Wrongfully Accused

by Ana Barrons

  His sisters.

  He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. “What about me and Kate?” he asked.

  Carolyn held up a hand. “Don’t be mad at Jeremy,” she said.

  “I’m not mad at Jeremy,” he said. “Jeremy’s a kid. And most of the time he minds his own business. Unlike his mother.” He didn’t have to say and you for his sisters to get the message.

  Carolyn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Jeremy told Lindsay you slept with Kate a few days ago, at her house.”

  A clatter behind him told him his mother had dropped something. They all turned to see Miriam pick up a spoon off the floor. She glanced at them, said nothing and went back to making the tea.

  “Is that right?” Gabe said, forcing himself to hide his irritation.

  His sisters looked at each other, then back to him. “Well?” Sylvia said. “Did you actually sleep with her?”

  “And this is your business because...?” he prompted.

  Carolyn folded her hands on the table. “Look, Gabe,” she began. “We know it’s none of our business in the sense that you can sleep with whoever you want. You’re a big boy.”

  “I’m glad we’ve established that,” he said.

  “But we’re talking about Kate. Who you’ve hated for the last eight years. Remember? Or did she drive all that out of your mind with—whatever?”

  “She’s probably using you,” Sylvia said. “I mean, my God, up until this Michael Clark killed himself the cops were investigating her for killing her husband. What better way to get off than to sleep with one of you.”

  As his heartbeat picked up his gut started to burn. Damn it. The last thing he needed was to lose his cool. “First of all,” he said, “the FBI was investigating her, not the cops, so sleeping with a cop wouldn’t do jack shit for her.”

  “Well, don’t you all work together?”

  Mancuso’s smug face flashed into Gabe’s head and he chuckled derisively. “Only when absolutely necessary. And even then, I have no pull with the FBI. And by the way, thank you for insinuating that I would pull strings for Kate or anybody else.”

  “Oh, Gabe,” Sylvia said.

  “So we’ve established that you are, in fact, sleeping with Kate,” Carolyn said, opening her hands for emphasis. “Right?”

  “I have to assume that you’ve made that judgment without me, considering that Sylvia hasn’t come home for anything less than a wedding or a funeral in years.”

  Sylvia glared, but quickly lowered her head and proceeded to play with the salt and pepper shakers.

  “Did you suddenly change your mind about her?” Carolyn asked. “Or were you the one using her? To get information or something? Although, given how much you always hated her I don’t know how you could do it.”

  “He’s a guy,” Sylvia said with a dismissive wave.

  “I never hated her,” Gabe said quietly. Sylvia raised her head and they both stared at him. “Kate and I used to be good friends before Steve died.” Damn it. He’d mentioned the unmentionable in his mother’s presence. He glanced toward the sink, but his mother was pouring water from the kettle into four mugs, and didn’t seem to have heard.

  Carolyn leaned in further and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “You stopped liking her even before that. You suddenly had to work the day of their wedding, and Ben stood in for you. Remember? It wasn’t only that she hooked up with the congressman ten seconds after...” She trailed off with a quick glance at her mother. “For a couple months before she married Steve you were saying stuff like, ‘He could do better,’ and ‘She’ll drive him to drink.’ Stuff like that.”

  Gabe rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then leaned forward again. What he had to say would shock them, but if he and Kate were going to have any kind of future he had to clear the air with his family. “I did say those things,” he said. “But I didn’t mean them.”

  “Then why’d you say them?” Sylvia demanded, obviously still stung by his earlier barb.

  “I was jealous,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “Of Steve.”

  “What are you saying?” Miriam said from beside him. All eyes flew to her. She set a mug of tea next to his arm and sat down heavily. “You wanted Kate for yourself?”

  “That’s not what he’s saying, Ma,” Sylvia said, reaching across and putting a hand on her mother’s arm.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Gabe said.

