KILLING ME SOFTLY

by Jenna Mills

Martin took him by the arm and led him toward the emergency exit. "She's going to be okay," he said in a low but reassuring voice. "Her vitals are strong."

  "The blood—"

  "Puncture wound to the abdomen … a few inches from her liver. She's lucky. A few cracked ribs and marks on her arms. Whatever happened, Miss Lena Mae put up one hell of a fight."

  The swell of pride was ridiculous. But damn it, he had been the one to teach her self-defense, all those years ago. For her own good, he'd told her. But there'd been plenty of good for him, too. When he let himself, he could still remember how she felt in his arms when he positioned her at the shooting range.

  "You can see her now," Martin said. "She's a little groggy from the pain meds, but she's been asking for you."

  His chest tightened. His heart slammed much the way it had the day a lifetime ago when he and Jesse had dared the girls to spend the night in the swamp. They had, but not without a close encounter with a moccasin. He could still see Lena's terrified face the morning after. He'd wanted to hold her so damn bad. And she, she'd slapped him across the face and walked away.

  She'd always been a smart one, his Lena.

  "Millie's on the way," he bit out, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "I—I've got to go."

  Martin frowned. "Ed, are you—"

  "I'll be in touch." With one last glance toward the double doors, Edouard turned and walked away. A report at the station required his attention.

  Lena did not.

  The glitter in Cain's eyes stole Renee's breath. It was dark and it was volatile, but it was vulnerable, too, the irreconcilable combination she'd seen so many times in the dizzying days before the bottom fell out of her world. When he looked at her like that, everything else fell away. There were no trees or vines, no ferns, no birds squawking. No flowers fading.

  No past ripping them apart.

  No future that would never happen.

  There was only Cain and the devastatingly familiar rhythm of her heart.

  "Part of me wanted to die when you didn't recognize me," she whispered, because this was what she'd needed. What she'd craved. Like a torch in a cave, she'd needed to see the dark light in his eyes, to feel the slow burn all the way down to her soul. Now she inhaled deeply and stepped toward him, again lifted her hand and feathered her fingers against his jaw. "Then I looked into your eyes," she whispered, "and realized that you did."

  Sunlight sneaked through the branches of the old oaks, casting his face in an odd combination of shadow and light. But he didn't move, didn't say a word. Just stood there looking at her as if she was skinning him alive.

  "That's the collision course you kept warning me about," she added quickly. "Why you couldn't stay away from me. Because somewhere deep inside you recognized me." He'd all but told her so the night she'd woken him from the nightmare. "You're just so used to isolating yourself and ignoring your feelings, that you wouldn't let yourself accept what was happening."

  Slowly, his hand came to the side of her face, and cradled. "Wintergreen," he said, and his voice was raw. "You still taste like goddamn wintergreen."

  The flood of warmth was immediate. She wanted to step closer and curve her arm around him, put her head to his chest and hear the thrumming of his heart, but the truth wouldn't let her move.

  "But you were right yesterday." She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "The Savannah you knew did die that night. I couldn't stay that person and survive. I had to shut myself off from everything and find a strength I never knew I had. It was like living without a soul."

  She realized her mistake the second she felt his fingers tense against her face. His eyes went hard as his hand fell away. "Don't talk to me about living without a soul," he said in a voice devoid of any and all emotion. Then he turned and walked away.

  Renee stood there a long moment and tried to breathe. She'd been wrong, she realized. Dead wrong. She'd seen the look in his eyes and let her heart take over, stepped onto hallowed ground not only as if she had some right to be there, but as if he wanted her there. The naiveté of her mistake twisted deep.

  She hated that she had to go after him, hated that she needed him when he so brutally did not need her. But he knew his way around the swamp, and she did not.

