Mind Games (15 page)

Sure enough, it was a false wall, and down plopped a double bed. There was no mistaking the red satin sheets and fuzzy leopard blanket. A pink and red heart pillow fell to his feet. He picked up the pillow and tossed it back on to the bed.

“Shit, Dana, what were you up to?”

He shoved the faux bookcase back into place against the wall and went back to the desk and the photos. Categorizing the raunchy images was not his idea of fun. He shined the beam of light down on the photos and separated the images. Seeing into his brother’s sexual fantasies made his stomach curl. He paused and looked away from the photos.

Dana’s computer rested inches away from him. Although fearful of what he might find, he flipped open the laptop and pressed the button to turn on the machine. The computer hummed to life. Tony searched his brain for Dana’s password. A password he did not know. Considering what he’d discovered in Dana’s secret room, he guessed his brother’s password could be anything from his favorite football team to something more fitting of Dana’s apparent interest.

He racked his brain for a logical password while he categorized the photos. He placed single shots of girls posing alone in one pile and girl-on-girl shots in another. And that was when he came across the photo of Sparrow.

Derrick’s face heated with anger at the sound of her calling him Dana. He removed his arm from around her shoulder and tried to remain calm. He pushed himself up from the couch then yanked on his slacks.

“Sparrow, you called me Dana.” His voice sounded flat and emotionless. Good. He didn’t want his rising frustration getting the best of him by overreacting.

“I-I’m sorry. I was thinking about him, and, I mean, I wasn’t calling you him. It’s not what you think.”

“And how do you know what I think?” Again his monotone voice didn’t give way to his anger. The words
I was thinking about him
made his heart pound. Had she been fantasizing about Dana while she made love to him? That was worse than a woman faking an orgasm, and even more insulting. His blood pumped through his veins. He paced the floor to expend the unwanted energy.

Sparrow rushed to him. He reached for her shoulders, keeping an arm’s length of distance between them. Her pleading green eyes reached into his drumming heart, begging his forgiveness.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can only imagine.”

Her exhale fanned warm breath across his face, and he could nearly taste her. He stepped back, sickened by her cloying citrusy scent. She had some explaining to do, and he wasn’t about to let her worm her way out with a cheap seduction. He pulled his hands from her shoulders, stepped back, and folded his arms across his bare chest.

“I didn’t expect you to think about Dana after we made love, let alone whisper his name, or maybe it was more like a sigh the way you said it.” He did his best to mimic her soft female voice.

“I know, Derrick. I’d be crushed if you called me by some other woman’s name.”

He lifted his crossed arm and held his hand up to stop her from saying anything more. “You just said you weren’t calling me him.” His jaw clenched, and he paced the floor.

She followed behind his footsteps. “I-I wasn’t. Honest, I wasn’t. What I meant was that I’d be hurt if I
thought
you called me by some other woman’s name.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain
why
you called me Dana.” He stopped abruptly and she smacked into the back of him. He arched forward then revolved on his bare feet.

She stepped back, pulling the robe tighter around her. “Derrick, I’ve wanted you since we were kids. Since those first couple of summers you spent in Crystal Cove. You have to believe me. It’s like we talked about earlier—fate intervened when we found each other in LA after all this time.”

“Explain about calling me Dana.”

She flopped down on the couch and sat knock-kneed with her chin resting in the palm of her hands. She pulled her lips together and pouted then blew out her breath.

“I haven’t been with another man since Dana. All that talk about my father had me thinking about his death for some reason. I just blurted out his name. I really wasn’t calling you him.”

“Hmm. Help me make the connection between your dad and Dana.”

“It’s complicated.”

“This is useless. We’re not getting anywhere, and I think I better leave before I say or do something I’ll regret.”

He picked his shirt off the floor and put it on. He didn’t bother with fastening the buttons. He needed to find his socks. He needed to find his shoes. He needed to get out of her house.

“Please, Derrick, let me explain,” she said, while he dressed.

“That’s all I’ve been asking you to do. Obviously, you can’t, or you’re trying to come up with something clever.”

“No, no that’s not it at all.”

“I’m sure this isn’t how either of us expected our first time to end. I’ll say I’m sorry for leaving, although I don’t feel I owe you an apology. When you’re ready to move on, call me.”

