Nothing But Trouble (23 page)

As long as they were advertising for a new
manager, he ought to throw in an ad for some more mechanics.

For the next several hours, he and Tim buried
themselves in Charlie's vehicles. Knowing the guy, he'd stop by
earlier than planned and would want to see some progress. R.J.
would have to deliver, especially if he wanted the repeat
business.

But the damn itch on the back of his neck
wouldn't go away. The one that always told him something wasn't
right.

And he wasn't talking about the cars. They
were coming along beautifully. Tim stepped back and swiped dripping
sweat off his brow.

"This is the most frustrating God damned
car," Tim said with a sigh. "I hate pre-war vehicles."

So did R.J. They were unpredictable because
one never knew what sort of shape the engine would be in. And
finding parts for them was often a lottery.

They'd gotten extremely lucky with the
antique vehicles. But they were still complicated to rebuild.

"I have to run out," he told Tim. "Do you
think you can handle this for a bit?"

"Yeah, I think so," Tim answered.

"I won't be gone long." Hopefully.

And here's hoping Danielle didn't castrate
him when she saw him.

She hadn't returned the message he'd left for
her, not that he expected her to. And there was a good chance she
wouldn't admit to anything. But, dammit, R.J. felt like he owed
Rebecca something. He'd been the one to fire his manager, and if
she had gone after Rebecca it was his fault.

He owed it to her to at least find out
anything he could.

Someone needed to come to her rescue and dry
the tears from those beautiful eyes. No one should have to go
through something like this alone.

But they absolutely, positively could not
have sex again. No matter how much she tempted him, no matter how
seductively she wagged her hips. It was high time he kept his pants
zipped.

Because going to bed with her again would
catapult him so far into oblivion there would be no coming back.
She would fall in love with him, if she wasn't already, and he'd
break her heart.

Sweet, vulnerable Rebecca Underwood deserved
so much better than him. If they kept gravitating back together
she'd start to expect things from him. And he couldn't come through
with those expectations. He simply wasn't built that way.

He had too much of his father's blood in
him.

If he did the same thing to Rebecca that his
father had done to his mother, R.J would never forgive himself.
He'd spend the rest of his life wallowing in the self-hate that his
father should have had.

Nick Devlin had been too much of a selfish
bastard to feel anything but love for himself.

In the years since his childhood, R.J. had
done everything he could
not
to be his father. If that meant
not settling down with one woman, than that's the path he'd chosen.
The thing was, his lifestyle had always suited him perfectly.

Until last night.

While the sex had been amazingly fantastic,
it had also been dangerous. R.J. needed to keep his head clear and
make sure last night remained a one-time thing. From now on he
needed to go back to keeping his distance from her. Other than her
father's car, there was no feasible reason for them to see each
other.

They'd grown too comfortable with one another
and he needed to put a stop to it.

The first thing R.J. noticed about Danielle's
house, when he pulled in front, was how neglected it looked. The
normally bright flowers that had intricately lined the base of all
the trees were nothing more than droopy, forgotten weeds. The grass
sprouted up at uneven levels and would probably be long enough to
flirt with his knees. A week's worth of newspapers were piled in
the driveway from where the delivery service had tossed them.

The place looked so different from the last
time he'd been here, that R.J. had to look for the house number to
make sure.

Number 5482.

Definitely the right place.

He parked his car along the curb and walked
to the front door. The concrete path leading to the door was
half-covered with wayward crab grass and overgrown dandelions.

A few seconds after rapping his knuckles on
the door, Danielle's ten year old daughter Lindsey answered.

The girl was tall for her age and had her
mother's blue eyes and midnight dark hair.

"Hey kid," he greeted. "Is your mom
around?"

"Um…" Lindsey tossed a look over her shoulder
and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Yeah, but she's not
feeling very good. She's just been lying on the couch."

How un-Danielle like.

"Can you do me a favor and tell her I need to
talk to her for a minute?"

Lindsey shrugged her shoulders. "Okay."

R.J. was left standing on the front step for
so long, he actually thought Danielle was intentionally ignoring
him. Her house wasn't that big and he was sure she'd heard him
talking when Lindsey had opened the door. She had every reason to
avoid him, but he wasn't leaving until he got some answers.

The woman who finally came to the door didn't
at all resemble the woman who used to work for him. The lack of
makeup and hollowed cheeks aged her by a good ten years, and the
lines of stress bracketing her mouth didn't help either. Unwashed,
uncombed hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail that only held
half the strands. Dull blue eyes glared back at him, surrounded by
bags upon bags from lack of sleep.

Man, if looks could kill, he would have
dropped dead the instant she laid eyes on him.

She crossed her arms over her stained shirt.
"What the hell do you want?"

No need to beat around the bush. It's not
like he came over to ask for a stick of butter.

"Did you rat Rebecca out to the DEA? And
don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."

Something flashed in her eyes, something that
looked suspiciously like panic. Then the look disappeared and in
its place was stone-cold ire. Her mouth tightened at the same time
that her hand gripped the doorknob.

She almost got the door slammed in his face.
Luckily for him, he was a quick on his feet and was able to slap
his palm on the door to stop her action.

"Fuck you and your high horse, R.J," she spat
out.

His hand remained on the door, even though
the irate woman in from of him was trying her hardest to get him
off her porch.

"I no longer give a shit what you do to
yourself, Danielle. But your actions are now affecting other people
and it needs to stop. You can lie to me all you want, but I know
what you did."

"You don't know shit, and you can't prove
I've done anything to your little girlfriend."

Fully aware of Lindsey within earshot, R.J.
kept his voice as even as possible. What he wanted to do was get in
the woman's face and demand an honest answer.

He kept his hand on the door, because
Danielle's arm was too twitchy for his comfort.

