Indefensible (9 page)

Saturday, 5:44 a.m.

A
cab drove Randall Barrett down the hill that led to the small fishing community of Prospect. The forty-minute drive had been interminable. He longed to be alone. But he was still riding out the alcohol he'd consumed last night. He didn't dare risk driving—especially since the police were now on his case. The cabbie had been eager to chat, but after a few monosyllabic responses from his withdrawn passenger, he gave up.

Now, Prospect Bay lay below them, fierce and beautiful. The early morning tide lapped the dark rocks that made this bay's shoals notorious for shipwrecks. If there were ever a place that could make a man feel humble, Prospect was it. Houses perched on stony edges, anchored there with God knew what. Private fishing wharves poked out from the shore, swaybacked and stilted. From a distance they resembled weathered gray fingers, testing the water. Never quite belonging. Because this bay could not be tamed.

The signs of the community's lifeblood casually
dotted the yards of the village houses: fishing traps, buoys, dories with their bleached hulls facing the sun, a few rusty anchors. But it was a totally different sign warning drivers to reduce their speed that made Randall's cabdriver bark with laughter. “Look over there.” He pointed to a reddish-brown shack with a white wooden sign nailed to the wall. “It says,
SLOW—Don't Be a Bonehead.
”

Randall managed a grunt. His head ached in a way he couldn't imagine. But he'd never imagined his heart could hurt like this, either.

“Take the next right,” he said.

“Whoa.” The cabbie braked sharply. The road to Penelope's house was a rutted track. A sign warned them there was no turning. The cabbie threw a glance over his shoulder. “I don't want to back down. I've got neck problems.”

“Just stop here.” Randall pulled out his wallet and shoved a fifty dollar bill at the driver. He climbed out of the car, the fresh tang of air hitting his nose. Until now, he hadn't realized how stale everything smelled. How stale
he
smelled.

The track was wide enough for a single car. Someone had added a folk art flare near the bottom: on his left, a trio of propane gas tanks painted to resemble pigs smiled at him under a cheeky Piggy's Cove sign—a play on the international tourist attraction Peggy's Cove, just fifteen minutes away. It only served to remind him what little right he had to smile anymore.

Five minutes later, he'd climbed to the top of the track. His chest strained, the alcohol he'd drunk hours earlier threatening to expel. He swallowed. His mother's
house sat on the right, the final dwelling before the broad heather tract that reached the ancient granite cliffs overlooking the bay.

Randall cleared his throat and opened the gate that extended to Penelope's front door. It was unlocked, as usual. Even if it had been her habit to lock it, he suspected she would have left it open, knowing he would come here looking for his children.

He dropped his jacket on a chair. The house was silent. It was the silence of wakefulness, not slumber.

He was so tired he could barely think. Yet his mind raced mercilessly. Twelve hours ago he had left his office, thinking he would be setting sail this morning with his son, hoping to mend a rift that was growing by the day.

But he'd had no idea that the rift was, in fact, an abyss. So deep and so wide that a sailing trip would never to able to breach it.

How could he have been so oblivious?

The force of his son's resentment had been as strong as a blow. He'd been unprepared for it.

He'd been even more unprepared for Elise. Everything about her had shaken him. Her haunted, exhausted eyes. The extra curves to her body. The defensive hunch she adopted when she saw him. Like an animal that had been shown no kindness and only expected the worst.

But then she'd gone on the attack and his disappointment, his pain at his son's hostile rejection of him—and, he could finally admit, his shame at how he'd treated Elise—flared an anger that had been suppressed for years, he realized now. Being made a cuckold by his
beautiful wife. Being the subject of gossip and innuendo. Being blamed for his son's problems. The list went on.

He doubted she'd planned to blurt out her pregnancy to him. Certainly not in public. But she'd been driven to the point of no return.

Had he driven her to that?

I'll never forgive you for this
. Those were the last words she'd said to him face-to-face. And one of the last things he could remember until the harbor patrol found him early this morning.

His teeth ground against each other.

Her blood was on his hands.

“You're up,” his mother said. She stood in the doorway to the living room, clothed for the day. Just as he was. Except his clothes were put on yesterday.

“Couldn't sleep.” He didn't want to talk to his mother. To anyone, for that matter. He couldn't.

His guilt was overwhelming.

