“Fine,” Clay said, mustering his dignity as he needlessly straightened his immaculate silk vest and tie. “But I am NOT overprotective,” he muttered over his shoulder as he turned away from them with an indignant sniff. “If I was I certainly wouldn’t be encouraging my sister to participate in your crazy publicity stunt.” He gave Jamie one last glare and exited with a dramatic flourish.
Jamie threw up her arms and turned to her sister. “My publicity stunt? This was their idea. They came to me. How did I get to be the bad guy here?” She asked the empty room.
Jessica raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Oh. I don’t know,” she said dryly. “Maybe when you started using people? That’s usually when things have a tendency to go wrong.”
Jamie felt hot tears spiking behind her lids. Was her sister right?
No. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just trying to save her store. Clay and Jessica were both being completely critical and unsupportive. And not for the first time. She was tired of being judged by them. What had she done wrong exactly? Manipulated Kevin a little, tiny bit? He was a big boy. He could handle it. And as for Cathy, what harm had bringing Kevin into flirt with her really done? At worst Cathy had felt a bit uncomfortable. Considering the situations the girl had put herself in for the article, including a vibrator familiarization lecture, Jamie didn’t see the big deal. She’d hardly forced Cathy to commit a crime against nature. And yet Jamie was being treated like some kind of Lex Luthor-type Master Villain because she’d orchestrated one little awkward meeting.
She longed to shout at her sister and claim her innocence but knew it wouldn’t do any good. She was destined to be cast in the role of selfish sister even if it was completely unjustified. Jessica was the saint and would always be right. No matter how unfair it was.
So instead of screeching like a banshee Jamie sighed, put on her best bored expression and glanced at her watch. “Seriously? That’s a laugh. Who do you think I’m using here exactly?”
Jessica’s expression softened. “You really don’t know?”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “No, I really don’t. How would I?”
Jessica bit her lip and hesitated. “Well, Duncan will probably spank me for sharing this but Kevin is having some kind of meltdown.”
“Getting drunk at a bar hardly qualifies as a major crisis. For most single guys that’s pretty much a typical day. Especially for a Player like him.” Jamie said dismissively. “No big deal.”
Jessica shook her head. “But it is a big deal. One of his brothers has a major problem with pain meds, so Kevin usually keeps things pretty moderate. He wants to set a good example. Or at least he did until a few months ago.”
Jamie felt her entire body tensing up. Was there something really wrong with Kevin? She had hinted at it the other night but had assumed he was suffering from just a typical case of early mid-life crisis. Not something serious.
“What happened a few months ago?” Jamie asked softly. As much as she wanted to appear unconcerned, she could hear the worry in her voice.
“Well, Kevin took on a new book deal. A big one. And according to Duncan, he’s having some serious issues with it.”
“What kind of issues?”
“It’s on Rawlings, Jamie.”
Jamie went cold. H. R. Rawlings was well-known for his horrible crimes against women. By the time the authorities caught up with him at his farm outside the city several years ago he had murdered and disposed of more than a dozen prostitutes. His name alone inspired fear and disgust in the Vancouver community.
Rawling’s history was common enough. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by an abusive single mother who had tormented him incessantly every day of his young life. He had exhibited all the classic signs of the stereotypical psychopath including bed-wetting, cruelty to animals and escalating criminal behavior from a young age, including a disturbing case of sexual assault on a classmate when he was only fourteen. His two-year stint in in a juvenile detention centre seemed to cure him of his violent tendencies, but it was really just the beginning.
After his mother died under questionable circumstances when he was nineteen Rawlings took over the family farm and began living his life under his own terms. For him that meant torturing and killing women.
What made Rawlings different from other serial killers was that his exercise in terror didn’t end when he was incarcerated. He should have been powerless behind bars but instead his legacy of destruction seemed to grow more powerful. But now he destroyed minds instead of bodies.
