Damaged (13 page)

He leaped from his seat.

Whiskey Eyes looked as if she needed a shot of whiskey herself.

Her face was white, even whiter than the aura surrounding it. He blinked again.

She stood shakily, her fingers curled around the edge of the pew. The tendons stood in rigid lines over her knuckles. Fine, strong tendons. He could almost make out the white of the bones underneath. His fingers itched to trace them with a scalpel.

Would she faint?

If he was quick enough, he could catch her.

He could take her outside.

To his car, he’d tell anyone who asked. Away from the crowds.

He patted his pocket. Good.

He’d remembered his sunglasses.

He longed to put them on right now, to block the white lights that danced around his vision, but he could wait.

He watched the woman, his body poised to jump from the pew as soon as the moment presented itself.

Fortune favored the bold.

K
ate stumbled past the first girl, stepping on her foot. The next girl swiftly tucked her feet under her, but the last…

The bile was right there in the back of Kate’s throat. Pushing its way in a wave that was building, building.

The last girl had placed her bag down by her feet. Kate’s heel caught the strap. She lurched, falling forward into the aisle. Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw a man—blond hair, gray suit—reach for her, but another man darted forward, blocking him.

“Kate?” Ethan grabbed her elbow, steadying her.

“Ethan?” Her heart simultaneously lifted and sank. It didn’t help the nausea. She took a deep breath. She wanted to appear strong. Not grief stricken and on the verge of vomiting.

The first group of departing mourners was closing in. Kate glanced over her shoulder to see if she could see the blond man, to thank him, but he had gone.

Ethan led her quickly toward the vestibule. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” No. She wouldn’t admit it to him. She felt disoriented, people swarming around her as they made their way to the sweet fresh air outside. Sweat beaded her brow. She tried to shake Ethan’s arm away but his fingers tightened.

“I need to talk to you.” He pulled her across the vestibule toward a side door that led to the church basement. Kate saw with a start of surprise that Lamond stood by the door. His eyes widened.

“Wait,” she said. Lamond had opened the door for them. “Let’s talk outside.”

“Please.” Ethan’s voice had an edge of desperation. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

Lamond’s big brown eyes signaled his agreement.

“Fine,” she muttered. All she wanted was to sit down and let the nausea pass.

The mourners had left the church. Marian MacAdam knew she should be in the vestibule, thanking the hundreds of people who had come to pay their respects to Lisa.

But she was frozen. Immobile. She could feel nothing within. Nothing without, either. When she finally pushed herself to her feet, she could not feel her legs.

She swayed.

A hand steadied her. She looked down at the fingers clasping her black wool sleeve. It was her son’s hand.

She waited for it to fall away.

Instead, his fingers curled protectively around her elbow.

She glanced at him in surprise.

His eyes met hers. And finally her tears came.

Flowing as freely as the ones that ran down his gray cheeks.

Ethan led Kate through the basement door of the cathedral, helping her down the stairs. Lamond closed the door behind them.

The air was damp, musty. The chill snapped her out of
her nausea. She steadied herself on the railing, moving her arm so Ethan’s hand would fall away.

He pretended not to notice and led her to a small cloakroom. Low hooks marked the wall. Lambs and ducklings frolicked on the wall above them. A forgotten Dora the Explorer backpack lay in one corner.

She turned and faced him. He looked all business, his dark suit and midnight-blue tie bringing out his European good looks. Longing stabbed through her in jagged thrusts. She still wanted him. And that was the worst.

“We need to talk,” he said. Alarm bells went off in Kate’s head. He’d shown up at her house on Friday night, saying the same thing. And then had thrown one accusation after another at her.

She wasn’t going to let him do that again. Offense was the best defense when it came to the way he made her feel. “The only thing I want to talk about is why you threw me to the wolves,” she said curtly.

“The wolves?” Surprise, then guilt, swept through his eyes.

