Heroes Never Die (26 page)

Stephanie was skeptical.  Something wasn’t right.  She had been living life on the edge for so long that resuming a ‘normal life’ sounded almost shocking.  Somehow, it just seemed too easy.

***

Stephanie emptied the answering machine and returned phone calls.  She called her in-laws last.  Then she put the phone back on the receiver and smiled.  They were excited she was finally coming to stay with them.  Stephanie not only wanted to be with them, she needed to be surrounded by family, and she couldn’t wait to make the trip.  She walked to the kitchen and filled the teapot with water.  She was tired, and her arm was beginning to ache.  A cup of tea would be soothing.  She opened the cupboard to reach for a cup and saw the mug that Brian had filled with chocolate kisses.  She fondly reached for it and read his note.  ‘Until I return – kisses from my heart.’  Her faint smile disappeared.  He had not bothered to write, and she was beginning to wonder if he even loved her.  Maybe Kyle was right.  Maybe Brian was sleeping with every nurse he winked at.  She tried to shake off the disturbing thought, but still it continued to trouble her.

She tried to open the tea canister with one arm in a cast.  After a clumsy struggle, she pulled out a tea bag and dropped it into her cup.  The teapot let out a shrilling whistle.  She turned off the burner and poured the boiling water into the cup.  She added a smidgeon of sugar and stirred until the water turned dark.
  As Stephanie picked up her cup and turned to head into the living room, she saw a man standing in the doorway.  She screamed and dropped her cup all at the same time.

“E
asy there, killer, it’s just me,” Kyle said.

“Dammit, Kyle,” she scolded when she recovered from the shock.  “Look at this mess.”  She threw some paper towels on the floor to absorb the liquid.  “Why can’t you just knock on the door like everyone else?”

“I thought about it, but I knew you wouldn’t let me in.”

She thrashed him with a disparaging look of disapproval.  Then she remembered that she had locked all of the doors.  “How did you get in here?”

“Easy.  I made a copy of your key before I gave it back to you.”

“Kyle,” she shrieked.  “You had no right.  This is my house
.  Now get out!”

“I did have some good news to tell you about Brian and your dad coming home, but if you want me to go,” he said as he turned to leave, “it makes no difference to me.”

“Wait!” she called, anxious to hear the news.

“Make up your mind
.  Do you want me to stay or go?”

“Just tell me,” she demanded.

“It’s detailed,” he said.  “Why don’t we go sit down?”

Stephanie didn’t want
Kyle in her house, much less her living room.  “This better not be another one of your tricks.  I’m tired, my arm hurts, and I’m in no mood.”

“Then I have a better idea.  You go sit down and rest.  I’ll finish cleaning this mess and make you another cup of tea.”  Stephanie hesitated a moment, wondering what had caused the sudden burst of kindness.  “Go on,” he coaxed as he motioned for her to go into the living room.  “I’ll be right in.”

Stephanie walked to the living room.  She sat down on the couch and sighed.  “Do you still take sugar,” she heard Kyle call from the kitchen.

“Yes, just a tad, please.”

Kyle joined her in the living room holding a steaming cup of tea.  “See if that tastes all right,” he said as he handed her the cup.

She was only interested in hearing the good news, but she took a quick sip just to make him happy.  “It’s fine, thank you.  Now tell me the good news.”

Kyle sat down in the chair across from her.  “There has been a break in the action.  Our forces in Turkey have the enemy on the run.  From here on out, we believe most of the fighting will be concentrated between the borders of Iraq and Iran.  It looks like Brian and your dad can start packing to come home.”

Stephanie’s face lit up with excitement.  “When, Kyle
, when will they be home?”

“I’d say three, maybe four weeks max.  Think you can wait that long?”

She let out a nervous laugh.  “I don’t know.  It already feels like they’ve been gone for two years.”

“I know what you mean,” he empathized.  “Seems like this war has gone on forever.  I’ll be happy when it’s over, too.  Then we can both relax.”

