You Don't Know Me (19 page)

“Damned if I know,” he admitted tersely. “I’ve got some questions that need to be answered. Your sister couldn’t seem to put the pieces together for me.”

“My sister?” Hayley asked cautiously.

“Denise Scott. She didn’t know Thomas Daniels was dead, either.” His voice suggested he thought they were both telling a few fibs. “You’re not going to try and tell me she’s from Indiana and you’re not sisters, are you?”

“I guess not.” Okay, she
had
thought about it. “So how’d you find me?”

“She gave me your address. I followed you. Stanbury’s by day, Hollywood Boulevard by night.” He shrugged.

“Oh, yeah, like you’re shocked?” A small voice inside her head clamored to be heard. The voice of her innocence. A voice that wanted to scream, “I’m just acting! It’s just an act!”

She staunched the voice. Hell, if she was going to tell him anything.

“I think I have a good case against you,” she pointed out, then said in a teary voice, “He forced me into his car against my will and brought me to a strange location . . .” She waited, gesturing to her surroundings.

“His apartment,” he filled in.

She clucked her tongue. “His apartment. And there forced me to . . .” Again she waited for him to offer an answer.

“Talk about a man whom I believe beat and forced me and my sisters into sexual acts against their will.”

That door at the end of her mind’s hall creaked open. “No,” she spat through her teeth. “No.”

“A man whose actions may have directly led to my entering the world of prostitution.”

“I’m no goddamned prostitute.”

There. It was out. Better than talking about Daniels.

“You’re a wannabe actress.”

Hayley blinked. He knew. The bastard knew all along!

“The manager at Stanbury’s has quite a lot to say about you.”

“Jason!”

“Why are you doing this?” He flicked a look at her outfit.

Hayley wasn’t one to make friends or trust anyone, especially anyone male, but for some strange reason she felt a need for companionship. “Buy me a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you.”

He gestured toward the fourplex, brows raised in question.

“I need neutral territory,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Some hooker,” he muttered, but he held the passenger door for her and Hayley, wondering what demon possessed her, slid into the seat.

 

 

The place was loud, small, and densely packed with people. Hayley was grateful. No one paid a bit of interest in the way she was dressed. But it sure played havoc with their ability to hear each other, and as the evening wore on she learned she desperately wanted to hear what Mr. Connor Jackley had to say.

He
was
an ex-cop. She learned very quickly that the man didn’t bother to lie. He was, what he was. She also learned he wanted Thomas Daniels’s killer and nothing, and no one, would distract him.

By coincidence, it seemed, he’d been in Wagon Wheel shortly after Daniels’s body was discovered. His
nephew
had found it, for God’s sake, and Connor, at the urging of Sheriff Gus Dempsey, a personal friend, was making inquiries in Los Angeles while the investigation proceeded—molasses slow, if Hayley read correctly between the lines—back in Oregon.

Hayley learned more by what he didn’t say than by what he did. Connor Jackley wanted Daniels’s killer. He believed that Hayley, Denise, or Dinah (or all of them together) were either personally responsible or, at the very least, involved. Greater Wagon Wheel apparently considered Denise, the most successful sister, and the one with the wildest reputation, the prime suspect.

Jackley, for his part, cagily kept his feelings about Denise to himself. But his very caginess spoke volumes. Hayley knew what it meant. A conquest. A score. Another notch for her unfairly beautiful older sister.

Mr. Jackley had a
thing
for Denise.

“She wasn’t all that informative,” he told her, when she questioned him about his interview with Denise.

“There’s a surprise.”

He nodded, his lashes narrowing thoughtfully. She knew he was remembering Denise. Her lushness. Her weakness. Her irresistibility.

“Did you sleep with her?” she asked, hoping to sound matter-of-fact.

He merely smiled, letting her know in his inimical way that he wasn’t going to play that game. Hayley decided he hadn’t slept with her. Not yet, anyway.

“Just bide your time,” she counseled. “She’s promiscuous as hell. Can’t help herself, really.”

“She didn’t strike me that way at all.”

He was baiting her. Putting her on. Expecting her to open up, bare her soul, and tell the tragic tale of the Scott sisters.

Wishing fervently that she hadn’t marked him with her raking claws, she decided to give him a little something.

“Once upon a time there were three sisters who plotted to murder their stepfather. The oldest one—the smart one—didn’t want to do it. Too dangerous. Sure, he deserved to die, but let it be someone else’s problem.

“The second one was too screwed up to make a plan. She spent all her time digging herself out of her last mistake. Trouble followed her like a little black cloud, but she made it to the big time anyway.”