“Yes. The wolves. How do you think I felt, being ambushed by your team and knowing full well you could have called me but you didn’t? Especially after I’d called you about Lisa MacAdam!” That had really hurt.

His face tightened.

Good. She’d pissed him off.

“Why didn’t you call me about the intruder you reported last Friday night?” he shot back.

She stared at him. “Because you’d just finished accusing me of lying to you. Remember?”

A flush rose in his neck.

Her temples throbbed. She wanted to go home and bury her face in Alaska’s fur. “I need to go.”

“Wait. I need some information.”

Her heart sank. “I can’t help you.”

“I think you can. I need to know if Marian MacAdam told you anything that would give Judge Carson a motive for murder.”

Gooseflesh shivered down her arms. “You think Judge Carson killed Lisa?” She rubbed her arms reflexively, stunned by his question.

“She is on my list of suspects.”

“But why?” How could Judge Carson commit such a horrible crime to her own child? She was so shocked by Ethan’s accusation that she didn’t see the trap he was setting for her.

“That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me.”

The headache tightened into a band around her skull. “Solicitor-client privilege prevents me from saying anything, Ethan,” she said softly. She searched his face for understanding. All she saw was a man who’d had too little sleep and enough disappointment this week to etch lines around his generous mouth. “You’d have to ask Marian MacAdam.”

“I already asked her. She couldn’t tell me much except that you felt she didn’t have a good case for custody. I want to know why.”

“I can’t disclose the details.” The lambs frolicking on the wall behind Ethan’s head had an alarming perkiness. Too white, too fluffy, too innocent of the wolf at the end of the path.

He didn’t bother to hide his frustration. “Were you influenced by the fact that Lisa’s mother was Judge Carson?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you call Child Protection?” The question came swiftly and with the unerring aim of a snakebite. “You have a statutory duty.”

“I know that.” She glared at him. “I didn’t think at the time there was evidence that Lisa was endangering herself.”

“Child Protection doesn’t think so.”

“What, exactly, is your point, Ethan?” His ruthless attack and her own guilt fanned her anger. “You know damned well I can’t disclose anything. I did the best I could.”

His lips tightened. “A girl died.” He added softly, “I’m not convinced she had to.”

She felt the blood drain from her cheeks. “You think I’m to blame?”

“Do you?”

The lambs froze on the wall.

“You bastard.” She spat the words. “You are so fucking sanctimonious. You believe the worst of everybody.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes. It is.” She felt the anger and hurt spilling free. She relished it. “I made some terrible mistakes in my life and I pay for them every single day, Ethan. Every. Single. Day. I don’t need you to be my judge and jury.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

“You treat me like I’m a suspect.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You interrogate me as if I’ve committed a crime.”

“I was giving you a chance to make amends, Kate.”

“Make amends?” She was not going to stand there and let him heap more guilt on her. “You fucking bastard!”

She pushed past him. He grabbed her arm. His fingers were hard. “I’m not done with you.”

She looked at his face. It was hard. Angry. Bitter. As if he wanted her to pay. And she knew this wasn’t about Lisa. This was about them.

“Let go of me!” She wrenched her arm.

He grabbed her other arm and pulled her to him. “I’m not done yet.” His mouth ground against her jaw, seeking her lips.

She twisted her face away. “Ethan, stop it!” She pushed her hands against his chest. “Let go of me or…I’ll scream!”
Jesus
. Couldn’t she do better than that?

“Please, Kate.” His voice sank into a whisper. “Please.”

She heard his pain. Her own pain, clawing her now, overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes. Allowed herself to feel his chest against hers. His hands loosened their hold on her arms. His lips softened. All she was aware of was their warmth sliding along her jaw. Seeking her mouth.

Her breath caught between her lips, moist and suddenly desperate to feel his mouth on hers. Desperate for the sure oblivion they would provide.

His hands slid around her waist, pulling her closer.

She could not do this anymore
.

She could not ignore everything that was wrong about them for momentary oblivion.

She stiffened.

“No, Kate,” he whispered. “Don’t.”

