Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 03 - Of Dark and Bright (12 page)

It was nice that Krista had no concerns, Dan thought. He wasn’t sure he could say the same for himself. There was nothing about this situation that he liked.

E
VAN stood in the hallway of the guest house, checking his call display and listening to Krista chat with the security team. She seemed totally calm, totally unconcerned about the entire process. The exact opposite of Dan’s reaction when he went through this process years ago. And Dan had been innocent. So did that mean that Krista was guilty? Evan looked down the hallway to the kitchen, where Dan was helping Jeff make sandwiches. Krista was just a calmer person, probably. There was no reason to believe she’d done anything to hurt Tat.

He looked at his phone again. Still no call. Where the hell was his baby sister? If Krista knew anything about this….

Evan had invited the woman onto his property, so intent on doing what
Dan
would think was the right thing that he’d ignored his own instincts. He’d said it himself; Dan was the romantic, and Evan was the practical one. Evan was the one who got things done, and took care of the people he cared about. So what did he do when he cared about two different people, when taking care of Dan got in the way of taking care of Tat?

Dan was a grown man. Tat was a child. She
had
to be his priority, and Dan would understand that, surely. Eventually, at least. Evan looked at his watch, then took one more look at the empty screen on his phone before stepping into the living room.

Then he said, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Krista, but I need to ask you to return the computer stuff that I lent to you. The laptop, and the iPad.” He tried to think of what else there might be that would have evidence on it. He could call the phone company and get the records for the guest house landline. Krista hadn’t had a cell phone with her when she’d arrived, so she still wouldn’t have one, unless Dan had bought one for her. And Evan didn’t think Dan had. What else, where else might there be evidence, where else should he be looking….

“Mr. Kaminski? You want us to retrieve her computer?” Bill looked a bit surprised, and that wasn’t good. Evan wondered whether Bill was taking this whole thing seriously enough. Tat had been missing for six hours. She was gone, it was Evan’s fault, and the people Evan paid to take care of all this were having a damn tea party with the prime suspect. The only suspect. Because if Krista wasn’t involved, then they had no clues. No idea whatsoever of where Tat was, or who had her, or why they wanted her. No idea of how to get her back.

He forced a tight smile onto his face, for Dan’s sake, although Dan was still in the kitchen, so unconcerned about the whole thing that he was making snacks. “Yes, please,” he said tightly. “And the iPad.” He turned his smile toward Krista. “Just as a precaution.”

“They’re yours,” she said coolly. “The iPad’s upstairs in the bedroom, I think. The laptop’s in the kitchen.”

In the kitchen. With Dan. Who was absolutely unlikely to be as calm about this as Krista was being. But Evan couldn’t worry about that, not while Tat was missing. He watched as one of the security team headed upstairs to retrieve the iPad, then followed another into the kitchen. The man was unplugging the laptop by the time Evan arrived.

“What’s going on?” Dan asked. He was clearly talking to Evan, not the security guard.

“We’re going to take a look at the computer stuff. Just to make sure.” Evan tried to sound neutral and forced himself not to look at his watch again. Where the hell was Tat?

“To make sure of what?” Dan asked. “Did Krista say this was okay?”

 

“She said the computer’s
mine
, Dan. Which it is. I loaned it to her, and now I’m taking it back. She doesn’t need to say it’s okay.”

Dan stared at him like he was trying to figure the situation out. Evan wanted to care. He wanted to explain, and soothe, and maybe even apologize, but there was no room in his brain. All his energy was going toward keeping himself from panicking, and he couldn’t get into a discussion with Dan, not right then. Not until his sister was back safely.

“There’s no reason to think this is any different from any of the other times Tat’s taken a break, Evan.” Dan sounded like he was trying to control himself. “You’re throwing your weight around, accusing people of crimes that haven’t even been committed, and you should
stop
.”

“It’s natural to be worried, Evan,” Jeff started, but Evan put his hands up in front of himself, warding them off.

