Body Movers (2 page)

Atlanta Journal–Constitution Sunday Living section and,

hey, congratulations. But in the end she hadn’t wanted to

force an awkward exchange, to see the pity in his gorgeous

cobalt-blue eyes for the way her family and lifestyle had

imploded, so she’d simply watched him tip the clerk and

walk away, her body straining after him.

Brushing her hand over the fine fabric of the jacket,

Carlotta ignored the vibrating cel phone in her pocket and

listened while Angela told her about the lavish parties that

she and Peter threw at their palatial home located in a

gated subdivision within the exclusive neighborhood of

Buckhead. And how with the recent addition of a pool, spa

and alfresco kitchen, they were the envy of their

neighbors. And how wel Peter was doing in his job at

Mashburn and Tul y Investments—which had once been

Mashburn, Tul y and Wren. The irony of Peter working for

the same firm where her father had once been a partner

seemed comical y cruel.

“Did I mention that Peter was given a huge bonus this

quarter?” Angela slurred as Carlotta rang up the enormous

sale.

“Yes, I believe you did mention it,” Carlotta said smoothly.

The encounter was nearly over—she could afford to be

nice a little while longer, even if it kil ed her inside.

Angela smirked. “Of course, Peter makes al of his money

legal y.”

Carlotta clenched her jaw but decided to allow the sly

reference to her father’s crime slide.

“Whatever happened to your parents?” Angela pressed,

her eyes glinting with a gossipy light.

Carlotta wet her lips. “I really don’t know.”

“You mean you’ve never heard from them all this time?”

“That’s right.”

Angela made a pitying noise in her throat. “What kind of

parents could just run off and leave their kids like that?”

Carlotta had her opinion but decided not to respond.

“I feel so sorry for you, Carlotta. I mean, it must have been

hard for you to go from having everything you wanted to

having nothing.”

From the triumphant look in Angela’s eyes, Carlotta could

tel that by “everything,” the woman meant Peter. Carlotta

wanted to say that it hadn’t been easy, especially since all

of her so-called friends had seemingly vanished into thin

air along with her parents. She and Angela hadn’t been

best buddies, but they had run in the same crowd—the

crowd that had turned on her by high-school graduation.

Angela had gone on to Vandy, which was where Carlotta

assumed the woman had hooked up with Peter. Had “poor

Carlotta” been a common topic of conversation?

“I managed just fine,” she murmured.

Angela leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s why I

always buy things from you, Carlotta, because I figure that

you need the commission. It’s my little good deed.”

The scent of gin burned Carlotta’s nose like the fiery

mortification that bled through her chest. Years’ worth of

pent-up frustration suddenly flared to life. Her hands

halted in the middle of ringing up the sale. “I don’t need

your pity, Angela,” she said, her voice shaking, “or your

effing money.” She gave herself ten points for the verbal

filter.

Angela’s expression grew haughty. “You don’t have to be

nasty—I’m only trying to help.”

“You’re trying to make me feel like a charity case.” And

dammit, she was succeeding.

Angela swept her hand over the pile of merchandise that

cost as much as Carlotta’s car. “So you’d be wil ing to turn

your back on this sale because of your stupid pride?”

Carlotta hesitated—she desperately needed the

commission—and in her hesitation, knew Angela had won.

As she looked into the woman’s slightly unfocused but

gloating eyes, comebacks whirled through Carlotta’s mind,

ranging from “Screw you” to “You’re right” to “You got

Peter—what else do you want from me?”

She wanted to throw something, to hit something, to push

the Rewind button and be seventeen again, before her life

had taken such a detour. To her horror, moisture gathered

in her eyes. She blinked furiously and opened her mouth.

“I—”

Her phone vibrated against her side and she pounced on

the diversion. “I’m sorry, Angela, I have to take this call.”

But when she withdrew the phone and glanced at the

caller ID, fear bolted through her chest. Atlanta Police

Department.

Her heart lodged in her throat as images of Wesley’s

mangled body ran through her mind. He’d finally gotten

himself kil ed on that damn motorcycle of his. She stabbed

the Incoming Call button, missed, and tried again. “Hel o?”

“Hi, sis,” Wesley said, his voice tentative—like at age ten

when he had put sugar in their neighbor’s gas tank “just to

see if it real y would freeze up the engine.”

It had.

Her initial flood of relief that he was alive was immediately

overridden with a different kind of anxiety. “What’s

wrong?”

“Why do you assume something’s wrong?”

She glanced up to find Angela listening intently. Carlotta

turned her back and walked a few steps to be—she

hoped—out of earshot. “Because, Wesley, the police

department came up on the caller ID.”

“Oh.”

“So…what happened?”

“Okay, don’t freak out, but I kind of got arrested.”

Carlotta felt faint. “What? You kind of got arrested, or you

did get arrested?”

She could picture him on the other end of the line,

stabbing at his glasses and weighing his answer. “I did get

arrested.”

She closed her eyes and mouthed a curse.

“I heard that.”

Okay, minus ten points for swearing at her kid brother. She

counted to three, then exhaled. “What were you arrested

for?”

“Wel , it’s kind of complicated. Maybe you’d better come

down here.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“The jail at City Hall East.”

Christ, what did it say for her that she knew exactly where

the jail was? She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a

migraine coming on. “What am I supposed to do once I get

there?”

“Uh…ask for inmate Wren?”

She clenched her jaw and disconnected the call, then gave

Angela a flat smile. “I have to go. Someone else wil be

happy to ring up your purchases.”

Angela’s face reddened. “But I don’t want someone else—I

want you.”

“Don’t worry, Angela. I’m sure you’ll stil get a gold star for

your little good deed.” She swept by the woman, and

when she passed Michael on the escalator, told him that

she had an emergency and would return later if she could

and would he take care of you-know-who?