"Get mad at me for firing you, Danielle, but
don't ruin other people's lives because you're pissed at me."

"She brought this on herself because she
couldn't keep her mouth shut," she spat out while jabbing a bony
finger against his chest.

Two angry splotches of red colored her
cheeks. Her blue eyes glistened with unshed tears, giving him a
small glimpse of their former vibrancy.

Hell. This really wasn't the woman he'd
known. She'd done something horrible to herself until she no longer
resembled the Danielle he'd first met.

While he was furious with her for getting
Rebecca into trouble, he was also concerned for her. She'd entered
into a dangerous place where she'd put her health at risk. Hadn't
Rebecca said something about Adderall being a very dangerous drug
to abuse? That it could cause death?

Why would Danielle risk herself like that?
And what about Lindsey?

R.J. took a step closer to her and lowered
his voice, hoping to appeal to whatever sensitive side was still
left in her. "Danielle, I don't know how deep you've gotten
yourself, or how you got into this situation to begin with. But you
have a daughter to think about―"

"Don't you dare bring her into this," she
whispered with vehemence. "Everything I do, I do for my daughter.
Now, thanks to you I have to figure out how I'm going to feed
her."

"Cutting the drugs out of your life would be
a start," he shot back.

Danielle jerked as though he'd slapped her.
Then she shot a look over her shoulder and stepped out onto the
porch. "What I put in my body is no one's business but my own. And
I'm hardly the only person who does it. Everything was fine until
that bitch opened her mouth. She should have left well enough
alone."

Shock at Danielle's audacity rendered R.J.
speechless. How many times in the past few minutes had she blamed
Rebecca? As though there was nothing wrong with becoming addicted
to prescription drugs and potentially getting an innocent person
arrested. The person who belonged in jail was Dr. Gross. Was it
possible the man would walk free? And keep drugging up the parents
in this town?

There had to be a way to get Danielle to see
how wrong this all was.

He attempted to soften his voice even though
fury still pumped through him. "Danielle, you need help. Let me
take you to rehab."

"I don't need help," she said with a
desperation R.J. almost believed.

"You do need help. I'll drive you there
myself, and even pay for it."

Danielle stepped through the door. Just
before slamming the thing on his face, she said. "What I need is
for you to leave me the hell alone. And for your girlfriend to keep
her nose out of other people's business."

Well, that went as well as he expected.

Had he really thought she'd surrender herself
and apologize for anything? Danielle was headstrong to a fault, and
it seemed as though the drugs only heightened those traits.

He was convinced she was responsible for the
DEA agent, even though she hadn't come out and admitted it. But he
could hardly go to the authorities with such flimsy evidence.
Rebecca had told him they had some bullshit prescription she'd
written Lindsey which did look pretty damning, even though she'd
only been doing her job. R.J.'s only hope was that the DEA would do
their jobs accordingly and base their case on the facts they found.
If they investigated correctly, they wouldn't find anything against
Rebecca and she could clear her name.

But with someone like Danielle having a
vendetta against her, things could get tricky.

There was no way she would think clearly
while her brain was on drugs. He had to get the woman sober and
convince her to come clean. The Danielle he knew would never get an
innocent person in trouble the way Rebecca was.

As R.J. left Danielle's house and headed back
to work, he racked his brain for some kind of solution.

But maybe Danielle wasn't the key. Maybe what
he needed was to cut the head off the snake.

Perhaps it was time to pay a visit to Dr.
Gross.

The universe was
conspiring against her.

That was the only way to explain why
absolutely nothing was going Rebecca's way. Yesterday, she'd gone
to pick up her contacts only to find out her insurance company had
screwed up, and her eye doctor had been unable to fill the
prescription. Sometime next week, was what they'd told her.

Great. On top of everything else, she had to
deal with wearing her cheap glasses, which kept sliding down her
nose. That was
after
the practice had received its cease and
desist letter from the DEA. Dr. Gross had conveniently been sick
that day, probably because they'd arrested him, which left Rebecca
to deal with the mess of explaining things to the nurses, while
seeing patients.

Some parents had been confused and even angry
when Dr. Gross hadn't been there to examine their children. Rebecca
didn't blame them. She was angry and confused herself.

The nurses had taken turns between crying and
peppering Rebecca with questions.

Was she sure the DEA had the correct
information?

How had they found out?

How could Dr. Gross do such a thing?

The most frustrating part was that Rebecca
didn't have answers to any of those questions. She was just as much
in the dark as the rest of them. Except for what Agent Reinhold had
told her, which hadn't been a lot.

Tina had been tasked with the unpleasant
chore of calling all their patients and explaining the situation
without actually telling them anything. All their patients would
have to be referred to another pediatrician, whom Rebecca had
already spoken to.

As she'd left the practice yesterday,
essentially closing its doors indefinitely, Rebecca had been
consumed with so much rage, so much bitterness she hadn't known
what to do with herself. She's sent R.J. a couple of text messages
but he hadn't returned any of them.

Dr. Gross had done this. He'd spun their
lives into a vortex of uncertainty and chaos and now he wasn't even
around to clean up his mess. Several times, during her last work
day yesterday, she'd called him. His house and his cell phone. Not
surprisingly he hadn't answered.

That's because he's sitting in a jail
cell
.

Rebecca had been unwillingly thrust into
resolving the aftermath of his bad choices, and it wasn't fair. She
was a good person. She paid her taxes and helped old ladies load
their groceries into their cars. She'd dedicated her life to
helping children when they were sick and to keeping them
healthy.

Now she was being punished for someone else's
mistake. What's worse she was so utterly depressingly alone. The
only person who had a smidgeon of an idea what she was going
through was ignoring her.