Graveyard Games (2 page)

“
Stephen? That senator’s
aide guy you were seeing? What’s he got to do with
this?”

She took a deep breath and blurted it out.
“Somehow the department now has a video of me and Stephen.”

“
A video of what?” Nick
was quiet and she let it sink it, waiting for him to understand,
hoping she wouldn’t really have to say it. “Oh.” It had finally
dawned on him, thankfully. “No way.
No
way!”

“
The whole thing is a
setup.” She hated the pleading sound in her own voice, as if she
was trying to convince him of her innocence. Already, she felt
assumed guilty. “But I can’t see a way out of it. I haven’t seen
it. They won’t let me until the disciplinary hearing—and I can’t
even imagine seeing it then. Christ, Nick. I can’t sit there in a
room full of my colleagues while that plays…” Her face was red and
burned at the thought.

“
I bet they’re counting on
that!” He sounded as angry now as she had felt when she found out,
but she knew it was useless. There was nowhere to direct it—the
cards had been played, and her hand had been trumped. Hell, she
hadn’t even known she was in the game.

“
Probably,” she
admitted.

“
But I don’t get it…you
were dating this guy. He wasn’t…I mean…no money exchanged
hands…right?”

She winced, closing her eyes tight against
her own words, reluctantly telling him, “He left two thousand
dollars in cash on the night table before he left.”

“
What the hell for?” he
cried.

“
He says it was for
sex.”
Nick snorted. “What was it
really
for?”

“
It was…” Dusty cringed,
not wanting to tell him.

He groaned. “You loaned this idiot two
thousand dollars, didn’t you?”
“It was short-term,” she went on, trying to explain. “An
investment. And he paid me back!”

“
But wait a minute!” Nick
sounded excited. “He can’t just set you up like that. I’m not a
cop, but I
am
a
lawyer, and I know in these cases, it has to be clear just what was
being paid for!”

She sighed. “Yeah, well, it’s sure going to
look like he was paying for sex.”

“
Huh?” Nick was back to
crunching Doritos. How could he eat at a time like this? She
wondered.

“
He knew all about it, my
working for vice, the whole sting. We used to joke all the time,”
she explained, her voice getting smaller as she talked. “So when he
put the money on the table, he said… he said, ‘For services
rendered. Where do you want it?’”

Nick groaned. “Ohhh no.”

“
Oh yes,” she agreed. “And
I said, ‘Leave it on the night table.’”

“
Oh god. You
didn’t!”

“
I actually did,” she
admitted, wincing at the memory. It was all caught on tape, she was
sure. She remembered Stephen chuckling and responding, “Of course,
where else?” and leaving the cash in an envelope next to the lamp.
She didn’t tell Nick that she followed that up with the amused
comment, “Good thing you paid up,
John
, or else the pictures will go
to your wife.” She’d thought it all so amusing at the time, two
lovers teasing each other, joking around. She couldn’t even fathom
the idea she might have just kidded herself right out of her
career.

Her brother sighed and she could almost feel
his disappointment through the phone. “Are they busting this
guy?”

“
No, Nick,” she explained
softly. “They’re busting
me
.”

He was quiet for a while. Then he asked,
“What does Jack say?”

“
Jack knows me.” Dusty
shrugged. Her captain knew her well enough to know she just wasn’t
capable of such a thing. Dusty was a lot of things—impulsive,
hot-headed, often rigid in her beliefs and thinking—but dishonest
wasn’t one of them. She’d worked undercover as a rookie in vice for
almost a year when it all first went down. It had been Jack she’d
turned to, revealing what David Marx told her about her fellow
officers taking kickbacks to keep quiet about the whole
high-priced-escort operation that provided girls to all the local
politicians and their friends. It had been Jack who helped her set
up the sting that brought the dirty cop and everyone under him
down.

That Dusty would then turn around and
moonlight as a high-priced escort herself, just for the cash? It
was ludicrous, and Jack knew it.

“
He’s in my corner,” Dusty
insisted. “But…”

“
But what?”

