False Accusations (21 page)

“It’s been lonely.” She smiled at him, the toothy smile that used to grab him by the balls and hold him, mesmerized. The years had been good to her. The red hair was redder than he remembered. It fell about her shoulders and shimmered in the overhead spotlights of the private table she had reserved for them. He had to unglue his eyes from her hair.
What was she saying?

“
.
..the paper said you’re very prominent in your field.”

He shrugged.

“It said that you’re the top orthopedic surgeon in northern California.” She tilted her head slightly, well-manicured red-painted nails fingering the rim of her wineglass.

He smiled, consciously aware of what her fingers were doing. His accomplishments had always turned her on. He had forgotten about that. She played; he watched. He had to break the spell. “Want to see pictures of my boys?”

“Sure,” she said, dropping her hand from the glass.

He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the photos of Leeza, coming to rest on the pictures of Elliott and Jonah. She looked them over.

“They’re gorgeous,” she finally said.

He had forgotten how much she had wanted to have children.

“I guess I should’ve adopted a child.”

“It’s not too late.”

“I suppose. But I’d prefer to have my own. It’s kind of hard when you don’t have any prospects. Takes two.”

He caught her looking at him; he chuckled nervously. “I’ve got enough problems right now, Catherine, without fathering your child.”

“You could supply the sperm. I could draw something up that would remove all responsibility for you.”

He sat back in his seat. “Is that what this is all about?”

“What do you mean?”

“This dinner.”

“No. I was genuinely interested in seeing you. I just thought that while we were on the topic...”

“I couldn’t. It’d be—it’d be a really bad idea.”

“I understand,” she said, taking a bite of her veal.

Madison changed the subject, asking her about old friends with whom she was still in contact. They finished their meal and left the restaurant. He walked her to her car, their breath fogging the cold winter air.

“Why don’t you come back to the house?”

He looked into her warm hazel eyes and felt the allure of her invitation.

“I’ll make some coffee and we’ll have some dessert, relive old times.”

“Catherine...reliving old times with you means ending up in the kitchen, all right. On top of the table.”

“And what’s wrong with that? It used to be fun.”

“I’m married. A couple of months ago, I was happily married. If I’ve got any hope of salvaging it, the last thing I should do would be sleeping around with an old girlfriend. Think what the papers would say about that.”

“You always were the most honorable man I’ve ever known, Phil.”

“Tell it to the jury.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’d be glad to, if I thought it would help.”

He opened her door for her. She sat down, sinking into the bucket seat of the well-maintained Porsche 928, apparently one of the few possessions left over from her law partner days.

“We had a good thing once. If things don’t work out with Leeza, there
is
a future here for you, Phil. Remember that.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in months.”

He closed her door, gave her a wave, and trudged back to his car, hands thrust into his jacket pockets. It was indeed cold out, but his heart had just been thoroughly warmed.

“DO YOU REMEMBER Catherine Parker?” Madison asked while Hellman was trying to read his message slips. The mention of the name from the past stopped his gaze in mid-sentence.

“Do I remember Catherine Parker?” Hellman looked at Madison. “That’s like asking me if I like a tender filet mignon.”

“She was something, huh?”

“She represented all the things our mothers told us to watch out for. She also represented the wildest times of our lives.”

Madison nodded thoughtfully. “Brings back memories.”

“Yeah, of competing with each other on virtually everything. Women, grades, basketball...” Hellman was staring up at the ceiling at nothing in particular, his feet on the desk, the messages he was so intently studying a moment ago stacked to the left of his feet.

“And I won the woman,” Madison said.

“Temporarily. Until somebody with more money came along.”

“There was more to her than that,” Madison said, placing his own feet up on Hellman’s desk. “She had her faults, but she had a good heart.”

“What made you suddenly think of her?”

“I had dinner with her last night.”

“You did what?” Hellman yanked his feet off the desk and sat straight up.

“I had dinner with her.”

“Your wife’s left you and you think the way to coax her back is by having dinner with an old flame who you almost married? An old flame who was hotter than—”

“Jeffrey, nothing happened.”

