Seduced by a Dangerous Man (3 page)

I sighed and bumped my forehead several times on the steering wheel. Rob didn’t deserve that. And he didn’t deserve to spend the rest of his life wondering what had happened to his sister. The fantasy vanished as quickly as it had come.

But I wanted to disappear, so badly it ached.
 

Something had to give. One way or another, I was going to get Henry off my back.
 

Henry first. Then I’d fix the rest of my life.

~~~

After the breakfast rush, I avoided the front of the diner as much as possible. If a bunch of uniforms came in to arrest me, I planned to slip out through the kitchen. Hiding didn’t improve my tips, but it wasn’t as bad as I would have imagined.

I poked my head out from the kitchen. The coast seemed clear, so I walked out. One of my tables was looking around for me. Right. Root beer floats. I reversed course.

I had just finished making the drinks when one of the Britneys—there were three—tapped my shoulder. It was more like a small shove. Irritation flashed from her pale blue eyes. “Table sixteen says they ordered
dry
toast.” She dropped a side plate of oily toast onto the counter. The toast jumped visibly, but it was impossible to pick out individual bangs over the cacophony of clanging dishes and harried kitchen staff yelling back and forth across the two rows of sizzling grills.

“Oops. Thanks.” I dumped the toast into the trash, feeling guilty as hell about the waste. When I turned, Janet, the general manager, had appeared, arms crossed. I felt my face redden.

Her gray eyebrows tightened into a scowl.
 

“They didn’t ask for it dry,” I said, smoothing down my black skirt. It really was too short, and I always felt self-conscious in front of Janet, with her aura of grandmotherly encouragement.

“Let’s see the order.”
 

With a sigh, I dug the pad out of my apron pocket and handed it over. She flipped through the mostly empty pages, then thrust it at me and spun away. “That toast for sixteen was supposed to be dry,” she called out to the cooks. “Not your fault, boys. Get it up fast.”

Damn.
 

As I prepared to apologize, my cell phone vibrated in my apron pocket. We weren’t supposed to carry phones, but everyone did. I angled my body away and pretended to be digging around in my apron.

To my immense relief, it wasn’t law enforcement requesting the pleasure of my company. Just a text from Rob:
Bread, corn flakes, hand soap that doesn’t smell like flowers PLS. Thx.

I used one hand to surreptitiously text back:
Ok. Told you I can’t use phone at work

“Audrey.”

I buried the phone as I turned, forcing up one of the exhausted smiles that had become part of my uniform. “They didn’t ask for it dry.” Not that I actually remembered.
 

She squinted at me, radiating a heartbreaking maternal concern. “Are you having difficulties?”

Other than my heart shattering and slicing me to pieces from the inside?
“Didn’t sleep well last night.”

“It’s not just this week. You’re bungling the orders. This isn’t the Ritz, and the diners here aren’t impressed if you don’t take notes. You record every detail from now on. Even if the guest hustles up and adds something while you’re standing at the computer. Understood?”

I nodded. Once upon a time, I’d had a stellar memory. A warm flush of embarrassment was creeping up from where the itchy, starched uniform collar ended.
 

Janet frowned. “We conduct random drug screens—”

“I’m not doing drugs. It’s just been a long few weeks.”

“I believe you’re capable of better, but if this continues, I’m going to have to let you go. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Dry toast for sixteen,” one of the cooks hollered. When I grabbed the plate, he glared at me.

I delivered the plate to table sixteen, muttering an apology as I passed. Then I had to run back in for the root beer floats.

Things finally slowed, thank goodness. One of my tables was being bussed, and I stopped by for a tip so minuscule that I practically needed a magnifying glass to see it.

“We’ll take this one.” Henry’s voice was crisp and clear.

For a moment I thought I had fallen asleep on my feet, that this was a fun new twist to my Henry nightmare.
 

I turned as the hostess, flanked by Henry and his oversized sidekick, approached.
 

Janet passed behind me. “Watch your language,” she hissed in my ear.
