Memories of Us

by Linda Winfree

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about my reputation. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Bullshit, McMillian—”

  “Tom.”

  “Fine. Bullshit, Tom. You worked too hard to get where you are to not give a rat’s ass.”

  “Celia, I didn’t have anything but the position and the politics before.” He swallowed, hard, and turned to face her. “That’s not true any longer.” He cleared his throat. “I meant what I said last night, about loving you.”

  A wistful smile didn’t quite banish the ravages of grief from her expression. “I know. I believe you. But that doesn’t change the fact you need to be in your office today of all days.”

  “Celia—”

  “Tom. There’s absolutely nothing you can do here today.” A sudden wash of tears shimmered in her eyes. “It will be days before the crime lab releases…before I can make any plans. But I’m still going to be a mess all day and I’d rather you didn’t see anymore of that after last night. I’ll work on those financial records downstairs or something and—”

  He stepped forward to stop the flow of words with his mouth. “A half day at the office, then I’ll be here for you this afternoon. And if you need me, for anything, you call and I’m on my way. Deal?”

  She pressed her forehead to his cheek on a trembling sigh. “Deal.”

  “You could come with me.” He murmured the words against her temple.

  “No.” A palpable shudder traveled through her body. “I can’t face that yet.”

  He nodded, rocking her against him. He kissed her cheek. “A half day. And I’ll see you at lunch.”

  —

  The office area buzzed—questions and sympathy for Celia, speculation about the reasons behind Cicely’s death, murmured conversations about his own involvement with Celia. He ignored the latter, aware his late-for-him arrival had only fueled the gossip inferno. Let ’em talk. All that mattered, really, was Celia.

  Standing behind his desk, he flipped through the gargantuan stack of phone messages from the day before. The volume of emails in his inbox was bound to be twice as huge. Concerned with Celia, he’d not checked in from home, ignoring even his personal voice mail. Maybe Celia was right. Maybe coming in, even for half a day, was the smart thing to do. He’d never dig out from under this if he…

  What the fuck?

  He flicked back three messages. Mariah High. He frowned at the blue message slip. Considering the story flying yesterday, the news of Jessie’s death over the weekend, Rhett’s wife calling wasn’t unusual—he and Rhett had been together a long time and he considered Mariah a friend as well. Other than mothering Amarie, Mariah had seemed to make it her life’s purpose to introduce Tom to any and all single women after his divorce. How often had she ragged him about wanting to see him as settled and happy as she and Rhett?

  Hell, she’d introduced him to Jessie in the first place. She liked Celia, had teased him about hiring her. If she thought Celia was dead, that he was a suspect, he’d expect her to be on the phone, looking for him, even with Amarie starting treatment.

  Still, something about the message slip sent unease skittering through him, echoes of the darkness that had shrouded his mind and car the evening before.

  Darkness that had turned out to be absolutely nothing.

  Shit, he was losing it. Chilly discomfort flitted up his nape, taunting him, poking him with tormenting fingers.

  A sharp knock on his open door split the relative quiet. Startled from his musings, he fumbled the slips, managing to dump them on the desk rather than the floor before turning a narrow-eyed gaze at the doorway.

  “Sorry about that.” Cook managed to exude genuine contrition for a half-second. Just behind him, Tick stared down the hallway with a speculative twist to his mouth.

  As Tom waved them in, Rhett’s deep voice rumbled from the hall. Tick closed the door and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I thought High’s daughter was at Emory, getting prepped to undergo chemo before a bone-marrow transplant. At least, that’s what the church’s prayer list said.”

  “She is.” Tom settled into his chair. Cook took one of the leather seats facing the desk.

  Tick ambled to the other chair. “And he’s here?”

  Tom shrugged, the muscles at his shoulders and neck screaming with tension. Mariah’s message slip stared up at him from the desk. “He thought yesterday he’d have to step in for me.”

  “That was yesterday.” Tick shook his head. “Why isn’t he in Atlanta today?”

