Authors: Brandilyn Collins
Deceit (14 page)
“You look really great tonight,” Melissa told Linda. They stood side by side, Melissa watching as Linda poured two glasses of white wine. Linda herself never drank. Only fancy bottled water for her.
“Thanks, hon. So do you.”
Melissa looked down at her new clothes. “Yeah, well, thanks to
you
.”
Linda set down the wine glass and turned to face Melissa, her expression turning serious. “No, thanks to
you
. You’re beautiful no matter what clothes you’re wearing. True beauty comes from the inside. And you are beautiful on the inside, Melissa Harkoff.”
Melissa stared. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. For a crazy second she wanted to throw her arms around Linda. But the feeling blitzed away like fairy dust. Was this for real? Maybe Linda was aware she knew Baxter smacked his wife around in their bedroom. Maybe this was some silent plea for Melissa to keep her mouth shut.
“You’re beautiful inside too,” Melissa said. A calculated answer, meaning anything Linda needed it to mean.
Linda’s smile etched itself in pain. She gave Melissa a tight hug, as if the words meant more to her than Melissa could ever know. They stood there for a moment, Melissa trying not to feel too stiff. With an audible breath, Linda let her go. “Well. Better get back to those guests.” Her voice held that overbright ring Melissa had heard before. Linda picked up the wine glasses. “Bring in some cocktail napkins, okay?”
Melissa followed like the good foster daughter she was.
The fourth and final couple arrived a few minutes later. “So sorry,” Mrs. Drake breathed, raising both hands and spreading long fingers. Her hair was brown and curly. Her eyes looked tired, even though she couldn’t be much older than Linda. “Harry got a business call while we were walking out the door—on a Saturday. But you know how that goes.”
“I sure do.” Baxter grinned. “Come in, come in.”
Mr. Drake shook hands with Baxter, a smile stretched across his narrow face. Melissa tried to guess what he did for a living. Doctor? Another attorney?
Owner of a concrete company, Linda whispered.
Melissa had gone through the drill with Linda. Present plates from the left, remove from the right. Serve women first. Keep the wine flowing. Apparently Melissa did so well Linda had more time to sit and enjoy her guests than she usually did. Which left Melissa alone in the kitchen, ear cocked toward the dining room conversation as she rinsed dishes from each course.
“How’s the Enclave development going?” Sounded like Mr. Brewer’s voice.
“Fine, fine.” Mr. Sanyon. “No slowing down for us. So many people are wanting to move farther and farther out of San Jose. Vonita’s looking great to them, and so are the prices. Half the houses are sold already—most of’em by Baxter. And phase one won’t even be done for another three months.”
Melissa felt a swell of pride for Baxter. Probably no realtor in fifty miles came close to his sales.
“You developers, messin’ up my town,” Chief Eddington said. “More people will just mean more crime.”
“Ah, you love it, and you know it.” Baxter laughed. “Gives you something to do.”
“I’d rather retire.”
“Retire! You’re not even fifty yet.”
“All the more years to play golf.”
Mrs. Eddington chimed in. “As long as you finish playing by five and make me dinner.”
“Make dinner? That’s your job.”
“Not when I’m working and you’re not.”
Good for you
. Melissa smirked.
Mr. Eddington huffed. “Guess the town’s stuck with me as police chief, then.”
Mr. Brewer talked about some lawsuit he was leading against a San Jose real estate developer. People had bought homes that were never finished or built badly. Floors sagging. Front sidewalks cracking.
“Should’ve used Harry for those sidewalks.” Mrs. Drake’s voice.
“And if Ken were the developer, you wouldn’t be suing in the first place.” Another woman—Mrs. Sanyon. Ken must be her husband.
“Well, if the likes of present company ran this world, I’d be out of clients.” Mr. Brewer chuckled.
“Here, here,” Linda said.
Glasses and silverware clinked.
Interesting, the way all these people interconnected, Melissa thought as she set plates in the dishwasher. She’d pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Never figured she’d wear such ugly things, but as long as she was playing slave she didn’t want to ruin her manicure. Mr. Sanyon built the homes that Baxter sold. Mr. Drake probably did the concrete. Mr. Brewer was suing some competitor of Sanyon. And Sanyon’s development was drawing people to Vonita—which made Eddington chief over more people.
