of college. During that time, she wanted to drop out, to give up, to curl up, and to disappear.  However, she hadn’t done any of those things.  Instead, she finished her degree in art and art history and graduated at the top of her class. 

She still felt the pride swell inside her, as she thought of how she managed to snag herself a job as an assistant to the director in a small museum.  Although she was more of a personal assistant, she still had access to all the artifacts he purchased. She traveled with him on his buying trips and offered her honest evaluation on the pieces he bought whenever he asked her, which was often.   She knew he trusted her judgment and admired her attention to detail.  She managed his work life, and sometimes his private life, with admirable efficiency and had become invaluable to him in her three years on the job.

Jack stirred next to her, and she inhaled his scent.  He moved, flipping onto his back, and drew her into his side.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said, his voice still gravelly with sleep.  “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” she murmured, sliding her leg over his thigh.  “You’re warm,” she added, almost purring.

“You’re cuddly,” he responded, chuckling, and pulled her over to lie on his chest.  He knew how that made her blush.

“Morning breath,” she said, shying away from his kiss.

“Are you saying I have bad breath, missy?”  His question was delivered on a laugh, which she felt rippling through her.  “I’ll have you know I brushed my teeth before bed.”  He pulled her up and kissed her thoroughly, and she let him, forgetting to be shy, forgetting everything, except how his touch set her alight and his kisses melted her bones.

“Jack, we have an appointment,” she reminded him, when he let her up for air. As he nudged her legs apart to touch her already very damp lady parts, she said, “We can’t...”

“We can do whatever the hell we want to.  They will wait for us.  It’s not like they can do anything until we get there.”  He slid his middle finger between the lips of her sex and slowly rode her hardening clitoris, making her squirm and moan on his belly.

“But...,” she continued her protest.

He shut her up by taking her mouth again and plunging his tongue into its warm depths.  She moaned again, as he tongue-fucked her mouth the way she knew she would let him take her aching vagina whenever he wished.

“Do you want me,” he growled, “as much as I want you, baby?  Do you even know how
much
I want you?”  His hands were trembling, as he pulled her beneath him.  “You’re my miracle,” he said, “and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I found you and that you want me.  Making love to you helps.”

Faith let him seduce her, kissing him back and letting him feel how desperate she was to have him take her and make her his, again and again.  His hands stroked and kneaded her flesh, his fingers explored her hungry places, and his tongue laved her. When she was crying out in ecstasy, he plunged into her body, taking her back up the steep slope of lust and desire. 

He pushed her beyond what she thought she could bear, his big body hard and demanding.  He rode her, thrusting in and out of her wet channel, over and over.  He kissed her and held her close at the end, as they fell together over the edge.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed when he could catch a breath.  “You slay me every time, honey!” 

He hugged her tight, rolling to his side, and pulling her hard into his body.  Their legs were tangled in a mess of sheets, but they were so lost in each other that they didn’t notice.  He held her like she was his treasure, and she felt the tears start in her eyes.  She closed them, holding off the tide of emotion.  Eventually, he stirred again― though she knew he had not dozed off. 

“I guess we’d better get a move on, eh?” he said. His reluctance was clear in the way he still held her, in the way he feathered kisses over her face, neck, and shoulders, and in the way he rubbed his awakening-again erection against her.

Faith smiled.  “Yes, we’d better,” she said, but she opened her legs, and he pushed in. He growled at the sweet wetness of her and the way she tightened around his shaft and thrust her hips to meet his.  Her moans of pleasure seemed to fuel a raging inferno in his loins. She wondered if his chest ached with emotion the way hers did, as he took her again.  She couldn’t help but wish that he could consume her.

The day lay ahead of them.  They would finally know the rest of the story behind the key that her father gave her.  The last mystery would be solved.  Jack didn’t seem to want to let her go, as he carried her into the bathroom. Plus, Faith knew that he didn’t really care what they discovered.  He had told her that having her in his life was enough for him.  However, she needed closure, and, today, she would have it. 

Jack washed her tenderly, and she knew he struggled not to take her again.  As she relaxed into him, she let her mind roam back over the last few weeks...

CHAPTER ONE

Five weeks earlier--Faith

Faith stumbled to the door, wrapping the silk robe around her ample frame and mumbling about impatient jerks who woke people up at the crack of dawn.  The knocking had given way to a scratching sound, making her wonder if someone was playing a trick on her.  She was not in the mood for pranks.  A major deal was going to be finalized at the museum today, and she had the worst headache she’d had in over a year.  She knew it would get worse before it got better, and she’d be tied in knots.  Plus, it wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning and someone was banging on her door!

Grumbling, she peeped through the little eyehole and saw nothing.  However, she knew someone was there.  Although she lived in a fairly safe part of town, there had been a rash of break-ins and assaults recently, and she wasn’t about to become another statistic in the police department’s files.

