Stealing Taffy

  Her eyebrows arched high. “Yes, I most certainly do remember you mentioning that hideous invasion of my privacy, but I cannot believe that any government agency would have a record of my deepest and most personal character defects!”

  As much as Dante wanted to smile at that comment, he knew better. “You’re right, Tanyalee. I didn’t learn all that from the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles. But, uh, my regular AA meeting is the open meeting at seven P.M. on Tuesday nights in the basement of the First Baptist Church in Asheville.”

  Her eyes flashed. Her lips parted.

  “I always sit in the last row on the right, and I happened to be there the night you, uh, shared.”

  With sudden understanding, Tanyalee’s mouth completely unhinged. She remained like that for a long moment, eyes and mouth gaping, until her bottom lip began to tremble and a tear spilled down her cheek.

  “It was pure coincidence. You have my word, Tanyalee. I wasn’t looking for you. In fact, I had assumed you lived in Raleigh. And then there you were, telling the world—”

  She gasped.

  “I should have mentioned this sooner.”

  “Ya think?” Tanyalee stood up and reached her hands toward the ceiling in exasperation. “You were not supposed to hear any of that!”

  “Was it the truth?”

  “Of course it was the truth!” She dropped her arms and pointed a perfectly manicured finger in his direction. “But I didn’t want to tell you, the man I’d had mind-blowing sex with and might even have feelings for!” She laughed bitterly and shook her head. “Oh, my God! If I’d wanted to tell you those things I would have done so before I ran off! But did I? No, I did not! That was intensely private information—”

  “That you shared with sixty strangers in a church basement.”

  Tanyalee lifted her nose and narrowed her eyes. “You know exactly what I mean, Dante, and don’t pretend that you do not! What I shared was in the interest of my recovery. I’m sure you’ve said plenty of deeply personal things in AA meetings—things you may not be particularly proud of—but felt comfortable doing so because the people listening were strangers to you, anonymous strangers. That’s why there’s an extra A in the organization’s name. Otherwise it would just be called ‘Alcoholics’!”

  She had a point. God, he loved the way her mind worked. “Can I ask you something?”

  Tanyalee sighed like it took every bit of her patience to remain in his apartment. “Go ahead.”

  “You said our night in the hotel was the most passionate and beautiful sexual experience of your whole life.”

  “That was not a question,” she snapped.

  “Okay. Let me rephrase that. Why did you tell the whole room that it was the most passionate and beautiful sexual experience of your life?”

  Her voice was barely audible. “Because it was.”

  “And you have feelings for me?”

  She sniffed, looking away. “Not at the moment I certainly do not, thankyousoverymuch!” She was at the door in seconds.

  “Tanyalee, wait.”

  She held out one hand to block him, then hurriedly tied the sash of her trench coat. “You know what, Dante? I am furious with you right now. I am angry that you never told me the whole story of how you found out where I lived, that you sat there in that room and listened to me as I said all those personal things. I can’t help but think you’ve used that information against me somehow, that all this time you’ve known how … how attracted … how much you … anyway, it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t decent, and right this moment I am angry as a wet cat!”

  He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t abuse the knowledge, Tanyalee, but you’re absolutely right. I apologize for not telling you the whole story sooner. You have every right to be angry.”

  She blinked in surprise, grabbing her bag from the floor. “Well then, thank you, I suppose. Now, if you don’t mind, I need some time to myself so that I can figure things out.”

  He didn’t like the way that sounded. “Sure. I understand.”

  “I don’t know about this thing…” She gestured to the space between them. “I want that clear-hearted feeling you mentioned, and I think I should have it before I decide what I want with you, if anything, because I surely do not wish to do anything more in my life that I will come to regret.”

  He thought she was extraordinarily beautiful when she was pissed off, though he thought better of saying so out loud. Dante took a step toward her. “I don’t regret anything, Pink Taffy.” With that, he reached up to caress the back of her neck. “When will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know, Dante. I’ll be in touch when I’ve made my amends and cleared my head and heart. I can’t … you just…” She reached up and removed his hand from her neck. “You distract me something awful!”