Was this the way the business world worked? The way adults with money worked? People helping others to help themselves. Do for me, and I’ll do for you.
Melissa wanted to be part of that world. Somebody with a good career who made lots of money. Somebody everyone would want to invite to a fancy dinner party. She’d show up in her silk dresses and diamonds. She’d throw around important names and projects between bites of honey-shrimp salad and prime rib au jus.
At that moment, her yellow-gloved hands holding a dirty plate, Melissa felt something crack within her. A feeling, a
knowledge
trickled out.
She was better than this.
Melissa stilled, caught by the sensation within herself. Yes. She
was
better. She really could forget her past. Forget her abuse and the ratty trailer and her mom’s live-in men with roving hands. Staying in this house as a lowly foster child wasn’t enough, even if the house belonged to Baxter Jackson. Melissa could
be
somebody. She’d be
better
than Linda. Not just some wife of a rich man who claimed she saw beauty on the inside. Melissa would make her own money. Live in her own place.
Maybe Baxter would help her go to college. She got good grades in high school. Why shouldn’t she pursue a higher education?
Melissa put down the plate and turned off the water. Voices chirped and chuckled from the dining room, but now she barely noticed. She focused out the window into the gorgeous backyard full of flowers and trees and green, green grass. A backyard tended twice a week by gardeners.
“You look stunning tonight.”
Baxter had seen something in her. She was born to live in a place like this. To live this kind of life.
Hope flamed within Melissa, so blazing and sudden she clutched the counter tile, barely able to breathe. For the first time she saw her childhood as a mere blip on the screen. It hadn’t ruined her. None of it, not even the death of her mother. It had strengthened and prepared her for the big world out there. She really could do anything she wanted. She could make things happen. All she had to do was go after it.
Tears biting her eyes, Melissa made a promise to herself. From this day forward no one, no circumstance, no setback would ever stand in her way.
FEBRUARY 2010
A cacophony of hammers startled me from sleep.
My body jerked. My bleary eyes flew open to behold my car windshield sheeted with rain. Some distance across the parking lot, my view of the Baptist Memorial Church warped and wavered. Drops pounded the roof of the SUV.
“Unh.” I blinked hard and checked my watch. Almost 3:00. What in the world? How could I have fallen asleep?
Sinking back against the headrest, I vaguely remembered doing that same thing after leaving the message for Melissa. I’d laid the prepaid cell phone on the passenger seat…
My head swiveled. The phone was still there. Along with the yellow pad and pen.
My body felt like a truck had hit it. I
had
to eat something. Real food.
My phone rang.
I bounced up straight, heart quivering. Only then did I realize it was my regular cell, not the prepaid. I dug it out of my purse and checked the incoming ID.
Private caller.
I stared at it. Should I answer?
The second ring stabbed my nerves. On the third one I hit
talk
. “Hello?”
“Joanne.” The unmistakable roughened voice of Hooded Man filled my ear.
My eyes fixated on the windshield, words sticking in my throat.
“I know you’re there.”
I swallowed. He was calling me now? Why hadn’t he called the first time, instead of stopping me on a deluged road?
“Are you doing what I told you?” he pressed.
“Were you at my house last night?”
“Why would I be at your house?”
“Someone slammed the garage back door. Just after the electricity went out.”
“Oh.
No.
I told you he would kill you if he found out.”
“But I didn’t tell
anyone
. I hadn’t even been home that long.”
Air seeped from his throat. “Then he doesn’t know, but he wants you dead anyway, after that newspaper article.”
Fear gripped my throat. No words would come.
“Don’t stay in your house tonight, Joanne.”
“Why won’t you tell me who you are?” My voice rose. “Why the mask? You’re a
coward
. Why should I listen to you?”
Silence throbbed in my ear. For a moment I thought he’d hung up.
“You’re right.” His voice hung low, grating. “I
am
a coward.”
My eyes closed. “Please tell me who you are.”
