Bed of Lies (5 page)

“They're already there?”
C. J.'s head snapped up. Her eyes widened with alarm.

Her reaction made the nurse narrow her eyes further at C. J. “Yes,” she said slowly, “they're in the room with him now. When they leave, you can see him.”

“Oh, uh. Okay. I . . . I have no problem waiting.”

She didn't want to run into Evan Murdoch. If she did, her whole plan, along with her cover, would be blown. He had seen her before when she tried to interview him a few times for her stories on Murdoch Bank. She had tracked him down a year ago while he was having a business lunch in town and he had not been happy to be interrupted by her.

“The next time you ambush me like this, my lawyer will be contacting your paper and I'll have a restraining order filed against you. Understood?” Evan had said tersely, before storming off.

Evan did not like her, and if he found her standing here in the hospital, he'd like her even less.

“I'll just go grab something to eat . . . you know . . . in the cafeteria . . . downstairs,” C. J. said hastily to the nurse. “I'll be back in a sec.”

“But here they come right now,” the nurse called out just as C. J. turned away from the desk.

“What the hell are you doing here?” a baritone voice boomed, making C. J. wince.

Damn
, she thought.
I was so close!

She loudly swallowed and turned to find Evan Murdoch glaring at her.

The last time she had seen him, he had looked the part of a company CEO in a pin-striped business suit, sensible blue tie, and crisp white shirt. The other reporters thought C. J. was stuck up, but Evan Murdoch had her beat. He gave off an air of superiority that only came with growing up rich and knowing that you would always be rich.

But he didn't look like that today. He was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and wrinkled jeans. He was even sporting a five o'clock shadow. Bags were under his eyes. If she had seen him in a crowd, she might not have recognized him.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated tightly.

A woman stood at his side, looking confused. C. J. instantly recognized her as Paulette Williams, Evan and Terrence's little sister.

“I . . . I was . . . I was here to . . . uh . . .” C. J. struggled to make up a lie. To say that she was also visiting a patient in the recovery ward, but she wasn't fast enough.

“You were here to see my brother, weren't you?” Evan said, taking a step toward her and making her take a step back. “Are you writing a goddamn story about this?”

Lie,
C.
J.
! Tell him anything! a voice yelled frantically in her head, but she was tongue-tied. She could be bold when she knew she was doing the right thing, but that resolve always faltered when she felt like she was doing something wrong.

The guilt trips her father had exerted on her for more than two decades had worked wonders.

“I . . . I wanted to hear Mr. Murdoch's side of the story,” she said. She forced herself to stop trembling, pushed back her shoulders, and met Evan's gaze. “I wanted to give him a chance to defend himself. I believe in balanced—”

“He could have
died!
” Evan shouted, taking another step toward her. This time his sister grabbed his arm, tugging him back. “He could have fucking died, you heartless bitch!”

At the sound of his shouts, a few people stepped out of the nearby waiting room. One was a pretty woman in a turtleneck and yoga pants. She quickly stepped forward and rested a hand on Evan's shoulder.

“Ev, what's wrong?”

“Sir,” the nurse said quietly, “this is a hospital. You're going to have to keep the noise down.”

“She's here to write a goddamn story about my brother!” Evan said to anyone who would listen, jabbing an index finger at C. J. “He's hooked up to a fucking respirator and she wants to get a quote from him! Are you kidding me?”

C. J. quickly shook her head. “I-I didn't know.”

No one had told her the extent of Terrence's injuries. She had tried to get that information, but the police hadn't even known.

Now as she gazed at his family and she could see how much they were grieving, she knew she had made a mistake coming here.

“Look, I'm . . . I'm sorry.” Her knuckles went white as she tightened her death grip around the straps of her satchel. “I—”

“You're sorry?”
Evan repeated, still glaring at her. He tried to tug his arm out of his sister's grasp, but she only held on tighter. “You're fucking sorry?”

“Evan, calm down,” the other woman beside him said. In contrast, his sister continued to stand mutely at his side, looking befuddled and overwhelmed.

“Sir, you're going to have to leave if you continue to yell like this,” the nurse ordered.

“I'm not leaving! He's my brother! Make this fucking parasite leave! She shouldn't be here, anyway. You just let reporters walk into patients' rooms? What kind of goddamn hospital is this? Where the hell is security?”

