Henry was thankful that even during the most intense pleasure of his life that his common sense prevailed, near the last moment, but it arrived, and he pulled out before spilling his seed. The sheet protected her as he’d held her close, relishing the aftermath of a world-rocking event.
It was there, while he was still basking in a satisfaction that he’d never experienced, when he felt her stiffen. His weight. He was crushing her.
He rose and bundled up the sheet he would have laundered and returned, then collected the clothes strewed about. His and hers. He helped her off the sofa, helped her dress. The flush of her face, the flush of her skin that had been so enticing, so exhilarating only moments ago, made the back of his throat burn when he caught the nervousness in her movement.
Tilting her chin upright, forcing her to look at him, a ball of regret formed in the pit of his stomach. She’d been a virgin, there was no mistaking that. No words would form, other than he thought she was the most beautiful, the most precious woman on earth. If he had been capable of love, it would be her that he loved. He couldn’t tell her any of that because he wasn’t capable of love. Neither receiving nor giving.
He kissed her instead, a gentle, slow kiss that he hoped eased her qualms.
The smile she wore on her lips quivered as the kiss ended and she looked at him. The way she’d gone from vibrant to meek, from determined to timid concerned him. Rightfully so. Guilt filled him from head to toe. All he’d been able to see was her. Betty. She’d been all he’d been able to hear, to feel, to want. Want like he’d never wanted anything ever before.
“What time is it?” she asked. “I can’t be late. Jane can’t wait on me tonight.”
“You won’t be late.” He finished buttoning his shirt and, while slipping his suspenders over his shoulders, sat down to put on his shoes.
She shone the light for him, and as soon as his shoes were on, she spun around and shone the beam on the door.
“What else can I help you with?” she asked after they’d been walking along the tunnel for a length of time. “Besides the list.”
Henry’s gut was still churning with his own shame, and hearing her say that made it churn even harder. From the beginning there hadn’t been anything he’d needed from her. He’d convinced himself her being here, in Los Angeles, was too much of a coincidence out of selfishness. He’d never forgotten about her on that beach and rather than admitting that was his problem, he’d turned it into something it wasn’t. Why was beyond him, other than she’d touched something deep inside him.
Her questions about his past had made him remember things he hadn’t for years and years. Mick and Darrin, and other kids that he’d completely forgotten about, and memories that had been fun to recall. He’d never told anyone about any of those things, but it had been as if she had opened a book inside his head. One that he’d locked tight and put away.
“There has to be more I can do,” she said.
No, there wasn’t, but he couldn’t tell her that. He’d dug a hole here, and had to figure out a way to climb out. “I’ll let you know,” he said, whereas in truth, he wouldn’t. This had to stop. Now. Before there was a repeat of tonight, which couldn’t happen.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be here tomorrow night.”
He wouldn’t. He was no good for her. She was fun, loving, while he was hard and cold. Unlovable. That wasn’t something that could change. The headmistress at the orphanage had told John and Esther that when they were adopting him. That he was too old, too unemotional, and that they should adopt one of the younger children who would be more appreciative of having a family. Move lovable.
As they stepped onto the stairs leading into the storage room, he took ahold of her hand. The pain inside him went deeper than regret. To something he’d never known. “If there are any repercussions from this evening, I will provide for you.”
She frowned and then blinked those long lashes while pinching her lips together. “There won’t be,” she barely whispered.
“There could be.” That was a real possibility, and that scared him. A baby, a family, the thought made his insides go cold. He’d never have that. Wasn’t capable of having that. “And I’ll provide.” He shrugged. “Money.” He’d been raised in an orphanage, and money was what everyone had needed. Right now, he felt like a bumbling idiot because he had no idea what else she might need. “Just let me know.”
She nodded.
He opened the door, walked her through the storage room and to the edge of the curtain. He watched as she signaled her sister and then walked out the door.
The regret inside him turned into disgust as he made his way back through the storage room and into the tunnel. His insides burned at how the memory of tonight would have been so sweet and cherished if he hadn’t realized what he’d done. It had been his fault. He’d accused her, believed she’d been a part of something she clearly wasn’t, because everyone was always guilty in his eyes. He’d never realized that until tonight.
She hadn’t been guilty of anything, but he sure as hell was. He could have stopped it. Should have stopped it, but he hadn’t.
He entered the basement, picked up the sheet, and walked upstairs, out the door, and across the road. There, he sat down in the bushes and waited, needing to know she had made it home.
It felt as if hours passed before she and her sisters got off the streetcar and walked through the yard, then took the road up to the row of trees.
