Take a Risk (Risk #1) (24 page)

‘I got this because I deserved it,’ Blaser said. ‘I got this because I let down a woman who meant a lot to me.’

‘Gary’s sister?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘She… she went through a hard time and I could’ve prevented it. I was supposed to meet her but I was late… I wasn’t there when she needed me.’

‘And Gary blames you for that?’

‘Gary blames everyone for everything because he thinks that the world is against him,’ Blaser said. ‘He doesn’t even see what Bri went through as important in her life, he only sees how it affected him.’

‘How did it affect him?’

‘He wasn’t there for her either,’ Blaser said. ‘We both let her down.’

‘But she’s ok now?’

‘I think ok is a relative term,’ he said, grasping the door handle. ‘I didn’t get shot because of you. I got shot because Gary needs to blame someone for what happened to his sister and I’m the only one he can lay his hands on.’

‘If you know it was him that shot you, then why don’t you tell the police and have him arrested?’

‘Because in a sort of weird, roundabout way, Gary is family too.’

He would never rat out Colt or Ruger for hurting him, but she couldn’t see either of them doing something so severe. If Blaser had been physically intimate with this woman, Bri, that meant that Blaser and Gary couldn’t be blood, which meant only one thing.

‘You still care about her.’

An uncomfortable half-smile formed on his lips, and his eyes fell to the floor. ‘Care doesn’t begin to cover it, Lyssa. But what I did to her, what she went through because of me… no one gets over that.’

‘Have you asked her?’ Lyssa asked, moving in closer to take his hand. ‘Have you talked to her about what she went through and what effect it had on you?’

Snatching his hand away, he pulled open the door. ‘There isn’t a single person in her life who gives a fuck about what she went through. Gary is the only family she has left and all he does is make it about him. I’m not going to do the same thing to her.’

‘Maybe letting her talk, giving her a safe place to exist in and an environment in which she can share her experiences is what she needs.’

‘I wouldn’t know how to coach her through that,’ Blaser said. ‘I wouldn’t know how to help her forget what happened and everything associated with it, that’s what she needs to do, and I’m a part of that.’

‘You are a part of it,’ Lyssa said. ‘Maybe there’s a reason she holds onto you, a reason that she keeps you in her life.’

‘Yeah,’ Blaser said. ‘Because Gary can’t stand it.’

‘Do you really believe that she’s that callous?’

‘Bri? No. But standing up to her brother is her way of taking control.’

‘And she feels like control has been taken from her?’ Lyssa asked, wishing that she could move this through into her office and get him sitting down.

‘Yeah,’ Blaser said. ‘Isn’t that what they say about rape victims?’

So this poor woman had been through a traumatic experience. Lyssa knew that talking about that experience and getting out all of the emotion associated with it that Bri hadn’t yet been able to express was important. This kind of event was the sort that she had been trained to help victims to process.

‘This might not be the time or…’ Lyssa started, ‘I’d like to meet her, if you’d consider letting me do that.’

Her offer of help made him frown and he backed out of the door. ‘You want to work your hocus pocus on her?’

‘It’s medicine,’ Lyssa said. ‘But if she’s not comfortable, or isn’t interested, then that’s fine. But I want you to know that the offer is there, for both of you, together or apart… We’re all family, right?’

This question put him somewhat more at ease, but he didn’t look any more eager to take her up on it. ‘I’ll think about,’ he said and she nodded. ‘I better get going.’

Letting go of his hand she let him retreat, hoping that he would actually take the time to process her offer and think about how it could help both parties. If Blaser and this Bri woman had been close, or in some kind of relationship, before she went through her trauma then that had been interrupted by the event. Now Bri was living her life with her ex and her brother, two of the most important men in her life, at each other’s throats, and blaming each other for something that was nobody’s fault except her attacker’s.

Knowing that in intellectual terms wouldn’t help Bri, she would have to be taken through the experience and have her emotions broken down into simple terms so that she could deal with them. Blaser cared about Bri and he was right, that did make them family. Lyssa didn’t want anyone to suffer alone through such an ordeal, least of all someone who was important to someone she cared about.

