Dark Valentine (22 page)

He did a double take at the sight of her, then seemed to collect himself. “Ms. Valiant, the architect of my good fortune. What an unexpected pleasure.” Strolling toward her, he inquired archly, “Not out spending your reward money yet? Mommy sent the check up to your office by messenger this afternoon.”

Jules didn’t bite. “What are you doing here?”

“I believe this is Mimi Buckmaster’s apartment building. I’m dropping these off for Rhianna. She’s staying here.”

His casual certainty implied rights he didn’t have. Jules was puzzled. How could he know Rhianna was here?
She
only knew because Gilbert Desjardines and his crew had been tailing Rhianna since the trial began.

“You’re too late,” she said coldly. “Ms. Lamb left some time ago.”

“Left?” Savage life flickered in his dead stare. “Are you saying she has departed?”

Jules shrugged. “I saw her loading luggage into her car.”

He ran a large, limp hand slowly over his light brownish-blonde hair. “Do you know her destination?”

“Mr. Brigham, we spoke about this,” she said. “For your own sake, stay away from her. If the police pick you up again, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”

He nodded like he was crestfallen, then asked hopefully, “Did you have occasion to speak with her?”

“Not really.”

He eyed her stinging cheek and smothered a titter. “I can’t help but notice the impression of a dainty hand on your face. A parting gift from my Rhianna?”

Jules wanted to smack him in the mouth over “my Rhianna.” Keeping her cool, she said, “Ms. Lamb is not happy with either of us.”

With a rueful laugh, he confided, “She slapped me, too,” as though this shared experience placed him and Jules on common ground.

“No doubt you asked for it.”

A narrow look sharpened his droopy face. The gloves were off, Jules thought. He was a free man. She was paid in full. Neither of them had any reason to cozy up to the other.

“You think I should have gone to prison, don’t you?” he said.

“What I think is irrelevant. You are a client.” Jules lowered her gaze to the roses and said pointedly, “Chasing her would be unwise. And besides, she’s living out of state as far as I know. Maybe even in another country.”

Brigham bounced the roses in his arms. His eyes were flat and rainy gray. “I’m going to have her,” he said blandly. “And this time I won’t be made a fool of.”

Rhianna’s words came back to her.
The people who send me flowers usually want something.
Jules had known the barb was also directed at her, and it had hurt. She hadn’t sent the peonies to awe or coerce; she had wanted to touch Rhianna and she knew she’d succeeded.

Her hand tightened around the torn envelope and she felt angry with herself for her clumsy attempt to hand over the money. She should have waited. Nothing had gone according to plan and, when it became obvious that she couldn’t engineer the sensible discussion she had hoped for, she had panicked and added insult to injury. What a pitiable move. Something had gone badly wrong with her suave and her instincts. Ever since the first time she saw Rhianna, her circuits had been jammed.

Jules was transported back in time to junior high, where she had first discovered she could get really wet just staring at a girl. The object of her inarticulate yearnings was Serena Anderson, five feet nothing of overdeveloped pubescence. Serena, whose long looks and breathy requests for spare ballpoints were invitations to daydream. The sight of her slowly sucking a lollipop had forced Jules to get better acquainted with her clit for relief. Serena’s vague hints about sleepovers had tortured her night and day. For months, she could think of nothing but Serena naked in her bed, offering her body for limitless exploration.

Her desires had driven her to her parents’ bedroom to unearth the cache of instructional materials other kids claimed they found under mattresses and in bottom drawers. All she’d discovered was her mother’s contraceptive pills and several
Playboy
magazines with the centerfolds torn out.

Jules had spent six months in crush-hell until one day Serena offered her lips for a kiss good-bye because her father had been transferred and she was moving to another city. Her brave disappointment had communicated itself to Jules as an indictment. Many years later, she realized that Serena had expected more of her. But Jules had been so preoccupied with her own passion, and so convinced of its hopelessness, she had not noticed that it was shared. Serena had been waiting for her to prove herself. She needed to know that Jules valued her enough to take a risk.

Have I learned nothing?
Jules understood exactly why she had failed to pass her first romantic test. She had invented a goddess where there was just a girl, and had then deemed herself unworthy. She thought she was less than Serena deserved. Twenty years has passed since that fraught good-bye kiss. But she still took very few risks with women. Puzzled by that realization, Jules forced her attention back to Brigham. While she had been engaging in self-recrimination, he had pulled out his cell phone and was staring quizzically at the tiny screen.

“Excuse me,” he said when he realized Jules was watching him. “I need to make a call.”

He waved toward his car, and the driver managed to draw closer without running them over. The man got out and, without expression, held the door open for his employer. Brigham tossed the costly roses onto the seat ahead of him and paused, leaning against the car with a self-impressed air. His pants seemed a whisker too short, Jules noticed for the first time. He wore them too high on his belly flab, and slouched like a tall girl who would never get a prom date. Now that his hands were free, he reached for his toothpick case and set about probing his teeth. Between delicate swiveling motions, he said, “I assume you’ll be returning to Los Angeles very soon.”

“Yes.”

“I have a hypothetical question for you.”

