You're the One That I Want

by Susan May Warren

  She crossed her arms, searched, then settled herself on a cold folding chair.

  Kyle had opened the file, reading the slew of documents. “Let’s see, when was it that you and Monte had that fight in front of Liza’s house?”

  They’d had a fight? Yes, she remembered that. He’d mentioned that in Anchorage.

  Casper leaned back. “You were there. I guess it was, what—March?”

  “And the nature of the fight—”

  “Did you not see Raina? Monte hit her—he was going to rape her. If I hadn’t gotten there . . .”

  Rape. Casper had said Monte was abusive but hadn’t mentioned rape. That gave even more reason for vengeance . . . and even more motive for . . . She leaned in to listen even as Kyle held up his hand. “Right. I see your statement and hers.”

  Casper folded his arms over his chest, nodded.

  “But then there’s this, about six weeks later. A complaint taken out by the manager of the VFW, who says you and Monte had an altercation.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “It doesn’t sound like nothing. According to witnesses, you and he had a fight outside the VFW. Tell me about it.”

  Casper lifted a shoulder. “It was . . . He started it. I was with Raina, and we just wanted a night out. I saw him and ignored him, but he made a point of leaving when Raina did, following her out of the building as I was paying the bill, and when I got outside, he had her cornered near my truck. She looked scared, and I told him to back off. He took a swing at me.”

  “And you what, ducked?”

  Something dark entered Casper’s expression. “Yeah, I ducked. And then I got between him and Raina.”

  “It says here that you tackled him, pushed him onto the sidewalk.”

  “He tripped.”

  Scotty shook her head.

  “Listen, what would you do if someone hurt Emma? Wouldn’t you want to send him a message?”

  Oh, Casper, what did you do?

  “What kind of message, Casper?” Kyle let the question sit there, and Scotty caught it up, hearing it in the thunder of her pulse.

  Casper’s mouth opened. “Not that kind. I took out a restraining order against him.”

  “It’s not on file.”

  “Raina took it out. It’s in her name.”

  Kyle made a note. “So you didn’t get into a physical altercation that night? You didn’t tackle him, didn’t break a few ribs, didn’t lose anything in the scuffle?”

  “What? No. Yes, I mean, we tussled, but no, I didn’t hit him hard enough to break anything.”

  “And this? Do you recognize this?” Kyle held something up and Scotty moved to see it over his shoulder. It looked like a coin on a leather thong. “Is this yours?”

  “Yes—but no. It’s mine, from Honduras, but I gave it away a while ago to Signe Netterlund.”

  “She works at the VFW, right?”

  “Among other places. I’m not sure where.”

  “Why would you give this away? Were you two dating?”

  “No. I—she wanted it. I didn’t want to remember Honduras anymore, so—what does this have to do with anything?”

  “It was found under Monte’s remains, near Twin Pine Point.”

  “I certainly didn’t put it—or him—there.”

  After a brief silence, Kyle asked, “When did you leave town exactly?”

  “I left right after Mother’s Day.”

  “So about a week before anyone reported Monte missing. Although, according to what we dug up, his fight with you was the last time anyone remembers seeing him.”

  Casper shrugged. “He had a business in Duluth. And he traveled a lot.”

  “Convenient.”

  “And true,” Casper snapped.

  Had he never seen an episode of Law & Order? Why hadn’t Scotty insisted on a lawyer?

  Because she’d believed him. Just like she’d believed Owen.

  Kyle considered him a long moment. “Casper, we’ve known each other for a while, grew up together, and frankly I don’t want you to look good for this.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Kyle. I might have wanted to, but I swear, I didn’t do it.”

  Shut up, Casper. She wanted to bump the glass, tell him to keep his trap closed.

  “The problem is, not only do witnesses have you fighting with Monte at the VFW, but someone spotted you two by his truck in the municipal parking lot two hours later. You want to tell me about that?”

  Scotty saw guilt or something akin to it flash in Casper’s eyes. Kyle would have to be blind not to see the way Casper’s face drained of color.

  He needed a lawyer in there, now.

  His voice shook, just enough that she winced. “That was just . . . I wanted to tell him to stay away, something that I didn’t want Raina to hear.”

