Chapter Twenty-Two
Mick had tried to be patient through hotel bed jumping, pizza with more mess than they could have predicted and an extra thirty minutes of kid TV before they could tuck in the girls.
But as he sat at the table near the window, waiting for Rachel to do one last check to see if their fellow guests were asleep, he couldn’t keep his crossed leg from jiggling.
He’d waited long enough. He had to know.
When she finally crossed the room to him, she dragged the second chair over until they were close enough to whisper. Close enough that he could have touched her, too, but she was still so keyed up that he didn’t dare.
“What happened?” he whispered as soon as she’d lowered into the chair.
“I thought he’d taken the girls,” she said in a low voice.
“What? He?” Mick pounded her with questions before he could stop himself and shot a look at the two sweet lumps in the bed, just to make sure they were still there. When he turned back, Rachel was watching him, her hands gripped in front of her.
“Please. Tell me.”
Using detached, clinical words, she gave him an overview about the incident at the school, skipping over the terror she must have felt in those endless moments before learning that the girls were safe.
He broke out in a cold sweat. His chest ached with his inability to shield them from any of this.
Like the victims back in Chicago, he’d failed them.
“It was just a game to them,” she said. “They used my daughters as a way to show how easy it would be to hurt me. They know my weakness.”
With her arms crossed, she brushed her hands over her sweater from shoulders to elbows again and again. He shivered as well, though the room was toasty warm.
“Could they have actually abducted the twins?”
“I don’t think they could have pulled that off.
At least not there.” Rachel shook her head, her expression pinched.
“The school’s safety protocols probably would have held.
Even if the guy could pretend to be Riley on the phone, what would he do when he had to show his face and driver’s license to the camera to be buzzed inside?
After that, he still would have to go to the front office to sign out the girls, who would have said they didn’t know him. ”
“Someone in the office might have recognized that he wasn’t your brother, too,” he said, nodding. “But what about if he—”
Mick stopped himself from saying that the guy could have shot his way into the building, but her brows lifted as though the same thought had crossed her mind. After a few seconds, she shook her head again.
“I don’t think he—or they—would do anything so…public. Most of everything they’ve done, at least to us, has been threatening but not obvious to everyone else. Until today. Even then, the principal jumped to the conclusion that it probably involved their father.”
“Could it be…?”
She lifted her chin. “Absolutely not. You have to give a damn in order to go to that kind of effort. Tyler never cared about anything but himself.”
“Makes sense.” But it didn’t lessen his suspicion of her old boyfriend. They couldn’t rule anyone out yet, and the pool of possible suspects had become an ocean.
“They wanted to get under my skin. And they did. They even sent me one of their little quotes to make sure I got the message.”
“Where? To your email address? Not Riley’s?”
“To my phone.”
She pulled her cell from her purse, opened her texts and let him read it.
His shoulders jerked as the words stared back at him on the screen, the most damning of all the messages.
It couldn’t have been clearer that they were talking about the reason her father took his own life.
Mick read it again, managing not to shiver visibly, but he was glad he wasn’t standing since there was no way his legs would have held him.
“Webster said that ‘suicide is confession.’ So, this is what you meant when you texted that they knew that you knew.”
“Maybe I should have written ‘what I had discovered’.” She tilted her head as though considering and then continued.
“All those warnings, all the quotes like today’s and even the cars though I still don’t know how they’re connected were about convincing Riley and me not to poke our noses into the past. But if they were too late, they wanted to scare us into silence.
“We can’t let them succeed.” She shook her head hard.
“But you also don’t want to put yourself or the girls in more danger.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? I took us out of the house, even stopping by way of Stacy’s place, so I could be sure I wasn’t followed. And I’ll continue to be careful.”
“You won’t go off and search for anything without me?”
“Of course not.”
“Does this mean you’re ready to take this to the police?” He pointed to the messenger bag that rested in the corner, next to their duffels. “Maybe to Police Chief Larry Gilman? He seems like an okay guy.”
“Not yet. We still don’t know if anyone at the police department is hiding something. Or at Station 1. Someone has information. We have to figure out who and what’s in it for them to hide it. And we need to know who is connected to Bilton, besides Stan.”
Mick watched her for several seconds longer, close to him physically though her thoughts seemed so far away.
She had to be dissecting every memory from her childhood, trying to separate truth from lies.
He stared at her gripped hands, longing to touch her, comfort her and ease the pain of a loss that no one could ever make right.
“There’d be no shame in just walking away,” he said. “You and Riley could take the girls and go somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”
He had to force himself not to suggest that she should include him in that relocation plan.
One big happy family where he was still the unwanted guest, trying to squeeze in.
She probably didn’t want him for more than a temporary distraction, and even if she did, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“You could let Mount Isabel rot in its own filth.”
“No shame in it, huh?”
When she looked over at him again, she wore a sad smile. But she planted her slipper-clad feet on the floor and lifted her chin. “You know I can’t walk away, don’t you?”
He hated it, but he did know. Her motivation for searching might have changed, but she was no less determined to find answers than she’d been that first night he’d met her.
She’d longed to right a wrong then, and her innate sense of justice wouldn’t let her turn her back on the questions, even when the answers hurt.
“I have to do this for Riley. For my girls.” She took a deep breath. “If I did nothing, I’d be no better than… Stan.”
As Rachel’s voice broke on the last word, Mick couldn’t hold back any longer.
He wrapped both her hands in the circle of his, and when that wasn’t enough, he leaned closer and pulled her to him.
At first, she held her body soldier straight in his arms, determined not to need him, but he held on, his grip loose as he let her decide.
She softened against him in tiny increments, first arms, then shoulders, then neck.
He could hardly breathe as she lowered her head near his collarbone, allowing him to comfort her over a hurt he could never heal.
