Indefensible (23 page)

Tuesday, 8:12 p.m.

I
t was a sign. The front door of Kate's house was wide open.

Randall shook his head. He was being ridiculous. He never believed in signs or omens. Or luck or lotteries. He made his own luck.

He climbed the faded wooden stairs to the porch, pulling his collar up around his neck. Kate had seen the marks already. But he didn't want her sympathy.

What did he want?

The sound of her belting away off key to a Taylor Swift song saved him from dwelling on the question. Her voice cracked on the final, quivering note. He smiled. His swollen cheek pressed up into his eye, protesting at the unfamiliar motion.

Jesus, he looked a mess.

He brushed a hand through his hair. It was still damp. He'd taken a quick shower at his hotel, then gone to his favorite wine boutique and bought a chilled bottle of
pinot grigio. He needed a drink. And he longed to have someone to talk to.

Kate seemed like the logical choice. She had been involved in this from the beginning. He wouldn't have to give her all the background.

Be honest, Barrett. This isn't a fucking legal briefing. You just want to see Kate.

Kate's dog rushed to the door. The husky eyed him with suspicion, pacing back and forth.

“Finn, is that you?” Kate called.

Finn
.

Who the hell was Finn?

“It's Randall.” His voice was still hoarse. He doubted Kate could hear him over her dog.

She appeared in the hallway, an anxious expression in her eyes, brandishing a paint roller. Her arm lowered when she saw him. “Oh.”

“May I come in?” No welcoming smile from her, he noted. Had she heard about the partners' meeting? He hadn't thought she would care. Maybe he was wrong. He stifled his disappointment and held out the bottle of wine. “I wanted to thank you.”

Her brows lifted. And then he remembered she'd used a bottle—the same label, in fact—to hit Nick's head.

His face burned.

“That's not necessary.” Her gaze held sympathy in it. But he sensed something else. Something that was holding her apart from him.

“I saw Charlie today,” he said. “She's doing all right.” Not great. But not getting worse, either. The lick of her tongue on his hand had almost been his undoing. This
animal had risked her life for him. And now she was paying for it.

Would Kate end up paying for helping him, too? Nina Woods wouldn't put up with anyone she sensed threatening her territory. And Kate, although her junior, could be perceived that way.

He knew he should just leave. Why was he dragging Kate into this mess? Hadn't she had enough disasters in her own life? He should walk away. He'd given her the wine. He'd said thank you.

He should just go.

Kate watched him, holding the doorjamb. He had an overwhelming urge to pull her against him. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and just feel. Not think. Just feel. He wanted to feel every bone, every curve, every breath until it was imprinted deep inside him.

“I'm glad to hear Charlie is holding her own.” Her smile seemed forced.

Go. Go now.
“May I come in?” he asked. “I'd like to talk to you.”

She stepped back. “Of course. I'm sorry, Randall.” He didn't know if she was apologizing for not inviting him in or if she was sorry for the fact his son had tried to kill him. Or if she was sorry his firm had literally thrown him out on his ass. Or if she was sorry his bad blood with Ethan was being relived with salacious glee on the front page of her friend's newspaper.

He followed her into the kitchen. The smell of fresh paint thickened the air. Drop sheets and newspapers lay scattered over the floor. Kate turned down the volume of the radio.

“Looks nice.” He gazed at the walls. He'd never been
in Kate's house before. She'd only bought it six months ago, he remembered. It still had an unlived-in air to it, as if the house hadn't completely come to terms with its new inhabitant. She was wise to paint it, to make it her own, to claim her place.

Kate smiled, this time genuinely. “Yes, it's amazing how a new coat of paint can really brighten up a place.”

“This is quite an old house, isn't it?”

She nodded, digging out a corkscrew from a drawer jumbled with those awkward cooking implements that never fit anywhere: whisks, wooden spoons, chopsticks, ice cream scoop. “At least one hundred years old.”

