Elusive Echoes (35 page)

He was beginning to look uncomfortable and
she hated seeing her Sean so hurt and uncertain. "Mel?"

"I don't know what I'm going
to do without you, Sean. But we don't work. I'm broken.
We're
broken. Maybe we've
been broken since Nick took me away."

"Mel, don't do this." His voice was barely a
whisper. His eyes filled with hurt. He was pleading. But he wasn't
saying the words she needed him to say. He wasn't saying that he'd
never doubted her—or that he realized he'd been wrong to doubt
her.

"I made a mistake, Sean. But
I didn't make the mistake you think I did." Her gaze held his,
unwavering—she couldn't back down now. "I didn't know Denny was
pretending to be Dallas Northrop until you gave me his name Friday
night. I didn't know you were his mark. I was trying to figure out
who he was after, what his game was. But I didn't know it
was
you
. And I
never hid from you that he'd contacted me, that he was around. I
never would have helped him hurt anyone, but I would have died
myself before I let him hurt you or anyone in your family." She
shook her head. "It's knowing that you could believe I'd help him
that hurts more than anything else. Please, Sean. Take your ring
off my hand. I'm not going to marry you."

Slowly, he shook his head.

"You didn't trust me." Mel gripped the edge
of the bar, praying for the strength to keep herself upright. "You
still don't, not really. It doesn't matter how much I love you or
you me. That distrust will always get in our way."

Sean swallowed. He stepped toward Mel,
reached for her with a hand that visibly trembled. Holding just her
fingertips, he brushed his thumb over the emerald of her ring.
Then, leaving the ring in place, he folded her fingers closed. "No.
I won't take it off you. We can get through this."

"I don't think so." She
straightened her fingers in his grasp but didn't pull away. "Tell
me you never doubted me, or you doubted me but you know now I'm
telling you the truth. Tell me you believe me. Tell me
honestly
what you think
happened, Sean."

He stared. "I love you. I don't want to lose
you."

Her heart wanted to explode with all the
love she held back. His touch was killing her resolve by inches.
But this had to end now. And one of them had to be strong enough to
end it. "I can see the doubt in your eyes. Even after I told you
what happened. I can see you're still wondering if I'm lying to
save myself. You still think I played some role—willing or
unwilling—in my brother's game. If you can't look at me and tell me
honestly that you have no more doubts, then take your ring off my
finger."

He met her eyes, his mouth worked silently.
She held her breath. Then, slowly, he pulled his hand away.

As she felt the ring being slipped off her
finger, she closed her eyes against the soul-wrenching pain of the
loss. When she opened them again, he was staring at her, his eyes
filled with so much emotion it was almost tangibly in the room.

"Mel, if it—if you find out you're—"

Ah, yes, the pregnancy thing. She pulled in
a deep breath and let it out again. "Don't worry, I won't sell
another baby."

His face turned red with anger. "That's not
why I asked. I'd want to know, Mel. I want to help. I'll be there
for you."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't
have said that. But as it turns out, I'm not pregnant. You're off
the hook."

"Oh." His face seemed to collapse in on
itself, and he averted his gaze downward for a moment. When he
raised his face, a muscle worked in his jaw. "How—how do you
know?"

"They ran a blood test in the hospital so
they could take x-rays of my leg and give me meds."

He stood still, just looking at her, abiding
sadness in his eyes.

Unable to resist, Mel leaned toward him and
pressed a soft kiss against the corner of his lips. "Goodbye,
Sean."

He stared at her, the pain in his eyes
reaching out to her, filling her. He laid her keys on the bar. Then
he turned and silently left the way he'd come in, through the
kitchen.

"I love you," she whispered to the empty
room.

Pulling the folded piece of
paper from her pocket, Mel straightened it and reread the
instructions on the discharge papers from the hospital.
Followup obstetrical appointment to confirm
probable early pregnancy.

As Mel picked up her keys, she saw it. The
fire of green emerald, the ice of white diamonds. He'd left the
ring with her keys.

