Red Silk Scarf (22 page)

           
The door opened, closed.
 
Cassidy did a double take.
 
Michael was unrecognizable without a
disguise, taller than she believed, arm muscles stretching a short-sleeved
shirt, casual slacks and loafers giving him an identity poles apart from what
she imagined.
 
Rugged facial features,
and shoulder length multi-faceted brown hair would cause any female a double
take.
 
At first believing him to be in
his forties somehow overnight he’d lost ten years.
 
The moment their eyes met, she knew he'd kept
his promise, his glance now pleading with her to spill everything.
 

Cassidy couldn't,
not yet; she needed to be positive before ruining Ben’s reputation.
 
Dear God, if he was the killer, if he was
dying, the least she could do was spare him the horrors of Dan’s interrogation
during the last minutes of his life. “I know nothing,” she persisted, her voice
a notch higher brimming with defiance.

“To hell you
say.”
 
Dan's hands gripping her knees
yanking them forward forced them against his private parts.
 
When the pads of his large boned hands rode
her thighs, thumbs stopping just short of her pelvis, she felt instantly ill.
 
With a grip intended to frighten, fingers
biting into tender skin he smacked her legs together.
 

“You pig,”
Cassidy spat in Dan’s face.

Out of the corner
of her eye, she saw Michael charge forward.
 
There was anger crunching his features. “Since when do your duties
include sexual interrogation of a suspect,” he asked through gritted teeth.

           
In retaliation, Dan's hand found her
cheek.

           
Michael's grip locking onto Dan’s
shoulders jerked him to his feet.
 
“Enough!
 
You're completely out of
line.
 
Let her go.”
   

Both held their
ground, chests equally charged while Dan ranted, “Why they sent a woman to do a
man's job, I'll never know.
 
In two
week’s she hasn't come up with a damn thing.
 
Apparently, she's too busy spreading her legs.”
 

Although Sullivan
could not hear what was transpiring, he witnessed the commotion through the
glass window.
 
Dan’s interrogation
methods shocking when he shoved Cassidy against the chair then hauled her to
him.
 
It pleased him when Cassidy
clobbered Dan.
 
He had it coming, but,
when Dan hit Cassidy, unjustifiable behavior that even her profession didn’t
warrant, it awoke his temper from the despair previously preventing him from
coming to her rescue earlier.

Bursting through
the door just in time to prevent Michael's fist from connecting with Dan's jaw
Patrick placed him-self between them, the glare of a gladiator quickly
assessing and knocking them on their ass stilled the room.
  
With a voice firm and decisive, “Excuse the
interruption, but a doctor would like to speak with Cassidy.”
 
Patrick knew the sound of anger out of
control, the reason for lying, for barging in to rescue her from Dan.
 

It was Michael‘s
presence that puzzled Patrick, a man he’d never met.
 
A man who made it to Cassidy first that
helped her stand his hands much too intimately guiding her into the
hallway.
 
Erupting just beneath
Sullivan’s chest was a puzzling jealousy that forced him to follow as if
expecting a liaison in the hallway.
 
Damn
Cassidy, her presence alone made every man cower at her feet, a fact that made
him suddenly realize he’d become her latest victim.

Michael and
Cassidy paused in the hall.
  
Patrick was
on their heels with full intentions of finding out the identity of the
stranger, when, like a gust of fresh air, a woman charged through the emergency
entranceway.

Tough as it was,
Cassidy admitted the goddess entering was positively stunning even with her
hair a tangled mess, clothes obviously pulled on in haste, and no makeup.
  
She could feel the temperature rise in the
hallway as Margie’s glance struck Sullivan.
 
Then, as though she did not have, the strength to go any further, her
chin finding her chest entreated Sullivan to come to her rescue.
 
Rushing to her, he scooped her slight form
into his arms.
 

Cassidy, knew
what those arms felt like that was gathering Margie much too easily lifting her
off the floor, knew the warmth, the strength.
 
