Bishop,_Carly_-_The_Soul_Mate.txt

by The Soul Mate

believing Trudi, but in Robyn's experience, that wasn't unusual,

  either. Robyn shook her head. "Do you have any idea what percentage

  of defendants say exactly that? The "I ain't no saint but you can

  trust this' routine is as old as the hills."

  Trudi's eyes hardened. "I knew you wouldn't believe me, either." She

  flung an arm toward the door. Her twenty-four-karat gold bangles

  clinked together. "Get out of my house."

  Robyn didn't move. "Give me something to go on. Anything. Any reason

  to believe you now."

  "There is nothing, Robyn," Smart answered. "If there had been, Keller

  would have been persuaded. But here's the bottom line. I believed

  Trudi on nothing more than instinct. Keller wasn't satisfied by that.

  In fact, he suggested I might have been thinking with some other part

  of my anatomy than my head. If you want something to go on, take my

  admission that was true. I was attracted to Trudi, she knew it, she

  fanned the flames--"

  "Oh, stop it!" Trudi got up from the chaise longue in one lithe motion

  and sent her wineglass hurtling into the fireplace.

  Robyn flinched at the crashing noise. Kiel's eyes narrowed in the

  direction of the fireplace. She guessed his energy prevented the

  splinters of glass from flying any further than the hearth.

  "Don't say another word!" Trudi hissed.

  Smart quietly ordered her to sit down and shut up. In a million years

  Robyn would not have believed he would have had the nerve--especially

  if Trudi had turned him into a kept man, here in Spyder Nielsen's house

  and in her bed at her whim. Just as astonishingly, Trudi clapped her

  mouth shut and sat down without uttering another sound.

  Smart took her hand and went on. "i came perilously close to

  misconduct that would have caused the people's case to end in a

  mistrial."

  "Isn't that the point?" Kiel asked. "That you were so enamored with

  Trudi you were willing to force the case into a mistrial?"

  Trudi rolled her eyes but Smart nodded. "That's the way it was,

  yes."

  Robyn shivered. "Smart, are you saying Keller knew about your affair

  with Trudi?"

  "No. It wasn't a full, blown affair at the time, anyway But no. He

  never guessed how I felt about her," Smart said, his features stark,

  even grimly composed. "Keller knew my work. He trusted me. He

  believed I was playing devil's advocate to the case--that's how we

  worked, how we'd always worked."

  The betrayal struck at her composure. She felt a terrible anger.

  rising in her. "You're telling me now that you were prepared to let

  the whole thing, your affair with the defendant, blow up in Keller's

  face."

  He studied his hands a moment. "I'm not proud of it, Robyn, but yes.

  If he ever found out, the strategy would have backfired."

  "Because Keller would have dropped you from the prosecution if he

  knew?"

  "He'd have had me disbarred, Robyn. That, plus making a very

  compelling case before any magistrate that Trudi seduced me with the

  express intention of forcing a mistrial. In that event, the case would

  be brought to trial again. And I'd have been washed up."

  "Stuart, that thinking was absolute madness! No matter when Keller

  found out, the results would have been the same. Why? Why would you

  do this? Don't you understand that everything you're saying tells me

  that you were the one desperate enough to kill Keller?"

  Willetts literally shook. He rose and tried to ease a knot from the

  back of his neck, tried t get a grip on himself. "You have to

  understand, Robyn. We were just desperate enough to take the risk.

  Keller would have gotten Trudi convicted of a murder she didn't

  commit,"

  "Then you know I have to ask this question, Stuart. How far were you

  willing to go to prevent Keller getting that conviction or exposing

  your affair?"

  "Don't answer that Smart," Trudi flared, turning her furious gaze on

  Robyn. "Neither one of us is on trial. Not anymore. It's over.

  You're powerless to hurt us or--"

  "She's not powerless, Trudi," he interrupted her tiredly. "Judges have

  been known to allow charges to be reinstated on less than she already

  knows." He turned back to Robyn. "I would not have gone so far as to

  murder Keller, Robyn. You have to believe that"

  She felt his strain. "You stood to lose everything, Stuart. Everything

  you'd worked for your entire life... your stature in the community.

  Trudi."

  "I'm hoping that's the piece of all this you'll understand." He looked

  at Trudi, not with some calf-eyed, lovelorn expression, but with one of

  deeper, more complex emotions. "We're neither one of us kids, Robyn.

  We're as committed to each other and as much in love as you were with

  Keller."

  Robyn put her pad and pen down on the glass table. Trudi seemed

  suddenly older, more solemn, silently agreeing, finally, with Stuart's

  statements and his reason for pasting his heart on his sleeve.

  Robyn knew now why he had been willing to go on tape with this. He

  wanted to play on her emotions. He wanted her to have a reason to

  believe if he admitted to this much, he must be telling the truth. That

  Trudi hadn't murdered Spyder, and that together, they had not murdered

  Keller.

