Catherine left Darius in the foyer and hurried to her room, tears clogging her throat and blurring her vision. This was what Eileen would have wanted. A quick death as opposed to a long, drawn-out one. She hadn’t wanted to linger. She’d told Catherine that more than once, but Catherine had wanted her to. She’d wanted more time, because she’d missed out on so many years.
She sniffed, wiping away a tear as she shoved a few things into a duffel and zipped it. She wasn’t sure what she’d grabbed, but it would do for the night. The funeral would be in four days, and when it was over, she’d pack the rest of her things and leave town for good.
Or, maybe she wouldn’t pack. Maybe she’d just leave. Start completely fresh somewhere else.
She walked into Eileen’s room, ran her hand over the bed frame. They hadn’t moved it back into place, and the floor board still lay a foot from where it should. She started to replace it, but something caught her eye. Edged up against the floor joist and covered in dust, the small book looked like a Bible. Surprised, Catherine lifted it.
Yep. A Bible.
Though Eileen had taken Catherine to church every Sunday while she was growing up, Bible reading hadn’t been part of their daily lives. Maybe things had changed while Catherine was in prison. Maybe Eileen had found comfort in scripture.
She lifted the little Bible, wiping dust from the cover.
Just an ordinary Bible.
She opened it, found a folded piece of paper inside, her name scrawled across it in Eileen’s oversize loopy handwriting. Her heart jerked, her hands trembling as she unfolded it and read it silently.
So, I guess this is it, Catherine. The final goodbye. Don’t cry too much, okay? I’m fine. Off in a better place with a better body. Don’t beat yourself up, either. There was nothing you could have done to change things. We all have a certain amount of time on this earth. This was mine. I think I lived it pretty well. When I look at you, I know I did. So, like I said, don’t cry too much, and don’t let the things in the past keep you from having a wonderful future. I love you, Kitty-cat. Life wasn’t always easy, but having you around filled it up to overflowing. Thanks for being such a great kid!
Typical Eileen. Straight to the point. No undue sentiment. The note made Catherine smile even as tears poured down her cheeks. She set it back in the Bible, wrapping her arms around her bent knees, sitting in the silent room, tears falling as she thought of Eileen dancing a jig, her body healthy and strong again.
The floorboard on the stairs creaked, but she didn’t get up. One day soon, the house would belong to someone else. The room that had been Eileen’s for most of her life would be someone else’s retreat. Catherine’s childhood was gone, a whisper on the wind. Her parents. Now, her grandmother.
She was all that was left, the only one to hold the memories of what used to be.
Darius entered the room silently, not even a shuffle of footfall as he crossed the room and dropped down beside her.
He didn’t speak, just wrapped an arm around her shoulders, moving in close so that they were pressed hip to hip, arm to arm, side to side, his warmth a blanket that held the chill of loneliness at bay.
Catherine’s tears kept falling, silent and hot and painful. She leaned her head against his shoulder, his breath ruffling her hair, his hand smoothing circles on her arm, and she felt like she had known him forever. Felt like they had sat together a thousand times, just this way.
She closed her eyes, endless tears pouring into the silent room as she gave in to herself and her needs and cried into his shoulder, his scent filling her nose, the slow, steady beat of his heart assuring her that she wasn’t alone.
TWELVE
Darkness had settled hours ago. The strange bed, the unfamiliar room and the clean, fresh scent of newly washed sheets were a constant reminder that Catherine’s life would never be the same. A headache pounded behind her eyes, and she shifted, fluffing the pillow and trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. If she’d been at home, she’d have grabbed some Tylenol and washed it down with hot, sweet coffee. She wasn’t at home, and right now, she wasn’t sure where home was going to be. With Eileen gone, the old farmhouse couldn’t be it.
She fingered the dog-eared Bible she’d tucked under her pillow but didn’t pull out the letter. She’d read it dozens of times and had nearly memorized it, but having it wasn’t the same as having Eileen.
She glanced at the glowing numbers on the bedside alarm clock. 3:00 a.m. The house had fallen silent, but she knew Darius and a good-looking guy named Tango were doing their bodyguard thing.
The pain in her head intensified, and her stomach churned. Darius had shown her the small en suite bathroom when he’d brought her to the room, and she stumbled to it, running her hand along the wall and flicking on the light. A mirrored medicine cabinet hung over the sink, and she opened it, trying hard not to see her reflection. She already knew what she looked like. Hair spiking up, nose pink from tears, her skin leached of color. There’d been a time when she’d thought she was pretty, but those days were long gone.
The medicine cabinet contained everything a guest might need. Toothpaste. Toothbrush. Tylenol. Aspirin. Razors. Mouthwash. Darius either had guests often, or he was the kind of organized person who was always prepared for anything.
