Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel (25 page)

He picked up the phone. “Yeah.” His glance shifted from the wall to Gillian, standing in the doorway watching. “Yes, Bert. Uh-huh. Which judge? Yes, go on.”

She turned and walked down the hall, pushed her feet into her shoes, and out the front door. She dug in her bag for her cell phone, disgusted to see her hand was shaking. Maybe she’d made a fool of herself again, but this time she wasn’t going to fall apart. She punched in the number from memory.

“Hi, Gill,” Alex said when Gillian identified herself. “You must be psychic. I was going to call you.”

Well, she couldn’t return the compliment about her cousin’s extrasensory powers. Alex in chitchat mode was obviously clueless about the fact that her cousin was walking up the rutted lane that led to the main road back to town center.

“What’s up?” Gillian asked, mimicking Alex’s bright tone. The hell with it. She was tired of leaning on Alex. She’d walk into town. It wouldn’t kill her.

“I wanted to show Duncan around the house where we grew up. Would that be okay?”

“It’s half your house. You don’t have to ask.”

“Well, with you staying in it, I figure you have squatter’s rights.”

Gillian chuckled dutifully, but her stomach felt like she’d snacked on aluminum siding. Her rosy dreams of cooking breakfast and bowling into the sunset with Tom were up in smoke. This was where she’d ended up. A charity case. Squatting in her dead grandparents’ house because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. “I’ll get my own place as soon as I—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. There’s no hurry.”

“Okay. I have to go. I have to clean the rest of my stuff out of our old house.”

There was a small pause. “Do you want me to come help you?”

“Thanks,” she said, feeling a little less alone. “But I’ll be fine.”
And, she realized, she would.

She heard the rumble of a male voice in the background. Alex wasn’t alone.
“I forgot—you called me. What did you want?”

Well, not a ride, now she knew the sexy professor had stayed the night with her cousin. “So, Professor Sexy just dropped by for breakfast.”

From Alex’s laugh, she knew she was blushing. On the spur of the moment, she said, “Let’s get together for dinner one day soon. There are some things I need to tell you.” It was time, as Tom had said, to stand up to trouble. For her, maybe that meant telling Alex about Eric, and trusting her to see the truth.

“Yes. I’d like that.”

Gillian smiled at the quick yes, though there was no one to see her but a crow staring at her greedily from a fence post, obviously hoping she was going to break out food and share. “Great,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

She put her cell phone back in her bag and started trudging. She had a long walk ahead of her.

The sound of a car motoring slowly behind her made Gillian grit her teeth.
Sure enough, she recognized Tom’s dark green Jeep as it edged ahead of her. With a mechanical whir, the passenger-side window rolled down. She didn’t bother turning her head.

“Get in the car.”

She stuck her nose in the air and kept walking.

“Gillian, will you please get in the car?”

Hysterical barking made her turn her head and there was Lester, sandy red head stuck out the window, pink tongue hanging out, doing his best to encourage her. If she weren’t so mad she would have smiled. What kind of cop brought an overgrown mutt to an arrest? But she was mad. Angrier than she’d been in a long time. “No.”

“Don’t make me get out the cuffs.”

“I’m resisting arrest,” she told him. If he wanted to make her life more of a hell than it already was, he was going to have to work harder at it.

She expected more yelling back and forth through the open car window, but she should have remembered his training. The vehicle’s nose jutted in front of her, about six feet from where she stood, blocking her path down the gravel shoulder. He cut the engine and was rounding the back of the SUV before she’d recovered her wits enough to start stalking to the other side of the road. She wasn’t going to run; she wouldn’t give
him so much satisfaction. But she wasn’t going to stand here waiting for him to arrest her, either.

He caught up to her before she made what would be the middle line if this road were important enough for middle-line paint. He spun her around and, to her surprise and shock, pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely. Her squeak of surprise was swallowed by his mouth, but this wasn’t a tender, sweet kiss like she was used to with him—it was full of burning anger.

She had plenty of her own burning anger, however, and it didn’t manifest itself in kissing. She wanted to hurt him.

Since she was trying very hard to cope with her emotions in a more mature way, she restrained the knee that was itching to thump him in the balls and contented herself with putting her palms on his shoulders and shoving.

Tom was about seventeen times stronger than she was, but he let her go as she pushed away from him. With their faces a couple of feet apart, his green eyes still furious and his lips wet from the kiss he’d forced on her, she felt like weeping. Why couldn’t he be the man she wanted him to be?

