“Who the hell do you think you are? This isn’t your home. I’ll stay if I want to.”
She had taken a cheap shot at a man I cared about. A man who had just been mortally wounded. I could tear her apart with my bare hands. I had a vivid memory of the feel of my fists against flesh. I took a single step toward her, redness tingeing my peripheral vision.
Arnie stepped between us. “Aydan,” he rasped softly. “It ain’t gonna help.”
“Arnie, are you going to let her talk to me like that?” Her voice was the irritating buzz of a mosquito. I took another step forward, but Arnie didn’t budge. I could still see her beyond his shoulder.
Crush her.
“Naomi,” Arnie said quietly. “Ya better leave now. ‘Cause I don’t think I can hold her if she comes for ya.”
“Fine.” She flounced out and slammed the door.
Arnie took a slow step back. “Aydan?”
“She hurt you. Nobody hurts you because of me. Not ever again.” The voice that came from my mouth wasn’t mine.
He reached slowly for my fist and held it, stroking it gently. “She can’t hurt me, darlin’. I don’t give a shit about her. Only the people ya care about can hurt ya.”
The tremors started then, rolling through my body in long waves. “I couldn’t save him, Arnie. I was supposed to die, not him. I couldn’t save him.”
“Aydan...” He put his arms around me and lowered me gently to sit on the couch. He sat beside me, and I held him with all my strength, ignoring the pain from my cuts and bruises.
“How did it happen?” he whispered.
“He was shot. Doing his duty. Shot in the back. By someone he trusted.” I couldn’t hold my voice steady, and I didn’t try. “Arnie, I swear to God I tried to kill the fucker. I would have killed him with my bare hands. But they knocked me down and sat on me. I couldn’t move... I’m sorry...”
Grief and fury choked me.
“Shhh, darlin’.” He stroked my hair and we sat in silence, just holding each other.
Finally, Arnie pulled away. “I’ll hafta call his dad.”
I looked into his haunted eyes. “You don’t have to tell him. He’ll know by now. The chaplain was going to notify him.”
“I hafta call him anyway. He’s... I’m John’s executor. An’ we’ll hafta make arrangements for the funeral.”
He was just getting up when the phone rang. He turned a stricken face from the call display. “It’s him. Aydan, I dunno if I can do this.”
I didn’t know how to help, so I took his hand and held it as he drew in a deep breath and picked up the phone.
“Hello?” He sank into his chair, his knuckles whitening on the receiver. “Yes, sir, I just heard. Yeah. From somebody he worked with.”
There was a pause while he listened.
“They wouldn’t tell ya?”
Ice filled my veins. If Stemp even breathed the word ‘traitor’, I would hunt him to the ends of the earth. Arnie gazed at me with anguished eyes.
“He died a hero,” I said firmly.
“Sir,” Arnie spoke hoarsely into the phone. “I dunno what the official word is gonna be. But his... partner... she says he died a hero. An’ if she says it, ya know it’s true.”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t expect anythin’ less.”
“Yes, sir.” He rummaged for a pen and paper and scribbled furiously for a few seconds.
“Yes, sir, ‘course I’ll be there.”
His shoulders slumped, and he covered his face with a shaking hand. His voice was a rough whisper when he spoke.
“Thanks... Dad.”
Chapter 39
Arnie hung up the phone and sat in silence for a few moments. When he spoke without looking up, his voice was even. “Aydan, could ya go out an’ pick me up a case a’ beer?”
His fridge was always full of beer.
I made for the door immediately. “I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll be at least an hour.”
“Thanks, darlin’.”
I closed the door softly behind me and made it out to my car before I broke down completely.
It was close to eight o’clock by the time I pressed the call button again. I’d picked up the beer and driven aimlessly the rest of the time, in a state of suspended pain. When Arnie opened the door, his cat, Hooker, made a determined dash for freedom. I scooped him up and carried him inside while Arnie took the beer.
