Hard To Handle

by Kylie Brant

  She squeezed his fingers, just for an instant, then released them. He could see her draw herself up, as if reaching deep down inside an inner well of strength belied by her fragile exterior. Not for the first time, she earned his admiration. And something else. Something much more complex.

  “Well let’s get on with it, shall we?” Although her smile was strained, her voice sounded steady enough. He rounded the car and placed his hand at the base of her back as they walked toward the depot. As support it wasn’t much. He didn’t know if she took any comfort from that light touch, but he knew that he did. And he’d worry about the meaning of that later.

  After the agony of indecision all afternoon, the discovery of Sandra’s secret was almost anticlimatic. “A videotape.” Meghan reached into the locker the key had opened and withdrew its lone content. She drew a deep breath. “I’m guessing it’s not a home movie.”

  “No.” He took the tape from her hand. “But it may shed some light on her relationship with D’Brusco. And it just might answer some of those questions you’ve had about your sister’s death, Meghan.”

  She lifted her gaze to meet his whiskey-colored eyes and knew he was right. But that didn’t stop one thought from echoing in her mind.

  Maybe some questions were better left unanswered.

  “Let me clear some of this out of the way.”

  Meghan looked around Gabe’s living room curiously. She was unsure whether she was more surprised at his slight embarrassment over the clutter, or at being in his home in the first place. He swept up some newspapers, a plate and an empty beer bottle in his hands and strode out of the room. She moved a bit so she could track him with her gaze. The kitchen adjoining this room lacked the same homey untidiness. Somehow she thought this room got a lot more use than the kitchen.

  Not for the first time she considered grabbing the videotape and fleeing. No amount of protesting had swayed Gabe from his determination to view the tape with her. Her argument about privacy and property had gone head-to-head with his insistence that the tape might well shed some light on his ongoing investigation. Her presence in his home was testament to the winner in that battle of wills.

  Roaming over to a built-in bookcase, she studied its contents. A surprisingly large number of books were arranged neatly by size. Gabe’s taste ran to police mysteries and thrillers. In front of the books were several framed photographs, and it was these that held Meghan’s attention the longest. There were several pictures of him with an older couple, and another one of him and the man in the pictures. Gabe was holding a huge fish and wearing a carefree expression that she’d never observed. With a jolt she wondered if she ever would.

  There was a picture of a younger Gabe in uniform and another of him receiving a medal in some sort of ceremony. She continued scanning the pictures, intrigued by these snippets of his life. She recognized Detective Madison in two of the pictures, taken at what was obviously his wedding. She stared, longer than necessary, at the image of Gabe in a tux.

  She heard him enter the room behind her. “Your partner looks happy in these photos. Are they recent?” She felt no compunction at her prying. It was occurring to her that he knew a great deal more about her life than she did about his.

  “Cal was out of his mind that day. Quite rightly, too. Unbelievable that a gal like Becky settled for him, and as his best man it was my duty to tell him so.”

  She felt a flicker of amusement. “I’m sure you fulfilled that duty admirably.”

  “Remind him every chance I get. He’s a home-and-hearth kind of guy. Domestic life suits him.”

  But not Gabe. He may not have said the words but they were there, nonetheless. She tried to imagine him in the place of the groom, wearing that exuberant expression. She failed to summon the picture. He seemed to limit that kind of enthusiasm to his fishing exploits.

  She turned to find him standing too close, and for a moment she stilled. His large form had a way of projecting a comfort that owed nothing to size and everything to presence. It would be a temptation to some women, she imagined. Women who made it a habit to lean on the strongest shoulder available. Because the opportunity had never presented itself, she’d grown up quite different. Wary. Reserved. Strong.

  But there was a fleeting moment when she wished she could close the distance between them and rest her head against that broad chest; to feel the worries she’d carried for months slip away. And because the strength of that urge frightened her, she veered around him and crossed to the couch facing the television. He was, after all, a source of a great deal of those concerns.

  “Well.” Her voice was brittle but steady. “Show time.”