  Even on the edge of winter, green dominated the land. For so long she'd thought of fall as a season of death and decay, but as she pushed through a cluster of vines, she found it impossible not to see the primal beauty. Here, so far from the intrusion of man, there was a simplicity to the order of life. Trees grew, and trees died, trees fell into decay and started the cycle anew. Families and generations surrounded her, young saplings and those in their prime, tired, weary oaks and cypress that had seen war and drought and disease, but still stood, solid proof that no matter how grim the circumstances, life did go on.

  Cain was just ahead of her, and as she pushed aside a clump of moss, she found him down on one knee, angling his camera up at a sprawling oak. Sunlight glinted through the branches and fell in fickle puddles around the knobby roots jutting out from the leafy carpet. Moss made the shadows dance.

  Renee stopped as recognition hit. She'd been here before, stood in this very spot. She'd sat with her back to the massive trunk, engrossed in one of the historical romances her mother kept stashed between her mattresses, while nearby her brother worked on a duck blind.

  This was his tree, the one he'd said reminded him of the poem "Evangeline"—the one immortalized through the photograph in Cain's gallery, next to the picture of the butterfly she'd taken the week before the attack.

  "He was coming here." She felt that truth in her bones.

  Adrian had always been drawn to this remote corner of the swamp, said he could think here, clear his mind.

  Heart pounding, she turned to Cain, found that he'd shifted the lens of his camera to her. "Maybe part of him always knew this was where he would die."

  Cain lowered the camera, confronted her with his eyes. "If that's true it doesn't bode well for us."

  Because it hurt to look at him, she turned and moved toward the tree, lifted her hand to the trunk. Adrian had been coming here. Maybe he'd come alone. Or maybe—

  …someone close to him set everything up…

  Lena Mae's theory roared through her. Maybe Adrian had brought someone here with him. Someone he knew—someone he trusted.

  Someone Cain trusted.

  "You haven't told anyone about me," she said, spinning toward him, "have you?"

  He slung his camera over his shoulder. "Just Gabe."

  Someone he trusted—someone her brother had trusted. She felt the chill immediately, the truth she'd known all along, the reason she'd chosen to hide her identity, even from those she loved. Someone had wanted her dead—if they were to learn she still lived, it would be they who got the second chance, not her.

  "What?" Cain asked, moving toward her.

  She frowned. "Travis had a theory that whoever framed you was someone close. Someone you trusted, someone you'd never suspect."

  "Travis was a drunk."

  "He knew you were innocent," she shot back. "He just pretended otherwise to protect himself."

  Cain narrowed his eyes and looked off into the swamp. She could see the wheels of his mind working, see the denial hardening the lines of his face.

  "Who else could have done this to us? Who else would have had access to your keys and your car, your cologne, your voice?"

  His eyes went hard. "There's no way Gabe—"

  The name drilled through her. She grabbed his arm, felt everything inside of her go horribly still. "Who said anything about Gabe?"

  "What do you think? The black one or the leopard one?"

  Gabe looked up from his Blackberry and squinted toward the doorway. "I'm sorry, hon, what was that?"

  Val sauntered into his study and struck a pose, tilting her head and giving him a slow smile, making it impossible for him to look at anything but the bikini that barely covered her breasts and hips. Two
strings for the top, two strings for the bottom.

  "Is the black too harsh? I could always take the leopard—"

  He glanced at his watch and stood, didn't know how to tell her that their trip would have to wait two more weeks.

  If they went at all.

  "You could always take both," he said as she strolled toward him and pushed up on her toes, skimmed a kiss along his lips.

  "How about neither?" she asked, running her hands down toward the fly of his khakis.

  He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist. "Val, honey," was all he got out before the light in her eyes drained.

  "Gabe—"

  "I'm sorry," he said, but no longer had a choice. "Uncle Ed called, wants me to meet with him. Said it was important."

  Her sigh damn near broke his heart. "All these late nights and secrets are starting to scare me. Are you sure everything's okay?"

  He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, brushed a kiss across her mouth. "They will be."

  Val stared out the window a long time after Gabe's car vanished into the dreary fall day. The days were shorter now. The holidays were close. The stores had already hauled out their Christmas merchandise even though Thanksgiving was still two weeks away.

