Bad To The Bone (2 page)

"Just help me sell some of it when I find
her. I don't know anyone here."

"Get out."

He rose to his feet, his face a mixture of
bafflement and rejection. I wanted to punch him. I had come so far
since those days, I had worked so hard to build a new life for
myself. How dare he track me down and try to pull me under again?
And how had he even found me?

"How did you know where I was?" I
demanded.

His eyes slid away from mine.

"Jeff," I warned him. 'Tell me."

"Your grandfather," he said. He had the
decency to look embarrassed at dragging the one family member I had
left in the world into his mess.

"Bullshit. He doesn't even know where I
am."

"Yes he does, Casey," Jeff insisted. "He
told me where to find you."

I sat down again, abruptly, my legs weak. If
my grandfather had known where I was all these years, why hadn't he
asked me to visit? I'd spoken to him by phone often since I'd left
Florida, and he had never once asked me where I was. He always
seemed to believe I was someplace far away. Probably because he
wanted to. I was the fallen apple on his family tree, the only
person in six generations of hard luck scrabbling to have landed in
jail.

"So you'll help me?" Jeff asked eagerly.
"For old time's sake?"

"Are you insane?"

The look on my face penetrated his
self-absorbed fog. He fumbled for the doorknob. "Just think about
it," he pleaded. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Get out of my office," I warned him. "Get
out of my life."

He backed through the door and collided with
Bobby, who never seems to move but always manages to be in the
perfect position for eavesdropping.

"What was that about?" Bobby asked as Jeff
hurried out of the office.

"You don't want to know," I assured him,
then stopped as I caught sight of an oddity on the otherwise empty
sidewalk. A woman wrapped in a black fur coat stood outside our
front door. Her back was to us and her blond hair shimmered in the
winter sunlight. She was smoking, as if waiting for someone. Was it
Jeff?

No. He walked past her. But then he turned
back, mumbling a few words as he eyed her. I couldn't believe it.
What a pig. If Jeff was knocking on heaven's gate, he'd turn back
toward hell just to warm his pecker.

I watched the scene unfold. He was hitting
on her. God, I could not believe it. He was still the same
sweet-talking swine.

Too bad for Jeff. The woman rebuffed him
with a disinterested wave. He slouched away down the sidewalk,
gloveless hands wrapped under his armpits to shield them from the
cold. I almost felt sorry for him, sucker that I am. But then I
remembered that he was a scumbag and that I wanted him to rot in
hell.

The woman also watched him go. As soon as
Jeff turned the corner, she threw her cigarette down, turned around
and walked through our front door.

"Christ," Bobby groaned as the bell tinkled.
He sank into his seat without looking up. "We're busier than Krispy
damn Kreme. It's too cold for this shit. I'm ordering me some hot
wings from Domino's to warm up."

I didn't answer. I was too busy staring. The
woman shocked me as much as Jeff. From behind, she'd looked like a
Playboy bunny waiting on the steps of an Aspen ski lodge. From the
front, she looked like the lead in a driver's ed film the morning
after the prom. Ugly bruises crept over her cheeks, a line of
stitches stretched beneath her right eye and a huge scab ran off
the end of her chin. Her left arm was in a sling tucked beneath her
coat. Metal splints bound two fingers together. I'd have guessed
she'd been boxing Mike Tyson, except both of her ears were intact
and her honey-streaked hair was tucked behind them to prove it.

"Can I help you?" I asked calmly, though the
sight of a battered woman always sent a vague fear skittering
through the deeper recesses of my brain.

"Are you Casey Jones?" she asked in a
cultivated drawl. An old money try, but not quite there.

"Yes," I admitted. "In the flesh." All 170
pounds of it, at the moment, though I was not about to tell this
105-pound beauty what I weighed.

The mention of flesh caused her to
unconsciously caress the bruise on one of her cheeks. "My name is
Tawny Bledsoe. My husband did this to me. I want you to find
him."

"And do what to him?" I asked, imagining the
cornucopia of violence I would visit on a wife-beater if I had the
chance.

"Get my child back from him," she said.
"He's got my little girl. The courts say she's supposed to be with
me."

