The Scandal and Carter O'Neill (10 page)

Feeling as though she were filled with ginger ale and fireflies, she turned to the closest table and found a spot at the far end, all too aware of Carter right behind her.

“Dealer wins,” the dealer said. The thin blond woman swept up the cards from the last hand and stacked up the chips, tucking them into the slot built into her table. “We have a new player?” she asked, still looking down. Zoe didn’t know if she was talking to her or someone else until the dealer looked right up at her. “Are you playing?”

Zoe’s mouth fell open.

The dealer was the blond woman who’d paid Zoe a thousand dollars to get Carter out in that alley.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Zoe breathed.

The woman didn’t answer—she took one look at Carter and turned white, her hand holding the edge of the table as if it were keeping her upright.

Behind Zoe, where Carter stood, an arctic wind blew.

The silence was charged, electric, and Zoe didn’t know much but she knew she wouldn’t be playing cards here.

“No,” she said quickly, but Carter interrupted.

“She’ll play.”

“I don’t have any chips,” she said as Carter nudged her into one of the chairs.

“You can buy them here,” the dealer said, not making eye contact with either of them.

A hundred dollar bill floated over her shoulder and landed on the table.

“Carter—” Zoe began to rise, but Carter pushed her back into the chair.

“Buying chips,” the dealer said and a woman with a tray of chips came to their table, took Carter’s hundred dollar bill, and put down some blue, white and red chips.

“For charity,” Carter said, his smile tight, and Zoe didn’t believe it for a moment. Something terrible was going on between Carter and this woman, and Zoe wished she had a minute to talk to him, though she doubted he’d say anything at all.

Before she knew it, she had cards and a twenty-dollar bet on the table.

Zoe had a ten and a four.

“Hit,” Carter said over Zoe’s shoulder, and she turned to glare at him.

“I can play my own game,” she said, and he nodded stiffly, his jaw so tight it looked like it could crack teeth.

The dealer flipped down another card. “Five, that’s nineteen. The lady wins.”

Any little surge of triumph was thwarted when Carter tossed more chips on the table over her shoulder.

“If you want to play…” she muttered.

“I don’t.”

Now she had an ace and a five.

“Hi—” she started to say, but again, Carter butted in.

“We’re good.”

Someone down the table won, and a little crowd of women cheered as Carter threw down more chips with almost violent force. The energy rolling off him was poisonous.

“I’m out,” she said, standing up and stepping out of his way. Out of his gravitational pull.

“Zoe—”

“You stay and play or whatever it is you’re doing, but I’m not with you on this.”

She didn’t stick around to hear what else he might have to say. She headed out of the ballroom toward the women’s bathroom but then changed her mind and headed out a side door to a small empty courtyard surrounded by a low fence and the parking lot beyond.

She stretched her arms out, lifting her chest as if she could get more air that way, as if she could pull herself right out of this situation.

Nothing is ever just simple for me, she thought, staring up at the star-splashed sky. What rotten luck.

I like him. He likes me. And he’s crazy.

Totally nuts.

Zoe wondered if the blonde was an old girlfriend. She was older, but it was hard to tell how much older.

She heard the door pop behind her and didn’t even turn, sure of who it was and not knowing if she even cared enough to get involved.

“Who was that woman?” she asked.

“Well,” a voice that was definitely not Carter’s said, “I was sort of hoping you could tell me.”

She whirled only to find Jim Blackwell, standing against the shut door and suddenly—despite the big black sky and the open night around her—she felt trapped.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said and he only laughed.

“Leave the lying to Carter,” Jim said. “He’s much better at it than you.”

“What do you want?” she asked, feeling slightly threatened despite his little boy looks.

“Well,” he said. “I wanted to help you with your photographer problems, but you never called.”

“And I won’t.” She thought of that horrible moment when she’d been ambushed coming out of the doctor’s appointment. “The chief of police is in there,” she said, pointing toward the hotel and the ballroom full of Baton Rouge and State officials. “I could talk to him about harassment.”

Jim Blackwell only scoffed. “Dean Begusta wouldn’t care if I stripped you naked out here.”

Zoe stepped back, her heart going cold, her brain colder. Was that a threat? That was totally a threat. Wasn’t it?

He stepped toward her so fast she backed up right into a wrought iron table. The clank of it was loud, but not as loud as the blood pounding in her ears. He stopped and held out his hands as if begging for a chance. “I just need to find out who that blond woman is to him—”

“I think you need to switch to a different department,” Zoe said, smack-dab in the middle of something that she didn’t understand. “Sports or something. Movie reviews, maybe. Because city politics is clearly making you crazy.”

“No,” he said, “what’s making me crazy is watching O’Neill lie—”

The door behind them popped open and Zoe spun, eager for some interference. It was the blond dealer poised in the bright doorway, a cigarette in her hand.

“Sorry,” she said, about to duck out.

“No!” Jim said, those little boy looks snapping back into place like a mask. He was good, she thought. Good and scary. “Come on out.”

The dealer looked wary, but she stepped out anyway, the door shutting behind her, closing out the light.

Her lighter flared in the darkness, and Zoe could smell tobacco on the breeze.

The heavy air felt like trouble.

“Can I ask what your name is?” Jim asked.

“Why would you?” the dealer asked, and Zoe smiled.

Jim held out his press card. “I’m a reporter.”

“Anna,” she said.

“No last name?”

There was a long pause, and the tip of the cigarette burned brighter and hotter. “Nope,” she said on a long exhale. Zoe honestly wished she was half as cool.

“How’d you get this job?” Jim asked.

“I’m new out at The Rouge,” she said, naming one of the casinos on the river. “Owner was looking for some staff for this thing and I signed up.”

“It’s charity.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You giving up your wages?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your damn business.”

