Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (106 page)

“You know damn well in this mess it could be an hour.”

“We know you’re upset, Mr. Ziffkin. Just try to be patient and remain calm. Would you like something cold to drink?”

“Yeah.” He hunched his shoulders and told himself this wasn’t their fault. No, he knew whose fault it was.

As he took the cold Coke Robinson’s Hispanic partner brought him and Ileana from the restaurant, Michael idly noted dirt on Ileana’s slacks. The knee had a tear in it. When had that happened? He noticed her pallor.

“Why don’t you sit down?” he told her.

“When you do,” she responded.

Michael turned away. She was using the compassion he so admired in her against him. She didn’t realize it wouldn’t work this time. She was too big a risk now. It could have been her. If he allowed her into his life, one day it would be her. And he’d be like Jamal, wishing he’d died instead of Desiree.

It seemed like forever before someone laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“Michael.” Rick’s voice nearly drove him to his knees.

Michael turned. Rick’s face held compassion and concern.

Something shook loose inside of Michael. “Someone killed my assistant, Desiree, just like someone killed Billy. There were hundreds of people around us. It could have been anyone.”

Rick slid his arm around Michael’s shoulders. This wasn’t right. Michael was the big brother, not Rick. But they’d stood like this many times in their lives.

“Is any of that blood on you yours?” Rick asked.

Michael shook his head. “No. It’s hers. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t save her.”

“It happens sometimes. Arteries are like that.”

“It was my fault. I brought her down here into this mess.”

“You didn’t know someone would have a gun.”

“There’s always some nut with a gun. They’re everywhere.”

“And you’re sure it was a celebrant?”

Michael frowned at his brother. “What?”

“You’re sure it wasn’t that other matter?”

Michael went ice cold. He turned to face Rick fully. “You mean I was the target?” His lips felt numb.

“Maybe. Or if they know Desiree worked with you, maybe she was the target. Or there’s another possibility.” Rick looked pointedly at Ileana, whose eyes widened.

Michael felt like he’d been sucker punched. He could barely catch his breath. He doubled over.

“Michael!” Both Rick and Ileana called his name.

Oh God, oh God. It could have been Ileana. “Get her out of here! Get her away from me.”

“You might have been the target,” Rick said.

“You don’t know that.”

“She’s a witness the same as you. Until we process the scene, we need her here.”

Michael straightened, his eyes darting around. The crowd was still thick. He, Ileana, Rick, and the patrol officers stood in a small pocket by themselves—perfect targets.

“Jesus, Rick, we’re sitting ducks out here!”

“I don’t think anybody is stupid enough to fire into three police officers to get either of you. If that’s what happened here.”

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spook you. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of all the scenarios.”

“I’m aware now.” Hyper aware, in fact. Michael felt jittery waiting for the sound of another gunshot. And this one might have Ileana’s name on it.

No gunshots disturbed the investigation, despite Michael’s taut nerves. The homicide detectives assigned to the closest precinct arrived, and together with Rick, went over the chain of events. Michael and Ileana were questioned again, and to Michael’s great relief, Desiree’s body was sent to the morgue.

He was walking with Rick towards the parking lot when Ileana waylaid him. “Michael, we need to talk.”

“I can’t. I have to meet Desiree’s boyfriend at the morgue.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. Jamal doesn’t know you. It’s going to be hard enough for him without a stranger being present.”

“I thought you might need me.”

“That’s not necessary.”

Ileana looked pointedly at Rick, and Rick stepped out of hearing range. “I’ll come over later, then.”

“No, I don’t know how long I’ll be with Jamal.”

Ileana got that familiar determined look on her face. “I’m not going to let you throw away what we have because you’re afraid.”

“It could have been you.” The words were tortured.

Ileana flinched.
But it wasn’t
. The words died on her lips. That didn’t matter to Michael right now.

“You’re going to have to talk to me sometime.”

No, it was better this way. He headed for his car.

Rick rejoined him, glancing over his shoulder at Ileana. “What the hell are you doing, bro? Yesterday you were all over each other. Today you’re giving her the brush-off?”

“Stay out of it.”