Holding Margie familiarly, Sullivan’s lips feathered her face with quick
kisses, their distance not allowing Cassidy to hear what she was certain were
sweet reassurances.
 
A fluttering
heartbeat said she was wondering what each felt for the other.
 
Friend's certainly wouldn't show such emotion
in public, would they, a hell of a question considering she knew the answer.

 
For long seconds, as Patrick hung on rocking
her back and forth, Margie’s tears washed her face.
 
Damn them all, Cassidy seethed, she needed
someone to comfort her too, someone to kiss her, to tell her everything would
be all right.
 
Yes, she admitted, sobbing
inwardly, there were times she needed someone, and as her emotions sunk
further, she realized she didn’t need someone dammit she needed Sullivan.
 

Admirably,
Michael came to her rescue folding her into his beefy arms willingly offering
up his chest to absorb her sorrow, a time when the coldest of winter storms
enveloped her.
 
A storm that became a
full-blown blizzard the moment a doctor appeared.
 
At first Cassidy believed he had news about Ben,
instead, he stopped to speak with Sullivan and Margie.
 
Mark was in stable condition.
 
Miraculously all three bullets missed vital
organs.
 
In time, he'd completely
recover.
 
It was difficult to determine
who cried out their relief louder, Sullivan, Margie or herself.

Following the
doctor, the couple disappeared behind double doors for what seemed an
eternity.
 
Feet riveted to one spot
staring at the same doors, it wasn't until Sullivan and another doctor
reappeared that panic hit full force.
 
As
heavy strides moved them quickly toward Cassidy, Sullivan's gaze unable to meet
hers said it all.
 
He almost reached her
before the walls closed in, the lights swirled above her head, the room spun
and the floor came from beneath her.
  
Amazingly, it took only two words to alter a persons’ life, twist every
fiber of ones’ body into torturous configurations, zap ones breath, crush ones
dreams, and stop a heartbeat.
 
Only two
words, “I'm sorry.”

CHAPTER 17

It took Sullivan,
Michael and the doctor to contain Cassidy.
 
She wanted to see Ben, hold him, say goodbye, “now,” screams that rumbled
through the halls.
 
“Now, let me go.
 
Damn you all to hell.”
 
Super charged with inhuman power, Cassidy
physically lashed out, cursing them, cursing heaven with words that would stain
her soul forever.
 
How could they move
Ben to the morgue so quickly, so coldly as though he was an animal?
 
How, without allowing a loved one time to
accept what happened, time for closure?
 
It was inhuman, inhuman, she vented repeatedly.

A sedative was
the only answer, the doctor advised.
 
With Sullivan and Michael’s help, he managed with great difficulty to
administer the injection, afterwards insisting that Cassidy receive supervised
rest.
 
Michael read clearly the
expression warning him not to challenge Sullivan's insistence.
 
Besides, there was no need to worry any longer
the killer was dead.

____________

Lost in dreams of
family and home, reminiscing about the playful times shared with brothers, the
sound of children's laughter did not seem unusual.
 
It was a man's hearty chuckles that startled
her fully awake.
 
A tremendous alarm
jerked her upright.
 
Quickly inspecting
herself revealed clean snug fitting jeans, a white T-shirt.
 
Nevertheless, she was not, in her bed, her
room, or Sullivan’s.

Coming to her
feet too swiftly added to the pounding in her head and brought on a dizzy spell
that made her clutch the sheer curtains at the window.
 
A slight breeze tinged with the fragrance of
roses helping to balance her equilibrium coaxed a glance downward where
Sullivan was playfully tackling and tossing youngsters into the air.
  

The day was
glorious with sunshine brightening the blue sky dabbed with a favorable amount
of white puffs.
 
Littering the yard were
toys, among them a swing set and wading pool.
 
Two carefully tended gardens proudly boasting vegetables and blooming
bouquets guarded by a freshly painted white picket fence added its share of
charm and protection for life’s treasures.
 
