by Lee, Rachel
“I know. I called the lawyer who defended him last time.”
“The last time?”
“He was convicted of aggravated assault when he was sixteen.”
She expected Chase’s face to close up, expected him to walk away. He was a stranger, after all, and the bomb she had just dropped would have been enough to convince most people that Jeff must be guilty. And for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, Callie wanted Chase to walk away. She wanted him gone now. She didn’t want him to see her pain, her grief or her shame. This was all somehow so humiliating that she didn’t want him to witness it.
But he didn’t budge. “What happened?” he asked steadily. “Did he wave a broken bottle at somebody in a fight?”
“It was a small knife, and it wasn’t even a fight.” She paused, studying his eyes. “I have to go.”
She went to her room long enough to rinse the sand off her ankles and feet and change into a clean shift, then headed out for her car.
Chase was standing right there beside her car. His own was blocking her driveway, a big, black pickup with a purring engine. “I’ll drive you,” he said.
“I can do it myself,” she said. “Just clear the way.”
“I’ll drive you,” he repeated. “When this really starts to hit you, you don’t want to be behind the wheel.”
Something in the steel of his gaze told her he wasn’t going to back down easily. To save time, she gave in.
An hour later they were pulling into the shady parking lot outside Shirley Kidder’s office in Key West. She shared an old Conch house on a corner of Whitehead Street with three other attorneys. The lush tropical foliage had grown, Callie noticed. The flowers that had been by the walkway had been replaced with white gravel, probably to conserve water.
“I’ll wait out here,” Chase said. “You don’t want me in there.”
Callie managed to thank him, then climbed out of the car.
The office looked the same inside though. At the reception desk, Nancy still had a smile wide enough to light a dark night.
“She’s waiting for you,” Nancy said warmly. “Just go right in.”
Shirley Kidder was about thirty-five, with a lean runner’s build and short, dark hair that refused to lie flat. When she looked up to greet Callie, her smile was friendly but her hazel eyes were troubled. She motioned Callie to the leather armchair facing her desk and cut straight to the chase. “What happened?” she asked.
Callie passed her the warrant she’d brought along. “Jeff found an abandoned boat four days ago and salvaged it. Now it turns out the boat’s owner is missing and they’ve charged Jeff with grand theft and murder. All I know is what’s in this warrant.”
Shirley took the warrant from her and read it over with the speed of an attorney accustomed to reading such documents.
“It’s in order,” she said presently. “Did they take anything?”
“I don’t think so. Not from the house. I don’t know about the boat. They told me they were sealing it in case they needed to come back for something else.”
“Hmm.” Shirley leaned back in her chair and flipped to the last few pages of the warrant. “Well, once they left the premises, they finished executing the warrant. They can’t keep you off the boat, or keep you from using it. If they’re really worried about it, they should have impounded it. Who searched the boat?”
“A forensics team.”
“My guess would be they didn’t find anything suspicious on the boat.” She reached the last sheet of paper in the warrant. “This is all they gave you?”
Callie nodded.
“They didn’t give you a piece of paper saying what they took, or that they didn’t take anything?”
“No.”
Shirley sighed. “I’m going to have to call these jerks and have a few words with them. They can’t do it this way. In the first place, they have to give you a signed receipt itemizing every item they took, or a statement saying they took nothing. You have to sign it, too. It’s to protect them. In the second place, now that the search of the boat is completed, they can’t tell you to stay off of it. So I’m going to twist some arms tomorrow and get you the use of the boat back, okay?”
Callie nodded. “But I’m mostly worried about Jeff.”
“I know you are.” Shirley gave her a sympathetic smile. “But all of these mistakes could wind up being really important if we have to go to trial.”
“Oh, God, a trial?” Callie’s heart lurched and her stomach turned over. “Do you think it will come to that?” All afternoon she had been clinging to the belief that they would find a way to clear this up fast.
“Well, it all depends on how much reasoning I can do with the state. I’ll have to look at what they’ve got, but judging by the affidavit attached to the warrant, what they’ve got is purely circumstantial—unless they found something at your house or on Jeff’s boat. Basically, we have evidence of foul play, at least two missing men, and your brother arriving inopportunely on the scene. It’s enough for them to charge Jeff, but it’s a long way from enough to take to trial, okay?”
Callie nodded, clinging to the slender straw of reassurance.
“First things first. He’ll have his advisory hearing in the morning. You don’t need to be there. I don’t know if you recall what happened last time? But it’s on closed-circuit TV. Jeff will be at the jail, and the judge and I will be in the courtroom. Come if you want, but you won’t get to see much of Jeff at the hearing.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to get bond?”
“On this case? I think so, because Jeff has ties here, and he didn’t run the last time he was charged. But it’s not going to be cheap.”
Callie drew a ragged breath. “I don’t have very much, Shirley.”
“You have a house. If you trust Jeff not to go on the lam, you can get a lien on the house—or the boat, if it’s worth enough.”
Callie drew another ragged breath and closed her eyes. “I can’t leave him in jail.”
