The Raven Master

by Diana Whitney

  When the expected denial didn’t come, she searched Quinn’s face and saw only a bland expression. “It isn’t true, is it?”

  “What if it was true, Janine? Would that make any difference to you?”

  “Yes…no…I don’t know.” She fingered her bangs in frustration. “I mean, your name came up on a computer. It could have been a mistake.”

  “It could have been.” Quinn sighed. “But it wasn’t.”

  Air rushed from her lungs. “I don’t understand. Did you forget to pay taxes or—” she roughly rubbed her forehead “—or steal towels from a hotel?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you borrowed a few dollars from petty cash.”

  “Janine—”

  “I’m sure you meant to pay it back—”

  “Listen to me.” He took hold of her shoulders. “The sheriff was right. I was convicted. I went to prison.”

  “My God.” Pulling away, she was overwhelmed by the sensation of being strangled. As she stumbled backward ineffectually yanking at her collar, she realized just how little she really knew about this enigmatic man. She should feel furious, indignant, deceived; she should send him away, eject him from her life forever.

  Yet as she gazed into those mesmerizing eyes, the hidden horrors from Quinn’s past suddenly didn’t matter, because she knew beyond doubt that she’d fallen desperately, irrevocably in love with him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Quinn’s stomach tightened into a burning knot. He’d always known that his past could catch up with him but had pushed the unpleasant possibility out of his mind, perhaps because he couldn’t bear to see this shattered expression in Janine’s trusting eyes.

  She stood stoically, fighting tears, waiting for the plausible explanation that would restore her faith. He could lie, and she’d believe him because she would want to.

  Eventually she’d learn the truth, of course. The sheriff would already have requested the pertinent files from Southern California, but before the gruesome documents arrived he might have enough time to complete what he’d started. At the moment, however, he was sorely tempted to tell Janine exactly what she needed to hear.

  In the end, he simply couldn’t do it. She had suffered enough deception in her life; soon she would endure even more. But not this time. This time Quinn would be honest—to a point—and hope that she’d understand. It was a risk, of course. If he’d misjudged her, she could cause irreparable harm to others—and to herself.

  “Quinn?”

  He understood her unspoken question but the answer clogged like mud in his throat. He sat heavily on the bed. “It happened nearly three years ago.”

  “What happened?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he studied his knees to avoid her frightened gaze. “Perhaps I should start from the beginning.”

  “All right.” Janine perched delicately on the chair and watched warily.

  Propping his elbows on his thighs, Quinn slumped forward, staring sightlessly at the floor. His mind traveled back in time, focusing on the image of a beautiful blond woman, laughing, energetic, happy to be alive.

  She’d held out her pale hand, admiring the twinkling ring as though the microscopic gemstone had been the Hope diamond. “Oh, Quinn, it’s magnificent!”

  He’d watched anxiously. “It’s a bit small but—”

  “No!” She’d shaken her head so vigorously that her sun-bright hair swept her face and stuck like golden threads. “It’s perfect, absolutely perfect. In fact, it’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever had in my entire life!”

  Then she’d leaped into his arms giggling, and he’d swung her around the tiny apartment until she’d squealed for mercy. Afterward they’d gone to her bedroom and made sweet, gentle love. He’d whispered that he would always love her. She’d smiled and stroked his face, but had said nothing.

  Now, as he remembered that night and all the other nights, Quinn realized that during all their months together Cynthia had never once said that she’d loved him.

  The soft sound of the raven shuffling across its perch brought him back to the present. He knew that Janine was watching, waiting. He filled his aching lungs. “As I’ve already told you, Cynthia and I became engaged shortly after she’d completed the alcohol rehabilitation program.”

  “Yes, I remember. You also said that the treatment was difficult for her.”

  That was an understatement. Quinn managed a curt nod, then took a moment to gather his thoughts. “My biggest failure was in not realizing how difficult. She always seemed upbeat and positive so I never looked beyond the forced smile or recognized the pain in her eyes. Cynthia was dying inside, and I didn’t even know it.”

