Twilight (26 page)

He sank onto his bed, still holding the ice in place. It did little to alleviate the pain, but if it kept the swelling down, the healing would go better. What was going on? If he hadn’t been so riled by his conversation with Rita, he might have paid better attention. Then again, he might not have. He wasn’t used to looking over his shoulder. Was Laurie? If so, she hadn’t admitted it. She’d been single-mindedly evasive. Was he a pawn in some game she played with her senator’s-son ex-husband? Or was she in more trouble than he knew?

He considered the facts. One, the black Firebird running him off the road after seeing her broken window. Two, the phone call after Laurie’s trip to the station. And now strike three. Was it her presence at the poker game last night? Had someone watched them? Out in the sticks he didn’t worry too much about closing the curtains. And he
had
come on to Laurie, though it hadn’t been his intention. Brian would have caught an eyeful in those moments after the others left. It wouldn’t be the first time a man harassed his ex-wife when she tried to get close to someone new.

Cal gingerly moved his shoulder. Was his attacker Laurie’s exhusband? If so, did he have some histor y of aber rant behavior? Domestic violence? Was that what Laurie wouldn’t talk about? That, too, was common enough, and Laurie was just the sort to fall into it. Well, there was only one place to learn the truth.

Throwing on his coat, he went down to the jeep and slid in. With his left hand, he put it in gear and spun the wheel. For some reason he saw Reggie’s face in his mind. Tribulation. Maybe the Big Man knew what was going down, but Cal could only guess.

It took Laurie forever to come to the door. Cal noted the new dead bolt as he stood there, shoulder throbbing. It was both reassuring and troubling. She’d taken measures to protect herself, and that was good. But why had she needed to?

“Who is it?” Her voice sounded shaky.

“Cal.”

The lock slid, and the door opened. Cal looked into Laurie’s face. Fear and relief mingled there, and Cal’s heart thumped when he glimpsed the butt of a handgun in her robe pocket. She was in trouble. He knew it with every fiber. And whether she liked it or not, he was going to get her out of it.

She crossed her arms against her chest. “Cal, what are you doing here? It’s eleven-thirty.”

He pushed past her and checked the doors at the back of the house. She’d added keyed dead bolts there, too. He caught her arm as he passed back and pulled her along with him. “We need to talk.” He stopped at the faded sleeper couch and sat on the top edge, then peeled back his coat and shirt and bared his shoulder.

She gasped. “What happened?”

“My guess is Brian doesn’t want me seeing you.”

She stared. “That’s crazy.”

“Someone came at me with a baseball bat.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” She was evading. It was there in her eyes and the tone of her voice. “Ball players aren’t the only ones who wield bats.”

“He had a major-league swing.”

She closed her eyes.

“He told me to keep away from you, Laurie.”

She shook her head.

Cal grabbed her arms, wincing with the motion. “I want to help.” Pulling her close with his one good arm, he kissed her mouth, kissed her hard and long. Not his intention again, but she melted against him, shaking. She had to let him in, trust him enough to tell the truth, to let him help. He kissed her again, slowly, then cupped her cheek in his hand. “I love you, Laurie. I always have.”

He wasn’t sure what answer he expected, but not what he got. “Well, don’t.” She pushed him away.

“Yeah, right.” Not loving her was like never drawing oxygen again.

“I mean it, Cal. Go now, and don’t come back.” Her voice shook.

Why was she pushing him away? Did she think he couldn’t handle it? That he’d freak out and fall apart? He’d never felt so strong and determined. Nothing would scare him off, no attacks in the night, no accusing phone calls. “Does Brian own a black Firebird?” Shaking her head, Laurie stalked to the wall and back, the tension defining her features sharply. His airbrushed image of her wavered. There was something hard inside. He didn’t care. He’d break through that too. “Who did you expect at the door tonight? Why do you have a gun?”

“Stop it, Cal.”

