by Rachel Lee
No. Sometimes it bothered him a little to realize that while Mary and Seana were gone for good, the man who had killed them was long since back on the streets. But nothing would be any better if the guy were dead. It sure as hell wouldn't ease his pain any, or bring Mary and Seana back.
And in this case, there wasn't even any doubt about who had been driving the car that had caused Seana's death. Otis was different. There was doubt, because it was a purely circumstantial case.
Christ, he was beginning to think like Carey.
He rose from the table, his meal only half-eaten, and went to the back door, where he threw on the back light and looked out at the oak tree that had taken away the last of his dreams. His heart squeezed and his eyes prickled with tears he would never shed. God, the world was so empty sometimes.
But that tree didn't deserve to die. It deserved that even less than the drunk driver. Reaching for the phone, he called the tree-removal company and left a message canceling the appointment for next week, telling them he'd decided to keep the tree.
Then he called the real estate agent he'd bought the house from nine years ago and left a message on her voice mail, telling her he wanted to list his house.
It was time to move on, he thought. Time to go.
But first he had to make one last visit to the past.
Turning, he went to the back of the house and opened a door he hadn't opened in seven years.
Seana's room.
Dust layered everything thickly, and cobwebs grew in all the corners and on the windows, but he saw it as it used to be. Her crib mattress, still covered with a cotton sheet decorated with tiny rosebuds that were invisible under the dust now. The little quilt in yellows and greens that Mary had made with her own hands, still crumpled in the corner of the crib where Mary had left it the last time she had lifted their baby out of the bed.
He stood there, making himself look at it, forcing himself to accept the pain that tightened his throat and constricted his breathing. Promises made and broken, he thought. A baby was a promise made by life, and this time life had cheated.
Nothing could make that any better.
Carey's voice still reached him from the living room, distant but argumentative. Another promise made and broken. But he wasn't sure he could blame life for that one.
Taking a deep, unsteady breath, he walked into the room and began to strip the crib, bundling the linens into a pile. He considered throwing them away, then decided that some other child might need them, so he took them to the washer and threw them in. Maybe they were salvageable and he could give them to Goodwill.
He got some cardboard boxes from the garage and filled them with Seana's clothes and toys. Each little piece carried a sweet memory that stabbed him with a yearning so deep he thought the ache might kill him. He had to pause often and fight for control.
He took the crib apart and carried it out to the garage, along with the changing table and small chest of drawers. All of it was going to Goodwill, where it might make someone else smile.
By the time he finished, he felt as if he were hanging by a precarious emotional thread, breathing as hard as any marathoner as he battled the crushing tightness of grief in his chest.
He took a break, drinking a glass of ice water, and listening to Carey lambaste a caller who had dared to say that it was just too damn bad if Otis was innocent, he'd been convicted.
She was getting almost rabid, he realized. Too emotionally involved. This wasn't entertainment, this was turning into a bloody on-air fight. He wondered if she'd have a job tomorrow.
Guilt. It was amazing what it could make a person do.
Then, unable to help it anymore, he closed his eyes and let the tears squeeze out from beneath his eyelids, let the crushing grief deprive him of breath, let silent sobs wrack him.
It hurt, and that was the one thing he hadn't allowed himself to really do in all these years. He'd flogged himself with guilt and anger, but he'd never let himself hurt.
He let it happen now, and half hoped the pain would kill him.
It didn't, of course. Grief might kill the soul, but the heart kept right on beating.
CHAPTER 14
8 Days
“Christ, Carey,” Ted said as he came into the studio just after she cut away to the news break, “I can tell what my show is going to be about tonight.”
She shrugged.
“You sure got people mad.”
“Well, I'm sure you'll soothe their ruffled feathers.”
He shook his head and changed places with her at the console. “I'm not worried about their feathers. Bill might be harder to calm.”
“He said he was going to support free speech.”
“I'm not sure he wanted to go this far.”
Carey shrugged again. “There's always work available for a lawyer.” Work that would do more good.
She found Seamus waiting for her in the small reception area. Apparently Lou had let him in, even though only employees were supposed to be allowed in after business hours.
He didn't look good, she thought. There was something weary about the way he stood, and his eyes looked funny. Puffy.
“Do you want to get something to eat?” he asked.
“You look awful,” she told him frankly.
He gave her a crooked half smile. “Gee, thanks.”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing new.”
Back when they'd lived together, she'd gotten increasingly frustrated by his unwillingness to enjoy much of anything, as if he felt he weren't endued to joy or pleasure. But never had she seen him looking as if he'd reached the end of his emotional rope.
“Seamus…”
“Look, it's my shit, and I'll deal with it, okay? Now do you want to get something to eat or just go somewhere we can talk?”
The wise thing would have been to go to some public place, but she was rapidly getting past the point of being wise about much. Time was goading her to the edge of irrationality. She knew it, but didn't know how to control the desperation that was dogging her. The more she read of John William Otis's poetry, and the closer the execution drew, the less caution she was able to exercise.