  Scotty didn’t have to be in the room to see Kyle’s face, to know what he was thinking. She’d been there before and expected the next words out of Kyle’s mouth.

  “Or didn’t want her to see? Like you taking a tire iron to his ribs?”

  Casper jerked—from the memory or the brutality of the image? His outrage sounded real, however, when he said, “What? No. Yeah, I might have grabbed his jacket, but I didn’t hurt him. We just talked.”

  “Like I saw you talking to Owen? I heard you, Casper. Five more minutes and—”

  “No. Owen and I . . . That’s different. It’s personal, family business—”

  “Sounds to me like when things get personal, you get violent.”

  Scotty looked at the door, considering how fast Kyle would throw her out if she barged in, shut this whole thing down.

  “That’s not true—I . . . Listen, I didn’t hurt Monte. Except—he would have hurt Raina, so I wanted to remind him that she wasn’t alone. Or helpless.”

  “No, she wasn’t because she had you,” Kyle said. “Like you said, he would have hurt Raina. And when it comes to Raina, you’d do anything.”

  Casper blinked, then slowly nodded.

  Oh—stop! Casper!

  Kyle slid a piece of paper toward Casper. “According to a hospital report filed after your fight in March, Monte walked away with two cracked ribs. It wouldn’t have taken much to rebreak them in another altercation.”

  “I didn’t know about any broken ribs. Kyle, we just talked. I told him that I was going to marry Raina and that he needed to let her go.”

  “Or?”

  “Or . . .” Casper clenched his jaw, looked away.

  There it was, the sound of prison bars slamming behind him. Scotty knew how quickly the legal system could close in. She’d handled interrogations exactly this way before.

  This was why she shouldn’t get involved, shouldn’t care. Because now here she was, wanting to bang on the glass, haul Casper out by his ear, tell him to shut up and let her find a lawyer.

  And figure out who really killed this Monte Riggs.

  But that would mean sticking around, letting Owen wheedle his way further into her life. And what if she discovered Casper was guilty? Wouldn’t that be a fun moment? Because she didn’t care whose brother he was; if he did the crime, she’d have to do her job.

  Kyle closed the folder. “No one blames you for wanting to protect Raina. But here’s what I think. You dropped Raina off after the fight, went back, and got in Monte’s face. Maybe it was an accident—Raina wouldn’t be the first to file a restraining order against Monte. Maybe you didn’t even realize that you’d killed him—just wanted to get him out of the way. So you loaded him in your truck and drove into the woods.”

  “No,” Casper snapped.

  “Isn’t Twin Pine Point just a few miles from your house? Your mom likes to pick blueberries there.”

  “Everybody picks blueberries there.”

  “Her Evergreen Resort cookbook has a story about how she used to find you in the middle of a blueberry patch, covered in bug bites, happily eating off the bushes.”

  “You’re reading my mother’s cookbook? And that ma
kes me a murderer?”

  “You knew that area, knew the ravine was there. Maybe you thought no one would ever find him, that you’d disappear before anyone would notice he was missing. You’d be gone before anyone could point a finger in your direction.”

  “I went to find my brother!”

  “And now we’re back to this.” Kyle held up the necklace, dropped it on the table. “I’ll check into your story, but I’m thinking a treasure like this is one you wouldn’t give away so easily.”

  “It’s worth a few bucks, if even that much.”

  “I think you didn’t want any other girl wearing it. Maybe that night you asked for it back and had it on you when you fought. And didn’t realize it had fallen off when you shoved his body into the ravine.”

  “You’re crazy. This is crazy. Kyle, you know me.”

  “I do know you, Casper.” He sighed. “I do know you.” Kyle got up, closed the file.

  Scotty found herself with her hands on the glass, her heart in her throat. No—

  “Casper, I’m sorry, but I have probable cause to arrest you for the murder of Monte Riggs. I’ll hand the evidence over to the county prosecutor. She’ll decide if she has enough to press charges. Please stand.”

  Casper stared at him, the blood draining from his face. “Kyle.”

  “Please. Stand up.” Kyle had his handcuffs out. Casper hesitated only a second before he found his feet. Held out his hands.

