Flash and Fire Page 5

  Impatience clawed at her as she went to tell Carla that she was leaving. What the hell was going on?

  Chapter Five

  The speedometer rose steadily until it hit seventy and hovered there as Amanda pressed down on the gas pedal. Curiosity and impatience shared the car with her like phantom passengers, spinning question after question in her mind.

  Why had Whitney sounded so mysterious on the phone, so forlorn? Why had he called her now, after so much time had lapsed? What was happening? And why couldn’t Whitney tell her, or at least give her some sort of hint, over the telephone?

  Something was in the wind, and it wasn’t good. She didn’t need a degree in journalism to know that.

  But if it was bad, what did it have to do with Whitney? Whitney Granger lived under a lucky star, he always had. Everything he had ever put his hand to had been successful. He was a modern-day equivalent of Midas, except that whatever he touched yielded cars, not gold.

  She glanced at the highway sign. Her exit was only a quarter of a mile away. Quickly, she signaled and worked her way over to the right-hand lane. She reached it just in time to exit.

  Her mind kept wandering. She didn’t notice that she was coming to the turnoff that led to Whitney’s estate until she had almost passed it. Twisting the wheel, she made a sharp turn to the right. Tires squealed in protest as she gained access to the private road.

  Five minutes later, Amanda was pulling into Whitney’s driveway. The security guard at the front gate had waved her on after she’d shown him her ID. Whitney’s gleaming silver stretch limousine was baking in the hot sun like a beached whale. It looked more like a funeral hearse than a luxury vehicle.

  Amanda parked and got out of her car. The surrounding grounds had a strangely empty feel to them. It was almost, she thought, as if everyone had disappeared in the dead of night for some reason. Any minute now, Rod Serling was going to appear and tell her that she had entered the Twilight Zone. If she listened intently, she could almost hear the theme song. Her imagination had gone into overdrive.

  That’s what you get for standing out in the hot sun, playing ball for four hours.

  She picked up the brass knocker on the ornate front door and tapped lightly.

  The door sprang open almost instantly. Amanda had the impression that Whitney had been standing by the door, waiting for her arrival. It was a silly thought, but it hung on.

  He was as tall as she remembered, but thinner. Perhaps even a little gaunt. His cheekbones seemed more prominent than she recalled. But the haunted appearance only served to reinforce his good looks, giving him the appearance of some brooding, troubled poet out of the Romantic era.

  He still wore his hair the same way, straight and a little long, but here and there shafts of silver gray shot through the fields of pitch black. Despite the fact that he was at home, he was dressed in a suit.

  Whitney, she thought, was always dressed in a suit. She couldn’t recollect ever seeing him in casual clothing, but he always looked comfortable.

  Except for now. But it wasn’t his clothes that gave him that vague air of discomfort.

  The smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was something there she couldn’t fathom, couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  He took her hand in his, trying to put her at ease. “Hello, Amanda. It was good of you to come.”

  “It would have been inexcusable of me not to.” She crossed the threshold, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor. It sounded so empty, as if this were a mausoleum instead of a place where a family resided.

  Where was the family? Where was anyone?

  Amanda looked around. “What happened to Hastings?” she asked, referring to his butler.

  As far back as she could recall, Whitney had always had servants. They suited him, despite the fact that he had grown up in poverty. Or perhaps because of it. There was a commanding presence about him that made others almost eager to do his bidding. She had always thought that he would have made one hell of a senator.

  Whitney took her arm as he escorted her into the living room. “He’s gone.”

  She turned to look at him. His profile gave nothing away.

  “Hastings, too?” she quipped, though her nerves were suddenly knitting together to create a tapestry of anxiety. “Is there some sort of biblical plague around, taking old and trusted servants?”

  He gestured toward the white sofa and waited until Amanda sat down before taking a seat himself. “If there is, it’s including wives and children in its inventory as well.”

  “Well, I guess I’m in no danger. I haven’t got a wife.” The joke was less than feeble, but it was all she could manage. She had a dreadful feeling that something awful was about to be said.

  “Neither have I, it seems.”

  Amanda could only stared, dumbfounded. “Alicia left you?”

  “This morning.” Alicia’s departure had made up his mind for him; he’d decided to come forward before the situation sought him out.

  Amanda looked toward the fireplace. Like a scene from Laura, there was a huge portrait of Alicia over the fireplace. It had originally hung over the fireplace in L.A. Amanda always thought it would have looked better in the fireplace.

  She laid her hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, he had the look about him of a man whose dreams had been stolen. The hell with waiting for the proper time.

  “Whitney, what’s wrong?” He didn’t reply and she sighed in embarrassed frustration. “God, I feel strange asking that. Those were usually your words to me.”

  His mouth curved slightly. The sadness in his eyes grew. He’d worked so hard and so long, it wasn’t fair that a desperate misstep should cost him everything.

  But it would.

  “But they do fit the occasion, I’m afraid. Things are very, very wrong.”

  Restless, he rose and crossed to a gold-inlaid serving cart. It was filled with decorative liquor bottles of all sizes and shapes. The late afternoon sun filtered through a crystal decanter, breaking the rays up into rainbows that splashed across the deep rust carpet.