  All of which turned inside out everything Robyn had walked in to Spyder

  Nielsen's house believing. Stuart's appeal to her to understand how

  much in love he was by comparing his relationship with Trudi to hers

  with Keller was a thundering shot across her emotional bow. But was he

  blinded by love?

  If she believed him, then someone else had killed Spyder.

  If she believed him, then if Keller had been murdered at all it must

  have been by someone else who feared Keller was onto them. Someone

  else who needed to make sure Keller was stopped.

  Stuart Willetts made her stomach turn. He reminded her of the joke

  about California getting all the lawyers and New Jersey getting all the

  toxic waste dumps--be-cause Jersey got to choose first among the

  available plagues.

  What tore hardest at her was that despite the despicable things he'd

  done and wished and caused, despite his being the most reprehensible

  behavior she had ever seen, in her heart, she believed him.

  She made herself set all that anger and resentment aside because she

  had to know what else he knew. "Are you certain Keller hadn't come

  upon information implicating anyone else?"

  He gave a sigh. "You believe me, then?"

  She wouldn't give him that. Not now, maybe never. "I don't know what

  I believe, Stuart. You're a self-acknowledged liar. How can anything

  you say he believed?"

  "Robyn--"

  "Let it go, Smart," she warned. "It's not too late--it'll never he too

  late for me to go straight to the bar association. If you' want to

  answer my questions, fine. Otherwise I'm out of here."

  He sulked a moment, then met her look. "I can't be sure of what Keller

  knew. I just didn't care and I don't remember. I'd ask Crandall if I

  were you."

  "Who else had motives to w
ant to kill Spyder?" Kiel asked, sending

  Robyn a "well done" glance.

  Trudi laughed bitterly. "Two-thirds of Aspen."

  Robyn picked up her pad and pen again. "Was Spyder that unpopular?"

  "Unpopular? No. He drew groupies like flies to honey. But sooner or

  later," Trudi said, her voice whispery again, her tone almost

  regretful, "Spyder managed to insult and alienate everyone he ever

  knew. Everyone who had ever cared about him."

  "Can you narrow the field by remembering who was in Aspen at the time

  of his murder?" Kiel asked.

  "God knows how many pathetic locals tumbled to his line. He didn't

  confine himself to Pitkin County, either. He strayed as far away as

  Steamboat Springs--for that matter, Gstaad. Spyder delighted in

  leading women on, Mr. Alighieri, and then spurning them. Humiliating

  them with their infatuation." She stared at her hands and turned her

  bracelets round and round. "The older he got, the worse he became,

  needing to know he could still attract young girls. But there are

  others who were far more likely."

  She rattled off the shorter list of specific names, people closer to

  Spyder Nielsen. "Spyder's daughter Chloe had reason to want him dead.

  His sports marketing agent, Shad Petrie. Spyder was about to dump a

  major ski manufacturing endorsement that would cost Petrie dearly. Then

  there's my ex-husband, Pascal Candelaria. Spyder delighted in taunting

  Pascal, who, as you know, is yesterday's news himself. The sports

  network fired him last spring from his color commentator position."

  Robyn recorded the names Trudi listed, then posed another question.

  "Ms. Candelaria, do you really believe one of those people killed

  Spyder?"

  Trudi exhaled sharply. "They all had reason, believe me... but, no.

  All I know is that I didn't do it."

  "Did any of them have reason to frame you for his murder?" Kiel asked.

  "Who had it in for you? Chloe?"

  "Spyder's daughter and I have never gotten along well," Trudi said.

  "But of course, she stood to gain the most. If I had been convicted of

  the murder, Spyder's entire estate would have gone to her."

  "Who knew you would be out and when you would return?"

  "Elsa." Thoughtfully, Trudi turned the bangles on her wrist. "But she

  is the soul of discretion. Other than that the people who were at the

  party I went to that evening."

  "Was Chloe one of them?"

  "No." Trudi frowned. "But if Chloe called that night and spoke to her

  father, she would know I was out of the house and that he was home."

  "What about Elsa, Ms. Candelaria? Did she ever threaten to leave

  after Spyder was murdered?"

  Trudi folded her arms. "Elsa is a very pragmatic woman, Ms. Delaney.

  This is her home. This is her territory, and she wouldn't leave it if

  the Ayatollah moved in."

  Robyn closed the spiral notebook and twisted her pen to close off the

  ballpoint. "Kiel and I will look into all of this. We may need to

  come back."

  Kiel rose from his chair. Stuart gave Trudi a hand up, then draped his

  arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "This has to have been a

  tough year for you, Robyn--even getting back on your feet."

  "You're right." She stood taller. Her leg usually ached deep inside.

