The Past Between Us

by Kimberly Van Meter

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. Tried to say he was worried about her and that he wondered if I’d had any contact with her. Of course, I hadn’t but even if I had I wouldn’t have told him. Like I said, there was something about the man I just didn’t like.”

  Thomas grinned in spite of his earlier irritation at Mama’s defense of Cassi. “Did you shoo him off the porch with your broom?” he teased.

  She frowned. “No, but I wanted to. Anyway, is there any reason he’d be looking for her all of a sudden?”

  Thomas’s smile faded. “Yeah. He probably wants to make sure she stops asking questions that he doesn’t want answered.”

  “Because Cassi believes he killed her mother,” Mama Jo surmised, and he nodded. Her mouth tightened with resolve. “I knew that man was up to no good.”

  “Whoa, Mama, we don’t know that for sure… Cassi has some compelling circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete. And don’t forget, Cassi isn’t exactly the best at telling the truth these days. We can’t simply take her word for it.”

  Mama Jo pinned him with a short stare. “You can’t take her word. I believe her just fine. If she says that man is bad, I believe her. You ought to try it yourself. It might clear up a whole lot of that garbage you’ve got clogging up your brain.”

  He wanted to groan but he wouldn’t be so disrespectful. Besides, once Mama got something into her head it would take dynamite to dislodge it. “All right, Mama. You’ve made your point.”

  And damn if he didn’t feel that point digging into his side, making it impossible to ignore.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CASSI HAD OVERHEARD BITS of the conversation between Mama Jo and Tommy while she was in the bathroom. The sharp whack of the front door shutting behind Tommy made Cassi bite her lip and sigh heavily. He was pissed and probably a little embarrassed. Served him right, she thought, but the righteousness faded as she recalled she’d brought this turmoil to his life. She knew how close Tommy and Mama Jo were. She didn’t like to think that she was at the center of their disagreement. “I’m sorry, Tommy,” she murmured. But it was too late. They were both knee-deep in whatever was going to happen.

  She returned to the living room and before she could say anything, Mama Jo gestured toward the door. “He’s probably sulking on the porch. Why don’t you go and see if he’s willing to calm down and start acting like a grown-up.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him, Mama Jo,” Cassi said. “He didn’t ask for this mess. He’s just trying to do what’s best.”

  “Best for who?” Mama Jo queried, eyeing her intently. “Certainly not what’s best for himself and not what’s best for you. So I ask again…”

  Cassi stopped her. “I’ll go talk to him. He’s a good man, Mama Jo. You did right by him.”

  Mama Jo’s weathered face softened in a warm smile. “Yes, I did,” she agreed with pride in her voice. “All my boys turned out all right. Now go and get him before he catches pneumonia.”

  Cassi grabbed her coat and headed outside. Her breath plumed in the frosty night air and she shivered as she slid on her coat. She spotted Tommy sitting on the porch swing, staring at the cracked pine boards on the floor in the dim glow of the lamplight. The swing creaked as she took a seat beside him and gazed up at the stars. Neither spoke and the silence sat between them, filled with the weight of everything they ought to say to one another.

  Finally, Tommy said, “Mama Jo’s right.” Cassi held her breath, wondering which part he was referring to. He looked up and met her questioning gaze. “I’ve loved you my entire life.”

  His blunt admission sucked the air from her lungs. Somehow, she’d known that, even though they’d never said the words. He’d never been the kind of man who spouted off pretty things or gave in to overt displays of affection. He’d been her solid friend—her best friend—always willing to stand in the background so she could have the spotlight. But then she’d ruined everything and his absence had left her feeling adrift.

  He’d been her anchor.

  “I wish I’d been smart enough to love you the way you loved me,” she said, imagining how her life would’ve been different. “But I wasn’t and I made big mistakes, Tommy. I know there’s a part of you that’s angry with me for changing into someone you don’t like. But I can’t change what I did. Only what I will do in the future.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to split the minute things get hot?” he asked.

