by Nora Roberts
He lunged. Panic and youth had Kelsey spinning to the side so that he caught nothing more than the sleeve of her blouse. As the seam ripped, she tore away, making a dash for the doorway.
He caught her, bringing her down in a lumbering tackle that radiated pain down to the bone. Panting out sobs, she kicked out blindly, landing a glancing blow off his shoulder, another off his chest as she clawed her way inch by desperate inch over the rug.
He was going to kill her now, she was sure of it. Beat her or choke her with those big bruising hands. And when he was done, he’d go after Naomi.
She screamed once when he yanked her head back by the hair. Light flashed in front of her eyes, wheeled like comets fired by the hideous pain. If she had found her voice she might have begged then, pleaded and begged. But the air was searing in and out of her throat.
“Gotcha, don’t I? Gotcha. Thought you were such a smart little bitch.”
Her fingers dug into the carpet, reached, then closed over an inch-long shard of crystal. Mindless with terror and pain, she swung out.
Then it was he who screamed, rearing back, the blood spurting out of his cheek where the delicate foreleg of the glass Thoroughbred had pierced his flesh.
Whimpering, she dragged herself up and raced from the room in a panicked, limping run while his curses chased after her.
She fell on the stairs, fighting for breath, struggling to clear enough of the fear from her mind so that she could think. When she called out, trying to warn her mother, only little mewling sounds escaped. With blood and fear stinging her mouth, she clawed her way up, gaining her feet and the top of the stairs just as she heard Rich charging up behind her.
“No!” She snatched a vase of lilies and hurled it down at him. The crash and a grunt of pain bought her a few precious seconds, wasted as she fumbled with bloody hands at the knob of her mother’s bedroom door. “Mom! Oh God, Mom!” With one blind burst of strength, she shoved through the door and slammed it behind her. “Mom! Get up!” She was weeping as she fought the lock with fingers gone numb with terror. “For God’s sake, get up!”
In a lunge she was at the bed, dragging Naomi up by the shoulders, shaking, pleading.
“Wha—?” Groggy from the sleeping pill, Naomi pushed her daughter’s hand away, annoyed. “What is it?”
“He’s coming. Wake up! We have to get out. Do you understand me?”
“Who’s coming?” Naomi blinked open heavy eyes. “Kelsey? What is it?”
“He’ll kill us! Get out of bed, goddammit!” She screamed again when Rich hurled his weight against the door. “Get out of bed!” Breath coming in hot gasps, she turned terrified eyes to the door. “It’s not going to hold. Sweet Jesus, it won’t hold. The gun. Do you still have the gun?”
She babbled out little prayers as she clawed open the nightstand drawer. It was there, the chrome glinting in the moonlight.
“What are you doing?” Sleepy and dazed, Naomi managed to fight her way through the mists to kneel in bed. “Good God, Kelsey, what are you doing? Who’s at the door?”
But as the wood splintered, Kelsey stared straight ahead. She held the gun in both hands, struggling to keep it from slipping out of her shaking fingers.
He burst in, blood glistening on his cheek. And saw only Naomi, kneeling in the bed with the thin silk gown sliding from her shoulders. His teeth flashed as he leaped forward. Kelsey felt the gun buck like a live thing, sending vibrations singing up to her shoulders.
She never heard the shot.
“Alec?” The wooziness floated over Naomi’s mind, sliding images of past and present.
“It’s not Alec.” Kelsey heard her own voice, small with distance. “It’s Gabe’s father. I’ve killed Gabe’s father.”
“Slater?” Half dreaming, Naomi crawled out of bed and, as she had done so many years ago, bent over a dead man. Mechanically she checked his pulse before straightening again. “Rich Slater?” Confused, she rubbed her hands over her eyes. “What in God’s name is happening here?”
“I killed him.” Kelsey dropped her arm, the gun dangling from her fingers.
Naomi looked up into her daughter’s face. She recognized the shock, the disbelief, and the fear. She forced her trembling legs to move forward.
“Sit down, Kelsey. That’s right, sit down.” She eased her gently onto the side of the bed. Nothing mattered now, nothing but Kelsey.
“Let me have the gun. Okay.” Naomi set it aside for the moment. It would take no time at all to deal with it. “Put your head between your legs now and breathe.”
“I can’t. I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can. Slow and deep. That’s it, honey.” As Kelsey tried to obey, Naomi outlined her plan. “Now, I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do, and I want you to listen very carefully and do exactly, just exactly what I tell you. Understand?”
“He was going to kill me, and you. He would have killed us both. But I killed him. I don’t remember pulling the trigger, but I must have.” Her teeth began to chatter. “Because I shot him.”
“No, I shot him. Look at me. Kelsey.” Gently, Naomi lifted Kelsey’s ravaged face. “Oh, God.” She shuddered, dug her nails into her palms until the pain cleared some of the shock. “Listen to me, baby. He broke in, and he . . .” She brushed at a cut on Kelsey’s cheek. “And he hurt you. So I got the gun, and I shot him.”