“Let's go to my place,” she said. “Or your place. More privacy.”
“Your place,” he decided. “I've had enough ghosts for one night.”
She didn't ask what he meant. His ghosts were nearly as real to her as they were to him. And now that she knew the full story, she better understood how they had twisted his life. Not that it made it any easier to be around his gloom, she reminded herself. There had been times when she thought his barely masked depression was going to smother her.
She had ordered a pizza that afternoon, and there was plenty left, so she stuck the remains into the oven to reheat and started a fresh pot of coffee.
“Coffee and pizza,” he remarked. “You've got to be thirty-something to think that goes together.”
“I have cola if you want it.”
“I was joking. Coffee's exactly what I want.”
“So what did you want to discuss?”
“I want to know if you've found out anything I can use. This latest murder has got me really concerned. Did the guy call tonight?”
She shook her head. “I told my producer to make sure he got through if he called, but he didn't. Not a peep.”
“Shit.” He ran his fingers through his hair, an impatient gesture she well remembered. “Can I talk to you off the record? Will you promise that nothing I say will go any further?”
“Sure.” She didn't have any problem with that. In the first place, she didn't consider herself to be a newshound. In the second, she was more concerned about helping Otis than getting some kind of scoop to put on the air. And finally, she was first and foremost a lawyer. She knew how to keep confidentiality.
“Okay. I'm beginning to think you're right that this caller may have also killed the Klines. I'd be a lot more reluctant to think that if he hadn't drawn the connection himsel
f, but given that he did, and given the new murders, I'm inclined to think he isn't just a crackpot. But there's no way on God's earth I can prove he did the Klines without a confession from him. I reviewed the record, Carey, and there's nothing there.”
“There never was anything there,” she said, pointing to the box of papers that was still on her table. “I've been over the state's file, and most of the clippings Sally Dyer gave me. It was a thin case against Otis to begin with, and I can't find a damn thing that would tie anyone else to it.”
“So there's no way I can reopen that investigation,” he said. “I don't even need to ask. They won't let me do it.”
“So what now?”
“Damned if I know. Do you think there's some way you can get him to call your show again?”
“And do what? He's already said Otis didn't do it, that he did. You need more than that.”
“Maybe you can get some details out of him that might prove he has more than ordinary knowledge of the crime.”
She cocked her head. “Was there anything that wasn't presented at trial as evidence? Anything you guys withheld that could be useful?”
He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Damned if I know,” he said finally. “It's been five years. All I can rely on after all this time is what's in the file. I don't think anything was kept back, once the charge was filed.” He opened his eyes suddenly and dropped his hand. “Christ! There's got to be something!”
“It would sure help if John would talk. I've got the strongest feeling he knows who really did it.”
“Yeah? Then it would have to be someone he knows.” He perked up a little then, and Carey could almost see the wheels spinning. “You told me that, didn't you. Christ, it's as plain as the nose on my face. Why didn't I check it out before?”
“I've got to say,” Carey said after a moment, “that Otis hasn't been real helpful from the git-go. Just once, he said he didn't do it, then he clammed up. He wouldn't suggest anyone else, wouldn't cooperate with investigators, and now he's sitting there on death row with only a few more days to live, and he still won't say anything. So he's protecting somebody—although at this point you'd think he'd be getting scared enough to reconsider.”
“Guilt makes people do funny things,” Seamus said.
Carey straightened. “Guilt? What made you say that? You think he's guilty?”
“I don't know why I said it, and no, that's not what I meant. It's something I was thinking about, and it just popped out.”
The oven timer dinged, and Carey turned to pull the pizza out. The mozzarella was bubbling, and the delicious aroma filled the kitchen.
“I just got hungry,” Seamus said.
“Me too.” She put three pieces on a plate for him, and one on a plate for herself.
He poured the coffee for both of them, and carried it to the table, then removed the box of clippings to the window seat for the time being.
“I've got crushed red pepper,” she offered.
“Not this late at night.”
She grinned at that. “So I'm not the only one with an aging stomach?”
He surprised her with a genuine laugh. “I'm not sure whether it's age or abuse. Too many fast-food meals and too much coffee. Some jobs'll kill you before your time.”
“No kidding.”
They ate for a while in silence, their thoughts following separate paths. Then Seamus startled her by asking, “You ever think of having kids?”
That came from so far out in left field it took her a few seconds to understand his meaning. “Well, yes. I guess. The way people do who aren't married. Someday. Eventually. My biological clock isn't ticking mercilessly yet.”
“I cleaned out the baby's room tonight.”
She looked at him, waiting, not really certain what he meant.
“I haven't touched it since she died.” He looked away from her and sighed. “Everything was just the way it was the night she was killed. I cleaned it all out, got it ready to take to Goodwill.”
