Nothing Personal (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  But he was still so tired, still floating. And Desiree was all right. So he just closed his eyes and let them talk.

  Desiree’s wheelchair came to a stop as Dixie paused outside Alec’s door and called out, “Knock, knock. Visitor for the patient.”

  The two solid figures blocking Desiree’s view turned, shifted, and she saw him. His black hair was still the same, but that was all. His face was almost unrecognizable, his left eye puffed shut, the fierce red bruising extending up his forehead, down his cheek. Adhesive tape across his nose, his lips swollen and marked by black lines of stitching. But none of that mattered, because he was alive.

  Gabe and Dave moved to the end of the bed where Susie sat, and Dixie wheeled Desiree close, close enough so she could reach a hand out for Alec’s where it lay on the bed, the fingers taped to a device that was probably measuring his pulse, tubes running to the crook of his elbow and fastened with more tape. She touched his hand, and he looked at her out of his one good eye and tried to smile.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice weak, “you should see the other guy.”

  She laughed, and it hurt, so she stopped. “We both made it,” she said. “Because of you.”

  “We’ll leave the two of you alone for a while,” Dave decided. “Come back in a few minutes.”

  “Grandma,” Desiree realized, “you should go rest.”

  “Gabe’s found us a hotel,” Susie promised. “I’ll take her there right now.”

  “I’ll see you later tonight, honey,” Dixie said, bending to touch her papery cheek gently to Desiree’s, squeezing her hand. “You take care.”

  “Where are we?” Alec asked when the others had left.

  “Los Gatos. It was a short ride. I guess you don’t remember it.”

  “No. What day?”

  “Tuesday afternoon. It’s been about six hours since the accident.” She didn’t tell him how long those hours had been for her. She’d share that later, when he was in shape to hear it.

  He looked at her from the corner of his one good eye. “You look . . . bad. In a wheelchair.”

  She would have laughed, if she could have. “Just to get down here to see you, because walking hurts. Some bruises, a couple cracked ribs, a mild concussion that’s more like a bad headache, that’s all. They’ll discharge me any time now. You’re a whole lot more beat up than I am.”

  He tried to shift, winced. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Let’s see. One concussion, not mild. Two broken bones in your left arm, which now has a pin in it—that was your surgery. Three broken ribs, which are probably going to hurt the most. And a whole lot of bruising. You don’t look pretty, but you’re going to be all right.”

  He was barely listening. “We still don’t know,” he said. “What happened. The code.”

  “Yes, we do. I called Ron a half hour ago, told him what happened, and he told me that the code had been accessed. It’s all over.”

  “Good.” He closed his eye and sighed. “That you’re on it. Because I’m falling asleep again.”

  “You rest,” she said, holding his hand a little more tightly. “I’ve got this.”

  “The car, though.” The blue eye opened again. “Can’t have been an accident.”

  “No. Too coincidental, and too extreme. He did it.”

  She caught the shift in his expression as he looked beyond her. She tried to turn to the door, was stopped again by the sharp pain in her side. But she didn’t need to turn after all, because here was Brandon, advancing into the room, hesitating at the sight of her.

  “Rae,” he said with surprise. “You’re mobile, then?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Her throbbing skull and aching ribs were telling her that it was past time for another pain pill, but that didn’t matter. “And Alec’s better off than he looks too. It’d take more than a little car accident to do the two of us in. We’re hard to kill.”

  “Man.” Brandon sprawled into the chair Susie had vacated near the foot of the bed with a sigh. “You look like shit.”

  “Feel like it too,” Alec said.

  “I’m so relieved. I thought I was going to be out of a job.” Brandon laughed a little, ran both hands over the thighs of his dark indigo jeans. “No, seriously,” he went on after a moment, “I was just . . .” He shook his head. “What a relief. I came as soon as I heard. It’s so good to see you guys.”

  “Who told you?” Rae asked. “About the accident?”

