Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (33 page)

“Well, I don’t think Kevin
did it either.”

Dane sank back into the seat
next to mine and thrust his face into his hands.  “Do I have gray hairs yet? 
Because I feel my hair turning gray.”

“Looks all right to me.”

He muffled a laugh and sat
up.  Then he took one of my hands and kissed my palm before looking at me with
resignation.  “You are so complicated.  You are the only person I know who
would do something so foolish and so brave.”

“I just want to protect my
friends.  That’s how I roll.”

When I left Dane’s office,
Amy Of The Frigid Stare And Nordic Good Looks shot me an icy smile and told me
to have a good day.  At least that’s what her mouth said.  The unseen bubble
over her head read, “He’s mine, bitch.  Hands off.”  Frankly, she scared me
almost as much as Sullivan.  Just in a completely different way.

I figured it was only a
matter of time before Sullivan tracked me down, but I wasn’t ready to see him
yet.  I needed to keep moving.  A moving target was much better than a sitting
duck, I’d always said.  Okay, I’d never said that.  But still, my theory was
good.

I drove to my dad’s office,
which was on the ninth floor of the medical building next to the hospital.  He
had a spacious waiting room with a slate tile fountain on one wall.  I glanced
around at the three people in the waiting room.  Hopefully he wouldn’t be too
busy to see me.

Sally Jenson had been my
dad’s receptionist forever.  “Rosalyn, honey, it is so good to see you.”  She
came out of the inner office and hugged me.  “You look good.”

I had always liked Sally. 
She would sneak peppermint candy to Jacks and me on the rare occasions when we
visited the office.  Although she had to be in her sixties now, she hadn’t
changed much.  Her blonde hair was styled a little differently than when I had
last seen it, but other than that, she looked the same.  I wondered what her
secret was.

“You look great too, Sally. 
I like the hair.”

Her hand fluttered to it,
smoothing back a strand.  “Thanks.  I just got it cut.”  Her smile withered
around the edges.  “I’m not sure I like it.”

“Well, I do.  It’s very
flattering.”

“You’re good for my ego. 
Now, you want to see your father.  Go on back.  I think he can squeeze you
in.”  She winked.

The door to my father’s
office stood open, so I went in and sat down.  It seemed my mother had gotten
her hands on my dad’s office space.  I would recognize her bland beige thumb anywhere. 
Colorless paintings hung on taupe walls underlined by a thick tan carpet.  It
had been a long time since I had been here.  Five years, to be exact.  When I told
my dad I didn’t want to go back to the all-girls school on Cell Block H.

My father walked in twenty
minutes later, carrying a green patient folder with him.  “What are you doing
here?”  He was as surprised to see me as Sally was.  But I got a much warmer reception
from her.

I shifted around in the
cognac brown leather chair, uncomfortable, not only in the chair, but in this
room.  With my father.

He sat behind his desk and
waited for my answer.

I squirmed and looked out
the window.  It was a beautiful day.  The sky was a cloudless, brilliant blue. 
My gaze flitted back to him.  “Thank you for the table and chairs.  That was
very generous of you.”

“It’s fine.  Is that why you
stopped by Rosa…Rose?  A personal visit wasn’t necessary, I got your message.”

“No, that’s not why I’m
here.”  I shifted in the chair again then forced myself to sit still.

He looked me up and down,
frowning.  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“I’ve got something to tell
you, but I need to know you’ll keep it to yourself.”  I was asking him to keep
something from my mom.  As far as I knew, he’d never done that before.  Taking
a deep breath, I blew it out.  “Under no circumstances is Mom to know anything
about this.”  I just wanted to clarify.

“I don’t know if I can do
that, Rosa…Rose.”

“Okay.”  I pulled my purse over
my shoulder and stood.  “Thanks again for the table.

“Wait.”  He stared not at
me, but at some fixed point over my shoulder.  “All right, Rose, I’ll keep this
between the two of us.”

Now I was beginning to have
second thoughts.  “No, it was wrong of me to ask.”  I walked toward the door.

“Sit down.”  The tone was
the same one he used when I had been in real trouble, like when I put food
coloring in the school fountain and Jenny Truman ratted me out.

I sat.

“I don’t have much time. 
Try to be concise.”

I started at the beginning
with Axton’s disappearance and left nothing out.  His expression became tighter
and more concerned with each new revelation.  When I finished there was a long
silence.

“The Police Chief?  City
councilmen, the mayor?  All bought off by this Sullivan?”  He tipped his chair
back and stared at the framed diplomas on the wall.  “You’re sure about this?”

I removed the papers and
memory cards from my bag and laid them on his desk.  It took a while, but he
methodically went through them, page by page, muttering to himself.  Finally,
when he was done, he stared at me with haunted eyes.  “My God, what were you
thinking?”

I had heard that a lot
lately.  Seemed not everyone thought highly of my decision making abilities.  I
straightened my shoulders.  “I did what I had to do.  And I wouldn’t change a
thing.”

“You could have gotten
yourself killed.  Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

“What could you have
possibly done?  No offense, Dad, but you would have either not believed me or
told me to go to the police.  Which I did, by the way, and got nowhere.  And
that was before I found out the Chief of Police owed Sullivan money.”

“Damn it.  What you did was
so incredibly stupid and dangerous.  I don’t ever want you doing something like
this again, do you hear me, young lady?”

I smiled at his fatherly
concern.  It was nice to know he cared. 

“I’m serious,” he said, when
he saw my smile.

“I need you to keep these
copies somewhere safe, Dad, in case, you know, something happens, or Sullivan
comes after me.  I put down his address and everything I found out about him,
which wasn’t much.”

