You Don't Know Me (18 page)

Jackley didn’t spare her. “His skull was crushed.”

The pain behind Denise’s left eye was a needle, digging, digging, digging inside her brain. She covered the eye with one hand, willing the pain away. Unsuccessfully. “I don’t know . . .”

“Your mother died when you and your twin were in high school.”

“My twin,” Denise gasped, appalled at his knowledge. She refused to look at Lambert, uncomfortable with him listening in, unable to do anything about it.

“Your younger sister, Hayley, was a sophomore? There were a few months when you all lived with Daniels before you moved away.”

She narrowed her lashes. The pain was excruciating. The pain of searching for the memory. She couldn’t find it. Couldn’t find any of it, but in truth she didn’t look very hard. It just hurt too goddamn much.

“I don’t remember,” she murmured truthfully.

“Do you remember your mother’s death?” he asked.

Chrysanthemums. Gold and bloody orange and white. Smelling like weeds. The casket was open. Denise could see the top of her mother’s head, the streaks of gray against the softer blond-brown. “Yes.”

“Do you remember anything after that?”

She’d left the funeral with her boyfriend, Jimmy Fargo, even though Dinah hadn’t wanted her to. Jimmy had told her how sorry he was. He’d kissed her cheek and hugged her. It was fall. Hot and dry, and Jimmy had led her to their spot by the river where the Friday before they’d engaged in some serious making out. Denise turned her face into the side of his neck, her sorrow building into a terrible crescendo.

And Jimmy had felt her up.

“I don’t remember much,” Denise told Connor Jackley with a grimace.

“Tell me what you remember.”

Should she relate how Jimmy had then pressed her into the dry field grass, pulled at her dress with anxious, hurried fingers, then mounted her and shouted how much he loved her between grunts of pleasure?

Ah, yes. Sex. Her downfall. She’d let Jimmy Fargo take her without a peep of resistance. Even later, when she’d overheard him sniggering to a friend how he’d “fucked Denise Scott until she’d cried,” she hadn’t complained.

And still later, when she’d learned she was pregnant, and Jimmy Fargo, on the advice of his wealthy timber-baron father, had acted like he didn’t know her, she still hadn’t broken down.

She couldn’t remember much of anything after that until she was on a bus, months later, heading for the bright lights of Hollywood. Dinah’d been with her. And Hayley. And Dinah told her about the miscarriage, and only then did she recall she’d even been pregnant.

“I didn’t know my stepfather was dead until you told me,” Denise related carefully. “I guess I thought he was still in Wagon Wheel, but I really never think about him. At least I try not to. He was mean. Deep-down mean. He used to scare me and my sisters.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he’d threaten to beat us if we didn’t mind him. That kind of thing. We tried to keep away from him. He hit Hayley once and Dinah nailed him with a bowling trophy he’d won when he was in high school.”

“Was this after your mother died?”

“I . . . don’t think so.” Denise gazed directly into the P.I.’s gray eyes. “No, wait, Dinah hit him on the shoulder, if that’s what you’re thinking! That didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“You’re saying Thomas Daniels was alive and well when you and your sisters left Wagon Wheel.”

“He was alive . . . I don’t think he was ever well.”

“Are you about finished?” Lambert asked. His arm was looped familiarly over the back of the couch and he traced a finger along Denise’s collarbone.

Shivering, she pulled in on herself. Jackley’s sharp eyes caught everything, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Do you have the addresses of your sisters?” he asked. “I’d like to talk to them.”

She shook her head.

“It would help my investigation,” he said.

He wasn’t going to go away. Those gray eyes were going to wait and wait and wait. “I have an address for Hayley but I haven’t talked to her in . . .” She shrugged.

“And Dinah?”

“I’d have to find her,” she said. “She’s hard to get hold of.”

His expression said, “I know you’re lying.” She waited, heart beating hard, waiting for him to call her on it, but instead he gave her a cell number where she could reach him after she got hold of Dinah.

With difficulty she climbed off the couch and mounted the stairs to her scattered belongings and the tiny address book she kept tucked away. She was tired. So very, very tired.

