He looked up just as she collapsed. He barely heard the cries of shock around him. Barely noticed Martin Gerard sink into a chair. All he could see, all he cared about was Tansy.
He covered the space between them. Her agonized sobs tore at his heart. On the floor, she rocked, the pistol drooping in her hand. “I did it, I did it, I did it—” Her moan was unearthly, her expression pure agony. “I killed Paris. Oh, God, he’s dead and it was me—”
Lucas grasped her shoulders. “Tansy, listen to me. It was an accident. You saved my life. Sanford was trying to kill me.”
She curled into a ball. He simply picked her up and placed her in his lap, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “You didn’t know Paris would leap just then. He got in the way, that was all. You couldn’t have predicted it.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. Vaguely, Lucas sensed movement in the room, heard someone reading Sanford his rights. A hand touched his shoulder, and he stared up into the ravaged face of Martin Gerard.
“She always believed in you, my Juliette.” The man looked ancient, his eyes shell-shocked. He glanced to the side where Sanford was being handcuffed. “How—why—” Horror filled his gaze. “What have I done? Carlton, it was Carlton all along.” He turned toward where Sanford had been, but the police had already led him away.
Mona knelt beside her sister, tears in her eyes. One hand hovered over Tansy’s hair, then stroked. She spoke to Lucas. “We couldn’t figure out why you’d go to jail for twenty years if you didn’t do it. You were trying to protect her, weren’t you? So she wouldn’t have to face it.”
Lucas had no idea what to say. Tansy had gone mute, her eyes empty.
Kat knelt on Tansy’s other side. “Tell us what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said.
Tansy stirred in his arms. Tried to sit up. Lucas loosened his grip but kept her close.
She was silent for endless moments, but finally, she spoke.
“It does matter.” Voice shaky, she swallowed hard. “Carlton raped me. You protected me. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She turned shattered blue eyes on him. “You’ve been in prison for twenty years for Paris’s murder?” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she lifted one hand to his face. “Why didn’t you tell anyone the truth?”
Her touch was too intimate. He couldn’t stand all these prying eyes.
A man whose voice he recognized as Fitzgerald’s spoke up. “Tansy was his leverage, wasn’t she? You said to me that she was supposed to get help, that he’d promised.” He studied Lucas. “Sanford cut some kind of deal with you, didn’t he?”
Lucas shook his head. “Not now. Not while—” He glanced at Tansy.
Her eyes were wet and filled with pain, but they were clear now in a way he hadn’t seen in years. “You don’t have to shield me anymore.”
His own eyes stung with shame. “I’ve done a lousy job of it every time I’ve tried.” He wanted away from everyone but her. Out of range of all their questions, all the stares that forced him to remember. To confront the waste his life had been.
Only Tansy’s soft, precious weight kept him in place.
Then Martin Gerard spoke, his forehead in his hands. “You did a better job than I. I gave her into the keeping of a monster.”
Lucas saw Kat and Mona trade glances.
Mona started to soothe. “Daddy, you didn’t mean—”
“No.” Kat held up her hand. “Don’t you dare excuse him for what he’s done. If he’d ever cared about any of us as much as he did his damn career, none of this would have happened.”
The room hummed with a charged, heavy silence.
Martin sat back in his chair, his age-spotted hands slack on the arms. “She’s right. I never should have married, never had children. I was no good with them. My career would have been enough for me, but it meant so much to Juliette to have them. It was selfish of me to want to capture her, but oh, if you could have seen her then. She was life at its most radiant. No man could have resisted her—” His face was transformed by memory.
Then the present rushed in, and he sagged visibly. He glanced from one daughter to the next. “What I did can’t be forgiven, nor can it be fixed.”
Last, his gaze landed on Lucas. “I need to understand what happened. Will you tell us?”
Lucas frowned.
“Please, Lucas,” Tansy asked. “Tell them. I—I can’t.”
And so he began.
Lucas stirred, wondering at the cries, the desperate, inhuman sobbing. He tried to move, but his limbs were weighted as if he were pinned under a boulder. Darkness moved in at the edge of his vision, and he slid beneath the heavy blanket of unconsciousness once more.
