For All of Her Life

by Heather Graham

  She’d been with Jordan. But Angel had supposedly been out with her daughters.

  “I saw you drive away that night, taking the girls and Jeremy to South Beach—”

  “I left them at a friend’s club and doubled back. Alex had a hunch you might be in danger. She insisted. I was only here about fifteen minutes. And then I knew, of course, that you were safe, so—”

  “Tell Alex she’s grounded.”

  “You’ve already asked us to stay in.”

  “Tell her she’s grounded until the wedding.”

  “Whose—”

  “Yours. Whenever you two get around to it.”

  “I feel just awful. I didn’t mean to spy.”

  “It’s all right, Angel. It’s important to know why and how each and every thing has happened. Get back to my daughters and make sure they know I’m fine, okay?”

  “I’ll walk you back to your room first.”

  She didn’t argue, and he escorted her down the hallway. She pushed open the door to her room and turned on the light, then turned it off quickly. She didn’t want to call attention to her conversation in the hall. “All’s quiet. Thanks, Angel.”

  He nodded, still flushing, and left her.

  Kathy closed the door thoughtfully, then blinked against the darkness. There was a figure in front of her. A shadow against the wall, a form—someone who had been there when she had opened the door but hiding behind it.

  She inhaled, ready to cry out.

  But then...

  Twenty

  JORDAN GLANCED AT HIS watch. Three-thirty A.M. Tara was going through another scan to make sure no slivers of bone had been chipped off. From the time they had entered the emergency room, doctors had assured him that she was going to be all right, that the skull was really tough since its job was to protect the brain. Still, with a head injury, it was advisable to take every precaution, and poor Tara definitely had a concussion.

  She was, strangely enough, enjoying herself in the hospital, being charming to every doctor and nurse in the place, nobly giving out autographs and modeling advice despite her weakened condition. She looked as frail as a hot-house rose, but Jordan thought, with some amusement, that she was tough as steel beneath that facade. She exuded strength when there was someone to charm; then she clung to Jordan’s hand each time they were alone, each time the doctor explained some procedure.

  “I’m so afraid, Jordan,” she said once, speaking very softly but making sure the nurse on duty could hear her as well. “You won’t leave me tonight, will you? Please don’t.”

  If he’d ever doubted her abilities as an actress, he had no more reason to do so after that night. Her last words carried just a hint of a sob. Doctors, nurses, and technicians all looked at him curiously, assuming, of course, that he’d never think of deserting such a gorgeous woman—his lover—in this kind of distress. Well, if there was the least hint of anything wrong back at the house, they’d just have to think what they wanted about him. He didn’t know exactly why he was so unnerved.

  Why? He was mocking himself.

  How about threatening phone calls, a knife to Kathy’s throat, and now a tile on Tara’s head?

  But everyone from the original group had been there right after the tile had fallen. All of them. Derrick and Judy, Larry and Vicky Sue, Miles and Shelley, Peggy and Joe, the kids, Kathy. He’d been there, Mickey too. Everyone who had been present ten years ago.

  He stopped pacing Tara’s room and sat down by the bed. Picking up the phone, he started to dial the house, then ran his fingers through his hair, hanging up and dialing Mickey’s cellular line.

  Mickey picked up promptly.

  “Yo, Jordan?”

  “Yeah, Mick, it’s me. What’s going on?”

  “Quiet as a church here.”

  “Everyone in bed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kathy?”

  “I checked out her room and made her lock herself in it.”

  “You’re sure she’s there and okay.”

  “Jordan—”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mickey, I know. You’re thorough, you’re good. I’m sorry.”

  “How’s Tara?”

  “Reigning well.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I know you’re trying to get some sleep, but I may check in now and then. You can sleep once I make it back tomorrow huh?”

  “Yeah, sure. Hey, Jordan, I’m here.”

  “I know, Mickey, thanks.”

  “Get some rest—if you can.”