Finding out more about Blaser gave her a distraction from what was going on in her life, and what her love might presently be going through. If she couldn’t be of use to Colt then she would be of use to his brother.

Going into her office she began to work, putting together information and reading material for Blaser, and for Bri, that she hoped would encourage both of them to seek help. But the truth was that unless someone wanted it there was no way to force them into facing what they’d been through, and that was the only way to move forward.

If this was a manhunt then Lyssa knew that it could take days to find the person that they were looking for. But as the hours passed she found herself more and more eager to speak to Colt and check that he was alright.

After working for as long as she could and arranging for flowers to be sent to the patients she had lost, she went upstairs. It didn’t take long for Archie to get on her nerves. His bombardment of questions gave her a new respect for those who were reluctant to answer hers, and though she’d busied herself with chores, that didn’t stop Archie from following her around giving her a lecture about her choice of partner.

This, of course, led to her bringing up his current predicament and how stupid it was of him to get mixed up in defrauding the IRS. That was a smokescreen for her own attack on his relationship with the young woman who was clearly only interested in the money Archie had accrued through his surgical practice. So they ended up having an argument just like in the old days. It actually helped to relieve some of her tension, but led to them agreeing to remain in separate rooms, which suited her just fine.

She had cooked, but wasn’t looking forward to sitting at the dinner table alone with Archie. It would be immature of her to take her food to her bedroom or office, so she laid the table for two and was about to go to the spare room, where he was residing, when she heard a knock at the front door.

Relief flooded through her because she was sure that the only person it could be was Colt. If he had news and was in proximity to her home then there would be no reason for him not to come over and deliver the news in person.

But when she opened the door it was Suzette who stood in front of her, not her lover. ‘Suzette?’

‘I went to Colt’s, but you weren’t back yet,’ Suzette said, moving past Lyssa into the hall. ‘Some guy called Gus said that you’d come home.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Lyssa asked, taking Suzette’s coat from her to hang it in the hall closet. ‘I thought you were going to stay with your sister.’

‘She was driving me nuts and her kids were running around. I just needed to be somewhere that I could clear my head. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No,’ Lyssa said. ‘We never got the chance to talk earlier. Archie is still upstairs, do you want to talk in the office? I have coffee.’

Suzette nodded and so Lyssa let her into the office to get started on the coffee while Lyssa went upstairs to turn off the stove and tell Archie that there was food available to eat. She might be missing out on a meal, but that was no reason for the food to go to waste.

Instead of sitting on her doctor’s chair, she chose to sit with Suzette on the couch and the women sipped their freshly made coffee before either spoke.

‘How are you feeling?’ Lyssa asked her friend.

‘Alone, scared, confused,’ Suzette said.

‘You’re going to be fine,’ Lyssa said. ‘This will blow over. I know that Pete will come to his senses.’

‘I…’ Her voice cracked. Lyssa put her cup aside and slid closer to take Suzette’s hand. ‘I’m just so in love with him and I was sure that this was it. Everything seemed to be so perfect. I don’t know how it all fell apart so quickly. A few weeks ago we were fine and now… this. I mean… I can’t even… I don’t…’

‘It’s ok,’ Lyssa said, taking Suzette’s cup away from her to put it on the table, giving her leave to pull her friend into her arms. ‘This is a shock. Your emotions are perfectly normal and it’s good to express them.’ Suzette cried for a while, but eventually sat back enough to blink her watery eyes at Lyssa, who maintained her proximity. Suzette could need another hug at any minute and Lyssa was happy to be on hand to offer her friend the support. Coaching a friend was so different to coaching a patient and it was funny how easily she slid between the roles as was required. ‘Have you spoken to Pete today?’

‘Not since before I left the house and came to Colt’s this morning… I wanted to call him, but I’m just too scared, what if he hangs up on me? Or diverts me to voicemail or something? I’ve taken all the rejection that I can today.’

‘I’m going to go upstairs and get a bottle of wine, ok? Then we can either talk about how to fix this, or we’ll curse men and everything they stand for. How does that sound?’