Bobby D. cleared his throat nervously and
pretended to rummage in one of his junk food drawers for a snack.
We both hated domestic cases involving children. Parents will do
things to each other in front of kids they claim to love that will
make your faith in mankind shrivel up and die.

"Your husband beat the shit out of you,
kidnapped your kid and you just want me to find him?" I asked, to
be sure I understood. "That's all? You don't want me to snatch the
kid back or anything?"

"That's right," she said, and her accent
made it sound more like "That's rat"—which was probably closer to
the truth. "Just find him."

"I assume you're separated?" I asked. "You
mentioned the courts?"

She nodded, waiting for my answer. Her left
eye twitched. Probably permanent muscle damage.

"Come back to my office and we'll talk about
it there," I said, aware that Bobby was starting to sweat like a
hog roasting over an open fire. Bobby hates crying women, and the
fact that this one had yet to turn on the faucets was a minor
miracle. Tawny Bledsoe must be one tough cookie, even if she had
lost her last bout by a knockout.

She followed me without a word and took a
seat in the visitor's chair after lining it with her fur coat. I'm
not on a first-name basis with domestic pelts, so I had no idea
what kind of critters died to make her fashionable. But I could
tell that her coat had wiped out a generation's worth of some poor
species. Underneath it, she wore a pink cashmere sweater and black
designer jeans. This was no thrift shop junkie sitting before me,
the lady invested in her wardrobe big time.

She sat with perfect posture and daintily
crossed her legs. It was impossible not to stare. She was built
like a five-foot Barbie doll, with perky breasts jutting out above
a waistline so narrow I fought the urge to ask her to lift her
sweater so I could count her ribs. Surely a few had been sacrificed
for size.

“Tell me about yourself," I said.

"What do you want to know?" Her plucked
eyebrows arched. It was difficult to tell, given the current state
of her face, but I was pretty sure she was a stunner beneath the
bruises and makeup. Her facial proportions were perfect and her
eyes were almond-shaped pools of pale blue. Some people have all
the luck.

Not that she looked too lucky at the
moment.

"General stuff, like where you come from.
That sort of thing," I explained. "I like to know who I'm
representing."

"Oh." She stared at the wall. "I was born in
Kannopolis, that's near Charlotte. My daddy worked for Canon Mills.
In upper management. I went to UNC-Wilmington for a while, but I
dropped out to get married."

I examined her more closely. Minute lines
were starting to form around her eyes and mouth. The lady was well
over thirty, though she wore it well.

"How long ago was that?" I asked. I was
being about as subtle as her perfume, which was starting to make me
sneeze.

"A lady never tells her age," she said,
holding her chin high. "But that was another husband."

"I see." I was starting to sound like a
shrink. "Any kids with the first hubby?"

"No." Her lower lip trembled. "That's one
reason my first husband left me. The doctors told me I couldn't
have children. My frame was too small. That's why it was such a
miracle when I had Tiffany." Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't
care what it costs. I fear for Tiffany's life. You must find her
for me."

"I'm sorry, but I haven't decided whether or
not to take on your case." Especially if she had a daughter named
Tiffany. Despite her claims about Daddy being in upper management,
I'd already gotten a whiff of white-trash-meets-money from Tawny
Bledsoe. The kid's name confirmed it. No one with a lick of class
would name her kid Tiffany. Still, that made no real difference to
me when it came to whether or not I would help her. Seeing a beaten
woman like that evoked every protective instinct I had, regardless
of social position. What I was really worried about was the fur
coat and expensive clothes. When a lot of money's at stake, the kid
is often just a bargaining chip in the battle over the jackpot. I
wasn't about to get involved unless I was sure it really was the
daughter—and not just a fat support check—that this lady
wanted.

"What can I do to convince you to help me?"
she asked.

"Start by telling me how you found me."

"A friend in the police department
recommended you."

"What kind of a friend?" I was reluctant to
get caught between an estranged husband and wife, much less between
an estranged husband and wifey's new gun-toting boyfriend.

"Not that kind of friend. Just someone who
has been very helpful to me in my current predicament."

"Name?" I asked impatiently.

