Chapter 7
Blue steel eyes bored into Dina’s. She could see why Monique was speechless. Vince’s smile put any woman on alert. He may have had the same effect on her if she didn’t consider him a brother.
Monique clutched her arm. “Is that Vince?”
Dina laughed. He could schmooze anyone. Officer Butkus’ starry-eyed gaze was proof. He had her eating out of his hand. “Yep, that’s him.”
Vince winked at the officer as she stepped behind the counter and turned toward Dina. “I see you finally woke up.” He kissed Dina on the cheek. “How’s the head?”
“It’s good. Vince, this is my good friend Monique Stone. Monique, Vince Carrington.”
They shook hands, the handshake lingered until Dina cleared her throat.
“So are you two an item?” Monique asked, sending Dina a questioning glare.
“No.”
“Yes.” Smiling, Vince dropped Monique’s hand and waggled his eyebrows at Dina.
“Troublemaker.” She swatted him on the back. “We’re not.”
Vince perused the two of them.
She could have kicked him.
“Not only do I have a stunning blonde coming to my rescue, but a striking brunette. How’d I get so lucky?”
“Down boy,” Dina chastised, teasingly. “You’re charm isn’t working here.”
Vince sighed. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Here are your personal items.” The officer placed his stuff on the desk.
He exaggerated the glance at the officer’s nametag, keeping his gaze glued to it for longer than necessary. “Deputy Butkus, thank you.” Grinning, he set the fedora on his head and snatched his keys off the counter.
“Go ahead and laugh, if you want. I’ve heard all the jokes.” The officer jabbed her hands on her hips. “But let me tell you, if you think I won’t give shit back, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Not saying a word.”
She barked out a belly laugh, her body jiggling from the vibration. “Good for you. Now, get out of here.”
Vince headed toward the door.
“Why were you arrested?” Monique’s eyes devoured him as if she was a spider and he was her snack.
“Assault and battery of a police officer.” Vince pressed his free hand over Monique’s clutching his arm. “We have a history. Ward is always jerking my chain.”
Back at the entrance, Monique steered Vince toward the newspaper lying on the front counter. “Did you see this?”
Dina rolled her eyes and let out a harsh breath. She hated newspapers, tabloids, anything that slanted the truth and Monique being intrigued by it only made it worse.
Vince braced his elbows on the hard surface and studied the picture. “Did you read the caption?”
Dina’s heart went out to him for having to deal with the same type of media sensationalism he went up against in the past. “I did.”
“And who’s the guy?”
Her face flushed. “He’s the owner of the limo.”
Vince closed the paper and lifted it off the counter. “That’s it?
“There’s nothing more to say.”
“Give it up,” Monique said with a wave of her hand. “She’s not coughing up info until she’s ready.”
Vince arched a brow, as if he wanted to ask more questions, but didn’t. “You ladies, ready?”
“Yes,” Dina and Monique said at the same time.
“Keep an eye on your women, partner,” the officer said.
They stopped and twisted, facing him.
The officer hiked up his pants by the belt loop. “Did you see the morning news? Manhattan has a psycho running the streets.”
Dina’s incident at Café Coffees surfaced in her mind.
“Just keep your eyes peeled.”
“Okay, thanks.” Vince waved and placed an arm on each of their backs, guiding them out the door.
“Care to elaborate on the picture?” Vince asked once they stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Explain what?” She removed the keys from her purse and hit the remote.
“You and Mr. Dunbar looked pretty cozy.” His voice laced with mischief.
“We’re just standing near one another.” She picked up her pace. No way would she explain herself, especially when she didn’t understand her own actions or feelings. “Like I said, there’s nothing to say.”
“Something’s up. You hurry to go nowhere fast when you’re hiding something,” he said.
Unlike moments ago, Vince’s tone was even, no hint of teasing, causing her to take stock and wonder if her reaction was symbolic for her behavior in the past. Had she run when presented with difficult issues? As an ad exec, she couldn’t run from problems or she’d lose clients. “I do not.”
“You don’t?” He touched her arm and she stopped. “I remember, Di. The times you ran from your parents…from Preston.”
The words stung, but the truth behind them moistened her eyes. Multiple times, Vince encouraged her to open up. Each time she picked up the pace of whatever she was doing and avoided the conversation. In the past, he hadn’t challenged her. Why now?
