Caress (14 page)

Nya nodded and stood straighter. “What is it?”

“Do you remember the guy that ran across us in the gardens today?”

“Who?” Nya asked, wondering why his voice sounded so urgent.

“The guy in the gardens, did you see him?”

“Yes, that was Elphonse Deklerk. He’s a vice president with us.”

“Yes!” Michael declared. “That’s him. Nya, I know he’s very close to your family, but there are some things that don’t sit well with me about him. I’ve thought about this all evening and I feel like I have to be honest with you, to be open. What I’m about to tell you goes against everything I believe in as a journalist, but you need to know.”

Nya felt her lips tighten. “What are you saying?”

“Deklerk is the man who told me to speak with Ellis about the scholarship fund. He told me that he couldn’t talk on the record for fear of his job. He sent me to Ellis.”

Nya considered the possibility of what she was hearing for less than a second. There was no way it could be true. “That’s not possible, Harrison. El was in on this at ground level with my father. He would have known better than to talk to a reporter.”

“But he did talk to me. I have no reason to lie to you.”

Nya put a hand over her eyes and paused to consider what he was saying. “If he did speak to you, led you to Marshall, then there had to have been a good reason. Maybe I’m wrong and he didn’t know—”

“Nya!” Michael interrupted. Frustration gave grit to his voice. “You’re the one who has continued to push the issue that the timing of the article could have damaged the investigation because it alerted the criminals that we were on their scent. You were asked to keep it quiet for that very reason, surely he knew that.”

She started to speak, but caught herself. Finally, she said, “I really don’t have the time to discuss it right now.”

Michael’s voice grew louder on the phone. “I just thought you’d want to know. You have no idea how dangerous this thing just got. If this friend of yours is involved with the man the Feds think is behind this, then—”

Nya’s throat was tight. “Rinaldo Mandolesi. Right?”

Michael’s silence on the other end gave her her answer.

“As far as we knew, that wasn’t common knowledge. So how did you know that?”

She heard him take a breath, preparing to say something. But nothing came out. Then, it seemed as if he elected to take the offensive.

“Despite what you think, I
am
good at my job, Nya. I am.”

“Not that good,” she snapped. “If you knew anything at all about Elphonse Deklerk then you would know the last person on God’s green earth he would help is Rinaldo Mandolesi.”

“But help him he did. His story, his
lead
to Ellis, the whole set-up jeopardized the investigation, slowed it down, maybe even dried it up because Mandolesi is classically skittish.”

“You don’t know El. He’s my family, maybe not by blood, but he’s my family.”

“Nya.”

“No, Michael. There’s nothing you can say to make me believe any different.”

“And here I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“Favor?” Nya scoffed. “The only favor you can do for me is to keep silent about Mandolesi. Don’t dare print a word about him. He knows the foundation has been busted, but we’re fairly certain he doesn’t know we’re coming for him, that Marshall is going to be the only fall guy. Don’t ruin what’s left of the case. And you know what else? Leave El alone. I’ve known the man longer than I’ve known how to talk. If you want to stir up some dirt for your paper, Harrison, then I’m sorry, you’d better search in someone else’s backyard.”

“You know what? You can think what you like. With or without you, I’ll get to the bottom of this. Goodbye,” he said and hung up.

Nya had the urge to throw the phone, but instead set it down on the table and began to knead the muscles at the base of her neck.

“I think you should listen to what he’s saying,” Lysette ventured cautiously from the doorway.

“And I think not,” Nya answered. The subject was closed.

h

After Lysette left an hour later, taking half the pan of brownies with her, Nya curled up on the sofa in her den and tried to puzzle through everything that had happened. She skipped around in her thoughts, though, because every time she settled on her time with Michael in the garden, funny things started to happen to her body, despite her attempt to hold on to her anger about his accusations about El.

Harrison could have accused anyone else of being corrupt, but not Elphonse. Her mother and El’s had been best friends since before there was a Hatsheput Industries. Nya and El had been inseparable in the years before she moved to Birmingham.

She remembered following him up the jagged rocks that lined Hull’s bay and running through wild, overrun paths. She and Jenine had always followed him, trying to keep up and prove that they were just as fast as he was, just as strong. El never went far enough ahead to lose sight of them. He always made sure they were out of harm’s way.

The same could be said for when they were young adults, too. Even though El started to act out, to hang out with the wrong crowd, he remained true to and protective of her and her sister. True, at one point in time she just didn’t know what he was capable of. He seemed to be on the rise in the crime world, and Nya didn’t want to know what it took for him to get there. One terrible event had changed all that, changed El forever. He pulled back from the game, went back to school and came to work for her father.

But she had to acknowledge, he had never let go of all his contacts. Sometimes they went places together, and Nya found herself surprised that the suave, corporate El knew someone with an obviously dubious background. They weren’t as close as they had once been, and sometimes Nya thought him secretive. Was there something significant she didn’t know?

Suddenly she felt like such a fool. Michael Harrison apparently thought he could sucker her in with a single kiss, then tell her anything. True enough, a kiss like that was enough to make any woman forget her own name. And equally true, she still couldn’t get it out of her mind. Nya could, however, tamp down all of the desire it had awakened within her. She could reason through what he’d said and draw the conclusion that her friend was not a traitor and had not cooperated with the one man in the world he hated the most….

But something didn’t sit well with her.

