Unhappy with the turn her thoughts had taken, Michelle sighed, hugging herself against the chill. The revelation that Armon was her father had sent her entire world into a wild tailspin, shattering everything she’d ever known about herself, about the people she loved. She couldn’t help but wonder why her mother had kept the truth from her all these years. Was Nicolas right? In her own misguided way, had Blanche Pelletier tried to protect her daughter from the evils of the world?
Michelle couldn’t fathom the logic behind the ideology. The selfishness of it angered her. She hated poverty and the decaying effect it had on human dignity and spirit. Why had her mother chosen a life of poverty for her daughter over a life of opportunity? The questions overwhelmed her, exhausted her, zapped what little remaining strength she had. She felt physically and emotionally spent. And she had yet to deal with Betancourt.
Up until now, she’d refused to identify what was in that foolish heart of hers. She was attracted to him beyond reason, beyond logic. He wasn’t a gentle man in any sense of the word, yet the way he touched her was so tender it brought tears to her eyes. Underneath the tough-guy facade lay a personal code of honor few men could match. Somewhere along the way, her heart had gotten so hopelessly tangled that she couldn’t begin to sort out her feelings. She couldn’t think of a worse fate for a woman who’d sworn never to make herself vulnerable again.
A man like Betancourt wouldn’t think twice about doing the right thing. If the right thing included sending her to jail, the fact that her heart was involved wouldn’t stop him.
“You’re shaking.”
Michelle started at the sound of his voice. Was she shaking? She felt so scattered she could no longer tell. Taking a calming breath, she turned to face him and felt that familiar tightening in her belly.
His eyes were the color of the sky outside. Dark. Stormy. With a hint of unpredictability that invariably unnerved her. He stood less than a foot away, staring at her intently. He’d taken off his jacket, and she recognized the woodsy cologne that had become familiar to her during the last days. The chambray shirt he wore accentuated the broad span of his shoulders. His jeans were faded and snug. She’d forgotten how good a man could look in a pair of jeans.
“It’s cold.” She tried to smile at him, but failed. “I need to see to that cut.”
“It’s not bad.” He was watching her carefully. Too carefully. As if one wrong move on his part would cause her to break into a thousand pieces.
“You don’t have to handle me with kid gloves, Betancourt.”
He arched a brow. “Was I?”
“You have that look about you.”
“It’s called concern, Michelle.” Though his tone was slightly sarcastic, his voice was soft.
She wondered what he made of all this, realized he knew more about her life than just about anyone she’d ever met. The thought made her stomach roll. “I saw a first aid kit in the bathroom.”
Reaching out, he took her arm and guided her to the narrow cot in front of the fire. “You’re white as a sheet. Sit down before you fall down. I’ll get the damn kit.”
She lowered herself onto the cot and watched him cross the room to the tiny, adjoining bath. He even moved like a cop; everything about him was cop. Another reason piled on top of about a dozen why nothing between them would ever work. It was a crazy thought to be having anyway, considering she’d be locked away in her own private cell in twenty-four hours.
She heard the medicine cabinet open, close, then he reappeared. Sitting down beside her, he opened the kit. “Cory told me Landsteiner’s will has been turned over to probate. It was drawn up by a Metairie firm over five years ago. Cory’s going to plug some data into the computer, see if he can find anything on the Landsteiners that might help us.”
Michelle took the kit from him, dug out two aspirin, cotton and some antiseptic. She handed him the aspirin. “Are the police looking for me?”
“They put an APB out for you a couple of hours ago. You’re not a high priority, but patrols are looking.”
A shudder scooted through her. “You’re risking a lot by being here. Your partner is risking—”
“We may have a break. Cory went to talk to Jacoby’s paralegal. Turns out she and two other people in his office witnessed, actually signed a will Landsteiner had drawn up six months ago. The state of Louisiana requires three witnesses. Of course, the will is missing.”
“Without the will, it doesn’t matter if you have a dozen witnesses.”
“There was a fireproof safe in Jacoby’s office. The building was a complete loss, but the safe is intact. There were backup disks in the safe.”
Michelle’s heart bucked hard in her chest. Something vaguely resembling hope fluttered wildly.
One side of Philip’s mouth quirked into a smile. “The disks are badly damaged from the heat, but may be readable. Cory has a computer guru trying to get information off them. It’s going to take some time.”
“Armon’s will could be on the disk.”
“The paralegal told me all legal documents drawn up by Jacoby are stored on the server. The server was destroyed but the backup disks were stored in the safe.”
Michelle didn’t want to get her hopes up. “That may not help me, Betancourt.”
“No, but it could give us a motive, point us in the right direction.”
“If Armon added me to his will, it could also work against me.”
“True, but I think it’s a chance we have to take.”
Desperation licked at her. She felt as if she’d ventured into quicksand and was being sucked ever downward, the cold darkness smothering her. Every time she thought about the warrant, what she would be facing in the coming days, she had to fight down panic. And then there was Betancourt.
“Thank you,” she said, realizing how glad she was that she didn’t have to face this alone. A loner by nature, she found the realization startled her.
