Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 03 - Of Dark and Bright (23 page)

But apparently Evan wasn’t done with his rationalizations. “She didn’t agree until
after
I’d already accused her of being a kidnapper. Maybe she just felt like if she was going to be treated that way, she might as well do something to deserve it.”

“Boo hoo,” Dan said. “I don’t care how much of an asshole
you
were; Tat was nothing but good to her. If she’d kidnapped
your
ass, you’d have an argument. But she went after Tat. There’s no way to make that anything but….” But what? Dan didn’t know how to classify Krista’s behavior. Bad, obviously. Terrible, even. But was it evil? Unforgivable? He knew how he felt right then, but he couldn’t be sure how he’d feel forever.

“Yeah,” Evan said softly, and he straightened up and started to push Dan’s chair again. “Okay.” They rolled to the elevator, and Evan pressed the button then turned to Dan and said, “But I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe I was part of the problem. I mean, buying a baby. That means that people are exchangeable for money, right? That sets up this whole kidnapping business. They have a person, I have money, so let’s trade. How is it different?” The expression on his face was strained, as if he was almost afraid of Dan’s reaction.

The elevator door opened and Evan started to push Dan forward, but Dan got a hand down onto the rim of his wheel and stopped the motion. He raised his other hand to the people in the elevator. “Sorry,” he said. “We’ll catch the next one.” As the elevator doors closed, Evan moved around to Dan’s side and crouched down again.

“You okay?” he asked, his concern evident.

“
I’m
fine. But
you’re
fucked in the head, Evan. You….” Dan tried to collect his thoughts. “You can’t honestly think that what you wanted to do with the baby is the same as what they did with Tat. I mean, you paying for the baby… you were trying to take a baby from a crazy, unsafe environment and give it a good, loving home. That’s the exact
opposite
of what those fuckers did to Tat. The money… paying for the baby was like paying the damn ransom. You were willing to do what you had to do to make everyone safe.” Dan lifted his hand, ignoring the way the movement pulled at the stitches along his side, and nestled his fingers in the hair at the back of Evan’s neck. “I don’t agree with the baby-buying. But do
not
equate it with what they did. Not at all.”

Evan’s eyes stayed on Dan’s for a long time, and Dan forced himself to stare right back, bruised face be damned. Finally, Evan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.” He stood up and hit the elevator button again.

Dan wasn’t quite sure this was good enough. “I’m not playing with you, Evan. You know I’m happy to jump on you when you’ve done something I think is wrong. I’m not jumping.”

Evan slipped his hand onto Dan’s shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah. Thanks.”

The elevator came then, and they rolled on board and Evan pressed the button for Krista’s floor. Dan was already exhausted by the trip so far, but he needed to keep going. He’d been telling the truth when he’d said he had no idea what he wanted to say to his sister, but he knew he wanted to see her. She was… she was family. He wasn’t really sure what that meant, but he felt like he had to keep trying to find out.

E
VANwasn’t sure he was going to be able to stay calm in front of Krista. He’d tried, for Dan’s sake, to find the arguments that would let him forgive her. But the truth was, she’d betrayed him. Maybe his trust hadn’t run deep, but it had been there.

The police had told him how Krista had told her partners-incrime about Jeff’s illness, and how they’d decided to capitalize on the panic to grab Tat. Tat had, through tears and sobs, told him that Krista had approached her in the hospital. Krista had said she was there for a checkup and had somehow gotten separated from her security guards. She’d asked for Tat’s help, said she was afraid they’d accuse her of trying to escape. Could Tat walk her out to the van, prove that she’d been escorted the whole time and wasn’t trying anything dodgy? Of course Tat had said yes. Because Tat was warm, and generous, and honest. Because she was too innocent to ever suspect someone else of doing things she could never imagine herself. At least, she
had
been too innocent.

Evan stopped pushing the chair just outside the hospital room. There was a guard there, but Evan had already gotten the okay for a brief visit. “I think I’ll ask the guard if he can take you in,” he said. “Or I can get an orderly, or something.”

Dan craned his neck around, and Evan moved quickly to crouch beside him. The doctors had been reluctant to let Dan out of bed at all, and they had been very strict in their orders to keep him from exerting himself. His lung was patched up, but still vulnerable. His whole body seemed far too vulnerable, really, and Evan immediately changed his mind. He wasn’t letting Dan out of his sight. “No, that’s stupid. Sorry. I’ll come in.”