  He picked up the tape and slid it into the VCR. Meghan settled back on the couch, hoping the tension she felt didn’t show, afraid that it did. But not knowing would have to be worse than the actual viewing. She owed Danny and Sandra at least this much. If there was anything on the tape that hinted of Danny’s ability, she’d embark on damage control. It helped, she thought wryly, that Gabe didn’t seem to put a great deal of stock in such things.

  The screen was blank for a few moments, then Sandra’s image filled it. Suddenly Meghan was hit with a certainty that she hadn’t been ready for this moment at all. That she could never have been prepared enough.

  “Well, Meghan, here we are. Ready for another of our sisterly chats?” Sandra smiled, a smile devoid of amusement, reached for a bottle on the table before her, and filled her glass. “Our last one really didn’t last long enough, did it?” She brought the wine to her lips and drained the glass. It didn’t look as though it had been her first, although the bottle was almost full. Meghan recognized the brightness in her sister’s eyes, the edge to her voice. She didn’t doubt that there was an empty bottle out of sight in the kitchen.

  “We’ve never been the type for heart-to-hearts, have we? So I’ll make this short and sweet, and hope like hell that you never have the opportunity to watch this.” Gabe and Meghan watched intently as Sandra explained how she’d met a couple of guys in a bar one night and gotten a nasty picture of what they were involved in; how she went to the police with the information and agreed to help Wadrell with it.

  “The detective was quite impressed with my talents. One by one he was able to haul in these guys’ friends, and a major drug-trafficking ring was broken up. If Wadrell had been as good as he thought he was, though, I wouldn’t be making this damn tape.” The bitterness was apparent in Sandra’s voice as she leaned forward and filled her glass once more. “I practically gave him the two ringleaders on a silver platter. He had their names, for godsakes. But they’d gone underground, he claimed, and he couldn’t seem to find them. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop them from finding me.”

  The words leaped from the TV and clawed viciously at Meghan’s heart like slashing little blades. They’d found her sister. And she didn’t need to watch the rest of the video to imagine most of what happened next.

  Sandra leaned back and wrapped a finger in one of her long strands of hair. The gesture was so jarringly familiar it stole Meghan’s breath.

  “I started getting photographs in the mail. Pictures of me on the street, in a store or a park. In some of them I was alone, others had Danny in them.” At the mention of her son, the first hint of real emotion crept into the woman’s voice. “I never thought any of this would affect Danny. I never would have…”

  She stopped, pressed her lips together. “I was on my way to a club one night and there they were. Seems they weren’t as far underground as Wadrell had thought. They forced me into a car, and during the course of that pleasure ride they managed to convince me that I was going to work for them this time. They threatened the kid if I didn’t. They’d gotten close enough to snap those pictures. It didn’t take much to guess they could get close enough to hurt Danny.

  “At first all they wanted was for me to start feeding inaccurate information to Wadrell, throw him off their trail. I’m not completely stupid, though, my academic record notwithsta
nding.” Sandra crossed one jean-clad leg over the other. “I told Wadrell about the whole thing. He convinced me to play along with them.”

  “Son of a bitch.” The venom in Gabe’s voice didn’t register. Meghan’s world had narrowed to a twenty-four-inch television screen.

  “So they laid out the deal and I pretended to agree to it. After a while though, there was more. They wanted me to meet some guy and tell them if he was skimming profits.” Her foot jittered nervously. “I did it. Met with D’Brusco twice, as a matter of fact. Wadrell was hot to grab them the next time we met, only they’ve never arranged another meeting. They call from different cell phones every time, and I’m starting to get a real bad feeling about the whole thing.”

  The trepidation in Sandra’s voice was reflected in her face. “What’s to stop them from carrying out their threats now that they’ve got what they wanted? I’m not figuring on sticking around to find out. I’m taking the kid, and we’re going to disappear for a while. But if someone arranges to have me disappear completely, I wanted you to know what was going on.”