  Scotty left as Kyle began listing Casper’s Miranda rights. She headed out into the lobby, stopping before John, who had finally decided to sit down. He closed his Fishing Today magazine and looked at her.

  Her expression must have broadcasted the results because his eyes widened. “What?” he growled.

  “We need to get Casper a lawyer right now.”

  “Believe me, if I knew what to say to fix this, I would say it.” Owen sat on the floor of the den, holding a stuffed bunny, as Layla crawled around the room. He’d watched in silence as Raina changed his daughter’s diaper and tickled her tummy so she squealed in delight.

  His daughter. Watching her now pull herself up to the sofa, her bowed legs wobbly as she worked her way toward him in her fuzzy white sleeper, drool dripping from her cherub mouth, her long lashes framing beautiful eyes . . . it felt like his heart had been ripped out of his body and pinned to his chest.

  He couldn’t breathe with the immensity of the miracle.

  He had a daughter. And she was perfect and—

  “I should have never called you Layla’s daddy. That was stupid.”

  Raina also sat on the floor next to the couch, ready to grab Layla should she fall back. The late-afternoon sun slung shadows into the den, the aroma of cookies and his sister’s lasagna creeping in to season the room with memories. That, and the myriad of pictures on the wall chronicling his childhood.

  The sights and smells of home, the chatter of his family as Scotty told them the story—it undid him. If it weren’t for Scotty . . .

  And then he had to go and propose to Raina. Oh, he wanted to bang his head against the wall, hard. A few times.

  Panic set in and he’d done the first impulsive thing that came to his brain. Again.

  Raina put her hand on Layla’s back to steady her, even as the little girl wobbled and plopped down on her padded bottom. “I was angry and it came out wrong and . . . poor Casper. I should have thought what that would do to him.”

  “Why? I am her dad—”

  Her sharp look brought his words to a halt. “Hardly. Just because we spent the night together doesn’t mean we’re a couple, in love, or even remotely parents together. I’d stop short of saying I wish it had never happened because then I wouldn’t have Layla, but I so wish it had happened with Casper.”

  Ouch. Owen tried not to act slapped. “Casper’s not the type to . . .” He ran his fingers through the soft fur of the stuffed bunny as his words slowed, sank in. “He’s not me.”

  “If you’re trying to find that one right thing to say, that’s it. Casper is not you.”

  He tried not to let those words twist inside him, but he’d been fighting that battle since childhood. Casper preaching to him, telling him how to live his life. He was still trying to engineer Owen’s future.

  “Casper didn’t desert me, even when he should have,” Raina said.

  He stared at her. “What are you talking about? He took off for Honduras. And then after he came home, he said he freaked out about the baby. You’ve got a funny definition of him not deserting you. Isn’t that what this whole thing with Monte Riggs is about, you dating him after Casper bailed on you?”

  “Casper didn’t have anything to do with Monte going missing,” she said, her voice low, even lethal. He hadn’t remembered her quite this . . . angry. It occurred to Owen that he barely knew this woman. In almost every way that mattered, she was a stranger.

  “And for the record, he didn’t bail on me. He came back—on the very day I gave birth to Layla. You should have seen him. He didn’t care that I was pregnant. He picked me up, carried me out to the car, all the while his heart must have been breaking.”

  “He didn’t know you were pregnant when he left?”

  “I didn’t want him to know. I was . . . ashamed.”

  Ashamed. At what she’d—they’d—done.

  Owen opened his mouth, closed it. Looked away. Took a breath. “Yeah. I guess that’s fair.”

  He didn’t know what to say, how to put into words the why of his actions. “When I showed up at Darek’s wedding, I was trying to figure out how my life had derailed so badly. I saw my brother getting married and my sister with Jace—how they’d gone on—and everybody seemed to be fine with their lives while mine was dismantled, and . . . I wanted to stop feeling like the family tragedy.”

  He glanced at her, sitting in the orange halo of the fading sun. “You were there. You were pretty, and you didn’t see the guy who’d destroyed his life.” He watched as Layla crawled toward him, swatted at the bunny. “I guess I just wanted to feel better.”

