Always Watching (14 page)

“
I wasn’t calling to…
goddammit!” he roared.  “Get the fuck out of here!  This
is private, Mackenzie.”

“
Leave him out of
this.”

“
That’s right.  Kept
him in the wings, just waiting in case we didn’t work out, right,
Doc?  Fuck this.”  He turned back to the suits and
started pitching them onto the growing pile.

I spun on my heel and started tearing his
personal items out of the bathroom.  Devlin followed me with
wide eyes.

“
You shouldn’t be here,
Dev.”

“
I’m not leaving you here
alone with him.”

“
He can’t hurt me. 
Believe me.  If you should be worried about anybody, it’s
him.”  I raised my voice with the intent of Johnny hearing
what I had to say.  “Let’s not forget that I might’ve murdered
that bloated piece of shit last night when we found a
dead child
washed up on
the beach!”

I stomped out of the bathroom and threw the
armful of stuff onto his pile.  “You want to go?  You
want to believe the worst about me?  Fine.  Get
out!  You never believed less than the worst from the very
beginning, Orion!”  I thrust out one hand.  “Give me your
keys.  And I want the remote to the gate back too.”

His chin quivered.  “Fine,” he
rasped.  “Is this what love looked like in your family,
Helen?”

“
Don’t you go there. 
Don’t you dare.”

He took a menacing step forward.  “Or
what?  You gonna hurt me too, Doc?”

Dev stepped between us, a bad move no matter
how I looked at it.  Johnny snarled, balled his fist and took
a swing at Devlin’s head. 

I ducked under Devlin’s blocking arm and
caught the fist in my left hand.  Stepping close, I clipped
the back of Johnny’s leg with my heel and knocked him off
balance.  He landed on the pile in the middle of the
floor.  His breath rushed out in a loud gush.

“
Get out,
Devlin.”

“
I’m not leaving
–”

“
I’m fine, go
now
.  I’ll call you
later.”

My weight wouldn’t be an effective way to
keep Johnny down after he caught his breath.  It would buy
seconds only.  I straddled his hips and pinned his wrists to
the floor beside his head.

“
Get off me,” Johnny
rasped.  The pain in his eyes was a murky mix of physical
battling emotional.

“
Are you ready to
listen?”

“
Like you wanted to listen
to me?  Jesus, Helen.  How could you do this to me –
to
us
? 
With
him
?”

I wasn’t sure how many
more emotional gut punches I could endure in any given day. 
Tears leapt to my eyes.  “What
I
did to us?”

“
I know what this is
about.  I knew what would happen if you saw it in the
paper.  I wanted to explain it to you last night.  It
wasn’t what it looked like, Helen.  I was helping her into her
coat for God’s sake!”

“
Oh, when you left that
message, you said it wasn’t important, didn’t matter.  So
which is it?  Do you have any idea how it made me feel to see
that picture?  We were working a case, Johnny, digging for
information on that son of a bitch you and your pal the governor
saw fit to honor last night.  And what do I see?” 
Moisture dripped from my chin onto his chest.  “I see exactly
how
un
important I
really am.”

I released his wrists and got up.

“
Helen, no.  It’s not
what you –”

“
Just get your things and
go.”  I turned away from him.  “I don’t want to hear
whatever story you’ve concocted now that I’ve arrested your latest
conquest.  Leave Devlin alone.  He’s not part of this,
not the cause, not my future.  He’s a good friend who didn’t
want to see me get hurt.”

“
Doc, please don’t do
this.  We can talk about this.”

“
Don’t call me that. 
I want you to leave.  I’m …” I sighed heavily, wearily. 
“I’m tired, and I want to be alone.”

Behind me, I heard the shift of objects,
Johnny rising from the detritus of our relationship.  More
shuffling.  Suits draping over an arm perhaps.  Hangers
clattered to the floor again.  I felt the warmth of his body
behind me.

“
You closed your
case.”

“
Yes.”

