Sullivan's Last Stand, page 8
“She’s thanking her daddy,” she said flatly. “That’s Tracy Weiss—Aaron’s illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter. And no matter what else I think of my brother-in-law, I don’t think he’s capable of doing anything as heinous as Jackson described to my sister, since she’s his own daughter.”
She turned to Sullivan and met his shuttered expression. “Which means that your man’s report is a complete lie, Sully. He had to be running some kind of scam on Angelica. Unless—” She stopped, her gaze darkening.
“Unless what, Bailey?”
Sullivan’s voice was harsh, and when she spoke again her own sounded even quieter in comparison. “Unless he and Angelica are running some kind of scam on Aaron Plowright,” she said slowly. “And if that’s true, then for some reason my sister’s been playing me for a fool all along.”
Chapter Six
“Plowright’s in Washington till tomorrow. He’s at the White House, for God’s sake.”
Bailey walked over to the bed and sat, forcing a control over her features that she didn’t feel. Sullivan was doing something by the delicate white-and-gold antique dresser on the other side of the room, and she spoke to his back, her tone abrasive with annoyance. “But the word is still that Angelica’s probably taken off on one of her impulsive shopping sprees. Marta, his housekeeper, said she’ll ask Aaron to phone me—”
“Here, hold these.”
Crossing the distance between them and interrupting her without ceremony, he handed her a pair of champagne flutes, their stems tied with gold ribbon. In his other hand he held a bottle of champagne. She gave him an incredulous look.
“What the hell do we have to celebrate, Sully?”
“Nada.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small folding knife. Using his teeth, he pried open a miniature corkscrew from the assortment of implements it contained. “I wasn’t thinking of celebrating, I was thinking of getting drunk. Besides, we either drink this up like the happy newlyweds the hotel obviously thinks we are, or we pour it down the drain so we don’t blow our cover.”
“It’s Cristal,” Bailey said thoughtfully, glancing up at the label as he inserted the corkscrew. “I guess it would be unprofessional to blow our cover.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.” Holding the bottle at waist level, Sullivan grasped it by the neck and gingerly nudged the almost freed cork with his thumbs. The next moment it exploded out of the bottle with a loud pop, ricocheting off the mirrored ceiling above the bed, a froth of champagne cascading like a fountain from the bottle.
“Hold out the glasses or open wide, honey.” With a grin he directed the stream of champagne into the flutes she quickly thrust out, and Bailey couldn’t resist laughing with him. As the froth subsided, he topped up the two glasses until they were brimming with what looked like liquid gold.
“We’re fools,” she said as her giggles finally subsided. “We have absolutely no reason to laugh, Sullivan, especially after the fax that came through to Steiner before we left. I wish I could say that someone else might have used her cell phone, but that thing’s never out of her reach. That number is Angelica’s, and she had to have made that call to Room 201.”
“It doesn’t look good, does it?” He swallowed the last of his champagne and reached for the nearby bottle, refilling her glass as well as his own. “Hank obviously used some pretext or another to find out what room Plowright and his daughter were going to be staying in before they got there, but how the hell did Angelica know?”
Bailey stared at him. “She obviously found out from him. The two of them are in this together.”
“You’re wrong. Hank wouldn’t be a party to any kind of a scam. I know him and I’m telling you you’re wrong.” His jaw set stubbornly. “No, somehow Angelica set him up, but how and why I don’t know. And what worries me most is that since she did no one’s seen him.”
“For God’s sake, listen to yourself, Sullivan!” Bailey drained her glass and reached for the bottle herself. She divided the last of it between the two flutes, scowling at the tiny festive bubbles that danced through the pale liquid. “You may think you know Jackson, but I’ve lived with Angelica most of my life. Trust me, the woman’s not a mastermind. What are you saying—that she somehow conned him into falsifying a surveillance report on her husband, overpowered him at his own home, searched his files until she found the report that he was about to give her the next day anyway, and then took the photos and disposed of Jackson’s body? And that she did all this alone?” She snorted inelegantly. “Yeah, that flies for me. Get real—she wore a low-cut blouse to her appointment with your guy, batted her baby blues at him and told him that if he could figure out a way to help her she’d do anything at all to thank him. That’s how Angelica operates.”
