Turning Point (The Kathleen Turner Series) (22 page)

Blane studied me. “You’re lying to me,” he declared. “Why? What did he do?”

I pressed my lips together, dismayed that he could read me so easily. My pulse was racing until I felt light-headed. I was near to panicking at the thought of Blane and Kade at each other’s throats.

“Please don’t fight with Kade,” I whispered through lips gone numb.

“Don’t give me a reason to.”

After a moment, Blane turned away. I blew out my breath, my eyes slipping shut in relief that he’d let it drop. I watched as he stared out the window, one arm leaning against the window frame. The view outside was bleak. The dismal gray sky was unrelenting, the clouds dark and heavy with impending snow.

“I’d better go,” I said hesitantly. “You have someone here to see you.”

I waited for an acknowledgment, and when none came, I opened the door, glancing back one more time to see Blane with his back still turned to me, stiff and forbidding.

Clarice said she’d give me a ride to my car, which was a relief. After agreeing to meet in the lobby, I hurried downstairs to get my things from my cube. The floor was quiet—all the paralegals were in their weekly staff meeting. However, my cube wasn’t empty.

“Hello again, Kathleen,” Senator Keaston said. He was sitting in a chair next to my desk, obviously awaiting my return.

I was immediately on guard. I’d gotten the definite feeling that he didn’t like me very much, despite the kindness of his wife.

“Hello,” I replied. “What can I do for you, Senator?”

“I’m glad you asked that, Kathleen. Please, sit.” He motioned to my chair.

Uneasily, I perched on the edge of my seat. The senator waited until I was settled before continuing.

“Kathleen, I’m sure you’re not ignorant of the very different backgrounds from which you and Blane come,” he began. “Blane was born into a highly political, very powerful, very wealthy family.”

He paused and I forced a small nod.

“Now I know your father was a good man, killed in the line of duty”—I stiffened—“but, needless to say, you and Blane are on opposite sides of the proverbial tracks. Blane has a wonderful future ahead of him, ambitions that could take him far, very far.” His gaze was shrewd as he studied me. “I’m sure, if you love Blane as much as I think you do,
that you want that for him. It’s all he’s ever dreamed about, worked toward.”

He paused again, and I thought he expected me to say something.

“Of course,” I murmured.

“Then I’m sure you also realize what a… liability someone like you could be for him. Blane needs someone with breeding, education. Someone with skills to complement his. Someone, in fact, wholly unlike you.”

My stomach twisted. It was one thing to think something like that in the back of my mind, and quite another to have it spelled out so plainly by someone Blane loved and respected very much.

Senator Keaston reached out and gave the hand resting on my knee a little pat. “I’m sure you’d have come to that conclusion at some point, I’d just prefer it be sooner rather than later. Blane has made some choices lately that I can’t say meet my approval, and I think it’s best if you and I came to an understanding.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘an understanding’?”

His look turned calculating, and I was forcibly reminded that I was dealing with one of the most powerful men in the United States Senate. He hadn’t gotten that position by being anything less than ruthless.

“I know that you’re in a lot of debt, due to your mother’s illness,” he said reasonably. “Debt is hard on people. It changes their lives, puts a halt to their dreams, especially someone as young as yourself.”

“What’s your point?” I asked stiffly, unsurprised that he knew such details about my life.

“My point is that I can help with that.”

I just looked at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn’t have to wait long.

“I can get rid of your debts, and get you accepted at the school of your choice. I believe you once harbored ambitions for a career in law, if I’m not mistaken. Acceptance to any one of a number of prestigious law schools can be provided, as well as anything you might need while you’re being educated. The only thing I require in return is that you break it off with Blane, and choose another state in which to pursue that education.”

My stomach felt like lead. A part of my brain seemed detached from the whole conversation, observing what was happening in stunned amazement.

“You’re offering to buy me off?” I finally forced out.

The senator smiled a thin-lipped smile. “I prefer to look at it as helping you fulfill your dreams. Dreams I’m sure your mother and father would have wanted you to have a chance of realizing.”