“
Congratulations. 
Whether you realize it or not, you probably helped me with mine
too.”

I snorted.  “Don’t forget to leave the
key and the remote on your way out.”

One hand rested lightly on my
shoulder.  I tensed and stepped away from it. 

“
Will you at least tell me
what happened?  With the case, I mean.  What led you to
Melissa Sherman?”

“
You can read Dev and
Crevan’s case notes.  I’m not a cop anymore,
remember?”

I felt the heat of his hand caress my neck,
no skin contact, just the warmth of proximity.  I
stiffened.

“
I didn’t go to the
hospital.  I didn’t race back here to stop you from proving
that Sherman kidnapped somebody’s baby.  I saw your face,
Helen.  I knew you believed the worst.  I came here
because I wanted to explain.  I wanted… I
want
to tell you everything.  I
don’t care what Joe says or thinks.  I never wanted a single…
secret between us anyway.”  His voice dipped low.  “You
know that, Helen.”

“
What I know is that this
was the biggest mistake of my life.”

One arm wrapped around my shoulders and
dragged me back against him.  I was startled by the tremor
that rippled through him into me.  The crushing grip grew
until I gasped to catch my breath.  Instinct kicked in. 
I was a millisecond from tossing him on the floor again.

Until something wet drizzled down my
neck.  I froze.  What was this?  Tears?  No,
not possible.  I reached for the hand clamped in a vice over
my shoulder.  At the first fraction of contact between my
fingers and his, Johnny shuddered hard.

“
Helen …” he
rasped.

Instinct transformed into something
else.  I clasped his hand.

“
Please don’t do
this.  I love you.  Don’t let a stupid fight and a
horrible misunderstanding ruin us.  I shouldn’t have lost my
temper.  I
do
trust you, more than anyone I’ve ever known.  I always
have.”

The rhythm of speech increased, lowered
tone, whispered nonsense floated into my ear with an urgency that
hurt more than the death grip.  I got the gist.  At least
I thought I did.

Love.  Need. 
Forever.
 

All the while, a slow river flowed over my
neck.

“
Johnny you’re hurting
me.  Let me go.”

“
I can’t.  Please
don’t ask me to walk away.”

“
A little less
pressure.”  I squeezed his hand.  “It hurts.  My
shoulder.”

He let go and twisted me by the waist until
we were face to face.  The crushing embrace returned, buried
my head against his chest.  Johnny’s heart slammed against my
cheek.

“
Easy,” I
hissed.

The grip relaxed, but the motion of his
hands began to shift, subtly at first, then with a distinct level
of desperation.  Up.  Down.  Gentle. 
Loving.  He stroked my back and wept.

“
Hey,” I
murmured.

“
Can we please fix
this?  Helen, I can’t lose you.  I – nothing means
anything to me without –”

Words choked in his chest when I pulled away
and peered up at him.  Unbelievable.  I’d never seen him
this way before.  My hand brushed away the tears from one
cheek.  “He cries.”  Not a mocking judgment.  This
was true wonderment.

“
For you? 
Absolutely.”  More huge droplets rushed toward the
floor.  “Don’t do this, Helen.  Didn’t we mean enough to
at least talk before you throw me out of your life?”  Air
shuddered into his lungs.

That paddle and red rubber
ball I saw in my mind’s eye started flailing again.  My
emotions were pummeled.  Inexplicably.  My mind started
screaming,
this is not me.  I’m the
ice queen.  Something hurts, I walk away and don’t look
back.  What on earth is happening to me?

There was no denying the truth.  His
gaze was my Achilles’ heel.  Him, spider, irresistible
web.  Me, juicy insect with a love for living
dangerously.  Fly too close to the sticky threads and there
would be no escape.

“
Tell me that keeping
Joe’s stupid secret hasn’t ruined us.  I can’t bear to think
–”

“
Shh,” my fingers covered
his lips.

Johnny groaned. 
“Helen, I love
you
.”

“
Tell me one
thing.”

