28
L
ance nursed his anger like a woman nurses a childâcompletely absorbed by the process even as the sweet pain tugged at his chest. There was nothing sweet about his rage though. Furious enough to strangle Vivienne, he swore a blue streak. He'd been played like a Stradivarius in the hands of a master. How they must be laughing at his gullibility.
And to think, he had been ready to jump all up in his grandmother's shit because of Vivienne. She'd been rightâagain, which left him no reason to believe that Virginia wasn't also right about Gayla.
Maybe he'd have been better off without either one.
He'd half hoped to find Rochelle lurking in the lobby of his building when he got home, but instead he ran into T.J. who'd just pulled to the guard gate.
“What's going on?”
“Hey, dog, thought you'd like to hang out tonight.”
It took Lance all of three seconds to make up his mind.
“Park over there. I'll drive.”
He'd prowl the clubs tonight with T.J. At least there he knew what the women were after. Buy a girl a drink, cop a feel and go to bed with her. Shades of deception and hidden agendas didn't cloud every action. The process was all pretty cut and dried and both parties knew the rules: No rings, no strings. And no progeny.
His long-held motto echoed through his head, and that thought circled around to the child VivienneâRachel!âwas or wasn't having, which sent his mind straight back to the place where it had started today, on the kid he already had and his mother.
“God fucking damn.”
T.J. raised a brow as he pulled the seat belt across his chest. “Do I wanna know?”
Lance peeled out of the parking lot.
T.J. clutched the grab bar. “Guess not.”
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The police came, took their statements and departed when Vivienne refused to press charges against the intruder or even tell police his name. They assessed her arm and decided she didn't need stitches, but could go to a hospital to have it checked just in case. After looking at the broken lamps and dishes on the floor, the officers left a card with a toll-free number to a twenty-four-hour domestic violence hot line.
Vicki cleaned and bandaged the cut and bruises on Vivienne's arm, then brewed a pot of chamomile tea. The sisters sat together on the sofa.
“Do you want to tell me what's going on?” Vicki asked.
Viv, her legs drawn up beneath her, wrapped her hands around the warmth of the mug. “It's a long story,” she said after a time.
“The night is long in front of us.”
Viv sipped some tea and closed her eyes. “You're not going to like parts of it.”
“I don't like seeing a man holding a knife at your throat either. And my God, Viv, why wouldn't you cooperate with the police? They could catch him. Put him behind bars where he belongs. What if he breaks into somebody else's house?”
“He didn't break in,” Viv said, the words so low that Vicki leaned forward to hear.
“What was that?”
“He didn't break in. Lance left the door open.”
“And that's why he had a knife to your throat?”
Viv sighed. “His name is Dean Khan. I used to date him.”
“Tell me you're joking. He's a freaking psycho.”
“He was supposed to be in prison for ten years.”
“Prison? Like rape-and-murder prison?” Vicki's concerned gaze swept over her twin and she reached for Viv's hand.
Viv shook her head. “He's not a rapist. Or a killer. At least he wasn't when I knew him. Dean isâwasâa white-collar criminal. If he hadn't gone to prison all those years ago, he'd surely be on his way there now. He's the type who would have been involved in Enron or WorldCom or something like that.”
“Get back to the part about you dating him and why he was here tonight with a knife on you.”
“It was when I was at Brown.”
Vicki did the mental calculation. “Mom and Dad would have been dead about two years.”
Viv nodded. “You were still living in that home. I needed money to get you out and to live the kind of life I envisioned for myself. I met this guy on campus. He did taxes for people. He didn't charge a lot, twenty-five dollars for the easy form and sixty-five or seventy-five dollars for complex ones.”
“The guy was this Dean Khan?”
Viv nodded. “I found out that he was running a scam though. He had students all over the place filing false returns. He showed them how to do it using phony names and stolen Social Security numbers. He put on little workshops on how to claim deductions and get rapid refunds. He pocketed sixty percent of every deal.”
“Sixty percent? Who'd be stupid enough to go for that?”
Viv shrugged. “A lot of people. It was easy money and the campus was big enough to get lost in.”
“How'd he get caught?”
Viv sipped at her tea then looked at her sister. “I turned him in. I didn't know that a guy I'd met and was trying to put the squeeze on for rent money was really a federal cop. I thought he was an art student. They were always good marks because they needed supplies that cost a lot. The tax form scam was easy for them.”
“And you got a cut of every deal with Dean Khan made?”
“I was the bookkeeper, so to speak. I made deposits for him under a phony business name. Irregular cash deposits on a regular basis didn't look so odd coming from a college student working to make ends meet. I fit in with everybody else just trying to get an education.”
Realizing just where this was all leading and why, Vicki reached for a tissue. “Viv, you didn't have to do it.”
“Yeah, I did. I couldn't let them keep you locked up in there like an animal.”
Vicki closed her eyes. The months she'd spent first at Eastern State Hospital and then in a group home for the mentally retarded were the worst of her life. She'd been so relieved, so grateful when Viv showed up demanding her release. The time in the mental hospital had been due to lack of space anywhere else, and the group home a last resort after their parents were killed and no relatives stepped forward to care for the disabled teenager.
“Did you go to jail up there?”
Vivienne's gaze met her sister's. “Almost.”
