CHAPTER FOUR
HE WAS DOING it on purpose. Amanda knew it and understood where his actions would lead.
That didn’t mean she liked it.
Robinson aimed to back Eileen Nettles into a corner she couldn’t escape. To prove she was crazy, nonviolent, or the opposite. That Alzheimer’s ruined the brain to the point where a person had no logical thought process whatsoever.
Or maybe something else altogether, because while he emanated an air of complete relaxation, the glare he’d shot Amanda’s way moments earlier was anything but calm.
Something had his back against the wall.
It had paused her conversation with Sergeant Brink and made her step closer to the window as if drawn by an invisible string. Anxiety and admiration warred inside her heart. The latter should have been second nature after all the time she’d spent around Robinson.
Making tough calls without remorse should have been somewhere in his mile-long name.
Instead, all she could think about was what might be going on inside her mother’s mind and praying this struggle with reality wouldn’t cause her harm. Even so, Amanda couldn’t move. Not to tell Robinson to stop, nor to leave her mom to fend for herself.
Especially not to give Sergeant Brink what he wanted; her mother behind bars and Amanda removed from any involvement.
To Amanda’s left, Paige sat in the same place she’d been when Robinson had gone to talk to her.
You never listen. You don’t think.
The harsh words came back to Amanda in a voice that was part hers and part foreign. All aimed at her niece. Mixed up with a terrible gnawing sensation and a lot of accusation. Spewed from her mouth as if she were a fire-breathing dragon, as they made their way to the precinct.
It had never happened before. And there’d been plenty of times she’d been angrier.
How did Amanda know the girl never listened? They’d only been a family of three for one short month.
“The two of you think you can barge into any investigation you want without precedent.” Killian Brink folded his arms across his chest and continued to stare through the mirror. “There are rules for a reason.”
And sometimes there were situations outside the scope of those rules.
“You’re lying.” Her mom’s voice came out in a shriek that made Amanda want to cover her ears. She stood still, powerless to do anything as Eileen flung the chair she’d been sitting on toward the mirror. Amanda felt the rattle of the wall as if the building materials were nothing more than papier-mâché.
Brink flinched. He stepped back as if the older woman might spin her head three hundred and sixty degrees and walk through the wood, sheetrock and glass. While Amanda wanted to do the same, she didn’t move.
And neither did Robinson. He acted as if he knew every step the other woman would make and planned to outmaneuver her.
Surviving death had made him cocky. Or brave. Or invincible. As if all the scars on his body were merely proof of the latter two. A little extra charm that made him irresistible.
And made her remember those close calls with too much clarity.
Instead of insisting they talk about it, she was grateful he was still around. It had happened. End of story. No point in rehashing the details.
And yet, you want Paige to open up.
“Somewhere inside your mind—your heart—you know I’m right.” His voice was smooth. Reminded her of all the times he’d backed her into a corner and refused to walk away without the best she could offer. “You have a disease called Alzheimer’s. It’s a type of dementia that causes problems with—”
“I know what dementia is.”
He wet his bottom lip, tucking it inward a second. “I know you used to.”
Her mom’s back went ramrod straight. She swung an open palm toward him. Robinson caught her wrist and stood before Amanda could take two full steps.
Eileen tugged her arm, then glanced at it as if she didn’t understand how or why it had come to be in his grasp.
“I don’t have it.” Another tug. “I know who I am. Who my family is. And you aren’t part of it. Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s right outside.”
Eileen’s hands clenched. She shook her head.
And if Amanda went inside the room at this juncture, her mother wouldn’t recognize her. Would call her a liar, too.
“She’s worried about you. We all are.” He released her. Gave the older woman a wide berth and righted the chair.
“If my daughter is outside this room, then you know my name. And you know…”
He nodded as if he were talking to a preschooler who’d finally counted to ten. “I know all about you. That you love health-related topics. And you wanted to be a doctor, but life threw you a curveball, so you did the next best thing. You became a teacher, professionally and personally.
“You always thought you’d have a ton of children, but there’s just Amanda. And it bothers you that most days you can’t remember what she looks like. Because you can’t remember her at all. No matter how hard you try.”
Amanda swallowed past the lump in her throat. Managed to avoid thinking about all the important events and moments that no longer existed. And what might fill that space.
Her mom shuffled backward a step. One hand flew toward her throat. “That’s not true.”
“What’s her name?” He picked up his wallet and pointed to the picture he kept there. “Who are these people?”
“You left her to die.” The glitter of sudden, unshed tears welled in her mother’s eyes. She advanced toward Robinson, fury etched across her face. “You convinced her it was the only way to survive. And when it didn’t work, you left her. Alone.”
A strangled noise came from beside Amanda. Davis turned and retreated through the thinning crowd of onlookers, her pace quick and panicked.
Almost as if she needed air.
A grunt brought her focus back to Robinson, who had her mother in a hold reserved for psychiatric patients. A layer of sweat popped up across his upper lip as if he were in pain, but desperate to move forward. It took everything she had not to rush inside. This, much like everything else lately, was a test she needed to pass.
