Fixing Perfect (21 page)

Shocked, Robin stared at him, but he didn't even flicker a glance at her.

“Kerry, you shouldn't trust anybody but your mom and dad, and your sister. Got that? Not me, not Robin, no one. You stay where you're safe.”

“But why? I don't get it, Sam. I don't get it.” Kerry stepped forward, his twisted hands clenched, but his mother grabbed his arm, and she stared at Robin for a moment. Robin couldn't tell if her expression was meant to convey a need for reassurance or disbelief.

She turned to her husband, her voice light and strained. “Do you think we ought to call the others and tell them to meet us someplace else?”

He pointed to a large table, surrounded by at least ten chairs. “They've already set up for us. Give it a rest. He can't do anything with all these people around.”

What had happened to innocent until proven guilty? What had happened to all the things Mrs. Wright had agreed to just that afternoon? But Robin had heard of this kind of betrayal before. She'd just never had to live it.

Donovan stood up. “Look, Coach, I'll be at every game if you want me to. I can run a sort of security.” He gestured at Robin. “She's already asked me to replace him as her runner. It's not like he'll have any reason to be there.” As if not giving Sam the dignity of his name reduced him in stature. As if no one would notice how he'd gone from being their friend to their enemy within a second.

Robin's mouth flew open to correct him, but Sam's hand on her leg stopped her. She glared at him.

He shook his head. “Let it go. It's what I want.” His voice barely reached her with the sound of all the other diners, even though his mouth was only inches from her ear.

She understood, but she hated it. Why was it that, when she imagined offering herself up as bait, it didn't hurt as much as watching Sam doing the same thing? Because she didn't believe it was true, real, until she saw it? Or because she really did care more for him than she did for herself?
No greater love
, she thought and bowed her head. Neither she nor Sam were the first to sacrifice anything, but it still terrified her.

“Regardless.” Danny looked everywhere but at Sam now. “For the protection of all the team, we're giving it a break. No more games until the killer is caught. Until they have the evidence they need.”

“That may take a while.” Donovan smirked at Sam. “Seems they can't find a single thing on him right now.”

“So I've heard.” Danny nodded toward their table and followed the Wrights as they sat down a few yards away.

Kerry hung back, looking agonized, until his mother sharply called his name.

“I can't believe it!” Robin glared at Donovan as he sat back down. “What is with you, turning on Sam like that? After all your talk about how you don't believe it's him, how you believe—” She stopped and forced her voice to a lower level. “And I did
not
ask you to replace Sam. I said if he couldn't make it, you could step in.”

Donovan shrugged. “Same thing. You know, I think I'm going to get some of this spaghetti to go. I get hungry and hate to have to come out to eat alone all the time.”

Sam watched him as he spoke to the waitress, flirting with her and charming her into adding lots of breadsticks and butter to his order.

And Robin watched Sam. The cunning in his eyes scared her. He had a plan, she could tell, and she hoped he'd share it with her before he put it into action. She needed to know, so she could back him up, at least in prayer.

Donovan smirked as he returned. “Robin, you've got to know I was just acting a part. Right?” He slapped Sam on the back before he slid back into his chair. Robin had shoved it away with one crutch; he jerked it even closer to her before he sat down. “Tricking the old coach into a false sense of security, right? It's what they do all the time. You know how they play good cop-bad cop? That was me.” He grinned.

Robin closed her eyes.

When she felt Donovan's arm along the back of her chair, she wanted to duck away from the contact. Her heart burned with anger, and that wouldn't help anyone.

A pleading gaze at Sam brought no relief. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't challenge Donovan. Not that Robin was sure what she wanted. A fight? Punches thrown, bloody noses? How would that help keep Sam out of jail?

She had to force food down a too-tight throat, and pray she got to go home soon.

