by Marta Perry
“But I thought that contract wasn’t in force any longer,” Rachel protested, bringing Attwood’s gaze swinging back to her.
Good. We’ve got to keep him off balance. Rachel seemed to understand that.
“That’s what he wanted us to think, and he apparently convinced Claire Gibson of that. But Paul wasn’t one to let any profit slip through his hands, was he?” He forced Attwood’s attention back to himself. “He didn’t buy the story you tried out on him, the idea that the project wouldn’t work. So he took a copy to find out for himself.”
“Ridiculous.” He practically spat the word. “Paul was too stupid to analyze it himself. He thought he’d find an expert to tell him. Too many people would know. So I had to stop him. Told him I’d be happy to strike a deal if he would meet me at his apartment and how to avoid any of you seeing him... He admitted no one else had seen my work and didn’t realize how that made him expendable until it was too late. Like I said, stupid.”
“I must be stupid, as well, because I don’t understand. If this new project really was a breakthrough, why would you want to convince everyone it wasn’t?”
Rachel was doing her part, just as if they’d planned it. Clint edged a little closer...closer to Attwood, closer to his weapon while Attwood looked at her.
“You didn’t want to share, did you, Attwood?” He let his contempt show in his voice, hoping he wasn’t reading the man wrong. “You knew that the project had the potential for a big payoff, and under the terms of the contract you signed with the others, they’d share.”
“Why should they get any of it?” He was angry enough to wave the gun so that it no longer pointed at Rachel’s face. “They did nothing to earn it. I did all the work. It was my idea, not theirs.”
“It was their work that allowed you to start the company to begin with,” Rachel said.
“Right, but he didn’t want to consider that part of it.” Clint came back quickly, praying they were keeping Attwood off balance. “He probably intended to fake a crisis, let the company fold and then he’d be free to market his discovery and scoop the pot. Greedy, like I said.”
“It’s mine!” Attwood’s icy control burst entirely. “This would have worked perfectly if it hadn’t been for Paul. And then Rachel, showing up where she didn’t belong. I had to find out what she knew and stop her from talking. Ian and Claire didn’t know anything about it, and they’d believe anything I told them.” He swung the weapon back at her.
“You were the one who searched my house. The one who attacked me.” She flung the words at him.
“I had to find that drive. It’s not my fault you got in the way. It’s Paul’s.”
“Nice rationalization.” He’d been focused on Rachel too long. “You can’t admit it was your own trickery that did you in, can you?”
Attwood turned, aiming at him, regaining his calm. Too calm. He’d been waffling, not eager to take the last step—to kill two more people to keep his secret. But now he’d decided. Clint could read it in his eyes.
“No more talk. This ends now.” The weapon was trained on him. Even a poor marksman couldn’t help but connect at this range.
I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m so sorry. I let you down.
Attwood’s finger tightened on the trigger. A flash of movement—Rachel raising the object in her hand, flinging it straight at Attwood.
It struck him full in the back of the head as the gun went off. Clint was already rolling to one side, hoping to dodge the shot, to buy Rachel a few more seconds of life. But it wasn’t needed. Attwood crumpled facedown into the grass.
Clint’s roll brought him to his feet again. Scooping up his own weapon, he darted forward, kicking the gun away from Attwood’s hand. When the man didn’t move, he bent to check him.
“I didn’t kill him, did I?”
He looked up into Rachel’s white face, then stood and held out his hand to her. “No, you didn’t kill him. He’s just knocked out.” And that was too good for him, but Clint didn’t suppose Rachel would want to hear him say that.
She came to him, looking down at Attwood with a dazed expression. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t let him shoot you. But I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“I know.”
He understood. Rachel didn’t want to hurt anyone, ever. It was one of the things he loved about her. He pulled her against him, feeling her body shake under the damp jacket.
“It’s over,” he murmured, pressing his lips against her forehead. “There’s just all the mopping up to do. But you’re free of it.”
She turned her face so that her cheek rested against his. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, his heart swelling until he thought it would burst.
Finally he realized how cold she was. And how much remained to be done.
A time and place for everything, he reminded himself. This was definitely not the place or time to show Rachel how much she meant to him, not with Attwood lying unconscious at their feet.
“You saved my life. And your own. He couldn’t afford to let us live, knowing what we did. You understand that, don’t you?” He didn’t want her ever feeling guilty over what she’d had to do.
“I know. I probably couldn’t have done it otherwise.”
He managed a smile, hoping to lighten the mood. “I never knew you had such a pitching arm.”
Her smile wobbled a little, but it was there. “Kindergarten teachers have many talents. I keep telling you that.”
“I believe it.” He glanced down at Attwood again. By the look of him, they’d need an ambulance as well as the police. “I’ll have to call this in. It’s going to be a long day, I’m afraid.” He nodded toward the benches. “Better sit down. This will take some time.”
