Thief of My Heart Page 10

  “Leave Petra alone,” she said. “She’s entitled to her views, and you know she’s never sugarcoated anything. I agree that marriage can be much more advantageous to males than females. Women do expend more energy raising the children, maintaining the household, even managing their social lives. I hear everything in my practice. The biggest gripe among couples in couples therapy is that the marriage duties, or whatever you want to call the day-to-day chores couples share, are unequal. Women recognize they’re working themselves too hard, and men seem to be oblivious of that fact.” She smiled at Petra. “But as for giving up on love, I could never do that. Love, to me, makes everything else worthwhile.”

  Petra smiled at Desiree. “Oh, I believe in love, I just don’t believe in letting it rule my head.”

  “Back to my question,” Lauren said. “When was the last time you kissed a guy?”

  “If you must know,” Petra said with a gleam in her eye, “I kissed a very handsome guy while I was in New York a few days ago. In fact, I did more than kiss him. I made love to him.”

  There were looks of astonishment on her sisters’ faces at that statement. She smiled. “It was a huge mistake. I was lonely, and he, well I don’t know why he did it.”

  “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Meghan asked. “You’re hot, sis!”

  Petra laughed. “I don’t know what hot is. I exist in khakis, and I usually smell like bug spray. Insects will pick you up and fly away with you in the jungle. But there was something about Chance Youngblood that got to me, and I ended up spending the night with him. Now I don’t know how I’m going to look him in the eye the next time I see him.”

  “Oh, it’s likely you’re going to see him again?” Desiree asked.

  “He’s head of the network that wants me to star in a new reality series about my work,” Petra said.

  “Ooh, this is getting complicated.” Meghan sighed. “Tell us more about this Chance Youngblood. What does he look like?”

  Desiree smiled. Her baby sister was a die-hard romantic. She was surprised when the practical Petra looked dreamy before describing the man in question. “He’s ruggedly handsome, which I think is what turned me on. I can’t stand pretty boys. He’s got this rough-and-tumble way about him. He moves like a panther and has the most beautiful dark brown skin. His body’s hard, and he had plenty of stamina.”

  The sisters erupted in excited hoots and hollers once more. Colton Jr. stirred in his mother’s arms and went right back to sleep.

  “Which he had to have to keep up with me,” Petra continued just for the shock value, Desiree suspected.

  Desiree laughed. “There’s something to be said for good stamina.”

  “You two are so bad,” Meghan said. “And here I haven’t had a man in my bed for nearly three years.”

  Suddenly Desiree cried, “Meghan, turn that up!”

  Meghan, who was closest to the TV’s remote on the coffee table, reached over and turned the volume up on the evening news.

  On the screen, Yolanda Reynolds was being interviewed by the local TV station’s entertainment reporter.

  Chapter 9

  “Who is that?” Petra asked, frowning.

  “Yolanda Reynolds,” Desiree replied coldly.

  “Yolanda Reynolds? I know I’ve heard that name before. You mean that girl who used to pick on you in school?” Petra said, confused. “What’s she doing on TV?”

  In answer, the reporter beamed at Yolanda and asked, “Is there a particular reason you’re visiting your hometown, Yolanda? Not that we wouldn’t be delighted to have you back under any circumstances!”

  Yolanda, a seasoned professional, smiled warmly at the reporter and said, “I’m here to offer moral support to my cousin, Frederic Sawyer. As you know, he finds himself in a bit of a jam right now.”

  “A bit of a jam is not what he’s in,” Desiree cried. “The man’s accused of molesting a fifteen-year-old girl!”

  “I take it you’re familiar with the case,” Petra said.

  “Yes, the girl he’s accused of molesting is a patient of mine,” Desiree stormed, getting to her feet and pointing at the TV screen. “And that snake is using her popularity to try to garner support for him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Petra said. “Is she supposed to be some kind of celebrity? She’s preening like a she-ape in heat.”

  Desiree couldn’t help it. She laughed at Petra’s comment. “She’s an actress,” she explained. “She’s had a few hit movies, and she stars in the highest-rated show on TV.” She sat back down beside Petra and took deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. She just hoped Madison wasn’t somewhere watching one of Raleigh’s most famous hometown girls talking about her cousin as if he were the victim in this whole scenario.

  “I don’t watch much TV,” Petra said. “All I remember about her is that she was mean to you.”

  The program moved on to another segment, and Meghan muted the volume once more. “Does anyone want some real food?” she asked. “This popcorn isn’t doing a thing for me. Who wants to order Chinese?”

  The others discussed what they wanted from the menu while Desiree sat quietly, thinking about Yolanda Reynolds’s presence in Raleigh. She claimed she was in town to support her cousin in his time of need. What her cousin needed most was a sharp lawyer who was an ace in the courtroom. Desiree could think of only one man who fit that description.

  “Excuse me,” she said to her sisters as she went looking for her handbag, which she’d left somewhere upstairs. “I have to make a phone call.”

  * * *

  “Now I guess I’m one of you,” Decker joked as he looked around the table at Colton, Juan and Will. “All wrapped up in a woman and happily whipped.”

