Private Affair

by Rebecca York

  “But you never got caught?” she guessed.

  “Wrong. And the cops who caught me did their best to scare the shit out of me. That was the wrong approach. It only made me more defiant. But then there was this detective who understood how to handle me. And I guess he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. He turned me around. He was the reason I went into law enforcement.”

  “And the reason you clashed with guys like Hamilton,” she guessed.

  “Yeah. Cliff Maringer went the extra mile for me. He looked below the surface. Hamilton just does the minimum, so he can claim he’s doing his job, and he resents what he considers interference. I tried to help criminals, if I thought they were worth saving.”

  When she nodded, he went on.

  “After my dad left home, I took out my anger on my mom by paying no attention to anything she told me. Well, really, there wasn’t a lot of time for attention. She had a bunch of minimum-wage jobs that kept a roof over our heads, in a housing project in Ellicott City.” He turned his head toward her. “Did you even know there was a housing project in Ellicott City?”

  “No.”

  “I guess everyone who lived there was trying hard to fit into the Howard County image.” He snorted. “The wealthiest county in the U.S., you know.”

  “I never thought about that. I mean, it might be the wealthiest county, but I lived in a farmhouse with one bathroom upstairs.”

  “I lived in a housing project where you could buy drugs in the hallways. It made it hard to keep up.”

  “But you found your footing,” Olivia said. “And you found Jack and Shane. They’re important to you.”

  “You figured that out, too?”

  “Uh-huh. I like watching the three of you together. I think you could finish each other’s sentences.”

  “Yeah.” He dragged in a breath and let it out. “There’s more I have to say. Stuff you might not like as much.”

  She tensed, knowing he wouldn’t say something like that unless he meant it.

  “I told you that I thought Shane was sending me text messages. That he had something to tell me about you—and he wanted me off alone when he told me.”

  Her breath grew shallow as she waited for whatever was coming next.

  “I believed him because I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Something that might be important to this case. I just told you the worst thing there was to tell about myself. I wish you would trust me enough to do the same right now.”

  She turned away from him. They’d made love, and it was as good as she’d known it would be. Now he was asking for more than she was prepared to give him.

  Silently she climbed out of bed and reached for the robe she’d been wearing. She put it on, closed the front, and tied the belt tightly around her waist.

  She couldn’t leave the hotel suite, but at least it was a suite. She could go into the other room to get away from him.

  Without glancing back, she walked to the living room area and closed the door behind her. After crossing the room, she pulled the curtains aside and stood looking down into the building’s courtyard. Then she realized that was probably a bad idea. If she could look out, someone could look in. Someone like the man who had tried to kill her.

  She wondered if Max would come after her. When he didn’t, she sat down on the couch and pulled her knees to her chin, hugging herself.

  Did he think their making love gave him the right to demand honesty? It was a reasonable question, and she considered it.

  She’d walked away from him when he’d asked for information that he needed to do the job that she’d hired him to do. Really, she wanted to run out of the suite. But that would be a foolish tack, and she wasn’t dressed for it. And come to think of it, running away was the same thing she’d done as soon as she’d graduated from high school. That was an interesting comparison. She’d wanted to distance herself from her memories of Donley. And she’d been doing that frantically and successfully for the past ten years. Did that make her a coward? Or had she been trying to live her life the best she could?

  It had worked for a long time. Then it had started to fall apart. She’d come back to try and find who had killed Angela. But it had almost been a relief to get out of New York.

  Her life there was no longer as satisfying as it had been. Now she was back here. Because she actually wanted to face the past? Or because she was fleeing again?

  That was an interesting thought. And the man in the other room had offered her a way to deal with that past. To put it to rest once and for all.

  She’d made love with him because she was reaching out to him in a way she had avoided for years. But one night of passion wasn’t all she imagined for them. She could see a future for the two of them. It felt tantalizingly real, if she dared to ask for what she wanted. But she couldn’t do it while avoiding a subject she had to discuss. She had to come clean with him.

  She clenched her hands at her sides. What was he going to think of her?

  She dragged in a breath and let it out, struggling for calm. Maybe it was better to get this over with before he distanced himself even farther from her.

  She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, holding onto her own body, willing herself to steadiness. As she did it, she realized it was a familiar gesture for her. As if the only person she trusted to protect her was herself. But now she had Max. Or she hoped so. After several deep breaths, she turned and walked back into the bedroom.

  In her absence, Max had turned down the lights and straightened the bed. He was lying under the covers. His chest was bare and his hands were stacked behind his head. But from his posture, she knew that he wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t sure whether to get back in bed or stay where she was. In the end, she remained standing.

