Текст книги "Sweet Sinful Nights"

Автор книги: Lauren Blakely

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The air conditioning hummed, blasting out sheets of cool air in the stark visiting room. Shannon rubbed her bare arms, wishing she’d brought a sweater. She didn’t remember it having been so chilly the last time she was there. Perched on the edge of a hard plastic chair at a table inside a small room, she waited.

She tried to conjure up an image of her mother, tried to remember how Dora had looked at Christmas, but the images that paraded before her eyes were older ones, so much older. Sewing Shannon’s leotard, the corner of her lips screwed up in concentration as she threaded. Placing a Band-Aid on Shannon’s knee when she’d skidded on her bike. Holding her hand as she walked her to school. So young, so vibrant, so blond. Just like Shannon. She’d had the same bright blond hair. Absently, Shannon raised her hand to her now-brown hair.

Someone opened the door.

Shannon rose. Nerves skittered across her flesh. The corrections officer appeared first, a tall, sturdy woman with dark hair in a braid. Holding the door open, the guard nodded and grunted a curt hello.

“Hello,” Shannon said, the word feeling strange on her tongue. Even after all these years, it still never felt normal to be conversing with a corrections officer.

Her mother entered, and Shannon did her best impression of a sealed-up box. Otherwise she’d fall to pieces. Keeping her chin up, her muscles steady, she managed a simple, “Hi, Mom.”

Her mother was a shadow of the woman she’d once been. Her bright blond hair was the color of dishwater, her cheeks were sunken, and her green eyes were a shade of sallow. Even so, she smiled. Her lips, with their cracked red lipstick, quivered as she held out her arms for a hug.

“My baby,” said the woman in orange.

Shannon walked into her arms, embarrassment and shame smacking her from all directions. She wasn’t ashamed this woman was her mother. She was ashamed for Dora, for what she’d become, for the choices she’d made that led her to this. Thin arms wrapped around Shannon, arms that had once been strong and maternal. Her mother clutched her.

“Oh, baby. My baby. It is so good to see you again,” Dora said, her mouth closer to Shannon’s neck than she would have liked.

“It’s good to see you, too, Mom,” Shannon said, lying, but knowing it was only a white lie. It wouldn’t hurt anyone for her to say that.

“I’m so happy you’re here.” Another firm grip, then she felt the first drop from her mom’s eyes. A tear had fallen on Shannon’s bare shoulder as Dora embraced harder and tighter, as if she could graft her body onto Shannon’s and escape as a growth on her kid.

“All right, Prince. That’s enough,” the CO said, her command clear.

Shannon’s mom pulled away, and shot the woman a contrite look. “Sorry. I just missed my baby girl so much. She’s a dancer. Isn’t she lovely?” Her mom held out her arms to Shannon as if she were presenting her on Wheel of Fortune.

“Mom, stop,” Shannon said, embarrassed now for a whole new reason. She glanced at the woman. “We’re fine. We’ll sit down now.”

“Behave, Prince,” the woman warned as she shut the door, leaving Shannon alone with her mother. They sat at the gray plastic table, like the kind in a cafeteria.

“Baloney,” her mom said.

“Baloney?”

“That’s what they fed me the other day. Baloney on white bread. Can you believe it? Baloney.” Her mom brought her hand to her eyes, covering them, as if the memory of the cold cuts was too much to bear. “I hate baloney.”

“Tell them you hate it.”

“I tried. I asked for turkey. They don’t think I deserve turkey.”

“Did they say that?” Shannon asked.

Her mom raised her face. “They don’t have to. I can tell. They don’t like me here. They don’t like me at all.”

“Mom,” she said, doing her very best to sound comforting and caring, because that was all she could do. “Why would you say that?”

“Because.” Her mom clamped her lips shut, as if she was refusing to speak.

“Because why?”

“Because.”

Shannon held up her hands in defeat. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Because of what happened,” her mom snapped out, like a wild dog.

“Because of why you’re here?” she asked gently, as if she were talking to a child who’d been caught skipping school.

Her mom shook her head, whipping it back and forth so rapidly she was a cartoon character in fast forward. “No. Not that. Not that at all. It’s because of the—” She stopped talking and jammed her fist in her mouth, biting hard on her knuckles.

Shannon cringed and reached for her mom’s hand, trying to remove it. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Her mom bit deeper. “Mom, stop that,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Your CO will come back and you’ll have to go. You’re making a scene.”

Her mom crunched, digging her teeth into the flesh of her hand.

“You’re going to draw blood. Stop!”

The door swung open.

“Enough, Prince,” the corrections officer barked.

Dora dropped her fist from her mouth, her shoulders sagging, her body going limp. The big woman held up her hand and raised her index finger. “One more shot, Prince. One more shot.”

“Okay,” her mom muttered.