“I don’t blame you. Believe me, I’ll do my best to get him a reduced bond. This is a lousy case any way you slice it. His prior conviction isn’t going to help any, but I’ll deal with it.”
Callie nodded. “Does it help any that Chase Mattingly and I were talking with Jeff on the marine radio while he salvaged the boat?”
Shirley sat up. “You were? That’s good. That’s very good. I’ll use it to turn the screws on the State Attorney. He’d hardly have been talking to you on the radio while he was murdering two men. That would stretch anyone’s imagination. Anything you can think of that might weaken the state’s case, you let me know, okay?”
Twenty minutes later, Callie walked out of Shirley’s office into the buttery light of late afternoon. Chase was standing beside his truck, arms folded across his chest, staring intently down at the pavement as if he had blocked out the entire world. When he heard her approaching footsteps, he lifted his head.
“How was it?”
“I don’t know. I mean… Oh, God, he’s charged with murder! How could anything be good? But Shirley thinks the case is weak so far—although she hasn’t seen all their information, so I guess I shouldn’t count too much on that. And she thinks she can get Jeff out on bail if I’m willing to put the house up as surety…” Her voice trailed off as her throat clogged. She had to blink rapidly to hold the tears back.
“My grandfather built that house,” she heard herself say as if from a great distance. That seemed so important somehow, even though she knew Jeff wouldn’t run away and she wouldn’t lose it. But that house had never had a lien or a mortgage on it. Never. “God, how am I going to pay the legal fees?” It would take all of her savings, and probably a good deal more.
Chase helped her into the car. He’d kept the engine and air-conditioning running, so the interior was cool and welcoming. They drove along narrow, shady streets dappled with golden sunlight and long shadows, the time of day Cal-lie loved best—but she didn’t even n
otice it.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” she said presently, inviting Chase into her mental conversation somewhere in the middle. “I have to do it. I can’t leave Jeff in jail.”
“It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, ‘why not?’ It might teach him something about considering his actions.”
She turned to look at him in disbelief. “You can’t mean that!”
He shook his head. “You’re right, I don’t—because he didn’t do anything wrong. On the other hand, he’s a grown man—or at least he’d like to be treated like one, so why should you have to go racing to his rescue?”
“Because I’m his sister. That’s what families are for!” She couldn’t believe this man. What kind of life had he lived?
“Did he ever pay you back for the attorney’s fees when he was charged with assault?”
Her teeth snapped together so hard that the crack was audible. “He was just sixteen! He didn’t have that kind of money.”
“And now he’s twenty and still doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“What’s not to believe?” He turned the car onto US 1 and stepped on the gas. “When I was twenty I was self-supporting. If I’d needed a lawyer, I would have paid for it myself. This kid has got it too easy, Callie. He works at a dead-end job when he feels like it and saves up for his dream boat. What are you saving for? His next scrape?”
“You don’t know anything about it!”
“I know something about it. If he was old enough to drop out of school at sixteen and get himself into trouble with the law, he was old enough to pay you back the attorney’s fees. If he’s old enough to be sailing out on the ocean, risking his neck salvaging sinking boats, cutting out on his job because he’d rather go sailing, then he’s damn well old enough to pay for his own attorney.”
“He doesn’t have the money!”
“Then let him go to a public defender. Or make him agree to pay you back starting right away. He’s got to take responsibility for his own life.”
“But this isn’t his fault!”
“It’s not your fault either.”
“What is the matter with you?” She stared at him in angry disbelief. “You sound like the ultraconservative party line—every man for himself.”
He swore and swerved to avoid a vehicle coming onto the highway from the shoulder. “Look,” he said after a minute. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t help Jeff. But you’ve got to give him most of the responsibility, or he’s never going to learn a damn thing about taking care of himself. Everyone gets hit by bolts out of the blue in life, but we can’t live our lives expecting somebody else to take care of the problems for us.”
She averted her face looking out blindly at the passing buildings and foliage. She knew about bolts out of the blue. They’d struck her repeatedly, starting with her mother’s death. And it was true, nobody had shouldered the burdens for her. But that didn’t mean she should leave Jeff out on a limb. He needed all the help he could get.
She was mad at Chase for the things he was saying, but not because of what he was saying. What he was saying made sense in its own way, although she found it harsh. What she was mad about was that he was echoing the feelings inside her, feelings she didn’t even want to admit to herself, let alone say out loud.
Since their mother had died when Jeff was six, her brother had been her responsibility. Her dad had kept on going to sea to fish for weeks at a time, leaving her sole responsibility for her little brother and the house. It hadn’t been easy, and she had resented the hell out of it. She had understood that her dad needed to fish to keep them fed, but she had still resented it.
Then he had died, leaving her with all the responsibilities, including keeping Jeff fed. And she resented the hell out of that, too. She resented the hell out of having had to use her savings for a lawyer four years ago because Jeff couldn’t keep a lid on his temper. She resented that she was going to have to do it again. She resented his devil-may-care, worry-free approach to life when she spent all her time being responsible and reliable. Jeff had even cost her her fiancé, because Mel hadn’t wanted the responsibility for the boy.