Yeah! Zoe thought, Take that, Jim Blackwell.

Jim didn’t seem fazed. “You know Carter O’Neill?”

Zoe held her breath.

“Carter who?” Anna asked, and Jim snorted through his nose.

“You’re good,” he said. “But I’ll find out what’s going on.”

He turned back to Zoe, his eyes like some kind of ooze traveling down her body, making her feel naked and gross. Like she needed a hundred showers. “May I say, you look stunning,” he said.

“No,” she snapped, fighting the urge to stick out her tongue. Finally he left, not back into the building, but over the small wrought iron fence and into the dark parking lot.

Zoe exhaled long and hard, her bones sagging with relief.

“You all right?” Anna asked.

“Me? Sure. I get interrogated and threatened by journalists all the time.”

She took a deep breath and watched “Anna” smoke half her cigarette. “I remember you, you know. The thousand dollars.”

Anna nodded.

“Is your name really Anna?” Zoe asked.

“Vanessa,” she said with a small smile. “Something about that guy made me want to lie.”

“How do you know Carter?” she asked, the words firing out of her mouth.

The woman looked down at her cigarette, blew ash off the glowing cherry. “You need to ask him that question,” she said.

Zoe sighed. “I don’t know if I want to.”

“What do you mean?” the woman asked.

“Carter’s like one of those pixel puzzles, you know? You stare at it and stare at it until your eyes get blurry and suddenly in all those pixels you see an ice-cream cone and then you blink and the ice-cream cone is gone. It’s nothing but pixels again.”

Vanessa was silent and Zoe turned to look at her.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Vanessa said.

“He hides himself. He’s there, and then he’s not.”

“Ah,” Vanessa said, but that was all, and Zoe suddenly felt stupid.

“Well, lovely chatting with you, Vanessa, but I do think it’s time for me to go home. This whole damn thing was a mistake.”

“Zoe,” Vanessa said, and Zoe paused, the door open. “Carter hasn’t had it easy, you know.”

Zoe blinked in surprise, but then forced herself not to care.

“Who has?” she said and stepped into the hallway.

The door shut behind her, leaving the night and the mysterious blonde outside. She glanced up and down the long hallway filled with tuxedoed men and women in gorgeous gowns and she just wanted to leave. Curl up in bed for the next four months until she had to go to the hospital.

And the next part of her life could begin.

Under her fancy red dress, her baby kicked and Zoe rubbed the spot in commiseration.

“I can’t wait, either,” she breathed.

“Excuse me, Zoe Madison?” a warm Southern voice drawled behind her. Zoe turned to find an older man, short and gray and built like a bulldog, but handsome in a hardworking way. Like he knew his way around a tool belt.

“Yes,” she said. “Is there a problem?”

“No.” The man laughed. “This is a party, so there aren’t supposed to be any problems. Not for lovely women.”

“Well, someone forgot to tell me that,” she said with a tired smiled. “I’m heading home.”

“Please,” he said, touching her arm briefly when she turned to leave. “Wait. I’m Eric Lafayette. Carter O’Neill told me you’re working on a program that might interest me.”

Zoe’s heart pounded once in her throat and her hands got clammy.

This is for me. For me and the baby and my future.

She gave herself a little pep talk and then turned on the smile. “Well, I hope I am, Mr. Lafayette, because it certainly interests me and the East Brookstown neighborhood.” She smiled as bright as she could, channeling all sorts of confidence and competence.

He nodded, a bright warmth entering his black eyes. “I’m from that neighborhood,” he said, and she saw stars. This was going to work. It was; she could see it right there in front of her. Her future, the future she’d come here for, was happening.

CARTER LEFT THE PARTY through the main entrance and watched Jim Blackwell storm off to his car. He knew there was a patio around here somewhere for smokers, and chances were his mother was there.

He had no idea where Zoe went.

The pool of light on the far side of the building seemed likely and he approached, stopping when he heard Zoe’s voice.

Pixel puzzle.

She was right, more right than she knew. Sometimes he got so lost in his lies, his life, the constant control, that he didn’t know who he was anymore.

Except when he was with Zoe. He touched her velvet skin and his body, his life, his world popped into sharp relief. He knew who he was. The things he wanted in his life seemed as if they were in the palm of his hands. She had that power. That magic.

They kept pushing each other away.

If you want her, he told himself, you need to fight for her.

But first he needed to find out what his mother was doing here.

He waited in the shadows of the parking lot until Zoe left, then watched his mother smoking alone at a wrought iron table and thought about Zoe. About how cold he felt and how nice it would be to warm himself by the fire that glowed in her.

“I know you’re there,” Vanessa said, staring down at the pack of smokes on the table.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, stepping to the edge of the light but no farther.

“I had to get a job,” she said, shrugging as if it meant nothing, and he wanted to tear the world apart piece by piece. “I know the pit boss at The Rouge.” Her eyes, dry and resigned, met his. “Do you want me to leave?”

She looked old. Older than he’d ever seen her. And trapped.

“What happened to all that money Margot’s been giving you?” he asked.

“I owe people money.” She ran her palms over her perfect hair and he watched with hate in his heart. But then, as if she just couldn’t keep going, her shoulders slumped and she rested her head in her hands.

Carter stood there, unsure of what to do. When she stopped playing her part, he didn’t know his.

God, there was something so alone in her. It was like all the lies and angles, the games and secrets that animated her, were turned off and she just sat there. Empty.

“Are you in danger?” he asked.

“This isn’t the movies,” she said. “I’m not going to get whacked.” She wiped her face, her eyes, and then put her hands in her lap as if the moment were gone, the mask back on.

“So this was what…coincidence?” he asked.

“I honestly didn’t know you’d be here. I wouldn’t have come if I had. I needed a job, and the only damn legal skill I have is dealing cards.”