“Ethan, please,” she said, pushing him away. He resisted for a moment. But when she pulled back, his hands fell. “Don’t do this.”

He half turned from her. Breathed deeply. Ran his hands through his hair, then turned back to her.

“I don’t know what happened there.” No apology, Kate noted. She knew what happened. He wanted to make her pay. In the currency he knew would cost her the most.

He shoved his hand through his hair again. “We need to catch Lisa’s killer. Make her pay for what she did to her.”

Lisa’s face, twisted in agony, flashed through Kate’s mind. She closed her eyes. Her heart raced. Pain and guilt swamped her. She forced herself to breathe slowly.

“If you could tell me what you know about Judge Carson’s behavior toward Lisa…”

She hugged her arms. “I don’t know anything. That’s the truth.”

“Can I see your notes? There might be something in them.”
Something you missed.
He didn’t need to say the words. But they both knew it.

She tried to remember her meeting with Marian MacAdam. It hadn’t seemed to yield anything important. But she didn’t know what evidence the police had uncovered. Maybe there
was
something in her notes that would be the missing part of the equation. She stared at the lambs. They didn’t deserve to be butchered.

“Okay,” she said finally. “You know I’ll be disbarred if this is ever revealed.”

Ethan’s face softened. “I won’t tell a soul.” He reached out to touch her arm. Then stopped when he saw her pull back. His hand fell to his side. “Thank you.”

She wasn’t ready to accept his gratitude. He’d hammered her too hard with her own conscience. He’d manipulated her as deftly as any of his suspects. And he’d tried to exact the steepest price he could from her: her dignity. “In return…”

He stiffened. “In return?”

She crossed her arms. “I need some information.”

He hadn’t been expecting that. She’d boxed him just as neatly as he’d boxed her. And she could tell by the hardening of his gaze that he didn’t like that.

“What is it?” he asked warily.

She said softly, “Did Lisa suffer?”

He let out a deep sigh. Whether it was relief that she wasn’t asking something that would jeopardize the investigation, or whether it was from the knowledge her question brought, she didn’t know. “According to the
M.E.’s report, she was drugged. Then strangled. The dismemberment came afterward.”

“So did she suffer?” Every part of her being was focused on him.

“Probably very little.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her nausea swelled with relief.

A cell phone rang.

They both checked their pockets, an awkward silence descending between them. “It’s mine,” Ethan said, opening his phone. “Drake here.” He listened for a moment. “Right. I’m coming.” He flipped it closed and stuffed it in his jacket. “I’ve been called in. Ferguson wants to go over the guest book and review the footage.”

“The footage?”

“Yeah, we’ve got security cameras on all the exit points. To see if we can get a visual on the killer.”

“You think he was here?” A small shiver snaked across her scalp.

Ethan nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

She walked up the dim stairwell, aware of Ethan’s large frame behind her. Lamond opened the door for her. “Deb’s on her way, Ethan.”

“Yeah, she called me.” Ethan turned to Kate and spoke softly. “I need that package ASAP.”

“I’ll get it for you tomorrow morning. Come to my house around ten.”

“Thanks, Kate.” He infused a little warmth in his voice, but it didn’t penetrate her hurt. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her. She knew what he’d been thinking: first her sister, now Lisa. “You should go now.” He glanced over his shoulder. When he saw Deb approaching, he added under his breath, “We need to keep this between us.” He gave her
a gentle push on the small of her back. “Pretend we just crossed paths. Take the main doors. Don’t look back.”

She hurried into the vestibule. She didn’t stop until she’d gone through the double doors and felt the sun on her face. Ethan’s words echoed in her head.
Don’t look back.

The irony of it didn’t escape her. She’d spent her whole life trying to get ahead. But in the end, she was always looking back. She was always trying to outrun her mistakes.

Sunday, May 6, 12:02 a.m.

