Love Will Find a Way (2 page)

She had a point. And the fiery light in her eyes made him feel better. Anger was good. Anger could get a person through tough times. Rachel seemed stronger than he remembered, but then, his memories were mostly that of a beautiful, blond, nineteen-year-old girl in love with his best friend. She'd been laughing all the time back then, a smile so inviting you couldn't help smiling back. Of course, Gary had always been one to make a girl laugh, and Rachel had been no exception.

Over the years, he had had only limited contact with Rachel, an occasional phone call or a brief appearance at a christening or a birthday party. He could count on one hand the number of times they'd stood this close together. And there had been a good reason for that, a very good reason.

"I need to go to the apartment," Rachel said firmly. "I'd like you to take me."

"All right."

"Thank you." She paused as she took in her surroundings for the first time. "Is this one of Gary's buildings?"

"Yes. The -- " He stopped himself from saying "
the last one
." But he could see her finish the sentence in her head.

"He was a good architect, wasn't he?"

"One of the best."

"I've only seen a couple of his buildings. He'd show me the pictures you sent, but he rarely took me to see the real thing."

"Gary wasn't much on the final product. He liked the dream. Once it got down to nails and bolts, he moved on to the next project. I always sent him a picture just in case he wanted to know if I'd messed up anything."

"He said you always knew what he wanted, even when he didn't spell it out right."

"I don't know about that. I'm the kind of guy who follows the blueprints. Gary was the one who had to face the blank page. He had the tougher job."

Rachel nodded, then shivered. Dylan suddenly realized how late it was getting. It would be dark soon. "I'll take you down now. It's a good thing you aren't afraid of heights. Some people don't like being up this high without closed windows around them."

"I didn't even think about it." She offered him a bewildered smile that cut through the years between them. For one second she was the young, innocent, carefree woman he remembered. "I keep doing that, ending up places and wondering how I got there," she added.

"I've done that a few times, too," he admitted.

"Maybe I was wrong to come here, but I didn't know where else to turn. I can't let some insurance company's doubts become my doubts. I have to prove they're wrong. I have to."

"I understand, and I agree."

"Do you? Because there was a look on your face a few minutes ago that made me feel like you knew something I didn't."

"I don't," he said immediately. Gary had been his best friend. That's all he wanted to think about, nothing else.

Dylan walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. Rachel came to wait beside him. They were standing so close he could smell her perfume, or maybe it was the lingering scent of apples. The first time he'd met her she'd smelled like a warm summer day, lush with the scent of flowers and apples. His chest tightened, and he forced the memory out of his head. He couldn't go back there. It had been a long time ago. And Gary had met her first. The only time in their lives the happy-go-lucky and perpetually late Gary had gotten somewhere before him.

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside, silent on the speedy descent to the ground. Rachel didn't have anything to say and Dylan didn't know what to say. He couldn't believe that Gary had killed himself. It made no sense whatsoever. The insurance company had to be wrong. There was no other explanation. But...

Gary had been stressed, tired during the weeks before his death. He'd been working hard, traveling a lot, but he certainly hadn't been suicidal. Still, he'd gone to Lake Tahoe alone, for reasons he hadn't shared with Dylan, and that in itself was odd.

"You're doing it, too," Rachel said as the elevator came to a halt.

"Doing what?" He held open the door for her.

"Going over those last few days in your head."

"I think it's a mistake, Rachel. I honestly do." They walked out to the street; dusk was settling over the city. "Where's your car?"

She pointed to a white minivan. "Shall I follow you, or do you want to give me directions?"

"You can follow me." He tipped his head toward the silver Mercedes parked across the street.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Not bad. I always pictured you in a truck for some reason."

"Well, as long as you didn't picture me with a beer gut hanging over my belt and the infamous butt crack when I squat down, I'll still feel good about my profession."

A smile blossomed across her face. "It was never that bad."

"Thank God." He paused. "Okay, then. I'll wait for you to turn around."

"Okay."

