No Regrets (29 page)

“Shit.” Dan dragged his hand through his hair. “I figured as much. But she assured me he hadn't touched her that way.”

“People find it harder to lie to doctors than cops. Do you want me to collect evidence?”

Dan glanced over at the bedroom door, as if imagining how difficult this would be for her. “Yeah. I want to nail the bastard for everything he's done. Since I'd lose my shield if I did what I'd like to do and simply kill the son of a bitch, at least I want to make certain he's put away for a very long time.” Reece couldn't remember ever seeing Dan more coldly furious. Although
he felt no sympathy for any man who could hurt a woman so badly, he worried the cop might decide to take things into his own hands.

“You're not going to do anything foolish, are you?”

Dan looked at him with surprise. “Of course not. I'm a cop. I'm just going to do my job.”

“Sounds like more than that.”

“Well, it isn't.”

Reece shrugged, knowing a lie when he heard it. “Whatever you say.”

While Reece and Dan were planning what to do with Tessa, Molly found herself growing more and more uncomfortable with the thick silence that had settled over the gloomy bedroom. As soon as Reece had left the room, the woman seemed to shrink back into some private, secret place inside her. There was a weariness about her that went far beyond the physical.

Molly felt she should at least try to offer some reassurance that the shame she was feeling would eventually pass.

“I know it's hard.” The mattress sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She began stroking the woman's tangled, bright hair. “And it's going to get even harder. But you
will
get over this.”

Tessa hated the pity in the woman's tone. She hated the entire fucking situation. She should have known better than to let that handsome vice cop talk her into cooperating in his stupid investigation. She should have known better than to get herself mixed up with Elaine's sex-for-hire business in the first place. She should have run like the devil was after her when Jason had offered her that first pill.

Hell, she thought miserably, she never should have come to this goddamn town in the first place. She should have done what the general wanted and married Tom, had a bunch of little fighter pilots and been satisfied with volunteering to act in amateur musicals put on by the community theater.

“You don't know anything,” she snapped. If she'd ever seen a woman less likely to understand anything about the life she'd been living, it was this one. Although she appeared to be around thirty, there was an aura of innocence about her that Tessa hadn't felt herself since she'd let Lanny Osborne feel her up after the high school Freshman Fling.

Molly thought it said something about the woman's spirit that she could manage to look defiant with her face so bruised and swollen. “I know about being raped.”

The one good eye widened in surprise. “By someone you thought you loved?”

“No.” Molly's heart went out her. “Mine was a stranger. Yours was obviously much, much worse.” She couldn't imagine how it would feel being so horribly betrayed by someone you loved and trusted.

Tessa turned her head toward the wall, unable to bear the compassion in this woman's gaze. “I just want to die.”

“No.” Molly took hold of the bruised jaw and turned the battered face back toward her. “You do not want to die. As bad as all this is, it's better than the alternative. If you don't care about yourself, think about all those people who love you. Who'd miss you.”

“I don't have anyone who cares.”

That wasn't quite true. She knew that were she to return home, her father would take her in. She'd have to listen to one helluva lecture about him having been right all along, and about having known what was good for her, but the general wouldn't turn her away. The problem was, she was too ashamed.

“Of course you do. You have Dan—”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. He's just wild about me. That's why he busted me in the first place.”

Molly was a bit surprised at that, but decided this was no time for questions. “I've known Dan Kovaleski all my life—”

“Have you screwed him?”

“What?”

“I asked, since you seem to know the guy so well, if you've gone to bed with him. Done the dark deed. Fucked.”

“He's always been like a brother—”

“That doesn't mean anything. Didn't anyone tell you? In some circles, incest is a national sport.”

“We obviously run in different circles,” Molly snapped, her pique steamrolling over her pity.

“Obviously.”

The sarcasm scored a hit, just as the woman had intended. Molly took a deep breath and reminded herself that although she might not be a nun anymore, that didn't get her off the hook when it came to Christ's message of charity.

“Look,” she said, trying again. “I'm on your side. Whatever it is. So, let's not waste time and energy you don't have fighting about things that don't make any immediate difference to your situation….

“I'd suggest we start over.” She held out her hand. “Hi. My name is Molly. And yours is…?”

Her face ached, her chest hurt when she breathed deeply, and that battered place between her legs felt as if it were on fire. Tessa didn't have the strength to keep up the tough act.

