Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (30 page)

“I’d like to talk about
you
. It’s been far, far too long. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Are you free Wednesday?”

“That’s perfect.”

“Okay, Nat. Well...uh. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

Natalie ended the call and sighed. Things weren’t one hundred percent between them, but she felt as if a huge weight had lifted. She hadn’t realized how big a hole Liberty’s absence had made in her life until she was back.
Woman cannot survive on man alone,
she thought and grinned.

She took up her bag when her front door buzzed. She went to the wall-mounted console. “Who is it?”

“It’s David Thompson. I need to talk with you. Let me up.”

Natalie felt her chest tighten. She fought to keep the irritation out of her tone. “Actually, I’m kind of busy.”

“It’s urgent. I need to talk to you. It’s about Julian.”

Of course it was about Julian; they had nothing else to talk about. But Natalie heard the panicky edge to his voice and a cold pang of fear settled in her gut.

“What is it? Is he okay? Is he sick again?”

“Just let me up, for chrissakes. I’m soaked.”

Natalie hit button to unlock the gate below, and left the door ajar for him, her thoughts awash in worry, so that when David burst through her front door, she let out a little shriek.

“Jesus, David, you scared me.” She closed the door behind him as paced her tiny living area. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

David was flapping around her small space like a caged bird. He wore a long trench coat, its shoulders and back streaked dark with rainwater. His hair was plastered to his face and his glasses were fogged. He ran his hand over his mouth again and again as he paced.

“Okay, Natalie, listen. This is serious. This is no joke. No, no joke at all.”

Natalie inched toward her door. “What? You’re starting to frighten me. Just…calm down and…”

He whirled on her. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and this is the bottom line: you have to leave Julian alone. You can’t see him anymore. You just can’t.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” She turned to the door and opened it. “I think you’d better leave.”

“I mean it, Natalie.” David pushed past her and slammed the door shut, making her wince and her heart jump into her throat. “You don’t understand what’s happening. You should have just stayed out of
our
business.”

“I don’t know what’s happened to you, David, if you’re on drugs or what, but this is ridiculous,” she said, her voice sounding steadier than she felt. “Now, please leave or I’ll have to call the police.”

David shook his head vigorously. “No, no, you won’t be doing that at all.” He tore at his hair in a sudden flash of fury. “You stupid bitch, why? Why did you have to show up? We were doing just fine without you!”

Without another word, Natalie moved toward her cell phone on the coffee table. From the corner of her eyes she saw a flap of coat and then a dark shape gripped in David’s hand. Time slowed down for an instant, reality became bent and twisted as she understood, before she turned to face him, that David had pulled a gun out of his pocket and was now training it on her.

She uttered a little shrieked and dropped to her knees beside the couch, huddled against it, one arm thrown over her head. “No, no, no, please, no…” Mind-numbing fear paralyzed her senses and she fought for breath.
This isn’t happening. How can this be happening?
“P-Please,” Natalie whimpered from under her arm. “Put the g-gun away…please.”

David behaved as though he hadn’t heard her. “You have to stop seeing him. You have to disappear out of his life? Do you get me?”

Natalie screamed as he brandished the gun over her, then prodded her in the shoulder with it.

“Say it! Say you’ll leave Julian alone!” he thundered, and with equal and alarming suddenness, he backed off and resumed pacing. “You don’t even
know
the problems you’ve caused, do you? No clue at all.”

Natalie peeked from behind her arm, gulping air to try to calm her racing heart. “David, please. I can’t…I can’t talk to you with the gun out. I can’t.” She began to cry, hands shaking and teeth chattering. “Please put it away…and I—we’ll talk. Please.”

David ceased his pacing and after a moment of deliberation, returned the gun to his pocket. “But I’m leaving my hand on it. If you try anything…”

Natalie bobbed her head, sobbing with relief. “I won’t. I swear it. Thank you. Thank you.”

“All right, get up,” David barked. “Get on the couch and listen because I’m not going to tell you this twice.”

Natalie crept slowly, her arms and legs so stiff with fear they could hardly bend, and moved from the side of the couch to the front and sat on one end. She hugged a pillow protectively to her. David moved his pacing so that he was in front of her, one hand shoved deep in his pocket that drooped with the weight of the gun.

“Here’s the deal. You aren’t going to see Julian anymore. Do you understand me? No more. Not ever again.”

“Why?”

“To keep him safe!” David roared and Natalie cowered behind her pillow. “Don’t you realize the danger you’ve put him in? All this talk of him naming himself? It’s all because of you! Before you, we were doing
just fine
. But now, everything’s all messed up and it’s all your fault.”

Natalie thought of the dividend check and the missing money. “The money…It’s about that money, isn’t it?”

“That’s none of your business. It was
my
business, but you just had to stick your nose up in it. didn’t you? I was doing my job. I was keeping Julian safe but now…”

“What do you mean? What have you done, David?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was drunk and I said some things I shouldn’t have. Some things I swore I would never say.”

“What are you talking about?”

“All I have is Julian.” The man looked as though he were about to cry; his breath hitched, on the verge of hysteria. “And after five years, I couldn’t…I couldn’t take it any more. A year ago I asked him if he felt the same…and he said no…” Tears spilled from beneath his glasses. “He said no, so I just started driving. I found a bar and I got drunk and I had no one to talk to but the bartender. And you’re supposed to be able to tell a bartender anything and it’s safe. Like confession. So I told the bartender how much I ...how much I
appreciate
Julian and what he’s done for me. And I kept talking and drinking and talking and drinking, and then I told him who Julian was. It just slipped out! But the bartender wasn’t supposed to know about Rafael Mendón, and he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have
read
him! He wasn’t supposed to know he was reclusive; he wasn’t supposed to
care.
But he did. Goddammit, he did.”

