by TM Simmons
Chapter 29
After the ladies left, Sir Gary sat on the bunk beside Katy. Again, he yearned to hold her, comfort her, assure her that she wouldn’t be here long. But his glib tongue, usually so easy with any and all nearby females, failed him.
“Your claustrophobia,” Katy said anxiously. “This cell...”
Touched by her concern when she was the one locked in this dreary space, Sir Gary said, “I find I can somehow overcome that in order to be with you, My Lady.”
“Alice may need your help,” Katy said staunchly. “I’ll be all right.”
“I shall leave in a moment. First, there is something I haven’t had time to tell Alice.”
Hope flared in Katy’s expression. “Something that might help me get out of here?”
“I am not sure. Do you know anything about a strange videotape that might have found its way into your guest house?”
“Ohmigod! Please tell me you’ve got that tape hidden somewhere. It’ll really seal my fate if Jack finds it!”
“I believe that Bucky person has it secreted elsewhere,” Sir Gary said. “He led me a merry chase when I discovered it, and somehow evaded me long enough to beat me back to the guest house and remove it. What does it have to do with this situation?”
Katy sighed and shook her head. “That tape...did you watch it?”
“It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I saw enough to know it was taken clandestinely as two people were...um...engaging in...um...but I didn’t recognize the participants.”
Katy pulled the blanket around her shoulders and hunched into it. “Alice and I thought we were doing such a good deed before. Bucky secretly filmed his mother during one of her...indiscretions. And...and her...well, paramour in your language...was my fiancé’s father. Back then...even now...something like that could ruin a person’s career, let alone someone like the senator. It would have been a scandal for my fiancé’s family, too. Bucky decided that, since it was my fiancé’s father, I’d be the most likely blackmail target. And he was right. I paid Bucky some money for the tape. Quite a bit, actually, but I could well afford it.”
She bit her lip, and Sir Gary waited for...as they say on that radio show he enjoyed...the rest of the story. After a deep breath released on a sigh, Katy continued, “Now Bucky’s threatening to expose everything. Well...I mean...he was...but...darn it! I suppose he still can, even being a ghost.”
“The rest?” Sir Gary prodded.
“He’s written a book about it. I told Alice that part of it, but not all. Not what all was in it. It’ll ruin Alice’s reputation, too, if it comes out that she was involved in a blackmail scheme. Covering it up rather than exposing it. She might even be arrested, too!”
“I very much doubt that,” Sir Gary said. “Isn’t there something about some statute of limitations rule under these laws your bobbies enforce with such...discrimination?”
“You don’t understand. The publicity would hurt her.”
“Or possibly make her more intriguing,” Sir Gary argued.
“I didn’t want to take that chance. Bucky promised he’d turn the manuscript over to me, along with the copy of the tape he kept, if I’d be the go-between with him and the senator. Help him become a respected citizen again. I...I told him I’d have to think about it, but he was killed before we came to any decision.”
Sir Gary sneered. “And you believed he would keep his promise?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Both the senator’s wife and my ex-father-in-law are dead now. According to the senator, his wife died of complications from heart problems. But she had a severe alcohol problem, maybe was even into drugs. Bucky probably inherited that gene from her. My ex-father-in-law was killed in a car wreck. Still, exposing all this sleaziness would hurt people still alive.”
Sir Gary pondered whether to bring up his next thought, but he imagined a woman as smart as Katy had already considered it. “And it would give the bobbies an even stronger motive to prove you killed Bucky. To protect Alice.”
Katy nodded sadly. “Please don’t scare Alice.”
“She has a right to know,” Sir Gary insisted.
“No!" Katy reached for him, but drew her hand back. “Let’s just wait until I get a lawyer and see what my chances are.”
“You’re willing to stay here in this nasty cell to protect Alice?”
“This mess is my fault. Alice tried to talk me out of paying off Bucky the first time. I won’t allow her name to be dragged through the mud, if I can help it.”
Quirking an eyebrow, Sir Gary lifted a finger and pointed it at the door. The tumblers clicked. The door inched open.
Katy surged from the bunk and pulled the door closed, engaging the lock. “No!" She rounded on him. “Look, you can go your merry way whenever you want, hiding or visualizing at your choice. But Alice and I have lives to live! I’m sure as hell not going to live my life as a criminal on the run!”
Sir Gary studied her closely. She probably didn’t mean her words to be so harsh, given his situation, but they stung anyway. He didn’t have a life to live, however you looked at it. And his living death couldn’t be reversed without some sort of help — help from either Alice or Twila. He supposed it might behoove him to . . .
Katy finished the thought for him, making him well aware that she was still thinking clearly. “You’ll be wandering around for years, maybe even centuries, if Alice gets tied up even deeper in this mess. I’ll make sure Twila has nothing to do with you, either.”
Sir Gary smiled, and Katy’s glare deepened. “I mean it! I — ”
He held up a hand. “I understand. And I realize how selfish I’ve been. My existence...my nonexistence is important, but not as important as freeing you from this dreary cell. Thus, I shall do all I can to assist. Whatever the consequences.”
“Right now, you need to find that tape. I’ll bet the manuscript is with it. If Alice finds it first, she’ll give it to Jack. I know she will, no matter what the outcome.”
“Your wish is my command, My Lady." Sir Gary glided through the cell door. On the other side, he peered in the tiny window. Katy paced back and forth for a few seconds, then flung herself on that shabby bunk and beat her fists on the mattress.
“When will I ever grow up?” she cried.
