Winner Take All (38 page)

The day was quiet and drenched with eight o’clock sun. Dale endured the ride in stoic silence. When they pulled into the church parking lot and Dale remained where he was, Marcus wondered if he had made a mistake, bringing this broken man to a black country church. Then he realized Dale’s gaze rested upon the hillside, where the New Horizons headquarters glinted like a polarized tombstone to his own career.

“You okay with all this?”

“I was just thinking,” Dale said. “How hard it is to be so wrong about love.”

Marcus kept his engine running and the car cool. Now that they were here, he felt no urge to move inside. “Do something for me, will you? Think back to the last time you saw Erin. I mean, before New York.”

“When she took Celeste.”

“Tell me about that night.”

Dale looked at him. “Why?”

He understood the man’s desire to avoid the pain of inspecting a running sore. “Kirsten has the feeling maybe there’s an ulterior motive at work. Something we’ve missed up to now.”

Dale turned back to the front windshield. “Erin called and said she was over for another PBS special.”

“You mean, back in the States.”

“She wanted to come down and talk. How could I refuse her? She hadn’t seen her baby in months. We met for dinner. The worst in a long line of bad moves.”

“You did the only thing you could, Dale.”

“She played her charm card. Again. I let myself get taken in. Again.”

“What did you talk about?”

“The usual. Her career. Mine. She wanted to know about the burglary.”

“The what?”

“A couple of guys broke into the house. Didn’t I tell you about this?”

Something niggled at his mind, but Marcus could not bring the pieces together. “It was a week or so before she came down?”

“Five days, maybe six. I caught them in the act. Clocked them with a lamp. Made the papers.” He shrugged. No big deal in the grand scheme. “Erin and I had your normal catch-up kind of talk.”

“What happened after dinner?”

“She drove me home. Like usual when I’d been drinking.” He rubbed his face, pushing the glasses up to his forehead, revealing the white splotches on his temples and the weary creases and the eyes of one already convicted and condemned. “Another major mistake.”

“You passed out?”

“Apparently. I don’t remember. One minute I was on the sofa in the back room, the next I was in bed and the house was on fire.”

“Do you normally lose consciousness when you drink?”

“No. Not usually.”

“Ever?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m just searching, Dale. Do you frequently pass out?”

“Not ever that I recall.”

“What about forgetting events?”

“You’re suggesting Erin drugged me?”

Marcus cut the motor and opened his door. “I don’t know, Dale. I wish I did.”

Outside the car the heat hung thick as fog. Dale wore an old pair of Marcus’ running shoes without socks, a golf shirt, and sweatpants that on Marcus sagged almost to his knees. The simple exertion of crossing the parking lot left Dale sweating so hard the back of his shirt was plastered to his skin. “Are you all right?”

Dale waited until they had stepped inside the air-conditioned coolness to reply, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

Marcus did not have the heart to warn him of just how long a murder investigation and trial could require. He offered Dale his keys. “Go on home if you like, I’ll grab a ride with someone later.”

Dale accepted the keys but staggered toward the sanctuary. A pair of ushers stood by the doors. As soon as Marcus introduced him, the ushers were vying over which hand Dale would shake first. Others were called out from the sanctuary, where the choir and music director were busy warming up the crowd. People saw the gathering by the rear doors and moved close. Dale’s name was passed around. More smiles and hands extended toward the confused man.

When Marcus finally managed to pry him loose, Dale asked, “What was that all about?”

“A lot of families here live off New Horizons paychecks. I should have warned you.”

“But I’ve been fired.”

“They know what you tried to do in there. It means a lot.”

The music and the shouting and the applause did not seem to bother Dale nearly as much as the welcome. When the minister invited the congregation to offer one another Sabbath greetings, Dale shrank inside his own skin. People gave no sign of minding either his manner or his dress. They didn’t turn from him until the next chorus began.

Marcus noticed Omar Dell only after the service ended. The young man wore a collage of dark gray—gabardine suit, slightly darker shirt, finely patterned tie. He worked his way smoothly toward Marcus, doing the easy greetings of one known and liked by many. When he finally stood before Marcus he said, “I’d heard about you hanging with the home crowd.” He motioned to where Dale was trying his best to
reach the outer doors. “But how come you didn’t take him someplace tamer, you know, so he could mellow with the vanillas for Jesus crew?”

“Now is not the time or the place, Omar.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Omar steered them over to the side aisle. “This is what you might call a very private heads-up.”

“Call my office tomorrow.”

“You just hold tight and listen. I’m doing this as a favor to a mutual friend.” He moved in closer still. “Yesterday evening, papers were filed by Health and Human Services, requesting an emergency hearing first thing Monday morning.”

“What about?”

“They aim on declaring Dale Steadman an unfit parent.”

Marcus backed against the wall, but was unable to find a handhold. “That’s insane.”

Omar grinned, satisfied with the impact of his news. “Makes you wonder, don’t it.”

“Dale doesn’t even have possession of the child.”

“Sounds to me like people in the know are trying for another of these end runs around you and your client.” Omar shifted so that he was right in Marcus’ line of sight. “Now you got to promise me, you come up with another headline, you call me first.”

Marcus pushed past the reporter. “I have to find Dale.”

Dale had thought getting outside would bring safety. But the heat formed a thunderous din in his head, worse even than the church’s echoes. He held to a steady gait across the parking lot, though it would have been more comfortable to fall to all fours and crawl. It was not the drinking that left him so devastated. Or at least, not that alone. The church’s welcome had been crippling, a smiling condemnation of everything he had failed to achieve at New Horizons. As if he needed another reminder.

