Infamous (2 page)

“My father,” Lille repeated. She couldn't quite believe he'd just come out and said it like that. Who was this person on the other line? How had he found her? How had he linked Lillehammer Marceau to Sarah Wells? Her head was spinning. She knew her father had been hunting her, hunting the girl she'd been, but she'd never expected that, when he found her, this was how he'd go about making contact. She'd always imagined a kidnapping: he'd sneak up on her, send someone to seduce and capture her . . .

“Yes, he'd like to speak with you.”

Lille shook herself; little chills of terror, an old fear, were running over her skin. “I don't have a father. You must have the wrong person.”

“I don't think so, Sarah.”

Lille dropped the heavy receiver on its cradle with a crash and scooted back quickly in her chair.

Her instincts told her to run. She'd run at fourteen, and she could run now. She wanted to jump in her car and take off, clothes be damned. She'd had another false identity created a few years back in case she needed it, one that would allow her to live peacefully in a foreign country, somewhere like Italy or Turkey, somewhere beautiful blondes would be appreciated.

She clenched her teeth. Damn it. She was having fun here. She wasn't ready to leave. She didn't want to leave.

“I don't
want
to leave,” she said out loud. It was the strangest feeling. She had lived her whole life with one eye on the past, always on the verge of flight. She'd thought, when she'd been engaged to Paul, that she'd be able to put the past behind her, but instead she'd been even more restless; she'd felt trapped because he hadn't been the man she wanted, and she wasn't the woman she wanted to be when she was with him.

But now . . . she was excited about working at this store; she was excited about being close to her best friend; she was just . . . excited. An image of Max as he'd appeared that night, glasses on the tip of his nose, flashed through her mind. She frowned and shook it off. It didn't have anything to do with him. She glanced around absently; it was this place, this crazy place that seemed to attract crazy people.

This place, these people, felt right to her. It fit. It was time to stop running.

“I'm going to make this place great,” she said mulishly, teeth clenching, “and no one is going to stop me.”

That didn't mean her father wouldn't try, though. She needed to tell someone, Mary and John at least, so that they could help her be on the lookout. She didn't understand why he would contact her now, after all these years, or how he'd found her.

“I shouldn't do that,” she whispered to herself. Mary had already been through so much, risked so much; Lille couldn't ask Mary to put herself in more danger.

She stood and paced the small room, picking at her fingernails the way she'd done as a child, staring at the walls and expecting to see the old wallpaper and cheap paintings of the apartment in Vegas and seeing, instead, the
Casablanca
movie print . . . probably not a good omen.

The door opened, and Carl, looking rather the worse for wear, swanned into the room dramatically, throwing himself into the chair behind the desk and taking her spot, not that she cared. She couldn't sit right this second to save her life.

“Girl, you won't believe the night I've had.”

Lille snorted, thinking about her interactions with Carl over the past two weeks. He'd become one of her closest friends, which was strange but seemed somehow fitting, as if she'd belonged here all her life and the place had been just waiting for her to show up. He was always tangled up in some drama, though; sometimes listening to him made Lille feel old.

She twisted her fingers. “Try me.”

Carl's normally immaculate hair stuck up in rills, there was a hickey on his neck, and his clothes were the same ones he'd been wearing last night, when he'd stopped by the Box to pick up some toys before his night out.

The last time she'd seen him this disheveled had been after the night she'd spent with Max; Carl had sent her a text asking her to meet him at the Fetish Box, but he had been late making an appearance. That had been the day that Kim arrived to start recording the Fetish Box documentary. Hours after Kim had begun recording, he'd finally shown up, with an enormous shiner and a cut lip—he'd kissed someone's boyfriend, apparently.

“Well, I was out with some friends—we were doing shots when suddenly this cute boy comes up to me. And I mean cute in the sexiest, ripped kind of way. We start flirting, dancing, and then—bam—I don't remember a fucking thing. I wake up in my car this morning in a parking lot by the beach near the nature preserve. My phone and keys are gone—do you know how expensive it is to replace the key to an Audi?”

