The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos)
Page 11
“I figured you could use one of these,” Lia said, walking onto the balcony with the drinks.
He took them and placed them on the table next to them. He took both her hands and pulled her toward him. He stroked her skin, as if desperate for contact. “My name is Reid Kennedy . . . but everyone calls me Kenny. Except my sister and parents. I wasn’t trying to deceive you, Lia. It’s just the name I go by.”
“Let’s not worry about that right now. You and Harper are all that matters. We can talk about this at some other point.”
Reid nodded.
“Is it okay to call you Reid?” she asked.
He breathed what she took to be a sigh of relief. “You can call me whatever the fuck you want as long as you are still speaking to me. I’m sorry,” he said, burying his nose into the soft hair at the side of her neck. The scent of him, man and leather, surrounded her, and despite everything going on around them, she was transported back to their previous weekend together, when she’d stripped for him in the warm shades of dusk.
Lia wrapped her arms around his waist. “For what?” she asked.
“For coming down here to make you feel better, only to pull you into all this.”
She didn’t respond immediately, but rubbed her hand up and down his back. It was the kind of gesture she wished her parents had done to her when she was small. Reassuring. Caring even.
He pulled back a little. “Don’t you hate me? For leaving her?” he said quietly.
“When she comes over, are you going to explain why?” She placed her hand over his heart. It beat fiercely.
He covered her hand with his own. “Yes.”
“Good. Because I happen to know she thought the world of you. And I know how much she still misses you and how she hates you in equal measure for abandoning her. So for now, you get the benefit of the doubt.” She thought back to the previous year when Harper had been upset about another of his birthdays passing without any contact. Through her tears, she’d been pissed. Mad that he didn’t think enough of her to miss her. “There’s much more to her story than you seem to know. You need to be ready for that.”
“What happened to her, Lia?” he asked. “Because my mind is running to all kinds of places.”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” She wouldn’t betray the confidence she had with Harper, not even for him. “It’s for her to tell you. I will say this, though. I may not have known you very long, but what I do know tells me you’re a good man. You stopped for a stranger on the side of the road, you stood up for that same stranger when she was harassed by a reporter in a restaurant, you helped her get where she needed to go, and I’ve seen the way you are with those boys. Only a good man would do all those things.”
“It was the legs,” Reid said, but she could tell he was trying to deflect her words. “That was why I stopped.”
“It had nothing to do with the legs,” she said, tapping her fingers against his heart. “It had everything to do with what’s in here.” He took her hand in his, and kissed the back of it before kissing her chastely on her lips.
“What if I can’t make this right, Lia?” he asked, his voice cracking.
A buzzer sounded from within the condo.
“Why is she here?” he asked urgently. “Is it something to do with me? Or Nathan? I can’t make it right if I don’t understand it.”
“I have faith in both of you, Reid,” Lia said, wishing she could give him more comfort before she went to let Trent and Harper inside. “They’re on their way up. Why don’t you go take a seat, and I’ll get the door?”
As she walked toward the door, Lia took a deep breath. Reid’s pain had been so real, it had crept through her pores, chilling her.
“Hey,” she said softly as she opened the door. “How are you doing?” she asked as she hugged Harper.
“It still hasn’t hit me he’s here,” Harper whispered. “Is he okay? Do you know where—”
“You need to talk to Reid, Harper. I love you, and I . . . think a lot of him, too. It’s not for me to tell you each other’s stories.”
“Yes or no, Lia,” Trent said. “He’s not going to say things that’ll upset Harper, is he?”
Her chest tightened a little at Trent’s tone, so she reached for his hand as she spoke. “I don’t know what he has to say, but whatever it is, you have been my friend for enough years to deal with it, right?” she asked, hopefully. She couldn’t bear the thought of it coming between them.
Trent let out a deep breath before he pulled her close for a hug, kissing her on the top of her head. “You’re right. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m kinda tense right now.”
Lia led them into the living room where Reid was now standing, and encouraged them all to sit. Not needing to ask what their usual drink orders were, she went back to the kitchen and returned with another beer and a glass of white wine.
“Shit,” Reid said. He placed his head in his hands. “I don’t even know where to begin. What happened, Taylor? Why are you here? What did I—”
“Instead of questions,” Trent interrupted, “why don’t you tell us what happened to you? And her name is Harper.”
Reid looked over at his sister. “Sorry, it’ll take time to get used to calling you something else.”
Lia moved next to him on the sofa and ran her hand up and down his back. Whatever had happened in the past, it felt wrong to let him go through this alone.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
Reid sat back and looked at her, his brown eyes filled with pain.
She nodded softly to encourage him to go on.
He looked over toward Harper and Trent, and exhaled loudly. “Harper, I can’t even begin . . . to say . . . shit, sorry isn’t enough. Ask me anything. What do you want to know?”
Lia felt Reid’s spine straighten under her hand and she could feel him breathe deeply. But more importantly, she saw Harper lean forward toward him. She could see the hurt in her friend’s eyes.