 



 

Outside the restaurant, Sam debated on how to shake the other man so he could get his girl home by herself. Not that she wanted to be near the guy, but Donovan stuck to her like a starfish to a rock. And terror had made poor Robin about as immobile as said rock. Sam had never seen her give in to fear that way—not when he'd taken her parasailing, not when he'd nearly dropped her in the surf a few days before, not when Danny pitched the ball and it headed straight for her face. Eating dinner with a suspected murderer had brought their shared experiences to a whole new level, and he didn't like it.

But Donovan hurried away before they reached Robin's street, claiming he had to get his package of food to the refrigerator before it started to go bad.

Not before he bussed Robin's cheek.

She froze and rubbed the spot, but as far as Sam was concerned, she was nowhere as nauseous as she ought to be. The guy had kissed her!

Fuming, he bundled her into her cart and climbed behind the steering wheel.

“Sam?”

He jerked the engine into life and didn't answer.

She bounced next to him as he raced home, going over the twenty mile an hour limit by at least two miles, until he parked and helped her out. She refused to move toward the door.

“What was that all about?”

“Let's get inside.” He glanced over his shoulder, not so much because he was nervous, but to convince Robin she should be.

It worked. She shuddered, swung her crutches, and headed for the door. That one of those crutches barely missed his shins, he noticed, and for the first time in days a smile tugged at his mouth. He repressed it. He'd rather see Robin in a temper than immobile with fear.

She stopped again. “Look, you know how he is. He doesn't have much connection with reality when it comes to me. But it's beginning to look like you don't, either.” She didn't yell, but her whisper held the intensity of a bullhorn pressed to the side of his head.

“He's a jerk. And probably a murderer.” And the fact that he was encroaching on Sam's girl was his worst offense, as far as Sam could see.

“What? Where did that come from? He was trying to prove you weren't guilty, that Coach Danny is. How'd you get to blaming him?”

He stroked her cheek, and leaned around her to unlock her front door. “Put the clues together. First, he blamed me. Babe, you're the one who told me Kerry never saw the guy who tried to grab him.”

“So? Donovan did…” Her voice trailed off.

“And what if there was no kidnapper? What if Donovan made it up to make himself look like the hero? And to frame me at the same time?”

She shook her head, backing away from him. “No. He went to Macias and swore the guy wasn't you.”

“Sure, he did. Because you were upset, right? And he knew it. He thinks of himself as your protector. He's crazy, Robin. Can't you see that?”

She shook her head harder, staring at the floor, so her black hair fell over her face and shimmered around her shoulders.

“That's just one thing, babe. He saw us on the beach, remember? And the next day, I saw the scene he set up with his favorite medium. Exactly the same. Remember when I picked you up and held you so the waves just washed over you?”

She nodded without looking up.

“But tonight, there was just something—off—in the way he looked at you. And he bought food.”

Her head jerked up. “So? I suppose even murderers have to eat.”

“And so do the kids they kidnap.”

One crutch clattered to the floor as her hand slapped over her mouth. Sam bent to retrieve it, handed it to her, and guided her to a chair. “Babe. I'm sorry. I know you like him.”

“No, I—not really, not anymore. I just don't want to think he's a—I don't want to think he watches me like that.”

Sam pursed his lips. “So you weren't leading him on? Weren't encouraging him?”

Within seconds he sensed that the question, bad enough on its own, was about to explode in his face.

Anger replaced every last trace of fear, became a slow burning fuse, and he had no idea how close it might come to its target.

“No, I wasn't.” Her eyes narrowed. “But what's it to you if I do?”

He reached for her, and she lifted her arms to push him away. One crutch whacked his thigh before he disentangled it from her hand. Somehow, he managed to get his arms around her, and her head rested against his shoulder.

He'd got her where he wanted her, needed her, but he never believed he'd get her there through an argument and an insensitive witticism.

It felt a bit like when he played her runner, and a bit not. More like playing her lover, and he liked that. He leaned down to kiss her but had only managed one gentle caress on her forehead when someone cleared her throat.