  “You’re not clairvoyant.”

  “No, but I am a professional, or at least I was supposed to be.” He took a disgusted swipe at his knee. “I should have recognized the symptoms. Cynthia had no experience dealing with sobriety. From the time she was fifteen, alcohol had taken the sting out of failure, created false courage and generally softened all of life’s rough edges. But after only a few months in a controlled environment, she was tossed back into raw reality and expected to cope. She couldn’t.”

  Janine digested that information. “She must have felt very confused and ashamed.”

  “I honestly don’t know. At the time, I was arrogant enough to assume that I understood, but Cynthia never revealed how she felt about what was happening in her life.” Quinn didn’t add that she’d never revealed her feelings about him, either. That would have made him seem even more simpleminded in Janine’s eyes so he maintained an even expression and spoke in a monotone. “As the date of our wedding grew closer, Cynthia became more and more withdrawn. I assumed—” he winced at the word “—that she had a normal case of prenuptial jitters.”

  “But it was more serious than that, wasn’t it?” Janine was leaning forward now. “She knew that once you were married, she wouldn’t be able to conceal the fact that she was still drinking.”

  Quinn wished it had been that simple. Deep down, however, he believed that Cynthia’s reluctance was based on the fact that she’d agreed to marry a man she didn’t love. That was the reality that had driven her back into the arms of addiction. And that was the reality that Quinn himself hadn’t been able to face—until it was too late.

  But in answer to Janine’s question, he simply rubbed his eyelids and shrugged.

  Janine persisted. “Obviously Cynthia’s problems were eventually discovered. What happened then?”

  An invisible vise tightened his chest. The memories were painful yet he was committed to revealing them. He closed his eyes. “One night about a week before the wedding…”

  As he spoke, the words dissolved into images of the past. He envisioned the night he and Cynthia had been preparing dinner in the kitchen of his uptown apartment.

  She’d been especially moody that evening, apparently irritated because her car had broken down on the freeway. Earlier, Quinn had received her agitated phone call, then driven to the site, supervised the towing procedure and brought her back to his place, hoping a quiet meal would ease her tension. It hadn’t seemed to.

  She slammed a cupboard door. “Where’s the damned vinegar? How do you expect me to marinade these lousy steaks without a decent red wine vinegar?”

  Startled by her uncharacteristic display of temper, Quinn set aside the lettuce he’d been shredding. “At these prices, meat shouldn’t be soaked like dried beans. The steaks will be great without marinade.”

  Not the least bit placated, Cynthia paced the kitchen rubbing—no, scratching—at her arms and face and neck. “I can’t eat meat that hasn’t been properly prepared. I just can’t. It’s…uncivilized.”

  Quinn wiped his hands on a tea towel. “All right. I’ll drive to the market and get whatever you need.”

  She jerked to a stop, then looked over her shoulder. “No. You’re tired. It’s not fair to send you out again. I’ll go.”

  “It’s no trouble.” He pulled
his car keys from his jeans. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Snagging his wrist, Cynthia faced him, huge blue eyes filled with anxiety. “Please…I could use the fresh air.” She plucked the keys from his palm, bit her lip, then gave him a shaky smile. “I’ll be right back. Honest.”

  The emphasis she gave the final word was unsettling. “Of course you will.”

  Clutching his car keys, Cynthia hurried to the front door and disappeared into the night, leaving Quinn with a queasy sensation that he quickly and neatly suppressed.

  Three hours later, Cynthia hadn’t returned. Quinn was sick with worry. For the fifth time in as many minutes, he picked up the telephone, held the receiver in midair then carefully re-cradled it. Instinctively he knew that Cynthia was at some bar drinking herself senseless, but for the first two hours he’d refused to acknowledge that. He couldn’t face the bitter thought that he’d failed her. By the third hour there’d been no choice but to accept the truth.

