by Kim Karr
Fear riveted her and her entire body went rigid. She stopped me from giving her another spoonful by taking hold of my hand. “What is it? It’s not Clementine, is it?”
“No,” I said immediately.
She relaxed.
“I went to see Michael. He didn’t believe me that you were missing, so I told him I was talking to you on the phone when you were abducted. I didn’t tell him anything else about us, but I’m sure he can figure it out.”
She took her hand away and indicated I could continue.
That was a good sign.
I scooped another spoonful.
After she swallowed it, she said, “I think you are right. It’s time to come clean about everything. Michael loves Clementine and I know even if he’s angry with me, he’ll do what’s best for her. In the end, he will.”
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me or herself, but I agreed with her.
She ate everything on her plate and told me what she remembered, which wasn’t much. I helped her shower and then put her back into bed. She didn’t have any clean clothes, so a clean hospital gown had to do for now. Once she fell asleep, I’d slip out and head to the lobby. Miles was downstairs and I needed to fill him in. And I was also certain he wouldn’t mind heading back to Boston to grab a few things—including one very important thing.
“Lay with me,” she whispered.
“I’d do anything for you,” I said as I took my place next to her.
“Even jump through fire?” she asked sleepily as her head found my chest.
“Jump through fire, leap from the tallest bridge, scale buildings, anything.”
“My hero.”
I wasn’t her hero.
Or her white knight.
But I knew what I could be and as corny as the thought was in my mind, I was going to be . . . her Prince Charming.
ELLE
A tiny detail sat on the outskirts of my consciousness.
It was right there but I couldn’t place it. I was in the bathroom when it hit. I’d just woken up and Logan wasn’t back yet. Feeling clearer-headed than I had earlier, I replayed the events of the past few days in my head. It wasn’t long before my mind felt overworked trying to pull everything together and I wished Logan were here to bounce my thoughts off of.
Unfortunately, that tiny piece of the huge puzzle was lost before I could figure out what it meant. Frustrated, I stared into the white porcelain sink, trying over and over to bring it back.
I didn’t know how long I’d been standing in front of the mirror. Just looking. Thinking. Concentrating. Until eventually, I gave up and let my mind wander. I wondered if I’d have a scar. When I could kiss Logan without my lips scorching in pain. If the day would come when he could look at me without feeling racked with guilt. This wasn’t his fault. Whatever this was.
“Elle?”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
The voice caught me off guard. I gripped the sink, feeling panicked. Shifting my eyes around the small space, I knew I had no choice but to answer. There was no escape.
Still, I didn’t move.
Michael tapped on the bathroom door. “Elle?”
“Yes, I’ll be right out,” I called in a shaky voice.
Why was I frightened? I had no reason to be. He said he’d be back. Why hadn’t I thought to call and tell him not to come?
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Logan had left me his phone in case I needed anything while he went down to talk to Miles, but that left him without one. My instructions were to call Miles if I needed anything, but the phone was on the table beside my bed.
Standing straight, I opened the door. It was when I looked at Michael that the small fragment I’d been trying to recall from somewhere in the back of my mind came to me in a flash. The memory was of me getting out of Michael’s car after Lizzy’s funeral. I was trying to avoid a conversation I didn’t want to have with him and was rushing for the door when a man called out to Michael. I twisted my head and the man calling to him had icy blue eyes, the same eyes as Michael. The same eyes as the ones I had seen in the rearview mirror. And his son was with him, the same boy who had groped me and injected me with insulin. Seamus. The man’s name was Seamus. Michael called him that.
I felt myself pale and squeezed my palms shut.
“What is it?” Michael asked.
Pensive, I stepped out into the room very aware that I was naked beneath my gown and hating it. It made me feel vulnerable. I shook it off and decided it was time I came clean and that Michael did as well. “Who was the man who came to the house after Lizzy’s funeral with all the flowers?” I asked sharply.
Michael’s entire demeanor instantly turned aloof. “How would I know? There were a lot of people there that day.”
I knew he was lying.
“Why do you ask?”
My mind was wandering again, back to the picture in Erin’s house, the one with the family of five—Michael, his sister, his mother, his father, and the fifth unknown. I changed tack. “Do you have an older brother?”
Michael took a step toward me. “What are all these questions about?”
I stepped back. “Do you?”
For a moment, neither of us moved or talked. “Have you thought about my proposition?”
Stunned, I couldn’t even comprehend why he’d bring that up now. “No, Michael, I haven’t. I’m sorry, but someone just kept me captive and injected me with insulin until he could figure out how to put me on the right path.”
Blatantly ignoring me, he matter-of-factly stated, “You have something I need and I have something you want. It seems like such a simple choice, but still, I need to hear your answer.”
“I don’t understand why you’re changing the topic,” I said, exasperated.
He took a deep breath. “There are so many things you don’t understand.”
I sighed. “Then help me—tell me what I need to know.”