  He handed the bunny to his daughter. She took it, sat back, and stuck it in her mouth.

  “And I was lonely,” Raina finally said quietly.

  He looked up, met her eyes. He remembered them in the moonlight. Remembered, suddenly, the feel of her in his arms.

  He shook it away, the heady realization of his mistakes washing over him. Casper had every right to want to clobber him. “Maybe I’m still trying to make myself feel better.”

  Raina smoothed a hand over Layla’s curly, dark hair.

  “How did Casper react when he found out the baby was mine?”

  A sigh. “He was . . . upset. But then so sweet. He wanted to . . .” She swallowed. “He wanted to raise her with me.”

  Owen had no words, not at first. Then, “I don’t get it. How did you end up dating Monte?”

  She looked away, ran a hand across her cheek. “Casper didn’t want anything to do with me after I decided to give up Layla for adoption.”

  Owen’s breath stopped. “What did you say?”

  “I was scared, Owen! I didn’t know Casper would come back, and I didn’t . . . Well, I didn’t imagine that your family would forgive me—us—whatever. I looked ahead and saw only my past, my abysmal choices—”

  His mind reeled, stopped on her words. Abysmal choices. “Like . . . me.”

  She nodded, sadness in her expression. “Yeah, like you. And I didn’t want to screw up Layla’s life. So I . . . I found adoptive parents for her.”

  He blinked at her, scrambling. “But I didn’t know—I would have never known . . . How could you do that?”

  Her eyes darkened. “How could I—are you kidding me? You were gone—”

  “You didn’t even attempt to tell me.” Now his chest hurt, right at his incision, his heart thundering under it.

  “How would I find you to tell you, Owen? Post it on the Internet? Facebook? C’mon, be real. You didn’t want to know you had a baby with me. You wante
d to be gone and wallow in your anger.”

  Owen leaned his head back. “Wow.”

  “Thankfully, the adoption fell through, and by that time I realized I wanted to raise Layla, alone if I had to. But I don’t have to. Because Casper loves her. He loves her so much that he didn’t want to risk losing her when you eventually came home and discovered you had a daughter. He didn’t want to rip either of your lives apart.”

  “He didn’t have to tell me. I would have never known.”

  “Have you met your brother? He couldn’t live with that. You might consider that he really does care about you and the fact that you’re Layla’s biological father. It’s been more than a little hard on him.”

  “He’s always been the guy who fixes things.”

  “And he’s always got your back, even if it doesn’t look like it.” She pulled Layla onto her lap, held out her hands to play patty-cake. “Casper is not trying to take Layla from you. He’s trying to be a good father to her. Think about it, Owen. What does this life look like for her? What are you going to do? I love Casper and we are getting married. That leaves you where? Doing what?”

  Layla squirmed and Raina let her out of her grip as she said, “What’s your plan? That we trade her off every weekend? She goes to your place and then back? And what happens when you decide you want to get married? Now she has two mothers along with two fathers? All because you and I made a bad choice? That’s not fair to her. Casper can give her a home. Stability.”

  Her words stung. Yes, maybe he hadn’t thought it all the way through, but stability? Casper? “I’m sorry; are we talking about the same person? Do you mean my head-in-the-clouds brother who is always talking about the next treasure hunt? The brother who is even more of a drifter—more of a dreamer—than I am? Besides, Casper doesn’t have two pennies to rub together. If we’re talking about who can provide for Layla, I might look like I’m homeless, but I guarantee—”

  “Casper is a millionaire.”

  If she’d told him he’d just been promoted to Santa Claus, it would have stunned Owen less. “What?”

  “He found a treasure, got the finder’s fee, and like I said, he’s a millionaire. But I’d marry him if we had to live in a box next to Pierre’s Pizza. I don’t care about the money. I care about the fact that he refused to marry me until he tracked you down and told you about your daughter. Until he could get your blessing—because, and I don’t know why, he loves you that much. So, Owen, how much do you love Casper? Or Layla? Do you love them enough to do what is right? Because guess what? You dropping to your knee and proposing was exactly what you said—you trying to make yourself feel better. Another word might be selfish.”