Jailbird (27 page)

“I thought so. Now go get your shower. I’ll
call Anjelita.”

He made a face at me, but handed me his phone
nonetheless. After a brief admonishment for not calling her sooner,
Anjelita and I fell into an easy conversation as if no time had
passed. Apparently Isabel didn’t like the music teacher any better
than Cara did. The formerly happy-go-lucky second-most-eligible
bachelor had turned into a real crab and it was the talk of the
town.

She was happy to hear we were having a boy,
happier that I’d been to a doctor and the baby was healthy.

Charlie said he’d explained the situation.
Still, it took me by surprise when she offered to send Manny to
help get Elena back.

“Thanks to his past life, he’s really good at
getting past security systems.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Seriously. He could be a help to you.”

“And he doesn’t need to be taking off work to
come risk going to jail for me.”

“Nonsense. He’s finished his Valentine’s Day
orders. Mother’s Day is months away. It’s too early to plant crops.
He’s driving me crazy with nothing to do. Please say you’ll call
when you need him. You owe me, for not calling sooner.”

“I owe you, eh?”

“Absolutely.”

“I do, but not for the reasons you say I
do.”

“Neena, stop being difficult and just say
you’ll tell him when you head that way.”

“How do you know I’m not heading there
now?”

“You just told me Charlie isn’t coming back
until Saturday. I know you’re not going to waste precious time with
him chasing after Daniel Winslow.”

“I would if I thought it would end this. But
I’m waiting to hear from Rachel Cooper. Until then, there’s nothing
to do but sit on my hands.”

“Oh, I think you’ll manage to fill the
time.”

“I did miss him.”

“I know, sweetie. I know.”

“I can’t wait to come home.”

“It had better be soon. Rita is worried you
won’t be back in time to make her dandelion jelly this summer.”

Dandelion jelly—the thought of it made me
miss my home even more. I couldn’t wait until summer. I’d lie in a
field of dandelions with Charlie and we’d watch marshmallow clouds
drift across a blue sky.

“What has you smiling like that?”

“Dandelions.”

“Oh,” he looked confused, but let it drop.
“The shower’s all yours.”

It felt good to wash my hair. It felt better
to shave my legs with the complimentary razor from the hotel. I
hoped Charlie hadn’t planned on shaving.

After my shower, I toweled off and stood in
front of the mirror, looking at my profile. I felt like a whale. It
was a pleasant surprise that pregnancy hadn’t actually turned me
into one. Certainly, it had rounded me out a bit—softened me. I’d
want to lose every pound the second the baby was born. But I didn’t
mind them so much for the moment.

“You are beautiful.”

Charlie’s voice startled me and I blushed
furiously at being caught staring at myself in a mirror.

“Sorry,” he put his arms around my waist and
pulled me against him. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You look good,” I changed the subject. He
did look good in designer slacks and a dark blue button-up. I
didn’t recognize the material. It was ridiculously soft, though. It
wasn’t his normal style, but he wore it well.

“Please tell me I can go back to wearing
jeans and a t-shirt when I go home.”

“Absolutely. You look yummy in your old jeans
and that gray t-shirt.”

“Yummy? No one has ever called me yummy
before.”

“Good.”

“Get dressed. I’m taking you out to a real
dinner in a real restaurant.”

“What if someone recognizes me?”

“Trust me, honey. Between your hair being
lighter and the pregnancy, you look nothing like the woman in the
pictures they’re flashing. If you don’t act guilty, no one will
even look twice. I think the wardrobe Rachel sent you is
brilliant.”

“How so?”

“You will not look like a fugitive in those
clothes. Come on.”

I followed Charlie back into the room to look
at the clothes she sent me for the first time. They were nice. I
imagined the small wardrobe cost more than the meager amount I’d
earned in the past year. It was hard to decide what to wear first.
After a long deliberation, I chose a pink alpaca sweater and a pair
of gray slacks. I brushed my hair and pulled it back loosely in a
barrette. We made a pretty good-looking couple, if I did say so
myself.

