An Imperfect Process (14 page)

"Eventually, that's what tipped me off. I read an article about how the Avenging Angel had destroyed that upscale resort near Galveston just before it was due to open. It mentioned that the arsonist had used a sophisticated device to detect and neutralize security. I thought, "That sounds like what I've been working on.' Alarm bells went off when I remembered Jeff's visit and things he'd said over the years. I knew he hated the development that's destroying our coasts, and calling himself an angel from the family name fit, but I couldn't really believe that Jeff had turned terrorist.

"Still, I was spooked enough to do a web search and construct a timeline of the attacks. Jeff lived in Florida, and most of the arson attacks were on the Gulf Coast between Florida and Texas. The only two in California were right after he visited me—and they were the first attacks where the security device was used."

"Did you call your brother and confront him?"

"I tried, but all I had was an e-mail address and P.O. box number in a tiny place on the Florida panhandle, and he wasn't answering messages on either. I was getting more and more worried, because the fires were getting more frequent."

"And more dangerous," she observed. "All of the fatalities came at the end, when he started using those military- type explosives."

He nodded wearily. "I dropped everything and flew to Florida to try and find him, but again, no luck. He hadn't been in town to pick up his mail in weeks. When three firefighters were injured in another Texas fire, I realized I couldn't wait any longer. I had my lawyer call the FBI and say that a client of his might have a line on the identity of the Avenging Angel, but wouldn't talk to them unless they swore not to go for the death penalty if he was prosecuted. After some arguing, they said they wouldn't." He smiled bitterly. "You know how well that worked."

"The feds might have kept their word, but Texas got him first and tried him for crimes committed there." She sighed. "It was over so quickly. Since he refused all attempts to appeal his sentence, the State of Texas was able to oblige his death wish pretty quickly."

"People gathered outside the prison in Huntsville to cheer when he died." No longer able to sit still, Rob rose and began pacing again. "I understood why he didn't want the sentence appealed. For someone who loved the outdoors, being caged in a concrete box for the next half century was a hell beyond imagination."

"Did Jeff understand why you blew the whistle on him?"

Rob smiled bitterly. "I don't know. He certainly didn't forgive. He refused to speak to me after he was arrested, just like he refused to cooperate with the expensive lawyers I hired to defend him. If he had given them anything to work with, maybe he would have received a life sentence instead of the death penalty."

"Even if your lawyers could have gotten him acquitted on the grounds of insanity, which is highly unlikely, it would only have meant imprisonment of another sort."

"But as long as he was alive, there was hope. Maybe someday they would have developed medications to control his kind of mental kinks." It had been a slim hope, but Rob had clung to it as long as possible.

"You never saw him again after he visited you in Menlo Park?"

His mouth was so dry he could barely speak. "I saw him. I sat in court every day of his trial and sentencing. He would never look at me. When he requested that I be present at the execution, I hoped that meant he wanted to see me—maybe say good-bye. Instead... he just wanted me to see him die."

"Dear God," she whispered. "How unspeakably cruel."

Even frantic pacing couldn't relieve his crawling skin as he remembered the execution. "The worst of it was that at the end, I think he was afraid. I don't know if anyone else saw it, but I could. Having rejected everyone who approached him, even the prison chaplain, he was completely alone. No one should die so alone."

He stalked the length of the room, feeling like a bird beating his wings against a cage. "Sometimes I have nightmares that I'm Jeff, screaming inside as they strap me to the gurney and stab in the needles."

She shuddered. "After he died, you felt you had to get away from your old life?"

"What really sent me packing was receiving the million- dollar reward that had been established for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Avenging Angel."

He had been horrified when he received that news, and Val now looked equally horrified. She asked, "What did you do with the money?"

"Gave it to the victims and survivors of Jeff's crimes." Even now, thinking of that blood money turned his stomach. "Before he died, Jeff publicly accused me of turning him in for the reward."

"Horrible.
Horrible
." Val drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, shivering. "What about your mother—did she understand why you had to act?"

"When Jeff was arrested, she called me screaming, asking how I could do such a thing. Where was my loyalty?"

"Duty and loyalty often clash, but you couldn't stand by when your brother's actions were threatening other people's lives. No reasonable person could. I hope your mother realized that eventually. Where was she during the years Jeff was growing up?"

"Tending bar. She loved a smoky, down-home bar better than anything, and since her job supported us, she had a perfect excuse not to be around." He rolled his shoulders, trying to unknot the muscles. "When Jeff was arrested, she was already suffering from lung cancer after smoking three packs a day for decades. She died between his trial and execution. If she ever understood why I acted, she never mentioned it."

Val was so white that the ghosts of childhood freckles were a golden haze over her cheekbones. "Do you have any other family?"

"No one close enough to count. My real father might be alive somewhere, but he sure as hell didn't come forward to claim his sons during all the publicity. He's probably dead, too—he was another one who smoked like a fiend. I barely remember him."

"Where did you learn to be such a good carpenter?"

He guessed she wanted to change the subject to something less grim. Hard to do when it came to his past. "From Harley. He was a carpenter and not a bad guy when he was sober. In other words, before noon." He paused by the bookcase, where a much larger dragon tossed its head, the gilded hide embedded with mirror fragments. He wondered what dragons meant to Val. Symbols of invincibility, maybe.

