Tread Softly (18 page)

She paced the library,
head down, while she waited for Rob, her mind like cotton wool, barely
functioning as she dealt with horrible visions of the future.

When
she heard Rob's car in the drive, she answered the door herself. Mutely she
stared at him, unable to control the shaking of her limbs.

Rob stepped forward, taking her by the arm and turning her
back toward the library, only speaking after he had closed the door.
"Cady, don't look like that." He put his arms around her. "We'll
fight them."

"How?"
she croaked, her hands clutching at his shirt front. "You haven't seen the
pictures. They're awful. I'm ashamed to show them to you."

He
set her away from him and looked around the room, seeing the box on the desk.
In two strides he had the pictures in his hands, peering at them in scowling
silence. "Whoever did these was no amateur." Rob ground the words
out, looking up at her with a pronounced pallor on his face. "You must see
that we can't submit to any of their demands. It would be a never-ending cycle
of destruction. Next it would be some other bill that Rafe was interested in,
or something I backed. There would be no end to it. You see that, don't you,
Cady?"

She
nodded in numb affirmation. "What can we do, then?"

Rob
looked at her for a moment, shaking his head. "I need time to think."
He exhaled deeply. "First we need someone we can trust who will watch this
Leacock person. We have to find out whom Leacock is acting for." Rob
looked at her for long moments. "I can think of a few people who would
profit if I went down the tube. Who would stand to do well if Rafe was discredited?"

"Greeley,"
Cady pronounced, straightening. "And I know someone I can trust." She
strode to the door, feeling the blood rise in her face, and pressed the buzzer.

Trock
arrived in short order, and though Cady didn't show him the pictures, she told
him about Todd's phone call and what Rob had suggested they do.

Trock
never took his gaze from her. His face was like a rock, but his eyes took on a
strange fire as he listened to her. "I'll trail him, Mrs. D. I'll know
when he breathes. Don't worry." He turned away, then paused at the door
and turned back. "Is the senator not to know?"

Cady shrugged
and shook her head. "I don't know."

"Let's
see what the three of us can do with this first," Rob advised.

Trock nodded
once and left the room.

Cady promised
Rob she would find any excuse to put Todd off until they could find a way of
undermining him. A few minutes later Rob left. When she had closed the door
after him, Cady leaned against the sturdy oak, feeling her head pound. She
sighed and straightened before going upstairs.

When
the door leading to the back hall crashed open, she stared open-mouthed. Rafe
was standing there like a boxer ready to come out of his corner.

"Damn
it, Cady, what the hell is going on?" His hands opened and closed, his
eyes glittering. "I saw Ardmore's car come out our gate just as I was
coming up the road. What the hell do you mean carrying on like that?"

All
the terror, the pain, the boiling confusion of the past hours erupted from her
mouth. "Don't you speak to me like that! How dare you come on like the
oh-so-moral husband with me? You of all people have no right to criticize
anything I do," she lashed at him, anger throbbing in her ears.

"I'm
your husband," Rafe roared, his body taking on a menacing curve. 

"And
you only remember that when it's convenient to you! How dare you not trust
me!" Cady screamed at him, the frustrations of the evening pouring over
her like hot lava, scorching her good sense. "I don't have to take that
from a philanderer like you, a man who was the star attraction at those parties
at Durra, going from woman to woman," she blurted, knowing she was being
unfair.

Rafe
bared his teeth, seeming to swell in size. His voice was like forged steel plunged
into ice. "Philanderer? That's an archaic word for you, isn't it, lady?
Why don't you say what you mean? You want trust, but you damn well never give
it." He bit off the words and spat them at her like rivets from a gun.

"What
would I trust about you? Should I trust that the first chance you get you would
have another get-together with all your party friends at Durra?" She
lifted her fists and shook them at him.

"You
never gave me a chance to explain about Durra." Rafe's words sliced the
air.

"You
had every chance in the world to tell me about Durra, before and after we were
married." Her trembling yell seemed to echo through the crystal of the
chandelier and dig itself into the very plaster of the walls.

   
"I explained that to you."

  
"No, you excused yourself."

"Now
you had better tell me what Rob Ardmore is doing in my home when I'm not
here." He stepped toward her.

"I'll
tell you nothing." Cady ran to the stairway. Halfway up, she turned to
look down at him. "Nothing, do you hear me? And don't you ever come near
me again. Never." She stumbled on the last stair but kept on running until
she had slammed the bedroom door behind her.

She didn't
bother to turn on the light as she stripped the clothes from her body and
strewed them every which way. She threw herself naked on the bed, the raw
burning of her eyes increasing as the tears bottled up behind them.

She lay there in
the vortex of the nightmare, eyes wide open, wounds fissuring inside her, with
nothing to comfort and soothe the pain.

Sleep
came with the pink-streaked dawn, but the nightmare stayed with her.

*
* *

The next day she was up at seven, after having slept for
only two hours. She heard Rafe moving about in their suite, but she didn't
leave her own room until she was sure he was gone. A long, cold shower didn't
take the puffiness from her face, but the needle-sharp spray helped to bring
her mind out of hiding.

She was on her
second pot of coffee, having ignored the toast and eggs Mrs. Lacey set before
her, when Trock walked into the dining room, the dogs at either side of him.

"I'll
be gone most of the day. I'm taking Graf with me."

"What are
you going to do?" Cady forced the words past numbed lips.

"No plan
yet." Trock turned back to the door after telling Hobo to stay. His back
to her, he added, "Don't worry."

"Thank
you, Trock." Cady felt better. She called Hobo to her and walked outside
to think. She went over and over in her mind what Todd had said to her. How had
Greeley connected up with Todd Leacock? She closed her eyes, picturing their
conversation on the day of the clambake. What had he said? That he'd done some
work for people who worked for Rafe, she recalled as she walked down to the
paddock, Hobo at her heels.

