Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Canyon) (27 page)

“I told him it was dangerous,” she said. “Michael thrived on danger. He lived for it. He couldn’t give it up.”

“He was a friend?” Sage asked gently.

“Ex-boyfriend,” Annie supplied, swinging Claire’s gaze in her direction. Ben said Annie always knew everything. No one ever quite knew how.

“We lived together for a while. I loved him once. I can’t believe he’s dead.” Fresh tears welled. Sage went into the bathroom and brought out a box of Kleenex. Claire grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Sage asked.

Claire rose shakily to her feet. “Michael’s dead. I don’t really have any choice.”

Twenty-Nine

“W
e got a problem.” Trace walked out of his glass-enclosed office just as Ben was leaving for the day.

“What is it?” He needed to get home. Mrs. McKenzie would have supper ready for him and Sam. He didn’t like to make them wait.

“Mark Sayers just called.” Sayers was a detective friend of Trace’s. “You know that journalist you mentioned? Claire’s old boyfriend, Michael Sullivan? They found him dead this morning in an abandoned warehouse.”

“Jesus. Does Claire know?”

“Detectives just left her house. She’s on her way to the morgue to ID the body. The thing is, Ben, according to Sayers, the guy wasn’t just killed, he was tortured. This is going to be really rough on her.”

Ben didn’t hesitate. She might not want to marry him, but right now she needed him, and he was going be there, whether she liked it or not. He headed for the door. “I’m on my way.”

* * *

Inside the Harris County Forensic Science building, Claire left Sage and Annie in the hall and walked woodenly beside Detective Castillo through the door leading into the refrigeration area of the morgue. Rows of stainless steel boxes held the remains of dozens of people. One of them was Michael.

Her throat closed up. Of all the endings she had ever imagined, she wouldn’t have guessed she’d be standing in front of a refrigerated box preparing to say a final farewell to the man she had once hoped to marry.

“Are you ready?” Detective Castillo asked.

Claire moistened her lips and nodded. A man in a white lab coat grabbed the handle, opened the stainless steel door and wheeled out a metal table. A white sheet was draped over the body, covering it from head to toe.

She moved closer, stared down at the outline of the man who had been so vibrant in life and now lay so silent.

Castillo stood beside her. “I need to warn you, Ms. Chastain, Michael’s death wasn’t easy.”

She looked up at him, her breath coming shallow and fast, not quite sure what he meant. Castillo nodded, and the black-haired lab tech pulled back the sheet.

“Oh, my God!” She almost didn’t recognize Michael’s battered face, his cheekbones smashed, cigarette burns on his forehead, one of his ears missing. There were bruises on his neck, more burn marks on his chest. She whirled away from the grisly sight, took a stumbling step backward, turned and felt hard arms go around her.

“It’s all right, angel. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

She swallowed, couldn’t speak.
Ben.
She clung to him, slid her arms around his neck and just hung on. She was shaking. Ben pressed her tighter against him.

“It’s...it’s Michael,” she said. “Oh, Ben.”

He looked over her shoulder, down at the man on the cold steel table. “It’s Sullivan,” he said to the detectives, followed by the rustle of fabric as the lab tech pulled the sheet back up over Michael’s battered and tortured body. “Let’s go.”

She let Ben take charge, let him guide her out the door, passing Sage and Annie in the hall.

“I’ll take care of her,” he said, and as fractured as she felt, as raw and grief-stricken, she knew a moment of relief. Ben was there. Everything would be all right.

As he led her toward the door, Detective Castillo caught up with them. “Hold up a minute, Ben. I know how hard this is on her, but we need to ask her some questions.”

“Tomorrow, Castillo.” The detective was head of the gang division. Ben seemed to know him, had probably worked with him before.

“Now would be better,” the detective said as Ben urged her forward.

Claire took a deep breath and stopped. She looked into the detective’s face. “I want you to find the men who did this. I’ll help any way I can.”

Castillo nodded, led them into an interview room and closed the door. Ben sat down next to Claire. He reached over and took hold of her hand. “You sure you can handle this?”

“You saw what they did. They tortured him, Ben.”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“Thank...thank you for coming.”

He just nodded.