Shannon dared to look. Her mom’s hand had deep grooves from her own teeth. Red and raw, on the cusp of bleeding. “What was that all about?” she asked, bewildered.

“Nothing,” her mom mumbled. “Just nothing.”

Shannon nodded, trying to digest everything that had gone wrong so far. Baloney obsession and gnawing her own fist in the first three minutes. Steeling herself for another painful visit, she fixed on her best happy face, and asked, “Are you still watching General Hospital?”

Dora’s eyes lit up. They sparkled with a mad kind of glee as she began rattling off couples, and plot lines, and twists and turns. Shannon let her talk, and let her share every spoiler, because that soothed the savage beast inside her mother.

After fifteen minutes of mindless chatter about TV and the meatloaf served last night, her mom asked about Shannon’s work, and Shannon told her the latest about her shows. Then, after they’d settled into a peaceful rhythm, Shannon broached the topic of the phone call. “You said earlier you wanted to talk about something that would change everything,” she said, then swallowed. Her throat was dry. Her mouth was sawdust. She had to do this though. She had to know. “Is the case being reopened?”

Her mom sat up straight, like a puppeteer had just pulled up her marionette strings. “Is it?”

Shannon sighed. “Mom, I don’t know. I thought that’s why you wanted to talk. You told Ryan on the phone, and you told me earlier today you had news that would change everything.” She placed her hands on the table, knowing her mom would take them, knowing the woman who gave her life would want to hold them. Her mom shot out her hands instantly, gripping Shannon’s. Inside, she cringed, not wanting that kind of connection to the woman. But she let her mom do it anyway. Because it was the compassionate thing to do. That was where she could be different from the woman in orange. “Tell me. Did someone find new evidence? I heard the DA was talking to Stefano. Is there something going on? Tell me, Mommy,” she said, hating to use that term, but it was the way to get her mom talking.

“I don’t know anything about Jerry,” she said, using the shooter’s first name.

“What did you see your lawyer about then?” Shannon squeezed her bony fingers, urging her to speak.

Her mom’s chest rose and fell. She breathed heavily. Then, faster. A lone, silent tear streaked from her eye. “It’s about Luke.”

Shannon flinched. She hadn’t heard that name in years. Hadn’t thought it much either. There had been no reason to. Luke Carlton was long gone. The local piano teacher her mother had had a brief affair with when Shannon was thirteen was ancient history. The police had questioned him, but it was perfunctory. He was never a suspect. He’d had no connection at all to the crime.

“What about Luke?” she asked carefully. She wasn’t wild about the man, not by any stretch, but there was a big difference between being a cheater and being a killer. There was no evidence to show her mother’s lover was involved in any way, except loving the wrong person at the wrong time. “The police cleared him, Mom. In just two days he was cleared of any knowledge.”

“I know. He didn’t do it. He’s not that kind of man. He’s a gentleman and a saint. He’s not the one who shot your daddy in the driveway. And it wasn’t me either. It was a robbery gone wrong,” she said, sticking chapter and verse to her age-old defense, as if the open wallet and stolen bills missing from it proved her innocence.

Shannon sighed deeply, her heart cratering as her mom toed her own party line. “Then why are you bringing up Luke?”

Her mom peered to the door, making sure it was shut, then back at Shannon. She lowered her voice to a feather of a whisper. “He said he’d wait for me. He promised he’d wait for me.”

“You’re in for life. He’s going to be waiting a long time.”

“Not if they find the real killer.”

“If they were going to, it would have happened already. It’s been eighteen years,” she said, reminding her mother that time was not on her side. She didn’t bother to bring up the powerful evidence that had put her there in the first place, including the shooter’s own testimony that Dora Prince had hired him. That didn’t need to be said, because it didn’t change this interaction.

“Oh, it’ll happen. They’ll realize.”

Shannon bit back all the things she wanted to say. All the truths she wanted to remind her mother of. She didn’t want to rehash the case. She didn’t want to play courtroom trial again. “What does this have to do with Luke?”

Her mom leaned across the table, coming as close to Shannon as she could, and said in a fast breath, “Because he promised to wait for me. He swore he would. And I just found out he’s remarried. One of my girlfriends on the outside told me. Baby, he married another woman. He was supposed to wait for me. For me, for me, for me. And now he’s with someone else, and I’m all alone.” She dropped her head to the table, tears spilling like summer rain from her eyes.

Shannon brushed a hand over her mother’s limp hair. “That’s what you talked to your lawyer about?”

Her mom nodded her head against the table as she sobbed. “Yes. Because it proves something. And lawyers need proof. So I told my lawyer.”

“What does it prove?”

“It proves that Luke lied to me,” she said, her voice breaking like waves. “He lied when he said he’d come back.”

“And that changes everything?”

