“No, Windy—” Eve shouted, but her words were lost.
Windy fired again.
Harry jerked sideways, wove drunkenly for a moment, then kept coming. He said, “You are going to die.”
Windy shot him one more time and as he collapsed onto his stomach the house shook with the sound of a dozen men pounding up the stairs. Ash burst into the room at the head of the SWAT team, and looked from Windy to the man writhing at her feet.
“He needs paramedics but he’s not dead,” she said in the flattest voice he had ever heard. Then she dropped the gun and walked out of the room.
CHAPTER 86
Harry was taken to the prison hospital. Windy had shot with precision, one to his bad knee and two in the arm. None of the shots would be fatal. He would recover and stand trial.
Alone in Cate’s room, Windy could not stop shaking. She had put on sweatpants and a sweater but she still felt naked, exposed. Cold.
She had let the paramedics bandage her finger, then come in here to separate herself from the crime scene in her bedroom. She was sitting on the bed, clutching Big Fred, staring into space. She knew Ash came by every few minutes to check on her, but she was not ready to face him yet. She was not ready to face herself.
There was a knock on the door, and Eve poked her head around. She was still wearing her too big clothes, now with a blanket the paramedics had given her wrapped around her shoulders.
“Hi,” she said, shyly.
Windy stood up. “Hi.”
The two women looked at each other for a long time, then Windy hugged Eve.
“Thank you,” Windy said. “You saved my life.”
“I thought you saved mine. Shooting down the man with the knife.”
Windy shook her head. “That’s not what I mean.”
Eve reached over with the corner of her blanket to dry a tear off Windy’s face. “I figured that I did not survive being almost beaten and crushed to death, crawling through a doggie door, and spending three days in a hospital being treated for a concussion and dehydration just to stand back and let someone ruin their life.”
“I am so glad you made it.”
“Me too. But I think I’m going to have to make a lot of changes about how I live.” Eve paused. “One of the detectives let me use his phone and I called Trish. She thinks you’re great.”
“She thinks you’re pretty great as well.”
Eve bit her lip. “I have some making up to do as a friend. Speaking of pretty great, there’s someone outside who wants to see you.” She leaned closer to whisper, “He’s been hanging around the hallway for an hour waiting until you were ready. I’m glad your taste in men seems to be better than mine.”
Windy looked past her and saw Ash on the threshold of the room. He said, “I can come back if you two want to be alone.”
“No,” Eve said. “I’m leaving. I have a lot of statements to give, and about three years of sleep to catch up on. And I wouldn’t mind getting into my own clothes.” She looked at Windy. “I’ll see you soon.”
Windy nodded, watching her pat Ash on the arm as she left. She had been okay with Eve, but she couldn’t meet Ash’s eyes.
He stepped closer to her, but not close enough to touch. It was quiet until he said, “I like this room. The rainbows are great.” Making small talk to cover the awkwardness.
“Cate and Brandon decorated it.”
“I figured.”
Silence. Then Windy blurted, “I wanted to kill him, Ash.”
He nodded. “Of course you did.”
“I was so close.” She looked at her hands. “I would have done it. Done just what he wanted. Denied Mr. Johnson and Dr. Waters and Kurt O’Connell the possibility of closure. I wasn’t even thinking of them.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because Eve stopped me.”
“That’s not what stopped you, Windy. You stopped yourself.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you value life—everyone’s life—too much. It’s why you do your job. And why you are good at it.”
“I thought so. Now I don’t know if I believe that.”
He stood right in front of her. “That’s okay, I believe it enough for both of us.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t ready hear that yet. She felt numb, the way her tongue did after she drank coffee too hot. As though she were all scar tissue. She changed the subject. “How did you know to come here? I heard him say into the police radio that the house was empty.”
“You had told me to call off the guards yesterday. Which meant that there wouldn’t have been one to see you come home. And that someone was trying to mislead us. About your house, and about Harry being dead.”