He crossed his arms, making him appear even tougher and more unapproachable. “Are you going to spend your whole life running away from me every time I make you mad? What kind of future is that?” he bellowed.

Had she stumbled down the lane and into some alternate universe? “You said you’d believe me and you never—”

“I did believe you.” His face was grim, the jaw close to cracking from the tension he was holding there. “I do believe you.”

“But you said—”

“I asked you to explain what a bag of cocaine was doing in your purse. I think you know.”

She blinked. “You don’t think I bought coke for my own personal use?” She had to be absolutely certain about what she was hearing before the bird of hope lodged in her chest took flight.

“I know you don’t do drugs anymore.” His voice gentled and hearing his faith made her knees wobble.

“Then why did you get so mad when you found that stuff in my purse?”

“Because somebody’s setting you up. Possibly both of us. I don’t like it and I want to know why.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that Tom was a possible target as well, but of course it made sense. She swallowed. “Oh, Tom, I’m sorry. I never thought he could hurt you as well.”

“Eric?”

She swallowed, dropped her gaze to the ground, and nodded. “It must be him. I told you he threatened to get me using again. Sneaking that stuff into my purse is his way of letting me know how easily he can get to me.”

Tom put his arm around her and led her back to his vehicle. “He’s got to get through me first.” Lester was so happy to see her, she could have been gone for a week. She hugged the dog, accepting the drool along with the happy, wriggling, hairy body.

She didn’t ask where they were going and was only vaguely surprised when he turned around and took her back to his place.

“We never did get those eggs,” he reminded her. She knew he wanted the whole story of Eric and his drug problem and, with a pang of regret, she knew she was going to give it to him.

Maybe Eric counted too much on her loyalty. Or, hoped to discredit her so thoroughly no one would believe the truth.

She shook her head sadly as she poured more coffee once they were back in Tom’s kitchen. Lester flopped under the table, his big body leaving so little room that she slipped off her shoes and rested them on the warm, soft back. It was comforting to get that warmth in her feet and the press of a loving dog’s coat while she told her unpleasant story.

Lucy stalked in and jumped up on Gillian’s lap. The warm comfort of the animals was exactly what she needed. Tom finished cooking the omelet and she was shaken up enough that she let him. “I’m sorry you got stuck finishing my breakfast.”

“You can cook next time.” It was so matter-of-fact that she had to restrain the urge to fly out of her chair, scooping the cat along with her, and hug him. He still wanted her, still believed her. She hadn’t been wrong. Tom Perkins was a man who’d stand by a woman. He was solid and steady enough to lean on, but somehow in the last few months she felt much less inclined to lean. She was going to make it on her own, but a big granite boulder of a man who believed in her was going to make the standing on her own that much easier.

So she told him. “Eric’s a high-functioning cocaine addict,” she explained to him, quoting the term she’d read in her research.

“How much is he using?”

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t much of a lie. Since they’d stopped living together, she really didn’t know how much he used. “A hell of a lot, though, and it’s been taking most of our money.”

“Is that why you left him?”

She blinked. “The story I heard is that he left me.”

“Because you’re a hopeless drug addict. I warned you I’m slow, but I’m not stupid.”

“Tom Perkins, I love you.”

That earned her one of his sweet smiles. “Back at you. Now get on with your story.” But he stretched his hand across the table and she grasped it.

“I left him because he was seeing another woman.”

“Who?”

“I never found out. I don’t even want to know. She lives in L.A. That’s all I know. I found a pair of panties that weren’t mine in our bedroom. Then I started looking. He hadn’t even tried to hide the affair. There were credit card receipts for dinners, a bill for lingerie I never got. You know.”

Tom nodded.

“On top of his drug abuse and — the way he treated me — his affair was the last straw. I told him to leave.”

“Must have shocked the hell out of him.”

“Out of both of us. I’ve never been any good on my own, but suddenly I thought, I’m almost thirty—one. Is this what the rest of my life is going to be? So I told him to leave.” She glanced across the table. “Do you really love me?”

“Till death do us part. Did he try to get you back?”

“Briefly. When he came to tell me we had to sell the house and I was going to have to move, I got mad. I knew he’d spent all the money on drugs and I lost it. Which was stupid, because I could see he was high and he had a crazy look in his eyes. Anyhow, he hit me. It was the first time he ever did that. When I tried to run, he came after me and pushed me out of the house so I fell down the cement stairs.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It made me realize my sorry excuse for a marriage was completely over.”

