“Here we go again,” she muttered. Would he say, “See you later,” or nothing at all? Oh no, not this time. There was no way she was going to let him walk out the door without acknowledging a few things first.
He came out of the bathroom, all buttoned up and tucked in, ready to leave. He seemed preoccupied. She suddenly became furious. All he had to do was leave a little money on her dresser to make her feel like a call girl. She grabbed her robe, put it on, and chased him into the living room. “Please don’t leave just yet. I want to ask you a question.”
She wasn’t given time to ask it. Stamos was knocking on the door and calling Allison’s name. She tightened her robe and opened the door a crack.
The doorman didn’t ease into his news. “Those maniacs are downstairs again. They’re very upset.”
“Enough already. Wait ten minutes and then send them up, please.”
Muttering to herself, she rushed into the bedroom to get dressed. “I’m through being patient. They aren’t going to go away without a fight, and by God, I’m going to give them one.” She called to Liam in the living room, “You should probably leave. Otherwise, you’ll have to arrest me when I start punching them.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He would turn stubborn on her. “A few minutes ago you couldn’t wait to get out of here. . . .”
“No, that’s not true,” he argued.
“Okay. Why do you want to stay?”
He looked sheepish. “I’m curious.”
She slipped into her jeans and was buttoning her blouse when she returned to the living room. Liam put his hands on hers. “I’ll do that.”
“I’ve got it.
He smiled. “No, you don’t.”
She looked down and only then realized the buttons weren’t lined up. Feeling foolish, she stood there and let Liam fix them. When he was finished, she tried to step back.
He followed, tilted her chin up, and kissed her. “Take a deep breath,” he suggested.
“Why?”
“You’re hyperventilating.”
“I’m angry.”
The relatives from hell were banging on her door. She did as Liam suggested, but a deep breath didn’t help at all. She was still tense and livid.
Liam beat her to the door and opened it. Russell Trent came barreling in first. The smell of alcohol swirled around him like a rancid cloud. His wife, Jane, followed. Her shoulders were hunched and her deep-set eyes studied Liam suspiciously before turning to Allison.
“We didn’t know you had company,” Jane said.
“This is my friend,” Allison said. Not wasting any time, she added, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Jane tried to soften her expression, but the smile that curled her lips didn’t reach her eyes. “We just wanted to see how you’re doing. You know we worry about you.”
Allison thought she was trying to act timid, which was laughable.
“May we sit down?” Jane asked.
Russell was already sprawled on her sofa, so the question didn’t merit an answer.
“Why are you here?” Allison demanded. “I’ve already told you you’re getting nothing more from me.”
Jane glanced at Liam, who was standing by the door and watching her like a hawk. She hesitated before answering Allison, as though she was carefully measuring her words before speaking. “We received a summons of a sort just a few days ago, and we were shocked. Really shocked. It all happened so long ago.”
“What happened so long ago?”
“Your dear parents died.” Jane shook her head and pulled a tissue from her purse, trying her best to act sincere. “We still mourn them.”
Allison thought her performance was nauseating. “No, you don’t mourn them. My father didn’t like either one of you, and for good reason.”
Uncle Russell pushed himself upright. “No, no, that’s not true. They loved us.”
Allison wasn’t going to argue. “You still haven’t explained why you’re here.”
“We received a summons that says they want an account of every dollar we spent on you and Charlotte. That’s simply impossible,” Jane huffed. “Who saves every little receipt for all those years?”
“And you spent a lot of money on us, did you?” Allison asked, doing her best to hold her temper under control.
“Of course,” Jane insisted. “It cost a lot of money to feed and clothe and educate you two girls.”
“Five hundred thousand?” Allison asked.
Jane was taken aback. “What?”
“Did you and Uncle Russell spend all of the insurance money on Charlotte and me?”
“Of course we did,” Jane countered.
“Stop,” Allison demanded in a near shout. “Just stop. You didn’t spend any of that money on us. We know where it all went. You purchased your house and the land around it. You paid off your bills. You—”
“All right,” Jane cried out. “We were wrong, and we’re very sorry.”
“You were horrible to us. You know that, don’t you? You kept threatening that you would put me in foster care without my sister if I acted up. And we had to work to pay for anything we wanted, even school. Remember? And God help me if I was ungrateful. Those terror tactics started when I was four years old.”
Seeing her approach wasn’t succeeding, Jane decided to double down. There was a sigh and a contrite lowering of her eyes when she said, “We realize now how insensitive we were. We really are ashamed of our behavior, and we’re so very sorry.”
It was the most insincere apology Allison had ever heard. “What is it you want?” she asked, her voice flat and emotionless. “Or did you come here just to apologize?”
“Actually . . . ,” Jane began. She looked at her husband.
Russell teetered when he stood. “We want you to go to court with us and testify on our behalf,” he said.
They had rendered Allison speechless. Several seconds passed before she responded. “You want me to lie for you.”
