Watch Your Back

by Rose, Karen

  ‘Yes. It was him.’

  ‘He kept trying to get me to back off. To accept that Levi had done it. Now I know why.’ She threaded her fingers through her hair and yanked. ‘I can’t think.’

  ‘I know.’

  She pulled away from him, hugging herself with her free arm. ‘I need to think.’

  Clay dropped his hands to his sides. ‘I know.’

  She backed away a step. Out of his reach. ‘Who knows about this?’

  ‘Joseph, Hyatt, JD. Grayson. Thorne. Ruby Gomez.’

  She frowned. ‘Why Thorne and Ruby?’

  ‘Hudson’s hooked up with Ruby Gomez. She took him to Thorne and Sam hired him.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was all she said before she walked into the front room, closing the bedroom door behind her.

  Clay sat on the edge of the bed, dropped his head into his hands. She’d already shut herself away. Already put distance between them. It was exactly what he’d expected she’d do. But he didn’t feel like he’d expected to feel.

  He was numb. It would wear off sooner or later, but for now, he was blessedly numb.

  Tuesday, March 18, 9.55 P.M.

  Stevie looked up at the clock over the TV. Two hours. She’d been sitting at this linen-covered table with its china and silver and crystal, surrounded by five dozen roses, for two hours.

  She’d cried the first hour, sobbing into the linen napkins until they were so soaked that she could wring out her tears. But the second hour she’d spent thinking, sorting, analyzing. Planning.

  Clay had given her the time and space she’d needed and for that she was grateful. She was done thinking, though, and ready to act.

  She pushed herself to her feet with a wince, grabbed her cane. Draped the damp napkins over the chairs to dry. Then opened the bedroom door to find Clay sitting at the desk, working on his laptop. He was fully clothed, his long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the collar, his cuffs also buttoned. He even wore a tie, knotted with military precision.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, closing the door behind her.

  He didn’t look up. ‘Are you all right?’

  She leaned back against the door. ‘Not really. But I will be.’

  He’d made the bed and straightened her clothes. A peek in the bathroom confirmed he’d mopped up all the water they’d sloshed out of the tub and hung the towels to dry. Keeping himself busy while giving her time to think.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, when he didn’t turn around.

  ‘Catching up on some business. I was behind before. Now I’m more behind and Paige is going to be out for a few weeks with her leg.’

  She’d never considered that he’d simply dropped his business to help her. I should have. She’d been selfish. More than once in their relationship, she realized. He’d given all. She’d given . . . what? Her body? Her ‘everything’ for as long as it lasted between them?

  Suddenly that didn’t seem like nearly enough.

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ she asked.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘No. But thank you.’

  He was being distant. And way too formal. ‘Clay, you’re scaring me, and after what we’ve been through over the last few days, that’s saying something. Would you look at me? Please?’

  She watched, as his broad shoulders squared. He swiveled the chair so that he faced her, a pleasant smile on his face. But his eyes were vacant. ‘What can I do for you, Stevie?’ he asked, his voice impossibly kind. But not loving. Not like it had been.

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘That’s what I figured you were doing.’

  ‘And some crying.’

  ‘I know. I heard you.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. I hated to tell you.’

  Yes, he would have hated it. It was another realization that hit her hard. He would have hated to give her that news, knowing it would hurt. But he had. After giving her ‘a little romance’.

  She crossed the room, sat on the side of the bed closest to him. ‘Why did you?’ she asked softly. ‘Whose idea was it for you to tell me?’

  ‘Mine, with Joseph’s agreement. Grayson and JD wanted to bring you into the station and tell you there. I wouldn’t let them. You needed time to process. Time to think. Privacy to react.’

  Which was what Clay had given her. She studied his face, another moment coming to mind. ‘You were there that day, too,’ she murmured. ‘The day I confronted Silas face to face, a year ago. I knew that he’d done those terrible things, but didn’t really believe it until I saw his face.’

