Seducing Abby Rhodes Page 3

  “Jordan? Oh, God! Jordan!”

  It’s a sinking feeling, literally. His body pressed down into the floor, like it was being swallowed. The sounds of chaos swirled around him, but too far away from him to matter. Heaven? Hell? Did either of those places really exist, and if they did, which one would welcome him? His chest filled with fear and anxious regret. Jordan was suddenly remorseful for every terrible thing he’d done and been. He hated the man that he’d become, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how he’d become that man. Did it matter anymore?

  He inhaled, or at least, he tried to, but the pain shot through him like a knife. Breath caught in the back of his throat and was trapped there. Jordan’s lungs burned; they were on fire, yearning for a taste of cool air. His heart drummed so loudly that he thought for sure it would burst.

  “Stay back! Get back, please!”

  “Mr. Gatewood? Can you hear me? Nod if you can hear me.”

  Jordan couldn’t nod. He couldn’t raise his arms like he wanted to do to loosen his tie. He could see, barely. Blurred images swirling around him. Shit. Shit. Shit. This is what dying felt like. It was never supposed to happen to him. Jordan was invincible. Untouchable. Death was supposed to have been afraid to come near him, and he was appalled now, knowing that it wasn’t.

  “He’s going into cardiac arrest!”

  “Jesus!” someone yelled.

  No. Jesus wasn’t even close. Shit.

  * * *

  Olivia Gatewood was a ghostly beautiful woman. Well into her seventies, she looked like a portrait, hand painted with consideration and patience. She was used to being stared at because people had been doing it her whole life. She’d come to expect it, and she was always unfazed by it. The last several months had been difficult for her. They’d taken their toll, and it showed in the fading of the vibrant blond of her hair. Natural brown and gray hair streaked through what was left of the hair color she’d worn for so long. She’d lost so much weight that it was alarming, even to him. Olivia hadn’t said a word to anyone since the night she’d shot Jordan. She just sat, for hours on end, staring out at nothing, imprisoned in some other realm far removed from her physical space. She should’ve been an actress.

  “Good afternoon, Mother,” Jordan said, leaning over her and planting a soft kiss on her forehead.

  Of course, she didn’t respond in any way. Jordan didn’t expect for her to even acknowledge that he was in the room. Growing up, he had loved her more than he thought it was possible to love another human being. He’d adored her and promised to take care of her, protect her, and to cherish her. She was a goddess, and he worshiped her.

  She was under a doctor’s care here. Olivia Gatewood stayed in the best assisted-living community that money could buy, with a private suite, a staff, and nurses available to tend to her every need around the clock. She was surrounded by the kinds of things that she loved, silk curtains and imported bedding, crystal, lace, French and Moroccan antiquities. She was a woman of privilege and had been her whole life.

  A large vintage photograph of a young Olivia hung prominently on the wall in the main living area. Framed in heavy mahogany, the black-and-white photograph of the woman was stunning. Back in the day, her beauty had been compared to that of Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge. And it was true. All men, black and white, stopped dead in their tracks when she walked by, staring lustfully at her.

  She had been the daughter of a rich man, so it only made sense that she was married to one. She’d almost made a mistake, though, when she was younger. The first time she married was for love instead of money. But Olivia quickly remedied the error and set her life back on the right track, leaving the poor man, Jordan’s biological father, behind and latching possessively onto the one more deserving of her.

  Despondent, they’d called her. And she’d been that way ever since the night she’d shot Jordan. All sorts of theories abounded as to why she’d put two bullets into her son. In one version, her longtime and now deceased friend Edgar Beckman had said, “She didn’t know what she was doing. She thought she was protecting herself, son. You know how she slips in and out of the present. She would never intentionally hurt you, Jordan. It was an accident. That’s all it was.”

  Olivia’s doctor had pretty much said something similar. “A woman in her condition could easily slip in and out of reality and not know that she’s doing it. Quite simply, she was not cognizant of who she was or where she was, Mr. Gatewood. She should be watched closely, at all times. I’d recommend constant supervision and monitoring.”

