The Crush (42 page)

"What does it matter?"

"It matters because I want to know, dammit!

It matters because you're so damned and determined to keep the secret your daddy's money got buried. And it matters because I'm working on a two-day hard-on that I can't do anything about. Not without you accusing me of mauling you and getting death threats from your neighbor Toby."

He had backed her into a corner, literally-she was wedged into the right angle formed by intersecting cabinetry--and he had backed her into a corner emotionally. She came out fighting.

"Raymond never forced me to do anything. Not that afternoon. Not ever. If you want to invent a myth about attempted rape because that somehow sanitizes it in your mind and makes you feel better about me, then fine. But that's not the way it was.

"Raymond and T. Dan became partners on a land deal when I was fourteen. He started coming around a lot, spending time with us. I knew the impact I had on him. I teased him unmercifully. Under the guise of an affectionate older man, he seized every opportunity to touch me. I encouraged it and laughed about it later.

He had this ... this naked yearning that I thought was hilarious." She paused to take a breath. "Still think I'm "incredible," Wick? Just wait.

There's more."

"Stop it, Rennie."

"Oh no, you wanted to know. You wanted relief for your hard-on. Well this ought to cure it. For two years I tormented that poor man.

Then, about a week before that wretched day, I had a quarrel with my father. I don't even remember what I'd done, but he took away the keys to my car and grounded me for a month.

"So I got back at him by sleeping with his business partner. That's right, Wick. I called Raymond from a motel and told him that if he wanted me he could have me, but that he had to come right then. I was waiting for him."

She brushed tears of shame off her hot cheeks, but it was too late to stop now. The words continued to bubble out of her. "Raymond came to the motel and I went to bed with him. Just like I went to bed with all of them. Everything you've heard about Rennie Newton is true. You probably haven't heard a fraction of what there is to tell. Sometime when I haven't got a killer breathing down my neck, we'll get together and split a bottle of wine, and I'll detail for you all my sexual escapades. It'll be like telling ghost stories, only better.

"But this is the one story that seems to have you itching for the lowdown. And rightly so, because it was the worst thing I ever did. Daddy punished me, but I showed him, didn't I? I showed him but good."

Chapter 28

Reportedly, Wesley had been relieved to hear that she and Wick had passed the night safely and that there'd been no trace of Lozada. But since they'd left the ranch he had called Wick at half-hour intervals even though Wick had assured him he would be notified immediately if they spotted Lozada at any point on the long drive to Galveston.

Wick had insisted on taking his pickup, and he had insisted on driving. It would be a difficult and exhausting trip for him as a passenger. Driving would add more stress and strain, but she hadn't quarreled with him about it.

They avoided talking at all.

The tension between them since their last conversation was pulled so taut that one cross word could cause it to snap like an overextended rubber band. And Wick had resumed wearing one around his wrist.

She was staring out the passenger window looking disinterestedly at the scenery speeding by when his cell phone rang for the umpteenth time. "Jesus, Oren, give it a rest," he said.

"Extend to the detective my warmest regards," she said drolly.

"Yeah?"

Rennie sensed the change in Wick instantly.

She turned away from the window and saw that his free hand had tightened around the steering wheel and his lips were set in a thin, straight line.

His voice, however, was incongruently pleasant. "Well, well, well, Ricky Roy. Haven't seen you in a while. Of course the last time we shared space I didn't exactly see you, did I?"

Just knowing that Lozada was on the other end of the call caused Rennie to shudder. The fear she'd felt that evening in her kitchen was still a fresh memory. Had he been brutal or raving, he wouldn't have frightened her nearly as much, but his complacency had been terrifying.

Wick steered the pickup off the highway. "I hate to be the one to break it to you, Ricky Roy, but backstabbing someone is really a chicken-shit thing to do." When the truck came to a full stop, he pushed the gear stick into Park. "But I'm as good as new now. Pity I can't say the same for Sally Horton. Sally Horton, asshole.

You remember. The girl you killed the night you tried to kill me."

Rennie could hear Lozada's silky laughter coming through the phone. She unfastened her seat belt, moved closer to Wick, and motioned for him to hold the phone away from his ear so she could listen in.

"You must still be on mind-altering painkillers, Threadgill," he said. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then let me clarify it. You're a cowardly woman killer."

Lozada was too clever to fall for such obvious baiting. "I read that you had barely survived an assault of some kind, and that you would have died if you hadn't received excellent emergency care."

"Rennie Newton is an excellent surgeon."

"A good fuck, too."

Rennie reacted as though she'd been struck.

She looked at Wick but could only see herself reflected in the lenses of his sunglasses.

"Is she there with you now?" Lozada asked.

"If she weren't you wouldn't be calling me, would you?"

"Strange, isn't it? You and I sharing a woman. Although," he continued smoothly, "it's not surprising that Rennie is attracted to both of us. Danger turns her on. Like when her friend Dr. Howell died. She described to me the violent way he died, and during the telling she got wet."

Rennie made a lunging grab for the telephone, but Wick caught her wrist and pushed her hand away. He shook his head furiously.

"That was only the second time we were together,"

Lozada said. "She was a wild one that night.

Even I could barely keep up with her."

"That doesn't surprise me,"

Wick said as though bored. "I always figured your murder weapons were substitutes for physical shortcomings."

Lozada tsked. "That was a cheap shot.

Unworthy of even you."

"You're right. I should have come right out and called you an impotent slug-dick."