  ‘And the gun he was pointing at you,’ Clay said tightly.

  ‘That, too.’ Silas had been willing to kill her that day so that he could escape to save his own child. It was a few hours later that she’d found him holding Cordelia, his gun pressed to her daughter’s side in order to force Stevie to help him.

  You’d sacrifice my child, she’d asked, to save your own?

  In a heartbeat, had been his answer.

  She’d considered that while doing her thinking surrounded by five dozen roses. Silas had proven already that he’d had no loyalties, had proven he’d murder to further his own agenda. That Silas Dandridge had forced the murder of her husband hadn’t been all that hard to accept.

  ‘I remember watching Silas drive away that day and it was in that moment that I finally realized that I’d trusted, at times even unwittingly aided, a monster. I was in tears. Then I turned around and there you were.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Every time I need you, you’re there.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Please don’t thank me. Do not.’

  ‘All right, I won’t. Can I ask why you filled the front room with flowers?’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘I told you. I thought you deserved a little romance before—’ He cut himself off, pressing his lips together to keep from saying more.

  ‘Before? Before what? Before you told me about Silas? Why—?’ She stopped because she knew the answer. I love you. I need to say it out loud.

  She thought she’d heard a goodbye in his words. She’d been right.

  He believed she would, in her heartbreak, walk away from him.

  And why wouldn’t he? It’s what I’ve done before. I shut myself away for eight years. She’d pushed her friends away for months, trying to fix the world all by herself. Stevie, you’re an idiot.

  ‘You were going to give me a perfect night before you had to break my heart, weren’t you?’

  He surged up out of his chair, walking to the closet where he needlessly straightened the shirts he’d hung there. ‘That was the idea. I thought you deserved it. That we deserved it.’

  Her throat closed and she cleared it roughly. She knew how long he’d waited for her to come around. Hell, half of Baltimore knew how long he’d waited. Two years. But he’d told her a most painful truth, all the while believing she’d retreat, that she’d pull back into herself again. And even believing she’d already done so, here he was. Protecting her still.

  What are you waiting for, Mazzetti? A neon arrow to fall from the sky?

  ‘Clay, I’m not . . . broken. I’m still in shock and I don’t know what I’ll be like tomorrow or the day after. But I do know that at some point, the reality of this is going to hit me hard and I’ll need someone to hold me up. I’d really like that person to be you.’

  He turned slowly, his expression one of total relief. ‘Good. Because I want it to be me, too.’

  ‘Lucky for me, then, that you’re so damn good at it,’ she said soberly. Because this was important. ‘You hold me up, Clay. You have for a long time, even when I didn’t think I wanted you to. You’ve always been right there for me.’

  ‘Because I love you,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry if you’re not ready to hear it, but it doesn’t change how I feel.’<
br />
  She walked over to him, gripped his tie in her fist and yanked his head down for a hard and fast kiss. When they drew back for air, she kept her grip on the tie, keeping his face close to hers. ‘I’m ready to hear it.’ She watched him draw a breath. Watched him hold it as he waited, his dark eyes vulnerable. Expectant. ‘Because I love you, too.’

  His eyes closed. ‘Could I hear that again, please?’ he whispered.

  Releasing his tie, she traced the hard angles of his face with her fingertips, then kissed him again, more softly this time. ‘I love you. I think I have for a long time. But I wasn’t ready to accept it. I know you don’t want me to thank you, but I’m going to anyway. Thank you for letting me have the time and space I needed, tonight and for the last two years.’

  He pulled her to him and she willingly, eagerly went, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘I thought you’d blame yourself,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I was afraid you’d punish yourself. That you’d build a wall around yourself again. That you wouldn’t let me in.’

  ‘I don’t want to build any more walls around myself. I missed so much because I did that before. But I do blame myself. How can I not?’

  He sighed. ‘Stevie, what Robinette did . . . what Silas did . . . you didn’t cause any of that.’

