by Mary Calmes
My eyes flicked to Conrad’s.
“And it’s such a waste that they had to die, but when you involve yourself in crime, eventually you will pay for it.”
Conrad grunted.
“You disagree, Mr. Moss?” Baylor asked him.
“I do, detective. I think if people were as choosy with their friends as they were about their cars, a lot less criminals would ever be caught. You have to be smart.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“I’m speaking common sense,” Conrad told him. “How many cases like this one have you seen cracked because someone was stupid?”
He shrugged before turning to me. “You know, Trevan, you and Mr. Moss would have passed right by those two men on your way to the Carter home. Are you sure you don’t remember spotting anything out of the ordinary, seeing a car stopped on the side of the freeway?”
“I wasn’t looking,” I assured him. “The only thing I was thinking about was getting to Landry.”
He nodded. “Understandable.”
“You told Mr. Carter they were killed by a small caliber bullet.”
“Yes. Putting it all together now from e-mails and phone records, we know that those two were friends of Brendan’s from school. After Mr. Carter told Brendan that you were returning, Trevan, Brendan sent them to intercept you, but the information from Mr. Carter must have been faulty, since they never even saw you.”
“So my father had talked to Brendan earlier today?” Scott asked him.
“Probably sometime last night before he left for the cabin with Landry, but that’s why, we think, he was so horrified when he heard that they had been killed. Mr. Carter felt that he sent them into the path of whoever killed them by notifying Brendan. He felt responsible.”
“And who do you think killed them?” Chris asked him.
“Right now we have no suspects, but whoever did it, it was a clean, professional hit. Someone was very precise, and that just doesn’t happen for no good reason. They were dirty beyond trying to intercept you two,” he said to Conrad and me. “We just don’t know from what yet or who they pissed off.”
I nodded.
“It’s very lucky that whoever got them took them out before they got a hold of you two,” Baylor told us. “We could have had a very different outcome here today.”
Landry tugged on my hand, and I leaned close so he could press into my chest and inhale me but also whisper. “Who’s Mr. Moss?”
“Conrad.” I replied under my breath even though with the detective still talking no one was paying any attention to us.
“Because of…” He trailed off, knowing I would understand him.
“Yeah.”
“First name?” Landry asked me, as in Conrad’s alias.
“Terrence.”
He took a breath and said, “Terrence.”
“Yes?” Conrad answered, looking at Landry.
“Thank you for taking care of Trev for me and for being his guardian angel.”
“You’re welcome. I promise to always do it.”
“That will help me sleep for the rest of my life.” He exhaled.
“Good,” Conrad told him, and then I felt his hand on the back of my neck, squeezing gently. “So, I have shit to do. You think you can manage to get him home without me?”
I squinted at him, and his smile was huge.
“I guess that answered my question,” he said, and then he turned and walked out the door.
“Is he just leaving?” Jocelyn asked.
Yes, he was, and I was torn, because our relationship was based on specific parameters that I was not supposed to violate. Like when the man wanted to leave, let him. But there had to be more.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Landry and ran after him.
He was almost to the stairwell, and why he was going to walk down sixteen flights, I had no idea.
“Do you need to be away from me?” I asked instead of hailing him.
He turned and looked at me. “Not yet.”
“So can I hug you, or is that too much contact for you?”
“No,” he acceded. “It’s okay.”
I shot forward into his arms and hit him hard and hugged him so he could really feel it, using more force than was necessary.
“Okay,” he muttered under his breath. “I get it, I’m important, now lemme go.”
I stepped back fast because it had been an order.
“I’m going to your place when I get home to take back the gun. You don’t need it, not anymore. My reputation, your new status, it’ll be enough.”
I nodded. I didn’t ask if he knew where the spare key was to get into our apartment; the man had never needed it before. He got in and out all the time without it.
“I was thinking, at least you don’t have to worry about Kady getting what was coming to him anymore. Benji was avenged. You new boss took care of that.”
“Yes he did,” I agreed.
“Going forward, you don’t get to think about that kind of stuff anymore. That’s my department alone.”
I nodded.
“Call me when you’re home so I can walk beside you when you go in places.”
“I will.”
Quick nod and he was gone, the door to the stairs closing behind him.
The thing about Conrad Harris was that he knew his limits. Knew them like most people didn’t. He could tell the exact moment when you needing him became cloying, when you wanting to show your respect for him became unnecessary, when love tipped to hate and he just had to kill you because he needed the quiet. And he didn’t scare me because I absolutely respected his boundaries, and even though his patience with me seemed boundless, I knew it was not. But still, whenever I needed him, he was there. So who was to say what I could and could not ask of him? The thing was, he was important enough to me not to push, and I think most people did. It was important to actually listen to your friends as well as love them.
When I got back to the room, Landry was talking. And I understood, as I listened, as I took my place back beside the bed and he reached for me, that yes, the man sounded manic. But it was just him hyped up, and really, what had he eaten?
