Darker the Release

by Claire Kent

  He slid in the other tape.

  The first voice, again, was his. “Did you know what was going to happen?”

  “Of course not.” That was Sean Moore’s voice. He assumed Kelly would recognize it too. “What do you take me for?”

  “Well, someone knew. Someone arranged it.”

  “We both know who that someone was.”

  “So what are we supposed to do now?” Caleb didn’t like the crack in his voice. He didn’t like how young he sounded on the tape.

  He didn’t like that he felt even more helpless and betrayed now.

  “Nothing. We do absolutely nothing.”

  “But—”

  “There’s nothing to do. What? Are you thinking about speaking out for truth and justice? What kind of an idiot are you? You’d be even deader than he is by the end of it. This is hardball. If you want to be in the game, you have to play by the rules. These are the rules. So keep your mouth shut and do what you’re supposed to do. There will be plenty of rewards for all of us at the end of it.”

  That was the end of the second tape. Then there was nothing but deep silence in the room.

  Caleb still couldn’t look at Kelly’s face.

  “It was Earnest,” he said. “He made the call. He arranged it. He had your father killed. Moore and I found out after it happened. We went along with it—I’m not saying we were guiltless—but we aren’t responsible.”

  “I saw the memo Moore wrote to Earnest. It said the plan was yours.”

  “He was talking about my original plan, which didn’t include anyone dying. Earnest just kept it because it made me look guilty. He knew I had these tapes. He was using it as leverage, so I’d never do anything with these.” He shook his head and looked down at the tapes. “I never did.”

  Caleb finally turned his eyes to Kelly’s pale face. “I didn’t kill your father.”

  She made a kind of choking sound and stumbled backward.

  Ridiculously, his instinct was still to reach out and help her.

  But she jerked away from his outstretched hand and staggered back several more steps.

  Then she whirled around, as if something had possessed her, and ran out of the office.

  He followed her instinctively, without thinking it through. Their conversation wasn’t over yet. Their business wasn’t finished.

  She’d still utterly betrayed him, and she wasn’t going to get away from him so easily.

  She was fast—faster than he would have expected—and she was moving at a dead run, like she was being chased by demons. She knew her way through his house and grounds. He had to sprint to keep up with her, and even so he didn’t catch her until she’d gotten outside and was halfway across the lawn.

  He grabbed her arm and whirled her around, trying to make her stop, and she pushed out at him with her free hand.

  He huffed from the impact, but he didn’t let go, and the force of the momentum caused both of them to tumble to the cool grass in a tangle of limbs and emotion.

  She kept struggling to get away from him, but he was tired—tired of all of this—and held her still with his weight.

  “Damn it, Caleb,” she gasped, almost sobbing in her attempt to get away. “Are you supposed to be vindicated by this? You still knew about my father’s death and did nothing. You did nothing.”

  “I know it. I know it.” His voice was rough and uncontrolled, exactly as he was feeling. Her body was soft and strong and shaking, and his body seemed to know it as well as his own. He held on to her, couldn’t let her go. “But you were wrong about me, so don’t act so victimized and self-righteous. Think about what you did yourself. You used me. You betrayed me in the deepest possible way. And then you went and fucked some other—”

  “I didn’t fuck him,” she burst out, tears streaming from her eyes. She’d stopped struggling and lay on the grass beneath him, like she’d finally, finally broken. “I didn’t fuck him. I wanted to do it. To you. You would have deserved it, but I…I couldn’t. That’s what you’ve turned me into. I should hate you. I always should have hated you, and yet you made me…you made me love you anyway. How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”

  His heart seemed to explode at her words, disintegrate completely, and this time it didn’t get put back together. “And why the fuck should I believe anything you tell me now, after all the lies you’ve told me?”

  “You told me lies too. This last week, you knew. You knew. You knew who I was and didn’t let on. You pretended…” As she spit the words out, she seemed to put the pieces together. “The woods! You were trying to…You were torturing me on purpose!” She started to fight against him again, and this time he let her go.

  She scrambled to her feet, almost strangling on her emotion. “You act like I’m the monster, but you did that horrible thing to me.”

  “It’s no different from everything you ever did to me. Getting me to open up. Getting me to fall for you. When you knew all along you hated me and you were trying to prove my guilt. You can act like an outraged virgin all you want, taken advantage of by a heartless man, but we both know who’s guiltier in this scenario. I didn’t kill your father, but you treated me like I wasn’t even human.”

  He was revealing too much. Far too much. But he was too far gone to stop and too far gone to even care.

  “Am I supposed to say I’m sorry?” She was wiping tears away as if she were angry with herself for crying them. “You can act the victim all you want, but you’re just as guilty as me.”

  He remembered what she’d said the other day about feeling like she was living in a Shakespearean tragedy. It was exactly what this was. The script was laid out, the events set in motion, and no one could alter the outcome.

  Whether he was Hamlet or Claudius didn’t really matter. Everyone was destroyed in the end.

  Suddenly Caleb couldn’t take any more. Not without completely falling apart.

  He knew what he had to do. What he always did to tighten his grip on the world.

