Sam wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Hush,” he whispered. “It’s not worth it.”
She jerked away. “It’s worth it to me.” And if she could chase after those people, she would, and tell them a few home truths. She hadn’t hated her crutches this badly in years.
“It’s not the point. Come on. We want people to know I’m out, right? Well, plenty of people are going to hear it from them.” He nodded toward the shore where the family still hurried on their way. “I just hope we don’t get thrown out before we get some dinner.”
In that, they were lucky. They both knew the maître de, and while he gave Sam a searching look, he also portioned out one of his rare smiles and led them to a table near the front windows. Robin saw the bill he pocketed after he told them who their waitress would be.
“You bribed him!”
Sam winked, a half grin pulling up one side of his mouth. “All for a good cause.” He straightened and turned, and Robin followed the path of his gaze.
Donovan had just walked into the restaurant.
Robin sighed. She was getting incredibly tired of Donovan. He liked her, yeah, but she couldn’t return the favor.
Sam stood and waved. “Donovan, over here!”
Ice blue eyes swept past Sam to meet Robin’s. She blinked, tried to clear the emotion from her face, but couldn’t quite manage a smile. She hoped she at least looked welcoming, but she couldn’t help a thread of resentment, that first Donovan had blamed Sam, and then Danny. That he couldn’t accept her the way she was.
She shivered as Sam pulled his chair closer to Robin’s, to give Donovan room.
“We’re celebrating my release,” Sam told him.
Donovan pursed his lips as he shifted his chair closer to Robin’s side of the table before he sat down. When he did, she felt as constricted as if they’d trussed her and propped her in a barrel.
Donovan’s mouth remained pinched. “They cleared you, didn’t they? I told them it wasn’t you.”
As if they would act on his word alone. Robin pressed closer to Sam, and forced herself to relax. This was a meal out with a friend, seeing people. Simple as that.
Sam leaned around her to answer Donovan. “Not exactly. But they don’t have enough evidence to charge me, so they had to let me go.” Sam’s knee pressed against Robin’s, but she wouldn’t have said anything anyway.
“Right.” Donovan kept looking at Robin with his particular, piercing stare, far too intense for comfort, or for polite company. She felt dissected and looked away.
“I’m innocent.” Sam paused until Donovan looked at him and went on. “They tagged the wrong guy, but they don’t know it, so now they’re watching me.” He opened his menu with an angry flick and glared over it, at no one in particular. “It’s galling.”
“I bet it is.” Donovan opened his menu as well and asked Robin about the selections.
She murmured something, she wasn’t sure what, and because their table had no room for her to open a menu, leaned toward Sam to read his.
Sam scooted closer to her. Pretty soon she wouldn’t have elbow room to eat her scallops. She glanced at Sam, and he mouthed something at her.
It’s OK, or, are you OK?
She wasn’t sure what he wanted her to know. Either way, the answer was, no. She gave a tiny shake of her head and looked up when she heard the sound of more familiar voices.
Mrs. Wright, followed by her husband, their daughter, and Kerry, had come into the restaurant. Behind them were Coach Danny and his wife.
The group stopped and stared at the three of them. Robin felt a bit like a cartoon character facing a racing steam engine. Part of her wanted to bundle Kerry out of danger. Part of her wanted to grab Danny by his shirt and explain what they were doing, so as to erase the condemnation in his eyes when he looked at Sam. Part of her wanted to relieve the blame she saw in Donovan’s eyes. Part of her wanted to cry, and that part almost won the battle. She blinked, tried to move away from the table, and couldn’t. They’d wedged her in.
After several years’ worth of silence, which lasted a good half a minute, Danny said, “Robin, glad I saw you. I wanted you to know we’re cancelling the games until further notice.”
“It’s not fair!” Kerry burst out.
“Kerry.” His father’s voice seemed to spur him on.
“It’s ‘cuz of you, Sam. ‘Cuz they say you did bad things, but Robin said you didn’t. I’m all confused, Sam. Did you do them bad things?”
