by Rachel Lee
She nodded slowly, but she didn't see how that really exculpated her. Because no matter what he said, she had played a role.
Closing her eyes against the anxiety that was eating her alive, she suddenly remembered the book that had been lying in John Otis's cell: A Tale of Two Cities. And just as suddenly she remembered the famous quote from that book,” It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.” Was that what Otis was thinking?
“Son of a bitch,” she said suddenly. “He has no right to do that!”
Seamus sat up. “What?”
She told him about the book and the quote.
“Christ,” he said, following her reasoning. “Self-sacrifice? How can you stop that? And what do you mean, he has no right to do it?”
“Because he's not just sacrificing himself! He's making all of us accomplices in his suicide by forcing the state to kill him when he's innocent. He's making us all into murderers by doing that. He has no right to do that to anyone. He has no right to do that to mel”
“No,” Seamus agreed after a moment's thought. “Last year some guy got suicidal and didn't have the guts to pull the trigger himself. So he pulled a gun on a cop. The cop's still in therapy.”
“But even if he doesn't see it as suicide—and maybe he doesn't—he's wrong in thinking he's committing some noble act of self-sacrifice. If his brother were innocent, that would be one thing. But the guy is evidently a multiple murderer. Saving James has already cost three people their lives. How many more are going to die if James stays free? Where is the nobility in allowing a murderer to kill again? God, Seamus, John has this all twisted up in his head!”
Seamus rubbed his chin and sighed. “You're probably right.”
“I'll tell you one thing, I'm not going to let him make me a party to this. If I do nothing else, I've got to make sure that James never kills another person.”
“I'm going to order room service,” he said after a while.
“We both need the rest. Besides, I'm expecting a call.”
“From who?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Local law enforcement. You never know what you might find out.”
She looked down at her restlessly twining fingers. “I don't think I can eat, Seamus.”
“Okay. I won't order. We'll go out later.”
Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, he reached out and pulled her down so that she lay half across him, her breasts pressed to his chest, her face inches from his.
“I'm starved,” he said, his voice rumbling deep in his chest in a way that reminded her of a huge cat. “I haven't eaten since breakfast, and you know my appetite.”
Yes, she knew his appetites. They were all large, and not all of them were for food. She was feeling almost giddy, being this close to him, reading the slumberous heat in his eyes. Food wasn't all he wanted. A slow, deep pulsing began between her legs.
It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room, and the entire universe had narrowed to this man. Everything else seemed to recede into the distant reaches of space and time. Her entire being hummed with yearning just for him, and not even the last fading voice of sanity could stop her. She needed him. She needed the forgetfulness he was offering.
There was an almost painful sense of awakening somewhere inside her, as feelings she had long ago put to sleep began to stir to new life. She had never stopped wanting this man, she realized. They were doomed, but she had never stopped wanting him anyway. She had only pretended that she didn't care anymore.
Because care she did. She felt as if she were being painfully yanked out of some warm dark place and forcibly thrust back into reality, and with the emergence all the anguish returned. The scars on her heart, so tender yet, burst wide, revealing the gaping wound that had never healed.
It hurt. It hurt almost too much to bear, to realize she still loved this man. But no matter how much it hurt, she couldn't make herself turn away, because that would hurt more.
Just then, the phone in his room rang. His eyes closed briefly, and he drew a deep breath.
Freed of his hypnotic gaze, she rolled away quickly, grabbed the blow-dryer and brush, and locked herself in the bathroom. Tears came then, and she bit a towel to stifle her sobs. She didn't want him to know how much he still touched her. She couldn't bear for him to know that she was still completely and totally vulnerable to him.
Because she didn't want him to know just how totally crazy she still was. Because it terrified her. Because she didn't think she could survive another broken heart.
An hour later she had dressed in a green sheath and low-heeled pumps, ready to go out to dinner. He was in his room, behind the closed adjoining door, and she could hear him talking still. Finally, growing impatient, she opened the adjoining door and walked into his room.
He looked up from the phone still welded to his ear, and smiled, raising a finger to indicate he'd be just a minute.
When he hung up, he let his gaze travel slowly over her with obvious appreciation. “Changed your mind about going out?”
Anything was better than spending any more time alone with him in the vicinity of a bed, she thought. “I need to get out of this funk. It isn't doing anybody any good.” Worse than not doing any good, it was putting her in danger. She felt so at sea, so frightened, that she was apt to sail straight into the port of Seamus's arms. Only she knew it wasn't a safe port.
“Good.” He stood up and began buttoning the top buttons of his shirt. “I hope you don't mind, but I said I'd meet a detective from the Atlanta police in about thirty minutes at a place not too far from here. If we don't have dinner with him, we can go somewhere afterward, okay?”
“Sounds good to me.” In fact, it sounded infinitely better than being alone with Seamus anywhere. “Going to trade war stories?”
“We already did some of that. But it seems he was acquainted with James Henry Otis.”