  He took a breath and pushed the tumult of feelings into a hard little ball in his chest.

  “I don’t care what you do,” he said coldly after a moment, pleased when he almost sounded in control. “I’m done with this. I’m done with you. You have your answers, so do with them whatever you want. Get out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  She stared at him almost blindly.

  “Get out of here,” he said, his voice rougher because he was having trouble hardening himself enough, hanging on to his control.

  She wiped away the last of her tears and turned away, looking back at him once over her shoulder. “I’m not the only guilty one here.”

  He knew it, but it didn’t help. Nothing could rewrite this final act. From the beginning he should have seen the end.

  No love. No reconciliation. No happy future. No return to order and justice.

  Just an inevitable spiral into destruction.

  Kelly walked away from him without another word. She walked across the lawn and around the house, the moonlight glowing on her hair, until she disappeared from his sight.

  She was gone. It was over. The life he knew might already have died if she decided to go public with her evidence and testimony.

  He should probably prepare, talk to lawyers, lay the groundwork, think of some kind of plan in case that happened. She was so angry with him now, there was no reason why she would hesitate to bring everything she knew out into the open. Even without the proof of his recorded tapes, she could do a lot of damage.

  She was the daughter of the victim. She’d been just a child, kneeling next to her father, who’d bled his life away in the woods.

  And Caleb had done nothing—had never done anything—to address that appalling injustice. He’d been rewarded with the life he now led.

  He’d been young. He’d been threatened. He hadn’t seen any option that wouldn’t hurt more than it helped. Maybe that was some sort of excuse. But at the heart of it he knew he’d made the dec
ision back then because he’d always be Caleb Marshall. Ambitious, cold, mostly heartless. All of his softer, human impulses coiled in tightly so no one could ever hurt him again.

  Chapter 10

  Kelly stumbled into her apartment, too dazed and bewildered to do anything but cling to the tiniest glimmer of recognition. She couldn’t wrap her mind around everything that had happened, but she’d managed to hold on to one, only one, essential necessity.

  She called Jack. Got his voicemail. Wondered if he was angry at her, if he would delete her message before he even listened to it.

  She left it anyway, having absolutely no other avenue for making this happen. “Jack, it’s me. Kelly. Sorry to…” Her voice seemed to be drying up, and she couldn’t force out the apology and explanation she had planned. Instead the words spilled out in a harsh babble. “You have to stop everything, Jack. Whatever you’re working on to make things public. It has to be stopped. It’s not what we thought. Please, please, Jack. Don’t do anything about it.”

  Her voice sounded unnatural and grating, and she had to hang up before she fell apart.

  She didn’t know if Jack would want to help her. She didn’t know if it was already too late.

  But she had to at least try, with the last ounce of reasoned control she had left.

  Kelly looked around her simple apartment and hardly recognized her surroundings. Nothing here was really hers. Nothing felt real. It all felt artificial and somehow surreal.

  She didn’t belong here. She felt like a stranger. And she had no idea what to do about it.

  Wandering blindly over to the window, she looked out and down to the street.

  Caleb hadn’t murdered her father like she’d thought he had.

  Caleb had said…

  She couldn’t let herself remember what he’d said.

  A strange sound came out of her throat. It might have been a sob, but Kelly was barely conscious of even making it. She jerked away from the window. Stared again at the quiet room.

  She couldn’t stay here.

  She was afraid of what she might do.

  Kelly felt blind. Felt strangled. Felt like she couldn’t stay still. So she grabbed her purse and then left her apartment again. Exited the building and turned to the right.

  Started walking.

  As long as she was walking, all she would have to think about was the motion of her body. Concentrating on her muscles, on the way the concrete was moving beneath her feet, helped to hold back everything else.

  After a long time, she ended up at the door of Reese’s apartment. She felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as she knocked, ending up here once more when she had absolutely nowhere else to go.

  But this time was worse. So much worse. Kelly actually longed for the agonizing confusion, anger, and fear that had led her here last month.

  No one answered the door.

  It was evening now. Reese was probably out with friends or a date.

  But Kelly didn’t have anywhere or anyone else. So she slumped down to the floor of the hallway outside of her friend’s apartment. She leaned against the wall in a blurry haze and just waited.

  Reese found her there an hour later.

  “Kelly,” Reese exclaimed, approaching her apartment door. Her face twisted in concern. “Kelly, what is it?”

  Kelly opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

  Reese reached down to help her to her feet. Then gently pushed her through the door she unlocked. After closing the door behind her, Reese turned to face Kelly again. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Kelly tried again. Wanted to say something. But still couldn’t seem to speak around the horrible constriction in her throat.

  Something seemed to be stopping her from voicing the words. Something that didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want any of this to be real.

  “Kelly,” Reese demanded, dropping her purse and a shopping bag on the floor. “Kelly, you’re scaring me. What is it? Is it Caleb? Did he…hurt you?”

  Kelly managed to shake her head, although her negative response wasn’t entirely true. Caleb had hurt her. He’d been partially responsible for her father’s death.

  But that wasn’t the main thing. Wasn’t what was threatening to tear her open right now.

  Reese urged Kelly farther into the apartment, and then she went to get her a glass of water.