“First he’s a destructive drunk, then he’s a crook, and now you’re saying he’s a sap and your sister used him,” Sullivan said tightly. “Pick one and stick with it, Bailey, so I know what I’ve got to defend him against.”
His gaze was almost navy, it was so dark with anger. Looking at him, she felt her own temper draining away, to be replaced by impotent frustration.
He could make her laugh, even when she didn’t want to, even when only a few hours ago she had faced the most wrenching truth about herself—that she had never gotten over him, and probably never would. But maybe that was why it was so easy to let herself forget reality when she was with him, Bailey thought helplessly. She wanted to. She wanted to pretend that they were the two people they had once been, even if she knew that she was lying to herself, and even if she knew that their relationship had always been a lie.
She set her wineglass aside and took a deep breath. But they weren’t lovers, they were partners on a case. And he was refusing to look at the facts.
“A lot of men have fallen for Angelica, Sully,” she said, leaning forward a little and meeting his eyes. “Aaron Plow-right did, and he’s about as hard as they come.”
He stared at her, his gaze still unreadable.
“Tracy’s his daughter, but the report and the photo descriptions make it seem like she’s his lover, so the report’s a blatant lie,” Bailey went on quietly. “That’s a given. Hank prepared that report, but since he’d have no reason to falsify it on his own behalf, he had to have been doing it for Angelica. What I think happened is that he took this assignment, got here and realized that whatever the relationship was between Aaron and the woman he was with, it certainly wasn’t a sexual one, and phoned Angelica to let her know. After all, he wouldn’t have wanted to waste his time and her money over a job he already knew wasn’t going to pan out.” She hesitated, and he nodded curtly.
“Go on.”
At least he was listening, she thought. She gave a small shrug. “I’m guessing that’s when Angelica poured on the waterworks, telling Hank that even if Aaron wasn’t cheating on her this particular weekend, she still knew that he was running around on her and she wanted something that would show him she wouldn’t stand for it. Maybe Hank thought of her as a damsel in distress, or he just couldn’t resist her, or he thought fudging a report a little couldn’t harm anyone. But then he got home Sunday night and started thinking about what he’d done, and the guilt set in.”
“And he went off the wagon with a vengeance, is that how the rest of it goes?” Sullivan stood up and looked down at her. “He trashed his own office, he planted a liquor bottle that he couldn’t have drunk out of, and he disappeared into the night, taking his photos with him but leaving his report in plain sight for anyone to find. Honey, that one doesn’t fly for me.”
“There never were any photos, there were just the descriptions and they were fake,” she said, holding on to her patience with an effort. “And like I said before, the bottle could have belonged to one of his old drinking buddies.”
“But that still doesn’t explain away the phone call. Jackson would have had to watch Plowright and Weiss for an hour or so before he figured out that their relationship was completely innocuous. You saw that jewelry store video yourself. Would you have been able to tell right off the bat that those two were father and daughter?” He shook his head. “Even if your theory was true, Hank wouldn’t have gotten in touch with Angelica until long after they’d checked in and he’d been watching them for a while. So who was Angelica phoning in Room 201 before it was occupied?”
“For crying out loud, I didn’t say I had all the answers!”
Bailey stood, too, needing suddenly to address him on a more equal basis rather than tipping her head back to look at him. Faint hope, she thought in irritation as she faced him. He was still close to a foot taller, and she felt as if he was deliberately looming over her. She planted her hands on her hips.
“For all I know, Angelica could have found out the room number herself and phoned there hoping to talk to Jackson before her husband arrived. Maybe she had some last-minute instructions for him. It’s a detail, Sullivan—and the only reason you’re hanging on to it is because you won’t admit that the rest of it makes sense!”