His doctor loved his chatter, liked seeing him animated and alert. The nurses were charmed, and the detective, when he stepped up, just wanted my boyfriend to hit the highlights for him if he could.
It was, in the end, anticlimactic. After dinner, Landry had been walking back to the guest house he had shared with me and been jumped and hit on the back of the head. One minute Landry was awake, the next minute he was knocked out. Detective Baylor filled in the blanks with chloroform—they had found it in Brendan’s car, and he had used it to keep Landry under during the long car ride—and a bed with chains soldered to it and rations that had been stored at the hunting cabin.
“When can I go home?” Landry wanted to know, and I could see the panic start to settle in. He needed quiet; he needed all of it—his family, the lights, the hospital, the questions, the fear, and the movement—to just stop. He needed to be in bed with me staring at the ceiling in our bedroom. It was all that would give him peace.
“Not for at least a couple of days,” his doctor informed him. “We need to be sure of the concussion, make sure you have enough fluids, check to make sure—”
“Fine,” Landry almost whimpered, the tremor in his voice hard for me to hear.
I squeezed the hand that I was holding before I lifted it, brushing my lips over his knuckles. He turned, and I put my arm around him as he pressed his face into my throat, trembling hard. My eyes flicked to the doctor.
“Maybe just overnight,” he recanted.
“Overnight he can do,” I said with a smile. Sometimes medical science had nothing on going home and getting under the covers in your own bed.
Once everyone was gone and we were alone, Landry begged me to get up on the bed with him.
“Babe, I can’t fit up there.”
But his face, his eyes, the need welling up
in them, I had to make it work. Off came my shoes and sweater, and in just jeans and a T-shirt, I climbed in beside him.
“Oh God.” His moan was soft and hoarse. “If you weren’t here…. I mean, I’m fine when you’re around, I am.”
I kissed his temple gently, careful of the golf ball-sized lump there.
“I just fray some when you’re not.”
“Me too,” I told him as he moved until I was basically under him and he was lying on top of me.
“Start talking; tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
“I think you should sleep,” I suggested.
“Did you call Gabriel?” he asked me, licking the side of my neck, nuzzling before I finally felt his teeth.
“Yeah, a little while ago,” I told him.
“Was he glad I wasn’t dead?”
“When you’re well, I will beat you for that remark.”
“Promise?” He sounded way too excited.
“Go to sleep or I’m getting up.”
“Oh?” He chuckled, hands sliding up under my T-shirt, smoothing over my abdomen. “You think you can do that considering that your eyes aren’t even open?”
The man was like a drug. I was warm, and his kisses, his mouth slipping over my skin, felt so good. I just wanted to be wrapped in him.
“What about my new job?” I offered. “I should sit up and tell you all about it.”
“You can tell me about it later.”
“But I need to get up so you can sleep.”
“Shhh,” he hushed me, kissing over my jaw. “Just give yourself to me, baby.”
I didn’t remember drifting off.
I WAS jostled, and when I opened my eyes, Landry was pulling a blanket up around us.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, not really awake.
“Nothing,” he said, moving half on and half off me. “Go back to sleep.”
“I need to get out of your bed,” I told him, my eyes refusing to stay open.
“Nuh-uh,” he muttered, nestling into my side, his leg between mine, head down on my shoulder. “I won’t feel safe if you move.”
“Bullshit, I’ll be right there in the chair, and the nurses are gonna make me get up when they come in anyway.”
“They’ve already been in. They didn’t care. They both said how pretty you were and how much better I looked.”
“Lan—”
“I need you right here, Trev. Once we get home, you can sleep without a Landry blanket, okay? But for now… I need you.”
I wrapped my arms around him, nuzzled my face against his neck, and kissed the smooth, warm skin. “I love you.”
Small whimper from him as I felt him shiver. “I love you too.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Okay.”
And there was silence for at least three whole seconds.
“Am I bugging you?” Landry whispered.
I squeezed him tighter and smiled into his hair.
Chapter 11
THE first thing Landry said the following morning was that he wanted out of the hospital. He wanted to go home, he needed to go home, and when he demanded that I leave immediately and go get all of his things from his parents’ house, I thought he was kidding.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” he snapped at me.
The needy, clingy Landry was gone. Landry on a tear because he wanted the hell out of the hospital, that guy was the one driving. I bailed, and as I passed the nurse’s station, I suggested that they get a doctor in there and get the man released before he made a king-sized pain out of himself. They had not seen a snit like the one Landry could throw.
Since Conrad had taken the rental car, I took a cab out to the Carter house. I called Chris and woke him up and told him I was on my way over. He was only halfway coherent, but still, he was there at the front door when I pulled up.
“Why’re you awake?” he asked me.
“Because Landry’s awake,” I said, trying to widen my eyes because I needed coffee badly. “And he wants his stuff because I’m pretty sure he’s going from the hospital to the airport. So if you want to see him before we go, if your mother does, she should—”
“My mother––” He yawned. “My mother’s gone.”
