Face to Face (14 page)

Cassie rolled her eyes at stubborn men everywhere and closed the bedroom door behind her. 

CHAPTER 15

Drake tried to wake up, tried to stop the dream He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but no sound came. He watched helplessly while Hart screamed as the hostage taker pulled the trigger. 

The gunshot sounded more like a sonic boom. It rocked him but he couldn't move. A sliver of rational thought reminded him it hadn't happened this way, that he had saved Hart, but it was quickly drowned out by the nightmare vision of what could have happened after Spanos froze. Hart's screams dwindled to a croaking gasp, her mouth filled with blood. Helpless to save her, her blood gushing out, covering her face, Drake shuddered and turned away.

To see Pamela. God, why did it always come back to her? 

She turned to him, his weapon in her hand. She raised the gun to her head and, this was the most horrible thing, the thing he had never told anyone about that night, she smiled at him. Just before she pulled the trigger, she smiled.

The scene played out in slow motion. He leapt toward her. The sound of the shot reverberated through the room, deafening him. He fell down beside her. He grabbed her arm, tried to find a pulse. He held her head in his lap, her blood covering him, saturating him with the smell of copper and salt, a rank smell that turned his stomach.

He looked down on her face. It no longer was Pamela. It was Hart.

Drake bolted from the realm of dreams. His breath came in gasps. His body shivered despite the sweat pouring from him. Damn, damn, damn. He hadn't dreamed of Pamela in months—not since Hart entered his life. 

Now, somehow his screwed up mind mixed up Hart and Pamela. As if both women were doomed to die.

He couldn't save the one. Was his subconscious trying to tell him to give up any hope of protecting the other as well?

The air in the small room was heavy, too thick to breathe. He pushed his morbid thoughts aside. Hart was safe—as long as he kept his distance, kept her out of the sights of his stalker. As long as he was out of her life, like King had suggested? No, no way. He couldn't accept that. This was only temporary. A few days and he'd find the creep who was doing this and it would all be over.

He hoped.

He pulled on a pair of shorts, crept downstairs and walked out to the dock. The moon was hidden behind a haze, casting a faint glow over the lake. He sat on the edge of the dock and dangled his legs over the side. 

The tide was in high enough the cold water swelled around his ankles. He used to do this when he visited Nellie and Jacob as a child. Sneak out of the house at night and no one would know.

His aunt's voice startled him. "I guess old habits are hard to break." 

She eased herself down beside him. Drake noticed she was still fully dressed.

"I thought no one knew I came out here," he said.

"Of course we knew. Couldn't let you go falling into the lake, could we? What would your mom and dad say?" She settled against one of the railings. "So what was the fight about?" 

"What makes you think there was a fight?"

"You've never once talked about bringing someone home for the family to meet. Now you've been with the same woman for almost six months and you come home without her?"

"Still a reporter after all these years, Nellie?"

"Like I said, old habits. What really happened?"

"I don't know. Sometimes she's just so stubborn. She never sees my side of things."

"Drake, you're a grown man who to my knowledge has never been shy of speaking his mind. But sometimes you have a habit of making your arguments in such a forceful manner that it puts people on the defensive."

"You make me sound like Captain Ahab. I listen to Hart, but she didn't see how important this was to me."

"And what was it that was more important to her?" Nellie asked softly.

Drake was silent, ashamed to tell her. What could he say? He'd never given Hart the chance to tell him? "That's beside the point. Sometimes I just feel smothered."

"Oh, I see. Cassie is the clingy, dependent kind?"

"Of course not. She's independent, resourceful." He rubbed his eyes. He was confused; he didn't know what to think.

"Is it Cassie smothering you, or yourself?"

Drake took a deep breath. Sometimes his aunt was too smart for his own good. "I think it's the whole idea of staying with one person. It's an obligation. It's frightening. I wake up in the morning and I see her there and I think what would happen if I ever lost her…and I panic. Then I start thinking maybe it would be better not to let things get that far. Just to end it quickly, cleanly. But I can't."