  “I will, and you call me here if anything happens.” He gave Mickey Tara’s phone number, then hung up.

  Mickey was a cop. His best friend. A guy who had known Kathy forever, too. He would protect her with his life. That still didn’t seem like enough.

  He stood up. They were wheeling Tara back into the room. A nurse and an orderly chatted softly as they slipped her back into bed. She was hooked up to an I.V. and a monitor. The nurse and orderly left.

  Tara looked young, wan, and pretty with her very blond hair splayed out on the pillow. She reached for his hand. He gave it to her. The audience was gone.

  “You will stay with me, Jordan?” she asked. “Please.”

  “Yeah.”

  She closed her eyes. He thought she was sleeping. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He thought about lying.

  “Jordan?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I just don’t understand. You’ve got me. I could stay with you forever.”

  “Tara, love is an emotion. We can’t control it, we just feel it. It has much more power over us than we ever have over it.”

  “I do love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “You just love her more.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Tara—”

  “It’s all right. Just don’t leave me tonight, please. I’m afraid.”

  “You’re afraid? Why?”

  She shivered, her eyes closing. “I don’t know. It just seemed there were shadows everywhere tonight. Eyes. People watching me. And then the tile...”

  She was drifting off. He let her. She was afraid, but so was he. And he couldn’t define it any more clearly himself.

  “Kathy, don’t scream, please don’t scream! It’s me, just me, Shelley!”

  Shelley! Kathy was so relieved she felt she might fall. Her knees seemed weak.

  She backed over to the bed and sank down on it. “Why in God’s name are you lurking in the shadows in my room?”

  “Because I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Kathy groaned, burying her face into her hands. “You’re going to confess something.”

  “Kathy, yes, I—”

  “Why me? Shelley, I—”

  “Kathy!”

  To Kathy’s amazement, Shelley ran to the bed and sat beside her, hugging her. She was shaking. “I don’t know what’s going on!” Shelley whispered.

  Kathy eased herself from the frantic hug and set an arm around Shelley’s shoulders, steadying her.

  “Let me get this straight—you don’t know what’s going on, but you’re going to confess to me.”

  Shelley managed a half-smile in the darkness of the room. “That tile tonight... the attack on you Saturday. It’s terrifying, Kathy.”

  “But you don’t know anything about it?”

  Shelley shook her head. “I only know...”

  “Know what?”

  Shelley bit her lower lip. “You heard the other day in the bathroom, right?”

  Kathy arched a brow. So this was it. Shelley was one of the whisperers in the bathroom. And she thought she’d been caught.

  “Go on,” Kathy said simply.

  “Larry didn’t want the group to get back together. He was making calls to Jordan.”

  “Larry.”

  “Right.”

  “And you knew?”

  She lowered her head. “He’d helped me out a few times. I—I had a drug habit of my own. I
shook it—eight years ago now. But I owed Larry. He got me a few jobs when I was desperate. I was supposed to find out about you because Larry was certain the group wouldn’t get back together if you didn’t come. And he was afraid—”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Well, that maybe you knew things about him. About his drug habit.”

  “That he was the one smuggling drugs when Keith took the rap for it?”

  “You knew!”

  “No, I didn’t. But Larry confessed to me the other night.”

  “He’s finally gone straight.”

  “Yeah. But he still hasn’t done the right thing and told Jordan.”

  “And you haven’t spilled the beans?”

  Kathy shook her head. “I’m still trying to give him the opportunity to do so.”

  “This is going to be hard for you to believe, but he has changed. Vicky Sue is making a big difference in his life. And I know that...”

  “That what?”

  Shelley shivered. “Larry made phone calls, Larry lied, Larry would have let Keith take the rap for him, but he wouldn’t have threatened your life, Kathy.”

  “Someone did just that. On the phone. Friday night.”