  He turned his head and looked at her, and she wished he had kept staring across the room.

  Hearing her voice crack, she managed to say, “Angela wasn’t the only one raped up at that cabin at the reservoir.”

  Chapter 20

  From the tone of her voice, he must have known what she was trying to say and couldn’t quite get out.

  “Jesus.”

  She heard him curse, blinked as she saw him vault out of bed and reach her side in a couple of long strides.

  “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  The words and the way he spoke them warmed her. When he folded her into his arms, she sagged against him. And then, to her horror, she started to cry.

  “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

  He lifted her in his arms and carried her back to the bed. Lying down, he cradled her against himself, stroking her back and her hair, murmuring soft reassuring words.

  For a few minutes, she let the tears flow. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to cry, she was astonished that she could still do it. She was surprised that it really did seem to wash away the misery. But finally she struggled to bring herself under control.

  “I’m going to get you some tissues. I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He climbed off the bed and returned quickly with several tissues, which he handed to her. She blew her nose and swiped at her eyes.

  Reaching for her again, he cradled her close. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, his voice rough.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “And it’s still affecting you.”

  She nodded against his shoulder, then rolled to her back, staring up at the ceiling.

  “You were brave to tell me.”

  “You noticed I couldn’t quite say it.”

  “You said enough.”

  She turned her head toward him. “I’ve kept it to myself for so long, but I couldn’t keep letting you think that my deep dark secret had something to do with the murders. Or maybe it did.”

  “We’ll find out,” Max promised.

  She added, “I mean, I wanted everything out in the open—finally.” She made a muffled sound. “You know, for years I kept it locked up inside me. No
w I know that was a mistake—because you made me face it.”

  “I knew…something was badly wrong. But I didn’t know what.”

  “And that gave you all kinds of stuff to speculate about.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Finally, I knew we couldn’t really get close unless I told you. The way you told me about the shoplifting and the breaking into houses. I know that’s something you don’t talk about, either.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Sometimes it seems like it happened to someone else. I mean, like I told you about Angela.”

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “And my pushing you made it worse.” He made a low sound. “Going back to that cabin in the woods must have been horrible for you. And I was the one who dragged you there. No wonder you were acting so uptight.”

  “You couldn’t know. But that wasn’t the worst part. It was being with you.”

  When she felt him tense, she hurried on. “I was attracted to you, but I was afraid to let you get close. Then I started to realize what kind of man you are, but I still wondered what you would think about me if I told you the truth.”

  “Jesus, you think I was going to think less of you because some bastard raped you?” He turned his head toward her. “Who was it?”

  She swallowed hard. “That’s the worst part. I’m not sure. Just like I wasn’t sure who Gary shot at.”

  He said nothing, and she forced herself to go on. “I told you about the party. I told you I didn’t see who Gary shot at, but it wasn’t because I was looking the other way. Brian was telling you the truth. I was too out of it to follow what was happening.”

  When he started to speak, she squeezed his hand. “Let me finish and get this over with. You told me what you were like in high school. That you wanted the stuff the other kids had. Well, I wanted that too. Most of the other kids lived in big houses in nice developments. Their dads had jobs in offices. Mine worked a farm and came in sweaty and dirty every night. I wasn’t in the Donley school district, but my Dad was determined that his daughter wasn’t going to be a second-class citizen. So I went to the best school.” She turned to him. “How did you get there?”

  He laughed. “There was some kind of county program where they took smart kids from the projects and put them in a better school district. For all the good that did me.”

  “You probably got a better education.”

  “When I bothered to study. But maybe I was lucky I didn’t run with the in crowd, like you did. Because all kinds of nasty things were going on after school.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But back then, I was just trying to feel comfortable with the other kids.”

  “But you were a knockout.”

  She laughed. “Thanks.”

  “You know it’s true.”

  “Okay. And it helped. I won’t pretend that it wasn’t true. The popular kids invited me to parties, and I would have just stayed in the corner, with no idea how to interact with them. Then I found out that liquor and pot made me…more sociable. So I did a lot of that, and I was likely to be bombed at those parties.”

  “Were you raped at a party?”

  “Up at that cabin near the reservoir, like I told you about Angela.” She shivered. “But not in that underground room, I don’t think. There were a lot of boys there.” She turned her head away before saying, “I can’t be sure if more than one of them raped me.”

  He reached for her, pulling her close and rocking her in his arms until she stopped shivering.

  “For the first time, I don’t feel like I have to deal with this alone. I mean, Angela and I didn’t even talk about it after we graduated,” she said, then swallowed hard. “But if I’d told you sooner, maybe you wouldn’t have left, and Claire would still be alive.”