Lozada laughed. "It really bothers you that I had her first, doesn't it? I bet you wonder how you compare. I once made her come just by licking her nipples. Can you do that?"

Rennie covered her ears, but she could still hear Wick say, "You know, Ricky Roy, I'm beginning to think you're trying to come on to me with all this dirty talk. What's the point of this call anyway?"

She didn't hear what Lozada said, but Wick's response to it was, "Wrong. If you were finished with her, you wouldn't be making this call.

You're jealous and can't stand it that she's with me now.

Eat your heart out, asshole."

He clicked off, practically threw the phone up onto the dashboard, and cursed viciously.

"He's lying," she said gruffly.

He shifted the pickup into Drive and checked for oncoming traffic, then pulled back onto the highway.

"He's lying, Wick."

He still didn't acknowledge her.

"He's manipulating you, and you're letting him!"

He turned to her then and she could feel his eyes probing hers from behind the sunglasses. But all he said was "Buckle your seat belt."

ALTHOUGH HE DISLIKED WICK THREADGILL
hanging up on him, Lozada was chuckling as he clicked off his cell phone. The call had accomplished what he'd wanted. The only thing more gratifying would be to hear the conversation going on between them now. He would love to know if the seeds of doubt he'd planted had taken root in Threadgill's mind.

Rennie had probably been listening in. She would be denying everything and Threadgill would be finding her denials hard to believe. Especially since he knew all, if not more, of what Lozada's own investigation had uncovered about the young Rennie Newton.

In another life he might have been a cop, he thought philosophically. He definitely had the instincts of an undercover detective. He had turned these intuitive skills one hundred eighty degrees to serve his own needs, but he would have made as good an investigator as Oren Wesley or Joe Threadgill or little brother Wick. And, unlike them, he wasn't constrained by conscience or legality.

For instance, had the
waitress at the Wagon Wheel Caf
e in Dalton not been so cooperative, he might have followed her home and tortured answers out of her before killing her.

As it turned out, however, Crystal had been a gushing fountain of information. At first she had thought it curious that he was the second man in so many weeks to inquire about Rennie Newton.

"Funny that you're askin' 'bout her."

Lozada had picked at his plate of greasy enchiladas and said nonchalantly, "How so?"

"There was another fellow in here not long ago.
I think it was a Sunday. He'd known her in college, he said. He was a real cutie pie." She winked. "Rennie missed out on him, same as she did on you, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome."

"Thank you. What did the other guy look like?"

She had described Wick Threadgill from his mop of blond hair to his scuffed cowboy boots. When he told Crystal that this dreamboat was a cop, she had been miffed. "Now that pisses me off," she exclaimed. "I fell for every word of his BS!"

He told her that Wick was an investigator for a sleazy medical malpractice lawyer.

"His sole job is to dig up dirt on defending doctors." Crystal fell for the story just as she'd fallen for whatever line Threadgill had given her. "Don't blame yourself, Crystal. He can be very convincing."

"Dadgum right. Must've been those big blue eyes of his." Her gaze turned wary. "You some kind of investigator too?"

He gave her his best smile. "I'm a freelance writer. I'm doing an article on Dr. Newton. About her volunteer work in underprivileged countries."

"Well, if you ask me, all her volunteering won't make up for her past

shenanigans," she said with a righteous sniff. Then for the next half hour she had regaled him with stories about the licentious Rennie Newton. "Don't guess we should've been surprised when she shot poor ol' Raymond."

Oh, yes, his trip to Dalton yesterday had been very worthwhile and informative. He had even come away with a complementary piece of chocolate meringue pie, packed up for carry-out.

Weenie Sawyer had come through for him. The threat with the scorpion had rendered all kinds of information, such as new and useful facts regarding Wick Threadgill, including the place of his last credit-card charge, which happened to be located in the town where, according to other computer data, Rennie Newton had been born and reared.

He had also learned how much property tax she paid on her ranch in a neighboring county, that she was quite a horsewoman, and that she had competed in rodeo barrel racing in her hometown. That is, when she wasn't fucking for sport.

Now, feeling flush with the success of his phone call to the former cop, he turned up the volume on the CD player in his SUV and inhaled deeply, wondering when he would catch the first whiff of coastal air.

WICK UNLOCKED THE DOOR
and it swung open on rusty hinges. He motioned her inside. "Don't expect too much."

"It'll be fine."

"I don't earn a six-figure surgeon's salary."

"I said it's fine."

"Kitchen's there. Bedroom and bath through there.

Make yourself at home."

"I'd like to shower."

"I don't guarantee hot water. Clean towels--if there are any--will be in the cabinet above the commode."

Without another word she went through the door into the bedroom, closing it behind her. "Never mind, Your Highness, I'll bring in the bags by myself," he muttered.

He returned to the pickup, consciously telling himself to act naturally and not to look around for the police personnel posted to watch them. He hauled the two bags from the bed of the pickup, wincing at the pinching pain in his back.

Twice Rennie had offered to drive.

The first time he had declined the offer and politely thanked her for the courtesy. The second time he had snapped at her. That was after Lozada's call, when their strained silence had turned into hostile coexistence. The last three hours of the trip had seemed like thirty. The tension had found his weak spot and settled in. Every time he felt so much as a twinge, he cursed Lozada.

With no regard for his guest's privacy, he pushed open the bedroom door and went in. He could hear the water pipes knocking in the bathroom. A naked and soapy Rennie would be the best thing ever to grace that sorry shower, but he'd be doing himself a favor not to think about Rennie either naked or soapy or at all.