by Sally Felt
“Grab me,” he said.
“Kim.”
“Don’t think. Just do it.” His head hurt. He was glad he didn’t have to stand up to do this.
“I can’t.”
Down below, Bob said, “Hold him.” That didn’t sound good.
Kim stayed centered on Isabelle. He had to trust Kerry. He had to trust himself. “You can,” he said. “Who broke into your house?”
A crease appeared between Isabelle’s eyebrows. “Steven.”
“And who was behind it?”
“Bob. What—”
“Does that piss you off?”
“Kim…”
He pressed the balls of his bare feet against the top rung of her ladder, it was seated on the ground, a far better brace than the gutter. “Why did you and Steven break up?”
“Kim…” She was actively scowling.
“He was with someone else. Another woman. Does that make you mad?” He squeezed her wrist roughly.
She grabbed him back.
No anchor. No rope. Only the hope her anger was stronger than her fear. Kim pulled up, getting her weight as high as he could as fast as he could, then scooped her close with his free arm while he lay back on the roof. She fell on top of him. So far so good. “Climb me,” he said. “Go!” He let go of her wrist and grabbed her thigh, pushing up against her butt. His other hand connected with her flailing foot and pressed it to the roof beside him, giving her something to push against. “Go, Isabelle!”
She was scrambling. Scrambling wasn’t paralyzed. He could work with scrambling. He kept his own hands moving, bracing behind her knees, chocking behind her heels until she was off him, above him, safely on her stomach on the garage roof.
He sat up and checked on her. She wasn’t moving except for the rapid rise and fall of her back as she panted and gasped. “Perfect. You were great, Isabelle,” he said, unable to resist touching her, even if it were only a reassuring press of his hand against her calf. “Hang on.”
Still seated at the roof’s edge, he turned back to the scene below.
“Kerry,” he said. He clapped his hands. Kerry looked up and pitched him the ring. Kim was relieved to catch it in spite of his dizziness. There was blood on Kerry’s shirt. Someone had managed to punch him in the nose, but he was free of whatever hold Bob had been ordering. Evidently, the old boy was still pretty light on his feet.
“No, Kim, you’ve got your hands full up there. I’ll keep it,” he shouted. He dodged out of Steven’s grasp, put his hand in his pocket as if dropping the ring into it and sprinted up the street. Kim gaped after him as he led Steven and Bob on a merry chase. He’d have sworn Kerry winked at him. Kerry. As if he were enjoying the danger. Maybe he didn’t know his brother as well as he thought.
Winking or not, Kerry had bought him time, and he wouldn’t waste it wondering. Isabelle lay on her stomach on the roof, her hands in fists near her shoulders, eyes tightly shut, forehead pressed to the shingles. She was breathing fast. Soon, she’d hyperventilate, or worse. His pulse beat loudly in his swollen face, pounding out his own fear at seeing her like this. She needed help. This time, he didn’t have a tool—didn’t have a freaking clue—but here he was, armed only with his desperation to be the man she needed.
He took a deep breath to slow his racing heart. “The police will be here soon. We’ll be just fine up here.”
In slow motion, she turned her head sideways against the roof until her eyes were just visible over her arm. “K-Kerry?” She stuttered over the name as if she were cold.
He struggled to find a casual tone, to assure her, to help her. “Showing off again. No way are those numbnuts going to catch him. He went to school on a track scholarship, still runs marathons, whatever.” He shrugged. Kerry’s athletic skill wasn’t the impressive thing here. It was that he was testing it with two men chasing him, one of them who was actually a serious threat. Isabelle didn’t need to hear that part.
He stretched out on his side, next to her. “You did great, Isabelle.” He stroked her arm. She was trembling badly. Her fists were still clenched and her eyes had closed again as if she couldn’t bear seeing the roof. He wanted to hold her. He needed to talk to her about Austin and about what Kerry had said back at the loft. He’d made the mistake of waiting before, with the Jules situation. He didn’t want to make it again. If anything about Isabelle Caine were clear to him it was that the longer her wounds festered the less likely she was to forget them.