“Unless you show yourself, you’ll stay out there until the cops come,” she said loudly to whoever was on the other side of the door.  Her heart beat heavily in her chest, but she tamped down the fear and said again, “Who’s there?”

A shuffling sound was her only answer for about half a minute; but, just as she turned to go for the phone to call the police, she heard her name.  She frowned and waited.  It came again.

“Faith... it’s... it’s me!” 

The voice was weak, but she would have recognized it anywhere.  And he sounded terrible.  Rushing, she fumbled with the double-locked door and chain. She pulled the door open...and Grant Lee, who was slouched against it, fell into her foyer.

“Dad?”  She stared at the man who was breathing shallowly at her feet, and the panic she had been holding at bay gripped her.  She swallowed and tried to get him to respond again, stooping over him to pull him up.  “Dad?  What the hell happened to you?”

There was no answer.  He seemed to have passed out.  She knew she couldn’t move him by herself, and she didn’t think it was safe to leave him half-in and half-out of her front door while she went for help.  She sat down and cradled his head in her lap while she yelled for help at the top of her lungs.

The door across the hall opened almost immediately, and a burly man stepped out.  She breathed a sigh of relief.  She had hoped Mark would be home. 

“Faith?  Are you all right?  Who is this man?  What happened?”

She smiled, despite her fear.  Ever the gentleman cop, Marcus Hodge plied her with questions, even as he moved her father off her lap.

“He’s my dad, Mark!  And I don’t know what happened.  He knocked and woke me up.”

Together, they brought him into her apartment, but they left him on the floor. Mark said, “We don’t know what kind of injuries he has.  We shouldn’t move him very far.” Faith nodded her head in agreement, then she called an ambulance. 

“Thanks, Mark.  You don’t have to stay with me, you know.  The ambulance is on its way,” she said, as she smiled her thanks at her neighbor. He simply shook his head, as she had expected he would.

“It’s not a problem, Faith.  Something bad must have happened for your dad to pass out.  I’d be happier just waiting with you until they get here, if you don’t mind.”

“Would you like a cup of hot chocolate, then?” she offered, knowing he did not like coffee.

“It’s all right, Faith.  Don’t trouble yourself,” he answered with a smile.

“No trouble at all,” she replied, glad for the distraction. He was a connoisseur of fine hot chocolate, and she knew her instant variety was not what he was used to drinking. She thought that she’d make it taste better by using milk instead of water.  As she busied herself over the stove, she pulled down the extra-large mug she kept just for him.

She reminded herself that it was a good thing he was such a sweet man, or things might have been different earlier.  They had gone out together for a while, when she had first moved in and was obviously new to the city.  However, there had been no spark. When she discovered that he was gay, in quite a spectacular fashion, she had been vaguely hurt that she had been a kind of charity case for him.  Once he got over being embarrassed at how she had found out, he had assured her that he liked her and had done what he did because she was his friend.

Screaming sirens shook her out of her reverie, and she took Mark’s drink to him on the couch.  He took it and sipped, as she let the EMTs into the apartment.  After explaining who she was, she told them how her father appeared at her apartment.  She explained that she didn’t know what had happened to him. 

The EMTs loaded him carefully onto the gurney, while she rushed to change out of her nightgown and silk robe, grabbed her phone and wallet, and bid Mark goodbye.  She knew he would lock up for her.

The emergency room was crowded, and Faith wondered what had brought all these people out so early on a Thursday morning.  She tried to complete as much of the paperwork as she could for her dad, who was still unconscious.  She agreed to be responsible for his bills, though how she would afford them escaped her for the moment.  

She remembered to call her boss, John, and explain where she was.  John was upset for her and could hear it in his voice. He knew a little bit about the relationship between her and her dad, causing his concern over her to be amplified.

“Come in when you can, Faith,” he said.  “You’ve done such a good job prepping for this that I’m sure your notes will help me pull it off.  I’ll call you later to find out how he’s doing.”

She waited until they admitted her father before she gave herself a moment to pull her thoughts together.  She knew he had bruised ribs and a lump on the head.  Plus, there was something else going on.  All she knew was that the doctors wanted to look at better before they told her anything. 

At last, she let herself be persuaded to find the hospital cafeteria and eat something.  She didn’t taste what she was eating because she was so tied up in knots worrying about her dad.  All the anger she had felt before came back, like a bad case of acid reflux, and she struggled to keep calm.  He was ill, and her anger wouldn’t change anything or help him get better.  Despite everything, she loved him because she knew there was more to him than the man everyone else thought he had become.

Sometime around midnight, as she was dozing in the chair beside his bed, something made her open her eyes.  Her dad was looking at her, his head was turned to the side, and his lips were moving.

“Dad?” she said, going hastily to his side. 