  Three pairs of eyes stared at him. After several moments his mother said, “My God. All this time I wondered what on earth she had done that had so offended you, and I missed what was staring me right in the face.”

  Gabe’s throat constricted. He laid a hand over his mother’s. “I poisoned everyone against her. I was the one who wouldn’t let her come over and see you.” He swallowed with trouble. “It was all my fault. The whole thing.”

  His mother looked troubled. “What was your fault?”

  She was too close. He couldn’t say what he had to say with his mother looking into his eyes. He removed his hand gently and stood up and walked to the counter. Leaning back, he gripped the edge with both hands and said, “Steve’s accident. It was my fault.”

  “What?” Sylvia gasped. “That’s crazy, Gabe. You weren’t anywhere near him.”

  He rubbed at his forehead with the side of his hand but quickly brought it back to anchor him. God, he wanted a beer. But no. They deserved to hear the truth, and he deserved to deal with the pain sober. “I thought...” he began, and cleared his throat. “I convinced myself that Kate had told him about what happened between us.”

  “What happened?” Sylvia asked, a touch of hysteria in her voice. “Don’t tell me you were sleeping with her back then.”

  He shook his head. “No. But one night she was babysitting for Jeremy and I came home earlier than usual. Steve had left and gone back to the apartment.”

  “I hate to say it, but Steve totally took her for granted,” Carolyn said, glancing at Miriam, whose gaze was still on Gabe.

  “Anyway.” He let out a long breath. God, this was so much harder than he’d expected. “I’m not making any excuses for myself, but I’d just shot a guy—a kid, really...” He trailed off.

  His mother walked over to him and put two fingers to his lips. “I remember what happened with Kevin Brewer. You don’t have to tell us any more,” she said. “Whatever happened, it’s okay.”

  “I need to,” he said, his voice raspy with emotion. “You have to understand. About Kate. I won’t be able to live with myself until you understand. And if you all hate me after what I have to say, then so be it.”

  “That will never happen,” his mother said. “I’ll stand right here beside you while you tell us whatever it is that’s eating away at you.”

  It took Gabe nearly an hour to tell the whole story with no interruptions from his sisters. As promised, his mother stood next to him the entire time he was talking, silently lending her support. When he finished his sisters were staring at him.

  “So, you’re telling us that Kate really did love Steve, and she married Drew Franklin because she was lonely but she really wanted to be with you, and our family... And we shouldn’t hate her for anything...” Carolyn took a breath. “But what about now? I mean, after all those years of all of us treating her like shit—”

  “Especially you,” Sylvia said to Gabe.

  “You two are actually going to be a couple?” Carolyn’s eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. “You and Kate?”

  “Well, first I have to find out who’s been hurting her,” Gabe said. “And keep her safe.”

  “And then what?” Miriam asked.

  “And then I have to convince her that I’m not a lying piece of shit.”

  “Hmm, that could be difficult,” Sylvia teased.

  “And then...?” Miriam said, holding his gaze. Gabe couldn’t remember his mother caring so much about anything in the last eight years. She’d listened to the whole
sordid story without interrupting or judging. Instead, she had given him little pats on the arm or rubbed her hand over his back when he needed it. And she knew just when he did. Almost the way she would have when Steve was still alive.

  “And then I guess I’ll try to get her to spend some time with me.”

  “You love her,” Sylvia said. “You actually love her.”

  Gabe saw only surprise in his sister’s blue eyes, no censure. “Yes, I do.”

  Carolyn and Sylvia came to him then and wrapped their arms around him. He hugged them back, marveling at how much their love and support meant to him. “Good luck with Lindsay,” Carolyn said, pulling back. “She’s determined to keep you two apart, and to keep Kate away from Jeremy.”

  “She says Kate’s a bad influence on both of you,” Sylvia added.

  “Lindsay always resented Kate,” Miriam said, and they all turned to her. “I think she saw that you were attracted to her and it drove her crazy.”

  “Did you see it?” Gabe asked.