He waited awhile longer, then stood and traversed his way up the hill and down the other side to the cabin. Still guilt-ridden. Still mad at himself. Still thinking about how profoundly amazing it had been.
The following morning, he followed the same trail back down to the house. He’d told himself he didn’t need the list she’d written out for him; it was just the guilt growing like a poison inside him that said he did. A poison he’d created.
He entered the house, disgusted at himself again because he’d left it unlocked when he’d left last night. Telling himself that didn’t matter, he forced his mind to not think about anything, especially what had occurred here last night as he found Betty’s list in the basement and then left the house and trekked back up the hill.
Halfway up it, a shiver tickled his spine.
He blamed it on the guilt festering like a wood sliver too deep beneath the skin to dig out without a needle, until the shiver came again, then he slid behind a tree and peered around it to scan the hill.
Someone was following him. How had he let that happen? Because his mind hadn’t been on this job since he’d met Betty. He had to change that. For both him and her.
He stayed where he was, watched as his followers grew closer. Two of them. Twisting about, he picked a trail along the underbrush, until reaching the top, and then paused to glance back down. They were still there, following him. The man looked like Lane Cox.
Henry heaved out a breath. Lane had lost his wife and daughter in the train robbery and had worked closely with the FBI during the capture and trial of Gaynor. Henry had known Lane would be on Gaynor’s escape like a hound. Every agent knew Lane could be trusted and would do anything he could to see justice was served. Including not printing information that hadn’t been released to the public. But until he knew who the mole was for sure, Henry couldn’t contact Lane. Couldn’t let him know the truth about Gaynor. There was just too much at stake.
As Henry made his way down the other side of the hill, something else occurred to him. The second person with Lane was a woman.
Betty’s sister. The one who’d danced with Burrows.
The only way Lane could have known to look at the abandoned house for him was from Betty.
The guilt inside him turned to anger.
He’d been duped.
Duped by a woman again.
He huffed out a breath and cursed at his own thoughts. She wasn’t like that. He wanted her to be so it would be easier for him to forget her. Lane had probably tracked him down all on his own. Betty had nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with any of it.
Which was all one more reason why he could never see her again. He had to stop pulling her into all this. He knew how dangerous that could get.
Once at the cabin, he left the door ajar as an open invitation for Lane to approach.
That was exactly what happened. Lane appeared, surprised to see it was him and not Rex Gaynor. That explained it all. Lane would have tracked Gaynor to the end of the earth for killing his wife and child.
Henry’s mind kept going down side roads as he, Lane, and Patsy discussed Burrows and the shipment of old bills that had been stolen off the train. All he could think about was Betty, and what he’d done to her. Henry’s thoughts were as jumbled as his insides, so when Lane offered to learn more about Vincent’s whereabouts, Henry absently agreed to meet him the following night at the Rooster’s Nest.
When this was all over, he’d tell Lane the truth, but he couldn’t right now, because no matter how badly he’d messed up with Betty, he still had a job to do.
As soon as Lane left, Henry, with the piece of paper containing the list Betty had compiled burning his skin through the material of his pocket, set out down the hill to search out another agent. One he was certain was clean. Jacob Nielsen, who—along with Curtis Elkin and Bob Mayer—had been assigned to arrest Burrows. Jacob had only been with the Bureau three years, so couldn’t be the mole, but Elkin and Mayer had been there seven years, and out of those two, Elkin was who Henry believed was the mole. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, but Elkin was sly, shifty, and though he never said much, he always seemed to be thinking. None of that was odd for an agent, but Elkin made it seem odd.
It wasn’t anything more than a gut feeling. What Henry needed was proof, and he didn’t have that.
Yet.
He’d give the list Betty had compiled to Jacob. She’d put that list together for a reason, and Jacob had to know he could be entering a setup if he was planning on looking for Burrows at any of them.
The sky had opened up shortly after Lane and Patsy had left, a full-blown thunder-and-lightning storm. Henry tugged down his hat and flipped up his collar against the rain as he continued down the hill. This time, he hadn’t taken the trail that led to the house, he’d taken what had once been a road to the cabin. It was overgrown from lack of use for most of the way, but came out on the road before the curve that led up to Hollywoodland. That was where he kept his car. Well hidden in the trees.
Guilt was still churning his insides. After meeting Patsy with Lane, Henry knew he needed to talk to Betty. Needed to apologize to her. All he’d offered her last night was money if there were any repercussions. She’d need more than that. He didn’t know how he’d provide it, moving from case to case, but he’d have to find a way.