Rachel pulled the corners of her smile back as she walked to her car. There were moments in time when she forgot the sadness, when a smile broke through her tight lips. But then she'd feel guilty that she'd forgotten her pain, if only for a second. Some things, some people, should never be forgotten, and Gary was one of them. Dylan was, too, unfortunately.

The two men were as different as night and day, Gary with his golden-blond looks, Dylan with his midnight-black eyes, Gary with his sunny disposition, Dylan with his dark moods.

Dylan
. Today her faded memories had been washed in bright, beautiful color, and the shadowy figure in her mind had become vibrant and real and distinctly unsettling.

As she got into her car, she told herself it was the circumstances that bothered her, not the man. There was too much at stake to allow a momentary indiscretion from a long time ago to get in the way of what she needed to do. Dylan had probably forgotten all about it. Chalked it up as no big deal. He probably didn't even realize she'd been avoiding him all these years.

It had been easy not to see each other. She lived two hours away. When Gary was home on the weekends, he was with her family, her friends. Dylan had rarely invaded that space.

Gary had always told her that Dylan felt more comfortable in the city, and she'd accepted that explanation.

Whether or not it was true didn't matter. And whether or not Dylan made her uncomfortable didn't matter. What did matter was that Dylan had been Gary's best friend for more than twenty years. If anyone could help her figure out what had been going on in Gary's mind the last day of his life, it was Dylan.

Rachel started the engine and pulled out behind Dylan's car. It seemed ironically fitting that their vehicles so perfectly represented their lives, Dylan in his fast, big-city, successful guy Mercedes and she in her practical-mom minivan. The minivan was exactly what she needed to drive Wesley and his friends around, but she couldn't help admiring the sleek lines of the car in front of her.

Within minutes, Dylan pulled up in front of a four-story apartment building in Pacific Heights. He waved her into a driveway, for which she was incredibly grateful, since she was reluctant to park on the steep hill.

When she got out of the car, she was dazzled by the view, the shimmering blue waters of the San Francisco Bay turning silver in the moonlight, and the gleaming lights of the Golden Gate Bridge brightening the darkening sky. She was more comfortable with wide-open spaces and endless quiet, but there was a beauty here that she hadn't expected. For the first time, she wondered how Gary had felt living with one foot in each of his worlds.

"Ready?" Dylan asked her, meeting her by the front door.

She nodded and followed him into the elevator and up to the third floor, where he inserted a key into the lock and opened the door.

For a second she froze, suddenly terrified to step inside. Did she want to know -- if there was something to know?

Wouldn't it be better to keep her memories, her love, her faith, intact? But they were intact, she reminded herself. She just wanted one last look at the other part of Gary's life -- the part she hadn't really understood.

Gary had taken the apartment for practical purposes. With his long hours and long commute, it made sense for him to have a place in the city. She hadn't been able to argue with his reasoning, although she'd never gotten used to the idea of her husband having another home. Whenever she'd raised her concern about the distance between them, Gary would pull her into a big hug and tell her they had the best of everything.

She'd believed him because she wanted to believe him, and perhaps because changing the status quo might have meant having to come with him and live here in the city, she thought guiltily.

"You don't have to do this," Dylan told her. "I can check things out and let you know what I find."

"I've come this far." She walked through the doorway and halted just inside to get her bearings. It was a man's apartment: heavy, dark furniture; a big-screen television set; a state-of-the-art stereo in one corner; a treadmill in the other. Her gaze moved from the big stuff to the little stuff: the pair of tennis shoes kicked halfway under the couch; sunglasses on the counter; a newspaper spread out on the dining room table the way Gary had always spread it out, driving her crazy by never closing one section before opening another right on top of it. Oh, God! She put a hand to her mouth, feeling suddenly sick.

"Are you all right?"

Dylan's voice sounded like he was speaking underwater. The blood pounded through her head so loudly she couldn't hear a thing. She found herself being pushed down onto the couch, her head forced between her knees.

"Breathe," Dylan ordered. "Just take a breath."