Tom placed her omelet in front of her, and one at his own place, then sat. On her plate was an omelet approximately the size of a space ship. His was even bigger. She dug in, thinking she was going to have to remember he had a big appetite.

“What do you know about his supplier?”

Her fork jabbed into the eggs. “Nothing. There was a guy who called at the house a couple of times.”

“Would you recognize a photograph of this man?” Tom posed the question casually, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d kept up with the media on the recent murder.

She put down her fork. “You think Eric had something to do with that man’s murder?”

“It makes sense. The guy’s got drugs. Eric needs them but doesn’t have the money. They argue. A gun gets involved. The dealer winds up dead. Eric has the keys to city hall.”

She felt as though the eggs were crawling back up her throat. “Why would Eric implicate himself by putting the body near city hall?”

“Who knows?” Tom shrugged powerful shoulders. His omelet, she noticed with a certain detached awe, was half gone. “Maybe he was so whacked he didn’t know what he was doing.”

She tried again. “Eric wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“They said that about Ted Bundy. I think maybe I should have a little talk with Eric when he gets back from his business trip.”

She heard the cheerful tick of the kitchen clock. Beneath her feet, Lester’s flank rose and fell in a contented sigh, almost drowned out by Lucy’s purring. She didn’t want to say the next words, but she had to. “Eric couldn’t have killed that man. He was with me that night.”

The line sounded like it came straight from one of those black-and-white movies, but corny or not, it got Tom’s attention and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

“Are you still trying to protect the bastard or is that the truth?”

“It’s the truth,” she said, wishing it weren’t. She hastened to explain.

“He showed up at the house that night. He was sneezing and his nose was all red so I knew—”

“My God. The allergies.”

“The only thing Eric’s allergic to is a twelve-step program.”

“It’s been hell for you, hasn’t it?”

After a moment, she nodded.

“So he showed up high.”

“Yes. I think he’d been drinking, too. He was rambling. He droned on about Grandpa’s will, and what did I know about it. I got the feeling he was desperate for money and grasping at straws. Grandpa’s estate was split between Alex and me and we’re not going to get rich off it. And it will be months before it’s all sorted out.”

“What time did he arrive?”

She thought back. “Around ten, I think ”

“Then what happened?” This felt altogether too much like an interrogation but it was happening on two levels simultaneously. Sergeant Perkins wanted to know about timing and the actions of a possible murder suspect. But, while the calm, detached voice was that of a police officer, the eyes burning with intent belonged to Tom. He was jealous of her former husband.

“Like I said, he wasn’t himself. He talked about getting back together, and about us moving into my grandfather’s house.”

“And then what?”

“And then he passed out. I know I should have kicked him out, but I put a blanket over him and left him on the couch.”

“The M.E. put the time of death at between midnight and two A.M. Are you sure he didn’t leave the couch?”

“Positive. When he’s been drinking, he snores. I couldn’t sleep with the noise even though I was in my bedroom with the door closed. I could have used my earplugs, which I did when we were living together, but—”

“But what?”

She stopped eating and pushed her plate away. “I wanted to hear him if he tried to come in the bedroom.”

Tom nodded and she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He wasn’t enjoying thinking about that night any more than she was thrilled to be telling it.

“I was upset, too. Riled up about everything so I couldn’t sleep. I read until around three and then I dozed for a while. About five I heard him leave.”

“He left at five in the morning?”

“He wouldn’t want the neighbors seeing him and I suppose he wanted to get back to his place and shower and change for work.”

Tom, whose plate was cleaner than bleached bone, seemed to be taking a short mental health break. He gazed out the kitchen window, a faraway expression on his face. He didn’t fidget or tap, simply sat there with his body and mind clearly in different places.

Gillian rose and cleared off the table but he didn’t seem to notice.

She scraped a good chunk of her breakfast into Lester’s dish, figuring that living with Tom, the dog probably didn’t get a lot of table scraps. Then she put the dishes in the dishwasher and mopped the counters.

Tom rose, suddenly back in the present. “What are your plans for the day?” he asked.

“I’m going to finish getting my stuff out of the house.”

“You’re not going in there alone,” he said, and she glanced up, startled at his fierce tone. “I’ve got to go into work today. I’ll give you a hand when I get off shift.”

She kissed him. “Eric’s out of town and I’ve got my cell phone. I’ll be fine.”

He drove her back to her grandpa’s house and then took his time kissing her good-bye. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said when they were both breathing heavily.

“Yes.” Tonight and every night.