Passion's Price (7 page)

She glanced at Mike, who leaned against the doorjamb in a half slouch. “He says it’s relevant.” She pointed toward Mike.

Myrtle appeared skeptical, but he turned on his computer, searched through a file. “Lorraine Pickney Frank.” When both Darlene and Mike gasped, Myrtle sat straighter, his attention riveted. “You know somebody else with that middle name?”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Madeline Pickney, could possibly be a twin, considering their names.”

“She was on the list of people Mrs. Frank suggested I interview in Memphis, and a man named Bradford Pickney intercepted me the day I got back here,” Darlene said.

Sam Myrtle removed his glasses and pinched his nose several times. “This doesn’t look good, especially since you don’t think you’re alibi witness is reliable.”

“A witness who suddenly volunteers is always suspicious,” Mike said. “If I were on the case, I’d look into that witness. If you don’t mind my saying it, begin with the premise that nobody involved in a case is completely truthful. Attorneys begin with the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty, depending on which side you’re on.”

Sam shook his head. “I didn’t think we needed a detective, but I’m not so sure now. Will you be here for a while, Detective?”

“I’m here for the weekend,” he said.

Later, when they got into Darlene’s car, Mike began to discuss the case with Darlene. “I’d be glad to stay a day longer and help with the case if you want me to. This thing smells from here to Memphis.”

“Thanks, Mike, but it would be unethical of me to allow you to do my work. You’ve given both me and Sam invaluable information, for which I’m grateful. But I know I can handle this. I have to believe in myself, Mike, and that means standing on my own two feet.”

“All right. Let’s drop this for the time being. I want to see what Frederick is like.”

“At your service,” she said, hoping to lighten the mood. Frederick is a complicated city. During the Civil War, it didn’t go with either the North or the South, and today it’s not really Southern nor Northern—like most of Maryland. The city celebrates a number of African-American heroes, beginning with Benjamin Banneker, the first great black scientist and mathematician this country produced. You’ll find memorials to him in many cities. Also, the official Francis Scott Key portrait was painted by an African-American son of Frederick.”

She drove along Bentz Street and slowed down when she reached number 121 South Bentz Street. I wanted you to see this house,” she said. “It was built by Roger Brooke Taney, the Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision. I always spit at that house when I pass it. That decision held that slaves of African descent and their descendants were not protected by the
United States Constitution, had no recourse to law and could not be citizens.

“On the other hand, we have monuments to Barbara Fritchie, Rose Hill Manor, the National Shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton, and the Battle of Gettysburg. So it’s not all bad,” she said. “Frederick and its environs have a wonderful history.”

“Do you like it here so much that you wouldn’t want to live any other place?” he asked. The soberness of his voice stunned her.

“I could live anywhere…if…if I was happy, Mike.” This time, it was her own seriousness, her own truth, that unsettled her.

W
alking along Market Street in historic Frederick, Mike marveled at the town’s uniqueness and how different it was from Memphis. So many of the houses were colonial. He had the feeling of being in two vastly different eras. Realizing that he’d been holding Darlene’s hand tightly, he loosened his grip.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her face bearing an expression of concern.

He was about to say “Nothing,” but he knew that wasn’t true. “Let’s talk when we get back home. Right now, I want to experience this city. It’s so different from the South. It seems more like New England.”

“Old Frederick is, because it’s about the same as it was in the late eighteenth century. I’m glad you’re
enjoying it. I never have time to appreciate its history, so this is a treat for me, too.”

At Patrick Street, they strolled over to Canal Street, where she’d parked her car. “Let’s go home, Darlene.” She gazed up at him with an inquiring expression, then evidently decided not to question him and took out her car keys.

“Okay.”

He held her hand as they walked into the house. He led her to the living room. “Let’s sit here. I need to talk with you.” He didn’t believe in postponing important issues, and this was important to him.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I want us to talk, Darlene. You and I are in similar fields. I know my job, and I accept that you know yours. But you’ve made it clear that when it comes to your work, you’d rather not hear my advice or have me interfere in your work, and not even when you’re about to make a colossal mistake.”

“Now, wait a minute, Mike. You don’t know. And what if I do want to stand on my own? If I didn’t know you, what would I do?”

“I hope you’d talk to a detective or a private investigator. You don’t know everything. But that’s not what this is about. If we’re going to stay together, you have to stop being on the defensive. You have to trust me.”

“Look, I was twenty-nine-years old when you met me, and nobody made me according to your directions. I mean—”

“Darlene, for heaven’s sake, be careful what you say.
I’m trying to make you see that you and I have to find common ground. Otherwise we—”

“I hope you don’t mind me interfering here,” Maggie said, “and if you do, I’m gon’ talk anyhow.” She took a seat opposite them. “I’ve been listening to this argument, and I know where it comes from. Darlene, you have to stop looking at Mike as being controlling. He’s a man, and men have a strong need to protect the women they care for.” Darlene opened her mouth as if to speak, but Maggie raised her hand. “You can talk after I finish.