The shock Lia had felt at learning Reid’s identity was nothing compared to what Harper must be dealing with, but Lia believed him when he said he hadn’t deceived her intentionally. She thought back over everything she knew. Once, Harper had shown her a picture of her brother, but she’d only glanced at it quickly and the details were hazy. She should have figured this out on her own. Chicago? Bikes? Kenny for Kennedy?
“Start where it ended, Reid. The day of the sentencing. Why did you go?” Harper said quietly.
For a moment, Lia wondered whether she should leave. It was such a deeply personal conversation. But Trent was there for Harper, and even though her relationship with Reid was very new, she wanted to be there for him, too. Please don’t say anything that’s going to make me hate you.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me. I don’t know how to prove to you that what I’m about to say is true.”
“Tell us anyway,” Harper said.
He took a deep breath. “I left because Dad told me to.”
“What?” she exclaimed, and Trent stood again.
“That’s how you’re going to get through this?” Trent said. “By throwing your own father under the bus?”
“I’m gonna let it slide that you tried to take me out in the street with a sucker punch,” Reid said, getting to his feet, too. “I can even get over the fact that you’re here for this conversation because, judging from that rock on her finger, you are clearly engaged to my sister. But this has got fuck all to do with you.”
“Fuck. All? You have no idea what her life has been like—”
“Trent, please. Let’s just listen to what he has to say.” Harper took hold of Trent’s hand in an attempt to pull him back onto the sofa.
“For God’s sake, sit down, Trent,” Lia said. The last thing they all needed was another posturing brawl. “You, too, Reid.”
Both men sat down finally, but not before they engaged in some weird death-stare standoff.
“Dad has been there for me every step of the way. He wa
s there in the hospital, he came to the trial every day, he was there for the sentencing, and he stood by me afterward when everything was . . . complicated. I don’t get what he could’ve done that would lead you to blame him.”
Lia’s heart cracked a little as she watched Reid put his head back in his hands. “I don’t blame Dad. I blame myself every single day for everything that happened . . . except leaving. I was never really the son he wanted, so it probably worked out better this way. Jesus, sis. It’s all so fucking complicated. You said to start at the end, but let me start at the beginning. Nathan came to see me the night he attacked you.”
* * *
Reid could remember every last detail of that night. The flu had laid him out in bed, and at first he’d thought the hammering on the door was just a sinus medication–induced dream. Half-asleep and pissed at being woken he’d not been prepared to face a high Nathan.
“He came to my apartment that night, agitated as hell. He’d been hitting me up for money for a while, so I wasn’t surprised when he asked me for cash, but this time it was a hundred bucks.” In the past, it had been a twenty here, a fifty there, and the amount had worried him. “But he already owed me two hundred and fifty dollars, and I felt sick as a dog with the fucking flu, so rather than challenge him over what he already owed, I told him that I didn’t have any. He was acting weird and hyped up, and I didn’t want to deal with it. We fought. I told him he was an addict, told him he needed to get his shit together because he was a mess. He pleaded, then got calmer, then he told me it was all under control, said he was going to ‘fix it.’ I had no idea what he was talking about, figured he was just too buzzed to make sense and that in the morning everything would be fine. So I told him to go home and sleep it off. I sent him home to you.”
Harper covered her mouth with her hand and he felt Lia stand. Silence fell like a damp mist around them. It was everything he’d dreaded, but once the conversation was over, he’d know for certain whether he had any hope for a relationship with either of them.
Lia placed four fresh glasses on the table, and a bottle of Balvenie. She poured everybody a large measure and handed them around before sitting next to him. He’d never been more relieved to feel the warmth of her thigh against his, and without thinking, he ran his hand along it and let it rest on her knee.
Harper took a large sip. “How does all this connect to you leaving?”
“From the moment I arrived at the hospital, I was furious. I wanted to kill that fucker. When those police officers arrived in your hospital room at Nathan’s father’s request to arrest you for supposedly assaulting Nathan first, I lost it. I drove to Winston Bell’s house to confront him on trumping up charges. When he let me in, there was Nathan, sitting there in the living room.”
“Oh, God. What did you do?” Harper gasped.
“Hopefully what I would have done, darlin’,” Trent said, before taking a gulp.
“Yeah, well, it didn’t turn out so great. It made me sick,” Reid continued, “that Nathan, thanks to all his father’s connections, was home while you were handcuffed to a fucking hospital bed. I charged toward Nathan, got a few punches in, but Winston pulled a gun. As much as I wanted to kill the guy, I knew Mom wouldn’t be able to deal with both of us in the hospital, or worse, one of us dead. So I stopped. Told Nathan that I couldn’t wait to give testimony and tell a jury about his increasing drug habit and how high he’d been the night before. When I told Winston that he was a fucking cocksucker for having you arrested, the old man said there was an easy way to make your arrest go away. He’d drop all charges against you if I pretended that I hadn’t seen Nathan the night before.”