  The soft light of a lamp cast her reflection against the windowpane, and she frowned. There was a buzz inside her, a low, frenetic roaring, and no matter how many times Gabe promised everything was okay, it grew louder with each passing day. He was keeping secrets from her. She knew that. And it made her uneasy.

  The gun was back. It had returned mere hours after she'd found it missing—and mere hours after Alec had died.

  Gabe was involved. He denied it, but Val knew. He'd been there when the warehouse blew. She'd seen the cuts and bruises he'd tried to hide. Heard the hushed phone calls late into the night. When he'd finally come to bed, she'd felt the tension in his body and had worked for a long time on his shoulders, but her hands had not done the trick.

  It was like living with a stranger.

  They'd been together for three years. It hadn't always been smooth sailing, but during that time she'd learned what made Gabe tick. Or at least she thought she had.

  Fighting a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, she turned from the window and went to his study, carefully flipped through the neatly stacked files. It was the calendar that made her heart beat harder, the thick dark circle drawn around one of the days they were supposed to be in Barbados.

  Then she noticed the folded sheet of paper wedged under his laptop and pulled it free.

  Gabe swerved into his reserved spot and slammed on the brakes, shoved the gear into Park. He stared at concrete blocks surrounding him, but barely saw them.

  Everything inside of him shook. Roared. His uncle's words played through him over and over and over, more insidiously with each second that ripped by.

  He wanted them to be lies. He wanted Edouard to be wrong.

  But he knew that his uncle rarely was. He would not have come to Gabe unless he was sure. Edouard had been rattled, not because of the information he'd delivered, but because Lena Mae Lamont had almost been killed.

  The insanity had to stop.

  On a vicious rush he pushed open the car door and strode toward the elevators, his Bruno Maglis echoing furiously through the quiet garage.

  The elevator came quickly. He stepped in, jabbed the button, then waited.

  Her door was open. That was the first thing he noticed as he strode down the hall. Her door was open whereas she frequently kept it shut.

  He didn't knock. He didn't hesitate. He walked straight in and around her desk, refused to allow himself to remember the last time he'd seen her, how she'd tasted and felt and—

  "Gabe." She minimized the document open on her laptop and stood. "Is something—"

  "You set me up." The words were quiet.

  They didn't need to be loud.

  Something dark and dangerous flared in her eyes. "Gabe, what are you talking about?"

  He just barely resisted the urge to take her shoulders in her hands. He knew better than to touch her, had no idea what would happen if he did. "Don't play games with me, damn it!"

  Dark hair fell into her face. "What are you—"

  "I know." He could still hear Edouard's words, see the report one of his contacts had faxed him detailing the theory that the leak they'd all been searching for did not originate from the police department—but from the district attorney's office. "Every time you looked at me, all those seemingly casual conversations, little comments here, a touch there…" She'd played him perfectly, and like an idiot, he hadn't just fallen for it, he'd come back for more. "All a setup."

  Her eyes went even darker. "It wasn't like that—"

  "Is that why you went to law school?" he pressed. "To hang fellow attorneys out to dry?"

  "Gabe, please, you have to listen to me."

  Once, the desperation thinning her voice would have disturbed him. Now he ignored it. "There never was a shipment, was there?"

  "Gabe—" she said again, but this time she made the mistake of touching him. She lifted a hand to his forearm, like she'd done so many other times.

  Everything inside of him went stone cold. "Alec died because of your game," he said, looking first at her hand, then into her eyes. "He died. And his blood—" He took the hand she'd put to his arm and turned it over, exposed her palm. "It's right here."

  "No." It was barely more than a whisper.

  "I saw you!" he realized. "At the warehouse, just before it blew. I saw your car … just didn't realize whose it was until today."

  "It wasn't about you," she said. Hand still turned over and exposed in his, she looked up at him. "We had to find the leak."