  Dante gave her what he figured was a sad smile. He was quite proud of her, really. Tanyalee had just told him that she was angry and why. She’d set a distinct boundary. She’d told him how things were going to be.

  But he hoped to hell she wouldn’t stay away too long.

  “So when, exactly, will I get a chance to distract you again?”

  Tanyalee tried not to smile, but failed. She put her hand on the doorknob and was about to leave but suddenly turned around, popped up on her tiptoes, and planted a kiss on his lips. “Something for you to remember me by,” she said.

  Chapter 15

  Tanyalee smoothed her hands down the skirt of her nasturtium-pink Armani crepe suit, the last thing she purchased from Neiman Marcus with the credit card given to her by Wim Wimbley, her former fiancé. It seemed only fitting that she wear it to visit him at the Cataloochee County Jail, where he was being held while waiting for his transfer to the federal court and his trial.

  She had no desire to see Wim at all, of course, but it was the first of her nine-step amends and it could not be avoided. She hadn’t loved him, but that hadn’t stopped her from maneuvering him into proposing, then accepting him with false claims of ardor and fidelity.

  Simply put, Wim Wimbley had been the richest bachelor in Bigler. She was the prettiest woman. Was she supposed to settle for anything less?

  The old Tanyalee had thought not.

  She entered the visitors’ waiting room. The green-painted cinder-block walls closed in on her while she sat primly at the end of a row of hard plastic chairs bolted to the concrete floor. She wondered if that was to prevent anyone from using them as weapons. The thought made her heart beat faster.

  The jail smelled of bleach, stale coffee, and misery. The smell made her throat want to close up tight as a tick. And the bad taste in her mouth wasn’t just because she was here to see Wim. It did not escape Tanyalee that she, herself, could have languished in the feminine version of here, which she knew was painted in a horrible shade of puce under unflattering lighting. If not for her family name and the Cataloochee County legal system’s susceptibility to large blue eyes swimming with tears, she might call that place home today.

  She would forever be grateful that she hadn’t appeared before one of those lady judges!

  Her name was called. Tanyalee walked past the intimidating armed guard posted at the door to the visitation room. The space was cut in half lengthwise by a long counter, a thick Plexiglas partition running from the tabletop to the ceiling.

  On one side of the clear plastic sat a few nominally regular people, talking on phone handsets attached to the counter by thick unbreakable cords. On the other side of the plastic were men in pale blue coveralls hunched forward hungrily.

  The place gave her the willies. She couldn’t imagine the horrible conversations that had taken place here over the years, all the tears and yelling, all the pain caused by a loved one’s stupidity. The cheap Formica surface of the counter was pitted and carved with initials, reminding her of the desks from high-school detention—not that she’d ever been sent there! The thick Plexiglas wall was riddled with scuff marks and dents, and Tanyalee couldn’t
imagine how much force someone would have to use to inflict such damage. She glanced behind her at the bolted-down chairs and shuddered.

  “Ma’am?”

  Tanyalee had no choice. She nodded politely to the guard and headed in the direction he now pointed. I have to do this. If I want to leave the past behind me, I have to face Wim fair and square. I have to face them all.

  Because Wim meant so little to her, she figured asking him for forgiveness would be good practice as she went on to the more challenging amends. Yes, Tanyalee had ordered her in-person amends from the least difficult to the most—just as Dante suggested—but she would not be thinking of Dante today. She was angry at that man and hadn’t answered any of his calls in the last three days, which served him right.

  With a sigh, she lifted her chin and stepped right up to her past and sat down opposite it.

  A man stared at her from the other side of the glass. For a minute, she thought the jail officials had made a mistake. The Wim she remembered sported a hundred-dollar haircut and a five-thousand-dollar suit.

  The man in front of her had longish hair that was shaggy and thin enough on top that she detected a gleaming beneath. His skin was pasty and his expression was weary and careful.

