Wrongfully Accused

by Ana Barrons

  Ben stood and Gabe blocked the other man’s view with his back. Kate’s lithe body was like deadweight, and his gut twisted harder. “Shit,” he said, when she flopped back. “Jesus Christ, Kate, don’t do this to me. Wake up.” He turned to Ben in desperation and found the other man coming back from the bathroom with a wet washcloth in his hand. Gabe pulled the front of the robe over her breasts and moved aside so Ben could mop her face with the cold towels.

  No response.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” Gabe hadn’t felt this helpless since the day Steve was killed. He pulled Kate into a sitting position. Her head lolled forward. “Kate. Wake up, honey. Please. Wake up.” He started to shake her, but Ben grabbed his shoulders.

  “Stop it,” he said quietly. The sirens were getting louder by the second. “They’re almost here. There’s nothing we can do now except wait.”

  Gabe pulled Kate onto his lap and held her close, tucking the robe around her so she was decent. Then he raised his eyes to Ben, whose accusatory expression so closely matched what he was feeling inside.

  If she didn’t make it he would never forgive himself.

  * * *

  Gabe’s name was on her lips when she surfaced, but the face peering down at her belonged to Ben. He was frowning, but then his expression cleared and he gave her a gentle smile. “Hey, there,” he said. “Welcome back.”

  She blinked a few times, and turned her head—a mistake because it made her so dizzy. “What happened?” God, her voice sounded hoarse. And why was she in the hospital again?

  Another man came up beside Ben, this one older and heavier but with a kind face. “I’m Doctor Cohen,” he said. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Franklin?”

  “Um...dizzy.” She tried to see past his shoulder but there was a curtain all around.

  He pulled out a tiny light and held it up. “Look at my finger,” he directed. “That’s right.” He repeated the exercise over and over with both eyes, and then said, “A Detective Bailey would like to join us while I ask some questions. Is that okay with you?”

  Detective Bailey. Not Gabe. Where was Gabe? “Why?” she asked. “What happened?”

  The doctor turned to Ben and mumbled something. Ben left and a nurse came in with a blood pressure cuff, followed by the detective. All three crowded around her bed. With the curtain closing them in she was starting to feel claustrophobic.

  “Hello again, Mrs. Franklin,” the detective said. He was a nice-looking guy with short blond hair, a goatee and unreadable brown eyes. How did cops manage to hide what they were thinking so well? Well, most cops anyway. Gabe had never been any good at it as far as she was concerned. She wanted to ask for him, but something stopped her. Had he been here earlier?

  “Why am I here?” she asked, directing her question to the doctor. He and the detective shared a look.

  “You were brought in an hour ago, unconscious.”

  She blinked. “Really?”

  The doctor nodded. “Can you tell me what medicines you took over the past 24 hours, Mrs. Franklin?”

  “None,” she said.

  The two men exchanged another glance. “Think back,” the detective said. “Did anyone else give you medicine to take? A visitor, maybe?”

  She tried to think back, but it was so hard to remember. “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you have any visitors recently?”

  “Was...was Gabe here? Earlier?”

  The detective’s smile didn’t reach those unfathomable eyes. “Did Detective Hugo give you any medicine when he was at your house today?”

  Gabe was at her house? Her eyes stung, so she closed them for a moment. “Um...I don’t remember. What day...?”

  “Do you remember anything that happened today?” the doctor asked.

  “Not sure. What day is today?”

  “It’s Friday night. Did anyone come to your house today?”

  All she remembered was Gabe pulling her out of the water, holding her in his arms. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you remember, Mrs. Franklin? What was the last thing you remember doing?”

  “I was in the water,” she said. “And...Gabe pulled me out.”

  “Was anyone else present when Detective Hugo pulled you out of the water?”

  She tried to lift her right hand to her eyes but noticed it was tightly bandaged and in a sling. Images flitted through her mind. Gabe gently touching her cuts... Kissing the bruise on her ribs... Pushing her panties to the floor...