“I didn’t.” Sam pressed his lips together but made no other move, not even to reach out to the wailing young man. “I didn’t do anything to those people, and I didn’t kidnap anybody. I would never hurt anybody, especially not like that. You trust me, don’t you, Kerry?”
“I did.”
Robin’s heart broke. “You should still trust him.” She scrubbed the back of one hand under her eyes. It came away wet.
The tears stopped when Sam said, “No, he shouldn’t.”
Shocked, Robin stared at him, but he didn’t even flicker a glance at her.
“Kerry, you shouldn’t trust anybody but your mom and dad, and your sister. Got that? Not me, not Robin, no one. You stay where you’re safe.”
“But why? I don’t get it, Sam. I don’t get it.” Kerry stepped forward, his twisted hands clenched, but his mother grabbed his arm, and she stared at Robin for a moment. Robin couldn’t tell if her expression was meant to convey a need for reassurance or disbelief.
She turned to her husband, her voice light and strained. “Do you think we ought to call the others and tell them to meet us someplace else?”
He pointed to a large table, surrounded by at least ten chairs. “They’ve already set up for us. Give it a rest. He can’t do anything with all these people around.”
What had happened to innocent until proven guilty? What had happened to all the things Mrs. Wright had agreed to just that afternoon? But Robin had heard of this kind of betrayal before. She’d just never had to live it.
Donovan stood up. “Look, Coach, I’ll be at every game if you want me to. I can run a sort of security.” He gestured at Robin. “She’s already asked me to replace him as her runner. It’s not like he’ll have any reason to be there.” As if not giving Sam the dignity of his name reduced him in stature. As if no one would notice how he’d gone from being their friend to their enemy within a second.
Robin’s mouth flew open to correct him, but Sam’s hand on her leg stopped her. She glared at him.
He shook his head. “Let it go. It’s what I want.” His voice barely reached her with the sound of all the other diners, even though his mouth was only inches from her ear.
She understood, but she hated it. Why was it that, when she imagined offering herself up as bait, it didn’t hurt as much as watching Sam doing the same thing? Because she didn’t believe it was true, real, until she saw it? Or because she really did care more for him than she did for herself? No greater love, she thought and bowed her head. Neither she nor Sam were the first to sacrifice anything, but it still terrified her.
“Regardless.” Danny looked everywhere but at Sam now. “For the protection of all the team, we’re giving it a break. No more games until the killer is caught. Until they have the evidence they need.”
“That may take a while.” Donovan smirked at Sam. “Seems they can’t find a single thing on him right now.”
“So I’ve heard.” Danny nodded toward their table and followed the Wrights as they sat down a few yards away.
Kerry hung back, looking agonized, until his mother sharply called his name.
“I can’t believe it!” Robin glared at Donovan as he sat back down. “What is with you, turning on Sam like that? After all your talk about how you don’t believe it’s him, how you believe—” She stopped and forced her voice to a lower level. “And I did not ask you to replace Sam. I said if he couldn’t make it, you could step in.”
Donovan shrugged. “Same thing. You know, I think I’m going to g
et some of this spaghetti to go. I get hungry and hate to have to come out to eat alone all the time.”
Sam watched him as he spoke to the waitress, flirting with her and charming her into adding lots of breadsticks and butter to his order.
And Robin watched Sam. The cunning in his eyes scared her. He had a plan, she could tell, and she hoped he’d share it with her before he put it into action. She needed to know, so she could back him up, at least in prayer.
Donovan smirked as he returned. “Robin, you’ve got to know I was just acting a part. Right?” He slapped Sam on the back before he slid back into his chair. Robin had shoved it away with one crutch; he jerked it even closer to her before he sat down. “Tricking the old coach into a false sense of security, right? It’s what they do all the time. You know how they play good cop-bad cop? That was me.” He grinned.
Robin closed her eyes.