And yet he couldn’t talk to her about serious things right now. She wouldn’t hear him. She couldn’t. Nobody this frightened could.
“I should have realized from the start you weren’t a gym-climbing kind of woman, that you’d thrive on the excitement of buildering.”
Her eyes opened, but nothing else moved. “W-what?”
“Urban rock climbing. An up-close tour of the city’s architecture. Spider-Man stuff. Cops frown on it, though, so we’d best stop until they’ve been and gone.” He congratulated himself for keeping it light. Maybe he could do this after all.
“H-how many women are you dating?” she asked.
He started at the non sequitur. Not a good sign, though her gaze seemed calm and direct. Her hands were still fisted to either side of her head.
Kim decided to go with it. “One,” he said, “or rather, none.” He glanced toward the edge of the roof, just in case, but seeing nothing, stayed focused on Isabelle. “There’s someone really important, someone like no one else. Someone who demands the best from me.
“Being with her makes me feel special and alive and whole. But just when I thought she’d said yes, she stormed out. It’s actually pretty complicated and I don’t know why. I just want to be with her.”
She swallowed, looking a little moist around the edges. Damn it. Kim didn’t want to make her cry.
“Someone ob-ob-obsessive about certainty?”
What? He shook his head, which didn’t help the nausea.
“Kim! Help me with the ladder.” Kerry’s head and shoulders were visible above the roofline and rising fast. Kim tore himself away from Isabelle and lurched toward Kerry, his pounding head making his legwork sloppy and his balance for shit. He gave Kerry a hand up and the two of them hauled the ladder up behind him. Kerry’s cheeks had flushed beneath his beard, but he was barely breathing hard. No sign of the bad guys below. Kerry had well and truly lost them. If they had any brains at all, they wouldn’t be back. Isabelle had curled up on her side, probably to see what the noise was about. Her arms were drawn close in to her body, her fists still clenched.
Kerry followed him over to her with all the awkwardness of a non-climber, making Kim’s shoddy transit graceful by comparison. Kim brushed her hair from her forehead, sitting where she could look at him without seeing the edge.
“We have a few minutes yet to wait for the police,” Kerry said formally, as if the top button of his dress shirt weren’t scandalously undone, his tie peeking rakishly from the depths of his trouser pocket, spatters from a long-dried bloody nose staining his shirt front. “Shall I have a look at the ring?” He dusted off his hands and raised his eyebrows at Kim expectantly.
Kim blinked at him. All these years and he’d never suspected his brother hid an adventurous streak beneath his pinstripes. He fished the ring out of his own pocket and passed it without a word.
Kerry pinched the band between thumb and index finger on the side opposite the big gem, holding it in his lap. The heart-shaped stone looked almost black.
“H-horrible, isn’t it?” Isabelle said, her voice a thin imitation of the scorn she was probably trying for. Kim smiled at her show of chutzpah. His finger was wrapped up in a curl he hadn’t realized he’d been playing with. Silky, his lioness. If she was his. If he still had a chance with her. He tried not to get his hopes up.
Kerry held the ring high, putting it between him and the overcast afternoon sky. The gem caught the light, glowing deep zinfandel-red.
The sound of two winded men—heavy slap
s of shoes on pavement, harsh breathing—reached them from the ground. No brains at all. No ladder either.
“Pity I don’t have my board here,” Kerry said, digging a jeweler’s loupe from his trousers.
“Board?” Kim wondered crazily if Kerry still carried the pencil sharpener.
“Normally, I’d shine a light through the stone itself with the rest of the room dark.” He fitted the loupe to his eye and held up the ring for another look. “What do you know about this piece?”
Kim looked to Isabelle.
“Steven hid it in my house,” she said, only her mouth and eyes moving. Sweat beaded on her lip. She was holding it together, but just barely. Kim hoped the police were close and not just to silence the ongoing grumbling of the thwarted giants below.
“It’s been there at least two months,” he told Kerry. He surprised himself by keeping quiet about where it had spent time since then. As recently as this morning, he’d have loved the thought of telling Kerry he was holding something Kim had fished from a sewer. Instead, he felt compelled to ask, “What are you looking for?”
