Wicked Burn

by BETH KERY

  And she hadn’t seen Vic since he’d cast one last incredulous, furious glance at Niall before he walked out of her apartment for the last time.

  Better not to think about that now. It pained her excruciatingly to think of losing Vic when she’d just found him. And she needed all of her psychological resources to deal with what occurred now, here in the present. She could focus on only one step at a time. She had Stephen to consider, as well as the increasing stress and work associated with the upcoming exhibit at the museum. In addition she’d received notice that she could officially close on her condominium in three weeks, and thus had all the planning associated with that endeavor filling up her days.

  Vic had tried to contact her back in December after that ugly incident with Alexis, but Niall hadn’t returned his calls. Maybe he’d believed that her refusal to speak to him signaled guilt—or even disinterest—because the phone calls had stopped. Just as she’d done earlier that fall, she carefully avoided seeing him. She’d begun to wonder if he was even spending any time in his apartment since Christmas, because she rarely heard his door opening or closing at night or in the morning.

  And she’d listened so carefully for any sounds indicating his presence. As she lay in bed at night, alone and miserable, that’s practically all she did.

  Whenever she considered what she should do about Vic, a sort of emotional paralysis overcame her. All she could do was focus on now, on this step of her life. If she thought too far into the future, she was afraid she would miss a step and spill down a steep, treacherous, emotional staircase.

  “It was movie night last night, wasn’t it?” Niall asked Stephen when he sat awkwardly on the couch across from her. She noticed that he glanced over to Eli in the attached solarium. Niall knew that what Rose said was true—Stephen was a grown man, not a child. Nevertheless, that was what he reminded her of presently as he affirmed to himself that Eli, a familiar, comfortable presence, hadn’t wandered too far away from him.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled as he picked at his pant leg nervously.

  “Anything good?” Niall prompted warmly.

  “Clint Eastwood.”

  Niall remained seated when Stephen stood and began to pace restlessly in front of the couch. She sensed his rising tension.

  “Rose called and told me that you said you wanted to speak with me about something,” Niall said evenly. She started when Stephen suddenly struck his thigh hard with a closed fist. His movements became jerkier as his pacing quickened.

  “Stephen, everything is okay.” Her voice automatically shifted to the calm, even cadence that she knew from experience often soothed Stephen. Her heart began throbbing loudly in her ears. Just as frequently her efforts at calming him hadn’t worked. She knew intellectually that this time was different. Stephen had made some significant improvements. Hadn’t he? Still, it was hard to assure her body of that when it had experienced a mortal threat from him on several occasions. Niall’s eyes skittered anxiously to where Eli sat reading a magazine in the atrium.

  Stephen began to mumble in a manic, pressured fashion as he paced. The hairs on the back of Niall’s neck prickled as they stood on end.

  “. . . Had to make that meeting . . . Richard Marchant insisted it had to be me . . . wouldn’t accept Marietta doing it . . .”

  “Marietta?” Niall asked in rising confusion. Marietta had been Stephen’s top manager at Chandler Financial years back. It struck Niall as bizarre to hear him say her name suddenly.

  “. . . You acted all pissed off that day . . . know we agreed that I would take Michael to preschool on Mondays . . . but I had to be at that Marchant meeting . . . and what was your job compared to mine? Huh? I was the one who made all the money . . . Why should I have to worry about taking the kid to school?”

  Niall jumped when Stephen violently struck his thigh again as he paced.

  “Stephen? Don’t . . . You’ll hurt yourself. Stephen . . . please . . .” Niall attempted to break through his increasing agitation, but he paid her no heed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli putting down his magazine and standing.

  In all of the terror and shock that had followed Matthew Manning opening fire on a group of children, parents, and teachers that day, killing three adults and four children, Niall had completely forgotten that she and Stephen had argued over who would take Michael to preschool that morning.