  ‘No, not directly. But my actions caused Robinette to react and my family paid the price. Paul, Paulie . . . they’re gone. And Cordelia’s been paying the price her whole life because I built a wall around my heart. That’s why this time has to be different.’

  He rested his cheek on top of her head, his sigh weary. ‘Stevie, saying it has to be different won’t make it so. As long as you blame yourself, it won’t be different. It can’t be.’

  She pulled back far enough to see his face. ‘But it is. The blame is different. And what I’ll do with it is different, too. That’s what I was thinking about when I was in the other room.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘See, when it was random, losing Paul wasn’t my fault. He stopped at that store every night to buy a lottery ticket for his mother. Paul was going to be there at the same time the robber was, regardless of anything I did or didn’t do. But Paulie was my fault. If I hadn’t been so focused on my work, I would have saved my son. That’s always been the hardest part for me.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Losing Paulie isn’t any easier to accept now than before. Nothing about that part has changed.’ Her little boy’s face was in her mind, the way he smelled. Like cookies. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. ‘If I’d picked him up like I was supposed to, he’d be alive. I own that. But Silas knew he’d be with Paul. He knew, and he let the hit happen anyway.’

  Clay frowned. ‘Silas knew? How?’

  ‘While I was in there thinking, I made myself remember the last hours of that day, before Hyatt came to tell me about the shooting. Silas left on time that night, but he stopped by my desk on the way out. Saw me working on the request to get Robinette’s case reopened. He gave a big sigh and reminded me that it was my night to pick up Paulie.’

  ‘Had he ever done that before?’

  ‘No. I thought it a little odd at the moment, but after Hyatt notified me . . . Everything just folded up and disappeared. I didn’t forget anything. It was just too painful to remember.’

  ‘I can relate to that. Tell me what you’re remembering now.’

  ‘Paul and I planned day care pickup, put it on our calendars at the start of each week, but some nights we’d switch off at the last minute if something came up, just like most couples do. Silas had to have checked my calendar to know it was my night, but when he reminded me, I told him I’d asked Paul to get him. Silas knew Paulie would be with Paul.’

  ‘Sonofabitch.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, he proved other times that he didn’t care who he hurt to get his way. I don’t know why I thought I should have been exempt. That I wasn’t is what makes this scenario different from a random killing. I mean, Robinette reacted because I couldn’t leave well enough alone. But I shouldn’t have left it alone. You can’t let the bad guys win. The moment you do, you’re part of the problem. Does that make sense?’

  He rested his forehead on hers. ‘Yes. It does.’

  She drew a breath. ‘I have to live with the fact that Paul and Paulie are dead because of a choice I made. Paul . . . He would have understood. I think he would have made the same choice. But Paulie . . .’ She closed her eyes against the pain stabbing her chest. ‘He never had the chance to choose. So do I blame myself for that? Yes. I will every day forever. Would I make the same choice again, knowing what I know now? Probably not and I have to live with that, too. But now I know it was orchestrated. For eight years I believed it was bad luck. Karma. Circumstance. Whatever. But other than killing myself, there wasn’t anything I could really do to punish myself. I’ve felt so damn helpless.’

  ‘But now you have someone real to blame,’ he said softly.

  She nodded. ‘Now I have someone to make pay. And to do that I need your help. Silas is dead, but Robinette is alive and kickin’. Help me nail him to the wall.’

  His smile was harsh. ‘I’d like to see anyone try to stop me. What do you need?’

  ‘A connection. Somehow, somewhere, Robinette and Silas crossed paths. Silas worked for Stuart Lippman, the defense attorney, and all of Lippman’s dirty work we’ve uncovered to date originated within the justice system. Lippman would note the arrest of anyone from a rich family, call them and say, “I can make your troubles go away – for a price.”’

  ‘But Robinette was never actually arrested,’ Clay said, ‘so there would have been no reason for Stuart Lippman to contact him with an offer to make his troubles go away. Yet Silas was involved and to your knowledge he only did dirty work for Lippman, and only because Lippman had threatened Silas with harming his child. If Robinette had approached Silas on his own, Silas might have turned him in.’

