Karma (32 page)

Liza passed the weekend by keeping busy drafting sketches and doing work. She’d checked on Tess by calling Faith, and thank goodness, the teenager had come through her ordeal and was getting better. Faith hadn’t mentioned Dare or the scene Friday night and neither had Liza. And though it was now Monday morning, she hadn’t heard a word from Dare.

Pushing aside the hurt that thought caused, she called her brother yet again. This time his voice mail was full. Of course he hadn’t been in touch either. No big shock there, but a part of her had been hoping Brian would somehow come through. Man up. Bring her the money. Worry about her safety. Something.

Instead, nothing.

As usual, she was on her own.

Though the men who expected her to pay up hadn’t called, she headed to the bank anyway, Cara by her side. The teller explained they needed a full business day to get that kind of cash together, and Liza’s nerves were jangling as she waited to tell the man who’d be calling.

When she finally heard from him, a phone call at 3:00
P.M.
, her hands shook as she explained she needed twenty-four hours for the small bank branch in Serendipity to get
that amount of money in. To Liza’s shock, the guy on the phone understood and didn’t threaten her at all.

On Cara’s advice, Liza firmly told him she wanted to meet in a public place. As civilized as possible, she thought wryly.

Again to her surprise, he readily agreed. On Wednesday at 5:00
P.M.
someone would meet her in her office to take the
package
off her hands.

“No cop boyfriend,” the man on the phone warned her.

Liza wanted to laugh out loud and inform him he had nothing to worry about on that score.

Instead, she merely said, “No problem.”

“And no cop friends either.” He obviously referred to Cara. Which meant Liza was definitely being watched.

She shivered. “Fine. There’ll be people around the office, though,” she warned him.

“Office staff and employees won’t be a problem,” he said in a gruff voice before disconnecting the call.

Liza glanced at Cara who’d been sitting by her side. “Well, that was too easy.”

Cara shook her dark ponytail. “These guys just want their money. That’s all that matters, so honestly this should be a simple handoff.” Cara smiled. “You’re doing great.”

Liza glanced down at her shaking hands and wondered how Cara performed her duties on a daily basis. “I don’t feel great.” She was worn out from lack of sleep and frazzled from fear.

“It’ll be over soon,” Cara assured her.

“I know.”

Cara’s compassionate tone and the fact that she was here helping without complaint reminded her of Dare.

Liza wanted to ask her if she’d spoken to him and whether she’d told him about the threat and the money, but she refrained. He couldn’t have made himself any clearer about how he felt, and though she understood his past better thanks to Cara, that didn’t change his inability to accept
her
.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d tried to get in touch with Liza over the weekend either. Her instinct on Friday had been correct. She needed to cut him out of her life, and going cold turkey was the simplest way. No matter how painful the withdrawal might be.

Finding Brian McKnight had been simpler than Dare thought. So simple it boggled the mind. On a hunch, Dare called on Annabelle at her antiques shop. He wanted to look the storekeeper in the eye when he asked her if she’d heard from Brian McKnight. The man had to reach out to someone and Annabelle had seemed to care about him. One glance into her eyes and he hit pay dirt.

The woman wasn’t trained in the fine art of lying. Her eyes darted everywhere but at Dare when she answered his question, hemming and hawing while attempting to reply.

He’d finally laid it on the line, telling her that Liza was in danger because of her brother’s actions and that if she knew where Brian was, she’d be helping them both by admitting it.

Now Dare stood at a seedy hotel in a neighboring town to Serendipity. From the looks of the place, guests probably paid by the night and most checked out sooner rather than later.

Dare strode up to the room number Annabelle had given him and knocked once.

“Who is it?” a muffled male voice asked.

“Management,” he muttered back.

The door yanked open. “I told you I’d get you your money soon.”

Dare slammed his foot in the entry before Brian could react and pushed the door open with his hand. “How are you going to do that when you can’t even pay your gambling debts?” Dare shoved his way inside, ignoring McKnight’s grumbling and cursing under his breath.