"Bill Butler." Her tone was disinterested,
but her eyes narrowed as if she knew about my relationship with
Bill and was daring me to turn the job down.

"How is good old Bill?" I asked dryly.

"As tall, dark and handsome as ever."

'Today must be my day for exes," I said out
loud.

"Pardon me?" she asked.

"Nothing. Why doesn't Bill help you find
your kid?" Last I'd heard, he was working the Bod Squad, helping
decoy rapists. A little out of this lady's needed area of
expertise, but Bill was not one to turn down a damsel in
distress.

She swallowed, wincing as if her throat
hurt. "My husband is a very powerful man," she explained. "A lot of
people don't want to get involved, including the police. They're
saying all the right things, but they're really just blowing me
off."

A warning flag hit the field with a clunk.
"Who's your husband?" I asked.

"Robert Price," she said. "Maybe you know
him? He's a Wake County commissioner."

Yeah, I knew him. He was as tall and
handsome as Bill Butler—and a hell of a lot darker. What was he
doing with the Nordic Ice Queen for a wife? The African-American
community would crucify him.

"You're married to Robert Price?" I asked,
aware that I was spending most of my time repeating her statements.
Seeing Jeff had blown my brain fuses.

She nodded, clutching her pocketbook to her
chest, as if to ward off imaginary blows. "It's the second marriage
for each of us," she added, seeing my face. "Maybe you're thinking
of his first wife?"

It came to me—I was. Robert Price's first
wife had dropped out of sight a while ago, before he'd gotten
reelected, if I remembered correctly. I wondered if it was because
of Tawny.

"I didn't realize they had divorced," I
said. "What was her name? Linda?"

She nodded. "They divorced about five years
ago."

"How old is your daughter?" I asked
casually—though I don't think I fooled either one of us.

"She's almost five." She hesitated. "Robert
and I met right after his separation. It was love at first sight.
We married as soon as we could."

"You don't believe in wasting any time.
Looks to me like the marriage went down the tubes just as
fast."

"I should have researched his character a
little bit better," she admitted. "But love is blind, as they
say."

Love is blind, all right. Deaf, dumb and
blind. And I get paid to pick up the pieces once people's eyes have
been opened to the madness.

"Got the court papers?" I asked, grateful
that at least it had been kept out of the media. Powerful black man
beats the crap out of tiny blond wife and absconds with their kid.
If this case turned into a race thing, I was going to run the other
way. I'm into helping people, not causes.

Tawny Bledsoe pulled a thick envelope from
her pocketbook and handed it to me, along with a neatly typed list
of information. "Here are his particulars."

I scanned the list. She was pretty damn
particular about his particulars. She had detailed all of his
personal data— social security number, date of birth, addresses for
the past ten years, credit card account numbers, names of friends,
even his favorite restaurants. I now knew more about Robert Price
than I knew about myself. The woman was more prepared than a
frigging Boy Scout.

I looked up. "Have you done this
before?"

She shook her head. "I just tried to
anticipate what it was you might need to locate him, and I saw this
movie once on Lifetime where the—"

"Gotcha," I said, cutting her off. Watch one
week of Lifetime programming for women and you'll walk away with a
working knowledge of the law—along with a firm conviction that
every woman in America is either being stalked, driven crazy by a
cheating husband, screwed in a divorce or trying to convince a
daughter that her boyfriend is a psycho. Which may be close to the
truth.

"Everything looks okay," I admitted as I
examined the court papers stored inside the envelope. I skipped
over the part about what jerks they were to each other and reached
the section about sole custody being granted to the mother, Tawny
Anne Bledsoe of blah, blah, blah. Amazing how legalese can reduce a
child's future to a handful of words so dry they may as well be
referring to the fate of a poodle in a pet store. I double-checked
the last page. The court seal was genuine. Now what would I do?

"Please," she said, sensing my hesitation.
She leaned forward and the neckline of her pink sweater gaped open,
exposing a pair of perfect apple-shaped breasts squeezed into a
push-up bra. Were those things real? She was flashing them around
like they were brand-new and store-bought. I'm not Miss Modesty,
but even I keep my gozongas under wraps until I know the person I'm
flashing a little bit better.