Mischief 24/7 (26 page)

Court smiled, but she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “Teddy only told me you’d been hurt but you were okay, and that he was on his way to the hospital. But nobody answered the phone when I called from the plane, which just about drove me crazy. I didn’t even know
which
hospital. I called every hospital until I found you, and then nobody would tell me anything. Even when I got fairly demented, which I did.”

“It’s the new laws, the nurse told me. She gave me a copy of them while I was waiting for the doctor to sign me out. The head of a foreign government can ask for and get all my medical records, in the name of Homeland Security and antiterrorism, but they won’t tell my own husband a thing unless I’ve already authorized it in writing. I’m so sorry. Using my maiden name for work probably didn’t help.”

“Let’s not worry about that now. What I needed to know is that you’re all right. Whose fault was it, not that it matters.”

Jade didn’t know what to say. Was it her fault for stepping in when she’d promised not to do any even remotely risky fieldwork anymore? Or was it Teddy’s fault, for drinking too much after dinner last night? Or was it Court’s fault, for marrying her and then expecting her to fit seamlessly into his life, even when he left her alone for a week or more at a time? More than six months of marriage, and if she counted up all the days, they’d only been together for a little more than three of them.

“Jade, honey? The accident. I don’t care whose fault it was. But was anyone else hurt?”

“You… you, uh, think I was in an automobile accident?”

He looked confused. “I just assumed… Teddy said there’d been an accident. Jade? You’re crying, aren’t you? What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“I thought…I thought you knew. I thought Teddy had told you.” Of course Teddy hadn’t told Court—he knew Court would go ballistic all over him. “It wasn’t a car accident.”

“You fell?” Court got to his feet, looking down at her intensely. “No, you didn’t fall. Jade? What don’t I know here? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Jade, honey, where in living hell did you put the Evans background-check file? I’ve been tearing apart the office for an… Oh, hello, Court,” Teddy said, stopping halfway across the small living room. “I didn’t hear you come in. Nice of you to take time away from that big career of yours to come see our little girl.”

“Teddy,” Court said, tight-lipped. “Jade was just about to tell me what happened last night.”

“Was she now? And how is our girl after her nice long nap? Looks a little the worse for wear right now, don’t you think, Court, but she’ll snap back fast enough. Won’t you, sweetie? Nothing keeps my little girl down for long. Why, I remember that time she went head over ears off her new bike. She had a bump on her head you could hang a hat on, but she was back on that bike the very next day. Brave, or just plain Irish stubborn. I don’t know which…”

When Teddy finished speaking, his voice just sort of fading out, the silence in the living room was allowed to grow until even a dead man might have been able to feel the tension. Jade could sense Court’s gaze on her.

She cravenly kept her own eyes averted, pretending an interest in the design on the old crocheted afghan pulled over her legs. It was a zigzag pattern in browns and yellows and oranges, pilly with age and too many washings, but her mother had made it in one of her tries to be a Good Wife. It was by far the ugliest afghan in the history of the world.

“You were hurt on the job, weren’t you?” Court said at last. “You went out on a job. You took on some drunk in a bar the way you did the night we met, or were trying to grab pictures of some cheating husband outside a sleazy by-the-hour motel.”

Her head went up and she realized too late that she had just as good as confessed what had happened. “I’m so sorry, Court. I know I promised.”

“Yes, you did promise. You weren’t going to do that anymore Jade. That was the deal. Help Teddy while I’m out of town on business until he can find someone to replace you, fine. I don’t expect you to just sit around waiting for me to get this damn deal done, twiddling your thumbs. But
no
fieldwork. We’d agreed.”

She’d scared the hell out of him, that was why he sounded so angry. She didn’t blame him. This wasn’t really anger, it was concern. But still she flinched, his words slapping at her. “I—”

“I sent her,” Teddy said, hurrying across the carpet to stand between Court and the couch, as if he would protect Jade if Court tried to hurt her—which was ridiculous.

“Stay out of this, Teddy. My wife and I are talking. This is between Jade and me.”