Lille blinked at the sheer flood of information. “I . . . can imagine.”

Carl pouted and slouched even farther, leaning back and propping one leg on her desk, the open collar of his shirt revealing a smooth-shaven and well-toned chest. It was nothing like the chest on Max, but she could see Max doing the same thing, taking over her space as if it were his. It was the first evidence she'd seen that Carl and Max had been raised in the same household. They were stepbrothers, raised by Max's uncle Bryan, which was a long story all by itself.

“Should we go to the hospital?” Lille ventured. She didn't want to come right out and ask if he'd been raped, didn't even want to think about it, or try to explain how she knew what that felt like.

Carl looked confused for a second; then his face cleared. “Oh, honey, no. I'm fine.” He gave her a sympathetic but knowing look. “Don't you worry. If that had happened, I would have already gone to the hospital, gotten tested, and would be wringing my hands until the results came back.”

Lille nodded—she didn't think it would have been quite that simple, but something else nagged at her. “Did you say your phone was missing?”

Carl nodded.

Lille chewed her lower lip. “I wonder why someone would take your phone.”

He frowned. “It was a nice phone.”

“And why your car keys and not your car?”

“Honey, what are you thinking?”

Lille didn't know what she was thinking, but she didn't like it. “Were there any keys to the Fetish Box on your key ring?”

Carl winced. “Shit. Yes.”

“And Mary's house, probably.”

He nodded.

“And all our contact information.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “There's a password on my phone.”

Lille didn't have that much faith in technology. “We should file a police report at the very least.”

“Ugh. The police.”

Lille gave him her best Katharine Hepburn staredown.

“Fine.” He pouted. “What do you want to do about the keys?”

Lille twisted her fingers again. “Change the locks. I'll call John, see if he can do it.”

“He can. His dad was a mechanic. Max can as well. Our uncle taught us how to do all kinds of basic household stuff,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

Lille preferred not to think about Max, but an image of him, all surly and tattooed and wearing a tool belt, made her shiver just a little.

She pushed that aside and frowned at Carl. “So why can't you change the locks?”

Carl sniffed. “I rock a mean drill, but I have to get home, change, and get over to the gallery.”

“Don't forget about filing a police report.”

“And file a police report,” he added with a dramatic sigh.

Lille walked over and half sat on the table. “I don't like this, Carl. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

“No.” He shook his head, suddenly serious. “But you seem more worried than I thought you'd be. Is something else going on?”

The subtle squeak of the ceiling fan overhead seemed loud as she considered telling him about the card she'd gotten two weeks ago, about the man who'd just called, about her father. She hadn't known Carl long, but she trusted him. She trusted all the people who surrounded her at the Box, which was totally unlike her. She wasn't in the habit of trusting so quickly, or telling anyone important details about her life. Mary was, of course, her best friend, but Lille found herself also wanting to open up to John, to Jordan, and now to Carl. The only person she didn't want to trust with her secrets was Max—not because she didn't think he was trustworthy, but because she was afraid he was. She didn't want to like him more than she already did.

“I just got a call from a man working for my father.”

Carl waited.

Lille took a deep breath and continued. “I've never met my father, but I've been hiding from him my whole life. He's the son of a Russian gangster living in Las Vegas.”

Carl's eyes widened.

Lille nodded. “I grew up there, in Vegas. Ran away when I was fourteen. My father had just been let out of prison. He was supposed to be in for life, but the key witness magically recanted his originally testimony, and my father was released. My mom—she was always afraid of him, deeply afraid, and his father was her boss.” She paused and smiled wryly. “My mom looks a lot like me, or she did, and she stripped . . . mostly just stripped . . . to make a living.”

Lille felt twitchy just thinking about that night, about the desert and the dark, and about the note from her mother telling her to run. She turned away from Carl, walked over to the window next to the filing cabinet, and slid a few of the miniblinds out of the way with one finger, then looked out without really searching. There were only a few shrubs, a palm tree, and the parking lot of the Publix.