“Faith,” he said, as he wheezed and gulped. 

“Don’t try to talk,” she shushed him.  “I’m right here.  I’m not going anywhere.  I promise.”

He shook his head impatiently and rasped, “In the pocket...”

“Pocket?  Where?  In your jacket?”

He nodded, and she hurried over to search his pockets.  Aside from his wallet, which was full of cash, his credit cards, and his ID, she found nothing except a key.  Assuming he didn’t want his wallet, she took the key and returned to his side, handing it to him.

“Is this what you want?”

He nodded and gripped it tightly for a moment before he said, “Sit here.” He patted the bed next to him, so  Faith sat down.  Then, he continued speaking,  “I know I have a lot of nerve, asking you for help, Faith, but you’re all I have.  I owe it to you and to your mother to tell you the whole story.”

Faith sat quietly, watching her father struggle to breathe and wondering what it was he had kept from her.  She also wondered what her mother had kept from her and wished she didn’t care about any of it.  However, she had always harbored a secret desire to have him in her life fully, the way she remembered him before her mother died.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking and things had not been the idyll she remembered. 

She felt his hand and looked down.  He was trying to turn her hand palm up.  She turned it over, and he put the key back into it.  “Take this,” he said slowly.  His hand fell back on the bed, and his eyes closed.

“Dad?”  Faith touched his hand, and he opened his eyes.  “What’s this for?  What does it open?”

His eyes filled with tears, and his lips trembled.  “It’s... it’s the last important thing I have to give you.”  He stopped, caught his breath, and coughed.  His brow wrinkled, and he groaned.  His voice was a rasp of sound.  He coughed again, and tears spilled onto his cheeks.

Faith pressed the red button to summon the nurse and held his hand, stroking it.  She wished she could give him some of her strength.  She had never seen her father so vulnerable, his tall, broad body trembling and broken.  She wanted to know what had happened to him and why.  She wanted to know so much, but he could barely speak, and his tears broke her heart.

She drew a finger under his eyes, pushing the tears off his cheeks.  Then, she leaned over to kiss him and said, “Rest, okay?  I won’t leave you.”

Like you left me.
  The thought came unbidden, but she pushed it away.  There was time enough for anger when he was recovered.  And she clung to the hope that he would recover. 
Whatever it is that the doctors want to look at might be nothing at all,
she told herself. She wished with all her heart that her thought was true. 

The nurse came in with a doctor, and she went to sit in the chair again while they worked.  The doctor spoke quietly to her dad, low enough that she could not hear.  When the doctor approached her, she stood up. 

“What’s going on?  How is he?” Faith asked, her questions sharp with fear.

“He’s had a bad fall, it appears. At his age, broken bones are harder to heal, so it’s a good thing his ribs are just bruised.  Fortunately, the head injury did not cause any bleeding on his brain.  We are more concerned, though, at this point, about the mass that has been growing there.  We’ll do further tests in a few hours, and we’ll have better answers for you and him.”

“Mass?  Is it cancer?”  Faith could feel panic rising again. The calming touch of the doctor’s hand on her shoulder was welcome. 

“We will tell you everything we know in a few hours, I promise.  Now, you should rest because he will need you later.”  He paused to study her face.  “Is there anyone who can be with you?”

Faith thought wildly for a moment, and then she realized she had not called the Clancys.

“Yes.  I’ll call them as soon as it’s light,” she told the doctor.  “And thank you.”

Time dragged by.  Faith called her foster parents, who promised to be there as soon as they could.  Then, she called her boss and told him what else she had discovered.

“You haven’t taken any vacation time since you’ve worked here, so I’m giving you official leave for a month.” 

He would not hear of her refusing, so Faith gave in and thanked him profusely.

“Don’t mention it.  I work you hard enough, and when you get back, I want you totally focused again.”

The news from the doctors was bad.  Her father had a tumor growing on his brain.  It was inoperable.  They had no idea how long he had left or how long he had been impaired.   She told them he rode a motorcycle, and they said it was possible he had been in an accident while riding it.  She told them she didn’t know how he had got to her apartment.  All were questions that he would have to answer the next time he woke up.  For now, they said, she should go home and get some real rest.  The said that he would need her to be alert, so she could help him when he was lucid.

She was loath to leave him, but she was running on fumes, and she understood that she needed to be clear-headed when she spoke to him next.  There was a lot she needed to know, not the least of which was what she was supposed to do with the key he had pressed into her palm.  All the way home, while riding in the cab, she struggled with ideas about what it might open; but, since she knew nothing of his life since he left, she had very little to go on. 

Back in her apartment, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate after a quick shower and took it with her into her bedroom.  The little television offered nothing to lull her to sleep. Eventually, she drained her cup and stretched out under the sheet, willing her body to relax and her mind to slow down so she could rest.