“Hey, big guy,” I murmured as I cuddled the furry armful. “Where were you earlier?”
“I put him in the bathroom,” Arnie explained. “Naomi said she was allergic.”
“Mm.” I still couldn’t think about Naomi without wanting to destroy her for her callousness. I massaged Hooker’s scruff and my eyes threatened to fill with tears again when he squirmed up to squeeze his paws around my neck, purring mightily.
Arnie turned away, carrying the beer. “D’ya want one?” he called from the kitchen.
“I better not.” I changed my mind. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
I gave Hooker one last cuddle and put him down as Arnie handed me a cold one. He eyed me searchingly before laying a gentle arm around my shoulders.
“Come an’ sit down, darlin’. Before ya fall down.” He guided me to the couch and eyed my trembling hands. “When did ya eat last?”
“I don’t know. Around four or five, I guess. I don’t want anything.” I took a deep swallow of beer.
“Ya sure? I got some leftover pizza in the fridge.”
“No. Thanks.”
“Okay.” He sank into his chair and drank off half his bottle in a long swallow. When he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, the lines of pain in his face wrenched my heart.
I poured another generous dose of beer down my throat. I knew it wouldn’t help, and I didn’t care.
Arnie’s eyes opened again, and he came to sit beside me on the couch. He took my hand, turning it over to inspect the three-day-old scabs and the fresh cuts and scrapes. He traced the bruises up my arm, barely touching me.
“Can ya tell me what really happened?” He searched my face. “Somebody beat the hell outta ya, looks like a few days ago. An’ then there’s fresh stuff here. Aydan, tell me who did this to ya. Lemme help ya.”
I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder, taking comfort from his closeness. “The guys who beat me up a few days ago are in jail.”
“Guys?” His hand tightened on mine. “How many guys?”
“Two.”
“An’ how many today?” His voice was very quiet.
“Three.”
“Tell me who they are.”
“I can’t. I don’t know who they were. And it wasn’t their fault. They weren’t trying to hurt me, just hold me.”
“Three guys to hold ya? Brave guys,” he spat.
I raised a tired shoulder. “That’s what it took. There were actually five. I sent two to the hospital. I was completely out of control. But it didn’t matter. I was too late anyway.” I hid my face in his shoulder.
“Aydan, I can see how much punishment ya took. I know ya woulda saved him if ya could.”
“Yeah.” I choked up again and tipped up my beer for another long drink to hide it. Down almost three quarters of the bottle in just a few minutes. I should slow down.
Arnie set aside his empty bottle. “Ya want another?”
“No, not yet.”
When he returned with his fresh beer, he put his arm around me again, and we sat in silence for a while. I swallowed the last of my beer. “Was that a funeral date you were writing down earlier?”
“Yeah. It’ll be in Winnipeg, on Saturday at one o’clock. I’ll see what I can get for flights, but I’ll prob’ly go out Saturday mornin’, come back Sunday or Monday.”
“I’ll see if I can do that, too. Will it work for us to share a rental car?”
“Yeah, if we can get the same flights.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll be stayin’ with Kane’s Dad. Ya could prob’ly stay there, too.”
“No
, I wouldn’t want to intrude. I’ll get a hotel.” I looked up at his strained face. “John never mentioned his mother. Is she...?”
“Dead. Sixteen years ago. Aneurysm.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but shook his head and drank off a couple of inches of beer instead.
“How’s his Dad holding up?”
Arnie tipped up the bottle again and lowered the level of his beer to the halfway point. “He’s tough. He’s a tough ol’ man.” He gulped another long swallow. “But he’s hurtin’.” He took another slug. His second beer was almost gone.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose both your children,” I said. “I don’t even want to think about what he’s going through.”
Arnie pulled back to look at me. “Ya knew about Dan?”
“Yes, I saw his picture at Kane’s and asked about him.”
“Oh. Ya were at Kane’s place?” His shrewd eyes searched my face. “Were you two...?”
