Not that that mattered, ultimately. If they were waiting for her to make a move, they were doomed to disappointment. She was too afraid of being laughed at to chase after them.
She’d wanted Caleb desperately enough to overcome her fatal character flaw of cowardice and
that
had been a total disaster! She still cringed when she thought about her encounter with Simon that day.
Joshua returned to the chair he’d been occupying before when the doctor finally left. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you under twenty-four hour watch until we can move you to a more secure location.”
Anna blinked at him in shock, her mind erupting immediately into disorder. “We didn’t get him?”
Joshua’s face tightened. “We caught the bastard alright.”
He didn’t elaborate. He seemed disinclined to do so, and that made her more uneasy.
“But? It isn’t over, is it? You think he might still try something.”
Joshua shifted uncomfortably. “Simon planned to brief you on all of it once we got you out of here. You need to focus on getting better.”
“Worrying isn’t going to help me do that,” Anna said pointedly.
Joshua blew out a breath of disgust and grinned at her a little sheepishly. “I knew I’d stick my foot in it,” he muttered, then frowned. “I guess they did, too, and that’s why …. I just ….” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus! I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting you out of there before the place blew. I’m not used to women!” He sent her a horrified look and blushed fierily. “What I meant to say is, being around them …. That didn’t come out right.”
Anna touched his hand, curled her fingers around it and held it. “Stop beating yourself up about that, ok? I thought we’d covered that? You weren’t being careless. There wasn’t time to … worry about anything but getting as far away as possible and taking cover! I know that and I know you weren’t being deliberately rough or inconsiderate. In all honesty, I think it was just a freak accident. I’ve fallen down plenty of times and never broke anything before.”
“Yeah, well that might’ve been because you didn’t have me on top of you,” he said dryly.
“And I would’ve been hurt a lot worse if you hadn’t been! I do remember that you were hurt because you were shielding me with your body!”
He looked like he wanted to argue it further, but she redirected him to the previous conversation. She would’ve suspected he’d been deliberately trying to sidetrack her if he hadn’t still looked so miserable about it.
“Just tell me what’s going on. I’m not nearly as fragile as you seem to think and I’ll worry a whole lot more not knowing why all of you are worried.”
He shrugged. “I guess we’d rather err on the side of caution than dismiss any possibilities after what happened. I don’t think any of us really thought he would bother you again—before. Now ….” He shrugged again. “Well, you
are a witness and he’s a dangerous man. None of us wanted to take any more chances with you. So Simon ordered a ‘round the clock armed guard at your door.”
She studied his face. He had an honest face, not just a handsome one, and she thought she could trust her instincts. He was still holding something back. “What else?”
He cleared his throat. “We want to hold you in protective custody when they let you out of here.”
Anna was more thrilled at that prospect than unnerved by what it suggested.
“You do? Would I … be staying at your place?”
He blushed. “That was the plan. It’s actually not protocol considering ….” He stopped abruptly and sent her a look that was clearly horror at what he’d almost said. It intrigued her and amused her at the same time.
“What I mean is …,” he began again after clearing his throat uncomfortably, “we thought it would be the best place even though it isn’t the most ideal given the circumstances.”
She desperately wanted to ask him what ‘the circumstances’ was, but he looked so adorably miserable that she took pity on his discomfort. She hadn’t realized that he was as bashful as she was. He hadn’t seemed that way before, just quiet and rather introverted. Maybe he was more like her than she’d realized, though? The more he liked someone the more awkward he was?
She didn’t have any trouble at all when she was focused on areas within her comfort zone—science—especially when she was around people she had no particular interest in. The very moment it mattered to her what they thought of her, though, she lost half her IQ and began to behave so awkwardly that she embarrassed herself.
She wasn’t sure she should interpret his behavior that way, but it pleased her to think it might be a possibility.
“And this would be ... until he goes to trial?” she asked.
“Until we have a better idea …. Well, can come up with a more permanent … uh … arrangement.”
The more he stumbled around, the more she wanted to probe. She sensed there was something else he was worried about, though, and, since he looked so miserable and she also wanted to make him more comfortable, she steered away from her questions.
“Simon didn’t manage to get the evidence he’d hoped for?” she asked tentatively after she’d probed her memory for a few moments.
Joshua’s expression hardened and he was instantly transformed into ‘lawman’.
“Nothing that’s going to put a noose around his neck. He’s an oily snake. We got a hell of a lot of ‘suggestive’, but nothing unbreakable. With a good lawyer, and he can afford the best, he stands a very good chance of wiggling out from under what we have on him. It’s too vague and open to interpretation.
“Right now the only thing concrete we’ve got to hold the bastard on, is attempted murder of a watchman.”
Anna’s heart skipped several beats. “Who?” she gasped fearfully.
Joshua sent her a panicked look. “Don’t start crying! He shot Simon, but he’s fine now. They’re letting him go home today. I don’t think they would’ve kept him this long except he lost a good bit of blood.”
Anna calmed herself with an effort. “But … doesn’t that mean he’ll go to jail?”
“He’s claiming he had no idea we were watchmen. He thought we were kidnappers and he was only trying to defend himself … and a lot more bullshit like that!
