She felt her anger rising. This wasn’t a joking matter. It was her behind on the line and if she went down she was going to take them all down with her.
“You’re supposed to be resting.” Thomas had convinced Thena to stay at home, his home, for the day. Work could wait, he assured her. She needed rest. She might have thought she could keep going at full speed, but he knew better.
“I am resting.” She sketched more changes on the paper in front of her. “I’m thinking of building another house,” she kept drawing.
“You’re moving? You could move in here.”
“Not for me, silly. It’s for Twist of Fate. Megan, my friend…you know the one who runs Twist of Fate…well she has been thinking of expanding. I talked to her a few days ago about maybe drawing up the designs for a new living facility. It’s not set in stone yet, but she wants to see my plans.” She sketched some more. “I don’t know if she’s going to get the financing. And I can’t afford to do this one for free,” she mumbled. He got the impression that maybe her friends took advantage of her sometimes. Thena was the kind of woman who would give her last to a friend; she would probably give her last to a person on the streets begging for money and food too. He wondered just how many of her friends were actual friends.
He tried to ignore the feeling in his gut when she breezed over his invitation for her to move in with him. He wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but he knew it had been his voice sounding them out. He wasn’t ready for marriage; he had told her that. Yet he had just said she could move in with him. Shocked was the word he would use to describe what he felt. Of course, he was now feeling a little disappointed that she hadn’t even considered the possibility of living with him. Did he really have a right to feel that emotion? After the conversation he had shared with her just last night was it even fair to utter the words he just had?
“Surely she doesn’t expect you to do it for free,” he said in an effort to break his own inner thoughts.
“Well…what she’s doing is for a good cause. And I have done a lot of things for the center, but…I just can’t do this for free. I think she’s hoping I will, but I already told her I would have to charge her. That’s when she told me that she might not be able to get the financing.”
He growled low in his throat. She needed new friends. “How was she planning to get the land?”
“I own the land,” she stated so calmly, as if it didn’t matter that her friend was planning on using her.
“And you’re just going to give it away?”
She put the paper and artist pencil down. “Well, I’m not really using it for anything. And it would be for a good cause. But…I was kind of hoping to use it for something else one day.”
He sat down beside her. “Like what?” He brushed his fingers along her cheek.
“I was thinking of building a medical center—just a small one. My mom, as far as I remember anyway, had talked about opening a free clinic one day.”
“Thena, you can’t run everything.”
“Oh, God, I wouldn’t run it.” She looked at him as if he had grown three heads. “I don’t know the first thing about medicine. Are you crazy?” She shook her head. He laughed. Yeah, maybe he was crazy. He had thought she was thinking of trying to live out her parents’ dreams for them, while clearly not focusing on her own. He looked at her drawings. She was good, very good. She wasn’t giving half the time she could have, and should have, to her own goals. She was trying to work the architectural business into the contracting business, but clearly the contracting business was consuming most of her time.
“I wouldn’t run it. I wouldn’t even have anything to do with it. I just figured I’d donate the land to the clinic and maybe I could get some of the guys to help me build it. If not…well, I know how to build homes and businesses…I could do it by myself. It would take longer, and I’d have to put some things on hold for a while, but I could do it.”
He shook his head. “You have to stop trying to take on the world, Thena. You’re going to run yourself into the ground.”
She shrugged. “It’s not like I have a family left, Thomas. I was an only child. Both of my parents are gone…staying busy helps me not think about being…lonely,” she whispered as if this were the first time she was truly acknowledging the feeling. “I mean I have friends, but it’s not the same as having family.”
He did know that. He had his family; even though his father was a complete idiot he still had him too. She didn’t have anybody. She kept busy, kept working, kept doing everything and anything not to have to think about it.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I was fine until I found my mom’s body. I guess it just really hit me, you know…It was at that moment when I realized that I was the last one left…the only one left.”
“You have me,” he once again uttered words that he probably had no right to utter. But she did have him.
