Fire Away

by R. L. Syme

  Chapter Seven

  Ready to unburden himself, Aidan sat back against the couch. “You’re going to find out about this at the trial, and it sounds like there might be some of it even in her diary, although I didn’t know it started that early.”

  Claire took his hand and fire threatened to spark everywhere their skin touched. Damn, he still just wanted to kiss her. More than he’d ever wanted to kiss a woman in his life.

  But not with Jane still between them.

  “I married Jane because I thought she was pregnant.” He watched the blow land and Claire’s face opened wide in shock. “She came to me about two months after we graduated high school and showed me a positive pregnancy test. She said it was mine, and that we needed to get married right away.”

  “Oh God, Aidan.” Claire still hadn’t lost her shocked face. “How did I not know about this?”

  “You were fourteen. Your sister begged me not to tell your parents, and I assumed she hadn’t told you. She hoped that we’d have a shotgun wedding—which, of course, we did—and we could blame it on not wanting to wait or something. I still have no idea what she told your parents or didn’t, but that was why it happened so fast.”

  Claire touched her neck and cocked her head. “That’s so funny, because she told me in the spring of her senior year that you were going to get married. She never said you’d asked her outright, but I assumed. So it didn’t surprise me when you got married in August.”

  Aidan looked down at his hands. “I was completely blind to her faults, and I think she was blind to mine. We got married, and when she didn’t start to show after a few weeks more, I asked her about it. She laughed and said that was Lisa’s pregnancy test. Sure enough, Lisa had a baby not five months later, but Jane didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?”

  “I still loved her, I guess. I didn’t want people to think poorly of her, because I think she just wanted what she wanted. She was like Marin that way.”

  Claire chuckled. “Yes, I never thought of them as having similarities, but the more I see of Marin grown up, the more I think that she and Jane would have made great sisters for life.”

  Aidan shook his head. “Marin was one of the only people who knew what was happening, and it was all I could do to keep her from punching Jane in the face every time they were together.”

  “Oh. I guess I didn’t know.” Claire’s voice was quiet, and Aidan squeezed her hand.

  “As wild as Jane was, she was the most secretive person I knew. It’s no wonder you didn’t know any of this.”

  “Please tell me, Aidan. I want to know all of it.”

  “She did end up getting pregnant, the second year we were married, but by then, I knew she was sleeping with somebody else besides me. The timing just didn’t line up. But she told me it was mine, and damned if I wasn’t going to raise that baby as my own child, just to spite the asshole who’d slept with my wife.”

  “I did know about that pregnancy.”

  Aidan let go of Claire’s hand and leaned back against the plush couch, sinking as far in as he could manage. “She wasn’t pregnant for long. One day, I came home, and she was…”

  Emotion choked him, and his mouth moved without words. He hadn’t spoken about this for so many years. He wished he didn’t have to talk about it even now.

  “She was lying on the bathroom floor, covered in blood, raging and sobbing. I cleaned her up, put her to bed, and bleached that whole damn bathroom.”

  Claire reached for him and Aidan let himself be touched. Only she didn’t just touch him, she caressed him. She drew him, little by little, back into her arms, held him, then curled up with her arms around his chest and her head on his shoulder.

  There were tears staining her cheeks and Aidan tried to wipe them away, but she just gazed up at him, shaking her head.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.” Her eyes were so crystal clear, so pure, so full of care, it tugged at his heart.

  “I haven’t ever told this to anyone.” He thumbed away more of her tears. “And she and I never spoke about it again. She wouldn’t let me touch her after that, and I know she was sleeping with someone else again. She wouldn’t come home at night, or she’d be covered in cologne. After about a year, I finally…”

  He stopped, trying to shake away the memory. But it wouldn’t go. The image of his blonde, beautiful wife, sitting at his kitchen table, grey-faced and chain-smoking while he asked her for a divorce would not be erased from his mind.

  She hadn’t even flinched when he’d said the words. Just stared at him in some hazy fog and nodded.

  “I asked her to divorce me.”

  Claire gasped. “What?”

  “This is why I had to tell you, Claire. We can’t use my and Jane’s steadfast love as an alibi for the fire because it didn’t exist anymore. It died long before she did.”

  The clock in the hallway chimed eleven o’clock and Aidan released Claire. She sat up and wiped at her face.

  “I know this is a lot to process.” He tried to still his itching feet, but he couldn’t stand it. He almost couldn’t wait to hear her react to his confession.

  Because her parents had always been against him, it had always been in the back of his mind that they would turn both Claire and Jane against him, too. Given that Jane was his first love and Claire, his best friend, it haunted him.

  “What are you thinking?” he finally asked.

  Claire put her head in her hands. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m shocked, of course. But given what I found in her diary, I guess I should have expected this would happen.”

  She picked the book up and flipped it open. “There’s nothing but gushing about you for the first I-don’t-know-how-long. But then, at the accident. Something changed.”

  Aidan looked at the pages again. She showed him Jane’s bubbly script, the transcript of their call. He remembered that day.

