Borrowed Bride

by Patricia Coughlin

  “Run that by me again.”

  “Joel’s father was a doctor,” she reminded him. “Who knows? Maybe Joel inherited his poor handwriting from him. But along with it he picked up some of the common symbols used in transcribing doctors’ orders and he incorporated them into his. own writing. A c with a straight line over it is the symbol for with. I guess I picked them up from Joel so completely I forgot that I use them, too. For instance,” she continued as he listened, looking only half-convinced, “if I wrote a note to Joel telling him I left the keys with the baby-sitter, I would write ‘Keys, c with a line over it, sitter.’ See?”

  “Would you also write a d and pretend it was a k?”

  She laughed. “Not quite. But you get the general idea. Trust me, that paragraph says exactly what I told you it says.”

  “In that case,” he said, pulling the low table in front of the sofa closer and placing the open notebook on it so it was halfway between them, “you’re a genius. I think we ought to go over this together ... and we better start back at page one. Just to be sure I didn’t miss anything.”

  They worked for the next hour and half without stopping. It actually went faster working together. Partly because she was so much better than he was at deciphering Joel’s scrawl and partly because having Connor to talk to kept her from sinking into her own thoughts.

  Not that his company was enough to keep the bad feelings at bay entirely. It wasn’t, and she was certain that Connor understood how difficult this was for her. Time and again he casually rescued her from the clutches of her own memory with a remark or insight that quickly tugged her back to the here and now, and to his intoxicating blend of charm and humor. And Gaby knew that at that moment in her life, it was exactly where she wanted to be.

  They broke for coffee sometime around ten-thirty, both a little discouraged and doing their best to hide it from the other. Neither of them was ready to confront the possibility that they might be pursuing a dead end ... that there might not be any evidence against Adam buried in Joel’s copious notes...and that the reason it might not be there was because Adam was innocent of any wrongdoing.

  Gaby only knew that she wanted the matter settled, and quickly. Her feelings about how she wanted it settled were not so clear-cut. If it turned out that Adam was involved in something illegal and had arranged to have Joel killed to stop him from revealing it, it would mean that Connor was what she had always believed Joel to have been: an innocent victim who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would mean he could let himself off the hook for the explosion the way she already had in her heart. She hadn’t discounted the possibility that a guilty conscience was behind his suddenly black mood and his lack of interest in sharing his bed with her again.

  However, Adam’s guilt would also mean that Joel had been savagely betrayed by a man he trusted and called his friend. A man she had nearly married. That would be a bitter pill to swallow. Gaby sipped her coffee, acknowledging the fact that however it turned out, it was going to be ugly.

  Exactly how ugly began to come together for them in the early hours of the morning as they were nearing the point of exhaustion, both yawning and dropping hints about calling it a night soon.

  Gaby’s discovery of a reference to Adam in the notebook that they’d discovered was sort of a work diary—Joel’s detailed running account of all he did professionally—instantly reenergized both of them.

  “Force?” Connor repeated after she had read the brief entry out loud. “You’re sure that he used the word force?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. It says ‘Adam, Black Wolf, 6 p.m. Bring printout. Force issue.’ The rest is a little tough to make out even for me, but I think it says, ‘No stalling. No more bull.’”

  “No more bull,” Connor echoed softly, contemplating each word separately. “No more bull from Adam.” He rubbed his jaw. “Printout—that could have something to do with the restaurant’s books.”

  “He kept all that information on his computer,” she told him. “He would have made a printout of something if he wanted to bring it along and show it to Adam.”

  “His home computer?” he asked, growing excited. “Do you still have it?”

  “It’s in his office. I figured Toby would grow into it soon enough. I know his work for the restaurant is all on it because... Damn.”

  “What?” he demanded. “What, Gaby?”

  “Because Adam called one day a while after the explosion and asked if he could stop by with the new accountant he hired so they could take a look at Joel’s computer files and see which ones they needed.”

  “And you said yes.”

  “Of course I said yes,” she replied, defensive even though his tone had been more resigned than accusing. “Adam does manage the restaurant, after all. He had a right to any files pertaining to business. I had no idea what they needed, so I just showed them to Joel’s office and excused myself.”

  “Think back, Gaby, this is important. Did they take any computer disks with them when they left?”

  “They may have. I really didn’t pay attention.”

  “Did they say anything about copying or removing anything from the hard drive on Joel’s computer?”

  “They didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t ask, all right?” She shook her head, her mouth twisting with irritation. “Pretty stupid, huh? I may have handed over to them the proof we need ... maybe the only proof that exists. Damn, how could I have been so gullible?”

  “Shh. You weren’t gullible.” His arm came around her, and Gaby gratefully leaned into the strong shelter of his body. “Back then you had no reason not to do as Adam asked.”

  “That doesn’t undo the damage,” she insisted. “It doesn’t get those files back.”

  “If they took them. They may have simply copied the information rather than erasing it.”

  She craned her neck to slant him a withering look. “You don’t really believe that if there was anything there worth seeing, they would leave it?”