“I can’t. It’s the Billy thing all over again, isn’t it? Somebody you cared about died and you’re pushing everyone else away.”

“Shut up, Rick.”

“You’re making a mistake. You shouldn’t be making important decisions when you’re shook up.”

“I’m thinking pretty damn clear right now.”

“You’re not. You saw somebody you cared about killed today. You felt threatened yourself. You were afraid for the woman you love.”

“I don’t love her,” Michael denied instantly.

“Sorry. It looked like it to me.”

“We’re not in love.” Couldn’t be. Mustn’t be, for her safety and his sanity.

“Okay then. The woman you’re sleeping with. You were and still are afraid for her. Pushing her away is the wrong thing to do.”

“It’s the only thing to do.”

“You’ve always been bullheaded. Now you’re just being stupid.” Rick stormed off.

Michael slid into his hot car. With the traffic snarl still out front, he had no hope of keeping cool. What Rick said didn’t help either. Anger smoldered inside him. His brother didn’t understand. Billy’s death had ripped a huge hole inside Michael. Now Desiree’s death had blasted another one. He couldn’t take another savaging.

By the time he reached the morgue, he wondered if Jamal would still be there. But Michael was directed to a room where his friend stood beside Desiree’s body. Michael hesitated at the door. Jamal needed time alone.

But his friend looked up from his lover’s body. Tears traced his lean cheeks and welled in his brown eyes. His short dreadlocks were tied back from his handsome African-American face. His straight proud nose and full lips had made plenty of women chase him in their college days together. But in the past half-decade, he’d seen only one woman.

Michael went to his friend and slid an arm around Jamal’s shoulders.

Jamal scrubbed at his face. “How did this happen?”

Michael told him what he knew, including why they’d been there. He noted Jamal’s attention riveted to the dried blood on Michael’s hands as he spoke. Jamal’s shoulders shook with sobs.

Michael ended with, “I’m so sorry.”

Jamal stroked Desiree’s forearm. “I want to be angry at you for taking her into that mess. I want to hate you for taking away the best thing in my life.”

“You should be angry at me. This was my fault.”

“No. You didn’t shoot the gun. It’s not your fault.”

“She depended on me to make intelligent decisions. I didn’t.”

“She was so happy working for you. It’s like she came alive with the work. She wanted to know everything about import-export.”

“She was very good at her job. I was going to promote her.”

Jamal looked at Michael. “She would have liked that. We were talking about trying for another baby.”

“I was going to take her on my next buying trip overseas and to Singapore.”

Jamal frowned as he stared at Desiree. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“We just talked about it today.”

“So you were running off with my girlfriend.”

“She wanted you to join her in Singapore. Maybe to start work on making that new baby.” And Michael had ruined it for them.

“I would have liked that.” Jamal choked. “She filled up so much space in my life. How can I go on with the emptiness where she used to be?”

Michael held his friend while he cried. Michael felt horrible for doing this to him.

Jamal wiped his eyes. “I have to tell Tyrell.”

“Where is he?”

“At the sitter’s. I called her and she said she’d keep him as long as necessary.” Jamal caressed Desiree’s mussed curls. “I don’t even know what arrangements to make. We never talked about something like this happening. Why would we?”

“Maybe do for her whatever you want for yourself.”

“I think...burial...for Tyrell’s sake. So he has a place to go to remember her. Maybe for me, too.” Tears leaked slowly down Jamal’s face.

“That sounds good. You’ll want a service of some kind, won’t you?”

“Her mom’ll want one. We’ll talk about it when she gets here.” Jamal drew in a gasping breath. “Yeah. To celebrate her life, what we loved about her.”

That philosophy differed from Michael’s. Weren’t funerals to mourn what you’d lost? “You’re going to celebrate?”

“I don’t want to stand around and be sad. Desiree would have hated that. Sure, I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest, but that’s because the love we shared was so wonderful, so life-affirming. I was blessed to have her for as long as I did.”

Michael couldn’t understand. “But it hurts so much. How can you stand it?”

“I can bear it because I have those other memories—the good ones. She filled every corner of my life with joy and wonder. She made me a bigger man because she filled those spaces. I want to shout it to the world what she was to me. I wouldn’t trade the time we had together just because it hurts now. Yeah, I wish her back again. But I wouldn’t wish I’d never met her.”