“No, that’s wrong. I couldn’t wake you up.”
“No, no, honey. I woke up when you came in. You came in here to get away from him. Then he broke down the door and I shot him. I’m going to call the police now, and that’s exactly what we’re going to tell them.”
“I don’t”—Kelsey lifted a hand to her spinning head—“I don’t—” She jerked around and screamed at the sound of feet pounding up the stairs.
“Jesus God.” Gabe took one look at his father, then stared at the two women huddled on the bed. “Kelsey!” In one leap he was crouched in front of her, holding her wounded hands. “He hurt you. Look at your face.” He jumped up, his eyes hard, deadly. “I’ll kill him myself.”
“I already have,” Naomi said calmly. “Gabe, get her out of here. Take her to her room. I’ll call the police.”
“I’m all right,” Kelsey insisted, but the room faded out as she pushed herself to her feet.
“You just need to lie down.” Gabe picked her up. “I’ll take care of you.” He looked back at Naomi. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Make her stay in there until I’ve finished this.” Naomi lifted the bedside phone.
“He was just there,” Kelsey murmured, shivering as Gabe carried her to her room and laid her on the bed. “He was just there. He broke the horse.”
“Just lie still.” He wanted to hold her. He wanted to crush something, someone into dust. Instead he whipped the bedspread over her. She was shaking badly, her pupils contracted to pinpoints with shock. And her face . . . Gabe’s hands balled helplessly at his sides. Her face was bruised and bleeding. He couldn’t think; just then he couldn’t allow himself to think that his own father had done that to her.
He went quickly into the bathroom, dampened a washcloth, and filled a cup with water.
“Here, baby.” Gently, he curved an arm under her and brought the cup to her lips. “Drink some of this.”
“He was downstairs.” Her fingers fretted at the bedspread. “It wasn’t Channing. The little horse was shattered, and he was just there. He kept smiling. He kept hitting me and smiling.”
The hand on the wet cloth clenched until the knuckles went white. “He won’t hurt you anymore.” With fingers no more steady than hers, he washed away the blood. “Hold on to me, Kelsey. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”
“I couldn’t bluff.” Shivering, she curled against him. She was cold, so cold, and he held the heat. “I tried, but I was so scared, and so angry. And he knew, and he’d hit me again.” She turned her battered face into Gabe’s throat. “He has such big hands.”
And preferred t
o use them, Gabe thought grimly, on women. “I’d have killed him for this,” he murmured. “Killed him with my own hands for touching you.”
“It wasn’t me.” Suddenly she was so tired, so horribly, horribly tired. “It was you. He wanted to hurt you.”
“I know.” He turned his head just enough to brush his lips over her brow, then he eased her back on the pillows. “It’s over now.”
She let her eyes close for a moment. As the worst of the shock ebbed, the pain crept back. Her body felt trampled. “You came.” Blindly she groped for his hand, found it.
“Yeah.” He looked down at their joined hands. “A hunch. The trouble was I moved on it too late.”
Her eyes opened again, fresh panic flashing. “Naomi.”
“She’s fine. If you’d been alone . . .” The thought of that had talons of fear clawing through his gut. “Kelsey, I’m going to give you an out. Right now.”
“An out?” Though she wasn’t sure she would like what she found, she lifted a hand to probe at her throbbing face.
“If I were fair, I’d do the walking.”
“Walking?” The heavy fog was lifting. She could see him clearly now. The strain that tightened his face, the swirl of emotion in his eyes. “Gabe.” She touched a hand to his cheek as if to brush some color and calm into it. “Don’t. I’m all right now.”
“He battered your face. He tore your clothes. He terrified you.” Deliberately he pried her clutching hand from his and rose. “He was my father. It doesn’t matter that I’ve worked all my life to rid myself of any part of him. It’s blood, and it’ll always be there. I’ve got no place in your life, Kelsey. The biggest favor I could do for you is to walk out of it.”
With some effort, she pushed herself up. Pain was singing in every bone now. “Did I ask you for a damn favor?” she snapped out. She winced as the scream of sirens sliced through the night and into her throbbing head. “If you want to do me one, then get me a bottle of aspirin, and keep your ridiculous grand gestures to yourself.”
He nearly smiled. “I’m trying to be noble.”
“Well, you’re no good at it. And I don’t like noble. I like you.” She brushed her hair back, eyed him narrowly. “Do you think you can sneak out of this when I’m down? We had a deal, Slater, and you’re not going to welsh.”
“I never welsh.” He sat on the edge of the bed again, and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. “And that’s my last shot at nobility. A hell of a hero I make anyway. It should have been me who killed him, Kelsey.”
She crossed a hand over her body to clasp his. “Don’t. You couldn’t know that he would be here, that he would do this. And still you came.” Her brow furrowed. “Why did you come?”
“It doesn’t matter now. But it should have been me. It should have been me and not Naomi who killed him.”
Kelsey drew back, her face paling again. “It wasn’t you,” she said slowly. “And it wasn’t Naomi. I killed your father, Gabe.”