And if she stepped inside that room, they’d all fail.
Sergeant Brink brushed past her, but stopped before he was out of earshot. “If someone gets hurt, it’ll be on your head, Nettles.”
###
SO MUCH FOR damage control.
Robinson wasn’t sure jumping into the fray with Eileen Nettles had done any good. He’d only known he couldn’t sit around doing nothing, with his thumb up his rear, while everybody in that precinct hung around for the next bit of Nettles gossip.
He wedged his phone between his shoulder and cheek, then rooted around in his desk for the over-the-counter medication he kept on hand. Tried to stave off the irritation flaring through his chest with every breath he took. It hadn’t happened in a while, but he’d been warned about how stretching wrong, push-ups, a hit—even minor—could cause some discomfort.
The scar on his head hadn’t been the only result of his near brush with death. Every day he got a nifty reminder that someone had used a little too much zest with a solid fifteen minutes of CPR.
Far be it from him to complain.
“What’s up, buddy?” The voice of Robinson’s childhood friend floated over the line. The sound of rubber accelerating against asphalt took up the rest of the airwaves. It derailed the careful list of questions he had for the chaplain, regarding a certain detective and any secrets she may or may not have.
Amanda might have chosen rose-colored glasses, but he hadn’t.
“Headed somewhere, Dexter?”
“Just hit the outskirts of Charlotte, actually.”
“Oh?” He located the container of pain relievers, popped the cap off and downed four with the coffee he’d snagged from the pot in the break room. Then he sat down and leaned backward with careful movements. “What’s the occasion?”
“One pesky sister.”
The intermittent sound of a blinker seemed to point like a beacon to the youngest Knight child. Always in a scrape and at the ready for some cause. “What’s Juliana done this time?”
“Nothing. That I know of. I just haven’t heard from her in a couple of weeks.”
“Nothing new there.” Robinson opened the file he’d been avoiding for the better part of two weeks. He flipped through Davis’ information as if he had less than seconds to absorb it and respond to the threat.
That could be the case, couldn’t it? The woman had been more present as of late. Standoffish, but around.
So he didn’t have those truth-altering glasses, but he was a little in denial. Procrastinating. It wasn’t his style, nor his wife’s. One of them was usually jumping into the thick of things with little regard to anything but saving a life. Instead, they were both employing a fair amount of delegation.
Not a whole heck of a lot was normal these days.
“I’d ask if I need to hunt her down, but it sounds like you’ve got that covered. Is she still working incognito?”
An annoyed grunt filled the line. “This was much easier when she was engaged to Jordan.”
Only because Robinson’s friend and colleague had covered for her in ways Dexter would never understand. Much like the Knight family couldn’t comprehend Dexter’s work at the prison. Or his need to go overseas and help those in combat zones.
“Anyway, I assume this call isn’t about my annoying little sister. So, what’s up?”
Robinson fingered the edge of the papers and blew out a breath. “I need your professional opinion on someone.”
“Active case?”
Only if you counted the amount of time this woman spent around Amanda. “I’ve got a twenty-six-year-old female who grew up in the system after having been abandoned following birth at an unknown location. Got a couple of documented fights.”
Did a kid who’d grown up with that experience automatically become a menace? He rubbed a hand across his forehead. The stereotype was beyond wrong. Rough childhood didn’t equal a future life of crime.
Then why did he have this sense of urgency humming through his system whenever Amanda’s partner was around?
“They estimated the child was born at thirty weeks’ gestation. She spent a week in the NICU before doctors diagnosed her with a heart defect that resulted in surgery, followed by more time in the NICU.”
“That explains the extended time spent with the state. Couples may wait years and pay a hefty fee for an adoption, but a sick child is never anyone’s first choice.”
Even the adoptive parents they’d chosen for the fraternal twins Paige carried wanted a full work up and a million promises the pair—a boy and a girl—would be born healthy.
The couple was an irritating combination of mushy-goo-goo love and over-exaggerated gestures that came through as one giant show. At least to him. They looked the same on paper as they did in public.
Perfect clothes. Fancy vehicles. Hand-picked careers. Impeccable pedigrees.
Fake.
But, hey, that and the open adoption wasn’t his call. Not an easy decision for an adult, let alone a thirteen-year-old.
“So what’s the issue, Robinson?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t need you, would I?” He shifted and instantly regretted the motion as pain crawled across his sternum. “Something isn’t ringing true.” He shuffled the pages again. Scanned incident reports involving fights that would have been considered minor had she been with her own family and not in foster care.
“Based on what you’ve told me, I’ve got little to assess. The situation you described doesn’t have enough detail. Being in foster care could easily have as many positive implications as negative.”
He knew this. It wasn’t good enough.
“And being in a few fights doesn’t provide much insight either. I’d say exhibit A is average, those conflicts being pretty much par for the course with a kid in the system. Maybe she has lingering abandonment issues. Beyond that, I’m sort of grasping at really short straws.”
