Redemption (10 page)

He couldn’t help coming back to Suzanne, but this didn’t fit her. Suzanne was out for Suzanne, and wouldn’t hesitate to squash whoever got in her way, he was proof of that. But why go after Charles Stewart? And to take the body? That confused him even more. “If you want to go back to Luke’s we can.”

She sniffed and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. Again he was reminded of that lost little girl. “No,” she said. “I want to go out to eat. For an hour, I want to be normal.”

“Fair enough.” He turned off the ignition and climbed out of the truck, intent on giving her one hour of normalcy. It’d been a long time since he’d experienced normal himself.

Eclectic shops, trendy boutiques and fashionable restaurants lined the street, bringing with it a wealth of people from all walks of life. Passing one of the restaurants, John had to sidestep a couple that had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. The woman, a tall brunette, clung to the arm of a blond man dressed in a business suit.

As John skirted them to avoid a collision, Hope slowed. Curious, he glanced at her as she came to a sudden stop. Her face drained of color, her lips turning a sickly gray as her eyes took on a haunted look.

The man had stopped as well and stared at her with pinched lips and narrowed eyes.

“Hope?” John moved in closer, partially blocking her from the other man.

Hope’s cold hand found his and squeezed. The brunette tugged impatiently on the other man’s arm.

“Hello, Hope,” the man said.

Hope wanted to close her eyes, to will a hole to appear in the sidewalk and whisk her away. Even John’s presence didn’t reassure her. The brunette gave Hope a slow once-over, her gaze assessing, calculating, until it landed on her stomach, then she looked away as if dismissing Hope as any sort of competition. John moved in closer. All she had to do was tell him to get her out of here and he’d take her away. So why didn’t she do it?

She licked dry lips. “Jerry.”

His blond hair glinted in the sunlight, but lacked the warmth of John’s. His brown eyes looked her over, carefully avoiding her rounded belly. She knew him well enough to know he was waiting for her next move, probably wondering if she’d accuse him of something nefarious, like neglect. Or abandonment.

“How’ve you been, Hope?” His voice was smooth, cool. Elegant. It was what had attracted her in the first place. His suave demeanor had only added to the appeal. But this time his voice grated. And the words struck a pain deep inside.

“We’re doing well, Jerry. Thanks for asking.” She emphasized the “we” by putting a hand on her belly. His eyes remained steady on hers, as if not seeing the telltale signs meant the baby wasn’t there. Well, he had another think coming. The baby was here, alive and well. As if to prove her point, it stretched, then kicked.

He tilted his head toward her. “Glad to hear it.”

“Are you?” The words were out before she could bite her tongue.

John shifted, his arm brushing hers.

Something passed through Jerry’s eyes. Anger. Accusation. Suddenly she felt drained. And even worse, hurt. It’d been months but the pain wouldn’t go away and she wished it was one of the things that had stayed locked in her mind.

“Yes, we’re doing very well.” She could tell the use of the plural irritated him and she found satisfaction in that.

The woman next to him shifted. Hope held her hand out to her. “I’m Hope Stewart,” she said, her gaze sliding to Jerry. “An old friend of Jerry’s.” Let him sweat it out. Let him wonder what she’d say next. Hope was a little surprised at herself. This was a new side to her, a stronger side she’d never seen before. It could have been John’s presence that gave her strength but she believed it was more than that.

It was watching her father die. It was taking control and driving hundreds of miles in search of the elusive John Callahan. It was fighting amnesia and coming out the winner and it was the realization that no matter what Jerry had done to her, she had survived so much more.

For a moment, Jerry’s companion stared at her hand as if she didn’t quite know what to do with it. Then she shook it limply. “Celia,” she murmured, then looked away as if she couldn’t be bothered.

Hope smiled at Jerry. His face tightened, then relaxed into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. She could have sworn she saw relief there.

Her smile widened as she turned to Celia. “I’ve known Jerry for some time. You ever need to know his deep, dark secrets, you just give me a call.”

Jerry cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders in his expensive camel-haired coat. “Well, then.” He was all false bravado, flashing that killer smile with the dimples that had drawn her to him. “It was nice seeing you.” He nodded to Hope, then John, placed a hand on Celia’s back and started to walk away.

“Jerry, wait,” she called after him. He hesitated before turning around. The smile was back in place, a little strained around the edges. “John and I were just about to eat lunch. Why don’t you and Celia join us?”

She waited for his answer, enjoying the way he squirmed beneath the tailored suit and thinly disguised veneer of politeness. “Celia and I just ate. Maybe some other time.”

