Nobody's Angel (32 page)

“I'm entering a monastery as soon as I figure out how to escape this nuthouse,” he grumbled, flinging open the passenger door and gesturing for them to climb in.

“We'll visit.” Refusing the front bench seat, Faith opened the rear door, leaving Dolores to sit with her brother. She did so, reluctantly.

“What's this all about?” Dolores demanded once the car was under way.

“Ask Faith. I'm just the dumb male here. What do I know?”

“Are your grades good enough at school that you can afford to skip today, or should we come back for you after school?” Not to be forced into anything, Faith sounded out the situation. Years of pacifying Tony had given her a few talents, anyway.

“I have a test today, but I don't see any reason to take it. I don't need school.”

“She's testing your temper, Adrian, so keep it canned,” Faith warned. “When I was sixteen, I decided I'd never be the beloved daughter my sister had been, and I ran away, too. Dolores probably had a better excuse than I ever did.”

Dolores glanced over her shoulder with her first display of interest. “Where did you go?”

“I didn't have any money and couldn't go anywhere. I tried hitchhiking, hoping to reach my grandmother's. The police picked me up and I spent a night in jail.”

Adrian hooted. “Miss Dilworth spent a night in jail? Did Tony know that? That might have shot down his political aspirations.”

“Shut up, Adrian.”

Dolores giggled.

“Let's get this back on track. Take Dolores back to school so she can take her test.” She was winging this, interfering where she had no right, but if she couldn't have kids of her own, she might as well mess up someone else's. Somebody had to do something, and Adrian's mother didn't need this
burden. Before Dolores could poker up and refuse, Faith offered the carrot. “Adrian is trying to find the guy who helped frame him and who took the money. That woman who came to your house the other night might know some things we need to know, but she won't tell us. If we fix you up so she doesn't recognize you, do you think you could help?”

Dolores blinked in disbelief. “You want me to talk to that slut?”

“Good Catholic girls don't use words like ‘slut,’ ”Adrian said dryly.

“Shut up, Adrian,” they both replied in unison, and the tension unexpectedly broken, laughter filled the van.

“One night of sex and you turn into a manipulating, demanding bitch,” Adrian griped as they left Dolores at the high school. “And don't you dare tell me to shut up again.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Raphael, sir,” Faith answered meekly from the seat beside him.

He could hear her muffled laughter and bit back a grin. He wanted to throttle her but couldn't. Her way of doing things was far more effective than his would have been.

“What the devil do you think Dolores can do with Sandra? She's a kid. She doesn't understand anything.”

“She's sixteen, going on sixty, and she understands a lot more than you give her credit for. She may not react appropriately to what she understands, but she isn't dumb.”

She reached over to pat his thigh, and his libido shot skyward. He'd hoped to work some of this out of his system so he could think clearly, but it was obvious thinking clearly in Faith's presence wouldn't happen in his lifetime. “I don't want the kids involved,” he warned. “This is my problem. She has enough of her own.”

“I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't work that way. You want Dolores to step into your mother's place, accept an adult's responsibility, then you have to treat her as an adult and let her decide if she wants to be involved in what is, after all, a family problem. It's affecting the whole family, Adrian. Can't you see that?”

He didn't want to see that. He was the eldest. He took care of things. His stepfather would have wanted it that way.

He'd felt worthwhile and useful when he was doing the providing. He felt like a piece of garbage now.

“Hell, I can't see anything clearly,” he admitted. “I just want this over so I can pick up what pieces are left and go on.” He wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but he'd always been a greedy, arrogant piece of shit. He knew he'd really hit bottom when he was agreeing with his worst enemies. Hell, maybe
he
was his own worst enemy.

“You're not Superman. You can't do everything. We need to find out if Tony really was diverting funds through a firm you didn't know about. We need to find out who knows about the fund. Sandra is our only starting place, unless you want to go back to canvassing banks. I need to put together those bank letters again while we're at it.”

“All right, we'll go to the library. You can compose them again, print them out, and we'll take it to the copy store.”

Faith seemed to relax as he gave up his plan of trapping the stalker. Maybe she cared just a little. It didn't mean anything, couldn't mean anything, but right now he needed one person in this world who didn't think he was a piece of shit. He couldn't believe he'd fooled a woman as smart as Faith, but it gave him reason to stay grounded.

Faith reformatted and repeated the letters she had drawn up earlier. While they were printing, she hovered over Adrian's shoulder, watching his on-line manipulations.

“If Tony had any accounts at these places, they're not letting me find them,” he complained. “Hard to come up with a password if we don't even know there's an account.”

“Ummm.” She sounded hesitant. “It occurred to me that if the bad guy is Tony's broker, he could do anything he wanted with the money if he thought Tony dead and no one else aware of it.”

“Now she tells me.” Adrian threw up his hands in disgust and shut down the computer. “So what exactly is our agenda here? He doesn't need us if he already has access to the account.”

“Maybe it's not the broker?” she suggested. “Maybe someone else knows of the account but has no authority over it?”

“And they think you do?” He wanted to sound skeptical, but that's what he'd thought when he went after her.

“They're obviously after me. They think I have
something
.”

“You have the bank keys, but you're the only one who can use them.”

“Unless …” She leaned her lovely silk-covered rear end on the computer desk and stuck a fingertip between her luscious lips, and he had to fight to keep from pulling her on his lap.

She brought him back to the real world with a sharp look. “Unless the ‘he’ was a ‘she’ and she's as good at forging my name as yours.”

“Oh, shit.” He slumped back in the tiny chair the library provided. “You're not suggesting that barmy little bookkeeper Tony kept—”

“I'm not suggesting anything,” she said curtly. “Let's have these letters copied and devise some way of questioning Sandra. She has to know something.”

