Love After All Page 3

  “You know that I got your back, Sammy,” Deacon said. They exchanged a knowing look that could only have passed between family. Deacon was an after-midnight person—at least, he had been at one time. And the moment they had met she knew it instantly. It was a look in the eye, a nonverbal communication that announced the presence of a kindred soul. You never con family.

  Samantha exhaled loudly. “All right, I’m out.”

  Deacon nodded. “Take care.”

  “Always,” she walked over to the bulletin board with new listings for the week. The man with the cigarette came up behind her. She turned cautiously and looked up into his dark eyes.

  “Hey,” he said, nodding. She didn’t respond but instead nodded in return. They stood side by side for a few minutes until he spoke again. “Word is we have a mutual friend.”

  “Is that right?” she asked, not particularly interested.

  “Yeah,” he said. She didn’t reply. “He said that if I bump into you I should give you a message.”

  She turned, slightly more interested. “Who exactly is this friend?”

  “Jefferson.”

  “Sorry, never heard of him,” she said flatly.

  Kareem chuckled. “He said you’d act dumb, lollipop.”

  “What did you just call me?” she asked calmly.

  “I see I got your attention. Good,” he said. “Our mutual friend said to tell you that a game is in play.”

  The expression instantly sank her heart. Game in play was always her father’s term for working a con. “Is that it?” she asked.

  “No, he needs a favor.”

  “What is it?” she asked coldly.

  “You’ll be heading to L.A. soon.”

  “L.A., as in Los Angeles?” she questioned, feeling her heart skip a beat. L.A. meant California, and California meant flying. Something she avoided like the plague.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking at her strangely, seeing her apprehensive reaction. “He said that he needs you to play a computer game for him and that he’ll have a friend waiting to meet you. He also wants you to check this out.” He handed her a small disc. She took it and slipped it into her backpack. “Says that you should do what comes natural and he’ll text you on this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small thin cell phone. “Here,” he offered.

  She looked at the phone as if it were a poisonous snake. “Is that all?” she said, finally taking the phone.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Kareem said, then turned, seeing Deacon looking at them together. “Have a nice day.”

  “Hey, Sammy,” Deacon said as he approached the two standing side by side. “You forgot this.” He held out the manila envelope from the back of her cab. Then, seeing the hesitation on her face, he turned to watch Kareem as he quickly got into a cab and drove off. “What did he want?”

  “Nothing, just talking, shooting the breeze,” she said playfully not wanting to alarm Deacon. “Thanks.” She took the envelope. “Take care.” She smiled easily.

  “Yeah, you, too,” he said, not believing her nonchalance and fully intending to keep an eye on Kareem just in case.

  The main office was empty except for Emily Osborn, a Bible-toting pastor of the All Saints Baptist Church four short blocks away and a friend of Samantha’s family since she was a child. Her husband, Clemet Osborn, had suddenly died of a heart attack years ago and she took over running the company. She was considered the mother hen and kept a tight rein on all her chicks. Her special chick was Dorothy, her pet name for Samantha since she was a child.

  Emily preferred to work at night and when she’d been informed that Samantha was coming for a while she was delighted. So as soon as Samantha showed up, she put her to work. The rule was, no one hung around the garage without working. So, for the past four months Samantha drove a cab and waited.

  “You okay, sweetie?” Emily eyed Samantha, scrutinizing her face for the slightest blemish.

  “Right as rain, Auntie Em,” Samantha said, handing her the cash bag and the log sheets from her clipboard.

  Emily took the offered items, tossed them on the desk and continued her inspection. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. What’s new?” she asked hopefully.

  “Not a thing, same old, same old.” She paused and grimaced. “You sure you’re okay? You sounded a bit distracted earlier tonight and now you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “I’m just tired. But I got my ruby slippers on and I’m going to click my tired butt on home.”

  Emily laughed, loud and joyous. She loved the way they talked the Oz talk as they always did. It was like a secret handshake in a secret club. At one time Darnell tried to get into the act by declaring himself the Wizard, but that didn’t last long. He soon gave up and found his place back in Munchkin Land.

  “You do just that. Good night, Dorothy.”

  “See you later, Auntie Em.” Samantha turned to leave. but remembered the envelope she carried. “Oh, I almost forgot, I think my last fare left this in the back seat of the cab. He might call in for it.” She handed the envelope to Emily and left the office.

  As soon as she stepped out of the garage she looked upward, letting the slight drizzle dampen her face. She walked over to her car and pushed the alarm release, but stopped when she heard her name being called behind her. She turned. Emily was hurrying across the parking lot carrying a “What would Jesus do” umbrella.

  “Sammy, this is addressed to you,” she said breathlessly, holding the envelope out beneath the shelter of her umbrella.

  “What?”

  “That’s what it says.” She turned it over and read the name aloud. “To Samantha Lee Taylor.”

  Samantha took the envelope cautiously and looked around the empty parking lot. Suddenly she felt vulnerable, but she had no intention of getting Emily involved. “Oh, that’s right, thanks, Emily, I must have forgotten and left it in the back of my cab by mistake.” Proficient at lying as Samantha was, this one was adequate to placate Emily’s curiosity.