From the very first day of his trial anyone who had any extended contact with him, including his lawyers and guards, all became his victims in one way or another. After the suicide of his lawyer, mandatory counselling sessions were assigned to anyone who was forced to encounter the toxic Rawlings for any significant length of time. But people still continued to get pulled into his abyss.
It was rumored that the evil man had a supernatural talent for discovering a person’s weaknesses and torturing them with his insight into their personal demons. Others insisted he was just a poor man’s Hannibal who got off on playing mind games. Either way the threat he presented was frightening and real. And if Kevin had been interviewing Rawlings for the past six months then his sanity was in real danger. It was really no wonder he had immersed himself in booze and women to escape the darkness Rawlings was so proficient in sowing.
Jamie gulped and stared at her sister in shock. “You’re kidding me. He’s interviewed that monster? Kevin? Are you sure?” The thought of the Kevin she knew conversing with a subhuman like Rawlings didn’t compute. The men were polar opposites. Kevin was a golden god of a man, so tall, charming and likeable it was difficult not to smile when you looked at him. Rawlings, on the other hand, resembled a pale, hairless goblin. His ugly visage had graced many newspapers during his trial and Jamie remembered having at least a few nightmares about his dead eyes and self-sharpened, rat-like teeth. Yuck.
Jessica nodded. “He was actually pretty excited about it. At first. It was a real feather in his cap. Especially considering Rawlings rejected several writers before agreeing to allow Kevin access.” She shrugged. “Apparently he wanted a Canadian writer.”
Jamie looked down at the floor. Suddenly her treatment of Kevin seemed genuinely cruel. She had assumed he was just a horny lush but maybe there actually was more going on here than a guy in pursuit of casual sex for pleasure’s sake alone. Perhaps he was a guy trying to escape something instead. That certainly put his behavior in a new light.
But the question was: Did his troubled state of mind make him even more attractive or was it just another reason to avoid him at all costs?
Chapter Thirteen
Kevin woke with a start, his large body bowing upward into a sitting position. His cell phone was growling ‘Wild Thing’ by Tone Loc at top volume. He knew it was Dylan by the ring tone but let it go to voicemail. He really didn’t want to talk to any of his brothers right now, especially him. Dylan was two years younger and a major pain in the ass. He’d see him later today anyway and that was soon enough to deal with his attitude.
Kevin reached out with one shaking hand and clumsily reached across the bedside table in an effort to turn down the deafening volume on his cell. When he finally managed to get his fingers around the offensive object he threw it across the room where it landed on the leather seat of one of the recliners in his suite’s sitting area with a soft thump. Leaning back against the oversized upholstered headboard of his California king-size bed he closed his eyes and tried to gain control of himself.
“Fuck,” he muttered, running both hands through his wild hair. Looking down he noted that sweat covered every inch of his naked body and his heart was beating so hard he could hear it loud and clear in the still room.
He really couldn’t take much more of this. The dream was slowly killing him. When he’d been drinking, the images were blurry and difficult to recollect but bad enough to scare the shit out of him. Now that he was three d
ays sober he could recall every awful detail and he felt like he was slowly losing his mind.
The dream, of course, was about Rawlings. In it he was an observer in one of the serial killer’s hunting expeditions. At least that’s how it always started off. But then sometime between the trolling for fresh prey and the torture of some nameless, faceless woman the perspective shifted and it wasn’t Rawlings hurting the dark-haired women who inhabited his personal nightmare. It was him. And in the dream he was enjoying the terrible things he was doing. That was the part that scared him. Not Rawlings. But him. His own potential for pain and destruction.
In real life he’d never physically hurt a woman. Even when he was provoked during domestic disturbances while working with the VPD he’d never considered using physical force on the fairer sex. Inflicting pain wasn’t in his nature. Or at least that’s what he’d thought until he’d discovered a growing fascination with Rawlings’ tales of domination and control over his victims. Kevin despised himself for it but he found himself listening to his interviews with Rawlings over and over again, reliving the parts that both enthralled and repulsed him.