  “You didn’t know what was going on with her.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t speculate on what would have happened.”

  “And what about me and Angela getting raped? What if we had said something—back then or later?”

  “Again, you can’t go there. We have to deal with the situation as it exists now. Focus on that.”

  “Something else I keep thinking. About that night when you rescued us at the pizza parlor. We were both outsiders. What if we’d actually started talking to each other? What if we’d gotten to know each other?”

  “It wouldn’t have worked out,” he said immediately.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was still in my bad-boy phase. I would just have gotten you into trouble.”

  “More trouble than I was already in?”

  “Maybe.”

  She laughed. “Different trouble, anyway.”

  He stroked his fingers up and down her arm. “Your dad would have ordered you to stay away from me. Either way, it couldn’t have worked out.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know you’d rather not, but can we go back to the scene at the cabin? I mean when the rape happened.”

  “You’re right, I don’t want to. But I will.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “In someone’s car.”

  “Whose?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking. “I’m pretty sure it was Brian Cannon.”

  “So he was there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else?”

  “A lot of the football players.”

  “They were a rowdy bunch?”

  She made a low noise. “Yes. They thought they were God’s gift to the student population—especially the girls. You know how it was. They brought honor to Donley.” She snorted. “Honor.”

  “So it could have been one of them.”

  She dragged in a frustrated breath. “But I don’t know who. And I’m not going to accuse someone without being sure.”

  “I understand.”

  She shook her head. “But if I did remember, we might know who the murderer was.”

  “Yeah. But were you and Angela the only ones?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So the other girls who were raped could turn out to be victims of the killer,” Max mused.

  “But why now?”

  “The guys and I talked about that while you were taking a shower. It looks like he’s out of control. Maybe his life went along okay for a while. Then that changed. Or the reunion coming up made him think people were going to talk about what he did in the past. Maybe they were all afraid of him back then, and now they’re all grown up.”

  “So the men he’s killed could have been in on the rape?”

  “Or they knew something else he’s afraid to have come out.”

  “And how are we going to find out any of that?”

  “We’re going to lean on Brian Cannon. And we’re going to hope that Shane can come through for us on that DNA sample.”

  “Okay.”

  “But there’s nothing more we can do tonight, so we’re going to put it away.”

  “I don’t know if I can—now that it’s all out in the open.”

  “Oh, I think there’s a way to take your mind off what happened back in high school.”

  He pulled her back into his arms and brought his mouth to hers, and she knew he wanted to give her what she needed. Reassurance—and pleasure.

  Like a prisoner finally released from captivity, she lowered every barrier she’d erected around herself, welcoming the gift that Max was offering. And giving back to him in full measure.

  ***

  Olivia woke and felt a moment of panic. Someone was lying beside her in bed. She had slept alone for so long. Now…

  “It’s just me,” Max murmured.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” she answered, nibbling her lips against his shoulder.

  As she remembered the night before, a satisfied smile played over her mouth.

  He noticed and ran his fingers through the hair he’d tousled. “I’d like to stay in bed, but the most important thing is keeping you safe. Which means we
have to get up and get dressed.”

  She nodded, knowing it was true.

  “You want the bathroom first?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  She took a quick shower. When she came back, he slipped into the bathroom while she got dressed. In the farmhouse, she’d felt like they were in each other’s way. Now sharing the bathroom simply felt like a new intimacy.

  “There’s a breakfast buffet here,” he said. “But it’s better if you stay out of sight.”

  “He knows what you look like, too,” she countered.

  “Yeah, but I’m just an ordinary guy.”

  “Hardly.”

  As she spoke, he pulled a baseball cap down over his face and pulled on a plaid long-sleeved shirt over his T-shirt.

  At least he wasn’t going to watch her put on her makeup. She always hated to have an audience when she made herself into Olivia Winters—public figure. It meant she could never be herself. Or maybe she had lost sight of who she really was until last night with Max. She’d been afraid that anyone who knew her big secret would think of her differently. That was true of Max. But not in a bad way. It had helped him understand her. Accept her. And that acceptance had been a gift.

  She thought about leaving off the makeup. But she couldn’t quite go that far. And putting on her face gave her something to focus on while Max was gone.

  When she was finished, all she could do was pace nervously through the suite. When someone knocked at the door she whirled and hurried across the sitting room.

  “Max?” she asked, seeing him through the peephole.

  “Yeah. My hands are full.”

  After she turned the lock, he stepped inside carrying a tray of food and kicked the door shut.

  He set the scrambled eggs, coffee, and sticky buns on the table in the corner and gave her a long look.

  “What?”

  “You are so beautiful with your makeup on.”

  She flushed. “I was thinking about leaving it off.”