by J. A. Dennam
Things were getting clearer, now. Danny sat up straight and steadied herself by gripping the dashboard. “You talked to Melanie?” Her wide eyes shot around. “Does she know who you are?”
Austin opened the door and step [doo sheped out. So did Danny. Purse and shoes in one hand, she stood up on the doorframe and faced him over the black ragtop of her Jeep. “Did you tell her, Austin?”
“Now, how is that more important than spending the night in a hospital after being roofied by that asshole?”
Her head swam. “I spent the night in a hospital?”
“Yes, we did! I didn’t know how your body would react to a drug like that, it could’ve been dangerous. They monitored you for a while, then let me take you home.”
After mulling it over, she stepped down barefoot, slammed the door and met him around the back of the Jeep. “So you’re saying if you hadn’t been there to rat me out to Melanie, I would have been molested by that pig.”
Austin recognized her look and chuckled as they walked past the private rooms. He waved to Frank who’d stepped out of his room, knowing the man was checking on Danny. “You’ve got yourself quite a dilemma, don’t you, Bennett?” he observed with humor. “You don’t know whether to thank me or flog me for eavesdropping on your phone call.”
“Don’t be so cocky, Cahill, I know why you were there. Yes, thank you, along with everyone else for rescuing me.” They were approaching the offices and she stopped, put a hand against the siding to steady herself, the roiling of her stomach. Shrugging off Austin’s supportive hand, she gritted her teeth and put one foot in front of the other. “But if this results in a fight between you and my brother, I’ll never forgive you.”
He glared at her back, pondering the level of her gullibility, how it extended to her brother. When they were in the privacy of the house just feet from her room, he grabbed her by the arm, spun her around for a much needed confrontation. “I’m not interested in your forgiveness. Your brother can handle himself, I’m just giving him the chance to own up to what he did and – yes, Danny – he needs to be held accountable.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp and spat, “You think he hasn’t suffered for your fiancé’s death? He was investigated.”
“Oh, so what?” he bit back. “Rena is dead.”
“And you’re grasping! There was no solid evidence to pin on Derek and you just can’t let it go.”
That’s all it took. Something inside him exploded. “That’s because there wasn’t enough of Rena left to connect him with her death! The coyotes saw to that!” He pounded a fist to his chest. “My Rena. I laid a [bspont>
“But not because of Derek. He wasn’t the one with her that night.”
“He answered her goddamned phone when I called it!” Hey, brother, just having a little fun... “The son-of-a-bitch taunted me, Danny!” Austin watched as her brows un-furrowed and her eyes masked over with uncertainty. “You didn’t know that, did you?”
Her shoulders slumped and she put her face in her hands again to block out the sight of him. He was so angry, so determined. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she decided, going on pure faith. “The river was high. Rena got too close. It’s as simple as that.”
With dangerous calm, “An eye witness says differently.”
“That eye witness couldn’t see much, it was dark.”
“He saw enough! He heard enough! She pleaded with him, Danny, she begged him to stop!”
“It wasn’t him.”
Austin didn’t know if she was in denial or if she knew more than she let on. “Derek was parked next to Rena. Fact! He knew who she was, answered her phone. Fact! When he attacked her, she was scared enough to use the stun gun I got her for protection against him. Fact! And since he wasn’t expecting that, he fell into the river with her. Fact!”
Whereas most would shrink from the storm, Danny met it head on. “But – it – wasn’t – him! There were other cars in the lot that night, and he was never in the river!”
“How do you know? Were you there? How do you know he didn’t just dry off before he got home?” Her lack of an answer was all he needed. “I can see it in your face,” he drawled disgustedly. “You’d love to give him an alibi but you can’t. And it’s so damned easy for you to blow it off as coincidence.”
She could tell by the pulsing vein in his neck, the quivering muscles, that he was barely suppressing the rage that had been building inside him for so long...months and months of supp [ontis neck, tressed rage. And she was suddenly afraid. “That’s what everyone thinks,” she stated, fighting off her fear of him. “Everyone but you.”