  Hell if I know. Ask him yourself. Tom swallowed the words. Irritability flowed around him in waves, worsened by the disquiet flooding him in quiet rivulets. He tapped his thumb on Mariah’s name, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. Last night, I thought he was driving back.”

  Tick’s grunt bordered on disparaging.

  “You’re a judgmental son of a bitch.” Cook lounged in the chair, a mocking gleam lighting his gray eyes.

  Tick heaved a rough sigh. “Shit, Cookie, quit looking at me like that. You agree with me. We both know if you had a kid and she was sick, you wouldn’t be sitting here, anymore than I would.”

  Their exchange grated on Tom’s already jangling nerves. “Is there a reason you’re here now?”

  “Yeah.” With one final glare at his partner, Tick extracted a paper from the folder he held and pushed it across the desk. “We found that in Jessica’s financial records this morning.”

  On the credit card statement, Tom underlined the charge from an Atlanta-area women’s clinic with his finger and glanced at the date. June of the previous year. “It’s too early to be for prenatal care.”

  “It’s an abortion.” Tick straightened the knife-edge crease of his slacks between his knee and ankle. “The same clinic performed a CVS test a week before.”

  “CVS?”

  “Chorionic villi sampling. Prenatal testing for birth defects. I couldn’t get her medical records without a subpoena, but once the nurse heard she was a murder victim, I did get her to tell me what she remembered.”

  Tom frowned at the statement. So those weeks when Jessica had kept him out of her bed early last summer hadn’t been about her period and a yeast infection. Instead, it had been about recovery from an abortion. He rubbed his thumb over the VISA symbol at the top of the paper. He’d been through all of her credit card transactions the night before. Why hadn’t he seen this one?

  He hadn’t seen this one. He was sure of it. Without looking up, he reached for the phone and punched in the auto dial for Celia’s cell phone.

  She answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  Her tear-roughened voice quavered and his heart contracted. “How are you?”

  “Okay.” Her tremulous sigh carried over the line. “I just got off the phone with Jarrod O’Shea at the funeral home.”

  He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose again. “Are you downstairs?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Look through Jessie’s stuff, find her VISA transactions for me.”

  “All right.” The sounds of rustling papers filled the connection. “I’ve got them.”

  “Pull the July statement, the one showing her charges from June.”

  A long pause, more rustling. “It’s not here. It skips from May to August.”

  “Thanks, baby.” He cleared his throat against a sudden lump. “Take care.”

  “I will.” With the soft words, she was gone.

  He looked up in time to catch the knowing look Tick and Cook exchanged. He shrugged it off and frowned. Why was this statement missing from the ones he’d taken home? He’d specifically asked Raquel to pull all of Jessie’s financial records.

  Reaching for the phone again, he buzzed through to his secretary’s line, verifying that yes, she had pulled that particular month and placed it in the file for him.

  Which meant he had had it and somewhere along the way it had vanished.

  Or been made to disappear? The pulsing
sense of agitation grew stronger. Where had that thought come from, anyway? No one had had access to those records except—

  “I don’t get it.” Cook’s low voice cut through his ruminations. Across from him, Tick and Cook engaged in a quiet conversation, tossing around ideas the way he’d heard them do on several occasions before. “So what would this CVS testing tell about a baby?”

  Tick shrugged, a negligent roll of his shoulders. “Chromosomal defects, blood type, maybe some DNA markers?”

  Eyes closed, Cook rubbed a forefinger over his brow. “So she aborted the fetus for a defect? Afraid it wouldn’t bring the big bucks if it wasn’t perfect?”

  “Maybe.” A grimace twisted Tick’s features. “People can be crazy about stuff like that. During our last round of in vitro, the tech got us mixed up with another couple who were choosing donor sperm. She made it sound like shopping for a car with options. You know, picking out tall, athletic, intelligent, musical talent, hair color, eye color. I guess in some situations knowing your kid had the perfect blood type could be important too, especially if you’re willing to throw fifty grand to—”

  “Shit.” Tom stared at Mariah’s name on the message slip.

  Perfect blood type.