“No.” I pushed down the regret. “I was over at his place to look at some documents when we were doing that mission at Harchman’s.”
He eyed me seriously for a few moments. “Well, darlin’, he trusted ya, then. He never took anybody to his place.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard and tried to take another gulp of beer before realizing my bottle was empty.
Arnie went to the kitchen and returned with two more beers. We each took a long drink and sat in silence again.
When I glanced over a few minutes later, Arnie’s third beer was almost gone, and I started to get concerned. I’d never seen him pound them back like this before.
I gestured to his almost-empty bottle. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He leaned his head back. “Just thinkin’.” He absently drained the bottle. “Ya know, darlin’, I got two blood brothers, but Kane’s... John was my real brother.”
“I didn’t realize you had brothers. I guess I never asked. Sorry.”
“Yeah. Two brothers an’ a sister. I ain’t seen Don and Jim in... Christ, ten, fifteen years. More, prob’ly.” He sighed. “Kathy, the last time I saw her was thirty years ago. Shit, thirty years ago this year. I dunno if she’s still alive. Prob’ly not, but I keep lookin’...”
He raised his empty bottle and squinted at it. I handed him mine, and he took another deep swallow.
“What happened thirty years ago?” I prompted gently.
“Nothin’.” He shrugged. “That was just the last time I saw her. I’d joined up with the army, an’ I told her I’d got a mailbox for her so I could send her money. She was hooked on drugs, livin’ on the street. Guess she was prob’ly in the sex trade. Dunno how else she coulda paid for her shit. Hell, I was only eighteen. What’d I know?”
He slid lower on the couch. “But my cheques never got cashed. Next time I got out on leave, I went lookin’ for her, but she was gone.”
He sat up a little straighter and looked me in the eyes. “Kathy was a good person. She tried to take care a’ me when we were kids.”
He slouched down on the couch again and drank some more beer, staring off into the past.
“But it was John an’ his folks that saved me,” he finished quietly.
He drained the bottle and headed for the kitchen again. “Ya want another?”
“No, thanks.”
He brought back two bottles anyway, and handed me one before sprawling back onto the couch beside me.
Arnie drank off a couple of inches as if they were water, and I decided it might be smart to keep him talking just to slow him down.
“How did John and his parents save you?” I asked.
He turned and examined me, his eyes searching mine. I’d felt that expression on my own face often enough. He was trying to decide if he could trust me enough to tell me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”
He blew out a breath and leaned his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. After a moment, he spoke without opening them. “Yeah. Ya know what, darlin’, yeah. Tonight, I wanna talk about it. ‘Cause somebody else should know what they did for me.”
He took another long swallow of beer.
“My fam’ly was fucked up from the start,” he began. “The ol’ man was shitfaced mosta the time. Mean sonuvabitch. Beat the hell outta my mom, beat the hell outta us kids. When I was about five, he was whalin’ on me, an’ Mom tried to stop him. An’ he killed her. Beat her to death right there on the spot.”
I clutched his hand, barely able to comprehend the horror. “Arnie, I’m so sorry.”
“Cops came, but they were too late,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “We ended up in a foster home. Jim was the oldest, he was thirteen then. Mean sonuvabitch just like the ol’ man. He’s pretty much in jail for good now, far as I know. He ain’t on my Christmas card list.”
The beer bottle sloshed again. “Don, he got married, beat his wife an’ kids. I kept tryin’ to get ‘em both to get help. Last time I went, Don’d been drinkin’ again, an’ he got mad.”
He absently rubbed the jagged scar on his forearm. “Sometimes, ya gotta know when to give up. Ain’t seen him in years.” He tipped the last of the beer down his throat and reached to take mine out of my hand.
“Kathy, now.” His eyes softened. “She was nine when Mom died. She was always tryin’ to take care a’ me. Lookin’ out for her baby brother. All she wanted was for somebody to love her. She started goin’ with this asshole when she was thirteen. He got her hooked on drugs. She never had a chance. Poor kid. Never had a chance.”
