Memories of Us (24 page)

He sensed Cook and Tick behind him, tensing. What did the investigators think, that he’d attack his former friend? He glowered at Rhett. Better to send him to rot in prison among the very men Rhett had put away.

Eyes closed, Rhett exhaled, a long, pain-filled breath. “I had to.”

The rage tried to consume him and he smothered it under icy calm. “You had to? That’s a bullshit answer, High. What the fuck does that mean?”

“You were too close. I had to do something.”

“Kill Celia, you mean?”

“You don’t understand.” Rhett licked his lips and opened his eyes, wild emotion burning deep in them. “You can’t.”

“You’re right. I sure as hell can’t.”

“McMillian. Stop. Don’t ask him anything else.” Cook clapped his shoulder in a firm grip. Tom shook him off. “He’s not been Mirandized, remember?”

Tom slanted him a contemptuous look. He hadn’t forgotten anything.

“I’ll waive my rights.” Rhett slumped into his chair, bearing a cloak of defeat Tom had never seen on him. “I understand them and I waive them.”

“Why, Rhett?” He ground his teeth together hard enough to send waves of pain radiating down his neck. “Explain it to me.”

Grimacing, Rhett shook his head. His hands rested in his lap, palms up. “All she had to do was give us the baby like she promised.”

“She?” Cook leaned against the doorjamb. “Allison Baker?”

“No. Jessie.” Rhett’s gaze shot to Tom’s. “I didn’t want to hurt her.”

Memories detonated in Tom’s brain, the gaping wound on Jessie’s abdomen, the broken cheekbone, the skin split over it, the paralyzing fear and agony frozen on her face. She’d suffered the most horrific death Tom had seen in almost twenty years of criminal law, and Rhett sat here, saying he hadn’t wanted to hurt her? Tom curled his hands into fists. The fucking bastard.

Cook leaned forward. “Are you saying you killed Jessica Grady?”

“I went with him.” Rhett’s voice lowered to a pained whisper. “I helped him. For Amarie.”

“Him?”

“Amarie?” Tom and Cook spoke together. Cook frowned at him and Tom waved him on.

“Who is ‘him’?” Cook asked.

“Alton Baker.”

“Baker killed Jessica?”

Rhett nodded. Nausea settled in Tom’s gut. “For the baby.”

“We had to have that baby, for Amarie.”

“What do you mean, for Amarie?” Tick asked, his voice firm and quiet.

“They needed the baby for a marrow donor.” Tom pushed out the words. Now he understood, on some level, why Jessie’s baby had been worth so much. To a father, nothing was worth more than a child’s life. He caught Rhett’s pain-filled gaze. “Jessie was Amarie’s birth mother, wasn’t she?”

Rhett nodded again. “We’d graduated law school together, and she’d known Mariah since high school, you knew that. We…all Mariah wanted was a baby. When Jessie found out she was pregnant, Mariah convinced her to give the baby to us.”

“Was Baker Amarie’s father?”

“Yes. When Amarie got sick, when none of the treatments worked, we needed a sibling donor. Our chances were better for a match. Jessie said she’d do it, for a price.”

“Fifty grand.”

Rhett shook his head, a long roll against the back of his chair. “Fifty upfront, paid in installments so it would be easier to hide. Another fifty when she delivered. But then she started asking for more.”

Cook tapped his thumbs on the jamb. “Baker killed her for it.”

“She’d been trying to blackmail him, had a film of them together.”

“Which one of you killed Cicely St. John?”

“He sent someone to do it.” An aggrieved expression twisted Rhett’s face. “That’s how it got fucked up. He didn’t realize it wasn’t Celia.”

“Fucked up?” Fury shot through Tom once more. “She was tortured before she was killed. The bastard strangled her, let her wake up, then slit her throat. You planned for someone to do that to Celia and you call that fucked up? You son of a bitch.”

“Tommy, I had to. You gotta understand that, man.”

Tom clenched his hands, so he wouldn’t wrap them around the other man’s throat. He spun and stalked to the hallway.

“Tom, man, you gotta believe me. I had to save my daughter. I had to.” Rhett’s anguished voice stopped him mid-stride, for a half-second. “I had to!”

“Go to hell, Rhett.”

I love you, Celia.

Frustrated, Celia pushed the pen and notebook with her list of ideas away and rested her elbows on the coffee table. Tom’s declaration bounced around her head, completely killing what little concentration she had left. What was she supposed to do with those words? They frightened her.

She wasn’t good with the whole love thing. Look what had happened with the last man who’d claimed to love her.