Studying her for a long moment, he nudged her with his shoulder. “Don’t think about what I’m saying too much. I’m calling your bluff, that’s all. Okay?”
Not knowing what to think or say, she nodded and glimpsed Monique standing off to the side, remaining quiet.
Vince chuckled. “Like when we were kids and you ate the last cookie.”
The guy knew her too well. She couldn’t stand to get in trouble. Whenever she chose the last of anything, she ran to his apartment, the next building over. She started a habit without realizing it. This wasn’t the time or place to call her out. “Let’s talk about this later, shall we?”
“Shall we?” He barked out a laugh that didn’t reach the laugh lines in his face. “Okay, Mommy Dearest?”
Monique gasped from beside the car. “Oh, no you didn’t just call her that!”
“Don’t get your panties in a bind,” Vince said to Monique. “It’s a joke between Dina and me. She hates her mother saying, ‘Shall we?’ She called her Mommy Dearest all the time because of it.”
“What can I say?” Dina said, edging toward the car and hopefully peace. “I’ve been accused of being like my mother so much I’m starting to act like her.”
Vince’s intense gaze froze her hand on the door. “You’re nothing like your mother.” His tight tone confirmed the red-hot anger behind his steel blue eyes.
“What’s eating at you?”
He opened the driver’s door and nailed her with a gaze. “Like you said, let’s not talk about it now.” Although, his words were terse, his expression softened a tad.
“All right,” she said and slid behind the wheel.
Vince squished his six-foot-three frame into the backseat while Monique’s five-eight physique slid easily into the front.
Dina spent the ride home analyzing her and Vince’s conversation, the quick change in his demeanor when she compared herself to her mother. She knew she wasn’t anything like her, but why had he gotten so bent out of shape with her sarcasm?
The ride to the parking garage was quiet. She didn’t know what caused the tension that flowed between them and didn’t know how to make it go away. Monique had even stopped talking. Actually, she stopped saying much before Dina and Vince had their heated discussion.
They piled out of the car and headed toward the exit.
“Press L for me. I’m off to the lounge,” Monique said in a calm, neutral tone as they stepped inside the elevator and the door slid closed.
“Are you okay?” Dina asked, searching her face for some clue of what ran through her mind.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened, Monique kissed Dina on the cheek. “I’m fine.” She shot Vince a glare, knuckle-punched his arm, and strode out.
“What’s up between you two?” Dina felt like she was missing pieces to a puzzle.
“Darned if I know.” Vince pressed the button for the twentieth floor and rubbed his arm. “That chick has it out for me.”
Dina had told her friend Vince disappeared when they were teenagers. Monique was protective, so maybe that set her off or…”You shouldn’t have raised your voice. She can be a tiger.”
He removed his hat and slid a hand over his hair. “I didn’t yell. We were talking. Speaking of which, what were you doing in the back of the car?”
“Excuse me? What do you think I was doing?” She shook her head and raised her hand. “Don’t answer that. I had a few drinks and did absolutely nothing. After a hard few days of fourteen plus hours, I deserved it.”
“You did.” He rocked back on his heels. “Were you alone?”
“That’s a strange question to ask, considering you saw me right after the accident.”
“I’m not pressing you any more than you razzed me when we were fourteen. Do you remember?”
Ugh. Yes, she remembered.
“You caught me with my pants down in the bathhouse by your pool.”
The elevator doors parted. She sprung out. “The difference is your pants were down. Mine were not.” Dina rushed into the apartment, hoping to shut the door before he entered. She didn’t want to delve back in time. During that phase she had a crush on him, albeit a short-lived one.
He followed and braced a hand on the door, preventing her from closing it. “Come on.”
She tossed her purse on a chair, keys on the table, and strolled into the kitchen for a beer. He stepped forward. “Let’s talk about it, Di.”
There was nothing to talk about. She’d frozen. Her chin had hit her chest and her eyes landed on the first penis she’d ever seen. “We didn’t know any better then,” she snapped, unable to control herself. “At least, I didn’t. Everything you did made me inquisitive. No one could blame me for looking my fill.”
He threw his head back and barked out a full belly laugh. “Is that what you call it, looking your fill?” He grabbed her arm and twisted her until she faced him. “You can be curious now.” He stepped closer, invading her space.
She inched backwards and bumped the refrigerator. Since she was a teenager, she’d questioned if she chose the wrong friend to date. Once Preston had asked her out, she never looked back.