  She drew a deep breath. How to answer that? She didn’t know herself. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “But all I can tell you is that if I have to put my trust in someone, you’re it. I won’t lie. I’m scared. And there’s still a chance this could all blow up in our faces. What then? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out, right?”

  He nodded but his face held a faint grimace as if he were struggling. “I hate this,” he admitted, meeting her gaze. “I’ve never been so conflicted before. You bring chaos and I don’t know if I like it.”

  She should appreciate his honesty but it hurt. Was he saying that he didn’t know if he wanted her around once everything was settled? She blinked back an unexpected wash of tears. Ouch. “You have to do what’s right for you,” was all she could say—all she could trust herself to say.

  He grunted a response. “Yeah.”

  She turned to him. “But for what it’s worth…I am glad it was you. Even if I’ve done a terrible job of showing it.”

  They held each other’s stare for several seconds before they leaned in and pressed their cold lips together for a tender, featherlight kiss that was as tentative yet heartfelt as anything she could’ve conveyed with her words.

  She just hoped he heard what she was saying.

  THOMAS FOLLOWED CASSI into the house. Mama Jo had retired but she’d left him a pile of blankets for the couch. He sighed and Cassi smiled, reading his thoughts as easily as if they were scrolling across his forehead. “Someone has to make sure I remain a lady,” she teased before disappearing into the bedroom with a kiss blown his way.

  Thomas rolled out the blankets and made his bed. He knew it would be a long time before sleep found him, which was a damn shame because that meant he’d spend that time thinking and he really wasn’t in the mood to think.

  He replayed the conversations with Mama Jo and Cassi in his head and realized something he hadn’t before this moment. He’d always thought he was pretty well-adjusted in spite of his past. He left the night terrors behind when he turned thirteen; he stopped waking up with tears on his pillow at fourteen. He rediscovered laughter and happiness with his new family.

  But there were things he still couldn’t do.

  He couldn’t look at pictures of his parents or his little brother, TJ.

  He couldn’t help the tic that twitched in his eye when he dealt with men who beat women.

  And he couldn’t fathom the idea of marrying anyone without breaking out in a sweat.

  So maybe he wasn’t as well-adjusted as he thought.

  Thomas rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling.

  Quiet times like this he could still hear the gunshots ringing in his ears.

  He could hear his father’s drunken rage, and seconds before the final shot, his anguish.

  He could remember the bruises on his mother before that night. Something always managed to set his dad off and his mom would pay the price. But she’d tried to make it work. She’d tell Thomas, “Marriage isn’t easy and I’m no quitter,” even when she was holding a bag of frozen peas to her eye or busted lip, whatever was battered and bruised that day.

  And then there was that night.

  Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the memory away but tonight it wouldn’t budge.

  His mother’s screams echoed off the kitchen walls while Thomas and TJ huddled in their beds, flinching at every crash and bang, and the shattering of glass.

  Why hadn’t she run? Why hadn’t she told the cops about the abuse? So many questions he’d never g
et to ask because that night was the night Becky Bristol was taken out of the game.

  Along with eight-year-old TJ.

  Thomas would’ve joined his family if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d run from his bedroom to call 911 and then hid under his parents’ bed when his father had busted into the bedroom. TJ had begged him not to leave. He could still hear his voice, pleading. And then the cries, “Daddy, please…”

  Two shots later, Thomas was an orphan.

  His heartrate accelerated and sweat popped along his hairline. He was not his father. He would never do such horrible things. Never. But who really knows what they’re capable of until they’re pushed to the edge of reason? Surely his father hadn’t woken up that morning and said, “I’m going to go on a bender and then come home and kill my family in a drunken rage over some imagined fault.”

  No, he was fairly certain his father had not said that. Or thought it.

  But did it matter? He did it. And Thomas was all that was left of the Bristol family who once lived in a modest home on Olive Street where the neighbors were friendly and the paperboy never threw your paper into the hedges but nice and even, right where it belonged.