El had been peculiar when he visited the other day. Something
was
going on with him. She felt it in her bones.

h

Late that night Nya sat holding her phone, her eyes burning with shame. The doubt had taken over, and she hated Michael for it.

She punched in El’s number. He answered right away. “Hey, El.”

“Hey, Nya.” There was a hesitation in his voice. It was as if he held his breath.

“Listen, I have to ask you about something, and I just want to get it over with, okay?”

“Fine.”

She started to ask, “Have you ever met Michael Harrison?” Instead, the words that left her lips were, “What are you doing up this time of night?”

“I just got in.”

“Got in where? Charlotte Amalie?”

“Yeah, flew in this evening.”

“Commercial?”

“Of course not. I don’t know why we have a jet if you and Nyron won’t use it.”

Nya shrugged, as if he could see her. “I didn’t know you were heading home before Daddy made it back to Birmingham.”

“Yeah, change of plans. I have a lot of things to do tomorrow. Some that can’t really wait.”

“What’s that, El?”

“It doesn’t matter, Nya.”

Oh, but it did.
Why would El hop a plane home out of the blue? She knew for certain he had been in the gallery that day. She knew for certain he wasn’t supposed to leave for home until Sunday. What had changed that? If Michael Harrison’s story was to be believed, then it would follow that El was getting out of town before they ran into each other again. But that couldn’t be.
Could it
?

She needed to ask him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it directly. Instead, she asked, “Tell me why you had to hop a plane so fast. What did you have to do tomorrow that couldn’t wait?”

“I’m meeting with Lola MacPherson, Danika Rolle, and Mary-Amelia Stewart. I wanted to see them all together, and Lola called to say they could get together tomorrow.”

For a second Nya didn’t know what he was talking about. When she made the connection, her heart constricted and she squeezed the phone until it hurt. It took her a moment to speak. “Why are you meeting with them? Did my father ask you to?”

“No,” El replied. “I’ve tried to help each of them out here and there since they lost their boys.”

Nya squeezed her eyes shut and tried to tamp down a wave of nausea. Here she was doubting her friend, believing that he might have lost his way, and yet what he had told her days ago rang true. He hadn’t lost his way, she had. Instead of making an apology and approaching the women who had lost their sons to the criminals operating the Art Sentries Foundation, she’d spent all her time trying to address their image through the
Tribune
. She had succeeded at that but failed at her most fundamentally human and decent responsibility. Tears started, and a knot formed in her throat.

“Nya,” he called in a soft tone. “They know we all care.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It is. I’ll make sure they—”

“It’s not enough. I’m supposed to be heading to Norfolk tomorrow, but I’ll change my plans. I’ll come home tomorrow morning, El. I know there’s a flight out early. I’m going to be on it. I have to come with you.”

“I’m doing this because it could have been my mother, you know, years ago. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. I’m ashamed that you had to bring it to my attention.”

“Fine then. We aren’t meeting until three. I’ll have a car sent for you.”

He bid her farewell and they got off the phone. Nya got to work on changing her flight arrangements.

h

“This isn’t over,” Michael murmured, staring down at his telephone. Something was going on, and though he didn’t know what it was, he knew that Elphonse Deklerk was at the center of it. Why would someone so close to the family want to cause harm to the FBI’s case? Furthermore, why was Nya being so protective of the man?

As he stroked his chin, his phone rang. He half hoped it was Nya calling back to answer some of those questions. “Hello?”

“Hello, Michael, it’s Derrick. You may want to pack a bag.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” a deep, masculine voice boomed from behind Nya after she cleared security.

Startled, she yelped and spun around. “Michael?”

“In the flesh.” He gave her a half smile. “Let me guess, you’re headed into Cyril E. King Airport this morning?”

She licked her lips and wondered why, oh why, she couldn’t control that tingling sensation. “Yes, I am. How about you?”

“The same. I just can’t seem to stay away from St. Thomas.”

Nya ignored that comment and grabbed her cup of coffee from the counter. Michael paid for hers and his own. She asked him, “I don’t suppose you want to tell me why you’re going.”

“I could ask you the same question,” he remarked, following her to their shared gate. “Instead, I’ll ask if you’re still angry with me.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Fine. Would you like to talk about our kissing yesterday?”

Nya stopped in her tracks and started walking in the opposite direction. Michael was hot on her heels. “I’m sorry. Nya! Listen, I was just trying to break the ice.”

“Consider it broken. Now leave me alone.”

“Wait. Please, wait.”

“I hope you are seated as far away from me as possible.”

h

They both had gotten their tickets at the last minute. That meant that both of them had to take first class seats. They buckled in shoulder to shoulder. Nya wondered if her face would stick into a permanent scowl.

“Your face is going to stick like that,” he warned.

She laughed involuntarily because he’d picked the very thought from her head.

“Much prettier,” Michael remarked. When Nya struggled with what to say, he added, “You’re welcome.”

She rolled her eyes.

A flight attendant stopped in their aisle and asked if the happy couple needed anything, a snack or something to drink. Michael declined for both of them and Nya poked him with an elbow.

“What?”

“We are not a happy couple,” she hissed when the attendant was out of earshot.

“Not when you’re assaulting me,” he quipped.

“Michael Harrison, you are not charming.”

“If I weren’t, you wouldn’t have felt compelled to tell me I’m not.”

Nya elbowed him again.