by Jeanne Adams
He asked them a few more questions, then told them they were free to go. Paul had already called for a cab, which was waiting.
“Oh, Ms. Hagen?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t tell you officially, but you’re no longer a suspect.”
Paul spoke before she could. “What changed?”
“The time line’s too short, and Ms. Hagen gave blood. Even with the gaps in your story, Ms. Hagen.” Tibbet’s smile was grim. “There’s enough weighing on your side to rule you out.”
“Why did you need my DNA?” She’d been dying to know ever since they had come to Paul’s office and taken the sample.
“Officially, I’m not at liberty to say.” Tibbet nodded at Paul.
“It could be,” Paul began, watching Tibbet, “that they found some of your hair at the scene, as I mentioned to you.”
Tibbet nodded.
“And possibly your blood? You mentioned the blood just now?” Paul phrased it as a question, and Tibbet answered it with another nod. “Ah. But they’ve ruled out your actually being there, I guess.”
Paul’s guesses were confirmed by yet another nod.
“Interesting speculation, Mister Jameson, but you know I can’t answer that,” Tibbet said as if he hadn’t confirmed everything about which Paul had asked. “But the lab will tell us everything in due time. They’re especially good with preservatives. Amazing what those crime scene techs can find.”
“The shooter would be good.”
“Yeah, they would. They haven’t gotten anything yet, but today’s a new day, ya know?” Tibbet waved toward the two cars, now on tow trucks, headed for the lab. The owner of the other car was still protesting that he couldn’t let his car go.
“We’ll let you know when you can pick up your car,” Tibbet said to Paul.
Paul helped her into the cab, and gave the driver his address.
“Maybe I should go to a hotel again.” Torie was beginning to realize how much danger she was bringing to anyone she was with. Paul hadn’t been a target before, but he was now. What had she done?
“No. You’re safer with me.”
But he wasn’t safer with her, was he? What should she do? How could she protect anyone from what she couldn’t understand?
It was horrifying to think that someone wanted her dead, or to ruin her life so badly that they would go to these kinds of lengths to destroy her world. It was worse to think about the pain that other people were enduring, the problems and difficulties. All because of her.
Maybe it was all her fault.
But what had she ever done to anyone that was so bad, so terrible, to bring this kind of retribution?
“Tibbet wants to meet with us midmorning to go over some things. Do you have time to do that?”
She nearly sobbed right then and there. As if she had a life, right?
“Nowhere I need to be, unfortunately.”
Paul must have heard the despair in her words. “It’s going to work out okay, Torie. I promise.”
“Sorry, Paul, but that’s one more empty promise. You don’t know who’s doing this. You can’t be the white knight this time, and ride to the rescue.”
“What do you mean, another empty promise?” Paul demanded as the cab pulled up at his house. He paid the driver and waited until they were in the house to continue. “I’ve never made you any promises, Torie.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said with weary resignation. “Actually, come to think of it, you haven’t promised anyone anything. Ever.” She looked at him, thinking about that new insight. She hadn’t realized it to be true until she said it. “You stay away from promises and commitments, don’t you? Is that why you pushed me away back then? No strings on you, were there, Paul? Nothing to tie you down.”
“That’s not the point, Torie. Is there something specific you meant about the promises? Did you think that my coming and finding you, getting you out of that room in the fraternity house constituted some kind of promise?”
“No. Never. But you’ve always treated me like it did. You and Todd both. He took it a different way, after you told him. Yes.” She was too tired to glare, but she wanted to smack him. “I know it was you who told him. That’s a promise you broke, by the way. I asked you never to talk about it. To not tell anyone.”
“I thought he should know—”
“What?” Torie shot back, gaining strength from the old anger which welled up within her. “That his future bride was some slutty girl who was lying around naked in the frat house? That I was too stupid to recognize that I’d been drugged? Just because I didn’t get raped, did you make him think I’d gone willingly and got cold feet?”
