Wrongfully Accused

by Ana Barrons

  When Jeremy came dashing around the corner he stopped short and glanced between the two of them. “You’re not fighting, are you?” he asked warily.

  “No,” Gabe said, and dropped his hand reluctantly. It was getting more and more difficult not to touch her. Constantly. “Let’s sit down and I’ll download these pictures. Got a card reader?”

  “There’s one in the office,” she said, and went to get it.

  * * *

  “There are a shitload of pictures on this card,” Gabe said when he’d finished downloading the memory card from Kate’s camera. Belatedly he glanced at his son. “I mean, there’s a boatload of them.”

  “Really?” Kate said. “Huh. I thought that one was pretty empty. I downloaded a whole bunch right before...” She trailed off. “But I probably forgot to clear the card. Just open the last bunch. The other stuff is from a charity event. Not too exciting.”

  “Which charity?” Gabe couldn’t resist asking. “Foster Homes for Abandoned Lambs and Piglets?”

  Kate grinned and punched him in the arm. “Yeah, go ahead and laugh. And thanks for the idea.”

  Gabe opened the last couple of dozen shots, and they oohed and aahed over them, and laughed at some of Jeremy’s antics. But it was the close-ups of Kate’s beautiful face that hit Gabe the hardest. She was genuinely interested in Jeremy, and that showed through in the range of expressions he had captured. When he got to the one of her looking up at him on the balcony, her eyes clear and direct, he had to clear his throat.

  She looked like a woman in love.

  “Maybe I skipped some at the beginning,” he said, and moved the cursor up. He double-clicked on an icon and was hit between the eyes with a close-up of Drew Franklin’s face and bare torso. Kate gasped. The man appeared to be reclining against a pillow wearing a satisfied smile and nothing else.

  Gabe closed the laptop. Something hot and dangerous welled up inside his chest. Kate had given him the impression that she and Drew hadn’t had a close relationship, that her husband hadn’t loved her. The look on the man’s face suggested they’d at least had a good sex life. Recently. That knowledge twisted his gut.

  “Hey, that’s your husband,” Jeremy said to Kate, oblivious to the tension in the air. She didn’t answer. “Did you know him, Dad?”

  “No.” His voice was gruff. “Why don’t you go see if there’s any ice cream?”

  “Okay. You want some, Aunt Kate?”

  Gabe glanced at Kate, who looked like she’d swallowed her tongue. She shook her head, and Jeremy bounded off to the kitchen.

  “Nice shot,” he said. “Are there others from the same photo session on this card? Maybe we could go through them together.”

  “I didn’t take that picture,” she said quietly. “I don’t understand. I can’t remember the last time I took a picture of Drew. And I never took one like that.”

  Gabe raised the screen and the picture zapped him again. “Oh, no? Let’s try another one.” He closed it and double-clicked on one above it. It was a variation on a theme. This time Drew’s eyes were closed but he was smiling like he’d just had great sex. The bastard.

  “I really don’t want to see these,” Kate said.

  “Aw, come on,” he said, feeling perverse, knowing that each picture was going to make him feel worse, but wanting to make her suffer with him. He double-clicked again, and this one was blurry. Drew was reaching for the camera, one hand covering an erect penis.

  “Oh, God,” Kate said, and stood up. Her voice sounded scratchy, like she was really upset. “I can’t... You go ahead and enjoy them without me, Gabe. Enjoy whatever little head game it is that you’re playing.” She stalked across the room, her back stiff.

  Gabe gritted his teeth. “Well, if you didn’t take them, who did?”

  Kate lifted her good arm without stopping or turning around. “I don’t know,” she said. “Ask Joy.”

  He watched her go, feeling like a louse and an idiot. She was upset, that much was obvious. Could she be faking it? He ran his hand over his head. For crissake, he had to decide whether he trusted her or he didn’t. Believed her or thought she was a liar. The guy was dead and he was shoving half-naked photos of him under her nose. Of course she was upset.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  “Where’d Aunt Kate go?” Jeremy asked, carrying two huge bowls of chocolate ice cream into the sunroom. “Did you two start fighting again?”

  Gabe grabbed one of the bowls and started shoveling the ice cream into his mouth. “This is good. What kind is it?”

  Jeremy gave him a look. “Don’t you know anything about her?”

  “Oh, of course. Häagen-Dazs. Jeez, how could I not have known?” He glanced toward the doorway, hoping Kate would come back in. Was she too pissed off to be around him now? “Shit,” he said.

  “Shit?” Jeremy parroted, grinning. “You think this tastes like shit? Wait till I tell Aunt Kate you think her Häagen-Dazs tastes like shit.”

  “I think that’s enough cussing from you, mister.”

  “I think that’s enough cussing from you, too, Detective,” Jeremy shot back.

  “Touché.” Gabe finished the bowl and put it down, then stood. “Wait here. I’m going to go make sure she’s okay.”

  “I’ll go,” Jeremy said.

  “No. I’ll go. I want to talk to her for a minute.”

  “Do you think she’s upstairs crying, cause, you know?” Jeremy nodded at the laptop.

