The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “Caitlin?”

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  Sensing that she’s about to slam the door in my face, I shove my way past her, letting myself into a kitchen that has been scrubbed to a high polish. Whatever neglect the exterior of the property is suffering from, it doesn’t extend to the interior.

  “Caitlin.” Sheila wrings her hands. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should you,” I retort as I turn to her. I nod at her face. “Sheila, did Evan hit you?”

  She doesn’t respond, but her hand flies to her face, covering the bruised cheek. Beneath the makeup, her skin pales. I take these two things as a sign that I’m on the right track.

  “Sheila, you can’t let him get away with that. You deserve better. You need to do something.”

  “Is that so?”

  The smooth, calm sound of a man’s voice startles me. I spin on my heel, my heart lodging in my throat as Evan, who clearly isn’t at the office after all, stalks into the room. “And just what do you propose my wife should do?”

  91

  Caitlin

  Heart pounding, I put myself between Evan and Sheila. He and Jeremy might be identical twins, but their mannerisms, the way they move, the aura they project to the world is completely different. Jeremy is laid back and relaxed. Everything Evan does has a predatory, threatening grace. Still, the resemblance between the two is strong enough to throw me off guard.

  I keep my eyes locked on his, the one feature that doesn’t look just like his brother, that serves as a reminder that they’re two completely different people.

  I’d feel better if Evan’s weren’t burning with madness and desperation.

  Every instinct I possess tells me that he’s been pushed right to the edge. That he’s fighting for survival and that he’ll do everything in his power to get exactly what he wants.

  And I’m in his way.

  Moving with the speed of a striking snake, Evan puts himself between me and the door, cutting off my one means of escape. Heart pounding, I roll my eyes to the other side of the kitchen, trying to figure out the most likely position for a back door.

  “Well, Caitlin?” Evan presses. “I asked you a question.”

  I doubt Evan has ever had a woman stand up to him. Maybe if I do, he’ll be so surprised he’ll let his guard down, giving me and Sheila, assuming she comes, a chance to escape.

  I square my shoulders and straighten to my full height. “Did you hit Sheila?”

  “So what if I did? She deserved it. And it’s not any of your business. It’s a private matter between me and my wife.”

  Fury unfurls inside of me. I try to stamp it down. The last thing I need is to get so angry that I make a foolish mistake.

  “No one deserves it,” I hiss between clenched teeth. “I’m going to drive Sheila down to the police station, so she can file domestic assault charges against you.”

  Evan laughs. “Is that so?”

  I tilt my chin defiantly. “Yes.”

  “And just why would you want to do such a thing? Aren’t you supposed to be at home, like a good little wife, waiting for my brother to get there and fuck you until the two of you finally manage to make a baby? After all, isn’t that what this whole marriage sham is all about? Fulfilling the terms of my father’s will so that he can gain those all-so-important shares in the company that are up for grabs? If the two of you don’t get a move on things, Sheila and I will beat you to the punch.”

  His cold, crazy gaze flicks to Sheila. “Won’t we, darling?”

  Sheila doesn’t make a sound, but I sense her cringing away from his stare.

  Unimpressed with her, Evan redirects his attention back to me. His gaze slides down my body. “Oh!” He floats a brow. His hands clench into fists. “Then again, it looks like you and my brother don’t have to worry about all the fucking around. Seems his seed has already borne fruit.”

  I look down and realize my arm has curled protectively around my lower body, instinctively protecting the child nestled there.

  Sheila squeaks, and the sound makes my gaze snap upward. Evan stalks close to us. Fury blazes in his brilliant blue eyes.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Caitlin. Everyone keeps telling me that you’re a bright girl. They keep saying that Jeremy got lucky when he found you, but coming here today, that was a very stupid thing to do.”

  Without taking my eyes off him, I step sideways, moving toward the doorway that leads to the interior of the house. I don’t know what he intends to do to me, but I’m not his passive wife. I have no intention of just standing here and taking whatever he dishes out.

  “I did warn Jeremy,” Evan says as he takes yet another step closer. “I very specifically told him that I’d do whatever it takes to win this baby race. He knew, I told him, that I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure my child is born before his. He listened. Pity you didn’t do the same.”

  Sheila screams as he lunges for me. Not daring to waste breath on a scream of my own, I spin and dart to the left. The soles of my shoes slap against the linoleum as I run faster than I’ve ever run before.

  But I’m not fast enough.

  Before I can get clear of the kitchen and into the much larger living room. Evan’s hand catches hold of my shoulder, his fingers biting through the muscle until they bruise the bone. He uses his grip to yank me backwards and off my feet. My ass and shoulders hit the ground with a teeth-rattling crash. Less than a second later, my head connects with both the floor and a table leg.

  Stars and other bright lights dance before my eyes as darkness fills the edges of my vision. I fight to keep my eyes open rather than give in to the blackness that beckons me.

  Someone screams—I think it’s me—as Evan lifts a foot and aims a kick in the direction of my stomach. I realize he wants to hurt both me and the baby.