“Even if we find out that your father did all the things written on those papers, and I’m praying we won’t, you have to know you’re not like him.
Not like him,” he whispered against her temple and then touched that spot he’d warmed with his lips.
When she didn’t push him away, he kissed her brow bone.
Then the apple of her cheek. It took him three more stops to reach his sweet destination.
But just as he covered her lips with his own, she smiled against his mouth and then eased back.
His hands still gripped her elbows since he couldn’t let go.
“You don’t know that. There’s still so much you don’t know about me.”
He dipped his head and stared into her eyes. “I know enough.”
“There were good things about him,” she whispered, and then jerked her head back. “I don’t know why I said that. Maybe, like you, I’m still hoping to find proof that he’s innocent of at least some of the crimes. Is that silly?”
Mick shook his head, the complexity of parent-child relationships never lost on him. He waited for her to describe her internal battle further, but she only slumped back in the chair.
“Not silly at all. There had to be many good things in your dad,” he said. “Because they’re in you. And the girls. Your brother, too, I’m guessing.”
He blinked as something she’d said earlier replayed in his head. Louder. Its message more distinct. “Before, you said these guys wanted to scare you into silence. Is it possible you and Riley aren’t the only people they wanted to frighten?”
Rachel started shaking her head, but Mick’s idea had already taken root in his mind.
“Now hear me out. We both know your father might not have been completely innocent.” He pointed to the bag.
“All those papers at least show he was involved. But can’t two things be true at once?
Even if your dad wanted to confess, could he have kept quiet to protect you and your brother?
Could someone have threatened your safety to keep him from going to the police? ”
“Maybe. That’s assuming he wanted to confess.”
“There’s a confession right there in that bag.”
She leaned forward in the chair and crossed her arms. “Which you said might have been coerced. Even then, he never gave it to the police.”
“He could have wanted to tell his version of the story. But there might have been a reason he didn’t. Or two of them.”
Rachel dragged her front teeth over her bottom lip as she stared at her hands. She clearly wanted to believe he could be right but was afraid to hope.
“Do you really think he deserves the benefit of the doubt?”
“Of course I do.” He leaned forward and rested his hands on her forearms, bracing himself for the possibility that she would pull away from him again. That she would reject the reassurance he longed to offer her as much as she needed to accept it. “Don’t we all deserve that?”
Rachel shifted her shoulders.
“Finding the answers isn’t for your dad,” he said. “It’s for you. Your life. And your brother’s. Your history.”
“We’ll never be the same.” She let her head drop forward.
“Maybe not. You’ll probably always see your father a little differently. More human. I’m an outsider, who can’t possibly know for sure, but I have to believe he loved you, too. In his own flawed way. Maybe he wasn’t so different from the rest of us.”
At that, she looked up at him, her lips lifting slightly. “You don’t have a packet filled with your own confessions that I should know about, do you?”
He smiled back at her. “Fresh out. But I’m not perfect, either.”
“Pretty darn close to it.”
He was still trying to make sense of her words when she leaned forward and touched her lips to his.
Then she moved closer and wrapped her arms around his neck and sank into him, as close to a surrender as he’d ever seen from her.
Ever hoped to. He could feel her heartbeat, her anguish, her grit, all wrapped up in a woman who’d drawn him out of the past and dared him to hope for the future.
This wasn’t the time for him to admit the truth in his heart, but he could no longer deny it, at least to himself. He was in love with her. Despite a situation that put them at odds and placed her and her daughters in the crosshairs, he wanted to be with her.
He stood and took two steps back from her, preparing for a quick trip to brush his teeth and a long night on the sleeping bag he’d thought to throw in his truck.
No way would he get any rest when he could hear her breathing in the bed next to his spot on the floor.
When his makeshift sleep area would remind him of a pile of quilts and those hours with her in his arms.
When he returned, Rachel was already under the covers, lying on her side facing her sleeping twins.
She’d pulled the blankets and coverlet over her but had left the low-lit lamp next to her turned on so he could make his way back.
As he stopped at his sleeping bag, unrolled in the aisle in front of the beds and the dresser, Rachel raised a hand to get his attention.
Lifting a brow, he waved back, but she lifted up, twisted and patted the mattress behind her.
His gaze flitted to the tiny brunettes in the other bed and then back to her. He lifted a brow in an unspoken question. With a frown, she pulled the blanket up to her chin and then patted the spot behind her a second time. On top of the covers.
“Sure?” he mouthed, and then gestured to the girls.
She settled into her pillow and closed her eyes.
Mick dragged the sleeping bag off the floor and up on the bed. Why he’d bothered hesitating, he didn’t know, when he would have joined her anyway. Once he’d settled next to her on top of the covers, using the sleeping bag as a blanket, she reached out and turned off the light.
“Good night,” she whispered.
She surprised him by rolling to face him in the dark. She reached out to touch his face, hitting his nose before her fingertips settled on his mouth. Then she replaced her hand with her lips. With excruciating gentleness and only once.
When he leaned in, his body responding to hers as it had every time he’d been this close to her, she rolled away from him, her chuckle low and deep. “Sorry. I won’t be able to stop. But give me your hand.” She lifted hers next to him.
Grinning into the darkness, he reached up and entwined his fingers with hers.
Always a gentleman, he was happy to help a lady out, so he waited for her to place his hand wherever she needed his touch most. She pulled it with her as she turned away from him and settled into her pillow, spooned against him and with his arm around her.
He snuggled against her, moving his head to her pillow and burying his face in her hair. It felt like the most intimate thing he’d ever done without making love. He was still smiling as he closed his eyes. The situation was far from perfect, but there was nowhere on earth he wanted to be more.