He moved a step higher and looked over the crowd. “Alisha, come up here.” His voice reached out to me.
I rooted my feet and crossed my arms.
Everyone turned to look. Those nearby nudged me toward the front and before I knew it, I was next to Professor Braddock, two steps above the crowd.
“Students,” he turned to the faces, “I’d like to introduce my niece, Alisha Braddock. She’ll be staying with me at Cliffhouse and studying in our Revamp Program.”
The mob broke into applause, sending a rush of blood to my cheeks.
As the clapping subsided, Denton raised one arm in a goodbye gesture to the gathering, like a rock star bidding his audience farewell. The other arm firmly about my shoulder, he walked me to the Jaguar and helped me into the passenger seat.
The door slammed. I stared at the silver carpeting. Opposite me, Denton got in and started the engine.
“Why did you put me on the spot like that?” My voice came out a choked cry.
He backed the vehicle into the road, then pulled ahead. “It’s better to come right out and tell them who you are rather than making them guess. Curiosity can be dangerous. Now that I’ve explained your presence, you can safely be Alisha Braddock, the professor’s niece from Galveston.”
He turned at the intersection.
Shrinking in my seat, I massaged my temples, waiting for the pressure in my head to subside. “Do you really have a niece in Texas?”
He shot a glance my way. “Of course not. I’m an only child.”
“Oh. How many people know that?”
He shrugged. “Nobody. I’m a private man.”
“What if somebody does know? Who will they think I am then?”
“They won’t question it.” His tone assumed an end to the conversation.
We passed beneath the arching trees on the way to the main highway.
“Well,” I said, massaging my arm, “suppose they do question it? Then what?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Any sense of security I might have felt washed out with the bridge comment. I sat straight. “What if someone figures out who I am? It’s not like my face hasn’t been on the front page of the national news.” One little felony and I’d become a household name. Had it really been ten years since my release?
The ocean glimmered straight ahead as we pulled to the stop sign above the cliffs. When traffic cleared, the Jag angled left.
“If there’s trouble, I’ll take care of it,” Denton said, eyes on the road.
“You sound like a mob boss.”
“Boss’s son, perhaps. My father was Stanley Braddock.” I filtered the name through the databanks. “Sorry. Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“He was a U.S. Senator and Ambassador to Ireland.” “Now I see where the Ms. Rigg connection fits in. But how does Great Uncle Stanley take care of trouble when it comes calling?”
“My father is dead. But he had many friends.”
“Ooooh. A secret society.” My eyebrows arced.
He half smiled and shook his head. “A network of good friends willing to help out when needed.”
“I suppose you inherited the network”-I patted the Jaguar’s leather seat-“along with everything else?”
He gave me a cock-eyed grin. “Basically.”
I stared at the heaving waves. “A man of privilege. Lucky you.”
“Humph. Just as I suspected.”
I whipped my head to look at him. “What?”
“You feel sorry for yourself.”
I crossed my arms. “I do not.”
“When Brad first mentioned you, I knew you’d be the self-pity type.”
I rubbed my injury. “Brad talked to you about me?”
Denton rested his hand on the shifter between us. “Of course he did. Brad and I talked often.”
The Jag slowed for the turn up the driveway.
I blinked hard. “Did he tell you we were planning to get married?”
Silence. I turned to look. A muscle in Denton’s jaw popped in and out as if he were forcing his words back down his throat.
“What? Brad didn’t tell you?” My arm surged with pain.
Denton stared straight ahead. “He talked to me about it. I advised against it.”
“Advised against it?” My nostrils flared. “Brad loves me. He ignored your advice. We were going the next day to pick out the rings.” I looked down at my injury. “Then this happened.”
The Jaguar pitched to a stop under the portico.
Denton cut the engine. “I can only say I’m grateful for divine intervention.”
My fingernails dug into the leather seat. “This has gone far enough.” I groped for the door handle and pushed my way outside. My heel sank between patches of concrete. “I’m not staying here a moment longer. I’ve had enough of you and your superior attitude.” I pivoted toward the porch. My body turned, but my foot stayed embedded in the crack, jerking me off balance. Too late to catch myself, I plunged to the cement.
I landed on my bad arm. Stars and spirals filled my eyes. Ringing filled my ears. The glare of the sun blinded me as I sucked in shallow breaths and waited for the pain to pass.
A face blocked the light. It seemed familiar. “Brad? Is that you?”
6
“Stand up, Patricia.” Denton’s voice.
Not-so-gentle hands helped me to my feet.
Denton, not Brad. The perpetual ball in my throat squeezed tears from my eyes. “I thought you were Brad. I need Brad. I have to talk to him.” I looked around for some phone booth or magic portal that would let me communicate with my boyfriend.
Boyfriend. I choked on the word. It should have been fiance. I looked at my left hand, scuffed from its tussle with the concrete. The ring finger was bare. Just one more day and it would have been sparkling in the rays of a setting sun.
“I need to talk to Brad.”
Denton led me up the steps. I leaned into him, limping on my weak ankle, newly raw from the fall.
“I’m sure you know as well as I do how impossible that would be.”
In the door, down the hall, through an arch. Denton plunked me on a velvet settee.
I looked around the formal sitting room at the coved ceilings and window nooks. Furniture and accents came in various shades of ivory, gold, and green. Opulent. Decadent. Very appropriate to the period of architecture, and right in line with the owner’s impervious attitude.
“Ms. Rigg,” Denton’s voice boomed. “Bring an ice pack, please.”
A few minutes earlier I’d been convinced the best thing to do was get out of Del Gloria. Now, I didn’t have an arm or a leg to stand on.
Denton unfastened the buckle of my Mary Jane and pulled it off, checking my injury.
I gave a sigh of defeat. “Listen. I’m sorry I overreacted out there. I’m kind of stressed right now. This not knowing is starting to get to me.”
“Not knowing about what?”
“You know, like is everyone okay at home? Is someone taking care of my house? Is it safe to go back there? How close are they to putting the bad guys behind bars? Stuff like that.”
Ms. Rigg arrived with the ice. “Will she be alright, Professor?” The housekeeper leaned in to give her beady eyes a better view of the swollen area.
He wrapped the cold pack around my ankle. “It’s too soon to tell, Ms. Rigg.”
