2 On the Nickel (12 page)

I wanted honesty from him. He
should expect it from me. I covered his hand with mine. “That must be rough.
I’m sorry I reminded you of a painful situation.”

His face remained impassive, but
he rotated his hand to hold mine. Warmth flowed between us, not just the
comfortable friends kind of warmth. A deeper current that pulled at the
underpinnings of my heart.

I had misjudged his brick wall. I
understood blocking off a painful area of your life. God knows, I would have
built a brick wall between myself and Charlie two years ago if I could.

He drew my hand toward his face,
brushing his lips against my knuckles. “Thanks for understanding.”

He needed me.

Lord, I needed him too. I needed
his physical strength, his radiant vitality, his exquisite gentleness, and his
driving passion. Heat flooded my body, filling me with an intense urgency for
things yet to come. Soon. We’d be alone soon.

I had a feeling tonight would be
the best yet between us. When he looked at me like this, rakish and tender, I
felt young again. Attractive and desirable. Alive.

A faint ringing sound penetrated
my sensual haze. Bells? Was I hearing bells? Not wedding bells, surely?

“Your phone is ringing,” Rafe
said, releasing my hand.

I fumbled for my purse. “Right.
My phone.”

If this wasn’t an emergency, I would kill whomever was on the other end of the call. “Hello.”

“Mom?”

At the sound of that tiny,
tremulous voice, my desire-fogged brain cleared. Dread stilled my lungs. The
soft classical music receded in the distance. Every ounce of my attention went
to the voice in my ear. “Charla, honey. What’s wrong?”

“The most awful thing happened.
The police have Grammy. They just took her. Right off the street. And they
towed her car. This is so horrible, I can hardly think straight. Grammy turned
white as a ghost. Then she started cussing and telling Detective Radcliffe he
was a damned fool. He stuffed her in a police car like she was a criminal. Mom,
what are we going to do?”

Charla’s rendition of events
stole my breath away. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of failure. I
hadn’t protected Mama or my children.

An icy claw of fear gripped my
heart and wouldn’t let go.

I hovered in that breathless void
of agony.

Why did I leave them alone tonight?

Chapter 8

Despair filled the void in my lungs. Thoughts burned through
my skull, a boiling torrent of misgivings. My girls were in trouble. Mama was
in trouble. I was miles from home. For an awful moment, I poised on the brink
of meltdown. But I wasn’t a Sampson for nothing.

I shuddered in a shaky breath and
opened my eyes to the shadowed alcove in the Boar’s Head. I couldn’t fall apart
now, even if my blood was icy hot and brain combustion was likely. Immediate, decisive action was needed. “Charla, where are you?”

“At the police station. I don’t
like it here, Mom. The people are sketchy. No one will tell us a thing.”

“I’m on my way. Is Lexy with you?”

“Yes, but she’s no help because
the dog is freaking out. Madonna keeps trying to hide behind Lexy because she’s
scared, too.”

There was so much noise on
Charla’s end of the phone that I covered my other ear and jammed the phone against my ear to hear. Adrenaline surged through my blood like a blazing comet.

I had enough energy to run the
twenty miles to the police station without once touching the ground. “I’m
coming, sweetheart. Stay with your sister. One quick question. Did Mama call
Bud Flook?”

“Who knows? We haven’t seen her
since they took her. She went all pale like she does when she needs her heart medicine. I’m scared, Mom.”

“Stay together. I’m on my way.” I
clicked off the phone and stood up. “I have to go.”

Rafe stood with me, concern ringing his eyes. “What happened?”

The urgent messages boiling
through my brain found their way out. “Family emergency. I have to go. Right
now.”

“Then we’ll go.” Rafe tossed a
couple of large bills on the table and signaled the waiter.

We hurtled down the winding
mountain road, my seat belt cinching on the turns. Pork chops and stuffing
sloshed in my tummy. White knuckles bulged from my hand as I gripped the
leather arm rest. “Slow down. You’re going to kill us both.”

“Don’t worry. This car handles
like a dream. You want to tell me where we’re going once we get down the
mountain?”

“The police station.”

Rafe glanced over at me. With only the glow of the instrument panel lighting his face, I couldn’t gauge his reaction.
“Charla said the police stopped Mama’s car,” I said. “Britt took Mama and
impounded her Olds. My children and my dog, who were with her, are stranded at
the police station.”

His silence unnerved me. Charlie would’ve been yelling by now. But Rafe wasn’t Charlie. He wasn’t criticizing Mama or
outwardly judging us. He was helping by getting me to my family. Relief
whooshed out of my lungs, loosened my tongue. “I’ve been dreading something like this for days. But I never thought the girls would get tangled up in Mama’s mess.”

“I see.”

