Unexpected Dismounts

by Nancy Rue

  “He knocked her out so she’d stop screaming. And then he dumped her off at Allison’s. Told her that was where she belonged.” Kade dropped his head and pushed out a long breath.

  “Finish it, Kade,” I said.

  “That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Just finish it.”

  Kade closed his eyes. “He said she belonged there with the rest of the whores.”

  One last kick in the pelvis. I folded both arms against it and rocked.

  “He told you all this?” India said to Kade.

  “He did.”

  “I cannot comprehend why he would tell anybody, but surely not the person that was being accused. I hope you recorded that conversation.”

  Kade just looked at her miserably.

  “Then it’ll just be his word against yours. I don’t understand any of this—I just don’t.”

  I stopped rocking. “There’s DNA. Now they’ll have someone to match it to.” I nodded toward India’s hallway. “But they’ll need probable cause to even test him.”

  “Oh,” India said. “Honey, Ophelia still swears it’s Kade, which now I …” She stopped and squinted at Kade. “Does he favor Troy to you, Allison? I never saw it, but I could see how she might. Or am I just imagining that?” India put her hand to her forehead. “I just can’t even think right now.”

  “Miss Angel?”

  I turned to the soft Latino voice behind me. Ophelia stood there like a waif. Her dark eyes were bright, almost feverish as she looked at Kade.

  “It wasn’t him,” she said. “I thought it was, but it wasn’t.”

  She came out from the behind the couch and crossed over to him. When she knelt down in front of him, he pulled himself back, but she brought her face close to his. I watched his knuckles whiten on the arms of the chair. Her hair swished between her shoulder blades as she shook her head.

  “I couldn’t see it before. I was afraid to look close enough, but it’s there.”

  “What’s there, honey?” India said. She glanced uneasily at me.

  “Miss Angel,” Ophelia said. “That man didn’t have Miss Angel in his eyes.”

  Kade’s very skin trembled. He was on an edge I couldn’t let him go over, not right now, or I was going over it with him.

  “Okay,” I said. “India, help us.”

  “Come here, darlin’,” India said.

  Ophelia turned from Kade and went to India’s open arms. “I’m sorry,” she said—again, and yet again. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was an honest mistake, honey,” India kept telling her, until I took hold of Ophelia’s chin and tilted it toward me.

  “You can fix it,” I said. “India said you were remembering things?”

  “Some things.”

  “Enough that if you saw the man who hurt you, you would know him now?”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Ophelia.”

  “I can see it,” she said.

  Her face collapsed, as if she were succumbing to the picture behind her eyes.

  “We want to send this man to jail,” I said, “so he never does this to anyone else. If we’re going to do that, we need to take you back to the police.”

  Ophelia opened her eyes. The right one was still stained yellow, heightening the hysteria that rose in them.

  “I can’t go through that again. Please. They treated me like … like what I was. Only I’m not that now.”

  “No you’re not,” India said. “Allison, really?”

  Ophelia started to cry. “They didn’t believe me before, Miss Angel. Why will they now?”

  “Because,” I said, “we’re going to do things differently this time.”

  Ulysses and Stan met us at the police station with Chief, Ulysses claiming he was sick of hauling Chief’s sorry behind all over St. Augustine. Their faces were grim, though, as they left us in the hallway to wait while Chief and Ophelia went into a room to talk to Detective Kylie. Chief insisted on a conference room, not an interrogation room. His client, he said, was the victim, not the suspect.

  India wafted up and down the hall a little less frenetically than she had two nights before. Kade and I sat side by side in eggshell silence. It was as if even a thought would crack us.

  After twenty minutes, Detective Kylie came for Kade. They were both back out in ten.

  “You do realize the can of worms you’re opening here, don’t you?” he said to me.

  “It’s not my can,” I said.

  “But you’re wielding the opener.” He heaved a man-sigh I couldn’t sympathize with. “I’m going to call Mr. Irwin, and I’m going to ask him to come down here to answer a few questions. But you better prepare yourself for the backlash.” He set his teeth. “This is going to cost me big time.”

  “What about what it cost that young woman in there?” I said. “And so help me, if you say it was an occupational hazard—”

  “I suggest you take her out for some fresh air, Mr. Capelli,” Kylie said, “before she gets herself in trouble.”

  He gave me one more warning look before he yanked open the conference room door and slammed it behind him.

  “Allison?” India said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “just wait here for Ophelia, would you? I’ll be out front if you need me.”

  Kade followed me through the glass doors to the front steps of the station where we’d shared that magic moment of regurgitation. There wasn’t a trace of déjà vu. I was certain this scene had never taken place before, anyplace, anytime.

  I sat on the marble balustrade and pulled my jacket tight across my chest and held it there with my arms tucked into me. The air was warm and close, but I was shivering.