  His mother gave a small shrug and an enigmatic smile. “I wasn’t so blind back then.”

  Miriam walked Gabe to his car and held him tightly before he got in. As he was about to pull away she knocked on the window. He rolled it down.

  “I always thought you would have been a better match for Kate than Steven was,” she said, and stroked his cheek. “He was too absorbed in all that technical stuff to keep a girl like her happy. She took good care of him, but she had needs too and hers always came second. It was like that with her family, poor thing. Always the outcast.”

  “I know,” Gabe said. “I never understood that.” He smiled up at his mother. “You’re pretty damn smart for an old broad,” he said, then took her face in his hands and planted a big smacking kiss on her cheek. As predicted she swatted him away, but for the first time in eight long years her smile was wide and genuine.

  She raised her face to the sky. “Will you look at all those stars,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Gabe spent the next two days hanging over the shoulders of the forensics team, going through every report, every photograph from Kate’s house, looking through lists of known felons in the area, lists of Michael Clark’s associates and his movements over the past six months. He was beyond frustrated that he knew nothing about Kate’s friend Archer, not even a last name, and she’d never told him how long she’d known him or where she’d met him.

  He was on his way home midweek when his cell phone chirped. The readout said Ben Stuart. Huh. “Gabe here.”

  “Yeah,” the voice said, so solemn it barely sounded like Ben. “Come over, okay? To the house, I mean.”

  The hair on Gabe’s neck prickled. “What’s wrong?”

  The chuckle from the other end sounded defeated. “What isn’t?”

  “Is Joy okay?” Gabe asked.

  “Yeah. For now.”

  “Be there in ten,” Gabe said, and clicked off. He’d never heard Ben sound like that. As though someone had died. Maybe that was how he had sounded when Steve died. Every syllable was a struggle. Whole sentences? Not possible.

  “Fuck.” Something bad was going down. Or maybe it was something good for him, if not for Ben. Like a confession from Joy. That would be good and totally suck at the same time.

  “Fuck,” he repeated, for emphasis.

  When he pulled up in front of the Stuart house it was nearly ten-thirty. The porch light was on but few lights were on inside the house. Gabe grabbed his jacket to hide his shoulder holster and cuffs. Yeah, these people were old friends, but if Joy was involved in this business he had no idea what he would find. In fact... He punched some numbers into his cell.

  “Scott Bailey.”

  “Hey, it’s me,” Gabe said. “Meet me at the Stuarts’, but park and stay outside. I don’t expect to need backup but it’s possible.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Gabe clicked off and headed up the front steps as he had dozens of times in the past, before Steve died. He knocked, and Ben answered the door without a word. Gabe stepped inside. Joy was sitting on the sofa, holding a tissue to her nose, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Fuck.

  He stood there, waiting for someone to tell him what the hell was going on. After a long silence, Joy said, “I’m sorry, Gabe,” and started sobbing into her tissue.

  “For what?” he asked. Ben had seated himself several feet away on a lower step of the center staircase. Not even in the same room. His expression was grim, hands folded between his knees. The lenses of his glasses were fogged up. Goddamn it.

  “You called me, Ben,” he said. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Ben pulled off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. “Yeah. Give me a minute.”

  Joy said, “He thinks I’m guilty, but I’m not. I swear to God, Gabe, you have to believe me.”

  Gabe wished he’d told Scott to come inside immediately. He didn’t want to be the one to haul Joy’s ass into custody. Yeah, if she had hurt Kate or had something to do with that plane going down he’d happily put her away. But Jesus, he couldn’t stand seeing the agony on Ben’s face. “Guilty of what?” he asked as gently as he could.

  “I’m no murderer,” she said, her expression pleading. “You know me. And I wouldn’t have hurt Kate, whether I hated her or not. I’m not some psycho.”

  Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ben, I think this would be easier if you were in the same room, man.”

  Ben came slowly to his feet. “It’s in the bedroom,” he rasped as though his vocal cords had ceased working. “I’ll bring it out.”

