Trouble Comes Knocking (Entangled Embrace) (15 page)

It had been a long time since we’d gone out for drinks, and after everything that had happened, it was way overdue. Not counting the East Texas-sized shit-storm that had befallen Natalie, I had my own crap to deal with and, quite frankly, when I thought about it, mine was a whole lot more fucked-up.

“So Roger was some random dude who showed up at your parents’ place?” Ana asked as we shelled peanuts, tossing the shells on the floor as we went, and swallowed our beers. They’d been sent over by a guy at the bar.

I picked at one of the shells, pulling the strings back and watching the salty dust fall to the table. “I still can’t believe he found me. I don’t know what he wants, and I haven’t heard from him since, so I’m hoping whatever it was he’s done and gone. Still, I can’t help wondering, you know?”

“Cree-per,” Ana said in a singsong voice, tossing some shells at the feet of a woman passing by. She slipped slightly and looked around before walking on. Ana smirked, and I laughed out loud at my dumb friend.

In the corner, some girls played pool. People stood all around the table, laughing, drinking. I hated people like that. No, envied them. Life came so easy, talking to their friends, flirting. I watched two of the girls as they joined in loudly with the song on the jukebox, arm in arm, wiggling suggestively to the hoots and hollers of their male companions. I had Ana, but my social circle was fairly limited. The girls started dancing, and not for the first time in my life I wished for normalcy.

“I’m thinking he has something to do with Voeller and Elmer,” she said next, taking me out of my thoughts. “Think about it. We know you were taken from there, and these guys wanted to take you back. It was like a school, right?”

“Right. But not back to Voeller. They talked about taking me somewhere else similar. Not any less horrifying, trading one girl’s prison for another, but that’s what they’d offered.”

“So they knew about your parents and still didn’t tell Voeller where to find you. Maybe he’s a good guy?”

“If he was, then why would he have wanted to take me away?”

She chewed thoughtfully on her lip and, as if on cue, the waitress brought us two more beers, these from a guy playing pool. He tipped his hat, and Ana wiggled her fingers back at him. The bar was packed for a Thursday night with a rowdy crowd watching the World Series around a large TV. “Time for wings?” I asked.

“Hell, yes. And maybe some veggie sticks.”

We ordered and drank, still thinking about how Roger fit in. Why had he wanted to take me away? I know my ability makes me stand out, but what made me, or my sisters, even, so special that people wanted to study us? Keep us imprisoned as lab rats and lock away the key until one day we snap and burn the place down? That’s what happened with Julie, I decided. She must have woken up one day and realized life existed outside the four walls of Voeller, and if they wouldn’t let her out, she’d burn her way out.

It didn’t make what she did better, but it did make it understandable.

In the weeks after the two men came to our place, my parents stayed on edge. There were a lot of late nights where I should have been sleeping but instead stayed up listening to them talk. “He’s going to come looking for her eventually,” my dad whispered one of those nights.

That’s when I’d realized the men who came to our house were the least of my problems; I should be afraid of the bigger “he.” I spent a lot of nightmare-filled nights after trying to convince myself I’d misheard, or misunderstood.

“If he does, you know what we have to do,” my mother said, her voice sounding sad. “We don’t have a choice. We have to protect her.”

My dad shifted on their bed. He outweighed my mom by at least eighty pounds and when he rolled the bed made unmistakable Dad sounds. I’d listened outside their door enough nights that I could easily tell almost every movement my parents made. “Someday we’ll have to tell her the truth,” he said, clicking off their bedside lamp. “She needs to know.”

The bed groaned as my mom rolled over. “She’s still a baby.”

“But special.”

“Very.”

“And if we don’t tell her, she could end up in a lot of trouble she won’t even expect.”

My mother sighed. “Can’t we wait a few years? Let her be a child for a little longer?”

They kissed. “She never really was, was she?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“But I agree. We’ll wait to tell her. It’s too much of a burden right now.”

The heel of my hand ached from my biting it to stifle my tears. There were so many secrets already, and they all seemed to revolve around me.
Just tell me what you’re talking about!
I wanted to scream.

Or maybe I could disappear into the woods. Run away from my parents, their secrets, the men who wanted me for who knows what. No one would find me there.

I had no idea at the time my parents would do exactly that in only a few years.

The wings came, and the game ended. The bar remained packed, but a few people filtered out. “Ana, do you think there is something wrong with me?” I asked, knowing full well she would say no.

“Yes.”

