Not Without You

by Taylor, Janelle

  “I’m not moving,” she whispered.

  He nodded, quieter. A respite from the yelling. But she wouldn’t fool herself into thinking it was because he trusted her. That he might actually listen to her. No good thinking that way. A sure plan to get herself killed. Better to just wait and see.

  “Y’know what this is?” he asked, jerking his head to the concoction on the dirty countertop.

  “I—no, I don’t know.”

  “Come on. You’re a smart girl. Chance said you were smart.”

  She licked her lips. Her lids were lowered. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Better to be passive anyway. “Crystal methamphetamine.”

  “Aaahhh…” He was pleased, as if she’d finally said something he wanted to hear. “Chance and me—we dabbled, y’know.”

  Dabbled. Yes, she knew. Maybe that was every addict’s answer. Dabbled. A confession that was more denial than acceptance of responsibility. Her mouth was so dry she could scarcely swallow.

  “Why’d he have to come here? Huh? Y’know? Why’d he come here?”

  “You mean… Jarred?”

  “He’s a fuckin’ suit, man. A suit! And he was pissed off at Chance. I could tell he wanted to kill him. Why? Why?”

  Kelsey cleared her throat. “I think he ran into Chance by accident and followed him here,” she whispered softly.

  “But why?” Kelsey wasn’t sure how to respond, so she remained silent. A mistake. Connor drew closer to her. She flicked him an anxious look. He stared at her through bloodshot eyes. Lifeless eyes. Drug numbed. “ ‘Cause of you? ’Cause he wanted Chance to leave his little wifey alone?”

  Don’t argue. Don’t move. Don’t breathe! “I think so. “

  He nodded. “I can understand that, y’know. I really can. A man hates sharing a good woman. Or any woman for that matter. But women…” He lifted his free hand, pointing at her with his index finger until the tip of it brushed her nose. Kelsey flinched. He snorted and did it again. And again. The inadvertent shudder that passed through her slim frame was like a flame to his senses. He yanked her close, squeezing his body against hers, pushing her backward until she stumbled. “Hold on, hold on,” he said, almost crooning.

  Revulsion filled her, nearly replacing her fear. Her heel slammed up against the wall and he pressed his body against her. The cold metal of the gun lay against her hip, resting.

  Wild thoughts gripped her. Knee to the groin. Up, slam, jerk. But the barrel of the gun was sliding toward her stomach. Would he really kill her? she wondered vaguely. A wave of nausea swamped her. Of course he would. He’d tried to kill Jarred.

  When he kissed her, she simply shut her mind down. But mutiny simmered deep in the pit of her stomach. She would rather die than be raped, she decided rather calmly, surprising herself. She was Jarred Bryant’s wife, and by God, no other man had a right to touch her and she sure as hell didn’t want to be touched by them!

  Suddenly he grabbed her hair. “It’s not my fault!” he yelled again. “It’s her fault!”

  “Her fault?” Kelsey repeated.

  “His fault! His fault!” he corrected himself, then seemed confused. “You don’t want to know about her,” he whispered. “Chance was really worried about her. She really caused a lot of problems, and she’s not gonna stop.”

  “Who?” Kelsey asked, confused.

  “Women.”

  A woman. Jarred’s words. A woman. From his deepest memory. Yet the danger was Connor. He’d confessed to killing Chance while meaning to kill Jarred. But…but… “The Porsche,” she said. “There was a bomb.”

  “No, no, no. You can’t think that. I didn’t do it! That was them!”

  “No one thinks you did it, Kelsey said.

  “Yes, yes! That was the men in the black car. They’re tricky friends.”

  Kelsey’s lungs felt poisoned. Too much fog. “Whose friends? Yours?”

  “Everybody’s friends if you want ’em to be.”

  “Her friends?” Kelsey guessed.

  “She’s not what she seems,” he whispered. “She’s a chameleon. That’s what Chance said.”

  “Sarah?” Kelsey guessed, gulping. She was the link. The only person besides herself who knew Chance well.

  Connor shook his head. “You just don’t like her,” he accused.

  “Well, then, what do you mean?”

  Then he was kissing her all over, running his hands down her body. Kelsey froze. The pan rattled and jumped. Swearing, Connor pulled back. “Gotta take care of that,” he said dully, swiping at a limp strand of hair that flopped in his eyes. “Dangerous.” He took a step away. Then another. He reached a hand toward the stove. Toward the knobs.