  It hadn’t been a particularly memorable day, except that Tommy Gates had signed a letter of intent to play at Texas. Everyone had expected Aidan to play college ball, but when Tommy signed, in his junior year, and Aidan had been the senior captain quarterback, recruiters stopped calling.

  There had been rumors of fighting off-the-field, which had been grossly over-exaggerated by Tommy’s parents. Someone labeled Aidan a hothead, and rumors about the position-sharing bubbled up again.

  Jane had been his first phone call when he found out about Tommy. She’d talked him out of his depression, promised him they would get married after high school and then they could go to college together and he could play somewhere besides Texas. She’d been so supportive. He remembered almost every minute of that phone call.

  The next day, she’d been driving with friends to Austin and they’d been t-boned by a red-light-runner. All four girls had spent time in the hospital.

  Aidan’s dad had gone on that call. It hadn’t happened far from town, and when they brought the girls back to St. Beth’s, his father had driven him to see her. The hospital rooms had been full of visitors and emergency services from three counties had responded, so Aidan wasn’t sure who the man could have been.

  His pocket buzzed, and the caller ID said Will was calling. He wasn’t sure whether to answer or not.

  “You can get that.” Claire picked up the post-senior-year journal. “I’m going to start reading this one.”

  Will’s voice was shaky when Aidan answered. “Dude. Where are you?”

  “I’ve had to take a leave of absence from work. I won’t be in for a while.”

  “I know, man. We all heard from the Chief that they arrested you. What the hell?”

  Aidan stood and walked away from the couch, keeping his voice as low as he could manage. “It’s nothing. Just let me handle it and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Well, can I do anything to help?”

  “No, thanks.” Aidan stuffed his hand in his pocket. “I have a good lawyer and my sister is back in town.” />
  “Say, I heard Jane’s sister was at the arraignment this morning. Somebody said she gave a statement on your behalf.”

  Aidan glanced at Claire, and something pinched at his heart. If word had traveled to the firehouse that quickly, it would be all over town before the end of the day.

  Dammit.

  “The arraignment was fine. They released me until the trial.”

  “Well, shit, man. I hope you know, if there’s anything we can do down here, we will do it.”

  “Thanks. But I think we’ve got it handled. Say hi to the guys for me. Tell them I’m hanging in and things will be alright.”

  Aidan tried to believe his own words as he ended the call, but the more he looked at the physical evidence, the more he worried they wouldn’t be able to prove anything. He leaned on the back of the couch and looked down at Claire.

  God. He still wanted to kiss her. So damn bad.

  But he needed to get rid of Jane between them first. If he was going to think seriously about letting Claire into his life, he needed to assure her he wasn’t doing it because of proximity or resemblance. In fact, the more he studied her face, the less he saw Jane there.

  She looked up and caught him staring. But instead of being offended, her cheeks darkened. “Aidan, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to know that you can tell me the truth.”

  He sucked in a breath. “There are some things you really don’t want to know, Claire.”

  “I mean it, though. Just for the sake of the trial, it’s something I think we have to address.”

  “Ok. Fire away.”

  “Do you think my sister could have killed herself?”

  Aidan stared at the diary pages, but couldn’t make out any words. “What exactly are you finding in that diary?”

  “She doesn’t talk much about this guy. Just every few pages, she mentions something. Keeps saying she shouldn’t talk about him, but can’t help herself.” She closed the book. “I think she’s falling in love with him.”

  Aidan came around the couch and took the diary from her. He flipped through a few pages and found the places Claire had referenced. No names, no initials. Just HIM and HE.

  He’d known there was someone, but he never knew exactly who it was, and it was driving him crazy. Had it been one of the EMTs? Or a doctor? Did he know the guy? And was he the same guy who had fathered Jane’s baby?

  Aidan’s heart seized, like it had stopped beating. The memory of Jane on the bathroom floor. It was so vivid. Losing the baby. She had just never been the same. He had never been the same.

  “I think I need to take a walk.”

  “Why don’t we leave the house instead? We should take this stuff to Yumi.” Claire indicated all the diaries.

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Aidan pulled out the box and stuffed in all the things they’d taken out. “I’ll drive.”

  ***

  Claire continued to read in the truck, as Aidan seemed completely uninterested in conversation. For a man who had been dealing with his wife’s infidelity for ten years, he wasn’t calm.

  He fidgeted, he talked to himself, he pounded the steering wheel. But he didn’t speak to her.

  Perhaps this was what it took to process a betrayal. The rest of his life. Why had Jane done this to him?

  Claire remembered her sister as a spoiled wild-child who got everything Claire wanted. She’d loved Jane. She would have died for her sister. But teenaged Jane had been a pill sometimes. At least to Claire.

  As she read the diary, Aidan appeared less and less. Even as Jane was preparing for her wedding. Claire had hoped to find some entry on the day Jane had convinced Aidan to marry her, or some talk about the pre-wedding baby, but there was none.

  They had just pulled into the parking lot across from the attorney’s office when Claire found her first reference to Jane’s sex life that didn’t include Aidan.

  It made her skin crawl.

  I’ve discovered that HE likes it rough. The first time, I thought it was a one-time thing because of where we were, but he really gets off on pulling my hair, on pushing me around. Not to mention the hiding. I never realized how exciting it could be.