He took a step closer and she backed up. “You see, that’s where the problem lies. People like you are willing to dismiss it as if her life meant nothing. All to protect him.” He took another step daring her to turn and run. “But you didn’t know her. You didn’t love her. I did and I won’t let this go. I can’t let this go until Derek pays for what he did.”
Danny wanted to tear her gaze away, but the menace his black eyes exuded had her by the soul. “There were others who were swept away in the current that week,” she stated softly, sympathetically. “It was a terrible flood.”
Her phone broke through the silence. She instantly paled.
Something in his face fell as if he were disappointed. “Then you better prepare yourself, Bennett. Because there’s about to be another.”
“I’m not answering it,” she stated boldly, turned and stalked to her room. When she cleared the door she felt her purse leave her shoulder. When she dove for it, Austin kept it from her reach until he had the ringing phone in his hand. She dove again.
Danny gasped when he flatted his large hand against her chest and shoved her back against the wall. His look dared her to try it again and suddenly she felt as if she was being ruthlessly pinned by a man she hadn’t met yet. His eyes moved to the screen, traveled back up to hers and the glint in them told her it was Derek calling. Since the call was coming in, he could bypass her security code and simply answer.
“Hey, brother,” Austin purred nastily. There was no camaraderie in the tone.
The instant Derek heard the familiar greeting, he closed his eyes, clenched his teeth. Melanie had been right. His insides ran cold and he barked out a derisive laugh. “Well, that answers so many questions.”
“Good. Then I won’t have to explain how this works.”
“If you lay a hand on my sister, Cahill, I will tear you apart.”
Austin’s mouth twitched. If only the bastard could see where his hand was now. “I invite you to try. You didn’t tell me Danny was a girl when we were friends, Derek. And such a pretty little thing, too.”
“She isn’t a part of our problem. I don’t know how the hell you can justify holding a woman against her will in order to carry out your sick revenge!”
“Your sister came to me [er ming, Bennett. She owes me a fairly large sum of money and until she pays her debt, she’s mine.”
Trying to keep up, Derek’s brain tried to sort through the mess. Somehow, Danny had involved herself with the Cahills in her quest to pay for her college degree. The little nut was so damned determined when she left. He just never thought she’d take it that far. “I’ll pay whatever she owes.”
“I’m not taking a cent of your money, she has to earn it herself. It’s in the contract.”
Shit! How could she be so stupid! “She signed a contract?”
“Yep.”
Derek laughed again, the sound completely devoid of amusement. “I don’t know how you did it, but I smell foul play on your part.”
“That’s an interesting concept, isn’t it?”
“Dammit, Austin!” Derek exploded, running a hand through his hair as he paced the grounds at the edge of the woods by the main house. “If you want me, you got me. Alright? But in exchange I want my sister back.”
“The only thing I want from you is a written description of how you pushed Rena into the river.”
S
heer panic sliced through Derek, spurring him to make a drastic decision. “Sure. I’ll admit I was with her that night. I’m the mysterious man in black. I made the moves on her and I killed her, just like you thought. It was my chance to exact my revenge on you for fucking my high school sweetheart. I sincerely apologize.”
Austin smirked at Danny as if he were looking into her brother’s face. “I knew you’d finally muster some truth and humility once I had your balls to the wall.”
“As long as Danny comes home now, I’ll tell you anything you want.”
When Austin realized Derek was only placating him for the moment, a fresh surge of rage engulfed him. His captive recognized the danger and tensed even more beneath his restraining hand.
“She’s mine, Bennett. Until she pays, she’s mine.”
“You mean until I pay! You can’t just take an innocent woman and force her into our issues!”
“I’ll take what I want, when I want it.” Danny went flaccid and gaped at him. He continued, baring his teeth with menace. “Just taking a page out of your book, brother.”