The sobs broke into a jagged, anguished wail, then a tortured whisper. “Please…stop. Please—” Her voice cracked. “Michael…Paris…please….help me.”
Tansy. It’s Tansy, but she sounds all wrong. What—what’s happening? He opened his eyes, but the room kept whirling. In the corner of his vision he saw motion, saw limbs entwined, saw—
Oh, God—Tansy. Naked. Fighting. A beast loomed above her, a big man, still clothed—
Lucas rolled to his side, rose to hands and knees, struggled to stand—
Blackness swept over him. He swayed, barely able to feel his hands or feet. What the—
He battled the darkness, fought the sickness back, made it to his feet and staggered across the floor to throw himself at the back of the man—
The man shouted his rage, struck backward, sent Lucas flying to the floor. His head slammed against the wood, and he lay there, everything whirling in front of him in a grotesque merry-go-round. Then he saw who it was.
Carlton Sanford spared him barely a glance, already reaching out toward her again. Tansy skittered backward like a crab, a smear of blood on her thighs, her face crazed and desperate. Sanford grabbed her, pulled her back, thrust into her again. “Juliette…” he groaned.
Tansy slapped at him, tried to get away. He hit her once, viciously, and she fell backward, whimpering helplessly, keening an awful, blood-chilling grief.
Lucas heard Paris stir, saw him struggle to rise, then fall backward. Suddenly, Lucas remembered the wine they’d felt so adult sharing.
Sanford had drugged them. All along, the beast Lucas had seen inside the polish had been there. He hadn’t imagined it.
With effort, Lucas brought himself to his feet again, lurched forward. Grabbed Sanford around the neck and jerked back hard. With a bellow, Sanford wheeled on him, shot out a fist, launched himself at Lucas.
“Paris—wake up! Call 911,” Lucas yelled, everything a blur of flailing fists, of ringing ears. Tansy’s whimpers. Sanford’s shouts. Endless, bone-racking pain.
Still Lucas fought to buy time. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tansy crawl across the floor toward the desk, gasping, trying to cover herself. A blow snapped his head the other way. He saw Paris attempt to come to his knees, confusion giving way to horror. “Now, Paris. Goddamn it, now!” Lucas threw himself into the fight with renewed determination, though Sanford outweighed him by a good fifty pounds.
Ever after, Lucas could not remember which came first after he shoved Sanford upward…before the blow that knocked him out—
The shadow of Paris, launching himself into the fray—
Or the sound of the shot.
But he knew that he would never in his life forget the look on Tansy’s face as her twin slammed to the ground.
Dead from the bullet meant for Carlton Sanford.
He woke once, saw Sanford dressing a wooden, unblinking Tansy as tenderly as though she were a child. The coppery tang of blood stung the air. Sanford rose, walked to the desk, used the phone to report a break-in. Requesting an ambulance, his voice filled with convincing horror. Lucas tried to rise, must have made a noise. Sanford turned his head and smiled.
Then he lifted the gun and fired.
When Lucas regained consciousness, he was in the hospital with a guns
hot wound, charged with the murder of Paris Gerard. His fingerprints were on the weapon that Sanford had given to the police. The nurses and cop on duty outside his door had no interest in his protests of innocence, and his first visitor was Carlton Sanford, chairman of the hospital board.
Sanford stopped Lucas’s furious protests too easily. He’d played two cards against which Lucas had no defenses: Tansy and Juliette.
Tansy had gone mute, the horror of killing the other half of herself too much for her to bear. What would happen to her if she were forced to face it, if the news media caught wind of it? Sanford asked. She’d be an object of curiosity and pity for the rest of her life. Even her family would shun her, unable to forget that she’d killed her twin, however unintended.
And what of Juliette? As sick as she was, how would she survive Tansy’s pain as well as her own? he queried. It was horrible enough to lose one twin, to see the other so destroyed…but what of the agony a sensitive woman would feel, understanding the inner horror Tansy was suffering now?