Dictating Hayley’s address and phone number to Jackley, she watched as he rapidly printed the information in a notebook. Hayley would be able to handle him. He wouldn’t stop her from her goals. Nothing could.

“Whoever killed him did the world a favor,” Denise heard herself say.

“It’s still murder.”

Lambert showed him out and Denise listened to his receding footsteps.

“Take this,” Lambert ordered, when he returned, pushing the pill on her again.

“Why do I feel so hung over?”

“Take the pill and you’ll stop feeling so awful.”

“Did you put something in my drink last night, Lambert?”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he exploded, his face bright red. “Take the damn pill and stop acting so neurotic!”

Denise sighed. She was sick of thinking so much anyway. Dutifully, she swallowed the pill—a tranquilizer to calm her nerves—then just as her bones began to melt along with her troubles, he brought her a snifter of brandy.

And just as she lifted the snifter to her lips, she saw her stepfather as if he were in the room with her.

Like this? You like this?
SLAP!
You like this, you bitch? Say it! Say it now! Now, now!

“Lambert . . . ?” Blindly, she reached out a hand.

He wasn’t there. She was alone. Alone with a monster.

She had a rock in her hand. Was it her hand? A rough chunk of gray and white granite.
Slam!
It broke against his skull.
Slam!
Blood poured, bright red and goddamn rivers of it. Over her hands and down his neck. Over his eye in scarlet rivulets. His eye rolled up.
Slam! Slam! Slam!

And he staggered. Went down. And then the shovel. It took off half his face.

“Lambert . . .” she whispered, sliding away.

“Right here, baby. Right here . . .”

 

 

“Okay, sugar, you want a thrill? You deserve a thrill. A thr-r-r-illlll.” Her tongue suggestively circled a Pepto-Bismol pink painted mouth. She pursed her lips and kissed the air a couple of times for good measure. “Come on, come on. Whatcha waitin’ for? An invitation? Baby, I just gave you one.”

“How much?”

“What is this, a shakedown? Come on and show me some merchandise and I’ll tell you how much it’s worth,” she teased.

“You gotta give me a price.”

Was this guy green, or what? Hayley’d learned a few things from her nights of street walking and Rule #1 was to never start spouting prices until he was as committed as his intended hooker for a night. This young yahoo had to be a rookie cop.

It was a game. One she was getting damn good at while she figured out how to approach John Callahan. And it was better than shacking up with doped-out losers with sick, albeit creative, fantasies.

The problem was, she was running out of time. Some of the prostitutes were on to her. They suspected she wasn’t who she said she was because she didn’t deliver. Right now they were trying to figure her out. Pretty soon they’d get rid of her. She made them nervous. Was she a cop, or what?

Gloria Carver had ceased to be her compatriot. She had business to take care of. Hayley’s interests and goals didn’t interest her anymore.

So now she was alone, but she’d watched the rest of the action long enough to get her patter down.

And it gave her a tremendous feeling of power.

“Come on . . .” Romeo touched her arm. “Tell me what you’ll do for me. Whet my appetite.”

“I’m gonna take you around the world.”

“Yeah, how?”

“Use your imagination, baby. I’m your goddamned travel agent.”

“I’ve only got fifty, sweetheart. Fifty do it for you?”

She clucked her tongue. “Oooh, boy. That would be one short trip.”

“A hundred? What do I get for a hundred?”

He was standing too close. She could feel his breath on her neck. Unconsciously she stepped away from him, needing space. Maybe he wasn’t a cop. Maybe he was something else. Something worse.

A black car slid into the curb next to them. Hayley ran her hands down her hips. Her skirt was black vinyl as were her thigh-high boots. A tan suede vest, cinched up the front by leather thongs, was all that kept her breasts from spilling out. She’d ratted her blond hair into a sexy, tossed tangle, caked on a ton of makeup, and completed the look with a pair of fake, black eyelashes.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Romeo said, jerking his head to the end of the block where a green sedan stood, its parking lights on.