  His gaze tracked to the time and date, written in Raquel’s neat script.

  “What did I say?” Tick leaned forward, intrigue saturating his voice.

  Eleven thirty-five. Mariah had called at eleven thirty-five. Before he’d left Celia’s with Tick under a cloud of mock suspicion. Before the news had broken on the local news and certainly before it had made the Atlanta-area stations. Before he’d instructed Raquel to call Rhett.

  I figured you might need me here and Mariah agreed I should come .

  Because only something massively important would have induced Mariah to agree that Rhett should leave their child.

  And once the secret truth about Celia’s “death” was revealed, Rhett would have needed an equally massive incentive to stay.

  The facts clicked into place: Rhett’s appearance on scene, Mariah’s early phone call, the missing credit card statement, Rhett’s continued presence.

  “McMillian?”

  Fucking son of a bitch.

  “Who?”

  The simultaneous realizations that he’d spoken aloud and was on his feet sank in together. Fury spiked up his spine, exploding in his brain with pulverizing strength.

  “McMillian, what’s up?” Apprehension colored Cook’s voice, but Tom ignored him, throwing the door open with enough force to send it slamming into the wall. He strode down the hall. The cubicles in the hub area fell silent, except for the chime of an unanswered phone. A law clerk and a paralegal moved out of his way, eyes wide, faces curious and apprehensive.

  He halted in the open doorway to Rhett’s office and narrowed his eyes at the man he’d considered his best friend.

  “Why’d you do it, Rhett?” For the first time, he really heard the quiet deadliness others had described in his courtroom voice.

  Rhett looked up from the folder he held. “Tom—”

  “I fucking asked you a question.”

  He sensed Cook and Tick behind him, tensing. What did the investigators think, that he’d attack his former friend? He glowered at Rhett. Better to send him to rot in prison among the very men Rhett had put away.

  Eyes closed, Rhett exhaled, a long, pain-filled breath. “I had to.”

  The rage tried to consume him and he smothered it under icy calm. “You had to? That’s a bullshit answer, High. What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You were too close. I had to do something.”

  “Kill Celia, you mean?”

  “You don’t understand.” Rhett licked his lips and opened his eyes, wild emotion burning deep in them. “You can’t.”

  “You’re right. I sure as hell can’t.”

  “McMillian. Stop. Don’t ask him anything else.” Cook clapped his shoulder in a firm grip. Tom shook him off. “He’s not been Mirandized, remember?”

  Tom slanted him a contemptuous look. He hadn’t forgotten anything.

  “I’ll waive my rights.” Rhett slumped into his chair, bearing a cloak of defeat Tom had never seen on him. “I understand them and I waive them.”

  “Why, Rhett?” He ground his teeth together hard enough to send waves of pain radiating down his neck. “Explain it to me.”

  Grimacing, Rhett shook his head. His hands rested in his lap, palms up. “All she had to do was give us the baby like she promised.”

  “She?” Cook leaned against the doorjamb. “Allison Baker?”

  “No. Jessie.” Rhett’s gaze shot to Tom’s. “I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  Memories detonated in Tom’s brain, the gaping wound on Jessie’s abdomen, the broken cheekbone, the skin split over it, the paralyzing fear and agony frozen on her face. She’d suffered the most horrific death Tom had seen in almost twenty years of criminal law, and Rhett sat here, saying he hadn’t wanted to hurt her? Tom curled his hands into fists. The fucking bastard.

  Cook leaned forward. “Are you saying you killed Jessica Grady?”

  “I went with him.” Rhett’s voice lowered to a pained whisper. “I helped him. For Amarie.”

  “Him?”

  “Amarie?” Tom and Cook spoke together. Cook frowned at him and Tom waved him on.

  “Who is ‘him’?” Cook asked.

  “Alton Baker.”

  “Baker killed Jessica?”

  Rhett nodded. Nausea settled in Tom’s gut. “For the baby.”

  “We had to have that baby, for Amarie.”

  “What do you mean, for Amarie?” Tick asked, his voice firm and quiet.