  There would be no more rainbows for him, Whitney thought. Not anymore.

  He stepped into the pool they created, then looked at her over his shoulder. “Can I offer you something?”

  She watched as he poured himself two fingers of scotch. She’d never known him to drink. “An explanation,” she said quietly.

  He threw back the scotch, then silently contemplated the empty glass, as if he had hoped to find answers there and was disappointed that there weren’t any. He began to pour himself another measure, then stopped. Drinking himself into oblivion wasn’t the solution. He set the glass down and returned to Amanda.

  Whitney sat down stiffly beside her. Amanda watched as he folded his hands in his lap, rubbing one thumb over the other without even being conscious of it.

  “I called you because you’re the only person I know who can present this without any embellishments, without any editorializing.”

  She watched his eyes. They were flat, as if the life had been sucked out of him. “Present what?”

  He drew out an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I have a press release.”

  She took the envelope from him as if it were alive and would bite at any moment. Carefully, she set it down on the sofa between them. This wasn’t making any sense. “Then why don’t you call a press conference?”

  He passed his hand over his eyes. With a sigh, he looked at her. “I’d rather do it this way. I don’t feel up to answering questions at the moment.” He rose again and began to pace about nervously.

  Nervously. It was a word that was completely incongruous when mentioned in the same breath as Whitney Granger. She had never known Whitney to have an anxious moment, not even when he quit his lucrative position with General Motors to start his own auto company, Contemporary Vehicles.

  She looked down at the envelope. It had felt heavy. “Then it is about the business?”

  “Yes.”r />
  She turned in her seat, trying to read his expression. “But I thought you were doing so well.”

  That was the irony of it all. A bitter smile rose. “I am.”

  She drew her brows together, trying to understand. “Then—?”

  “Now.” He looked toward the cart and debated having another drink. He stayed where he was. “I wasn’t before.”

  Her head began to hurt. She realized that she was holding her breath. Slowly, Amanda released it. “All businesses have problems when they’re just starting out.”

  He laughed shortly. “That’s a mild term for what I encountered. Detroit doesn’t look kindly on an intruder.”

  He’d been blacklisted and blackballed at every turn. Materials had suddenly become unavailable, designers had quit without notice. It had been a long, lonely road, littered with his own sweat and blood.

  And all for nothing.

  She moved to the edge of her seat, resisting the temptation to put her arms around him. She braced herself.

  “But you were one of them.”

  He nodded. “Until I left them. Then I was just one of me. I faced a lot of”—he struggled for a moment, looking for the right word—“difficulties.” An enigmatic smile played on his lips. “It got to the point that I was near bankruptcy.”

  Was that why Alicia had left? Alicia with her expensive tastes and her demands? And if he was having financial difficulties, why hadn’t he turned to her father?

  “I had no idea—“

  “No.” The smile thinned. “No one did. I was too proud to let them. Pride goeth before the fall,” he quoted. “In order to stay afloat, in order to keep my dream alive”—his voice rose a little without his realizing it—“in order not to throw all those people working for me out in the cold, I had to do a number of creative—“

  He stopped. He had called her here to bear witness to the truth. “—a number of illegal things.”

  Amanda stared at him, stunned. There was tarnish on his armor.

  The newscaster within her fled. What remained was a teenage girl, aching with disappointment. “You’re joking.”

  “I wish I were,” he said sadly. “I wrote some checks, juggled some books, sold shares of stock in the company that didn’t, in actuality, exist. In short, I did everything I could to keep body and soul together. The bad times passed and I was just beginning to straighten everything out. In time, I would have paid all the money back.” Time, deadlines, had always been the enemy. He knew that now. “But time is something I don’t have anymore.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Any of it. I don’t understand any of it. How could you, Whitney? How could you?

  He thought of the hushed voice on the telephone last week. The sweat that had trickled down his back as he listened and realized that it was over, that he’d been caught.

  “The proverbial chickens have come home to roost. Somebody found out. I don’t know how, I don’t know when. I suppose all that doesn’t matter. What does matter was that I was approached last week. A neat little phone call, a mild voice, asking for money.”

  “Blackmail.” Her voice was hushed.

  He set his mouth grimly. “Yes, that’s the word for it.” The look in his eyes hardened. This had cost him his wife, his family, and very soon it would cost him a lot more. Whitney wasn’t going to walk into the quagmire any farther than he already had.

  “I won’t have it.” For the first time since she had arrived, she saw him look like his old self. “I want you to break the story for me.” He tapped the envelope that lay on the sofa. “Here’re all the details.”

  “Whitney,” she said helplessly, not knowing where to begin. “I don’t want to do this story.” She didn’t even want to touch the envelope again. “My father always said don’t admit to anything without him at your elbow.” She could feel herself withdrawing and cursed herself for it. “I think that you should—"

  He cut her short. No more dodging shadows. He was through with that. “I want to get this over with. I’ve let a lot of people down.” He peered at her face and received his answer. “By the look in your eyes, I’d say you’re one of them.”