“It wouldn’t be a lie,” Jane insisted. “No, no. We did give you a place to sleep, and we fed you.”
“What happens if I don’t go to court?”
Jane dabbed at the corners of her eyes, pretending to keep the tears at bay. “We could end up in prison.”
“Think of the positive,” Allison said. “You’d get to see Will more often.”
Liam coughed to cover his laughter. He had to admit that the utter audacity of Jane and Russell’s plea was impressive, but even more impressive was the way Allison stood up to them.
“You would let us go to prison?” Jane demanded.
The sneer that Allison was accustomed to seeing on her aunt’s face was making its way to the surface once again. So much for acting timid, she thought. She went to the door and Liam opened it for her. “It’s time for you to leave,” she ordered. “Don’t come here again. If you do, I’ll get a restraining order and call the police. Now, get out.”
There was fire in her uncle’s bloodshot eyes. “You’ll go to hell for this,” he mumbled as he stormed past.
Aunt Jane made it to the doorway and then stopped. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“Why?” Allison smiled. “I guess I’m just ungrateful.” She slammed the door shut and fell back against it, taking a long, deep breath. When she was calm enough to speak again, she looked at Liam. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she apologized.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m very proud of you.”
“Proud?”
“Yes,” he answered. “You stood up to them, and they deserved it. The way I figure it, there are three kinds of people. The first kind are the good people who mostly do good things with their lives. The second are good people who sometimes get off track and do bad things. And then the third kind are the bad people who do bad things. I’d put y
our aunt and uncle in that category. I don’t think they’ll ever see the error of their ways.”
“You’re right. I’m sure they still think they can badger me. I haven’t heard the last of them.” She straightened her shoulders. “But I can handle it,” she said with assurance.
“Good girl,” Liam said as he gave her a hug.
He went to the desk for his gun. As he was strapping it on, a text came into his phone. He glanced at the screen. “I’ve got to go,” he said without explanation. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and then walked over to give her a quick kiss. “Sorry. I’ve got to take care of something. You said you had a question. Can it wait?” he asked.
“Sure,” Allison said, resignedly.
And once again she watched him leave.
—
Her job saved her from dwelling on Liam, and fortunately at night, once she turned on her new laptop, she could still escape into her work, and the world swirling around her ceased to exist.
She was back to two agents driving her to and from work, but now she knew most of them and enjoyed their company. Her assignments had become intense, many involving missing funds, and she had to stay late nearly every night.
Jordan had seen the photo of Allison’s crunched car—Noah got it from Alec, who had gotten it from Liam. She called to commiserate.
Allison’s greeting wasn’t the usual. “Men still suck.”
“Uh-oh. Should I come over?”
“No. I was just making a statement of fact. What’s going on?”
“Your car. Tell me what happened.”
“You already know what happened. I told you about it.”
“Yes, but I just now saw the photo. I can’t believe you walked away from that crash. My God, you hit a tree stump and then flipped and flipped. . . .”
Allison laughed. “I know. I was there.”
They spent a half hour discussing the horrible crash. Then Allison said, “I’ve got to get going. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Wait. Did you want to embellish on your opening remark?” Jordan asked, trying to be diplomatic.
“No, not now.”
Allison worked another hour and then went to bed. She was thankful Jordan hadn’t asked any questions about Liam. Maybe she already knew that the nonrelationship was over. Regardless, Allison wasn’t ready to talk about him. Her emotions were still too raw.
Just as she was drifting off to sleep, her phone rang. Her uncle Russell was on the line and was so drunk his words were slurred. He wanted her to know what an ungrateful bitch she was. All of his misery was her fault. She agreed just to get him to stop, but that didn’t work. She could hear her aunt Jane screeching like a colony of bats in the background. The sound was ear-piercing. Allison ended the call in the middle of one of his colorful threats.
“Bitch” seemed to be the word of the day, for, not five minutes later, Brett Keaton called to scream that very word at her over and over again. He told her he knew she had taken his work and made it her own. Great, now he believed his own lies. “You should be afraid,” he threatened. “Bad things can happen.”
She sighed. She was so sick of it all. “Bring it on,” she said, and then she ended the call.
All she needed now was for Brett’s partner, Fred Stiles, to call and threaten her. Then she’d have the devil’s trifecta.
Disheartened and feeling all alone, she muted her phone, turned the lights off, and crashed.
TWENTY-SIX
On Friday, Phillips called allison into his office. She assumed he was going to give her another one of his enthusiastic pep talks as to why she should continue to work for him. She knew how much he enjoyed their talks, and for that reason she decided not to tell him she wanted to stay on at the FBI. In fact, she planned to wait until the last possible minute before giving him a reason to gloat.