Carey forgot her emotional crisis as her heart jumped. “Really? What does he know?”
“That's what we're going to find out. It could be interesting. Then again, it may be nothing but ordinary childhood pranks.”
“Not if it needed a detective.”
“I don't know if he was a detective then.” He glanced at his watch, then unbuttoned his shirt collar again. “Let me wash up a bit. Traveling always makes me feel as if I've got layers of dirt everywhere.”
He disappeared into his bathroom, leaving her to wonder if at last they were really onto something.
They met Detective Gordon Shanks at a pub about twenty minutes from their hotel. He was a tall, lanky man, with skin the color of coffee and a ready smile and handshake. He looked tough, but his voice was surprisingly gentle from a man so big.
They sat together in a leather-padded booth with high-backed benches that effectively cut them off from the world. A waitress brought crackers with the menu and took their drink orders. Everyone ordered coffee, but Shanks added a double order of potato skins.
“I don't know about y'all,” he said, “but I'm famished. I figure we can share the skins, and order dinner later if you want.”
“Sounds good to me,” Seamus agreed, and Carey nodded her approval.
“So,” said Shanks, looking at Carey, “Seamus tells me you were with the prosecutor's office down your way.”
“Yes, I was.”
“And now you're a radio talk-show host. I think I've heard you. Carey Justice, right? You're doing all those shows on John William Otis.”
She nodded. “That's me.”
“Bet you're taking some flack.”
She had to smile. “You could say that.”
“Well, just as long as my name doesn't get on the air, I don't mind. And we're talking about juvie records here. I shouldn't be discussing it at all.”
“I have no intention of putting any of this on the air. We're just following a lead.”
Shanks nodded. “That's what he told me
. Well, I gotta say if the brother you have down there is anything like the brother we got up here, you're wasting your time. This kid was born to be trouble.”
Seamus leaned forward alertly. “How so?”
“One scrape after another. You know, when you've got a juvenile who gets into trouble once or twice you can think maybe it's just a kid feeling his oats and not thinking too clearly. But when you got a kid who does it again and again, you know you've got real trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Well, it started with joyriding. Then he got involved in shoplifting. Five or six incidents, as I recall, but his family had money, so they made restitution and the kid got probation. He was in and out of court from the time he was twelve until he was sixteen or so. And in and out of counseling, too. Given his background, the courts didn't have any difficulty believing this was a seriously troubled kid who needed help.”
Seamus nodded, scribbling notes on his pad. “Nothing violent, though?”
“I wouldn't say that. It never got charged, but I heard he popped a teacher and was suspended for a while. The school didn't report it because he was on probation for a car theft at the time, and the judge would have slammed his butt in jail. The parents apparently paid off the teacher, and got Jamie into a new counseling program. I heard he threatened other kids with a knife, but again, nobody pressed charges or called the cops.”
“How'd you hear this then?” Carey asked.
He smiled. “I was on juvie detail back then. I had ears to the ground all the time. When I found a kid who was going bad, I started checking on them from time to time, you know? I know other kids were scared of him, but it wasn't like he was out-of-control violent. It was like they liked him, but they knew he had a problem with his temper, so they kind of tiptoed around him.”
“Not a serial-killer type then.”
“I don't think so.” Shanks sat back to let the waitress put the two platters of potato skins and three plates in front of them. “Dig in, folks. Help yourselves. There's more where this comes from.” He took his own advice, lifting two of the large, stuffed skins onto his plate.
Seamus and Carey each helped themselves, and for a little while no one talked as they ate.
“No,” said Shanks, as he reached for a third skin, “I wouldn't have figured him for that type at all. He had an impulse-control problem. That's how he kept getting into trouble. He'd do whatever fancy took him without thinking about it. And he did have an anger-control problem. A serious one. I always figured we'd be locking his butt up for a long time one day when he lost his temper and really hurt somebody. Why? Do you see him doing something different?”
Seamus filled him in on the murders in St. Pete and the radio-station caller who was linking them to John Otis. Shanks nodded, eating as he listened.
“Well, it could be, I suppose,” he said. “Can't say I know the man at all now. It's possible he's got himself worked up into some kind of emotional frenzy. Or maybe something happened to him in that mental hospital, and he's turned into a cold-blooded murderer.”
“What do you know about his institutionalization?” Carey asked. “Anything at all?”
“I checked on that after Seamus and I talked. Jamie was on probation at the time, and the thing wound up in a courtroom, so he wouldn't be charged with a violation. The doctor said it was a stress-induced nervous breakdown, that given the boy's past, he had a lot of unresolved stresses and problems, and that it might take years of therapy to get him sorted out. So he's out now, huh?”
“As of a month ago,” Carey supplied.
“I guess they figured they straightened him out.”
Seamus and Carey exchanged glances but didn't say anything. Carey found herself wondering if James Otis had really gotten better, or if he'd just gotten smarter.