She turned her back to him, reaching for the wineglasses lined up on a tall shelf. His eyes drank in her toned thighs, the taut curve of her buttocks under her paint-spattered shorts. He noticed a trail of paint zigzagging down her calf muscle. He'd never seen Kate in shorts. He knew she had good legs, but he'd never guessed how good. He wanted to sweep his hand up the back of her leg and feel her skin, satiny and warm against his palm. He tore his gaze from her body. “So a house this old must have some secrets…”

She placed the glasses with great care on the counter. “Why do you say that?”

“Architecture is a passion of mine.” Admitting his deepest pleasure to Kate made him feel strangely vulnerable. He added, “I've nosed around a lot of old houses. They usually have a secret cellar or staircase, sometimes a ghost in the attic…” This was cocktail-party chatter, something he pulled out when his hosts lived in historic homes, usually to their delight. Not Kate. Her
gaze darted over to the closet on the other side of the kitchen.

She turned abruptly, digging the corkscrew into the bottle's cork, and leveraged it upward. He walked over to the closet. “These pantries often held secondary staircases. You know, for servants, et cetera.”

“You guessed it.” Her voice was flat. He couldn't see her face, but the tension in her body was unmistakable. “There's a staircase in there.” She poured the wine and brought him a glass. Pleasure softened her mouth as she tasted it. “Mmm. That's good.” She took another sip.

“It's one of my favorites.”

His gaze fell on the newspaper spread on the floor. Bad Blood Begins to Boil, it blared. Her eyes followed his. A picture of Ethan, frowning in concentration outside Dr. Feldman's house, was juxtaposed with a photo of Randall, tight-lipped, as he left the court the day his old friend's appeal of his murder conviction was denied. “I guess it's inevitable that they brought up the Clarkson file again,” she said. “I'm sorry, though. I know Nat Pitts.”

He shrugged. “Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me.” It was true. He could have cared less. Although he wondered how Ethan Drake felt about it. “Maybe because it's insignificant compared to what's happened.”

Kate's eyes met his. “I'm sorry about your son.”

His chest tightened. He stared out her kitchen window. Her yard was a typical city property: shrubs lining the boundaries, a garden with an assortment of perennials in the back. “He hates me, Kate.” He turned to look at her. “And I don't know why.”

She exhaled. “He's confused, Randall. He thinks he saw something that night.”

Randall's fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. He tipped it to his mouth so quickly that he drank more than he intended. The liquid stung the bruised flesh of his throat, but when it reached his belly, it was worth the discomfort. Warmth filled the hollowness.

“My son thinks I killed his mother.” He drained his glass. “Lucy is wondering now, too. She won't go near me.”

“I'm sorry.” She leaned back against the counter. Away from him.

“And now my partners think I did it.” He poured himself another glass. Wine splashed over the rim. “They don't even have any bloody evidence.”

What he couldn't say was that now he was wondering himself.

 

Kate stared at him. At this man who both attracted her and repelled her. A magnetic charge of desire and distrust. Ever since she set foot in McGrath Barrett eight months ago, he'd pulled her in. Then pushed her away. Right now, the pull was so intense, she put down her wineglass and gripped the edge of the counter with both hands.

Had Elise Vanderzell felt like this when Randall came to Toronto in June? Had she stood in the kitchen and hoped the counter would keep her from making a terrible mistake?

It hadn't.

Kate didn't want to be next. Because what came after terrified her.

She cleared her throat. “I'm not sure what the police have said to you, but they have reason to suspect you.”

His lip curled. “Let me guess. Your ex-fiancé has been on the case.” He drained his wineglass and reached for the bottle behind Kate.

She put her hand on his arm. “I think you should slow down.”

Putting her hand on his arm had been reflexive, an attempt to defuse his temper.
Wrong move.
The contact of her fingers on his bare forearm had been like a physical shock.

He lifted her hand. But he didn't relinquish it. Instead, he turned it over to inspect the palm. “How's the cut?”

She tugged her hand. But he wouldn't let go. “It's all healed now.”

