by Janet Dailey
As Delaney dropped the last chip of glass into the ashtray, Lucas hung up the phone. She got to her feet and absently brushed at the knees of her navy slacks.
“That was Susan,” he confirmed, then closed his eyes tightly and released a heavy sigh. “When the phone rang. I was sure it was Rina calling back.” He held out his hands and stared at the way they vibrated. “Dear God, look at me. I’m shaking. Why am I letting Rina scare me like this?” His voice began to vibrate, too, but with anger. “Why am I letting her do this to me?”
“You’ve been under a lot of pressure these last few days.” And Delaney knew it hadn’t come only from Rina; Susan had added some of her own, too. “It’s natural that the strain would begin to show.”
“Natural?!” Lucas shouted, his temper erupting. “Is that what you call this? Natural?! If this is natural, then tell me when the hell it’s going to end!”
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly.
“You don’t know!” He laughed harshly and swung away, running a hand through his hair, plowing dark furrows in its thickness. “And I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Aware that there was absolutely nothing she could say that would make it easier, Delaney walked back to the game table to retrieve her cup. But the coffee was cold and she set it back down. Riley gave her a lopsided smile, then glanced at Lucas and shook his head as if to say, “Poor guy.”
“Any luck with the radio?” she asked.
He had it apart, the pieces arranged in an orderly semicircle. “If there’s a break in the circuitry, I don’t see it.”
“Wyatt must be starved. I’ll go relieve him.”
“I’ll go. You stay,” Riley insisted.
“Go where?” Arthur spoke up.
“To relieve Wyatt so he can eat.”
“I’ll tag along with you. I’ve been cooped up in this house all day. I need a walk.”
The two of them trooped out of the room, leaving a brittle silence behind.
Lucas broke it. “I’m sorry, Delaney. I don’t know why I yelled at you a minute ago.”
“Probably because I was the closest one.”
“Probably.” But he didn’t smile when he said it. “Arthur is right. We have been cooped up in this place all day. It’s starting to feel like a prison. I need some fresh air.”
“Sounds good.”
His mouth quirked in a stiff attempt at a smile, but all the raw tension was just below the surface, contained, controlled—for now. “Do you know I half-expected you to tell me it wouldn’t be safe to go out on the deck? That’s what Rina has done to me. She’s made me afraid to go outside. God, I hate that woman.”
“I know.” Delaney sensed his need to verbalize the turmoil within, to talk it out. He wasn’t seeking answers as much as he was a willing ear.
His glance moved to the gun at her waist, the butt of it visible where the front of her unstructured jacket hung apart. “It’s funny, but it used to bother me to see you with that gun. I don’t think I wanted to admit there was a reason for you to have it. I guess it made it easier to pretend nothing was going to happen—that this would all go away like some bad dream. But it hit me last night, when Riley whisked me out the back door of that party, that this wasn’t going to go away. This was real life and no director was going to yell, ‘Cut!’ Now when I see you with that gun, I feel reassured.” He lifted his glance, meeting her eyes. “And that’s scary as hell, Delaney.”
The corners of her mouth deepened in silent understanding, but she didn’t bother to comment, suggesting instead, “Let’s go outside.” She led the way to the glass door that opened onto the deck.
A thick layer of clouds cloaked the night sky, hiding the stars and obscuring the ragged outline of the mountain peaks on the other side of the narrow valley. The town lights blazed alone against the darkness. The air was cool and still, with not a breath of a breeze to relieve it.
Delaney stood at the rail and scanned the grounds beyond the deck out of habit. Here and there, the softly diffused landscape lighting cast a pale glow on the bricked path that wound through the flowering shrubs and bushes, but it was the deep shadows beyond the soft pools of light that Delaney automatically examined.
She waited, but the curling tension didn’t go away. There was nothing soothing about the cool of the night air on her face. Too much heavy stillness accompanied it. Beside her, Lucas sighed, a tense sound that echoed everything she was feeling.