With a blubbery sniff, Suzette nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve, prompting Lyssa to reach over her for the tissue box on the end table. ‘Thank you,’ Suzette said, blowing her nose. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Lyssa gave her hand a squeeze and did as she’d said she would. Pouring away the coffee, she got a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses. Archie was happily eating the dinner she had made while sitting in front of the television watching a reality TV show that she didn’t recognise. He didn’t even acknowledge her when she came through and she thought of how such an act, or lack of one, epitomised their marriage and it was funny how quickly they slid back into their old ways.

Archie entertained himself in front of the television because he didn’t have an office to ensconce himself in. Other than that this situation was just like the days of their relationship. Him in one room alone, uninterested in her, and her in another room drinking wine and whining with Suzette. Nostalgia over the similarities made her smile as she descended the stairs, but they also made her more grateful for what she had now, because there wasn’t anything in the world that would ever make her go back to this, especially not now that she had her Colt to rely on.

Suzette spent the night in her bed with her, but they didn’t wake up to Colt or to Ruger watching over them today. The friends and Archie had breakfast together and spent the longest time talking about absolutely nothing. It was amazing how skilled they were at small talk, with all of them avoiding the elephant in the room, which was that actually none of them wanted to be in each other’s company at all. There was somewhere that they would all rather be: with their respective partners.

Going through the motions of the day, they were all preoccupied. Archie attempted to call the receptionist who had thrown him out but she was refusing to take his calls. Lyssa tried to call Colt, but it went to voicemail. He had to be busy and she knew he was pulling out all of the stops to ensure that she was kept safe, but she longed to hear his voice.

Suzette tried to call Pete too, though Lyssa tried to tell her to give him more time, but his phone was diverting to voicemail as well.

‘It must mean he’s over me,’ Suzette wailed and Archie tutted and turned up the volume on the television. The man had never had any patience for Suzette, but he rarely had patience for anyone.

For a man with a successful business he didn’t have very many ends to tie up or explanations to make. But he had a staff to take care of all of that for him, all he had to do was show up for surgery and there was none of that going on this weekend. She wondered if he’d clued his staff into the fact that there may be no wages for them at the end of the month, probably not.

‘It doesn’t mean that he’s over you,’ Lyssa said. The women sat together drinking coffee in the kitchen, where they’d been contemplating making lunch, but had yet to work up the required motivation. ‘It could mean anything. Maybe he’s busy or got called into work. There’s a chance that he’s just as devastated as you and is at home right now pining.’

‘Do you think that I should go over there?’

‘You don’t want to pressure him,’ Lyssa said. ‘Remember that you have genuine grievances too, you should be able to air those with him and come to a compromise. This relationship can’t only be about him, it has to be about both of you.’

‘Can you counsel us?’ Suzette asked. ‘Maybe if you’re there to play mediator... he’ll see reason, you know? He’ll see how good you are at what you do and how special you are, and he won’t feel the need to… push you out, or protect me from you.’

Lyssa nudged her coffee mug out of the way so that she could reach to take Suzette’s hand without barriers. ‘You know that I will always be available to you as a friend. But Pete isn’t comfortable with me and it would be unfair to put him in a room with both of us. A patient has to be able to trust their doctor and he’s going to think that I am biased.’

‘But you’re not! You’re always fair.’

‘I would be biased,’ Lyssa smiled. ‘I appreciate your compliment, but I know about things in your relationship that he doesn’t know I know. You’re also my oldest and dearest friend, how could I look at your relationship without a skewed view? If it came to the crunch in any situation, can you see yourself siding with Colt over me?’

‘No,’ Suzette sighed and dropped an elbow to the table top. ‘But I can’t not get married Lys, I can’t believe how quickly this fell apart. Everything is planned, it’s all booked and paid for. I thought I’d be walking down the aisle toward him, and now…’

‘He doesn’t want you spending time with me while he feels that I provide an unsafe environment for you, that’s reasonable. Colt is working right now to remove the threat and once he does then Pete will have no reason to prevent us from being friends and spending time in each other’s company. Maybe once that happens he’ll begin to see just how special you are to me, and he’ll learn that I would never knowingly endanger you.’