  Olivia had aimed her gun at Desi Green the night Jordan was shot. She was upset and beside herself in a rage when Desi confronted her about the fact that Olivia had actually been the one who killed Julian, thirty years ago, and had set up eighteen-year-old Desi to take the fall. Desi had spent twenty-five years of her life in prison for Julian’s murder, and her mother, Ida, had died keeping the secret of what really happened that night. It was the only way she could ensure that Desi didn’t get the death penalty.

  When Olivia took aim at Desi, something unexpected happened. Jordan put himself in front of that bullet meant for Desi Green. The second shot she fired, Jordan knew instinctively, was meant for him. He’d betrayed his mother, and Olivia Gatewood was having none of that.

  Jordan casually took a seat across from his mother staring out over the beautiful gardens, seemingly unaware of his presence. But he knew better.

  “Mother,” he said calmly, studying her for the slightest indication that she’d heard him.

  Olivia played her role well, convincingly well. But then again, she always had. She’d been so good at pretending that he suspected she believed her own lies. Jordan had put all his faith into the love he’d held for her, and he’d lost. But still, it was her blood flowing through his veins. He’d grown up watching her every move, hanging on the gospel of the words that fell from her lovely lips, catching every single one of them in his pockets for safekeeping. Jordan had paid attention, perhaps too much, to all the lovely and wistful things that were Olivia Gatewood, dismissing the unsavory traits of the woman that were her true nature.

  “We’re so close, Mother,” he said earnestly. “So close to winning this deal with the feds and taking Gatewood Industries to a whole new level.”

  He was so proud of his accomplishments in recent years with running his father’s corporation. And he’d always shared those accomplishments with her before sharing them with anyone else, because he knew just how much she understood what they meant to him.

  Jordan was introspective for a moment, studying her, half expecting for her to snap out of this facade she insisted on playing out for the world to see, just for a moment, even if it was just a smile, showing her appreciation for all his hard work. But he quickly pushed that hope aside. Olivia was so gotdamn impressive. She was a work of art, a genius, and a master manipulator. She deserved a standing ovation.

  She had tried to kill him. And not because of any mental lapse from reality. Jordan had betrayed her. He’s chosen the side of her enemy, or in this case, he’d chosen not to stand by and do nothing while she shot a woman who’d found the courage to stand up and call Olivia out on her lies. Jordan was no saint, but there were moments when even he could no longer stomach a lie that was nearly thirty years old.

  “You’ve been declared legally incompetent,” he coolly explained to her. “And per your will, all your assets have been assumed by June and me.”

  June was his younger sister living back in Atlanta with her two children to be closer to her ex-husband. Everything in Olivia’s will had been divided between the two of them per her specifications, and their mother was now under Jordan’s charge.

  He waited for some sort of reaction from the woman, but deep down, he knew she’d never reveal her secret. Jordan stared at her.

  “That gives me controlling shares in Gatewood Industries,” he said unemotionally.

  She had intentionally tried to kill him. It was a fact that had
taken him three months to come to terms with.

  “History repeated itself damn near verbatim,” he said more to himself than to her.

  Jordan had thought about the night he’d nearly died every single day since it’d happened, and one truth kept coming back to him over and over. “Do you ever think about that?” he asked, staring quizzically at her. “Two separate times, separate stages, different circumstances, and yet, the scenes seemed to play out almost identically with you as the common denominator.”

  It was an eerie thought, but one that clung to him, taunting him with the notion that these two events were more than coincidence. He had never considered himself a spiritual man until now. Jordan’s thoughts ran deeper than ever before. He was more in tune with instincts and feelings that he’d never paid much attention to. That near death experience had enlightened and scared the shit out of him because he had no idea what that meant or what he was supposed to do with this new insight. This second chance.

  “Your aim was true, Mother,” he said regretfully. “But unlike Julian, I’m still here.”

