Operation Reunion (18 page)

Chapter 31

“G
uard, Cutter. Make a move and he’ll tear your throat out,” Quinn said pleasantly. Cutter growled for effect.

Kayla smothered a gasp at the threat. She was shaking, knowing she’d be unable to believe what she’d heard come over the small radio until she got inside and saw it for herself. Now that she was there, she wanted to rush forward those last few yards, but both Hayley and Dane were solidly between her and the goal.

And then Quinn was there, talking into his walkie-talkie.

“—pole out at the road, see if you can jury-rig some lights. Stay alert—this is a big place. Cutter hasn’t triggered on anything else in here, but he’s pretty focused just now.”

“Copy,” Rafe’s voice came back.

Quinn turned to Kayla. “I’ve searched him for weapons, and he’s clean, but I still want you to stay back far enough that he can’t get his hands on you.”

She started to say if it was her brother he wouldn’t hurt her, but she held it back. “It’s really Chad?”

“Yes.”

She shivered again, her emotions a tangled mess of anticipation, excitement, apprehension and a tinge of fear. But overriding them all was the sense that it was finally done, her brother was finally home.

“Please, I need to see him.”

“I know. Just don’t let your emotions overrule common sense. We don’t know the truth yet.”

She nodded.

“He doesn’t know you’re here. I want to watch his reaction when he sees you. It may tell us something.”

“All right.”

She was aware Dane hadn’t said a word, but that was better than having him make some comment that would tear her up even more inside. Still, she couldn’t help glancing at him.

To her surprise, he softly said, “Go ahead. You’ve been living for this moment for ten years.”

There was no criticism, no harshness in his tone, and for an instant he was the old Dane, solid, supportive, strong. Impulsively she reached out, took his hand and squeezed it. Then she turned and walked the last few steps to where that blessed dog who had begun all this sat.

Now that the time was here she was a shaky mess, she thought, pausing to pet the dog instead of hurrying forward. But finally she turned to face the culmination of ten years of faith, loyalty and determination. Quinn turned the bright light on him.

He was a huddled, dirty mess, with what looked to be a blanket tossed onto the floor beside him. He was unshaven, his hair scraggly and unkempt under a red baseball cap that had also seen better days. He put up a hand against the glare, blocking her view of his face. Kayla saw the hand was dirty. But it wasn’t that that make her heart leap—it was the little finger on that hand, crooked and bent slightly inward, a souvenir from a long ago incident with a car door.

“Chad,” she whispered, barely able to keep herself from ignoring Quinn’s order to stay back.

Her first thought was that the computer-aged picture had been startlingly accurate. Her second was that good as it had been, it hadn’t been able to show the haggard, haunted look in her brother’s eyes. He was twenty-eight, but he looked ten years older. Ten long, hard years.

She realized that while he was lit up as if on a stage, she was still in shadow to him.

“It’s me,” she said.

He didn’t answer, just sat with a hand still up to shade his eyes from the brightness of Quinn’s powerful flashlight.

A second later a bank of lights far above came to life. Rafe, she thought, out at the power pole on the road. They only lit this corner of the spacious building, but it was enough that Quinn shut off the flashlight.

Chad dropped his hand then, and Kayla saw that although perhaps he didn’t look quite as badly as he had in the flashlight’s harsh beam, he still looked tired, dirty and worn.

And beaten. Broken. Smaller somehow. It was definitely Chad, although the cocky grin, the swagger, seemed gone. Even the dimple that had so charmed everyone seemed to have morphed into just a long crease in a tired face.

She wanted to go to him, wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him, but Quinn was close enough to stop her, as was Dane, and she had no doubts that they would.

She stared at her brother.

“Are you all right?”

It was, she supposed, a silly question, but it was the first thing that came to her mind.

“Is that your damned dog? Get him away from me.”

For the first words she’d heard him speak in ten years, they certainly lacked something. Kayla looked at Cutter, who was sitting obediently, although he never took his eyes off Chad.

“If it wasn’t for him, we’d never have found you.”

“I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”

“He won’t hurt you.”

Chad looked doubtful, but he let it go.

“Who are these guys?”

His gaze shifted from Quinn to Dane, and he frowned. Kayla drew back slightly; did he really not recognize Dane?

Quinn stayed silent but glanced at Dane. She couldn’t see what passed between the two men, but it was Dane who spoke.

“I’m the guy who tries to clean up the damage you leave behind,” he said.

Chad’s eyes widened. “Burdette?” He looked Dane up and down. “It sounds like you, but...”