‘What if Colt is unsuccessful in removing the threat?’

If Colt was unsuccessful then Lyssa was going to have all kinds of problems, the least of which would be her best friend’s fiancé, or former fiancé, depending on what he was by then. ‘He’ll be successful, these things just take time.’

‘How can you be so optimistic? You’re always so optimistic,’ Suzette whined. Misery did love company and right now Lyssa wasn’t providing that company for her.

‘I’m not going to let this person have that kind of power over me,’ Lyssa said. ‘I have more faith in Colt than I do in the stalker and if one of them is going to triumph, then it’s going to be my Colt.’

‘So once the stalker is caught and put in jail, do you think that Pete will forget everything else that happened? About Risqué, and me going there even though I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me doing it?’

‘The lying is harder to get over,’ Lyssa said, having to be honest with her friend. ‘But I do believe that it was the shock of what happened with the police raid that Pete reacted to. Did you tell him that you’d been out with your sister?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t believe me.’

‘So you ended up telling him the truth?’

‘Yes, and that’s when he exploded,’ Suzette said.

‘Like I said, it was a shocking story and we already know how concerned he is for your safety. Imagine hearing such a story from him, knowing that the person you love has been in danger while you weren’t there for them.’

‘Do you really think that this is about that?’  Suzette asked, completely unconvinced. ‘He knew that I wasn’t in any danger, not real danger. I mean it was the cops, right? They wouldn’t have done anything to harm me.’

‘Yes, but you went to a place that could have put you in danger. We might know that Risqué is a safe place, but all that Pete knows is that you visited a strip club in a seedy part of town, alone. If he doesn’t frequent these places then it made sense that his mind went to the worst case scenario. Before I knew Colt and Risqué, I would have assumed it was a dangerous place. In fact I did assume that, I took you that first night because I wasn’t sure that it was safe to go there alone. It’s only my experience of the place, and the people there, that has taught me otherwise.’

Suzette perked up, coddling her cup in both hands and sliding it toward her chest. ‘So maybe if I take Pete there and introduce him to some of the people he will learn that—‘

‘I don’t think that Pete will be open to visiting the club, not right off the bat. Maybe in time you can build up to taking him there and introducing him to the people that we know. Fundamentally, this is about trust. He feels betrayed. You put yourself in danger to help me when he asked you to take no part in the situation.’

‘But I wasn’t in danger!’ Suzette asserted. ‘We went to that place together, it was recommended by a cop for goodness sake and nothing bad happened to me when we went together before.’

‘No, but it was a risk. Pete probably realises now just how important this friendship is to you and how far you are willing to go to help me.’

‘That’s a bad thing? That I’m loyal to my friends and willing to support them?’

‘No,’ Lyssa smiled. ‘But you didn’t go to Pete and ask him to help you. You went behind his back to seek out another man.’

‘Who happens to have experience in this area.’

‘You could have explained your worries to Pete and asked him to accompany you to Risque,’ Lyssa said. ‘Did you consider that?’

‘No. We both know how he would have reacted. He’d already banned me from seeing you, so he was never going to help me to help you. If I had asked him and he had said no then I would have had to go alone anyway, without his support. Isn’t it worse to do something you’ve already been forbidden from doing than to just do it without asking?’

‘If you think that arguing your way out of this on a technicality is going to be successful then you’re mistaken. Pete needs to know that you trust him and value him. He wants to see you put your relationship with him before everything else. As far as he’s concerned you’re going to get married and spend your lives growing old together. You are the mother of his future children.’

‘And that’s all great,’ Suzette said. ‘I feel the same way.’

‘His dream is to be with you, but how long will that dream last if you get yourself hurt, or worse, because of me?’

‘This is so messed up. I want to be with him. But I have to be myself too, and I have to be allowed to have friendships. I don’t forbid him from spending time with his friends and colleagues.’

‘He doesn’t have a friendship like this though, does he?’

‘Keith is the closest thing that he has to a best friend. I’ve never known him to associate with anyone else to be honest, even at work.’