  “They needed the baby for a marrow donor.” Tom pushed out the words. Now he understood, on some level, why Jessie’s baby had been worth so much. To a father, nothing was worth more than a child’s life. He caught Rhett’s pain-filled gaze. “Jessie was Amarie’s birth mother, wasn’t she?”

  Rhett nodded again. “We’d graduated law school together, and she’d known Mariah since high school, you knew that. We…all Mariah wanted was a baby. When Jessie found out she was pregnant, Mariah convinced her to give the baby to us.”

  “Was Baker Amarie’s father?”

  “Yes. When Amarie got sick, when none of the treatments worked, we needed a sibling donor. Our chances were better for a match. Jessie said she’d do it, for a price.”

  “Fifty grand.”

  Rhett shook his head, a long roll against the back of his chair. “Fifty upfront, paid in installments so it would be easier to hide. Another fifty when she delivered. But then she started asking for more.”

  Cook tapped his thumbs on the jamb. “Baker killed her for it.”

  “She’d been trying to blackmail him, had a film of them together.”

  “Which one of you killed Cicely St. John?”

  “He sent someone to do it.” An aggrieved expression twisted Rhett’s face. “That’s how it got fucked up. He didn’t realize it wasn’t Celia.”

  “Fucked up?” Fury shot through Tom once more. “She was tortured before she was killed. The bastard strangled her, let her wake up, then slit her throat. You planned for someone to do that to Celia and you call that fucked up? You son of a bitch.”

  “Tommy, I had to. You gotta understand that, man.”

  Tom clenched his hands, so he wouldn’t wrap them around the other man’s throat. He spun and stalked to the hallway.

  “Tom, man, you gotta believe me. I had to save my daughter. I had to.” Rhett’s anguished voice stopped him mid-stride, for a half-second. “I had to!”

  “Go to hell, Rhett.”

  —

  I love you, Celia.

  Frustrated, Celia pushed the pen and notebook with her list of ideas away and rested her elbows on the coffee table. Tom’s declaration bounced around her head, completely killing what little concentration she had left. What was she supposed to do with those words? They frightened her.

 
She wasn’t good with the whole love thing. Look what had happened with the last man who’d claimed to love her.

  Fingers pressed to her closed eyes, she let out a strangled groan. She couldn’t deal, couldn’t handle this right now—

  And that was such bullshit. She had to deal with it because this was Tom, putting himself out there for her, risking rejection. Because he hadn’t put himself out there for it to happen again, after his divorce, and that more than anything convinced her of the veracity of his avowal.

  I love you, Celia.

  Oh, Jesus above. He’d put himself out there in the biggest way possible for her.

  She was making herself insane. He wasn’t asking her for anything. She could just let it be for now. But worried about being alone without Cicely, and yet wanting to push away the man she loved, keep herself safe—

  The man she loved?

  No way. Loving meant getting hurt, ending up alone.

  With a confused moan, she buried her face in her hands. Tears burned at her eyes. His “I love you, Celia” scared her freaking silly because she couldn’t just let it be.

  “Celia? Are you all right?” Concern laced Tom’s deep voice. He knelt behind her on the carpet and strong hands took her shoulders in an easy grip.

  “I’m fine.” She lifted her head and swiped at her damp lashes. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He shifted her hair to one side and rested his face against her nape. A shudder moved through him as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Cook and Calvert arrested Baker’s accomplice this morning.”

  The quiet words sank into her consciousness, along with the tension hanging about him. She spun in his arms. “Who?”

  He brushed her hair back and trailed his knuckle along her face. A shaky exhale escaped him. “Rhett.”

  Shock stole her breath. She gaped at him, then swallowed hard, trying to get her lungs and brain to work. “What?”

  His throat moved and he licked his upper lip. “He confessed when I confronted him.”

  She scooted away from him, breaking his easy hold. She pressed her spine against the coffee table. “Rhett High killed my sister.”

  “Baker had it done. Rhett knew about it.” Tom looked away, his expression bleak. “He helped Baker kill Jessie.”