  Gabe grabbed the laptop. “I don’t know. I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She wasn’t surprised to hear the bedroom door open and close behind her. This time she was ready for him.

  “Kate?”

  She whirled on him. “What is your problem? Why did you act like that about those pictures? What business is it of yours if I have photos of Drew? I was married to the man.”

  He leaned against the bedpost, the laptop tucked under his arm. “It struck me as inconsistent, that’s all.”

  “And you still haven’t made up your mind whether I’ve been lying or telling the truth. About anything. Have you?” He didn’t answer right away, and a familiar ache invaded her chest. She shook her head slowly. “I’m such an idiot. I let myself believe things could be different between us, but they can’t.”

  “Could that be an old memory stick?” he asked, as though she hadn’t spoken. “Could you have taken those pictures a while ago?”

  She turned away and pressed a hand to her stomach. “No. I never took pictures like that of Drew. Not that it’s any—”

  “I know, I know, it’s none of my business. Why would he have left pictures like that with your camera?”

  She felt drained, suddenly, and sat down on the bed facing away from him. “You’ll think I’m an idiot, but I don’t even know if that’s my camera. His was the same as mine. And I don’t know what motivated him to do any of the things he did. Unless he hated me so much he hoped I’d find the pictures. He obviously hated me enough to steal all my money.”

  Gabe came around and stood in front of her, but she didn’t look up. “Yeah, about that. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? I mean, he was sponsoring a major bill and was up for reelection in November.”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  “So, you were bound to find out about the money eventually.”

  “Apparently he didn’t think I was smart enough to figure it out. I signed anything he stuck in front of my nose, as you pointed out not so long ago.”

  “Let’s say you found the pictures,” he went on. “Or you found out about the money. Either one, or both. And you decided to expose him and file for divorce. That could have ruined his chances for reelection.”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “No. He wouldn’t have seen it that way. Drew believed everything he touched turned to gold. The idea that he might be wrong about something was intolerable to him. If he planned to rip me off, or to use my camera with another woman—” s
he swallowed with effort, “—it wouldn’t occur to him that he might get caught.”

  “What you’re describing is extreme narcissistic behavior.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I think too.”

  Gabe began pacing around the room. “Still. Let’s say he stashed the money in some overseas account or whatever. How would he spend it without anyone knowing about it? That sounds unnecessarily reckless. I mean, he had complete control of your money anyway, so what—”

  “He must have been planning to leave me.” And here she’d been the one threatening divorce. Surprise, surprise.

  “If he left you there would be a financial settlement, and you’d discover the money was gone.”

  “So what? He made it look like I’m the one who moved it around. He could have claimed I was trying to screw him out of his share.” She closed her eyes. “You can’t imagine how humiliating it is to realize you didn’t know your husband at all. I feel like the biggest loser in the world.” As soon as the words left her lips she realized she’d confided something to Gabe she wasn’t willing to share with anyone else. Go figure.

  “Why did you marry him, Kate?”

  She raised her head at the anger beneath his words. “You want the whole story or the bottom line?”

  Gabe raked a hand through his hair. He was standing by the antique desk that had once been owned by John Quincy Adams, looking grim. “Give me the bottom line and I’ll let you know if I want to hear the whole story.”

  After all this time he wanted her to explain? “Okay. Bottom line? I was lonely, depressed and... unmoored. My best friend and husband was dead. Drew came along and fell in love with me.” She lowered her head. “Or so he said.”

  “What about you?” Gabe’s voice was rough, the question more of a demand. “Did you love him?”

  How could she answer that? “It’s not that simple,” she said quietly.

  “How complicated can it be? You either loved him or you didn’t.”

  “Why are you so angry?”

  He looked shocked. “I am not angry.”

  “Well you sure sound angry. Is it because you think I stopped loving Steve just like that?” She snapped her fingers. “Or that I stopped—” No. Don’t go there.

  “Or that you stopped...?” he prodded.

  She hugged herself and turned away from him. “I never stopped loving...anyone. But I was devastated. And Drew made me believe he understood what I was going through, and that he would be there for me.” Yeah. He’d known how to play her, all right.

  “You had your family,” Gabe said.

  She met his gaze. “I had Alison. But it was your family I needed. I needed to be with people who loved Steve as much as I did. That’s why Ben and, well, Joy—” she nearly choked on the name, “—were so important to me. Then.”

  “My mother was incapable of supporting anyone, including herself. She couldn’t talk about Steve. She would have been of no help to you.”

  Grief and fury tore through her chest. “Did it ever occur to you, or anyone, that I could have been a help to her?” She stood, fists clenched. “I loved Steve too. I was grieving too. Having someone else around who felt the same pain would have been a comfort, not a burden.”

  For a long moment neither of them moved or said a word, and it felt as though her heart would burst open. Finally, she said in little more than a whisper, “I needed you so badly I nearly went crazy when you shut me out.”

  Gabe looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “What did you want from me?”

  “Everything. I wanted everything from you.”

  “Everything, huh? Well, that’s what you got from Drew.”

  She snorted. “Sure I did.”

  He lowered his head and met her gaze with a look both angry and despairing. “What are you saying? That you married Drew because I wasn’t there for you after Steve died?”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Don’t be dense, Gabe.”