“I'm sorry, sir, but this young woman told me she was his fiancée,” the nurse argued. “I wouldn't have—”

“Well, she fucking lied!”

C. J. stood frozen, like a deer caught in headlights. She wanted to escape, but she felt paralyzed. The woman at Evan's side suddenly wrapped an arm around C. J.'s shoulder and steered her back toward the elevator, catching C. J. by surprise.

“Let's go,” the woman whispered into C. J.'s ear, walking swiftly down the corridor and dragging C. J. along with her. “You need to get out of here before he kills you.”

The woman was being hyperbolic, right? C. J. gave a wary glance over her shoulder at Evan Murdoch, who was still railing.

“Ev's not normally like this,” the woman said, stopping in front of the elevator doors. She pressed the Down button, not giving C. J. a chance to tell her where she wanted to go. “Terry's accident really scared him. He's more than just a little distraught.”

“I'm sorry,” C. J. whispered again.

“It's okay,” the woman replied as the elevator doors opened. “You just came at a
very
bad time.”

C. J. stepped onto the metal elevator and turned to the woman. “Thank you, Miss—”

“Hawkins,” the woman said. “Leila Hawkins. But everyone calls me Lee.”

Leila Hawkins. She recognized her now. Evan's mistress, according to the town gossip.

The elevator doors shut and C. J. collapsed against the metal walls.

Chapter 5

Dante

D
ante whistled a peppy tune as he strode and practically skipped off the elevator and down the corridor. He was excited and could barely contain the enthusiasm that surged through him at that moment. He felt like today was Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. Dante hadn't been this happy in weeks, maybe even
months
and it was all because his half-brother, Terrence, had decided to crash his Porsche into some poor old lady at a D.C. intersection.

Just thinking about it made Dante beam.

“Umm, excuse me,” the nurse called out as Dante passed the hexagon-shaped desk. “Excuse me, sir!”

He didn't pause or even acknowledge her. Instead, he glanced at the doorways of each hospital room, in search of Mavis Upton—the woman who had been in the accident with Terrence.

Dante had used his legal connections as a lawyer to finagle her name from the local cops and now he was on a mission to not only meet Mavis but also to make her his client. They were going to sue the pants off of Terrence Murdoch.

To say that Dante disliked his wealthy siblings was putting it lightly; he utterly
despised
them. While they had been born and raised in the lap of luxury, he had grown up poor in the inner city. While they carried the Murdoch name, his father had succeeded for decades in keeping Dante a secret. In fact, Dante hadn't known that George Murdoch was his father until he was a grown man. The week after his mother made the deathbed revelation, he had gone straight to George's office at Murdoch Conglomerated to introduce himself.

“Why are you here?” George had asked Dante coldly within seconds of him stepping through the office door.

Dante had just laid eyes on his father, gazing in awe at the man he strongly resembled. George had had the same skin tone as himself, had been balding, and had shrewd hazel eyes that seemed to bore into Dante's very soul. He had admired George already based on what he had heard and read about him over the years. Seeing George in person, looking so dignified and commanding in the penthouse office of the company he had built from the ground up, only made Dante admire him even more. But his father's chilly tone had been like a splash of frigid water.

His mother had warned him that George had been embarrassed about his liaison with her—a poor waitress he'd had a one-night stand with in the early days of his marriage. Because of that, Dante hadn't expected a bear hug or even a tear-filled apology for ignoring him for thirty-six years, but he had at least expected his father to offer him a seat in one of the two leather wingback chairs that had been facing the immense mahogany office desk. He hadn't expected the first words out of his mouth to be “Why are you here?”

“Do you want money?” George had asked, eying Dante. “Is that what this is about?”

“Money would be nice,” Dante had said. He had forced a laugh to let his father know he had been joking, but he had stopped laughing and cleared his throat when his father remained silent and continued to glare at him. “But no, the real reason I came here was to meet you, to . . . to see the man who made me.”

“Well, you've met me. You've seen me.” George had raised his hands in a “
Now what?
” motion.