“
I don’t know how high
this goes up. I have a feeling…” She swallowed hard. “Remember the
headlines last year?
Rookie Cop Busts
Dirty Vice Ring?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Just imagine the
headlines now.” She sighed.
“Cop Who
Brought Down Dirty Vice Ring Kicked Off Force For Turning
High-Priced Tricks.”

He gave a low whistle. “You are so
screwed.”

“
No pun
intended.”

Nick laughed. “That’s not funny.”

“
No,” she agreed. “Anyway,
Jack’s in my corner. I’m sure he’ll get them to see the truth.”
Dusty tried to make her voice sound more sure and confident than
she felt and thought she almost succeeded. “So tell me again why it
is you’re back at Dad and Julia’s?”

The crunching stopped for a moment, and then
Nick coughed.

“
You okay?”

“
Yeah…” The sound of him
drinking something was almost louder than the coughing fit and she
pulled the phone away. “Swallowed wrong. Sorry.”

“
So?”

“
So what?”
“So what is this? You said you were going back for a visit, but
when Julia called last week, she said you were moving back home.
What’s the deal?”

“
It’s temporary,” he
insisted. “Definitely temporary.”

“
But why?” Dusty flicked
at the cat’s paw under the door and it disappeared. “I mean, come
on, you have to admit, it’s not exactly our favorite place in the
world.”

“
Home isn’t so
bad…”

Dusty sighed, rolling her eyes. “Hey, I was
honest with you about what’s going on here… it’s the least you can
do. What’s really going on?”

“
I got fired.” Now it was
Nick’s turn to sigh.

“
Fired?” She sat up
straighter. “What for?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He was crunching Doritos again.

“
Of course it
matters!’

Dusty waited because Nick didn’t answer for
a minute, still crunching. “I’m just staying here for a little
while, until I can find something else, I guess.”

“
Ummm…not to burst your
bubble, but there’s not much in the way of job opportunities for
hotshot lawyers in Larkspur.”

He laughed. “No, but they do have the
Internet now.”

“
Yeah, sure, by satellite
at the town library maybe.” Dusty snorted, poking at the persistent
cat’s paw again.

“
I’ll manage.”

She frowned at the tone in his voice. “Nick,
are you okay?”

“
I’m fine,” he insisted.
“Really. It’s not so bad, being back. It’s kind of like old times.
Me and the guys are even driving out to the path
tonight.”

"What guys?" She frowned, and understood
only later that he’d said it on purpose, to distract her.

"Come on, Dusty, what guys do think I’d be
hanging out with?"

She sat silently, still frowning.

Nick sighed. “Do you ever let go of a
grudge?”

"No," she snapped.

"God, you can be so shallow," he breathed.
“Sometimes I think you’re more like Julia than you are like
Mom.”

It hit her like a blow to the midsection and
she sucked in air, blinking back tears. “That’s not fair.”

Nick’s voice took on a tight, sharp tone she
recognized quite well. "It's not their fault, what this little
tight-ass town thinks about them.”

"Right.” She didn’t care if he was angry.
She was, too. “They’re the victims. Like the guy who had a nine
millimeter pointed at my head, right? His mommy didn’t love him
enough, his daddy beat him with a two-by-four, so that makes it
okay for him to rape and kill a woman in a back alley?”

Nick was quiet for a minute and the silence
stretched between them. Finally, he sighed. "God, I wish you could
hear yourself."

“
So I’m a little cynical.”
She shrugged. “Sue me.”

“
I’m not a lawyer
anymore.”

“
Come on, Nick.” She
closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the door, ignoring
the insistent pawing of the cat under the door. “Let’s not fight.
This is stupid. We haven’t had a fight in a long time.”

He was back to crunching Doritos. “Funny how
we still fight about the same things.”

“
Good thing neither of us
is a psychologist.” She laughed.

