A Lesson in Love and Murder (30 page)

He blinked his eyes into focus. Steadied his hand, his finger light on the trigger. Jasper was bleeding now. “Drop your knife, Tony,” Ray said.

“You won't kill me,” Tony challenged. “In front of your pretty wife? Kill the father of your little nephew?” But now fear undercut his words.

Ray squinted and closed his left eye, focusing his right. He had the advantage. He had the shot.

He couldn't look after he flicked his index finger. The bullet was expelled with force from the barrel and met its target quickly.

He let the gun drop. It fell to the ground with a dull clang.

Then he raised his eyes and focused on Jem, who stood, frozen save for her trembling shoulders, against a column nearby. She looked at him with big, pleading eyes, her hand still fingering the sticky wound at the back of her head. Part of him wanted to press her to him and hold on for dear life, but
she
was there and Tony was on the ground, and
she
was to blame.

If
she
hadn't been in Chicago. If
she
hadn't followed Merinda into this mess. If
she
hadn't insisted on coming to the bank, then maybe… maybe… Tony wouldn't have picked up the gun and sparked Ray's ire and…

Spots danced above his eyes, and every bone in his body seemed gelatin. He stole a look at Tony, but his eyes were blurred, and he couldn't make out his features: just a slumped figure whose life had drained away. He crossed himself quickly and backed away. He had words. So many. They were all bottled up, and he thought they might choke him. He looked to Tony again, but it made his heart beat faster and his hand shake and black dots stab behind his eyes. He took a few deep breaths, swallowed down the nausea in his throat, and turned to Jem.

“You!” Ray said coldly, stabbing Jem with his eyes, unable to even raise his stilted voice to a yell. “Jem. How could you?” His voice had stopped on her name before it tripped out the rest of the question.

If Jem could look even more horrified, she did at that moment, slightly shaking her head and covering her hand with her mouth.

“I wanted him behind bars, and you made me send him to his grave!” His voice cracked, giving Jasper the opportunity to rise and attempt to take command of the situation.

“Ray! Calm down,” Jasper said. “This wasn't Jem's fault. You did what you had to.”

But Ray had nothing to say, looking wildly between Jem and Jasper, hand shaking uncontrollably. Then he looked at Tony, and his hand shook faster still.

A blast of shock. He put his hands over his face. “She'll never forgive me.”

A split second. That was all it took for the ground to rumble and the blast to shock through them. Merinda knew and Benny knew what the smoke and dust signified, but their eyes wouldn't meet. Then they had to run as people spilled out and police whistles blew. Benny looked left and right, dashed back to the scene, dropped his notes and the map of the Coliseum, and then sprinted back to Merinda and away from the scene.

“What did you do back there?” she panted once they had stopped. They'd reached the safety of Wabash Street and had blended with the crowd.
*

“Set them off our trail.” Benny's voice was low and lifeless. “Like wearing your snowshoes backward.” He stopped. “Something… ” But he couldn't say Jonathan's name. “He was my hero.” Benny's voice cracked. “He was always my hero. He still is, Merinda. The sun rose and set by him. I believed in him.” He straightened his shoulders. Swallowed. Merinda watched him try to gain composure that could shatter at any moment.

Merinda blinked. She didn't want Benny to see her eyes mist. She was certain that her ears would still make out the phantom sound that had sickeningly followed the blast. There was nothing scarier than silence. Not shrieks or threats or the lick of flame sizzling a wire. Not when the alternative was nothing.

Benny continued. “And I always wanted to be him, to outrun him, to be the best at everything. Though I never would be.”

“He loved you, Benny. He saved our lives. He saved all those people too.”

“It was a waste, though. The smartest and most talented man I have ever met.”

“You might be talking about yourself,” Merinda said impetuously, her eyes washing over his sad features.

“Sorry?”

She cleared her throat. Maybe it was the sentimental side she rarely showed reacting to his loss. But she knew the same pedestal he used for Jonathan she used for him. “That's exactly what I think of you. You're smart. You're resourceful. There is nothing you cannot do. There is nowhere you cannot go and no person you could not be.” She paused, thinking he might fill the silence. He didn't. “I think you can live a brilliant and daring life in his memory, Benny. That's what I think, and cracker jacks, you'll be a corker at it!”

“Jonathan died a criminal.” He had trouble getting the sentence out.

“Oh, he was so much more than that.”

“You don't know that.”

“I remember the way you first talked about him. How he first fell in with the anarchists.”

Benny nodded “He was always larger than life.” His palm had a mind of its own as it reached up and cupped her cheek. At first the tingled touch resulted in her soft retreat, but then she settled and his hand rested there. “Like you,” he said.

