Amanda's Blue Marine (36 page)

Mandy swallowed hard and then took a deep breath. “The thought that I’ll never be with him again makes me want to curl up into a ball like wounded animal.”

“You’ll be with him again. Even if he’s convicted he won’t be dead.”

Mandy nodded slowly. “Yes, he will. He’ll be dead to me. He won’t even see me if this goes against him, he’ll convince himself that he’s doing me a favor by dropping out of my life.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know him, I know how he thinks. He won’t see me now because he’s being held without bail and he doesn’t want me to get involved in his defense.” Her shoulders slumped hopelessly. “I didn’t know it was possible to miss anybody this much.”

“It’s new territory for you,” Karen said quickly, still shaken by the emotional response she had provoked. “You like him as much as you love him. Your friend and your lover are both gone.” Karen shrugged. “The truth is that I’m probably jealous. You’ve found that with Kelly and I haven’t found it with anybody.”

Mandy blinked rapidly, touched by Karen’s admission. “I can’t throw it away, and throw Kelly to the dogs, because I was engaged to somebody who wanted revenge when I broke up with him. This was all caused by my bad judgment in letting the thing with Tom get as far as it did when I knew in my heart that I didn’t love him. Kelly is paying the price for my stupidity and I have to fix that.”

“Okay,” Karen said with finality. “No more objections from me, I promise. Good luck. I have to go to work. Is there anything else I can do before I leave?” She was shouldering her purse.

“Say a prayer that I can call Tom’s bluff,” Mandy said simply. She picked up two manila folders sitting on the sofa and stuffed them into her carryall. “I’ll walk out with you.”

The two women headed for the door together.

14

Congressman Thomas Henderson’s office was located a few blocks from the courthouse building and on a workday in late afternoon the traffic was heavy. Mandy threaded her way through the swarming cars and parked in the high rise garage across the street from Tom’s building. She had dressed for this mission in the morning, anticipating her visit and the stir it might cause in Tom’s office. She was wearing her “summary for the jury” suit, navy summer wool with a light gray silk blouse, and low heeled “I’m a serious lawyer” shoes.

She felt confident that she at least looked the part of somebody who could take on a state representative and win.

The lobby of the local state office building was bustling as everyone prepared to leave for the day. Amanda may have imagined it, but she thought that a hush fell over the crowd as she walked through the entrance. She was hardly famous, but some of the people who knew her as Tom’s erstwhile fiancée had to be curious about her sudden reappearance in Tom’s territory. Several of them stared at her openly.

“Is that her?” Mandy heard one woman say in a low tone behind her.

Mandy felt like she should be wearing a scarlet letter, or at the very least a sign reading, “Stalking Victim Who Prefers Cop to Congressman.”

She ignored the whispers and went up one flight to the waiting area outside Tom’s office. It was a marble floored foyer with a series of rosewood benches surrounding an oak coffee table scattered with magazines. She said to the receptionist who was seated at a desk next to the office door, “Hi, Carol. Is Tom available or is he still in committee?”

“He’s still in the meeting,” Carol replied, nonplused by Mandy’s unexpected advent. “And he has several appointments afterwards…”

“I’d like to see him now, as soon as he comes out of the caucus,” Mandy said firmly, not waiting for Carol to put up the standard secretarial roadblocks while she figured out what to do. In Carol’s universe if the boss’s ex showed up unexpectedly it could spell trouble for the unfortunate assistant who admitted the old girlfriend.

“I don’t need to go into his office to wait,” Mandy added. “The reception room will be fine.”

Carol was uncertain about Mandy’s current status with Tom and afraid to annoy the wrong person. She said, “I’ll have to check. I don’t know if he has anyone with him now.”

Mandy took pity on Carol and said, “Go talk to him and tell him it’s urgent. I’m sure he’ll want to see me. I’ll take responsibility for the interruption.”

Carol surrendered and whisked down the echoing hall rapidly, her heels clicking on the glossy tiles as Mandy walked in the other direction. Mandy entered a small room furnished with a conference table and chairs used for Tom’s more intimate meetings when the larger chambers were occupied. It was private and she knew the door could be locked.

