Running From Fate (4 page)

By the time she screeched to
a halt in front of the parlor, she
was flushed and out of breath. 
She took a moment to calm herself, p
ushed open the door and froze. 
It wasn’t
James
at all
,
she realized with some deflation
,
and she
ha
d been stupid to think it was.  He was off at Cornell. 
Instead
,
it was
Patrick Kelly
, his father and her honorary godfather, who
sat in the faded armchair in front of the fireplace.

Physically, he appeared
the same as he alway
s had with his bright red hair and
blue eyes. 
With his tall, broad-shouldered body, he had always reminded her somewhat of Santa Clause, but there was nothing cheerful about him today
.  He
looked defeated.

“Hell
o Mira,” he said as he
slowly
stood up
and face
d
her
.
“We need to talk.
Why don’t you come over here and sit down.
”

“What are you doing her
e
Uncle
Pat?
”
s
he said with confusion coating her voice.
“Did
my parents send you to pick me up?
Have they changed their minds?
Will I be going home
? 
Wait a minute,
”
she croaked
in dawning horror. 
“Is James ok?”

“
As far as I know my son is fine
.
”
He ran fingers through his hair and looked at her, his eyes pleading.
“
Now c
ome have a seat.”

“Why does your voice sound so hoarse?
” 
As a horr
ible suspicion crept up on her,
her own voice cracked
.
Because of the two men’s friendship, her dad had always told her that Pat would look after her if he couldn’t.
T
ears
started
coursing down her face and she wiped at them with hands that had begun to shake.

“I’m sorry baby,” he said.
 
“
There was
a horrible accident and your parents were run off the road. 
The doctors tried, but there was nothing they
could do.
”

“No, oh no.”  She would never have the chance to tell her mother she was sorry
for yelling at her
.  Never again would she curl up on the couch w
hile
her dad told her stories of Ireland, his brogue
thickening with every word. 
Overwhelmed by the loss,
her knees buckled and
she crumpled to the floor.

Pat
walked forward and
lifted her up
, cradling
her like a baby.  She clung to
him as if he was the only stable
thing left
in a world gone mad
.

James dumped his suitcase on the single bed in his small apartment and seriously considered taking a shower.
He
had just come back from a week-
long conference
in Dallas and he was wrung out, but t
he light on his answering machine was blinking
.
There was always the possibility that
it was
something important.
He reluctantly turned away from the bath
room
.

Just as he was about to push play so
meone knocked loudly
.
With a muttered curse, he stalked across the sm
all living room with its second-
hand furniture and pulled open the door.

“Mr. Kelly,”
the burly police officer said
brusquely
.  “I need you to come with me.  We
have some questions to ask
regarding your relationship with Sean Sweeney
.
”

“Well,” James replied
just as
curtly.  “Why don’t you go and ask him instead.”  He started to close the door, so exhausted he could have slept standing up.  Perhaps bed first.  The door was
suddenly
pushed open, shoving him back. 

“I would ask him,” the man stated calmly
, “but that’s impossible
.  Sean Sweeney
is dead
.”

James stumbled backward and hit the coffee table.  He would have fallen if the officer hadn’t grabbed his shoulder.  “I don’t understand,” he croaked as anguish thickened his voice.  “How can he be dead?”  And then it hit him
.  There
was only one reason the police would come.  “Did somebody kill him?”

“You
have to come with me,
”
the officer said.

Still in a daze James allowed himself to be maneuvered out the door and into the police car.  H
e couldn’t believe that the
man,
who had been his mentor, his friend, and more like his father than his boss, was dead.  That he w
ould never see him again. 

H
e was so mired in depression that it wasn’t until he was sitting in a hard chair with a harsh light above him and two uniformed men shooting questions at him that he realized something else
.  They
thought he had done it.

Oh they weren’t saying as much, but they might as well have just come out and accused him.  They wanted to know how long he had known Sean.  They questioned him about his whereabouts the night Sean’s car had been forced off the road and tumble
d down a cliff face,
killing both him and his wife.  They relentlessly prodded him about his place in Sean’s company, his years working there
and his status as the heir apparent
,
slated to take over when Sean retired.

James answered all their questions in a quiet monotone
.  Giving
them no more and no less than they asked for.  The whole thing felt like a bad dream and all he wanted to do was go home and forget, at least for a moment, in the oblivion of sleep.  He couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let him, but just kept going over and over the same ground.

Finally, when James felt like he was about to go crazy and give them an actual reason to arrest him, the officer that he had dubbed ‘the bulldog’ sat down across from him and slapped his hands on the table.

“Tell me,” he growled as he leaned forward, almost touching James’ face with the curling ends of his mustache.  “
What
did you feel
when you found out Sean Sweeney
was facing financial problems
and he was planning to bring
outside investors
into the business you had been promised
?
”  His right
eyebrow arched.  “I bet you fee
l stupid now, huh?  Killed the poor bastard to keep the company
and you won’t even get it.  I heard he left you a measly three grand.”

“What,” James gasped
, he wouldn’t believe it.  The man had been a better father to him than his own
.  “
Sean wouldn’t do that,” he stated firmly.  “
He wouldn’t do something that drastic without
discussing it with me
.”

“Exactly.”  Bulldog sat back and a satisfied smile crossed his face.  “From what Sean’s daughter told me
you were as close as father and
son.
  So, what I want to know is why you’re pretending you didn’t know?”

But he hadn’t known, James thought, as
doubt crept in
. 
Had he been betrayed?  Could he have been that wrong about Sean Sweeney?  The money wasn’t the issue and neither, really, was the loss of the company, although it would hurt.  Had the man’s word meant nothing? 
Maybe the affection had only gone one way and he had been nothing, but an underpaid worked reaching for the carrot.  He supposed that it didn’t really matter at this point
, he mused, as anger poured in to replace the sorrow
.  He would have to fend for himself
as he had always done
.

His back straightened till it felt like snapping and his eyes hardened.  “I want a lawyer,” he said.

The cop shrugged.  “It’s your right,” he said, “but you still have to spend some time in our lovely jail.”

“What?
That’s ridiculous.  You
have no evidence.”

A satisfied smirk passed over the man’s face.  “Doesn’t matter,” he said.  “I hear that you resisted ar
rest and forced one of the
city’s
finest to practically break down your door.”

James would have cursed, but he wouldn’t give the
bastard
the satisfaction.

Three agonizing days later a break came in the case. 
A man named Michael Lindsey walked into the police station and confessed.  Apparently, he had been selling shoddy, potentially dangerous lumber to Sean’s company and Sean had found out and confronted him. 

He had panicked, followed Sean when he left town and forced his car off a cliff.  It was obvious to anyone who saw him that the man was not only drunk, but also not entirely sane.  His car, however, had been spotted close
to
the murder scene.  He was thrown in a jail and two days later his son found him dead in his cell of apparent suicide.

The day that James walked out of the police station for the last time he consciously put his past behind him and built a wall around it.  From now on he would depend on no one but himself.

Despite the pleasant day outside, the courtroom was sweltering, packed with those who wanted to be seen and those whose job it was to take their pictures.  There were even a couple of legitimate med
ia outlets and newspapers represented.  Mira leaned back on the bench and wondered when it had all become such a circus.