“And the youngest sister?” he asked, when she hesitated.

The door swung wider, a black hole beyond. Dread ran through her like scalding liquid.

“The youngest sister is glad he’s dead,” she said slowly. “She hopes he really is dead, but it seems impossible.”

“He really is dead.” Jackley was quiet, sober, intense.

“Then let’s leave him that way,” she whispered, not caring whether he could hear or not.

They spent another hour at the coffee shop, neither bringing up again the reason they were together. For an investigator, Mr. Jackley was one patient man.

“Pay the bill, Jack, and take me home,” Hayley muttered into the relative quiet of the now half-empty room. It was late and her throat ached from conversing at the top of her lungs.

He grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“My nephew calls me Jack.”

“Uncle Jack?” she asked, grimacing, knowing it had to be true.

He lifted his palms in acknowledgment and Hayley groaned.

“Yeah. Well. Tell me all about your Brady Bunch extended family another time. I’m tired, and I’ve got to face Jason early tomorrow.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

His hand lightly touched the small of her back as he held open the door and guided her from the late-night coffee bar. Long after she was in bed, the lights out, the memory of that slight touch lingered like a sweet melody you couldn’t forget, or the scent of perfume that conjured up images of a certain time or place.

Hayley wasn’t much for self-diagnosis. She set goals and went for them. Period. Life was a challenge.

But tonight the memory of Connor Jackley’s presence was a real, living thing that wouldn’t let her rest. In a way she’d never understood before, she understood now. She was attracted to him. Truly, deeply attracted. The mystery of physical magnetism was now solved and it had a name: Connor Jackley, late of the L.A.P.D.

“An ex-cop,” she muttered aloud in disgust. “Wouldn’t you know.”

And he had a thing for her ever-more-popular sister.

 

 

She’d taken the pill and slept away the early evening. Surfacing around nine
P.M.
, Denise realized she was still lying on the couch. She staggered to her feet, resenting the fuzziness of her brain.

“Lambert?” she called, but the house was empty. Barring Lina, that is, because she lived in the maid’s rooms above the garage.

Wandering out to that garage, Denise checked out Lambert’s stable of cars. Three of them. A bloodred Maserati. A Mercedes. And a late-model blue Ford sedan—the kind used by surveillance operatives, cheating husbands, and people of all colors, creeds, and genders who want to blend into the woodwork.

And the keys were inside.

“You are under the influence,” she told herself, but she slid into the driver’s seat anyway. She had to see John and her cheating sister. Only, Dinah wouldn’t cheat on her. No way. Her twin was too careful. Too smart.

Denise eased into traffic aware that a) she had to drive slowly or risk an accident and b) she had to drive fast enough not to draw attention to herself. She was so immersed in her driving, in fact, that the miles cruised beneath her tires and before she could believe it was possible, she was on the last turns to the Malibu house.

Her head was clearer. Not
clear,
but clearer. She congratulated herself on her skill behind the wheel. No lousy traffic cops had pulled her over. She was here and she felt marvelous.

Except for that headache behind her eye. And a crummy all-over feeling of anxiety that Connor Jackley had stirred up.

The gates loomed in front of her and she suffered a bad moment when she wondered whether John had changed the code. But punching out his birthday on the keypad sent the wrought-iron sentinels swinging backward. Quickly, Denise jumped back in the car and drove inside.

The house was dark, not even a light left on to confuse prowlers. Dinah had to be out, Denise realized, because the only reason the house would be dark was if she were sleeping, and she would never go to bed this early. Her sister, like herself, was a bit of a night owl.

That sobered her up in a hurry.

Drawing several deep breaths, she tried to hang on to her self-control, then gave up in a rush of fury and betrayal. She ran for the front door and lay on the bell. The chimes rang maniacally, over and over, as her finger jammed the button incessantly.

Nothing.

Slowly, Denise realized the house was empty. No Dinah. No John. Maybe they were together somewhere. Maybe they weren’t.

There was another keypad near the garage but when she pressed that code nothing happened. So John cared a little bit about security after all.

“Damn.” She’d given her only house key to Dinah.

There was a window at the back of the house that never latched properly. And she knew the alarm system would be turned off; too many mistakes while she’d lived with John had prompted him to dismantle it.

“Let ’em rob us!” he’d hollered. “It’s better than having the police driving over here every time you forget to disarm the damn thing!”

Yanking on the window, she felt the latch slip. Crawling inside, she was enveloped in smells and memories that reminded her of John and the few months of happiness they’d shared.

But that was because John was doing that Gentry bitch.

Except he hadn’t been.

