Body Movers (32 page)

else, she knew I would’ve given her her freedom.”

Carlotta recal ed Angela’s shopping sprees, her drinking.

How awful to want to cling to a loveless marriage.

“I don’t know why she wanted to stay married to me,”

Peter said. “I was never mean to her, but she knew that

she’d never have my heart, not entirely.” His voice grew

strained and he slid his palm over hers, sending little

shivers over her arms. “I left a piece of it with you.”

Her own heart expanded in response. “You took a piece of

me, too,” she murmured, entwining her fingers with his.

“At the time I thought I was going to die.”

“Me, too,” he said, his voice thick. “I was so worried about

you, but too ashamed to call and check on you. I kept

tel ing myself that your parents would return soon, that

you would be okay.” He made a choking noise. “Oh, God,

Carly, I’m so sorry. I screwed up everything, including

Angela’s life. And now, this.”

Tears gathered behind her eyes for the random events in

life that threw people together and pul ed them apart.

Angela had been caught in the middle. The woman must

have hated her, Carlotta realized sadly.

“What do you think happened to her, Peter? Who would

have wanted to kil her?”

“I can’t think of anyone,” he said solemnly, his voice tinged

with anger. “A stranger? I don’t know. It’s just such a

waste.” He squeezed her fingers. “The only good thing to

come from all this horror is that it’s brought you back into

my life.”

“Peter,” she said, swal owing her tears, “the detective said

you had a picture of me in your wallet.”

He sighed. “That’s right.”

“Did Angela know?”

“She found it…the morning she died.”

Carlotta closed her eyes. “That’s why she came to the

store and accused me of having an affair with you.” And a

few hours later, she was dead…murdered. The timing was

suspicious at best.

“I’m so sorry. I never meant for her to see the picture.”

“That wasn’t fair to her. Or to me.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he agreed. “I was an idiot, withholding a

piece of myself from my wife, and pining for a woman that

I lost because of my own stupidity.”

“We’ve discussed this, and I told you that I understand

why you did what you did. We have to put it behind us.”

He stared at their fingers twined together and gave a little

laugh. “This brings back memories, huh? Being in a car

together.”

She smiled. “The Crown Vic.”

“My dad’s hand-me-down. He couldn’t understand why I

didn’t want a new sports car. He didn’t know that the back

seat of the Vic was like a full-size bed.”

“Our Holiday Inn,” Carlotta said, her body warming at the

memory of their progression from sweet kisses to heavy

petting to the night he had taken her virginity with Rod

Stewart’s “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” playing

on the stereo. Peter had been such a gentle, thorough

lover. She’d never felt so completely connected to a

person before…or since. Her eyes burned furiously as

emotion overwhelmed her.

Peter shifted in his seat to face her in the semidarkness. “I

love you, Carly. I never stopped loving you.”

His admission caused her breath to catch in her lungs. The

times she had lain in bed and cried in her pil ow, had he

been equally miserable, but strapped with guilt and shame

on top of having lost the woman he loved?

He reached for her and despite a tiny part of her

conscience tel ing her to resist, she went to him. He

slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her hungrily. She

responded in kind, swept up in the sweet familiarity of

Peter, of picking up where he had left her hanging

emotionally over a decade ago. Peter moaned into her

mouth, then wrapped his arms around her and pul ed her

over the console to straddle him. With her skirt pul ed up,

she settled onto his lap and lost herself in his arms.

Nothing had changed. He stil had the ability to make the

rest of the world fall away. All that mattered was that they

had found each other again.

A sharp rap on the window next to her brought her head

up and around. Oh geez, it was probably Akin Frasier doing

his rounds. While Carlotta scrambled to straighten her

clothes, Peter wiped the steam they’d generated from the

inside of the window. To her abject horror, Detective Jack

Terry frowned in at them.

Peter uttered a curse, and Carlotta wondered hysterically

if it were possible to actual y die of humiliation. After Peter

opened the door, he helped her out first, then climbed out

after her, unaware that his hair stood on end from where

she had run her fingers through it. Detective Terry stood

there with his hands on his hips, wearing a bemused

expression. “Sorry to interrupt you two lovebirds.”

“So why did you?” Peter asked hotly.

The detective frowned. “There’ve been reports of trouble

in the parking garage. I was in the area and thought I’d

cruise through. I recognized Ms. Wren’s car and saw the

commotion inside and thought she was being assaulted.”

He looked at her, his expression dark—and disgusted. “The

car was bouncing, for heaven’s sake.” He nodded to her

blouse, then averted his gaze.

She glanced down and gasped to see her button-up shirt

gaping open, revealing her white lacy bra. She turned her

back and fastened her shirt, feeling like a fool…and a slut.

“Do I have to tel you,” the detective practical y bel owed,

“how bad it looks for you two to be caught together right

now?”

“No, you don’t,” Peter said, lifting his chin. “But I don’t

care how it looks. I didn’t kil my wife.”

Detective Terry took a menacing step toward Peter. “If you

don’t care how it looks on you, Ashford, think of how it

looks on Carlotta.” He made a derisive noise. “For God’s

sake, next time at least get a damn room.” Then he stalked

away stiffly, opened the door to a dark, unmarked sedan.

He hesitated, looking back at Carlotta with disapproval

and—anger?—before swinging into his car, gunning the

engine and driving away.

“I have to go,” she said to Peter absently, walking around

to get back into her car.

“Carlotta—”

“Don’t, Peter,” she said, holding up her hand, her voice

shaking. “Don’t.” She ignored the helpless look on Peter’s

face, got into her car and, after grinding a few gears,

pul ed away. The entire way home, Carlotta’s skin stung

with shame. What must Jack Terry think of her?