  ‘Exactly. Which means Robinette and Lippman connect some other way.’

  Clay thought a minute. ‘I think I know where to start. Why don’t you call for room service? I’m going to call Alec.’

  Wednesday, March 19, 8.00 A.M.

  All eyes were on them as Clay and Stevie walked into the conference room on the homicide floor. Very tired eyes, Clay thought. He and Stevie appeared to be the only ones who’d gotten any sleep the night before. After a late dinner, she’d fallen asleep in his arms. Before she did so, she told him once again that she loved him. Clay had the best night’s sleep of his life.

  The faces around the table . . . not so much. Hyatt, Grayson, and JD looked shattered. Joseph, weary. His team – Novak, Coppola, and CSU’s Dr Brodie – were sympathetically grave. To have dirty cops in the department was bad enough, but Silas’s act was one of ultimate betrayal.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Stevie said without preamble as she and Clay sat on either side of Joseph, who sat at the head of the table. ‘I take it that we’re all assuming that Silas didn’t wake up that morning and decide to have my husband and son killed. He was hired to do so, and at the time, the person who had the most to gain was Todd Robinette. He wanted me off his tail eight years ago, because I believed he’d killed his wife. Killing my family distracted me so that his case was dropped. Given that Robinette’s the one shooting at me now, it makes sense that he hired Silas and he doesn’t want me to expose him for all of his past acts.’

  ‘That’s where we are,’ Joseph confirmed.

  ‘Good,’ she said with a hard nod. ‘Because I’m pissed off and ready to take Robinette down.’ Murmurs of agreement rippled around the room. ‘Do we have a warrant for his home and business yet?’

  Grayson scowled. ‘I couldn’t get a judge to sign one based on the ramblings of a “clearly deranged woman” who broke into a hotel room. Everything else we have is circumstantial. We’ll need physical e
vidence to bring him in. I told the judge we had blood and hair, tried to get a court order forcing Robinette to provide a DNA sample, but I got shut down. I underestimated Robinette’s PR machine. He’s made a lot of friends in high places over the last eight years.’

  ‘Pretty much what I figured,’ Stevie said. ‘Do we even know if he’s still in the country?’

  ‘He is,’ Joseph said. ‘I’ve had agents outside his home and his factory since you told me his name last night. Told my people to stay out of sight. We don’t want to spook him into running. He left his factory at about noon yesterday afternoon and went straight home. My agent said Robinette “didn’t look so good”. His wife picked him up and drove him.’

  ‘He was shot in the arm,’ Clay said. ‘But it wasn’t serious. He didn’t bleed that much.’

  ‘I don’t know how badly he’s hurt. The word from my agents was that he looked like he was about to throw up. His wife appeared most displeased.’

  ‘Have we talked to her?’ Clay asked.

  Joseph nodded. ‘I did, personally, an hour after she brought him home. A maid answered the door, wouldn’t let me in. Neither would Lisa Robinette. I told her that I was pursuing an allegation made by Jean Henderson, who’d served with Robinette in the Gulf War.’

  ‘And she said what?’ JD asked.

  ‘What you’d expect. That Henderson was delusional. And that if I had any other questions, to contact their attorney. Then she shut the door in my face. But she had been taken by surprise. And she was pissed, although she tried to hide it. About thirty minutes after I left, the PR person arrived – Brenda Lee Miller – and left a few minutes later. One of my agents followed her, too. Other than that, there hasn’t been any movement outside their house. Hopefully Lisa hasn’t killed him. She was pretty mad.’

  ‘Trouble in paradise?’ Clay had run a background check the night before when Stevie had been doing her thinking. ‘They haven’t been married that long. Robinette married Lisa Laffley, wife number three, about two years ago. The Laffleys are prominent fixtures on the political scene. Very rich. Lisa was considered a top catch when she chose Robinette after her debut.’