She couldn’t remember.

Covering her ears, Denise stumbled through the dark, banging her shin so hard on a table she howled with pain.

Swearing, she switched on the living room light, disdainful of leaving traces of her break-in. Let ’em know she was here. Too damn bad.

She wandered around the upstairs, flipping on lights, examining rooms. To her surprise, Dinah had chosen the guest room.

How did she explain that? Denise wondered vaguely.

John’s room was unoccupied. It looked exactly as it had when she’d left and possessed that same empty, unlived-in sense.

He’s not living here,
she realized in surprise.

Back downstairs, she shook her head, waiting for the cobwebs to clear, praying for a spell of lucidity. But depression dogged her like an uninvited guest and she found herself standing in the office, staring at John’s belongings in the room he loved best.

The thunder egg paperweight caught the light, its inner core of crystals glistening opulently, like some rich mine where gems encrusted every inch of the walls.

Denise picked it up, judged its weight in her hands, then suddenly panicked over what Lambert might do to her if he found out she’d stolen his car.

Driving like a madwoman, she made it back to Beverly Hills in record time, screeching to a halt in the garage, her heart thundering in her chest. Then she ran inside and waited in the darkness.

A lamp was on down the hall. She walked slowly toward it, a prisoner approaching the firing squad. But unlike Dinah, Lambert had left a light on.

She was alone.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she glanced down at the thunder egg still in her possession, then she cradled it to her chest and closed her eyes. She had a piece of John. Tomorrow, tomorrow she would plan her next move to win him back, but for tonight she had a little piece of him.

Crawling into Lambert’s huge, fluffy bed, she cuddled the thunder egg as if it were a baby, and dreamed that everything was going to be all right now.

 

Dinner out with His Highness. He’d extended the invitation and she’d turned him down, but then, while she’d been editing her latest column, she’d been so finely attuned to his presence in the house that she hadn’t got a damn thing done anyway. He’d managed to invade every bit of breathing space even if he wasn’t actually in the room with her. So she’d buckled, and they’d spent a miserable two hours together.

She’d said next to nothing, picking at her food and worrying herself sick that he would realize the impossible: she was not his ex-wife. Not that he had much to say. She guessed he was as sorry as she was that they’d tried this exercise in futility.

Now they were driving back in his Land Rover. The situation was intolerable. She was near breaking point and far too aware of his masculinity. It seemed to seep into her pores. The seductive, musky way he smelled. The easy way he moved. The quirk of a smile. The storm of anger and puzzlement in his deadly blue eyes. The lean, good-looking overall maleness he exuded like a potent chemical meant to inflame her senses.

And inflame them he did.

Desire ate away at her like a cancer and Dinah could do nothing about it.

“The gate’s open,” John said in surprise as they turned off the main road.

“You left it open.”

“Nope.” He shook his head.

This was more conversation than either of them had made all evening. Dinah slid him a sideways look. She didn’t believe all those things about him anymore. Things Denise had said. Lies meant to make her look better. Or maybe Denise believed them herself, but Dinah definitely did not.

Still, Callahan was dangerous. Dangerous to her. And there was no way to rectify the situation. None at all.

“My God!” he muttered, and Dinah snapped to attention. Lights blazed in every window. “Robbers?” he asked, baffled, sliding the Land Rover to a halt thirty feet from the house.

“What kind of robbers leave on the lights?”

He shook his head, jumped from the Land Rover, and strode toward the house.

“Wait! Wait!” Dinah scrabbled for the door handle, scared. “What are you, crazy? They could have
guns!
Stop!”

He hesitated only briefly, then tried the front door. With an inscrutable look back at Dinah, he pulled out his key and gently pushed open the door. She held her breath. Her pulse pounded dully. He could be killed. Shot. Dead.

“Oh, God . . .”

Common sense won over masculine bravado. He jogged back to Dinah. “Get in the car,” he ordered. She didn’t have to be asked twice. The door wasn’t even shut when he was backing down the drive, doing a 180 on the road and tearing back the way they’d come. Then he was on his cellular, tersely relating to 9-1-1 what had happened. Police cars arrived in droves, sirens wailing.

They followed the blur of blue and red spinning lights, stopping the Land Rover a few yards behind the front line of police cars. In the dark, he grinned at her, boyish white teeth flashing. Dinah grinned back. After a tense, taut evening where neither one of them could think of anything to say but the most meaningless small talk, it was a relief, a roar of adrenaline through the veins.

“Nobody here,” the cop in charge related rather disappointingly. “Nothin’ broken, maybe some things taken. Check it out. Might not realize what’s missin’ at first. Take your time.” A pause. “No forced entry.”