Vince slid back her hair and dove for her mouth. She let him kiss her to see if they had a connection. Their lips touched. The tip of his tongue swept across her bottom lip. He plunged inside. The explosion that blasted through her when Cole kissed her never occurred. Was she so far into Cole already? Or, was her problem related to the issue of Vince being a brother figure? Whatever the reason, she couldn’t do this. It felt wrong. She braced her hands on his chest and shoved. “I can’t.”
His surprised-hurt expression clutched her heart. “Can’t?”
She raised her hands to touch him and reconsidered. “Can’t.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. The steel gaze reflected the teen she once knew, yet his wounded countenance told her something else bothered him. “I better change.” She headed for the bedroom.
“Di, I love you. Always have.”
Her body went rigid. Those were the last words she expected him to say. The love she carried for him had nothing to do with romance. She prayed he felt the same and faced him.
“You mean the world to me,” he added, shooting her a look, conveying the conversation had just started.
“Vince,” she said on a sigh.
“Let me finish. I’m sorry I deserted you to deal with your bastard of a husband alone. I’m sorry I kissed you just now, but I’m glad I did. Being gone for so long, I couldn’t judge what feelings I had. You’re my home, always have been.”
Having him re-enter her life, dumping his declaration on her, floored her. She didn’t know how he meant the home analogy, but hoped he meant a fondness like a biological sister or brother.
“The home I lost when my dad died.” Vince’s shoulders sagged and his voice was strained.
The sadness in his eyes filled her with the urge to want to make him better, like a mother or sister would. “Like a sibling?” She held her breath waiting for his answer, eager for the one she wanted to hear.
He gave a slight nod, his eyes welled with tears. “You’re my sis.”
She released a long breath. “You had me worried.”
He chuckled and pinched her cheek. “I could tell.”
She stretched to her tippy toes and kissed his cheek. “I love you, too, bro.”
****
Cole skipped his weekly meeting and drove to Shelly’s best friend’s house. Outside of him and her family, Marilyn knew Shelly best. Hell, probably better. Thirty minutes later, he parked his BMW in the driveway to an end unit in Brooklyn. The wooded, second story with the bricked first floor looked like every other unit in the area. He took a stab in the dark to come at this time of day. Marilyn, a hairdresser at a salon not far away, worked countless hours to pay for her son’s medical expenses. Cole offered to help. For a few months, he did. Then, she refused, saying she could take care of Timmy.
After ringing the doorbell a couple of times, he knocked on the door. He’d sit in his car and wait if need be. He raised his hand to knock one last time when the door opened.
Marilyn’s watery gaze locked on him. She crossed her arms across her chest, pulling the sides of the robe together. Her red hair, pulled on top of her head, looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in days. “Cole,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Marilyn. May I come in?”
She lifted a shoulder and walked inside, leaving him to close the door behind him. He walked through a cluttered room and into the kitchen where she lit a cigarette and sat at the table.
The few times he came to cookouts at her home, her house was spotless and she never allowed anyone to smoke because of her son’s severe asthma.
“What’s up, Cole? Why’d you come?” She lifted the cigarette to her mouth with shaky fingers.
He settled in a chair at the end of the table. “I need to talk about Shelly.”
Marilyn laughed, and sipped her drink. “Oh, yeah? That’s rich. I haven’t heard anything from you since Shelly’s funeral and now you come by to talk. Well, I don’t feel like gabbing.”
Marilyn and he were never close, not like her and Shelly, but they always were civil to one another. “What happened?”
“Really? You’re gonna come in here and ask me that now? Where were you when the money stopped coming in? When my boy was dying? I had no one to help with expenses.”
His heart went out to her, but at the same time, if she needed money why hadn’t she called him? “I didn’t know.”
Her eyes turned thoughtful. The tension in her face disappeared. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t.” She downed the rest of her drink.
He waited for her to get her bearings, hoping she’d confide in him without him prying.
“Before Shelly and you married, she told me not to worry about finances. She’d set up a trust fund for Timmy. The day before Shelly died she told me the account was dry. No reason, just fact.”
The hair on the back of Cole’s neck rose. She never mentioned anything about helping Marilyn and never noticed money unaccounted for. Where did Shelly get the cash if it wasn’t from their bank account? Then he remembered the certificate. She’d given Marilyn the money.
“I couldn’t pay for the expenses anymore,” she said, her voice invading his thoughts.