  Shelley shook her head. “Larry didn’t make the call Friday night. He was with Vicky Sue the entire evening.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Yes. Vicky Sue told me. She’s not half as naive as she acts at times. She made him stay by her side—like glue—on Friday, reminding him he was going to have to stick to the straight and narrow if he wanted to be with the group again. Besides, Larry would never have hired a thug to hold a knife to your throat. And he wouldn’t have tried to kill you himself—tonight.”

  Kathy leaned back slightly, trying to study Shelley’s face in the darkness. “So what do you think happened to Keith? And what do you think is happening now?”

  Shelley suddenly drew her hands up to her face. When she lowered them, Kathy realized she had been silently crying. “I don’t know!” she said huskily. “I loved him, I adored him. I was ready to take anything he had to give. But you—”

  “I what?”

  “He was in love with you, and you were seeing him, too!”

  Kathy inhaled and exhaled, fighting a wave of trembling and of anger. “But I wasn’t.”

  “Then someone who looked exactly like you was!”

  No wonder Jordan had been so damned sure she’d been cheating on him. Everyone, including Shelley, was certain that had been the case.

  “Shelley, I’m telling you, I never slept with Keith. Ever. Not at any time during my friendship with him. He was a friend, one who was on a very wrong course, one I tried to help, but I failed. And that’s it. I swear it.”

  Shelley looked away from her. “I thought you’d been with him the night he died.”

  “Because you thought you saw him with me?”

  Shelley nodded gravely.

  “You never said that at the inquest.”

  “I loved you, too. You were my best friend. I didn’t think you killed him, I just thought you’d been sleeping with him. You didn’t deserve jail or the electric chair for that.”

  “Thanks,” Kathy said wryly.

  “I had to come talk to you. I had to let you know what was going on with Larry and me”—she hesitated, shrugging—“explain it. I wanted to come back. So badly. And so did Larry. But he was afraid. He said once that you always managed to find out everything. And, well, Derrick and Judy were always pretty brutal. They’d be pointing fingers at him and shrieking away that he had to go. Maybe not Derrick. But our critic extraordinaire, Judy. He really wants to talk to Jordan, but now he’s got even more to confess! Kathy, we’ve all been afraid of the sins of the past, I imagine.”

  “What was your sin?” Kathy demanded. “Larry did drugs, not you.”

  Shelley hesitated. “Miles. He was my sin. I used him like Keith used me. I didn’t love him, but he adored me. He protected me, he picked up the pieces after me all the time. He would have done anything for me, anything at all. And, in return, I just used him.” She stood up, staring at Kathy. “Forgive me? You’ve always meant a lot to me.”

  Kathy stood up and hugged her again. “Shelley, I forgive you. But we’ve got to get all this out in the open, okay? Talk to Larry, let him know that Jordan won’t judge him for the past, we’ve just got to sort out the truth.”

  “I think he already knows it,” Shelley said huskily. “Kathy, thanks for listening, thanks for being you.”

  “Get back to your room, and lock your door, huh?”

  Shelley nodded, and Kathy walked her to the door, watched her slip silently out into the hallway. She locked her door securely then, and lay down on the bed.

  As she pressed her palm to her temple, she decided Larry was a schmuck. So what else was new? He was sly and cunning, but according to Shelley, he was a schmuck with his own brand of integrity.

  Larry had been with his wife during one of the phone calls, if Vicky Sue had told Shelley the truth.

  Shelley had been desperately in love with Keith. Miles had been desperately in love with Shelley. He would have done anything for her. Shelley’s own words. Did that include killing the man who’d so often made Shelley so miserable?

  Kathy rolled over, realizing she was coming down with a splitting headache. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She tossed, she turned. Finally, she slept.

  At ten A.M., even without Jordan, they began practicing again. The session went well, though they stumbled some that day. They were tired, tense. They went over things several times, working mainly on the numbers in which Kathy and Shelley were the lead singers, avoiding those with long guitar solos. They still sounded like practiced musicians, but something was slightly off.

