Maggie's Man (32 page)

But even if Ham was worried about Cain someday
usurping his place, surely when Cain left the state that would have quieted
such fears. Instead, Ham had come after him. Ham had hunted him down even
though Cain had not spoken to him in five years. And when Ham had appeared,
he'd known so much about Cain's life.

That should have been Cain's first clue.

He heard footsteps in the hallway. With a deep
breath, he fought back the darkness once more and dimly managed to grasp a last
hold on reality. Just a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer.

Sharp rapping on the door.

He sat up and dug his teeth into his lower lip
as the pain lanced through him sharply. "It's open," he called out,
his fingers squeezing the armrests for support. "Come in."

The door opened slowly. Cain was already
holding himself stiffly, gritting his teeth through the swirling madness and
preparing himself for Ham's lean, lanky form.

He wasn't ready at all for a pale, stumbling
woman with glowing red hair.

"No," he whispered hoarsely. "Oh
no."

Maggie stumbled into the room, her face drawn
and frightened, her shoulders slumped. His first thought was to pretend
ignorance. To dismiss Maggie out of hand as nothing more than a pawn he'd
already discarded, as if he couldn't care less what happened to her.

But he took one look at her and knew Ham would
never believe him. Already her face was transforming. She had simply to see him
and suddenly she blossomed. Her spine stiffened, her shoulders straightened.
She rose in the dimly lit room and her face took on the glowing radiance of a
woman in love. This was his Maggie, the fighter, the rebel. She was probably
thinking she'd dance the
lambada
in a black lace scarf to rescue him.

God, did he love her.

She did not touch him. She was not close enough
to reach him. But from across the room her gaze caressed him tenderly, brushing
his cheek, his lips, his throat. And his breath left him and his composure left
him and he knew he must be gazing at her as intently as she stared at him, for
suddenly Ham looked shocked, uncomfortable and then for a brief moment almost
ashamed.

Ham recovered first, pushing her forward with
sudden savagery so that she stumbled once more, falling to her knees against
the bed.

Logic fled from Cain's mind. He roared to his
feet, the pain blanching his face, the sweat streaking down his fevered brow.
He didn't notice anymore. He didn't care anymore. He had to protect Maggie. He
had to protect her from Ham.

"Don't," Ham said quietly and
suddenly he had a rifle pointed at Maggie. She froze, still leaning against the
bed, her gaze going from Ham to Cain to Ham again. Her face was expressionless
and still, waiting but not beaten.

The tension in the room ratcheted up another
notch.

"Cain?" she questioned quietly.

"It's okay," he said, more
instinctively than honestly. Belatedly he steadied himself with two hands
planted on the TV beside him. His leg wouldn't support his weight and he
couldn't afford for Ham to see the weakness.

"You shouldn't have brought her," he
told Ham stiffly. "I said this was between you and me, yet once again you
turn to the woman. Why can't you face just me, Abraham? Why can't you just
stand up to me?"

Abraham's face darkened, a clear sign the barb
had struck home. "A good soldier exploits weakness. You got a lotta
weakness, Cain. Always did."

"Let her go."

"You're wastin' your breath," Ham
said flatly.

Cain swayed dangerously, feeling rage, then an
icy coldness that scared him even more, for it carried him dangerously close to
the brink of unconsciousness. He had to keep talking, keep functioning and
reclaim control. "It's over now, Ham," he forced himself to say. His
lips didn't feel like his own. He stood at the end of a very long tunnel,
seeing his lips move, hearing himself talk and unable to connect the two. After
another shaky moment he squared his shoulders. "I know Dad planned
everything." And after a ponderous moment, "I even know we're only
half brothers."

He'd caught Ham off guard and the rifle
momentarily wavered. Then the other man checked himself and leveled the weapon
once more. "What're you talking about?"