  Okay, maybe it hadn’t been that perfect but in the mind of a twelve-year-old boy…it’d been home.

  For a brief horrifying second, he could almost understand his father’s insanity. But then Cassi had hit the nail on the head. Love wasn’t cruel or possessive. And his father had been both at his worst.

  He let out a pent-up breath and was startled to realize his fists had been clenched. He shook them loose and took a few deep breaths to clear his head.

  He was not his father.

  He was not his father.

  He was not his father.

  Maybe if he said it enough times he’d lose the fear that shadowed him, unwelcome and sinister, lurking and waiting to jump out at him when he least expected it.

  Maybe.

  Too bad maybe wasn’t good enough.

  CASSI AWOKE FROM THE MOST delicious dream, curled in a cocoon of warmth under the handmade quilt covering her. She stretched and yawned, a sleepy smile forming without thought.

  “That’s something I could get used to seeing every day.”

  Tommy’s voice snapped her to awareness and she rose up on her elbows to find Tommy watching her with a soft yet hungry expression. Her toes curled under the blankets and she was hit by a wave of desire that was all the more potent for her inability to do anything about it. She burrowed into the blankets and told him, “Come back with coffee or tea or something reasonably caffeinated and we’ll talk. Until then…hit the road.”

  He chuckled and she grinned from the safety of her blanket fortress. As mornings went, today wasn’t starting off half-bad.

  AFTER A HEARTY BREAKFAST that was sure to put a few pounds on her backside—which was precisely the point, as Mama Jo had stated quite emphatically when she’d seen how thin Cassie had become—they returned to the Bureau at the request of Director Zell.

  That guy made Cassi nervous. And she wasn’t sure it was entirely because he’d been ready and willing to throw her in a cell and lose the key.

  He looked perplexed and more than a little bothered when they entered his office.

  “So, it seems you might be on to something,” Zell admitted, looking about as happy as someone who’d just been given acupuncture with a nail gun. “Forensics turned up arsenic in the food sample you collected at the home of that Jones woman. We managed to turn up a private investigator who made the contact with the two women. He said he was paid in cash to talk these women into making the false statements. He also said he never met the guy who paid him. The money was left in an airport locker for him to pick up.”

  “Smart,” Thomas said with a frown. “So now what?”

  Zell sighed heavily and pinched his nose with two stubbed fingers. “We’ve got a court order to exhume Ms. Olivia Nolan. The crews are probably already at the cemetery. We also have enough now for a search warrant for Vissher’s property but given how long ago these deaths occurred, I’m not holding out much hope of finding anything of use.”

  “You never know. Sometimes people get arrogant,” Thomas said, sending a quick look Cassi’s way. He felt rather than saw her involuntary shake over her mother’s exhumation. It was what she’d wanted, but being faced with the reality that her mother was being ripped from her final resting place was more than a little upsetting. But when he glanced at her, she was dry-eyed and focused. “When will you know anything?” she asked.

  Zell didn’t look compelled to answer her but he did. “I’ve put a rush on this case…we should have the forensics in about a week.”

  “That long?” she asked, plainly disappointed, but she nodded. “Okay. Are you going to bring Lionel in for questioning?”

  Zell shook his head. “Not yet. Not until we have some solid evidence. All we have right now is circumstantial. Just stay put and you’ll hear soon enough what’s happening.” He looked to Thomas. “I assume you can handle keeping her out of trouble until then?”

  “I’m not an errant child, Mr. Zell,” Cassi said, stiffening, and Thomas didn’t blame her. “But I might caution you about Lionel Vissher. It’s likely he’s already getting ready to skip town if he knows about the exhumation. If I were you I’d put a man on him for the time being.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Zell grumbled, looking away.

  “How do you know?” Cassi challenged, frustration lacing her voice. “He’s a slippery bastard and you don’t know how easily he can disappear, especially with plenty of resources.”