H
e got out of bed and padded into the living room. He’d had a good nap after the funeral. It had refreshed him.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge. The funeral program sat on his coffee table. He picked it up and studied Lisa MacAdam’s face. It wasn’t a great picture of her; she’d looked better in the flesh.

He closed his eyes, his finger lightly stroking her photo.

The urge was back. Sooner than before. Much sooner. Normally after one of his nights out he’d be exhausted, moody, withdrawn. Happy to get back to his job and his routine.

But not today. He took a long swig from the bottle.

It was the funeral that did it. Seeing all those young girls. Young, firm bodies. Unlined skin, gleaming hair. Just like the dolls.

He’d already gone through his six-year-old neighbor’s collection of dolls. At first, her mother would buy her a new one. And he’d steal that one, too. But her mother starting accusing her of being careless, and she stopped replacing them.

He had to find more dolls to steal. He discovered it was quite easy at the local department store. No one suspected a seven-year-old boy would want a doll.

After he’d finished with them, he’d burn their limbless bodies in the woods. He loved watching the synthetic hair curl and then fall off.

The arms and legs he kept under his bed. In a shoebox. Every night before he went to bed he’d pull them out and stroke them under the cover of his sheets. The smooth plastic, pliable under his fingers, soothed him, helping to ease the loathing he felt for his mother. Until the next day.

When he was older the limbs had a special purpose.

A special pleasure.

Then Tim found them.

“You freakin’ weirdo,” Tim said, grabbing a handful.

“No! D-D-Don’t!”

His brother snickered. “If you can say it without stuttering, you can keep them.”

That just made the stutter worse. And his brother knew it.

He eyed his painstakingly assembled collection mashed in his brother’s fist. If he could just grab them…

“Say it!” Tim commanded.

He shook his head.

His brother smacked him across the face with the plastic legs.

It hurt. His cheek flamed pink.

But it wasn’t the smarting of the blow that made him angry. It was the knowledge that his brother had used his only pleasure to inflict pain on him.

Anger shot through him. “I-I-I’m g-g-g-g-gonna—”

Tim laughed. “You gonna make me pay?” He began bending the limbs. “How? With your doll collection?”

He threw the limbs on the floor and began jumping up and
down on them. “Ooh, I’m so scared. Little brother’s dollies might get angry.” When the limbs were crushed to his satisfaction, Tim walked to the door. “Don’t make me laugh.”

Then he left.

He’d never stolen another doll again. Instead, he began hunting live specimens—rats, stray cats, raccoons. He worked on specimens for years, trying to develop his skills until he was ready for his ultimate dissection.

His brother.

Tim’s funeral was one of the happiest days of his life. His mother had wept, mourning the loss of her beloved first son, the genius of his pathetic family.

There had to be sacrifice for genius.
How many times had he heard that, as the family scrimped to pay for the extras that came with having a firstborn who was a prodigy.

It would have been perfect. Except he wasn’t the firstborn.

He had been an “accident.” His lips twisted. There were no accidents. There were just mistakes. And his mother didn’t like it when anyone else made them. She showed her displeasure in ways that he didn’t want to remember. His brother never had to worry about that. Everything Tim did came naturally. With ease, grace, precision.

Everything he’d done had been the opposite. Except when he picked up a blade. It focused his energies, turned his clumsiness into smooth, deliberate motion until it was like an extension of his brain, his heart. His soul.

His brother had finally seen the power in him.

Had finally recognized his talent.

Had finally seen that he was deserving of sacrifice, too.

His brother just hadn’t realized that he was the sacrifice.

Until it was too late.

His pulse thudded with remembered pleasure. He never had to hear his brother’s laugh again.

He finished his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Within minutes, he was dressed, briefcase in hand.

He locked his apartment carefully. No one was allowed in it.

He slipped into his car, putting his briefcase into the empty slot between the front seats.

He was ready.

Ethan ran toward Serpentine Hill, pacing himself, relishing the fact it was Sunday morning and he could do a longer run. Point Pleasant Park was wet today. A torrential rainfall last night had eradicated the weak sun that shone at Lisa’s funeral.