He looked at her sharply. “For what?”
“For being here with me.”
“You didn’t expect me to walk away, did you?”
His mouth drew her gaze. It wasn’t exactly full, but his lips were well defined, chiseled. She knew from experience it was an accomplished mouth. Yes, he definitely knew how to kiss a woman. She remembered the way he’d teased her mouth into submission, trailing wet kisses down her neck until she thought she would explode with need….
Michelle gave herself a quick mental shake. What was she doing thinking of his kisses when her entire life was on a collision course with disaster? A man like Philip Betancourt, with his shiny badge and mistrust of the human race, wouldn’t fall for a woman with a criminal record and a wrap sheet growing longer by the minute. He would move on after the case was closed whether she ended up in jail or not. He would go back to being a cop. If she allowed herself to get any more involved with this man, her heart would be ripped to shreds. She wouldn’t put herself through that again.
Blinking back the sudden heat behind her eyes, Michelle wetted the cotton with antiseptic. “This is going to hurt.” She pressed cotton against the cut.
Betancourt blew out a curse.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Tell me about Frank Blanchard,” he said between clenched teeth.
She nearly dropped the cotton. Her brain blanked, froze so solidly that she couldn’t muster a reply.
He caught her wrist with his hand, lowered it. “No secrets, Michelle.”
Her gaze snapped to his. Anger and another emotion she couldn’t readily identify seethed in the gray depths of his eyes. “He’s not important,” she said.
“You went sheet white when Nicolas mentioned his name.”
“Frank is a man I once knew…a long time ago.”
“Don’t patronize me. You damn well better not lie to me.” None too gently, he pulled her down to the cot beside him. The cotton ball fell to the floor at their feet. “Nicolas said Blanchard was a cop. What the hell does that have to do with you?”
&nbs
p; The urge to run was strong, but Michelle knew it was a crazy notion. She’d been running too long. Silently, she cursed her brother for dredging this up, for making her remember. “He was a deputy for Lafourche Parish. I…I had a relationship with him. A short one. That’s all.”
“That’s why you’re shaking.” Philip said the words with biting sarcasm.
She started to rise, but he stopped her.
“I’m not stupid, Michelle. What the hell was Nicolas talking about when he said Blanchard stabbed you in the back?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“This has something to do with your record, doesn’t it?”
A shudder raced through her. The memories followed like floodwater, tearing down her defenses, slicing her open, bleeding her to her very soul. “He’s the one who arrested me.”
“You had a relationship with this man, yet he was the one who arrested you?”
She tried to wrench free, but he held her firm. “Yes, dammit, let go of me!” she cried.
“Did you care for him, Michelle?”
She wanted to lie; she wanted to tell him no. But she knew lies never helped anything. After a while, they just got all tangled up. “Yes, I cared for him! Let go of me.”
He released his grip on her arm. “I’m not trying to crucify you.”
“Just air my dirty laundry.”
“You and I are the only ones here, Michelle.” His voice gentled. “I’m trying to understand you. What you just told me explains a lot. Tell me the rest.”
Everything inside her rebelled against it, but Michelle knew the time had come for her to get the truth out in the open, before some prosecutor twisted her past around and used it to destroy her, as happened to Nicolas.
“It’s ugly,” she said. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Whatever you’re holding inside is eating you alive. Let it out. You know I care about you. You know I won’t judge you.”
She let out a deep, shuddering breath. “I met Frank Blanchard when I was seventeen. He was twenty-four, ambitious and from a wealthy family. He was the only man I’d ever known who didn’t seem to care that I wore hand-me-down clothes or that I lived in a one-bedroom shanty on the wrong side of town. We began seeing each other, secretly because, he said, I was only seventeen.” She laughed at the naïveté of the foolish teenager she’d been, but it was a hard sound that held no humor.
“The night after the explosion at the plant, Frank came to see me. At the time I didn’t realize the police suspected Nicolas and me. Nor did I realize Frank was there for official reasons, rather than personal. Of course, he didn’t bother to set me straight. It was the first time I’d seen him since Mama died and I…needed…to talk. I was hurting. He listened. He let me pour out my heart.”
Michelle looked down at her hands, realized she’d clenched them into fists, and relaxed them. “I gave him my virginity that night. I was stupid enough to believe he cared.” A sound erupted from her throat, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a sob. “After I told him Nicolas and I had been at the plant before the blast, that Nicolas had had that box with him, Frank arrested me.”
She steeled herself against the memories, the shame, but even now the betrayal cut. “He handcuffed me. Read me my rights. At first I thought he was kidding. I couldn’t believe this man I’d trusted would…betray me. I guess it didn’t sink in until he forced me to his car. Then…I knew.
“He drove me to the police station. That was when—” Her voice broke. She couldn’t go on, couldn’t tell that part. It was too ugly, so ugly she still couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Even after all these years, she woke up with nightmares.
Philip’s jaws were clamped so tight the muscles twitched. “He used you to get to Nicolas.”
“Yes.”