  “It should have been you who took Michael to school!” Stephen shouted suddenly, several drops of saliva shooting forcefully from his mouth.

  Niall’s heart pounded horribly in her chest.

  “It was me, Stephen,” she said shakily. “I don’t know what you mean . . . It was me who took Michael to school that day.”

  Stephen stopped abruptly in his pacing and whirled around. His face looked like a horrific mask, twisted and rigid. Only his eyes seemed real as they peered through to the outside world, making Niall think of a wild, dangerous, trapped animal.

  “But it should have been me!” Stephen shouted suddenly, his tone a mixture of horror and regret. “If I had been there, maybe . . . maybe . . .”

  Niall shook her head as tears coursed down her cheeks. She’d had no idea that he suffered from so much guilt. She’d always assumed that when he ranted at her, shouting “it should have been you,” that in his confusion and madness, he expressed an anguished wish that Niall had been the one to be murdered instead of their son.

  “No, Stephen . . . you couldn’t have stopped it,” she whispered. “What Matthew Manning did made no sense. No one could have predicted it. Your being there wouldn’t have changed things—”

  “Stephen?” Eli queried as he approached from the side, careful not to make any abrupt movements. Several other attendants entered the day room from the locked unit, moving rapidly toward Stephen. Niall realized distantly that Eli must have activated some kind of alarm. “Why don’t we go back to your room for a while, bud?”

  Niall didn’t even blink when Stephen lunged at her violently. It was as if some primitive part of her being had been expecting it. He’d been in touch with his guilt ever so briefly, and it had been too painful for him.

  The defense of madness needed to be erected once again.

  “It should have been you, Niall!” he snarled.

  And in that moment Niall knew that she hadn’t been wrong in thinking that Stephen had a primitive wish that she was dead instead of their son. It was just that his wish was more complicated than she’d assumed. In truth, every time he told her that it should have been her, what he really meant was “It should have been me.” Should have been him who took Michael to preschool that day . . . should have been him who died instead of an innocent four-year-old boy. But his misguided guilt was so intense that in order to survive psychologically, he needed to project it onto her.

  He required the insulation of his madness.

  Eli stopped Stephen’s violent pitch toward her by grabbing him from behind, immobilizing his arms at his sides. Stephen’s glittering, manic eyes remained glued to Niall as he bent his knees and tried to throw Eli off him, making them both lose balance and fall heavily to the floor. He struggled like a wild animal as the other attendants rushed to assist Eli, who was taking the brunt of Stephen’s desperate attempts to come to terms with his own guilt.

  “Go, Ms. Chandler. Your presence is making it worse,” one of the older attendants barked at her before he turned his attention to trying to restrain Stephen’s flailing right leg.

  Niall stood and walked stiffly to the visitors’ exit for the day room. A nurse with a concerned expression on her face buzzed her through the thick metal door. Niall heard Stephen’s voice behind her already becoming hoarse from his repeated, harsh rants.

  “It should have been you!”

  The security door shut behind her for the last time, and there was only silence.

  FOURTEEN

  Niall looked up from where she knelt on the floor of her office when she heard the knock.

  “Come in!”

>   She smiled when she saw her boss, Alistair McKenzie.

  “Don’t pack up too much,” he said with mock alarm as he glanced around her office, as if reassuring himself that all the major furnishings were still in place. “You’ll make me think you’re never returning from your sabbatical!”

  “You’re not going to get rid of me that easy,” she said as she put the lid on a box that contained some materials that she’d collected from her files for her summertime teaching endeavor. It still amazed her a little to think that it had been over a half year ago when she’d sat in this very office and heard Anne Rothman first mention the prospect of teaching a class to high school students downstate. At the time Niall didn’t have the vaguest hint that she would end up being the teacher that the Institute hired for the job.

  But that just went to show you how much could change in a half a year.

  She stood and waved in invitation to one of the chairs in front of her desk. She sat in her chair and leaned forward, studying her boss with abrupt intensity. “I hope nothing is amiss with the Nakamura paintings. I saw to the packaging myself . . .”