  “Thank you for your advice, Ms. Nolan. I have no doubt you’re an expert on how a person can disappear, but suffice it to say we know what we’re doing.”

  Cassi shot Thomas a look filled with annoyance and muttered something about a “pigheaded suit with a gun” and stalked from the room.

  “She’s right. If Lionel splits, it’ll be hard to find him. We already know from Cassi that he’d been stockpiling money when Olivia was alive. For all we know he’s got enough to disappear and live quite comfortably for years.”

  “You just worry about keeping the flight risk grounded and I’ll take care of the rest,” Zell said, dismissing him.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Thomas asked quietly. It wasn’t like Zell to act like this and it was setting off all sorts of alarms and whistles.

  Zell glowered at him. “Since when is it okay for you to question me? I’m your superior. I think you’d better reevaluate your tone and attitude, Agent Bristol. Now, get the hell out of here and back to work. You want to put this guy away so badly, go find me some real evidence and not something that starts with ‘I have a feeling…’ because we sure as hell can’t convict someone with a feeling.”

  Thomas bit back a hot retort and nodded stiffly. “You can find me on my cell,” he said, and Zell waved him out of the office.

  Zell had never been accused of being a people person but he was sure working overtime on that Grouchiest Boss Alive award.

  He rejoined Cassi in the hall. “So, what’s his problem? Is it me or is he just an asshole on most days?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I was just wondering that myself,” he answered, but didn’t want to dwell on the subject when they had plenty more to worry about than Zell’s bad attitude. “Listen, are you okay about the exhumation? I know it can’t be easy for you.”

  She rubbed her palms on her arms and shrugged but he saw the hurt in her eyes. She caught his knowing stare and offered a short, unsure laugh even as she wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye. “I don’t know. I thought I’d be fine with it. I mean, I know that’s not her in that box. Her spirit is long gone but I hate the idea of pulling her body out of the ground.”

  “That’s understandable. Don’t worry, it’ll be done with the utmost care and consideration. I’ll make sure of it.”

  She smiled her gratitude and he so wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her
from the world, but that wasn’t a good idea standing here in the Bureau lobby with so many eyes on them. He exhaled softly and gestured to the front doors. “Let’s get out of here and take a drive around the old haunts.”

  “Really?” she asked. “It’s not exactly good driving weather out there.”

  He glanced in the direction of the ominous, dark clouds threatening a deluge of rain later and he shrugged. “What’s a little rain? C’mon, this place is depressing enough as it is. No need to hang out any longer than we need to, right?”

  She peered at him and when she saw that he was serious, her face broke into a smile as she agreed with a nod. “Right. Last I checked I don’t melt,” she said.

  He winked. “Good to know.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CASSI WASN’T SURE WHAT Tommy was up to, but she suspected he was just trying to keep her mind occupied on anything other than the fact that a crew was ripping into the earth where her mother was laid to rest, with the intent of taking a few DNA samples from her corpse. He seemed to know that she’d never truly dealt with her grief over losing her mom and he was trying to be there for her. It was hard not to fall a little bit harder for him at that moment even if she knew it was ill-advised. Theirs was not bound to be a happy ending. She tried to remember that but it was tough when he was acting like the man he’d always been—caring, supportive and solid.

  They drove past Winston High and parked across the street. School was in session so only a few students were walking the grounds. Other than a few superficial changes in the landscaping, the school looked as it had when they were students.

  “Wow. Talk about a time warp,” she remarked wistfully, catching his light chuckle. “It’s easy to remember what it was like being a student there when everything looks the same.”

  “Remember that time when Cindy Hawthorne had set her sights on you for the winter formal?” Cassi asked, grinning at the memory of Thomas trying to avoid her in the halls just so he didn’t have to hurt her feelings by turning her down. “Oh, man, she had it for you bad. But then, so did most of the girls in our graduating class.”