  “You sure?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah, my head’s all over the place. I think I might be coming down with a cold or something. I completely forgot it was mine.” Samantha said, smiling happily as she casually glanced around the immediate area again.

  “All right, sweetie, you drive careful out here. There are a lot of crazies on the road that are trying their best to meet my Lord sooner than expected.”

  “I know,” Samantha said, knowing Emily’s “dangers-of-the-world” speech by heart. “I’ll be careful. Good night.”

  Emily turned and headed back to the garage. “Emily,” Samantha said. Emily turned around as Samantha continued. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve given me a home and a family and I’ll never forget your kindness.”

  “Sweetie, you’re like a daughter to me, you know that. And as soon as that package arrived for you from overseas, I knew to expect you. But Lord, I never expected to see you looking so despondent. When you came in four months ago, I knew you needed this place. It might be old and a long way from being perfect, but it’s shelter and a dry port in a storm.”

  “Yes, it is,” Samantha said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. The door is always open to anyone in need as long as they’re willing to work.”

  Samantha nodded. It was a well-known fact that cabbies came and went at Oz all the time. Not many stayed longer than a few months, and like her, some were waiting, some were in transit and some just needed a place to call home for a while. And as they left, there was always a new face to replace them.

  “You have to go now, don’t you?”

  Samantha nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

  “The Lord told me that you needed to be here for however long it takes. Trust him. He’ll light your path.”

  Samantha smiled and nodded her appreciation. “I wish I had your faith, Auntie Em.”

  “I’m a God-fearing woman, but I wasn’t always as you see me. If or when you need me, call. You’d be surprised at the folks I still call family.” Samantha nodded soberly. “And remember, we’re born into a family, but family isn’t always just by blood. I have a friend who I haven’t seen in near thirty years, but in my heart she’s still my sister, my family, and you never turn your back on family, no matter what the cause. Family is forever.”

  Samantha knew that to be true. It was something her mother and father always said: Family is forever. And being raised on that mantra, she knew that when trouble came, her family would be there for her. “Thank you, I’ll remember that.”

  Emily nodded her assurance. “Be safe and remember, there’s no place like home.”

  “I’ll remember. ’Bye, Auntie Em,” Samantha said softly as she looked after Emily, seeing that she got back into the garage safely. She spared one last thorough look around, then turned and got in her car and pressed the lock down securely.

  She read the name on the back of the envelope again, printed small and in the lower corner. With trembling fingers she opened the envelope and read the note inside. It was concise and to the point, telling her exactly what she needed to do to find Eric. It was signed Lincoln. She tipped the envelope over and pulled out a first-class ticket and read the date, time and destination.

  She looked up slowly, then without moving her head glanced around the immediate area. At one in the morning it was nearly deserted. She glanced over to the police precinct across the street from the cab company.

  The location was an unlikely choice for someone trying to be invisible or disappear, but she remembered her father’s words well: “Hide in plain sight. No one ever looks in their own backyard.”

  A few uniformed police officers stood outside talking. She replaced the contents of the envelope, stuffed it in her b
ackpack, then started the car and pulled off slowly as if nothing was wrong, waving casually. The two officers returned her gesture as a third joined them and they walked into the building together.

  Sixty minutes later, after stopping at her rented apartment for her overseas package and four ATMs, she parked her car in the bus terminal overnight parking lot. She signed her name on the back of her car-registration form, jotted a quick note and stuffed both in the glove compartment. She hurried through the terminal, purchased a one-way ticket and begged a blank envelope from the information desk. She addressed the envelope, dropped her car and apartment keys inside, sealed and mailed it, then hopped onto the next departing bus headed west.

  Her cell phone rang. After reading the quick text message, she eased back into the seat, closed her eyes and waited for the next move.

  Chapter 2

  The effect of working double-digit hours seven days a week had finally taken a toll on him. He was exhausted. He felt empty inside, no excitement, no joy, just empty. And now, after a particularly stressful day, there was finally a moment of peace as Jackson Daley sat in his office chair and swiveled around to face the window behind his desk, smooth jazz playing softly in the background.

  He was about to take a well-deserved break, a long weekend off, no work, no radio and no family, completely alone and devoid of drama. He intended to take either his plane out of its long hiatus or his boat down the coast and just relax for a few days. He sighed deeply, savoring the idea, but then his thoughts crowded with business again.

  He glanced at his watch, then out at the view.

  It was dark and the glittering lights of Los Angeles shone and reflected across the city like tiny diamonds tossed out and scattered on black velvet. He loved the night, and from twenty-five stories up the cityscape view was spectacular. Looking out at the impressive skyline often stilled his thoughts. But nothing short of a miracle could do that tonight.

  True, he lived a charmed life, one of affluence, money and power. But with affluence and power came responsibility, and his was more than most. With work as his only outlet, the boredom of life was his future—tame, safe and monotonous at best. He feared following in his father’s footsteps, a slave to the boredom of excess.