“Nah . . .” She twisted away and pretended boredom. “I don’t think I can agree to your terms.”

“A hundred and fifty. Final offer.”

“Bullshit. You’ll keep going until you think I’ll grab at the bait. But the department won’t pay, will it? I don’t think that’s part of the budget.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was angry.

Male pride, Hayley thought with an inward laugh. “Oh, yeah, you do.”

Suddenly, his fingers were hard on her upper arm.

“Hey!” she cried, surprised.

“Let the lady go,” another voice snapped out, cold, hard, and masculine.

Hayley glanced around in surprise. A man had climbed from the car that had pulled into the curb and was staring daggers at her would-be john.

“Who the hell are you?” Romeo demanded, frustrated.

His answer was a strong hand wrapped around his thin neck. Romeo was jerked six inches off the ground then dropped back—all so quickly that if she’d blinked she would have missed it.

Instantly, Romeo began to whine. “Didn’t know she was your lady, man. Maybe you oughtta talk to her about sending out signals, y’know. My throat hurts! I’m sorry, okay?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Hayley thought in annoyance. They were all the same. When the going got tough, the weak buckled under and whined.

“Thanks for the rescue, but I can handle my own problems,” she told the newcomer as Romeo scurried to his flashing green sedan.

“You’re soliciting?”

“You a cop?” She raked him with cold eyes. “Oh, God, you
are
. . .” She should have seen it instantly. Something about the way they all acted. It was really true. You could tell one from miles away.

But he sure looked good. Hayley had always appreciated beauty in any form, and man, this guy had it in spades.

Except . . . that indefinable cop thing. A complete and total turnoff.

“What’s your name, Mr. POPO?”

“That’s Mr. Ex-POPO,” he said with a faint twist of his lips.

“Oh, sure. And you’re here for a date, right?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Uh-huh.” Hayley studied her nails with exaggerated interest. “And who would that be?”

“You.”

“The girl of your dreams, right?” she answered, her smile ironic.

His eyes were gray, and they had a way of looking right into your core. Goddamn cops.

“Are you Hayley Scott?”

She nearly swallowed her tongue. Hayley stared. “Who the hell are you?”

“Connor Jackley. A private investigator working with the Deschutes County Sheriff to find out more about the murder of your stepfather, Thomas Daniels.”

Rapid-fire words. Bullets that zinged her brain. Hayley gaped, unable to take it all in. “He’s . . . dead?” she asked blankly.

“Has been for a while.”

She sensed him watching her closely. The street and noise and smells and filth receded. She was encased in fog. A thick soup of it. Somewhere someone was screaming. Crying.

“I hated him,” she stated without emotion.

“Is there somewhere we could go and talk?”

“About Daniels? Forget it. I’m glad he’s dead.” A moment later it hit her. “He was murdered?”

“Someone crushed his skull.”

The words jarred through her, painful and scary. Deep-down scary. A door cracked open at the end of the long hallway of her memory and she slammed it shut so fast, the whole thing was over before she realized what she’d done.

She wouldn’t try to open it again.

“So long,” she muttered, attempting to brush past him.

He grabbed her wrist, lightly, nothing serious. But something broke inside her. She snapped back and scratched him across the face, stunned to see red welts blossom on his cheek.

He swore, soft and quick beneath his breath. Yanking her forward, he marched her to his car, dragging her to his side and shoving her inside, following quickly.

“Police brutality!” she screeched, scrabbling for the door handle.

He was already in the driver’s seat and switching on the ignition. He tore into traffic just as she got the door partway open. For a millisecond she toyed with the idea of jumping out. The boulevard raced past in a neon blur.

She glanced his way. The raised welts on his cheek were three dark pink lines.

Without looking at her, he said in a calm, disinterested voice, “If you’re not going to jump out, close the door.”

She did as she was told and they sped away into the darkness.

 

 

“Kidnapping,” she accused, hands on her hips as they stood outside a fourplex unit in a fairly nice neighborhood. His place? “This sure as hell isn’t headquarters. What
do
you have in mind?”