“Evidence. Silk,” Kerry said distantly.
Kim would have thought sitting still would help his head and queasy stomach, but Kerry was making him work at this conversation. “In English?”
The loupe dropped into Kerry’s palm with the ease of long practice. “Sorry. Silk is a term for straw-like inclusions that interfere with the light. It’s distinctive to rubies.”
“Rubies? So the ring is valuable?”
Beside him, Isabelle made a noise of disgust that hardly fit with her pallor and near-fetal position. Kim brushed her wrist and traced her clenched fingers, bringing her cold hand to rest on his knee where he could try to warm it between his. Kerry, on the other hand, was practically burning with excitement.
“Rare enough to find pigeon’s-blood rubies,” he said. “One of this size and quality is almost completely unheard of.”
Who was this man and what had he done with Kim’s stuffy brother? His heroics today were blowing open Kim’s whole idea of the man. It was humbling and weirdly disorienting.
“Worth a lot, then,” Kim said.
“The larger, the more rare. This stone is roughly three carats. At just one carat, a natural ruby is worth twice that of a one-carat diamond, but a three-carat ruby is worth ten times that of a diamond of the same description.” He was nearly vibrating with excitement.
“And this is a ruby?”
Kerry looked at the ring with obvious reverence. “I believe it is. And unless I miss my guess, it’s part of an historic set—earrings, choker, tiara and so on. Dates to the nineteenth century. Tsarist Russia.”
“How can you possibly know all that from looking at one ring?”
Kerry shrugged. “The set went missing five or six years ago from a museum on the West Coast. I remember seeing the FBI bulletin.”
“A bulletin from five or six years ago?”
“Never thought I’d see a ruby like this in person.” Kerry popped the loupe back into place and gazed into the depths of the stone that had caused Isabelle such grief. He seemed to have forgotten Kim was there, thus missing Kim’s naked astonishment. Kim couldn’t imagine remembering a years-old FBI bulletin. On the other hand, ask him about the limestone chimney he’d bested in coastal Mexico his first summer climbing, and Kim could describe every toehold and crack, every patch of moisture, every scent.
Kerry hadn’t taken on his father’s business to be a superior prick, Kim realized, nor was he playing the dutiful son card. Kerry actually loved his work, loved it with a passion.
“Isabelle!” Steven’s voice cut through the quiet moment, alarmingly close by. “Hurry!”
Kim saw the fool at the edge of the roof. He was on hands and knees and gesturing urgently. But Steven wasn’t the most pressing problem—now that Kim was paying attention, he saw Bob was coming up behind them, over the roof’s peak. Before Kim could shake himself into action, Bob grabbed Kerry and the ring went sailing. It struck the shingles and began rolling. Bouncing. Traveling fast. Kerry dived after it as if a man possessed as Kim was still gathering his woozy-headed wits.
Steven perched at the roof’s edge, hands in front of him like a catcher as the ring bounced closer. He was red-faced with exertion. “I’m sorry, Izzy,” he puffed. “I never meant this to happen.”
Now he was sorry? Kim steadied Isabelle’s shoulder as she made a valiant attempt to sit up, willing the bad-news ring to bounce off the roof before anyone else got hurt. Especially Kerry. The man carried his center of gravity too high. He wasn’t paying attention and Bob was hot on his heels. Kim shouted a warning.
Too late. Kerry scooped up the ring and, apparently mistaking Kim’s warning for an invitation, lobbed the damn thing in Kim’s direction just as Bob’s shoulder struck him in the chest.
The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. Kerry’s arms pinwheeled as he fought for balance. His collision with a surprised-looking Steven. Their sickening skid to the edge. The section of gutter breaking loose under their combined weight.
“Kerry!” Kim scrabbled over the roof—throbbing head, bad form, flat palms—too late, too late. His brother and Isabelle’s ex had gone over the edge, landing on the hood of Kim’s Jeep below. Thank god he’d parked so close to the house. “Kerry!”