  She lifted her shoulder in a gesture of derision. “Somehow I don’t think I could count on Wadrell to supply all the details. And Danny should know. If something happens, I mean. He should know that I did what I could to protect him.” Her lips quivered for an instant before she brought the glass to her mouth and drew the only kind of courage she could from it.

  Then she lowered the glass and leaned into the camera, and it seemed to Meghan as though she was staring right into her eyes. “You were always the good girl, weren’t you, Meghan? I’m hoping that hasn’t changed. You’ll do what has to be done, and you’ll see that Danny is taken care of.” A sly look crossed her sister’s face. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it? The thought of you taking care of Danny? Be like when we were kids. Meggie and the freak, together again.”

  She got up from the chair then and leaned into the camera. An instant later the screen went blank. Meghan sat, staring at the wall of nothingness. Guilt warred with old regrets, until they nearly rose and choked her. So many wounds. And the opportunity for healing them had long passed.

  Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Sandra had asked. And irony seemed far too tame for the cruel joke life had played. It was ironic that Meghan would end up guardian to a boy who possessed the same ability that had made their childhood a nightmare.

  But the most cruel irony of all was that her sister’s worst fears had come true. The same ability she’d alternately ignored or exploited all her life, had, in fact, ended up killing her.

  Chapter 10

  Gabe’s face was hard when he took the tape from the machine, his movements tightly controlled. “Seems like Wadrell has a lot to answer for.” And he was going to make damn sure the detective was held accountable for his actions. Using a psychic in a police investigation wasn’t unheard of. But encouraging Sandra to continue when she’d been endangered, without providing her with adequate protection, was inexcusable. Oh, there would be questions, Gabe promised himself savagely. And Wadrell would provide explanations, if Gabe had to choke them out of the man himself.

  Meghan rose, crossed her arms and hugged her shoulders. “So I was right all along. Her death was caused by her involvement in that case.” She’d known, in some distant part of herself. But instead of feeling a sense of closure she felt strangely empty. She thought of Sandra making that video, more than half-convinced that it would never be seen. And tried not to wonder about her sister’s last thoughts when she’d gone over that cliff.

  Watching her closely, Gabe said, “We can’t assume that.” She rounded on him, and he held up one hand, stemming her argument. “I admit it seems likely, in light of what she told us. But we’re really no closer to proving it.”

  She took a deep breath and then another. He was right, of course. Once emotion was brushed away, she had to admit that the tape hadn’t verified whether Sandra had been forced off that cliff. But it had certainly pointed to a motive for someone to do so—a motive Meghan had suspected from the beginning.

  “The tape did establish a connection between the case your sister was involved in and my own. D’Brusco is the common element,” he murmured. She could almost see him shifting puzzle pieces in his mind, snapping some in place.

  “All we have to do is figure out his part in both these cases.”

  His gaze met hers and he immediately switched gears. “You’re exhausted. We need to get some food into you, and then you can crash.”

  Just the thought of food had nausea rising in her stomach. “I don’t have an appetite. Just take me back to my car, and I’ll head home.”

  He leaned against the sofa, folded his arms. “I’m not going to do that.”

  His obstinance, combined with the events of the day, gave root to the beginnings of a headache. “You should have let me drive my own car. I told you that before.”

  “I remember.” He didn’t remind her of the reasons they’d ended up here to watch it in the first place. He had no doubt that she would have much preferred to watch that tape in private. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the emotional upheaval it had put her through. And he was fiercely glad she hadn’t gone through it alone.

  Aware that her glare was turning dangerous, he continued imperturbably, “It doesn’t make sense for either of us to venture out this time of night. Danny calmed down as soon as you called him, didn’t he? And Callie agreed to keep him for the night?”

  Looking away, she nodded.

  “So there’s no need for you to go home at this hour. And a lot of reasons not to.” He waited for her reaction and he wasn’t disappointed. As comprehension dawned, her chin angled, and shock widened her eyes. Shock and something else. Something that refused to be identified.

  “I’m not staying here.”

  “You won’t have to sleep on the couch. I’ve got a spare bedroom.”