“Derek, he’s bluffing!” Danny yelled, attempting to pry his hand from her chest. That hold was beginning to crush her lungs. “He won’t touch me, you know he won’t!”
“Why don’t we let your brother decide that? Do you think I’m bluffing, Derek?”
“Derek knows I can take care of myself, Cahill,” she shouted so her brother was sure to hear.
“That’s not quite how things played out last night, is it, Danny?”
When she failed to find the words, Austin laughed suggestively and disconnected the line.
“You bastard,” she breathed, finally able to do so now that his hand was gone, but she stood paralyzed against the wall as he threw her phone on the dresser. “How could you do that? Make him think…”
“What makes you think I’m bluffing, Danny?” He was out of control, he knew it, but Austin couldn’t come down from the rage fast enough. He took her wrists, slammed them against the wall next to her head and leaned in real close until his sneering mouth hovered over hers. “Eye-for-an-eye. That’s how this feud has worked for so many years, isn’t that right?”
“You’re saying you would kill me?” she panted, too scared to move.
“You’re admitting he did it?”
“No!” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away, fat tears spilling down her cheeks.
The look of her that way, panicked, crying and scared… scared of him, brought reality crashing down. He saw what he was doing and pushed off with a curse. To keep from touching her again, he laced his fingers behind his neck and roared.
The tortured sound left a ringing in Danny’s ears that had her quivering inside. She opened her eyes, but refused to look toward him.
A few seconds later he spoke again with complete calm. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, unable to look at her as he moved to exit her room. “But make no mistake, I am going to get what I want whether you suffer for it or not.”
She drank in his words like they were poison. Speaking to Derek had strengthened Austin’s quest for revenge and any notion of a peaceable existence between them went up in smoke. When she turned her head to look, he was gone.
Later that morning, dressed in denim and ready to earn something on the quiet Saturday, Danny stepped into the kitchen to begin work on the pizza oven. Immediately in her peripheral vision, she noticed something was off. She stopped, slack-jawed, and turned.& [ anace="Tinbsp; All that was left was the long stainless vent hood as it hovered over empty space.
“That son-of-a-bitch!” she breathed, taking the hint for what it was. There was no money to be earned that day.
“Careful, Bennett,” she heard behind her from the hallway. “I may not fire you but I can make your life a living nightmare.”
Danny whirled around and gaped at Austin. “You got rid of it!”
Austin didn’t deny it, just leaned against the wall and watched her with arms crossed over a casual black T-shirt.
“Was it really worth it?” she asked. His eyes told her “every penny” and her opinion of him plummeted to the earth. “You’ll sacrifice anything as long as it puts you ahead.”
“Depends on the reason.”
She bit her bottom lip, picked up her tool belt. “You know, I was always told the Cahills were too cold, too pretentious to know the meaning of value. And for one scant moment I thought you might be different.” She skimmed past him, her shoulder brushing his bicep. “Apparently I was wrong.”
Chapter 8
The only positive thing from such a quiet day was that Danny was able to catch up on a handful of her assignments. And it felt good to lounge around in a pair of cut-off shorts and her favorite athletic top, pull her hair up off her neck into a ponytail and walk around barefoot. She avoided leaving her room for fear of running into Austin, but hunger forced her into the commons room to scrape for snacks and a bottle of water. Her phone vibrated at her waist and she dropped a package of oatmeal in her hurried attempt to grab for it. Paranoia was getting the best of her, even though she knew Derek wasn’t coming over. She’d made him swear it, reassured him that she was fine and in complete control and that he would only be falling into a trap if he did.
“I’ve known you to do some stupid things, Danny,” he’d admonished when she called him back. “But messing with the Cahills when you know how much that asshole wants a piece of me!”
“I wasn’t expecting to actually run into a Cahill on the job, Derek! They aren’t exactly known for their fondness of hard labor and y’all have kept us women so sheltered from this feud. I didn’t think anyone would know me from Adam.”
