Blake braked to an abrupt stop. Silently he watched a car pass through the intersection in front of them before he started up again. “So now it’s my motives that are in question? Next you’ll be accusing me of setting Johnny up.”
Cat knew an apology was in order, but she couldn’t bring herself to make it. She’d only begun to allow herself to trust Blake in the last few days. For most of her life he’d been the enemy. That was the position she knew and understood. That was the battleground she’d fought on. Now that battleground felt more real than the weekend’s passion and tenderness.
They arrived at the Kirkpatricks’ in silence.
“Do you want me to come in?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
She let herself out silently, and Blake made no attempt to stop her until she turned to close the car door.
“I’m on your side. Cat,” he said. “And Johnny’s. Even if he weren’t my witness, I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to him. He’s a nice kid with a bad hand of cards.”
He let himself out of the car on his side and studied her over the low-slung top of the Corvette. “You’re the one who’s got me scared. If Johnny is guilty—and he could be—you’re going to crumble, Cat. I can see it coming already.”
“Johnny’s not guilty—” She pulled back, trying to get control, but her voice broke. “He cried in there, Blake. He cried, and he asked me to help him. He’s never done that before.”
“Cat . . . maybe you ought to back off a little. You know, let one of the other counselors take over for you.”
A premonition flashed in Cat’s mind. Her voice dropped low and soft with shock, and she stepped back from the car. “Don’t try to have me taken off this case, Blake. I warn you. Don’t try to do that!”
She stared at the concern in his handsome features, but all she could see was power. The power of his position, the power to do both Johnny and her harm. With a quick flick of her hand she slammed the car door shut.
Moments later, from the window of the Kirkpatricks’, she watched him drive away. She was dry-eyed, but the muted sound inside her head was the shriek of a needle being dragged across a record.
“You didn’t see or hear anything unusual that afternoon? You’re sure?” Cat peered through the rusty screen door and smiled wearily at the frazzled young mother, who was shaking her head. One toddler in a “Ninja Turtle” T-shirt clung to the woman’s leg, and if the noise inside the house was any indication, there were several more little Ninja Turtles inside, all determined to karate-chop the stuffing out of each other.
A child’s wail rattled the screen. “I’m real sorry,” the woman said. “I have to go now.”
Back out on the sidewalk Cat looked up and down the street and wondered if she had the strength to cover the remaining houses. Over the last week she’d scoured not only the Kirkpatricks’ block but the adjoining neighborhoods as well, talking to the victims and anyone else who would give her a moment. She finally found two elderly sisters who thought they’d seen the robber, but their account brought her more despair. Their description fit Johnny down to his leather jacket.
All in all it was a week of indescribable torment for Cat. Her feelings toward Blake were so tangled and confused, she avoided his calls for the most part. When she couldn’t avoid him, she was vague and noncommittal about their personal situation, and ready with excuses when he asked to see her. He didn’t press, much to her relief. He seemed to understand her need for distance.
As the evidence mounted against Johnny, Cat’s visits to the boy, and her repeated attempts to encourage him, became increasingly painful. Her reassurances sounded hollow even to her own ears. She had learned through Gwen that Blake had assigned one of the younger DAs to the case. Even that piece of information dragged Cat back into own her personal nightmare. The young ones were aggressive and hungry. They wanted to win. As Blake had wanted to win.
When she learned that the Sinclair hearing had been postponed so the prosecutor’s office could “reevaluate” the evidence, she began refusing Blake’s calls altogether. She’d seen it coming. There would be delay after delay in the Sinclair case until the whole matter was conveniently set aside. She didn’t hold Blake responsible, but she knew that he would ultimately benefit from the Sinclairs’ gratitude, and that made her resent his privileged situation all the more.
