Darker Than Desire (16 page)

This was one of those things. Sybil was coming out of her studio, where she did her absolute
best
brooding, when she crashed into Ali from the pizzeria. Ali looked distracted and upset—totally not the normal for the easygoing, laid-back woman.

Going by the grim look in Ali's eyes, part of Sybil wished she'd just coast on by with an easy wave.

But over the past few weeks they'd been talking wedding photos and Sybil had grown to like the younger woman. Plus, that was a look of sadness she just couldn't ignore.

“You okay, Ali?” she asked, hoping it didn't have anything to do with Tate.

“Hell, no.” Ali gave her a weak smile as she dashed away a tear that had escaped to roll down her pale face. “You didn't hear, did you?”

Her belly went icy and cold. “Hear what?”

“Max.”

Dread grabbed her. She knew Max—hard not to, since her sister had been one of the ones who got in trouble out at his old place, more than once. He and Sybil had talked, more than she liked, and she had a grudging respect for him. But that wasn't the reason for the dread.

Clenching a hand into a fist, she asked softly, “What about him?”

“He's dead.” Ali shifted from one foot to the other while she fought a valiant effort with the tears. Her voice wobbled a little. “Chris was up there delivering flowers and she heard the news, saw the cops outside his door. It's going around town fast. He's gone.”

“Did he…” Sybil cleared her throat, thinking of the arrogant old bastard she'd had to deal with more than once. Arrogant. And then he'd look at his wife and his face would light up, like the sun coming out after a cold, bleak day. Sybil had seen that love on his face so many times. “Was it because of the injury?”

“Nobody seems to know. But if it was, why would they have called the cops?” Ali shrugged. “My parents are covering the place for a while. I used to be in Miss Mary's Sunday school class and I loved her something awful. This is just killing me.”

“Oh, honey.” Moving in, she caught Ali in a hug, stroked a hand down her hair while Ali squeezed her tight. “I hate to say it, and it's awful, but Max would rather be with her than here anyway. We all know that.”

“I know.” Ali pulled back and nodded, but this time her face was cold. “I just—it's messed up. He was getting
stronger
. He was getting better. I don't think something just
happened
after … what, it's been a couple of weeks. It doesn't feel right, and after everything that's going on it pisses me off.”

“I know.” That was part of the reason she felt so cold inside. Part of it. But not all of it. “Listen, I need to go. I have to…” she hedged, unwilling to go into detail about that.

But Ali was already nodding. “I better get back anyway. I just needed to walk. I called Tate. He was shutting down his studio and heading over. I told him not to, but I kind of hoped he'd do it anyway.” She grinned sheepishly. “Should I feel bad about that?”

“Ali, if I had a guy like Tate coming to comfort me, I wouldn't feel bad about wanting to have him there. At all.” She squeezed Ali's shoulder and watched as the woman headed off down the street.

Five seconds later, she headed for her car.

She had to get to the hospital.

Inside her head, she could practically
hear
the words,
hurry, hurry, hurry
.…

*   *   *

There was a man standing between him and the place he wanted to be.

Normally, that wouldn't deter David. Very little deterred him when he had a focus. But he had respect for very few people, and because he did respect Noah—and regretted the misery he'd helped bring into his life—he tried once more.

“You want to get out of my way,” he said quietly.

“You're not wrong,” Noah agreed, his blue eyes unreadable. “The problem is that I can't. You don't need to be going in there, interfering. If something happened here, don't you want answers?”

“If?”
He curled his lip and shifted his gaze away to the men standing at the door. Two of them had their hands resting lightly on the weapons they wore strapped to their sides. “You think there's any
if
here, Noah?”

Noah ran his tongue along his teeth. Fleetingly, David hoped it didn't come to the point that he had to shove those teeth down the man's throat.