His finger skimmed the red line of the jagged scar on her palm. She studied his bent head. Had she ever stood so close to him before? Probably, but not like this. Not when he studied her flesh as if it were the one thing, the only thing, that could save him right now.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He heard that telltale breath and turned his gaze up to her face. His eyes, ringed with bruised tissue, bloodshot from trauma and sleeplessness, searched hers.

Need. Desire. Fear.

She read it all.

With that one look, he had jumped over the barbed-wire fence of their distrust and she had no other protection from him.

“Please let go, Randall,” she whispered. She tugged her hand.

But he wasn't ready to admit defeat. “What's wrong?”

She looked away. “I know about Elise.”

His face paled. “What do you mean?”

“I know about her abortion.”

His fingers released her hand, reaching for the wine bottle. He poured another glass.

“How did you find out about it?”

“Ethan.”

“And you believed him?”

“The abortion clinic records don't lie, Randall.” She crossed her arms. “Were you the father?”

He exhaled heavily.

“Oh, God.”

Tuesday, 8:49 p.m.

“I
t's not what you think.” As soon as Randall uttered the words, he was disgusted with himself. He would not make excuses.

Kate crossed her arms. “I don't know what to think.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I found out in June that Nick had stolen money out of my bank account. I was furious. I went to Toronto to deal with him.”

“Why would he do that?”

He had wondered the same thing. “He was acting out. We had a rocky relationship.”

“Why?” Her eyes probed his.

“Jesus, Kate, I don't know! I tried! After Elise and I got divorced, Nick actually lived with me. But he had all these learning disabilities. It was too much for me. I couldn't handle my work and get him to all his appointments and spend hours every night doing his homework…” He pressed his lips together. At first he'd tried reasoning with Nick. Then pleading. Then his frustration
turned to anger. And that was the part Randall regretted. When he'd realized what he was doing, he'd tried to make amends. But it was too late. The damage was done.

“Nick went back to live with Elise. But it hurt our relationship. Then I moved to Halifax. Things got worse for Nick. He really struggled in school. But he was good at sports. Especially hockey.” Nick had been like a different kid on the ice. Confident. Successful.
Happy.
“But school got worse for him. After the third time he was caught cheating on a test, they kicked him off the team.” What a stupid punishment. To take away the only thing that made Nick tick. “It was the worst thing for him. He became moody. Then he stole money from my bank account at the end of May. Just when TransTissue blew up. And I was furious. More with Elise than Nick. I went to Toronto as soon as I found out…” He stared at the wall. “Elise and I had a terrible fight. I went to the hotel bar. Got drunk. I went back to the house to finish our argument. But the kids had gone out. She was drunk, too.”

Elise had taunted him, lashing out at him because he'd been angry with her. He knew her patterns, and he'd learned to leave. But that day in June, she'd deviated from her usual behavior. “She hit me. But I tried walking away.”

He stared into his empty glass. “She hit me again. She grabbed my arm and wouldn't let me leave until I apologized to her. And that was not something I was prepared to do.” If he'd apologized, would any of this have happened? Would Elise still be alive? “She started to get hysterical. She pounded my chest with her fists. I
grabbed her wrists to stop her.” After all those years of fighting, he'd still been unprepared for her next move. “And she kissed me.”

Her kiss had been familiar and yet strange. Hungry, angry, laced with desperation. He should have pushed her away. He should have stopped her right there.

But he didn't.

He'd never intended to have sex with Elise. He didn't love her, didn't want her. But when she kissed him, he'd found himself kissing her back, wanting to prove to her that he was in control. Wanting to prove to himself that Kate Lange did not have a hold over him.

He'd sworn he'd never get involved with a lawyer in his firm, not after what Elise had put him through. Especially when his own position at McGrath Barrett was tenuous.

His worst impulses had driven that frantic coupling in Elise's kitchen. He'd pulled up her skirt, running his hands over the legs that had once been a site of worship, pushing his ex-wife against a wall as her hands grasped his buttocks with feverish need. He'd closed his eyes, unable to look at her face when she came.