  Kelly accepted the glass. Wanted to drink it since her mouth was so dry it was burning. She tried a sip but could barely swallow it.

  “Kelly,” Reese insisted, growing urgent in her anxiety. She put her hands on Kelly’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Don’t you dare do this to me. Tell me!”

  “Found out…” Kelly choked out. It hurt. It hurt even to speak.

  Reese’s face twisted again. “You found out? What?” Then something changed in her expression. “Fuck, Kelly, you found out about your dad?”

  Kelly ruthlessly directed her head to nod, and eventually it complied. It felt like there was some kind of excruciating tension pushing up through her chest. Into her throat. And she was scared it would literally suffocate her.

  The room, Reese’s face, started to swim before her eyes.

  “Was it Caleb?” Reese asked. “It was Caleb after all?”

  Kelly’s hands were shaking helplessly, and she had to use both of them to hold the glass of water steady. “No. No. I was…wrong.”

  Saying the words was crippling, but even this—even this most horrifying of realizations—wasn’t the force that was ripping her open, that was tearing her to shreds.

  Reese’s face was almost contorted now with confusion and worry. “Oh my God!” she breathed. “So what happened?”

  Reese had never known him, but Kelly had.

  He had been Kelly’s father. Her dad. Her dad. And she could still feel the weight of his hand on her shoulder.

  Except it wasn’t. It was Reese’s hand.

  Kelly tried to clear her head, her eyes, her throat. Tried to fight against this force that was overtaking her.

  Couldn’t.

  Couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. And water slopped from the glass all over the hardwood floor.

  “Sorry,” Kelly mumbled. She couldn’t physically hold the glass still, and she was barely able to set it on the table before she spilled the rest of it. “Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Reese said, her voice hard and urgent. “Damn it, Kelly. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  Kelly barely heard her. She stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel. Then came back into the living room and knelt on the hard floor, wiping up the spilled water.

  She’d wiped up water not so long ago from the floor of the guest suite in Caleb’s house. She’d knocked over a vase of flowers. And then she’d made herself fuck him.

  She kept wiping, even when the water was gone. She scrubbed at the wood, almost desperately.

  It was something to do. A thing to be done. She just stared at the floor and kept wiping.

  Reese knelt down beside her. “Kelly, stop. Tell me what happened. How did your dad die?”

  Kelly wanted to keep wiping, but Reese had pulled the dish towel away from her. So she just stared down, her hands flat on the floor. “He was shot.”

  Reese made an exasperated noise. “I know that. Who shot him?”

  “Hit man.” There had never been any doubt about who had actually pulled the trigger. They’d always known it was a hit man. Nothing had really changed.

  Except everything had.

  Reese reached over and put her hands on Kelly’s face, forcing her to look up at her. “Kelly, why are you acting like this? So Caleb didn’t order the murder?”

  “No,” Kelly forced out, mostly because Reese looked so panicked. It felt like someone else was speaking, someone else was shaping these words. “Someone else.”

  “Someone else? Who?”

  Kelly tried not to hear the word repeated back to her, but the sound of it was burning in her ears. “Earnest,”
she mumbled, trying to shake herself free from whatever was possessing her. “Tom Earnest. The CEO at the time. He’s dead now. Nothing…nothing to do about it now.”

  And it might have been the most painful thing Kelly could ever remember saying, ever remember experiencing.

  It was worse than running back down the trail in the woods to find her father dead.

  She saw Reese’s eyes widen as the truth sank in.

  And that was it.

  The excruciating force inside her surged up, out, ripped her apart. “Oh, God!” Kelly gasped, strangling on an agonized sob. The first sob seemed to slash open her throat, but another one followed. Then more. They wouldn’t stay down. And each one hurt more than the last.

  Kelly raised her hands to cover her face, as if her fingers could somehow hold back her painful rasps.

  “Oh, Kelly,” Reese said, her voice softer than it had been. “I’m so sorry.”

  The sympathy was worse. Even worse. And Kelly couldn’t possibly handle it. She cried even harder, in harsh, grating sobs, and her eyes burned without tears.

  Reese sat stiffly, as if she weren’t quite sure what to do. After a minute she asked, “Caleb wasn’t involved?” Clearly she couldn’t quite believe it.

  Kelly couldn’t believe it either. Except she knew without doubt it was true.

  “No,” she wheezed between the sobs that kept tearing through her throat. “He only found out…later.” She was barely coherent.

  “But that’s…good, right? You didn’t want him to be guilty.”

  Kelly forced herself to nod. Felt like her throat was closing up. She was choking. Sobbing frantically. But managed to spit out, “Except…now…there’s…nothing to do.”

  It was all she could say. But she started choking, her sobs were so wrenching and overwhelming.

  The tears had finally come now, blinding her eyes. Kelly couldn’t hold her head up. Leaned forward, over her lap. Wept into the hard floor with desperate jerks.

  “Oh, Kelly,” Reese soothed, stroking her back. “Hon, don’t.”

  Kelly didn’t want to, but there was no way she could stop. Her sobs were loud and painful, and they kept getting worse and worse.