“To be honest, I
hope
I'm wrong. But no. I don't think there's an
if
. And that's why if you go another step, you'll be going through me.” Now Noah took a step forward and his eyes went cold and hard. “I see the mean in you, David. I see it and I recognize it. But I'll be damned if I let you interfere with what those cops are doing. If somebody took Judge Max away before his time, then I want to know. You're not going to mess that up.”

“You think you can stop me?”

“I've got a better chance than most.” Noah cocked his head. “Including those two cops over there. They both looked scared to death of you.” He flashed David a wide smile. “Guess what? I'm not.”

“That's enough.”

The sound of Lana's voice cutting between them might have thrown a bucket of ice on his anger, at any other time. But with the red roar of rage pulsing through him, clawing at his mind like a beast, David didn't even look at her. “Stay out of this, Supergirl.”

“The hell I will.” She wedged herself between them, and when they wouldn't give her room she demanded it, driving an elbow into David's gut. He managed to ignore that. It was harder to ignore when she lifted a combat-booted foot and drove it down onto his—or tried to. He moved out of the way, still glaring at Noah.

Lana had accomplished her mission, though, putting a few—just a few—more feet between him and Noah.

“You two need to stop,” she said, swinging her gaze from one to the other. “You really think this is
helping
?”

“Right now, I don't
care
about helping. I want to know what happened.”
Then I want to find the son of a bitch who did this and kill him.
He kept those words behind his teeth, figuring it wouldn't help the matter any.

“Noah.”

At the sound of a new voice—belonging to a man David had never really cared for—Noah shifted his gaze to the left, but only for a minute. “Yeah, Adam?”

“Why don't you see if you can get somebody to talk to you? They'll open up to you quicker than they will for the hothead here,” Adam said, moving into David's line of sight. Then he flashed a determined smile at David. “If he keeps trying to push his luck, Lana and I will just keep trying to talk sense into him.”

Lana snorted. “Baby, you have no sense.”

David lowered his lids, staring at Adam from under his lashes. “The only reason I haven't gone through Noah is because I consider him a friend—of sorts. Can't say the same for you. If you end up a bloody smear on the floor, I won't lose any sleep over it.”

“You'd have a harder time than you think,” Adam said, his voice low.

Lana blew out a breath. “Save me from testosterone overload. Are you
determined
to beat the shit out of somebody tonight, David?” she asked. “And are you determined to pick a fight with one of the few guys I care about?”

Something knotted in him as he turned his head and looked at her. In that moment, Noah slipped away. David almost went after him, but Lana moved to block him. “People talk to him. You know that, better than I do probably. You've been here. I haven't. Give him a chance.”

“I
have
to know—” He stopped, closing his eyes. All the reasons he needed to know burned inside him. He didn't want to share this, didn't want to tell others. If people knew, for certain knew, they'd start looking at Max differently, and now that he was gone it seemed …

Wrong.

Opening his eyes, he straightened his shoulders.

Tension knotted his muscles, holding him tight as a spring. He could have let it go. Maybe. He could have done it.

But somebody passed by. He didn't know the name. Recognized the man's face, but only just because he'd seen him on the streets. The man gave him a look and then looked at Lana.

For a moment he held still, and then he shook his head. He muttered it, his voice low.

Just not low enough.

David heard him, clear as day, as he said, “This fucking town would have been better off if the two of you had never shown your sorry faces here again.”

Lana heard it as well, close-cropped hair swinging as she whipped it around. “What?” she asked.

Her voice barely penetrated the fury.

The man, built like a tree trunk, solid through and through, paused to look at her. His lip curled and he shook his head. “I wasn't talking to you.”

“Maybe not, but I think you wanted me to hear.” She took a step forward. “The town would have been better? You didn't want us stepping up and talking about what happened twenty years ago? How it's connected to what's happening now?”

“What you
say
is happening.” He jerked a finger toward the cops. “All this crazy shit started with you-all.”

Noah appeared around the corner, his face tight. He stopped at the sight of the man squaring off with Lana and David and then he sighed. “Zeke, you don't need to be doing this. Not here. Not now.”