“
Anything,” he mumbled
before nibbling softly at my fingers.

“
Were you getting close to
Sherman’s wife because Joe suspected that he was involved in
something incredibly illegal while he was alive?”

Shock registered in Johnny’s eyes.  “Do
I want to know how you could’ve possibly figured that out?”

I thumbed the remnants of moisture from his
cheeks.  “You’re gonna have to hear it sooner or later. 
What I’d like to know is what you and Joe suspected.”

“
Illegal campaign
contributions,” he said.  “Sherman supported Joe like crazy
until a few months ago.  It was suggested that the right thing
to do was lock Jerry Lowe up at Dunhaven and let him live there
until the psychiatrists deemed him to no longer be a threat to
society.  You can imagine how Joe reacted to that.”

“
Lowe again?  My God,
will that man never stop cropping up in our lives?”

Johnny’s arms tightened
again.  “Our
lives
, as in separate and not together anymore?”

“
I meant in the sense of
Darkwater Bay.  Who was the alternate that Sherman decided to
support when Collangelo balked at the idea and refused to be the
puppet Sherman demanded?”

“
A state senator,”
Johnny’s fear morphed into a frown.  “Terrell
Sanderfield.  He’s a –”

“
The one Devlin told me is
so dead set against the existence of OSI, one rumored to be courted
heavily by Danny Datello to replace Collangelo in the next
election.  Shit.  It
is
all linked.”  I twisted out of Johnny’s
embrace and started pacing.

“
Helen, what the hell are
you talking about?”

“
That baby we rescued this
morning, she was none other than the daughter of Celeste and Danny
Datello.  Tell me it’s a coincidence that Melissa Sherman is
the woman who stole her.”

“
I wouldn’t bet against
you.  What does an infant abduction have to do with the
governor’s race?”

“
He fooled me.  Son
of a …”

“
Who fooled
you?”

“
Datello!”

“
Helen, tell me you didn’t
go talk to him.”

“
Devlin was with me, and
yes, I talked to him.  I had no choice.  His daughter was
missing.  I needed to know if he had anything to do with
it.”

“
You thought he didn’t,
and now you think he did?”

I buried my face in my hands.  “I don’t
know.  I’m so tired, I can’t think straight.”

He stepped into my path.  “Do you want
to be alone?”

My nose was suddenly a snot drizzling
furnace. 

“
Baby…”

“
Johnny, I’m overwrought
right now.”

“
Then let’s fix us before
we talk about the rest of this bullshit.”  He clasped my hand,
not tugging me away, more like a gentle coax toward the
bedroom.  “C’mon.”

“
Johnny –”

“
Do you really want me to
leave?”  The wounded eyes shot straight through an abused
gut.

It wrenched a hole in my earlier
resolve.  Walls.  Crumbling.  Big heaping pile of
ash in the wake of his hope and fear and pain.

“
You don’t have to go,” I
whispered.

Johnny reeled me in and planted light kisses
on my temple.  “You want a glass of wine to settle your
nerves?”

I bolted out of his arms and ran to the
bathroom.  The knot that had been twisting for hours came up
in the form of pure acid.  I gagged.  I coughed.  I
hurled so hard that it felt like my stomach would come up any
second.

Johnny knelt beside me with a cool
cloth.  He pressed it to the back of my neck. 
“Still?”

“
Mm-hmm. 
Unfortunately this mess hasn’t done a whole lot to improve my
condition,” I rasped. 

I wilted over the toilet seat and moaned my
misery. 

“
You’re too weak to walk
to the bed.  Come here.” 

I let him pull me against his chest. 
Johnny scooped me up off the floor and carried me to the bed. 
In minutes, he had me stripped down to my tank and underwear, under
the covers and pillowed against his chest.  One hand sifted
gently through my hair.

“
Better?”

The bone deep exhaustion sucked me into
oblivion before I could form an answer.  I hoped when I woke
that the past day was nothing more than a nightmare.  A
horrible, soul draining fugue of the subconscious.