Dare didn’t know what smelled worse, the man or the room. Empty liquor bottles, food wrappers, and an empty pizza box littered the floor and night tables.

“What do you want?” Brian asked.

To get the hell out of here,
Dare thought. “We need to talk.”

Dare took in McKnight’s bloodshot eyes, his overgrown beard, messy hair, and wrinkled clothes. With a shake of his head, he made a decision. “First we’re going to sober you up.”

Brian scowled. “I’m not drunk. I haven’t been in days. I’ve just got a low-level buzz going.”

Dare raised an eyebrow.

“Because I’m nearly out of alcohol,” Brian said before Dare could even ask why. “I have no money to buy more and I need to ration what I have left. If I keep a buzz on, I won’t go out looking to gamble with what little I might still own.”

Dare blinked, surprised at the other man’s honesty. He glanced around the disgusting room once more. “Go shower. We’ll talk after.” He pointed to the bathroom and waited for the argument.

Instead, Brian passively walked into the bathroom and shut the door. A few seconds later, he heard the water turn on.

Dare took advantage of the time alone, grabbing the plastic garbage pail and going around the room, tossing the trash and wrappers. When he found a half-eaten fish sandwich, he figured it was the source of the worst of the odor and deposited the pail outside the room. Back inside, he opened a window, then pulled out a chair and settled in to wait.

Brian emerged fifteen minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist.

Dare cocked an eyebrow.

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” he muttered.

Dare shook his head and groaned. “I have a pair of sweatpants and a shirt in my truck for after softball. Hang on.”

When he returned, Brian dressed and sat down on the bed, looking marginally better but at least smelling clean. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I’ve been asking that myself. The easy answer is because I love your sister.”

But that wouldn’t be the whole truth and damned if Dare wasn’t all about honesty at the moment. He wanted peace from his past and that meant dealing with this bastard.

“The harder answer is I’m here for me. We have unfinished business.” Dare stared at Brian from his seat across the small room.

Brian hadn’t looked him in the eye since he’d arrived. Hadn’t reacted to his pronouncement about being in love with Liza. Obviously he was wrapped up in his own misery.

“You here to give me more shit like you do at the station?” Brian asked.

“Oddly, no. I want to talk about the party.”

Brian wrinkled his forehead. “What party? I know I have blackouts but—”

Dare stared at the man in shock. For over a decade, the word
party
had only meant one thing in Dare’s mind. The night he couldn’t forget. “The one you threw when you were in high school? When Stuart Rossman died?”

Brian winced. “I don’t like to remember that night,” he muttered. “What’s it to you?”

He didn’t know, Dare thought. Brian had no idea Dare had been there that day. “I was there.” The admission almost stuck in his throat. “I saw everything…and I did nothing.”

Pain and humiliation rushed through him with the force of a hurricane. “And I’ve been living with the guilt of that day ever since.”

“And you think I haven’t?” Brian rose and began to pace like a cornered animal, back and forth between the bed and the wall. “I’ve spent every day since running from what I did. What my parents covered up.”

“You let them,” Dare reminded him, unsure where all
the anger he’d expected to feel had gone. Instead, he looked at this broken shell of a man and felt something closer to…pity.

Brian didn’t reply.

“That escape you’ve been looking for? Did you find it in the bottle?” Dare couldn’t help but ask.

Brian looked up, his eyes bleak, as he shook his head.

“How about the gambling? Or stealing from the firm your sister works so hard for?”

Stunned. That was the only word Dare could find for the expression on Brian’s face. “Liza
knows
?” he asked, horrified.

Dare nodded. “And she loves you anyway. Go figure.”

Brian lowered himself onto the bed, his entire body shaking. “It’s bad enough she knows I owe Mikey Biggs that money and he went to her for it—”

Something inside Dare snapped and the anger he’d been searching for came rushing forward. He strode over and grabbed Brian by the front of his shirt—Dare’s shirt—and jerked him forward. “He didn’t just go to her for the money, you bastard. He put a hand on her. Grabbed her by the wrist and—”

The wailing sound interrupted Dare, catching him off guard. He stopped shaking Brian long enough to realize the man was crying. Not crying.