  Tonight it didn't. "It has been a difficult year, Stuart. But if

  you're wondering whether I have the stamina or the heart to pursue

  Keller's death, don't. I won't rest until I get at the truth."

  NEAR 2:0O A.M." long after she'd lit the old-fashioned glass lantern

  to sleep by and climbed into the luxurious four-poster bed in her room

  at The Chandler House, Robyn got up and wandered into the parlor. A

  fire crackled softly in the fireplace. Kiel sat slouched in the deep

  leather easy chair.

  She curled up on the sofa. Tucking her nightgown up around her feet,

  she pulled a crocheted throw to cover her shoulders.

  "Can't sleep?" he asked.

  "No." She shook her head. "Usually when I wake up it's my leg

  bothering me." She looked straight at him, teasing. "I don't have

  that excuse anymore."

  Despite the times he had held forth about taking oneself lightly, he

  wasn't easily humored this night. "What's on your mind, Robyn?"

  "Keller. What a relief it is that my leg isn't aching. Why I can't

  sleep. Who killed Spyder. Why Keller had to die. How I'm going to

  get at the truth. And... Ken."

  Kiel nodded. The lighthearted tone of her answer didn't wash. It

  wasn't as if he didn't already know the answer to his question. Keller

  was always on her mind, permeating her consciousness for all time.

  The decision to keep from her the truth that his soul was Keller's

  rankled in his angel's heart. He felt something startlingly similar to

  the human equivalent of guilt. Again,

  In all his time of service as an Avenging Angel, he had never suffered

  such indecisiveness, such self-doubt. These were not usually part of

  an angel's experience. Truth was truth, and justice, a clear and

  pristine proposition. Humans suffered with the gray areas, but in the

  place beyond temporal reality, no being harmed another and every soul

  was free to soar and expand and blossom into its fullness.

  But in the here and now of Robyn Delaney's existence Kiel feared his

  presence harmed her more than helped. In his essence, Kiel was Keller

  Trueblood, so he must always remind her of Keller at deeply

  subconscious levels where she was defenseless.

  He had taken the matter up with Angelo three hours ago, in earth

  time.

  It took Kiel no real time at all to soar back to the of-rices of the

  Denver Branch of Avenging Angels. He found Angelo sitting on a stone

  bench in the garden that had passed its season. The night air was

  crisp. Moon light filtered through fluttering oak leaves.

  Kiel sat beside Angelo.

  "You're in a dilemma," Angelo observed.

  Kiel nodded. "I've never been on an assignment where I believed my

  presence as an Avenging Angel was doing more harm than good."

  "Your perspective is alarmingly human, Ezekiel," Angelo agreed,

  invoking Kiel's full name to remind him his first obligation was to

  keep in place a larger picture than Robyn Delaney's emotional state.

  "Crimes against human beings have been committed--crimes that require

  your efforts to be set to rights. Avenged."

  "Yeah," Kiel said. "I know. The thing is, Robyn will suffer. It's

  not fair to her to be kept in the dark. I may be an Avenging Angel,

  but I am also Keller in the truest sense. She knows. She recognizes

  me even though she has convinced herself that she was pretending,

  imagining I must be Keller."

  "Because you broke with rules and made love to her." Kiel felt

  divinely defensive. "If I hadn't--"

  "I'm well aware of the circumstances," Angelo interrupted. "And I've

  taken this up with the highest councils. Robyn Delaney was teetering

  on the edge, heaven or earth, earth or heaven.." He tilted his head

  one way and then the other. "She had no way of knowing her destiny is

  far from fulfilled. You had no choice. To pull her back from
the

  brink, she had to believe somewhere inside her self that she was coming

  back to Keller Trueblood." "But there are these complications now--"

  "Exactly. The argument chases its taft. Robyn accepted you, and yours

  is the only help she would have accepted. You are the Only reason she

  did not abandon her destiny--and there you have it. You must deal with

  the consequences, however heartrending;"

  No argument could win. Kiel was stuck.

  "Oh... and uh, about that "Alighieri' business?" Kiel groaned. This

  was the last time he'd get creative. Next time, Smith, he thought, or

  Dash's old standby, Divine. "What about it?"

  Angelo smirked. "Got a laugh upstairs, kid."

  So HE WAS GETtING LAUGHS upstairs. He whisked back to the Aspen B and

  B, fed the flames in the fireplace and cooled his heels. The

  irony--wavering, stuck between hot and cold--filled him.

  He was stuck, and the inferno joke was hardly a joke at all anymore.

  Watching the firelight glint off Robyn's softly curling raven black

  hair now, he knew an awareness of Keller

  Trueblood's feelings were slowly, inexorably coming to life inside him.

  He knew because he wanted to stroke her hair. He knew because his male

  parts throbbed, because the curve of her cheek begged his touch and

  because her own awareness of him heightened as surely as a doe in heat