“With her hair back, wearing a business suit and heels, she'll look old enough,” Faith protested, pinning up what there was of Dolores's hair to show the effect.

“She's a kid!” Adrian shouted, pacing his mother's front room while various of his siblings sprawled across chairs, watching as if this were pay TV. “She looks like a kid. She doesn't know anything about investments and insurance. She'll sound like a kid.”

“Act-u-al-ly,” Dolores drawled haughtily, “our class invested in the stock market last year and did quite well. I bet I know more than you do about stocks.”

“Considering I never owned any, you're damned right.” Adrian glared at Hernando, who'd commandeered his chair. The ten-year-old giggled and scrambled up on the arm. So much for scaring some sense into anyone.

“If Sandra thinks she'll get money out of it, she'll answer
anything. I would if I had three kids to raise and their bastard of a father left me no way to take care of them.”

“One should not say such words in front of the little ones,” a soft voice protested from the doorway.

“Mama!” several voices yelled at once. Little Ines leaped from behind a table and raced to capture her mother's legs, nearly toppling her. The others were a little more respectful, standing to offer the best chairs in the room.

“Mama, you shouldn't be out of bed.” Adrian gently took her arm and led her to the big upholstered recliner, helping her into it and covering her legs with an old afghan.

“I am not helpless,” she said with dignity, sitting up straight. “I can sit here and watch my little ones, and they will look after me.” She nodded in Faith's direction. “Dolores tells me you make my headstrong son behave. You will keep him out of any more trouble?”

She reduced him to the age of three with words like that. Adrian growled, but Faith dipped her head politely, acknowledging the responsibility his mother laid on her. She had no business accepting any responsibility for him, but he liked that she didn't argue with the irritating old woman.

He brushed a kiss across his mother's thin hair, and she slapped his arm. “Dolores needs a man to teach her to respect herself. You take care of her.”

“Yes, Mama.” With resignation, he nodded toward the hallway. “Dolores, let Faith go with you to help you choose what to wear. We'll rehearse the questions on the way out there.”

Faith hesitated. “Perhaps I ought to stay here to help.…”

His mother waved away the suggestion. “Belinda will be here later, and Elena can start supper. There are plenty enough to help.” She pointed at the twins. “You two, you should be cleaning the kitchen before your sisters arrive. Off with you now.”

The boys looked tentatively to Adrian for help, but he merely raised his eyebrows expectantly. Maybe Faith had the right idea. Shouting and glaring didn't have much effect.

Maybe the silent treatment would keep them guessing. They slid off the couch and dragged into the other room.

“See, we are fine,” his mother said softly. “Go with your lady. Clear up your trouble, and do not worry so much about us.”

He would always worry about them. It wasn't in his nature to do otherwise. But watching Faith lead Dolores off to the bedroom, he wondered how he would train himself not to worry about Faith once this was over. She'd become a part of him he didn't want to let go, but she had another life that didn't include him, couldn't include him. She'd fare much better on her own—if he could just convince his towering ego of that.

Faith watched with jaded wisdom as Dolores bounced up and down in the front seat. Adrian had ignored her since she'd brought his sister out in her best Sunday suit, with Do-lores's irregular hair slicked back and hidden in a silk scarf of their mother's. The multiple earrings had been scaled down to a sophisticated gold pair from Faith's collection, and the tattoo was hidden behind long sleeves. The platform heels were a little incongruous, but neither of them could come up with anything better. Adrian had growled something like approval, claimed the car keys, and stalked out to the van.

Faith didn't know why she should care if he ignored her. He'd gotten what he wanted last night, and obviously his concentration had returned to clearing his name. She shouldn't expect more than that. He needed to apply his attention to his family again. She wholeheartedly approved, but couldn't help it if she felt left out.

“Can Elena and I really go back to cheerleading?” Dolores pestered.

Well, they couldn't expect a teenager to behave like anything else but a teenager. Their concerns teetered between child and adult with reckless abandon. Dolores had some catching up to do on the child part.

“If they still want you on the squad, I'll see what I can do,” Adrian agreed, not taking his gaze off the busy highway.

With the cost of uniforms, and travel, cheerleading was a hideously expensive sport, and that didn't count the loss of Dolores's fast-food job to keep up with it. Adrian would have to live at the pottery, painting dishes to earn just a portion of what he needed to help his family. Faith wondered about the legality of giving Tony's money to this family her husband had robbed of four years of Adrian's life. Maybe she shouldn't have so hastily locked it up in a trust.

Dolores glanced down at the official-looking printed form of questions in her lap. “What if she doesn't believe I'm an insurance agent and won't answer any of these?”

“Then you thank her politely, tell her you'll get back with her, and leave. Don't try anything smart. I don't think Sandra is dangerous, but we have no way of knowing who she's hanging out with these days.”

Faith could tell Adrian hated letting his sister do this. He probably hated knowing Dolores was almost grown up as well. He'd simply learned from birth that men ought to protect their women. She'd fallen for that nonsense with Tony, and look where it got her. She'd have to straighten out Adrian's thinking.

But she had no right to straighten out his thinking, and men weren't likely to change because a woman told them to. She sat back and glared at the traffic flashing past. The sooner she removed herself from Adrian's life, the better off she would be.

Caught in rush hour traffic, it was after six before they reached the exit to Sandra's house. But they'd already discussed that. If Sandra was working, she was more likely to be home now, feeding her kids. They drove past the mobile home, noted the lights on and the Explorer in the drive, and pulled into a gas station parking lot down the road.