She hated all those feelings of resentment. She was ashamed of them. She wanted to bury them so deep that she could deny they ever existed. But every word Chase had spoken had echoed those feelings, and forced her to face them.
She hated him for that.
By the time they pulled into her rutted driveway, night had fallen. Callie sensed a strong tension in Chase, but she didn’t care. She was still mad at him and didn’t want to know why he was gripping the steering wheel so hard, or why he was breathing rapidly. She just plain didn’t care.
When he pulled up to the house, he didn’t get out and come around to help her out. She was glad he didn’t. It made her escape all the easier. She didn’t even thank him for the ride, and she hoped he noticed, because she never, ever wanted to see him again.
The shadows pressed in on the windows of the car, patterns of darkness that seemed to leer at him. Chase kept his gaze firmly pinned on the road, to where the beams of the headlights drove the shadows back, but he could still feel them all around him, laughing in whispers and scratching at the windows.
It had been like this on the dive, he remembered, and felt sweat break out on his brow. Dark. All he could see had been illuminated by his lamp, a narrow beam of light in the black, cold depths of the sea. Around him he’d felt the swirling of currents, but they weren’t currents. They were something else, and gradually they had taken on shape and dimension.
He forced himself to ignore the memories, to think about his outburst with Callie Carlson. Christ, he’d been a jackass.
She would probably never speak to him again, and it annoyed him to realize that had been the entire motivation behind his outburst in the car. He hadn’t been really concerned about what was best for her or for Jeff, only concerned that he yank himself out of this mess before he got in any deeper.
It behooved a man to know his own weaknesses, and one of his greatest was that he was a sucker for a damsel in distress. Just let him come across a female with a serious problem, and he started to fancy himself a white knight.
Hell, that was how he’d gotten tangled up in his misbegotten marriage in the first place. Julie had waltzed into his life with sad eyes and tales about an abusive, alcoholic father—all of it true, of course, but that didn’t mitigate what had happened. Right away Chase had wanted to rescue her, and within three weeks he’d married her, taking her away from her father and installing her in the safety of a small apartment just outside the base.
It had been pretty good for a while. She’d been suitably grateful, and he’d been suitably dazzled by her beauty, and a sense of his own nobility.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t handle the long separations when he was at sea, or on temporary assignment elsewhere in the world. She grew bored and lonely and began to have affairs. Eventually he’d found out about them.
But what happened after the wedding was common to navy marriages, and he’d learned to live with it. After all, a sailor really wasn’t very good husband material unless you managed to find a woman as faithful as the famed Penelope, and in all his years in the navy, he’d seen only a handful who met that qualification.
What he remembered, what he had learned, was to be a hell of a lot more cautious when it came to helping a woman out. It was one thing to lend her a hand. It was another to lend her your life.
So here he was, feeling a tug toward Callie Carlson, who was certainly a lovely, beleaguered damsel in distress. And naturally he’d acted like a fool, said things he had no business saying, trying to convince both her and himself that this was Jeff’s problem. Because he didn’t want to get involved.
Christ, what a sap!
Well, he’d probably pissed her off so good she wouldn’t even give him the time of day after this. And that was the way he wanted it. Absolutely. He’d come here to tunnel int
o the solitude and face down his own problems, not to get tangled up in some stupid kid’s life because he couldn’t bear to let a woman go down.
It was her brother and her problem. And she could damn well deal with it by herself.
Having reached that firm, unalterable decision, he told himself he was only being wise.
He didn’t believe it, but he was getting used to not believing his own rationalizations. It seemed to have become a way of life.
And now he was pulling up behind his house, with the night just waiting to swallow him—and he realized he hadn’t left a light on.
“Christ!” He swore under his breath and resisted the urge to hammer the steering wheel. The truck jolted to a stop, and the engine choked into silence.
The darkness inhabited his house.
It was a stupid, insane thought, and he knew it, but the feeling persisted anyway. And now, like a kid who feared there was a crocodile under the bed but needed to go to the bathroom, he was considering the fastest way to reach the door, unlock it, and flip a light switch before the darkness could grab him.
He swore again, and this time he did slam his palm against the wheel. This was nuts. Crazy. Wacko. Loony. He knew there was nothing out there except for trees, birds, and a few deer. There were no demons; the night had no face or voice, nor any means to strike out and hurt him.
He knew that with his head, but some primitive part of his brain refused to believe it.
His back chose that moment to jolt him with a sharp jab of pain. For an instant he could do little except grip the wheel, breathe like a marathoner, and wait for it to subside.
But it had a salutary effect on him, because it reminded him of what was real. He was real. The car was real. The house was real. The pain that racked his body was real, and the night was nothing but the absence of sunlight. It was the same world out there now that it had been at three o’clock that afternoon.
Grabbing the keys, he yanked them out of the ignition. Then, reminding himself that he’d endured far worse in his life, he opened the car door and climbed out.
At once he could hear the quiet susurration of the gentle waves in the inlet. It was a sound he had loved all his life, and it touched him now, brushing at the fears that gnawed the edges of his mind, trying to send them back into the dark places where they belonged.