“Could you two please not tell me how I should feel, or how I should be acting? Jeff, you don’t have a sister, or a kid, or anything else that would let you know how I’m feeling. And, yeah, Dan, you
technically
have a sister, but you obviously don’t care about her like I care about Tat, or you never would have left her behind with your criminal father.” Evan knew he was way over any line that had ever been drawn, but it felt good to be able to let go of some of the tension. Then he saw the look on Dan’s face, and it didn’t feel so good anymore.

But Dan didn’t say a word. He just stood there, his eyes cold and hostile. Evan watched the security guard ease past with the computer in his arms, and he knew he had to follow. He had to get his guys on the job, had to help them search for evidence. He had to get Tatiana back home where she belonged. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said to Dan.

“Go fuck yourself, Evan,” Dan replied, his voice as cold as his eyes. He looked down at the platter of sandwiches he’d been working on, then turned his head toward Jeff. “You can handle the distribution, right? And you can give me a call when Tat shows up?” He turned to Evan and said, “Not that I care about that, of course.” And then he was gone, down the hallway toward the front door.

Evan turned to Jeff. “I do not have time for his hypersensitive bullshit.”

 

“I guess you’d better get back to whatever you’re doing, then,” Jeff said. He sounded only slightly warmer than Dan had.

Fuck. Everything was going to hell. But Evan couldn’t worry about that. Once Tat was home, he’d fix things. Until that happened, though, he had other priorities.

J
EFF watched Evan as he headed back to the living room, and tried not to think about what had just happened. He tried to stay calm and take even, shallow breaths, but he could feel the pain building in his chest. He fumbled with a glass, managed not to do more than gasp when lifting his arms made it feel like there was a knife in his chest, and braced his wrist against the side of the sink to keep the glass from shaking while he filled it with water. He had aspirins; they were supposed to be good for his heart. They wouldn’t do much for pain like this, but….

Jesus Christ, he could barely breathe. He bent at the waist instead of lifting the glass to his lips, and that helped. He leaned forward a little more, took a sip of water, and tried to control his breathing. This couldn’t happen. Not now, when Dan and Evan needed him, when Tat might be in trouble. There was too much he needed to do.

He rested his forehead against the cool stainless steel of the sink and tried to will the pain away. He could only be grateful that Evan and Dan had left before they’d seen his weakness.

“Jeff?” A new but familiar voice, and Jeff managed to turn his head far enough to see Krista, hand on her belly, standing in the kitchen doorway. She was looking at him with a detached, almost amused expression. “You okay?”

Jeff could do it. He had to. He forced a smile onto his face and shifted his body to the side so he could still lean on the counter without having his ass pointed straight at Dan’s sister. “I’m fine. Just….”

“You’re gray,” she said matter-of-factly. “Something hurts, right?” She raised an eyebrow when she saw his expression. “I’ve been on the run for ten years. Off the grid. No hospitals, no doctors. I know what pain looks like.” She crossed the floor toward him and rested a warm, surprisingly gentle hand on his shoulder. “Your back?”

“No.” He had no idea what he was doing, being honest with this woman. He should have just gone along with her, said he’d put his back out, said it would be fine…. “There’s something in my chest.”

“Like a heart attack? You want me to call 911?” She grinned. “That’d be fun, to have an ambulance show up in the middle of this circus. Evan’s head would lift right off his body, I bet.”

Jeff was glad he was providing some amusement for this woman. “I don’t think it’s a heart attack. It’s been happening for a while now.”

“And you haven’t gotten it checked out? Tsk tsk.” She still seemed pretty damn casual about the whole thing, and Jeff couldn’t decide whether he was relieved or annoyed. “Do you want me to do something?”

“I don’t think so. It should go away.”
“I could bring you a chair.”

Jeff felt an almost physical wave of relief at the thought of being able to slump down, to stop trying to support himself. “Yeah,” he said. “That’d be good.”

So she pulled one of the kitchen chairs away from the table and maneuvered it around behind him, then pressed it gently into the back of his knees and let him collapse into it. There was pain when he moved, but then he was sitting, and everything seemed much better.

Krista smiled at him in a self-satisfied way, as if she was pleased to have solved the puzzle. “And you think it should go away pretty fast?” she asked.

“Usually does.”