His cell phone pinged as he was opening the passenger door. He had carried it with him constantly since the night. Another symbol of futile hope. Dale waited until he had started the engine and turned the a/c on full before answering. “What now?”

A heavily accented woman’s voice said, “I am calling for a mutual friend.”

The words were enough to push him into high gear. Forget the heat and the hangover and the gripping misery of compounded defeat. “What?”

“Someone connected to you by the one who is now gone.” She spoke with the dull rote of one reading from a page. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“This party, they now have the child.”

“Where are you?”

“Never mind. She is hidden. Make any move, take any action at all, and the child will never be found. Speak one word and all will be lost to you. The party says, they have nothing else to lose.”

“What do you want?”

“Five million dollars.”

“All right.”

“Five million dollars,” the woman repeated. “Or the child disappears.”

“I said I’d pay you.” Marcus appeared at the side door. Dale reached over and hammered down the door lock so hard he ripped the skin. He pressed his palm into the sweatpants to stem the blood. “What do you want me to do?”

“You will stay in North Carolina. They will have you watched. Believe me. They will know.”

Dale turned away from Marcus’ stare. “I understand.”

“The blond one. The troublemaker. You know who I mean?”

“Kirsten Stansted.”

“She will be the go-between.”

“Give me five days.”

“You have forty-eight hours.”

“I can’t get the money—”

The line was dead. Dale cupped the phone to his chest. Took three deep breaths. Then reached over and unlocked the door.

Marcus clambered inside. “What is going on here?”

“Something’s come up.” Dale struggled to bring his heart back under control. “I have to get back to Wilmington.”

“Did you hear about HHS?”

“What?”

“Health and Human Services. They’re lodging a complaint against you.” Marcus pointed at the phone. “Is that what this was all about?”

“Just drive, okay?”

Marcus remained as he was. “It’s vital that you show up for the hearing with Judge Sears tomorrow morning.” When Dale did not respond, he asked again, “What’s going on?”

Dale could not bring himself to meet his attorney’s eye. “Maybe a miracle.”

M
ARCUS DID NOT CALL BACK
until late that afternoon, which meant Kirsten had yet another day for circular condemnation. Not that talking with him helped anything. Every conversation with Marcus became a struggle with herself. And they were growing worse, not better.

She wanted him so bad the hunger seared her chest and turned her bones to kindling for her heart’s flames. For years she had assumed her earlier experience had cauterized all desire, all hope for ever knowing a normal relationship. No question about it. She was terrified of this man.

Now here he was again. Hurriedly Marcus described how it had taken him almost a dozen calls to arrange a meeting with Evelyn Lloyd. Kirsten was to meet her the next morning for the introduction inside the Met. Then he raced through other things he needed her to check on. But his impatience was evident. Hurriedly he concluded that portion, then began spelling out the latest developments. As though only now could they be sorted out, here while she was listening. “Dale agreed to the ransom amount without a quibble. He’s gone down to sell his house and his boat. Apparently a local agent has made a cash offer for the house, the boat, the works.”

“Five million dollars,” she repeated, thinking this was not what she wanted to be talking about. The awareness of where she wanted this conversation to go left her cheeks flaming. No matter they were in the middle of a murder-one case, not to mention a kidnapping and a ransom situation where she was to act as go-between. Her breath seared her nostrils with internal heat.

“It’s going to wipe Dale out, putting this amount together at short notice. Suggesting we get the police involved almost got me fired. Ditto for trying to talk them down. All he can see is, this is the only chance he has of getting his child back.”

“Marcus, we’ve got to talk.”

“What do you call what we’re doing now?”

“No, I mean …” She could not believe this was happening. But the hunger gnawed away at everything. She wanted to talk about what she wanted. Which was him. She wanted to
know
this man. She wanted to brand him with her love. Her impatience to move forward ate at the barriers she had spent years building, the silence and the reserve and the distance and the reasons why she could never love any man.

“Kirsten?”

There was only one way this was going to work. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it was not just true, but
real
. She had to talk. She had to tell him why she battled so against him, and even more, against herself. “Marcus, I have to tell you something.”

He caught the change. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

She wanted to curse him. To rage at him like she should at all men for their macho ways and their ability to hurt and crush and blind. But she couldn’t. Past wounds were no longer enough to bind her. The words rushed out like lava. “Everything I told you about myself is a lie. But that’s not for now. I don’t know if I can ever …”

She stopped to pant, squeezing the receiver so hard her ear felt mashed to a pulp. “I was raped.”

He moaned in the manner of one who did not know he had even breathed, much less spoken.

“I was seventeen. There were three of them. I was drugged. It was on a boat. But that doesn’t matter. After that I went a little crazy. Not right then. Later. But I did. I tried a lot of things, Marcus. None of them worked. Every time I was … with a man, all I saw was the smoke. And the stars.” She knew that would make no sense to him. But the further she went, the less she could say for whom she spoke. “So I stopped caring. I stopped feeling. I stopped everything. It was better that way. Safer. And it worked. Then you came along. And it doesn’t work anymore. I can’t stand this, Marcus. I can’t
stand
it. I can’t keep myself trapped away. I can’t …”

She slammed the phone down. Rose to her feet. Walked from the
bed to the window to the door and back. Passing the mirror over the desk she caught sight of herself.

She was amazed to find her face drenched with tears.

The phone rang. She stared at it. The phone rang seven times. Then stopped. Kirsten could not unlock her chest. Her need for air was a burning fury, almost as strong as her desire to hear him speak to her. About love and healing and comfort and sharing. The phone started ringing again. If she could make her chest move she could reach for the phone. The phone stopped once more.