He spun around to see Grams on the stairs with a pile of blankets in her arms.

Sam sighed and stepped away from Robin. He took the blankets and spread them out on the couch. “Thanks, Mrs. Ingram. I'm wiped out. Three days of sleeping in the jail wasn't good for me.”

“Can't be good for anyone.” Grams frowned at Robin. “What's got you all het up?”

Sam felt his eyebrows rise. Hadn't she seen what he'd been doing? He looked at Robin's face and understood. He'd been thinking of kissing her, but she'd needed comfort, that was all.

Later, boy. It'll all come out later.

Robin's eyes widened as she stared at her grandmother. “You're kidding, right? Everything!”

Grams shrugged. “It'll all work out. It always does. I'm more worried about this young man sleeping down here where I can't hear what he gets up to.”

Sam smirked but bent his head to hide it from the women. So she had seen what he'd been doing.

Grams stalked upstairs after a particularly meaningful glare at the two of them.

After she disappeared into the upper hallway, Robin laughed, a short bark that Sam had never heard from her before. “Well, she knows I'm human.” She looked Sam up and down. “Or at least she knows you are. But then, why would she think you'd be interested in me?”

“Don't go there, babe.” He gave her a measuring look and decided she was more exhausted than he was. “I really meant it when I said I was wiped out. How about we go over our plans in the morning?”

That made her smile. “OK. If you promise not to leave me out, that's OK.”

“Never. I'll never leave you out.” He tried to put as much feeling into the words as he could manage.
Just let Donovan make the wrong move, let us catch him, and I'll never leave her side. Please God. Please.

The phone rang and Robin leaned across the couch to pick up the handset.

Mrs. Wright's voice, shaking, terrified, came over, loud enough for Sam to hear. “Where's Sam? You better find him and get Kerry back.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Robin turned toward Sam, her eyes wide and shocked.

“You know what! Kerry's gone.”

 

 

 

 

16

 

It was time. Everything had come together, matched up, made the perfect pattern, and the tapestry said it was time for him to finally take Robin, make her perfect, fix her. Look at the way she'd bumped up against him tonight, shifted closer to him, the sultry looks she'd given him, the fear when she'd looked at Sam.

It was time.

And here was the last thread he needed—the kid, Kerry. All it had taken was a few words of reassurance. After everything they all said to the kid, trying to keep him safe, and all it took was a word or two, and everything was in place. Robin adored the kid, for whatever reason. He'd make them both over, in
his
image, to his design, and she'd love to see them all in her last picture.

It was time to make Robin perfect.

 



 

Becca lay down on her mattress with one hand under her cheek. With the other she scraped the broken end of her toothbrush against the crumbling hole in the wall. Jake knelt next to her and brushed the dust toward the end of the bed and covered as much of the hole as he could with her crumpled sheets.

“There's too much wood,” Becca complained. “It's all sticks.”

Jake pushed her out of the way and prodded the wood with his fingers. “This could be good. We can maybe break them if we can expose enough of it.”

Becca didn't understand what he meant, but she understood the word “good.” She pushed her pillow against the wall and leaned on it, her thumb in her mouth.

They both heard fumbling at the door. Jake was quick. He shoved the sheets up and flew across the room to his own mattress, where he sprawled, just as the door opened and Mr. Bird pushed someone else inside.

The new kid wasn't much taller than Jake, but his face looked older. It looked funny, somehow, but Becca liked it. He limped in, shrugging his shoulders like he didn't want Mr. Bird to touch him. And he was crying.

“Why you doing this to me? I thought you were my friend!”

Jake stood up and moved closer to the boy.

Becca wanted to, too, but she was too scared of Mr. Bird. He might yell at her for being nice to the kid, or he might find the hole.

Mr. Bird glared at Jake. “Back off. He's not going to be here long.”

“What are you gonna do to me?” The new boy wiped his face, and snot smeared across his upper lip. “I wanna go back to my mom. You said I could. You lied!”