Read Dark Valentine Online

Authors: Jennifer Fulton

Tags: #Gay & Lesbian

Dark Valentine (5 page)

There was only one way into town, and that was on a stretch of Route 66 infamous for its hazards. The blacktop road had seen a series of washouts that left RVs haplessly spinning their wheels in sand-filled potholes. These continued for about twelve miles and the intrepid motorists who made it past this obstacle course could then look forward to the Sitgreaves Pass, ten miles of shoulderless hairpin switchbacks, most of them blind, zigzagging through desert hillsides that routinely disgorged boulders onto the road. According to Rhianna’s employers, “flatlanders” were so petrified of this pass that they sometimes paid locals to drive their cars across it. Accidents were a regular event, adding to the excitement of the drive and ensuring the local tow-truck driver could afford to dress his wife in Versace.

Despite its treacherous access, Oatman was a thriving backwater with a few hundred residents, most of whom kept abreast of one another’s business. Rhianna had been made welcome when she arrived, but she was aware of a mixture of dubiousness and friendly resignation in her reception. New arrivals seldom stayed long, and no one made a big effort to befriend them until it looked like they might hang around.

When she’d first applied for the job she saw on Craigslist, her employers had warned her to expect the worst, describing Oatman as “a one-horse town, and that’s not just a figure of speech.” In case she harbored naïve illusions about the West, they had also pointed out that she was likely to be “bored to tears after a week” and the reason they paid well was because she would “need some compensation to live in the middle of nowhere and if you have a nervous breakdown, therapy doesn’t come cheap.” They’d already lost several nannies who could not cope with the isolation and lack of entertainment, and did not want to employ another one who would abandon them after a few weeks.

The Moss family had their spread just north of the town. Lloyd and Bonnie Moss were part owners of one of the smaller casinos in Laughlin and left their eighteen-month-old daughter at the ranch to be cared for by a nanny. When they took time out from managing the casino, they went traveling as a family. On those occasions the nanny served as a house sitter and had to make sure the ranch hands showed up for work. The job was about as easy as any job got, with employers who were so grateful that they gave regular paid vacations and even the use of a car so Rhianna didn’t have to damage hers driving around the area.

The Mosses were genuine people, nothing like the glitzy casino-millionaire couple Rhianna had expected once she found out who they were. Sometimes she was even tempted to tell them her real name and her story, but it was too soon to take that risk, and she didn’t want them to be needlessly concerned for their daughter’s safety.

Rhianna had seen to it that no one knew where she was, not even her own family back in Denver. To communicate, she used disposable cell phones to call them and a mail-forwarding service. When she needed to e-mail someone, she drove to Vegas and used public Wi-Fi locations. Only her lawyer knew where she was and he said, with all the precautions she had taken, no one would ever find her. Not even Werner Brigham.

Rhianna stared out at the sign for Jackass Junction and allowed herself a satisfied smile. This was the very last place on earth anyone would look for her. And even if they did, who was going to link a nanny called Kate Lambert with Rhianna Lamb, the fashion buyer. Even her paychecks couldn’t be traced. She had arranged for the Mosses to make automatic transfers into a bank account her attorney had set up for her. She used a Visa debit card to draw cash and make payments. It was issued to a registered business name: Kate Lambert Enterprises.

Rhianna Lamb had disappeared off the face of the earth, and anyone who tried to locate her would find nothing but dead ends. She was safe, and if loneliness was the price she had to pay, she was fine with that. All she cared about was peace of mind. She would never have guessed how much that mattered until she had to live without it.

 

*

 

“You’re home!” Bonnie Moss collected Rhianna in a hug.

She was the cuddly type who wore her emotions on her sleeve. Her dog was exactly the same. Hadrian, an English mastiff, was too old and stiff to leap up, but he greeted Rhianna with a flood of drool and shoved his meaty brindle head into her belly, almost knocking her off balance.

“Lloyd’s at work, of course,” Bonnie said. “But he’ll be home tomorrow morning.” She waved at a long, lean ranch hand smoking a cigarette in front of the stables and called, “Percy, can you bring Kate’s bag into the house when you’ve had your break.” Barely pausing for breath, she walked Rhianna toward the front entrance, one arm loosely around her waist. “How was Palm Springs? See any movie stars?”

Rhianna smiled. Her employer lived in hope that she would run into a Hollywood celebrity wandering through Laughlin one day and invite them back to the casino, where they would sit down for a meal with her and Lloyd and overshare about clandestine affairs and scandals on movie sets. Copies of
People
magazine were piled high next to her bed, and she had installed a custom-built home theater that had made the front page of the local newspaper. This featured an art-deco lobby, popcorn machine, tiered seating for ten, projection room, and curtains in front of the screen.

“I thought I saw Bruce Willis,” Rhianna said, wanting to offer a near-thrill. “But it was just a bald guy trying to look like him.”

Bonnie sighed. “Well, guess what I scored? You know the original
Goldfinger
poster I’ve been trying to find. I got it on eBay for nineteen hundred dollars. Unrolled and unfolded with the NSS stamp and everything. I was dying. The bidding went nuts.”

“That’s great,” Rhianna said as they walked through the cool haven of the hallway, across the den, and into the kitchen. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“I’m getting a new showcase built for the James Bond memorabilia. I thought I’d put it between Hitchcock and the leading ladies’ wall.” Bonnie opened the fridge and pushed Hadrian’s big head aside so he couldn’t lick the front of the deli drawer. “Juice?”