The air was incredibly fresh. A damp breeze cooled him down. He needed it. He’d been running for the past hour, ruthlessly pushing his body through the last ten Ks. Frustration still thrummed through him. He’d been sure they’d get a lead on the killer at Lisa’s funeral. But everyone who attended had checked out: Lisa’s friends, Judge Carson’s colleagues and neighbors, lawyers, the funeral employees, the media.

And then there was Kate. Seeing her had totally thrown him off. He’d been trying to focus on the job. And then she’d arrived. He’d never felt so confused in his life. Everything was usually clear-cut. Black or white, blue or yellow, but not a fucking kaleidoscope. That’s what Kate did to him. She mixed everything up until he wasn’t sure what color he was seeing, what emotion he was feeling.

He turned up Serpentine Hill. It was a steep, windy path that cleared his head like nothing else. The first time he saw Kate, he’d turned up this hill, not suspecting that his life would change that instant. One look into those amber eyes
and he was a goner. She just pulled him in deeper and deeper until he felt as if their souls were touching.

That’s what he’d tried to recapture yesterday. It had shocked him, his impulsive grab of her.

But she’d tried walking away.

And it was one time too many.

Not when her client’s granddaughter had been brutally murdered. Kate hadn’t seen Lisa’s body on the gurney in the morgue. He had. And he didn’t think he’d ever forget it.

And when he held Kate against him, felt her breasts push against his chest, her rapid breath moistening his cheek, his pain erupted. He wanted to grind his mouth into hers, push her against the wall and lose himself in the sweet nirvana he knew she could give him. He needed something to remind him of all that was good and hopeful when every day he faced evil and hopelessness.

He was just one guy trying to draw a line to protect the innocent. And when he failed to protect them, all he could do was solve the crime and make the perpetrator pay. An eye for an eye.

And that didn’t mean he believed the worst about everybody. Kate was wrong about that. He didn’t. Not yet. He’d believed the best about her. What really hurt—and if he was honest with himself, what really scared him—was that his gut had been so wrong about her. That knowledge had eaten away at him for the past five months.

Now he felt a lightening. She’d pushed him away but she’d also made a promise to him. She was willing to put herself on the line to redeem herself. To redeem her profession. To redeem his belief about her.

He glanced at his watch: 8:57 a.m. Kate had told him to meet her at her house at 10:00 a.m. She’d have the notes for him to read.

The kaleidoscope was shifting into focus. The hill had done its job. It began to level off. He didn’t slow down; he didn’t try to catch his breath.

“Randall Barrett.” He uttered his name automatically, wondering who on earth could be calling him this early on a Sunday morning—at his office, no less.

“Randall, it’s Judge Carson.” Her voice was tight. The only indication of her feelings. But Randall knew the signs. She was angry. Everyone knew that when Judge Hope Carson was angry the explosion would be of nuclear proportions. He had learned that the hard way eighteen years ago. He planted his elbows on his desk, his mind racing. It would take all his diplomatic skills to defuse her. Especially since she had used her formal title on the phone.

“Your Honor. How can I help you?” He quelled his uneasiness with the reminder that she needed his sympathy right now. The funeral yesterday had been devastating. Immersing himself in his usual Sunday morning catch-up at the office, he’d had a hard time keeping his mind off it. Any parent sitting in those pews could not help but think of their own daughters. For once he was glad his kid was living in Toronto with her mother.

“You mean like you’ve helped already?” Judge Carson’s bitterness lashed at him.

He stiffened. “I told you I’d look into the matter and I did.”

“What did you find? That my mother-in-law acted within her rights?”

He closed his eyes. Unbidden and entirely unwanted, an image of Hope Carson swam behind his lids. Not her now, in her judge’s chambers, dressed in her black suit with her severe salt-and-pepper bob and grooves between her strong brows. No, he suddenly saw her as he first saw her eighteen
years ago, walking into the law school, her red wool coat blowing open, laughing carelessly with a friend. From behind her tortoiseshell glasses, her eyes burned through him. Tawny and hungry. Gleaming with intelligence. She was a tiger.

