by Karen Rose
“June Erickson,” Mia supplied. “Sure.”
His gaze landed on the hat. “And what the hell is that?”
“Community outreach,” Abe said. “I’ll fill you in.”
Thursday, February 26, 8:45 P.M.
“This is making me sick,” Kristen said, feeling the room spin.
“This rocks,” Rachel corrected. She was sitting in front of the Reagans’s TV, careening down a mountain on a video snowboarding game that was entirely too real.
“Welcome to my world,” Kyle said wryly. Becca chuckled.
Kristen covered her eyes. “I can’t watch anymore. I’m going to throw up.”
“Oh, man! Sixth place.” Rachel shut off the video game. “My game is off tonight.”
“It’s a wonder you can still move your hands and your eyes aren’t burned-out sockets,” Kyle retorted. “You’ve been playing that fool game all day.”
Because she’d stayed home from school. Just a precaution, Kyle said, and not her fault, Becca said, but Kristen felt responsible all the same. Rachel, on the other hand, was thrilled to have missed a test and to have the whispered admiration of her friends.
“Don’t apologize,” Kyle warned.
“Or you’ll kick my ass,” Kristen said with a weary smile. “I know. Has Abe called?”
“Not in the last five minutes since you asked before.” Becca patted her hand. “He’s fine, Kristen. He can take care of himself.” It was said mechanically, in the voice of the wife and mother of cops. Kristen wondered if Becca had ever once believed it.
“Besides, it’s just dinner,” Kyle said. “The worst that can happen is he accidentally uses the wrong fork and Sharon cuts him up with that sharp tongue of hers.”
Kristen looked up at him, curious. “Why do you say that?”
Kyle looked uneasy, but Becca huffed. “Debra was the sweetest, most generous woman in the world, but her parents were fond of money and the power that came with it.” A look of pain crossed her face. “Abe wasn’t good enough for Debra and her father never let an opportunity go by without telling him so.”
“Becca,” Kyle chided gently. “That’s all past now. They can’t hurt him anymore.”
Kristen looked from one to the other, but neither appeared to be prepared to impart additional detail. “Abe told me about the lawsuit. How they tried to get custody of Debra.”
Kyle’s eyes widened speculatively. “Did he now?”
Becca’s jaw clenched. “Did he tell you that they never stopped blaming him for Debra getting shot? For five years Debra lay there and they never stopped blaming him.”
Poor Abe. Poor Kyle and Becca, having to watch their son endure such torment. “He didn’t want to meet them tonight.”
Becca huffed again. “Of course he didn’t.”
“Then why did he?” Rachel asked from the floor and Kristen blinked. She’d almost forgotten the teenager was down there, listening to every word.
Kyle sighed. “I imagine he went to let them have their say and get it over with.”
“So they wouldn’t say it on Saturday and ruin the christening for Sean and Ruth,” Kristen said. It added yet another layer of respect to the character of Abe Reagan.
Becca’s eyes misted. “You really do understand him.”
Kristen felt what was becoming a familiar wave of longing. For Abe, for his family. For the warmth of this house. “He’s a good man,” she said simply.
Kyle cleared his throat roughly and reached for the wallet he’d set on the lamp table.
“Kyle,” Becca murmured. “Don’t.”
Kristen’s mouth tipped. “Is he going to pay me?”
“No, he’s going to show you Debra’s picture,” Rachel said and Kristen stiffened, but it was too late. Kyle held the worn snapshot and if she didn’t look, she’d be rude.
So she made herself look down at the picture, at the woman who’d been Abe’s everything. What she saw was a tall woman of average beauty and the protruding stomach of advanced pregnancy holding on to to a man who smiled as if he could never be happier. “She was lovely.” It was true. Because beyond her average beauty was a glow, an expression that said Debra could never be happier either.