“Yes. It changes everything for me. Everything.” Her mom cried more, a river of tears rolling down the plastic as Shannon stroked her hair, some strange kind of relief washing over her even in the midst of all this hollowness, all this hurt for the woman her mother had become.

Through it all, one fact remained starkly clear.

The case was closed. Her mother’s fate was irrevocably sealed eighteen years ago, and now she was paying for her crime in so many ways. With her life, with her health, and with her sanity.

Dora Prince lived in her own land, and she’d done it all to herself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Skittles? Salt and vinegar chips? Twizzlers?”

Brent plucked the snack foods from a dusty shelf, wiggling each bag in front of his wife.

She crinkled her nose. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Yeah, these might be stale.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think many people come around here too often.” He peered at the expiration date on the Skittles. “Whoa. These Skittles were past their prime two years ago.”

She laughed half-heartedly as he dropped the unwanted snacks on their shelves.

“I’ll just get a soda,” she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the fountain drinks at the Lucky Seven Gas & Go somewhere in the middle of the desert. As far as he knew, they were halfway between Hawthorne and Vegas, which meant two and half more hours of cruising south on the highway to home.

“Shan, you need to eat. You haven’t had anything all day.”

“Maybe just some pretzels then,” she said. “Pretzels taste expired anyway.”

He grabbed a pretzel pack with gusto, as if his enthusiasm for potentially out-of-date road trip snacks would somehow buoy her spirits. She walked to the soda fountain, grabbed a cup, and pressed it against the Diet Coke spout. She leaned forward slowly, as if she was starting to tip over, then rested her forehead against the dispenser. She’d slept the whole ride back so far, slumping against the passenger seat with her shades on after she’d left the prison and given Brent the cliff notes as they drove out of Hawthorne.

Crossing the distance in a second, he took the cup from her. “I’ll do it.”

She rested her head against his chest. “Thank you.”

It was only a soda. That was all he was doing. Filling a flimsy paper cup at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. But it was something he alone could do for her right now. And she needed it.

He finished filling the cup and popped a lid on it.

“I’m sorry I made you drive me all the way here for nothing,” she said.

“Hey. You did not make me do anything. I chose to. And it was not nothing.” He set the cup down on the counter, and lifted her chin. “It was not nothing.”

“But you missed your meeting and it’s just the same old stuff with my mom.”

“Then that’s something. That’s exactly what you needed to know.”

“The same old stuff?”

He nodded. “The same old stuff. Because now you know. Now you know that nothing has changed. Now you can stop worrying that something is going to change. This is the same stuff she did to you in college,” he said, running a thumb along her jawline as he held her gaze. “She tried to work you over. She tried to get you to believe her madness. And you are good, and loving, and you did the right thing by seeing her, Shan. You visited her; you listened to her. You did a loving thing without compromising who you are. And now, you can let it go. The past is the past.”

* * *

She leaned her cheek into his hand, so strong, and so soft at the same time too. “How did you get to be so wise?” she asked softly.

“My wife taught me how,” he said, planting a kiss on her forehead, then rubbing her belly. “Now I need to go pay for this stale nourishment I’m procuring for you.”

He picked up the soda and pretzels and walked to the cash register to pay. As she watched him, she couldn’t help but feel an unexpected pang of guilt over the day, and what he’d miss tomorrow. The Tribeca club had been his single-minded mission for expansion, and he’d worked his ass off to please the neighborhood. He’d come so close, and she’d even made the video to show them at the meeting this weekend.

Then it hit her. Like a bag of obvious smacking into her. The answer had been under her nose and on her phone the whole time. She didn’t know if it would make a difference to the neighborhood association, but she had to try. As Brent finished paying, she fired off a quick text to James, grateful she still had his number from the first night they’d met.

Ten minutes later, she had an email address for Alan Hughes, and the video she’d made was on its way to him as they pulled back onto the highway.

A few miles down the road, a sign rose into view, the rays of the dipping sun illuminating the battered wooden billboard. Gateway to Death Valley, Beatty, Nevada. Established 1903. Population 1000. It stood proudly amidst the sand and rocks, the dryness and dust.

Twenty feet away, there was a sign for a Motel 6.

Shannon touched Brent’s arm and pointed to the sign, then wiggled her eyebrows.

He cut the wheel at the exit, and they checked into a fifty-nine dollar a night room at a hotel that boasted a coin laundry, free local calls, and morning coffee on the house.

As well as a bed that squeaked, she learned as she pushed down on the springs of the mattress inside room number fourteen, on the first floor with a view of the parking lot.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“What do you want to do?”

She ran her fingers along the silky fabric of her scarf. “I want you to fuck the day away.”

His lips quirked up. “That is my specialty,” he said, and soon he’d stripped her naked and tied her hands with the scarf, knotting the ends to the headboard of the creaky motel bed. “I knew this gift would come in handy.”

“It’s a multi-use scarf,” she said, squirming, as he began to kiss her.