“I’m listening.” If she knew what Brigham was planning, she could take the appropriate countermeasures.

“Let us say a woman disappears and a man is suspected of kidnapping her because of previous mistakes. Would he be arrested immediately, or would the police have to build a case first?”

Jules was not going to be drawn into his game. Warning herself to remain calm, she changed the subject without responding to him. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

Brigham’s color rose and his pupils dilated. “My mother has absolute confidence in me.”

“That wasn’t what I asked. You dragged the Brigham name through the mud. Do you think your mother wants you to pick up where you left off with Rhianna Lamb?”

He stuffed the toothpick back in its receptacle and climbed into the car. After the driver closed the door, the window slid down and Brigham said, “You are an excellent attorney, Ms. Valiant. But you’ve done your job. Don’t cause me any trouble, and I won’t cause you any.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Counselor.”

“I’ll only say this once,” Jules warned coldly. “I promise you, if you go near Rhianna Lamb—if you touch a hair on her head—you’ll wish you had never been born.”

*

The dining options were limited at two a.m. in Grand Junction. After checking in to a dreary Holiday Inn, Rhianna found the nearest Denny’s and ordered a meal certain to give her indigestion.

A few booths away from her, a noisy domestic dispute was in progress. The couple insulting each other sounded drunk. At another table a man was complaining about his prime-rib dinner in a slurred monologue. A child sat opposite him, transfixed by a Game Boy. Not far from them sat the only other sober diner in the place. A trucker, Rhianna surmised from the rig at the far end of the parking lot. While she was waiting for her salad and chicken wings, he got irritated with the arguing couple and complained to the waitress. She offered him a complimentary stuffed waffle, which he accepted.

About ten minutes later, Rhianna’s chicken wings showed up without the salad. She ate several in quick succession and washed them down with weak coffee. Someone turned up the music, probably to drown out the customers. The arguing couple decided to sing along to “My Heart Will Go On”—Celine Dion fans, obviously
.

Rhianna wondered if it was worth enduring the impromptu karaoke in order to eat limp lettuce, or whether she should ask for the check before someone remembered her meal. Naturally, the waitress had vanished. Rhianna poured some more lukewarm coffee and stared out the window, thinking,
My life is over.

Which was exactly the right moment for a robbery to take place, and the likely target had just stepped in the door. He looked around like he’d stumbled into a horror movie. The waitress wandered through the diner, slapped Rhianna’s salad down in front of the kid with the Game Boy, and stared at the new arrival like she’d never seen a six-foot-five African-American man in a primrose yellow suit, an orange fedora with a zebra-striped band, cornrows, and bling.

She asked the obvious question, “Are you lost, sir?”

He said, “I can’t have no Celine Dion. Not while I eat.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she said and showed him toward a booth.

He didn’t get that far across the room. Stopping at Rhianna’s table, he flashed a diamond-studded smile. “Damn, you slammin’. What’s up, baby?”

Despite herself, Rhianna found the smile infectious. Returning it, she said, “What can I tell you? Denny’s at two a.m. on a slow night. It’s not pretty.”

He seemed to read this as an invitation. Extending his hand, he announced, “You looking at the real deal, baby. They jocking my style cos I just can’t help myself. I’m Mr. Notorious Hard.”

Her day couldn’t get any worse. Why not complete it with a man who was probably a rap star being chased by a carload of gangbangers with a grudge? Tomorrow, this Denny’s would no doubt be on the news as the scene of a bloody shootout. She would be one of the shaken survivors, explaining how she hid under a table and pretended to be dead.

Rhianna shook his huge paw. Remembering her rule to use her new identity at all times once she was out of Denver, she said, “I’m Kate Lambert. Feel free to join me.”

Mr. Notorious Hard sat down and examined the menu as if he expected to find something delicious on it. When his coffee arrived, he handed the waitress a hundred-dollar note and said, “Let me break it down. I know you got some fine breakfast back there.” To Rhianna, he said, “You hungry, baby?”

She said, “Well, my salad never came. I could eat some waffles, maybe.”

“You take that down?” he asked the waitress, adding, “Don’t make me look like a fool with no soggy, nasty breakfast.”

She tucked the hundred away and managed a big smile. “Coming right up.”

Someone changed the music, tactfully rolling with Puff Daddy’s version of “I’ll Be Missing You.” Mr. Notorious Hard appeared to find this song poignant. Soberly, he shook his head and lamented, “Biggie, he the man. He just trying to do his thing. That was cold.”

Rhianna had no idea what he was talking about, but said for good measure, “It’s hard when bad things happen to good people.”

Her sympathy appeared to strike a chord. “You sensitive,” he said. “I like that. I wanna get with you, baby.”

Rhianna poured more coffee in both their mugs. “Are you hitting on me, Notorious?”

He laughed. “You so fine, you got me hooked.”

The waffles arrived, crispy and golden, and the waitress returned a moment later with a huge plate of steak and eggs. “That’s the chef’s personal tenderloin,” she said.

They thanked her and Rhianna returned her attention to Notorious, saying, “You’re very charming and you smell good, but I have a confession.”

Notorious anticipated the issue. “Damn. Who’s your daddy?”