Stop trying to protect the woman he loved? Stop trying to show her she wasn’t alone, that together they’d make it right? “Laurie, I know you’re in trouble.”

She turned on him. “Just stay away from me, okay?” She pulled the coat back over his shoulder and pushed him toward the door.

“Is he abusive? Does he hit you? Is that why you left?”

“No.” She reached for the knob.

With his left arm, he held the door shut. “Why won’t you let me help?”

“Because you can’t.” She pressed back into the wall, looking trapped and frightened. As much an admission as he was likely to get. Was it pride? Did she think he’d judge her? Didn’t she know that wasn’t his way?

He cornered her with his arms. “That’s why you came back here. To let me help.”

“I was wrong.” A vein stood out in her temple.

“If your ex—”

“He’s not my ex.”

Cal stood still. He met her eyes and saw there shame and fear and confusion. “What?”

“We’re not divorced.”

“But you said …”

She ducked under his arm and stepped away. “I never said it. You just assumed.”

Cal’s blood rushed. “You never said otherwise. You let me think—” He clenched his hands. She’d led him on, not in words, but she’d known how he would be, and she’d allowed it. Encouraged it. Why? To make her husband jealous? “No wonder he came for me with a bat! I’d have done the same in his place!”

Tears started in her eyes, but it didn’t move him. He’d pursued, kissed, and held another man’s wife? He’d held illusions of them together, working out their differences, caring and sharing love until death did them part. She had used him. Just as Rob said. She had come back and made a fool of him. After all, fool was only one step away from clown.

Well, he’d wanted the truth and gotten it. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth. What he’d said was true also. He loved her with the same mind-numbing grip he’d felt the first time he saw her. And it still didn’t matter. He yanked open the door and left.

Driving home, he kept his eyes peeled for any motion, any vehicle, anything out of the ordinary. He was as pressurized as a discharge port ready to blow. But now he knew that if Brian came after him, he’d be justified. Laurie was still his wife.

Laurie pressed her back to the door, shaking. The terror she’d felt, wakening to the banging on her door, her rush to the kitchen for the gun. Then seeing Cal wounded … it was all she could do not to scream. But the children, her children were upstairs sleeping, safe, oblivious, and she had to keep them that way.

What other choice did she have? A man with a bat? A majorleague swing? She pressed her hand to her eyes. Would Brian go after Cal? Why? To keep her unprotected? No cops, he’d said. Cal wasn’t a cop. But she had looked to him for help, for safety.

Why wouldn’t Brian just confront her face-to-face? What was this terror game? And now she had lost Cal. Of course he was furious. She’d known he would be. She had done that herself, keeping the truth from him at the start. Why hadn’t she told him everything? Before old feelings had gotten in the way, before he was injured.

She pictured his bruised and swelling arm. Brian had struck him? Added violence now to his behaviors? She didn’t want to believe it. They’d been married six years, and she thought—she
had
thought— she knew him. He’d been caustic and threatening, even malicious, but never physically violent.

Maybe it wasn’t Brian, maybe …
Stop making excuses!
She had to face reality. Did she know the real Brian Prelane? She hadn’t known he used cocaine, certainly hadn’t known he flew it across international borders. He could be some drug lord for all she knew. He could be a killer.

Her knees trembled. His note had said no cops or she’d lose the kids. Could he take the children to some foreign country and leave them there? She would never know where. She gripped the gun in the pocket of her robe. What should she do? What
could
she do?

What if she’d told Cal it was Brian. Asked him to help her. She couldn’t. If Brian could attack him with a bat …
“He told me to keep away from you.”
That was Brian loud and clear. She didn’t want Cal hurt by her mistakes. She brought one hand up and pressed it to her face. No, she hadn’t wanted him hurt, but it seemed that was all she did to Cal Morrison.