“You raped her,” Lucas shot back furiously. “She acted in self-defense. Paris was an accident. This is your fault. You can’t escape that.”
“Who will believe you, a young nothing, over a solid citizen like me?”
“I didn’t fire the gun.”
“Oh, but you did. The residue is on your hand. I retrieved the cartridge from the firewood myself. The evidence is overwhelming. You’ll go to jail for the rest of your life. You’ve murdered the son of the most beloved actor of our time, a boy who was his parents’ shining hope, his very ill and beautiful mother’s reason to live. That mother took you in, gave you her affection, treated you as a son, but you were always a bad seed. Who’s going to listen to you instead of me?”
“Tansy knows what happened. She’ll speak up for me.”
“Tansy isn’t talking. She remembers nothing.” He let that sink in. “I’m going to make you an offer. I’ve spoken to my lawyer, who has conferred with the D.A., a big fan of Martin’s. He’s been half in love with Juliette for years. If you will plead guilty to Paris’s murder, the rape will not be a part of the charges, and Tansy will not have to face that. The family will throw its weight behind mercy and ask for a lesser charge. You will be given a light sentence of seven years with parole possible in two.”
“I didn’t do it! I can’t go to jail.”
“You can plead innocent. Of course, Tansy will have to testify. She’ll be forced to relive that night in public and the media will have a field day. Meanwhile, Juliette will have to sit by helplessly, having already lost one child. Tansy is fragile enough now that it might drive her over the edge. Of course we’d watch her, but she’s bereft of the most important person in her life and the strain might take her mother, too. Juliette is very sick, you understand, and I’m glad I can provide the funds for the doctors to save her, but—”
In his eyes, Lucas could see the threat. Juliette’s death, maybe even Tansy’s, would be on his head.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?”
Sanford’s smile was chilling. “You have the devil’s own luck, young man. A few minutes more, and—” He shook his head and sighed deeply. “Well, no matter. What’s done is done.”
He leaned over Lucas, his eyes glittering. “You can, of course, fight this. You’ll lose, but you’ll cost me precious moments with Juliette, and I can’t have that. She’s very ill, and I won’t waste what time I have with her. If you truly care about Juliette and Tansy, you’ll play along. If you don’t—”
Lucas thought of the last sight he’d had of Tansy, as though all the light in her had gone out. She’d looked so fragile, the laughing, mischievous girl vanished. Paris and she had been connected by a bond so strong Lucas truly feared for her. He’d loved Tansy since the day he’d met her. Juliette had given him a mother’s care.
Two years. He could survive two years to protect them.
“You have to agree to stay away from Tansy, to never touch her again,” he demanded of Sanford. “If I do this, you will leave her alone or I’ll tell Martin what you did. He’ll never forgive you.”
Sanford smirked. “Martin does what I tell him. He thinks you raped one child and murdered the other. Martin needs me to save his beloved, to keep his career afloat.”
Only Tansy could tell them differently. Lucas could not put her through that. Still, he stuck to his guns. “You have to make sure she gets help and never touch her again or—”
“Or what? What can you possibly do?”
From somewhere inside Lucas came the voice of a full-grown man with intimate knowledge of a brutal world Sanford’s manicured hands would never touch. Steely with barely suppressed violence, he spoke. “If I ever find out that you’ve laid one finger on her again, I’ll see that you pay. No matter how long it takes.”
Maybe Sanford recognized the part of Lucas’s father that crouched inside him, waiting to emerge. He was silent for a long time. Then finally, he nodded, stuck out his hand and shook.
Lucas entered his guilty plea as promised, his heart a boy’s then, clinging shakily to his resolve in the face of the hell that waited. For you, Tansy. For you and Juliette…
And in the crowding of his thoughts, he needed a moment to realize that he’d been suckered, that the D.A. wasn’t going to ask for less.
He listened with horror as the judge decreed that Lucas Walker would be imprisoned for a minimum of twenty years.