“Then when? After somebody else ends up dead? Did they accuse Max, too?
Max?
”

“You son of a bitch,” David snarled. That red haze didn't crawl across his vision, didn't creep into his brain. It just rose up and grabbed him, almost the way he found himself snaking out a hand to grab the older, pale man by the front of the shirt. He didn't even remember moving, but he had. He had the faded flannel shirt in his hand and the other was fisted and closed, ready to strike.

“Don't.”

Noah caught his wrist.

David growled under his breath.

*   *   *

Sybil panted up the last level of the steps, her lungs tight, her airway feeling like somebody had wrapped a fist around it and just kept
squeezing
and
squeezing
.

Stupid asthma.
It was like she had an elephant on her chest. But it wasn't just sitting there—it
danced
. At the same time, her throat viced up, making breathing feel impossible. She could run three miles easily, but put a flight of steps in front of her and she was a goner. But the damn elevators were too slow here. In the back of her mind, she still heard that voice chiding her,
Hurry hurry hurry …

Hitting the floor where Max had been for the past few weeks, she shoved the door open and then, for just a bare moment, she stood, her mouth open.

Then she surged forward.

It was probably a stupid thing.

If there was anybody else who knew about the rages that David fought most of his life, he'd never told her.

But she knew about them.

On top of everything else, the last thing he needed was to get arrested for what he was planning to do to Zeke Kenner, even if the tactless son of a bitch deserved it. She saw Noah grab his fist and she grimaced, because Noah wouldn't deserve shit.

Shoving Zeke back, she planted herself in front of David and reached up.

His head swung around at her touch.

Holding his eyes with hers, she cupped his face. “Don't.”

For a taut, long moment, he held still. Noah still held his wrist. Sybil could feel the tension shrieking inside David, feel everything inside him, it seemed. Leaning in, she pressed her mouth to his. It didn't matter that everybody around them saw, didn't matter that his chest had started to rise and fall raggedly against her own.

“Don't do this, David. It won't help; you know that.”

Abruptly he twisted and jerked away from Noah, and she half-expected him to do the same to her.

To her shock, what he did was wrap his arms around her waist and in the next moment her feet left the floor as he buried his face against her neck.

“He's … Sybil, he's gone.”

Staring at the wall over his shoulder, she slid her arms around him. One gripped him, her hand tangling in the faded material of his shirt. She smoothed her other hand across his hair, down his neck. “I know. I'm so sorry, David. I'm so sorry.”

His chest shuddered against hers and then he went to his knees, right there in the middle of the hall. He still clutched her to him, his arms wrapped around her waist like she was the only thing anchoring him there. “He's gone.”

 

CHAPTER TEN

A security guard shifted and Sorenson reached up, pressing his hand to the middle of his chest as he eyed Sybil Chalmers and David Sutter. Sorenson had been a step away from interfering. The reason he hadn't was Noah. He'd expected Noah would talk David down—Noah Benningfield could talk anybody down, just about. Sorenson had seen it. During his tenure here as the chief of the Madison Police Department, he'd seen that man bring comfort to widows and peace to the dying and just the other day he'd actually managed to talk
Layla
, of all people, into going into residential treatment. If he up and walked on water, it wouldn't have surprised the chief.

But it hadn't been Noah who'd broken through the ugly layers of rage gripping David.

Sybil curled a protective arm around him, using her body as a shield. There was a fierce look on her face and Sorenson had no doubt that if anybody moved toward them she'd tear them apart.

Everybody around her and David had either developed a fascination in the floor or managed to find something terribly important to tell the person they were with.

Well, maybe Lana and Noah and Adam and the two nurses out in the hall were that polite, but Sorenson was anything but polite. Besides, in his job
polite
had its place, but it only got him so far. Nosiness did a lot more than courtesy ever could. Reaching up, he stroked a hand down his beard and continued to watch them as curiosity grew.