“Evan, chill.” Evan’s hand was resting on the arm of Dan’s wheelchair, and Dan lifted his hand up to twine their fingers together. “Is this too much? You don’t have to go in. If you don’t want,
I
don’t have to go in.” He squirmed a little, trying to get a better view of Evan’s face, and as little as he wanted to, Evan moved so he was more visible. Dan’s smile was his reward. “Evan, she’s family… technically. You guys… you’re family for real. I want to have some sort of contact with her. At least, I
maybe
do. I want to consider it. But you guys aren’t about what I want. You’re what I need. If this is a problem for you, I can work around it.”

Evan wasn’t much of a crier. He really wasn’t. But something about this sweetness, after the fear and anger of the past week… he blinked hard, took a deep breath, and he was okay. He hoped. “Thanks. For saying that. But, no, I’m with you. However you need me, I’m there. And right now, you need a wheelchair-pusher and health-monitor. I can do that. I’m okay with it.”

A familiar voice from behind him said, “And are you okay with me going in too?”

Evan turned to see Tat, looking pale but determined, standing a few feet away. He straightened quickly. “Why the hell would you want to? And, no, I’m not okay with it. At all.”

“But I don’t need a wheelchair-pusher, or a health-monitor. If I want to go see her, you’re going to have a hell of a time stopping me.” Tat’s chin was jutted out in her familiar stubborn expression, and Evan was so relieved to see it that he almost forgot the content of her argument. Almost.

“He didn’t say you couldn’t,” Dan said quietly. “He said he wasn’t okay with it. There’s a difference.”

Tat’s posture relaxed as she looked at Dan, and she moved around so she was directly in front of him before sliding her back down the wall and crouching at his head level. “I don’t want to steal your visiting time. I just thought it would be easier to go in as a group.”

“Why do you want to go in?” Dan asked. Evan was happy to let Dan take the lead on this one. He was still trying to get himself under control, trying to fight back the instinctive urge to tackle his sister and shield her from all possible harm. Although the body-shielding could put her at risk for suffocation, considering their relative sizes.

Tat frowned thoughtfully at Dan and then looked at Evan, as if she wanted to make him understand too. “She was… after it happened. After they had us. She changed. She was afraid too. She sat beside me and held my hand, and we talked. She told me….” She looked apologetically at Dan. “She told me stories about you guys growing up. About how rough it was. And after too. Some really bad stuff. But it wasn’t like she was trying for my sympathy.” Tat paused as if she was mentally verifying that impression, then nodded. “Not sympathy. Understanding, maybe. Like she wanted me to know why she was… why she
is
the way she is. She said something about horses….” She frowned as she looked at Dan, as if trying to remember. “She said that some horses don’t trust people to hold apples for them. She said she’d grabbed the whole apple, but it was hard to chew.” She turned sharply to frown at Evan. “I’m not stupid. I know that she helped them take me. But she changed her mind. She decided to be good. I just wanted to thank her for that.”

Krista had “decided to be good,” Evan remembered, when she’d realized that the men were planning to kill Tat. Krista really was Dan’s sister. She might flail around on the surface, and maybe her core was buried under more crap than Dan’s was, but deep, deep down, she had her own moral code, and she’d lived by it. She’d decided how far she was willing to go, and she’d risked her life to make sure she didn’t go any further. Krista was still unpredictable and dangerous, and Evan wasn’t even a little bit sorry that she was facing a long, long stretch of prison time. But if it was important to Tat, and important to Dan, then maybe he could handle it all. He looked at Dan. “Do you want some private time with her? Or are you okay with Tat coming in too?”

“I’d be glad of the company,” Dan said. He looked at Tat. “I think it’s… I don’t know. Maybe admirable, maybe just crazy. But it’s really
something
that you want to make peace with her. But if
any
part of that is related to me… if you’re doing it because she’s my sister, and you think I’d want it… anything like that—you don’t need to.” And Evan felt better about his own almost-tears when he saw Dan’s eyes shining. “
You’re
my sister. You know?”

Tat didn’t even try not to cry. She nodded and reached her hand out to grip Dan’s slipper-clad foot. “I absolutely know. I do.” She smiled through her tears. “I want to go in for
me
. But if you don’t want me to, I’ll stay out here. For you.”