“Ten years makes a difference. Whether you’re going up—” Dane looked at Chad in a similar fashion “—or down.”

Chad didn’t even respond to the jab—there was no sign of the old rivalry. Her brother just seemed bewildered.

“You’re still around?” he asked. “I mean, you two, together?”

“For now,” Dane said.

Stung by the reminder Dane’s words made clear, Kayla took a step forward. Dane put a hand on her arm, stopping her. She shook him off.

“Can’t you see he’s not a threat?”

“What I see is the guy who ran and left you to deal with everything by yourself. Even if he is innocent—and I’m not convinced—that makes him a damned son of a bitch in my book.”

Somehow his words, even though they accused her brother, made her feel better. He was angry, yes, but he was angry on her behalf, and that gave her hope.

“I am innocent!” Chad burst out. “I swear, Kayla, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.”

She turned back to her brother. “Then why did you run?”

“You know why. You know the police had me tried and convicted and on my way to the death penalty.”

“All you had to do was tell them the truth, that you happened to get there right after, that’s why your fingerprints were in the wet blood. You got scared and ran, that’s all. Anybody would have.”

Chad stared at her, looking nonplussed. Then, he smiled. To her discomfort, Kayla noticed a faint trace of his old smugness, the kind he’d shown when he’d done something he knew he’d get away with. But it vanished the moment Dane spoke.

“Well, well,” Dane said. “If only you’d thought up that story at the time, eh, Chad?”

Kayla flushed, but she couldn’t deny Chad’s reaction when it was right in front of her. Apparently her neat little story was just that, a story she’d made up to explain what had happened. Chad’s expression made it clear that it wasn’t the truth.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “I can’t even think I’m so hungry.”

Tension filled Kayla as she wondered what he would have said if he could think. Would he have gone along with her version of events? Would he have let her believe what obviously wasn’t the truth if only he’d been quick enough to grab at the out she’d given him?

“You don’t need to think,” Dane said, “just talk. Tell her the truth. She deserves that after standing by you for ten years.”

“Can’t we go someplace where I could eat?”

“You buying?” Dane asked, and Chad flushed.

“We can go someplace else,” Quinn said, the first time he’d spoken since he’d turned the flashlight on for her, “but if we do, I’ll be obligated to call the police first. I don’t feel like explaining why we let a double murder suspect leave the scene where we found him.”

Chad blinked. “You’re not the police?”

“No,” Quinn said. “But they can be here quickly enough. So now’s your chance to tell your sister the truth. Maybe your only chance.”

Kayla had been watching him carefully, looking for any trace of the young, carefree kid she’d known. She found nothing. And for the first time in her life, she wondered how much of Chad’s cheerful bluster had been a facade. Maybe deep down he’d been as uncertain as she had once been, only he’d hidden it so well he’d never developed the real confidence of someone who’d learned their own worth as they built it. He’d never really grown up because he’d always pretended to already be there.

“I didn’t do it,” Chad said stubbornly. “They pissed me off all the time, but I didn’t kill them.”

Kayla should have felt vindicated. After all these years of believing just that, she should have been overjoyed at hearing it from Chad’s own mouth. But she wasn’t. Not that she didn’t believe him; she could tell he was telling the truth. But she knew that look, that hangdog expression, all too well. His appearance may have changed, but his expressions had not, and the way he wouldn’t look her in the eye was an old, familiar warning that her brother wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“You always were a master of omission,” Kayla said. “So what are you leaving out now?”

Chad seemed surprised. That she’d called him on it? She remembered that brief flash of smugness and realized sadly that he’d been feeling smug because, as always, she had come up with an explanation for him. His little sister would bail him out again, as she always had.

“Nothing,” he insisted. He glanced at Quinn. “Who the hell is this? And who’s she?” he said, looking past Quinn to Hayley. “Is that their dog? Can’t you get him out of here? He keeps staring at me.”

Kayla expected Quinn to answer, but he said nothing. Nor did Hayley, although she whispered something to Cutter, something Kayla guessed was a keep doing what he was doing because that’s what he did.

Apparently this was all Kayla’s now. “They and their organization found you for me,” she said.

Chad’s eyes flicked to Quinn again. “You’re them? The do-gooders?”

Dane went very still. Kayla saw him exchange a pointed glance with Quinn. Quinn gave a slight shake of his head. And suddenly Dane was on the offensive.

“Is that what your partner told you? That Foxworth was looking for you? That they wouldn’t give up until they found you? Why’d you come back if you knew Foxworth was here? Did he tell you to?”