“At times like this, I envy smokers,” he said in a near mutter.
“True.” She tried not to think about how good a cigarette would taste right now, the satisfying bite of tobacco smoke on her tongue, her lungs filling with it, the calming exhalation of it. She looked in the direction of the drive, hidden from view by a screen of shrubs. Riley was somewhere over there—with a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. She turned her back to the drive and faced Lucas. The bright lights from the living room shone onto the deck and illuminated the strong lines of his profile, revealing the compressed tightness of his lips.
His side glance ricocheted off her into the night. “I hate being scared, Delaney. I hate this feeling that I’m coming apart at the seams.” It was a self-conscious admission, one he tried to joke his way out of. “Thank God you’re here to hold me together, right?”
“Right.” She smiled, knowing it was the response he wanted.
He turned to her, his eyes moving over her face, a trace of longing in them, a touch of wistfulness in the slant of his mouth. “A part of me wants to tell you how beautiful you are, how your hair shines, how serene and intelligent your eyes seem, how soft yet strong your lips look…how much I’ve come to rely on you.” He took her hands and held them lightly between his. “I want to tease you about mixing business with pleasure, and I want to hold you close. Yet…it doesn’t feel like the right place…the right time.” He paused and grinned crookedly, something boyish and appealing in it. “I never thought I’d hear myself say something like that.”
“Neither did I,” she admitted with a twinkle in her eye.
He grew serious. “It’s different with you, Delaney. I think it’s always been different. I find myself turning to you. When you’re not there, I feel lost…alone. How can I explain it?” He looked away, as if searching the darkness beyond her shoulder for the words. “I—” Alarm leaped into his expression, opening his eyes wide. “Rina,” he gasped. “She has a gun.”
In that blur of time when fractions of seconds expand to excruciating length, reflex took over. Even as Delaney turned to locate the attacker, her left arm was shoving Lucas down and away from the rail and her right hand was drawing her weapon. She shouted to him to get inside while she spun to plant herself in the middle.
A hoarse voice cried out: “Bastard!”
A gun flashed fire in her side vision and she heard the sharp clap of a gunshot. A dark figure was on the path. She caught the sheen of black leather pants, the paleness of blonde hair, the gleam of something in the woman’s hand as a second shot rang out. A muzzle flashed inches from the dark figure. Delaney braced her outstretched right hand with her left, took aim, and squeezed the trigger, corrected for the recoil and squeezed again, corrected and squeezed, corrected and squeezed. Adrenaline pumped through her system. The attacker jerked, jerked, jerked, and finally crumpled. Through it all, the same two questions tumbled crazily over and over through her mind: How had Rina gotten in? Where had she failed?
Even after the echo of the last shot had faded, the instinct born out of long hours of training kept her frozen in the shooting stance, her legs braced apart, her weapon trained on the prone figure, her eyes alert for any movement. Slowly she became aware of shouts, the sound of running feet, the acrid smell of powder smoke tainting the air, the faint buzzing in her ears. How much time had passed? Five seconds? Ten?
“Over here!” she yelled, not taking her eyes off the motionless figure in the shadows along the path.
The clatter of feet centered on the brick
walk. A second later, Riley ran into view, his gun drawn. Wyatt was on his heels. Delaney saw Riley’s stride falter when he spotted Rina.
She shouted to Wyatt, “Call the police and an ambulance, then bring the emergency kit.”
He hesitated a split second, then broke from Riley and headed for the house and a telephone. Arthur came to a stop behind Riley as he halted next to the body, holstered his weapon, and knelt down. Seeing that, Delaney realized it was safe to lower her own gun. She dropped her arms to her side, stunned to discover how limp they suddenly felt—how weak her knees were. Reaction was setting in. She couldn’t let it claim her…not yet. She returned the gun to her holster and forced her shaky legs to carry her to a break in the deck railing, then onto a side trail that connected to the main path at a point near the spot where Rina had fallen.
She halted at the juncture. Arthur’s trim shape was crouched beside Riley. By his actions, she could tell Riley was checking for a pulse.