Serenity filled her vision made picture perfect by the beautiful
children, a little girl resembling Margie, and two boys’ resembling Mark.
 

The blow
paralyzing Cassidy’s nerve endings was swift and forceful.
 
She couldn't be, she wasn't, but she
was.
 
Out of nowhere, a cruel reminder of
Ben came as sharp shards of glass slashing her heart.
 
To prevent passing out again her eyes focused
on the photographs' on the dresser, a collection of frames proudly modeling
their snapshots, stuffed here and there in the cracks of the mirror, additional
family memorabilia of infants and family reunions.
 
Not only was she in Mark's home, worse yet in
his bedroom, lying in his bed where he and Margie make love, the father and
husband she encouraged to fondle her.
 
Shaking from head to foot Cassidy whined, “Dear God in Heaven, who was
she?
 
What had she become?”
 
Somehow, she stifled a scream as tears burst
forward.

Feeling an
unbearable heavy weight compressing her ribs, with no thought at all, she
rushed into the hallway and ran down the stairs amazingly missing several steps
without falling.
 
She couldn't stay
somewhere that housed everything sacred in life, everything she’d jeopardized,
and everything she didn’t have.
 

The opened front
door was prepared to swallow her, although now, feeling so vulnerable, so
small, even the tiniest crack would have offered the same reprieve.
 
Never known to be lucky, a little girl
bursting into view from the kitchen with a giant of a man close behind robbed
her escape.
 

           
“Unkie Patrick, Unkie Patrick, she's
up, she's up.”

“I see pudding
face.
 
I see.”
 
So delicate was the toddler with one hand
Sullivan easily hoisted her to his chest.
 
Tiny arms hugged his neck as a precious mouth mashed his cheek.
  
In a matter of seconds, two boys appeared
alongside Sullivan all with questioning eyes aimed at her.

Sullivan’s face
was solemn, his eyes reaching out as though they were stroking her cheek.
 
“Were you going to leave without saying
goodbye?”
 
A reasonable question
inflicted by a deep, soft voice.
 
There
was no smile, no glimmer of amusement in his hypnotic orbs, or sarcasm soiling
the sincerity of the tone.
 
What Cassidy
saw and heard was much more frightening, empathy, from Sullivan of all people.

“Please don't go,
pretty please,” a tiny voice begged sweet enough to wrench even the cruelest
heart.
 
As quickly as the little charmer
entered Sullivan's arms, she wiggled free.
 
Charging Cassidy, she plucked her hand and tugged her back inside.
 
The touch of innocence, of baby soft skin, of
fragility induced a contraction in Cassidy's chest that hurled the smidgeon of
her heart still beating into the narrowed passageway of her throat.
 

Thankfully an
elderly woman, slightly round with pure white hair, magically appearing from
the kitchen, came to Cassidy’s rescue.
 
“Come on young ins it’s time for a snack.”
 
There was the briefest exchange of knowing
smiles before the woman disappeared with all three children obediently
following behind.

Yes indeed
Cassidy was his soft spot.
 
The woman
standing before him had eyes that spoke words in an unspoken tone that drilled
through him to a raw sensitive patch within no woman had ever touched.
 
It wasn’t her trembling; her eyes red rimmed,
her tear streaked cheeks, rather than the painful obviousness that she didn't
want to use additional tears for manipulation.
 
Tears most men didn't understand, or, didn’t want to understand.
 
The result of her bravery was much more
devastating.
 
However inadequate Sullivan
felt, he wanted to do something, anything, to absorb the sorrow she seemed
embarrassed to show.
 
A woman who looked
too precious in well-fitted jeans and a snug T-shirt, hair disheveled, face
rubbed pink from grief.
 
Canvas sneakers
making her much shorter than he remembered brought Little Red Riding Hood to
mind, someone helplessly lost, too proud to admit she needed help, someone, something.
 
God help him, as Sullivan approached he felt
like the big bad wolf about to gobble her up.