“Details are what keep innocent men from being convicted, dammit!”
He was looming over her, she thought angrily. He was using every advantage he had to win this one—his height, his nearness to her, the way his lashes fanned so thickly down on his cheekbones when he narrowed his eyes. She could even smell the scent of the soap he used. She felt herself wavering.
She pulled herself up sharply and came back at him with the sharpest weapon she had available.
“Sully, this isn’t the past! Whatever you did back then, you can’t make it right by sticking blindly to Jackson now!” Her voice was a decibel or two short of a shout, and with an effort she lowered it, but that didn’t affect its intensity. “Your loyalty’s misplaced, but you just can’t see it because you won’t walk away from whatever battlefield you’re still fighting on!”
In the sudden silence that followed her rush of words she heard him take in a harsh breath. His face was a mask and, without moving a muscle, he seemed somehow to have withdrawn from her. A moment ago his nearness had been overwhelming her senses, Bailey thought, already regretting her outburst. Now he was a stranger, and a remote one at that.
“First Fitz and now you.” He barely moved his lips as he spoke. “It seems everyone has their own theory. I’m getting a little tired of it, honey.”
She’d been about to turn away from this confrontation, which had ballooned into something much more personal than she had ever intended, but at this she stiffened. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and deliberately she pressed her nails even harder into her palms, trying to use the small physical pain to overlay the much more acute one that had bloomed deep inside her at his words.
“Come on, Sullivan, you don’t have to put on your party manners for me. Face it—the phrase you’d really like to use is a lot shorter and a lot more basic. Two words, right?” She smiled tightly at him. “I get the picture, though. Fitz got the picture, too. You don’t walk away from the people you care about. You just do everything to make sure that they walk away from you. What an unpleasant little shock it must have been yesterday when I came back into your life again.”
His mouth was set. “That’s not—” he began, but Bailey didn’t let him finish.
“I’m going to take your advice, Sully.” She crossed over to the dresser and picked up the room key, feeling his eyes on her as she did. Lifting her gaze, she met his in the mirror, and for a moment she thought there was something wrong with the reflective qualities of the glass, because the man looking back at her seemed eerily insubstantial. He was standing in front of the bed and Bailey could almost swear that the lace hangings behind him were faintly visible.
Sullivan shifted slightly. His reflection was once again solidly normal, and Bailey broke eye contact, dropping the room key into her pants pocket. She turned from the door and faced him directly, for some reason not wanting to look at him in the mirror again.
“I think we should take a time-out.” She managed a small smile. “I was going to say before we both said something we might regret, but it’s too late for that.”
“I’ll leave.” His response was immediate, but already her hand was on the doorknob, and she shook her head.
“No, I will. Don’t worry, I just want to be alone for a while. I’m not planning to play the part of the frightened bride running away from her husband, or anything, Sullivan.”
A ghost of a grin touched his features, and even at that inappropriate moment Bailey felt something in her stir in response to the man. She opened the door.
“I’ll walk around the concourse for an hour or so, do some window-shopping. There was a linens shop that I saw earlier today—maybe I’ll pick up a lace pillow for my apartment. This place is beginning to grow on me.”
She stepped out into the hall, but before she could close the door behind her, he said her name and she looked back.
“Bailey?” He was still standing by the bed. He hadn’t moved. “What you thought I said to you a few minutes ago. You’re wrong.” His eyes met hers. “Never, honey. I could never even think that.” He held her gaze for a second longer, and then he smiled faintly. “Go on, go buy a canopy bed or something. I’ll be here when you get back.”
He didn’t have any idea what he did to her, Bailey told herself numbly as she made her way down the lushly carpeted hallway to the elevators. He didn’t know how just one smile, one quick glance could make her forget every resolution she’d ever made to herself. She looked at his eyes and saw midnight and velvet and the way she’d once made them glaze over with pleasure, and telling herself that she was playing with fire was no use at all. She wanted to play with fire. She wanted to strike the match, drop it into the gasoline and feel the conflagration engulf her.