The interview didn’t take long. She didn’t know enough to really help. She repeated the few things Michael had told her, that he was working on a story that dealt with drug trafficking, that he had made connections with people in Colombia. He had hinted they were linked to people here. As upset as she was, she couldn’t think of anything more. She could hardly remember her own name.

She swallowed, tried not to think of Michael’s smiling face the last time she had seen him, or the brutalized face in the morgue. “He said...said the story could be big. That’s all I know.”

Castillo asked a few more questions, but it was clear Michael hadn’t really confided in her.

“I wish I knew something more helpful. I should have paid more attention.” But much of the time they had been together, she had been thinking of Ben.

“You did the best you could,” Castillo said.

“What...what about his body?”

“Will you be handling the funeral arrangements?”

“No. I—I can give you his parents’ phone number. They live in California. They’ll want to claim the body and make arrangements for the...the funeral.”

And they wouldn’t want anything to do with her. Not since she and Michael had ended their relationship. They faulted her entirely for the breakup.

Castillo shoved to his feet. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Claire swallowed, nodded. Ben helped her out of her chair and guided her into the hall. She felt weak and disoriented, slightly sick to her stomach.

“I came with Sage and Annie,” she said. But they were already gone.

“I’m taking you to my house.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want Sam to see me like this.” Her face tear-streaked, her makeup smudged. “He’s had enough grief. Please, Ben.”

He clenched his jaw. He knew she was right. As soon as they got into his car, he phoned his house. He told Mrs. McKenzie he would be late getting home and asked the babysitter to spend the night.

Ben drove her back to her apartment and escorted her up to her door, took her key and let her in. He led her down the hall to her bedroom and began to strip off her clothes. She stopped him before she was completely naked.

“I can’t, Ben. Not tonight.”

He stepped back as if she’d given him another slap. “Jesus, Claire, do you really think I’m that bad? Don’t you know by now, I’d never do anything to hurt you?”

Not on purpose. She knew that. She went into his arms and they closed tightly around her. Her heart ached with love for him.

For long moments, they just stood there, Ben holding on to her, Claire with her head on his shoulder. He tipped her chin up, brushed a soft kiss over her lips then moved off in search of something for her to wear. He found her nightshirt, handed it to her and turned away while she unhooked her bra and pulled it on. Drawing back the covers, he waited while she slid between the sheets.

“Try to get some sleep. I’ll be out on the sofa if you need anything.”

“You don’t...don’t have to stay.”

“Yeah, I do.” He started for the door, then turned back and paused. “Were you still in love with him?”

She swallowed, tried not to see Michael’s shattered, bludgeoned face. “No. We were just friends.”

Some of the hardness left his features. His shoulders seemed less tense as he walked out the door.

Fatigue washed over her. She was tired clear to her bones. Yet every time she closed her eyes, she saw Michael’s face, the crushed bones, the cigarette burns, the hole where his ear had been cut away.

Her stomach rolled. She was afraid she might be sick. She must have made a sound because Ben appeared in the doorway.

“You all right?”

She tried to nod but a sob welled up in her throat. Ben didn’t hesitate, just walked over and climbed into bed beside her. Stretching out on top of the covers, he pulled her into his arms.

Time seemed to blur. She could feel the warmth of his hard body, hear his even breathing. As her eyes drifted closed, she felt safe and protected. The odd thought occurred that she felt loved.

Claire wondered how that could be.

* * *

Lying on the weight bench in his study, his body drenched in sweat, Ben pressed the three-hundred-pound bar a couple more times, then set the barbell on the rack above his head. He was back to his normal workout routine, hitting it hard this morning to work off some of his frustration.

Just after dawn, he’d left Claire sleeping and returned home. She’d taken Michael Sullivan’s death hard, but he knew her well enough to know that seeing anyone suffer the way Sullivan had would upset her badly.

He’d stayed with her last night, but he hadn’t wanted to be there when she awakened. He didn’t want to know what he would see in her eyes when she looked at him.

He’d been an idiot to think she would marry him. Claire would want love and commitment. She’d want happily ever after. He wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how to give her those things.

He glanced at the door, surprised to see his son standing in the opening. He got up from the weight bench, grabbed the towel off the rack, mopped his face and slung the towel around his neck.