“Tessa,” she muttered. “Tessa Starr.”
No
. Tessa Starr was the girl who thought she could become a hotshot movie actress. Tessa Starr was the whore who'd gotten her into this murderously dangerous mess in the first place. “I mean, Tessa Davis.”

“Tessa?” The name was not all that unusual, Molly reminded herself. But still… She leaned closer, looking for clues on that poor injured face and found none. “You wouldn't happen to be Catholic?”

“I grew up Catholic. But obviously I haven't been to church in a long time.”

Molly's heart was hammering a wild tattoo in her heart. “Were you, by any chance, adopted?”

“When I was three. My parents were killed. My adoptive parents told me that they'd died in a car accident, but I overheard them talking one time about a murder…” Her voice drifted off as she looked at Molly with surprise. “How did you know?”

“Oh, my God!”

Tessa was uncomfortable with the way the woman named Molly was suddenly staring at her. “What?”

There was no response. Tessa watched, stunned, as tears started pouring from Molly's eyes.

“Reece,” she called out, “you'll never believe what's happened!”

Both men were at the door in a flash.

“I've found Tessa,” Molly said, beaming through her tears. She pulled Tessa to her and held her tight, as she might Grace. “I've found my sister!”

T
essa was examined at a little-known barrio clinic in East Los Angeles operated by the Sisters of Mercy, stitched up and three hours later was ensconced in Molly's condominium where Dan had determined she'd be safe since there was no way anyone could ever connect the two women.

“I still can't believe this!” She was sitting up in Molly's bed, drinking a cup of herbal tea her older sister had made to help her sleep.

“It's a miracle,” Molly decided. She also decided that both of them were due a miracle after all they'd been through.

“Do you know, I vaguely remember you and Lena. But whenever I'd talk about having sisters, my father would insist I'd imagined you both.”

“What about your mother?” Molly asked, immensely curious about the home her sister had grown up in.

Tessa shrugged. “She left the day I started school. I went off in the morning with my new book bag and when I came home that afternoon, she was gone. The general—that's my dad—said she just couldn't hack it.”

A frown moved across her battered face like a storm cloud as she thought back on that day. “Later, I decided what she couldn't hack was living under the general's thumb. I was the only kid I knew—and I grew up on military bases—who had to undergo weekly room inspection.”

“Is that why you ran away to Hollywood?” Molly could understand rebellion.

“Nah.” Tessa was not about to blame anyone else for her own mistakes. “I always wanted to be an actress. And, despite what I ended up doing, I'm really good, which makes sense because I had to pretend to be something I wasn't every time I landed in a new town.”

“That must have made it difficult to figure out who you really were.”

“You got that right.” Tessa sighed, wondering if there even
was
a real Tessa Davis somewhere deep down inside her.

“I guess, since your life was already so unstable, the reason your father didn't want you to remember Lena and me was because he wanted the two of you to be like a real family,” Molly suggested, thinking of all the years such subterfuge had cost them. If only they'd been allowed to keep in touch, how different all their lives might have turned out!

“That's a nice thought. But personally, I think it was just one more thing he wanted to control.”

Never one to dwell on the past, Molly smiled and said, “Well, at least we're together now.”

“Yes.” Tessa ran her broken fingernail around the rim of the teacup. “I'm so sorry about Lena. She sounds like a wonderful person.”

“She was.” Molly could finally smile when she thought of her sister. “She helped me through a terrible time. I'll always be grateful.”

“And she and Reece had a little girl?”

“Yes.” Molly decided there had been enough revelations for one day. She'd fill her sister in on that all-important detail later. “Her name is Grace. She's six, beautiful, sweet and as smart as a whip.”

Tessa smiled for the first time since Molly had met her hours earlier. “Not that you're prejudiced, or anything.”

“Wait until you meet your niece,” Molly answered. “You'll see she's special.”

“My niece.” Tessa grew silent as she thought about that. “I'm an aunt. Aunt Tessa.”

“It has a nice ring.”

“Yes.” Tessa nodded. “It does, doesn't it?” This time her smile lit up her eyes, and although they were surrounded by swollen, bruised flesh, Molly could tell that her sister was the most stunning of the three McBride girls. “And you were a nun. Amazing.”

Molly laughed at that. “Sometimes it amazes me, too.”

“So why did you quit?”

