Body Movers (4 page)

black light, and had even managed to have a couple of

them X-rayed on an eighth-grade field trip to a vet clinic. In

hindsight, he realized there were no secret messages

between the lines of “We’re fine and we love you” or

“You’re always in our hearts,” yet he remained hopeful

that his father would someday contact him and ask for his

help now that Wesley was an adult.

Unless his parents had forgotten how old he was.

He banished the thought as soon as it entered his mind. Of

course his parents knew he was an adult now. Just

because they’d never called or sent a special message on

his birthday didn’t mean that they’d forgotten that he was

no longer a kid. Ditto for Christmas. They had sacrificed

too much to risk being caught over something stupid and

sentimental.

Yet every Christmas, in the back of his mind, he dared to

hope that they might simply show up at his bedroom

window, or maybe ring the doorbel . “We couldn’t stay

away any longer,” they would say, then gather him and his

sister in their arms.

But it never happened. Last Christmas he’d spent the day

being a jerk to Carlotta when she’d only tried to make him

happy by attempting to bake a chocolate cake with peanut

butter chips in the middle. It had been his favorite since he

was a kid, a special cake that his mother had always made

during the holidays. But Carlotta was hopeless in the

kitchen. In fact, self-preservation had forced him to take

over the cooking duties when he’d turned twelve.

Carlotta’s cake had been undercooked in the middle and

burnt around the edges. He had snapped at her and at the

time, had been unfazed by her wounded expression, just

happy to lash out at someone.

But now he felt the sting of remorse over the mean things

he’d said—that she’d never find a husband if she didn’t

learn to cook and that he hated the clothes she’d bought

and wrapped up for him and that he didn’t want to watch

the dumb Christmas movie that she’d rented. The movie,

he knew, had been her attempt to tether him, to keep him

off the streets and away from the card tables. She meant

wel , but she smothered him.

Then he sighed. Damn, no matter what he did, he seemed

to disappoint Carlotta. She’d be furious with him when she

found out about the hacking. Although, if he was careful,

he could at least keep her from finding out why he’d done

it.

A buzzing noise sounded and the door to the holding cel

slid open, revealing a uniformed officer. All the inmates

who weren’t sleeping or passed out perked up.

“On your feet, Wren. You have a visitor.”

Wesley winced. Time to face the executioner. He pushed

to his feet and waded through the jumble of funky-

smel ing bodies, enduring wolf whistles from his bigger,

brawnier cel mates while the officer handcuffed him. Then

he fol owed the officer to a room where his sister waited.

Her anxious gaze darted from his face to his handcuffs,

and she looked as if she was going to cry. God, he hoped

not. Seeing her in tears tore him up, always had. When the

officer left and closed the door, she gripped his shoulders

hard, but instead of hugging him, she shook him with more

strength than he’d known she had. “What the hel did you

do, Wesley?”

When his eyes stopped spinning in his head, he said,

“Relax, sis, no one was murdered.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yet. That Chance

Hol ander has something to do with this, doesn’t he?”

“No,” Wesley said because Carlotta already didn’t like his

best friend. And even though Chance had given him the

idea to break into the courthouse records, he was the one

who had actually done it.

“Tel me what you did. Now, Wesley.”

He swal owed. He hadn’t seen her this worked up since

he’d broken the news that he wasn’t going to apply for

col ege. “I, um, sort of stumbled into a computer database

that I wasn’t supposed to.”

One dark eyebrow arched. “Stumbled into, or hacked

into?”

“Uh, hacked.”

She crossed her arms. “Detective Terry told me that you

broke into the courthouse computer and changed some

records?”

He frowned. “That guy’s a jerk.”

His sister looked alarmed. “Did he hurt you?”

“Nah, but he gets off on that bad-cop routine.”

She frowned. “I noticed. Now, why were you messing

around in the courthouse records?”

He tried to look sheepish. “Just trying to get rid of all those

traffic tickets I accumulated so I could get my driver’s

license reinstated and I wouldn’t be such a pain to you.”

He could lie with assurance because when he suspected

his access was being tracked, he’d unleashed a virus in the

database that would be undetectable to the hil bil y

programmers in the police department. No way they’d be

able to tel what had been changed.

“Is that all?” she asked, her brown eyes hopeful.

Guilt stabbed at him, but he told himself that she wanted

to believe him, and he’d only hurt her more with the truth.

“Yeah, that’s all.”

She sighed in relief, then ran her hand over his cheek as

she used to when he was little. “What am I going to do

with you?”

His heart swel ed with affection, but he tamped down his

sissy emotions. “You have to keep me around, or you’d

starve to death.”

She smiled briefly, then sobered. “We need to get you a

lawyer.”

He shifted his feet. “I already called Liz Fischer.”

Carlotta looked horrified. “Dad’s attorney? Why?”

“Why not?”

“Wel , for one reason, she’l probably charge an arm and a

leg to represent you.”

He shrugged. “Maybe not. She always told us to call her if

we needed anything, and she sounded nice on the phone.”

“I don’t like the fact that everyone wil connect her to Dad,

and then him to you.”

“Since we have the same last name, I think that’s

unavoidable, don’t you?”

Carlotta frowned, her expression suspicious. “What did Liz

say?”

“She’l be here. My bail hearing is at four this afternoon.”

He shuffled his feet again. “Can we make bail? I have six

hundred dol ars in a tennis-ball can in the garage.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You have six hundred dol ars?”