She didn’t want to confront Tom in public or at his apartment, and she didn’t want witnesses to their interaction.

Carol returned in a minute and forty-five seconds, a sure sign that Tom was eager to engage his former fiancée in the conversation which would flaunt his victory. He’d put Kelly on the ropes and now had Mandy as a supplicant, and he was going to savor a position of dominance he had not enjoyed in some time.

Tom thought he had the whip hand and Mandy knew he would be relishing it.

“He’ll see you now,” Carol said quietly to Amanda. As she moved to go Tom appeared behind her, let her pass him, and then shut the door, turning the lock to block entry from the hall.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said cordially as he wheeled to face her. “What brings you here?”

Mandy had seen him adopt many tactics in his dealings with people, and this was his least attractive mode, playing innocent while he moved in for the kill.

“How’s your nose?” Mandy asked, and that threw him off course a bit. He had expected her to start pleading, not open a discussion of the injury which had landed Kelly in jail.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly, tap dancing out of reach.

“You don’t look fine,” Mandy said, yanking him back into boxing range, observing the heavy tape across the bridge of his nose and the technicolor bruising around his eyes.

Tom appeared annoyed at her deft feinting to get him off balance and decided to drop the false pleasantries. He said, “I don’t look as bad as your boyfriend will when I’m through with him.”

Gotcha, Mandy thought. Let’s cut through the slush and take the gloves off now, Tommy boy. She could hardly believe she’d once consented to marry this man. Seeing him in this light made her wonder how she had ever brought herself to talk to him, much less have sex with him.

“Do you really think you can get Kelly on attempted murder, Tom?” she asked conversationally, as if his answer were just a matter of curiosity. “Isn’t aggravated assault or assault with a deadly weapon enough?”

“Attempted murder is the charge the DA’s office is seeking,” Tom said with satisfaction. “We’ll see what the judge has to say about it when he hears the evidence of your lover’s long history of violent aggression.”

“You mean his long history of public service in the Marines and on the police force? His commendation for saving an innocent citizen from a dangerous predator?” Mandy asked.

“What about his recent history of killing a human being with that kickboxer stunt?” Tom countered.

“He killed Cameron to prevent Cameron from killing me,” Mandy said simply. “A jury would certainly take that into consideration.”

“And what would a jury take into consideration regarding his attack on me?” Tom asked, feigning ignorance. “His inability to control an ungovernable temper? I was unarmed and defenseless when he jumped me. He has the self control of a two year old in tantrum mode.”

“That isn’t true. During that Cameron episode I saw him in many situations that would have tested the patience of a saint and he never exploded. He’s remarkably stable and calm in the most trying circumstances. What did you say to him about me that caused him to react?”

Mandy bit back a reply, aware that aggravating Tom was not going to accomplish her goal. She paused to marshal her resources, and when she looked back at Tom she saw that he was smiling fatuously.

“I’m going to ruin him, Amanda dear, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “Your father doesn’t have enough money to buy your defrocked detective out of this one. You’d better hope Jonathan has enough money to even pay for his defense. I expect you’ll be invading your trust fund after a few months. Criminal defense attorneys are very expensive and your lover is going to be tough to defend. Did you know that he was part of an elite death squad in the Marines, something called the blue dog commandos? Second battalion, fourth Marines? They were sent in first to clear the path for an insurgence with a scorched earth policy, sort of a ‘kill everybody you see and ask questions later’ directive. That’s what he was doing in Operation Desert Fox at age eighteen, nineteen. He was a corporal assigned to a medical unit, bringing out the dead. Oh, I can see by your expression that this is news to you.”

Amanda made an effort to compose her features. So she was most likely right about the source of Kelly’s nightmares, and now knew the reason for her father’s remark about Kelly’s “brutal” service record.

“Hasn’t told you everything, has he?” Tom sneered. “And what’s even more interesting than that, you haven’t looked. Afraid of what you might find, Miss Fixit? You located the dirt on me in five minutes flat, but your boyfriend’s past remains a mystery because you don’t want to know the details. Much more fun to keep him in bed with you than to face the fact that he’s a maniac.”