****

Sean walked slowly toward Ryan, where he
waited in his vintage Corvette. Each step was one more step away
from Mel, widening the gap of the fresh laceration in his heart. As
if knowing his brother needed the silence, Ryan drove without
speaking. Sean watched the miles tick by, only by the sheer force
of his will not telling Ryan to turn around so he could beg Mel to
take him back. His eyes kept sliding to the side mirror, wishing
he'd see the red Jeep chasing after them.

They hit the outskirts of town, and Ryan
pulled over at the switchback where Mel had slid off the road.
"She's not following us."

Sean went cold but he met Ryan's look. "I
didn't think she would."

"Yet you keep looking for her in the
mirror."

So his brother had noticed how hopeless he
was. "Is this where you give me the lecture?"

"No," said Ryan softly. "It's where I ask
you why you look like she ripped your heart out and stomped all
over it."

Sean sighed. It was a shaky sound, even to
his ears. He couldn't stop the tremors that originated deep inside
him and just kept rolling over him.

"I think we both pretty much did that to
each other. We—she broke off the engagement."

Ryan stared. "That's . . . surprising. Want
to talk?"

"Not really." Sean continued to look at the
place where Mel's car had gone off the road. "But I think I need
to."

He opened the door and got out, walking to
the black skid marks on the pavement. He tried to imagine Mel in
her car, skidding on the wet pavement, scared. Alone.

Ryan approached slowly.

Sean drew a deep breath. "She's hurt because
I didn't trust her. I think . . . if I could have told her I had no
more doubts, it would have been okay."

"What do you have doubts about?"

Sean sighed. "She didn't tell me she
recognized her brother, that he was pretending his name was
Northrop. She said she was trying but we kept getting
interrupted."

He looked at the embankment Mel had nearly
gone over. The scene in front of him darkened, morphed into leaping
flames. The sound of the wind blowing through the pines became the
blow of the fire through the center of the stable. Sean's mind
added the screams he'd heard from inside the flames, some of which
he knew were from the trapped horse and some from Mel, but he'd
been unable to tell the difference. And each terrified scream had
ripped his soul to shreds.

Sean felt Ryan's hand on his shoulder. "You
okay?"

He brought himself back to the road. Slowly,
he shook his head. "No. I don't think so. Friday night, after we
got the horses out and she attacked Denny, the things he said to
her . . . it felt like they'd been working together."

"Yeah, I picked up that you thought that,
but I never knew why. So it was all because of what DeVayne said?"
Ryan gestured to the scar at the edge of the road. "That must have
been a pretty bad accident. It took a lot of force to break the
axle. She must have been going the full speed limit when her brakes
failed."

"It could have killed her." Sean's heart
squeezed in his chest.

"Doesn't really sound like the kind of thing
a person would do to his partner in crime—at least not before the
con was finished."

Sean shrugged. "Maybe it was a way to keep
her in line, warn her about something."

Incredulity flared in Ryan's
eyes. "Are you
looking
for reasons not to trust her?"

Sean emphatically shook his head.

Ryan tilted his head thoughtfully. "You
should think on that a little. It feels to me like you are."

Irritation sparked. "Why would I do that?"
And what would be the point now, anyway? Sean stalked back to
Ryan's car.

Ryan stared over the roof of the 'Vette.
"Only you would know." Then he climbed into the car and started
it.

Sean jerked on the handle, opened the door,
and climbed in.

Chapter Twenty

FBI Agent Julia Bronson met Mel at the bar
on Monday morning. She seemed kind on the surface, but Mel had
learned not to trust kindness, especially on the faces of law
enforcement officials.

"DeVayne is asking for a deal," said
Bronson. "He's offered proof that you and Mr. McGee were working
with him on this insurance scam."

"Whatever proof he has will turn out to be
fabricated." Mel shrugged. "Sean didn't even know that Denny was
posing as Northrop until the night of the fire. I know they weren't
working together." She set her jaw. "I know because Sean's mad at
me right now for not telling him Denny was pretending to be Dallas
Northrop."