When he finished, the room fell silent. Tansy had drawn away, huddled against her knees. Despair swept over him. It had all been for nothing, everything he’d done to protect her from the agony of remembering.
The look of her destroyed him. If she’d been fragile before, she was barely a wisp of fog now. And her eyes…dear God, her eyes.
Agony gave him a voice. “Tansy,” he said fiercely, leaning over her. “It was an accident. You saved my life. You didn’t know Paris would leap in the way.”
She didn’t speak, but tears trailed down her cheeks, a silvery river of hopelessness.
He couldn’t stand it. Somehow, he had to get through to her. No matter that he’d have to leave her soon, he had to touch her, comfort her. “Tansy,” he murmured, kneeling beside her. “Paris isn’t gone, not really. He’s still there inside you. He loved you more than his own life. That’s why he tried so hard to save you.”
“I didn’t mean—” she sobbed brokenly.
“Of course not. You would have given your life for him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You saved me. It’s my fault, not yours. I felt something wrong about it. I never should have let Paris talk me into leaving once I found out you weren’t going with your father that night. Sanford always made my skin crawl.”
“Why did he—” Her breath hitched. “I didn’t want—I was so scared and he wouldn’t stop—” Her hand seized his shirt. “He kept calling me by Mama’s name.”
“He was obsessed with your mother. He’s a sick, evil man, but you never have to be afraid of him again.” Heart cracking in two, he tried to fasten on her future. “You’ll go back now to your family, but you’ll be all right. You won’t ever have to worry again.”
She lifted her face to his. “Where will you be?”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
She gripped his arms. “You can’t leave me. You’re my prince, and I need you.” Her eyes were wild and sad.
“Tansy, I’m not a prince. You see that now. I’m that super’s kid with no future turned ex-con working in a bar. I’m the last thing you need.”
“I can’t make it without you. Paris is gone and I don’t have anyone.”
“You have your family. And you’re strong, Tansy. You were the strongest one. Paris understood that.” He sought down deep for the confidence she’d require. “You’ll be fine. You’ll get some help and you’ll rest up and one day soon you’ll forget all about me and see that this is best.”
“But I love you. Don’t you love m
e?”
The expression in her eyes almost broke him then. He had to stay strong. He had nothing to offer her. “Tansy, I—”
“No—You can’t leave me now.” She drew his head down and kissed him then, a woman’s kiss, untutored perhaps but full of the fire of the passionate, reckless girl he’d once known.
Oh, God. His arms fastened around her, and he wanted her so badly, craved nothing more ever in his life than this, just this. Tansy, the fiery one, the girl who’d dare anything.
He ended the kiss and buried his face in her neck, his longing more than he could bear. If only there was a way, but—
Quickly, before he could change his mind, Lucas thrust Tansy into her sister’s arms and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mona sat up in bed when she heard Tansy’s sobs.
“Des? What is it?” Fitz asked, reaching for her.
“It’s Tansy. Nightmares, I’d guess.” She leaned down, snuggled against him for a second. “It’s okay—go back to sleep.” She consulted the clock. They’d only been in bed for an hour.
“You sure?” he said, exhaustion heavy in his voice.
She brushed back his thick hair and kissed his cheek. “Yeah. I can handle it.”
She shuffled through the loft, steps quickening as she heard Tansy whimper again. Tansy had grown too agitated about going back to their father’s apartment after the endless hours of police questioning, so they’d brought her home with them.
In the faint streetlight, she could see Tansy huddled into a ball. “Michael,” Tansy wept. “Don’t go.”
Walker. Why had he left when Tansy needed him most?
She gathered Tansy into her arms. “Sh-hh, it’s all right. I’m here. It’s just a dream.”
All serenity had fled her sister’s face. Agony and despair had banished it.
“Mona?”
“Yes, sweet,” she soothed. “You’re in our loft. You’re safe.”
Tansy clasped the sleeve of Mona’s robe but turned her face away. Tears slid slowly down her cheek. “Paris. He’s…gone.” All the light that had been Tansy was gone, too, and it tore at Mona’s heart.
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