“Geez, Marilyn.” He rested an elbow on the table and rubbed his face. “I wish I had known. After you refused my help, I figured you would ask if you needed anything. I should have made myself more available.”
She nodded. “I didn’t want to call you because then you’d know. The money would have helped, but it wouldn’t have stopped fate from taking over. My boy died from a chronic attack. A neighbor watched him while I went to work. That spring day, we didn’t check the allergy count. Timmy and his friend played outside.” She puffed on her cigarette, and filled her glass from the whiskey bottle sitting on the floor beside her. “The neighbor didn’t notice the man cutting the grass across the road. The combination of the fresh cut grass and the high pollen count stole my baby’s breath. He didn’t have a chance.”
Cole let her words sink in. She snatched another glass off the shelf, plopped it in front of him, and poured a couple ounces of whiskey into it.
He had to drive, but hearing what she went through, he needed a taste and tipped the glass back. What she had endured alone… He shook his head, shoved down the immediate pain of losing a child. “Are the medical bills paid?”
A sea of emotions washed over her tired features. She shook her head.
He understood what she felt. At least, he believed he did. Losing a child was hard, but having to deal with the expenses from caring for a sick person made the pain that much more acute. “Do you have them?”
She studied him for a stretch of time, and then with tears welling in her eyes rose, she left the room. A moment later, she returned with a file folder.
He flipped through the stack of papers. Bills from doctors and hospitals added up to a large sum for anyone, much less someone who’d dealt with a huge expense for years. “I’ll see what I can do. May I take these?”
Tears streamed down her face. “Thank you. I always knew you were a sweet man. You didn’t deserve what Shelly did.”
The jagged edge of emotion lodged in his throat. “You knew Shelly committed suicide?” He had a hard time keeping his voice from cracking.
Her mouth dropped open. “What? No…I didn’t!”
The uncanny sense what he was about to hear would floor him crept down his spine and knotted his gut. “Then what are you referring to?”
“Her marrying for money.”
Dumbstruck and numb, he regarded her, waiting for her to give details and hoping he wouldn’t have to ask for them.
“You didn’t know.” She filled her glass. “After two glasses of whiskey, I should be tipsy, yet I don’t feel a thing. I haven’t since I lost my child.”
He touched his glass, silently asking her to fill his. When she did, he tossed the contents back. His throat burned, but not like his heart. He thought back. Shelly left every Saturday to hang out with Marilyn, to go shopping or out to eat. Was that true? “You saw her once a week.”
“No…I didn’t. I was her alibi.”
Marilyn’s words came back—then you’d know. “Earlier you mentioned you hadn’t called me cause then I’d know. What would I know, Marilyn?”
She straightened and blew out a breath. “Shelly didn’t visit me. She gave me the money to keep quiet.”
For a long moment, he digested what she said. “Where did she go?”
“Gambling. After giving me the initial money, she went to the casinos. I felt terrible I put her in that situation. But you know Shelly. Once she made up her mind to do something, she did it no matter what.”
Something he was just now learning.
“She loved the slots since she turned twenty-one.”
His wife going anywhere by herself was rare. The next question sat on the tip of his tongue weighing him down. “With whom? Who did she gamble with?”
Marilyn took a long drag of her cigarette and released it, blowing smoke rings. “Her boyfriend.”
The words sucker-punched him in the gut. His wife had lived a double life. Was he that involved with work he hadn’t noticed? One more question. This one was the hardest. “My son, the baby on the sonogram, was he mine?”
Marilyn stabbed the tip of the cigarette in the ashtray and diverted her gaze to the empty glass she held in her hand. “I don’t know. There’s a chance he wasn’t.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat and asked what Marilyn probably didn’t have an answer to. “Why did she have an abortion?”
“Because of her boyfriend’s dark skin. If the baby was his, you’d know.”
Cole rammed his hands through his hair. Out of all the things he thought he would find out, none of this made the list. “Why didn’t she leave me?”
“If she left you, she’d have to return the money her parents gave her. I spent it. Her parents would never stand for her being with someone who wasn’t wealthy. Her boyfriend lived paycheck to paycheck. In the end, he’s what killed her.”
Cole looked up at her, his eyes stinging. “What do you mean?”
“He killed himself the week before she died because she refused to leave you.”
Rage rushed through his veins, leaving him with a used and unwanted sensation. “Refused to leave my money, you mean.”