The crunching stopped and there was a
silence again. She was about to ask if he was okay when he started
talking again. “You know…every one of us carries around these
labels. The world slaps them on us, and sometimes we just…grow into
them. But sometimes we’re not really whatever it says on the labels
the world pasted on our foreheads. Not even close.”

She blinked at his words and then frowned.
“Are you talking about Shane?”
“…yeah, I guess.” Nick cleared his throat. “You, me, Shane. All of
us.”

"Maybe.” She didn’t believe it, not for a
minute, but she didn’t want to fight with him. “But I still say
that square pegs don’t fit into round holes.”

He started crunching again and spoke with
his mouth full. "Shane isn’t as bad as you think he is."

“
Whatever.” She rolled her
eyes, changing the subject. “So what have you been doing, besides
hanging out with the town riff-raff?”

“
I’m seeing
Suzanne.”

Dusty perked up. “Seeing?
As in
seeing?
What happened to that girl you were talking about,
Katie-something-or-other…?”

“
You know me.” She could
almost hear him shrug. “Girl in every port.”

“
One of these days you
need to settle down.”

Nick snorted. “Pot meet kettle. Besides,
Suzanne’s taking good care of me. Hey, did you know she’s a nurse
now? A real RN.”

“
Well, that’s one fantasy
down…” Dusty grinned.

“
Very funny.”

"Hey, let’s synchronize our Monty Python and
watch together on the phone, what do you say?” she asked. “I could
use a good laugh tonight."

“
Dusty, don’t do that.”
His tone made her cringe—he acted like he knew just what she was
trying to do and wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “I’ve
got plans. I told you.”

"Come on,” she cajoled. “I’m not more
exciting that Shane Curtis? You’re just going to go get drunk and
pass out, or worse, end up puking all night long.”

He laughed. "It will be high school all over
again!"

"Fine,” she snipped, knowing she wasn’t
going to get her way. “I hope they steal all your clothes and leave
you passed out on the lawn like they did on graduation night."

"I love you, too." His grin stretched so
wide she could actually hear it in his voice. “I’ll call you
tomorrow, okay?”

"I hope you smash up your Jeep, then!" she
retorted, grinning too.

"Shane’s driving."

"Even better! I hope he smashes up that
pretty little Mustang of his,” she said, her glib, gleeful tone
inching up a notch. "With you in it!"

Nick snorted, their disagreement clearly
forgiven. "Not likely."

"Good riddance!” she teased.

“
You’re such a bitch,” he
said, but he was laughing. “Goodbyyyye!”

"Rotten brother," she mumbled, laughing,
too. “Bye!”

It was the last time she ever heard Nick's
voice.

* * * *

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the
Lord."

Dusty blinked, hearing the echoes of "Amen,"
and glanced around her. It was over. Mercifully, the droning of the
Reverend had stopped.

She looked over at Shane. He was leading
Suzanne toward his car, the rest of the gang following. The family
broke up, talking amongst themselves.

"Do you want to stay a minute?" her father
asked from her side. She shook her head, watching Shane's
retreating form, something small, tight and burning lodged in her
chest.

"No," she answered. "It's over."

Deep inside, though, she felt that
it—something—had just begun.

Chapter Two

Dusty had been appointed by Julia, who’d
orchestrated everything about this day down to the last detail, to
stand in the kitchen, accept food from the incoming guests and
direct them toward the family room. The Powells, a family her
father knew well, brought a casserole. After they had gone into the
family room, where her father was mixing drinks, she opened the
lid. It was unidentifiable except for the distinct odor of
tuna.

Sarah White and Annie Miller showed up with
a pie between them. It was store bought, but it was lemon meringue,
so Julia might forgive them, since lemon was her personal
favorite.

"I'm so sorry." Sarah hugged her. It was
awkward as Dusty had to keep the pie from being squashed. Annie
scooted by, offering her a weak smile.

She didn't know what to say. I don't
either.

“
Dusty.” James Thomas
hugged her tight and she gasped for air in his hold. “My god, I’m
so sorry. You look amazing. I haven’t seen you since…”