The Strength of Three (9 page)

Somewhere over the next couple of days they’d flown her home to the Chicago suburb she’d grown up in and spoken to the police to try to piece together what had happened the night her mother died.

She’d basically gotten the runaround. No one knew anything. No one saw anything. As far as they were concerned Carter found her already dead at the bottom of the stairs when he came home from work and her father had been at work all day. So at some point between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon, Lana Marshall had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck.

TJ reached for the handle of the door to their rental car. She didn’t even remember walking across the expansive cemetery grounds to get there but suddenly she was standing in the wedge created by the open back door.

A fling. Aislinn had told her to have a fling. She had to laugh.

“What’s this all about, sugar?” Jon wiped a tear from her face when her laughter finally subsided.

She smiled. TJ had her blocked in. She wasn’t going anywhere yet again. Talk about déjà vu. The only thing that would make this scenario any more similar would be the dimness of late evening. Oh, and a silky black blindfold.

Chris cocked her head. “Does this look familiar?”

Jon glanced around at the three of them and grinned. “Why yes, madam, it does.” He leaned closer and nuzzled her nose with his. “And here’s me without my blindfold.” His low grumble coursed through her, filling her clit with blood and making it ache to be touched.

“It was just supposed to be a fling.” She groaned.

TJ cleared his throat. “We’ll be sure to take the matter up with Aislinn as soon as we get home.”

“Home sounds nice,” she whispered, tilting her head to take Jon’s lips. He opened, sucking her tongue into his mouth, and took control of the kiss.

“Our home,” TJ added.

Panting, Chris broke off and licked her lips, tasting Jon there. She faced TJ and her knees wobbled. It hit her like a two by four to the face.
Our home
sounded better than anything she’d ever heard before. She knew with sudden certainty that she definitely wanted more than a fling too.

She’d take whatever she could get, for as long as they wanted her, and deal with the aftermath of them leaving her when it happened.

First she had to get through the next few grueling hours in the presence of her condescending family and friends who didn’t understand how she could move away and never come back.

She’d seen the faces of the people at the funeral. The raised eyebrows, the lips curled in distaste, the whispering with not even an attempt at being behind her back. Under normal circumstances she would have had a panic attack. She would have let their hatred wash through her to the point she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

Instead, TJ and Jon had never left her side. Hell, there wasn’t a moment when at least one of them didn’t have a hand on her. They had effectively grounded her and kept the attacks she’d suffered her entire life at bay.

“I’d like that. Very much.”

TJ’s nostrils flared with her declaration and his lips melded with hers. When he finally lifted away, he pushed her hair behind an ear. “You don’t know how good that makes us feel. Let’s get this over with and get back on the plane.”

All talk stopped the second she came through the door. The eerie silence filled the living room of the house she’d grown up in, sending a chill over her body and leaving goose bumps along her bare arms. Every eye in the room was on her. Talk about being the life of the party.

Except this wasn’t a party. It was her mother’s memorial. Surely they didn’t think she wouldn’t show up? TJ stepped in behind her and ushered her forward with a hand at her back. Jon followed.

The airplane suddenly looked better and better. Why had she talked herself into this?

“Come on, baby. Pay your respects and don’t worry about these people.” TJ clasped her fingers through his and tugged her deeper into the room.

Some kind of ballgame played on the years-old TV, and people she used to call friends huddled on the threadbare sofa, loveseat and chairs, whispering and glaring as if she’d committed a crime. If only they knew the life she’d really lived behind closed doors.

Hell, they did know, they just hadn’t cared. All those people staring goggle-eyed at her right now were adults she’d trusted. They should have protected her. Instead, they’d turned a blind eye. Maybe they were the biggest reason she’d run the second she’d gotten the chance.

It takes a village to raise a child…

Where had her village been?

“Just let me find my father and brother and then we can leave,” she murmured. It was plain to see there was nothing left for her here. Even the deputy sheriff, Blake Anderson, who stood off in one corner, turned his head when she looked at him. At least he had the decency to look ashamed by the behavior in the room.

“I think I saw ’em in the kitchen,” someone snarled.

Chris did her best to ignore the attitude for which she’d done nothing to deserve. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and headed for the booming sound of her sloshed father.

Some memorial this was for a woman who shouldn’t have had to give her life to the man who beat her every night.

Jon pushed through the swinging door and they were greeted by the same reaction they’d had in the living room. Dead silence.

Her father’s lip curled up in distaste when he saw her. He took a long swig of the half-empty beer bottle he held, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, belched and then tossed the bottle in the air, flipping it end over end. He caught it upside down by the neck and threw it in Chris’s direction like he was throwing a hatchet.

Everything happened at once. She screamed, TJ yanked her toward his chest, covering her head with his hands, and Jon launched himself across the room at Robert Marshall with a primal yell. The glass bottle shattered against the wall and tinkled to the ground.

Her brother, Carter, stomped across the kitchen, ignoring Jon, who subdued her father with minimal effort against the sink, one arm thrust up and back behind him. Robert howled in pain, screeching for Jon to get the fuck off him.

The door flew open. Deputy Anderson had one hand on his gun and probably ten looky-loos behind him.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Carter roared at Chris, raising a hand to slap her.

Chris cowered.

She didn’t need to. TJ grabbed Carter’s hand before it had the chance to make its sweep and bent it backward, bringing Carter to his knees.

“You better get some handcuffs out, Deputy, or I can’t guarantee I won’t break this arm.” TJ’s expression was one she’d never seen on him before. Feral might best describe it. Yet his words were calm.