  Kade sank with his back to me onto the top step. “Do you want me to talk?” he said. “Or do you want me to shut up?”

  “I want you to tell me why you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You just didn’t tell me the truth, which is the kind of distinction your father makes.”

  “He is not my father.”

  I could almost hear his jaw muscles straining.

  “That was nasty,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to be right now.… Kade, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I had to find out if I even wanted to know you. I had to find out if you had a really good reason for giving me up.”

  “I would have told you if you’d asked me,” I said.

  He went very still.

  “I would have told you there is no good reason for giving up your child, unless you’re completely incapable of taking care of him, and that didn’t apply to me.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because I was young and scared and had no support.”

  “He said you didn’t even tell him about me. Was he lying?”

  “See, that’s the thing about Troy. He only tells enough of the truth to make himself look good, or at least like the injured one. I told him I was pregnant. He told me to get an abortion.”

  Kade jerked around to look at me.

  “That has to hurt,” I said. “But if we’re going to make any sense out of this, we have to be honest with each other.” I leaned back on the column. “Your turn.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Why come here now?”

  Kade curved over his hands and studied them. “My mom died. My dad barely waited a year before he got married again. Don’t get me wrong, He’s a great guy. He just couldn’t do it alone. And then he was all wrapped up in her and I felt, I don’t know, adrift.”

  I knew about adrift.

  “So I went to the adoption agency in Boston. I thought it would be a dead end, but you left instructions, I guess, saying it was oka
y for them to give me your name if I ever asked.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “His name was on the original birth certificate too. I googled both of you and got all this stuff, about him, mostly. There were a couple things on you. Newspaper articles.”

  “Showing me in the best possible light, I’m sure,” I said.

  “I’d just passed the bar exams. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, so I took out all my savings and came down here.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since February twentieth. I spent the first week checking him out. Pretended I was interested in investing so I could talk to his people. Hung out at the 95 Cordova. He eats lunch there about three times a week, cocktails after hours. So yeah, took me, like, two days to get him nailed.”

  “And then you checked me out by going to a prostitute to get my résumé. The part about wanting to help the same kind of people I do was a nice cover.” I pulled away from the column and tilted toward him. “How do I even know this explanation is the complete truth?”

  “You don’t, okay? So why am I even bothering?”

  “Because you owe me at least that much,” I said.

  Kade whipped around. “I owe you?”

  “Did you have a good childhood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Parents who were nuts about you? Who instilled confidence in you, helped you believe you could do anything?”

  “They were great parents.”

  “Then I’m sure they made certain you got a great education, taught you how to get along with people. Was anything missing in your upbringing?”

  “No.”

  I sat back against the column again. “Then you had a heck of a lot better life than I could’ve given you.”

  “Better than the life you’re giving Desmond? Because, see, after I got over thinking you were a whack job I didn’t want to be related to, I found out you were the kind of crackpot I’d give my right arm to be. Only I couldn’t tell you because by that time I’d figured out you were all about the truth, and that you hated Troy Irwin’s guts. What was I supposed to do then? Say, ‘Hey, I’ve been posing as your devoted lawyer, but actually, I’m the kid you had with your worst enemy’?”

  Something struck me, hard.

  “Did you know Troy was behind Priscilla contesting the adoption?” I said.

  For the first time he swiveled all the way around to look at me. “Are you serious?”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’ve done all the lying I’m going to do. What does he have to do with it?”

  “He instigated it. Paid for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already paid off Judge Atwell. Clyde Quillon is definitely on his payroll. Now I know why he could offer to make it all go away if I gave him San Luis Street.”

  I watched Kade’s eyes. If I was going to see the truth, it was going to be there, where he couldn’t seem to hide anything now.

  At the moment they were staring at the top of the column, as if his files of folders were open up there.

  “Then he must have been the one who hired a photographer to follow you and Desmond around. Dude was a freakin’ sniper. I thought Quillon did that.”

  “I think those were taken way before he was hired. I think Troy used them to persuade Priscilla that I was an unfit mother. As if she cared.”

  “If he doesn’t go down for the rape, we can get him on this.”

  “With what?” I said. “The only way I know all of this is because Priscilla told me, and I had to pry it out of her. You’ve only scratched the surface of the kind of power Troy Irwin has in this town.”

  “There’s no way he’s getting by with all this. I can’t just let it go. I mean, can you?”

  There it was, what I was waiting to see in his eyes. Slowly I shook my head. “No, I can’t,” I said. “Because I’m just as sickened by it as you are.”

  Kade chewed at his thumbnail, probably a habit he’d had all his life.

  “I wanted to help you,” he said. “Especially after you believed that I didn’t rape that girl.”

  “You were helping me. You stood up for me in the courtroom. Why did you feel like you had to go to him?”