“I just came in to look for sandwiches. I hadn’t had lunch yet, when all this started.” She nodded her head in the direction of the food Dan and Jeff had been working on. “So I’ll just grab one of those. I can eat it in here, and then if you pass out or something, I can get help. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jeff agreed. And he was surprised to find that it was. He couldn’t imagine the drama that would have ensued if Dan or, God forbid, Evan had found him like that. But Krista seemed to be taking it in stride. She got her sandwich and started eating, and he sat and rested, and he thought about her words.
I know what pain looks like
. It was sad, that she had such a familiarity with the uglier aspects of life. Sad that she’d had to face them without any of the supports that Jeff had always taken for granted. But right then, if he let himself be selfish, he was glad that she’d been made tough. It made things a lot easier for him.

Chapter 9

“
S
USAN, it’s Dan Wheeler. I need to talk to you. As soon as possible. Please call me back.” Dan hung up and stared out the windshield of his truck. He was parked by the barn, and he could see Robyn leading one of the young Hanoverians out to the pasture. The horse was dancing a little, and Dan tried to focus on that. He tried to find the animal’s strength and borrow just a little of it. He thought about getting out of the truck and going to find Smokey, but he didn’t think he could manage it without running into somebody, and he really didn’t feel ready for small talk.

He pulled his phone out again and found Chris’s number. Chris had been sent to help track down possible friends of Tat’s, but he answered after the first ring. “Is she back yet?”

“No, not yet.” Dan remembered too late that he was kind of pissed off at Chris, but he couldn’t be mad at everyone all at once, and Evan had definitely surged into the lead of the asshole race. “What do you know about Krista’s deal? Does she have to stay in the guest house, or could I find somewhere else for her if it isn’t working out there?”

There was a pause before Chris said, “You’d have to go back to the judge for any change in the deal, including a new address. Hopefully it’d be fine, but there’s always a risk that he won’t like it. Or that he’ll come to his senses and realize he was way too generous the first time around.” Another pause, then Chris said, “Why? What isn’t working out?”

“Evan’s panicking about Tat, and he’s being an asshole.” It sounded petty, Dan realized. Sounded like he was being a drama queen, making this crisis about himself, instead of about Tat. Or Evan, or Krista, or any of the other people more directly involved than he was. But he hadn’t been looking for trouble, he was sure of that. “He talks a good game, you know? About helping out, and his stuff is really ‘our’ stuff, and all that shit. But as soon as the chips are down… well, they’re all his chips. He was letting us play with them, but they’re going home with
him
.” Dan remembered Evan’s speech about how he wasn’t loaning Dan the money for Krista’s bail, he was just using some of
their
money to help
their
family. That hadn’t lasted long, and Dan felt like an idiot for having believed it. What the hell had happened to him? When had he gotten so soft, that a little talk about some hypothetical, impossible marriage had made him forget the reality of the situation? “So I thought it’d be easier if I found somewhere else for Krista.”

“Easier for Krista, or for you? ’Cause it sounds like
Krista
’s pretty comfortable where she is, Danny. If you pull her out of there, you probably shouldn’t be going around talking about
Evan
taking his toys and going home.”

Well, that was an interesting development. Apparently Dan
didn’t
have to abandon his anger with one person in order to be angry at another. “Thanks for your help, Chris.”

“Give me a break, Dan. What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I think I’ve got the picture. Evan’s a prince, and whatever he does is fine by you. I’m a hysterical idiot who can’t be trusted with basic information, and who has temper tantrums and blames other people. I get it.”

“Okay, Danny, that’s not really what I think. But you’ve got to admit, your current behavior isn’t doing a lot to—”

Dan hadn’t really planned to hang up, but he wasn’t sorry that he’d done it. Maybe Chris was right, and Dan was out of line. He thought of Evan saying that Dan obviously had never really cared about Krista, and he felt the familiar guilt. It wasn’t like Dan had ever given Evan a reason to believe otherwise. What had Dan ever done to look after his family? Evan was responsible for a teenage girl; Dan could barely look after himself. Yeah, Evan was throwing his weight around, and yeah, it rubbed Dan the wrong way. But maybe Evan had a right to act like he did; he was the responsible adult, after all.