  She was too much of a professional to wear her feelings on her sleeve, she admonished herself. But her disappointment was too raw for her to come to grips with. “No, I—"

  He placed a gentling hand on her shoulder. Amanda stiffened slightly, involuntarily, then struggled to relax. This was Whitney, for God’s sake. Whitney.

  But that was just the trouble. This was Whitney.

  “Alicia had the same look on her face when she packed yesterday.”

  Amanda smiled sadly at him. “That’s what you get for being everyone’s knight in shining armor.”

  She wasn’t going to be like Alicia, she told herself. Alicia was shallow, self-serving, and narcissistic. She’d deserted her husband in his time of need.

  Amanda placed her hand over his on her shoulder. “I never thought Alicia was worthy of you. Now I have proof. And so do you.”

  She ached for him. But she also ached for herself, for she had just lost her only idol, and with it the last snippet of her innocence.

  Whitney didn’t bother commenting. He and Alicia had long ago become strangers living under a single roof. A very large single roof that allowed them the freedom of not having to get in each other’s way, of not having to bear up under each other’s shortcomings.

  Perhaps it was even better that she was gone. But he did miss his children.

  Whitney looked at Amanda. “Will you do the story, Amanda? I don’t want the hounds of hell at my throat without a friend there to run interference.”

  “Of course.” Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears. Suddenly, they were equals, and she didn’t want them to be. The price was too high and the sacrifice too great, at least for her. She wanted her shining knight returned, intact. “I’d be a bad newscaster if I didn’t.” She raised her eyes to his. “And a bad friend.”

  She sighed, picking up the envelope and holding it in her hands. She looked at it as if it contained orders for an execution. Swallowing, she dropped the envelope into her purse.

  “I’ll read it when I get home.” She looked up. “I’ll have questions.”

  He nodded. What he had written down documented everything to the best of his recollection. But there might have been points he’d overlooked. “I’ll try to answer them as honestly as I can.”

  “I’d never expect anything less of you.” But he had cheated, stolen.

  He saw the ambivalent emotions washing over her face. “I’m not a saint, Amanda,” Whitney said softly. “I never was.”

  Wrong—you were mine. “I’ve always thought saints were highly overrated, Whitney. And very boring.” She closed her hand over his, reassuringly.

  But I don’t want to do this story. I don’t want to hear it, or admit that it exists.

  “Thank you.” He smiled at her. He hoped that in time she would find it in her heart to forgive him for disappointing her. He’d been hungry, fighting his way up from poverty. But he had never been desperate. Not until his business had been in danger of going under. “Then at least I can count on one person in my corner.”

  “I’ll be there,” she promised.

  She wanted to say more to him, a good deal more. She wanted to offer him comfort, she thought as she got behind the wheel of her car.

  But she couldn’t offer him comfort. She was in too much need of it herself.

  “Why, Whitney, why?” she whispered. Tears rose and spilled, dampening her cheeks. This time, she drove very slowly.

  Chapter Six

  Pierce let himself into his apartment. Shoving the key into the front pocket of his jeans, he closed the door behind him. He was home. Or as home as he could be anywhere.

  It was a small, first-floor apartment with one bedroom, a compact living room, and a tiny kitchen. But it afforded him a view through his bedroom window of a man-made stream and its miniature waterfall. It was art
ificial, but the sound was soothing.

  Right now, he needed soothing.

  There was a dull ache running through his body. It had nothing to do with the game he’d just played. It was the kind of ache a man felt when he’d been around a desirable woman. And Amanda Foster was that. Desirable, with a capital D.

  He went directly to the refrigerator and found it just as he’d left it—nearly empty. Three cans of beer surrounded half a chicken salad sandwich he’d gotten from the deli down the street and lost his taste for and a carton of take-out Chinese he’d brought home Friday. Or was that Wednesday?

  Pierce opted for the beer. It was fresh.

  Throwing yesterday’s newspaper off the recliner and onto the floor, he planted himself on the chair and made himself comfortable.

  Or tried to.

  The ache wouldn’t leave.

  His thoughts turned to Amanda again. He wasn’t sure just what it was about her that was getting to him. He’d certainly been around more beautiful women. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he actually could call her beautiful when he thought about it. Her mouth was just a little too wide and her figure just a little too athletic. Her breasts looked as if they were hardly a handful.

  His palms itched.

  There was no getting around it. There was something there, something in her eyes, that had him spinning as if he were being sucked down into a giant whirlpool. And the way she moved, with an underlying sensuality she didn’t seem conscious of, promised him one hell of a time if he ever bedded her.

  Not if, when, he corrected.

  He didn’t like the fact that she had gotten under his skin.

  Needing the cold contact, he wrapped both hands around the can before pulling the tab. A whisper of fizz and a wreath of snowy foam emerged. Pierce tilted the can back, letting the bitter liquid cascade down his throat and soothe the fire in his insides.

  It helped, but not much.

  Jon had invited the whole team down to Jerry’s, a local tavern, to celebrate their having beaten the other station. To Jon, any victory was a triumph with a capital T, any defeat just a temporary setback. It was all in how you looked at things, Jon had laughed.