“Are you okay, darlin’?” Trent said to Harper, pulling her closer. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“I’m sorry, Reid . . . I just need . . .” Harper took a deep breath. “Give me a minute.”
Reid looked at how Trent had his hand placed on Harper’s lower back, and he thought about the scars she must have. What kind of deranged man took a knife to his girlfriend that way, carving a sick statement of ownership into her skin? He remembered driving her home from the hospital. She’d sobbed the entire way. Every bump in the road, every time he’d had to brake, she’d cried out. Eventually she’d unfastened her seat belt, leaning forward in the seat slightly to ease the pressure on her back and ribs.
Though she’d obviously healed externally, had she healed inside as well?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For the most part, I can handle conversations about that night, but this is just too . . . raw, I guess.” Tears filled her eyes, and Reid felt like the biggest shit for putting them there.
“Believe me, you have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “And we have so much to talk about that it might be more than you can handle in one conversation. If you want to stop and come back to this another day, that’s what we’ll—”
“So you agreed to Winston Bell’s deal, I take it,” Harper said, cutting him off.
Reid moved to the end of the sofa to be closer to her, wishing he could tune out memories of Winston telling him how in the big scheme of things, Reid’s testimony about Nathan’s frame of mind wasn’t such a big deal . . . but the battle between Harper and Reid over who had started the events was critical. “He made it sound like you were in very real danger. I get now that I was being played.”
He took hold of his sister’s hand and held it. “Shit, Tayl . . . Harper. What the fuck did I know? Your case seemed like a slam-dunk to me. You were able to identify him. He’d left the knife behind, and while I was no forensic scientist or whatever the fuck they’re called, it had to have fingerprints on it. But him harassing you, arresting you, seeing you with those fucking handcuffs holding you to your hospital bed. It felt like that was something I could make go away. One less thing for you to have to deal with. And because I was a complete dumb ass, and I didn’t realize that something as simple as my testimony could affect the sentencing, I agreed.”
“So that was why they finally dropped the charges?” Harper said. “I’ve often wondered what finally made them bury that. But what has this got to do with Dad?”
“Do you remember the night before the sentencing?” Reid asked, hoping she’d recall the way she’d asked him to stay over at their parents’, terrified someone was going to try and hurt them.
“I do,” she said quietly.
“Well, long after you’d gone to bed, Dad found me, blind drunk, in the basement. I’d seen Nathan’s lawyers build this ‘moment of insanity’ defense, because without my testimony as to his frame of mind they were able to convince the jury he was calm until he found you packing. And I was scared shitless that I’d fucked up massively. So I told Dad. He was furious. Yelled at me. Told me what a waste of oxygen I was, and basically kicked me out.”
“But you didn’t leave,” Harper cried. “You were there the next day.”
“Yeah. I was able to convince myself to be the bigger man. To stay for you no matter what Dad said.”
“So why did you leave when you did? I went to the washroom with Mom and when I came back out, you were gone,” Harper asked quietly.
Reid rubbed his hands over his eyes. This was his one chance to tell her the truth and he prayed that she’d understand. “I saw your face when the sentence was handed down. It was half of what was expected and I knew it was my fault for not testifying. Fucking Winston Bell looked straight at me and fucking grinned. His son had just been locked up and the guy was fucking smiling at me, because he knew he’d won. I held my shit together until Mom took you to get cleaned up. Then I fell apart in the hallway. Dad was furious. He finally had a place to put all the anger he felt about what happened to you. He berated me, and I let him. Because he was right. I told him it was my fault, because I was the one who introduced Nathan to coke.”
Tears pricked the corner of his eyes as years of guilt forced their way out like paint stripper poured on a vehicle, ugly and festering. He looked at the floor as Trent cursed.
Reid stopped and took a deep breath. Harper was crying, and it squeezed his insides to the point he thought he was going to be ill. She hadn’t deserved what had happened and certainly didn’t deserve this. Remorse burrowed its way deep into his gut. He’d poured out so much of what he wanted to say in one big rush.
“So you left because you felt you had let me down?” Harper sobbed.
“Let you down? Christ, that is too weak to describe how I’ve felt all these years. Letting somebody down is when you tell them you’ll help them move but never show up on moving day. You were my baby sister, and my best friend nearly killed you because I let him go home to you,” he shouted.
His words reverberated around Lia’s condo. Harper gasped, and Trent muttered, “Fuck,” under his breath.
Lia reached for his hand, but he pulled his away. He didn’t deserve sympathy or their looks of concern. This was his burden to carry, but at least Harper now knew the truth.
Reid placed his head back in his hands. He was fucking exhausted. He felt ill like he always did when he allowed himself to get dragged back to all those years ago. It was a time he tried not to visit, yet it permeated every decision he made. Shame filled up the places remorse hadn’t reached. He would give everything he had to go and make different decisions. But he couldn’t. No matter how badly he wished it.