Did he? We rocketed down the dark
road, in a tiny car, and all I saw was the road before us. I wished we were
there already. But what was I going to do to help? Think, Cleo. Your family is
depending on you. Make a plan. Analyze the data. I could do that. The police
had Mama. She needed more than a hug and a ride home. She needed a lawyer. With
trembling fingers, I dialed her lawyer, Bud Flook. No answer.

Where was he?

Hogan’s Glen was small enough
that I knew Bud Flook played poker every Friday night. Some of his poker
buddies were my clients and listed in my cell phone contacts. Two calls later,
I found him.

I cut right to the chase. “Bud.
This is Cleopatra Jones. Mama needs you at the police station.”

“Now?” he grumbled.

Bud’s gruff tone hit a raw nerve.
Did he object to being told what to do? Tough. I couldn’t pander to male egos
right now. “Yes. Now.” I ended the call.

“Is Bud a good lawyer?” Rafe
navigated a tight curve with the skill of an Indy 500 driver.

I tunneled my fingers through my
hair. “Criminal matters aren’t his forte, but I’ve known Bud for years. He’s
solid. He’ll get Mama out of jail.”

“Was Delilah arrested?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I tried to inject
an optimistic tone in my voice. “Earlier this week Britt mentioned he needed to
talk to her.”

In the back of my mind a little
voice warned that Rafe didn’t sign up for family high drama. His interest in me was physical. Chances were good none of his previous dates had ended up at jail. Given that,
chances were very good this was our last date. My spirits sank even lower.

“From your earlier comment, it sounded like you expected this to happen,” he said.

I stared at the blur of dark
trees and faintly illuminated houses rushing past my window. The swiftly
changing landscape held no easy answers. Rafe wasn’t family. He wasn’t
involved. Except for driving me to the police station.

Our relationship had boundaries.
Dirty laundry fell outside the arena of great sex and fine dining. I wanted to
confide in him because shutting him out seemed wrong. Except I was vulnerable.
My whole family was vulnerable. What a house of cards I’d built.

But the new Cleo didn’t sit back
and let life happen to her. The new Cleo took calculated risks. The new Cleo
wanted a future with Rafe. I sighed out a long, shaky breath and crossed my
fingers. “It has to do with Erica Hodges.” His sidelong glance had me balling my fingers into tight fists.

“I thought Erica was a hit by a
car,” he said.

“She was.”

“Your mother’s car?”

“Probably,” I whispered. Hot
tears stung my eyes, and my expensive dinner clotted into a solid lump in my
queasy stomach. I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling. Mama
wouldn’t crumble in the face of adversity and neither would I. But taking risks
was harder than I thought.

“You knew about her car?”

My stomach slid around in my
throat as Rafe wheeled through another series of sharp turns. “I knew her car
had been in an accident.”

“I see.”

I sighed. Poor deluded man. He
couldn’t know what it was like to live with a stubborn, opinionated woman like
Mama. Daddy had looked after Mama for years, and he’d passed the baton of
caretaking to me. I couldn’t let Daddy down.

Even though Rafe had every right
to walk away from this situation, I hoped otherwise. “I need another favor.
Would you take the girls home and stay with them until I spring Mama from jail?”

“I’m being sent home with the children?”

His incredulous tone snapped the
thin rein on my patience. “You’re being entrusted with the two most precious
things in my life. If you screw this up, I will hunt you down like a dog and
tear you limb from limb.”

“Got it.”

I massaged my pounding temples.

I didn’t want to fight with Rafe.
I wanted him on my side. “If it’s not convenient, I can call Jonette at the
Tavern. She’ll come get them.”

“I’ll do it. But I want a full
explanation of what’s going on.”

“You and me both.”

* * * * *

Fluorescent lights starkly
illuminated the no-nonsense white walls of the county police station. The heels
of my taupe pumps clicked on the tile floor as I strode inside. A central
wooden information kiosk blocked direct access to the reception desk.

I adjusted my course to navigate
around it. This place wasn’t old, but it felt like the end of the road. Panic
nipped at my nerves. My kids were in here somewhere, and I had to get them out.

Immediately.

The uniformed desk sergeant
behind the thick glass barrier glared at me in stony-faced grimness, but I
quickly forgot about him at the excited shouts of my girls.

“Mom!” Charla and Lexy darted out
of a seating area on the side of the room. They flew into my arms and held on
tight. Madonna barked her relief at being rescued. Thick threads of doggie
drool splattered against the center island, on the tile floor, and on my taupe
pants. Lord, what a mess.

I held my daughters close and
took strength from the fact that they were unharmed. Charla burst into tears.
Lexy let go of me to calm the dog. Madonna usurped Lexy’s place at my side and
licked my slacks.

After sending up a prayer of
thankfulness, I took a deep breath and made eye contact with my girls. “What
happened? I thought you were having a quiet evening at home.”

“We were,” Lexy said. “Then we
wanted Italian ice to wash down our Christmas pizza. Only we never made it to
the place by the park. A policeman stopped us on the way because of Grammy’s
headlight being out. The cop made us stand on the side of the road until
Detective Radcliffe got there. When he looked at Grammy’s car, his face got
hard and mean.”