And explaining. He’d try Phillips first, he decided. At least he knew the background situation. And they had Paul’s killer, although how they were going to prove it, he wasn’t sure.
But Rachel was safe. His heart seemed to overflow as he looked at her, her wet hair clinging to a face as white as paper. They’d lived through it. And if she’d ended up saving him instead of the other way around...well, that didn’t seem to matter much.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE NEXT HOUR passed in a haze for Rachel, with police coming and going, an ambulance, questions, questions and more questions. She held it together with the knowledge that Clint was by her side, sending out a constant flow of support that never varied, whether she seemed to need it or not.
At least Phillips knew some of the background, so the whole story didn’t sound quite so fanciful. Even with that, so much had to be explained and gone through that her head had begun to spin.
She squirmed on the damp bench, and Clint put his hand over hers.
“Cold?”
“Down to the bone.” She shivered. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever want to come back to the park.”
Clint glanced around at the police activity. “Guess it’s spoiled the memories you had of this place.”
“That doesn’t really matter.” Her conviction surprised her. “I think...” She fumbled for the words. “What happened in the past affects me, but I can’t let it run the rest of my life. That’s up to me.”
Phillips came back to them just then, so Clint didn’t have time to answer, but he squeezed her fingers before letting go.
“Suppose we go back to the station. We could all stand to warm up, maybe have some hot coffee, before we get to official statements.”
Clint stood, drawing her up with him. “I’ll drive Ms. Hartline and meet you there.” His look seemed to challenge Phillips, but the man just nodded.
“My car is here...” she began.
“I’ll have one of my people drive it back.” Phillips held out his hand. “Your keys?”
After a startled moment, she handed them over. Did he want to search her
car? He could feel free. Nothing there would contradict the truth, and that was what counted now, not that she was sure she understood it.
She could at least use the drive back to get an explanation from Clint of those extraordinary claims of his about Attwood and the contract. How could he know all that? When she started to climb into his vehicle, he stopped her with a hand on her jacket.
“Wait a minute. This thing is soaked. Do you have anything else in your car that you could put on?” At her blank look, he shook his head. “Never mind. Get that off. I’ve got a jacket in the back. You ride back to the station in that wet thing, you’ll catch pneumonia.” He caught her look and his eyes crinkled. “And yes, that’s one of the things my mother always said.”
She shed the jacket and changed into a warm, fleece-lined one that seemed to hug her when she pulled it around her and settled into the seat. Clint bent, and before she could stop him, he’d pulled off her canvas shoes.
“At least your socks are dry. I don’t have an extra pair of those handy. Tuck your feet right under the heater. You’ll warm up as soon as we get going.”
She’d argue, but it hardly seemed worth it when he made her feel so good. Cherished. It was like coming into her grandmother’s kitchen and feeling welcoming arms around her.
Once they were back on the main road, Rachel turned to him. “I’ve waited long enough. Explain, please. How did you know it was James?”
“I didn’t, not for sure. But a lot of things just didn’t seem to add up. And there you were, saying Paul wouldn’t betray his friends.” He darted a glance at her. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to believe anything good about him. But that seemed to ring true. He was a compulsive gambler, but he’d never messed with the company.”
“No.” She considered that. “He took from us, lied to me, but I knew he’d never do that to them.” She grimaced. “That should have told me something a lot earlier than it did.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “You loved him.”
“Partly my fault,” she countered. “I loved the person I thought he was, and I let that blind me. I guess the truth is that everyone has to have something or someone to whom they’ll always be true. We didn’t happen to be that to each other.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you.”
He was staring at the road, and she wasn’t sure whether to take that as personally as she’d like. Maybe it was safer not to make assumptions, at least not at the moment, when they were coming off a pretty emotional experience.
“Was that all? That wouldn’t lead you to James, in particular. It might have been Ian or Claire.”
“I didn’t forget about them.” He darted a glance at her. “It may not have to come out, but the two of them have been having an affair for the past few months.”
That stunned her into silence while she absorbed it. “I guess, at some level, I’m not as surprised as I should be. But how could Ian risk losing his family that way?”
“He probably thinks no one will ever know.” Clint shrugged. “Someone always knows. Anyway, once we understood what they were hiding, it seemed to me that they were preoccupied enough without getting involved in whatever Paul was doing. Then there was that old classmate of theirs I talked to.”
It took a moment. “You mean the guy you went to see when you came to Echo Falls?”
“That’s the one. He gave me an interesting perspective. Even granting that he wanted to make himself look good, it came through loud and clear that in his opinion, Attwood was only concerned with himself—his research, his ideas, his success. And that brought me back to that contract the four of them agreed to in order to start the company.”
“I thought it no longer applied. That was what Claire said, anyway.”
“Claire could have been persuaded to back up James on just about anything, I imagine. When you managed to vanish today—”
“I didn’t vanish. I texted you to tell you where I was going.”
“Where, as in where you and Paul got married. All I knew was that it was a park with a lake.”