When Viv didn't seem inclined to say anything else, Vicki prodded her. “No more secrets, Viv. Please. If he comes back, I need to know what the deal is.”
Slowly, Vivienne nodded her assent. She took a sip of the tea. “I convinced first the cops and then a judge that I had information I could give them about Dean's operations. I told them the tax scam was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“But it wasn't?”
Viv shook her head.
“Why did they believe you?”
Vivienne looked at Vicki and cocked her head.
“Oh.” Then, quieter, Vicki asked, “Who were you dating, the prosecutor or the judge?”
“Sort of both.”
“Viv.”
“I told you it wasn't pretty.”
“So then what happened?”
“I cut a deal, paid restitution, got probation. Dean had a trial. But by that time I was long gone. I dropped out of school, went to New York and signed with an agency. Vivian Rachel Jackson ceased to exist. Vivienneâspelled with panacheâla Fontaine was born.”
“And the rest is history.”
Vivienne nodded. “Except for the money I stole from him.”
Vicki groaned. “How much?”
“Not a lot. Eight thousand.”
“And that's what he wants back? What you paid in restitution. That's not a problem. We can get a cashier's check and . . .”
Viv shook her head. “No, Vicki. It's not that simple. He wants gross profits. Forever. Sixty percent.”
“Sixty percent of what?”
Viv cast stricken eyes at her sister. “He wants Guilty Pleasures.”
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Lance had no memory of getting home, no memory of getting into bed. But the ringing phone was insistent, angry and loudâright in his ear.
“What?”
“Mr. Smith? Mr. Lance Heart Smith?”
“Yeah, who wants to know?”
“This is Detective John Travis, Newport News Police.”
Lance opened one eye. “Uh-huh.”
“Sir, we'd like for you to . . . There's a situation you need to be apprised of.”
Lance sat up. “A situation? What situation?”
“Mr. Smith, would it be possible for you to come to 1547 Grange View Court? Now.” The
now
made it sound more like a command than a request.
Grange View Court. Gayla and Tarique lived in Granger Shores Homes.
“What's wrong? What happened?”
“Sir, I'll explain when you get here.”
Cussing, Lance made his way to the bathroom where after taking a leak, he splashed his face, brushed his teeth and swallowed several aspirin.
A note was taped to the back of his front door.
I took the keys to the Escalade. You were in no condition to drive. Hope your head doesn't hurt too much by the time you read this.
The scrawled note was signed T.J.
Grunting, Lance grabbed the extra set from a black lacquer chest on the foyer table and headed to the East End.
Red and blue lights from four or five city squad cars marked the site. People had swarmed out of apartments near the scene, shielding their eyes from the glare of police car headlights.
Lance barely brought the SUV to a halt before he was out of the vehicle.
“You can't cross the police line, sir.”
Lance's gaze darted toward the unit where two cops in riot gear knelt facing the door. “Detective Travis. I'm looking for a Detective Travis. He called me. My name's Lance Smith.” He had the presence of mind to keep the Heart part out of it.
The cop nodded. “Over here.”
Lance was led to an improvised command unit between a marked car and an unmarked one. A stocky man with a crew cut approached. “You Lance Heart Smith?”
When Lance nodded, the cop jerked his head toward another man. “I'm Williams. That's Travis.”
The detective briefed Lance.
“We got a 9-1-1 call about fifty minutes ago from someone in Unit G. Sounded like a kid. He said he needed an ambulance. When the unit arrived, the kid yelled out and said he had a gun. He told them not to come in.”
“A gun? Unit G is Gayla's apartment. Is Tarique all right?”
“Is Tarique the child, sir?”
Lance looked around. “I . . . yes. He lives there with his mother.”
“And you are?”
Lance looked away. “How did you get my name and number ?”
“The next-door neighbor. She said she and the mother were partying earlier tonight. That's about all we could get out of her before she collapsed.”
“Is there really a gun?”
“That's what we were hoping you can tell us.”
The police made him put on a Kevlar vest, then Lance approached the front door.
“Tarique? It's Lance. Can I come in?”
“No!”
“Tarique, there are a bunch of cops out here. They're not very happy.”
“I don't care.”
Lance glanced back at Detectives Travis and Williams. “He's crying. What did you do to him?”
“Just who is this kid to you?”
Lance closed his eyes. “He's my son.”
The cops exchanged a glance.
“Tarique, are you all right? You called for an ambulance.”
No answer came from inside. “I'm going in.” He shrugged out of the vest.
“Sir, that's not advised.”
Lance snorted. “If he shoots me, he shoots me.”
He pushed the door. It didn't give. “Tarique, either open the door or I'm busting it down.”
Silence.
Lance shoved at the door again. A moment later, he heard scuffling and then a chair scraping across the floor. The armed officers moved forward.
“No!” Lance said. “He's my son. I'll deal with this.”
Where the bravado came from he couldn't say. This just seemed like the last affront on a god-awful day. The last thing he was going to do was allow himself to be terrorized by a ten-year-old kid.
If the boy really had a gun and shot him, at least Lance would have gotten what he deserved.
When Lance pushed the door again, it opened. He held up a hand to stave off the police, then entered the apartment he'd come to know in the last few weeks.
First he saw Tarique. Then he saw the body.