Dark Paradise (50 page)

Sis?"

"Not."

She seemed to take an inordinate interest in picking up doughnut crumbs

from her napkin with the tip of her finger. Something about the tension

around her mouth struck a warning bell. Her eyes had been red when she

had first turned around and looked at him out there on the deck, as if

she had been crying. Way to go, J.D., so smooth with the ladies. About

as smooth as the business end of a porcupine. Poor Marilee.

"You drew a tough one, sweetheart," he said softly, never thinking that

she may not understand rodeo jargon, the dialect of the cowboy.
 
"He's

married to the job, you know, to the land. I guess he figured that would

be safest. Didn't think the land could duck out on him. 'Course, we have

since found out that the land is just a pretty whore that goes to the highest

bidder. Ain't that a kick in the butt?"

"Do you care?"

"Not the way he does. The ranch is a lot of things to J.D. - mother,

lover, duty. For me it was the thing that tied my mama to a marriage she

didn't want. I never had much of a taste for duty."

"But you stay anyway. Why?"

Why?
 
That was a question he asked himself on a regular basis. Why not

just leave?
 
Why not just cut the ties and run free?
 
He never came up

with an answer. He never wanted to dig deep enough to find it. Too

afraid of what he might unearth. What a coward you are, Willieboy.

He didn't answer. Marilee didn't press. She of all people respected the

confusion that tangled around the human heart. Why had she gone to

school instead of to seek her fortune as a songwriter?
 
Why had she

stayed on the job when she hated it?
 
Why had she tried to sell herself

on Brad Enright when she didn't really love him?

Why couldn't life be sunny and simple?

She sighed and dusted the powdered sugar off her hands. "You need

stitches for that cut. Come on, cowboy," she said, pushing to her feet.

"I'm driving you in to see Dr. Charm."

MacDonald Townsend paced back and forth along the length of the picture

window in his study. The view out that window, a panorama of wild

Montana beauty that included a spectacular slice of snow-capped Irish

Peak, had cost him a considerable chunk of money. He didn't so much as

glance at it that morning. He was beyond admiring scenery. He was beyond

enjoying much of anything about his getaway cabin, two thousand square

feet of pine logs and thermal-pane windows and fieldstone fireplaces. On

the other side of his study door Bruno, his German shorthair, whined and

scratched at the woodwork. Townsend didn't hear it.

His life was going to hell. It was as simple as that. He paused beside

the heavy antique oak desk to light a cigarette, but his hands were

shaking too badly to accomplish the task and he gave it up, too wired to

try again. He knew what he needed, what his nerves were screaming for.

There was a stash in the upper right-hand drawer of the desk, but he

fought the need, desperate to break free of it. Sweat filmed his face.

His nose was running. He pulled a damp, wadded-up handkerchief out of

his hip pocket and wiped it across his upper lip, resuming his pacing.

His heart was racing like a rabbit's, something that seemed to be

happening more and more often. He didn't know if it was the cocaine or

the stress or both. They seemed to feed off each other, chasing around

and around in a vicious circle that was taking him closer and closer to

the point of no return.

He stopped and stared out the window, seeing nothing. How had he ever

come to this?
 
He'd had the world at his fingertips. His career had been

poised perfectly on the ladder that would eventually take him to the

Supreme Court. He was respected and admired. He had a wife who was

respected and admired. There hadn't been so much as a speck of lint on

his record.

Then he met Lucy MacAdam. He dated the start of his decline into this

hell in which he was living to the night they met, as if her appearance

had been a portent sent from the netherworld. As if she had been a

familiar of the devil sent to destroy him by leading him down the paths

of degradation.

He still remembered that first meeting as if it had happened last night.

He had seen her across the room at a party in the elegant home of Ben

Lucas. Her gaze hit him like a laser beam. Then that patented smile

canted the corners of her mouth, wry and knowing, as if she were fully

aware of her evil power over men and delighted in it. His skin had

tightened from the scalp down, tingling with raw sexual awareness. At

the time her hair had been nearly platinum blond, cut in a jaw-length

bob that perpetually looked as if a lover had just run his hands through

it. She wore a simple gold metallic knit dress that began in a snug

collar around her throat and hugged her figure like a glove, ending high

on her slender thighs.

She wore nothing beneath it. He had discovered that fact later in the

evening, when she had led him by the necktie into a little-used guest

bathroom.

At the time he had been, if not a happily married man, a contented one.

Irene, his wife of thirty years, had lost interest in sex. All her time

and energy was taken up with her causes. He remembered thinking it was a

relief. One less obligation to distract him from his career plans. He

had been sliding comfortably along on the track that would take him to

the superior court bench and onward.

Everything changed in a heartbeat. He was astonished, looking back on

it, that he could have been so easily tempted, that temptation would

take him so deep, that it all could happen so quickly.