When she felt Donovan’s arm along the back of her chair, she wanted to duck away from the contact. Her heart burned with anger, and that wouldn’t help anyone.
A pleading gaze at Sam brought no relief. He raised his eyebrows, but didn’t challenge Donovan. Not that Robin was sure what she wanted. A fight? Punches thrown, bloody noses? How would that help keep Sam out of jail?
She had to force food down a too-tight throat, and pray she got to go home soon.
Outside the restaurant, Sam debated on how to shake the other man so he could get his girl home by herself. Not that she wanted to be near the guy, but Donovan stuck to her like a starfish to a rock. And terror had made poor Robin about as immobile as said rock. Sam had never seen her give in to fear that way—not when he’d taken her parasailing, not when he’d nearly dropped her in the surf a few days before, not when Danny pitched the ball and it headed straight for her face. Eating dinner with a suspected murderer had brought their shared experiences to a whole new level, and he didn’t like it.
But Donovan hurried away before they reached Robin’s street, claiming he had to get his package of food to the refrigerator before it started to go bad.
Not before he bussed Robin’s cheek.
She froze and rubbed the spot, but as far as Sam was concerned, she was nowhere as nauseous as she ought to be. The guy had kissed her!
Fuming, he bundled her into her cart and climbed behind the steering wheel.
“Sam?”
He jerked the engine into life and didn’t answer.
She bounced next to him as he raced home, going over the twenty mile an hour limit by at least two miles, until he parked and helped her out. She refused to move toward the door.
“What was that all about?”
“Let’s get inside.” He glanced over his shoulder, not so much because he was nervous, but to convince Robin she should be.
It worked. She shuddered, swung her crutches, and headed for the door. That one of those crutches barely missed his shins, he noticed, and for the first time in days a smile tugged at his mouth. He repressed it. He’d rather see Robin in a temper than immobile with fear.
She stopped again. “Look, you know how he is. He doesn’t have much connection with reality when it comes to me. But it’s beginning to look like you don’t, either.” She didn’t yell, but her whisper held the intensity of a bullhorn pressed to the side of his head.
“He’s a jerk. And probably a murderer.” And the fact that he was encroaching on Sam’s girl was his worst offense, as far as Sam could see.
“What? Where did that come from? He was trying to prove you weren’t guilty, that Coach Danny is. How’d you get to blaming him?”
He stroked her cheek, and leaned around her to unlock her front door. “Put the clues together. First, he blamed me. Babe, you’re the one who told me Kerry never saw the guy who tried to grab him.”
“So? Donovan did…” Her voice trailed off.
“And what if there was no kidnapper? What if Donovan made it up to make himself look like the hero? And to frame me at the same time?”
She shook her head, backing away from him. “No. He went to Macias and swore the guy wasn’t you.”
“Sure, he did. Because you were upset, right? And he knew it. He thinks of himself as your protector. He’s crazy, Robin. Can’t you see that?”
She shook her head harder, staring at the floor, so her black hair fell over her face and shimmered around her shoulders.
“That’s just one thing, babe. He saw us on the beach, remember? And the next day, I saw the scene he set up with his favorite medium. Exactly the same. Remember when I picked you up and held you so the waves just washed over you?”
She nodded without looking up.
“But tonight, there was just something—off—in the way he looked at you. And he bought food.”
Her head jerked up. “So? I suppose even murderers have to eat.”
“And so do the kids they kidnap.”
One crutch clattered to the floor as her hand slapped over her mouth. Sam bent to retrieve it, handed it to her, and guided her to a chair. “Babe. I’m sorry. I know you like him.”
“No, I—not really, not anymore. I just don’t want to think he’s a—I don’t want to think he watches me like that.”
Sam pursed his lips. “So you weren’t leading him on? Weren’t encouraging him?”
Within seconds he sensed that the question, bad enough on its own, was about to explode in his face.
Anger replaced every last trace of fear, became a slow burning fuse, and he had no idea how close it might come to its target.