“Elle, before I leave here, I need to know your answer. That’s all you need to know.”
I threw my hands up. “Why? Why before you leave here do you have to know?”
“Clementine’s safety depends on you saying yes,” he said in a broken voice.
Panic tore through me. “That’s not true. You’re using her to get what you want.”
He frowned. “I wish I was.”
No more. I couldn’t take any more of this tiptoeing. He had to stop his lies now. “I’m in love with Logan McPherson and I want to be with him, not you.”
Physically shaking, he ran his fingers through his dark hair. “I figured as much when he barged into my office looking for you.”
I shook my head. “Then why did you still ask me about us?”
“Because I need an answer.”
My knees felt like rubber. “It’s no, Michael, it’s no.”
That fear seemed to grow on his face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I needed to sit down, so I made my way to the bed. Once there, I turned to him and softened my gaze. “Please, don’t take Clementine away from me. Don’t punish her for my choices. She needs me in her life.”
He seemed so distant, even though he was just across the room. “If you’re not standing by my side before the District Attorney nominations, her life will be in danger and there is nothing I can do about it.”
I got to my feet and ran over to him. “What are you talking about? Tell me what you mean.”
Five seconds had passed before he spoke. “I can’t.”
My fists were pounding against his chest and tears were leaking from my eyes before I knew what I was doing. “Stop saying that. Just tell me. Tell me now.”
As if defeated, he closed his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning, Michael. Start there.”
He nodded, and after a few seconds he began to speak. “Your sister and I didn’t fall in love. She was a prostitute I used for sex on a few
occasions and although I fell in love with her, she never really loved me. She couldn’t, because she was in love with someone else.”
“Tommy Flannigan?” I asked, already having determined Lizzy had some kind of connection with him from what Logan had uncovered.
Another nod. “He wasn’t right for her. He couldn’t help her turn her life around, and that was what she needed.”
I had nothing to say. I was certain she did need that, but experience had told me no one could do that for her; she had to want to change.
“And yet she loved him anyway. He was her pimp, for fuck’s sake. He used her to make money. I hated that. Couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want her to clean herself up, didn’t want her to get off the drugs; all he wanted was for her to keep her mouth on other guys’ dicks.”
I’d never heard him talk like that. “What changed, Michael? If she didn’t love you, why did the two of you get married?”
“I’m getting to that. Like I said, we knew each other.”
My temper flared. “Yes, you were one of those dicks she kept her mouth on.”
“Don’t judge me, Elle. At least I wanted to help her. And I tried many times to get her to walk away from that life, but she wouldn’t. When I was done trying, I gave her my card and told her if she ever needed anything, to call me. For the longest time, she didn’t. But then about two years ago she got picked up on a possession and prostitution charge. That’s when she contacted me. I took her case free of charge, vouched for her, and bailed her out of jail—the court contingency was that she come work for me, my contingency was that she stay away from Tommy. She didn’t really have much of a choice. It was me or jail time. So she agreed to my terms. And as the days went on, she was doing so much better. Every day I could see the light shining brighter in her eyes.”
An overwhelming sadness stabbed at my chest for what she had become.
“At that time in my life I was just starting to think about running for District Attorney and I thought having a woman beside me would be beneficial, so I asked her to marry me.”
I’d surmised that Michael and Lizzy, although married, weren’t truly in love, so this wasn’t a surprise. “Why her? You could have had anyone, I’m sure.”
“There was something about her that I couldn’t let go of. Not only was she beautiful, but also I really, truly believed that I could fix her. Change her life. And I thought maybe she could change mine. You know, the whole ‘two lost souls’ thing. I had a lot of hope back then, hope that she’d learn to love me.”
I hated hearing this. Lizzy and I had both been so broken.
He went on. “The offer I made her was more than fair. All she had to do was marry me, play the dutiful wife, help me get the nomination, and stay clean. In return, I’d give her forty thousand dollars for each year she stayed with me. It really would have been a picture-perfect campaign—selfless attorney helps struggling woman and they fall in love.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Manufactured love for the polls?”
He went on. “It didn’t start out that way. I told you, I really did love her.”
My eyes widened. “So my sister married you for money?”
He nodded. “Sadly, yes.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It wasn’t long after I’d made my offer that we went down to the courthouse and got married. About a month later she discovered she was pregnant. I didn’t question who the father was. A baby was going to change everything. At first I thought the pregnancy would bring us closer together, but it didn’t. I found her withdrawing more and more. I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t talk to me. She stopped coming to work, said she was too tired. Then she started to disappear for days at a time, only to turn up hungry and exhausted. I never asked where she’d been. I knew where—to see him. I think that’s when I gave up on her. Turned my mind off to love and focused on my career. With a family, I would more than likely be able to climb the political ladder so much quicker.”
My jaw dropped and my body shook. “You took your tragic situation and made it about politics?”
“No, Elle. I took control of my life and tried to make something out of it.”
“Spin it however you want.”