Every time her phone rang at home or in the office, her turmoil mounted. The price of refusing Blake’s calls was losing him, she knew that. He wasn’t a patient man by nature, and she couldn’t be certain of the strength of his feelings for her. Lord, how many times had she wished she’d never heard of Blake Wheeler. And yet in all her confusion one thing was painfully clear. She cared about him more than she would ever have believed possible. Sometimes she couldn’t even breathe right for the misery squeezing her heart. Flashbacks of their weekend flared through her thoughts. She could still feel his hands on her body, in her hair. His passion and tenderness had seared her with their indelible imprint. Yes, she cared. It would kill her to lose him now.
She was leaving her house early Friday morning to visit Johnny before going to the center when she noticed the Corvette idling across the street.
Her Mustang was parked in the driveway. She walked toward it briskly, hesitating only as Blake cut the engine and emerged from his car. He slammed the door behind him and stared at her. There was strength in his silence, certainty in his gait, as he began walking toward her.
Cat registered every step he took with mounting alarm. He moved with the swift, singular grace of a man who wanted something, and she sensed that it wasn’t going to be easy to refuse him, no matter what it was.
The silence deepened as he approached and stood before her. Neither of them spoke. The emotions connecting them at that moment were too strong for words. And the situation separating them was too painful to be acknowledged.
Silver motes shimmered in his gaze. With no overture other than the hypnotic pull of his eyes, he drew the back of his fingers along her jawline and traced them down her throat. His skin was smooth, but his fingernails rode her flesh. With one stroke she felt both abraded and caressed. Her stomach clenched at the unexpected sharpness of it.
He lifted her face and stroked his thumb across her lips with such lightness she thought for a second that she was going to lose consciousness. She tried to break away, but he said her name, and the sound of it pierced her softly.
Her eyes drifted closed as he bent to kiss her. She arched expectantly, her senses soaring as he hovered over her, his breath hot against her lips. She heard her name again, just before she tasted the heat and honey of his mouth.
Longing flared inside her as he gathered her up in his arms. The kiss was searingly sharp and laced with a bittersweetness that threatened to engulf her. With one touch, one ardent kiss, she was on the brink of no return, ready to make love with him, ready to do whatever he wanted. I can’t, she thought, pulling back. I can’t, not this time.
“No, Blake,” she whispered, trying to recover her voice. “This isn’t going to solve anything. We’re on opposite sides.” Her heart spasmed in protest. She wanted him so badly, she couldn’t even come up with a believable argument.
“We’re not on opposite sides by choice.” He caught her by the shoulders and tugged her back to him, dropping a kiss in her hair. “Listen to me, Cat. We each have a job to do. Why can’t we do it? Why does this case have to drag us apart?”
He didn’t really understand? She struggled free of him, astonished. “Because Johnny’s in the middle. Because his freedom is at stake, his whole life.”
His hand settled into the curve between her throat and collarbone. “Cat, you have to give up this crusade for Johnny. I wasn’t going to tell you yet,” he said, “but maybe it’s better you hear it now, from me. We have several witnesses. Eyewitnesses. They all saw Johnny go into the house. The case against him is as good as made.”
Her throat tightened. “I don’t care what anyone sa
w.”
“All the evidence—”
“I don’t care about evidence. I care about what I believe, here, in my heart. And what you believe. Do you think Johnny did it?”
He stared at her for a long time. “What am I supposed to believe, Cat?”
A moan welled inside her. “You’re supposed to believe in what’s right, in justice!”
“That’s why I can’t ignore the evidence.”
“Of course not,” she said, furious, aching inside. “And that’s the fundamental difference between you and me. You believe in evidence, not people. I know Johnny didn’t do it. I believe what my heart and my guts tell me.”
“Cat, I’m a lawyer. I can’t go into a courtroom on gut instinct.”
Staring up at him, Cat felt as though she were coming apart inside, ripping like old fabric, and the pain of it was almost familiar now. She had felt it before, with him. Only now she could hear what the torment was telling her. She couldn’t be with him. It would never work. She would have saved herself so much grief if she’d only listened to her intuition about him before. She had adored him as a young girl. Years later, during the trial, that emotion had gotten twisted up inside her, twisted into hatred. The experience had been shattering. She couldn’t go through it again.