  “No, no, nothing like that, Niall,” Mac said as he gave a dismissive wave. “They’re wrapped up, snug as a bug and ready for shipment, just as the rest of the exhibit is. You really outdid yourself on this one.”

  Niall smiled, warmed as usual by his praise and the twinkle in his brown eyes. Mac had always been supportive of her, but in the six years that Niall had been at the museum, their relationship had grown into a connection that more resembled a father-daughter one than that of employee-employer.

  “I have to admit I was proud of it,” Niall conceded as she sat back in her chair and exhaled. “I only wish that Nakamura would have allowed me to have the paintings for longer . . . at least until the end of the summer.”

  Mac shrugged elegantly. “We were fortunate to have them for as long as we did. It was a stunning show, Niall. Everyone is saying so. Besides, if the exhibit went on that long, you wouldn’t be able to take your sabbatical, would you?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Niall agreed. Something about the pause in conversation that followed told Niall that Mac had something he wanted to say but was having trouble finding the appropriate opening. She waited while he resituated himself in his chair.

  “You know, I was wondering—when was the last time you actually taught?” he asked.

  “I haven’t officially since I was a graduate student, but you know that I give lectures here in the museum regularly about our collection.”

  “It’s going to be quite different for you, teaching high school students, isn’t it?”

  She smiled. “Yes, but I’m feeling up for the challenge.” She paused, experiencing a rush of gratitude when she recognized the truth of her words.

  It might have taken her half a year of soul searching to get this way but Niall was, indeed, up for the challenge. And that meant a hell of a lot more than teaching art history to a group of high school students during their summer break. It meant reclaiming her life.

  It meant going after Vic Savian—whether he liked it or not.

  “Actually, Meg Sandoval says that they’re quite a talented, gifted group of kids,” Niall told Mac. “I’m sure it won’t be that different than teaching nineteen- and twenty-year-old undergraduates.”

  Mac smoothed his pant leg distractedly. Her boss always dressed impeccably. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  Niall shook her head and laughed. “Mac, why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”

  His gaze met hers abruptly. “Can’t put anything past you, can I, Niall? It’s just that Kendra and I were concerned about you at the beginning of the year. All of that stuff with Stephen had to be enormously stressful for you. And of course”—his eyes flickered over her face cautiously—“I know that January has always been difficult for you anyway, seeing as how it’s the anniversary of Michael’s death.”

  Niall tensed, more out of habit than anything else. When she realized that the mention of her son’s death didn’t strike her with the painful, resounding blow that it used to, she exhaled slowly. Her gaze settled softly on the tri-fold of pictures that she always kept on her desk—Michael in the blue knit cap and blanket that he’d been wearing when the nurse first brought him to her from the nursery; Michael grinning from ear to ear, holding a green dinosaur clutched in one hand on his third birthday; Michael with his light brown hair carefully combed and a much more sober, sweet smile as he stood by their front door at the house in Barrington before his first day of nursery school.

  “It’s been three and a half years now since Matthew Manning shot Michael,” she said quietly. She thought Mac might have been as shocked as she was that she’d mentioned not only her son but his murderer’s name out loud. “It’s hard to believe that much time has passed. In many ways, it still feels like it was yesterday. And then my divorce was finalized in February,” she added softly. “So I guess you’re worried that I’m running off to the country for the summer in order to bury my head in the sand—or the fertile soil, more appropriately. You’re wondering if my taking this sabbatical is a good thing for me or if I’m running scared.”

  Mac looked like he was going to deny it, but then he raised a hand. “Yes. I suppose that is what Kendra and I have been wondering. I’ve approved your sabbatical, Niall. I’m not changing my mind as your boss. But as a friend I’m worried about the abruptness of your decision, the . . . unexpected nature of it . . .”