There was no denying it. A very small and twisted part of him identified with Rawlings on some level. In his own way he’d preyed on women just as Rawlings did. They both used and abandoned them without a thought. In Kevin’s case, his objective was always pleasure rather than pain, but he could still see similarities between himself and the subject of his book. They were cut from the same dark cloth.
As much as Kevin wanted to purge himself of these disturbing thoughts they were inescapable and he had no idea how to exorcise his demons without the use of alcohol and women. And as effective as those two coping mechanisms were there was no doubt that they were also destroying what was left of his life. Bottom line was that he couldn’t use either of them as a crutch anymore.
Alcohol was turning him into an asshole with astronomically bad judgment and women didn’t appeal anymore. Only one woman did and she wasn’t interested in this damaged version of him. So what was left? How did he heal himself?
He’d thought about therapy but couldn’t see himself sitting in a stranger’s office and revealing the horrible truth: that he dreamed of death and destruction. And was drawn to those repulsive activities. How could talking about it improve his situation anyway? Acknowledgment would just make it more real, wouldn’t it?
The worst part was that he didn’t know why Rawlings brought this out in him. He’d interviewed human monsters before and only felt mild revulsion. But there was something different about Rawlings. He spoke about his terrible deeds like they were a game, without shame or guilt. He didn’t defend himself or deflect blame to his mother or anyone else. He liked what he was: a perfect killing machine fulfilling its purpose in life. And that purpose was causing pain and death.
A pounding on his hotel door startled an embarrassingly girlish gasp from Kevin. He hurriedly grabbed his jeans off the bench at the foot of the bed and scrambled into them, not bothering with underwear. He had no idea who would be knocking on his door at whatever time of the day this was, but he owed whoever it was a good kick in the balls. He hated when people just showed up here. Especially certain dark-haired ex-lovers who couldn’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer.
But it wasn’t Kerry this time. Yanking the door open Kevin was shocked to see his younger brother, Dylan, standing in the doorway, looking more than a bit enraged. He was carrying his ginormous Toronto Maple Leafs duffle bag in one hand and his iPhone in the other. He pointed the phone at Kevin menacingly and dropped the bag on the expensive carpet with a loud thump, narrowly missing his brother’s oversized bare feet.
“What the hell?” Dylan growled. “I thought you were picking me up at the airport. What happened? Did the orgy run late?”
“Shit. What time is it?” Kevin groaned, looking over his shoulder at the bedside alarm clock.
“It’s ten-fucking-thirty in the morning. You were supposed to pick me up at nine.” Dylan said through gritted teeth. With the death glare he usually reserved for members of the opposing team directed at his brother he stepped into the room. Punching Kevin viciously in the upper arm in typical Hall greeting he collapsed on the nearby leather couch and watched his older brother through slitted eyes. “I can’t believe you left me hanging like that. What is with you? You’re turning into a total flake.”
“Man, I overslept. Clearly, I suck.” Kevin said, closing the door and leaning against it. He rubbed his eyes and then ambled over, sinking down on the recliner adjacent to Dylan, narrowly missing sitting on his own cell phone. “How was your flight?” He asked politely, trying hard to change the subject. Unfortunately, his brother wasn’t buying it.
Dylan raised one pierced eyebrow. “My flight was awesome. Nearly joined the mile-high club with two porno-hot flight attendants. Thanks for asking. What wasn’t awesome was waiting around the airport for an hour and a half.”
Kevin groaned. “I said I suck. What do you want? A formal-fucking apology?”
Dylan nodded. “Yeah. That would work. But only if you’re willing to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. And call me ‘Your Awesomeness’ as you do it.”
Kevin snorted. “Not going to happen. But how about this? Sorry, Eugene. I was an asshole for sleeping in.”
Dylan ignored the use of his nerdy middle name. “Good enough, I suppose. Now seriously what is going on with you? Mom told me that you haven’t been returning her phone calls and then a few days ago she mentioned something about Duncan calling and reporting you were turning into a certifiable lush. Do we need to have a little talk about what constitutes addictive behavior? ‘Cause I’m kind of an expert,” he said with a smug smile.