  “Huh?” He blinked at her. “Who? Joe. He called me. Didn’t realize you’d sprung the trap, I guess. Still pretending. But then,” he caught himself, “that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you two are all right.”

  “Interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize he knew yet.” She looked at Alec.

  He moved his head a fraction as if to shake it, stopped. “No. My dad said he’d call. A few minutes ago.”

  “You mean . . .” Brandon hesitated a moment. “No. It can’t be. Even he wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Done what?” she asked.

  “You’re suggesting that he caused your accident? No way,” Brandon insisted. “I don’t believe it.”

  “No,” she said. “Neither do I. Joe wouldn’t do that, and he didn’t. Give it up, Brandon. We all know how you knew.”

  “What?”

  “You knew,” she said, “because you did it.”

  “What?” He stared at her in disbelief.

  She paid no attention to that, because Brandon was good at lying. So good at pretending. But she wasn’t buying it, not anymore. “I don’t know how,” she said, “but they’ll find out. You knew where we were, how? You didn’t follow us, or we’d have noticed. It was too rural up there, too empty. So it had to be some kind of tracking device on Alec’s car, which they’ll find too, because I’ve already told them to look for it. They’ll take that car apart, I’ll make sure of that. You knew that we were on top of a mountain, and you tampered with Alec’s brakes, which you’d probably been thinking about for a while. I don’t know if it was always part of your plan, or if it just seemed like the finishing touch, but it’ll come out in the investigation, because as soon as the police get you in that room and start to question you, you’re going to cave.”

  “You’re crazy.” He made as if to rise, seemed to change his mind, sat back down again, stuck his legs out in front of him, leaned back in his chair. “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She kept her own posture relaxed with an effort even as her mind raced. She’d had six long hours to think this out, though. She might not know exactly how he had done it—yet—but she knew why. Her hands curled and moved inside the pockets of her robe, wanting to hit him. To beat him for what he’d done. Everything he’d done. Everything he was. “Because you wanted to cover up the theft of some computer code, maybe, get rid of the people who’d foolishly given you the password, so they couldn’t tell anyone that they’d done it? Pretty pathetic attempt, though, as usual. A Mercedes is a well-built car. Not like, you know, that second-best thing you’ve got, that little BMW.”

  She saw him flush, was glad her taunt had hit home. “I think you’d better have them check you for brain damage,” he said. “Because you’re nuts. And dude,” he told Alec, “I’m sure she’s a firecracker in the sack and all, but seriously, you can do better.”

  “No,” Alec said. “I can’t. Shut up.”

  Brandon laughed. “What, you tell her you’re in love? That how you got in? I don’t think that’s going to last long. Not once she finds out what a dog you are, catches you sniffing after that next piece of tail.”

  Desiree barely heard them. “But then,” she went on after staring down at her lap, thinking some more, “maybe you figured that even if you didn’t kill us, it would be enough just to muddy the waters, give yourself an excuse to quit. All that delay and confusion, you know, with Alec injured, that cloud still hanging over his head, and Joe’s too now? Maybe you’d have got lucky and we both would
have had brain damage. So unfortunate for us, and for the company, and for you, of course, having to move on after all your hard work. You could’ve just slipped away, wouldn’t even have had to hide. You’re here now to make sure we don’t know, to see if you need to get out right away, do that hiding after all. Or to make sure we haven’t found out yet that the code’s been taken. If we had, what? You’d be joining us in mourning the fact that Joe was too smart, that he figured it out, that he somehow got the undamaged code after all. Too bad it’s too late. Too bad we’ve already figured it out, because as usual, you haven’t been smart enough.”

  “You think it’s too late?” He laughed again. “You already gave me access, remember? Maybe you two are the ones who aren’t smart enough, did you think of that? If it was me, and I’m not saying it was, that code would be long gone, nothing you could do about it, and no way to pin it on me.”

  “Why?” Alec asked, and as much as she knew talking hurt, asking this question had to hurt more. “Why, when you’ve been my partner for so long? When you’ve gotten so much from working with me?”