Like when hell freezes over. “Sure.”

Jerry hurried Celia down the street. Hope watched him go, the little imp that had egged him on deserting her.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” John said.

She shrugged and walked toward the restaurant, suddenly ravenous and craving something with lots of garlic. John fell into step beside her with the good grace not to ask questions. But she knew they were coming, just as she knew she would answer them, dragging out every bit of humiliation that would come with the answers.

“Okay, out with it. Who’s Jerry?”

Hope placed her napkin on her lap, taking the time to smooth out all the wrinkles, then play with a frayed edge. The restaurant was a throwback to the seventies and not at all something she would associate with DC. But she liked the red fake-leather booths with the checkered linen tablecloths and the empty bottles of wine with candles stuck in them. It reminded her of that Billy Joel song that started with “bottle of white, bottle of red”.

“Hope.”

She sighed and shifted her attention to the silverware, turning the fork over and over. “He’s Jerry Kemper.”

“Never heard of him.”

She pursed her lips to keep from smiling. “He’d hate to hear that. He’s a rising star in the political arena. Or so he likes to think.”

John picked up his glass of wine and took a sip. Hope had ordered water with lemon but hers sat untouched. “Who is he to you?”

Her smile faltered, then faded. “He’s…” She’d known talking about this would be difficult, but not nearly this difficult. Obviously, John knew she was pregnant and the father was out of the picture, but telling the whole sordid, ugly tale was a different story. “He’s the sperm donor.” She watched for John’s reaction from beneath half-lowered lids.

He settled back in his chair, his face devoid of expression. “Ah.”

Ah? That was it?
Ah?

“If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t.”

Her relief was tremendous. But with the reprieve came something else. A need to tell John, to explain. Maybe in the explaining she would understand better. “He’s obviously not in the picture anymore. H-he wanted me to abort it.” Just saying the words made her feel tainted and the humiliation more acute. Not for the first time she wondered how she could not only have fallen for a man like Jerry Kemper but entertained grand ideas of marriage and a house filled with love and laughter.

John’s fingers tightened around the stem of his wineglass. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“It’d never been an option.” Even if it hadn’t been against her religion, it went against her own sense of right and wrong.

“How’d he take that news?”

“Not well.”

“I can imagine for an aspiring politician, a child out of wedlock would not be welcome.”

She placed a protective hand over her baby, anger rising at the thought that to its father, this baby was nothing but an inconvenience. A liability. “We met at a bar. That should have told me something right there. I don’t normally go to bars but Danny had wanted to listen to this hot new band and I was tired of sitting at home on a Friday night grading papers.” Geez, how pathetic did that sound? What a loser.

The waiter arrived with a bowl of bread and John reached for a piece. She watched as he tore it apart, then dipped it in olive oil, not seeing the scars on his hand, but the strength. Next to John, she wondered what she’d seen in Jerry.

“He’s a good-looking guy,” John said. “And I can see where he’d be—” He waved his piece of bread in the air, obviously searching for a word.

“Manipulative,” she supplied.

He grinned and her heart did a little flip. She’d never seen him grin like that. He’d laughed before, but there’d always been a cynical edge to it, nothing like this relaxed smile that brightened his eyes. “I was going for something like compelling.”

“Maybe at first,” she admitted. “He is attractive.”

John’s face tightened and for a split second she wondered if he might be jealous before she dismissed the thought. He’d done nothing but pull away from her, no way could he be jealous.

“But he’s also manipulative. Comes with the territory, I guess. It’s all about being a politician.”

“So, he found out you were pregnant and wanted nothing to do with the baby.”

Her gaze dropped to the table, the words driving a hole through her. “That about sums it up.” What an idiot she’d been to believe his smooth words, his practiced touches that set her on fire.

“He’s a jerk.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’m partially responsible. I believed the lies.”

“No, Hope.” John’s look was serious, the smile long gone. “He’s a jerk not to see the beauty and the goodness in front of him. To throw it all away on a cold fish like Celia.”

She laughed despite the tears burning the back of her eyes, a little stunned at the vehemence in John’s words. “I’m not all that good.”

John opened his mouth to say something but their food arrived and the conversation ended.

The silence allowed her to think, and as always, her thoughts went to her father. At times, she managed to keep the deep grief at bay, stuffing it down inside, but other times it caught her off guard. Like now. Her dad would like the restaurant John chose. And he would like John. Of course, he’d sent her to John so that was endorsement enough in her mind.