  A delicious shudder escaped her.

  “Are you all right?” the doctor asked.

  “Think, Kate,” the detective said as though the doctor hadn’t spoken. “You don’t mind me calling you Kate, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Was anyone else at your house today, Kate?”

  “Today?”

  The doctor turned to the detective. “I’m sure you know how to do your job, but I can tell you that her memories at this point aren’t reliable. If I’m right about what I believe she has ingested, there’s no telling whether they’ll ever be.”

  “Ingested?” she repeated. “What did I ingest?”

  “It’s possible someone gave you a drug, Mrs. Franklin,” the doctor said. “A designer drug similar to rohypnol but slower acting and more potent.”

  “It’s a variation on roofies—the date rape drug,” the detective said. “Someone could slip it in your coffee and have close to an hour to get you someplace more private before it really kicked in. And then, once you’re out, you stay out longer.”

  “And remember very little,” the doctor added. “It’s a diabolical drug. Fortunately, even in high concentrations it’s rarely lethal.”

  She went still, trying to wrap her brain around what he was saying. “Who would do that?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” the detective said. To the doctor he said, “Look, I get that her memory is unreliable, but I’d like to talk to her for a few minutes alone, if that’s okay with you.”

  The doctor nodded and laid a fatherly hand on Kate’s good arm. “I’ll be back to check on you shortly. Buzz the nurse if you need anything else.”

  When he was gone, the detective—what was his name again?—moved closer. He was smiling, but somehow it didn’t comfort her.

  “How close are you and Gabe, Kate?” he asked.

  Close. Were she and Gabe close? “We used to be...close.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Sometimes...we’re close.” Too close.

  “What do you mean by too close?”

  Had she said that out loud? “I’m confused. What’s your name again?”

  “Scott,” he said. “Scott Bailey. Gabe used to be my partner.”

  “Oh.”

  “Was there another man at your house today, Kate?”

  Another man. “I don’t know.”

  “A neighbor, maybe? Old friend? A colleague of your husband’s... Anybody like that?”

  An unfamiliar anxiety churned in her gut. Why couldn’t she remember? “Was Gabe here earlier?”

  Scott Bailey leaned closer. “I know this is a personal question, Kate, but it’s important, and I’d like you to answer it if possible. Will you do that?”

  She swallowed. “I’ll try.”

  “Did you have sex with someone earlier today?”

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What?”

  “Sex. Did you sleep with a man? Gabe, maybe? Or someone else?”

  “Gabe,” she repeated. Did she have sex with Gabe? She wanted to.

  For a moment Scott Bailey looked angry. “You had sex with Gabe, Kate? Is that right?”

  She closed her eyes and felt Gabe’s lips on her neck, his hands moving down her thighs, dropping her panties to the floor, then pushing her toward the tub... A memory or a dream?

  “Kate?”

  She opened her eyes. “He helped me take a bath.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

&nb
sp; Michael Clark appeared in the open doorway of his Dupont Circle town house wearing only pajama pants and looking like a living, breathing ad for Abercrombie & Fitch. He frowned when he saw who it was. “What do you want at this hour, Detective?”

  “We need to talk,” Gabe said.

  A blond young man wearing identical pajama pants came up beside Michael and laid a possessive hand on his arm. He gave Gabe a thorough once-over and said, “What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” Michael said, and stepped aside to let Gabe in.

  The young man gazed up at Michael. “The guy’s a detective, you don’t know what he wants and you’re letting him in?”

  Gabe stepped up to the doorway. “Don’t worry,” he told the younger man. “He’s not my type.”

  Michael folded his arms over his sculpted chest. “No, your taste runs more for slim, vulnerable brunettes you can bully.”

  Gabe’s temperature rose. “You nearly had me convinced yours did as well, until I saw the two of you together.”

  “So, what’s this about?” the young man asked.

  “Police business,” Gabe said, his gaze never leaving Michael’s.

