Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

Before she could answer, a police car screamed down the boulevard, its lights a wild kaleidoscope. Griff turned on the car’s ignition. Grinning, he said, “Rough neighborhood. We’d better move to a safer one.”

He had to wait for another oncoming police car to roar past before pulling out into the street. “You’re thumbing your nose at them,” she remarked.

“Nothing that brave. They won’t be looking for this car.”

“Whose is it?”

He drove, saying nothing.

“The visit to your lawyer’s house made the news.”

“Yeah, I saw. The media failed to mention what an untrustworthy son of a bitch my former attorney is.”

“He said by turning you in he was trying to help.”

“Bullshit. He was trying to cover his own ass.”

“They searched for you for hours.”

“I got lucky.”

“How did you get away?”

He gave her a wry grin. “It wasn’t easy. Sometime, when you’ve got a lot of time, maybe I’ll tell you all the adventures I encountered that night.”

She gave his clothing a once-over. “The police were looking for a man in running shorts and sneakers.”

“Which were barely holding together by daylight the next day. I was traveling light, but luckily, before going to Turner’s house, I’d put some cash in my sock. I used it the next day to buy some clothes at a big flea market.” He glanced down at the T-shirt and work pants. “Selection was limited. I’m sure some of the goods were hot, so no one questioned the customer who looked like he’d been dunked in a polluted river and then run through a shredder.”

“Were you recognized?”

“Doubtful. The market draws a large Hispanic crowd. Typically they follow soccer, not American football. I tried to be inconspicuous.”

Her eyes shifted up to his blond hair. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Especially not when I started asking around about Manuelo Ruiz, looking for someone who might know him. Those inquiries aroused more suspicion than my ragtag appearance. I didn’t stay long.”

“Where have you been hiding?”

He didn’t reply.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“The less you know, the better. Rodarte can never accuse you of collaborating with me. You’re my hostage. Got that?”

“I’ve got it. I don’t think Rodarte will be convinced. When he introduced himself, I recognized his name immediately. Before, when you warned me about him, you didn’t say he was a policeman. You made him sound like a criminal. You said he’d beat up a friend of yours.”

“He did. And sodomized her. Ruined her face. Broke-”

“A woman?”

“Yeah, and Rodarte nearly killed her.”

Laura had assumed Griff was referring to a male friend. Learning that Rodarte had assaulted a woman filled her with repugnance and fear. “He attacked her because of you?”

“Because she wouldn’t give him any information.”

“What kind of information?”

“About my past and present business dealings. Not that she knew anything, but it did her no good to tell Rodarte that.”

“He must have thought she knew something. Is she a close friend?”

“I guess you could call it a friendship. Actually, I’m her client. She’s a prostitute.”

That piece of news took her aback. Had he been using the hundred thousand she and Foster had paid him to buy the services of a prostitute? Of course the money was his to spend, it was just that she had never known anyone, of either sex, who admitted going to a prostitute. Maybe that was why it was so startling to her that he had in such a matter-of-fact way.

Curiosity compelled her. “What’s her name?”

“Marcia. She’s not a street hooker. She has a penthouse. She’s clean, classy, very expensive, beautiful. Or was. It’s been months since the assault, and she’s still recovering, going through a series of reconstructive surgeries on her face. She won’t even talk to me about the other. Rodarte has a badge, but he uses it as a free pass to hurt people and get away with it.” He shot her a glance. “You’ve been with him. Did he ever touch you?”

“Last night he stroked my arm. It made me shudder. I think he knew that, and that’s why he did it. Behind everything he said was a sexual innuendo.”

Griff’s long fingers were flexing and contracting around the steering wheel as though preparing to pull it out of the dashboard. “It was only a matter of time before he hurt you. Which was another reason I wanted to get you out of there. Anything he did to you, he would have felt you had coming because of your affair with me.”

She remembered Rodarte coming up close behind her, promising in an insinuating whisper to be her protector-or not-when her affair with Griff was exposed. Griff may indeed have rescued her. But there was still much he had to answer for. “So you had a car, and a hiding place, and you’ve been following Rodarte.”

“You were my connection to Manuelo. I knew you’d be essential to finding him. But I also knew Rodarte would be keeping close watch on you, expecting me to turn up sooner or later.

“Yesterday evening, after the funeral and reception, I was parked on Preston Road, near where I left the car tonight. When I saw this caravan of police cars coming from the direction of the estate, I pulled out into traffic. So I was actually ahead of your police escort. I slowed, let you drive past, then followed you to the hotel.”

“How’d you get the room number?”

“I didn’t, but it was a logical guess that you’d be on the top floor.”

“I had the floor to myself.”

“I figured that, too. When I got up there tonight, I had a nanosecond to look down the hall and see which door the cop was guarding before throwing an armload of empty boxes at his buddy.

“Anyway, last night, once I knew where you would be when I needed you, I went back to the estate to try to find a way in. The guard never left the front gate, but the ones that had been patrolling the grounds were pulled off. No need for them since you were no longer there.

“I knew that the park behind the property was the only possible access. I combed every inch of that side of the estate wall, practically on hands and knees. In the dark, mind you. I was looking for a rear gate. Something. Took hours before I found the grate. I loosened it, crawled through.”

“And left that drink can there so you could find it again from the inside.”

“In a hurry. Just in case cops were in hot pursuit. The rest you more or less know.” After a beat, he said, “Except this.”

He turned in to the parking lot of a multiscreen movie theater and found an open slot between a van with a Garfield clinging to the rear window with suction cups on his paws and a pickup truck with tires taller than their car.

He cut the ignition and turned toward her. “The night I got out of prison, I was desperate to get laid. I went to Marcia. Just that once. There’s been nobody since.”

She took a breath, held it for several seconds before letting it out. “I wondered.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t have the right.”

He moved suddenly, stretching his arm across the space separating them, curving his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her toward him. He kissed her hard, stamping his lips firmly against hers, pressing his tongue deep into her mouth. Then he pushed her away as suddenly as he’d grabbed her.

Hoarsely, he said, “You had every right.”

He let go of the back of her neck and returned to his place behind the wheel. For several moments they sat in silence, hearing only the soft popping sounds made by the car’s motor as it began to cool.

Finally he turned to her. “He called me. Foster. The day the pregnancy was confirmed. He invited me to your house the next night so he could thank me and pay me in person. Did you know any of this?”