I choked, hot sauce slipping down the wrong pipe. “That’s not what you were supposed to say!”

She laughed. “Look, Lucy. I don’t know which context you’re talking about, but there is something wrong with all of us. We’re so screwed up from the day we are born that for anyone to make it through this life is a living miracle. So yes. There are lots of things wrong with you. Anything specific you care to talk about?”

“You know, I mean I’m not normal. I’m not like…” A guy across the bar caught my attention. Balding, flashy shirt, not attractive but oozing confidence. “Ana, that’s the guy!”

Her head whipped around so fast I thought she might develop whiplash and hire a lawyer to sue me. “Roger?”

“No. The guy from The Slotted Spoon. That’s the guy I saw going back to join the poker game.”

He looked in our direction and smiled, raising his glass. Ana turned back as quickly as possible, and I looked down, trying to pretend I hadn’t been staring.

She stabbed her carrot into the ranch and then took a bite. “Look, I think I know how we can figure out who is after you without putting your life in danger.”

“How?”

“I’ll get into the game.”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed she thought somehow her getting into the game would be any smarter than me doing so. “Ana, you are absolutely the worst poker player in the world. You can’t bluff your way out of a wall-less room, you forget which cards make up which hands, you always bet wrong. There is no way they’d believe you were meant to be in a game like that.”

“No,” she said, pushing up her breasts and readjusting her bra. “I didn’t say I’d be
in
the game. I said I’d get into the game.” She popped the top button of her blouse and took a compact out of her purse.

“How?”

She swiped gloss across her lips and fluffed her hair. “How do I look?”

“Like you’re getting ready for a date.”

Smiling big, she flashed her signature dimple and tilted her head. “Exactly. I’m going to talk Mr. Big Spender over there into taking me with him into the game.”

“Ana, that’s brilliant!” I said, suddenly feeling foolish and judgmental. Ana was my best friend, and I spent a lot of time thinking of her as pretty but not as intelligent, but truth is she was also one of the most brilliant people I knew. She may have struggled in school, but at twenty-three she had an up-and-coming career. Not to mention, when it came down to understanding the real world, she had me beat hands down. I needed to do a better job of respecting that. “Except how will you know who is trying to kill me? How are you going to get the information about Mr. Winters? And more importantly how do we know the killer didn’t see you when he peeked into the window of the house, if it was the killer who peeked in?”

“We don’t,” she said logically. Spock to the core. “But this is our best shot. Besides, I won’t be the only one listening. You are going to wait outside with a cell phone, and I’ll place one in my pocket. You’ll hear everything I hear.”

I shook my head, sending the last beer sloshing around my brain a little too fast. I definitely needed to refuse the beers and drink nothing but soda for the rest of the night. “It’s too dangerous, Ana. I can’t let you take a risk like this.”

“It would be even more so if you took the risk.” She leaned forward and held my hands. “You are exceptional, Lucy. The world needs your gifts. You putting yourself into intentional danger, even to protect someone else, isn’t worth it.”

“The world needs you, too,” I insisted, wishing even more I hadn’t been so judgmental earlier. “And I think you’re a little drunk.” I knew I was.

“Good, because he’s totally not my type. Maybe I’ll pull this off a bit better.”

I shook my head again, though this time in admiration. “All right, Tiger, go get your kill.”

She stood and adjusted her skirt. Her long perfect legs framed in designer fishnets and the exotic red heels she’d decided on last minute. “Wish me luck!”

“I wish you sanity,” I quipped as she teetered away.

Watching from where I sat, I couldn’t deny the guy was into her. Who wouldn’t be? Ana was starting to get pretty recognizable with her billboards and magazine spreads, so any guy who wasn’t into her would have to be blind, happily married, gay, or a chubby chaser. The guy at the bar didn’t come across as any of the above.

She’d left her phone on the table and it rang. Bobby’s name popped up on caller ID. I hesitated for a moment, not sure if I should let it go, but decided last minute to answer. “Hello?”

“Lucy,” he said, not able to hide the surprise or lack of enthusiasm in his voice. “You weren’t who I expected to reach.”

Obviously. “How are you, Bobby?”

“Where is Ana?”

Straight to the chase, that’s fine. “She’s a little busy right now. Want me to tell her you called?”

“Busy doing what?”

Jealous much? “Look, do you want me to tell her you called or not?” I strummed my fingertips on the table, still impatient and angry with him after all this time. And it wasn’t as if I was still in love with him or anything, more I thought of the guy as an immature child in a grown body, and I knew if given half the chance, he would break Ana’s heart.