“It's complicated. But mostly I realized that what I thought was a vocation was merely expedience. The religious life was a haven. It also allowed me to avoid facing reality.”

“But you worked in the ER at an inner-city hospital. Surely that gave you a real taste of reality.” Tessa suspected it was also why Molly could prove so nonjudgmental about her life. Undoubtedly she'd met a great many prostitutes in her line of work.

“True. But I always knew that at the end of the day I could return home. And that there would always be people—nuns who were like sisters—who cared for me and would take care
of
me. Real life doesn't come with such a secure safety net.”

“Tell me about it,” Tessa muttered. She took another sip of the tea. As she felt her nerves tangle again, she wished that Reece would have allowed her at least one pain pill, then realized it was probably better he'd advised her to stick to aspirin. “You probably think I'm a horrible person.”

“Of course not. I think what's happened to you is horrible,” Molly allowed. “But any sister of mine could never be anything but wonderful.”

A warmth like nothing she'd ever known flooded through Tessa. She'd never before experienced anything that made her feel so good—not sex, or drugs, or even the fleeting feeling of power that she'd discovered prostitution could occasionally instill.

“Aw, hell.” Tears started spilling out of Tessa's swollen eyes. “You would have to make me cry.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's just that I feel so stupid. I wanted so badly to fit in when I first came here and Jason was so nice, and a cop, and all, and Miles knew everybody in town, so I thought I had it made. Then things started falling apart and the next thing I knew I was sleeping with some
creep bookie to keep him from killing Jason, and then, well…”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It didn't seem that much of a jump to working for their mother.”

Molly wanted to hear everything about Tessa's life. But she'd had such a horrendous day, she had to be exhausted. And they had a lifetime to get to know one another.

“You need to get some sleep,” she suggested, taking the empty cup. “We can start catching up in the morning. I'll take the day off.”

Tessa didn't argue. She snuggled down, holding the pillow tight in a way that reminded Molly of Grace, and fell instantly to sleep. Still filled with wonder at the gift God, or fate, had bestowed upon her, Molly bent down and brushed a kiss against the row of black stitches Reece had sewn just above her sister's right eye.

Later, as she sat on the sofa bed, looking out the window at the sparkling lights of the city, Molly thought of Lena, wondering if she knew about the reunion.

“Remember when we always thought Tessa was the lucky one?” she murmured to her sister. Molly found nothing unusual about talking to Lena. She did it often, usually telling her about Grace or Reece, or sometimes, just life in general, and it never failed to give her comfort. “I think we were very, very wrong about that.”

Sighing, Molly turned her thoughts to a more pleasant topic. “Reece was wonderful tonight. I was watching him caring for Tessa at the clinic—it was his idea to take her there because he could get her in and out without any danger of any of Jason's cop friends seeing her. Anyway, he was so much like the old Reece that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“I can't believe he won't go back to medicine, Lena. After all, next to you and Grace, it was what he loved most.”

Love.
Molly dragged her hand through her hair as she thought about the feelings that had flowed through her like warm honey as she'd watched Reece tend to her sister.

Although she'd been trying to deny it for years, Joe was so, so right about her feelings for Reece. Heaven help her, she did love him. She pressed a hand against the front of her nightgown as her heart trebled its beat at the mere thought of him.

Drawing her knees up to her chest, Molly wrapped her arms tight around them. Hours later, as the shimmering, pearlescent predawn light slipped into the room, she was still awake, her cheek on her bent knees, wondering what on earth she was going to do now.

 

Molly was not all that surprised when Dan called later that morning, informing her that he was going to be stopping by for lunch.

“Don't worry about fixing anything,” he said. “I'll pick some sandwiches up on the way.”

“Probably grilled hemlock,” Tessa muttered when Molly told her the news. They'd been trading autobiographies for two hours and were only up to Tessa's fifth-grade Girl Scout troop and Molly's high school graduation.

“Don't be melodramatic,” Molly responded mildly. “Dan likes you a lot. I could tell.”

“He likes what I can do for him. Like closing down that prostitution ring. And busting a bad cop.”

“I think it goes deeper than that,” Molly said. “I've known him most of my life, and from the first time he figured out the differences between little boys and little girls, he hasn't shown any serious interest in anyone. But the way he looks at you, Tessa…” Molly shook her head. “It's different.”

“He's only interested in sex. Just like all guys.”

