The Burning Point (22 page)

"I appreciate the fact that you haven't turned this into a lecture on the dangers of demolition."

Humor glinted in his eyes. "Not saying 'I told you so' has been a real strain. Do you understand better why Sam didn't want you working under these conditions?"

She considered what it would be like to have a child of hers in danger of falling down an elevator shaft. "I concede the point--working demolition is dangerous. I've certainly learned a lesson in caution that I'll never forget. But if you're hoping I've decided this is not a career I want to pursue, forget it."

"The information doesn't surprise me." Because he knew her well--surprisingly well, given the number of years they had been apart.

And she didn't know him as well as she'd thought.

Chapter 19

The day after Kate's near fatal slip, activity at the Nevada Palace kicked into high gear. Movie set designers started grooming the surrounding area to restore the illusion of normalcy, while safety lines were strung around the outer reaches of the parking lot to keep onlookers at a safe distance.

Donovan had finalized the explosives plan, so it was time to start preparing the columns for loading. He put Kate in charge of the covering crew, which would wrap the designated columns with chain-link fencing and geo-textile fabric.

The local laborers who made up her six-man group regarded Kate with surprise when she walked up and introduced herself, then explained what they would be doing. As she asked each of their names, a cocky young devil named Luis studied her hair in fascination. It was long enough to make a short braid, and it hung from the back of her hard hat, blond and hopelessly frivolous.

Expression innocent, he said in Spanish, "Think I'll ask little blondie to go dancing, then show her what a man's stick of dynamite is for."

Glad for her experience with California construction crews, she said in Spanish, "A stick of dynamite? More like a wet firecracker, chico."

Luis turned scarlet to his ears as the rest of the crew broke into roars of laughter. One of the older men clapped Luis on the back. "Never mess with a boss lady, hombre."

After that, the men accepted Kate with good-natured respect and gave her no trouble. Lugging the rolls of fencing and black fabric up to the shot-floors was heavy work, as was wrapping and wiring the coverings in place. After nine hours of laboring with only a brief lunch break, Kate was more than ready to call it a day. She'd thought she was in pretty good shape, but whole new muscle groups were complaining loudly.

Back at the Grand Maya, she showered and emerged into the suite living room with damp hair as the phone rang. It was Luther Hairston and Jim Frazer, the other PDI men, who had just arrived from Maryland and checked into the hotel.

The four of them spent the evening working over room service food in the conference area of Kate and Donovan's suite. Besides going over the explosives plan, the men discussed the problems that might be caused by the extra-heavy reinforcement. Kate followed the conversation silently, absorbing every word toward the day when she could participate as an equal.

As the main meeting broke up, Donovan and Jim started discussing some engineering fine points. Kate took the opportunity to visit with Luther, who had been Sam's first employee. The two men had met in the Army Corps of Engineers, and learned explosives side by side. When Sam started PDI, he'd hired Luther at a time when it was a good deal less common for white and black to work side by side as equals.

Though Luther had been a pallbearer at the funeral, Kate hadn't had a chance to speak with him then. His hair was white now, which made his skin seem even darker, but his smile was the same one she'd loved as long as she could remember. "I'm glad you're on this job, Luther. You can keep me out of trouble."

"That husband of yours can do that, Katydid."

"Ex-husband, if you please. Sam deserves a few years in purgatory for drawing up such a will."

"Your daddy was high-handed, no denying it, but he was also no fool," Luther said. "You should take this time to think hard about your marriage."

"It takes two people to make a marriage. Neither of us wants to go back."

"Maybe not back, but that doesn't mean you couldn't go forward. I haven't forgotten how you and Donovan were together. There was something pretty fine there once. Maybe there could be again. I've worked with him for a dozen years now. He's got a temper on him, but he's a good man, Kate. Smart. Fair. Responsible. A sense of humor. You could do worse." Luther grinned. "After all, you aren't getting any younger. Time you got married again. At least with Donovan, you already know his bad points."

Too true. "The world is full of divorced people. Why does everyone have to have an opinion about me and Donovan?"

"Because we care about you, honey. But I won't belabor the point, or you'll dig your heels in just like your daddy would."

"They're already solidly planted."

"Then I won't say any more on the subject." Luther covered a yawn with one hand. "Time for bed. It's way past midnight East Coast time."

She was glad to see him go. The last thing she needed was more good advice.

∗ ∗ ∗

Luther's departure triggered Jim's, leaving Donovan alone with Kate. He glanced up from his seat at the conference table to see that she was stacking dishes on the service cart left by the waiter. "You don't have to do kitchen duty. Leave everything for the maid. It's one of the great advantages of staying in a hotel."

"I fantasize that huge hordes of cockroaches will invade if we leave dirty dishes here all night." Kate piled silverware on the top plate. "I'd rather roll everything into the corridor and hope the cockroaches give us a miss."

"Since you put it that way..." Actually, if she hadn't started cleaning up, he probably would have. They were both pretty neat. In that area, as in so many others, they'd always gotten along well.

There was a clink of glassware as she collected the empty tumblers and wheeled the service cart outside. Stepping back into the room, she said, "Looking at the glassware made me realize that you didn't have anything but soft drinks, even though everyone else ended the evening with a beer. Then it struck me that I haven't seen you touch any alcohol since I came back to Maryland, not even when we were eating lasagna. Are you a recovering alcoholic?"

Jesus
! He set his notes in his briefcase and snapped the lid closed. "No. But I could be. So I stopped drinking."

She dropped into an upholstered chair. "An interesting statement. Care to elaborate?"