“But Austin did know you! And now that I know he has you, I’m going out of my fucking mind! I have a responsibility for you, Danny, ever since you first ^ anac dr started following me around in diapers. Our folks expect me to bring you home before you do something stupid. Well, ha! Ha-ha! Rimshot please!”
His exaggerated laughter put a reluctant smile to her lips. Lord, she missed him, his humor. Things had gotten way too serious, too turbulent.
“I won’t do anything stupid. At least, aside from applying for a job.”
“So, you don’t consider jumping his bones in a public parking lot stupid?”
Oh...hell! Her brain went numb. So, it was true. And not only had Melanie witnessed it, she tattled. Derek sounded hurt. A pained groan escaped before she could stop it.
“No, I don’t believe it,” Derek said, fishing for something sane. “Not you. You wouldn’t do that to me. It must have been him, he knew Melanie was watching and he took advantage of your drunken state. Am I right?”
A long, painful silence. “I...I think it was all me. I’m not sure, I don’t remember anything.”
“I didn’t hear you, what? What was that?”
“I said, I don’t know! I was drugged, Derek! Roofied! If I did...happen...to come on to Austin, it was because of that. Not because I wanted to.” The last came out weak and pathetic.
Very slowly with a calculating chill. “I. Will. Kill. Him.”
Danny pinched the bridge of her nose. Headache was back. “Austin didn’t drug me, it was that jackass Melanie set me up with. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Melanie didn’t mention anything about drugs, or about setting you up with anyone.”
What! Her voice lowered to a slow simmer. “Then I guess she didn’t tell you that if it wasn’t for Austin, I would have been violated by that pig.” His unwillingness to answer proved as much, as well as emphasized his personal struggle with the facts she’d just given him. “Look...let’s just forget about it.”
“About you being drugged? No way. But I don’t think Melanie knew anything about it. If she did she would have told me.”
“Yeah,” Danny answered with a sigh. Melanie wouldn’t have tolerated it. “Probably. Just do me a favor and make sure she’s aware so she doesn’t get herself in trouble.”
He would personally
deal with Melanie later. “And you.&nb And yre fine now?”
“Right as rain. I’m in full control again, I promise. No more stupid mistakes.”
“You won’t be in control until you’re back home. You know that, right?”
Acids were working upward to mess with her throat. “I signed a contract and I’m not leaving until I’ve honored it. That’s the bottom line.”
A tense moment of silence followed. “You’ll call me every day to check in? Especially when you’ve had enough of this shit and want me to bring you home?”
“I’ll call every day. But I won’t need you to bring me home, you just stay the hell away.”
Danny had been hesitant to ask him about what Austin said. If Derek answered Rena’s phone the night she was pushed into the river, that would mean he really may have been the person she was with. The eyewitness on the bridge had heard her panicked cries, saw the two dark figures struggling by the river’s edge...and fall in. And if Derek was in close enough proximity to Rena’s phone in that time frame… Well, Danny knew her brother. She knew there was an explanation, but the fact he had kept such an important detail from her was disturbing.
Danny put the oatmeal packet in her mouth, tilted her phone up and looked down at the name. It was Melanie again. She’d been extremely pissed off that Melanie’s adventurous nature had sucked her into a bad situation. She still didn’t feel like talking to the overzealous pain-in-the-ass, but Derek had brought to light something she should have already known. So, this time she put her stash down on one of the long tables and answered.
“Yeah.”
“Hey! How are you?”
“Not so good since last night.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re joking, right?”
A pregnant pause. “Okay, just so you know, Brett and Randy did NOT drug you. And, frankly, I’m worried that you would believe a Cahill over me.”
“That Cahill took me to the hospital, Melanie. And, though you never hid your wildly active sex life from me, I don’t appreciate being tangled up in it.”