Madness, that was what it was. It had infected him and swept through him

like a cancer. First it was Lucy, then the cocaine, the parties, the

forays into the world of Evan Bryce and the people who sought him out.

He had been so smug at first, flattered and full of himself. He had

believed he could handle it, that he could keep his newfound vices

separate from his public image. But the task had grown increasingly

difficult, until he felt as if he were being asked to juggle bowling

balls while balancing on one foot on the head of a pin. His control had

slipped bit by bit, and now his life was spiraling downward like a plane

with all engines smoking. He could almost hear the wind roaring in his

ears.

His need for cocaine was out of control. Between the drugs and the

blackmail, his finances were eroding at an alarming rate. Irene was

leaving him. God only knew what would happen when her attorney started

demanding money and property that had long since gone to fund his secret

life. Bryce had him under his thumb and there was a very incriminating

videotape floating around that would end his career at the very least if

it fell into the wrong hands.

"I have to get that tape," he muttered.

He could scarcely hear above the thundering of his pulse in his ears.

The trembling that had been contained to his hands quaked up his arms

and down through his body. He felt as if he might explode. Panic choked

him.

On the brink of tears, he flung himself into the leather upholstered

desk chair and reached for the handle of the drawer. His fingers curled

around it and tightened and tightened until his knuckles were the color

of bone.

He had to stop. He had to, or the madness would never end. During the

night he had promised himself he would quit. He would extend his

vacation into a six month leave of absence from the bench and clean up

his act. He would go to another state, where no one would know him, and

check himself into a clinic. There was a place in Minnesota he'd heard

about. Top-notch, discreet. He would go there, and when he came back he

would be a new man, his old self, back on the straight and narrow.

The plan brought with it a kind of euphoria, a high not unlike that he

got from the drugs. For a moment he saw the future through a watery

white light, like something inside a free-floating soap bubble. He would

quit the drugs, get the stress under control, distance himself from the

people who had dragged him down into this muck.

Then the phone to his left shrilled a high, birdlike call and the bubble

burst.

He grabbed the receiver, his heart rate spiking upward again, expecting

to hear Bryce on the other end. "Townsend."

"Judge Townsend." The voice was unfamiliar, male, ringing with a quality

of false joviality. "I was a friend of a friend of yours. Lucy MacAdam."

Townsend said nothing. The silence vibrated against his ears. A hundred

thoughts raced through his mind, none of them pleasant.

"Are you there?"

He tried to swallow the bile that.rose up the back of his throat. His

mouth was dry as chalk dust. "Y-yes. I'm here."

"I happen to know you and Lucy had a little thing going. Thought maybe

we could discuss it."

The tape. Jesus, he had the tape! He thought of denying the charge, but

what was the point?
 
His nerves couldn't take a cat-and-mouse game.

Better to get it over with. "What do you want?"

"Not over the phone. I prefer to do business in person."

"Where, then?"

"Do you like to fish, judge?"

"What?
 
What the hell-"

"Of course you do. You're an outdoors type, or you wouldn't have come

here. There's a great spot I just discovered over on Little Snake. Meet

me at the Mine Road turnoff on old county nine in an hour and I'll lead

the way. Know where that is?"

"I'll be there."

"Good. Oh, and, judge?
 
Better bring your wallet."

He fumbled to re-cradle the receiver, his attention on the pressure that

was building inside his head. Maybe he would just have an aneurism and

die and that would be the end of all his troubles. The pressure pounded

behind his eyes like a pair of fists.

Would this nightmare never end?

If he could get the tape back, he thought desperately.

He'd pay whatever he had to. He'd sell this place to raise the money as

long as he could be assured of never being bothered again. That would be

best anyway. Get rid of this place. That would be part of the process of

turning himself around. The situation wasn't beyond damage control yet.

He would sell this place, get himself straightened out, get Irene back

before the divorce proceedings revealed his ravaged finances.

Having a plan calmed him somewhat, but he was still trembling. He pulled

his handkerchief out and wiped his nose again. He had to give the

appearance of being in control when he met this new blackmailer. It

wouldn't be wise to show fear.

His fingers curled into the handle of the drawer again and pulled it

open. Just one more time . . .

Marilee went into the emergency room with Will to make sure he actually

got himself on the list of patients to be seen, then left him there with

a promise to come back in an hour. As she drove through town, she made a

pass around the square to take in the progress on the sculpture.

Colleen Bentsen was going at it with torch in hand and an iron mask over

her face. The sculpture was still little more than scrap metal. A knot

of New Eden housewives with babies in strollers stood frowning at the

model, turning their heads sideways and back in an attempt to get a

perspective that made sense. M.E. Fralick stood beside the pedestal,

swinging her long arms in exaggerated gestures as she tried to explain

the scope of the project.

At the Moose, tourists were trooping through the main lobby in their

pseudo-western wear, heading for breakfast before a day in the great

outdoors. Marilee went up to her rooms and pried herself out of Lucy's