  “I’ll deal with this, Tom,” Michael said. “Wait upstairs for me, okay? This won’t take long.”

  “Whatever.” Tom huffed and left the foyer.

  Michael led the way into the living room. He didn’t sit or offer Gabe a seat. “You’d better have a good reason for being here, Detective.”

  “So, where’d you get the Italian soda?” Gabe asked. “Kate said it was a little bitter.”

  Michael blinked. “It came from Balducci’s. Why? You going to arrest me for bringing her grapefruit soda?”

  Gabe shrugged, but inside he was seething. He’d tried every angle he could to get a search warrant for Michael’s home and car, but the techs had found no trace of Queen of Hearts, better known as Q, in any of the food or drink Michael had brought. It was virtually invisible after a couple of hours, leaving no clear marker in the blood or anywhere else. And even if the slightest residue had been left in the glass, Gabe had run everything through the dishwasher. Only its slightly bitter taste—less detectable in an espresso than in a glass of wine—and the aftereffects of prolonged unconsciousness, very low blood pressure and dilated pupils, indicated its presence.

  “Only if our lab finds traces of Q in it.” He was bluffing, of course, but Michael might not know it. “In which case I’ll very happily arrest your ass—after I kick it from here to St. Louis.”

  Michael frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Gabe stepped closer and Michael took a step back. “You fucking well know what I’m talking about, you bastard. But here’s what I can’t figure. You probably didn’t give her the Q to fuck her, considering what a hunk Tom is.”

  “Wait. What?” Michael did a good job feigning surprise. “Are you saying somebody gave Kate Q? Isn’t that a date rape drug?”

  At least he hadn’t pretended not to know what it was. Gabe went on as though the other man hadn’t spoken. “So that tells me you just wanted to knock her out, maybe to give you time to look around for something. Want to tell me what that was?”

  “You have nothing on me,” Michael said. “If you did you would have come here with a search warrant. Is Kate all right?”

  “No, she’s not,” Gabe growled. “She’s in the hospital.”

  “Good Lord.” Michael ran a hand through his blond hair. “How bad is she? That stuff’s not fatal as far as I know, but—”

  “Funny how you know so much about it,” Gabe said, taking another menacing step forward. Yeah, he was intimidating the guy, but so far he hadn’t laid a hand on him.

  So far.

  “Well, well,” a familiar voice said from the open doorway. “Have I walked into a domestic altercation?”

  Gabe turned to the foyer and frowned at Scott Bailey. “Why are you here?”

  “Neighbor thought he heard some shouting,” he said smoothly. “I’m here to keep the peace.”

  That was bullshit, but Gabe knew he had to wrap this interview up. To Michael he said, “I’m watching you. Have you got an alibi for the night Kate was attacked in her bedroom?”

  Michael had the balls to snort. “You’ve got to be kidding. Did you go off your meds, Detective?”

  “Let’s go, Detective Hugo,” Scott said, indicating the door. He nodded at Michael. “Sorry to intrude, Mr. Clark.”

  As they descended the steps Gabe asked, “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “Ben Stuart said you were ranting about Michael Clark before you left the hospital.” As soon as they were out of sight of the town house windows, Scott pushed Gabe up against the side of the corner house and got in his face. “What the fuck was that all about? And what the fuck are you doing with Kate Franklin?”

  Gabe shoved him away. “Get out of my face, goddamn it. What’s your problem?”

  “My problem? Think again, bro. This is your problem. And it’s looking bad.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Wanna know what the lieutenant asked me tonight? Why he sent me to the hospital to interview Kate?”

  “He sent you to the hospital?”

  “He said, ‘Have you noticed that every time Kate Franklin gets hurt it’s always Hugo who’s on the scene first, and she’s always naked?’”

  A sick feeling rose in Gabe’s belly. “Like I’m somehow involved?”

  “Everybody knows you hate the woman’s guts,” Scott said. “You think she drove your brother to crash his car so she’d be a rich, young widow.”