“This was taken two weeks before she was shot,” Kyle said, a catch in his voice that made Kristen swallow hard. “I didn’t think I’d ever see that look on my son’s face again.” His thumb swept over the plastic cover in a practiced caress. “But I have. Since he met you.” His thumb grew blurry and Kristen bit the inside of her cheek, not daring to look up.
Rachel pushed a tissue in her hand, much as Aidan had done the day before. “Blow your nose before we all start bawling,” she said and Kristen laughed unsteadily.
“Are you sure you’re only thirteen?”
“Almost fourteen,” Rachel returned archly.
Kyle groaned, the tender moment broken. “Going on twenty,” he said.
“So can I go steady with Trent?”
Kyle scowled down at her. “No. Not till you’re sixteen.”
Rachel shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
Grateful for the temporary respite from her worry, Kristen checked her watch and Kyle groaned again. “If you’re so worried about Abe, call him on his cell phone.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m checking up on him.” Kyle huffed in disgust. “Women.”
“We’re all alike,” Rachel sang and once again Kristen smiled.
“And you, having been a woman for so long, are an expert,” Kristen said wryly.
“Hey, lady, I see what I see and I know what I know.” Rachel grabbed the phone and handed it to her. “Call him. You know you want to.”
Embarrassed, Kristen took the phone and dialed. And frowned. “He’s turned it off.”
Kyle’s brows shot together. “He what?”
“He’s turned off his cell phone. Or he’s underground, because it’s not picking up.”
Kyle put out his hand, worry in his eyes. “Give me the phone.”
Chapter Twenty
Thursday, February 26, 10:20 P.M.
Debra’s parents had begged forgiveness. It was the one thing he hadn’t expected. Abe rested his arms across the top of his steering wheel and stared at the bright lights of the Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel. It was the one place where he could still see Debra smiling. They’d come here on that first blind date, set up by Sean and Ruth. He’d brought her here the night he proposed, bribing the Ferris wheel attendant to stop the wheel when their car was on the very top so that he could ask her to marry him with all Chicago at their feet. She’d brought him here the night she told him he’d be a father, bribing the attendant in the exact same way. So he came here tonight to think, to remember his wife as the happy woman she’d been. To try and find in his heart the forgiveness her parents had asked for.
He’d lost all track of time when a knock on his window nearly scared him to death.
Sean stood there scowling. “What the hell are you doing here? You had us worried sick.”
Abe glanced at his watch in amazement. “I didn’t realize I’d been here so long.”
“Where’s your damn phone? We’ve been calling you for an hour and a half.”
Abe fished it out of his pocket and frowned. “No battery bars.” It was the first time he’d been so careless. He plugged it into his cigarette lighter.
“Kristen’s in the car.”
His gaze snapped to Sean’s car where Kristen sat staring at her hands. “Why?”
“She’s been climbing the walls, afraid you’d been hurt by Conti’s men.”
Suddenly so weary, Abe dropped his head back against the seat. “I didn’t think.”
“Well, tell it to her yourself. I got to get back to my own woman.”
A minute later Sean roared away and Kristen climbed up into the cab. She immediately dropped her eyes and he felt the pang of guilt. He’d been thoughtless.
“I’m sorry, Kristen. I didn’t think you’d be worried.”
; “Well, I was, but it’s all right.” Her chin was practically digging into her chest.
“Can you look at me?”
She complied, twisting her neck at an odd angle and looking up from the corner of her eye, but still not meeting his gaze. She looked… strange.
“What’s wrong?”
She closed her eyes, drew a strangled breath. “Can you please take me home?”
“Not until you tell me what this is all about. Open your eyes.”
She shrank back in the seat, her eyes clenched shut. “Abe, please.”
Suddenly alarmed, he pulled the SUV out of the parking place. “What’s happened? Dammit, Kristen, if you’re trying to get back at me for scaring you, it’s working.”
“I’m not. Just drive.”
He started driving. “Is it Vincent?”
“No, he’s unchanged. Owen called to tell me when I was in the car with Sean.”