  …volatile chemicals…

  Kelsey blinked, lifting a hand to shield her eyes. How many newspaper items had she seen about meth labs exploding? Lots. But in her mind’s eye it had been a lab—a concrete basement with stainless steel sink and Erlenmeyer flasks and calculating drug dealers who doubled as white-coated scientists. In reality it was scummy, dirty, desperate rooms filled with desperate people. That was what exploded.

  Oh, God…

  She turned. One step. Another. Running. Smacking against the floor lamp. Stumbling. Cursing. Crying. The gun. He could shoot her.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  Hand on the doorknob. Twisting. Yanking. Praying with the fervency of the truly devout.

  A blast of frigid air. Swirl of snow.

  Click.

  Sound of a trigger.

  She leaped onto the porch, her shoes skidding. Knee banged the rail. Fear. No pain. Stumbled down the stairs. Fell into the snow. Cold. Biting. Teeth chattering madly.

  Get up. Run. Get up. Get up!

  He was screaming. Cursing. Spitting foul, furious words.

  Kelsey pulled a foot beneath her. Jumped. Slipped. Zigzagged toward the car, which seemed miles away. Impossible. Impossible.

  Three steps. Fall. Cheek in snow. No air. Breathe. Breathe! Up again, stumbling. Stumbling. Closer… closer…

  And then the world exploded around her. A tremendous hot blast. Sizzling. Deafening. Knocking her down into three inches of snow. Raining her with fiery bits of wood. Shrapnel.

  Something struck her leg. Burned. She crawled. Crawled. Crawled.

  Reached the car. Touched the tire. Dared to look back.

  An inferno raged into the snowy black sky where the house had been moments before.

  “Please come in,” Nola begged. “Your father is so ill and I need your help.”

  The taxi waited. Its engine humming, wipers rhythmically flicking snow into little heaps on either side of the windshield.

  “I’ll make sure you’re settled, but I’ve got to go,” Jarred clipped out.

  Jarred, aren’t you making too much of this? She went to see Chance’s cousin. It’s not a life-or-death situation!”

  Jarred neither had the energy nor inclination to explain. Marlena Rowden had bubbled over with worry and relief to hear Jarred’s voice. She passed the information willingly. She was scared for Kelsey. Worried that Connor was unstable and possibly even criminal. She said Kelsey wanted to help him.

  Wanted to help him? God! The best thing she could possibly do was stay out of it! Jarred didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he damn well wanted his wife to be out of the line of fire. What in God’s name was she thinking?

  “She thinks they’re all a bunch of recreational users,” Jarred said through his teeth, fear coming out in fury. “But they’re addicts.”

  “Jarred?” Jonathan called from his study.

  “See?” Nola hissed in his ear. She tugged on his sleeve, pulling him away from the open front door.

  “Wait!” Jarred called, pointing at the taxi driver, who shrugged.

  Jonathan sat in his favorite chair, his pallor gray, his face lined into small crevasses, his body limp and exhausted. He looked a thousand years old. His deterioration even since dinner was unnerving.

  Jarred paused, shocked. “Dad.
”

  “I never wanted anything to happen to you. Or to Kelsey. Nothing, nothing to my family. I just couldn’t be faithful. I’m weak, son. And I’ve asked God to forgive me.

  “I’ve got to go find Kelsey. I’m going to ask Nola to call your personal physician.”

  “No. You’ve got to listen to me. It’s my fault. I made bad choices. And it’s a crime. A crime!” He coughed harshly, his whole body shaking.

  “Jarred,” Nola said in true fear, coming up behind him.

  “Call an ambulance,” Jarred told her. “Now.”

  “But the weather. You don’t think…” She stared up at him, pinch faced, slack jawed. So unlike herself that Jarred put his arm around her and hugged her close.

  “Just do it,” he whispered.

  Instantly she marshaled her strength. Drawing herself up she strode from the room.

  “Dad, Kelsey’s in trouble. She’s trying to solve this thing, and so she went to see Chance’s cousin, who is a meth addict and worse, according to Marlena Rowden. I’ve got to find her. Now.” He paused, hoping this had sunk in but his father showed no reaction to the news. “I’m going to leave you, but the ambulance will be here soon.”