“The hell it is. I’m the boss, she’s the employee, and a trained PI, damn it. That’s how it works. You don’t take on a job and then only do the parts your husband says you can do. What the hell kind of arrangement is that? I
sent
her, just like she went out there a hundred times before you met her and tried to take over her life You have a problem with how the Sunshine Detective Agency operates, sonny boy, then you have a problem with me, not her.”

“Oh, I have a problem with you all right, Teddy, but we’ll save that for another time,” Court said, his voice cold. He stepped around the man and held out his hand to Jade. “Come on, sweetheart. This isn’t helping anything. Time to go home. I’ll help you get dressed.”

“Are you out of your mind, Becket?” Teddy grabbed Court’s arm and roughly pushed him backward. “You don’t touch my daughter. She’s hurt, she can’t be dragged around like some sack of meal because you want to prove something.”

“Prove something?” Court shook off Teddy’s arm. He actually smiled. “We’re married. What else do I have to prove?”

“You
took
her. I challenged you, idiot that I am, and you couldn’t stand to lose, so you
took
her. But is she happy? Ask her. Go on, Becket, ask her if she’s happy Ask her why she’s here, not waiting for you in your fancy mansion like some prize you won.”

“Prize? That’s how you think, Teddy, not how I think. She’s your daughter, Teddy, not your possession. She has a right to her own life. We have a right to build our own lives, together, in our own way. But you can’t stand that, can you? You can’t let go of the only one you have left.”

Jade struggled to sit up, her bruised ribs catching at her so that she had to suck in her breath at the fierce pain. “Stop it! Stop it, both of you. What are you doing? What are you talking about? My God, what’s going on here?”

“You want to answer that one, Teddy?” Court asked, glaring at the man. “You want to tell my wife what this is really about, what it has been about for you from the beginning? That ‘loving father knowing what’s best for his girls’ pile of crap may have worked with Sam, Teddy, but it damn well doesn’t work with me.”

“Teddy?” Jade was on her feet now, standing next to her father. “What’s Court talking about? What worked with Sam? The beginning of what?”

“You selfish bastard,” Teddy said, his voice low and tight. “What do you know about real love? What do you know about being alone? You’d tear out a man’s heart. Let me tell you, this girl’s been my daughter a lot longer than she’s been your sometimes wife. She knows where she belongs.”

Even as Jade reached for him, Teddy was on the move, stomping off to his office. He slammed the door and she heard the key in the lock a moment before she heard something hard hit the wall inside the office.

Teddy’s fist. She was sure of it.

She looked at Court even as she sat down on the couch again, her legs a bit wobbly from the effect of the pain pills and the ugly scene she’d just witnessed. “What just happened here? For the love of God, Court, what’s going on?”

He sat down next to her and carefully took her into his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, so sorry. I guess that’s been building up for a while between Teddy and me, but I sure picked a hell of a time to put it all on the table. Come on, let’s go to the hotel. Teddy’s right about one thing—you’re in no shape to be dragged onto a plane.”

Jade extricated herself from Court’s gentle embrace. She couldn’t actually hear it, but she was sure the bottom drawer of Teddy’s desk was sliding open at that moment. She couldn’t leave him alone with a bottle, not when he was in one of his black moods.

“The hotel? Oh, Court, I don’t think so. I’m such a mess, and the idea of getting myself together and going with you is… Can’t we just stay here? I should feel a lot better by tomorrow.”

Court looked toward the closed office door. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sweetheart. Teddy seems to bring out the worst in me, and I’ve already upset you enough. How about we do this—I’ll go to the hotel and you stay here and rest. Maybe Teddy will consider that a peace offering or something. I’ve got calls to make, anyway, and I’m expecting some important faxes….”

“You’re so busy with this deal. You shouldn’t have come home. I’m so sorry.”

“The deal? Right now I don’t give a flying…” He kissed her forehead. “Things are going to change, Jade, soon. Once the negotiations are wrapped up, our lives won’t be so crazy, I promise.

Because you know what, sweetheart? I’ve figured something out these past months. I’m the boss. And as the boss, one of my jobs is to hire good people I can trust to act in my name.”

“Like David Langsdowne? You have forgiven him for that suite, haven’t you?”

“Forgiven him?” Court grinned. “I gave him a raise.” Then he sobered again. “Are you really going to be all right here?”