No, he didn’t just kiss her.

He worshipped her.

He caressed her breasts with his lips. He nipped her throat with his teeth. He adored her belly with his tongue, working his way across the landscape of her body, marking the territory of her with his lips, and his sighs, and his groans. As he traveled across her with his tongue, she let the day fall away. She gave herself over to passion.

Her hips shot up, seeking more of him, begging with her body for him to work his magic.

But it was more than just magic. He was more than just her sweet drug as he consumed her and sent her soaring into a state of ecstatic bliss that had her singing his name to the heavens.

He flipped her over, her wrists still bound to the headboard, and sank into her. She cried out, louder than she’d ever been, more aroused than she’d ever been, there on her hands and knees in a Motel 6.

Yes, it was so much more than mere intoxication. Sex with Brent flooded her brain with endorphins, filled her body with pleasure, and freed the past.

He wasn’t just fucking the day away. This connection, this deep and abiding love, was part of the letting go. As they came together in a mad carnal frenzy, the past crumbled to dust.

There was no more past.

It was done. It was over.

There was only the present, only love, only life. Her life together with her man.

* * *

As he lifted his fork for a final bite of scrambled eggs and hash browns at a truck stop diner an hour outside of Vegas, Brent’s phone rang. It rattled on the table, blinking Tanner’s name across the screen.

Brent groaned. He showed the screen to Shannon, and she simply shrugged. “Maybe it’s good news?” she suggested.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I knew you were funny,” he said as the ringer sounded again. “I’m sure he’s calling to tell me I’ll never get a club approved in New York.”

Brent slid his thumb across the screen and answered. “Hey Tanner.”

“Congratulations,” the man barked.

Brent narrowed his eyes. Waiting for the sucker to come. You’ve been punked, you jackass.

A waitress in a starchy pink diner uniform stopped at their table, holding up a pot of coffee.

“Thanks. But for what?” Brent asked carefully, holding up his mug for a refill. It was early in the afternoon. They’d slept in late that morning, then extended the shower by a few orgasms, and didn’t hit the road until noon.

“They fucking loved your wife’s video. They loved it,” Tanner said, as if he were licking each word like a lollipop.

“What video?” Brent asked, though the word tickled a distant memory. Shannon had said something once about making a video of the Edge rehearsal in San Francisco. “Of the dancers in San Francisco?”

“That. But it was mostly all the soundbytes. Something from James. Something from some chick who’s known you forever. Mindy, I think. A few nice words from that hotel guy. A bunch of others, too. But I think they liked your wife and her note most of all.”

Brent caught Shannon’s gaze as she brought her mug to her lips and drank some coffee. Her eyes were full of mischief.

“What did my wife’s note say?”

Tanner cleared his throat. “It said, and I quote. ‘Please accept my apologies that my husband was unable to attend your picnic. I was very much looking forward to joining him and meeting you as well. I had an urgent family matter to attend to here in Nevada, and needed to visit my mother. My husband wanted to be by my side, so he chose to come with me. I hope this video I made of his work, and his friends, colleagues, and family will show you that he’s not only the man on stage telling dirty jokes. He’s a man with a heart of gold.’”

Brent’s heart raced. It tripped out of his chest and leapt into Shannon’s hands. “She did that?”

“She did. She’s a keeper. Hey, I’m here with Alan. He’ll tell you officially.”

Alan took the phone, and spoke. “The neighborhood association is firmly behind you.”

After the call ended, Brent switched sides and moved in next to Shannon on the sky blue, cracked vinyl booth. “Seems like you were up to something,” he said with a smile. “Want to show me the video of this guy with the heart of gold?”

She rustled through her bag for her phone, opened a video file and hit play. He watched, filled with awe and astonishment that she’d found all his friends and family and asked them to say a few words. Nate appeared on screen to talk about Brent’s business skills, then Travis said some kind words about how long they’d been friends, and how he’d trust him like he did his firefighter buddies. Mindy batted next, his dear, sweet friend saying, “Brent is the one of the greatest guys I’ve ever known. We help each other. He’s helped me through some sad times, and I’ve helped him, too. He’s like a brother.” Brent parked his chin in his hand as he watched his brother talk about how he’d helped him plan a proposal for his wife, then Julia shared a story about how Brent had helped her out when she’d run into some trouble. Even Bob at the Comedy Club talked about how Brent had done everything he could to find a job for him when his had ended.

Finally, Shannon showed him the note she’d written to Alan. This time she read it out loud to him, and he loved the sound of it in her voice, especially the final words.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it. Madly,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that at all. But I’m thrilled you did.”

“You once made a video hoping I’d see it and know you were still thinking of me. It seemed only fitting that I should make this for you, and help you get what you wanted.”

“Babe,” he said, cupping her cheeks and moving in for a kiss. “I already have everything I’ve ever wanted.”