As soon as it was over, he withdrew. She yanked down her skirt, her gaze mute with appeal.

Horror crept through his heart.
She still loved him.

And he knew, at that moment, what a terrible thing he had done.

He left.

His hangover the next day had nothing on the sick feeling of dread that had been born that night.

And now, here he was, standing in another kitchen and confessing his most grievous sin to the woman
from whom he could not distance himself no matter the lengths he'd gone. “It wasn't something I intended to do. I was overwhelmed.”
By you
.

Kate refused to meet his gaze. “Elise became pregnant.”

“I didn't know. She never told me. She had an abortion. The first I heard of it was when she arrived on Friday.”

The shock had been terrible. And yet, he had not been surprised. One did not cross a boundary like that without consequences. Fate had passed judgment on him.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn't love her, Kate.”

“Which makes it even worse.”

“I know.” The thought of Elise discovering she was pregnant, feeling she could not tell him, and then having a termination on her own made him feel like the worst kind of bastard. “I made a terrible mistake. And I will always regret it.”

Silence greeted his words. He glanced at Kate. Her eyes were shadowed. Was she reflecting on her own past? Or was she judging his?

“The police think you killed Elise because of this.”

“I know.”

Could he have?

“Did Nick know about it?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you think Nick really saw someone kill Elise?”

God, he hoped not. To think of an intruder bludgeoning Elise and throwing her over a balcony made him
feel physically sick. She'd been so vulnerable that day. So wounded.

And if that intruder had been him… Was he capable of that? Had the stresses of the past few months caused him to do something he'd never believe possible?

His guilt, which the wine had held at bay, now broke free of the alcohol's dead weight. “I don't know.”

“Do you think Nick did it?”

“God, no! He isn't like that. He's a gentle kid—” He felt Kate's eyes on the bruises mottling his neck. “Kate, he would never kill his mother. Never.”

“But you said yourself, he'd become moody—”

“I know my son!”

The words rang in the kitchen, echoing off the empty walls.

They were a hollow pronouncement. Kate wasn't convinced that Randall knew his son, nor was she convinced that Nick hadn't killed Elise. In fact, he was the prime suspect in her mind. But she was willing to play along with Randall. “So if Nick really did see someone that night, who was it?”

Randall stared at her.

She could read fear in his eyes.

“I don't know.”

His eyes pleaded with her to not ask the obvious question. For to put it into words would give the question a tangibility that neither of them were ready to confront.

They needed to rule out all the other possibilities before considering the unthinkable. “Could it have been a random intruder?”

Randall rubbed his neck, wincing when his hand
pressed on the bruising. “If it was a random intruder, he was very smart. He surprised her. There was no sign of struggle.”

“You said she took a sleeping pill, right? Could she have been so drowsy that she wouldn't have woken up?” Kate thought of her own sleeping-pill-induced sleep. She'd always felt that she could be roused if necessary. But now she wondered. Maybe Elise had been so deeply asleep she didn't hear the intruder. Could the same thing happen to her? What if someone crept up her stairwell and she didn't hear them because of the pill?

The same theory was even more compelling if Nick—or Randall—was the intruder. Elise would have trusted them and would have been even less alarmed—and thus less likely to shake off the effects of the sleeping pill—if they appeared in her bedroom.

Kate studied Randall.

“I don't know if she could have woken up,” Randall said. “I do know that the pill gave Elise strange side effects. Sleepwalking was one of them.”

Kate's chest tightened. The thought of Elise sleepwalking in the dead of night to her death was horrible. “Do the police know this?”

Randall's lips twisted. “They think I coaxed her into taking a pill be—”

“Because you called her that night.”

“No. She called me.”

Kate looked away. A slight flush had crept up her face.