“I’ll be fine,” she told him, resting her head against his shoulder. “And I shouldn’t have gone out on that job. It’s always the ones you think are harmless that end up being the worst, going all postal on you.”

“What I don’t get is why Teddy let you go out on the job in the first place.”

She hated lying to him. “It’s like he said, Court. If I’m here doing the job, I can’t pick and choose my assignments.”

“Then you won’t be back. If Teddy can’t see what he’s doing, I do. Two days aweek, then three. I know I’m gone a lot, Jade, but do you really need to spend all of your time here? Virginia is your home now.”

“It is when you’re there,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel so defensive. “Which you rarely are. It’s… sometimes it’s like we got married just for the sex.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking that. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We have to talk about this,” Court said, and whether he was agreeing with her or trying to put her off, she didn’t know. “For now, I want you to rest, and I’ll let you alone to do that. But tomorrow we go home, Jade, all right? I think we need to be at home, just the two of us.”

Except that
by the time tomorrow came, Teddy was the worst Jade had ever seen him. Hiding in his office, looking through old family photos of when she and her sisters were a lot younger, back when her mother had still been around. He’d actually woken her at four in the morning to make her sit up and look at the photographs with him.

He’d even brought out his case files from some old, unsolved homicide cases that were still open after he’d been injured and had to leave the force. He’d told her about each one, about how they haunted him, how the past was sometimes the only companion he had, the only thing that kept him getting out of bed in the morning.

He’d cried, breaking her heart even though she knew he’d been drinking. In the end, she had helped him to bed, wincing as he leaned against her and set off the pain in her bruised ribs.

When Court called her, she told him she couldn’t leave, not just yet. She blamed business, that Teddy was very busy, because how did she tell her husband that she was worried about Teddy’s mental state?

Court wouldn’t believe her; he didn’t like Teddy, anyway, for some reason she still didn’t understand. It should be enough for Court to know that Teddy needed her for another few days. Maybe a week. That was all. Then she could feel comfortable about leaving him.

“In another few days, Jade, I have to fly back to Greece to sign the final agreements. You could come with me. We’ll have that honeymoon we keep postponing. Please, sweetheart, come with me.”

“Looking like this?” Jade told him with a shaky laugh, putting a hand to her face even though he couldn’t see what she was doing. “Court, no, I can’t. I’ll just stay here with Teddy and you can fly back to Athens now, without having to wait around for me to see the doctor again, have these stitches out. Then when you’ve finished your business we can—”

“Jade,” he interrupted, “why don’t we stop fooling ourselves? This isn’t about what I have to do. This is about the whole bizarre relationship between you and Teddy. You see that, don’t you, sweetheart? He’s turned our lives into some damn tug-of-war with you in the middle.”

Jade hadn’t slept. She hurt all over. Her father was falling apart in front of her eyes. Her husband was making demands on her.

All her life. All her life she’d been the one everyone depended on, the one who fixed things; she was reliable, understood everyone else’s dreams, everyone’s problems.

She was tired. She was so damn tired.

And now her own husband was hinting that not only was she not holding up her end of their marriage, but that her whole life had been some twisted result of Teddy manipulating her somehow.

“You know what, Court? You don’t have to stay here at all. I may look like hell, but I’m fine, I’m going to be all right. Just call me when you get back to Greece,” she said, too weary to talk anymore.

“Jade? Jade, listen to me. No, scratch that. I’m coming over. I’ll be right there.”

“No, Court,” she told him, “I don’t think so. I think it’s best if you just go back to Greece. I’m sorry I got hurt and you had to come home. I…I really don’t think I want to see you right now. We’re saying things I don’t want either of us to say.”

“Jade, sweetheart, we don’t want to do this.”

“I’m not doing anything, Court. You’re the one who’s saying it’s either my job or you. Because that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“No Jade. I’m saying that Teddy sees it another way. Not as the job or me, but as
him
or me.”

“And how is that any different from what you’re asking me to do, Court? Maybe it’s time for
me
to decide how I live. Maybe it’s time for me to take care of
me.
Goodbye, Court, have a nice trip.”