Phillips was waiting for her in the doorway, and there, standing next to him, was Curtis Bale. Before she walked into the office, she braced herself for another yelling fit about how she’d ruined his life. Phillips pointed to her chair. She didn’t want to sit, but she thought she probably should. Phillips was giving her the nod, whatever that was supposed to mean.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said, staring at Bale. “Let me have it.”
He smiled. “I want to apologize to you.”
She was hesitant to believe him. “Okay . . .”
“I finally realized I needed to get my head out of the sand and look at the evidence. You found the leak, and it was in my department, and I missed it.” He sounded sincere.
“He was very clever the way he hid what he was doing,” she said, offering a bit of empathy.
“Still, it was my responsibility. I lost touch with the people in my division. I should have been more vigilant.”
She liked that he was owning it. “What happens now?”
“I’m taking some time off,” he said.
“Then he and I will talk again,” Phillips supplied.
She extended her hand to Bale. “I wish you good luck.”
Bale shook her hand. As she watched him walk out of the office, she thought about the irony of it all. If Bale had been a better manager, if he had rid his division of bad employees, there wouldn’t have been a leak, and her life would have been very different. It was the leak that had brought Liam to her. At the moment she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Phillips waited until they were alone, and then said, “I’m not usually wrong, but I admit I made a mistake with Bale. He was so irrational when it came to blaming you for the mess he was in, I actually thought he might be responsible for running you off the road.”
“What made you change your mind?” she asked.
“We discovered he had left Boston and driven out to visit his sister in Ohio. He just returned a couple of days ago. There’s nothing to link him to your crash.”
“That’s good to know. I guess you don’t need to send guards wherever I go now,” she said hopefully.
“I’m afraid that’s not going to change,” he said. “Bale wasn’t responsible, but someone was, and he’s still out there. Until we find him, you’ll have protection.”
She was just about to return to her station when Phillips surprised her by asking if she was still going to be modeling for a benefit at the Hamilton Saturday night.
“Yes,” she answered. “And it’s important, so please don’t drag me back in here.”
He promised not to bother her, and in the spirit of goodwill, since he’d been working her like a dog, he announced she could leave at noon today.
Two agents accompanied her to the spa and salon where Giovanni had booked appointments. She promised to text them when she was finished, but they refused to leave. After a long negotiation, she finally convinced them that two men standing watch might be a tad unsettling for the women patrons of the salon, and they reluctantly agreed to wait outside. She then spent three hours getting waxed and lotioned, pedicured and manicured, and an extra hour listening to her favorite hairdresser, a most unusual young lady named Penny, who had more piercings and tattoos than an entire biker gang. Penny caught Allison up on her exciting life. She always had at least three boyfriends—at the same time, of course—because otherwise, she explained, she would be bored. Penny believed her life was complicated, but compared to Allison’s, it was a walk in the park. Allison couldn’t tell anything about her own life, not that she wanted to, so she sat quietly and listened, letting Penny think she was one dull bookworm.
“I don’t get it,” Penny said. “With your body and your looks, you should have men falling all over you.”
Allison wanted to change the subject, but Penny wasn’t ready to talk about anything other than Allison’s miserable dating history. She gave her tips on how to attract a man while she trimmed her hair, and when she was done, she air-kissed Allison on bot
h cheeks and sent her on her way. Penny didn’t notice the two men waiting in the parking lot.
The agents dropped Allison off at her apartment, and she decided to give herself some time to decompress. She was tired of worrying. She had spent far too much energy stressing over Bale and Will and Brett and Stiles and her aunt and uncle. She wasn’t going to worry about Liam, either, although that was easier said than done. She prided herself on not breaking down and crying, and once she was back in her living room she reached for her new laptop. There was only one problem. It was becoming more and more difficult to escape into her work. Liam kept getting in her way, and that infuriated her.
A day later Giovanni lifted her out of her pitiful mood. She couldn’t feel sorry for herself when she was with him. Even when he was barking orders, he was fun to be around. She loved him for a lot of reasons. He was kind and generous and honorable, and most of all she loved him because he really cared and watched out for her.
He was also quite a taskmaster. She was told to be in the suite at the Hamilton at exactly four o’clock, and she didn’t dare come late. Giovanni was fanatical about punctuality. Three designers were showing their work and donating substantial amounts to a children’s fund. Allison was one of five models for Giovanni.
The setup for the show had been carefully thought out. Each designer was assigned a section of a large ballroom with double doors that opened outside to a magnificent garden. The walkway had been built up a few feet above the audience and ran the length of the garden. There were rows of chairs on either side with cameras and lights positioned everywhere. Fortunately the weather was cooperating. It was going to be a beautiful, though somewhat humid, evening.
Giovanni had been alerted that Allison had arrived and rushed to greet her. Impeccably dressed in a dark suit, he looked more like a movie star than a designer. Tall and lean with an Adonis face and dark curly hair, he could have passed for thirty but was actually in his middle fifties. She kissed him on both cheeks and then hugged him.
He held both of her hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “How are you doing?” he asked.