“Mike cares a lot for you, and you feel the same way about him. So don’t be foolish and destroy what looks to me like a beautiful thing. Anybody can see how you feel about each other. Why do you think Clark and Tyra are giving you so much space? Darlene, you’ve spent so much time proving to Clark, Tyra and me that you’re grown up and you can run your own life and trying to prove to those men you work with that you’re a good lawyer that you’re taking the same attitude with Mike. Stop looking at him as a threat. He’s a man, and seeing
that
shouldn’t make you defensive.”

She looked at Mike. “Ease up, Mike. You’re the second man Darlene ever brought to this house, and the first to spend the night. The other one came once and that was for Thanksgiving dinner. Darlene has to learn that she can no longer lower her lashes, flirt and use her charm to get what she wants. Teach her to deal with you as an equal. And Darlene, you will soon learn that a man hurts the same as a woman, only it goes deeper and lasts much longer.

“I left your supper on the stove. Dessert’s in the refrigerator, and the table’s set in the kitchen. I’m going to the movies, and I’ll be back around eleven-thirty. That should give you plenty of time to fix things between you. And I mean fix it.”

She got up and headed for the front door, and although he was still trying to absorb the tongue-lashing she’d given them, he had the presence of mind to walk to the door. “It’s dark already. Are you taking a taxi?”

“The bus stops half a block from the theater,” Maggie said.

“Wait a minute.” Maybe Frederick was different from Memphis, but prevention beat cure any day. “Do you have the phone number for a taxi?” he called to Darlene. She gave him one. He dialed it, called the taxi. “At least you didn’t tell me to mind my business.”

“Be patient, Mike. You’ll find it well worth your while.”

“I know that, Maggie. The youngest child in the family is always spoiled and precocious.”

“She was. Her mother said she walked at eight months, toilet-trained herself and knew the alphabet and how to count before she was three. She’s always been precocious. But since you’ve been here, I’ve seen some marked changes in her. Clark and Tyra said the same. She’s more thoughtful.”

“Here’s your taxi.” He opened the door and walked out to the taxi with her. After paying the cabbie, he handed Maggie a ten-dollar bill. “Take a taxi back.” She reached up, kissed his cheek and ducked her head
back in the cab. He was certain that he saw appreciation in her eyes.

Inside the house, he found Darlene sitting as he’d left her. “You’re very pensive,” he said, sitting down and easing an arm around her.

She scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you think I’m contentious?”

“No, I don’t. I think you need to learn to compromise. We’ll have disagreements, but if both of us insist on having our way, we won’t be happy together. I’m hungry.”

He took his plate from the table setting and went to the stove. “Let’s see. Chicken and dumplings, string beans, a carrot soufflé and corn bread. Oh, boy!” He waited until Darlene served herself and joined him. “Do you usually say grace?” he asked her.

“When I remember to do it, I do.”

He said the grace. “I want my kids to say the grace before they eat and their prayers before they go to bed. That’s the least I can teach them.”

“Can you come back next weekend?” she asked, startling him so completely that his fork clattered against his plate.

“You want me to?”

“If it’s inconvenient, but—”

“Of course I want to come back next weekend, and I will.”

She looked at him with a diffidence that he didn’t associate with her. “Because of me or for Maggie’s cooking?”

Another surprise. “I certainly hope you meant that to be funny. If you need an answer, I’ll be here for you, not for food.”

“Sorry, but Maggie gave me such a jolt that I…I don’t know. I was thinking about me and…and what I wanted and didn’t want. Maybe you can write down a few questions that I can ask that witness.”

His head jerked up. “Sure. I’ll be glad to. According to the answers you get, you may want to follow up.”

“What kind of questions are important?” she asked him.

He restrained the deep sigh of relief that nearly escaped him. He wanted to avoid anything that would compromise the case. “Places she’s traveled in the last six months, her occupation, her siblings and other close family members, questions that flow from her answers. That’s just off the top of my head.”

“I…uh…I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with after you’ve given it a lot of thought.”

He hoped he was wrong, but he had a suspicion that she didn’t take his work seriously. “Darlene, I’ve been a detective since I was twenty-six. I’ll be thirty-five in January so that’s nine years in the job.”

She patted his knee. “You’re getting old. Why did you decide to be a detective?”

He leaned back, comfortable with himself and with the topic. They didn’t really know each other, and he suspected that was their problem. This exchange was overdue. “With two degrees in criminology, there wasn’t
much else I could do, since I didn’t plan to teach or work in a prison. I’ve wanted to be a detective since I was eight and my favorite stories and books were by Arthur Conan Doyle and Erle Stanley Gardner.”

“I’m glad you’re a detective. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have met you.”

He stroked her arm. “Sure you would have. You were mine from the day you were born.”

She bolted upright. “I didn’t say I was yours.”

He pulled her back into his arms. “You didn’t have to say it. Action speaks louder than words ever will.”

He knew that she was only half kidding, that she didn’t think she wanted to
belong
to a man. Still fighting for independence, was she? He’d put an end to that. “If you don’t belong to me, I’d be foolish to allow myself to belong to you, wouldn’t I?” he said.

