Quake

by Tracey Alvarez

  Ana had done more than get under his skin—she’d burrowed right past the epidermis into his veins, into the very heart of him. And right now, when she’d retreated into herself and pulled an invisible barrier between them, he wanted to dig her out of his system and be done with it.

  Chapter 26

  Monday, July 26. 11:51 a.m. Kelburn, a northern suburb in Wellington, New Zealand.

  * * *

  “I wonder how Joel and Maggie are doing today.”

  Ana had run out of conversation topics, as each one she tried since they’d started out on the road that morning had fizzled within a few exchanges. The openness in Daniel’s face had closed into a bland expression of genial disinterest and the gulf between them widened with every step.

  But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to hurt him, but she certainly didn’t want to encourage him. Like having outrageously good sex all night hadn’t already encouraged the hell out of him.

  “I’m sure they’re doing okay.”

  Since the initial flurry of texts, cell phone coverage was spotty at best. Ana had been turning her phone on and off to check for messages. She’d found a couple more from Nadia reassuring her they were okay, but radio silence from Theo. Knowing her son, he’d forgotten to charge up his phone before he went to school and it was subsequently dead as a dodo. She tried—tried—not to worry about it.

  The silence stretched between them like strands of toffee, hot and sticky, burning as it touched them both.

  Daniel shoved his fists deep into his jean pockets. “Joel’s a character.”

  Ana was absurdly grateful for his effort in keeping their stilted conversation going.

  “He’s a hard case and a really good guy. He and Lucy helped me through a rough patch after Neil died. Theo hasn’t had many male role models in his life, so I’m so grateful to Joel for taking him under his wing. My dad’s been wonderful, too, though he’s been so distracted lately he hasn’t spent as much time with Theo.” Her voice drifted away as she became aware she was babbling like a fool. Again.

  “Distracted? How’s he been distracted?”

  She detected a note of tension in his voice.

  “I think he’s infatuated with a lovely widow that’s joined his bridge club. It’s all he talks about.”

  “Mmm. Yeah, that would be distracting.”

  “That’s not what your tone inferred. What’re you getting at?”

  “Something Mrs. Wilcox told me the other night.”

  Her footsteps, which only a moment ago had created harmonizing slaps with his as they strode side by side, stuttered out of time. Great. What stories had the old lady been spinning?

  “Oh?”

  “She said that your dad was worried and upset the last time she spoke to him. He thought someone had been spying on him, and he was afraid that this someone might go on to harm you.”

  They stepped off the sidewalk and crossed the road, avoiding a shallow zigzagging trench that split through the center of the street.

  Her lips arced down. “He never mentioned anything. It’s been all Gladys this, and Gladys said that.”

  “But could your dad be right? Is there anyone who’d have a grudge against him?”

  “My dad? No. He’s sixty-five and lives alone. He plays indoor bowls with other old guys at the club twice a week and hosts a monthly game of bridge. He’s a complete teddy bear of a man.”

  “That’s not answering my question.”

  “I know. Lawyers are taught answer-evasion skills.”

  He flashed her that dimple-bracketed smile. “I gathered that. Another thing we’ll have to work on.”

  The temptation was to correct him, to tell him loud and clear that there was no we, but something stilled her tongue. She just wanted to enjoy the brief moment of his smile lighting up his summer-sky eyes, and couldn’t stand to be the one to turn them chilly and dull again.

  “So you can’t think of anyone who’d be watching your dad?” he said. “No unpaid fines or gambling debts? Money owed to a loan shark? Nothing he’s ever done to make someone hate him?”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. And out of the two of us, I’m more likely to have a stalker than dad. My former life as a defense lawyer didn’t endear me to clients who lost their cases or the families of some of the victims.” She walked a little faster, trying to outrun the heavy pit sinking in her stomach. “But that’s preposterous, too. People hating me was par for the course. It wasn’t a personal kind of hate, not like…”

  Not like with Dad and that woman. The words bounced around her skull like ball bearings, knocking her back in time to her childhood when two police officers had arrived on the doorstep of her family home. Shame and hurt blistered through the memory, and the distress must have been apparent on her face, as Daniel guided her to a nearby bus stop bench.

  She shucked off her bag, sighing as the dragging weight lifted from her shoulders. “I’ve never told anyone this, not even Neil. I haven’t even thought of it for years, but I want to tell you.”

  So you’ll understand, she thought, worrying a hangnail on her thumb. So you’ll understand why there can never be a ‘we.’

  It’d carve a chunk out of her heart now to see him walk away. She only hoped he’d walk away without despising her for allowing them both to believe for a moment that there was a chance. When really, there was no chance for them at all.

  They sat together, his long thigh pressed against hers, the warmth and pressure encouraging her without words. Her feet didn’t reach the concrete below, and she crossed her ankles, feeling child sized, but not at all like the confident, carefree child she’d once been.

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “I know.”

  They sat in silence, a more comfortable silence than before, while she gathered her scattered thoughts. Across the road in a front yard encircled by a wild hedge of roses, a large group of people lounged on mismatched deck chairs. Someone had fired up a barbecue and the tempting savory aroma of sausages drifted in the breeze.