Tears welled in her eyes. The room’s walls seemed to close in on him. He turned and rushed from her bedroom to the front door. Sparrow’s bare feet pitter-pattered behind him. Her hand rushed up his back, pulling on the fabric of his shirt. He arched forward, breaking free, pulled open the door, and walked straight into Detective Tony Sargent.

“Whoa, sorry there, Derrick.” Tony stepped off to the side, but Derrick didn’t cross the threshold. “I should’ve guessed you might be here.”

Derrick struggled to gain composure. What were the odds Dana’s brother would be standing right in front of him? “I was just leaving.” He noticed how Tony cocked his head to one side, looking past Derrick to Sparrow and back to him again. Derrick fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.

“Hi, Tony, what brings you by?” she said, nudging her body between Derrick and the doorframe. Derrick was uncomfortable that she’d come to the door in the silk robe, knowing she was naked underneath.

“I was going through Dana’s stuff and came across something unusual. I was hoping you could shed some light on things. I should’ve called first. Looks like I walked in on something.”

The smirk on his face didn’t get past Derrick. So Tony dropped in on Sparrow to question her about his brother’s things? Didn’t the guy have another girlfriend of Dana’s to bug?

“Now’s not a good time,” Derrick said, and turned to look at Sparrow, hoping she’d make the decision to ask Tony to come back another time. Suddenly, he wanted to stay and work things out with her. After seeing Tony, he’d decided he’d like to hear her explanation about whispering Dana’s name.

“Come in,” she said, and reached for Derrick’s hand.

His fingers curled around hers. He wouldn’t abandon her without knowing the reason for Tony’s visit. They each grabbed a chair and took a seat at the kitchen table.

“Sparrow, do you remember this?” Tony asked.

He laid the naked photo of her down on the table.

Derrick looked from the photo to Sparrow and couldn’t believe his eyes. The seductive temptress in the photo was her. The color drained from her face. She reached across the table and turned the photo over.

“That was a very long time ago,” she said, casting her eyes downward on the table. “Your brother liked to take pictures.”

Tony flattened his hands against the table and spread apart his fingers. “Did he take photos of other girls?”

“I don’t know. I never found any, if that’s what you’re asking. The longer I was with him the more I realized he had an unusual sexual appetite. I only let him take the one photo, and shortly after that we broke up.”

Derrick reached across the table and took her hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze. She still wouldn’t look up at him or Tony. Derrick looked over at Tony and then down at the photo. Tony put his thick index finger on top of the photo and scooted it across the table to Sparrow.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Tony said. “Can I ask you a couple of questions? I know this is hard, but Dana’s dead, and I feel like I didn’t even know my own brother, or why he took his life.”

Derrick caressed her hand with his thumb. She lifted her head. Tears glistened in her eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“You said Dana had an unusual sexual appetite. Was he into anything weird?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’d want to experiment, but I wouldn’t.” She looked down at the table, shaking her head. “He was into rough sex, like asphyxiation.”

“My God. Did he ever hurt you?”

She let out a deep sigh. “No. He cheated on me. That hurt.” She blew out her breath. “Physically did he ever hurt me? Not really—I mean, he’d push me around a bit, but I wasn’t black and blue, if that’s what you mean. Dana had a way of being menacing. He’d back me into a corner and glare at me and act like he was trying to restrain himself from hitting me. I was too stupid to figure it out. I should have walked away, but I hung in there until he hit me. Then I got out.”

Tony’s fingers lightly beat the top of the table. “I didn’t know. It’s hard to imagine my brother being that cruel.” He loudly inhaled and exhaled. “How’d you find out he cheated?”

Hurt shone in her eyes, and Derrick could tell the painful memory about Dana’s cheating bothered her still. And that bothered him. He’d thought she’d been over Dana, considering his philandering ways. He couldn’t believe she had tolerated his indiscretion and allowed him to treat her badly. She had loved Dana enough to put up with his abuse and had probably thought she could change him. He didn’t see Sparrow as that kind of woman. Not after the way she’d handled Sly and Angel out at High Point.