She moved away from him and stared into his face, her own face marred by a deep frown. “Are you telling me that you belong to me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I want to,” he said, “but I’m not stupid. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I’d let myself care for a woman who didn’t care for me. I might for a few days, but then I’d give myself a good kick in the behind, and she’d be history.”

She lowered her lashes and then raised them slowly in a blatant act of flirtation. “Don’t count on my not caring. I don’t see that in my future. At least, not now.”

“At least not now, huh? Come here, woman!”

Darlene rimmed her lips with the tip of her tongue, looked at his mouth and then slowly raised her gaze to meet his eyes, eyes that seemed to vibrate with passion “You talking to me?” she said, all the while moving her mouth closer to his.

“Yeah!”

She didn’t know how or when it happened, but his hands were all over her, his long fingers heating her to boiling point while his magic tongue danced in and out of her mouth, showing her what she’d get in the minutes to come. He pulled his tongue out of her mouth and brushed his lips over her eyes, face, ears and neck, but she had to have more.

“Kiss me, Mike. I need you to—”

“Tell me what you want.” He stared into her eyes as his fingers teased the flesh of her bare arms, and every place he touched seemed to explode into a blaze. “Tell me.”

“I…I want you in me, deep, as far as you can go.” His mouth covered hers, and he plunged his tongue into her. Exasperated, she grabbed his hand and stroked the nipple of her left breast, hard and almost ruthlessly. “Kiss me. Why don’t you kiss me?” she moaned.

“Open this thing and let me at it,” he said, his voice urgent as his hot breath fanned her skin.

She shoved his hand into her blouse and released her breast. He sucked the nipple into his mouth. Her cry could be heard all over the house, and with that
encouragement, he picked her up and carried her to his room.

“How do you get out of this thing?” he asked after kicking the door closed. She unbuttoned the top three buttons, pulled the blouse over her head, tossed it across the room, unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor. When, in his haste, he pulled her bra off, his fingers skimmed over her breast, grazing her nipples and sending hot darts of electricity throughout her body. He stared into her eyes, and when she wet her lips, he bent to her breast, sucked an erect nipple into his mouth and slipped his left hand into her bikini panties.

“Ooh,” she moaned when he began rubbing her erect clitoris. “Why don’t you just get in me?”

“Because I want you to enjoy this.”

“I am. I will. I’ll die if you don’t get in me now.”

Next thing she knew, he had her across the bed, pulled her hips to the edge of it, hooked her knees across his shoulders and was flicking at the edge of her vulva with his sweet tongue. “Stop teasing me. I can’t stand this.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“I love it.” He sucked on her clitoris. Frantic, she swung her hips up to him just as he shoved his tongue into her. Heat swirled at the bottom of her feet and, this time, she knew what to expect. “Please Mike. I’ll come before you get in me.”

He stripped himself, pulled a condom from under the pillow and prepared to join her. But before he put on the condom, she remembered the pleasure he seemed
to get from the intimate kiss she gave him the last time they made love. So she sat up, took him into her hands, stroked him and then leaned forward and sucked him into her mouth, enjoying him as if sucking on a lollipop. Suddenly, he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away.

“I thought you liked that.”

“I love it, but you almost made me climax, and I don’t want that to happen yet.” He joined her and began an onslaught on her body, kissing, stroking and teasing until she was nearly out of her mind.

“Get in me, honey. You’re driving me crazy.”

“All right.” He handed her the condom, and she sheathed him, marveling at his size, his hardness and the way he made her feel. He slipped into her, and with one arm around her shoulder and the other around her hips, he smiled down at her. She thought she’d go out of her mind. Then he unleashed his power, and he was over her, under her, in her and all around her, filling her, emptying her, molding her body, heart and mind, making her his.

“Who do you belong to?” He asked the question as her insides began to erupt in what seemed like an earthquake. “Tell me. Whose woman are you?”

“Yours,” she moaned. “You know I’m yours. Give it to me harder. Stop playing with me.”

“I’m not playing with you. Be patient, love. It’s coming. Oh, yes!”

He seemed to fling her up and then toss her back down, until she felt herself grip him with such force that
he paused as if glued to her. And then the all-powerful release.

At that moment, he shouted, “You’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.” His tremors shook her, and he collapsed, letting his elbows take his weight.

Neither of them spoke, and she knew that, like her, Mike was absorbing the impact of what they’d just done and what it meant. To her, at least, it meant forever, and she prayed that she hadn’t made a mistake, because an error of such gargantuan proportions would surely ruin her life. She hadn’t experienced true love in the past, and she couldn’t swear that that was what she was feeling right then, but she knew that whatever it was, it had a powerful hold on her.

“How do you feel?”

She told him the truth. “I don’t know. This goes far beyond what I felt with you in Memphis. It was…I guess it was natural, and it…it was as if I didn’t exist anymore. I was you. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. It was incredible, but at times I thought I was about to die.”