“No!” Paul protested, tossing his coat onto the couch. “Of course not. I knew the moment I saw you that you were drugged. Jesus, Torie.” Paul moved toward her but when she stepped away from him, he halted. “I thought he should know not to leave you alone with any of our brothers. I never did figure out who drugged you. The guy whose room you were in had been out half the semester with mono. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t there.”
“Oh, so you felt you should tell him that, in spite of my asking you not to?”
“Good Lord, Torie, I didn’t want anyone to hurt you. Besides,” he fired back, “the only one you ever banned from your house was me.”
“I didn’t ban you, damn it. You keep saying that.”
“Well, if you didn’t ban me, what the hell did you do? Once you two got engaged, Todd stopped planning to go into business with me. He stopped playing pool with us on Thursdays. I’d hear about parties at your house, parties I got no invite to.”
“For crying out loud, Paul, it was six or seven years ago. I never specifically asked Todd to ban you from the house. I just told him I’d be more comfortable if you weren’t there.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Paul smirked, but there was no humor in it. “Like that isn’t a ban. Hell, Torie, if you hadn’t said anything, do you think he would just stop, cold, playing pool with us? He was as loyal as could be. If you had a problem with me, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know what? I’m not doing this.” Torie was panicking. She didn’t want to face this. Didn’t want to tell him anything about her feelings, or dredge up the past. She picked up her briefcase and purse. “Thanks for the hospitality. I’ll find a hotel in the morning, and we can go back to our unusual truce. Whatever happened, we’ll chalk up to stress.”
“Stress?” Paul nearly shouted the word. “You call what happened between us this morning a stress reaction? Well, you have a hell of a way of working out your stress, Torie. No wonder guys are dropping like flies around you.”
The words cut her to the heart.
The minute he said it, Paul knew he’d not only screwed up, he’d damaged something between them. Maybe destroyed it. The fragile truce, the beginnings of understanding and forgiveness were wiped out in the blink of an eye.
The light of battle went out of her eyes. She looked defeated. Broken.
“Thanks for that reality check.” She turned away from him, started down the hall.
“Oh, God, Torie, I didn’t mean that.”
God, how could he have been so stupid, pushed her away so harshly? “I’m an idiot,” he managed. “I didn’t mean to say, to imply—”
She froze, and he stuttered to a halt. While she’d stopped in the archway, she never turned around. Didn’t look at him.
He felt his own heart crack. Was he having a heart attack? He put a hand to his chest, but felt the steady rhythm. The pain was something else.
“You’ve never said an unplanned word, Paul. Never,” she said softly, but the words carried the power of conviction and he heard them clearly. “You’re so…careful with your words. It makes you a good lawyer, I guess.” There were tears in her voice now, and the pain in his chest and gut burned hotter. How that was possible he wasn’t sure, but it did. Her next words arrowed into his mind, burying there to start a second burn. “But it makes you a lousy human
being.” She paused, gathered herself, shifting the briefcase on her shoulder. “So. You did the right thing in helping me out back then. Good for you. I’ve paid the price for that help with you. And I never owed Todd, nor he me. So, debt paid. I don’t owe you anything anymore.” She took several deep breaths before she continued, her voice unsteady. “I wish Todd had finally been able to let it go. I’m going to learn from him, and do it differently. I’m going to let it go.” She stopped again, then straightened her shoulders. “I’ll be ready to meet with Tibbet in the morning.”
He watched her walk away. His chest hurt so bad, his stomach was a tight twist of pain. He couldn’t speak. What could he say, after all? She’d been right. He was careful with what he said, with what he did, what he promised. The idea that he’d somehow broken a promise, done something less than honest in his dealings with her made him cringe. The knowledge that his careless words, born of frustration and fear, had been said to strike at her, bring her down somehow…
That was unbearable.
Again.
Once more, he’d found her, had her right there with him, and he’d pushed her away with callous careless words.
What the hell was wrong with him?