  “No, but I was hoping you might believe it and feel better.”

  “thanks anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.” His hand stroked her arm. “There is another possibility though.”

  “What is it?”

  “How much do you know about computers?”

  “Next to nothing.”

  “Me, too, but I remember Joel saying once that even if you erase something, it’s not really gone until the computer writes over the space where that information was stored. Does that make sense?”

  “No,” she said, lifting her head, hope stirring inside her. “But I’m willing to believe it’s true if you are.”

  Connor grinned. “Call me a believer. First thing in the morning I’ll phone Lew—he’s the detective heading up the investigation—and ask him to arrange to have it checked out. Can I give him permission to use your key to get into the house?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll also have them contact Higgins, Biggins and—”

  “Higgins, Blackwell and Clarke.”

  “Right, and see about checking out any computer he may have had access to there. Joel was nothing if not cautious. I’m betting he kept a backup of everything at the office.”

  “Do you think it would still be there? It’s been almost two years.”

  “I think we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime,” he said, squeezing her gently before letting her go, “let’s see if there’s anything else interesting here.”

  They finished going through the remaining pages of the final notebook, finding several more references to meetings with Adam, with accompanying comments that seemed to indicate a growing impatience on Joel’s part. “Adam—no show” appeared on several occasions.

  Several times they had to backtrack through the pages to double-check a date or clarify something they hadn’t understood until a later reference provided clarification.

  Fittingly the final entry was for his meeting with Connor and Adam at the Black Wolf o
n the day of the explosion. “Ten a.m.,” it read, “Adam/Wolf. Show time.”

  “Ten a.m.,” she murmured. “Before the restaurant opened for business. I always thought that was a blessing. Can you imagine if it had happened during the lunch hour? With the place packed...kids...” She shivered.

  “Actually,” Connor said, “we were supposed to meet later. Joel called me back and said that Adam had to do it early for some reason.” His jaw hardened. “Adam.”

  “Joel told me you guys were getting together to discuss your trip to New York to see some big basketball game.”

  “The Knicks and Bulls. I know that’s what you said he told you, but I never understood it. That trip was all set. We had our tickets, Adam was going to drive. There was nothing to discuss.”

  “And he never explained to you why he wanted to meet, just that it was important, right?” she asked, recalling what the police had told her in the days afterward.

  “Right. He just said he needed to talk to Adam and me about something.”

  “Only Adam never showed up,” she recalled, her eyebrows lifting speculatively. “He said he had car trouble, but in all the time I’ve been seeing him, Adam’s never had car trouble. He’s too much of an autophile. Those cars of his are his babies, and he treats them accordingly.” She turned to him, her eyes swirling with heat and horror. “Connor, the more I think about it, the more it all seems to make sense. And I...”

  Her voice cracked and halted.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, drawing her to him. “That’s how it was for me, too. I went from suspicion to disbelief and then to... I don’t how to describe it. I’d think of Adam knowing... of him letting us walk in there that day and... and I’d literally get sick to my stomach.”

  She nodded and kept her head pressed against the reassuringly solid wall of his chest.

  “When I got back here from Mexico and found out that you were going to marry him in less than twenty-four hours, I lost it.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I knew it would be futile to ask you to hold off on the wedding until the investigation was finished.”

  “You could have at least tried asking.”

  “Not without running the risk of you spilling everything to Adam. I couldn’t take that risk...especially not when I knew there was no way you’d ever listen to reason if it was coming from me. So I did the only thing I could think of.”

  “You kidnapped me.”

  “Borrowed,” he corrected.

  “Whatever.” She lifted her face to smile at him. “Have I said thank you?”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” he told her, his voice taut with leashed emotion. “Just help me to put an end to this.”

  “Do you think we can?” she asked. “I mean do you think what’s in these notes is enough?”

  “I’m hoping it will be enough to trip up Adam when he’s brought in for questioning,” Connor replied. “If you’re asking if it will hold up as evidence in a trial...” He shrugged. “That’s up to the D.A. It will depend on what they find on those computers and whose arms they can twist and—I hate to say it—but it might also depend on whom Adam’s in bed with on this. The more I see, the more I’m convinced that whatever it is, it’s too big for it to be him alone pulling the strings.”

  Before Gaby had finished mulling over that possibility, she felt him gently disengaging himself.

  “Speaking of bed,” he said, “I’m beat. I think we should turn in. You go on ahead, and I’ll pack this stuff up so it won’t be laying around when Toby gets up in the morning.”

  “Thanks. He’s doesn’t read well enough yet to make any sense out of anything he might see in there, but I’d rather him not ask a lot of questions...especially when I don’t have all the answers.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet,” she agreed. “Anyway thanks for offering to pack up. I appreciate it.” She stood and turned to face him, her palms ridiculously damp as she pressed them to the sides of her robe. “Connor, I know what you said this afternoon, about staying in our own rooms, but I—”

  He cut in, his tone soft but emphatic. “I mean I’m really beat, Gaby. Let’s just say good-night and I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  It was so not okay that she couldn’t speak to say good-night to him. Feeling the flush of humiliation on her cheeks even before she turned away, she ran up the stairs and into the room she shared with Toby.

