LITMIR.BIZ

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Angela had gone on to Vandy, which was where Carlotta assumed the woman had hooked up with Peter. Had “poor Carlotta” been a common topic of conversation?

      “I managed just fine,” she murmured.

      Angela leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s why I always buy things from you, Carlotta, because I figure that you need the commission. It’s my little good deed.”

      The scent of gin burned Carlotta’s nose like the fiery mortification that bled through her chest. Years’ worth of pent-up frustration suddenly flared to life. Her hands halted in the middle of ringing up the sale. “I don’t need your pity, Angela,” she said, her voice shaking, “or your effing money.” She gave herself ten points for the verbal filter.

      Angela’s expression grew haughty. “You don’t have to be nasty—I’m only trying to help.”

      “You’re trying to make me feel like a charity case.” And dammit, she was succeeding.

      Angela swept her hand over the pile of merchandise that cost as much as Carlotta’s car. “So you’d be willing to turn your back on this sale because of your stupid pride?”

      Carlotta hesitated—she desperately needed the commission—and in her hesitation, knew Angela had won. As she looked into the woman’s slightly unfocused but gloating eyes, comebacks whirled through Carlotta’s mind, ranging from “Screw you” to “You’re right” to “You got Peter—what else do you want from me?”

      She wanted to throw something, to hit something, to push the Rewind button and be seventeen again, before her life had taken such a detour. To her horror, moisture gathered in her eyes. She blinked furiously and opened her mouth. “I—”

      Her phone vibrated against her side and she pounced on the diversion. “I’m sorry, Angela, I have to take this call.” But when she withdrew the phone and glanced at the caller ID, fear bolted through her chest. Atlanta Police Department.

      Her heart lodged in her throat as images of Wesley’s mangled body ran through her mind. He’d finally gotten himself killed on that damn motorcycle of his. She stabbed the Incoming Call button, missed, and tried again. “Hello?”

      “Hi, sis,” Wesley said, his voice tentative—like at age ten when he had put sugar in their neighbor’s gas tank “just to see if it really would freeze up the engine.”

      It had.

      Her initial flood of relief that he was alive was immediately overridden with a different kind of anxiety. “What’s wrong?”

      “Why do you assume something’s wrong?”

      She glanced up to find Angela listening intently. Carlotta turned her back and walked a few steps to be—she hoped—out of earshot. “Because, Wesley, the police department came up on the caller ID.”

      “Oh.”

      “So…what happened?”

      “Okay, don’t freak out, but I kind of got arrested.”

      Carlotta felt faint. “What? You kind of got arrested, or you did get arrested?”

      She could picture him on the other end of the line, stabbing at his glasses and weighing his answer. “I did get arrested.”

      She closed her eyes and mouthed a curse.

      “I heard that.”

      Okay, minus ten points for swearing at her kid brother. She counted to three, then exhaled. “What were you arrested for?”

      “Well, it’s kind of complicated. Maybe you’d better come down here.”

      “Where is ‘here’?”

      “The jail at City Hall East.”

      Christ, what did it say for her that she knew exactly where the jail was? She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine coming on. “What am I supposed to do once I get there?”

      “Uh…ask for inmate Wren?”

      She clenched her jaw and disconnected the call, then gave Angela a flat smile. “I have to go. Someone else will be happy to ring up your purchases.”

      Angela’s face reddened. “But I don’t want someone else—I want you.”

      “Don’t worry, Angela. I’m sure you’ll still get a gold star for your little good deed.” She swept by the woman, and when she passed Michael on the escalator, told him that she had an emergency and would return later if she could and would he take care of you-know-who?

      Breaking into a jog, Carlotta retrieved her purse from her locker in the employee break room, fighting tears of frustration. What had Wesley gotten himself into now? Her feet moved automatically, carrying her to her car, which was a good thing because she couldn’t consciously remember where she’d parked.

      As she careened out of the mall parking lot, she imagined Wesley’s mangled body again—only this time it was by her own hands.

      2

      Carlotta took a deep breath and made herself say the words. “I’m here to see i-inmate Wren.”

      The uniformed woman behind the Plexiglas rolled her eyes upward to glance over her bifocals. “Spell the name, please.”

      Carlotta did, glancing around the crowded waiting room nervously, hoping she didn’t run into anyone she knew—or anyone who knew her. The place held bad memories; she’d been arrested once a couple of years ago for taking a tire iron to one of Wesley’s bookies, but the charges had been dropped. And just before Christmas last year she’d been hauled in for questioning in a murder case. It turned out to be a big fat misunderstanding, but the experience had scared her straight. No more lying…no more pretending.

      She frowned down at her outfit. One thing was certain—even in her last-season Diane von Furstenberg sundress and midi-jacket, she was a tad overdressed for the occasion.

      The woman wrote down Wesley’s name. “And you are?”

      Carlotta lowered her mouth to the little hole in the Plexiglas and whispered, “I’m his sister, Carlotta Wren. And there must be some mistake. My brother would never break the law. At least not a big law.”

      The woman appeared to be unmoved. “Yeah. Have a seat and someone will be with you.”

      Carlotta cut a glance to the waiting room and noted the sagging bodies, the yawns, the general restlessness of people who had been waiting for hours. She looked back and flashed an ingratiating smile at the woman. “Look—” She peeked at the woman’s name tag, then frowned. “Your parents named you Brooklyn?”

      The woman smirked. “Everyone calls me Brook.”

      “Okay…Brook, I don’t mean to be pushy, but I had to take a break from my job at Neiman Marcus to come down here, and I really need to get back ASAP.”

      The woman blinked slowly. “I need a million dollars and a good man. Have a seat, Ms. Wren.”

      Carlotta sighed—there went her overtime pay this week. As she turned toward the teeming waiting room, she made eye contact with a tall, striking man wearing a badge around his neck, pouring coffee from a corroded glass pot. A frown furrowed his brow.

      “Did you say your name was Wren?” he drawled, hinting at his roots. South Georgia, she guessed, or maybe an Alabama boy. He was block-shouldered with black hair, a strong nose, fortyish, with bloodshot eyes, bad taste in ties and an apparent aversion to ironing. His haircut was rather good, she conceded, in her split-second scrutiny, reminiscent of George Clooney in his E.R. days. But this guy didn’t seem to have much of a bedside manner.

      “Yes,” she said warily. “I’m Carlotta Wren.”

      He drank from the cup, then winced. “I’m Detective Jack Terry. I brought your brother in,” he said and blew on the top of his

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