  I twist my body at the last moment, and his foot connects with my hip instead of my stomach. I feel the force of the blow throughout my entire body. Squirming desperately on the floor, I try to shove chairs out of the way, to move them enough to edge my way under the table.

  Evan aims another kick in my direction. This one lands directly on my kidneys. I scream again as bile rises in my stomach and the intense pain from the unexpected blow rocks me. Each blow is taking too much of my energy, robbing me of my ability to fight back, to protect myself.

  With my strength ebbing fast, I make one last, desperate attempt to get beneath the table. I sense Evan preparing for a third kick. I hear another scream mixing with my own. Sheila’s.

  And then the sound of a body hitting the ground with a heavy thud that shakes the house.

  92

  Jeremy

  The whiskey bottle strikes against the edge of the shot glass as the liquid fills the small space. The resulting ringing sound is cheerful, striking a direct counterpoint to my dark mood.

  How dare she accuse me of being unfeeling, of not caring what happens to Sheila? She knows about everything I do, how hard I work, how much I want to make the world a better place, but there’s only so much I can do, and I’m sick and tired of always having to clean up after my brother. And Sheila’s an adult; she went into marriage with my brother knowing exactly what his history was. If she’s paying for it now, then it’s her own fault.

  Even as the thought crosses my mind, I realize that Caitlin is right.

  I’m a bastard.

  I cover the bottle and return it to the mini bar behind my desk, leaving the untouched shot of whiskey sitting on the surface as I stride out of the room.

  I dig my car keys and cell phone out of my pocket and look at Janet. “Track down the address for Sheila Murdoch. I don’t know her age, but she has a kid who goes to the Hunt school of something or other and she’s married to my brother. That should give you enough information to get her location. Once you have it, text it to me.”

  “Okay.” Janet turns back to her computer. “Are you going out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And
when are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know how long this is going to take,” I tell her and start walking toward the elevator.

  “But what about that tele-conference call you’re scheduled to have with Senator Harris? And this afternoon’s meeting with that group who have come here from Spain?”

  “Cancel them. Cancel everything I have on the calendar for today. This is more important than all of that.”

  By the time the elevator reaches the parking garage and the doors open, Ben has brought one of the company cars around and is waiting for me.

  “Hey, boss,” he greets me as I settle into the passenger seat. “What’s going on?”

  My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Janet. Sheila’s address. I punch it into the car’s GPS system as Ben pulls out of the parking garage.

  He glances at the screen and makes the first indicated turn. “So, where are we going?”

  “Sheila Murdoch’s place.” I tug the seat belt across my chest and wonder exactly what I’m supposed to do about this particular situation. It’s not like I can force her to leave Evan, but at least I can let her know that if she wants help, wants a safe place, I can provide her with both.

  “Evan’s wife? I wondered how long before something needed to be done about that.” He makes another turn. “By the way, Evan isn’t at the office right now.”

  A sense of foreboding prickles the back of my neck. “What do you mean? I saw him this morning.”

  “He started out there,” Ben confirms, “but he left about ten-ish. Just a few minutes after Caitlin paid you a visit, now that I think about it. One of my guys tried to follow him when he left, but he gave them the slip about three blocks from the office.”

  Ben shakes his head. “I’ll say this about your brother: when he wants to give someone the slip, he does a good job of it. It’s a skill more special ops soldiers would love to have.”

  “Evan would never have made it through the psych eval.”

  “True.”

  We pass the rest of the drive in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts.

  “Hey.” Ben breaks the quiet as he turns onto a residential street. “Isn’t that Caitlin’s car?”

  I sit up and stare. He’s right. There’s a bright green VW with the name of Caitlin’s floral shop painted across the side parked beside a maroon mini-van. The sense of foreboding morphs into full-on dread. When she raced out of the office I figured she’d go to talk to her friend, Evelyn, or start researching battered women’s shelters. It never even crossed my mind that she’d come here.

  “What the hell is she thinking?” I swear to myself as Ben and I exit the car.

  Before we take two steps, a scream splits the air.

  Without so much as looking at one another, we break into a sprint. Ben levels a kick at the front door – barely breaking stride – shattering the wood and bending the hinges.

  The sight that greets us is like one straight out of a horror movie.

  My brother is sprawled across the floor, his neck twisted in an impossible angle. Blood and gray matter ooze from a huge gash in the back of his skull, gathering on the floor in a spreading pool. A heavy, non-stick frying pan lays on the floor a few feet from him.

  Sheila and Caitlin are huddled against the far wall. Tiny drops of dark liquid cover Sheila. Blood seeps angrily from a cut near Caitlin’s left temple. Ignoring my fallen brother, I charge across the kitchen and fall to my knees beside my wife.

  “Are you okay?” I press the heel of my hand against her cut temple, trying to staunch the blood while I run the other hand over her slender body, searching for other injuries.

  Caitlin stares at me with glassy eyes. “He knocked me down. Sheila hit him with a pan, and then …” Unable to bring herself to say the words, she points at my brother. “That happened.”