  Damn him, she thought, fighting back tears. As rejections went, it might have been gentle, but it was still a rejection ... the second one in a few days.

  She’d endured the first, understanding that they came together with enough combined baggage to fill an ocean liner and that things might never be simple between them. She could understand uncertainty and the need to go slowly. She shared that need with him. And though making love with Connor had changed her forever, opening her eyes and her heart to the future in a way she hadn’t thought possible for her ever again, she still wasn’t asking for promises from him.

  But after yesterday, last night...this morning, for God’s sake, she also didn’t expect to be shut out so totally and abruptly with an excuse about needing to concentrate, an excuse so flimsy that she wouldn’t try to slip it past Toby. Tossing an extra blanket on the bed, she slipped under the covers and pulled them tightly around her, feeling as if someone had tilted the ground beneath her feet just as she was finally beginning to regain her balance.

  As tired as he was, Connor didn’t go upstairs to bed. He didn’t trust himself to climb those stairs, to pass the closed door to the room where Gaby was asleep, knowing that all it would take was a soft knock, a few whispered words, the short walk from that door to his bed for him to break the promise he’d made to himself on the drive back from the city. This thing between Gaby and him had to end before it went any further, and he had to be the one to do it. He couldn’t expect Gaby, after all she’d been through, to turn away from even a slight chance at happiness. That’s what he offered her at best, a slight chance.

  The physical needs that had brought them together, as intense as they were, couldn’t compensate for all the things he wasn’t. He wasn’t serious and security minded. He wasn’t father material. He wasn’t Joel. He wasn’t what she needed for the long term.

  So there could be no long term.

  He packed up Joel’s papers the way he had told her he would, covering the box and shoving it in a corner beneath a table, where Toby was unlikely to notice and ask about it. He took a walk outside, came back in and grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator. Popping it open, he took one swig and poured the rest down the drain. There was no way he wanted to wake up tomorrow in the same condition he had the last time he tried to drink Gaby off his mind.

  Besides, inebriation was no longer even a temporary solution. Before, Gaby had been only a temptation, a possibility, a craving. Now she was a part of his heart. Maybe the biggest part, he thought bleakly, returning to his chair in the living room. There wasn’t enough beer in the world to make him forget that all he wanted and needed, the greatest chance for happiness he’d ever had, was in a room at the top of the stairs, just out of reach.

  He fell asleep in the chair, his head at an awkward angle, and woke with what felt like a steel rod running through his neck and something hard and cold pressed to the center of his forehead.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Drop it, slime ball.”

  Toby.

  Connor rolled his gaze upward to see what the kid had pressed to his forehead, and his heart lurched. A gun. His mind reeled before he remembered that his own was safely locked in the cabinet Charlie had built for exactly that purpose. As a precaution he’d removed it from the knapsack under his bed and locked it there before going to pick up Toby yesterday. Kids and guns didn’t mix.

  He refocused his still-blurry gaze on the small, fiercely grimacing face before him. “What did you say?” he asked.

  “Drop it, slime ball.”

  Connor closed his e
yes. “That’s what I thought you said.”

  “Drop it,” Toby repeated, plenty of grit in his high-pitched voice.

  Connor cracked one eye. “What’s ‘it’?”

  The little head tilted to one side. “Huh?”

  “‘It.’ What’s the ‘it’ I’m supposed to drop?”

  “Oh.” His mouth puckered into a pout as he thought it over. Just as his mother’s did when she was perplexed, Connor thought, the loneliness that he had escaped with sleep surrounding him once again. “It,” the boy announced at last. “Drop it.”

  “I have a better idea,” Connor said, wincing as he shifted in the chair in an attempt to relieve the pressure on his neck. “Go bother your mother.”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  “So was I.”

  “She doesn’t like guns.”

  “What makes you think I do?”

  Toby gave him a smile so much like Joel’s it made Connor’s chest hurt. “You do. You’re a guy. Guys like guns.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s nothing to smile about, kid. And it just so happens I don’t like having them shoved in my face first thing in the morning. Got it?” he said, batting away the little hand holding the gun.

  “Got it.”

  “Where did you find that, anyway? Did your mother pack it for you?”

  Toby shook his head in that energetic way that sent his hair flying. “I found it.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “In the box.”

  Connor levered up. There hadn’t been any toy gun in that box. Had there? Hell, if the kid had gone poring through that stuff after he told Gaby he’d make sure it was out of the way...

  “What box?” he asked him.

  “The one near the door, with the pails and sand stuff.” He pointed, and Connor remembered seeing a box of beach toys near the door.

  “I filled it, too,” Toby added. “All by myself. See?”

  Before Connor could duck or tell him not to, he squeezed the trigger and shot a stream of cold water at him, hitting him right between the eyes. Naturally. The water trickled down and dripped from his chin onto his shirt.