“You’re clearly in danger. Your only hope is to persuade Melissa to tell what she knows.
Are
you looking for her?”
“Yes, okay? Yes!” Perry’s words flashed in my mind—
“Do what you have to do.”
“Are you the only one who knows about this? Are there others with you?”
“You have to find her
now
.”
“I’m trying!” My fist pounded the steering wheel.
“You can’t spend another night in your house until you do.”
“What do you expect me to do, go on the run? You’re the one who got me into this. I should go to the police.”
“You can’t.” Hooded Man’s voice flattened.
“And just why not?”
I could hear him breathing.
“Tell me!”
“Because the chief’s in with Baxter.”
All air sucked from my lungs. I slumped back against the headrest, refusing to believe, knowing it was true. Chief Eddington had barely looked into Cherisse’s death.
But not everyone on the force was “in with Baxter.” The two policemen who’d come to my house last night had been helpful.
Or had they? What if they
had
seen evidence of a break-in and hadn’t told me? By the time I returned to the house the next day, footprints would have been long gone, erased by the rain.
“And don’t go to your sister’s,” Hooded Man warned.
“You leave Dineen out of this!”
“No,
you
leave her out. By not staying at her house.”
Did he know I’d stayed there last night?
My fingers curled around the cell phone. This was too much. I wanted to strangle this man. Because of some personal vendetta against Baxter, he’d used me as his perfect pawn. He’d played my sense of injustice, hung me out on a limb. Now there was no turning back. “
Why
did you do this to me?”
“Just. Find. Melissa.”
The line clicked.
“Wait! Are you there?” I thrust a hand in my scalp. “Don’t go!”
No response.
“Please!”
The emptiness echoed. I threw my cell phone on the floor and leaned over the steering wheel. Tears bit my eyes. What was I doing? How had I gotten here? This was
crazy
.
My cell rang, a different tone.
The prepaid.
My head jerked up. No, no, not
now
.
I picked up the phone as if it were a ticking bomb. Peered with blurry eyes at the ID.
Melissa Harkoff’s phone number filled the screen.
The prepaid cell phone rang a second time. I clutched it, breathless. For a horrific second I couldn’t remember the false name I’d given Melissa.
Rain pummeled my car. The air around me thickened with humid heat.
The phone rang a third time. I punched on the line.
“Janet White, UPS.” My heart banged. I fought to keep my voice steady.
“Hi, this is Melissa Harkoff. You called about some package?”
“Uh, yes. Let me just retrieve that paperwork.”
“You said it’s from Whidbye Realty.”
I sat up straighter. Picked up my yellow pad with the addresses I needed written upon it.
“Here it is. Yes, Whidbye Realty, 2415 W. Sharon Street. Addressed to Melissa Harkoff at 820 Willmott. You have an updated address?”
“How’d you get my phone number?” Suspicion nicked her tone.
“We always ask for the addressee’s number, just in case something like this happens.”
I rubbed a hand across my forehead. It came away wet.
“Oh.” Melissa was silent a moment. “What is it?”
“What’s in the package? I have no idea. I just work for the delivery service.”
“I don’t know why they’d be sending me anything.”
“Miss Harkoff, do you want the package or not?”
“I don’t…
What
is that noise?”
I threw a look out the windshield and winced. “It’s raining hard. This building’s roof sounds like tin.”
Melissa paused. “I used to work at Whidbye.” She spoke the words as if thinking out loud.
“Maybe they’re sending you some personal items you left. Who knows? What’s your address, please?”
Silence.
“Miss Harkoff, I don’t have all day.”
“When will I get it?”
“Today
, if you’ll just tell me where to deliver it.”
She breathed a sigh, indecision wafting over the line. I wanted to reach across cyberspace and pull the information from her tongue.
Come on, Melissa.
“Okay. It’s 264 South Anniston. In San Jose.”
I grabbed my pen. “Two-sixty-four South Anniston.” I jotted it down on the yellow pad. “Will you be home?”
“Why would you ask that?”
Not good. “If you’re not home, is there a porch to leave the package on, where it’ll be safe from the rain?”