  He advanced on her, slowly. “How am I being dense?” He stopped less than two feet from her. “Why don’t you spell it out for me?”

  She couldn’t breathe right with him so close, knowing what his touch did to her, wanting to feel his strong arms around her, as she had eight years ago. She was torn between moving forward into his arms and running out of the room as fast as she could. “Jeremy could come in.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “What did I have to do with you marrying Drew?”

  She couldn’t look at him. “What does it matter now? It’s done—and he’s dead.”

  “I want to know.”

  “Use your imagination, damn it.”

  “You wanted sex?”

  Okay, now he was pissing her off. She looked up into eyes that were hooded, revealing nothing. “Yes, okay? I wanted sex. I wanted love. Is that what you wanted to hear? I wanted to be loved and made love to. I wanted to be reassured that my life wasn’t over at twenty-two.”

  “So Franklin fit the bill.”

  God, he was infuriating. She shoved against his chest. “You’re not paying attention. I wanted to be loved by you, you idiot. You. But you refused to talk to me or see me. You cut me off like I was nothing to you. Like we’d never even been friends, never mind lovers.”

  “Are you guys talking about sex?”

  Kate gasped when she heard Jeremy’s voice from the doorway. Heat infused her cheeks.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Gabe said, moving quickly toward the door. “Who raised you, anyway? Don’t you knock when you walk into somebody’s bedroom?”

  Jeremy’s gaze darted back and forth between them. “Wow, you guys had sex?”

  “That’s enough,” Gabe said.

  “But Aunt Kate said—”

  “It’s rude to repeat things you overheard when you weren’t supposed to be listening.” Gabe took Jeremy by the shoulders and turned him around, then marched him back out the door. “Go downstairs. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  To Kate’s surprise, Gabe stepped back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. “We haven’t finished this conversation.”

  She dropped her head into her hands, thoroughly embarrassed. “Oh, I think I’ve said quite enough.”

  “I haven’t,” he said.

  * * *

  When he left the room Gabe’s heart was beating double time. She had wanted him, not Franklin. Holy shit. All those years, they could have been together...

  “Dad? Are you okay?”

  Jeremy’s voice snapped him out of it. “Yeah, why? What did I miss?”

  “I asked you if we’re staying here tonight. Cuz if we are I want to sleep in the room with the Nintendo Wii. Then we can play it before we fall asleep and as soon as we get up in the morning.”

  Hell, yes, they were staying. “If it’s okay with Kate, it’s okay with me.” Of course, after that conversation he wasn’t so sure she’d agree. “Go on up and ask her. But Jeremy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t bring up what you think you heard, okay?”

  “I won’t,” Jeremy said. “But I know saying lovers is about sex.”

  Jesus, the kid had heard every fucking word. “Let’s not talk about it anymore, okay? In fact, it would be best if you forgot you ever heard us talking about that.” And don’t tell your mother, for crissake.

  “How? I can’t make myself forget stuff.”

  “Try.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What goes on between Kate and me is nobody else’s business. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Okay, then.”

  When Jeremy went upstairs to talk to Kate, Gabe sat down and opened the laptop. He double-clicked on the first jpeg icon and pulled up yet another photo of Drew Franklin, this time on a beach, standing by a very blue ocean. There were palm trees in the distance. The next shot was a close-up of his face and chest, followed by several more close-ups. Franklin w
asn’t looking at the camera, which may have meant he wasn’t aware the shots were being taken. Whoever he was with probably used a telephoto lens. Soon Gabe was looking at shots of Franklin’s anatomy—his chest, his nipples, his butt outlined in a very small, tight European bathing suit. And yep, sure enough, shots of his package.

  “Jesus,” Gabe murmured. Did Joy take these? If he were Ben he’d kick her ass out of the house so fast her pretty blond head would spin.

  In one series of photos Franklin was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, walking down the street in what looked like a small beach town. The passersby were mostly darker-skinned, with a few Caucasians thrown in. Franklin was facing the camera in only one photo. The shot was blurry, which suggested it was taken with the same telephoto lens—held too close to the subject—used to get the close-ups on the beach. He appeared to be saying something to the photographer.

  Then Gabe spotted the photographer, reflected in the store window. “Holy shit,” he said quietly. What would Joy make of this? And more importantly, how would Kate react?

  The photographer was a man.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ben was lying on his back staring up at the bedroom ceiling when Joy came in the front door. She was making more noise than usual, which meant one of two things—she was pissed off or she was drunk. Since Drew’s death and the excitement surrounding the House passage of the Global Intel bill, her drinking had accelerated. Not a good sign. But why should he care? It was only a matter of time before the marriage was officially over. If he had a shred of pride left he would already be gone. Or she would. Yet, here he was, awake in their marriage bed, his throat tight, jaw clenched, angry and hurting and wishing things could have been different.

  The destruction of his marriage wasn’t the only thing he wished to God he could change. He was in the business of saving lives—he knew how to listen to his gut. How many times had he rejected the safe, conventional, ass-protecting way to treat a patient and gone with his gut instead? Most of the time he was right. So why the hell had he ignored his gut when so much was at stake?