Lyssa couldn’t judge Pete for that, she worked alone and so most of her contact was with patients. Colleagues that made referrals sent emails; she rarely even spoke to them on the phone. Suzette was her best friend, and all that Lyssa felt she needed.

‘Would he do what you did?’ Lyssa asked. ‘Would Pete take a possibly grave risk to ensure Keith’s safety?’

‘I’m not even sure that he’d take that kind of risk to ensure mine.’

Seeing her best friend depressed upset Lyssa, but the more they discussed the relationship, the more her concern shifted to something else. ‘If you’re not sure of that then you shouldn’t be marrying him.’ Usually she wasn’t so blunt, but they weren’t in her doctor’s office now.

Suzette must have realised the same thing about her being heavy handed, for the longest time she said nothing at all, but eventually she looked up. ‘I know that our relationship is not perfect. And I know that Pete has flaws, just like I do, but… I love him.’

How many times she’d heard the same thing. Lyssa had made it a point to take on mostly male patients because they tended to be more direct and not so caught up in the messy mire of emotions, because emotions were the one thing that couldn’t be reasoned away. Men were engaged enough to take on practical advice. But in the majority of cases women acted with their hearts and not their heads. That very line, “I love him” seemed to be an answer and explanation for everything. Lyssa didn’t fault the women, she was one herself and had been bogged down by the heavy heart that told her how wrong her partner’s actions were, but still couldn’t bring herself to reject them.

She and Archie had such fun and such a deep connection when they met that falling in love with him had been inevitable. Their relationship had cooled quickly and the connection ended up being mostly sexual, which her naïve mind and body had made into something else. They should have split up long before they did, but Lyssa had told herself the same thing, that she loved Archie and that it would all work out. For a while she had believed that things would go back to the way they were, in time, and that all they had to do was find each other again. How wrong she had been.

If Suzette loved Pete and the depth of feeling was returned then the couple should fight to be together. But if this was just obligation because the church was already booked, Lyssa had to stop her friend from making such a permanent mistake. Marriages may be able to end, but divorce stayed with a person for life and Suzette was so full of life and energy that Lyssa would hate to see her become jaded or bitter.

Readying herself to ask some difficult questions, Lyssa was interrupted by the drone of the doorbell, which few people ever used. Both women sat straighter and there was hope in both of them that their partner’s had come to call.

Leaving Archie in front of the television, the women went down the stairs to answer the door without either saying a word. When they pulled open the door, Lyssa tried her best not to display her disappointment, almost as much as Suzette tried to disguise her elation.

‘Pete,’ Suzette said with a twitching grin.

‘I thought that you would be here,’ Pete said, glancing at Lyssa. ‘I think that we should talk.’

Suzette was nodding furiously, and shoved Lyssa out of the way to grant Pete entry. ‘Come in. We can talk upstairs.’

Pete passed the women and headed up the stairs, Suzette was close behind him until Lyssa caught her arm to hold her back. ‘Be careful,’ Lyssa said. ‘Try to be calm.’

‘He came here, for me,’ Suzette hissed, letting her grin loose. ‘That must mean he loves me.’

‘He didn’t say that he was here for you, he said he was here to talk.’

The grin vanished and her complexion greyed. ‘Do you think he’s here to talk about cancelling the wedding?’

‘I don’t know why he’s here,’ Lyssa said, hating that she had to be the bearer of bad news. ‘I’m just telling you not to get your hopes up. Archie and I will leave—‘

A sharp crack from upstairs startled the women, and after a moment agape, they ran up the stairs to see what had been the cause of such an abrupt bang. At first there was nothing to see. Pete wasn’t anywhere around and although the television was still on, she couldn’t see Archie either.

Her assumption that her ex had gone into the bedroom was short-lived because as soon as she came around the couch she saw him slumped forward on the floor with a hole in the back of his skull.

‘Oh my god,’ she said, running around the couch and pulling him onto his back to assess what had happened. But the hole in the front of his forehead was larger and she recognised it immediately as an exit wound. ‘He’s been shot.’

Suzette stood at the back of the couch, deathly white and visibly shaking. ‘How did…? I don’t understand how…?’