  “So much? Brandon stared at him. “So much?” The mocking laughter was gone. “What do you mean, so much? What have you ever given me besides your leftovers? Joe’s your partner. Joe’s the best, and I’m some guy tagging along, getting the crumbs. You got any chick you wanted, and I got her fat friend. Rae was too good to have lunch with me, but as soon as you snapped your fingers, she was lying down and begging you for it, wasn’t she? Because you’ve always made sure you got all the money, and all the credit too. You’re the one doing the interviews, giving the presentations, taking your shirt off on the reality show. You live in the Millennium Tower, and where am I? Some second-class place, always. Always. Because for every million you got, you gave me maybe, what, a fifth? A tenth? Maybe, if I was a very good boy and kissed your ass enough. No matter how much I did for you, I was never going to hit the big time, never going to be the one raking in fifteen mill at one shot, because you were there taking it all.”

  “Because you didn’t earn it,” Alec said. “You want fifteen million, you go have the idea. You go build the company. You didn’t earn it, and you don’t deserve it.”

  “Like hell I don’t. You owe me, and you know it. And now you’re trying to pin this on me, but you won’t, because I’m too smart for that. Because I’m one step ahead of you, and I always have been.”

  He smiled, and it was ugly, the mask fully fallen away now, the envy that had twisted his soul for so long right there to see, the boyish features distorted into something nasty and vicious. He made Desiree sick. Her nostrils were full of the stink of him, and her stomach curled in disgust.

  Her mind all but screeched to a stop as the thought registered. She took another sniff. Looked at the soles of his shoes, visible as he sprawled in the chair near the foot of the bed, and felt the memory click into place. Of her pulling Alec by the elbow as they approached the passenger side of the car, helping him avoid the pile of dog poop with its clear mark right smack in the middle, where some unfortunate soul had put his toe into exactly the wrong spot. A mark that was a perfect match for Brandon’s left Ralph Lauren.

  “You’ve got dog poop on your shoe,” she told him.

  “What?” He stared at her, then turned his foot sideways to check it out.

  “I don’t think that’s going to help you,” he said with a smirk, relaxing with an obvious effort into his casual posture again. “Someday in the not too distant future, I figure I’ll be able to buy about, oh, a hundred thirty thousand pairs just like it.”

  “Good job with the division,” she said admiringly. “That’s what they promised you? Thirteen million? I don’t think you’re going to be seeing that. In fact, I don’t think you’re going to see anything but the inside of a prison cell. Two counts of attempted murder, I think that’s what they’re going to call that.”

  “What are you talking about?” He was still trying to brush it off, but she could see the sweat starting to form on his upper lip. Brandon had never been nearly as cool, nearly as smart as he thought he was.

  “I got my MBA at UC Davis,” she said.

  He looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and Alec was staring at her too, out of his one good eye, but he kept quiet.

  Brandon didn’t, though. “So? Is that supposed to impress me? Not exactly a Tier One school, is it? I got mine at Stanford, or didn’t you know that? You know what UC MBAs call Stanford MBAs?” He laughed as if he’d never told the joke before. “Boss.”

  She ignored that. “You know what else UC Davis has? A vet school.”

  “Oh, you’re a vet too? Is there no end to your talents? What are you going to do, get your horse and kick me to death?”

  “And you know what they have at that vet school?” she asked. “The only animal forensics lab in the United States. Did you know that canines secrete their DNA in their feces? I read an article on it. And do you know what that means?”

  “That you’re desperately trying to stall me?” The sneer was still in place, though it looked a little less certain now. “So you can think of something, something that isn’t there, to keep me from getting away with it?”

  “You aren’t going to get away with anything,” she had the satisfaction of telling him. “Because you don’t have the right code. You’ve got a fake, with your fingerprints all over it, and Joe, and Ron, and I imagine the whole rest of the board already know about it.”

  “You’re lying.” The color had crept up, and his posture wasn’t relaxed anymore, but he was still in there swinging. “Nice try, but it’s already gone. You’re too late.”