  The indomitable Kiwi spirit in action, she thought, attempting to distract from the pain she knew would come with dredging up old memories.

  Finally she spoke. “You asked me earlier why I gave up criminal law, but not why I chose it in the first place.”

  He nodded.

  So she told him how, when she was eleven, she’d been home sick from school one day. The doorbell had rung at around eleven in the morning and the stern, serious voices of the visitors had drawn her out of her bed. She’d peeped around the hallway corner and seen two uniformed policemen, and listened as one asked her mother, Lily, if she knew the whereabouts of her husband. It was then her mother spotted her and ordered her back to her bedroom, but Ana had dragged her feet hesitantly up the stairs, desperate to know why two policemen were asking after her dad.

  “Mum came up after they’d gone and told me not to worry. She said it was probably a speeding ticket and I believed her. Why wouldn’t I? My dad was perfect. A couple of hours later the phone rang and I heard her answer it in her bedroom next door.”

  Ana reached for Daniel’s hand, anchoring herself to something solid while pain exploded to the surface. She would never forget the sound of her mum’s one heart-rending sob and the choked words Ana could hear even through the walls.

  “What do you mean they’ve arrested you? For what?”

  Then her fateful decision to pick up the phone on her nightstand and eavesdrop on a conversation she was never meant to overhear.

  “I never meant for you to find out this way.” Dad’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, as if he spoke from the end of a long, dark tunnel. She listened, one hand clamped over her mouth to keep silent, as her father croaked out his confession.

  He’d flown to a conference in Auckland the previous week, but he hadn’t gone alone. An office flirtation had transformed into something more when a woman he worked with had accompanied him on the trip and they’d ended up
sharing a bed. The crippling guilt the day after had him telling the woman it could never happen again. Days after he’d returned home to his wife and family, the woman had gone to the police and claimed John Grace had raped her that night.

  Daniel squeezed her hand with gentle firmness. He seemed to know she couldn’t accept any more comfort from him than that.

  “Dad kept telling Mum over and over that it was consensual, not rape. At the time I didn’t know what either of those descriptions meant, but I guessed it was something terrible, as I’d never heard my mother cry like that—before or since.”

  “Shit, Ana. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  She laughed, but in her ears it was a bitter, angry sound, more a snarl from a wounded animal than an expression of humor.

  “Oh, it got a lot worse than that, believe me. I soon found out what the words meant, thanks to the other kids in the playground and the not-so-quiet whispers of other adults.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  The hangnail began to bleed and she pressed the pad of her other thumb over it, feeling it throb dully.

  “The next year of my life was a living hell. I won’t bore you with all the details, but meeting my dad’s lawyer and having her explain what was going on in terms that an eleven- year-old could deal with stuck in my mind. I believed then that my dad didn’t do what he was accused of, and I was so blown away that this woman would stand up in front of a courtroom and tell everyone that. I wanted to be like her.”

  “The case went to trial, then?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Wilcox stayed with me during the whole week of it. Mum rang me after the jury made their decision. She said, ‘Baby, it’s all over. Daddy’s innocent. We’re coming home.’”

  “She stuck by him?”

  Ana sighed. “She was the original Tammy Wynette standing by her man.”

  She looked up, seeing his blue eyes focused intently on her. “They had what your parents had and my dad threw it all away on one sleazy night. Nothing was the same between him and Mum after that. They were still married, but the trust had gone.”

  She fully expected Daniel to object to being tarred with the same brush as her father. She could see understanding in his eyes—he knew the point she made by telling him her deepest and most hurtful secret.

  But he said nothing, only raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  “I doubt the story’s got much relevance to what you originally asked. She’s the only one I could think of who hated my dad.”

  Daniel stood and hefted her backpack up off the ground then helped her into it. “It doesn’t seem likely she’d come after your dad after all these years.”

  Ana shifted the straps of the backpack into a more comfortable position. “It’s not likely at all unless you bring the supernatural into it.” At his questioning frown, she added, “Oh—I forgot to mention I looked her up after I finished law school. She died two years before I graduated.”

  Chapter 27

  Monday, July 26. 4:29 p.m. Southgate, Wellington, New Zealand.

  * * *

  Daniel knew they were nearly there when Ana strained ahead like a horse on the final home stretch. She picked up the pace and dragged her chin up from her chest.

  After her confession, the mood between them had progressed from mere awkwardness to flat out icy distance. Heartened that she’d confided such a painful part of her life to him, he’d thought getting that awful load off her shoulders would have drawn them closer together. His heart had ached for the young girl she’d been. How on earth had she come out of that experience unscathed?

  Maybe she hadn’t.

  As the minutes of silence crept by and the sun rose high then began to sink through the cloudless blue sky, the purpose of her timing became clear. Rather than let me share this terrible, hurtful part of my past because I don’t want to hide from you, he was starting to believe the sharing session was more this is why I believe all men are cheating scum of the earth.

  So where did that leave him in Ana’s eyes?