  They now sounded more like they had the night Keith had died.

  At three o’clock, Jordan appeared. He looked haggard. He’d showered and changed, but his eyes were red. He had such wonderful features he was always striking, but on this day he looked like a man in his forties. The group worked another few hours with Jordan, and it was amazing how things fell into place; Miles did exceptionally well with the drums, taking Keith’s place. They did old numbers, and “Shadows,” the song with which they would open and close the benefit performance. Jordan made a major difference in the way things were going.

  When they at last broke up the session, they were more somber than they had been the night before. Jordan explained Tara’s condition—a full-blown concussion—and he said he was going back to the hospital after supper.

  As Kathy listened to him, she wondered if the accident hadn’t perhaps strengthened Tara’s hold on Jordan. She made a point of sitting between Jeremy and Mickey at dinner, determined to make Jordan realize that she was independent, that she didn’t need pity, didn’t need someone to take care of her.

  After dinner, Jordan disappeared into the guest house. Kathy was sitting by the pool with Mickey and Jeremy when she heard shouting coming from the downstairs floor. She glanced at the two men, then leapt up, hurrying toward the door.

  Jeremy started to follow her.

  “Let her go alone,” Mickey advised.

  When Kathy reached the guest house, Larry was just bursting out of it.

  “He’s the same self-righteous bastard he always was! No one is allowed a mistake!” he said.

  “Wait—”

  “Dammit, Kathy, what the hell is the matter with you!” Jordan suddenly thundered.

  The door slammed, Larry was gone. Jordan had been packing a small bag. It stood open on the kitchen counter. He threw a razor into it and zipped it shut. “In case you didn’t know, Larry was smuggling drugs.”

  “Ten years ago—”

  He swung on her. “You did know.”

  “Just recently—”

  “But you didn’t tell me.” He turned coldly back to his bag.

  “I wanted to let him tell you.”

  “Yeah, a
nd you wanted Keith to talk to me. You know so damned much all the time, while I’m tearing my hair out, yet you don’t choose to share a damned thing with me. Tell me, did you know Larry was making the phone calls as well?”

  “I hadn’t—”

  “Until recently,” he snapped dryly. “But you didn’t share that with me, either.”

  “Damn you, Jordan—”

  “He threatened lives, Kathy. He played games, he nearly destroyed all of us, and—damn him to eternity—he made a mockery of my friendship with Keith and destroyed our marriage.”

  “We destroyed our marriage, Jordan. If we’d trusted one another—”

  “He’s out.”

  “What?”

  “He’s out. I want him out of here tomorrow. There won’t be a Blue Heron with him in it.”

  “Jordan, that’s wrong! He never had to come forward with the truth—”

  “He was afraid it would be discovered!”

  “But he didn’t have to come clean. He deserves a chance. Shelley says he’s clean—”

  “She’s another bleeding heart!” Jordan said impatiently. He was tired, she saw. Angry. Unreasonable. Once before, he had put up this shield, and hadn’t let her through. He was doing it again.

  “You’ve got to give him a chance.”

  “I want him out of my house.”

  “Well, I don’t!”

  He swung on her, the Jordan she knew and had always loved. Tall, imposing, as striking in his forties as he had ever been. But suddenly a stranger. “You know what, Kathy? This isn’t your house anymore. You left it. Remember? You left me.”

  “And I had a right to do it!” she cried out. “You don’t listen, you—”

  “He threatened your life, Kathy. There was a knife held against your throat—”

  “But you don’t know that Larry was responsible—”

  “Will you excuse me, please?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got to get back to the hospital.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mickey will be keeping an eye on Mr. Lawrence Haley, so you’ll be safe.”

  “Right. You won’t need to sleep with me in order to save my life.”

  He grabbed his overnight bag, starting to walk by her, then paused. “How convenient. You’ve already tortured young Jeremy enough, eh? You won’t have to sleep with me to titillate your young Lothario.”