And then they were gone and John and Dinah were alone. They walked into the house together, cautiously. In silent agreement they stayed together as they checked every room. Discovering Bobo asleep under her bed, Dinah hugged the confused little kitten before laying him back on the bed.

Finally, in the kitchen, John and Dinah looked at each other in puzzlement.

“A prank?” John suggested.

Dinah lifted her palms.

“Want a brandy?”

“I don’t drink brandy.”

“Yes, you do,” he said tiredly, as if he’d finally run out of patience with her, the robbery and everything else. He brought them each a snifter and gulped half his drink down, watching her closely. Dinah took a sip, held back a gasp as the stuff burned down her throat, then met his gaze defiantly.

Silence pooled between them. A living silence. Dinah got a creepy feeling down the back of her neck. She was in trouble.

Callahan swirled his drink reflectively. “I’m done holding hands on
Borrowed Time.
It’s Frankie’s baby now and good riddance.”

Frankie. The director. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The cast. The screenplay.” He regarded her moodily. “You should have been the lead.”

“Really.” In the midst of attempting another sip, Dinah choked on her brandy. She put the snifter down but her eyes teared and her lungs coughed and coughed.

“Not that I would have cast you, but hey, it would have been better than what I’ve got. I’m turning it over to Frankie and moving on to
Blackbird.
”

“Is that why you’ve been coming here?” she managed between fits of coughing. “To escape.”

“To gain a little perspective,” he agreed with a nod. He’d produced the bottle of brandy from a kitchen cupboard and now he poured himself another healthy dose. Lifting an eyebrow, he silently asked if she wanted to join him.

“I don’t drink brandy . . . very well,” she amended.

“So why aren’t you pressuring me for a part?” he asked. “Thought you’d jump all over me. I just told you you’d have been better than what’s-her-name.”

“I don’t want a part,” Dinah replied flatly. “Besides, you wouldn’t give me a chance anyway. I’m too big a risk.”

“You’re box office. Big box office. Probably bigger now, with all the scandal. I’m a producer. A deal-maker. I’d be crazy to turn you away.”

Panic thrummed along her nerves. What was this? No way. No way could she test for Denise! “You’re not serious. Not really.”

Their gazes dueled and Dinah’s panic escalated. But then Callahan shook his head, raked a hand through his hair, and muttered, “God, no. I can’t be that much of a masochist.” His blue eyes searched hers a moment longer. She swallowed. With a muttered imprecation, he grabbed the neck of his beloved brandy bottle and headed upstairs. “Good night, my love,” drifted down to her, and Dinah folded her arms around her chest and wished she hated him as much as she used to.

 

 

Neosporin on the nail marks Hayley had so generously given him, although they weren’t quite as red as they’d been. Connor looked at the side of his face in the mirror and grimaced. Still, she’d really done it to him. He’d barely touched her and she’d come on like a wildcat.

Fear. He’d seen it in her eyes, and it was the fear of someone who expects to be abused. Someone used to it. A couple hours of her company had been long enough to convince him that she was deathly afraid of men in general. Thomas Daniels’s legacy?

But she was also a go-getter. Almost obsessively so. She didn’t want to talk about her sisters, her past, or anything to do with Wagon Wheel. Even when he’d mentioned that his hometown was very near hers, no response.

She wanted to talk about her career. Her goals. Her future.

He’d brought up Denise a dozen different ways but Hayley Scott didn’t want to hear it. She was deaf, dumb, and blind when it came to any subject dealing with her childhood.

It didn’t take a shrink to make this diagnosis: she was in complete, utter denial.

And Denise . . .

Connor’s face darkened when he thought back to his encounter with her. Denise Scott’s beauty was what had struck him first. Second, how pale and vulnerable she was. And Lambert Wallace forcing pills on her . . . it had been all Connor could do to keep from bodily removing the man from Denise’s side.

Lambert Wallace. He’d asked his buddy Bennie, in Vice, why the name had rung a bell. Bennie was a veritable fountain of information.

“
Lambert Wallace?
Man, you don’t know shit, do ya?”

“The name sounded familiar.” Connor defended himself.

“His old man left him a ton of money. Like oodles and oodles. But Lambert was in trouble a lot as a kid. Sexual trouble. Fondling little girls, that sort of thing. Got himself sent to boarding school, pronto. Dad forked over a fortune to clear his son’s name, and the victims’ parents always dropped charges. The only difference now is, he controls the money, and his playmates are older.” Bennie stroked his chin. “There was some other stuff, too. Want me to look it up?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You investigating the guy?”