Her jaw clenched. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“We all did.”
“But I should have—”
Ash raked a hand through his hair. “Dammit, Windy, stop it. From now on, you are not allowed to beat yourself up over things that are outside your control. You’ll just have to live with the fact that you are not bionic or a mind reader.”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“Because I almost lost you and it was the worst feeling in the entire world and I’m not dealing with it as well as I want to be.”
Just saying it, letting it be out there. Windy let it sink in for a little while then said, “What happens now?”
“What do you want to happen?”
She thought about it long enough for Ash to start getting nervous. Finally she said, “I want to go to Chicago and get Cate.” She looked up at him. “And I want you to come with me.”
Late that night Windy tiptoed from her childhood bedroom into the guest room that her mother had made up for Ash, and slid under the covers with him.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“No.” He reached out and turned on the duck decoy lamp that stood on the bedside table. “Yes. Is something wrong?”
She looked up at him, his hair messy, his eyes heavy with sleep, the man who would protect her but never coddle her. “I just realized there is something I haven’t told you. I love you, Ash.”
“I know.” He smiled. “But it wouldn’t hurt if you said it about a million more times.”
CHAPTER 87
I DO, I DO TOO
BY STORM LARKE
Exclusive to the Review-Journal
The mayor’s race is heating up with former boss of the Violent Crimes Task force going head-to-head with the incumbent, Gerald Keene. After stirring up talk with his unconventional Vote For My Dad billboards featuring drawings by his fiancée’s daughter, Cate, Ash Laughton grabbed the spotlight this weekend with his quiet wedding and not so quiet reception. The bride and groom had planned to celebrate by taking the bride’s 7-year-old daughter to a monster truck rally, but their friends had other ideas. When they went home to change after their private ceremony, they were kidnapped by campaign manager Jonah Priestly and whisked away by minivan to Eve Sebastian’s rechristened Paradise Found Café, the perfect setting to celebrate this match made in heaven. Two hundred fifty guests, the writer included, dined and danced into the dawn hours. A surprise late-night appearance by the band Chicago, who stopped in after their show at the Stardust and played a double set, nearly brought the roof down. The groom’s mother sent her congratulations from Río where she is recovering from surgery on the estate of her new husband, Dr. Gabriele Nildo. The bride’s mother, Magda Thomas, said she was delighted and hoped that now her daughter would settle down and make a family. Little chance of that since Chicago Thomas has just been named the new head of the Violent Crimes Task Force, replacing her husband as the person charged with keeping our streets safe. All the best to this celestial couple.
Not to be upstaged, Gerald Keene will marry his press secretary in an elaborate private ceremony with 1000 of their friends at the Bellagio this coming Thursday. The wedding will be carried live on a special edition of the 10 o’clock nightly news.
lded down the paper and looked across the breakfast table to the yard. Ash and Cate were outside, building something that might have been a bookcase if any of its pieces were at right angles to one another. Brandon stood off to one side, hands on his hips, shaking his head. As she watched, Ash glanced up, saw her, winked and mouthed the words “I love you.”
This was it. This was her life now. And she felt good.
Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed. Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see. Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sonnet IV
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like any bad girl, this one has a lot of sordid history, and I have wracked up huge debts in her creation. I would like to thank: Lisa Faber of the NYPD Crime Laboratory and Debbie McCracken, David LeMaster, and the “A-Team” at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Criminalistics Bureau, for generously sharing not only their expertise, but also their insights and experiences with me; Susie Phillips and Meg Cabot, who provided critical insights when critical insights were needed, and tolerated me when I was definitely intolerable; Linda Francis Lee, who went above and beyond any call of duty or friendship helping me revise the manuscript; my publishing posse, Susan Ginsburg, Linda Marrow, and Gina Centrello for never giving up on me; and my friends and family. Every bad girl should be so lucky.