“Is she—” Her throat went shut. She couldn’t say the word. She couldn’t think it.
Riley came slowly to his feet and turned to look at her. Regret, sadness, and pain all chased through his gentle face. “I can’t find a pulse,” he said. “She’s dead, ’Laney.”
“No.” It was a small sound.
She backed up a step and broke out into a cold sweat, nausea churning through her. She wheeled from the sight of those tiny feet and shapely leather-covered legs. As she bent over double, her stomach heaved its contents, the convulsions not stopping until there was no more.
When it was over, Riley was there, silently offering her a handkerchief. She took it from him and wiped her mouth, her hand trembling.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured self-consciously.
“There’s no need to apologize.”
Sirens wailed in the background, racing closer. Almost reluctantly she looked behind him at the body. Suddenly she felt strangely angry—angry that it had happened, that she’d been forced to take a life.
“How, Riley? How did Rina get in here?”
“Laney,” he began, a pained look in his eyes. “That isn’t Rina.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about? If that’s supposed to be some kind of a joke—”
“It isn’t something I’d joke about,” he replied in a voice too serious to doubt. “It isn’t Rina. It’s Susan St. Jacque.”
“Susan.” Delaney drew back in disbelief. “You’re wrong. It can’t be. I couldn’t make a mistake like that.” She tried to get by him and see for herself.
“Don’t.” Riley made a brief attempt to stop her, then let her go.
When Delaney approached the body, Arthur stepped back from it, his face a sickly white beneath his tan, his hand unsteady as he blotted the perspiration from his upper lip with a monogrammed handkerchief. Her glance skipped from him to the body lying on the side of the path.
The impulse was strong to turn away, not to look at death’s face, but she had to. She forced her gaze to travel past the soft gleam of leather slacks and let it linger on the almost imperceptible wet stain that spread over the front of a charcoal-and-black-patterned sweater. Finally she focused on the blonde hair—a shade of champagne—that framed the face.
Dear God, it was Susan. Her face was frozen in a look of horror and surprise, her almond-brown eyes glossy and staring—but nobody was staring out of them. Susan St. Jacque was dead.
Nausea welled in her throat again. This time she fought it off. She felt the comforting pressure of Riley’s hand on her shoulder, the steadying warmth of it. “I don’t understand, Riley.” Numbly, Delaney shook her head. “Why did she shoot at Lucas?”
“What?” He went still.
Puzzled by his reaction, Delaney frowned. “She had a gun, Riley. She shot at Lucas. That’s when I opened fire.”
“Are you sure?” He frowned back. “I didn’t see a weapon when I found her and I was the first one here.”
“Of course she had a gun,” she protested, angry that he would doubt her.
He flicked his flashlight on and swept its bright beam over the body and the ground directly around it, then widened the search another three feet. There was no sign of a weapon.
“She had one,” Delaney insisted. “She had it in her hand. I saw it. I saw the muzzle flash. I heard the shots. She fired twice. I didn’t imagine it, Riley.”
“Laney.”
Like him, she had caught the faint note of panic in her voice. She knew as well as Riley that this was no time to lose control. “It’s okay. I’m all right.” With a quick, determined toss of her head, she faced him and fought to show him the necessary calm. His eyes were warm with approval, but concern lurked at the edges.
“The police will have a lot of questions for you,” he warned. “If you have any doubts about your ability to handle them, you’d better have a lawyer with you.”
“I am a lawyer,” she reminded him. “I know my rights and the procedure.”
She also knew she didn’t dare let herself become rattled by their questions. She couldn’t let her own questions surface in her answers. She had to stick to the bare facts and not indulge in conjecture.
“You will need a lawyer just the same,” Riley said quietly, watching her closely.
“I know.” She was fully aware that there would be an investigation into the shooting, a hearing, a ruling by the judge.
Arthur spoke up. “Don’t you think we should cover her—or something?”