She stopped so
abruptly that the dog at her side whined up at her. Bruno! Would he dare do
this? Wouldn't Emmett balk at anything that might damage his son's political
career? Cady nodded. The answer was an unqualified affirmative. She started
walking again, feeling her mouth compress. Emmett wouldn't cross the street to
save her life, but as long as she was Rafe's spouse, he wouldn't do anything
that would spot her reputation. Emmett would jump off a skyscraper to see that
his son remained a senator. Therefore, Cady thought in bitter amusement, Emmett
would not have had a hand in the blackmail scheme. But would Bruno go it alone
on something like this? Cady nodded again. He had the nerves of a riverboat
gambler. "Bruno." She hissed the name, startling the bull terrier
into whining and rubbing his muzzle against her thigh. Cady patted the animal
absentmindedly. Would Bruno have the gall to cross Emmett in such a way? Yes.
There were enormous sums of money involved if Greeley succeeded in burying the
environmental bill before it reached the floor of the Senate.

"How
do I prove such a thing, Hobo?" she quizzed the whining dog. "How do
I throw a wrench in the works of a plan that would be disastrous to Rafe... to
me... and to our marriage? If they're allowed to get away with this, Hobo,
they'll begin to undermine all the hard-fought battles Rafe has engaged in for
our state." She stopped, clenching her hands in front of her, seeing in
her mind's eye Rafe brought down, disgraced by these men. "No!" she
shouted, making the dog bark. She patted his head. "I'm not going to let
it happen, Hobo. They would pull Rafe apart, just as you were torn apart in pit
fighting. Right now I'm between a rock and a hard place"—Cady hit the palm
of her hand with her fist—"but I will be damned if I'll let these people
destroy Rafe or his ideals."

She paced back
and forth in the meadow surrounding the paddock, racking her brain.
"Stacy. Stacy Lande. I'll talk to her." Cady inhaled, feeling
suddenly lighter as she thought of the secretary in Rafe's office whom she had
hired away from Bruno Trabold at Stacy's own pleading. At first Cady had been
very suspicious of the woman, thinking that she was a plant Bruno had placed
there so he could spy on Cady. Gradually she had come to accept Stacy and
believe her story that she could no longer work for the unscrupulous Bruno
Trabold and still sleep nights. The two women had become close, and Cady
considered her a good friend.

She returned to
the house on the run and called Rafe's office, asking to speak to the
secretary. "Stacy? It's Cady Densmore. Yes, it's been awhile." Cady
took a deep breath. "Stacy, I want you to do a favor for me. I
want..." Cady swallowed. "I want you to tell me more about the Durra
parties. Yes, I know I said it was a dead issue ... Now I need to know some
things. I'd rather not talk about it on the phone. Yes, I know it was a rough
time for you.. .for me, too." Cady gulped. "Stacy, I have it on good
authority that there is a plot to destroy the senator and his work. You'll help
me? Thank you. Yes, Robert's will be fine. One o'clock on Monday."

The
rest of the morning Cady made notes on people she might have alienated while
she was working in Rafe's office. The list wasn't long, but it held more names
than she would have guessed had someone asked her beforehand.

When
Trock returned, a panting Graf at his side, he held a camera out to her.
"I brought this a while back. For a time I was an air photographer in the
Marine Corps. Learned a few things." He paused, his throat working.
"Leacock seems to know many people." He looked down at the dog.
"Graf spotted his enemy... Bruno Trabold. They met on the access road to
the Battle of Manassas Field. It's pretty open there, so I wasn't able to get
too close..." He patted the dog. "But this fellow recognized Trabold
and so did I." He coughed. "Following Todd Leacock hasn't been too
hard. Don't imagine he figured anyone would do that. Got some good pictures of
him and Trabold." He wrinkled his brow, clearing his throat as though
talking made it hurt. "I won't be around here much. I want to see what
Leacock does with his evenings." He took a deep breath. "Can you
stall him?"

Cady nodded,
grim-faced. "I will. I must."

Trock
grunted. "Don't expect to see me until I have more information. The
pictures will be ready tomorrow. I'm developing them myself."

"Thank you,
Trock."

"They won't get away with it, Mrs. D." Track's
voice was flat, but there was a lethal flicker in his opaque eyes.

Rafe called and
left a message with Mrs. Lacey that he would be working late that evening. Cady
was both relieved that she could put off facing him after the row they'd had
the previous evening and fearful that Rafe would be with a beautiful woman who
would take his mind off his hysterical wife. All the pain of rejection that she
had felt prior to Rafe's accident seemed to gather and balloon inside her once
more. Worms of doubt nibbled away at the newfound happiness that she was beginning
to find with her husband.

She
plunged herself, dry-eyed, into the work at hand. She wouldn't allow herself
ever again to become so immobilized by pain that she would retreat into a
cocoon of oblivion. No! She lectured herself. Cady Nesbitt Densmore, you're a
fighter, not a quitter! You can't give in to this! If you had talked to Rafe
all those times before the accident, if you had told him how hurt you were by
the things his family said and did to you, if you had made him talk to you
instead of sending him alone to parties, to socials, then you might never have
felt frozen out of his life. She gritted her teeth, nodding her head jerkily.
Bruno Trabold and Todd Leacock expect you to cave in. Surrender! Concede! Cady
surged to her feet behind the desk, rocking the heavy oak desk chair.
"Rafe didn't quit," she muttered, staring at the oak-paneled walls,
her hands snapping the pencil they held between them. "I won't quit,
either. I'll see them in hell firstf