"Why didn't you? Were you working with your
brother?"

Mel laid her uninjured hand flat on the bar.
"If I admit to knowing some of what he was up to, will you find a
way to give Sean a pass in your investigation?"

Bronson stared at Mel for a moment. Then she
shook her head. "I can't offer a deal."

"Then I'm afraid I have no information you
don't already know in this case. Excuse me a moment." Mel left the
bar and walked into the kitchen. She stood inside the double doors,
waiting for a beat, then grabbed two bottles of water from the
fridge and re-entered the main barroom.

Bronson was waiting patiently. "Ms.
Mitchell, truthfully, we're after the people who changed the tattoo
on the horse's lip. We don't know if your brother got involved
during the setup for this scam or if he saw an opportunity and took
it."

"How do you think I can help?"

"We want you to talk to your brother. We
think you may know him enough to be able to read him."

Mel shook her head. "It's been a long time.
I never knew him that well."

"Yet he sought you out to run this scam,
didn't he?"

Mel stared at the FBI agent. "Unbelievable.
Guilt by unfortunate breeding? I'm his sister so I must be working
with him by default?"

Bronson consulted a small black notebook,
taking her time leafing through the pages. She looked up with an
unapologetic shrug. "We have enough evidence to start the process
of looking at you for conspiracy to commit fraud."

"You have nothing."

"We have DeVayne and whatever he gives us on
you and McGee."

"You don't get it. You have
nothing because there
is
nothing. Denny's playing you. Wait here a minute."
Mel slipped down the hallway to the office. Yanking open the top
desk drawer, she pulled out a well-used deck of cards and returned
to the bar where Bronson waited.

While the agent watched, Mel carefully
selected the king, queen, and jack of spades. She laid them out in
a row, asked Bronson to choose one. Bronson reacted with a raised
eyebrow.

"Humor me." Mel waved her hand over the
cards between them. "Please."

Bronson chose the queen of spades.

Her movements were awkward because of her
bandaged hand, but Mel managed to find her old rhythm. Flipping the
cards, she moved them around several times, then asked Bronson to
pick out the queen. She pointed and Mel turned over the queen.

She shuffled the cards, moved them about,
and again Agent Bronson found the queen. On the third try, Mel
added in some hand flourishes with her other hand. Slightly
distracted, it took Bronson longer but she found the queen. Next,
Mel laid out the cards, added more elaborate hand flourishes, and
then began talking.

"Where's the queen? Which card bears your
lucky lady? Only three cards, which one's your girl? Will you find
the love of your life?"

Julia Bronson hesitated longer, then pointed
at a card. Mel lifted the king of spades. Bronson's eyes went wide.
Mel showed her where the queen was and she nodded.

"Do that again."

Mel flipped the cards, laid them out,
shuffled them around. "Where's the lucky lady? Only three cards to
choose from. Everyone's a winner. Just find the lucky lady."

She stopped and Bronson pointed decisively
to a card. Mel lifted it to show the jack of clubs.

Bronson shook her head. "I was so sure." She
chuckled. "Okay, one more time."

Mel flipped over the jack, showed Bronson
where the queen had been, then laid the cards out and began mixing
them up again. "Find the queen, you're a winner. The lucky queen's
in here. Only three cards to choose from. Flip over the queen, you
win the game."

Bronson pointed to a card. Mel lifted the
king of clubs.

The FBI agent shook her
head. "I can usually spot these." Confused, she reached out and
flipped over all the cards. King of spades, jack of spades and king
of clubs. "What on
earth
?"

"Looking for this?" Mel turned her hand over
to reveal the queen of spades nestled against her palm. "She hasn't
been in the running for the last six tries, ever since you found
the king of spades." Mel demonstrated by showing the queen then
deftly sliding her out of the way to show a second card in her
hand. "I can show her to you whenever I want to but she hasn't been
on the board for you to pick. Agent Bronson, just like in this
little variation of the shell game, you have nothing. Denny took
himself out of the running when he decided to throw his marks at
you as a smoke screen."