Merinda smiled and didn't back away. “Like you.”

*
Well, as much as they could blend in with red faces and soot all over their hands.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-O
NE

In all matrimonial endeavors, a woman must not expect to be comforted, but rather to provide comfort. A wife's delicate nature is conditioned to console and put at ease. Whatever worry or hurt nags you, it must take second place to the plight of your husband.

Flora Merriweather,
Guide to Domestic Bliss

R
ay's fist was balled by his side, his knuckles white, squeezing away the reflexes that had sent Tony to his death. The friction between his two worlds was extreme, and while Viola kept branding herself on his mind, here was Jem,
his
Jem, shivering and terrified. His whole new family, unexpected and probably undeserved, seen through a film of tears.

She was slumped against a wall, shivering and hiccuping away her sobs. Ray walked slowly toward her. He wasn't needed for the moment; Jasper was handling the police matters with his usual aplomb.

Ray leaned down, took a damp strand of hair that tickled her face, and tucked it behind her ear. Her eyes glistened with relief.

His ear popped and crackled. His whole body felt out of balance as he lowered himself beside her. He didn't reach for her at first but rather let their shoulders brush. After a moment in which they both dazedly stared ahead, seeing nothing, she lay her head on his shoulder, her nose colliding with his collarbone. He stole his arm around her trembling shoulders and pulled her in so tightly he wasn't sure
where he ended and she began. He tucked her head with its hatless, haphazard curls under his chin, and he put off breaking Viola's heart for a few moments longer.

Several moments later, much calmer, she lifted her head and looked straight at him in the filmy sunlight. “It's my fault. A-about Tony.”

Ray shook his head. “No, it's mine,” he said hollowly.

“You saved Jasper.” She gripped his arm.

“I know.”

“And I know if we turned back the clock, you would make the same choice.”

“I wanted him gone so badly. Selfishly. And I feel guilty about that. I wanted to have a life with you. Our life, Jem. Our family. And we could never have that. Not with him dragging Vi around everywhere and treating her so poorly.”

“We will have our life.”

“Your eyes,” he said, pushing away the inevitable a few moments more, “they're so big. Jem, you undo me when you look up at me like that.”

She coyly said in her rusty, tired voice, “You think my eyes are beautiful.”

“I think
all
of you is beautiful.” He couldn't keep his voice from cracking. He wanted to kiss her so deeply that they forgot the world they knew was crumbling around them. He wanted to kiss her so tightly he forgot the world entirely, but his hand was still shaking and a phantom stain was there.

Jasper followed Merinda into her suite. Half-open cases were strewn about the room with socks, garters, and all manner of clothing, feminine and masculine, spilling out.

The dissonance she had felt between them since that day outside
Osgoode Hall and Jones's death had apparently evaporated, that curtain pulled back and their easy camaraderie in place.

“Ray chose me,” he said, and his voice was hollow as if he were standing outside of himself looking back. “And I am not sure I can ever repay that.”

Merinda coughed uncomfortably, bounding on with her own story, having experienced a sacrifice of her own. “Benny wanted to bring Jonathan in for justice.” She looked up at Jasper. “But he didn't have the jurisdiction to arrest a man outside of Canada, and Benny always follows the rules, doesn't he?” She laughed sourly. “And he thought he could come here and there would be another ending?”

“There could have been,” Jasper said with his customary optimism, but then his sad eyes met Merinda's and lingered there awhile.

Merinda rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Home
was a promise she couldn't wait to have realized. “Did anyone ever learn the identity of the corpse DeLuca found at the docks?”

Jasper shook his head sadly. “The price of this business, Merinda. More likely than not he was some poor immigrant from Toronto promised a chance at doing something great. Maybe he got on the wrong side; maybe they worried he would let the truth slip.” Jasper's eyes flittered up and out the window at the grand city surrounding them. “There are too many other people. Important people. With money and names and influence. And men like that corpse are anonymous. They're swallowed up by all of this.” Jasper shook his head. “I doubt anyone will ever notice he's gone.”

“I'm sorry about that. Every life is valuable.”

Jasper looked up. Their eyes locked. “Yes. Yes, I believe that too.” He smiled. “Merinda, I wish that Tipton and the police saw everyone as valuable. That there weren't tiers: layers where some are valuable because of status or situation and others commodities and others just the result of collateral damage. It can save lives when we take time to look at one person and not just see him as the bottom rung. Men like David Ross… if they felt valued. If they had been shown compassion and worth, we wouldn't be standing here mourning what has been.”