My father took a deep
breath, and after a moment, glanced back at the papers.  “Did you make more
than one copy, I hope?”

“I made three.  They’re all
in different places.  And remember, don’t tell Mom.”

“Trust me.  This is one
thing she’ll never know about.  I’ll take care of it, Rosalyn.  Don’t worry.”

I felt such relief when my
dad said he’d take care of it.  As if a knot in my stomach untangled and I
didn’t even realize it was there.  I wished I had always felt this from him,
cared for, protected.  It felt nice, like a warm blanket on a cold night.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“You haven’t called me that
since you were a very little girl.”  We both stood and stared at each other,
then our gazes slid away, uncomfortable with the closeness.

“Well, I’d better get
going.”

He gestured at the copies
I’d given him.  “Yes, I have to deal with these.”  He came around the desk and
gave me a brief, one-armed hug, and awkwardly patted my back.  “Be careful.  No
more dealing with criminals, okay?”

I smiled and said nothing as
I walked out of his office.

Sally gave me another hug
for the road and pushed a couple of peppermint candies in my hand before I
left.

Now for the part I’d been
putting off.  The part that made my hands shake and my chest hurt.  It was time
to visit Sullivan.

I could either wait for him and
his menacing minions to find me, or I could come from a place of power and go
to him.  One might argue that going to him was coming from a place of sheer
stupidity, a fly dive-bombing a spider’s web, but I felt more comfortable with initiative
than I did with inertia. 

As I drove out of
Huntingford and got on the highway, my sweaty hands gripping the steering
wheel, I began to feel the enormity of my actions.  My dad was right, what had
I been thinking?  Sullivan must be livid I’d taken those files.  No one screwed
him over.  He told me that.  Breaking into his home, not to mention smashing his
fancy bowl, attacking two of his employees, invading his private space,
stealing personal files.  Had to be a worse than owing him money.

Maybe it would be better to
just keep driving and not stop until I got a safe distance away.  About two
thousand miles might do it.  But then Sullivan might come after my family, like
he did with Axton.  Maybe I could offer up my mother.  I smiled at the thought
of my imperious mother snapping at Henry that he’d tied the rope binding her hands
wrong, and that he should do it properly or not at all.  But then I quickly
sobered and thought of my sister and little Scotty.  No, I had to finish this. 

I was so lost in thought I
almost missed my exit and had to make a hasty lane change to get off the
highway.  I drove up to Sullivan’s beautiful stone house with my heart beating
twice as fast as normal.  I turned in the circular drive and parked the car. 
Henry was out of the house and stalking toward me before I even had time to
open the car door.

I managed to grab my bag
before he jerked me out of the driver’s seat and frisked me, patting me down
from head to toe.  His enormous hands impersonally brushed over my breasts and
ass, sliding between my legs.

“Watch it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” 
He unzipped my purse and rummaged around, taking my keys and pocketing them, before
shoving it back at me.  He grabbed me by my arm and yanked me toward the
house.  “I wouldn’t want to be you right now.”

Henry and I had something in
common.  I didn’t want to be me right now either.

He led me through the house,
down the hall, and straight to the pseudo library.  Henry gave a perfunctory
knock on the door before opening it and thrusting me inside.  I felt like I had
just been thrown into a cage with a very hungry lion.

Sullivan stood in front of
the window, his back to me.  With the sun washing over him, I could see the
blue highlights in his black hair.  He wore a navy cashmere sweater and dark
slacks, his hands shoved in the pockets.  Slowly he turned toward me, his
posture deceptively relaxed.  His eyes told a different story.   

“Rose.”  His voice was
soft.   “Have a seat.”  He gestured with one hand toward the chair in front of
his desk.

If he had been screaming or
ranting or showing some kind of emotion, I think I wouldn’t have been so
afraid.  The quiet reasonable tone masking his fury made my knees quake, but I
wasn’t going to let him see that.  He’d eat me alive.

I threw back my shoulders
and stalked toward the chair, throwing him a haughty look before sitting down.

He slid into his seat behind
the desk, and with his hands flat on the desktop, studied me in silence.  I
stared back with my best bored look.  The one I used as a teenager when my
mother would chastise me for using the salad fork instead of the dinner fork.  I
knew which fork to use, but when she insisted on serving salmon, I insisted on
using the wrong fork. 

 “You stole from me, Rosalyn
Strickland.  And that is not acceptable.”  His voice dripped ice, but the
volume didn’t change.

“You and I have different
definitions of unacceptable.  And I did what I had to do to protect the people
I care about.”

He stared at me with those
angry gold eyes and said nothing.  He was waiting me out.  He could wait all
day.  I kept my mouth shut and thought about my homework assignments, my meager
grocery list, and the fact I needed an oil change.  It had been over ten
thousand miles.  Way over.

It took a solid fifteen
minutes before he got up from the desk and stalked toward me.  Grabbing my arms,
he hauled me up, his hands warm, even through the long sleeves of my sweatshirt.

My breath came in shallow
gasps.  We stood three inches apart.  That spicy orangey scent tickled my
senses.  I probably smelled like fear and peppermint candy.  I hope he didn’t
notice.

“I want what you stole from
me,” he said.  It came out more like a snarl and he shook me a little for
emphasis.

I casually tilted my head. 
“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Do you have them with
you?”  He was so close that if I puckered my lips, they’d touch his. 

“Maybe,” I whispered.  I may
have swayed a bit.  

He didn’t let me go
immediately, but kept his hands on my arms while he stared at my mouth.  I
parted my lips and held my breath in anticipation of whether he would move that
half an inch, touch his lips to mine, or pull back.

He pulled back.

I exhaled.

“Give them to me,” he said.