Naomi sipped the brandy slowly. She was sitting in the kitchen. The lights were very bright, and hurt her eyes. Her hands were trembling.
But she could deal with it. Would deal with it.
All she could think was that her daughter was upstairs, hurt, terrorized. And Gertie, sweet Gertie was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital.
“He must have come in this way,” she said. “Hit Gertie. She’ll be all right, won’t she?” Control slipped a notch, and her lips trembled. “She’s so small and she’s so harmless.”
“The paramedics said she was lucid, Ms. Chadwick.” Rossi kept his voice low. The woman looked as though she would shatter into bits at any moment. “We’ll check on her once they’ve had time to get her to the hospital.”
“Moses should have gone with her. I should have made him go.”
“He’s not going to leave you. We’re having a hard-enough time keeping him outside. Just tell me what happened.”
Naomi drew in a deep breath and began. “He got in the house. I don’t know how. I was upstairs in bed, sleeping. A noise woke me. Before I could get up, Kelsey ran into my room. She was terrified, hysterical. Her face . . . I could see where he’d hit her.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth. She’d slept through that. Slept while he’d beaten her child.
“Then there was banging at the bedroom door. As if someone were throwing himself against it. I got the gun out of the drawer beside the bed. When he broke in, I shot him.”
Rossi watched her as she lifted her glass, cupping her other hand over it to try to keep it steady as she drank.
“You were in bed when you shot him, Ms. Chadwick?”
“Yes. No.” She set the glass down. She had to be careful. She had to be very careful. “I was in front of the window. I’d gotten up. It happened very fast.”
“You say a noise woke you, but your daughter ran in before you could get up and see what it was?”
“Yes.” Why did they always repeat what she said? They’d done that before, she remembered. It didn’t matter what she said. It never mattered.
“Have you been into the sitting room, Ms. Chadwick, since you notified the police?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together. If it was a trick, she couldn’t see it. “I didn’t come down. I stayed upstairs until you came.”
“You’ve got a hell of a mess in there. Blood, broken furniture. I’d say that much damage took some time to accomplish. Time enough for anyone to get out of bed and check things out.”
“I—I was frightened.” Should she tell him she’d taken a sleeping pill? Yes. No. “I stayed in my room because I was frightened.”
“With a phone right beside you, and a gun in the drawer?”
She looked up, met his eyes. “He broke into my bedroom,” she said evenly. “And I shot him.”
“No, she didn’t.” Kelsey stepped into the kitchen. Though she was grateful for the support of Gabe’s arm, she made herself move away from it. “She didn’t kill anyone.”
“You shouldn’t be down here.” Panicked, Naomi pushed away from the table. “Take her back upstairs, Gabe. You can see she’s hurt.” She clamped a desperate hand on Rossi’s arm. “You can see she’s hurt. Look what that bastard did to her. Look what he did to my child. She’s in shock. She doesn’t know what happened.”
“Stop it.” Kelsey stepped up to the table. In the strong light her cuts and bruises stood out in stark relief against her pale skin. “I’m not going to let you do this. It isn’t necessary. And it isn’t right.”
“Why don’t you sit down, Ms. Byden?” Rossi invited. “And tell me what happened.”
“No!” In a lunge Naomi rounded the table and gripped Kelsey’s arms. “Listen to me, Kelsey. You’re hurt, you’re confused. Gabe will take you to the hospital, and I’ll handle this.”
“No.” She shook her head, moving in to draw Naomi close. “Mom, no.”
“I’m not going to let you go through this. I won’t!” Trembling now, she hugged Kelsey tight. “You don’t know what it’s like. It won’t matter what you say. It won’t matter what happened. They’ll take you away, Kelsey. Please, please, listen to me!”
“It does matter,” Kelsey murmured. “It’s not like before.”
But it was, Naomi thought. Of course it was. “My fingerprints are on the gun.” Stone-faced, Naomi turned back to Rossi. “The gun was in my room. He was killed in my room. That should be enough for you.”
“Naomi,” Gabe said gently, “sit down.”
“You said you’d take care of her.” She turned to him. “You said you would. Now make her go upstairs.”
“Ms. Chadwick.” Rossi studied her eyes. “There’s a very simple test that will prove whether it was you or your daughter who discharged the weapon.”
“I don’t give a damn about your tests. You’re not putting my daughter in a cell.”
“I think we can agree on that. Sit down. Please,” Rossi added.
“Come on.” Kelsey draped an arm over Naomi
’s shoulders. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. I promise.”
“Would you like some brandy, Ms. Byden?” Rossi asked when she was settled at the table.
Kelsey looked down at the snifter and shuddered. “No. I’ve lost my taste for it.” She drew a deep breath. “I heard glass breaking downstairs,” she began.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
THERE WAS DEW SPARKLING ON THE GRASS. FROM HER CHAIR ON THE patio, Kelsey watched it gleam, knowing the sun would soon be strong enough to burn it away.