To Have Vs. To Hold

by MJ Rodgers

  A long quiet moment passed, during which Ryson’s gray complexion blackened with irritation. “What’s inside you, Justice? You not made of blood and bone like the rest of us? The bitch who betrayed you and the bastard who came on to your sister while he was getting it on with your wife are dead, man. You should be breaking out the booze and celebrating. Hell, if you have some cold beer, we’ll even join you.”

  Adam set his nearly full cup of coffee on the counter and slipped off the bar stool. “Sergeant Ryson, Detective Ferkel, I won’t keep you from your other duties.”

  Ryson loped off his bar stool and landed in front of Adam, a deep, angry flush suffusing his face. “We’ll be conducting a thorough investigation into this matter, Justice.”

  “What matter would that be?” Adam asked, purposely sounding unconcerned.

  “It was probably just an accident, of course,” Ferkel added quickly, too quickly as he slid off his bar stool and came to stand beside Ryson, dwarfing the shorter, far leaner sergeant with his hefty bulk. “But I’m sure you understand, Mr. Justice. Two people have died. Naturally we must check these things out.”

  Ryson crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re going to get to the bottom of everything that happened seven years ago, Justice. Everything. I want to see what your wife left behind when she took off with Danner. Now.”

  “If you can convince a judge that you have a right to search my home to find something my wife may have left behind, I will not stand in your way,” Adam said calmly.

  Ryson’s lips tightened unhappily—very unhappily.

  And that told Adam what he needed to know. There was no evidence that Patrice’s and Peter’s deaths were anything but accidental. If there had been any real sign of foul play, Ryson would have further insisted on searching for anything that might have belonged to Patrice and confiscating it.

  He had no warrant to do that. Not yet, anyway. So despite these detectives’ obvious suspicions, they were still just suspicions.

  “Has my sister been told about Peter Danner’s death?” Adam asked as he started out of the kitchen, confident the policemen would have to follow.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryson glancing at the watch on his wrist. “She has by now.”

  Adam knew the fact that the police had chosen to tell A.J. personally wasn’t a good sign. It meant that she, too, was being sized up as a possible suspect, should the deaths be determined to be other than accidental.

  Adam wasn’t surprised. He and A.J. were the ones with motives. The betrayed husband. The betrayed fiancee. Yes, to a policeman’s mind it would seem a little too convenient that the betrayers had met with such swift deaths following their betrayal.

  Adam headed for the entry with a crisp step. He had no desire to prolong this interview. He opened the front door and stepped aside, clearly inviting the officers to leave.

  “Neither my wife nor Peter Danner had any family,” Adam said as Ryson and Ferkel filed past. “I will be responsible for the burial arrangements.”

  Ryson stopped and turned to face Adam. “You’re even going to foot the bill to bury that bastard who was sticking it to your wife behind your back?”

  Ryson’s parting shot was a good one. Still, Adam did not respond with the reaction Ryson was trying so hard to elicit.

  “I’ll have a funeral home contact you,” Adam said. “Should you have any more questions, you know where to find me.”

  And with that he closed the door on Ryson and Ferkel.

  Adam took a long, deep, steadying breath and slowly let it out. He knew he should fight the impulse that already had him turning toward the study. He knew he wouldn’t.

  He made his way directly to his desk and opened the bottom drawer.

  It was in the very back, beneath the family album, beneath the stack of his law-review honors, on the very bottom, exactly where he had wrapped and placed it seven years before.

  Carefully he removed and unwrapped the eight-by-ten-inch crystal picture frame. It was delicate and exquisite, but paled into insignificance next to the picture it contained.

  For she was incomparable. Large, velvety, violet eyes set in a heart-shaped face. Porcelain skin surrounded by thick golden curls cascading over the gentle swell of her breasts to a tiny waist. And that angelic smile, just made to melt a man’s mind. Her flowery handwriting covered the right corner:

  To my Adam,

  Love always,

  Patrice.