Rain was coming down in sheets by the time he arrived at the car. He wrenched open the door and jumped in. As he removed his hat to shake aside the rain dripping off his hair, he noticed the windshield was fogged over.
From the inside.
He grabbed the door handle, but it was too late. Pain exploded in the back of his head.
Betty had never hosted the type of anger living inside her today. She was even furious with her sisters. Patsy, who had been missing all day, showed up late for supper, dripping wet and with Lane Cox in tow, who stayed for supper, and was then sequestered in a meeting with her father. Second, Jane refused to sneak out because of what was happening with Patsy and Lane.
Betty was concerned for Patsy, and Lane, and understood Jane’s fears, but she’d told Henry she’d meet him, and she would. Last night had been amazing; she’d just gotten scared afterward at how she’d broken every rule and needed to tell him that. It hadn’t been because she’d been worried about repercussions. He’d made sure there wouldn’t be any. She had to let him know that.
She didn’t know what it was that made her want to be someone else, but when she was with him, she wanted to be someone who took risks and chances, broke rules, and lived. The exact opposite of who she truly was. Who she had been her entire life.
She’d even fought with Father this morning, refused to be the one to take Mother shopping as scheduled. It had been foolish, but she’d been thinking about what happened with Henry last night, how she’d been brave enough to take what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to be brave enough to have that happen elsewhere, too.
It hadn’t. She’d ended up driving Mother, which made her angrier at how she’d given in, been forced to give in and follow orders like she had her entire life.
She’d just climbed down the trellis when she heard a faint whistle from above. It was Jane, holding a hand out the window, with a single finger raised.
Betty’s insides shook from head to toe. That could mean wait a minute, or it could mean for her to stay right where she was because someone was coming. The light was still on in Father’s office and she sincerely hoped that meant he was still in it.
Relief washed over her as Jane climbed out the window a short time later and then scurried down the trellis.
“This is dangerous,” Jane hissed. “No one has gone to bed yet.”
Betty pressed a finger to her lips and then ran across the yard to the trees.
Jane followed, and as soon as they were on the road, she said again, “This is crazy! What if Mother or Father goes upstairs?”
“If that happens, we’ll deal with it tomorrow,” Betty said, half walking and half running along the road.
“Horsefeathers,” Jane said. “What’s so important about going out tonight?”
Betty would love to tell her sister. Love to tell her everything. Including the tunnel they could take that would get them to the Rooster’s Nest faster than the trolley. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell Jane anything.
“What if Patsy needs us?”
“To do what?” Betty asked. “There’s nothing we can do.” Another real fear was living in her mind. “Don’t you realize this could be our last night? After what happened with Patsy today, bringing Lane home, we all could be locked in our rooms for the rest of our lives.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I have,” Betty answered as they entered the yard of the house. “I most certainly have.” She tried not to look at the abandoned house, but couldn’t keep from doing so, wondering if Henry was inside, watching them.
Whether he was or not, he’d be at the Rooster’s Nest, waiting for her. She was late, by almost an hour, but he’d wait. She was sure of that.
That thought alone helped erase some of her anger and frustration.
For a short time.
Because Henry wasn’t at the Rooster’s Nest. She even snuck into the storage room and pulled the shelf away from the wall, but the door was locked, so she couldn’t get to the tunnel.
She waited, sat at their table, until Jane insisted if they didn’t leave, they’d miss the trolley. Fighting tears the entire way, she knew what she had to do even before she and Jane climbed the trellis.
It felt like an eternity before her sisters were finally in their beds, asleep. She then left her room and quickly hurried into the bathroom and out the window.
The front door of the abandoned house was unlocked. Her heart skipped a beat as she hoped that meant Henry was here. Using the light of the flashlight, she made her way into the basement.
It was empty.
She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. Either way, her heart sat heavy in her chest as she made her way back home.
There, lying in bed, she cried, convinced something awful had to have happened to him.
She continued to worry for several days, but then she knew the truth.
Henry was gone. She’d searched for him every night, taking chances at sneaking out earlier than usual and visiting places not on her list, but he wasn’t to be found.
Reality happened almost two weeks later, the night Lane and Patsy came home and said that Vincent Burrows had been arrested. The case was solved.
Betty cried that night like she’d never cried before, her heart was completely broken, and she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who’d broken the rules. Rules that had been put in place for good reason.