“What?” I was surprised. “Gone where?”
“On extended holiday,” he replied, moving aside so I could walk past him. Once he closed the door, he turned to me. “You want some coffee?”
“No, I…. What do you mean she’s gone?”
“Oh man, she’s not gonna stay here and have her friends look at her and think shit about her because my dad cheated with the maid. She left. She’s meeting one of her sisters in New York, and then the two of them are flying to Paris to stay with my other aunt, her other sister.”
“When will she be back?”
“I have no idea.”
“She just left without saying goodbye to Landry? I mean, she just got him back and now, what, she just takes off on him?”
He was squinting at me. “I dunno what you’re all upset about. My mom’s the one dealing with gossip and innuendo and everything else. She had to go.”
I was utterly gobsmacked.
“I’m sure she’ll be in touch with him.”
“But how does she know if he’s okay?”
“I’m sure Scott told her he was fine.” He was smiling at me. “It’s more of a ‘no news is good news’ kind of thing.”
“Don’t you care?” I was stunned.
“About what?”
“She left you too!”
“Yeah, but that’s because she’s cancer free, so I’m thrilled, and she’s been wanting to spend time with my aunts, and now she is, and so I’m doubly happy. So are Jo and Scott. And me and Jo are coming to see you and Lan for Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? I mean, that’s still on, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, of course, but—”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that your mother just left without saying goodbye to Landry!” I shouted, upset for my boy and the rest of them. What the hell? “She didn’t go say goodbye to him or hug him or tell him she loved him! She just left! I can’t believe she just left!”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t even see him after he was kidnapped! She didn’t squeeze the crap out of him and gush all over him and kiss and tell him she loved him!” I railed at him.
“But she’s been sick.”
“So the fuck what? If my mother was sick, it would not keep her from coming to the hospital and sitting at my bedside and holding my hand and being the second face after your brother’s that I saw when I woke up!”
“Why are you comparing your mother with mine? I don’t get that.”
I just stared at him.
“She is how she is, Trevan. You’re not gonna turn her into June Cleaver, you know? It’s not her. She loves us, and for now she’s gonna love us from Paris. Nothing’s stopping us from going to her, and we probably will at some point, maybe after New Year’s, but seriously, the whole hold your hand when you’re sick bit, that’s never been her. We had the nanny for that.”
I left him then, walked downstairs, stalked through the gardens, and finally came to the guest house I had shared with Landry. I packed all his things, checked everywhere, missed nothing, moving fast in my anger-spurred frenzy, and then slammed out through the door.
When I returned to the living room, having walked back up the same long stairs to the immense panoramic-view patio, I found Scott there as well. He was dressed for work, I assumed from his tailored suit.
“Are you coming to the hospital to say goodbye to Landry?”
“I am.” He smiled, taking the duffel bag from me, leaving me with Landry’s garment bag. “And I’ll drive. I paid for your cab.”
“Thank you, you didn’t have to do—”
“I know,” he assured me. “I have to pick up my father this morning. He stayed at a hotel last night while my mother was still here, but he can come
home now that she’s gone.”
I nodded. “Are they going to charge him?”
“Yes. They’re charging him with obstruction and being an accessory either before the fact or after, I don’t remember. I mean, I don’t expect him to do any jail time. I expect many hours of community service.”
I didn’t doubt it. He was a pillar of the community. How did you put a pillar in jail?
“So I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, okay?”
My eyes flicked to his. “That would be great.”
He smiled suddenly. “I’ll be sure not to bring any women that want to sleep with you along. I know Landry found that annoying.”
I sighed deeply. “I’m sure that—”
“No excuses, let’s just forget it.”
But he had brought it up.
“And you won’t bring your father,” I said flatly.
“No Trevan, you’ll never see my father again.”
“That’s how it has to be. He and Landry, that’s not gonna happen.”
He nodded.“Agreed. Shall we go?”
I reached for Chris, and he stepped in close and hugged me tight.
“Thanks for everything, Trevan. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it was for the best. We were all living a lie, we just didn’t know it. The truth was gonna come out sooner or later, and if it hadn’t been Landry, it would have been one of the rest of us.”
He was right. Brendan Arnold wanted money. It had been promised to him, and his father would have made good on his word eventually, but not in the timeframe that his illegitimate son was counting on. He had been holding out for something that was never coming, and had Landry never shown up, then it would have been Scott or Christian. Why Jocelyn wasn’t ever a consideration had come out the night before. She, apparently, had been the only one ever to give Brendan the time of day. He liked her, so he wasn’t ever going to kidnap her. It was amazing.
The whole thing had come to a head because of the money, yes, but also, it was simply too much to bear after a lifetime of being kept a secret. Brendan Arnold had needed to be recognized as Neil Carter’s son. I could only imagine what it must have been like to see your father right there in front of you but never be able to just run up to him and hug him without permission. It had to have been like a knife in his heart.