He sighed, long and suffering. “She’s been awful busy with you lately. I’ve hardly seen her at all since she’s been home. You’re not trying to sabotage us or anything, are you?”

“Oh, grow up,” I said, truly annoyed with this man who probably would never change. “You knew she was my friend when you decided to date her. I’m not going to talk bad about you to her, but you and I both know you’re using her. Someday she’ll figure it out, Bobby, and when she does, I’ll be there for her. So don’t try to convince me you’re somehow the victim in some scheme of mine.”

“Relax,” he said, using his soothing son-of-a-senator voice. “Jesus Christ, you’re as dramatic as always. Look, have her give me a call. If she knows what’s best, she won’t ruin things by letting you get between us. I think she’s a smart enough girl she’ll be able to see what I can offer her.”

“Oh, like what?”

“That new contract starting up in November? Who do you think made the calls to make that possible? She hadn’t garnered any attention in Milan before me. Why do you think she’s going there now?”

Milan? Italy? November? She hadn’t told me any of this. My throat squeezed at the news. I glanced to the bar to see her still flirting with poker guy. “I’ll tell her you called. Do you need anything else?”

“No, Lucy. As always, it’s been a pleasure.”

I hung up the phone as Ana headed back in my direction.

Chapter Fourteen

Even talking about Bobby to someone made me angry. Officer Len scribbled notes on his yellow pad, and I picked at my cuticles, glad for a little break before continuing. It had been a very long night. I stifled a yawn. “Look, I know there is a lot more to tell you, but it’s so late already. Is there any way we can finish this tomorrow?”

He looked up from his paper. “No, I’m sorry, Ms. Carver. Captain Matheson wants this resolved tonight. Tell me what happened last Friday night, the night of the poker game.”

I leaned my head on my arms and started talking again. “Actually, things started in the morning.”

“Okay, go from there, but please, could you sit up so you’re not so muffled?”

We left the bar and headed back to Dee’s, but I didn’t tell Ana about Bobby calling at first. I thought we could deal with one thing at a time. We were both pretty tired, not unlike tonight, so after letting me know she’d definitely gotten the invite, we went to bed.

The next morning I still couldn’t get what Bobby said out of my head. I wanted to ask her, find out why she hadn’t told me, but at the same time I didn’t want to know. My stomach hurt at the prospect. Not of her going, for that I was thrilled, but because Bobby was the one who set it up.

That meant he would also be the one pulling the strings. If she succeeded, he’d be behind it.

Refocusing, I decided it would be best to start with tonight. “John’s going to listen at his house so he can look up things on the computer as they’re said, and I’m going to listen in the car in case something happens.” We sat on our beds, still in our pajamas, and I, at least, felt like I had gargled with a dead possum sometime during the night. Not that we’d drank much, but it doesn’t always take much, either.

“Sounds good,” Ana absently replied. She plucked at a string on her comforter, and I wondered if she was thinking about Italy.

“Do you want out?” I asked, still determined to go in myself, if necessary, no matter what she said.

“No, I will do this. I just hope it works.”

I flopped back onto the bed. “If it doesn’t, I have no idea what to do next.”

“Lucy, I need you to be prepared for something.”

It was time. She was going to tell me right now.

“If we don’t get the information we need, we might not be able to help Natalie. I don’t want you to think you didn’t try your hardest. I think in a lot of ways you’re trying harder than the cops.” At the last statement she made a stink face. “I mean, c’mon, how is it they didn’t come across the same information you’ve found?”

I didn’t know. Maybe it was because they stopped looking. And I felt selfishly relieved she didn’t tell me about Milan. Kind of like a kid who knew the truth about Santa but didn’t tell her parents that she knew.

“All that matters is that we try,” I said, though I didn’t believe my own words. What mattered was finding out who the killer was. Not just for Natalie but also because my life depended on it. This guy tried to kill me, twice. Who’s to say, now that Natalie was up for murder, he wouldn’t come after me a third time and possibly succeed? “We have to.”

Downstairs at breakfast, I struggled with my desire to tell Aunt Dolores everything. I swished coffee around in my cup and barely nibbled on a bagel.

“Thinkin’ about your friend?” Dee asked, her brow folded inward like it did when I was seventeen and thought I had broken my arm. She’d had a lot of concern for me lately and held just as much back. It showed in the way she carried herself, more strained. Stiffening when I came into the room and pulling back when I spoke. I hated that our relationship had changed and wished like hell I knew how to get the old one back.