She wanted to hate Henry, but she couldn’t. He’d kept the only promise he’d ever made to her. He’d never told her father about them sneaking out. Furthermore, he’d given her the opportunity to be someone she wasn’t, and that had made her understand who she had to be.
Betty Dryer. A person who obeys the rules, because not obeying them leads to hurt and pain and loss.
The following morning, when her father requested her presence in his office, and stated that James would be over that evening to take her out, Betty kept her head up and agreed, knowing this was her life, this was who she was.
“Horsefeathers!” Jane said that evening while pacing the floor of Betty’s room. “You don’t have to go out with him! The fact that Father is allowing Patsy to marry Lane means things could be different for us!”
“No, it doesn’t,” Betty said, draping a white shawl around her shoulders and over her ankle-length gray dress with its dropped waistline.
“Yes, it does!” Jane insisted, throwing her arms in the air. “What’s gotten into you lately? You don’t even want to sneak out with me anymore.”
“I went out with you last night,” Betty said, picking up her white purse.
Jane huffed out a breath. “Only to make sure I don’t break any of your rules.”
Betty held her tongue; she had been more watchful of Jane on their nightly excursions. Actually, that was the only reason she went out—to keep an eye on Jane. And to scan the occupants. There was a flicker of hope inside her that she just couldn’t blow out, the thought that one day she might see a set of pale blue eyes again.
Henry slapped his palm against the rail of the ship. Seeing land, and not being able to go ashore filled him with a boiling anger. Well over a week ago, he’d awoken inside a barrel aboard a cargo ship bound for Hawaii. After breaking himself out of the barrel, he’d convinced the captain that he’d been shanghaied, but hadn’t been able to make the man turn the ship around and return him to the port of Los Angeles. Now he was told he couldn’t go ashore until the ship was docked for unloading. He could have swum the distance to shore if his shoulder hadn’t been dislocated when they’d shoved him in that flour barrel.
They. His assailants.
It had been two men who’d attacked him in his car that raining afternoon. He’d not gotten a good look at either one of them before they knocked him out cold. He’d come to while they’d been shoving him in that barrel, and he’d fought, but...
Anger renewed.
Not only at his assailants, but at himself for not having his mind in the right place that day. He’d been so focused on Betty. On what he’d done to her, that he’d let his guard down.
He’d never let his guard down before. He’d never questioned himself like he had with her, and this was where it had gotten him. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Still thinking about her. And all sorts of other things. Like fatherhood. That frightened him like nothing ever had. He knew nothing, nothing about being a father.
If it had done nothing else, his time at sea had given him the opportunity to get his mind back in order. To think straight.
He could now see things with a clear perspective. He saw everything he could never have in Betty. He’d been like a kid, wanting it so badly, he’d do anything to get it. Including stealing, which made eating the candy bittersweet, knowing he truly didn’t deserve it. He’d long ago set his path in life, that of being an agent, and that was the path he needed to remain on, because it was the only one he’d ever have.
“We’re scheduled to dock at midnight.” Captain Cahill stepped up to the rail. “There’s a passenger steamer heading back to LA next week.”
“Next week?” Henry shook his head. “I need to head back right away. On the next ship.”
Cahill’s beard was as gray as the hair on his head, and his leathery skin showed the number of years he’d spent at sea. “They are all cargo ships. Don’t take passengers.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does,” Cahill said. “Cargo ships can’t take passengers. I explained that to you already.”
“I’m not a passenger,” Henry reminded. “I was shanghaied.” The hairs on his arms quivered as they stood. If he hadn’t managed to break out of that barrel, a warehouse worker would have discovered his dead and decomposing body at some point. Probably when it would have started to stink.
“I know,” Cahill said. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Cahill had said that several times, and Henry had been thinking about how he was going to get back to California, and knew there was one quick way for it to happen. Uncle Nate. “Where am I going to be able to find a telephone?”
“A telephone?” Cahill shook his head. “Telephone calls from Hawaii to the States cost a fortune and you don’t have any money.”
That was true. His pockets had been stripped clean. Even his badge was gone. “I’ll reverse the charges.”
The captain let out a gruff laugh. “Good luck convincing someone that will happen.”
Cahill walked away, and Henry would have slapped the rail again, but his injured shoulder was still aching from when he’d done that earlier. He reached up to rub at his shoulder. The pain had subsided a great deal after it had been put back in place, but it still hurt to the point he could barely use it. The captain was right about finding someone who would trust him enough to use their telephone.
Trust.
He’d never trusted anyone in his life. Certainly not his birth parents, not the people who’d run the orphanage, or his adoptive parents, who he’d always known had only adopted him as an experiment.