Kevin leaned back in the chair, stretched his arms towards the ceiling and studied his brother. He hadn’t seen Dylan in more than six months. His dark blonde hair had grown out from the buzz cut he typically favoured. It was nearly shaved on the sides now but the top was cut into a short, spiky Mohawk and bleached a whiter blonde. Through the opening in Dylan’s long-sleeved plaid shirt Kevin could also see that his rebellious younger brother was sporting some new ink. The black tribal tattoos he sported on both arms were now continued up his neck
It was impossible to tell that Dylan was a recovering addict. He looked incredibly healthy and much too pretty to be in the NHL. He actually had all his teeth and not a single scar marred his tan face. To Kevin, Dylan looked like a slightly smaller, more ripped version of himself.
But his little brother had struggled with his own demons. An injury several years ago had left him with an addiction to pain meds that had nearly cost him his career. After a few trips to rehab the program had finally started to sink in. Now he was back on top of his game and firmly in control of his addictive tendencies. But still a bit of a know-it-all asshole.
One of the many reasons Kevin was three days sober was in preparation for Dylan’s arrival. The last thing he wanted was for his little brother to witness how badly he needed booze to get through the day. Now that Dylan was here, however, Kevin wasn’t sure if he could maintain his sobriety. The dream was just too awful without the numbing effect of alcohol. For the first time in his life he really questioned if he could be a worthy role model to his troubled sibling. He had enough on his mind without worrying about Dylan too.
On the drive home from White Rock he`d seriously considered just driving to the closest rehab facility and signing himself up for a program. He needed to get himself together. No more excuses. Being with Jamie in his car had changed him on some level. It had shown him what he could have if he could just get past whatever Rawlings had awoken in him. The first step to doing that was dealing with the content of the dream and for that to happen he had to stop relying on alcohol to blur his memory.
He wished he could just will it all away. Get back to his normal life before Rawlings and even before Jamie. He’d been happy once. Okay. Maybe his life was a little empty before he’d fallen for her but it had b
een so much easier. A part of him longed for those less complicated times where he didn’t feel so much and have so much to lose.
Loving a woman like Jamie was never going to be simple. She was too complex, too strong-willed and maddening to ever be considered easy. Even if he somehow managed to drown out his own dark thoughts it would take everything in him to convince her he was worth more than a one-night stand. The way she’d left him there in the cold with his pants around his knees and his ego in shreds at his feet. The memory still stung like nettles to his genitals.
“Whoa. What is this? A fucking shrine? Have you turned psycho on me, or what?” Dylan exclaimed.
Kevin groaned. While he’d been contemplating his troubled universe his annoying brother had wandered over to the oversized bureau next to the bed. On its glossy surface Kevin had laid out the first four published editions of The Love Laws with accompanying photos of Jamie in several risqué lingerie outfits. It was stupid, but somehow being surrounded by her words and her image made him feel closer to her. Now he was totally humiliated by the impulse. His brother was going to torment him mercilessly for displaying his obsession like a teenager with a crush on a playmate.
“Not quite psycho. Just a little research.” Kevin said lamely. That part was true in a way. He had re-read the articles countless times hoping to gain some insight into Jamie’s character. He’d hoped she’d discuss her own reluctance to engage in a relationship. Unfortunately, she hadn’t revealed much about herself at all. She was still a maddening mystery to him. One who evidently thought guys were simple, dick-driven creatures, easily susceptible to the manipulations of wily females.
No, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with Jamie’s man-bashing tone in the articles but he was intrigued. Because something in her words didn’t ring true. It was almost like she was being blatantly hostile towards men. Why? To drive them away? If so, it was a good strategy. A guy would have to have major cahones to approach her. Or be on the brink of insanity. Like him.
The Love Laws Page 19