“Yes,” I said. In essence I had been.

She reached forward and patted my hand. “Things will work out exactly like they’re supposed to. The most important thing is to keep yourself safe. I’m sure your friend Eli is lookin’ long and hard to find the guy who came after you, so you have nothin’ to worry about.”

I wished I could believe her. If I did, I wouldn’t have to strike out on my own. And I had yet to tell her Eli didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

“I know it’ll work out,” I said, slowly measuring my words. “I guess I’m a little more uncertain about these things than you.”

“Trust me. I’m old. I’ve seen plenty.”

“I have to go to work,” I said, my words catching in the back of my throat. What I couldn’t yet admit was I was scared shitless I’d never see her again. No matter what happened in my life, Aunt Dee loved me. Unconditionally. And I loved her. If something happened to me now, I didn’t know who would take care of her.

Moving around the table, I pulled her into a hug. “I love you, Aunt Dolores.”

She hesitated, then pulled me closer. “I love you, too, Lucy. You are my Lucy in the sky. My star. You always will be,” she said with one final squeeze.

I went to HGR early so John and I could hammer out the last details of what we’d be doing. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“I have to. What will happen to Natalie if I don’t?”

“She’ll have an attorney, they’ll prove her not guilty, and she’ll get off.”

“Or she’ll have a panel of lazy jurors who don’t want to be there and would prefer to get the trial over as fast as possible. Besides, she’s been in jail since her rearrest. I couldn’t even get in to see her. She shouldn’t be in there.”

He looked past me. “Hey, Ben. Can you cover me for a few minutes?”

I turned to see his coworker, the one who was supposed to have told me John left on the night of the murder. I’d seen him a few times, but we’d never talked. I decided to introduce myself finally. “Hey, I’m Lucy,” I said, extending my hand.

“Ben.” He shook but held on for a moment too long. His eyes lingered at my chest. I pulled back and crossed my arms.
What a creeper
.

Looking up, Ben studied my face and smirked. He sat in the chair and checked some monitors. “So, how does it feel knowing you worked with a murderer?” he asked, a little more excitement in his voice than made me comfortable.

“Natalie isn’t a murderer,” I insisted, almost following up by saying how I planned to prove it. I held back, though. “They’ll find the real one soon enough,” I said instead. “And whoever he is, he’ll be sorry he framed my friend.”

“Would have to be someone pretty smart to pull off something like that, you know, framing someone else?”

“I doubt he’s very smart at all,” I said, my voice petulant. “Probably someone with inside knowledge and an axe to grind, though why they’d hurt Natalie is beyond me.”

He sat up straighter. “All I can say is good luck to your friend. She seems pretty guilty to me.”

John stepped in at that point and took my hand to lead me away.

“What is that guy’s problem?” I asked once out of earshot. We sat on a bench in the arboretum and watched the wind blow a few remaining leaves out of the trees.

“He had a thing for Natalie, and she turned him down. That was years ago, but I think he’s still a little pissed she picked Clive over him. He and Clive had been friends then. It was pretty territorial and dramatic.”

“Wow. Talk about needing to let things go.” I thought about Bobby and how much anger I still held toward him despite having John. In a way I understood. But Bobby and I had dated for a very long time. For Ben to feel so angrily toward someone who never even said yes was a little crazy over the top in my book. “You know he’s not such a bad guy,” John defended, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. “He’s always come in to work for me when I needed him and listens when I’m having problems. He’s pretty cool, I guess.” John paused. “You know, I don’t think his father’s such a great guy. I know Ben lives with him—his mother died a few years back—and he’s come to work a couple of times beat-up with black eyes. Before his mom died, he mentioned what a hard-ass his dad was, but now he doesn’t even talk about it.”

He still looked a little beat-up today, but I didn’t want to comment. “Well, anyway,” I said, ready to forget Ben, definitely not wanting to feel bad for the guy, “we’re all set for tonight. We don’t know anything about this game or who will be there. Ana is taking a fake cell phone along with her real one so that if they pick up phones for whatever reason, she can hand that over. She’s supposed to meet the guy, Tom, at eight thirty, and they’ll go to the game at nine. We need to be completely set up and in place when she meets him, just in case he says anything.”