“That’s helpful.” And typical of Dexter’s seeing-both-sides-to-any-argument attitude.
It was one thing for Robinson to get info on Davis and share his suspicions with Amanda. Sharing it with Dexter? No holds barred? Well, that was either a step in the right direction or completely unwarranted and the kind of thing that ruined lives.
“I’m not a profiler. I don’t like labeling someone who may or may not be guilty based on some facts on paper.” He paused, the silence lengthening with the background noise. “It comes down to basic human nature. What leads a person down one path, while another, with similar circumstances, goes the opposite direction? When you come up with a cookie-cutter answer for that let me know.”
A knock sounded on his door seconds before Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jordan Bening strolled inside, folder in hand. A grim look covered his friend’s features. Robinson held up a hand. “You’re the one with the psychology degree. And a knack for being right on target about people, Dexter.” Whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Quiescence reigned for a beat. “This isn’t for an active case?”
Robinson tapped the edge of his desk with an index finger. “Nope.”
“You can’t go through her life and try to foresee every single danger.”
He could try, even if that wasn’t exactly his angle with Amanda. “She’s a little preoccupied right now, so I’m watching her back.”
“And you’re plate isn’t full at all?”
“Got all my ducks in a neat little row.” Epic lie of the century. Between work, his recovery and ensuring his family thrived—a.k.a Amanda slept and ate and that Paige did the same—there wasn’t time for much else.
He hadn’t been altogether successful on either account.
“You know, if you’re not into this thing with Paige one hundred percent—”
“I’m in.” There was no question in his mind, hadn’t been since he’d woken up in the hospital after the car accident. He was sick of people insinuating otherwise. Or questioning if what he and Amanda were doing was wise.
Are you jumping the gun by adopting Paige?
If it appeared as though he was mostly on the sidelines looking in, that was only because it worked best.
Right now.
And there was only so long he’d allow it to happen. “And it’s not a thing. It’s called being there for family.” Creating one for a child who’d had everything taken from her.
“It never hurts to talk about things.”
“Mm-hmm.”
A sigh filled the line. “Email me what you have. I’ll take a look at it as soon as I get settled.”
“Thanks, Dex.” He disconnected and set the phone aside. Tried to concentrate on anything but the mess he had swirling around him.
Jordan eyed him. “How is the Knight clan these days?”
“Juliana’s off on some mission again. Dexter’s annoyed she can’t be bothered to check in.” Robinson piled his information together. He couldn’t help running a hand over the twinge still fighting for precedence in his chest.
“I see.” Jordan eyed him in a way that said he knew every thought going on in Robinson’s mind. The other man hadn’t bothered to sit down during his phone conversation and still didn’t now.
Agitation started a sickening swirl in his gut. They needed one small break. It wasn’t much to ask.
“You okay?” His ASAC stepped closer. Jordan’s gaze scanned him as if he might keel over any second. “You look like crap.”
He stole an apple from the drawer in his desk and crunched off a bite. “Took an elbow to the chest. No big deal.” Except it sounded like something a punk kid would say. Not a grown man.
And he despised the worry on his friend’s face, almost as much as he hated seeing it on his wife’s. Which is why he’d left her with the keys to his new SUV and swiped her car with barely two words
of explanation. He was tired of the questions. He was alive, healthy and ready as ever for a challenge.
And he’d likely pay for his reticence at some point.
“I can call Amanda.”
No. “It’s just a bruise that has to heal. Can’t call my wife every time I get a twinge. What am I? A wimpy girl?” He resisted rubbing his chest and instead fiddled with his computer. “Give it to me straight, Bening.”
A knock sounded on the door milliseconds before it opened. Amanda stormed inside, her expression that of a gathering storm. Then she shut it behind her. The loud clank of metal smashing together bounced around the room.
“You gonna explain that?” She pointed toward the closed door and walked toward him as if they’d had some sort of disagreement right outside his office. Instead of the disaster befalling them. She scanned him from head to toe. Stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. “I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me.” Literally and figuratively. Getting it back was paramount to survival.
“Let me see.” She moved toward him, then removed the apple from his grasp and set it on the desk. Amanda pulled back his jacket and tie as if she could read his mind and knew where his pain originated.
“There’s nothing to see.” He stilled her hands. They were cold and unsteady. She didn’t make eye contact. Tiny red splotches colored her cheeks, almost imperceptible.
Discomfort, ten times more potent than the elbow he’d taken to his sternum, zipped through him. The problem with knowing someone intimately in every way possible was perceiving their thoughts. Identifying what hurt them. Anticipating how they might react to any given situation. Seeing that person at their worst. Having them see you there, too.
This woman had cried maybe a handful of times or less in their acquaintance and consequential relationship.
Yeah, he’d try to foresee the dangers in her life for the rest of his.
The sound of a clearing throat caught his attention. Jordan shuffled in place. “I’ll come back in a minute.”
OBSESSION (The Bening Files (Novella) Book 4) Page 4