“I was . . . also hoping that I could . . . uh, get to know you,” Dante had said, feeling his usual overwhelming confidence starting to falter. “I'd like to meet your fam—”

“That's out of the question.” George had shaken his head, risen from his chair, and adjusted his tie. He had walked around his desk. “Look . . . Dante, is it?”

Damn
, Dante had thought, feeling a stab to his chest.
He doesn't even know my name.

“I see no reason to change the arrangement that I had with your mother before she died. She agreed not to make your presence known if I agreed to help her financially. I'll offer you the same deal.” George had walked the short distance across his office to stand in front of Dante. The two men had been the same height and had the same build. They were almost replicas of each other. “I'm assuming you'll want an amount more substantial than your mother's. I sent her a stipend of five thousand dollars a month. How about I increase it by another five thousand for you?”

“You think . . . you think you can just buy me off?” Dante had asked tightly, feeling an acidic burning in his throat.

And besides, if he got money from George, it wouldn't be a measly ten-thousand-dollar check once a month. He wanted what was rightfully owed to him as the
true
eldest son of George Murdoch. He wanted his father to treat him like he mattered.

“I don't think I can buy you off, I
know
I can.” George rested a hand on his shoulder, making Dante sad to realize his father only touched him when he was attempting to bribe him. “Come on, you seem like a reasonable man. I'm willing to negotiate a monthly stipend. And hey, if you continue to keep my secret, I'll even add you to my will. Just name your price.”

Dante had angrily shoved his father's hand off his shoulder. For a second, he was too furious to speak. “To hell with you,” he had muttered before storming out of his father's office.

 

Dante knew he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar, but he felt that chip was warranted. He had been ignored and rejected by his own father. He had tried to take his rightful place as the head of the Murdoch family, but his siblings had thwarted him at every turn, uniting against him and shutting him out entirely.

But that's okay
, Dante thought as he peered into another hospital room, finding an old man sitting in his hospital bed with a plastic tray at his waist. The old man turned and gazed at Dante quizzically while chewing on mushy string beans.

I'll fix their asses
, Dante thought as he continued his search.

Dante saw Terrence's latest mishap as an opportunity. Dante still might not be the head of Murdoch Conglomerated, or even officially part of the Murdoch family, but this would offer him a chance to exact long-overdue revenge on the so-called Marvelous Murdochs, the M&Ms. He was almost salivating at the chance.

“Hey, don't try to blame me for this shit!” he heard a woman shout. Dante slowed as he drew closer to the room where the voice came from. “Nobody told you to run into that damn car!”

“But Tasha said you left her alone in the apartment again. She was scared, Renee,” another woman replied. Her voice sounded older and fatigued. “You can't just leave a child alone like that and go running around in the streets all night! I told you that before. She's only six years old!”

Dante stepped into the doorway and saw an older woman with graying hair propped up by a stack of pillows. A bandage was on her right cheek. Her left eye was bruised and swollen like someone had punched her. A younger woman in a pair of skintight jeans and black knee-high boots with towering high heels paced back and forth in front of the older woman's hospital bed. She was dressed like she had just walked out of a night club.

“Whatever, Ma!” Skintight Jeans shouted, dropping a hand to her hip and pushing out her chest over her low-cut, sequined top. “Like I said, don't try to pin this on me. Because I ain't—”

“Excuse me, ladies,” Dante said, striding into the room. He glanced between the two women. “I hope you don't mind if I interrupt, but—”

“Who the hell are you?” the younger woman snapped. Her burgundy lips curled with a sneer.

“It would behoove you not to speak so loudly about the accident,” he continued, “especially here in the hospital. We wouldn't want everyone to hear. And from what I understand, Terrence Murdoch is also on this floor.”

He likely would get moved to a private room in one of the nicer parts of the hospital, but for now, he and Mavis were both in the recovery ward.

“You definitely wouldn't want
him
to hear all of this,” Dante said.

The younger woman fell silent while the older woman's eyes pooled with tears.

“I-I can't remember what happened, but I know I was in such a . . . such a rush to get to Tasha,” the woman murmured, her voice shaking with emotion. “I didn't mean to go through that stop sign! I wasn't trying to—”

“Ssshhh,” Dante whispered, stopping her midsentence. He walked toward the bed and raised a finger to his lips. He then removed his wool coat and tossed it over the plastic handrail. “Your name is Mavis,
right?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“Well, Mavis, my name is Dante Turner. I'm a lawyer with the law offices of Nutter, McElroy, and Ailey, and I'm going to offer you some free legal advice: Don't confess to something you didn't do.”