“You weren’t here. You didn’t see the way she treated me, the way she’d talk to me. She had absolutely no respect for me or for what I’d done for her.”
“Why’d you let her stay, then?”
“She was pregnant. I couldn’t kick her out. I knew if I did, she wouldn’t take care of herself. So day after day, I endured all the crap she threw my way. After she had Clementine, things only got worse. By then, I’d stopped trying to make her happy. One day, out of the blue she threatened to leave me, take the baby, and run away with Tommy.”
“But Clementine was legally your daughter. Lizzy couldn’t just take off with her. You had rights too.”
He laughed. “Your sister didn’t care about the law. I knew there was a very real possibility that I could come home one day and find her and Clementine gone and that I’d never see them again. I couldn’t have that. Clementine meant everything to me. That’s when I went to someone for help who didn’t care about the law either.”
“What kind of help, Michael?”
“Someone who could offer Tommy the job of a lifetime.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your sister used to tell me the oddest things, either during one of her rages or later, once she had calmed down. One time she had told me that Tommy wanted to be successful on his own and break free of his father’s hold. He really felt that his ticket out of the Flannigan shadow was the drug market. I knew this, and I used this information. Within hours of your sister telling me her plan, Tommy was offered one of the very coveted positions as wholesaler for Boston’s biggest drug supplier. There was no way he was going to leave town and give that up. And with him staying, I wouldn’t have to worry about Elizabeth leaving. This would give me a chance to get her help and for us to cement as a family. Or so I thought.”
Shock wasn’t even what I was feeling. “You’re an attorney, Michael. You uphold the law. Why would you even know a person who runs a drug empire?”
His eyes, so icy blue, had tears in them. “Elle, if I would have known that it was going to cost me your sister anyway, I would never have let Seamus back into my life.”
My heart was in my throat. “Who is Seamus to you, Michael?”
“You already know, Elle. He’s my older brother.”
My own shock finally seemed to register as I put it all together in my mind. Seamus ran Boston’s drug empire. Seamus was the Priest. Seamus was the one who’d kidnapped me. Seamus was Clementine’s uncle. The delivery boy was his son. Clementine’s cousin.
Oh God.
Tears were leaking from Michael’s eyes and he grasped his hands with his hair. “I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”
“Take what?” I screamed.
He flinched and words stumbled out of his mouth. “Ever hear of selling your soul to the devil?”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“That’s what I did when I asked Seamus to give Tommy a job. I had no idea my political aspirations were so significant to my brother. It turns out, they were even more important to him than they were to me.”
I was losing him. He wasn’t making sense. I needed to pull him back. In a softer voice I said, “Michael, finish your story, please. What happened after you got Seamus to give Tommy a job?”
His facial features tightened. “Things got worse instead of better. I asked Elizabeth to stop seeing Tommy and she ignored me. She was around less and less, and I couldn’t get her to stay at home. She wasn’t even spending time with Clementine. Then one day I got a call from the nanny that Elizabeth had come home and made her leave. That wasn’t like Elizabeth. She didn’t like to be alone with Clementine. I frantically called Seamus to find out if Tommy was still working for him. Once he reassured me that he was, I rushed home and foun
d her packing. When she saw me, all she did was ask for the money I owed her.”
“The forty thousand?” I asked, trying to understand what my sister could possibly be thinking. Why she’d want to uproot her child for a life on the road. She should have known better.
Michael scrubbed his face. “Yeah, and I went crazy. Called her some names and told her to go to hell. That’s when she told me to go fuck myself. That she didn’t need my money. That soon she and Tommy would have enough to never have to worry about money again. I laughed at her. That’s when she told me she had five million dollars’ worth of drugs in her car. While she packed, I took the drugs and put them in the panic room where she wouldn’t be able to get to them. I had to. There was no way I was letting her leave the house with Clementine. When she started loading the car, and figured out what I’d done, she freaked out on me, went nuts, and then drove off alone. She had done it all the time; I thought she’d be back in a few hours once she cooled down.”
I stood there, wordless. She was so much like my father. I hated that.
“But she didn’t return and I started to get worried. I thought she took off for good, and that’s when I called you.”
I felt sick. “That’s when Seamus had taken her?”
He nodded. “I didn’t know it at the time, but yes. It turned out Seamus had picked up Elizabeth right after she left the house that day. My call had alerted him. It was my fault.”
I had no sympathy for him, although he looked truly regretful. “So when you called me, you didn’t know where she was?”
He shook his head.
“When did Seamus tell you he’d taken her?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “About a month ago.”
“You knew where she was a month ago and yet you kept letting me think she was out there alone? Why would you do that?”
“How could I tell you any of this? Tell you what I’d done. I begged Seamus to let her go. He said he would when she was ready. He wanted her to repent for her sins and prove she would no longer be an adulteress.”
My mind was a whirl. “What about Patrick’s threats? You had the drugs; why didn’t you just give them back when he made the demand?”