  “No. You’re the one who’s too late, because Alec lied to you. Joe would’ve seen it, because Alec was right, you need a live goat to catch a tiger. But you’re not a tiger, are you? To catch a weasel, a dead goat works just fine. And your fingerprints are all over that dead goat. But it’s even worse than that, because you’ve put your footprint into something so much nastier.”

  She saw him struggling to make sense of what she was saying, felt a rush of contempt so strong it nearly overpowered her. “You were always going to fail anyway, though,” she told him, “because you can’t do anything else. You’re so jealous of Alec you can’t stand it, because you know that he’s so much more than you could ever be. He’s better-looking than you, sure. He’s more charming too, and women like him better. But that’s not all. He’s smarter than you, and stronger than you, and braver than you, and kinder than you. And he’s a better man than you. He always has been, and he always will be.”

  “You . . .” He could hardly get the words out. “You set me up.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We did. But that isn’t what’s going to do you in. If you’d stopped with the code, you’d have been all right. You didn’t even take much of a risk with that, did you? You knew that even if you didn’t manage to steal it, even if you failed—which you must have realized, in some sad, pathetic corner of your sad, pathetic little mind, that you would—even if the worst happened and you were found out, you wouldn’t be prosecuted, because nobody would want it to leak out that the code was ever compromised. You knew it’d be swept under the rug, and you could just slink away like the weasel you are. But in the end, you didn’t even leave yourself that way out. You managed to screw it up beyond redemption.”

  “Because,” she said, and had the satisfaction of seeing his face turn ashen as she went on, “when you stepped in that pile of dog poop in the parking lot, doing whatever you did to Alec’s car, you placed yourself at the scene of the crime. Checkmate, Brandon. We win.”

  He stood up, hardly seeming to know what he was doing. Took a couple steps toward the door, then stopped. Straightened. And turned. “Nice try. But you’re the one who’s screwed up. This hospital has an incinerator. All I have to do is dump the shoes, and my ass is free. Thanks for the warning, though.” He sketched a salute. “Guess you aren’t quite as smart as you think you are. But then, we already knew that
, didn’t we? Your MBA’s from Davis, after all.”

  He smiled at the pair of them, turned back to the door again. Took one step, came up short at the sight of Dave and Gabe Kincaid coming into the room. It wasn’t just the size of them. It was the expression on their faces.

  “You forgot one other thing, too,” Desiree said. She pulled her hand out of her pocket at last, held up the item that had been inside it all along, and, finally, pressed the “end” button on the call she’d pocket-dialed. “That no matter what I’m doing, no matter where I am, I always carry my phone.”

  The interviews took hours, especially since the detectives kept having to wait for Alec to wake up. But at last, Brandon had been taken into custody, his shoes duly confiscated. Only time would tell whether he’d stay there, because he hadn’t talked, had called an attorney and clammed up. But then, the pressure hadn’t really begun to be applied, because there was still that little matter of code theft, and he’d have to be considered a flight risk. Release on bail, she had a feeling, was going to be a tough prospect. One way or another, Brandon was history.

  And for now, he was gone, and she was alone with Alec in his room again. She was dressed this time, discharged, aching, and exhausted, but wanting to say goodbye before she joined Gabe in the waiting room to be taken to the hotel. Where she could lie down again, and where, she had a feeling, she was going to be very well taken care of. By her grandmother, and by Susie, who were both waiting there for her.

  “I’ll come back in the morning,” she promised, still holding Alec’s hand, because she couldn’t bear to let it go.

  “I’ll be counting on it,” he said, the words still a little slurred from his split lip, his voice slow from the Demerol. “And on my mother making you sleep past seven, and making you eat a good breakfast. She’ll probably feed you in bed. Just warning you. She’s going to fuss.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “I might have missed out for a few years there, but I think I’m going to get a fair amount of mothering tonight.”

  “Not just tonight. You’re going to get it from now on.”