She thought it might be both.
His warmth must attract people, and she was sure he had plenty of friends. After all, he always seemed to know what to do, what to say and when to say nothing at all.
She grabbed the Tylenol and wrestled with the lid, finally managing to tap three pills into her hand. She gulped them down with water from the sink, then shuffled into the bedroom. As tired as she felt, she couldn’t sleep. There were plans to make, final arrangements that needed to be taken care of. Not much, though. Eileen had dotted all her I’s and crossed all her T’s after she was diagnosed with liver cancer. The funeral had been paid for in advance, the grave site chosen.
Typical Eileen, doing everything herself. No help needed or necessary. Not even when it came to this last rite of passage.
Catherine turned on the bedside lamp, opened up the overnight bag she’d packed for Eileen. Her grandmother wouldn’t need any of the things in it, but the box was there, too, and Catherine placed it on the bed, pulling out the papers, the money and the bracelet again. She hadn’t opened the envelope earlier, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to now. If this box had been Eileen’s last concern, if telling Catherine about it had given her the strength to let go and move on, then its contents must be very important.
She lifted the sealed envelope, staring at the unmarked paper as if doing so could reveal the secrets that were hidden inside. Earlier, she hadn’t had time to look. Now, she had all the time in the world. An entire lifetime stretching out in front of her, and she still wasn’t sure what she would do with it.
Someone tapped on the door, and Catherine set the envelope down.
“Come in,” she called.
Darius stepped into the room. He’d shaved and changed, his jaw smooth and tan, his white T-shirt clinging to six-pack abs. Faded jeans clung to his slim hips and muscular thighs, the left pant leg rolled up past the ankle, revealing a skin-toned prosthetic foot and mechanical-looking joint. She’d seen prostheses before, but not one like this. It looked expensive and high-tech. A necessity for someone in his line of work, but even something as high-tech and as expensive as his prosthesis must be painful sometimes.
“Does it bother
you?” he asked, dropping onto the bed beside her.
“What?” She caught a hint of soap and masculinity, felt his heat though they hadn’t even touched. Her body seemed to yearn for his, leaning just a little as if she could soak up his heat, claim some of his warmth.
“My leg.” He rolled down his pant leg, covering the mechanics.
“Funny, I was just wondering the same about you,” she responded, and he smiled, his eyes warm and soft.
“Sometimes, but not enough to complain.”
“Is it bothering you now? I had several patients who were amputees, and I could—” She touched his leg, and he grabbed her hand, holding it still.
“Catherine, the last thing I want you to do is look at me and see a patient.” There was an edge to his voice and in his eyes, and for the first time since she’d met him, she realized how much he’d lost. Not just his leg, but his independence and confidence. It must have taken guts and determination to fight back from that, to make a life doing what he loved, but he never complained, never used it as an excuse.
Like you do.
Eileen’s voice seemed to whisper through her head, or maybe it was her own voice, chastising her for hiding away from the world and using the trauma she’d been through to justify it.
She’d been exonerated. The State had issued an apology. She could go back to the job she’d always loved, find work in a hospital or a convalescent center, go back to the plans and dreams she’d been working toward before she’d gone to jail.
“I wish I were like you, Darius,” she said without thought.
“Personally, I’m really glad you’re not.” His gaze slid from her eyes to her lips and down to their hands that were still connected, his over hers, hers over his muscular thigh.
“That’s not what I mean.” She tugged her hand away, her cheeks hot. “You just seem so confident, so sure of where you’re heading and what you’re doing. You’ve been through a lot, but you haven’t let it bring you down.”
“My mother raised me to believe that even the worst things in life have a purpose. Besides, I figure losing my leg is a lot better than losing my life would have been.”
“Your mother must have been a wonderful lady.”
“She was, but she made her share of mistakes. I guess that’s another thing she taught me. It isn’t our mistakes that define us. It’s what we learn from them.” He took the box from her lap, looked into it. “Is this why you’re up at three in the morning?”
“I was thinking about Eileen and how glad she’d be that she didn’t linger. She’d have wanted to go quickly, and I should be happy that she did.”
“But you’re not.” It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway.
“I’m happy for Eileen. I’m not so happy for me.”
“I understand. It gets better, though.”
“I know.” She lifted the sealed envelope, slid her finger along the flap. She needed to open it, but she still wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was inside.
“It’ll wait.”
“What?” She met his eyes, saw compassion in the depth of his gaze. Compassion and something else. Something warm and exciting. Something she hadn’t seen in a very long time, but that she responded to instinctively, her skin heating, her stomach tightening.
“If you’re not ready to see what’s inside, whatever is in that envelope will wait.”
“What if it’s something to do with Eileen’s funeral? She was very specific about what she wanted. Maybe there’s someone she wanted me to invite, something that she wanted done.”