  Adam set the picture facedown on the top of his desk. Still, her image stayed in his mind—clear, never changing—just as it had stayed-for seven years.

  Just as he feared it would always stay.

  He rested his forehead in his hands as the familiar sear of pain shot down his neck…and into his heart.

  DETECIVE-SERGEANT Ryson stomped across the manicured lawn in front of Adam’s house to the unmarked green Ford parked at the curb, ignoring the Please Use The Sidewalk signs. If Justice was watching from inside that pricey place of his, he’d see that Ryson was a man who didn’t hesitate to cut a corner when he wanted to.

  Ryson reached the car, pulled open the driver’s door, plopped onto the seat and slammed the door closed. He frowned down at his shoes, covered in moist grass clippings. Ferkel piled into the passenger seat a few seconds later and sprayed the inside of the car with an enormous sneeze.

  Ryson glared at his partner with all the irritation that had been growing inside his gut throughout that far from satisfactory interview with Justice. “I thought you were getting a stronger antihistamine medication.”

  “Sorry, Sarge. It’s all the freshly mown grass around this place. Hell on my sinuses. Justice must have one great cleaning woman. Or else he’s never home. No bachelor I know lives that neat. Did you notice everything was in black and white? This guy’s definitely not normal.”

  “You can say that again. He’s a proud rich bastard who cares about nothing but himself,” Ryson said, nearly spitting out the words. “You saw. He reacted to nothing. Not the news that we found her body and Danner’s. Not even the jabs about their betrayal.”

  “You think he didn’t care that she left him?”

  “Oh, he cared, all right. But only because it was a slap at his pride. There’s no way that man would have just rolled over when his wife took off with someone else. No, a guy like Justice would have had to teach her a lesson for his ego’s sake.”

  “His never filing for divorce is what has me convinced,” Ferkel said. “Lawyers are about money. There’s no way he wouldn’t have protected his legal butt if he had thought she was still alive.”

  Ryson glanced back at the large expanse of manicured lawn and the lush, perfectly pruned bushes, plants and trees around the well-tended home. Adam Justice was just like his surroundings, too perfect. Ryson had never come face-to-face with a man he couldn’t get to react. Until now. No matter what hot button he’d pushed, Justice had remained in complete control.

  That burned Ryson more than anything.

  “Didn’t I tell you there was something wrong about this so-called accident from the moment I heard who the victims were?” he said.

  “Yeah, Sarge, that you did.”

  “Was it quick?” Ryson repeated, deliberately mimicking Adam’s somber tone. “Like we’re supposed to believe that he really gave a damn if the wife, who cheated on him and took off with his sister’s fiance, suffered before she died.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think Justice had to ask us anything.”

  “Damn straight, he didn’t. Justice knows exactly what happened to his runaway wife and her lover. He’s known it for seven years. I’d bet my badge on it. We can forget the sister. This is the one who did it. All we need is for forensics to prove it wasn’t an accident and we can move in. Maybe a double charge of murder will rip that damn impassive mask off Adam Justice’s face.”

  Chapter Two

  “Funerals should always take place under gloomy skies, preferably with pouring rain,” Octavia Osborne said to Adam as she st
epped beside him at the grave site. “It’s a waste to have to attend to death on a day blessed with such a brilliant sun.”

  Adam looked over at Octavia, the only one of his partners at the Justice Inc. law firm who refused to speak to him with sympathetic platitudes this morning. Octavia was as unfettered by conventional restraint as the resplendent red hair that draped across her shoulders.

  She was outspoken and impossibly impulsive—as opposite to Adam as opposites could be. And yet, despite their personality differences and their frequent disagreements over the way she “interpreted” legal ethics, Adam was proud to call Octavia a friend. For when it came to loyalty, Adam knew Octavia’s was not open to interpretation.

  “I appreciate your coming,” he said, simply, meaning every word.