Amanda refused to take the bait, staying silent.

“Well, I can tell you a few things about him. He keeps getting medals and commendations for bravery and conduct beyond the call, yadda-yadda, but the same people handing him the goodies also think that he has a screw loose. If you read between the lines in his records it’s clear that he was a great soldier and he’s an even better cop, but that’s because he’s crazy. He takes chances no one else would take and has a complete disregard for his own safety.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s crazy, Tom, it means he can put someone’s else welfare before his own. A new concept for you, I would imagine,” she said sarcastically.

“I’m sure that’s the way you want to see it, Amanda,” Tom replied. “Your take on his behavior paints him in a heroic light rather than showing him up for the wild card that he actually is. His so-called rescue of you from Cameron has all the earmarks of one of his stunts, demonstrating how he has a little trouble staying inside the ropes. His bosses all give him an okay on it because he’s such a great guy, so tough and sooo brave doncha know, but it’s clear that even his lieutenant on the police force is always worried that he’s going to jump the rails. That guy Manning tap danced through hoops to keep Kelly employed after the Cameron episode, with the result that your boy was around to do this to me.” Tom indicted his smashed nose with a forefinger. “He needs to get the message that his acting out is going to cancel his ticket, and I’m going to send it to him.”

“Ah, but you are, aren’t you, Amanda? That’s why you’re here. You’re a little more conversant with the legal details than your caveman lover and you know I’ve got him by that part of his anatomy which is so precious to you.” Tom feigned puzzlement. “What I keep wondering is why so many of his superiors have covered up for him, backed him when he was going ballistic and made excuses for him. Even Rhinegold’s office didn’t want to indict him at first, after I gave them the case on a silver platter.”

“Maybe they like him,” Mandy said simply. “I liked him right from the start. He’s likable.”

“Until you get to know him better and realize he’s deranged?”

“When I got to know him better I realized I wanted him,” Mandy fired back maliciously, unable to keep it inside. “I wanted him so badly that nothing else mattered to me except getting with him.”

“So that’s his secret?” Tom observed nastily. “Pretty gets a pass everywhere, apparently. Do you really think that getting laid, even by your war hero, is worth all this trouble?”

“It’s much more complicated than just getting laid, although I realize it makes you feel better to put everything on that level. You can feel superior to me if I’m a silly girl who got obsessed with a handsome jerk and trashed her life over it. That’s not what is happening but if you prefer to believe that scenario there’s nothing I can do about it. What I don’t understand is the depth of your vendetta against him. Why do you have to be the instrument of his destruction? If he’s that much of a fool he’ll fall anyway eventually even if you have nothing to do with it, right?”

Tom shrugged. “He’s a fraud, Amanda. He puts on that blue cop suit like it’s a Halloween costume and he looks so good that nobody goes beyond it to see the street brawler underneath it. Nobody has ever taken this guy to task for his reckless behavior, and so he’s free to add more incidents to his colorful record.”

“How do you know all this about his record? Those files are confidential.”

Tom rubbed his fingers together, grinning. “I can play people too, Amanda. You don’t have a monopoly on eliciting information. I may not have as much clout as your daddy but I can find out what I want to know.”

Amanda sighed. She had always known that Tom and her mother were siblings under the skin. The first instinct for both of them was to get the bad news about Kelly’s past.

“Your boyfriend has been covering himself with glory at all stops along the way and his current file is no better,” Tom continued blandly, like a news anchor delivering information. “Kelly has a quadruple death belt in kung fu or tae kwon do or ju jitsu or whatever martial art the cops are currently using to kill people. He broke Cameron’s neck with one kick. I checked the autopsy report. He also damaged Cameron’s carotid artery so badly with one blow that Cameron would not have survived that either. It won’t be tough to convince a jury that Kelly’s a violent cop, a killing machine. I just got in his way and with our personal history he wanted to finish me off and tried to do it. That punch in the face he gave me can drive bone fragments up into the brain. That’s another karate trick I’m sure he didn’t describe to you. That I survived was just his bad luck.”