Chad frowned at the rapid-fire questions and shook his head as if he were having trouble sorting it all out. She understood that; she herself wasn’t sure what Dane was about here.

“He didn’t say anything about any Foxworth,” Chad said. “Just said she brought in professional help this time, good help, and that I should get back here so we could figure out what to do.”

“Well, well,” Quinn said, echoing Dane’s earlier comment as he glanced at him. “Nicely done.”

“Learned a lot,” Dane agreed, seemingly pleased at Quinn’s praise.

Kayla was feeling a bit confused herself. “Learned what?”

“That he did just come back, which makes our homeless witness accurate. That he knew you had help this time, and that it was good help. So someone’s reporting to him. Which brings us to the other thing he just admitted.”

“I didn’t admit anything,” Chad protested.

“Sure you did,” Dane said. “You admitted there
is
a partner.”

Kayla realized she indeed had been a bit slow.

And that once more, Chad had deceived her, had lied to her face.

What that made her, she didn’t want to think about.

Chapter 32

K
ayla was shaken, Dane could see that. He had to remind himself again that seeing to her, comforting her, wasn’t his job anymore. At the same time, that little voice in his brain was telling him it was only human kindness to comfort someone in distress—it didn’t have to be personal.

Didn’t have to become...intimate.

Except with Kayla it usually did. He didn’t seem to have any amount of willpower she couldn’t overcome, not by trying, coaxing, wheedling. That wasn’t her way. She simply was who she was, who she always had been, and she was irresistible to him.

Or had been, until her obsession had finally pushed him over a line he couldn’t cross and still live with himself.

And now here she was, face-to-face with the object of that obsession, and Dane could easily tell she wasn’t happy with what she was seeing. He didn’t blame her; his own dislike for her brother aside, it had to be a shock to see the wreck he’d become at only twenty-eight. He barely recognized the once-handsome, charming Chad Tucker in the dirty, skinny guy with badly cut, scraggly hair and sunken eyes before them now.

And he could see in Kayla’s face that she knew he was, even now, still lying to her. Or at least not telling her the whole truth. Hayley had moved to Kayla’s side and whispered something to her. Dane wondered if it had something to do with him because it was he Kayla glanced at for an instant before she turned back to Chad.

“Who is it?”

Kayla’s words were flat, emotionless. Chad shifted uncomfortably.

“Who’s helping you?” she asked again. And then, as the conclusion he’d reached a while ago struck her visibly, she added, horror echoing in her voice, “Is it whoever helped you that night? Helped you get away?”

Something about the way she said it got through to Chad. “You do think I did it! You think I killed them, don’t you?”

He was nearly shouting, and Cutter let out a warning rumble. Chad drew back, glancing warily at the dog.
Good boy,
Dane thought.

“Atta boy,” Hayley said to the dog, loud enough this time for Chad to hear.

“I’ve spent ten years of my life trying to prove you didn’t,” Kayla shot back at her brother. “With no help from you. Nothing but a note every few months to let me know you were alive.”

“Or to keep you dancing on his string,” Dane said. “So you’d be focused on looking for him, instead of—”

He cut off his own words as Kayla’s head snapped around and she looked at him. It would be better if she got to that realization on her own. And she did it so quickly he knew she’d already thought of it before.

“Instead of thinking about who did do it, if he didn’t?”

“Yes,” Dane said simply.

“But why would he do that?”

“Good question,” Dane said.

She whirled back on her brother. “Tell me the damn truth, Chad. Or are you so twisted now you can’t?”

“I didn’t kill them,” he insisted.

Kayla made a small, harsh sound. Dane knew her so well he could almost follow her thoughts. She’d waited so long to hear that from her brother, and now that she had, it only emphasized what he wasn’t telling her. She seemed to finally realize he’d been playing her all these years.

She turned away, shaking her head slowly, like a wounded animal. It was more than Dane could take. He glanced at Quinn, but the man merely nodded; apparently he was satisfied with the way things were going. Dane looked back at Chad.

“Then why did you try to kill your own sister?” Dane demanded.

Chad gaped at him. “I didn’t! I wouldn’t.”

He ignored the denial. “For that matter, how did you even know where she lives now?”

Dane didn’t make a move toward the man, but Chad cringed backward anyway. He seemed shrunken, a long, long way from the swaggering, cocky bully he’d once been. He would have almost felt sorry for him—if not for the thought of Kayla nearly dying in her burning house.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kayla whirled back. “You were there. You were seen there.”