“Good question,” Seamus said several hours later, as they were heading back to the hotel room. They'd had an enjoyable evening with Shanks, trading war stories. “He probably just got smarter. I've seen people who've gone through endless counseling before. They learn what to say and what not to say. It doesn't seem to take them long to psych out the shrink—if that's what they want to do.”
“Exactly what I thought. But what did you think of what Shanks said? Does it sound like Jamie could be our guy? I mean, he seemed to limit himself mostly to little stuff. I've seen plenty like him who never graduated to murder.”
“And I've seen some like him, with an anger problem, who discover the first time they kill somebody in a fit of rage that it isn't so damn difficult at all.”
“But why would he have been angry at John's foster parents?”
“That, m'dear, is the all-important question.”
When they got to the motel, they went their separate ways, closing the door between their rooms. Carey hung up her dress and steamed it in the bathroom, to get out the wrinkles for the next day. Then she changed into a short cotton nightgown and curled up in front of the TV, watching a late-night movie, some ridiculous science-fiction tale from the fifties.
And somewhere about the time the inevitable nuclear weapon was coming to the rescue, she dozed off.
Sometime later, a sound disturbed her and she opened her eyes to see Seamus standing in the doorway between their rooms. He was wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else. He had a gorgeous chest, she thought drowsily.
“Sorry,” he said. “I heard the TV and thought you were still awake.”
“ ‘S okay,” she said, pushing herself up on the pillow and rubbing her eyes. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking.’’
“So pull up a seat.” For some reason she didn't want him to go away.
“It's nothing major.” But he came to perch on the edge of the bed anyway. “I was just thinking about what Shanks said tonight, and then I remembered that affidavit that James's adoptive mother signed, saying he was home the entire weekend of the Kline murders.”
She nodded. “I read it over. Nobody really suspected James though, because he lived so far away and didn't have a relationship with the Klines.”
“Right. I remember. It was just to plug a possible defense loophole.”
“Exactly. Pretty much pro forma. I read it over the other day, and there's nothing in it. Cut-and-dried.”
“Yeah;.” He drew the word out. “Except that I was remembering what Shanks said about how many times the Wigginses apparently bought James out of his trouble. And what he said about the kid being on probation at the time of the murders.”
Carey sat up straighter. “It would be a powerful motivation to lie, wouldn't it?”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe we ought to delve into that a little. Not just ask about the guy's whereabouts now, but see if we can rattle her alibi for him.”
Carey felt a sudden leap of hope. “My God, Seamus!”
He smiled. “It'd wrap the whole thing up in a nice little bow, wouldn't it? But don't get your hopes up. We might not be able to shake the Wigginses. And we don't have time to try to question everybody who knew James about a weekend five years ago. Most people probably wouldn't even remember.”
“But if we can shake her…” Hope was suddenly shining in her eyes, and singing in her heart.
“ If we can shake her, we're on our way.”
And then, without further ado, he bent over and kissed her soundly.
CHAPTER 17
5 Days
Carey was already riding a wave of exultation over the hope that they might learn something truly useful in the morning, but when Seamus kissed her, she felt that exultation rise even higher.
Memories mixed with present sensations, giving her a surreal feeling. She knew him so well. The smell of him, the feel of him, the way he held her and kissed her—all of these had never been forgotten, and she had never stopped missing them. She felt like Penelope upon the return of Odysseus.
It was as if every cell in her being, and every fiber of her soul, found home port. The loss she had never sto
pped mourning was suddenly gone, replaced by relief and satisfaction so profound they defied description.
This was where she belonged.
It was illusory, and some part of her knew it. Five years, she was sure, had made them into different people. The love they had once shared and frittered away did not belong to the people they had become. All they had was a memory, and a need they had never managed to slake.
With no hope of a future with this man, she should have backed away. The memory of pain was as strong as the memory of love. But it was not as strong as the hunger that filled her now, and that drove her to return his kiss with all the need she felt.
Love between them had died, but passion had not. Its ember remained burning in her heart, a hurtful presence that had kept her from moving on. So let it burn, she thought recklessly. Let it burn and flare into an almighty conflagration, and soon enough, nurtured by nothing but itself, it would burn out and leave her free at last Seamus lifted his head, supporting himself on his elbows to either side of her shoulders. He looked down at her for what seemed a long time, as if memorizing her face.
She stared back at him, soaking up every detail of how he looked. His face was careworn, speaking of the dark paths he had trod in the past five years, but there were no shadows there, she realized. So often in the past she hadn't been sure whether he was really seeing her, or whether he was seeing his demons. But tonight she could tell he saw only her.
He spoke, his voice husky. “God, I've missed this.”
She had, too, and she was in no mood to quibble about what he had missed. Lifting her arms, she twined them around his neck, enjoying the sensation of his warm skin against her. There was nothing, she thought, as exquisite as the feeling of skin on skin.
“Remember the magnolia tree?” he asked.
She nodded, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. A trip down memory lane might be dangerous, but she understood his need for it. This feeling, this moment here and now, needed to be put in perspective. “I remember.”