“Ah, yes...I have you,” she smiled at him.
The look on her face told him she hadn’t really considered the fact that she had him. She still wasn’t truly considering it. It was like being punched in the gut. It shouldn’t have hurt him, but it did. Why? He wasn’t making her promises so why should she seriously consider the fact that she had him? Because she did, that’s why. He was in her life, and she needed to be sure of that fact. “And I don’t want anything from you. So you see, completely strings free friendship here.” He tried to reassure her of his words.
One corner of her mouth turned upward. “Nothing at all,” she placed her hand on his thigh. “Are you sure about that?”
“Hmmm…” he mumbled. “Well there is that; isn’t there?”
“Yes there is,” she grinned deviously. “What are you doing home so early anyway?”
“Poker night,” he shrugged. “I wouldn’t go, but a friend of mine is going to bring some information to me tonight.”
“On my mother’s case?” Her eyes lit up with interest.
“No, about Kyle. I had him look into some records for me. Seems the arrest was handled at the precinct I use to work at. He’s going to bring me some details. I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“Nobody knows I’m here…but if it will make you feel better you can drop me off at Meg’s place. I can go over these sketches with her.”
He wasn’t sure that would make him feel any better either. On the other hand of things, he wanted to make sure the information he received was private—as in not overheard by one very inquisitive Thena Davis. Shawn had told him the information was a whopper and he couldn’t discuss it over the phone. Thomas knew he didn’t want Thena to find out that way. He would let Shawn speak freely with him and then he could filter out some of the details before talking to Thena. If this was going to be bad, and he was sure it was otherwise Shawn would have told him over the phone, then he didn’t want Thena to have to bear the full brunt of it.
“Okay. I’m going to shower and change. Then we’ll leave.”
“I could use a shower too. That is if you don’t mind the company.”
“Can’t say that I do,” he took her hand in his and helped her off the couch. “Beautiful woman, naked and wet—”
“In more ways than one,” she wrapped her arm around his waist.
“In that case, I’d say the company will be a welcomed change.”
She laughed. “Like you haven’t showered with a woman before.”
“Never at my place…and not in a long time. I tend to shower at home.” He wasn’t a celibate saint. He wasn’t a male slut either. But showers weren’t something he did with just any woman.
“So I’m the first…”
“The first to what, Thena? The first to sleep in my bed? The first to shower in my shower? Yeah, you’re the first for both of those things.” He tightened his hold on her, pulling her closer to his body. “Does that make you feel better?”
She looked up at him. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. Yeah…I like that I’m the first to share th
at bed with you…the first to share that shower with you…it feels really good to know that. I don’t know why it does…but it does.”
It felt good for him too. Knowing he was sharing his home for the first time, in this way, with a woman as special as Thena sent all sorts of emotions through him—every one of them felt good, except for one—he still wished he was able to claim her as his own, as his wife, to know that no other man would ever have the chance or the right to do so. She might say she could wait forever, but he wasn’t sure she could. He wasn’t sure that somebody wouldn’t come along to show her that she could have all that she deserved. Knowing that, feeling that, made him full of jealousy. Just the thought of another man touching his woman, caressing her, tasting her…he couldn’t bare the thought, but he didn’t have the right to ask her to wait for him. If she wanted to leave, he would have to let her go.
“Don’t worry, Thomas. I’m not getting super possessive on you. When you want me to leave I’ll go quietly. But until you say those words…well, you’re stuck with me.”
She had obviously misinterpreted his silence. “I don’t want you to leave, not now, not ever. I won’t be uttering those words, Thena. So I guess you’re stuck with me too.”
She turned sharply, stood on the tips of her toes and wrapped her arms around him. “Good. I was so hoping you would say that.” She placed a soft kiss on his lips. “I think that makes me happier than knowing I’m the first to share your shower with you.” She chuckled. “You surely do know how to make a woman happy.”