  Niall felt a pang of remorse when she fully recognized Mac’s concern. He and Kendra had obviously noticed that she was unusually preoccupied and tense since Christmas of last year. They’d assumed that it related to Stephen’s partial recovery, the finalizing of her divorce, and the anniversary of Michael’s murder. And they wouldn’t have been entirely wrong in their assumptions.

  But they didn’t know that the primary reason for her emotional unrest related to the fact that the man that she’d so recently come to realize that she loved had disappeared from her life. Nor did they know that Niall, immobilized by a fog of uncertainty and guilt, had just let Vic go without a word of protest or explanation.

  Maybe she’d deserved Vic’s scorn at that fateful moment when Alexis had blurted out the truth about her marriage. Niall wasn’t sure about that. The only thing that she knew for sure was that over the past few months her fog had lifted. It had taken her three and a half years to get here, but she’d arrived, nonetheless, at a state of acceptance.

  She knew she’d grieve over Michael for the rest of her life. Her little boy’s senseless death—not to mention the fact that Niall had been there and witnessed it herself—had left a jagged, deep wound that had been extremely difficult to heal. Niall suspected that the psychic scar would pain her intermittently for her whole life. The subsequent loss of Stephen to madness had only exacerbated her grief.

  But what had happened with Stephen back in January had helped her to understand the machinations of her husband’s insanity . . . and with understanding came healing.

  She considered telling Mac about her lonely journey, but she refrained. For some reason, the first person she wanted to talk to about what she’d kept locked away for so long was Vic. Not that there was any guarantee that he would listen . . . but she owed it to both of them to try.

  She leaned forward, elbows on her desk, and caught Mac’s eye.

  “I want you listen very carefully. I can’t wait to go downstate to teach those kids art history. It will be a challenge to work with teenagers, but a refreshing one, I think. And I’m going to be boarding at Meg’s farmhouse. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to breathing the clean air, taking long walks . . . looking into the sky at night and actually being able to see the stars.”

  Mac relaxed a little in his chair when he saw her enthusiasm.

  “You’re fired up about the whole thing, aren’t you?” he asked with a laugh.

  Niall sighed. “You have no idea.”

  Onc
e again, Mac hesitated. “And . . . and your decision has nothing to do with . . . what’s going to happen in late June?”

  Niall’s eyes flickered up to Mac’s in surprise. “How did you know about that, Mac?”

  “I read a blurb in the Tribune that Manning’s execution had been rescheduled.”

  Niall exhaled slowly during the silence that ensued.

  “It’s been postponed twice now since they made him the exception for the moratorium on executions in Illinois. Chances are it won’t happen.”

  “So your leaving town this summer has nothing to do with—”

  “No,” Niall said abruptly, shaking her head. But even as she answered so surely, she wondered if some unconscious part of her brain hadn’t nudged her to plan events so that she could escape the horror that just seemed never to go away . . . if she secretly wished to be near Vic on the fateful day of Matthew Manning’s execution.

  She was so nervous and excited about leaving for Vic’s farm tomorrow that she practically hadn’t slept in a week. She also was scared witless that Vic would be so furious about Meg and Niall’s little conspiracy that he’d shut her out as efficiently as he had Jennifer Atwood when he’d discovered her betrayal.

  Meg still didn’t know all the details of Niall’s past, but Niall had told her about her son’s death, not revealing exactly how he’d died. She’d also told Meg about Stephen’s condition, her divorce, and how Vic had found out in such a shocking fashion that Niall had still been married during their affair.

  Meg had been nothing but kind and sympathetic. But she was also baldly honest and had told Niall that every time she talked to her brother about Niall, he went cold as a frigid Chicago winter wind. Vic had never actually forbidden Meg to speak about Niall in front of him. But Meg explained to Niall just a few weeks ago that she got the impression he’d done just that, given the fact that he turned and walked away every time Meg tried to plead Niall’s case.