“What am I gonna do with you? You’re well-meaning, but you seem to be looking for ways to bury yourself.”

“Hey, it was no big deal. And I don’t regret it. She made me feel good about myself for the first time in a long time. Is that so bad?”

“She wants to get in your pants. She wants to crawl inside your chest and capture your heart again. Fifteen years ago she made the mistake of her life and now she sees an opening. She’s swooping in for the kill.”

“You’re reading it all wrong.”

“Am I?” Hellman asked.

“Yes.”

“And what do you base that on?”

Madison paused. “Because you just are.”

“Oh, okay, the old ‘I-just-know-it’s-true-but-I-really-don’t-have-any-proof’ defense.”

“Must you always look at things from a legal perspective?”

“Let me guess. She’s divorced from that rich guy. What was his name? Todd?”

“Tom,” Madison said. “Yeah, divorced.”

“That’s a surprise.”

There was silence for a moment. “She wanted to use my sperm to impregnate her.”

Hellman laughed, then realized Madison was not smiling. “You’re serious. With Catherine, I guess I’d believe just about anything.”

“I turned her down, don’t worry,” Madison said.

“I’m not the one who has to worry.”

“What does it matter? I had dinner with an old friend. She made a proposition and I turned her down. So what?”

“So I know how much your family means to you and right now you don’t need stirred-up memories of Catherine the vamp floating around in your sea of hormones.”

“Just because you lost out on her doesn’t mean—”

“I put that behind me many years ago. I got over her and moved on with my life.”

“And you’re saying I didn’t?”

“You did. Sort of. You more or less placed your feelings in suspended animation. She’s reawakened them.”

Madison rose from his seat. “I don’t need this, not now.”

“Now is exactly when you need it.”

Madison shook his head and walked up to Hellman’s eighteenth-floor window that looked out over downtown Sacramento. “But I didn’t do anything. We just had dinner. Proposition aside, she seemed very genuine.”

“She may have been genuine. She may’ve just been trying to be a friend at a time when you need one. But how many years has it been since you’ve spoken to her? Is that the mark of a true friend?”

Madison did not say anything.

“I know you better than anyone else in this world. At least as well as Leeza knows you—but at the moment, her view’s been influenced by external forces. You’re only human...and if you have this trump card—Catherine the vamp—in your back pocket, then subconsciously you may not try as hard to get Leeza back.” More silence. “Putting your emotions aside for the moment, if you can honestly tell me that that’s not a possibility, then I’ll leave you alone.”

A long moment passed. Without facing Hellman, Madison said, “It’s possible.”

“Don’t talk to her again. Focus on getting Leeza back. Appreciate her, Phil. I don’t have that luxury. I lost Hannah. Don’t let that happen to you.”

Madison turned around. “If it makes you feel better, I told Catherine I still held out hope of getting Leeza back, and I spent the rest of the night alone.”

“Well, that’s a good first step. What else are you going to do?”

“Try to get Leeza to come home.”

Hellman nodded. “Are you okay on this?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Madison said.

“Good. I’ve got to return all these messages,” Hellman said, picking up his stack of slips. “I’ll call you later.”

Madison left Hellman’s office. Alone in the elevator, he pulled out his phone and called up a photo of Leeza and the kids he had taken at Marine World before his life began to fall apart. A vivid reminder of what he had waiting for him, of what he had to lose. He rested his head against the elevator wall and took a deep breath.

“It’s time,” he whispered. “Come home.”

IT WAS RAINING, 10:30 at night with a steady wind swirling around and rapping against the side of his house. Madison had spoken with Chandler a couple of hours ago and learned that his investigator was going to be returning to Sacramento in five days.

Madison had started a fire and was sitting in front of it, reminiscing about the first time he and Leeza had lit the fireplace after the house had been built. There were no kids and they had the evening to themselves. George Winston’s gentle piano solos tinkled from the CD player.

As they sipped Chardonnay, he remembered feeling the drawing heat of the fire warming the skin on his neck. They made love right there, on the carpet in front of the fireplace, Leeza’s moans drowning out the crackles and pops of the burning pine cones.