Riley examined her expression one last time, then turned and stripped off his jacket. He covered the top half of Susan’s body with it, drawing it over her face. The action lent an unnerving air of finality to the scene.
Delaney stared at the jacket-draped form, part of her mind trying to reject the sight. Then she became conscious of eyes staring at her and glanced up to see Arthur looking at her strangely, as if he’d never seen her before.
Running footsteps signaled Wyatt’s return with the emergency medical kit. He stopped short at the sight of the tan fabric and swung his lanky frame toward Delaney. His eyes had that same strange look in them as Arthur’s.
Riley stepped between them, quietly taking charge. “We won’t need that.” The sirens ceased their screaming in the background. Lights flashed nearby. Car doors slammed. “That’s the police,” he told Wyatt. “Go meet them and bring them here.”
“Right.” He pulled his gaze away from her, his forehead creasing in a worried frown as he headed for the driveway, breaking into a trot.
“What happened?” Lucas was at the deck’s railing—at almost the exact same place where he’d been standing before. “Is she…”
Arthur provided the answer, “It’s Susan—Susan St. Jacque. She’s dead.”
“No.” The shocked denial from him sounded like an echo of the one she had made. “That’s impossible! It was Rina. I saw—my God,” he whispered and leaned both hands on the rail, bowing his head. “Susan told me she was coming by when she called. I forgot. She looked like…I thought she was…”
Riley swore bitterly under his breath, then snapped at Arthur, “Get him in the house.”
A flashlight threw its beam on her face. Half-blinded by the sudden glare, Delaney turned from it, holding up a hand to shield her eyes. “We thought we heard shots.” The gruff voice belonged to the caretaker, Harold Walker. Delaney recognized it as he swung the light from her. It fell on Susan’s body. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered.
“Is she dead?” Toby hovered behind him, the childlike inflection of his voice fearful and uncertain.
“Toby, what are you doing here?” Lucas moaned.
“Do I have to touch her, Luke?” Toby’s voice turned cranky with worry. “I don’t want to. I don’t like to touch dead things.”
“Of course you don’t have to, Toby,” Lucas soothed, then ordered impatiently, “Take him back to the cottage, Walker. He shouldn’t be seeing this.”
“Yeah, I wanna go, Mr. Walker.” Toby tugged at the old man’s arm. “I don
’t like it here.”
In the next moment, the police and paramedics converged on the scene, flashlights shining, staccato voices clipping out orders, a swirl of motion and gleaming badges. An officer took Riley off to one side and Delaney found herself alone with another. When he asked for her weapon, she calmly surrendered it to him.
Yet it was all a haze, his questions, her responses, the flashbulbs going off, the body bag going on, the squawk of a police radio, the rumble of a gurney. She felt numb, detached. She welcomed the absence of emotion. For now, it was better not to feel, to keep that part of her conscious mind turned off.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come to the station with me, Ms. Wescott,” the policeman said.
“Of course.” She noticed the faint smile of apology he offered, but his blue eyes remained cool with professional suspicion.
As he escorted her to one of the police cars with the flashing lights, she tried to remember his name. He’d told her, but she had blocked it out, the same way she had blocked out so many other things—like the glassy stare of Susan’s eyes.
TWENTY
ALONE IN THE POLICE INTERROGATION room, Delaney pushed her empty Styrofoam plastic cup around on the heavy vinyl-topped table, absently keeping it within the perimeter of an old coffee ring. A metal ashtray sat nearby, a half-dozen stale butts in its blackened bottom.
Down some corridor, a steel door clanged shut. She tensed at the sound, then took a deep breath, catching a faint animal smell—an odor common to all jails.
She let go of the cup and flattened her hands on the table. The vinyl felt cool beneath them. Too cool. Pulling them back, she rose from the plain wooden chair and turned to scan the room and the barred window on the back wall.
There was something depressingly the same about police station interrogation rooms, no matter the size, the color of the walls, or the kind of furnishings. They all managed to be starkly impersonal and totally devoid of comfort.