  Then he smiled at her and she saw a glimpse of the old, cocky Wim Wimbley, rich kid, frat boy, and eventually the most successful real estate mogul in all of Cataloochee County. His plans for the Paw Paw Lake luxury waterfront retirement village would have made him one of the richest men in the state, but that was not to be. Construction workers unearthed a dead body and the truth began to tumble out of the past: Wim’s father had killed an innocent girl and dumped her in the lake, and the resulting cover-up led to the destruction of many lives over the course of many years, including her own.

  As the dominos began to fall, long-buried evidence showed that Wim’s father was responsible for the murder of Tanyalee’s own parents and a host of other crimes, some of which Wim continued decades after his father’s death. When faced with the end of his privileged life, Wim came unglued, and lashed out by pointing a gun at Tanyalee, Cheri, and Candy.

  That had been a particularly bad end to a particularly bad day, since earlier he’d shredded her credit cards and stolen the pearls he’d given her. Tanylee touched her necklace—these were Viv’s pearls. She’d been borrowing them ever since.

  Wim now pointed to the phone handset, and picked it up on his side. Tanyalee held up one finger to him, reaching into her bag to retrieve a bottle of Hawaiian Delite hand sanitizer, a scent that reminded her of Aunt Viv’s award-winning ambrosia salad. After thoroughly purifying the counter, the phone, and her hands, Tanyalee could no longer delay speaking to Wim. She held the handset to her ear and breathed in the sickly-sweet scent of pineapple and coconut.

  “Hello, Wim.”

  “Damn, Tanyalee. You look like a cold Creamsicle on a hot day.” Wim’s gaze was hungry, almost leering.

  She clutched her bag protectively in her lap. “I have come to make amends, Wim.” She swallowed. Tanyalee had practiced her lines on the drive, talking to herself while bobbing her head to nonexistent music so that passing drivers would think she was singing along to the radio.

  “I never loved you,” she recited. “I lied to get you to buy me things and manipulated you into proposing to me. I acknowledge that this was unfair to you because you believed I truly cared for you and that I would make you a good and loyal wife. I came to ask you for forgiveness for using you in such a dishonest fashion.”

  With her shame laid out as naked as a newborn possum—and there was nothing uglier in the world than a newborn possum!—she waited for Wim’s response.

  He leaned back and lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “Tanyalee Marie Newberry, Center of the Universe.” His laugh was a short, sarcastic bark.

  She stiffened. As Dr. Leslie said, making amends did not give the injured party the right to abuse her. So Tanyalee prepared to make a quick but ladylike exit.

  Then Wim looked right at her. She was surprised by the wry warmth in his eyes.

  “Tanyalee, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t use me any more than I used you. We’re two of a kind, you and me. We know how the world really works. You wanted my money and standing. I wanted your looks and your body. It wasn’t love, it was a transaction. And sugar pie, I was just fine buyin’ what you were sellin’.”

  She supposed that was an accurate, albeit harsh, assessment of their relationship, one Tanyalee had entered with both eyes open. Now, she cringed at the thought of being “two of a kind” with Wim Wimbley.

  She was not that woman anymore.

  “Well, all right then.” She lifted her chin. “I appreciate you listening, Wim. I wish you the best.” She gathered her bag and prepared to hang up the phone.

  “Wait!” Wim leaned forward, his expression gone all crafty and sly, like it used to when he was about to close a big land deal. That look used to mean diamonds, and an all-nighter of Wim’s tongue in her ear, and faked orgasms. She barely controlled a distasteful flinch at the memory. Wim must have seen a smidgen of it in her expression, for his gaze turned flinty.

  “You’ve gotten cold and hard, Tanyalee. Maybe you’re frigid now.”

  She gaped at him.

  A memory flashed across her mind, of Dante’s big, hot hands on her body during the Wild Night in Washington, and of the powerful, effortless climaxes that he had given her. Why, she’d had shaky knees for absolute days!

  Frigid? Not hardly.

  “I think I should go.”

  “No, wait. I want to ask you something.” He gave her one of those bad-little-boy smiles that had always revolted her. Tanyalee waited, the phone held two inches from her ear.