She turned back toward Carl. “My mom always told me that if he ever got out of prison, if he ever came looking for me, I should run. She'd gotten me documents and everything. One night we were at the club, and my mom didn't show up for her dance.”

Lille looked down at her hands, which she'd folded tightly, holding on to herself in a death grip. “She never missed her dances. I knew something was wrong. When I checked my bag in the dressing room, there was a note from her telling me to run.

“So I did,” she said simply. “I ran.”

“What happened to your mom?”

“He beat her to within an inch of her life,” Lille muttered flatly. “I found out later. They sent him back to jail.”

Carl stood, crossed to her without saying a word, and wrapped his arms around her.

Lille closed her eyes and tolerated the hug for a moment, but she couldn't be hugged, she couldn't rely on anyone or she'd freak out. She pulled herself away gently, squeezing his bicep and stepping back.

Her hands fluttered uselessly, so she dropped them to her sides.

Carl waited, bright green eyes concerned. “So he's out of prison again?”

“Yeah, about a year ago. I thought about telling John and Mary, but I don't want to endanger them.”

Carl frowned, a line forming between his eyes. “Are you sure he wants to hurt you?”

Lille shrugged. She didn't know what her father wanted, but he was a murderer, a gangster. She'd been afraid of him for as long as she could remember, and she didn't see any reason to invite him into her life.

“He's dangerous,” she said finally. “I read all the news coverage of his original trial and had a private investigator find out what he could from the police. They suspect my father of much more than they are able to prove.”

Holding up his hand in a soothing gesture, Carl said, “I'm not saying let's invite him over for pinochle or anything. Trust me, I don't want this guy anywhere near us, but contacting you after all these years—it's strange. Your mother never told you why he'd want to hurt you? Maybe there's another reason he wants to contact you.”

Lille heard what Carl was saying, but she didn't even want to entertain the idea of speaking to her father. In her mind, fear of him was wrapped up with the fear of the men her mother had brought to the house, fear of what had happened to her after she'd run away. Her father was fear incarnate.

“Damn it.” She paced the room again like a pissed-off goddess. “I don't want to leave.”

Carl clucked his tongue. “Darling, I have no intention of letting you leave. I think you're just what Ma—this place—needs.”

Lille narrowed her eyes at him. “Not you, too?”

“You and Max haven't done more than say two words to each other for weeks.” He widened his eyes innocently, then leaned against the desk.

Lille felt her worry over her father fading to the background, just a bit, as she grew more aggravated with Carl. She stood in the center of the room, long blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, her curvy body encased in a soft knit dress the color of mulled wine. Thigh-high cream-colored suede boots encased her legs, the heels adorned with quarter-inch-long gold spikes. Unconsciously, she cocked a hip and laid a hand on it, raising her chin as if Max were right there in front of her. “So?” she challenged. “We had a fun night. That's all it was.”

“Uh-huh.” Carl sounded doubtful. “Yesterday morning it was all I could do not to fan myself—the sparks you two were sending out were just that hot.”

Yesterday morning Lille had been in the kitchen, enjoying her morning after working a shift on Friday. Max had come over to meet John for a run. He'd crossed the grass between his house and Mary's, then walked through the back door, startling Lille with his sudden appearance in the kitchen. Even in running shorts and a T-shirt, he was big, brawny. His chest and shoulders had looked even broader than when she'd first met him, but his manners hadn't improved much.

“I'm after some coffee. I don't suppose you've left any?”

“I didn't know you were coming,” Lille had replied with a mocking half smile and a flutter of her lashes.

He'd grunted and turned away, giving her a fine view of his ass in his running shorts. He put on more coffee, not bothering to make conversation, and the two of them had proceeded to stare at each other like gunslingers across the kitchen until Carl had come in and broken up the tension.