“Neither could I.” She'd changed her clothes into more businesslike attire, a holdover from her days managing a bank, a reminder of what the day would bring: the interviews at the police station.

She stepped toward him. He stiffened. He did not want her to come too close. She would smell his guilt.

“Why did you go out on your boat last night?” Her voice was low, as if asking the question too loudly would give it an inquisitorial edge.

He shrugged. He didn't want to tell her he had no frigging idea. The double scotches he'd consumed after his fight with Elise had wiped out that part of the evening. So he said what he guessed his intoxicated brain
had been thinking: “I decided to leave early. Nick and I were supposed to go this morning, remember?”

“He told me that he decided not to go.”

“That's right. He decided to go to a camp instead.”

Penelope placed her hand on his arm. Her fingers were cool, steady.

He wanted to throw them off, but he couldn't do that to her. He stared at a point in the horizon that had the faintest lightening of blue. The juncture where sea and sky met.

When the harbor patrol stopped him, he'd been sailing toward that juncture. If they hadn't intercepted him, he could have lasted for days out on the ocean. He'd stocked
Ex Parte
thinking that a teenage boy would be on board.

No matter what Elise said, he still believed she'd played a role in Nick's decision to not go sailing with him. It was the kind of revenge she liked to exact on him.

And given what she'd blamed him for, she probably thought it was completely justified.

How could she not have told him?

How could she just throw that bombshell at him in the driveway of a stranger's house?

He'd gone home, then to a bar downtown, drinking until the sight of all those people enjoying themselves turned the booze in his stomach.

The next thing he saw were red-and-blue lights, flashing and bobbing next to him. A siren blaring, then his name shouted through a bullhorn. It was the police. They were on a boat.

He'd slowed down his yacht, afraid he would vomit.
Two police officers boarded his boat, smelling the alcohol that wafted off him. They'd informed him that Elise was dead and that they would like him to come to the station for questioning. He'd realized that they weren't going to bother arresting him for a DUI—there was much more at stake than to worry about a charge like that. But he was sure it would be duly noted.

And used against him if necessary.

 

It was interesting what light could do to a crack.

Nick stared at the ceiling. The crack ran almost the length of his bed. The moon illuminated it. He'd been staring at the crack for a long time. Hours, in fact. He'd been dozing lightly, his anger dissipating into an exhaustion that weighed his limbs but couldn't fully silence his mind.

The creak of his grandmother's hundred-year-old front door jolted his body awake. Then he heard the murmur of his grandmother's voice and his father's, and his anger surged from its uneasy rest.

The crack looked like a fuse. He was at the skinny end. His father was at the other end where some of the ceiling had crumbled. It looked as if it had been smashed with something.

He visualized his father on that smashed ceiling. His face smashed. His body smashed. His life smashed.

Just as his father had smashed his mother's head with a club only five hours before.

Saturday, 7:15 a.m.

I
n Kate's half doze, the ringing phone morphed into an elevator chime. She bolted up in bed, her heart frantically trying to flee.

The phone rang again. Her head throbbed.
God al mighty
. She could not drink ever again. Soft snoring re minded her she was not alone. She threw a quick glance at Curtis, then squinted at the caller ID.

She didn't recognize the number.

Daylight picked its way daintily through her blinds, illuminating corners with a false cheeriness that had seemed ominous and dangerous only hours ago.

Curtis opened an eye, gave her a questioning smile.
Who's calling you at this hour in the morning?
his one open eye asked.

She raised her eyebrows and snatched the receiver. “Hello?” Her voice, she was pleased to note, had not croaked despite her parched throat and aching head.

There was a hesitation. “Kate?”

At the sound of Randall Barrett's voice, Kate's headache intensified a hundredfold.

Why in the world was the managing partner calling her at seven on a Saturday morning?

And wait. Wasn't he supposed to be on a sailing trip with his son?

Curtis had opened his other eye and now his gaze was fixed on her face. A flush rose in her chest.

Why, after all these months of silence, was Randall Barrett calling her early on a Saturday morning when she was naked with a strange man in her bed? She shook her head at the gods of the universe. She could not lie next to Curtis while talking to Randall. It just seemed…wrong.

She threw her legs over the side of the bed. Everything wobbled, then shifted into place. Alaska nosed her hand. “Is everything okay?” she asked Randall in a low voice.

Another pause. “Why do you say that?”