“What if those dreams include Blane?”

His smile faded and his eyes turned cold. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.”

“Does he know you’re telling me this?”

“He does not, and it would be in your best interest if it remained that way.”

The unspoken threat lay there between us.

“I see.” My mouth was dry and my hands shook. I clenched them into fists at my side. I was angry and scared at the same time.

“I knew you would, my dear.” The senator stood. “Think it over. I’ll be in touch.”

He left my cube, but I didn’t move. I was appalled at his interference in Blane’s life, in my life. I didn’t know what he’d meant by it being in my “best interest” not to tell Blane what had happened, and I didn’t want to find out. Would he hurt me? Pay someone to do me bodily harm? I wasn’t stupid enough to not know he had the means to make me disappear, if he chose to.

Although Blane and I were having problems, the idea of being told to break it off permanently and move to another state infuriated me. But I honestly didn’t know what I could do. I had no means to protect myself from whatever Senator Keaston would do to retaliate if I refused. Likewise, telling Blane was out of the question. He idolized his uncle.

“Hey, are you coming or what?”

Looking up, I saw Clarice standing in my cube. “Yeah, sorry.” I jumped up, grabbing my coat and purse.

“Was that Senator Keaston I just saw?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he want?”

I shook my head, brushing by her into the hallway. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

It was cold outside and we didn’t speak again until we were in her car and the heater was going full blast.

“I’ve never liked him,” Clarice said.

“Who?”

“Senator Keaston,” she said as though it were obvious. “He’s always given me the willies.”

I didn’t reply, just turned to stare out the window. On that point, we completely agreed.

“Blane thinks he walks on water, though,” she continued. “I guess some people are just blind to their family’s faults.”

My heart sank. Blane might not even believe me if I did tell him what the senator had said. And who was I to disillusion Blane about who his uncle really was?

I thanked Clarice for the ride and drove home quickly to change for Xtreme. I had no desire to borrow clothes from the strippers again, so I put on the tightest T-shirt I owned and paired it with jeans. Hopefully, Mike wouldn’t complain about that.

Jack greeted me as I stowed my purse under the bar. The ice needed filling, so I offered to get it from the back.

As I walked to the ice machine, I took a quick detour by the dressing room, hoping it was early enough that one of the women might be alone. Giving the door a quick knock, I pushed it open.

I was in luck. Crystal was the only one there. She sat at one of the vanities, carefully applying mascara to her false eyelashes.

“Hey,” I said with a friendly smile. “How’s it going?”

Crystal paused in her work for a moment, glancing at my reflection in the mirror as I stood off to the side behind her. She didn’t deign to answer me but resumed her makeup application, finishing her lashes and reaching for lipstick.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, determined to get her to speak to me.

“It seems you already are, whether I want you to or not,” she replied, her tone blasé.

So she didn’t like me. I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to know what she knew about Amanda and Julie.

“I really need to find my friend Amanda,” I said. “Anything you might know or remember about who she hung out with, any boyfriends she had, would be really helpful.”

For just a split second, fear flashed across Crystal’s face before she masked it. “Amanda only danced here for a short while, then she left. I didn’t waste my time on her. Much too young and stupid to bother with.” The look she gave me in the mirror said she lumped me in the same category.

“She danced?” I asked. “She told me she was a waitress, not a dancer.”

Crystal’s laugh was brittle. “None of those college girls that come through here tell people they dance. They’re always the ‘waitress’ or ‘bartender.’” Her sneer was full of loathing. “They’re too embarrassed by the truth.”

“And what’s that?” I pushed.

“That they make damn good money dancing, taking their clothes off. Much more than pouring drinks or working their asses off waitressing. They may start by doing that, but before long they’re up on stage with the rest of us.”

“Was that what Julie Vale did, too?”

Crystal froze for a moment, then seemed to recover herself. She carefully capped the lipstick before turning to face me. “If I were you, and thank God I’m not, I wouldn’t bring up that name again in this place.”

“Why not?”

She eyed me, her lips curving in a sad yet patronizing smile. “Young and stupid,” she said quietly. “You’re all the same.”