She should never have gotten close again. Laur ie knew he wouldn’t accept friendship. And neither had she. It had taken everything in her to separate from Cal’s embrace. And more than that, to tell him the truth. But now he knew. And he despised her. He who valued faithfulness, who embodied it. That’s why she’d kept silent, let him believe … The guilt was hers. Just as it was before. Cal loved her. And she wasn’t capable of love.

Cal leaned on the doorjamb of Sergeant Danson’s office. He’d slept poorly, when he slept at all, and the last thing he wanted was an audience with Chuck Danson, but the early morning phone call had demanded it. One didn’t exactly tell Danson you had better things to do. And in truth he was sick of spinning his wheels, trying to make sense of things and failing. Laurie had lied to him. Maybe not in her words, but in her actions.

She had used him. Yes, she had said she wanted to be friends, and
he
was the one who pushed that limit. But he wouldn’t have if she’d told him the truth. Her being married would have changed everything. It did change everything.

Cal frowned. “You wanted to see me?”

The sergeant took in the homemade sling. Cal had decided against professional treatment. It might cause too many questions since it was obviously a battering wound. He knew to keep it immobile, and unless there was a fracture, that would be sufficient.

“Another run-in with the Firebird?”

“No.” Cal didn’t explain further.

Danson held him in a steely glare, then looked down at the papers on his desk. “Took a while, but we got an I.D. on that hit-and-run.”

“Driver or victim?”

“Victim. Flip Casey.”

“Flip Casey.”

“And that’s his legal name. Or was.” Danson stood and came around the desk. “Took some time for anyone to notice him missing. It was the bartender at the Blue Note who finally did.”

Danson tapped his pen against the edge of the desk. “I sent the body to the morgue. Besides his name and address, there’s not much more to know. He lived alone, mainly drank his meals either at the Blue Note or on the street, and talked sports. Hardly knew what day it was, but he had a mind like a trap for any sports trivia. Folks at the bar thought he’d make his million one day on one of those game shows.”

Cal shook his head.

“Most valuable thing we found in his shack was an autographed Mickey Mantle trading card.”

Cal considered that. “So what do you figure?”

Danson clicked the end of his pen against the wood. “Probably drank himself past the point of no return and never saw the car coming.”

“What was he doing out there?”

“God only knows.”
Click, click
. The pen point jumped out and vanished, jumped and vanished. “You got anything on that Firebird?”

“Why would I?”

“I thought maybe you had some personal connection …” Danson eyed him.

“If I do, it’s one I don’t know about.” Not a lie—he knew nothing for sure, and anything he suspected would show him for the idiot he was.

Danson drew a long breath. “Well, I’ll expect to hear—”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m not officially involved anymore.”

“So I heard. I also heard Frank never accepted your resignation. As far as he’s concerned, you’re still on the books.”

That was news. “We’ll see how long I draw a paycheck. Not even Frank can pay me for nothing.”

Danson shook his head. “What is it with you, Morrison?”

Cal stuffed his free hand into his pocket and slacked a knee, the bad-boy stance Danson took as rebellion. He didn’t answer.

“I’ll have my eye on you.”

What else was new? Cal nodded without comment. “See you around.” He walked from the office past dispatch, waved to Frieda, and kept going. What did he know anyway? A glimpse of a black car, a crank call, and a masked attack. The sergeant was a practical man with a healthy disdain for lunatics, and already Cal suspected Danson put him in that category. If he started crying wolf on Laurie’s ex— Laurie’s husband, in present tense—Danson would commit him again.

And he was sure not going to do Danson’s legwork for him. He was through with the department, through with that hit-and-run, and through with Laurie. He went out to the street, sucking in the frozen air, then climbed into the jeep and drove home. Leaping from the jeep, he found Ray puttering in the garage. “Get your pole, Ray. Let’s go fishin’.”

Ray grinned, fetched his old-fashioned fishing pole, probably Mildred’s grandfather’s, from the look of it. Cal ran up for his own pole and tackle, then whistled to Annie, and they walked together to the pond, where Ray dragged a huge log over for them to sit on. It was good to have Herculean friends.