“I hung up on her, Kate,” he said in a low voice. He would regret that, too, until the day he died. “She wanted me to come over.” He closed his eyes. “After
what happened in June, I didn't dare.” He was scared his guilt would overwhelm him and he'd succumb to the pain in her eyes. “I told her not to call me again.” She was crying when he disconnected the phone. He threw the receiver on his bed, drained the double scotch he'd been brooding over and headed downtown, the summer evening spurring his restlessness. He ended up drinking three too many double scotches. After that he lost count. “I'm not sure I can forgive myself.”

He hoped that was the only thing he couldn't forgive himself for.

She rubbed her arms. Her gaze was frank. “It's hard.”

“Everyone thinks I killed her, Kate.”

Do you?
he wanted to ask. But he didn't dare. Because he didn't think he could stand it. If she thought he did, he'd truly wonder if he'd done the unthinkable.

“The police have made this an official homicide investigation.” She looked at him over the rim of her wineglass. “I have a friend who is a reporter. It will be in the paper tomorrow. You should get a lawyer.”

“I already did. I hired Bill Anthony.”

“He's supposed to be the best.”

“I fired him.”

“Why?”

“Because his defense strategy was to implicate my son and ridicule my wife.” At that slip of the tongue, he darted a quick glance at Kate. The flush had crept higher in her face. “I don't know why I keep calling her my wife…” It was as if the stress had stripped away the varnish of indifference and revealed the rawness of his fractured family to him. He'd meant his vows when he
married Elise. She'd broken them. And even though he eventually left her and they had a thousand miles between them, it would seem that part of him had not accepted that his life with her was legally—and now irrevocably—over.

He cleared his throat. “I couldn't let Bill Anthony destroy whatever dignity she had left.”

She gave him a look he could not read. “So who are you going to hire to defend you?”

He'd been mulling that over since he'd walked out on Bill Anthony. He'd been thinking about Tony Maybourne. Tony dabbled in criminal law. But after that partners' meeting, he knew he would not hire any one of those lawyers who had closed ranks on him. Perhaps justifiably, from a perception point of view. But what about loyalty? Friendship? Integrity?

“Eddie Bent,” he said softly.

Kate jerked back. “Eddie Bent? Isn't he suspended?”

“I don't know.”

“Randall, he's a drunk. Everyone knows it. You need someone you can rely on. Someone you can trust. This could affect the rest of your life.” His lips twisted at her euphemism. What she meant was that if he was charged and convicted of murdering Elise, he'd end up in jail for twenty-five years.

“I trust Eddie. We've been friends since law school.” Eddie Bent had been a “mature” student when he was accepted into the law program. Like many of his peers, he had followed in his father's footsteps. Unlike his peers, his father had been a plumber. Eddie had dutifully worked with his father until his restless intelligence
and his father's alcoholism drove him out of the family business and into law school. He'd delighted in telling his professors the family slogan:
No Pipe Is Too Bent For Us.

When he graduated, he quickly built a reputation as a top-notch criminal defense lawyer, and joked no criminal was too bent for him, either. He began to attract high-profile cases. But with success came pressure. With pressure came booze. Eventually, the drinking corroded his liver, his marriage and his legal practice.

He'd crashed and burned, a zero-to-sixty fall from grace. He'd declared bankruptcy, ended up on the streets with the very people he defended, then cleaned himself up two years ago and put his shingle out again.

“I trust Eddie. He's dried himself out.”

Night had fallen as they spoke. The drop cloths absorbed the remaining light, cloaking the kitchen in shadows. Kate switched on the overhead light.

It broke the confessional mood. Deliberately, Randall suspected. He put down his long-emptied wineglass. “I'd better get going.”

Kate walked him to the door. “If I can do anything, let me know.”

“Anything?” He gave her a wry smile.

She smiled in return, but stepped back a cautious inch. “You know what I mean.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm serious, Randall. I have your back.”

So. She knew about the partners' meeting.
He nodded. “I always knew I could trust you.”

She flushed. “Nothing's changed.”

Not yet, at least. As bad as things were, they were about to get exponentially worse.

He slipped through the door, his heart heavy but no longer raging.

He had a phone call to make.

He just hoped Eddie Bent was sober enough to take it.