More disapproval. He owed a lot of money to a lot of

people, but he kept a secret stash in case a big card game

materialized—something tempting enough to go back on

his word to Carlotta that he wouldn’t gamble. “My

emergency fund,” he mumbled. And now he’d have to find

a new hiding place.

Her gapped front teeth worried her lower lip, then she

sighed. “If the bail is set too high for us to pay cash, then

I’l cal a bail bondsman, assuming we can cough up ten

percent.”

“And if we can’t come up with ten percent?”

“I’ll have to put up the house.”

Wesley’s intestines cramped. For the first time, he

doubted his plan. He hadn’t counted on the trouble it

would cause his sister.

Then she gave him a shaky smile. “Don’t worry, we’l figure

it out.” She looked down and gasped. “Where did you get

those revolting shoes?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving off her concern. “If

I have to spend the night here, wil you feed Einstein?”

She winced. “For that reason alone, I’l make sure you get

out of here.”

He grinned, glad to see she was back in good humor. His

sister was a pretty woman, especially when she smiled.

She was self-conscious about the gap between her two

front teeth, but he thought it gave her character, made

her look like a dark-haired Lauren Hutton…and his mother.

He worried about Carlotta. He’d seen men’s eyes light up

when she walked into a room, but she hadn’t had a serious

relationship since their parents had left, since that bastard

Peter Ashford had dumped her. She’d never said so, but

Wesley knew that he himself was much of the reason that

his sister hadn’t settled down. Not too many guys were

keen on a kid brother as a package deal. Just one more

thing for him to feel guilty over. “Thanks for coming, sis. I’l

make it up to you, I promise.”

Her expression was part dubious, part hopeful. “I’l hold

you to that.”

Wesley went back to the holding cel with mixed feelings

pul ing at him. For the next few hours he sat with his back

in a corner trying not to attract attention from his

cel mates, many of whom were finally rousing from

hangovers and were spoiling for trouble…or romance. A

muscle-bound guy wearing a headband and leg warmers

kept looking his way and licking his lips. In desperation,

Wesley pul ed out a deck of cards he’d been allowed to

keep and announced he was giving a clinic on how to play

the ultimate game of skil and luck, Texas Hold ’Em Poker.

His audience seemed suspicious at first, then crowded

around. He sat cross-legged and dealt the four men closest

to him two cards each facedown on the gritty concrete

floor. Just the feel of the waxy cards in his hands sent a

flutter of excitement to his chest.

“Those cards are your pocket cards,” he explained. “I’m

going to deal five community cards faceup—three, then

one, then one more—and the object is to create the best

hand possible from your two cards and the five community

cards. Bets are made between rounds of revealing the

community cards.”

“We need chips,” one guy said, then started ripping the

buttons off his shirt. Everyone fol owed suit and within five

minutes, a pile of mismatched buttons lay in the middle.

Impressed with their resourcefulness, Wesley divided the

buttons among the four players and gave them tips on

betting. “If you have strong pocket cards, you’l want to

bet. If not, you’l want to fold.” Then he grinned. “Unless

you want to bluff, and then you’l want to bet.”

“What’s a strong card?” a man asked.

“Any face card, or an ace,” Wesley said. “Two of a kind is

great, two cards of the same suit can put you on your way

to a flush, and two neighboring cards, like a nine and a ten

can put you on your way to a straight.” He went around,

taking button bets on the pocket cards. “Now I’l deal

what’s called the flop cards.” He tossed a discard card to

the side, then dealt three cards faceup—a three of spades,

a five of hearts and a queen of hearts. “We got a possible

straight going with the three and the five, and a possible

heart flush with the five and the queen.”

Excitement built among the players and spectators as they

studied the cards, creating possible hands. Wesley smiled

to himself. There was something so sweet about

evangelizing the game of games…and training potential

players that he might someday face across the table and

rob of every penny they had.

He tossed the top card onto the discard pile, then dealt

another card faceup. “This is called the ‘turn’ card.”

An ace of hearts. A murmur went up among the men.

Wesley studied the players’ “tel s,” the body language and

betting techniques that told a more experienced player

what the person was holding as surely as if the cards were

transparent. The big guy on the far left was holding crap—

probably a ten and a deuce, but he wasn’t going to fold

and look bad to the other guys. The guy next to him was

grinning like a fool after the turn card, so he probably had

a pocket ace to make it two of a kind. Beginners thought

that aces beat everything else, no matter what.

The third guy also had nothing, else he wouldn’t be

gnawing on his nails and staring at the community cards as

if he could wil them to change. The fourth guy, though—

he had something because he was holding his cards close

to his chest as if they were winning lottery tickets. Wesley

guessed he had pocket queens and was looking at three of

a kind, which so far was “the nuts”—the best hand in the

game.

“Here comes the river card,” he said, and dealt a nine of

clubs—not much good to anyone, he guessed, although

the bidding was brisk. The aces guy was all in with his six

wooden buttons and a jeans rivet. Pretty soon, everyone

was all in, and Wesley asked, “Whad’ya have?”

The first guy turned over his ten of spades and four of

clubs and took some ribbing from the other guys. The

grinning aces guy turned over his ace of diamonds and

seven of spades, giving him the expected pair of aces. The

third guy cursed his mother and tossed in his jack of

diamonds and six of spades, then stomped away as if they

had been playing for real money instead of sewing

notions. The last guy turned over his pocket queens to the

cheers of the men behind him, and raked all the raggedy

buttons toward him triumphantly.

While Wesley was shuffling for another hand, the cel door

buzzed and slid open and he was being summoned again.

“Your lawyer’s here,” the guard informed him.

Wesley handed off the deck of cards, stood and allowed