Sunset Hearts (24 page)

Not like he’d thrown her away. And God knew she’d tried, countless times, even going so far as to toss them into the garbage but she’d immediately retrieved them.

It hurt less to hang onto them. One day she’d be strong enough to get rid of them.

She’d always known Jerald’s first loyalty was to Alan, but she’d never thought he would turn on her like this. Not after what they’d all shared together. Not after he’d told her he loved her.

Not after he’d promised.

The logical part of her brain tried to whisper that Jerald thought he was doing the right thing. That part of her mind always tried to defend him. Tried to tell her not to be mad at him. Tried to talk her into opening the letters and reading them.

It couldn’t shout down the part of her heart that hurt like hell and cried over being tossed out without discussion.

Abandoned.

Lied to.

She’d never forget how cold he acted, staring at the floor, sending her away without a second thought.

He could have at least talked with her about it, worked out a way she could have seen or talked to them. Something. Anything. Couldn’t he?

Not…this.

And always in Jerald’s neat and tidy handwriting. Never Alan’s. Didn’t Alan even care? Maybe being shot had scared him enough to go along with Jerald’s plan. Or maybe he was mad at her for getting him shot in the first place.

Not that she could blame him.

She knew Alan was okay because she’d asked the agents to keep her posted on his progress. She knew he’d been discharged from the hospital after two weeks and had made a full recovery.

She didn’t keep track of time, other than Fridays. She tried to finish her current crop of Sudoku magazines to coincide with a Friday so she didn’t run out. They moved her frequently. She never asked where they were going.

She didn’t care. She could have been in Tampa or Miami or even the other side of the country for all she knew.

It didn’t matter to her.

She sometimes met with the prosecutors several times a week at the motel while they prepared the case. Then there would be a stretch of a month or more when she didn’t see anyone but the marshals watching her. She suspected Special Agent Williams worried about her because she didn’t fight, didn’t bristle against the confinement, never asked to go anywhere. Never asked for anything other than her Sudoku magazines and basic necessities like toiletries. She ate whatever they brought her without complaint.

Five months after she’d been taken into custody, Special Agent Williams asked to speak with her alone for a few minutes one morning when he came to check on her.

He did most of the talking.

“Would you like me to bring in a counselor to talk with you? A chaplain? Anyone?”

“No, thank you,” she softly replied.

He stared at her. “Ms. Peres, I have to say I’m worried about you.”

She didn’t respond.

He forged on. “Most people go stir crazy by the end of the first week. You haven’t even asked for a special meal. Can’t we get you something to make this easier on you? Do anything for you? I mean, we can’t take you to Disney, but do you want books or movies or anything?”

She thought for a moment, then softly said, “If you want, you could get me one of those little hand-held Sudoku games. I saw them at Wal-Mart once. They’re pretty cheap. Then you wouldn’t have to keep buying me the Sudoku magazines.”

He laughed. “I could get you a Wii by the end of the day if you asked for it. I can get you a laptop, but I can’t let you have email access.”

She stood to return to the bedroom. They always got hotel rooms with a separate bedroom suite so she could sleep while someone stood guard outside. “No, thank you,” she softly said. “The only thing I ever really wanted, Paulie took it from me. My family’s gone. No one can give me that back.” She closed the bedroom door behind her, lay down on the bed, and cried.

She cried for the love she’d had with the men. Her home, however brief, she’d had. Her shattered dreams.

She buried her head under the pillow and sobbed as she tried to forget being safely snuggled between her two men, feeling loved and safe and secure.

Remembered how Alan had saved her that first morning when she escaped from Paulie’s boat.

Remembered the possessive, hungry fire in Jerald’s eyes the first night they all made love.

Then the pain as she remembered Jerald’s stony façade when he handed her over.

These memories and a thousand others swamped her. She sobbed until she cried herself to sleep.

* * * *

The next morning, Williams returned with a middle-aged man who wore a suit and U.S. Marshal ID badge.

“Ms. Peres,” Williams said, “this is Dr. Kennings. He’s our staff psychologist working out of our field office. He asked if he could spend a little time with you.”

She hated the condescending tone in Williams’ voice even though she knew he didn’t mean to come off sounding that way. He talked to her like you might talk to a child who’d climbed up on something dangerous, coaxing them down while trying not to alarm them.

Williams left them alone. She answered some of Kennings’ questions at first, then shut down. His questions came too close to making her think. Finally, she’d had enough. “Dr. Kennings,” she quietly said, “I appreciate your concern. I just want this trial over so I can figure out what to do with my life. I have no home. All I own in is a storage unit in Orlando and here in this room. This is my life.”

“Well, we could put you permanently into the witness protection program when this is over. Give you a new start somewhere. Has anyone mentioned that to you?”

She hadn’t considered that. “Anywhere?”

“Within reason.” He smiled. “They won’t send you to Hawaii or the Cayman Islands, but we could certainly give you a few choices. Get you a new identity and a job and a place to live.”

A new start.

“Could they send me to Wyoming?”

“I don’t see why not.”

He remained silent while she thought about it. “What do I have to do?”

* * * *

Alan and Jerald couldn’t be in the courtroom because they were witnesses. They sat in the heavily guarded witness room, longing for a glimpse of Daphne, but they didn’t spot her. After their testimony, the federal prosecutor came in to talk with them at recess. “You can go home. If we need you to come back, we’ll call.”

Jerald’s desperation mounted. “Can’t we see Daphne? Please?”

“She’s not here today. She won’t be testifying until next week.”

“Oh.”