  This guy, whoever he was, wasn’t just a harmless attraction any longer. He was now fully involved with Jane. And when she was a minor, no less. Jane’s birthday wasn’t until the end of July, and she and Aidan had been forced to wait for her eighteenth birthday to marry without her parents’ permission. Until they’d given their permission. Then it hadn’t mattered.

  But this was well before her wedding. The date was before even her high school graduation.

  No wonder they were hiding their relationship.

  If this man had been working at the hospital or on the EMT crew, he had to be an adult.

  This would have been a felony at the time.

  Claire shuddered, which drew Aidan’s attention. He turned off the truck and waited for an explanation. Claire shook her head, and his mood was such that he didn’t push it.

  They crossed the street and went into the Steer, Croy, and Mills office with Aidan toting the box and Claire holding tightly to the diary. Yumi sat in her office in the back, and when the receptionist took them back, she had Aidan’s file already spread across her desk, taking notes on her yellow legal pad.

  She looked up and a broad smile welcomed them, then faded when she met Claire’s eyes. She had to have seen enough oh-shit faces to know one when she saw one.

  “What’s wrong?” Yumi asked immediately, directing them both to sit in front of her desk.

  Aidan plopped the box down on the floor with a loud sigh. “Claire found some of Jane’s old diaries in their storage unit.”

  “I thought everything would have burned in the fire.”

  “These were things that predate our wedding. Jane left them with her parents when she moved in with me. And now I know why.” Aidan picked up one of the books. The one with the hospital entry. He opened it and explained the contents to Yumi, whose frown grew more pronounced with each moment.

  Then, he unloaded the rest of the story he’d told Claire. Even the potential divorce and the baby. Yumi’s frown relaxed.

  “I’m so sorry to hear this. What a horrible time for you both.” She scribbled something on her pad, then made a little graph to the side and circled something at the bottom.

  Yumi put down her pencil and folded her hands over the pad. “Claire, I know this may be difficult for you to hear, but do you think it’s possible that we could argue suicide? Based on the fact that she may have been suffering from post-partum depression, in addition to the fact that she had an affair.”

  Claire froze. Hearing it from Aidan in the comfort of her home had been one thing. She hadn’t even considered that they’d have to say these things in court. Could she sit there and listen to people muddy her sister’s good name? Regardless of what Jane had done, she wasn’t a bad person. This would make her seem like the champion slut of all time.

  Even in service of Aidan’s freedom… could she sacrifice Jane all over again?

  Claire swallowed. “Is there another possibility?”

  Yumi nodded. “We could always try to argue that someone else killed her. We just don’t have any proof. But we can offer theories, if we have evidence.” She looked at Aidan and smiled. “All we need is to give the jury a shadow of doubt.”

  “You’re thinking that because of the drugs in her system, she might have tried to kill herself, and then the fire started by accident?” Aidan wondered.

  “Yes. That seems the most likely scenario. While she didn’t have a history of suicide attempts, she had just lost a baby.”

  “Do we mention that the baby wasn’t mine?” Aidan asked.

  “No. It may come up on cross, but that’s only if the prosecution knows about this other man.”

  “Won’t they read about him in the diaries?”

  “We don’t have to use the diaries in trial, so we won’t have to surrender them.”

&n
bsp; Claire looked back and forth between the ping-ponging conversations and found herself a little dizzy. This was all so much to think about. She clutched at the diary still in her hands.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t say anything at all. Perhaps she should slip the diary into her purse and pretend it didn’t exist.

  She could not imagine someone reading aloud in a courtroom and detailing each sentence Jane had written about HIM. Especially the sexual ones. Her stomach rolled over.

  Her parents would never forgive her if she let this happen.

  “Claire. Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Just thinking.”

  “Nothing life-changing.” She glanced up at Yumi. “Do you think we can prove a shadow of doubt without having to defame Jane’s character? I mean. I know she did these things. But she was my sister. And this case is so public.”

  “I’m going to need more to go on than Aidan’s word. I need someone to corroborate his story. Or we need to find some other evidence, maybe about where she got the drugs.”

  The suicide motive. Momma wouldn’t like that, either.

  Claire shifted in her chair. “I don’t know of anything.”

  “I have a box of stuff she’d left at her work that they gave to me after the fire.” Aidan pushed at the nameplate on Yumi’s desk. “I never looked at it. Claire and I could go through it. See if we can find anything.”

  “And can you talk to her coworkers, maybe? See if they remember her saying anything?”

  Claire nodded. She couldn’t even remember what job Jane had had at the time of the fire. But Aidan chimed in.

  “I know a couple of the girls are still here. We can try to get ahold of them today.”

  “Normally, I would suggest we hire a private investigator.” Yumi scribbled a phone number on the back of a business card and handed it to Aidan. “Claire already has this, but I’m giving you my personal cell number. Anything you find, I want you to call me right away. You can’t be involved in collecting any evidence we discover because the prosecutor will need to be involved as well. So give me a call when you discover something. Even if it’s just to ask me to depose a witness. Just let me handle all those things.”