  “You don’t really want to testify against me in the trial, do you, sugar? After all, the lawyers might want to ask you lots of things about our relationship, and that could get real personal … and real public. It might make you look like a woman of loose morals.”

  Tanyalee waited for the rush of horror and panic his threat ought to bring her … but nothing happened.

  She heard Dr. Leslie’s voice in her head. “The other purpose of the ninth step, aside from making amends to those you’ve harmed, is to dissipate the power of secrets.”

  A month ago, those had just been words. But in that moment, Tanyalee finally understood their meaning. All her life she’d struggled for safety by trying to manipulate others into taking care of her. Instead, she’d manipulated herself right into a tangle of lies and trickery and fear of being caught.

  Now, she was standing on her own two feet. She had a job, and another chance with her family. All her past doings were being revealed in the light of day, and she was the one doing the revealing. It had been her choice.

  She almost laughed at the blood-pounding truth that swept through her. The secret to true safety lay in having no secrets at all.

  “Come on, Tanyalee.” Wim leaned closer to the Plexiglas. “I’ve still got a few accounts they haven’t seized. I can make it worth your while.”

  She stood, still holding the phone. “I’m sorry, Wim. I’m not buyin’ what you’re sellin’.”

  His pasty face hardened. “You little—”

  She held up one finger to him and smiled distantly. “Thank you for meeting with me, Wim. Thankyousoverymuch.”

  Click.

  As she sashayed away from the silent fit Wim was throwing on the other side of the glass, she took a deep breath of Hawaiian Delite mingled with Eau de County Jail.

  Smells like freedom to me.

  She wasn’t finished, not by a long shot. She had been real busy in her bad ole days, so this ninth “stepping stone,” as Viv called it, was going to be a job of work. However, she knew without a doubt that she could do it.

  Next up, Granddaddy Garland.

  Then came Cheri and J.J.

  One day at a time.

  As she approached the exit, Tanyalee noticed that the guard she’d found so intimidating on her
way in was in fact gazing at her with shy admiration. He held the door for her as she left the visitation room, and even lifted a finger to his forehead, as if tipping an imaginary cowboy hat.

  “Ma’am,” he said, in that Southern way that meant “hello” and “good-bye” and “have a nice day, gorgeous” all in one. He was a big fellow, brawny with a beer belly, not her type at all, but she was so relieved that she cast him a dazzling smile and even threw a little twitch into her hips as she walked past him. Nothing unladylike, of course. She was Tanyalee Marie Newberry, after all.

  * * *

  The timid knock on Wainright Miller’s office door caused him to nearly fall out of his desk chair.

  “What?”

  Shit. He shouldn’t have screamed like that. The last thing he wanted was for anything to seem out of the ordinary. But for God’s sake, wasn’t a man entitled to have a moment of privacy in his own goddamn office?

  He finished shoving the stack of cash into the safe and quickly spun the lock, waiting until he heard the combination mechanism click into place. He used his handkerchief to wipe away a stream of sweat from the side of his face.

  Weight loss or no, the stress of all this was going to kill him. Not only was he struggling to keep Cherokee Pines operating in the black while tying up the sale of the business, he was hell-bent on squeezing every last dime he could from the lucrative insurance scam he’d kept going for the last five years. But that was piddly shit compared to the five-ton Godzilla in the room—Tony Ramirez. It was a twenty-four-hour job keeping the twitchy cartel chief and his goons happy.

  And he’d just learned from Gene Lewis Tillman that drones were seen flying over the Possum Ridge operation.

  Right about now, Miller was as nervous as a whore in church.

  Soon, he told himself. If he could just keep his focus for another couple weeks he could calmly and carefully put his plan into play: Welcome to New Zealand, Mr. Milton W. Prescott, American retiree on a fixed income!

  The door opened a tiny bit, revealing one nostril and a segment of an eyeball, both belonging to his secretary, Louellen Lukins. She whispered into the crack. “I am so sorry to disturb you, Mr. Miller.”