As cagey as always.
Her tone sharpened. “It's a bit unusual for you to call me at seven in the morning.”

Randall cleared his throat. Something
was
going on. “I need to ask a favor.”

She had to admit to being annoyingly flattered that he would turn to her for a favor, but she was also surprised. Why not a friend? Or another partner? “Of course.”

“My dog, Charlie, is in her crate at home. My mother was supposed to go over this morning to take care of her while my son and I went on our sailing trip, but—” His voice choked off.
What the hell?

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice low.

Curtis sat up and edged along the bed toward her. As
if he had a right to be part of what was clearly becoming an intimate exchange. His presence was so suffocating that she forced herself to not hunch her shoulders away from him.

Randall cleared his throat. “My wife—I mean, my ex-wife—died last night.”

Kate's breath caught. “I'm so sorry, Randall. What happened? Was she in a car accident?”

“No. She fell. Off a balcony. My kids found her.”

Kate closed her eyes. “Oh, God.”

“It's been a tough night for them. And it will be an even tougher day. The police want us to give statements.” His tone became brisk. “Could you go feed Charlie for me? She's very friendly. I don't think she'll give you any trouble.”

“Of course.”

“I have a spare key in my office. It's in my left desk drawer.”

“I'll go right now.”

After telling Kate how to disarm his alarm system, Randall hung up.

Kate put down the phone, her mind whirling.

“Bad news?” Curtis asked.

“Yes.” At his inquiring look, she added, “My boss' ex-wife died last night.”

He stared at her. “You mean Randall Barrett's ex-wife?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. That's terrible.”

“Yes.” She stood, yanking the crumpled throw around her. “I need to go get his dog.”

“His dog?” The shock in his gray gaze had been replaced with…what?

She didn't have time to worry about it. “Yes. He left the dog alone last night. He was supposed to go on a sailing trip today, so he thought his mother would be picking the dog up this morning, but it turns out they all have to go to the police station to give statements.”

She walked toward the shower, but Curtis' next question stopped her cold.

“The police station? Why, was she murdered?”

“No. I mean, I don't know.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “All I know is that his dog is waiting for me.”

Her tone would have given a much less intelligent man than Curtis the hint that it was time to put on his clothes and go.

Curtis' jaw tightened. Kate felt a pang of remorse. She'd hurt his feelings.

But she hadn't liked that look of salacious curiosity in his gaze when he questioned her about Randall's ex-wife.

“Thanks for everything,” Curtis said. The way he said it could have easily meant “thanks for nothing.”

“Curtis…” Kate exhaled. “I'm sorry. About last night. I want you to know how much I appreciated you staying with me.”

He pulled on his pants. “Glad to be of service.”

Ouch
. She hurried over to him, put her hand on his arm. “Please don't be angry with me.”

“I'm not.” But his eyes told the truth. Curtis had sensed that Randall's phone call had put everything they had shared clean out of her mind. Not something
easily swallowed by an alpha male like Curtis. He gave her a tight smile. The dimple refused to appear. “See you Tuesday.”

“See you Tuesday,” Kate echoed. He left, just as Kate wanted. She resisted the urge to run after him.

She'd treated him badly.

But she didn't know what she could have done differently.

The scalding water she stood under when she took her shower was a small attempt at self-flagellation, but she shouldn't have bothered. Her mind, as always, delivered a much more potent dose of self-punishment than her body could ever produce.

As she went through the motions of removing all traces of her evening with Curtis, her mind taunted her.

Had Randall's ex-wife come to Halifax to reconcile?

Was that why Randall had been so aloof since Kate had returned to work in June?

She scrubbed the conditioner out of her hair with more vigor than was required. Only here, in the privacy of her burning hot shower, would she admit that she was hurt.

There had been something between her and Randall after the TransTissue debacle, she knew that.

What she hadn't known was why he was keeping his distance.

She had assumed it was because of the inappropriateness of their attraction. She was grateful for his restraint, she'd told herself as days passed—and then weeks—and there had been little or no contact between them.

But if she was honest with herself, it hurt.

Man, she was screwed. How could she feel jealous of his ex-wife when she'd died in the prime of her life and left two grieving children?

And, without any doubt, a grieving ex-husband?

She turned the water onto the cold setting and stood there until her body was numb.

Only then did she feel she could face the day.