Anything good in the book is all their doing. Everything else I take full credit for.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michele Jaffe holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She is the author of The Stargazer and The Water Nymph, as well as Lady Killer and Secret Admirer. She lives in Las Vegas. Please visit the author’s Web site at www.michelejaffe.com.
ALSO BY MICHELE JAFFE
Published by Ballantine Books
SECRET ADMIRER
LADY KILLER
LOVERBOY
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Michele Jaffe
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Bad Girl is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
“Bluebeard” copyright 1917, 1945 by Edna St. Vincent Millay. From Collected Poems, HarperCollins.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Control Number can be obtained from the publisher upon request.
e-ISBN 0-345-47919-X
v1.0
LOVERBOY
MICHELE JAFFE
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
Loverboy
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Michele Jaffe
Copyright
This book is for my dad, Peter Jaffe,
from whom I learned everything important I know.
With gratitude, respect, admiration, and love.
7x7=49 (see, I was paying attention)
Honest love, which is the kind belonging
to noble men—that is, to men with a good
and virtuous spirit whether they are rich or poor—does not come from desire, but
from the mind, and has as its only aim the transformation of the lover and the beloved, so that ultimately the two merge and
become one.
—Tullia D’Aragona
On the Infinity of Love, Venice 1547
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Oh, boy, did I have some help on this book. A veritable trainload of people lent knowledge or moral support at different times, but I would like to single out for thanks: SWAT Officer Matt Cabot of the Thornton Colorado Police Department for his invaluable information about police matters and SWAT operations; Lois Leveen, the queen of the knock-knock joke, for sharing her genius; Meggin Cabot and Holly Edmonds for their helpful suggestions on the manuscript in its pupa stage; Marc Shell for teaching me everything I know about plagiarism; Linda Marrow, Gina Centrello, and everyone at Ballantine Books, for the ceaseless toil they expend on my behalf; Susan Ginsburg, the best of all possible agents, who inspires awe, gratitude, and feelings of unworthiness in me every single day; and Dan Goldner because for some inexplicable reason he keeps putting up with me, making me the luckiest woman in the world.
Everything nice in the book is their doing. Everything naughty, my fault.
CHAPTER 1
“I hope you’re better with zippers.” The
girl giggled into his shoulder as he fumbled with the lock.
“I am,” he said, humorless. Sometimes he still had trouble with how to talk to girls. It wasn’t hard to get them to come home with him, just to talk.
He focused on how the thick beige paint was scarred around the knob where generations of undergraduates had made drunken attempts to get their keys in. He was not drunk, but his fingers were trembling.
Finally he did it right and the door groaned open. He shoved against it, kissing her hard to push her inside. He was better when he wasn’t talking, with his eyes closed. They didn’t bother with the light but stripped off their clothes right there. He backed her toward the water bed and finally had the warm, reassuring feel of a female body under his.
“Ohhh, this is nice,” she murmured, wrapping her legs around him and pulling his chest over hers.
Newton’s third law: For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
She ground her hips up to meet his and he slid inside of her. She was warm and soft and nice-smelling, baby-powder deodorant and red wine. The numbers floated through his head as his hands moved over her skin.
A car sets out for its destination at 5:45 a.m. It travels five miles at 45 mph to a stop sign. It does not stop completely, but slows, before accelerating to 60 mph for four minutes.
He pictured the car’s headlights speeding over the hunkered-down forms of the frozen trees along the straightaway, silhouetting them against the hard-packed snow, as his body moved against hers.
“Harder.” She moaned, biting his shoulder. “Do it to me harder.”
Newton’s second law: Force is equivalent to the product of the mass of an object and the speed at which it is traveling.
He leveraged all his weight and pounded into her.
For six minutes the car’s speed fluctuates irregularly between 35 and 75 mph.
He could imagine the driver rolling a Tic Tac around in his mouth to cover the bitter taste of reheated coffee and leaning forward with a squint as if the extra inches could improve his vision through the thick morning fog.