“Tell me how you knew my father,” she said between bites.

John pushed his empty plate away. “I didn’t. We worked for Suzanne, like I said, but we’d never met. That’s why I’m confused as to why he sent you to me.”

She tilted her head and stared at him. He looked relaxed and the look suited him but she doubted he wore it often. He had secrets and a sorrow that went bone-deep. Something that had to do with Angelina. She wanted to hear the whole story but knew it would take a lot of prodding and nagging and by doing so, she’d risk pushing him away. “He was adamant you would protect me and my baby. Maybe he’d heard of you through the Carmichaels.”

“Maybe.” He crossed his arms on the table and she knew by the look on his face that the conversation was over.

Angelina and Suzanne Carmichael. What had the two women done to him?

She pushed her half-finished plate of spaghetti away, too stuffed to eat any more. “So what now?” Funny how in the course of a few days she trusted him so much. But then, a lot had happened in the past several days, and he’d never once wavered in his promise to help her, even in the beginning when she suspected he wanted nothing to do with her.

What had he been doing on Christmas Day? The thought nagged at her at weird times. Something didn’t fit. He’d said he wasn’t going to visit family and friends. It was apparent he’d known about the blizzard but hadn’t been prepared. As if he hadn’t planned on being there for it.

Something cold slithered up her spine and she shuddered at the image of his loaded gun sitting on the kitchen table.

“Cold?” he asked.

“No.” She’d always been inquisitive. Sometimes it got her in trouble. Sometimes not. This was one of those times when it probably would. John Callahan was tightlipped about himself and wouldn’t welcome questions from her. But still, she wondered.

The waiter came with the bill and John handed him his credit card. “Now we go back to Luke’s,” he said, answering her earlier question. “We go over that night again. Go over any enemies your father may have had. We pick everything apart and put it back together until we figure this thing out.”

She nodded, not looking forward to any of it, but knowing it needed to be done.

She didn’t wait until they got back to the brownstone. “I’ve thought about it and thought about it, but can’t come up with anyone Dad would have made angry enough to want to kill him.”

John maneuvered the truck through the streets of D.C. with ease, in direct contrast to the mountain man she’d first encountered. If he’d been an operative for Suzanne, he’d probably been a darn good one with his chameleon-like tendencies to blend in. Since arriving in the capital, he’d changed from the worn jeans and flannel shirts over Tshirts into khaki dress pants and stylish shirts. Today he wore a warm brown mock turtleneck that revealed a well-sculpted body.

“What’d he do after the Carmichaels’ fall from grace?” he asked, sliding to a smooth stop at a red light.

“He’d been devastated. His career was ruined, his good name trashed. He hadn’t known about the arms deal Suzanne had made or Bradley’s partnership with the Saudi prince.”

John’s hands tightened on the wheel. A tick set up in his jaw and his ruddy complexion faded a bit.

There was something there. Something that had to do with the deal Bradley Carmichael had struck with the Saudi prince to raise the price of oil and line their pockets. Or it could be with Suzanne Carmichael selling arms. Hope tried to remember the specifics, but she hadn’t paid much attention at the time, more concerned with her father than with a woman who could do something so horrendous to her country. It had something to do with terrorists in Asia. Or was it South America?

“That had to have been quite a blow,” John said as he turned a corner. “Anyone who had anything to do with the Carmichaels either jumped ship or sank with them.”

“Unfortunately, Dad sank. I think he was as stunned as the rest of the country at the depth of the Carmichaels’ treason. Even though Dad never cared for Suzanne, he and Mr. Carmichael had been friends for years.”

“Why didn’t he like Suzanne?”

Hope shrugged and shifted in her seat to ease her aching back. It was becoming more and more difficult to find a comfortable position. “He never said. He didn’t like to bring work problems home with him. And by the time this all happened, I was living on my own.”

“Did he have friends? People who will notice his absence?”

“Unfortunately, probably not. After Suzanne’s sentencing, he’d fallen into a semi-depression, rarely left the house, lost touch with the friends who hadn’t turned against him.” It’d been devastating to watch and worse not to be able to help. He’d always been adamant about not dumping his problems on her. That had been fine when she was thirteen and mourning the death of her mother, but even when she’d become an adult, he’d been tightlipped.

“What did he do for work after that?”

“Not much. He’d take on a case now and then if a neighbor asked. Most didn’t ask, though.”

“And money? What’d he live on?”

“He said he’d invested well, that his investments were paying off. He even sent me to grad school and bought me a car as a graduation gift.”