Fingers pressed to her closed eyes, she let out a strangled groan. She couldn’t deal, couldn’t handle this right now—

And that was such bullshit. She had to deal with it because this was
Tom
, putting himself out there for her, risking rejection. Because he hadn’t put himself out there for it to happen again, after his divorce, and that more than anything convinced her of the veracity of his avowal.

I love you, Celia.

Oh, Jesus above. He’d put himself out there in the biggest way possible for her.

She was making herself insane. He wasn’t asking her for anything. She could just let it be for now. But worried about being alone without Cicely, and yet wanting to push away the man she loved, keep herself safe—

The man she
loved
?

No way. Loving meant getting hurt, ending up alone.

With a confused moan, she buried her face in her hands. Tears burned at her eyes. His “I love you, Celia” scared her freaking silly because she
couldn’t
just let it be.

“Celia? Are you all right?” Concern laced Tom’s deep voice. He knelt behind her on the carpet and strong hands took her shoulders in an easy grip.

“I’m fine.” She lifted her head and swiped at her damp lashes. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

He shifted her hair to one side and rested his face against her nape. A shudder moved through him as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Cook and Calvert arrested Baker’s accomplice this morning.”

The quiet words sank into her consciousness, along with the tension hanging about him. She spun in his arms. “Who?”

He brushed her hair back and trailed his knuckle along her face. A shaky exhale escaped him. “Rhett.”

Shock stole her breath. She gaped at him, then swallowed hard, trying to get her lungs and brain to work. “What?”

His throat moved and he licked his upper lip. “He confessed when I confronted him.”

She scooted away from him, breaking his easy hold. She pressed her spine against the coffee table. “Rhett High killed my sister.”

“Baker had it done. Rhett knew about it.” Tom looked away, his expression bleak. “He helped Baker kill Jessie.”

“God.” She shoved her hair away from her face, digging her fingers into her scalp. Images tumbled through her brain, the horrific death inflicted on Jessica Grady.
Rhett
had taken part in that? “Why?”

“Because her baby was conceived to be Amarie’s marrow donor.” His raw, audible swallow made her throat hurt. “Jessie got greedy, started asking for more money from Rhett for the child and blackmailing Baker as well. So they went and…took it.”

“Where’s the baby now?” She covered her mouth with both hands as another thought slammed into her. “Did Mariah know?”

“No.” He shook his head, rubbing a thumb along the seam at his thigh. “Baker had one of his lackeys take the baby to Atlanta. Obviously, he had a doctor on the payroll up there. They concocted some story about finding a donor. My bet is they planned to put the baby up for an illegal adoption once the marrow was extracted.”

Another transaction. Another problem to be disposed of.

Like Jessie. Like Cicely.

She closed her eyes, heart aching now for Mariah and Amarie. So many lives destroyed.

Pain nudged at her mind and she instinctively recoiled. That wasn’t her emotion. Her lashes lifted, in time for her to catch a flash of naked agony on his face.

No, not her pain. His. Tom’s hurt and sense of betrayal. His anger and confusion.

Moving on intuition, she bracketed his face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured and leaned forward to feather her mouth over his, to smooth kisses along his jaw. “So sorry. I know he was your friend, how much this has to hurt you.”

His arms came around her with crushing force, clutching her to him as though he feared she’d disappear if he let her go. Celia buried her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder and sucked in a deep breath, fortifying herself. “I love you, Tom.”

He froze but she sensed the relieved shudder that traveled through him.

“I can’t make you forget any of this, Cee,” he whispered into her hair. “Not what happened to Cicely, what Rhett did, but I can promise you new memories, good memories, baby.”

“Memories of us.” She trailed a hand down his back, a touch of connection and comfort rather than desire, a connection she felt all the way to her soul. “For both of us.”

He held on tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby. I know she was all you had—”

“I have you.” She murmured the words against his throat, and when he pressed his face to her temple, she felt the dampness of tears on her skin. “I just didn’t know how much I needed you.”

“I’ll always be here for you. As long as you need me.”

She leaned back and tilted her face so their gazes met. “It could take a long time to make those memories, McMillian. A lifetime, maybe.”

“Definitely a lifetime, if that’s what you want, Celia.” He cupped her face, catching her tears on his thumbs and rubbing the moisture away. Frustration twisted his mouth. “Damn it all, I have to go to the sheriff’s department. Tick is going to make a statement to the press and I want to be there. I wish I could stay with you and be—”

“It’s okay.” She smiled, although her lips trembled, the same sense of connection and comfort unfurling between them. “I’ll come with you.”

“I’m going to put them away, both of them, baby, for as long as I can, for what they did. I swear it to you.”

“I know you will. You’re a tough son of a bitch.” She lifted his hand, brushed her lips across the inside of his wrist. “That’s what I love about you most.”

“I’m really sorry.” Cook spoke somewhere over her head.