  He felt her eyes draw to his face, then switch to his hand. Her voice was concerned and thoughtful, not unkind. “Are you going to be able to bury her now?”

  Adam realized then that his hand had been unconsciously stroking the scar that extended from his neck to beneath his collar line. He dropped his hand to his side. Octavia was the only Justice Inc. partner who had known Patrice and had understood how Adam had felt about his wife.

  “I don’t know.”

  Octavia rested her hand briefly on his arm. It was a gesture of both understanding and sympathy, the genuine kind, the only kind Octavia knew how to give.

  The clergyman stepped up to say the appropriate words over the caskets containing the remains of Patrice Justice and Peter Danner.

  But Adam knew “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” were not the right words. He hated the idea that he was standing here just going through the motions. He was a man who needed to find meaning in everything he did.

  And in this most of all.

  Adam’s eyes roamed over the faces of the Justice Inc. partners who were present here today for his sake. Kay Kellogg stood beside her fiancé, Damian Steele. Marc Truesdale was holding his adopted son, Nicholas, with his new wife, Remy, by his side. Next to Octavia stood Brett Merlin, her intended.

  Despite the solemnity of the occasion, Adam could see that there was a new air of contentment about his partners that he hadn’t taken the time to notice before today.

  This past year at Justice Inc. had challenged each of them with an unusual case. Still, it wasn’t the professional success from those legal battles he was reading on their faces. It was another kind of fulfillment. All of his partners had now found someone to be with through all their battles, successful or otherwise.

  Adam’s eyes moved to his sister’s face. A.J. stood alone, watching as the caskets were lowered into the earth. Her expression was calm.

  Still, as adept as A.J. was at hiding her feelings, Adam knew she had loved Peter. He had seen that much seven years before. Peter had been A.J.’s world then—just as Patrice had been his.

  While Adam watched, Zane Coltrane stepped up behind A.J. and rested a hand on her shoulder. Without turning around, she raised her hand to cover his. And that was when Adam knew that A.J., too, had found someone.

  He was glad for her. And yet, at the same time, he suddenly had never felt so alone.

  His eyes caught the form of an old woman, hunched over, leaning on a cane, dressed in black and heavily veiled. She was standing by herself about forty feet away. Since Patrice and Peter were the only burials this morning, Adam surmised she was at the cemetery to visit a grave.

  How many times had she come to visit that grave, he wondered? Was she living in the past? Or was she still trying to make her peace with it?

  Adam suddenly felt cold, bone cold, despite the sun beating down on his head and shoulders.

  The formality of the solemn ceremony finally drew to a close. Everyone drifted away as the workmen moved in to cover the caskets.

  Everyone but Adam.

  After the workmen had left, he was still staring down at the newly packed earth.

  He did not want to return to this place. He wanted to find the right words to make his peace with his past.

  But the seconds stretched into minutes, and the minutes into an empty void. He found no words. Or peace.

  Seven years, and nothing had changed.

  Adam turned to go, but halted immediately when he found himself suddenly face-to-face with a woman.

  She had been standing directly behind him—for how long he had no idea. He noticed her eyes first. They were large and liquid and full of changing lights, like looking into the depths of a fine, warm brandy.

  “Are you Adam Justice?” she asked.

  Her voice stirred through the hot, still air like a cool breeze. She stood tall, only a few inches shorter than his six-three. Her hair was a deeper brandy than her eyes and fell in thick, soft waves around her suited shoulders. Her skin had a golden flush beneath the full rays of the sun.

  “Yes, I’m Justice.”

  She held out her hand. “Whitney West.”

  Adam took her hand in his. Her skin was smooth and warm, her handshake firm. Her eyes stayed focused on his.

  “I have something for you from your wife.”

  Adam immediately dropped Whitney’s hand. He shifted on his feet, feeling a sudden need to readjust his sense of balance.

  “I’ve just buried my wife, Ms. West.”

  “I realize that. I’m sorry to intrude on this private time. But your wife’s instructions to me were specific.”