Bawling like a baby.

“Son of a bitch.” Dare released him and Brian collapsed on the bed.

He hadn’t expected this. He’d anticipated a confrontation. A part of him had even been looking forward to it. But this sobbing, defeated man needed help, not a fight.

Watching him, for the first time Dare understood why Liza helped him. Enabled him. Cared about him. Because Brian McKnight was incapable of caring for himself.

“Hey.” Dare shook his shoulder. “Your sister’s emptying her savings to pay off your debt. She’s meeting with this
Mikey character at her office today.” And with everything in him, Dare wanted to be there, but Cara threatened to castrate him if he went near the building.

Liza needed to do this for herself, she’d said. And he needed to find another way to prove he wasn’t the asshole he’d shown himself to be. So here he was, working on the one thing he knew would show Liza he accepted her, family and all. Brother and all. She needed to know he could put the past behind him once and for all.

Hell, he needed to know the same thing. And Dare finally did. He knew now he could let it go. Because all the anger he had been holding on to and directing at this man had been Dare’s way of not turning it on himself, but in the end anger was just as lousy a coping mechanism as Brian’s alcohol crutch. Nothing could change what had happened and Dare had done the best he could with his life. He saw that clearly now.

“She’s always been there for me,” Brian said, bleary-eyed.

Though it galled him, Dare nodded and replied. “Well, she said you were there for her too. You took the rap for a broken vase after her boyfriend hit her.”

“It wasn’t all that hard to guzzle a bottle and say it was my fault. My folks were never as hard on me as they were on Liza.”

And look at the spectacular results of that brand of parenting, Dare thought, studying the other man.

“I’d do anything for her,” Brian said.

Bingo. “Really? Then let’s go.”

“Where?” Brian asked warily.

“To rehab. You’re going to call your parents and tell them they’re paying for your inpatient stay.” Dare had gotten a list of places from Alexa, who’d also made a few calls and secured a bed. “And after you check in, you’re going to call your sister.”

“But—”

“Unless you didn’t mean what you said? That you’d do anything for her?”

“The best thing I could do for her would be to disappear.”

Dare let out a laugh. “No, that’s the best thing you could do for me. Liza wouldn’t survive that.” And Dare wouldn’t survive losing Liza.

If there was one thing he’d learned in the last few days, it was that. She was his heart and he didn’t want to go forward without her. He just hoped she felt the same way about him.

He started for the door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Brian asked, sounding panicked.

“To my SUV. You’ve got five minutes to decide whether we’re taking that trip or not. But if you show up? Don’t do it for your sister. Do it for yourself. Otherwise you’ll end up right back where you started, and if you ask me, that’s a shit place to be.”

Without looking over his shoulder, Dare walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Liza drummed her fingers against her desk. She tapped her foot against the floor. She played basketball with balled-up paper. And she waited for a loan shark to walk into her office and take the money she and Cara had painstakingly stuffed into two cardboard tubes that usually held architectural plans.

Fifty thousand dollars,
she thought in disbelief.

A knock sounded on her door.

Her stomach jumped and she rose to her feet. “Come in.”

A third man she hadn’t seen before strode into her office. He wore a suit and tie and looked like any other client. “May I help you?”

“I’m here for the package, Ms. McKnight.”

Hands shaking, Liza pointed to the two tubes.

The man opened the white cap on the end of each, saw the money inside, and nodded. “This all of it?”

“Do you think I ever want to see you again? Of course that’s all of it.”
I like my kneecaps, thank you very much
, Liza thought.

The man turned and treated her to what looked like a genuine smile. “Then it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. More so than with your brother.” He popped the covers back onto the tubes and gathered them in his arms.

“Umm…would you be insulted if I asked for a receipt?”

The man tipped his head back and laughed. “Tell you what? I’ll go home and count it, and if it’s all there, I’ll send it in the mail,” he said, still chuckling.

“You trust me and I trust you. Fine.” She nodded, wondering when she’d lost her mind.

The man lifted his hand in a wave and walked out the door.