Stephanie was ignoring her tea.

“You’re letting your tea get cold.  I thought you said you liked it?”

“Really, it’s fine,” she said as she took another sip.  “I’m just excited.  I probably won’t sleep a wink tonight.”

“I knew you’d be happy.  By the way, when does your cast come off?”

“At least four more weeks,” she said as she examined it.  “I was hoping to have it off before Brian came home.  It might be kind of difficult to explain.”

“You had a bad fall.  That’s all he needs to know.  If you ever tell him what happened, you’ll be putting yourself and Brian at risk, your dad too, for that matter.”

“You and Barry already told me that a million times.”  Stephanie suddenly realized her arm had stopped hurting, as though it had been anesthetized.  “That’s funny,” she said, as if something unusual had happened.  “My arm isn’t hurting anymore.  This tea must have really hit the spot.”  Then she felt her heavy eyes begin to droop.  She took another sip of tea to stay awake.  She began to hear a dull humming noise in her ears.  Her entire body felt numb.  The room took off in a spin and it looked as though someone had dimmed the lights.  She wondered what was happening.  Then her brain screamed with terror.  Kyle poisoned me!

She jumped off of the sofa to get away, but Kyle quickly locked his arms around her body and covered her mouth to muffle her screams.  She kicked and fought the best she could, but all of her strength was gone.

“Don’t fight it, Stephanie,” she heard Kyle say.  “That’s the way, just go with it, relax, ladylove,” was the last thing she heard.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

Stephanie heard sea gulls screeching in the distance.  She moaned as she tried to open her sedated eyes, fighting the sunlight.  Where am I, she wondered.  She looked at her surroundings and recognized the familiar beach house that belonged to Kyle’s dad.  Then she saw Kyle slumped in a chair next to the bed.  The light from the window illuminated his unshaven face, and his wire-rim glasses had slipped over the bridge of his nose.  Suddenly it all came back.  Kyle had tried to kill her.

She quietly slid off of the bed and headed toward the door.  She gently twisted the doorknob.  The door creaked as she pulled it open, and her body stiffened with fear.  She was sure the sound had alerted Kyle.  She nervously looked behind her.  He was still asleep.  She slowly squeezed sideways through the crack in the door.

Then Kyle suddenly reached for her arm.  “Going somewhere?” he asked as he pulled her back into the bedroom and kicked the door closed behind him.  Stephanie filled her lungs with air and screamed as loud as she could.

Kyle cringed.  “Do me a favor and knock it off with the blood-curdling screams,” he said when she finally ran out of breath.  “It’s just too damned early in the morning.  No one will hear you anyway.  The island is deserted this time of year.”

Stephanie stopped screaming as soon as she realized it wouldn’t do her any good.  “You tried to kill me!”

“Get real,” he mocked.  “If I had tried to kill you, you’d be dead right now.”

His answer was infuriating, but it made sense.  “Then why did you drug me?”

Kyle didn’t want to frighten her, but she had to know the truth.  “Your life is in danger, Stephanie.  It was the only way I could get you out of your house.”

At first Stephanie
was alarmed, but she couldn’t help thinking that Kyle had brought her to the beach house just so he could be alone with her.  “I don’t believe you,” she accused.

“Have it your way,” he huffed.  “But if you don’t let your guard down and accept my help, you are going to die.”

“You drug me and bring me to your dad’s beach house on a deserted island, and you want me to let my guard down?  Why don’t you let your guard down, and just for once, tell me the truth.”

“All right
.  This is the truth.  The President wants you dead.”

Stephanie half-laughed, not sure whether to burst out laughing or crying.  Then she just stood there for a moment, trying to comprehend the shock.  “Why would the President want me dead?” she questioned with a crazed smile.  “I haven’t done anything to him.  Besides, I’m an American citizen.”

“Wise up, ladylove,” he warned.  “You left a trail all the way back to the White House.  I was there when he gave the order.  He means business.”