Jamal smiled tearfully at Desiree. He laid his hand on her cheek, bent and kissed her lips. “I love you, girl. I love you.”

He let Michael lead him away to the lobby where they waited for Desiree’s mother to arrive.

“I should have married her,” Jamal murmured out of the blue. “Then I would have been her next of kin. We lived together four years, and yet I have no rights with her.”

“You said you wanted to live together first, to make sure it lasted.”

“That was years ago. Obviously it lasted. I should have asked her. Hell, we were gonna have a second child. Of course I should have asked her. We couldn’t have been more committed.”

“We all have regrets.”

“Yeah, at least I had someone to love. You haven’t even had that.”

Michael didn’t have to reply, because an African-American woman who looked a lot like Desiree came through the doors and began to cry as she spotted Jamal. He went to her immediately and they held one another tightly.

Family, Michael thought. Jamal didn’t need to be married to Desiree to be a part of her family. They would draw together now, including Jamal in their mourning and celebration. They would give one another strength.

It was an amazing revelation. Ileana had said something similar. Had Michael and his brothers done the wrong thing by pulling away from each other to mourn privately? Was pain shared really pain halved? Could they have celebrated Billy’s time with them instead of being frozen at the moment of his death, unable to move past it?

Michael felt shaken inside. He was too afraid of more pain to reach out again, but Ileana had already gotten under his skin. He didn’t even have to stretch far to reach her. How badly did he want Ileana in his life? Badly enough to go through the pain he’d felt when Billy was killed—only much worse? The thought made Michael feel physically ill. To see Ileana on a metal gurney like the one Desiree was on...God, he couldn’t do it.

But what if she didn’t die young and tragically? What if she lived to be an old woman with white hair and great grandchildren—his and hers?

There were no guarantees in life.

And would she stay if he asked her to? Could she give up her life’s dream and her family for him?

Could he risk it?

• • •

Ileana returned to the safety and familiarity of her family. She didn’t understand Michael’s response to pain. The rest of the Cuban population seemed to have gone mad, but in her parents’ house she found the Calderons celebrating dinner quietly.

“Ileana, where have you been all day?” her father demanded as she entered the kitchen. “There was much to do at work. I do not like your going off during the day.”

Her mother got a good look at Ileana’s torn and dirty slacks. She gasped. “Ileana, what happened to you?”

“There was a shooting in Little Havana. I’d gone there for lunch.”

“We heard about it. Thank God you were not hurt.” Her mother crossed herself.

Ileana was enveloped in motherly concern. Her mother pushed her into a chair and poured her a small amount of
café Cubano
in a glass. “Drink. You have had a shock.”

Ileana sipped the fiery liquor.

“Your
abuela
heard it from a friend who heard it from her son that a black woman was killed.” Her mother fluttered around Ileana, setting a plate with rice and beans in front of her.

“Her name was Desiree Carver. I was standing beside her.”

“
Madre de Dios
! You could have been killed!”

The echo of Michael’s words made Ileana flinch. “I know, Mamá. I had to give a statement to the police about what I’d seen.”

“It could not have been a Cuban who shot her,” her father said staunchly.

“Why not, Papá? You didn’t see the frenzy down there, and nearly everyone I saw looked Cuban.”

“Cubans are happy to be leaving this country. They would not shoot guns into a crowd and risk hurting family so close to our rescue.”

“Papá, there are bad Cubans as well as good Cubans. You’ve got to stop this racist superiority. It’s frowned upon in America.”

“Then it is lucky we are going back home.”

“No, Papá. I heard on the news just now that Castro simply had surgery. That’s why he turned over power to his brother. He’s not dying or dead.”

“We have heard no such report,” her father blustered.

Ileana pushed back her chair and strode to the nearest radio, which she knew would be programmed to a Cuban station. The announcer was saying, “The message, attributed to Castro, said, ‘I’m sorry to have worried so many of my friends. I am in very good spirits, and the important thing is that everything is moving perfectly well in the country and will continue to do so.’”