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as bad as what she thought

of herself.

Minus ten points, Carlotta.

25

Wesley blinked at the pile of chips in front of him, so tired

after thirty-six hours of cardplaying and so wired from all

the caffeine he’d consumed, he was practically seeing

double. The faint tol ing of church bel s was the only

indication that Sunday morning had dawned. The

basement of the Peachtree office building had no

windows, one mark of a good card house. Casinos

employed the same tactic to prevent gamblers from

realizing just how much time had passed since they had

entered the establishment.

Casinos also pumped uber-oxygenated air into their

facilities to help keep gamblers awake and feeling fresh.

The converted basement card room was not quite that

advanced—the air was pungent from the industrial trash

cans overflowing with discarded beer cans and take-out

bags, from the smoke of about a thousand spent cigarettes

(which probably violated numerous no-smoking

ordinances), and from the unwashed bodies of the twenty-

five players who had entered the tournament on Friday

and who had, even after they’d been eliminated, stuck

around to see who would make it to the final table.

The last five players standing would all be in the money,

ranging from the top prize of twenty-five thousand down

to three thousand. Four names had been written on a dry-

erase board that had likely been filched from an

accounting department. The fifth name would be either

Wesley’s or the man sitting across from him—“Quinn,” a

CFO of some tight-ass company who had so many facial

tics, it was difficult to know what was a “tel ” twitch and

what was just the guy’s natural neuroses.

They shared their table’s $12,500 of chips, with Quinn

having the slight advantage. But Wesley could sense that

the guy was wearing down, taking longer and longer to

make bets, his eyes and mouth drooping.

Time for the kil .

As the dealer shuffled, Wesley downed the rest of his third

Red Bul in an hour and scanned the room.

A few feet away, his buddy Chance gave him a thumbs-up,

his energy level suspiciously high—Wesley wouldn’t put it

past him to have done a couple of lines of coke in the john.

Besides making up the difference for Wesley’s buy-in,

Chance had forked over the dough for his own spot in the

tournament, too. But as much as Chance liked the action

and the atmosphere of a card game, he was lousy at

poker. Guys with big egos usually were. They sulked when

they got bad cards and slapped backs when they got good

ones. They also thought that drinking alcohol improved

their judgment. That’s what Wesley liked most about the

game of Texas Hold ’Em—it was the game of the

underdog, the thinker, the mathematician.

His game.

“Post your blinds,” the dealer said, to cal for the

mandatory bet to initiate a hand. Dealers only had to

“announce” in amateur gatherings like this one—at casino

tables, the dealer rarely spoke.

It was his turn to post the “big” blind, set at two hundred

dol ars in this game. He pushed two hundred dol ars’

worth of chips forward. Moving in slow motion, Quinn

posted the “smal ” blind, set at one hundred. The

advantage of Wesley having the big blind was that Quinn

would have to place the first bet after the cards were

dealt.

The dealer dealt them each two cards facedown, then

tossed one into a discard pile.

Wesley lifted the corner of his two cards, but instead of

glancing down, he watched Quinn look at his cards,

irritated when the man’s mouth twitched violently. Good?

Bad? The beginning of an epileptic seizure?

Looking at his own cards, he wil ed himself not to react.

Pocket kings, spades and clubs. Thank you Jesus.

“Your bet, sir,” the dealer said, nodding to Quinn.

Quinn hesitated, then glanced at his cards again. “I’l raise

four hundred,” he said, then stacked the chips and pushed

them forward.

Good. The man’s cards were strong enough to keep him in

the game. For now, he’d slow-play Quinn to draw up the

pot. Wesley fidgeted on purpose, then called the man’s

bet and pushed forward three hundred in chips to make

them even at five hundred all.

“Here comes the flop,” the dealer announced, then dealt

three cards faceup on the table—the five of spades, seven

of spades and king of hearts.

Three. Of. A. Kind.

He studied Quinn’s reaction to the flop, but the man was

smothering a yawn and his eyes were watering. The best

pocket cards Quinn could have were aces, which didn’t

stand a chance against his own three kings. Or Quinn could

be holding the other king and either a five or a seven,

giving him two pairs, which stil wouldn’t beat the three

kings. With the five and seven community cards, he could

be working a straight, or less likely, a straight flush if he

held the eight and nine of spades.

Across the table, his opponent’s eyes were bleary and

bloodshot. He looked like he wanted to quit and go home

to his Sleep Number Bed. Quinn frowned, then put his

hands on his chips. “I’l bet a thousand.”

Wesley nodded thoughtful y. With that kind of a bet, the

man must have the two pair, or, like him, three of a kind.

But if so, the best three of a kind the man could have was

sevens, and that wouldn’t beat his three kings.

He could practically smel the frankincense and myrrh.

The urge to raise was strong, but he resisted. “I’l cal ,” he

said, and added a thousand dol ars’ worth of chips to the

center.

“Here’s the turn card,” the dealer said, then flipped over

the king of diamonds.

FOUR. OF. A. KIND.

Wesley tamped down his excitement, schooling his

expression into a practiced mask, with a hint of a frown for

good measure.

Across the table, Quinn rubbed his eyes with his palms,

then said, “Oh, hel , I’m all in,” and pushed his chips

toward the center. A murmur moved across the room, and

a few people crowded closer.

Wesley waited for the hubbub to subside before he

smiled. “Call.” Then he pushed the rest of his chips toward

the center. With nothing left to bet and no card in the

deck that could improve his hand, he turned over his

pocket cards with a flourish, gratified at the crowd’s

rousing reaction.

“Four kings!” Chance bel owed. “My buddy has four