“This is a mistake, Blake.”
“What is?”
“This, us—you and I. It’s not the town or our backgrounds. It’s something deeper, Blake. We think differently. We live and breathe differently. It won’t work, it can’t.” She could barely get the rest of it out. “And I’m so afraid I’ll end up hating you again.”
“Cat, don’t do this—”
“I have to.” She turned away from him and opened the door of her car, wondering if he was going to say something, or touch her. When he didn’t, something went numb inside her. Her silent heart refused to respond to the shattering sense of loss, and yet she felt as though she were staring into a light bright enough to burn her eyes. Please, God, let it be over, she thought. Don’t let me love him ever again. But don’t let me hate him.
A moment later, without ever once looking back at him, she pulled the Mustang out of the driveway and drove off into the overcast morning.
Twelve
BLAKE STOOD POISED on the boat dock in his swim trunks, moonlight washing his body. Bottle-green phosphorescence sheened the glassy surface of the water below him. In the distance, a fish leaped, a scythe of brilliant silver as it slipped back into the reaches of the sound. The only other movement was the smooth slice of his body as he dove into the black mirror that was Cameron Bay.
The pressure hit him first, hundreds of gallons of icy water streaming against his bulletlike form. Seconds flashed by before he felt the freezing temperature bite into his flesh. He continued his descent until his muscles were nearly paralyzed by the cold, then he arced up and shot for the surface, bursting through the transparent glitter, as agile as the leaping fish. It took him several powerful strokes to reach the dock again.
The onshore winds hit him with the chill factor of a winter blizzard as he heaved himself up the ladder and stood on the dock, water streaming down his torso. The cold was punishing, but it was also an anesthetic. It burned the alien feelings from his gut and forced his attention to the icy spasms that gripped his body. With a supreme force of will he brought the concussions under control, one by one, until the only sensation remaining was numbness.
Nothing, he thought, closing his eyes. That was exactly what he wanted to feel. Nothing. Sweet oblivion at any price. Even if it took self-inflicted pain to hold off the darkness.
The laughter he exhaled was harsh. Blake Wheeler, the nonbeliever, was being tested. He’d never put any stock in the power of love, or the other intangibles that some people subscribed to. Given his temperament, they too often looked like excuses for irrational behavior, or crutches to prop up a deficit of confidence. But in the last few hours since Cat had told him she didn’t want to see him, he felt as though a hole had been seared right through the center of his heart.
He turned back to the dark mirror and watched his image glide over its frozen surface. The moonlight at his back made a giant out of him, a godlike Titan. The irony of it wasn’t wasted on him. He’d never been more in the grip of his own puny humanness. Was this the power? Was this what love felt like? A pain that bled the body of every other desire except to extinguish it?
A sound breathed out of him, cold and lonely. No wonder men and women alike quaked in its presence. It was a fearful thing, love. He’d never known it could tear you apart and leave you naked for the wolves.
She knew, though. That was the sadness in her smile. She knew about being torn apart and left naked. About human wolves. The pain seared through him again, and it made him wonder how she’d survived it at sixteen. The kind of hell she’d been through would probably be unfathomable to most people. Certainly to him, until now.
You believe in evidence, not people.
He stooped to pick up the towel he’d dropped earlier and watched his streaming shadow disappear. Was she right about him? He’d stood up for what he believed in once, and the town had made a hero out of him. He’d been full of ideals then, fired up with passion, but something had gone wrong. Maybe glory fed the soul better than self-sacrifice. Somewhere along the line, his dreams of shared progress had turned into the single-minded pursuit of winning legal contests and popularity polls. Hell, he liked being a hero. He’d just forgotten what it meant.