Breaking into a jog, Carlotta retrieved her purse from her

locker in the employee break room, fighting tears of

frustration. What had Wesley gotten himself into now?

Her feet moved automatically, carrying her to her car,

which was a good thing because she couldn’t consciously

remember where she’d parked.

As she careened out of the mall parking lot, she imagined

Wesley’s mangled body again—only this time it was by her

own hands.

2

Carlotta took a deep breath and made herself say the

words. “I’m here to see i-inmate Wren.”

The uniformed woman behind the Plexiglas rol ed her eyes

upward to glance over her bifocals. “Spel the name,

please.”

Carlotta did, glancing around the crowded waiting room

nervously, hoping she didn’t run into anyone she knew—

or anyone who knew her. The place held bad memories;

she’d been arrested once a couple of years ago for taking a

tire iron to one of Wesley’s bookies, but the charges had

been dropped. And just before Christmas last year she’d

been hauled in for questioning in a murder case. It turned

out to be a big fat misunderstanding, but the experience

had scared her straight. No more lying…no more

pretending.

She frowned down at her outfit. One thing was certain—

even in her last-season Diane von Furstenberg sundress

and midi-jacket, she was a tad overdressed for the

occasion.

The woman wrote down Wesley’s name. “And you are?”

Carlotta lowered her mouth to the little hole in the

Plexiglas and whispered, “I’m his sister, Carlotta Wren.

And there must be some mistake. My brother would never

break the law. At least not a big law.”

The woman appeared to be unmoved. “Yeah. Have a seat

and someone wil be with you.”

Carlotta cut a glance to the waiting room and noted the

sagging bodies, the yawns, the general restlessness of

people who had been waiting for hours. She looked back

and flashed an ingratiating smile at the woman. “Look—”

She peeked at the woman’s name tag, then frowned.

“Your parents named you Brooklyn?”

The woman smirked. “Everyone calls me Brook.”

“Okay…Brook, I don’t mean to be pushy, but I had to take

a break from my job at Neiman Marcus to come down

here, and I really need to get back ASAP.”

The woman blinked slowly. “I need a mil ion dol ars and a

good man. Have a seat, Ms. Wren.”

Carlotta sighed—there went her overtime pay this week.

As she turned toward the teeming waiting room, she made

eye contact with a tall, striking man wearing a badge

around his neck, pouring coffee from a corroded glass pot.

A frown furrowed his brow.

“Did you say your name was Wren?” he drawled, hinting

at his roots. South Georgia, she guessed, or maybe an

Alabama boy. He was block-shouldered with black hair, a

strong nose, fortyish, with bloodshot eyes, bad taste in ties

and an apparent aversion to ironing. His haircut was rather

good, she conceded, in her split-second scrutiny,

reminiscent of George Clooney in his E.R. days. But this

guy didn’t seem to have much of a bedside manner.

“Yes,” she said warily. “I’m Carlotta Wren.”

He drank from the cup, then winced. “I’m Detective Jack

Terry. I brought your brother in,” he said and blew on the

top of his coffee.

His nonchalance was beyond irritating. “May I ask why?”

He was stil blowing. “I’ll let him tel you. Hey, are you two

any relation to Randolph Wren?”

She clenched her jaw. “He’s our father. What does that

have to do with this?”

“Nothing that I know of,” he admitted, then took a slurpy

drink. “I just wondered.”

“When can I talk to my brother?”

“How about now?” He nodded at the woman behind the

Plexiglas. “Brook, I’l take care of Ms. Wren.”

Brook shook her finger. “Behave, Jack.”

He grinned and Carlotta frowned. Judging from the

woman’s comment, some women apparently found his

good-old-boy charm appealing. There was just no

accounting for taste.

He waved his badge in front of a card reader, then opened

a door that led to a noisy bul pen of cubicles. As he held

the door for her, she stepped inside and was immediately

engulfed by the clatter of conversation, the whir of

machines and the drone of announcements over a public-

address system.

Carlotta fol owed the detective through the obstacle

course of overflowing desks, jutting legs and fast-moving

bodies to an eight-foot-by-eight-foot cubicle marked with

a nameplate that read, Det. J. Terry, Major Crimes.

Major crimes? Dread mushroomed in her stomach. This

sounded serious.

Stacks of files and papers occupied every square inch of

surface in the man’s cubicle. His trash can was spil ing

over. A bag from the Varsity, Atlanta’s famous fast-food

joint on North Avenue, sat in a dusty corner on the floor,

emitting iffy odors. The detective rummaged next to his

computer, mumbling under his breath, until he found the

phone, then yanked up the receiver, punched a button and

said, “Janower, it’s Terry. Bring the skinny computer jock

to interview room two, wil you?” He hung up the phone

and gave Carlotta a flat smile. “It’l be a few minutes, if you

want to have a seat. Here, let me clear a spot.”

He leaned over and dumped the stack of files sitting in his

visitor’s chair on the floor, but at the sight of the dark stain

on the dingy yel ow upholstery, Carlotta swallowed.

“Thanks, I’l stand.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then he dropped into his

own stained chair and took another drink from his coffee

cup.

“So does my brother’s arrest have something to do with

computers?” Wesley had been tinkering with them since

he was ten. He’d begged for his own PC, and later, when

Carlotta couldn’t afford to upgrade the machine, he’d

rebuilt the old one himself. Over the years, he’d made

spending money by upgrading computers for his friends

and their parents, and had even helped some small

companies with their software security. He had no less

than six computers in his room at any given time, and sat

rooted in front of them for the better part of every day,

wearing headphones and general y oblivious to the

outside world.

Possible scenarios whirled through her mind. Had he

stolen computer components? Or could this have