"The truth," Cain ground out.
"After all these years I'm finally talking about the truth. Mom's trip to
Boise all those years ago. The trip to the 'city' she spoke of with such
wistfulness only when Zechariah wasn't in the room. The fact Zech always hated
me too much just as Mom loved me too much. And my name. He named me Cain not
because of my shame, didn't he, but because of Mom's? Because she'd met someone
else who had loved her and borne his child."

Ham's eyes grew dark. "Love her? She was
in the city for only two weeks. It wasn't love, brother. She was a whore, a
sinful woman, and if Daddy hadn't gone and saved her, she would have drowned in
her sin."

"Dragged her back kicking and
screaming," Cain filled in. And he could see his mother again, staring
outside the window at the rainfall with such longing. As if the house was her
prison. As if she would never be free. He'd always known that she was sad, but
then he'd never been happy in that cabin either so he hadn't questioned it. Not
until Maggie started asking him questions about his family, not until she
started talking about her half siblings, did Cain suddenly begin to understand.
Zechariah had known the truth of Cain's parentage. Abraham had known the truth.
Only Cain had been ignorant, leaving his mother isolated with her shame.
Sometimes, a man could be very blind.

"Zechariah planned everything, didn't
he?" Cain continued, relentlessly. He was very conscious of Maggie's
trusting gaze on his face. "I was the devil's pawn in his eyes and he'd
named me so. Then I did everything he feared. I went to civilization, embraced
society, made friends. Heaven help me, I paid taxes."

"You betrayed the mov—"

"I lived my life! I left behind your
hatred, your fanaticism. I realized being a man isn't about hate and it isn't
about war. It's not about pulling a trigger and it sure as hell isn't about
slaughtering women. It's knowing who you are, Abraham. It's standing for your
convictions even when no one else believes you. It's giving something of
yourself to the people around you."

"You are a traitor!"

"No. No, I am
not.
It's not your
call anyway. God is judge and jury—look it up sometime, Ham. Only you and
Zechariah can be so arrogant as to decide life and death of an innocent woman
and then say it's justice."

Ham's face darkened to a mottled shade, then
just as abruptly smoothed over. "No," he said tightly. "I won't
tell you that easy. You got a tape recorder, right? You want me to 'fess it
all, so you can wrap it up nice and neat and give it to some atheist
judge." He shook his head stubbornly. "Nope. No way. I'm no computer
programmer like you, but I'm not stupid. You won't get me that easy."

"I'm not trying to get you," Cain said
just as calmly. "I'm going to get Zechariah."

For the first time, Ham appeared uncertain.
"What?"

"I know you didn't act alone. I'm sure the
phone records will show numerous calls between my apartment and Zech's cell phone.
I'm sure the police will find at least one person willing to state that he
heard Zechariah tell someone it was okay to kill the girl, even just—"

"I'll deny everything," Ham
interrupted harshly. "You can't prove it."

"But I can," Cain countered quietly.
"Because I can say I was the one on the other end of the phone. I was the
one he commanded to kill Kathy." He looked at his brother levelly.
"You set me up for the crime, Ham. You're the one who convinced the jury I
was guilty. So now I'll play the guilty party. And I'll tell them all about my
accessory, my father who masterminded the hate crime. No more crimes of
passion, no more second-degree murder. When I'm done, it'll be a hate crime, a
premeditated hate crime—a federal offense. They'll lock Zechariah so deep into
the concrete, Pine-Sol is the closest he'll ever get to fresh air.

"And it'll be forever, Ham. Last of your
father's days, sitting in a six-by-eight maximum-security cell, allowed out for
only one hour a day and then he can shower or lift weights. That's it. He'll
listen to the rain and never feel it on his face. He'll see the sun and never
have it warm his skin. He'll dream of the mountains night after night after
night, and awake in a cold, gray tomb without even a phone call for comfort. I
know, Ham. I know all about it because I was there, and I'll tell you now,
he'll never make it.

"You got Kathy. But I've figured out the
perfect way to murder Zechariah. I got it from you."

"You son of a bitch." Ham's voice was
so low it was guttural and the look that filled his face was pure, animalistic
rage. He tilted the rifle toward Cain's chest. Cain didn't mind.