He’d thought he’d finally found trust within the Bureau, then within a year, the mole had started to play his games, and no one knew who they could trust. Scarlet had proven that, too.
He’d known all that, then why had he trusted Betty enough to tell her about his childhood? The good things?
Maybe it was him who couldn’t be trusted. She had to be wondering what happened to him. Just like his adoptive parents. Every time he spoke to his uncle, Nate said as much. That John and Esther wondered about him. Wondered when they’d hear from him, see him.
He clamped his back teeth together. Betty had done something to him. Inside. For years he’d told himself that John and Esther were only his parents on paper.
Just like Nate was only his uncle on paper.
He’d been trying to make up for that for years. Henry shook his head at his own thought. It wasn’t as if he’d been trying to make up for that as much as he’d been trying to prove his worth. To let all of them know he had been the right kid to choose out of the orphanage. The right man to choose for the FBI.
That, too, his very job, had been all part of his adoptive father’s plan to prove how well the junior-college idea could work, could benefit those unable to attend a full-fledged university. Therefore, upon graduation, John had sought out a job for his adopted son, through his brother. Nathan Randall. Nate had been a federal agent then and willingly took on the challenge of bringing a kid straight out of school into the agency, with the expectation that Henry would follow every rule, exceed at every assignment and hold his loyalty to the agency above everything else.
He had.
Because he’d wanted them to trust in him, because then, maybe, he could trust in them.
He’d blown that now. By getting shanghaied.
The only saving grace he had was that the case wasn’t over yet. He had to get back to California, find the mole, and then...
Then move on to another assignment. Maintain his loyalty to the agency, to his uncle and adoptive parents.
Continue on with the only life he’d ever known.
The only life he’d ever know.
Henry pushed away from the rail, and hours later, found himself back in the same spot, talking with Captain Cahill.
“Just have them dial that number,” Henry said, gesturing toward the piece of paper he’d given the captain. “My name’s on that paper. Have them say it’s concerning me, Henry Randall. I guarantee all charges will be reversed and any ship here will be given permission to provide me passage back to California.”
“You must think you’re really someone special,” Cahill said with a mixture of doubt and amusement.
Henry didn’t want to reveal exactly who they would be calling, because that would make it sound too unbelievable, and they could refuse.
“Whose number is this?” Cahill asked. “A good lawyer?”
“Yes,” Henry answered. “He’s an attorney.”
Cahill laughed but held up the slip of paper. “I’m only doing this because I like you, and am still mad that someone was able to load a barrel onto my ship without me knowing about it.”
That was putting it mildly. Cahill had been more furious about the barrel being hauled aboard than about him being in it. “I’ll wait here,” Henry said, knowing the captain would have a better shot at convincing someone to call his uncle without him present. He’d considered going ashore, but was wearing borrowed clothes, hadn’t had a bath in over a week, and, besides the bum shoulder, he had a gash on his forehead from a blow he’d taken from his assailants at some point that still hadn’t completely healed. He certainly didn’t look like a federal agent, or the nephew of a very powerful man. This way, staying on the ship, Cahill would know where to find him as soon as the call was over.
“All right,” Cahill said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve gotten the cargo squared away.”
“Thanks. I really do appreciate it.”
Cahill flashed a grimace of sorrow as he tucked the paper into his pocket. “I hope you still do when I return with bad news.”
“It’ll be good news,” Henry insisted.
Cahill left with a shrug and a shake of his head, and was gone for what felt like half the night. It was. They’d pulled into port at midnight.
The sky and the sea were still black as tar when Henry heard his name being shouted.
“Randall! Randall! Get your carcass down here!”
With the aid of the dock lights, Henry saw Cahill waving at him and quickly maneuvered his way through the men hauling cargo down the long, rough-hewn, planked loading ramp.
“The call went through?” Henry asked, running the last few steps to meet up with Cahill.
“Yes. He wants to talk to you.” Cahill pointed to a tall building behind him. “That is one hell of an attorney you had them call.”
Henry nodded as they hurried up the walkway toward the building.
“The attorney general of the United States of America?” Cahill asked.
Henry nodded again.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because I didn’t think you’d believe me,” Henry replied.
“I wouldn’t have,” Cahill said.
Full of optimism, knowing he’d soon be on his way back to California, Henry grinned. “Then you wouldn’t have believed he’s my uncle, either.”
Cahill’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Nephew? Hell, get a move on!” he shouted, and picked up the pace to a near run.