  “I was never ambitious, Jarred. I should have been… more….”

  “Dad.” He glanced toward the short hallway that led to the open front door. Nola’s voice, clipped and artificially courageous, sounded from the kitchen.

  “There’s nothing to solve,” he said wearily. “It’s just a love affair with drugs for all of them. It ruins every life it touches.”

  This was so peculiar for his father to say that Jarred stared down at Jonathan’s bent head. But his father’s eyes were closed, paper-thin lids over eyes that moved beneath their shade. He stretched and closed his hands in agitation.

  Touching his father’s shoulder in silent farewell, Jarred turned swiftly, already thinking of the taxi driver and the conditions of the road and the length of highway they had to travel.

  “Good-bye, son. Don’t think too harshly of me. I’ve always loved you and Will.”

  Another time, another moment, he would have stopped and demanded some kind of explanation for these serious and maudlin remarks. But not tonight.

  To the cabbie, he said tersely, “Silverlake. When we get there, I’ll guide you.”

  “Silverlake! Man, I don’t feel like it.”

  “I will give you a thousand dollars,” he said through clenched teeth. “Can you make it through this snow?”

  “I got chains in the back,” the cabbie said, throwing the vehicle into gear.

  Kelsey’s mind floated. A liquid journey that had neither a beginning nor an end. Time rocked gently back and forth, like a gentle wave. She was cold. Frozen, perhaps. Snow iced her cheek, burning it a bit. Garish yellow flames and whooshing heat poured from what had been a small ranch-style house.

  She lay beside the sedan, one hand stretched toward a tire as if reaching it would somehow help her. How long had it been? Hours… lifetimes… eons…? Except the sky was still black and snow fell in wispy flurries that were reluctantly lessening. She was covered with the stuff. A half inch on her outstretched arm.

  Moving hurt. Something stuck in her leg. With an effort she lifted her head and saw the jagged chunk of glass sticking up like a small sail from her thigh. She sank down again, frightened beyond thought. She was going to die like this. From the elements.

  Bullshit. Kelsey raised her head once more, pulled herself onto one elbow, gazed more fully at the thick shard of glass currently skewering her. Clasping it gingerly, for it was sharp and deadly on all edges, she tugged. Pain sizzled up her leg. She gasped. Tears sprang to her eyes, surprisingly hot.

  A long moment passed. She focused more thoroughly on the rage of burning timbers and dancing flames. Connor was dead. No question. But his death brought no grief as Chance’s had. She felt… relief.

  It’s over, she thought, sinking back onto the cold soil. The snow had melted beneath the warmth of her body.

  Sirens. Distant. Nearing? She opened her ears but couldn’t tell.

  More time. Numbing, numbing time. Was she delirious? Probably. She should be.

  Her eyes flew open in sudden wakefulness. The fire raged on in a sinister beauty of orange and yellow and black. Smoke swept by in curtains tossed asunder by the wind, which had picked up and threw pulsing orange cinders and white snow and gray ashes all around. Glancing at the glass shard, she calmly grabbed it with some force and yanked with all her strength. A gasp. More tears. A long wail of agony but the thing was out. It cut the pad of her thumb. A small wound that welled with black blood. She glanced at her thigh. Another black stain against her jeans.

  Mental inventory of physical self. Everything seemed in working order. With an effort, she dragged herself to the car, scrabbling for a hold with hands working at fifty percent power. The cold had done that. Pulling up her left knee, she got her uninjured leg beneath her. Moments later, she dragged her injured one to the same position.

  One, two, three…

  With a mighty heave she was on her feet, swaying, clutching the side of the car, pressing herself against it like a lover. It’s over. It’s over now.

  More sirens. Warbling way far away. Someone had seen the flames. Had to have. This place was remote, but not that remote.

  She waited, quivering, unable to stop. Her teeth chattered in tiny little convulsive movements.

  “Come on, come on,” she whispered, encouraging those faraway sounds of rescue.

  And suddenly sweeping headlights. A car. Turning onto the long driveway, bumping along the lane cautiously. Chained up, she realized. It came into view and she would have cheered if she could have. Instead she waited.

  They come in black cars.