  Olivia blinked, and that was enough to confirm what he’d known since the day she’d shot him and had become immersed in this catatonic state. She was full of shit.

  He still loved her. It was likely that he always would. But Jordan was tired and finally ready to put her and the rest of his past behind him and to move on.

  Don’t Spare Me

  FRANK ROSS STARED OUT of the passenger window as his attorney drove through the streets of Dallas to the studio apartment Frank had spent the last year staying in.

  “For a guy not in handcuffs on his way to death row, you seem a little down.”

  Frank huffed and shook his head. “I may not be the brightest bulb in the pack, but even I know that a hung jury ain’t nearly as good as an acquittal.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s better than a guilty verdict.”

  Was it? The district attorney had vowed to the city of Dallas, the state of Texas, the United States, and God that he was going to retry the Lonnie Adebayo murder case against Frank. He felt like Wile E. Coyote with an anvil about to drop down on top of his head. This shit wasn’t over, and Frank wasn’t free. He was just living on borrowed time.

  This apartment wasn’t much bigger than a shoe box, but for the last year, he’d called it home. Cotton, Texas, was where he’d lived before turning his life into scrambled eggs. Frank was an ex-cop, and not a very good and upstanding one, an ex-husband, and an ex-cohort in crime to the now deceased Ms. Adebayo. She’d managed to convince him to set up his half brother, millionaire Jordan Gatewood, and reveal Jordan’s secret that Jordan wasn’t a Gatewood by blood. The point was now defunct, because Gatewood couldn’t care less who knew that he and Frank shared a biological father in Joel Tunson. It was a fucked-up puzzle with too many pieces and looked a hot mess no matter how you put it together.

  Frank warmed up two-day-old pizza in the microwave and sat down to eat in front of the television. Every local news channel had his face on it.

  “This reporter is as stunned as anyone at the announcement that the jury presiding over famed photojournalist Lonnie Adebayo’s murder trial was unable to reach a verdict. They said that there just wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict former policeman Frank Ross of first-degree murder. A representative from the DA’s office promptly responded with the statement that they would retry the case as quickly as the system would allow.”

  Frank’s phone rang. It was his father. “Yeah?” he answered.

  “Well.” The old man sighed. “How you feel ’bout all this?”

  “I feel like I’ve always felt. It’s bullshit.”

  “At least you’re not in prison, son.”

  “It’s about perspective, Pop. One man’s prison is another man’s studio apartment in Dallas fuckin’ Texas. And I’m stuck here over something I didn’t do.”

  Lonnie Adebayo was murdered at the Fairmont Motel in Dallas just off Highway 635. She was shot, along with two others, and a year later, Frank was still suffering the consequences for the fact that he’d used a credit card to pay for a room he’d been staying in. He hadn’t killed her, but he had a feeling that he knew who had. The trouble was, he had to keep his mouth shut or risk losing that fancy lawyer and ending up convicted.

  “There’s no guarantee they’ll retry you,” Frank’s father offered.

  The man was doing his best to step up and be that considerate father Frank had been missing out on for most of his life. This last year, the dude had been bending over backward to care. It was almost admirable, but not really. Still, old Joel was better than nothing, which was exactly who Frank had. He had no money, job, friends, woman. He had nothing except this fragile-ass freedom that could vaporize and disappear into the air at any moment.

  “They’ve made it clear that they would,” Frank said wearily.

  “I hear they’re going to have to get some better evidence if they do. Everything was circumstantial, Frank.”

  Frank was tired of talking and thinking. “I’m, uh … I’m gonna lay it down, Pops,” he eventually said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “All right, son. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said before hanging up.

  He’d been a fuckup for most of his life. Becoming a cop was supposed to have changed him into an upstanding citizen with purpose. Frank had taken money he shouldn’t have taken, and yes, he’d taken lives he shouldn’t have taken. So, what was happening to him now wasn’t anything else but karma. He was lucky to be out of prison. But luck was running thin in his corner.