“Thanks. I’m parched. I got caught in the gunfight coming through town.”

Bonnie groaned. “Yeah, I figured. They’re having them every day because those Shriners are in town.”

“Is Alice sleeping?”

“Yes, I had the Calloway twins playing here this morning, so she’s completely exhausted. And so am I. That woman just can’t shut up.”

“I guess she’s missing the city.” Rhianna picked up the tumblers of pink grapefruit juice and carried them out to the back patio.

The Moss residence was a sprawling single-level home built around three sides of an inner courtyard with a gazebo at the far end. Beyond this lay a gated swimming pool and a children’s playground. A private deck adjoining Rhianna’s apartment at the rear of the house looked out over the playground to the rugged purple peaks of the Black Mountains. She usually kept Alice and Hadrian back there when the Mosses were away; it felt safer and cozier than the big house. Bonnie and Lloyd seemed perfectly happy with this arrangement and had converted her second bedroom to a nursery so that Rhianna didn’t have to drag toys and a cot bed back and forth.

“Her marriage is falling apart,” Bonnie gossiped cheerfully. “I think he’s been seeing someone on the side. I don’t know why anyone thinks they can get away with adultery. The wife always knows.”

Rhianna sipped her juice and tried to look like she was interested. “Is it someone local?”

“No, there’s a woman in Vegas. What a mess. And two babies to think about.” Bonnie tugged the pink band from her ponytail and shook out her shoulder-length mahogany waves.

“Did you get highlights?” Rhianna asked, noticing threads of bronze that hadn’t been there four days earlier when she’d set out for Palm Springs.

Bonnie nodded. “Lloyd hasn’t said a word, but I like them.”

“They look great. They flatter your face.”

Bonnie thanked her and said, “I thought about going red, but I could never pull that off. You’re lucky. You have that eye color that works with everything.” She studied Rhianna pensively. “Have you ever thought about going really blond. Like platinum? You’d look sensational. You’ve got exactly the right coloring.”

Rhianna’s pulse jerked. “I think it takes a certain kind of person to pull off platinum blond.”

“Yeah, I don’t see you as a simmering sexpot.”

Rhianna caught a flash of herself in Palm Springs, standing in front of the bathroom mirror flushed from sex and alcohol. “No, not my style at all.”

Weakly, she set her grapefruit juice back down on the table. Her hands felt damp and she could feel guilty color climbing from her neck to her cheeks. All she could see was Jules, sprawling naked on the bed, sated from their lovemaking but still inviting more. They hadn’t stopped all night. Even completely exhausted, they’d found their way back into each other as dawn crept through the gaps around the window covers.

A pang of regret squeezed a small sound from Rhianna’s throat and she pulled herself together before she started to cry. She didn’t want to dwell on her sexual encounter in Palm Springs. It only made her feel confused. She still had no idea whether sleeping with Jules had been a blessing or a disaster. Despite her trepidation she had been able to touch and be touched, and it had felt amazingly good, better than she’d expected. Even intoxicated, and even anxious at times, she had hung in there. It was good to know she could still function sexually, even if she hadn’t been able to stay in her body throughout. Some time in the future she might be ready for more.

To calm her breathing, Rhianna stared down at the bonsai garden in the middle of the kitchen table and pictured herself similarly shrunken, a tiny little self sitting beneath the twisted limbs of the red maple. Invisible.

“Kate?” Bonnie stared at her quizzically. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

Rhianna shook her head. “Oops.”

“Tell me everything!” Bonnie craned forward, lowered her voice to a conspiratorial half-whisper. “Did you?”

“Did I
what
?”

“Meet someone.” Bonnie’s coffee-brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “And was he hot?”

“I hate to disappoint you,” Rhianna said, “but I wasn’t looking for beefcake.”

“Wrong place if you were.” Bonnie opened a cookie jar she’d carried to the table earlier and extracted a Snickers bar. “I mean, all the cute guys in Palm Springs are gay, aren’t they?”

“Put it this way, none of them were hitting on me.”

Globs of saliva trembled off Hadrian’s jowls as he watched his adored mistress eat the candy he wasn’t allowed. Rhianna took pity and got up to fetch a dog biscuit.

“Tell if I’m being too nosy,” Bonnie said, “but why the heck aren’t you married? I’ve been wondering all these months but I didn’t want to ask. You know, in case something had happened. I mean, why else would you want to move out here? Lloyd and I figured there had to be a story to explain
that
mystery.”

Rhianna hated having to deceive people who had been so good to her. Carefully, she said, “There was a man. He made life difficult for me.”

Her throat constricted and she knew something had changed in the timbre of her voice because tenderhearted Bonnie immediately stretched out a small, plump hand to take hers.

“Was he violent? You can tell me, sweetie. It won’t go any further.”

“Yes, he terrifies me.”

“I knew it.” Bonnie gave a self-satisfied smile. “I told Lloyd the very first time we ever saw you that there was a man responsible for that look in your eyes. I’d recognize it anywhere. I used to volunteer in a shelter back in Sin City. I saw it all the time.”

A look. Yes. Every time she confronted her own face in a mirror, Rhianna saw that lingering shadow, too. “It’s in the past now and I’m a long way from home. I’m sure he’s chasing some other poor woman these days.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Bonnie said. “You’re safe with us. Anyone shows up on this property looking for you, Lloyd’ll take his head off.”

Rhianna gave Bonnie’s hand a brief, grateful squeeze. “I’m not worried. Even if he knew where I was, he’s not going to come all the way out here.”

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