"During the computer years, I lived in my head all the time. After Jeff died, I needed to get away and do work that was real and physical in a place where no one knew who I was. I'd always liked working with wood and doing household repairs, so I came back to Baltimore and bought a beat-up row house and fixed it up to sell."

"You also learned how to restore things of beauty like the church, and help fix up the homes of some of Baltimore's poor, elderly citizens. Small acts of redemption."

"Too small. A lifetime of Sheetrock and plumbing repairs will not make up for the lives of Jeff and his victims."

"Saving an innocent man from execution would help balance the scales," she said quietly.

"If it can be done." He was startled at how quickly and easily she made the connection. In retrospect, it was obvious: a life for a life. He wanted to save Daniel Monroe as he had been unable to save his brother. Guilt or innocence were secondary. What he yearned for was the preservation of life.

She uncurled from the sofa and crossed the room to where he had finally halted his pacing. "Together, we have a chance to save Daniel," she said, her amber eyes steady. "If we fail, it won't be for lack of trying."

She slid her hands into his hair and drew his head down for another kiss. Their previous kisses had been heated. This one seared to the bone. He responded fervently, desperate to bury himself in her. Though the emotional bond between them was new and tentative, the physical connection flooded his senses.

"Shall we go upstairs?" she said huskily.

He tried to think, not easy when desire was dissolving all reason. "I can't believe this is any better an idea now than it was half an hour ago."

"On the contrary. The whole playing field has changed. I said then that I didn't know enough about you. Now I do." She exhaled warmly in his ear.

He gasped, resolve crumbling. "A starving man doesn't refuse a banquet, but... I really, really don't want you to be sorry later for giving in to a charitable impulse tonight. I don't need someone new despising me. Especially not you."

"This isn't pity, Rob." She rubbed her cheek against his chest like a cat. "I've been interested in you since we first met, and unless my radar is broken, you reciprocate. We're both adults, unencumbered by spouses. At least, I am, and I assume you are, too."

He nodded when she gave him a slanting glance. "I was always too busy for that kind of serious relationship."

"See how much we have in common," she said wryly. "Now, about going upstairs..."

With sudden exhilaration, he caught her around the waist and swept her off the floor. She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. It was sexy as hell. Of course, everything she did was sexy as hell. Securing his grip on her, he said, "Just tell me where to go."

She wriggled against him so provocatively that he was tempted to drop her onto the couch and start tearing her clothes off right there. "Much as I admire intelligence," she said, "there's also much to be said for being swept off my feet by an alpha male. Up the stairs and to the right."

He laughed with her. "An alpha male. I've just achieved a goal I didn't know I had."

She leaned forward and ticked his throat as they ascended the stairs, cats trailing behind. The past was disaster and the future unknown, but for this precious moment, he remembered what it was to be happy.

Chapter 10

The light switch in Val's bedroom turned on a single Tiffany lamp in the corner, illuminating the room with a gentle glow. Enough light to see and admire, not so much as to be unromantic. The room was like her, warm and unusual and welcoming, with a bed of elegant curving cherry and a comforter in sumptuous tones of gold, russet, and amber. Chosen to go with her hair and eyes, no doubt. She looked equally sumptuous when he yanked back the covers and laid her on the tawny sheets, her hair a flame and her eyes a golden lure.

Val pulled him down on top of her, laughing exuberantly as she molded her body against his. "How fast can we get each other's clothes off?"

"Not fast enough." He peeled off her cotton sweater, revealing a satiny apricot-colored bra. "It would have been more efficient to stay on our feet and undress."

"Where's the fun in that?" She made short work of his shirt buttons while he removed his jacket.

He shivered when she flattened her palm on his bare chest, one finger teasing his nipple. Laughter vanished into cascading lust. He'd been celibate so long that this felt like the first time. In a way it was—his life divided into before and after Jeff's prosecution and death, and he was not the same man he had been.

He wanted to take his time and savor the sight and taste of her. Even more, he wanted to incinerate himself in raw sensation and leave savoring for later.

Val had ideas of her own. As she pulled his zipper down, he remembered to say, "I didn't come prepared for anything like this."

"I was a Girl Scout, so I'm
always
prepared. Check the drawer in the nightstand."

A small packet of condoms waited demurely. As he pulled one out, she said a little defensively, "I hope they haven't passed their expiration date."

Guessing that she was afraid of looking too experienced, he said, "It's damned unfair that a man who is prepared is considered responsible while a woman who does the same risks being considered a..." He halted, groping for a term that wasn't insulting.

"I think the word you're looking for is slut
,
" she said helpfully.

"An ugly word that has nothing to do with you." He smiled wryly. "I hope
I
haven't passed my expiration date. It's been so long I may not remember how to do this."

"It's been a long time for me as well. Too long." She slid her hand down his body. "But I'm sure we'll work it out."

And they did, despite his being aroused to the point of mindlessness. Every garment removed was a new opportunity to kiss smooth female flesh, to inhale her intoxicating scent. She was vibrantly alive, a full-color woman who had come blazing into his monochromatic existence. He rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him.