  He dropped her hand. "It's not me."

  "I know that." Her voice was sad. "But someone close to you is."

  He didn't want to hear anymore. Didn't trust himself to look at her one second longer. Knew better than to analyze the twisted mess boiling inside him.

  "Go to hell," he whispered, ignoring the fact that her stricken gaze said she was already there.

  Val looked nervous.

  Renee set down a cup of hot black tea and shifted on the formal sofa, felt a dull pang of guilt. Val had been a gracious hostess from the moment she'd arrived, welcoming her into her home and offering refreshments, but her smile had been strained and her eyes guarded.

  The two women now sat across from each other, and though the conversation was casual, Val's posture in the lovely antique wing chair was stiff.

  She was uncomfortable, Renee realized. She also knew why. The two women had been friends once. They'd shared martinis and manicures, shopping trips and secrets. Renee knew Val was a smart woman. She no doubt realized Renee had not invited herself over to discuss the weather in Barbados. Renee was a reporter. Val knew that. It didn't take great deductive powers to realize Renee wanted something from her.

  Renee uncrossed her legs then recrossed them, searched for the right words. She couldn't just blurt out the real reason she'd come. Val would be as defensive as Cain had been.

  Cain. God. He'd told her to let it go, that there was no way Gabe was involved in the attempt on her life. But Renee couldn't do that. The idea had settled under her skin like an invisible splinter, and until she found a way to extract it, there was no way to ignore it.

  All this time they'd been looking for a dirty cop, someone who'd sabotaged the investigation into organized crime by feeding critical information to Oncle. Informants had been executed. Sources of information had dried up like creek beds during a drought. Her brother, quietly cooperating with the police, had been murdered.

  And an innocent man had taken a long, hard fall.

  Now Renee had to wonder. She knew Cain was innocent, and deep in her bones she believed Alec was, too, despite the rumors to the contrary. Travis had believed the real culprit could be found closer to home.

  Gab
e was an assistant district attorney—and Cain's cousin. He had access to everything his cousin did…

  "Where's Gabe?" It was a Saturday. Two suitcases sat across the room. "He's not working is he?"

  Val's cup clanked as she set it down. "I'm afraid so."

  "That's too bad," Renee said as casually as she could. "I was hoping to see him. Something big going on at the D.A.'s office?"

  Val bit down on her lip and stared at Renee, glanced nervously at the door. "Have you heard something?" she asked, and this time she sounded scared. "Is that why you're here?"

  Renee uncrossed her legs and leaned closer, hoped Val couldn't hear the frenetic pounding of her heart. The rush of adrenaline almost made her sway. "What would I have heard?"

  "Nothing," Val said. Agitated, she stood. "I just…" She hesitated, looked at Renee with the same searing intensity she'd once looked at Savannah. "Ever since you showed up, strange things have started happening. I mean, Alec is dead and now Gabe is—"

  Very slowly, Renee came to her feet. This time she did sway. "Gabe is what?"

  "You should never have come here," Val said. Renee watched her fiddle with a silk floral arrangement, and knew her instincts had been right. Val knew more than she was saying.

  "But I'm so glad you did," Val said, looking up. That's when Renee saw the gun—and felt the room start to spin. "Savannah."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "That's it, mon chou. That's it." Crouched beside an old duck blind with his camera angled toward a cypress, Cain watched a female anhinga dry her wings. The brown-and-white bird stood on a decaying tree trunk and flapped her wings, spraying off water that quickly dissipated into the gray fall mist.

  He adjusted his aperture setting and snapped. The graceful bird froze, glanced his way, took flight.

  Cain pushed to his feet and watched the bird soar, knew that she had the potential to become Miss November in his next calendar. Lifting his camera, he snapped a shot of her silhouetted against the hazy sun. Then he swore viciously. Because no matter how many pictures he took, he couldn't stop seeing Renee as she'd been that morning, kneeling at the spot where her brother had died. Her quiet words haunted.