For the entire evening, Charlie insisted on
opening my door for me. He took me out for a steak dinner. The food
was amazing, but I was stuffed to the gills by the time we made our
way back to the hotel. That night was much more laid back, and our
time was spent piled up on the bed making fun of B-movies.

Oddly enough, I enjoyed that as much as the
night before. There was an intimacy that was hard to explain.

The days faded one into the other and then it
was Saturday morning. I’d known Saturday would come; it does once a
week. But I wasn’t ready for this particular one when it
arrived.

I knew it was selfish to be that way. Cara
needed her Daddy more than I did. She was an amazing kid to share
him as well as she did. His work would have piled up while he was
away and he was already busier than any man should be.

Knowing these things didn’t make letting go
of him any easier. I tried not to cry. I really did. Stupid
hormones.

I took consolation in the fact that he was
clinging as tightly to me as I was to him. Eventually, though, I
pried myself away from him. The pain it caused was almost physical,
but I did it. I pulled myself free, planted one last kiss on his
cheek, and pushed him out the door.

I might have spent the next half hour leaning
against the door sobbing and remembering the feel of his lips on
mine. When the tears were spent, I pulled myself together and
called to check on Gabrielle before calling Rachel. No time like
the present to end this thing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rachel had been right. The time was exactly
what she needed. I’d assumed she’d gone back to New York but she
had in fact stayed in Alexandria, spying on Daniel Winslow. I got
directions to her hotel and made my way north.

She nodded appreciatively at me when I stood
in her doorway. “That new intern did a good job shopping.”

“I totally need to get me one of those,” I
muttered to myself as I walked in the room. “Thank you, for the
clothes, by the way. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to
do any of it. Charlie insists I pay you for at least the
clothes.”

“Don’t be silly. The network bought those—and
the room. Consider it small payment for what you guys have been
through. Really.”

I left it at that, but I wasn’t sure Charlie
would. I handed her the files before I could forget again. She
flipped through them quickly, the look on her face reminiscent of a
kid in a candy store.

“If you were to ask Charlie, the most
important thing in the world is dethroning Daniel Winslow.
Personally, I’d love to see Nathan and Julie Smith so busy with the
IRS they couldn’t keep up the fight for Cara.”

“Did you say you had some emails, too?”

“Sure. I forwarded them to my address. I’ll
give you the login.”

“Good, good. Do you have luggage? I can help
you bring it in.”

“I got it. You do your thing,” I motioned to
the files, stopping to write down my email login information before
I went to grab my things from the car.

“Hey baby sister,” Conrad was leaning against
the El Camino when I got to the parking lot.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I grinned knowingly
at him.

“I’m here to help you,” he rolled his
eyes.

“You can start by helping me carry my stuff
in,” I bumped him out of the way with my hip and reached behind the
seat to grab the plastic bags with my worldly belongings.

“Charlie head back to Hampton?”

“Yeah,” I closed my eyes briefly. His name
sliced right through me. “I had to shove him out the door,
though.”

“We’ll get you home soon.”

“That was really nice of Rachel to arrange
all of that, huh?” I changed the subject.

“Don’t start,” he plucked the bags out of my
hands as I kicked the door closed behind me.

“She’s good people.”

“Neena,” he growled. I smiled.

“Oh, hey, Manny is pretty insistent on coming
down here.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t he have to
work?”

“Don’t you?”

“I head back tomorrow. Actually, I would feel
better knowing he was here keeping you out of trouble while I’m
gone.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

Conrad snorted at that. “I’ll give Manny a
call tonight.”

“Jerk.”

He gave me a lopsided grin and used his free
hand to rope me in for a kiss on top of the head.

Rachel didn’t seem at all surprised to see
Conrad with me when I came back in the room. She did seem
pleased—or maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to there.

“Neena, you were sitting on the mother
lode.”

“Really?” hope sparked in my voice.

“Really. These transfers into their account
are all coming from an offshore account. You know who just got
busted for accepting payments from an account like this?”