  He’d called all the hospitals; he’d called all of her friends. In fact, he’d called everyone in the damned city except the police because he was afraid they’d arrest her. Before her stint at the treatment center, Cynthia had had several brushes with the law because of alcohol-related traffic offenses. If the authorities located her and she had indeed been drinking, she’d most certainly end up in jail.

  He couldn’t allow that to happen. Cynthia was terrified of being confined. Once, she’d been forced to spend two days in the lockup and had nearly had a mental breakdown.

  So Quinn sat on the couch, propped his head on his hands and anguished over his limited options. He’d just decided to call a taxicab and canvass the local taverns himself when the front door opened and Cynthia stumbled into the room.

  He leaped to his feet and his heart nearly stopped. She looked like she’d been through a war. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, her lipstick had been chewed off and there were black crescents of smudged mascara under her eyes. “S-Something awful h-happened.” She hiccuped, sagged against the wall and burst into tears.

  Quinn was across the room in three steps and pulled her into his arms. “Are you hurt?”

  Sobbing uncontrollably, she shook her head then buried her face in his shirt and continued to weep. Closing his eyes, Quinn let her cry. Since she reeked of liquor, he had a fairly good idea of what had happened. And it made him sick.

  When her sobs had receded to an occasional quiver, he spoke softly. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Y-You’ll hate me.”

  “I could never hate you.” He wiped a dirt smear from her forehead. “Tell me.”

  “I…I…” She sniffed loudly and looked away. “The car. It’s all crunched up.”

  Having assumed as much, he merely nodded. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  “Yes.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “But you’d b-better look at the car.”

  “There’s time for that.”

  Vehemently shaking her head, she insisted, “You have to do it now.”

  A tingling sensation slid down his spine. “All right, if it will make you feel better.”

  When she remained silent and refused to face him, Quinn decided to do as she’d requested. Hopefully, she’d then be willing to discuss the incident that had so obviously traumatized her.

  “I’ll be right back.” He kissed her cheek, then reluctantly left the apartment and went down to the basement.

  The underground garage of the complex was dimly lit; even so, he instantly noticed that his gray sedan was situated nearly sideways across two parking spaces. As he walked closer, he saw a spiderweb of circular cracks on the windshield and felt ill. If Cynthia’s head had struck the glass with enough force to do that…

  But she had no cuts or bruises and the glass was dented inward.

  A heaviness settled in the pit of his stomach. He rounded the undamaged rear of the car and pulled a flashlight from beneath the passenger seat. The beam revealed that the left front fender was dented, the headlight was smashed and the bumper had been pushed into the grillwork. Smeared blood and human hair embedded on the outside of the cracked windshield completed the grisly tale.

  Quinn swayed weakly. Dear God. She’d hit someone. Bile rushed into his throat and he was physically sick.

  Afterward, he steadied himself against a nearby pillar, took several deep breaths, and when the faintness passed he returned to the apartment to confront Cynthia.

  She was as he’d left her, hunched on the couch, absently plucking at her clothes. When he closed the door, she straightened slightly. “It wasn’t my fault. He was right in the middle of the street…” She looked tearfully up at him. “He ran out in front of me. I couldn’t stop.”

  Feeling dazed, Quinn sat beside her. “Was he badly hurt?” When she didn’t answer, he glanced up and repeated the question.

  She shrugged. “I…don’t know.”

  “Didn’t the police tell you about his condition? Or the paramedics?”

  “I, uh…” Fresh tears slid down her face.

  “My God, Cynthia.” Quinn gripped her shoulders and spun her around. “You did call for help, didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t,” she wailed. “They would have blamed me, can’t you see? I couldn’t just sit there and let them arrest me. I’d die in jail, Quinn, you know that.”

  He released her quickly and reached for the telephone.

  She frantically grabbed at his wrist. “No! Please, you can’t.”

  “We have to report it.” He unpeeled her fingers. “Where did it happen? Where did you leave him?”