Evan decided that it was time to get this conversation on a slightly less emotional plane, or they’d never make it into the room. The security guard was already giving them weird looks. So he lightened his voice and said, “Oh, for
Dan
, you’ll stay out here. For me? Nothing. No respect. Nada.”

Tat slid back up the wall and raised an eyebrow at him as she brushed away her tears. “Have
you
been shot lately, Evan? Have you been shot
ever
? I mean, you call yourself my brother, but I can’t think of a single time that you’ve been even a little bit injured trying to save me from kidnappers. Not even a scratch.” She grinned and laid her hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Dan has demonstrated his commitment to the cause. You… I’m still waiting.”

“
The cause
? The only cause you need to know about is ’cause I say so.” Evan put his imperious, authoritarian face on, and Tat reacted about the way she always did when he tried that approach.

“Whatever,” she said dismissively. “Are we going in there or not?”

“We are,” Dan said. He was already starting to sound a bit worn out, so Evan wanted to get him in the room and back out as soon as possible. And with as little drama as they could manage.

“Get the door, brat,” Evan said, and they trundled forward. Evan wasn’t sure if the guard was incompetent or just relaxed, but he didn’t seem to care that there were three people going in when the permission had been for only two. And Evan didn’t bother to point the discrepancy out to him.

The door opened to a medium-size room. There were no flowers, no colorful blankets brought from home, nothing to make it seem like anything but a hospital room. And in the middle of it, Krista sat, reclining against the tilted mattress. Evan tried not to notice the shackle connecting her ankle to the bar of the hospital bed.

Krista stared at them as if they were Martians, and for longer than was comfortable, they only stared back. Finally, she looked at her brother and said, “You okay?”

He nodded slowly. “I will be. A little sore.”

She looked away, but there wasn’t really anything in the room to even pretend to be interested in, and it wasn’t long before Krista’s eyes slid back to Tat. “And you? You’re okay?”

“I will be.” Tat’s voice was quiet but firm, and Evan really wanted to hug her.

Krista looked at Evan then. “And how pissed are you? They said that you’re paying for my room here. Is that going to change when I tell you the deal’s off?”

Evan honestly had no idea what she was talking about, initially, and when it came to him, it just seemed like a distant memory. “The baby, you mean?” His hand fell to Dan’s shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah. It’s off on my end too.”

Krista looked uncertain, and then she said, “Because you don’t want to give me money, or because you don’t want the baby?”

“Because the way we went about it was wrong. I don’t care about giving you money. Or at least, I didn’t then. And I still want us to have a baby, someday—Dan and Jeff and me. But I shouldn’t have snuck around behind Dan’s back, and I shouldn’t have set up a deal that made it seem like I was buying a human being. I screwed up, and I’m doing what I can to fix it.”

“But you still want to be a dad? In theory?”

 

“Krista, what are you doing?” Dan said, his voice a mix of confused and exasperated. “What are you up to now?”

She looked down at her belly, and then back at Dan, and for the first time since Evan had met her, she looked almost fragile. Almost soft. “You risked your life for me, Danny.” She shook her head. “You almost died. For… to help get Tat out, I get that, but… for me too. For my baby.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Dan said, and Evan knew he was trying to lighten the mood a little, but a bit of levity was no match for the intensity of Krista’s gaze.

“My baby still needs you, Dan. I need you to keep helping it. I’m….” She took a deep breath, and there was a jagged edge to it. She yanked her leg against the shackle, hard, and Evan could see how the metal dug into her skin with the pressure. Krista seemed oblivious to the pain. “I’m going to jail. For a long time. I want my baby raised by family. Scott’s going to be in prison for even longer than I am, and he doesn’t really have any family. You’re it, Danny. I mean, I hope Evan helps you. And Jeff—I don’t know him as well, but I hope he helps too. But I want you to be the guardian. You can get lawyers in here, and I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign, and I’m not asking for money, or anything else. I just want… if I can’t raise my baby myself, then I want my brother to do it. I want my baby to be with family.” She paused, and there were tears in her eyes. Evan was pretty sure they were genuine. “Will you do it, Danny? We had shitty parents, but I really think you can do better.” She shook her head vigorously. “No. I
know
you can.”