She closed her mouth on a retort. “I didn’t think. It was so clear in my mind that I guess I thought you knew.” She darted a look at him. “You seem to know everything else about me.”
It was his turn to look at her, and his expression brought the blood to her cheeks. “Not everything,” he said.
“Anyway, about the contract...” she said quickly.
“I told Logan to put pressure on Ian. Find out what you told him, where you were going and what the story was on that contract. Turns out that, despite the company being in Attwood’s name, he was obligated to share the profits from any new invention with the other three. That was to be their reward for sticking with him instead on going on to lucrative jobs of their own.”
“I see.” She let her mind play around with that because it explained so much. That was Paul’s pot of gold—the dream that was always just out of reach.
“As for what I told Attwood about Paul’s motives in taking the flash drive...well, there was no way of knowing that for sure, but it seemed a likely possibility. At the moment I just mainly wanted to keep Attwood talking so he wouldn’t start shooting.”
She shivered. “I knew that was what you were doing. I was terrified you’d try to charge him and get yourself killed.” Her voice shook a little. “I still can’t believe we both got out of that in one piece.”
“We’re here. We’re all right, and your nightmare is about over. As for us...”
Her heart gave a little leap and started fluttering. She couldn’t—didn’t want to—go there right now. Besides, they’d already reached the station.
“Look, there’s Phillips gesturing to us. He must want you to park there.”
Muttering something uncomplimentary about Phillips under his breath, Clint pulled into the parking space.
* * *
BY THE TIME all the questions were answered and statements signed, Clint suspected only willpower was keeping Rachel upright. He’d been thinking for the past few hours that once he took her home, he’d finally have a chance to tell her how he felt.
How could he? With everything else this day had brought, how could he put yet another emotional burden on her? After all they’d been through in recent weeks, Rachel might well have begun to loathe the sight of him.
At that moment she caught him watching her and smiled. It was a feeble effort, at best, given the fact that her face was white and strained.
Okay, so maybe he could eliminate the loathing part. That still didn’t mean she’d want to hear it now. A rest from all this trouble, that was what she needed. A chance to get her life back. Then, maybe then, he could call her, ask her out and start to build a relationship with her that didn’t depend on an investigation to get it started.
Phillips finally came out of the office he’d been holed up in for the past ten minutes. He gave Rachel a sympathetic glance, letting the real person slip from behind the police mask.
“You can leave now.” His look included Clint. “Both of you. We have all we need for the moment. We’ll be in touch.”
“I bet you will.” Clint look Rachel’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you home.”
“Just one thing,” she said, holding back. “What’s going to happen now about...well, all of it? The company, the new invention, the whole thing. If James goes to jail for Paul’s murder...” She let that trail off.
Clint thought he knew what was worrying her. “You’re thinking about all the people who depend on Attwood’s.”
“Ian, Claire, all the technicians—even Charlie, the security guard. Do they just lose everything they’ve worked for?”
Phillips shrugged. “Not my department, I’m afraid. At a guess, someone could be brought in to manage it, or it may just fold. Like I say, not my area.”
He turned away, a
nd Clint squeezed her arm. “It’s not your department, either. I know you’re sorry for them, but none of it was your responsibility.”
“I know. Really,” she added, when he looked doubtful. “I just can’t help caring about them.”
“That’s your specialty, isn’t it?” He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. “Love and caring, given away without regard to worth.”
“It’s better than the opposite.” She looked at him with those clear green eyes, deep as a silent pool.
“Yes.” His hand lingered for a moment on her skin. “Yes, it is.”
A door opened on the other side of the hallway, and he drew his hand away slowly as Claire Gibson came out, followed by Ian.
He gave the man a short nod. He supposed he should be grateful—at least Ian had come out with the truth when Logan pressed him, allowing Clint to work it out. Even so, he’d barely gotten to Rachel in time.
“Rachel.” Ian stopped, looking at her, a mix of emotions chasing across his face. Embarrassment, shame, defiance...he couldn’t seem to settle on one. “I’m glad you’re all right. I’m so sorry I told James what you said. I—”
“You told him? So that he could come after me?” Her green eyes weren’t so calm now.
“I didn’t...I didn’t realize what he was going to do. Honestly. I just didn’t want to take responsibility for the decision.”
“No. You don’t like to take responsibility, do you?” Rachel looked from him to Claire, who was already walking away.
Robinson flushed an unbecoming shade of red. “I don’t... There’s nothing serious between us. If we want to enjoy some time with each other, we can. We’re both adults.”
“You’re an adult with a wife and a child.”
His effort to justify himself collapsed abruptly. “You’re not going to tell Julie, are you?”
“No. There’s a big difference in telling you what I think and running to Julie with something that will only cause her pain. But that doesn’t mean she won’t find out. Do you want to lose them?”
There was nothing gentle and caring in Rachel’s tone now. This was the part of her that wanted the truth at all costs. And Clint loved that about her, too.