  Adam’s curiosity rose as Whitney paused to slip an eight-byten-inch faded manila envelope out of the enormous shoulder bag hanging at her side. She held the envelope out to him.

  “She told me to give this to you on the day of her burial. Not a moment sooner or later.”

  Adam held his eagerness in check as he resisted the impulse to grab that envelope.

  “How did you know my wife was dead?”

  “The story of her and Mr. Danner’s bodies being found in that seven-year-old car wreck has been featured prominently in the news.”

  Yes, it had. The legitimate press had found the truth sensational enough. The tabloid embellishments had set a new record for the ridiculous. Such extensive coverage had already resulted in more than a few crank calls and letters.

  Adam studied Whitney West, her dark brandy hair and light brandy eyes and golden skin glistening in the sun. It would be very hard to believe she could be a crank.

  Still, Adam wasn’t one to take a stranger at face value—not even when that stranger had a face as lovely as Whitney West’s.

  “No news story carried either the time or location of the funeral services,” he said. “How did you know it was here and this morning?”

  He watched as the smile that drew back her lips caught the sun in tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. “I’m resourceful.”

  She would certainly have to be to find out what every reporter had failed to do. A.J.’s security arrangements were extremely thorough. Who was this woman?

  “Why did my wife give this envelope to you?” Adam asked.

  “I’m an attorney, Mr. Justice. Your wife asked me to hold it for safekeeping.”

  An attorney? Adam said nothing for a moment as he digested that surprising bit of news.

  “Do you know what’s in the envelope?” he asked.

  “I believe it’s her will.”

  “If my wife wanted her will prepared, she would have come to me.”

  “Many people feel more comfortable dealing with strangers for sensitive personal arrangements. Haven’t you found that to be true?”

  Yes, he had. Still, if Patrice hadn’t wanted to involve him in the preparation of her will for some reason, she could have used one of the dozen or so attorneys she had come to know through her association with him. And if she had used one of them, surely they would have come to him by now and told him so.

  “Did you prepare my wife’s will, Ms. West?”

  “No. I don’t even know for certain that her will is inside this envelope. All I can tell you is that when she placed it in my hands seven and a half yea
rs ago, I had the impression that it contained such a document.”

  “How could my wife have known she was going to die?”

  “I doubt she did. I remember her saying something about this just being a precaution in the event of an accident.”

  In the event of an accident. The words beat uncomfortably against Adam’s ears.

  He took the envelope and turned it over. The back was sealed. As eager as he was to unseal it, he still wanted a few more answers first.

  “You say you’re an attorney, Ms. West. For whom do you work?”

  “I’m in private practice in Seattle.”

  “I’m not familiar—”

  “With my name?” Whitney interrupted. “I’m not surprised. My partner and I don’t handle the big corporate clients you do, Mr. Justice. We share a floor with a baby photographer, a P.I. firm and a pet groomer. This last year the only one who could afford new drapes was the baby photographer.”

  Adam watched the very nice smile that drew back her lips and once again crinkled the skin around her eyes. It contained a ready amusement and not a whit of apology. She liked what she did, and she knew she was successful. It didn’t matter to her that anyone else thought so.

  He recognized the self-confidence and personal satisfaction that such a rare smile represented. He was surprised to find it on this thirtyish face. In his experience such smiles didn’t begin to materialize until after the fifth decade, if indeed they materialized at all. This was a very interesting woman.

  “Where did my wife find you?”

  “In my office. She walked in one day and asked me if I would agree to hold this sealed envelope for safekeeping. She also asked me to be present when you opened it. I have her letter here with that instruction.”

  Whitney slipped the letter out of her shoulder bag, and Adam took a look at it. It was a short note in Patrice’s distinctive handwriting. He wondered why Patrice would make such a stipulation. He was getting more and more curious about the contents of this manila envelope.

  “I would like to attend to this matter now,” he said. “Would you mind following me back to the Justice Inc. offices?”