He draped the towel over his shoulders and rose, a decision working in his mind. There were ways to get her back if that’s what he wanted. He could put the Sinclair case back on the court docket, then bring in Johnny as a witness. It wouldn’t help Johnny’s situation, but it might convince Cat that he, Blake Wheeler, had human blood in his veins. The potential risks were enormous. It could mean going up against Delahunt and the power brokers. In that case, Blake’s political future would be at stake, maybe even his career as DA.
Her face came to mind then, the fire-tipped hair and flashing eyes, the quiver in her mouth. Her past made her what she was: wounded child, firebrand woman, passionate in her attitudes, torn by her loyalties. She was wired up differently from most people. She still believed in right and wrong. She thought things could be solved by taking the “right” action. Could they? Did anyone else in the world but her believe that?
The pain seared his chest again.
There were ways to get her back, if that’s what he wanted.
The setting sun dripped gold through the treetops, liquid warmth that ran down the branches and leaves of the dense forest foliage like teardrops. Cat snapped a branch from a bramble rosebush and brought its delicate pink petals to her nose as she continued her sojourn alongside the railroad tracks. The rose’s fragrance sharpened the poignancy she felt. Her freedom to walk in the woods and pick flowers seemed like an undeserved privilege with Johnny still behind bars. Tomorrow he would be formally charged on felony counts of illegal entry, vandalism, and robbery.
She hadn’t been able to keep her promise to him. She couldn’t free him from jail. She couldn’t even tell him when he might be free again. It wasn’t that she’d given up. She just didn’t know what to do next, or whom to turn to for help. Gwen was busy with her clients and administrative duties and couldn’t offer much more than moral support. Blake hadn’t attempted to call or contact her since their encounter the week before. Not that she expected him to. She pulled a petal off the rose and let it fall. Or maybe in her heart, she had.
The sky was turning purple and gold by the time Cat reached the Kirkpatricks’ place. As she approached the house, she saw Bumper sitting on the front stoop, his collection of marbles spilled out on the sidewalk in front of him.
“Bumper, where have you been?” she called to him. “I haven’t seen you all week.”
“Been at my gramma’s,” he said, smiling wistfully. “Wanna play potsies. I’m getting real good.”
“Oh, Bumper, I’ll bet you a
re.” She knelt to look over his impressive array of cat’s-eyes, Black Beauties, and Bass Alleys. He even had a ball bearing in the bunch. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was play marbles, but Bumper’s huge blue eyes tugged at her.
“Potsies it is.” She grabbed a stick to mark a crude circle on the cement.
Bumper loaned her a handful of marbles, and they hunkered down for some serious shooting. It soon became apparent that Cat was off her game. Bumper, on the other hand, was every bit as “good” as he’d promised, a five-year-old marble prodigy in the making.
“You got the touch?” Bumper asked hopefully as Cat missed her fourth shot in a row.
“I guess not, Bumper. Not tonight anyway.”
“We don’t hafta play.”
Let off the hook by a five-year-old, she thought. I must be in sad shape. “Maybe I just need a better marble.” She picked his prize agate shooter, rolled its sleek heaviness around in her palm, then tucked it into the crook of her forefinger. That was when she noticed the deep crack in the marble. “What happened to your aggie, Bumper?”
He shrugged. “A car runned over it.”
“A car? At your grandma’s?”
“Nope, in the alley behind my house. Funny car,” he said, wrinkling up his nose. “It had a tail like an am—aminal.”
“Tail?” The word struck a chord in Cat’s memory. She frowned and pressed a hand to her mouth, thinking. The image that came to mind was of Johnny’s forlorn figure on the road and a car full of rowdy teenagers roaring up behind him. “Bumper, was the car black? Did it have an antenna like a whip and a raccoon tail?”
Bumper smiled and nodded quickly. “Yeah, neat, huh? Did you see it too?”
Cat didn’t answer. She hadn’t even heard his last question. She was totally preoccupied with trying to make some sense out of what he’d just told her. “When did you see this car, Bumper?”
“The day my gramma and grampa came to pick me up. I was playing eye-drop out in back.”
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