 

I didn’t apologize. What was the point when there was a good chance that I was going to get myself fired in the next thirty seconds?

“And we want that lovely young lady serving us,” Henry said, pointing at me. I regretted my decision not to hit him the night before.

“Of course,” the hostess said. She drew out the last word and raised her eyebrows with a smile that said, “
Look at you with the admirers.
”
 

“Actually, I’m on break,” I said as they sat.
 

“Don’t be petty.” Henry pulled the menus from the hostess’s hands and looked at her pointedly until she scampered away, her perky ponytail swinging.

“She single?” Butch asked, his enormous bald head tilting as he watched her leave.

I put my hands on my hips and swung toward Henry. “What? Not content to irritate me from the parking lot?”

Henry held up a hand. “Audrey. We come in peace.”

Even though I wanted nothing more than to dump a carafe of steaming coffee over his head, I kept my hands planted in place. “Go on.”

“What’s good today?” Butch asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “We’re out of everything. So why don’t you two just go on home?”

“Audrey!” Janet didn’t even try to keep her voice down. Henry held his hand up again.
 

“It’s no problem, Janet. We go way back. She’s just having a little fun. And might I say that you are positively glowing today. How’s Hank?”

I stared poison-tipped daggers at Henry. I didn’t dare say what I was thinking. It hadn’t been easy to get this job when I had only ever worked for one company and my sole reference was my brother. Getting fired from this waitress position would pretty much guarantee that I would never work again.

 
Janet reluctantly walked away, but I didn’t relax. “What do you two want?”

“Got an interesting call this morning,” Henry said. “Thought maybe you could shed some light on it.”

“Doubtful.” My heart began to hammer. This would be so much easier if I knew which one of my transgressions was coming back to take a ragged chunk out of my ass.

“Cut the crap, Henry,” Butch said. “You’re like a bad movie. Stop drawing things out and ask her.”

“Zak liked to gamble,” Henry said. He was watching me very closely, and I funneled all my energy into keeping my face as neutral as possible.

Butch slapped his hand on the table. “Damn. I want to eat. Tell her so she can take our orders.”

I saw that Butch’s attitude annoyed Henry, but all he did was pick up the menu. “I’ll have the sandwich of the day,” he said.

“Get me a cola and that big basket of fries and mozzarella sticks,” Butch said. He flicked at the dessert menu on the table. “Gonna have some apple pie later, and it better be served with a smile.” He laughed.

I started to turn away but saw Janet waiting near the kitchen, so I pulled out the pad and scribbled down their orders, then walked the fifteen steps to the computer. Janet nodded in approval, but a vein pulsed in her forehead. Something told me I might be looking for a job even if I managed to stay civil to Henry, and as I tapped in the order, I wondered if it made more sense to just quit. Quitting might look marginally better on my résumé.

I brought a cola for Butch and a glass of water for Henry and slid them on the table.

Butch picked up his glass. “Where’s my straw?”

I dug in my apron and found one of the brightly colored curly ones we gave to kids. I tossed it on the table. Butch started to complain, but Henry silenced him with a glare.

“Got a call about the results of an anonymous tip. One of Zak’s bookie’s partners was found murdered this morning. He had Zak’s wallet and cell phone.” Henry said it casually, but I knew his interest was anything but.

“Um… ok. What does that have to do with me?”

“Those items were just sitting on a table, like they wanted to be found. Funny thing, Audrey, but as of last night, you were a person of interest.”

“Interest in what?” I demanded. Trying to remain calm wouldn’t have done me any good, and I consoled myself with the thought that anyone who was being casually accused of murder would have some kind of reaction.

“I know you had something to do with Zak’s disappearance. I don’t know how you got the warrant quashed, but I’m not so easily fooled by your innocent girl act.”

“Ever consider that the warrant was dropped because it was baseless?” I raised an eyebrow, cockier than I actually felt.
 

“You know what I think? That outlaw you’ve been sneaking around with had something to do with it, too.”

“For the millionth time, I haven’t seen him.”