“Allow me to show you just how happy I can make you.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the shower, where he proceeded to show her just how happy he could make her, again and again.
“What did you find out?” Thomas pushed his hands into his pockets. He was almost late getting to the poker game, which had more to do with the naked woman in the shower with him than it did having to make an out of the way stop along the way. When he arrived he didn’t have a chance to talk with Shawn first. He couldn’t focus on the game because he was too busy wondering what information awaited him. The first sign of a break and he had pulled Shawn to the side to get the information he craved.
“No shop talk guys,” Denison reminded them. This was a stress free zone, or so they had marked it when they started holding these poker games. Denison Traylor had been, and still was, one of the best sharp shooters the Boston PD had. He was well skilled in his ability get to the prime shooting location without being seen. His five foot four inch stature, along with his skinny build, made squeezing into tight spots easy for him. While the rest of the guys needed space, Denison could wedge his body between almost anything.
Then there was Carl Bancoft, local fire fighter, and the ultimate poker player. They would all swear Carl had worked the professional poker circuit before settling down in Boston—even though he vehemently denied their jokes. He had a wife and two kids. He was the only one in the group that was married with a family. Denison had sworn off marriage. His job was too dangerous, he had said. He needed full focus and he couldn’t split that focus between saving a life and thinking about a woman. Of course he hadn’t let his no marriage rule stop him from sleeping with half the women in Boston and beyond. The ladies loved him. Denison could walk into a bar alone and walk out with a beautiful woman for the night.
The last man rounding out their game was Shawn, a detective Thomas met while working SWAT. Shawn was twenty-eight, the youngest man at the table, in age only. He seemed older, felt older. His maturity, his fast rise in the ranks on the force, and his strong nature made him appear much older.
“Just this once,” Thomas assured him. “Somebody very special could die if I don’t get this information.”
Denison laughed. “I thought we had a no excuses rule,” he shook his head. “And Thomas over there is turning into a drama king just to make one.”
“It’s not drama,” Shawn said. “He’s made it through three hands, but I don’t think he’s going to be much good in the game until he hears what I have to say.”
Thomas wasn’t sure he would be much good in the game after he heard the information either. It was a good thing they didn’t play for real money, otherwise he would have lost a mint already.
Denison waved them away. “I’ll just get another beer,” he stood. “You want one, Carl?”
“One’s my limit,” he assured him. Carl never had more than one beer during game night. Thomas couldn’t honestly say he had ever seen him have more than one beer anywhere else either. Even when he took a beer he nursed it more than he drank it.
“Anybody else want a beer?”
“I’m not drinking tonight,” Thomas didn’t want to have to leave in a hurry and be worried about driving after having a drink. He didn’t get drunk off one beer, but one thing he and the others knew, one drink could impair judgment, even if just a little. Sometimes a little impairment was all it took to cause an accident that claimed a life, or seriously injured somebody. Usually the game went on for hours, which made having a drink with a sandwich an okay idea for him, but not tonight. Tonight he was going to leave the alcohol in the ‘fridge.
“I’m your designated driver,” Shawn reminded Carl.
“More for me then,” he grinned as he walked toward the kitchen.
Thomas turned his attention back to Shawn. “So?”
“It’s all true,” he reached over to his jacket that had been draped over the arm of the black leather sofa and pulled out a notepad. “Kyle was arrested. In the report it would seem that Sandra Laramie, a.k.a. Sandy, first noticed small problems a week after she and Kyle broke up. She came out from the grocery store and her tire was flat. The guy who helped her change it noticed it was slashed and told her to report it, but she didn’t. Then a couple days later somebody broke into her house, pillaged through her underwear and took a few pieces. The perp also left a sticky white substance on the panties he left on the bed—not seamen, it was some type of construction glue and solvent mix. That’s when they first suspected Kyle.” He flipped a page before continuing. Sandy had spent three weeks going through hell, thinking somebody was following her, having her home broken into—even with the alarm she had had installed, and then somebody decapitated her cat and left the head and the body in her bed.