“And that's what got you thinking about guilt?”
He nodded and returned his gaze to her. “Exactly. For seven years I never even opened that door. Do you know how much dust accumulates in that time? I looked at it, and saw the way it used to be; but I saw the dust, too. It said something to me.”
She nodded, wanting to encourage him to talk, and afraid that if she said anything he might shut up. This was something he'd never talked about before in any depth.
“I've been thinking that my life is like that room, frozen in time, and disappearing under a ton of dust.”
She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but didn't dare.
“Anyway, I called a real estate agent. I'm going to sell the house. And all of that got me thinking about guilt. It's amazing what guilt makes us do. Look at you. You're risking your job.”
“I'm risking my job to try and save a man's life.”
“Come on, Carey. You know that nothing you say on your show is going to save Otis. There's no need to risk your job.”
She shook her head. “That man is not going to go to his death without somebody speaking up for him. And this society is not going to execute him without someone standing up to say it's wrong.”
“Why you?”
“Someone has to do it.”
“It's guilt, Carey. Guilt because you had a hand in it. Guilt because you feel responsible. You're destroying your life just the way I destroyed mine, and for no more reason.”
“You're one to talk.”
“I'm one who can talk. Just take it easy on the air. What needs to be done isn't going to be done there.”
“Unless I can get Bob from Gulfport to confess in detail and turn himself in.”
“Anything's possible, I guess. But anything else is just going to get you fired.”
“That's my problem.”
“I care, Carey. That makes it my problem.”
She didn't know how to take that. She stared at him, feeling irritated and strangely hurt. She didn't like him saying that he cared, not after all this time, but there was no reason it should hurt.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “It's your business, not mine. But it wouldn't hurt to reconsider. That's all I'm asking.”
She wanted to stop this discussion, so she took the easy way out. “I'll think about it, okay?”
“Okay.” He rose and started clearing the dishes. “So you haven't found anything in the press.”
“I haven't finished looking.”
“Want me to help?”
They picked up the to-be-read stack of clipping copies and divided them. It was well after midnight, but neither of them especially cared if they were dragging in the morning. Some things were more important.
At some point, Carey realized the words were swimming before her eyes, and that her mind wasn't even absorbing them. “I've got to stop,” she said. “I can't see straight, and if I found something, I probably wouldn't even recognize it.”
“Me too,” he said. But he didn't move immediately.
He looked every bit as tired as she felt, but she had the distinct impression he didn't want to go. Thinking about how he said he had spent his evening, she guessed she could understand that. She felt an ache of sympathy for him, but didn't know what she could do to help.
“Time to go,” he said, appearing to shake himself out of reflection. Without looking at her, he rose, carried his mug to the sink, then headed for the door.
She followed him, feeling a mixture of things she didn't care to identify. Feeling anything about Seamus Rourke was like testing a tooth that ached. There was no telling when the wrong touch might cause unbearable pain to flare.
At the door he turned to say good night, but he never spoke the words. Their eyes met, and something shifted in the air, making it electric—like the calm before the storm.
He felt it, too; she could see it in the way his pupils dilated, and his face seemed to take on a drowsy expression that had nothing to d
o with sleep.
Her heart began to beat heavily, and her mouth opened slightly. No, said some sane portion of her mind. Don't do this. Don't let this happen. The pain had nearly torn her apart last time. Hell, she'd hardly even dated for fear of an involvement that could cause her that kind of pain again.
Now here she was, her entire body suddenly straining toward Seamus as if she were a flower and he the sun she so desperately needed.
But desire was spiraling deep within her, building a whirlpool that was about to draw her in. Heaviness was filling her limbs, making her feel soft and pliant, and the screaming protests of her common sense seemed far away and muffled, and unimportant.
And he hadn't done a thing except look at her with that slumberous expression she remembered all too vividly. That look had always been a promise of exquisite pleasure and complete forgetfulness, a call to join him in another world where no one and nothing existed except the two of them. It had always been a promise that for a little while she would be the center of his universe, everything else forgotten.
But only for a little while. That hard-learned lesson held her back now, hovering over the whirlpool of need that was making her throb in every cell.
Afterward, memory always returned, and she was always once again the forbidden fruit, the sin he shouldn't have committed, the pleasure he didn't deserve. How many times had she seen that transformation grip him, turning him from ardent, laughing lover into guilty widower?
She couldn't bear the pain again.
She started to turn away, to save herself. At least she thought she did. She felt the muscles tense in preparation, even though her feet, glued to the floor, didn't move at all.
But before she could escape, before she could even try to, he reached out and drew her into his arms.
She was lost then. In an instant she weakened, grew pliable, rediscovering the warm, soft place deep inside her that only he could reach. Everything else slipped away but her awareness of him and how he made her feel.
His chest was hard yet welcoming, and she fit against him with a comfort that she had felt with no one else. It was as if their bodies were matching pieces of a puzzle.