Reluctantly he said, "After you left, I realized that every time I did something god-awful, I'd had something to drink. Maybe only a beer or a glass of wine, but there was always something."

"I don't remember you ever getting really drunk." Her brow furrowed as she thought back. "You did the same kind of drinking everyone else did. Maybe you'd get a little high at a party or after playing softball with your buddies, but you always held your liquor well."

"The fact that I wasn't stumbling or slurring words or wearing lampshades didn't mean I wasn't affected." He squared his briefcase on the table with great precision. "One thing I learned in therapy was that for some people, even a little alcohol is all the excuse they need to lash out if they're angry about something. Turns out that's what happened to me. Most of the time my reaction to drinking was normal, but if I was mad or jealous, a couple of beers were all it took to blow my impulse control to hell."

"I'll take your word for it that alcohol sometimes affected you badly. But is that the same as being a potential alcoholic?"

"Maybe not for everyone."

Her eyes narrowed. "If you're different, why?"

"Damn it, Kate!" He propelled himself from the chair and began to pace the room. "I don't want to talk about this!"

She flinched. "Is this the same man who said yesterday that I'd avoided talking for too long?"

"Hoist by my own petard." He stopped at the window and gazed at the desert night. "Did you know that phrase refers to a grenadier who was blown up by his own bomb?"

"I knew. Anything to do with explosives has always interested me. Don't try to change the subject, Patrick. What are you not talking about?"

His hands clenched. "I had to take my drinking seriously because...because my father was a raging alcoholic, and that's often hereditary."

There was a long moment of silence before she said in an edged voice, "Your father was a raging alcoholic. How very odd that you never happened to mention that."

"I couldn't, Kate. I just...couldn't."

"You told me your parents died in a car accident. Had your father been drinking?"

"His blood alcohol was more than twice the legal limit. He and my mother were killed instantly." He grasped the window sill, fingers tightening until the knuckles showed white. "My little sister didn't die for almost a week." Mary Beth had been so young. Only eleven years old. "The longest week of my life."

She caught her breath. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that. I thought she'd died in the crash, like your parents."

"How could you know?" His voice was harsh. "I could never stand to talk about the accident, and I asked my relatives not to upset you with such depressing old news."

"A couple of times I asked Aunt Connie about your family, and she would just shake her head and sigh and say how sad it was," Kate said. "I thought she meant the accident itself. I didn't realize there was more."

"I don't know if she knew about my father's drinking. It was the Donovan family secret," he said bitterly. "That's another thing I learned in therapy. Families of alcoholics often have a tacit agreement to hide what's going on from outsiders. Even now, it's hard, damned hard, to talk about my father's drinking."

"Rather like me and my inability to talk about being an abused wife."

There was enormous relief in knowing that she understood. "Exactly like that. A deep, irrational belief that to talk about the family secrets will destroy you."

"Was your father a mean drunk?"

Knowing that it was time--past time--to tell the whole truth, he turned to face her. "Sober, my father had the charm of the Irish, but when he drank he was a vicious bastard. Once he broke my collarbone, another time he cracked a couple of my ribs." He rolled back his left sleeve, revealing a thin scar on the inside of his arm. "I think I told you this came from tripping while I carried a glass?"

Kate nodded mutely.

"I lied. It happened when my old man knocked me into a window. An artery was cut. There was an amazing amount of blood. Good thing I was a Boy Scout and knew enough first aid to keep myself from bleeding to death."

"How old were you when that happened?"

"Twelve. The hell of it was that when my father was sober, he could be a great guy. He coached my Little League team, took Mary Beth and me crabbing, did the usual good dad things. But as I got older, he was sober less and less often. By the end..."

"Yes?" Kate's low voice was encouraging.

"My mother baked a cake for my sixteenth birthday. My father didn't show up for dinner, and we all knew what that meant--he was out drinking with his buddies. Eventually we went ahead and ate, trying to pretend we were having a good time while waiting for the ax to fall.

"He came home drunk, and exploded when he saw we'd eaten without him. He grabbed my mother to hit her. I went crazy. I was as tall as he was by then, and a hell of a lot more fit, so I slammed him against the wall and said if he ever laid a finger on Mom or Mary Beth or me again, I'd kill him."

He'd meant it, too. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the sour scent of whiskey on his father's breath, nor the play of emotions in the blue eyes that were so like his own. Shock. Rage. And then fear. When he was sixteen there had been triumph in seeing that fear. Now, on bad nights his father's eyes haunted him.

"Did standing up to him help?"

"For a while." He'd been so proud of himself, thinking he'd been heroic. Perhaps he had. Yet though he didn't recognize the fact until years later, his actions had turned him into a bully like his father, using the threat of violence to achieve his aim. He'd gone over to the dark side. "The accident was only a couple of months later." And he would always wonder if his defiance, which had shifted the balance of power in the Donovan family, might have played a part in his father's last lethal drive.

"Why didn't your mother leave and take you and your sister away?"

"Where I grew up, people mated for life. A woman was expected to put up with her husband's little vices, as long as he was a good provider. My father was a steelworker at Sparrow's Point, so by local standards, he was a good husband. And to be fair, she loved him. Or at least, she loved the man he was sometimes."

His fingers drummed the window sill in a tense tattoo. He tried not to think of his family very often, especially not Mary Beth. His feelings about his mother were more complex. He'd loved her, and she'd done everything she could for her children--except protect them. "It...it half killed me when you left, Kate--but I was glad that you had the courage to leave before I hurt you really badly."