  “It’s out of the question.”

  Shock had faded, to be replaced by a thread of panic. Recognizing it, his voice went persuasive. “The last thing you need tonight is to go back to your empty apartment and replay this tape over and over in your mind. I can’t stop you from the memories,” he added, catching the look in her eyes, “but I can make sure you don’t face them alone. Now I’m going to find you something to eat.”

  He pushed away from the couch and strode to the kitchen, leaving her feeling as though she’d just encountered a bulldozer and come out on the losing end. There was no way she would stay here. Tension seeped into her limbs, drove her to move. She crossed to the window and contemplated the glow of the streetlights. Gabe’s plan seemed to tempt fate. Although he’d gone to great pains to convince her otherwise at first, she’d found out for herself that the attraction was real, and it certainly wasn’t all one-sided.

  She was surprised at the little kick to her pulse at the recollection. There was no question that this was a bad idea. And totally unnecessary. Regardless of what Gabe thought, she’d be all right alone. Certainly that was how she’d spent most of her life, emotionally if not physically.

  But there was no denying that his protectiveness warmed her. He’d displayed it before, after she’d been hurt and he’d stayed to watch over both her and Danny. There was a kindness to Gabe Connally, one she doubted he let many people see. And it had the power to disarm her completely.

  “I’ve got some soup heating in the microwave.”

  She turned to find him regarding her soberly from the doorway of the kitchen.

  “Even if you don’t feel like eating, maybe you should get something in your stomach. You don’t look like you can afford to miss too many meals.”

  She cocked her head, wondering if she should be insulted. “And you don’t look like you have much experience making them.”

  One corner of his mouth pulled up. “Got me. But you have to admit that the pizza box was a giveaway.”

  If the banter was meant to calm jittering nerves, it was having the desired effect. “Am I taking my life in my hands with
you acting as chef?”

  “You would be if it was more than soup.” The buzzer sounded, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “How adventurous do you feel?”

  He might, she decided, be more agreeable about taking her home if she indulged him a little. It was that thought that had her moving past him to the kitchen, sitting down to a bowl of soup she didn’t want.

  But once she saw the meal of soup, cheese and crackers he’d prepared, her appetite improved. She began eating and he opened the refrigerator, taking out a beer and a carton of milk. He took the precaution of checking the date on the milk, which raised some doubts. But she accepted the glass he poured for her silently, and he sat down opposite her with the beer in hand.

  If a stranger observed the scene, it would appear cozy, she supposed. A man and a woman sharing the evening after a long day. A stranger wouldn’t be privy to the churning in her stomach. A stranger wouldn’t note the self-consciousness that tinged her actions as the intimacy of the scene worked on her. She could only hope Gabe didn’t observe it, either.

  “What did your sister mean there at the end when she said it was ironic?”

  His tone was easy, his question wasn’t. She took inordinate care to swallow around the sudden knot in her throat. Damage control, she recalled. Somehow she’d always known she would need it.

  Her mind scrambled for an answer, and she settled for a slice of honesty. “We weren’t particularly close, Sandra and me. Not as children, and when we grew up it just seemed…too late, somehow.” Too much had transpired between them for Meghan to mend it. She’d hoped there would be time for that later. But Sandra’s death had shattered that wish.

  She felt his gaze on her and strove to keep her voice even. “My mother handled Sandra badly.” In truth she had handled them both badly, but she knew far more damage had been done to her sister. “One time when Sandra was a teenager she and my mother had a terrible fight. I think she’d been kicked out of her third or fourth boarding school. Sandra was yelling and Mother was speaking in that tight, clipped voice she uses when she’s angry. Mother wouldn’t listen when Sandra tried to explain why she’d been sent home; just went on about how she’d disappointed the family again. And then she said she didn’t know why nature had cursed her with a freak for a daughter.” Memory transported Megan back to less pleasant times. The air in the room had thickened, holding everyone in the tableau frozen. “Mother apologized later, of course, but we both knew. That’s what she thought of her. And after that time it was how Sandra referred to herself.”