“She fucking killed her.” Carter’s howl was punctuated by a vicious bend to his arm and a yelp of pain.

Deputy Anderson took his time retrieving the cuffs at his belt. There was something on his face. Almost a look of…satisfaction? Shock held her immobile.

“How can you accuse
me
of this?” She expected the rejection, even hatred or violence from her father—he probably felt the need to turn on someone since his punching bag was gone now, but not accusation, and certainly not from her brother. She hadn’t even been there, for God’s sake. The tears threatened to start up again.

“Kind of hard to kill someone from a state away,” Jon threw over his shoulder.

She could see neither of her protectors had broken a sweat yet her brother was practically in tears on the floor.

“My mother hated her for leaving.” Spittle shot from Carter’s mouth.

“Shut the fuck up, boy.” Robert attempted to turn around only to have Jon jerk his arm higher. He gave a drunken hiss.

“If she had stayed, this wouldn’t have happened.” Carter’s eyes bugged and sweat coated his face.

“What wouldn’t have happened, Carter?” Deputy Anderson asked.

“She wouldn’t have fallen down the fucking stairs, you moron. She was always moaning and wailing about that bitch.” He stabbed a finger in Chris’s direction.

A thousand thoughts went through her head, the topmost being what had she done? Had she killed her mother even if inadvertently?

Deputy Anderson stepped closer, admiring the hold TJ had on Carter, but still not attempting to handcuff her brother.

“I was so fucking sick of her pathetic whining. You’d think Christina was a princess the way she talked about her,” Carter spat.

The tears fell. Her mother had loved her after all. She’d never said the words to her, or shown her with hugs, but for Carter to be spouting what he was, Lana had to have felt
something
for her only daughter.

“So what did you do?” the deputy asked, obviously looking for something. A confession, maybe?

“Nothing that we shouldn’ta done sooner,” her father screamed.

Chris gasped as did the onlookers behind them all.

Anderson sighed as if he’d had enough and slipped the cuffs from his belt. He stepped around the stunned Carter and slapped one end on her father’s wrist, bringing it out of Jon’s hold. “Robert Marshall, you have the right to remain silent.” He pulled both of Robert’s arms behind his back and Chris heard the click of the second cuff.

She heard something about assault and battery but not much else over Carter shouting, “You can’t fucking take him. That’s entrapment. He didn’t do anything but find that bitch dead.”

A second later, three more deputies pushed through the mob at the door to help secure both her father and Carter and lead them through the house and outside.

Chris stood there stunned. What in the hell had just happened?

Deputy Anderson stopped in front of her as Jon once again took his place at her side and TJ the other. She warmed in an instant.

“I’m sorry, Christina. I didn’t want for this to happen this way but we hadn’t had any luck getting either one to crack. I figured you might be some kind of impetus.”

“But what if I hadn’t come?”

He shrugged. “Then I would have gotten them some other way. Besides, we haven’t really gotten them yet. The coroner’s report could only say she died in the fall. They couldn’t prove if she was pushed or not, but, honey, I know how things went down in this house. She may have blamed her bruises and broken bones on being clumsy, but she wasn’t. Your mama was a good woman in her own way, she just wasn’t strong as you when it came to getting the hell out. There wasn’t a true confession back there, but I’d had enough of their caterwauling, and they did attack you, so I had a reason to arrest them. Do you have a number where I can keep you informed? The minute I know anything, I’ll let you know.”

Jon handed the deputy his card. “We appreciate it.”

Chapter Six

Chris sank into the buttery soft leather seat of the jet and let sheer exhaustion take over. The last couple of hours had proven to be more hellish than the moment she’d learned of her mother’s death. First they’d followed her father and brother to the police station and she’d listened in as her father continued to spout his evilness, never confessing so much as saying her mother had gotten what she’d had coming to her. His filth hurt worse than any physical blow he could have landed. And he still blamed Chris for her mother being so depressed that she’d probably taken her own life.

His ramblings had been so ridiculous—depressed after all these years, when all she had to do was call?—Chris had finally gotten up and walked out, but not before he’d turned his venomous filth on her, shouting and spitting and vowing vengeance through the one-way glass. For
what
she didn’t know. She hadn’t caused her mother to die. Robert Marshall was even more delusional than she remembered him being.

He hadn’t once mentioned caring that his wife had lain at the foot of those stairs like some kind of animal until Carter had gotten home and found her. Hell, he hadn’t shown any kind of remorse whatsoever in losing Lana.

Remembering the look he’d given Chris when she’d walked past him and out of his life for the second time made her nauseous still. Full of hatred, it alone promised retribution.

Chris wanted nothing more than to be home where she could snuggle under the covers and let it all go. She looked up the aisle to the two men who’d brought her here and scratched her idea. She wanted to be at
their
home, in
their
bed, wrapped in
their
arms, letting them take care of her. They’d proven to her through the stress of the funeral, the memorial and the police station they could be more than the sex machines she’d always envisioned them being. Didn’t help that she’d listened to all the rumors about them.

The last couple of days should have scared them off her completely. She was a woman with more emotional baggage than a sea of women, any one of which they could have chosen instead of her. But they hadn’t. Instead they’d insisted on coming with her. They’d held her hand and rubbed her shoulders and never once had she been left alone. They were a pillar of comfort at a time when she would have had no one. She would forever be grateful for that.

Chris glanced back up at Jon talking to the pilot and TJ to the steward. TJ gestured to the back room of the plane. It had been her intention to head there first thing, but she’d only made it to the second row of seats before collapsing.