Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [129]
He held her close, embracing her as she laid her head on his chest. “I’m here. I’ve got you, honey. Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”
Chapter 25
Casey used his friend Jason’s cell phone to make the call. He had met Jason at one of their AA meetings and the two had hit it off immediately. It had been a long time since he’d actually had a friend—a real friend—so he did his best to never impose on Jason’s kindness. From time to time, Jason gave him a few bucks, occasionally took him out for a decent meal, and had even offered to let Casey stay with him and his family. As much as he would have liked taking Jason up on the offer, he knew Jason’s wife Heather had been relieved when he had declined. And who could blame her? Although the few times he’d seen Heather, she’d been nice to him, he realized she had genuine doubts about exposing her children to a guy such as he.
Sometimes he felt guilty for not telling Jason the truth—that he was not penniless. He had chosen a low-key, under-the-radar homeless person’s lifestyle. It suited his purposes, at least for the time being.
Finding an out-of-the-way park bench, Casey sat down, dialed the number, and waited. The warm afternoon sun warred with the cool April breeze. Summer was just around the corner, but a hint of winter lingered in the wind. Springtime birds chattered in nearby trees and squirrels scurried from branch to branch.
As always, the maid answered the telephone. “Laura Lou Roberts’s residence.”
“Please tell Ms. Roberts that it’s Casey.”
“Yes, Mr. Lloyd, I’ll tell her.”
Casey nervously tapped his index finger against the edge of the phone as he waited. A couple of minutes later, he heard that familiar throaty voice. A dozen years ago, he had found that husky tone sexy. One of his many deadly mistakes.
“Hello, sweet boy,” Laura Lou said.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Doing okay for an old woman.”
“You’ll never be old. And you’ll always be vibrant and sexy.” He told her what he knew she wanted to hear. He had learned years ago how to please her in order to get what he wanted. “I miss you. Life isn’t the same without you.”
Her gravelly laughter grated on his nerves, the sound bringing back too many unpleasant memories from a time when he’d been little more than her lapdog.
And what are you now? You’re practically licking her butt, albeit via a long-distance phone call. Whispering sweet nothings in her ear, giving the old heifer a thrill.
But it wasn’t the same as in the past. This time, he was in control, even though she didn’t know it. To get what he wanted, what he needed, he would have bedded the devil. And it wouldn’t be the first time.
Her laughter quickly altered and changed to heavy coughing. When she managed to control the coughs, she told him, “One of these days, I’m going to come see you and collect on all your promises and IOUs.”
He doubted seriously that the day would ever come when she would visit him. Her vanity would keep her away. She preferred for him to remember her as she had been in the past, not as she was now. He had heard through mutual “friends” in LA that Laura Lou had not gone under the knife for any recent nips and tucks, that she had lost so much weight she looked like a skeleton, and that her four-packs-a-day cigarette habit had resulted in emphysema that required her to haul around a portable oxygen tank wherever she went.
“I’d love to see you,” he lied. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
She’d had good times. He’d been in hell. But it had been a hell of his own making. Laura Lou had simply been the particular devil he had chosen to oversee his torment.
“Yeah, we had some good times,” she said, a wistful quality softening her lifetime smoker’s voice. “But your girlfriend wouldn’t want me showing up, now would she?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment,” he assured her. That much, at least, was the truth. Until he got all his addictions under control, a committed relationship was out of the question.