He held his breath, waiting for hopeful signs. Of all the times Kerry had pushed in and tried to help, this was the first he could remember being glad of the backup, the advice. He wanted the chance to tell Kerry. He needed to thank him for being a big brother Kim could count on.
Kerry moved sluggishly, untangling himself from the stunned-looking Steven who seemed to have cushioned the fall. At least the moron was good for something. Kim had only a heartbeat to feel glad of Kerry’s safety before a muffled cry behind him had his pulse hammering anew.
Isabelle.
Just as Kim looked up, Bob fell on her and the two of them started to roll.
Isabelle’s head struck the shingles and the textured paper sanded a raw spot on her forehead. She’d been on her knees, stuffing the ring on her finger when he knocked her flat. Bob. She knew by the smell of him, the weight of him, the cruel way his fingers bit into her shoulders. Then he put all that weight into motion, holding her tightly as he rolled with her. First, her face to the sky, then intimate with the shingles while he pressed her down, and on and on. If she began screaming, she might chip a tooth. If she began screaming she’d surely never stop.
She jammed at Bob with her elbows—easy when she was on top of him, painful when she wasn’t. She tried to kick, but she couldn’t keep track of the blurred world canting around her, let alone her own body’s place in it.
Her own nearness to the edge. A big fall. A concrete landing. A death on the driveway. Another death. Kim’s brother had gone over…Kim calling after him, unanswered—
Oh god.
If Bob went with her—if she landed on him—would it save her life?
No. The fall would kill her. The fright would kill her.
Her knees, bent from trying to kick, struck the roof hard. Her impact spread them wide and she suddenly stopped rolling. Bob lost his grip on her and slid down-roof. She should move. Get farther away. Farther up-roof. She couldn’t. Her hands hurt and her face stung and she was terrified and crying, which pissed her off, but she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t help herself.
Crap, crap, crap, crap.
Kim had never felt more helpless than when Bob launched Isabelle toward the edge of the roof. There was no way to stop them rolling without an anchor or rope or some sort of help. All he could do was try to keep up, his heart in his throat, his head throbbing.
Isabelle whiplashed to an unexpected stop on the sloped roof and Bob slid free. She appeared to be safe. Bob’s face was unrecognizable beneath swollen, bloody scratches, his eyes red-rimmed and crazed with adrenaline. The man was an animal. That made him much more dangerous than Kim had thought.
“It’s
over, Bob,” he said.
“When you give me the ring,” Bob snarled.
“Not my decision to make,” Kim said, gut churning with his own adrenaline.
Bob grunted. “No wonder you have a girl’s name. You are so whipped.”
“No wonder you take things from other people. You have no friends,” Kim said, hoping he wouldn’t be sick. He figured Bob must be tired too, for him to be talking so much.
Isabelle lay on her side, legs drawn up, head in toward her chest. He couldn’t see her face, only her scraped-up feet and ankles. The red gem flashed like a signal lamp from the bent knuckle of her index finger. She’d caught Kerry’s throw, the one intended for him. Amazing. He wished she hadn’t. He hoped she was okay. If Bob had hurt her, he wasn’t sure what he might do to the man. Assuming he could do anything, the way he was feeling.
Motion caught his attention. Bob was moving up-roof. Isabelle’s body was between him and Kim. Persistent bastard. Kim stood up.
His vision was instantly swamped with pulsing clouds of purple and gray, his equilibrium so off-bubble he hadn’t a clue whether he was standing straight or about to tumble. He hurriedly bent his knees and put a steadying hand flat to the shingles. Lower center of gravity. Reduced danger of injury. He just had to wait for his vision to clear.
When Kim suddenly stood up, Isabelle knew there was trouble. When Kim nearly keeled over, she knew he was in no shape to handle it.
Over.
It was over. Bob’s shadow was falling across her and it was over.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she were safe inside the house. Wishing she’d never known about the ring. Wishing her life hadn’t been derailed, that it was filled with undamaged hats and men who didn’t cheat and comfy friends at Monday-night dinner parties.
But it wasn’t. Her comfy life was over. She lived among shattered glass and Charlie’s infidelity and rooftop chases. And Kim Martin’s kisses. And his kindness.