Brian Freeman - Stripped

“That’s me.”

In fact, it had driven her crazy, being shut up in the town home all day. She had made calls, hunted down leads on the Internet, and gone back through her notes to find something she had missed, but none of it was the same as being on the street. She felt isolated, cut off from the investigation.

“He’s attractive, your man. I see what you see in him.”

“Thanks.”

“He loves you. It’s there when he looks at you.”

Serena remembered that Jonny had said the same thing about Claire the previous night. “I love him,” she said.

“I’ve been with men, too, you know,” Claire said.

“Meaning?”

“It’s not like I don’t understand the attraction.”

Claire unfurled her legs and climbed off the sofa. She padded to the white wall and examined the desert photographs hung there. “Did you take these?”

She looked back, and Serena nodded.

“They’re striking. You have an eye for the land. That’s what they can’t teach, you know. The eye. A lot of people understand the mechanics, but they can’t see the picture.”

“You’re pretty calm about it,” Serena told her.

“About what?”

“About almost getting killed.”

Claire shrugged. “I wasn’t calm last night. But I feel safe with you.”

“I could take you to Boni’s place. It’s like a fortress there.”

“That’s not safe. That’s a prison.”

“He wants to make up with you,” Serena said. “He was glad you called him.”

“Oh, are you a family therapist now?”

“No, but I know what it’s like to be an adult without parents. There are a lot of times when I wish things were different.”

Claire continued to stare at the photographs on the wall, but Serena thought she had touched a sensitive spot. “I wish things were different, too, Serena. But they’re not.”

“He says he doesn’t care that you’re gay.”

“Catholics never care if you’re gay, as long as you’re celibate,” Claire said.

Serena watched Claire smile and realized it was false. She thought Claire might cry.

“It has nothing to do with your being gay, does it?” Serena asked. “The split between you and Boni.”

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

Claire shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I don’t want to go back there.”

She could hear it in Claire’s tone. The secret was profoundly horrible, whatever it was. “I’ve got monsters like that, too.”

“I know you do. That’s why we click. We both have pasts we’re trying to run from.”

“Did you get therapy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Claire sighed. “Please, Serena. Let’s drop it. I couldn’t talk about it then. I can’t talk about it now. Not to anyone. Not when my father’s name is Boni Fisso.”

Serena let the silence stretch out while Claire stared blankly at the photographs. She could see raw pain in her face.

“Boni says you’ve got millions in the bank,” Serena said.

Claire smiled, a real one this time. “Are you after me for my money now?”

“I was just curious.”

“When I left, I wanted to be independent. I am. Boni didn’t give me a stake. I built it myself. So yes, I’ve got a lot of money. I’m Boni’s daughter; genes count for something. Plus all that time I spent in business school.”

“But you’re happy living in a small apartment? Singing your songs?”

“I’ve learned a lot being on my own,” Claire said. “I’m free, and no one owns me. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t have any ambition. There’s a part of me that still longs to be in charge of the hotels and run them my way.”

“You still could be.”

Claire shook her head. “Not if it means going back to my father.”

“How would you run them?” Serena asked. “If you had the keys to the kingdom.”

“Me? I’m tired of all the bigness. Big shows. Big names. I think people want intimacy. They don’t want to get lost in a crowd. They want to see singers, not shows. Talent, not names. And glamour, like in the old days. The huge resorts have glitz but not much character.”

“You could start your own place.”

Claire was wistful. “Maybe someday. It would be nice to show Boni that I can do it without him. And that you don’t have to sell your soul to the devil to be successful.”

Serena heard bitterness creep back into her voice. “You want to tell me what he did to you?”

“It wasn’t him,” Claire said. “It was someone else. But Boni let it happen. The business came first, like it always does.” She looked as if she were about to say more, but she clapped her arms around her body and shivered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“It’s in the past. I don’t worry about it. I like to sing and drink and talk about life and make passionate love.”

“I like two out of the four,” Serena said, laughing.

“Which two?”

“Well, we know I don’t drink.”

Claire laughed, too. She came over to where Serena was sitting and knelt by the side of the easy chair. She leaned forward, her bare arms on the cushion. “I’m going to bed,” she said.

“Okay.”

“How about you?”

Serena didn’t want to look into Claire’s eyes, but there seemed to be no other place in the room to stare. The blue eyes teased her. “Is that an invitation?” Serena asked. As if it were a joke.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think Jonny would be too happy to come home and find us in bed together.”

“You might be surprised.”

“I’m sorry, Claire. If things were different, you know? But they’re not.”

“I understand.”

Claire used one fingertip to glide along Serena’s forearm with a silky touch. Serena was so on edge that she almost jumped.

“Are you going to catch Blake tonight?” Claire asked.

“If not tonight, then soon. Half the police in the city are looking for him. The valley isn’t so big. We’ll get him.”

Serena wanted to believe it.

“Don’t kill him,” Claire murmured.

She spoke so softly that Serena wasn’t sure she had heard her right. “What?”

“Don’t kill him, I said.”

“Why not?” Serena asked. “Why do you care?”

Claire looked down. Some of her blond hair fell across her face. “You really don’t know, do you? It’s so obvious to me.”

“What is?”

“Look at me,” she said, looking up, holding Serena’s stare again.

Serena did. “So?”

“Blake is my brother.”

“What?”

“I knew it as soon as I saw him,” Claire said. “I can’t believe you don’t see it Those eyes. There may be a lot of Amira in him, but that’s not all. It’s more than that. It’s Boni, too. Boni’s his father.”

T en minutes to midnight , Amanda thought.

She could have been home with Bobby. Making love to him the way she liked best, on their sides, face to face, rubbing together. Warm and safe under the blankets. Or they could have been in the Spyder right now, on the desert highway to California, leaving Las Vegas behind forever at a hundred miles an hour through the black night of Deatii Valley. A new life.

But no.

She sat alone in a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop a few blocks from downtown. Her coffee was getting cold, and she looked up every now and then, hypnotized, as rows of glistening doughnuts streamed along the conveyor belt, getting drenched in icing. There was a steady stream of late-night patrons in and out She was one of just a handful of people who waited inside, her back to the door, a newspaper in her hands, a half-eaten doughnut on a napkin in front of her. She had nursed it for an hour.