  “Because I was screwing it up in the courtroom! If Chief hadn’t stepped in, the judge would probably have handed Desmond to that Sanborn woman right then. I can’t have conversations with you like the two of you do—where you just look at each other and you know what you just said.”

  “If you want to beat yourself up, fine,” I said. “You’re right. I am all about the truth. But did you get the part where I’m also all about forgiveness?”

  “Are you?” Kade said. “Are you really? Because I’m not feeling that right now.”

  The pain went all the way down. I felt it for both of us.

  “Aw, now what’s this, a little family squabble?”

  A shudder went straight through me.

  Troy strolled up the walkway, arms swinging, as if he were making his way to his table at the yacht club. Kade rose from the steps and moved to the other side of the portico.

  Troy watched him, eyes amused. “I see it’s not going well. Our son’s a little hard to reason with, Ally.”

  “There is so much wrong with that statement I don’t even know where to start,” I said. “So I’m not going to.” I jerked my head toward the door. “They’re waiting for you inside.”

  “So I hear.”

  Troy took the steps at a trot and came to the wide place where I was still sitting. He put one foot on it, inches from my thigh.

  “Do you know why I raped that girl?”

  I only stared at him for a shocked second before I gathered myself up and shoved my body into his shin. It knocked him only slightly off balance, just long enough for me to stand up and get my hand into the middle of his chest.

  “Get away from me,” I said.

  I tried to shove him again, with my palm, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me close to his face.

  “I’ll tell you why.” His tone was low, too low for anyone beyond the porch to hear him, but if they had, he wouldn’t have cared. That was clear in the play of his lips. “I did it to show you that you are never going to change things.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  At the sound of Kade’s voice, Troy loosened his grip enough for me to wrench my hand away. But he still blocked my way, trapping me against the balustrade with his arrogance.

  “Why did I do it, then, counselor?” Troy said.

  “Because you couldn’t stand the thought that anyone could have more power than you do.”

  Troy put his finger to his lips where the smile still played. “Keep your voice down, son. You don’t want the whole town to think your father’s a rapist.”

  “Don’t call him son,” I said. “He hates that.”

  Troy gave me a quick look. “You’re pretty cavalier about this whole thing, aren’t you?”

  No. I was trying to keep Kade’s pain from exploding from my throat.

  “They’re going to know anyway,” Kade said.

  “How so?” Troy said. “If they do charge me, it won’t stick.”

  “Maybe not. But in the meantime, it’s going to be all over the newspaper—”

  “I own the newspaper—”

  “Do you own the broadcast networks? The Internet? Facebook?”

  “What about YouTube?” Troy said. “Do you have a clip of the rape you can download?”

  “Dear Lord!” I said. “Have you completely separated from your soul?”

  I tried to lunge past him, to get away before I heard any more. Troy stepped sideways, once more blocking my way.

  “You are not going to ruin me by smearing this story all over the social network,” Tro
y said. “You don’t have the clout.”

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kade smiled. “I haven’t told you about my father—my real father—have I? He’s the editor of Fortune 500. You know? The magazine? Well connected, my dad.” He unfolded and held out empty hands. “Do I look like I was raised by a plumber? Not that that would be a bad thing. Matter of fact, it would be a whole lot better than being raised by you.” The clear eyes bored into Troy. “I thank God I wasn’t.”

  “All right, you’ve made your point,” Troy said.

  Kade definitely had. I was close enough to see that despite the shift into his boardroom voice, Troy’s face was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said, voice still low. “I will vest you in CE—substantially. You can open your own firm, practice any kind of law you want. Pro bono yourself all over town. You’ll be a success your old man will be proud of, if, and I say this not as a criticism but as a piece of hard-earned wisdom, if you learn the true art of using your advantage.” His eyes hardened into scorn. “Did you seriously think you were going to blackmail me for the rest of my life?”

  “What am I, a chump?” Kade said. “I was going to turn you in as soon as the house was in the ministry’s name.”

  “Kade, Kade, Kade.” Troy gave him a contemptuous smile. “I’m afraid you’ve gotten the worse of the two contributors to your gene pool.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Don’t, Kade,” I said. “He’s just trying to bait you.”

  “No, I’m giving some fatherly insights. From me, you inherited your bent for manipulation, though it could use some fine-tuning. Unfortunately, from your mother here, you came by a naive belief that people are essentially good, which will prove your undoing. Especially if you buy into her higher-power bull—”

  “Kade—no!”

  My cry came too late. Kade was already across the porch, grabbing Troy by the front of his shirt and shoving him into the column. I got hold of one of Kade’s arms with both hands, but there was no pulling him off.

  “He isn’t worth it,” I said.

  Kade’s grip tightened until his hands shook.

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Kade. I’m serious. Or you’re as bad as he is.”