  He had to talk loud to be heard over the cacophony of the bustling bar on Glenwood Avenue.

  They laughed at him. Tall, lanky Will shook his bald head sympathetically. “Yeah, what a difference a few months make, huh? You’re no longer lonely and pathetic. I can tell you now. I was beginning to worry about you.”

  “Yeah,” Juan agreed heartily, “I thought you’d stay delusional for the rest of your life.”

  “Delusional?” Decker asked, curious.

  “Believing that you were happy dating one beautiful woman after another instead of falling in love with one great woman,” Colton explained. “Hey, I thought like that, too, until Lauren blew my mind.”

  Decker’s cell phone rang, and he checked who was calling. “Got to take this,” he said. “Excuse me.” He rose to walk to the back of the bar, where it was a bit quieter.

  “Hey, babe,” he said to Desiree. He smiled, imagining her beloved face. “Enjoying your time with the girls?”

  “Yes, we’re talking up a storm and catching up,” Desiree said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “Sweetie, listen, I thought you should be forewarned. I just saw Yolanda on the local news. She’s back in town, and you’ll never guess why she’s here.”

  “She’s trying to help her cousin avoid jail on molestation charges,” Decker said calmly.

  He heard Desiree’s sharp intake of breath. “Then she’s been to see you,” she said with a note of caution in her tone, which he found a bit disturbing. Why would she feel she had to tread carefully with him?

  “Yes, she asked me to go see her cousin. His name’s Frederic Sawyer, he’s a high school teacher and he’s in jail on charges that he seduced one of his students.”

  “I know,” Desiree said. “The girl is the same patient I mentioned to you.”

  “Oh, no,” Decker cried, shocked. “Not the girl who’s now being harassed at school because she stood up for herself?”

  “Yeah. Small world, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, I had no idea,” Decker said sincerely.

  “I know you didn’t,”
Desiree sighed. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of defending that man, Decker!”

  “No, baby, I’m not going to take the case. But I did give the lead detective some advice that will hopefully help convict Sawyer. That’s the extent of my involvement. I’m very interested in the outcome, though. I asked the detective to keep me in the loop.”

  “I’m so relieved,” Desiree said. “When I heard Yolanda talking about her cousin on TV and how she was here to support him in any way she could, I had a gut feeling she was going try to convince you to represent him.” Decker wished he were with her so he could hold her. Then she’d know that she had nothing to worry about.

  “She gave it her best shot,” Decker said. “But baby, didn’t I tell you I’d never let you down?”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said without hesitation.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, because there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “I wish I could see you tonight,” she said. Her tone had a haunting lilt to it, which made him again want to hold her.

  “Tonight is for your sisters,” he told her with a smile. “Tomorrow night, after your parents’ anniversary party, you’re mine.”

  “You can count on it,” she said, and he heard that smile again.

  “I love you,” he said with feeling.

  “I love you,” she replied, her voice husky with emotion, “more each day.”

  * * *

  Desiree went back downstairs and rejoined her sisters, sitting on the floor beside Mina, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Yolanda was not only in town to show support for her cousin, but to wreak havoc in her relationship with Decker.

  Meghan was on the phone ordering takeout. “Desi, you want shrimp-fried rice, right?” she asked.

  “Sure, that’ll be fine,” Desiree replied halfheartedly.

  Mina turned and smiled at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Desiree looked into Mina’s face. Mina had been sitting cross-legged on the floor. She stretched out her jeans-clad legs and regarded Desiree with a curious expression.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Desiree saw Meghan hang up the phone, and come back to sit among the rest of them. Desiree didn’t have to look up to know all eyes were on her. They were so close, they shared an almost psychic connection.

  The room was quiet now except for the sound of Colton Jr.’s breathing as he slept on the couch where his mother had placed him a few minutes ago.

  “I’m afraid to voice my fears,” Desiree began, “because it’ll sound as if I don’t trust Decker, and I do.”

  “Is this about Yolanda?” Lauren asked. “Do you think she’s going to make a play for Decker?”

  Petra looked confused. “Why would Yolanda try to seduce Decker?”

  “Decker used to be in love with her,” Desiree explained.

  “You guys need to fill me in!” Petra cried.

  “Long story short, she used him and tossed him aside when she got her big break. He was bitter about it, but he’s come to terms with it now and considers himself lucky she dropped him when she did,” Desiree told her.

  “Okay, then,” said Mina. “You have nothing to worry about. Decker wouldn’t touch that harpy with a ten-foot pole.”

  “You’re right,” Desiree said. “Decker won’t touch her, but what about her touching him? You’ve seen her. Men can’t resist her.”

  “Not all men are incapable of controlling their impulses,” Petra said. “They can be faithful if they want to be. I don’t buy the fallacy that all men are dogs. We have two examples of faithful men in our own family, Grandpa Beck and Daddy.”

  “How do you know Daddy never cheated on Mama?” Meghan asked, being the Devil’s advocate.