  For a heart-stopping moment she feared the worst. Then she was both surprised and delighted to realize it was a yellow taxi approaching. It stopped at the edge of the clearing. A man climbed out. The sirens increased. Coming, coming…

  The man wore a black overcoat and black slacks. Dressed for dinner or a party—a Christmas party. Her heart lurched painfully. “Jarred…?”

  Had she spoken aloud? He didn’t appear to hear her. His face was stark, ghostlike, staring at the raging inferno behind her. He looked… devastated. Shattered beyond bearing.

  “Jarred!”

  “God, no,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to her rental. He stumbled toward it, collapsed on the other side.

  “Jarred!” she managed to cry, louder.

  He raised his head. “Kelsey?” Sharp. Terse. Disbelieving.

  For the life of her she couldn’t raise another syllable. She clutched the vehicle and prayed for the strength to keep from falling.

  But then it didn’t matter. He was there. Beside her. Covering her cold body with the warmth of his own. “My God, Kelsey,” he murmured brokenly.

  “It’s over,” she said. “It’s over.”

  He held her close and buried her face against his chest as the wailing sirens rounded the corner of the lane and the fire trucks blasted past the taxi and into the clearing in a carnival of lights and noise and jumping men.

  Chapter Fourteen

  January

  High tea at the British Tearoom in downtown Seattle was an event that required planning, the right apparel, and a hearty appetite, for it started with a fruit cup and crumpets swimming in maple syrup, moved through tiny watercress and salmon sandwiches, whose crusts had been cut off, slipped into petit fours too rich to even count, while scones and Devonshire cream made certain the calorie count reached an all-time high.

  Kelsey sat across from her husband and thought quite clearly, I am going to throw up.

  Since this would definitely not’do in the tearoom, she excused herself, hurried to the nearest bathroom and promptly lost most of what she’d just tucked down with relish. Rinsing her mouth out with water, she considered her still jumping stomach and thought just as clearly, I’m pregnant!

  She gazed at
her face. Ghastly green. Except for the smile brimming on her pale lips. But the next moment reality crashed on her and she wondered just how well her husband was going to take the news this time.

  She braced herself against the sink basin for several moments, encountering the curious and concerned stare of another patron. “Are you all right?” the woman asked.

  “Perfect.”

  This answer was met with a lifted brow and a rather frosty look, as if Kelsey were some kind of criminal in not admitting that she looked like hell and was undoubtedly suffering from some strange and incurable malady. But Kelsey’s realization was too new, too fragile to share.

  And the first person she should share it with was Jarred.

  But she couldn’t go back there yet. Too much had happened, and this was just one more event to heave upon an already teetering pile.

  From the moment Jarred found her outside the blazing house, held her, and allowed her to collapse against him, life had taken a sharp left from the path it had been on. Several complications had happened in succession: bam, bam, bam! Jarred believed Kelsey’s theory that Sarah had sold Trevor secrets and planned to fire her. But there were complications. Complication one: Sarah was pregnant with Will’s baby and Will planned to marry Sarah. Complication two: Gwen had been sick for several weeks and Meghan, Sarah and Will’s gofer, had been forced to fill in. Complication three: Sarah, sensing her head was on the block, had worked like the proverbial Trojan these past few weeks, and though Jarred still sought to rid himself of her, since there was really no proof of her criminality, everything was on hold.

  Complication four: Jonathan Bryant was at Bryant Park Hospital, languishing and slowly declining from a slow shutdown of his entire system.

  And now, complication five: Kelsey herself was pregnant, and though she knew her husband loved her, she hadn’t forgotten how cold he’d been on this particular issue in the past.

  Slowly, she walked back toward their table. They’d taken half the day off to indulge Kelsey’s desire for high tea. It was a frivolous thing, but Jarred seemed to want to fulfill her every wish these days. The night Connor died Jarred had rushed Kelsey to a hospital emergency room, where her wound had been examined, cleaned, and stitched. She’d worried more about inhaling all those fumes, but as time progressed and no serious side effects emerged, she counted herself lucky that nothing worse had happened to her. But Jarred was a maniac about her safety now. Though he didn’t say it, her sudden decision to play detective (which had nearly cost her her life) was reason to keep his wife out of harm’s way forever. He’d become her constant companion, and even with the replacement of a current model Porsche and the repair and return of her Explorer, Kelsey found Jarred her driver and “bodyguard” at all times.