Even if it only blazed for one night, it would be worth it.
She’d reached the lobby, mechanically letting her steps take her to the entrance of the elegant concourse of boutiques that adjoined it. Staring unseeingly at the strikingly arranged window displays and hardly aware of the well-dressed shoppers around her, Bailey found herself moving slower and slower, until finally she stopped in front of one of the boutiques. She was in real trouble, she thought shakily. She was in as much danger as if she were poised on top of the ledge of a high-rise and considering throwing herself off just for the thrill of the fall.
Don’t forget what happened last time, Flowers, she told herself desperately. Eventually you’ll hit the ground. Eventually you’ll end up getting smashed to bits again. When you try to tell yourself it’s worth it, make yourself remember how it ended.
But what if this time it didn’t end? What if this time it lasted, this time he fell with her, this time it worked?
What if this time she made him forget Maria?
Her vision came back into focus, and dimly she realized what she was staring at. The small display window held a frothy set of lingerie—cream-and coffee-colored wisps of panties, a garter belt trimmed in coffee and—most daring of all—a low-cut bustier that laced up in the front. It was a ridiculously sexy outfit. It would take a woman much more confident than she was to wear it, Bailey thought dismissively. It wasn’t her at all.
And once she’d added the cream-colored seamed stockings that she’d had to have to go with the garter belt, it had been way too expensive, she thought shakily a few minutes later, speeding away from the shop and heading back to the lobby with the minuscule pink-and-gold shopping bag tucked furtively under her arm. She saw the elevator doors closing ahead of her and put on a further burst of speed, making it just in time and almost losing her shoe in the effort.
There were two older couples in the elevator and, as it ascended, out of the corner of her eye Bailey saw one of the matrons discreetly nudge the other, smiling. She frowned, wondering if the tag was sticking out of the back of her blouse, or if she had a smudge of something on her face. Thankful that she was getting off on the second floor, she stared down at the floor silently.
The last of the confetti had spilled out of her shoe. And dangling demurely from the bag under her arm was a scrap of pink wrapping tissue and one creamily beribboned garter.
“I’ve got a black Pearl Jam tee,” she muttered to herself as she stalked down the hall to the honeymoon suite. Her jaw clenched. “I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo—and not a wimpy little rose on my butt, either. I’m a freakin’ private investigator, for crying out loud. They thought I was some dewy-eyed bride going all out to knock the socks off her man, for heaven’s sake!”
She unlocked the door clumsily, all of a sudden feeling close to tears. She blinked them back, her lips firming to a determined line.
“For the rest of the month it’s going to be macaroni and cheese, and for what? A stupid outfit that you’re never going to wear. I can’t believe you were actually thinking of trying to lure back a man who’s already jerked you around once, Flowers!”
She shoved open the door with more force than necessary, and stopped on the threshold, feeling obscurely let down. Sullivan had obviously gone out himself. The silk-shaded sconces that flanked the bed filled the room with enough soft light to see by, but the main lamps had been switched off and the place was silent.
All the better, she told herself. With any luck, she would be asleep by the time he came back, and tomorrow this excruciatingly forced intimacy would be over. There was a massive damask-upholstered sofa against the far wall that she could use as a bed for tonight, and Sullivan could have that football field of lace and satin all to himself.
She’d come so close to making the biggest mistake of her life, Bailey thought, stripping down to her panties and bra. She padded over to her suitcase in her bare feet, jammed the boutique bag under the rest of her clothes and started to pull out the sleep shirt she’d packed.
She froze.
From around the rim of the slightly open bathroom door came a faint glow. It seemed oddly unsteady, as if whatever light was causing it was moving, and all of a sudden she felt a terrible chill settle into the pit of her stomach.