Before I could question her further, the door opened and Holly stepped inside. The petite redhead flashed a grin at me.

“Hey there, Kathleen! How are you?”

“Great,” I replied, forcing a smile. “I’m great, thanks.”

I exchanged a bit more chitchat with Holly, watching Crystal ignore us out of the corner of my eye, before making my excuses and leaving. I mulled over what Crystal had told me, and what she hadn’t told me, as I filled a bucket with ice and carried it to the bar.

“Took you long enough,” Jack groused.

“Sorry.”

I didn’t like Jack much. While he seemed nice enough on the surface, he looked out for himself first and foremost. If I got behind or needed a hand, he didn’t offer to help. When I’d bartended at The Drop, Scott and I had always helped each other out if things got real busy. As I filled a beer mug, it struck me that I missed him, missed working at The Drop, missed my friends there.

The place grew packed and I yanked my hair up into a ponytail when it started getting in my way and clinging in wet tendrils to my damp neck. I managed to keep up, but only just, not finding time to even take a bathroom break until nearly midnight.

“Cover for me?” I asked Jack.

He shrugged and I took that to mean that yes, he would.

“Asshole,” I muttered under my breath as I hurried to the back. I emerged a few minutes later, feeling much better.

It was dark and quiet back here, the raucousness of the main floor muted, the music a dull thumping of the bass. I took a moment to just take a breath, leaning against the wall and appreciating the cold that seeped through the thin T-shirt onto my skin.

“Come on, baby, don’t be like that.”

The voice startled me, then I realized it wasn’t directed at me, but at a woman who’d just stepped around the corner. She paused, turning around, and I saw a man behind her.

They hadn’t seen me, so I silently slipped farther back into the shadows.

“I have to go on in fifteen minutes,” the woman said.

I squinted at her, wishing she’d step into the light. As if she’d heard me, she moved. Light streamed across her face. It was Lucy.

“This shouldn’t take longer than five,” the man said, a leer in his voice.

“I said, not now,” the woman snapped.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” the man growled, grabbing her arm and jerking her toward him. Lucy gasped in pain. “You think you’re all high-and-mighty. You’re just a fucking whore, and don’t you forget it.”

He shoved her against the wall and I heard the rip of fabric. I looked around frantically. He was going to rape her if I didn’t do something.

Spotting a metal bar from a clothes rack in the corner, I crept to it. The woman whimpered as I closed my hand around the cold metal. Adrenaline was flowing through my veins, and I felt pure rage at the sound of the man’s grunts. He’d pressed her against the wall, shoving between her legs.

Quietly, I crept up behind him. I was only a few feet away when Lucy spotted me.

Her eyes went wide with surprise, then to my shock, she threw up a hand as if to ward me off.

I stopped, staring at her in confusion. She didn’t want me to help her?

When I didn’t move away, she shook her head fractionally. The man’s face was buried against her neck.

The man’s grunts were coming more frequently now, his hips moving faster. I was struck by the sordid horror of the scene, desperately wanting to get him to stop.

My hands tightened on the metal and I moved closer. He needed to be stopped.

The woman looked at me, her eyes pleading. She raised a hand and silently placed a finger against her lips in the universal sign to be quiet.

I had no choice. I had to back off. I couldn’t do what she obviously didn’t want me to do, though I couldn’t understand why. Backing up, my shoe scuffed against the concrete floor.

The man’s head lifted and I froze. But Lucy grabbed his face, smashing her lips against his, and he seemed to forget what he’d heard. The woman’s eyes opened and she watched me retreat back into the shadows.

I waited another moment, cringing as the man jerked into her. Finally, he was done. He let her go and she slid down the wall, a grimace of pain crossing her face. I heard the sound of a zipper as he rearranged his clothing.

“Don’t ever turn me down again, Lucy,” he said, still breathing heavily. His arm struck out and he backhanded her across the face.

Lucy cried out, falling to her knees and cradling her cheek.

The man turned away with a snort of disgust and I saw his face clearly.