“Has that Timothy come back to see Vincent?”
“I didn’t ask. I was too worried about you.” He saw her open one eye, look in the passenger-side mirror, then shut her eyes again.
He looked in the rearview mirror and saw nothing but the blazing lights of the Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel. “When we get to your house, you’ll tell me?”
She nodded once. “Yes.”
Thursday, February 26, 10:45 P.M.
He was relieved when Reagan’s SUV pulled into her driveway. He could see between the houses from his position on the next block and watched as Reagan got out and crossed around to her side of the vehicle. Reagan was a gentleman. He approved.
He was glad they were home safely. He couldn’t have forgiven himself if anything had happened to anyone else she cared about. He hadn’t meant it to spiral out of control this way. He’d meant her to be comforted, knowing he was eliminating evil from the world, but instead her life had been turned upside down. She’d been threatened in her own home. He would have to find a way to make sure everyone knew she was uninvolved, that she knew nothing. He would write her no more letters.
He frowned. She should have been out of the car a long time ago. It was cold tonight. She’d get sick. Reagan needed to get her into the house, but he just stood there. Something was wrong. Finally, she climbed down and Reagan put his arm around her and walked her into the house through the kitchen door. She appeared unhurt. But he needed to be certain.
Thursday, February 26, 10:45 P.M.
Kristen stopped short at the sight of her kitchen, visions of Ferris wheels temporarily dismissed. “It’s clean. All the plaster dust is gone.” So was the far wall. She and Abe hadn’t finished ripping it down the night before, but now it was totally gone. As was the refrigerator, the sink, and the linoleum. The only thing remaining was her table, which was covered with magazines opened to layouts of beautiful kitchens. “Annie’s magazines,” she said, then understood. “Aidan and Annie were here. Did you know they were going to do this?”
Abe was grinning. “Where do you think they got the key?”
“Where did you get the key?”
“Mia stole it from your purse and I had a copy made. Are you surprised?”
She sank down into a chair and covered her mouth with her hand. Tears sprang to her eyes as Abe knelt beside her on one knee and pulled her into his arms.
“They wanted to do something for you. It was Aidan’s idea.”
“It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Oh, Abe.”
His hands rubbed her back, great soothing circles. “Are you ready to talk now?”
She wiped her eyes on his coat. “I think so.”
He pulled away, lifted her chin, kissed her mouth. Then took the chair next to her and unbuttoned his coat. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
It was time, she knew. Time to tell the story she’d told only once before. This time she’d be believed. Still… She’d harbored the secret for so long. Too long. It was time to let it go.
“I was twenty,” she began with a sigh. “A sophomore at the University of Kansas. I’d spent a year in Italy and I was behind, so I was taking some summer classes so I could catch up. He was a guy in my statistics class. I was an art major, so he helped me with my homework. I didn’t have a head for statistics.” She smiled sadly. “And then I became one.”
Abe’s face was calm, but his blue eyes were turbulent. “You knew him, then.”
“I thought I did. We’d gone out a few times, burger joints, pizza places. He’d have a few beers, I’d abstain. He’d tease me about being a prude, I’d just smile. Then one night we went to the county fair. It was a summer night. He wanted to walk, so we left the group we’d come with and walked out past the livestock barns. He kissed me, not for the first time. But then he wanted to …” She faltered, her throat closing.
“He wanted sex,” Abe said flatly.
She nodded, relieved he’d said it for her. “Which was the first time.”
“The first time he’d wanted to or the first time for you?”
“Both.”
His eyes closed, his throat working behind the knotted tie. “You were a virgin.”
“Probably the only one in my class. My father forbade drinking, dancing, rock and roll, card-playing, but sex was the epitome of sin. So I was waiting, but not for this guy.”
“But he didn’t take no for an answer.”