“More like I tripped over him while checking into something else.”

“Watch your step,” Bennie said in all seriousness. “I mean it, man.”

Connor was wired. All that coffee with Hayley. And thoughts circling his head. Not hungry, but bored, he hung on the refrigerator door, oblivious to half-empty mayonnaise and mustard jars and leftover pizza. In his mind’s eye, he saw Lambert Wallace and Denise Scott.

He was in a quandary. Gus Dempsey was losing interest in the Daniels case. He wasn’t the kind of law enforcement agent who believed in championing an unpopular cause. Nobody liked Daniels. At best the man was a lowlife adulterer and sexual harasser, at worst a sexual abuser and rapist. His other charms included gluttony, loutishness, laziness, and general meanness. His death was a blessing to all.

Connor himself was certainly no idealist. He believed Daniels was as bad as painted. And he, Connor, certainly had enough cases to fill his time while he decided whether he wanted back on the force or something else. Maybe something in Oregon.

But the meeting with Denise Scott had got to him. He’d never felt sorrier for another human being. Dependent personality. Too much too fast. Probable abuse at the hands of her stepfather and a sick relationship with Lambert Wallace who possessed too much money and too little conscience.

Could he leave her like that? Just walk away? It was her choice, wasn’t it? She was an adult. But Lambert Wallace . . . No morals. No respect. No ethics. Beverly Hills scum, but basically clean. Oh, yeah, money could buy anything.

Connor wanted to yank Denise away from him and clean her up. Denise Scott was under the influence of Wallace and a whole lot more. Drugs. Alcohol. God only knew.

Thomas Daniels’s body wouldn’t be the only corpse if Denise didn’t clean up her act and soon.

Grabbing a piece of cold pizza, he stood over the sink and munched without tasting. His nephew had called this afternoon and left a long message, one that was continually interrupted by his friend Mikey. The two boys wrangled on the phone until Mary shooed them off. Disapproval radiated over the line while she reported that the two boys, in their quest to provide him with “hot” tips, had followed Mr. Lancaster to his house and eavesdropped on the elderly man whose property abutted the Daniels’s place. Mr. Lancaster, hearing noises, had grabbed his shotgun, stood on the porch flailing it around, and scared the living shit out of Mikey and Matt, who’d dived into the underbrush as the old man fired his shotgun into the air.

Connor promptly got the boys back on the phone and ordered them to cease investigating. His sister’s smug “I told you so” voice had irritated him, but the boys’ actions were dangerous and had to be stopped. He’d then patiently explained to Matt and Mikey that he’d interviewed everyone connected with the case already and that he’d only asked them to keep a notebook to make them feel like they were helping.

Deflated, they’d mumbled they would be good and hung up. Connor was left with a major guilt trip and the realization that maybe he should drop the case entirely, too.

Except now he’d met Denise and Hayley.

Hayley . . . He hadn’t known what to think about her. Fresh, bold, cheeky, and playing a dangerous game. She and Denise were both hiding information about Daniels, and why not? He’d tortured them. The how’s and why’s didn’t matter; Connor knew he’d abused them.

They didn’t want to talk. Hell, they didn’t want to remember. Getting anything out of Denise would take a professional therapist; she needed serious help, that was for sure. But Hayley . . . He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he sensed, because she was a stronger personality, he might be able to break through her self-obsessed wall and get to the core of the problem.

But was it worth it? This was Dempsey’s investigation and Connor was just helping out. With all the serious crime and bad news plaguing the country, should he really keep at what three tormented sisters did, or didn’t do, to their abusive stepfather?

There was no good answer, but he aimed to keep on looking for one anyway. Maybe after the truth would come the healing.

 

 

The funny little purr of the guest room phone intruded on Dinah’s sleep.
Screw it,
she thought. The only person who ever called her was Flick, and she damn well wasn’t going to talk to him at—

She squeezed open one eyelid. One
A.M.
Did the man have no respect at all?

Full wakefulness. A jerk of her heart. Not Flick. Not in the middle of the night.

“Shit!”

Snatching up the landline, Dinah answered urgently, “Hello?”

She heard someone pick up another extension. “I’ve got it, John,” she warned.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Nothing. Dinah strained to hear, but only the
click
of a disconnection reached her ear. For a moment she stayed listening to Callahan’s breathing. The miserable eavesdropper. Her own breath was fast and light. Dropping the phone back in its cradle, she huddled under her blankets, convinced, with that strange telepathy she and Denise occasionally shared, that her screwed-up twin was trying to reach her.