  Hell if he knew. He was probably lumped in with her dad, Theo’s father, and her late husband.

  Gilded rays of fading sunlight blinded them as they turned onto a wide street. Ana ran, her looming shadow shambling alongside her. Daniel broke into a jog, his own nerves starting to spike at the thought of seeing his sister again.

  Ana swooped into the driveway of a one-story home. A toddler’s plastic bike lay toppled on the grass, abandoned.

  “Lyssa? Nadia?”

  Ana trembled as though caught in the grip of fever as she called her daughter’s name. A step behind her, his hand drifted toward her shoulder in reassurance, but he wavered. His touch was no longer welcome.

  He switched from reaching for her to running his fingers through his hair and then shoving both fists into his pockets.

  From inside a high-pitched voice cried, “Mummy? Mummy?” and Ana flung herself, weeping, against the front door.

  Ana kissed the brow of the little girl sleepily sprawled across her lap. Ever since Nadia hauled the front door open and Alyssa had tumbled into her arms, she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off her daughter. Reassuring herself that Alyssa seemed her usual chirpy self, she stroked the wispy curls off her baby’s flushed cheeks and looked up.

  Nadia was curled in the corner of the couch opposite and Daniel’s laughter drifted in on the evening air, alongside a couple of other male voices she recognized as the two university students, Adam and Jimmy, from next door. The three men had spent the last hour repairing Ana’s ancient barbecue. After discovering some sausages kept by Nadia in a cooler, the trio clustered around the smoking grill, fully embracing the male-bonding ritual of charring dinner.

  “Wish I could’ve got Theo home for you,” Nadia said.

  Lack of sleep showed in the dark circles under the younger woman’s eyes, the same piercing color as Daniel’s.

  “You did the right thing staying here.” Ana twisted a stray curl of Alyssa’s around her finger. “Theo’s with dad; my baby girl had no one but you.”

  She hoped her smile came across as calm and reassuring, but inside she was torn in opposing directions. She desperately needed Theo home safe, but now another night would go by before she could reach him. The quake damage in Wellington’s denser-packed southern suburbs like Southgate was more considerable than in areas north of the city. As much as the mother in her ground her teeth in frustration at being thwarted, there was no way she could safely walk through an urban disaster zone to her father’s place at night.

  Nadia removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “You and Danny will head off tomorrow and bring him back. Alyssa and I will be fine here for another day.”

  “Mmm. Or maybe I should go and get him. Daniel’s done enough.”

  Nadia snorted, slid her glasses back on her face, and cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. That’ll happen, boss. You really think my brother will let you go alone?”

  “Let me go?” Ana cocked an eyebrow right back. “I don’t need his permission.”

  “Planning to whack him on the head with that lukewarm bottle of beer he’s drinking, then? ’Cause that’d be the only way you’d end up going solo.”

  “The idea is tempting,” Ana muttered, but Nadia only grinned, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Or maybe you could handcuff him to that fancy headboard after a night of wild monkey sex?”

  “Nadia!” She jerked upright and nearly spilled Alyssa onto the floor. “What the hell?”

  Alyssa snorted softly in her sleep and hugged her teddy bear tighter.

  Nadia tucked her legs under her on the couch, settling in with a dish all the goss look on her face. “Come on. You couldn’t cut the sexy vibes between you and Daniel with a chainsaw. The air is stinking with pheromones. Whew, I tell you.” She waved a hand in front of her nose.

  “There are no vibes or pheromones.” Ana slid Alyssa off her knee and onto the soft couch c
ushions, tucking her favorite pink polar-fleece blanket around her.

  “Bollocks. We’re friends, aren’t we?” Nadia didn’t wait for Ana to agree because they both knew the answer to that. “Fess up,” she said in a gentler tone. “What’s going on?”

  Ana sighed and suddenly swept a throw cushion off the couch, hurling it at the younger woman’s head. Nadia caught it one-handed, a smirk causing her own set of dimples to pop out.

  Were her feelings for Daniel apparent to everyone? That it was obvious to Nadia, who had become more of a close friend than an employee, galled her.

  “Nothing.”

  “Aren’t you the same woman who gave Theo a thirty-minute lecture on honesty and then banned him from the computer for a month?”

  “It wasn’t thirty minutes.” She slumped back into the couch and closed her eyes. “And it was only for two weeks.”

  Nadia should have been a lawyer. Once she scented blood she followed through until she brought her victim down.

  “Your pants are on fire, boss.”

  “Shut. Up.” Ana kept her eyes shut, but she could feel Nadia’s speculative gaze burning through her eyelids.

  “Oh. So it’s more than just wild monkey sex?”

  “Leave it alone.”

  “But that’s wonderful,” Nadia said earnestly. “You and Danny are perfect for each other.”

  Ana opened her eyes and propped her feet on the coffee table between them. “You’ve been watching too many Disney movies. There’s no happy ending starring me and your brother.”

  “That’s so much BS. What’s the problem? Instalove for him, instalove for you, yada yada yada, then you shack up together—”