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
…

They dated for three months. She had seared him with her caustic comments about the professors, her friends, his friends and even him. He had learned she could take what she dished out. He had fallen in love with her strength, her callousness, her fierceness.

But she wasn’t interested in a relationship. And especially with him. She couldn’t dominate him. He couldn’t dominate her. In the end they were too much alike. There was no give and no take. Just attack, attack, maim and eventually kill.

He had relegated their relationship to a very distant memory. Now it returned. He didn’t like the knowledge it brought with it: they were both newly single.

Why had she called him?

“Did you look at your associate’s file?” Her voice brought him rudely back to the present. The way she said
your associate
made it sound like an unsavory part of his bodily functions.

He frowned. “Yes. She handled everything correctly.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He remembered the look on Kate’s face when she handed him the file. Anger, defiance and resentment had flashed through those strikingly translucent eyes, along with something else he couldn’t put his finger on. He suspected John Lyons had been right about her. Kate was made of stronger stuff than he had first thought.

Hope may not realize that her nemesis was a lot like her, but he did.

“Look, Your Honor, Kate did her job.”

“But did you?”

“Of course.”

“Then why the hell did you pass my mother-in-law over to a first-year associate instead of seeing her yourself?” Randall knew exactly what Hope was accusing him of: by sending Marian to someone other than him, there were now written notes—a paper trail—detailing Hope’s inadequacies and Marian’s concern about Lisa. If Randall had met with Marian, he would have grasped immediately the connection between Marian and Hope, and the notes would have been briefer and less detailed.

His frown deepened. He’d screwed up. Referring Marian MacAdam to a new associate had been a brash and stupid move. If he was honest with himself, he had been focused on swamping John Lyons’ most recent acquisition with as many family law files as he could get his hands on. Anything to give John Lyons the message that he wasn’t top dog any more.

“It seemed a reasonable decision at the time, Your Honor,” he said, his voice low and smooth. As soon as he said the words, he knew he’d taken the wrong approach.

Her voice became a snarl. “Don’t bullshit me, Randall. You screwed up. If that file gets leaked everyone is going to think that I drove Lisa to her death.” Her voice wavered but she steadied it. “I won’t allow Marian to win this one.”

“Marian didn’t win the last one, Your Honor. Kate Lange advised her to not proceed with the matter. She saved your as—your reputation.” And the firm’s, he realized. She hadn’t deserved the dressing down he had given her.

“That’s bullshit. She destroyed my reputation,” Hope said tightly. “With the police. She should never have called them. I will never forgive her for that.”

What you mean is you’ll never forgive yourself.
But would she ever realize that? Or just hate Kate for showing everyone that her mother-in-law’s lawyer cared more than she did? Knowing Hope, it was a bitter pill that probably would never be swallowed.

“Just make sure that file doesn’t contain anything the media could use against me.”

Her words reverberated between them. He stared at his law degree mounted on the wall opposite him. He knew what Hope was demanding. To do what she wanted, he’d have to violate not only his legal ethics, but his own personal ethics. Not to mention betray Kate Lange’s trust.

He lowered his voice. “Hope, don’t ask me to do this…”

“Please.” There was a catch to her voice.

He closed his eyes. This woman’s only child had been horribly murdered. And from Kate’s notes, there would be no question Hope had let the girl down before she died. Maybe Lisa had been in the wrong place at the wrong time because despair over her mother had sent her there.

“Randall, I’m asking this as a personal favor.” Her voice was bleak. He couldn’t imagine—refused to imagine—being in her shoes right now. She had enough to live with. She didn’t need the whole city to be aware of her failings. Especially since he’d heard a rumor that she was being considered for the empty spot on the Supreme Court. That might be the only thing to get her through this ordeal.