She straightened and handed the hose off to a waiting deputy, also a fellow victim. She brushed wet hair from her face and fixed a decidedly unrepentant Mark Cook with a glare. “Sure you are. Just wait. I’m going to pay Calvert off so I can hold the canister when you have to do this.”

“I’m good for two more years.” With a smug grin, he folded his arms.

She narrowed her eyes at him but squashed the desire to stick out her tongue. “I’ll wait.”

His soft laugh rumbled between them. She lifted the collar of her T-shirt and rubbed water from her face with a gingery motion. Hell, even touching her capsicum-abraded skin hurt. She gazed across the parking lot behind the Chandler County Sheriff’s Department, where the training exercise was going on. Tick Calvert sat on the back steps, scribbling on a clipboard. He looked as withdrawn and dejected as he’d been all day, the normally straight line of his shoulders slumped.

Celia nudged Cook’s side. “What’s with him?”

Cook rested his hands at his gun belt. “His wife’s pregnant again. They just found out last week.”

“That’s not a good thing?” Celia frowned. “I thought they wanted kids.”

“They did. They quit trying after her third miscarriage last year. Hurts too bad, I guess.” Cook’s mouth tightened. “This one was a total surprise for both of them and I don’t think it’s a happy one. More a wait-and-see-what-goes-wrong one, you know?”

“Yeah.” Sympathy swirled through her. The sorrow apparent in Tick’s posture she understood. It mirrored Tom’s over the loss of his son so long ago. Losing a loved one lingered, the grief rising to torment when least expected. Celia tugged at her chain, where the small ring Cicely had always worn on her right hand now shared space with a tarnished button from an Air Force dress blue uniform.

“You don’t have to hang around here.” Cook pulled her from the melancholy reverie. “We’re going to debrief as a department. Don’t think you have to suffer through that just to get your certificate renewed.”

“Thanks.” She lifted a hand in a wave. “See you.”

This late on a summer Saturday afternoon, traffic was sparse, not that it was ever too heavy to begin with. Within minutes, she was zipping along the lakefront, the warm breeze whipping in through open windows and soothing the sting from her skin. After pulling into the drive, she parked the Xterra in the garage beside the Mercedes and entered through the laundry room.

The house lay quiet and she wandered through the kitchen to the living area. She needed a shower as the biting smell of pepper spray still clung to her clothes and hair. Sunlight slanted in through tall windows. She stopped, smiling at the sight of Tom napping on the wide leather couch, a recent law journal on his chest, reading glasses perched askew on his nose.

His bare feet were propped on the sofa arm, and she tweaked his big toe and watched his tall body come to alertness. Dark lashes lifted to reveal sharp blue eyes.

“Hello, Counselor.” She moved closer to lean down and remove his glasses. She’d barely set them aside on the coffee table when he grasped her wrist and pulled her down atop him. The glossy journal slid to the floor.

“Hello, Mrs. McMillian.” Still holding her wrist and with one arm clamped around her waist, he nuzzled her ear. Shivery anticipation tingled over her.

“You get a serious jolly from saying that, don’t you?” She melted into him, rubbing her hands over his chest. Under her palm, his heart thudded a steady rhythm.

“Yes.” He nipped at her earlobe. “I like knowing you belong to me, that I belong to you.”

She liked it too, liked knowing that even when things went pear-shaped, she could count on him to be there. He’d proven it over and over in the last year, from Cicely’s funeral to Rhett High’s and Alton Baker’s trials for her sister’s murder.

And through everything, she’d been right with him too.

With his mouth doing wicked things to her senses, she fiddled with the placket of his golf shirt, freeing the buttons so she could slide her fingers across warm, hair-roughened skin. The hand at her waist slipped down, dipping beneath the waistband of her jeans to caress the small of her back and lower.

“Know what I think we should do, Mr. McMillian?” She caught her breath as those marauding fingers found intimate flesh.

“What’s that, Cee?” Near her ear, his voice lowered to a sinful growl.

“I think…” She tiptoed her fingers down his chest. “We should go upstairs and make another memory.”

His teeth flashed in the shark’s smile she loved and he pressed her to him, drawing her mouth down to his. “My pleasure, Mrs. McMillian.”

Two lazy hours later, after they’d showered together, she’d managed to weaken his knees and leave him moaning, and he’d returned the favor, Tom set about putting together shish kebobs for the grill. A glass of pinot noir in hand, Celia perched on a stool at the island, chatting to him about her training mishaps while he sliced peppers and a red onion. The spicy scent of marinade filled the air.