Stunned, she shook her head, unable to comprehend the frightening blow.  “But why,” her voice trembled.  “Why would he want me dead?”

“For starters, Tareef called the President asking him for help locating Mickey Chapman.  Barry and I did everything we could to downplay the risk, but the President refused to listen to reason.  He said he would send someone else to do the job if we disobeyed his order.  Barry blew up and threatened to expose something out of the President’s past.  The President backed off, but I still don’t trust him.  That’s why I brought you here.  You’ll be safe for the time being.”

“I’ll be ‘safe for the time being’?” she mimicked.  “You have to do something!”

“I’m already doing everything I can!” he yelled.

“That’s not enough!” she yelled back.

Kyle grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into his face.  “I’ll kill the son of a bitch myself if I have to.”

His threat was ridiculous.  “What are you going to do, Kyle, walk into
the office of the President and shoot him?”

Kyle suddenly became cold and calculating.  “
The President is hiding something, and Barry knows what it is.  I swear I’m going to find out what’s going on, and when I do, I’m going to put him out of his misery once and for all.”

“Well, now,” she mocked.  “I feel better already.  You get to play detective, and I get to play dead duck.  Why don’t you just paint a bull’s-eye in the middle of my forehead?”

“You still don’t get it, do you, Stephanie?” he asked, obviously annoyed that she didn’t understand.  “I’m still in love with you.  And I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.  I swear it.”

“You’re right, Kyle,” she ridiculed.  “I don’t get it.  First you tell me you love me, and then you tell me my husband is sleeping around on me.  That’s not supposed to crush me?  And you expect me to believe that you love me?  No, Kyle, I don’t believe you.  Ever since I broke our engagement, you’ve done nothing but hurt me, so don’t expect me to put any faith in you now.”

“If anyone hurt anybody,” he accused, “it was you.”

“That isn’t so,” she yelled.

“It is so,” he fired back.  “I waited a long time to marry you.  Do you have any idea how hard it was to get past your dad?  I thought he was going to break my neck when I told him I wanted to marry you.  He said I had to wait until after you graduated from college.  So then he separated us by sending you to some college in the middle of nowhere, but that didn’t keep us apart, did it?  Then I waited, and waited, because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.  Then finally, just when I was counting down the days, I received a nasty Dear John letter.  And you don’t think that messed me over?  You didn’t even have the decency to come and tell me yourself.  I still don’t know why you broke our engagement.  And you know what I think?  I think you’re enjoying every minute of it.”

“That’s not true,” her voice trembled, wounded by his accusation.  “I loved you with all my heart, and I wanted to marry you more than anything else in the world.  It wasn’t my idea to break our engagement.”

The truth was confusing.  “Then whose idea was it?”

It all seemed so silly now, but back then she was terrified for him.  “After you hit Duke, he filed an assault charge against you.  The police put out a warrant for your arrest.  I begged Duke to drop the charges, but he wouldn’t listen.  He thought it would hurt you more if I broke our engagement.  So he told me he would drop the charges if I wrote you that letter.  Duke and his friends told me what to write.  And then they mailed it.”

“I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance,” he seethed.  “He would have raped you.  That assault charge was bullshit.”

“I know that now,” she cried, wanting him to understand.  “But back then I was only trying to protect you.  I didn’t want you to go to jail.”

“And all of this time I thought you hated me because I hit Duke.”

“No.  I’m glad you hit him.  I don’t know what I would
have done if you hadn’t shown up when you did.  I flew home to tell you everything, but by then, it was too late.”

“I never would
have…”

“I know.  And if I hadn’t agreed to that letter, we’d be…”

“Married right now?”

Stephanie wiped the tears from her face.  “For two people who never meant to hurt each other, we sure did a bang up job.”

“It’s not too late, Stephanie.”  Kyle pulled her into his arms.  “We can still be together.”

“It is too late.”  She pulled away from his embrace.  “I’m married to Brian now.”