  Grimacing, Ben crouches beside Evan and presses two fingers to the side of his neck. “Dead,” he says and unhooks his cell phone from his belt.

  Sheila, her entire body shaking, starts to wail about how she didn’t mean to kill him, that she just wanted him to stop.

  I gather both women close, holding on to them as if my life depended on it, whispering a thankful prayer that it’s not Caitlin’s body lying in a pool of blood while Ben talks to the 911 operator.

  93

  Jeremy

  “Hey, you.”

  Caitlin opens her eyes and grins as I step fully into her private hospital room.

  “Hey yourself.”

  My stomach lurches at the sight of the large white bandage wrapped around her head. I settle on the side of the bed and focus on drawing one deep breath after another, desperately trying to slow my heartbeat, which goes berserk every time I think about what she went through in the minutes before I got to Sheila’s. What might have happened if Sheila hadn’t grabbed that pan.

  My hand shakes as it finds hers. The feel of her cool skin against mine doesn’t completely ease the panic, but it does calm it a little.

  “What’s happening to Sheila?” Concern edges Caitlin’s voice. “She hasn’t been arrested, has she?”

  I shake my head. “The police are still investigating, but the officer I spoke to felt that between Evan’s reputation and your injuries, as well as Sheila’s bruises, that it was going to be determined that she acted in self-defense and that no charges would be pressed.”

  “Thank God.” Caitlin closes her eyes and relaxes back against the pillows.

  I thread my fingers through hers.

  “I’m very sorry about your brother,” Caitlin says, her voice whisper soft.

  “I’m not.”

  “But he was your brother, your twin. There must have been some kind of connection.”

  “If there ever was, it disappeared a long time ago. I’ve always known he was a bastard. And I would have killed him myself for what he did to you if Sheila hadn’t beaten me to the punch.”

  My heart starts racing again and words I’ve never spoken before swell in my throat.

  “Caitlin, there’s something I want to say to you.”

  “Mm hmm,” she murmurs, sounding as if she’s about to fall asleep.

  I gently squeeze her fingers. “Can you stay awake long enough to hear me out, or should I table this conversation until later?”

  “Now is good,” she says but doesn’t open her eyes.

  Good, because who knows if I’ll have the courage later on?

  I shift around so I can look directly at her beautiful face.

  “Caitlin, I’m in love with you.”

  “What?” Her lashes spring apart and her huge green eyes stare at me.

  My heart falters as I search for the words that will convince her of my authenticity. If I can’t make her believe in me, if I can’t convince her that she’s my whole world … I don’t know what I’ll do. Now that I know she exists, the perfect woman for me, my missing half, the idea of facing the rest of my life without her is too damning to even imagine. I need her even more than I need to draw my next breath.

  “I know I promised that this whole marriage and baby thing was a business arrangement, but I don’t want that any more. I want you to be mine, forever and always.”

  “You do?”

  I nod. A smile plays at the corners of her mouth.

  “I love you too.”

  I shake my head. “Caitlin, it’s okay. You don’t have to say it back to me. I don’t expect you to. I just … I’ve just been carrying this around with me for so long and after what happened today, I couldn’t let it go unsaid any longer.”

  “Jeremy.” Grimacing, Caitlin sits up. She cups her free hand around my cheek and stares directly into my eyes. “I’ve been in love with you for so long, I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t. I’ve ached to tell you, but was afraid of how you’d react. I didn’t want to lose you, just because I tried to push for something you weren’t ready to give.”

  Sincerity glows in her eyes and a bright warmth spreads throughout my chest. Mindful of he
r injuries, I lean forward and brush a light kiss across her lips.

  “Mmm,” she purrs. She slides her hand from my cheek to my neck, holding me in place as she deepens the kiss.

  We’re so engrossed in the taste and feel of one another that we don’t hear the soft knock on the door.

  “While it’s nice to see that at least one of my patients is doing her best to get back to her normal activities, I do advise cooling things down, just for a few days, to give your body a chance to heal.”

  The unexpected discovery that we have a guest causes us to spring apart.

  A tall, lean older doctor grins at us. He returns a chart to the foot of Caitlin’s bed.

  “Mrs. Caldwell. While it doesn’t look like you’ve suffered any severe damage, I would like you to stay here overnight for observation.”

  Caitlin jerks the hand I’m still holding free and covers her belly. Sensing her sudden panic, I place my hand over hers, offering as much comfort as she’ll accept. “Is it my baby? What’s wrong with it?”

  The doctor smiles warmly. “Your babies are just fine, but you do have a mild concussion and I want to make sure it doesn’t get any worse.”

  Relief surges through me. Concussions are bad, but with proper medical care, they’re something that Caitlin will recover from and fairly quickly at that. I’m so pleased that it takes a moment for everything the doctor said to sink in.

  “Wait a minute,” I call out as he starts to leave the room. “Did you just say babies?”

  He nods. “Yes. The tests we ran when your wife came in indicate that the two of you will be welcoming twins in a few months. Congratulations – and good luck. You’ll need it…”

  Epilogue

  Caitlin