He stared across the room. I sat in silence, overwhelmed by his pain, letting him take his time.
He came back to his story with a sigh. “An’ then there was me. They put me into grade one the next fall, an’ that’s where I met John. We were buddies right from the start. His mom used to invite all the kids over. Guess she felt sorry for me, an’ I ended up spendin’ mosta my time over there.”
He shrugged. “They gave me a bedroom at their place, ‘cause I was there all the time anyway. Treated me like I was one a’ their own kids. Got me into hockey with John an’ Dan. Helped me with my homework. Got me music lessons, for chrissake.”
He leaned his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling with a twisted smile. “John and me, we were always pushin’ each other. I was more into partyin’ than studyin’, but I got good marks ‘cause I hadta beat John. He’d bug the shit outta me when he beat me on a test.”
“I was gettin’ into the party scene pretty good by the time we graduated,” he continued. He raised the beer bottle in an ironic toast and had another swig. “Dunno where I woulda ended up if John hadn’t dared me to join the army.”
He gave a faint, humourless chuckle. “So I hadta do it. He was always buggin’ me, ‘Ya can’t take it. Bet ya quit before I do’. Next thing I know, I got my twenty years in. Kept me outta trouble. Mosta the time.”
He grinned, then sobered again. “I stayed in a year after he got out, just to prove the point. An’ when I got out, John’s the one that got me into bein’ a PI.”
He took another drink of beer. “When I was kid, I swore I’d never be like the ol’ man. An’ I ain’t,” he said quietly. “John an’ his folks, they saved me.”
I gently pried the bottle out of his hand and used the beer to swallow the enormous lump in my throat. As an afterthought, I poured the rest down as well. Then I sat and held his hand in silence.
A couple more beers and some rambling reminiscences of Kane later, I pulled Arnie up off the couch and guided him into the bedroom. I got him undressed and into bed and crept in beside him. His arms closed around me, and within seconds he was snoring softly.
Sleep eluded me for a long time.
Kane stood in front of me, his clothes plastered with mud. He raised his gun and aimed it at me. Then he fell, his body collapsing bonelessly. His outflung arm bounced as it hit the ground. The gun slid out of his slack fingers to lie o
n the muddy grass. Stemp smiled at my screams. His gun pointed at my forehead, and his finger tightened on the trigger…
“Aydan! Stop, darlin’, shhh, it was just a dream.”
I opened my eyes to Arnie’s anxious face hovering above me in the semi-darkness. “Aydan. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
I curled into an aching ball of misery. “No. It wasn’t.”
He sighed and curled himself around me, stroking my hair.
I opened my eyes to see Arnie watching me in the morning light. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he murmured.
“Good morning. How’s the head?”
“Been better. Been a long time since I tied one on like that.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t.”
“I’ll get you some painkillers.” I rolled over with a groan and sat up slowly. Every inch of my body hurt.
“Stop, darlin’, you’re in worse shape than I am. Stay here an’ I’ll get the pills.”
He rolled out of bed and returned in a few moments with a pill bottle and a glass of water. He froze as he came around my side of the bed.
“Aydan, what the hell’s that?”
I followed his gaze to the nightstand. “Glock G26.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I meant, what’s it doin’ here?”
“It’s not officially here. You never saw it.”
He sat slowly on the edge of the bed and handed me the water and pills. “Darlin’, ya know ya need a permit for that.” He leaned closer to examine it. “That’s a concealed holster, too. Ya do know that’s illegal, don’t ya?” He eyed me with concern.
“I have a permit. And a license to carry a concealed weapon. And you never saw that gun, because nobody is supposed to know I have it. Which is the whole point of a concealed weapon.”
He looked from me to the gun and back again. “Back in March, Kane told me ya were a civilian. I wondered about that.” He paused. “I told Dad ya were Kane’s partner ‘cause I didn’t know what else to say. But ya were, weren’t ya? Ya really were his partner.”
Reach For the Spy Page 23