"You can't," he said. "You can't
kill Cain, remember?"

The rifle began to shake. The hatred and
confusion warred in Ham's face, a volatile mix.

"It's your own fault," Cain whispered
relentlessly. "You've never been able to stand on your own, Abraham. You
never fought your own wars. You're just Daddy's lapdog doing whatever he asks.
Ignore Cain, torture Cain. Kill his woman. You've never had an original thought
in your head. You're just a slave, a thirty-three-year-old white-boy slave
doing whatever you're told."

"I'm gonna kill you," Ham said.

"Then do it!" Cain exploded. He
leaned forward, his arms trembling with the strain, but he was too far gone
now, too filled with adrenaline to notice. "Come on, Ham, stand up and
shoot that rifle, don't just hold it. But you can't, can you? You can't take me
on, you can't stand up to someone as big as you or as strong as you. You're not
a man, you know
nothing
about how to be a man. You're Zechariah's
shadow, Zechariah's passive, unquestioning lapdog."

"It's not like that!"

"Like hell it's not. You're nothing!"

"I am not nothing!" Ham screamed.
"I did it! Damn you, damn you. I don't need Zechariah to act. You think I
need Zechariah to act? I don't need Zechariah. I killed her and it was me, my
idea, my plan. You ain't the only clever boy in the family, you miserable SOB.
I got brains too, dammit. And I fixed you, dammit, I fixed you better than
you've ever been fixed, and it was all me and my idea and my hand that held
your knife and slit her throat. And you want to know what, Cain? It wasn't even
hard. It was really damn easy."

"You son of a bitch," Cain whispered
softly. "You are insane."

And he stopped thinking, he stopped feeling. He
just saw Kathy, poor trusting Kathy, who died because of Cain's ignorance. And
he saw Maggie, beautiful, trusting Maggie, crouched on the floor waiting for
him to save her.

Ham tilted the rifle toward Maggie and smiled.

Cain staggered forward, the pain ripped up his
leg, savage and agonizing.

Maggie opened her mouth to scream.

And the world was spinning and the darkness
clutched him. There was pain and blood, numbness and cold rage.

Ham settled the rifle comfortably against his
shoulder and took aim.

And Cain lunged between them with his last
burst of strength, his arm catching Maggie's shoulder, flattening her to the
floor as his leg gave out and his body fell heavily on top of her. Down they
went to the carpet, his arms curling around her, his fevered frame preparing
for the bullet.

"Don't move." C.J.'s voice was cool,
calm and collected as he pressed his Beretta against Ham's forehead. The other
man twisted reflexively and C.J. didn't wait. He knew the stance of a professional
when he saw it. Two swift chops of his left arm, and the rifle tumbled from
Ham's suddenly nerveless hands.

Brandon swooped to pick it up.
"Maggie," he called immediately. "Are you all right?"

There was a two-second delay, then he heard her
muffled voice. She sounded as if she was crying. Immediately he was at her
side. "Maggie, Maggie, what's wrong?"

But then he saw the other man, the man whose
port-wine stain marked him as Cain. Brandon touched his shoulder. The limp body
rolled lifelessly aside, the face dangerously pale.

Maggie looked up at Brandon, her expression
tearing him in half as the tears streaked down her face.

"I think he's
dead," she whispered. "Brandon, I think he's dead!"

Epilogue

«
^

T
he
man moved slowly.

Strong, sinewy forearms were exposed by the
rolled-up sleeves of his work shirt, tendons clenching as he wrapped call used
hands around the saw and began the smooth, relentless motion. Sweat trickled
down from his forehead, staining sun-bronzed cheeks and dampening his blond
hair. He didn't stop to wipe it away and slowly the trickle built to stain his
blue chambray shirt.

He didn't mind the sweat. He didn't mind the
burn of his muscles as he moved the saw. He didn't mind the warm August day, or
the bright sunlight that made his eyes squint.