When Chad looked away, still refusing to speak, Dane’s disgust spilled over. “This is pointless.”

“Yes, it is,” Kayla said, surprising him with both her words and her tone; her voice was a harsh, bitter thing. She looked at Quinn. “You might as well call Detective Dunbar.”

Quinn nodded. “Between us we’ll find whoever it is he’s protecting. Just like we found him. Of course, it’ll go worse for him—” he jerked a thumb toward Chad “—because he refused to cooperate, but he’s already in so much trouble it won’t matter much.”

“Wait, wait,” Chad stammered. “Kayla, you can’t do that. I’m your brother.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Dane asked, almost astonished at the man’s refusal to understand. “You think you’re just going to take off again, run?”

Chad looked at him. His words were tinged with his old bluster, but Dane saw the doubt in his eyes. “She won’t turn me in.”

“This is for real, Chad. It’s out of your hands, our hands. You won’t tell your own sister, the woman who’s stood up for you for ten damned years, the truth, but I bet by the time the police get done with you you’ll spill it all.”

“But—”

“And they’ll realize quickly enough you didn’t do it all on your own,” Dane said. “You’re not smart enough.”

Chad let out a foul curse. “You always did think you were so smart.”

“He didn’t think it,” Kayla said softly, “he knew it. Because he is.”

A stab of pain at the quiet declaration shot through Dane as he glanced at her. But she wasn’t looking at him; she was staring at her brother. This time he wasn’t sure what she was thinking, only that she was; her expression told him her mind was racing.

“You two are the perfect couple,” Chad said, that trace of bluster growing stronger. “You always thought you were better than everyone.”

Dane almost laughed at that; Chad seemed to have a very different memory of their adolescence than he and Kayla had.

“If that’s the way you feel about me, then why did you come back at all?” Kayla asked. She sounded flat, emotionless. “Why the notes even? Why bother?”

Chad shifted, as if her tone had made him uncomfortable, draining away some of his regained swagger. “You’re my sister.”

“And that obviously means less than nothing to you because you won’t even tell me the truth.” She looked at Quinn again. “Make the call.”

Quinn nodded and pulled out his phone. Kayla again turned away.

“No!”

Chad’s regained facade of confidence crumbled like the shaky structure it had been. Perhaps had always been, Dane thought. Chad wasn’t inherently mean, like some. With the knowledge of maturity, something Chad had never achieved, Dane realized that behind the bullying exterior had likely been an uncertain, timid kid. It didn’t excuse his behavior, but he understood better now than back then, when he’d only been angry and scared at being a target.

And out of that had come his resolve to change that, to become someone nobody would mess with. The pact made with Kayla that long-ago day, to defy the expectations of those who judged on appearance alone, had arisen out of her brother’s bullying, although she’d never known it until today. So in a twisted sort of way, he supposed he owed Chad a thank you. He was who he was today in part because of him.

Kayla looked at her brother over her shoulder. “If you’re telling the truth, if you didn’t kill our parents, you’re protecting who did. And you expect me to keep protecting you?”

“Kayla—”

“You’re not worth it. And you’re surely not worth what you’ve cost me. The man I’ve lost over you is worth a million of you. Ten million. I’ve been a fool to believe in you.”

She turned and started to walk away. Dane watched her, feeling tangled inside, proud that she’d done it, sorry for the pain that had been in her voice and shaken by hearing her declaration of tremendous love and loss in the same sentence.

The sound of her footsteps echoed in the cavernous room. For a long, torturous moment that was the only sound. And then, finally, Chad broke.

“It was Troy!” he shouted.

Kayla stopped. Dane’s head snapped back. His brows furrowed.

Kayla slowly turned around.

“Troy?” she said. “You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“It was him.”

Cutter was on his feet, apparently reacting to the sudden upswing in tension. For the first time the dog looked away from Chad, while Dane himself was staring at the guy in disbelief. It echoed in his voice.

“Of all the people you could try to pin this on, you pick on the poster boy for goodness and clean living? The adults’ favorite ‘why can’t you be more like him?’ guy?”

“It was him,” Chad insisted. “We were both there that night, but I only wanted the money. Troy was broke, I was broke, and his car payment was due and I wanted to buy a motorcycle, and I remembered dad’s stash.”

“You knew about the money in his desk?” Kayla looked puzzled.

“God, you didn’t?”

Kayla shook her head. “I thought it was just all the important papers—birth certificates, insurance, that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, they were in there, too. Troy was looking through it all, searching for more money.” Chad shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t know he kept over five grand in there.”