He’s a smooth bastard. I’ll give him that. He’s already countered everything we’ve thrown at him. His lawyers are demanding that he be tried in the states, saying that he won’t get a fair trial here … because we’re mutants and prejudiced against anyone that isn’t.”
“What about kidnapping me?” Anna demanded indignantly.
His expression twisted with anger and disgust. “Paul Warner actually did the kidnapping. If he survives from the hole your father blew in him trying to shoot Simon, he may be willing to turn on his boss, but we aren’t counting on it. In any case, Cavendish is your father. He could claim that he’d only asked Paul to pick you up and you’d gone willingly.”
“But I could testify that I didn’t!”
He looked uncomfortable. “It would just be your word against his and he could discredit you by saying you were angry with him about something and were lying to get back at him. The jury might or might not buy it, but it’s thin.”
“He blew up my house.”
“Paul blew up the house.”
“But it was on his orders! I heard him ask Paul if he’d taken care of it.”
Joshua looked doubtful and angry. “Did he say, specifically, ‘did you blow up the house like I told you to?’”
Frustration surfaced. “No. He just asked him if he’d taken care of it, but he couldn’t have meant anything else when Paul did blow it up!”
“He could say he did, though. Unless Paul recovers, like I said, and is willing to spill his guts …. Anyway, that happened outside of our jurisdiction, technically. We can’t charge him with it and we haven’t told the Water City PD that we suspect him of being behind it, either—they’d demand extradition. We don’t want to take a chance on placing you where he could have someone else grab you. Whatever his motives were before, Anna, you’re a witness and Miles Cavendish doesn’t strike us as the sort of man that would let sentiment come between him and his goals. If it comes down to the possibility of going to prison if you testify, your life could be on the line.”
She already knew that and it still set her heart to squeezing painfully. “The paddler!” she exclaimed abruptly. “Did it get blown up?”
Joshua looked at her strangely. “I don’t know.”
“Can you find out?” she asked urgently.
“I might be able to,” he said doubtfully and somewhat reluctantly.
Anna studied him uneasily. “What aren’t you telling me?”
His lips tightened. She could see he was reluctant to tell her and the moment he realized there wasn’t any point in trying to keep it from her. “Cavendish’s organization has been blaming the explosion on mutant terrorists. There’s a lot of anti-mutant sentiment in the states right now. I don’t know if the Water City PD would be inclined to cooperate. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’ve shifted the focus of their investigation into the bombing to us.”
Even though Anna had thought it was a possibility, she was horrified and furious.
“That low down bastard! I
knew
that had to be part of the reason he’d done it!”
Joshua looked at her curiously. “What do you think the other part was?”
She looked at him unhappily. “My research. I made a copy and put it in the paddler. I was going to take it out to Simon and Ian to keep it safe, but Paul grabbed me before I could.”
Joshua still looked doubtful. “I’ll do what I can. I can’t make any promises.”
“I know, but it’s really important! If I just knew it was safe! I’d put my data chip in my reader and sort of slipped it under the seat in the paddler. There’s got to be at least a chance it survived the explosion.”
He took her hand and lifted it. “I’ll try, baby,” he murmured, brushing his lips lightly across her knuckles. “I know how important it is to you.”
Anna felt her throat close. He was so sweet! He’d almost gotten himself killed trying to save her and all he could think about was that he hadn’t been careful enough!
And the worst of it was that he felt so badly about it when she honestly thought it had been a freak accident that she’d been hurt. There hadn’t been time to worry about anything but speed, but she didn’t recall that he’d been particularly rough with her.
She’d cracked her head because the
explosion had thrown them both down! And she was pretty sure she’d cracked her ribs because she was too busy trying to see if Simon and the others got out to be paying attention to her own situation.
* * * *
Caleb’s eyes were still glittering with brooding anger when they reached the home he shared with Simon, Ian, and Joshua. It dampened Anna’s excitement over the many gifts she’d gotten from the other watchmen in appreciation for her warning that had saved their lives.
Not that she felt comfortable about that part. She’d gone with her intuition and warned Simon. He’d taken care of getting everybody out. Besides that, she felt guilty by association since it had been her father that had planted the explosives, or had them planted, to start with.
No one had given her a gift of any description since her mother had died, though, and it had felt like Christmas on steroids when all the watchmen that had taken part in the raid had come to see her and brought a gift—almost too thrilling for words.
Caleb hadn’t said anything when she wanted them loaded up to take with her, but she could see he didn’t like it at all.
She had mixed feelings about that. The gifts were
hers, after all, and she certainly had no intention of slighting the men who’d brought them by discarding them! That would be just too rude!
It made her unhappy, though, that Caleb seemed to be angry with her about it—and resentful. It had made her feel guilty, as if she’d done something wrong.
And pretty damned miserable all the way around, actually! She’d been so thrilled when he’d come to collect her, and not just because she was sick to death of the hospital.
She’d been hungry for the sight of him, anxious to see that he really was alright. She’d been hopeful that she might get a kiss at the very least—talk to him, see him smile, listen to him telling her news if nothing else, anything! Instead, he’d taken one look at the mound of gifts, flipped through the cards, and … sulked about it ever since.