Charla swiped at the tears on her
cheeks and choked back her heartrending sobs. “Detective Radcliffe hustled
Grammy into a police car. Then he didn’t know what to do with us. Another cop
car came, and we ended up here. The officer tried to give us stuffed animals
like we were little kids. I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life.”

She didn’t look humiliated. Her
eyes glittered with excitement. I’m sure she would recover from this trauma. I
knew exactly where to place the blame for this disaster, and I would deal with
Mama next.

Mama had no business driving that
car. The keys for my Volvo were on the hutch. None of this would have happened
if she’d stayed home tonight or used my car. I intended to give her a piece of
my mind.

I stroked Lexy and Charla’s
youthful faces. “You girls had quite a shock tonight.”

“And Madonna. She had quite a
shock, too,” Lexy said, sounding ten years older than her thirteen.

I petted my dog, and her tail
thumped against the center island of the room. Tufts of white dog hair swirled
on the floor. “We all had a shock tonight.”

Lexy tugged on my blouse. “Mama,
what about Grammy? Why can’t we see her? Is she coming home tonight?”

I ruffled Lexy’s dark hair. “I’ll
find out. I want you girls and Madonna to go home with Rafe. He’ll stay with
you until I come home.”

“I don’t want to go, Mama,”
Charla said. “I’m not a child.”

My back teeth ground together.
Regardless of what she thought, Charla was a child, and I wanted her safe at home. A little reverse psychology was needed to finesse her compliance. “No problem. You can wait
with me. The thing is, it may take hours until we know something. I thought you
might be more comfortable waiting at home.”

“I’ll be more comfortable at home,” Lexy said. “Madonna and I want to go home. This place stinks.”

Emotions flashed across Charla’s
face in rapid-fire succession. I could see that she wanted to go home with her sister and she wanted to stay with me. “It does stink here. I have to shampoo the
nasty smell out of my hair before I can go to sleep.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,”
I said.

Charla wrinkled her nose. “I’d
rather wait at home then.”

“It’s your choice,” I said, as if
her decision didn’t matter to me. My eyes met Rafe’s above the top of Charla’s
curly red hair. He’d listened to the exchange with rapt attention. Did he think
I was shamelessly manipulative?

“Call us if you hear anything,”
Charla said.

“Are we ready?” Rafe asked.

“Shotgun,” Lexy called, jostling
past her sister toward the door.

“No way.” Charla stood her
ground. “You had shotgun last time. Mom! It’s not fair. She can’t call it all
the time. I’m the oldest. I get shotgun. Tell her, Mom.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “It’s
not my car, not my rules. Rafe will decide who sits in the passenger seat.”

Rafe brushed his lips across
mine. “Thanks a lot, Red.”

“No reason why I have to make all
the hard decisions.” Chills ran down my spine at his touch.

The grumpy desk clerk and Charla
watched us in stern disapproval. Madonna and Lexy stood poised in front of the
glass doors, Madonna looking mournfully sad as if she didn’t want to leave me here.

“Stay out of trouble,” Rafe
directed before he left.

I approached the window and
leaned down to speak into the intercom. “I’m here to see my mother, Delilah
Sampson.”

The desk clerk glared at me. “Who was the arresting officer?”

I swallowed harshly. Arresting
officer sounded so negative. But here in the police station, one had to speak
their language. “Detective Britt Radcliffe.”

“And your name is?”

“Cleopatra Jones.”

He gestured to the plastic orange
chairs lining the side of the room. “Have a seat. I’ll let Detective Radcliffe
know you’re here.”

I didn’t budge. “Can I see my
mother?”

“That will be up to Detective
Radcliffe. Take a seat.”

As if I could sit calmly when
Mama was being grilled or fingerprinted. I paced the room until Mama’s lawyer
showed up. Bud Flook wasn’t tall for a man. He was exactly my height,
five-foot-six. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair closely cropped. Light glinted
off his rounded frameless glasses. The sleeves of his blue Oxford shirt were
rolled up, and his tan trousers were wrinkled from sitting. The haze of cigar
smoke enveloped him.

“What’s the deal, Bud?” I
blushed, realizing how ungrateful I sounded. “I mean, thank you for coming.”

“No problem.” Bud set his
battered briefcase down on the center island kiosk. “What are the charges
against Delilah?”

I swiped my hair back from the
side of my face. “I have no new information. I can’t get past the guard at the
door.”

His voice broke. “I can.”

I blinked at the unusual sound.
Bud had always been in control of his emotions. He was lethal on the golf
course because you never suspected someone who was so quiet to be such a good
scorer. I studied his face and realized his color was off. Tension radiated
from him in unrelenting waves. “You okay, Bud?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, picking
up his briefcase. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Can I come with you?” I asked,
following him to the front desk.