She frowned and fisted the bed sheets in her hands. “But I-I don't know for sure if I didn't do it. I mean, I-I think I—”

“Mavis”—he placed his hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze—“you're a caring woman. I can tell. You have the best of intentions. But, believe me, you don't want to accept responsibility for what happened today. Do you know the other driver in the accident?”

Her frown deepened and she slowly shook her head.

“What the hell difference does that make?” the younger woman barked. “Who the hell cares?”

“Renee, don't be so rude,” Mavis admonished, though Renee waved away her chastising. “He's only trying to help.”

“Yeah, I bet he is,” Renee snapped, tossing her long ebony weave over her shoulder.

“She's right, I am trying to help. And you
should
care who the other driver is,” Dante said, shifting his gaze to Renee. “His name is Terrence Murdoch of Murdoch Conglomerated, a multimillion-dollar company that specializes in food products and restaurant franchises. Terrence comes from money—
lots
of money. And if he and his family decided to unleash their lawyers on you for the accident, your mother would end up in the poorhouse. They'd find a way to destroy her.”

“Oh Lord,” Mavis whispered. She looked visibly shaken. She started trembling again. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Please tell him I didn't mean to—”

“Mavis, I told you to stop apologizing,” Dante repeated. “You weren't the cause of that accident. As far as I'm concerned,
he
was the one who went through the intersection and hit
you
, and that's what you should say in court.”

“Court?”
Renee raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her bountiful chest. “Who said anything about going to court?”

“Well, your mother would have to go to court if she intends to sue Mr. Murdoch,” Dante said.

Mavis looked confused. “You . . . you think I should sue him? But I don't know for sure if he was the one who caused the crash. I wouldn't feel right blaming him for something he might not have done.”

Dante returned his gaze to Mavis. The old woman was going to be a challenging client, he could tell. She was obviously crippled by guilt for what had happened and would not be willing to lie—at least for now. He glanced at her daughter, Renee, who was listening to him keenly. She was hanging on to his every word. He might have an ally in Renee. That woman looked more carnivorous than a gray wolf. She would have no problem lying and probably could aid him in pressuring Mavis to say what needed to be said when the time came. But for now, Dante would have to choose his words carefully.

“You're not really blaming him. This is more of a pre-emptive measure, Mavis,” Dante explained. “If you sue Terrence first, he's less likely to try litigation with you.”

“That makes sense,” Renee said, vigorously nodding. “You fire the gun first, Mama . . . the warning shot to scare him off.”

“You'd file a lawsuit for your injuries,” Dante said, “for your pain and mental anguish. You'd argue that it's only right that Mr. Murdoch pay a sizeable settlement to make you whole again.”

“But I wouldn't . . . I wouldn't really be expecting that money, though, right?” Mavis asked. Her gray brows furrowed with distress. “I'm not really suing him for real. I'm . . . I'm just doing it so that he won't sue me . . .
first?”

Dante nodded and indulged her with a warm smile meant to convey empathy, though he felt absolutely none.

She lowered her gaze, then finally nodded. “Well, I-I guess it's all right, then. But only if I'm not really going to get the money in the end.”

“Of course not,” Dante lied.

“So I guess you're offering to be her lawyer, then,” Renee said, pointing her long silver nail at him that looked like the talon of a vulture. “Is that what all this talking's about?”

“I'd be happy to assist Ms. Upton.” He quickly turned to the older woman. “On a pro bono basis, of course.”

“Pro bono?
That means you don't get paid up front, right?” Renee asked.

“Exactly,” he said, giving her a wink.

Renee's smile widened. She stuck out her chest even further, almost pushing her breasts entirely over the top of her shirt.

Oh, he definitely had an ally in Renee, and judging from the heated gaze she was now giving him, he might have a lot more.

“It all sounds good to me, Mama,” Renee urged. “I say hire him.”

Mavis pursed her lips, forming them into a thin line that almost looked like a grimace. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. You're . . . you're hired.”