Alan tried to talk to Jerald on the way home, but he slumped in the passenger seat and stewed while Alan drove. They watched cable coverage of her testifying. Jerald taped it and watched it over and over again, way into the night, even though they never showed her face to protect her identity. All they could do was hear her voice.

She sounded so quiet.

Sad.

It killed him he couldn’t see her. He wanted to reach through the screen and hold her.

The TV went dark. Alan stood there with the remote. “Come to bed, tough guy. This isn’t doing you any good.”

The next Tuesday, Jerald’s cell rang from a number he didn’t recognize. Alan was out on a charter.

“It’s Special Agent Williams. Ms. Peres’ last day of testimony is tomorrow.”

“Then we can come get her?”

He didn’t reply at first. “She’s entering the witness protection program.”

He felt the breath socked out of him. “What?”

“A few months ago, she requested to be put into the witness protection program after the trial. Between you and me, there’s something seriously wrong with her. Emotionally. I raised three daughters. If I didn’t know any better, Mr. Carter, I’d say her heart’s been broken.”

Jerald realized he was squeezing his phone. He relaxed his grip before he broke it. “We won’t be able to see her again?”

Another pause. “I will meet you and Mr. Walker and escort you back to a secure witness room so you can have a few minutes with her. You won’t be able to be alone, I’ll have an armed agent with her. It’s against protocol, and I damn sure wouldn’t do it for anyone else, but maybe if you can talk to her it will help her and you both.” He told him when and where to meet him, and when Williams hung up, Jerald tried to get the nasty feeling out of his stomach.

She wasn’t coming back.

Ever.

* * * *

When Alan returned home a little after six, he immediately asked what was wrong. Jerald broke down crying and told him.

Alan held him. “It’s okay. I’ll cancel tomorrow’s charter and we’ll go. Maybe we can talk her into changing her mind.”

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t forced her into protective custody, she wouldn’t be mad at me. She wouldn’t be leaving us.”

“You did what you had to do to keep her safe.” He rocked Jerald in his arms. Since they’d lost her, Alan had witnessed the change in his lover. Gone was the sure and steady rock. Every day, Jerald’s pain and guilt radiated from him, never improving. As much as Alan loved and missed her, he had to focus on Jerald and trying to get him to forgive himself.

“Maybe if I leave, maybe she’d come back to you,” Jerald quietly said.

Alan angrily held him at arm’s length. “You think I’m fucking letting you go anywhere, think again. I love you. I loved you before we met her, and I love you now. No matter what. You quit that shit right now.”

The next morning, they drove to the federal courthouse in Tampa and met Williams. He led them through security and into a witness room where an armed marshal stood guard. “This is all the privacy I can give you,” he said, nodding to the guard. “You can have ten minutes with her. If she decides she doesn’t want to go into the program after all, she can go home with you, if she wants. It’s up to her.”

“Thank you,” Alan said.

Jerald nervously paced. Alan knew he was probably practicing a thousand different lines in his head that he wanted to say.

All Alan wanted was to tell her he loved her.

An hour later, they heard the door open and a bailiff led her in. She looked up, obviously startled to see them.

The bailiff stepped out and closed the door as she silently stood there and stared at them.

Alan didn’t know what to say, it turned out.

Jerald beat him to it. “Hi, honey.” Alan hated the forced joviality in the other man’s voice, that he tried so hard when the stiff set of her body language told Alan all he needed to hear.

She was leaving. In her mind, she’d already gone, only her body still stood there. Her heart was a million uncrossable miles from them.

“Sweetie,” Jerald said, “we love you so much. We’ve missed you, and I’m so sorry. Please, don’t leave us! Come home with us!”

She stared at them, not speaking.

Alan couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped over to Jerald’s side and put his hand on his shoulder. “Stop,” he softly said. “She’s going. She won’t change her mind. She won’t stay.” He couldn’t hold back his anger. “We’ve spent the last seven months missing you like fucking crazy. Then Williams tells us you signed the paperwork to go into witness protection months ago. If our love isn’t enough to keep you here, the least you could have done was have the balls to send us a message so we could move on with our lives instead of keeping us hanging and waiting for you like this.”

Daphne gasped, shocked by Alan’s anger as much as by his words. “I—”

He cut her off. “No. We love you, and we’d do anything for you including giving you up so you wouldn’t get killed. Then we have to find out from the fucking marshals that you’re leaving after we spent all these months counting the time until you could come home? Thanks a lot. Nice to know we don’t mean anything to you. Were we just a convenient place to hide and you mercy fucked us out of guilt? Was that all we were?”

The fury in his usually sweet brown eyes, the ones she’d dreamed about for so many months, crumpled her heart. “I do love you,” she whispered.

Jerald’s composure snapped. He sank to his knees as Alan kept a steadying arm around him. “Please,” the large man sobbed, “if you hate me so much, I’ll leave if it means you’ll stay with him at least.”

She couldn’t process this. This couldn’t be Jerald, the cold, emotionless man she’d demonized as well as loved and missed for all these months. Or her sweet, gentle Alan. She watched as Alan knelt and protectively wrapped his arms around Jerald and held him while the larger man cried.

“If this is what you wanted to see,” Alan angrily said, “then I hope it lived up to your expectations. I knew this was a bad idea. I never should have let him come today. But maybe now he can let you go. I hoped you’d come back, but honestly? I had a bad feeling a few months ago when we never heard anything from you that you wouldn’t want to come back. I just wish you’d said something before now to spare him this. Did you want revenge for him sending you into protective custody?”

She stepped forward, reaching for them, her men. They still wanted her!