“Vasquez Oil,” Conrad jumped in. “The account
was funded by a family in Saudi Arabia.”

“Turns out, shortly after the payments began,
Vasquez tabled plans to research alternative fuels.”

“That was a really good piece, by the way,”
Conrad commented quietly to Rachel. I bit the inside of my cheek so
I wouldn’t smile.

“You think the same family is bribing
Nathan?”

“I recognize that account,” Rachel tapped the
paper. “I’m going to start looking through emails now to see if I
can figure out what they want for that money.”

“Well, it’s that money they’re using to steal
Cara away from Charlie,” I scowled. That somehow made it worse—they
were using dirty money to take Cara away from her home.

“Come on, you can make my rounds with me.
She’ll be in her own little world for a while now,” Conrad informed
me.

“Have you two been here together all week?” I
cocked my head and looked from Rachel to Conrad and back again.
Neither answered. Rachel seemed to be staring so hard at the
computer screen she was looking right through it. Conrad was
studying a spot on the ceiling. “Huh.”

“So, are you coming with me or not?”

“Sure. Let me go to the bathroom first.”

It was a sad fact of pregnancy. Bladders
turned into thimbles. There was still an uneasy silence in the room
when I reappeared, ready to go with Conrad. I opened my mouth a few
times but wasn’t quite sure what I really planned to say.

“You’re allowed to have a girlfriend, you
know,” I finally settled on what to say.

“She’s a big city reporter, sis. I’m a
blackjack dealer who’s hardly stepped foot off the res. I wouldn’t
exactly call her a girlfriend.”

“Charlie and I are a pretty unlikely
couple.”

“You and Charlie are two peas in a pod.”

“But if you just look at the surface, we’re
pretty unlikely. You’re just looking at surface stuff.”

“I don’t know,” he didn’t seem convinced. I
let it go. I didn’t even ask where we were going. It had been a
whole thirty minutes since I’d obsessed about missing my husband.
Now seemed as good a time as any to lean my head against the window
to stare into space and conjure his face in my mind.

“You are one love-sick little puppy, you know
it?” Conrad shook his head.

“What?” I scowled at him for interrupting me.
“I did really well for a long time. Now I want to go home.”

“I know. At least you aren’t her,” Conrad
nodded to his left as he slid the truck into a spot along the
curb.

It took me a second to recognize Elena. Her
clothes were nicer, but she had lost weight. She looked gaunt. And
she was sporting a bruise on her right temple and cheek.

“I thought Rachel said Elena was okay?”

“She was, last time you talked to Rachel.
Elena just turned up with the bruise a couple of days ago.”

“She should have called. Let’s go get
her.”

“Nope,” he snagged the back of my shirt when
I made to leave the truck. “Winslow keeps her guarded round the
clock. But Rachel’s really close to being able to expose him. It
would be better if we could show up on his doorstep with the
FBI.”

“But she’s hurt.”

“We’ll pull her if we think she’s in danger.
And maybe stewing in it for a little while will make her appreciate
her father’s intelligence after all. He tried to warn her.”

“But that doesn’t mean she deserves to be
hurt.”

“She has a much better chance of making it
out alive if we plan what we’re doing.”

“I don’t like it one bit.”

“There’s lots of things in life I don’t like,
little sister.”

I pursed my lips in disapproval and slouched
down in my seat. I couldn’t imagine having to live with Todd
Winslow for a week, let alone with the monster who created him.

Turns out Conrad’s rounds were pretty boring.
They consisted of sitting in his truck an inconspicuous distance
from Daniel Winslow’s house. The inaction was making me cranky, so
we didn’t talk much.

A couple of hours into our silent staring, it
occurred to me that I really needed to pee again. I was just about
to ask Conrad if we could leave when he appeared. The resemblance
to his son was enough to make me catch my breath every time I saw
him.

Goosebumps swathed on my arms when he looked
towards the truck. Even from the distance, I could see those
lifeless eyes of his. “He sees us, Conrad.”

“He can’t see through the windows.”

“I think he suspects.”

“Probably.”

“Should we leave?”