  “Bring what out?”

  “The laptop.”

  Gabe knew from experience that bad things could happen when a person in the kind of shape Ben was in went into another room. Weapons appeared. Suicides happened.

  So did homicides.

  “Joy,” he said. “Come on over here. We’re all going in together.”

  She rose from the couch. Gabe stepped aside so she could precede him into the bedroom. When they got there, Ben pointed at an open laptop sitting on the bed. A thick book lay open beside it. “That’s how I found it the night you went to Joy’s office.”

  “What’s on there?” Gabe asked. He pulled out two latex gloves and moved around the bed to pick up the laptop. “Or do you want me to figure it out for myself.”

  “It’s a code,” Joy said, her voice nasally from crying. “It’s for numbered bank accounts. Offshore mostly.”

  Gabe stared at her. “Explain.”

  She let out a long sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles, and her face was ashen. Except where it was red from crying. “I’m trying to put together the code,” she said, sounding miserable. “So I can figure out where the money went. I thought if I could find it I could return it, somehow.”

  “What money?”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Kate’s money.”

  “So,” Gabe said, glancing between Joy and Ben, who was leaning against the far wall, gazing out the window. “You’re saying that you stole Kate’s money?”

  “No. I mean, not me per se. Look, Gabe,” she said, an imploring tone in her voice. “I know I should have a lawyer here. I know this information is really for the FBI. I get that. But we hoped, Ben and I, that because we’ve known each other so long, that you would listen with an open mind and help me figure out how to present this in the least damaging light.”

  Gabe picked up the laptop and carried it around to the side of the bed, then sat beside her. “You’re telling me that you and someone else stole Kate’s money, is that right?”

  “No. What Drew did was not illegal. As far as I know.”

  “Help me out here,” he said. “Drew moved Kate’s money into offshore accounts with your knowledge, is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Ben said from the wall.

  “But since he was on all those accounts it wasn’t illegal,” Joy said. “It wasn’t exactly ethical,
but it wasn’t, strictly speaking, illegal.”

  “He obtained Kate’s signature under false pretenses,” Gabe said, running his eyes down the columns of numbers. “What did he want the money for? Was it for the two of you to go off and live the high life?”

  Joy flushed. “No. It was... Drew said it was for ‘making things happen.’ To make sure the bill passed.” She shook her head. “He sucked me right in and I was too naïve to see it.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He had big ideas about what we could accomplish. He assumed the president would appoint him Director of Global I &S and said I would be his ‘right arm.’” She stopped and looked up at Gabe. “He liked to bounce ideas off me. I think he always needed someone to tell him what a visionary he was.”

  This was consistent with what Kate had said about him. “And he always assumed things would fall into place, right?”

  Joy nodded. “There was very little possibility of failure in Drew’s mind. He simply wouldn’t let it happen.” In a lower voice she added, “No matter what it took.”

  “No matter what it took?”

  She inhaled, eyes closed, and let out a long breath. “The other night, when you suggested that maybe Drew had wanted to kill Kate, I was tripping all over my words because it... Suddenly it didn’t sound so far-fetched, and I couldn’t help but wonder... But I didn’t actually believe it. Not then.”

  Something niggled, but he needed more to figure out exactly what it was. “If you really didn’t do anything illegal, why didn’t you take this to the FBI right away?” Gabe asked, then turned to Ben. “And why’d you wait three days to call me? You could have spared Kate a whole lot of grief.”

  Ben mumbled something Gabe couldn’t make out. Joy hung her head. “I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry about that. I was afraid of what this would do to my reputation. And—” she swallowed, “—I was afraid I would somehow end up taking all the blame and going to prison. I mean, look at what the media’s saying now about the three Democratic senators. ‘Looks like the revenge of the conservatives?’ They’ve even speculated that I might have had a role in Arlen Fischer’s sudden disappearing act.”