“How did you know?”

“I overheard him telling Mom about it, in case she ever needed it.”

“So you snuck into the house intending to steal from your own father?”

Chad’s smugness at her lack of knowledge vanished.

“Hey, I asked him for a loan, and he said no.”

“Maybe because he knew you wouldn’t pay it back?” Dane suggested. He knew a whine was about to ensue as Chad opened his mouth to protest, and he was in no mood. He cut him off with an impatient question. “What happened?”

Chad seemed distracted by Cutter as the dog began to turn in place, sniffing and listening at every angle. But after a moment he went on.

“I don’t know how they heard us. I thought they were upstairs. But they walked in on us. Dad saw the money in my hand and saw Troy digging through the drawer. He yelled. And Troy freaked.”

“Freaked? And killed both your parents?” Dane couldn’t picture the always polite, charming Troy doing any of this. The guy had never been in trouble. He was the proverbial good kid, the one every parent wished was their own. Smart, well-mannered, polite—all those things adults treasured in teenagers.

“He did,” Chad insisted.

Now if he’d said Rod, that he could believe. But Troy? He couldn’t help thinking Chad was pulling this out of thin air, trying to save himself. Maybe Troy was just the first person to pop into his mind when cornered.

“Where’d he get the knife?”

Chad didn’t look at him; he kept his pleading gaze on his sister. “It was him, I swear. I didn’t know he’d brought a knife. I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. Until it was over.”

Cutter growled, and Chad lowered his eyes to the dog uneasily. Kayla took a few steps back toward him.

“Why did you run?” she asked.

Chad’s head came up. “Because I knew they’d suspect me. Troy told me I’d better get out of there. Because it was my idea to take the money, he said I’d take the fall. Besides, nobody would ever believe it was him.” Chad flicked Dane a glance. “Because of just what you said. I was the one with a record.”

“And he just stayed here? Went on with his life?” Kayla demanded.

“And you just let him?” Dane added.

“He sent me money.” Chad’s voice was resentful, and Dane wasn’t sure who it was aimed at. Life maybe. He was the type. “He owed me for what he did.”

“Owed
you?
” Dane nearly shouted it. “You were eighteen, technically an adult. Your sister was only sixteen!”

“It wasn’t my fault! Once he found out about the money, there was no stopping him. Besides, he warned me to stay away, told me that they were still looking for me, that I was still the only suspect.”

“And I suppose the thought that your good friend should confess and take the heat off you never occurred to you?”

Chad shifted uncomfortably, and Dane guessed it had indeed occurred to him more than once. “But he said we’d both go to jail,” Chad whined, “and this way at least we both were free.”

“If you call this free,” Dane muttered, indicating Chad’s sorry state with a tilt of his head.

“It wasn’t my fault. I never—”

“You never thought anything was ever your fault,” Kayla said. Dane had once thought he’d give anything to hear her say that, but there was such pain in her voice he took no pleasure in it now. “But you got our parents murdered as surely as if you’d used the knife yourself.”

“I never touched them!”

“Your partner was right about one thing,” Quinn said, breaking his silence. “In the eyes of the law you’re equally culpable. You broke into a residence with the intent to commit a felony, and in the course of that felony, two people were killed.”

“But I didn’t mean for anything to happen to them!”

“And I’m sure the jury will take your good intentions into account, right before they convict you of murder,” Dane said, only realizing as he said it that he was buying Chad’s story. It was too stupid, too ridiculous for him to have made it up. And it was just like Chad. His always-looking-for-the-easy-way selfishness had not only cost his own parents their lives, and nearly destroyed Kayla’s, it had cost him the woman he’d loved. Restraint was beyond him at the moment.

“I can’t believe this,” Kayla whispered, sounding a little shell-shocked. “Or rather, I can, and it makes me sick. You make me sick. All these years I wasted, while all along you—”

She broke off as a low, threatening growl rumbled up from Cutter’s throat. The dog whirled and took off at a head-down dead run toward the back of the building.

Quinn swore. “I knew something was up with him. I should have paid more attention.”

Dane realized Cutter’s restlessness hadn’t been merely reaction to the tension. “He’s headed toward the stairs,” he said as the dog left the lighted area and disappeared into the shadows. “It’s like a loft, and the office and storage rooms used to be up there.”

“He heard something. Sensed something. And now he knows. Somebody must have gotten in when Rafe went to rig the lights.” Quinn’s voice turned sharp as he looked at Dane. “Get Kayla and Hayley outside, back to the car.”