She was eager to retreat to whatever room they’d given her by the time Caleb had helped her climb out of the little sub and into the atrium. She discovered when she, Caleb, and Joshua reached the living area, though, that Simon and Ian were waiting. Her heart instantly took flight. Relief and hopefulness beat in her breast as she looked them over anxiously to be sure they were alright.
Simon flicked a look at her that he might have trained on a complete stranger. “I know you’re probably tired and anxious to settle in, but I thought we’d just take a preliminary statement from you before you go to your room since we haven’t had the opportunity before
.
The swiftness of her descent from hopefulness to dismay was almost nauseating.
It took her several moments to recover enough to realize everyone was waiting for her to sit down. She settled in the spot it seemed they’d left for her on the couch. The urge to draw in upon herself was strong enough that she’d already drawn her knees up before she realized she was still too bruised to sit that way comfortably. She settled for folding her legs together to one side, but that twisted her torso and it wasn’t actually very comfortable either. Her ribs were pretty much healed, or knitted anyway, but she thought it would probably be a long while before she could move or sit or breathe ‘normally’ without discomfort.
Simon leaned forward and set a recording device on the low table between the two facing couches. “Now, Dr. Blake, if you could just tell us in your words what happened on the night of April, 15th, 2098 ...?”
Anna stared at the recorder and then at him. “Where do I start?”
“Anywhere,” Ian said soothingly. “Just where ever you think it would pertain to the case.”
“Start with why you were in your yard so late in the evening.”
Anna studied Simon searchingly, wondering if there was an accusation in the way he’d said it or if she just felt like there was. “Could you turn that off? I mean, could I ask you something off the record first?” she added hastily when Ian and Simon exchanged a look that she thought was of suspicion.
Simon leaned forward and turned off the recorder.
“I was going out to talk to you and Ian. I’m just not sure I should say that on the recorder.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed on Simon. Simon’s face darkened faintly. “About what?”
“Actually, I just wanted to give you a copy of my research for safe keeping,” Anna amended.
Simon frowned. “And it was so urgent you needed to do it right then?”
She sent him a resentful look. “Well! Considering how nasty you were to me before, I certainly wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t thought it was urgent!”
His complexion darkened more noticeably. “Does it pertain to the case in any way?”
“Yes.”
“Then it should go in the statement.”
Anna was still doubtful when they’d seemed so angry that she knew someone was out there watching her, but she merely nodded and he turned the recorder on again.
“I discovered I’d made a break-through in my research.” She couldn’t help the excitement that threaded her voice as she brought the memories back. Before she knew it she was telling them about her attempts to find a way to cook the vegetable so that it would be edible.
Simon turned off the recorder. “I don’t think we need all that.”
She gaped at him a moment before indignation and irritation surged through her.
“You said ….”
“Yes, but I don’t see how it pertains to this.”
She glared at him. “If you’d let me finish, damn it, I’d explain it!”
Simon’s lips tightened. “This is only a sixty minute chip. At this rate it’ll be full before we get to the kidnapping,” he said with determined patience.
She supposed it shouldn’t have stung that they didn’t seem to have any interest at all in her work, but it did. She glared at him a little resentfully when he turned the recorder on again.
“The discovery I made was so significant,” she began again after a moment, “that I felt the need to protect it. I don’t really know why I had the sudden feeling that something might happen to it, but I did. I knew I was under electronic surveillance but not who it was. So I copied the files onto a storage chip and hid it in my reader. I thought I’d take it out to Officers Simon and Ian for safekeeping since I also knew they were watching in case my father tried to contact me again.”
Simon asked her for specifics of the conversation she’d had with Paul, but she’d been too afraid to recall it with clarity. She repeated it to the best of her memory and everything else that happened right up until Ian and then Caleb had burst into her room at the mansion.
He asked her a lot of questions pertaining to her state of mind—specifically whether she’d felt like her life was in jeopardy—and finally turned off the recorder. She left them discussing it and headed toward the room she’d occupied before. Since nobody objected, she closed the door behind her and climbed into the bed, grateful to get the chance to stretch out, more tired than she ought to be when she hadn’t been out of bed more than a few hours.
Simon’s scent wafted to her as she cuddled the pillow beneath her head. She hadn’t known before he’d kissed her that it his bed, his room she’d been occupying. Her mind had catalogued that scent as a source of pleasure and comfort, though, and she knew the moment she inhaled it who it belonged to. It produced a sense of longing that made her chest feel tight, but it was comforting, too, soothing her rattled nerves and the vague sense of hurt that still lingered from the interview.
Simon had told her he was sorry when he’d kissed her that night. She hadn’t thought about it since, hadn’t even remembered it—only the kiss, and that had felt so much like good-bye that she hadn’t wanted to think about it. She discovered she still didn’t want to. It brought back the horror, the fear that he was going to die.
What had he meant, she wondered? That he was sorry he’d upset her that day?
She supposed he might have, but had the incident been significant enough to him for him to remember it?
Maybe he’d just meant that he was sorry he’d had to use her to find her father?
She didn’t suppose she’d ever really know.