John leaned in and kissed me. “Man it’s sexy when you go all Double-O-Seven on me. The way you’ve plotted…”

“And planned,” I said in the most seductive voice I could muster. It might be dorky, but I’d never had a guy I could be myself around. Even with Bobby I always held so much back. “Maybe when this is all over, you could play Bond and I’ll be the femme fatale.”

“Mmmm. Who will you be?”

“My name is Pussy Galore.”

He grinned ear to ear. “I must be dreaming.”

I laughed, loving that he knew Bond, too, and settled back.

People were starting to come to work, and though there were others out here with us, for the most part we sat alone. “Lucy, you have to be careful tonight,” he said, the quiet in his voice more from concern than a need to be secretive. “I know we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I like you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I’ll be careful,” I reassured him flippantly but not meaning for it to come out that way.

He leveled me under his gaze. “No. I mean if something seems like it’s about to go down, get out of there.”

“I won’t leave Ana behind.”

“Ana knows she’s taking a risk. That’s why I’m there. If something happens, I can call the police. But don’t stick around.”

I didn’t argue further. It was pointless trying to explain my and Ana’s close bond, so instead I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Thank you for being here through all this.”

In response he kissed the top of my head and squeezed my hand.

“How do I look?” Ana asked, stepping out of the bathroom with the dramatic flair saved for those who possessed great confidence. She’d opted for a pair of designer blue jeans and a sparkly black-and-red va-va-voom top that did an amazing job of showing her cleavage. She’d curled her hair, clipping a small portion back, and wore a pair of sparkly red earrings to match the top.

“Total Bond Girl material,” I told her. “Bombshell all the way.”

“Good, that’s what I was going for.” She sat at the edge of her bed and pulled on a pair of patent leather black ballerina flats.

“No heels?” I asked.

“In the movies, the girl is always caught running in heels. One of them breaks, she stumbles, and is caught.”

“You won’t have to run,” I said, though the closer it drew to go time, the more I questioned our plan.

“Still,” she said, looking at me with an intensity I rarely saw from Ana. “Best to be prepared.”

“Do you want out?” John expressed his doubts earlier, and I certainly had mine. Ana would be crazy not to want to turn away at this point.

“Hell no, I don’t want out!”

Or not.

She stood in front of me, Rambo in lipstick, ready for war. “Look, my life is only getting more and more complicated by the day. Between balancing modeling and my relationship with Bobby and my friendship with you…do you know I hardly see Bobby anymore?”

I did know, but I didn’t tell her as much.

“Who knows where I’ll be tomorrow, or next month even.”

Milan
, I thought miserably.

“These adventures with you, I have to take them now or I might not have a chance. This is scary and dangerous, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive.”

“You ready, then?”

She took a breath and placed hands on her hips in a sexy pose. “I’m hot, right? I mean, we shouldn’t keep this poor chum waiting.”

“No we should not.”

I’d dressed up, too, but not as much. Black cowl-neck sweater, my only pair of designer blue jeans, Ugg boots—really, if I’d worn anything other than comfortable shoes Dee would have known something was up. We had to make Aunt Dee believe we were going out. So even though I was basically running surveillance in my car, I still dressed to party. Hell, I even debated on a scarf but decided that would fool no one. I only owned one and had never worn the sucker before in my life.

Downstairs, Aunt Dolores watched television in front of a blazing fire with a bowl of popcorn propped against her lap. “You girls headed out?” she asked without glancing in our direction. “Make sure to take your coats. It’s supposed to get cold tonight.”

“Cold like sixty?” I asked, always amazed at how fast people ran for cover at the slightest drop in temperature. Being generally hot-blooded myself, I always welcomed fall with open arms.

Now she looked. “No, we’re supposed to hit the low thirties tonight. They’re issuin’ an overnight freeze warnin’. Tomorrow isn’t supposed to get above forty, and it’ll be cold Sunday, too.”

We grabbed our coats from the stand by the door for good measure. “Love you,” she shouted from the couch.

I wanted to hug her again, but I didn’t want to draw suspicion. “We’ll be back later,” I assured her, hoping it was true.

The butterflies in my stomach spun and dove as if they belonged in Cirque de Soleil by the time we arrived at the bar. Ana and Tom were supposed to meet there before going off to the game. “You ready?” I asked as she straightened herself one last time.

“As I’ll ever be.” She dialed my number, and I picked up before she dropped her phone into her pocket. “I’m going to go meet Tom. If you can’t hear me okay, you’ll have to let me know before we leave the bar. You have their number, call and ask for me.”