“No, I wasn’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “But what’s it to you if I do?”
He reached for her, and she lifted her arms to push him away. One crutch whacked his thigh before he disentangled it from her hand. Somehow, he managed to get his arms around her, and her head rested against his shoulder.
He’d got her where he wanted her, needed her, but he never believed he’d get her there through an argument and an insensitive witticism.
It felt a bit like when he played her runner, and a bit not. More like playing her lover, and he liked that. He leaned down to kiss her but had only managed one gentle caress on her forehead when someone cleared her throat.
He spun around to see Grams on the stairs with a pile of blankets in her arms.
Sam sighed and stepped away from Robin. He took the blankets and spread them out on the couch. “Thanks, Mrs. Ingram. I’m wiped out. Three days of sleeping in the jail wasn’t good for me.”
“Can’t be good for anyone.” Grams frowned at Robin. “What’s got you all het up?”
Sam felt his eyebrows rise. Hadn’t she seen what he’d been doing? He looked at Robin’s face and understood. He’d been thinking of kissing her, but she’d needed comfort, that was all.
Later, boy. It’ll all come out later.
Robin’s eyes widened as she stared at her grandmother. “You’re kidding, right? Everything!”
Grams shrugged. “It’ll all work out. It always does. I’m more worried about this young man sleeping down here where I can’t hear what he gets up to.”
Sam smirked but bent his head to hide it from the women. So she had seen what he’d been doing.
Grams stalked upstairs after a particularly meaningful glare at the two of them.
After she disappeared into the upper hallway, Robin laughed, a short bark that Sam had never heard from her before. “Well, she knows I’m human.” She looked Sam up and down. “Or at least she knows you are. But then, why would she think you’d be interested in me?”
“Don’t go there, babe.” He gave her a measuring look and decided she was more exhausted than he was. “I really meant it when I said I was wiped out. How about we go over our plans in the morning?”
That made her smile. “OK. If you promise not to leave me out, that’s OK.”
“Never. I’ll never leave you out.” He tried to put as much feeling into the words as he could manage. Just let Donovan make the wrong move, let us catch him, and I’ll never leav
e her side. Please God. Please.
The phone rang and Robin leaned across the couch to pick up the handset.
Mrs. Wright’s voice, shaking, terrified, came over, loud enough for Sam to hear. “Where’s Sam? You better find him and get Kerry back.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Robin turned toward Sam, her eyes wide and shocked.
“You know what! Kerry’s gone.”
16
It was time. Everything had come together, matched up, made the perfect pattern, and the tapestry said it was time for him to finally take Robin, make her perfect, fix her. Look at the way she’d bumped up against him tonight, shifted closer to him, the sultry looks she’d given him, the fear when she’d looked at Sam.
It was time.
And here was the last thread he needed—the kid, Kerry. All it had taken was a few words of reassurance. After everything they all said to the kid, trying to keep him safe, and all it took was a word or two, and everything was in place. Robin adored the kid, for whatever reason. He’d make them both over, in his image, to his design, and she’d love to see them all in her last picture.
It was time to make Robin perfect.
Becca lay down on her mattress with one hand under her cheek. With the other she scraped the broken end of her toothbrush against the crumbling hole in the wall. Jake knelt next to her and brushed the dust toward the end of the bed and covered as much of the hole as he could with her crumpled sheets.
“There’s too much wood,” Becca complained. “It’s all sticks.”
Jake pushed her out of the way and prodded the wood with his fingers. “This could be good. We can maybe break them if we can expose enough of it.”
Becca didn’t understand what he meant, but she understood the word “good.” She pushed her pillow against the wall and leaned on it, her thumb in her mouth.
They both heard fumbling at the door. Jake was quick. He shoved the sheets up and flew across the room to his own mattress, where he sprawled, just as the door opened and Mr. Bird pushed someone else inside.
Fixing Perfect Page 16