  “He’s still breathing, isn’t he?” Mina said with a laugh. “Virginia Beck-Gaines wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised by what married women have put up with to keep their marriages intact,” Desiree said. “I’ve counseled couples after husbands have cheated. And I’ve heard the same thing from wives every time. While in theory, they had believed they couldn’t live with their husbands if they’d cheated on them, they actually didn’t know how they would react until it happened to them. Then they learned that if they really loved their husbands and they weren’t serial cheaters, they could find it in their hearts to forgive them.”

  “Back to your problem, though,” Lauren said. “Why are you having misgivings? Is it because Noel cheated on you? Because if it is, remember, Desi—Decker isn’t Noel. I’ve seen the change in Decker over the years since he’s been in love with you. And I say this because I believe he’s been in love with you much longer than recently. Did you know he stopped dating anyone a full year or more before you went out with him? I got this straight from Colton, whom Decker confides in.”

  “I think part of my insecurity stems from Noel’s cheating, yes,” Desiree confirmed. “But I believe most of it is because I’ve never been able to sustain a long-lasting relationship. And I really want this one to last.”

  “And it will,” Mina assured her. She hugged her. “I know having faith in someone is hard to do, but you’ve just got to let go, Desi, and believe that Decker would rather cut off his right arm than hurt you.”

  “Yeah,” Lauren agreed. “Speaking as the other married woman in the room, I have to say that without faith in your partner, you might just as well hang it up. It’s a waste of time and energy worrying that he’s going to cheat on you. Because, let’s face it, you can’t watch him 24/7. The thought of doing that is exhausting! There are good men in the world, Desi, and Decker’s one of them.”

  After a group hug, Desiree felt so much better. She resolved to put aside her petty fears and live in the moment, with the fervent belief that love would always bring Decker home to her.

  * * *

  Detective Diaz’s cab pulled up to the Sneed residence in a middle-class neighborhood in Terre Haute the next day around noon.

  Carla Sawyer was expecting him. They had spoken on the phone, and when he had told her he had further questions he needed to ask her, after which he wouldn’t be bothering her again, she’d sounded relieved and had agreed to speak with him.

  The woman who answered the door obviously wasn’t Carla Sawyer. She was in her sixties.

  After Detective Diaz introduced himself, she smiled and said, “Come in, Detective. I’m Carla’s mother, Lydia Sneed.”

  She directed him to the living room, where she gestured for him to sit on the well-worn couch. Then she turned away, saying, “I’ll get Carla.”

  The next woman to enter the room was in her late twenties. She was thin with light brown skin and light brown eyes. Her hair was sandy brown, and she wore it in a short, choppy style. In her right hand she carried a thick black leather-bound book. She almost looked faded to Detective Diaz—wan, withdrawn and in need of a good meal. He instinctively knew her appearance was probably due to worry over the events of the past few weeks. His heart went out to her.

  He rose as she approached the couch, but she waved away his gentlemanly gesture. “Please sit down, Detective.”

  He sat back down, and she joined him on the couch and turned toward him. “I think I know why you’re here,” she said. She looked into his eyes. “I’ve been giving our last conversation a lot of thought, and I regret not being more forthcoming with you. You want to know if Freddy ever tried anything with our daughters. The answer is no, I don’t think so, and I put it like that because the girls both deny that their father ever touched them inappropriately, but they adore their father, Detective Diaz. He always doted on them, spoiling them at every opportunity. But I’m still worried that as the years pass, they will remember something, something awful. There were times I
’d wake up in the middle of the night, and he would be in their bedroom, watching them. I wonder now if he was tempted, but had managed to restrain himself from doing anything as vile as molesting his own children. It’s a terrible thing not being able to trust your husband anymore, Detective.”

  On the one hand, Detective Diaz was relieved to hear that Sawyer, to the best of his wife’s knowledge, had not touched his children. On the other, it sounded as though Carla Sawyer had nothing to go on except her suspicions.

  She must have read the disappointment on his face, because she smiled and said, “But I do have something that I think will help your case.”

  She handed him the leather-bound book. He accepted it and opened it. It was a journal. More specifically, it was Frederic Sawyer’s journal.

  “I took this with me when I left Raleigh,” Carla said. “He kept it locked in his desk drawer. I, of course, knew where he kept the key. I took it with me because I thought it might help if I had to blackmail him for him to leave me and the kids alone. I read it and wept.”

  Detective Diaz started reading at the beginning. It was a daily journal of his seduction of Madison Samuelson. He wrote that she had “the disease to please,” a characteristic he said many young girls had. They were trained, he theorized, to always want to please those around them. Therefore, they were easily influenced.

  He read on, and the more he read, the more sickened he got. Sawyer had recorded for his reading pleasure every detail of how he had raped Madison the first time. Afterward he had convinced her that she had seduced him. How her beauty had been too powerful for him to resist. He pointed out that if she hadn’t wanted to be with him, she would have screamed when he began pulling her clothes off. But she hadn’t screamed.

  That was all Detective Diaz had to see. He raised his eyes to Carla’s. “You know what this means, don’t you? He’s going to prison, not to a psychiatric ward.”

  “Good,” said Carla. She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve heard they don’t like child molesters in prison.”