“I can't imagine Dan mixing his job with his personal life.”

Tessa figured Molly might be able to picture it a little better if she'd witnessed that blazing kiss they'd shared right before he'd arrested her. But since she still hadn't figured out how she felt about what had happened between them, she wasn't prepared to share that story so soon. Not even with someone who was beginning to feel more and more like a sister.

“Oh, he didn't actually do anything,” she said grudgingly. “But he sure as hell wanted to.”

“Wanting isn't the same as doing,” Molly pointed out, guiltily remembering the sensual dream she'd had when she'd drifted off around dawn. A dream starring Reece.

“True.” Already comfortable in Molly's apartment, Tessa got up from the table and went over to the coffeepot to refill her mug. “And, I have to admit, he's kinda cute when he's being official, in a Dudley Do-Right sort of way.”

Molly laughed. “I wouldn't advise calling him that to his face.”

“Hell, I may be stupid,” Tessa said with a quick grin, “but despite recent evidence to the contrary, I'm not suicidal.” She sat back down across from Molly and eyed
her newly found sister over the top of her mug. “So, speaking of men and women, why hasn't our brother-in-law realized you're in love with him?”

“What?” Molly stared at her, aghast.

“Reece seems like a bright guy. I can't believe he hasn't caught on. Then again,” Tessa said as an afterthought, “men can be pretty clueless.”

“Don't tell me it's that obvious?” Molly felt the color flooding into her face.

“I was watching you while he was collecting the rape evidence.” For some reason the vaginal examination had embarrassed her more than anything she'd done working for Elaine. Needing somewhere to focus her attention, she'd instinctively turned to Molly. “You reminded me of a little girl with her face pressed against the candy store window.”

“Oh, no.” Molly buried her face in her hands.

“Hey, sis.” Tessa leaned over and stroked her thick black hair. “It's no big deal. I only noticed because I didn't know either one of you, so I was sort of an objective observer. Anyone else would probably just think you were very close friends.”

“I'm not sure about that.”

Joe had sensed her feelings for Reece. And now that she thought about it, Alex and Theo had said things lately that made Molly wonder if they'd seen something, as well. And heaven knows, Grace had been pushing for her aunt Molly to marry her daddy, but Molly had simply considered that to be a little girl's normal wish for a mother.

“If it's any consolation, the guy's nuts about you, too,” Tessa surprised Molly even further by saying.

“I'm sure you're wrong.” Molly had watched all the beautiful actresses going in and out of the revolving door of her brother-in-law's love life and knew that he'd been far too busy to take any notice of her.

“I've made some stupid mistakes in my life, but believe me, Molly, if there's one thing I can tell, it's when there's something going on between a man and a woman. The problem is, Reece doesn't realize how he feels.”

“I still can't believe you're right.” Molly couldn't keep the skepticism—or the reluctant hope—from her voice.

“I am.” Tessa gave her a long, judicious look. “In a few days, when I can go out again without terrifying little children with this face, you and I are going shopping.”

“If you need clothes—”

“Not for me, sweetie. For you. We're going to give Sister Molly a makeover that'll knock Dr. Reece Longworth right off his feet and into your bed.”

Molly's face was as hot as a Fourth of July firecracker. “That isn't what I had in mind.”

“Of course it is. You're just too good to admit to mad, passionate desires. Fortunately for you, your baby sister is not so well-bred. She also knows exactly what men like.” Tessa's slow, secretive smile reminded Molly of the Cheshire cat. “Trust me, kiddo, the guy's a goner.”

Dan arrived later, with a suitcase of clothes and toiletries he'd recovered from Tessa's house, a bag of sandwiches and salads in foam cartons, and a woman dressed in a suit. Although the woman's skirt ended
high on the thigh, the somber gray pinstripes definitely meant business.

He introduced her as Kelly Britton, from the D.A.'s office. “I brought her along to interview Tessa before her testimony before the grand jury.”

“The grand jury?”

“We're talking some pretty big names here, Molly. And a longtime cop. I want everything done by the book on this one.”

Molly had been so excited about finding her sister after all these years, she hadn't really thought about how, exactly, Dan was going to use Tessa. She'd naively believed he'd just use the information she gave him to arrest the bad guys, then that would be that.

Tessa blanched visibly, but before she could respond, Molly instinctively took over the role of older sister. “Shouldn't she have an attorney?”