He broke down. He stood, bent and sobbing in the middle of Natalie’s apartment, his tears mingling with the rainwater dripping from under his hairline.

Natalie set aside her pillow and held out her hands—still trembling. “David, it’s all right. I’m sure it’s not so bad as you think…”

David whirled on her, the gun in his hand again. The terror gripped Natalie all over again, and she cowered against the couch.

“This is why you’re so damned stupid! You don’t know! Those men? The bartender and his cousins or brothers or whoever they are? They are
dangerous.
And the only way to keep them off Julian is to pay them. But I don’t have any money. I have to give them Julian’s money. For his protection. I can’t let anything happen to Julian…And dammit, if I had just kept my stupid mouth
shut!
I tried. I tried another way to keep him safe, but no, no…You had to butt in again.”

“What do you mean, you tried ‘another way’?”

“I just wanted him home. Safe. So I could take care of him. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Natalie’s skin suddenly felt cold all over, another layer of fear settling over the first. “David…did you
poison
Julian? Oh my god…”

“No. So? I was trying to help him…”

“He could’ve died…”

“
He could die now!”

David shrieked so loud, Natalie prayed one of her neighbors would hear and call for help. A noise complaint. Anything. But David took control of himself and wiped his face in the crook of his gun-toting arm.

“So that’s the deal,” he said in a calmer voice. It was as though sharing his terrible secret had been eating him alive and now that it was out, he could breathe a little easier. “Cliff and his guys won’t hurt Julian if I keep paying them every month. But if I don’t—” he gave her a look that chilled her blood—“they’ll kill him.”

Natalie felt the bile rise to her throat. “David, you have to go to the police. You have to...”

“You’re so full of yourself, aren’t you?” David said. “I saw that about you right off. You don’t think I haven’t thought of that a thousand times since this whole nightmare began? You don’t think I would have done that if I had thought it would save Julian?”

“David…”

“It won’t. I don’t know how many friends Cliff has or how deep this thing goes. So Cliff gets arrested and then what? He gets pissed off, that’s what. What happens to Julian then? What kind of revenge do you think they might take?”

Natalie had no answer. She reeled as this strange, horrifying reality settled into her bones like a deathly chill. “Damn you.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t take that holier-than-thou tone with me. This is all your fault. Things were going along
just fine
until you showed up.”

“Were they?” Natalie spat back. “Things were fine and dandy as you’ve been stealing from Julian to keep a bunch of blackmailing criminals from killing him?”

David raised the gun as though he meant to strike her with it. She cried out and cowered again.

“I said shut up,” he said. He lowered his hand and said in a dirty voice, “You wouldn’t know any of this if you hadn’t wormed your way into his life. You just want him for his money and now that you’ve convinced him to reveal himself, you’ll soak up his fame too.”

“That’s not true,” Natalie said through her tears. “I love—”

“Don’t say it!” David thundered. He rubbed his eyes with one hand; the rollercoaster of emotion was clearly exhausting him. “This is what you’re going to do: You’re going to tell Julian you’re breaking up with him. You’re going to leave him and never see him again. He’ll retreat into anonymity where he belongs, and he’ll be safe.”

“It won’t work, David. He’s still going to reveal himself. It has nothing to do with me.”

“You are such a
liar
,” David whined. “You
told
him to reveal himself. You told him…”

“I did
not
,” Natalie said, wiping her tears. “I told him I’d support him either way. The decision is his. He—”

“He’s happy with you,” David said, as though the words tasted sour in his mouth. “Or thinks he is. Breaking up with him will crush him enough that he won’t have the energy to finish his book or deal with press. And by the time he gets over you, I’ll have convinced him to stay where he is, that he’s better off. Where’s your phone? Your cell phone?”

Natalie raised her tear-streaked face. “What?
Now
? Over the phone? With you here? How on earth am I supposed to do that? What can I tell him that he’ll believe? I saw him yesterday. David, I’m supposed to see him
tonight.”

“That’s not my problem.” He spotted her iPhone on the coffee table and thrust it into her hand. “I don’t care what you tell him but you had better make it believable and you had better do it now.”

She tilted her chin, defiant. “And what if I tell Julian the truth? He can go to the police himself, get protection, leave the city if he needs to. I—”

Natalie’s words ended in a choked gurgle of terror as David laid the muzzle of the gun to her temple. “If you try to take him away from me, I’ll
kill you.”

Natalie whimpered, sobs caught in her chest. She imagined his finger would slip—he was so nervous—and then she’d know nothing. She’d just cease to be. Every moment was possibly her last. She fought the urge to vomit.

“O-okay,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll do what you say. I’ll do it. Just don’t hurt me…and don’t hurt him. Please…”

“Don’t make me hurt him.” David withdrew the gun. Natalie sagged against the pillow. “I don’t
want
to hurt him. This whole thing is to protect him. That’s why you have to break up with him believably. He has to think you’re serious.” He waved his gun at the phone in her hand. “Do it. I want to hear this.”

“I-I don’t know what to say.”

“You know,” David said, his voice low and dangerous, “I was just going to come in here and…and end you. Make it look like a robbery gone bad. But I decided to give you a chance. Besides, Julian would think you died loving him and then where would I be? He’d
mourn
you, when he should
hate
you. So you call him now and you tell him you never want to see him again. Right…now.”