Tom set the strips of pepper aside, warm contentment spreading through him. This part of each day he liked best—well, second best, since life didn’t hold anything better than waking with Celia rumpled and drowsy in his arms each morning, knowing she’d be there again when night fell. But he treasured the simple pleasure of their evenings, sharing the task of preparing a casual supper while they indulged in conversation punctuated with laughter and love.

The memories they made got him through even the toughest days.

Celia flipped through the day’s mail lying atop the granite countertop. She tapped a short, neat fingernail on a flyer from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. “They’re showing
The Count of Monte Cristo
next month. We should go, maybe spend the night…”

She let the thought trail away as the front bell rang. “Were you expecting someone?”

He dumped wedges of onion next to the pepper. “No.”

“Wonder who it is?” Twirling her wine flute, Celia slid from the stool and sauntered through to the foyer, bare feet whispering against the tile.

Tom reached for the skewers. Voices wafted down the short hallway, Celia’s blending with two familiar male tones. An ominous prickle started at the base of his spine, radiating through his lower back to become a nagging pain. He stilled, a familiar and hated sensation of prodding darkness invading his brain.

Fuck. He dropped the damp wooden spits and spun to follow his wife. He almost collided with her in the doorway as she entered with Cook and Tick on her heels. The throb in his back pulsed into a low agony; the looming danger tried to cloud his mind.

He gritted his teeth against both. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Surprise flared in Celia’s blue gaze, followed by concern. She held aloft a sheet of paper. “I forgot my training log and they dropped it by.” She cast the paper aside and laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “Are you all right? You’re pale.”

“Fine.” He stepped backward into the kitchen, fighting the waves of sensation that didn’t belong to him.

“I’m going to get you some water.” Celia moved away. Pain speared across his chest, right to left, at a downward angle, taking his breath. Shit, psychic awareness was supposed to be a good thing? Like hell. Every single book he’d read on the topic which tried to put a positive spin on it lied. This was not good. Darkness crowded his vision and he tried to catch his breath.

“McMillian, you need to sit down.” Tick took his arm in a firm grip and steered him toward the dining set before the tall windows. Nausea pushed up in Tom’s throat; he laid a palm over the agony burning his torso. “St. John, you got any aspirin in the house?”

Cook flipped open his cell. “I’m calling for an ambulance.”

It was one of
them
, he was experiencing what would happen to one of them and they thought he was having a fucking heart attack. If he didn’t hurt so damn bad, it would be funny.

“Don’t need an ambulance.” He’d be fine as soon as whichever one of them he was feeling was out of the house. “I’m all right.”

“Sure you are.” Grim humor colored Tick’s words. His fingers rested on Tom’s wrist in a firm grip. Taking his pulse, Tom realized.

“He’ll be okay in a minute.” Celia knelt beside him and pushed a cool glass into his hand. Grateful, he lifted it to his mouth.

“Pulse is normal.” Surprise vibrated in Tick’s voice. He released Tom’s wrist.

“I’m not having a damn heart attack.” He let more of the cold water trickle down his throat. The weird pain subsided somewhat. He looked up in time to see Tick shrug and mouth “anxiety” at Cook. Yeah, that was one word for it—knowing something terrible was looming, but not being able to tell where or when it would strike. Sounded like anxiety to him.

“He needs to rest.” Celia stroked the inside of his forearm. “Why don’t you two take off?”

“You’re sure?” Cell phone still in hand, Cook frowned.

“Yes.” She curved her hand along Tom’s jaw, warmth and peace spreading out from the simple contact.

“We’ll let ourselves out.” As they left the kitchen, the discomfort eased, evaporating when the front door closed behind them with a quiet snick.

Celia glanced toward the foyer then back at him. “Better?”

He blew out a less-than-steady breath, icy sweat peppering his upper lip. “Much.”

Her eyes troubled, Celia continued to touch him in easy, soothing caresses. “Don’t you think we should tell them?”

He flinched away from the idea before he could stop himself. A scornful laugh escaped his lips. “Yeah. What am I going to say? I think something catastrophic is going to happen to one of you, but I don’t know which one, I don’t know when, and I don’t know exactly what that something is. Hell.”

“At least think about it.”

“I will.” Frustration made his voice sharp. Like he’d think about anything else the rest of the evening.

“Oh Tom.” She enfolded him in a close embrace. “I’m sorry.”

He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin atop her shining hair. “So am I.”

“I’d take it away if I could,” she whispered into the curve of his throat. “I’d make it better.”

“I know.” He managed to smile. Pulling back, he touched her face. “You make everything better.”

She laid her forefinger in the center of his bottom lip. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” He kissed her fingertip. “You’re the one thing I’m always certain of, Cee.”

She leaned forward to whisper against his mouth, her words wrapping welcome warmth around him. “It’s mutual, Counselor.”