  There was a sharp knock on the front door. Quinn stiffened and looked at Cynthia. She was as pale as death. “D-Don’t answer it,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her hands. “It’s all right, honey. We’ll get through this together.”

  As he stood, she whimpered softly. He wavered a moment, then answered the door and saw what he expected.

  The taller of the two policemen spoke. “Quinn Coulliard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you the registered owner of a gray Buick sedan?” The officer squinted at his notes and rattled off a California license number.

  When Quinn acknowledged ownership, the officer’s perceptive gaze slid around the apartment. “Witnesses have placed your vehicle at the scene of an accident, sir. Were you driving in the vicinity of Broadway and J Street at any time during the evening?”

  Before Quinn could reply, Cynthia blurted, “I knew you couldn’t get away with it. You never should have left that poor man.”

  Stunned beyond rational thought, Quinn whirled to stare at the stranger who was to be his wife.

  Cynthia stood ramrod straight, twisting her hands. “I tried to stop him, Officer. I begged him to call for help but he wouldn’t listen.”

  Quinn was dumfounded. “Cynthia…my God…why—?”

  Suddenly he was jerked backwards, spun around and shoved roughly against the wall. As his hands were yanked up between his shoulder blades, the chilling words were uttered inches from his ear. You have the right to remain silent…

  Three years later, Quinn was still haunted by that crushing betrayal. His hands were shaking, his blood ran cold as ice. Blinking numbly, he sucked in a ragged breath, looked up and saw the horror in Janine’s eyes.

  With her palms pressed against her mouth, she slowly shook her head as a single tear slid down her cheek. She finally curled her fingers into fists, tucking them beneath her chin. “How could she have done such a terrible thing?”

  “She was frightened.” Quinn rolled his head and tried to suppress the turmoil wrought by having relived the awful memories. “Cynthia was a fragile woman. I believe she understood the consequence of her act but was driven by fear to the point where she lost control of her conscience. There’s a point, I suppose, in everyone’s life where self-preservation destroys the most altruistic motives.”

  Janine bit her lip. “But she deliberately betrayed you to save herself.
You must have been devastated.”

  Embarrassed by her overt sympathy, he avoided her gaze. “I was…surprised.”

  Suddenly Janine stood, folded her arms tightly and paced the small room. “There’s no excuse for what she did. When her lies were uncovered, I hope they threw the book at her.”

  Quinn stared at his hands and said nothing.

  She stopped pacing. “Her lies were uncovered, weren’t they?” When he still didn’t respond, she gasped and sat beside him on the bed. “My God. You were convicted. That means—”

  Quinn interrupted coldly. “I couldn’t prove that Cynthia was lying.” His suppressed rage resurfaced, that frigid fury that had been his companion since the day Cynthia’s perjured testimony had destroyed his life. “No one who witnessed the accident was certain whether a man or woman was driving or even how many people were in the car. The entire case boiled down to one of credibility.”

  “And the jury believed an emotionally distraught alcoholic over a man with your professional credentials? Why?”

  “Because the prosecutor put forth a rather convincing argument that a psychologist who would take sexual advantage of a vulnerable patient was obviously an unethical cad with the morals of an alley cat.”

  “But you said that you and Cynthia weren’t involved until after she’d left the rehab center.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “So she lied about that, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Janine laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You…went to prison?”

  The question was rhetorical since he’d already admitted as much, but her warm touch was so soothing that he found himself revealing more than he’d planned. “The sentence was three-to-five but thanks to an overcrowded prison system and generous good-time calculations, I was out in two years. It could have been worse.”

  “I don’t see how.” Turning her head, Janine discreetly wiped her wet face and felt a frightening surge of resentment toward the woman who had done such a dastardly thing. Her heart went out to Quinn. To be wrongly convicted was a nightmare guaranteed to terrify the most courageous but when added to emotional treason by a trusted lover… “How could you have forgiven her?”