“You’re up early.” He’d sent Mrs. McKenzie home when he’d come in this morning. Sam had still been sleeping. “You hungry?”

Sam eyed the heavy weights. “You’re really strong. Do you think I will be, too?”

“If you work at it. Staying in shape isn’t easy.”

“Mrs. McKenzie said you stayed with Claire last night. She said Claire was feeling bad.”

“Claire felt bad because one of her friends died.”

His expression turned somber. “Is she okay?”

“She will be. It takes a little time.”

He looked as if he knew exactly what that meant. “If you stayed at her house, you must not be mad at her anymore.”

He mopped at a trickle of sweat that ran down his chest. “I wasn’t mad at her.” It was the other way around. And after the way he’d botched things, he didn’t blame her. “We’ve both just been busy.”

“So she can come over sometime?”

Did he want her to? From the hopeful look on Sam’s face, he didn’t have much choice. “If she wants to.” Though he wasn’t sure she would.

“Claire likes you. Whenever I go over there, we talk about you a lot.”

Interest trickled through him. “That right? What’s she say?”

“She said you loved my mother very much. Did you?”

He had, but it seemed like another lifetime. “Yes. But it was a long time ago.” He thought of what Claire had told him. That Laura had ended their engagement in a way that would force him to go on with his life. To go after the dreams he would have given up for her. He hadn’t believed it at the time, but more and more he wondered if it could be true.

Was it possible to love someone that much?

Had Laura sacrificed everything for him?

Had he spent all these years keeping his emotions locked away for the wrong reasons?

“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” he said. “Then I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Okay.”

“You can watch TV till I get dressed, then you need to get ready for school.”

“Do you think someday you and Claire might get married?”

The words tightened a knot in his stomach. No chance of that happening now.

“I don’t think Claire wants to marry me.”

“If she did, would you?”

“I think you’d better go watch TV.”

Sam grinned and headed for the living room, flipped on the Disney channel.

Kids,
Ben thought. They took some getting used to.

After a breakfast of French toast and bacon, Ben took Sam to school. He usually rode the bus, which made Ben a little nervous, but Sam was making friends and he wanted the boy to fit in with the rest of the kids at school.

Once in a while Ben liked to drive him. He enjoyed watching him mix with the other kids as they all poured into the school building. He liked the feeling of being a father. Sometimes he still found it hard to believe.

After he dropped Sam off, he thought about calling Claire, see how she was feeling. In the end, he just went into the office and started working on the security plan he had been hired to design for the Hamilton Medical Center.

Trace would take care of the alarm system, but it was Ben’s job to work out the number of security guards that would be needed, figure where they should be stationed and organize their routine.

He hoped he’d be able to concentrate enough to get the job done.

* * *

Claire worked hard all day, trying not to think of yesterday, trying not to wonder what progress the police had made in solving Michael’s murder. Michael had been searching for information. That was his job as a reporter. But digging so deeply into whatever he was working on had managed to get him killed.

She thought of Ben and the way he had come for her last night, how he had been there when she needed him. Ben always seemed to be there when she needed him.

She was thinking about him when she got home from work. This time of year it got dark early, but she had left the porch light on and a lamp turned on in the living room. As she pulled up into the driveway, she noticed the front door standing slightly ajar.

Claire frowned. She’d locked it before she’d left that morning. Living in the city had taught her to be careful. Instead of pulling into the garage, she put the car in Park and turned off the engine, got out and walked up to the door. She wasn’t foolish enough to go inside until she knew it was safe, but she shoved the door open a little and looked into the living room.

Her heart jerked and started pounding. Oh, dear Lord! Hurrying off the porch and moving a safe distance from the apartment, she pulled her BlackBerry out with a trembling hand and dialed 911.

“My name is Claire Chastain. Someone broke in and vandalized my apartment.” She gave them the address and answered the dispatcher’s questions.

“Wait outside till the police get there,” the woman said. “They’re on the way now. Don’t go inside till they get there.”

“I won’t.”

“Stay on the phone with me while you’re waiting.”

“Okay.”

She was trembling when the white-and-blue patrol car rolled up. Two officers climbed out, one tall and thin, wearing aviator-style glasses, the other shorter and almost completely bald.