  Gabe wished he could slip out of his skin and slither away. “The only person I said that to was you, and it was a throwaway comment.”

  “Well, don’t look now,” Scott said, “but your ‘throwaway comment’ was picked up by a lot of people. Did you really think you could shoot off your mouth about something like that after a few beers and people would just forget about it?”

  Gabe winced. “That would’ve been a good time to knock my teeth down my throat.”

  “So now husband number two kicks the bucket and the al Qaeda thing’s a hoax. Who tosses out another ‘throwaway comment’ about liking her for the plane crash?”

  Gabe scrubbed a hand over his face. Jesus, he’d made a mess of it. “Tell me the lieu doesn’t believe I would actually harm the woman. Go after her with a knife? Slip drugs in her soda so I can... What? Have sex with her?”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Fuck her.” Scott let a couple of beats go by. “Cause she says you did. And that you made her take a bath.”

  “Kate said I...” He trailed off. If she had Q in her system she would be confused about what had happened, or as much of it as she could remember. “I washed her hair for her in the kitchen sink, and then I ran a bath for her so she’d be clean. She couldn’t manage it by herself. I did not have sex with her.” Yeah, Bill Clinton had nothing on him in the lying-by-omission department.

  “And then you helped her into bed after her bath.”

  “She was asleep—or I thought she was. I figured she hadn’t been getting enough rest, so I lifted her out and put her to bed.” And then he’d let her lie there, unconscious, while that shit ate away at her brain. “I didn’t freak out until Ben came by and we couldn’t wake her up. He checked her pulse and saw that her pupils were dilated.”

  “Uh-huh. And what were you doing in her house all that time?”

  Gabe couldn’t tell Scott he’d been searching around, because the lieutenant had been adamant that it stay between them. “Hanging out. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

  Scott leaned closer and pointed two fingers at his eyes. “Look at me and tell you haven’t been in Kate Franklin’s pants. Go ahead.”

  Irritation pricked at Gabe, even though he understood that Scott was just doing his job. “We’ve been over this. I said no.”

  “Ben said you acted like you th
ought she was dying, and you were freaking out.”

  “Yeah, well... I was.”

  “Which tells me either you’re involved with the woman or you did harm to the woman. Or both. It tells me is you’re not objective about her.”

  “I’ve never been objective where she’s concerned.”

  “So, I will ask you again. What the hell is going on between you two?”

  Gabe tilted his head back, wishing for some divine inspiration. How could he explain what there was between him and Kate in a way Scott would understand and not judge overly harshly? It was several moments before he met Scott’s gaze again. “It would take too long to explain it. Let’s just say I was an asshole to her for eight years and I’m trying to make amends.”

  “Making amends, huh?” Scott said with a smirk. Gabe wanted to wipe it off with his fist. “Never heard it called that before.”

  “Drop it,” Gabe said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Scott shook his head. “She’s trouble, Gabe. And from where I’m standing—” he nodded in the direction of Michael Clark’s town house, “—your judgment is going down the toilet because of her.”

  “Thanks. Remind me not to ask you for any testimonials.”

  “For your next job?”

  “Go to hell.” Gabe strode across the street to his car.

  “So what did you think you were doing, hassling Michael Clark?” Scott called from behind him. “You had no warrant. You had no evidence. And you were intimidating him. He could file a complaint.”

  Gabe unlocked the Honda and opened the door. “He won’t,” he said. “He’s guilty. What I need to figure out is why he drugged her. He’s got to be after something in that house. And if he is, maybe he’s behind the attack on Kate.”

  “You’re not thinking straight,” Scott said. “If he wanted something of Drew Franklin’s why wouldn’t he just ask Kate for it? He worked with the guy for like fifteen years. Why would he have to knock her out?”

  Gabe slid into the driver’s seat but didn’t pull the door closed. “I don’t know yet. I need to talk it through with her. Maybe she’ll have some ideas.”

  “I guess this means you intend to spend more time with her.”