Nellie laughed. She patted his thigh and gave him a quick hug. "For someone who prides himself on seeing everything, sometimes you have the biggest blind spot." She hauled herself up and turned toward the house. "And don't stay out here all night. You need your rest."

<><><>

Drake woke to Muriel and Nellie's voices floating through the open window as they worked in the garden below.

"Not as many tomatoes as last year," Nellie said.

"Why do you really think he didn't bring Cassie?" came his mother's voice. "Think it has anything to do with that other one from last year?"

Drake tensed. He hadn't told his mother about Pamela's HIV. He wanted to protect her from worrying. He moved closer to the window, but a creaking floorboard betrayed him.

"Come on down and enjoy the morning," Nellie called out. Her hearing was still as good as always. He never could get anything past her.

"Be right down," he yelled out the window. He pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt.

"What do you want for breakfast, Remy?" his mother asked. She never could understand his aversion to eating first thing in the morning.

"I'm fine, Mom. Besides, I need to head back to the city." He winced at the look of confusion that crossed her face. She and Nellie exchanged a glance.

"Help your mother. I'm going in to start some laundry." Nellie left them.

Drake knelt down beside his mother and began pulling weeds from the extensive vegetable garden. His mother sat back on her heels and watched him.

"You okay, Mom?"

"I'm fine. When did you learn the difference between a weed and a plant?

Drake smiled. "I guess Hart taught me." An image of her flashed through his mind. "I really do need to get going. Now."

She ignored his last statement, her hand resting over top of his, holding him in place. "I thought it probably wasn't the other one, the one who killed herself with your gun. You weren't in love with her, were you?"

An uncomfortable pause stretched out between them.

Muriel sighed. "You've never been easy to talk to—you take after your father. Laughing on the outside and bottling up everything else inside of you."

Drake stared at her. He thought of his mother as someone who would always depend on others. Deep down, he had been afraid that after his father died, she would cling to him. The idea had terrified him. Now for the first time, he realized she had an inner strength of her own.

"Why did she do that to you? This Pamela Reynolds. Was she in love with you?" 

Drake took his time answering. "At the time I thought she did it because she was afraid to face me, to tell me the truth—" He paused and took his mother's hands in his and helped her to her feet. They began to walk toward the dock. "Mom, Pamela had AIDS. I didn't know until after she died."

Muriel opened then closed her mouth. The muscles in her face went slack. For the first time in his life, his mother looked her age.

"Are you all right?" she whispered.

"So far, I'm fine. I took their drug cocktail, and I've tested negative. My last test was last week. Then it'll just be the yearly screening the PD does."

"Oh my God." She clasped his hands. "I wish you had told me sooner."

"I didn't want to worry you."

She paused by the lawn chairs at the edge of the grass beside the dock and sat down. Drake joined her. "I don't think she loved you, Remy."

Drake nodded. When had his mother become so smart? He lied to himself for almost a year, telling himself Pamela did what she did because of some misguided idea of love. "I'm starting to believe that myself."

"Why do you think she did it?" Muriel asked.

"I think if she couldn't have me, she didn't want me to be able to get close to another woman. It was her only weapon." It was the first time he'd ever voiced his suspicions about Pamela, but as soon as the words were out, he knew they were true.

"She was obsessed. How is Cassie taking all this?"

Drake looked away. That was his mother—straight to the heart of the matter. "Every time we get close I find myself thinking of Pamela, thinking of the consequences, thinking of my own death even—" He broke off. 

"Let me tell you," he continued, his voice stronger, "it's a real mood breaker." He laughed harshly. "Spontaneity is definitely out of the question." He took a deep breath and looked down at his mother.

"She's haunting you, Remy," she said softly.