“Some mornings, if I didn’t have a yoga class to teach, I’d go to Dana’s and surprise him with breakfast. Well, it was me who was in for a surprise. I opened the back door and started to fix a tray with fresh fruit and bagels in the kitchen. I left the food on the table and went back to his bedroom and saw him in bed with another woman. They didn’t even know I was there. I left so fast I forgot to take the breakfast with me. Dana called me, confessed, and begged my forgiveness. I forgave him.”

Derrick had heard this story before, and he’d suspected Dana never gave up his cheating ways. Sparrow might have had a crush on him when they were kids, but Dana was her first love.

“I’m sorry Dana didn’t treat you better,” Tony said. “He had a reputation, but I thought he’d started to settle down after you two got together.”

“I’m sure I don’t know half of what Dana did while I was out of sight and out of mind. I knew I wasn’t enough for him.”

“In what way?”

She wiggled in her chair. “I couldn’t hold his interest in the bedroom.”

Neither man could meet her eyes.

Derrick’s hand clung to hers. He caressed her palm with his thumb. She deserved better, and he hated that he had almost walked out on her. He couldn’t imagine the thoughts running through her head after they had made love. Dana had to have made her insecure in her sexuality and shaken her confidence. Perhaps she’d recalled a painful memory and had whispered his name.

“Thanks for your honesty. I know this is hard,” Tony said, and scooted his chair back from the table then continued, “Sounds like none of us were aware of Dana’s secret life.”

“Wait a minute,” Derrick said. “Sit back down.”

Tony dropped back into the chair and clasped his hands together in front of him on the table. He cocked his head toward Derrick, raising his eyebrow. “You got something to say?”

“Tony, there’s something you should know about the night Dana and I had that fight.”

Tony’s jaw ticked in his cheek. “I know all about how you sucker-punched my brother over some girl. He told me how you got all upset because she decided to leave the party with him.”

“That’s not exactly what happened. You really don’t know. Do you?” Derrick leaned back against the chair and expanded his chest with a breath of fresh air. Tony had more to learn about his little brother.

“Know what?” Tony asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Your brother
lured
her away from the party and forced himself on her. I watched him drink too much and come on to every girl with a pulse. Normally, he’d have no problem getting laid, but that night he’d been so fixated on this one girl. Jessica. I’d seen him talking to her before at the beach, and they seemed friendly. She was hot and most of the guys hit on her.”

“Get to the point,” Tony said, drumming his fingers along the sides of his arms.

“We got into a fight because after I realized he’d disappeared with her, I went to this one spot on the beach where he took most of his dates. I heard Jessica begging him to stop, and he kept telling her to stop fighting it and that it would feel good if she’d just relax. When he saw me coming up on them, he asked me if I wanted a piece of her.” Sparrow gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. Derrick laid his hand across her arm. “I’m sorry you have to hear this, Sparrow. I thought maybe you’d heard the truth over the years.”

She shook her head and dropped her hands from around her face. “I-I didn’t know. Go on.”

Derrick turned back to Tony, leaving his hand on Sparrow’s arm, trying to comfort her. “That’s when I pulled him off her and swung at him. He called me a pussy because I wouldn’t… Well, you get the picture, right?”

Tony arms fell from around his middle. He pressed his hands against the table. His fingers started the light drumming again. “What happened to the girl?”

Derrick leaned forward in the chair and rested his arms against the table. He looked Tony dead in the eyes. It was about time Detective Tony Sargent knew the damn truth about that night. “Dana went back to the party and left her crying there with me. I took her home.”

Tony didn’t blink. “Obviously, she didn’t press charges against Dana,” he said between gritted teeth.

Derrick leaned in closer to him. “She couldn’t. Things with her and Dana had gone too far, and when she changed her mind he wouldn’t stop. I got there too late. He’d already…” Derrick exhaled. He leaned forward, forcing the weight of his body to rest on his forearms. “She was scared. We were all drinking, none of our parents knew we were there, and we were all afraid of getting into trouble.”

“All of you were afraid of getting into trouble? Sounds like you were the hero. Why didn’t you convince Jessica to go to the cops?”

Derrick slumped forward against the table and squeezed Sparrow’s arm. “I brought ecstasy to the party that night. It was a dumb thing to do. I couldn’t jeopardize getting into college. I was applying for an accelerated medical school program.”