As he lay there now, sipping Chardonnay and reliving that night, he marveled at how easy life had been. Few worries. And a bright future lay ahead of them, two beautiful children merely one detail in the grand plan of plans.

A knock at the door broke his daydream; he shook his head and shuffled his mind back to reality. As he started toward the door, he thought his prayers had been answered:
Leeza.

His heart beating faster than he could walk, he opened the door and saw, dripping wet in the rain, Catherine.
Catherine the vamp.
He could hear Jeffrey’s voice loud and clear in his head. It must have shown on his face.

He stood there, the door open; she stood there, rain beating against her red hair.

“I thought you’d be glad to see me,” she said.

“I...didn’t expect you to be at the door.”

“Were you expecting someone else?” she asked.

He hesitated, looked down at his tom jeans and old flannel shirt. “No.”

She shivered. “Can I come in? It’s freezing out here.”

“Oh. Sure,” he said, wishing he could instead tell her to get back in her car and leave, to stay the hell away from him.

“I had a good time last night.” Catherine said as she walked into the marble entryway. She hung her coat on a decorative rack against the wall. “I don’t get up this way that often, but I was in town for a deposition that was supposed to last a couple of hours. It went six. I grabbed some fast food and then thought I’d drop by on my way out of town to say hi.”

“How’d you get my home address?”

She smiled. Pearly white teeth. “Is that important?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. I don’t give it out.”

“Let’s just say I have a friend at the DMV who owes me. Big.”

“That’s Illegal.”

“This person isn’t concerned with legalities. He’s more interested in a date.”

She smiled again, but he diverted his gaze away from her face. She was dressed in a suit. Form-fitting, yet professional. She was probably telling the truth. But he didn’t want to see her. Not now. Not with the fire burning in the living room, the alcohol infecting his thoughts.

She ventured toward the fireplace, stopped in front of it, and placed her hands out to warm them. Madison walked over next to her and faced the fire. He stood there, watching the flames dance, feeling guilty having her in his house. In Leeza’s house.

“Look, Catherine,” he started to say, just before she planted a hard, passionate kiss on his lips. He leaned back, but she pushed farther forward into him; they fell backward into the large, plush loveseat that sat perpendicular to the fireplace. She was on top of him, kissing him. He wasn’t resisting as hard as he should have, allowing her tongue to penetrate his mouth, while her hand slid down between his legs. Felt the zipper open. Pressure against his—

“Catherine,” he mumbled, her mouth bobbing up and down as he tried to speak.

She lifted her head up; he moved his shoulders a bit to gain some room.

“I can’t do this. It’s not that I don’t find you attractive,” he said, feeling passion starting to build again at the mere focus of his attention on her hair. Her scent. That
scent.
“Quite the opposite. I want to rip your clothes off—”

“Then do it. Don’t—”

“No—” he managed to say before she planted another passionate kiss on his lips. The wine. Her soft lips. He let them linger on his for a moment. Shook his head, trying to free his mouth to speak. “I can’t. I’m married. I’m—”

“Hoping that Leeza will come home.”

He nodded.

She sighed, hung her head. Climbed off him, straightened her suit, brushed back her hair with her hands.

He sat up and rubbed his temples. “She could walk through that door any minute.”

“I know that that’s what you’d like to believe.”

“It’s what I have to believe. Or I wouldn’t be able to face each day.”

“I understand,” she said, folding her arms on her chest and walking over to the fire. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

He rose from the couch, zipped his pants. “If this were another time...” he started to say, and stopped.

“I’m sorry.”

She lightly stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and walked over toward the entryway. Picking her coat off the rack, she walked out of the house, the rapid clickety-clack of her spiked heels against the marble floor echoing in his mind, matching the rhythm of his heartbeat.

EXCEPT FOR THE HUM of the refrigerator, all was quiet in the kitchen of Leeza Madison’s sister’s house. The kids had gone to the zoo with their aunt, leaving Leeza alone for some time to think. She sat, staring at a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled across it. Three times she had picked up the phone to call, more out of curiosity than anger.