“It will still wait.”
“I know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, so I may as well open it now.” She unsealed the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. No. Not a paper. A check written out for ten thousand dollars. Dated nearly three decades ago, it was made out to Catherine’s mother, Jessica Lamont.
“A check?” Darius leaned in, his body pressed so close there was no space between them, and Catherine’s pulse jumped, her body humming with awareness, every nerve alive.
“For a lot of money. It would have been even more twenty-nine years ago.” But the check had never been cashed.
“Who’s Jessica Lamont?”
“My mother. She would have been really young. Fifteen or sixteen.” She would also have been pregnant. Catherine frowned, looking in the envelope, hoping for some other clue, but there was nothing.
“Was Gerald Kensington her father?” He read the name in the corner of the check, and she shook her head.
“No. My grandfather’s name is James.”
“So, who is Kensington?”
“I have no idea. Except that he’s someone with a lot of money to throw around.”
“Seems strange that he’d be throwing it around at a very young girl, and it seems even stranger that she never did anything with it.” Darius echoed what Catherine was thinking. Jessica had been kicked out of her parents’ house when she’d found out she was pregnant. Eileen had been happy to take the mother of her grandchild in, but there hadn’t been much money. Not when Catherine’s parents were alive, and not after they’d died. She fingered the hundred-dollar bills that were lying in the bottom of the box.
“Eileen wanted me to have this. She kept it for all these years. It must be important,” she said mostly to herself, but Darius nodded.
“Can I take a look?”
She handed him the check, shifting uncomfortably while he examined it. She’d had a feeling that opening the envelope would be like opening Pandora’s box, and now she was sure of it.
“We need to find out who Gerald Kensington is and what he meant to your mother,” Darius said.
We?
The two of them together, searching for answers about Catherine’s past?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she couldn’t find it in herself to tell him that she’d search alone. “With everything else that’s going on, it will probably have to wait.”
“I’m not sure it should, Catherine. Eileen seemed determined that you know about this. There must be a reason.”
“I know, but Eileen just passed away, and I have the funeral to get through.”
“You also have someone trying to kill you. The police are digging into your past, trying to find a suspect. The more information they have, the more quickly they’ll be able to do that.”
“You’re assuming that Gerald Kensington is somehow connected to me.”
“He was connected to your mother. That means that he was connected to you.”
“Twenty-nine years ago. Why would that matter now?”
“Maybe it doesn’t, but it won’t hurt to check into it.”
“I guess not.”
“You don’t sound like you want to.”
“I’m just not sure I’m ready for whatever it means.” Because she couldn’t think of many reasons why a man would pay a teenage girl ten thousand dollars, and the reasons she could think of weren’t good ones.
“It doesn’t have to be something bad, Catherine.”
“I know, but I can’t imagine it being anything good.” Maybe she was jaded. Maybe everything she’d been through had warped her perspective.
“Either way, wouldn’t you rather know than hide your head in the sand and pretend you never saw this?” He handed the check back, his fingers touching hers, the heat that sparked between them so compelling that she was sure she’d never felt anything like it before. Not with Peter. Not with an
yone.
His cell phone rang, cutting through the sudden tension, and Darius pulled it from his pocket, frowning as he glanced at the number.
“Osborne here,” he said, walking to the window, his back to Catherine. “You’ve contacted the fire department? Okay. I’ll check it out from here. Thanks.” He shoved the phone back in his pocket and turned to face her again.
“Is everything okay?”
“There’s a fire at your grandmother’s place. The alarm is going off. I need to head over to check it out.”
“A fire? There’s no one there to start one.” Catherine hurried to the window, looking out into the early-morning darkness. She wasn’t sure what she thought she’d see. The bedroom looked out over the backyard and gave no view of Eileen’s place.
“There are lots of ways a fire can start. I’ll be back as soon as I figure out what’s going on.”
“I’ll come, too.” She shoved her feet into flip-flops and followed Darius out into the hall.
“Not a good idea. You’ll be safe here.”
“What’s going on?” the dark-haired, grim-faced security contractor who’d been at the house when they’d arrived asked as Darius opened the front door. Tango Jefferson. An interesting name for a guy who looked like he could make a grizzly turn tail and run.
“There’s a fire at the Miller place. I need to head over there to check things out. Stay with Catherine until I get back.”
“Catherine isn’t going to be here. She’s going to be with you,” Catherine said, and Darius’s coworker raised an eyebrow.
“Darius is right. It will be a lot easier to keep you safe if you stay here.”
“If it were your house burning to the ground, would you stay where it was safe or would you go try to save it?”
“Houses can be replaced, Catherine. You can’t,” Darius said, then turned his attention back to his coworker. “Keep her here until I get back. I shouldn’t be long.”
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