“They couldn’t make the charges stick. While they thought it was Kyle, they really didn’t have anything conclusive to say that it was. There were no prints, no hairs, no fibers, nothing. The guy was good…in a bad way.”
Thomas nodded. “But they thought it was him…they just couldn’t make it stick.”
“You and I both know that just because we think it’s true, doesn’t mean it is.”
“But?” He heard the unspoken words in his friend’s voice.
“But,” he closed his notebook. “There weren’t any other suspects. Kyle didn’t have an alibi for any of the times when these things happened, and the case…well, if it could have gone to trial the DA would have taken it. It didn’t help that Sandy up and vanished in the middle of the investigation.”
“Vanished?”
“She disappeared for three weeks, but the detective on the case got a letter from some place out west telling him that she was sorry, but she just couldn’t risk staying in Boston any longer. Apparently, somebody tried to grab her and stuff her in the trunk of a car two days before she cleared out. The only thing that saved her was that another employee was leaving work at the time and saw what was going on. When he yelled at the guy…well, you know the rest.”
Thomas cursed as he shoved his hand through his hair. Somebody had tried to grab Thena too. “Did anybody check to make sure that letter really came from Sandy?”
Shawn shrugged. “When I talked to Detective Bowers he said once they got the letter they filed the case. If the victim wasn’t going to stick around to press charges they had other cases to work. You know how that goes.”
Thomas had worked SWAT, not investigations, but he had been around enough detective
s to know that their caseload mandated they work the pressing cases. Sandy skipping town, not sticking around to see the case through, and the district attorney not pushing the police to provide more evidence pretty much ensured the case would get filed away. “She could be dead in a ditch somewhere for all we know,” he growled. He wouldn’t see the same fate befall Thena. He wouldn’t see her dead, or run off into hiding. If Kyle thought he could do to Thena what he did to Sandy, then he had a hard lesson coming his way.
Thomas didn’t underestimate people based on size; if he did there were a great many times he could have found himself dead. But he knew his own skills. He didn’t make captain of the wrestling team based on his looks. He sure as hell didn’t get through boot camp and serve in the Marines without learning how to kill, if need be.
“Breaks over you two. I need to win my dignity back from Carl,” Denison plunked down in his chair with a heavy thud as he took another swig of his beer.
“Like that’s going to happen,” Carl laughed. “You suck at poker Denison. Gavin was the only guy who could out bluff me. Thomas runs a close second. And Shawn…hell, even he’s better than you, Denison and we just taught him how to play the game.”
“Meg, thanks for letting me hang out here until Thomas finishes with the boys.” She didn’t tell Meg the full version of what was going on, but she did give her the Cliff Notes version. She told her about finding her mom. She told her that Thomas felt as if she might be in some danger, but she didn’t tell her about the attempts on her life. She didn’t feel the need to tell her about that. She didn’t know why. She and Meg had known each other since high school. If she were going to tell anybody about the crap she had been going through since finding her mother then it should have been Meg—but it wasn’t. She hadn’t even told Kyle everything. She did tell Deanne. Why she wasn’t sure. She had just met the woman and she had already told her more than she had told the two people who were closest to her in her life. She knew she hadn’t told Kyle everything because Kyle would worry. He would go into overprotective mode and smother her with it. He knew about the shooting at her place because he had driven by to see her and saw the damage. He had called franticly looking for her and she assured him she was okay. She hadn’t been able to get off the phone without telling him the details of what happened, so she told him the brief version of the story. Of course she left out the details of what was happening before the shot. He offered to fix the window for her, and he had. He fixed it quickly, and didn’t ask for payment. She did plan to pay him for his work and for the materials. She wouldn’t abuse their friendship. Materials and labor weren’t cheap or free, and she didn’t expect him to do the work and not get paid for it.
Secrets and Lies Page 17