On the phone with Pam, Torie sobbed. She had cried more in the last month, in the last few days, than she had in years.
“It was so cruel, Pammie,” she whispered, keeping her voice down. As if Paul cared that what he’d said had been so devastating. Didn’t he know how responsible she felt? How could he not understand that she felt every bit the Black Widow they dubbed her, and completely accountable for everything that had happened to everyone around her.
“He’s afraid,” Pam counseled, her voice sounding small and wispy through the cell phone.
“Of what? Don’t answer that,” Torie said, sighing. “How could he not be afraid? Good Lord, Pam, someone shot at him tonight. The detective said it wasn’t meant for me this time. That if the guy had wanted me, he could’ve shot me already. He was aiming for Paul.”
“Well that is scary, yeah, but he’s afraid of you, as in he’s afraid of you, the woman. The person.”
“Why would he be afraid of me, other than the fact that I’m probably going to get him killed, too?”
“You are not,” her friend snapped. “Cut it out. The cops’re watching, right? They’re on the lookout for Dev, too, though they refuse to consider him a missing person yet. They know something’s up, so they are gonna catch this guy.”
“You’re a heck of an optimist, Pam. They fail more often than they succeed at this kind of thing.”
“What, catching bad guys? I think they do okay. Philadelphia’s finest, right?”
“I guess.”
“Well, better than L.A. or New Orleans, you know?”
“Fine comparison. But yeah, I suppose.”
“So, tomorrow I’ll take the day off, we’ll take care of you. We’ll go shopping, we’ll find you some property to look at. It’ll be great. I called Kuhman, and he’s going to meet us at two o’clock to get an idea of what kind of place you want to rent. Then mani, pedi, and dinner.”
“Oh, Pam, I’d love to, but I don’t want you around me. I don’t want anyone else I love getting hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt. Neither will you. So far, has this guy struck in daylight?”
A startling realization. “No.”
“So, we’ll go shopping, get our nails done, and voilà, meet with the real estate agent. Got me?”
“Yeah.” She lay back on the bed, uncurling from her nearly fetal position. With Pam’s help, she could go on. Somehow. “I hear.”
“And obey?”
Torie managed to smile. “Yeah. I guess. I have to ride in with Paul, meet with the cops. Get another rental car.” She sat up, wearily jotted notes on the pad she’d taken from Paul’s office. “Find a hotel.”
“I’ll be there with you, honey.” Pam said with stalwart firmness. “I think I’ve kinda let you down over the last few weeks since the fire.”
“Never,” Torie excused, knowing that Pam had never been hit by feelings for a guy like she had with Dev.
“Nah, don’t say that.” She heard Pam rustling around, walking through her house. “I haven’t done this before. Leaving you high and dry to manage all this.”
“No one can manage it for me,” Torie said. Perhaps it was all the more painful that she’d begun to feel like Paul was there for her. Standing with her in her hour of need. Again.
She’d mistaken his lawyer duties for caring. She’d reached out in her own need for comfort, and had messed them both up by stepping over the line and making it personal, sexual.
She said as much to Pam who listened to the philosophy and the reasoning and said, simply, “Bullshit.”
“What?”
“Look, it takes two to tango. If he felt nothing but a hard-on, as a lawyer, he’d back off. He’s too smart to think with his dick. He wanted you as bad as you wanted him, right? No holds barred?”
Thinking of the wild, reckless nature of their lovemaking, Torie agreed. Not that she really wanted to. It was easier to put him back in his old box, the “I dislike Paul” box. If she could pretend he had only been in it for sex, it would be easier to go back to loathing him.
And she desperately needed that distance, that distaste as armor for her heart.
“So, tell me,” Pam said. “How long have you had a thing for him?”
“What?” Torie jerked the phone away from her ear, stared at it as if the words were printed on its tiny screen. “Are you kidding?”