“No. I fought and scratched, but he was too big. He overpowered me like I was nothing. Told me I wanted it, that I’d been asking for it. I told him I’d never…but he laughed. Said I’d been to Italy, I was a woman of the world. He pushed me to the ground and covered my mouth…” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, unable to look at him as she said the words. “He raped me. I just kept thinking it would be over soon, it had to be over soon. I looked up and saw the Ferris wheel in the sky and watched it spin, counted the cars. And finally it was over.” She dropped her eyes back to him and saw his hands fisted on the table. She covered one of his fists with her hand, realizing for all his insistence on hearing the truth, it might be harder for him to hear than for her to tell. “He left me there, in the dirt behind the barns.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Eventually.”
“The police?” he asked tightly.
“No.” She sighed. “We tell these girls to come forward, to tell the authorities, but they’re scared. I was scared. I was afraid nobody would believe me. He told me he’d say it was consensual. We’d been dating for two months. Nobody would have doubted him. He wasn’t a jock. He was a normal regular guy who always went to class and turned his homework in on time. He was no womanizer. That was the reason I trusted him in the first place.”
“So who did you tell?”
“My parents.”
“And?”
She could see her father’s face as if it were yesterday, scarlet and quivering in rage. She could still hear the sound of his palm whizzing through the air, just seconds before he slapped her to the ground. Where she lay, trembling and nauseous. And pregnant.
“He didn’t believe me.”
“What?” Abe lurched to his feet on the outraged cry. “He didn’t believe you?”
“No. He accused me of being like my sister. Sinful and wild.”
She watched as Abe paced the floor. “Is that why you left home?” he asked.
“I didn’t leave home. He threw me out.” Terrified, penniless, and pregnant.
Abe froze, then turned, his face a mask of disbelief. “He threw you out?”
“Yes.”
“And your mother?” he demanded. “What did she do?”
“Nothing. She just looked at me. Maybe if Kara had still been alive, she might have had the strength to stand up to him, but by then, she just went through the motions. Anyway, it didn’t matter. By that time the boy had told all his friends what had happened. They all thought I was easy.” And I knew by fall term I’d be showing. “So at the end of the summer term, I left KU. One of my sister’s old friends had moved to Chicago, so I came
here to live with her. I transferred to University of Chicago and finished my degree.”
Abe’s hands were shaking and he shoved them in his pockets. “In art?”
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t paint after that. I majored in business and decided to go to law school.” And I had a baby. And I gave her away. But when she opened her mouth to finish the story, all she could see was the photo of Abe and Debra, pregnant with the child that was stolen from them. And I gave mine away.
Abe sat down heavily and buried his face in his hands. “God.”
“When I saw that Ferris wheel tonight …” She shuddered. “I can’t look at Ferris wheels.”
He said nothing, just kept his head bowed. She reached out and stroked his hair. “It’s done, Abe. I went on with my life.”
He lifted his head, his eyes piercing. “Alone.”
She met his gaze, held it. “For a time.”
“What happened to him?”
Kristen shook her head. “No, I won’t tell you that.”
He glared at her. “Tell me.”
“Or what?” she asked calmly.
His shoulders sagged and his face suddenly looked haggard. “Please.”
She should have known he’d need to know. She knew, after all. She’d kept tabs on him, even after all these years. “As irony would have it, he went to law school, too. He went into politics and is now the mayor of a small Kansas town.” Her lips twisted. “He’s running for a seat in the state legislature. Polls show he’s ahead by ten points.”
Abe’s stomach churned. That the monster would prosper, never pay for his crime, never feel a fraction of her pain was more than he could take. “You could ruin him.”
She sat very still. “But I won’t. I didn’t say anything then and I won’t say anything now.” She looked away, but not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes. “Because the truth of it is, I’m a coward.”
Abe stared, not believing the words coming out of her mouth. “You are not a coward.”
She blinked, sending the tears down her face. “Yes, I am. These women that come forward, they’re the brave ones. I make them live through it again and again, publicly humiliate themselves again, and most of the time it’s for nothing.”