  He stood up to head for the shower but stopped by the window first. Reporters were camped out in front of the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He stepped back from the window, and for a moment, the thought came to him to just go. He had half a tank of gas in that old car of his, forty bucks in his pocket, and the desire to get out from underneath the umbrella of a shitty existence. Lonnie had been a big deal. She was some fancy journalist before dying, and because of who she was, folks knew who he was. So, he probably wouldn’t get very far without someone recognizing him. But then again, that depended on which way he went. Didn’t it?

  Frank was on parole for drug trafficking, a little crime he picked up during his police officer days. And it was because of a miracle and friends in high places, so to speak, that he wasn’t locked up waiting for that retrial. But he wasn’t under arrest. Mexico had always seemed to be calling to him. Actually, anywhere in South America had always seemed like the place to be for a guy like him. He sighed and headed to the shower and stood under the hot running water, hoping it would wash some clarity into that thick head of his.

  Lonnie Adebayo had come to him to with a plan to blackmail Gatewood. It turned out that Frank shared a daddy with the man, and Jordan Gatewood had no intention of letting the world know that he wasn’t that rich oil man’s son by blood. Frank needed money. Lonnie knew it, and together, they figured out a way for her to get back at him for whatever the hell he’d done to her and for Frank to make the money he needed to get the hell out of Texas. It should’ve been easy. But, Lonnie ended up dead. Frank was arrested for her murder, and Gatewood came out of the whole thing absolutely unscathed. It was their old man, Jordan and Frank’s father, Joel Tunson, who’d impacted Gatewood enough to encourage him to pay Frank’s legal fees, with the understanding that Frank would keep his mouth shut, nod, and go with the flow.

  He could stay here scratching his ass while the DA drudged up some new evidence and dragged him back to trial. Or he could take his chances out on the road somewhere, enjoy some sunshine, beaches, tequila, and pretty women until he was burned to a crisp, drunk off his ass, and his dick fell off. If he was lucky, he’d die in a dramatic shootout with the cops and go out in a blaze of glory. If he wasn’t lucky, he’d go to prison for parole violation, then stand trial again for Lonnie’s murder.

  Frank chose blaze of glory. He’d give it a few days to let the circus outside his bu
ilding die down, but the first chance he got, he was rolling up out of this town for damn good. If they did bring him back here, it’d be in a pine box.

  What You Need

  ROBIN SINCLAIR HAD LEFT work early to get ready for her dinner date tonight. She had lost track of how long she’d been staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She looked perfect. Robin always looked perfect. She was turning forty this year, but looked a decade younger. Sultry hazel eyes often caught others by surprise. She had done away with the blond highlights, which aged her, and had since gone back to her natural brunette hue. Robin preferred to straighten her natural curls, except when she vacationed. Tonight, she’d wrapped her long, straight tresses in a messy bun, leaving wisps to frame her slender face, her sepia complexion glowing.

  Tonight, she needed his attention. Jordan had been distracted the last several months, more than usual, and she needed for him to truly see her instead of glossing over her the way he’d done lately. Robin was five nine and slender, but her best assets were her long and shapely legs. He loved her legs, and tonight, she’d make sure that he saw them. Blue was his favorite color. The royal hue draped her frame in satin, stopping midthigh. Matching the custom-made red bottoms ended the luxurious journey at her feet. Robin didn’t bother with a bra and panties. If things went her way tonight, they would just be an unnecessary hindrance.

  He was worth every moment of her effort. Jordan Gatewood was the grand prize, and Robin was so close to the finish line that she could taste it. Together, they were a beautiful couple. How many times had she heard people say that? How many times had she heard them whisper it? Robin and Jordan were even more beautiful together than Jordan and his first wife, Claire. Since her suicide, however, she’d heard that he’d been aloof, cool, and remote to any woman attempting to get close to him. He’d let down his guard with Robin, and he’d let her in. All she had to do now was be patient.