Chapter Fifteen
“Credit score, seven-eighty; reason for relocation, fire; size property, two to three bedroom; pet, yes.” The realtor talked to himself as he entered all the information into the computer. Pam had picked Torie up in the morning because Tibbet had rescheduled.
The drive into the office with Paul had been tense, loaded with unspoken pain. Paul went to a meeting and Torie immediately called Pam. Within minutes they had been off to meet with Pam’s realtor friend.
“So.” Kuhman Parshaw swiveled around to smile at them both. “I have many things I can show you. Out toward where you are living now, I have several things. Near your unfortunate current house, I have several things, but they are moving toward the uh, streets that are having more difficulty keeping tenants. Society Hill has many rentals, but something nice in your neighborhood is,” he paused, his pleasant, accented voice deepening with regret, “difficult. Most who own in that area sell rather than rent. So the rentals are farther out toward Queen’s Village and…” Kuhman let his voice trail away.
Torie knew what he meant but couldn’t say. Within blocks of her wonderful house, there were some less than desirable neighborhoods.
“However, when we check the areas you mentioned—” he rattled off the more suburban areas—“I came up with six for you to see today. One is even a listing of mine. Friends from my early days in Philadelphia. There will be more as I see what you like and don’t like from this list.” He stood, taking papers from the printer. “So, we’ll go now, yes?”
“That’s great.” Pam bounced out of her seat and tugged Torie from hers. “Let’s go. We need something to keep our minds off our woes,” she said.
“Ah, yes. I know of your friend’s troubles,” he said to Pam, with a nod to Torie. “But you, dear flower, what possible trouble could be darkening your doorway?”
“Oh, it’s just that a friend of mine is missing. He’s probably fine, but, you know,” Pam said, seeming to shrug it off.
“Ah, yes. A friend.” He turned to Torie and grinned. “Pam is forever bringing me a friend. I am quite grateful to her, you know. And to you for coming by today. You have brightened a dreary morning.”
Torie smiled in return. His boyish humor was infectious, crinkling his merry dark eyes and lined cheeks. Despite the fact that he was nearing sixty, he was handsome, his white hair and eyebrows a contrast to his warm brown skin tone. “I appreciate your willin
gness to help me,” she said.
“We will be sure to get you something nice,” Kuhman insisted. “Very cozy, very practical while you wait for your difficulties to mend themselves. We will make sure that even with the dog, you have a good place. Now, do you want to drive with me or follow me?”
“We’re going to run errands when we’re done, so we’ll follow you.” They also had to be sure the latest in the series of watchdogs knew which car to follow.
“Very good.” He handed Torie a copy of the listing sheets, and they separated to their respective cars.
“This looks nice,” Pam said, peering over her shoulder at the first house.
“Big,” she commented. She didn’t want to look for a place. Not today. Today she wanted to hide her head under the covers and feel sorry for herself.
She knew it was sheer cowardice, but it would have felt good. Even if it wasn’t the right thing to do.
“What’s up with all that sighing over there?” Pam said. “I’m the one who got tossed aside. You merely got shot at, oh, and had your house burned.”
As Pam intended, she laughed. “Yeah, paltry stuff.”
“So you gonna kick his ass some more?”
“No, I’m not going to speak to him if I don’t have to.”
“Mature reasoning,” Pam offered, dodging out of the way as Torie punched her arm. “Totally. You can get another lawyer. Hey, do you need an attorney if the coppers say you’re off the hook?”
“I don’t know. There’s still the will and stuff, which he says I have to be present for. And he’s working with the police to tie all this together, see if it fits.”
“Fits what? The looney profile? I can tell you now that it does.”
Trust Pam to wrap it up so neatly. “Yeah. Well, I think we’ve got no call to throw stones at loonies. We were the ones out stealing a dog. Hell, we’re still hiding him.”
“About that—” Pam began.
“What? Bear didn’t get loose again, did he?” Torie was anxious all over again thinking about it. “Do we need to go over there?”