She forced some air into her lungs and began to feel better. Embarrassed, she sat up. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"It's all right. I should have cleaned this place up a long time ago. I had the same reaction when I walked in after the funeral. I guess that's why I didn't come back. I should have sent the cleaning lady in. The dust is an inch thick." He got up from the couch and dug his hands into his pockets as he walked toward the window.

She was grateful for the chance to regroup. "It wasn't your responsibility, it was mine. But the apartment was never a part of my life. After Gary's death, I forgot about it." She picked up a childish drawing from the coffee table, Wesley's birthday card to his father. The words
I love you, Daddy
were scrawled across the page. Rachel's heart broke just a bit more. "What am I doing here?" she murmured, a tiny sob escaping her throat. "A man who saves a little boy's cards doesn't kill himself."

Dylan turned around at her words. "Why don't I pack everything up and send it to you? You can go through the boxes when you're ready."

She stood up, thinking that was a good plan, although she didn't quite trust the expression on Dylan's face. He seemed uneasy. Of course, after her reactions, almost fainting, then getting soppy over a silly card, he probably wasn't sure what she would do next.

"Won't it be hard on you?" she asked, instead of saying yes.

Dylan shrugged. "I can handle it." He cast a quick glance toward the bedroom door,
then
looked back at her. "I'll walk you out."

"Maybe I should check the bedroom." It wasn't what she meant to say; it wasn't even what she wanted to do, but once the words were out, she couldn't take them back. So she walked into the bedroom, telling herself with each step that it would be fine. There were no monsters here. This was just a place where Gary stayed during the week. No big deal.

The bed wasn't made, no surprise there. The half-open closet door revealed a pile of dirty laundry in a hamper, suits and shirts hanging from the rack. They were Gary's work clothes, his architect clothes, not the comfortable Dockers and polo shirts he wore at home. She began to breathe more easily as she looked around the room. These were her husband's things. True, she didn't recognize many of them, but so what? That didn't mean anything.

"Are you done?" Dylan asked from the doorway.

"Yes." But as she turned, her gaze caught on the dresser, on a strangely-shaped glass bottle. It drew her like a moth to a flame. She knew it was perfume before she crossed the room. She knew it wasn't her perfume before she reached the dresser. But she didn't know the bottle was only half full until she picked it up. "Oh, God!" she whispered as she turned around to face Dylan. "Who does this belong to?"

His face grew so tight she wasn't sure he could answer even if he wanted to. It quickly became apparent that he didn't want to.

"Gary always said you were an honorable man, someone he could trust. Does that also mean you would keep his secrets?" she asked.

"Don't do this, Rachel."

"Was he having an affair?" She put a hand to her heart as her voice filled with the doubt she'd been trying to suppress. "Oh, my God, was my husband cheating on me?"

Dylan's breath stalled in his chest at the look in Rachel's shocked eyes. A dozen answers came to his mind, but it wouldn't matter what he said. She was too caught up in some unspeakable scenario of betrayal that her imagination had conjured up. Despite the fact that his own stomach had taken a nosedive a second ago, he couldn't let her go in that direction.

"Stop it," he ordered. "Just stop it. You jumped about a million miles in logic. There's a perfume bottle sitting on a dresser. So what?"

"So what?" she echoed in disbelief. "It's not mine. That's so what."

"Maybe it belonged to a client."

"What kind of a client? Why would Gary be holding business meetings in his apartment?"

"I don't know, but neither do you. Think for a second. We don't know who left the perfume bottle here. We don't," he repeated when she opened her mouth to argue. "It could be perfectly innocent. In fact, I'm sure it is innocent. And you should be sure, too."

"You're right. I should be sure. I am sure," she added, deliberately raising her voice. "I knew my husband. I knew him. I did."

She was trying to sound convinced and was failing abominably. Dylan didn't know what to say. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to defend his friend. He wanted... Hell, he wanted everything to be the way it had been. No, that wasn't even true. The way it had been hadn't been right either, but it had been better than this. Anything was better than this.