"That's a good word for it. It's slowly driving me crazy. I look at Hart and all I want to do is touch her, hold her, make love to her—but then I have to stop, make sure that we have protection, think about what we're doing. And every time I do, it's Pamela I see in front of me. It's not fair to Hart. Sometimes I think I should just break it off with her…"

They were both silent for a minute, then Muriel took his hand. "Your father and I were married for thirty years before he died. There were plenty of bad times, but having him there helped me get through them. The worst pain I ever felt was when I lost him. I thought I was all alone, that I'd never make it without him there to help me. It was like I was half the person I had been. Nothing you do can ever replace that part of you."

Drake looked over at her. He couldn't believe his mother was talking to him this way. 

"But then I came to realize that Mickey was still here. He was inside of me, with me always." She patted Drake's hand. "I talk to him almost every night. The point is, even knowing that pain and how awful it is, I wouldn't trade having Mickey Drake in my life for anything. I can't stand to see you passing up what has to be the most wonderful experience life has to offer."

Drake hung his hands between his knees and looked past her, his gaze sinking into the cerulean blue of the water. "You're such a romantic. Hart and I have a good thing going, I just don't want her to get hurt."

"Don't lie to me, Remy," she replied in a stern voice. "I don't know how Cassie puts up with you, but if you ask me and if she'll have you, I think you ought to marry her."

"You want me to marry her? You hardly even know her."

Muriel shook her head and laughed. "You younger generation, always trying to reinvent the wheel. You love her. Sounds like she loves you. Marriage is what two responsible adults," she emphasized the last word, "do when they care for each other. You're thirty-four years old. Time to grow up. You should feel lucky you've found someone to grow old with. I just wish your father and I could have had longer together. Not a day goes by I don't thank God for the time we did have."

Drake looked at her. It was the longest speech he'd ever heard her make. Muriel stood up and brushed her hands on her slacks.

"I'm going in to help Nellie. You think about what I said."

He stared out over the lake. Marriage? It was a foreign concept to him. He might love Hart now, but a lifetime commitment?

Most of his friends had been married at one time or another. The vast majority now happily divorced. But a few of them, like Jimmy and Denise, had remained devoted to one another. 

If he did this, it would be for a lifetime, he promised himself. He'd had plenty of time to play the field. If he was going to commit to one person, it would be forever.

That thought made him shiver. He stood and walked out to the end of the dock, catching the breeze from the lake. Never make love to another woman? Monica Burns' face raced through his mind, but the spark of desire that tormented him yesterday was gone.

What if he asked Hart and she said no? After her past experience with unholy matrimony, she just might.

Even more terrifying–what if she said yes?

CHAPTER 16

The next morning after she sent Tony on his way, Cassie searched through the clothing she'd left at Drake's house to find something to wear to the deposition. All she found were work clothes in need of washing, and a simple sleeveless ankle-length voile dress. It was pale green with tiny violets and at least three-dozen buttons down the front.

Cassie smiled as she remembered the last time she'd worn this dress. A week ago Sunday. She'd come to Drake's after taking Gram Rosa's friend Tessa to Mass. She'd been hot and sweaty and feeling more than a little naughty. She hated going to Church–had mainly done it for so many years out of habit and a sense of debt to Rosa and Tessa. But Father Shuster's sermon on the ways of wickedness and corruption seemed directed solely at her. Which, of course, left her in a most rebellious mood.

Drake had been out for a run and despite the open windows, his apartment was hot and steamy. Cassie had made a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade, brimming with ice and lemon quarters, then slid out of all her clothes except the button front dress, covered with its tiny violets done in purple and indigo, and waited for Drake to return.

The first thing he saw when he entered was sunlight streaming through the thin cotton of her dress, silhouetting her body. The second was the tall glass of lemonade she ran over her cheek, beads of condensation streaming over the glass.

"Is that for me?" he asked hopefully, kicking his shoes and socks off and dropping his sweat soaked shirt on the couch. "Looks wonderful."

She smiled a wicked smile and took a small taste. "Oh it is," she assured him. Her fingers snagged an ice cube and ran it above the bodice of her dress. 

"Just one problem, sugar," she mimicked a southern accent as he approached. "There appears to be only one glass."