  He was the oldest son of divorced couple Rachel and Marcus Daley, second-generation media entrepreneurs. His grandfather, deceased founder of Daley Communications, was in his time a pioneer in the African-American broadcast industry. Over sixty-five years in the business, the Daley family owned more than eighty-five broadcast stations. Their satellite and base of operations were in this twenty-five-story building in the heart of L.A., which was also the main radio station that broadcast in syndication nationally.

  When his grandfather died, he left the majority of stock to his daughter-in-law and not to his disinterested playboy son, Marcus, causing their teetering marriage to deteriorate instantly. Their subsequent bitter divorce had torn the family and business apart even more, and Jackson was hard pressed to bring it together.

  Host of a nightly radio talk show, Jackson also served as vice president and general manager of the broadcast division of Daley Communications. His father was at the moment president and CEO. And since the death of his mother six months ago, the hierarchy of control wavered between the two, causing an already deep rift to expand even further.

  Rachel, like her father-in-law, overlooked Marcus and left Jackson with the majority of stock control, which sent Marcus storming into court to contest the will and regain complete control of what was once his father’s company. The bitter litigation had leaked out to the media, creating not only nervous board members but months of newspaper gossip and fabricated speculations. The once-admired Daley family name had become tabloid fodder.

  So at the request of his sister, the company’s public relations director, Jessica Daley, Jackson once again asked for a meeting with his father to hopefully settle matters at least publicly. But dreading the inevitable, Jackson knew what was coming. The discussion they’d had a hundred times or more would be rehashed. He looked at his watch. It was time.

  He walked to his father’s office on the other side of the building, knocked, then walked in without waiting for a response. He glanced around the room. Exaggeratedly decorated along the lines of big and obnoxious, the huge space and overly elaborate furniture nearly dwarfed his more than six-foot frame. His father’s taste ran toward the overstated.

  Without looking up, Marcus Daley, sitting behind his ornate desk, began speaking. “I hope you’ve come to tell me that you’ve reconsidered my suggestion.”

  “Your what?” Jackson asked, taken off guard by the left-field question. Then he remembered a conversation he’d had with his father earlier in the week about announcing an engagement between his associate, George Cooperman’s oldest daughter, Shauna, and himself.

  They’d dated, at his father’s prompting, for three weeks the year before. But after the fourth date she wanted to announce their pre-engagement minus an actual proposal from him. Their relationship, strained from the beginning, continued to be just as stressful and bizarre. When he realized that Shauna was vain, arrogant, shallow and jealous, he knew that she wasn’t the woman for him. Convincing her took some doing but he finally detached himself from her clingy tentacles and moved on. She still hadn’t.

  So, since his father’s suggestion of a possible engagement was absurd, he didn’t even bother considering it. Just because the woman had a thing for him and their fathers were doing business together didn’t mean that he was part of the deal. The Middle Ages concept and his father’s incessant prompting did nothing to change his mind. “No, not even close,” Jackson finally said.

  “Shauna Cooperman is a perfect match.” Marcus looked up at his son for the first time since he’d entered. “She’s worth over thirty million dollars in her own right, not to mention her stock options and her inheritance.”

  “I don’t intend to marry for money,” Jackson said, knowing that his father had married his mother for her wealth. Apparently strained from the beginning, their tumultuous affair-ridden relationship lasted for years for no other reason than public appearance. When Marcus, after learning of his wife’s terminal illness, took control of the board with a no-confidence vote and ousted her as president and CEO, it nearly destroyed her.

  Her sweet revenge was to leave all her shares to Jackson in her will, securing him as head of the company, knowing that he would never sell out and would continue to keep it in the family. She’d long ago taught him that all the money in the world would never buy happiness, and she was an example of that fact.

  Marcus stopped writing for a second, feeling the sting of his son’s words. “Money is power. You need to respect that and learn to use both wiser.”

  “Like you?” Jackson asked, then watched as his father continued writing again. “Look, I didn’t come here to discuss the women in my life.”

  “There are no women in your life.” Marcus hit solid and smirked. “So I suggest you reconsider. It would be a sweet PR piece and we could use all the positive press we can get,” he continued. “A joint effort, a business venture and partnership between companies and families. I can see the headlines now. We’d get double exposure with one paragraph added to the press release, a complete and full partnership.”

  “No.”

  Marcus looked up at his son. He saw the handsome reflection of his own face from years past. Then he looked into his son’s eyes, seeing his late wife. Pale green and penetrating, mesmerizing to the point of hypnotic, his son’s eyes, like his wife’s, seemed to pierce right through him, seeing and knowing everything.

  Initially, they were reason he had been so attracted to her. Her beautifully captivating eyes had fascinated him the instant he saw her. She was mesmerizing and he fell instantly in love. Yet over the years, he grew to despise that knowing look, and now he was again looking into the same eyes. Marcus glanced away, refocusing on the papers he’d been reviewing.

  In truth, he needed this marriage as much as he needed the business venture. He didn’t trust George Cooperman, and a union between Jackson and Shauna would guarantee that he wouldn’t be double-crossed.