“What happened at the station, Michelle?”
The question startled her. Her gaze snapped to his. The intensity burning in his eyes told her she’d already said too much. He knows, she thought. The realization made her want to curl into a ball and deny it. “I was only seventeen years old, Betancourt. I didn’t know about rights. I was scared. I didn’t have a lawyer to tell me what to do.”
She jumped when he put his hand over hers.
“Whatever they did to you, it wasn’t your fault,” he said.
Pain slashed through the center of her. “They made me feel like trash.”
His eyes were like coals, burning hot and bright with an emotion she’d never seen. “Did they touch you?”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t bring herself to say the words. All she could do was stare at him, while shame burned a path through her heart.
Closing his eyes, he scrubbed an unsteady hand over his jaw. “Have you ever told anyone about this?”
“No.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
She did, she realized. The realization was like a boulder being lifted from her shoulders. “Frank and…another deputy…they said it was police procedure to…search a suspect. They told me if I didn’t submit to their rules, they’d force me. So…I did as I was told.” Humiliation seared her. She closed her eyes, felt the tears on her cheeks. That was the worst part, she thought, the fact that she’d obeyed those two men without so much as a fight. “They took me to a cell away from the others. Frank ordered me to take my clothes off. He said it was for my own safety, to make sure I didn’t have drugs or a weapon. They laughed at me when I cried; they said I should get used to this kind of treatment.”
A breath shuddered out of her. “And without the benefit of counsel, those two men…touched me…. They…put their hands on me. And I didn’t stop them.”
Chapter 12
Philip lost the battle for emotional distance. He watched her come apart piece by piece. He saw the shame, the agony she’d carried around for so many years cut down her defenses, until she lay open and bleeding.
Raw fury twisted in his gut. Blood hammered in his ears until he could no longer hear her sobs. She hadn’t deserved what had happened. The injustice outraged him. He wanted blood. Frank Blanchard’s blood.
Philip didn’t have an aversion to violence; he wasn’t above using it to take out a piece of slime, had resorted to the darker tactics on more than one occasion over the years. As he watched the woman before him recount the incident that had nearly destroyed her, he silently vowed to bring down the cop responsible.
Emotion thickened his voice. “Michelle…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I’ll never forgive you if you feel sorry for me.”
She looked too fragile to touch, but he couldn’t keep him self from reaching for her. She needed to be held. Even more, he needed to feel her against him.
“Come here.” His arms went around her. He pulled her tightly against him. “I don’t feel sorry for you, honey. I’m sorry it happened.”
A shudder rippled the length of her. “They took my dignity, Betancourt. Then they laughed at me.”
“Shh. Easy. It’s over.” Closing his eyes, he stroked the back of her head, marveling at the silky feel of her hair.
Her head dropped to his shoulder. “Nicolas was innocent.”
“A jury convicted him, Michelle.”
“He didn’t do it.” She pulled away and looked at him. “The prosecutor used what I told Blanchard that night against Nicolas in court. Frank twisted my words, made it sound like I told him Nicolas planted that bomb. I was so…upset, I didn’t even remember what I’d said. That Nicolas and I drove to the plant that day. That he had a box for the stuff in his locker. In the end, it was Frank’s word against mine. The word of an upstanding deputy against the word of a poor girl from the wrong side of town. The public defender was fresh out of law school and didn’t have the experience to win. The judge let it stand.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“How can you say that?” she choked out. “I sent my brother to prison, for God’s sake.”
&nb
sp; “You were a kid. You told the truth.”
“I panicked—”
He tightened his grip. “Stop it.”
“They lied to suit their own agenda.”
No wonder she didn’t trust cops. No wonder she couldn’t bring herself to trust him. “That’s why you’re hell-bent on becoming a lawyer.”
She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “It was the only thing I had left. The only way I could feel…empowered. That dream got me through two years of community college. It got me through five years of working the vats at the Fortrex Plant.”
The respect he held for her solidified, deepened. Something else more profound stirred uncomfortably inside him. Leaning back, he put his fingers under her chin and forced her gaze to his. “That’s incredibly admirable. You know that, don’t you?”
“Admirable isn’t going to keep me out of jail.”
The thought twisted his gut. For the life of him he couldn’t think of a way to avoid it. If she didn’t go back, more charges would be levied against her, making her situation infinitely worse. “I can promise you no one will hurt you.”
The life seemed to go out of her. It was the first time he’d seen resignation on her face, and he hated it. She was too proud for this, too strong.
He cared too damn much.
He didn’t want to ask the question, but had to know. “Did those men rape you?”
She dropped her gaze. “No. Not…technically. But they demeaned me. They humiliated me.”
Fury rumbled through him, but he shook it off, knowing it wasn’t what she needed at the moment.
“They did that to me because of who I was. Poor. Uneducated. My lack of status made me vulnerable.”
The need to protect rose up in him with such violence that for a moment he couldn’t speak. When he finally did, his voice was low and dangerous. “I’m going to make that son of a bitch pay. I’m going to make it my mission in life to ruin that—”