Butch was shaking his head slightly, and I felt a glimmer of hope. Dissention in the ranks could only be good. “Let it go, man,” Butch said. He looked at me. “Think my order must be ready.”
 

 
Henry shot his friend a nasty look that nearly had
me
cowering. Butch busied himself with his soda, but he didn’t look happy. Maybe he was as tired of stalking me as I was of being stalked.
 

I took a deep breath. Perhaps this was my chance to change Henry’s mind, convince him he was chasing smoke. “I’m sorry about your friend, but I have no idea where he is.” And because I was focused on the semantics of that, I managed to sound convincing. Zachary was dead. I was one of two people who knew that for sure, but I didn’t have a clue what had happened to him since his death, and I sure didn’t know his final resting place. Corbin had taken care of all of that.

The scratch-off lotto players at table twelve were looking around. They were on a fixed income, but they tipped better than most.

I went to see what they needed, notepad at the ready, but excitement had my thoughts in a rush. It was better not to dwell on the fact that I was excited about the appearance of another dead body.
 

It had to be Corbin’s doing. The timing gave it away. The cops wanted to see me, and the next day someone turned up, drawing attention away from me.
 

I just hoped he hadn’t actually
killed
someone for me. It was a chilling thought, all the more so because Corbin had sworn to me that he didn’t want to do that anymore.
 

Was that why he’d disappeared? Had he done something horrific, something unforgivable, and now was afraid to face me? He’d been obligated to go… wherever he’d gone. If that job had demanded murder, there weren’t too many ways around it, regardless of how motivated he was.
 

… Or if I’d become the stand-in for morality, and if he’d been unable to stop killing, he might not have believed there was a place for me in his life, and vice versa. On several occasions, he’d said I should run away from him.

I chewed my lower lip and tasted iron. Instead of blurting that I loved him, I should have convinced him that I didn’t care who he was or what he did. Should have convinced him that the present was all that mattered—

“Did you hear me?” The elderly woman tapped her checkbook on the tabletop.

I had no idea what she’d said, but it seemed obvious. “The check, right?”

“We want to know what the dessert special is.” All three of the women were giving me funny looks, like I was the one with violet hair and bedazzled cat-frame eyeglasses and lip liner so far around my mouth that it looked like a high-water mark.

“Blueberry cobbler,” I said.
 

“We’ll share one. Three spoons. Now, we don’t want it too hot, but it should be warm enough that the ice cream melts a little.”

I spent fifteen minutes attending to my job, all the while wondering if I should pump Henry for more information or if I should just avoid him. The best thing would be to find a way to smooth things over. For Rob’s sake. And my own sanity.
 

Henry had won. I didn’t have the resources or the connections to beat him. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted: Corbin. The helplessness made me angry. Avoidance, then. At least it would stop things from getting worse.

But he and Butch were still sitting at my table. Time to move them along.

“Apple pie,” Butch said when I walked over. “Don’t forget the smile.”

I pulled my lips back from my teeth in what I knew was a grimace. I didn’t even pretend.

“You were much more charming when I took you to the airport,” Butch said. “You never look happy anymore. You’re frowning from the moment you leave your house to the last second before you go to bed.”

“You don’t think being followed everywhere has something to do with that?”
 

Butch looked down, unable to hold my gaze.
 

I put my hands on my hips and glanced over my shoulder to make sure Janet was out of earshot. “No dessert for you. Why did the cops want to talk to me?”

Henry sat back against the red plastic booth and draped his arms along the top of the bench. All he needed was a piece of hay dangling from between his lips to complete the image of pure self-satisfaction. If Henry looked happy, then I would probably soon look sad.
 

“I recalled that Zak had called me the night he disappeared,” he said.
 

“So?”

“He said he was worried about you and your friend. Said he was afraid for his life.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

He pursed his lips and squinted his eyes. “Memory is a funny thing. As I was poring through your cell phone records again, I suddenly remembered the rest of my conversation with Zak that night. It jogged my memory. But lucky you, looks like a scapegoat conveniently turned up.”